Document text
--14.
t 4.,
0.t)6\i
Worker-- Jane K. Leary
InfOrmant-- John Healy, 24 Cedar St
P
Section #2
page 1
Subject The Shoeworker of Lynn ((luck if fiv) PvtA.g.
Uncle Jimmie told me nothing of his courtship.
did however secure some glimpses from his sister-in-law.
_
a.
His first wife wasAtubercular girl, beautiful, but
definitely sick when Uncle Jimmie married her. They were
both in their early twenties. ---gr-i-eada-we-re-ae-eemble-d-in the
Catholic ahurch for the ceremony.
"What a good face he has," said one red-haired
Irish girl from northern New York who had come here to
visit a few months before and who had remained because
she secured a job as "skiver" in a shoe factory. She
watched him leave the church with his sick bride on his
prm
na d (AAA, Lokiwuzz
711041te-well--meea4ag-faii-ead-hed-wareed- Uncle JimmieA
that this frail girl could not live long, that she ga-ccluutar,
_icansuimpt4.04,14--
"an'
"I asked that girl to marry me," said/Uncle Jimmie,
she said 'yeskP Now marry her I will whether she's sick
or not."
(13:-A-Ww
INone mbifiEg:year his wife died. Opi few years
later Uncle Jimmie walked to the altar again this time
-wl-th-tiu•---red-halped---gelr-l-wha-had----trepmeelLill-s- face "geod.
--They had six children, four of whom are dead.
---Th-ef-aoLkkata-stial-1-y--e4-1-ent-abeet-the-se-detttits-. #Once
--hkewevetal while riding by beautiful St. Mary's Catholic
Cemetery with a young mother, Aunt Mary remarked, "Up there,
side by side, lays four of my darlings."
Nothing more said for a mile or so while Aunt
Mary held the other woman's baby. "But I would not wish
them back —no, I would not wish them back."
Only once during an acquaintanceship of six years
have I heard Uncle Jimmie mention what to him was equally
tragic. That too was in the presence of a child.
dime.
He reached down in his trouser pocket to extract a
AA
"This is fAr ice cream," he said, "two ice creams.
He patted the youngster's curly head. "We had one like this
once an' she left us when she wuz jest about this age. There
wuz a baby that went too and then two older ones right in
their best years."
-He --etteled---thc--ectwerea-tien exactly ae -Aunt IA
-.41444414-44,1- -A-But I -wunit wish them-badk.-*
The two grown children who had died and one son who
is still living, had been afflicted with tuberculosis.
"The son who recovered from the diseaselwas brought
to a realization of the real nature of his "cold" by a
mouthful of blood one day. He went to a doctor and was told
that a sanitorium was his only hope.
"1 din't tell Mother till the night before I WUZ
4
goin' ta leave. No use to worry her."
went to a hospital about 100 miles-dictanoe and
stayed in bed for six months.
"I could not stand any more of it and so I said to
myself, 'die or not die, I am goin home.
C-"I mapped out my own cure. I figured that stead of
goin' to bed with chickens like they did at the san, that
I would go ta bed at midnight, and stay right under them
blankets I till the next noo?!...1.,2)
4P
noon I got up, et breakfast, and then went down
town fur a walk.
I
-4.
At supper time, I et my dinner, and round 11 or 11.30 at
a
night I'd eat my supper. Then I'd climb up th the attic
where nobody slept but me.
It did the trick all right but it took about four
years. I'm O. K. today. Do I look sick?"
tte.„
410-'t 14 4$"'
It is true that this man who now nears fifty is an
arrested case.."-
Some years prior to coming down with' this disease,
this man had worked in the Lynn shoe factories. He gives
an interesting picture of jovial good fellowship there.
"The girls in stitchin' room offen had a gas plate
hitched up somewhere near where they worked and they would
always give a fella a cup a coffee tp drink with his sand-
wiches. For not many of us owned automobiles and almost
nOite- went home ta lunch.
