John's Big Break Comes in 1934

Most people wouldn't look at this situation as a "big break", but with John's work ethic, he did...as you know if you have read Pieces of a Life.

In the early 1930s, deep in the Depression, John Kellogg took a sales job with a new company called "SealTex." They were starting to produce a new kind of bandage, invented in Germany in about 1930, which was cohesive instead of adhesive, so it stuck to itself rather than the user.

John was barely making enough money for he, Ruth and little Kenny to live on, even including repeat orders from Chicago area drug stores.  Kresge stores asked SealTex to provide demonstrations in stores all over the eastern U.S. John was doing that - and working with "a talkative female employee" in each store whom could he'd coach to demonstrate the bandage.  Even then, his income was low.

In 1934 when John was selling in Boston, he got a letter from Byerley, one of the 3 owners of SealTex.   "While I was trying to find answers to our money problems, I got a letter asking that I return to Chicago at once as the firm was broke.  The cash I had in my pockets was barely enough to buy the return bus ticket, and I knew that Mom had little also."  (Ruth no longer was working.)

My own comment was: "John must have been horrified to hear that SealTex was broke.  However, on the other side of the coin, John was focused on achieving - and would have looked at this as his best chance to make his mark in the world.  He was a risk taker.  It's a good thing he was not a gambler."

It appears that poor management undermined the company.  Byerley was finding new items to have his 12 detail (sales) men take to drug stores, but they flopped - and SealTex was stuck with those bills of $8,000- $9,000, some 2 years past due.  "Byerley said that if I would take the responsibility for paying all those old bills he had run up, he would give me his stock in the firm and just bow out.  I agreed."

Newlyweds in 1929

Just a few of Ruth Meredith Kellogg's many diaries are displayed, priceless to me because of the people they bring back to life.

Oct. 30, 1929
"Foggy day.  As I wasn't busy for a time this morning, I wrote Mamma a letter, telling her about the new Retail Store, plumbing to be done in our flat, etc.  

John refused to to go the Chicago tonite because I said it was a silent picture.  We got there and I managed to get him into the show.  He had to admit that he liked it but - it would have been better with talkies.  It had music, dancing and crowd noises in sound."

Talking pictures were quite new, but all the rage.  In the transition from silent movies to talkies, background noises and music made the silent movies seem more modern.  Both John and Ruth loved going to movies, so perhaps John felt a silent movie was better than none - and apparently he enjoyed it more than he thought he would.

The "Retail Store" belonged to Ward's where Ruth worked in the offices across the street...It seems quaint that Ruth wrote to her mother, whom she saw and talked to often.  At this point Ruth had been married about 5 months.  The two families lived a few miles apart, with Ruth and John in a building he'd bought at 4705 Byron St. in Chicago.  People used to write letters frequently.  I kept a chart of letters written in my twenties, 25 to 30 a month on average.  

Engaged...and A Bit of Choppy Water

Friday, May 18, 1928
"John shocked me this morning by telling me he traded his 2-flat building in for a new fashion 3-flat brick.  I have thought about it all day.  We drove out to see it tonight.  I don't care for it."

Saturday, May 19, 1928
"John signed for the 3-flat house.  The two of us saw the best play yet - 'Just Married!'  It was a scream - the whole four acts!  Home at 11:00."

Ruth is clad in true flapper attire, including the cloche and the long straight top with the fur-trimmed coat.  She seemed to get over the disagreement with John about the 3-flat quickly.

Ruth would learn over time that John liked to talk about financial plans, but did not want or accept her advice.  That went back to his feeling that he was the smart one, the college grad, unlike Ruth with her high school diploma. Did he make mistakes in investing?  Yes, but one did not remind him of that!  The Depression was only 17 months away, but no one really saw the depth and breadth of it coming.