BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF R. E. NELLIS (by his son, Richard, Jr.)
Richard Eugene Nellis was born on Staten Island, New York, May 27, 1901, the son of Arthur C. Nellis and Alice Furman Vroom. He graduated from Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan in 1919 and went to work as a laborer for the New York Telephone Company. At the instigation of his brother, Fred, he enlisted in the U. S. Navy with the goal of obtaining admission to the Navy's preparatory school at Newport, Rhode Island, and subsequently a fleet appointment to the U. S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland.
Mr. Nellis served as a dishwasher on the minesweeper Chewink for approximately a year and a half prior to obtaining admission to the Newport naval preparatory school. He was one of the fewer than 10% who completed the course, and as a consequence was appointed, in 1921, to Annapolis. He graduated in 1925, the oldest in his class. After serving as an ensign in the Navy for two years he resigned as a lieutenant, junior grade, in the U.S. Naval Reserve and married Laura Louise Whitford on May 4, 1928. He became employed by the International Nickel Company (Inco) to sell castings of its newly developed, non-corrosive Monel Metal, presumably to the shipbuilding industry.
Monel was found to be desirable for kitchen sinks also, and Mr. Nellis was launched on his career in the domestic kitchen industry. The sinks were sold to the plumbing trade through Whitehead Metal Products Company, and when sink sales became tied with the sale of steel kitchen cabinets, Whitehead Monel Kitchens was born with R. E. Nellis as sales manager. In the late 1930's this became a division of Excel Metal Cabinet Company of Jamestown, New York. At this time the Nellises moved from Staten Island to Pelham in New York's Westchester County.
As war clouds thickened it became more and more difficult to obtain steel for residential use, and Mr. Nellis and some of his Whitehead Kitchens associates began discussing the possibility of obtaining a factory for the manufacture of their own line of wood cabinets. Through the efforts of Marand E. Steffen of Selinsgrove, Mr. Nellis purchased the planing mill of Harry S. Kreamer in Kreamer, Pennsylvania, on May 6, 1542. Shortly thereafter Wood-Metal Industries, Inc., was founded with Nellis as president, and the new firm took title to the mill. The other officers and principal stockholders were Theodore O. Gronlund, Caswell F. Holloway, and Charles G. Wall. By this time the United States was well into World War II, all materials for the production of kitchen cabinets became impossible to obtain, and the firm turned to war work to survive.
After World War II, Wood-Metal finally got into the wood kitchen cabinet business and Mr. Nellis, the principals of Wood-Metal, and others acquired a steel fabricating plant in Beech Bottom, West Virginia, for the additional purpose of producing steel kitchen cabinets. On March 6, 1950, during a trip to this plant he was critically injured in a head-on automobile accident near Allentown, Pennsylvania, hospitalizing him there for three months.
In 1953 Mr. Nellis closed Wood-Metal's executive offices in New York City as an economy measure, and he and Mrs. Nellis moved to Kreamer. Shortly thereafter the Beech Bottom operation was moved to McClure, Pennsylvania. He served as president of both Wood-Metal Industries, Inc., and Nellis Industries, Inc., (operator of the McClure plant) until 1959 when he and the remaining principals in Wood-Metal rearranged their interests in the two firms: Nellis devoting himself to Nellis Industries and Gronlund and Wall, to Wood-Metal. In 1965 Nellis Industries sold the McClure facility to the Lozier Corporation of Omaha, Nebraska, and Nellis Industries was dissolved. Thereafter Mr. Nellis devoted himself to the sale and installation of cabinets and casework for schools, hospitals and laboratories, operating from offices in Kreamer.
Laura Nellis died on December 31, 1967, and after a period of intense effort in his business, Mr. Nellis gradually resumed activity in an old interest, golf. He retired to golf and travel in 1973, and died on August 30, 1977. He was survived by two daughters, Doris Nellis Wing of Ambler, Pennsylvania, and Nancy-Linn Nellis of Storm Lake, Iowa, and a son, Richard E., Jr., of near Penns Creek, Pennsylvania.
