MY BOOK…….. LILAGCS B5 (Blog 28)

October 13, 2012

After College Graduation (Part 5)

US Army Reserves

After college graduation I continued helping mom develop the family business (DaLe Monogramming & Signs). The Viet Nam war had started and I decided that I would join the army reserves instead of waiting to be drafted.

My choice was a pretty good one and I attended reserve meeting once a month in an available reserve unit in Cherokee, Iowa about a 1 hour drive from my home in Sac City. There was a branch unit in Sac City of the same unit, but they were at maximum strength.

I returned from my training after 4 ½ months. I was trained as a personnel administrative specialist and a cook. In just a few months I was given the job as company clerk for the Cherokee unit. That was a very good job, as I discovered later. I was aware of everything that went on in the unit.

This memory happened while I was company clerk and I remember it well. It has to do with my meeting and getting acquainted with a friend that I would know and love for the rest of my life. He is the one that inspired me to write this memory.

I recall the company commander and the company’s first sergeant were discussing what they were going to do with a man that was supposed to be transferring from a Sioux Falls, South Dakota to our unit. He had not reported for a couple of months so they were considering asking that he be activated into the regular army.

The very next monthly meeting he showed up. He explained that he and his family had moved to Spencer, Iowa, (my home town I had spent my first 13 years) and had spent some time getting settled. His name was Jim and we began getting acquainted right away. I was dating my first wife, Sharon, at the time.

Our reserve unit was an artillery unit and we received orders that we would be going to Camp Ripley, Minnesota for our two week reserve training shortly after he started attending our meetings.

I am a bit foggy as to how we ended up being together in a jeep in the convoy as we travelled from Cherokee to Camp Ripley but nevertheless He drove the jeep as he had an authorized army jeep driver’s license and I was his backup driver and rode in the jeep with him.

The trip was long and it rained like cats and dogs at one point in our trip. The jeep had a vacuum activated windshield wiper (just one) but for some reason wasn’t working very well. It had a back-up system and, I was it. I had to manually operate the windshield wiper from a lever on the top part of the inside windshield. It was a part of the trip we discussed many times during our lives.

While at camp we lived in tent type shelters and it was pretty uncomfortable. The weekend between the two week training we had off and could do whatever we wanted to do. My birthday fell on the Sunday of that weekend.

Jim said that he was going to call his wife and have her come pick us up and take us back to Minneapolis for the weekend. His wife arrived and we road with her back to their parent’s homes in Minneapolis.

One of Best Birthdays

That ended up being one of my best birthdays ever. Saturday we went “bar hopping” down Hennepin in Minneapolis an saw some things ....well I won’t go into detail but it was very interesting to say the least

On Sunday after we had recovered from the night on the town Jim’s mother fixed a wonderful beef roast dinner with all the trimmings. It was fantastic, and I still remember it very well.

All the other years we went to Camp McCoy, Wisconsin for our 2 week summer training. My last summer camp was very memorable.

I was promoted to Staff Sergeant E-7 with hopes and an insensitive to reenlist. While at camp the last year we went there with no objective. Back in or base unit in Fort Dodge we had be simulating the processing of payroll for over a year.

For the first couple of days we did nothing except police our company area …. That meant we spent our time picking up cigarette butts and field striping them (removing the filters and paper spreading the tobacco out on the ground and tossing the rest into a trash can.

My Reserve unit was Honored for Superior Work

Our Company Commander was getting pretty upset at his “higher-ups” for not providing us an objective. I had an Army drivers license to drive a jeep so he told me to go get his jeep and drive him to battalion headquarters. At battalion headquarters were the only “full-time” Army personnel; two lieutenants and a WAC Major. The WAC major was the highest ranking officer there.

As my company commander was attempting to get somebody to help him, I was sitting in the receiving area. The WAC major came out, saw me and said “What are you doing here?” in a rough voice. She insisted on details….so I told her why Captain Larson had me drive him there.

In the process I told her we had no objective and my “finance-trained” men were picking up cigarette butts. She then asked me if we could process payroll for 1000 attachés’ that were at camp and had served 2 years on active duty. They were required to attend one summer camp.

I told her that we had been simulating processing payroll for over a year and that we could do the job very well.

She went in a pulled my CO (Commanding Officer) out and told him that Sergeant Logan was going to work for her and process payroll for 1000 men she had to pay for the two weeks of summer camp.

