By Cheryl Tevis

 

The Roaring Twenties ushered in a decade of rapid industrial and economic growth, accelerated consumer demand and unprecedented changes in lifestyles and culture. Eager to get on with their lives after the hardships of World War I, young men and women bought automobiles and flocked to dance halls with electric lighting. 

 

Raymond Stewart, son of a Methodist minister in Fairfield, was no exception. The first-born in a family of 13 children, Stewart became yearbook editor, letterman, champion debater and valedictorian at Fairfield High School. He paid his way through a couple of years at Grinnell College by selling candy to theaters and sales of his own candy cookbook. In 1926, he moved to Cedar Rapids and launched a new company, inviting three of his brothers, Wilson, Merle and Weston, to join him. In 1929, the Stewarts moved their fledgling business home to 110 North Main St. in Fairfield. 

 

In the spring, they placed this intriguing ad in the Ottumwa newspaper. 

 

“WANTED COLLEGE GRADUATES to become Home Talent show directors. Excellent opportunity to travel. Can you sing and dance? Do you have dramatic ability? Pleasant work with worthy civic and service organization. Organize, train and produce amateur shows. Good salary and commission. Traveling expenses guaranteed. Write UNIVERSAL PRODUCING CO. Fairfield, Iowa.”

 

Their business concept was simple: Send a young woman to a town, armed with the name of a civic or church leader, and charged with the task of recruiting and rehearsing a cast of 100 to 500 amateur actors, singers and dancers for a home talent show that would open in two weeks. Oh, and by the way, she would organize publicity, sell ads in the theatrical programs and conduct a ticket-selling campaign! Following the Saturday night show, she would travel to the next town to start all over again.

 

Sound like fun? My mother, Erma Burns, must have thought so. Raised on a farm in Woodbury County, she graduated from high school in 1928, the same year that Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. Active in high school drama and declamatory debates, my mother had joined the Dramatics Club as a college freshman at St. Joseph Academy in Ottumwa. She applied to be a home talent coach.

 

That’s how my mom’s life intersected with the unlikely story of the largest live entertainment production company in the U.S. At its height, Universal Producing Co. (UPC) had branch offices in New York City, Cleveland, Atlanta and Minneapolis. More than one million amateur actors played to more than six million people from coast to coast in the U.S. and southern Canada. 

 

“The history of Universal Producing Company is fascinating,” said Burt Chojnowski, Fairfield Entrepreneurial Association president. “It’s my favorite Fairfield story.”

 

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