Interviewer: Pauleena MacDougall
Interviewee: Phyllis Beaulieu
January 23, 2006
Eastern Fine Oral History Project [Begin Phyllis Beaulieu Interview Track 1- 11:27]

Pauleena MacDougall: Ok, this is Pauleena MacDougall, it’s January 23rd 2006. I’m at the home of Phyllis Beaulieu

Phyllis Beaulieu: Yes Beaulieu

PM: Beaulieu and this is, I think we’re in Dedham are we?

PB: Yes this is Dedham

PM: Phyllis’ home and we’re going to talk about Eastern Fine Paper. Well Phyllis when did you start working down there?

PB: March in 49’, March 1949.

PM: and what kind of a job did you have?

PB: Well when I first went to work in Eastern, it was called the bindery and we put paper all different colors of paper together and they would you know put a bind on them and they’d send it to all the customers and I worked, first I worked five years part time. Of course work back then was hard to come by after the war, see so many came home from the service and took over the job, and I worked in there and worked out in the mill wrapping reams and sorting paper and I just took vacation places for five years all summer, I worked up in the fall until the vacations then I bid on a job and it was called advertising and I worked up there for, oh let me see, then let me see who took over, standard packaging took over and when they took over, they upset the place terrible and we had a union. People had a union and we got bumped, kept getting bumped from one job to the other. I had five different jobs. I got bumped from the sample department. That’s where I was working after, I was working there steady and I got bumped there and I went out to what they called the stores was. The stores was where all the equipment for the mill was. Well I worked there probably three or four years. I got bumped there so I bid on a job in the main office and I did purchase orders. I typed purchases orders until, well, where was I working when the mill closed? Well I think it was, no it was in the office, the main office I was working when the mill closed in 1968. The mill closed for six months and I was fortunate enough and my husband too, Larry, we both got called back. He got called back a month before I did and I went back to work in the sample department. I needed to send out samples to the customers, they were really starting right out again.

PM: So when you started, you were putting together sample books

PB: Yes

PM: So you ended up back in doing the

PB: Sample, yes only I was typing then, in the sample office I would type the labels. We would sort the paper and send it to the customers and everything and then from there, like I said I got bumped from there and went up to stores then from there I went into the main office and I did purchase orders and lets see, they started cutting back and I was in pay roll when the mill closed in 68’, I was in payroll, was doing time cards and all of that and when the mill reopened in 68’ like I said my husband and I were fortunate enough to be called back and I went back in the sample department and I worked there until, let me see that 68’, 70’ we had a lab, a nice lab in the mill. They had mostly college boys working there and the boys that were working there wasn’t keeping it, you know doing the job so this fellow that was head of the lab, he come out one day and asked me, do you think you’d like to work in the lab? And I said I don’t know anything about chemistry. He said we’ll teach you, we’ll teach you. So I went out there and it was about 1970 and I worked there until I left in 88. Was about 18 years and what I did, I did the environmental work. I used to make new colors, they had to have colors for the machines that send a sample in and they’d bring it into me and I’d have to get the formula and make the match that, and then they’d send the formula downstairs in the paper mill to make the colors for the customer. So I

PM: Was there some kind of a book you could look that up in?

PB: Yes, I had a books and I had files and everything that I’d look everything up and I’d have to take and have it checked, you know make sure everything was ok; to the boss and he’d check it out; I did the BOD’s, that’s biochemical oxygen demands. I did that from the time I went in there till I got through in 88 and that’s checking the water from, you have to go down, every morning I had to get a sample down in the sewer, bring it up and I had to go over to the treatment plant and get a sample, there had to be enough oxygen in the water going over to the treatment plant and if there wasn’t enough oxygen, they had to put chemicals in it to bring it up. It had to be so, the pH had to be so high and I used to, I’d have to go down every morning, had to get samples and bring it up and get them ready for the 9 o’clock meeting. They liked to start samples and all of that, dry them out and weigh them, have that ready for the meeting in the morning, so it’s about, you know I did that for 18, like I said 18 years

PM: Did you know Lois Andrew’s?

PB: Oh yes I knew Lois, in fact the other night I dreamed of Lois. Isn’t that funny, I dreamed of her and her husband. He worked up there in the lab for awhile,

PM: The reason I asked was she told me, I mean her story sounds a little bit like yours in some ways because she did some of those different jobs.

PB: Oh yes she did

PM: and ended up in the lab at one point.

