My Grandfather Guarded Scintilla During World War II!

My grandfather, Joseph "Pop" Cody, was a policeman in New York City for decades when he retired and moved to Sidney during the early 1940s to raise his family.  His daughter, Kate, is my mother.

Pop took retirement restlessly and when he came to Sidney he soon found work as a guard at the big Scintilla (now Amphenol) factory.  World War II was underway and Scintilla was a major defense contractor so it was not a job to take likely.  Pop was stationed at the front gate and would be a tough old guy to get through, ID papers or not.

I just found out that another job my grandfather did during the war years was to guard the payroll at Scintilla.  How far we have come.  How do you get your pay each week? Direct deposited to a bank?  Through a computer generated check?  Not in the old days.  It was all cash.

The pay cart would show up and everybody would line up to receive an envelope with cash in it.  Of course there would be thousands of dollars out in the open for anybody to grab.  But my grandfather was there to protect the dough for the employees.  Once, during the war, when the pay cart was broken, they even delivered the payroll (in cash) from the back trunk of a car!  My grandfather never lost a dime on his watch, I am proud to say.

A recent photograph of my grandfather on guard duty on payday recently surfaced in our family.  I thought you might like to see it.  In this photo (which is a little fuzzy) you can see the Scintilla workers lined up to get their weekly cash.  That is my grandfather in full policeman's uniform (wearing glasses) guarding over everything.  I think this is a great memory of what my grandfather did "in the old days."  Plus...look how different pay day is now compared to 70 years ago!

My grandfather has been gone for a long time now, but I still have his memories of him telling me (when I was young) about his times as a cop on the beat in "old New York."  I have those memories...and I have his original billy club!