An Interview with Kathy Sinclair

Narrator: Kathy Sinclair
Interviewer: Kathy Tucker
Date: May 24, 2000
Place: Camas, Washington [Begin Side A, Tape 1 of 2]

KT: This is Kathy Tucker interviewing Kathy Sinclair, May 24th, at her home in Camas, Washington. Thank you for agreeing to let me interview you. Have you lived in Camas your whole life?

KS: Yes.

KT: What brought your parents to Camas?

KS: First of all my dad came to this country as a young man and when he got into New York he had relatives, and then he found out that there was work that they needed on the railroad in Spokane, Washington, and that’s where he came to. That was a few years later that my mother came from Greece and she came to two brothers that lived in Camas, Washington. They met each other that way, they did not come over from Greece together.

KT: Your father, did you say that when he came to this country he worked for the railroads?

KS: Yes. In Spokane, Washington.

KT; Helping build them?

KS: No, working on the railroad. Then my mother came over because she had two brother here in Camas, Washington, and so they had paid her fare and brought her over and she was with them– my dad being on the railroad had passes to come to. So someone had told him that there was a young lady in Camas and of course they were wondering of he was interested and so he came. He made a trip from Spokane on the train and he met my mother at Camas, Washington and then I don’t really exactly remember the date that…

KT: Do you remember the year, roughly?

KS: No, I don’t but I could probably figure that out. But they got married in Portland, Oregon at the Greek Orthodox Church. Then they moved to Spokane because that’s where my dad was working. The weather was cold then they had two babies there, it was not the most convenient place that they, lived in so they decided to move to Camas because they heard that that paper mill was looking for workers, so that’s when they moved to Camas and my dad started working at the paper mill.

KT: Do you remember when that was?

KS: Probably the very earliest, early 1900s, but I don’t know the exact date.

KT: Do you know was your dad one of the strikebreakers?

KS: I’m sure he was when they brought him in because they needed workers and that was just about the time that they were having that problem there. I remember my dad talking about that.

KT: Were you born yet at that time?

KS: No, I had two brothers that were born and they were born in Spokane and I was born in Camas, Washington.

KT: I’ve heard that a lot of the strikebreakers in the 1917 strike were Greek and I’m wondering why that was or how that came about.

KS: Just by word of mouth. There was a lot of the young fellas coming from Greece and because, as my dad was telling me, it wasn’t the idea that they were going to come and stay, they wanted to come because they needed to help their parents in Greece. Because at that time the sisters, the girls of the family, has to have a dowry before they were to be married and that was a main thing that my dad came to the United States is to help his parents, but then once he got here he liked everything that was going on. Of course with a family man too, and that’s why… but there was word of mouth, there was a lot of Greek fellas. At one time, if I remember correctly, there must have been over one hundred Greek bachelors living in Camas. They sort of, boarding house like that they had, there was very few that were married at that time. When my dad moved here, I don’t remember all of the names, but very few families that lived here in Camas, and finally afterwards that they started in that there was families that lived here, and with children.

KT: Do you know if they married people from Camas or brought wives from Greece, or…?

KS: Wives from Greece, yeah. Didn’t hear too often for them ’til later years that they would marry an American girl, it’s usually that they either left the bride there or they went back after getting a little bit of money and marrying someone and bringing them back and settling here.

KT: Did your dad talk about what it was like to be a strikebreaker?

KS: No he didn’t because of his language barrier. So he was sort of following– he says I needed the work. He had two babes and I was born in 1921, so then I had come along, so he was just going along with what no he didn’t talk about.

KT: He didn’t talk about what it was like later to you? He didn’t tell you what that experience was like?

KS: Well, I don’t remember anything like that, whether they were rough or there was any problems or fights but they couldn’t speak American too well, you know, and they didn’t put them into the– there’s very little, two, three of the fellas knew a little bit that they could converse with the management or whatever. They would sort of control the rest of the fellas around and showing them what to do and how to do it, and that was it. Probably that’s why, I never thought about that and I didn’t ask. They had given them mostly the menial jobs, clean-ups and sweepers, janitorial work, which they needed too, but it was work they didn’t care, it was better then the railroad I remember my dad saying because they had to work out on the weather, whether it was rain, shine, snow, they had to lay track and it was hard work and it was labor, but he thought this was a piece of cake.