PB: Yes she worked in the lab for awhile but not while I was there. I liked it very much. I liked the mill very, very much. There was always some little conflict with different people. Somebody was always trying to bring trouble for you or something. That goes on, yes there’s a lot of that when you have jobs and everything and I had a good job and I liked it very much so I was awful glad though to get through in 88. I had worked long enough, about 40 years. But Lois was a very, very smart girl. She was very efficient in office work. She used to work in the main office too doing purchasing and all of that. She was very, very smart. They loved Lois.

PM: When you first started at the mill had you gotten your high school education?

PB: Oh yes, I graduated in 46’

PM: Ok.

PB: and I went to work in 49’.

PM: So had you done any other jobs before that?

PB: Oh yes, I worked everywhere I could find a job. Like I said after the war, 45’ when the war ended, I tried every where, I worked in all the stores in Bangor. I worked at Sears and that was like part time. You’d work up during Christmas and then after Christmas you were laid off, and then they’d call you back in the summer when people were having vacations and I worked in all of the departments there and during, well of course when I was in high school I worked in all the stores, like Christmas vacation and everything but oh yes, I worked, I’ve been working since the 7th, 8th grade.

PM: So when you started in the sampling department, what kind of skills did you have to have to do that job?

PB: They had racks, like three shelves and we sat on these high benches and they had all these different papers, different colors and weights and everything, and they called it picking up. We had a box set in front of us, square box, wooden box sat on our lap and we picked up. We had this rubber finger tip, see you pick up like that and you’d put it in the box and take that and then some other person would cut it three times. This man printed. He had a printer in there and he printed the old fashion printers. It looked like Benjamin Franklins old printer and he’d pull down you know label the paper, what it was, lend the bond, the weight, the size, the color and everything, and we did that and of course we’d send out the big mailings. We’d have to put everything together in the envelopes, put the labels on them. I used to use that old type writer thing that typed out metal, the metal tags. Just bang down, do that in the sample and what else? Of course we were wrapping the reams out in the mill when they wrapped the reams, that was nice. I liked doing that and labeling the big cartons, the great big skids of paper. It would be oh god, great big tall. We had a little bench and we’d have to see what the paper was and we have to stamp on these little labels what the paper was, the size, the weight, the color and we’d have to stamp it by hand with little stamps, we’d have to put them on there, glue them up, put them through a little water machine and glue them up and they had to be right and if you got them wrong you had to scrape every one of them off. I got them wrong, getting something wrong, Miriam was the head one, she’d come over, that’s not right. You take that all off

PM: Do you remember Miriam’s last name?

PB: It will probably come to me, I was thinking of her not to long ago, gosh I can’t think.

PM: Is she the person who trained you?

PB: Is what?

PM: Was she the one who trained you?

PB: Well to stamp them yes. Yes, you know you had to get them right. Instead of taking them, when we got the first ones stamped to go and see if it was right, we just, you know we just figured it was right. We had the paper, sometimes it wouldn’t be and we’d have to take them all off. It had to be taken off with water and oh, what a mess. We’d have to make new ones. She didn’t like that and then I sorted paper. I liked doing that too. I never did counting. I think I was too short. You had to take the paper and count it. You know, they’d take their fingers and count so much and they’d turn it over these great big reams. No, I never did that but, wrapping the reams and putting the labels on the skids, the big rolls of paper that went out. It would be all wrapped. It would be either 11 by 17 or let me see what’s the other size, the big, big, yup, they’d have what the numbers are on them.

PM: Phyllis I’d like to stop there for just a minute because I noticed my battery is low.

PB: Sure

PM: And I don’t want to risk losing information.

PB: Do you want to plug it in? [End Phyllis Beaulieu Interview Track 1, Begin Track 2- 39:47]

PM: There we go,

PB: Ok

PM: Ok

PB: Where did I leave off?

PM: Well you were talking about some of the different things you had to learn for the job.

