Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion Wendell Groff - "Old Iron"

Bill, thank you for posting the link to his obituary!

Wendell and I became pretty good friends, thanks to Oldgas and the Hobby.... I valued his thoughts on the different aspects of the Hobby and hopefully he valued my insights of the Hobby... As I said, I will miss his opinions and his knowledge!!!

I left a signature on His Guest Book. I wanted his Family to know how much I think he meant to the Hobby and to this Collector...

Lost another old timer. I think it is sad to tell someone what they mean to you after they are gone. So with that in mind I want to say I really appreciate all of you "old" guys who are still here and willing to share your wisdom and knowledge. I did not know Wendell and I am sad that is true. I will turn 51 this year and hope to meet alot of you guys at the future shows. I can't make too many of them but will be at Iowa gas on Thursday and Friday. Wish I could get there sooner and may do it if things work out right. God bless the family of Mr. Groff. But God bless you guys who can still read this. Dick, Jim, John, Jack, Bob, Butch and countless others, thanks for loving this hobby and growing up the next generation with patience. I love this hobby and never get tired of logging in here at Oldgas to read the latest. I am going to copy this to a new topic as well because I know alot of people on here agree with me. Happy hunting! Mike Haggard - Oklahoma

I was a bit shocked when I heard from a local gasser. He called me personally shortly after I joined this site (along with another oldgasser) and introduced me to some local people. He had a nice setup here in ABQ and we had some interesting conversations...the last of which was about...of all things...windows... as we shared the same builder. He was pretty sharp and I learned some things from him...and vice versa. RIP brother.

I've been busy painting and slow on keeping up with all the forums and only found out about Wendell's passing a few days ago. He was one of the wonderful OLDGAS members who helped me with the painting that got me to this list, and in all pms and forum messages has always been kind, thoughtful, and a real gentleman.

I don't know how many of you knew him well, but I hope there are some stories out there that you are willing to share. As in a few of the losses I have had over the recent years, the sharing of storied seems to let us hold onto that person just a little longer.

While he did not (nor did I ask) share with me much of his personal life, he did invite Bob and I to visit him someday in New Mexico. As he wrote me " Oh, BTW, tell your husband that cholla grows wild out here up to 4' and even 5' tall. They will really do a job on you if you bump into them!! I know." My husband grows cacti here in Maryland, and cholla are a type of cacti, some of you may know from the pebble filled 'rain sticks' that are the varnished remains of dried up cholla.

As Wendell wrote me, and posted on OLDGAS, his home was his museum and I know he had invited a number of Oldgassers, particularly new members, to come visit. I know they would have seen a great collection but also would have come away with an appreciation of the history of what he had.

"I wouldn't go so far as to call my display layouts art, but I think you know those arrangements of color, shape, texture and size didn't happen by accident." I had sent him a thank you gift for his help and he in turn sent me photographs of his wonderful collection, to guide me on how and what I might collect.

Over the years, he has had a number of artists and photographers at his place. "This weekend I've got a group coming through that includes a graphic artist and an art dealer from Santa Fe. I'll give them the whole tour with special emphasis on the real original art on display including your work and my modest contribution."

In talking about art, he also told me about his "yard art."

"I focus on trucks. A couple that come to mind are:

"A 1954 Ford grille assembly complete with headlights and parking lights that has been beautifully painted to correct colors and has the headlights restored to work so that I can turn them on to light up a good portion of my yard at night."

"I also have an arrangement of 40's embossed Fruehauf trailer wheel hubs, painted original color, along with 40's truck and trailer clearance, cab and turning signal lights, unpainted, along with appropriate truck emblems from trucks that would have pulled the trailer. Now, add some truck license plates from NM and you get the idea."

"Yes, the shop was a movie set for a low dollar horror film: lots of stabbing going on and ketsup all over the place. They were filming a night scene one night with several scantily clad women in it and the neighbor called the police and said were filming porn!! The cops came, saw what we were doing, watched awhile (longer than necessary?) and told the neighbor to forget it and left. It was kind of fun in a way."

Bob and I would have loved the tour, but mostly I wanted to visit to meet the kind gentleman who called himself "Old Iron."

Thanks for the post on Old Iron.

Thank you Nicole. I always enjoyed his posts because they were entertaining and knowledgable. He stated his opinions without rancor or disrespect to anyone. I to would have liked to have met him. He will be missed. Mitch

Wendell never had an avatar picture in his profile. This morning I edited his profile to insert his obituary photo as his avatar. When we run across his old posts on the forum, I hope that added picture will help keep him in our memories.

Below is the picture that is now his avatar on this forum.

Wendell Groff, "Old Iron"