I am surprised I don’t get asked this question more often. Come to think of it, nobody has ever asked me that question! They usually just walk in the door and call me Tom I know it’s a mouthful, and that is the reason most people drop the “Tom’s Sons” part and simply call us “International Pleating.” This is the story of how I came up with the name “Tom’s Sons International Pleating” and the significance behind Tom and his sons. As I have mentioned in previous posts, my family has been pleating fabric since 1931, albeit primarily for ourselves. To be more specific, we were manufacturers that made pleated garments – from start to finish, everything was made in our factory. That...
As the story goes, in 1945-ish when my father was approximately seven years old, it was his responsibility to burn wood until it was amber like coal. This was used to keep the iron hot. Since pleating was a secret back then, my grandmother would work in a locked room and no one was permitted to see how she did her work, not even my father! She had two of these irons, one was kept inside the room with her and the other was kept outside the door on a small table. She would alternate between these two irons and my father’s job was to keep the irons hot. For approximately two years my father did this every day after school. When he was...
I have a surprise for you. My grandfather Tom was never a pleater! As a matter of fact, the Tom Son’s factory started as a textile mill. He worked in the factory with his three sons: Leon, Anthony, and Jack. This photo (above) is of my uncle Jack, leaning on the door of the old […]