PB: The main office, the main office when I did the purchasing that was hard when I first went in there, very hard because I didn’t have the speed. I typed labels in the samples but the purchasing orders were big, 8 and ½ by 11 and you had to put everything that they needed on there and the address where it was going and everything and then boy did they have to be right. We had Lincoln to do, we had all Lincoln and the mill so that was like 700 people, in the, 7 or 8, so I was there for quite awhile but you know after I got my speed and everything, I liked it very much. I worked there for quite awhile in the purchasing and then of course like I said when standard packaging took over, they shipped the place all up, and then of course they closed it just like this outfit did and when this outfit came in there when I left in 88, they were talking about this fellow that’s coming in. I said he’s going to close the mill just like they did in 88. People said oh no, he’s not either. I said you wait and see. You wait and the changes started in and you were just a number. Of course I used to hear from different people. They said it’s terrible down there now, terrible to work under these people and they made a lot of the people take cuts in pay but they didn’t. They didn’t take any cuts. They got their money. Well I knew that. I told them. I said you wait and see, mark my words and it was the same when the mill closed before. When they closed the paper mill, the pulp mill I said to my boss who was John Condand, very nice man, I worked there and I said something’s up and I said they’re going to close this mill aren’t they? He said this mill has never been closed. They close it for like two days at a time and you know you cut out and cut down and everything like that, but he said it’s never closed completely. I said it seems awful funny though the way things are going. I said it just doesn’t add up. It isn’t right. Sure enough in 68’, when he come in and told us it was closed, he broke right down and cried. He said I never thought I would see this day and he says it’s terrible. Of course when we went out, I had to tell how many years, I had been there 19 years and my husband had been there 19, 20, about 23 years. He’s three years older than me and he worked there. He worked the same amount of time. He was, well he started out in the mill. He worked everywhere and he had jobs all through the mill but he ended up a piper. He was a piper.

PM: Were you married when you started working there?

PB: No

PM: Did you meet your husband at the mill?

PB: Well I met my husband when I went to church, Sunday school schooling, I knew him but you know I wasn’t going with him but I started going out with him in, let me see we got married in 58, I started going out with him in about 57’

PM: So did you meet him, well you said you knew him…

PB: at the mill; yeah well you see him all the time. He had a twin brother. I like him. I went out first with his twin brother but that didn’t work out so anyway, I started going with him and we got married.

PM: Did he ask you out at work?

PB: He asked me out, no I’ll tell you, he was parked on, I lived on the Green Point Road in Brewer, and the gas companies down there, the end, and there used to be a drive in theatre down in the field and one night I was coming home, coming up the back way from South Brewer, coming up the Green Point Road and he was parked there at the gas company and I drove up and I said what are you too cheap to pay to go to the movies. He was watching the movie. And I said, you’re watching the movie for nothing. You could see it just as plain. You know, you couldn’t hear it very good but he called me up and we went out for about a year and so he asked me to marry him. I said well it’s one thing I’m not going to live in the city. He lived right next to the mill, Oak Street and he said I don’t want to live in the city anyways. So we went looking for a place and we found this and we bought it for the mortgage, paid 7,000 dollars back in 58’ for this house but of course it was all open studs

PM: They didn’t finish it off.

PB: No, he did all this, my husband did all the refinishing in the house. I did all the furniture. I stripped all the furniture, bought antiques and stripped it. I have a little shop over there, I used to have a little antique shop. I’ve been in antiques since I’ve been 25. So you know, there was a lot of old furniture left here and we fixed it up and got by with it till I bought piece, we bought pieces and we finished it and that’s how we got the furniture.

PM: Well when you were, you said you worked quite a few different jobs in the mill

PB: Yes

PM: Did you ever have any, did you ever go into a job where you were, the men didn’t really feel comfortable having you there or they were thinking maybe it should be a man’s job.

PB: Well when I went to work in the lab I think there was a couple of guys, although they were nice enough to me but I cleaned the lab up. The lab was terrible and I went in and I cleaned it and learned to work. They were good to me after awhile. They knew I was doing a good job. Oh I had been you know, it wasn’t men. It was mostly women. It was the women that gave me the hard times.

PM: Is that right.

PB: Yes, it was the women. No the men were always awfully good to me. I never had, I don’t think probably there might have been a couple that would say little mean things but I ignored it. I wouldn’t fight with them but it was the women that was the ones, not the men. The last three years I worked there, there was a girl who worked in the lab and she wanted my job and of course she shined right up to the boss and that was fine but she made it really miserable for me. Yes she did.

PM: What did she do?

PB: Nothing, sat there, smoked cigarettes but she got fired when I left. Yes she got fired. They found out she wasn’t doing anything. She’s supposed to go down and get samples from the machines and bring them up and run them through another machine and weight them up; see how much loss and everything there was but I had done that too so the boss came in one day and said I think I’ll bring this girl up and you won’t have to do that job. The summer kids did it and he says you won’t have to do it. You can just do what you’re doing, you know, your ordinary job. It’s ok with me; have I ever known I probably would have said no way, I’ll do both because I never dreamed she would make my life so miserable but you couldn’t go and report anything because, I don’t like to say, because we had a manager there that wasn’t the nicest and I did once. I just went once and said for one thing I’m very short and she made fun of me all the time. It was, you know she’d sit at the end, she had a desk and I was doing the work in this big lab and she would laugh, make fun of me and do things in my office when I’d leave at night. Finally, I had to have a lock put on my office and she was just nasty; very nasty person but after I left in 88’ she didn’t last too long. I don’t even think she was there a year. Well when this new guy took over, Torres, he clamped down on a lot of things too and he found out that things weren’t done the way they were suppose to be done.