She told me I could have anything I wanted to make my job easier. I told her I wanted a separate area for my 30 men away from our normal Company area. She gave me that in the form of a separate 2 story building. I was to march my men to this building each morning and do whatever I needed to do to get these 1000 men paid at the end of the two week period.

I had w two story building. I set the ground floor up military style. All of the tables with typewriters were set up in a row. You could look down the row and see, what appeared to be one typewriter. All of the in=processing papers were stacked next to the typewriters for processing. There were 20 typewriters and I had 30 men.

It would take 30 men working a normal 8 hour day 3 days to complete the work. I had to stretch it into approximately 2 weeks. I told them to convert the second floor into a “Day room” where they could read play games or whatever they wanted to as long as it was quiet. We posted two or three guards outside of the building to watch for officers and especially the WAC Major coming toward the building. I they spotted an officer or the WAC major, they were to sound an alert and the designated 20 men would go to their typewriters and continue process the payrolls. We determined that working jus a few hours a day we could complete the job in good time with one day to spare.

Inspected by a Fifth Army General

We had only 3 alerts that turned out to be nothing and one the afternoon of the day before we were to be completed an alarm was sounded and my me assumed their positions of processing the payroll as the WAC major and a General from fifth Army approach our building.

They entered and we were hard at work and impressed them so much I was complimented by the General for doing such a good job. After we returned to Fort Dodge our unit was given a citation of Good Work and presented with a trophy. The Company Personnel First Sergeant informed me that I had been nominated for a Warrant Officer slot that opened up in our home unit. I choose to decline the offer as I would have had to reenlist for 4 more years. (This was one of the more stupid moves in my past!). I soon finished my 6 year obligation (June of 1970) in the Army and returned to regular life. I got an Honorable Discharge as an E-7. I have the paper to this day showing this discharge and my rank at discharge.

MY BOOK……..LILAGCS B4 (Blog 27)

September 12, 2012
Editor’s Note: It has been almost a month since I have posted a Blog here. I have taken a short break from writing in this Blog. I have spent time working on other articles that I post in another Blog ,,,One Day at A Time Blog. I just finished writing an article about our trip to Cape Cod, Massachusetts back in the 60s. I received some very good comments from my classmates on the Blog. I just want to thank those that read and responded to that Blog at: http://onedayatatimebydrdave.blogspot.com/    
                                   “Our trip to the East Coast”


continued…….

MY College Years

Buena Vista my senior year

While I was attending BV (Buena Vista) I ended up getting involved in a number of extracurricular activities. I was the art editor of the “Log” it was the yearbook that was published each year.

Photo of a 1968 copy of The Log

I also was the art editor of the “Tack” the school newspaper

Current copy of the TACK Not available

My senior years two of us were selected for a journalism scholarship as co-editors of the “Tack”. I remember when Miss Stolley presented Sally Shevel and I with our scholarship certificates. I ended up being the Managing Editor and again I snuck under the fence so I didn’t have to demonstrate my lack of reading ability.

I remember I was responsible for the story in the “Tack” and the photographs of the completion of the tower with the cross when it was placed on the chapel on the south side of the administration building. I had a friend type for me  as I dictated the story.

All of this happened BC (Before Computers) during my senior year at BV I devoted as much time as I could to the development of DaLe (my family business) In order for me to graduate at the end of 1963, I had to take 21 hours of credits. (the normal work load was 16 credit hours.)

Fortunately I had met and gotten well acquainted with a very influential professor in my Business Management field. Dr. Mathew Faith had come to Buena Vista the year before and held PhD’s in Law, Accounting, a Medical degree and Business Management. He was from South Dakota and we had mutual ties at USD (the University where I attended)

All but 3 of my 21 hours were classes in business courses. My senior thesis was a dissertation on the founding and development of DaLe, (the family business). It was published and placed the Buena Vista library.

I received a grade of “A” in all the 18 credit hours. He had made it clear that he did not believe in written tests and gave grades bases on “practical application” these were all based on his judgment.

We would go to a stock exchange. For example and spend time observing the application of the use of the stock exchange in business management. We went to actual businesses and experienced the businesses in action, then reported on what we saw. Again I escaped the “reading” of questions on written tests; my evaluation was all “practical application”. He also told us that if we attended class every day we would be assured an “A” grade. (I liked that teacher attitude!)

