Document text
1.
Miss Mary Tomasi
63 Barre St.
Montpelier, Vt.
Tbe Granite Worker
TWO IRISH GRANITE WORXERS
0004aimpsaly a breeze stirred to movement the scrObby,
dusty growth an Quarry Hill. For the most part there was
stillness. Stillness of motion: clouds transfixed in a
weighted, humid air. Stillness of soundt the quarrymen
from neigbhomIng pits had finithed their day's work and
were gone. Silence, except for some bird -call thrilling
its echo across the dame of abandoned quarries. Sun
biased an the granite blocks jutting fres the quarry rim.
They encrusted the gaping mouth like bard old sores. It
was a heavy heat. It pressed a hotness in rock and earth,
gave it up again in shimmering, muggy waves. Deep down,
the cragged mouth held a motionless pool of water. Green
in the sunlight. Green -cool in the *bade of slanting
granite walla.
A motor broke the stillness. A car was climbing the
hills. It coiled a trail of duet around the lower hill,
close lying like sluggish mist. Two men, one in a bathtng
suit, stepped from the car. They were stoneoutters.
went home to change," the one in the hatbillg suit
said. They were both young, in their forties. "If I'd
put my work clothes on again after going in swimming, I'd
feel worse than I do now. I know. I've tried it before.
The dust from the clothes gets on to your wet skin and
sticks there like a pests. 1985$
2.
",c) come up here a lot in the summer when it's real
hot. The only trouble is we like to go home first and
change. No, not to Barre, to Vebsterville. A bunch of
kids from Uebsterville used to come up here to swim.
Their folks have tried to put a stop to it. It's danger-
ous. There was a boy drowned up here last year. His
father worked beside me in the shed. I'll never forget
his face when a neighbor came in and told him. His face
went dead -white, and all he could do was stand there stiff
as a poker and say over and over, 'Jim. Little Jim' His
eyes were hard and almost popping out of his head. The
hArner slipped from his hands and. Chipped the stone he
was working an. Sure, It was spoiled. Uo one ever said
anything to him. I guess he doesn't know to this day.
7o, the boy hadn't been swimming. lie was just a baby.
!Tot quite five years old. Lc and his playmates came up
to watch the older crowd swim. They were playing around
at the edge. e fell over the side. Dashed from one
sharn rock tc another, and finally landed in the pool
there at the bottom. lie must have been killed instantly.
His back uas broken and his hip, and I don't know how
many more bones. Ho, it's strange, his face wasn't
even bruised. Dut there was a deep, jagged cut on the
back of his head, cut right through the skull.
it's taught a lot of the kids to keep away from these
old quarries.
"TTave I been in the sheds long? Loll, 23 years.
3.
I'd call it pretty long. I started three yers after I
quit school. I had one year of high school, then I worked
for a Barre furniture store. There was an opening in the
shed where my father worked, so I went to work with him,
lie had come over from County Mayo, Ireland. One of my
brothers was born over there. My father used to tell
that most of the first Irish who came to work in the sheds
settled in Viebsterville. There were so many of them that
they used to call it Now Ireland.
"Ily father worked in the Sheds 44 years, with never
a day off from sickness until be died, He was a big,
husky man. T.J0 used to tell us stories of the fellows who
are at the top of the granite industry today. They were
Just beginnimn, to be big shots then, it kinda went to
their heads. They liked to chow off. -Torso-racing an
the ice was popular then. Yes, on the river. Anyone
who had the money and liked horses awned one. Three fel-
lows, a couple of them were from -Larre and one from Mont-
pelier, had entered their heroes in a race. An English-
man, a (11Daniard„ and a German. Sure, I remember their
names. That's the story. They were: Henry Lord, Jesus
,1Ja,
and Joe -.:T.rist. Veil, it was one of these Irish
stonecutters who cot to the top in the granite business
that yelled out the entries that day. He was feeling
pretty good. You couldn't race horses on that river un-
less it was eold, and the ice thick. So the ones that
could afford it and the ones that couldn't, too used
to rot tanked up. When the races started they were always
a happy, celebrating crowd. They'd announce the names of
the owners of the horses, not the names of the horses. It
nade it more interesting. Well, this Irishman jumped on a
barrel and yelled, 'The next participants will be Lord,
Jesus, Kristl'
"7fo, I can't say I dislike granite work. I knew that
it would be when I started 23 years ago. There's no use
complaining now. I don't lite the idea of being laid off
so often. It wasn't like that years ago. Everything was
boominc then, and granite more than ever. Dut it's slumped
now. I have three kids of my awn. I don't want them to
learn the trade. There's no future in it, and lots of
headaches. I won't have to worry about that for awhile.
They're still in school.
"That '22 strike is over. I [;uess the less said about
those rrenchnon, the better. They certainly did a good job
of breaking the strike. The funny part of it is that many
of those sane rrenchmen are still here in the sheds today,
and they're an strong Union non as you would expect to find
an.,ywhere. I don't think they realized what they were doing
in '22; most of them hadn't done granite work before. .-elve
tried to forget about '22. There are renchmen working be-
side ne. 411. never talk about it. They don't want to, and
we don't want to. It had to happen, it's over with and
finished now. There's no use opening an old sore. he
have to work together, vie niht as well be friends..."