Eder Opem May 20, 2003 Dave Niles This is Dave Niles and it s May 20 th, 2003, and I m here at the Anoka County History Center with Mr. Elder Opem, and Elder has consented to share some of his experiences and remembrances, of which he has a lot, not just of the Korean War era, but the Second World War era up through the present. So, maybe we ll get started, Elder, by you can share with us where you were born, when you were born and where you were raised. Yes. I was born in Minneapolis on 7 th Street Northeast, not too far from Downtown Minneapolis. At the age of six, we moved out to a farm in Constance, and I grew up there, graduated from Anoka High School in 32, at the age of 16, and I loved going to school. I wanted to go to college, and my parents certainly were not able to send me to college. They were not financially fixed so they could. And I heard Coleraine had a college that was tuition free, so I hitch hiked up there. I borrowed ten bucks from my mother and hitch hiked up to Coleraine, Minnesota, and fortunately, I happened to go to the hotel, because I knew I d be there for overnight, and met some very kind people who were just taking over the hotel, and they said I could stay there for a dollar and they d give me breakfast in the morning. That s a deal! And I told them that I wanted to find a place where I could work for my room and board and go to college. Well, they knew of someone. There was a woman who had contacted them that had a dairy farm. They had something like 24 head of cattle she had. And her husband just recently had died, and she desired to have two boys who were going to college to work for her and take care of those 24 head of cattle, but included would be to milk them. I suppose they had a machine; I didn t go in to that, for milking. But then following the milking, you were expected to cool the milk, bottle it, and peddle it, and she didn t think you quite earned your keep, so in addition to that, she wanted five dollars a month for eight months of school, which would be forty bucks, and we d have to cough up forty bucks right off the bat. What year was this? 1933 or 34, at the latest. During the Depression. You re damn right it was!
Yeah. Well, I was smart enough then to stay here. And I headed back for Anoka. Then I got back to Anoka and walked from Anoka to home, out at Constance, and I gave my mother back eight bucks, which I had left out of the ten, cuz I had to buy some breakfast the following morning when I was hitch hiking. That was somewhere near Mille Lacs Lake, then, when I did that. I stopped at a store and bought a little something to eat. That s a great story. Well, anyway, for the next year, or up until April of 1934, I was at home in Constance, and occasionally would get a job for working on a farm for maybe one dollar a day. And that was very occasionally that happened. And on April 1 of 1934, I went to work for a farm up at Cedar. It was a big farm, and it intrigued me. I loved farming, myself. And it was 520 acres, as a matter of fact. A.K. Smith (?) place is what it was known as, but it was no longer owned by them. It was owned by the Federal Land Bank, and they rented it out to a party by the name of Cable, and that s who I worked for. I made up my mind I was going to work for him for one year. I started out with $18 a month, and after a couple months, he raised it to $20 a month until fall came and then apparently hard times was with him, too, and then he says, I m gonna have to cut you back to $12 a month for winter. And I didn t get the $12 a month for winter, so I stayed till the first day of April of 1935. Wow! Were you living there on the farm? Absolutely. Yes, indeed. And, as I say, we had 24 head of cattle there, too. And we were milking, of course, twice a day, there. In the summertime, we got up at four o clock and took care of the cattle and cooled the milk and be out in the field before eight o clock. Yeah. Well, anyway, I left there, as I say, on April 1 of 1935, and I heard of one of my school mates, going to grade school, was working in Anoka here for Ghostley Poultry Farm, and I thought, Boy, I m gonna go to Anoka and see if I can get a job there. So I did. I was put to work immediately at the rate of $2.00 a day a 10-hour day. Minimum 10 hours. Hmm.
And on the second year I was there, they raised us to $3.00 a day, and you fed and watered yourself, of course. Yeah. At that time, during the Depression, was that a pretty good wage? Well, I thought so compared to nothing. Yeah. I agree with you. I wouldn t say it s typical, because he was not noted for giving high wages. But I stayed there with him for four years. A little better than four years. On July 1 of 1939, I told him I m quitting, because we were still on $3.00 a day, and I thought surely I could find something better. Another co-worker by the name of Bernard Blast, and I, were kind of chums there and we agreed to quit and go into business for ourselves dressing chickens and selling them. Well, that business lasted for about two months. And then I went to Federal and put in an application for a job, and by golly, I not more than turned in my application and I was called on the 29 th of August, 1939. Federal Cartridge. How long had Federal Cartridge been in business? Since 1922. Oh, okay. Under Federal Cartridge Corporation name. Prior to that, it was built during World War I, and never really operated until just about the start of or the end of the First World War, so it never was it was idle from the end of World War I until 1922 when Horn bought it. When I say Horn bought it, it was yes, Horn did buy it. And that s really how Federal Cartridge changed hands. He did own the company up until 1934. He was experiencing considerable problems on the operation and couldn t meet the payroll and so on, and finally the.foundation bought him out. There s a I don t know what you would call it, but there s only two other ammunition companies in the United States. Reamington which owned Peters, and Western which owned Winchester.
And they felt it might be a collusion as far as, you know, about having the industry covered by those two companies, and they thought there should be a third one. The Foundation was not part of Winchester. It was a philanthropic organization. So what was your first job at Federal Cartridge? My first was in the Inspection Department. I worked in Ballistics as a gunner, testing pressure and velocities on the ammunition, and I worked there in the Inspection Department and the Ballistics Department for probably about a year, and the moved me into the Inspection Office, where I was in charge of more or less as being a secretary, shall we say, to the Head Inspector. And my total duties at that time were collecting and filing the inspection reports that came in from all the various operations. And another little duty that I had was to keep track of all the weapons that we had for testing purposes and logging them, and so on. At this time, what kind of products were they making at Federal Cartridge? Were they sports ammunition? Completely..22 caliber and shot shell ammunition, at that time. There was only two items that they had which, of course, covered the range of shot shells, completely. So what was your next job? Well, when World War II no, it hadn t broken out yet. Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant was being built, and about the time it was finished, the personnel we had here in Anoka was picked, I guess. All well, not all, but many of the foremen and lead people in the organization were transferred down to the Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant. I see. And as a result, I was moved out of the Inspection Department into the Purchasing Department in 1941. Before the war started. Before the war started, but I hadn t been there long before it. What do you remember about December 7 th, 1941? I was in a beer joint.
On Sunday afternoon, and had the radio going, and the message came over. Yeah? Yeah. What were your thoughts? Devastated. Yeah. Yeah. And up until that time, Federal Cartridge was working their products were mainly in sports and in machining. That is correct. Absolutely. And what happened after the war started? Well, immediately, of course, restrictions were on metals such as copper and not on lead, but on copper-related products like brass and so we were restricted on manufacturing ammunition for sporting purposes. But we immediately got contracts for whatever we could produce in other items. And some of the other items were ignition cartridge for 4.2 chemical mortar, which was a considerablesized contract. It was government furnished as far as packing supplies and it s rather comical the way the government went about furnishing those supplies. The contract was scheduled for I don t recall just the length of time, but it was more than a year. And they shipped in supplies that were way and above our conceivable needs. As an example, they sent a solid car load of stamp tag ink for us to stamp the cartons that the product was to be produced. We opened the car load, and saw it was nothing but stamp tag ink. Then we appealed to return the car load and took out something like 40 quarts and figured that would be very ample. Well, they gave us permission to seal the car and return it. When the contract was finished, we had to account for the supplies that were used. Oh, yeah. And we used four quarts! Is that right?
And they insisted we return the balance, which we did. And we returned all the other packing supplies except we happened to miss an item of stencil board. Stencil board about 18-20 long, or whatever it is, and about 6 wide, you know. And you cut it out and used it to stencil the cases or shipping documents or shipping packages. And we only we forgot to return those. We had something like, I believe, it was 44 left. Hmm. And we said we d be glad to return them. No, we ll come and get them, so they sent a man up from Chicago and got the 44 sheets of stencil board. That s the way the government operated. They had a lot of waste, I can tell you. Did things get real hectic in a hurry out there during the war in terms of did you increase the shifts and employment, or We never worked less than 45 hours. That was something that and we got up to 48 hours and three shifts, of course. I was just trying to think, here. Well, anyway, it was a change of life as far as the plant was concerned. Everything got into high gear and got into new products that we furnished, and I say that ignition cartridge was one of the bigger things that we did, but we also supplied considerable quantity of skeet. Shot shell skeet ammunition, which was used by the training of air personnel in bird shooting so it sharpened their shooting skills as far as finding out what it meant to the targets moving target, and so on. And it was an amazing amount of skeet shells we shipped and, of course, we had no problem in getting materials. And of course we had to file with I don t remember the name of the government agency that we and that was one of my duties was to file these requests for strategic materials that were used. Mmmhmm. And we had no problem in getting the priority gradings that were necessary. And they also furnished us with a priority that we could extend for maintenance and repair and operating supplies. Were you able to get the material that you needed? Oh, yes. There was no problem. No problem. Not with our priority that we got. And we were granted an unlimited amount of ammunition, as I say, for sporting purposes, but it was cut down drastically.
How much did the employment increase. I mean, did it double or triple? Well, because of the Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant going into effect, they drained our population down from a point of about almost 500 down to, at one time, it was down to about 350 in the Anoka plant. I never thought about it before, but what was the relationship between Federal Cartridge and the Twin Cities Ammunition plant? Or was there a relationship? Well, a relationship by personnel only, because there was some of the higher-rank personnel that worked in both plants. Oh, is that right? Yes. For instance, Mr. Elim (?), who was the general manager and vice president of Federal Cartridge at that time, he would spend most of the morning at Federal in Anoka, and then go down to the Arsenal in the afternoon. Was the Arsenal part of the military organization? In other words, was it part of the military command? Yes. Yes. I would say it was. Yes. Because it was very restricted and a different operation than what we would consider in commercial. You know, they had the say-so. Everything had to be funneled through them. But my relation to the Arsenal was very, very, very limited. Can you share a little about some of the people that worked at Federal Cartridge during this period of time, and how the felt about working there and what they were doing? Well, I don t know just what to say in that respect. It was a great organization at that time, and thereafter, up to a certain point. As I say, just before my retirement, it changed completely. It was one big family, believe me. It had a lot of long-time employees.
Indeed so. Yes. And the company was while they had to shut down sometimes during the off-season, and off-season would be like from January to probably mid-february, where they might have a layoff. Mmmhmm. And then they d start up again, and they d call them back. They were very dedicated personnel, and you wondered why they kept them, because they made work for them. What else would you like to tell us about this period of time during the Second World War at Federal Cartridge? Well, I not only acquired the Purchasing Department during the war, but I had several titles. I was safety engineer, maintenance engineer. I was treasurer of the Federal Cartridge Credit Union for a period of 37 years, matter of fact. Oh, geeze. So I had four titles, there. Purchasing, Maintenance, Safety,. You did what you had to do, right? Right. To say the least, I was damn busy and I was the one person of all those items, but I ll tell you, after the war and we got back into normal operation again, pretty soon I had so damn much help I didn t know what to do with it. Is that right? Yeah. So, what happened at Federal Cartridge after the end of World War II? Then, much of the help that was down at the Arsenal came back to Anoka you know, that had been transferred. I d say 90% of them did. And I had apprehension that my job was done. That I d probably be replaced by the person that I d took and the boss.and I made that statement to my boss, Mr. Elim, and he says, Don t you worry. You re here for sure and for keeps. So those employees came back and you started up doing what you were doing before then?
Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, right. Yeah. And that continued up till the start of the Korean War. Yes. You know, I thought I could remember what the hell happened during the Korean War, but all I could remember about it is it wasn t a war. It was police action, at the time. It s a war now, though. Congress made it a war. You re darn right! No question. But when I first started on my notes on the Korean thing, I came up with a lot of information that was completely 100% wrong. My recall of what happened then, it was very, very limited. For instance, I thought we furnished them the fire ammunition in the way of rifle ammunition. Such was not the case. Period. We didn t manufacture rifle ammunition until 1960. Did similar things happen during the Korean War such as some of the employees moving over to the Twin Cities Arsenal? No. No. Not to my knowledge. I don t recall that they did. No. The Arsenal manufactured.32 caliber carbine, 3.06,.45 caliber during the Korean conflict. We manufactured in Anoka.45 caliber and.38 caliber only, as near as I can recall. And then we normally would..pistol ammunition, but the.38 caliber probably was the lesser of the two items because the.45 caliber was used in the survival weapon that the military I think probably in all of the forces. I remember them being in the Air Force, among others, like for instance the Infantry had them, too. But anyway, this weapon that they had was considered a survival weapon. It was called a grease gun. Mmmhmm. I remember that. Uh-huh. It had a magazine capacity of 30, and it was a very cheap weapon. The government bought them for $14 apiece. Is that right? And they were considered disposable. Huh. Wow!
I had the honor of going out to Bunker Prairie, up to the shooting range, and running a clip of 30 through it, and believe me, you d better be hanging onto that weapon, because if you didn t, it would be shooting up in the sky or behind you. Did employment the number of employees, increase very much during the Korean War period? I don t recall that it did. We didn t decrease, for sure. That s for certain. I m ashamed to say that I don t remember anything significant that changed at Federal, but I do remember that grease gun! And got rid of that clip of 30 in a hurry. You re damn right! That was fully automatic, of course. I asked you where you were on December 7 th, 41. Where were you when the Korean War started when the North invaded? Do you remember? No, I do not. No, that wasn t that significant as far as I was concerned. It was a police action. Yeah. That was the ugly definition of the war in Korea. Then after the Korean War, again, Federal Cartridge went back to mainly sporting ammunition? Yes. Yes, indeed. Full tilt. And then came Vietnam, of course, and by that time, we were manufacturing ammunition of the caliber that they used. And we made considerable 556 ammunition. For that conflict.
So you already had the government contracts or military contracts to supply that ammunition? Yes, and as I remember, copper wasn t a big issue that time. I don t recall that we had to apply for permission or get priority ratings to provide the necessary materials for the contracts. Did the production increase significantly? Oh, yes. Yes. And you were running three shifts? Oh, yes. Yeah. It was amazing how much we ran three shifts. And our employment gradually worked up to about 1000. I didn t ask you if a lot of the women came to work there during did several women come to work there during the Second World War, Korean War? Women always were a party to the manufacturing there in the Anoka plant, for sure. There was certain work that was oriented that women could only do as far as I was concerned. It was repetitive, and men would go crazy doing it. And the women ran a lot of the machines. There s no question. I think I don t know what the percentage of women working was then, but I d say it was pretty close to being equal in my years. Yeah. I ve had the opportunity in the last just the last couple of months, probably, to meet three or four ladies who worked at Federal Cartridge or at the Twin Cities Ammunition Plant. Oh, yes. A lot of the people on the floor not necessarily foremen, but production workers were transferred down there, too. I don t know if the pay pay probably was better down there. I don t know, but I just think that it was. Well, I see you ve come prepared with some notes, here. What else would you like to tell us about your time at Federal? By all means, it was the best place I ever worked. As I said, at one time, I said I m never going to retire, and I d fight it when the time came, but the time did come that I said I want to get out of here just as damn soon as I can, because there was a change in the regime. Mr. Horn, I don t remember the year he died, but Mr. Elim took over, and he was probably in his mid-80s -.as I am, almost. Sadly,
liquor got a hold of him, and the regime changed. A new group came in there. A new group that he had a pet name for them: Egghead Street took over! I have some questions kind of about your personal life. Can I ask them? Sure. I forgot to ask you, did you have any brothers and sisters? Yeah, I have two sisters; both living. Is that right? Yeah. One 16 months older than me and one is 11 years younger. They both live locally. My older sister is probably the healthiest of the three. And my younger sister is currently at Country Estates or Country Manor. Country Estates, I think it s called. She just moved Monday to Country Estates in Golden Valley. It s sort of a rest home, shall we say? She has an apartment there. Kind of assisted living kind of place? Yes. Yeah. I believe it is assisted living. Yes. Well, I mean, you grew up during some difficult times during the Depression and worked in that period of time. What are maybe some pleasant memories you ve had of growing up or going to school? I loved going to school. After I was moved into the Purchasing in Federal, I just had to try and get some more education, so I went to night school at the University. I took up I don t know how many courses, but among my duties at Federal when I was purchasing, I took care of the incoming traffic, and so I took two or three courses in traffic management and traffic rates and traffic making, and so on. And I also was kind of puzzled by buying some of the maintenance repair and operating supplies or what the nomenclature was and what the hell I was buying, so I went to Dunwoody for a couple of years, and I took up among other things, basic machine shop and machine II, fine tools and precision instruments. I enjoyed those. I enjoyed the University, too, as far as that was concerned. Were you or are you married? Oh, indeed so. I was. I married in 1937 a local girl in or near Constance matter of fact, Ham Lake, now. And she died in 1995. And I ve been living alone now, in my own home, which I ve lived in for it ll be 63 years in July.
Is that right? It s just me and her dog. What was your wife s name? Elsie Tittering was her name. How did you meet her? Well, my parents got the telephone switchboard in 1927, which covered half of Anoka County, so it s in the area, and they were one of the subscribers on the telephone business, and my mother was also a secretary and treasurer of the telephone company, and people would come there and pay their bills. And the first time I ever saw my wife was one time she came in with her mother to pay the telephone bill. And I was pretty much smitten on her right then. And I was pretty damn young at that time. We had a pretty long courtship, and my wife s mother constantly says, When the hell are you gonna get married? You ve been going with her for five years! Well, we got married in 1937. Sounds like my wife and me. We went together for five years before we were married, too. Yeah. I was oh, what was I? I was 21 or 22, then, but she was younger than me. She was about two years younger than me. But anyway, as I said no, I didn t say. I have two very precious daughters. Both who live in this area: one in Coon Rapids and one in Champlin. Do you have any grandchildren? Yeah. I ve got four grandchildren and six greats. My goodness. And another one on the way. Is that right? Yeah. You re damn right. My goodness. That s really nice that they live locally. Your family is almost all local.
Indeed so. I have precious families, believe me. Oh, that s great. Yeah. I also didn t ask you, during the Second World War, Korea, Vietnam, did you lose any friends or acquaintances in those wars? I can t remember specifically of losing any friends. Certainly not relations because our family was small. I do recall people who worked at Federal who were drafted, I suppose, who came back and became very good friends with some of them. I just have two other questions. Sure. What else about anything would you like to tell us? I think I spilled my guts pretty good so far. Well, you ve had a pretty full life. It s been wonderful. But I m sure I m not the person I used to be Well, who is? Well if I mean you ve lived through some very historic times. I enjoyed it very, very much. If you had a chance to talk to some young people today, what would you like to tell them? You should go through a Depression to get your priorities straightened out. Things are not so good right now, but you know in 90s the 1990s things were all upscale and jobs were gung ho, and the labor rates were going up every year, and we got used to big paychecks and it certainly was not the case when I started at Federal, I started at 54 cents an hour. Fifty four cents an hour, huh?
Yeah. One thing nice about it, however, was that I only worked nine hours a day and hell, I didn t know what to do with the rest of my time, so I got a second job. Is that right? Yeah. What did you do? I hired out to Paul LaPlante (?). You probably don t recognize the name, but he had a bottled gas business right here on this block, on Main Street. Not too far from the corner of Third and Main. And he sold appliances, too. Gas appliances. And another fellow and I from Federal, we installed these stoves and gas appliances, and set them up, and then we hauled gas to all the customers. I did that after I d gotten out of work, because I was working at first, eight hours at Federal, six days a week. And that s right. It was only eight hours because it was on a three-shift basis. I said nine, I think, when I said it before when we started this conversation on this subject. But anyway, that kept me a little busy, of course, and I was used to it. Well, if you grew up in the Depression you were. Well, I want to thank you for taking the time and sharing some of your life experiences for us. And I appreciate your experiences you ve had. Well, thank you.