•

Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 1

IA:

IB:

IA:

This is March 20th, 1992, Lisa Fine, Shirley Bradley ..

It's the 19th.

I thought it was the 20th.

Fuller: Oh well, one day, what the heck.

(laughter)

IA:

IB:

This is just March 19, 1992, and we are at the home of Mr. and
Mrs. Fuller and we are going to be talking about Reo memories.

Usually we just start with some background information to find out
about the people and you know where they are from and ah, kind of set
them into a context for us and mostly we just wanted to know where
you were born and grew up in the Lansing area or Mulliken area.

Fuller: Well I was born in Eaton County in 1918 .

Wife:

'17.

Fuller:

'17, (laughter)

.

IB:

Okay, so you were born out.on a farm there?

Fuller: Yeah.

IB:

Okay.

Fuller: Sunfield.

IB:

Sunfield, we were just talking about that.
and urn, how did you get to working at the Reo from growing up on a
farm? Did you come into Lansing to live for a while?

(can't hear)

Okay

Fuller: No, no I always lived on the farm, but ah, you know how it is when

you are ra1s1ng three kids, you can't make enough on 80 acres to make
a go of it.

IB:

Ah huh, was this.your parent's farm that you are still on?

Fuller: No, no, no, no, I bought it.

IB:

You and

Wife:

Yeah we bought it.

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Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 2

IB:

And was that this farm that you bought originally?

Fuller: Yes.

Wife:

Yup.

IB:

Okay.

Wife:

'46.

IB:

In 1946?

Wife:

Yup.

IB:

Yeah, we saw the date on the barn. And did you start working right
away at Reo in '46 or was it a little after that?

Fuller: Well I went there during the war. And I worked there probably '43

maybe, I don't remember. But I think it was 1943 probably when I
went there.

I worked there before.

Wife:

That's right you worked

IB:

Before you moved here.

Fuller: Oh yeah ....

during the war.

IB:

What department did you work in? Did you start in?

Fuller: Well I started left the same one I started in in '26.

IB:

Oh.

Fuller: Well I said '26 and '29 that

end of it.

together, yeah

the repair

IB:

The repair shop?

Fuller: No trucks.

IB:

Like salvage kind of things?

Fuller: No actually come off the line, if they was something missing on them,

I'd straighten it out and put it on or whatever.

IB:

Like a finish repair.

•

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•

Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 3

Fuller: Yeah.

But I went there during the war. They was running 100 trucks

every 12 hours and they were subcontracts of Studebaker. They called
them Studebakers, but we built them down here. And then they shipped
out 200 every 24 hours.

IB:

My goodness.

Fuller: They went to Russia and T bet they are still setting over there and

never got put together.

IB:

They went to Russia.

Fuller: Yup.

IB:

Oh my goodness.

Fuller: Then young women in there, they could swing a sledgehammer and knock

them arms off them rear ends and tear them apart, you just couldn't
believe it .

IB:

The women in the shop, you mean?

Fuller: Oh yeah the women, they worked in export, they are the ones that t.ore

them down.

IB:

Oh ,that' s right, they had to be torn down before they could be
shipped.

Fuller: Oh yeah, torn down and boxed up.

IB:

You build them, tear them down

Fuller: Yeah, they had to be all complete and then they tore them down and

boxed them and put them on flatcars and away they went.

IA:

IB:

Hum.

And these were women who were there because of the war?
the workers.

They needed

Fuller: Oh yeah, yeah. And they done a man's job.

IB:

They must have built up their muscles.

Fuller: It is just unbelievable how them young women can do that too .

IB:

Well they work out on farms, right, they do pretty heavy work out
here, so

•

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Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 4

•

Fuller:

I don't know where they come from, but allover

I guess.

IB:

Yeah.
same as the men?

Do you know what kind of pay they got? Did they get paid the

Fuller: Oh yeah, I'm sure they did which wasn't much then, $1.28 an hour I

think that's what it was.

IB:

That's what you were earning?

Fuller: Yeah.

IB:

I don't suppose you had cost of living and that kind

of thing then?

Fuller: Oh no, no. We just had

.

IB:

Hospitalization, you had?

Fuller: Well not until later. And then it was only $1.50 a month and the

•

company paid another $1.50, we shared $3 a month, we got better Blue
Cross then than you got now.

IB:

It covered more?

Fuller:

Oh it covered everything. You didn't have to pay nothing.
your doctors bills.

All but

IB:

And there was a company doctor was there if you had a problem that
they couldn't fix at first-aid, you

Fuller: No, no, it was just a nurse.

IA:

IB:

Nurse in the clinic.

Ah huh, but if you were hurt say, or seriously, they would send you,
I suppose

Fuller: To the hospital.

Fuller: Not from there, ... other place, where I worked later after Reo

closed.

IB:

Oh.

Do you remember who you worked for, like your foreman?

Fuller:

I sure do.

Floyd Nebolski, he hired me.

•

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Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 5

IB:

Floyd

Fuller:

Floyd Nebolski.

IB:

Nebolski, like maybe Nab

0 I

Wife:

Neb

0 I ski

IB:

Neb

0 I ski.

Nice Irish name.

Wife:

Yeah, right.

IB:

And he was your foreman?

Fuller: Yes.

(laughter)

IB:

Oh .

Fuller: He hired, I worked for him for a good many years and there was

different ones ... broke up the repair for, I worked for different
ones there. And Wayne Foltz, Gus Layer

IB:

Oh Gus Layer I've heard that

Fuller: Yeah he is a nice guy.

IB:

I've heard his name before.

Fuller: He died a couple years ago, he was 90 some years old and Floyd Foltz

is still living.

IB:

Floyd?

Fuller: Foltz.

Wife:

F 0 I t z?

IB:

IA:

IB:

I say that because someone is going to type all this up from what
they hear on the tape and

And figure out how to spell it.

Was there a union in your shop when you were there?

Fuller: Oh yeah.

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Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 6

IB:

There was?

Fuller: Yeah, yeah. A dollar a month union dues.

IB:

Okay did they come right out your check?

Fuller: Oh yeah, yeah.

IB:

Did you feel like you got good representation from your union?
you have a lot of problems that had to be

Did

Fuller: You know I never had any problems because I could straighten them out

myself.

IB:

Ah huh you just talked to your foreman.

Fuller: If I couldn't I went on up to superintendent.
steward or a committeeman in my life.

I never called a

IB:

Oh is that right?

Fuller: No. Never.

IB:

Were you in a kind of a management position in that department?

Fuller: No, no.

IB:

I mean did you have people working under you?

Fuller: No, no.

I just worked there.

IB:

Ah huh, ah huh, I was just wondering because you said we've heard
this before from other people, if they had a problem, they solved it
in their own department and so that's why I wondered.

Fuller: No, I never I got in a little raucous one time before when I told him

I said if you don't straighten up, I'm going to take you down to the
superintendent's office. That was the end of that.

IB:

I guess he thought you were right.

Fuller:

I knew I was right or I wouldn't have said nothing.

IB:

So after the war was over, ah, they still had some contracts for
trucks and you continued to do

•

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• Raymond Fuller

3-19-92
Page 7

Fuller: Well, no, it was all done then until '47. I think in '47 or '48 one

of them years in there and then they got started getting contracts
for ah, Army trucks, they called them Eager Beaver.

IB:

IA:

Oh I think we 've heard that before.

Yeah.

Fuller: You could drive them underwater or

IB:

IA:

IB:

That's right.

Yeah.

Did they make a

Fuller: Go over the top of the water if they

IB:

Did they produce a lot of those?

• Fuller: Oh yes, 50 a day there for years.

That was before Korea or was it

IB:

Fuller: Well during Korea

IB:

So some of them probably went there.

Fuller: Korean and ah, Vietnam War.

They built em, well they finished up the

last contract just before the thing went busted.

IB:

Oh did they?

Fuller: Oh yeah.

I worked on them things for years there.

IB:

They must have been an interesting vehicle.

Fuller: Well,

IB:

How were they different froni~how were they made different from the
regular truck?

Fuller: Well eve ryrhfng was waterproof you see. And your axles and your

• IB:

motor and you could put a snorkel on them to get the exhaust up, you
could drive out there

Like a submarine.

Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 8

Fuller: Yeah, clear over your head if you wanted to. They used to take them

up to Houghton Lake to test them.

IB:

Oh they did?

Fuller: Yeah.

IB:

Put them right in the lake.

Fuller: Oh yeah. Yeah.

IB:

They were all waterproofed with some kind of

Fuller: Well all your ah,

IB:

something that was sprayed on or

Fuller: No it was just the way they build your harnesses and your generator

and everything was sealed up. Your axles

IA:

Watertight.

Fuller: Yeah.

IB:

And the water wouldn't come in around the door where the

Fuller: Oh yeah, yes the water would come in the door, you'd be sitting right
there and driving it and you'd get your feet washed at the same time.

IB:

As long as you keep your head out of water.

Fuller: Yeah, yeah.

IB:

Isn't that interesting.

Fuller: Yeah.

