•

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Russell Alberts
4-16-92
Page 1

IA:

This is Shirley Bradley. I'm at the home of Russell Alberts. We
are going to be talking about Reo memories and this is April 16,
1992. And we are in Farwell, Michigan.
when did you
start working for Reo?

Okay ,urn,

Alberts: June 18, 1928.

IA:

And how did you happen to go to Reo?

Alberts: Well I went around with the kid that I went to school with and his

dad was the superintendent over at a motor plant and ah,he got us a
job there.

IA:

What did you do when you first started?

Alberts:

I worked on or as a trucker, 40 cents an hour.

IA:

Is that right? What were you doing on the truck?

Alberts:

I was pushing stock around.

IA:

Pushing stock around .

Alberts: Yeah.

But I worked up until January of that year or the next year

and then I went on production. I was spraying paint.

IA:

On trucks?

Alberts: Yeah, no.

IA:

How did you do that? What did you use?

Alberts:

Spray gun on a five gallon pail.

IA:

Did anybody show you how to do that or they just said, here is your
gun and go to it or

Alberts: Well you learn by error, I guess, you might say, without spraying

wheels for the trucks. And our paint was, we had to go get our own
paint and we had to do our own mixing.

IA:

Oh you did?

Alberts: Now we sprayed all of a five gallon pail hold up on a block and

tackle.

IA:

It was overhead and it fed down through something?

Alberts: No, we had to hold it up to the girders and then tie a rope down

below, a gravity .... they called it.

• Russell Alberts

4-16-92
Page 2

IA:

Ah huh.

Alberts:

And then after that, they come in with a pressure tank, long after
that.

IA:

Did that make it easier?

Alberts:

Oh yeah it made it easier, but we still had to mix.your own thing.

IA:

You did? Did ah, you have a certain proportion and what did you mix
the paint with?

Alberts:

Well it was spray and oil finish, we had to mix it with Japan dryer.

IA:

What was that like a lacquer?

Alberts:

Turpentine.

IA:

Turpentine, it made the paint dry faster?

It was suppose to, yeah.

The Jap dryer is what made it dry faster .

Oh really, what was that? Was that a

Alberts: Ah, I don't know what it was, what the mixture was, I don't know.

IA:

Like it was a chemical.

Alberts: All I know is we called it .Jap dryer.

IA:

I see.

Alberts:

But it set it up faster.

IA:

And these were Just for the wheels.

Alberts:

Yeah, and I don't know. All the same thing process went on the
they spread those upstairs, but ah, it was the salinedeal, same
mixture.

IA:

Ah, what do you remember about the people that you worked with?
Were they friendly, did they show you how to do the Job?

Alberts:

Oh it goes, it is like, I worked with a three man crew ah, one guy
was name of Lloyd Miller, he was finishing while I was priming it.
And then when we came downstairs in the new plant I worked with ah,
someone by the name of Abel McCord and ah, Hugo Hymes, a little
fellow that I don't remember his name anymore, but they were a three
man crew. But ah, liquid spray and paint in 1935 only

.

•

Alberts:

• IA:

• Russell Alberts

4-16-92
Page 3

IA:

It was bothered beginning to bother you?

•

Alberts: Oh yeah.

I got where i couldn't eat anything.

IA:

Is that right? What kind of precautions or safety devices did you
have?

Did you wear a mask or no.

Alberts: We were spraying in section booms with odor driven fan. We had to

clean our own booms out every night.

IA:

Clean all the paint up?

Alberts: We had to pull all the, there were lined with paper, we had to pull
all the paper off and put new paper in it and then we had to take a
club and beat on the stacks outside and knock all the overspray down
and clean that out.

IA:

Like big filtering stacks that supposedly took the paint fumes out?

Alberts: Oh great big stacks all up the outside of the building, all that

paint fuel going up the stacks. But it would catch on the side and
pile up and then we had to knock it lose. But I ....

IA:

You did that once a week.

Alberts: Yeah, on Friday night.

IA:

Hum, what kind of hours were you working? Were you working

Alberts:

Ten hours a day, five days and a half a week.

IA:

Is that, and what year was that when you started doing that?

Alberts:

Nineteen twenty-eight when I, I went to spr ay Lng paint in 1929.

IA:

So production must have been pretty good if you were w~rking

Alberts: Yeah it was, but I don't know what sells, but production was pretty

good.

IA:

.Itmust have been.

It must have been.

Alberts: And I worked in the spray .... until 1935 and I had to get out of

there and I went down in the frame assembly room working on an air
hammer.

What were you doing with that? What were you working on?

IA:

• Alberts: That was fastening frames together.

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Russell Alberts
4-16-92
Page 4

IA:

Oh, fastening frames together. With rivets?

Alberts:

Oh we had an .... of rivets put them in the holes and the .....
drove them down.

IA:

Was it hard work?

Alberts:

Oh but it was noisy.

I think that's what wrecked my ears.

IA:

You didn't have ear protection or anything in those days. Were you
ever hurt on the job?

Alberts:

No. We had to turn our own frames over by hand after we riveted one
side we had to turn them over and rivet the back side.

IA:

Oh.

Alberts:

They all had to be turned over, two men on one side and two men on
the other side and the two men to pick the frame up and stand up on
its side -and the other two guys would catch it going down.

IA:

Is that right?

Alberts:

IA:

Ah huh.
little bit.
the union.

Yeah, they finally put a chain hoist in to help us out a

We had to argue with them, that was before the days of

Yes, I'm interested ah, before I talk to you about the union, I
wanted to ask about your own background.
in school? What was your educational background before you started
working?

Ah, how far had you gone

Alberts:

Ninth grade.

IA:

You went to the ninth grade. Where did you go to school?

Alberts:

I didn't go through the ninth grade, I went to the ninth grade.

IA:

Oh to the ninth grade. And what school was that? Where was that?

Alberts:

Over at North School.

IA:

In south

Alberts:

Over on Miller Road.

IA:

On Miller Road in south of Lansing. Um, what did you do, you quit
school then at the end of the eighth grade, why did you quit?

• Russell Alberts

4-16-92
Page 5

Alberts:

Well it was either quit or starve, one or the other.
for a farmer and ah, I got as far as you go in school and it was
interfering with my working, you know, on the farm and that's where
I made my home.

So I just quit school.

I was working

IA:

Were a lot of boys at that time quitting school and going to work on
the farms or

Alberts:

Yeah, a lot of the farm boys they go to the eighth grade and they
quit.

But ah, those that went on to high school had to go to Holt.

IA:

Ah huh.

How long did you stay on the farm?

Alberts:

I left there in 1925 and went into the Army or Air Force.

IA:

Army-Air

Fore],

And how old were you when you went

into the Army?

Alberts:

Oh I was

::erj

three years.

IA:

You went

• Alberts:

Alberts:

IA:

Nineteen twen~y-five and discharged 1928 .

Oh, what did you do in the Army?

I was an electrician.

IA:

Oh you were.
you?

You hadn't known how to do that before they trained

Alberts:

No I learned that on the job.

IA:

Hum, and so then you were discharged in 20

Alberts:

I was discharged in May 1928 and I went to work at the Reo June 18,
1928.

IA:

So you weren't out of the Army very long.

Alberts:

I was out long enough to get broke and then I had to go to work.

IA:

Ah let's go back and talk about the union a bit.
worked in the shops before the union came in.

You said you

Alberts:

Oh yeah.

IA:

• Alberts:

What was that like working without a union?

Do you think the

It was anything but pleasant.

•

Russell Alberts
4-16-92
Page 6

IA:

Why was that? What

Alberts:

You didn't have any, anything on your side.
coming down the assembly line say eny, meny, miny mo, you don't get
your time. The guy said what did I do, he said go get your time, he
had a friend that wanted a job.

I've knownofa

foreman

IA:

You are all done, you are out.

Alberts:

That was, he had no recourse, I mean ah , they just pushed you out.
The working conditions weren't the best.
for people to go to the john. We had ah, we had no relief during
the working hours.

We had no relief setup

IA:

Is that right and you working 10 hour days there for a while.

Alberts: We were working a 10 hour day with her.

IA:

Well you just got a lunch break and that was all? Huh?

Alberts:

But ah, I don't know, it was, there was a lot of bad about em, there
was probably some good to it, we all belonged to what they called
the old Reo Association.
paycheck for a benefit association. Ah, we got a ticket to go to
the movie, they had movies once a week.

We paid 10 cents a week out of our

IA:

At the clubhouse?

Alberts:

At the clubhouse.

