The Ballard Historical Society is always interested in hearing about people who grew up in Ballard’s early days. They received a note this last week from Mr. Ron Bussiere, now of Edmonds. He gave his permission to share some of his memories. He tells the stories so well, no need for a middle person.

From Ron Bussiere:

My father worked as a molder at Salmon Bay Foundry for over 30 years. He also worked at some other foundries in the area and was the local union president for a while. I started working at Salmon Bay Foundry when I was 13 years old. They classified it as "yard work" so as not to get in any trouble with the state. I was in the seventh grade at James Monroe Junior High. I'd wake up at 5 a.m.  and work with a trouble light in the early morning darkness and later at night until about 10:30 p.m.

On Saturday and Sunday I would be unloading three gondola cars of pig iron, limestone and coke for the melts, which started again on Monday. My father gave me a 25-caliber revolver to shoot the rats that would get as big a bunny rabbits. They'd lay in the warm pig iron, depending how hot it was the day before, and I had to rid the gondola car of them every morning before I started. We had bunny rabbits, too. I guess some people in Ballard kept bunny rabbits as pets, and they'd get away and come down to the foundry. They'd feed on the flour we used to give the olivine sand extra body.

Salmon Bay Foundry’s bread and butter was storm drains and round sewer grate-covers. You can find them all over the city, including in front of my home here in Edmonds.  

While going to college I worked inside the foundry charging the furnace and shoveling sand for the molder.   Later when I was 17 I had to get a union card to work inside the foundry. I was a working fool when I was a kid. I even mowed the lawn at the owner's home.  Jim Tracy and his brother Quinton were the owners at Salmon Bay Foundry.  Jim Tracy, and his wife were very nice people.  Jim's wife had me rebuild her Nash Rambler.  I rented an A-frame and did the work right there in their garage, just off of 32nd Avenue, right up from the government locks.
 
I remember one day we had a five-ton keel to cast for a boat being built at Fisherman's Wharf, and I was elected to charge the furnace. That day I loaded thirty 500-pound wheelbarrows of pig iron as well as limestone and coke.  An old elevator took you up to the top of the cupola where I stoked the furnace.  After they poured the iron into a massive ladle, I had to climb three stories in the air and straddle the crane's I-beam to hold the brake, which was not strong enough to hold the ladle in place while pouring the iron through the gate.  It was hot as hell, but if I let go we'd all be goners on the spot, including my father who was pouring the iron.
 
If it wasn't for that foundry I would have never been able to afford to be a college graduate. I don't think they had student loans back then. I'm in the electronics business, making RF power sources for cutting edge medical devices but will be retiring from that soon as well.  As I exit my contractor's facility, in the old Honeywell Building in Ballard, I look out at where my life began. How about that for coming around full circle?
 
P.S.
My father is shown in a Ballard News-Tribune photo as well as the foundry's chipper and grinder, "Red.”   I remember "Red" would call me to the scale to get weighed when I started in the summer. After about three weeks on the job every summer when I would have shed 30 pounds.  Those guys are all gone now.  My father died in March of 2013.