IB:

I wonder if anybody produces anything like that anymore?

Fuller: Well I don't think so. Well I don't say I don't think so, they ah,
ah, it seemed like, well I wouldn't say for sure either. They went
down and ah, Nash Kelvinator, I think, got a contract after that and
they built them down in South Bend, where the old Studebaker plant
used to be.

IB:

Oh yes, ah huh.

Fuller: I'm not sure about that, but I think that is what happened.

•

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•

Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 9

IS:

There is a museum in that plant now.
museum.

I can't think, it is a car

Fuller: Oh down in South Bend?

IB:

In South Bend and I'm drawing a big blank, I can't think what it is
called right now. Oh it is the Auburn Car Dusenberg Museum.

Fuller: Oh yeah, I've always wanted to go down there and I never got there.

IA:

Me too, me too, I'm still hoping to get there.

Fuller: Yeah.

IB:

Why did you, I'm curious about why ah, you ended up at Reo in the
first place, because there are other automobile factories in town?

Fuller: Well I couldn't never stand it to stay in one place and work.

I

couldn't work

IB:

Oh to be like on a line.

Fuller: Yeah or punch press or something.

IS:

Right.

Fuller: It was something different every day there. There wasn't the same

thing wrong with all the trucks, you know,and there was always
something different.

IA:

Did you have your choice of what to do when you hired in? I mean
what department to go in?

Fuller: No, I was hired in to go up on the third floor in the sheet metal and

I knew Floyd Nebolski and I walked down through there and he said
where are you going and I said I don't know. I had never been in the
place before in my life. He says you want to work for me?
don't care.

Sure I

IA:

How did you know him?

Fuller: Oh, through my sister and brother-in-law.

years.

I ~new him for a good many

IB:

You didn't have any family that had worked at Reo?

Fuller: Yeah, my brother-in-law worked there. He was isuperintendent there in

the truck plant for years.

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Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 10

IB:

Oh and his name was?

Fuller: Archer, Leroy Archer.

IB:

Leroy Archer.

Fuller: After they got this last contract there he called me up and says why

don't you come down and get a job. They are going to run for a year.
They got enough for a contract for a year and I went there and I was
there until the thing closed.
I spent 28 years and a half in there.
It was interesting work, we had a nice bunch of fellows to work with.

IA:

You thought Reo was a good employer for the most part?

Fuller: Oh yeah.

some of them ... went in there when they were 16 and

they were still there even when I was there. A lot of them worked
there 40, 50 years.
It was different back then. When you went in
there, you worked with what you was doing. You knew what you were
doing.
they were set in their ways. And ah, but ah, they knew what they
were doing.

Some of them old people was awful hard to work with because

IB:

Ah huh did they teach you, did some of the old guys teach you what to
do or somebody else train you?

Fuller:

I didn't want to know, they when a young guy went in there they was
afraid that you was going to get their job, I guess. More or less,
well
yourself, because I ain't got time to show you.
never worked so hard in my life until after I found out what I was
doing.

he told he he says you will have to learn it

The fact was, I

IA:

That must have been a little kind of shaky and scary at first.

Fuller: Well it

IA:

Not knowing exactly what you were expected to do and how to do it.

Fuller: No,

you had to do a lot of figuring out yourself.

IA:

Hum, and the old fellows probably just stood around.

Fuller: No, they didn't want to tell you.

IA:

Snicker and thinking now this kid is going to fallon his face.

Fuller: You bet.

•

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•

Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 11

IA:

Even during the war when they knew they needed help.

Fuller: Yeah, yeah.

IB:

How long did it take you to figure things out?

Fuller: Oh after I had been there two or three months

Of course,

been raised on a farm, you had to figure things out for yourself too.

IA:

IB:

Yeah that's right.

Had to learn to fix things and make do.

Fuller: Right. Right.

Even if it·was with a piece of baling wire.

You got

to do it.

IA:

So you were working in a factory and then also at the farm at the
same time?

Fuller: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

I don't know how I ever done it, but I did.

IA:

Wow. Two jobs.

Fuller: I spend a lot of nights out on the tractor, 12:00, 1:00 after I come

home, put in eight, 10 hours in down there.

IA:

Did you have a car to drive back and forth?

Fuller: Oh yeah.

IA:

IB:

You did, that's .....

During the war you had an extra gas ration, didn't you that you were

Fuller: Oh yeah, yeah.

IB:

that you were working in defense.

Fuller: Yeah, tires.

IA:

Tires?

Fuller: Oh yeah, you got fit for tires.

IB:

What about on the farm, was there any kind of gas amounts for
tractors?

Fuller: Oh yeah.

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Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 12

IS:

There was.

Fuller: You had an A stamp and a B stamp and a C stamp. Yeah, I should have

saved some of them, gas ration stamp .....

IA:

IB:

You had to use them.

I wish I had

Fuller: Yeah, they'd, they wouldn't give you any extra.

IB:

No, no they didn't, it was three or four gallons a week or something

Fuller:

Something like that.

IB:

for the nonessentials

Fuller: Yup, yup.

IB:

people like

Fuller:

I don't remember how much, how much you got for a car.
enough for the tractor and I had no problem there.

I always got

IA:

So after you finished what you did on the trucks and they went
through your line, then they went to export directly from your
department?

Fuller: Yup.

IA:

They were all set to go.

Fuller: Yeah.

IA:

I wonder how long it took to tear down a truck?

Fuller: Well if you tore down 100 of them in 12 hours it wouldn't take long.

IA:

My goodness.

Fuller: They could knock them apart pretty fast.

IA:

Of course every little part didn't come off.

Fuller: Oh no.

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• Raymond Fuller

3-19-92
Page 13

IA:

Well no I would hope not.
them together or did we have Americans over there helping to show
them?

I wonder if the Russians knew how to put

Fuller: They told me they was putting them together over on an open line, but

doubt that, I have my doubts they ever got them together.

IA:

Oh and so you think maybe they are still there in crates sitting in
boxes over there?

Fuller:

I wouldn't be a bit surprised. I wouldn't be a bit surprised.

IB:

Or .. to Pakistan.

Fuller: Yeah, my brother-in-law went over to Pakistan once, but he hadn't any

more than landed there and he come back.
over there.

It was too dirty for him

IA:

When was that?

•

Fuller: Probably during the war.

IA:

Well why was he going to Pakistan?

Fuller: Ohthey had some of our trucks over there and I don't know, they

didn't know what to do with them or something, I just don't know what
the deal was.

IA:

Was he supposed to stay or just for a short time we are talking
about?

Fuller: Well he was supposed to stay, but he didn't stay. He said you pick

up a glass and you couldn't even see the water in it.

IA:

So he went there for the Reo and to troubleshoot, but he

Fuller: Yeah, yeah, he didn't stay there. I was surprised when he got back

so soon. He didn't any more than land, then I don't think, and he
was back.

IA:

IB:

Yeah.

And so they then maybe sent somebody else over? Dd d he go over by
himself, or did they send him?

•

Fuller: Yeah, yeah, he went by himself.

Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 14

IB:

Gee and those war type planes, that'd take him forever to get there
and forever to get home, wouldn't it?

Fuller:

I don't know how long it took

.

IA:

IB:

IA:

IB:

that is all the way around the world.

Yeah, it is a seven or eight hour trip or something now

Now, right.

with jet travel.

Fuller: Yeah.

I have no idea how long it took him.

IB:

Nobody asked you to go to the

.

Fuller: No. Yeah, we had trucks scattered allover

the United States.
were at all these Army bases, we had trucks scattered allover.
always wanted somebody to go out and work on them things. Now I
wouldn't never go.

There
They

IB:

Oh they did?

Fuller: Oh yeah. Yeah, a lot of us fellows, I think they just went to get

away from their wife, maybe, I'm not too sure, but (laughter)

IB:

Well if they didn't have a farm, they could, you know, they could get
away.

Fuller:

But I couldn't get away.

IB:

Call it an adventure, too, going somewhere new.
shop work gets a little monotonous that might be sounding like

I mean sometimes

Fuller: But they was allover, out in Nebraska, all through Nebraska ....

IB:

Different

.

Fuller: Yeah, wherever an Army base, they had some of our trucks there.

IB:

IA:

I see.

What kinds of things did you need to fix on the trucks when you ...
check them over?

Fuller: Well we didn't inspect them, an inspector wrote them up and whatever

they wrote up, we fixed.

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Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 15

IA:

IB:

You had it fixed.

Oh so.you were given a work order kind of, just needs this and this
needs that.

Fuller: Yeah, and then after that they had to go through Army ordinance and

they got into a hassle

.

IB:

Really, why is that?

Fuller: Ohsome

of them guys didn't know what they was doing. They'dwrite

stuff up and there was nothing wrong with it, they were just a pain.

IB:

And then it came back to you and it didn't need fixing and then what
would you do?

Fuller: I'd ..... and let her go. So I had a boss down, their boss, him and

I was just like that, whatever I said was right, that was right.

IA:

Who was your boss?

