I found out the other day my grandpa, who I barely knew, worked in a broom factory. Yepp, a broom factory. He passed after a long illness when I was pretty young, so I have few memories of him. The memories I do have are mostly scary ones as he spent the last several years of his life battling Emphysema and lung cancer.
My dad talked about Nebraska every now and then and I remember he liked Nebraska football. His family lived in Deshler Nebraska and later moved to Prescott Arizona where my dad went to high school. The 2020 population of Deshler was a whopping 739 people.
The biggest employer was the broom factory, and the population was around 900 people back in the heyday 30’s and 40’s. Deshler took a hit when the Bergans left. The move to AZ had a real impact on the city population. LOL!
At some point, the Bergans moved to Las Vegas. Pretty sure this was after dad joined the Navy and was out of the house. Back then, Las Vegas was nothing like it is now. My grandpa worked for TWA at the Las Vegas airport, which was kind of a small regional airport at the time.
I remember watching him drive a cart around on the tarmac. This was back in the day when no one worried about security, and we were free to go to the gate and watch him work. Boy, times have changed!
Later, my grandpa retired and moved to Beaumont CA, not far from Palm Springs. This is where most of my memories of him were formed. Dad was in the Navy at the time, and we would visit my grandparents from San Diego.
But it turns out Grandpa worked in a broom factory in the depression era and WWII era. This is interesting to me as I try to picture his life in the Midwest, then in the Southwest. He worked ten-hour shifts and made $1.00 per day. Hard to imagine working such a long shift just to get $1.00, but that’s what he did.
So I learned something new about him this past week, and I have to say I respect and appreciate how difficult it was to live and provide for your family at this time in American history. It must have been a hard life. There it is, a little piece of Bergan family history for you.
Have a great week!
Ernie