03709_0133: Mayselle Sweat Green (another version)

FL-33-B 2,701 words February 20, 1939 Mayselle Sweat Green, 2552 Lewis Street. Jasksonville, Florida. Cigar Factory Hforker Lllian Stedman, writer Evelyn Werner, reviser

MAYSELLE SWEAT GREEN. [underline]

Mayselle Green, a samll, attractive blonde of 22, willingly shows me the home she and her husband are buyin. The little living room is furnished with a set of overstuffed furniture, upholstered in green mohair, and the rugs harmonize with the expensive curtains and drapes. It is new and comfortable, if a little crowded.

The bedroom, in full view of the living room is neat and pretty. The spread and drapes look as expensive as those in the living room, and there is handwork on the linens. Mayselle points to a cedar ohest inlaid with, saying, "Isn't that pretty? Paul gave it to me for an engagement present. It was made by and crippled sailor."

The kitchen, off the small dining room with its imitation Duncan Phyfe dining set, is modern in every way.

We make ourselves comfortable in the living room and Mayselle begins, "In my family there are three boys and I'm tho only girl. It made my mama and Daddy mad as hell when I quit school and went to work. I was only 15 years old, and they wanted me to go to school a lot longer, but I wanted to make my own money.

"I worked at Russell McPhail's candy factory for two years and my pay was never more than $7 a week. I was a candy wrapper. 1 didn't mind the small salary because that was the first Job I ever had and I was living at home.

"But a year or so after I started working, I met Jack Brown and three

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weeks later I ran away and married him. My Daddy and Mama were mad as the devil at me, and would have had it annulled, but Daddy thought it would cost a lot and he didn't have the money.

"Jack didn't have a job, though he'd told he had one, so we lived with Mama and Daddy and I went to work at the cigar factory. My Daddy didn't like it but I knew that other girls worked there and made good money so I wanted to try it.

"It looked like Jack couldn't get a thing to do but he finally got a job with the WPA. He worked about three weeks, then got his ribs broken, and had to be put in a cast and stay in bed for about six weeks. My Daddy was good to him and bought him milk and cigarettes.

"I was working at night and I'll always remeber hos scared I was of the machines because some of the girls told me to be careful or I might get my fingers cut off. They aid that one girl did and company gave her a steady job for compensation.

"When I first went to work I rolled about 300 cigars a night--- they pay 80(cent symbol) a 1,000--- so my paay for that first week was about $2. But as my speed picked up I made more money. I wasn't so scared and I could work faster.

"They are good people to work for, because they're not fussy if you're late and don't care what you wear to work. A little print wash dress and socks is all right.

"Jack was laid up for some time and when he did get up was as fussy as could be and got mad at nothing. He was so jealous that he didn't want me out of his sight. One day I went to spend the day with a girl

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friend; we just stayed home stayed home and didn't do nothing but Jack got so mad and acted up so, that my Daddy had to black his eyes and then he told him to get out.

"He went and I was scared to death he wouldn't come back, but he called me one day and we made up. This happened again and again, I knew that he was stepping out on me, too, even if he did deny it.

"I thought he would do better if he only had a good job. The WPA only paid him about $6 a week every other weck, and he only worked a little so that didn't count much. I think it ruins a man, no matter how good a family he comes from, to be down and out for so long. Seems like all that's good in him just dies out.

"We couldn't get along and we separated several times in one year and finally one day he just left saying that he was going to get a job and he didn't come back.

"Six weeks after he left I started going with a boy that I'd known a long time and who had lived near me for years. He wanted me to get a divorce and marry him, but I didn't have the mony for a divorce. I was only making $12 a week, although my speed had picked up a lot.

"My hours were 12 midnight to 8 o'clock in the morning and I would allow myself only 15 [cent symbol] for supper at the factory cafeteria. It sure was hard to do because the food was swell.

"I got so I didn't mind the tobacco odor at all, didn't even notice it, but you cert'nly do get dusty. There's more dust there than any place in the world. I've worn a dress with a belt and when I've taken the belt off, the dust would fall out from under it.

"It's not a healthy place to work, because the dust gets into your

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lungs and that's much worse than smoking, even excessively. Most everyone out there smokes and the company make is called an Employees Special, a little cigar, twent of them for twenty cents. There's not many women who smoke the cigars but they all smoke cigarettes. I never learned to smoke, I just didn't ever think it looked feminine and so I would't even try.

"They say that if you've never smoked before that you will learn to there, and cuss, too. If you never heard no cussin before there's your chance to hear some that's very special. But then in any factory where there is as many of the poorer and illiterate class you're bound to hear it I guess. But some mighty good folks work there too.

"They have a nice first aid room out there and they take good care of you if anything happens to anybody. If they get sick they used to send out a nurse to your home each day to take care of you, just like the big insurance companies do, but they've quit that now.

"I use to be ashamed to tell anybody that I worked to get my divorce and marry Paul. Yes that's my husband now. But it took me six months to get my divorce even after I had the money, because Jack would contest it every time it would come up. He was trying to get on the police force and he seemed to have a little pull; anyway enough to hold it up.

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"Right after I got it, he was put on the police force and came to me and wanted me to marry him again and I guess I did really love him, for I forgot all about Paul and married Jack again. He acted a lot better, but I still felt like he was running out on me and one day about four months after I had married him, it was just before Christmas I remember, I met a girl at Adams and Main who said to me, 'You mean you're married to that policeman on that beat over there! Well! for God's sake, I bin goin with him for ages and didn't even know he was married.' I saw red for the first time in my life and I told her that she better not go with him again or I'd beat the living hell out of her, and I meant it, too. I cried all the way home.

"I told Jack about it but he denied it, as usual. I knew he was lyin because when I'd clean out the care after he'd come home tight, I'd find hairpins and girls handkerchiefs and once I even found a part of a cake and a bottle of pickled peaches, and all kinds of whiskey and wines.

"He kept on stepping out on me until he contracted a serious venereal disease. He didn't tell me about him being sick and I didn't know until I saw him taking medicine and treatment and even then he didn't tell me what was wrong with him.

"One day my Daddy come to see me and while he was there he saw the medicine and asked me what the trouble with Jack and of course I didn't know, and he was so mad he said terrible things against Jack and went straight home and sent Mama over to take me to the doctor. The doctor sent off a speciman to see if I had become infected. I'll never forget the day the report came back. It said positive, and it was my birthday. I didn't think I could bear it.

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