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By BARI BRENNER Sven if they were so un tired, there's little time for workers at the Hayward Mat tress and Upholstery Com pany to lie down on the job. That's because there are just two of them now running the Place. Mrs. Mary Clark, and her brother, Bob Felver, Mrs. Clark, who began working in a mattress factory at age 5, in Kansas City, Mo., owns the company. She and her husband, Thomas, who died two years ago, founded the company in 134], a year after they moved to Hayward. They worked in mattress fac tories for a relative in San Francisco and Oakland, before sisting their own place and ir moving, to California from the road west. Before he died, Mr. Clark was seriously ill for three years, and Mrs. Clark, in ad ition to caring for him, vir tually ran the operation herself It wasn't all that new to her, she indicated in a recent interview, since she had been revolves a along, combining ies of making, and renovating mattresses with duties of raising three sons. Fortunately, the family home and the mattress works are located on the same prop erty, (n the still-to-be-he area adjacent to Hay Industrial Park, (San Jerry, is now a teacher in Sacramento. San Michael, who lives across the road from his mother, works for Alameda County, San Thomas Je, is a truck driver, who helps out sometimes with de liveries.) Most of the business today is in renovation of mattresses, Mia, Clark said. She esti mates presently, that there are calls for making less than a dozen mattresses a year “from scratch.” ‘She remembers some of the special order mattresses of years ago, however. ‘There was the mattress, made for the fair had a j¢ snoring problem. He or ieed a mattress with an in dentation in it where his face would .There was the mattress a man ordered with a re movable side piece. His wife was bedridden, he explained, and it would be so rauch eas ier for her to use a bedpan, if it could be placed at a tower level of the mattress, made Possible by the removable section. Then there was the smat tress made for a “Jack Sprat ” wre couple. She was very heavy, and he was very thin. Her weight caused their mat tress to tilt. So the Hayward mattress company made a Mattress for them with two afferent springs, extra firm pad side and soft on his faee. Today, many of the ‘company’s customers ask her to remake camper truck mit teesses, Mrrs. Clark said. They want them cotton-stuffed ite stead of filled with poly-foam, she explained. The com is officially open for mess Monday enough Friday, but since the wooden ‘structure in which Springs and stuffing and cov ers and sewing machines are , is just a few steps from the front door of her residence, Mrs. Clark allows that she does receive and han l business calls on week end, too, Tm i sales. say as ual a 2 job on the phone. ’ “Yark up things ag you we all i she, explained about Haring ‘to do the book ordering, and government ent prescribed hes ting and negotiation with cus tomers required of an en trepensur, She Reeieve she's taken advantage of because she's a woman. She said, “I'm eneficient In stating my try to be very safe to people and tell them what we can do and what we can't do,” she said. Yet, she admitted, “about oner a month a new problem are piio inal about . “You have to take it as it comes, and go, on,” she said . She doesn’t t having devoted most of her working life to making mattresses, she said, and coud thi think of what she would have done if she hadn't been involved in Such work, 4 like sewing.” she ex lained, “I lke fe People. I like feel that I'm helping them if their mattress is too soft or two hard and wefl. Alot of people have bad iiks and want me to do something for them, and I can.” SHE'S HERO MAKING MATTRESSES SINCE SHE WAS 15 YEARS OLD fers. Mary Cark stil sperates own mattress firm
Newspaper Details
Daily Review
Hayward, California, US
Fri, Mar 07, 1975
Page 38
Full Page
Clipped by
Christan F.
