Rotary Wheel sculpture made of 123 rare and exotic woods from all 111 Rotary nations of early 1959 plus 12 from the United States; c. 1959.

Full details of this appeared in 'The Rotarian' in February 1961.  The wheel was made by Rtn Patrick Slowey of Holyoke, Mass who had assembled a collection of over 2,700 different wood samples in 44 years.  He began by making lamps, clocks and tables inter alia.  In the mid 1950s, he decided to produce a Rotary wheel mounted upright on a three-tiered pedestal, using

natural coloured woods from all over the Rotary world.  This labour of love took 5 years to complete.  The blue of the wheel uses majuaga wood from Cuba, the white areas between the spokes from American white holly, and the yellow spokes from Brazilian vinhatico.  Rare red ivory wood from Swaziland, sandalwood from India, gingko from Japan, olive from Jordan and Shisham from Pakistan were among other woods used.  A total of 123 types of wood were used representing the Rotary world, including 12 from the United States.

This ongoing project is the work of RGHF historian Basil Lewis, first posted 7 April 2006 This section is maintained by RGHF webmaster Paul D. McLain. If you can help identify or supply more information about anything on this page, please contact us at www.historycomment.org

We acknowledge the assistance of DG 11/12 David Templin, ROTARY/One (RGHF Member), Neil Dahlmann of Rotary Club of Highland Park in District 6440, and Jack Selway, USA, with providing photos used in this section.

After you see the museum office, meet his partners and office workers at Harris Dodds & Brown. (A page of photographs of the actual office in the early 2000's)

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