Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 1

IA:

IB:

This is Shirley Bradley, Lisa Fine and this is March

1993 and we are at the home of Herbert Heinz and what is your

address Mr. Heinz?

Heinz:

1944 Dexter Trail

IA:

And that is Dansville

Heinz: Dansville

IA:

IB:

Michigan. And we are going to be interviewing him on on Reo history.

Okay, we always start by just getting a little background information
about you. Urn, where you are from and ah, where you went to school
and those kinds of things just so that we have some background.
you grow up around here, Dansville area?

Did

Heinz:

live been in this area, within a 10 miles radius anyway all my

life. I went to Dansville school.

IB:

Okay.

Heinz:

I got too smart for the teachers and quit in the 10th grade.
(laughter)

IB:

Okay.

Heinz: And ah ,

IA:

Were your parents farmers out here?

Heinz: Dad and mother were farmers, I was a farmer but not at heart, I was a

mechanic more or less all my life.

IA:

IB:

Like ransom.

Right.

Heinz: And ah ,

IB:

So you are interested in mechanical things, even from the beginning.
Yeah.

Heinz: Yeah, I ah, was finally, I finally a guy come up to me and they go to

Reo. Well I tried to get into Reo in 1941, they wouldn't even give
you the paper, an application. I was 17, draft age, 4F
classification and ah, so I went back in '51 and I walked in and put

/

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Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 2

I put my name on it and ah, my address and that's

in an application,
.... work here and I looked for things to put the application,
stuck it in a slot and before I got out of there, Jerry Byrd is the
first middle manager called me bpck in and hired me.
And there was
50 people standing in there waiting for a job.
until the last, I'm one of the last 14 men that worked there.

And I worked there

I

IA:

Ah huh, starting in 1951?

Heinz:

... November 6, 1951 and the last day I worked, I worked for the Reo
and I worked for the bankrupt company that took over.
worked I think was October 19, 1974, one of the last 14 men to come
out of there.

The last day I

IA:

What did you get hired on to do?

Heinz:

I was electrician.

IA:

Did you get, did you have training from the war?

Heinz:

I had no training.

IA:

You had no training.

Heinz:

They hired me, Floyd Mcbulski hired me.

I couldn't even keep my taillight lit on my car

No training.
actually.
Sears Roebuck that night and bought a, an electrical book.
cents for it and brought it home and read it and the light struck and
I knew what
wired trucks.

Some of them are more complicated

than houses to wire.

And I went to

electricity

and I just

Paid 35

I knew

IA:

IB:

Oh is that right?

Yeah.

Heinz:

I made wire harnesses for some of the first models.
garage never even made them.

And ah,

The engineering

IA:

This is for the trucks.

Heinz:

I made the first wire harness for fire trucks

This is for trucks.
with full light flasher lights like they have today.
I made that
wire harness and engineering says make an extra one so that they'd
have one in case the truck burns up or needs a harness.
got a bit of credit for any engineering
And
anything in engineering didn't want to do or couldn't do, they sent
it to me.
I helped anybody and if I didn't have nothin to do, as I said I
vanished.
people come to me and ask me for parts.

.....
For everything
And it was running short on

And when I did had electrical work to do, I done anything,

Well I knew that shop inch by inch.

that I had done there.

And I never

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Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 3

the line one day a gas tank brackets a guy come to me and say ... any
gas tank brackets and I told him go down on dock 4 on the north dock
on the east end, there are probably 500 of them laying there.. That's
how much I knew about the Reo.

IA:

When you got started on, were you the young, the young.
started out in the early '50's, were you one of the young ones in
your group?

When you got

Heinz:

I was the lowest seniority of my department.

IA:

So there is some old-timers there who and were like what you ended up
being.

People who knew their way around.

Heinz:

I was an old-timer when I left.

IA:

Right, that's what I mean.

Heinz:

•

I went in the repair floor for

I went in there in 19, I went in there in '51 and I could have went
to the motor plant for $1.90 an hour.
$1.40 an hour and the boss says in 30 days time if you prove out,
we'll give you a nickel raise. The next 30 days got a nickel and the
next you got three raises.
a Friday the boss come to me with the supervisor and handed me my
check and he says don't show this check to nobody.
giving you your three 5 cent raises, plus a 10 cents merit.
put me in a bracket that I was making 10 cents an hour more than the
guy that was there for 25 years.

I worked there I think five weeks and on

He says we are

And that

IA:

Oh my.

Heinz:

And I had worked there a little over 30 days.
I didn't go in there to goof off, I went in there to work.
farm like that, you went to work, you went to work.
to make a dollar. And that was my theory of work regardless.
the union on me fordoing
union didn't like what I was doing.

On the

You had to work
I had

things that the boss told me to do, but the

I didn't go in there,

IA:

Who was your supervisor the one that got you these raises right from
the start?

Heinz:

Floyd Nebloski the man that hired me and Floyd Swartz.

IA:

I'm sorry, how did you spell Nebloski?

Would that be

Heinz:

N e 1 see, Neb

los

k i.

IA:

IB:

Okay, you know, somebody has mentioned his name before.

Nebloski . Yeah.

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Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 4

Heinz:

He was everybody, everybody tell I was his pet.
have ... like me there.

Everybody didn't

IA:

He's passed away now.

Heinz:

Yeah, he's been gone now. But he give me this he told me one time he
said, if I could get three more men like you, I'd layoff
them other
12 over here. And ah, I done more work I found out after I worked
there, I done more work the first day and not knowing what I was
doing actually, I done more work in the first day than the guy that
they laid off or fired did in three days, the first day I worked
there.

IA:

And you didn't really know what you were doing when you went in
there?

Heinz:

No, I couldn't even keep my taillight early.

IA:

You could figure it out.

Heinz: And ah a guy by the name of Elton Nizely just a little bit of a guy

about he is about about 5 foot, he was a little bit a midget ... and
he was the guy that broke me in on the wiring job.

IA:

Who was that?

Heinz:

Alton Night.

Shorty Night.

Shorty Melton

IB:

IA:

IB:

Yeah, Elton Nicely, we have his name on our list and

Oh I thought we interviewed him.

I don't think so.

Heinz:

He lives on ... Street just east of McDonalds.

IB:

Yeah, we haven't seen him yet, but he is on our list.

Heinz: Well you better get to see him, because last time I heard he

IB:

IA:

IB:

Heinz:

In the hospital, yeah I remember that.

Dh that's why we haven't because he's been ill.

Right, right.

I got a flatbed truck
But ah, yeah I can still remember him today.
like this one setting up here with a neighbor up here, where the bed
was down ..... and I had to put turn signals on the rear end of it
and then there was no harnesses made like that and bowl of water came

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Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 5

with the turn signals and he says this is how you do it. He took
that wire and he hunched up some how, water creeper and he ...
between the axles and stuff and strung that wire and come up by the
front wheel.
That was my breakin.

He says that's how you do it. And that was my breakin.

That's how you do it and walked away.

IA:

IB:

IA:

Heinz:

Oh my goodness.

You had to connect everything up.

You stood there wondering.

By the time I got it, I went and got Walter Peterson's creeper which
is the next bay over, I got that, by the time I got that laid down,
he come out of their front wheel and he says that's how we do it.
And that was the only time, that was my breakin for that first day.
But I done more work that day than another guy did in three days.

IA:

Now a creeper is a little flatbed thing that you lay on your back.

IB:

• IA:

Heinz:

Lay on .

And slide under a truck with wheels on.

Yeah.

You take me and a little guy about this tall

IA:

Yeah, right we are thinking about that.

Heinz:

And he crawled through underneath that truck, he never got on the
but a ..
floor
tire, he says that's the way you do it.

underneath that thing

IA:

Oh my goodness.

Heinz:

I still remember little ... doing that.

IA:

What is a harness?
is a harness?

I kind of basically know but for the record, what

You talked about wiring a harness for these trucks.

Heinz:

Well making harnesses that would make .... a turn signal harness

IA:

The lights.

Heinz:

The lights or the engine harness and ah,

IA:

• Heinz:

It isa

series of wires put together in a certain way .

A series of wires put in a bundle and hook to this point and that
point to make the generator work and the lights work and the motor
work ah, two gauges and all that.

Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 6

IA:

Okay.

•

Heinz:

I would make a, I would string the wire from this point to that
point,
just leave the ends sticking out at certain points

and then I'd tip it in the gutter and

IA:

So they could be connected

Heinz:

So they connected to it.

IA:

Okay.

Heinz:

I could, I changed so many wire harnesses in trucks in the old Reo
trucks that I could stand on my back
wrench in my left hand and go under a dash and unhook the whole wire
harness off the dash if it would burn out, take another wire harness
stand here and put the whole wire harness in, hook it up and stand
there and talk to you just like that and everything working ... I've
done it so many times.

and take a springer

IB:

Like in your sleep, huh.

Heinz:

I pretty near went crazy one time, I woke up at night sometimes and I
would wire ... around my neck.

(laughter)

~

IB:

IA:

Oh my.

So you were in the truck department,

Heinz:

Truck repair department.

IA:

Truck repair, okay.

Heinz: Yeah, most of elec, automotive electrician.

IB:

Now where was that located? That part of the plant?

Heinz: Well,

IB:

Was it on Washington or Baker or was it

Heinz:

It was off of Baker Street on ah, what it be west of the motor plant.
The motor plant was like this and the railroad track, and then there
was another building and then there was Platt Street running down
through here.

IB:

Ah huh, okay.

Heinz:

It used to be Platt Street, it was on the east side of that.

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Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 7

IB:

But you were right off Baker.

Heinz:

Yes.

IB:

You'd go into, you'd walk in on the Baker Street side.

Heinz:

Yeah, whenever I walked down the ramp right there on Baker Street,
there was a ramp built, we drove the trucks out of there. We used to
go in there and then Platt Street, Platt Street runs

IB:

North and south.

Heinz:

It used to go clear, clear across the railroad

north and south.
tracks I guess, but anyway it got blocked off, but they used that as
a Platt Street used to bring in the trucks to go into the dock down
to the receiving dock. And then years later, they changed that over
............ Avenue, but

IB:

I see.

Okay.

Did you work on any military?

Heinz:

No, I worked on very little military .

IB:

Heinz:

Because they were doing a lot of military that whole time.

They built militaries there, but I ah, long towards the last one
time, a guy they took and made one guy, Lester Williams, he was my
foreman, he got mad at me and put me on militaries.

IB:

So that was punishment to be on the military?

That was a bad thing.

Heinz:

And ah, well I told people, a lot of them never liked me down there.
They always call me Denny Dansville because so many Herbs in there,
........ Herbie Sills, Herbie Sills named me Danny Dansville.
they called me Danny.
I am because Danny Dansville was altogether different
they
the Pennway Coffee Shop out there on Boston Avenue.

