Life, Love and Taxidermy
One couple’s hobby grows into a 30-year business

Story: Jamie Carracher

In between the hills and browning trees of Ravenna, Tom Edsall puts down his leaf blower in front of his house and starts walking over to a side door. He motions to his semi-empty garage and casually says something about a herd of buffalo hanging up, waiting for their owner to come take them home.

Forty-eight-year-old Tom’s hair is dark brown and short. Concealed under his jacket is a tattoo on his arm, alluding to his days as an amateur tattoo artist. He quit because of the liability.

Tom tries to open the door, but it’s locked, and he knocks but his wife Vivian doesn’t hear right away. He’s been married to 47-year-old Vivian for about 30 years. He says they were grade-school sweethearts. Now they work together at home when he’s not at his full-time maintenance job at Swagelok Co., an area fluid system component manufacturer.

“We have everything out there.
We have lions, tigers and bears.”

Vivian opens the door, smiles and moves to the side as Tom grins proudly at their showroom.

The room is tall and slightly dark, the wood paneling stained lightly as sunbeams stream down from high windows, setting the stage for two floors of animal mortuary—two floors of animal heads and feet, glued and attached to wood, hung from walls. Inside the room are mounted lions, buffalo, deer, fish, feet, frogs, legs and heads. At the bottom of the cathedral-like room, innumerable gaping mouths and blank eyes cast faces and stares back down from above.

“We have everything out there,” Tom tells prospective customers. “We have lions, tigers and bears.”

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