QUILT HISTORY STORIES
ELGIN, ILLINOIS
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
LeeWard Mills and Lee Wards Story
Book 7
Susan Wildemuth, Atkinson, IL
History of LeeWard Mills and LeeWards
General Mills Years (1969 –1985)
LeeWards New Headquarters - Elgin, Illinois
(Old McGraw Electric Company Building)
Authors Collection
LeeWards New Headquarters
In the spring of 1970, LeeWards purchased the McGraw Electric Company building at 1200 St. Charles Road in Elgin. LeeWards offices, computer center, mail order warehouse, and processing operations moved from the 840 N. State Street location in Elgin. Some light manufacturing, catalog mailing, and a greatly expanded retail store would remain at the State Street site. (90) By November, when both facilities were operating, LeeWards had an employee force of around 1000. (91)
LeeWards held its Grand Opening at the 1200 St. Charles Street plant on a Sunday from 1 to 5 in April 1971. (92) As reported earlier in this piece, a newspaper article shared, “There will be craft demonstrations by professional Demonstrators and LeeWards’ own designers. Lowry Holt, Byr Setsman, and Alicia Prusa will be there to show how they create original designs for LeeWards exciting line. (93) Customers flocked to Elgin to see the new facility.
Times were changing. Between 1970 and 1974 Asa App left the company, Catherine Moran, who had done the books for years for Fink and Fried, retired, Bill MacDonald had stepped up to the plate to become controller for the company, and Anna Seeburg retired from LeeWards. Anna’s story is one that needs to be shared. Ms. Seeburg worked for Collingbourne Mills in the 1920s as a young girl. She and Asa App, who had been General Manger of Collingbourne Mills in later years, made the transfer over to work for Fink and Fried and were two of the first ones hired from the mill by the brothers-in-law. At the time of her retirement Anna worked in the receiving room at the St. Charles location. In a newspaper article she shared, “It’s a nice feeling to learn the business from the ground up, it’s been my home away from home.” LeeWards threw her a retirement party and one of the original owners, Ralph Fried, attended the celebration to pay his respects to his former employee. (94) This is a common LeeWards employee story; whether it was in the Fink and Fried years or the General Mills, Inc. years, once hired people stayed because LeeWards was an employee friendly organization to work for.
A July 27, 1974 Courier-News article reports that “LeeWards is recognized as one of America’s largest suppliers of needle art and creative craft supplies. Six designers and ten buyers develop the new ideas and the buying office in Nagoya, Japan insures a constant flow of materials to the U.S. The company’s president Lee Anderson explains the popularity of the creative art industry, ‘Hobbies are playing an increasingly vital role in our national life. Many psychologist and sociologists say that making creative use of leisure time is one of the most pressing needs of our modern, computer orientated society.’ In a two year period ending January 1974 LeeWards opened one store a month. We now have 30 stores nationally, including the original outlet in Elgin which was the only one in the business when GM made the acquisition in February 1969. This fall LeeWards will run a mail order campaign for its merchandise in Japan where a buying office was established in 1973.” (95)
