Check back on this page often to enjoy submitted pictures and memories about Flint & General Motors over the last 100 years. If you'd like to add to this page please contact us.

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Growing up in Flint; my dad, uncle, and grandfather were all employed with General Motors. We grew up in the Civic Park neighborhood and my father, Harold, worked for Fisher Body. He started out as a senior clerk there in 1950 and later became the general supervisor of personnel at the Fisher 1 Plant. When he was transferred to Fisher Guide in Elyria Ohio, he was promoted to personnel director. He retired from there having achieved his long time ambition. His brother William, with childhood polio, was the most able handicapped person I ever met. He started out in the photography department, later in engineering, and then developed the service manuals for cars, becoming the editor for them at Buick. Though my grandfather retired from Buick before I was born, it seems significant to me that he set up the first assembly line there, and not a lot of people know that. When he died in 1982 at age 95, the Flint Journal wrote an article about him entitled: Fred Hoelzle dies; set up first Buick assembly line.

In the article it went on to say: Hoelzle brought his skills as a tool- and- die maker to Flint on Labor Day in 1905 and began working for Buick for 40 cents an hour. He later became a key production supervisor. In his 42 years with Buick, he became friends with auto pioneers Billy Durant, Walter Chrysler, David Buick, and Henry Ford. A Lansing native, Hoelzle helped Buick develop an engine with interchanging parts. He suggested that workers build engines on wheeled, moving stands instead of stationary stands, creating the first assembly line at the Buick Engine Plant. He retired in 1947 from Buick as superintendent of assembly. He was one of the few surviving members of the company's earliest days, when the "motor carriage" overtook the horse and buggy as a leading mode of transportation.

--Nancy S.

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1998 at the end of the door line in Buick City

Great Grandpa's Uncashed Paycheck for $.02

1989 - Applying Sealer in the Paint Shop on the 2nd Floor of Buick City

 

Five generations of my family have worked at Buick. My great grandfather loaded new cars into trains. I have a Buick paycheck for .02 that he never cashed. My grandfather was an electrician for 43 years. I still have his badge. My dad was a skilled trades supervisor in factory 25 for 37 years. People still recognize him on the street. "Barney! I worked for you!" I worked at Buick for 21 years, starting in plant 10 and going to 36, 05, 04, 40. . . then the change to Buick City Assembly where I was in paint, chassis, trim. (In 1998 I gypsied down to Willow Run where I got ten more years in order to retire with 31 years seniority just a few days ago.) My son, Anthony, worked as a temp for several days in Buick City before it closed. My family has been driving Buicks for 100 years and somewhat ironically my car right now is a Buick Century. I hope it runs for a long time. Happy Birthday, GM!

--Linda B.

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I am especially grateful to all that GM and Flint has done for our family. My father worked at Pontiac, Fisher Body and Ternstedt, my two brothers and I worked at Buick. After twenty-nine years, my father left GM and with my brothers, started the Flint Plating Company in 1958 and eventually moved across from Buick's main gate on Stewart Avenue in the building that once was a GM administration building during the early Durant days. Flint Plating did many show chrome and production chrome jobs for GM including concept cars. Many of the cars that will be in the parade July 20th will have brass, nickel and chrome parts plated at Flint Plating.

While employed at the Buick Engine Plant, I worked in production at a wage my new family could live on, then was given training at GMI and became a foreman. If that was not enough opportunity, Buick granted me educational leaves to complete my degree work in education. Even though I was headed for a career in education, Dick Light, in Buick personnel, stated the progressive idea that having teachers in the area who understood factory work, could connect with parents who also worked in factories, and encourage young people to train for the skilled positions GM had available, would be worth Buick's effort at making my leaves possible. My education was so available in Flint that I earned my undergraduate degree and two graduate degrees all of which prepared me for a college professorship. My son and daughter-in-law, now educators in Georgia, were also educated in Flint. The impact of GM's Buick Division and Flint's educational opportunities in our lives has been phenomenal and we owe the corporation, the City of Flint, and the people of Flint a great debt of gratitude.

Thank you GM and Flint!

--David H.

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Chevrolet Assembly line in Flint, 1940.

--Daniel

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