PM: Now were you in the union too?

PB: No, only when standard packaging took over, when standard packaging took over, we had a union in the office for five years and then they closed the mill. Then when the mill reopened, the office people on salary, I was on salary, we didn’t have a union but the union was in the mill.

PM: So when you were doing the binding and all that, you weren’t unionized either?

PB: Let me see, I think so, yes that was mill work.

PM: it was

PB: Yes, you had to punch a, you had a card

PM: so when you were doing any of that stuff, you were under the union?

PB: Yes, I was in the union then.

PM: and you’d have to bid on a job if you…

PB: Yes, five years, that’s how I got in the sample department and then from there I just stayed right in the office. I like it very much.

PM: What did you think of the union?

PB: Well the union, like my husband thought you know if you didn’t have the union, it would have been a lot worse. You know they protected people and they couldn’t take you off a job and just let somebody else do it if you had, back when I went there, you know the pipers were in a union, the mill workers were in a union. They all had their jobs and somebody couldn’t go in and just start working there. I mean, you just couldn’t. That’s where the union protected them. And then when the, after standard packaging and the mill reopened, they got, we got the union back and it was not quite the same. They didn’t have, a piper didn’t have his job and that was it, you know. Like Larry, the mill, the mill rights they did everything after that. The mill pipers and the mill rights; they did all the work and they didn’t have individual jobs like a piper had a job, tin knockers made all the tin stuff and when I first went there, that’s the way it was then.

PM: So that changed.

PB: Oh yeah that changed but the union protected the people. It did. When Standard Packaging took it, that’s when they went in, the office went in for the union to be protected because they would just let people go. They were an awful outfit that Standard Packaging, that Torres was the same. He did no better, as far as I’m concerned, now this is just my opinion but when you work in a place that long you kinda know.

PM: Yes, you notice the changes.

PB: I guess.

PM: When you started out, did you have to do anything to kind of recruiting yourself to the other folks to be accepted?

PB: No, nope not in the bindery. No, went in there and everybody was wonderful. There was old, old ladies working there; back then they could work until they died and some of them were way up in their 70’s

PM: Is that right.

PB: Yes, and they accepted. They accepted us young girls. There was two or three old ladies in the bindery, very nice old ladies and they were awful good to us. No I didn’t have to prove anything, just as long as you did your work. Tom Door was our boss. He was a little short, fat guy but he was nice, you did your work. He didn’t smile very much.

PM: Did anybody ever do anything you know like kind of fun things.

PB: Oh, I did. I was bad. I used to do a lot of things.

PM: Oh I want to hear about those.

PB: Oh my god, when we were doing the lab, labeling, every time they’d get a big load there was a great big elevator they’d have to take it down to the shipping room and there was, see what his name was; well Eddie Blackman used to be the one to take the stuff down, downstairs the big loads. Well every time Eddie would get on that elevator, I’d get water and I’d throw it down the elevator. Well one time one of the big bosses was on there and I threw some water down that elevator and Eddie says, gee I don’t know, we’ve got water up there in pails and every now and then it will tip over. He protected me from getting fired, I’ll tell you. That boss, I can’t, it began with an S but I can’t think of what his name was but he was really a stern. He never smiled and I threw this, I don’t know half a bucket of water down there and Eddie would say, oh gee that damn pail tipped over again up there. He come up, damn you, he says, you’re going to get fired. You’re going to get caught. It’s a wonder I hadn’t. We did a lot of things then. We had a lot of fun in the bindery. There was an old lady there and I used to get one of those long sticks and I’d wrap it, get it wet and stick it out the window in the wintertime and then she’d be typing away there on this metal type writer and I’d go up and goose her with that, she’d go right straight up in the air. Oh yeah, when he’d go out the door, we’d have an awful good time. When the boss would go out every now and then, oh yes we’d have some awful good times. They’d say, I don’t know how you lasted as long as you did. I don’t either but I did. I did. I never dreamed when the mill closed in 4-, when was it, I never dreamed I’d be called back.

