Things have been a bit dusty at our house lately. And loud, and slightly distorted due to sheets of plastic blocking off 2/3 of the kitchen and butler’s pantry. But despite the general chaos of work on an old house, there’s been some exciting discoveries – mainly that the built-in cabinet in the butler’s pantry is neither original nor constructed as a built-in.
The cabinet, minus side brackets and an overshelf.
One of the sad realities of history is that the names and stories of craftspeople are shadowy and unknown. Not every building has a well-documented history, with blueprints, and an architect’s name – in fact, most houses were built by people whose names we will never know. But a small scrap of water-stained paper on the back of our cabinet offers up some tantalizing clues.
The small piece of history.
The piece of paper is roughly the size of an index card, and not very legible. Printed along the side in the first column are the tasks/roles/functions associated with building a piece of furniture in the early 20th century – 1920s or 1930s is my guess. Cabinet maker, Filler, Grainer, Coater, Rubber, Filler.
The second column is for the name of the person carrying out the various jobs, while the third column is for month and date when finished (September 12 is written down, but much to my frustration – no year).
Only two names are written in that oh-so-important middle column – maybe three (I can’t quite tell). The final one, under the “Rubber” entry, appears to be “Will F.”
The board to which the paper was attached.
So, dear readers – what do those other signatures look like? And would anyone like to hazard a guess as to when this cabinet might have been built?
The cabinet was made of oak that had a beautiful grain, but had been attacked mercilessly by white paint in the decades since its creation. Layers of lead paint, I might add, which is the reason that I must speak of this piece in the past tense.
One of the brackets that supported the overshelf at either end.
I am an ardent lover of old houses and all of their eccentricities. Add to that my career in the historic preservation field, and know I am loathe to remove anything from our house. But (and I’ll tell this story later) the removal of the cabinet uncovered something else that was so worth finding, and it also allows us to make some badly needed structural improvements to our kitchen (one wall was being held up by a gossamer thread of wood, as all else had rotted).
But I still want to tell the story of the piece, and in doing so, the story of our house. I’d like to place the cabinet in its context, and maybe find out who may have helped build it. Who was Will F? Who were his co-workers? Their story is now part of my story.
Very interesting. I too liked to find these little tidbitd when I was busy working on my 4 old homes (over the course of 48 years).
It is a great shame that cabinet has been removed. It looks salvageable; I hope it has gone to someone who wants it instead of being junked.
Your photograph of the maker slip needs a slight angle adjustment to make the light hit the reflective pencil lettering and really make out the names, but my guess is that the first name is Roll, though the last letter has a flourish at the end that could be indicative of an h or k. Rolk is a surname, and Rolh is one as well; neither are nearly as common a surname as Roll with Rolh being especially rare according to a quick search. The second name appears to be Stoeck; there is wide variation in how people wrote the capital s, and like this one, some of them look like a modern capital l. The final name, I believe, is Wilf F.; though, to be honest, none of the letters really looks like an l to me. Such are the problems in deciphering what was quickly jotted down by three different men all in a hurry to move on to the next piece of furniture.
So interesting!