March 23, 1977
Picture #1: Penny’s People – The first manager of the Fostoria Penny’s store was E.R. Kellogg, shown with his wife at right. Directly above is a photo of the store’s employees in 1954 during 35th Anniversary Sales Days. They are: (left to right) front row, Vigninia Mann, Esther (Bare) Jonson, Mrs. Ruth Bare, Florence (Rowe) Kuhn, Blanche Bowman, Florence Sanders, Leota (Kiser) Solether, Mary (Howard) Kintz, Annabelle (Biggs) Fontaine, Cleo Hull, top row, Lyle B. Shaw, Cloyd Lott, Ralph Cummings (manager), Paul Jacoby (assistant manager), Leonard Skonecki, Wade Lowe.
Picture #2 & 3: Lee Moore, Penny’s vice president who was formally from Fostoria, and his wife, Pat, in the backyard of their Connecticut home.
Picture #4: Employees at a party when Mr. Gardner was manager. He is at the far right. Other left to right are: Gene Walsh, Lee Betzer, Robert Poth, Evelyn (Miller) Endicott, Ruth (Robinson) Cochran, Betty Woessner, Reva Hendricks, Mrs. A.L. Swihart, Marguerite Roose, Florence Sanders, John Miller and Gardner.
Fifty-nine years ago the J.C. Penney Company opened a store in Fostoria, April 27 to be exact, in the same location it is now. Fifty-eight years later, Lee Moore, who had started working in the Fostoria store as a young man, moved up to the job as executive vice president of the Penney organization in the New York Office.
The Fostoria Penney store was one of the early group of stores opened by the company. Fostoria was selected because it was still an up and coming town, even though the gas-boom days had passed. The local store was the 187th in the chain, and the third Penney store east of the Mississippi.
E.R. “Ernie” Kellogg was the first manager coming here from Kalispell, Montana. His ability coupled with the wide variety of merchandise offered, made the store a bee-hive of activity. As a boy of that era I remember how the store was so crowded with customers, especially on Saturdays, that it was sometimes difficult to elbow your way through.
Older Fostorians will remember Mr. Kellogg and his family. Their two children, Helen and Milford, grew up in Fostoria, and graduated from FHS. Helen became Mrs. Don Paine and now resides in Florida.
Milford resides in Hamilton where he retired from managing a Penney store. Don Paine was also a Penney store manager at one time, and also worked in their Chicago office.
Mr. Kellogg was devout Christian in the local Presbyterian church. He was a tither, and after he had gained considerable wealth he distributed large amounts of his money for the support of church related activities. In his later years he supported missionaries all over the world.
He had hoped to love long enough to see Jesus’ second coming, a wish unfulfilled. During the intervening years since Mr. Kellogg’s time there have been five managers of the local Penney store. It was under Ralph “Red” Cummings, who had started under Mr. Kellogg, that Lee Moore started his career with the Penney organization, which eventually landed him in the New York office as executive vice president.
Moore began as an extra in the Fostoria store in 1940, three years after graduating from Fostoria High School as valedictorian. He became a full-time salesperson four months later at Troy under Paul Jacoby, who had been assistant manager under Cummings.
After a long tour of duty with the U.S. Army Air Force in World War II, and another three years as a salesperson. Moore moved up to floor manager at Cincinnati in 1950. Two years later he was manager of his own store in St. Louis, and capturing the eyes o the corporate talent scouts from Penney headquarters in New York.
Moore is credited with reversing the downward trend of the Sarma-Penney Ltd. operations in Belgium and making it highly successful.
Last year, at age 57, and after 35 years with J.C. Penney, he was called back to the U.S. to become executive vice president succeeding Walt Meppl who moved up to the job as president.
Fostorians will be interested in the Moore family . Lee, which he prefers to be called, and his wife live in Connecticut, with their pampered great dane dog Lady Guinevere.
Their oldest daughter, 28-year old Brenda, is now Mrs. Peter Cherry, and serving as a research librarian for Time, Inc., in New York.
Pamela, 25, taught handicapped children for two years, and is currently earning a master’s degree in education administration at Miami University, Florida. The Moore’s youngest, 21-year old Tom, graduated last year with credentials in psychology and photography from Schiller, the multi-campus university in Europe.
“My memories of Fostoria are invariably pleasant … though my visits have been rare,” said Moore in a letter to M.J. “Mike” Sabol, present manager of the Fostoria store.
“My wife and I both finished high school there … and when I went on to college at Columbus, I was a frequent hitchhiker on Rt. 23, as I made weekend visits back home. We were married at St. Wendelin and our first daughter was baptized there,” he continued. Fostorians will remember Mrs. Moore as Mary Patricia Miller.
“Back in 1940, Fostoria was very much a ‘Saturday town’ … and bib overalls were our best-selling fashion item. There was a warm relationship between Penney’s and the townspeople. Ralph Cummings was a good manager and a responsible citizen of his community. Thus you can understand my warm feelings for what is now your town,” he continued in his letter.
Moore promised the local manager that he looked forward to a visit to Fostoria when the work schedule permitted.
As a gesture of good will it would be appropriate for local businessmen and Moore’s old friends to honor him with a luncheon at the time of his visit. Another Fostorian who used his talents and applied himself to make a good mark in the business world.
I don’t know if Mr. Penney, the founder of the company, made it a point to visit all of the stores in the chain, but he did visit the Fostoria store during Cummings managership, and Mrs. Kintz and Mrs. Sanders, employees at that time remember the incident, as do others. J. (James) C. (Cash) Penney started his business in 1902. He was one of those rugged, farsighted businessmen who started things moving in this country at the turn of the century. A devout Christian, he started in a very meagre way and piloted his first store, and succeeding ones, to become a giant in the merchandising field.
Other employees of the local store, recalled by “old timers” are Luther Frank Longfellow, Blanche Bowman, Wade Lowe, Rex Carter (now manager at Bucyrus), Robert Poth, Lee Betzer, Gene Walsh, Reva Hendricks, Marguerite Roose, Mary (Howard) Kintz, Virginia Mann, Ina Shupe, Cleo Hull, Florence (Rowe) Kuhn, Paul Jacoby.
Forest Lumpkin, Mrs. A.L. Swihart, James Bouboulle, Alta Hollenbaugh, Luch Ruhl, Laura Burke, Marjorie (Omler) Graham, Dela Drietzler, Trela (Dreitzler) Christy, James McPeek, Dorothy March, Lela Damon, Cloyd Lott, Lyle B. Shaw, Leonard Skonecki, Esther Bare, Ruth Bare, Leota (Kiser) Solether, Cleo May (Allis) Krupp.
Mrs. William Jones, Mrs. Ella Cooper, Garnetta Babb, Elizabeth Evenbeck, Jenine (Pierce) Might, Mary Jane Fox, Mrs. Fry, Bea Schroder, Jackie Johnson, Mrs. Harold Emerson, Evelyn (Miller) Endicott, Ruth (Robinson) Cochran, Betty Woessner, John Miller, Helen Bevington, Faye (Zeller) Naugle.
Today’s staff of Penney, employees working with the local manager Mike Sabol are: Garneta Babb, Bea Schroder, Barbara Rice, Dolores Cooper, Sylvia Guernsey, Marlene Wenthe, Judy Kelley, Ruth Cochran, Janet Smith, Laura Schlosser, Bernice Bodart, Kelley Steiner, Julia Butler, Chris Seel, Robert Poloma.