"Some a the women even cooked a hull meal there. One
woman made a clang good boiled dinner. We got a sniff all
mornin' and at noon we'd get a plateful if we found out how
ta get on the right side a her.
She used ta have her children come in from school fur
their dinner most every day. That way they din't have ta go
home and eat a cold lunch the/days their mother was in the
shop."
After a while that got like paper pulp ta me too fur I wanted
something deeper. Well I kept on and after a while I got la
readinl Shakespeare.
In the old days when a lotta of the "ten footers"
WUZ
still standin...-af-tert-tale-big-sholas....suz,leut14--- --ther41,
Amufr-eeste'a us cuttersvot4.4-46ke-cutttn*-wart-intelem.
Aaybe four or five would each rent a bench and out piece
A
'work for some factory. We would take turns takin days
off ta read ta one another. We read most everything there
wuz found ta read. Sometimes the newspaper". Sometimes
something about religion or politics. That way cuttin'
shoes wuz not only work ta help us earn a livinl. We
wuz learnin' something,
AY
--Before a man married in them days, *ay When a
a
fellow was still in his teens, that readinl a Shakespeare
helped us ta have a lotta fun. Them wuz the days when
the stage dhows usta come ta Lynn. But the mangers
would n,t hire the hull company, just the main actors.
Often we fellas-- Irish boys are usually tall fur their
age, would hire ourselves out ta be soldiers or sentinels.
We'd only be on the stage once or twice in a scene and
say a coupla words. We din't need much trainin' for we
had learnt our Sharespeare in the ten footers.
--1-<-4khey called uslisouper
Sometimes too we'd be
the moon, for we would hold a candle behind cut out colored
paper, or we'd be thunder by poundinl a piece a sheet iron.
We could see the dhow twice a day free fur a week
from the wings, we souDerst.
'1112em Shakespearean plays wuz great things. Pity
more a em are not put on ta day. For that guy Shakes-
peare knows a mighty lotta human nature."
other thing that we usta do in between times
when we had ta lay off fur a few hours, and at noon and
Saturday afternoon, wuz play cards. In the old days there
wuz a game called 'Shoemaker's 1414P Ya could play fur
pretty high stakes. I've heard some pretty durn good poker
players say it wuz the blickest and fastest game they
ever played. Why even when a man wuz playinl fur low
stakes, he could easy lose his *hole pay on a Saturday
afternoon if he din't watch out.
1.....
Offen times a bunch a card players would play
with some one who would drift in from New York or Pennsylvania,
say some shoe worker Who come here lookinl fur work while
their places wuz closed down.
After the game, one of the Lynn fellas who
wusn't married would take them fellas home with 'am and
stake 'am ta eats and a place ta sleepOill they get a
job or went back home.
'4There wuz that kinda feelin' in the shoe shops.
Sorta lika lodge. We always felt we hadta help the other
fella out. That's the way it wuz too, time a sickness or
death. One time when a paper wuz brought round fur us to
put down how much we would give to a fella that hadta quit
his job and go in a hospital. I knew that fella had some
money and I knew he was goinl ta get help from somewheres
else. But But I put down* and most every one else in the
shop did. Would never turn a fella down if he got sick.
"Once the union started a benefit sociation. Each
member had ta pay in so much and then he would get so much
if he got sick or if he died. That finally petered out though,
fur folks drawed on it when they wuzn't really sick. Say a
woman wuz goin ta have a baby. Well, she jut took the time
off and got paid fur it through the sociation.
4'So finally the thing busted up. The money was
divided out ta all the members.
If anybody died the paper always come round too.
We always went ta the wake too. Years ago there wuz always
a good deal ta eat and ta drink too, but nowadays most a
that has been done away with. To a ledge member we always
went in a body and we'd leave some money there. In the old
days everybody din't have insurance and that money from the
lodge and from the shop sure come in handy.w—'----