Sunday, November 9, 2008 1:53 AM EST
News Herald (The News-Herald is a newspaper distributed in the northeastern portion of Northeast Ohio, serving Lake, Geauga, and Ashtabula Counties as well as a section of eastern Cuyahoga County.)
Memorial services for Austin Westcott, age 99, a resident of Geneva, will be 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2008, at The Behm Family Funeral Homes, 175 S. Broadway, Geneva.
Mr. Westcott passed away Friday, Nov. 7, 2008, at Mt. St. Joseph Nursing Home in Euclid.
Born June 12, 1909, in Plymouth Township to Rose (Smith) and Ernst Lee Westcott, he married Marjorie Mae Cooper on July 13, 1940, in Flatrock, Mich.
He served in the U.S. Coast Guard.
Austin was self-employed as a basket maker at Kingsville Basket Factory and was also a bee keeper.
He is survived by his sister, Mary Alice Young; brothers, Edwin Westcott and Walter Westcott; his grandsons, Michael, Mark, Steven and Scott; eight great-grandchildren; six great great-grandchildren; and many nieces and nephews.
He was preceded in death by his wife, Marjorie Mae Westcott; his parents; brothers, Earl Westcott, Dwight Westcott and Henry Westcott; and his stepson, James Robinson.
Friends may call from 6 to 7 p.m. Wednesday at the funeral home. The Rev. Larry Wade will officiate services.
Contributions may be made to Hospice of the Western Reserve, 300 E. 185th St., Cleveland, 44119.

BASKETS FOR THE HARVEST
(This is a portion of an article from the Star Beacon, Ashtabula, Ohio. as published in the “Society of Stukely Westcott Descendants of America” newsletter, October 2003; Vol. LXIX, No. 3)
At the crest of a hill southeast of the Interstate 90/Route 193 interchange at Kingsville, Ohio, a stand of trees marks the location of what was a thriving manufacturing business four decades ago.
It is fitting that trees have reclaimed this land, for in its time the industry consumed a truck load of hardwood logs every two weeks. It employed up to 19 workers at the peak of its operation and generated about $350,000 in annual sales. Its products were shipped out by the box-car load, yet today its owner has to poke around the nooks of his garage to find just a couple examples of the woven baskets that were produced here.
The Kingsville Basket Factory was founded and operated by Austin Westcott, who, at 94, still lives on the property that was home to the factory. Austin started the factory in 1958 and ran it until 1974. Austin started making baskets after he was laid off from a factory job in the mid-1950s. "I thought there was a market for it, all I had to do was find the materials," Austin says. In 1955, Austin ordered some basket-making materials from a factory in Ripley New York and started weaving the baskets in his home. He sold them to produce growers in the community. Austin says he probably sold his first baskets, peck-sized ones, for around $1 a dozen. Every basket was woven and assembled by hand.
Two years after getting into the business, Austin expanded by purchasing the machinery to cut his own veneer from logs, clip the veneer to the proper widths and lengths, and staple the components. An assembly line was created. First was the weaver, who laid out the basic weave of the veneer strips in a square-braid pattern. A second worker stapled the strips on the the weave. The sheet was then folded over a wooden form to create the basket, then handles were added and baskets nested four to a nest. Austin built the forms that the woven strips were pressed around. The veneer strips were cut by the lathe operator, a position usually filled bv Austin. His lathe could accommodate log lengths of up to 39 inches and diameters of about 20 inches. The lathe ran at 300 RPM as a knife cut the veneer from the log. When the knife had cut away all but a 4.5-inch core, the lathe was stopped and core removed. Cutting any closer to the core risked nicking the blade. The business thus generated a large quantity of these cores ranging in length from about two to three feet. Austin ad a sawmill custom built so he could saw the cores into lumber. This lumber was used to build bushel crates that were popular with lake-shore apple growers and root-crop growers in swamp gardens south of Orwell.
The factory also produced veneer scrap and sawdust. The sawdust went to an organic farmer, the veneer was used to heat the building and the vat of water in which the logs, cut into "bolts", had to be softened before they could be cut down on the lathe.
Austin says only tulip tree (poplar) and basswood could be used without soaking. Green timber was essential. "The best time to cut them was after the sap had gone down in October," he says. "Those logs would keep until June. But if you cut a log in June, you'd better use it up real quick. It wouldn't keep a month." Just about any hardwood log provided good basket material except oak and ash, they were too brittle. Austin purchased a truck-load of logs every two weeks. The load would supply enough veneer to make about 2,000 dozen peck baskets.
The type of baskets turned out by the factory varied with the season and their destination. Beginning shortly after the first of the year, the factory focused production on its annual order for a New York broker who sold the baskets to New England growers. They were 8- and 12 quart baskets. The factory shipped 14 to 19 40- and 50 foot railroad car loads from the Nickel Plate Railroad freight depot in Kingsville every spring. Each car held more than 12,000 baskets.
The factory's line included square-braid baskets ranging in size from I to 24 quarts. It also produced a quart round basket with dyed materials, and specialty baskets, like a pansy container for an Olmstead Falls grower and a tray that held a dozen plants in 2-inch pots.
Although all traces of the factory are gone, except for the steel vat now covered by the vegetation, Austin still weaves baskets as a winter pastime.