Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Buick Poem

This poem from back in the early years of Buick was found in a diary at the Salvation Army by Joanne Ladd who is a "Mother Goose Storyteller". She said that she had donated the diary to the Labor Museum. I found this a fascinating look into one working man's early career at Buick . The old timers back in the day called people like Sherwood "DESPOTS". "This person probably became a foreman at Buick". From the poem I deduce that Lorey would have been working in the new engine plant . This new factory for building the Buick engines was called #11 which is still standing as of this writing. Factory #11 started producing engines in December 1909. At that time they started calling the old Buick engine factory on Kearsley st.#2. The original factory was later called "Mason Motors". The Flint wagon works was located directly across the street from the old Buick Motor Company Engine Works. A.C.Mason was originally the manager at the new factory #11 but left in late 1911 to work for Billy Durant at the old Flint Wagon Works (building the "Little" car) which eventually became "Chevrolet". It seems from the dates that he then rehired into factory #11 again. I seen so many people at Buick try to climb the ladder (raise a few) of success by crawling over the bones of other workers that this poem would still hold up even today.

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