Document text
ORIGINAL KU. OR PIELO NOTES (CHECK
ONE)
PUB. WE 113/LIC ON THE 'IPA
TITLE
THE HOME
IT
JOE I. LEARY
DATil JULY 27 1,9459 go.
-OREM
SOINICES GIVEN (1')
OORRENTS
PP.
Page 1
7/27/39
Names Jane E. Leary, 32 Acorn St., Lynn.
Assignments "We Work on the W. P. A.
The Howes
No Mr. Howe ain't home. He's workin1 ya know. He'll be
home at one, but then he's got ta go in an' see what he kin
do fur his mother. She's sick. She' dyin1 really. But She's
goin' on 81.
*I got all I kin do up here takin1 care a my family. I
got 1leven an /1m only 39. They come every year or every
other year anyway and from the way Dr. talks, him
that brought all leven of em in the world and me too, I
got four more comint. They kin tell ya know, from the knots
in the cords. Four more. Ohl My God, I hope not. Not on
Sl4. a week.
*But we got money comin1. When she dies downstairs,
we'll get something. She's got money, ant my husban's her
only child, But I've had lots a trouble with her. People
with only one child always thinks no ones good enough fur
1 em. Ant I never got along with her.
*Why the last two I had, she even went an' told people
they din't belong to my husban1. I told him ant he said,
'What's the difference, long as you know whose they are.
Ant I said, 'Yes, but I sure hate ta be walkin1 the streets
with a big belly and wondering if the neighbors believe
what she says.
"An' ya oughta see the rows a canned goods she's got
on her shelves. But would she bring me up a coupla cans
Page 2.
a soup when she knowed the children din't even have a bite ta eat.
Not her. As long as I lived here, she never as much as give gem
a crust a bread. An' they all the flesh an' blood she's got be-
sides her son, for he's her only child.
"Why I seen her go out in the back yard an' hand a orange
over the fence to some neighbor's child, an' my children lould
be right down there in the yard.
"NO, I can't say I'm sorry she's so sick. She's been too
mean ta me. Why once she sent fur the riot squad when my child-
ren wuz out on the porch and the policemen comi, up and come in
both doors at once an' I wuz going ta have a baby like I always
wuz and I went dead away right there on the floor.
"We had a hard time of it, with me always going ta ha**
a baby or else just getting over having one. We wuz married
when I wuz jest sixteen and we kept it 4 scret fur awhile but
when she found it out down she went to City Hall ant found
out the date wuz in September. An' then she kept watching the
time 'till I had my first baby and it wuzn't till the next
September so she wuz fooled.
"My husband wuz going off ta war then an' he wuz away fur
three months after we wuz married. My mother-in-law (mutt
see why he'd a married me unless he had too, an' that's why she
watched. But I didn't get that way, 'til he coma back.
"But I din't know nothing and when I told my mother I wuz
sick in the morning' she told me I better go to the doctor an'
he would tell me what wuz the matter with me. I din't even
know ow a baby come.
Page 3.
But he wuz a fine doctor. They don't come no better. I wun't
have no one else. He always said I wuz a good soldier for I
din't make no fuss when mine come. I always had a natural birth
though but the labor wuz long enough.
When I wuz gonna have the first, I din't have ta lift
my hand while I wuz carryine it. We wuz living with sr_ mother
then. No, ant the first three er four wuzn't so bad. 'Taint
nothine ta have three er four children. Ya ought ta have
eleven. That's no fun.
I wuz always sick the whole time I wuz carrying them.
But seems as if the worse time of all wuz when'I wuz carryint
the one that is five years old now. Prom the way I acted up,
he'd ough!Oi be a devil but ya know begs the meekest ane mildest
of the bunch.
*It wuz jest about two weeks before I was going ta have
him, an' the gas an' electrie wuz turned off, an' I din't even
have a bed ta sleep in. Well I got dressed an said I wuz goint
bye'
down town. An' I went ta see Father him that wuala hear
in'. As I went in the door, I saw one of them Chritmas wreaths
with a candle in the middle of it, an' when I got in inside I
told him jest how it wuz.
*e Father', I said, I'm agonna have another baby in
about two weeks, an I ain't got no clothes fur it, an' none
fur me ta be sick in, and no bed ta have it in, ant the gas
ant electric is turned off, an' we ain't got a stove that '11
work. Well, sir, do you know what he said ta me.
He said, g What do you want me to do about it? ro you want ma
to make you a layette?'
Page 4.
I wuz so mad I din't know what I wuz sayint. So I up ant
said, Father—, here I been a good Catholic fur all these years,
ant I lived with my man like they say ya oughta ant now ya say that
ta me. Well I'll tell you what zai can do, you can take your
money an' put it up your I said that to him ant he got up
and said I wuz in a state and had better go out a side way.
"I go out the way I come in', I told him. And I did too
an' I banged the door so that candle fell down off the wreath ant
I din't care.
"I walked home. But when I got here, I just couldn't hold
myself so I said I 11111Z goint ta take a weak an, I walked up ta
Floatin' Bridge and I stood there lookint at the water. There
WIZ some frtends a mine seen me go, and they wuz afraid a what
I'd do, so they called the cops. Pretty soon two of 'em got
out a auto and walked up ta me.
