Robert Otis Sawyer
Born: April 20, 1931
Died: December 9, 2011
Married: Katherine Muncil (May 29, 1958)
Children: Tammy Bova, Donna Darrah, Terri Krutz, Cynthia Goodrich (step-daughter), Anthony Brooks (step-son)
Robert "Bob" Otis Sawyer was a lifelong resident of Saranac Lake who owned and operated the Sew-Vac Shop.
Adirondack Daily Enterprise, December 12, 2011
Robert O. Sawyer
Robert Otis Sawyer, 80, of 147 Lake St., Saranac Lake, died Friday, Dec. 9, 2011 at Adirondack Medical Center.
Born in Saranac Lake on April 20, 1931, he was the son of Leo and Gladys (Manning) Sawyer. He married Katherine Muncil on May 29, 1958 in Saranac Lake. She predeceased him on September 20, 2010.
Mr. Sawyer was a lifelong resident of Saranac Lake and had been employed as a school bus driver for the Saranac Lake Central School District for more than 30 years. He also had owned and operated the Sew-Vac Shop in Saranac Lake for more than 25 years. He also sponsored a bowling team for many years through the Sew-Vac Shop. Mr. Sawyer loved to tinker.
He is survived by three daughters: Tammy Bova of Saranac Lake, Donna Darrah of AuSable Forks, and Terri Krutz of Malone; one step-daughter, Cynthia Goodrich of Raleigh, N.C.; one brother, Richard Sawyer of Lake Clear; and many grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his father, mother, one stepson, Anthony Brooks, and one brother, Donald Sawyer.
Calling hours will take place at the Fortune-Keough Funeral Home from 2 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 7:45 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 13. A memorial service will immediately follow at 7:45 p.m. Tuesday evening at the funeral home with the Rev. Mark Reilly officiating. Interment will take place in Pine Ridge Cemetery in the spring.
Friends wishing to remember Robert Otis Sawyer may make memorial contributions to the Lewy Body Disease Foundation in care of the funeral home.
Family and friends can also share their memories and sign the online guest book at fortunekeoughfuneralhome.com.
Adirondack Daily Enterprise, October 20, 2001
Local man keeps ‘em in stitches
All nature may abhor a vacuum, but Bob Sawyer sure doesn’t.
Nor would you expect him to, since vacuums have been very good to him. And so have sewing machines.
Yes, as the brains, and hands of the Sew-Vac Shop, vacuum cleaners and sewing machines (especially broken ones) have been his bread and butter.
So how, you might ask, does one become a vacuum cleaner and sewing machine repairman? Although the road wasn’t rocky, it was long and had its fair share of detours.
It all started in 1960 with the shoe factory, which was in the building that is now occupied by Furniture Weekend. The factory’s mechanic, Harold Clark, was about to retire, and looking around, he spied Sawyer.
Sawyer was always mechanically inclined, though with typical modesty he downplays his aptitudes.
“I always puttered,” he said, “but it’s like my mother used to say — I was great for tearing things apart … I just couldn’t put them back together.” Keeping his mother’s assessment to himself, Sawyer showed up for his first lesson.
“OK,” said Clark, pointing at one of the sewing machines, “show me what you know.”
“Well,” said Sawyer, “I know that the wheel goes ‘round and ‘round, and the needle goes up and down.”
“All right,” said Clark, “now I know where to start with you.”
And start they did, with on-the-job training which lasted a couple of months, until Sawyer took over as the factory’s sole mechanic.
Sawyer readily recalls his biggest source of trouble with the factory’s machines — it was sabotage.
The operators would want a break, so they’d somehow foul up the machine. Then they’d call for Sawyer.
The process was always the same. “So what’s the problem?” Sawyer would say.
“Gotta be you,” the woman would say, “I’ve been sewing for 15 years.” Then Sawyer would have to check the machine till he could find out what exactly had been fouled up. This got the women their breaks but it also got Sawyer’s goat. He decided to put an end to both these things.
So every night after supper he’d go back to the factory and study the machines completely. He did this several hours a night for a few weeks, going over every operation, one at a time, of every machine, until finally he knew the machines better than the operators did.
Then, the next time he heard, “Bob, this machine’s acting up,” he was able to troubleshoot and fix it, at almost the same time.
The operator’s reaction was always the same, “What was wrong with it?”
And Sawyer’s reaction was the same as well, “Nothing. It was you.”
Then he’d show them exactly what they’d done to the machine.
This got him new respect among the operators. And it wasn’t long after that the operators started approaching him, saying “Bob, my machine at home’s been acting up. Can you take a look at it?”
And so Sawyer got into personal sewing machine repairs. This was only a side job, though, since he had his shoe factory job. The show factory closed and became a dress factory; Sawyer worked there as well.
Then in the early ’60’s, the dress factory closed, and Sawyer worked for the village. Later he drove a school bus. And somewhere in between, he took over Ray McCasland’s upholstery business.
But upholstery is a sporadic business, directly related to upswings and declines in the economy. Sewing machine and vacuum cleaner repair, however, is a steady business, so in 1979 Sew-Vac was born.
Why the name Sew-Vac? Originally, Sawyer was going to call the business Sewing World, till his friend Ernie Schmidt dissuaded him in a flash.
“Everywhere you go,” said Schmidt, “it’s ‘this’ world and ‘that’ world.”
