Long ago,
in the early 50s, my grandfather built a building. It was a beautiful new one
story brick factory at 127 Point St. in Providence, Rhode Island, in the heart
of what is still called the jewelry district, even though Rhode Island no longer
produces jewelry. The phone number was ELmhurst-1-5833. It had sleek, modern,
aluminum framed crank out windows, stacked on top of each other to ensure
plenty of light.
The front
face of the building consisted entirely of offices. To the right of the entrance
was the administrative office, manned by the secretary, Mary Testa, and the
bookkeeper, Celia Gereboff. To the left of the entrance, covering the rest of
the building front, were offices for my father and Uncle Berrick, then my
grandfather, the President of the company. Papa designed all the firm’s
jewelry, and showed much of it himself to the biggest customers, right in his
office on wooden trays. Papa had been trained as a jewelry maker in Poland, and
knew his stuff. He always wore his dress shirt and a bow tie while he was
showing samples. I still have those bow ties.
Beyond that
office was a small office for Sam Mosell. Sam was a tool maker. His office was
half workshop, and abutted a tool crib at the far end of the building. Sam had
worked for IBM during the war, and was as much millwright as tool maker. Sam
was one of my favorite people. He would give me little bits of tooling that he
no longer needed. There were almost always at least two pieces involved, and
they always fit together in some interesting way. Sam had also presented me
with other doo-dads that he had made or come across in his career – nothing of
value, but little items that fascinated a three year old. I still have some of
them. When I knew him he was already very old, and he became the first person I
knew who died.
To a young
boy the shop was a magical place, but it was driven by Papa’s brain, from his
office. He designed every piece of jewelry that came out of S. M. White during
his lifetime.
After Papa
had designed a piece, Dad or Berrick would sit down with Sam Mosell and figure
out whether Sam already had the tools that would make the piece. If not, Sam
would make new tools. Then a power press would stamp out the settings from a
strip of brass. All the jewelry was costume, made with brass settings and
rhinestones – no precious stones. Rhinestones might not have been “precious”,
but they weren’t cheap. They were stored in a big walk-in vault.
Once the
settings were stamped, the pieces were assembled on small foot presses by “the
girls,” who then placed them on racks so they could be spray painted in nice
shiny colors and baked to a hard finish in one of two small industrial ovens.
These ovens were about the size of a large kitchen oven, but ran hotter, and
they could run more often without breaking down.
Next
another set of girls put the rhinestones in the settings and mounted each piece
on a white display card. Costume jewelry in those days was packed and delivered
in boxes by the gross (144). S. M. White did not own a truck. Herbie Brenan,
the firm’s only black employee, used his own truck, and was appropriately
compensated. When Herbie’s truck needed replacement, the firm paid him some
amount to replace it. I was too young to understand the entire arrangement.
An
interesting side note: Some of that jewelry didn’t get delivered. It slipped
into employees’ purses, and ended up for sale on the counters of local diners
and drug stores.
Rhode
Island was the center of the country’s costume jewelry business. Each September
there was a jewelry show at the Biltmore Hotel in Downtown Providence. Many of
the rooms would be cleared of their normal furniture, and be converted to sales
suites. S. M. White had a suite. Mom would take me there for a short visit. The
suite would be full of jewelry displays, and hospitality materials. Out in the
hallway was a sign announcing that it was the S.M. White Company’s suite.
Some time
in the late 50s things went sour. My grandfather had died in 1954. Within a few
years my grandmother would say things like “all I see is ropes.” She was
referring to the fashion illustrations in the newspaper. They were full of
necklaces. S. M. White didn’t make necklaces. We made earrings, pins, and
brooches. The ropes were coming from Japan. Business was slowing. There was
another problem that I didn’t learn about until years later. My grandfather had
been a gifted designer. When he died, my Uncle Berrick had taken that over, and
he had no particular talent for design. S. M. White firm was dying.
But the
firm did not die. Dad had a casual conversation with a customer one day. The
customer happened to be on the shop floor, and saw some settings coming out of
an oven. He remarked that we ought to get into the enameling business, since we
were doing it for ourselves anyway, and seemed to have some excess capacity. So
S. M. White did an enameling job for that customer, and got a second.
Berrick was
uncertain about the whole thing. Business had been so slow that they were very
short of money, and Rhode Island banks were notoriously tight fisted with
expansion capital, especially for Jews. Dad hit the road looking for business.
He found plenty. Soon S. M. White employees got used to something new – overtime pay.
The two
little ovens were running continuously. They were eating heating elements on a
regular basis. Joe Izzi, a family friend owned Eagle electric, and had done all
the firm’s electrical work since they had moved into the new building. He told
Dad they needed a new oven. There was no future in the old jewelry ovens. They
were made for curing small pieces a few times a day, not the kind of production
S. M. White had gotten into. The ovens they had were toys.
One day
after school Mom told me we were going to the shop to see the new oven. I
couldn’t imagine what she meant, because I didn’t understand the magnitude of
the problem. We drove to the shop near the end of the production day. Mary and
Celia had gone home by then. I got to sit in the big leather wing chair in
Papa’s old office until Dad had time to bring us out to the shop floor. Mom had
brought a book. Finally Dad came by. He had on his white shirt and tie, but
he’d left his jacket in his office. He led us out on to the shop floor, past he
old foot presses. Not one of them were in use anymore. They were clustered
together so that they wouldn’t take up too much room. Gosh, S. M. White had
already stopped producing jewelry altogether, I thought. Then we stopped in
front of this gleaming silver object. It looked like a gigantic home refrigerator.
It had short legs, and a big red oval sign on the front – “The New England Oven
and Furnace Company.”
Dad flipped
a latch, grasped the handle and opened the door. Inside were massive racks. The
old ovens were toys beside this monster. “Isn’t this something?” Mom asked. As
the door opened we heard a loud ventilation fan roaring from somewhere within
the oven. I just starred. “Wow,” I thought. Then we had to go. A man wheeled a
cart up with parts ready to go into the oven. It had work to do.
