A 1932 Walker-Turner book, a beautiful blueprint & a veteran I'll never know

[David Walsh]

I came across these copies of a 1932 Walker-Turner publication — "Woodworker's Handbook". Two things struck me.

 

 

First, the more obvious detail: tucked away in a flap on the back cover, the most strikingly vivid blueprint I have ever seen with my own eyes. I don't know what printing process they were using to make these back in '32, but it is just... majestic. And, from the crisply perfect condition of it, I wonder if I'm the first person to ever actually open it up.

 

 

 

Secondly, and more obscure: inside the front cover, there was an inscription by "Lester" — which, I'd assume, is a man named "Lester [Arthur] Burton" — whose name is credited with "Designed & drawn by" on the the beautiful draftings in the early pages of the book. The intricate shading and distinctive lettering — and the fact the book came to me along with a few other items owned by Mr. Sawdust (my grandfather) — made me first think this was gifted to Wallace Sr. by his long-time friend, Lester Margon — who I'd place as one of the finest furniture draftsman of the 20th century. There's such similarity to the style and character of their drawings. Obviously this wasn't the case — just the odd coincidence of two unrelated "Lesters" who somehow shared such a style. Regardless, it simply made me wonder about this man — who was once proud to gift this book to someone, with gratitude to his "Dad", in quotations.

 

It all felt slightly like one of those Hemingway'esque six-word stories — "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." — where my mind wanted to fill in all that's absent.

 

 

 

A few searches for his name turned up absolutely nothing I could connect back to him — a proud draftsman's legacy from 1932, seemingly lost to time. I imagine there's a family that knows his story, if there's one there to tell — but there was just something that gave me pause when I tried to connect the dots, and couldn't. There was a strange nostalgia for a person I never knew, and have no connection to. It simply made me think — "someone's entire story, or some facet of it, lives within these simple handwritten lines — and I'll never know it."

... and it made me want to share it, in case someone somewhere randomly happens to fill in the blanks — of how, 92 years after "Lester" proudly shared his contribution to his "first book" with.... someone, and had "Dad" to thank — it ended up in my hands, from a cardboard box in a storage unit, and now in front of your eyes too. If nothing else, maybe Google will turn this up one day, so there's something to know about the unknown man by the name of Lester Burton.

 

— David

 

(... now that's where I left off, when I wrote it up a few days ago. After posting it on Facebook and OWWM, a few interesting details emerged, so I'm appending that here to finish the story, to one degree or another. — )

 

First and foremost, Lester was a veteran of World War II — that alone seems to make it worthwhile to share this here.

 

 

 

... and not long after finding this, his obituary emerged, which does a nice job of filling in some parts of his story I certainly could not when knew little more than his name:

 

 

L. Arthur Burton — Designer of wide range of commercial products, private pilot out of Bedminster L. Arthur (Art) Burton, aged 92, of Catonsville, Md., formerly of Tewksbury Township, N.J., passed away Friday, July 29, 2016.

Lester Arthur Burton born in Westville, N.J., the son of Wilhemina M. Burton (nee Buhlman) and Lester Ainsworth Burton. After graduation from Palmyra High School, Art graduated from the US Merchant Marine Academy (Kings Point) in 1943 and served as second mate aboard Liberty Ships throughout World War II. He married Phyllis M. Saxon (1947) and attended Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, N.Y., graduating in industrial design.

Art spent a few years honing his skills as a corporate industrial designer before creating his own life-long company. His design expertise can be seen in a wide variety of successful products, including 30 years of McIntosh stereos, Bendix weather radar, Dinamap vital signs monitors, as well as toy water rockets and pistols.

Art was a competitive rifle shooter and shared his passion with his wife and three daughters. Over a span of 25 years he coached the Somerset County junior rifle teams, taught firearms safety classes, and served as the club's president. He loved to bird hunt over the many English Springer Spaniels he trained in his lifetime. He also enjoyed deer hunting; although he was so careful at choosing a successful shot, his family suspected he just enjoyed the peace and quiet of the woods. Art had a love/hate relationship with the game of golf. In his later years, it was much more of a love affair and he played the game often at Oak Hill Golf Club, walking 18 holes until nearly 90.

