West Peorians Remember....Traub's Market
Ron Cloat certainly remembers Perry Traub and Traub’s Market. As a 14-year-old, Ron started working there in 1949 as a stock boy and continued until his graduation from Manual in 1953. He still has his work permit that allowed him to start work at that young age.
According to Ron, that experience more than any other shaped his life in very positive ways. While he worked at Traub’s, he and his family lived first near the airport and later in 1948 moved to Peoria’s south side. However, because of his day-to-day contact with West Peoria and its residents, he promised himself, “Someday I’m going to live there.” He kept that promise when he and his wife Jane first lived on Laura in West Peoria in 1961 and later built their present home on Coolidge Court in 1967.
Their three children—Carrie, Fritz, and Max--all graduated from Manual.
A young Ron Cloat evidently impressed West Peorians as much as they did him. By the time he graduated from high school, he had several job offers from Traub’s Market customers. The offer he accepted was to work for Ray Baker at his business, Baker’s Sheet Metal.
More than any of these early contacts, however, Perry Traub had the greatest impact on Ron as a young man. He feels strongly that Traub taught him those basic work skills and ethics that carry over into any area of the world of work. Learning from Traub’s example as Ron worked and talked with him every day, Ron acquired the skills to achieve success in life-- how to set goals and how to treat people and to network with them.
Cloat’s story is a West Peoria story—similar to the ones that undoubtedly could be told by other West Peorians—and the West Peoria News would like to tell those stories. Always a gearhead, Cloat achieved his dream to have his own auto parts business in 1988. Walking into that business--Standard Auto Parts located on Culdesac just off of Harmon Highway--is such a pleasant surprise. It is a work place, but also a museum full of memorabilia (antique toy trucks and cars, car parts, etc.,) neatly displayed—a place that holds many memories and stories to be told. Undoubtedly, Jane Cloat, who works at the business with her husband, has helped create this inviting atmosphere that is not at all typical of an auto parts business.
Believing strongly that Perry Traub was a very important mentor to him, Cloat--who became acquainted with Larry Traub long after the 1957 explosion--realizes more than most how that tragedy robbed Larry of a wonderful dad.
Only two years old at the time of the explosion, Larry--who never really knew his dad--has lived his life in the shadow of that tragedy. Ironically, never a West Peorian before, Larry’s first move away from his mother’s home in 1974 at the age of eighteen was to an apartment in a house at 1917 W. Rohmann. At that time the structure --built as a gas station in the 1960s—stood at 2427 W. Rohmann as a rather ironic reminder to Larry that his dad had been killed on that site by a gas explosion. Larry’s mom, who died September 2007, lived her last five years with Larry in his Morton home.
A former West Peorian, Mike Brown--who now lives in Fairfield, Iowa--lived at 739 N. Clifton Court in 1957, approximately 200 yards across the empty field now known as the Franciscan Recreation Complex. After reading our story about the 1957 explosion, Mike wrote us the following, “I was four years old at the time and believe the incident to be my first memory which was waking to a shaking bed and my parents rushing in to the bedroom to comfort me. My father Dale brought out his 8 mm movie camera and shot about thirty seconds of film of the flames from our back yard. I have long ago transferred all the home movies to a disk and will attempt to redact the pertinent part and post to the site if you believe anyone may be interested. A very interesting story and I appreciate your contribution to my knowledge.”
The photographs of Traub’s market featured in this issue were given to the West Peoria News by Larry Traub. Others are the WPRA website.