“My passion for watches and watchmaking is and always will be forever,” said Henry Fuhrer, who has been a watchmaker for 70 years.
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“Watchmaking involves taking the existing insides and repairing it with parts you either buy or make. When someone comes in and says, ‘Here’s my watch. It’s old but please fix it,’ I love it. When you see how well you can make that watch work, how well you can tune it up and adjust it, once you have it running good, you have the satisfaction of being a watchmaker.”
Fuhrer was born in 1945 and raised in Havana, Cuba. His father, grandfather and great-grandfather were watchmakers. Fuhrer began as an apprentice at 11.
Watchmaking did not insulate him from the dark side of Cuba he experienced as a teenager during the revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power. There was gunfire, bodies on the sidewalks, and buildings blown up.
After the revolution, the violence continued under the repressive Castro regime.
“It was against the law to speak out against Castro,” he said, recalling his friends whom the government rounded up.
“I didn’t like Castro, his hatred of America and cozying up to the Russians.”
In 1964, at age 18, he fled. “I left because there was no future growing up in a communist system.”
With his parents’ blessing, he flew to Mexico City, where he was able to obtain a green card to enter the United States, helped by his watchmaking skill. “They were more than happy to give me a green card,” he recalled.
In September 1964, he walked across the border from Tijuana and took a taxi to downtown San Diego. “I knew nothing about San Diego at the time. My idea of the United States was skyscrapers and smokestacks.”
He was able to quickly get a job repairing watches in a downtown trade shop earning $100 per week.
However, he was ambitious and wanted to hone his skills. He saved enough money to attend the Bulova School of Watchmaking in New York City. He then won a scholarship to the WOSTEP School in Switzerland, a renowned institution for watchmaking.
He returned to San Diego in 1967 having been trained as a world-class watchmaker and initially worked for Jessop’s Jewelers.
In 1972, he opened his own watchmaking shop. For the next 54 years, he repaired mechanical watches out of a small storefront on Sixth Avenue and later Morena Boulevard.
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However, today, at 81, he is no longer a watchmaker. On June 30, he closed his store and sold his tools.
“Watchmaking is a declining profession,” he said of the craft that began about 500 years ago. “It used to be there were mechanical watches you received for birthdays that needed frequent cleaning and adjustments. That changed in the 1970s and 1980’ with quartz watches, which just need batteries.
“As quartz watches saturated the market, there still remained demand for high-end mechanical watches.
“But that is also drying up because companies are bringing repairs in-house, and it’s difficult to get parts,” he said, while also recognizing the effect of cell phones.
Fuhrer said he has repaired thousands of mechanical watches during his 70 years as a watchmaker. He will miss the satisfaction of using that skill, running his shop and his relationships with many longtime customers and their children who became customers.
He looks back at what his craft provided him. Not only professional satisfaction, but something more lasting and valuable. It helped him find freedom in America.
“I’m really proud of this country,” he said. “The freedom of choice — to do what you want. Freedom of speech. There’s nothing better than the American way.”
In 1969, only five years after walking across the border to San Diego, he became a U.S. citizen.
In retirement Fuhrer and his wife, Chris, plan to travel the world. But they will not visit Cuba, he said, “not as long as they are oppressing the people.”
About this series
Goldsmith is a Union-Tribune contributing columnist.
We welcome reader suggestions of people who have done something extraordinary or otherwise educational, inspiring or interesting and who have not received much previous media. Please send suggestions to Jan Goldsmith at [email protected]
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