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Note: While born on his parent's farm, hi didn't like farm work anddecided to attend a business college. Through an employmentagency, got a job in New York City working for Phil Baker whowas a moderately well known radio commedian in the 1930's.Dallas typed up scripts for the radio programs.Having infected tonsils, it was decided to have them removed.But since they were infected the infection spread and he endedup with rheumatic fever and was hospitalized for an extendedperiod. This left scar tissue on his heart that probablycontributed to his helth problems late in life.When well enough to travel, he went back to the farm in Illinoisto recuperate further. He still spent a lot of time in bed.He was very fond of cats and there were lots of them on thefarm. While in bed he always wanted one of the cats to be withhim so he got his sister Eleanor to bring them to him. When agiven cat left (or escaped), he would call for Eleanor to bringanother.After recovering fully, he got a job with Swift and Company inChicago. He worked in "plant sales" typing sales reports. Helater transferred to "Branch House Sales. He met Elaine whoalso worked for Swift's in stenographic pool and later in plantsales. He left this company in about 1938 and married in 1939.Before marriage and while living in chicago, he lived in afurnished apartment. His sister Eleanor and his mother livedwith him for a while after his father died. It was anopportunity for them to get away from the environment in whichthey were living when his father committed suicide.After leaving Swift, he worked for a man named R. Hoskin Damonwho owned and ran Bowser Pump, a company that made gas pumps.Dallas was an executive secretery. In the late 1940's, hetransferred to a division of the company called Johnson FairboxParcoa Division. This company made parking meters. In thelate 1950's, after Damon died, he was released and givenseverance pay.While travelling with his family he saw the need to keep hischildren occupied so he created a game called Zit Zingo. ZitZingo was a bingo game in which players had to watch thepassing landscape for such items as 'little truck', 'wash online', 'policeman', 'transformer', and other items of interestfound along country roads. This game was marketed through acatalog company. He never made a whole lot of money on thisgame but it was enjoyed by the family. When the InterstateHighways came along, the game became obsolete because thingsseen along such roads are different from what is seen alongtwo-lane country roads. The game was never updated.About 1957, he became a salesman for a company that sold officesupplies. Suspecting that he was given improper commisions, hedecided to go off on his own in the same field and start hisown office supply business. This company was called AddisonOffice Supply, in Addison, Illinois. It was a service orientedbusiness rather than a store. His customers were the manysmall businesses and factories in Chicago's western suburbs.Customers phoned in orders for everything from pencils to filecabinets and the merchandise was delivered usually by the nextday. The business was quite successful and survived into the1990's (and it might still exist in 1996?). In the early 1970's, with his salesman, Gene Leone, he formed apartnership called Kingswood Printing. The printing businesswas a good companion business to the office supply business andthey had many of the same customers. When Dallas retired, the printing business was sold to a thirdparty and Mr. Leone bought the office supply business.
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