She said, "They had a big scalding machine outside the plant and the tomatoes would come through a small opening on a belt in pans and we would pull the pans of hot tomatoes off the belt and peel them and put the pans of peeled ones back on the belt to be taken off at their destination. I don't remember how many pans I could peel in an hour. I wasn't the fastest peeler nor was I the slowest, but I never got any pans brought back to redo."
"The tomatoes were easiest to peel while they were hot so there were advantages to getting to work a bit early to get a good place near where the tomatoes came into the building but not too close."
"I worked there another summer as well in the general cannery section where other vegetables were canned as well as frozen. This was one summer during college. The canneries were only open in the summers at harvest times. There I worked as timekeeper which necessitated keeping track of how many people were working and who was working in each position at various times during the day. I had my own office and was also in charge of first aid supplies. Anything other than very minor injuries I was to send to the local hospital."
"Because it was during World War II, there was a shortage of labor for the cannery, so some German POWs were bussed in each day from a camp in Tremonton to fill various positions. A gun-toting guard would come with them. There was a shortage of men to fill many of the jobs which were considered too hard for women to do. There were a lot of things for them to do such as a lot of heavy lifting etc. that had to be done in the cannery and working on various machines that kept things going. One of the POW's was sick one day and they sent an army ambulance from where they were building Bushnell Army Hospital to get him."
"The guard would spend a lot of time in and out of my office also keeping track of his charges and knowing where they were at all times. As I recall the number of POW's varied from day to day, usually somewhere between about 16 and 20--maybe 25. I think they were allowed to keep 10¢ an hour of what they earned and many were eager to come and work at the cannery to earn what they could. Only those that were considered harmless were allowed to come and work at the Cannery. Others were not allowed to leave the compound. Many would send their money home and others just used it for things they wanted and would ask the guard to buy things for them. One was an artist and was always worried about protecting his hands. One day the guard said that the artist wanted painting supplies and something to paint and wondered if I had a photograph he could use to paint a picture of me. He couldn't be paid in money and would do it just for something to do. The guard also suggested that a couple of packages of cigarettes for him would be appreciated however, so that is what transpired. I don't recall what medium he used to do the painting but it was paints of some kind not pencils. He did the painting from a photograph."
(When the broken glass on the front of the picture was replaced, we could see that the artist had signed his name as Rembrandt Suirs. It looks rather like watercolors were used. The matting and backing were cut from what looks like old production schedules from the cannery.)
"To keep track of the POW's I had to check through the cannery as well as Smith Frozen Foods and in the warehouse several times a day to know how many were working and where, for the company expense records. There were both men and women working there. Mostly the women worked on 'belts', like picking out any 'bad' peas or beans or whatever was being canned, as they went by and the men on heavy lifting jobs and machinery. The main person in charge of the whole operation was named Dan. He wasn't around the processing very much but another man named Frank was the foreman and knew everything that was going on and he was everywhere all the time. I now have no idea what their last names were--long since forgotten."
"The cannery was in two sections. The tomato operation was in a building, long since removed, that was across the street from the train station on the west side of the train tracks on West Forest Street and the main cannery was a block or two south of the train station. It is also long gone."
"One day there was an accident upstairs in the main cannery where the bean cutter machine was located. A young boy from somewhere in Wyoming was running the bean cutter. He was a minor I think just age 16 and shouldn't have been running it. His older friend was supposed to be doing it but somehow it was nearly lunch time and he went there to help out for a few minutes. A prod of some kind was supposed to be used to keep the beans going but he stuck his hand down in it to hurry the process along and get it emptied so they could go to lunch. In doing so, he lost his finger in the machine. He ended up in my office which prompted me to immediately call Frank who grabbed him and put him in his car quickly and got him to the hospital. Frank's assistant who I don't even remember, quickly shut down the machinery, After Frank returned I went with him to the bean cutter and Frank got rid of the whole batch of beans, finger and all."
"After my freshman year of college I worked the summer at Bushnell Hospital when they were building that and I got paid $25.00 a week which was almost unheard of at the time. It was as much as Dad was getting paid. I don't recall my exact title at the moment but I was at the beck and call of anyone that needed an errand done and opened mail, and got copies made of various things for various offices."
Bushnell General Army Hospital was a 1,500 bed military hospital built in 1942. It had 60 buildings and cost $9,000,000. The administration and medical staff were military personnel, and local residents were hired to work in such areas as the kitchen, bakery, and laundry as well as in maintenance and clerical positions. Patients were primarily sick and injured military personnel from Montana, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, and Arizona, in keeping with the government's policy of locating patients as close to home as medically feasible so that their families could more easily visit them. Brigham City residents provided room and board in their homes for out-of-town relatives of patients. The medical staff specialized in orthopedic and neuro-psychiatric cases and in tropical diseases. It was the first military hospital to use penicillin, and the facility provided training for medical doctors being sent to the European and Pacific combat areas. Approximately 13,000 patients were treated during the hospital's life of less than four years. Some POWs worked at the hospital as well. It closed in 1947.
Roma's nephew, Bert, was born at Bushnell Hospital in 1943....but that is another story.
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