History of Schneider Meats still resonates with Record readers
While it is always gratifying to get a note from readers saying they enjoyed this or that column, the most pleasure comes from the anecdotes people tell. Two recent topics brought out some recollections that I want to share.
The J.M. Schneider 1936 booklet column of April 6 filled the inbox with requests for a copy of the booklet along with personal memories of that landmark Kitchener business.
“My dad worked for Schneider’s for 21 years. He didn’t really want to retire but they had a good buyout package,” wrote Sylvia S. “The loyalty between employers and employees was fantastic. Picnics yearly, a Christmas hamper with meats, cheeses etc. At Christmas, employees’ kids 12 and under got to see a free movie at the Lyric or Capitol.”
From Alan Totzke: “I worked at Schneider’s for 20 years until it closed in 2015. First in IT and then in facilities. With access to engineering drawings and aerial photos, I made up a progression of building on the site; 63 different buildings! The 1924 factory started as a 3-storey plant, with a 4th floor added before 1932 and a 5th floor in the 1960s. There are now just 3 buildings: the 1948 garage, 1971 distribution building and 1976 office. They are close to the buried, cemented creek and if torn down nothing could be rebuilt on the same footprint due to floodplain restrictions.”
Paul Motz has vivid memories of touring the plant as a grade schooler and still finds it “amazing that they took us to the kill floor and showed us workers disemboweling cattle.”
Tom Gooding worked there “as a student in 1968, decided to work one year full-time. Turned out to be 5 years. They had the best picnics with ribs and pigtails served.”
Tim Boettger recalls Schneiders from the consumer end: “If it was not JMS, I wouldn’t eat anything else. Although Burns (meats plant) was in town, I do not recall us eating any of their products. When I was a teenager, my dad and I would wait until mom went to bed and he’d say ‘Cut us a couple pucks’ which meant thick slices from the Thuringer sausage chub ever-present in our fridge.”
Following the April 13 Flash from the Past about polio, a most surprising message arrived: “I must have been one of those 12 kids (affected by polio) at K-W Hospital in October 1952 mentioned in your article, a month before my sixth birthday. I was there for six months until March 1953.
“I was not in an iron lung but remember visiting patients in them. From my vantage point in a wheelchair, I remember looking into the mirror which reflected their image. I had just started grade 1 at St Joe’s School on Courtland Avenue and was slated to transfer to St Bernadette’s when construction was completed in January 1953. During 6 months of missed classes, nuns from either school would bring lessons to the hospital regularly to make sure I would pass grade 1 and be able to move on to grade 2 when I eventually got out of the hospital.”
Along with that stirring story, John Beard also sent a copy of a photograph showing him selling Crippled Childrens Easter Seals to cowboy star Gene Autry at the hospital.
A long-distance reader out west recalled being paralyzed in the isolation ward at a Winnipeg hospital right beside a room full of iron lung units.
His treatment was “hot foments” … wool blankets cut in strips, soaked in hot water and applied to legs and arms. Therapy continued at Winnipeg’s naval swimming pool, HMCS Chippawa.
My thanks to all readers who send in additional information on any of Flash from the Past’s stories.
RYCH MILLS, A FREELANCE CONTRIBUTOR FOR THE RECORD, IS A LIFELONG RESIDENT OF KITCHENER-WATERLOO WHOSE INTEREST IN THE TWIN CITIES’ PAST HAS APPEARED IN TWO LOCAL HISTORY BOOKS AND NUMEROUS ARTICLES FOR THE WATERLOO HISTORICAL SOCIETY ANNUAL VOLUME. HE CAN BE REACHED BY EMAIL AT RYCHMILLS@GOLDEN.NET.