Ex-jeweler turns wood into intricate works of art

COLDWATER - A longtime area jeweler's passion for art has spilled over into his retirement.

Will Froelich, 83, took up a form of wood engraving called chip carving after his retirement some 19 years ago. Ornately carved wooden plates and boxes, some of which are hiding more designs on their backs, decorate the walls and cupboards of his Coldwater home.

"Sometimes I get disgusted with a design and have to flip it over and start new," he said.

Froelich, along with his wife, Marilyn, owned Froelich's Jewelry for 40 years. His trades were watchmaking and jewelry making, and he engraved silver and pewter items in their store for years. His wife said he would often work all day at the jewelry shop, then come home and work some more.

"There were many a night when he was working until midnight," Marilyn Froelich said.

Watchmaking, a trade from a bygone era when watches instead of cell phones were primarily used to tell time, required much skill and effort.

"You had to be very patient," Will Froelich said about working with the tiny wheels and cogs.

"Once in a while those tiny wheels would flip away," Marilyn Froelich added. "And we'd all have to get on the floor and look for that itty-bitty wheel. Many a time three or four of us would be down on the floor, all looking, and the front door would open and they'd see us all crawling around."

Before factory-made watches took hold, Will Froelich used magnifying lenses and tiny tweezers to tinker in his shop.

"Nowadays the assembly is all automated," he said. "That's cheating."

Raised in Defiance, Will Froelich attended Bradley University to train as a jeweler and watchmaker.

"I went to Bradley for one year and then the Army called me. So I served that and then went back to school," he said. "I wrote letters to different jewelry stores to see if they needed a watchmaker and I ended up here."

He served in Korea for 18 months, working on things like instrument panels and binoculars. After his time in the Army and school, he had three employment options. He chose Celina and Vogel's Jewelry (now Jones Jeweler) because of Grand Lake.

"I came down to check it out and went past the lake, and thought, 'oh boy, that's nice,' " he said.

While in Celina, he met Marilyn, who worked downtown as well.

"We were thrown together by a couple ornery people downtown," she said.

The Froelichs eventually bought a business in Coldwater and spent many long hours through the years making it a success. While there, a variety of engraving jobs came Will Froelich's way, but one in particular stands out to him: an engraved cup for Woody Hays, brought to him by Jim Otis.

"He was very nervous about that one," Marilyn Froelich said.

After retiring, she bought her husband a book and a knife after a show on TV sparked his interest in the craft of chip carving.

"I knew he needed a hobby," she said. "Because I knew he wouldn't be doing silver bowls anymore."

"She wanted me out of the kitchen," Will Froelich noted, laughing.

When a day turns cloudy or cold, he comes in from his favorite place - the great outdoors - and settles in his workshop at a small desk. His only tools are a special magnifying lens for his right eye, which he uses because a stroke caused damage in his left eye, and a small, sharp knife. A Band-Aid, too, is necessary every now and then, he said.

He works from patterns copied onto the wood using ink and a hot iron. As he makes thousands of tiny cuts in basswood or butternut, the otherwise tidy room gets a fine dusting of tiny wood chips. He has engraved a variety of pieces, like plates, boxes, jewelry holders - even a display for a sword.

After a lifetime spent selling his work, now Will Froelich's creations go only to family members. His adult daughters and their families are his primary customers.

"They keep putting in orders for stuff and I'm running out of ideas," he said, laughing. "Each one is different."

Retirement has not dulled the creative mind of the lifelong jeweler but now he engraves mainly to please himself. He makes art for enjoyment, not profit, and his work was most recently displayed at Artistry Under the Dome, held at St. Charles Center in Carthagena.

"Whether I would be able to please somebody else, I don't know," he said. "But what I do, I do it for myself."