PM: Oh 68.

PB: Yes, I mean 68, I never dreamed and Larry didn’t either. He got called back a month before me. When they called me, I was making a hundred and thirty dollars when the mill closed, which was very good money in 68. Of course you know most jobs, you’d be lucky to be getting 50 dollars the week then and even an office job. Other than away from the mill, and of course when the raises come around every year, we’d get a little raise so I was making a hundred and thirty. I was working then in the time, I was doing time cards and everything, payroll. What was I going to say there, lost my thought

PM: You were talking about when you got called back

PB: Yes, I got called back though up in the bindery, up in the sample department, not bindery; that wasn’t the bindery. It was similar to the bindery though but the bindery we had tables and we had to pick up all those and up in the sample you had to stand there but I did the typing and any book work, I did that for them. I can’t remember what I was going to say, old age.

PM: Did you make any close friends there?

PB: Oh yes. I had a lot of friends.

PM: Do you socialize?

PB: Oh yes, I still have a lot of friends from the mill, still see them. I can count on one hand the people I stayed away from. I can count on one hand. There was always someone though, where ever you worked. When I was working in the purchasing; there was a girl in there, she did the same thing. She was always trying to pick something, do something and I had to take her place when she did, well let me see, when money came in after they would pay for the stuff you know they bought, we had to mark it off in this book. There was a lot to it because you had all the mill stuff, everything and so I had to take her job when she was gone and of course she didn’t tell me one quarter of the things I was suppose to do so they, a Friday afternoon, the last of the two weeks, I was going through the draw looking for something and I found the thing; what I was suppose to do. I said that was nice so I left it on top of the desk. I said I’m sorry I had to leave so much stuff undone but I didn’t find this, I never found this to show me what I was suppose to do and she just, I know she was hoping that I would get in trouble. But oh yes, there was always, I don’t know if you’ve worked with people like, ever worked yourself with people that somebody is always saying something or some little thing but ordinarily I got along with about everybody.

PM: What kind of things did, say after work, you and your friends would do, socializing?

PB: Well of course I, I got married and see I went to work in 49. I got married in 58. I went to work there oh I didn’t go out with too many other people at the mill. I had just my family. I lived at home until I got married and I was very close with my mother and I did an awful lot of work at home for my mother and we’d go a lot and I had friends. I had different other, different guys I went out with too but I was married before in 52’ and I was only married not quite a year. Come to find out he was gay and I didn’t know it. That didn’t make it very nice. The funny part of it was an awful lot of people knew he was but back then they weren’t

PM: They didn’t talk about it.

PB: No, oh no, I didn’t know anything about that then. I never heard of it. I heard of queers, we used to say queers back then. But I never knew what they did or anything about them but I found out after I married one. It wasn’t very pleasant. I didn’t live with him very long. We got, I left him. I went right back home with my mother and father and fixed, I worked around. I was into antiques and doing all that all the time and I had friends that I worked with in the mill that. Her and I used to go out almost every noon and go to these little shops, haunting these little shops.

PM: [Finding] antiques

PB: Yes and I still, she’s still very friendly. We still talk about the old days. We talk about things, we’ll go over and look in the cupboard, and I’ll say remember this, I got it for 2 dollars and today it’s about 50 dollars. Yes.

PM: Were there ever any labor disputes? Any you recall?

PB: What do you mean?

PM: Well between management and labor.

PB: Oh I think there was a lot of it. There was a lot of labor disputes. I didn’t have too much to do with them. I mean I did my job and I never, you’d hear about of a lot of things, about different things. I know my husband had a few run in’s to, I mean just somebody else pushing, taking the job, trying to get the job; something like that. He had two or three bad run in’s with labor but he got it straightened out. I helped. I wouldn’t let them push him around.

PM: How did the mill contribute to the community?

PB: Oh a lot, very good. It went right down hill when it was closed. That six months, boy they really felt it and Bangor Hydro was on strike too at the same time and it was terrible. Like people, like down in South Brewer, like Epstein’s had that store and all the little restaurants and everything, they went to nothing. They were just nothing. Just like now I don’t imagine there’s a heck of a lot going on down there now. I don’t know what they’re ever going to do with the mill. They are going to have a lot of things there I guess.

PM: Talking about it.

PB: It’s going to cost a lot of money.

PM: Yes it will.

PB: I’m going to get a drink. Can I go to the bathroom for just a second?

PM: Ok, we’ll resume talking with Phyllis Beaulieu and lets see, where were we. We were talking about community. Now you mentioned some of the different owners

PB: In the mill.

