Editor’s note: “Dispatches” are occasional snapshots of people, places, scenes or moments from around Georgia that our reporters come across. They aim to be immersive and aren’t always tied to a news event.
WALESKA — The state route leading here, Georgia 140, is pleasantly hilly, like a kiddie roller coaster. Lush tree canopies shading the road create a green tunnel-like effect.
The city of Waleska is so tiny — its population numbered just 921 in the 2020 census — that its downtown features only one stoplight. Much of the city is dominated by Reinhardt University, a small liberal arts institution that nevertheless eclipses its home with an average enrollment of 1,200 students.
For many years, I have driven to this northwest part of Cherokee County to play or officiate lacrosse. On my way, I glanced curiously across Reinhardt‘s campus at the Funk Heritage Center and Bennett History Museum, which is dedicated to the history of early Appalachian settlers and Southeastern Native Americans. But I never found time to stop. That was until this year. I finally visited the museum so I could write about the history of Native American stickball. Lacrosse bears similarities to that sacred sport.
The historian in charge of the center, W. Jeff Bishop, is a former newspaper journalist. He guided me through the museum’s lobby, which is designed to resemble a longhouse used by the Haudenosaunee, their preferred name over Iroquois. He showed me a pair of stickball sticks on display. Next, he took me to see a massive Native American petroglyph, an ancient piece of granite found near the Canton area. It bears carvings of concentric circles, perhaps inspired by our universe.
I followed Bishop around a corner, where I saw something mesmerizing that wedged itself squarely in my memories. Called “Tools of Trades,” the exhibit features thousands of handmade implements collected by a Marietta hardware store owner, the late Joseph Alan Sellars. Some date to the 18th century.
I am fascinated by the music of our language. Consider some of the names given to the tools: augers, clinch cutters, froes, gimlets, hog ring pliers, inshaves, ultimatum braces, tooth rasps, twitches and sweat scrapers. Among my favorites are the sharp, corkscrew-shaped sugar devils, which were used to extract dried fruit packed with sugar in barrels.
I can imagine the hardworking people who wielded these tools: bookbinders, coopers, chair bodgers, draftsmen, farriers, pressmen, shoemakers, veterinarians, watchmakers and wheelwrights.
Parts of the exhibit made me chuckle. A display’s explanation of ax-like tools called adzes, which were used to hew wood, says the long-handled versions, known as foot adzes, were sometimes referred to as the “only tool the Devil is afraid to use. The tool was often wielded by men of great skill, who nonetheless were known by such names as Billy No-Toes.”
But what struck me the most is how the tools were intricately arranged for the exhibit. The fanlike symmetry of the designs is strangely comforting, even transfixing. Everything fits. Nothing is out of place. The displays satisfy my desire for balance and structure. They remind me there is an elegant order to our world. To me, they resemble mandalas, or geometric diagrams of the universe used to aid in meditation.
How this exhibit came to be is a story in itself. I tracked down one of Sellars’ children, Sue Ellen Rice, who lives in the Indianapolis area. I could hear the pride and enthusiasm in her voice as she spoke about her father. He was a poet, she told me, who served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II.
Credit: Courtesy of Sue Ellen Rice
Credit: Courtesy of Sue Ellen Rice
After working as a salesman in the clothing industry, he began collecting tools with “intensity.” A catalog describing his collection says he acquired them from antique shops, flea markets and garage sales. Some came from Canada, England and Mexico.
“Hunting for tools was a forever thing we all did. I would send him pictures, if I found something older and unique,” she said. “He might want it, or he might not. ‘Save that for me,’ he would say.”
Carter Butterworth, a Cobb County resident who worked in Sellars’ hardware store, helped restore his tools. He also helped mount them on pegboards for display in the hardware shop before they were donated to Reinhardt. He credits a fellow store employee and sculptor, Don Dougan, for how they are arranged on the panels. Dougan, who was hired to curate Reinhardt’s exhibit long ago, told me he designed the arrangements “intuitively,” though he mentioned he studied and drew mandalas in art school.
“Each panel grew out of the specific nature of the tools that were on the panel. And pairing things off in a symmetrical design was one of the easiest ways to do most of the panels,” said Dougan, a Marietta resident and gallery director at Georgia State University. “Each design had to fly by Alan. And if he liked the design, he said, ‘OK, wire it up.’”
I revisited the museum with Dougan recently. I wanted to learn more about his intricate compositions. And, though we stood side by side, I found part of me was no longer there. Gazing at Dougan’s hypnotic tool mandalas, I was transported far away into my own universe.
Credit: Jeremy Redmon/jredmon@ajc.com
Credit: Jeremy Redmon/jredmon@ajc.com
If You Go
Funk Heritage Center and Bennett History Museum, 7300 Reinhardt Circle, Waleska. Tuesday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Closed Dec. 20-Jan. 4. Adults 18 and older, $7; seniors older than 65, $6.50; children under 18, $5; active duty U.S. service members with military identification cards, free.
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