Tillers Instructors Pam and Darold Francis
 Darold Francis
"I have been interested in tools and machinery ever since I was a boy. In my teens I helped design and build machinery and tools to increase productivity in my father's screen door and tub enclosure business in the 1960s. I continued to do that during my career. Since then during spare hours in the busy life of an engineer and business owner, I have sought out various wood and metal working crafts.
My great great grandfather John Francis was a cooper in Wednesbury, England in 1842. He migrated to the United States and hung up his shingle in Utah about 1879. In 1997 I had this really strong impression that came over me that I needed to learn to be a cooper. I took my first class at the John C. Campbell Folk School. After making my first bucket, and it was water tight, my instructor said, 'You have your great great grandfather’s skills.'
My second class was taught by Chuck Andrews from Tillers International. There I learned bucket making. My third class I made my own cooper tools. My fourth class was that of making a barrel. I have since produced many items such as buckets, butter churns, wash basins, steins, artillery buckets, canteens etc. Out of necessity, I built my own draw horses and made my own coopering tools. I have been enjoying myself throughout this entire experience. I quickly found out that I had inherited some of my ancestor’s skills. The art of coopering is complex and requires a different mindset than other types of woodworking.
While I was busy learning to cooper at the John C. Campbell Folk School, my wife Pam was busy learning to make brooms. One day Pam was making a broom, andI asked her if she would show me what she was doing. The rest is history, we both started making brooms and became hooked. We have traveled the state of Utah and Wyoming doing demonstrations, have been featured in a magazine and had several articles published in local newspapers. We have won various awards and love sharing our hobby with each other."
Darold's Classes
Appalachian Art Brooms - 184
Coopering - 445
Coopering Barrels - 448
Coopering Tools - 455
Pam Francis
Life began in a home where her mother used diet and supplements when needed to help the family improve their health. When Pam studied for her Bachelors in Education degree, it taught her much about the skills needed for expanded learning and research. Later in her life, when years of seeking help from the medical field in two states failed, her chronic fatigue was overcome through her own study of herbs and homeopathic remedies.
When her family was grown, Pam began working toward a second Bachelors degree in Midwifery. The course work included formal instruction in alternative methods of healing with the use of herbs, therapeutic massage, kinesiology, iridology, hydrotherapy, and reflexology. She has spent many years using herbs, homeopathics, tinctures, and poulitces to successfully treat all manner of ailments in her home and practice.
At the age of 8 years Pam began her training in the needle arts. Her mother taught her to sew only after much persuasion by her daughter, who was perceived as much too young to learn. But Pam surprised her mom by picking up on each skill very quickly, and thereafter all the clothes she wore through grade school until she graduated college were hand sewn by this eager daughter.
As Pam grew older she learned to cross stitch, embroider, and later crochet and knit. These needle arts have served her well and have been a source of many useful items in the home as well as gifts to children and grandchildren, friends and family.
Pam's Needle Arts class is designed to teach the basic skills for beginning crochet: how to hold the yarn and crochet hook and how to make the starting chain. Then we will learn the single crochet and double crochet stitches. These will be put to use in the first project, a dishcloth that is quick and easy to make, and very useful in the kitchen.
Pam's Classes
Home Herbals - 148
Appalachian Broom Making - 183
Appalachian Art Brooms - 184
Needle Arts - 190
 Swept into the Past
Frank Holdaway
Best Years Magazine
March/April 2006
Volume II Number 3
If you ask Pam and Darold Francis how they got started making brooms and buckets, you won't get the typical story.
It wasn't the fulfillment of a lifetime dream; it wasn't something that had caught their attention in a book or on the Discovery Channel; and it wasn't anything they began doing because of their children. You might say it came by way of suggestion from a relative, but even this would not be typical, since this particular relative had been dead for many years. It happened one day when Darold was driving home from work.
"I was driving on Geneva Road, down near 2000 South, and I just had this real strong impression that came over me that I needed to learn to be a cooper. I knew that my great, great grandfather had been a cooper, but it really surprised me. I thought, "What in the world? You can't make a living being a cooper." I came home and I told Pam, and she said, "That's great; let's do it."
They talked about it for a couple of weeks, but gradually the impression faded and Pam and Darold continued on with their normal lives.
"Then almost exactly a year later, on that same spot on Geneva Road,  the same impression came back to me. So I came back to Pam and said, "You know, we really ought to follow through on this," and, of course, we didn't. But when it happened a third time the next year, we knew we had to get serious."
Darold got on the computer and started finding out all he could about coopering. At that time, there wasn't much. But he did find a man who told him about the John C. Campbell Folk School in North Carolina that offered classes. Darold signed up for a class on barrel and bucket making.
Pam thought she would just go along and observe Darold  for the week. But when Darold asked her what class she was going to take, she was at a loss.
"I didn't want to do basket weaving, canoe building, glass bead making, or clay modeling... but the broom making class was interesting because I knew nothing about it. I knew nothing about how a broom was made."
"My first broom was a cobweb. It was crude but passable. The next day I made a child's broom--and the improvement in workmanship was remarkable. The other brooms I made throughout the week got even better. This was really fun!"
