How Did Orville Know?

Only Orvilles in the Building

How did Orville know what path he wanted to take in life? Did he know? In Julius Bellson’s 1973 book, “The Story of Gibson” (later to be re-titled “The Gibson Story” with more company information added), he claims that Orville started off his woodworking path by whittling every chance he got. While his maternal grandfather passed away before he was born, there’s evidence that Orville knew his paternal grandfather. Which opens up a whole can of worms about his father’s side of the family.

Did Orville’s paternal grandfather teach him his first woodworking skills? His older brother, Lovell, was a general house carpenter, which back then included skills necessary to make many built-in cabinets and hutches within a house. His brother, Ozro, was apprenticed to a carriage maker at the age of fourteen after their mother died. Did their grandfather influence their interests and path?

Bellson also mentions that Orville talked about a sister that was an artist and a sister that was a writer. The artist was Mary Fuller, his much older half sister by his mother’s first marriage. Pluma, his older sister by eight years, was the writer. Both having careers and interests uncommon for family women of post Civil War culture. Mary never married and had no children. Pluma married and I believe had children, but I’m still looking for the documentation.

What is the point of asking such questions? Look at the sturdy three legged foundation of guitar making for so many decades; Gibson, Martin and Fender. Christian Fredrick Martin, founded C. F. Martin & Company in 1833. He comes from a long line of traditional cabinet makers. Note that the business name implies that he is in charge and the company answers to him.

While tradition can produce a superior product in many valuable forms, which Martin did, it’s fraught with guardrails and immovable expectations. But tradition is also easier to write about. It follows a tidy, well-worn and rarely changing path. And as a result, we have a long line of Martin acoustic instruments. I had the opportunity to play an old, old Martin guitar owned by Bob Abramowitz. It was amazing even for an amateur like me. My fingers seemed to float over the strings.

I’ll probably get in trouble for saying this, but classically trained musicians can be some of the most up-tight, stressed out creators I’ve ever met. I fully admit that this view of mine affects the way I write about Sylvo Reams.

Leo Fender, on the other hand, was born of California truck farmers in 1909. He studied accounting in college and came of age at the beginning of the Great Depression. Like Orville, his path is a little more messy and winding. It seems even as an accountant, Leo did not follow in the family business. He married and acquired and lost jobs in the worst economic downturn our country has ever seen.

But, also like Orville, who filed his patent in 1893 during an economic depression that saw big business lose money left and right and fail, Leo started the radio service business that would put him on the map in 1938. He built his own PA system that helped his venture thrive. At this point, I have to put in a plug for Lewis A. Williams who built “The Mysterio,” essentially a PA system, that he demoed in public in the fall of 1925.

Leo and Orville were inventors. But is putting pick-ups on a solid body guitar or making a hollow body mandolin based on the construction of a violin an invention or an innovation? Leo also built amps. Where Orville would ask “What the hell is an Audion bulb?” and how can I get more volume out of this damn guitar without one. Leo also collaborated with others like Doc Kauffman. Where it seems Orville may have talked to others like William S. Bronson about methods and techniques, it appears that he figured out instrument making on his own. While Fender played saxophone for a short time, Orville was considered an exceptional guitar player by the age of nineteen. And he played his own inventions.

Back to Orville’s messy and winding path. To put things in order, Orville was not born in Chateaugay nor Earlville, New York. The Gibson farm was located out in what today would be considered the township. In other words. out in the countryside. Chateaugay was an incorporated town and Earlville has never been more than a four corner grouping of small businesses catering to the neighboring farmers. To say Orville was born in Earlville is to imply he was born in a feed store.

The rumor back at the ranch is that Lovell and Orville traveled west with neighbors after their parents died and ended up in Kalamazoo County. After a few years, Lovell headed back to New York and Orville stayed. My guess it was the community theater and the flourishing music scene that kept him here. Kalamazoo is half way between Detroit and Chicago. During the 19th century, it snagged national theater troupes traveling through on the Michigan Central railroad.

I mentioned William S. Bronson earlier. He and his brother, Chester, were at the forefront of the Kalamazoo music community. Not only was William a musician, he was a music instructor in violin, viola, clarinet and flute, he was a community band leader and conducted the first orchestra at the newly built Academy of Music (a theater performance hall) in 1881. He sold his first self-built violin in 1884 for $100 when you could buy one at any local music retailer for $2.50. Sound familiar?

As a young wood working, whittling hobbyist, Orville probably wondered one day what would happen if he took his guitar apart. I have four brothers. This seems likely. At any rate, his love of wood working and his experience as a guitar player crossed streams at some point and now look what happened.

And as for the three paragraphs that I started with at the beginning of my term paper, it stated that Orville was estranged from his family. I have much documentation that proves it wasn’t the case by any means. It also stated that he only did odd jobs. No, he worked as a shoe salesman from at least 1881 to 1892. That’s a minimum of an eleven year stint.

Before concluding, I want to mention Orville’s father. In the 1870 census, he’s listed as a cobbler. No wonder Orville was a good shoe salesman. I talked with a local shoemaker here in Kalamazoo whose father, also a shoemaker, came from Europe. He said his father hated being called a cobbler. To him it was an antiquated, old world term that followed him here. His father wanted to be called a shoemaker. Interesting to view John W. Gibson in that light. I wonder if he was old world or new world. I’m guessing old world if he was from England, the land of steadfast rules and regulations.

Anyway, I guess we all look around us at certain points in our life and gravitate towards what interests us. And maybe we cross paths with others who we end up collaborating with. And it means something to us and takes us to a place we weren’t planning on going. Like David Byrne, we may ask ourselves, how did I get here? Who the hell knows. Our guardian angels have a way of keeping things from us. Sometimes I feel a hand to my back nudging me in a different direction and all I feel is…no, I want to go this other all too familiar and safe direction. And the hand says “nope.”