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