Fuller: Oh what was his name, Robert Thompson, he was from St. Johns. And we

had a bunch of characters there.

IA:

IB:

IA:

IB:

I was going to ask you, what were some of the interesting things that
happened that you were personally involved with, but I think maybe
ah,

He's got a few.

Has he, I'd like to hear em.

About the Ex-lax.

Fuller: I couldn't,

was working over there
and this Bill Gable I worked with, he was kind of a nut.
come up ... one day and every new person hired in there he'd get em.
He had that .... that black stuff you know, he'd dip them in sugar.

on them Army trucks,

1 never

IA:

Oh gums gums, candies?

Fuller: No, it was stuff they put on to the fenders to close up the cracks.

IA:

And it was like sticky stuff or something?

Fuller: Oh yeah. He'd make them little gumdrops with this ... and he'd dip

them in sugar.

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Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 16

IA:

So they looked like a regular gumdrop?

Fuller:

Oh yeah, a girl came up through there one day and well he pulled a
chair over there, have some candy, she took it.
She was eating them
things, he had me go down to the office and take them away from her.

IA:

She probably thought it was she thought it licorice.

Fuller:

Yeah, yeah it was black.

IA:

It looked like a black gumdrop.

Fuller:

I never knew a person hired in there he'd have to feed them one of
them to get them broke in.

IA:

And then the rest of you waited to watch the person try to eat them.

Fuller:

Stand back and laugh about it.

(laughter)

IA:

Did anybody ever pull any jokes on you when you were new in the ...
department or

Fuller:

Well back when I first hired in there, them old birds they didn't do
none of that stuff.

IA:

Oh they were serious.

Fuller:

Oh yeah, yeah.

Years went by then they got younger people in there.

Wife:

IA:

Fuller:

Yes I want to hear about this too.

A young guy, a fellow, he'd bring in two chocolate covered donuts
every morning.
and get them they'd be gone.
couple pain donuts and he melted up some Ex-lax and dropped them in
there and ah, let them harden.

When he'd go for break time, you know, and he'd go

So he went home one night and he got a

IA:

So they were kind of like frosting?

Fuller:

Oh you've seen these sugared, or not the

IA:

Chocolate coated.

Fuller:

Chocolate coated and that's what they looked like.

IS:

.. donut.

•

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• Raymond Fuller

3-19-92
Page 17

Fuller:

Oh.yeah and when he went to get them at noon, or break time, they was
gone.

IA:

I bet he caught his thief.

Fuller:

Yes.

He sat over in the can all afternoon.

(laughter) He .....

IA:

Oh that's funny.

Fuller:

We thought it was.

IB:

Fuller:

• IA:

Fuller:

What other funny things can you remember that

people older.

Dh we was sitting there eating dinner one day and ah this ...
Gessiman, he says I can tell the difference between a boiled egg and
one that isn't boiled, right away the works begin to go and I
think
so I took in an egg and said you
and I said Dorin got his egg out and put mine in there.

down on the table

Then this is a raw egg you put in?

that we got sent home at noon' for some

A raw egg, it just happened
reason or another, I don't remember why.
afternoon he thought he'd eat that egg, so he went out and dropped
down his dinner pail and he backed up ... there and he dumped it on
the back like that, he wasn't even looking and
When he
did look it was on the floor.

Well in the middle of the

IB:

He never found out who did it probably?

Fuller:

Dh yes, yeah, he. said when he come in in the morning, he said Fuller
damn you.

(laughter)

IB:

And you said ....

Fuller:

Yeah, ... after that he could tell the difference, but he .....

IB:

Fuller:

•

Things like that make the work go a little easier don't they?
relieve the monotony, I suppose, of course, your department you said
wasn't too monotonous because there was something different
to do on
each vehicle.

And

We used to have a couple of pits they'd run them trucks over

Yeah.
and buys down in the pit always had a can of grease like this with a
brush in it.
then they'd get that can of grease ... toes of shoes.

Somebody come up there and open the door and stzar ti

...

IB:

Ever do that to any of the say higher supervision?

Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 18

Fuller: Oh yes, if they come along there, they'd get it too, it didn't make

any difference.

IB:

Can't you see the manager of the plant ah, going along there with

Fuller: He would never had noticed it until he got gone and he wouldn't have

known where it come from anyway.

IA;

How many people worked in your you know, in the place you worked.
Your ....

Fuller: Oh gosh we had ah, well when ... a lot of military trucks over there

in 3A there were probably 30 of us in there.

IB:

Ah huh, doing more or less the same kind of thing

Fuller: Oh yeah, well some of them was painting and some of them was fitting

the hoods and the brush guards and ... seemed like I always got stuck
on the
went out the door.

(coughing every last operation

before they

line.

IB:

Did the Army ever have personnel they sent to the factory to look at
the trucks or

Fuller: Oh yeah, that ah, that's what them Army ordinance people was

IB:

Oh, oh, they were the ones.

Fuller: Oh yeah, they had to take everyone out and drive it and test drive

it and bring back and run back through again.

IB:

I remember seeing them around on the streets and

Fuller: Oh they was allover

there for years.

IB:

Sometimes they didn't have cabs on .and they'd be sitting out in the
open air.

It was interesting to watch them .....

Fuller: Yeah, it was a allover

Lansing.

IB:

Did say the plant manager or the vice president or whatever, did they
very often come down to your area?

Fuller: You might seem them walk through there once and a while.

They never

said nothing to us peons.

IB:

Is that right?

•

•

•

•

Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 19

Fuller: No, they didn't say nothing.

IA:

What about the Reo clubhouse, did you, since you worked there, did
you take part in any of those activities over at the clubhouse?

Fuller: No, I never got

Wife:

Well we had a fair one year.

Fuller: Dh yeah that's right, they did have a real fair one year.

Wife:

Real fair just one year.

IA:

Was that inside the building?

Fuller: It was out in the back and in the building too.

IB:

In the clubhouse, was it?

Fuller: Yeah, yeah.

IA:

Was it just

Fuller: Dh they took peoples, I took a couple of lambs down there that the

kids had and different ones brought cattle in and

Wife:

Dhpeople brought that stuff from the farms.

Fuller: Yeah, whatever they had.

IA:

Like an old-fashioned country fair.

Fuller: Yeah.

Wife:

Well and then he come home and he asked me if I wanted to make some
cookies to take down, because they had a baked goods ..... So I made
up 1,000(?) of made pinwheel cookies, where I made seven dozen.

IA:

Dh I like that kind.

•

Wife:

•

And that night when we went, we got home, we went back to the fair, I
went to the booth, and the cookies were gone. I don't know "if they
sold them or they ate them or what.
But ah,we came home that night
and then the next day he came home and I had won first prize and he
I
brought me a mixer, an electric mixer.
had bursitis in my right arm and oh so this helped me to mix things,
it was wonderful.

I was tickled to death.

That was wonderful.

Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 20

IB:

Mixers were brand new on the market too, weren't they?

Fuller: That was a good many years ago.

Wife:

And

IB:

IA:

Was it in the '50's, you think? Late' 40's?

Late '40's maybe.

Fuller: Not after

It was after we lived here.

Wife:

Oh well yeah.

Fuller: Sometime after '47, '48.

Wife:

It probably was in the '50's.

Fuller:

It might have been 'SO, I don't know. I should have kept it better

I don't know.

Wife:

... anyway wasn't he?

Fuller: Yeah, I imagine .(can't year)

IA:

We've heard so much about the clubhouse and about the memories that
people have associated with it and when they come to the museum to
visit, they almost all say to me the clubhouse is gone, they tore it
down. And it is a real heart wrench too like someone tore down their
childhood home.

Fuller: Yeah they should have saved that, because that was ..... nothing

wrong with that.

IA:

Did you ever take the family, were they still having entertainments,
like movies and things while your kids were growing up?

Fuller:

I went to them movies when I was a kid.

IA:

Oh you did, how did you get in?

Fuller: Well my sister lived right over there on Garden Street, just the

other side of Baker there and that was

Wife:

She worked in the ah

.

Fuller: Yeah, she worked in the cafeteria there.

•

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Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 21

IA:

IB:

Oh in the Reo clubhouse.

Oh she worked at the Reo in the cafeteria.

Fuller: Yeah.

She used to take me over there and they'd feed, I don't know

how old I was.
all the goodies, you know.
his place for supper and

They'd take me over and they'd feed me ice cream and

One night the old chef took me home to

IB:

Gee, you must have either looked hungry or been awfully nice.
(laughter)

Fuller: Gus, Gus, Gus, Gus, Gus Adler was his name.

IB:

He was the chef at the

Fuller: Yeah, he was the chef.

IA:

So you were at the clubhouse even before you started working there
yourself .

Fuller: Oh yeah.

Yeah.

They used to have a radio station there too, you

know.

That's write, WREO.

Did you ever listen to it or

IA:

IB:

Fuller: Oh yeah I listened to it. I was up in there, somebody took me up

there when I was just a kid and I

IA:

Oh to see the works and stuff. Oh.

Fuller: Yeah I seen it and the bowling alley that was in there.

