SLOCEA History: February 1988 Interview with Eva Hurd, a SLOCEA Pioneer
Within my first few weeks working for SLOCEA, I was lucky enough to be tasked with my first “big job” that I found fascinating! There were boxes upon boxes of old files in the office which needed to be organized and preserved. I ran across so many documents, including newspaper clippings, event tickets from the 60’s, and editions of The County Blade dating back to the 40’s.
One of the manila folders I cracked open contained an interview between a SLOCEA employee and one of SLOCEA’s founding members, Eva Hurd. I was absolutely blown away. I was lucky enough to find this gem within weeks of starting here. I learned so much from this interview and I am excited that it once again gets to see the light of day!
Interview with Eva Hurd, a SLOCEA Pioneer - February 1988
Portrait of Eva Hurd from the SLOCEA archives
“In 1947, a small group of County employees got together and decided to form an employees’ association. One of the leaders of that group was Eva Hurd, along with E.S. Milligan, E.G. McWilliams, Ruth Warnken, William Smith, Al Call, and Eleanor Brown, to name just a few of SLOCEA’s “founding fathers”. Eva worked in the Auditor/Controller’s office starting in 1927 as a Deputy Auditor and retired as the Auditor in 1968. SLOCEA staff had the delightful task recently of interviewing Eva Hurd. We learned a lot about SLOCEA, the County, and a very interesting person, Eva Hurd.
SLOCEA:
Why did you and the other County employees start the association?
Hurd:
Our main reason was to get benefits that affect employees, such as salary and health benefits. We didn’t have any means of getting together to discuss our problems. A few of us got together who thought there should be some sort of organization for County employees to work together to raise salaries and get better working conditions. E.G. McWilliams, Probation office, was one of our first presidents.
SLOCEA:
Was the County hard to work with?
HURD:
Well it was more haphazard. There wasn’t anybody to present things to the Board of Supervisors, so that is what the Association did. They made their needs and wants known to the Board of Supervisors through the Association.
SLOCEA:
Before you created the Association, how did you get wages?
Hurd:
Wages were just set by the Board of Supervisors on the recommendations of the department heads, but there wasn’t any set schedule for them to go by. You could be just passed over. It was up to your boss to go to the Board and say that this person deserved a raise. Then it was up to the Supervisors to set the salaries.
SLOCEA:
How hard was it to get the Civil Service rules implemented?
HURD:
We worked a long time on that. We got copies from other counties to see what they were doing, studied all of those, and made comparisons and worked out schedules from that point. It was like they still do; compare with other counties. We did the same for retirement – got comparisons from the other counties, the state county employees’ associations and the County Employees’ Retirement Act of 1937. A lot of the counties went into that. We studied whether to go into that or not or go into Social Security. We compared the two, published it in the Blade in 1951, cost to the employee, cost to the county, age limits. Social Security started out at 1.5% and it said that after 1970, it wouldn’t be more than 3.25% - what is it now – 7.5%. We made thorough studies and finally went under Social Security in 1951.
SLOCEA:
Did the employees vote on both Civil Service and retirement?
HURD:
Yes, Civil Service was a vote by the entire county for Civil Service. The employees voted for the retirement plan.
SLOCEA:
Tell us more about the start-up of SLOCEA.
Hurd:
Our original dues were $3.00 a year/25 cents a month. It was very low. We had to pay it to the Association, it wasn’t deducted from our salary. To create our Articles of Incorporation, we reviewed the other counties and worked with members of the District Attorney’s Office to see that it was all according to the law.
The original group was 5-6, no more than 10 to begin with. Our newspaper The Blade was named as the result of a contest – people submitted names – I don’t remember why ‘The Blade’ was chosen.
I was the treasurer for many years – they always figured that being the Auditor, I could handle the money. I’ve always been in favor of local control of the association. The AFL-CIO came around a few times, but we kept the association local.
SLOCEA:
What were some of SLOCEA’s earliest accomplishments?
HURD:
“We got the basic benefits, such as 40-hour work week, 5-day work week, time and one-half for overtime; benefits that we now take for granted. We didn’t have all of those things in the beginning. We found that other counties did. We learned about what other counties had at meetings of the League of California Counties. That helped us in our requirements.
