Treasured Petaluman passes away at 104

Although it’s been silent for a half a century, there are generations of Petalumans that marked the time of day with the blaring resonance of the “five o’clock whistle” at the Poultry Producers. It blew at 8 a.m., noon, 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. signaling the plant’s workers, and everybody within earshot of the city limits, the beginning, middle and end of the work day.

For Poultry Producers employee Josephine Graham, the iconic industrial whistle served as an audible time clock. In the mid-1950s, Graham was a “miscellaneous” worker who did various jobs at the plant. Sometimes she was “carton lady” assisting the ladies on the candling line, at others she worked in the box department, but mostly she operated the oil bath, a machine that thinly covered the eggs with mineral oil, adding to their natural protective coating and making them more impervious to outside odors and flavors and preventing internal shrinkage. All government orders and shipments bound for overseas were put through the oil bath.

The work was demanding, if not strenuous, for the Petaluma-born Graham, who stayed at the plant until its closing in 1957, a victim of the overall downturn of the poultry industry. She then commuted daily to the Poultry Producers’ San Leandro facility until retiring in 1964.

Graham was born Oct. 13, 1912. Her parents, Manuel and Mary Thomas, lived with their eight kids at 411 Fifth St., in a house her father helped build, until they purchased a chicken and dairy ranch on King Road, where she remembers turning the handle on the cream separator, helping with the cows and raising hens.

In 1935, she and her first husband Fred Katen, along with their son Warren, lived on Bailey Avenue., where Jo raised chicks and “had the finest vegetable garden you ever saw.” She was divorced and living in town when she got a job “picking chickens,” a laborious task involving pulling all the feathers off of freshly slaughtered meat birds.

“I never suffered so much,” she vividly recalls. “It was terrible. My hands were always sore. I stayed up practically all night soaking them. The first day I worked I made 95 cents for eight hours work.”

In 1949, when she wanted to learn to drive, she bought herself a new Chevy and had friends teach her on city streets.

One of her proudest moments came when she purchased a sparkling new east side house in McDowell Village in 1952. At first, she was told she couldn’t buy a house by herself, but she persisted and closed a deal on a two-bedroom home only to find the developer had sold the same house twice. After some haggling she moved into a three-bedroom residence for the price of a two-bedroom. If it hadn’t been for that mix-up I may have never met Josephine, who’s been my neighbor since 1971.

She and her second husband of 24 years, Mark Graham, enjoyed camping in their travel trailer and fishing at Lake Mendocino and in Trinity County and made several trips back to Minnesota.

“Those were happy days, I had a good life with him,” she said of Graham, who died in 1984.

Josie lunches every day at the Senior Café, goes to functions at the Moose Lodge, and loves to attend the annual food and dance celebrations at Portuguese Hall. She’s been a member of St. James Catholic Church for many years and often goes out after church with her friends, and former Poultry Producer’s workers, Rose and Bib Ramacciotti and Vera Isermann.

While saddened by her passing, I’m uplifted by memories of her strength and independence, along with the encouragement and enjoyment she gave to others. May she rest in peace.

(Harlan Osborne’s column Toolin’ Around Town appears every two weeks. Contact him at harlan@sonic.net.)