The Munitions Worker

My great grandfather Joseph D. was born in Massachusetts in 1879 to the DesJardin family.  His parents and sister went by the DesJardin name, as they came from French Canada, but Joseph was the first who regularly went by the anglicized name Gardner. Although he never bothered to change it officially, he was known in all city directories as Gardner once he was out on his own.  The first time the DesJardin family appears in the Lowell City Directory is 1889.  They lived in 51 Rock Street, and Joseph's parents would continue to live there for some time to come.

At the age of 21 he married 23 year old  Annie Smith in Lowell, MA.  The new century had just begun.

The next directory he appeared in was 1909.  This time he was listed as Gardner, and he and his young family had moved to 168 Hale Street in Lowell.

He worked as a machinist for U.S. Cartridge Company which produced a newly patented metal cartridge for firearms developed to counteract the accidental explosions which were an issue at that time. The company also produced paper-shot-shells, primers, and for a time manufactured Lowell's answer to the Gatling gun, the “Lowell Battery Gun”.

As might be expected, the conditions could be hazardous:

"Workers at the cartridge company faced not only the common perils of injury from machinery and the belt-driven power system on the shop floor, but also from the dangerous nature of producing ammunition.

 This photograph was taken immediately after the U.S. Cartridge explosion that 

destroyed numerous houses and killed 22 people

The most horrific of these dangers struck in late July 1903 when an explosion, sparked by the ignition of gunpowder in one of the company’s powder magazines that was located just over the Lowell city limits in Tewksbury, killed 22 employees and nearby residents, while injuring more than 70.

The massive blast destroyed or severely damaged about 70 houses in Tewksbury’s Wigginville neighborhood and the shock was felt as far away as Haverhill, where windows broke and doors of homes “swung open with a crash as if by a gust of wind.”

 More on the explosion here.

By 1917, U.S. Cartridge, inundated with orders for munitions from the United States military and its allies in World War I, was the largest employer in Lowell. With over 8,000 employees, nearly half of whom were females.

Joseph with his first wife Annie sometime before 1917

In 1917 his wife of 17 years Ann died, leaving him with 3 children aged 16, 13 and 8.   The next year he was drafted into WWI at age 39 just 3 months before Armistice day. 

After he was discharged he remarried another Ann (Holland) in 1919.  His eldest daughter (my grandmother) Corinne did not approve. Apparently she did not get along with her new stepmother, and she left her father's house to move in with her maternal grandparents, the Smiths.

In 1919, one of Joseph's  co-workers at the Cartridge factory was netted in a massive anti-terror raid conducted by the Feds. The Palmer Raids were an anti-radical initiative that saw the arrests of suspected terrorists in 30 cities and towns in over 23 states.  The terrorist of the day were the anarchists and communists, many of whom were immigrants from Russia or Europe who brought their "Red" ideologies with them to the U.S.  This was back in the day of Sacco and Vanzetti, two anarchists who would figure very prominently in the news in the days ahead.  Joseph Nadwarny was a Russian immigrant who lived on High Street in Lowell, worked at the Cartridge factory, and who was arrested at the Socialist club in town during one of the Palmer Raids.  It's impossible to know whether my great grandfather knew the man personally.  But it's likely that he heard the news with more than the average amount of interest.  

By this time Joseph D. was an Inspector for the Cartridge company.  But by 1926 U.S. Cartridge moved most of the manufacturing operations out of Lowell to New Haven, CT.  It's unclear whether Joseph continued employment there.  The last census that I found Joseph D. on was the 1930 census.  He lived at 18 Pine View Ave in Lowell which is still standing today.

The only death certificate that I could find on a Joseph D. Gardner/DesJardin  was 1939.  I'm still trying to verify that is his death certificate, since it was issued under "Gardner" and I would have expected it to be "DesJardins" as he never officially changed it to my knowledge.  There is also information on it which I know to be incorrect (his father's name and father's birthplace for example) but that may have been information supplied to the coroner by his second wife, who would have had no personal knowledge of his father.

In any event, the trail ends in the 1930's, and since my mom has no memories of her grandfather, it was likely in that time frame.