Interviewee: Sheila Feero
Interviewer: Amy Stevens
June 26th, 2006
Eastern Fine Paper Oral History Project

Amy Stevens: This is Amy Stevens and it is June 26th, 2006 and I am at the home of Sheila Feero in Glenburn, Maine and Sheila worked at Georgia Pacific mill in Old Town so Sheila could you tell me a little bit about when you started and what you started out doing?

Sheila Feero: Well I started in October of 1986 working in the converting department in the repack section which is where everybody started out.

AS: Ok, so that’s kind of the base job.

SF: Yes, it was.

AS: Now what did that entail?

SF: What we did is they’d send up boxes of white tissue and then you’d get another box of color tissue and you had to split those boxes and make them multi-color, mix the white with the colored tissue.

AS: Ok.

SF: It was a pretty boring job but it was more labor intensive. I mean you had to keep right on it so that’s why the new people always got that job.

AS: So how long were you there?

SF: I was in repack probably close to a year.

AS: Ok, and then were you able to bid up to something better?

SF: Yes, I, that particular job always kind of bothered me because the women stayed in that department longer than the men because the men were able to do floor jobs, different jobs that we weren’t physically able, or they thought we weren’t physically able to do. Yes, so the next job I think I did, well actually I got laid off and then they decided they were going to have a grind on the tissue machines and they had a second craft mill that isn’t running anymore, number two craft and they took, I think there was I don’t know, 15 of us in the yard crew, they took us and trained us in the converting or the craft area and made another crew because they had to run twenty four hour shifts, or twenty four hours a day so I trained over there and I liked it well enough that when something come up over in that area I signed it to get out of converting; to get out of the repack area because I didn’t like that job and I didn’t have nothing to lose going into the other part of the mill. I had no seniorities so you know it was nothing for me to lose.

AS: So what did you do in the craft area? That’s a term I’m not familiar with.

SF: We made craft paper to resell and they turned it into other products. We didn’t use it at the mill.

AS: Ok.

SF: At that time. I helped them bail up the craft paper. I drove truck a little bit there but not very much in that department, thread the machine when it broke down, that type of thing. I didn’t learn, I didn’t progress very much in that department because I was just there temporarily. But like I say, when I went back over in converting I signed out as quick as I could and got over there because to me it was kind of fun, you know compared to what I was doing because I got to drive a fork truck and that kind of thing, just different jobs.

AS: Yes.

SF: So I really liked that.

AS: Did you have to have special training to do the driving and things like that?

SF: Yeah, they trained us somewhat. Training was more or less on the job type back then. I think they do a little more now but still it’s pretty much on the job training so it was interesting.

AS: Yes, and then did you stay in the craft area or move on after that?

SF: Well actually when I signed over to number two craft, you would either go number one or number two craft. You were a spare so where ever the job opened up first, that’s where you went and as it happened I ended up on number one craft machine which was running until they shut the mill down and I started out driving truck. I loaded rail cars, not so much trucks, once in awhile I might help somebody load one but basically it was just rail cars and loading stuff into the warehouse, which I loved. I loved driving a truck.

AS: Really.

SF: Oh yes. That was fun for me. I didn’t mind it at all and then I progressed up and did the, oh what did they call it at the time, it was a third hand position and what you did is all you did was put wrappers on the bails. You stood there all day long and just put a wrapper on the bottom of the bail and you had to reload the top wrapper when it ran out. You took care of the wire tires, tied the machines. You had to go over and fix those. It was a lot more involved then it sounds like but you had to know how to run the equipment and I did that for quite awhile and then I progressed up to the back tender which actually ran the machine that cut the bails into squares to be wrapped.

AS: Oh ok.

SF: And I was there probably the longest, that’s the job I was on the longest and then probably three years ago, maybe a little longer now, I lose track of time, I became a machine tender. [End Track 1, Begin Track 2]

SF: and that’s where I was when the mill shut down.

AS: Wow.

SF: Which was really involved because as machine tender you take the stock from the slush consistency and form it into a sheet and run it through the dryer.

AS: Oh that’s amazing.

SF: Yes.

AS: That’s quite a process.

SF: Yes it is so it was pretty interesting. It would be pretty frustrating at times to

AS: Really? How so?

SF: Well just having problems and you know having to try to work through them and on the machine tender job if it wasn’t day shift and the bosses weren’t around or you know technical people to help you, you were pretty much on your own to try to figure out what was going on. So which could or could not work out for you. You know, so it was interesting though.

AS: Did you have a crew working under you or how did that work?

SF: Well I never considered it as them working under me but with me.

AS: With you, ok.

SF: Yes, we were a team. Yes, there was of course I had a back tender and an assistant, two assistants basically because they changed titles over the years so there was three other people on shift with me. So if we had a sheet break, we were all responsible to get the machine up and running and get it back going again.

AS: So what specifically would you do as machine tender?

SF: Well I had to call the foreman, let him know we had a sheet break so that he could inform the other areas if they needed to back off on running tonnage or that type of thing. Of course the crew had to get the sheet out of the dryer and while they were doing that, I would have to start trying to form another sheet to get it up and be ready for them when they got done cleaning up to try and start it through again.

AS: Would that happen fairly often?

SF: Not so much the last few years. I mean you had spells when you’d have problems and you couldn’t figure out exactly what was going on. You would have a lot of sheet breaks but no we could go quite awhile without having a sheet break.

AS: So did you work shift work?

SF: Oh yes, yes, three on, three off.

AS: Oh ok.

SF: Yes, three days on, three days off and then three nights and three off. I liked that part of it.

AS: Did you?

SF: Oh yeah.

AS: Is that what you always worked or did that change over the years?

SF: No, that changed over the years too. When I first started we worked southern swing which you know now I don’t even remember how it went but you worked so many days and had a few days off and worked nights, evenings; just keep rotating through. It seemed like you had no time off at all.

AS: Really.

SF: Yes.

AS: What does that do to your body and your system? Did you have to get used to that?

SF: You never got used to that.

AS: Really.

