Joan Smith
April 11, 1995My father, George, and my Uncle Orrin Mills started a sash and door manufacturing plant in 1946 called the Prineville Millwork Company. It was located near the intersection of Willowdale Drive and Highway 26. Apparently there were some financial problems which as a 12-year old girl I did not comprehend. But the company was sold in 1948 or '49. The building is still on the site and it is used for storage.
I graduated from Crook County High School with the class of 1955. I've lived in and out Prineville since then but have lived here most of my life. My family moved here from Portland in 1946.
I was the first woman hired as a laborer in Hudspeth's sawmill. There were two other women working at Hudspeths at that time but none in the sawmill. One was a pond monkey and the other was working in the boiler room. I heard about the job from Maxine Davis and started working there in March of 1978. Women were being hired as laborers for the first time under the affirmative action law.
I started on clean-up like everyone else who starts in a sawmill. I don't remember what the salary was but I know it was more than twice as much as I had ever made on any other job. My previous jobs were waitress, telephone operator, baby-sitter, grocery clerk and type setter. All low paying jobs. Waitressing was hard work but nothing like working in a sawmill. I discovered I had muscles that I never knew about. But I was determined. And the wages looked fantastic.
After four months on clean-up there was an opening on the pond. Whenever there was a job opening anyone who wanted to could sign up for it and the person with the highest seniority would get the job. I bid on it and got the job because no one else wanted it. And so now I was pond monkey.
There were two of us on the pond; one fed the slip and the other would drive the boat around and make little log booms. I preferred to feed the slip rather than drive the boat. Someone had to feed the slip manually to get the logs lined up and that was mostly me. I only worked there one summer. They advised me it could get pretty cold on the pond during the winter and when another job opening came up I went inside the mill again. That job was called "swamper." I was directing lumber and cants between the sawyer and the edgerman. So when a board was sawed and dropped on to the rollers, I worked the levers and gates that sent the lumber to either the edgerman or to the gang edgers. Sometimes when the lumber didn't go where it was supposed to, I had to move it by myself.
The gang edger was fairly new in the late 70's and early 80's. Hudspeths had the only one around and people came from other areas to watch the operation.
After a year and a half at this job, about 1980, I was laid off because of a work stoppage. There were no logs. We were off a few months. During that layoff I collected unemployment and rested. I had worked long enough that I was able to collect good unemployment.
I went back to work in early spring of 1980. When there was a work stoppage a second time in January of '81 I went to Ochoco Lumber. Ochoco was a lot harder physically. I was floor man in the sawmill. It was supposed to be the same as my swamper job at Hudspeths but it was much harder. I worked at Ochoco one month. And then Hudspeths called us back to work. I thought I wanted to stay with Ochoco, so I quit at Hudspeths. The work at Ochoco was much much harder and I wanted to get back to Hudspeths. I had lost my seniority by quitting but I got back on at Hudspeths on the planer, pulling planer chain. It was about the same amount of money but it was the night shift. In July of 1981, there was a total shutdown. The sawmill shut down permanently.
We were not prepared for the shutdown. It was very obvious that we were running out of logs, but nothing was said to the employees. It was just that we could see when that deck was gone, we would be gone, too. There were a lot of rumors flying around, but we were hoping it would open again when timber was easier and cheaper to get. The company was not making it financially. They were paying too much for timber. They had overbid.
When I first started at Hudspeths, I was shown what to do and told what to do and then I was ignored. It was as if they were thinking "if we don't pay attention to her she's not really here." But then they started commenting about the sawmill being cleaner than it had ever been. When they couldn't kill me off and when they learned I could take a practical joke, they finally decided I was okay.
As soon as they found out I could do the job; that I could take a joke and dish out jokes, then I was one of the guys. In fact, they greeted me with "Hi, guy,". That was the best thing they could do was to treat me like I was one of them.
I was given flowers on my birthday. Some of the guys would all go together and buy flowers. I baked birthday cakes for them. I was not treated differently but, yet again, I was treated differently. They were very careful about their language. There were never any sexual overtures, and no sexual harassment. They knew I was a woman and I knew they were men, but I didn't rely on being a woman to get help, and I think they respected that.
We had excellent medical insurance; life insurance; dental and vision insurance; and retirement after working ten years. I had one accident that just scared me to death. Two cants dropped just about the same time as I slipped and fell almost directly under them. I rolled away and I was just bumped. I was badly bruised but at least I wasn't squashed flat! But I was unable to get out of bed the next morning.
Working in the sawmill I made many lasting friendships with the fellows and their families. I was treated with respect. And knowing that I was finally making a living wage and that I could support my family with only one job instead of several jobs. It was good.