I would drive to USD (University of South Dakota)  and lecture on the development of DaLe and how my Art education in graphic arts at USD had been utilized in a practical way
.

Dr. Faith paid for my  expenses In addition to my cost of attending his classes. He made arrangements at USD for the  transportation to USD and back plus when I was selected to receive an “honorary” PhD in graphic arts because of my extra efforts…. he was the main reason I received the honorary degree.

His wife (20 years his junior) was a Medical Doctor and he built her a Medical Clinic in Avon, South Dakota for her wedding present.

My grade point received a big boost with my senior year credits
.
With all of this behind me I graduated in May of 1963 from Buena Vista with a double major in Business Management and Graphics plus an “honorary” doctor’s degree in Graphic Arts from USD


.

MY BOOK..........LILAGCS B4 ( Blog 26)

August 16, 2012

1st BLOG DAY Pause & Reflect BLOG

This is the BLOG DAY Blog that I plan to send out quarterly to pause and reflect about where I am with my Blogging! I will continue this blog where I left off soon so hang in there. I love to Blog because that is about all I have to keep my mind going. Here is a little story my Great grandma Austin told me that you may enjoy for this short Blog:

A Short Story Before I Continue

I want to tell you a story that my Great grandma Austin told me about people that called her "senile". Since we are all advancing in years I thought it very appropriate and fitting to tell what this 85 year old grand old lady told me when I was about 7 years old.
I remember I had asked her what the word "senile" meant, I had heard it used and remembered it.

She told me that the word "senile" was best discribed (her view) by comparing my brain of 7 to her brain of 85 years. She told me that we could compare my brain to books in a library like the Spencer library (the town where I lived of 7,000 population) She continued to say that her 85 year old brain had many more books in it. She compared her brain to the Library of Congress in Washingto D.C.(with almost every book written in the US).

She said that when a young person 20 to 40 years old would ask her a question. she would go to her imaginary library of books in her brain and begin going through the rows and stacks of books to find the answer. Compared to me looking for an answer it took her much longer to sort through all the books in her brain and these younger people were not very patient and could not wait for her answer so they stopped and called her "senile" for the reason.

I think that is so good an explaination especially now that I am going to be 71 in a few days and so far God has blessed me with a fairly good memory.

Like another one of my classmates told me. She didn.t have altzhimers...she called her condition "Sometimers". that's what I have at times!!!! (Thanks Elaine)

More Blog later when I return to this normal Blog LILAGCS

Dr Dave

MY BOOK……….LILAGCS B-4 (25)

Saturday August 4, 2012

continued………..

My College Years

Buena Vista College

I spent a lot of waking hours last night trying to remember as much as I could about my junior and senior year at Buena Vista.

The one thing I remember was that in order for me to graduate in four years I would need to carry 22 credit hours my senior year.  This was normally an impossible task. The normal maximum number of credit hours taken was 16. I read the material I had already written in my “running story” that  I have been drawing my Blog articles from and decided I would edit that material to include some things I have remembered.

My Junior year at BV

After transferring to BV from the University of South Dakota I found that most of my credits would transfer and I only had to pick up the three required courses I would need for graduation plus the courses for my Business Management major.

Those 3 courses were; science, math and a foreign language. I had taken all the English, history and speech I needed. I had over 50 hours of Art that I also took my first two years.

I remember visiting with Mr. Brown my men’s academic counselor about my situation and I recall that he informed me that he told me that I would have to change my declared major from Art to something BV offered since the Art degree was not yet available. He told me that since I already had over 50 hours of Art I might be able to receive a double major since I had so many Art class hours.

After reviewing the situation I decided on Business Management would be my major and Mr. Brown told me that by the time I graduated in 1963 the Art hours I had would qualify me for a double major in Graphic Arts and Business Management. This I liked very much.

Selecting the classes

to Qualify me for my Graduation

The Math Requirement (3 hours)

To get qualified for my math requirement I discovered that BV offered a General Math course that covered the basic math subjects like basic algebra, geometry and the other basic areas of math. It was interesting to me that about every month they would offer a test to see if a student could qualify to “pass out “ of the General Math course. I was offered to take the test at the very beginning but decided I needed the review and turn down taking the test at the beginning. I did, however, take the test 3 months later and passed out of the class fulfilling my math requirement.

