Claude Spivey knows how to keep busy in retirement — he's had 30 years to practice

Claude Spivey of Baker City is waiting for warmer days when he can get back to his woodworking. Until then, the 92-year-old rests easy among some of his handiwork from frames to trains. (Baker City Herald/S. John Collins).

By LISA BRITTON

Baker City Herald

Claude Spivey's love of trains and woodworking might just be genetic.

"My dad was a carpenter, and worked on the railroad too," he says.

Spivey, 92, dabbled in rail work too, for about five years on the Union Pacific before heart trouble made him retire in 1976.

Retirement brought on the hobby of working wood — from whittling figures so tiny you need a magnifying glass to see to constructing a two-bench swing that catches the eye of strangers.

"People come by and ask if they can swing on it," says his daughter, Linda Bjorklund.

Spivey's woodworking pride, though, lies in the six trains he's crafted to be perfect replicas of the steam locomotives he remembers so well.

No detailed directions required.

"I just look at a picture and go ahead and make it," he says with a smile and shrug.

Spivey was born near Tellico Plains, Tenn. He made his first trip to Oregon with his dad in 1920, but for some reason they returned to Tennessee.

In 1929 the family headed back to Baker City.

"Seven kids, three grownups in one car — a '28 Buick," he says.

It took them 12 days and a bit of trickery on toll roads.

"We had to hide them — 25 cents a head," Spivey says of his younger brothers and sisters.

The family grew by three in Baker City, and Claude is the oldest, followed by siblings Earl, Edna, Blanche, Roy, Hazel, Clyde, LaVelle, Henry and Glenn.

His eyes twinkle with stories of the past, and one in particular.

He had the job of checking traps set up two miles from town every morning before school. The targeted animals were badgers and muskrats — but a pesky skunk showed up every now and then.

One time they even carried the musk of skunk to class at South Baker Elementary.

"Boy, we stunk up the school," he chuckles.

He's pretty sure they got sent home after that smelly fiasco.

He also has stories he won't tell — even when his daughter stirs the pot by mentioning how he outran the cops in his 20s.

"I'm not supposed to tell that story," Spivey says, though his grin is evidence to the tale's truth.

Spivey's longest stint away from home began in October 1941 when he joined the U.S. Army.

He was a cook.

"He tried to get out of it, but his cooking was so good they wouldn't let him change," Linda says.

He served until October 1945, and the proof of his travels are forever engraved on a tin mess cup he neglected to leave behind.

"I had to steal that," he says.

On this cup he carved what he missed most from Baker Valley — the mountains, a deer in the forest, a horse, a railroad bridge.

He also marked the places he stayed: Trinidad, Curacao, Puerto Rico, to name a few.

That last place, Puerto Rico, is where he met a woman named Tina.

They wrote back and forth after Spivey's discharge, and she soon flew to New York to live with family.

One day, Claude left work and caught a train east. He and Tina were married July 5, 1947, in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Tina's height was just under 4-feet-11-inches, but "she had a temper to make up for it," Claude says.

Tina passed away in 2005.

Spivey took up woodworking in 1977, a year after retiring from Union Pacific.

He learned as he went.

"Everything comes handy, just natural," he says.

The results of his craft permeate his home — trains in the living room, a table in the kitchen, a secretary desk, countless picture frames, stools and two gun cabinets.

"If I don't have what I need, we make it," Linda says with a smile.

Some of Spivey's work is behind glass — handmade knives with wooden handles, and a gun stock he made for a 70-year-old .22 rifle.

One of his biggest trains, though, sits in the garage awaiting warmer weather so he can finish a few details.

This seven-foot replica of the No. 4449 Freedom Train is one of six steam locomotives he's made.

His woodworking reputation has even earned him nickname.

"They called me the Big Termite," he says with a smile.