He served as an aircraft patternmaker during World War II. He was educated in Virginia, and apprenticed as a patternmaker. In 1905, he accepted a job as a patternmaker at Ford Motor Company. Augie worked as a patternmaker at the company; Fred was a superintendent and designer. He was a patternmaker by trade and first worked at the Hall Russell shipyard. They worked very slowly to achieve precision, using enormous patternmaker lathes and slow-cutting scraping tools. A patternmaker typically employs one of two methods to create a pattern. His father, a carpenter, and mother, a patternmaker, both worked in a ship yard. Jen Beeman is an American fashion designer and patternmaker based in Chicago, Illinois. Jenny Gordy is an American fashion designer and patternmaker based in Portland, Oregon. Fred worked as a superintendent and designer at the company; Augie was a patternmaker.