51

A. Varesano interviewing Anne Timko -16- 7/19/72
Tape 22-2

seven years, she was working with them people. Because her father wanted the money that she earned to give to him. And he liked to drink. So she says, I'm not gonna be giving my hard-earned money so he spends it for booze. And she says, what'll I have, how am I gonna live? So then the father didn't want her to come home, so she didn't come home, so she had no home, she had nowhere to go to. So she just stayed with these Jewish people. Well then, that was her home. She was like one of the family. So she was there for seven years with them, she practically brought up those seven children there. And then she remarried, so they got another girl from town here to work in her place. She worked one day, and she left! She said that they made her pick the ashes out of the coals, and Anna come - because every Mother's Day, because I was her godmother, so she would always come here. And I was telling her, I said, Well, how come, Anna, you lasted seven years, and that girl, she was a girl, I said, she was only one day? Maybe she didn't give herself chance enough, to get accustomed to the work or something. And she complained that they made her pick the coals out of the ashes. And she said, well they made me do that, too, but she said, if they weren't looking, I would take and just dump it in the ash bin! And see, she was with them so long that they trusted her with everything. And this one, for the first time I guess, when they started nagging at her, well, just one day, and she quit there, she wouldn't work there any more. So I often told her, even when she was working there, I said, Why don't you go some place else? And she said, No matter where I go, I'll have to work. So I might as well stay with these. Because she said, Nobody's gonna keep me if I'm not gonna work. I have to work for my money. Well, then she was married already, when Mrs. Rosen had died. And then they called her to come and cook for the Rosens yet. So she was married, and she used to go and do their cooking for them. And for the funeral. they took her in a family car. And she had a husband. They liked her so much, she was like one of the family, because she stayed with them so long. They had their ups and downs, I guess, and in and outs, but they got along. They'd overlook that and they got along.
AV: Were there other Eckley ladies that went out to housekeeping?
AT: You mean housework. The domestic work. I guess there were, but I can't think off-hand who it was from here.
AV: When did they first start doing this domestic work?
AT: Well, that's been always, for ages. Like, way years back, even the ones that were older than I was. That's the only kind of work they would get if they'd go - housework. You know, if there were more girls in the home, and there wasn't work for them, well, couldn't support them, well, send them out doing housework someplace for somebody, you know? But the pay as very poor. Our Mary was only getting three and a half a week, and that was in, what, about 1938-39, I guess. And that's all she was getting, three dollars and a half a week.
AV: So, in your time, when you were a girl, did they have that domestic work for young girls?
AT: Yeah, they had the domestic, too. Yeah, they had domestic work. Well, see, where there were more girls in a home, you know, well then, some of them would go out to do that work.
AV: Did you know any? Of your age, like?
AT: Not of my age. I don't know any of my age. But that there were older, and when I was younger yet, you know, and some of the older ones that I was. I don't remember any from my age that were doing housework.