A “mountaineer” by traditional definition is a self-sufficient, independent individual living off the land by choice or economic necessity who typically has to make rather than purchase anything he or his family needs. Mr. Jacobs lived a similar lifestyle in Southern Illinois in the hills of the Shawnee National Forest until his mid-teens in a 20′ x 24′ house his father built from salvaged materials, with no running water, no plumbing, and no electricity. They had a vegetable garden and also harvested food from the forest and the farm ponds in the area. The family has eaten squirrel, deer, groundhog, raccoon, opossum, rabbit, dove, quail, duck, goose, carp, catfish, bass, bluegill, snapping turtle, bull frog, domestic rabbit, chicken, and turkey; pig, goat, calf brains, homemade headcheese from hogs head, chicken feet (from where the small end of the drumstick ends down through the toes), the unlaid eggs from old no-longer-productive laying hens that become chicken and dumplings; wild blackberries, persimmons, walnuts, hickory nuts, poke and planktion (wild greens), and ground-fall peaches from a neighbors orchard. Water was carried in a bucket from a small stream and everyone drank from the open bucket from a common dipper. When the stream periodically dried up in the summer, water was hauled from a neighbor’s well.
Baths were once a week in a galvanized bath tub in the living room which is where the wood or coal burning stove to heat the house was. Mom cooked on a wood burning stove, and washed clothes by hand in a washtub with a washboard. Clothes that had to be ironed were ironed by a flat solid-iron iron heated on that wood stove. Lighting was by kerosene lamps. The sanitary facility was a two-hole outhouse out back with the front wall a common wall to a tool shed, the right-hand wall was common to the laying-hen henhouse, the left-hand wall was common to a lumber storage rack, and the back wall was part of the fencing for the hog pen.
This was as late as 1950. Economic necessity created that situation. It remains in some areas of America today. Mr. Jacobs as a pre-teen learned to whittle his own toys from soft pine produce (“orange”) crate woods, and more than 50 years later is still carving. He has done gunstocks, furniture, full-size church carvings, decoys, innumerable small carvings. During the last 30 years has built hundreds of five-string banjos.
When he moved to Delaware Lowell became interested in the five string banjo but didn’t feel comfortable with the cost compared with the needs of his family. He discovered the section on Mountain Style banjos in Book 3 of the Foxfire series. This looked like an interesting project so he built one, then another, and another. Soon he was building other styles including 8” piccolos, 11” open backs and some resonator banjos.
He wrote several articles about banjo construction for “Banjo Newsletter” Magazine and his work was featured on the cover three times. The 8” piccolos were particularly challenging as no parts were commercially available. He had to build 8” block maple rims, an 8” tone ring, an 8” tension hoop and a short scale neck. For resonator piccolos he crafted a downsized resonator and one piece flange. Lowell Jacobs also crafted a very special custom 5-string neck for Dear Old Dad’s Vega Little Wonder.
We are happy to announce that Lowell is building our Somerset Model S-1 open back banjo. The prototype is nearing completion and we hope to share it with you soon.
Also be sure to check out the Jacobs Banjo Brochure.
