Merle would initially follow the employment path of his father, Roy, and other family members. For a brief time, he worked on the ore boats that served the dock-to-rail steel production centers of U.S. Steel, then located near Youngstown, OH and Pittsburgh, PA.

Photo of Merle (far left) and his fellow cooks on one of many ore boats that operated on the Great Lakes.

Written on the back of the photo by Merle, “All our jackets & aprons were dirty, but luckily dirt does not show up in a picture.”