SF: No. Three on, three off I think was easier in the sense that it was only three days. Even through it was 12 hours it was only three days and then you had three days to rest up. Southern swing you never, you were always tired and most people down there worked overtime too so you know even though it was only 8 hour shifts, a lot of people worked 16 hour shifts a lot.

AS: Wow.

SF: In fact we used to, when we first started the three on, three off, 12 hour shifts, you were allowed to work 24 hours.

AS: Wow.

SF: More than I wanted to do. I did do it now and again but that’s not something that you enjoy doing. 18 hours was the top when we shut down but even that’s a lot. You do that more than once or twice a week and you’re tired.

AS: I mean would people be falling asleep on their feet there?

SF: Pretty much but if you’re lucky and a lot of the people down there would help each other. I mean if they knew you were working a lot of hours, they would try to give you breaks and help you out. So that wasn’t quite so bad, especially if they knew you were there and you didn’t want to be there. So which did happen, you got somebody called in and they couldn’t get anybody, well you were stuck for 18 hours, 17 I guess.

AS: Wow. That’s a long time to work.

SF: Yes, it is, especially if you were tired when you went in, say you were up during the day and you went in your first midnight shift and you got stuck, then you’d been awake a long time.

AS: Wow.

SF: Yes, so.

AS: So how did you get started at Georgia Pacific?

SF: Well actually I worked at K-Mart. My husband also worked at GP and there really were no paying jobs around here that paid anything. They paid more than most of the employers around here so I figured why not. I’d worked in production before, not in the paper industry but for Sony corporation in San Diego so you know I was familiar with shift work and with production type things. So I figured I could handle it.

AS: So were you a transplant or a native Mainer?

SF: No I’m a transplant. I’ve been here since oh I think 83. [End Track 2, Begin Track 3]

AS: And did you come here with your husband or ?

SF: Yes, well actually he moved back here first and then he talked me into coming back. So yes, I’ve been here quite a long time.

AS: But you met out in California?

SF: Yes. Yes, he worked at Sony also and we met there.

AS: Well great. So what do you think of Maine compared to

SF: Well I like it. I don’t like the weather so much, you know it’s, but it’s a lot nicer as far as you don’t have to worry about the crime. My kids loved it here. My oldest one lives here, my youngest is in California. In fact he’s getting married in just a couple of weeks.

AS: Wow.

SF: So I’m going out to his wedding but the oldest one’s a firefighter in Old Town.

AS: Oh cool.

SF: And he’s married and raising a couple of children. They’re just getting ready to build a house up the road so.

AS: Wow.

SF: Yes, so I’m here now.

AS: Did you have your children before you came to Maine or after?

SF: Yes, before.

AS: Ok, and they were ok with the move?

SF: Well I’m not probably the typical mother. My children stayed with their father and they spent their summers here.

AS: That sounds pretty ideal.

SF: They loved being here in the summer and it was always hard sending them back to school and to their father but yeah, they loved it enough that, well like I say, the youngest or the oldest one lives here now. So, and the older one or the younger one is more the techie so this just isn’t the place for him.

AS: Yes.

SF: He loves it but he wouldn’t be happy living here. It’s just not high tech enough for him. But I guess one out of two is not bad.

AS: No, that’s great odds, considering how many people move out of the state that are born here so

SF: Yes.

AS: You said that you were, you were the first machine tender at Georgia Pacific, female machine tender?

SF: On the number one craft machine yes. They did have one or two on the older number two craft but they had shut that down and people had, some of them had quit and gone back to different jobs and things so no, I’m the only one that’s progressed up through number one craft.

AS: That’s great.

SF: Yes, it was kind of hard at times whereas there were other girls in the department but none of them stayed.

AS: Really.

SF: They would come for awhile and then something would happen and they would either sign out or quit or whatever.

AS: Why do you think that was?

SF: I really don’t know. I mean the guys that we worked with were all pretty decent. I mean you know you could have one or two that’s going to give you a hard time here and there but they were all pretty good guys. They helped us. I mean we always had to lift you know, carry our weight and I never expected them to do my job for me. I figured I was there doing a job, getting paid the same amount of money they were and if I was going to get that money then I should earn it. So you know I didn’t expect them to take care of me while I was there.

AS: Right. When you first started there did you notice sort of a separation between the types of jobs most women did and those that the men did in the mill?

SF: Yes.

AS: What types of jobs would women typically do?

SF: They typically, well they ran the machines and converting the same as the men. I shouldn’t say that I guess. On the north side of the mill, there were almost no women.

AS: And what part was that?

SF: That was the utilities area, digesters, bleach plant, the craft machine. There was almost none and it was because, I think the women were intimidated by the jobs.

AS: Really.

SF: Because they thought they were going to have to you know carry these five hundred pound bails by themselves, well the guys can’t do that.

AS: Right.

SF: You know, but that kind of made them nervous I think. The chemicals I’m sure which I didn’t like the chemicals. I didn’t have many in my area but the bleach plant and some of those areas, they were pretty dirty and they just didn’t want to work there.

AS: What about office jobs, was it more women in the office jobs or was that pretty equal?

SF: No, there was more women in the office jobs I think than there were men. I can, there were only a few men I think.

AS: Would you say more women in office jobs than in production jobs?

SF: Well not necessarily because there weren’t that many office jobs. I mean compared to the people in the converting department.

AS: Right.

SF: My husband could probably speak more on that than I could because I really wasn’t in converting that long. It was probably, I don’t know, 50/50 maybe.

AS: That’s pretty good.

SF: Yeah, but one of the reasons I took the job in the craft area, before you took a job typically the foreman or the supervisor would come over and you would take a tour through the department to see what that job involved and if you thought you would like it and that kind of thing and one of the bosses told me at the time when I was walking through. He says, I don’t think women should be over here. I don’t think they can do this work.

AS: While he was giving you the tour?

SF: Yes, so when we were done with the tour, I said ok, I’ll take it.

AS: Nice.

SF: That made my mind up right there. That’s just the kind of personality I am. If you tell me I can’t do something then I’m going to try it.

