Q: Tell us about when you came to Utah, why you came to Utah, and how you felt about Utah.

Well, we came here after persuasion from my father's oldest sister, who thought because we lived in Colorado in this little farming town we didn't have very good educational opportunities, which was so. We had to go away after grade school and elementary school, we had to go away to go to school somewhere. So, she persuaded us to finally move to Salt Lake City, which we did.

I was very unhappy as a child when I grew up here, because it was so different. We didn't know black nor white when we lived in Colorado. We were the only the black people, everybody mingled and associated with one another and did things together, so when we came here we found such a difference. The Mormons resented us and treated us just like dirt. I was treated very ugly in school, and I was just an unhappy little girl growing up here, 'till I was in my teens. I hated people; everything was just passionate with me. Everything that anybody ever did to me it always stuck with me. It took me a long period of marriage and every thing else, and husbands helped me to fight some of that, to get over it.

Finally, I have overcome it all and I feel so differently now. That's the reason I've decided I'm here now, I'm back home. I'll stay; and I have a few relatives around Salt Lake so I'm happy here now.

Q: Tell us about your experiences in school.

When we moved here we lived over on Fourth East near the old Fremont School. We went to school there, the youngest of us. I was in the first grade there -- the only black child in that room. I have many experiences there that were unhappy, but I could never -- and I haven't understood yet -- the prejudice people carried in their hearts toward other people, animosity toward actions, and their feelings toward what others do and want to do. I think that is just one of those things that grows up with people, especially if their culture, such a culture to hate blacks or hate whites or hate Indians or whatever. You just have to fight within yourself an awful lot to overcome things.

Q: One experience mentioned in your book refers to Valentine's Day. Could you tell us that story?

Well, it was the only time I ever remember being involved in Valentine's Day. To this day I don't care especially for valentines; it has stayed with me. On Valentine's Day the teacher passed out red and white paper and lace things to make valentines on them. We could put our own name on it and put it in the box in the room or we could bring it home. So, I put my name on it and put it in the box. On Valentine's Day, she had a stack of valentines on her desk and she had two children from the room come up and pass out the valentines, as one would draw them out of the box and one would pass them out. Everybody's name was called but mine, until they got down to the one I had dropped in with my own name on it. I got that valentine.

Then, after that was over and the teacher passed out her valentines to all the children. She passed out a valentine to every child in the room but me, and she just glared at me the whole time she was doing it. And when it was over I kept staring at her as if to say, "What in the world is matter with you?" She turned her back and started writing on the black board to keep and facing me any longer. That is my reason for not liking Valentine's Day, just her hatred toward me.

It was just one of those kind of things, I just didn't understand, we didn't do this in Colorado. We didn't do those kind of things, whatever the community did, everybody did. But now it doesn't matter. You outgrow things gradually and you get over things. But I never quite understood the prejudice people had toward children because they were of a different race. I could maybe understand maybe the difference between adults hating one another because of some sort of reason, but there was no reason for that teacher to dislike me the way she did.

That is what I couldn't understand and couldn't figure out going to school. The children were taught to hate us. One little girl took me with her after school to what they call primary meeting or something like this. It was after school with the Mormon Church. The next time we looked forward to going she said, "I can't take you anymore." I said, "Why?" She said, "Because you're a nigger. I said because you are a nigger. My mother said not to bring you anymore because you're a nigger and the teacher doesn't want you there."

I went home and told my mother, and she said, "I knew this was going to happen, but I thought maybe the best way to solve it was for you to find out personally from the teacher, or from the mother, or the girl, and so that was what happened there."

So, all those types of bitterness grew up with me, and caused me to hate and dislike Salt Lake City so much. I feel differently about Salt Lake now than I did, because things have grown, people have grown, and because of the leadership in our church. All of the differences now -- we didn't have then. We had no leadership to fight back or anything; but we do have now with Pastor Davis here. He's been superb, just been wonderful to bring us out of so much hatred and so many uglinesses that existed at that time and I'm so happy I'm here now.

Reverend Davis is a splendid person, and he's taught classes at the university, and has had chances to bring things to the public more or less. It has been easier for him to do it than for some of the earlier pastors in the church. Without Calvary Baptist Church, our race would have just been doomed here in Salt Lake City, because it was the only social life we had. The only experiences we'd have during services on Sunday, church you know and things like this, we just had to overcome so many different things.

Q: Tell us about your early memories of Calvary Baptist Church.

