| THE FLAME Page 2 |
| The independent voice of preserving steelworker Legacy |
| MAY 20, 2020 |
| OFFICIAL STEELWORKERS' ARCHIVES PHOTO OF DENNIS L PEARSON TAKEN BY PHOTOGRAPHER ED LESKIN |
| PHOTO OF DENNIS L PEARSON TAKEN BY WIFE ELEANOR MAE PEARSON AT HOME IN EAST PENN TOWNSHIP, CARBON COUNTY IN 2019 |
| BLAST FURNACE PROCESS |
| 410 YEARS CHECK FAMILY AT BETHLEHEM STEEL |
| PLANT PATROL LADIES |
| BETHLEHEM STEEL TELEPHONE OPERATORS |
| iNGOT MOLD |
| iNGOT MOLD |
| REDUCING HOT STEEL INGOT TO BLOOM |
| TAPPING AN OPEN HEARTH -MOLTEN STEEL FILLS A LADLE; THE SLAG SPILLS OVER TO SLAG POT |
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| The Normandie Whistle by Dennis Pearson A whistle that once bellowed for the world's richest and most elegant people and then for steelworkers in Bethlehem before on Tuesday, June 9, 2009, for the Grand Opening of the Sands Resort Casino- Bethlehem. The 150 P.S.I Steam Whistle from the luxury French cruise liner, S. S. Normandie, was housed on the roof top of # 1 Boiler House for many years. It had been salvaged from a ship yard in New York City by the Bethlehem Steel Corp. after a disastrous fire and sinking during renovations in 1942. In 1935, the whistle first adorned the French-built S.S. Normandie, considered the "world’s greatest, most luxurious, most loved" cruise liner according to Stephen Lash, President of the Ocean Liner Museum's Board of Directors. His comment was made at a press conference in Bethlehem Pennsylvania on April 20, 1985, when the whistle was turned over by the Bethlehem Steel Corp. to the museum. When the 1,019-foot ship was cruising the Atlantic, the whistle announced arrivals and departures for the famous liner, which carried 3,326 people including crew. When World War II arrived, the 79,280-ton French ship was brought to New York Harbor to keep it out of the hands of the Nazis who had taken over France at the onset of WWII and to convert the famous cruise liner into a troop carrier. On February 6, 1942, as it was being converted to a troop ship in New York, a welder's torch started a fire that raced through the ship. Water poured on it by fire boats capsized the ship. Later that month the U.S. Navy hired a commercial salvage firm, Merritt, Chapman & Scott, a firm associated with the Bethlehem Steel Corp., to take apart the Normandie's superstructure, including its whistles. Bethlehem Plant General Manager David Blackwell stated (April 20, 1985), "Someone had the foresight not to throw out this beautiful brass whistle." Harvey Ardman, in his 1984 book, Normandie: Her Life and Times, records that in 1946- 1947 ten railroad cars full of the ship's steel left daily from a Newark scrap yard for steel mills in Pittsburgh, Coatesville, and Bethlehem. In Bethlehem, Raymond Hess of Allentown and his friends found the brass steam-powered whistle in a railroad car and placed it on the roof of #1 Boiler House. Number 1 Boiler House and its companion, # 2 Boiler House of Bethlehem’s Steam, Water and Air Department, were taken down sometime after July 4, 1999. The only evidence that exists today of the location of # 1 Boiler on the former grounds of the Bethlehem Steel Company is the former railroad inlet for the Boiler House that is tied to the Masson-Hoover trestle going to the Blast Furnace from the former Ore-pit -- now the Sands Resort Casino. For many years the whistle announced shift changes and plant emergencies. It also served as a fire call for City of Bethlehem fires. The whistle last rang out in Bethlehem on November 24, 1984, for testing, only to be removed from the roof top of #1 Boiler House the same day. The bell had suffered some damage in its removal and needed some repair. It had not been rung regularly since 1952 when the powerful valve stuck open for two hours before it was silenced in fear of a repeat performance and the fear that it would become an irritant to the neighborhood surrounding the plant. According to Hess, the 620-lb. steam whistle shook the boiler house every time it blew and would let loose a stream of dust every time it blew. On June 3, 1985, the 50th Anniversary of the Normandie's arrival in New York after her maiden voyage, the city's South Street Seaport arranged with the local utility, Consolidated Edison, to have the steam power attached to the ship's whistle. The curator at the American Merchant Marine Museum and a founder of South Street Seaport said: "It was so loud, local merchants asked us never to do that again." Consequently, it was never rung adjacent to the South Street Seaport again and found a new home in the bell and whistle collection of Steven Millstar at the Platt Institute in Brooklyn. The 620-lb whistle did provide some difficulty for the maintenance people to remove. At one point the heavily used hemp rope began fraying on the roof, and it took an effort to keep the whistle under control. The last thing these guys wanted to do was to let the whistle fall to the ground below. But that is what happened when the rope broke. The whistle fell 24 feet to the paved court yard. Luckily, for the Oceanic Liner Museum and the Company the fall produced only minor damage and was easily repaired. Personnel involved in the removal of the whistle from # 1 Boiler House included: Donald Sandt, Millwright Foreman, Steam Water and Air Dept.; Harvey Bartholomew, Millwright and Working Leader; Sam Devan, Millwright; Bob Hrichak, Millwright; and Clarence Coverly, Mechanical Helper. Dennis Pearson was the Stoker Tender of the Beitenhausen Oil Boilers in #1 Boiler House which provided the energy to the blow the whistle. (c) 2008/2009 by Dennis L. Pearson All Rights Reserved --- No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission from the author. |