We started the Employees’ Credit Union in 1953. Bill Smith, who was a Court Reporter, was the first president and I took over for him. We had a representative from the National Credit Union that was based back in Minnesota who came out and talked to us and presented the plan for County employees. Employees voted on the Credit Union and we started it up in 1953.”
SLOCEA:
Was there a lot of resistance from the Board of Supervisors when you presented these things?
HURD:
“Some of them, but I think the Board of Supervisors were pretty good to go along with us because they realized they had to keep up the morale of the employees for better work for the County. There were objections naturally, and we just kept bucking along. I think we accomplished quite a bit. SLOCEA was trying to increase our membership all the time – had membership drives like every organization does.”
SLOCEA:
Tell us about your career with the County. Were you the #2 person in the Auditors office when you first ran for Auditor?
HURD:
I was the Chief Deputy. The office was open to anybody in the county. After Mr. Chase retired, people talked me into running. I was doing the work anyway so I might as well run. I had an opponent the first time I ran in 1954. He (my opponent) said that had he known I was going to run he wouldn’t have run and so he didn’t really put up a very good fight. It was an interesting campaign.
I didn’t have any opposition the next two times I ran. I retired in January 1969, a year before my term was up. I waited until our County retirement system was in full swing so I could draw a retirement. My assistant, Fred Cusik, was appointed by the Board of Supervisors to fill the rest of my unexpired term. He then ran for the office. Paul Floyd then did the same thing.
I retired after 42 years in the Auditors Office. I started in the Auditors Office officially in 1927, worked three days without pay at the end of 1926. Mr. Truesdale was the Auditor at that time, and he wanted me to come in and be trained by Rita, the Deputy Auditor, before she left. There were only two deputies in the office. Mrs. Truesdale was the other deputy. There were only three people in the office, and when I left there were twenty-two.
When I retired they gave me a plaque from the County. It was one of the first ones they gave out. It reads ‘For 42 years of dedicated service, Auditor/Controller 1955-1968.’
I traveled all over to meetings for both the Auditors Office and the County Employees Association. The Auditors Association was divided into areas and we had meetings on that level also. The State Controller was sort of the Auditor over the County auditors. Every time the state legislators make some laws, it makes more work for the County Auditors.
SLOCEA:
What about your personal background?
HURD:
I was born in North Dakota and we came to Atascadero in 1915. We spent a year in Canada, then Chehalis, Washington and then moved to Atascadero in 1915 when it was a new community under E.G. Lewis.
The publicity about Atascadero is what brought us there. I went to the first school in Atascadero. There were not very many houses and we lived in a tent on a ranch right on the edge of Atascadero. My dad established a shoe repair shop, the first and only one in Atascadero.
There was an opening for a bakery shop in Templeton. My grandmother lived with us and she was a great baker. My mother and grandmother opened the bakery shop in Templeton. In those days you didn’t have all the restrictions you do now, so you could just open up a shop.
We moved to Templeton then and lived there for a number of years. My dad went into the lath and plaster business with my uncle. It was a big family; mom and dad and 10 of us children, my grandmother, and my uncle.
My dad was killed in an auto accident about 1924 and my mother was left in Templeton with all of us. Some of us worked out trying to make ends meet. I lived with a family in Paso Robles and went to high school there. I got a job keeping house for an elderly couple there. I graduated from Paso Robles High, after having to quit for a while to work but I finally made it.
Then I went to Heald’s Business College in San Jose. I had decided that I wanted to go into business and couldn’t afford to go to regular academic college. Just after I finished my two years, their elementary bookkeeping teacher just left one day; went home on Friday and never came back. They asked me if I would take over the class and for the rest of the term I taught elementary bookkeeping.
I worked then for the Bank of San Jose. I decided that I wanted to get back home so I started writing letters of application and one of them ended up in the hands of Harry A. Truesdale. He came and interviewed me during the holidays and said that if I wanted the job I could have it. That is how I started with the County. When I first came to work for the County, I roomed with the Truesdale’s at 1134 Mill Street.
Then I moved to Pacific Street with a friend. My mother was a wonderful cook, and I am not – I hate cooking. My mother came up to live with me and I bought a house on Mill Street and she lived there with me until she died in 1941. After my mother died, I sold the house on Mill Street.