The Science Requirement (6 hours)

For my science requirement I chose a 3 hour class in General Physical Science and the second semester science 3 hour class in Geology. The instructor was named Mr. Boone and was a very nice man. He was obsessed with the world situation and Russia’s threat to attack us with atomic bombs. He told us that we need to encourage our parents and friend to build bomb shelters in preparation for a possible attack. He told us that he had built a bomb shelter on his property and took us to see it one day. Sure enough it was a cement bomb shelter with all the things needed to sustain he and his family in the event of a atomic bomb attack.

Anyway I enjoyed his science class and passed both semester with flying colors completing the 6 hour requirement for science.

Foreign Language Requirement (6 hours)

I discovered that I could take a course in Spanish offered by a very nice Spanish teacher, Mr., Anthony Stone. Mr. Stone was from Madrid, Spain originally and spoke the Castilian form of Spanish which was a little different that the Mexican Spanish spoken by most Spanish speaking student from Mexico that attended BV.

His technique of teach was different that I had ever experienced before. He told us that within 2 weeks we would be speaking only Spanish in class with a little English to aid us in understanding. I was amazed but it was basically true, We spent the first few classes learning Spanish vocabulary. Then he had us put  our chairs in a circle facing each other and began communicating with each other. He would ask us simple questions in English and guide us through the answers in Spanish. Then visa-versa, he would ask in English and with help at first we answered in Spanish. I t wasn’t long and we were doing as he told us we would mostly be communicating in Spanish. I learned Spanish very well in those 2 semesters.

Other classes I took my Junior year. As I mentioned at the beginning of this Blog, I needed to pick up a new major in Business Management.  I took Beginning Accounting for two semesters, Economics and Money and Banking.

My Accounting instructor was from Cuba and his Spanish/English was very difficult to understand at times. His name was Felix Cruz and he did give me a lot of assistance.

Back then we had no computers so it was all done the long way…..writing it all out on accounting paper. I managed to squeeze through with a 2.3 grade point.

Economics was taught by Mr. Cripe. It was very difficult for me because it required a lot of reading which I was very slow at doing. A managed a 2. GPA and I also took a Sociology class along with the Money and Banking class. Somewhere along the line I also took a tax accounting and a second year of basic accounting.

All those business classes were a struggle but I managed to get through them. I also wrote for the college newspaper (the”Tack”) and was art editor for the BV annual yearbook (the “Log”).

In order to help pay my last year of college I decided to apply for a journalism scholarship offered at the end of my junior year. It was a small miracle and to my surprise I qualified and was presented along with a fellow classmate, Sally Shevel, a co-editorship scholarship.

Sally and I agreed that she would be the story writing editor and I would be the managing business editor. We had fun and I remember that we published a copy of (the Tack) each month.

Back then the type was set with lead type at the local newspaper office and we would go down and proofread the galleys of type before the printing was accomplished.

Somewhere alone the line we published an April Fools edition that took the campus by storm. That must have happened our senior year. We placed un-true stories and crazy photographs in the edition. We did not get any approval before we published it. The president of the college, Dr.  Wayne Halverson called me into his office and gave me a verbal chewing out for not getting permission to write some of the “April Fools” articles.

I checked and the last time I knew there was an archived copy of that edition stored away somewhere in the files of the Past “Tack” issues.

This is pretty much as much as I could remember about my junior year at BV. I will post this now and finish with my senior year in the next Blog.

MY BOOK……….LILAGCS B4 - 24

Friday July 27,2012

continued……..

My College Years

Buena Vista College

Editor’s Note:  It seems like I am taking a long time to get into my college years at Buena Vista but it is because I am getting such interesting responses from my classmate readers who are reminding me of experiences and memories from that period of my life and I want to include them as soon as I can.Most of them are humorous things that happened to me. Just have patience with me and I will eventually get to my years at Buena Vista.

When he read my taking up sign painting it reminded Terry Penniman of one time I was painting one of my first large signs. There was a family food market on the West edge of Sac City located roadside on highway 20. It was owned by a family with the last name of Carnine. The Carnine’s had a very large family (17 or 18 children) and lived in a large house on the main street (highway 20) in Sac city.

Mr. Carnine ask me to letter a large sign that covered the entire top front of the the building.He asked that I paint in Large block letters “CARNINE”S MARKET” and below OPEN 7AM to 9PM. That was all. I set to work positioning my ladder and laid out in light grease pen the wording.

