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Newspaper Archive of
Shelton Mason County Journal
Shelton, Washington
November 19, 2020     Shelton Mason County Journal
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November 19, 2020
 
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HISTOBYATA Life in a Simpson Logging Co. Camp — Part 2 part of Grace memo- ries of at Logging Co. camps. t Camp 1 there was no electric- Aity, and we had gasoline lan- terns for lighting. And no re- frigeration, because we couldn’t even get ice out there. When we’d been at Camp 3 for about three or four years, 'we got electricity. We were really high when we got a refrigera- tor! We changed the motor on the washing machine to electric, and we had electric irons, and radios you could walk up and down the track and never miss a word of Ma Perkins or Amos and Andy. For entertainment, the ladies or- ganized a Ladies’ Club. We had card parties and picnics, and we joined the Women’s Federation of the Ladies’ Club. For‘church, there. was a minis- ter that would come up and hold ser- vices once awhile, what we called the Club House. But people didn’t travel to church much, because it was quite a trip. There was‘no church even in the valley, so you had to go clear to Shelton. ’ The single men in the camps lived in bunkhouses, and there was a cook house with a cook, a second cook and a waitress. And it had to be a good By JAN- PARKER cook — the men wouldn’t stand for poor food, and there had to be plenty of it. The cook’s day would start about 3:00 a.m. and end'up at 9 or 10 at night, because he had to set his tables and get things ready for the next day. There was also a bath house, and laundry facilities, which consisted of big tubs and wash boards. The men wore what we called tin pants when they worked the woods in the rain. They were made from canvas and were soaked in what I think was a deep-penetrating oil that made them very stiff. They had a coat and hat made from the same material. My husband had them, and he would Thursday, Nov. 19, 2020 Shelton-Mason County Journal Page A;9 Simpson Logging Co. camp No. 3 is shown in 1932. Courtesy photo hang them on a hook behind the cook stove so they would be nice and dry and more or less pliable when he put them on in the morning. They didn’t have a real good odor. The people living in the camp never had much, but they were proud of what they had, and they took care of it. The husbands would go out in the woods and cut cedar and build a fence around their place and have a nice place for their children to play. As a rule, people stayed healthy, didn’t get too sick. The one thing that was always very sad was when someone would be hurt in the woods. We would hear the donkey’s engines . blowing those whistles for a looooong time: they were calling for the train or V the Speeder. Of course every wife and mother was out on the porch waiting to see if it was one of theirs. Several men were killed outright. My sister’s husband was working on a loading donkey when a line broke and a big block hit him in the leg. He was in and out of the hospital, and he died about five or six years later. My husband had two accidents, but he was never hurt really badly. I’d see him run up and down the train on the walkway on those logging cars that was about a foot, foot and a half wide — he would be going one direction, the train would be going the other. How he kept his footing, I don’t know. But when they would disconnect a car from the train there were these air hoses, and if he didn’t hang on to them for dear life, they would flop out twice they hit him in the face and broke his jaw. Our boys went to Shelton for high school, and they wanted to turn out for sports. Driving back and forth was really rough, especially on the road from Camp 3 to Skokomish Valley, which was very crooked and narrow, so we moved into Shelton. But I re- ally loved camp. I never got tired of living there. I Jan Parker is a researcher for the Mason County Historical Museum. She can be reached at parkerj@hctc. com. Membership in the Mason County Historical Society is per year. 360:898—2481 l www.hcc.net Monday, Nov 30 Why let Friday have all the fun? View“ Mark your calendar. More info coming soon at hcc.net .T, --,_