IA:

Gee that's exciting, now the radio station, was that in the clubhouse
or was that across the street?

Fuller: No, it was in the, it was right there on the east side of Washington

there.

IA:

Okay.

Fuller: Well it could have been in that clubhouse too.

I wouldn't say ...

IA:

Was it just one room where they had the radio station?

Fuller: WREO.

•

•

Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 22

IA:

And did you get to watch somebody talking over the microphone?

Fuller:

I don't remember none of that, I remember going

IB:

IA:

IB:

Just remember being

It wasn't on all the time.

No I .... only 30 hours a day.

Fuller:

they had a nice bowling alley in there.

IA:

But that was in the basement, right?

Fuller:

I think so.

IA:

IB:

The cafeteria was in the basement.

Oh was it?

Fuller: Yeah.

IA:

I think so.

Fuller: One of my sisters first went there to work, they had 5,500 people

worked there.

IA:

That's right in the late '20's.

Fuller: Yeah.

IA:

That's right.

Fuller: Of course, they was building trucks, REO speedwagons and cars

IB:

IA:

IB:

Cars then?

Yes, right up until 1936.

How long did she work there?

Fuller: Oh probably four or five years, I don't know.

IA:

Oh I see, not like a long career like you did.

Fuller: No.

See I think she went back there and worked during the war too,

up in the office somewheres for a while.

I'm sure

•

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Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 23

IA:

Asa

secretary?

Fuller: Yeah, something.

IA:

'Whatwas her name?

Fuller: A Jenny Archer.

IB :

Oh she was married to LeRoy?

Fuller: Yeah.

IA:

Oh, okay. We recently had lunch with a bunch of gals that used to
work in the offices.

Fuller: Oh yeah.

IB:

We all meet at the Goldengate every month.

Fuller:That must be Mrs. Pappen and

IB:

IA:

Yes.

I think, oh

......................................

-

-

.

IA:

she was ... yeah, we went up ... get to talk to her so we can get
about the first aid, you know, that angle. Oh I see .

.•

.•

.•

.•

.•

.•

.•

.•

.•

.•

.•

.•

.•

.•

.•

.•

.•

.•

.•

.•

.•

.•

.•

.•

.•

.•

.•

.•

.•

.• ....

.•

.•

IA:

It is very possible I don't remember all their names.
some of them.

I remember

IB:

Mostly they were girls from the offices, you know.

Fuller: I never knew too many of

Fern

IB:

IA:

... she worked in the

Right.

Fuller: I remember Fern Ardis, but I guess that's ... I ever did.

IB:

I bet the ones that broke the trucks down.

•

•

Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 24

Fuller: Yeah, well I can remember seeing them knock them down, but I don't

know what any of their names was.

IA:

Boy I'd like to talk to some of them. That would be interesting.

Fuller: I wouldn't know where you'd find any of them today.

IA:

IB:

I suppose yeah.

They left after the war, didn't they most of them?

Fuller: Oh yeah.

IB:

They left after the war. That was

Wife:

I don't know if she'd know anybody or not

(can't hear)

IA:

Oh really?

Wife:

IA:

IB:

IA:

Oh oh yeah, that would be interesting to ask.

Yeah, maybe we could find her.

In Grand Ledge?

Wife:

Yeah,

(can't hear)

IA:

Oh those apartment complexes, those nice new buildings?

Fuller: Yeah.

Wife:

Yes ..... address

IA:

Mr. Nebolski has passed away?

Fuller: Yeah, two or three

Wife:

Well she

IA:

Oh okay.

Wife:

she could tell you exactly

has a

whether she would know any of the women that

but she
.

Fuller: Oh I think so.

•

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•

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Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 25

Wife:

She probably would.

She's got 75 ... she's legally blind, she .....

IA:

Oh my goodness.

Fuller:

I can't hardly remember my own.

(laughter)

IA:

I can remember telephone numbers, but not names or sometimes.

Fuller:

No mean neither.
what their name was.
that was my weakness, I couldn't remember names.

I knew a lot of people in the Reo, but I never knew

I knew them by their face, and spoke to them,

IA:

•.And people out of your department
that you didn' twork
-day, I mean that you might have just seen in passing.

with every
Did any, were

there any women that worked in the same department
in?

that you worked

Fuller:

No.

IA:

No .

Fuller:

Well, when they was knocking them trucks down, the girls off to one
side they'd catch them trucks when they'd come off the line and take
them in there and tear them apart.

IB:

Did any of the guys give them a hard time doing that kind of work?

Fuller:

Not that I ever remember.

No, no I don't.

IA:

We just wondered if there was a barrier in the beginning when the
women· came into the shops.

Fuller:

I don't think so.

IA:

Fuller:

I don't mean a fight, but
office before

My mother worked at Reo and she had a, once she got in it was okay,
but she had a fight getting into the Reo.
I mean she had to sit for several days in the personnel
the man would even give her an application.
didn't have any, didn't need any more secretaries
hear to work on the line, you know, I want to work down in the shop.
I need to make money, I've got a family to support and he said, in
essence, go home lady, the woman belongs in the kitchen kind of
attitude, you know because at that time women did stay home, you
know, in 1941 .
...

He aid that ah, he

and she said no I'm

. yeah .

IB:

The the war sort of made it okay.

•

•

Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 26

IA:

Ah the men came back home and got their jobs back.

Fuller: Sut then they used them

used to work there

judas priest

they could do it just as good as anybody. And there were a lot of
them upstairs in the cab room

IA:

Ah huh.

Fuller:

that was lighter work up there and ... and stuff.

IS:

And the women only from the beginning worked on the selling for the

IA:

Yeah, yeah.

And some of the electrical stuff too, I read.

Fuller: Yeah, they worked up there in the wire room

IA:

That's right.

Fuller: but I couldn't tell you what any of their names was, but I have no

idea.

IA:

I would think that would be good because their hands maybe might be
more delicate to handle the wires.

Fuller: Sure they could do it faster than a man. They made all their own

wire harnesses up there.

IS:

And women are used to sewing and just working with their hands or
they used to be.

Fuller: Then they had a Navy department there during the war too, they made

bomb fuses in there. And then I was through there a couple times,
but I don't really know much about it. Them was all women in there.

IS:

IA:

Oh is that right?

Oh they were, oh.

Fuller: Yeah.

IS:

Um, so you were there, you started in war and you went through 1975
when the plant closed?

Fuller: Oh ...

IS:

19741

•

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• Raymond Fuller

3-19-92
Page 27

Fu.ller: Well it didn't close there, it closed 15 years ago

.

IB:

Yeah, and you were there in the same department, that same department
the whole time?

Fuller: Yeah.

IA:

Did you claim to, did you and the men you worked with sense that
things were coming to an end, that the shop was going to be closed?

Fuller: Well I'll tell you a little story. All Reo stockholders were never

sold out, but Reo would have been running today, butah,
out and god only knows how many times that thing changed hands there
in 10 years
had it and there was a guy down in
Indiana or Illinois who made hearses he had it and ..... White Motors
Company had it and

they sold

• Fuller: Yeah, I can't

IA:

Fuller: Yeah, he done it.

And then finally Cappaert had it.

Wife:

They thought he was wonderful though when he first came.

Fuller: Well they spent a lot of money on that place when they first started.

They put new roof over the repair floor there and when they thought
it was going to go all at once, he stoled it all and away he went.

IA:

Do you think that he had intentions when he first took over to
really, to run it into bankruptcy?

Fuller: Sure.

IA:

Or to make it go?

Fuller: No, I think he had intentions of taking everything out of there he

could and leave it.

IA:

You did?

Fuller: I sure do.

Ring it dry.

Fuller: Yeah, he did.

• IB:

Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 28

IB:

The fact that you mentioned about putting a roof on, I know those
were very old buildings, ah,were they in disrepair in a lot of
places?

Fuller: Well not really, they worked on them all the time and

IB:

Oh they did?

Fuller: Oh yeah.

IB:

You know I've heard stories about the floors being weak in certain
parts of the plants and things going through them and

Fuller: Oh once and a while you have fork truck would get somewhere to where

he shouldn't be, running over them old wooden floors and the ground
would go down.

IB:

But you never felt like it was an unsafe place?

Fuller: No, never.

Never gave it a thought.

IB:

What kind of changes, did your work change while you were there?

Fuller: Done the same thing all the time.

IB:

You did the same thing. How about the kind of people that you worked
with?

Fuller: Oh yes.

IB:

That changed a lot while you were there.

Fuller: Oh yeah.

Younger ones kept coming in, the older would leave but

there was a nice bunch of people, most of em. Well if you get one in
there that wasn't any good, he wouldn't stay long, we'd make it so
miserable for him, he'd have to leave.

IB:

Oh I see. Your wife just handed me a little statue of a Boy Scout on
the statue and it says Chief Okemos Council thanks Raymond Fuller,
Diamond Reo, 1974. Tell me what this is about? How did you get '
this?

Fuller: Well ah, Barney Skills from Lansing got ahold of an old Eager Beaver

truck, that's what they called them and brought it back there and
they wanted it rebuilt.

