Eden
Eden Township, Marshall County, South Dakota, USA
It's Not What You're Missing, It's What You've Got Left
from "Marshall County"
by the Marshall County Historical Society
©1979
pages 114 - 115
Eden, S.D. Nobody in Eden thinks of George Schultz as a
handicapped man. He runs his own garage, designs his own
machinery, heads the fire department, fixes "everything":
George rolls his own cigarettes in four seconds flat - and
he's minus one arm. He's an independent cuss. "You don't help him
unless he askes for it", his wife confessed. "His ma and dad never
babied him, (the arm was lost in a mower at age 4) his sister
would hold nails for him when he hammered."
Ten years ago a redhaired seven-year old poked his head around
the door of George's workshop. "Looking for a job?" George teased.
"Yes" the boy replied. He was kidding, of course, but the youngster,
Donny Gruby, wasn't. "He just never quit coming," George said. By
the end of his first summer Donny had graduated from floor sweeping
to welding - of sorts. His "quilt", a ragamuffin mass of iron
scraps, rests against the outside wall of George's workshop as
testimony to his garbled first efforts with a welding rod. Today,
Donny, a senior in high school, "can do anything I can, only a
little bit better," George confided, "because he had a good
teacher!" George likes to get the last laugh.
As business partners the bulk of George and Donny's income comes
from sickle repair and replating, for which George designed and
built a hybrid hydraulic machine to remove and replace rivets -
the only one of its kind in the 50 states, no doubt. No, a
customer reflected, there may be one in Hawaii. A power steering
pump supplies hydraulic pressure for the unit, which combines
skeletal combine parts, a one dollar motor, a Do-All loader
control and assorted junk. No matter its innards: the machine
removes and replaces a 15 foot swather sickle in 45 minutes with
Donny at the helm. Their business flourishes without advertising
(except for two-color printed pens, "Schultz and Gruby - Sickles
Replated While You Wait ... Eden, S. Dak.) The success formula is
simple. "Most of these farmers who bring their equipment in, I
fixed their toys and bicycles and tricycles for nothing when
they were little" "And overshoes - kids drop them off on their
way to school in the morning and I fix them and leave them outside
to pick up on their way home. A lot of times I don't even know
whose they are." George shook his head and smiled. "And magazine
racks, boat docks and trailers, combines, etc." There is a system
of trust between George and his customers. Although he affirms a
company cannot overextend credit, the overalls-clad businessman
sends no statements to his debtors and they pay him when they can.
Mornings the Senior Citizens gather in his front office, a cubicle
decked in long-cracked lime green paint, to talk and solve the
world's problems. And they solve them all several times, George
winked. Eden's population is largely elderly. Change is evidenced
only in the new homes built by retired farmers moving into town
and by the ever spiraling cost of gasoline. For George, other
changes too - Donny will be leaving soon. He figures to stay with
the shop through summer at least, the near graduate said, perhaps
two years, but he will be leaving soon. To start a business like
this one? Probably not ... cash flow problems, capital requirements,
not lucrative enough ... George admitted he had also thought of
leaving Eden, several times, when the daily grind got to him.
But he couldn't imagine where else to go, so he stayed. Now "too
old to leave," he faces his assistant's departure. You might
guess, though, Donny has a younger brother about five years old,
who says he'd like to work ...
By Diane Stockman
E-mail: dwagner2@isd.net
©2002 DJW
Last Modified:
October 12, 2002