Document text
Name: Jane K. Leary, 32 Acorn St" Lynn.
Informant: Patrick Rpan, 153 Jackson St., Lynn.
Subject: The Shoe Machinery Worker.
Section A.
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tAL 40 A*.
fun agoint on my 79 years now and Ltve bin workint
ever since I could lift a hand. Why I don't rameziOer the
time that I didn't climb over the fence of the school that
Lu
w*z near Collins St.,then, to go to the ten footer shoe
shop that my father made shoes in, to help lam during the,
noon hour., I'd limb that fence after school at night too,
ta sew the upperAto the bottom.
"They were turn shoes that my father made, mostly
congress style. They'd be wrong side out When I sewed 'ma
to the sole, and than my fatherld turn lea and finish tem,
off, ready to be sold.
"There were thirteen in our family and most of UA
.had a turn at helpin' our father in that old ten tooter.
When one would get old enough ta quit schooloand go out and
look for a job, the next in line would take ta helpinl. my
father.
III remember particularly a younger brother a mine
who had ta help him after I had graduated from that and
had taken feedin' the nailer in a shoe shop down town. He
wuzn't very strong, my brother; it sometimes seemed ta me he
wuzn't strong enough ta pull that string through the sole.
I can see him yet as he pulled."
My informant criss crossed his arms, demonstrating
the old method of "pulling a wax end."
"He wanted ta be a machinfist, that young brother of
mine, an' after he got too old ta help my father in the ten
footer he went ant took that up. But for a long time he only
got a dollar and a half a week at it. My father wanted him
ta quit ant go in the shoe shops so he'd get more money. He
thought he'd have a better chance in life that way.
"But I said; 'let him be.' And I told him, that if
he'd keep on he'd be on easy street some day. I wuz makinl
good pay in the shoe shop then, and everywhere I went I
took that fella along. We'd go into Boston to a parade, or
to the theatre and like that. I paid the way because I want-
ed him ta keep at the job he wuz at even if he wusn't gettinl
so much then.
"And I wuz right. Most of that fella's life, he's
been a foreman and gettin' his forty, fifty dollars a week.
But at the time he was laearninl ta be a machinist it didn't
look as if that would be much of a job. It wuz a case of
lookint ahead.
"I guess most of the congress shoes my father made
wuz of sheepskin. It wuz a nice comfortable shoe for ladies
with a sensible heel. All the women wore them in the house
in them days. Some that my father made wuz sent to the south
for ladies ant others of the big sizes wuz for the colored.
They slipped on the foot. There were no buttons or laces in
'em, but a rubber gore on each side, that would stretch to
let the foot in.
"The uppers come all stitched in a factory down town.
Then after me or one of my brothers seied 'em to the solel
my father turned the inside out and finished 'em, ready for
the heel. Ya know them turn shoes are alwayp sewed to the
sole inside out and then they are turned.
After the shoe wuz all ready for the heel, we put 'em
in a big tiasket. It looked something like the old fashioned
market basket, only much bigger, In that weld carry 'em
down town to the shop we wuz makint 'em for, and get paid by
the pair. Saturday wuz the day ta take the shoes in ant I
remember how sometimes my fathertd work all night Friday so
as to have all the shoes ready to take in. There wuz usually
four men in a shop, workint piece work, each man for himself.
My father rented his seat from the man that owned the shop.
The shop I'm a talkint about is now over at Beverly on the
grounds of the Shoe Machinery Corp. It wuz got for to show
the diffrunce (difference) in makint oboes fifty years ago
and today.
Some years ago when the San Francisco Exposition wuz
bein'held, they got four of us over at the Shoe Machinery
Corporation ta have moving pictures taken of us making
shoes like they used ta make 'em. Then they took pictures
of a modern shop ta show the diffrunce.
"When that picture first come ta Boston, they took us
all in and we had supper bafore goint to the show. It wuz
shown all over the world. I guess. When it come ta Beverly
most of the men at the shop went ta see it and when the
men working in the section with me come ta work the next
morning they said. 'Pat, you wuz the only shoemaker in
the bunch.'
"W*11, I oughta looked like a shoemaker, all right.
For I wuz one when I wuz a kid.
"Oft times I worked in the shbp with my father until
way after it'd be dark, 'specially on Friday nights. I'd
be afraid ta go home too, because of the stories the men'd
tell each other when they wuz working. They'd be ghost
stories about Ireland because all four that worked there wuz
Irish. My father come from Tipperary.
"And sometimes the s.JEries would be enough ta scare
I remember one cold winter night when I ran as fast as I
could go towards home, till I got to the edge of Silver Pond,
that is filled in now, where Meadow Park and Eastern High
School is now. There wuz a pig pen there and a dog, and
hearing them, made me think a ghost wuzAaround. I ran so
hard I forgot about a big rock on the edge of the pond.
ya.
When I stumbled on it, I was thrown, I guess, and I didn't
come to on the ice for quite a while. When I did I got
up and made for home as fast as I could.
"My father's home wuz on Collins Street and it's still
standinl. I own it now. And when I pass on beyond, I want
ta leave it to my oldest non with the provision that he
never sell it. When he dies, I want him to leave it to his
son. And if my grandson ever has a son, I'd like him to bet
it. I'd like to feel when I pass on that that old house will
be taken care of as long as possible.
*There are some that's not much interested in preserv-
ing things that are past. But I take an interest in that
old house. There I wuz born and there all my twelve brothers
and sisters were born. I'd hate to see it sold.
"I've always been a homebody. But sometimes I think
that those people who stay pretty much in one spot, get as
much out of life as them that goes from one place to another.
I wuz at a funeral the ether day of an old friend of mine
and the driver of the car that took me to the comet17y.had
traveled to a lot of places. He wuz a young fella.
"'Been araupl much?, he asked me.
"'No, 'I said, I stayed in one spot pretty near all
my life. I ain't been arount.
n'Ohi said he, 'Ya ought& go places and see things.
There's nothint like W.,
"'Well,' I said, Mebbe I ought; mebbe I ought, but
I've always been pretty well satisfied at home."
"And ya know, I have. Mebbe I missed something, but
too ya know there's an old sayin' that the man that travels
a lot never gathers much moss."
"If my wife and me kin hold on till next October it'll
be 50 years since we are married, and then we're goin ta
have a celebration. We've got a lot of friends ya know, and
about a year ago, some of them were here from New York.
"'Are ya goin' ta celebrate?' they asked us.
"You bet we're goin' ta celebrate if we're here that
),1
long. Fifty years fl.f beg *arried? We won't let that go
by without a celebration. It is something, ain't it, ta
be married for fifty years, to stick together through thick
and thin and raise a family of eight children.
"It wuzn't all easy sailinf. Sometimes we didn't have
just everything we wanted ta have but we always had enough.
An' we worked tagether, and we never bought what we didn't
have the money ta pay for. So taday we don't need to worry.
We have enough ta get along on.
"We had our disagreements. Who don't? The other day
I waz down to the barber shop ant I told him I'd been married
almost fifty years.
don't suppose za ever had any arguments he said.
"'What' I said, 'No arguments i Of course we had our
arguments. Everybody does some time or other. But we
straightened 'em out. And we got along pretty good. .We
worked hard to bring up our family and we sacrificed the
same as any other family has got to sacrifice for our
1
r,Lyen.