Popular Posts

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Ernie Root By Lawrence Root



Ernie Root

 A Son's Memory of His Father- 

Ernie Root By Lawrence Root

Compiled and edited by Larry Vienneau
My name is Lawrence (Larry) Root and I am the son of Ernie and Marcy Root, the founders, owners, and operators of Root Archery and several other related corporations. I am the last surviving member of the Root family and, at age 65, would like to contribute to the knowledge base for my family's businesses. I have seen many posts asking questions about Root Archery. I would be happy to fill in whatever blanks that I can. Unfortunately, there are very few surviving records, such as yearly production, serial- number ranges, when production went fully to Shakespeare, etc. I do have some records I can access as well as one surviving employee I keep in touch with who was also a member of the Root Archery team.

Root Archery started in my family's basement in suburban Chicago. After outgrowing a couple of small buildings in the area my parents decided to move out of the city, eventually settling in Big Rapids, MI where I still live. I did not pursue archery for many reasons. Dad tried to teach me to shoot, but since it was so natural to him (he was a champion-level tournament archer) he really couldn't teach me how to shoot. Our practice sessions ended when I was quite young. I studied business in college, the assumption being that I would eventually take over the business. I actually began working in the business at age 14, working in the factory starting at age 16 (which was legal as it was a family business). The business was sold to Shakespeare in 1969 and moved to Shakespeare's Columbia, SC facility approximately three years later. I finished my business degree and stayed on with Shakespeare until the move. I left the company when my duties regarding assisting with the move were complete. It was tough going into Dad's office to tell him I was done with my work. I chose to go to law school and in 1976 was elected, at age 28, to serve as the Circuit Judge in my home area of Michigan. I served on the bench for nearly three decades, retiring from the bench in 2005. I now run a law practice limited to alternative dispute resolution services such as serving as an arbitrator or mediator.

The selling of the business was a well-disguised blessing. Root Archery was Ernie Root and he it. Its successful operation depended on him and his knowledge base, both in the design and manufacturing arena as well as on the marketing side. Shakespeare found this out when they moved the operation to SC against the advice of Dad and several key people at Shakespeare. Dad had a five-year management contract as part of the sale of the business but insisted that it contain a term that he need not be forced to perform his duties out of the State of Michigan. He refused to move to SC, so Shakespeare was left to operate the business without Dad's expertise or assistance. It didn't go well...

Our first operations in Michigan were indeed in Rogers Heights, a few miles south of Big Rapids. We had two locations there, plus a small shop in Big Rapids where Precision Bow Strings, my mother's side of the businesses, was located.

To help understand the divisions, there were actually three corporations behind the Root Archery brand. Bow Blanks, Inc. handled the early production steps, making the "sandwich" from which a bow is made. The handle was roughed but feathered. The maple laminations were cut and tapered. The appropriate fiberglass was chosen, then they were all assembled, glued up, and put into a press that used air pressure to hold everything in a form for that particular model. The sandwich (my term) was then heated and the glue cured. Once it was done, it was removed and carefully placed on a cart with racks to hold the assembly horizontally. On cooling the rough bow was ready to move on.

Bow Crafters, Inc., was the operation that took the Bow Blanks and did the detailed work to form the finished bow. This involved a lot of hands work. The bows were strung, their straightness verified and their draw weights checked. The final finishing involved them being sprayed with the finish of the era. They were then ready to go out to fill orders.

Root Archery, Inc. was actually the marketing arm of the business. Archery Research was set up later to handle the development of the Golden Eagle, its manufacturing (on essentially the same lines as the Root Bows), and marketing.

One plant in Rogers Heights was dedicated to Bow Blanks. The other was Bow Crafters and Root Archery.

Eventually, all three were combined into one plant in Big Rapids, but I'll have to research when that occurred. Archery Research came in the Big Rapids time frame. Precision Bow Strings stayed in its separate location in Big Rapids. In fact, it wasn't sold to Shakespeare, but rather to PSE, Inc., at about the same time as the sale of Root Archery.

OK, to address the questions:
Root Archery made Shakespeare bows, as well as other private-branded bows, at the same time and on the same production lines as Root Bows. That continued until Shakespeare moved the factory to SC, although they really owned the operation from the date of the sale in 1969. The move was around 1971...

