{"id":4287,"date":"2016-06-16T14:42:28","date_gmt":"2016-06-16T19:42:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lizzieborden.org\/WomenatWork\/?page_id=4287"},"modified":"2016-07-26T05:55:32","modified_gmt":"2016-07-26T10:55:32","slug":"ledora-soitos-edited-transcript","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/fallriverhistorical.org\/WomenatWork\/ledora-soitos-edited-transcript\/","title":{"rendered":"Ledora (Isidorio) Soitos Edited Transcript"},"content":{"rendered":"

FALL RIVER HISTORICAL SOCIETY<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Women at Work: An Oral History of
\nWorking-Class Women
\nin Fall River, Massachusetts
\n<\/span><\/strong><\/span>1920-1970<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Interview with\u00a0Ledora “Doris” Silveria Soitos,\u00a0n\u00e9e<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0Isidorio\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Interviewer: (AS<\/strong>) Ann Rockett-Sperling<\/span><\/p>\n

Interviewee: (LR<\/strong>) Ledora (Isidorio) Soitos<\/span><\/p>\n

Additional Commentary: (JR<\/strong>) Joyce B. Rodrigues, Fall River Historical Society\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Date of Interview: June 3, 2015<\/span><\/p>\n

Location: Soitos residence, Taunton, Massachusetts<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Summary:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ledora \u201cDoris\u201d (Isidorio) Silveria Soitos was born in Fall River on May 3, 1921.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ledora\u2019s story captures the history of the village of Mechanicsville, located in the north end of Fall River, and the struggles and determination of her family to make it through the Great Depression.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mechanicsville.<\/strong> The Isidorio family lived and worked for three generations in Mechanicsville. The area was a densely populated, bustling neighborhood that developed after the Civil War during the \u201cera of new mills.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Mechanicsville was dominated by the Mechanics and Weetamoe Mills. Mill housing, churches, schools, and businesses clustered around the new mills. By the 1960s, Mechanicsville would undergo a dramatic transformation, and Ledora\u2019s neighborhood would disappear due to urban renewal and the expansion of the Interstate Highway System.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Isidorio family.<\/strong> Ledora\u2019s maternal grandfather, James Emmett, immigrated to the United States from England in 1884. Her maternal grandmother was born in the United States of French-Canadian ancestry. They met and married in Fall River in 1887 and raised their family in Mechanicsville. He was a spinner; she a speeder-tender (i.e., an operative who sets up, operates, and oversees machines that spin fibers into yarn).<\/span><\/p>\n

Ledora\u2019s father immigrated to the United States from the island of St. Michael in the Azores in 1892, and met and married Ledora\u2019s mother, Anna Emmett, in Fall River in 1909. They both worked at the Sagamore Mills, he as a doffer (i.e., an operative who \u201cdoffs\u201d bobbins from a spinning frame and replaces them with empty ones), and she as a speeder-tender.<\/span><\/p>\n

There were ten children in the Isidorio family, four boys and six girls, all born at home with a midwife in attendance. Ledora was the sixth child. An older brother died as an infant of pneumonia in 1911. An older sister died at the age of seven months in 1918 at the height of the worldwide influenza epidemic.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Isidorio family lived in the Brick Blocks on Otto and, later, Monte Street, the Brick Blocks, originally built for workers of the Davol Street mills. As mills went into receivership and began to close in the 1920s and 1930s, some of these properties were acquired by banks in Fall River and rented out.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ledora recounts her childhood: caring for her younger siblings, coal stove heating, family traditions, neighborhood games, swimming in the Taunton River, dish and bank night at the movies, winning the family\u2019s first radio, electric lighting, and bringing lunches to the Sagamore Mill in dinner pails to members of the Isidorio\u2019s extended family.1<\/sup><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Ledora was twelve years old when her father passed away in 1933 at the age of forty-four, leaving his wife to raise eight children. The family struggled to make ends meet. All of the children went to work as soon as possible and brought their pay home to support the family.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ledora was able to attend high school. She took the commercial course and graduated in 1938 from B.M.C. Durfee High School. With no office jobs available and no work experience, she took a night course at Bradford Durfee Textile School to learn to operate a power-stitching sewing machine.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Isidorio family moved to Taunton, Massachusetts, in 1938 to live near Ledora\u2019s mother\u2019s sisters. Ledora, her sister and brother, and two neighborhood girls commuted from Taunton to work in Fall River.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ledora worked from 1938 to 1941 at Cape Cod Dress Company, where her sister was the floor lady, and at Monarch Textile Corporation, Inc. making chenille bedspreads and bathrobes. Her narrative clearly describes the factory work processes and the impact of the union on employees.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ledora met her husband in Taunton in 1939. They were dating when they heard on the radio that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Francis Silveria Soitos had enlisted in the Army in January 1941. He was immediately called up to active service stateside.<\/span><\/p>\n

Francis and Ledora married in April 1942. He was sent overseas in 1944, saw action in Europe, and was awarded the Bronze Star. He was discharged in October 1945.<\/span><\/p>\n

After the war the Soitos made their home in Taunton and raised one son and one daughter.<\/span><\/p>\n

After marriage, Ledora worked in Taunton at the Glenwood Stove Company, manufacturers of the well-known Glenwood cooking stove; and as a supervisor at the Taunton Municipal Lighting Plant.<\/span><\/p>\n

She retired in 1987 at age sixty-six after forty-nine years of employment. She is active in senior centers.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. See further reading for more information on the Fall River dinner pail in: <\/span>A River and Its City: The Influence of the Quequechan River on the Development of Fall River, Massachusetts, <\/em>second edition, 2013.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    \n

     <\/p>\n

    Note: This interview has been slightly edited for continuity and readability; in order to preserve the integrity of the conversation, the phraseology remains that of the interviewer and interviewee. Italicized information in square brackets has been added for the purposes of clarification and context.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