AS: That’s great. Did he make a face at you or anything?

SF: No, not really but [End Track 3, Begin Track 4]

SF: after we’d been in the department awhile because there was one woman in there at the time I signed in and Donna, and she hadn’t been there very long either and he came back to us probably after we’d been there three or four months and he said you know I’ve got to apologize. He said I didn’t think you guys could do it but you guys do a good job. So

AS: That’s great.

SF: Yes, so that made us happy but he’s the reason I’m where I’m at.

AS: So sort of in a weird way.

SF: Yes.

AS: You have him to thank.

SF: Yes, and I’ve reminded him of it a few times over the years when I’ve seen him, like thanks a lot.

AS: That’s great. Now were you involved in the union at all?

SF: For a short time yes. Yes I served as a shop stewart for awhile. I also was on the executive board for awhile or not the executive board but I was on the committee, went into negotiations. I was a guard trustee for awhile.

AS: So what types of things would you deal with?

SF: Well as a shop stewart if somebody had a grievance against the company and they didn’t feel like they were given over time correctly or something was done that they didn’t feel was right, I would write that up, submit it to my supervisor or who ever that person needed to be turned into. Then we would, there’s a certain process that you go through for a grievance to have it resolved and if it you know progressed farther then the chief shop stewart would take it over or whatever the need be. And as a trustee, we would go to negotiations and deal with the company when we had a contract come up and try and get the best package we could for the employees.

AS: Were there any specifically women’s issues that the union dealt with, like harassment or inequality issues or anything? Or would that be more human resources?

SF: Probably that would be more human resources. I personally didn’t ever deal with any that I can recall off hand.

AS: Were men and women paid equally for the same jobs?

SF: Yes, that was part of the union. If you signed a job, it didn’t matter if you were male or female, you got the same rate of pay. That’s why I say when we went into those jobs, we were getting the same rate of pay so we should do the same work.

AS: What about representation? Do you think women were pretty evenly represented in the union or were there more men?

SF: No, there was mostly men in the union.

AS: Really.

SF: Yes, and not that they weren’t represented. It’s just that there weren’t many women in the union. We also had a clerical union and I think there were probably mostly women in that as far as representation but

AS: Ok, so that would be more of the office staff?

SF: Right.

AS: They had their own union.

SF: Yes. I can only think of maybe a handful of women that served on the board over the years.

AS: Do you think there’s any particular reason for that?

SF: No, probably just not the time. You know they had their families to worry about and that type of thing. They just didn’t want to get involved that much. You know, they figured the guys I guess were doing a good enough job, they didn’t have to worry about it.

AS: Ok.

SF: And it’s not that they couldn’t have, you know they had the same opportunity.

AS: Did you remember hearing about any inequality issues or any harassment or anything like that?

SF: Oh you’d hear something once in awhile but it was usually pretty well taken care of. At least in my area, like I say my area was, we called that the north side of the mill and the converting section was the south side of the mill.

AS: Ok.

SF: And when you were on the north side, you really didn’t hear much what was going on in the south side. Whether they heard what was going on over in our end, I don’t know but we were kind of separate. As a working environment, it was totally different. The converting area was like one big room and everybody worked in that room and on the north side you were in like little departments so you were more, you knew your co-workers a lot better I think and you interacted with them a lot more than you did on the other side because you could have somebody on a machine, two or three machines down, you probably wouldn’t even talk to them. You know, just so busy, maybe at a break time or something but we worked pretty close.

AS: Yes. Did you get any sense that the women sort of stuck together or was there pretty good integration with men?

SF: There again, like I say most of the time that I worked on the craft machine, I was the only female or there might have been one more in the department at a time. There wasn’t more than two of us probably at a time or three in the department because there was only 20, I think 20 people in the department total anyway.

AS: Wow, ok.

SF: So you know I really didn’t interact with the people in the rest of the mill that much.

AS: Yes. [End Track 4, Begin Track 5]

AS: But everybody in your department got along pretty well for the most part?

SF: Yes. Yes, because I, I mean working in a male environment you, there was certain things you just had to expect you know I mean the language and the teasing more than anything but I gave it right back to them so you know. I always felt like I was treated like one of the guys which was fine. To me, that’s how I wanted it. I didn’t want to be treated special.

AS: Do you remember any instances of maybe special treatment or different treatment at all during your time at the mill?

SF: The only thing and it’s not really funny but it is in a way, it’s always been kind of a running joke with me, when I went into the craft department they changed the process of how they threaded up the dryer. They put a tape in the dryer to pull the paper through where before they used to fly a kite and pull the paper through. Well by putting this tape in there whenever they had to be changed or it broke somebody had to sew it and that became my job.

AS: Oh really.

SF: When I was fourth hand which was the truck out job, I used to sew the kite. I would always sew things up for them which was fine you know. I never really had a problem with it because there’s other things that they would do for me that maybe I couldn’t physically do and they’d help me do that. So when I became third hand, that became my job on that third hand. It just kind of followed me through and I used to tease one of the bosses there and tell him, I said you know this is supposed to be part of the job description for whatever job it was and I said you know, I’ve always done it but you guys expect me to do everything that you do, but don’t you think the guys ought to be expected to do the sewing.

AS: That’s a great point.

SF: Then he’s like well you know it was just kind of a joke and I really didn’t mind doing it. It was just kind of a jab once in awhile. It’s like you know I’m expected to do what you’re doing.

AS: So did men learn how to do it eventually or it just?

SF: A few of them, very few. Right now I can think of maybe two possibly three guys that could sew up stuff if they had to. The rest of them wouldn’t even try.

AS: Really.

SF: Yes.

AS: Wow.

SF: So even in my position, you know being in the top position which I shouldn’t have to bother with it I usually helped them, which was fine. I didn’t care. But that’s the only thing I can really think of that maybe I had to do differently that maybe somebody else might not have had to do. So, we all got along pretty good really.

AS: And you said there was a little bit of crude talk but nothing that was you know

SF: It’s a mill.