IA:

What other benefits did you get for your 10 cents a week.

Alberts:

Huh?

IA:

What other benefits were you suppose to get for that 10 cents a
week?

Alberts:

(laugh) We got death benefits for our youngsters or anybody that
died in your family.
That paid for the funeral.

I think when your sister died, I got $50.

IA:

Oh is that right?

Alberts:

But aside of any other benefits, there wasn't any.

IA:

What about safety on the job? You talked about having to turn the
frames over by hand.

Alberts:

There wasn't any safety.

•

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• Russell Alberts

4-16-92
Page 7

IA:

If somebody got hurt.

Alberts:

If they got hurt they took them to the hospital up town.

IA:

Sparrow Hospital or something.

Alberts:

in my eyes one time and ah, flash off a rivet

I got hot scaled
and they took me over to the main plant to the hospital and they
sent me up town to an ear, eye, nose job doctor and he ah, it seared
itself into the retLna of my eye and he dug that out of there and
put a patch on it and sent me home or back to work, whichever you
want to call it.

IA:

You probably didn't dare be off from work to long did you?

Alberts:

But no,

IA:

Would they let you go if you were off for a few days?

•

Alberts:

Well no not really, I mean if you were off through illness or
something like that, but if you just .... took time off, you'd come
in the next day, you might not have a job.' This all happened before
the days of the union.

IA:

Before the days of the union.
they had that labor holiday?

Were you there in was it 1935 when

Alberts:

I just, there was a piece in the paper about it, or my union paper,
I don't know whether you got it or not.

IA:

No, but I'd like to see it.

Alberts:

Well I'll get it for you.

IA:

About the labor holiday.

Alberts:

Lester Washburn was the

Well it was an illegal holiday really.
president of the
Metal,
business and his wife, Leva,
at the time, she was in bed asleep and the sheriff told Mike
McDonald he just busted in the door and grabbed her out of bed in
the nightcoat and took her downtown and throw her jail.
it to get Lester to come back to town.
Lansing about 2:00 in the morning, she was in jail..

and he was out of town on

So Lester got back to

children lived down on south Cedar

And he did

IA:

• Alberts:

My gosh that was

They called the union authorities and they declared a city-wide
strike.
Lansing was closed tighter than
a drum. And we worked up until 11:30 and then at noon they shut the

They closed everything up.

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Russell Alberts
4-16-92
Page 8

plant down and send us home.
big assembly crossways of Washington Avenue down by Arbaugh's.
had another one over on the north end of town. Ab, they all
congregated down around the jail, the police disappeared.

There wasn't anybody, ah they had a

They

IA:

Is that right?

Alberts:

Oh they got off the streets.

IA:

They didn't want anything to do with it.

Alberts:

And my father had, what really started it was this strike over at
the Lansing, City of Lansing Wrecking Company.
Ah, they had a bunch
of pickets out there and they been battling with the people ahead of
the wrecking company and ah , they put the pickets in jail -along with
her.
town apart.

They had to 'let them all out, or that would have torn that

IA:

That was really illegal taking her like that, wasn't it?

Alberts:

That was it was tided up tighter than a drum .

IA:

Did you safe that or did you send it home with Jim?

Alberts:

Huh?

IA:

You went to school with

Alberts:

What .... what school................. His wife was one of the
Canfield girls.

IA:

And this talks about

Alberts:

Your aunt, Thelma, married one of the Canfield clan, but that is a
whole ...

IA:

This is an interesting article.
the 1937 general strike.
holiday, that was a different thing, wasn't it? Hum, this is
interesting, I'd like to read that all.

That's the'general strike, okay, the labor

Remember Lester Washburn leader of

Alberts:

That picture down there, I think that is taken out in front of the,
out in front of city hall.

IA:

Yeah, it says traffic ground to a halt as union members from every
part of Lansing walked off their jobs.

Alberts:

Town tied up so tight you couldn't squeak .

IA:

Is that right. And so that was in protest

• Russell Alberts

4-16-92
Page 9

Alberts:

Forcing them to let those people out of jail.

IA:

That was really what did it.

Alberts:

They had no business putting her in jail in the first place.
only.reason they did it was to get him back to town.

The

IA:

Isn't that something. Boy. Um,

Alberts: You haven't got this turned on have you?

IA:

Yes.

Alberts:

Well turn it off for just a minute.

(Tape turned back on)

IA:

• Alberts:

Alberts:

IA:

And Washburns lived on south Cedar, in the south part of Lansing,
fairly close to the shop then. A lot of people that worked at the
Reo lived right, kind of around.

Well

the south end of Lansing .

How did you get to work, did you have a car in those days?

Streetcar.

IA:

A nickel a ride?

Alberts:

Oh you walked down to the main drag and caught the streetcar.

IA:

Oh. A lot of people I've talked to either most all of them walked
to work or

Alberts: A lot of them walked to work, yeah.

IA:

Yeah, yeah.

Alberts:

Of course, very few of us had automobiles.

IA:

Cars were expensive then and what kind of wages were you making when
you were working

Alberts:

• IA:

Alberts:

I got, 40 cents an hour when I was trucking stock and when I went on
piece work, you could make 60 cents an hour.
that they had a time setter right on your back.

If you made any over

Oh really?

That's one reason why I quit when I did the first time.

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Russell Alberts
4-16-92
Page 10

IA:

When did you quit the first time?

Alberts:

They sent this guy by the name of Patterson up there to time us out
and the only timing he done was when you pull the trigger on the
spray gun he started the watch and when you finished your job
spraying, he shut the watch off.
if you had to go up for the paint, paint department and get your
paint, that was free gratis, you didn't get paid for that.
way you got paid for it would be turn .... time.

If you had to go and get stock or

The only

IA:

You had to go get your own supplies?

Alberts:

Get your own stock and your own tank. When he put the lunch on
there, the only time I went to the ... was while you was actually
spraying the paint.
cut it so bad we couldn't make 25 cents an hour and so I and the guy
was finished with me both quit.

When they turn around they cut our rates, they

IA:

In protest.

Alberts:

I lived across the street from a truck plant at that time, and ah I
went home.

IA:

The truck plant was on south Washington

Alberts:

Yeah.

IA:

and Mount Hope, kind of in that area?

Alberts:

South of Mount Hope Avenue.

IA:

South of Mount Hope and then Washington.

Alberts:

But ah, I had to.get downstairs and sit down there on a porch swing
.................... across the street from a truck plant and a guy
by the name of Bert Street was the superintendent, and he used to
come out there on the ramp and he'd look over and he'd see me
sitting out there and I guess it kind of irked him a little bit, but
they wasn't having any luck on getting any production, because they
had a crew hiring in and the crew working and a crew quitting all
the time. And they couldn't make any money.

IA:

That was because ....

Alberts:

And ah, it went on for about 10 days and finally one day, Cup came
over with a slip of paper in his hand and he said you ~~ke this over
to the main plant to the office and get hired back in again.
that was about 9:00 in the morning and I said well I'm in no big a
You haven't given me a fair deal, so I'm just going to let
hurry.
So I got over to the main plant about 11:00 that morning
you hang.

Ah,

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Russell Alberts
4-16-92
Page 11

and this Helen Smith that you are talking about she was the
secretary of the employment office and I got in line with a great
big long line of guys and she spotted me down there and she come out
there and motioned me in.
Chewed me out for standing out there
waiting.. I got signed up and she says you take this and go back
over to the truck plant, they are waiting for you.
about 1:00 that afternoon and run right in to the visiting
superintendent and he stomped allover.
morning.
wasn't in any hurry to raise my rates, so what they done they Just
reinstated all the old rates because they couldn't, guys couldn't
make any money.

I said I was in no hurry to get over here, I said you

I sent for you at 9:00 this

I got over there

IA:

So itwent

back to 60 cents an hour.

Alberts:

effect, went back to

They would allow you to make

60 cents an hour.

That was the limit.

IA:

Oh, that was as much as you could make an hour.

•

Alberts:

What caused the guy to come up .... they was running a bank, well we
had stockpiled up what we had already done that we couldn't turn in,
and we just keep track of it as if we had a bank up there ...

IA:

Oh I see, you kind of overproduced and then

Alberts:

We had a day where we didn't run out of stock, we'd draw out the
bank.

IA:

Oh.

Ah huh.

Alberts:

That was .... to come over.

IA:

Oh I see.

