52

A. Varesano interviewing Anne Timko -17- 7/19/72
Tape 22-2

AV: I wonder how much they got in your time? Or before your time?
AT: Well, they couldn't have gor more than my daughter did!
AV: That's for sure!
AT: So, I don't know, well, when my mother come from Europe she was doing housework for, this John Fatula that lives down where the store was, you know? I guess you met those people down there, ain't you? So, for his parents, my mother was doing housework. She says they got five dollars a month. A month, now! Not a week, but a month! And when he was younger, oftentimes he'd meet my brother, he'd meet me, and he'd always say, We're related! Because your mother was playin' me when I was a baby! I remember she was playin' as a baby! How he could remember, he as a little kid! But, a small baby, an infant, yet. They had boarders down there, so my mother went, before she was married, you know, she went there, to help them with the housework, domestic work she was doin'. And he was a baby, so she used to carry him around, I guess, once in a while. And they must have been tellin' her this. So he always would tell my brother and myself, he said that we're related, because my mother was playin' him when he was a baby!
AV: Well, what did the duties of domestic work include?
AT: Everything! Like in them days it was hard, because even scrubbing and cooking and washing, and everything else you had to do, I mean help the landlady - not the landlady, the boss of the house, the lady of the house, I should say. Because she had boarders, she had children, she couldn't keep up with everything else. So that's why they hired maids, because they needed help.
AV: Did the people of Eckley hire other girls from Eckley to help out, where they had lots of boarders?
AT: No, I don't know, but Mrs. Fatula - she's stayin' with her son now, she is living next door to Joe Charnigy's, there, two years ago she broke up house so she was tellin' - and I always thought she was a whole lot older than I was, because I remember her, you know, and she was doin' housework, she was don' housework in Jeddo, she was doin' housework in Foundryville, where there were boarders, you know, she was doing' housework there. And then she said she was thirteen years old and she was working, doin' housework - that town isn't there any more, Foundryville. It's not there any more - and she said they had a truant officer there, for school, you know. The children didn't come to school, then he'd come to the house, find out why they didn't go to school. And if they missed too many days, well then he'd have their parents arrested and they had to pay a fine for not sendin' the children to school. SO she was thirteen years old and she said this truent officer was in Foundryville at the time. And he seen her, she was for water or something out by the hydrant, and he seen her. And he asked her why she wasn't goin' to school. And I don't know what she said that she told him. That she was out of school, or she was older, or something, and she was out of schoool already, She said that she told him. So she got away with that, but she said she was scared she used to be on the lookout for him, you know, if she had to go to the hydrant or somewhere, so he doesn't come on top of her again, you know, and meet up with her! And then, as I was tellin' you once before, she was tellin' me when she was, when we were quilting there. She was working for Dr. in Freeland. And her sister wrote her a letter and says Susie, come on home, you're getting married! And she was seventeen when she got married. And before then, it was before her mother was sick, and they had a small baby. Her mother got sick after this baby there, she had cancer or something. There were seven children altogether, but one daughter was married, the oldest daughter was married. And Sue was the next to the