KT: Did he say where he lived when he came?

KS: Yes. It did have plumbing. Not at the beginning, they had running water, but they had outhouses. I don’t remember, he said that right in the middle of Camas, in the city center, somewhere there on 4th I think, or 3rd, they had maybe it was a watering trough there for horses because at that time there was very very few cars, I suppose the Model Ts, Model As probably, that would have been in the ’20s, and they did have running water in the house, but there was sort of a central point there in Camas where it must have been for the horses because they had a lot of team horses, because I remember when they built a house and they needed a basement dug they brought in a team of horses with a scoop shovel to dig out the basement, instead of by hand which they had done before. Yeah, a lot of horses. I remember when we lived in Camas and it was in the City of Camas, we weren’t on the outskirts, that my parents had a cow, we had chickens, we had a goat, so it was not no deal, our neighbors, you know, everyone, and raised our own garden, we had to.

KT: And you lived in your own house.

KS: Yes, we had our own place. Then finally my dad brought over some cousins, and brought over two brothers and that was when he was still working at the railroad in Spokane, Washington, and so he got them started, just to help his family that was in Greece, his folks, and he had two sisters that were not married so he had to help them get their dowries so they could marry.

KT: Did that happen?

KS: Yes, yes. He never did make a trip back to Greece though.

KT: Never? Wow.

KS: No, no. We asked about that, you know, and us kids wanted to send my parents back there, but they said no that they just had such, well it was good memories but their parents were gone, but they worked so hard there, they worked hard in the fields and they were, no they just thought that their family was here, all of us kids and my mother’s brothers and my dad’s brothers, and they were comfortable with it.

KT: Did you have other relatives who worked at the mill.

KS: The one uncle that my dad brought over, he worked at the mill. My dad’s other two brothers ended up in Aberdeen, Washington. My mother’s brothers ended up in Portland working, a don’t know what type of work they had done, but my dad and my uncle were the only ones from my side of the family that worked at the mill.

KT: How many years did your father work there?

KS: He worked for thirty-two years at the mill. It wasn’t at the time when you became sixty, sixty-five that you retired or anything, he retired because I think he was just tired. His age too, because he must have been in his thirties when he came into Camas, I don’t know how old he was when he came from Greece, but he had to be into his thirties, because he didn’t intend to stay, he was gonna go back. So he was tired, so he was over sixty when he quit work.

KT: Do you know what his job was at the mill.

KS: Yes. He was an oilier, of course all the machinery had been updated and all, modern things that have come along and he oiled those machines, that was his job.

KT: He stayed at the oilier job?

KS: Yes.

KT: How did he like working at the mill?

KS: Fine, he thought that was just the best thing, for the advantages that they gave them, that they were working steady. At the time that they had gone out on a big strike, I don’t remember what year that was but they didn’t lay anyone off, they cut them down from an eight hour job and they gave everyone four hours to work, which kept food on our table, you know, to give us that much.

KT: Was that something the union did?

KS: No, I don’t think that they had a union, I think that’s what they were striking for.

KT: When was that? Were you alive, do you remember.

KS: No, I don’t remember the strike, I must have been a younger person. I’m sure because I wasn’t born until they got here to Camas when my dad was working in the mill. I must have been, but probably not paying attention and wondering why my dad was at home, you know, more than eight hours gone. So that had to be, that had to be… well, if I was born in ’21, so it had to be that I was born.

KT: Did your father strike at some point?

KS: I’m sure, I’m sure. You know the sad part is no one had ever asked us about any of that, and just casual talk sometimes. You know, we’d ask little questions and sometimes my dad would reminisce and he’d say things about the time, and he remembers it, and working like the four hour shifts. I didn’t know that, I didn’t remember that, maybe we were all kids and not paying attention. He was just real pleased that he had a job at the mill. It wasn’t at the time, I don’t think they had medical at that time, no, it was just a job, they had to do the job and they done it, and it was shift work for them.

