St. Mary's Graduation Reunion Interview with Bro. O'malley Part 1

Okay, so why don't we start at the beginning, when did you arrive at St. Mary's? I arrived in St. Mary's in March 1962. The conventional American province had sent me here to replace brother Al Perry. I'm more or less to watch out from the mission property to the maintenance and so forth. At that time, we'd come from Bethel, Flyover, and Sessen, Skis, Manon, and Ice in the River, that the fields have not been put in here at St. Mary's up to the present time. What was the village like then? There was no village. There was just several cabins,

and Shafer had built a store down here where Pat Beanseer was a storekeeper. What was one of your first tasks, and when we were talking just a few minutes ago, you said the school used to burn more from here? Well, one of the first tasks was the conversion from wood, which the school burned about 400 quads a year, driftwood, and willows suck on them by willows during the winter, and that was when the first ones of conversion jacking up the old looking one of type boiler, placing a firebox under it, assisted by Moses John, Moses Paulkin, and Sebastian cowboy. Time for you to surround 20 above, I believe. It took us 24 hours. We weren't quite sure what we were doing, never having done that specific job before, and there was about 20 above,

November buildings were getting a new on the coal side, where we finally switched over. Was it a smooth transition to fuel oil from wood? I mean, were there any problems? I mean, you get to the point where it's beyond problems. You're designed on faith, but it all means. When I saw a brother finish about this, he said that there was a big backfire one day in a recital. Well, other than myself, would never fire oil fire burners before, it was one of those unknowns, plus the whole installation, which every installation has is quicks, and the Sebastian cowboy was down there trying to get the burner going, and she had a fire back. He came up far there, and all he could see is his eyes, the building being all open, the silt wound all open to chapel, while the sisters called the school and turned the girls loose,

the clean up. Those were in days where the inside jobs were the girls, and the outside jobs were the boys. What were some of the jobs that the kids had to do? Well, the sister tucker was in the big shops. She had the girls there making bread, plus the kitchen, the cafeteria, clean the house. The boys did all the outside jobs, the hall and the trash, wood details, which brother managed to take a detailed boys out, and the cut willows to supplement the wood, plus bringing in the supplies from the warehouse, groceries, and so forth. Any jobs, seven snow, and so forth, which was all integrated into the total education. But you came in 62, and in 63, there was a major fire. Yes. Talk about the fire. Well, at one time, or at that time, there was only two buildings here, few cabins in the village. And the buildings have been built primarily with surplus materials,

foot decks on the rails, and somehow rather, there's more or less more comments on how it's started, but it started one building in the afternoon. For my own observation and background training, I had had my fingers crossed on these buildings right from the time I'd been here, but no one was in the building, somehow or other, the fire got, and it went on no time. Well, what amazed me, as isolated as it was at the time, first I turned around, there was a state trooper there. At that period, you'd kill an animal, and you'd be yanked up right now, you could kill another person. They'd never to go up. Turned around again, there was a national guard. Well, I didn't believe. It was unbelievable, but they were coming back from their training for it. They saw the smoke. And they had a connecting causeway between the two buildings, and of course, everything went in, and the breeze was blowing it right up to this building.

You could so see if you took the sheen off where this building caught, come up there, sister, though, we didn't have a place to snatch if I'd buzz at my drop there, the winds shifted and blew the other way. You had to see it, the believer was fabulous. And then, go ahead, continue. So, they just burned that old building down. What happened? You didn't take wrong. It was a drive. Did you bulldoze out the little connecting? Definitely. My master plan from there, I mean, was to bring a separation. So, if one building went down, you had another one to move into. Because at that time, if we had not continued the school year, which was an additional six weeks where we'd all moved into this building, it might mean very much about living aboard ship, the crowded conditions, the separation of boys and girls. I do not believe that there'd be a Saint Mary's here today if the school year had not been finished. Because they, in Bethau, they were already ready to evacuate the kids.

