Sharpsburg Blacksmith: Stanley “Pete” Carl

A beautiful water color painting Connie created from memory, depicts how the blacksmith shop looked when she was a child.

One of the old anvils that was used by Stanley “Pete” Carl is one of his daughter Connie’s most prized possessions.

Much has been written lately about my grandfather Bert Carl the blacksmith, which I have thoroughly enjoyed. However, no mention was given to my father Pete, who kept the business going in my grandfather’s later years.

The horseshoe gate that everyone admires and was said to been made by my grandfather Bert is only partly true. Papaw did indeed make most of the shoes but my dad welded them together and made the Masonic symbol that hung at the top. Papaw could work iron but he did not know how to weld.

My dad only had a sixth grade education, dropping out of school to help his dad make a living during the depression. But he loved to learn and taught himself how to weld from a book. Papaw Bert could not read or write so he depended on my dad to keep the shop books, which he did with painstakingly neat printing.

Pete was well known in Sharpsburg for being an alcoholic. While most of his brothers could shoe horses they did not work iron and they did not stay in Sharpsburg. Pete stayed and helped his father although he had other dreams and talents.

My dad loved to travel and he loved music. He played the guitar and the harmonica. I remember him playing and singing when I was young. Willie Nelson reminds me of his voice and guitar playing so to this day I love to hear Willie sing and play.

My mother told me that daddy would hop a train occasionally and be gone for days or weeks but always came back when he ran out of money. She never knew where he had gone or what he had been doing. I often wondered if he wanted to pursue his music.

Once he moved us to Indiana and worked in a steel mill. He was very smart and was quickly recognized and promoted for his ability to weld and read blue prints which he also taught himself to do. He was an avid reader, mostly of the Reader’s Digest stories and the Bible. His Bible reading sparked an interest in my own search of gospel doctrine.

As always happened, Daddy’s drinking caused him to lose his good job and he was forced to once again go back to Sharpsburg and work for his dad. They did make a good team and were experts at correcting a horse’s gait, helping many get to the winner’s circle in local horseshows.

Bert and Pete were sought out to be the farriers during many horseshows at the Owingsville Lion’s Club and other local shows. Papaw would prepare the shoes and size them up while Daddy would replace shoes as needed in record time.

Among his many talents my dad could draw well. A talent he passed down to most of his children. There was a walking horse figure cut out of Masonite (which is used for horseshoe pads) and attached to a board that made it ready for hanging just about anywhere. Many of these walking horse figures hang on gates and barns around this area. My dad may have been the original designer of the sign but I have never researched that. Sounds like a good project for Kim King.

I have the walking horse sign that used to hang in the shop as well as one of my dads old anvils and one of his old ledgers. They are precious to me as I spent many an hour hanging around the shop when I was a little girl. We used to draw on the back of old Circus and Drive-In posters that hung on the outside of the shop. What I wouldn’t give to have one of those old posters now.

My sisters and I still draw and I also paint. After seeing Paul Lewis’s painting of the old Blacksmith shop I did my own version of it from my memory of when it was open and active. I’ve also done a painting of my grandfather Bert’s house, which was just up the alley from the shop and where we lived for a few years when I was young.

I remember getting up early on Saturday morning and running down the alley with my little brother Frank to hopefully get to ride the horses as they unloaded them from the trailers and walked them to the shop. We didn’t have horses of our own so we took every opportunity we could to ride the ones that came to be shod or that we kept awhile because they were foundered or lame.

My grandfather Bert died in 1967 of a heart attack. Within a year my dad Pete had drank himself to death. I was 14 when he died.

Alcoholism is a terrible disease. It robs so many of so much. Pete Carl was a strong man with a weakness. He lived through the depression and broken dreams, and he lived through the death of a child. My sister Norma Jean Carl was only seven years old when she died. That’s about the time my dad’s drinking turned into full-blown alcoholism. I guess he was trying to drown his sorrows.

My dad also liked to write poetry and wrote one after my sister’s death titled “Valentine Farrow” in her memory. She was born in February close to Valentine’s Day. I also like to write and wrote a poem in memory of my dad titled “My Heaven” which was published in 2004.

I think he would have been proud of me. I loved him and often wished I could have done something to help him stop drinking. But I was too young. So I did the only thing I could do, which was to write his story and to never touch a drop of alcohol.