fascinating puzzle. Christy was thrilled.
She spent her first week making set-in pockets and welts for vests. But she didn’t catch on to the work at first and couldn’t meet the production quota.
“I was so young,” she tells me. “I didn’t know how to put out the work. This floor lady was supposed to teach me, but she had the hots for a foreman and she didn’t take enough time with me. Her job was to teach the new ones and keep tabs, but she was too busy flirting with the foreman. I did a bunch of work and done it wrong and had to take it out and do it over. They didn’t have repair hands then, to go along behind and fix mistakes. So all I made was a dollar and a half for the whole week!”
She bought a dress with that first paycheck. It was white eyelet, with a gathered skirt and ruffles around the neck. It was the first dress she had ever owned that wasn’t handmade.
“I hadn’t been working there long, and I still wasn’t making my average when the manager called me in and bawled me out. He talked to me like I was a dog, and I went out crying. He said, ‘I guess you know I should fire you, but I’m going to give you another chance, and if you can’t handle it, you’ll have to go.’ ”
The manager sent her to a simpler job, sewing labels inside coats. She did that easily, and in time she performed a variety of other tasks: she cleaned coats; she ran tacking machines; she mastered vest welts.
“People worked hard to hold on to their jobs,” she tells me. “Everybody knew how lucky they were to have them.”
The world of the factory dazzled her. The place was steaming hot, the air was filled with lint. The pressers worked in a cloud of steam that flushed their faces. Gigantic overhead fans swept the air. Christy sat proudly on a high stool and guided heavy material through her machine. She loved being out in the world, going to town, earning money. She felt important. “The people I worked with was really something,” she tells me. “There were all kinds of personalities, and I learned how to stand up for myself.” She learned not to be afraid to be herself. She gabbed and giggled and kidded. She bloomed.
“They included the label sewers in some of the office parties and conventions,” she says. “And all the employees got a corsage and a free big dinner once a year.”
I have a snapshot of her with a group of her Merit pals on an outing to a Civil War battlefield on the Mississippi River. The picture shows several women posed around a car, eating smile-wide slices of watermelon. I love to imagine her at this time in her life, when heryouthful optimism took charge of her and lifted her out of her limited past. I like to imagine that I was conceived in some supercharged instant that arose from the electric state of mind she enjoyed while she was a Merit employee.
The Merit offered train excursions. In 1939, Christy signed up for a factory trip. She had earned enough money to pay her way. Wilburn did not go with her. The group traveled by train to Biloxi, Mississippi, a resort town on the Gulf of Mexico. They went on boat rides, took a bus tour of New Orleans, ate seafood, and saw more exotic scenery than Christy had ever imagined.
I went along on that trip, too. I was a stowaway, although neither of us knew it at the time. So began another radical change in Christy’s life, and so began my curious, wandering existence.
4
The first question I remember asking came to me when I was about four. Mama was sweeping our room. We lived with Daddy’s parents—Granny and Granddaddy. I asked Mama why she was sweeping.
“The floor’s dirty.”
“What are you sweeping it for?”
“Because I have to.”
“What for?”
“
Cat
fur to make kitten britches,” she said, exasperated.
To me, it was and still is a fundamental question. Why work? Does everybody have to sweep? Could I get out of it somehow?
I played house with my dolls, Nancy and Johnny. Nancy could drink from a bottle, and
She spent her first week making set-in pockets and welts for vests. But she didn’t catch on to the work at first and couldn’t meet the production quota.
“I was so young,” she tells me. “I didn’t know how to put out the work. This floor lady was supposed to teach me, but she had the hots for a foreman and she didn’t take enough time with me. Her job was to teach the new ones and keep tabs, but she was too busy flirting with the foreman. I did a bunch of work and done it wrong and had to take it out and do it over. They didn’t have repair hands then, to go along behind and fix mistakes. So all I made was a dollar and a half for the whole week!”
She bought a dress with that first paycheck. It was white eyelet, with a gathered skirt and ruffles around the neck. It was the first dress she had ever owned that wasn’t handmade.
“I hadn’t been working there long, and I still wasn’t making my average when the manager called me in and bawled me out. He talked to me like I was a dog, and I went out crying. He said, ‘I guess you know I should fire you, but I’m going to give you another chance, and if you can’t handle it, you’ll have to go.’ ”
The manager sent her to a simpler job, sewing labels inside coats. She did that easily, and in time she performed a variety of other tasks: she cleaned coats; she ran tacking machines; she mastered vest welts.
“People worked hard to hold on to their jobs,” she tells me. “Everybody knew how lucky they were to have them.”
The world of the factory dazzled her. The place was steaming hot, the air was filled with lint. The pressers worked in a cloud of steam that flushed their faces. Gigantic overhead fans swept the air. Christy sat proudly on a high stool and guided heavy material through her machine. She loved being out in the world, going to town, earning money. She felt important. “The people I worked with was really something,” she tells me. “There were all kinds of personalities, and I learned how to stand up for myself.” She learned not to be afraid to be herself. She gabbed and giggled and kidded. She bloomed.
“They included the label sewers in some of the office parties and conventions,” she says. “And all the employees got a corsage and a free big dinner once a year.”
I have a snapshot of her with a group of her Merit pals on an outing to a Civil War battlefield on the Mississippi River. The picture shows several women posed around a car, eating smile-wide slices of watermelon. I love to imagine her at this time in her life, when heryouthful optimism took charge of her and lifted her out of her limited past. I like to imagine that I was conceived in some supercharged instant that arose from the electric state of mind she enjoyed while she was a Merit employee.
The Merit offered train excursions. In 1939, Christy signed up for a factory trip. She had earned enough money to pay her way. Wilburn did not go with her. The group traveled by train to Biloxi, Mississippi, a resort town on the Gulf of Mexico. They went on boat rides, took a bus tour of New Orleans, ate seafood, and saw more exotic scenery than Christy had ever imagined.
I went along on that trip, too. I was a stowaway, although neither of us knew it at the time. So began another radical change in Christy’s life, and so began my curious, wandering existence.
4
The first question I remember asking came to me when I was about four. Mama was sweeping our room. We lived with Daddy’s parents—Granny and Granddaddy. I asked Mama why she was sweeping.
“The floor’s dirty.”
“What are you sweeping it for?”
“Because I have to.”
“What for?”
“
Cat
fur to make kitten britches,” she said, exasperated.
To me, it was and still is a fundamental question. Why work? Does everybody have to sweep? Could I get out of it somehow?
I played house with my dolls, Nancy and Johnny. Nancy could drink from a bottle, and
Similar Books
