This is a story of a man who started a small business in a small town in the South during the post-World War II era. The man was my father, Charles Weaver. The business was Weaver Welding. The town was Russellville, Ky.
It is a story similar to the American story of countless fathers in countless small towns from the post war era. These men built roads and bridges. They became teachers, factory workers and made America great. By writing about my father, I am paying tribute to all the fathers from what has rightly been defined as " The Greatest Generation."
I do believe my father was special. He was a man with a sharp mind, a strong faith, broad shoulders and a gentle spirit. He loved God, country, his family and his music. Charles was stern and strict. He did not suffer fools lightly. But he did soften with age. Late in life he became quite the artist.
When World War II ended, the lucky returned home. Many carried wounds that were apparent. Others carried wounds that were not so obvious. Whatever their experience, it changed their lives.
Charles T. Weaver served in the South Pacific with the U. S. Navy. His biggest battles were with starvation and malaria. It took years for his family to understand his ordeal because men of that period didn't talk much. They were products of the Depression. Hardship was not new or unusual for them. They were resourceful and they learned how to survive. They developed an unshakable faith in God and in themselves. I am sure this resourceful nature helped bring my father home.
Charles Weaver grew up hard on a farm in Allen County, Ky, near the Barren River. Growing up "hard" is not an expression we hear much anymore. During the Depression it was a matter of working long hours or the family didn't eat. He had to quit school after the eighth grade to pull his weight. Very few poor country boys finished high school during the Depression.
Church and music lifted his spirits and filled the time when not working. Their country band was good enough to get an audition for the Grand Ole Opry. Then Pearl Harbor happened. When the war started he was drafted and opted for the Navy.
Dad was on shore duty as part of the supply chain supporting the battle of the Pacific. The Japanese cut the supply lines, leaving many links abandoned. First, meals were cut to two per day; then one; and finally they were left to scavenge for food in the jungle and eat anything that might wash ashore.
Starvation usually leads to sickness. Some died and others somehow survived. My father was one of the survivors.
Survival is a relative term.
My father-in-law was a B-25 Bomber pilot who crashed and was taken as a POW in Germany. He survived also but shared a common statistic with my father. They both died far too young. I believe they were tough heroes but the toll on their bodies eventually took their lives. I can't prove this theory but I guarantee it is true.
After the war, Charles returned to Kentucky and went back to school on the GI Bill, learning welding and machine tooling. He also studied music.
As a nation, we had spent the past almost 20 years in economic depression and war. There was now confidence tempered by fire, that anything was possible through desire and hard work, by God.
In 1947, Charles arrived in Russellville and opened a welding and radiator repair business on East 5th Street. The last time I checked, a welding shop was still in operation at that same location.
Charles met my mother Athelyn during a trip to Florida. They married in ‘48 and I came along in 49.
It would have been around 1960 that Weaver Welding moved to a new building across from The Colonial Inn near the intersection of the Bowling Green and Franklin roads.
The all steel building was a personal project. Weaver Welding built Weaver Welding. My father had no fear of heights. I don't know that he feared anything. He capped all the steel beams himself because no one else wanted to swing from a boom line that far off the ground.
Dad was a strong, tough man. He stood about six feet tall. The thing a person soon noticed about him was his hands. They were huge, calloused tools of his trade. His ring finger was larger than my adult thumb. His grip enveloped a handshake like a baseball glove.
Charley Weaver started as an outsider in a small community that did not welcome every stranger in the 50's. He had to pay his dues before he was accepted. There was little industry. Russellville had Rockwell and the sewing factory but agriculture was king. He built his reputation slowly.
Fortunately his skill with design and tooling set him apart from the common welding shop. His business grew as Russellville grew.
The arrival of the Emerson Electric plant was a pivotal event for Russellville, Logan County and Weaver Welding. My limited knowledge of the details of the deal made to attract Emerson is based on the supper table talk by my father.
