Pioneer Decoy Carvers: A Biography of Lemuel and Stephen Ward

Pioneer Decoy Carvers: A Biography of Lemuel and Stephen Ward by Berkey, Barry R.. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780870332432.

The Ward brothers were versatile and somber men with intuitive wisdom who were vitally interested in people. While intolerant of cant and hypocrisy, they acquired innumerable genuine friends, and through their friends in and around Crisfield, the authors received tape recordings, photographs, homemade movies, correspondence, and other forms of valuable historical data. Countless hours were spent roaming the streets of Chrisfield, talking with old-timers who knew the Ward boys "befer they was famous". Research extended well beyond the boundaries of the Bay Country, however, for the authors also spoke and corresponded with Lem and Steves friends and acquaintances across the United States. Shooting stools represent one of Americas three folk arts, the ground work of which was laid by decoy carvers such as the Wards who, for decades, made only shooting stools. Yet the Ward brothers, being among the first to initiate the transition from a working decoy to a highly decorative bird, in a sense, led the way toward ornamental carving. Few people know that the Wards carved decorative birds, on special order only, beginning in the late 1920s. The authors were fortunate in obtaining permission from Lem to tread on terra incognita, and to share this knowledge thus, they were able to weave the past into the present and the future so that a vibrant narrative about Lem and Steves life could unfold.