| Normandie Whistle as it appeared in 2009 for Grand Opening of Sands Casino Resort - Bethlehem |
| Normandie Whistle in the 80's when it was taken off the Roof of # 1 Boiler House near the Blast Furnace PHOTO TAKEN BY HARVEY BARTHOLOMEW Personnel seen in picture L to R Millwright Sam Devan, Millwright Bob Hrichak, Millwright Helper Clarence Coverly and Millwright Foreman Donald Sandt The Normandie Whistle was connected to the Boiler system in #1 Boiler House run by a Stoker Tender ... Dennis Pearson was at the Stoker when the Normandie Whistle was being removed ... The Boiler System in # 1 House was for years run by perhaps 12 Beidenhauser Coal Burners which in later years was sublimated by a by-product gas from the Blast Furnace, a by-product gas from the Coke Works, Natural gas from a utility and Oil. For years its deep bellowing tone was blown at shift change and for plant emergencies |
| MEMORIES OF A STEELWORKER - BY DENNIS L. PEARSON |
| It was June 1965, the Pearson family was gathered at Walp's Restaurant in Allentown to celebrate my graduation from Dieruff High School. In attendance was my father Kenneth, mother Christine, sister Beverly, paternal grandfather Elmer Pearson, step grandmother Zilpah, paternal great-aunt Pearl Buss, paternal aunt Dorothy Moyer and her husband Frederick, and maternal grandmother Emma Kohler. It was a nice send off to a new phase in my life. In September 1965 I would enroll at Kutztown State College (Kutztown University.). Living near Dieruff High School, which had been opened September 1959, my family became accustomed to the procession of graduating seniors marching from west to east along E. Washington Street from the school's auditorium to the school's gymnasium. Those were the days of two processional marches. The first, held on a Sunday was a religious service. The second, held during mid-week was a diploma awarding ceremony. Inasmuch as I was a member of the school band, I did not take part in this procession of cap and gowned seniors. Neither did I walk on stage to receive a diploma. That honor was reserved for Class President Donna LeGerda who accepted the Louis E. Dieruff High School Diploma for the entire class. The rest of us later received our Diplomas individually in the school cafeteria when we turned in our cap and gown. Sometime later, due to U.S. Supreme Court decisions on school prayer, the religious ceremony for graduating seniors was discontinued. Even later, the diploma awarding ceremony was transferred to Stabler Arena on the campus of Lehigh University. Consequently, the annual processions of cap and gowned seniors which my family and the surrounding community came to enjoy as an award for putting up with unpredictable teenage behavior during the school year was transferred out of the neighborhood. A few days after the family gathering, I accepted employment at the Bethlehem Steel Corporation for the summer. It was my fate to be assigned to the #2 Machine Shop. At the time the #2 Machine Shop was the longest and biggest machine shop in the United States if not the world. I was in awe of the immensity of the shop. The multi-storied red brick, steel support, and fogged window building seemed to be over a mile in length (actually only 1,770 ft.). After an orientation session with the shop's superintendent and a guided tour of the shop given by the shop's safety man, a frail man wearing a white helmet with a green cross on, I was introduced to the area foreman who quickly handed me a push broom and set me off on patrol of the shop's yellow bordered walking lane which ran the length of the shop. Wearing a bright yellow helmet with the rookie identifier marker of a red criss-crossing stripe on top, safety glasses and safety gloves, I diligently attacked intruding metal chips, oil and grime. Occasionally my patrol would be interrupted to assist the operator of a big overhead crane and the ground-based machinist in the precarious placement and removal of unmachined and machined material. I can testify that some of these pieces were really huge. Within a few weeks I was assigned to the tool crib. My job was to provide the shop's incentive paid machinists with the required blueprint and tool. If I recall correctly, the job paid $2.50 per hour as compared with my $15.96 price tag at shutdown in 1998. I put much of my summer earnings in the bank to defray the cost of my college tuition and board. I never applied for or received a student loan for my education at Kutztown State College. I had no car in those days, so on day shift I shared a ride with my father who worked at the steel's Construction Warehouse. But my schedule was complicated by a rotation from day shift to night shift to middle shift and back again to day shift to start over the cycle. Thus, on many occasions my father would drive me to work for night shift and head back home. In the morning he would return with the car and park it at a pre-arranged location for my pick-up. I would use the vehicle to drive home and would pick up my father at the Construction Warehouse at the end of day shift. So it went the summers of 1965, 1966, and 1967. For a brief time in 1967 I was also assigned to # 8 Machine Shop in addition to #2 shop. In 1968, I was assigned to the Bridge Shop where I had the opportunity to finish off