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SCHADEFrom page 1School near downtown Santa Ana where bleachers were built to handle the overflow.‘When I was 13,1 bought a Mudd car,” George remembers with a chuckle.“It had two cylinders, and when you turned on the engine, you didn’t know what direction the car would start to move, forward or reverse.”There were no age restrictions at the time, so if you could see over the hood and reach the pedals, you could drive.The stories are punctuated with adventure: rowing as an extra in a silent movie filmed on Balboa Bay, helping his grandpa pick long-strand cotton in Calexico for World War I and learning the ropes at Dale Hardware in Santa Ana.That’s where George Schade and sheet metal became synonymous.At age 20, he went to work for Reliable Sheet Metal Works in Fullerton. The owner was a religious fanatic, and believing the world would end, went to Arkansas “to be saved.”A 300-pound nephew, who cared nothing about the business, was left in charge.When the owner returned, he found the place in shambles, so he sold it to Schade’s best friend, Henry Imm.Between sales, Schade got involved in cinnabar mining on Red Hill in Tustin where he found mercury.It proved a losing proposition, but with mining feverdeeply imbedded, he tried again in Fresno only to find another failure.In 1927, Schade was smitten with Luvina Layton, whoworked at the Black Kat Caf6 on Main Street in Santa Ana. Her beauty was defined by her crowning as Miss Santa Ana before the pair was married in 1929.Five years later after the birth of his first son - and in the depths of the Depression -Schade sought day labor.While on an excursion to the beach, he noticed there was a need for recreation. Enter sheet metal kayaks that proved a profitable venture.He eventually bought a sheet metal shop in Huntington Beach, but work came to a near halt in World War II when steel was needed for the war effort.He made due with water tanks for fishing boats at Newport and lining freezer boxes for Alpha Beta markets.In 1943, he learned Reliable Sheet Metal in Fullerton was up for sale. Schade snapped at the opportunity, moved the family to a house at what is now the Fullerton College parking lot on Lemon Street and found business booming once the war ended. New housing tracts offered plenty of work.“But steel was scarce,” Schade recounts. He found Continental Can Co. in Fullerton had tons of scrap tin, and officials said it was free if he hauled it away.When the war ended, Schade met Walter Knott and Carl Karcher - two men for whom he would provide sheet metal for years to come.“Mrs. Knott asked me one day if I could make a chicken feather picker,” Schade says.“I took a drum with 8-inch lengths of water hose mounted on the outside. As it rotated, a person would hold the chicken against the hoses while the hoses beat the chicken feathers off.”Unfamiliar with the speed during testing, Schade turned on the motor and within seconds the chicken flew into pieces.Schade returned to his shop and perfected his product.The stories continue with travels, Luvina’s illness and the belief that the best invention of his lifetime was the automobile.“And the best president was Ronald Reagan,” decides Schade, whose had a century to critique.
Newspaper Details
Costa Mesa Breeze
Costa Mesa, California, US
Thu, Feb 20, 2003
Page 115
Full Page
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Los A.
CA, USA 17 Jan 2025
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