SUMMERS COUNTY W.Va. (WVDN) – My Great Great Grandfather L.W. Thompson has been talked about in several of my articles, this one is no different. I had mentioned before all of his trades; from building contractor, boat maker, hardware store owner and furniture maker. This piece will focus on his furniture making.
On top of all of the previously listed trades, he owned a fruit orchard in Summers County, prior to selling it and moving to Talcott in 1926 where he focused on his construction business. Although he built some furniture before this move, it didn’t really become a full-fledged part of his business until he relocated.
Over the years, my family and I have acquired a few pieces of his furniture, the first being the large stepback cupboard you see here with the Christmas Village that belonged to my Grandmother, Bea Thompson, on it. Being the holiday season I decided to throw out this old photo I took in Christmas 2016.
This cabinet is solid oak and is of the Arts and Crafts or Mission style. It features two upper cabinets, with two upper drawers on the left side of the window hole. The bottom has a large cabinet where the sink used to be. A cabinet and drawer are on the left and a pull-out dough board and five drawers are on the right. His work of this age, the 1920s always featured hand-carved oak pulls and butterfly hinges on the doors.
This piece has a bit of a twist to it. You see, this was the kitchen cabinets that were in the house my father first lived in when he was born in Clayton, WV. Fast forward 30-some years later, he and Mom had been married a few years. Dad found out these cabinets were removed from that house. He inquired about them and then bought them for her anniversary gift that year. I can always just imagine my little 5ft Grandma Jones making biscuits on the pull-out dough board when my father was a child.
The next piece you see I just purchased from my Great Uncle Buck Thompson’s estate auction in Union, WV. This was L.W.’s work desk that he used in the hardware and paint store he had in Talcott. Notice how deep it is from front to back, this was so he could more easily roll out the blueprints for his latest job he was working on. Again notice the hand-carved oak pulls.
It was moved out of his store when he died in 1949 and used by his son O.D. Thompson in Thompsons Garage until he died in the early 1970’s. Uncle Buck got it when Great Grandma Thompson died in 1992 and used it until he passed in 2016. I purchased it just this past October. So it has managed to stay in the Thompson family since it was built by him. It is signed on the bottom of the top draw as he almost always did, “Made by L.W. Thompson Talcott, W.Va 1938” for the past 86 years.
The last piece you see is a cedar chest he built for his son O.D. Thompson when he married Gladys Knapp in 1926. It always sat in their bedroom, until Uncle Buck got it when grandma passed. We have an oak buffet he built in 1948. We acquired it from Betty Hendricks who had purchased it at an auction in Talcott in the 1980s.
Which brings me to my next point. Over the years I have become enthralled with L.W.’s furniture or anything about the Thompson side of my family. The way we found out about the buffet was a letter to the editor I had placed in the Hinton Newspaper some 15 years ago. My cousin on the Thompson side Ginger Snyder had seen it, told Betty about it and the rest is history.
So a simple letter led to meeting a cousin we didn’t know we had, making good friends with Betty and getting to purchase a piece of furniture he made. So now I must ask again, if you have a piece of furniture he or his son O.D. built or know of one, would you please email my mother at cheryljones1958@gmail.com. We would be interested in purchasing or at the least documenting and photographing it. Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing from you.
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