Tribune Excerpts
The following article appeared in the April 2008 Edition of the Macedonian Tribune
Detsa, cold & hungry, ride the rails to Montana
By Mitch Pedroff
“It sure was not a Pullman type dining car. A car was retrofitted … it had long wooden tables with benches to seat us … not very fancy.” Father recalled his first meal on the line being hot cereal and an all-time favorite of the detsa, sausage gravy on biscuits with the usual strong bitter coffee and saying, “After four days without a hot meal, it was a wonderful, wonderful breakfast. It warmed us … we were very happy.” After breakfast, whistles blew and there was much shouting. It was time to go to work.
Throughout his life, father was a keen observer of human behavior and so it was on this day. He acquired information about the operation of the railroad company not readily available to the workers on the line. He watched very carefully as the company men organized the crew and, unknowingly, described a principle of Economics 201, the division and specialization of labor. The goal of the company was to develop an effective work force.
On this cold Montana day, they were confronted with 75 or 80 mountain boys from a foreign country with limited language and work skills. For the better part of the morning, a trial and error period ensued. The detsa were given certain tasks to perform, observed for their proficiency, aptitude and potential. For instance, a man could be physically strong but could lack the coordination to drive a spike into the tie in three or four hits.
The company men must have had a philosophy or a sense of beliefs about the nature of an effective work force. Accordingly, if a man was successful in his work, he would take pride in his work; men with pride would be happy workers, and high morale would follow. Thus, the objective was to select the best worker for the task. Then, father would say, “When you were at the high school you had to pick the right boy for quarterback, the right boy to run the ball and the right boy to catch the ball. To be successful you have to select the best boy for the position. And that is the way it was for the railroad people … they had to select the right worker for the task.”
The company had so much time to complete its work, and it was important to have an efficient work force. By noon, division was complete and the detsa were assigned to specific work gangs, a railroad term referring to groups with specific and specialized duties. After their first hot lunch, the detsa returned to the line. Slowly at first and under the direction of the foremen, each gang performed its specialized duty. Construction moved very slowly the first afternoon, but the detsa gained confidence in their ability with each passing day. During this entire process the foremen used ponashi (our language) to give basic directions, commands, orders and compliments to their new workers. The detsa were pleasantly surprised that the foremen knew their language, and it made their work easier.
The question of whether or not the detsa of ‘09 were the first Macedonian rail workers is debatable, but father’s answer would be an equivocal – no. He argued that the elders at the coffeehouse knew something about the Great Northern, the orientation was given in their language and the foremen knew quite a few Macedonian words. Further, their country of origin was listed as Turkey, since Macedonia was a state or province of the Ottoman Empire and the early Macedonian immigrants were classified as Turks.
When father served in World War I, the army listed his country of origin as Turkey and classified him as an alien from an enemy country, meaning he would not be sent overseas. When father retired and applied for social security, government documents showed his port of entry being Quebec, 1909, country of origin Turkey, and his falsified birth date of 1891.
Father would say, “The Turkish men were privileged in their country and had no reason to immigrate to America as laborers. The subjugated people such as Macedonians, Armenians, Kurds, etc. fled the empire. Maybe, we were the first from Konomladi, but I believe some Macedonians came before us.”
A cursory search of the 1910 Montana census was undertaken with emphasis placed on two names. The study found the following names and number in the
census: Michoff, 19; Mitchoff, 14; Mitroff, 1; Mitcheff, 1; Pedross, 10; Petroff, 300. The first names of a few of the families were as follows: Rusey, Demetrio, Tripo, George,
Lazo, Costa, Vasilka, Rose, etc.
