Watchmaking
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correct time)
Watch
and clock repair was always a part of the Easley way
As early
as the early nineteenth century, the Easley menfolk have built and repaired
clocks.
During the
late Civil War times my grandfather, James (Jim) Easley maintained his
own mantle pendulum clocks and made what parts needed replacing.
This was an avocation
and not a
way of life. He was a farmer by trade, but very gifted, as were most
all of the
males in
the clan. The Easleys were on record as inventors and thinkers, one,
the inventor of the principle of carburetion, and, one, a professor of
psychology, and yet another, the founder of a city and college, Easley,
South Carolina.
My
only brother, Don Easley, was a master watchmaker who served his apprenticeship
with a master watchmaker who was a certified railroad watchmaker in Albuquerque,
New Mexico. He later extended his training with another master watchmaker
in Denver, Colorado where he took his final tests where he actually built
a railroad watch and adjusted it to keep time within railroad specifications
of the times. The watches for the railroad engineers and all who
carried the railroad watches, were required to keep perfect time in five
positions within two seconds per month.
The watches
appearing on this page are an Illinois, 19-jewel railroad watch which was
one of Don's prize possessions, a Hamilton railroad watch, and a new Swiss
watch with a porcelain dial that my daughter, Pamela, had made especially
for me by a watchmaker in Switzerland when she was on a violin concert
tour of Europe in the late 1970s. It has never been used or carried
on my person. It remains new and a prized possession from my dear
daughter
In addition
to Don's talent as a master watchmaker, he was a fine jeweler and designer
of fine jewelry and owned his own jewelry businesses in Boulder,
Colorado and Albuquerque, New Mexico. He also served his country
in the U.S. Navy as a watchmaker and an aircraft instrument technician
in the Pacific theater and for the U.S Air Force at Kirtland Air Force
Base at Albuquerque.
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