I started working at seventeen years old for the Glengarry Telephone Company at Lochiel and I worked there for four years. The girls worked three weeks steady and then went home for one week. The hours we worked were 8 to 4, 4 to 12, and 12 to 8; changing hours with the girls. We were paid $45.00 a week.

We had to ask J.J. McCormick, the manager, every time if we wanted to go somewhere; if we didn’t, he was mad at us. One time Georgette Paiment and I wanted to go to Alexandria for shopping and we couldn’t reach him, so we went all the same without his permission. He kept our cheques for three weeks; he would not give us our cheques because we didn’t tell him. So I went to see Gérard Roy in Glen Robertson. He was an accountant so he looked after this matter of not getting our cheques; besides that he looked into the matter of not having any vacation pay since we started working for Glengarry Telephone. So at the end of all this the girls got their vacation pay and we got our cheques.

J.J. McCormick was very strict with us; we were slaves at the Glengarry Telephone Company. We couldn’t have hardly any visitors so we would not be disturbed. He wanted to know everything that went on in the building. If someone came to play cards we would hide the boots or coats so he wouldn’t see them.

I replaced Agathe (St. Denis) Lepage; she was pregnant so she left. I worked with Claudette (St. Denis) Quesnel, Mary (Kennedy) MacCormick, Georgette Paiment and Yolande (Bélair) Séguin. We girls really got along very well together. J.J. McCormick was even walking in front of the telephone exchange building to see what was going on and try to see if we were doing anything wrong; so he was very strict. Janet McCormick was such a good person but she had to do what he said. So after Georgette and I went to work for Bell in Alexandria because we had enough of these problems.

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