There are some things in our lives that we believe will never change. There are, for instance, few folks who ever fancied that the Wakefield Lighting Company and/or its predecessors would ever disappear from the landscape of Vermilion, Ohio. It was, after all, a local institution. But so too were places like the Lorain Ford Assembly Plant; Hart's Corner Drug Store; Schwensen's Bakery; and Fulper's Sohio station. And though it is a bit sad when these places succumb to the ever changing tides of time and circumstance - as the French adage regarding such matters felicitously observes, C'est la vie. And so it was in 1954 when Vermilion's last blacksmith retired and locked the doors of his shop forever.
Fred Becker was born December 13, 1879 in Switzerland. He came with his family to the United States of America, Ohio, and Brownhelm Township to live when he was nine years old. Eleven years later he opened the Fred Becker Blacksmith Shop in the little village of Vermilion. For the better part of the next half century he stood by his red hot forge, cigar in mouth, hammer in hand, making horseshoes, repairing plows, and fashioning special forged irons for numerous villagers and area farmers.
By 1949 when a local newspaper reporter interviewed him the business of shoeing horses had nearly disappeared, and his primary craft had become that of sharpening rotary (non-motorized) lawn mower blades. This reality would likely have been reason for resentment to some. But Becker was apparently a realist with a good sense of humor.
During the interview he told the reporter, "Yep, the automobile is here to stay and so is the power lawn mower - in fact, the whole darn machine age is catching up with me", adding with a bemused chuckle (only available to the very wise) that "it's taken a long time, tho."
During his career he guesstimated that he'd probably shod several thousands of horses. And in response to the reporter's question
as to the number of shoes he'd put on horses he said, I don't have any (realistic) idea - each horse has four feet you know.
Mr. Becker's shop (pictured) was located just west of what was then Walker's Dodge-Plymouth garage (now the Ritter Library Annex) on Liberty Avenue. The photograph (c. 1954) is probably taken the very year the shop closed.
Although I never entered the place I do recall passing by on the sidewalk as a youngster and curiously peering into the dark interior where I could generally see nothing. And I do not recall when the building disappeared.
Mr. Becker lived with his wife and six children (3 boys and 3 girls) in a house that once stood just to the east of what is now the library annex. Mrs. Becker passed away sometime in 1949. Two years after he retired Mr. Becker died at 3:05 on an early July afternoon at 308 Perry Street. He was 76 years old.
There is, perhaps, some very fundamental humor inherent in this particular photograph of Fred Becker's Blacksmith Shop. It involves the fact that the shop, that for so many years catered to the primary source of American transportation systems, was eventually consumed by that transportation system - albeit a new one. In the picture it sits between an automobile garage and an automobile sales lot. Tis a comic circumstance that I believe Fred Becker, Vermilion's last Smithy, would have certainly appreciated.
Ref: Vermilion Area Archival Society; Elyria Chronicle Telegram; 7-2-56; Ancestry.com; Special Thanks to "Nuggie" Cook Published in the Vermilion Photojournal 12-29-05 Written 12-25-05 @ 4:12 p.m.
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