In 1944, I decided that I would join the service. On my 40th birthday, I mailed in my application for the WACs. I served a year and four days, and wouldn’t you know, they put me in finance. After my 10 weeks in basic training at Fort Des Moines, they sent me to the Army Finance Center at Fort Benjamin Harrison just outside of Indianapolis. I served there until the end of the war.
I asked for a transfer to Illinois for separation so that my sister Pat – who was getting out of the Marines at the same time – and I could drive back across the United States together. We started home in November, spent Thanksgiving in Denver, where we searched all over for a place that was serving turkey. We had to wait for the turkey to be cooked when we finally found a place that was serving turkey. Our car had no chains; we came all across the country without them, slipped and slid around the streets, but had to buy them to come over the pass at Truckee, California.
SLOCEA:
You have seen a myriad of changes.
HURD:
Oh my goodness yes. All the offices, they had so few. Now they have them here and there and everywhere. That monstrosity of a Courthouse – all that wasted space. I always think of John Ruskovich, Chairman of the Board of Supervisors, who looked at the lawn around the Courthouse and said that all that wasted space that it used up by having a lawn, we could have the building out there and we’d have a lot more room. So when I see the wasted space in the Courthouse I always think of John Ruskovich.
SLOCEA:
We understand that you are quite the traveler.
HURD:
I have been in all 50 states. I went to Alaska last year for the fourth time. I’ve been to 73 different countries. There are a few of them I haven’t been to.
I have reservations for next April to go to Panama. I’ve been through the Panama Canal before, but this time we are touring Panama by train, by ship, and by bus. We’ll go to San Blas Islands – I’ve been there before and got pillows and other works of ‘molla’ work.
Last year we went to Peru and Lake Titicaca. It is the only place in the world they make unique reed boats. I have all this ‘junk’ from my travels.
(Note: Eva has an extensive collection of artwork and souvenirs from around the world. Some of the places she has gathered artifacts are from Bali, Nepal, Belize, Europe, South America, China, India, Australia, to name a few. We’d hardly call these beautiful souvenirs ‘junk’.)
This is my plaque from the County, it was one of the first ones they gave out ‘For 42 year of dedicated service, Auditor/Controller 1955-1968.’
SLOCEA:
What is the favorite place you have been?”
HURD:
Everybody always asks me that. The places are all so different. Its amazing how other people in the world live, in some of the places like Peru.
SLOCEA:
If someone asked you where is the best place to go for vacation what would you say?
HURD:
It depends on the person. If you want to go to some far-off exotic place, go to Peru – on the island that is made of reeds in the middle of Lake Titicaca. Lake Titicaca is 14,000 feet high.
I write up my trips and take pictures and keep them together in binders. I keep these binders in my bookcases and I’m now running out of room in the bookcases. I’m either going to have to quit traveling or buy another bookcase – so I’ll buy another bookcase.
Last October we went on a tour on the Mississippi Queen from St. Paul, Minnesota down to St. Louis, Missouri. We took our 26-foot motorhome and drove to St. Paul and left it there; took the Mississippi Queen down to St. Louis, spent the day touring St. Louis and then got on a bus for 16 hours back to St. Paul.
We drove our motorhome down through the US to Florida and then back across with many sightseeing stops. I always come back to San Luis Obispo. It’s the best place in the world to live. We travel as much as we are able to.
SLOCEA:
What other activities keep you busy?
HURD:
I belong to Rebekah, and of course I’m the Treasurer of that. I’ve been the Treasurer for over 20 years, except for the 3 years when I was the Noble Grand.
I’m also in the Business & Professional Women’s Club. I think Stella Lewis and I are the senior members since we’ve belonged to the club longer than anyone else. In 1979, they surprised me by nominating me as the Woman of the Year.
I’m a past president of the BPW Club.
Eva Hurd had a remarkable career with the County of San Luis Obispo over a 42-year span. She found the time to travel extensively; start the Employees’ Association and the Credit Union; be active in business and social clubs; and to become the County Auditor. All of this takes quite a bit of energy, talent, and commitment. Eva still has all of these qualities – she hasn’t slowed down a bit in retirement.
We hope that all of us can keep up with the work Eva started. The SLOCEA pioneers gave us the means to work with the County and improve working conditions for every County employee. They created the foundation. We must continue to build on it.”
Provided by Briana Dickey
Office Assistant