Do companies still acknowledge the retirement of longtime employees with a special ceremony or reception?
I'm not so sure these days. For one thing, people seem to move around a lot and don't rack up decades of service at one employer like they used to in the old days.
U. S. Steel used to show how much it appreciated its workers by making their retirement a special occasion, with a big formal dinner, a group photograph and newspaper coverage.
The railroads were another special case. Workers often stayed a long time, and their retirement merited newspaper coverage. Two gentlemen both from Lorain County are great examples of this, both retiring around the beginning of August 1962.
James F. May of Lorain retired from the B. &. O. Railroad back on August 1, 1962 after 46 years of service. His photo (shown below), with many of the members of his yard crew behind him, appeared in the Journal on August 1, 1962. The caption notes, "He joined the railroad Dec. 8, 1915 and was promoted to engineer Aug. 20, 1920, serving as engineer both on the road and in the yard."
2 comments:
Hey, I still get a newspaper. I switch back every other year between the Lorain Journal and Elyria Chronicle to get the much cheaper new customer rate. Have to admit, Chronicle is a much better paper these days. There is just something about holding and reading a newspaper with the morning coffee..........old habits are hard to break. Interesting info about the railroad retirees Dan!
The world we grew up in is no more. I am glad that a few generations, at least, managed to live from cradle to grave without knowing it would not last. But to paraphrase Mark Twain, it is all part of the dead and pathetic past!
And by the way, I was recently stuck in a waiting room with nothing to occupy my attention but a television tuned to "The View", and several newspapers. I skimmed through the New York Times. I might as well have read an issue of Pravda, it would have been more impartial.
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