Document text
Accession no.
I weis
Date received
10/10/40
Consignment no.
1
Shipped from
lash. Off i00
Label
Amount
4p
WPA L. C. PROJECT Writers!. UNIT
Form -3
.E.9.1k191..Collection (or Type)
Place of origin.Ch ten!? e 1141110AI Date_ .64.649
Project worker Betty Burke
Project editor
Remarks
tw,
Forms to be Filled out for Each Interttew
FORM A
Circumstances of Interview
STATE
NAME OF WORM Betty Burks
ADDRESS 1339 S. Troy St.
DATE June 1,, 1939
SUBJECT Packinghouse worker's job
1. Date and time of interview June 1,, 1939, 6130 pm.
2. Place of interttew Packinghouse Union Hall
4758 S. Marshfield
3. Name and address of informant Julia Strikamki
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in
touch with informant
ie
N no
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you
None
6. Description of roam, house, surroundings, etc.
W3628
FOLKLORE
CHICAGO
JUL 64° 1939
FOLKLORE
FORM B
CHICAGO
Personal History of Informant
STATE
NAME OF 'KORNER
ADMEESS
DATE
SUBJECT
NAME OF INFORMANT
1. Ancestry
Betty Burke
A
1339 S. Troy S
June 16, 1939
Paokinghouse worker's job
Julia Strikawski
Polish, American born
2. Place and date of birth
3. Family 6 younger
4. Places lived in, with dates
Chicago, back of the yards June 1917
sisters and brothers, mother, l'ather, grandfather.
6. Occupations and accomplishments,
7. Special skills and interests
grandfather had a farm, outside of Joliet.
20 acres. Mother and children used to go
there for 2 weeks every summer until 1929,
when the bank got it and grandfather came
to live with them.
with dates
Has worked only in the yards
Loves to sing. Wishes the union would form
a big group of singers, men and women.
S. Community and religious activities
Catholic, Union member, belongs to a Polish
Glee Club
9. Description of informant
Quiet but not shyly so. Small; intense
brown eyes, serious expression.
10. Other Points gained in interview
FORM C
Text of Interview (Unedited)
STATE
NAME OF MUM Betty Burke
=FESS 1339 S. Troy St.
ELTE June 16, 1939
SUBJECT Packinghouse worker's job
NAME OF INFORMANT Julia Strikowski
FOLKLORE
CHICAGO
Well, you know where they make the meat loaves, that's where I work. They
come down from another floor already 000ked and we're supposed to turn them out
of the pans. They come in very large pans, and they're awful hot. Then we have
to clean he pans. You know how meat lcaf sticks to the bottom and sides of
anything it's 000ked in, all greasy and messy. We have to use steel wool and I
don't mean the kind you use at home, but real steel wool. You can't help getting
your fingers all scratched with little outs from the steel, and with all that
grease to get in any little sore it's pretty hard to get rid of them. Infections
get pretty bad there, especially if you can't get the foreman to let you do some
other work when you've got a bad sore. Sometimes a foreman will give a girl a
break, but then sometimes they just get mad at the girl, as if it's her fault,
mad tell her to go home if she can't take it. So then she'll keer on working
with ,n infection in her finger or the palm of her hand, touching the meat somebody
is going to buy and eat. Say, you'll never oatoh me eating any of that stuff.
Once I worked in the red peppers, you know, canning. Burn your fingers,
.just handling them. They put them up in a kind of pickle juice and that just
burns the skin off your fingers.
Once I worked on the second floor and had to go up to the sixth floor every
day for lunch. That's where the lunchroom was. We only hate a half hour to eat
in, and there'd be hundreds of girls ahead of me. Why, it took me five minutes
to get up there, let alone waiting in line to buy a sandwich. And the food* I
don't know where they get it, buitit's just rank. They know they can get
away with it, I guess. By the time I'd get a sandwich there'd be no seats
left and I'd just stand gulping down the fool like a wolf. It's got so I
can't eat like a human being any more, even when I'm home. It's a terrible
habit to get into. I sit at the table and before the others are halfway
through there I am finished and you know it's so embarraaing. But when
you're used to wallowing your food down in a big hurry it's hard to break
yourself of the habit. At work, I'd have about ten minutes to eat, ten
minutes to get to the toilet and maybe wash my hands and face, ten minutes
to get to and from the lunchromm.