Alberts:

run into
A guy by the name of Pat Patterson
him down the street, I was going to flush him down the drain.
But
any rate, I have ..... I went down to the frame room and I went to
working down there with a crew and I worked there until the ....
everybody from the truck plant over to the main plant.
They ah,
rebuilt the main plant and they quit building pleasure cars, that
was 1938.

IA:

Six.

Alberts:

•

Seven, they moved us allover
there for about about a year when they shut the plant down, it went
bankrupt.
In '39 I got a job over at the Fisher Body and I stayed there.

And they sent everybody home, they laid everybody off .

to the main plant.

We worked over

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Russell Alberts
4-16-92
Page 12

IA:

What did you do at the Fisher Body?

Alberts:

Sprayed paint.

IA:

Sprayed paint. Were the conditions, when you went from Reo to
Fisher, did you see a change in.conditions for spray painting?

Alberts: Not really.

IA:

It was

Alberts: Ah,

when he built the Star over there back in the

'20s. Now they were dirty you'd go in there in the morning with a
But, we had
clean coat on, and come out looking like so much
showers, that much we had. We could change our clothes.

IA:

Did that get better over time? Did the working conditions get
better?

Alberts: Well as long as we were up there, when they built the new ah, night

shop downstairs, they moved us all down there, it was supposed to be
all air~conditioned. And that was a lot better deal. Of course,
that was after the unions came in, we had relief then.

IA:

Ah ah huh, and maybe some better working conditions.

Alberts: Oh yeah.

IA:

Um, going back, you mentioned strike again, and I wanted to know and
unions, after the union came in to the Reo did things get better for
you as a worker?

Alberts: No not really. I guess you could say it did some.

IA:

What ways would you think of as better?

Alberts: We went out on strike, we was first sit down strike in Lansing.

IA:

Were you involved in that?

Alberts: Oh yeah, I sat down around my backside for a month during cold

weather. And ah,

IA:

You were inside the building during the

Alberts: Oh yeah, we run everybody out and

run them right out

into the streets. Now we just took over the plant .

IA:

Were you a little bit worried about how that was going to come out?

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Russell Alberts
4-16-92
Page 13

Alberts: We cleaned machinery. We swept the floor, we cleaned the building.

IA:

Ohthat's

interesting.

Alberts: We kept busy.

IA:

Oh I didn't know that.

Alberts: We had our own kitchen. We had our own minister on Sunday.

IA:

You did?

Alberts: By the way that minister almost lost his congregation over that.

They wasn't approve of it.

IA:

Is that a fact?

Alberts:

It was a minister from East Lansing and, of course, they were dead
set against it, organized labor out there at the college. He was a
minister of that Unitarian church out there. But at any rate,

IA:

And he would come in to, he was allowed to come in .

Alberts: He preached a sermon.

IA:

He was allowed to come in and go out, nobody tried to stop him.

Alberts: But nobody else was allowed in, nobody. We were fixing to go home

one day a week.

IA:

Oh you could? Oh I didn't know that either.

Alberts: But we didn't get any strike payor anything like that, we laborers

or some people like that simplified with the unions activities,
what~ver they donated or things like that, but we never got any
strike pay like they get now.

IA:

Well you said you had your own kitchens, where did you get your
food?

Alberts: Went out and begged or go around to the stores told who we were,

what the deal was.

They corrt rLbut.ed ,

IA:

Reo was important to Lansing's economy, so I imagine the merchants

Alberts: Yeah they were, but they were going downhill

IA:

Reo was, you are saying.

Alberts: Yeah, they built that Reo

in 1931 and that's what ... kids.

•

Russell Alberts
4-16-92
Page 14

IA:

And you had the Depression and everything else speeding into it.

Alberts.: They never come back.

And then they quit, they quit building the

pleasure cars in 1937 I think was the last one they built.

IA:

We've got a 1936 Flying Cloud at the museum and I've been told that
that was the last model that was putout.
It was stripped down, it
didn't have all the luxury items on it, because he thought it
wouldn't sell if he had it

Alberts:

That one that was down there when I was there?

IA:

Yeah.

Alberts:

Well that's a Royal.

IA:

Oh we have that too, we also have a 1936 Flying Cloud.

Alberts:

Oh well there was another one they built, they built the old Reo
Wolverine.

••

IA:

Oh the Wolverine, yeah .

Alberts:

Yeah, that was a four door sedan.

IA:

It was.

Alberts:

They never built, they only built the sedans, they didn't build any
cabs or anything like that, they just built a sedan.

IA:

I see.

Alberts:

A two door and a four door and that was the only thing they built.
But, they built a good car.
couldn't wear those things out, it was impossible.
had a Reo, a Reo wagon they called Speedwagon.

They built a darn good truck. You

Ab, my stepdad

IA:

Yeah.

Alberts:

Ab, the old Reo T6 was a four door sedan and it was just a, it was a
truck chassis and loader with a pleasure car body mounted on it,
really that was all there was.

IA:

Really?

Alberts:

•

But you couldn't wear them out. And that was one I think one of the
reasons why the Reo kind of went haywire because there was no
replacement.
that Ford Motor Company tried to invest them to buy it and Reo
wouldn't sell it. They shipped trucks allover

But they had a foreign shipment for its truck plant

the world.

•

Russell Alberts
4-16-92
Page 15

IA:

And what did Ford want to do?

Alberts:

He wanted the truck business.
wanted their ah, foreign shipment business.

He didn't want the plant, he just

IA:

He wanted their foreign markets?

Alberts: Yeah, because they were shipping trucks allover

the world.

IA:

So he wanted to buy it out or something?

Alberts:He wanted to buy it, he wanted to buy that part of the business out.

IA:

And they wouldn't sell it.

Alberts:

No they had to good a thing going there.

IA:

Oh sure.

Alberts:

•

Shoot, that plant was working seven days a week.
Washburn worked, he was a carpenter over there. They .... they'd
take these jobs over there after they come off the line, they would
run them over there and then they would dismantle them and pack them
in these great big long packing boxes.
ships or hauled out of there, loaded on ships and sent out. They
had a worldwide market on that and Ford he wasn't doing to good with
his trucks, he tried to buy it, but they wouldn't sell it.

And they were loaded on

That's where this

IA:

I interviewed so~ebody recently who worked at the line next to where
those.trucks were broken down and they said that women, women were
working on that line and they were breaking the trucks down and
packing them. And he said they could take a truck apart

Alberts: Women?

IA:

That's what he said. He said they could take a truck apart in no
time.

Alberts:

There wasn't any women work there.

IA:

That took the trucks apart that were put into the packing cases?

Alberts:

The only women, there wasn't any women working there that I know of
except the war.

IA:

Oh really?
department .

It was just mostly men, you never saw any women in your

Alberts:

I never saw any women anywhere at the truck plant.

•

•

•

•

Russell Alberts
4....16-92
Page 16

IA:

Is that, in the truck plant, okay.

Alberts:

No, I never saw any women around there.
out of sight, because we never had any.

If there were, they kept

Wife(?):

He said during the war, honey.

IA:

No, no I was talking

Alberts:

No, no,

IA:

Well, maybe this did happen during the war.

Alberts:

Nothing before the war.

IA:

Um, let me see now, what do I want to ask you next.
I want to ask you. We mentioned the clubhouse just briefly and you
went to the clubhouse, you had a movie pass you could go to the
clubhouse.

Oh, I know what

Alberts: Ah once a month I think it was or once every three months, I forget
They give you a card that was your pass to the movies

which it was.
or pass to the clubhouse. You could go to the movies on Thursday
night and ah, use the clubhouse and club rooms. They had a big
bowling alley downstairs.

IA:

Did you ever go down there?

Alberts:

No I never went down there. They had a family room where people
would bring their children. They had a cafeteria, it was a
beautiful cafeteria, allover

the clubhouse.

IA:

Oh really? What about the radio station?

I've heard about WEO?

Alberts: Well they built that radio station when radio first came in and it
was up on the top floor of the clubhouse, way up in the top of it.

IA:

What was that a three floor building?

Alberts:

I don't know how many floors there was, but this radio station was
clear up at the top of the building.

IA:

I see.

Alberts: And they had two great big masts that one set on one end of the

building and one on the other end. Michigan State Police bought one
of them, I don't know whether it still stand up there in
Houghton Lake or not .

IA:

Oh the tower?

•

Russell Alberts
4-16-92
Page 17

Alberts:

Yeah the tower.

IA:

Is that right?

That's interesting.