KT: Did your mother work?

KS: No, she was a stay at home mom. She was there when we got home from school, we had three meals a day, and it wasn’t no fast food it was all home cooked meals and it was a big treat and not very often we got to go to a restaurant to eat, but lots of family, get-togethers and good neighbors, we looked out for each other.

KT: Greek?

KS: Um, not all of them. We had some Mexicans that were living on the other side of us, that he worked on the railroad in Camas, and then on the other side of us were Italian family, they had sort of a lumber mill-like in Camas, the Fantinis, and the Mexicans were the Alonzos. It was just a good mixture of people together and got along great. My mother did not speak American, but between sign language and… they learned from each other. I remember mom exchanging recipes with these people, their food tasted good to us and our food they thought was just delicious. It’s a melting pot, they call that now the melting pot, that was it, it started from them.

KT: Were there very many, lots of different ethnicity’s in Camas?

KS: Probably, but we didn’t know, because we didn’t, um… Kathy when we went to school, we went to school and we got home, we didn’t monkey around town. We walked to school, we walked home, my mother was at home, we all had chores to do because my dad was a working man, and then there’s a lot of work around the house too, we had a big garden and we were at home. We busied ourselves with what we had to do and our neighbors, and all of our friends of course, we had school friends too, they would come. I don’t remember that we were allowed to much to go to other people’s homes.

KT: Do you remember any ethnic groups than the ones you mentioned?

KS: We had one Negro family which was unusual that lived in our neighborhood. He was a bachelor. He had a little, like a pool hall in town I remember that they talked about and he was the janitor, or maybe running the gambling table or something at that time, but that was the only one black man. He wasn’t shunned or anything but he didn’t mix with anyone else in our family. I remember my folks talking about that.

KT: Did it seem unusual?

KS: Yes. To have a black man, and that was the only one. I remember his name was Sam. I don’t remember if they said he was a janitor at the pool hall, but his work was always at night so he must have been maybe the dealer, the gambler, the guy that was running the gambling game or something. See that was the only thing that I don’t remember.

KT: Do you remember him living there for a very long time?

KS: Yes, quite a while. He was renting a house and… quite a while, uh huh. But mostly the Greeks, we started having quite a few families that came in with their children too, and of course every time that there was a christening, or there was a holiday, we had a lot of holidays, and especially like we had, if you were named after a saint, like Saint George, that was a holiday during the year, that was a big holiday and it was big celebrations and lots of get-togethers and that’s how they started intermingling with the American people and how much they enjoyed our festivities which we do have and we still have at our Greek Orthodox Church in Portland. They have these, like a bizarre and people from all over come to take part in that.

KT: Yeah, I’ve been to one of those. Not in Portland.

KS: Of course, all over.

KT: Was there ever any hostility between the Greeks or any of the other groups?

KS: Yes, between the Greeks there was. I remember the bachelors my folks talked about.

KT: They talked about the Greek bachelors?

KS: Uh huh, that were in Camas. Like I said they probably rented– they had a lot of little houses in Camas, they had boardwalks then too, when my folks came it wasn’t all cement. But the bachelors had to get together and maybe five or six would rent a house and live together. I remember they had gotten into a fight , not only verbally but physically, they were workers at the mill too, and they were fighting and one guy went to hit the other fellow in the face and with his mouth open he grabbed his thumb and he bit his thumb off, or enough that they had to remove his thumb, and that was such a terrible thing that they talked about that.

KT: What did your parents think about that?

KS: Well, it was horrible because it made that little paper, I think they had a little paper going or the news or something just spread around, and for them to even– they thought it was shame..

KT: They though it made the Greeks look bad.

KS: Yes.

KT: So they had a sense maybe that the Greeks were not fully accepted, or were they?

