Vegter-Tschetter Heritage

Dad, B&H Step and Container Co.

Henry & Son Welding Shop
Daughter-in-law, Cheryl, painted the sign for Dad the summer after graduating from college (while living at Uncle Frank's).

When Dad moved to Florida, he sold coffee to hotels all over Florida. Soon, he began fabricating containers. Gary Ray bought out dad's business, and Dad managed Gary's fabrication plant. Bill worked for Gary as well. Later, Bill started a step company to sell mobile home steps. Finally, Dad and Bill merged their businesses and pulled mobil homes as B & H Step and Container Co.

Dad with Container He Fabricated

Dad & Bill
Owners of B&H Step and Container Co.

Bill's First Truck
Bill, Jeremy, Jerry

Bill's Newer Truck

When Dad moved to Florida, he sold coffee to hotels all over the state. Soon, Dad bought property on Recker Highway and began fabricating containers, selling them mainly to his brothers who owned 3 garbage hauling business between them. Dad hadn't made containers very long, when a Gary Ray entered Dad's shop, told Dad that he'd been hired by a large northeast company to sell containers, and asked if Dad would manage the yard for him, especially because he would put Dad out of business eventually anyway.

After a few years (perhaps 1973-77), the large company went bankrupt. Gary Ray salvaged some trailers and equipment from the operation, and began his own business doing the same operation. Bill began working for Gary Ray also, and the two worked for Gary Ray for about 5 years (about 1977-1982). One day when Dad and Bill came to work, they learned that Gary Ray had sold the business without telling them. They quit within a week.

What to do now? Bill drove truck and Dad went to work fabricating trailers, a very hard job in the Florida heat even for a young man and Dad was now approaching 60. We were all concerned for Dad. Dad and Bill approached the same Georgia company that had fabricated Gary Ray's containers about selling containers just as they had done for Gary Ray. This didn't work out, but the company did arrange to supply them with mobile home steps and containers as well as a truck and trailer to deliver the steps and containers to dealers. So in 1982 the B & H Step and Container Co. was formed.

Dad was no salesman, and selling steps was tough work. Around mobile homes regularly, Bill entertained the idea that he could transport mobile homes. Beginning modestly with a used truck, Bill gradually upgraded his fleet to a set of 3-4 trucks, some of which were new and customized to set mobile homes. Bill and Dad naturally began setting homes, increasing income. For many years, Dad and Bill pulled homes as partners, employing Jerry periodically as well. Dad's last pull was about 2002 as his health began to fail. (history by Bill)

Dad Fabricating Containers
April, 1972

B&H Step and Container Co: Jerry

It was an extremely dangerous and risky business. The same axle and tires would be reused overt and over by the factories. The tires were used until they got tired of living. The axles were never maintained by the factory personal and never greased. This resulted in bearings going bad, tires coming loose in route, sometimes the loose tires coming up alongside the trailer and truck and ending up in front of the truck; on one occasion a tire crossed the median hitting an oncoming car. Whenever I came to construction sites with workers, I prayed, "Please don't let those tires come off!" The houses had twenty-four tires which simply increased the risks by twenty-four times. On a trip down I-75,I felt a lurch (which usually meant that a tire blew or came off) and my escort behind informed me that a tire had popped out from underneath the house, took a bounce and went directly over his car. Thanks to the Lord, it ended up in the ditch without touching any of the vehicles on the busy stretch of interstate. (recollection by Jerry)

B&H Step and Container Co:
Three Brothers
Jerry, John, Bill

These homes, when reaching the destination, had to be pulled to there "final resting place." The homes were "top-heavy" and could easily tip over. On one of Bill's trips to northern FL, the owner had built his own "road" to an island. The road was not wide enough nor was it packed down. The trailer slipped off and was dangerously close to turning over. You can't simply say, "Too bad," and walk away. The only way to get it back on the home-made road was to crawl under the low side and, using two jacks, lift it up, build a temporary support under and/or by the use of several jacks, "push it back on the home-made road. If something goes wrong...a jack slips, the house will come over and...anything might happen. Bill couldn't "back out" of it. His truck was on the island side. The Lord was merciful (again) and the house was finally in it's final resting place (until the next hurricane came up the gulf!)

Working as a custodian is quite dull and I love it! I hope that I will never again have to make a living by holding a big steering wheel. (recollection by Jerry)

Bill with helper and son, Matthew

Stories...trucking stories...o yes, now that you mention it, there are plenty of "trucking stories" that could be told! Times when all three of us, on separate occasions, pulled away from a "spot" job, forgetting that the trailer was not unhitched. I took out a chain link fence, Dad took down a lamp post, and Bill took out something as well. I hit two overpasses with the same house on the same day. Bill was really uptight about the cost, and rightly so, until he did $3000 worth of damage by hitting an overpass with a house that he was pulling. The time "Hillbilly" called me and said, "Don't bring your half. A train just took mine down the track." The time when the wind lifted my half of a house and it ended up top side down in front of a "no parking" sign. (That made the newspaper.) Time when the owner said, that isn't my house (we had pulled the wrong house to the wrong place.) The time when I called a lady's telephone number for directions, missing the correct number by one numeral. I told the lady that we were delivering a house and where would she like us to park it when we arrived. She was wonderfully cooperative, giving accurate directions and telling us that we could probably park it in the parking lot next door. We ended up in a busy shopping area with a $265,000 dollar home in front of a sewing supply store and the lady inside, who had given the directions, telling us that this wasn't her home! It was one of the rare times that I was speechless! Actually I didn't trust myself to say anything after she confirmed that she was the individual that I had talked to on the phone. Fortunately we were only 70 miles from the site where set-up guys were unhappily waiting. Bill was upset with the extra miles, which translates into extra dollars, but I reminded him that if he would take the time to give directions before leaving the factory, it never would have happened. When you are pulling an eighty foot home and sixteen wide and sixteen high, with an elbow on the steering wheel. a cell phone in the same hand, trying to write directions in a moving, bumpy truck...it's difficult not to speak of dangerous. (recollection by Jerry)

Dad & Sons at Carol's
Blake, Jacob, Bill, Jerry, Dad, John

Mom and Dad sell Recker Highway property

Turtle Crossing
We had delivered a mobile home. Dad did the escort in his pickup. We were driving home. He was in front and we both saw a turtle in the oncoming lane making slow progress toward our lane. Suddenly Dad veered to the left, hit the corner of that turtle's shell with his front wheel and sent him flying through the air in the direction that he had come from.

I used to describe it to friends by saying "Dad's tire spit that turtle all the way back to where it had come from."

I always wondered why Dianne sounded disgusted after hearing the story. She envisioned a naked turtle hurtling through the air (minus its shell.)
(Recollection by Jerry)