Family members employed by Studebaker

[Mark L]

I'd like to share a treasure my sister and I found tonight (May 25, 2021). I've mentioned before that both my parents worked at the Studebaker factory in South Bend, and I know several other relatives also worked there at various times. I'm in South Bend right now helping clean out my parents' house since they moved. Tonight we found this photograph of my mother's father, Joseph Steiner (in the foreground), milling transmission bell housings in a Studebaker machine shop. On the back of the photograph is written in pencil '3501-5" and ink-stamped "Sarra, Inc, 16 East Ontario St., Chicago, Ill." The photograph is about 13.5 inches tall and 10.5 inches wide.

[Al from Eatonville]

Really cool! Thanks for sharing.

[Champ51]

What year might this have been? Do you know what years your Grandfather worked at Studebaker?

[Avantidon]

Mark, I know this is a treasure to you and your sister. Contact Andy Beckman at the Studebaker national museum. He is the archivist and he may be able to give you more information on this picture if you are interested in learning more. They have a treasure trove of pictures and may even have the original of this one one. Who knows what's in those files.

[Mark L]

I don't know what years my grandfather worked at Studebaker. He served in the US Navy in the early 1920s, and he and my grandmother were married in the late 1920s. We think it was during the 1930s.

I need to go to the museum store and pick up something for my father. I'll call and see if I can make an appointment with Andy while I'm in town.

Mark

[StudeRich]

Great Stude. Corp Photo!

I am pretty sure "Sarra Inc." would be the Photographer and Photo Lab/Studio that took and processed the Photo and their File Number.

[BRUCESTUDE]

Way cool Mark! Thanks for sharing!

[NCDave51]

That is really great photo of your grandad. Great period lighting.

Taken in the fall of 2020....during the repaint and re-gasketing of my Lark, perhaps one his bellhousings?

[Mark L]

NCDave51, no, probably not. I think my grandfather worked for Studebaker in the 1930s. He looks really young in the photograph. He was in his early 80s when he passed in the 1980s.

StudeRich, I'm planning to call the SNM tomorrow and see if I can speak with Andy Beckman. I did some internet sleuthing and found Sarra Inc. had offices in New York and Chicago. In the 1950s they were producing television commercials for some well-known, household-name companies, so I think it was an advertising agency. Maybe Andy can say if they had an advertising contract for Studebaker, and when.