Part V - Government, a supplement to the Big Rapids Pioneer Newspaper. Used with permission.

WOMEN IN LUMBER CAMPS WERE THE EXCEPTION NOT THE RULE

By Jo Gray - Special to the Pioneer


There were a few women allowed in the lumber camp settlement.

The exception was a married couple, generally a foreman and wife, who had separate quarters or an experienced female cook or cookee.

In a camp near the village of Mecosta, Bessie Cook Green came with her family at age 15 and worked as a dishwasher and breakfast baker.

As she became older, she had the responsibility of driving a tote wagon into town for supplies to last two weeks, leaving before daybreak and returning after dark.

A typical load of supplies for just one week for a camp of 100 men consisted of six barrels of four, two and one half barrels of beef, two and one half barrels of pork, eight bushels of potatoes, three bushels of onions, one quarter barrel of pickles; one barrel sugar, 25 pounds iof tea, 16 pounds of coffee, 58 pounds of butter, 40 pounds of lard, prunes and other dried fruits, salt and pepper, mustard, spices, and sausage.

The success of a lumbering campsoulkd often be attributed to having a good cook. Foreman Jack Mitchell's wife was considered an exceptional cook in an Upper Peninsula Camp.

She arose at three o'clock to cook for 80 to 100 men and was attended by two cookees who washed tin mugs and plates, scrubbed the floors, and waited on hungry men three times daily.

Breakfast consisted of stacks of pancakes, fried potatoes, sausage, bacon, steaks, camp-made bread, cookies and doughnuts washed down with steaming hot mugs of coffee sweetened with brown sugar and condensed milk.

A 60 pound lard can was used to raise pancake batter.

A 11 o'clock six mornings a week, Mrs. Mitchell sent oit a horse drawn sleigh with lunch to men in the cuttings of the deep woods on the skidways ... beef stew, ham, pork, canned tomatoes, canned vegetables, beans, corn, stewed prunes, cookies, pies, and a big boiler of coffee to be heated on the campfire.

Mrs. Mitchell baked 35 or more pies per day of cherries, apricots, dried apples, raisins and berries. Bread and rolls were baked on alternate days. She cut her own quarters of beef and whole carcasses of pork and could shoulder 100 pounds of sugar or flour.

She ordered out of the kitchen or the dining area any jack who was out of line and was known to have confronted one man with a knife when he complained that the potatoes were burned and the coffee tasted like shoe polish.

She also was very competent with a gun. One day, she set out for a walk in the woods with her daughter. With a gun in hand, her goal was to shoot partridge. Instead, she encountered a huge black bear and with a single shot brought the beast to the ground.

She calmly wlked back to camp and recruited two lumberjacks to haul the bear back to camp. Her reward was a beautiful bearskin coat.

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