Grandpa's+Story

Back Home Timeline Grandpa's Story Questions

March 2008
Steve’s mind is really clicking. San Diego Boat Movers-insurers. Routes-when moving navy boats.

Advice: Work hard and do not trust anyone. Love what you do.

Newspaper when 8-10, clothing stores, Morgan Park year and a half, then Linc Belt-on different machines-apprenticeship, worked hard, out of 5,000 people making biggest paycheck-piece work, Ran shop for Link Belt in Detroit for two weeks while boss went on vacation. Stayed with Lynn and Ruby. Left to go in Naval air corp. Then discharged after seven or eight months due to allergies, choc, pickles, onions, coffee. Migraines. Pain and blind for half hour. Went back to Link Belt for a little while. Living with Grandma then. Then went to work at machine shop factory and run the night shift. Bought a cab, North Shore Cab-drove it three or four months and then put drivers on it. Then bought an 8 passanger Cadillac and turned it into a taxi-drove it in Chicago. Ft Sheridan discharge line heavy. Friend got him in-started hauling 8 guys downtown $3 each, deliver them to army store on Canal street which paid them $3 for every one who came into store. Started taking guys to Texas, North Carolina, Georgia, South Carolina. Running fast 80 to 100. Two lane roads. Learned the country. Did not get much sleep. Did not get tired. Slept after he got done. 1946-went in with Father working for him on cranes. LZ Howell company then Howell Tractor. Dave wanted to be a salesman and Grandpa wanted to work on machinery. Grandpa picked up in yard how to run them and fix them. His dad said costs me too much to move my cranes, why don’t you move them. Found truck in Salt Lake City with ten wheels bought it. ( Sue was along-1948- ford loaded on trailer). Outside Laramie, six cylinder, rod messed up. He shorted rod and ran up mountain outside Laramie with five cylinders. Hauled cranes for father, then other people called for him to haul their crane-no rights. Learned how to move them by watching, things like letting the air out of the tires. (Later started measuring everything.) Mainly just figure out what he could do with the truck. Two or three years moving cranes. His Dad talked him into buying a lowboy, three thousand, borrowed it from Lawle. Bought lowboy and truck. Did not know anything about trucks. First was Old two axle mac. Started hauling cranes. After 6 months, Grandpa had three lowboys, everyone calling him because others did not know what they were doing. Still no rights. His Dad sold $150,000 crane to central Illinois. Had Grandpa haul it for ten thousand. Very slowing paying. Hauled one or two cranes a month out of the factory in Cedar Rapids. About this time, they started scales. Tied up crane. Left during the night after being tied up two weeks. Took off for Illinois. When he went across the bridge, Rt 30, Iowa cops could not cross bridge. One of the under beams popped. Chicago Trucking Firm eludes Iowa. Howell Distributing Co. Delivered to his Dad’s yard in Illinois. Wanted Grandpa to haul huge one, had to get heavy truck-went to army surplus and bought on credit-6 wheel tank retriever truck. (1949). 300,000 pds load, little squad car, stopped. Policeman said you know better than to come through this district. No permit, parked load in big restaurant, and took Grandpa in to see his Lt. He is going to teach Grandpa to come through his district without paying what he owed. (Graft) Permits only five dollars at that time, not weighting in Illinois at this time. Tied up truck and trailor. His Fathers banker, said he could make a deal in Springfield to get you turned loose for five hundred. Ford (Adlai Stevenson’s payoff guy )could not take payoff because Joliet towed truck and weighed it. Lt Canader. Joliet wanted him to take it apart and move it. Muske helped him and they took Crane apart. Five loads to haul away parts of Crane. Ford Co, had given him a truck to test, could not get his truck loose. Fell through bridge. Stuck. Unhooked trailer and went home. Lt called him to come move it. Asked him if he tried to steal it, Grandpa said no did you lose it. Had to put it back together. Muske helped him a lot. He was learning lowboy business at that time. His Dad wanted to take all the money and have Grandpa do all the work. Parking his truck and trailor in his yard. After grandpa delivered this load, Illinois would not give him any permits. Then he decided to put everything in a box trailer. Hauled beer in 48-49. International K 11, bought for a hundred bucks. Graham trailor for a hundred and extra axle for a couple hundred. Skokie Valley Beverage in Lacrosse Wisc painted