She was Canada's first female plumber

When Linda Cymbalisty married Joe Skomorowski, they set their sights on leaving Winnipeg and setting up their own plumbing shop in a rural town. And that included quitting university and becoming a plumber herself!

As it turned out, that was easier said than done – much, much easier said than done. She was far ahead of her time, and ran into  major roadblocks with educators, and even with the plumbers union. 

But she was not a quitter. She knew what she wanted, and would not, did not give up. They attained their goal, set up shop in Norquay, Saskatchewan, and are now retired in Yorkton.

Transcript

Dick DeRyk 0:00

This transcript is not complete. An accurate transcript will be published soon.

Dick DeRyk 4:33

He was still in his apprenticeship at the time. He hadn't finished, but we we both are country people, both from rural areas, and we were in the big city, and we decided we wanted to go back to rural, and we decided one day we want to start our own business. We had a big discussion over this, and I thought, well, this is one way I could help out, and it would be great to be a partner. You were from Canora, he was from Grandview, Manitoba. Where did you meet?

Linda Skomorowski 7:36

We met while I was going to university. We met in Winnipeg and we met at a place called the German Club. I was there with some friends. He was there with some friends, and we got to know each other.

Dick DeRyk 7:48

A couple of years later you were married.

Linda Skomorowski 7:49

Exactly. Yes.

Dick DeRyk 7:51

Skomorowski is Ukrainian or East European background?

Linda Skomorowski 7:56

It's Ukrainian, yeah.

Dick DeRyk 7:57

You were Cymbalisty. So that's Ukrainian.

Linda Skomorowski 8:00

Yes, we're definitely Ukrainian.

Dick DeRyk 8:02

So the kobassa and the perogies were familiar to both of you.

Linda Skomorowski 8:05

And the cabbage rolls, yes.

Dick DeRyk 8:06

And the cabbage rolls. What was Joe's attitude towards the problems that you were running into even trying to get into a school?

Linda Skomorowski 8:15

I think he was concerned, and I think he was worried. He was very good at supporting me. But I knew that he was concerned and worried. He didn't come out and say that, but I know Joe, so yes.

Dick DeRyk 8:27

And obviously you had decided between the two of you that this was something you wanted to do for the family and together and start a business.

Linda Skomorowski 8:36

Exactly. Yes. We were thinking about our future and thinking about living back rural, which we both really wanted to do. City life wasn't really for us.

Dick DeRyk 8:45

You applied to Red River or talked to Red River College about getting into their plumbing course. You also talked to the people at Manpower. At Canada Manpower as it was known then.

Linda Skomorowski 8:58

Red River was kind of neutral at the point because they didn't sponsor any of the seats. Back then, Manpower paid for all the seats to get into apprenticeship. So I had to get the okay through Manpower. When I went into Manpower to talk to someone about this, I got counselors there to see that were to do with office work, anything that at the time females were into. I couldn't get in to see anybody that was in the plumbing section or in the construction department at all to talk to.

Linda Skomorowski 9:27

They told me that I would have to find somebody that would hire me. I said, Well, eventually I'm going to be working with my husband. They came out and said, "What would you do if your husband died tomorrow?" And I said, "I would keep on plumbing." "Well you'll have to."

Linda Skomorowski 9:42

Then it meant I have to go and find someone who would employ me. So I think I went up to 16 companies and I kept a few of the supporting letters saying that they would hire me if I was qualified. The majority of them were in agreement, all they cared about was for qualifications. So I came back with these letters and I still I still ran into difficulties, but they finally let me see someone in the plumbing or in the construction department as a counselor with Manpower. And talking to them, it was just like butting my head against a wall. They said, you won't be able to, you are incapable.

Linda Skomorowski 10:16

I got a letter from my doctor because they specified that they needed a medical saying that I was physically fit and that if I was smart enough to go to university, I should have the qualifications. Women lift 50-pound toddlers. And back then, and I think it still is that the maximum weight for one person is 50 pounds. They found a doctor who used to be a plumber for me to see. Eventually, I think it was in June or July, I had made an appointment to see this particular doctor. And then when I went in for an appointment, he was in the rehabilitation center, and that was the end of that. I could not see him anymore. He was not well. So at that point they said, that's too bad, so sad, almost.

Linda Skomorowski 11:01

Human Rights Commission had heard about me and it was suggested that I approach them as well. And they did, and they took on my case.

