ENPages That Need Review
03709_0127: Reverend W. C. Sale
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ture show, but do not believe in Sunday movies, because the movie is purely a commercial enterprise, just like any other business. If it is right for places of industry to close, it is right for the movies to close, too. Being in competition with the churches has not one thing in the world to do with it. The churches have no competition from any source.
"Since you are holding me up at a point of a pencil and I must show my personality and politeness, push, and perseverance as a pioneer, I will make a few miscellaneous obervations [observations], as I look at myself in the glass and see the house I live in 'by the side of the road while I try to be a friend to man.'
"One gets nowhere without a plan, a blue print that he makes for himself, if he is capable; if not capable, follow some one else's blue print. A free lance has started nowhere and certainly will get nowhere. I plan my day before I get up in the morning. In fact, thinking on plans and programs is the thing that brings me from a dead level to a living perpendi cular.
"I am in a great movement. First: I am in the Kingdom of God movement, with all the lovers of the Lord. I am in adult education work under the Works Progress Administration, which is definitely here to stay. If the WPA should cease to be, adult education would go right on in one form or another, by one agency or the other. It is a fellowship forum with at least a hundred thousand of them in America. It is a field all its own, that must be worked daily. And if properly pursued it will defeat every ism that may pervade our shores, such as Communism and Fascism. Here we teach men to plow and plant, cultivate and narvest. We practice and teach that one must spend some time each day in the realm of the beautiful, and in the field of frolic and fun. Yes, we must have places of amusement, wholesome visiting,
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cautious courting, if we would have happy, lasting marriages.
"Unless right-thinking people look out for the well-being of our young folks they will be left alone to bring themselves to shame. Thoughtful men will spend their leisure hours in learning at a school of adult education where real hospitality is shown.
"For myself, I am well most all the time as I am constantly using preventive measures that keeps one well. Such as plenty of fresh air, with its eleven health-giving qualities, good food properly masticated, due attention to poisons within and without the body, and the right exercise. With proper knowledge of hygiene one becomes his own best doctor. Work is all absorbing and is conducive to right thinking, which makes for the best of health, other things being equal.
"As the hour approaches for classes, I find myself anticipating the prospect of sitting through part of the session. One by one the men arrive, then by twos and threes, and finally groups arrive together. Each finds individual welcome as he is told to 'come in and get something to eat, and help yourself to the coffee; there is more sugar back of the piano and open up another can of cream, there's plenty. Oranges and tangerines over there, too, help yourself, boys.'
"Some of these men are large and strong, others small, tired and worn. The young and the old share the same hunger and the same disappointments, but they may come here twice daily and find welcome, week in and week out, for that is the purpose of this little mission."
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| Reverend W.C. Sale | Florida | Good |
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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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"I had the constant care of the best doctors and did everything they told me to. In two months I was completely cured but Jack was never well again, and later he had to have an operation for his trouble.
"I had always wanted a bady, but the doctor told me since I hadn't had one before Jack got sick, that I'd better adopt one if I still wanted one. After I was well I began to advertise for one. Jack wanted me to wait a year or so, but I was lonesome and felt so disappointed in him that I wanted one right away.
"One morning when I had taken Jack to work I decided to go out to the Volunteers of America (that's a home where unmarried mothers can go to be confined and leave the babies for adoption) and look for me a baby. They didn't have any that I wanted but they told me about another place, that an old doctor had where I might get one.
"I went to see if he had any and I found one little boy just two weeks old that I fell in love with. I knew he was mine the minute I saw him, so the doctor said I could have him if I promised to give $75 for him. I took the baby right away without a thing for him to be changed to.
"Jack was on a downtown beat and I stopped and showed him and he was as tickled as I was. He watched the car while I ran in Kresses' and bought some diapers. On the way home I stopped at a drug store and bought milk and the rest of the stuff to jo in his formula. I was thinking all that time how I was going to break the news to Mama; I knew she'd be mad.
"A neighbor that had a little bady gave me some things for him until I could get some. Jack was as interested in the baby as could be. He set the alarm for every three hours so we could feed him, and he got up every time to help me.
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"I called Mama early the next morning and told her to stop by when she took my brothers to school, I had something to show her. Mama couldn't imagine what it was, she said, 'I know it's not furniture because you ain't get me place to put anymore, so what in the world is it!' But I wouldn't tell her.
"When she came I took her in the bedroom and showed her the bady. She said, 'Where in the world did you get that little old skinny thing?' She really preached my funeral; but she soon picked him up and directly she said she had some things that had been my bady brother's that I could have for him.
"She rushed home to get them and brought my Daddy back with her. My Daddy was crazy about him from the first, and pretty soon they both loved him as such as they did their own. They keep him while I sleep during the day and bring him home to be with Paul at night."
At this moment there is a knock at the door and a child's voice calls, "Mayselle, open the door." Mrs. Sweat and a handsome little boy come in. Buddy goes to his playroom and Mrs. Sweat says she will come back later for them.
Mayselle continues, "Before I got the bady, Jack come home from work one day with a lot of men's clothes, saying he'd bought them. When I asked him why he didn't buy mc some, he said he'd tell me where really got them if I'd promise not to tell. I promised, and he told me he'd stolen them the night before from a store on his beat.
"The whole world fell in on me again, and from them on'til about five weeks later, every car I saw coming towards our house would make me choke
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