Life Underground Episode 8 - Women at Work
Life Underground Episode 8
“Women at Work”
This is Life Underground. I’m Clark Grant. With so much attention on the men who worked in the underground mines of Butte, I was left wondering: were there women working underground? If so, what was it like for them? Well, it turns out that there were a few women working in the underground mines, though they are a rare exception to the norm. For the first half of this episode, we’ll hear from two women who had experience working underground, and in the second half we’ll take a look at some of the hard work that women did outside the home in other areas of the mining city.
It’s well known that underground mining in Butte was a male-dominated industry. From the day’s pay workers down in the mines to the corporate board room, the Anaconda Company was heavily male. Even today, only about 14% of the people involved with the mining, oil and gas industries globally are female.
In our oral history project, we spoke to many women who worked on the Butte hill, but a very small number of them had any direct connection to the work in the mines. However, there were a few. We begin today’s show with Sheila Penaluna. She spent some time underground and tells great stories of her work for the Anaconda Company. She worked in the drafting department for many years, but started out working with IBM machines. She says she can’t recall how exactly she got in with the Anaconda Company, but started working there in the mid 1950s. She was interviewed by Aubrey Jaap at the Butte-Silver Bow Archives.
[Sheila Penaluna]
Sheila’s work in the underground mines was full of those moments where men teased her for being the only woman they ever saw working down there. She didn’t describe these incidents as a form of discrimination, but instead insists that the work was fun, and that she preferred being down in the mines instead of stuck in the offices of the Hennessy building. We asked Sheila to describe for us in more detail what the underground was like.
[Sheila Penaluna]
Sheila says that while the danger of the mines was ever-present, she never personally had any close calls or accidents underground.
[Sheila Penaluna]
Working in the drafting department was challenging and intellectually stimulating, and Sheila here reflects on the unique set of maps that her department generated for the Anaconda Company.
[Sheila Penaluna]
That’s Sheila Penaluna, reflecting on her time working underground on the Butte hill. Sheila is one of the few women we’ve spoken with who worked in the underground mines of Butte. When we come back, we’ll hear from another woman who spent time down there. This is Life Underground.
In Butte, especially for those who have been involved with the Superfund process, the name Sara Sparks will ring some bells. Sara is a straight-talking, no BS kind of person, and in her oral history recordings she explains how she sort of had to be that way while working in the male-dominated mining industry, as well as the state and federal agencies who oversee the cleanups of mine sites and other industrial pollution.
Sara begins by telling us a little about her family and her early career choices, which she hoped would put her in the underground mines.
[Sara Sparks]
And Sara Sparks was front and center on a lot of the work in Butte that took place over the next 25 years that she worked for the EPA, and it wasn’t an easy job. Aubrey Jaap asks Sara about the work environment within the agencies.
[Sara Sparks]
Being in the public eye and so deeply involved with Superfund work could be frustrating, and Sara acknowledges that sometimes she lost her temper.
[Sara Sparks]
That’s Sara Sparks, former Remedial Project Manager for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. This is Life Underground, and so far we’ve heard some of the rare instances of women working underground in the Butte mines. When we come back, we’ll look at a legendary Butte business that, like so many other establishments in Butte, depended on the Butte mines. For women who didn’t work in mining directly, what was it like to work in places that miners frequented, such as the many notorious saloons and bars of Butte? Up next, we belly up to the bar at the M&M and meet a couple of its longtime bartenders and cooks. Stay tuned.
While women who worked in the mines were few and far between, women were the engine of the thousands of Butte businesses that serviced the people of Butte, including the bars, restaurants, boarding houses, retail shops, and everything else that made the mining city a metropolis.
As far as bars in Butte go, for those that are still standing, the M&M is perhaps the most well-known. It first opened in 1890 and was renowned for never closing its doors. For over 100 years, the M&M ran 24-7 and really, actually never locked the doors. Jack Kerouac described it as ‘the ideal bar.’ Up next on Life Underground, we hear from two longtime workers at the M&M, Emily McLeod and Mollie Kirk. Emily was a cook for over 25 years, and Mollie bartended there for nearly two decades. Mollie comes from a large Butte family that goes back generations.
[Mollie Kirk]
And Mollie Kirk is a strong women, someone who worked hard most of her life and lived her life independently, and in her own way. In college, she bristled at the strict rules of the Catholic hierarchy, and frequently got in trouble at school.
[Mollie Kirk]
The M&M that Mollie describes is pretty much gone these days, even though it has been newly renovated and it still serves as a bar and restaurant. All the old timers that populated the barstools and played live keno have passed on, and the M&M does close at night now. That busy, bustling place full of hardened miners and old time Butte characters is a fairly ordinary modern-day restaurant now. Mollie says it was always busy back in the day.
[Mollie Kirk]
Mollie says the M&M days were some of the best in her life, and she fondly remembers Elsie Delmoe, who was a waitress at the M&M for more than 25 years. Elsie died in March of 2018.
[Mollie Kirk]
Despite all the hardships and ups and downs that have come to Mollie Kirk over the years, she says that she chose the right profession, bartending, and wouldn’t do it any other way if she had a chance to do it all over again. [Mollie Kirk]
With regard to the regulars at the M&M over the years, Mollie says they were like a large extended family.
[Mollie Kirk]
In our final segment for this episode of Life Underground, we hear from one more longtime M&M worker, Emily McLeod. Similar to Mollie Kirk, Emily is strong and independent, no BS, very Butte.
[Emily McLeod]
In Emily’s family, people went to work young. Times were tough growing up on the East side and she had to help the family, so she went to work.
Emily points to her husband, who joined us for the oral history recording. Little did she know that when she started going into the M&M, it would turn into a career.
[Emily McLeod]
I finished up our oral history recording with Emily by asking her if she had a favorite drink.
[Emily McLeod]
That was Emily McLeod, reflecting on her years of cooking at the M&M. Emily was recorded at the Butte-Silver Bow Archives as part of the Verdigris Project.
I’m Clark Grant and this has been another episode of Life Underground. I hope you enjoyed these stories of the women who worked underground and in some of Butte’s most famous establishments. Join us next time when we actually go underground in a modern day training mine, and see what it’s like in the dark tunnels beneath the Butte hill.