JANUARY 3, 1977
A writer, working on a history of slot machines in America, found that patents on two early coin machines had been granted to George Kern of Peru, Ill. The weriter asked Kenneth Hansen of Peru Public library to find out something about Kern the inventor. Hansen asked me to aid in the search. A great many old time former Western Clock company employees knew Kern contributed information.
George Kern was born and raised in Germany and went to work for Juhan, the largest clock factory that country. Being a skilled designer of intricate machinery, his company had sent him on projects in Russia, Scotland, and other European countries.
To avoid being conscripted in the German army, he came to the United States and found employment in a New York machine shop. A chance meeting was to result in a new kind of clock that would become and remain the standard household clock of the world and would be cussed every morning in every language when its alarm roused the sleeping workers of the globe.
Ernest Roth, general manager of the Western Clock company in Peru, was in a New York restaurant about 1905 when he overheard a stranger speaking in German. Able to understand, Roth began a friendly conversation with Kern that resulted in Kern being hired to head the clock works' old experimental department, called the "model shop." His first order: Design a dependable and sturdy alarm clock.
Kent went to work on it. Everyone agrees, including Ernest Roth, son of the senior Roth, that Kern deserves complete credit for the invention of the clock that was to make the company phenomenonly successful. The new clock was named Big Ben.
"I went to work at Westclox under Kern on March 4, 1913," August Schierholtz, now of Elmira, Ontario, Canada, told me. "He was a very good man to work for. He was critical because he wanted perfection, but he was not hard. He had a small moustache, not turned on the ends as many others were at the time.
"Part of my problem when I began to work with him was that he refused to speaking anything but German for the first 1 1/2 years we worked together. I was born and raised in Canada and did not really know German, but to work with Kern, I had to learn it. I guess it was good training for me, though."
The Patents were a Secret
Besides its heavy, rugged reliability, one of the reasons for the instant success of the new clock that George Kern invented for Western Clock company in Peru was its loud fire alarm-like ring that brought the soundest-sleeping coal miner out of bed like he was shot from a canon.
Other alarm clocks of the time had a small bell on top and its gentle tinkle did not always do the job. Kern, who for years preferred to speak only in German, embodied a new idea: He made the entire back of the case into a bell, a bell that didn't fool around.
"After Big Ben's success, the company asked Kern to design a smaller model," August Scheirholtz tol dme from his home in Canada. "I remember our first order in 1913 was for 300 of the new small clocks." The miniature clock was named, logically, Baby Ben. Schierholtz worked under George Kern in the experiemental department and eventually succeeded him as its head.
"My father wanted me to learn the German language," says Ernest Roth, son of Western Clock's general manager, "and he figured the quickeest way to learn it was to send me off to Germany. It just happened that George Kern was going to Germany at the same time, so we sailed on the same ship and I got to know him quite well. It was in 1911. He was a wonderfuly guy and a good traveling companion. Incidentally, on the return trip, I was booked to sail on the Titanic, but had to cancel at the last moment."
"You have seen that clock on the front of Westclox?" said August Schierholtz. "Well, Kern and I designed and built that clock ourselveese. Mr. Roth, the boss, was not too happy about it when he learned how much time we had spent building it."
George Kern loved anything mechanical, especially if it was new. He was, for example, owner of one of the earliest automobiles in Peru: a Brush.
In 1911, Kern built a home at 2225 Fifth St., Peru and later married a Peru girl, Mary Akerman. The couple did not have children.
A writer who is preparing a book on the history of coin-operated machiens has learned that among early U.S. patents granted in 1917 were to "George Kern, Peru" for two such machines. The patents began: "Be it know that I, George Kern, a subject of the Emperor of Germany, and a resident of the city of Peru, Illinois, have invented a certain new and useful improvement in coin-controlled machines..."
Kern's machines are intested in that they not only vended merchandise such as cigars, but had an added element of chance that if you put in a nickel, you might be lucky and get two or more cigars or, if you chose chewing gum, you might get several packages for one nickel, a feature that today's vending machine operators might like to consider as trade stimulators; they would add a gambling element.
Curiously, even those who worked closely with Kern at the time say that they were unaware that he had applied for patents; indeed, most did not know Kern had been working on such devices. A few say they hear some rumors, but that's about all. In all liklihood George Kern did this work at his home and on his own time. It is possible that F. W. Mathiessen, the clock works' president, may not have approved of slot machines and Kern may have had no reason to bandy the news about. He did have a workshop in his home.
George Kern died July 27, 1918, in People's hospital following a ruptured appendix. Among the assets listed in his estate were: "patents."
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