Thelma Godkin

Thelma Godkin nee Emblem (December 12, 1921 – June 17, 2015 ) was born in Nanaimo, British Columbia, and grew up in Saltair, an unincorporated community between Ladysmith and Chemainus. Her father worked as a miner. At seventeen, she waitressed for a short time in Malahat before her father secured a job for at the Chemainus sawmill. She worked as a sorter and bandsaw operator and became an IWA steward. For five years in the 1940’s she worked as a whistle punk near Copper Mountain. She was the first woman hired to work alongside men in the woods. After the war she married David Godkin and raised two children in Saltair. Thelma became interested in the arts and had several exhibitions of her paintings and sketches. She was a founding member of the Chemainus/Crofton art group and opened her own Godkin Gallery in 1975. The Gallery adjoined the couple’s Pym Perfumery, Canada’s first perfumery, and its extensive rose garden.  She spent her last years in Ladysmith.

Audio Interview [1979]

Description

Thelma discusses her early life, her childhood and attitudes towards traditional women’s work, describes the attitudes of male workers to her entry into the logging industry, working the early shift, and safety on the job; being the first women to work in the Vancouver Island woods; whistle punk work; logging work, personal safety of women in the industry;  working in a Youbou cookhouse; how her relationship with her father prepared her for working in the woods; rebuilding homes with her husband..

Transcription

Full interview: Godkin, Thelma
Excerpts by Subject: Godkin, Thelma (edited)

Photographs

Courtesy of Thelma Godkin. Sara Diamond fond.