‘A person who helped’

Merrill Nichols once had a woman ask him to replicate a cabinet she had on one side of her fireplace mantel so she could have another on the opposite side. He complied and went to work at what he did best, however she kept coming back to him to see if he was doing it right. Merrill looked to his wife, Gladys, and said that was the last time he was going to sell any of his handiwork.

“Because when you start selling it, it’s no longer fun to make,” remembers Merrill’s son David, who owns and operates Nichols Farms, a family farming operation near Bridgewater that sells beef genetics and value added programs, marketing bulls, semen and embryos throughout the world.

‘A person who helped’

Today, David tells of his father’s love for master carpentry, that it was nearly a full-time hobby for him. In fact, David and his wife Phyllis say that over 50% of the furniture in their home was made by Merrill.

“He was truly, truly a master carpenter,” David said. “He bought most of his wood in standing trees and then had it cut up. He then air dried it for a year at a time. He did it the right way. He has furniture and other things that he made that are beautiful pieces like the pieces they made years ago.”

But, Merrill’s giving heart stemmed from farther back than his carpentry. Having remembered his days on the farm as a child scooping corn, Merrill moved from Nebraska to Iowa to start his own operation here, but he exchanged his Belgian team of horses he had for a new Oliver 70 tractor. He then installed a hydraulic pump in it to power the hydraulic mechanism that dumped his wagon so he wouldn’t have to scoop corn.

An Iowa hydraulics company approached him and tried to strike a deal so they could have the plans for the hydraulic mechanism, which he had not yet patented. They offered him $20 for every unit they would sell. Merrill instead gave them the plans, told them to build them and sell them to all the boys who were coming home from fighting in World War II, “because they for damn sure don’t need to be scooping corn.”

“He was a person who helped,” is the resounding message, David said. “He had a welder, a lathe, and if the neighbors would have something that broke down they’d ask him what they owed him, and he’d tell them he didn’t want any money but ‘There’s this fence I have out there that needs some wires tightened’ or something, and they could go work on that while he was fixing their equipment.”

A partnership to believe in

David was recently doing a rebuild on a machine shed that had a large supply of walnut, oak and wild cherry lumber in it that was left behind when his father suddenly retired from woodworking after having a stroke.

“I thought about selling it, because those things are high [priced], and I even thought about selling it to someone at a greatly reduced price, but it was quite a big load of it,” Nichols said.

Citing a longtime relationship Nichols Farms has had with Southwestern Community College and wanting to carry on his dad’s legacy of giving, David contacted the college and decided to donate the wood to its carpentry and building trades program so the cycle of giving could continue.

The carpentry program at SWCC gives college and high school students across the region opportunities at classes for college credit. Students can learn to practice quality workmanship that is required in the carpentry field, they can learn to use appropriate techniques, the tools to use and the safety measures that should accompany their use, and more. Every year, students assist in the building of Habitat for Humanity home that a needy family benefits from.

Receiving this load of wood unloaded all sorts of other learning opportunities for the students they might not otherwise get, said one of their instructors, Kyle Harvey. The students were grinning “ear-to-ear” when the trailer of wood was backed into the shop, Nichols said.

Harvey primarily works with the high school students in the program. He said that the rough sawn pine boards in the donation Nichols gave will give students a chance to true up those boards using a large planer and jointer in the shop.

“To be able to take rough sawn lumber in its current state and taking it into something you can make furniture with, that alone is quite an experience for the students,” Harvey said.

Lindsay Stoaks is SWCC’s Vice President of Instruction. She said the institution prides itself on giving students chances like these where they can learn in a hands on way, whether their interests lie in carpentry, nursing, agribusiness, business administration or management, electrician, webpage design, autobody and collision repair, auto mechanic, music, accounting, or some other field of study.

SWCC is grateful for donations such as the one Nichols gave them that partners with their efforts to do this. Stoaks said that those wanting to donate to the college may contact Cait Maitlen, Executive Director of the Education Foundation.

Nichols said Nichols Farms has utilized interns from SWCC before, and he believes in the work community colleges in the state are doing. He encourages people to give to them if they are able.

“It’s given me great joy to know that this wood can be used by students who will learn something from it and make things that will have a lasting impact,” Nichols said. “I want this to serve as a reminder to people that these community colleges are putting out some of the best citizens and families around. I want them to remember Southwestern Community College the next time they give.”