Hammond's Candies by Mary Treacy Thompson

Author:Mary Treacy Thompson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2014-03-17T04:00:00+00:00

FABULOUS FACTORY

Although Carl and Harry had built the factory, it seemed that Tom, with his shipboard experience, might have helped to design the efficient use of space. The retail store occupied the front of the building with glass display cases on the three walls opposite the entrance. The cash register was discreetly placed on a counter behind the far case by the doorway to the kitchen and factory. Restrooms were located just beyond that. Carl Sr. had placed his desk opposite that, and the floor safe stood nearby.

There was one unusual object kept in the safe, as illustrated in the following story recounted by Carl III:

The Gun

Nothing is more impressive to a small boy than a gun. There was a gun in the top left-hand drawer of Carl’s office desk. It was a small-caliber pistol and looked like the guns in the Dick Tracy Sunday comics. The cylinder was in the floor safe, so the gun was inoperable and safe from the vivid imaginations of kids like me. We were never allowed to touch the gun, let alone play with it. Of course, my grandfather wasn’t always at his desk, either. I remember asking Carl why he had a gun, and the answer was so benign that it escapes my memory. He also denied ever needing or using it. It begs the question, why have it in the first place? It makes sense that it was probably a carryover from the Platte Street factory days during the Depression, when Carl worked at night making candy. That probably wasn’t the safest place with the railroad terminals and associated warehouses less than a mile away. Certainly there was nothing but candy to steal at the factory at 2550 West Twenty-ninth. The cash register was counted every evening, and the day’s cash, with the exception of pennies, was put in the floor safe, which was covered by an inconspicuous rubber mat. Most of the machinery was made from cast iron, and it was the age before computers and electronic equipment. There were never any break-ins that I remember. Occasionally someone would throw a rock at the floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows in the retail store. Eventually, they replaced the glass with unbreakable Plexiglas.

Sometime later, however, a classmate told me that the Hammond Candy Factory had made the CBS Evening News. During the “happy talk” during the signoff, the anchor mentioned it had been reported that Hammond’s Candies had been burglarized. The perpetrator had made off with seven pounds of chocolate-covered cherries and fifty-five pennies.

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