you might remember that we took nana to amish country last year but we didn't tour the warther museum because we thought papa might really enjoy it. so we took them back today! it was really worth the car ride. our first stop? the warther museum.
they have beautiful swiss raised gardens.
the kids love the "button house" (which i posted about before), but when we went inside the museum we learned that his wife also laid his arrowhead collection out in similar patterns. (all of the arrow heads were found within 15 miles of their home and he could recognize fakes and would destroy them.
they built the museum around the original 'factory' shed and the arrowhead collection is displayed inside the old building.
this man was pretty amazing. he only had a 2nd grade education, learned to make functional pliers from a single piece of wood from a bum at a train station and built a kitchen knife business from the development of custom knives (which the family does to this day) for his whittling habit.
he was a big kid and had the first playground in the county. this swing swung 90 feet!
it is going to be difficult to explain how amazing the things he made were - even with the pictures. this shows all of the ivory pieces carved for the model train on the right of the second picture. did i mention that the trains were all functional and declared by train engineers to be perfect?
i though this was pretty amazing - the looping chain in this picture was carved from a single piece of wood.
he took the pliers he had been shown how to carve as a boy into a master piece.
here is a video of his grandson (?) demonstrating how he cut the basic pliers - no shavings, no loss of wood:
he carved a (fully functional) model of the factory where he worked before supporting his family with the kitchen knife business - from memory.
they showed us different types of ivory. manning is holding an elephant tusk and maddux is holding the finest ivory available - hippo eye tooth.
pliers out of matchsticks!
this is the grandest 'plier tree' he ever made. i can't remember all of the numbers (cuts and number of pliers), but it was used in a math textbook and mit mathematicians told him that he couldn't have figured this out without an advanced degree. his response? i'm sure glad they didn't tell me that before i did it. the tree is made from a single piece of wood like the one standing in front of the display stand - which is also carved.
smallest functional scissors carved from a single piece of wood
and then we got to see his trains...
cursive carved from a single piece of ivory for each word.
the green jewels are from his wife's jewelry collection.
and this the most amazing pieces - complete trains from solid ivory. this one is 8 feet long and he even carved each brick of the bridge.
his wife's buttoning supplies in their house.
now for a super yummy lunch!
all the haystacks were pretty impressive too as we drove around.
locking up the boys
some more amazing carving - three-dimensional from a single block of wood (pictures are with and without flash to try and capture the effect).
we had a great day and saw so many amazing things! warther's grandson has his own museum in the area where he uses the same techniques to carve the history of ships (to his grandfather's history of locomotion). i guess we will just have to come back again. love.
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