We lived on Third North near the railroad tracks. On Sunday morning, we got all ready for Sunday school. My dad would give us each so many nickels: two nickels for street car fare, a nickel for Sunday school, a nickel for that Sunday School. Calvary was then on Third South and Seventh East. We then would walk from Calvary Church over to this little church on Sixth South here and we would have a nickel to put into collection at their Sunday school. We then would walk from there to a little grocery store that used to be on this corner here, get an ice cream cone, walk over to State Street, get on the street car, and go home. We always looked forward to it. That was our social life on Sunday.

I had a friend named Mary Smith -- Mary Barker at that time. Mary would always come home with us, because there was eight years' difference between she and her sister. Her sister worked and went to school, but she always saw that Mary got to Sunday school, came home with us, and spent the day at our house. So, we called her number 13 in our family. I'm the one last living one of the crowd of children that grew up at that time. Mary died in March of this year, so I'm the last one living of that crowd.

Q: With eleven brothers and sisters, you and your siblings were the only African-American students in school at the time. Your family became your friends -- and you stuck together as a family. Tell us about that.

Oh yes, we went to school together, we walked to school together, walked home together, took care of one another on the way to and from school. If we didn't, we'd have fights and all kinds of things to cope with back-and-forth. The children were taught that it's okay -- that whatever you do to those niggers that's fine, that's okay. Nobody ever protected us.

I was expelled from school one day, because the boy who sat behind me was always picking at me and my hair was braided and my mother put one bow on each braid on the back of my head. One day, I leaned back like this to rest my neck, because it was study period. When I did that, he took my ribbon and dipped it in the ink well. The ink just flew everywhere and I took my geography book and I just banged it over his head until I tore it all to pieces, pages just flew everywhere. They sent me to the office, and the principal expelled me from school and sent me home.

When I went home, my father happened to be at home. He brought me right back to school, took me in the office, and he told the principal, "You cannot expel her from school. It was not her fault. That boy dipped her ribbon in the ink well. There's evidence of it; it was all around the ink well." At those times it did not wash out. He just ruined my clothes. Finally, we got that settled, but I never saw that boy again after that, he disappeared completely and never saw him again.

Those kinds of things are the things we had to cope with, so we stayed together as family. We walked to school together; we'd come home together. Many years ago we used to take our sleds and ride it down from the corner down the hill and slide. Two white boys came along one day and backed me up towards the fence and the other kept wanting me to speak African for us -- "We want to hear you speak African." I said, "I don't know any African. I don't know anything about it." "Oh, yes you do. You're African." And he backed me up. My brother was coming up the hill with his sled, coming back up the hill to slide down, and he saw this confusion and he ran and ran till he got up to the top of the hill and chased those two boys away. I never saw them again. They were determined to make us speak African. People were so ignorant in those days, because they thought everyone originated from Africa and had to speak African. I don't know.

I had all those types of experiences growing up here. We would not have had it maybe in Colorado. But just the same, there was some prejudice there most likely, but we didn't experience it.

Q: Tell us about your father's employment.

My father finally got a job working for the city. They had underground comfort stations, they called them, and people went down in there to relieve themselves and clean up a little bit or whatever. My father got a job working in the men's department and he contracted, kind of a contract, verbal probably, to say that he would have his daughters work in the ladies' side and take care of that. So, we did that for many, many years.

My father worked there for the city and many other jobs too, to make it go all over for our family. That was his main job and he did a good job of it, and he worked there until he retired and they finally closed all those places all up. I don't know why, but they probably didn't need them anymore, because the buildings all have restrooms and places like that for people to go to. The one my father had charge of was on the corner of Third South and State Street where the old Auerbach's store building used to be. Now I guess that's a theatre. It turned out to be many different businesses after the store closed out and moved across the street.

We had a pleasant life in Salt Lake City, yet I was an unhappy child. Most of my brothers and sisters were older than me, could cope with it easier than I could. Having all been born in Colorado (except the last three of them), we were just Coloradans. We just didn't care especially for Utah, but we were here and we were stuck here. So we stayed here until we were all grown. I married here than we went to Washington State where my husband's people lived.

Q: Tell us about your husband's employment.

When I met him he was a Pullman porter at that time. Then we got a job working for the Fabian family out in Cottonwood Canyon on East Vine Street; it ran out through the Canyon. We worked there for a number of years for them. I was a cook and a maid; my husband was yardman and chauffeur. Then we left them and went to work for one of the Walker Bank people, Robert Walker. We worked for them, then the Depression hit and they cut down on everything and the banks closed. We finally decided that the best thing for us to do was to move to Washington State and branch out there and find something better to do. So, we did and we liked it there in Washington.

