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photos and story by Amy Barnes
It is not what you want to make the wood into, it is what the wood wants to be, says Robert Dunfee, standing in his “garsh,” his term for his combination garage and workshop, surrounded by tools, pieces of wood and toys he has created.
Dunfee learned to listen to the wood at the knees of his father and maternal grandfather, both of whom practiced the art of woodworking as a necessity, not as a hobby. It was his father, also named Robert Dunfee, who taught Dunfee how to use woodworking tools. However, it was not a straight or obvious path that Dunfee followed to become a toy maker.
Throughout his working years, Dunfee has pursued several paths, including being an associate pastor and an electrician, at one time working for his
father’s company. He got an engineering degree from Lorain Community College, followed by an electrical apprenticeship.
Dunfee worked mostly in construction and found he loved taking blueprints and turning them into actuality. He inherited his father’s love of problem solving and solving puzzles.
However, by age 55, Dunfee found that electrical work was becoming too hard on his body so he retired.
The quiet of retirement was not for him, however, and he then got a paramedics degree and found another new love.
“You have to be an adrenaline addict to be a paramedic,” Dunfee said.
At the time, he and his wife, Cyndi, were living in New Mexico.
The couple has lived in Idaho; Seattle, Washington;
A knothole table Dunfee made
New Hampshire; Sweden; and India. The longest they have ever lived in one place was six years.
Part of the reason for all of the moving was their missionary work with Youth With a Mission, part of the reason was for work, and the rest was because of their love of experiencing different regions, cultures, and other countries.
“Our passion was community development,” Dunfee said.
The couple even started an import company to help micro enterprises with goods made by women in other countries. The company was not a moneymaker for the couple, but they were satisfied they were helping others. They closed the company because the work was so exhausting for them.
Left to right, Cody and Wilson try out a dog puzzle made by Dunfee. photo by Robert Dunfee
“It requires a lot of work and a lot of emotion,” Dunfee said.
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They returned to their birth state of Ohio, three years ago.
“It took us 60 years, but we finally settled down,” Dunfee said.
Cyndi Dunfee smiles, glances at her husband, and says, “Maybe.”
The two met through mutual friends who hung out together after work.
“Our friends were friends, we hung out a lot together,” Dunfee said.
Dunfee says he was shy, and it was Cyndi who talked to him. A relationship and love blossomed from there. They married in 1978.
After so many years of career restlessness, Dunfee returned to the lessons learned when young to find peace.
He found that working with wood was his calling, after all.
The way that the grain and texture of wood is different from tree to tree presents unique challenges that keep Dunfee’s mind interested and entertained.
“I need to keep myself challenged,” Dunfee said.
He said that one day he can make something and then, three months later, find how much better he can make it because of the skill and knowledge he
has gained in the meantime.
Wood for his projects is reclaimed from wooden pallets, siding from old barns, and even a pieces of old furniture from the side of the road. He works with oak, maple, walnut, ash, and pine.
“I love making toys,” Dunfee said, adding that the toys are not made to scale.
He loves to be able to build for children, to see toys he has made bring happiness to a child.
One of his biggest regrets is that he did not make toys for his own children when they were young. He wistfully recalls buying plans for a rocking chair several years ago and never making it.
Wooden toys have a special significance to Dunfee. He remembers with great fondness the wooden toys that he would play with in his pediatrician’s waiting room. He said it was the only way his parents could get him to go for his regular checkups.
He wants to make toys that can be played with roughly but will last and become family heirlooms, unlike the toys found in stores today.
Ironically, the toy he still has from his childhood is made of metal, not wood.
It is his beloved trike with attached wagon that he would enthusiastically ride when he was a tyke. It is
The mounted wood duck that was a gift from Robert Dunfee to his father and whom Dunfee’s shop is named after: Wood Duck Wood. photo by Robert Dunfee
rusted and sits quietly now, holding plants in its wagon, but Dunfee has no plans to restore it. He and Cyndi love it, just the way it is.
While he does not stain or paint the toys he makes, he does sometimes singe the wood to shrink back the pulp and raise and darken the grain for a more detailed look.
He has dabbled in making furniture, usually whatever Cyndi finds she needs.
“He’ll play around with a design and dimensions,” Cyndi said.
“I’m a little more than a hobbyist but not a professional,” Dunfee said.
“A pro-hobbyist!” Cyndi interjects with a smile. Dunfee smiles back and agrees.
Dunfee has had booths at art and craft shows and gets a kick out of watching children play with his toys. He said parents tell their children not to touch, but he does not mind. After all, he builds the toys for play and they are built rock solid. It is all about having fun, he says.
“He likes to make something from nothing,” Cyndi said.
He even makes puzzles for dogs.
“The dog puzzles have been so fun,” Robert Dunfee, as photographed by his grandson, Jacob Tomasch he said. paintings and ask him to explain them. Instead of
Dunfee also makes wood sculpture paintings from answering, he asks the questioners to look at the wood scraps. Some of them are very dark and eerie, painting and tell him what they see, what does the but all show the talents of the man. He shapes and painting mean to them? fits the wood, with just a touch of paint here and He says that, unfortunately, he is like his dad and is there to emphasize what the wood is telling him to bad at business. It is more important to him that create. people enjoy his work than that he makes money. He
“I do things by feel, or I ask Cyndi,” Dunfee said. says that when someone likes his work, he feels a Cyndi happily fills the role of design consultant. Their glow, but that it is more nuclear. favorite place to confer is across their kitchen island. “Something I built, they are putting a value to it.
