Joe Tindle pushes open the door to his wood shop and immediately apologizes for the mess.
“I need to spend more time cleaning up,” he says, pointing to a stack of boards which he soon will fashion into a baby cradle or rocking horse.

His project for this week is making his 51st cradle which will go to the unsuspecting parents of a newborn baby.

He tries to make a cradle for everyone in his community who is having a baby — and even some outside the town of Longton where he lives.

“It’s not always a surprise,” he admits, “but there’s just something special about it when nobody is expecting anything. I know it sure makes me feel good.”

Tindle also has made dozens of rocking horses for the children of area friends. “I always tell the parents that each horse comes with a lifetime guarantee. If you break it, just bring it back. It’s not hard to make repairs to a rocking horse.”

One of his daughters makes the bumper pads for the swinging cradles and he buys a tiny mattress from the Edna Mattress Company.

“You know, the hardest part isn’t building the cradle, it’s tying those bumper pads onto the cradle using ribbon,” he said. “That’s really hard for me to do with my old stiff hands.”

Most of his wood projects are made of oak and walnut, but he also uses some Kentucky coffee bean wood. Area farmers sometimes give him native oak that they’ve cut, and he hauled in some oak and walnut from his farm before he retired. He also buys wood at Elk City and Independence.

Tindle worked in maintenance for the Elk Valley Schools until he retired in June of this year, having worked there for 11 years. Before that he farmed and previously operated an alfalfa mill in Longton for 27 years. He also managed ADM at Fredonia for several years.

The love of his life was Melba, his wife, who died six months ago.

“My life has changed a lot,” said Tindle. “But I try to remember that death is a part of living, and we sure had some good years together.”

Now his focus is upon his own health — he is being treated for lung cancer. He also suffers from a debilitating disease called Scleroderma which has affected his hands and mouth. Although using his shop tools has grown harder for him, Tindle spends a part of each day working on various projects. He has built entertainment centers and quilt racks for local friends, and of course, he keeps his ears to the ground hoping to hear about someone who might soon be having a baby.

Over the years, he has made improvements to his cradle design which includes a ball-bearing swivel that enables a baby to swing back and forth without any squeaking sounds. He takes one hand and gives his latest cradle a push. “See? That shouldn’t wake up a baby, right?”

After doing all the carpenter work, Joe then turns into a painter, adding stain and polyurethane as a finish.
Then it’s time to deliver a brand new cradle to someone who will keep it for a lifetime, then pass it on to someone else who will keep it another lifetime.

“I don’t do this for any praise,” he said. “I’d just as soon nobody knew about it. But I figure if you can’t help somebody in this life, then what’s the use of being here?”

There are lots of folks in Joe’s community who could vouch for “why he is here.” For one thing, there are 51 babies — some of them 25 years old now — who were rocked to sleep hundreds of times in a cradle that was formed with the caring hands of Joe Tindle.

To them, he just might be Santa Claus.