In 1947, Jack Alan Peck was born.
"That was an exciting time," laughs Jack.
With Evelyn in labor, Jack rushed to Hillcrest Hospital.
He ran a red light at 18th Street and flew up what is now Herring
Avenue. About 28th or 29th
street, he hit a bump. Evelyn's
water broke, and little Jack was almost born then and there.
Jack didn't know where the emergency entrance was, so he careened
up to the front steps. "She
had to walk up the steps, and I was still on my first cigarette when
they came out and told me it was a boy," Jack said.
"It was that quick."
Grimland Brothers went broke in the fall of
1948. Jack freelanced until
early 1949, when he got the break he needed.
Among his customers at Grimland Brothers had been General Tire,
Owens-Illinois glass company and a company called Hawk and Buck, which
made blue jeans. Hugh Thompson
at Hawk and Buck needed tacker pulleys for sewing machine, but Singer
Sewing Machine was on strike at the time and he couldn't get anybody
to make them. So, Mr. Thompson
went to see D.T. Hicks, who owned Star Finance, Star Tires and Hicks
Rubber Company.
Grimland
Brothers had been financed by Star Finance, so Mr. Hicks, after foreclosing
on Grimland, now owned Grimland's equipment.
Mr. Thompson asked Mr. Hicks if Jack and his buddy, Wallace H.
Rusch, could use the equipment to make the pulleys if he could talk
the men into doing the job. Mr.
Hicks agreed, and when Jack and Mr. Rusch finished making six tacker
pulleys, they got a check for $37.50.
"Mr. Hicks called us up to come in and see him, and he said,
"Why don't you rent part of that equipment from me and the space,
because he had paid for the building and he was subletting part of it
out to another company that was Huck Manufacturing Company.
So we rented one corner of that building for $287.50 a month,
and we got a telephone extension for $1 a month from Huck.
That
was in April 1949, just before Korea started.
"Then, in January 1950, Mr. Hicks asks, 'Why don't you buy
the whole thing' and made us an offer, so we made a deal and bought
all the equipment." At the time
this was going on, Evelyn's mother and stepfather were visiting.
They all started trying to come up with a name and began searching
through the phone book for ideas.
"And we say Mercury with wings on his heels and on his hat,
so that's how we picked
him," Jack said. "Out
of the phone book."
With
the Korean War underway, there was plenty of work available.
Phillips Petroleum had moved to the Naval Ordnance plant in McGregor,
and Mercury Tool started doing jobs for Phillips.One of the first things
Mercury made was the rollers for pocket doors. "We made the rollers for the pocket doors for OK Machine
and Tool, and they made the pocket door hardware for Cameron Mills."
During this time, the two wives, Evelyn and Marietta Rusch, both
ran machinery.
Mercury also did a lot of work for General
Tire. "There's a company
called NRM, National Rubber Machinery," Jack said, "and they
used to refer to Mercury Tool as little NRM." At
first it was just Jack and Mr. Rusch.
They went out and knocked on doors to get business.
"We'd get in the phone book and see where they lived or
call up and make an appointment," Jack said.
"If we didn't have any work, we went rabbit hunting."
