It was a bittersweet moment last Friday for a woman who has spent the last 56 years making sweets for the province.
Seventy-two-year-old Audrey Stone of St. John’s first walked into Purity Factories on Blackmarsh Road for a job when she was 17 years old, and nearly six decades later, finally hung up her apron on Friday.
She worked her entire career in the candy department and she’s loved every minute of it, crediting the friendships made with co-workers as part of the reason why she stayed so long. She even got opportunities to bring home her wares, enjoying the ‘scrap’ that couldn’t be packaged or sold.
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“I used to like the candy kisses, I used to eat a scattered one of them,” admits Stone. “I used to eat a lot of pieces of scrap, right? That was knocked off the candy before they were packaged. And I used to love eating the (broken) cookies on my way out to my lunch break and stuff like that.”
She says while it was time to retire, she’s not sure how she’s going to spend all her free time.
“I’ve got to get used to being off, that’s for sure, because I worked my whole life,” she says. “I’m going to keep busy.”
