Alex Paul
A 32-foot tall totem pole carved by Milton Dodge sa decade ago was recently erected at the Joe Geil home.
Dodge crafted hundreds of carvings for area homes and businesses here during the 1980s but moved to Iowa in the mid-1990s after the death of his wife.
The fact that the totem pole was erected during a visit here was gratifying to the 73-year-old Dodge.
“I’m a Dodge who was born in Plymouth County, Iowa,” he said with a laugh. “I was born at Kingsley, Iowa and my family moved to Halsey.”
Dodge’s father, a blacksmith, loved western movies and took his family to Oregon because he wanted to move where he could live a western lifestyle, shoeing horses.
From Halsey, the family moved to Crawfordsville and then to Holley.
Dodge also made his living with his hands, but not in the blacksmithing business. He worked at Tack Logging and Melcher Logging for many years. His eyes still well up with tears when he talks about his former boss, Jerry Tack, who was killed in a logging accident five years ago.
“There’s no one like Jerry,” Dodge said. “He was the very best.”
It was while Dodge was standing on a logging landing that his artistic talents began to take shape.
“I started carving a block of wood on a landing,” he said. “I never had any training or any idea that I could do it. I worked up to carving snags along the roadway.”
Pretty soon, Dodge said, people began taking the artworks home.
Dodge takes a simplistic approach to his work.
“I carve what people want,” he said. “I don’t see anything in the wood, I just start carving. If you want something, I’ll try to make it happen.”
The father of 13 children, now grown, Dodge’s son Tim enjoys working with Native American artworks, including crafting arrowheads.
“I tried it once, cut myself and bled like a stuck hog,” Dodge said.