wayneinkeywest on tue 30 mar 04
Phil:
It is highly amusing to me that you mention
Landers, Frary and Clark as being the makers
of the old Universal meat grinders.
(Knockoffs are still being made in Asia, from
the old dies, some of which still say
"universal" on them)
I was born and raised in New Britain, (also
home of Stanley Works and Fafnir Bearing,
for those of you so mechanically inclined.)
My grandfather's first (only) job on emigrating
from Germany around 1900 was shovelling
coal into the furnaces for the forges at
Landers, on Elm St. I can still picture it, though it
is long gone now. (Later,
my father started work there as an apprentice
for the tool and die program, at the tender age
of 15. Nine kids in the family, eldest boy leaves
school and goes to work to help.)
At first the forges put out coffee pots
and other sheet metal appliance parts. During
WW1, production was changed to bayonets
"to fight the Kaiser", and in WW11, production
shifted again to helmets and ammo box parts,
"to fight the dirty krauts".
My grandfather shovelled coal into the furnaces
for all of them. (He fled Germany in response
to runaway inflation during the Kaiser's rule.)
He often told me of the problems
he had being assimilated into
the culture here. In one instance,
there was a corner in the furnace room where
the shovellers would go and spit. The furnace
room was located in the basement, underneath
the forges, which today would resemble nothing
so much as a 100 ton press. All day long,
earsplitting pounding going on above you, blast
furnace heat all around you, breathing coal dust
and sweating. This was before OSHA, BTW.
The work after all was hot and dirty, the room
easily reaching temps of over 100 in the summer.
Coal dust is not exactly uncommon either, probably
why my grandfather died of TB in the late 60's.
Because the shovellers were mostly German
immigrants and not "true Americans", one
day in 1944 or '45 the foreman decided to give them
some grief, (we were fighting the Germans) and
hung an American flag in that corner. Of course, none
of the men would DARE spit on or at that flag, being
grateful as they all were to have been allowed into the
country (through Ellis Island...but that's another story)
and working, and so the spitting stopped.
The factory closed after my grandfather had long since
retired..late 60's I believe. One day after the factory
closed, my grandfather asked me to go on a walk with him
and we headed the ten or so blocks to the old factory.
We went down into the furnace room, silent now.
Shovels still lined up along one wall, in a row.
In one corner hung an old American flag, which my grandfather had
me retrieve and fold carefully. "It is a matter of respect" he
said.
He was buried with that flag. That's how much being allowed into
the US meant to him.
I still have my mother's Universal. I use it occasionally.
My grandfather shovelled the coal that helped form it.
And helped form this country.
Wayne Seidl
> "UNIVERSAL" ( ...my favorite Brand of most general
> housewares) being "Landers Frary and Clark" of New Britain,
> Conneticut, made several versions, some fairly large...
>
> Too, one could readily adapt a pully to the axel end, where
> the crank otherwise is...and run it from an Electric Motor
> with a vee-belt, and, at a low speed I would hope...
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