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A Collection Collector

Posted on: Monday, 8 May 2006, 03:05 CDT

By Beccy Tanner, The Wichita Eagle, Kan.

May 8--KNICKKNACKS AND BRIC-A-BRAC

Edgar "Al" Jarvis took a lifetime to collect the knickknacks and odds and ends. He filled his house. His backyard. Garages.

Storage units.

Every nook and cranny. Every wall contained the things he loved.

Where most collectors might stop at a dozen or two of the same thing, Jarvis did not.

He collected hundreds, if not thousands, of variations on the same item.

Hundreds of snowmen and Santas.

Hundreds of dice, some ivory, some plastic.

A thousand letter openers.

Roughly 2,500 elephants made of bronze, ivory, even plastic bags -- plus at least two dozen donkey cups and figurines. And throw in a few statues of pink flamingos.

"The thrill of the hunt becomes addictive. That was true for him," said John Boldenow, another collector and director of theater at the Wichita Center for the Arts.

Jarvis sought out walking sticks. Six hundred of them. Some have walrus ivory handles; others are gold presentation sticks; still others are wrapped in snakeskin or made from deer antlers. One opens up into a violin.

"I've often wondered why there aren't any good walking sticks around. Well now I know why: He had a forest of walking sticks," Boldenow said. "He had them all."

An interest that grew

Jarvis grew up on a farm near Ulysses and was passionate about his alma mater, the University of Kansas in Lawrence.

He loved working for Southwestern Bell, where he became a division manager, and being involved in the community.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Jarvis began his collecting.

"It started mostly as gifts," said his friend and cousin, Mike Eves. "Someone gave him an elephant or he bought one. He showed an interest. His friends became aware it was something to give him."

As Jarvis traveled the state for Southwestern Bell, he'd stop in at antique shops, asking dealers if they might have an elephant or a walking stick.

Pretty soon, dealers throughout Kansas knew he was a collector and put back their collectibles for the next time he'd be in town.

He'd buy their knickknacks, the elephants and canes. But he'd also buy other things in the hope of selling them in the antique business he developed after he retired in 1983.

Eves said his cousin became an expert on anything antique.

"He really got into it," Eves said. "He had stacks of books to learn all he could about antiquing. He was very knowledgeable. If there was something you wanted to know the value on, he could get pretty close to it."

For years, Jarvis had six displays at the Andover Antique Mall. Owners Mariam and Tom Holman sometimes wondered why the displays were so scant.

"I would say: 'Al, don't overload yourself on rent! Get some stuff out here,' " Mariam Holman said. "He'd smile his charming smile. He was a wonderful man."

Jarvis would sell furniture, china, art, glass and antique Christmas ornaments at the mall.

But he kept the things he loved most in his house.

"I know Al," Holman said. "He used to tell me there was a path in his house for him to get to his chair and that was it."

Collection become an obsession as he grew older and his health began to fail.

Holman said she saw her friend lose energy but never his passion for antiques.

"He was just a swell fella," she said. "He was somebody you couldn't help but like."

Collection collector

Jarvis died March 29 from stomach cancer.

He was 77.

In his will, he specified what should happen to his collections.

He wanted Allen Goodwin & Associates to hold an estate sale. Goodwin, who has been doing sales since 1971, was a friend of Jarvis.

So Goodwin started sorting through things in Jarvis' College Hill home.

"I'm recognizing items I sold to him years ago," Goodwin said.

Already there have been three auctions, he said, to ready the house for the estate sale.

Even so, most rooms barely have pathways for all the items still yet to sell.

There are hundreds of dog, horse, bear and buffalo knickknacks, a coin collection and diamonds.

Miniature hats in tiny hat boxes.

Jars of marbles.

There's a warthog head above the fireplace and a Red Baron Pizza plane dangling from the living room ceiling.

There are several rattlesnake skins.

In one bedroom, there are gun cleaners, back scratchers and swords.

In another bedroom, more snowmen than can possibly be counted in an afternoon.

"Dusting had to be Chinese water torture, if it ever got done," Boldenow said. "Collecting long ago took over the decor. It was no longer a matter of arranging things in a kind of decorative fashion. It was more a matter of accumulating."

In Jarvis' office, there are decoys of geese and ducks and a walrus tusk with scrimshaw dating from the 1850s.

"It took us two weeks just to go through his office," Goodwin said.

There are six windmills in the backyard and seven more inside the house.

There are seven small Roman statues and two big ones; architectural and farm ironwork; and the guts out of a piano. Before the auctions, there were two large bison statues and a Keeper of the Plains of sculpture.

In the garage, there are collections of fishing poles, insulators, railroad lights, crocks and jars.

Much of the proceeds from the auctions so far have gone to the E.A. Jarvis Scholarship Fund for the Kansas University Endowment Association and to the Wichita Center for the Arts.

The elephants and the walking sticks have been given to the arts center, where they will be offered for sale in a June 17 silent auction. The auction, Boldenow said, may exceed $40,000. The estate sale may also generate as much.

Goodwin estimates it will take another four weeks before the estate sale is ready.

And when the sale does arrive, he expects Wichitans will see more glimpses of Al Jarvis' life.

"He had a good income and no family," Goodwin said. "This was his life. Why not spend it the way you like?"

Reach Beccy Tanner at (316) 268-6336 or btanner@wichitaeagle.com [mailto:btanner@wichitaeagle.com].

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Wichita Eagle, Kan.

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Source: The Wichita Eagle (Wichita, Kan.)

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