"I'm Don Lines, formerly of Fulton, Illinois. Quite a few of us from Fulton worked for the Curtis Factory. You see I'm originally from Fulton, but I live in Forrest Park. The railroad took me to the suburbs of Chicago.
Anyways, I worked for the Curtis Company from 1949 to 1962. I started working in the sash factory on the third floor. I started working for an old German fellow. I think his name was Heine Hake. I kept time for him. He made special order sashes. They were round windows, with half sashes. You could open the top or the bottom half. You could only special order them.
After awhile I was moved to the main office. I scheduled shipments. My boss was Bob Bellis. Mike Grimm, I don't know his first name, scheduled the production. He would decide how much inventory to order. Over in the sales department there was Warren Rosenburg. He ran the sales. There was another gentleman, he was upper management.
In 1962, the Curtis Company didn't have enough work to keep all of us employed. They put us on summer leave. Now I knew the new generation running the factory weren't interested in keeping the company alive. So I got a job with Chicago-Northwestern.
Let's see Curtis opened in 1866 and closed in 1965. The flood of '65 marked the end of Curtis. It was great times."
Recorded August 4th at 2:30 pm by Matt Parbs from Don Lines. Original transcription in folder 2013.6
"My brother was hitchhiking from Mount Vernon, Iowa one day. G.L. Curtis himself picked him up and told him if he ever needed a job to visit him. Well after college my brother went to Curtis to work."
Overhead by docent on August 7th at 4:30pm. Guest left before could be recorded.
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