Volume 20, Number 4,
April 1974:
With These Two Hands

Text-only version

ISSUE HOME PAGE

ABOUT THIS ISSUE
- about KSN

IN THIS ISSUE
- section 1
- section 2
- section 3
- section 4
- section 5
- section 6
- section 7
- section 8
- section 9
- section 10
- conclusion

With These Two Hands
by Robert J.Boles

continued...

Richard now felt that he was ready to study taxidermy in earnest. As far as he could find out, the Northwestern School of Taxidermy was THE SCHOOL in which to enroll to acquire the skills he needed for the field he had chosen. Two formidable obstacles stood in his way. First, the tuition called for the staggering sum of then dollars (which he didn’t have), and second, he would not only have to secure his father’s permission to enrol, but he would also have to try to borrow the money from him. With more hope than faith that he would get the money and the permission, he approached his father. The answer was short and to the point-there was nothing practical about stretching the skin of a dead bird over a wad of inedible cotton, and any further requests of such a nature would receive a more emphatic answer in the form of a spanking. Richard’s world was shattered, but he had been brought up to respect his father’s wishes. Much as he wanted to enroll in the taxidermy course, the subject was dropped, never to be brought up again.

Instead, he scraped and saved lowered his sights, and, a year later, having saved up a dollar and a half of his own money, he bought a book entitled "Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit." With no outside help, other than his new book, he mounted his first bird-a Swainson’s hawk a friend had given him.

Richard’s father accepted h is son’s deep interest in taxidermy, and behind his seemingly gruff and stern manner was a feeling of pride in his son’s perseverance and skill in something he believed in and wanted to do. His mother was more of a problem. "Bird stuffing" was no something to be done in her house, and Richard was banished to the barn to work by the light of kerosene lantern. The young man continued to make sly suggestions about a more cheerful and warmer place to work, and no one knows today whether it was his hints, to the sight of his third specimen, a tiny, pretty screech owl that did the trick, but he was given permission to do his work in the summer kitchen that his mother had already vacated for the winter. Much to his mother’s surprise, Richard left the place as clean as he had found it, and was rewarded by being given permission to mount future specimens in his room.

After missing school for a semester, during which Richard helped his father with the farm, hunted rabbits to help put meat on the table, and ran a trap line to bring in a little a cash, he returned to school for the spring semester of 1927. By a stroke of luck, his new principal Herman Janzen, was an artistic taxidermist. The tutoring that the aspiring young man received for the next five semesters in the field of taxidermy by this fine teacher and understanding man greatly influenced the course of his life. Little did he know that in later years he would have the opportunity to visit some of the finest laboratories and discuss techniques with some of the most famous names in the taxidermy field.