Cinderella Lives In Pennsylvania March 28, 1988, by ROBERT H. ORENSTEIN
The Morning Call. Once upon a time, a factory in Pa made girls clothing under the Cinderella label. But this fairy tale nearly had a sad ending. Since the mid-1970s, the Cinderella had financial problems and eventually went bankrupt. In 1984, a Salt Lake City company bought the Cinderella label in bankruptcy court, but it pulled out of Pa in November 1986. Except for special efforts by the employees, the Pa factory would have closed. A half-dozen of them formed Kiddie Kloes Inc. and scraped up enough money for a down-payment to buy the machinery. The other 90 or so employees gave up their benefits and severed ties with the union to make it economically feasible for their new bosses to operate. Kiddie Kloes, whose name comes from the way the early-20th century Panther Valley immigrants spelled "clothes," couldn't afford to buy the building from the bank that held the mortgage. A group led by Bucks County businessman George M. Collie, which earlier purchased the rights to produce the Cinderella label, soon will buy the building. The final piece of the puzzle that cleared the way for Collie's group to buy the building fell into place last week. That's when the Carbon County commissioners accepted Collie's offer to pay half of the unpaid real estate taxes due on the building. Earlier, the Panther Valley School Board and Borough Council approved the plan. It's a scenario without any losers. The county, borough and school district will get half of the nearly $24,000 in delinquent real estate taxes, which is a cheap way to save the jobs and ensure that taxes be paid in the future. And the employees, many of whom have spent their entire adult lives working at the plant, will keep their jobs. Rita Chickilly, a 26-year veteran of the plant, summed up the employees' feelings. "We gave up lots. But we needed to. There's nothing else here."