It's my understanding, based on what I've been told by a couple of our former employees that went to SC with the equipment, that Jeffrey bought almost all of the equipment. If so, they have some really great equipment. Shakespeare may have bought a few pieces of equipment, but the heart of the operation was our equipment. Dad kept, and I still have, Root Archery piece of equipment #1m an old bandsaw. It still has the numeral "1" stencil on it. Still works too :-)

As a side note, Dad told me that the guy who moved to Big Rapids with us when the operation moved from suburban Chicago in 1955, Bill Ramsey, made Dad a set of the patterns Dad himself used for his bows. I've not looked through them, but they are in my garage attic (if you saw that attic you'd see why I haven't dug them out). There are also a few of the really early bows in varying stages of completion. I'm concerned that the heat of many summers may have degraded the old bows. I'd have to check out the status of the Root Archery logo and business name, but I occasionally think it'd be great if someone (not me) put those old patterns to use...

Who came up with the Root Archery logo, a rustic-stylized rendition of my last name, Root The answer is that Dad designed that logo and came up with the immodest marketing phrase "Fabulous Root Bow". While Dad wasn't a sentimentalist, he also wasn't known to be overly modest. I write that with fondness. Dad was good (great) at what he did and knew it...

Shakespeare did offer a number of our employees the option of moving with the operation to Columbia, and a few did go. By name (from a memory famously weak in the remembering-names category), they were Bill Ramsey, "Sam" Forrest Samuelson, and Jim Obert. I don't know any of these by the nickname "shorthair", but a couple of these guys could have qualified for that description.
I'll fill in some blanks in later posts and I would like to answer questions and emails within reason.
I want to provide as much detail as I can in a series of posts, a process that will likely unfold over time as I recall information, discover such from what I do have in family records, and learn from former Root Archery employees.














Bob Hargreaves knew Ernie Root and worked at both the Root and Shakespeare Archery factories. He went to Columbia SC when Shakespeare move there. He left the company in 1973. He sent photos of the building in Big Rapids MI which once housed the Root factory. He also sends a photo of the Columbia SC Shakespeare / Root factory. He says the front of the MI building has changed over the years but the rest is very similar to the old days.
Big Rapids, MI. It was very plain looking back then and there were parking spaces all

across the front. The spaces on each side of the front door were reserved for

Ernie and Dave.




Big Rapids, MI East side of building.

Big Rapids, MI Rear view. The Quonset hut on the left is where all wood was stored.

Big Rapids, MI Rear of building. This was the finishing area.


Marcy Root's string factory was on this alley in downtown Big Rapids.

This was the Shakespeare plant in Columbia, SC. It was home to the Root Archery
Division from October 1971 until Owen Jeffery bought the archery operation from
Shakespeare. 
copyrighted 

26 comments:

  1. You forgot Dave Schemenauer.

    ReplyDelete
  2. After Bill and Shirley Obert went back to Michigan Mike Kimball came down to Columbia. He continued to work for Owen Jeffery for a few years after Owen purchased Shakespeare's archery division.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I am in my late 60's and when I was in 7th. Grade I purchased a Root Field Master from a small shop in the Chicago Western suburbs but I can’t remember the cities name. This would have been maybe 1955 but more likely 1956. I remember the shop as being somewhat small that also made custom aluminum arrows and sold other archery supplies. But this is going back in my memories of a 12 years old in the 1950’s. Do you think this was your Fathers shop of someone else’s that sold “Root” bows? I still have the bow and it is in excellent condition although I have not strung it or shot it in many years.

    Don

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The American Archery Co. was located in Clarendon Hills, DuPage Co., Illinois. It was a suburb of Chicago, located about 30 miles west on the Burlington Railroad line. Ernie Root worked for it's owners C. Larry Layer and Olive Besco Layer in the very early 1950's. I also worked there as a young woman at the same time Ernie did. I believe Ernie left their employ, probably to set up his own Co., before the American Archery Co. was sold in 1965 and moved to Wisconsin.

      Delete
    2. My late grandfather & Grandmother August and Blanche Schuhmacher worked at American Archery with Ernie. We grew up shooting with the equipment they made and had at least one Root bow that I still have today. Such fond memories.