But that's why nobody knows, hardly knows who

Herb ah , I don't know who he is now, but started

And

but

IB:

On Pennsylvania Avenue.

Heinz:

Yeah.

IB:

And Herb Ritz.

Heinz:

Herb Ritz was one of them.

I don't know.

So,

IB:

So you are alias Danny Dansville .

Heinz:

I'm alias Danny Dansville.

Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 8

IB:

This is the first alias we've interviewed,

yeah.

Heinz:

That was ah, that was

IB:

So you were on the military just for a little bit?

Just

Heinz:

to them as

on the militaries.

they got mad at me they put me on
they weren't nothing

We was running eight jobs a day.
So I done just as he told me.
One job an hour, it would take

I was on there when Lester Williams
on over on military
and I basically
far as w1r1ng, but I asked him what I had to do and he says adjust
the headlights
And that's all they told me to do.
adjusted eight sets of headlights.
you about 5 minutes
and I goofed up because
it made me mad but also by doing just what he told me to do, it made
it easier for me.
because there was nothin to do.
and wanted me to go to engineering
about the time that engineering
the place was going, see.
there every since I've been here, but you would never let me, but now
for some reason he wanted me to go over to engineering
I guess they wanted to get me off of this department.

I had nothing to do which drove me crazy anyway
And ..... Terrill came down there
garage and I told him that was
garage was, I could see it myself and

And I says I've been trying to get in

to adjust the headlights

garage.

Well

I

IB:

Why would they want to do that?

Heinz:

'Cause I was
Anyway,

I'm working for Baldy Wintz,

I don't know, but maybe people just didn't care for me.
too, I don't know.
I
I was, I'm an oddball or something.
told him, I says ah, Bill, that is Bill .... the persortnel manager,
says why should I go over'there.
they
called him Baldy, his name was Buster, but they called him Baldy.
I said why should I go over there, I got the best job
And ah,
... here and I says so and so got mad at me he gave me this job, and
says all I got to do is adjust eight sets of headlights
says that's my day's work, eight sets, it would take me about 5
minutes, but I probably work 40 minutes all day long.
old Bill Terrill looked at me, with that funny look, and he went back
to the
So that's when I worked on military.

o~fice and about 20 minutes I was off of that job.

And you know,

a day.

I

I

IB:

Well you told him it didn't take you long to do it.

Heinz:

But, I don't care, I don't care what job they put me on, I was always
told I was the only one that ever done nothing in there.
done nothin in there.
building UPS trucks, these big trucks, these big jobs we built a big
order for UPS trucks.

I never
At one time when we built, when we started

IB:

Oh I didn't know that.

Heinz:

And ah, there was the model something

like that.

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Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 9

IB:

Oh we are talking big, like a semi cab.

Heinz:

to wire and the panels to put

And ah, they wouldn't, UPS wouldn't buy them unless I checked it out,
...................... and when they first come out, they would draw
up a blueprint which for the
in there on the gauges and every truck would come down there, I'd
have to take all the gauges out and replace them. And I couldn't
figure it out and they kept me busy wanting them trucks and I was
busier than a duck with changes these gauges getting these trucks
running.
know what her last name was, Verdi something
wiring these panels, I more or less worked with her on new stuff, on
new motors.
And I went over and I looked at the print and I figured
out, they draw the print up for King Seeley gauges and they were
using AC gauges.

So I went up to wire room or

Verdi, I don't

but she was

IA:

IB:

Oh.

Oh.

•

Heinz:

They wired just backwards.
alone, nobody I just go on my own up there and I got Gertito
print out, I said I want to see your print
she got it out and I looked at it and looked at it and I looked and
looked and I said something don't look right.
And I look up in the
corner here and it says King Seeley gauges.

I was up there, I went up there and I was
get her
wire and ah,

IB:

King Seeley.

Heinz:

•

And about

And ah, (shuffling papers) ah, I said I'm

Yeah, that was the gauge company that made gauges for Ford and make
I says this is what's wrong and she felt
them for
guilty about it, I said these gauges are all wired wrong.
that time Miltson .... come up there and he was the boss, the
supervisor up there in the ... room and he started chewing me out for
I was doing up there and looking on his help up there and I just told
him, I didn't care what I talked to him about, I didn't care how I
talked to him either.
trying to get this straightened out so we can get the trucks .....
And ah, I says don't you give this little girl hell for screwing up
on them wires, I says she ain't to blame.
made a printout for one gauge and you ah, buy different gauges.
that night she got to
And every truck from where she was at in the whole system had to have
the wires, the gauges, the wiring changed on it. But that's what
they wouldn't let me on the department for that sort of a reason
because I
things that
times and it ain't' my job, it ain't my job.
the union is protecting all these people well it ain't my job.
when I, I could see this ah, as the years went by it put three young

that ain't my job, I've heard that so many

with a bunch the rest of them.

the whole initiative and done

I says you make a, they

The union is protecting

And

So

Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 10

But they
guys to do what one man was doing before, 10 years before.
would sit up there and they would work pretty good until they get in
the union, then the union protected them. They sit down and they had
to get someone else in to help them.

IB:

Do you think Reo was different because it let people like you do
their own work and take more initiative than some of the other auto
plants?

Heinz:

I would no, I was, I was interested for my own benefit

IB:

Right.

Heinz:

for job see.

IA:

Because you wanted the job

Heinz:

I had her two kids to raise. I built this house by my own hands.

IB:

You did.

Heinz: And

about 99 percent of it. Anyway, I wanted the job

regardless, I paid union dues for 25 years, I'm like a free union
I think.

IA:

In 25 years?

Heinz: Yeah.

IA:

Did they ever talk to you about not coming to the meetings more
often?

Heinz:

No, all they want was them union dues. And ah,

IB:

Were the union dues very expensive? Did they take a lot out of your
check?

Heinz: Well they went I don't know what they did do. They went from

IB:

Oh you've got a

Heinz:

They took them out so much, I don't know, I guess it was $5 a month
at least.

IA:

IB:

IA:

I just was curious.

You know they always take a big chunk out at Christmastime.

Ah huh.
there.

They didn't have a lot of strikes and stuff when you were

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Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 11

Heinz: After Cappaert come in there, we went on strike one day.

IB:

In '74?

Heinz:

Dh '73 or something like that.

IB:

IA:

Heinz:

'73.

Why did you go on strike?

I don't know, I can't remember now, but anyway things weren't going
right and ah, they came in there one time when they was going to go
bankrupt, I think it was and then the did put locks on the gates and
wouldn't let nobody in or let nobody out. And ah,

IB:

Those that were there had to stay.

Heinz: Hum?

IB:

Those that were inside had to stay inside.

He

Heinz: Well we didn't have to I guess we got out or but the next day they
went on strike I think it was and ah, Cappaert come down, and we's
all down at the union hall, down around Cannon Street, that was ...
now, but ah, we was all down there and Cappaert come down.
didn't come on the union property, but he got on the backside of the
fence and wanted us guys to come back to work.
work, but Bishop the guy that bought that place, used to work at
Druken Trailer Park, the trailer house company in Williamston.
was born and raised around Williamston. And ah, there was a guy by
the name of Bishop that worked there. He used to work with him at
trailer factory and he told Bishop, Bishop told us this, he said you
come to me, he says you will make some money. And he went into
trailer house, they tell, this is hearsay, he went in to every
trailer house, trailer manufacturer ... in the United States and I
don't know how he got in, back into Reo, but the man paid $16 million
you see for the building, for the property and here I don't knowhow
many millions of dollars, he would have this shipped bill to Reo and
ship it back to warehouses, he said, but they were building, I think
they were still building Diamond Reo trucks in Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania.

And we went back to

He

IA:

IB:

That's right.

Yeah, they are building the Reo Giant in Harrisburg.

Heinz: And ah ,

IB:

You were talking about Cappaert.

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Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
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Heinz: Yeah, that's

IB:

You were saying that's what he used to do.

Heinz:

Yes, the old Cappaert, he is the one that bankrupt the company.
Besides a lot of the foremans, ... the foremans pickup truck in there
load up staff.
engines that was suppose to be for government, painted them gold
colored for the gold ... engine and hauled them out for stationary
engines.

I seen them take ah, one of the guys take military

IB:

Took them for their own use you are saying?

Heinz:

Cappaert used to send these trucks in there. He had a bunch of old
beat-up trucks and they used to come in from Vicksburg, Pennsylvania,
ah, Vicksburg, Mississippi. And he come in there and ... people ...
and he come in there with a whole bunch of tires on it and these had
whole brand new sets of tires put up, put on them semis and them
trailers. He tore up the railroad tracks that was a spur line down
in there, he tore them all up and I talked with a driver and he said
he was taking them up to ah, I think around Houghton Lake, he's got a
big farm up there. He took them railroad tracks right up.
think they even belong to him, but he took em.

I don't

IB:

The tracks themselves?

Heinz:

Railroad tracks, the iron railroad tracks.

IA:

IB:

IA:

IB:

IA:

IB:

Heinz:

For for goodness sake. I wonder what he was going to do with them up
there.

He just bled it dry, didn't he?

He just bled it dry. Yeah.

Took out everything that he thought he could use or sell or whatever.

He'd get money on it, yeah. Yeah. We've heard this from other
people too.

Yeah.

Yeah.
what he was doing.
he appear to you?

What was your op1n1on of him other than what you could see

I mean when he came to talk to the men, how did

Oh he was just as sweet and he was going to do this.
fact, after he got there he went at it and oh we are going to go into
big business.
that produced about

This is what this is what this is a new model truck

In fact, in

IB:

The Royal Two.

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Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 13

Heinz:

in about a year.

IS:

This was produced for about a year?

Heinz: Yeah.

IS:

This Royale Two.

Heinz:

Yeah, yeah and that one there the Raider.

IS:

Was the Raider.

Heinz:

That Raider.

IA:

IS:

IA:

IS:

Yeah.

Oh it is a beautiful, beautiful cab, isn't it?

I remember when they was wanting a name, a name for that truck there.

Oh really, they were looking for a name, how did they come up with
it?

Heinz:

Somebody in the front office came up with the name.

IA:

Yeah, we gave in one or two names for it.

Heinz:

Us workers never got nothin from it.

IA:

Sut didn't use our name.

Heinz:

that's myoId

girlfriend, how did she get in there?

IS:

Oh I got to see her.

Is that you?

Wife:

That's a girl he used to know.

IS:

Oh he was serious, I thought he meant you and that he was teasing.

Heinz:

She was .... graduation day that girl there.

She

Wife:

I can't remember her name now.

Heinz:

She pulled hair and everything else trying to get me to marry her and
I

Wife:

What was her name?

Heinz:

Ah, ...

