2003 MCC sale: Goessel man donates clocks to auction years ago
By JENNIFER WILSON
News editor
Ask Orie Voth what time it is, and he can probably tell you.
In fact, he's pretty good at making time — or rather, making clocks.
Voth, a lifelong Goessel resident, has been making clocks since he and his wife, Frieda, moved to town in the early 1980s.
This is his 17th year to donate a 35-inch handmade oak clock, complete with pendulum and Westminster chimes, to the general auction of the Mennonite Relief Sale.
Voth got bit by the woodworking bug early in his life in grade school. As he moved on to Goessel High School, he looked forward to woodworking classes every week.
Now that he's retired from farming, Voth can devote more time to making clocks and other wood items such as doll cradles and shelves.
So how does one make a clock?
First, Voth receives planks of wood from a shipper in Kansas City. Most of the time he works with oak, although he has worked with walnut and ash occasionally. He cuts and sands the wood to the exact sizes and pieces everything together.
Voth orders the internal workings of the clock from a catalog, and all the clocks are battery-powered. He then decides what kind of clock to make — small or large? Arabic or Roman numerals? Dark or light stain?
Voth makes at least eight different models of clocks, ranging from the small seven-inch high desk clock to flat wall clocks to pendulum clocks with chimes — which is his best-selling model, he said. He's even made clocks with built-in shelves and pegs to hang things on.
For the past 17 years, Voth has nearly always donated the 35-inch wall clock with pendulum and chimes. Each one is numbered, and his next one will be No. 255.
But don't ask Voth to count how many clocks he's made over a lifetime — that's just impossible.
"I wouldn't have any idea," he said, laughing.
A normal pendulum wall clock, like the kind he's donating to the MCC sale, would go for $130. The highest a clock has ever brought in at the MCC auction was $775, Voth said.
This year Voth is also bringing a rocking doll cradle to the sale — the first time he's ever brought something in addition to the clock.
Voths stresses that his clock making is just a hobby. He and his wife travel to four craft shows a year.
He doesn't care much for television and he's not a fast reader — but Voth has found his niche.
"I always enjoy woodwork," he said.
Voth's clock will be auctioned off at the MCC sale's general auction, to be held Saturday, April 12, from 8:45 a.m. through mid-afternoon. The sale starts Friday evening at the state fairgrounds in Hutchinson.
