The January 1, 1915 edition of The Carlisle Arrow announced that Joe Gilman and Pete Calac, both Freshmen, would be leaving soon to work for Ford Automobile Company in Detroit. By the time he left, less than a week later, four more boys: Gus Lookaround, Norman Thompson, Everett Ranco and Charles Pratt, were added to the list. The Freshmen class held a reception in their honor in the Mercer’s Hall to celebrate their leaving. Joe and some of the others were called upon to say some words at the event. Later in the month, in an article entitled “What Carlisle Means to Her Graduates,” lauded Joe’s initiative:
Last summer when work was scarce and hard times had struck our country, Joseph Gilman, without any other credentials than his honest face and the fact that he was a Carlisle Indian, applied for a job at the Bethlehem Steel Works. He was one in a long line of men waiting for work. Hundreds had been laid off, but Joe was given a job and was told by the superintendent when he left that if at any time he wanted work he could find it there.
On February 5, the first report on the boys’ progress at Ford. Joseph Gilman and Gus Lookaround are in rear axle department. They have been through the rear axle operations and are now on transmission, but Lookaround still has the repair job on rear axle to learn, as there was no room for him there. Their foreman says they are good and willing workmen, Gilman being especially apt. At school they have taken up work in English, arithmetic, and penmanship, and will later take up spelling and drawing. Gilman and Ranco have attended regularly, the others having missed some sessions. At their boarding place they are behaving themselves admirably and are general favorites. They are much interested in basketball, and their instructor says they show the best form for a winning team of any group he ever saw. They never seem to lose their tempers, even when the other team is purposely rough, simply laughing it off. They have the reputation for conducting themselves as gentlemen wherever they appear.
End of Part III
Tags: Calac, Joe Gilman, Lookaround, Norman Thompson, Pratt, Ranco
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