Email from Mary Farley - December 20, 2022
He (Delmar) graduated from high school in 1932 and farmed with his Dad and for another childless couple, the Bankes for two years. They paid him for his work and probably shared in the profits. Dad saved his money for college. At the end of the 2nd harvest season, he bought his father a John Deere tractor and walked to Sioux City, Iowa, about 50 miles.
He went to business school and worked in a cafe in the low rent district washing dishes when his funds got low. They paid him (?) very little. He got a free dinner for his work. He said it was goulash, heavy on the macaroni. He would never let mother make goulash and refused to eat spaghetti until he started dating Mary Ann.
When he finished school, he started selling insurance. Times were tough. He said he did not like that job because those farmers didn't have any money and he was selling them $100.00 policies. He didn't make very much money which isn't surprising because salesmen have to be positive.
He started selling lumber for a lumberyard and told me that went better because farmers needed wood to build and repair their buildings.
Sometime during this period, he met mother and the man who got him his career. I have no idea why mother's mother didn't have a heart attack when they decided to get married. He was barely making a living. Grandma gave them a bushel basket full of food for a wedding present. Mother supported them working as a transcriptionist for the telephone company. She had to quit when she got pregnant as women did not work when they were pregnant in those days.
Dad loved to dance and sing. He had a nice baritone voice. He sang for fun with the Sioux City Men's glee club. One of the men in the group told Dad to apply for a job at Burroughs. Dad got the job. Dad never forgot how much he owed him, and they kept in touch until the gentleman died. The job turned out to be a great fit. Dad was good with numbers, and the war meant lots of data to be entered and tracked. He sold lots of business and office adding machines and early computing machines.
He worked for Burroughs in Sioux City, Rapid City and Fort Dodge, Iowa. He made good money. He did travel but I think most of the trips were day trips.
I don't know how he got introduced to LeFebure corporation of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, probably because they were serving similar customers. The company sold banking and office equipment, mostly filing, sorting, and storage. They made steel safes and were early developers of the surveillance cameras in banks, and eventually drive through windows. Jim helped him install some of the cameras in banks in this area. We had several calls during dinner time, " Hello this is the FBI, I need to speak to your father". They were calling because there was a bank robbery and they needed Dad to unload the camera. Jim would go with him if he was home to unload the camera as it was a chain of evidence issue.
Dad was a good salesman of the equipment, but he made a lot of money by designing checks and statements for various companies. LeFebure was just introducing the concept of "cycle billing" which revolutionized the bookkeeping and revenue streams of companies. He sold the system to Frederick and Nelson and Nordstrom companies among others. Large and small banks bought his products. The old system of getting your bills at the end of the month and paying them on the first of the month meant that many companies were short of cash for some time during the month and then had a rush of mailing and ledger entry over a short period of time.
'Cycle billing' divided accounts into groups by alphabetical order or account number or whatever. Bills were sent out to each group on the same day of the month every month. For instance, the M's would get their bill on the 12th every month and it would be due on the 27th. As an 'M' I would need to have money to pay my bill on the 27th and the company would have money coming in all month long. The company benefitted because they could budget payroll but also take advantage of pricing that might change through the month or year.
LeFebure was known for quality stainless steel carts that held record files or cash trays that could be rolled in and out of a safe. The system saved employees backs and records did not have to be resorted. I have one of the stands and trays downstairs.
Dad sold the record keeping equipment to banks and companies all over the state. He often took day trips to visit local banks and other businesses and had one of us ride with him. I went to Cashmere, WA with him many times and sat in the office of 'Applets and Cotlets". Dad brought a box or two home. Jean remembers riding with him and I am sure Kay and Candy went too. He hired some salespeople and bought 2 houses on Dexter Avenue in Seattle and used one of them for an office. He gave them territories and did not travel as much himself. He received an award in 1969 as a LeFebure Tiger and in the ____ as the first manager who sold $1,000,000.00 worth of product in a year. A million dollars does not sound like much now but in the it was big money then.
His territory was a prime target for ambitious personal from Cedar Rapids and LeFebure had had a change of leadership as the owner retired. Dad came home one day obviously shaken, sat down at the dining room table with me and mother and told us he had lost his job that day. He had not disciplined some of his salespeople and his territory was prime real estate. Needless to say, he and mother were terrified. I told him I had saved $5,000.00 and gave it to him. LeFebure had just started a retirement plan that he was denied by days and it was a grim time. He had to sell the houses and he cashed out a couple of life insurance policies. I paid bills while he started taking classes and studying for the Real Estate exam.
Needless to say, he was very anxious, and he was not able to learn the way he was accustomed to. Dad was used to being a good student and had a good memory for figures. He could do all the calculations about square footage and cost per foot etc. but he kept trying to memorize the exact words that described various transactions. He failed his first attempt to pass the exam for his license. He was really scared and felt like a failure. We started having more study sessions at the dining room table where he explained to me how to calculate costs and footage etc. Things he excelled at. But his ability to recite the text of the instruction manual was bad. I told him he was trying to be an old-style student where route memorization was the only way you could pass a test. I explained to him that it was not the 'word for word' regurgitation that modern teachers wanted to see but demonstration of understanding the concepts. He started to describe things in his own words and got more confident. Finally, I told him my golden rules and advice for taking tests: "TELL THEM WHAT THEY WANT TO HEAR". Instructors teach what they believe is important and often their own work. When you are taking the test tell them what they want to hear in as close to their own words as possible. I was spared a lot of 'test anxiety' by reminding myself of that rule as a student. He passed his second exam and opened his office. Some years were good, and some were not.
Dad had long wanted to start his own business selling and buying Real Estate. He had purchased the blueberry farm on Candy's recommendation. She managed the pickers and the payroll for a couple of years while she was in her teens. Candy would know what year he bought it. He never made any money from selling blueberries, but he enjoyed being a farmer again. Riding the tractor and being his own man on that piece of land with the view. " You can take the boy off the farm, but you can't take the farm out of the boy". I spent one New Years Day at the farm on a very cold day trying to fix the door on the outhouse that he and Fred had carved a moon window into. Fred, as you will remember, lived in the trailer on the farm and could grow anything. He came full circle from farmer to farmer.
