Folks Of Interest My grandpaw’s shop

I started learning about cars and everything else at a local mechanic shop/junkyard. It was the pits and full of low lifes, criminals, and misfits. Lots of guys that were in and out of prison, alcoholics, thieves, punks.......and a pimply faced kid. Fights all the time, occasional pros***utes, demolition derby in the street. Mechanical knowledge was rudimentary at best. Only by the grace of God did I not end up in prison too........but I would do it all over again if I could.

 

They weren't old timey then.

 

My Great Grandfather Harold "Pop" Kellerhouse's Arco Oil Company warehouse Route 30 South Grand Gorge and Pop with an Arco oil truck. Photos mid 1950s.

He had p***ed before I was born, but the stories my father and his cousin tell about "Pop" and the work he could do are amazing!

My dad said it was amazing "Pop" never finished the 7th grade but he could add a row a figures the length of a full sheet of paper in his head, he ran a successful business and raised five children.

When my great uncle Don went off to chase Rommal around the desert, "Pop" and my great grandmother had my great aunt move back in and helped her rise a new born baby!

 

The junk yard near us was similar.
I enjoyed watching the moonshine cars unload.
Growing up working with my uncles, we rebuilt everything. Wheel cyls, water pumps, gens, starters, alts.....honestly I didn’t know people bought those new until I started working at a dealership when I was 18.

 

My gramps had a stroke in 67, so after that he sold the lime spreading business, but still worked, farmed and drove truck, and I was there every day until 73. Just today, I had the 9-year old granddaughter over for her weekly filling of the yard waste cans, and I waved her over as she was watching me put some pallet racks together, and set her up with the ratchet and box wrench, and she did great. Just then I realized that I had handed her that long-handled swivel head 3/8 S-K ratchet that had been gramps. I showed her his initials engraved in it- don't think she got he significance, but I sure did. BTW, he never got past the 8th grade in school, but he was president of the school board for 20 yrs. Bad for me, as the principle also went to high school with my mom and was a family friend- me under the microscope much?

 

After Pop sold it it was used as a auto parts warehouse, then as a body shop.

Since that time some high end NYC developer bought it and turned it it to a high end s****y yuppie hang out. He badly must judged the market and rendered it useless as any kind of work shop.

It makes me sick every time I drive by it.

Before the Yuppie facelift

 

Great pic! My great-grandfather on my dad's side (grandma's dad) had a shop in downtown Flint, MI. He called it Johnny Johnson's Auto Repair even though his name was Henry. I worked in the same building decades later when it was Discount Tire Co store #MIF-04. It still stands but is used as storage for the county road commission.

 

My Father In-law is the kid. The floor and the tin ceiling covered in oil and soot lit up with 3 light bulbs.

 

^^^^That's a cool pic!

 

Great thread! They don't make 'em like our Grand-parents any more, though a lot of us try to live up to their fine example.
I was lucky enough to be partially raised by my Grandpa. He was a very patient man who had the hard luck of losing his house during the depression due to no work. He collected s**** to feed his young family, living at relatives houses a week or so at a time. That built character that he p***ed down.
He took a chance when he heard that Henry Kaiser was hiring men to build Victory ships for WWII. He packed up his two little daughters & Grandma into a '34 Plymouth along with whatever would fit and left Chicago for Vancouver Washington. He got there, got hired and got back on his feet.
I was very close to him. He taught me mechanical skills that I use to this day and I have a lot of his tools!

 

Very cool! He smiled for his picture, thats more than most old pics you see where no one smiles!

 

Love the shop ceiling tiles and those lights couldn't have given much useable work light!

 

Never noticed the light before. Cool.
Paw Paw always had a coffin nail lit.
Maybe that made enough light to work with.

 

My Sis has the family photos from when we cleaned out the house after Pop p***ed. In them are pics of Grandpa Bob with his Model T and his lady friends. Mom told me long ago he was the first teenager in town to own a car. I guess I picked up the bug from him. Always tinkering on his last car, a '55 in his dimly lit garage until age 90. The one thing that sticks with me were all of the tools he owned. They were very old. Don't know who ended up with them but my brother bought the house from the family after he p***ed. When he p***ed, I dug through those old wooden cabinets and found a few old FoMoCo script wrenches but that was about it. That garage was a time capsule, as everything he owned was from the '20s, it seemed.

Joe

 

Here's the 9 yr old Grandmonkey using my gramps ratchet- quite well. She rakes and fills my yard waste cans every week for $5- I told her dad that she is saving the money for her first plane ticket to Miami Beach for Spring Break- he didn't want to talk to me anymore...

 

Lemme guess, the boss ( her mother) insisted, didn’t she.


Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.

 

Nice picture and great you were able to get it/share.
Mine p***ed a year after I was born but did p*** on that 30wt gene. Here he is with my great grandpa who brought his boys over to the new country - him to work on the trains in 1909 - but there were these runabouts all over !

My pop's the short guy with the great pa - the middle - and great Uncle Sal leaning on the work bench.

 

Awesome pic! Mechanics kept the world moving... if you called them a "tech" you'd be carrying your teeth home in your pocket.