1925: Velena

After 2-3 days I received a letter telling me that I was to start at Valena factory. I told the bakery boss that I was leaving for another job. He was very angry that I had exploited him, but I think it was the other way around. I had been working 16 hours a day. I was not sorry to leave the bakery; even though I had passed the winter in the warmth there and had been well-fed. At that time, after the war, there were no regulations about employment; the bosses could do as they pleased and there were no unions. Also, there were no holidays and I worked six days, except on Saturdays as there was no fresh bread on Sundays.

Valena factory was in a beautiful area with Gauja (a large river) only about 50 feet away. Valena was a village: two shops, a church, some trades people, the milk factory, a pharmacy, and some houses. The bends in the river were particularly beautiful. On the bank there was a very well-tended cemetery, the first time I had seen this. Every day after work I went to swim in the river and sit in the sun. The factory at that time was still quite small. There was only two of us working there; me and the manager Karlis Spunde, about thirty-years-old, a non-drinker and non-smoker. He was quite strict but kind, he treated me as a son and when I did something wrong he taught me the right way. After receiving the milk I had to wash all the used containers and machines. The hardest to wash was the pasteuriser; it was copper, double-walled. It was put in a large pot of boiling water, under which a wood fire was made. To make the butter, electricity was generated to turn the butter barrels and the milk separator.

My pay was 40 lati (about $40AUD), two kilograms of butter a month, and one litre of milk a day. And importantly, the work was finished by 10-11 AM. I slept in a small room above the Jaunzemja shop, approximately fifty meters from the factory. The manager himself only had a small room. My main meal after work was milk soup with dumplings and in the evening, rye bread with butter and a glass of milk. In the morning I did not have time to eat. With the sunrise I had to be up and the first job was to light the boiler to heat the milk and then put all the equipment together.

After about four months the manager suggested I try to get into the theoretical course in Riga. I decided to try, even though I should have worked on the practical side for six months. Because of the shortage of students in the course, I was accepted. All the time I was working I had not spent much money so I had 100 lati saved.