    \n

     <\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Ledora, could you tell us when and where you were born, please?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yes. I was born at 38 Otto Street in Fall River, Mass[achusetts<\/em>], May 3, 1921.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> And how about your parents, where were they from?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> My mother [n\u00e9e Anna Emmett<\/em>] was born in Fall River, 1889. My father [Manuel Isidorio<\/em>] was born [in 1889<\/em>]. I think [it<\/em>] was [in<\/em>] St. Michaels [Lagoa, S\u00e3o Miguel, Azores<\/em>]. My father.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> In Portugal?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yes.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> S\u00e3o Miguel.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yes.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Oh \u2026 what did your parents do for a living?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Worked in the mills.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Do you remember what mills?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Sagamore [Manufacturing Company, 1822 North Main Street, Fall River<\/em>], was in the Sagamore, down the North End.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Oh, the Sagamore \u2026 How many children were in your family?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> My mother had ten children. All born in the second floor cold-water flat in Fall River, with a midwife.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Oh my goodness. How many boys? How many girls?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Uh, four boys and six girls. But one, the first boy, died after birth [Hilario Isidorio died on January 13, 1911, at the age of one month and one day, from pneumonia<\/em>. And I would have to count down. And one of the girls died at six months [Nora Isidorio died October 1, 1918, at the age of seven months and twenty-four days, from bronchial pneumonia<\/em>]. They were born before me. [In 1910, the death rate in Fall River for births under 1 year of age was 239.5 per 1,000 for cities with populations of 100,000 or over. This rate was the highest in the state of Massachusetts and the highest in the United States. Source: Bureau of the Census, Bulletin 112.<\/em>]<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Where did you fall in the line?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 I fell in, let\u2019s see \u2013 sixth. I was sixth one down. Fifth one died at six months. [Hilario; Joseph; Mary Lillian; Frank; Nora; Vincent John; Ledora; Irene Alice; Thelma; Maria Dolores.<\/em>]<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Oh, that\u2019s too bad. Could you describe the house that you grew up in?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yes, I can. I was born at 38 Otto Street, which is off Lindsey Street in Fall River \u2026 the North End. And it was the \u2018Brick Block\u2019 [Weetamoe Mills Block<\/em>]. They were called \u2018Brick Blocks\u2019 because the [Weetamoe<\/em>] mills on \u2026 [1290<\/em>] Davol Street, when they were working, people from the mills had to live in these Brick Blocks. But the mills were closed so they rented them. The bank owned them and rented them. So, we lived on the second floor. We had two tenements on the second floor. A dollar-and-a-half a week for each one because we needed the four bedrooms…. They were cold-water flats. And they had indoor plumbing, but no showers or nothing.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Did you have any duties in the house as a child? Did you have anything you had to do? Did you have to help?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Oh, well, really, yes, we had to help my mother all the time. And, of course, I had to wheel the babe \u2013 the two youngest ones [her sisters, Thelma and Maria Dolores<\/em>]. I remember the two youngest ones being born [in 1925 and 1929, respectively<\/em>], but I don\u2019t remember that much about them. Just that the midwife told us we had a baby sister.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> She came to the home?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yeah\u2026. My younger sister [Maria<\/em> Dolores<\/em>] was born \u2026 November 1, 1929, and the stock market crashed the night before [two days before, the<\/em> Wall Street Crash occurred on October 29, 1929, aka \u2018Black Tuesday\u2019<\/em>]. So my father wouldn\u2019t let us go out for Halloween. We didn\u2019t know my mother was having a baby in the next room. We didn\u2019t know until the morning, when they told us that my mother had something to show us. And it was my baby sister. She is still living; she is eighty-six.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Now did you go trick-or-treating in those days? Did children go from house to house like the children do now?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> No, we never did that. We dressed up in old clothes. Grabbed a rag bag and something made ourselves. We would go down the streets singing, yelling, and maybe ring a few doorbells. No candy, not in those days.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> But it was still fun, I\u2019m sure.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> We had a good time. And we were out. We had a good time in the neighborhood.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JJR:<\/strong> How did you heat that home?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Coal stove in the kitchen, the tenement we lived in. And my brothers had to live in the \u2026 had to sleep in the other tenement, which was, there was a hallway. These Brick Blocks were built with a stairway going up two first floors, two second floors, and two third floors. But they were mostly all empty. In fact, our corner house was empty. I remember a man living downstairs when I was small, but he was gone. So, the second floor, my mother rented, a dollar-and-a-half for each side. We had a coal stove. Cold bedrooms. There was no coal stove in the other apartment where my brothers slept. And so, my mother had a little cloth store in the kitchen of the other apartment. She went to the mills, my father brought her to the mills and she bought remnants. And people would come and buy. It was cheap. But I\u2019ll tell you, she had a legend that a lot of people owed her. So, that was only until we moved. We had to move in \u2026 1932. We had to move. The bank was after us. We were the only tenants left in two long blocks. We couldn\u2019t find a place with eight children. But we did on [19<\/em>] Monte Street [in Fall River<\/em>].<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Is that in the North End, also?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yes, not too far from where we were. Bank-owned. That was a house that had two [three<\/em>] tenements. So, we had the first floor; we rented the first floor. And it had four bedrooms. Till my father died.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JJR:<\/strong> Was that also coal stoves?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yes, always a coal stove. I remember my father standing on the thing, when we\u2019d get up to get ready to go to school, with our clothes in front of the oven door. But, anyway, I can remember him, because he\u2019d build a fire that died during the night, he built it. But then he got sick and died. He died on January 30, 1933. He died in Truesdale [Hospital, Inc., 1820 Highland Avenue, Fall River<\/em>].<\/span><\/p>\n

