How my grandmother became a union maid.

[aquart]

This is my grandmother's memory of her first strike in her own words. Should have posted this yesterday, but labor day was every day back when.

"I worked for a sub-contractor in a room about two blocks long with two hundred other girls. A sub-contractor went into a place and rented a few machines, got the work and hired the girls to run the machines. My boss was young, about 25. I was about 17. He would tell me about socialism. I learned it from him--of course, I had a little background from home. Then the word went out about the strike. The first really big ILGWU strike. We were supposed to go out at 2pm on a certain day. As the day neared, I said, "Yussel, I'll walk out with you." He said, "Let's wait and see what happens." The day came closer. "So, we're walking out?" "Get back to your work." The day came. You couldn't see a head above a sewing machine. We usually sang as we worked. No sound. No woman could look at another, for shame.

"I'm going down at two," I said.

"If you do, you're fired."

But at two, I got up and walked down. Alone. No one came with me. No one was in the street.

The next morning, there were pickets out, and they thought I was trying to go to work.

"No," I said. "I walked down yesterday--I'm not going in."

They all came around me and took me down to the union office and stood me on a chair and said to everybody, "Look! This child" (I looked younger than I was)"walked down yesterday!" And they made a big thing of me, which I liked. I walked the picket line every day for two weeks, that's how long the strike lasted. At first, Yussel would come down and say to me, "Why don't you come back to work? You should see how happy the big boss has made it. He's put in a Victrola, we have music all day long. He serves coffee and cake."

One by one, all the women joined the line. At the end, Yussel came down, too. "I only stayed to talk everyone else into walking down," he said."

[RaleighNCDUer]

1. Great story.

Love it.

[aquart]

5. Each of her granddaughters read one of these at her funeral.

So many people only knew the old woman. I wanted to remind them that she was always still the girl.


"Frumke's husband, the buttonhole maker, got me a job in the place he worked. It was for the two subcontractors, partners, who were very fresh. One day, my needle broke and I had to go to them for another. And one of them said to the other, "Go, stick it in for her." Which had a double meaning which I didn't like. I left at lunchtime. My aunt said, "Why are you home?"

"I have a headache."

"For a little headache you come home?"

"Yes."

"You couldn't finish out the day?"

"No."

"You going back tomorrow?"

"No."

"You still going to have a headache?"

"No."

"Then why?"

"They're fresh."

"For that you leave a job? When I first came to America, I worked for cloakmakers. They are the freshest in the country. You should have heard what they said to me. I'll tell you what. If you don't go to work, you can't stay here anymore. My husband is not going to work for you."

My uncle came back and she told him the whole story. He said, "I'll talk to them."

The partners were not happy that I left because they were fresh. For one thing, they didn't want the word to get out that they talked dirty to the girls. For another, I was a good worker. Also, there was one other girl there named Rose and it was a big debate which one of us was the prettiest girl in the whole place. One of the partner's came home with my uncle.

"You still angry? What did I say to you?" (He wanted me to repeat it.) "Come back. I'll give you a dollar more."

"No."

Some other contractor heard about the whole thing and said, "She doesn't have to go back to them. Let her come in to work for me--I'll give her $2 a week more."

So I went to work for him. I was 16 years old."

[malaise]

2. Lovely post

Rec

[yellerpup]

3. What a woman.

Even at seventeen, she was strong. Wonderful, heartening story. Thanks for sharing.

[aquart]

4. There's more:

Fruma's husband woke me. I slept in the living room. Went into work with him from Brownsville to 23rd Street in Manhattan on train. Had breakfast first--a piece of schmaltz herring, a schnapps (VODKA!), a piece of bread, and coffee. For lunch, I carried a roll and five cents from home. Sometimes I bought corned beef in a nearby deli. Water available in shop.

You go to machine, sit down and work in whatever you have on. People sang at the machines--all the European love songs--the sad songs. Anyone who wanted to get started--if you knew the song, you joined in.

"Roseleh, Roseleh, don't talk so much," this from Joe the Socialist sub-contractor. Worked for him in a different shop, too. When I didn't want to work for him anymore (in the first shop, you know, he was engaged to a beautiful girl who worked there too and he used to say terrible things about her to me. And even later, when they were married--how she didn't clean the house and things--a beautiful girl) I simply didn't go in for about three weeks. You know what he did? Took up a collection in the shop! He said to them, "Rose, poor Rose has TB and we have to send her to a sanitorium." I didn't know anything about it. he passed my house one day, came in and gave me $15 "until you get work." A sop for his conscience. Someone in the shop told me finally. I went to his house and demanded the money he collected for me. It was his sister who had TB. he said it was all a mistake. Why didn't he use her name? I called him a liar and a nogoodnik. He had buckteeth, blond hair, tall (said he couldn't get out of marrying her. Then "she doesn't grow with me." Why tell me? It wasn't nice.) He was in his early 20s came maybe 1916?

Once, we went two, three weeks with no pay from him. He said the big boss didn't pay him. Then he gave us money for only a week or so. He pocketed it. I know he did.

Work started 8 am, 1/2 hour for lunch and worked till six. Arrived home 7 pm and had potted meat with potatoes, always burned. Which I liked. Table already set. Had to help with the dishes. What did we do after? Fruma's husband played cards. She used to argue with him about it and then one day she gave up and became a worse gambler than he was.

About the burnt, which is good for you: once, in Europe, my mother wrote me at my grandmother's (Raisel Gilbert Gelbert Gelbart?) that she was saving all the scorched pots for me. Well, my grandmother got very angry. "Aha! A stepmother! She makes you scrub out the dirtiest pots!" She wouldn't believe it was a joke because I never let my mother wash the pots until I got all the burnt food from the bottom. I never scrubbed a pot in my life until I came to America (and went to live with Fruma who wanted to make a servant out of me.)

[yellerpup]

6. Now I want to know everything.

Did you record her or do you just have a fantastic memory? I feel as if I know her. Great stuff here and I hope you will try to get it published.

[aquart]

7. I sat her down and used my speedwriting and a tape recorder.

My mom made me dig it out for a relative who's researching the family.

[yellerpup]

8. I, for one, am glad that you went to the trouble to capture

her experience for all time. Great story, aquart. She sounds like a person I could love.

[aquart]

9. Well, I'll say there's a lot of forgiveness in learning the human story.

And that, because of this, I was the only family member at peace with her when she died.

[yellerpup]

10. Sometimes the ones that are the hardest to love

are the ones who are most worth loving. You did good.