WikiTree ID Nellis-1008
Nellis ID 5351
Richard Eugene Nellis was born on Staten Island, New York, May 27, 1901, the son of Arthur C. Nellis and Alice Furman Vroom. He graduated from Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan in 1919 and went to work as a laborer for the New York Telephone Company. At the instigation of his brother, Fred, he enlisted in the U. S. Navy with the goal of obtaining admission to the Navy's preparatory school at Newport, Rhode Island, and subsequently a fleet appointment to the U. S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland.
Mr. Nellis served as a dishwasher on the minesweeper Chewink for approximately a year and a half prior to obtaining admission to the Newport naval preparatory school. He was one of the fewer than 10% who completed the course, and as a consequence was appointed, in 1921, to Annapolis. He graduated in 1925, the oldest in his class. After serving as an ensign in the Navy for two years he resigned as a lieutenant, junior grade, in the U.S. Naval Reserve and married Laura Louise Whitford on May 4, 1928. He became employed by the International Nickel Company (Inco) to sell castings of its newly developed, non-corrosive Monel Metal, presumably to the shipbuilding industry.
Monel was found to be desirable for kitchen sinks also, and Mr. Nellis was launched on his career in the domestic kitchen industry. The sinks were sold to the plumbing trade through Whitehead Metal Products Company, and when sink sales became tied with the sale of steel kitchen cabinets, Whitehead Monel Kitchens was born with R. E. Nellis as sales manager. In the late 1930's this became a division of Excel Metal Cabinet Company of Jamestown, New York. At this time the Nellises moved from Staten Island to Pelham in New York's Westchester County.
As war clouds thickened it became more and more difficult to obtain steel for residential use, and Mr. Nellis and some of his Whitehead Kitchens associates began discussing the possibility of obtaining a factory for the manufacture of their own line of wood cabinets. Through the efforts of Marand E. Steffen of Selinsgrove, Mr. Nellis purchased the planing mill of Harry S. Kreamer in Kreamer, Pennsylvania, on May 6, 1542. Shortly thereafter Wood-Metal Industries, Inc., was founded with Nellis as president, and the new firm took title to the mill. The other officers and principal stockholders were Theodore O. Gronlund, Caswell F. Holloway, and Charles G. Wall. By this time the United States was well into World War II, all materials for the production of kitchen cabinets became impossible to obtain, and the firm turned to war work to survive.
After World War II, Wood-Metal finally got into the wood kitchen cabinet business and Mr. Nellis, the principals of Wood-Metal, and others acquired a steel fabricating plant in Beech Bottom, West Virginia, for the additional purpose of producing steel kitchen cabinets. On March 6, 1950, during a trip to this plant he was critically injured in a head-on automobile accident near Allentown, Pennsylvania, hospitalizing him there for three months.
In 1953 Mr. Nellis closed Wood-Metal's executive offices in New York City as an economy measure, and he and Mrs. Nellis moved to Kreamer. Shortly thereafter the Beech Bottom operation was moved to McClure, Pennsylvania. He served as president of both Wood-Metal Industries, Inc., and Nellis Industries, Inc., (operator of the McClure plant) until 1959 when he and the remaining principals in Wood-Metal rearranged their interests in the two firms: Nellis devoting himself to Nellis Industries and Gronlund and Wall, to Wood-Metal. In 1965 Nellis Industries sold the McClure facility to the Lozier Corporation of Omaha, Nebraska, and Nellis Industries was dissolved. Thereafter Mr. Nellis devoted himself to the sale and installation of cabinets and casework for schools, hospitals and laboratories, operating from offices in Kreamer.
Laura Nellis died on December 31, 1967, and after a period of intense effort in his business, Mr. Nellis gradually resumed activity in an old interest, golf. He retired to golf and travel in 1973, and died on August 30, 1977. He was survived by two daughters, Doris Nellis Wing of Ambler, Pennsylvania, and Nancy-Linn Nellis of Storm Lake, Iowa, and a son, Richard E., Jr., of near Penns Creek, Pennsylvania.