AS: Right.

SF: You know and it’s going to happen and you know, I’ve been known to say a few choice words when I get ugly to so you know it’s not, it wasn’t all one sided. You know, it’s just part of being in a mill. But you know if you think you’re going to go there and not hear something off color once in awhile, you’re wrong. It’s going to happen and if you can’t deal with that then maybe that’s not the environment for you.

AS: I’ve heard at a couple other mills that pornography was fairly common item, did you ever have any

SF: Well it was when I first came into the department and it wasn’t changed because of us coming in. There was actually a boss, a female boss that had to come into the warehouse and she was offended by it and they removed the stuff. Again, to me that was just it came with the territory.

AS: Yeah.

SF: You know. You were in their, and I shouldn’t, I guess that’s not the right way to look at it but it was kind of you were in their work area and the other girl and I threatened to bring in male magazines and put up.

AS: That’s great.

SF: But we didn’t so you know they came down shortly after that anyway so it wasn’t a big deal. There were magazines around but I mean they weren’t forced in our face. If they wanted to look at them, it didn’t bother me. As long as I didn’t have to look at them with them, you know.

AS: Right.

SF: And put up with that stuff but it was fine.

AS: So were there many women in management or supervisory positions?

SF: There were a few, yes. Over the years, there’s been women off and on. I’ve had, in the craft area, I’ve had probably two or three female bosses over the years and there are in different areas in the north mill. I think there was in the converting area.

AS: Did you ever sense a different sort of repertoire between men and women or you know when there was a female supervisor? [End Track 5, Begin Track 6]

SF: If she did her job, no. No, as long as she knew what she was talking about and you know treated them fairly then I don’t think they would give them a problem. We did have one they kind of gave a problem but she could be a little bossy. She didn’t really have the people skills maybe that she should have had and that could be male or female.

AS: Right. Was there a dress code or hair code that you had to follow while you worked there?

SF: In our area we couldn’t wear shorts because of the equipment. We were around a lot of hot machinery, you could get burned easily so we weren’t allowed to wear shorts or anything like that. You were supposed to have your hair pulled back so that’s basically it. I mean we had to wear safety glasses, you know safety gear which everybody did so

AS: Right, so what would you wear like jeans to work?

SF: Yes I typically would wear jeans and t-shirts, work boots, you know steel toe boots, yippee. Very appealing but I wasn’t there to impress anybody. I was there to do my job so

AS: Right, so just comfortable clothes.

SF: Yes, nothing to hot because even in the winter time in that area it was warm. I mean you might carry a sweatshirt on the night shift but usually you didn’t keep it on all night.

AS: Really.

SF: Yes. So as far as environmentally it was hot, wet, moldy. You could actually see mold growing on the walls in the wintertime. It was gross but you know it was, I guess that’s just how pulp mills are, wet, hot and sweaty places.

AS: Yes. Did you ever get injured or sick while working at the mill?

SF: Unfortunately yes.

AS: You did.

SF: Yes. I actually had a truck accident right before I moved up and the top of the truck came off and I hurt my shoulder. I was out for a little while.

AS: Wow, how did the top come off?

SF: Well we’d never agreed on exactly what happened other than I had turned the truck in for having a steering problem. I’m not a mechanic. I didn’t know what was wrong with it and to this day I don’t really know what happened other than I couldn’t control the steering and I hit an i-beam and, as I was coming through a tunnel back from loading a rail car and the counterweight came off the back of the fork truck. Well the roll cages connected to the counterweight and the gas tank that was on there, the propane tank, well it took all those off.

AS: Oh my gosh.

SF: Yes, and the roll cage actually hit me on the way down.

AS: Wow.

SF: It could have been a lot worse if somebody taller had been on the truck, luckily I’m short and it wasn’t a big issue. I mean I did get hurt but not as seriously as it could have been and then probably as machine tender, or back tender, it was on a night shift about probably one or two o’clock in the morning. We were tired. We had been pulling paper out of the dryer and there was some paper on one of the steel rolls. The paper went through the nip roll; one was a rubber roll and one was a steel roll and I went to rub off some paper, well I got my hand caught in the roll. Yes, it pretty much crushed these two fingers.

AS: Wow.

SF: I was lucky. I had rings on at the time which really you weren’t supposed to do but I had my wedding ring on and I was able to free myself. There was an emergency pull cord and I was able to free myself before it got to my ring just barely.

AS: Wow.

SF: And it bust these two fingers just looked like a busted open cooked hot dog. They were bad. Luckily I didn’t lose my fingernails or anything and I’ve been able to use my hand. I can move it freely and use it so you know that could have been a lot worse. I was real lucky but that particular roll when anybody new would come in the department I would always warn them, keep your hands away from that roll. It will get you. It got me. And it was, I probably more because I was tired and rushing around you know trying to get things going and that’s how you get hurt.

AS: So were you out of work after that?

SF: I wasn’t out of work. I think I took maybe one or two days off and they allowed me to move up into the machine tender position training so that I could still be on the job and train.

AS: And what about when you hurt your shoulder?

SF: Then I was actually out.

AS: You were for?

SF: I was out for oh geeze, maybe five or six weeks. I’m not sure because that was a long time ago.

AS: Did you draw workman’s comp for that?

SF: Yes, I did on that one, yes.

AS: And did you have to go through therapy or anything like that?

SF: Did I go to therapy? I think I did on that one. [End Track 6, Begin Track 7]

SF: Actually I did on my finger too.

AS: Did you?

SF: Yes because I had to work back into it. In fact I had to go back and have corrective surgery because I couldn’t, once it got all healed up I couldn’t make my finger go straight so they had to go in and fix that so I had to go to physical therapy for that.

AS: What are the sort of responses of your co-workers when something like that happens? Is there a set you know sort of training that people know what to do or is it chaos?

SF: Well usually you call the foreman right off or the boss and get them there to help out. They all helped out pretty much. They tried to, you know of course they don’t have first aid training that much but you know they do what they can do.