Wife:

To give to the Boy Scouts, wasn't it?

•

•

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• Raymond Fuller

3-19-92
Page 29

Fuller: Well th~y'd already had the truck, but they just wanted it rebuilt.

But we brought it back there and set it over there in the building
across Washington Avenue on the left side of the street there and
somehow I got elected to rebuilt it. And I, I went at it and I tore
all the axles out of it and changed all the tires and transmission,
everything that was on it, all but the motor, the motor was alright.
I must have worked on that thing for months, ... back and we painted
it and they come down and got it. And I didn't know nothin about
that thing for three or four weeks.
Somebody, I don't know if I went
to somebody who told me to go up in the office and get it or somebody
brought it down, I don't remember anymore, but

IB:

It is hard for

.

Fuller: They gave it to me anyway.

IB:

Were they still doing theum, what was the newsletter called?
Spirit. Were they still doing the Reo Spirit and were you still
getting those newsletters right up close to the end?

•

Fuller: I don't think so.

IB:

I could just picture him being in it. His picture in the paper
holding the

Fuller: They didn't take no pictures.

IB:

Were you

.

•

•

•

•

•

•

••

•

•

-••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

- e: .•••••••••••

IB:

Not in this group?

Wi·fe:

No oh no.

IB:

I wonder what they did with the truck?

Fuller: Well ah,

IB:

Going to use it for field trips or

Fuller: I suppose, yeah.

Yeah.

Wife:

• IB:

Chief Okemos is right over here.
Camp .

I mean Okemos being a Boy Scout

Do they still have that Boy Scout camp?

Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 30

Fuller: Yeah.

IB:

Oh I see.

Wife:

It is called Shimicon.

IB:

Oh, I've been to Shimicon.

Wife:

Chief Okemos is'

IB:

He is buried there. I've seen his grave.

Fuller: Yeah.

Wife:

So that's in this urn, district area. Whatever

Fuller: Yeah, I was pretty proud of that, I didn't know I was going to get

it.

IB:

That must have been kind of, you must have kind of enjoyed putting
that truck back together.

Fuller: Oh I did.

IB:

Do you like to work with your hands?

Fuller: Worked on it

quite a long time. It was just like new when I

got done with it, but

all new tires and everything on it.

IB:

And the Reo paid for

Fuller: Oh yeah.

IB:

all the, everything and donated it?

Fuller: They donated it, everything.

•

•

IA:

IB:

The Reo did a lot of things for the community
they were involved in it community activities, not just a factory to
produce things, but also to get involved in Lansing's development.

people that

After the war there were several strikes, I remember, and people were
out of work for a while, were you out of work too?

Fuller: Yeah, but you know what I told the boss when I left there.

I says if

you want me when this strike is over, you call me, but I'm not going
to walk the picket line. And I didn't?

•

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Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 31

IB:

You mean walk on the picket line or thru it?

Fuller:

On it.

IB:

On it, okay.

Fuller:

We was making $2.25 an hour when they went on strike working
work and when I went back we was getting $1.65.
what would happen.
piece work out, you walk the picket line, I ain't going to.

I said you guys are dumb enough to kick that

I knew that is just

on piece

IB:

Is that what one of the strikes was over?

Fuller:

Oh yeah, that's what it was about, when you use that piece work.

IB:

Oh , and the piece work now that's a little different
isn't it?

than production,

Fuller:

•

or .. Warner,

But ah, when you get done at night, if you changre four

was from oh it
it could have been
They give you a work order see, and

Well, we worked on piece work on them trucks on the repair floor.
or transfer case, of
You get well the .... change of transmission
course transfer case was Timkin and the transmission
could have been a Ford transmission
three or four different kinds.
so much to they paid so much for changing that transmission
whatever you had to do on them parts that were furnished.
Timkin was in Detroit there and they ah, they had a man upthelre most
of the time.
transmissions,
long time, I think we got $12.50 for trying to change the
transmission.
transfer case, I forgot what that was.
that you'd put in there, see, then ah, we got a 25 or 50 truckis out,
they was around 50, 25 down each lane to get them out, why yo~ can
make $2.25 an hour.
everyday, we wouldn't use none of them work orders we·had,
called them, see.
And we'd keep them.
production
them in, so you always .made your money.

But if you didn't, why if we got our trucks
theY'

was down or something they missed three trucks why Y'ou add

why, I think if I remember right, I made upti~e

You'd throw them into the group.

And some day when the

and things Ili.ke

Or exchange~

Whatever,

or
This

I

for a

IS:

You always had something to do.

Fuller:

Yeah.

IB:

•

Um, I'm wondering
war and earning a certain amount and after the war and throughi the
,50' s, did, were there pay increases,
for the worker?

if what the change was between working

things got better

f i.nancd.a l.Ly

during the

Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 32

Fuller: Well after the ·war, they got better. When they were working piece

work, during the war, there wasn't piece work, it was all day rate.
Of course, that was ah, that was cost plus you know.

IB:

Cost plus?

Fuller: Yes, the government whatever, whatever they'd pay so much, then the

government would kick in the rest of it, see

IB:

Oh okay.

Fuller:

If they paid a $1 an hour, why they'd put in 10 percent, cost plus.

Wife:

During the war they worked seven days a week.

Fuller: Yeah, 12 hours a day.

IB:

You worked a 12 hour shift?

Fuller: Oh yeah.

IB:

And were there three shifts then?

Fuller: No there

IB:

No there couldn't have been.

(laughter)

Wife:

No, there had to be two.

IB:

Yeah, right.

Fuller: There was just two.

IB:

But in your department, you worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week.

Fuller: Yeah.

IB:

Did you get overtime, like for Saturday and Sunday or holidays?

Fuller: I

IB:

I was just wondering if overtime is something that came along later
or

Fuller: I don't think we did, but we could have, I don't remember.

IB:

I remember my mother was saying .....

•

•

•

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Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 33

Wife:

They worked holidays too. His sister and brother-in-law worked
anyway they would come over, he would come over to his sister"s for
dinner, Christmas or Thanksgiving.

IB:

And go right back to work.

Fuller: They'd give us an hour off for noon.

IB:

Oh.

Fuller: Yeah.

I worked

36 hours or something down there oncle

straight.

IA:

IS:

Oh my goodness.

During the war?

Fuller: Yeah.

Boss told me, he says if you will stay and work, I'll gd.ve you

a day off.
but it was a long time .

So I stayed there ..... remember how many hours itlwas,

IS:

Day off, you probably slept all day, because you were tired.

Fuller: Finally got a day off and

IB:

No I bet you came home and worked on the farm.

Fuller: Oh yeah.

I was milking cows yet then, six, seven, eight cows 'twicea

day.

IB:

My gosh, you must have had to do an awful lot of extra things.1

Wife:

I worked out in the field a little bit, but I never did milk.
didn't work in the barn.

Well I did one time too.

I

Fuller: Fed the cows at noon probably or something.

Wife:

That was before, we just had one child.

Fuller: Now

Wife:

I used to go out and ride on the tractor ....... pick up sltones

and ah ,

.

IB:

Oh my.
the reason for that?

So why did they want to change it from a piece

whaltwas

Fuller:

I don't

•

•

Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 34

IB:

You don't know?

Fuller:

I have no idea.

IB:

Well maybe they
something?

just thought from how they'd make more that way or

Fuller: Yeah, I guess so. Well there was some in there that wasn't on piece

work and I guess that's what was bothering some of them.

IB:

Maybe they didn't make as much.

Fuller: They didn't.

The one that was on piece work was making more money,
but the ones that weren't in the group, they made the $L.50 an hour
and we was making $2.25 .... that group. Piece work was a good
thing.

IB:

Was it?

Fuller: Yes, we'd get a guy in there, if he didn't want to work, we'd boot.

Go to him and get him up .... now you either go to work or

him out.
you are going over there and work day rates. You've got your choice.
It was a good thing the boss didn't have to do anything, but the guys
If he
who working there, we wanted to make our money every day.
didn't want to work, why he'd be over there working for $1.50 an
hour.

A good thing.

IB:

Did you have anything, like you had the pension plan, did you?
had, the workers down on the floor didn't have a pension plan?

You

Fuller: No, not until later they got that. Cappaert stoled that.

IA:

IB:

Yeah, we heard about that.

So when the shop closed, you were just plain out of work.

Fuller:

I come home.

IB:

Did you know, we talked to somebody that said that they had no idea
and they went to work that morning and the place was padlocked.
that happen to you?

Did

Fuller:

Wife:

... the day before the door closed.

IB:

Oh you did, you knew it was coming.

•

•

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Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 35

Fuller:

Oh yes I knew what was coming.
until all the trucks was gone.
to leave.
now where do you go to look for a job when you are 58 years old?

