OCWA Visit to Sam Maloof

September 25, 2004

The Orange County Woodworker's Association visited with Sam Maloof on Saturday, September 25, 2004.  Here are some of pictures of that visit.

Webmeister note:  I'm a new member and don't know everyone's name yet.  Please send me the names of people in the pictures whom I haven't identified.  You can e-mail me at mike@mikes-woodwork.com.  I tried to get some of the names by enlarging the nametags so if you see a mangled name, it's because I couldn't really read the nametag.  Please send me a correction.

Picture 1 - We met in the parking lot of the Senior Center Saturday morning.  Ruthe Ingram
 was passing out donuts (donated by James Santhon) to those who missed breakfast.

Pictures 2 - Jay Lickfett, left and George Beech               Picture 3 - Gary ???, Bill and Sue Drobish

Picture 4 - Ginny Shearer and John Stefan                Picture 5 - Guests Manuel Zavala and Griselda Mendoza

Picture 6 - Our illustrious Prez sampled the donuts.

Picture 7 - Mr. and Mrs. Neale Davis, left, talk with Les Rogers

Picture 7b - Neale Davis chats with Ralph Adler

Picture 8 - Ralph Adler and Ruthe Ingram chat while waiting for the bus.

Picture 9 - Carol Schott and Jim Rushton chat with James Santhon.

Picture 10 - Matt Beldon, Paul Beldon, Bill Rogers, and Brad Hinicke???

Picture 10b - Roland and Ester Torres

Picture 10c - Les Rogers on the bus to Sam's place.

Picture 11 - There was a cozy courtyard at Sam's place for lunch.  Please help identify the people in the foreground.

Picture 12 - Mike Henderson and Jim Rushton at Sam's place

Picture 13 - A view of Sam's shop.

Picture 14 - One of Sam's tool cabinets.  He has lots of rasps because of the way he shapes his chairs.

Picture 15 - One of Sam's signature rockers ready for final shaping.

Picture 16 - Another view in the shop.

Picture 17 - Sam's business manager, Roz.

Picture 18 - Sam showed up to talk with us.  He was wearing blue jeans and a pullover sweat top, both of which were covered with sawdust.

Pictures 19 & 20 - Sam spent quite a bit of time talking with us about his work.

Pictures 21 & 22 - Sam is now 89 years of age and has some of the infirmities that go with that age.  One of the best laughs was when someone asked Sam "What do you use to shape your furniture?" and Sam replied "We found that UPS and the Post Office do the best job!"  In case you missed the joke, Sam thought the word "shape" was the word "ship."

Pictures 23 & 24 - Sam is a genuinely warm person who really liked talking with us.  He was not in a hurry, even though he had a full schedule for the rest of the day.  He was clearly willing to spend as much time with us as we wanted.  We ran out of questions before Sam ran out of time.

Picture 25 - Sam talks about one of his chairs.

Pictures 26 & 27 - More pictures of Sam talking with us about his work.

Picture 28 - Sam Maloof - An inspiring woodworker and human being.

Picture 29 - Sam and Ruthe.               Picture 30 - Sam and Jim.

Picture 31 - Sam and me.

Picture 32 - David Rictor and Sam share a good laugh.

Picture 33 - Sam and George Salinger

Pictures 34 & 35 - Towards the end of the tour, Sam autographed books for us.  OCWA guest Manuel Zavala waits to get his book autographed.

Picture 36 - Ingko Oetomo and Sam

Picture 37 - Please help identify- Cheri???.

Picture 38 - After a good and full day, the group heads back to the bus for the short trip home.  I think everyone agreed - It was an excellent visit. 

Thanks to Jim Steinmetz for putting this trip together, to Ruthe Ingram for the logistics work, and to Neal Davis  for arranging for the bus and handling the finances.

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The Orange County Woodworkers arranged another visit on June 24, 2006 and I took a few pictures.  I didn't do a web page for that visit but here's a few pictures from that visit.

Here's Sam autographing books for us.  He was 90 years old when we visited him this time.  He was born January 24, 1916.  He passed away in 2009, at the age of 93 from prostate cancer.

Sam in the shop.

Sam with a cradle that he makes.  He said that when an order for a cradle comes in, it goes to the top of the list.

Sam in a pensive moment. 

Sam really enjoyed talking with other woodworkers.  Roz would come and remind him that he had another engagement, but he'd just wave her off and continue telling stories.

I talked with Roz for a while and asked her about the business.  She said she came to work for Sam when he was in his 80's.  She looked at the backlog and he had a three year backlog for rocking chairs.  She said, "Based on his age, I didn't want a three year backlog, I wanted a one year backlog.  So I started raising the price.  But no matter what I did, he always had a three year backlog!"

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