the shop's Bridge Works with black paint. During the years of my summer employment at # 2 Machine Shop, an increasing number of Americans were being sent to Vietnam, and this was reflected in what was primarily machined in the #2 shop. I had to fill many requests from machinists for blueprints relating to big naval and land artillery pieces and guns. In later years, # 2 Machine Shop would obtain orders for shafts for power plants and rods for the U.S. Navy Nuclear Program. But that is now in the past as # 2 Machine Shop is only a shell of what it was. In 1997 it was mainly used for repair work, and BethForge explored the option to discontinue that function. The business plan for BethForge was to expand the size of # 8 Machine Shop and rename it # 1 Machine Shop. Critics say that #1 Machine Shop is too small and not designed well. They say that BethForge should have kept #2 Machine Shop as its primary unit. They say that #2 Machine Shop is more able to handle big and small machined materials and has more storage space. But that is all academic now. Number 2 Machine Shop is not part of the business plan for BethForge's new owners. BethForge was one of three manufacturing subsidiaries set up at the Bethlehem Plant about 1990. It manufactured forged items for machining as electric generators. In the fall of 1997, BethForge was sold off to the Lehigh Heavy Forge Corporation, a company that is part of the West Homestead Engineering and Machinery Company (WHEMCO) group of companies. WHEMCO is a division of the Park Corporation, a Cleveland-based company that owns and operates numerous manufacturing facilities that serve the automotive, steel, petrochemical, heat-treating and other heavy industries. When I graduated from Kutztown State College in May 1969, I never suspected that I would ever work again at the Bethlehem Steel Company. My career goal was to become a teacher. That is why I accepted employment with the City of Allentown as a park instructor in the summer of 1969. What should have been a happy and relaxing summer turned sour as I found it impossible to find a teaching position. Career wise I was in limbo for four years. There was no Comprehensive Employment Training Act (CETA) program for me to help me gain suitable employment. I did receive per diem employment as a substitute teacher from time to time, but the money earned in that endeavor wouldn't have paid the rent if I had to pay the rent. During that period, my parents were my greatest supporters. As it happened, in April of 1973 I found myself talking to the Assistant Superintendent of the Steam, Water and Air Department about a job the Bethlehem Steel Employment Office offered me. This time the employment offer was of a regular nature not seasonal. Once again provided the bright yellow helmet with the criss-cross red stripes of a rookie, I was handed a broom. Within a few days, I found that I had not entered paradise but descended into the fiery depths of hell. Lucky was I that I never got burned by the hot water, steam and fiery ashes that came out of the backside of Boiler House # 5's coal-fired boilers. To be honest, I never sweated so much when I emptied three coal cars in 100 degree Fahrenheit weather. In addition to my father the following family members have worked at the Bethlehem Steel through the years: My paternal grandfather, Elmer Pearson, worked as a machinist at the East Lehigh Plant located on Applebutter Road; my Sister, Beverly (Pearson) Folk, worked for a time in a office at the Homer Research Lab before transferring to a Bethlehem Steel Sales Office in Philadelphia after marrying her husband Steven; my paternal great aunt Pearl (Bindewald) Buss worked in the Bethlehem Plant during World War II; and finally, my paternal aunt Dorothy (Pearson) Moyer also had served in a steel office as well. In late June 1998 # 2 Boiler House became the last Bethlehem Steel - Bethlehem Plant production facility to close. Upon its shutdown I had served twenty-five plus years in the Steam, Water, Air and Power Department of the Bethlehem Steel Company, mostly in # 2 Boiler House --- # 2 Feedwater Pumproom. In that time I never had to walk a picket line and was only laid off two months in 1976 when the coal-fired boilers of #1 House and #5 House were discontinued. My father was less lucky. He endured a 116-day strike in 1959. As I am a son of a retired steelworker and a third-generation steelworker at that, I am indeed aware of the economic impact that the 116-day strike had on the day-to-day finances of my parents. The United Steelworkers of America Union strike fund provided some cash and some groceries for striking steelworkers. Nevertheless, the time arrived when my father found it necessary to take odd jobs to supplement the income of my mother who worked in an Allentown glove mill on Hanover Avenue. One job was as a traveling route salesman for a Coffee Company; another job was as a groundskeeper for a minor league ball club in Allentown, the Allentown Cardinals. The Allentown Cardinals soon to be succeeded by the Allentown Red Sox played their games in Breadon Field, a ballpark once located at the intersection of Grape Street and MacArthur Road in Whitehall Township. The ballpark, later renamed Max Hess Stadium later gave way to a shopping center known as the Lehigh Valley Mall. (c) 2008/2009 by Dennis L. Pearson All Rights Reserved --- No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission from the author.x |
| The Last Cast |
| Cast at BOF |
| # 2 Machine Shop |
