Finding the right tool for the job was just something that came naturally.
Ask any “Mr. Fix-it” in Missoula and they might remember Ken “Toolman Bob” Hedrick as the stuff of legend, and often the reason folks walked through the doors of Ace Hardware on Brooks Street.
As the store’s tool department specialist, the jolly man with the ever-present grin could often be found scanning section rows for bolts and bits and bobs, looking to match the vague descriptions given by home carpenters and plumbers with the minuscule parts that might finish an amateur’s job.
“Ken would tell me that customers came in after watching those do-it-yourself shows, after having torn their sinks apart, and ask for the Toolman to help them put it all back together,” said his wife, Kelli.
“He loved matching people up with the right tool and just plain loved and clicked with most people.”
Ace floor manager Randy Burris says he loves all of his staff, but that he’d have hired 100 Kens if he’d had the chance.
Ken always had a smile for customers, he said, despite working on two pained legs often swollen from lymphedema.
Burris said Hedrick never complained of pain or ailment, never had a cross word, and never missed work.
On the November 2007 day that staff heard news of the car accident that took his life at the age of 61, work was all the dimmer.
“Those sudden things happen to other people - it was a little surreal and saddening,” said Burris. “Ken always had something to say to liven the mood, and people loved him.”
When their co-worker left the world, it left a void the size of a crater, he said.
When Ken Hedrick and his wife moved west to Missoula, from Billings in 2001, neither expected to be quite as happy here. But the pair quickly found their dream home in Stevensville, and settled into the rhythm and quiet of Bitterroot living.
He hunted the land, fished the streams and watched refuge birds with the same wonder as any one of the eight grandchildren he so adored.
St. Mary Peak loomed large from the Hendricks’ kitchen window, and the view was icing on the cake for the Toolman.
According to his wife, he lingered most mornings, meditating over cups of coffee and gazing skyward.
The porch was another.
It was the place he’d sit and read, and exchange pleasantries with passers-by - talking over the latest Bitterroot news, or tidbits from Montana’s rich history.
If his wife misses seeing Hedrick planted on that porch, neighborhood regulars who passed so often do, too.
“I’ve had several people in this last year come and knock on the door and say, 'I stopped and talked to your husband many times.’
“He was wonderful that way - wonderful at sustaining a conversation with anyone over anything.”
Daughter Samantha Cocchiarella may not have shared genetics with this father, but in Ken Hedrick she found the dad she’d always wanted.
What she did share with him was a nose in a book, and a voracious love of reading.
Once married and away in Georgia, she missed the long conversations shared with a father over the brims of the hardback books regularly read and exchanged.
“He was a phenomenal reader, and read more than anyone I had ever met,” she said. “And he had this absolute love and passion for history, and fascination with Native American lore, and Montana a hundred years ago.”
Her father virtually lapped up Western history by the bookcase, she said, but had equal affection for the frontier storytelling of Louis L’Amour and the suspense of a good Robin Cook novel.
But what dad and daughter most enjoyed were citations aloud from “The Quotable Lewis” - a book celebrating the works of spiritual author C.S. Lewis.
“When my dad died, I chose one of his favorite quotes from that book for his memorial card. It read: 'One road leads home, a thousand roads lead into the wilderness’ - it just always felt so like him,’ she said.
Kenneth Hedrick could quote facts from obscure works, cite arcane philosophy, and parry with anyone over the facts of the Old West. Then, just as easily, he could describe the way a power drill bit attacked a piece of wood, or simply explain the purpose of a dovetail join.
Woodworking was a passion, and he and Kelli created primitive folk art and sold it under the name “Montana Blessings.”
“My dad and mom are incredible folk artists,” said daughter Samantha. “From amazing Shaker benches to funky eclectic ornaments, and vintage-style cabinets and collectibles, it was all really beautiful stuff.”
Last November, right around her birthday, the daughter spoke with her father one last time.
They teased in the familiar staccato rhythms of an intimate world - spliced artfully between stories of a successful trunk show of family crafts she’d held that afternoon, near Macon.
“You know, you would have fallen head over heels with my dad - everyone did,” she said. “He made every person he encountered feel at ease with that deep chuckle and warm smile.”
Kelli Hedrick says she’s been looking far too hard for some sign that her husband is OK, but knows he would want her to loosen up and not be as sad.
“We blended our families so easily - when I was raising two girls alone - and he just always let you be who you were.
“It’s a wonderful thing to know that someone will not take your weaknesses and use them against you. That was Ken and that’s a hard thing to have to let go.”
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