Leland Sells for His Supper
Although Ruth rightly gets most of the cooking credit, Leland has become an able assistant over the years. He was always the man in charge of mashed potatoes when Greg and Wally were growing up, and even developed a few specialty dishes of his own. He honed his cooking skills the hard way -- doing in-home demonstrations of premium cookware when he worked as a salesperson for Wear-Ever Cookware during their early married years in Little Rock. The job involved cooking a full dinner for potential customers, hopefully wowing them with the tasty results, and then getting them to part with their dough so he could bring home the bacon (yuk-yuk).
A Young Go-Getter
After Leland finished his time in the Army, he and Ruth moved to Little Rock, Ark., where he used his GI Bill benefits to study the then-pioneering field of TV and radio repair. Leland had worked as a radio operator in Korea (he narrowly avoided getting sent to the front lines, where radio operators were top targets since the enemy wanted to take out communications first). He went to TV repair school all day, and, to make money, found a job he could do in the evenings: cooking dinner for potential customers as part of the sales pitch for Wear-Ever cookware.
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This was all-aluminum cookware that touted the concept of "waterless cooking" -- that is, letting things cook in their own juices to make them tastier and retain more nutrients. Leland would line up a prospect, and get them to invite 3-4 other families to their house for dinner. The offer was a
free home-cooked meal for all, with no sales pitch until the next morning (when Leland had to return and cook them all a pancake breakfast).
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A typical dinner would be: roast beef, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, and salad or coleslaw. A full set of cookware cost about $160 -- not cheap by the standards of the day -- so the food and the salesperson needed to be pretty darn convincing, although Leland notes, "A lot of people liked the idea of getting a free dinner!"
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One customer lived out of town in the countryside. When Leland arrived at their house he was surprised they were still living in poor farm conditions like he grew up in: a wood stove to cook on, no running water, a very simple house. He was certain they -- and the other countryfolk they invited for dinner -- couldn't afford the product. But he went ahead and made the dinner. Next morning when he came back for breakfast...he sold $500 worth of cookware! That's about $5,400 in 2022 dollars. His profit was $100 on the deal -- an "unheard-of amount" for one day's work. Leland learned some good lessons: stick with your commitments and don't judge appearances. "Those farmers had more money than I gave them credit for."
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Wear-Ever lived up to its name. Ruth and Leland are still using some of the pieces from their own set 70 years later.
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Leland worked several years as a TV repairman in Little Rock, and was getting a good business going when he felt the call to ministry. He and Ruth packed up their furniture, their Wear-Ever, and their three-year-old son, Wally, and headed to college in Indiana to earn a degree in Theology. At age 29, Leland was a freshman.