Darold also was enjoying himself. He quickly found out that he had inherited some of his ancestor's skills. The art of coopering is complex and requires a different mindset than other types of woodworking.
"Experienced coopers do most of their measuring with their eyes," Darold explains. "They learn to judge the size and fit of parts without the aid of tapes and squares."
Regular carpenters and woodworkers, although skilled, left barrel and bucket making to the more specialized cooper. An apprentice would learn for six years before he could be called a cooper. It took another 10-12 years before he could be called a Master Cooper. And here Darold was, trying to do the best he knew how in his first week of being exposed to this complex craft. So it surprised Darold and the instructor that on Darold's first bucket, the staves fit together exactly on the initial "stand-up."
Building Brooms and Relationships
When Pam and Darold returned home, Darold began to assemble the tools for the coopering trade. He built two drawhorses, one for coopering and one to use for stripping the bark off broomhandles. But building and gathering the coopering tools and materials took time, and Darold would often be waiting while Pam was busy making brooms.
"One day, as I worked on a broom, he asked me to show him what I was doing. So I showed him. He soon was making them better than I could. He has much more upper body strength, which is a great advantage. Then we both just started making brooms and we thought, "Let's go see if we can sell some of these."
Darold continued learning the craft of coopering, but he and Pam also began traveling to various venues like Thanksgiving Point's farmer's market and showing their brooms. They found that people really liked them. They also found a whole new community of friends who made a hobby of replicating crafts from a bygone era.
Pam and Darold became hooked. They acquired authentic pioneer clothes and began doing demonstrations on coopering and broommaking throughout the summer. This led to meeting new people, seeing new places, and experiencing new things they had never imagined before.
One day they met a man at Thanksgiving Point who uses a replica of a cannon to tell the story of the  Mormon Battalion. He looked at Darold's work and wondered if Darold could make him an artillery bucket. At the time, Darold didn't even know what an artillery bucket was, but he said, "Sure. Give me a picture." So the man sent him a picture and Darold began researching artillery buckets.
The purpose of an artillery bucket is to keep the cannon from exploding. Over time, when a cannon is fired, creosote begins to build up in the barrel. Because creosote can hold a live spark, it is dangerous to continue reloading powder into the barrel without swabbing it with water first. The artillery bucket hangs over the front of the cannon adn holds the water to clean the barrel between firings.
Darold dove into history to understand the use and dimensions of artillery buckets, and then put forth his best effort to create one that was authentic. Finally, he presented the finished product to the man who requested it.
"When I brought it over to him, the first thing he did was fill it with water. He was sure it was going to leak. But it didn't. Not one drop. He said he was shocked because every bucket he had ever seen that was handmade inevitably leaked. So I felt pretty good about that. To a cooper, that is the ultimate."
In addition to a new group of acquaintances and a rich appreciation for their pioneer heritage, Pam and Darold found something else in their newfound hobby that they did not expect--a stronger relationship with each other.
"We've had some wonderful talks because we'll just sit together and I'll be making a bucket or we'll both be making brooms and we'll have time to sit and talk. A lot of times, married couples don't do that. We've read different things where married couples don't talk more than 10 minutes a day, if that much. This gives us an opportunity to sit down, to get to know each other better, and to talk about some significant things in our lives. And so it has really helped to bring us closer together."
The Best Years
Darold and Pam have enjoyed raising their seven children and all phases of their lives. But they are particularly enjoying these years.
"These are some of the best years because we get to pursue what's important to us. In earlier phases, you're focused on producing a living, so your energies are kind of drawn away from you. Now we're able to bring those energies and pursue those interests and activitie that are significant to us. We can't wait to get up in the morning. It's like, 'what can we do today?'"
They also believe there are some tangible benefits of being involved in work that is creative.
"There is a sense of satisfaction, an emotional and spiritual satisfaction where you are able to create something and do the very best that you can. It brings out a lot of creativity; it brings out a lot of ideas; it brings out a lot of good feelings about being alive and learning to do the things that you're doing. We've seen studies that doing creative things with the mind helps to prevent Alzheimer's. In a sense, creativity keeps you going."
One of the main lessons Pam and Darold feel they've learned from their experience is that when you feel you want to do something, you really need to go and do it. It took them three times to get serious about coopering, and they see in others this same tendency to put things off. When they travel to fairs and other venues to show their brooms and buckets, they see it all the time.
"It's amazing to see the people's eyes--they kind of go through this glazed thing and all of a sudden they kind of go, 'Brooms. Wow!' About 70-80% of the people who see our brooms say, 'Oh, I would love to do that.' But nobody does anything. And then they say, 'You're so lucky,' and we tell them that we just took the time and decided that this was what we wanted and we went and did it. Everybody would like to do something, but they just don't take the time to do it."
This is the message they would like to get through to people: When you find something that motivates you--whether it be brooms or buckets or gardening or anything else you find interesting--do something about it. When you hear the voice, don't ignore it. Listen to it and do what it says.
This is what Pam and Darold have done. And for them it has made all the difference.
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