When my grandmother, Harma Smit, decided to work outside the home, it was just becoming more common for married women to enter the workforce. In 1950, about 25% of women aged 25-54 had a job or were looking for one, which had risen to just under 40% by 1967.[1] That year, my grandma’s youngest daughter was in grade two or three, and my grandma spent her days at home managing her housework and her tendency towards anxiety and blue moods. The feeling in the neighbourhood had changed as well—many of the families she was familiar with had moved away, and new people had moved in. And when the house was clean, and it did not make sense to wash the floor for the second time that week, she felt, frankly, bored.
So, she got a job. She went downtown to the big department store, Woodward’s, and was hired on the spot.
She began working part-time, alongside thousands of other women employees, who organized the aisles, demonstrated new products, and bagged groceries for this department store chain. For a small-town Dutch girl who was still gaining comfort in her new language of English, it was a whole new world.
“She worked with a whole bunch of different people,” my aunt Jeannette tells me. “Young, old … This opened her eyes to a lot.” Even though my grandma had been in Canada for a while, she now was getting to meet people of diverse cultures and religious backgrounds, including French Canadians and Italians. Her English improved dramatically. She began to take an interest in new topics such as politics.
As a working woman, her situation was seen as a bit unusual, especially in her church community where few women with children worked outside the home. My aunt remembers a church gathering where the topic of women came up. “They actually deferred to my mother about what it was like – my mother kind of sat there and said, ‘Well, I put my family always first.’” She was considered to be unique. However, as time went on, many other women in the neighbourhood also started working various jobs in order to contribute to their families’ standard of living.
What was it like working for Woodward’s? The amazing thing about Woodward’s is that so many people remember it fondly, even now, thirty or so years after it closed for good. And that includes former employees, who organized reunions to reminisce for many years after the stores closed (the last reunion was in 2018).[2] They loved it because it paid well for the time. “I was working full-time, and your grandma was working part-time, and she made more than me!” says my other aunt, Flo. An ad in the Edmonton Journal touted “One of the most generous sick benefit plans in Canada!” and listed doctor visits, lab services, maternity coverage, and drug coverage among other medical benefits that the Woodward’s plan covered.[3] And the working environment was pleasant overall. My grandma appreciated how her boss, the same one who had hired her, always made time to talk to the employees on the floor.
Over the years, my grandma was given different responsibilities. One of these was managing the soap aisle, which had all the different kinds of soap, and she took a great deal of pride in making sure that aisle ran well. When there were home soap products the store no longer wanted to carry, she got to take them home for a cheap price. She would also pack up grocery deliveries for customers because her boss knew she would not make mistakes. Later, she particularly enjoyed organizing the spices and displaying them in a way that enticed customers to buy them.
Woodward’s positioned itself as a great employer, but that did not mean women did not face vulnerabilities. Grandma said that she never experienced mistreatment, but she talked about a woman supervisor who was harassed when her relationship with a manager fell apart. In 1980, Woodward’s financial report states that the store chain established a “formal complaints and grievance procedure to complement its traditional ‘open door’ approach,” indicating that grievances may not have been handled in the same way prior to this.[4] But overall, employees speak very positively about working there, and women enjoyed their work outside of the home.
My grandma’s work did have an impact on her family as well. Her schedule meant that some home routines had to change, and since my grandpa did shift work it affected what he found at home when he got off work. But he could not deny it was much easier to have a second income. Because of her job, she could get many things with her employee discount. The family enjoyed free grocery delivery for a while, and my grandma did not have to take her purchases home on the bus. She could also keep her eyes open for the best deals while she was at work—one deal she found was a beautiful leather jacket for my aunt, Jeannette. She and my grandpa could make trips to see family, including a trip to the Netherlands. And in 1976, the family purchased a beautiful maroon Oldsmobile in the very latest style, which her paycheque helped make possible.
She no longer felt the need to sew, which was a task she had never really enjoyed, though she kept up with other handiwork that she did like, such as knitting. They were less reliant on what their garden produced because more could be purchased at Woodward’s, and some of the heavy work of maintaining the garden was taken over by her children instead.
But despite her enjoyment and pride in her work, not all good things last. Store policies changed over the years, managers changed, and the workplace was becoming more unpleasant for her. Then my grandpa got sick, and with the stress of managing his health, it was just easier to quit her job. She stopped working for Woodward’s in 1983, when she was about sixty-three.
What my family remembers most about my grandma’s job was the sense of pride it brought her. “She was proud of what she was doing… bringing money home and everything,” says my aunt Jeannette.
Harma-Mae Smit (2025). Harma-Mae Smit is an Edmonton-based writer who has a passion for writing about history and faith. She is named after her grandma! When not writing, she’s cycling around Edmonton or hanging out with her husband.
[1] “The Surge of Women in the Workforce,” Statistics Canada, October 8, 2024, https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-630-x/11-630-x2015009-eng.htm.
[2] Juris Graney, “As Numbers Dwindle, Final Reunion Planned for Former Woodward’s Employees,” Edmonton Journal, January 7, 2018, https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/as-numbers-dwindle-final-reunion-planned-for-former-woodwards-employees
[3] Job ad, Edmonton Journal, July 2, 1960, 5.
[4] Woodward’s Annual Report 1980, Woodward’s, January 1981, https://digital.library.mcgill.ca/images/hrcorpreports/pdfs/6/631164.pdf.
Additional Sources
Moschansky, Flo. Personal Communication with author.
Smit, Jeannette. Personal Communication with author.
Smit, Ron and Marianne. Personal Communication with author.