by Erin Thompson

Created on: December 12, 2008

What's cooking in Fritz Curtze's garage this fall?

It's not a Thanksgiving turkey or a Christmas ham; instead, he throws the meat into a fire pit in his back yard.

Why? If what Curtze was cooking sat on the dinner table, it would surely turn stomachs.

Curtze very well may be cooking a turkey or a ham, but it's not the meat that he's interested in, it's their skulls.

Curtze, owner of Frenchie's Head Shop, has been perfecting his hobby of skull boiling to create European mounts, professionally for 5-7 years. He boiled his first skull after bringing home a 60-pound beaver that he found while with his daughter by Edinboro Lake. Curtze said that when he got home, he broke off the head, used a spoon to scrape out the brains and boiled the skull.

But it didn't end there. Despite his wife's reaction, he continued to boil skulls, learning more through trial and error.

"I never wanted to mount a buck, so I just started boiling [their] skulls; it got to the point where people started bringing heads to me," he said.

This hobby has turned into a business for Curtze. Locally, he creates mounts for as many as 125 customers each year at Frenchie's Head Shop, Frenchie being a nickname that he got while in Montana.

After boiling, the skulls have to sit out to bleach over night. "We have several cats in the house." When they bump them, Curtze warns, "they're going to be next."

Even though Curtze is not making Thanksgiving dinner in his garage, it would not be uncommon to find him boiling a turkey's head just to see what it looks like. "They're mainly eyeballsthat's their only defense," he said.

Curtze has also boiled heads of animals such as rams, fox, wolverines, caribou and even a beef cow. "The head alone weighed 55 pounds," he said of the cow.

European mounts can offer an alternative for people who do not like mounted heads, like his wife, Edinboro University alumna Michelee.

Michelee said that at first, coming home to find skulls in her garage was "a little unnerving."

"At first, I though it was a science project, but [then] it started coming in quantities I would drive into the garage and never know what could be waiting there," she said. "He's not boring," Michelee said of her husband, to whom she has been married to for 25 years.

"Some people don't like the eyeballs looking at you, but she [Michelee] didn't mind the skulls," said Fritz. "It's more artistic, it's kind of a western look."

Fritz is a fifth generation Frederick Curtze, the family has been in the area for more then 100 years and the whole family are avid hunters.

Before Fritz started boiling skulls, he graduated from Westminster College with a bachelor's degree in business management. He is currently a captain and a charter fisherman on Lake Erie and has five children ranging in ages from 21-32 and two grandchildren.

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