He began constructing the front of the gas station — building onto the storage shed by his home — earlier this year. On May 17, Wayne Rogers hung the last piece of memorabilia to his project — the iconic sign out front — just three days before his goal date.
So far, it has been well received in the community. At his grand opening, Moon Pies and RC Colas were served to the curious crowd who showed up to see what Rogers had been hiding behind his workshop all that time.
To give tribute to the original station, Wesley Ferrell, son of the first station’s owner Louie Ferrell, was asked to cut the ribbon. The Gulf Station No. 1 opened in the late 1920s and closed in 1947.
One of his proudest achievements with the project is his “Wall of Fame” — two swinging windows that are donned with photographs of old New Harmony. A brief description is included with each photo.
Vicki Kruscwitz, who grew up in New Harmony and is a relative of Rogers, served as the historian, collecting photos of people and places from back in the day. In fact, it was in one of her albums that Rogers found the old Gulf station photo.
“It’s history in the pictures,” she said. “I think it shows people what the community was like and allows you to step back in time to get a feel of it. Most people here had grandparents and great-grandparents grow up in New Harmony, so they can see what their family experienced also.”
As a boy, Rogers grew up on a farm south of Fort Worth, where his fascination and love for windmills and tractors began. Since then, he has collections of old engines and farm wrenches, to name a few, which he proudly displays in his station.
“If you have ‘em out for people to see, it’s a collection. If you keep ‘em in boxes, you’re a hoarder,” Rogers said laughingly.
While the majority of his station is completed, Rogers calls it his “continuing project.” He hopes to add to his collection and pour in more history into his vision.
“Somebody told me if I live to be 100 years old, I still won’t be finished. I reckon they’re right,” he said.
Robbie Caldwell, senior pastor of New Harmony Baptist Church, said Rogers can fix or repair just about anything, and for him, this project was not just another example of his handy work but a big contribution to the community as well.
“New Harmony is a community known for this church and the families here,” he said. “It (the station) adds to the history here, and it’s a wonderful thing.”
Rogers’ long-time friend Richard Jester, of New Harmony, said Rogers would call him for help on the project every so often, but most of the construction was done on his own. He also said the people of New Harmony were more than willing to help the effort as well.
“It shows the heritage here. Many people didn’t grow up here, but a lot did. They were a big help to him.”
He has included several items into his station that many people will not see in East Texas. For example, authentic limestone Kansas fence posts line the entrance to the gas station, a collector’s item that took him years to find.
Rogers encourages anyone and everyone to stop by and see his re-creation. He wants people to not only see his hard work but to also see the history and heritage of the New Harmony community from way back when.
“I don’t hunt, I don’t fish, and I don’t chase wild women. This is what I do,” he joked. “At least my wife knows where I am — out of trouble.”
Source: www.tylerpaper.com
Antique collector eyeing Allora - warwickdailynews.com.au
Leisa Clark loved the Allora Community Auction, buying quirky goods to sell through her business in Brisbane.
LEISA Clark was in her element yesterday as she ploughed through the muddy aisles of the Allora Community Auction, scooping up bargain buys on her way.
This Brisbane mother drove out to the Downs to pick up some furniture in need of some TLC.
"I up-cycle stuff, so anything that's distressed I do up and sell to people," Ms Clark said.
Her business, Quirky Comforts, is exactly that.
She finds old, worn pieces of furniture and brings them back to life with retro fabrics, splashes of paint and just the right amount of love to create quirky furniture that she sells in boutique stores around Brisbane.
Yesterday, Ms Clark picked up a trailer-load of goodies, including such things as shelves, a mirror, picture frames, cabinets and some old-school chairs.
"I got these cafe chairs for $20 (for six of them) and in Brisbane I could sell them for probably $50 a chair," Ms Clark said.
Her first time at the Allora Auction, Ms Clark said she was thrilled with the quality of things on sale, and saw potential in almost everything on display.
"I usually find things at op shops, garage sales and antique shops but this (auction) has all the farming equipment and industrial stuff which is really in right now," Ms Clark said.
While farmers are tossing out their old carriage wheels and rustic ploughs, this creative young handywoman is revelling in the treasures scattered across the mud-drenched paddock.
A massive 2200 items were on sale yesterday, plus 38 stalls.
Twelve auctioneers trawled the grounds granting people just like Ms Clarke the chance to take home some nifty purchases, making it an overall successful day.
Source: www.warwickdailynews.com.au
DAR Antique Show is July 27-29 at the Roanoke Civic Center - Roanoke Times
The 46th annual DAR Antique Show will be held Friday, July 27, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday, July 28 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Sunday, July 29 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Roanoke Civic Center Special Events Center.