The sign was a white background with Bright re lettering for the “CARNINE”S MARKET” and black lettering for the hours of operation.

I was up on my ladder painting with a song on my lips and feeling very happy to have receive the job.

The traffic was whizzing past behind me as I finished painting when all of a sudden I heard the screeching of tires and out of the corner of my eye I noticed a car pull into the front parking lot of the store. I noticed the car license was not Iowa as a man jumped out of the car and came over to me and said,” Boy they must do a Booming business here.” Open 7 AM  to 9 AM” I made a mistake and really started laughing for I knew it was an easy correction job. Before I made the correction, however, I went and had my friend Terry come and look at it.

Terry was always teasing me about my lack of spelling things correctly.  We both had a good laugh as I took my turpentine and rubbed out the “A” and repainted a “P” like it was suppose to be. It is interesting to note that back when signs were painted instead of the computer vinyl cut letters you could make corrections much easier.

I had another spelling incident when I was lettering a pick-up truck for Youll Plumbing and Heating. I had two observers watching me letter the truck as one of them asked me what I did if I made a mistake. I said I correct it. I went on to say that usually the only time I made a mistake was when I was talking to someone and not focusing on my work.  Just as I said that I look at my painting and I had mis-spelled one of the words. My unfocused attention was the cause. I then took my turpentine and corrected it before it dried.

These were two events I remember quite vividly about my sigh lettering

MY BOOK……….LILAGCS B4 - 23

Tuesday -  July 24, 2012

continued……..

My College Years

Buena Vista College

Junior and Senior years of college 1961 to 1963

Note: There was a period of time between 1961 and 1963 that my mother and I founded our family business that lasted until 1980. I have decided that this would be a good place to insert the information, background and history of our family business. I must tell you it is a pretty long story. I tried to include everything I could remember about the forming and beginning parts of the story of the family business. Some of it you will find parts of it repetitious so please stay with me . Here it is:

The DaLe Story

1962 to 1980

There are some background stories that I need to tell you about how We (my mother and I) decided to form a partnership and call it DaLe Monogramming and Signs at the beginning.

Here it is:

Background History:

Mom’s background

Somewhere around the age of 8 or 9 another thing happened that gave mom momentum. Mom came home one afternoon after visiting Gil and Mary at the sewing machine shop next to the fire station all excited.

It seems that Gil had a new sewing machine that he showed to mom. She could not stop talking about how amazing it was and how many different things it was able to do. It was a Pfaff sewing machine.

I could tell that she wanted to have that machine to use in her lettering business. It didn’t take long until Gil made her the same offer that he did on the first machine.

She could pay him from the earnings she made on lettering. It was after she got the Pfaff machine that she was able to letter item like towels, shirts and make patches with the zigzag stitch that the Pfaff produced.

She continued to cut out the felt letters and apply them to the athletic uniforms but now she was also able to letter shirts.

The word got out and pretty soon she was also lettering shirts from some of the local clothing stores in Spencer.

I remember she did work for a store called Luthold and Crouse and another men’s clothing store call Hanson’s. Dad took one of the lettered uniforms to show the firemen at one of their monthly meetings and the firemen decided to have mom letter shirts with “Spencer Fire Department” on the back, with their individual names over the pocket of each shirt.

In September, I remember that Gill and Mary asked mom to work for them in their booth at the Spencer fair. She loved to do that. She would have a lot of people around her as she demonstrated all of the capabilities of this new zigzag sewing machine. She would demonstrate it durability by sewing through tin can lids and wooden yardsticks.

There was also another event that took place and she was involved in the initial Spencer Rodeo that was sponsored by the Spencer Chamber of Commerce. The chamber of commerce had her make special shirts that the members would wear prior to the rodeo. Webb, my cousin, and I also had shirts of the same design.

She continued lettering things of all kinds in the apartment at the fire station until it was decided that we would move to Sac City.

After our move to Sac City and Brother Tom was born, she started in sewing again in our home there is Sac City. I don’t remember when exactly this started, but it was after I was 13 years old.

 

helped start or worked for a man named Gordon Palm (I think that was his name). Art and Gordon had started the Spencer Reminder, a local shop

My background

My background basically started when I was in about 6^th grade. Mom and dad had some good friends, Art & Blanch Woolsteincroft who had moved from Spencer to Minnesota. They had run a fishing lodge for a while then Art was offered a job as advertising manager of a business in Clara City, Minnesota, the Variety Supply Stores or V-Stores as they were referred to.

