There were three club houses
over the years.
 |
|
The East
Street Galt Club House |
I believe the first one was on
East St. We rented an old 2 car garage that had a pigeon loft
upstairs. The gent we rented it from was always looking over our
work to see how we were doing.
The pigeon loft was cleaned out
and we used it for club meetings. While the meeting was in progress
everyone had to sit still, if you moved around too much the whole
building would sway and threaten to collapse. However some work was
performed there on members cars. Bob Young was "frenching" the
headlamp rims on his Ford. Frank Trevor was welding up the trim
holes in his brand new Pontiac convertible.
Next for a very short time we
moved to a back yard shed over on Bervely St. This location was not
adequate, so a search went out for something better and the old barn
at the Delta was located. This served our purpose for many years. At
first we only used the rear lower portion of the building. Under the
barn portion was an old stable that still smelled of its former
occupants. Several years later this was cleaned up and used as
working space and a meeting room. Upstairs was a body repair shop
operated by a Bill Bowman. After this Jackson appliances used this
for storage and many old washing machine parts found their way into
the downstairs projects.
As
Harold Dale has pointed out a wood stove heated the club portion.
Andy Marsh who was in tin work offered to build an oil furnace for
heating. An old oil burner and tank were obtained and Frank Trevor
got some of us into the Sturtevant fabricating shop after hours,
were we used the big metal brake to form the parts. These were
welded back at the clubhouse. This did not solve the heating
problems, as it did not matter where you stood inside you could see
outside by way of the joints in the cement blocks. In Stroker
fashion bags of cement and sand were obtained and a coat of slurry
cement was brushed over the entire outside of the building. A small
man door was cut in the large entry door so that the large door was
only used for car entry.
Winter also had more problems
for the resourceful members to solve. The flat roof collected a lot
of snow and this was converted to ice by the heating and cooling of
the aforementioned furnace. So several members decided to remove the
ice as it was looking like the roof might collapse. Brandishing an
axe and shovel they proceeded to remove the ice. This conveniently
converted the lower portion into an instant car wash when the thaw
came. Well nothing beats learning on the job, so a new roof was
installed at club expense by the club members. Over the years all
repairs and maintenance to the building were at club expense.
Another memory is of the demand electric meter that if you did too
much heavy welding the meter could get pushed up on the peg and the
bills would go up. Now were have I heard that lately?
At one point the property owner
rented out the back yard for the storage of used cars and do I have
to tell you what a bonanza that was to the car converters? The
clubhouse operated night and day and some nights and days were
better than others. But the spouses and girlfriends always knew
where to locate us.
Al Howlett
