C2—Lancaster Fanning, Saturday, November 22,1980 Daily fanner leaves strange legacy BY JANE BRESEE Staff Correspondent A large model of a sailing ship is a strange legacy for a dairy fanner to leave the world. This is the story as far as it can be pieced together. Karl Markert, the creator of the ship model, was bom in 1905 in Wemsberg, West Germany He worked as a blacksmith in Germany and came to the United States in 1928 where he was employed by a bus company on Long Island. As the story goes - he saw a picture of a German sailung ship on a postcard, probably one sent to him from Ger many, and for some reason the picture inspired him to make a small replica of the ship. Perhaps he had always dreamed of being a sailor and was captivated by the grace and beauty of sailing ships; perhaps he was just making a fancy cabinet for a radio which in those days was quite a novelty; or maybe he was homesick and needed something to take up his time. Karl made detailed blueprints and afterward built the model in his spare tune m the basement of a friend’s house. It took him three years to complete it. The model ship is not a small work of art. It is con structed from strips of brass layered and shaped to form the hull. There are three tall masts, holding 17 copper rectangular sails and 4 triangular lateen sails, also copper. The model measures 4 by 6 feet from stem to stem. The sealing ship is perfect in every detail right down to the one inch door on the deck house which opens and closes on tiny hinges. Miniature life boats, each supplies with diminutive oars, are hunt at intervals along the deck. The rigging is strung exactly as a real ship would be, but wires are used instead of rope, and fastened with little pulleys to the railings and deck. It is a maze of defaiheven to the “rope” ladders leading to the top of each mast As an added whimsey, Mr Markert installed a radio (which no longer works) under the deck, and lights mside the hull to shine through the real portholes He named her the El-Ba Rose <?# ~ -fc<v Karl Markert, now older, and dressed m working His farm buildings are in the background clothes, is seated proudly astride his prize horse. i t 1 *- V Markert’s great-niece, Karen iman, marvels at the tiny lifeboat on the ship model at her home. Her mother, Mary Ann Laman, remembers ad Preoccupied with making the model ship, young Markert must have survived the depression in the early JO’s on Long Island. During that decade he met a girl, also a German immigrant, and married her. In the early 1940 s, the young couple moved trom the city to a dairy tarm near Greenwich, New York, near Sarasota Why they moved is a question no one can an swer; perhaps there was no opportunity tor advancement where he worked, maybe he had always dreamed ot being a farmer and was sick ot city living, or he might have become a farmer to escape the draft for the second World War He couldn't have been blamed for that as tor a soldier he would have been cast an an enemy to his own relatives and friends in Germany The niece ot Mrs Markert, Mary Ann Laman ot Waverly, New York, who supplied this information, visited the farm when she was small It was a small dairy farm, she remembers, and remote - the mailbox was a mile away from the house Her uncle loved horses and had a couple of riding horses in addition to his working team. Of course, he shod them himself, having been as blacksmith in Germany He must have also loved German Shepherd dogs, for two are evident in one of the snapshots saved by his sister-in-law, Mary Ann’s mother. Mary Ann belives her aunt and uncle never took a vacation away from the farm nor ever went back to visit Germany. They lived on the farm for over 30 years until one day in 1974 when Mr. Market! went out with the dogs to get the cows, the dogs came back without him. He died as he would have wanted - doing his regular chores. Soon after that, Mrs. Market! gave the ship model to Mary Ann, and a few years later, Mrs Market! died also The Markerts had no children of their own They left practically nothing except the ship model, the plans for it, A miring the ship as a child when she visited the Markerts at their farm. and some snapshots The tarm was sold and apparently not even a horseshoe was saved as a remembrance. There is no trace of any other work of art Mr. Markert might have created Surely he must have gone about his farming with the same meticulous attention to detail exhibited in making the ship, but it is not remembered or recorded. Now the ship is in the huge Victorian home ot Don and Mary Ann Laman at JIJ Chemung Street m Waverly, New York The Laman s wish it could be seen by many more people in order to be tuily appreciated. The Laman’s themselves value antiques, Don has a part lime buoiness retimshing and selling antique furniture The old carnage house out back is full ot furniture beautifully restored Upstairs in the Laman s lovely old home, the model sailing ship, the El-Ba Rose, rests, a silent monument to a clever young man’s forgotten dream. What a unique legacy to leave the world! The young Karl Marker!, proud of his recent accomplishment stands happily beside the sailing ship model which took him three years to build. Htemes(ead " r tfates
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