The post dedicated to Lucien Dean Hertert honors his profound influence on the California Carvers Guild (CCG, founded in 1973) and the Santa Clara Valley Carvers (founded in 1967).

The page also highlights his visionary silviculture project, which will leave a living legacy for future carvers. Personal tributes from friends and colleagues underscore his dedication as an instructor, judge, and friend, ensuring that his memory and contributions continue to inspire the woodcarving community.

Partial reprint of The Log, a CCG publication

Volume 7, Number 11, Nov 1980.

Lucien’s Living Legacy

By BILL YOUNGS

Lucien Hertert opened the door of the old refrigerator in a shed outside his workshop. It was jam-packed with black walnuts. They weren’t for eating; he was getting them ready to plant.

That was over a year ago when he showed me the horde of walnuts. At last April’s San Jose Show, he again took me out to see his crop—tiny green shoots beginning to appear in flats of rich soil over a hotbed he had built in his shop high on a hill in Cupertino, his home for 40 years.

On Sept. 17, 1980, I was visiting with Lucien on the phone.

“I’ve got a hundred black walnut trees,” he said proudly.

Three days later, my friend, Lucien Dean Hertert, died at the age of 75.

The trees—a legacy he set up for carvers 40 or 50 years from now—will live on in his memory.

To assure this, the administration of Columbia College has established “The Lucien Hertert Silviculture Project” on its campus. This project was conceived by the honoree, and the trees he raised from seeds were designed to be planted on acreage adjacent to this college in the Mother Lode country between Columbia and Sonora.

But the trees were not the only legacy Lucien Hertert gave to California wood carvers. In a very real sense, he was the cornerstone of CCG and earned the honor of holding CCG Membership Card #1.

I know because I was with him from the beginning.

There had been talk for several months about uniting the Santa Clara Valley Carvers, the oldest club in the State, with several blossoming groups in Southern California and elsewhere into a single statewide organization.

Jack Klempner of the Southland brought the matter to a head when he set up a meeting in his motel room during the April San Jose Show in 1973 to discuss the idea.

This was followed by more informal discussions at the Pepperdine Show in August of that year, and there Lucien Hertert—articulate, experienced organizer—emerged as the man to carry the ball.

He “sold” everyone he talked with and wrote to—including me—on the need for a state carving organization. He wrote the constitution and bylaws with some editing by the two other members of the committee, Van Eakes and this reporter. He conceived the division system for carrying out various programs.

He promptly shot down a move to nominate him for the office of president and campaigned instead for his friend Larry Viale—”our best carver needs to be our first president,” he reasoned.

Lucien wasn’t looking for honors. But he did want a major working role and volunteered at the beginning to serve as chief of the Judging Division, which had been his forte in the annual San Jose Show. He wanted to see the quality upgraded, and there is no question but what the Division was responsible for better and better carving during the years he was “chief judge” and that it continues to improve under the leadership of his successor, Rodney Cole.

Lucien did not confine his interest to judging, however. He was vitally concerned with all facets of CCG.

Like most of us, he initially envisioned a membership of three or four hundred and raised his eyebrows skeptically when Charlie and Noriene Wright took on the Membership Division with the optimistic prediction that we would grow to a thousand or more.

“Old Charlie sure knew what he was talking about,” Lucien chuckled when we topped the thousand mark in a few years.

As a long-time teacher of carving in his chapter’s program, education in the medium was close to Lucien’s heart, also, and he often pointed with pride to the work of Bill McMaster in this Division.

THE LOG, too, was of a great deal of interest to Lucien. Once, I mentioned to him guiltily that THE LOG took a lion’s share of the annual CCG budget.

“Well, it should,” he said bluntly. “If it wasn’t for THE LOG we wouldn’t have a Guild.”

Lucien believed people should be given jobs they were willing and able to handle, and he wanted them to get credit for what they did. Like his wife, Nancy, wrote to us recently about the beginnings of CCG and her husband’s role: “The credit belongs to all the ears and minds and tongues that labored over the evolution of those great and thrilling concepts.”

