My Father Joseph R Matthews, Started GMC in about 1943,He had just been been medically discarged from the Military and his hobby was model railroading. We had trains all over the basment at our home in Wheaton,Ill.My father thought up the concept of a man building his on train cars and of direct marketing to the end user. (He did this in both HO and 0 guage) He sold kits and worked through direct marketing and was on the cover of "Model Railroading Magazine " 3 times in 1944. I was 5 years old and used to lay track with him our basement. He barrowed money from his brothers in-laws to start the business. the sucess of the company then allowed him to then barrow from the Bank .The business grew and they had to move to 3 larger facilities in one year.At first he only built rail cars then he had to move into the engines ( I do not know the details of how he did this) all over the nations he was selling out of everthing. come the Christmas of 1945, the popularity of his hobbist building their own cars and laying their own track was incredibile. Of course the war was on and he couldn’t get enough copper for the engine wiring so he gambled everthing and went to the black market and bouth 3 rail carloads of copper. He never go it., and because he bet everything on it, and lost everything and had to file for bankrupty. However he paid the bank back everything. It took 30 years for him to do this. he was in a sanitariam to recover, for 6 months. We had No money. My mother took in typing and other other things to keep us going. I took on a paper route and gave half the money to my mother to help with expenses.
Side Note; My father and Mother both worked at the same radio station were Ronold Regan started his career and he and my father did baseball recreation games together occasionly. After he recovered from the trama of GMC. He eventually worked for A.C. Nielsen Co where he reventually retired. He signed up Walt Disney and Pete Rosell (NFL) to c