Life of a Handle Maker

Bob Keathley smiles while holding one of his wooden bowls, which often involve hundreds of pieces. “One vase I make is 480 pieces, and I’ve made it many times,” he says.

Jasmine Jones

It has been decades since Bob Keathley of Cape Girardeau sold his handle manufacturing company, IXL Manufacturing Company, but evidence of his career pervades his residence. Large woodworking machines crowd his garage. Boy Scout awards adorn the walls, and stacks of wood sit on shelves waiting to be made into something beautiful. In Keathley’s living room, there are piles of photo albums, each filled with photographs of his wooden creations. Even the amber-colored cat prancing around on his carpet is named “Hickory,” a reference to the type of wood used for handle-making.

A line of True Temper striking tool handles are placed over a poster showing the different types of handles. The tool manufacturing company bought IXL Manufacturing from the Keathleys in 1997.

Jasmine Jones

“All I’ve known all my life is handles,” Keathley says.

Keathley demonstrates the process of piecing together one of his wooden bowls. Despite the time and patience required to complete a bowl, Keathley has made more than 550 of them.

Jasmine Jones

Before he was born, Keathley’s handle-making future started when his great-great grandfather, John F. Keathley, purchased a grist mill on Big Creek near Sam A. Baker Park in Patterson, Mo. After adding handle-making equipment to the mill, the Keathley legacy began. Both Keathley’s grandfather and father worked in handle mills, primarily in Kroger’s Ridge, a stretch of mills from Jackson to Arkansas.

Then, Keathley’s grandfather and father relocated to Memphis, Tenn., to work in another handle mill. In 1936, Keathley was born and spent his first years of life alongside rock music legend Elvis Presley.

An axe sits on top of a LaPierre-Sawyer hickory dust bag. Hickory was the preferred wood for handle-making due to its tensile strength and ability to take shock.

Jasmine Jones

“Elvis Presley and I grew up together,” Keathley says nonchalantly. “We had the same babysitter.”

Not only did Presley and Keathley share a babysitter, they shared genetics. Vera Keathley and Gladys Presley, the boys’ mothers, were first cousins. When Keathley turned six, they left their cousins in Memphis, Tenn., so his father could own and operate a handle mill in Dexter, Mo.

Bob Keathley’s father, E.L. Keathley, and eldest son, Mike Keathley, stand next to him for a photo. They represent three generations of the Keathley handle–making legacy.

(Submitted photo)

Keathley spent the rest of his childhood in Dexter, where he graduated from high school in 1954. As a teenager, Keathley attended Handle Bar Association meetings with his father and Tom LaPierre, the owner of LaPierre-Sawyer Handle Co.

“I realized you couldn’t believe anything in those meetings about what was said,” Keathley says. “They were all competitors.”

An employee of LaPierre-Sawyer Handle Co. carefully shapes a piece of hickory wood. In front of the employee is a pile of blanks to be shaped into striking tool handles.

(Submitted photo)

Keathley’s father and Tom LaPierre were competitors but took different processes when it came to making handles. Because of these differences, they treated each other as suppliers instead of competitors.

“[Tom LaPierre’s] thing was making a quality product, and when you buy hickory trees, the whole tree don’t make a quality product,” Keathley says. “Only 40% of the tree makes a quality product. The rest of it has color differences or small defects.”

Jasmine Jones

“We were selling everything,” Keathley says of his handle mill. “Whatever the tree made, we tried to get out and sell it.”

It was a mutually-beneficial relationship, with LaPierre selling off unwanted material and Keathley purchasing the unwanted material to make more products. When LaPierre died, the Keathleys bought the LaPierre-Sawyer Handle Co. in Jackson and continued buying handle mills along Kroger’s Ridge throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Eventually, they owned 14 mills, ranging from Memphis to Canada. During this time, Keathley was heavily involved in the family business and took charge of operations in 1985. Keathley ran IXL Manufacturing Group until selling it to True Temper in 1997. Although Keathley retired from handle-making in 1997, he still buys stacks of fresh hickory wood. But instead of making handles from the wood, Keathley uses it to create ornate bowls, tables and even wagons used in Civil War reenactments. Overall, Keathley has hand-crafted 550 wooden bowls. Despite the unique beauty of each bowl, Keathley does not keep his creations. He gives them all away.

Jasmine Jones

“Sometimes, my wife will like them, but I tell her we got to give them away,” Keathley says.

“[The bowls] are wonderful,” says Keathley’s wife, Yvonne. “They’re beautiful, and everyone wants one.”

There is currently an exhibit dedicated to Bob Keathley’s wooden bowls at the Cape Girardeau County History Center. He has also given countless historical artifacts and books to the history center, including a timeclock from the LaPierre-Sawyer mill and his collection of Elvis Presley books.

“Bob Keathley and his wife, Yvonne, have been a gift to the Cape Girardeau County Historical Society,” says Carla Jordan, director of the Cape Girardeau County Historical Society. “Their stories are a privilege to document. It is an honor to exhibit their collections.”

Keathley has also played his part in preserving history by commissioning a translation of an old German book he found at an estate sale. The rare 1784 book chronicled early America from the perspective of a German historian. Before Keathley, there was no known translation, but now one exists in his book, “1700s in America: The Historical Genealogical Calendar of Worldwide Events for the 1784 World’s Fair at Leipzig.”

During retirement, Keathley and Yvonne have traveled throughout Europe, North America and South America without using a single airplane after Keathley decided he disliked flying. When traveling to Alaska, they drove, took two trains across Canada, then a boat from Seattle to their final destination. On their way back, they did it all again.

“It took a month,” Keathley says with a laugh. “We’ve done some crazy things.”

Keathley has a relentless curiosity for this world, and everything he discovers, he wants to share with others. He gives away every bowl he crafts. He donates artifacts to museums. He preserves history by publishing it for all to see. From his handle-making days to the present, he has accomplished so much and continues to do so. At the moment, he is finishing his 551st wooden bowl.