Setting clocks back takes lots of time for shop owner

While we set our clocks back this weekend, some people will have a bigger job of it. Betty Goemann owns a clock shop in the Des Moines suburb of Windsor Heights and says there’s still a fascination with genuine old-fashioned clocks, especially the dozens of grandfather clocks in her inventory. She says a lot of it is decoration as well as telling the time, because they sell a lot of grandfather clocks, as well as wall and mantle clocks. She says there’s some decline in small clock sales, probably because the simple time-telling function’s handled by devices including TV/VCRs and other things. Goeman, the daughter of a watchmaker, has run the Windsor Clock asnd Watch Company with her husband in Iowa since 1987 and says she won’t have a digital clock in the store. She won’t put them in, because she likes the traditional “real” grandfather clocks with their sounds made by chime-hammers. “It’s not artificial,” she says, “It’s not a recording of a clock.” She says the traditional cuckoo clock is a timeless favorite, so to speak. They sell very well around Christmas, with music boxes or the “basic classic cuckoo.” Goemann says the dozens of timepieces in her small showroom are NOT all set to the same time, often because they’ve moved the hands to demonstrate the chime for a customer. It’s also because it wouldn’t be a good thing having every clock chime at the same time. Sometimes they “get ’em all in synch” but then it’s hard for her to hear, she laughs. She says the owners get so they don’t even hear them. The owner says traditional clocks are surprisingly accurate, in addition to their decorative charm. Goeman, her husband, and her sons run the clock shop and she says they will spend some time setting many of the clocks back to Central Standard Time.