Finishing a Project Started 20 Years Ago

My Grandma Wheeler is in a care center right now and in order to help pay for her care, her house needs to be sold.  So my Aunts, Uncles, cousins and various others have been helping to clean her house out.  This has been a huge, very long project.  Grandma bought and stored a lot of things and Grandpa knew that everything could be made into something else, so he kept everything too.  My Grandpa died 15 years ago, and when he did he left a lot of woodworking projects behind.  One of the ways he made money was to make wooden items and sell them.  He was very creative and talented, he owned his own sawmill and found wood everywhere he went.  Giving someone something he made was his way of saying I love you, although, he actually said the words too.  He must have discovered that wooden clocks were a good seller because there were hundreds of clocks in his shop and basement.

When Spencer was working on his Eagle Scout project for Primary Children's Medical Center, I discovered that one of their desired items for donation was wooden shapes for the patients to paint.  So, knowing that my grandpa had some wooden shapes, I asked my Aunt Kaye for some boxes to donate.  She brought me five boxes and the hospital was so happy!

Weeks later, when I went to help clean out the house, we discovered many, many, many more wooden items and especially clocks.  Not just any clock, but clocks in the shape of farm yard animals.  I do not know why he chose animals, but he did.  Boy did he!  While trying to think of what to do with hundreds of clocks and shapes, it dawned on me, that not only could I take the unfinished ones for the Primary Children patients to paint, but I could finish some of the clocks and donate them to the Festival of Tree to sell to benefit Primary Children's Hospital.  I was looking for a project to do for the Festival anyway, so it just all seemed to fall into place.  So for some of September and all of October, I worked, with my Mom and Dad helping, on clocks, clocks and more clocks.  We cleaned, sanded, painted and assembled and in the end, donated 100 wooden items to the Festival of Trees and around 20 boxes of wooden shapes to Primary Children's Hospital.

I am so happy that my Grandpa's handiwork can be used to help children who need to take their mind off of being in the hospital.  Although his work didn't end up being used for what it was intended, I think he would have been happy with where they ended up.

He made a lot of corner clocks, which is kind of an inventive way to use space.  He didn't paint the clocks, but had a lady paint them and return them for him to assemble.

Yes, this is a bull clock and yes, it has swinging balls.  Because he had a sense of humor.

Washing the clocks was probably the most laborious task.  Since the clocks had been sitting for years, there was a good amount of dust, spider webs and other gunk to wipe away.

I ended up buying some clock works to finish some of these clocks that I just couldn't not finish, because I couldn't let all his work go to waste!

Aside from the hundreds of cow clocks (really, hundreds) there were a lot of Christmas themed items.

Some smaller corner clocks.  The wood ones are my favorite.  I've always loved wood.  Probably because my Grandpa and Dad love wood.

I put this sign on all of the items I finished and donated to the Festival of Trees:

My grandfather's talented and capable hands made this unique item.  He is no longer with us but he left a number of his creations behind, which I, his granddaughter, have finished.  As a girl who was diagnosed with Type I Diabetes at age 11, I am happy, and I'm sure he is as well, to help other children who come to Primary Children's Hospital with any health concern.  May their struggles make them as strong and able as my Grandfather's hands!

It was a long project, but one that I think is well worth my time.  Even if the items don't raise much money at the Festival of Trees, the process of working on those clocks was helpful and healing for me.