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Archiver > PADUTCH-LIFE > 2001-12 > 1007360021


From: "Vee L. Housman" <>
Subject: [PD-LIFE] First Furnace Tap
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2001 01:13:41 -0500


Dear Group,

This is a story that I had tailored for the Niagara County, NY, list but
thought you might appreciate it anyway. But I have to add one thing about
my posting of it. You see, my brother John Housman has recently
re-subscribed to our list and I wanted to share the story with him. He was
only 11 years old at the time but he was there.

vee

This is another personal story that I've been thinking about all day today.
It has to do with my father, Charles W. Housman (1904-1958), who had been
the General Superintendent of Pittsburgh Metallurgical Co. in Niagara Falls
in the 1940s. He was a metallurgist and an Electrochemical Engineer. If
any of you had a father or grandfather who worked in the ferroalloys or
chemical plants of Niagara Falls, I hope you can appreciate this story
somewhat.

My father left the company and in 1951 we moved to Memphis, TN, to build a
new ferroalloys plant for Montana Ferroalloys, Inc., in Woodstock, just
outside of Memphis.

I can't even find Woodstock on the map now but I recall that it was just a
cross-roads sort of place in the country. Shortly after we arrived, Daddy
put together a force of some former fellow workers that he brought down from
Niagara Falls to help things get started at the new site. He needed a plant
manager and an office manager but then he also needed a secretary and since
I was available, I was hired as a secretary. He found a local girl as a
receptionist to answer the phones, we set up office in an old farmhouse on
the site, and the planning of the new plant began.

Daddy and I drove to work together every morning and all of us made the best
of the primitive office spaces we had to work in. Daddy was all business in
the office and I was all business too. The fact that my father was the big
boss didn't affect my work attitude at all. To me he was Mr. Housman.
However, I must admit that he couldn't quite forget that I was his daughter.
And I'm embarrassed to tell you that at one point he called out to me from
his office, "Hey, Stinky, come in and take dictation!" Now don't ask how or
why he ever gave me that nickname when I was a little girl because I don't
know. All that I know is that whenever he would call me that, I would
cringe, but I knew that he did that only to get a rise out of me. In
addition, at that moment, I knew he said it only in fun. Nonetheless Stinky
went into his office, took down his dictation in shorthand, typed it up,
presented it for his signature and mailed it out. Stinky was nineteen years
old at that time.

Over the next number of months, the new ferroalloys plant grew larger and
larger. The electric furnaces were put in, the raw ore and the other
elements that were needed to produce ferrochromium or ferrosilicon or
whatever, came together as planned and in April of 1952, the plant was ready
to fire up the furnaces and produce the first tap. It was a grand moment.

The very first tap was planned for the evening of April 15, 1952 and because
of its importance both my mother and my father went to observe the occasion.
They left me and my eleven-year-old-brother John at home.

Johnny and I sat and watched TV that evening and while we were watching a
program, it was interrupted by a news flash that an explosion had just
occurred in Woodstock. And a few minutes later the phone rang. The man
told me that he was a reporter from a local Memphis newspaper and wanted to
know what the situation was regarding the Montana Ferroalloys plant
explosion. What?? An explosion at the new plant?? All that I could tell
him was that both of my parents were there and from there I went into shock.

Some time later both of our parents came home and calmly said that the first
tap went off well and as scheduled. But with me, I was only relieved to see
them both alive! When I asked Daddy about the explosion, he thought about it
for awhile and just said that there had been some moisture in the pot and
when the molten metal hit it, it sent sparks high into the air.

As I said, the plant was built in the middle of the countryside and I guess
nobody had ever seen anything that spectacular before. They thought it was
an explosion and as a result, for a moment my brother Johnny and I thought
of the possibility that we had just been left orphans!

After the plant was built and fully functioning our family moved on to
Houston Texas where my father went to work for Tentex Ferroalloys. He died
in 1958 and never knew what happened to the plant that he (and I!) had
built.

I searched on the Internet this evening and finally found what happened to
that plant almost fifty years later. This is what I found: "This site is
located at 3328 Fite Road in the community of Woodstock, approximately one
mile north of the Memphis City limits. The site sits on approximately 92
acres in a primarily industrial area with a few residences nearby. There are
numerous structures on site including the main furnace building and other
operational buildings in various stages of disrepair. The facility is
currently inactive."

I'm saddened about that and I'm certain that the old farmhouse where we
fixed up our new office in 1951 is no longer there. Not only that, but I'm
certain that no one around there still remembers the first tap of the
furnace in 1952. But I do, not only in memory but in what I still have on
my desk. It's a small square of yellowed lucite that contains two bits of
metal product and is engraved, "Montana Ferroalloys, Inc., First Tap
4-15-52." It was the night of the fireworks over Woodstock, Tennessee! It
was from the plant that Daddy and I built!




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