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MA: So let's back up a little bit. Where did you, did you start working at...

IO: U.S. Thermal Control Company.

MA: Thermo King?

IO: Yeah. Well, first I had a couple other jobs, but I didn't like them and I didn't stay. And then I got this call from, it was originally U.S. Thermal Control Company, and they had an ad in the paper for, they wanted people for the assembly line. Only I went in there and applied, I says, "I see an ad in the paper for assembly line, but I don't want to be in the assembly line. I'd like to be in the stockroom or something like that." And the guy said, "Well, we'll let you know." That's when I got the call, message, when I got back to the rooming house to report to work the next day. So there I started, October of 1943. And I worked there 'til I retired May 1, 1986.

MA: So you spent your whole career there.

IO: But I kept moving as far as a job. I recall one time as a shipping clerk, the main shipping clerk, and we had to make bomb racks for P-38 planes, and they had to be in Scotland at a certain time because they were getting ready for D-Day, the invasion of Europe. And I was the last person to check those, see all the markings were correct on the box and everything before they left, and we didn't go home until about three o'clock in the morning that day. They said they had to catch the railcars to get to the East Coast to catch the ship to go to Scotland. So that's what we did. I recall another time we were making some portable refrigerators for the Marine Corps, and again, that time, we worked 'til about three in the morning getting them ready. That Thermo King, Thermal Control, at the time of the war, they were doing some war work. Then after that, they went back to their primary job of making, let's see, called it transport... yeah, transport control, temperature control equipment, which meant they could refrigerate or they could also heat in the wintertime.

MA: This was for, for trucks, right?

IO: Yeah, they were primarily for trucks. They were the largest manufacturer in the world today.

MA: When you were working during the war years at Thermo King, were there still, were the workers African American and white divided, the same way in Cleveland?

IO: There were no African Americans. They were all white at that time there, and I was the only non-white when I first started. Then as a few other Niseis came, there were... one, two, there was three of us, I guess. One who came the year after I did, and I think a few of 'em came a year or two after that. At one time I was the only one. I was the first non-Caucasian employee of that. But that was a Jewish company, see, Jewish-owned. And there again is a story about that company. They started out on a golf course one hot summer day. This original founder of the company was playing golf with his buddy who was in the trucking business. And in the middle of it, phone call, the guy come around and announces they got an emergency phone call for Werner. His name was, my boss was Numero, but Werner. He says, "What's wrong?" He says, oh, he went and got the phone and came back, he says, "We lost another load of chickens today going to Chicago," a hot summer day. So they were talking, and then pretty soon his boss said -- I mean, Numero told him, "Would you try something if I come up with something for your truck? You know, they got refrigerators for houses, why not one for a truck?" So he came back and told his chief engineer, who was a self-educated African American. On top of that, African American, he only had a formal education up to eighth grade. And Numero came back and asked him and he said, "Well, we'll see what we can do." And about ten days later he came up with something, and Werner Transportation tried it, and that was the beginning of the company, really. That was in 1938.

MA: Are they still around, this company?

IO: Huh?

MA: Is the company still around?

IO: Well, they merged with, they were bought out with Westinghouse, and then Westinghouse sold it to Ingersoll-Rand now, so they're a big corporation.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright ©2009 Densho and the Twin Cities JACL. All Rights Reserved.