Dick DeRyk 11:05

Would men have run into the same thing as needing a doctor's letter to say that they were qualified to do this kind of work?

Linda Skomorowski 11:12

Absolutely not. Neither did they have to go from business to business to see who'd hire them either. Absolutely not.

Dick DeRyk 11:18

So it was strictly because you're a woman?

Linda Skomorowski 11:20

Yes.

Dick DeRyk 11:21

Human rights, what did they say?

Linda Skomorowski 11:23

Oh, they felt I had a good case. So they took over and they got them to accept me. However, I was put on a wait list. This was at Red River College. They have seats, you know, there, but Manpower sponsors them. I was willing to pay my own way the whole time, by the way. I told everybody I'd pay my own way. I don't care about Manpower, but that didn't make a difference.

Linda Skomorowski 11:49

So they they put me on a wait list, but that wait list they said could be a year, but I found out that wait list was about seven years long. I inquired at Brandon, and Brandon had heard about me already. The college had already heard about me. And the instructor didn't really know what to do with me, but they accepted me. I was the only female paying my own way there.

Dick DeRyk 12:07

That was Assiniboine Community College.

Linda Skomorowski 12:10

All the men were sponsored. I had to pay, I paid my own way. And the instructor was very good. He was very protective, he was very careful. He was, I think, very nervous, very, very nice person when I went to college there.

Dick DeRyk 12:23

You have a letter from Red River College where they said eventually they'd let you in, but they were concerned about how you would dress while you were in class. The wording, I think, is, "It goes without saying that the clothing should be such as to cause the least amount of disturbance among the classmates", the classmates all being male.

Linda Skomorowski 12:46

Yes. I don't know what they were thinking.

Dick DeRyk 12:49

It's not as if you're going to show up in the shop in a miniskirt, right? And distract all the guys. This is what they were thinking.

Linda Skomorowski 12:55

I think they thought maybe I wasn't serious. Maybe they thought I was just, I don't know what they were thinking back then. Maybe they thought I just wanted to be with a bunch of guys. I don't know, but I was definitely serious.

Dick DeRyk 13:07

You were serious, you were married and you wanted a career.

Linda Skomorowski 13:11

Exactly.

Dick DeRyk 13:12

That's a little bizarre. So human rights took up your case. You did get admitted in Brandon. You finished a course. And you did very well.

Linda Skomorowski 13:23

Yes. I got three top awards. I got top for drafting, top for marks, and top in the construction department. You know when I went to college there, some of the gals in the other classes, because it's a it's a college, they have sonographers, they have accountants, they took all kinds of classes there. Quite a few of the gals when I was going to college there gave me a really, really bad time. They it was they were rough on me.

Dick DeRyk 13:48

Why?

Linda Skomorowski 13:49

Because I'm in an all- guys class, and I think they thought that I was one of those kind of people that, but I was married, maybe they didn't know my background. I was serious, I was studying really hard. And when it came to graduation, they were at the graduation too. It was it's a big college. So most of them, the majority of them, came up and apologized to me after. They said, We're really sorry, we didn't realize. So I don't know what the attitude was even amongst some of the gals back then.

Dick DeRyk 14:16

They thought you were husband hunting.

Linda Skomorowski 14:18

I guess so, but that's the last thing from my mind. Sure, I got a little bit of rough treatment from some of the guys in the comments, but you've got to be able to handle them. You've got to be able to laugh it off. And I mean, once they knew that I was serious, everybody was good. I had no problems. It's just at the beginning, you get tested, you know.

Dick DeRyk 14:38

So then you went to work.

Linda Skomorowski 14:40

Yes.

Dick DeRyk 14:40

Because Joe was still an apprentice and had to finish before you guys could think about setting up your own business. And you worked in Brandon.

Linda Skomorowski 14:50

I worked for a company called Bar Repca, who are now a different, they go by a different name now. They were a unionized company. I was plumbing there. We were doing water lines and stuff. I was by myself on a ladder in a basement that had no stairs to go down, so I had fun getting down there. But anyhow, they got down there, they brought a ladder, and they were standing and watching me work, and I felt so uncomfortable just watching me. And I'm I'm doing this, and they're just watching me. So that was the first, but after a while they got used to. I guess maybe even they weren't sure. New, it was so new to everybody.

Dick DeRyk 15:24

You set up your own shop after Joe got his papers. Yes. And you moved to Norquay.

Linda Skomorowski 15:31

Yes, we did.

