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FORMER FOSTORIAN PENNEY'S
VICE PRESIDENT
March 23, 1977
(4 pixs)
Penny's People - The first manager of the Fostoria Penny's store was
E.R.
Kellogg, shown with his wife at right. Directly above is a photo
of the
store's employees in 1954 during 35th Anniversary Sales Days.
They are:
(left to right) front row, Vigninia Mann, Esther (Bare) Jonson, Mrs.
Ruth
Bare, Florence (Rowe) Kuhn, Blanche Bowman, Florence Sanders, Leota
(Kiser)
Solether, Mary (Howard) Kintz, Annabelle (Biggs) Fontaine, Cleo Hull,
top
row, Lyle B. Shaw, Cloyd Lott, Ralph Cummings (manager), Paul Jacoby
(assistant manager), Leonard Skonecki, Wade Lowe. Below at right
is Lee
Moore, Penny's vice president who was formally from Fostoria, and his
wife,
Pat, in the backyard of their Connecticut home. At the bottom left are
employees at a party when Mr. Gardner was manager. He is at the
far right.
Other left to right are: Gene Walsh, Lee Betzer, Robert Poth, Evelyn
(Miller)
Endicott, Ruth (Robinson) Cochran, Betty Woessner, Reva Hendricks, Mrs.
A.L.
Swihart, Marguerite Roose, Florence Sanders, John Miller and Gardner.
Former Fostorian Penney's Vice President
Fifty-nine years ago the J.C. Penney Company opened a store in Fostoria,
April 27 to be exact, in the same location it is now. Fifty-eight
years
later, Lee Moore, who had started working in the Fostoria store as a
young
man, moved up to the job as executive vice president of the Penney
organization in the New York Office.
The Fostoria Penney store was one of the early group of stores opened
by the
company. Fostoria was selected because it was still an up and
coming town,
even though the gas-boom days had passed. The local store was
the 187th in
the chain, and the third Penney store east of the Mississippi.
E.R. "Ernie" Kellogg was the first manager coming here from
Kalispell,
Montana. His ability coupled with the wide variety of merchandise
offered,
made the store a bee-hive of activity. As a boy of that era I
remember how
the store was so crowded with customers, especially on Saturdays, that
it
was sometimes difficult to elbow your way through.
Older Fostorians will remember Mr. Kellogg and his family. Their
two
children, Helen and Milford, grew up in Fostoria, and graduated from
FHS.
Helen became Mrs. Don Paine and now resides in Florida.
Milford resides in Hamilton where he retired from managing a Penney
store.
Don Paine was also a Penney store manager at one time, and also worked
in
their Chicago office.
Mr. Kellogg was devout Christian in the local Presbyterian church.
He was
a tither, and after he had gained considerable wealth he distributed
large
amounts of his money for the support of church related activities.
In his
later years he supported missionaries all over the world.
He had hoped to love long enough to see Jesus' second coming, a wish
unfulfulled. During the intervening years since Mr. Kellogg's
time there
have been five managers of the local Penney store. It was under
Ralph "Red"
Cummings, who had started under Mr. Kellogg, that Lee Moore started
his
career with the Penney organization, which eventually landed him in
the New
York office as executive vice president.
Moore began as an extra in the Fostoria store in 1940, three years after
graduating from Fostoria High School as valedictorian. He became
a full-time
salesperson four months later at Troy under Paul Jacoby, who had been
assistant manager under Cummings.
After a long tour of duty with the U.S. Army Air Force in World War
II, and
another three years as a salesperson. Moore moved up to floor
manager at
Cincinnati in 1950. Two years later he was manager of his own
store in St.
Louis, and capturing the eyes o the corporate talent scouts from Penney
headquarters in New York.
Moore is credited with reversing the downward trend of the Sarma-Penney
Ltd.
operations in Belgium and making it highly successful.
Last year, at age 57, and after 35 years with J.C. Penney, he was called
back to the U.S. to become executive vice president succeeding Walt
Meppl who
moved up to the job as president.