Q: Did the people in Washington make it it easier to live there than in Salt Lake City?

The people were kinder, they had their prejudices, but they were different. We found a community where we were closer to black people, other black people, other than just our family. We liked it there. We were farmers and we also had a tearoom and a catering business. So, we made it there and we lived there for fifty years, and than my husband passed away.

I had nothing else to do and took a lot of odd jobs and worked around. I finally signed up with an agency who hired people to go and take care of children, while their parents were away visiting or something. I did that for awhile till my brother became ill and I came back to Salt Lake to take care of him. In the mean time, we lost several members of our family and our husband's family too. We liked Washington State; we liked it very much.

Q: What was it like for your son to grow in Washington? What kind of experiences did he encounter?

Well he found prejudices too, but they were different than if he had grown up in Salt Lake. If he had been in Salt Lake City I think he would have had experiences a good deal like mine as I grew up. On the other hand, you never can tell. Maybe it would have been easier for him, being another generation, because we had been married 18 years before we had a child, so it's hard to say. He's been a happy child, he's had a lot of experiences.

Q: Let's talk about your career hopes for yourself. I understand that you wanted to become a nurse, but you knew you probably wouldn't be able to find a job and that was very disappointing.

Well, I was always told, "Well, you can take the training, you can learn and you can learn from experiences and you can go to school, but they won't hire you in the hospitals; they won't hire you in the nursing homes." Of course, nursing homes were non-existent at that time. So, I just took whatever I could get to do, so did my husband.

He finally got a job with a family here. He was working in a garage washing cars at the time he got the job here for the Miller family, who were old people here and had lived here many years. He went to work for them as a chauffeur and gardener and yard man. They happened to be friends of a some of the people that we knew in Salt Lake City that we had worked for, so it all worked out pretty well.

My husband had come from Kansas and his life was just a little bit different from ours. He had never been segregated in school. He went with all children; all races of children went to the same schools. I guess they are all just a little different than where I grew up. We would have school plays, and I was always left out because I was black. I couldn't take part in any school plays or dances like that. Sometimes hard knocks make you a little stronger, I outgrew a lot of my resentments and I outgrew a lot of my hatred. Things have changed drastically.

In Washington State my husband became president of the rock and mineral club there. He got acquainted with a lot of nice people and they showed no differences. We had banquets and parties and they visited each other's homes. I have a lot of miniatures in that cupboard over there that he built. So, we had a happy life in Washington, much happier than we would have had in Salt Lake.

Q: You lived the early part of your marriage here in Salt Lake City?

For the first four or five years.

Q: During that time did you go out? What did you do for entertainment?

We went to dances, because the black people had their own dances and their own affiliations with each other. We didn't have to depend on going out. If we wanted to go to a public dance hall, we could stand and watch, but we couldn't dance. So, we didn't attend those kinds of things.

Once and awhile a traveling band would come through, like Duke Ellington or somebody. They'd give a big dance for the white people, but after that dance was over we would have parties or something and we could attend those. Maybe the next night they would have one just for the black people.

We made it all right. There was always the prejudice and I find there is still a lot that is still going on here in Salt Lake too. Right here in this building, I've had experiences many ugly things, through people that are Mormons and through people who feel like their different or a little above.

Q: Do you remember the story of when Marion Anderson came into town?

Couldn't get a place to stay.

Q: Can you tell us that story? I don't know if I remember very clearly, but I remember she came to give this concert. I don't remember if she finally stayed long enough to give the concert then left or exactly what happened, but they would not let her stay in the Hotel Utah nor the New House Hotel or any place in the State of Utah. That happened to many of the big bands, but the bands had their own buses to travel in and would pack up and leave. But Marion Anderson's mentor, teacher, and the man who carried her throughout all of her experiences was a white man. He was a foreigner, but he was white. They finally married and, of course, it made it a little different and a little easier for her than to travel to other states. But there was a lot of prejudice. It didn't matter how high up you were or how low you were or whatever. If you were black, you were black. And you were ostracized.

Your sister Thelma helped organize the NAACP chapter here?

Yes, my father and my sister Thelma organized the NAACP here and got that all organized. And it is still in existence, of course, as you know. They have advanced a great deal and they have done some wonderful things here in Utah, the NAACP. While I was still growing up here there was a sheriff who was shot and killed, and they blamed this black man for it and he was lynched. Just here in the last couple of months or so they had a celebration and they gave him a plaque, in some little town here. And Pastor Davis has lead the NAACP in many efforts to get things like this going.