WikiTree ID Nellis-1008
Nellis ID 5351
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF R. E. NELLIS (by his son, Richard, Jr.)
Richard Eugene Nellis was born on Staten Island, New York, May 27, 1901, the son of Arthur C. Nellis and Alice Furman Vroom. He graduated from Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan in 1919 and went to work as a laborer for the New York Telephone Company. At the instigation of his brother, Fred, he enlisted in the U. S. Navy with the goal of obtaining admission to the Navy's preparatory school at Newport, Rhode Island, and subsequently a fleet appointment to the U. S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland.
Mr. Nellis served as a dishwasher on the minesweeper Chewink for approximately a year and a half prior to obtaining admission to the Newport naval preparatory school. He was one of the fewer than 10% who completed the course, and as a consequence was appointed, in 1921, to Annapolis. He graduated in 1925, the oldest in his class. After serving as an ensign in the Navy for two years he resigned as a lieutenant, junior grade, in the U.S. Naval Reserve and married Laura Louise Whitford on May 4, 1928. He became employed by the International Nickel Company (Inco) to sell castings of its newly developed, non-corrosive Monel Metal, presumably to the shipbuilding industry.
Monel was found to be desirable for kitchen sinks also, and Mr. Nellis was launched on his career in the domestic kitchen industry. The sinks were sold to the plumbing trade through Whitehead Metal Products Company, and when sink sales became tied with the sale of steel kitchen cabinets, Whitehead Monel Kitchens was born with R. E. Nellis as sales manager. In the late 1930's this became a division of Excel Metal Cabinet Company of Jamestown, New York. At this time the Nellises moved from Staten Island to Pelham in New York's Westchester County.
As war clouds thickened it became more and more difficult to obtain steel for residential use, and Mr. Nellis and some of his Whitehead Kitchens associates began discussing the possibility of obtaining a factory for the manufacture of their own line of wood cabinets. Through the efforts of Marand E. Steffen of Selinsgrove, Mr. Nellis purchased the planing mill of Harry S. Kreamer in Kreamer, Pennsylvania, on May 6, 1542. Shortly thereafter Wood-Metal Industries, Inc., was founded with Nellis as president, and the new firm took title to the mill. The other officers and principal stockholders were Theodore O. Gronlund, Caswell F. Holloway, and Charles G. Wall. By this time the United States was well into World War II, all materials for the production of kitchen cabinets became impossible to obtain, and the firm turned to war work to survive.
After World War II, Wood-Metal finally got into the wood kitchen cabinet business and Mr. Nellis, the principals of Wood-Metal, and others acquired a steel fabricating plant in Beech Bottom, West Virginia, for the additional purpose of producing steel kitchen cabinets. On March 6, 1950, during a trip to this plant he was critically injured in a head-on automobile accident near Allentown, Pennsylvania, hospitalizing him there for three months.
In 1953 Mr. Nellis closed Wood-Metal's executive offices in New York City as an economy measure, and he and Mrs. Nellis moved to Kreamer. Shortly thereafter the Beech Bottom operation was moved to McClure, Pennsylvania. He served as president of both Wood-Metal Industries, Inc., and Nellis Industries, Inc., (operator of the McClure plant) until 1959 when he and the remaining principals in Wood-Metal rearranged their interests in the two firms: Nellis devoting himself to Nellis Industries and Gronlund and Wall, to Wood-Metal. In 1965 Nellis Industries sold the McClure facility to the Lozier Corporation of Omaha, Nebraska, and Nellis Industries was dissolved. Thereafter Mr. Nellis devoted himself to the sale and installation of cabinets and casework for schools, hospitals and laboratories, operating from offices in Kreamer.
Laura Nellis died on December 31, 1967, and after a period of intense effort in his business, Mr. Nellis gradually resumed activity in an old interest, golf. He retired to golf and travel in 1973, and died on August 30, 1977. He was survived by two daughters, Doris Nellis Wing of Ambler, Pennsylvania, and Nancy-Linn Nellis of Storm Lake, Iowa, and a son, Richard E., Jr., of near Penns Creek, Pennsylvania.