KS: No, it was just the idea that they just didn’t expect them to act like that. I remember my dad saying to have everything going for them and their jobs, I don’t remember what– I think it was probably some little minor thing that they were arguing about and they got into [indistinguishable]. I remember later on two families, the women. Of course as the time went on some of the bachelors started bringing in wives, they were making money at the mill and they were making trips back to Greece and they brought in a lady. This one lady brought in a woman and she came in with a different attitude I think is what they meant. She had an argument with another family that was here quite a little while after my parents came and I don’t remember why but they had a court date for those two ladies for the simple reason. I don’t remember why. Something was said when they passed each other on the sidewalk I think, if I remember correctly, but they had a court date for the two ladies. That was quite an uproar between our Greek community that we had, but other than that…

KT: Was your father retired, did he make enough money to be able to retire and…

KS: Yes, to live comfortable? Yes, yes we did. In those days my parents didn’t buy anything that they couldn’t pay for and then of course, well let me see, I’m trying to think why I can’t remember, I probably could look up the dates of his retirement because of the mill that he did. Yes, that was not a problem and in the course of time he was able to save a little and invested and his retirement was easy and comfortable. When he retired, even though the years that he put in the mill, his pension was not that much, it helped but it was not that much like today. Yes, he got that retirement from them, and the Social Security had kicked in, I don’t remember the year the Social Security that they started that.

KT: Do you remember roughly when he retired? The decade?

KS: Well, it probably was… he was still working when the war was on, so that had to be in ’40s. Um, probably retired in ’50s. It had to be in the ’50s.

KT: Did the union ever come in while he worked there?

KS: Yes.

KT: Do you know much about how that went?

KS: No, because later on they had another deal with the younger people coming into work after the war. They did have a strike and they were out for quite a while in Camas. The union was striking then, demanding more and they found out that they were pretty well off with the mill. But they found out when the mill carried them so far, with all of the insurance and everything else that they took care of. I think the mill at that time said we’ll give you three months for negotiations, so they negotiate and they wouldn’t go for it so they cut ’em off of medical insurance and they found out that…

[Begin Side B, Tape 1 of 2]

KS: …more than six months I think because they were really hurting and then that’s when they finally got back into the mill. See, they were missing a lot because the mill was carrying a lot, not only their medical and their deal, but their wages and everything that they had that they were missing out, once they were on a strike it takes quite a while to build up what they lost.

KT: So your father didn’t strike at that time?

KS: I’m sure he was out of the mill at that time, ’cause I don’t remember what year that was, that last, that first one was way back when they brought in the strikebreakers because they had a lot of people from all over coming in.

KT: So it wasn’t just Greeks that came in?

KS: Oh no. A lot of friends that I have in Camas they came in from New York, from different places that they needed help and they could contact and they would bring them in. It was hard times for work for people, probably a lot of farmers.

KT: How old are you? Do you mind my asking?

KS: No, not at all. I’m seventy-eight.

KT: I think at one point you said you had worked at the mill.

KS: Yes, I did. I worked at the mill right after I graduated in ’38. I worked there five years, course that was around the time the war started so they opened up the shipyard and I want and worked there for another five years.

KT: So how long did you work at the mill then?

KS: Five.

KT: Then you went to Kaiser?

KS: Yes, I worked there.

KT: Were you married at that time?

KS: No.

KT: Did you marry?

KS: Yes.

KT: When did you marry?

KS: I married in ’39. No, excuse me, not ’39, I’m way off. I graduated in ’38 and I worked five years at the mill. I got married in [long pause], go married in ’59. Yeah, that’s a lot of difference right there [laughs]. Yeah, ’59, I’m sure it was ’59.

KT: So you were a little bit older.

KS: Well, a lot of boys, my two older brothers had gone into service, and that’s when a lot of the women were working the shipyards, they had Rosie the Riveter they were waiting for, but yes, that’s right.

KT: Was your husband also of Greek descent?

KS: No, he was an American fellow, and he was from service too. He was home and I met him when I was working then after the shipyards I had a little restaurant in Camas and my husband worked on the police force so that’s how we met.

KT: Interesting. I wanna go back tot the mill for a sec. Tell me what it was like for you to go work at the mill.

