The Sale to Atlas
Paul received a letter from the Atlas Press Company, I believe from Mr. Penniman, the President. Paul went to Chicago to meet the gentlemen from Atlas which was based in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He met with Mr. Penniman and Mr. Ed Marsland, the Executive Vice President, at the Drake Hotel.
The original letter had only mentioned a mutual sales arrangement, however, this sort of letter was often used as an "ice-breaker" and was intended to lead to the purchase of a business. Therefore, Paul had thought about the possibility of selling the business before he went to the meeting in Chicago. Atlas was interested in buying and events then moved quickly and the sale concluded. Paul and Otto kept working for the new owners, as did all the other employees.
Atlas in Ottumwa
The name of the business in Ottumwa was changed to Atlas-Clausing. The Catalog numbers of the lathes were changed from 100 to 4800 and from 200 to 6300 and, at first, the name plate on the lathes was changed to Atlas as well. However, after a relatively short time an incident happened that led to a change: George Nancarrow, the Atlas Vice President of Sales, was visiting a dealer. A customer walked in and asked for a Clausing lathe. The salesman said certainly, and showed him a lathe with the name Atlas on it. The customer was quite indignant - he wanted a Clausing lathe, not an Atlas - the name on the lathes reverted to Clausing.
After a relatively short time "Boots" Avery came from Kalamazoo to take over management of the production side of the company. Otto became a master mechanic who solved the mechanical problems that others found difficult. He designed and built special production equipment and the people from Atlas greatly respected his unusual abilities.
Otto also had a small workshop in the "garage" behind his house. The primary product was the grinder that had first gone into production in 1938. Otto's had moved to Willard Street in 1943, and shortly after that he had set up some machine tools in the building behind the house. Ralph Williams came from the main factory to be the foreman. I worked there during the summers of 1945 and 1946 with both Bonnie and Dale - who were older, and much more productive than I was ...
Otto continued this business with the grinders being sold through the Clausing Manufacturing Company, and I believe that this arrangement continued under Atlas. In the Fall of 1952 Keith Nelson transferred from Atlas-Clausing to work for Otto.
Paul became, in essence, the office manager for the Atlas-Clausing, but he was not especially happy with that position for it had nothing to do with making better lathes, which had been his main motivation. However, after 19 years of struggle, he had much better financial security. Ironically, one of the other activities that he did remain involved in was dealing with the union. He didn't much care for this, but the workers knew and trusted Paul, whereas they did not know the Atlas people.
I don't know how much Paul and Hilda received for their share of the business but it was enough to relieve them of immediate worries about money, but not enough to live on for the rest of their lives. They paid off debts, and gave Otto the money to pay off his mortgage. In 1951 they invested a substantial fraction of their remaining proceeds in Atlas common stock. Paul was impressed with Atlas and thought that the stock was under-valued.
Activities continued throughout the years and the revenues continued to go up and down, as is typical of the machine-tool business.
In February 1957 during a visit to Ottumwa Ed Marsland told Paul that they intended to move the production of the Clausing lathes to their plant in Warsaw, Indiana, in the Fall of 1958. Actually, the move came sooner. Otto, Bill Deford, Roy Kirk, Fred Sutton, and Howard Weidman went to Warsaw with the plant and equipment. Otto and Alice left Ottumwa on January 18, 1958 to live in Warsaw.
Afterwards
Paul and Hilda Clausing and Gus and Martha Bischoff still owned the factory building in Ottumwa and were fortunate to sell it immediately to the Lunds, who had a business making agricultural knives. Located in Massachusetts, they were interested in locating nearer to their markets of whom one, John Deere (who had a factory in Ottumwa) was a major customer.
With the sale of the building the story of the original Clausing Manufacturing Company comes to a close. Otto continued to work in Warsaw until he died on June 14, 1960.
The Atlas stock that Paul and Hilda had bought had never done much. In the mid 1950s Atlas had missed their dividends for several quarters. However, in 1967 the Atlas stock had a run up in price and Paul and Hilda sold most of their holding. It continued going up for a short time to a peak that was about 10% higher than Paul and Hilda had received and they were quite worried that they had sold prematurely. However, the stock then started going down and in half a year it was below half of what they had received. Now they had enough money for relative financial security during their remaining years - six for Paul and eighteen for Hilda.
In the Fall of 1969 the Atlas Company changed its name to Clausing; it still exists today, although not as a mainstream manufacturer but rather a reseller of machine tools made in foreign countries.
After Atlas left Ottumwa Paul went back to what he really liked to do - mechanical work. He made some inventions and did some design work. He became involved with local people in the business of manufacturing the price markers that were used in supermarkets. One of Paul's inventions turned out to be worth quite a bit, but he had given away his rights to the patent.
Eventually Paul quit business, and went back to his first love, painting pictures and our house is filled with his works; my cousins also have some. The most cherished is the 'Childhood Home' where Otto disassembled and then assembled the clock. Paul started to draw there, including a sketch of the Childhood Home, which he used more than half a century later as the basis upon which to paint the picture of the Childhood Home.
Paul Clausing died in Ottumwa on March 15, 1973.