Back in the Fall of 2006, the late Jim Thompson, wrote an article for the club newsletter in an effort to find out the maker of some rather “folky” calls that had recently surfaced. The calls were dubbed the “Groovy” calls because they had grooves cut into the tops of the barrels and at the end of the toneboards. All of the calls that had surfaced were rather crudely made, had german silver reeds, and all but one was octagonal shaped. As a collector of vintage calls, I have a passion for trying to identify calls of unknown origin. I love the early folky looking stuff so this particular call really appealed to me.
With that said, and knowing that fellow collector, Ross Distefano, owned a few of these calls, I contacted him to see what he knew about them. All Ross could tell me was that one of them was originally owned by an affluent business man out of the St. Louis area by the name of, Rudolf Sibort. Mr. Sibort owned the Horseshoe Lake Goose Hunting Club in Olive Branch, Illinois. Ross loves the unknown stuff as well and said that he would give me one of his “groovy” calls if I could figure out who made them. I accepted the challenge but knew that we would probably never figure out who made them since we didn’t really have any solid information to go on.
Fast forward a few years to the Spring of 2015 when a family consigned a group of old calls and decoys to the April Guyette & Deeter Auction that is held annually in St. Charles, Illinois. The calls and decoys had a little pamphlet with them that stated- “Ham the Duck Man”, and goes on to say that Ham is “The man that puts the Duck in the Duck Callers”. Inside the pamphlet, writing inside the pamphlet refers to the calls as “The Mansker Big Lake Caller” with prices of $5.00 and $6.00”, with engraved round barrels calls at $8.00 each.
After a little research, I found that “Ham” was a man by the name of Harry Asolphus Mansker from East St. Louis, Illinois. Harry was born in Jackson County, Illinois in 1873 in the Fountain Bluff Township, and died in East St. Louis in 1930 at the age of 57. He married Cara Etherton in 1893 while living in Fountain Bluff and moved up the hill to Murphysboro in 1900. Mansker must have been a man of many trades because the 1900 census report states that he was a “car repairer”; 1910 report shows him living in East St. Louis working as a “brakeman” for the railroad; and, the 1920 report says he was an engineer at a flour mill. Although I was unable to find any information about Mansker’s call/decoy making career, it is interesting to note that he spent the first 27 years of his life living in the rural Fountain Bluff Township area of Jackson County in Southern Illinois, which consist of the unincorporated towns of Jacob and Raddle where the famed Glodo call making family was from. One can only assume that the two families knew each other but anything past that would be pure speculation. This area of Jackson County can also lay claim to several other historic call making surnames like- Roseberry, Worthern, Berger, Hodgson, Cochran, and Huffman.
Hopefully more of these old folky calls will turn up, but as of right now, I would guess there is probably less than a dozen of them known to be in collections today. I am fortunate to I own one of them but will always be on the prowl for another! Ol’ Jimmy would be happy to know that another unknown mystery has been solved!
