Coppersmiths Steve Schifer (left) and Keith Moore (background) work on the handcrafting of copper kettles in the ageless shop of the D. Picking & Co., of Bucyrus.

AND THE YOUNG LADY IN CHARGE--
Helen Neff Picking, 95


When you walk into the D. Picking & Company, the copper kettle works in Bucyrus, it is easy to imagine the loss of a century.

It is a modern time machine there on Walnut St., where the year 2010 instantly morphs into the late 1800s as you pass through the front door.

That recent day when Sue and I stopped to make an appointment for a visit, a charming lady of advancing years was sitting at a colossal roll top desk with the company checkbook—of the three ring variety.

We apologized for our intrusion and she gently insisted we come in and enjoy a tour of their shop at that very moment . “It certainly is not an intrusion,” she said as her smile sparkled in her eyes.

She could arrange that quite handily, you see. She was the owner, Mrs. Helen Neff Picking, whose great grandfather founded the company in 1874. Her dad who preceded her at the helm of the company died in 1982 at the age of 103.

Helen, who opined paying the bills tomorrow was just as likely to be acceptable as doing it at that moment, continued her cheery welcome, a prerogative of being a mere 95 years young and working every day.

After chatting awhile with us, she summoned Keith Moore from a back room, a coppersmith who welcomed his assigned role of being our tour guide.

As we walked into the shop area Keith showed us samples of the original wiring and almost pre-historic carbon tetrachloride fire extinguishers still hanging here and there.

While bare light bulbs provided today’s illumination, soot blackened gas light fixtures still hung from the ceiling.

We looked at dished out logs from century old trees still being used as forms where wooden mallets pounded the concave bottom shapes of apple butter kettles to this day.

From here and there came the sound of thudding pings as ball peen hammers smacked the shiny patina of hardening into the copper kettles.

The hardware store from which the kettle works was founded originally bought the copper kettles from a firm in Lancaster, PA and resold them in Bucyrus for the fall production of apple butter.

Soon, the hardware store was making its own kettles—in 1874; and that continues to this day in the form of the D. Picking & Company.

1880 was a poor year for apples which prompted the then new company to expand to other copper products including Swiss Cheese kettles and bowls for Tympanis. Some of the latter were in production—by hand, of course, on the day of our visit—for a Scandinavian firm.

As we continued our leisurely stroll through these pages of history Keith smiled as he challenged us to name the use of another ageless apparatus. Turns out it was a device of pranksters from Grandpa Picking’s era.

When then newlyweds headed off to their amorous privacy, this device was leaned against the outside wall of their abode and spinning a spring-pressured ratchet raised a monstrous ruckus, much to the delight of the miscreants—and the chagrin of the celebrants.

Humor of those days gone by took a more genteel form; as did life itself...

...and we eased through the rest of our tour as the rhythms of this timeless shop continued their third century of hand-crafting yet another day’s output of these soon to be priceless copper products.

That's coppersmith John Butt in the red shirt (above left) while Schifer continues his torch work on the ageless shop floor (below).