At his retirement on Friday, August 6, 2021, Gary Wince was the most tenured staff member at Evins Mill. Arriving on the scene in November 1995 as our one and only groundskeeper, Gary took on the role and title of Plant Manager as the business grew, assuming greater responsibility for the endless repairs a physical plant such as ours demands.
He also assumed responsibility for a long list of capital improvements over the years. Specializing in carpentry, a trade he learned from his father and later taught to his son, his fingerprints are all over the property, fresh from what Gary called his “magic workshop” at the Granary.
Those fingerprints are found on relatively minor additions – such as bars, booths, buffets, cabinets, closets, counters, desks, displays, frames, knee walls, sheds, shelves, stalls, tables, vanities, etc. – as well as on more substantial projects such as the construction of Creek Side decks, Cortland Hall, Taylor Hall and Ivy Overlook. As Gary is fond of saying: “I bring William’s imagination to fruitation.”
Born in 1949 in Canton, Ohio to William & Vera Wince, Gary came to Nashville when he was only six weeks old. His mother was a Nashville native and eager to return – she didn’t care much for northerners, her husband notwithstanding.
So Gary grew up in Nashville, where in 1967 he graduated from Antioch High School. While Gary didn’t study much, he all the same made honor roll every term. He also excelled at chess and still plays a mean game. Gary’s native intelligence comes as no surprise to anyone who knows him - and his dry wit.
Before even graduating from high school, Gary enrolled at Middle Tennessee State University. To finance his education, he took out loans and worked a full-time job. Even so, he depleted his funds mid-way through and so took a year off to re-fill his educational coffers. No longer enrolled as a student however, Gary was eligible for the draft, and drafted he was.
For better or worse, his active duty was not in the jungles of Vietnam but at Fort Campbell on the Tennessee-Kentucky border. Fortunately for Gary, he wasn’t alone, for his son Chris was born as his service began in 1969. Another son Cortland, after whom Cortland Hall is named, was born in 1975.
Following his military service, Gary from 1973 to 1991 excelled as a sales representative for a variety of products, including insurance, chemicals and telecommunications equipment. In these years, Gary often worked on the side with his father at Wince Cabinet & Home Improvement, where he further honed his carpentry skills.
Gary’s father passed away in 1988 at the age of seventy-two, a painful loss – and a harbinger of a lot more hurt to come. In 1991 Gary’s sixteen-year old son Cortland died in a car accident, while in 1993 his mother died from cancer. Within a five-year period then, Gary lost a father, a mother and a son.
To escape Nashville and maybe more than just the city, Gary took up residence on Center Hill Lake – at the house that he and his father built decades earlier and that he inhabits to this day. For a time, Gary lived off his savings but grew bored in short order – bored enough anyway to respond to the Evins Mill job ad in the local paper.
A year after joining Evins Mill, Gary met and fell in love with Kim Terry – a red-headed, and some have said hot-headed, Evins Mill housekeeper. They married at Evins Mill in 2002 and were together until Kim passed away in 2012. Kim came to the relationship with two children, Chris & Lacey Dotson, and they became Gary’s children. Gary remains instrumental in their lives and in the lives of Lacy’s children, Braxton & Logan.
He’s also active in the lives of two other grandchildren – Veralena and Cortland, daughter and son respectively of Chris & Nikki Wince, who live in Nashville. Just as Gary assisted his own father on many a construction project, Gary’s son Chris has helped him on numerous capital improvements at Evins Mill.
In his role as Plant Manager, Gary remained an active and witty presence in my own life and work – a force and a friend for which I will always be grateful.
Post Script
To view "handyman" video tutorials fresh from Gary's Magic Workshop, visit...
Post Script
To view "handyman" video tutorials fresh from Gary's Magic Workshop, visit...