    JJR:<\/strong> How old was he? He must have been a younger man.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Forty-four.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JJR:<\/strong> Forty-four?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> And my mother is forty-four, a widow with eight children. My oldest brother [Joseph<\/em>] was twenty, I think. So, you know, there was, when you think of it \u2013 I was twelve. And the youngest [Maria Dolores<\/em>] was three.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Had he been sick? Your father, had he been sick?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yeah, he had been sick off and on, and when he went to the hospital, they wanted to operate. See, they didn\u2019t know what it was, his stomach. It probably was cancer. [His cause of death was chronic interstitial nephritis, a kidney disorder.<\/em>] But, anyway, uh, that is when he died. Of course, my mother never married again. We got by, I don\u2019t know how.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JJR:<\/strong> How did she get by?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Well, my oldest brother [Joseph<\/em>] worked. Not in an office or anything, he worked in the mill first. He graduated 1930 from [B.M.C.<\/em>] Durfee [High School<\/em>] and he went to work in the mills, Sagamore mill [Manufacturing Company<\/em>]. I don\u2019t know what he did. Something to do with the yarn [he was a spinner<\/em>], it goes up in the things. I think it was about $12 a week then. My sister [Mary Lillian<\/em>] graduated 1931 \u2026 from Durfee and she went to work in the sewing shop right away, down Steep Brook [section of Fall River<\/em>] \u2026 it was the Paroma Draperies [Inc., Weaver Street, Fall River<\/em>]. And it was up on the third floor, I think, and they had to make these bedspreads and draperies. And they were all very heavy work; $9 a week for forty hours.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Was that because she was a woman, or was that because that was the pay for that particular job? She made less than your brother made.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yeah, and he worked in the mill nights \u2026 I think, he probably made $10 a week, maybe twelve, but they had to bring the pay home, you know, to help?<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Help the family.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yes, and then my other two brothers [Frank and Vincent John<\/em>] went down. They didn\u2019t want to go to school. They went to [James Madison Morton<\/em>] Morton [Junior High School<\/em>] and graduated. My father said, \u2018You have to go to school or you have to go to work.\u2019 Frank, he looked all over. Went to all the mills. Wanted to sweep the floors. So my uncle [Antone D. Medeiros<\/em>] in Taunton [Massachusetts<\/em>], that is how we got involved in Taunton; my uncle in Taunton worked in Presbry Factories [Presbry Refactory Corporation, 600 Somerset Avenue<\/em>]. He said to my mother \u2013 his wife [n\u00e9e Elizabeth Emmett<\/em>] was my mother\u2019s sister \u2013 he said, \u2018If you want to let him come here and stay with us [at 893 Somerset Avenue<\/em>], and we won\u2019t [charge<\/em>] anything, and he can bring his pay home \u2026 we will take him in.\u2019 Because my aunt [Elizabeth Medeiros<\/em>] ran a restaurant [at 260 West Water Street, Taunton<\/em>] for the workers at Glenwood Range [Company, 300 West Water Street<\/em>]. So, it was no problem.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> So he could work for her?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> He got the job, so he moved to Taunton. Then my brother, Vincent \u2026 is [a<\/em>] year-and-a-half older than me; we was eighteen months apart. So, he came along. He don\u2019t want to go to school. He graduated from Morton. So, he had to look for a job. Well, my uncle took him in and got him a job. So there were two out of the family.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> But they were bringing their paycheck home to your mother.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yes, because they didn\u2019t charge them anything for food or anything.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> So, they must have been young, about fourteen, maybe?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Well, yeah, because \u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Morton.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yeah, it was Morton freshmen. We went to the ninth grade in Morton.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> So the ninth grade, they would have been fourteen.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> So I had caught up to my brother and we both graduated at the same time. But I wanted to go to school. They wouldn\u2019t let me. I wouldn\u2019t stay out of school for anything.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> You liked school? Where did you go to elementary school? Before Morton.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Before Morton was Borden [Grammar School, 501 Brownell Street, Fall River<\/em>], I think. Borden school. And before that was Fulton Street School [160 Fulton Street, corner Wellington Street, Fall River<\/em>], which was the North End. And that was first grade and second grade.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> How about Christmas and the holidays? Thanksgiving. Do you have any memories of the family with those?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yeah, well, first, the first Christmas I can remember now, it was in 38 Otto Street. Um. We never had a tree. Never had a tree. But, when I remember that, my father going downtown. We had the trollies then. He came home with two Christmas wreaths. This is my favorite. For a quarter. My mother said, \u2018Why did you spend twenty-five cents on two Christmas wreaths? You know we need the money.\u2019 He said, \u2018No, we have to have something green in the house.\u2019 So they went up in the window, on the second floor. And we strung a string behind the coal stove and we had a stocking with the orange, apple, nuts, and candy. And no toys. No games. We might have had a book or something. But it wasn\u2019t much.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Not like today, of course.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> No, too much today. But we were happy. We had family. We played games on the kitchen table, a big round kitchen table. And we turned the table cloth over and we had a Parcheesi game. Every night. It was always a baseball game going or softball game going. The kids jumping rope. And summer was swimming down at Weetamoe Yacht Club, down the end of Monte Street. That is gone now.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JJR:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> That was a big club there. People used to drive down Monte Street; it was a dead end at Monte Street. Gold Medal Bakery [506 Lindsey Street, Fall River<\/em>] was at the other end of Monte Street. And we lived, when we finally moved a second time [in 1935<\/em>], we moved in the six-tenement house [at 1 Monte Street, Fall River<\/em>], which was on the banks of the Taunton River, and down below was Weetamoe Yacht Club [2 Monte Street<\/em>]. Only they, the guys that had money or something, belonged to that. Because they had a raft [dock]. They had a big meeting room. They had a place where you could swim. It was the Taunton River, but we didn\u2019t care, that was where we did our swimming. That\u2019s true, everything that was in that beach, we brought down there from our house.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JJR:<\/strong> Now they had rides down there? They had rides on Bliffin\u2019s beach [at Steep Brook<\/em>]?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> I don\u2019t remember rides, but I remember going down [to Bliffin\u2019s Beach<\/em>] and you had to have a nickel to get a basket. Because they wouldn\u2019t let you in to swim unless you had a basket to go in the bath house. And you couldn\u2019t sneak in, because they had a shower going. So, if you had your clothes on, you had to go through the shower. Or if you did get in, you couldn\u2019t undress on the beach, because there were all signs and guards. But it was nice, Sunday, it seemed more like the beach.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> So you put your clothes in a basket?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Your shoes and everything. They had a boy attendant with a key. And a number, you got that, but that would cost you a nickel. But we walked down there, too, from where we lived.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Now how about your neighborhood? Did you have a lot of friends in the neighborhood?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yeah, every family had children. So, we always had some games going on. In fact, Charlie [Charles M.<\/em>] Braga [Jr.<\/em>] from Charlie Braga Bridge [Charles M. Braga, Jr. Memorial Bridge, dedicated April 15, 1966<\/em>] was our neighbor [at 37 Otto Street<\/em>] with his three sisters [Adriene, Agnes, and Delia<\/em>], and we were friends. But he was [two years<\/em>] older than me. He graduated from Durfee [High School<\/em>], [in fact, he left during his sophomore year,<\/em>] and then joined the [United States<\/em>] Navy right away [enlisted September, 1939<\/em>]\u2026. Of course, he was the first one killed [in World War II from Fall River<\/em>] at [the Japanese attack on<\/em>] Pearl Harbor [on<\/em> December 7, 1941<\/em>]\u2026. And they lived on the, not the \u2018Brick Block,\u2019 but they lived on the tenements on top of the stores \u2026 on [96<\/em>] Brightman Street [in Fall River. The stores<\/em>] had tenements up there. And that was where the Braga family lived. But \u2026 it\u2019s funny I don\u2019t remember his mother [n\u00e9e Maria Figuerido<\/em>] and father [Charles Braga, Sr.<\/em>]. I remember his sisters, \u2018cause Delia and Adriene were friendly, more my age \u2026 but I remember him very well because he sometimes, he would come play baseball or something. But we always had games going. Of course, times were different.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Is that where you shopped? Mostly on Brightman Street at that time? Is that where most of the shops were?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yeah, they all were there and the Royal Theatre [277 Brightman Street, Fall River<\/em>] was down the road.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> You have a good memory. A wonderful memory.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JJR:<\/strong> Now you went down to the movies a lot?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> At five cents to go to the movies and we would try to save if we had pennies. Well, like, I used to help my brother with newspapers. Deliver newspapers. And he would give me some money on payday. And I, we would go to the movies Sunday afternoon, a nickel.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Do you remember any of the names of the movies?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Of the movies?<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Any of them?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> I remember the first talking picture [The Jazz Singer, 1927<\/em>], was that Al Jolson? I\u2019m not sure. The first talking one, was that. And a lot of times my mother would let us, she would go with us \u2026 Saturday night was \u2018Bank Night.\u2019 And if you went Saturday night, of course you had two movies [and<\/em>] news; you were in there a long time.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JJR:<\/strong> Cartoons?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> \u2018Bank Night,\u2019 they would put your name in a box and draw a name in the middle. And my sister Irene\u2019s name came out and she won $35.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> That must have been amazing.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> I don\u2019t remember what year it was, because she is younger than me. But that closed [circa 1956<\/em>], I don\u2019t know why, but it was still open when I moved away.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JJR:<\/strong> It\u2019s been closed for quite some time now. There is a business there now.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> So, the one who ran it [Antone Tavares Moniz, Sr.<\/em>], I don\u2019t think owned it, [he was the manager<\/em>]. Well, he might have owned it. I don\u2019t know. It\u2019s right near where the cemetery [North Burial Ground to the east, and St. John\u2019s Cemetery to the north<\/em>] comes down. See, our entertainment. A friend of mine, in the summer time, spring and summer, at night, she would come to get me and she would say, \u2018Let\u2019s take a walk over the [Brightman Street<\/em>] bridge.\u2019 And we would go walk over \u2026 to Somerset [Massachusetts, across the Taunton River to the west<\/em>]. Because all the guys were on the bridge trying to get the breezes. There may have been men fishing then. And so that was \u2026 the entertainment in the summertime. But we all went to the movies on the weekend. We always managed to find a nickel somewhere and go.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JJR:<\/strong> I remember my mother telling me about dishes at the movies.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yeah, we did, we got dishes, and the Durfee Theatre [28 North Main Street, Fall River<\/em>], I think, first started it. And then the Empire [Theatre, 166 South Main Street<\/em>], and I remember going way up to, I told you I couldn\u2019t remember that name, up to\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

