San Marcos — The first task for Joe Daubendeck was to overcome the fear of approaching a complete stranger.

The sculptor was in Durbin, South Africa in 1999, on his way back to Swaziland, as a member of the United States Peace Corps. While waiting for his plane, he noticed a very well dressed man across the terminal.

“We’re the only two people there, I thought about it, and I thought ‘what have I got to lose?’” Daubendeck said.

So Daubendeck approached the man, and asked if he could take his picture.  He would then, he explained, take that photo and create a round bronze plate of the man’s face and return to him at no charge.

Unfortunately, time didn’t allow for Daubendeck to get the man’s name or his contact information — all he learned was this man was a member of Parliament. In fact, it wasn’t until a year later, at a social event in Capetown, that Daubendeck met another government official who knew the man. They exchanged information and within five months the bronze plate was delivered.

“It was funny, within two weeks (of him receiving the plate), I got a beautiful hand-written letter that basically said ‘I never believed that crazy American was going to follow through with it,’” Daubendeck said.

The San Marcos man has created more than 200 similar plaques over a 40 year period, mostly all of strangers and given to his subjects at no charge. Daubendeck works hard to perfectly replicate the facial features of his the people he meets, sometimes spending several months and several hundred dollars. All he takes with him is the satisfaction of offering a keepsake that families can hold on to for generations.

Along the way, he’s created sculptures for doctors in France, friends in Japan, taxi drivers and hotel employees in South Africa and even the current United States Surgeon General, Regina M. Benjamin.

Daubendeck met her father in California, years before she would become a political figure.

“My life has been filled with interesting people. I don’t search them out, it’s just been that way,” Daubendeck said.  “I see a face that I think is interesting, beautiful character faces is what I call it, and then I ask if I can take a photo, working off of that. I’ve only been turned down twice.”

A native of Iowa, Daubendeck joined the Merchant Marines on a dare from a friend. He spent World War II going from the East Coast to England and to the Mediterranean. He was in a North Russian Port during VE Day, in Marseille during VJ Day, and made one trip to Chile after the war was over.

“There were almost two years when I didn’t sail; I went back to work with my brother in electrical contracting, but it didn’t appeal to me,” Daubendeck said. “Too boring.”

So he returned to the military, taking a job with the Army from Brooklyn, NY to Japan, refueling submarines out at sea.

He eventually bought property in Yokohama, Japan where he ran a bar and settled for years. It was in Japan that Daubendeck first began sculpting — his first subject a sea captain.

“I knew that I could do it, I’d just never done it before. One day, I saw a face and got interested and wondered if I could do a plaque of them,” Daubendeck said. 

Over the years, the San Marcos man has lived in California running an auto transmission shop, retired on the Island of Majorca and worked in Swaziland, South Africa as a member of the Peace Corps, creating sculptures everywhere he goes.  He eventually settled in Hays County with his wife at the time.

Daubendeck’s most recent subject is a construction worker he met near his home almost eight years ago. The man and other workers were clearing land behind his home when Daubendeck approached him, told him what he did and took his picture.

“I didn’t get his name because I knew the company he worked for. I figured it couldn’t be too difficult (to find him),” Daubendeck said.

He just recently completed the bronze plate of the man’s face, and has made several unsuccessful attempts at locating the man. It’s important to find this man, he says, and rewarding to know that his family may one day own the special memento he’s created.

But even if he never turns up, it’s beck a heck of an experience along the way.

“This means a lot to me, it really does,” Daubendeck said. “And I’ve been fortunate enough to met a lot of different people.”