Art had, one time, when he was in Spencer had helped start or worked for a man named Gordon Palm (I think that was his name). Art and Gordon had started the Spencer Reminder, a local shopper newspaper. Art had skills in printing and art layout.

Jumping back to my USD & BV college years for a background reference

OK, now I will go to my freshman year of college. I was an art major and in the summer I had worked to help pay for my college expenses  

The summer between my freshman and sophomore year of college I was given the opportunity to do some sign painting. My dad was the president of the Sac City Little League Association and they had just installed a new fence in the outfield of the baseball diamond. There were 48 sheets of 4’ x 8’ sheets of plywood that had been painted white.Chain stitch lettering

A local sign painter named Buzz Corderman had been hired to paint signs on each 4 x 8 sheet of plywood. This was the way they paid for the fence, by selling sponsorship to Sac City businesses. Buzz was to get $5.00 for each sign. Well He painted one sign, got paid his $5 and with it, he would feed his favorite pastime, drinking wine. After painting one sign he disappeared and dad then made the suggestion to the board that I was an art major and had a skill at lettering.

My Sign Painting Business

I was then offered the job of painting the signs the 4 x 8 sheets of plywood. I did some investigating and discovered that a local paint store carried sign paint, brushes and other sign painting equipment that Buzz had used.

This started my sign-painting career in Sac City. I had just completed my first sign when one of my classmates father stopped, came over to me and said, “Dave, I didn’t know you painted signs!” I responded, “I just started!” Mr. John Lewis (Carmen Lewis Christiansen’s father) was his name and he was managing the local Ford dealership. He asked me to stop down to the building that housed the car dealership after I got done with the baseball sign I was painting.

I stopped and I still remember him taking me out in front of the `building and asking me to give him a bid on painting “Sac City Motor Company” in large letters (24 inch) on the front, then two large A-1 Used car signs on the side of the build needed touching up (It was almost unrecognizable).

I didn’t have a clue what to charge so I just figured that in the summers `before when I worked for a building contractor I had made about $36 a day. I calculated it would take me about 2 days to complete the job. The next day I went down to visit Mr. Lewis and said I would charge $75 plus he would pay for the paint.

Needless to say he jumped at my offer. So I now had the signs at the ballpark to work on, I was able to paint 3 or 4 a day after I got going and I was also working on the Ford dealership building. It war while I was working on the sign at the Ford dealership that a man from a stationary store business across the street came over and asked me to give him a bid on painting a sign on the front of his business.

It was like that from then on. I never had to advertise, the sign painting work just came to me. I also started painting a lot of lettering on trucks as well as building small road` signs.

DaLe’s Inception

 

It was then during the summer between my sophomore year and junior year of college at Buena Vista(1962) that Mom and I sat down for coffee one April morning. Decided to purchase a commercial chain stitch sewing machine.

I had just finished lettering on the side of a pick-up truck door and Mom had just finished lettering a set of uniforms sent to her by the Southerland, Iowa fire department in northwest Iowa. We decided to form the partnership.

The name DaLe came to us that same morning. “Da” from my name Dave and “Le” from her name Leah. I was going to be a junior in college at Buena Vista that next fall and I would be majoring in business management. I chose business management because I was hoping to use that formal training to aid in the development of DaLe. Originally we named the partnership DaLe Monogramming & Signs.

First Year of DaLe

The afternoon of the day when mom and I had decided to form a partnership and go into the lettering business, I jumped in the family car and started my survey. Every clothing store, sporting goods store that I called on was very happy to give us all their lettering business. Our local clothing store in Sac City we already were doing lots of shirt lettering. It was easy for them to order plain uniform shirts and let us do the lettering. This is the approach I took when I called on the clothing stores and the sporting goods stores in my survey.

I called on stores in the towns of Pocahontas, Carroll, Rockwell City, Manson, Storm Lake and Fort Dodge. Fort Dodge, Iowa was the largest town in the 50-mile radius.

These events happened before we purchased a commercial lettering machine. We were still using the Pfaff zigzag sewing machine to produce the lettering for the shirts and apply the felt letters that we cut out by hand to the athletic uniforms.