      Delete
  4. No, it was not Ernie's shop, but we were likely the first place to carry his bows in any quantity. The shop was opened in late 1953. Was known as the P & D Archery Custom Shop at 7240 W Madison, Forest Park, IL. Don and I were engaged and then married, while we were building it... and we both were shooting Root bows at that time. Ernie was a good friend. We did make custom arrows of all materials. Our son Scott was born in 1959 and the two of us left Forest Park and went back to my home in the South in 1961. Don married his second wife, Patti, and then a third time to Jean, who worked in the shop with him until he died in 1992. The shop is still there and I hear is still highly respected.
    Pat Wertz (Schram) Sanders

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have to admit, I was in diapers during the early period of Root archery. !! I do not know who Dave Schemenauer was and there is no information about him. All of your information is wonderful, keep it coming!!
      I really appreciate all of these comments. Your personal experience with Root archery is so valuable to the history of American Archery

      Delete
    2. Pat: Thanks for the information. Forest Park sure sounds right as I lived in Glen Ellyn, just down the road. I actually had the arrows up until about two years when they were lost by a moving company during a move to the Phoenix area. Since I am not using the bow and the grandkits are not interested I may sell it to someone who whould appreciate it and take care of it. It's still a beautiful work of art.

      Don Smith

      Delete
    3. Dave Schemenauer was the plant manager at the Root Archery factory in Big Rapids and continued in that same role (different title) in Columbia, SC for another year or so.

      Delete
    4. Do you know anything about Dick Wilson? Thanks for your contributions!!!!!

      Delete
  5. I don't know that I ever met Dick Wilson.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I have photos of the Root Archery factory that I took yesterday. It's been added on to a little and the façade has been altered drastically but it's still basically the same building. Where should I send them?

    ReplyDelete
  7. awesome!!!! you can email them to
    shakespeare.archer@aol.com
    thank you!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. bob hargreaves could you give us some backround on Ernie Root and Phil Grable's relationship I have been told they did not part on good terms I know Phil is still alive do you have contact with him?

      Delete
  8. I don't know if I've ever met Phil Grable and know nothing about his feelings towardt Ernie. Larry Root may know.
    Bob Hargreaves
    Bob Hargreaves

    ReplyDelete
  9. Bob I just recieved a 1971 shakesphere proline catalog it talks about the engineering team of engineering team of Ernie Root, Dave Schemenauer and product supervisor Don Rowe. Do you remember any of these names? thanks

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't remember Don Rowe but I worked closely with Dave Schemenauer for three years.

      Delete
    2. I'd sure like to see that catalog.

      Delete
  10. Something not mentioned anywhere here that may be of interest to some, Ernie worked at American Archery Company in Chicago before starting Root Archery. There's a big smile on my face as I type this because Ernie was the type of person you couldn't imagine working for anybody. Bill Ramsey, who knew Ernie back then, told me Ernie left American because he couldn't get along with his boss, a statement I never doubted.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ernie worked for American Archery Co. in the very early 1950's. It was located in Clarendon Hills, DuPage Co., Illinois, 30 miles west of Chicago on the Burlington Railroad Line.

      Delete
  11. Very interesting! I always wondered where he learned the technical aspects of bow building. Do you remember what years he was there?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No. Larry should know though. It must have been late 1940's or early 1950's.

      Delete
  12. Is there any way to get either video or written info on Michigan out of Doors with Mort Neff? I am interested in the series about Archery with Dick Wilson.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have tried to find out more for you but it is, sadly, a dead end.
      http://www.outdoor-michigan.com/Mailbag/09-13-2006MortNeff.htm
      This is from this forum:
      " Wednesday, September 13, 2006

      I have been told that Zachary may be able to help me find some copies of the Michigan-out-of-doors show. I am looking for a show that aired in the late sixties (68, 69). Is there any chance to get copies of shows that old? Any help would be appreciated.
      Thank you for your time.
      George Miller, Columbia, SC


      Hi George:

      In response to your question of finding old Michigan Outdoors shows from the late 1960's. Unfortunately to my knowledge there are no remaining copies in existence from that time period. The original producer of the TV show Mort Neff retired in the early 1970's and sold off the business to his at the time co-host. Jerry kept the show on the air for a few years and then disappeared with everything. It was not until 1981 that Fred Trost returned the show to the airwaves and continued until the early 1990's. At this time a new program was produced called The Practical Sportsman and this production continued until 2005. On a side note my father Fred Trost worked for Mort Neff as a field producer during the time you are requesting. If I can be of further assistance or you have any additional questions feel free to contact me.

      Respectfully Outdoors,

      Zachary Trost

      Delete
  13. Larry,
    I have a Root Pendulus Supreme and am trying to find some information on it. Please email me at grigs80@yahoo.com if you can help me. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete