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Former Fenton workers worried
By CONNIE CARTMELL
"It's sad, just so sad," Gessel said of
Fenton's closure announced last week. "Whole families were hired over
there. What are these people going to do?"
She is worried about employees who still work in her old department. Gessel, 64, who retired in 2003, started decorating glass at
Fenton in 1972.
"There are some girls there who are self-supporting," she said.
"There is a girl whose husband passed away last year. She's been a
decorator for years. What will she do? Where will she go?"
Gessel said years ago, when things were good at
Fenton, she sometimes worried about what she would do if she ever lost her job.
"I used to say, 'I can't lose my job because I don't know anything
else,'" she said. "I was not trained in anything else."
For dozens of skilled glassworkers who will certainly lose jobs when Fenton
closes down operations, there may be no other comparable jobs.
"Over the years I've seen other glass houses go out of business,"
said Jim Stage, who worked at Fenton from 1967 to 1985. "It worries me.
Even if Fenton comes back, if the skilled workers leave, jobs are lost. It
takes years to learn those skills."
Stage, who is now co-owner of Williamstown Antique Mall, one of the region's
largest Fenton dealers, is not optimistic that the company will pull out of its
nose dive. His shop's inventory is 70 percent vintage Fenton, he said.
He's watched over the past year as news from Fenton only got worse.
"In the 1970s, Fenton was big," he said. "We probably had close
to 300 or 400 employees. We had 24 shops (departments) operating at one time.
When I left, there were seven or eight shops and now it's down to two
shops."
The
Gessel said she never expected the plant to close
entirely. She had been in contact with Fenton family members in recent months
and asked what was going on.
"I was told it wasn't looking good," she said. "I live right
across the street. It's bad living here and watching
it day in and day out. The parking lot is empty."
She and her family moved across the street from the plant because it was more
convenient to be close by when she was raising her three children.
"I never needed a babysitter," she said with a laugh. "The whole
finishing department watched out for them, telling me about every person who
went in or out."
There were the elaborate Christmas parties for workers and their families every
year, when all the Fenton family would attend and many employees would wear
long, fancy dresses.
Gessel remembers the good times.
"It started changing maybe 15 or 20 years ago," she said.
She is still upset that Fenton seems on a pathway to closing its doors for
good.
"I hate it," Gessel said. "It's been a
big part of my life. When I heard, it was like someone ripped the rug from
under me."
Carnick Hamperian, 83, also
of Williamstown, retired from Fenton 19 years ago and was an employee for 30
years.
"I was supervisor in the mold shop. It was a good place to work," he
said.
Over three decades, the company grew and prospered, he said.
"Frank and Bill (Fenton) were excellent bosses. It was a family
place," he said.
Sad and nostalgic is how Hamperian views his
association with Fenton today. He visited his old mold shop Monday. Of 10
employees who had worked there, only a single worker is left that he hired.
That worker will keep his job until they shut the plant down, Hamperian said.