    JJR:<\/strong> The Plaza [Theatre, 381 South Main Street, Fall River<\/em>]?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> The Globe [Theatre, 226 East Main Street, Fall River<\/em>]. Yeah, and I was telling her that my neighbor in the six-tenement house [Roland Rapoza<\/em>], we lived on the first floor, one tenement. And he had a girlfriend in Somerset. So, he asked me if I would go to the movies. He gave me his pass to go on the trolley. He gave me the money to go in the movies so I could get the dish for him. So he saved a set of dishes to give to his girlfriend. That was fine. Then my sister had somebody who would pay for hers. So the two of us would go out to the movies for free.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JJR:<\/strong> And is that how you got to the movies? On the trolley?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yeah, the trolley. I loved those trolleys. We moved to Taunton [in 1938<\/em>]. They had already done away with them.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Now, how about a television. Do you remember when you got a television?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> My first, can I tell you about my first radio? We didn\u2019t have any radio. In 1932, that was before, when we moved to Monte Street. A store opened up on Brightman Street. A grocery store [Hormisdas Heroux & Son, 177 Brightman Street, Fall River<\/em>]. And for opening night, they were giving away a radio. A little table-top radio. And you put your name in. So, all kids and we went in, and we put our name in, put it in the box. They are going to draw it on Saturday night, who could win the radio. And, of course, we had just moved to Monte Street and it had electric. We had gas in the Otto Street [tenement<\/em>] \u2026 gas bulbs [mantles<\/em>]. So anyway, we all went down, the kids. All went down to the store to see who was going to win the radio. Well, my friend, one of my friends, went up and they asked her to pull the name. Ledora Isidorio.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Oh my goodness.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JJR:<\/strong> Oh my gosh!<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> I couldn\u2019t believe it. So the man says, \u2018Oh, no, you have to have a grownup. We can\u2019t give you the radio. You have to have a grownup.\u2019 I said, \u2018I\u2019ll go home and get my father or my mother.\u2019 So he said, \u2018Alright, we will hold it for you.\u2019 So, the neighborhood was Brightman Street, and we lived on Monte Street, which was around the corner. Well, my father was out on Brightman Street further down near one of the stores. Just outside. And, I says to him, \u2018I just won a radio at the store, but I need a grownup with me to get it.\u2019 He says, \u2018They don\u2019t give away radios free in this time\u2026. I am not going to that store.\u2019 Oh, I started crying, I ran home to my mother. My mother said, \u2018I\u2019ll go with you.\u2019 We had that radio and were they glad in my house\u2026. We had electric in that tenement.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JJR:<\/strong> Okay, so when did that happen? When did electricity come in?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> See, I don\u2019t remember when, because \u2026 up until 1932, we lived in the \u2018Brick Block,\u2019 which was gas. All gas. You had \u2026 a flame [gas light<\/em>] that come out of the stairway [wall<\/em>], because we lived on the second floor \u2013 at night, so we could see. And up top \u2026 we bought a globe. They called them a gas globe [mantle<\/em>]. In the drugstore for a nickel. When that globe [mantle<\/em>] would burn out, my mother would send us to the store to get a globe [mantle<\/em>]. But, otherwise, it was a lit flame that came out in the hallway, and you had to light it at night. That was [in<\/em>] the \u2018Brick Block.\u2019 But this one, we moved to, I don\u2019t know when they got electric, but it must have been \u2026 just before that or something. But not like we have electric now. It was one or two plugs.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Enough for the radio?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> But we got the radio. Philco [Radio Corporation<\/em>]. I can see copies. I don\u2019t know what happened to that radio.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> You see pictures of the radio?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yes. So that was then, and the television wasn\u2019t until [after<\/em>] I was married, 1947, when I got my first TV.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Oh, when you were married. Now, when you were in school, did you have any plans for when you finished? Were you thinking of doing anything?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Well, I took a commercial course because one course was home economics, which is cooking and sewing, and we had that at [James Madison<\/em>] Morton [Junior High School<\/em>], which was nice. I liked that. But, I couldn\u2019t see any job in that, you know? And \u2026 so, I said to my mother \u2013 she didn\u2019t care what we did \u2013 so I says, \u2018Well, I am going to take commercial course because I want to work in an office.\u2019 I couldn\u2019t take a college course, because I knew I wasn\u2019t going to college. So, I had short hand, typewriting, everything to do with commercial.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JJR:<\/strong> That\u2019s what my mother took.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yeah, in classes [they<\/em>] used to show us how to answer the phone, and talk. So, when I graduated [in June, 1938, from B.M.C. Durfee High School<\/em>], I wanted an office job. There weren\u2019t the office jobs. I think they were paying $12 a week for office. And but, there weren\u2019t, you had to go to Thibodeau [Business<\/em>] College [Inc., 130 South Main Street, Fall River<\/em>]\u2026. Thibodeau College, you had classes. You had to go one year and they would find you a job. Well, I couldn\u2019t afford that. So, my brother went a couple of months, with his newspaper money, but he wanted a car, so he quit, which was the worst thing. He ended up in the mill. So, um, I start looking for a job in a sewing shop. My sister [Mary Lillian<\/em>] had transferred from Paroma Draperies [Inc.<\/em>] up to [the<\/em>] Globe [section of Fall River<\/em>]. She was working in a better dress shop [Cape Cod Dress Company, women\u2019s silk dress manufacturer, 987 Broadway, Fall River<\/em>]. She was very good at sewing; I don\u2019t know if I remember her taking any lessons, maybe just what she had in school. So, um, [when<\/em>] she was working up there in the Paroma Draperies, she made $9 a week. I don\u2019t know what she made up at the Globe, because she made the fronts of the dresses, which was the hardest part. And then, she graduated to the [position<\/em>] floor lady, so she taught the ones coming in.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> So, she was the supervisor?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yes, she was a supervisor, but there was more than one. But when you were working you had to holler; my voice is loud because of that. You had to holler over the power machines, row after row of power machines. And you had [to holler when you<\/em>] needed a needle or needed thread, and they would have bins on the side where they bring you the dresses partly put together, or parts that you were going to assemble. So, she wasn\u2019t my boss; I called her \u2018Boss.\u2019 She worked with the better, the front, and the girls who made the fronts, to teach them how to do it. So, I started there. She got me a job in there. I started making shoulder pads, the flat ones, and belts. And then I went to put ribbon on the bottom of the hems, all the hems had ribbons that went to a seam binding, and went to another girl on a machine, where she made the hems. And I also did, finally, they would teach me \u2013 not my sister, though, I had another floor lady \u2013 the sides, closing the sides of the dresses. So, I worked there from September, 1938, or maybe it was August, to when I went to [Santa Maria<\/em>] California, when my husband [Francis Silveria Soitos<\/em>] was in the service [United States Army, enlisted January 16, 1941, discharged October 8, 1945<\/em>]. That was 1943. So I never went back. [Later, when<\/em>] I went back [to visit<\/em>], the floor lady was still there. She said, \u2018Why ain\u2019t you come back?