Document text
Mrs. S.C. Schill
49 Smith areet
Ch arle s ton, S. C.
Nov. 8, 1938
Rose D.Viorkman
Dec. 8,1938
A_pprox. 2350 words
wes
Hai MRS. REDMOND al ME TO BE IN 1HE AffiRTMENP
HOUSE, BUSINESS
"As soon as you're through talking to Mrs.Brown," said
the Lady in Red, "I'll tell you how I came to be in the apartment
house business."
Mrs.Redmondis glossy dark hair was simply coiled in a
knot on her neck,and a black cord fell from her smart,new-fashioned
glasses down upon the blouse of her crimson knitted suit. Her man-
ner in greeting me had been gentle and cgiet,wh.ile he rc apable
looking hands with their long,spatulote fingers had been busy
with the knitting needles ever since my arrival. Under them a
crimson and black afghan was slowly increasing in size.
She reminded re the noiseless,regular precision with
which the current passes through an electric metre. Never missi ng,
it goes steadily on its quiet,efficient way So was she, I ha3 felt
in that moment of i-n_troduction, quiet, efficient-- and always
courteous.
So, in her deep,calm voice,which somehow seemed the
perfect counterpart of those strong,well-modeled hands, she told
me:
"My husband is a ratlroad man. We cane here from Urida
sixteen years ago. But although I was born down there, my father
was a native bouth Carolinian,and fought under Wade Hampton in the
Reconstruction Days. When I was a child he used to tell me of a
book that had been written about him and his brother,and named af-
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ter the horse my father rode at that time. I found the book in
a library once,and took it home and read it.
He has often told me how Wade Hampton would say:
ItBill, protect the women and children.
"Father was born in 1840,and after the war went down to
Florida,where he na de his living,hunting,fishing and trapping. The
pillows I sleep on now are filled with the feathers from some of
the 'plumed birds' he killed then. He stayed down in the Florida
wilds for over forty years without ever coining ck to Carolina.
But he by d his native state and I often think how happy he would
be to know that his daughter and grandchildren are living here to-
day.
"So in the nation -wide strike of 1918, I believe it was,
my husband came here to work as a car repairman at the railroad
yard. I brought my three little children and we settled down in
a small apartment,rath.er crowded,but glad to be together.
"Moving round from one apartment to another,it seemed
to us from the prices people wanted for them,they must be making
plenty of money. If they could do it, why couldn't we?
I sat down and thought things over. Here we were,
paying out $30 the first of every month,for three small flarnished
rooms:, All right then. I would find an apartment unfurnished,
for $20,and put the other '9'10 on SOTS furnitu e. We'd make a start
that way. So I found one,and pa id down a month's rent in advance.
"But now I had given up the old ftirnithed apartment,ard
had to move into the new one in the morning. And we didn't have
even a bed to sleep on. that shoald we do for furniture
"Never having borrowed any money before, I didn't
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realize just how to go about asking the tank for a loan. So I
went to the grocer, to a former landlord, and a few other people
whom I knew,and asked them for refe:ences. They wrote out lit-
tle letters for re ,and I took them to the bank, laid them down
on the window and said:
"Will you let me havece130,please,right away?"
I know now how surprised the young man must have been,
but he just said that these things took time and they would have
to make investigations before advancing me any money; that it
might take two or three weeks.
"I said, 'two or three weeks: I have to move tomorrow,
and I haven't a bed to sleep on.
"So I walked out of the bank,and called on the grocer.
I said to him:
*Will you lend me _,i130 to furnish an apartment? I have
to hove it right away. I don't have a bed to sleep on even.'
"He just 'All right.'
''So I got the money,and went down town and paid out
enough cash to furnish three rooms on the instalment plan.
"My husband was then making ,,p125. I rented the front
room for ,„;l2. That left us a bed room,kitchen,bith,and an attic
upstairs for storage
"Renting that front room was the beginning of our apart
scent house business.
"Soon the town was crowded. The Fleet was here. People
couldn't find places to stay. Prices went up. Some one came in
and asked for a room. So we moved up to the attic and rented the
bedroom for $7 a weekswith privileges of the kitchen. The chil-
dren were sTnallland the bath room was big. We nal de closets in
bath
the tnatroom and used it as a dressing room.
'Soon the man in the front room moved out,and we rented
that to another couple at a higher rent,with kitchen privilegesjalso.
o there we we re,with three families all using the same kitchen.
But we got alon7 fine,and I started to hr,ve my two older children
taught music.
