In honor of Labor Day, I asked our residents to tell me some of their early job memories. Margie Testerman remembers digging potatoes out of the field. Her pay was a place at the table at mealtime.
Hellen Horton vividly remembers her job at Western Union Telegraph Company in Ft. Smith, Arkansas during the WWII. She was a casualty receiving agent and dispatched boys to hand deliver the bad news. Sometimes the boys would go next door and enlist the aid of a neighbor to be with the wife or mother. Her pay: 40 cents an hour.
Beverley Graham remembers picking cotton near Waurika in southern Oklahoma. The pay was 2 cents a pound. In a good field of cotton, she could pull around 300 pounds or $6 a day.
Marcy Simon says her worst job ever was growing up on a dairy farm in Kansas and milking cows twice a day. The pay was similar to Margie’s---all the milk she could drink. Her best job was driving an 18-wheeler cross country with her husband Don and then retiring to south Texas.
Wirt Trawick’s most unusual job was helping stack four shiploads of military tires in 36 hours in Korea. His worst job was being Aide-de-Camp to Brigadier General Richard S. Whitcomb in Korea for three months. It was tremendous pressure. His fondest memories, however, are right here in Stroud, Oklahoma where he has been a self-employed cattle rancher for over 47 years.
Helen Arrington remembers her second job right out of nursing school in Louisiana. She was the First Aid Nurse for a paper mill and the only female in a plant of 500 men. It was surprising how many hang nails, dandruff, flea bites and headaches she was asked to treat. Ultimately, she was replaced by someone more matronly and the incident rate dropped off drastically.
At 16, Rae Bland worked part-time as a secretary for an oilfield company. Upon graduation from high school, she was employed by a bank making $200 a month. Ten years later, she returned to the bank to take dictation, figure and issue payroll , calculate amortization schedules, and basically do all the paperwork involved in making a loan including the filing of deeds and mortgages. For all this responsibility she was paid EXACTLY what she made right out of high school--$200 a month. Obviously, this was pre gender equality and the Equal Pay Act of 1963.
We have had fresh from the local garden watermelon with every meal lately at Prairie Pointe and yes, Joe Bill spoils us rotten with garden goodies and donuts every Thursday. We have also enjoyed fresh baked breads and muffins from a bakery in Jenks compliments of Jim McCammon.
Last Sunday, after a short song service, Rae Bland shared with us the life of Moses and how he chose to serve God. The most important trait Moses showed us is perseverance. That is what we need to get through the current challenge. This Sunday, Rae gave a devotional from Luke 15, The Prodigal Son. Phil Johnson dismissed with prayer.
We were saddened last week by the untimely passing of our favorite pest control man, Kelly Hunt. Kelly visited us every month and had kept Prairie Pointe pest free since we opened in 2016. Our sincere sympathies go out to his wife Pam and their family. RIP Kelly!