\u2019 Because everyone had gone to the war [World War II<\/em>]. I said I was going to look for office work in Taunton.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Do you remember your first day when you went into the mills? Do you remember what that was like? Were you nervous?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Well, my first job, when [my sister<\/em>] got me a job, wasn\u2019t sewing, it was on a table. They had \u2026 the whole floor was Cape Cod Dress. They didn\u2019t do any cutting or anything [because<\/em>] that all came from New York [City<\/em>] by truck, [and<\/em>] if the truck didn\u2019t get there in the morning, we didn\u2019t have any work. We would have to sit around. Or, if you lived in Fall River, you could go home, and then they would call you. But, you didn\u2019t get paid if you went home. I already lived in Taunton. So, anyway, um, I worked, um, they had loops \u2026 belt loops, they used to make them with a seam. So they had a hook, a long hook. You put the hook in, catch the end, and pull it through. Gosh, did I have it tough. What the girl next to me, she had done that. She was like a whiz. Finally, I guess, I don\u2019t know how long I stayed on that, but that was twenty-five cents an hour. For $10 a week. And that is what I got for sewing. I don\u2019t know how long.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> What time did you go to work in the morning?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Well, I was already living in Taunton, see, when I got the job in September. See, I graduated in June, [1938<\/em>], from [B.M.C.<\/em>] Durfee [High School<\/em>], so, all summer, I had been looking for work. So, we went in the morning. My brother, Joe \u2026 he worked in Fall River, and my sister, of course, worked in Fall River. And then, we brought two girls that lived down the road and they worked in the same shop, on the table. And so, that is how I got my \u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> So, you left early? You must have.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Oh yes, I came at eight [o\u2019clock a.m.<\/em>] to work \u2013 to start working. And we got through, it was at four, I think. Four o\u2019clock, and we had an hour for lunch.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> And could you wear anything? Did you have to wear anything special? You would wear whatever you wanted?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Wear whatever you wanted with no problem. You never had any breaks, the only time was when you could get to go, and you could go to the toilet and back. And that was it. We had a lunch time.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Did you bring your lunch? A lunch bin?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Oh yeah, we would bring our lunch.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JJR:<\/strong> How long did you have for lunch?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> I don\u2019t know if it was a half hour. I think it was an hour we had for lunch. But then if the work stopped, and say they didn\u2019t have any more work to give you, you punched out. You didn\u2019t get paid. So then, you had to stay there until, like my sister might have had work and I wouldn\u2019t. Well, she had to work. She always worked a full week. I don\u2019t know what she made for a pay, but it was more than she made at Paroma Draperies, which in 1932 was $9 a week. I remember my mother saying that she depended on her, you know? And my brother, he wasn\u2019t married either. So, that is what happened there. I know I went to Har-Lee\u2019s [Har-Lee Manufacturing Company, dress manufacturers, 425<\/em>] \u2026 Pleasant Street, [Fall River<\/em>]; they were hiring. So, I went there in the summer [of 1938<\/em>], and went in the morning when they went to work. I went with them, and up Pleasant Street. Stood in line, from 7:30 [a.m.<\/em>], I think it was, and I didn\u2019t get through that line and get into the office to get an interview until 12:00 [noon<\/em>]. And I don\u2019t know, I can picture her there, but I don\u2019t know her name. She says, \u2018Where you worked? What is your experience?\u2019 I said, \u2018I don\u2019t have any, but I went to [Bradford<\/em>] Durfee Textile School [64 Durfee Street, Fall River<\/em>] at night to learn how to run the power machines.\u2019 Because you had to learn how to thread them. And my mother\u2019s was a treadle [sewing machine<\/em>], you know, that you pull back and forth, at home\u2026. Anyway, she says, \u2018You don\u2019t have any experience?\u2019 I said, \u2018None.\u2019 She says, \u2018Oh, we are only hiring girls with experience.\u2019 I said, \u2018How can you get experience if no one will give you a chance? I know how to run the machine.\u2019 She said, \u2018I\u2019m sorry.\u2019 That was it. So, after that, my sister got me a job, because she could see I wasn\u2019t going to get a job.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JJR:<\/strong> Now those power machines, you had to press them up against your leg? Wasn\u2019t that it?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> No, let me see how they worked. Each power machine \u2026 I think, must have had a starter, but they were hooked to the wall, with a main power switch. And the floor lady would go up to the power switch for each aisle, so these power machines were [on<\/em>] both sides, [and<\/em>] you faced the girl who was working them. I don\u2019t know how many rows. And then, we say eight [o\u2019clock a.m.<\/em>] we started, and I think it was twelve, we would stop for lunch. She had to go to that box and pull the switches.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JJR:<\/strong> Okay, very good.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> That would shut off the power. But, we must have run our individual machines ourselves. Because if you were too slow \u2026 you wouldn\u2019t keep the job. So I can\u2019t remember. It wasn\u2019t the foot, it must have been the knee. But, I don\u2019t remember that.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Do you remember anything? Does the mill have a certain smell? Or could you smell oil or anything?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> No, that must have been an old textile mill, I would say [Laurel Lake Mills, closed, 1931<\/em>]. I think we were on the third floor and had to walk up three flights of stairs. No elevators or anything.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JJR:<\/strong> So, were you paid by the dozen?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> No, this was not piecework, it was by the hour. And when I started there, I remember it was twenty-five cents an hour, an hour for lunch, I think, and you got $10 for forty hours. $10 a week. So, that\u2019s what you get if you were lucky enough to work the full week; sometimes we wouldn\u2019t. Maybe the job that I was doing, they didn\u2019t have any work ready from the other girls \u2013 the ones who did the waist, then the girls who joined the skirts, and then, there would be the collars. The sleeves, all different rows did that. Then, they put them all together by a symbol, with a piece of paper, and it had the size and the style of the dress and everything, so you would match the fold and match them up to give them to the \u2026 and then they collected them, the dresses, or whatever part you were doing, and passed them on. And when they were completely assembled, they went to the presses, which were rows of pressers. I think all the women there, they had those big \u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> That you pull down, the pressers?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yeah, and they had tables of women also that did handwork. Sew the snaps on, sew the buttons on, whatever needed to be done to complete the dress. Then, they were put on racks after they were pressed, and they would ship to New York [City<\/em>]. Everything went to New York. They, uh, the cut parts. We had a man in our place, that was his job, on the table. When that work came from New York, he had [to<\/em>] assemble the parts.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Like the patterns?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yeah, he didn\u2019t have to do cutting. He assembled the sleeves, and into bundles, because each girl \u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

