His Former Factory Set To Close, Chelsea Man Goes To The Mattresses - WBUR
CHELSEA, Mass. — If you’ve been yearning for good news recently, this is it.
It all began Monday, May 4. A management-led buyout at Spring Air, a major mattress company, had failed, forcing the company to shut down almost all of its factories, including one in Chelsea.
“I came here that Monday morning,” said Ralph Melen, 77, a salesman in the mattress business for more than 50 years. “People were outside, standing there, and they had security people, wouldn’t let anybody in.”
Melen had never seen anything like it. He pulled up to the factory at 6:30 in the morning. Seventy baffled workers were nervously milling around, wondering why security guards were rooted in front of locked doors.
Melen wouldn’t have it. “Of course I said, I said to security, ‘I’m getting in that goddamn place.’ But none of the workers were allowed in. And then he showed up afterwards.”
“He” is the man who used to own the factory: Edward Bates. Spring Air’s logo is a bear curled up on a mattress, and it’s an apt description for 60-year-old Bates. A big, dark-haired grizzly bear on the outside. Soft-hearted and sensitive on the inside.
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