Alex W. Bealer

Alexander Winkler Bealer, III, known as Alex W. Bealer (March 6, 1921 – March 17, 1980),^[2] was an old-time craftsman of woodworking and blacksmithing from Atlanta, Georgia. He authored The Art of Blacksmithing^[3] Old Ways of Working Wood,^[4] The Tools That Built America, and The Successful Craftsman..^[5]

Family[]

Bealer's grandfather, Alexander Winkler Bealer, Sr. (1860 – June 28, 1921), was a Baptist minister who served in Atlanta, Cartersville, Thomasville, Valdosta, and Eastman, Georgia, as well as Murfreesboro, Tennessee. At the time of his death, the grandfather Bealer was the pastor at the First Baptist Church of Blakely, Georgia. Pastor Bealer died when his namesake grandson was three months old. The Bethel Baptist Association issued this statement on the minister's death: "To one of his cordial nature and liberal spirit, the extensive acquaintance thus gained meant an unusually wide reaching influence, for none who knew him but to feel the kindliness of his life and the potency of his faith."^[6] Bealer's parents were A. W. Bealer, Jr., and Mary Louise "May" Bealer. They were listed as twenty-seven and twenty years of age, respectively, in the 1920 census.^[6]

Background[]

Bealer was born in Valdosta in Lowndes County in southern Georgia,^[7] but reared in Atlanta, where he graduated in 1938 from Boys High School, which closed in 1947. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English at Emory University in Atlanta. In 1943, during World War II, he entered the United States Marine Corps and advanced through the ranks to captain. He was stationed in the Pacific theater and was subsequently recalled for duty during the Korean War. He made his living as an advertising executive. Woodworking and writing were hence his avocations.^[1]

Other Bealer works[]

Bealer's first book is entitled Picture-Skin Story, a 1957 publication for juveniles.^[8]

Bealer wrote The Log Cabin: Homes of the North American Wilderness, a 1978 book with more than two hundred photographs, most taken in the southeastern United States by his friend, Dr. John O. Ellis (1917–2000). It is a study of the importance to frontier development of the log cabin, first brought to the United States in the 17th century by Swedish settlers in Delaware.^[9]

In 1972 Bealer won an Associated Press award for a television documentary^[10] about the Georgia Cherokee, forcibly marched over the Trail of Tears to Indian Territory, since Oklahoma, during the 1830s under the administrations of U.S. Presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren. His volume, Only the Names Remain: The Cherokees and The Trail of Tears, was re-released in 1996 as a children's book.^[5] This book was published at a time of renewed interest in the historical plight of Native Americans in the United States.^{[citation needed]}

The periodical Atlanta History: A Journal of Georgia and the South, which was published somewhat irregularly between 1927 and 2006 by the Atlanta History Center, formerly the Atlanta Historical Society, also had an "Alex Bealer Award", a $100 prize given to the best non-Atlanta article carried by the publication each year.^[11]

An award in Bealer's name is given annually by the Artist Blacksmith's Association of North America for service to the art of blacksmithing.^[12]

Death[]

Bealer died of a heart attack eleven days after he had turned fifty-nine while working in his craft shop in the basement of his home in Sandy Springs, Georgia.^[12] His widow is the former Helen Eitel, a native of Chicago, Illinois. There are five Bealer children, Alexander, IV (born 1949), of Moorpark, California, Janet B. Rodie (born March 6, 1948) of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Susie B. Duncan of Atlanta (passed away 2017), Alice Bealer of Townsend, Georgia, and Edmund H. Bealer (born 1954) of Sandy Springs. There are nine Bealer grandchildren.^[1] He is interred at Arlington Memorial Park in Sandy Springs.^[7]

References[]