Dick DeRyk 15:31

Why Norquay?

Linda Skomorowski 15:33

We were looking to start at Moosomin. My parents lived in Canora, and they saw an ad in the paper. Norquay's looking for a plumber.

Dick DeRyk 15:40

There was no plumbing shop?

Linda Skomorowski 15:42

Yeah, there was, but they they left. Yeah. I thought, I know the area, and we came to look at Norquay. And at that time, Mr. Richford, we call him Mr. Hudson Bay, he got hold of us and he took us all over town, took us to meet the bank manager, found a shop for us, found a place for us to rent. Meanwhile, he was just so nice to us, and you know, he was instrumental in us staying in Norquay.

Dick DeRyk 16:04

Yeah, I remember him because when I was in the newspaper, he was pretty much the guy pushing for the for the port of Churchill.

Linda Skomorowski 16:12

Wonderful man, wonderful man, yes. We were in Norquay till 2005, and we expanded to another prefill.

Dick DeRyk 16:23

And then sold to one of your apprentices.

Linda Skomorowski 16:25

Yes, we did. Yes, we did. To Chris Danielson, yes. Is he still running it? He's still running it in pre spell. In prefill, yeah. He's doing very well.

Dick DeRyk 16:34

At some point you got involved in the whole business of government dealing with apprenticeships. Yes. How did that come about?

Linda Skomorowski 16:43

Involved in a lot of different boards prior to that with apprenticeship and representing apprenticeship in different areas.

Dick DeRyk 16:50

But still as a representative of the industry, of the business.

Linda Skomorowski 16:53

Yes.

Dick DeRyk 16:53

Yeah.

Linda Skomorowski 16:54

Because I was on all these boards and because I was representing apprenticeship, I became very interested in working with apprenticeship. After so many years in the plumbing business, I wanted to do something different that was still involving the trade. And of course, when I was involved with apprenticeship, it was 47, 48 trades I was involved with at the time. But I mean it was I found it interesting, yes. So I was hired as a as a consultant with Sask Apprenticeship.

Dick DeRyk 17:20

What was the the mindset of government as far as women in the trades, that type of thing? Because I mean, even in the 80s, that was not all that common.

Linda Skomorowski 17:30

No, no.

Dick DeRyk 17:32

Were they interested in expanding that?

Linda Skomorowski 17:35

They were they were, yes. They were trying to, you know, there weren't a min that many women at that time interested, to be honest with you, at that time. So there were other minorities like Aboriginal or people from other countries, you know, also in that in that category, but there were not that many women back then interested in actually apprenticeship.

Dick DeRyk 17:56

You gave speeches, you did workshops. It seems like you did an awful lot of talking to other people.

Linda Skomorowski 18:01

I did. So I went to schools talking to students where they'd have career days, or I'd be invited specifically to school to talk about apprenticeship to try and get gals interested. Unfortunately, unfortunately, and I still might be the case today, but back then it was all university, university, university. Trades, if you want to be a tradesperson, that's if you can't do university, which is really not true. Really not true. Gals were still being pushed to university. People were still being pushed to university. So I did a comparison apprenticeship versus college, just to let people know more or less that you know, say you apprentice for four years, you start out, you're making maybe, well, right now it might be close to $30 an hour, but you're paying when you first go to your first year of college, maybe between $25,000 to $30,000 a year. The second year, when you're an apprenticeship, you've you've done a year already, you're making maybe $45,000 to $61,000 a year. When you're in college, the second year, you're in debt $22,500 to $35,000, so forth and so forth. By the end of your four years, you've got no expenses. You've already made earnings of over $300,000. Four years' experience in the industry. When you get out of university, you've got maybe $120,000, $125,000 owing, or maybe more. You know, you work and earn money and earn while you learn, and go to school, you do your classes every every year.

Dick DeRyk 19:31

You tell kids that. What do they tell you? What do they say?

Linda Skomorowski 19:34

Well, they're interested. It perks them up, but it's hard to convince teaching stuff. It probably is different now because this is a while back. You know, hopefully it's different now.

Dick DeRyk 19:44

Well, you know, I tell a story I've told this for years. It's a joke, about a doctor who was having some trouble with his plumbing at at home. Called a plumber. The plumber said, Well, I'm booked up for the next two or three months. I'll come see you if it's not critical. Well, no, I can wait. The plumber goes to the doctor's house and fixes the problem and hands him the bill, and the doctor looks at it and says, Holy smoke, he says, You make more money than a doctor. And the plumber said, I know. I used to be a doctor.

