Bio: Finder, Bertha (Carpenter - 1973)
Contact: Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon
E-mail:
dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org
Surnames: Finder
----Source: Clark County Press (Neillsville, Clark Co., WI) 9/27/1973
Finder, Bertha (Carpenter - 1973)
Billy Jean King, watch out! With Bertha Finder around, the man claiming to do
anything better than a woman was long ago put down. Having run a saw mill and
now carpentering, she competes head on with her male counterparts now and has in
the past.
People traveling on east Fourth Street in Neillsville last week noted a
carpenter busy sawing, nailing, mitering, and measuring for step repairs on the
Christian Science Church located there.
But a second glance occurred often as onlookers suddenly realized that the
carpenter should have been referred to as a ‘carpenteress’.
Bertha Finder was at it again, hammering and sawing and creating a construction
that would make most men, including carpenters, jealous.
Stating that she ‘only does this for friends,’ Bertha takes on the task of
carpenter repair each spring and summer to ‘just keep busy’.
Many are residents have attested to her skill with tools and have related the
fine performance that she does on most any repair or construction job. ‘This
just keeps me out of mischief’, she said when asked how long she had been
carpentering. ‘I learned from my father when I was eight years old,’ she added
as she kept right on hammering the final nails into the top step.
‘We lived in the Town of Weston and everybody knew us and still does,’ she
yelled as the buzz saw took its cut through a two by four.
Never married, Bertha, was proud when asked about her marital status and openly
stated with a smile, ‘I’m my own boss and always have been.’
Bertha’s background is not what one could term usual by any means.
Probably one of the few women in the world to every run a saw mill, Bertha can
recall the hard work, but also the fun, of logging, cutting, and being able to
measure the wood cut. Operating out of a mill in the Town of Levis, Bertha kept
at the mill for several years until thoughts of retiring and just carpentering
crossed her mind.
She told of relation that purchased lumber from a building concern in Black
River Falls. Knowing that Bertha was acutely aware of wood of all types,
Bertha’s niece asked her to go along when the lumber was picked up to be taken
home.
Bertha looked at the written figures and watched the lumberman figure out the
costs of the boards. Something just didn’t jell with her practiced mind in
lumber figuring.
It wasn’t long before Bertha began telling the salesman that he wasn’t figuring
the board feet out properly and was short-changing her ‘relations’ by a foot on
every couple of boards.
The salesman looked at Bertha and frankly stated ‘You must have had some lumber
figuring experience?’ Bertha, using a few words that add to her color, told him
she did and that she wouldn’t do any business with him every again.
Bertha has also been seen around town at several other home sites with hammer or
saw in hand. She still is retained by Jenni Tufts who occupies one of the more
grant homes in Neillsville on Hewett Street. The home keeps Bertha busy as it is
constantly being added onto or repaired.
Bertha also told of a run-in with a carpenter-contractor from Wisconsin Rapids
who worked on the Tufts home with Bertha’s assistance. ‘He wouldn’t listen to me
and a problem developed,’ she said, again that proud and winning smile streaked
from ear to ear.
Bertha, besides occupying several professional ranks usually held by men, is
also a top-notch sportsman .
‘I like to hunt and fish, but I don’t like venison or fish,’ she said and added
that she would probably go deer hunting this fall and give the ‘meat away
again.’
Bertha got sick once from eating undercooked fish at a restaurant. ‘I don’t like
raw fish and to this day I can’t eat it,’ she said.
But her distaste for fish has not slowed down her fishing prowess. “I got 56
Walleye this spring,’ she said, ‘and I gave them all away.’
Not telling, where she fished, Bertha just says ‘down on the river,’ which is
only a few miles from her home on State Highway 95 south of Neillsville.
Time has affected Bertha. Prices have risen in the carpentering business and
from listening to her, one can gather that she feels that lumber costs have
skyrocketed just a little too far.
‘I use odds and ends pieces for my work,’ she stated. But from the look of her
final product, no one could tell.
Bertha has a way with a hammer and a saw and she is one of those who can be
termed ‘one-of-a-kind’ in the world.
But she’s hard to talk to as she chatters and answers your questions while
continually working, using her unique skills to add a little immortality to the
name of ‘Bertha Finder.’
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