Charley Schoenheider's Canada Goose Decoys Merle H. Glick
Charles Schoenheider, Sr.,(d. 1944), of Peoria, Illinois.
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Two grey geese with heads alert seemed to peer at 53rd Street pedestrians last summer from the second -story window of the Museum of American Folk Art. Appearing lifelike and standing on just one foot, this pair of Canada geese decoys belong to Adele Earnest, author of The Art of the Decoy: American Bird Carvings and member of the board of trustees of the Museum of American Folk Art. She had loaned the carvings to the members' exhibition mounted in memory of Bruce Johnson, who had been director of the Museum prior to his death. It would be difficult to find two better specimens of the decoy carver's artistry. Charles Schoenheider, Sr., of Peoria, Illinois, made only 12 of these large decoys and the story of their origin and preservation is somewhat at variance with the notes published in the Museum exhibition catalogue. The son of the carver, Charles Schoenheider, Jr., now 84years-old and an accomplished carver in his own right, is a personal friend of the writer and has often repeated the following tale about his father's goose decoys. The exhibition catalogue stated that the decoys were ordered in 1910 by Harvey Firestone, who later refused to pay the minimal $125 asked by the carver for the whole dozen. Schoenheider, Jr., says that the decoys were ordered by a local hunter, and that his father never knew or dealt with the well-known industrialist. "Firestone probably wouldn't have quibbled at a thousand dollars," he theorized. According to the younger Schoenheider, in 1918 his father was asked by Dan Voorhees, Jr., a Peoria implement dealer and avid hunter, to make a dozen goose decoys. Voorhees and his friends had found a fine goose-hunting spot in some grainfields near Peoria, but they had no decoys. Charley Schoenheider's duck decoys were well known in the area and Voorhees wanted his geese to be similar to the unique onefooted standing-duck decoys that Schoenheider had carved to use when hunting ducks after the ponds had frozen. A single cast-iron web-footed leg supported the decoys, enabling them to remain upright on ice. Apparently this