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Fred Barnhill recalls his experience at the Tatamagouche Creamery, " . . . I started work at the Creamery in January 1950 when I was 17. I only worked in the office where I earned $60 every two weeks - but as I recall a theatre visit was .45 cents, coke was .10 cents and meals with board $12.00 a week at Hilda and Edna Langille's. Alex MacBain was manager, J.J. Creighton was the owner and boss, his son, Ian, assistant manager. I believe Zetta Hamilton, from Truro, was in the office when I was there, and the truck drivers were Cecil and Earl Langille, Don Murdle, and Harry Ferguson. Willis Bonnyman and his brother, Stewart, worked in the plant and Stewart also worked in the warehouse. Cutton Piers was the manager of the Pugwash warehouse, where feed was sold . . . the butter produced was shipped from Tatamagouche by Bell's Transfer and by train . . . in those days ice was harvested from Silica Lake on the mountain road to Truro, and from Mattatall Lake in Brule."15
Cameron Veno, former employee at the Creamery20th - 21st century
Pine Street Tatamagouche.Nova Scotia, Canada
Credits:Cameron Veno
16
Cameron Veno worked at the Creamery in the late 1960's and drove one and three ton trucks bringing milk and dairy products from the Creamery in Stellerton to store in the large cooler in the garage at the Tatamagouche Creamery. These products were then delivered to homes in the Tatamagouche area. Cameron did some cream collecting for a short while but there were too few farms providing cream so they soon stopped making the pick ups. He drove feed to Pugwash and butter to Sydney, Amherst, Dartmouth, Truro and Kentville. He also drove to Prince Edward Island for a number of years and carted 60 lb boxes and cartons of butter and buttermilk to Stellerton to be re-delivered.He recalls that Dave and John Mattatall were also drivers who made deliveries to stores and that milk was usually sold in glass bottles, although some plastic was used as well.
17
Gordon Hillier, former employee at the Creamery20th - 21st century
Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia, Canada
Credits:Gordon Hillier
18
Gordon Hillier started working at the Creamery in 1954 and left in 1971 because Scotsburn, which had taken over the Creamery at Tatamagouche implied that they would be closing it. He started for three months in the summer - taking cream cans off trucks and carrying them to the scales and the strainer. Later he worked unloading feed into the warehouse and butter into the printer using a wooden shovel shaped paddle. A metal paddle was experimented with, but the butter tended to slip off it on to the floor! At this time only an apron was worn over everyday clothes. He was not impressed by what sometimes appeared in the collected cream! However it was known which farmers produced good quality cream and which to watch out for.At this time John 'Jack' Elliott ran the printer, but when he passed away Gordon took over using the new printer. Gordon recalled his fellow workers including Cameron Veno, Ronald Mingo, John Cameron, Stanley MacLanders, Ian Creighton, Willer and Stewart Bonnyman, Earl and Cecil Langille, Wes MacLennan, George Semple, Henry Ferguson, Katherine Ross and Brain Haskett.
Gordon was a 'jack of all trades' like most of the workers at the Creamery and would do any task asked of him. He remembered working upstairs where he threaded pipes to replace ones that leaked, painting walls and machinery, and making wood butter boxes.
19
Dr. Austin Creighton20th- 21th Century
Main Street, Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia, Canada
Credits:Austin Creighton
North Shore Archives
20
Austin Creighton was the son of the owner of the Creamery, J.J. Creighton and he started working there driving a truck when he was 15. He learned that there was a driver short so he volunteered and got a licence from a friend with no road test being taken! Austin worked driving trucks in the morning and turned his hand at anything that needed to be done in the afternoon. He stopped working at the Creamery at the age of 19 when he left to attend medical school.21
In the Creamery office20th century
The Tatamagouche Creamery, Creamery Road, Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia, Canada
Credits:North Shore Archives
22
The Creamery office was an essential part of the Creamery as it handled all the paperwork of the Creamery and feed mill operations. Alex MacBain and a female assistant, in this picture, Zetta Hamilton, looked after the everyday running of the Creamery. On the occasions when Alex took time off, Austin Creighton, (J.J. Creighton's son) took over the office duties.There was only ever one woman employed at any one time at the Creamery and over the years these included Zetta Hamilton, Emma Matheson, Greta MacKay and Katherine Ross.Katherine Ross started at the Creamery when she left school in 1951. She was the book keeper and looked after the records and accounts for 35 years. Records included the amounts of butterfat in each can and what was paid to the farmer and how much he owed the Creamery if he had bought animal feed from the feedmill. Accounts were kept for how much butter was received by different stores and what they owed. She recalls the usual office equipment, with a typewriter, cash register, telephone, and large safe. She worked from 9am to 5pm for 5 1/2 days a week to start with, which dropped to 5 days in later years.
23
George Semple, former employee at the Creamery20th - 21st century
Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia, Canada
Credits:Dwayne Semple
24
George Semple became the manager of the creamery after the tragic death of Ian Creighton - he was rather reluctant to take on the position. He started at the Creamery in 1951 and left in 1983 to deliver Esso home heating oil. George was again able to do any of the jobs in the Creamery. He had many friends and really enjoyed having a good time. His son, Dwayne, thought that this and possibly the 'fatty food' diet of the time probably didn't help his future health!25
Dwayne Semple, former employee at the Ceamery20th - 21st century
Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia, Canada
Credits:Dwayne Semple
26
- Dwayne Semple worked in the Creamery as a teenager in the early 1980's. His father, George, was the manager there but he still expected his son to pull his weight in jobs and not expect to be treated differently. Dwayne worked with David MacDonald on the milk truck making home deliveries of milk. Dwayne said that surprisingly few people in those days actually drank milk. He did a bit of everything, wherever and whatever was needed, and earned about $2.00 per hour when he first started. His first pay check went towards required workboats which cost about $80.00.Crank phones were used as an intercom with a different number of rings for different departments. This system was still used until the Creamery closed.
Dwayne recalls that the wooden butter boxes were made in the upstairs of the Creamery and also that there was a storeroom which housed an assortment of community things, for example the equipment left behind when the dentist left the village and materials left from the Festival of the Arts - a once regular fixture in Tatamagouche.
Friday was buttermilk day when people from the village brought down containers to be filled with buttermilk which was dipped from a large vat. In the late 1970's the buttermilk was put into cartons and placed on a handcart and was wheeled into the coolers to be stored before being delivered. Sometimes there were bad days when the glue on the cartons became unglued and they were sent back, or the tops of the cartons would not clamp shut properly or a wrong date was put on the cartons and all the buttermilk was wasted!
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Henry Ferguson drove three days a week to the Brule and Middleton areas where cream production was especially high and two days a week on other routes. He tended to start work early and be back by 11:00 am, to unload and refill the truck for a shorter run in the afternoon. He commented on the importance of loading the cans on the trucks in the correct order, so that they could be dropped off easily on either side of the roads. Henry remembered that trucks carried wood crates of butter on either side of the truck, to deliver to farms, as ordered. |
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