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Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 14

IB:

Boy this Raider

Wife:

He can't remember her name.

IB:

IA:

IB:

IA:

Diamond Reo truck is gorgeous.

So you say these trucks were produced for about a year, these Raiders
and these urn,

Ah huh before the company went

Royales too.

Heinz: Yeah.

IB:

My gosh and you wired these.

Heinz: Yeah, I made, that's where I worked on there, I worked on all the

wire harness, I'm the one that had to reroute and they've burn up,
they've had the wires burn out in the dashes of them trucks.

IB:

Oh really?

Heinz: And ah, this is another picture of a Reo.

I've had, I've set up in

here and this dash harness would burn out across here and then I sat
up here and redone the whole harness.
harness to put in, I had to splice, I spliced wiring in here and a
wire over here.

They wouldn't give me.a

IB:

So you had to come up with your own invention.

Heinz:

the wire like that in there,

air-condition, everything on

them, they was just loaded with that stuff.

IB:

Um, these trucks that you worked on, were they trucks that had been
purchased and then they had a problem and they came back and you
fixed it or they were coming off the line that way.

Heinz:

No.

Off the assembly line.

IB:

They were coming off the assembly line.

Heinz:

Off the assembly line problems.

I remember ... trucks

IA:

Going down some of these trucks have big computers in them too.

Heinz:

I don't ever ...

IB:

Do you ever see any of these on the road?

•

•

•

•

•

•

Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 15

Heinz:

Yeah, you see some today on the road yeah.

Yeah.

IA:

IB:

IA:

Heinz:

Gosh they are gorgeous.
that the trucks were good, the engines were great, they could have
continued with proper management.

I've heard people, I've had people tell me

Yeah, there was demand for them.

They could have continued to produce trucks, because the demand was
so great.

They were a good truck that lasted.

I talked to the man that came in there one time that was on a project
in Canada.
It was a Canadian product and building a damn up in
Vancouver or somewheres, British Columbia, ... a big damn andah,
ordered, he come in there to pick these trucks up and they weren't
quite ready yet.
And he, I talked with him, I talked with anybody
and this and that and ah, he come to pick them trucks up to drive
them home and I says well, what would a license cost from up in
Canada like that, he says these trucks will never be licensed.
He
said we will drive them into Canada on this project and since they
will la~t probably year, a year and a half, two years.
I said why
bother with the expensive trucks when ah, you can buy a sugar layer
Ford that ain't going to last you longer than that.
go up there with a Ford or a Chevrolet in six months time he said
we'd junk it. And these will last a year and a half to two years.
So we will junk a Ford or a Chevrolet on the off terrain and twisting
so their frames will break in two and

He said we could

he

IB:

What kind of a job was this going to be used on?

Heinz:

Ah damn construction.

IB:

Dh I see so they are going into rough areas where there aren't nice
smooth roads.

Heinz:

Dh

all the time.

IB:

They are hauling loads and

Heinz:

Across fields and across the valleys and twist and turning.

IB:

And the Reo truck was so good that it would hold up longest.

Heinz:

It would hold up for about two years where it sugar ... Ford six
months to nine months.

IB:

Because they weren't put together right I suppose.

Yeah .

Heinz:

Well they weren't built like it and these was built, a Diamond Reo
truck was built I guess you might call it computerized, it was built

•

Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 16

IB:

IA:

IB:

Heinz:

for a job, it was you could buy one of them, you could buy one that
would be for off the road or on a highway.
I remember building some trucks for Cuba, for. Shell Oil Company.

Now we built the ... Cuba

Oh that's interesting.

Hum.

In the late '50's before Castro came in.

These trucks had ah, a Beauta, we put a Beauta diesel

Yeah, yeah.
engine, big Beauta diesel engine in them for Shell Oil Company.
road tester took one of them out on the road and he come back and
said maybe you should road test them on a road.
back and he said there is something wrong with this truck he says it
won't any 25 miles an hour wide open.
and they had everybody look at it.
25.
truck ain't suppose to go only 25 mile an hour.

We went back to the guy that drew up the order and he says that

And that truck wouldn't do only

And ah, they had me look at it

And he brought it

The

IB:

Oh, that's what they wanted.

Heinz:

IB:

IA:

IB:

We built them for Shell Oil Company down in Cuba in the mountains,
haul, over the mountains he says 25 miles an hour is all them trucks
is suppose to do and they had a 13, 14 feet transmission
you know.
to go up to speed.

He says they just want them to move, they don't want them

and gears

And ah,

to

•

So they are made-to-order

for the circumstances.

Right.

Yeah.

Heinz:

I worked ah, overtime one night a bunch of us guys, we built, I
guess, maybe it was 25 trucks that they shipped over to, was .... at
that time to build the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

IB:

Oh really?

Heinz:

Yeah.

IB:

Who did you build those for?

Heinz:

Hum?

IB:

Who did you build them for, do you know?

Heinz:

French Indochina government.

•

•

•

•

Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 17

IB:

IA:

Dh for the government.

For the Chinese government.

Heinz: Yeah, French Indochina.

IA:

French Indochina.

Heinz: Yes.

IB:

Vietnam.

Heinz:

Korea and Cambodia and Pakistan,

countries.

three different

IB:

Yeah.

Heinz:

But the Ho Chi Minh Trail we built Reos and sent them over there to
Ho Chi Minh Trail. We sent Reo military to Israel, not Israel, but
Tran

IB:

Iran. Iran .

Heinz: Reo Electric went over there to show them how to build it and then

they turned around Iraq with them or something when this conflict
started over there and Roy Archer said I sneaked out one night, got
me on an airplane and I got back to Switzerland and home, he said I
let them have it.

IA:

That was in Iran you say? Tehran.

Heinz: Tehran I guess it was.

IB:

IA:

It is Iran. Yeah.

Yeah, urn, I wonder if later in Vietnam and during the war if any of
our military people came across a Reo truck somewhere? If they were
on the Ho Chi Minh Trail at one point.

IB:

They must have sold ...

Heinz:

I imagine the Reo trucks some are in Vietnam.

IB:

Wouldn't that be something to come around the bend and see an
American truck.

Heinz: They were built right-hand drives, it was built right-hand drives.

IB:

Right-hand drives for the roads. Because they drive on the right-
hand side over there.

•

Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 18

Heinz: That was something else. We built right-hand drive trucks out there
and the right-hand fender would get wrecked about three times during

IB:

Oh really.

Heinz:

... they shouldn't drive em. They were .... Russians and there were
poles every 20 feet in that thing and they would hit them posts.
They turn

keep right on going.

IB:

This is the test drivers.

Heinz: No just anybody.

IB:

Anybody

Heinz: The mechanics (mass talking) move on ahead or something.

IB:

Oh in the shops.
to fix.

Isn't that funny. So salvage had a lot of fenders

Heinz: We put three fenders on one truck getting it, it was .... down the

•

line. Everybody .... trim it their own way because it was .. inside
you know.

IB:

Oh that's neat, that's interesting. Boy I bet I'd have problems.

Wife:

I'm curious, was this Lorraine?

Heinz: That's Muriel, Muriel

I have a to think,

(several talking)

IB:

Now where is your ....

Heinz:

She has been hidden there for a long time.
even in there.

I didn't know she was

IA:

IB:

This is a riot.

Did she work at Reo?

Wife:

No.

Heinz: Yeah, she worked at Reo one time and not when I worked there.

IA:

IB:

IA:

.. a diesel engine.

Wow.

worked at Reo at one point and he has been to the Harrisburg plant, •

We've got a volunteer at the museum, his name is Jack Down and he

•

•

•

Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 19

they gave him a tour. He went because he loves the trucks and he was
interested, so he went right to the office and they said sure, we'll
give you a tour.
So he has been in the plant there and has seen the
trucks that they build.

Wife:

And we've been down to Spartan Motors in Charlotte and had a tour
down there to see the fire engines that they make.

IA:

IB:

Ah huh.

I bet it was interesting.

Heinz:

And there is two different letterheads.

IB:

Oh yeah.

Heinz:

Two different letterheads.

IB:

IA:

Oh my goodness.

Did the production change a lot when you were there for safety
reasons at all?
my

Because I've been reading a little bit about that on

Heinz:

Safety, we didn't have any safety reason.

IB:

IA:

Heinz:

No there wasn't, Shirley is interested in safety too actually.

Yeah, I've been wondering what the conditions, working conditions
were ah,

.. bad, they were bad.
their Monday morning in
in the door and walk in
and then go back out.

I used to go in there.
I used to .ah, go in
the summertime and I'd have to stick my head
about 10 feet and take a few whiffs of air

IB:

Go back out.

Heinz:

And to get stuffed up.
gobs of'black diesel smoke and stuff.

And by the weekend I'd be spitting up big old

IB:

Because the air was full of diesel fuel and no exhaust.

Heinz:

Well they had ... but they had no exhaust. We got OSHA in there one
time and they put this was no kidding, they put these little machines
in there to like breathing, you know, they put them on different ...
in the shop .

IB:

You were suppose to use that on your own self?

Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 20

Heinz:

No, they was to take, they took the quality of the air

IB:

IA:

Heinz:

Oh.

Oh.

And Donny Alberts took a truck, ..... well there was one of them
setting right here on the bench, about the height of the exhaust and
.... good for nothing more or less, he got one of them
Donny Alberts
trucks and set it in front of this analyzer and let it run for about
10 minutes blowing exhaust right into the thing.
perfect

and this was gas exhaust.

That was a most

IB:

So those weren't very good gauges.

Heinz:

And most of ..... bottom.

IB:

So nothing really changed, you still had to work with all the fumes
in your department.
respiratory

Did that ever make anybody sick?

problems do you think?

Or cause them

Heinz:

Well, I don't know, I I was I was ah, spit up this stuff all the
time, and one night when Vance Disbro, he was a supervisor

IB:

Disbro

Heinz:

I worked

And I was over here in the big

But, I was in there one night working,

that I went over and shut the truck off.

Yeah, he was a hell in the shop and on the street he was the best man
you ever talked to.
14 hours that day, I guess, trying to get some trucks out and ah,
what he system was is a big round pipe and a little air down, why
there was a pipe over here and a pipe come in out of this big tube
and I guy on this bay here had a truck, diesel truck with a stack
that stuck up almost into this heating tube and Vance went in to run
that truck in there long enough to make the heat gauge ..... to work
as air shutters.
and I got so
nauseated
it back up and I went back over and shut it off again.
started it back up and they wanted this truck that I was working on
so I goes
getting the wiring done on that, I finished up something,
back over and shut the thing off and pulled the keys out.
guy runs to Vance Disbro and then
shutting down
diesel smoke.
I'm trying to help you get some trucks out of here.
hours in along time ago.
home.
for about two days of that stuff.
this was Saturday morning almost.
that made him mad.
I knew from myself that he could have ran that truck in there all

he said that stuff won't hurt you that's
And I says Vance I says I got my eight hours in, so

And I was sick
This was on a Friday night, well
And ah, I said I can go home and

But I got my
I said you know what I can do, I can go

I picked up my lunch bucket and I went home.