Alberts:

One kilowatt transmitter and they broadcast, they had their own
orchestra and they broadcast on Thursday nights chamber music.
forget how long the program run but I was a kid on the farm when
they brought that in and I had gone down to Laraby and I bought a
part for a crystal set and I and a kid where I was living, we put
that thing together. And ah, we run the antennaes from the old silo
over to the house upstairs bedroom and on Thursday nights, we'd
tickle that old·galena(?) crystals until we could find the music and
then we'd have one

part of it and we'd listen to the Reo.

I

IA:

Oh that must have been a real treat.

Alberts:

••

and ah, I got a battery and the

But ah when tube radios came in, I bought a one tube radio, a
Crosley, from Whereabys
whole ball of wax and then we can listen to the stock reports and
the grain reports out of the college, WKAR, and on the Reo on
Thursday night and once and a while we pick up an east coast
station.
now, but at any rate, we were up there one night listening to the
radio and a storm came up and lightening hit the antenna and it
melted that antenna into a million pieces and it knocked the
headphone right off our head and burnt up the crystal set. And we
didn't have any ground on it, but that ended that for a while.

But ah, ..... I'll tell you when you stop and look at them

IA:

Oh you were the ground.

Alberts:

Yeah.

IA:

It is a wonder it dd.dn/
next to the Reo clubhouse, this was in the '30's, but I remember
there was a big train wreck.

t; fry your ears. My gosh, what a shock. Um ,

Alberts:

Yeah.

IA:

What do you remember about that?

Alberts:

Yeah, I was coming down Washington Avenue and went across the Grand
Trunk railroad tracks and I was headed south, I don't think I was
more than a block away when ah, that train come through there, hit
that tower.
There was a kid peddling papers out there in front of
the station, passenger station,

IA:

Ah huh the depot?

Alberts:

When that trairljumped the tracks, it wiped that station pretty near
wiped it right off the map.

•

•

Russell Alberts
4-16"'92
Page 18

IA:

Is that right?

Alberts:

It killed him.

IA:

Oh it killed that little boy.

Alberts:

I couldn't have been more than a block away from it when it
happened.

IA:

You must have been pretty shocked, all this noise going on behind
you?

Alberts:

I heard it crack, the commotion, but I didn't st:op.

IA:

Oh you didn't?

Alberts: But this train come through and I don't really remember what caused

the wreck, but it jumped the tracks.

IA:

The entire train.

Alberts: And it went right in to the track side of the station, knocked that

tower down.

IA:

The signal tower, I guess they used to call it. What about the man
inside the tower, I wonder if he'

Alberts:

I guess he survived it alright.

IA:

He did.

Alberts: But ah,

IA:

Did it damage the clubhouse at all? Or did everything go on the
north side of the cars

Alberts: The south side of the tracks, were on the south side of the station.

IA:

Ah huh, ah huh, and the clubhouse was on the other side.

Alberts: The clubhouse was out in front of the Washington Avenue.

IA:

Ah huh.

Alberts: The only thing that ah bordered the tracks that belonged to Reo was

the'former Chipwood(?) building.

IA:

Oh okay .

•

•

• Russell Alberts

4-16-92
Page 19

Alberts:

BUt anyway, it wiped that station, the front of part of that station
rlght off the map.

IA:

What year would that have been, do you think, 1936 or somewhere in
there?

Alberts:

Oh lordy I don't remember now just what it was.

IA:

It seems like I:was about five and that would have been '36.

Alberts:

I think it was right.around there somewhere.

IA:

Ah huh, I remember that we went down, our neighbor took us down in
their car so we could see it later in the day it was raining, I
remember that.

I remember seeing those cars laying allover.

Alberts:

I don't remember what year that was.

IA:

• Alberts:

Yeah, yeah, hum.
ever seen in Lansing the, you've seen the Reo Olds home, I'm sure,
did you ever see Mr. Olds himself?

Do you remember ah, having

Um, let's see here.

Never did?

Oh we were youngsters, we used to go uptown to the show on

No.
Saturday and Reo Olds lived in that big mansion on the corner of
Main Street and Washington Avenue and they'd have garden parties out
there.

IA:

Oh.

Alberts:

And us kids would hang around that hedgerow out there on Washington
Avenue and watch them.

IA:

So, all in all, your years at Reo probably you weren't any worse
than they would have been working anywhere else say?

Alberts:

No, I don't know, about the same, I worked there 11 years.
ah, I went back and worked during the war, but

Andthen

IA:

You went back to the Reo during the war?
'42 or

When did you go back, '41,

Alberts:

Well they shut us down, they transferred 600 of us from Fisher over
to Olds

IA:

Oh you oh.

•

Alberts:

• IA:

to finish up car production.

Oh really?

•

•

•

Russell Alberts
4-16-92
Page 20

Alberts:

And then ah, I worked over there, I think, about a couple months.

IA:

At the

Alberts:

At the Oldsmobile.

IA:

At Oldsmobile, finishing up cars.

Alberts:

And when they finally shut it down, they laid everybody off, ah, I
was on my way home and I run into this Hilda Smith that day and she
stopped me and she says, wanted to know if I got laid off and I say
yeah, she said I suppose my husband did too, he works at Fisher.
I
said I don't know, I said he probably did.
So I went on home, about
5:00 that next morning, somebody started pounding on my front door
and I got up and went to the door, and there is Charlie Cobb.

IA:

The Lansing policeman.

Alberts:

Reo.

IA:

Oh Reo policeman .

Alberts:

And he had a ... exam said you are suppose to be over at the Reo at
8:00 this morning.
when they was putting on Navy ordinance into production.

I didn't ask her for a job, she ah, that was

IA:

Oh.

Alberts:

And they had one shift on it and they put a second shift on, so she
just arbitrarily went back in and made out a hiring slip and told
the club to bring it over and give it to me.
and went to work.

So I went over there

IA:

What did you, and you went into the Navy Department?
doing in there?

What were they

Alberts:

Building bomb .....

IA:

Oh really?

What was your job?

Alberts:

I was a machine setup man.

IA:

Oh you were.
putting the dyes on the machine.

That's like, is that like tool and dye or is that

Alberts:

No we had to set the machines and keep the tools from going. Ah, we
had to make out the time for it was all group work, we had to make
out the time at night .

IA:

Group work?

•

•

•

Russell Alberts
4-16-92
Page 21

Alberts:

What they call a group work.
you made out the time ... you took the final count off the last
operation and ah, divided it into the number of people in the group.

You all worked in a group and ah, when

IA:

Oh really?

Isn't that interesting.

Alberts:

It was all fish(?) work at the time.

IA:

I see.

Alberts:

They never would ah, you couldn't get the .... to agree .... work.
It was all fish(?) work.
But anyway I worked there until the war
ended and then I went back over to Fisher.

IA:

You were transferred back or you had to rehire back in?

Alberts: ·Oh I got recalled to fisher Body.

IA:

Oh after peacetime production started?

Alberts:

Go back to
signed in again.
of the war.

and ah, well I didn't have to rehire, I got
Because I had a leave of absence for the duration

IA:

Oh for the duration of the war.

Alberts:

I decided to go over and turn my leave of absence in and got
reassigned.

IA:

What did Fisher do during the war, what did they produce?

Alberts:

They built anti-aircraft gun mounts and rear stabilizers for these
hig bombers.

IA:

Oh I didn't know that. And Reo made trucks.

Alberts:

Reo, they wasn't going to do anything, .they were going to mothball
the plant.

IA:

Oh they were?

Alberts:

They union, I was over at
But ah, the union threw a big picket

And they didn't want to tear it apart.
the Reo when that happened.
line around the plant and they manned it. They availed themselves
..... war work that was ... flat out and they had quite a run over
there with them, but they finally gave in and remodeled the plant
and they made, I don't know whether body plant, where they built the
bodies, they turned that into a big long line where they wielded gun
mounts for the naval aircraft for our naval ground forces. And then

•

•

•

Russell Alberts
4-16-92
Page 22

ah, they got this contract for rear stabilizer fins for the big
bombers.

IA:

That's interesting.

No one has ever told me that.

Alberts:

Well they wasn't going to, they wasn't going to take any war work,
they was just going to mothball the plant,

IA:

Just shut it down.

Alberts:

but they got the union forced them into it.

IA:

And they got a contract from the government?

Alberts:

Huh?

IA:

And they probably got a contract

Alberts:

But ah, I got they called me back

Yeah they had all kinds of work.
to work over there and sent for me and I went over, I was working at
the Reo
over on a Saturday morning.
old Rand Bowen plant on sandblasting, and I wouldn't go. And I said
no, I'm not going to take that job, I'm already working in a machine
shop over at Reo.
And so we didn't have any labor relations at that
time, but we had a personnel director,

plant at the time and they sent for me and I went
They were going to send me over to the

IA:

Oh you didn't.