KS: I liked it better than I liked the waitress job because we all had to scrounge for work, for girls especially. We worked at the– I know during the summer two, three of us girls got together and we worked at the Del Monte Cannery, but we needed money for school too, you know. Then when they opened the deal that they had the women working at the mill and they had a lot of women there that were older women, but then the younger women started coming in. What can I say? They were paying better then the waitresses were getting and that’s what we were after. At the time that we worked at the mill and the war was still on. I remember they had black outs ’cause they had painted all the windows black, for the lights because they were running the mill twenty-four hours a day. We worked shift work, even the girls had to work shift work, and a lot of the girls had to do some of the men’s jobs. When some of the older men even went back to work that were too old for service that weren’t expecting to work– but they went back to work, I remember them bringing in some of the older people to work, and the women. I didn’t think it was too fair sometimes because when we worked at the mill they had a quota that they needed to put out and of course we were young and it was easy for us to keep up the quota, but to bring in another lady that was at that time maybe in her ’40s, which we thought was old, and it was hard for her to– we all needed work, at the time the husbands were in service and they were trying to keep things going to survive because they weren’t sending that much money home from the service?

KT: What was your job?

KS: I worked in the bag factory, making all of the paper bags, shopping bags, working on the machines. That’s when I quit the mill to go to the shipyards, that’s when the shipyards opened up and they were calling for help. I went into the mill right after I graduated in ’38, that was it.

KT: Kaiser was offering more money?

KS: Oh definitely. The mill was paying, I don’t remember what the wages were at the mill. Maybe seventy-five, eighty-five cents or something, and Kaiser they were starting out with like a dollar and a half an hour. That was a lot of money. We worked on the outfitters dock, the building of the ship and that was the last ship at the shipyard and I was a wrap pipe, insulation.

KT: In the a ship?

KS: Yes.

KT: So you helped insulate the pipes.

KS: The pipes, yeah. They all had to be wrapped and they had some sort of cloth material that was dipped in some sort of a paste or something and it was all wrapped.

KT: So that was probably your first real experience with “men’s work.”

KS: Oh definitely, yeah. Other than the mill, they had the big machines that were turning out the bags and all of that were run by men, but when the machine would have like five or six gals working there and he would be the only man, older man, all the young guys were gone, all the young guys were in service.

KT: Do you remember Vera Berney?

KS: Of course. She was the, I was going to say a nurse, I don’t remember whether she was a nurse, she was the head of the mill office down there for the girls– yes, very much so, nice lady, then she became Vera Gault, she married Vic Gault. Mr. Gault had been to our house several times for a lot of good dinners.

KT: So was she a tough boss?

KS: I did not work for her. She was in more the office. I did not work for Vera and I think she took care of mostly for the deal, and she had a lot to do with the I think the hiring for the girls. I just don’t remember from my application. It was different in those days, you just go down, get a paper, fill it out, and just turn it in. It wasn’t that hard to go to work at the mill after school. Now everybody is temporary, flex hours for them, you know the convenience we didn’t have at that time.

KT: Did you like working at Kaiser?

KS: Not really. I went because of the money. I wouldn’t have quit the mill, I would have stayed, because the mill had a lot there. Of course the girls had good opportunities at the mill too because a lot of the men were gone and they were getting a lot of step-ups, like they needed inspectors, but a lot of them stayed and they got those little promotions, but the money was– a bunch of us got together and we had a little old Model A and we had to have those little gas stamps that we got so we could go, and we pooled our stamps so we all worked the same shift, we worked at the shipyard, but we did make money, we did, and it was good money. A lot of times we had to work a little bit extra, which was fine, we liked that.

KT: The women that got promotions at the mill, what happened to them when the men came home?

KS: I don’t remember that, because the [indistinguishable] were waiting for the boys, whoever left they got their jobs, but I don’t remember, but they were up there and they had that experience and of course the mill, they were expanding too, bringing in all kind of — it wasn’t that they were demoted or anything, that I don’t hear of. But even some of my friends that had gotten step-ups, like being inspectors, which before the war they never had women inspectors, it was all the men, it was a guy thing. I hate that, but at the time it was. It got in sot a lot of the women, of course, it got a little bit control there with the union too, and they were demanding that they get some of that good stuff, that the men were getting high paid work. After I heard that when they got the same advantage of working on the machines and running the machines it was a lot of hard work and a lot of girls who wanted that kind of work couldn’t handle it because it was too hard on their bodies, you know, lifting big rolls and changing paper on the machines and such. But the women made progress there because they needed to have that advantage just like they do know, and still, I’m sure you know, they still don’t get equal pay for any job.

