Gilbreth Frank Bunker - Cheaper by the Dozen

To Dad who only reared twelve children and
To Mother who reared twelve only children

MOTHER AND DAD, LILLIAN Moller Gilbreth and Frank Bunker Gilbreth, were industrial engineers. They were among the first in the scientific management field and the very first in motion study. From 1910 to 1924, their firm of Gilbreth, Inc., was employed as efficiency expert by many of the major industrial plants in the United States, Britain, and Germany. Dad died in 1924. After that, Mother carried the load by herself and became perhaps the foremost woman industrial engineer. But thats another story. This book is about the Gilbreth family before Dad died.

AS A WRITER STILL in the midst of a life story of my parents, Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, I am always intrigued by the contrasts in their personalities, professional speeches, and writings. In spite of these differences, they both liked to include anecdotes about their dozen children. This was their means of clarifying, dramatizing, and humanizing their courageous mutual fields of work, namely motion-time methodology based on creating unfailing betterment and added happiness-moments for the worker.

My mother, academically a respected psychologist as well as my fathers full engineering partner, often began one of her platform appearances with a dictionary definition of whatever she planned to stress in her remarks.

I, too, follow this practice now and again. For example, lets decide to explore together my chosen word, curiosity. (As in the old primer maxim: Curiosity killed the cat.) What is its definition? Websters answer includes the following: 1. Careful attention. 2. Disposition to inquire into anything. 3. That which is curious or fitted to excite attention.

Very good, so far. Now lets return to you as a reader, please, and to whatever you believe makes you tick. By chance, were you taught as a child, just as I was, this BASIC: Well-directed curiosity is a blessing beyond price, to be encouraged always in oneself and in others now and forever?

As you probably know already, this conviction was adhered to within our dear old Gilbreth home and in our daily family practices. It was strengthened by our dads obvious joy in giving unexpected rewards to whichever child or group of children had pleased him most: expensive watches, glittering imported tools, razor-sharp pocket knives, Hershey chocolate bars, and ice cream sodastreats beyond measure.

Our boundless curiosity was also encouraged by Tom, our beloved but inefficient and incompetent jack-of-all-trades hired-man. For example, one morning he escorted us kids to the Gilbreth cellar, and to the box where his forbidden brick-red-colored cat had almost finished giving birth to her latest litter. This, he hoped, Im sure, would answer one of our questions, namely, Where do babies come from, Tom?

But our majestic grandma Martha Bunker Gilbreth, with her Maine-bred, old-time roots, remained a strong-voiced and stubborn dissenter. To see and hear her upbraid her beloved son was entertainment not to be missed by any of us, from Anne down to the newest baby. Land sakes, Frank Gilbreth, are you mad with your crazy ideas here? Do you want to bring tarnation down on us all and have us burned alive? Just a block away from Lillies Brown University classes? For shame.

Dad, always fearful of fire, tried to pacify her by designing quick fire escape routes from the house and with sternly supervised, daily fire drills. Also he ordered Tom to buy bigger fire-pails filled with sand and install them on every floor. The biggest pail of all was in the hallway opening onto our single second-floor, traffic-ridden bathroom. It was here that Tom began, on Dads orders, his sequence of daily pail inspections. Dreading this chore, hed scowl, tap his chest, and moan, Lincoln freed the slaves. All but one. All but one.

Meanwhile, Grandma had sound reasons for her continued protests and warnings. For young Billy, our family mischief (young limb of Satan, shed call him), by now had graduated from his past scientific experiments to new ones, such as placing one of Grandmas celluloid back-combs dead-center on top of her bedroom kerosene heater. We older children and Grandma now had to become ever watchful in order to prevent potential fiery explosions in the nick of time.

Beyond Grandmas trials with Billy, her next worry usually was me. She frowned sternly at Dad as she patted my head. This ones making over-use of her ears and eyes already, she warned after catching me on my knees outside her bedroom-door keyhole listening to her gossip with Dads sister. Stop encouraging her with rewards, Frank.

Not surprisingly, such dialogue helped deeply to influence our dozens growing-up years, choices of profession, marriage partners, and size of resultant families. Yes, today were still stuck with it.

An extra dividend for me has been the continuing capacity to try to cope with the worldwide curiosity roused by my brother Frank Jr.s and my coauthored books, Cheaper by the Dozen and Belles on Their Toes. And thanks to translations published in fifty-three foreign languages to date (the newest, Korean), why wouldnt this curiosity be worldwide?

But, oh! Oh! Oh! Between incoming daily mail and the ever-popular Gilbreth Web site, what a range of queries, personal and professional, now confront me! Here are examples of a few:

• What happened to your sister Mary? After a while, you and your brother forgot to mention her. Why? Did she die, maybe? If she did die, then I want to hear how, please.
• Dear Ernestine, how tall are you? How old are you? How many children do you have?
• My little sister is a miserable little pest. How did you ever manage to stand it?
• I hear some of your brothers are engineers. Then why didnt they join your mothers business? Am I missing something?
• Wasnt it terrible to have your tonsils taken out by mistake? Id hate it.
• Are you and Frank still writing books today? Please send me the names of all of them. Im late with my school report, so please hurry.
• I figure that only half a dozen of the Gilbreth original are alive today, with you the survivor of the top seven. Doesnt this bother you? Please dont mind if Im curious.

Mind? No, I dont mind. No way!

Ernestine Gilbreth Carey

DAD WAS A TALL man, with a large head, jowls, and a Herbert Hoover collar. He was no longer slim; he had passed the two-hundred-pound mark during his early thirties, and left it so far behind that there were times when he had to resort to railway baggage scales to ascertain his displacement. But he carried himself with the self-assurance of a successful gentleman who was proud of his wife, proud of his family, and proud of his business accomplishments.

Dad had enough gall to be divided into three parts, and the ability and poise to backstop the front he placed before the world. Hed walk into a factory like the Zeiss works in Germany or the Pierce Arrow plant in this country and announce that he could speed up production by one-fourth. Hed do it, too.

One reason he had so many childrenthere were twelve of uswas that he was convinced anything he and Mother teamed up on was sure to be a success.

Dad always practiced what he preached, and it was just about impossible to tell where his scientific management company ended and his family life began. His office was always full of children, and he often took two or three of us, and sometimes all twelve, on business trips. Frequently, wed tag along at his side, pencils and notebooks in our hands, when Dad toured a factory which had hired him as an efficiency expert.