Alberts:

so they send us in to see old man Burrough.

IA:

This was at

Alberts:

He wanted to know what the problem was, I said well I says I'm
employed there in ... over at the Reo and I said ah, they've sent
for me to send me over to Rand Bowen to sandblasting and I'm not
going to take it.
seniority there to worry about and he said well he said if you are
So he made me on a leave
working on a war job, you don't have to.
of absence for the duration. And I signed it and the next day I got
it in the mail.

I says I don't have enough, I didn't have enough

IA:

Oh.

Alberts:

So when they notified the union that they sent for it and come back
to work and he didn't show up, you were automatically fired. Well,
of course, I refused to take the Job over at sandblasting.
were were doing is sandblasting a big shell casing.
union and the government got into it and the government says if they

What
And ah, the

Russell Alberts
4-16-92
Page 23

are working on war work, so be it. They are going to lose it, they
was going to cancel our seniority,

IA:

Is that right?

Alberts:

And they said well, if they are working on war
So I got a

General Motors was.
work at Reo or wherever, they don't have to come back.
leave of absence from Fisher and went to work for Reo, but when they
sent that notice out that we had to come back over there or we'd
lose our seniority, that's when they went to bat with the
government.
General Motors that their employees that were working on war
production at other plants was entitled to their seniority.
couldn't fire us.
of '45, I had all my seniority back.

They
So when I went back there in the fall or winter

The War Labor Relations Board took it up and they told

IA:

Great.

Alberts:

I didn't lose anything over it.

IA:

That is interesting .

Alberts:

We had just gotten back and gotten our feed numbers when they told
on strike, and we were on strike all winter.

IA:

After the war?
war I remember.

Alberts:

Oh yeah, well.

Ah huh.

There were a lot of strikes right after the

IA:

Goal strikes, steel strike and I suppose, do you remember what kind
of money you were making during the war when you were working in the
Navy ordinance?

Alberts:

A dollar and ten cents an hour.

IA:

Boy that was quite a jump from 60 cents.

Alberts:

That was day rate.
were drawing peace work, but I was on day rate.

The rest of the operators, machine operators

IA:

So you were making more?

Alberts:

I got a $1.10 an hour and when I left there and went back to Fisher
Body I only got $1.00 an hour.

IA:

Oh you had to take a cut .

•

•

•

•

Russell Alberts
4-16-92
Page 24

Alberts:

And then we got a raise, I went to $1.05 and then I went to $1.10 an
hour and then it just kept going up to when I retired I was getting
$6.00 and hour and that's 22 years ago.

IA:

What kind of changes did you see from the very beginning when you
we~e painting truck wheels to when you retired?
changes did you see in the process of painting?

What kind of

Alberts:

You talking about changes, all you got to do is look at the cars
~oday to see the changes.
l>etter. Over to Fisher we had our own shower room, our own locker
rooms.

Working conditions was considerably

IA:

This was after the war?

Alberts:

Oh we didn't have that at Reo.

IA:

What kind of safety equipment for the worker?
or any kind of anything to keep you from inhaling?

Any kind of ah, masks

••

Alberts:

Just what plant are you talking about?

IA:

I'm talking about the Fisher, I guess now.
there wasn't any.

You said at the Reo

Alberts:

We had a respirator you wore over your face.
had big blowers take care of the paint, but they done a poor job of
it.

Our blowers were, we

IA:

Oh did they really?

Alberts:

Yeah, when we were upstairs in the old paint shop, they didn't work
very good.
into the water.

But when we moved downstairs, everything was sucked down

We worked over big water tanks.

IA:

Oh really?

And this was after the war, much later. Ah huh.

Alberts:

Once a week they cleaned those tanks out.
hauled that stuff, but they cleaned it out.

I don't know where they

IA:

You di4n't have to pound it with a hammer anymore once a week to
clean it out.

Alberts:

But over at the Reo we didn't have anything.
the end of a day's work and everything we had on was all orange,
because everything got painted orange over there .

Ah, we'd come out at

IA:

Oh it did.

That was a primer?

•

•

•

•

Russell Alberts
4-16-92
Page 25

Alberts:

They only had two colors, one was orange and the other was green,
pullman green.

IA:

Hum.

Alberts:

And we painted all the trucks and the wheels were painted orange,
unless it was scheduled different.

IA:

I see.

Alberts:

But we come out of there at night and you couldn't tell us from a
bucket of orange paint.
and no, no place to wash up or anything like that.

We didn't have any place to change clothes

IA:

What kind of, when it was lunchtime, did you have to eat right there
on the line or

Alberts:

Oh no,
noon.

we had a, when it hit the old Reo, we had an hour off at
At Fisher we got a half hour.

IA:

That is not much time.

Alberts:

Well when I first went there, we only got 15 minutes to be honest
about it.

IA:

And you weren't getting any breaks like a morning break or an
afternoon break.

Alberts:

Oh we had a, we got a release man, but you only got I think it was
two jobs in the morning and one in the afternoon, because the
morning, the morning hours were they were right around five hours
And then the afternoon, they'd run
before it shut down for noon.
the balance of the eight hours and we'd get only one
They
could just about make it around the corner and back.

IA:

Um, but at the Reo you worked right straight through.

Yeah.
You
had an hour for lunch, but you worked, otherwise you worked right
straight through.

Alberts:

Now they worked right straight.

IA: .

And did you always work ah, a day shift at the Reo before, I'm
talking before you quit and went back during the war?

Alberts:

No, I during the time that I worked there, forced to live there(?)
and worked there it was all days.

IA:

All days.

When did you go

Alberts:

During the war I worked nights.

•

Russell Alberts
4-16-92
Page 26

IA:

Du:rlngthe war you worked nights.
during the war?

They had what, three shifts

Alberts:

Yeah.

IA:

Days, afternoons and

Alberts:

That's how I got, that's how Hilda got me signed up in there was
when they put the second shift on and then they eventually put the
third shift on. We were running 24 hours a day.

IA:

Amazing.
drop~forges going allover
when we'd go by the shops.

I remember the, we used to hear the big hammers and the
Lansing and we used to smell the stuff

Alberts:

•

IA:

Well and the funny thing about them, right across the street from
the old Federal Drop-Forge and I got to where those hammers didn't
bother me a darn bit.
And one night they had an accident or something over there and they
shut the place down and I woke right up, right out of a sound sleep.
There was nothing wrong with me, it was just the thought those
hammer had quivered,hammering
me up.

I could drop right off to sleep at night.

over there and ah, the silence woke

Um, let me see, I had something else in mind, what the heck was it.
Oh I know.
talked about Reo being a kind of a family place.

Everybody that we've talked to or almost everybody has

They felt

Alberts:

It was.

IA:

Did you feel that way too?

Alberts:

It was family, we used to get a magazine called, The Reo Family.

IA:

Oh you did?

Alberts:- Reo Spirit.

IA:

Reo Spirit. Ah huh.

Alberts:

Yeah, it was more or less a family.
to all the clubhouse privileges and the movies and the bowling
alleys and the reading room, the family rooms and cafeteria.

I mean the, you were entitled

Ah,

IA:

Did you feel like you knew some of the management.
a problem you could go to them.

That if you had

Alberts:

No, .... the management.
During the war, I knew one guy that had taken over the head of the
Reo, .... Steinbauer.

We didn't get in contact with them.

•

•

Russell Alberts
4-16-92
Page 27

IA:

Steinbauer?

Alberts:

Yeah, but he ah, he got tangled up with some chick down around the
line practically forced him right out of a job.
around and he dumped her, I guess, and she made a great big howdy do
of it right there on the line that one day
believe him.

He got playing

who'd

IA:

So he left.

Alberts:

I guess they let him go.

IA:

Huh.
Um, when you were working there during the war and the women
started coming in and working in the shops, do you remember there
being, that was kind of new to have women working on the line.
hadn't been before.
the women coming in?

Do you recall that they had any problems with

They

•

Alberts:

Well I told you always have problems when you have a mixture like
that. Ah, they were no different than anybody else that employed
male and female workers.

They all had problems .

IA:

You don't think the women were treated badly or singled out for any
kind of a

A

Alberts:

No, I didn't think they were.
during the war

Ma worked there in the Navy plant

IA:

Wife:

I want to ask her about that.

Don't ask me, because I don't really remember.

IA:

Yes you do.

Wife:

I don't either.

