Swaine and Mauer

My genealogical research has hit a snag - the computer I usually use to do it, has lost its ability to type a, i, s, 1, q, and a few other letters. This one types all of those, but doesn't have the password to get in to ancestry or newspapers.com. When I got the password, they didn't accept it. Perhaps because it's open on another computer?

Anyway my interest has moved along to Swaine and Mauer, a hardware shop in Council Bluffs around the turnn of the century (1898-1905?) They sold all kinds of things, like stoves, foot balls, etc.\

Charles Mauer was my great grandfather; his daughter Verna Mauer Leverett my grandmother whom I nevdr met.

His partner seems to be the mover and shaker, who went and joined the retail merchants' association, and who wrote ads trying to draw customers in, which can be seen in Non-Pareils of the era. I don't have any actualy proof of that; perhaps C.F. (Charles Mauer) had more creativity than I give him credit for. But judging from what I've seen, Swaine was the ringleader.

later, around 1915 (?) Charles Mauer would start a cashier-less store, and it would bomb. The questions I'm trying to annswer are: What happened to Swaine & Mauer? Was it a success as a store? Did C.F. have a lucrative career in the hardware business?

SWaine, his partner, had a fairly typical life. From Buffalo, he married a woman named Alice and had one son. Alice was to outlive him by about thirty years (as would Lizzy, C.F.'s wife). Maybe menn just didn't last as long in those days, due to the stress of bringing home money during the depressions.

The store moved at one point, from 340 Broadway to 332 and 336 Broadway. In other words, by moving next door they got two addresses, perhaps more space. Could this have been due to general success? THey were selling these fancy, outsized cook stoves, supposedly capable of cooking "quick meals." For a busy world, you had to have the right stove, I guess. Lots of interesting things in there; I'll keep digging.