Linda Skomorowski 20:16

Yeah. No.

Dick DeRyk 20:18

The trades are often thought of as kind of a second class job. Unfortunately. Yeah. Yeah. Is that is that changing, do you know? Did it change while you were involved in that?

Linda Skomorowski 20:30

And they still push university. They still push university, but I think more people realize for sure. The compulsory trades, there's four or five compulsory trades that really do really well. If construction ever does go ahead with all the housing they're talking about, that'll be a bit of a boom as well.

Dick DeRyk 20:46

Even if the construction boom comes about, they're not sure they're going to have the people to be able to build the house.

Linda Skomorowski 20:52

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

Dick DeRyk 20:54

And that would be, you know, carpenters and plumbers and electricians and all of those. So forth. Yeah. You've got kids? Yes. You have grandkids?

Linda Skomorowski 21:01

One who's 19.

Dick DeRyk 21:03

And what does the grandkid do? Have you talked to the grandkid about the trees? He's apprenticing.

Linda Skomorowski 21:08

In plumbing.

Dick DeRyk 21:10

Following in the footsteps. And I'm guessing that grandma and grandpa are pretty proud of that.

Linda Skomorowski 21:16

We are, yes.

Dick DeRyk 21:18

What will it take, in your opinion, in order for the trades to be recognized as is an essential part of the economy?

Linda Skomorowski 21:27

They're pushing more trades now. I see even on television, some of the commercials are pushing for more trades now. So I think they're coming to realize how important they are. You need your complete grade 12 to go to any of the trades. Your maths and sciences are very important. Maths and sciences, especially compulsory trades, plumbing, electrical, industrial, mechanics, all these, you need your maths and your sciences.

Dick DeRyk 21:51

I would have never made it personally.

Linda Skomorowski 22:00

Chance for different careers. But where are those careers? Can't find these careers. However, even if you took electrical or plumbing, you can branch out into so many different areas with that. And it gives you credit towards so many other trades as well. So you're not limited.

Dick DeRyk 22:14

Did you have apprentices?

Linda Skomorowski 22:16

We have quite a few apprentices. Local kids that yes, local kids. Some of them are in their own business, some of them are working for SASC Energy, some of them are working in the health system, but as a maintenance, they're all over. Most of them came to us for employment. We didn't seek them. We didn't have to.

Dick DeRyk 22:35

But unemployment is not something that they would have to worry about if you if they're qualified in a train.

Linda Skomorowski 22:41

No. You're earning and learning. So when they go to school, it'd be four weeks or six weeks at a time, depending on what their trade is, a lot of the employers pay for that anyhow. And then you get, if you're living away from the college, you get so much training allowance. So I mean it's it's a win-win. It's just a win-win. Yeah.

Dick DeRyk 23:00

Our conversation concentrated on the apprenticeship issues and her personal quest to become a plumber. But there have been many other endeavors Linda has been involved in over the years. She did finish that Bachelor of Arts degree in later years, taking remote classes. She also completed the first year of government administration at the University of Regina while working with Joe in their plumbing business. She was not only a Red Seal Journeyman plumber, journeyman is what's on her certificate. She hasn't bothered to get that change. She was also commercial class A gas fitter, had a water system operator certificate, was a notary public, and held a fireman certificate. Her red seal plumbing status is permanent. Her commercial gas fitter ticket is still current. She still has her water treatment certification, but she let lapse her fireman certificate and is no longer a notary public. She was named to the Provincial Apprenticeship Equity Plan Steering Committee in 1988, an effort to increase participation in apprenticeship training by underrepresented groups. In the 1980s and 1990s, she was a facilitator, speaker, and participant in conferences, meetings, advisory committees, and symposiums, representing both the provincial and federal governments. She represented the Saskatchewan Apprenticeship Branch at meetings in Edmonton, where the provinces work together to develop national examinations for the Red Seal designation. She is a former chair of the Plumber Trade Advisory Board and served on the Plumber Curriculum Examination Board. She also served on the board of the former Good Spirit Regional Economic Development Authority and was on the Norquay Town Council for 11 years before moving to Crystal Lake. I asked her, fifty-two years after becoming the first fully qualified female plumber in Canada if she's now fully retired. Her answer? Well, once in a while I'll give advice. Otherwise I am retired. Exclamation point.