AS: That’s scary

SF: Yes, it was a little unnerving.

AS: Was that something that happened fairly commonly in a paper mill?

SF: Paper machinery is dangerous. You have to watch what you’re doing. I think I’m the last one who got caught in that machine. I wasn’t the first but after I got my hand caught in it, they did put some guards on there so you couldn’t get your hands in there anymore.

AS: Oh really.

SF: And that tended to be how things got fixed. Would you like something to drink?

AS: Oh I’m fine, thank you.

SF: Help yourself here.

AS: Thanks.

SF: Normally like I say things didn’t, safety things wouldn’t get fixed. If there was an issue they would try and fix them but if somebody got hurt, it got fixed right off then.

AS: So was that before OSHA standards came into play or they just weren’t things that

SF: I don’t think so, I mean you can’t fix everything.

AS: Right.

SF: And I guess when somebody gets hurt bad enough, they’ll take care of it. You know, then it gets the attention it needs.

AS: Unfortunately.

SF: Yes and that’s probably true in most industries so you just have to be careful. I mean you have a lot of things that are moving and turning. My area you had broke tanks. Those used to scare me.

AS: What was that?

SF: The broke tank is what you would repulp the paper, you’d put it in with water and mix it up to keep the stock flowing if you had a problem or like when you start up you had to have some place to put your stock until you were ready to go. So what they are is their big beater blades down there turning continuously and these are, you’re walking floor level with these. I mean if you fall in, even if somebody is right there to hit the button, it’s not going to stop quick enough.

AS: Wow, that is scary.

SF: So that was a little unnerving.

AS: Were there stories of that ever happening or was that

SF: Not in our mill but I had heard that it happened in another mill.

AS: Wow.

SF: Yes.

AS: Did they have guards around those at all?

SF: Where they could, I mean this is something you’ve got to have open to have the paper going into.

AS: Right.

SF: On the dry end they had a cage, you know a railing around that one. On the wet end there was a railing but it was an open railing. I mean you had to be able to get the paper in there.

AS: Wow.

SF: Yes, it was kind of, especially at first it was kind of scary. So I, and probably the guys it’s no big deal but you know it was just a little unnerving.

AS: Yes

SF: And when I first started there you had to go up, well you still do it you had to go up above the labeling to fly the kite. It’s quite a ways up there. That made some people nervous going up that high, standing up in the air.

AS: Would you climb a ladder or like a cat walk type of thing?

SF: You had stairs you went up and then you had an opening in the floor, maybe a foot and a half wide and there was a steel roll across there but you had to feed the kite in you had to step across that opening.

AS: Wow.

SF: And if you looked down through you could see the broke tank underneath there.

AS: Oh gosh.

SF: You couldn’t physically fall through it, you could fall probably and hurt yourself but you couldn’t fall through it. But it was just the idea you could look down in there or look over and see the broke tank and you were kind of standing on a cat walk over the broke tank.

AS: Wow.

SF: On one part if you had to go down and help feed the paper through the nip rolls or anything so there was a lot of areas you could find yourself in trouble if you weren’t watching what you were doing. The dryers were very hot. You could burn yourself on those. When you had to pull paper out, the outside of the dryer was hot from having the heat on it. You could burn yourself on that. You’d open the windows to look in and the paper dust would blow out.

AS: Oh really.

SF: And you could get that in your eyes. Even with your safety glasses on, you had to be careful because dust is going to go everywhere.

AS: Wow.

SF: A lot of tugging and pulling and that was hard and I always felt bad, when I was on the machine with a guy and we had to pull a lot of paper because I’m just not physically as strong as a man. I mean I would do as much as I could but it’s still not like having another man there so that was a little tough at times, you know and like I say if [End Track 7, Begin Track 8]

SF: they helped as much as they could and they knew I wasn’t as strong as they were and all of them were I’ve got to say were pretty decent. You know about that but I would try to do things that they maybe didn’t like to do or you know like the sewing. I always did that. That was kind of a make up for me. You know I’ll do that but I would try and do other things like clean up, you know things I knew I could do.

AS: Were there other things that you felt like you couldn’t do because you were a woman?

SF: Personally probably but my guys that I worked with were always pretty encouraging you know like on the big valves that we have on the wet end of the machine. There were some huge valves, I mean hand valves that are like this. They are really hard to turn some of them, especially if there were pressurized. And even the guys would say, look sometimes we need help. You know if you need a hand, just yell, and somebody will come down to give you a hand to turn the valves or whatever. So if I had to do them by myself, yeah I’d probably be in trouble but I never felt like I was on my own. I mean I always felt like my crew would help me.

AS: That’s nice.

SF: Yes and I don’t think they felt like they were doing it for me but helping me with it. You know it’s kind of hard right now having all those guys out of work. I mean really you spend half your life with them. They’re kind of like family.

AS: Do you keep in touch with a lot of them?

SF: Not a lot of them but like the union hall right now is open on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s so we usually go down so I do see some of them. But some of them there’s, one of the guys on my crew I call him every once in awhile to see how he’s doing and you know check in. But it’s kind of hard being a female to, you don’t want to call all the guys at home. The wives are going to see, well how come she’s calling you? You know some of them don’t care, you know but a lot of them I do know their wives but there are some that I don’t know and I wouldn’t feel right calling their house.

AS: Would you spend time doing things outside of the mill with some of your co-workers?

SF: I have, one of the guys and I have ridden a bike before you know but as a rule, no I probably don’t but more because we’re all married so it just doesn’t look very good. But he came out and he knows my husband and my husband knows him and you know like I say, we’ve gone for a bike ride once or twice. You know, it’s just a good friend.

AS: What about within the mill? Would you do like parties or get-togethers or were their sports teams or anything like that?

SF: We used to have coffee parties in our department. We tried to have them once a year, everybody would get together and they’d have a cook out and you know hang out but over the years, it’s gotten harder to do that so we’ve kind of gotten away from that. Some of the other areas do that, get together and go hunting or fishing or you know whatever.

AS: Anything like bowling leagues or softball teams or anything like that?