  I can remember travelling in the family car each day to a couple of different towns. Each store I would call on I would introduce myself and explain what we were doing. 95% of the time I was received with a great deal of interest. My lack of selling experience seemed to be an advantage, I concluded later. I was not “hard sell” I was only sharing with them what we were doing.

We had developed a price list for the lettering that I would leave at each store with our address and phone number. For two weeks I made calls. Then I would return to the places that I had called on with more samples of our work. It was then that I started getting their attention and the stores would give me some shirts to letter. It was slow at first and the business from our local clothing store started to get larger.

Fort Dodge, Iowa was

a good Stepping Stone for DaLe

There are some events I now want to share about my visits to Fort Dodge. Fort Dodge, Iowa was the largest town in the 50-mile circle around Sac City. It was 45 miles straight east on highway 20. I started out calling on some of the clothing stores in Fort Dodge but ended up calling on a bowling supply store. The name was Styles Bowling Supply Company. There was a husband names Dwight and I forgot his wife’s name. I remember that they gave me an order of some bowling shirts to take home and letter. I was very excited about the first order.

I remember that I also called on a Regional Cooperative (Felco). I thought that Felco might potentially be a good customer. I talked to a man in their advertising department, Larry Nelson. Larry explained to me that they ordered their shirts from a larger uniform company that also produced and supplied them with their

sewn logo emblems. Little was I to know that about 3 or 4 years in the future I would be working for this regional cooperative, Felco. (I will be sharing that part of my life a little later.)

One other call I made was to a sporting goods store there in Fort Dodge, Kautsky’s. There was a man there that worked with the uniforms and I was able to show him samples of our lettering. I can’t remember all the things at the beginning of our association with Kautsky’s, but they ended up becoming one of our best customers in a fairly short time. I remember Mom and Dad both went over to talk to Jack there at the store one time.

A few weeks after I was able to start bringing in some lettering business we contacted Gil Gresslin up at the Spencer Sewing machine Company in Spencer and ask him to see about finding us the cost of a commercial lettering machine.

Not too long after that request, Gil got back to us and informed us that he had found a commercial chain stitch lettering machine. It was called a Cornely, (not sure of the spelling) it was a French made machine.

I Found this on a web site

about the Cornely Chain stitch

sewing machine……….

Originally produced by hand stitching, the production of chenille became industrialized about twenty years after the patenting of the lockstitch sewing machine. A French engineer named Bonnaz invented the first chenille sewing machine in 1866, soon he joined with the Cornely Company to manufacture and market his invention. A few years later Singer received the US Patent. Since the original machine very few design changes have been made. Some models added braid or cord, but the basic machine has remained the same for well over one hundred years. Today hand operated chenille machines are made by a number of machine manufacturers. These machines are widely used by skilled operators.

Gil informed us that the machine cost $600. Mom and I didn’t have $600 and I am not sure how it happened, but in a day or two, Dad had put his insurance policy up as collateral for a loan we made with the Sac City State Bank.

In just a couple of weeks, Gil arrived with our new French sewing machine complete with instructions in French! Gil had assembled the machine and was able to get us headed in the right direction to get it running.

Actually it was a pretty simple construction and with dad’s mechanical ability and Gil’s guidance we were able to make it run. It was totally different that running a conventional sewing machine.

The chain stitch machine was operated with a “crank” under the machine and pulled the material being sewed on along with a “claw foot”. Gil had explained that somewhere he learned that the position of the needle determined what kind of stitch was produced.

He told us the one we need was the chain stitch and he wasn’t sure what the chenille stitched was used for. (We would find out in the not too distant future, however.) We continued to use the Pfaff to letter as we experimented and learned to run the chain stitch machine. It took about 6 weeks to get the chain stitch machine operating and produce lettering the way we wanted it to.

One help that we received was the lead for a thread company that we could order our thread and supplied from out of Chicago. The name of the company was Troy Thread & Yarn Company and it is still in business in a very big way. I went to their web site and discovered how big they had gotten. www.troy-corp.com .

Now back to the chain stitch machine. I had gone and looked up and found information on the Cornely Chain stitch machine we had purchased and inserted it above.

We soon discovered that the Troy Thread and Yarn catalog we received was very helpful. It was from their catalog we discovered an easier way to mark the shirts with a way and a solvent and a felt dabber.

