50

A. Varesano interviewing Anne Timko -15- 7/19/72
Tape 22-2

years, I can't remember who they were. But I remember that several times they had even more than one group in town. But I can't even remember their names. Maybe Helen would. She remembers everything more than I do! She does! She's got a good memory. She remembers so many things. Look, like she mentioned, I said, what time - not what time - how old were you when you went to work? Oh, she said, I worked when I was fourteen. I said, Where? My daughter, Mary, she was born in 1917, and she had no work. She didn't get a job anyplace in a factory. And, well, of course, it was during the Depression, and then, one of the girls from the other street, she's in New Jersey now, she came over one time, and she asked it Mary would go to someplace, there were some Jewish people having a factory or something in Freeland, and they wanted girls, to teach them to sew on electric machines, and that they would give them a job, but they never gave anybody a job. They'd have them owrk, and without pay, I don't know, was it for six weeks or two months or something like that, and then they'd take other ones, and they'd put these out - nobody got a job. So this lady come after Mary, if she'd go. No, I says, you're not gonna work for nothing. I need help at home, too, because I have a gang here. I need help at home, so you're not gonna go. So, I don't know, was hse about nineteen at that time already then, and she went to do housework in Hazleton. Well, you wouldn't believe it, she was working for three dollars and a half a week, washing, and ironing and cleaning and everything, even the mending she was doing, everything. And then one day she said, that she was pressing - and she was working for Jewish people - and she was pressing her own clothes, when another Jewish woman come in, and she was telling this, her lady, that Does she allow her main to do her own things on her time? See, like Mary was pressing her dress and, you now, it was still the lady's time there yet. Well, Mary was a very good worker all the time. She'd iron the shirts so nice and all. So then, some of the others would complain, the Jewish women, you know, like, they'd get together, they had nothing to do, so they'd get together. Then they were talking, you know, about it, and this lady that Mary was working for said how long it takes Mary to do the ironing. And the other one said, Oh, that's long, she said, You better get after her, she's wasting too much time. ANd when she told Mary that, Mary says, all right. I can not it for you in shorter time. But, she said, don't tell me so the job sould be like it was before, because i can't be. Because Mary was a wonderful worker all the time. She used to iron shirts real pretty. Well, you had to take more time, you know, if you wanted to do a good job on them. So, she said, after that he never told her anything.
AV: Well, did many of the Eckley ladies take work out as housemaids?
AT: Some did. A godchild of mine, she's what, she's gonna be fifty-eight in December, Mrs. Zahay's niece- well, her mother died, she lived up the street here, she was four years old, she was the first of the family, and she had a brother two years old and a baby two month old, and the mother died with the flu, in December she died. She died right after my neighbor. She was, I guess, about twenty-four years old at the time, when she died. Well then, her father remarried in five weeks after his wife died. He remarried because he had this little baby. So he had to have somebody take care of the baby. The in-laws were taking care of the baby, but they didn't want to take care of the baby after the daughter was dead. They didn't want to. So then he remarried. Well, the step-mother wasn't so bad, but her father, she said was very strict, so at fourteen years old, she went to do housework for Rosens in Hazleton. They had a furniture store. Jewish people. And there were seven children there, and Mrs. Rosen was sick. And she worked, she practically brought up them children. The seven children. She was there for