Eskew's 1955 Martin 0-18

Gutsy flattop was twice a gift by English war bride

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               ©  2019 — Kenneth Lelen — All Rights Reserved                                   

Musician, electronics technician and Air Force veteran William Kenneth Eskew (1918 – 2001) was born in Belton SC, a cotton ginning town in the Piedmont region of the state. Called Kenneth all his life — not Ken, Kenny or Bill — he grew up in nearby Greenville.

William Kenneth Eskew
(1918 – 2001)

As a teenager Kenneth worked in an uncle’s store, Payne’s For Music on Main Street, and learned to play the guitar and clarinet. During the 1930s he met many big-name musicians who visited the store in search of strings, reeds or other gear when the were performing at nearby Textile Hall on nearby Washington Street.

When WW II broke Kenneth joined the U.S. Air Corps. At the time he was 5-foot, 11¾ inches tall, but didn’t weigh enough to attend flight school and become an airplane pilot. Instead, he was trained to be an electronics technician.

During the war years he was stationed with the 8th Air Force in Norwich, England, and lived in a four-story Georgian mansion located near several aircraft and submarine factories. There he met Marion Cooper, the English woman who became his wife of 56 years.

Escaped German bombing raids

During the war Marion, her four siblings and mother moved to Norwich, 100 miles northeast of London. They wanted to escape German bombing raids, which had leveled a next-door neighbor’s home.

Marion’s mother met Kenneth first, at a nearby air base, but for reasons Marion never revealed, she didn't meet Kenneth for another nine months. They dated during the war and married in 1945. When the war was over Kenneth brought Marion, one of 70,000 English war brides, to the States.

Kenneth’s profession was now electronics and post-war jobs were plentiful. During the Korean Conflict, however, he was recalled to service and sent to Texas. Once there, Kenneth met aircraft manufacturing reps who convinced him to join North American Aviation in Inglewood CA (near present-day Los Angeles International Airport) after his military stint.

For the next 30 years Kenneth worked on avionics, jets and spacecraft, from Jupiter missiles to the Apollo command and service module. He also switched from electronics to making the calculations needed for manned spaceflight — all the while using only slide rules!

Marion's gift of a small guitar

Sometime in the late 1950s or early 1960s Marion gave Kenneth this 1955 Martin 0-18 (SN 145937) guitar as a gift. She paid $40, she recalled, to “a Colonel Blankenship who lived in San Fernando Valley and said he needed the money at the time.”

1955 Martin 0-18 with spruce top,

rosewood fingerboard and bridge

Kenneth played the guitar for relaxation, especially after work. “Some days he’d come home and rush into the bedroom where he’d play the guitar for a while before he could come out and talk to anybody,” Marion said. “Mostly, he played it for pleasure and little concerts.”

Kenneth was a fan of Andrés Segovia, Chet Atkins and Tony Mattolla, and got Marion to sing old English folk songs and Shakespearean tunes as he played along. “He even did that while I was cooking dinner,” she said. “It was fun.”

The Eskews relocated to Greenville SC in the 1980s and later moved into Rolling Green Village, a retirement community east of town. Stricken with larynx and throat cancer, Kenneth passed away in July 2001.

1955 Martin 0-18 with mahogany back,
mahogany neck and butterbean tuners

Three months later Marion discovered two gifts Kenneth had left behind. “I found previously unknown poetry he'd written for me and left in a drawer,” she said.

“I also found the instrument had been under the bed for years. I ran my fingers over it and it was all in good shape.”

Marion's 2nd gift

After attending one of my Vintage Music Concerts at Rolling Green Village in Nov 2004, Marion decided to give me Kenneth’s guitar. She thought I'd appreciate it, she told me.

Housed in a ratty old cardboard case and still strung with Kenneth’s nylon strings, the guitar was in fair shape for its age. It had a mahogany body, spruce top, 13.5-inch lower bout width, 24.9-inch scale and 14 frets to the body.

Attractive but unplayable, the Eskew 0-18 needed several repairs and a good cleaning to update its performance. I took it to luthiers Greg Hanson and David Crawford (now in Durham NC).

Hanson and Crawford repair the Eskew 0-18

The repairs were completed in October 2005 and cost $895. This work included:

          •   reset the neck

          •   refret the fingerboard

          •   repair bridge plate holes

          •   reglue an internal split brace

          •   remove and reglue the bridge

          •   fill, reslot and intonate the saddle

          •   repair top cracks near the pickguard

With a reset neck, playing action of the Eskew 0-18 improved and projection opened up as well. Still, it needed to be played and played for the neck and body to "settle in" and for the tone to warm up or "sweeten."

It was one of 30 instruments I owned at that time and, despite its use in a few concerts, I knew this guitar would not get the attention it needed. In addition, the skinny neck of this mid-50s Martin hampered my left hand's fingering agility, while the string spacing hampered my heavy-handed flatpicker's playing style.

So, in March 2007, I sold the rehabilitated Eskew 0-18 at Lark Street Music in Teaneck NJ for $2500. I felt someone else would play and relish this robust yet diminutive guitar. 

•••••••

Kenneth Eskew's 1955 Martin 0-18  —  SN 145937

An unadorned concert-sized guitar such as the Eskew 0-18 was a staple of the C.F. Martin Co. since the 19th century. In 1955 the firm produced 526 units of the 0-18 guitar, which were offered at retail for $95.

                 _____________________   Specifications   _____________________

          Scale length:                                 24-7/8-in.

          Nut width:                                    1-11/16-in.

          Body length:                                 18-3/8-in.

          Lower bout width:                       13-5/8-in.

          Upper bout width:                       10-in.

          Waist width:                                 8-in.

          Depth @ endpin:                          4-3/16-in.

          Fretboard radius:                        14-in.

          String spacing @ bridge:            2-3/16-in.

          Top:                                               spruce               —     Sitka

          Back & sides:                               mahogany          —     Honduran

          Neck:                                             mahogany         —     reset Oct 2005

          Bridge:                                          rosewood           —     reglued Oct 2005

          Bridge plate:                                maple                 —     repaired Oct 2005

          End pin:                                        ebony

          Fretboard:                                    rosewood

          Heelcap:                                        rosewood

          Bracing pattern:                          x-braced

          Neck shape:                                  medium soft V

          Saddle:                                          intonated bone    —     new in Oct 2005

          Frets:                                             medium wire      —     refretted Oct 2005

          Nut:                                                original bone       —     reclaimed Oct 2005

          Tuning machines:                         single-unit, vintage-plate, open-gear,
                                                                 nickel-plated metal butterbean tuners

          Bridge pins:                                  black plastic

          Back & side binding:                   dark tortoise celluloid

          Finish:                                           hand-polished lacquer

          Pickguard:                                    tortoise celluloid teardrop

          Soundhole rosette:                        nine concentric b-w-b rings in two black rings

          Markers:                                       six white dots of decreasing size on fretboard
                                                                 white side markers at 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 12 fret

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© 2019 — Kenneth Lelen — All Rights Reserved