I went home, I couldn't take no more of it.

The guy started
And he

chewed me out about

Well this

But

•

•

•

• Herbert Heinz

3-16-93
Page 21

night long and it wouldn't do, but you take it out on the road and
work it two miles, the heat gauge would go up.

IB:

IA:

IB:

So they could have done all that out on the road.

Yeah, they didn't have to do it

And not taken a chance with someone's health.

Heinz:

Yeah, told them to take it out on the'road, I told them to take it
out on the street, you know.

IB:

Why wouldn't they do that?

Heinz:

They are just stubborn.

IB:

Stubborn.

Heinz:

He was the supervisor.

IB:• Heinz:

IB:

Heinz:

• IB:

Oh and he is not going to have someone else telling him

I was just a little peon, he is the supervisor see.

You mentioned that you cut your finger in the Reo, was that in your
department, was that because of safety things?

slack was in there weight shoes and ah,

Yeah, that was that was in the time when we started, that was before
they had these fail-safe safety brakes when they engineered up an
outfit like a hand brake, like an emergency brake and it run off of
bell cranks and cables and .... on their back ... duster they welded
an arm on it and they put a little strip clevis on it where you could
get ahold of that
they put me on that and had two trucks and they put me on that and
But they put another guy on the
ah, I got one and got it working.
old and ah, the boss came over to check it out.
So I stuck my hand
down there to get ahold of this back slack I had done for the to see
how much slack there was in there, because you didn't get too much on
your hand lever.
Roland or they called him Buck Billin, he had worked on it and ....
would get in there and I reached down like this, Buck hit them air
brakes and I just happened I just lost the tip of my finger like
that.
my finger on it.
off three times after that. And that was ah, that was the day when I
shouldn't have been there.
vacation

I reached down there and I got by that slot and it was I cut
But they cut it

And ah, Buck Billin, I guess his name is Roland,

That was the day I was suppose to go on

I just lost just the tip of it.

Oh gosh.

Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 22

Heinz:

and they talked me into coming in that Saturday to ah, get out some
work.

IB:

Did the Reo, the company, pay for that when you had to go to the
hospital?

Heinz:

I got workman's

Compo

IB:

Workman's

Comp.

Heinz:

I got Workman's
back that to have my finger back.

Compo out of it, I got $1900 for it.

I give them

IB:

No right.

Wife:

They didn't pad the end of it like they should and they had to cut it
off.
time you touch a thing he just about

It just the leaders was standing out there you know, and every

IB:

Oh my.

Heinz:

Dr. DeVries is the one that done it.

Wife:

So they had to cut it off a little bit more to bad it.

Heinz:

Dr. DeVries done it and that day he was drunk that he couldn't stand
up hardly the first time.

IB:

Oh really?

Heinz:

He was a golfer, he was the shop doctor.
they hired me.

He is ..... that's when

IB:

He did the physicals?

Heinz:

Yeah.

IB:

And did he have an office downtown in Lansing or at the shop?

Heinz:

Yeah, he had an office, he had, Erma Papin was his nurse at the shop.
She done ah, sugar tests and all this down there, but you had to go
down there, he is on the corner of ah, Capitol, I think it is Capitol
and Kalamazoo

or somewhere down there.

IB:

Ah huh.

Heinz:

Down in there where his office was at that time.
used to give all the Capital City Airport pilots their examination
too.

He is the one that

•

•

•

•

Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 23

IB:

And he was not ah ,

Heinz:

He was a

IB:

IA:

IB:

trustworthy a word I'm looking here for.

Reliable.

Reliable, thank you.

Heinz:

He was a doctor, he was a doctor.

IB:

He was a doctor, but he wasn't apparently very good.

•

Heinz:

But ah, if you wanted to get in, I went down to Reo for examination,
they send me down there to him and I walked in there and he checked
me for hernia and I was breathing and he says you are hired.

IB:

That was your physical to get hired into the Reo in 1951.
wasn't very thorough.

So it

Heinz:

I've had a broken back and he never checked it. My back has been
broke and I worked there all these years with a broken back, it is
still broke.

I got a vertebrae that's looks like that.

IB:

And he, and you had that when you went for your physical and he never
even checked.

Heinz:

If I'd have been smart, I'd
that hurt their back.
for work, a bad back.

and a couple of other guys
One guy, Walt Rena, he got $60,000 out of Reo

IB:

Because it was an injury related to the job?

Heinz:

Yeah, well they found out that after anyway he had ...

IB:

Before he left so

Heinz:

And the other guy got $30,000 for the same reason.
that cut my finger off, he twisted his ankle.
I just found out here
a few years ago that he got, I guess, $25,000 for hurting his ankle.
And I never even remember him hurting his ankle, but it is just that
you got to be greedy, I mean it is greed, greed.

And this .....

IB:

How did they decide that your finger was worth $1900, was that just
to pay your doctor bills on it or

•

Heinz:

No that's what Workman's Compo they paid all the bills.

IB:

I see. You didn't receive anything in cash for your pain or

Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 24

Heinz:

Comp., I never missed a
No, I got a check every week for Workman's
days work and the guys get mad at me because the boss would give me
two checks, one for my finger and one for

IA:

Oh you kept working while it was healing.

Heinz:

I never missed a day for it.

IB:

How did you keep grease and things out of that injury?

Heinz:

Oh I don't know, Mrs. Backon up there she lifted .... charged
everything she wrote down, he would go over top of me
go up there three times a day and get it changed.

I'd

IB:

Up to first aid.

Heinz:

Yeah.

IB:

You mentioned you were on your way for a urn, vacation when this
happened.
working there?

How much vacation did the company give you when you were

Heinz:

Well I get you didn't get paid, I don't think at that time.

IB:

Unpaid vacation.

Heinz:

You'd get a couple weeks off.
here is a
statement that I was suppose to get $640 the last year I worked there
as a vacation bonus.

But talking about vacations,

IB:

Right.

Heinz:

Okay, if they paid me, they paid me something and left a balance of
$490.89.

Well about six weeks ago I got a check from Diamond Reo.

IB:

A few weeks ago.

Heinz:

Yeah.

IB:

This is what like 17 years later or something.

Heinz:

Yeah I got a check, I got a check and I got 18% of that, which was
took out
about round figures maybe a dollar????
27, 20 something $17, state income took out so much, FIC took out so
much and then they took out so much for urn, social security or
something which I never paid before in my life and when I got this
$490, what I got left of it was $60.

Federal government

IB:

Right and this is $490 in 1974 which is a lot more than now.

•

•

•

Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 25

1A:

That's what I was thinking, but they taxed you at today's rate. Even
though this was income'earned 17 years ago when the tax rate was
lower, that doesn't seem right.

1B:

No, it sure doesn't.

Heinz:

But now to get this money back, I got to go next year and file that
old term federal and state and I can get that money back but they
said

1B:

Oh you can declare it as a loss?

Heinz:

Oh you can get that back but I haven't got enough income.
get all that back except the FIC and the social security or
something.

See, I can

1B:

Oh I see.

Heinz:

I can get the income taxes back.

1B:

1A:

Yeah .

This is interesting.

Heinz:

But I got to wait another year to get that.

See.

1B:

That's interesting, I've never seen anything like this before.
was from the bankruptcy hearings. Um, do you want to show

That

Heinz:

Well
guess.

1 don't know, this is this is everything that

I

1B:

Gerald Ford.

Heinz:

Well I had to send in my marriage license, that's what that was for
to get, here is the letter that this is what Ford got for us.
this guaranteed pension benefit guarantee and until we got our
pension.
I didn't get, I lost two years, I lost out two years on
that, but (shuffling papers) I get $135 a month now on that. And
then I got it fixed so if I pass on, why she can get the fullness, I
could have got more, by taking just for me.

He got

1A:

Right, we've heard about that. That's right. You made a special
deal of something.

Heinz:

Yeah .

IA:

We know of some people who've done that.

•

•

•

Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 26

Heinz:

But I had to send in our marriage
sure that

license and all that stuff to make

IA:

IB:

IA:

Heinz:

IA:

IB:

IA:

Heinz:

IB:

Heinz:

Everything was, alll.he records were true.

Yes.

Pension Benefit Guarantee
interviewed
the time you got something
that he would be getting a small about, $70 or something.

Somebody we
recently had just gotten a letter it must be maybe about
remember he had said that the letter said

Corporation

Washington,

D.C.

......................................... This was one of my more or
Well you see how many for 40 hour check how
less my last paychecks.
many hours how much I made for 40 hours.

People makes now days in one day.

Isn't that incredible.

Well I put three down at the credit union, but this is what I
brought,
union.

got I brought home $182 and I had put in credit

I

Will this be running out at some point, this pension benefit
guarantee?
they've got everything
wonder

Ah, are they going to come to a certain point where

settled and they are going to dissolve or I

No this is a government
That is a government

operated.

agency, Olds and all of em has pay into that.

IB:

Oh that's right so it will continue.

Heinz:

When Cappaert took off, when he went bankrupt
$6 million of our pension fund.

in that place, he took

IB:

Right.

Heinz:

And ah, I hear they finally caught up with him and he they made him
pay that $6 million

into this pension fund.

IB:

Yeah, I see and that's where this money is coming from.

Heinz:

Yeah, this is our pension

IB:

Him having to pay it back.

•

~

~

• Herbert Heinz

3-16-93
Page 27

Heinz:

But I had 25, I had lacking from October to November the 6, of having
exactly 25 years in there. And Cappaert never paid no ah, pension
... for four years from when he was there. So they cut they went at
it and cut me back to 20 years pension.
much pension as I should of get. But they ah, I heard something
about ah, this year,
know

making them take up for it...

So that's why I don't get as

or not but

I don't

IB:

I guess that was my question when this corporation, this Pension
Benefit Guarantee Corporation, when they feel that they have given
out all the money fairly to all the people who lost, then will they
close the case on Reo or I guess that's what I'm wondering.

Heinz:

I guess any company, anybody gets it, it is a government, it is the
same as

IB:

So it won't be closed.

Heinz:

Something like Social Security.

IB:

For other places, but

•

Heinz:

.. all get it, you'll get it as long as you live.

IB:

I see.

Heinz: And other than that, I guess you didn't

as long as you are

available, but ah,

IB:

Um, I have a couple of other, they are a little off the topic for
questions. First we've heard from a lot of workers in the plant urn,
that the company had to shut down because of hunting season.

Heinz: No.