"I Come on, nowt, they said, you better come home. Come
on, we'lll drive you home.1
Let me alone,' I told them., I ain't doint nothint
ant I ain't gonna do nothin.t. I jest wanta stand here while.
But they din't go ant after awhile I got in the car
an' they brought me home. But I don't really think Itda done
anything if they hadn't come.
"The not day my husbant wuz goin down taint and who did
he meet but Father--. 'Say,' said Father----ta my husban', 'Your
wife is in quite a state, ain't she? Well now you tell her
that I ordered a ton of coal for her this mornint and that I'm
on my way now to get thst gas and electrie turned on, ant I've
bought her a stove, and pay 1m r way in the hospital if she
wants it.
Page 5.
I really wuz a devil While I wuz carryin' that child.
Another time I put on my hat an' went down town. I din't have
a nickel in my pocket fur my husban' wuz only makint $12. a week
then and he wuz givin' $5. a week ta his mother fur rent. I went
down to Joe at the Welfare an, I told him.
**I 'm tired a havint my kids hungry,' I said. 'What ya
goin, ta do about it?'
He looked at me -he's a fine man, ant he said, 2 Ya don't
have any rent ta pay, do ya!'
I told him how we wuz givinl her the $5. a week fur rent
whether we had food enough or not ant she had money ant my son
wuz her only child.
He reached in his pocket an said, You didn't have no
breakfast this mrninl, did you?'
I didn't bother,' I told him.
"Now here,' he said, and he handed me fifty cents and told
me to go across the street an get some breakfast, ant then ta
go home ant ta tell my husband ta come dawn to site him by three
O'clock that afternoon or he'd send a man up ra get him.
"I wuz afraid ta tell my husband myself so I called on
the telephone across the street from where we lived and told
them to tell my huband that they wanted him down at City Hall
at three o'clock that afternoon. He come, an wuz he mad at me?
*Joe --told him that if he heard that he give his mother
another cent a rent when she had plenty, he'd see to it that he
was arrested for cruel and abusive treatment to his children.
An' from that time on, except when my husband wuz off the W.P.
A. and makin' more money, he didn't give her no rent.
Page 6.
When my last two wuz born I didn't tell no one, I wuz ashamed
to, kinds.. Y4 know down at the Catholic Charities they tell ya your
not supposed ta have children if you're on the W.P.A. An' in the
church they tell ya you're not supposed to do anything about it.
An' they say you're supposed ta live with your man. Now Whies a
WOMAR gonna do? HVerytimo I had one, I'd say I wuz goin' ta do
something about the next one but when the time come I backed out.
I never lost none of 'am either. They wuz all big healthy babies,
nine an' ten pounds. Seems as everything I did get ta eat went ta
them.
"Ant all my children are huskies too. I fed 'em lots a milk
an vegetables an' bread. Lots a times we didn't get meat but
they.' liked the bread and vegetables. They're all huskies.
I got one son nineteen. He's just come home from the C C Cs
and what a difference in a boy. When he went he had the idea
that everybody wuz pickin, on him ant I was scared he'd get in
with the wrong crowd. He'd wants go to a show an' I wun't have
the money fur him or ta buy him a pack a cigarettes an' ya know
how it is. Now he's home an' how he changed. Don't go round lookinl
fur a crowd ta rob somebody's pear tree or something.
And I cun't go round followint after 'lemon. So I wuz glad
fur the OCC. Ant now I got another boy. He's seventeen and he kin
go in September. But he's no trouble ta me. I'm aspeakin' the truth
when I say that boy ain't been no trouble ta me since he wuz born.
But his brother now; he's sixteen. If he wuz seventeen I'd shoe him
off ta the camp tomorrow an' see if that would make a man a him.
I got a girl eighteen* I sent her down ta see Mr. ----this
morning ta see if he oun't put her on the N. Y. U.
Page 7.
And I sent the boy out ta the G. E. ta see if he (mutt get on
someway.
But thing111 be better someday. When she dies, my husban's
gonna sell this place. He kin get $1500 fur it ant then we're
gonna get a cottage with a bath room in it. 'Taint no fun
livin' the way we do. Do ya see them big holes in the wall of
the hall. I've been gonna get paper fur this hall ant green curtains
fur the parlor fur a year ant I ain't get 'em yet. All we get has
gotta go to the grocer. When he gets his $28. we awe the grocer
$30.
The only thing that makes me hold on is because my husbanl
is so good. He takes care a all the bills. I never have ta worry
about gall' ta see the grocer an' everyone that comes collectint
bills. He sees ta that. Ant he don't go ant spend his whole pay
fur drink. Once in a while if he earns an exta dollar ant a half,
he gives me the dollar an' goes an, spends the fifty cents playin'
cards hopint ta get more. But I don't say nothint. I know a
man's gotta have some faults.
"The doctor that takes fare
think that though. He gets mad,
a me When I have the babies don't
as hell. My sisters went and put
their nose in our business and told him. He thinks he oughta give
that fifty cents to me. But I don't begrudge him that.
We'll be all right when my mother-in-law dies. She's dyinl
now, I guess an' I ain't sorry. My children goes down stairs
sometimes ant gives her chunks a ice and does things fur her an,
my husban' goes in every afternoon when he comes home from work.
Page 8.
He loves her, for a course, she's his mother.
That's natural.
But I'd be a hypocrite if I'd say I wuz sorry when she
breathes her last. Ant I ain't no hypocrite.