An interview with Charlene Oesch, typewriter ribbon manufacturer

Many typists, including me, were sad to learn that Charlene Oesch died recently. Her small business, Baco Ribbons, was my go-to source; I used hundreds if not thousands of her nylon ribbons on Underwood-style spools, as well as several big rolls and some specialty items: she could provide narrow ribbons for adding machines, toy typewriters, and more.Baco was not the last typewriter ribbon manufacturer. You can find some other sources here. But Charlene will certainly be missed.In The Typewriter Revolution, I published some rearranged excerpts from an interview with Charlene. I thought it would be nice to publish the whole interview here.Interview with Charlene Oesch of Baco Ribbons, Ballwin, MissouriApril 17, 2013 How did Baco Ribbons get started? What is its history? My father came out of WWII repairing cash registers for NCR. He somehow got connected with a man in downtown St. Louis and started to make ribbons. I don’t know where Baco came from, it was whoever had the company…