Interview of Don D. Dillon for the Elizabeth V. and George F. Gardner Digital Library of the Cumberland County Historical Society. Dillon discusses growing up in Elkhart, Indiana before joining the military and living in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. Dillon recounts how he came to carve traditional Springerle cookie molds, become a Hot Air Ballon guide, and how he became a world champion disc golfer.
Aaron William Mountz was a laborer, a carpenter, a well-driller, and a lifelong resident of Cumberland County – and he was a woodcarver. While his work had started to be appreciated by private collectors toward the end of his life, he died not knowing that his hobby of carving small wood animals would make him known in the art world nationwide, with his work held in museums such as the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Museum of Folk Art.
Wilhelm Schimmel was a German-born itinerant who traipsed Pennsylvania’s Cumberland Valley doing odd jobs. In payment for food and sleeping quarters in the barns and lofts of local families, he carved and painted eagles and animal figures of various sizes.