IA:

Well I thank you very much, is there anything else you can think of
that ah,

Alberts:

Well that I hate to see the big vacant space out there where the Reo
could have been something that it should have been.

IA:

I agree with you.

Alberts:

•

But they got tangled up with the ..... out on the east coast.
sent a guy by the name of White down there ah, .... on the east
And when they
coast wanted
built that Royal.
over and that was a fiasco right from the word go.

And they sent that guy down here and he took it

Reo, that was 1931.

They

• Russell Alb.erts

4-16-.92
Page 28

IA:

The Royals weren't, ah they were in production, but they didn't make
a lot of those, did they?

Alberts:

No, it wasn't any good.

IA:

Why wasn't it any good?

Alberts:

Well the body was to big for the chassis for one thing.

IA:

Is that right?

Alberts:

Ah, you go around the corner and the doors would fly open.

IA:

Were those the doors that opened from the front backwards like the
old suicide doors as I've heard them called?

Alberts:

Probably were, I don't remember now.

IA:

But you are saying that those didn't stay shut.

Alberts:

• IA:

Alberts:

All you got to do is look at that one they got down there, now you
can tell which way the doors open.

Ah huh, yeah, they open from the front.

From the front, well that was it.

IA:

Yeah, but that's a deluxe model and they must have made, were all
the Royals a deluxe car?

Alberts:

Oh yeah.

IA:

They all were, okay.

Alberts:

A buy by the name of Tide Royce was a test driver.

IA:

Tide Royce?

Alberts:

Yeah, he was a test driver for that Reo Royal and he lit out of
there one day on Old 27 towards St. Johns and all he had was just a
chassis and the motor and four wheels and a turning gear

IA:

And something to sit on.

Alberts:

•

And a state policeman gone after him.

He was out there like
he didn't have no body or anything on it.
cold air.
Yell he was in
St. Johns and turned around and headed back when the state police
So they stopped and what in the name of sense are you
pulled in.
driving there?
He said I
never did could catch up with you.

He said a Reo Royal test chassis, why?

All he had in there, he had a, I

••

Russell Alberts
4-16-92
Page 29

think it was a eight cylinder engine if I remember right, eitrher
that or a six, but it was stripped down just a chassis and t~ey took
the Royal from Lansing to St. Johns and back just to check them out.

IA:

That was their test track so to speak.

Alberts:

But ah, no.they didn't build it to long, it ah, it was a belly up
job to begin with.
I mean they ah, they sunk everything they had
into that Reo Royal and I think that's really what put them on the
But ah, they wanted a bunch of us to transfer truck plant
skid.
over to the main plant to work on that Royal and I wouldn't go.
Because I just had a sneaky feeling that wasn't going to work.

IA:

And then you'd be

Alberts:

So I refused it and those guys didn't work to long and it went out
of business
the ultimate.

But I remember they built the Reo Wolverine.

They were supposed to be

IA:

What kind of a car was that?

Alberts:

It was a six cylinder car, four-door sedan and then they built the
ah, one in between and then they built the Royal.

IA:

That Wolverine was a

Alberts:

The one they called the Wolverine, the Flying Cloud and the Royal.

IA:

Yes.

Alberts:

But the last one they built was the

Well the Wolverine and the Flying Cloud were, they were a good car,
you could
Flying Cloud was
and ah, they just quit building
it though ... built the Royal, but that was a fiasco right from the
word go.
that.
management right on down.
bunch on the east coast got control of it and they sent this guy
White down there, he was a ... and he really finished it up.

So they really ah, done themselves dirty when they:did
They lost their personal touch, that Reo was a family of ....

But when they ah, begin to sell stock, a

IA:

It went through several changes and it ended up being managed by F.
L. Cappert and he ran it into bankruptcy.

Alberts:

They merged with ah, White Motor Company I guess, White Truck
Company and ah, then they merged with some other outfit.

IA:

It was Diamond T for a while .

Alberts:

But it didn't·work out, 1938 when they went belly up.
laid everybody off, they went through bankruptcy.

As I said

•

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Russell Alberts
4-16-92
Page 30

IA:

When it was White Motor Company probably.

Alberts:

Yell I went over to the Fisher and went to work in '39 and they got
their bankruptcy all cleaned up and they had an appointed overseer,
a buy by the name of Frye, at one time he was secretary of state or
And he 1!=ook,
secretary of the treasury of the State of Michigan.
they appointed him as a boss really, he took the whole plant right
over and they paid off their debts.
production.
couldn't hire anybody unless over the union contracts unless I
eithe,rquit or came back to work.
summer during the changeover at Fisher, but ah, that fall when
Fisher went back to production, I got called back, I quit.

Yell I had top seniority in the frame room and tj:hey

And then they went back to

And I went back to work tq.ereone

IA:

You quit the Reo.

Alberts:

And I went back to Fisher Body.
But, I either had to come back to.
work or I had to quit, one of the other, because they couldn't hire
anybody unless I did one of two things.
The only thing that saved them was the war.
bankrupt before that again, had it not been for the war .

But it didn't work out.

They would have gone

IA:

Getting that big truck contract from the Army.

Alberts:

But the war put them back on their feet.

IA:

Did you ever see the Eager Beaver that Reo made during the war, that
amphibious truck?

Alberts:

Yeah, they built a lot of those experimental jobs.
had there, I think would go like grease lightening, but ah, I guess
one shell in the right place and it would just fly apart.

One of them they

I

IA :Oh

really?

Alberts:

They weren't what you would call good material.

IA:

Oh.

Alberts:

Yeah, they build a lot of experimental jobs there down on Baker
Street, down in the old motor plant.
they built at the airport and that was a most huge piece of
machinery you ever looked at.
drove it, the other engine drove the plow.
the Air Force.

It had two engines in it, one,engine

But I don't know, they had one

And they built it for

IA:

Oh to plow the runways?

Alberts:

Plow the runways.

• Russell Alberts

4-16-92
Page 31

IA:

Oh I see.

Alberts:

But it cracked the runways.

It was so heavy.

IA:

Is that a fact.

Alberts:

Oh it wa.s a huge piece of machinery and they had it
the north side of the ... Reo. And it
and they finally went out
torches

and they cut

sat out

it up.

there one day with a crew and cutting

stored out on

there for a long time

IA:

Hum. That's

interesting.

I haven't heard that before.

Alberts:

Oh yeah,
with it,

that was quite a piece of machinery. Ah, the only trouble
it cracked the runways.
it was to heavy,

IA:

Huh.
overhead tramway or runwc:lYor something between the Reo and the

I remember that

thinking about,

I was just

there used to be an

Alberts:

Yeah,

that was the runwa.y, that was the

• IA:

IA:

Alberts:

The What?

Polish(?)

one.

What was that?

Alberts:

It was where they poLdshed the paint

after

they come out of paint.

IA:

they dried?

Oh after
painted it, where did rhe vehicle go or where did the truck go after
you got

I ,~as going to ask you that.

through painting

its wheels.

After you

Alberts:

Oh, it
them on the truck up t.here ,

is like the wheel:; went on a conveyor but upstairs.

Theyput

IA:

The wheels went up, okay,

then where

Alberts:

They had a good layout produc t Lon wise, but ah,
they ever built
don't

think they ever buIlt

that many.

an hour ,~as there was geared for 130 jobs a day,

I think the highest
I

IA:

That's

a lot of trucks

though.

Alberts:

•

But everything was laid onto it,
friends were all, when they got down to the end of the line,
were painted and then they went up on a big chain that hoist
upstairs,
laid out

it would have been a good deal, but

I mean as far as that,

put on the linea. But had the thing worked the way it was

it wasn't

to work,

ah, our

rhey

Russell Alberts
4-16-92
Page 32

because we had to go out of, the frame we built had to go outside
and be stacked up because they couldn't handle them upstairs.

IA:

Too many at

Alberts:

Too many.

They weren't running that amount of production.

IA:

Oh.

Alberts:

Now they had a good layout, there was no doubt about that, but that
was one they built after they built the new plant.
plant, the old Reo Truss Plant was the original Duplex Truck Plant.

See the old

IA:

Now that was south Washington again.

Alberts: Yeah, they built the old Duplex Truck over there.

IA:

Oh yes, I guess that's right.

Alberts:

That was a chain drive truck.

IA:

Chain drive.

Alberts:

Yeah, they had a chain on each side of the back wheel and the chain
drove the wheels.

IA:

Oh okay.

Alberts:

But they sold that to the Reo over on ah, it was over there where
the welfare office was.

Wife:

Was that on Mount Hope?