I was on repair for it, I stayed
Sure I knew exactly when I was going
You know, I was 58 years old when that thing closed down,

IB:

You are too young to really

Fuller:

I sat around here, I guess, we went to Florida I remember that winter
and then I come back went ice fishing. Come along the first of
March, I told my wife I got to find something to do, this is driving
me crazy, I can't do that mess.
I started out looking for a jobartd
it wasn't long I had two jobs. ·1 could have had.
starting out they were making trucks over there and I

In fact, there ...

IB:

Oh Spartan Motors, yeah.

•

Fuller:

and put my application in and in the meantime Iwent.down
Sunroof, yeah, we got a job here for you, $3.50 an hour watchman, I
says I'll take it.
I went home and told
her and she says you might better draw unemployment.
I got my foot in the door anyway. Three months time I was out
working in the tool crib making $7.35 an hour.

It is better than nothin.

I·said shut up,

to American

IB:

For American Sunroof?

Fuller: Yeah.

IB:

That's in Lansing on the south side?

Fuller:

It was off from Pennsylvania.

IB:

Yeah.

Fuller:

Down in

Wife:

What were you making at Diamond Reo when you quit?

Fuller: About $5.35 I believe.

IB:

So you went in the beginning from $1.28 was it?

Fuller: Yeah.

IB:

Through all those years until 1970's and

•

Fuller: Yeah, 30 years there pretty near.

Wife:

He wasn't making much anyway, $6 ....

Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 36

Fuller: Well if I made $11,000, $12,000 a year that was boy I thought I was

rich. That was a lot of money.

IB:

You could buy more with it then too.

Fuller: Oh yes.

IB:

So that was enough to keep the family and the farm and everything
going?

Fuller: Oh yeah. We got along good. We had a new car once and a while.

IB:

And three children.

Wife:

Three children.

Fuller: Took a trip once and a while.

IB:

Plus you put the boys through college.

Fuller: Yes.

Wife:

Twice and our daughter, she went to LCC.
little, sweet little granddaughters.

And here is our three

IB:

They are precious, I've been looking at them.

Wife:

They live right here in ....

IB:

Oh so you get to see them often.

Wife:

I get to see them, I get to baby-sit.

IB:

And I see the one up on the TV there.

Wife:

This one is our great-granddaughter.

IB:

Wife:

Oh my goodness . Since you started, wonderful.
too fast.

Oh they just grow up

One in Texas
three.

And our daughter has

IB:

Now she is the one, your daughter

Wife:

married to a, her husband is

IB:

Oh. The so the boys had no wish to go into say to Oldsmobile?

•

•

•

•

Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 37

Fuller:

I didn't want them.to. I said the only thing I ever going to give
you is an education.

If you don't get it, too bad.

Wife:

Well they had their foot in the door, they

Fuller: Dh they worked.

Wife:

Jerry worked at Diamond Reo for just a ...

Fuller: Yeah, one summer there.

IB:

Oh did he, just before they closed.

Wife:

Just a very short time. He was still in college and

Fuller: He made up his mind right then that wasn't for him.

Wife:

The didn't, neither one of them wanted to farm.

Fuller:

I didn't want them to. I figured they could make a living easier
than I did.

Wife:

And our oldest son worked a couple summers in Portland at Holly
Carburetor.

That wasn't for him either.

IB:

Well that's

Fuller: He didn't want to get his hands dirty.

Wife:

IB:

Wife:

IB:

~....... we

if they wanted to, you know.

Well then they have a better life, more education would bring a
better life.

to work

.

Oh I guess I wanted to ask you about labor relations and you said
earlier if you had a problem you solved it yourself.
have, or were there any real problems between say management and
labor.

Did you ever

Fuller: They thought they wanted it but they wanted them people to call the

steward and the committee managers to get out of work.
Theywasn't
kidding me any. They stand around there guard you for two hours .

IB:

Just to get a break?

Fuller:

Sure, they weren't fooling me any.

•

•

Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 38

.IB:

And the only strike or walkout or picket line thing was the one you
talked about right after the war.

Fuller: Yeah, four weeks.

IA:

Oh that was for four weeks?

Fuller: Yeah.

IB:

Oh four weeks. And I remember that there was a, of course, this was
nationwide coal strikes, steal strike

Fuller:

Oh yeah.

IB:

Reo ... strike and all that and didn't that affect you, were you out
of work then?

Fuller: No.

No.

Wife:

You were out of work one time when we went to Florida.
first year at LCC.

Cindy was a

Fuller: Well that was after, when the Reo was down, it was closing up.

Wife:

I know it was down, but ... down.

Fuller: Yeah, it was closing up.

IB:

When was that?

Wife:

he went back to work when

Fuller: No I started drawing my unemployment and then I went fishing and ah,

then I went and got a job over at American Sunroof.

IB:

So the work was hard, but you feel like it was well spent.

Fuller:

Sure. Yeah.

IB:

Like it was good to be there at the Reo during those years.

Fuller:

Sure, I enjoyed it.

IB:

And you would have stayed on until retirement, until full retirement,
had they not closed?

Fuller: Yeah.

I didn't have long to go either.

•

•

•

• Raymond Fuller

3-19-92
Page 39

IB:

We've heard stories about how depressing it was for a lot of people
that worked there. Some of them, you know, later in life
get a job and some were so depressed they even committed suicide.

ouldn't

Fuller: Time was, there was three or four that, I think there was four that I

knew of. At the time, I forgot now who they was, but ah, well you
know, when I left there or before I left.
I always told them-guys , I
says it ain't what you make, it counts as what you save. Then I also
told them, I said we should have went to the Olds.
go busted too. Oh no ,theycan't. Well they are not busted, but they
are badly bent right now.

I says they can

IB:

IA:

Yeah.

Was it different at Olds, did you know people who worked over there?

Fuller: Oh yeah.

IA:

Was it around the same kind of a thing or different ...

•

Fuller:

It was different. I worked
there and it killed me.

and finally stayed

IB:

Oh was that?

Fuller: Well they put me in the heat and then the hammer shop and I only
weighed 145, 150 pounds, maybe 160 and heating them big old long
billets(?) they called them and 75 nun shells and you get out here on
a pair of tongs and I couldn't hardly stand up, let alone put them i
the heater and they had six of them.

IB:

This was during the war?

Fuller: Yeah, you loaded them ... up and by the time you got the sixth one
loaded the first one was ready to take out and then you'd run over
and get that and give it to the guy on the
the next time the second one was ready

load that and

IB:

And these were the 90 nun shells?

Fuller: Ah 75.

IB:

Oh 75.

• Fuller: And then they built the hundred oh what the heck was them bigger

ones, 175 I believe.
around.

They were about yay long and about that big

•

•

Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 40

IB:

I was talking to somebody the other day and they said that those big.
shells were used on anti-tank or I mean anti-aircrafts and they even
mounted some on planes toward the end of the war.

Fuller: I think so, yeah.

IB:

That is a pretty big shell to mount on the wings of a plane.

Fuller: Yeah.

Of course they got bigger ones than that now.

IB:

Oh well they got bigger planes now too. I was really shocked when
somebody said that oh yeah, those big 90 mm went ah, on a plane.
They said I don't know how the plane ever took off with those things
on there, but they did.

IA:

So the work was different over there.

Fuller: Oh yeah.

IA:

On the thing you would have been doing.

Fuller: It was hot in there, smokey..... it wasn't fit for anybody to work in

there.

IB:

Plus, wasn't it a bigger, in those days it was still kind of a bigger
plant than

Fuller: Oh yeah.

IB:

a lot more people there. We've heard a lot about the family feel at
Reo.

Fuller: Oh yeah.

IB:

and that people felt loyal and like they were part ofa big family,
the folks that worked there.

Wife:

..................................................................................

IB:

Pardon me?

Wife:

I think they did feel that way when he worked.

Fuller: Yeah, we all worked together. It was a nice bunch of people.

The

boss always go up in the morning, he'd look at the time clock and see
who was there. He said I always knew who was going to be there. And
some people that drove in from the country, but the guys in town
couldn't make it.

•

• Raymond Fuller

3-19-92
Page 41

IB:

Oh like in the winter when the roads were bad.

Fuller: Yeah, when the roads was bad.

IB:

Because you guy had the work ethnic maybe a little more and you were
used to getting up, no matter what the weather was and going out.

Fuller: A very few days.

IB:

Is that right.

Fuller: Yeah.

IA:

That must have been quite a drive back before there was some big
highways.

Fuller: Twenty-one miles.

IB:

Oh 21 miles .

• Fuller: Yeah. Yeah, I was driving this 43 over here before it was paved.

was rougher than a cob like it is down here.

Is that right? Well I didn't think that, that's just a little spot
but to go 21 miles like that.

IB:

Fuller: Ah of course, it was just between here and Grand Ledge.

IB:

Yeah.

Fuller: And then you hit the pavement there, but yeah that was interesting.

I guess if I had my life to live over again, I'd probably do the sam
thing.

IB:

Were there a lot of people who had farms that worked at Reo? You
know who tried to do both?

Fuller: Well not too many, no.

IB:

Not that many.

Fuller: No.

Wife:

• IB:

Fuller:

His boss lived on a farm.

.......

Yeah.

................

Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 42

•

IB:

I know when I was a kid, a lot of the people around Clarksville, I
think a lot of them worked at Reo, they used to, they were farmers
and they would car pool in to Lansing and I was always amazed, that
seemed so far. But now they drive, of course, the roads are better
and the cars, they drive down from Alma and St. Louis and who knows
where, Saginaw.

Fuller: We had a couple guys there from Reo that lived in Carson City and

drove it every day. Hardly ever missed a day.

IB:

Is that right.

Fuller: Oh yeah.

IB:

From Carson City.

Fuller: Yeah, they hardly ever missed a day.

Wife:

Well how old was Andy Smith when he worked there?

Fuller: I had an old neighbor up here. He went to work at the Olds when he

•

was 70 years old.

IB:

Went to work, hired in?

Fuller: He hired in when he was 70 years old. The old fellow he laughed

about it, he says I went down there and they felt of my arm and I was
warm and they hired me.

Wife:

That's right, he never worked at the Reo.

Fuller: No he worked at

Wife:

They rode together, I was thinking

Fuller: He couldn't drive, so he used to ride with me and then I'd drive his

car, but ah, he worked there for 10 years.

IB:

IA:

IB:

What did he do?

Until he was 80?

He what?

Fuller: Swept the floor and

IB:

He swept floors.

•

•

Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 43

Fuller:. Oh they had an awful time with that old guy. He couldn't stand to

sit around and always worked hard all of his life.

IB:

Sure.

Fuller: When he'd get his work done, he was doing everybody else's work,you

Every time he'd get paid for a holiday, he didn't earn

That always tickled me to death, I'll never forget it as long

know.
as I live.
it, he went back to Grand Ledge and Fuller, you got to stop in here,
he says I want to buy a drink. He'd go in and he'd get a fifth of
whiskey, ah , a bottle of mix and whoever, let',ssee he bought six
paper cups, we had to get off on the side ro"~d,and we had to have a
drink on Andy, because he'd laugh he say, oh that tickled him, he got
paid for nothing, you know.

IB:

I think he would have been a nice man to know.

•

Fuller:

Oh he was.

IB:

It sounds like he is a bowl of fun.

Fuller: He was.

Yeah.

IB:

He had to share it with other people.

Fuller:

Oh.

IB:

Things like that make life more, they make the work go better, don't
they?

Fuller: Yeah.

IB:

Like your jokes down on the line.

Wife:

... when they worked, they were next door with their tool and they'd
stop ..... they could stop and ... they never stopped at the bars or
anything like that.

They would stop .... Quality Dairy wasn't it?

Fuller: No, ah, they had a drugstore there in Grand Ledge used to make

chocolate malts there on the corner, we'd always stop in there and
get a malted.

Wife:

Well anyway once and a while they'd get a malted.

Fuller: You can't go to the drugstore anymore and get one, because they don't

make em.

•

Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 44

IB:

IA:

IB:

IA:

When I was a little girl, I used togo
cream sodas ·and things.

to the drugstore and get ice

Oh that was such fun.

Yeah.

We had a soda fountain.

Fuller: We had an ice cream parlor here in Mulliken.

They started up during

the Depression.

IB:

Oh really?

Fuller: Oh yeah, he peddled milk and he started making ice cream, oh, they

made the best ice cream up there. They sold it for $1 a gallon.
Yeah.
four flavors there, I forgot what they was.

Go up there and you get, I don't know they only had three or

IA:

Probably Strawberry, vanilla

Fuller: Oh yeah, go in there and get a big old dish of ice cream for a dime.

Yeah.

I'm getting hungry.

Was Mulliken a bigger town?

IA:

IB:

Fuller: Mulliken?

IB:

In those days. Of course

.

Fuller: A good many years ago it was bigger.

IB:

IA:

It was bigger.

Was it?

Wife:

Dh yeah there was more stores. More people.

Fuller: When I was a kid they used to to have three grocery stores there, a
clothing stores and a hardware store and a theater and ah

IB:

Oh there was a theater?

Fuller: Dh yeah, drugstore and

Wife:

Two bars, was there?

•

•

•

•

Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 45

IB:

Oh I bet there was, yeah. You have to have those.

Fuller: Before they ever got any bear, yeah, they Fred Wheeler run a card

room there.

IB:

Card room?

Fuller: Yeah.

Wife:

Free shows in the summer.

IB:

IA:

Oh I hate to see the little towns disintegrated.

Oh a drive-in.

Wife:

Yeah, drive-in

it was free.

Fuller: They put up a sheet on the side of the hall down there and show the

IA:

IB:

pictures on it .

Oh my.

We did that in Holt when I was a little girl too. You could go to
the free show every Saturday night.

•

Fuller: Oh yeah.

IB:

And that was in the '30's and boy that meant a lot to families.
Nobody had any money.

Fuller: They had one here and they had one in Sunfield and .. else.

Merchants would all kick in a few dollars and some ..• from Lansing

IA:

IB:

They probably made a lot of money on ice cream those nights, right?
People coming down.

Well the men that gave them in Holt owned a gas station and it was
called Save a Dollar Hunters gas station. And so it was right on
Cedar Street, so it was Save a Dollar Hunters free shows.
imagine that the men that had cars and had any money to buy gas would
probably come there and buy their gas as a result. And during the
intermission, if you would get up and sing or recite a poem you could
get an ice cream cone.

And so I

•

Side 2

Fuller:

in 1925.

Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 46

IB:

Fuller:

Yeah.

IA:

Oh they bought a Reo fire truck.

Fuller:

Yeah, they went around the banker went around and he got

Oh yeah.
$20 off an old farm machine ..... (can't hear) and bought that fire
truck.

IA:

I wonder how much that would have cost?

When was this, did you say?

Fuller:

Back in the '30's.

IA:

In the '30's.

Fuller:

Yeah.

IA:

Fuller:

IB:

IA:

We've got an old Reo fire truck down at the museum.
1940, I think it was one of the last ones made before the war.
wonder if the fire trucks, I wonder if they were the same chassis and
everything that you used for the big trucks?

I think it is a

I

Oh yeah.
got one diesel and one gas truck yet I think.

They still got em

Yeah.

fire trucks, you

A reo?

Are they in use at all?

Fuller:

Oh yeah, sure, they got

IA:

Really?

Fuller:

sure they got a fire barn up there and four trucks in it and they
keep them shined up.

IA:

I'd love to see them.

Fuller:

I got over there once and a while when I have to.
real active fire department here in Mulliken,
ah

Yeah, we got a
it is all volunteer but

IA:

IB:

That's interesting.

Are there Reo trucks on the road yet too?
interviewed a while back said that they still see Reo trucks.

Ah, somebody that we

•

•

•

•

Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 47

Fuller: They are still building them.

IB:

Well yes, they are building them in Pennsylvania.
thinking about are the older ones that are still

What I was

Fuller: Oh yeah.

Wife:

Like once and a while we'll see one, .... truck, but I don't know.

IB:

The ones in Pennsylvania are almost han~ade.

Fuller: Oh yeah.

IB:

And I didn't know that until a volunteer at the museum did, went
there to visit the place and did an article on it that was published.

Fuller: Yeah.

I was up here at the elevator one day and guy in there and I

•

looked that truck over and
.. Reo truck, so we started talking, I said where did you get that
truck out there. Why he says I bought it over at Saginaw.
still selling them over there. And he told me they were still
bQilding them down in Pennsylvania. Well I knew that they had sold
sIx patents to that guy in Pennsylvania, but I guess that one big one
is the one they only ever built.

four years ago .

They are

IB:

The giant is the one he's building. Yeah, I think he isn't doing
anything with the others.

Fuller: No" I think

.

IB:

I think he wants to keep things small, but running well.
as opposed to expanding out to the ...

You know ,

Fuller:

Look at this ... right over here at Charlotte, that a

IB:

Spartan Motors.

Fuller: Oh, that thing is, them guys went over there and started in with

nothing and that thing is just expanding, they got work the..last I
knew, they had orders ahead for nine months.

IB:

And a lot of those people are former Reo people.

Fuller:

•

Yeah, I could have worked over there, but I already

Oh yeah, yeah.
got that other job.
they are going great guns over there. They also built chassis for
ah, motor homes over there too.

I told the guy I didn't want to quit. Yeah,

Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 48

IB:

Oh they do? What else do they do there? I'm not

Fuller: Just build trucks.

IB:

They build trucks.

Fuller: Yeah. And big trucks.

IB:

Spartan Motor, are they called Spartan Motors?

Fuller: Yeah, yeah.

IB:

The trucks I mean?

Fuller: Called Spartan, I guess.

IB:

Oh.

Fuller:

I'm not sure what they call them.

IB:

Okay.

Fuller:

I don't know

people still working

.

IA:

IB:

IA:

Oh really? We are going over there next week.

Yeah.

So we are looking forward to that.

Fuller:

I was always going to go over, ... but I never did.

IB:

IA:

Yeah, I'm very excited about seeing it.

Me too.

Fuller: I think them over there more or less hand built.

