Wartime saboteur struck Akron condom factory

I’d heard stories of wartime sabotage, but never anything like this.

Tallmadge resident Carol Deeser, a retired Copley teacher, was keenly interested in our July 30 article about the demolished factory on Morgan Avenue that had been home to L.E. Shunk Latex Products, Killian Manufacturing and Akwell Corp., among others.

That’s where her parents met.

Tom Whitehurst was in charge of the shipping department and Lorena Franz was working as “a floor lady” when their eyes met at the noisy complex. They got married in 1943 while the latex factory was busy manufacturing specialized goods for U.S. troops during World War II.

After Carol was born, her mother became a stay-at-home housewife while her father continued to work at the company until his retirement in 1966.

As a child growing up, Carol had no idea what the factory made. Her parents merely said the rubber company made “miscellaneous products.”

That was a more innocent time. Kids weren’t so educated in the facts of life.

It wasn’t until the 1960s — when she was a student at St. Vincent High School or maybe the University of Akron — that her dad finally revealed that the factory manufactured condoms.

He broke the news while telling her a startling story about product tampering at the Morgan Avenue complex during the war.

“Someone within the shop was discovered putting small pinholes in the product being shipped to the military,” Deeser recounted. “Thus, the product was not entirely a safe contraceptive.”

Ten-hut! Right face! Forward march!

America’s fighting forces went off to battle with loaded munitions.

“I often have wondered how many babies resulted from those shipments before the culprit was discovered,” Deeser said.

My nostalgic column “Sugar-frosted memories of 1970s cereal” (July 23) elicited comments by the boxful.

“Cereal was one of my best friends,” Tallmadge native Mike Vayda wrote. “Never let me down; never failed to entertain and sustain.

“I read so many boxes! To this day, ‘lecithin’ and ‘dextrose’ and ‘part of a balanced breakfast’ run in a loop in my mind.

“I was Team Franken Berry; Count Chocula was an aristocratic bully.

“I had so many favorites! Perhaps Honeycomb was No. 1. How could anyone turn down the cereal when it had that SONG?

“I'm singing it now in my head …”

Hey, Mike, I think I can hear you in that imaginary Honeycomb Hideout: “Honeycomb’s big. Yeah, yeah, yeah! It’s not small. No, no, no!”

I’d never thought about it before, but it probably wasn’t easy to have the name Mike after Life cereal made that popular TV commercial in the 1970s.

“Hey, Mikey! He likes it!”

Retired librarian Michael Elliott, a Cap’n Crunch aficionado in youth, said he took a lot of teasing in elementary school because of Life cereal.

“Even today, once in a while when meeting someone for the first time, they’ll bring up that advertisement,” Elliott said. “Nowadays it gives me a chuckle, and for a fact many of my close friends actually know me as ‘Mikey’… all thanks to a 50-year-old TV commercial.”

After reading my ode to sweet breakfast, reader Karen Stevens wrote: “Just asking: Has your dentist sent his kids to college, on your ‘sugared’ past?”

I still have my chompers, Karen. Thanks to good genes, proper care and regular checkups with Dr. Kimberly, I’m not quitting Lucky Charms.

Lauri Phillips recalls the thrill of discovering forbidden cereal during childhood sleepovers.

“You write of everything I remember and felt as a kid,” she noted. “Yes, I remember going to my cousins’ house to stay and was amazed because they had Cap'n Crunch and we weren't allowed to get it at my house.”

James Verde remembers sending away for must-have toys from Kellogg’s in the 1950s that required collecting a certain number of box tops and mailing them with a quarter that had to be carefully taped down so it wouldn’t jiggle.

“Running to the mailbox daily when awaiting the mailman to see if the toy had arrived was torture,” he said. “Tell me, how could a kid resist sending something to a place called Battle Creek, Michigan?”

Here’s a puzzler to add to our “Little mysteries from the Soap Box Derby” (July 9): Who was the Kansas imposter?

As a boy growing up in Akron, Leo Johnson got caught up in the hoopla in the 1950s. He remembers when tens of thousands of people filled the stands at Derby Downs and when derby parades engulfed downtown Akron. It was such an exciting time.

“Once at the parade, a girl asked me if I was a derby champion and of course I said ‘yes,’ ” Johnson recalled. “She wanted my autograph and I signed: ‘Leo Johnson, Topeka Kansas.’ She was thrilled.”

Mark J. Price can be reached at [email protected]

Vintage photos:50 memorable Cleveland TV personalities

Vintage photos:50 more Cleveland TV personalities