There was no other housing here in the city or the village at the time that would absorb that number. So, everybody moved into this remains the main building. Okay. So, what happened after? How long did it take before some of the buildings were replaced? Well, right away, because I believe Father Poole was superior at the time, one of the needs was basketball court. So, we got fortunate, we got the material in the boat, at least a court. And we had to have webs here who was a prefect of the boys. In that year, he took the boys down and we'd had the stripping down the row here, and you'd train the boys all winter. And it was first year it went to the tournament in

Bethau, and the one on their wound, being outside training. I don't believe they've ever had a team sense to compare with it. You know, you get them inside and warm bearing, everything is more than us going to be in. It's absent in something. So, then the fortunate bishop, Bruce, and come up with the matures for the building, and then the, we went to it, of course, snowing the ground and everything, clear the ground, and we had a cure of the piling concrete piers under a tent to the cured. It worked pretty good. We could just slide them in position for their uprights, and we had that for the gym. For the gym. Well, that was the first replacement. See the essential. Then the next were the boys' dorm. And supposedly, there's supposed to been a machine shop, and the cut-and-shop got none of that fire, which never was. But eventually, Moses John built one over here from the material of salvage from the old smokehouse. So he used to smoke about 29,000 salmon a year.

Were they still smoking fish when you first came here? No, they'd begin to taper off. Do you know what the reason was for that? Well, a lot of that was from, was a carrier from a cooler rack. See, down in the cooler rack, people would all come in for the how they, like Christmas, see the kids, and also, and they'd have to, as I was told by sisters, classical, they'd have to have enough fish to feed all those dog teams. God, they'd have 100 dogs there, you know, at times. Plus, for the needs of the mission, and all of the mission had dog teams, I understand. Brother Murphy was down there. He used to have to make their mail run up the mountain village. That's where the post office, I understand, was at the time. So what was starting to taper off when you first came? Were they still putting up fish at all? Well, it was this Saturday, I believe it was my second year. So you have to that period, they had the kids the year around. And then at that time, I'm doing follow pools in our not decision-making process to where it was felt, it was better to send the kids home for the summer months,

be home with their family. So it began to taper off then. Though we still retained some to work in this cannery, you come packers. Okay, how about the cannery? Talk a little bit about the cannery, what you remember about how that started. As I, to my understanding, it was started at a quitter rat, my father animal as a little small, hand-packed operation. And by the time I had arrived here, he had purchased his cannery line from some cannery in Cordova in the international guard to hide them in. And when I arrived, Father Astrich, his son here, was assigned to operate the cannery. And he's down there trying to figure out where the father animal had moved off onto the cannery, the cabin, which was the bishop's barge line that ran the river from here to Fairbanks. So then our biggest pack, of course, that was also used by Father Astrich. It was turning to a copper co-op as a schooling for the local people in how to organize their city,

which is the present city of St. Mary's. And then our biggest pack was 15,000 cases of 48 wouldn't have pollen cans. Where did the fish go from there? At that time, to my understanding, the fish, it was just a king salmon pack with the high oil plant, wound up on the Jewish market in New York City. Of course, if you go to Seattle, the fish is in Alaska, the fish is controlled through Seattle. And I know, as soon as the cannery was finished, Father Astrich had had the head for Seattle in order for the following year, in order to get it in the barge before it frees up, the last barge of the year. So you had to work on that. You didn't have these aircraft bringing things in today like they do. And there's also to raise the economic level of the local people. I know the Mike families, when I first came here, Father Astrich went down to

believe it. They're not caught up in the cannery. They're the cabin on the barge. They moved them up here. They all worked in the cannery. It's cool with their money. They raised the economic and there's one of the outstanding families, I would say here in St. Mary's, so there's others. So when did the cannery cease population? Well, they got the economic grant and I'm a little hasey. That's why I would have to have my career for to get the right dates for the building. Just what you can recall. For the city dock and the coal storage, the evolution in the fish processing business is tremendous. It was coming in. And the material, the Father Astrich had got material in through the vision for the floor, which is now the warehouse or the floor of the present warehouse, which was originally intended as a floor of the new cannery. With the sanitary inspectors, clam of down, tighter and tighter on cleanliness and food processing and so forth.

So the construction of the coal storage down here in the city, that was no further need for this operation because the mission is not the policy and the mission being in the competition with private enterprise. So that is one phase where they've taken over. Well, it was all moved down over to that. They took over and then we just backed the mission as such in the bishop. It was his his cannery and the title of Yukon Packers. That was a corporate title. And that just ceased the function. And then all the equipment. Yeah, we had a we had the sifton, which used to go down river and bring the kids up river. Three pickup boats, which were crystal bay fishing boats, plus several barges, which it was also one of my functions to maintain them. So you have done use a condition in the

indonesia rescue here, having two breakups. The indonesia rescue are break up and then the Yukon comes down and backs up again. And that means you had to sweat out twice so that ice getting around the props and the holes of those ships. Of course, in the freeze up in the wintertime, you had to get some logs on them so they wouldn't freeze to the bottom. It would barge if they freeze to the bottom. When they're lifted, it pops the planks right off and they stayed at the bottom and they come up. So then then all the equipment eventually got sold off. Eventually, matter of fact, Al Perry, who had became layer-sized and continued to work in the fishing industry and he'd found a purchase for the cannery line. I think down in Southeast Illinois Islands native villages down there. So most of the equipment is eventually sold off. I'd like you to talk a little bit about your office downstairs and basement.

Well, on the process, when we all moved in this building after the fire, there was a very little space. The border was down there. I had to be close to the border, so I moved to bunking there and became my office in the process. Of course, it was right across from the cafeteria where the kids, the kids used to lie on line up there and in the process, there was an office being there. It was one of the best places to work to work with the kids, because in the classroom, in that classroom discipline situation, when they get down there and open up and let loose go line up, you're really working with them. I found out when I tried to figure out how to work, but I don't know, I just look back after how the amount I used to handle the men I had in the sun to me in the service. Good work, the same. Deal with them as people, respect their viewpoints, ask a question, lay it on the line.

Okay, you had some help in your office and talk a little bit about that. Well, that was, of course, that was part of the total education of the students is to have more work in these various offices around here. You had the administrators office than Sister Lucy had the school records. Of course, I had the plant office down there. So, working with Sister Monique and the girls dorm, who was at the times in charge of the girls, she had signed the girls there and at the time, Father Asick had brought in to Weather Station as a student teaching device by the Weather Service. So, we'd have that sign have it, I'd have it for two months, a girl, one to break the next one in. And in the same time, they take the weather every day for which they got $1.60 or something like that in observation. Well, that time, they didn't have much money.

You know, it's really a big L. It's also an incentive for them to take the weather, plus they'd run a little bit work, and I still got some of my girls here on a good spots. I know, when the president, maybe if I got a girl, then I could get her to write a letter, and she got a respond to it. Oh, man, that was a good job. Something's job training. And any time I could get a teacher that I could work with, who would give them the three in the classroom, and I could give them the bathroom, if they're doing a wrap-up job. But sad to say, there's a word, not too many teachers that I could work with. Some reason, other, you constantly hear their turn, lack of communication, lack of language, some learning, some understanding of what it's going on. At one time, I remember when I was here, you got involved on the city council.

Oh, no, no, no, what that looked like. What? You know, hardware master, the same marriage. Well, at that period, there were not too many of us with all these jobs. So, all right, stand, Paulkin. Oh, I must stand when passed on. In the city council, Moses, Paulkin. There's only a few of us that had any comprehension of the ID. So, all right, I was on the city council for several years. I ended training the younger ones coming up. It was a zoning commission, and then having been in the coast guard, they come around and the part addiction that laid out the total plan. See, how about setting up the court of St. Mary's? Not knowing a thing about it, never been in that business aspect. It was a learning experience. Very satisfying. Of course, that was all the mission of the only one that had the equipment at the time. City had no equipment at the time. Of course, all the mission equipment used.

We all came us up onto their lot. Interesting, you know, people can idolize an ideal, but when it comes to curtain and then practice, or as a different ball game, and I was right in there. Of course, I was able to assist by some of the older men in town. One of the memories that I have of my years here was, well, I talked about the D6 or my D6. Well, I was up for Fairbanks, and I walked by this tractor with a bit of the pelvis as a place up. There's heavily a couple of what's known as the bros, send that down. I figured I'd never see it in my garden in the next summer. And then some photos operating the canary pool and the boats in and out of the water and everything. At that period, it was absolutely one of the most essential pieces of equipment that was needed here. That's what time questions to know around and all that. Did you have to learn how to use it when it got me or did you already know it?

I had learned that in the repair and maintenance detail in the coast guard, one of my last assignments in the coast guard helped me lose my illness. But I kind of polished up the techniques on that. And I felt Charlie Hill made me feel very good who I succeeded me here in telling me today how it's still a little jewel, and he still does the work with it. He's still got a runner over there. And he, I can tell from his comments, he gets the same enjoyment out of life right and he likes it. Which makes me feel good. And he's taken care of it. You know, one of the techniques I found in an interview like this is bringing as many other names as possible. It makes other people feel empowered, you know, they've been reminded. And you don't take all the glory yourself. You can put that there.