Hershey News 1954-12-02

              HERSHEY NEWS
Vol. 2 _HERSHEY, PENNSYLVANIA, DECEMBER 2, 1954 No. 48
Retires From Position
In Community Building
There was bad news this
week for the fish population.
Starting on Wednesday, Paul
Weigley became a fulltime
fisherman.
Maintenance superintend-ent
at the Hershey Commun-ity
Building :for the past
twenty years, Weigley began
his retirement on December
1--the day before his 65th
birthday. Looming large in his
future is his plan to concen-trate
on fishing, a field in
which he has many years of
experience and preparation.
He also plans a trip to Cali-fornia
early in 1955 and, know-ing
this, the maintenance staff
and other friends at the Com-munity
Building have pre-sented
him with a beautiful
leather traveling bag as a reL
tirement gift. Weigley will vis-it
his daughter, Pauline, in
Monrovia, California.
Was Machinist
Now residing at 508 Pak
Avenue in Hershey, Weigley
is a native of Lebanon, where
he learned the machinist's
trade at the old American Iron
and Steel Company, beginning
his apprenticeship at age 14..
He worked at Hershey on
several occasions in following
the machinist trade. His first
stint here was 1919 to 1921,
and later, between 1924 and
1926, both times at the Chocq-late
Corporation.
From 1927 to 1930, he was
night foreman of the machine
shop at the chocolate factory,
transferring in 1930 to the
newly established- Hershey
Estates machine shop.
. To Community Bldg.
The following year he was
assigned to supervise the in-stallation
of machinery in the
new Community Building
which was being erected by M.
S. Hershey for the use of the
people of the community.
When the building was opened
in 1932, Weigley stayed on as
day maintenance man because
of his intimate knowledge of
its mechanical facilities. He
was made superintendent of
maintenance in 1934.
In addition to his work and
his well known preoccupation
with fishing Weigley in re-cent
year's has been kept-occu-pied
with his thirteen grand-children.
He has five living
children, three of whom re-side
in Hershey — Mrs. Wil-liam
Breidbenner, Mrs. Henry
Fasnacht and Mrs. Harry Wil-lard.
Son Paul R. lives at Hali-fax,
Pa., and a daughter, Mrs.
Lloyd Smith, in Monrovia„
California.
Mrs. Weigley, the former
Sadie Risser of Lebanon, died
January 25, 1953.
PAUL WEIGLEY and traveling companion . . . after
retirement, a trip to Cblifornia.
Name Three Judges To Rate
Home Christmas Decorating
The panel of judkes for.the
Rotary - sponsored Home
Rotary-sponsored. Home
Christmas Decoration Contest
In Hershey were announced
this week by the committee in
charge. • ,
Accepting the assignment
were:
Clyde C. Stroman; who is
affiliated with the Acme Sign
Company, 26 North Third
Street, Harrisburg.
Roy VV. Deets, of the Leba-non
Valley Offset Company,
Cleona.
• Roy H. Dundore, owner and
manager of the Roy H. Dun-dore
Signs and Display Mater-ials
Shop, 129 Cumberland
Street, Lebanon.
Cash prizes in four cate-gories
have been set up by the
Hershey Rotary Club for the
Christmas season decorating
judging, plus a grand prize of
$50.
Nitta*.
GEORGE W. HORSTICK, dean of the milk processing departments at the Hershey
Chocolate Corporation factory (at left in photo), shows old photograph of original factory
building to Plant Manager S. F. Hinkle (center) and Superintendent of Production C. J.
Speicher. Horstick a veteran employee with forty-six years of milk processing behind him,
retired on Wednesday.
George W. Horstick, Veteran Chocolate
Plant Employee, Begins His Retirement
George W. Horstick of 201
South Harrison Street, Pal-myra,
began his life of retire-ment
on Wednesday after
-fortk-six years in the Hershey
chocolate factory.
At the' time of his retire-ment,
Horstick was supervisor
of milk processing at the fact-ory,
a position which he had
held since 1951.
His first position at Her-shey
— back in 1907 — had
been between the. handles of
a wheelbarrow.
In those early-Hershey days,
Horstick was literally in on
the ground floor as he wheeled
bricks for the erection of the
Old factory smokestacks.
On September 8, 1908, he
went into the factory as a
laborer in the same plant
operation where he retired as
supervisor this week.
Horstick was never a man
to move around the country
too much. In his own words,
he was "born at Gravel Hill,
rolled down to Palmyra and
just stayed there."
His longest trip away from
home, he recalls, was to New
York City with Superinten-dent
of Production C. J. Spei-cher
to attend a World Series
baseball game. However, he
has plans for after the holi-days
for visits to relatives and
friends in Orlando, Florida,
and Hartford, Conn.
Widely Known
Having been employed for
so many years at Hershey,
Horstick has a host of friends
among active and retired
workers. He had been a fore-man
in his department- since
World War One days and in
1951 he was promoted from
the post of foreman on the
second shift in Condensing to
the position of supervisor of
Condensing and the plow and
chaser departments.
Horstick noted that, when
he entered the factory in 1908,
there were about fifteen em-ployees
in the three milk pro-cessing
departments. At pre-sent,
the personnel numbers
nearly 200.
Also during his years in
milk processing, Horstick said
the milk handled ran from a
relatively meager 8,000-10,000
pounds per day at the begin-ning
to a modern-day volume
of a million pounds per day.
The peak has been slightly
over 1,200,000 pounds in a
day, he recalled. .
Reminiscing, Horstick said
that in 1912 the milk process-ed
in his-department first "hit
the 100,000-pound mark."
"The town was in an uproar
and it was generally predicted
that we would 'never do it
again."
Monkey Busihess
A memory of his years in
the plant which •Horstick par-ticularly
likes to recall is the
time he and his co-workers in
the milk condensing depart-ment
captured the stray mon-key—
believed to have been
the only)simian ever to have
visited fhe chocolate factory.
The creature surprised Hor-stick
and his crew by suddenly-entering
a window. They gave
chase and somebody slapped
the agile monkey with a club.
Reviving it, Horstick fed
the monkey on chocolate until
they became friends, later
turning the creature over to.
the Hershey Zoo.
Horstick refers to this inter-ruption
in his working' sche-dule
as his piece of "monkey
business."
Where his work record is
concerned, he has spent little
time in monkey business. For
instance, Horstick once work-ed
365 consecutive days with
no loss of time, even though
he was married during that
period. When winter snowfalls
disrupted trolley service be-tween
his Palmyra home and
Hershey, he often walked to
work. Then 21 years old, Hor-stick
weighed a husky 235
pounds at the time he set his
marathon work record.
In addition to keeping busy
at his job through the years,
he has also devoted much tithe
to his home and church, the
Palmyra Church of the Breth-ren.
At his home, the well-kept
lawn and shrubbery testify
to the care he has given them.
Horstick also has a justifi-able
pride in his family and is
looking forward to "visiting
se rage Tim/
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