Stuff lost in Time
One of my second cousins is the custodian of all things related to my mother's family. My mother's family lived in southeast Texas since it was part of Mexico and since then never had a fire and never threw anything away. As the result my cousin inherited a house and garage filled with at least 150 years worth of cool stuff. Among the stuff was a shadowbox containing about 20 pocket watches, mostly Walthams. I figure these had been in the shadow box for at least 60 years, possibly as much as 80.
Well I latched on to three of the watches. I had them cleaned, lubricated and put in running conditioned by the local jeweler. Two are pretty generic. One is a Waltham Crescent St. 21 jewel, lever set, double roller, adjusted to 5 positions. In other words railroad grade, made in 1910-1911. The second is an expensive looking inexpensive Elgin hunter case, beautiful little watch, 7 jewels made in 1897. The third is the interesting one. It is marked Walter Starcke on the face, Walter Starcke, Junction Kansas on the movement, the case was made by the Illinois Watch Company. It's a 17 Jewel lever set. I could find no article on Walter Starcke watches...but I did find some stuff on Walter Starcke. The 1904 "Polk's Kansas State Gazeteer Business Directory" shows Walter Starcke as a jeweler and optician in Junction Kansas. A Junction newspaper article shows him going to a convention in Chicago in 1920.
Did Mr. Starcke make the watch movements himself, or they were generic watches made by another company? His name on the movement makes me think it's probably the former.
I often wonder how many business in that period came and went with little record remaining today.
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