KT: That’s what you hear sometimes.

KS: On TV, I listen and you know they can be working at the same level and they can still be up in that cooperate ladder but still not make as much on the same level, but they’ve come a long way, a long way.

KT: Why did you leave Kaiser?

KS: Oh, I worked there long enough that they were closing up and going towards– they were cutting down in Vancouver and going up towards Longview, they needed workers up there and I didn’t wasn’t to leave, and that’s when I stayed in town and opened up a little coffee shop in Camas.

KT: Tell me about that.

KS: With a girlfriend that I had for sixty year, we opened up a little shop and it was in Main Street in Camas, that was in maybe the late ’50s, it had to be in the late ’50s and it was open five days a week and we just had lunches, we were open for breakfast and for lunch only. Lunch was homemade soups and dessert and sandwiches only, hamburgers and such, but not in the evening because most of the people would go home for diner. They had a couple restaurants in Camas, two, three. We worked there, with my friend, we were there about six, seven years.

KT: What was it called?

KS: It was called The Dixieland and it was right next to the theater.

KT: Did you serve any Greek food?

KS: No.

KT: Was your friend Greek?

KS: No. The girls that were Greek in town, a couple of them they worked in Portland, the others were still in schools, so I didn’t really have that much– other than get-togethers with families, you know, that we would have contact with each other, but mostly the kids I went to school with and graduated with and I had a lot of friends that way.

KT: Was your business successful?

KS: Yes, very much so. It was just a fun place to work and a lot of good people, met a lot of nice people there. Of course we had a lot of celebrations in Camas too, they started having the Camas Days, and I don’t remember all of the names that they had, I know that they had Western Days, but it was like a fun time that they looked forward too. They still have, I think, in June or something now they select the king and queen, but they started way back with that and have street dances, but it was a different kind of celebration in those days, people were– I think they were just happier I think, and now everything is… modernized? I don’t know, but everybody didn’t– I think it was more to get together in those days than they are now, everybody was a friend and I liked that too because you didn’t think of someone else that didn’t have what you had, I felt that we were just equal, but times have changed, times have changed a lot.

KT: Did you get mill workers for lunch at your restaurant?

KS: Yes, quite a few that came in. Mostly the ladies, the men wanted something more like hearty food, but mostly the ladies that wanted sandwiches. What we had then it was the clerks that worked at the stores because we had the dime stores and the Sears, and they had JC Penny’s. Yes, they would come for their lunch break and coffee breaks. The breakfast was a lot of times was just not big breakfast because we didn’t open until eight o’clock, it wasn’t mill workers’ breakfast, it was the ones that just wanted a cup of coffee and maybe a roll before they went to work, and we closed at five so it was a good job for us too.

KT: You were a business women.

KS: [Laughs] Considering, yes. They had a club that they started that they had from years back that they called The Business Professional Women and I was asked to join, but I was just too busy. My friend, she, Dorothy Ryan, joined that club which she enjoyed immensely, but I was just busy and also I had another little job in the evening, I worked at the– they have a drive-in theater in Camas, so I worked there after work when they were opened.

KT: Before you got married did you move out of your parents’ home?

KS: No, I didn’t move. I couldn’t afford to move until I got married.

KT: Would you had liked to move before or were you…

KS: Well, most of my friends had, and it was a time when the girls started going to college or getting work on their own when things started settling down, and they had apartments of their own, but I couldn’t afford it, and was looking forward, I thought someday I was going to get married and I needed to have some money to start my life with. Really, I notice with most of the Greek girls they did stay with their parents mostly until they were married. They have a different style now, they move in with their boyfriend and live together [laughs].

KT: What do you think about that?

KS: I think, to each his own, see, but we weren’t brought up in that way, but that’s fine.

KT: Tell me about how you met your husband.