IB:

No.

Heinz: No.

IB:

Or let me put it another way.
season.

They had to let people go for hunting

Heinz:

They let people go for hunting season.

IB:

Okay right.

Heinz: The

• IB:

They couldn't hold it against them because so many people in the
plant went, you know, whether they wanted to or not.

-~----~--~~~~~~~--------------------------------------.

Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 28

Heinz:

Most of em, most of em took their vacation,

IB:

During hunting season.

Heinz:

their regular vacation at that time.

IB:

Right.

Heinz:

And it did make it kind of rough at times when you take

IB:

So many of them take off

Heinz:

IB:

Heinz:

but they never shut the plant down for hunting,
I I
Maybe
don't hunt, I never missed a day of work on hunting
the first day of pheasant season there wouldn't be too many people
there on the line, they wouldn't make production

I know because
season.

that day but,

the foremen would say we don't want you to go, we need

We've heard that from people that used to go hunting
supervisors,
you on the line.
would go anyway, they knew they wouldn't
was so many people that used to do that.
everybody who did it.

But it didn't make any difference,
get fired.

They couldn't

and the

because
Because
fire

they
there

line.

moved.
on the line

The put me in, the last time I worked

Well they used to stick me once and a while on the assembly
Well I can't work assembly line. ~ But assembly line I'd stand still,
I stand here to go to work on something ah, the building
The
building moved.
they put me and a guy by the name Walker from St. Johns on a line
season
doing one man's job that wasn't on, maybe it was a hunting
day, I don't know.
on middle
They put two of us on the line putting
... fenders and there was three bolts in the front and four in the
back and a wire that runs through it.
that, they run two militaries
do that one man's job.
side and ah, that night, that night ah, I went back to order and
turned in my time and I walked to my boss and he says I says to him I
just walked up to him, I says you ever put me on that line again that
will be the last day I'll work I'll turnaround
the supervisor
in on the line, I'd have wanted the motor plant line, on the motor
line.
I will never, you will never have me worry about me working

And
stood right there, so I said if I had wanted to hired

And two of us couldn't keep up
Two of us couldn't
do one

and one commercial.
He was doing both sides.

And if you ever put me there again,

So I can't work on lines.

and punch out.

We couldn't

there.

IB:

What was his response?

Heinz:

Huh?

IB:

What did he say to you?

•

•

•

•

•

•

Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 29

Heinz:

He looked at me kind of screwy and I says that is no kidding.
him that I'm not, I said I mean it and I says there will be no more
of that for me.

And I never worked on the line from that day on.

I told

IB:

It sounds like you were valuable in the wiring, what you were doing,
they really wanted you there, so they weren't going to ...round and

Heinz:

I was not only valuable in wiring, I was valuable in any job that
they put me on.

But I used to

Wife:

If it took him all day he did it right.

Heinz:

The ah,

Wife:

The job was right done.

Heinz:

I done it right, I done it right and I made every move count.
ah

I had

Wife:

You are still that way.

Heinz:

They had ah , they had time study on the guy that ... went in there
and put on flood turn signals. He had to put a handle, a switch
handle on the handle and wire it down to and drill holes in the
fender, make your little harness and run your lights up and make them
work.
front and rear, I remember it time studied out to be about seven ..
to the day, about seven hours and maybe 30 minutes, 7 hours and a
half.
and he put
down he'd put that down as day rate.

It was time studied out so if you put on one front and one

And my boss used to make my time slips allover

That's what I was doing.

IB:

Ah huh so one a day.

Heinz:

And you got too much work on there.

The timekeeper come to me and says if I

So I was trying maybe six and seven jobs a day and he was making my
time over and giving me one front, one front and rear and half hour,
................ I was making all $14 a day. And ah, they ah, they
screwed up one day somehow.
can ... slip, he says they got you down you got charged enough for
$19.
time slips and I flipped them over like that and everyone
was in the same handwriting.
had the same identical time slips as I had.
jobs a day and I ... turned in two, but I was going to tell you.
This .~. job of putting these front turn signals on I put a good many
of them on in 30 minutes, 30 minutes flat. And this other guy that
was done it before me was getting 3 and half, four hours.

And they was Rowan Bellum, another guy
Because I turned in six

I said let me see them

of them

IB:

So I bet you probably wished you were on piece rate instead, huh.

Heinz:

They wouldn't give me piece rate.

Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 30

IA:

Did anybody work on piece rate, any

Heinz: They...

they did, they did on the assembly line for a while, but.I

never worked on piece work.

IB:

On hourly.

Heinz: Hourly all the time.

IB:

Yeah.

Heinz: And I got up, I think it was $5 and a nickel an hour the last day I

worked there.

IB:

Oh that's what you were making, I was going to ask you if you
remembered what you were making on your

Heinz:

I just showed her that check stub here for, .. the last, ... see it
or not, I have the check here.

IA:

It is right here.

Heinz: That is a 40 hour paycheck.

IB:

So don't make very much.

Heinz: The June the 15th.

IB:

Oh this is your net pay for the week?

Heinz: Well they took $30 out for the credit union.

Wife:

That's what he draw, what he brought home.

IB:

Oh after they'd taken out the deductions in your credit union.

Heinz: Yeah. Then I got $183 I think.

IB:

Yeah, $230, $280. But you could buy more with $153 take home pay in
1974.

Wife:

Back then you could. Now you can't.

Heinz:

three piece .... $10 bill I couldn't carry them out and ....

IB:

IA:

And this I noticed is

Even I remember that..

Heinz:

..... one paper sack and that's when they had .....

•

•

•

•

Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 31

IB:

in other words, if you were ill and you couldn't

get to

it says absent call number

I notice here on your pay statement
4852249,
work, you had to call in this number.
your pay stub.

But they print it right on

Heinz:

... call that in or they would make the devil with you.

IB:

Yeah, but it is right on your pay stub, so you don't forget.
that's interesting.
and I
were talking about something about heat treat and fabrication
jotted that down I thought I'd ask you later what you were, what you
meant by that.

urn, before we started taping, you

You mentioned,

See

Heinz: 'Well I can't tell you the names of these foremen, but some of these

come in from other companies.

are stolen from Diamond T or Diamond
And

foremen that
Reo, White or some other
they had to all set up, I don't know why they done it, but they
talked somebody in to taking it out of the shop, they took the old
... right out of the shop and put it somewheres
and then they charged the company back and they still worked over
there on superv~s~on
think of the guy's name that took this fabrication
Grand Ledge, the Willan Shop made these gas tank brackets
fabricated
started truck and trailer but he come in there one day and I showed
him .....

or in the front office and ah, I can almost

But then ah, I can't think of who

gas tank brackets.

out to

else and they run it

and stuff,

IB:

D K. was it D K Truck

Heinz:

D & K Truck was one of our dealers.

IB:

Oh that's right, yeah, I'm getting confused here.

Heinz:

I engineered

But, this truck and trailer guy went

took it out and when the

in the shop there
so he took this

got abandoned to where they put them out on the line but

But ah, truck and trailer was the guy that worked
he was one of the guys from Diamond T or someplace,
they broke up special equipment
turntables
ah,
that when I was first come out.
out on his own and tried to sell them, he took a truck out of here
and take it over to his place and put a fifth wheel on and bring it
back and our inspector wouldn't
they went at
it and ... the holes out and this and that so the guy come back from
.... and had me show him how to put a fifth wheel on.
show him how.
and trailer took that off, but that spin off ah, ..chrome, I think
chrome plating,
plate the exhaust pipes and ah, chrome and door handles
panels and all that.
chrome it all right there in the Reo.

Well, that's the last one I had to show.

That was taken out of there.

some chrome plating company

I told him I'd
That truck

in Lansing used to chrome

all that stuff like

They used the

and grab

because

•

•

Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 32

IB:

Oh I see. So these all were spin offs that started new companies.

Heinz: Yeah.

IB:

Where someone from within the company would take this out, start
their own business somewhere.

Heinz:

Start their own business out there and still work

IB:

Isn't that a little illegal?

Heinz: And turn it around they turned around and sold it back to Reo.

IB:

Wow.

Heinz: They sold this all back to Reo.

IB:

This was all in say the latter days, say the last two or three years
of the

Heinz:

That was all in say from I don't know that would be '60, it might be
maybe '68, '69, '70.

IB:

Within the last four or,five years to speak.

Heinz: Yeah.

IB:

Okay.

Heinz:

That was all spun off. That was, we didn't do no more, see. Heat
treat, oh I think the Lansing Heat Treat and carpet trailer and I
can't think of the fabricator company in Grand Ledge, ah, Chrome
Plating, Chrome Plating, that went out and I've seen them, I've been
over there as I say I knew the whole ....

IB:

Operation, yeah.

Heinz:

I knew who the shooting gallery was up there, they had a shooting
gallery up there .... We'd just go up there and shoot rifles.

IB:

Oh really? Where was that?

Heinz: Right up on the third floor, above the offices.

IB:

Oh in the Administration Building?

Heinz: Yeah.

IB:

There was a shooting gallery.

•

•

•

• Herbert Heinz

3-16-93
Page 33

Heinz: Yeah, back behind there, there was a shooting gallery there.

IB:

For everybody? For everybody who wanted to?

Heinz:

Supervision more or less.

IA:

Certain ones probably.

Heinz:

They had a big thick concrete wall up there and it was just ...

IA:

I would hope so.

Heinz:

They had a shooting gallery in it. I used to have I used to have all
That was
kind of things, the clubhouse should never been tore down.
a good building and that was not actually was not Reo, that belonged
to the Reo employees. The Reo clubhouse they used to have that back
years ago, they had ah, you worked there they had movies, they had
dances, stuff like this for the working people's kids.

Side B

• Heinz:

IB:

Now that was spotless .

It was spotless.

Heinz: Yup.

Old Jim ...·~Webberville.

IB:

Yes, we talked to him a couple of weeks ago and we are going to go
back this spring. He has a lot of things to show us that are in his
garage that he said come back in the spring.

Heinz:

I would have got more, I got a banner I don't know if she's got it
somewhere, I got a big banner that she bought ata
old Diamond Reo banner.

garage sale a big

IB:

Oh really. From him?

Heinz:

Beautiful garage sale ....

IA:

IB:

Heinz:

• IB:

Oh some other garage sale.

Did you use to go to the clubhouse a lot yourself with your family?

Not too much. We used to have our meetings there and I used to
belong to this we had a little stores in the shop that was ah Reo
Benefit Association.
Wilky was the president and I wound up as vice president.

I rolled up there I rolled up there when Benny

And ah,

You were the vice president of the Benefit Association?

Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 34

Heinz:

Yeah, Benny Wilkins
divided up the money and stuff when they went down.