PM: Yes. I wanted to ask you a little bit about you know who they were and how their decisions affected the mill over the years.

PB: Well when I first went to work, it was Eastern Manufacturing Company and then Standard Packaging, when they, they took it over in 68. Before 68 they closed it in 68; they took it over, five years they were there when they closed it. That was Standard Packaging. And then when it reopened, when Bruce Hamilton, Frank Knight reopened it in 68 they called it Eastern Fine Paper and of course we had Canada then that was, Edwards in Canada that really put it back on its feet. They were very, very good to work for and they you know, we weren’t without anything. They were wonderful. Of course they could bring paper across at that time without any problems crossing the line. Then of course after so many years they stopped that so that’s why they got out. Then it kind of went down hill a little bit after that but in the 80s Bruce Hamilton was president and when he was president, the mill was going wonderful. Then of course poor Bruce lost his job and that Torres took over and Bruce was out and that’s when it went down, straight down hill.

PM: What kinds of things did Torres do you think that was bad for the mill?

PB: Well I mean everybody was a number. You weren’t considered anything but a worker. That’s the way most people told me. I was just getting out in 88 when he was coming in and I knew right then. I could see the change, the six months or so I worked under him, I could see the change. I told Tom Andrews, the fellow I worked with and everything, I said this place will close. Oh they didn’t know it but everybody told me; I used to go out with different one from the mill. We’d go out and eat, you know once a year or so and of course he always had the retirement party for everybody and everybody said, boy you don’t know the changes. You have no idea what it’s like to work down there now. It’s terrible, everybody. I never talked to anybody after that when I left that they really were satisfied. The best was the 80’s when Bruce Hamilton had it. He was a very, very kind man and like I said EV Eddie had it from Canada and Bruce worked under them and they were great but no Torres well a lot of people had to take cuts in their jobs, money like I said before and it was, because I didn’t work there it was just here say what I had everybody telling me about it and a lot of them hated it, just despised working there because, on account of what he was doing.

PM: Now back when you and your husband were both working there, how were you doing economically? What was it like for you?

PB: you mean

PM: You tell me you were making pretty good money

PB: Well when I got through which was good money in 68 was a hundred and thirty dollars a week but when I went back, I went back for eighty dollars a week. I went back for two dollars an hour and I had to work my way up so that’s quite a lot of loss right there, it’s fifty dollars a week less you know but the mill was just getting started again. Bruce was getting it started and people loaned the money to get it started. Larry and I loaned I think it was five hundred dollars, we didn’t have very much money. We had only been married ten years when it closed and we were buying, we bought the house but we were fixing it up. Well just the ordinary living, paying for a car, insurances and taxes, we had to save for that so five hundred was a lot of money. That was like 5, 000 today you know, that’s how hard it was. We did very well, Larry and I did because I don’t waste. I’m not a wasteful person and I made my own clothes and I always cut our own hair, Larry’s and mine, I cut our hair and if I needed anything, it would be like going out to Marden’s or some place, it wasn’t open then. I’d go to some place like that and get. I never went

PM: You were frugal.

PB: I never bought, yes, I just didn’t spend the money. Well I was brought up that way . I mean my mother always used to say don’t waste, make sure you don’t waste; it’s a terrible thing to waste and so many people did. I’d seen girls, I worked with girls down there that would every Saturday they’d go shopping and buy all, they’d have the best of clothes and they’d come into work and they’d say look what we bought, why didn’t you come with us on Saturday. I said no, I clean my house on Saturday and I always made bread from the time we got married until, I still make bread until right now. I always made bread. Larry never took boughten bread in his lunch or anything like that. I did our own cooking. I had a garden. I used to freeze things and can things and that all helped. Of course so many people, when the mill closed in 68’, several people that worked down, they had much better jobs than I had, made a lot more money and they lost their homes because it was gambling and all this. I know a lot of them that lost their homes. They couldn’t make the payments. Of course we paid for this, like I said it was only 7,000 dollars. We had to borrow 4500 and 4500 we paid for this in six years. We’d make double payments and we’d just, went without and if we wanted to do a room, we did it, once a year, we’d do a room and we’d save and get enough money to buy whatever. If I needed furniture, I’d go to the second hand place, and get well painted and everything but I’d strip it. I stripped all the furniture.

PM: But you would say you were pretty comfortable.

PB: Oh very, we were very comfortable, Larry and I.

PM: What about health care? Did you have

PB: Oh we had wonderful insurance in the mill, very, very good insurance.

