Milestones on Mainstreet: December 2008

The Big Shakeout of ‘79

In January of ’79, Jose Cruz keeps things moving in the Sparta Foundry. Jose, known as Joe, works second shift. A straight eight from 3:00 to 11:00 at night. Life in the foundry is hard and dirty. But the money and benefits are good.

Twenty men work behind noisy presses to make the steel and dirt piston ring molds. It’s tedious, twisting work. Several men take aspirin for chronic back pain. Tethers keep their hands out of the presses. But a few are missing fingers.

A lineman for the foundry
Joe is a lineman. With an iron hook he pulls the heavy molds out onto the foundry floor. Joe puts his back into each move, like a football lineman. He works four lines, moving fast from line to line.

Joe prepares the molds for the molten iron. He puts heavy weights and pouring boxes on each. The iron pourer arrives, pushing a heavy ladle of molten iron down a ceiling rail.

Rivers of Hades
The iron pourers wear safety helmets with dark masks. The iron flows from the ladles in glowing orange streams. Steam rises and sparks fly when it hits the cool molds. Several pourers are busy. It looks like the Rivers of Hades.

The foundry is dark but Joe wears sun glasses to protect his eyes from the iron and sand. Joe is one of four linemen working the large floor. Everyone is in a hurry to make production. Fast and furious.

Within minutes the iron solidifies and turns gray. Its still 1200 degrees. Joe removes the running boxes. Hot sand burns his arms, but Joe is used to it. And the money is good.

Down to shakeout
Joe pulls the heavy molds down to the shakeout man. Shakeout is the dirtiest job in the place. Each mold is broke open by hand. Steam rises and scalding black dirt falls over the shakeout man’s boots through grates on the floor.

He pulls the rings from the mold with a noisy air-pressure lift. More hot black dirt shakes out. More steam. He lifts the molds on to the return line. Back breaking work. Joe pushes them back to the molder and the whole process starts again.

Set for life
Jose Cruz was born in Mercedes, Texas in 1947. The second of nine children. In 1965, with the rise of refrigerated rail cars, his father Santana Cruz lost his long-time job in a Texas ice factory. So the family came to Michigan where you could “rake money from the ground like leaves.”

Back in Texas, Joe earned a football scholarship from Corpus Christie University. But he joined the Marines, spent 22 months in Vietnam, fought at the Battle of Hui and earned a Purple Heart. After the war, he returned to Michigan.

At Bolthouse Farms in Grant he met Toni and got married. He attended Central Michigan on a Veteran’s Grant. But in 1977 he heard the Sparta Foundry was hiring. When you got a job at the Sparta Foundry, you were set for life.

The Oil Stopper Piston Ring Corporation
The Sparta Foundry began in 1921 as the Oil Stopper Piston Ring Corporation. It was soon acquired by the Muskegon Piston Ring Company. From the 1940’s through the 1970’s it became one of the largest piston ring factories in the world.

From lineman to mailman
By January 1979 the glory days of the Sparta Foundry were peaking. Global competition would rock the automotive industry. The great shakeout of the Michigan economy had begun. In 1984, Joe was laid off.

In December 1984 Joe joined the Post Office and became the familiar, friendly face on Sparta’s Village Route. Through snow and sleet and gloom of Sparta nights the post arrived, always with lollypops for the youngest residents along the way. In 2005, Joe retired with a bad knee. For more than 20 years, he was a real milestone on main street in Sparta. Just like the Sparta Foundry.

Today Jose Cruz lives with his wife Toni on Schultz Avenue in Sparta. He has five children and five grand children. The Sparta Foundry officially closed in 2004.

Milestones on Main Street is produces specially for Sparta Today. Input and contributions to this column are welcome. Please send your ideas to Dean Lettinga at hlet@hetnet.nl or contact Joan Lettinga at 887-2414.