    JJR:<\/strong> Oh, he tied them.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yeah, yeah, he used to put them \u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Were there many men in the mills? It sounds like mostly women that were there.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> There were all women sewing.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> No men were sewers?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> That man, I remember, and sometimes, when I was waiting for my sister, I would help him. He would say, \u2018Do you want to help me?\u2019 Because he would always work over. And I would go over and he would show me where to place these things. And then, he was the one, the mechanic, if the machine broke down. And the boss \u2026 he was the boss of everybody [Jack Kolen, manager<\/em>]. You know?<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> The top?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yeah, he was mostly over where the presses were.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JJR:<\/strong> Do you think he was tough? Was he a good boss?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> I don\u2019t know, I never had anything to do with him, but he used to watch the girls who had to sew the snaps on, because they had to be fast, you know? And sew the buttons. They didn\u2019t have machines to do that. I can\u2019t think of what his name was.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> You never saw the owner or heard anything about the mills? He never came to visit?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> I didn\u2019t even know who owned the mills. I imagined that the company must have rented that floor. Because I think down below there was a grocery store [Worlds Super Market, 967 Broadway, Fall River<\/em>]. Way over. And down below us, on those other floors, I don\u2019t know what was there.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Now, what mill was this? Sagamore [Manufacturing Company<\/em>], that you are talking about or the one up the Flint [section of Fall River<\/em>]?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Up the Flint. No, not the Flint, [the<\/em>] Globe [section of Fall River<\/em>]. The dress [manufacturer<\/em>] was Cape Cod [Dress Company<\/em>]. They were supposed to be better dresses because they were rayon. They [Har-Lee Manufacturing Company<\/em>] made cheaper dresses, they were cotton.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> My son [Stephen Francis Soitos<\/em>], a couple of years ago, said to me, \u2018Ma, let\u2019s go to Fall River; I want to see where you lived.\u2019 I says, \u2018Where I lived is gone.\u2019 [He said,<\/em>] \u2018Oh, let\u2019s go.\u2019 So, I said, \u2018Okay.\u2019 We got in the car \u2026 and [in Fall River<\/em>] \u2026 we had to go down Davol Street and cut over. And I\u2019m telling him how to go, ya\u2019 know. I knew some section where that was all built over. So we got over on, uh, Lindsey Street, and then was Norfolk Street \u2026 And then we got on, ah … is that Wellington Street?<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Yeah, yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> And then we went down Weetamoe Street \u2026 and that\u2019s where the mills are [Sagamore Manufacturing Company, 1822 North Main Street, Fall River<\/em>]. See, my grandmother [Mrs. Manuel Isidorio Sr., n\u00e9e Filomena Souza<\/em>] lived down there [in the Sagamore Mills Blocks on Sagamore Street<\/em>]. They used to have, uh, car houses \u2026 not long tenements, but I remember going down there to bring something from my mother. Uh \u2026 that\u2019s where they were when they came [from the Azores<\/em> in 1883<\/em>], I guess. [The family resided on Sagamore Street from circa 1907 to 1932.<\/em>] That must have been all knocked down [the structures on Sagamore Street were razed circa 1933<\/em>]. They went on [57<\/em>] Langley Street [in 1933<\/em>].<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Ah, see \u2026 I was young. I had to be awful young because that\u2019s when [my grandfather<\/em>] was still [living<\/em>]; he hadn\u2019t gotten burned [to death<\/em>] yet. He got burned [on August 22,<\/em>] 1926, so don\u2019t forget, I was uh, in 1926, I was four years old.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> So that would have been your grandfather.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> How did the fire start? Did they ever\u2026?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Well, he had a little farm there and a shed for tools and … [Manuel Isidorio Sr. owned six lots of land on Brayton Point Road, Somerset, Massachusetts, and what was described contemporaneously as \u2018a tiny house \u2026 a garden, and \u2026 an orchard.\u2019<\/em>]<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Over in Somerset?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> He had a cot to lay on when he was sleeping. He used to walk from Fall River to [Somerset<\/em>] \u2026 planting potatoes. He had a lot of grapevines \u2026 his friends used to come and help him \u2026 tie the grapevines and everything. And so, uh, it seems that \u2026 he worked all day there, and at night he must have laid down on the cot \u2026 to sleep and he probably had had beer or wine \u2013 wine probably in those days, they made their own wine \u2013 and he must\u2019ve fallen asleep smoking.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Cigarette?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> There was a house next door [Manuel Pimental Valero Sr., 1969 Brayton Point Road<\/em>] but they didn\u2019t notice [the flames<\/em>] until [five o\u2019clock<\/em>] in the morning. So, of course \u2026 that was in 1926, and he was only, what, fifty? [He was fifty-five years old.<\/em>]\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> So, so he would have been your father\u2019s father?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yes, and I didn\u2019t even ever see him. I don\u2019t recall, well, I don\u2019t remember him. I think \u2026 they said it might have [been<\/em>] due to alcohol. But I never remember seeing him. But I do remember seeing my grandmother. She used to come up and she\u2019d get mad because we couldn\u2019t understand Portuguese. And, oh, she was \u2026 she didn\u2019t learn English. But we were supposed to learn Portuguese, but my father never spoke Portuguese to us; my mother knew a little bit, I don\u2019t know how, from the people coming to the store, I guess.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> What nationality was your mother?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Her father [James Emmett<\/em>] was English because he came from [Mossley<\/em>,] Lancashire, England, [in 1884<\/em>] and her mother [n\u00e9e Marie \u2018Mary\u2019 Desmarais<\/em>] was [of<\/em>] French Canadian [descent, born in Port Henry, Essex County, New York<\/em>], so she spoke French. Her and her sisters, they get together\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Did you learn any French from her?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> French, they all spoke French. She had three sisters [Mrs. Antone D. Medeiros, n\u00e9e Elizabeth Emmett; Mrs. William Irving, n\u00e9e Mary Emmett, later Mrs. William McGovern; and Mrs. Joseph V. Nelson, n\u00e9e Minnie Emmett<\/em>] and one brother [George Joseph Emmett<\/em>]. Two sisters [Elizabeth and Minnie<\/em>] lived here [in Taunton<\/em>] and the other sister [Mary<\/em>] lived in Boston \u2026 and the boy \u2026 after World War I \u2026 he married [Eva Grace Vargas<\/em>] and went to live in Trenton, New Jersey. I never saw him.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JR:<\/strong> You had a lot of relatives.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Oh, my goodness. What about us, with eight children?<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Now, how about going back to the mill? Do you remember what you took for lunch? What, what type of things did you take?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Up to, uh … when I worked?<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> When you worked.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Usually it was cold cuts. My mother would make the sandwiches for us in the morning, \u2018ya know, what we would take, my sister [Mary Lillian, and me,<\/em>] we never went to a restaurant to eat. No.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> No. So you took a \u2026 sandwich or\u2026.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Whatever. But the prices were reasonable. When I look in the paper! Prices are so unreasonable.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Would you take water? Would you take anything to drink \u2026 did they sell anything at the mill?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> No, no I can\u2019t remember what we had to drink, must have been water. We had soda [but<\/em>] I don\u2019t remember drinking soda, I\u2019ll tell \u2018ya, but \u2026 you know, you think of these things and you say, \u2018Well, gee, we lived through it.\u2019 Right?<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> And you did fine.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JR:<\/strong> One time, you were telling me that you brought lunches to the mill.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yeah, that\u2019s when \u2026 ah … my sister, the oldest one [Mary Lillian<\/em>] and me, I remember that. My [great<\/em>] aunt, my mother\u2019s aunt [Mrs. George Graves, n\u00e9e Rosalie Desmarais<\/em>], had [several<\/em>] children \u2026 [Rose; Mary; John; Moise \u2018Moses\u2019; George, Jr.; Joseph Francois \u2018Francis\u2019; Clara; Caroline; Mary Louisa; Lillian<\/em>] but they weren\u2019t all working at the same time in the mills, but most [of<\/em>] the girls were, I think. So, they had to have a hot meal for, for lunch \u2013 this is in the summer time \u2013 and she lived not too far from us [the Graves family resided in a tenement at 1 Monte Street, Fall River, from circa 1931 to 1962; prior to that, they resided at 192 Leonard Street, Fall River<\/em>]. Oh, she had a table went from here to here to the kitchen. She baked pies; she did everything. They had this [sectional<\/em>] lunch pail, the bottom, [an<\/em>] enamel pail with a handle, and she\u2019d have the name [of<\/em>] who it was [for<\/em>] \u2013 Louise or Mary, or whoever it was \u2013 and she put in the bottom the coffee; I don\u2019t think they had much with tea, I think it was mostly coffee. She put that in the bottom, that was hot, and then a little [tray] \u2013 I wish I had one \u2013 she\u2019d put it in, that [section<\/em>] would have the mashed potatoes and the meat or whatever that she had cooked, and then on the top [they<\/em>] had the dessert \u2026 I would think mostly pie. My mother only made pies, my mother wasn\u2019t good at cakes but she was good at pies. And then it had the cover, and my sister and I would each take at least two; they gave us ten cents a week and we\u2019d go down to the mill \u2026 luckily, I think they were all in the same mill. And they would meet us; we\u2019d go in and \u2026 the noise \u2026 that\u2019s why my voice is so loud, \u2018ya know. My mother\u2019s was loud, too. My daughter [Mrs. William Joseph Aloisa, n\u00e9e Francine Anne Soitos<\/em>] says, \u2018Ma, you talk too loud\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Now, was there a union \u2013 any type of a union in the mill in those days, or\u2026?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> When I went to work there I didn\u2019t know they had a union, um, because they didn\u2019t say you have to join the union or anything. And \u2026 but then I found out that after I was working there a while, uh, the union \u2013 the girls with the union, I guess \u2013 must have complained or something, so they reduced the hours, the forty hours to thirty-five hours, but the same pay.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> So they, so they made\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> So, they really didn\u2019t gain anything. So then, [a<\/em>] New York [City<\/em>] dress shop had a strike \u2013 New York, the same union. So, then they wanted us at the Cape Cod Dress [Company<\/em>] to go on strike \u2013 which it had nothing to do with us \u2013 for support of them. Well, my mother needed the money. My sister \u2026 she says to me, \u2018We\u2019re not going to go walk outside on the sidewalk and not get any pay; pay for gas to come here.\u2019 So, she says, \u2018We\u2019re not going to go on strike.\u2019 \u2018Cause it wasn\u2019t helping us. Well, they might have had fifteen out of the whole shop that did this \u2013 morning, noontime, night. Some of them came from Taunton.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Carried the signs?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Just walking back and forth, in support of the \u2026 shops in New York. So, ah, we stayed working.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> How about when you went it; did they yell anything at you?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Oh, yeah, they were really upset. My sister didn\u2019t care. She was a union member but I wasn\u2019t, \u2018cause I hadn\u2019t joined the union yet. I don\u2019t know why, I don\u2019t know if you had to work a certain amount of time, but anyway, first thing you know \u2026 it got settled \u2026 [and<\/em>] they came back to work. Well, they were mad, \u2018ya know, because they lost maybe three or four weeks of work.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> You never get that back.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> So, as soon as they got back in I lost my job because I didn\u2019t go out on strike. My sister didn\u2019t, but I did. I lost my job. So I said to my sister, \u2018What am I going to do now?\u2019 And, uh, so I went down, um \u2026 now, this was Globe Four Corners [section of Fall River] and the mill was here. I don\u2019t know what street that was that goes down to the water or whatever [Globe Street].<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Well, way down the end and to the right, I remember, was more mills. So, I went down there, looking for a job and they had a sewing shop there [Monarch Textile Corporation, Inc., 206 Globe Mills Avenue, Fall River<\/em>] but you know what they made? They made chenille spreads and the [bath<\/em>]robes. Do you remember the chenille robes, that had the design, \u2018ya know?<\/span><\/p>\n

