When the Gold Seal Company was sold in 1986, the family donated the Medora assets to the newly formed Theodore Roosevelt Medora Foundation. Medora eventually developed into the largest recreational area in the state of North Dakota. Schafer was enthralled with Medora and its fascinating history, and continued to pour his money and his efforts into this project. Other renovations and improvements soon followed and, in 1965, the Medora Division of the Gold Seal Company was opened to the public. He purchased the Rough Riders Hotel and the Ferris Store in 1962 and began renovating them in 1963. Schafer was honored for this benefaction with the Roughrider Award, North Dakota's highest civilian honor. Later years Īfter selling his Gold Seal interests, Schafer reinvested much of his assets in the Theodore Roosevelt Medora Foundation to promote and preserve Medora's Western culture. Each of these became the number one selling product in their respective categories, and the Gold Seal Company continued to produce increasing sales and profits until it was sold to Airwick Industries in 1986. The success of Glass Wax was repeated again in the 1950s with Snowy Bleach and in the 1960s with Mr. The rapid rise of this small North Dakota company, Schafer's sometimes flamboyant management style, and his incredible enthusiasm for hard work propelled it into the national limelight. Sales increased dramatically and then suddenly boomed when, in 1948, Glass Wax went national. The company grew modestly at first but, in 1945 introduced a new product called Glass Wax. In 1943, his Gold Seal Company made a profit of $901.02, and Schafer borrowed money from friends to keep going. At that point the family had three small children, no job and no money, and his new company had no assets. In the spring of 1943, Harold resigned his job at Fargo Glass and Paint to pursue his new dream, only to discover that the few hundred dollars that he had expected to have available for the purpose of starting the company did not materialize. He personally typed the labels by hand and taped them onto old cans in his basement and, thus, Gold Seal Company was born. In 1942, Schafer started packaging and selling a product he called Gold Seal Floor Wax. He switched to Fargo Glass and Paint in November 1936 and then worked for that company as a traveling salesman for several years. Schafer was forced to take a job at a clothing store in Glasgow, Montana, almost immediately after his first wedding but, by January 1, 1936, he was back in Bismarck and working for Vantine's Paint and Glass. By 1931, at the age of 19, he returned to Bismarck where once again he found work at the Dahl Clothing Store.
Schafer left college after one year and hit the road as a traveling salesman.
He continued to work at multiple jobs and once again his employment included work as a salesman, this time at the Globe Clothing Company. In 1929, Schafer enrolled at the North Dakota State Agricultural College (now NDSU) in Fargo. He also delivered milk, shoveled snow and was offered a job as a salesman at Bergeson's clothing store. In Glen Ullin he worked on a threshing crew, and by the time he was back in Bismarck and graduating from high school, Schafer did odd jobs at the Dahl clothing store, was an usher at the Capitol Theater, a bellhop at the Patterson Hotel, and an attendant at the Standard Oil Service Station. In Jamestown he candled eggs, sold flowers and worked as a department store clerk. When his family moved to Bismarck he worked as a newspaper boy, did janitorial work and was employed as a gas station attendant. Schafer graduated from Bismarck High School.ĭuring this period in his life, Schafer took his first paid job at the age of eight working in a butcher shop in Killdeer. He and his mother subsequently moved to Jamestown, then to Glen Ullin and finally back to Bismarck in 1927. In 1924, when Schafer was 12 years old, his father left the family and Harold moved back to Bismarck to live with his mother. Harold next spent a considerable period of time with his mother's family near Rosebud, South Dakota.
In 1919, the Schafers moved from the farm near Stanton to another small farm near Hazen, then to Killdeer in 1920 and to Bismarck in 1922. ĭuring his school years, the family moved repeatedly.
Harold spoke only German at home until he went to elementary school. His brother Gordon was born in 1911, his sister Ethelwyn in 1916. Schafer was born on a small farm near Stanton, North Dakota the second of three children born to Edward and Bertha Schafer.
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