After serving Hardin and the encompassing counties for just about a century, E’the city Laundry Co. is remaining its doorways.
The enterprise has been in downtown Elizabethtown since James Hartlage based it in 1928. The corporate first of all presented relatives laundry products and services and, through the years, expanded to incorporate dry cleansing products and services, linen provide products and services, uniform leases and extra.
Present CEO Steve Hartlage, grandson of James Hartlage, has labored for the corporate for 49 years, and he’s one of the in an extended line of relatives workers.
“My grandfather had seven youngsters, they usually all labored right here at one time or any other, even a few of their spouses labored right here,” he mentioned.
James additionally had 42 grandchildren, and Steve estimated a minimum of part of them had labored on the laundry at one time or any other. However, Steve’s been looking to retire for a number of years, and no one else within the relatives sought after to hold at the relatives legacy. He and his brother Denis mentioned a exertions scarcity over the previous couple of years additionally was once a catalyst for his or her choice to near.
“It simply were given to the purpose the place we simply couldn’t do all of it,” Denis mentioned.
Martha Clark, 97, is the daughter of James. She mentioned she labored on the laundry “from the time she was once sufficiently old till the time she was once too outdated.”
“The older you were given, the extra you probably did,” she mentioned.
She and her brother Paul, 90, mentioned they began sending sheets during the flat irons after they had been round 11 years outdated.
When Martha was once in highschool, she graduated to operating within the workplace, which she mentioned was once a large leap. Ultimately, she labored her manner as much as management and turned into the “large canine” of the workplace. Martha additionally did deliveries for the enterprise.
Paul mentioned he doesn’t keep in mind his sister bossing him round, so he should have stayed out within the plant.
“You had been again there shaking the sheets,” Martha reminded him.
“I used to be in the market shaking farts out of sheets,” Paul mentioned.
Paul mentioned he shook the ones sheets up thru highschool, after which joined the U.S. Air Pressure for 4 years earlier than discovering his as far back as the laundry to paintings plenty of other jobs for a few years.
Paul and Martha mentioned they did a bit of little bit of the whole lot through the years. That they had fond recollections of consuming sandwiches and ingesting soda on days after they labored.
“Again when I used to be small, my fondest reminiscence was once consuming dinner,” he mentioned. “Any individual would pass as much as Clark’s Grocery Retailer and purchase lunch meat and produce it all the way down to the laundry. All our relatives, whoever was once operating there, we might take a seat within the workplace and devour our sandwiches. I suppose I loved it as a result of I wasn’t operating, however I all the time idea the ones sandwiches tasted so excellent.”
French Brothers and Boones Cleaners will likely be taking up the residential laundry portion of the enterprise. Martha mentioned the Frenches had been all the time pals, a sentiment Ray French, who owns the rival cleansing enterprise, echoed.
French mentioned E’the city Laundry was once a pillar of the neighborhood.
“The sensation is mutual,” he mentioned when advised he had Martha’s enhance. “I’ve nice appreciate for the Hartlage relatives.”
The closing day for E’the city Laundry shoppers to pick out up orders was once Friday as operations up to now transitioned to French Brothers and Boones Cleaners or closed completely.
https://www.thenewsenterprise.com/information/native/family-business-closes-doors-after-94-years/article_5a1b8613-fd4a-5215-bba8-5f9e28a6c573.html