I just received this from my friend Ka'imiloa who was a student of Rachel Wells:

A legend passed away one week ago and I put together the following from his obituary, a newspaper editorial, and a newspaper article which also appeared.

Legendary Gunsmith Fred Wells Dies at 86

Fred Wells, the legendary gunsmith revered around the world for the custom dangerous-game rifles he produced in his small Prescott, Arizona machine shop, died Jan. 15th. He was 86.
The word “gunsmith” describes a wide variety of highly skilled people. However, most who carry that title spend much of their time either repairing or customizing existing gun designs. Fred Wells, though born in Indiana, was not only a gunsmith but also a classic Old World gun maker.
Those who knew him remember him as an artist whose craft some eclipsed with modern standards and methods, but never replaced. He had in his head every skill necessary to turn a solid block of walnut and a solid block of steel into a beautiful, pinpoint-accurate, functional rifle of his own unique design. Probably fewer than a dozen people still living know all that he knew. The firearms industry has lost a giant.
Yet to meet this giant in his craft was to meet a kindly, down-to-earth, white-haired Merlin of firearms lore, who would take any amount of time to help out a shooter with a problem—even to the point of searching his vast, tool-filled shop for a single, arcane screw one shooter needed and then manufacturing one when the search was unsuccessful.
His widow, Rachel Wells, said her husband would want people to remember him as a good gunsmith, a good craftsman and a kind man.
“He influenced a lot of peoples’ lives in the gun game,” she said. “Any young gunsmith came to him, he’d go out of his way.”
Rachel, a first-class engraver whose intricate designs graced many of Wells’ rifles, relates that her husband produced no more than four rifles per year. Depending on the details of design, they sold to an elite international market of big game hunters for between $15,000 and $20,000 each.
Around 20 years ago he built five rifles for the Baron of Bavaria, one of which the King of Sweden purchased for $85,000.
Despite the attention his artistry attracted, Wells performed his craft for its own sake, Rachel said. He was revered as “one of the old masters,” and three years ago the American Custom Gunmaker’s Guild formally recognized his contribution to the craft and awarded him honorary lifetime membership.
Rube Wells, one of eight children, said: “He lived it 24/7. He was constantly designing, drawing and sketching. I think it encompassed most of his life.”
He said his father instilled the virtue of honesty, but with even more emphasis, he taught his children the value of a job well done. “That was most important,” he said, “to do a job as good as you could and then do it better.
“His guns were like his family,” he added. “If you wanted a customer to come pick it up, you didn’t do a good job.”
Wells contributed to the teaching of more than just his own children, though. In the early 1970s, he was instrumental in establishing the gunsmithing program at Yavapai Community College.
Its present director, Alan Lohr, recalled a few words of wisdom Wells game him before he began his directorship.
“He said, ‘Don’t get stuck on yourself. Don’t keep it a secret. Share with the students what you know. If you don’t, somebody else will.’”
The gunsmithing program now attracts applicants from across the country and around the world. Twenty-five to 30 students are enrolled full-time in the two-year program, and it graduates around nine annually. Of eight such programs in the nation, it ranks informally at least No. 2 and likely No. 1, Lohr said.
“There is no one in the country right now that does what he did,” said Danny Pedersen, who for eight years apprenticed with Wells before opening his own Prescott shop, Classic Barrel and Gunworks.
“To me, it is the end of an era,” Pedersen said. “Nothing went out of that shop unless it was as good as he could make it.”
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I would like to add personally that I did not know Fred personally as well as I would have liked to, yet he was one of the most pleasant, sharp, witty, and gentlemanly men I ever met. And his memory at 86 was uncanny. He worked constantly in his machine shop with a long skinny hose trailing him around - his nasal oxygen! Possible sparks from motors starting up - no problem - damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead! His wonderful wife, Rachel, is also the person who taught my wife and myself to engrave. What a mutually supportive pair they were!
And have you ever seen a cartridge for a .700 Nitro Express rifle? Not an elephant cartridge - dinosaurs! What rifles he made. And lovely too.