In April 1946 he first soloed an airplane. This avocation, like many of his others, stayed with him for the rest of his life. He flew his own airplane out of Somerset Airport in Bedminster for over 40 years. He and Phyllis enjoyed many trips together, flying as far as Venezuela and Alaska. A private pilot, Art flew his last flight at age 85, logging over 7,300 hours in total. While he would tell you he used his airplane primarily for business, it was a true pleasure.

He is survived by his wife of 68 years, Phyllis, and his three daughters, Sherrie (Robert) Smith, Donna (Raymond) Thompson, and Linda (Duffee) Ricks. Art has six grandchildren: Lindsay (Nate), Andrew, Sammi, Zach, Ian and Justin. He was predeceased by his parents and brother, Richard L. Burton.

 

... and with that, I can actually bring this post to its natural end. Nothing here to make you a better woodworker; no beautiful vintage machinery to admire; no shop tips or project plans — just a story about finding the story behind a talented draftsman, and an American veteran — husband, father, grandfather — designer, rifleman, hunter — soloed an airplane for the first time in 1946, and kept on flying until he was 85. From the little I've come to know, sounds like he'd have been a pleasure to know.

 

— David

 

Edited November 25, 2024 by David Walsh
Removed duplicate image

[DuckSoup]

Great job on the research.

[PeteM]

The term "blue print" came from the blue paper.  The process required the use of photo-sensitive paper, a light source (shined through the drawing onto the paper), and then ammonia to develop the paper into a blue background with white lines (white because the light is blocked by the ink on the tracing).  The same process (mask, light, sensitive substrate) was how integrated circuits were initially made.  To this day, a whiff of ammonia takes me back to high school in the early 60's.  Current reproduction techniques, particularly pdf format, is sooooo much easier.

[JWD]

Those are pretty cool books!  I never knew Walker-Turner catered to the "home craftsman," or that the trend of relatively heavy machinery in home workshops started so early.  I had always assumed that it started with Rockwell's consolidation of some of the smaller companies like Delta and W-T in the 1950's.

 

The thing I liked about contact prints is that the method is 100% true to scale.  You could measure the drawing to get a dimension that was not called out on the drawing.  While large format printing of a digital file is easier, it is inherently not to a specific scale, making interpolation of dimensions or distances not specifically called out on the drawing a difficult task.  I think it is probably less of an issue in furniture construction, as the builder is often more comfortable with estimation.  It was a real problem though, when I was working as a geologist in the 1990's and would occasionally be provided with maps that were not in any kind of sensible scale - not being able to put your 1:2000 scale on a map and get a distance made a map pretty well useless as an engineering tool.

[John Morris]

A great tribute David, I can't thank you enough for sharing it here. The men of the day were often pretty dynamic, to understand what they accomplished. Like @PeteM those blues brought me back to my first land surveying job with a mom and pop outfit, in 1997, they were using an old blueprint machine for their maps, I don't know if plots were coming out of a large printer at that time and they just couldn't afford one, or if the blues were still used widely in the late 90's. But I remember coming back from the field at the end of the day walking into the office and smelling the ammonia as the bluing machine was burning off another map. 

 

Mr. Barton seemed like a heck of man, active to the last of his days, and I tip my hat to his service to our nation. What a cool find you found!

So David, how many more of grandpa's boxes do you have to go through?

 

On 11/24/2024 at 11:39 PM, David Walsh said:

... and with that, I can actually bring this post to its natural end. Nothing here to make you a better woodworker; no beautiful vintage machinery to admire; no shop tips or project plans — just a story about finding the story behind a talented draftsman, and an American veteran — husband, father, grandfather — designer, rifleman, hunter — soloed an airplane for the first time in 1946, and kept on flying until he was 85. From the little I've come to know, sounds like he'd have been a pleasure to know.

 

And thank you for your tribute to Mr. Burton here, thanks for sharing. We may have to find a separate page for you to archive these wonderful writings on, so they don't get lost in our forum topics.

[Grandpadave52]

Thanks David for your time invested researching such a great story and tribute as well as sharing the post here. Loved reading and seeing it all.

[Artie]

It’s a joy to read about a full life, well lived!

[Ron Dudelston]

Fascinating read, David.  If you have access to Ancestry, go out and trace his life.  The ship manifests of WWII are interesting.

[John Moody]

Very interesting read and I love the research. I too enjoy finding old things and doing my best to trace the history of the item.

 

Thanks for the most interesting post.

[ASteinfield]

This is very nice! Love the research too.