SF: Not in our area but at the mill I know they do. They have golf tournaments that they all go to. I really don’t know. I’m not so much into that kind of sports so I haven’t really paid to much attention to it. But I know John and I were thinking of trying to do it and things kind of happened so we didn’t get a chance to do it. We wanted to try and get a group of people together to go on a bike ride for like diabetes or something like that because we both really enjoy riding a bike and there’s a few other people down there that do too so we had hoped to do that this summer but things just started going south and we just never got it organized.

AS: So what do you think happened with the mill? Why did it close down?

SF: Greed.

AS: Really.

SF: That’s just my take on it. We’re small potatoes in the big picture and you know they figure they can do it cheaper some place else.

AS: So do you sort of mean that Georgia Pacific and the big shots that ran that company would prefer to close down this mill and put more money into another of their mills?

SF: Yeah, we’re kind of far away from the regular market too I guess up in the Northeast. So shipping costs were high, at least that’s what they kept telling us was the reason.

AS: Really.

SF: Yes, I know we sold an awful lot of pulp and we sold an awful lot of towels and napkins and everything’s just kind of went away. We kind of saw the writing on the wall when we lost the converting department.

AS: Really.

SF: Because we just kept getting smaller and smaller, and made it that much easier for them to close us down. [End Track 8, Begin Track 9]

AS: And the converting department is where they would actually take the paper and make it into like napkins or tissues.

SF: Right.

AS: So they were basically just selling like the craft paper and the pulp at that point.

SF: They were selling craft paper and parent rolls off the tissue machines.

AS: Ok.

SF: And that was it.

AS: Do you have any sense that the mill is going to reopen?

SF: I really don’t know. I hope so because there’s an awful lot of people out of work and there’s just not that many jobs out there, not, there’s almost nothing for good paying jobs unless you have some kind of a skill and most of us at the mill have worked there for years. You know, we don’t know anything else but making paper. You know, so not that we couldn’t but it’s kind of late in life to start over. You know I mean if we have to, we have to and we will and I know everybody will do what they have to do but you know I’d like to think that somebody thinks we’re valuable enough to start back up.

AS: Are they offering any retraining programs?

SF: Yes, they are. We’re still in the process of learning exactly what that’s going to involve. I don’t remember what the trade act is called now exactly but there was some monies for retraining for up to two years I think for schooling and if you’re over 50 they’ll give you half, they’ll make up to half of what you were making before you lost your job, I think is how it works.

AS: Really.

SF: Yes, but I mean that’s for two years. I mean it sounds like a long time but in the big picture not really.

AS: What about your benefits and pensions and things like that ?

SF: The pensions I believe stay with GP. Well they stay with Vanguard. They have another company that takes care of it so that should be there when we get ready to retire. Of course it’s not growing, it’s just sitting there now.

AS: Right.

SF: Our 401K’s are still, they’re with Vanguard so those are protected for now, benefits they run out the end of July so we’ll all have no insurance, no dental, no nothing. So of course we’re all hoping that something will happen before then and someone will buy the mill so we can get back to work. When you’ve worked all your life it’s pretty hard sitting around doing nothing and not having any money to do anything.

AS: Yes, I can imagine.

SF: So I mean there’s lots of projects we could do but you don’t dare spend the money.

AS: So are you thinking of you know doing any sort of retraining or going into a new career if it doesn’t open?

SF: Yes. If it doesn’t open, I don’t know really just now what my options are. I’m kind of waiting until, this week we have a meeting to go, tomorrow actually I think it is or Thursday and they’re going to do it like a skills evaluation to see what you would maybe fit into and get an idea from there. So but there again, there’s still just not that many jobs in Maine.

AS: Yes, it’s true.

SF: So I really don’t know what’s out there that I can make a living at. I mean anybody can probably, I shouldn’t say anybody but most people can get a job at Wal-Mart or someplace like that but you can’t live on that.

AS: Right.

SF: You know and you can’t live without benefits. That’s a big thing especially when you get later in life, you realize how much those benefits mean. You know medications are expensive you know as we’re all finding out. I don’t want to get to the point where I have to decide between food and medicine you know and that’s the situation with a lot of the older people now and I feel for them. It’s tough but you know what do you do? You either leave the state like you say, people just aren’t moving in to live here or we’ve got to get some companies in here that will pay some decent wages and what they are, I don’t know what we’re going to do for industries but it looks like the paper mills are going away. Shoe factories are gone.

AS: I know it.

SF: So what do you bring in to do? Pretty soon we are just going to be here to serve the tourists.

AS: That’s my take as well.

SF: And that’s not pretty. I don’t want to wait on people coming in to visit you know.

AS: I know it.

SF: Even though I’m one of those transplants.

AS: Well you’ve been here long enough I think. I’m going to stop just for a second and flip the tape over. Ok, what else do I have to ask? So you had had your children already before you started working at the mill.

SF: Yes

AS: Did you ever talk to women that had any concerns about working in such a sort of dangerous atmosphere while they were pregnant or [End Track 9, Begin Track 10]

SF: You know I really, over the years I haven’t run across that many women that were pregnant in the mill, only a very few and normally the ones that were pregnant they kind of got them away from the chemicals and stuff. In the converting department, I really don’t know what was going on over there. Pretty sad isn’t it. I worked in this big mill but I was kind of stuck in this one little area.

AS: No, that’s sort of the way that it goes. So let’s see did you have lunch rooms or a cafeteria that was integrated or were they separated by the [gender]?

SF: No, in the converting department they had a lunch room for everybody. In our area, you didn’t really have a lunch break.

AS: Oh really.

SF: You ate your lunch when you had a chance. You ate it on the machine. We had a break, we had a little area that we sat in and we had a table where you could sit down and eat but while you were eating lunch on the dry end of the machine, somebody else had to be covering your job or you just ate between bailing up or you know between problems.

AS: So you didn’t really get breaks per say?

SF: No. They didn’t shut the machine off and you go sit down some place and take a break, no, because it was a continuous operation

AS: Or would somebody come in and take your place for awhile so you could go

SF: Not really.

