Mildred Pooler Miscall was born in South Brewer in 1915.

"All the years I was growing up—actually it was Eastern Manufacturing Company then—your whole life revolved around that paper mill because just about every man I think in the little town worked at the Eastern Manufacturing Company."

Mildred’s father, Waldo Pooler, worked in Eastern’s mechanical department. Though Mildred never worked in the mill herself, she recalls what a profound influence it had over her life as a child:

"One of my first memories of Eastern Manufacturing was a Christmas party they gave for the employees and their families, and every child received a big bag of candy. And that was special in those days."

She also remembers visiting her father in the mill, and bringing home armloads of paper for writing and drawing:

"I think they still have it in paper mills, what they called ‘broke boxes,’ and that was for rejects, paper rejects. And there’d be tablets with lines you know and then writing paper and you could have all you could carry."

Mill children like Mildred went to sleep at night wrapped in blankets made from felt used on the paper machine rollers, and their mothers made dresses and handkerchiefs from recycled linen used to produce the fine linen finish for which Eastern’s paper was known. But not everything associated with the paper mill was beneficial to neighborhood families. In 1923 Mildred’s ten-year-old brother Charles was drowned when he and friends were playing on Eastern’s massive log booms, where pulp logs were kept to await processing.

"They knew exactly where he went down.
But the current was so strong, you know.
They never found a thing."

Mildred and her family moved to Albany in 1930, where her father took a job in radio broadcasting. But papermaking was in her blood, and after graduating from business college in Albany, she took a job in a laboratory at the nearby AWP paper mill, where she met her husband, Darwin.

"So all I’ve known is paper making.
It’s just a part of my life."

She and her husband eventually returned to Maine to raise their children, and while Darwin has since passed on, Mildred remains in their home in Sandy Point, not far from International Paper in Bucksport.

January 26, 2006 Interview with Mildred Miscall

Last updated: