VOL. I

MAY, 1942

NO. 11

Published at the Hespeler, Ontario Plant of Dominion Woollens and Worsteds, Limited

ON ACTIVE SERVICE

W300860 AW2 Gladys Parker

No. 6 S.F.T.S., Dunnville, Ontario.

Gladys Parker has the honour of being the first D. W. & W. girl to enter armed forces, and is also the first Hespeler girl to enlist for active service. Born in Hespeler 23 years ago, she later moved with her parents to Guelph. She gained her public school education at Guelph and at Maple Grove School, and attended Preston Continuation School for two years.

She joined D. W. & W. Cloth Finishing staff as a “specker” in October 1932, and for the past six years has been a member of the burling and mending staff.

Interested in girls’ work, Gladys has been one of those responsible for the success of the Girl Guides’ work in Hespeler and Preston. She was a member of the organization for five years prior to enlisting for active service, and held the rank of lieutenant.

In February 1941, Gladys joined the Red Cross Auxiliary Service Corps in Galt. She enlisted on December 18, 1941, with the Royal Canadian Air Force Women’s Division at Hamilton, as a Hospital Sister, and was sent to Manning Pool, Toronto, for training. She is now on duty at No. 6 Service Flying Training School at Dunnville.

Gladys Parker

Can You Help Win The War?

How You Can Add Your Bit to the Avalanche That Will Swamp Hitler

Will you help? That question is hardly worth asking. Of course you will if you can. How you can help is another matter. Every job you have to do has a direct effect on our war effort. You are doing a good job, too, as production figures can testify. But you can do a little bit better. It is that little bit freely given that makes the difference between a regimented Nazi who takes orders, and you—a wilful, stubborn, pig headed democrat who can take orders, if necessary, and who can dish them out too.

No—this isn’t a sales talk about working harder and longer. It isn’t the fast and furious who roll out record productions. It’s the steady and relentless. Your head can turn out as much production as your hands. Give it a chance. There are a couple of dozen men who don’t do much else but cook up schemes for doing things easier and better and making sure they stay that way. They are pretty successful, too. But you are a thousand. A Thousand heads can hatch forty times as many ideas as a couple of dozen. True, the couple of dozen were specially trained and on the whole hatch out fewer screwy ideas than the untrained. But there was nothing mysterious about the training. It was largely a matter of forming a habit of digging out facts instead of guesses. You know more facts about your job than anyone else if you can just separate them from the guesses.

Start hatching now. You CAN help.

Beauty of the Month

Little Miss Virginia Davis makes the prettiest picture we have seen this month. Her daddy is Gordon Davis, automatic weaver.

Production Counts Now

The war is coming out of the back stretch and entering the turn that leads to the home stretch. From here on it has to be all out. Most plants are now tooled up or nearly so, and a flood of production is due that will make all previous records look like peanuts. So far as D. W. & W. is concerned everything takes second place to khaki serge. Every woollen card, except one, is now making filling for khaki and that one will be turned over to khaki also as soon as a new tape condenser arrives like the one Joe Runstedtler is tending above. Day and night, work days and holidays, khaki must keep pouring out. Week-end shut downs are necessary to repair equipment but all others are lost time and time that is gone forever. Already many workers have been transferred to different jobs to help keep this production going, and volunteers have stepped in for a day or two at a time to fill up the gaps and replace workers who are ill.

D. W. & W. production is vital to Canada’s war effort in more ways than it would be wise to explain to you in print. Every department and every worker is directly concerned with it. If the material you handle is not khaki coloured, do not think it is unimportant. It may be khaki before it is finished. If you are working on the small portion of civilian goods that is still in production, remember that the folks at home must still be clothed and you are helping to release some other mill’s looms from the burden of civilian production so they can make war materials too. It is not possible to run D. W. & W. 100% on khaki yet and it may never be.

The Army is depending on us. We will not let them down. We have done fairly well so far. We are going to do better.

Letters from the Boys

The Editor:

Received your February paper today and it struck me that I’d ignorantly forgotten to send my appreciation for your Christmas cigarettes. I do now, and with them my thanks for this month’s edition.

Might I add that your photographer is a lucky person—the new showers are very alluring, but my nurse (I’m in a hospital at present) can’t, for the life of her, see what “towelled beauties” have to do with the manufacture of woollen goods. Between you and I, she’s just a pessimistic character with a crab-apple face.

Please publish my congratulations to Doug Midgley on his promotion to sergeant.

Thanks again,

A35344 Bdr. Geo. Oliver,
16th Field Batty.,
12th Fd. Reg., R.C.A.,
Canadian Army Overseas.

BORN

April 5, a son, Kenneth Gordon, to Mr. and Mrs. William Devine.

April 7th, a son, Jerry Thomas, to Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Highton.

April 27, a daughter, Patricia, to Mr. and Mrs. Aubrey Proud.

April 28, a son, Frederick Laurence, to Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Hall.

April 30, a son, John George, to Mr. and Mrs. E. H. Coffey.

Old Lady Gets New Petticoat

Textiles Essential to War Effort

Works Council is Assured that Textiles are Essential War Production Despite Selective Service Regulations

As a result of questions raised at the previous meeting, Works Council on May fourth were assured that the government considered textiles an essential war production and that selective service regulations were designed to encourage the employment of women and older men in the industry and not to discourage production. A telegram from Minister of Labour Mitchell was read confirming this attitude. Council were informed that every effort would be made to avoid placing men of military age on jobs that could be done by others but that nothing would be allowed to stand in the way of delivering materials demanded by the Department of Munition and Supply.

Council reviewed the sales of War Savings Certificates and reported that while 98% of all employees were subscribers the total value of sales was only 2.6% of payroll per week against an objective of 5%. Several similar plants in the district were reported to be well over the objective.

Council discussed the salvage of waste and heard complaints that nails, bolts and other foreign objects carelessly thrown into waste containers or swept up with waste constituted a serious hazard and might damage machines so severely that equipment urgently needed for war production might have to shut down for long periods of repair.

KILLED ON ACTIVE SERVICE

May 7th—Leading Aircraftman Norman Fleischman was reported killed in a flying accident in Newfoundland yesterday. No details are available.

Letters to the Editor

The Editor:

Just a line to acknowledge receipt of the cigarettes you sent and thank you and those responsible for the kindness. They have been arriving at regular intervals along with your paper which I assure you is greatly appreciated, not only by myself, but the many other fellows receiving them.

It is a year now since I left the old town, and judging from the list of births, deaths and marriages I see in your paper, it will be hard to recognize the place when I get back.

How are Chris From, Tommy Hodges and all the boys of the wool barn getting along? Tell Chris I never did get that letter he told the wife he was going to write, and I would appreciate hearing from them all. It gets pretty lonesome at times and we get tired of hanging around doing nothing, but we have moved down on the Channel coast now and may see some fun soon.

A28421 Gnr. J. Woods,
16th L.A.A. Bty., R.C.A.,
3rd Cdn. L.A.A. Regt.,
Canadian Army Overseas.

Editor D. W. & W. News:

I take this opportunity of drawing your attention to the picture on page 4 of February D. W. & W. News. I find that there is a glaring case of force used in order to get a day’s work done although it does not state the hour it has to be applied. I think it is a case for the Minister of Labor—or is it? Maybe it should be for the Humane Society to prevent this act of using a wrench and standing over this poor workman who looks scared to death.

What would Mr. Abe Lincoln think about this in the year 1942—and a war on.

John Coulton.

Two Way Traffic

Traffic jams in lunch room called for a new front door. Iva Rung and Adele Reinhart demonstrate.

D. W. & W. ENLISTMENTS

Army ………………52
Air Force …………29
Navy ……………….0
____________________
106

MARRIED

Ada McKellar to Leonard Bauer. Will reside in Kitchener.

Vonda Barron to Stanley Lemmon. Will reside in St. Marys.

Marion Turley to Arthur Cullaton. Will reside in Galt.