Dunfee said people often question him about his continued, Page 8
Cyndi and Robert Dunfee have one of their frequent brainstorming sessions.
There is an immense joy to that,” Dunfee said.
He started his business as Wood Shapers Shop, but there was a Maryland company with the same name, so he changed the name of his shop to avoid confusion.
His shop is now known as Wood Duck Wood Designs. The name comes from a stuffed wood duck that a 20-something-year-old Dunfee gave to his father as a gift. After his father’s death, the duck came back to Dunfee, and it now resides on a top shelf in his garsh.
Every item Dunfee creates is an original. While he might create more than one fire truck, for instance, each one is an individual item, unique and never the same so that each person gets an original item like no one else’s.
What does Cyndi do while Dunfee is busy creating in his garsh?
She tutors adult English language classes, which she began doing when overseas. She currently tutors through Cuyahoga Community College. The challenges have been dramatically increased with COVID-19 precautions halting in-person meetings and increasing at-home schooling.
Cyndi said that many times the families have only one phone or one computer. When the children need
A small table with various woods Robert Dunfee made to use the one piece of technology in the home for schooling, the parents step aside in their English tutoring classes. Add to that the challenges with internet connections and trying to speak clearly enough to be understood, and it has made tutoring a very frustrating and long process to make any progress.
Just as Cyndi is a consultant for Dunfee, he is a sounding board for Cyndi when she is considering whether she can fit another student into her schedule.
When Dunfee’s father, Big Bob, got kidney cancer, he managed to fight it into remission, but then,14 years later, his lungs showed spots. The cancer had returned with a vengeance.
Dunfee and Cyndi were in India when they were notified they needed to come home, fast. It was only three to four months later that the man who meant so much to Dunfee and who had taught him so much was gone.
He remembers fondly being called Little Bob while
Dunfee’s cliff dwelling painting made using wood pieces and paint, he also makes the frames for his pictures.
his father was called Big Bob.
Big Bob was always inventing things, remembers Dunfee. One of Big Bob’s inventions was an energysaving device that plugged in and managed a house’s electricity flow to lower the cost. Unfortunately, because Big Bob was trusting and loved to share his ideas, he shared his idea with the wrong person, who then turned around and patented it and claimed it for his own.
Dunfee was raised with a strict code of honor, which his father set by example.
“To call my dad a cheater or a liar, you might as well call the pope not celibate,” Dunfee said.
When Dunfee was 10 years old, his father gave him a tube radio set to build on his own because he
continued from Page 9 wanted to share his skills and love of learning with his son.
Big Bob always wanted to help people, Dunfee said.
Dunfee’s father graduated from high school and joined the Air Force, fighting in the Korean War. Following his time in the service, Big Bob took the college entrance exam for Bowling Green State University and failed the test. He was given a stack of books to study and was told by college officials to return to retake the test after he had finished studying.
One month later, Big Bob returned. In that month, he had taught himself algebra, geometry, calculus, and trigonometry.
He retook the test and passed. College officials were in disbelief.
“They asked him, ‘OK, how’d you do it?’,” said Dunfee. Big Bob was confused, how did he do what?
Big Bob could not convince anyone he had not cheated, so they made him retake the test while a college official stayed in the room with him and watched.
His score was even higher on the second test than it had been the first time, said Dunfee, with a big smile. What was Big Bob so determined to attend college for? Dunfee cannot remember, he only remembers the story demonstrating how smart and determined his father was.
Eventually, Big Bob started a company called Systems Electric in Elyria. Dunfee said his father was known for helping people out, but was terrible at running a business. He would rather help someone
Robert Dunfee’s childhood trike and wagon
than worry about charging them for his work.
“My dad was a fantastic electrician,” said Dunfee.
Following his father’s death, Dunfee’s mother, Mary, sold the house and moved to an apartment in North Ridgeville. She had been a private-care nurse and a nurse at Elyria Memorial Hospital.
Dunfee admires her can-do spirit, too. When Mary was in her 60s, she decided to upgrade her nursing status and get her bachelor’s degree in nursing.
Shortly after Big Bob’s death, Mary started to falter and had trouble caring for herself. She would get lost and leave things cooking on the stove. It became obvious that after all of her years of giving care, it was her turn to be given care.
She was moved to Atlanta to live with Dunfee’s youngest brother. Only a couple of years after the death of Big Bob, and she, too, was gone.
“I loved my mom,” so much, Dunfee quietly said.
He has two younger brothers and a younger sister. He and Cyndi have two daughters, Meghan Gray and Erica Tomasch.
Gray is a neonatal nurse in Texas and is married to Luke who is a flight nurse and is studying to be a nurse practitioner. They have a 15-year-old son, Lucas, and an 11-year-old daughter, Katherine.
Tomasch lives in Medina and works at Perkins Insurance Agency; sells rare tropical plants; and works with her husband, Andrew, at their business Arterra Landscaping. Andrew also is an artist. They have a son, Jacob, who is attending the University of Cincinnati with the goal of traveling, teaching English, and being a photographer.
