Last Palma Motors Employee Passes Away

[BobPalma]

'Just received unfortunate notice from friends [See Post #5, below] in Paris IL that John Waltz of Chrisman IL, passed away:

http://www.templetonfuneralhome.com/obituary/John-W.-Waltz/Chrisman-IL/1417564#obit

John was the youngest employee of Palma Motors in Paris while Dad and Uncle Milt were in business. John really enjoyed washing cars there as a 17-Year Old! John spoke fondly and enthusiastically of working for Dad and Uncle Milt when I got to know John as an older man in the early 1990s. (The obit says he was 12 but that could not be if he was born in 1936: He started working for Dad & Uncle Milt in 1953, but I'm not going to ruin a good story for whoever wrote the obituary...he would have been 12 in 1948, and they weren't even in business until 1953!)

John really loved Packards. He restored a nice 1955 Patrician sedan in the 1980s and owned it as late as the mid-1990s.

In November 1993, Dad and I took our 1956 Clipper Super to Paris on a nostalgic mission. We first picked up Uncle Milt, Dad's younger brother, where he was living south of Paris in Hutsonville. We took him to Paris in the Clipper and met John Waltz and his 1955 Patrician in front of their former dealership building at 141 East Court Street in Paris.

We took many photos of them. A girl with whom I had gone to grade and high school was a full-time reporter for the still-daily Paris Beacon-News; Jennifer [Holcomb] Barkley. I had called Jenny and set it all up so she met us there, took many of her own photos, and wrote up a nice article on their "mini-homecoming." It appeared the next day's newspaper.

These three photos were taken in front of their former dealership building in November 1993. John Waltz is between Dad (right) and Uncle Milt (left) in these photos:






(Dad is still living and doing well at 97 years of age! John, of course, just passed away September 5, 2014. Uncle Milton passed away barely a year after the above photos were taken: December 30, 1994.)

For comparison, here is the familiar photo of the same building in July 1953, 40 years earlier, with Dad and Uncle Milt standing proudly with a new 1953 Packard Caribbean:



RIP, John Waltz; it was good to know you and share your enthusiasm for all things Packard...and, by extension, Studebaker! Bob Palma

[556063]

Sorry to hear of your loss, Bob.

In a world today where business or employee-boss relationships are most times fleeting and forgotten as soon as things change, your family's lasting contact with Mr. Waltz gives us all a window into what it was like to work in a small dealership 25 or more years ago. It was like we were all part of an extended family.

Thanks for sharing.

[BobPalma]

You got that exactly right, Kevin; spot-on.

Ironically, it was an inability to establish that "family" idea among the employees at Palma-Riverside Ford-Mercury in Ottawa IL (1964-1966) that caused Dad and Uncle Milt to give the franchise back to Ford midway through 1966! You'd think two guys who struggled and almost starved selling only independents in the tough (for independents) mid-50s would be tickled pink to score a Ford-Mercury franchise on the eve of the Mustang's introduction, and they were.

But as they settled in, they tried to treat their shop employees like family; like they had treated their employees in Paris. It worked in Paris; they had little turnover and good staff co-operation. They even listed their shop employees by name and bragged on their individual years of experience in newspaper ads.

But in bigger, more industrial Ottawa, it was a union shop. Uncle Milt was Shop Foreman. He wasn't new to the job; he had been Shop Foreman / Service Manager at Bishop & Gross Ford-Mercury in Paris 1957-1962, and the same at Velde Ford in Pekin IL from 1963 until Dad and Uncle Milt got their own Ford Franchise in April 1964.

Uncle Milt could never get the co-operation from the staff in Ottawa that he could from the guys in Paris or Pekin; smaller towns. The staff was just too hostile and distrustful of "management" to make a go of it. Uncle Milt's stomach ulcers really got bad, he worried so much about it. Dad and Uncle Milt talked it over and admitted to each other, "this just isn't fun even though we're making money; 'life's too short to ride an ugly horse,' as the expression goes."

And so they gave the franchise back to Ford and walked away. Everyone lost.

Sound familiar? BP

[57pack]

I would have loved to have worked for your Dad and Uncle.
To work in a small town dealership with the Packard and Studebaker name
on the building would be a dream job for me.
R.I.P. Mr. Waltz

[BobPalma]

Thanks, Bill.

'Forgot to mention and should have:

The e-mail notifying me of Mr. Waltz' passing came from SDCer and Paris IL resident Kevin Knoepfel.

Kevin's 1941 Studebaker Champion Coupe holds the record in class at The Newport Indiana Antique Auto Hill Climb.

Here it is with several of its Newport Trophies




'Be looking for Kevin and The Coupe at the 2014 Newport Event Sunday, October 5, 2014. If you get there now, it will save you having to add it to your Bucket List once you hear an accurate report from someone who has attended!

('See you there, Kevin; and thanks again for the notice of Mr. Waltz' passing). BP

[Buzzard]

Bob,
Thanks, it just chokes one up to read about the history that was made. Sorry for you (and ours') loss.
Bill

[556063]

Everyone lost. Sound familiar? BP

Yes, unfortunately Bob, it does.

Working for the underdog in a small dealership that represented an independent, or in my case, the smallest of the remaining "Big Three" at the time, meant you couldn't work there if you didn't understand that you could take no customer for granted, and every contact was valuable.

In reading his obituary, it looks like Mr. Waltz was a successful body shop owner after working for your Dad and Uncle. What he learned at Palma Motors as a teen helped him his whole life it would appear.

A concept totally lost in the days where you aren't in business unless you've achieved a certain level of success, and people lose sight of where their bread is buttered and can be suspicious of their boss and actually grandstand and demand harmful to the business and even adversarial conditions. This level of discontent soon becomes transparent to the customer.

When I think of the loss of Studebaker, Packard, AMC, etc., I not only think of the loss of the manufacturer, but the loss of the little guys who often times made those Marques the most prominent in their own little pockets of success. And how many people they lifted to their full ability in the process.