AS: No.

SF: No, you pretty much stayed right there and ate. As machine tender you couldn’t, there wasn’t usually anybody that could do your job because there was very limited people that could do the job to begin with. Unfortunately it’s been that way for quite a long time you know, we were hoping to get that remedied a little bit before everything went south so I don’t know what’s going to happen if we should start up but we’ll deal with that when the time comes but no mostly you just, you covered for each other. And that was one of the jobs as machine tender, if things were running good you had free time. If they weren’t running good, you could be on your feet 12-16 hours.

AS: Wow.

SF: Yeah and there was many days I didn’t eat lunch. I didn’t eat anything at work because I was too busy.

AS: When you were driving the trucks was that a job that many women did?

SF: At the time no, not really.

AS: How did you get into that?

SF: Well like I say when I got laid off from the repack area and when I went over to number two craft work to train to help out over there, they trained us to drive truck.

AS: They trained everyone?

SF: Yes because it was, they rotated so you had to be able to do the different jobs.

AS: Oh ok.

SF: And then when I went back to work in my own area in repack, the first chance I had to come down was on a job they called the bailer and what they did is they took all the tissue and pushed it into this hole in the floor and you used the fork truck to do that and bring the carts over and dump them and that type of thing so that was my first opportunity to get out of there and only because I had been trained already on the truck I was able to do that. I had never done the job. In fact my husband was also on the bailing job, different shift and he stayed over I think three or four hours and showed me how to do the job.

AS: Really.

SF: That was my training.

AS: Oh wow. Good to know someone then.

SF: Well they would do that. When I first went into repack, I had somebody stay over an hour with me and show me what to do.

AS: Wow.

SF: That was it. So like I say, training has improved but you were kind of thrown into it.

AS: What was it like having a spouse work at the same place and did you work the same shift so that you saw each other?

SF: At first no. There was quite awhile that we didn’t work the same shift and then we did get where we were on the same shift, not in the same area but we worked the same shift. So it was pretty good, we had the same days off though. That was really good so we had a lot of time off. We were able to do a lot of things that most people can’t do, get a lot of stuff done during the weeks that most people couldn’t. Back when we had jobs we used to snowmobile a lot and we would, we could go during the week when everybody else was working so it was great, had the trails to yourself. It was just we got a lot of things done around the house, you know building because we built this place ourselves. We built the garage ourselves.

AS: Wow.

SF: So as you can see it’s not done, we found out we were losing our jobs we kind of stopped, not going to put anymore money in it right now.

AS: Right.

SF: But yeah, it worked out pretty well actually.

AS: Did a lot of people have spouses or other family members at the mill?

SF: Not necessarily spouses but there were a lot of family members. There was probably eight or ten married couples there I’m thinking, something like that.

AS: Do you think that having that family connection helped people to get an in at the mill?

SF: It used to. Rather it did over the last ten or fifteen years I really don’t know. I know it did a long time back [End Track 10, Begin Track 11]

SF: But not so much now I don’t think because it goes, it used to go through human resources or the unemployment office. So you had to have, in fact I think the last time I had seen an ad when they were actually hiring people, you had to have college to be able to get in there to work in the paper machines, work in the converting sections. I was like…

AS: And before that it was just a high school diploma?

SF: High school, yes and I think it’s more because technology was going up some what. We were using more computerized items you know in the process. They were putting more stuff on the monitors on the DCS. I don’t know why you really needed a college education for that part of it but I guess they felt like they needed that.

AS: Maybe it was just a screening process or something.

SF: Could be, could be.

AS: Did you see more women entering the mill over time or did it stay pretty steady?

SF: Well that is hard for me to say because normally they went into the converting department, who ever was hired and I wasn’t there. A lot of the people, in fact most of the people probably in converting, I really don’t know anymore.

AS: And you said there were about two other women that worked in the craft area with you.

SF: At a time, yes. Like I say I’m the only, there was only one girl ahead of me I think when I went over there in the number one craft. She got done and there was probably a handful over the years that have come through.

AS: Nobody that stayed?

SF: Not really. There was only one other girl that stayed any length of time but unfortunately she didn’t do so well. I really hate to say that on tape but she ended up getting out of the department. They kind of asked her to find a different position.

AS: Do you think that was because it was an area where men predominated or it was easier for men to do or was it just a coincidence that there weren’t too many women that stayed there?

SF: Probably kind of a coincidence but they probably didn’t care so much for the work. It was hot. I mean you weren’t going to stay pretty working over there. I mean if you put on makeup, it was going to melt off. I used to wear makeup all the time until I started there. It was like, no I’m tired of looking like a raccoon, you know. No, they just didn’t care for the work probably because it could be very physical. When we had a sheet break I mean you had to get in there and you had to pull and tug and if it took eight hours to get it done and going, that’s what you worked. You didn’t stop and take ten breaks, and smoke cigarettes, and stand there and look pretty, you know you had to do a job.

AS: So you really had to be pretty tough.

SF: Well you had to pull your weight. You know everybody had to work together and if somebody was slacking off, the rest of them had to pick up so you didn’t you know, you didn’t want anybody slacking off. And you knew you didn’t, so you better pull your own weight.

AS: Right, did you have to go through any like initiation or pranks or practical jokes or anything like that when you

SF: Oh yes, some practical jokes. There was one, Jimmy, one of the, he was not a machine tender at the time but he had been there awhile. Me and the other girl that was there, Donna, had just come into the department and we were down for some reason, the machine was broke down and so he told us, they told us to go up to the store and get some sky hooks. They called stuff all kinds of weird names so we didn’t know; so what are sky hooks and they said well, just go up to the store. They’ll know what you want, they’ll know what you need to get. Well all right so we started to take off and they were like no, no, no you can’t do that.

AS: At least they told you before you got there.

