52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Week 35 Prompt - At Work

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 35

Prompt – At Work

My father, Jake Peters was illiterate and not well educated. He only achieved Grade 2 or 4 by the time he was a young teenager depending on which war document you use. I believe that he grew up in a German speaking family that mostly spoke German in their home and thus he really didn't have a fair chance at learning in an all English small town school house. His father was a farmer and according to my sister, Betty, dad was taken out of school to help on the farm because his father had a “bad back”'

Jake's pre-war employment was typical of most men in Saskatchewan in the 1930's. He had odd jobs such as he listed on his Attestation Papers upon enlistment into the army.

 

In his 1946 post war evaluation for his deployment to civil life it was summed up like this. 

When dad was asked what he wanted to do post war he thought he would like to work as a general laborer at Quaker Oats Flour Mill where his in laws worked. Alas that did not happen. The evaluation went on to write up the following:

According to my brother Rob, Jake had 3 job offers upon return from the war in 1946. The first was a “Farm Start Program, the second was a cook at the Bessborough Hotel and the third was working at Intercontinental meat packing plant. He was also wined and dined, so to speak, by Joe's Cycle however it would not pay enough to support him, his wife and two daughters.

He worked one week as a cook at the Bessborough and didn't like it. He could not read the recipes and he would not let them know he could not read. Apparently they threw knives at him because he got the order wrong. I wouldn't want to work in that environment either!

He went on to work at Intercontinental Meat Packers. 

Intercontinental Meat Packers was founded in Saskatoon in 1940 by Fred Mendel. In Germany, Fred Mendel came from a family of many generations who worked in meat processing. In January of 1940 Fred Mendel, his wife and two daughters fled Nazi Germany and settled in Saskatoon. By June of that same year he bought Saskatchewan Co-operative Livestock Producers Ltd. On 11^th Street in Saskatoon. It became one of the largest meat packing plants in Canada. The plant had a long history in the family. It was renamed Mitchell's Gourmet Food. By 2002 the last of the family sold its shares to Schneider’s ending the almost seven decades as a family run business. In 2004 Maple Leaf bought out Schneider’s and thus Mitchell's. Maple Leaf was going to build a new modern meat packing plant by 2008 which it didn't. Sadly the plant was “deconstructed” in 2010 to make room for the South Circle drive and new bridge. 

Fred Mendel gave returning veterans 5 years seniority if they worked for his company. He paid his employees a good salary that would support the men and their growing families. I do not know exactly when he started but it was his job until his retirement in 1982.

My brothers, Rob and Dennis also worked at Intercontinental after grade 12 for a year or two. In June of 2017, I asked Rob for some insight into working at “The Intercon”.

Rob said that he had gotten a job as a parts driver for Saskatoon Motor's Parts. He started on a Friday. That night dad came home from the Intercontinental and said they were hiring 15 guys to start on Monday. Dad spoke to his foreman about his son looking for a job and dad was told to bring Rob in on Monday in case some of the new hires didn't show up. Rob didn't want to go because he had started at the other job. However dad pointed out that Intercontinental would pay three times the minimum wage he was working for at the first job. Rob said he was earning $1.10 at the parts job and Intercontinental paid 3 something an hour. Rob said he couldn't say no to dad so he went thinking he would make it to his parts job by it's 9 am start. As it turned out 2 of the new hires didn't show up and Rob was hired on the spot. He was given a hard hat, apron, gloves and a knife. Rob wanted to call his other job to let them know he would not be working there. His foreman said to Rob that all phone calls were to be made on coffee breaks. So on his 9 AM coffee break he called the parts job to let them know  he had another job. Apparently the parts manager was not pleased and yelled at him, but Rob just said he was getting paid three times what the parts job paid and that ended that call.  

Rob said that Intercon had two 12 minute coffee breaks and a 30 minute lunch break. That included travel time between their post and the cafeteria. Everyone would run like hell to get there. Rob drank coke and of course dad had a coffee with a side of a cigarette.

Rob remembers seeing dad at lunch time sitting at his lunch table with his buddies. He would be eating a sandwich, drinking coffee, smoking and playing cards at the same time. Dad bet 25 cents per hand and would often win bringing home the winnings to help pay for the groceries for his growing family.  Rob felt that dad was well respected at work. He was a man of few words but when he did speak everyone listened.

He was known as Jack Peters at work because dad couldn't write that well and they interpreted his name as Jack when he wrote it out. Dad never corrected them.

Rob did many many jobs at the plant. At one time he worked along side of dad, “boning the beef or ham”. Dad helped Rob sharpen his knife. Dad was very proud of his sons at work.

Rob recalled an incident where Dennis was hurt on the job and taken to the hospital. When dad was told he dropped his knife and went with Dennis to the hospital. How did he hurt himself? Believe it or not a freshly dead sow on a hook fell on him and the hook caught the corner of Dennis' eye. He needed several stitches.

I remember dad coming home from a bad day at work with white sometimes blood stained gauze finger bandages. Well thank goodness he retired with all his digits intact however he had many stitch scars from his knife slipping at work.

 Many years later, I worked in a busy walk in clinic in Calgary. At least once a week I would have to bandage up someone's finger. It always took me back to when dad would come home with his finger tightly wrapped and the gauze tied at the wrist to keep it in place. I called it “the dad special”and then I would proceed to tell the patient the story of my father's bandaged fingers. By the time the story was completed so was their bandage.

I think the worse injury that dad had, happened just before he retired. He was walking in front of a fork lift and it happen to hit him pinning him against a wall. He broke his ankle.  He was off work for a while. Dad rarely stayed home from work.

I asked Rob if they drove to work together. He said at first they did, but later they would take turns taking one car or the other. Dad was a stickler about leaving work immediately. Work ended at 4:15 and he got home by 4:30. If the boys did not appear when he did; there would be hell to pay. On the other side of that was the fact that I would get off school at 4 and by God we would be in trouble if we did not have a pot of coffee ready for him when he got home.

Eventually the boys got their own cars and thus they all drove separately to work. Rob had a white Cyclone and Dennis got a yellow Mustang. Dad would brag to his coworkers about his son's cars. Cars are still a status symbol, aren't they?

I had the privilege of touring the Intercontinental. (not really a privilege). Our Grade 7 or 8 Home Econics teacher thought it would be beneficial. It was disgusting, rank enough to make you gag, dark and it took me a long time to like meat again. We got to see the kill floor, the place where they hung the fresh dead ones, the hides being removed and falling into the hide cellar. I did get to see the half carcasses being carved up and eventually i got to see my dad “ham boning” standing at a long moving table elbow to elbow with his coworkers carving the bones out of the ham and how quickly it had to be done seeing the next ham was coming up the table. I saw dad with his white hard hat helmet, his white coat and apron seamlessly moving to an unheard rhythm of cutting the ham bone away. I don't think he saw me even though he knew I would be touring that day. I didn't want him to look up lest his sharp knife slip.

My siblings and I grew up with the odd hair raising supper tale of dad's work. There was the one where a bull got loose in the plant and ran wildly about finally settling in the women's bathroom among the women screaming for their life. Then there was the unbelievable story of “Thor”. Thor worked on the kill floor. At that time they would slit the animals throat to kill them and good old Thor who spoke no English every once in a while would fill his tin cup with the spilled blood and drink it. I had nightmares about that for years.

That day I had a new found respect for my father and the hard work he did in order to support his family. I also knew that I would never work at The Intercon. 

1983 March Jake Peters at His Retirement Party.  

Wendy