Ithaca Journal, NY
05-16-07
A company town loses its company
By Bonnie Harris and William Ryberg
Gannett News Service
NEWTON, Iowa — This time last year, this was a town of tattered nerves.
Whether Whirlpool Corp. would keep or kill its Maytag operations was a source of
angst for most everyone.
Now, nearly a year after the announcement that Maytag would indeed be shut
down, Newton is a town in transition. In some ways, it seems everything has
changed. About 740 employees remain at the Maytag factory and headquarters,
down about 1,000 from a year ago and almost 3,000 from five years ago.
Yet a closer look reveals something else: Life is much the same.
* Families have moved away, taking with them — just since last fall — more than
60 children who'd been enrolled in one of Newton's seven schools. But 91
students have moved in.
* Residents in Des Moines and elsewhere decided to take advantage of a strong
buyers' market and relocate to this town of 15,000, where people give only the
last four digits of their phone numbers because everyone already knows the
prefix.
* Longtime Maytag workers are still looking for work, some because they can't
bear to leave the town that has forever been known as “Washer City.” But still
others have gone back to school and started new careers, repeatedly telling
others that losing their job was the best thing that's ever happened to them.
Lives have changed in measurable ways, such as longer commutes, tighter
budgets and second jobs. But ask newcomers like Deana and Guy Gast, who
last year bought the 4,200-square-foot home of ex-Maytag boss Ralph Hake, and
they'll say it's the “other stuff” that has mattered most.
“Living here is like a retreat,” said Deana Gast, whose family moved last spring
from Des Moines, where her husband still works as president of Waldinger Corp.
“Newton is less about running your kids around to soccer practice and more
about watching your kids run around playing with the neighbors. We actually take
walks to the ice cream shop. I'm still pinching myself.”
City leaders point to progress:
* Two companies — Iowa Telecom and Caleris — plan to add 240 jobs in 2007.
* This year, 10 businesses have held ribbon-cuttings for new locations or
expansions.
* The Iowa Speedway attracted than 12,000 fans for a race last month, and new
hotels and other businesses plan to chase that crowd.
Still, there are certain signs of struggle in Newton, such as more bankruptcies.
The unemployment rate is nearly double that of the state. Some experts say
those indicators could continue to simmer before they boil over a few years from
now. Or, in keeping with Newton's stubborn determination to transform itself,
those markers of economic and social health could simply level off one day.
“It doesn't surprise me that Newton is such a mixed bag right now,” said Paul
Lasley, chairman of the sociology department at Iowa State University. “It's
too soon to know what these indicators mean and whether something more is
percolating there that we can't see yet. Newton is going through transitions right
now on most every level, and these transitions hold important consequences for
the future.”
Even those still faced with uncertainty are trying hard to focus on what's ahead.
Elaine Mattingly, who with her husband, John, owns the longtime family-run
Mattingly Music and Books on the town square, flatly declares the future of their
small business to be “in question.”
But she is quick to add that her grieving is almost over, with her moving to a new
job at a Newton winery and leaving her husband to tend the store.
“I've talked to a lot of people who feel collectively that Newton has pushed
through that shadowy time we were in before,” Mattingly said. “But there are still
shadows around us. It's about pushing through those, now, too.”