SF: Yes, but yes they’d do a few things like that once in awhile. It was funny because when you first form a sheet on the cylinder, they have two water hoses that spray onto the sheet to cut a tail so that you could pass the sheet through and thread it up. Well they call them pissers so when they, that was kind of funny, when they would first, ok we need to turn on the pisser. We thought, what?! Where do you guys come up with these names but yes they do that and they’d always, and again off-colored stuff I guess but whenever they were ready for you to cut the tail, the machine tender would always go like this. Well of course Donna and I, you know over the years is like, yeah right. You wish, just you know bantering back and forth, you know keep it light and it was kind of a running joke. [End Track 11, Begin Track 12]

AS: Did you have a nickname or anything or did anybody have nicknames?

SF: Well Jimmy used to always call me Blondie. My hair used to be lighter when I was younger. Some of them did have nicknames, yes but that’s the only one I know about anyway, put it that way.

AS: Did you have nicknames for anybody else?

SF: Personally no, I don’t think so. I mean some of them had them and I called them whatever their nickname was but no. We had one guy there that his nickname was wee-wee. I can never remember it and I guess because of the pissers. I used to call him pee-pee. They’d say no it’s not pee-pee; it’s wee-wee.

AS: How did he get that nickname?

SF: No idea.

AS: It’s just what everyone called him.

SF: Yes, no idea.

AS: Did he appreciate that?

SF: Well I learned very quickly not to call him pee-pee.

AS: Oh gosh.

SF: Yup, there was always something.

AS: Did you have any sort of creepy crawly incidents in the mill like rats or cockroaches?

SF: Well there used to be some bats in there that would fly around when we used to drive truck down in the warehouse, big rats from the river. Not I mean, I never really saw or had to fight with them or anything so no. We used to have birds fly around in the craft area.

AS: Really.

SF: Yes. Oh friendly squirrel’s here. We have a [minutia] here. We have a woodpecker here. We have rabbits that hang around in the yard.

AS: Oh that’s cool.

SF: Yeah, we can actually go out and walk right by them and they won’t even budge. They won’t move.

AS: Oh wow.

SF: So it’s kind of cool.

AS: Yes, what about like ghost stories or legends associated with the mill, did you ever hear any of those?

SF: I can’t recall hearing any of those, no.

AS: Oh let’s see, gosh I’ve covered an awful lot of my questions here. Well here’s the big broad question, was there something different about being a woman in a paper mill and if so what do you think that was?

SF: As far as different, well there weren’t a lot of us there. That’s for sure. Well I should say in the pulping part of the mill, there weren’t that many of us. I always felt like I had to try a little harder because I always felt like I had to prove myself not so much to my co-workers, I guess but I always, I always wanted to do my job and I didn’t want to feel like because I was a female I had to have help. So I think I pushed myself a little harder to know my job or do my job but other than that no, I don’t think it was all that much different.

AS: And you worked in production for Sony?

SF: Yes.

AS: Was it a very male dominated field there as well?

SF: No, it was kind of half and half. There was a lot of women that worked there too because a lot of it was fine work like inspecting the CRT’s that actually goes up behind the screen. That type of thing so no it wasn’t real heavy, physical type stuff. It was more fine tuned stuff. Oh the gray squirrel and a baby.

AS: This is a pretty nice place to sit and watch here.

SF: Oh yes we have all kinds of animals. I guess we had a moose go through the yard the other day.

AS: Did you really.

SF: Yes.

AS: Wow. That’s cool.

SF: Yes, we like it. It’s pretty quiet.

AS: So do you think that because of the wages that you both made at the mill and the benefits that you had that helped you to build your house here?

SF: Oh absolutely.

AS: Yeah.

SF: Absolutely. We started it before we, before I started at the mill. Jeff was actually, well actually it was before he started too, he bought this place right out of high school and had the property. There was a camp on it and actually while we were in California the camp burned down.

AS: Really.

SF: Yes, so we basically had nothing here but the garage which is down front when we came back here to live and we lived with his parents for awhile and you know like anybody else struggling. We didn’t have jobs. So when we did get them, I think I worked at K-Mart part time and he was working for channel two as a master control, and then he got hired at the mill. I stayed at K-Mart for awhile longer. It was like, he had been at the mill two and a half years when I finally got hired. So yes, it definitely [End Track 12, Begin Track 13]

SF: If we hadn’t had both been working there, we probably wouldn’t be where we are as far as with the property and having what we have. So, yes.

AS: Do you feel like the mill contributed to the community in any way?

SF: Yes, they did financially. They, I mean you know they have a big part of the tax base and they, normally they sponsor things in town. Whether they cared about the employees, that’s a different question.

AS: Did you work, I mean were there sort of the Georgia-Pacific “big wigs” that worked right in the mill or did they really operate from some other state?

SF: Yes, they were out of state. I mean we had our local people that were here and our mill manager and our bosses and they typically were here right with us. Quite a few of them had been there as long as I can remember. Other’s you know came and went. The ones that were here, you knew they cared about the mill and they wanted to stay here and they wanted the mill to run. Some of the bosses that we had, some of the mill managers we had, we were just a stepping stone.

AS: Really.

SF: They really didn’t, we didn’t feel they really didn’t care one way or another about us and to be quite frankly, the last woman that we had at the mill pretty much did us in as far as I’m concerned.

AS: Really.

SF: I have no use for her at all.

AS: What position was she?

SF: She was mill manager but she was also mill manager in Plattsburg, New York and they tended to get the best of the two mills and she couldn’t get that machinery out of there quick enough when they shut converting down. Whether that was her directive or not, I don’t know but I think she was the last nail in the coffin.

AS: Really.

SF: Yes and maybe that’s just me but that’s the way I feel. She didn’t do anything for us. You can only hope it will get better.

AS: Yes, I hope so. Well I think I’ve asked you everything that I have. Is there anything that you’d like to add?

SF: Oh geeze, not that I can think of I mean it’s been interesting over the years. And like I say I think, it’s sad to say but it looks like the paper business is going away in Maine. I hope we can come up with something in the state to keep it going.

AS: Well thank you very much for talking with me.

SF: No problem, no problem, glad to help.

AS: Thanks.

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