    JR:<\/strong> I sure do.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Of course, I had experience working on power machines, so I got hired right away. I don\u2019t remember the pay there, isn\u2019t that funny, I don\u2019t remember. And my cousin [Mildred Irene Medeiros<\/em>] that lived here [in Taunton<\/em>], she\u2019d never worked in a sewing shop, so I got her a job [at Monarch Textile Corporation, Inc.<\/em>]. So she worked, I don\u2019t know if we worked piece work, I think we worked piece work because we used to race. You know what chenille was? Well, it was different than a sewing job on dresses because the yarn came through from up above, and as you sewed the design you got the sewing stitch on one side, but underneath it cut it. How it did it, don\u2019t ask me. And the girl next to me, she was a whiz; I don\u2019t know how long she worked there, but I remember that. And the robes \u2013 I didn\u2019t work on spreads, but robes \u2013 had big skirts and you started in the middle with a pinwheel and it went round and round. I don\u2019t remember, I don\u2019t remember how many weeks, or how much money I made there. My cousin stayed; they called me back to the Cape Cod Dress afterwards and I joined the union, I guess they let me join the union. And then I worked there until I went to California; my husband [Francis S. Soitos<\/em>] wanted me to go to California \u2018cause he was in the service.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Now how did you meet your husband? Where did you meet him?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Right when we moved to [892 Somerset Avenue,<\/em>] Taunton. I never had a boyfriend, I\u2019ll tell \u2018ya, never \u2013 not in high school or \u2026 he was a neighbor across the street, and they used to come over in the neighborhood. We played croquet, of course, that was a big thing \u2026 when we moved onto the street. Five girls, they used to say \u2018the house with five beautiful girls,\u2019 and we\u2019d laugh. Then \u2026 one of the neighbors had a croquet set in the yard, so that was a popular place every night, so we\u2019d go there, and I used to talk to him, but it was nothing. They had a general store at the end of the street where we lived. He lived on the other street and I lived on this street. And my mother always had to get something at the store for next day\u2019s meal. It wasn\u2019t a supermarket, it was \u2026 a little meat market\/grocery store. So we\u2019d go in, my sister and I, go every night, we\u2019d walk down. There was this fella, gang of fellows there from the neighborhood and he was one of them, but I never paid attention to the fella and now, first thing you know, he asked me if I wanted to go take a walk with him at night. So that started it off.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> And how old were you at that time?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Ah, well, I was graduated from [B.M.C. Durfee<\/em>] high school, so \u2026 I would say it was at the end of \u201939, so I was just eighteen. And he was, too, because he graduated Taunton High [Class of 1938<\/em>]. So anyway, it was just a normal thing, walking \u2013 nowhere else. And then, the first real date was, um, I was over to my [Medeiros<\/em>] cousins\u2019 across the street [at 883 Somerset Avenue<\/em>], she [her cousin Mildred<\/em>] and I trying to decide what we were going to do for the night \u2013 no carnivals around or anything. I heard a horn blowing at my house across the street \u2013 my mother had gone out to a bingo game with her sisters \u2013 and I looked out. I went over, I says \u2018What do you want? What are you looking for?\u2019 He says, \u2018I\u2019m looking for you. Do you want to go over to the Raynham Auto Drive Theatre [Route 138, Boston-Taunton Turnpike<\/em>] tonight? It\u2019s opening up tonight [Gala opening Thursday, October 5, 1939<\/em>].\u2019 And I had just finished telling my cousin, \u2018Oh, would I love to go to that Raynham Auto Drive Theatre\u2026. It\u2019s opening up tonight,\u2019 and she says, \u2018You can wish again \u2018cause you\u2019ll never go.\u2019 I come back and told her \u2026 And so I said [\u2018Yes\u2019<\/em>] so we went; he took me [in<\/em>] his father\u2019s old Chevrolet and then we went across the street \u2013 the big milk bottle that\u2019s still up on Route 138 [Frates Dairy Milk Bottle, 785 Broadway, Raynham, Massachusetts<\/em>]. We had a cone of ice cream; that was my first date.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JR:<\/strong> Oh \u2026 thirty-five cents a person, no charge for your car. So he could take you to the movies for seventy cents.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yeah, and then he took me for ice cream; he must have spent his \u2026 spending money because he didn\u2019t have money. His mother [n\u00e9e Mary R. Silva<\/em>] and father [Antone Silveria Soitos Sr.<\/em>], too, were poor.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JR:<\/strong> And it was October, 1939.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> And look at this, it says: \u2018Dress as you like! Smoke and relax as you please in the privacy of your own car.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Now, do I save things, or not?<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> You certainly do.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Now you were saying something about your name. We were saying how unusual Ledora is. Who did you say you were named after?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> My mother was a spinner. She went to work \u2026 in the mills [I<\/em>] \u2026 when she was, uh, twelve [circa 1901<\/em>]; she had to leave school, she only went as far as fourth grade, I think, she told me. [Based on the location of the Emmett residence, she likely attended Lindsey Street Primary School, grades one through three, and Borden Grammar School, Brownell Street, corner High Street, Fall River, grade four<\/em>]. And she went to learn to be a spinner \u2026 that\u2019s what she did, all the time she worked in the mills. And she had a young girl that started there; she was a doffer [an operative who removed full bobbins, spools, or caps from the machines and replaced them with empty ones<\/em>]. She \u2026 cleaned the spindle for my mother, and all the others, not only my mother.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Now how old were you when you married?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> When I got married [in Taunton on April 18, 1942<\/em>], I was twenty and my husband was twenty-one, but he was in the Army over a year. See, he wanted to get married; he was afraid he was going overseas.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Now how many children did you have, Ledora? How many children did you have?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Two [Stephen, born 1947, and Francine, born 1951<\/em>].<\/span><\/p>\n