Alberts:

No, no, no, no.

I can't think of where they moved that Duplex to•.

IA:

South Cedar?

Alberts:

But they built it, they were all hand built ,... that they built.

IA:

They were, the Duplex.

Alberts:

They were a good truck, they used them on the highways,

They weren't built on an assembly line. They were built hand by
hand.
that's what they were for. But they finally went out of business.
I can't think of the name of the street, but they set up a shop over
there.

IA:

Would it have been South Cedar?

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Russell Alberts
4-16...92
Page 33

Alberts:

No it seems to me what runs in my mind it was east off of north
Cedar.

IA:

Oh okay.

Alberts:

It .was, I can't think of the name of the street nov.,but anyway they
bought a small plant over there and those trucks were all hand
built.
on the highways and

They were big monsters as far as that went.

They used them

IA:

What about Porter Street, is that

Alberts:

Huh?

IA:

Porter Street.

Alberts:

No, no, it wasn't.

IA:

Because that's where exhibit display is for Oldsmobile, but that's a
very old building and that's why I got to wondering.

Alberts:

I don't remember now what

IA:

Okay.
Well that's alright, it doesn't matter.
to go by Cedar and Baker and Washington and that's all

Yeah, it is strange

Alberts:

I know it, I hat~d to see them tear that out of there.

IA:

And everybody that I've talked to feels so bad about the clubhouse
being torn down.

Alberts:

Well General Motors at one time, Oldsmobile to be exact, wanted to
buy or they did use part,of the old truck plant, that was the old
plant, or not the old plant but the new plant they built, ah, I
don't know what Oldsmobile had in there, there was stock or \<4rhatit
was, they had leased part of that old truck plant.
that they wanted to buy it at one time, but I guess that didn't work
out.

The word was

IA:

Hum.

Alberts:

Now Motor Wheel used that plant for a long, long time, they built
stoves,

IA:

I see.

Alberts:

I think that was what we call the new plant, south side of the old
plant.
I think Motor Wheel had that plant for a long time.
built those ah, furnaces down there.

They

••

Russell Alberts
4-16-9.2
Page 34

IA:

Oh , that's interesting, I didn't know that.
about the furnaces before.
shared a lot of interesting, interesting things with us.

Well I thank you very much.

I hadn't heard t:hat

You've

Alberts:

Well a lot of the stuff I don't remember anymore.

IA:

Well you remembered a lot, thank you.

Alberts:

They came in the back end of the plant, on the ground floor.

IA:

The union people?

Alberts:

Ah well, they had
Truck Plant was.on this side of the tracks, the short tracks.

one side of the tracks and the ReQ

IA:

Okay.

Alberts:

And ah, all you had to do was walk down the tracks and go in the
back end of the building, because there wasn't any watchman down
there.

IA:

Oh .

Alberts:

And this guy came in the plant was it was almost noon, hehadl a
whole thick sack of cards and he started passing them out.
an organizer for the ah, AFL-CIO.

He was

IA:

Oh.

What were these cards about?

Alberts:

They were application cards to join the union.

IA:

Oh.

Oh.

Alberts:

And everybody that I knew signed them. There was almost 100
percent.

IA:

Did you sign yours?

Alberts:

You are darn right I signed it. At any rate, when the management
found out about it, they run the guy out of there. And the plant
protection owner took him out.
cards he had.

But he had distributed about all the

IA:

So he had done his job.

Alberts:

And then we started having meetings up town, up over the Old Plaza
Theater .

IA:

On north Washington.

•

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Russell Alberts
4-16-92
Page 35

Alberts:

Yeah.

IA:

Ah huh.

Alberts:

And ah , discussing what they could and couldn't do ... Reo

Side 2

Alberts:

in there, they organized a company union.

And the ridiculous

part of it was that we had a great big meeting over there in the old
Reo clubhouse in the auditorium and ah , had a guy in there, he was a
company man and he was walking up and down the aisle and asking you
what you wanted, you want it, we'll get it. Well my god we had
begged and begged and begged to get off .... on a day rate, noth Lng
doing.
give you anything you want.
you.
Well it didn't work.

You want more money, we'll get i"tfor
If you want better working conditions, we'll get it for you.

But all of a sudden they are ready to give in, see, they

It just

IA:

Nobody believed him?

Alberts:

No, they didn't believe him.
guys had worked there long before I ever worked there.
gotten used to thisawhole line of guff.

They had worked there, some of "them

And they had

IA:

Oh it had happened before?

Alberts:

But anyway, they

They just didn't take it, they wouldn't go for it.
used to have union meetings up town over the old Plaza Theater arul
ah, I remember when they took the vote to strike, an oldfelllOw, he
was a maintenance man from the main plant, and old bull-headed guy,
and they had the votes, they had these big tacks where they put you
down after you voted, and they were running two shifts over in the
main plant and ah, they wanted to open the ballot boxes as sOlOnas
the vote was over for the day shift, they wanted to open the ballot
boxes and this old man went over and sit down on one of them.
said there ain't nobody going to open these ballot boxes until both
shifts have voted, period.

So, of course, that went over.

He

IA:

Overwhelmingly probably.

Alberts:

Well there was a lot of them that didn't believe in the unions, you
Yet he is taking the
got a son-in-law that don't believe in them.
...... But ah , he is like his dad, Tony, you know, he never coul.d
talk unions, Tony.

IA:

Well, of course, Tony never worked in a shop either ..

•

•

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•

Russell Alberts
4-16-92
Page 36

Alberts:

No, but his boy is the same way.
unions is because they had them.
he wouldn't be working today.

Ah, the only reason he votes the
But it hadn't been for the unions,

He'd be out on the street.

IA:

So there is a lot of good things about the union and

Alberts:

IA:

Alberts:

IA:

There is more good things than there is bad things.
anything that you can think of that is organized that there isn't a
good part and a bad part to it. The churches, the government or
whatever, there is a good and there is a bad part of it.
to you to differentiate between the two of them.

There isn't

It is up

After the union came in, and you guys voted it in, were you treated
any differently by supervision?

They didn't, because they weren't part of the union, the management
wasn't, so

Alberts:

No .

IA:

I wondered how they

Alberts:

They weren't allowed to join the union at all.

IA:

Did they resent it because you had, were going to be earning more or

Alberts:

I don't think so.
only one that allowed supervision to join a union.

If I remember right, Chrysler Corporation was the

IA:

Oh really?

Alberts:

I might be wrong, but it seems to me that I remember that they did.
Ah, Ford Motor Company was the only other holdout and they had a
battle royal down there.

They busted a lot of heads.

IA:

And the big Flint strikes where people got

Alberts:

Oh that Flint is worse, they always hype that Flint strike, the
Flint Fisher won but they weren't the first ones.
Company and Hudson Detroit were the first two to go down ona
sitdown strike.

Reo Motor Car

IA:

Oh they were?

Alberts:

Because we were inside that plant when Flint Fisher One went on
strike.

IA:

Oh you were already on strike.

•

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Russell Alberts
4-16 .•..92
Page 37

Alberts: We already put our time in.

IA:

Nobody really got hurt in your sitdown strike, did they?

Alberts:

No.

IA:

You didn't have any violence.

Alberts:

No we didn't have no violence, well we had one:guy there was
carrying a gun. But ah, they got wind of that and they threw him
out.

IA:

So, his co-workers did you mean?

Alberts: Yeah.

IA:

Ah huh, they didn't want it to disintegrate into a

Alberts:

There was no clubs, no guns, no nothing.

IA:

Peaceful. How long did

Alberts: Yeah, you go by that plant on Sunday, you wouldn't know there was

anybody in there.

IA:

I talked to somebody awhile ba.ckwhose husband was

Is that right.
in there on the strike. He's dead now, so I couldn't talk to him
obviously, but she remembered that he could go out of a window at
the back part of the plant over, I think in the Cedar Baker area and
he went home, because he was worried about his family and then he'd
go back the next day.

Alberts: A lot of them did. We got one day a week off. A lot of them did

that, went out the window, but a lot of them went; out the window the
day of the strike was pulled, I think, but the guys caught them with
their britches and pulled them back in again.

IA:

So, but you stayed.

Alberts: You are d~rn right I stayed.

IA:

Were you worried about your family?

Alberts:

I worried about them, yes I did, but ah, there wasn't much we could
do about it.

IA:

Ah huh, ah huh .

Alberts:

Go home one day a week see how everything was going, but

•

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Russell Alberts
4-16-92
Page 38

IA:

What did you do, you weren't getting paid, how did the family
survive without any money.

