By Ben Cox
Photo/Submitted to The Source
The history of the Nestlé plant in Jacksonville has some great stories surrounding it. What better way to tell them than through the eyes and words of two employees who have been there from the very beginning, in the offices and on the production floor.
Linda Lewis says the memories of the first days are still crystal clear, “I can remember today watching the first rail car that rolled down the tracks of that very first shipment from our sister plant. And to think this many years later, I can still recall that memory of this exact shipment. So that was more or less the start here in Jacksonville.”
The shipment came from Waterloo, Iowa and Lewis says she can still remember to the letter and to the number of how many boxes were packed in that first shipment that she helped to load.
Women were not allowed to work in certain parts of the production floor in the early 1970s. They were only allowed to work in the offices, the labs or in packing products but couldn’t lift over 25 pounds. Lewis says that only five women were picked up to work in the office initially after placing applications and testing at Brown’s Business College near downtown Jacksonville.
Lewis, who is on the supply chain and logistics side of the office, says there’s been plenty of changes in the office since that time. She says the way that things were tracked started with old-fashioned paper, pencil and rotary telephones, and not through computer programs and the internet. The first two Apple computers didn’t arrive until some time in the early 1980s. Lewis says an antiquated piece of office equipment was responsible for getting numbers to the home offices in Los Angeles for Carnation in those early years.
“We used antiquated office equipment such as a teletype machine. Now that is a machine that as you type it has a ticker tape in it and it cuts holes in it. Then, we used a rotary dial-up phone to send all of our reports to corporate. All the managers used a Dictaphone and spoke to the Dictaphone, and then we would take those Dictaphone belts and we would transcribe all of that onto letterhead. We began using manual typewriters, but then, we moved up to an electric typewriter. We had to use carbon paper obviously, in both to have a file copy and then it would be dropped in the mail. None of the managers would actually do their own correspondence. It was all done by Dictaphone.”
Eventually, when the computers did come, Lewis said that the people in the office would have to take turns on the two they received. Lewis says the challenges and changes to everything in the office including navigating the world of the supply change keep her coming to work every day. Other employees say that Lewis’ knowledge of shipping and packing are used as a daily reference to keep Nestlé’s products moving today.
“I’ve had the privilege to work with some pretty amazing people during my time here,” Lewis says, “We have felt many times that they were like family because we knew each other so well.”
One of those amazing people Lewis is referencing is longtime co-worker Becky Johnson. Johnson says that divine intervention played a role in her coming to Carnation 55 years ago. She says she wasn’t planning on sticking around Jacksonville at the time, but the job posting for Carnation came out in the local paper.
Johnson says a friend needed a ride and the rest was history after that, “I was planning on moving to Oklahoma. I worked at Capitol Records. I was riding with this lady and she wanted to stop by and put in an application. She said they’re going to build a new factory and I want to put an application in. It was wintertime, so I went in with her, and the man handed me an application. Nestlé’s West Carnation plant wasn’t even built then. A few months later, they called me for an interview to come out and I had forgotten about it. I heard they were going to pay $3.13 cents an hour. I ended up having three interviews. At that time, it was very hard to get a job here. It was really hard and I got hired.”
Johnson says she eventually met her husband while working at the plant. Similar to Lewis, Johnson credits all the great people she’s had the opportunity to work with over the years. She says some of those people have become family — leading to generations working at the plant.
Johnson continues, “When you only have perhaps 30 people on a shift, then you know them and their story. You don’t just know them as associates, they become your family. You end up going to their weddings, you were going to funerals, you were doing everything. I remember when Carnation started, they always said they were a family and they were family owned, and Nestlé has carried that on because we’re family. When you say working here for 55 years, I didn’t even realize it because you are coming and going to your job and new generations of people are here. They have new products and you just become part of it.”
To Johnson’s credit, like Lewis, she is also very good at her job and has learned the ins and outs of the laboratory and being able to test products. Johnson says for the most part she can look at a batch of powder and tell whether or not the product is bad, “I can look at it and say, that’s bad, and people would laugh about it.”
She says that many of the newer employees use her as a reference point on testing products and how to do procedures, similar to how they use Lewis in the office as a reference point for her job duties.
The one thing both women say has never changed is the connections made to the community. Both say that the family atmosphere carried beyond the walls of the plant and has stayed strong. Neither gave any hints at retirement despite the longevity. They both believe they are still going strong and that Nestlé’s roots are firmly planted in Jacksonville, just like them.
