Norma Grimwood talks about her father’s experiences working at REO Motor Car Company during the years 1918 to 1961 and her childhood in a REO family. Grimwood is nostalgic about going to movies at the REO Clubhouse, the beautiful pipe organ, and belonging to a company bowling league, but she also grimly recalls the 1937 strike which brought UAW representation into the plant. She also describes her mother doing piecework in the REO upholstery department, her father testing amphibious trucks on the Grand River in Lansing and her own career at the General Motors Oldsmobile plant and being forced to leave when she became engaged. The interviewers are Shirley Bradley and Lisa Fine. Recorded as part of the REO Memories oral history project.
Read
