First Electrolux memory.
I wish I could say it was the LX, as it's my favorite, but no, my very first was the model XXX. Looking back it would have been a prewar, most likely 1940. As I've said many times, my maternal grandpa, Alexander Rowan, was the house director for a boys school called Choate (now Choate/Rosemary Hall) and he was the man who not only hired the maids to clean the school, but also bought the vacuum cleaners which were both Electrolux and Kirby. In the little storeroom next to his office was a very old model XXX. That was my first toy. Years later, that same XXX would be taken into the barber shop. If I was a good boy and sat still, I could vacuum up the clippings from my haircut. Yes, I behaved!
Our neighbor, Jeanette, had the model LX based on my grandpa's recomendation. A few years later another neighbor got a LXI. As for my paternal grandparents they had a postwar XXX, and later a model L. For our home, again it was the prewar XXX, until we got a model E. My grandmother (maternal) also had a model XX (20) which was very rare.
Then in January 1968, while I was still only 17, I happened to be in Hamden, Connecticut, standing waiting for a bus, and there I was in front of the Electrolux office! In the window was a new 1205, and a sign "now hiring!" I forgot about the bus and went into the office. Needless to say, they required parental approval, and it was only part time, but I did what I had said all my life. "When I grow up I'm going to work for Electrolux!
Little did I know that this was the first place I would start to dig research, not only on Electrolux, but a lot of other brands. John Lucia used to call me the "research junkie," he was right, and I still am.
