career – Through My Eyes, Gently

Dad walked into the East Moline Works of International Harvester one Monday morning carrying his black lunch bucket with the silver latches—the kind with the domed lid that held his Thermos of coffee in the top.

He didn’t work there. His last job had ended, and he was looking for a new one. He told Mom he would be back when he found one.

International Harvester was a big employer in our area. Getting a job there could easily become the start of a career.

Dad walked into the plant manager’s office. When it was his turn to be called inside, the plant manager offered him a seat and asked him why he was there.

“I’m looking for a job,” Dad said. “I’ll do any job, no matter what it is. I’ll sweep floors if that is all you have.”

The manager listened, then shook his head and said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t have anything for you. We aren’t hiring.”

Dad stood and thanked him, then left the office—but he didn’t leave the plant. He took a seat in a chair just outside the manager’s office.

When the day shift ended at 3:30 pm, Dad left to find something to eat. At night, he slept in the car. He returned at 7 am the next morning when the day shift began, lunch bucket in hand.

He continued this routine for most of the week.

Dad said the plant manager began giving him odd looks as he went in and out of his office. Later that week, he stopped and asked Dad, “You’re still here?”

“Yes, and I’m going to be here until you give me a job.”

Dad said the manager shook his head and walked away.

The next day, the manager approached him with a broom in his hand.

He handed it to Dad and simply said, “Start sweeping.”

Before the day was over, Dad had his ID badge and was an official employee.

Dad swept floors for a few days but was soon promoted to machinist, a job he held for over twenty years. He fed sheets of metal into a machine, making parts for combines and other equipment.

As he neared retirement age, Dad developed some health issues, so they gave him a job as a fork truck driver.

Eventually, Mom and Dad relocated to East Moline so Dad wouldn’t have the nearly 75 mile round trip to and from work every day. They were fortunate to locate a home just outside the entrance to the plant.

When I was in my late thirties, International Harvester hosted an open house, inviting the families of their employees to attend.

Dad said they cleaned for days to get the plant ready.

Our whole family attended. Dad showed us around and explained what his job was. It was amazing how many processes those sheets of steel went through before they became finished pieces of farm machinery.

It made Dad’s stories about the different jobs he performed in the space of a day easier to understand.

I was impressed. The machinery Dad was helping to build was so much bigger and more complex than the simple machinery he had back on the farm.

The open house answered questions I had wondered about for years.

“What was it like where Dad worked?”

“What did he do there?”

Of course, he had shared what it was like, but that isn’t the same as seeing it for myself.

The next day, I wrote a letter to the plant manager thanking him for allowing me to see what I had always wondered about as a child.

He didn’t answer me, but I didn’t expect him to.

However, I was surprised the next time I saw Dad. He grinned, and handed me a copy of the company newsletter.

They had printed my letter verbatim thanking them for the open house and telling them about the questions it had put to rest for me!

I was so surprised! And it was obvious that Dad was proud something I wrote was chosen for the company newsletter.

Dad retired at age sixty-six, after a career that spanned thirty years.

The lunch bucket was retired, too.

A short time later, he stopped by to visit with his foreman. They shared a good laugh when his foreman told him they had given his job to two younger men—because one couldn’t keep up.

I can picture him laughing with a twinkle in his eye when his foreman told him that, because it happened every time he told the story afterward.

That was my Dad. He was an exceptionally hard worker, always focused on the job at hand, and doing it to the very best of his ability.

When I was growing up, I didn’t think too much about why he worked, other than the fact that it was just something that fathers did.

Now I realize he did it all for us—to give our family a nice home, plenty to eat, and the kind of loving home life we enjoyed growing up.

I know it couldn’t have been easy, but he did it anyway. For us. For thirty years.

Because that is just who he was.

Mom was sitting on the end of our black sectional sofa, the one with silver threads running through it, crocheting a doily. It wasn’t the first time I had seen her crochet—but it was the first time I really paid attention.

I sat down beside her to watch.

She was working with dark pink and forest green crochet thread, two of her favorite colors.

I wanted to understand how she formed the stitches that made the doily grow. Her quick hand movements—and the steady progress of the piece—fascinated me.

I watched her for a long time that day. And after that, whenever she sat down to crochet, I often sat beside her to watch.

I couldn’t figure out how she did it, but I wanted to learn.

She didn’t think my seven-year-old hands would be able to manage a tiny steel hook and thread, so she gave me a blue plastic crochet hook and a ball of bright pink yarn.

She taught me how to make a chain stitch. I used up most of that yarn making one very long chain.

She tried to show me how to turn those chains into something more, but I lost interest before I had much success. It would be years before I picked it up again.

Later, when I was about eleven, a friend taught me to knit in garter stitch. I made a lot of knitted headbands that year.

In my late teens, I picked knitting up again for a while—but I was never completely comfortable working with two needles.

It felt awkward.

That’s when I turned back to crochet.

I taught myself the basic stitches from a book and quickly realized that working with a single hook felt far more natural.

As I became more invested, I learned advanced techniques and began making hats, baby blankets, purses, mittens—even rugs.

Before long, I realized I could look at a finished piece and write a pattern from it.

That led to designing my own patterns.

Eventually, I became confident enough to submit them for publication.

The first few were turned down, but I was determined. Each rejection taught me something. I studied my work, paid attention to what publishers were accepting, and adjusted.

Before long, more and more of what I submitted was accepted.

That was the beginning of what became a decades-long career in crochet design.

Rose Garden, a doily I designed many years later. Mom would have loved this one.

In 2004, that path led me to accept an editorial position with a Midwest craft publishing company, where I worked for several years before retiring.

I have long since lost track of that first ball of bright pink yarn—but I still have the blue plastic crochet hook Mom gave me.

Over the years, I’ve collected many hooks—favorites I reach for again and again—but none of them compare to that simple blue plastic one.

That one holds the memories.

Memories of sitting beside Mom as she worked with a tiny steel hook, creating what felt like magic out of thin air.

I’ve often told people that Mom taught me to crochet, because she was the first to put a hook in my hands.

She always gently corrected me, saying it was the other way around—that I taught her by passing along what I had learned.

Either way, she was my inspiration in crochet—and in so many other things in life.

And to think… it all started with watching Mom crochet.

Tag: career

Thirty Years and a Lunch Bucket

Watching Mom Crochet