PM: and what about retirement? Did you have any retirement?

PB: I have to pay for my insurance now. Oh yes, well for awhile we had principle, that was good. That was through the mill. We would pay, that was good but then they stopped. New York, it’s New York something insurance

PM: New York Life

PB: probably, I can’t remember exactly but that was very good. Of course when Larry got sick, of course he was retired and they would call us, the insurance company and anything we needed, I mean prescriptions were only ten dollars no matter what they were and physicals were paid, you know for a mammogram. Now I just had a mammogram and I had to pay 72 dollars, even though I’m on Medicare and I have an insurance but I still had to pay 72. I never paid for that before and so we were very, very comfortable that way and all that time he was in the hospital, both times he was in for about a month and having radiation and chemo and everything, never paid a penny, nothing and they used to call me; find out how things were, how I was doing. But today, there’s no such a thing. They’d call you up and tell you, want you to get off it. Right now I’m having therapy for my, I fell backwards and I fell right on this shoulder, slipped on ice and I’m having therapy. I have to go twice a week. Now I get it in Ellsworth. I don’t know what this is going to cost me. I’m in Medicare and I have an insurance, Bankers Life I have and so I don’t know but I had to pay for my mammogram so I imagine I’ll have some nice bill.

PM: Did you have other family members that worked there?

PB: My nephew John and of course years ago I had a brother that worked there. They both worked there years ago, Charlie, my brother Charlie when I was, when we were, I was young when I first went there, he was working there and he got through and he went on the bridge when they were collecting on the bridge you had to pay, he worked there until that you know, that was paid for, the Chamberlain Bridge and then he went to work for the state on the highway, working on the road. He got hit by a car and was killed. He was only 62. He was going to retire. He was just working long enough to get a truck. He wanted to buy a new truck before he retired and he got hit.

PM: What about your husband? Did he have family working there too?

PB: His father worked there for 45 years, and Harold worked there for 4- around 44 or 5 years; that’s his twin brother. Ruthie worked there till she got married; that’s his sister. It was a family, it was a family thing. You went in there and you stayed then you got through just like myself. I was only 22 and I was so glad to get that job because I had worked, well everywhere in Bangor like I said

PM: [and then getting paid]. Like there’s no

PB: See, I was getting 29 dollars a week at Sears and I thought that was great. I went to work in the mill I think I was getting like 45 or something when I first started. I’m like god, 45 dollars a week, oh that was so good and then insurance and everything for us.

PM: Do you know any of the people that got laid off recently when the mill closed?

PB: Oh my nephew and I knew well quite a few of the people that worked there, of course they were out of a job.

PM: How are they doing? Do any of them contact you?

PB: Well my nephew works for this trucking place in Bangor, working on the trucks as a mechanic and he doesn’t like mechanical work at all. He never was mechanically minded but he’s learning and they like him very much. He is a very nice boy and but he see’s different guys and he says god, you know they’re all the same. They don’t know and then of course everyday I open the paper it seems like we lose somebody. Pearly Buchanan, I just see that in the paper the other day. He work there for 4-, I think it was 45 years. He just died, of course we’re getting old. I’ll be 80 my next birthday, next August and Pearly was 83, 84. You know if we get that long, we’re lucky. I figure I’m very lucky. Well I’ve got good health thank god because I’ve never smoked and I had a lot of second hand smoke, a lot of it because every office I worked in that mill, everybody smoked and it was just, the air would be blue, honest to god but they let them do that then.

PM: Right, did you’re nephew go through any training?

PB: He worked in the power plant and I suppose he had to train for that and then he went to work as a mill right and of course they train you.

PM: Yes, you mentioned a piper before, is that a pipe fitter?

PB: Yes, that’s what my husband did.

PM: I just wanted to check on that.

PB: Yes, they trained you for that. You have to learn. I think my nephew went to school for different things to because

PM: Well after he got laid off, did the state provide some training?

PB: After the mill closed too, yes, they did. They provided, if you wanted to go to school and some, and he could have gone up to Lincoln but he didn’t want to leave his home and [Paul] Mountain, he built a lovely new home there and he didn’t want to move and he said I can’t travel so, it’s 50 miles a day. That’s too much and he just couldn’t do it. He’s very deaf. He’s stone deaf. He don’t hear a thing unless he’s got hearing aids and then he has to read your lips too. He’s very, very deaf.

PM: Well that’s too bad.

