Roy Stanley Chapman was born 5/31/1945 to Aurilla (née Horton) and Wallace E. Chapman on their small, rural, upstate farm in Schagticoke, NY. Roy's brother Wally (1929-2014) and sister Gwen (1927-2014) mentored their little brother. His grandfather, "Pa", and grandmother lived across the corn field from his parents’ house. They nurtured his young years with learning, love, and companionship while his mother worked sewing shirts for the Arrow shirt company and his father sold Studebakers.

Pa worked the farm nights and weekends. He taught Roy the farm tasks which soon became Roy’s daily chores. As farm work decreased, they supplemented with rope skills around the county. Roy and Pa kept hayloft pulleys working for folks who still farmed. When machine balers came into fashion, Roy bought a rope making rig to spin salvaged bailing twine into utility rope. Roy and Pa roped the freight elevators in the century-old stores and warehouses nearby. Also on the family’s homestead was his brother’s automotive repair shop where Roy became a proficient mechanic at a very early age.

First a Boy Scout, then an Assistant Scoutmaster, Roy guided boys in their knot and pioneering projects. Roy loved to camp! His cousin, returning from the War, gave him his Navy Manual. Others gave him various knotting books, farm bureau pamphlets, and fishing knot sheets from line makers. For his 16th birthday a friend gave him a copy of Clifford W. Ashley’s “The Ashley Book of Knots”. With that, the doors to Roy’s knotting world opened!

Roy’s incredible thirst for knowledge, a life-long passion, began in a one room schoolhouse. Although extraordinarily intelligent (he read a set of encyclopedias more than once), his family helped him stay grounded. Rather than place him in a special school for gifted children, they chose to give him a strong foundation of basic life skills learned at home. Roy spoke of feeling blessed to have been taught to sew, cook, hunt, knit, tie knots, fix cars, can food, camp, canoe, and garden. He knew he could survive whatever life threw at him. Roy loved classical music and The Beatles. When he enlisted to fight for our country, doctors found TB during his medical exam. Instead of spending the next 18 months in Vietnam as he had hoped, he was confined to a TB Sanitarium. During his confinement and recovery from lung surgery, Roy embraced his knot work, studying the Ashley Book of Knots daily. The craft of knot tying became one of his greatest pleasures, continuing throughout his life. Roy served as President of the Pacific America Branch of the International Guild of Knot Tyers in 2005 and on the Board following his term. He published more than 30 articles in Guild magazines and newsletters. He created knots acknowledged to be his own intellectual property. In his last years, Roy sold his knot work as a vendor at the Coupeville Farmers Market. He shared stories of his adventures with anyone who cared to listen and found so much joy every Saturday being with his Farmers Market friends.

Roy was an avid outdoorsman and fiercely independent! He enjoyed motorcycles, hunting, camping, canoeing, and being close to nature. His nephew JT remembers a time when Roy quietly stalked a deer in Pa's cornfield getting close enough to swat it on the hind flank!

He loved libraries and books. He collected trivia and facts on a multitude of topics from a multitude of sources. He enjoyed teaching others what he knew. He expanded his repertoire to embrace his creative side, becoming an accomplished harmonica player, writer, and painter in addition to continuing the craft of knot tying he began as a child.

He worked and lived all over the country as a Senior Project Engineer for multiple telephone operating companies from the 1970’s until his 2009 retirement. He was well respected in his chosen career. Although many may have wondered, his friends and acquaintances should know...all his stories were 100% true!

Roy moved to Washington state in 1990 just months after having quadruple bypass heart surgery. He fell in love with the Skagit River, the mountains, Puget Sound, the eagles, and the forests. This beauty so overwhelmed him he remained in Washington for the rest of his life.

He was so well-loved... and he loved so well. Roy was a man of a multitude of skill sets, honor, integrity, loyalty, and faith. He made friends easily.

No doubt Roy looks forward to seeing on the other side his numerous loving friends all over the country, his children, sister-in-law Mary Chapman, niece Dana Masters, and nephew John Thomas (JT) Chapman.

Please send condolences, joyous memories, and pictures if you have them
Care Of Wallin Funeral Home
1811 North East 16th Avenue #A
Oak Harbor, WA 98277

As Roy would say to us all...
Always and forever. Keep your powder dry.
Love,
Your Knot Guy

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