IB:

Yeah.

Fuller:

I think, I could be wrong, but I think they are.

IB:

'We'vealso heard from a lot of other people about the kind of pride
that people had in the trucks that were built.
know they were around for a long time, they are good, well made
things.

They were very you

IA:

It felt like you were making a good product.

•

•

•

•

Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 49

And that the company took a lot of care in keeping them up

IB:

Yeah.
too.

Fuller: Yeah.

IB:

Fuller: Well another thing that hurt the Reo down there, they hired in a lot

of these college graduates and they didn't know any more about the
development of truck
They had
education, but they, they didn't know how to build trucks.

IB:

In the supervisory positions or on the lines?

Fuller: Oh the supervisory.

IB:

Supervisors.

Fuller: Yes up in the front office there. They didn't know what they were

doing .

IB:

So they'd come in with new ideas and things that weren't really
practical.

Fuller: That didn't work.

IB:

They want you to change the way you did things?

Fuller: They was always changing something down there. They'd build ...

truck down there with
were going to sell it to farmers. I told one of the foremen there, I
said a farmer is smarter than rhat; ,
trucks. Those stupid things had a cab on it, it wasn't any good.

forget what they called·it, they

He ain't going to buy them.

IB:

What else was wrong with them? Why else wouldn't the farmer buy one?

Fuller: Well it wasn't heavy enough to begin with.

They had a Chevrolet

motor in them. If a man was going to buy a Reo truck, he wants a Reo
motor in it.

IB:

This is later on though.

Fuller: Oh yeah.

That is just

.

IA:

I understand that the Reo built some good engines .

Fuller: Oh yes, that six they built there, well it would be for .... but that

six they put that in all them Army trucks. You couldn't beat em.

•

•

Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 50

IA:

-We were told too, I think, Louie Garcia, I don't know if you knew
him.

Fuller: Yeah, I knew who he was.

He worked up in the press room.

IB:

IA:

IB:

IA:

That's right.

Yeah.
talk to because he is very colorful

But we had talked to him and ah, besides being a lot of fun to

And lively guy.

was talking about the engine, the ah, that would run any kind of
fuel, melted butter

Fuller: Now the ... fuel.

IA:

The

fuel and that was an eight cylinder I think.

Fuller: Yeah, I worked on a lot of them.

IA:

Did you?

Fuller: That motor was made in Muskegon, it was Continental Motor.

IA:

Oh.

Fuller: They said they'd run on anything, but they worked a heck a lot better

on fuel oil.

(laughter)

IA:

I was thinking, gosh if the Germans had had access to that type of
engine too, you know, the war might have gone on for a few more
years, because they ran out of fuel and their army couldn't move.
That was one of the big things that caused them to lose.

Fuller: Yeah, they

IA:

Because they were having to run a alcohol or whatever they could get.
Somebody said you could always tell a German vehicle coming, because
you could smell it miles before, because of the stuff they were
trying to run in the engines.

Fuller: Yeah, I had forgot about them molefumes(?).

IB:

IA:

Yeah, we thought that was very interesting.

I thought it was too. You see a soldier sitting there by the side of
the road melting butter to

•

•

•

•

Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 51

IB:

IA:

IB:

Or put in some other kind of liquid.

Yeah a little alcohol, huh.

Right, exactly. As long as you warmed it, I think, Louis said,
whatever you put in you had to warm it.

Fuller: Yeah.

IB:

Then it would run.

Fuller: They have a heater on them that ah,

IB :

Oh they did?

Fuller: Oh yeah. You'd press a button and heat that motor up .... a lot of
these.. well maybe not so anymore, but they used to put one on ...
glow plug on these diesels.

IB:

A glow plug .

Fuller: Yeah.

Press that button and then heat that thing up about five

minutes and away you go.

•

IB:

Oh.

Fuller: I don't know whether they whether they do them anymore and probably

they got them fixed now so you don't have to. I don't know.

IA:

..... how did they know that they would run on anything. Did they
try different things?

Fuller: Well they said they did, but I never seen it.

IA:

Oh.

Fuller: So I don't know.

IB:

It seems like they'd clog up the carburetor or something. Do they
have a different kind of carburetor do you suppose?

Fuller: Ah,

IB:

Or filters, different kind of filters.

•

Fuller: Oh yeah.

IA:

And it cools them .....

Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 52

IB:

Yeah, I mean of course like you said so, you push that button when
you get back, but you'd have to wait to heat it up before you could
go anywhere. You couldn't even jump in and take off.

Fuller: Yeah, .... yeah.

IA:

You know that probably wouldn't be a very good thing.

Fuller: I ah, it is so wonder we didn't, we'd never

fuel oil, it is no

wonder we didn't try it ... on something else, but we didn't.

IB:

Well where was the, I suppose it was on the streets of Lansing, but
the test track for the trucks?

Fuller: That was on the Lansing streets.

IB:

Right on the street.

Fuller: Yeah.

Wife:

Fuller: Oh yeah ...

IB:

Oh did you? Were you suppose to check it out or something?

Fuller: Well I think I got stuck down there without a ride home.

My boss

said we'll let you drive a truck home if you will stay. So I stayed
and I drove a truck home.

I think that's what happened probably.

IB:

Did you ever want to buy a Reo truck?

Fuller: Well if I had any use for one I wouldn't have been afraid of em. Not

at all. They made pickups once too.

IB:

They did?

Fuller: Yeah.

If they'd of had a decent cab on it they'd have sold a lot of

them too, but they

IA:

What was the problem with the cab?

Fuller: Well they tried to put the same cab on that they did the trucks. It

just looked out of place.

IA:

Too big.

Fuller: Yeah, it looked out of place.

•

•

•

• Raymond Fuller

3-19-92
Page 53

IB:

It makes me think of the old Reo Speedwagons, you know, the early
pickups.

Fuller:

Yeah.

IB:

They have funny looking cabs too.

Fuller:

went to Reo to work, eh worked for the

He used to go over to Ionia to get the prisons

Before my brother~in~law
state.
in the daytime
and take them on out the road to work and I said to him I said ain't
you afraid of them prisoners will get out of there.
on the back.
jump out.

No, he said I drive 60 miles an hour, they don't dare

It is justa' box

(laughter)

IB:

Was it a Reo truck he was using?

Fuller:

• IB:

Fuller:

IA:

Yeah, a Speedwagon,
go 60 miles an hour, they don't dare jump out.
he did too .

one of them old Reo Speedwagons.

No he said they
And he said I believe

There used to be a big prisoner war camp at Lake Odessa.

Yeah.

in

they needed to work in their fields that day.
and then at night he'd bring them back in and the big trucks

Yeah, my grandpa lived in Clarksville and they had a store, but he
also farmed outside of town and they would bring in the prisoners
the morning and the different farmers would come into town and take
however many prisoners
Ahhuh,
from the prison camp would come in and each farmer would bring back
his five or six or however many and they'd go.
thing because I always wondered why did, well once and a while one or
two would try to escape, but that would be from the main campus, so
ah, I don't know how in the world you'd think you could ever get back
to Germany from the middle of Michigan.
be like
in Europe where all the European countries wouldn't help you anyway,
But here
because they were tired of being oppressed by the Germans.
we were all happy with our government, I think.
imagine trying to make your way to New York and get on a ship and

I mean, it wouldn't

But maybe the same

And ah, I can't

Fuller:

They had a bunch of them up here to Lake Odessa working
as I remember.

on the ....

IB:

In the what factory?

•

Fuller:

Cannon factory.

IA:

Cannon.

Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 54

IB:

Cannon.

Fuller: Yeah,

Wife:

Canning factory.

IB:

Oh canning.

Fuller:

Canning factory.

IB:

I'm sorry.

I thought, I didn't know they made cannons over here.

Wife:

Yeah, they used to,
but they freeze.

they don't can, it is still there,

IA:

IB:

Vegetables.

I just have a couple of questions also about urn, your background and
your ... and stuff. Um, you said your folks had the farm in urn,
Eaton County, that's where you grew up.

Fuller: Yeah, yeah.

IB:

And did they grow up here too in Michigan or

Fuller: My dad growed up in Holland, Michigan.

IB:

Okay.

Fuller: My mother was born somewheres around Sunfield.

IB:

Okay, so even from your parents this area is their home.

I'm within five miles

never got very far

Fuller: Yeah.
away.

IB:

Ah huh.

Fuller: Well I did too,

come back.

IB:

And your grandparents, did they also come from around here too?
Around Michigan, or did they come from Europe or

Fuller: Granddad Fuller comes from New York, but I suppose he come, or his

folks might have come from I have no idea.

IB:

When you get that far back it is hard to know.

•

•

•

•

Raymond Fuller
3-19-92
Page 55

Fuller: Yeah.

I'm learning, I always looked ahead.

I could care less about

lUy geneaiogy.

IB:

IA:

Okay, well that's all I need to know about that. Anything else

Oh.
Shirley for you?

No I can't think of anything. Thank you very much for talking with
We really appreciate your memories, sharing your memories .
us.

•