The Roanoker - May/June 2021 - 18

the gist

(Life to right): Buck, Cindy, Mary and Danny Washburn

A Family Lockdown
written and photographed by Dan Smith The Washburns continue their stewardship
of one of the Roanoke Valley's oldest family businesses as it continues dramatic
changes into the 2020s.

M

ary Washburn King cracks a
string of jokes about some of
the Darwin-moments in the
locksmith business, finishing with the
woman who was locked in her house for
two weeks, when all she had to do was
crawl out a window.
And then there was the guy who needed
a locksmith to open his door because his
key wouldn't work. " Just spray it with WD40, " King suggested. " I can't get the door
open to do that, " said the client. Mary
didn't bother to tell him she meant to spray
the keyhole. " We'll be over in a bit, " she
said.
But the moments aren't all Darwinian.
Some are tragic and frightening. Like the
beaten wives who are locked in. The dead
bodies-some gruesomely dead-behind
those doors. And the stories, the sad, sad
stories.
Sometimes the stories leave Mary's
brother, Buck Washburn, feeling like he
made a great decision when he joined his
father at Meador Locksmith, which is now

18 MAY/JUNE 2021

headquartered in Vinton. " I got a call from
a guy whose locks I changed after he'd
been broken into a couple of times, " says
Buck. " He said he had just had his first
sleep in two years. That was satisfying. "
What is also satisfying is that Buck's
son, James Washburn, is following in
the business and that his parents, Cindy
and Danny-both in their 70s-have
comfortably retired from a business they
bought in 1982, when it was already 50
years old. Mary runs the office and Buck's
son James is a certified locksmith.
(Side note: All the Washburn men are
named James Daniel Washburn.)
Danny and Cindy bought Meador
Locksmith's for $28,000 ($76,000 in 2021
dollars) from Virginia ( " Gerty " ) Meador
Walters, whose husband, the founder in
1932, had died. They agreed to retain the
name. Gerty ran it for some years, then
remarried and her second husband became
involved. Danny went to work for them
in 1980 after being with DuPont, while
Cindy was a registered nurse.

Danny was fully certified by the time
Cindy joined him in 1982, leaving her job
at Community Hospital. She learned both
the business and the craft, giving her the
opportunity to do some of the basic repairs
in the shop when Danny was out on a job.
Buck grew up in the shop and, says
Cindy, he always had a gift for fixing just
about anything mechanical. At 12, he had
his own locksmith tool kit and he had
actually put together a pneumatic door
closer when he was 6. He was working offsite jobs in junior high. " Buck always did
his research, " says Cindy, " and it carries
over today. "
Their work has pretty well covered the
gamut: small household jobs, bigger jobs
at the home, colleges, prisons, banks, safes,
even vehicles, though no longer. Cars
became too difficult and too expensive, a
skill for a specialty company. Same with
hotels/motels when keys became plastic
cards. Meador Locksmiths even does some
secret work for the government.
Buck was fortunate enough to serve
his apprenticeship before that became
impossible for those as young as he was.
" The license killed apprenticeships, " says
Danny. It also killed off a generation of
ex-cons who had gone into locksmithing,
most honestly, some with 20 or more years
in the profession.
The profession has changed so much
over the years, says Danny, that " I can't
do what Buck and James do. I'd have
to go back to school " if he came out of
retirement. Buck says that though much
has changed, much remains steady. " We
still have to create on the fly because
sometimes the parts or tools we need don't
exist and we have to figure how to make
them. Truth is that most locks aren't rebuilt
any more. They're replaced. "
The current big push is electronics,
even-maybe especially-in homes and
Buck cautions that " the pretty lock is not
always the best for what you need. " After
touring facilities needing locks, he says, " I
talk about where potential break-in points
are and suggest what's needed. " But often
homeowners want the best looking locks
without considering the safest.
And that's when he has to make a safety
sale, though I can usually secure a house for
less than what a big-screen TV costs. " I

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