Labor Day was established in the 1890s as a federal holiday to recognize how workers contribute to the American economy and society.
In recent weeks, the Valley News interviewed and photographed several people across the Upper Valley about their work.
The results, photographed and reported by Alex Driehaus, Geoff Hansen, Jennifer Hauck and James M. Patterson, show a variety of people who are proud of their work and glad to be helping their community.
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Seventy-six-year-old John Hubble, maintenance director at the White River Valley Middle School in Bethel, says he’s been told the school has one of the oldest custodial staffs in the state of Vermont.
The oldest member is Edith “Winki” Royea, 84, who lives in Barnard while working at the school from May to October. She spends her winters in Florida and has worked at the school for 47 years. Royea managed food service for the school for 27 years and retired in 2001, but stayed on as a painter with the maintenance crew, which she joined part time in 1982.
“It’s relaxing to me. It takes my mind off of all other things, because I’m concentrating on what I’m doing,” she said. “I help out wherever I’m needed. If the guys need me for moving furniture or whatever, I’m there.”
Royea, whose father was a judge in New Jersey, once had aspirations to be an architect, but didn’t have the opportunity back then as a woman, she said.
“Money isn’t a big factor for me,” she said. “I never thought about it. My parents did. They were very much into country club and that sort of thing, and I wasn’t.”
She worked two jobs much of the time and raised four children by herself, all of whom graduated from what was then Whitcomb High School and is now the middle school. Now her oldest son is 67.
“He’s kind of semi-retired now. That sounds funny to have a son semi-retired. But, my second boy could retire next year. Isn’t that crazy?”
Chris Gray, 47, who joined the staff eight years ago, said, “I’m the young kid here.”
“I’ve learned a lot from these guys,” he said of the staff. “It’s been really rewarding working around them. Winki, she’s done this for a long time and when I came in she showed us what to do.”
Gray said the custodial work was a “good fit”; his favorite part of the job is, “meeting the people, helping the people, being a part of the community.”
Gray attended college and earned a business degree, but he said that the degree itself and the effort he put forth to earn it was more important to him than building a career in business. That effort, he said, helped him form his approach to life.
Under Hubble, Gray has studied a sense of craftsmanship, and when the time comes for change, he cautiously said he’d like to fill Hubble’s shoes: “I think the next logical step in my career, if I could be maybe the head custodian next.”
Gray also looks forward to a time when he can keep to a day shift “to be able to have supper with my kids and my wife.”
“The object is to be somewhere and grow and learn and move up if you can, I think,” Gray said. “This is a good fit for now.”
Ever since Ian Ritterbush was 10, growing up in Nebraska, and a neighbor’s house burned down, he has wanted to be a firefighter. He now lives in Brownsville and has been working as a firefighter in Windsor for seven months. The 27-year-old Ritterbush, who has a degree in fire science, said he does the job because he likes helping people and interacting with them, but also enjoys the rush it gives him.
“I’m an adrenaline junkie,” he said with a laugh.
Ritterbush, who likes to be around animals and working outdoors, also works at an alpaca farm on his days off.
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Growing up, Lauren Tillotson was convinced she wanted to be a doctor. It wasn’t until she realized that the sight of blood made her woozy that she decided to change paths.
Now, the 21-year-old Tillotson spends her mornings turning simple ingredients into meticulously crafted pastries at Umpleby’s Bakery & Cafe in Hanover, where she has worked for the past 2½ years. Croissants are Tillotson’s favorite pastry to make, and she gets excited about the technical aspects of the laminated dough.
“The process is so particular that you definitely have to have the skill for it,” she said.
Before she started at the New England Culinary Institute in Montpelier, Tillotson wasn’t sure if she wanted to focus on culinary or baking, but now she’s all in on the sweet stuff. She hopes to open her own bakery eventually, and after baking at work for seven hours typically returns home to bake for another three. “I absolutely love being in the kitchen.”
For the past eight years, registered nurse Katelyn Duprey, 34, has been working her dream job at Gifford Medical Center. “Are there some days that I walk out of here and I’m totally exhausted and wish I didn’t have to walk back on the floor? Yes. But, when you can be the person to hold that hand as the person takes their last breath, or to congratulate new parents, or explain something in a way that someone can connect to so that they know that they have control over their own health … it’s a calling,” she said.
Duprey works the night shift, and says the higher pay rate allows her to put food on the table, and in the bowls of her two dogs and her 16-year-old toothless cat. It also helps keep her side photography business running.
“Gifford is an amazing hospital, and it’s a great community to work for,” Duprey said.
Kimberley Wolk, 44, of Enfield, has been working at Hypertherm for nearly four years. After starting at the production facility doing first shift maintenance work, Wolk switched to second shift as a secondary assembler, readying parts for shipping at the Heater Road plant in Lebanon. When she was younger, Wolk thought she would be interested in doing work in a scientific or medical field.
After working in veterinary technology and as a dishwasher, Wolk found her calling at Hypertherm, which is headquartered in Hanover.
“I like the automation aspect of it,” she said of her job. Wolk is also a part of the company’s employee ownership. “I just received my vested status, which means the stock ownership plan will stay with me even if I leave the job.”
Jennifer Marcy, 27, of St. Johnsbury, Vt., said this is her third year doing traffic control and she “couldn’t be happier.”
Last week she was monitoring the flow of dump trucks on a paving job along Route 113 in Vershire.
“I do traffic control. I pretty much stand on the side of the road and turn my paddle,” she said. “But it’s not (simple). Not when you’re dealing with construction.” Keeping the paving crew and passing drivers safe is her responsibility.
She and her husband, who also does traffic control on the same crew, have two kids that stay with his sister during their 12-hour shifts. They work through the warmer months and get laid off during the winter.
Before finding the job with ADA Traffic Control, Marcy wanted to go to cosmetology school. “Instead (I) just fell in love with construction and flagging.”
She has seen two moose working traffic control in the past three years, having never seen one before, but this may be her last year on the flagging job.
Marcy, who has some health issues, said she may look for warehouse or factory work, so she can avoid the bad weather that comes with the traffic control job, as well as the grueling shifts.
“It’s hard being away from your kids 12 hours a day.”
Quincy McBride, 19, of Norwich, started his YouTube channel “A Rural Vermonter” five years ago as a way to share videos of his off-roading adventures. One of his first videos, recorded with a digital Canon camera with interchangeable lenses, received over 10,000 views almost right away. “As soon as that happened, I fell in love with the online status and talking with people and recording,” he said. The 2020 Hanover High School graduate now has nearly 47,000 subscribers to his channel.
McBride now records with a smartphone for its convenience, and his videos primarily feature the buying, repairing and selling of inexpensive cars and trucks.
While he sees income from the channel — about $20,000 in 2020 — McBride also has a shop in Windsor where he repairs cars and trucks for customers and other vehicles that he buys and sells. McBride also mows lawns two days a week for a Sharon landscape design company. As someone who has always had an interest in vehicles, McBride said someday he’d like to either open a large car dealership or design an electric vehicle. “Like a toned-down Elon Musk,” he said. “That would be pretty cool.”
Nhin “Nina” Duong has been a manicurist at Luxury Nails in Lebanon since 2007, raising four children on her salary. Born in Vietnam, Duong wanted to be a tailor when she grew up. As a child, she made her own clothes and later often made clothing for her children. Duong said she likes her job and enjoys making people feel better and look good, saying many people work hard and that looking good can make them feel more comfortable.
Duong said what she is doing is a dream job for her.