Things have changed and grown. The people here have grown. I've enjoyed living back here these last twelve years a great deal more than I ever thought I would. It is due to my church mainly, because that has been my main affiliation ever since I've been a child. I've grown up in the church and it has always been something that I favored and liked and enjoyed doing. I worked in the choir and worked in the church and did a lot of other things. Through my church affiliations I have made a lot of friends, and done a lot of good things for the community, I think.

Q: Do you remember the place called Coon Chicken Inn?

I remember it was on Highland Drive, south of town. It was a very ugly place. It was built like a big black person's face: big thick lips, bright red lips, and funny looking eyes as the entranceway into this place. I was never in there. They didn't serve black people there.

Q: It offended you then?

Yes, I was always offended at anything like that. Anything that characterized our people in an ugly way. I've always resented that.

Q: Who would go to the Coon Chicken Inn?

Oh, it was a very popular place. It was known not only in Salt Lake, but many other places had Coon Chicken Inns. They were always called that. I don't know who started them or anything about them, but it was a very popular place here. People thought it was the place to go -- take your friends when they came in from out of town to go to the Coon Chicken Inn.

Q: In the early '60s, when the Civil Rights movement was very powerful, there was a gentleman named Robert Freed who owned Lagoon. He was evidently very active in helping the Civil Rights as far as opening up Lagoon and the Rainbow Rendezvous?

I wasn't living in Utah then. I was living in Washington State, but I remember reading the many incidents about Lagoon and different things like this. The Civil Rights movement became a quite a big deal here in Utah, and especially in Salt Lake City. When they had the Freedom Riders, they organized a train here, I think, and went East to Washington D.C., or wherever it was that the movement was headed for. There were a lot of white people who joined in with the fair, from Washington State, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. Many places joined in and headed toward the same destination. I was not involved too closely with it, but I was always interested in what involved my people.

We've come a long way in advancing from just black and white, meanness and ugliness, because they are black or another race of people. I sure that as black people, African-Americans, were not only people who were treated this way; I'm sure there were other people who were treated very ugly too. I'm reading some of the stories and this Missing Stories book -- that includes the Japanese and Chinese and all of those.

I remember coming along as a youngster hearing about Plum Alley. Plum Alley was downtown, between West Temple and Main Street. It was a Chinese community. There were stories every once in a while about something going on down in there between the Chinese and things like that had happened. Just in the last year, there is a man who lives here, he is very ill now. Lucky and I were talking one day and I asked him if he remembered Plum Alley. He said, "I don't remember, but I know there is a street called Plum Alley now." He said, "Do you want to go down there some day?" So he got a car this one Sunday we drove down to Plum Alley and it's all warehouses now. But when I was a child growing up, it was quite a popular place for the Chinese who lived and had their little stores and businesses there. I was glad to see Plum Alley again. The street is named Plum Alley, but it is nothing but a warehouse street.

Q: You've lived 92 years. Is there anything that sort of stands out as being the best experience of you life?

I think the most enjoyable experiences I can remember would be growing up in and seeing changes in people and in their attitudes. Seeing the way people have learned to live together in a communities. In the last few years how Calvary Baptist Church has grown to the extent that we have to build a new church. We are so crowded in there that we have to have two morning services in order to accommodate everyone. We don't have parking places. So we have bought property over on Main Street to build a new church. I am so happy to see this happening, because of the struggles of the early times here in Salt Lake. Seeing Calvary existing and keeping on growing, keeping on growing, keeping on and on. The people coming and going out and moving in and moving back. It's been quite an experience for me. I'm so pleased with all of this -- the growth the people have made here in Utah. While we still have to fight Mormonism and all of this kind of thing, we still have grown.

Q: What would be your hope for the future?

We just keep right on climbing, keep right on growing and making strides ahead. I think progress is the main thing that has kept everybody growing. If you fight progress you fall back and you don't make any progresses. It's like keeping somebody down and keeping your foot on her. And if you don't make it, then they don't make it either.

I'm happy to see the progress that the state of Utah has made. I think it's been easier in other states in many ways to make it then it has been in Utah because of the Mormons. While I am not exactly against Mormonism -- they have their religious beliefs and all and they are entitled to that -- I make comparisons against them because that is a big experience in my life, having fought Mormonism and having to come from between them, and other things in my life.

