During the Great Depression, he got a job walking around town wearing an advertising sandwich board. Then he got the bright idea to go into business for himself.
My grandfather was a potato farm kid during the depression— they were one of the only families to be cheap and paranoid enough to only pay cash for land. He always used to very proudly say “We were never rich, but if anyone came around hungry, we always had an extra tater or two.”
My respected Gran (Bless her Soul) who never had a bad word to say about anyone always had a bad word to say about him. One I remember is "He comes from bad seed, he will leave bad seed". She was right, the apple hasn't fallen very far from its tree (Bless your Soul)