The Marx Toys story: The toymakers and their 'elves' made memories for children

This is the second in a three-part series about Marx Toys and the people who made them. Read Part 1: Marx Toys made in Erie were Christmas favorites for more than 50 years

Marx Toys employed more than 2,000 workers at its factories, warehouses and other Erie and Girard facilities at their peak in the 1940s and '50s.

From designing to assembling and packaging toys to handling human resources and payroll, employees knew that they were making memories for children worldwide.

"I must be a Santa Claus by heart, because I really enjoyed working there, and would probably be working there still if the company hadn't closed," said Kim Stormer, manager of production, planning and inventory control at Marx Toys in Girard for nine years, until the plant closed in January 1980.

Marx developed hundreds of toys through the years and created concepts for many more.

"For every 100 ideas, only three actually became Marx Toys," said Stormer, 75, now of Troy, Ohio. "That's the rule of thumb that they gave me. Ideas would go to design and for consideration on how they'd be manufactured. Sometimes they couldn't figure out how to make it or got into an idea and found it would be too costly to make for the price point that we needed to sell it for."

The toymakers: 'It was like working for Santa'

Marx's earliest toys were wind-up toys first manufactured by Louis Marx in New York City in 1919.

The late Agda Weisman was a Swedish immigrant who helped make wind-up toys in Erie after Marx moved operations here in the late 1920s. Weisman worked at Marx in the 1930s and 1940s.

"She called it the Monkey Works," for the mechanical monkey toys that were an early Marx Toys mainstay, Weisman's granddaughter, Dee Anderson, said.

Weisman also made Dick Tracy cars that spun and turned from the edge of a table, chicks that hopped up and down, and a game with rabbits and bears that spun when hit by suction-cup darts fired by young "hunters," Weisman's grandson, Mark Weisman, said.

She put "misfit" toys aside for her family.

"She brought home unpainted toys, prototypes, the scratch-and-dent-type rejects that wouldn't be sold," Mark Weisman said. "With the economy what it was in those days, children made due with what they had."

Bill Felege designed toys and packaging at Marx Toys' Girard plant after graduation from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh in 1968.

His projects included redesigning a basketball game to include a plastic player shooting the ball, updating the "Great American Railroads" train set, and designing and earning patent recognition for a hockey game that Marx produced.

Felege teamed with designers from both the Erie and Girard Marx plants to build a special train layout for Johnny Carson's "Tonight Show." Carson ran the train off the rails in a 1974 show with railroad executive Prime Osborn as guest.

Felege recalls his Marx Toys career at toy shows, including events in York, Pennsylvania, and in Wheeling, West Virginia, this year.

"It was like working for Santa," he said.

Santa's' orders were fulfilled with the help of seasonal employees beginning each August or September.

"Mostly women, including a lot of women from farms, worked until mid-December to earn money for Christmas or extra things or whatever," Stormer said. "It was their off-season, and they really fit a need for Marx Toys. It was a kind of symbiotic relationship."

Families, entire neighborhoods worked at Marx

Sally Courteau and two friends worked in the kitchen of the Erie toyworks one summer during high school in the 1950s.

"They had a cafeteria that basically was a walk-up counter where employees could come and get coffee, chips, little coconut cakes and other desserts during breaks," Courteau, now 86, said. "We also had a cart that we walked around and served from."

Courteau grew up near West 19th and Plum streets.

"All of my neighbors worked at Marx and walked to work there," she said.

Working at Marx Toys was a tradition for many families.

Courteau's husband worked for the union that represented Marx employees. Her daughter and two sons worked at the Girard toy plant.

Louis and Dorothy Pagliari, parents of retired teacher Janice Fohner, of Girard, worked at Marx Toys in Erie in the 1940s. Her uncle, Richard Gama, designed toy boxes.

Joseph Tuschak, now of California, worked on Marx's Girard assembly line, keeping parts stocked for assemblers and removing completed work, for six months after his high school graduation in 1972. His grandfather was a foreman at the plant. His dad worked in its experimental department for almost 30 years.

"His group was responsible for new toys being developed and he often brought home prototypes for me and my sister to test out," Tuschak said.

Some families trace their origins to Marx Toys.

Nancy Clark, then Nancy Stark, was hired at Marx Toys in Erie on her 18th birthday in 1966, after graduation from Academy High School and before beginning studies at Edinboro University that fall.

She assembled plastic rifles and sealed packaged toys in plastic wrap.

"We were on our feet all day and we worked hard. But it was a wonderful place to work," Clark said. "We got our pay in cash in a little manila envelope."

Walking past the company's painting department one day, she saw David Clark, who was working there before beginning service in the navy. He had just graduated from Slippery Rock University.

"I took one look at him and honestly was just so taken with him," Nancy Clark said. "We started talking at work and had an instant connection. We started dating, and a year later we married."

Nancy and David Clark now live in St. Augustine, Florida.

The 'elves': Children and friends of Marx employees

Erie children also "worked" for Marx Toys, making sure that toys were kid-approved and kid-friendly.

"They'd bring in maybe three designs of the same new toy and let the kids play with them. Then they'd ask which ones the kids preferred," said Tom Benson, whose daughter Jennifer, now Jennifer Lawrence of Pittsburgh, tested toys at the invitation of a family friend who worked at Marx.

C. Angus Schaal tested toys at the invitation of his uncle, Chuck Roessing, an executive with Marx Toys and later with Quaker Oats, which bought the toy company in 1972. During the Quaker Oats era, Schaal spent a few hours each week at a two-room testing facility on West 12th Street near Interstate 79, behind Cleveland Plant & Flower Co.

"One room had a two-way mirror, and Marx employees would watch the toy testers interact with various products under development. There was also a space for photo shoots," Schaal said, where he and other children chosen as models for toy boxes and promotional materials were photographed.

"I was the face of Marx's Beginner's Cycle, a product developed to capture the younger brother and sister of the Big Wheel rider," said Schaal, now an investment manager based in Phoenix, Arizona.

Young models and testers were "paid" in toys, including Schaal's favorite, the Guns of Navarone WWII Mountain Battleground Playset.

Next: The toyworks, the Erie and Girard factories.

Tracing your home's history: History Center can provide a property 'detective'

Contact Valerie Myers at vmyers@timesnews.com.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: For Erie and Girard toymakers, it was all hands on deck for Christmas