Eaton auctioneer has done it by building trust, even in hard times.

Life of selling America's stuff

EATON, Ohio -- In his mind's eye, Horace J. Kramer can vividly replay the day he fell in love with auctioneering.

He, his dad and his grandfather traveled from Preble County to Kitchel, Ind., to a big farm auction on a bone-chillingly bleak November day in the depths of the Great Depression.

He was a 6-year-old boy, and his overalls and worn jacket didn't quite keep the weather out. But it didn't matter. He huddled against the cold, sometimes straying to the wood fires cooking in several 55-gallon drums placed in locations around the farm.

But that wasn't what was warming him. Instead, he was mesmerized by the man on the wagon commanding the attention of the 200 or so people who came to buy.

He was the auctioneer, standing above the crowd, commanding their attention and using rapid-fire words to make commerce out of the confusion. He produced an unusual energy that ebbed and flowed as the bidding skipped to its close.

"It just fascinated me," Kramer said recently. "To hear the auctioneer's call, the chant he had. Each auctioneer had a different song he sang with filler words. It just made such an impression on me."

It inspired Kramer to go to auctioneer's school after service in the U.S. Army Air Corps in World War II. He did his first auction in 1948, and within two months, entered into a handshake agreement with another auctioneer, Lloyd Reitz. It was a handshake bond that lasted until Reitz died in 1968.

The two men did hundreds of auctions and, when Reitz died, Kramer carried on.

In July, Kramer called his 10,000th auction. In his 57 years of auctioneering, he built a business and along the way he built a family, built friendships and helped build a community.

And he built trust. That's why, many say, he has been such a successful businessman.

"He's one of the best," said Myron Orr, a retired Preble County farmer who has known Kramer for most of those 57 years. "The reason he has been so successful is because of his honesty and his integrity. He and his son, John, just have wonderful reputations. They're good, honest people and around here that's real important."

"I've always had one golden rule, and that is, 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,' " Horace Kramer said. "I've always tried to be fair to both sides. I always felt that if I was fair people would employ me and buyers would follow me."

Kramer and his son, John Kramer, run Kramer & Kramer Inc. in Eaton. Recently, Horace, or JR or Junior as some know him, has slowed down. John now does much of the auctioneering.

But his legacy lives on.

"He obviously set the whole foundation for my action career," John Kramer said. "He always taught me that being honest and hard-working are of the utmost importance. You always put your client's needs before your own."

Today, times and auctions have changed. John Kramer said auctions have become more regionalized, publicized and specialized.

But when Horace Kramer started his business, they were local happenings. In the 1940s and '50s, there were hundreds of small farms and dozens of local auctions each month.

Kramer started with nothing and built his business while living with his wife, Marian, in a one-room cabin in Eaton and working for $50 a month on his father's farm.

"I think we paid a couple dollars a month (in rent)," he said. "Times were very hard. We were living on no money. We sweated it out, but we always stuck together."

Marian helped by working at Campbell's Drug Store in Eaton, and Horace and Reitz found auctions where they could. They sold everything that America owned.

They sold chickens and plows, hay, 10 acres of corn standing in the field, onions and potatoes, wrenches and burlap sacks, horses and sows.

They sold household goods and collectibles, laying hens and Plymouth Rock roosters, pure-bred Tulouse geese, cheater white sows, jersey cows carrying their fourth calf and an 11-year-old bay mare weighing 1,670 pounds.

But those days are gone and it saddens Kramer. He fights back tears as he remembers the names, places and faces.

"You have to remember that almost all the farmers, the implement dealers, seed dealers, bankers and businessmen that Dad dealt with are gone now," John Kramer said. "Sometimes it's hard for him. But he has longevity and longevity is based on integrity."

Reporter Bill Engle: (765) 973-4481 or bengle@pal-item.com

Originally published August 8, 2005 by Palladium Item in Richmond Indiana