KS: At the coffee shop he’d come in with the chief and so I was introduced to him, he was a new kid on the block and we got married within two years. We got married in, well it was ’59 so it had to be two years, and I still worked at the restaurant. I was trying to think, I have some papers at the time that we sold the place, we had a good offer [train goes by]…

KT: So when you sold the place, what did you do after that? Did you work or were you a stay at home mom?

KS: No, just a little bit of help different places, doing a lot of volunteer work which I’m still involved with and that was the extent of that. I worked at different little places for like a little extra help for doing things. My husband had a good job and then I sort of relaxed a little bit.

KT: Did you have children?

KS: No. I have one adopted son, and my husband had two children when we got married.

KT: So you had step-children? And you had an adopted son.

KS: Yes, but the step-children were not with us, they were with their mother.

KT: But the adopted child lived with you?

KS: And did that work out?

KT: Yes, yes.

KT: He’s alive today? He’s here?

KS: Oh yes and he lives in Washougal.

KT: Is that your grandchild?

KS: Great.

KT: Wow.

KS: [Laughs] Yes.

KT: Are you still a member of the Greek Orthodox Church?

KS; Yes, definitely.

KT: But you never had your own here?

KS: No, we’ve never had a church here, that was the inconvenience my parents had too you know because it was hard driving, going over there and of course we didn’t have a 205 bridge at the time when my parents were alive either, but no, that’s our church.

KT: And you never had a church in Vancouver?

KS: No, they try, once in a whole they have meetings or something at church, but I don’t know how successful they were. Yes, all of us kids were baptized in the Greek Orthodox Church.

KT: After the war did different ethnic groups move in? Was there an influx of any kind of new people?

KS: No, I don’t remember. We start in when they’re talking and like during the war that they just needed help and then a lot of people would come and they say “Oh, the Oakies moved in,” well, people came because they needed, they were calling for help here, from Oklahoma they needed work, they were coming from, a lot of my friends I would talk to them too, they ‘d come from Missouri, they come from Wisconsin, they came because they needed work, they were needing help.

KT: Women?

KS: Well, I don’t know whether the women were coming with their families so they had to be with their husbands and whether the women would get into work too, I suppose.

KT: Oh so do you mean this is before or after the war?

KS: Yeah. Well it was during, maybe before or after. There was work to be had out here so they all came, that mill put a lot of people to work.

KT: When you had your restaurant were there any non-white ethnic minorities in town?

KS: No, you know I don’t remember, not like what we see today. I don’t know, I don’t remember that at all. The only ones that I remember, like I said, that we had the Mexican family, and of course, and that one black person, but other than that, and people needed help and they got the help here. Most of them that we knew and talked to, they just felt lucky that they had a job at the mill, and a lot of time it was a generation, and father, and the son, and the grandson they would work and retire from the mill and a lot of them made excellent progress.

KT: Do you think Camas has changed?

KS: Oh definitely.

KT: How?

KS: I think a lot better. The only thing is that we felt with my generation was that they were afraid to let– they kept the progress down in the town I think that. Because I remember when we were still downtown that different businesses wanted to come in and they were sort of close-knit, and we had the mill and we felt secure and they didn’t want anyone else to come in and settle, but then the outlying districts come in and the big malls and the big cities and a lot of people were not doing all of their big shopping downtown and they felt secure because they had JC Penny’s to shop and then all of a sudden all of those places were closing down. I think they’re getting back to the basics now, people are coming in and they’re not trying to keep them out as much and I don’t think that they are able to do that.

KT: So who were they trying to keep out?

KS: Well, I don’t remember exactly, but it would be different, I remember one time some sort of a manufacturing…

[Begin Side A, Tape 2 of 2]

KS: Sorry I didn’t have some of those dates down, should have dug up some papers.

KT: Don’t worry about that. Sounds like the Greek community became very well integrated.

KS: Yes, yes. With the younger generation and the kids, you know, going into service and then moving on and then finally some of the older Greeks had to confront the idea that theory children were going to marry people other than the Greek people, which has happened and which has been great for our church too, which has come a long way with that too that they have a lot of young generation in there that’s doing a great job for our church.