Also Troy was able to supply not only thread, but also felt and a product we experimented with and found very useful in our athletic uniform lettering, Tackle Twill. Tackle Twill was a satin-type finish with a rubberized backing. This rubberized backing allowed us to take the cut-out letters and numbers and iron them onto the uniform then sew around the edge of the letters and numbers much easier. We also noticed that they also sold yarn and felt and kept referring to various “Chenille” related products. We didn’t pay much attention to the chenille reference at first.

Our lettering business started to grow as we slowly converted over to lettering everything with the Cornely chain stitch machine. Soon we discovered we could use some additional help. Mom had a friend that showed an interest but said see had not done much sewing on and electric sewing machine. We discovered she was easier to train to run the chain stitch machine than someone who was already a good seamstress because she didn’t have to unlearn and relearn the different method of sewing required on the chain stitch machine.

DaLe’s First Employee

Floris Miller became our first employee. We set up our business in the basement of our home at 13^th and Gishwiller in Sac City.

I would draw all the patterns, go out selling and paint signs, as I was able to get signs to paint. Since there were no other sign painters in the local area, most of my sign work came to me. I didn’t have to go out and drum up business for the sign painting.

I spent my junior year of college at Buena Vista College in Storm Lake, Iowa. I commuted with five others from Sac City and continued to work at building the lettering business at the same time I attended college.

Beginning of Chenille Letter Awards

The next major event I remember in the lettering business was when I decided to contact another Sporting Goods store in Fort Dodge. For reasons of not wanting to use a real name here, I will call the Sporting Goods Store Slogan’s Sporting Goods. One spring day I decided to call on Mr. Slogan at his Sporting Goods store.

I recall I had some samples of my uniform lettering all prepared to show him as I entered his store. I received a very cold welcome because I think he thought I was another “salesman”. He sensed right away I was really inexperienced at selling, I think.

As I attempted to show him my sample he acted very uninterested. As I was about to excuse myself, he whipped out a “Letter Award”. The letter “C” white with green felt trim

. He said, “Can you make these Chenille letters, as he tossed me the “C”?” Right away my mind quickly remembered the Troy catalog with all the chenille products and I said responding to his question, “Well, we are working at putting those kinds of things into our line” He said “well if you do you will really have something …come back when you are making them.”

I left with all the excitement of a baseball player that had just hit a homerun. I drove straight back to Sac City.

MY BOOK……….LILAGCS B4 - 22

Wednesday July 18, 2012

MY COLLEGE YEARS

Another Special Story

Before I begin my college years at Buena Vista I was reminded of a “Buena Vista” past story. I wasn’t sure where to insert this story so I made a decision to place it at the start of my Buena Vista College Years.

Since it was my good friend Terry Penniman was a large factor in my transferring to BV from Vermillion, South Dakota USD.

Terry lived and commuted from Sac City to Storm Lake where BV was located.  He wrote to me and reminded me of an incident that happened when we both rode together to Storm Lake. I call it “the Frozen Tenny” episode. 

My father had purchased not one but two Studebaker cars I think they were both from the early 1960 era.  I was allowed to take one of the Studebakers as my commuting car to college. There was one problem with the car I used. The floorboard on the passenger side of the car was almost rusted through. There was also a problem with the heater…..it would shut off from time to time. This made it very cold sometimes inside the car. When you have to depend on a car that you get  for nothing ….you learn to forget anything that might be a problem. like the inside temperature for just a 30 minute drive.

I stopped at the usual time to pick up Terry for the commute to Storm Lake. He came out of his “warm” house” and got in the car. We started off on our trip to BV.

As usual we started joking around as we started off. I was extremely cold and starting off the heater was working fairly well. Terry was wearing a heavy coat and had a pair of Tennies on. (Tennies were somewhat like tennis shoes made of canvas tops and rubber soles.)  The heater would start and stop. Interestingly enough his warm shoes placed on my car’s very cold floor made his tennies sweat and create moisture. He didn’t move his feet all the way to Storm Lake for the 3o minute trip.

After arriving and finding a place to park we got out of the car to go to class. (You really had to be there to appreciate the humor) in this explanation of Terry removing his feet and his tennies remained frozen to the car’s floor. It was an event that we never forgot. We had to chip the shoes from the floor so he could wear them to class. Thank you, Terry for reminding me of this story about our commute to Buena Vista (BV).