..... he was the one that Reo one that ah,

IB:

That was already in the Benefit Association
contributed

to it.

to the employees

who had

Heinz:

Yeah.

Just like this thing here up here, see

check and ah,

Wife:

He had a lot of them, I can't remember he sell them a dollar a piece
or something

like that.

•

Heinz:

It went to Reo Benefit.
suppose to be making money but they were guys in there (mass talking)
.......

Well he had these stores in there they was

and cigars and cigarettes.

IB:

Oh so they were like canteens.

Heinz:

Like canteens.

IB:

Where they would sell things and the profits would go to the Benefit
Association.

It was suppose to go into Benefit, but a lot of people •

it.

Heinz:

Yeah, yeah.

IB:

They pocketed

Heinz:

talked me

This money

And they got down when

Well ah, we used to have, I don't know, I

like that,
the Reo Benefit
That was for once a year and give you

And ah, but this Reo taken out money every week out of your

the first 20 bucks and that's why, somebody

We he was off work, he was sick or something

They pocketed
into getting into it.
think they had $60,000 in there at one time.
I went in there, I think it was down to $10,000.
vanished.
they would pay us, if he was off a week or two weeks,
would give you the family $75.
$75.
pay, and this went from I don't now how much it was, it was an
enormous
there, when I got in there I was their vice president
year and a half before
pretty near $20,000.
dinner with the rest of them, I ate dinner with all of them.
here, I was there and I worked
on.
$50 in it,
$30, see.
and about $40 bucks a day that was ....

amount of money, it went down to nothing.

for about a
it went down and I think we got it back to

That was done about every store had, we had four stores

I could tell, I could tell the pot of money over here that had

By me being there, this old boy didn't eat

when the guy checked it out, he put down

in the store and I knew what was going

And I got in

But I was

I was

IB:

So you had the meetings
clubhouse?

for this benefit association

over at the

•

• Herbert Heinz

3-16-93
Page 35

Heinz: Yeah, we had it at the clubhouse. We had an office in the bottom of

the clubhouse one time.

Oh you did.

Did you go down to the clubhouse?

IA:

IB:

Wife:

I was in there one time.

IB:

Once for a dance or a Christmas party or something?

Wife:

No just

Heinz: We went down there for our meeting

.

Wife:

He'd go to the meetings they had.

IB:

Yeah.

Heinz: Why they wanted me in there for vice president. They wanted me to be

If I had been president of it I .. cut that much at

president.
first, I was going ito be vice president see get my foot in the door,
then I would have been president but the place went down, but if
they'd had been, if I had got in there 10 years earlier, we probably
would have had $100,000 in there, but that went down to practically
nothing.
credit union which I belong to.

Because people, here is a little antique that is Reo ..

•

IB:

IA:

Oh where was that located the credit union too.

Huh, I didn't know that where was that located?

Heinz:

That was right in the Reo itself.

IA:

In the building itself.

Heinz:

It

when they started it, then

IA:

Oh and this shows the family and even the dog I think under an
umbrella of the Reo umbrella, interesting. Never seen one of those.

Heinz:

They went from that to ah, "those are nail clippers that's what they
are. And then they went form

Wife:

They had something else too that day, didn't they?

• Heinz:

I don't know what it was, but they turned .. Reo and they took that
over, they got ..... Then they incorporated with a co-op over on
Logan and south down in that Logan.

Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 36

IB:

What was that?

Heinz:

Co-op credit union ... to co-op credit union. And then now we are in
Autobody.

Now the co-op went in to autobody.

IB:

So now you are in Autobody Credit Union.

Heinz: Reo Autobody Credit Union now, but had a little thing, .. on the

package.

IB:

Yeah, so that really, and some day that will be worth something.
I wanted to go back a few years and um, did anybody in your family
ever work for Reo or uncles or

brothers

Urn,

Heinz: My brother was working at Reo when I got a job there, but ah, he
worked at Fisher Body was it two years or five years and then he
worked at Reo for a couple years and a little while after I got to
work there. he got mad and ah. quit and went back to Fisher.
worked upstairs for .. Nelson Lumber building military hoods.
built military hoods and took them up for the trucks. that's all he
done up there.

He

But he

IA:

IB:

Why did he get mad?

Yeah, I was going to ask that too.

Heinz: He didn't like the Reo.

IA:

IB:

Heinz:

He didn't like Reo.

Didn't like the way things were run or

Didn't like the way it was run, I guess, and they didn't like the
boss.
get some worked ahead and then service them

And he worked piece work and ah, he'd bunch them up and he'd
stockpiled and

IB:

Oh so he wouldn't make as much then.

Heinz: He didn't get paid for them, see, so

IB:

And no one would change that system.

Heinz: Yeah.

IB:

IA:

It kept, so that made him angry.

Did you originally apply there because your brother was there?

Heinz: No, no, a guy by the name of Guy Blanchard and I talked to Guy

Blanchard about having this meeting with you people and he says I

•

•

•

• Herbert Heinz

3-16-93
Page 37

Go up to Reo and

But he worked down the line. He used to live right down

don't want them over there, he says I was going to bring them over
there and tell them where you live and I said I won't tell them a
damn thing.
the road here and I've known him since I was about knee high and he
went to work here in February, and I guess they asked him if he knew
anybody that needed a job that was reliable and all this and that and
he used to stop here about once every week or two.
put in an application and get a job up there and go to work.
I was
out here jumping cars which I've done most of my life and repairing
cars and hauling junk and all that. The day I hired in to Reo, I had
an old '37 Ford and I still got the trailer around here and I had
them put some old greasy Ford motors, I had to .. I guess for a week
and a half, I hadn't changed my clothes I guess in a week and a half.
And my hand was as black as your sweater and my face was pretty near
as black.
I went to Berkhandlers Freelands or somewheres in Lansing
and dumped these motors and on the way back, I says just for the hell
of it, I'm going to stop at Reo and put in an application.
And I was
That's when I walked in there and put my
actually ashamed of myself.
name and address on this ..... and ah, oh I said hell I don't want
work in this greasy old place and here I was wishing everybody was
there and 50 people in this Baker Street lobby and old Jerry Burns
before I got from this corner over to this corner like this, four
other people, Jerry Burns called my name and called me ... oh my god,
look at me and

•

IB:

That's probably why they picked you.
something about

They probably figured you knew

Heinz:

When I come out of that room
because
clothes to home or not until I, he said you get back here at 1:00 for
an interview or examination.
So I stopped at the store and bought me
a clean pair of shirt and pants and come home and shaved, washed my
hands and I went back up there.

I said god, I didn't know that I had any clean

interview with him, about

'

.

Wife:

We was doing our laundry by the washtubs then.

Heinz:

God, and

and I

Wife:

That's when we first got married.

IB:

Ah huh, and were you in this house then or were you in a different

Wife:

We were building this.

IB:

• Heinz:

You were building it and you had to wash your laundry in the old
washtub ....

We lived in this house four years without any electricity.
even put electricity in

We didn't

Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 38

Wife:

He helped wire it. We had

Heinz:

I did all the wiring and all the .... and all the layout and

IB:

Wow and that was you were married what in the late '40's?

Wife:

'42, '46 we got married.

Heinz:

Yeah.

IB:

So from '46 to the early '50's, there wasn't any electricity here?

Heinz:

Well there was, there was a line down through here.

IB:

But not to the houses.

Heinz:

But after the war there wasn't enough transformers or wire or
something.

IA:

Oh yeah.

Heinz:

And they had a line down through here, but ah, they put the line
through here in the fall of '40 and in the '40's I think.

IA:

Before the war started?

Heinz:

IA:

IB:

IA:

But ah, just before the war, but then they didn't have any, any other
it was ... through here and ..... then a guy come down from Lansing
and Mason and Consumers Power I think it was, some appliance,
electric stove and a refrigerator and all this and that and .. stand
there and tell me all this stuff, you know, and I said boy you had a
good product here
make juice down from that line over here ... installed ..... he
looked at me and

but I says I don't know how I'm going to

.

Well it gave him practice with his

lingo.

(laughter)

Pitch.

His pitch, yeah.

Heinz: We had an old potbellied stove in the front room.

Wife:

We built the house

.

Heinz: A wood and coal cookstove.

IB:

You did a good job.

Wife:

Added on to it.

•

•

•

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---

• Herbert Heinz

3-16-93
Page 39

Heinz:

Two or three

IB:

money do a little more.

Wife:

Ah huh.

IA:

IB:

Yeah.

Kerosene lamps, you had to clean lamps and everything.

Oh my gosh.

Wife:

I got pictures of it when we had just, when we first had it, it was

Heinz:

Was old cement block.

Wife:

Cement block, you couldn't get the cinder, we wanted the cinder
block, we couldn't get cinder block back then. We got the ah, cement
We still got some of the wall in here.
block.

It was a block house.

Heinz:

I built, I built this one out here

Wife:

• Heinz:

We .. as we could, you know. Took the block out and

washroom and this was the third kitchen I've built in

this house.
garage out here and then I had to build a breezeway from the garage.

I built this ... for a washroom, then I had to build a

it's been, been rough, been a rough life, but we made it this .far

and I've had open-heart

Wife:

Raised four kids here.

Heinz:

I had open-heart surgery, just had carotid operation here about six
weeks ago,

IB:

Oh I see that.

Heinz:

hemorrhoids, and gallbladder.

Wife:

Two girls and two boys.

IB:

You were able to, I mean it was hard going but you were able to
support them and raise them and everything working all the time at
the Reo.

Heinz:

She's never worked.

Wife:

Our ah,

•

Heinz:

After our first kid well she had never worked.

Wife:

I worked for a year before we had our first child at Fisher Body.

Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 40

IB:

IA:

Wife:

Heinz:

IB:

IA:

Wife:

Oh you did?

Oh you did, what did you do there?

On the line.
line.

He said he couldn't work the line, I worked a moving

.... worked at Fisher Body six weeks and I couldn't take it, that
darn line

be able to keep moving

.

I think I'd be like that too.

What did you do at Fisher Body?

What were you making?

I ah, put on, we worked on the convertibles.
cylinders in, cylinders that raised up the top.

And we had to put the

IB:

Oh ah huh.

Wife:

And we had to put rubber, rubbers underneath
cut them, rubber strips this wide.
side and one on the other side.
And I put the cylinders
side.

the windows.
There is two girls one one one
I did one side and she did one side .

We had to

in for one side and she put them in on one

Heinz:

At that time they used hydraulic

Wife:

But the line was moving all that time.
rubber things in there, push them in there, they had to be cut so
long and then I had to put the strips on the doors.

And you had to put those

Heinz:

Door seals.

Wife:

That door seal.

IA:

Keep the moisture out.

Wife:

IB:

Ah huh.

You punch a hole in there and put a screw on top of that.