ACTIVE SERVICE ADDRESSES

R122999 Dalgleish G.L.
No. 6 S.F.T.S.,
Dunnville, Ontario.

A2830 Gnr. Allen I. Gamble,
7th Med. Bty.,
5th Canadian Medium Regt., R.C.A.,
Canadian Army Overseas.

W300878 A.W. 2 Neighbauer, E.M.,
R.C.A.F., (W.D.) No. 2 S.F.T.S.,
Uplands, Ontario

R114277 LAC. Reist, N.J.,
R.C.A.F. 412 Squadron,
Canadian Army Overseas.

A28421 Gnr. Jack Woods,
16th L.A.A. Bty., R.C.A.
3rd Cdn. L.A.A. Reg.,
Canadian Army Overseas.

A37521 Pte. Glen Allen,
H.L.I. of C.,
Canadian Army Overseas.

A37326 Pte. J. Armstrong,
H.L.I. of C., “B” Company,
Canadian Army Overseas.

A11166 Pte. Fred Baker,
“A” Co., Perth Regt., (Motors),
5th Canadian (Armoured) Division,
Canadian Army Overseas.

AC2 LaVerne Bartels,
No. 2 Wing, No. 2 Squadron, T.T.S.,
(E. 88) St. Thomas, Ontario.

A37397 Pte. Alfred Berrington Jr.,
“B” Company,
H.L.I. of C.,
Canadian Army Overseas.

R66499 Cpl. Hector Bird,
No. 5 Manning Depot,
Lachine Que.

A9119 Pte. Fred Bloomfield,
1st Div. Petrol Coy., R.C.A.S.C.,
Canadian Army Overseas.

Fred Bloomfield

PERSONALITIES

Bessie Pillgrem, who left the employ of the Company on April 10th to take a position in Hamilton, was presented with a set of travelling bags on behalf of the office staff.

Jack Coughlin was presented with a leather stationary case on behalf of the office staff before leaving to enlist with the Air Force.

Reta Bartels was presented with a bag by the members of the office staff when she resigned her position on April 10th.

Mrs. Arthur Cullaton (nee Marion Turley) who left the Company on April 3rd to be married was presented with a twin Duncan Phyfe table on behalf of the office Staff.

The Payroll Dept. gathered at the home of Mrs. Harold Schultz, Preston, where Reta Bartels was guest of honour. During the evening Reta was presented with a half dozen crystal goblets on behalf of the girls before leaving the Company.

Mrs. Stanley Lemmon (nee Vonda Barron) was presented with a coffee table and a vase by the Burling and Mending Dept. on April 10th, when she left to be married.

Lieut. Charlie Barrett, home from overseas to take a staff course, visited the mill on April 21st. He said he had been detached from the H.L.I. of C. for duty, but when he last saw them the boys were well and cheerful and ready to go.

D. W. & W. was well represented at the annual safety convention of the Industrial Accident Prevention Association held in Toronto last month. Those attending were Nurse Baker, Gordon Klager, Cameron Macnab and Fred Hutchings, Mac’s address on “Guarding the Worker” given at the Textile and Allied Industries Safety Association’s meeting was well received.

Airwoman E.M. Neighbauer of the R.C.A.F. (W.D.), was a member of the class of airwomen cooks who graduated at the R.C.A.F. school of cookery at Guelph on April 17th.

Four employees, Karl Kruger, William Smellie, Bob Caswell and George Kohli have been called for military training. Since our last issue, Harry O’Krafka, Bruce Jackson, Robert Inglis, Ted Hodges and George Kohli have enlisted for active service from the training centre.

PIT stop (Gord Klager)

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1 Comment

J. A. Brent on May 21, 1942 at 3:21 pm

Just a few lines to thank you for the paper which I am receiving each month. It’s swell to able to read about what is going on at the mill. Seeing familiar faces is also a great reminder of what we left behind.

I also thank you very kindly for the cigarettes you have sent me, I appreciate it from the bottom of my heart.

May the future bring you an abundance of success.

A37975 Pte. J.A. Brent,
Headquarters Coy., H.L.I. of C.,
Canadian Army Overseas.
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