Bob, as he’s best known, tells of his family history including growing up during the Great Depression.

“My father was William Roy Galbraith who was married to Edna Hannah. He worked most of his life as a trucker. Sadly and unfortunately in 1930, he was killed in a truck accident and that meant the principal wage earner for the family of five children was gone.”

He went on to say, “I was three years of age at the time. My mother had so little income it was impossible for her to take care of us five kids. Some income came from her working part-time for the WPA depression era sewing project; however, the family depended mostly on government assistance for financial help. You can image the cost of feeding this sized family during the Great Depression years (1930-1940).”

“My concerned mother simply did not have money for food, fuel and housing. As best she could, she placed us wherever she found a home, with relatives, friends and neighbors; it seems like whoever would take us in. I was shuffled from relative to relative for a time and spent some time with my grandparents. However, they too didn’t have the money as they lived on old age assistance, which was barely enough to take care of their own needs. And that meant they were in no position to take care of me.”

“I remember it was difficult for our family to celebrate Christmas and I can’t recall that we ever had money to buy a tree or gifts. I also remember Christmas day was just another routine day.”

Bob said, “Most of the time I simply moved from place to place and found no permanent location I could call home. One time, I ended up with a family whose father was an alcoholic. That was so bad that I moved out quickly.”

“In this small town of Balaton, I could exist during the day with school activities and sports. But one of the major problems for me was finding a place to sleep. Often, because I had no place to go, I would sleep in a car at night.”

“As I look back, at age 16, I was entirely on my own. I quickly, at age 16, became an adult in an adult world. I financially survived, until I graduated from Balaton High School, doing odd jobs for nickels and dimes.”

Out of the Ashes of Poverty

To continue the story of Bob Galbraith, now a resident of Marshall, takes us beyond the depression into the 1940s. This is certainly a story of a generation of post poverty and depression era people, a story of those who did not shun work, those who learned the value of money and those who created great stories of financial and family successes. Robert Galbraith was one of them and his story certainly is worth telling.

Once Robert Galbraith escaped from the depths of poverty, he made up his mind that this would never happen to him again and he said, “I’ll never sleep in the back seat of a car again.” He didn’t because as he succeeded in life, he eventually was able to buy one of the most expensive cars available, which he certainly deserved, and he never had to sleep in it.

His most important major move that definitely contributed to his successful family life and career life is when he married his wife Lou and began raising his outstanding family. One cannot ignore how much she contributed to their “family” success.

Bob didn’t attend college. He didn’t have to. He was much smarter than most average persons and perhaps smarter than many college graduates. It was not difficult for him to make his way in the business world. He had a tremendous upbeat and full of life personality, with many good ideas…along with his good looks. He had an outstanding supportive and equally good looking wife who contributed greatly to their success.

With this combination, he started a career with J.R. Watkins Company of Winona and immediately became an outstanding sales person, going from house to house and farm to farm, selling various products for this company. With his sales ability, he established a successful territory for the company and was earning a good livable income.

Ultimately, and perhaps fortunately, the fact that he had this successful territory and good income became his downfall. And here’s why. Someone in the bureaucracy of J.R. Watkins Company came to the conclusion that he was making more money than his immediately supervisor, as he was paid a commission on the sales he made.

Did the company, J.R. Watkins, do the “smart” thing and reward him with a promotion? No. Here’s what Bob said: “they cut my territory in half and assigned another sales person to the other half of my territory that I had developed over a period of time. This territory was mine, but the company didn’t see it that way. This split of course cut my commission and income.”

In retrospect, if they had any idea of the tenacity of Robert Galbraith, what they should have done was promote him. If they had, perhaps he could have become President of a successful J.R. Watkins. But they didn’t.

Cutting his territory and income was more than Bob could take. He left this successful job and this company and made the decision he could start a business of his own.

Through sheer determination and many hours of hard work, along with his wife Lou, he set up a business in his garage and established an animal feed additive business called Ralco Products, Inc.

Once again, he went on the road, successfully selling his own company. Ralco today is a multi-million dollar company and sells products throughout the country and in 13 overseas countries.

Ironically, as he became successful, the J.R. Watkins company began having major financial difficulties. Bob was asked, at one time, if he’d be interested in buying and taking over the company. He said he wasn’t interested. It wasn’t too much later that the Watkins company filed bankruptcy.

Here’s what makes this a magnificent post-Depression story. In 1985, Robert Galbraith was named as one of five individuals to the Minnesota Businessmen’s Hall of Fame for his outstanding achievement in business.

Over the years Bob became an outstanding business person in Marshall. He served as President of the Marshall Chamber of Commerce and was very generous to the community and Southwest Minnesota State University. He earned his “degree” through his generosity to the college.

He eventually turned this highly successful business over to his family. He and his wife Lou retired comfortably in a beautiful lake home in Balaton, which they well deserved.

Bob was also a very religious person and was very instrumental in developing the successful story of the Agape Fellowship Church.

What a wonderful story of survival and success of a wonderful man; emerging out of The Great Depression of the thirties.

Source: “Beardsley Men: A Story of How a Small Town Survived The Great Depression, 1930-1940” by Richard Jorgensen