And you did it while the thing is going on.

Wife:

And it was moving.

IB:

You don't dare let one go by without

Wife:

Un huh.

IB:

When was that, that was in the '40's?

Wife:

In '46, '47.

After the war.

•

•

•

•

Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 41

IB:

After the war already?

Wife:

'47.

IB:

'47, so .....

Heinz:

So it was after the war.

IB:

When did you folks get married?

Wife:

'46.

IB:

But then after that you didn't have to go back into the shop at all.

Wife:

No he says no.

Your job is at home now, so

IB:

You had a lot to do with four kids.

Wife:

I didn't work after that.

I stayed home.

Heinz:• Wife:

Heinz:

why don't we

had two right along the first and then we had

six years between one and seven years between the other .

One and seven between the next one.

Our youngest one is out there in the garage, he is 29 years old.

IB:

And he likes mechanics.

Wife:

So I said we could wait another eight years for the next one if we
space them out like that I'll be too old.

(laughter)

Wife:

Not have any more.

IS:

Has either one of your two boys ever worked in the shops were they,
because of your experience in shop?

Heinz:

No, my boys, I couldn't, I tried to get my oldest boy in at the Reo
and they wouldn't put him in because just before, just before that
ah, they had a CPA, MPC or whatever they want to call it, the
National Colored Peoples Association

IB:

Oh NAACP.

• Heinz:

We didn't have a, we didn't have enough colored people in the Reo, so
NPC made em made em hire some.
bused 50 colored people out of Jackson on a bus come in here every
morning 50 black ones come in every Monday, every day from Jackson.

Well, I don't know why, but they

Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 42

Everyone

of them that come in there worked a day or two and

Within a six weeks time, I don't think there was only two of them
left.
he hurt his back.
Compensation.
you didn't get into Reo.
couldn't get in to Re9.
Dr. DeVries wouldn't even put him in there.

Well my boy has got a bad back and he
I couldn't get him in there no way.

And after that, if you had the slightest back trouble,

of them went out on Workmen's

Everyone

Even

IB:

Do you remember when that happened with the NAACP?
when that was?

What year around

Heinz:

Ah, I don't know, it must have been in the '60's sometime.

IB:

Okay.

Heinz:

But back in ah, I bought a new '53 Chevy car in January of '53 and
that was a bad thing to do.

I bought it

Wife:

It was a lemon.

Heinz:

IA:

IB:

I would, they was that was

It was a lemon besides and I got laid off along in November some, I
got laid off seven times in two years.
But I
before, I think Henn, Rennie Ambulance Company bought us out.
would work two weeks and they laid me off for about two weeks.
Well
when I'd go back there they'd have a bunch of trucks sold ... nobody
else worked on and couldn't work on or didn't want to work on them,
they like special equipment stuff.
trucks all done and then they'd lay me off for a couple more weeks.
And I was
old Harry McDowell he is dead and gone now, but he
says, every time I look up, he was a painter, he says every time I
look up he says I either see you going that way or this way.

I'd work my butt off and get them

Interrupted

.

They weren't pacing the work very smart, were they?

Heinz:

I stuck with them.

IB:

Could you see that the end was coming the last couple years?

Heinz:

Yeah, I could see it was coming, we never got, we never got Cappaert
bringing or truckers bringing stuff in and loading it from this truck
on that truck and that truck going back out the door and we were
running ... engines I see that one day. We was running engines off
the or trucks off the line but no engines. We used to put in engines
I'd seen the engines come in
..... engines over there on
running empty.
on this truck and go on that one
seen him pick up this .. truck pick up this axle one day.
had to go to the war house for stock for something.

Like I
That went,

•

•

•

• Herbert Heinz

3-16-93
Page 43

IB:

That's what the reason was given?

Heinz:

I stood there talking, I stood in front of

I wasn't one bit afraid of him than I
I was standing there one day and he come up aside of

That's what he said.
Cappaert and
was the devil.
What
me and he said what are you doing?
are you standing there for?
I says he
told me to wait for that truck to get off the line and I was taking
.......... tractor deal
chain to them and pull them off
the line because they didn't have no motors in them. We'd pull them
off and I was doing ... for a while.
They put me on the line pulling
trucks off the line with no motors in em.

I says the boss told me to.

I says I'm standing here.

IB:

What happens to the trucks with no motors in. Where do they go after
you pull them off.

Heinz:

Just took them out in the lot.

IB:

Out on the lot.

• Heinz:

IA:

Just took them on the lot and they stay out there for three months
and when we get a motor for them. But, I got another, I got a ....
bankrupt. ... bankrupt court and I
But
here is what Lloyd Kemp, trustee got, got from that bankrupt company.

it is hard to read.

Lloyd Kemp, trustee got $181,000.

Heinz:

The company sold for $16 million.
million.

Cappaert bought it for $16

IB:

That's what he paid for it, $16 million.

Heinz:

That's what he paid for it.

IB:

Okay.

Heinz:

But now, there was even foremen's names in there where they got back
pay on it. And then after, they was supposed to burnt the papers
according to the ....

Wife:

Heinz:

There were reports on it.
. . the papers .

IB:

Did all the employees get one of these?

Heinz:

• IB:

No, I think ...........

Okay, I was just curious.

Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 44

Heinz:

But you look in there one place as a I don't know, I can read some of
them,
look at em. (shuffling papers)
is the guy that signed that check that I got.
check.

Kemp, he signed that

That's a Kemp, he

IA:

United States

Court for the Western District.

Heinz:

I didn't even get my

paper,

. (several talking)

IB:

Bankrupt

case number notice of filing of final count.

Heinz:

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

IB:

Final account of the trustee on this case has been filed.

Heinz:

Yeah, it ain't that hard to push in I guess.

But,

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

IB:

Wife:

IB:

Wife:

IB:

Well this is interesting.
receipts

of $56,130, or no that's not even right.

$56,139,296,000,

The accounts of the trustee show total

That's for the whole, including all the companies,
big list of companies

for the pension.

they have a whole

on hand is

is a summary of fee applications

Following
along with interim payments made to professionals
outstanding
claim or had

administrative

claims.

which have been filed

and other

So this is everybody

that had a

Heinz:

Everybody

that has had a claim on there is on there.

IB:

Oh look at all the attorneys.

Heinz:

That is fine print, I can hardly read it, but now you take the ....
Detroit Diesel and some there is more or less alphabetically
and you
can see where they got $6 million worth of bills they put in
there .... But the lawyers got it all.

IB:

Yeah.

Heinz:

We also had to pay ah, ah, some chemical company, used to come in and
get the paint sludge and stuff and took it down to Utica, down on
about 23 Mile Road, where my boy used to live and put it in a dump
and they turned around and charged the bankrupt

I think it

company,

•

•

•

••

Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 45

was $126 million to help clean up that dump. And when they put this
paint factory in up here, this ah,

IB:

O'Leary Paints.

Heinz:

O'Leary Paint.

IB:

On the Reo ground.

Heinz:

They charged I think charges us $60,000 to clean that .... up with
..... in there.

IB:

This is the workers money, but it should have been the company who
was paying for it.

Heinz:

IB:

... policy that did that.

Heinz:

• IB:

Heinz:

They hauled all this stuff down to Detroit and pack in the salt mine
down there .

Yeah.

But every truck had a guy had to stay there all covered up in a suit
and everything and wash the tires off when they come out of the ...
Why couldn't they have done it a lot different.
different thing than they could have done it. But look at me, I
worked there 25 years in that stuff, it didn't kill me.
didn't do me any good.
road with a halter hose washing his trucks off, all dressed up in a
monkey suit when he couldn't get nothing on him.

It probably
But here a guy standing out there beside the

I could do a lot

If that girl had

IB:

I notice that grass and wildflowers and things continued to grow on
the old Reo lot right where the motor company or motor department was
and all the rest of it.

Heinz:

I can tell you something else about where that motor plant was, where
them railroad tracks is, my mother used to ice skate on that in the
wintertime in that area.

IB:

Oh where the tracks went through between the buildings?

Heinz:

Yeah, between the two buildings.

• IB:

Heinz:

Oh is that right?

Yeah.

My mother used to chum around with Ransom Olds' daughter?

Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 46

IB:

Which one, Gladys or Bernice?

Heinz:

Gladys, I think it was.

IB:

Is that right?

Heinz: Yeah.

IB:

They went to school together?

Heinz: Yeah, I guess. When they built that Reo factory, when they built the
Reo factory out there, they had to cross that .... river, Grand River
whatever it is.

IB:

The Grand, it is the Red Cedar.

Heinz: They had to build a bridge out there.

IB:

Yeah, the Red Cedar.

Heinz: They had to built a bridge out there. My mother said they had to

build a bridge out there, so they could get out there to go to work.
But why did he build it out so far out of Lansing? Why did he build
so far out of town?

•

IB:

Oh isn't that funny.

Heinz: Yeah.

IB:

It is that time that was far out of town.

Heinz: Yeah, they had to build a bridge even to get to it.

IB:

Oh and that was country out there beyond the river.
amazing. Did your mother ever mention meeting R. E. Olds or what she
thought of Gladys?

Isn't that

Heinz:

.....................
saying.

-

. that's all I can remember her ever

IB:

She never mentioned about going to their house or

Heinz: No.

IB:

Okay.

Heinz: They tore their house down.

IB:

Yes they sure did.

•

• Herbert Heinz

3-16-93
Page 47

Heinz:

Courtney Smith, he was a foreman, ... for $2,400 and he got $400 out
of it. Ah, yeah, she ah, she used to ice skate down around that

IB:

There was a little pond there someplace where, on the grounds where
the Reo was later built.

Heinz:

Yeah, well the water
plant.
See that Reo
little building here
different buildings.

IA:

Different buildings,

would sit in there where they put that motor
was built in sections, just like you build a
and we had departments 26, department .....

Heinz:

was a big parking lot and ah, behind engineering

garage but it was built in sections more or less. When they got a
little bit bigger they used to build cars there and there was to be a
tramway over Cedar Street, over in the John Bean Building.

IA:

Oh that's right.

• Heinz:

Heinz:

IA:

Well I worked in John Bean Building for a while and they had this
tramway shut off .

What went across the tramway, what was it used for?

Well that was, they built the they built the bodies I think, they
built the bodies I'm not positive.
They built the bodies I think and
they just had a tramway through there and they pushed the bodies over
there and put them on the frames over here and then they come down
around and they had a ramp from the third floor that put them down on
the street.

One way or the other, I don'~know

which way.

IA:

They were started on one side and run across over the highway on this
overpass tramline and down to the site and finished and then run off
into a parking lot.

Heinz:

Yeah.

IA:

Oh okay.

Heinz:

... used to be that way.

IA:

I remember when they tore that down.

