Meet Walter Hood

One of the most valued of the valued employees at Peterboro Basket Company is Walter Hood. Raised in New Hampshire, Walter went from farming to making boxes before coming to the Peterboro Basket Company. Walter now makes baskets for demonstrations, crafts the frames that baskets are shaped on, designs baskets, conducts tours, and repairs old machines. Two familiar Peterboro baskets, the heart-shaped and the step basket, are Walter's imaginative designs. Hood's wife, Lillian, who also works at Peterboro, has crafted her own signature basket. Mrs. Hood put together two vegetable baskets and joined them with a hinge. The end products is an ample file basket with a sturdy lid.

The Hood's home is chock-a-block with baskets, and the keynote is wood. The house is heated by wood, and Walter crafts wooden furniture. This passion has fueled him through fifty years of basketmaking. "I'm probably the only on here who knows the definition of 'basket.' When I first began working at Peterboro, I looked up the meaning in Webster's dictionary," he explains.

A "basket" literally is a receptacle made of interwoven materials. Naturally, the basket's practical purposes are also part of the charm. "You start with a lot of pieces," he says, "and they come together into something that you can use."

Beauty and function: the dual traditions on which Peterboro was founded and on which legend is based. It is said that Peterboro baskets have traveled with American explorers to the ends of the earth and even travelled to New York City where, in the 1930's, they were used by workers removing garbage from the subway tracks. It is rather fitting that these baskets continue to function as receptacles, true to their name to the very end.