Ken Farmer with the PBS Antique Appraisal program will be doing appraisals Friday from 1 to 5 p.m. by appointment. Details are available at gjbchapter.org.
The largest antique show in the Roanoke Valley with up to 50 antique dealers from all over the East Coast, featuring period English and American furniture, silver, estate and vintage jewelry, china, glassware, antique linens, toys, tools, collectibles, rare books and manuscripts, and much more! Admission is $6.50, with unlimited returns throughout the weekend.
The event is sponsored by the General James Breckinridge Chapter of Daughters of the American Revolution.
– Submitted by Judy Thierry
Source: blogs.roanoke.com
Antique auto collector begins parting with his beloved collection of restored classics - MLive.com
SARANAC, MI – Dr. Elroy Kidle gently brushes his hand along the cowl of his rare 1914 Cadillac Landaulet Coupe, parked next to his equally rare 1905 REO Runabout.
Kidle is in the twilight years of his long love affair with old fine old cars. He was especially fond of REOs that were built in nearby Lansing until the mid-1930s.
“The reason I’m getting rid of them is because I can’t drive them anymore,” says the 83-year-old retired dentist as he pauses in the paneled garage behind his house that’s decorated with photographs and advertisements of automotive brands that are now extinct.
The gleaming red Runabout – one of the oldest REOs known to exist – has already been sold. Kidle says he will deliver it to the new owner this summer.
“It’s going to a gentleman in New York, it’s going to be in a museum,” says Kidle, who rescued the car from a barn in Benkelman, Neb. and had it restored to showroom condition. “I sold it to him two years ago and told him he could have it in the next five years.”
Earlier this year, Kidle sold a 1914 REO to a fellow dentist and member of the REO Club of America.
Next on his list is the stately Cadillac that Kidle has been restoring since he bought it 20 years ago.
The Cadillac was originally purchased by John and Mary Phillips, a wealthy Jackson family with 10 children, he says.
With room for three, the Cadillac was purchased for Mary Phillips to drive. After her death, it was stored by one of their daughters in a barn in Dowagiac, where its wooden subframe rotted beneath its aluminum body until Kidle rescued it.
Over the years, Kidle has hired craftsmen to replace the wooden subframe and hand-form key parts of its aluminum body. He’s also restored the original four-cylinder engine and chassis.
Steve Sturim, owner of Steve’s Antique Auto Repair in Wyoming, says Kidle’s coupe is one of only three known to still exist and one of only 50 made in 1913.
The Landaulets were known as “tulip cars” because of the unique shape of their bodies, Sturim says. “There are no flat panels on them.
“Those are aluminum hand-formed bodies that were actually done by the two Fisher Brothers that started Fisher Body,” says Sturim, who worked on the drivetrain and helped Kidle find the craftsmen to rebuild the car.
“As far as we’re aware, the car has never been outside the state of Michigan,” says Sturim, whose shop is filled with restoration projects. One of his projects recently set a new speed record for vintage cars.
Sturim says he admires Kidle’s passion for finding and restoring old cars. “He loves his REOs and he loves his old cars,” he says. “His passion has taken him all over the country touring in these vehicles.”
Kidle enjoys showing off the car’s unique features – a three-piece windshield, a built-in tire pump, an internal wiring system that travels through the doors and the unique steering column and seating arrangement that accommodated the 4-foot 9-inch tall Mary Phillips.
So far, Kidle says he has not actively sought buyers for the Cadillac. “I’m interested that it goes to the right place,” he says. “I would rather see it go to a museum.”
Though he’s not set a price, Kidle says he’ll need at least $100,000 to get his money out of it.
Kidle intends to keep his 1933 REO, a handsome sedan that he found in Illinois and had restored. It came equipped with an automatic transmission and a six-cylinder engine.
“This was considered a very modern car,” Kidle says. Despite its modern appointments, Kidle notes it’s the last model to feature wood-spoked wheels.
Although REO continued making trucks into the mid-1970s, it stopped making cars in 1935.
On the wall of his garage, Kidle has hung a photograph of President Theodore Roosevelt riding in a 1907 REO during a visit to Lansing. He has another poster of the sprawling REO factory in Lansing during its heyday.
“It was a real good company,” he says wistfully.
E-mail Jim Harger: jharger@mlive.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/JHHarger
Source: www.mlive.com
Abused children turn their fears into artwork for groundbreaking exhibition - The Guardian
Gently folding back the torn edges of the child's T-shirt so that the ripped and bloody heart can be seen more easily, Chris Yianni frowns down at his toddler-sized, papier-mache artwork.