Q: Did you have memories of going to a theater and having to sit in the balcony?

Oh yes, that was the usual way. That was not only in the state of Utah, though. You had to sit in the balcony in many places in many theaters. Many places did this. Black people had to sit in the balconies so far up they called it "nigger heaven." So high up that you could hardly hear and you could hardly see, but they have outgrown all of that now.

They have outgrown that everywhere, they are making better strides everywhere, according to those kind of prejudices. It's not been an easy fight for 92 years, but it's been an interesting one. I'm pleased to have been living in the period of time that I have lived and seeing the changes that have been made.

Q: What about black society here?

We always had to have our own society in the state of Utah because we were black and we were ostracized as black people and set aside. Maybe a misfortune in way, but it's always been a good fortune too. Because it has made people stronger in order to keep their demands and their feelings about running to get ahead.

We had to organize clubs in order to have things to do. We organized clubs called the Federated Clubs of America (black women's clubs) and they were very, very strong at one time. They are almost non-existent now, because there have been so many other opportunities for black women to take part in life. We have always had our own societies, our own churches. The only way that you could become a Mormon was to totally absolve yourself from everything else and become a Mormon. Or just to do it for the sake of being charitable toward us, they would help us. Other than the people who came and settled early in the existence of the Mormon church, there were black people who had came and settled here and there are still some of them still living.

We moralists have always had our own black societies of every sort: Black lodges and, as they have white Masons, we have black Masons. We have black Elks, as white Elks, all of them. They have got two places now. Every once in a while you will find out that they have accepted a black person in some organization like the Masons or the Elks or something like this. But we have always had our own societies. Q: Do you have a particular memory about the 4/5 Club?

No, I haven't been that active in it. I remember the fun things that we did, picnics, parties, anniversary parties and things that they've had. My brother and his wife were members of that club and through him I became an honorary member. The 4/5 Club was a very active club because so many people there did have couples. Men and women, husbands and wives and that made it a very strong organization. We did have some very fine times, they would take trips together, charter a train or a car and go to Las Vegas and things like this.

Being black has been quite the experience for me, because I wasn't black and I wasn't white. I'm a color. People would say, "Well, you've got to be mixed up." Of course I am mixed up, but who isn't? Who isn't mixed up? You stay in this country long enough then you are going to get mixed up.

We came here when the slaves were brought over here on the boats. Many slaverymen who were tied and chained were allowed to have some affiliations with some of the white sailors on the boats. If they had children and the children died, they just sunk them overboard and threw them into the ocean. But some of them made it here and still lived and they were half white and half black. That is where the mixture began.

So to say that you don't believe in mixture of races, you can't say that because we are mixed up everywhere. African, Europe, Asia -- everywhere they are mixed. In my race there are people of all colors. My family, there were people of all colors. I was one of the fair ones, but I had sisters and brothers who were darker. But we were all sisters and brothers in one family with one mother and father. But we all have different skin colors, but we were all one family, all the same race, all the same people. This is not just true in the Steward family, it was true in all families.

Q: Were your parents both African-American then? Yes, they were. My father was part Indian, my mother was part French. Her mother was part French. I was just talking to my niece yesterday. She found some papers, and she had been going through papers looking for history of our family. She had found a piece of a brown paper bag that her mother had written some notes on about my mother's family name, my grandmother's name, and all of the Sextons and the Stewards. She hasn't found enough yet of the Steward family to make it able for us to trace my father's people back far enough yet. But we are still working on that.

Q: Tell us a little bit about your memory of your mother.

I have a lot of good memories of my mother. She was a good mother. She wasn't a very highly educated woman, but she was a smart woman. She could sew. She could look at something and say, "Oh, I would like to have a dress like that." And maybe eventually she would get it, because she could sew. She would make up patterns and she could do all kinds of things like that. She was a good cook. Oh, she could make the best rolls and homemade cakes and pies. At Christmas time -- oh my goodness -- the stacks and shelves would be loaded with all kinds of goodies for the Christmas holidays.

She and my father were married when they were quite young. They had children at least two years apart, but they just kept coming. They didn't know what to do to not to have them, I guess, so they just kept having them. We were a happy family in many ways because we had all of ourselves together. A lot of times after our work was done, the dishes were washed, our homework was done for school, and my mother would say, "Come on, let's go in and play the piano." She could play the piano by ear. She would play and we would sing and dance with each other and have the best times. Then she would say, "All right, it's almost time for bed. Let's pop some popcorn." We would have a little popcorn and then we would go to bed. I remember all of those kind of fun things as well as the struggles, which would take a lot of time.

