32 cents an hour

Yesterday was visit-great-aunt Susie day. She is in her late 80s. Sometimes she is coherent and interesting to be around; sometimes you just have to visit a minute and leave.

She lives alone. I wish she did not, as I don't think it's very safe. She has poor eyesight and can't hear. But she won't let anyone stay with her and she won't move. She doesn't drive, fortunately, but she hates being house-bound. Most of her friends have died. Her sister, my grandmother, is still alive, but she is in an assisted living facility. "You'd never catch me in one of them places," Susie said.

Yesterday she was in a good mood. She was reminiscing. In 1941, she went to work for Valleydale in Salem. She started out at 32 cents an hour; men automatically recieved 35 cents, apparently just for having a pee hose.

"That weren't fair, now was it?" she said. She's no feminist, but right is right, and even the old folks know that.

She made $14 and change for working 48 hours a week (the math doesn't work out but I think she must've been docked for the half-hour lunch hours). She wore a white coat and worked at various jobs, including packing, freezing, and grinding. She even took a couple of turns in the company cafeteria.

Several fellas tried to sweet-talk her. One said she wasn't the prettiest but she was the best. Talk about a backhanded compliment!

She worked there until 1963, the year I was born. Not long before, her "good" boss died. The new boss kept sending her off to other departments, ostensibly because she always did good work. But then after a few turns in other areas, he called her into his office and asked her if the "girls" in the other departments were the ones talking about unionizing the plant.

"I didn't hear nothing 'bout no unions; I never had time. By the time you had a half hour for lunch, and had to wash up and eat and put your ol' coats back on 'cause it was cold in there, I never had no time to listen," she said.

But because she couldn't tell the boss anything, he fired her.

Susie stayed home after that, and soon she was my babysitter. She still has my teethmarks in her windowsill, something she proudly showed my husband.

Listening to her talk about her life before I was born was a sobering reminder of what used to be. And I wonder if we're really come so far, after all?