Gary Duyck, 89, builds coffins in his 115-year-old Cornelius barn
At a rural Cornelius farm, Gary Duyck, 89, builds coffins in his 115-year-old barn.
Duyck has lived at the farm since 1963 on Johnson School Road, which is open to the public as Duyck's Peachy Pig Farm. (Editor's note: I stopped by to ask about the farmstand's hours and products for a fall fun guide. Gary Duyck asked if I'd like to see something interesting in the barn. The answer to that question is always yes, and this story is the result)
Duyck has made nine coffins so far. Most are built on order for people who find him through family, and he can only work on them a few hours before his back goes out.
Duyck made his first about 30 years ago, after his 9-year-old grandson was killed.
"I never knew a thing about making coffins, nothing," he said.
At the funeral home, the man helping the family had a whole showroom of coffins, 10 or 15 of them.
"Take your choice. Just like a car," Duyck said. "And I says, shoot, I could probably make one as good as that cheap one."
Duyck said the man called it a good idea, told him to make it and said it would "help your head out."
"So we made his," Duyck said.
"I waited a few years till my daughter died, and then I'm also retiring at that time, so then I started making them more or less then," he said. "Before that I was still busy on the farm here yet, so I really didn't. I like to work with wood, so I thought, I'm making coffins anyway."
One in the barn now is headed for Arizona. A local woman with ties to his daughter's family asked him to build it for her mother there. When the time comes, the woman will put the coffin in her car and take it to Arizona, Duyck said.
He buys his wood. The last time he bought a 4-by-8 sheet of the kind he uses, it cost about $56.
"It's a lot of money for a 4-by-8," he said.
"I don't do the painting. My daughter's sister-in-law does the painting," Duyck said.
Painting happens while the boards are still lying on the table. On one coffin, the grandkids each painted something, and one drew sheet music. Others painted birds.
"When we made the one for the gal who plays the organ, two of her kids were finishing it up with me, and they say, 'Measure twice, cut once.' They cut the lid short," Duyck said.
An extra piece filled the gap.
"It was an accident. It looked better," he said. "So on these, I build them the same way on purpose."
Every coffin goes out with a liner, stapled to a ledge inside.
"You put the liner in, makes a lot prettier," Duyck said.
Because the lid sits flush, down between the ends, getting it open would take a screwdriver without something to pull. He adds a mule ear, like the pull tabs on Old West boots.
"You just grab the mule ear and there it goes. Nothing to it," he said.
Duyck has already built his own coffin. It sits inside the barn, wrapped in a tarp.
"I told the kids for years, when I die, I want it made out of barn boards," Duyck said.
It is. One of his photos shows one of his sons testing it out.
He built his wife's coffin when she died. She is buried at St. Francis Cemetery in Roy.
Another one has handrails.
"That's what the kid wants," Duyck said. "He helped me build that one. Well, the kid is 50-something years old, but he's younger than I am."
Duyck and his family moved onto the farm in February 1963 and raised hogs there. The barn was already old when he bought the place.
"I guess this barn is probably as old as my house, and it's 115 years now," he said.
He spends two to four hours a day in the shop, where he also makes picture frames, cutting little dips into the wood with a side grinder and burning them so the frames look aged.
The farm, at 34840 SW Johnson School Road, sells u-pick and already-picked fruit and vegetables as Duyck's Peachy Pig Farm.
A couple of weeks ago, Duyck talked coffins with a man at a garage sale.
"He says, 'I ain't ready to die yet,'" Duyck said. "He says, 'I'll give you a holler.'"