My First Job
I got my first job the summer after my first or second year in high school. I worked in Merrill, as second maid for some wealthy family of four. They had two grown sons, who worked with their father. Our mother had no reservations about sending me there, as there were always enough at home, and she welcomed the chance to let someone else teach her daughters how to work. My sister did housework next door, so I wasn't afraid of getting homesick. Anyway, I had worked for my room and board while going to high school, and had been away from home for a year or two already.
My job was to dust the entire house every morning, wash dishes, and help along in the kitchen. I also had to serve the meals after Barbara had prepared them. One particular incident that happened one day while serving dessert comes to mind. It was so embarrassing that it stuck in my mind all these years. There was a swinging door between the kitchen and dining room and this always had to be closed. So here I was, with a plate of cookies in one hand and the coffee pot in the other, and had no way to open the door. So I gave it a "boot" with my hip, and all the cookies slid off the plate and onto the floor. I quickly picked them up and hurried back into the kitchen to replace them, and start all over again.
In the evening, right after supper, I had to put out all the robes and slippers and put ice water in the thermos pitchers by the beds. On Monday evenings, after we washed all the clothes, we ironed until everything was ironed, often until after midnight. I never minded this, but it certainly was different from the way we did
things at home.
This was the first real money I had ever earned. When I got my pay at the end of two weeks, I went shopping at Livingston's Department Store and bought my first ready-made dress. It was a pink cotton with navy blue polka dots. It cost $5.98. My two week's pay was $6.00. Believe me, I was mighty proud as I carefully washed and ironed my new dress.
One Sunday afternoon, my sister and I wanted to go to a movie. It was a Shirley Temple movie and cost 25 cents. We walked up and down in front of the theater for quite some time before finally deciding to go in. We didn't know if we should spend the quarter.
This was the second movie I had ever seen. The first one was called "She Done Him Wrong" with Mae West. I went with my cousins, and probably should have picked a better one. I never cared much for movies and didn't go to very many. Maybe this was a carry-over from the first one I saw!
So ended my first job. Some years later, I went with a sister and her husband to visit another sister in Pittsburgh. While there, my brother-in-law went into a lumber products store to check on some building materials. He was building a house and wanted to compare prices. The man who owned the store was none other than the man I had worked for in Merrill. Imagine my surprise! He had gone bankrupt, declared bankruptcy, and moved to Pittsburgh to start over. I never saw the family after that, but whenever I drive past that house in Merrill, all these memories come back to me. The house is now a beauty shop, and probably the people who own the beauty shop also live in the house. I often wonder what kind of a family it is, and would like to get inside to see how the house looks by now.