Bremerton Office Machines

My refurbished Royal Quiet Deluxe, which is from Bremerton Office Machines

Mr. Montgomery was reluctant to put this sticker on this typewriter.

I recently purchased a refurbished Royal Quiet Deluxe from Bremerton Office Machines. Bremerton Office Machines is operated by Robert Montgomery, who has run his shop since 1948. His father operated a typewriter shop beginning in 1908. During World War Two, he repaired typewriters while serving with the United States Army. He had the opportunity at the end of the war to tour the Olympia factory (later Optima) in Eastern Germany. According to Mr. Montgomery, Olympia's employees were moving as much of the machinery from that factory to their factory in Wilhelmshaven (in Western Germany). Olympia's typewriters had all of their parts machined, to make them smoother, while Optima's parts were not. It took the owners of Optima typewriters about three years of use for the parts to become as smooth as those of the Olympia.

Originally from Tacoma, Montgomery went to high school at Broadway High School in Seattle. He worked as a typewriter and adding machine repairman as a teenager before getting drafted by the Army soon after the United States joined World War II. He fixed typewriters for eight months at Camp Beale, Calif. before seing sent to Utah for training. After that, he spent a few years fixing typewriters at the Allied Headquarters in London - a job Montgomery calls the “chairborne infantry - swivel chairs, that is.” (Lynsi Burton, Bremerton Patriot, March 4, 2011) The full article is here: 

http://www.bremertonpatriot.com/news/117441173.html

Bremerton Office Machines is on the fifth floor of this building, which was completed in 1947.