Farley and Loetscher, 1949 to 1951, Carr, Adams and Collier/Caradco, 1951 to 1977, Eagle Window and Door, 1977 to 1990, Millwright, Electrician

I started at Caradco at a dollar-five cents an hour. And when I left I think I was making six-fifty—something like that. There was a strike in 1950 at Caradco. I was working at Farley and Loetscher at the time and they didn’t go out—I think they belonged to a different union or something—but I remember we was only making about seventy-five cents an hour down there then.

I worked at Farley and Loetscher from 1949 in September to 1951 in May. Then I went to work on road construction for the summer and went back and started working at Caradco in the fall. I liked it better there because it was days. At Farley’s it was nights—I wasn’t too crazy about that. Our family was young and it was nice to be around once in awhile to help take care of them.

I worked in the lumberyard a couple winters and pert near froze to death. You’d go to bed at night and your feet would still be cold. After that I had an opportunity to get into the maintenance shop as a tool crib attendant. About two years later, why, I got on as a millwright and from there I went on to be an electrician.

When you worked in maintenance you got to know quite a few of the people. There was one old fellow over there in the door department, he chewed tobacco. Well, there was no smoking so everybody chewed—Copenhagen Snuff. They all had a pile of sawdust to spit in. But I remember one day this old fellow—he always wore just a short apron—one day he took his teeth out and cleaned the tobacco off them on that dirty old apron.

I live in Platteville. I’ve lived there in the same house for forty-eight years. There were about five of us that rode in together from Platteville.

Jerry Roling: What was the one fellow’s name that drove down with ya? Buck….

Lawrence Gallagher: Oh … Miller?

Jerry Roling: Buck Miller, right. He was the biggest bser I’ve run across so far in my life. He got shocked by electricity one time and he said it burnt the fillings out of his teeth and the nails out of his shoes.

(They laugh)

Lawrence Gallagher: In a snowstorm in ’73 there were two carloads of us that got stuck here in Dubuque. We got here all right but when we left around nine-thirty, we did even get to Keiler. We got one car stuck and we all piled in the other car and come back to Dubuque.

I made that drive to Dubuque all those years and only missed one day.

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