August E. Heimerdinger was our founder, and my great-great-great grandfather. Heimerdinger's first appeared in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, sometime around 1861. That's the first on-paper mention my grandfather found of the store, which at that point was located at 110 Jefferson Street. There, he made scissors and butcher knives, and repaired sewing machines. August was born in Germany, and had just a ton of children from two different wives. Family legend has it that August moved into a shop next to a woodworker by the name of Hillerich. Mr. Hillerich had a steam engine that he used used to run his woodworking tools. Old man August wanted to run his grinding wheels but didn't have a steam engine, and so the two of them worked out an arrangement. They cut a hole in the wall and ran a flat belt through the wall so that August could run his grinding wheels. That company became Hillerich and Bradsby, who is best known for making Louisville Slugger baseball bats.
After his death, his son W.C. Heimerdinger took control of the business. He added a full line of butcher supplies; branching out into barber and beauty supplies during the 1920's. The Droescher company, in Germany, manufactured scissors and grinding wheels for the store during this time period. W.C. also held at least 5 patents, for various things from safety knives and razors to a machine for making shears. The most interesting, to me anyway, was a machine designed to sharpen razors, specifically what were then considered to be disposable razorblades. This got the attention of a certain Mister Gillette, whose company still sells razors today. The lawsuit he brought against W.C. was eventually settled, and the sharpeners were fairly widely produced. Just a few years ago, someone found one in an old shop. They thought we might like to have it; now it resides in my grandparents' basement, still able to sharpen razorblades even though it was designed over a century ago.
W.C.'s son, W.G. Heimerdinger, took over the business around 1920, though if W.C. was anything like my grandfather, he stuck around for years even though he had "retired." In 1922, W.G. incorporated the business and discontinued the scissor manufacturing. At that time he began manufacturing grass shears, pruning shears, hedge shears, mule shears, and sheep shears, which were sold through the Sears catalog. W.G. also held several patents, including the original patent on grass shears. My favorite is for an ice cream scoop, though I don't know that it was ever widely manufactured. Along with all of this, W.G.decided to start another division of Heimerdinger's and moved into hardware. The manufacturing part of the business ended in the mid 1950’s, although we still re-manufacture and sharpen scissors, knives, and many other types of edged tools. The hardware part of the business ended during the mid 1960’s. (Remember all those bolts I told you about? Yeah, they've been sitting around for that long. Purely amazing.)
My grandfather attended what was then Speed Sceintific School, now the Speed School of Engineering. He finished his bachelors of engineering in two and a half years, interrupted by a stint in the Army during WWII. Henry w. Heimerdinger entered into the business in 1947, during the hardware phase. Throughout our history, the business has always sold many types of scissors as well as kitchen and pocket knives. This always interested my grandfather, so he spun a separate company off of W.C. Heimerdinger in 1969, forming Heimerdinger Cutlery Inc. Around this time, Henry's older brother, Billy, took over the barber/beauty supply end of the business. You didn't think they'd gotten tired of naming everyone William ___ had you? Nope, in that generation the tradition held strong. After the death of his father, Billy left to pursue another line of business, eventually ending up down in sunny Florida.
While my grandfather never held any patents, he did have considerable ingenuity. He designed the grinding wheels that we use today to sharpen items that people bring into the store. Up until this past year, even after "retiring" in 1991, he still came into the store once or twice a week to putter around in the shop, sharpening knives and taking apart scissors.
In 1983, Heimerdinger Cutlery moved from downtown Louisville out to Shelbyville Road, just before I was born. As previously mentioned, my grandfather "retired" in 1991, leaving the business in the hands of the firth general, my uncle Carl E. Heimerdinger.
In 1993, my aunt, Glenna Fahle Heimerdinger, joined the company as Vice President. She took over a lot of the accounting-type stuff, which she did part-time while raising my cousin, Nicole (who has always been a full-time occupation).
You might ask where I fit into things. My father, David, was Henry's younger son (Carl's younger brother). While the engineering genes were strong with him, the desire to stay with the business wasn't. With Uncle Carl, my father grew up working at the store; starting at the youngest age with sweeping up and going on to being left in charge while my grandparents were on vacation. From what I hear, they only had to call an ambulance once before my grandparents came home. My father now has a career doing safety engineering, but he still remembers all the things one learns from working in a cutlery. (I'll have to do a post on that one...)
Anyway, I'm the oldest of the three of us in the sixth generation. (My brother doesn't like blood, so it's good that he never worked at the store). I started working at the store on the weekends, during my junior and senior year of high school. I worked closer to full time during the summers-- then, and later during college. And as you know, I started doing this blog a little over a year ago.
That brings us up to present. Hope that helped you kill a few minutes pleasantly on this grey, icky, freezing day.
Also, you better appreciate those pictures, because I had to climb up on a ladder to take them.
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