Alberts:

Donations.

IA:

Donations. That was kind of, you'd take them in and divide them out
among the families?

Alberts: Yeah.

IA:

Ohthat's

interesting.

Alberts: Went into debt.

IA:

Went into debt. Yeah.

Alberts: Yeah, I'll tell you.

The day that labor holiday was pulled they

shut us down at 11:30 at noon, and we went downtown and watched them
for a while and then I finally got on a bus and went home.
the neighbors around there was all under washtubs of foaming water
and milk cans and pails and basins and what's all this for, well
they are going to shut our water off.

I says you are crazy.

Ah, all

IA:

Why did they think that?

Alberts:

Because you don't get your water from the city of Lansing, what's
the matter with you.

IA:

Oh you were living in Holt then.

Alberts:

Your mother had everything she could think of full of water.
well we could water the garden, I guess. We didn't have no, we had
our own water wells.

I said

IA:

This was outside of Lansing in Holt or

Alberts:

This was out to Holt.

IA:

Well, okay, what about the people in Lansing, were they under threat
of having

Alberts:

They didn't shut no water off.

IA:

But they thought they were going to? They'd been threatened.

Alberts:

They ah, shut the city down as far as that went, but ah, they didn't
ah, interfere with water departments or anything like that. But
mainly when they shut it down, mainly it was there on the four
corners, Michigan and Washington.

They went out, they sent a flying

• Russell Alberts

4-16-92
Page 39

squad out to East Lansing, they never should have done it in the
first place.

IA:

This was the Lansing Police Department did you .mean?

Alberts:

No, the union did.

IA:

The union did.

Alberts: Ah, they wanted to shut East Lansing down. Well East Lansing had no

part of that quarrel. They weren't involved. They sent a flying
squad out there to shut the city down, but students threw them in
the river.

IA:

Oh okay. Yeah.

Alberts:

They did, they bounced them into the Red Cedar River.
believe him, they had no part of that quarrel.

And I didn't

IA:

Big excitement.
weeks.

That must have been headlines in the paper for two

•

Alberts:

No, there wasn't nothing in this article about them but

IA:

No, no, I'm talking about the Lansing State Journal.

Alberts:

That's what happened, they sent that squad of men out there to shut
the East Lansing down and ah, students there at Michigan State met
them at the city limits and they got into a bruhaw(?) with them,
they threw them into the river. Now well I
wanted no part of that quarrel.

East Lansing

IA:

The labor holiday only lasted one day, did it?

Alberts:

Just one day.

IA:

Just one day and then everybody went back to

Alberts: As soon as they let them people out of jail it was disbanded.

IA:

That is so interesting.

Alberts: A guy by the name of Murphy was governor at the time and they had a

big gathering up on the capitol lawn and he got out and made a
speech.

Oh he did.

IA:

• Alberts: Yeah.

But they ah,

•

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Russell Alberts
4-16-92
Page 40

IA:

He wanted everybody to kind of go back

Alberts:

They brought it on themselves when they just used old tactics like
that
down and throw em in jail.

they just went out and grabbed the pickets and put them

She was in jail with her nightclothes.

IA:

Oh.

Alberts:

I didn't blame Les Walker for what he did, I mean, it was illegal to
begin with, they broke into the home, they had no word or nothing.

IA:

I wonder if he ever thought of suing them or people didn't probably
sue each other as easily then as they do now.
what kind of action he took.

But I just wondered

Alberts:

Well,
sued the city of Lansing.

sued .. or anything like that, but they should have

IA:

That's what I'm thinking.

Alberts:

They should have sued the pants right off of them, but they didn't.

IA:

Hum.

Alberts:

But they did do was shut the city right down, movie theaters,
stores, police, run the police right off the streets.
Ah, they had everything shut
police didn't get into it for
down, I guess they couldn't get shut down, shut Oldsmobile, Fisher
Body and Ryon Bown and ... went down.
It lasted just the one day,
but also they turned them loose

The state

IA:

~
\ Alberts:
l

This is kind of off the records, this has nothing to do with Reo,
but I, just for my own information I was thinking about Uncle Alex.! .

:..:.::,.:J-t-.-"....(' 1-

.

•••, ~.,...,

she didn't work in my department .... where she worked, and she
had long hair, that was all the rage back then, her hair went down
her shoulders, she was suppose to wear a hat.

Wife:

Suppose to wear a hair net, hair net.

Alberts:

Well a hair net, but she didn't do it.
a drill and that scalped her, before she started screaming and
before they could get that thing, machine shut off, it had just
about scalped her.

She got that hair caught in

IA:

My gosh.

Alberts:

And the orders went out to let her on out.
Nobody wore wedding
rings, jewelry of any kind and they usually had a net on or you
didn't work.

•

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•

Russell Alberts
4-16-92
Page 41

IA:

That's if you were working on a piece of machinery?

Alberts:

No, I had one old girl working for me, she was a Jew and she had a
I had to go out and tell her to take that
great big wedding ring.
ring off, no, no, I ain't taking that ring off.
Shut I forget how
old she said she was, but she said that ring has been on that finger
since I got married.
take that ring off.
different, you either take the ring off or I'll take you off the
job.
string and hung it around her neck and that wasn't going to work
very good, because when she bent over that ring could have hit that
drill.

Well I said you can't work here if you don't
That's the order and I can't tell you anything

So she finally agreed to take the ring off and she put it on a

IA:

Oh yeah.

Alberts:

And I don't remember how they did work that out with her,'but she
stayed there.

IA:

Maybe just by wearing it inside.

Alberts:

Oh she had a battle with them, she wasn't going to take that ring
off.

IA:

Even though it meant her safety.

Alberts:

Yeah, she, they explained to her what thad happened to some little
girls that had gotten their ring fingers caught in the drill, it
would strip their finger right off their fingers.

IA:

Is that how you caught your finger?
finger?

Did you have a ring on your

Wife:

No I caught the end of my finger.

IA:

And what did it do to it?

Alberts:

We had what they called ear

...finger out there in machine.
chuck{?) ah, it pulled the handle and the jaws would open up, you'd
stick your material, your work piece in there and then you pushed
the handle back ·and she'd come down on that piece of material, then
they went ahead and machined it. But if you didn't want your finger
when you put that in there to hit that darn lever, she'd shut down
on your fingers and one of the kids forgot what she was doing and
she lost about that much of her finger.

IA:

When I worked in Elsie in the factory one of the
Yeah.
you ever go down to the clubhouse, or was the clubhouse gone by
then, emptied out?

Did

•

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Russell Alberts
4-16-92
Page 42

Alberts:

No it was still there.

IA:

Oh.

Alberts:

They hadn't ah, ... anything or ah, they didn't start tearing that
place down until very recently.

IA:

Ah, come to think of it, that's right.

Alberts:

.. you know when that thing caught fire, that was set.

IA:

You think so?

Alberts:

I know it was.

IA:

Tell me what you know about that?

Alberts:

For the simple reason that the city of Lansing had taken it over and
they didn't want to spend the money to hire a bunch of demolition
teams to come in there and tear it down. And so unbeknown to
anybody I guess they set it on fire
thing that was left standing was the powerhouse .

The only

IA:

The powerhouse?

Alberts:

Ah that was the one down on Grand Trunk tracks, the big steam plants

IA:

Oh really?

Alberts:

They tore that one down, but

IA:

It wouldn' t burn?

Alberts:

No it didn't burn.

IA:

I would imagine that that, I remember that fire, but I imagine with
all those oil soaked floors and all that stuff, but the bricks
themselves wouldn't burn, would they for the outside of the
building?

Alberts:

Dh I don't know, I guess they hauled them out of there, but some
wrecking company from Chicago bought all the material that was in
that plant.

IA:

Oh bought what was left in, you mean the plant was emptied out
before it caught

Alberts: Yeah, they hauled all the machinery and things of that, there was an

outfit in Chicago, it was a Jewish outfit and they bid on it and

• Russell Alberts

4-16-92
Page 43

they bought all the machinery and all the, everything that could be
sold.

They stripped the plant.

IA:

So it was totally empty when it was set on fire.

Alberts:

Yeah, it was empty when it burned.

IA:

Ah.

Alberts:

But I've always said that place was set on fire intentionally
because the city of Lansing had bought it.
for it, but I guess they didn't want to spend the money to hire a
wrecking crew to go in there and tear it down.
It would have cost
considerable amount of money and I think they just hired SOme flunky
to get down there and set her on fire .

I forget what they paid

•

•