Don and Pearl Sallows: Logan Quarry Pioneers
Posted by Rose Ann Woolpert on Mar 18, 2015
Don Sallows in 1924 and Pearl Sallows in 1984Graniterock values its family oriented workplace, and over the years there have been many families who have had more than one relative or spouse join the Graniterock Team. But it took more than forty years of doing business before Don and Pearl Sallows became the first married couple to work at Graniterock.
Don Sallows was a third generation Californian who began work as a switch engine operator at Granite Rock Company’s Logan Quarry in 1922. His grandparents, John and Mary Sallows, arrived from Liverpool, England in 1866 and settled in Santa Clara, where John found work driving a team of horses, the 19th century version of “truck driver”. Don’s father, Arthur, was born in 1873 in Santa Clara and made his living at a local lumber mill.
Pearl and Don Sallows were married in the 1920s, and as in most families of the time, Don’s job was to be the breadwinner and Pearl managed the household. But World War II was the catalyst for change in the American workforce, and Pearl Sallows was in the vanguard. So many men left to join the war effort that women were needed to take up the slack. Pearl Sallows took a job as weighmaster on the truck scales and became the first woman to work at the Quarry.
In 2002 Graniterock’s Computer Information Support Systems department developed a new and unique sales and invoicing system which consolidated the invoicing process across product lines. It was named PEARL, in honor of Pearl Sallows, who led the way for women who would find careers at Graniterock.
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