I'm afraid that our welcome to Detroit was not exactly what I expected. We had driven from Hartford to Detroit, arriving in the early evening; we checked into the down town Howard Johnson Motel. They didn't have any adjoining rooms available. In fact the only two rooms available were on the second floor, one room on one side of the motel, and the other on the far side. All the rooms faced outside, with a walkway all around. We put Kathy, Karen and Kirby in one room and we stayed in the other. This arrangement was to be just for one night as I had rented a 3 bed room apartment in Southfield, Michigan, on a month to month basis until I could find us a house; however it was not available until the next day.
We had been in the motel for about an hour or so, when I told Helen that I was going around to the other side to check on the kids. Leaving our room, I just pulled the door shut, but not enough to make it lock. I was only going to be gone for a couple of minutes, after all. The kid's room was all quiet and dark, so I returned to our room and pushed the door open. To my amazement, there was a strange man in the room. I quickly backed out, thinking that I had entered the wrong room. But, looking at the number on the door, and confirming it was our room, I entered again. I asked the man what the hell he was doing in our room. He said that he was looking for Mabel, or some such name, and when he called her name, she had said "come in". He was wearing a short jacket and his hands were in his pockets. I said that there was no one by that name here. I went over to the bathroom door and called out for Helen to be sure that she was alright. In the meantime, the man said: "I'm sorry. I must have misunderstood", and ran out of the room.
When Helen came out of the bathroom, she said: "Where's my purse. It was on the bed." When we looked for it, we found it under the bed; it was empty. The guy had stolen all her money and credit cards. She said, "I told you I didn't want to come to this G.D. place". There was a rather funny ending to the story. About a month or so later, Helen received an envelope addressed to the Connecticut address and forwarded to her in Detroit. Inside were her driver's license, credit cards, and a note that just said "I'm sorry". It had been mailed from Toronto, Canada. Just another aside; when I called down to the front desk of the motel and asked them to call the police because we had been robbed, the front desk clerk said I was nuts, people don't get robbed in our hotel. I had to go down to the front desk and yell at them to call the police. Of course it was too late for the police to do anything, as the guy was long gone. I guess the only thing I can say is "Welcome to Detroit".
The Detroit office was located down town in the Gateway Center Building. There was a staff of six, three outside sales reps, Don Barrows, Dean and Bob, and the inside staff were Betty Carl, Helen Mackey, and Joann. The office was on the third floor next to the Eastern Airlines Regional Office. I was happy to learn that their local Detroit manager was a man that I had known when I was with Eastern in Miami.
Ken Becker, the former KLM manager had already left for Los Angeles but was coming back in a few days to turn over the office to me. There were certain documents I had to sign for ticket stock, cash working funds, bank account, take over the company car etc. Becker had left everything in good shape. All the account records were up to date, so it was going to be an easy transition.
First priority was a staff meeting where I could evaluate what functions each were doing. Betty Carle had been Ken's secretary; he had referred her to me as being a good and efficient person, so I decided to leave her in that position. Helen Mackey and Joanne were ticket agents whose job was to take care of reservations and issue tickets. Don Barrows and Bob were Passenger Sales Reps; Dean's job was to handle cargo sales. From what Ken had told me, all the people were good and he would recommend that I keep them all on, which I did. The second priority was to get out and visit the top agents. To do this I scheduled two or three days on the road with each sales rep to meet the agents they were responsible for. Our territory covered the areas of South Michigan and Northern Ohio, and the other was North Michigan. Dean's job was bringing in freight business; he covered the whole state, as there were not too many commercial accounts shipping abroad at the time. I decided to handle the important Dutch Immigrant Society, in Grand Rapids and Holland, Michigan, by myself.
This was late February and the weather was still pretty cold. Helen's job was to find a place where we could buy a home that she would be happy with, and get the kids into school as soon as possible. I was not happy to leave the search all up to her, but I had to get busy handling the income side. Roger Ackley, the Midwest Regional Manager in Chicago, was already after me to come down to Chicago to meet with him. Since he was going to be my new boss, I didn't want to keep him waiting.
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