Remembering Mr. James "Jim" M. Callihan today on this Veterans Day, November 11, 2022. Jim was honorably discharged from the Army Air Corps in 1947.
It was my pleasure to meet Jim and Ruth Callihan on October 20, 2012 at their lovely home in Elyria, Ohio.
Thanks to the Internet, I was able to make a connection to them and exchange information about the General Industries Company where Jim had worked starting in 1952 as a sales manager and general sales manager retiring in 1990. However, he stayed on serving as a consultant with the company through 2003.
My father, Harry Limes, worked at General Industries from 1934 retiring from a position of foreman in the Plastics Division.
My mother, Virginia (Zagorsky) Limes, worked at General Industries as well as a molder from 1940 to 1947 following the shutdown of her first employer, Central Glass Works in Wheeling, West Virginia that occurred in1939. My father was my mother's boss. They were married on December 7, 1944.
Thus, the General Industries Company has held special significance in my life because my parents met there. My father died in 1988, and my mother died in 1995.
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Sharing an excerpt from a letter to me from James Callihan:
"I came to GI from Cambridge, Ohio (130 Miles south) and was hired by
Allan Fritzsche in July 1952 as Sales Manager of the Plastics Div. when I was
but age 26 where for many years I worked and developed friendships with many
co-workers including Harry.
In the photo
you sent, it included Bill Foster who was the son-in-law of Fritsche who owned
the company at that time. Bill Foster
was to become the President for 23 years to his retirement in 1980. We both kept in close touch throughout our
retirement years and he died in Florida at age 86. I talked with him 6 months prior to his
death.
I later became
General Sales Manager then Vice President of Sales & Marketing of both
Plastics and Motors Divisions and upon retirement was Senior Vice President of
the Company which as your know burned down a few years ago.
I have many wonderful memories of my years
with GI and there are only a few of us still alive of the management
group. Milan Bendik who was V.P. of
Personnel lives close by.
I noted a 1948 picture of the GI league
bowling team I'll send you of which included your dad and Joe Ursem who was a
compression molder. Joe's daughter, Joanie, was secretary to Bill Foster and myself for several years.
Below is a group photograph of the November 1947Bowling team at the General Industries in Elyria.:
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I finally succeeded in a plant wide clean-up effort but it took about 5 years to get there!! The first time I walked thru the plant at GI, I was walking thru water due to steam line leaks and it looked and felt like I was walking on boardwalks in the old west!!Orlo Marsh who was then V.P. was the first GI Exec. to interview me and tour plant in Cambridge and he was astounded at how clean it was and it opened his eyes to what GI had to do to become more competitive and produce less scrap due to contamination of bakelite dust flying all around. First thing we did at GI was build enclosures around every one of the molding presses in the first 6 months after I arrived!
Following that we fixed all the water line leaks, removed all the wooden planks on the floor that were deteriorating due to the water."
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Truly, Jim Callihan was the proverbial "walking Encyclopedia" recalling memory after memory from his tenure at General Industries including the company's extensive history.
Eagerly I "soaked in" all of the details no matter how small, but for me were so significant, as he moved along sharing them with me.
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The photograph below is a colorized birds eye view of the General Industries Co. plant in Elyria, Ohio (circa 1930s) which sadly burned down to the ground in 2008.
Fortunately my parents weren't alive to know about its demise.
Mr. Callihan took a moment out from our conversation to show me some of the video of the fire he had saved on his computer. I could see how sad it was for him to view some of it.:
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Below - left is my bakelite bomb fuse and to the right is my lucite bomb fuse made at the General Industries Co. in Elyria during WWII. These might have been "seconds". My mother told me she helped to make these for the war effort.
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Below is another example of Lucite with a religious medal encased in it made probably by my mother.:
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Thankfully, Mr. Callihan donated all of his "GI" collection to the Lorain County Historical Society ensuring the material will be available for viewing and study by researchers seeking to learn more about the company. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Below is Mr. James "Jim" Callihan in 2016 in Colorado where he relocated following the death of his wife in 2015.:
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Rest in eternal peace, Jim.
Thank you for touching my life in such a memorable way!
