Romeo Vezina of Vezina’s Vacuum Cleaner Sales and Service in Barton shows off a prototype of The Vermonter, the wooden vacuum cleaner he has designed and built. Photos by Bethany M. Dunbar
BARTON — You will not have to be the Queen of Sheba to own one. But don’t be surprised if you are in good company if you decide to buy The Vermonter — Romeo Vezina’s new wooden vacuum cleaner. That would follow a longstanding tradition of vacuum cleaners.
Mr. Vezina, Barton’s constable, is as well-known for vacuum cleaner repair and sales as he is for law enforcement. He has been in the business since 1959 and has a collection of about 700 vacuum cleaners from as far back as 1927.
In those days, the machines were mounted on sled runners instead of wheels. Very few people owned such a machine, and the manual that came with a new vacuum cleaner included photographs of well-dressed and coifed ladies showing how to operate one. The manual also includes a two-page list of the important and famous folks who also owned one.
The list of famous people, buildings, and companies includes Mrs. Amelia Earhart Putnam, J.P. Morgan, Madam Luella Melius, leading sporano in the Chicago Civic Opera House, Admiral R.E. Byrd, Baroness Angela Von Neckelman, The White House, and even the Fuller Brush Company. If that is not enough to convince someone they ought to own a new vacuum cleaner, the list also includes official seals of some prominent citizens. One of these is Pope Pius XI.
In his collection, Mr. Vezina even has a Eureka vacuum that was worked by bellows instead of electricity.
For more than 40 years Mr. Vezina has been cheerfully fixing and selling vacuum cleaners. He used his experience from all those years to design and build his wooden model.
“I wanted to be different,” he said. “We live in the woods. Why not make a wooden vacuum cleaner?”
He said once he came up with the idea it seemed natural. Wood has many advantages. It is rugged and quiet. The machine has good air flow, and the wands and hoses will be steel. It will have a power head, and it incorporates all the best features of the vacuum cleaners he had been working on for all these years. The prototype is made of knotty pine, but he can make one out of any kind of wood to match anyone’s house. He also plans to design a wooden hassock to go with it. The hassock can be used to store the vacuum and will double as a nice looking piece of furniture.
The Vermonter is six-sided and is lined with a piece of stove pipe. That helps create an air seal and makes it fireproof. It will have a ten-amp
This is a photo from a 1927 manual for an Electrolux vacuum cleaner. The manual includes a long list of famous and important people who own Electrolux vacuums.
Lamb motor with 70 pounds of suction per square inch. Two metal clamps will allow for easy access for repairs.
“I’ve been kind of toying with it and playing with it,” he said. The first design was square, and Mr. Vezina didn’t like it. The six-sided model is much nicer looking and more streamlined.
“My son is going to handle them in Orlando, Florida,” he said. A model is going down later this month. Mr. Vezina has not decided on a price yet.
Mr. Vezina got into the business by kind of a fluke. He had a cousin selling Filter Queens in New Hampshire, and his cousin was trying to talk him into doing it here. But Mr. Vezina had never sold anything and was not quite sure he had the knack. He happened to mention that to a friend who said, “Jeez, my wife has been bugging me to get one.”
So they decided to do a demonstration for Mr. Vezina’s friend and his wife. They liked the machine and bought it. Since then Mr. Vezina has sold and repaired 26 makes of vacuum cleaners, 152 different models. Now he sells central vacuum systems, as well.
He has also worked for the Department of Corrections and has had a woodworking shop and limousine service, among other things.
“It’s the only way you can survive in Vermont,” he said.
Being resourceful led him to find the trailer that serves as his workshop. The owners of the landfill in Coventry had hired him to put in a central vacuum system in their new office space. Meanwhile the trailer was sitting there, and they were not sure what they were going to do with it. Mr. Vezina offered to swap, and the landfill owners accepted.
Another job Mr. Vezina had once was as captain of a yacht on Lake Champlain. The owners of an 82-acre island had hired him to fix a little tractor they used on the island. So they took him out on their boat and happened to mention they needed someone to drive the boat. They asked him if he had ever done that.
This early Electrolux ran on sled runners rather than wheels. It was made in 1927.
“Nope. Never drove a big boat in my life,” he said. But he was happy to learn, and he ended up getting offered the job and accepted. The boat had twin Corvette engines.
As for inventing a vacuum cleaner, Mr. Vezina probably would not have predicted he would do that years ago either. But now it seems like a natural next step in his career. He has done some research and is quite sure there has never before been a wooden vacuum cleaner.
“It’s going to be worldwide on the Internet,” he said.
