Edmund Bringer Memoir - Brookens Library

Edmund A. Bringer 8
A: Big . . .
Q: DepazQrent store?
A: kpartment store, see. It ms the beginning of--what is it they call
that now? It's not Block and Kuhl's anpre. . . . W11 anyhow it was in
Peoria and they took wer quite a few stores. They had quite a few
stores there. And I worked in their radio deparmmt for a while and
then I worked in their sporting goods and toy department for a vhile--that
was a canbination. And it w s all right, I liked that until I got tired
of that and wmt, writ dm and got a job with the telephone canpany and
I didn't stay in Peoria too long with the telephone company though. I
was there maybe one winter and the next spring they sent me to school
dom in Springfield, Illinois to becaw a cable splicer and. . . .well,
so &en they did that &y 1 went to school there for a h ile and then,
they sent me over here to Decatur to mwk. And that was in 1925 and I've
hen here ever since, ;In kcatur.
And I worked in, oh, every job. I started out here as a cable splicer
and I wrked here when they first put in their first dial office here. I
wrked here then and put it in, the cabling for it and before--and up-after
that why I wrked around here for a while as a cable splicer and
then they decided to send me out on the road as a cable splicer. And wzhad
a lot of tow all over the state and wxk got kind of slack here for
cable splicers. But I stayed here and then they sent tw out d m
Cairo, I went dom there whenwer they needed me and I 'd go to Mount
V e m and Salem and over to Darrville and mampaign. . . . always in the
southern part of the state then. And I wrked all over dom there,
Pana--1 never wxked in Alton though--bud City and dom through there.
And then while I w s still a cable splicer I met your granhther. I was
mrking on a--no, I wasn't a cable splicer then, I '11 take that back, I
wasn't a cable splicer then. I cum back to Decatur and things started
getting kind of rough.
Q: About &n ms this?
A: & it was abut 1932 or 1933. . . . no it wasn't either, it was about
1928, because when I cum back here things =re--we 'd cut over to the
offices and everything and it ws getting k3md of rough around here then
and so, I c a
back and they--getting kind of slack on mrk. I ms getting
disgusted with it anyhow-traveling down there in the southern end of
the state as a cable splicer. . . . so I asked to get on the plant depar-t
here and they took me, they put rw on the plant department. And they
started out--1 started out on all of it there and then I finally mrked
my way up until oh I was. . . . let's see, I was with them all the time
nearly till. . . . I had a job as a station installer, I m s a cable
trouble shooter, repairman, cable repairman.
Q: ht--what's a trouble shooter?
A: k11 I'd go out and if anybody's telephone wnt bad I'd go out and
fix it, out to. . . . I alwys mrked in repair wxk &ch was if any . . .
h d of Side One, Tape One
Edmund Bringer Memoir - Archives/Special Collections - Norris L Brookens Library - University of Illinois at Springfield - UIS
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