Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 18, 1994 TAG: 9406210110
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By DIANE STRUZZI STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
For a boy who grew up on Purgatory Mountain in Botetourt County, hunting was a rite of passage. For Manspile, building things was, too.
Manspile isn't quite sure how or why he started to work with wood. But 31 years after his initial attempt, there's not much that he can't do with a hammer and saw. He makes arrows, tables, houses, barns and has built a sawmill. All he needs is a picture and the parts.
"It's just something I do," he said, with a shrug. "I just know I can do it, and that's the way it is."
If Manspile isn't working, he's building. If he's not building, he's working as a lieutenant with the Roanoke Fire Department. Sometimes he's doing both.
On his workbench, in what used to be a hayloft when Fire Station No. 1's pumpers were pulled by horses, he built a miniature replica of the city's historic Church Avenue landmark. It took eight years - in his down time - to piece together more than 3,000 dried stick weeds.
Other firefighters envy his perseverance.
"It takes a lot of patience, and I wouldn't have it," said Capt. David Bocock.
"I'd go wild," said Lt. William Gayle. "But he'd take the tweezers and get his hand steady."
The replica has the 30 steps that wind their way up to the second floor, brass poles that reach into the sleeping area and even trash cans. An American flag on a toothpick that once graced a fast-food hamburger now graces the facade.
Manspile chuckles as he remembers that one of the firefighters bet him that he couldn't reproduce the rear spiral staircase in the replica. Manspile proved him wrong.
"I don't bet against that fellow," Gayle said. "He can do most anything. He's a jack of all trades."
Manspile wanted a house, so he bought four acres on Purgatory Mountain, about a mile up from his family home. Four months later, he had a ranch-style house with a sprawling front yard, a chestnut rail fence that borders the drive and a trophy room that sports his prized buck horns.
"If it's made out of wood, I can make it," Manspile says. "Matter of fact, if it's made out of metal I can fix it."
Most who know Manspile say he doesn't leave much time for leisure.
The firehouse kitchen needed a clock, so he built one that fit right into the corner. He found a cedar tree in the woods and made a lamp from it for his living room. He wanted a showcase for the arrowheads he has dug up on his land, so he made a glass-topped coffee table.
"It just comes natural," he said. "The only place [my wife] can find me at night is up at my sawmill."
Tucked in the rear of his home is Manspile's playground. He used to hear the chug of his neighbor's sawmill, and the sound fascinated him.
So he ordered some parts and some wood and built his own. Now he rough-cuts lumber for his own construction business.
He learned how to operate it from the older folk in the area. They'd hear the clatter of the motor and the screech of the blade slicing the wood, and they'd come up the drive to take a look. They told Manspile it reminded them of the Depression, when they made 10 cents or so by helping out at a local sawmill.
"That's how I learned all this stuff," Manspile said. "Nobody's got this stuff no more. They want rough-cut lumber because its stronger and bigger. And where a 2-by-4 actually measures 2 by 4 inches."
Sitting on his porch, where the lush mountains ebb and flow along the horizon, he can point to a house or a road and recite its history.
"I can tell you about every tree, every rock that's out there," he says matter-of-factly.
He had never left the state until last year, when he went to Cincinnati, looking for a new fire truck. He just got married this past winter. And recently, he and his wife, Susan, took a two-day vacation to Gettysburg, Pa.
He enjoyed it, but Manspile likes his home. He likes to know his surroundings.
And he knows Purgatory Mountain - its history of iron ore mining and the plantation owners and slaves who worked the trade. He'd like to compile the memories in a book one day. At some point, like his neighbors, he'd like to live off the land.
It's peaceful up on the mountain, the kind of day Manspile likes: birds chirping, an occasional bear passing by, and Manspile's sawmill throbbing in the background.
by CNB