Back in 1950, Robert Roler was a newlywed, working for the “gas company,” as Kokomo Gas & Fuel was commonly called.
It seemed like a good plan to get a gas stove for his wife, Anna May, particularly since Roler was a salesman for the gas company. At the time, the gas company also sold gas-powered appliances, such as the Maytag stove he ended up purchasing.
All these years later, Roler has a reason why he still has the Maytag stove sitting in the kitchen he shared for so many years with his wife, prior to her passing in 2004.
“It worked perfect,” he explained.
Sure, newer models arrived, with less chrome, larger oven compartments and fewer design flourishes influenced by modernism and art deco.
But the aging stove kept on working, and besides, it was made right here in Kokomo, at the old Globe American plant on East Broadway, Roler said.
The appliance also had nostalgic value, in that the stove’s tenure with the Roler family pre-dates the Roler home on Korby Street.
Robert, who went on to a successful career in real estate, built the house himself, but did so in stages.
Stage 1 was building a large garage, which he, Anna May and the stove lived in for several months while the house was being built.
The stove has a built-in hot water bath, perfect for keeping items like mashed potatoes piping hot for long periods.
And it has storage compartments (which could double as proofing areas for bread) on either side of the oven. That was handy, back in the days when people actually had time to make bread.
It’s a white enamel, polished chrome slice of history, built for Maytag by workers here in Kokomo.
For a company that was founded in Kokomo in 1872 and survived until 1957, there is surprisingly little written about Globe American.
Howard County historian Fred Odiet wrote a piece that survives in the files at the Howard County Historic Society, based on old newspaper articles from the 1950s. But when the company was sold off to a concern from Chicago, the company’s files went who-knows-where.
One claim to fame, Roler suggested, was that “Globe was about the same vintage as the Haynes and Apperson companies, but of the three, only Globe American survived.”
The company did that in part by having a recognizable name brand attached to its products, starting out with the Maytag “Dutch Oven” brand name and continuing that alliance with Maytag for decades.
The products were also versatile. Roler said he remembers selling heating stoves that were flexible enough to burn coal, wood or corncobs. The company made base burners as well.
World War I and the requisition of metals for the war effort nearly broke the company, and the onset of the Great Depression again threatened the company with liquidation, but Globe survived not only the Depression but also the end of the coal stove era.
According to Odiet, Alden P. Chester, general manager of the Kokomo operations in the mid-to-late 1930s, was instrumental in developing “a new type of gas range called the ‘Dutch Oven.’” Chester also converted the Kokomo plant, replacing cast iron foundry equipment with modern sheet metal fabrication.
During World War II, the company made all-metal lifeboats, as attested in the glass mural inside the Kokomo-Howard County Main Library.
Different stages of the company’s manufacturing can still be seen at the Howard County Historical Museum, where four different Globe stoves sit in a room on the second floor.
Roler, 87, doesn’t seem inclined to part with his stove, however, even if he no longer uses it.
Globe is one of many north-end Kokomo factories which isn’t there any more, and the sites on East Broadway and East North Street where Globe’s operations sat are vacant lots.
But Roler said people should be proud of what the company contributed during its long tenure in Kokomo.
“Among people my age in Kokomo, just mention the name ‘Globe American,’ and the hands will go up from all the people saying, “Yes, I worked there,” he said.