"Imagine the damage a drunken man could do to this model if he really let fly," he says. "There wouldn't be much left of it, would there? My dad used to attack me when I was this size."
Yianni's mannequin is just one of the 1,000 paintings, soundscapes and sculptures by children and young adults to be showcased at the Royal Academy's groundbreaking new exhibition Child Hood – the Real Event.
In a unique collaboration, the RA has given the charity Kids Company, which supports 17,000 severely traumatised children every year, free use of five galleries in its building in Burlington Gardens, London, from 13 June until the end of the Olympics.
It is the first time the gallery has dedicated serious space to the art of children. But, says Beth Schneider, head of learning at the Academy, the art they have produced is outstanding.
"The way these children have worked their experiences through into art is not only incredibly moving and sometimes quite shocking but it is amazingly skilled," she says. "Their honesty and openness is really inspiring."
The art lays bare the preoccupations of children for whom abuse and trauma is an everyday occurrence. These children are not worried by monsters under the bed. Instead, their artworks show visceral fears of being shot, stabbed and raped; of being homeless and hungry.
One film features a pack of terrified children running through labyrinthine council estates, unable to escape. Another work has a gaping child-shaped hole in the centre. "The five-year-old girl who made this, tore out the model of herself at the last minute," says the charity's founder Camila Batmanghelidjh. "She wanted to send it to her father, who is in prison."
Yianni's mannequin has a knife in its chest thrust almost to the hilt. Seven flags hang from its blade, reading: parents, social services, carers, school, prison service, society, criminal justice system.
"The services whose responsibility it was to protect me, ignored me when I was abused then punished me, because when I escaped I had to live on the streets and railways; stealing and robbing to feed myself and survive," he says.
Yianni ran away from home the first time when he was eight. "I used to be gone for weeks at a time, drinking and smoking cannabis to stop myself going completely crazy. No one asked why a little kid was behaving in this way. Each time I was caught by the police or social services, I was just taken back home, where the abuse got worse. When I was old enough, they sent me to young offender institutions. Then to adult prisons."
Between the ages of 14 and 26, Yianni spent seven Christmasses behind bars. Two months ago, Kids Company wrote to the judge about to send him to prison yet again. "I begged the judge to let me try it my way," says Batmanghelidjh.
Kids Company paid for Yianni to go to a private hospital, where he was diagnosed with severe and multiple trauma, and put on anti-seizure medication to regulate his moods. The charity now pays for his weekly counselling sessions and for a small flat in the countryside.
For the first time in his life, Yianni is off drugs, has a home and, although he still suffers night terrors, can usually get back to sleep after waking up in the early hours, shrieking and crying with fear.
An independent evaluation by the University of London over three years found Kids Company provides "an outstanding service" to its children, about 85% of whom are homeless, have emotional and psychiatric disorders, are multiply traumatised, or are addicted to subsidences. The charity's 88% impact on crime reduction and 97% "effectiveness" rating has much to do with its focus on arts as part of the children's recovery, says Batmanghelidjh.
"Art unfreezes trauma from a state of explosive potency," she adds. "The children's artistic work tends to be aggressive and compulsive but it's very powerful and uplifting, too.
"They have so much poetry, these children, because they have seen the worst of humanity. When they re-engage with life, they have deep insight that is absolutely extraordinary."
Over the past four years, the academy has worked alongside the charity's 15 arts psychotherapists to help children exorcise their traumas through creativity. Working with such traumatised children is not an easy task, says Batmanghelidjh. Their work can be deeply disturbing; their lack of self-worth means they often try to destroy whatever they create.
In Looking for Alleycat, a girl who lived on the streets from age 12 to 18 creates a nightmarish maze of places she used to sleep. Fragments of herself are scattered in railway stations, crack dens and garbage cans.
But Alleycat, as she was known when she lived on the street, is one of the charity's many positive stories. Despite having barely been to school since she was 10, she was recently given an unconditional place to study English at university.
Another severely abused teenager has won a place on the Royal Court's creative writing programme. Another has designed a "baby hoodie", now on sale at Liberty's department store in London.
For these young people to survive their childhoods is not easy, says Batmanghelidjh, in a country that comes bottom of Unicef's league table of child wellbeing, across 21 industrialised countries.
Yianni is partly awed that his work will be exhibited in the Royal Academy – and partly furious. "The people who run the academy and the people who visit it are the ones who need to be woken up to the truth of childhood in the UK," he says.
"They have invited us in and I'm grateful for that, but it's a very different thing to listen to what we're saying – and then do something about it."
"A lot of the kids I grew up with are dead now but there are others going through exactly what I did," he adds. "They're living lives of absolute hell. They don't just desperately need help, they deserve it, too."
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
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