Heinz:

Well the first time I ever .... Reo, my dad went to town, I went to
town with my dad one time, and we took some potatoes and into ah a
friend of his that had a market down Cedar Street and it was out by
Saginaw, somewhere up in there. And had an old
'28 Chevrolet car
and the brakes .... we had about 25 bushels of potatoes on it. My
dad says turn off here and walk the side streets instead of going-up

•

Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 48

Cedar Street, because he ain't got no brakes.
we come to the back gate of Reo and a cop said what are doing down
here

back out of there.

First thing you know,

IB:

He said I'm here to deliver your potatoes.

Heinz:

When I first knew we were going to Lansing, Greenlawn was the city
limits.

IA:

Oh yeah.

Tha t 's where Ingham Medical is.

Heinz:

That was back in '29 about '29 or something like that.
We had to go to
School, it had TB going around there.

Dansville

IA:

Oh really?

Heinz:

We had to go clear up to Ingham Medical, call that TB Sanitarium
then.

We had to

IA:

Yes they did.

Heinz:

go up there and they put us on an old Model T bus and we had more
Model T Ford buses down there Dansville, we had to go clear up there.
It took us all day to go up there, gravel road, but Cedar Street was
gravel.

•

IA:

Oh it was.

Heinz:

But it took us all day to go up there and ..... they put

We went up to ah, I mean just this side of Jolly Road and it was
pavement.
about 15 kids on this bus, this little old Ford bus, we sat there
with our knees in our lap together same way facing each other, but we
go up there and give us TB tests.
old.

So I am a young duffer yet, I'm only 70 years old.

I was only about, I was six years

IB:

Usually we wait until people tell us, we don't ask.

Heinz:

Yeah, well I had a lot of people tell me you don't look that old.

IA:

IB:

IA:

IB:

No you don't.

You really don't, you really don't.
the other day and I could have sworn she was 64.

We talked to somebody who was 84

Oh I know it was amaz ing.

Sixty-four it was amazing.

Wife:

People are living longer now days.

•

• Herbert Heinz

3-16-93
Page 49

IB:

Yeah, yeah, they are.

Heinz:

They've got companies in here that put in for claims that I never
heard of.

IB:

Oh really?

Heinz:

Yeah, I never heard of.

IB:

Anybody that thought they had a claim in any way, shape or form, with
Reo applied.

Heinz:

Yeah, they got a company, they

Wife:

Get what they could out of it.

IB:

after they went bankrupt.

Heinz:

• IB:

IB:

Wife:

Some California bank, engine company, engine company to engine
company, one man $430,824.46.

That's one man.

That they put in for.

It makes you wonder what they based that on.

Yeah.

What did they do that

Heinz:

company's engine that he brought in the trip back out. We never

had any.

Wife:

Didn't get paid for.

Heinz:

•

There

When he got them in to

He stripped enough of these other companies.
.
these little warehouses, somebody stoled them
or something.
somebody stoled them from Reo or didn't get
was a lot of there was a lot of double billing.
You take, they was
guys in the shop, Herzog was a guy by the name of Herzog was one of
them. They would take a PO, a purchase order and some guy in
California would order a truck and they would build this truck. Well
they take the same PO and they would change the name and address and
somebody in maybe New York City, New York and they would run this
truck through again the way way, double bill em.
with that after a while, because somebody wrecked a truck and he
wanted some parts for this truck and they had missed something that
sold it, the guy from the other
that somebody in the shop was double billing these trucks.
billing them twice.
.... here and pocketing the money and this guy out here that was
legitimate over here see, that went into the company.
Loudenslager, he is dead and gone,

They were
This inner circle inside of the front office was

got it and come to find out

They got caught up

Where Clare

Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 50

IB:

Is he?

Heinz:

he used to get on CATA.
Well Clare Loudenslager when I went to work here had one secretary
and in about a year's time he had seven secretaries
Loudenslager stoled more out of Reo that it was worth probably, he
built I think seven cottages at Houghton Lake with Reo carpenters.

He is the one that put CATA bus in service.

Clare

IA:

We've heard this from somebody else.

Heinz:

Reo electricians.

IA:

IB:

Heinz:

Yeah.

They would go up there and work on it?

They'd punch in on a Saturday morning and he'd haul them up there and
they'd work all weekend and they were post in and out and they were
getting time and a half or double time on weekends building these
houses in Houghton Lake and or cottages whatever they was.
lumber was coming in

The

IB:

Packing cases lumber or something.

Heinz:

The lumber was loaded on Reo trucks and hauled there and billed to
Reo.· He also had this pallet factory over on over by the Paul Revere
Bar or someplace back in there.

IA:

Oh sure.

Heinz:

He was having lumber come in there to billed to Reo and load on the
trucks and take it over to this company and pallets made and he was
charged the company was buying pallets made by Loudenslager back into
the shop.

IB:

Unbelievable.

•

•

Heinz:

But Clare Loudenslager as crooked as he was, when he was there that
company made money.
or one company come in there, they fired him and they and we went
down, we went way down.
Clare back ...
was making.

back up, but he still was stealing just as much as he

And when Diamond T come in there, I think it was

They had to hire the guy back.

They hired

IB:

That's incredible.

What a movie that would make.

Heinz:

He went at it. He had a steel ..... he had an Eaton Stamping Company
just in Eaton Rapids or Diamondale or something like that, he was a
company, he had over there in Eaton Rapids.

•

•

Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 51

IA:

It is Eaton Rapids.

Yeah.

Heinz:

But ah, then after they fired him the second time,

Stamping Company.
he went down to CATA Bus Company and when Reo went down, half of Reo
I could have gone in, I could have gone in to Clare's circle, what I
But I wasn't, I'm not that greedy.
call his circle.
I'm no damn crook.
spoke and the wheel, I guess.

He even asked me to come in with him to take the

I'm not that,

IS:

To work for him at CATA.

Heinz:

No to work for him at Reo.

IS:

Oh.

Heinz:

See.

IS:

So you'd be wiring something he'd be stealing.

I'd probably be loading lumber or guiding truck or going here or
there or ....

He had his own

in his cottages or something.

Heinz:

• IS:

Heinz:

IA:

Isn't that incredible.

Heinz:

He ah, he ah, I knew too

I wouldn't work for Clare Loudenslager.
much, I knew too much for my own good actually, but I didn't want to
go, one of my reasons, one of my reasons is being straight more or
less is this, when I quit school, Sherman Briggs down there told me
he says, I'll give you a year and you will be in jail.
never had a pair of handcuffs on me or been in a jail any more than I
had to work in to see somebody.
near that I have

But that's been 50, 60 years pretty

Well I've

IA:

You didn't want to, so you didn't want to compromise yourself.

Heinz:

I never been arrested and I never had nothing but two speeding
tickets in my life.
Shirl Braze is alive, he is still alive, (laughter)

And that is one of the reason why, as long as

IA:

You got to shoe him, right?

IB:•

Heinz:

It is kind of a good thing he said that.

.... Dansville School, he is down there yet.
my hoy was down there getting his hair cut and he sitting there in
the barbershop waiting to get his hair cut my boy was talking to the

What tickled me one day

Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 52

He says his name wouldn't

and Shirl spoke up and he says

woman, she was a niece by marriage,
say, you talk just like a guy that used to go to school.
have my class in school.
And he says yeah, he says that's my dad.
says, you know, he says he is one of the smartest damn figurers,
could figure out he was smarter than the teachers I had in school in
figures.
could on the computer at that time.
do on a computer.
that
school.

I can't do it now, I can't even
like
one in

In fact, when I quit school he talked to me for two hours

And he says to my boy, he
he

I could figure out anything, pretty near as fast as you

At that time, you could rattle off something

And he said I was the smartest

be Heinz was it.

the answer.

I used to

IB:

IA:

Try to keep you in.

Try to keep you in school, but you were bored with it it sounds like.

Heinz:

I went to school two years with my sister when I was three years old.
I had enough schooling.
in to

He tried to talk me 'in, he tried to talk me

Wife:

I think him going so young discouraged him to go on, you know, those
12 years.

Heinz:

Well I learned, I learned, I learned that you could be surprised
three year old could learn.

a

Wife:

He had to go with his sister.

IB:

No, I'm not surprised.

Wife:

She had to walk to school by herself, her mother wouldn't
by herself.

let her go

Heinz:

But we

Wife:

And would make him go with her.

Heinz:

We was there at

We walked a mile and a half or two miles one way.
9:00 and stayed until 4:00, but ah, what was I going to say now.
anyway, ah, when I quit school, Shirl Briggs talked to me for about
two hours and he says to get, a one teacher, I couldn't
with this one teacher, I couldn't stand her, she was single and she
was, she wouldn't
help me.
she is in the 10th grade and 11th grade, says you drop out of the
10th grade today and go into the 12 grade.
take 12th grade subjects and next year come back and take 11th grade.
I says yeah, I guarantee you she wouldn't be here when you come back
from the 10th grade.

He wanted me to drop from the 10th go to the

So I said I can't have here.

even pay attention to me.

You go into 12th grade,

get her to

absorb it.

I couldn't

I wouldn't

get along

I says

But

•

•

e·

Herbert Heinz
3-16-93
Page 53

12th grade and back down, backwards.
to me.
I would have a better life.

I couldn't get in.to

But, I wished if I was inclined that I'd graduated.

Because

I said no that don't sound good

Wife:

Well they do have it now for young people do it, you know, .... to
get their diploma that way.

IB:

IA:

Yeah.

You could still do it, but you think things would have been different
had you gotten your diploma, you would have worked all the way up.

IB:

Gone up professionally, yeah.

Heinz:

I went there, during the war I was 17 years old, draft age, 17, 18
years old, they took me for one examination down to Detroit to Fort
Wayne, Fort Wayne is in Detroit, Fort Wayne is in Detroit, whether
you think it is or not.

IA:

Yeah, I know it is, I've been there.

Heinz:

So, what did I do.

A 4f. Unfit for military service.

Ah, they run me through there one time and they give me a 4F
classification.
I come back,
well I get a job at Reo now, that's back in '41 and they wouldn't
even give me an application paper.
get in the shop, they was only making a buck some a buck and a
quarter an hour something like that.
my folks for nothing .... job day rate 50 cents an hour, 10 cents an,
I worked for a dime an hour lots of time, a dollar a day down here
just to have something to do. And that's what if I had had an
education, I would have got a job in a shop where I could sit and
push pencil or something like that. But, I've had. to do manual,
physical labor all my life just about or with these two hands to make
a living for what I got which ain't too much, but we haven't missed
any meals.

I worked here on the farm for

I couldn't

IA:

And you may have done,

Wife:

Amen.

IA:

You may have been

Wife:

I'm going to see if he's got to go to work

•

•

•