It is my understanding that Russellville bought the land, built the building and supplied all or most of the machinery. The details are more complex I'm sure, but the bottom line was a successful industrial recruitment.
Some of the machinery was purchased on the used market and had missing parts. Those missing parts could not be found. They had to be custom tooled.
Making machinery parts is highly skilled work. Weaver Welding had a well-equipped machine shop and the skilled people to do the job.
Construction of the Emerson assembly line had to be custom designed, constructed and installed. It was the largest contract Weaver Welding had ever taken. Dad worked up a design with the engineers. A deadline was set and the pressure was on to complete the job on schedule.
My father hired some extra help but was still understaffed. Mother had stopped by the office for some reason or the other. I was about 12 years old at the time. I went into the shop area to watch the action. It was a busy loud place.
I was standing near three saws that were cutting bundles of steel. "Jigs" were set at the end of long roller-tables. Round rods, angle iron, and flat steel were bundled with chain clamps. When the saw finished cutting through the bundle, the pieces were stacked into large baskets, the steel was shifted forward until it hit the jig and the saw was reset. It wasn't rocket surgery.
No one appeared to be watching the saws. When I noticed a reset was needed, I walked over and reset the saw It kept happening and I kept working. At some point I noticed Mother was gone. I had a job! A real job!
I worked all week cutting the parts that would become the "basket" holding the motors as they moved through the plant. I was told I cut about a mile of steel.
Saturday morning I was still bundling the steel and keeping the saws running. I looked towards the big double door entrance to the shop. Through the bright morning light, I saw my father riding into the shop on a bicycle. It was a Schwinn 3-speed. The Corvette of bicycles in its day. The bicycle was my surprise pay for the week of work. It was more than that. It was one of my fondest memories.
Some years were better than others but the business continued. I watched my father age with the heavy responsibility. Weaver Welding was not simply the financial life blood for the Weaver family. All of the employees and their families depended upon the success of the business.
Business ownership did give my father some flexibility. He was active in church and civic groups. He was also active in my scouting life.
Weaver Welding once constructed a pontoon boat for a scouting trip. By construct, I mean they built the pontoons and frame, walls and deck. That pontoon, loaded with Explorer Scouts and adult leaders, floated from Paducàh to New Orleans, sending daily reports to WRUS radio in Russellville.
If my father had a weakness, it was his self-doubts because of his lack of formal education. His peers were engineers and businessmen with degrees after their name. He would not rest until I graduated from college.
In the late 70's, Dad felt the world changing. He saw that new technology would soon change the industry. When he had an opportunity to sell Weaver Welding and take Mother back to her home in Florida, he took it. His health was failing him. He had promised Mother he would take her back someday and it was time. Weaver Welding came to an end.
I have often thought that I should have continued the business. The fact is that I could have managed the business, but I could not bring the skills and natural talent that my father brought to the table.
Charles Weaver had a gift. Something that cannot be taught or learned. He could visualize an idea or a problem's solution in his mind; go to the drafting table and construct the idea on paper; then take his drawings out to a job site or into the shop; the original idea evolving into a completed product. He combined the eye of an artist with the skills of a craftsman.
My observations and my limited experience working at Weaver Welding gave me a deep respect for craftsmanship. Men who could take a pile of cold hard steel and mold it into a tool, a working machine, or the skeleton of a building. Thousands of steel tanks, truck beds, gears and axels, of repaired farm and factory equipment went out the doors of that small shop in Russellville, Ky. Some are still in use today.
We might have made a good team but there was only one Charley Weaver. Without him, there could be no Weaver Welding.
Dad passed away in 1991. I think of him every day. His few faults have been long forgotten. I tell my grandchildren stories, but I know they cannot grasp the level of sacrifice or the contribution their great-grandfather made to the life they live today.
Charles Weaver, like most of his peers, is gone but lives on in our hearts and memories. He was a good man and a worthy member of what we now call "The Greatest Generation."