Colorized & restored with MyHeritage, I love this photo depicting an auto shop in Buffalo in the 1920s.
It is one of only a few photos that we have of my great-grandpa Eric ROMANE from that time period. He is on the right side, in the center. Here:
Unfortunately, I don’t know much about the photo. He clearly worked there for some time. It is inscribed 1926, possibly January. My great-grandpa would have been 23 years old, going on 24.
Here’s what I know. My great-grandpa Eric was living at 160 W. Huron Street with his older brother Frank ROMANE in 1925, per the NY State Census. Frank was an auto mechanic (he probably got his brother the job), and another man in the household with them, a James DeWITT, age 31, a lodger, was also an auto mechanic. Eric’s occupation is listed as ”wireless telegraphy,“ but the census was done June 1st; perhaps by the fall or winter he was in the auto shop. Eric lost his parents earlier in 1925, so it was a time of transition.
I know that Ford had a history in Buffalo. Henry FORD himself was in Buffalo in the early 1900s for an auto show & wanted to build a major assembly plant there, but he had trouble reaching a deal on incentives with city officials, so he went to Detroit, according to this history of Ford Motor Company.
But Ford still had a presence in Buffalo.
”Even though Henry Ford built his main production facilities near Detroit, he had been assembling Fords in Buffalo since 1910 and had a major facility near Main and Rodney in Buffalo.“
-Source: History of Ford Motor Company in Buffalo / Chuck LaChiusa
These Ford details may or may not be related to the photo, but it provides some context on the early auto industry in Buffalo.
For some additional perspective, the first cars needed ”frequent maintenance & repairs“ and there were 60,000 such shops across the country by the 1920s. East Buffalo specifically (geography lines up) had multiple car repair shops in the ’20s.
In August 1926, my great-grandpa married my great-grandma Margaret HILBURGER. So that was close to when this photo was taken. After marriage, Eric worked various jobs as a clerk that I don’t think tied to the auto industry, so his time in cars may have been short lived. I believe his work in cars to begin with stemmed from his older brother being an auto mechanic (and his father is listed on the 1920 Census as “carpenter [car shop]“). Years later, Eric worked for social services and then he & his wife Margaret went on to open a delicatessen / grocery store at 2112 Niagara Street, Romane‘s, which they ran in the late 1940s into the 1950s.
Any help identifying further information based on the photo above, including who the other men might be or the location of the shop, would be interesting! Leave a comment below or let me know on social media if you have ideas.
UPDATE (Sept. 2021): Thanks to a tip on Facebook, it’s my understanding that the vehicles are Chryslers. Per another tip, the auto shop itself may have been located on West Huron St. where the family lived, as there was one in that area at that time.
Craig Kanalley 