WikiTree ID Nellis-1008
Nellis ID 5351
Richard Eugene Nellis was born on Staten Island, New York, May 27, 1901, the son of Arthur C. Nellis and Alice Furman Vroom. He graduated from Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan in 1919 and went to work as a laborer for the New York Telephone Company. At the instigation of his brother, Fred, he enlisted in the U. S. Navy with the goal of obtaining admission to the Navy's preparatory school at Newport, Rhode Island, and subsequently a fleet appointment to the U. S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland.
Mr. Nellis served as a dishwasher on the minesweeper Chewink for approximately a year and a half prior to obtaining admission to the Newport naval preparatory school. He was one of the fewer than 10% who completed the course, and as a consequence was appointed, in 1921, to Annapolis. He graduated in 1925, the oldest in his class. After serving as an ensign in the Navy for two years he resigned as a lieutenant, junior grade, in the U.S. Naval Reserve and married Laura Louise Whitford on May 4, 1928. He became employed by the International Nickel Company (Inco) to sell castings of its newly developed, non-corrosive Monel Metal, presumably to the shipbuilding industry.
Monel was found to be desirable for kitchen sinks also, and Mr. Nellis was launched on his career in the domestic kitchen industry. The sinks were sold to the plumbing trade through Whitehead Metal Products Company, and when sink sales became tied with the sale of steel kitchen cabinets, Whitehead Monel Kitchens was born with R. E. Nellis as sales manager. In the late 1930's this became a division of Excel Metal Cabinet Company of Jamestown, New York. At this time the Nellises moved from Staten Island to Pelham in New York's Westchester County.
As war clouds thickened it became more and more difficult to obtain steel for residential use, and Mr. Nellis and some of his Whitehead Kitchens associates began discussing the possibility of obtaining a factory for the manufacture of their own line of wood cabinets. Through the efforts of Marand E. Steffen of Selinsgrove, Mr. Nellis purchased the planing mill of Harry S. Kreamer in Kreamer, Pennsylvania, on May 6, 1542. Shortly thereafter Wood-Metal Industries, Inc., was founded with Nellis as president, and the new firm took title to the mill. The other officers and principal stockholders were Theodore O. Gronlund, Caswell F. Holloway, and Charles G. Wall. By this time the United States was well into World War II, all materials for the production of kitchen cabinets became impossible to obtain, and the firm turned to war work to survive.
After World War II, Wood-Metal finally got into the wood kitchen cabinet business and Mr. Nellis, the principals of Wood-Metal, and others acquired a steel fabricating plant in Beech Bottom, West Virginia, for the additional purpose of producing steel kitchen cabinets. On March 6, 1950, during a trip to this plant he was critically injured in a head-on automobile accident near Allentown, Pennsylvania, hospitalizing him there for three months.
In 1953 Mr. Nellis closed Wood-Metal's executive offices in New York City as an economy measure, and he and Mrs. Nellis moved to Kreamer. Shortly thereafter the Beech Bottom operation was moved to McClure, Pennsylvania. He served as president of both Wood-Metal Industries, Inc., and Nellis Industries, Inc., (operator of the McClure plant) until 1959 when he and the remaining principals in Wood-Metal rearranged their interests in the two firms: Nellis devoting himself to Nellis Industries and Gronlund and Wall, to Wood-Metal. In 1965 Nellis Industries sold the McClure facility to the Lozier Corporation of Omaha, Nebraska, and Nellis Industries was dissolved. Thereafter Mr. Nellis devoted himself to the sale and installation of cabinets and casework for schools, hospitals and laboratories, operating from offices in Kreamer.
Laura Nellis died on December 31, 1967, and after a period of intense effort in his business, Mr. Nellis gradually resumed activity in an old interest, golf. He retired to golf and travel in 1973, and died on August 30, 1977. He was survived by two daughters, Doris Nellis Wing of Ambler, Pennsylvania, and Nancy-Linn Nellis of Storm Lake, Iowa, and a son, Richard E., Jr., of near Penns Creek, Pennsylvania.
WikiTree ID Nellis-1008
Nellis ID 5351
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