KT: Did your parents object to you marrying a non-Greek?

KS: No, not at all. And of course, they thought I was getting a little bit too picky because I wasn’t getting married too early [laughs]. I just didn’t feel that I wanted to get married until the right person. I wasn’t gonna get married because– some of my friends were getting married because of their age and in those days if you’re past twenty [laughs] or so you should be married. But now I like this idea that they got, they got some of the of the gals that are waiting to have– the get married later and have babies later, which is great. I think that’s nice too because a lot of them they can afford now to stay home with their children, where the moms belong I feel.

KT: Do you remember much about when Bonneville Dam was built?

KS: Yes. I was in school I remember and our class, when Roosevelt was going to come up and do the dedication and I remember the bus went up, I remember that. I was in junior high I think.

KT: Did people from Camas work on the building of the dam?

KS: A few that I knew about. A few of the young fellows. Not very many that I knew. But they hired a lot of people up there also, yes.

KT: Did the dam change Camas? Affect it in any way?

KS: I don’t know about that. I don’t remember.

KT: Any issues with flooding?

KS: No. I know the connection with the Bridge of Gods though, you know, that was good for this sight too.

KT: What’s that?

KS: That was accessible to get in, you know the Oregon side and the Washington side, I know that they had that.

KT: ‘Cause it came in before 84 of course… or 204.

KS: Yes. The 204 bridge, yeah. I know that there were a few men that did work up on Bonneville Dam, they just had a lot of workers down there. That’s what I say about the northwest, there was a lot of work to be had over here, a lot of people came, a lot of people stayed.

KT: Is the Columbia River a big part of Camas do you think, or how does the Columbia River fit into Camas?

KS: Oh, I think it is. Yes, very much so.

KT: What has it’s importance been do you think?

KS: Well, the mill used that river for a lot because of the paper products and their lumber and such, yeah, I think so. I think that it, yeah, it was one of the main…

KT: Transportation?

KS: Oh sure, yeah. Because the bridge even without interstate bridge they still had– they needed the barges, they needed the boats, they needed the ships, definitely. That connection.

KT: Did you ever use the Columbia for recreation?

KS: For myself?

KT: Yes.

KS: No, no. But the people that could afford their boats and such, yes that is nice and it’s a convenience.

KT: Now Camas is not so much a mill town anymore.

KS: The mill has changed so much since Crown Zellerbach and it’s changed two, three times, it’s changed it’s name, and it’s a different structure. But still it keeps us– it’s the glue that keeps us together.

KT: You think so?

KS: Oh, definitely, yeah. There’s not that much that people could say that they could live without the mill in Camas. That keeps us grounded. Even a lot of times I remember the older people saying that when they went on that last strike people were gonna start moving out, if they didn’t get jobs soon enough some of them had to make the move, that it was gonna be another ghost town, that would have been a tragedy. You know, we’re on a good spot here, right on that good water, good mountains, we’re surrounded, yeah, I like that.

KT: Do you think it’s sort of a bedroom community to Vancouver now or has it still got its own identity?

KS: Hopefully that it will, but for how long I don’t know because they’re pushing for that and it’s coming closely that they want to merge. Someday, maybe not in my time, but someday it probably will all. They tried for several years, they wanted Washougal and Camas to get together but they fought that every way, we just couldn’t understand why they didn’t want to do that and they still won’t conform to it.

KT: The Washougal people didn’t?

KS: Well, it was on both sides I think really. But see we had a little bit advantage of the size and population, but yeah, I understand. That would be just like someone telling you that you can’t live where you’re living “You have to live over here,” or maybe out in the country, which you’d hate. Yeah, it wouldn’t be fair.

KT: IS there anything else you’d like to add about Camas?

KS: No, I think it’s the best place to live. I can say that I just visiting other places you think the people are just so busy and busy, and it’s just not a rat race like you see, mostly ion TV on the big big cities, you know, this is just such an easy-going little town, and the nice part about living in a small town is that you know so many people and they make you feel welcome. I like it.

KS: Well, Kathy, thank you so much for letting me interview you.

KS: Oh, it was my pleasure.