So Sew-Vac it was.
How difficult is it to repair vacuum cleaners and sewing machines? With the cleaners, 85 percent of the malfunctions are one of five things — a bad chord or switch, a broken wire, or brushes or motors that are shot. The other 15 percent is a plugged hose.
As for sewing machines, it depends. The simpler the machine, the easier it is to find its problem. But the more functions a machine can perform, the more complex its mechanism is, the more things to go wrong and the harder it is to find out the problem.
Not that the extra effort is ever passed on to the Sew-Vac customers.
“I only start charging them once I find the problem,” says Sawyer. “Otherwise, people couldn’t afford it.”
Was there ever a machine that stumped Sawyer? One still stands out in his memory.
It was a German machine called a Pfaff with a very complicated internal drive. The owner’s husband tried to replace a belt, had no idea what he was doing and so the machine was kaput.
Without benefit of a manual or schematic of any kind, Sawyer labored over it for almost six months. Finally he got it working for all but two stitches: when one worked, the other didn’t, and vice versa.
He conceded defeat, told the woman to send it back to the factory. He also asked her to request a reply from the factory, telling what exactly was wrong with the machine.
A while later a letter came to Sawyer from Pfaff’s head technician. He explained the minor adjustment Sawyer hadn’t been able to figure out.
And while Sawyer had felt he’d failed by not having figured out how to repair the machine perfectly, the head technician was astounded anyone could have figured out as much as Sawyer did, working completely on his own. He closed his letter saying, “If you ever want a job with Pfaff, you’ve got one.”
“I always took that as a great compliment,” said Sawyer.
Sawyer also had no problem recalling his oddest sewing machine repair.
A woman brought in a machine that was smashed almost beyond recognition. It turned out her little boy had taken a hammer to it. Sawyer told her restoring the machine would cost twice as much as a new one, but she told him to go ahead and do it.
He did, and about six months later, the woman returned with the same machine, again hammered mercilessly by the same boy. But this time, Sawyer bowed out.
“I can’t take your money,” Sawyer said. “You’ve got to take the machine somewhere else.”
And to himself he recalls thinking, “And while you’re at it, put the kid in leg irons.”
And so 40 years after he first decided to give sewing machine repair a try, Sawyer’s still at it.
And although he’s the only person in the North Country qualified to do industrial machine repair, his business is almost exclusively personal machines.
The Sew-Vac Shop, which is at 70 Lake St., is open for business from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Monday through Thursday, and 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Fridays. Sawyer himself usually comes down after dinner to work for an hour or so, but the shop’s closed then.
Asked if he ever gets bored, Sawyer said, “No. I enjoy doing it, plus I like people.”
“Besides,” he added, “I need something to keep me occupied in my retirement.”
Adirondack Daily Enterprise, January 17, 1964
Sawyer Home Destroyed by Fire
Saranac Lake Volunteer Firemen, barely recovered from their ordeal at the terrible St. Regis Hotel fire, were called to 205 Lake Street at 3:08 this morning where a 2-story frame house owned by Robert Sawyer was burning.
The Sawyer’s 12-year-old daughter awoke about 3 a.m. and hollered that something was burning. Mr. and Mrs. Sawyer and Tammy Ann 2, and Anthony 10 and Cynthia were all sleeping on the second floor.
After being awakened by Cynthia’s cries the Sawyer family had to feel their way to the downstairs and safety because the smoke was so thick, Mr. Sawyer said that even a few moments longer before discovering the fire probably would have spelled tragedy for them.
Twenty-seven firemen answered the call at 3:08 and fought the blaze until 5:28 when they returned to the fire station. At this time Mr. Sawyer said they had some hope of saving clothesa dn other personal belongings but had moved to the home of his brother-in-law Kenneth Mulligan of 29 Charles Street where he was waiting until daylight to return to the house.
At 6:45 a neighbor, Nelson Davis, discovered the house burning again and firemen battled the fire until 9 this morning but the house was a complete loss. Only the shell and part of an attached garage remain. A truck used in the Sawyer Brothers Gas Distributors firm was in the garage and it is not known if this can be salvaged.
Mr. Sawyer said he did not know the cause of the fire nor could he estimate the damage at this time.
The Sawyer family has obtained clothes from the Red Cross at the Seventh Day Adventist Health and Welfare Center where clothes donated to the Red Cross are stored. The Endicott Johnson Company is providing the family with footwear.
The family will stay with the Mulligan’s for a few days until Mr. Sawyer opens a house on St. Lawrence Street, owned by his father who is now in New York City.
The Sawyer’s have received many calls with offers of help and Mr. Sawyer offered his thanks to these people. He said his family appreciates the assistance which they very much needed.
Adirondack Daily Enterprise, June 2, 1959
Brooks - Sawyer
The marriage is announced of Catherine Brooks, daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Plymon Muncil, and Robert Sawyer, son of Mr. and Mrs. Leo E. Sawyer of 8 St. Lawrence St.
Their attendants were Mrs. Helen Muncil, sister-in-law of the bride, and G. Richard Sawyer, brother of the groom.
A reception followed at the bride’s home. Hostesses for the reception were Mrs. Salina Gallo of Lake Placid, Mrs. Florence Mulligan of Saranac Lake, sisters of the bride, and Mrs. Mary Phillips.