Jim Dorr

My grandfather owned a small, old-fashioned grocery store in downtown Le Mars Iowa, a couple doors from the local movie theater. I loved working there on vacations, helping Emil the butcher make sausage, stocking shelves and making deliveries. “Dorr to Door Service” was the motto.

My grandfather, along with my father and uncle, also made and sold the best furniture polish ever, which he and Grandma personally delivered to grateful customers all over western Iowa, southeast South Dakota and southwest Minnesota.  My cousins Connie and Peggy and I helped make the furniture polish when we visited (my cousin DeeDee was too young as I recall). Our “factory” was at first in a small room under the stairs in the basement of the grocery store and later in my grandfather’s garage after his retirement. We poured the secret ingredients into our little stoneware vat and mixed them with the hi-tech motor you see in the photo. We then filled the bottle and applied the label. Voila! Ex-Lyn Furniture Polish. 16 batches made 24 cases.

I surprisingly still possess that secret formula – “Not a Wax!” as the label says correctly. I am even more amazed that I still have the vat, the motor and several well used nearly empty bottles of Ex-Lyn. That is thanks to my mother, who insisted on taking them through several moves. I know they have to go at some point, but every time I start thinking that way the old motor starts stirring family memories in that vat and they all come pouring out into a bottle that is now filled with Ex-Lyn remembrances.