I went to work for my uncle in 1982, I was 17 and just out of high school. I did all the model work and waxing and learned other stuff as I found time. A few years later he hired a young women to do what I was doing so that I could learn porcelain. She was married and her name was Yvonne and I trained her, sometime in the first week or so I started calling her Why-vonne and it stuck. We worked side by side for ten years or so and became the best of friends. I could talk to her about anything, she was the big sister I never had. Eventually I got married, we lived 70 miles away and I got tired of the commute so I set up a lab near home and continued working for my uncle. I'd run up there once a month or so, any other time I got up that way I'd visit Whyvonne or if she was down our way she'd visit.
All of which brings me to the waxer in question....
One day she had my waxer. I said "hey lady, you've got my waxer". She replied, "I don't see your name on it"
The next chance I got, I ground the brand name off of it and replaced it with my own. It was like that for about a month until she removed my name and replaced it with "Whyvonne".
Eventually she went to work elsewhere, I lied when I said it was the only thing I took when I left. Actually, when I went on my own my uncle gave me everything I was using, an entire labs worth of equipment, including my carver with Whyvonne's name on it.
Whyvonne and I still saw each other whenever we could, our kids basketball, baseball, softball games, whatever. She got sick, I visited as often as I could.
Her funeral was last September. The wax carver always made me think of her, more so in the last year.
I can learn to use another carver, it's Yvonne that I miss.