the truck and trailor for free for him. Put Old Style Logger on it. Fruehauf came out with a stainless steel tandem axel and really good suspension system. Bought their trailer, carrying lots more beer. He could haul fifty thousand pounds, went around scales. Other truckers were hauling 30,000. Then bought 49 Kenworth, first one operated east of Mississippi. Had a big bed, prestige went up with other truckers. Sue and I played foot wars in it. Had fifteen forward speeds. Only had two axels. Real good truck had brass plate, governed at 105, over speeding will void your warranty. He did not go over one hundred and five in it. It really moved. Hauling beer in that one, he was running Routes 14 and 12 to avoid scales at Tomah Wisc.. Other drivers jealous. Filled trailer to the roof all the time. Montgomery Ward tires, changed quite a few. Learned to do it fast. Other drivers complaining to cops because they were getting pinched all the time. Captain lived in Whitewater. One night Grandpa was going through Madison towards LaCrosse to pick up a load, guy following him bright lights, grandpa dinged his headlights with a hammer. Hauling a lod of empties, steel under empties. Heavy. He was states attorney. Richland Center, Wisc. Grandpa came into town, got into line with a lot of trucks waiting to weight at scale. Driver of car came up and hollered at Captain wanting grandpa locked up. Grandpa went up and tapped him and put him to sleep. Captain said you should not have done that. He is the States Attyn.,, Park your truck, Grandpa in jail. In the morning, Captain came around and said how are you, he had been working all night. Grandpa got sleep all night. Fined one dollar. Truck was protected all night. He told grandpa later that people were always complaining about grandpa hauling too heavy. Another night, Grandpa was coming out of Lacrosse with 65,000 lb ( max allowed about 30-35 thousand lb) load near the Dells, he topped the hill and their was a line at the bottom of trucks being weighted. Captain said “we have a guy there that if you can pull him over the hill you can go. Other guy had not wanted to weight so had told cops that his truck would not start, he was heavy too.” Grandpa pulled him over the top, stopped-guy had started his truck, took off chains, then both went on. Captain never weighted grandpa’s truck when he was on duty. Grandpa made it a point to go where scales weren’t. 1947, Then bought place in Mundelein and bought three lots (by paying taxes on them-city would not let him go up on land to park) beside the house to park trailers which did please the neighbors. Neighbors had to move garage because it was in our driveway and Grandpa was afraid they would run over me and Susie. Moved to Chatsworth 1954 and had plenty of space to park his trucks and trailers. Hauling cheese out of Wisc to Philadelphia NYorker Cheese, and Newark, New Jersey. Grandpa started buying empty cheese boxes for a nickel where he unloaded and sold them in Wisc for a quarter. Tried a few drivers, they had trouble finding loads. Grandpa could walk into any truckstop in the country and find a load in five minutes. Cheese box weighed 110 average. Raw cheddar. Stacked 7 to roof. Grandpa was strong and could lift them. Nevada favorite state to drive through. No speed limits in country, just towns. Grandpa drove Modesto or LA to NY in 72 hours. During Korean War, hauled a lot of ammunition from Illinois to Nevada or Portland, Oregon. Shipping all the ammunition going to Korea. Hauled Sunmaid raisins and Sunsweet Prune juice back. Shipped by California Trucking Exchange out of Fresno-Dan Burns was the broker. Every time Grandpa called him from Nevada he would ask grandpa if he could find him any trucks. Grandpa would go over and get loads for back east for himself and other good drivers he knew. He would always load Grandpa’s trucks back for him. After Grandpa hauled big carrots for G & M produce out of Chicago, to California. Loads of Big Carrots out and little carrots back from California. George Dombeck and Milt Marks-asked grandpa to go into business. Milt started Old Orchard. Went into business on brokerage business, started H & D Distributing. They were only in as partnering out of Chicago. Grandpa also started brokerage business out of NY under Howell Distributing. Life focused around trucking-Grandpa loved trucking and it made money. Liked to pick up used trucks and fix them for his drivers to haul loads. Bought green garage from Uncle Dave and put it up on the farm. Could work inside on trucks. Armbruster Brothers hauled a lot for John out of east coast and Ohio. Brothers had truck stop in Lodi, Ohio.