"Then we deo ded to take a lerEp r place. 6o we moved and
have been there for nine years this coming Ma rth.
"My husband's salary was soon cut to c -e 105. We were pay-
ing c'?50 out of that c';:105 for rent. We had seventeen rooms and fur-
niture for three.
"One day my husband came in and said 'People are sleep-
ing on the floor. The hotels are crowded.
"I rushed out and bought enough furniture to fix up the
front room. L1 first tenants were two ladies,Who paid me 43 a night.
My husband said:
'Why don't you send Jasper, down to the hotel? They are
turning off people. I
"Jasper was my boy. He was then about fourteen years old.
He had a sweet little face,and though he was blind in one eye,it
didn't hurt his looks any. And he had pretty,big white teeth.
"So from then on, after he hsd co rre from school in the
aft rnoons,and got his lessons for the next day,he would make him-
self neat and o stand on the hotel steps. And when heheard peo-
ple complaining that they couldn't find any place to go, he would
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put his head on one side in the cute way he had,and show those
big,shining white teeth,and say:
I can take you to a nice private home.'
"When they'd ask, 'Whose home?' he Id answer, IMy Mother's.'
"Then he Id get in the car and ride with them to the house.
"Sometimes when they got there, they wouldn't want to
come in,because it looked so shabby outside, like lots of the old
houses here, and he muld say:
'If you would leave your wife in the car,and come in-
side, you'd see how nice and clean my mother keeps it.
"And lots of times they would come in,and when they did,
they stayed.
"I remember lots of funny things about tnose first hard
years. One thing I know-- I never could have nr de it alone with-
out my husband's help.
"One time the town was so crowded I had every room in
the house full. My husband and I didn't have any place to sleep.
Some -one had left an old broken wooden bedstead in an outhouse.
We drag7ed it it End set it up. It was so hot we had t o keep
an electric fan going all the time to make that stuffy little
place cool enough to stay in: And every nign.t that old bed would
fall down. One night the head would come down. The next night
the foot. We lauEt about it now!
"Our place, lile lots of the old houses here, has servants'
quarters out in the ta ck,with stables under them. Well,another time
had simple things, so they must always fl ppear to the best advantage.
And. I kept my house CLEAN.
"I'm telling you all this to show you what pe ople can
do if they make up their minds to it. We had a hard time for a
while. During those years I had two abdominal operations; and my lit-
tle girl had her tonsils out. All that cos us a lot of money
but we didn't ha -e to go to the city hospital,and we had private
rooms and nurses and everything.
"I'd like to tell you how my little girl helped me to
rent my rooms in those fir, struggling years.
"One afternoon I had to go out. It was in the middle
of the Gerden Sesson,arri I told her if anyone came, to ask them
a night
$5 for the room that was vacant, but if they held out against paying
that much,to let it go for c' -i)4. When I came home,I saw a big Pierce
Arrow in the yard,and two good looking young men taking out bag gage.
One of them called out to me:
ISay, your little daughter is a clever kid. Know what she
tdd us? She said
'Ma says the mom is 4p5, but if that is too much, take it
for 4. e took it for 4. I
"Today that little girl is thirteen years of age; my son
has a good job,making $1.215 a month; my older daughter is making
$65; my husband is still earning only sTrl25, but the house averages
me about ,160 a month.
Now I have a ood servant and I don't have to do any
hard work. We have ell the comforts anyone could wish for,and have
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electric iceboxes in each apartment; three radios, extension
phones. Our own apartment consists of three bedrooms, kitchen,
bath, dining and living room.
"We hay e our own car and enjoy taking long drives on
-.3.nday afternoons, and making trips back home to see my husband's
people in Florida sometimes. We're going down next Eriday,in-
stead of st Christmas, as he doesn't like to be away from home
then.
"Toda y I don't owe anybody a five -cent piece. We save
between ,:510 and $75 a month. Some seasons I've /mole as much as
c:)300 in eiptit weeks, and I've never lost one month's rent in the
twelve years I've been in apartments.
"I'd love for you to come and see me, she concluded,
"I'd like to show you whet a lovely home I have Then as aid-
denly as she had begun her story, she stoppe dland relapsed into
her forre r state of busy silence.
It was almost five. I said ,7oodbye, and 1 eft,having spe nt
a delightful afternoon with Dirs. Brown and her guest, during which
time the Lady in Red had never stopped knitting for a moment; Mrs.
Brown h P.d. consumed innumerable cigarettes, and I hedecciu ir d a
mighty urge to go into the apartment house business.