Fostorians will be interested in the Moore family . Lee, which
he prefers
to be called, and his wife live in Connecticut, with their pampered
great
dane dog Lady Guinevere.
Their oldest daughter, 28-year old Brenda, is now Mrs. Peter Cherry,
and
serving as a research librarian for Time, Inc., in New York.
Pamela, 25, taught handicapped children for two years, and is currently
earning a master's degree in education administration at Miami University,
Florida. The Moore's youngest, 21-year old Tom, graduated last
year with
credentials in psychology and photography from Schiller, the multi-campus
university in Europe.
"My memories of Fostoria are invariably pleasant ... though my
visits have
been rare," said Moore in a letter to M.J. "Mike" Sabol,
present manager of
the Fostoria store.
"My wife and I both finished high school there ... and when I went
on to
college at Columbus, I was a frequent hitchhiker on Rt. 23, as I made
weekend visits back home. We were married at St. Wendelin and
our first
daughter was baptised there," he continued. Fostorians will
remember Mrs.
Moore as Mary Patricia Miller.
"Back in 1940, Fostoria was very much a `Saturday town' ... and
bib overalls
were our best-selling fashion item. There was a warm relationship
between
Penney's and the townspeople. Ralph Cummings was a good manager
and a
responsible citizen of his community. Thus you can understand
my warm
feelings for what is now your town," he continued in his letter.
Moore promised the local manager that he looked forward to a visit to
Fostoria when the work schedule permitted.
As a gesture of good will it would be appropriate for local businessmen
and
Moore's old friends to honor him with a luncheon at the time of his
visit.
Another Fostorian who used his talents and applied himself to make a
good
mark in the business world.
I don't know if Mr. Penney, the founder of the company, made it a point
to
visit all of the stores in the chain, but he did visit the Fostoria
store
during Cummings managership, and Mrs. Kintz and Mrs. Sanders, employees
at
that time remember the incident, as do others. J. (James) C. (Cash)
Penney
started his business in 1902. He was one of those rugged, farsighted
businessmen who started things moving in this country at the turn of
the
century. A devout Christian, he started in a very meagre way and
piloted
his first store, and succeeding ones, to become a giant in the merchandising
field.
Other employees of the local store, recalled by "old timers"
are Luther
Frank Longfellow, Blanche Bowman, Wade Lowe, Rex Carter (now manager
at
Bucyrus), Robert Poth, Lee Betzer, Gene Walsh, Reva Hendricks, Marguerite
Roose, Mary (Howard) Kintz, Virginia Mann, Ina Shupe, Cleo Hull, Florence
(Rowe) Kuhn, Paul Jacoby.
Forest Lumpkin, Mrs. A.L. Swihart, James Bouboulle, Alta Hollenbaugh,
Luch
Ruhl, Laura Burke, Marjorie (Omler) Graham, Dela Drietzler, Trela (Dreitzler)
Christy, James McPeek, Dorothy March, Lela Damon, Cloyd Lott, Lyle B.
Shaw,
Leonard Skonecki, Esther Bare, Ruth Bare, Leota (Kiser) Solether, Cleo
May
(Allis) Krupp.
Mrs. William Jones, Mrs. Ella Cooper, Garnetta Babb, Elizabeth Evenbeck,
Jenine (Pierce) Might, Mary Jane Fox, Mrs. Fry, Bea Schroder, Jackie
Johnson,
Mrs. Harold Emerson, Evelyn (Miller) Endicott, Ruth (Robinson) Cochran,
Betty Woessner, John Miller, Helen Bevington, Faye (Zeller) Naugle.
Today's staff of Penney, employees working with the local manager Mike
Sabol
are: Garneta Babb, Bea Schroder, Barbara Rice, Dolores Cooper, Sylvia
Guernsey, Marlene Wenthe, Judy Kelley, Ruth Cochran, Janet Smith, Laura
Schlosser, Bernice Bodart, Kelley Steiner, Julia Butler, Chris Seel,
Robert Poloma.
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