Ed Stilley has spent his whole life as a homesteader in Hogscald Hollow, Arkansas. Twenty-some years ago, God commanded Brother Ed to build guitars and give them away for free. So he did. Hundreds of them.
Ed Stilley has spent his whole life as a homesteader in Hogscald Hollow, Arkansas. This is where he and his wife, Eliza, raised 5 children on the Christian Gospel and what they could coax out of the ground or forage from the surrounding Ozark hills.
Twenty- some years ago, Mr. Stilley was a deeply troubled man. He prayed for guidance and received a calling. In a dream, God agreed to take care of the matter if Ed would make guitars and give them away for free. So he did. Hundreds of them. Most were given to youngsters who are now adults.
At first he had no idea how the job was to be done. A true Ozarkian, he relied on an incredible ingenuity and his common sense. He began by dismantling a discarded guitar he found in the trash. For materials he started by chopping down a walnut tree and sawing it into boards. Finding brazing rods for frets and rusty old door hinges for tailpieces, he would whittle down a steak bone from his dinner plate and use that for a bridge. The only things he could not fabricate were the strings and tuning keys. These were donated to him by a local music shop.
Besides guitars, Brother Ed eventually fashioned fiddles, mandolins, banjos, ukuleles, and dulcimers. On every instrument he carved the words, "True Faith, True Light, Have Faith in God."
A mostly unseen but very intriguing detail is the fact that mounted inside the sound box of his instruments is an odd assortment of hardware which can include screen door springs, saw blades, pot lids and old medicine bottles. These unlikely combinations can work collectively to create a haunting sort of reverb. When asked why he added these strange parts, Brother Ed replies, "to more clearly speak the voice of God."
Ed never charged for a single instrument he made. Although they were sought after by locals who knew of him, he would not accept payment and generally would only give them to children. The few adults who received them as gifts consider themselves lucky, indeed, as these instruments are arguably the finest and most authentic examples of American Folk Art ever made.
Now in their 80's, Ed and his wife Eliza continue to live a homesteader's life and subsist mostly off of a few chickens and cows they raise and what they can grow in the Arkansas hardscrabble earth of their garden. Their retirement plan has always been their faith that God will provide.