PB: Yes it is. He’s an awful nice boy but he’s counting. He’s counting the years to get through till 62 and he’s 59 I think right now. I wish he’d talk to you but I don’t know as he will. He’s very strange, funny that way; hard to get him to open up you know.

PM: Yes, well not everybody likes to

PB: No.

PM: I’ve asked you pretty much all the questions I was going to ask you, maybe Amy has something? Amy Stevens: No, not that I can think of.

PM: Is there anything that you wanted to tell me that I didn’t ask you?

PB: Well lets see, I went though, I’ve gone through the mill with you, what I’ve done for work and I’ve worked with some very, very nice people and I’ve worked with some very naughty people. People that weren’t that nice, not that many like I said. The last three years was the hardest years on account of that girl that come up in the lab, that was the hardest and I liked the job. I liked it very much but you know somebody can make your life miserable because the boss thought she was great so he wasn’t going to say anything and oh she was going to have my job, she used to tell me that, can’t wait and I’d say well you might have a long wait lady because I said I can work until I’m 70 if I want to. She didn’t like that. You could then, you could work right up. You didn’t have to

PM: How old were you when you retired?

PB: 62

PM: 62.

PB: Yes I went in at 22 and come out at 62.

PM: Wow that’s a lot

PB: And I couldn’t wait. Larry was the same. He got through at 62, he couldn’t wait. He said I’ve had enough, had enough. I said get through, I’ve got three more years to go but I’ll work you know so I stayed. I liked the mill very much. It was a good living for somebody that wasn’t that well educated. All I had was a high school education but you know if they, if they knew you wanted the job just like in the lab, they taught me and every job I went on they’d teach you and they were very good at it. I mean they were very good with a person if you were willing. Like when I was typing, it took me a long time to get speed and I said oh, you’ll never make it you know, not especially when I see those orders piling up. I’d say oh my god, I’m not going to get out of here forever. Of course I didn’t have the speed and there was no computers then. They were just coming in when I got out, 88.

PM: How do you feel about the mill being closed?

PB: I feel terrible. I just think it’s a terrible thing that they did because I heard and I know that they had over 500 orders for that mill when they closed it. I heard that and I think it’s a terrible, terrible thing what they did; what they did to the people. The mill was a good place for these people to make a living and it’s just plain greed, I say that Torres did to close this mill and I’ve said it right along and I said it before he, before I ever got through. I said he’ll close this mill, you wait and see and every time I’d talk to somebody that was working there, they’d say the same thing. They’d say he’s terrible. He’s terrible to work for, to the workers, the working people and a lot in the office too. A lot of people you know suffered under his regime. I’m glad I got out when I did, awful, awful glad. I’ve been, some people told me they were glad they did close, that they got out and they bettered themselves. One fellow he worked in the coater, in the lab coater, of course I used to be up in the lab a lot doing the work up there and he is an anesthesiologist now. I don’t know if it’s, he works in the operating room with the doctors passing out instruments. He’s not an anesthesiologist but he’s a, and he likes it and I know another fellow, he’s gone to, the paper mills have hired him and he’s going around to different paper mills and he says he loves it, selling chemicals and things like that. We used to have a lot of salesmen coming in and they’d come up in the lab and work and try them out; met a lot of people that way, a lot of these salesmen that were selling their chemicals. Yes, it’s a shame. I feel terrible. Every time I drive by that mill, I feel terrible. I think it’s an awful, awful thing they did, no need of it. There was no need of it. I went to, I went to oh the senior citizens, after you go to school, 50 years and graduate they have the reunion for all the people after 50 years and I saw quite a few people there that did work in the mill, Donald Danforth and he asked me one day a couple of years ago, he said, what do you think about the mill and I said, all I can tell you Don, he was a big job too, I said I think it’s one of the worst things that ever happened to South Brewer and he said well I’m glad to hear it. He says I do too and he said there was no need of it. I said no, no need of it at all. That’s the way I feel about it and I’d tell Torres if I saw him, right to his face. Of course, he had his goons and he had them getting a hundred thousand a year and while the mill people had to take a cut in pay; that’s not right. He brought his own people in, a lot of people lost their jobs on account of it. I know some people say oh no that’s not true at all. I say well, I’ve heard differently; I’ve heard different that it is true. I don’t know of course he’d probably hang me if he heard me say that.

PM: Well Phyllis I want to thank you very much for this interview.

PB: You’re very welcome.

PM: I think I’m going to stop there

PB: Have you had anybody else say, tell you that or can you say? [End interview Phyllis Beaulieu, track 2- 39:47]

Last updated: