Published: March 07, 2008 06:34 pm            

Building birdhouses keeps 96-year-old active

At 96, John Felton of Conemaugh Township, Somerset County, feels a bit put out that he no longer is allowed to use power tools to build birdhouses.

“I use a hand saw,” he said of the dozen or more birdhouses he has constructed during the past few years. “They (family members) won’t let me have an electric saw because they’re afraid I’ll cut my arm or leg off.

“They don’t realize that I handled tools and guns all my life,” he grumbled.

Confined to a wheelchair, he does his building in a basement workshop – using a chairlift to get up and down the stairs.

Felton and his wife, the former Rose Williams, 95, live with their daughter Janet Braude on Somerset Pike.

Felton, who was always an active outdoorsman, has found that building the birdhouses is a way to keep active. It’s an activity he can do from his wheelchair.

A few of the tiny structures are in the yard – and bears destroyed a couple – but most he gives away.

“Some of them are sort of crude,” he said modestly of his creations. “But they have a good roof. (They are) certainly not perfect by any means, but they’re sturdy.”

Felton is able to keep an eye on the birds from a window.

“I just love watching the little devils,” he said.

Felton held several jobs during his career – including engineer with Conemaugh & Black Lick Railroad, where he retired after 33 years of service.

Before that, he sold Hoover vacuum cleaners, worked in a mine and did carpentry work.

Passionate about fishing and hunting, Felton is a life member of the National Rifle Association. He was active in the Johnstown Rifle Club, where he taught hundreds of young people how to properly handle firearms.

He once shot an antelope while hunting in Wyoming.

The Feltons met in 1929 at a high school basketball game in Vintondale, where she attended school.

She was a cheerleader and he was with a group of teenage boys from Armagh.

“She was with a group of girls that thought they were smart, and they took my hat and passed it around,” he said.

The teasing must have made an impression because the two were married a couple of years later.

There were three daughters born to the family. Daughter Isabel Cruse lives near her sister and parents in Conemaugh Township. Another daughter, Kay Brehm of Florida, is deceased. They have 11 grandchildren, 21 great-grandchildren and three great-great- grandchildren.

The Feltons used to enjoy road trips to New England and to visit family in Florida. They enjoyed playing Scrabble or gin rummy together in the evenings.

These days they watch game shows on TV.

“I’m getting old,” Felton said.

But his daughters aren’t so sure.

“If you saw him, you wouldn’t believe he was 96,” Cruse said.

“He works the puzzles in the Tribune every day.

“His mother lived to be 105. I think that’s his goal.”

        

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