Book Info
Genre: Nonfiction, Memoir
LibraryThing: https://www.librarything.com/work/1911762/t/I-Married-a-Logger-Life-in-Michigans-Tall-Timber
Acquired from: Digger’s, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
Started reading: August 14, 2025
Finished reading: August 17, 2025
Review (written Aug 17)
Overall a good read– author has a good amount of humor and can write funny scenes well. It’s interesting to read about how the logging industry worked before it became industrialized in the late 1940s. The author has some typical 1950s attitudes about thinness and unions which are questionable in modern times, but overall not too bad. It’s an upbeat memoir about a particular time in Michigan that I enjoyed reading.
(Crossposted to LibraryThing)
I’m not going to keep this particular copy because the glue binding is totally falling apart, but if and when I happen to build a library for myself in the future I would enjoy having a copy of this on the shelf.
Reading Updates (Aug 14-17)
Page 0: I picked this book up because a) it’s a memoir set in Michigan (where I’m currently catsitting) and b) the author did her own illustrations and they’re pretty good! Published originally in 1951 and this is a reprint by a local Michigan publisher in the 80s.
Intro has a photo of the author in 1988 and updates on the family. About what you’d expect— husband died, 3 sons living in different states, author in a nursing home. A bummer, but fairly typical, I suppose.
Page 15: Family moves from West to Canada via ox-pulled cart. An oxen cart?? If she’s 75 in 1988 then born in 1913, leaving prairie home at 5 years old puts year at 1918. I guess people did still use oxen carts to move house back then, wow.
Page 18: Seems to think being thin is an English quality (her mother’s English) and has mentioned being thin and athletic twice in 3 pages. Unfortunately typical mindset for the time period.
Page 20-something: A logger is like the manager/business owner for a logging company. The lumberjacks (“jacks”) are the one’s doing the physical stuff, mostly.
Page 53: The story about her pie-making failure was very funny and also the list of food they ended up making for the workers makes me crave camp dinner
Page 55: Had to keep their marriage a secret so she could keep teaching– because only unmarried women can teach back then. Gawd!
Page 59: Kinda sad she never got to do her dream of being a fashion artist in Chicago. Yeah the Depression happened which set her career on a different trajectory, but then marrying a logger in rural Michigan just cemented it.
Page 77: I wonder about the other bits of logging, like tree planting. Eventually you’ll run out of trees to log if you don’t put some back. In fact they mentioned that in the first part of the book— UP Michigan ran out of some specific tree because they over-logged it.
Page 79:
Page 108: The description of what life is like for a lumberjack in time is idealized but if you think about it for two seconds it’s pretty sad. They work all week (for who knows how many hours), then take their earnings and drink them away, then come back to sleeping in a bunk bed with 49 other guys. I suppose your room and board are free…
Page 130: The workers work hard and don’t complain (and maybe also aren’t in a union??) BUT ALSO the owner a) can do all the jobs they do and knows the product well, b) pays them fairly, c) gives good Christmas bonuses, d) is generous with his own stuff, e) gives workers credit when things are going well, f) kicks in with them when they’re doing a hard task, etc etc…
Page 157: I like how the husband always asks her to go along with him places, it’s cute!
Page 158: She drove enough to qualify for a driver’s license. What does that mean??? Now I gotta look up the history of driver’s licenses…
Page 200: Another logger cut down 5 giant white pine trees and says he doesn’t “think there’s any more of that size anywhere near here”… ;_; This book is a little painful for a tree-lover.
Page 205: (berry picking)
Every kind of insect in the woods was attracted by my brand of bug repellant. I untied the kerchief around my neck. That gave the bugs the chance for which they were waiting. They all crawled down my neck at once and began frisking around in my blouse.
This is a very funny chapter!
Page 231: Logger husband doesn’t discriminate against union guys nor keep them from voting to unionize, but definitely doesn’t want them to unionize. And he doesn’t have any union workers somehow and they don’t vote to unionize after all okay lmao
Page 238: 1937 timber workers’ strike told in a way we’re supposed to sympathize with the owners AND lots of emphasis on the fact the strikers weren’t American citizens— but throughout the book most of the jacks aren’t American either! And somehow that’s okay, but when they want a union formed suddenly it’s bad. And then ending with the info that the husband (and his father and others) snuck over to the strikers camp in the middle of the night to attack them. Jfc.
Quick search brought up this article for a different viewpoint: We Knew Different: The Michigan Timber Workers’ Strike of 1937.
Page 302: Her youngest son is called Hayward and she talks of him being in the military, but it’s 1941 in the book timeline and was published 1951, so the ages don’t match at all. Did the last section get written way later? Or is this a different Hayward?
Page 308: Yeah it was a different Hayward lmao— her brother! Totally forgot that because he was only mentioned maybe twice, whoops.
Page 328: Technology increased production and also makes the lumberjack camp culture obsolete.
Word List
- Cookshanty: Basically a small shack where they serve food. A shanty is a rough-built shed or cabin.
- “Oxford glasses”: This was hard to find, but history fashion bloggers are the GOAT and have great info available for FREE. VintageDancer.com has a post about 1930s glasses and Oxford glasses are similar to pince-nez, but had a bar going across the brow. There’s a photo on the post, check it out!
- Snoose (aka snus): “A type of tobacco snuff consumed in the form of a moist powder which is placed under the (usually upper) lip, without chewing, for extended periods of time.”
- Van: A log camp general store, named after the wagons that’d bring supplies to campB
🌟 See also: Books Read (2025) / All Reading Logs
tozka | reading log: i married a logger by julie anderson