I remember my mother staying up all night long some nights toward Christmas time. She was sewing new dresses and things made for us to wear on Christmas holiday. But she was always in the kitchen. That is why I think I was adapted to cooking, because I was helping her. I remember the doughnuts she used to make. She would get up early in the morning to make the doughnuts' dough. Then she would get us all up and we would have doughnuts -- this is just before Christmas, before we opened up our gifts on Christmas morning. She would be making the doughnuts and I would be dipping them into the hot grease, bread them, and then cool them. We would have doughnuts, hot tea, hot milk, and coffee. It was just a happy time for me, especially in the holiday seasons. Just great.

She didn't live too many years, but she lived a good long life and she raised all. People would come and take some of us home to live with them and keep us for a while, but she never let any of us go away from home. We always stayed together. [Mother said,] "They are all mine and I am going to raise them together."

Q: Is there anything you want to add?

I remember a lot of good times coming along, growing up in Salt Lake too. Especially our Sunday school years, when we would go to Sunday school and come home. We always had to come home from Sunday school. We were never allowed to go to other people's houses to visit or anything. But we could bring home as many kids as we wanted. They were always welcomed, especially Mary. Mary Smith, I sure do miss her. She has been in a nursing home for the past four years of her life and she does not know me anymore. But I can see her every once in a while. I become so disheartened, I may be the same way. But so far, so good. I've turned out pretty well. I'm still able to remember a little bit, talk a little bit, and remember people.

Pastor Davis' friendship and his caring for me has made it a lot easier since I've known him. When I came back to Salt Lake, I went to this Methodist church for a while with his brother and his wife because they belong there. But I've always been a member of the Baptist Church, always. I went back to Calvary as soon as I was able leave them. I went back and joined Calvary again and I've enjoyed my years with Calvary. It's been part of my life in growing up, all of my life. When we lived in Colorado, we went to church and it was a Catholic church. But everybody went there. When I came here and we joined up with the Calvary Baptist Church I thought it was great to be in a church with no one but black people and being in a church where everybody did things together. That was our social life as well as our spiritual life. It was great. So I have a lot of good memories of growing up here too. I have a lot of good memories.

Q: Tell us about your first job.

I was out in the front yard playing. I guess I was taking care of one of my baby brothers or sisters or something. A lady came along. (This was during World War I). She was dressed in overalls and she walked all the way from the North Salt Lake river yards, where they claimed to clean engines. She worked there, she would leave early in the morning and after getting her children up and ready for school she would walk way out there. She would clean those big engines.

That evening she came by and I was in the yard and she stopped and said, "Little girl, do you think that your mother would let you come up and help me a little bit after school in the evenings?" My mother happened to be standing in the front door. She came out and she said, "What is it?" She said, "Well, I work all day long and when I get home from work I would just like for someone to be there -- maybe to peel potatoes, sweep up the kitchen and wash up the lunch or breakfast dishes." So my mother said, "Do you think you want to do that?" I said, "Well..." She said, "I'll pay her." I thought that if she was going to pay me, then that would be fun. Have a job and get paid! Something I had never had before. So I tried it.

I would get home from school, change my clothes, and go up to her house and peel potatoes, wash the dishes, sweep up the kitchen and tidy things up a little bit. I would also help her kids change their clothes from school. Whatever snacks they would eat, I would see that that was cleaned up by the time the mother got home. At the end of the week, I got fifty cents.

I was telling my daughter-in-law about this. She said, "Oh, nobody makes their kids go to work." I said, "My mother didn't make me do it. She asked me if I wanted to do it." I thought it was a chance for me to earn some money and I did it. I got 50 cents a week and I gave my mother 25 of it and I would put the other 25 in the bank." She said, "Oh no, nobody makes their kids do that." I said, "Nobody made their kids do that. We did it because we women were all that was left to do the work. They're cleaning those big engines and all of them had to do it because there was no men left at home to do this kind of work."

It was so hard for her to understand this. She said, "I thought that all mothers were supposed to stay at home and raise their families." I said, "They are, but sometimes that is not always possible." She couldn't understand that. I don't think to this very day that she could quite understand that my mother let me go to work for 50 cents a week. I said, "Yeah, you earn what you call money now, but in those days, when I was a little girl, 50 cents meant quite a lot of money to me. I gave half of it to my mother and I put the other half into the bank." When school started I would buy things that I needed for school. She just could quite figure that one out.