“He’s the one who inspired me to start,” remarked Dan Strawser, speaking about Lester Breininger’s influence in getting him started with woodcarving in the late 1960s. Daniel Strawser Sr. was born in Robesonia, Pa., in 1943. His folk carving career is over five decades old, and famous 19th-century carver Wilhelm Schimmel was a major stylistic influence. Strawser grew up on Penn Avenue across the street from James Spears. Spears was an author/local historian and collector of epic proportions. His book, “House of Derr,” was first published in 1949. A second printing was done in 1973. It is a compilation history of the Derr family, notably metalsmith Peter Derr (1793-1868). “Spears’ wife was an antiques dealer and had a shop in the barn,” stated Strawser. Spears died in 1961 and was very active in the 1940s. Pennypacker’s had a series of estate sales for him in the early 1960s.
Dan Strawser was in high school at Conrad Weiser when Lester Breininger began his teaching career there in the science department. “I remember Lester’s very first year teaching, I was entering high school and had his class,” said Strawser, who graduated in the Class of 1961. In 2016, Conrad Weiser entered Strawser into the school’s distinguished alumni Hall of Fame.
“After high school, I took one of Lester’s adult education local history classes held in the evenings,” said Strawser. Breininger was a historian intrigued with Pennsylvania German traditional arts. He is most well-known for running a redware pottery business. “Lester and I would often carve together on Sunday afternoons,” mentioned Strawser, who began in 1968. Strawser would exhibit and sell his work in the early 1970s at the Kutztown Folk Festival and Breininger’s Porch Shows.
During this time, Strawser worked at the Publix shirt factory located in Myerstown in the pattern department. In 1985, the company transfered him to Tennessee. In 1993, the plant closed, which was when he began carving on a full-time basis. From 2002 to 2008, Strawser lived in Coatesville, Pa., and in 2008, moved to Maine following his wife, Donna, retiring from teaching,. They currently live in Newcastle, Maine, and do two folk art shows a year, one at Claudia Hopf’s house in Kennebunk, Maine, and the other at the Robesonia Furnace in Pennsylvania.
The photos show a small example of his work, both early and present day, and tell more of the story.
To learn more, visit Strawser’s Facebook page, Daniel Strawser Traditional Folk Carvings.