Man keeps blacksmithing, offering demos despite visual impairment
HOLDREGE, Neb. — Lee Samuelson bought a blacksmith forge years before his son, Tye, was born.
“I had bought the forge back in the 1980s or ’90s from a farm sale, but I never knew how to light it up,” Lee said. “(Tye) wasn’t born until 1995 but I already had it before then. I was kind of interested in it.”
Lee took Tye when he was about 7 or 8 years old to a tractor show at Dyer Park in Ayr. It was there that Tye developed his own interest in blacksmithing. Tye watched the blacksmith all day long and asked him if he could make Tye a horseshoe.
“Today, he’s still got that horseshoe,” Lee told the Kearney Hub.
A few years later at the State Fair, Lee asked the blacksmith at the fair if he could teach him how to fire up the forge. He’s been blacksmithing since.
Lee offered blacksmith demonstrations last week at the Nebraska State Hand Cornhusking and Fall Festival at the Nebraska Prairie Museum in Holdrege.
The first item Lee created on his forge was a cutoff hardy, a tool used for cutting metal. He created the tool out of the axle of a Ford Model T.
“I thought it won’t take me long. I didn’t realize how hard metal could be. It probably took me three to four hours to hammer it out,” Lee said.
Together, Lee and Tye learned how to blacksmith, making things such as a wine rack or tools they can use when they go camping.
“A lot of it was for camping for Scouts. I was a Cub Scout master. When we went camping, it was just stuff we needed around a campfire: a little tripod to put up over a fire, hooks and racks to hang our cooking utensils on around a campfire, dinner bell,” Lee said.
Lee also meets with other blacksmiths once a month at Trails and Rails Museum in Kearney.
“I’ve been there the last couple of years. They are helping me out a lot, learn and grow,” he said.
When blacksmithing, Lee often takes old pieces of metal and gives them new life. Even his forge is something Lee crafted out of an old propane tank.
“It’s the way I’ve always been. My dad on the farm, you use what you had,” he said.
Lee enjoys tinkering, but earlier this month was the first time he has fired up his forge in more than a year. A year and a half ago, Lee lost his sight in his right eye after having a detached retina. At first he thought it was a cataract.
“I could close the left eye, and it was hazy in the distance but I could still see. It was getting close enough I knew I needed to get it looked at,” he explained. “I went to the eye doctor at nine o’clock, and I think I was at the specialist in Hastings by noon that day.”
Lee had surgery to reattach the retina, but the damage already was done. He now can only see lights in his right eye. As a truck driver for CHS, he is no longer able to work. Lee now has difficulty with his depth perception but is learning to adapt.
“It’s getting used to hitting. … It’s taking some adjustment,” he said. “This depth perception, reaching into fires and that makes me a little nervous.”
Lee is hoping Tye will be able to travel from his home in North Platte to help him with blacksmith demonstrations Saturday at the fall festival.
Despite the challenges Lee has with his vision, he plans to continue blacksmithing and creating new items he can use.
“It takes a little learning. I will keep playing,” Lee said.