Different times throughout the book I have referred to our business. I think I had better make it a little more clear.

For many years my husband was the blueprint man in one of the town' s leading factories.

Then one evening in 1948 I attended a meeting at our parish, and our pastor of four years complained that as he was helping to take the census in our parish, he was surprised to find very few people had holy pictures or Crucifixes on their walls.

So I raised my hand and said, "But Father, there is no place around here to buy things like that." He promptly answered, "Then, why doesn't somebody do something about it?" At this time my husband's health was beginning to fail, but this wasn't the reason we started " Elchert Religious Shops Affiliated." We felt a job needed to be done, and we also felt we would like to try it. We started out very small with just a few things on a card table in our living room, but the demand seemed to grow with time and soon we found people coming to us from other towns would like to have something like this, so religious items would be readily available for people in their own area. We prepared our basement for stockroom space, borrowed some capital from the bank, and consigned merchandise to people, on the recommendation of their pastor. So then we set up shop in twenty-two other Ohio cities.

My husband still kept his job at the factory for six more years, even though he wasn't feeling well most of the time.
After his health forced him to quit his job, he worked with me and we shared both the care of the children and the work of the business. At the times when he didn't feel well enough to work, at least there was no time clock to punch. And together we made a real go at it.

But if you know my Gene, you will realize he is too ambitious to just sit and wait for things to happen. He built many a shelf out of scrap lumber and covered them with heavy brown paper, thus making a good background for display. He designed a little First Holy Communion veil and the lace around the top had a chalice in the design. He let a factory have this original design; it became a best seller. The factory made money, and, of course, so did we.

Every summer we put on a big "shop picnic" for all of the people who worked for us and their families. First, the invitations would be mailed out, then we would call a meeting of all of our grown and married children, and all help in the family was utilized. This big affair was usually held at our fairgrounds or at a park. The in-law children were as willing to help as our own. One would take care of bingo, someone on pop, another beer, another ice cream bars. It would always take two to take charge of the contests, at which time everything else was called to a halt, The food for lunch and supper was catered in. We took our go-cart, the scooter and anything that would ride. We even rented ponies one year and another year hired a motor-drawn train to ride the youngsters in. Dave was always the one who took charge of the microphone and tape recorder for music, and on this one day of the year our family really worked as a team and thoroughly enjoyed doing it.

(End of Chapter 14)