Hidden History of Asheville by Zoe Rhine

Author:Zoe Rhine
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2019-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 25

SWANNANOA WOOD CARVER WADE MARTIN CARVES ONE LAST PIECE

Wade “Gob” Hampton Martin was born in 1920, the son of Marcus Lafayette and Callie Holloway Martin. He had four brothers (Edsel, Wayne, Fred and Quintin) and one sister (Zenobia). All of them carved wood.

In the early 1930s, the family moved from Andrews, North Carolina, to Swannanoa. Wade was nine at the time and grew up in Beacon Village. After serving in World War II, Martin got a job at the Beacon Manufacturing Company. In 1950, he took some carvings to Margaret Roberts, the manager of Allanstand Craft Shop in Asheville. When she sold those, Martin carved more. In her article “The Carvings of Wade Martin” in May We All Remember Well, Vol. 1, Maggie Lauterer wrote that when Martin got laid off at Beacon, he started carving full time. He found he could make more money selling three carvings a week than working in the mill.

Martin was a master craftsman who sold his pieces all over the country and won national acclaim. The Asheville Citizen-Times would note in 2007 that his “original carvings sold for $25 or less and were often given as gifts or bartered in exchange for medical or dental care. Many sell for thousands of dollars today. A set of four small musical figures recently sold at Brunk Auctions in Asheville for close to $4,000.”

Martin started carving less and less in the late 1980s and had basically stopped by 1993. And then, Algene “Genie” Larae Ott asked him if he’d make one more carving, a carving of Smokey Bear signing “I love you.”

And so he did.

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