Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 21, 1995 TAG: 9509210004
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-12 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
The retired carpenter and his wife, Sherwood, have photos of their six children and more than 30 grandchildren spread over tables and bookcase shelves that Kegley fashioned in their basement. "I built enough shelves to go from here to Roanoke," he said with a twinkle in his eyes.
There are small nature pictures carved from wood as one piece with their frames. A table contains tiny wooden sculptures: an owl, American Indian, bear and totem pole in company with other items.
"I've whittled all my life," Kegley said. "I don't do much of it anymore. I'm getting too old ... I had all kinds of saws down in the basement. Now I ain't got nothing but a furnace."
Kegley made their kitchen cabinet so precisely that he was able to slide their clock right into the space he designed for it at the top. There are wooden trash cans, and two so-called stove cabinets, shaped like stoves but with various cooking ingredients behind their wooden-handled doors.
He had seen a stove cabinet for sale years ago, and asked about its price, which was well over $100. "So I just come home, bought myself $12 worth of lumber, and built two of 'em," he said.
Practically all his work was formed out of scrap lumber. One table seems to have dozens of types and hues of wood in its formation.
"I worked carpentry all my life," he said. "I learned it in the Army." Kegley, a Pulaski native, served during World War II. He had already gained some experience with wood, working in Pulaski's furniture factories for the princely sum of 15 cents an hour.
"I could always do carpentry work. I could build anything I wanted, let's put it that way," he said. It was a talent the Army found it could use at Fort Holibird, Md.
"You'd do a little of this and a little of that, just whatever they wanted. If they wanted a fence built, you'd build a fence ... If they wanted a door hung, you'd hang a door," he said. "I wasn't fancy or nothing, but that's what I done. They didn't know what to do with me, to tell you the truth."
But that got him started on carpentry; when he came home, he started doing construction work. "I went to work for English Construction Company. And I worked for Bob Dobyns for about 25 years," he said.
He made most of the items in his home after he retired at age 65, "to pass the time away," he said.
Most of his creations didn't take too long, he said. An exception is the long chain hanging in the center of the living room, painstakingly whittled from a single piece of wood and fashioned link by link, with a tiny carved monkey at one end and a loose round ball rattling around in a miniature cage at the other.
He made only eight of those during his life: one for each of his two sons and four daughters, the one on display in the living room, and one more. "The other one's mine," said his wife.
by CNB