With all his organizational efforts, Lucien still managed to leave a remarkable legacy as a wood carver.

Until the Guild came along, he had done creative things for his own pleasure and the enjoyment of friends and family, plus some work for a church. Then one day, during the Pepperdine Show, he called me over to the table where he and Larry Viale were having lunch.

“We want to do a big mural and give it to Pepperdine,” he confided. “Don’t you think it would look nice over on that bare wall? Do you think the University would accept it?”

There was no doubt in my mind that the school would accept it indeed, but none of us at Pepperdine dreamed of what those two — along with Bud Clowers, Rosemary Nastich, and Wally Eck — would hang on that cafeteria wall 18 months later.

It was a monumental 9×21 foot mural depicting the trek of Juan Bautista de Anza bringing early settlers from Mexico to Monterey 200 years earlier—a beautiful example of the woodcarving art.

Note, the images above are not from The Log. They come from the “Bret Harte Wood Carvings” booklet by Columbia College.

Later, Lucien, along with Bud Clowers and Will Currie, did three major panels of early California gold mining scenes and donated them to Columbia College. They were working on designs for four more at the time of Lucien’s death.

Yes, Lucien left a great legacy to this organization, which he did so much to help build.

Farewell to Our Friend Lucien

BUD CLOWERS—”This is a personal blow to me since he was my instructor when I first hooked up with CCG. In addition, I worked with him on the murals for Pepperdine and Columbia and in other carving activities. In toto, it was enough to get to know him and love him, and I shall really miss him, along with the many other people whose lives he impacted.”

BILL McMASTER—”Lucien Hertert’s passing grieves all of us who knew him and participated in his judging sessions. He made many valuable and lasting contributions to the Guild. His sense of organization gave us the Division structure for establishing responsibility in carrying out programs. He, himself, as first chief of the Judging Division, instituted a sound system for judging and training judges. As a result, we now have one of the best judging systems in the art world. Besides judging, he provided the idea for the slide program for the Education Division, and he conceived the silviculture program in conjunction with Columbia College. Lucien devoted much time to the betterment of the Guild, and his special talents will be greatly missed. And so, with tears in my eyes, I say farewell to My Friend.”

BILL LANG—”My feelings about Lucien are the same as many, many others. He was a fine carver, a very fine judge, a wonderful and patient instructor, and a very sincere friend we will all greatly miss.”

BOB SCHMIDT—”I didn’t know Lucien all that long, but he was my instructor when I started the carving class. I soon learned he was a great, good and giving friend with a particular lust for life. I am sure we are all diminished by his passing.”

Lucien Dean Hertert Obituary in The CCG LOG

Lucien Dean Hertert, holder of California Carvers Guild membership card No. 1, died on Sept. 20, 1980, at the age of 75.

A native of Pierce, Nebraska, Lucien was born on Oct. 29, 1904. He graduated from Santa Ana High School in 1922, received his bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1926, and his master’s in bacteriology from U.C.’s Medical School in San Francisco in 1928.

Lucien owned and operated a clinical laboratory in San Francisco for 40 years and was a research fellow at the U.C. Medical School’s Hooper Foundation under Dr. K. F. Meyer. He was one of the initial members of the Clinical Laboratory Advisory Board, formed in 1937 for the California State Department of Health.

During World War II, Lucien served as a major in the Sanitary Corps, first as executive officer of the Ninth Service Command Laboratory at the Presidio of Monterey and then for two years in North Africa and Italy. After the war, he moved to Cupertino and resumed work in his laboratory. He was the first executive secretary of the American Association of Bioanalysts, instrumental in organizing that society and active in it for many years.

Besides wood carving, Lucien’s interests included photography, gardening, and a lifelong absorption in learning and teaching.

Survivors include his wife, Nancy; a sister, Lenore Inhelder; nine children; and eight grandchildren.

A family memorial service was held, led by the Rev. John Buenz, rector of St. Jude’s Episcopal Church in Cupertino.