Batavian woodworker shares his talents with others

I expected Holmstad resident Ernie Ritchie to have rough, worn hands after spending most of his life working with wood. I was surprised that his hands were very gentle - a match to his gentle spirit.

Ritchie is a craftsman who understands wood - the beauty, the textures, the grains that appear when brought to life with a coat of varnish. He learned about wood working at his father's knee when a young Ernie helped his father by making fish glue.

"We would buy the fish glue in large blocks and then melt it down in a double boiler," he said. "I would melt it until it was the right consistency."

The glue was called fish glue because it was made from fish parts.

"They would use the excess parts like the head," he explained. "It was a very strong glue."

Ritchie and his father would make toys together. Then the Depression hit and they started to make things that they could sell.

"My father made shade pulls in different shapes, a Dutch girl and boy, a car, "he added. "He sold them on consignment to a gift shop. It was a way to put food on the table."

Ernie Ritchie cut out the figures and varnished them.

"We also made jigsaw puzzles, some were interlocking and some were put together without any interlocking," he said. "Then the puzzles would go together by matching the colors. Some had 2,000 pieces. My aunt and uncle loved jigsaw puzzles, so we would use them as our guinea pigs, so to speak, to test the puzzles."

Ernie Ritchie would also help his dad with different projects for the Baptist church in town.

"Whenever the church need a sign or anything in wood, my dad would be there to do the work," he added.

In 1940, Ritchie chose to enlist with the Merchant Marines. With a Navy gunnery on board, his stint took him to the Mediterranean, the Persian Gulf and the English Channel.

On a furlough, he fell for an attractive young girl playing baseball at the park. He returned home and got a job with Bell Labs in New Jersey, and married Jeannette, the young baseball player who had caught his eye that day in the park.

"She was a Presbyterian so I found a new church as well," he said.

The couple moved to Wheaton when Ernie was sent to work at Lucent Technologies. They raised four children and became actively involved in the First Presbyterian Church of Wheaton.

Besides serving 17 years as a session member working with teenagers, Ritchie shared his woodworking skills with the church. When the Sunday school needed a cross, he built it. He made sure that preschool had plenty of safe wooden toys for the small children. He built all types of toys from push-pull toys to elaborate doll houses.

After retirement he continued with his craft, finding children for his special toys through word-of-mouth.

"People would tell me about families that didn't have enough money for toys and I would make them some," he said. "My wife and I would have lunch every Tuesday at a restaurant in Wheaton and I made some for a waitress there. I knew she didn't have a lot of money and she had always been so kind to us."

Ritchie still comments on the postcards and thank you notes that the children of the waitress sent to him. He knew how much they appreciated his effort.

Now it is the residents of the Holmstad who are in awe of Ernie Ritchie's work. His private collection has been displayed at the retirement center. He has shown a variety of toys that he has created from blueprints.

In the collection is a train engine that is labeled "J and E Railroad" after Jeanette and Ernie, and a Model T car that is similar to the one his aunt and uncle had.

There is a Coca Cola truck with 189 tiny bottles of Coke and a Woody Wagon that is a connection to his daughter who spent years in forestry. A lowboy is similar to one that was used at Bell Labs.

Ritchie's favorite toy is the train engine since he was a train enthusiast who spent many years working on a train layout in his basement.

The craftsmanship in the toys is beyond compare and he is quick to point out that everything is done by hand with a variety of saws and when necessary tweezers to glue things together. What he has done with oak, walnut, poplar and maple is truly masterful.

Ernie Ritchie has a love for woodworking just as he had a love for most things in his life, his late wife, his children, and his church.

No one in his family has really taken up the challenge of creating wooden toys but he does have a grandson who just got his first model to put together.

"I'm looking forward to helping his with it," he said. "It's plastic but it's a start."

From a father to a son, from a grandfather to a grandson, the love of creating something by hand is a gift from one generation to another.