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'Dedicated' employee carves out 45-year career in Orillia (5 photos)

Eric Schop, who began working at Sanderson Monument when he was 16, is now the go-to guy for the long-time local company

In the early 1970s, Eric Schop was a teenager who was haying on a farm, and his boss knew he was about to quit school.

“He asked if I was any good at artwork,” Schop recalled. “I said, ‘Not bad.’”

So, he was pointed to Sanderson Monument, where the farmer worked.

“When I came in here, the artwork wasn’t what I was thinking,” he said of the decorative designs on headstones and other monuments.

Regardless, on Oct. 31, 1974, two days after his 16th birthday, Schop was given a job by Don Sanderson.

He started in the layout room, placing stencils on stones. Forty-five years later, one would be hard-pressed to find a headstone or monument in the Orillia business that doesn’t have Schop’s handiwork on it.

It wasn’t difficult to catch on, he said, and he has since had a hand in some major projects for Sanderson Monument. He recently put the finishing touches on a war memorial that will be shipped to Nipissing First Nation in time for Remembrance Day.

He also worked on the lettering and crests of one of Canada’s most famous landmarks — the Terry Fox Monument in Thunder Bay. Sanderson Monument was one of the member businesses of the Ontario Monument Builders Association that contributed to the project.

“It makes you feel good that you were able to do that,” Schop said.

While headstones and monuments are everyday business for Sanderson Monument — which has worked to keep up its reputation since R.J. Sanderson set up shop in 1872 — a degree of sensitivity is required. Schop keeps that in mind when he’s working on designs, like the one he’s doing now that will help a family celebrate the life of a young boy.

“We want to do a good job for them and really make it look good,” he said.

Sometimes it’s personal. He worked on the headstones for his sister, parents and grandparents.

“To me, it was the last thing I could do for them,” he said.

Schop has come a long way from his time as a green teen, said Neil Sanderson, a manager at the Peter Street South business.

“Eric has done everything. That wealth of knowledge is great to rely on. If anyone has a question, they say, ‘Go to Eric,’” he said. “I still rely on Eric, even though I’ve been in the business for a long time. My dad taught me a lot, but Eric taught me a lot, too.”

It’s a business that requires workers to learn on the spot, from people with experience.

“There’s no school in Canada that teaches this trade,” Schop said. “You’ve really got to enjoy what you’re doing.”

He does, and it shows.

“Eric is known in our industry as a guy with a wealth of knowledge about the industry,” Sanderson said. “He’s the kind of employee every company wishes their employees were — knowledgeable, dedicated. He’s sort of the perfect employee.”

Asked if he ever imagined he would still be there 45 years later, Schop said, “No, but if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t think twice about it.”


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Nathan Taylor

About the Author: Nathan Taylor

Nathan Taylor is the desk editor for Village Media's central Ontario news desk in Simcoe County and Newmarket.
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