By Rick Banas, Vice President of Strategic Marketing for BMA Management, Ltd. Follow Rick at twitter.com/rickbanas

What a privilege it was to meet Manny Shellist, a 98-year-old resident of Heritage Woods of Bolingbrook, an affordable assisted living community that BMA manages.

Manny came up and introduced himself as I was admiring his incredible woodcarving of the Gettysburg Address, which was on display in the reception area at the affordable assisted living community that Manny calls home. The woodcarving stands a staggering eight feet tall and contains 1,211 individually carved letters, each ¾ of an inch in height.

What is most remarkable is that Manny undertook the project when he was 96 years of age. As Manny explained to me, he took up woodcarving a couple years after his 90th Birthday and was able to complete his Gettysburg project in less than six months.

Manny and I talked for quite some time about his growing up and living in the Chicago area and what prompted him to learn something new.

For many years, he worked with his brother, who came up with the idea of selling health and beauty aids through the Mom and Pop grocery stores that were located in neighborhoods throughout the Chicago area.

After retiring for the first time, he found that a steady diet of pinochle and golf was not for him. He went back to work, this time for the Niles Township Sheltered Workshop, helping the organization serve men and women who were mentally and physically handicapped.

Following his second retirement, he began going to the Glenview Senior Center.

Woodcarving was never in his vocabulary before he visited the center. To be a good woodcarver, the instructor told him, two things were needed - patience and the ability to count. Manny acknowledged having patience but was curious about the need to be able to count. Counting is very important, the instructor told Manny; having the ability to count insures that when you are done with a project all ten fingers are still in place.

As we sat and talked, we were joined by a resident who had grown up in Mississippi. Her mother was a slave. Both Manny and the other resident reminisced about the importance of memorization when they were in school. Both had memorized the Gettysburg Address.

‘I memorized poems and read and re-read the Gettysburg Address so many times that it stuck,’ Manny told me. He undertook the project two years ago in conjunction with the celebration of the 200th Birthday of Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the United States. Click hereto learn more about ‘the (Illinois) Rail Splitter.’

Manny chipped into basswood each of the 272 words in the Gettysburg Address. Two other members on the Senior Center, Bob Crampton and Paul Gotschewski, helped him with the finishing touches. One stained the wood and the other built a combination frame and easel so that the woodcarving project could be displayed throughout the state. Just prior to coming to Heritage Woods of Bolingbrook, Manny’s work had been on display in Springfield, the Illinois State Capitol.

Manny moved to his new home in Bolingbrook to be close to his daughter in Joliet. He had been living in Morton Grove, across the street from where I attended high school.

His move to affordable assisted living has not slowed his woodcarving in any way. He spends a portion of virtually every day working on projects in his studio apartment.

Really remarkable. Right?

Heritage Woods of Bolingbrook will be showcasing Manny’s incredible woodcarving of the Gettysburg Address at special Lincoln’s Birthday program at 2 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 12, at the community on Kildeer Road. The program is open to the general public. The Bolingbrook High School JROTC will be conducting a flag folding ceremony and presenting Manny with an American Flag in recognition of his work. Manny will be available to answer questions. His woodcarving tools will be on display.

ABC ‘7’ Chicago did a news story on Manny on Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Follow Blair Minton, Founder of BMA at twitter.com/bmaman