    JR:<\/strong> Soitos? What\u2019s the background of your husband, the Soitos? We were trying to figure that out.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Background? His father [Antone Silveria Soitos Sr.<\/em>] came from Faial [Ilha do Faial, Azores<\/em>], Portugal [in 1916<\/em>]; sixteen years old. [His parents, Joseph Silveria Soitos and his wife, n\u00e9e Enacia Andrade<\/em>] \u2026 had thirteen children\u2026. They couldn\u2019t afford it, so, [at<\/em>] sixteen, they sent him over here to his aunt in Dighton [Massachusetts<\/em>] to work on a farm. But my mother-in-law [n\u00e9e Mary R. Silva<\/em>] lived here [in Taunton<\/em>].<\/span><\/p>\n

    JR:<\/strong> I want to get that background. You say he\u2019s from Faial? How does that name come up, because that\u2019s an interesting name.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> The name got spelled wrong here [when he arrived in the United States<\/em>]. It [his papers<\/em>] said S-O-I-T-O-S \u2013 but his brother, Souto. His brother came after him and it\u2019s S-O-U-T-O. But they never had any birth certificates.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> No, they didn\u2019t.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> So, it ended up when they said it, I guess. He [my father-in-law<\/em>] didn\u2019t know any English or anything, he just had his name on his thing. He was sixteen, he can\u2019t speak a word of English\u2026. His aunt and uncle were sponsoring him, so, uh, that\u2019s, that\u2019s how he got here.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JR:<\/strong> We want to jump back a little bit to, um, your, uh, date night \u2026 at the movies.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> You must have gotten home late?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yeah, my mother was not home. My mother was not strict, believe me. I was stricter with my kids than what she was with us.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> And your father had already died.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yeah, and she had her two sisters here [in Taunton<\/em>] and there was somebody they knew with a car that could take them to Rhode Island somewhere \u2026 to a bingo game.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JR:<\/strong> So you met your husband \u2026 and after that first date, what happened?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Well, then I didn\u2019t see him, he didn\u2019t make any overtures for over a month, so I said, \u2018Oh, God, that\u2019s it, no more.\u2019 Then, he met me \u2013 he only lived on the other street, see \u2013 so if you went to the store \u2026 but, evidently, he must have been staying away from me. But then, all of a sudden, he came over and we started dating. That was it, that was it, so then he had to go in the service. He had joined the National Guard \u2018cause there were no jobs. He was trying to get a job after high school; he graduated the commercial course \u2026 from Taunton High. So, he joined the National Guards; that was before I \u2026was going with him. Wanted to join the Navy, but they said he was too heavy for the Navy, they wouldn\u2019t take him. The war [World War II<\/em>] wasn\u2019t on yet. So, uh, he joined National Guards just to get the extra money. Well, [President<\/em>] Franklin [Delano<\/em>] Roosevelt put the National Guards to go to camp for a year and he went to Camp Edwards [Barnstable County, Massachusetts<\/em>]. His outfit [was] all Taunton boys. They stayed altogether, all through the war, and not one got killed. [Francis S. Soitos saw action in the battles of Normandy, Ardennes, and Central Europe; he was awarded the Bronze Star.<\/em>]<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> That\u2019s amazing.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Wasn\u2019t that? One got hurt \u2013 the cook \u2013 with his eye, but he came home. That\u2019s amazing. They never got bombed; it would have been terrible.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> So you remember, living through that, the war?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> So, then, we weren\u2019t married yet \u2026 we were going out together. His father had this old Chevrolet. I never knew there was a Cape Cod. We went to Camp Edwards; his father drove, mother and the two sisters [Anna M. Soitos and Eileen Soitos, later Mrs. Ennsencio Coelho<\/em>]. He had two sisters and a brother, but the brother [Antone Silveria Soitos Jr.<\/em>] didn\u2019t come with us. And \u2026 so we went to Camp Edwards to see him. So we went there and then [again on<\/em>] December 7, 1941, we went there all day with him \u2013 went out to eat and everything \u2013 and then left, came home about seven o\u2019clock at night. Got into [his<\/em>] mother\u2019s house and [his<\/em>] brother was listening to the radio \u2013 they had a radio \u2013 and he says, \u2018Ma \u2026 the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.\u2019 \u2018Where [is<\/em>] Pearl Harbor?\u2019 \u2018Hawaii\u2019. \u2018Where\u2019s Hawaii?\u2019 I says. He \u2026 starts saying Roosevelt was on [the radio<\/em>] then, so we listened, and about maybe an hour or two later, in comes Francis, my [future<\/em>] husband; they\u2019d just heard it. All that time we were on Camp Edwards, they never heard it. They let them all come home if they could get a ride, so \u2026 home he came. And he stayed the night and then went back the next day. So, uh \u2026 he stayed there, of course, then\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Then they got sent\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Roosevelt says [enlisted men<\/em>] can\u2019t get out. He was supposed to get out in January, already had one year. They said nope, you have to stay in; there\u2019s going to be war. So he did. His outfit came to Plymouth, [Massachusetts,<\/em>] which was nice; they built bunkers and \u2026 guarded the coast. So, while he was in Plymouth \u2013 I don\u2019t know how long he was there \u2013 he came home one night [and<\/em>] said \u2018Uh, let\u2019s get married.\u2019 I says, \u2018I can\u2019t get married.\u2019 He says, \u201cWhat do you mean?\u2019 \u2018I don\u2019t have any money. I have twenty five dollars in the bank.\u2019 He says, \u2018Well, I\u2019ve got money; my mother saved my money that I sent home to her to use.\u2019 Instead, she saved it for him. I says, \u2018Oh, no. I can\u2019t. My mother will be upset.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> You said you were how old? You were only twenty?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Twenty. My mother will be upset because five already inside of three years got married. Five in my family. I would\u2019ve been the sixth. I said, \u2018Oh, no. My mother would be upset.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> She\u2019d lose your pay?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> No, no, but I was going to live there, \u2018cause I wasn\u2019t going to follow him around, or do anything \u2026 he was in Plymouth. So I said, \u2018You\u2019ll have to tell her that you want to get married. I\u2019m not telling her.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Did he give you a ring?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yeah \u2026 I had the ring the year before.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Did he get sent away?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> In three weeks we got married.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> So did you have a traditional [wedding<\/em>], did you have a dress like your sister had?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> We went to church [Sacred Heart Church, 29 First Street, Taunton<\/em>], of course. Bought my dress and then I had my veil, and I bought an outfit with the money I had; my mother had let me kept those three weeks\u2019 pay. We got married and then we had breakfast at my house. And then we \u2026 went to Fall River; I wanted the pictures at [Mrs. Anna E.<\/em>] Jette\u2019s [Studio, 225 South Main Street, Fall River<\/em>] \u2018cause that\u2019s where my sister had her pictures, and we went to the Chinese Restaurant down on Main Street there [Eagle Restaurant, 33 North Main Street, Fall River<\/em>] \u2026 all of us, the wedding party\u2026. You know how much the meal was? A dollar a meal. Full meal \u2013 a dollar a meal. He paid for everything, he was so anxious to get married. Well, my mother couldn\u2019t pay for it, I couldn\u2019t pay for it.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> And then he got sent to California, did you say?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Oh, no, not right away. We went to New York [City<\/em>] for our honeymoon, for three days. Then, I went to Plymouth for the rest of the week that I took off from work. A year I worked, and he stayed there in Plymouth for awhile \u2026 he was armored, field artillery. That\u2019s a big tank. He start going first down south, then he ended up in the desert in California, then he ended up right on the coast. I figured he was going to go to the Pacific \u2026 that was in 1943. So, uh, he says, \u2018I\u2019m probably going to be here about three weeks. I want you to come out by train to visit.\u2019 I says, \u2018I can\u2019t. I can\u2019t go out there to visit by train.\u2019 He\u2019s on the phone, and he says, \u201cYeah, because there\u2019s two other fellows, and their wives, they\u2019re talking their wives into coming, so the three of you can come.\u2019 Four days to go across to California from [Taunton<\/em>]; four days it took us. We changed trains in Chicago [Illinois<\/em>] and got a Pullman [car<\/em>]. Went from here, twenty-one years old.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Did you have the money for that? He sent you, you had enough money to pay for the ticket?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Well, for that year, see, I was getting an allotment for being married, which was the best. So, I could still pay my mother room and board, the same as she was getting [before I married<\/em>]. She didn\u2019t lose anything, and I had that whole extra that I was saving. But we went there April 1 \u2026 1943. We had a nice depot here, to get our train tickets and our reservations. The conductor says, \u2018Where are you three girls going? You\u2019re going to California?\u2019 We said, \u2018Yeah, we\u2019re going to go visit our husbands.\u2019 He says, \u2018You might know, it\u2019s April Fool\u2019s Day.\u2019 We start laughing. We thought it was a big joke, and we went. It was quite an adventure. We didn\u2019t have any trouble. I think what impressed me the most [was<\/em>] when the conductor came through and said, \u2018Los Angeles, next stop.\u2019 So, uh, we were getting our suitcases; we slept in a Pullman. You remember Pullmans?<\/span><\/p>\n

    JR:<\/strong> Yes, I do.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 Well we had one. I slept on the top because I was the smallest. And that was \u2026 women and men that was staying in that Pullman.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JR:<\/strong> All women?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> No, it was soldiers, sailors. So, that\u2019s how safe it was. We had a main washing room here, and then we had the ladies\u2019 room to change, and they had the men\u2019s room, and then you had a dining room to go eat. And our Pullman would turn into two coach seats to sit in during the day. And \u2026 when the Pullman porter says, \u2018Next stop is Los Angeles,\u2019 but he didn\u2019t say how long, we jumped up, start getting [ready<\/em>] and we\u2019re standing there, and he says, \u2018It\u2019ll be a while yet.\u2019 What impressed me was the orange groves. Oh, they were so beautiful \u2026 beautiful orange groves, all the way, and everybody was remarking about them, all these soldiers, sailors. I don\u2019t think you saw one civilian person on that train. We got off in Los Angeles. Then, we had to take a train \u2013 an old rickety train \u2013 to Lompoc [California<\/em>], which was the closest to where they had found rooms for us, and we got on that train at night and we got to Lompoc and then from Lompoc we had to take a bus into Santa Maria [California<\/em>], which was a little town, [a<\/em>] farmer\u2019s town, but they had a Greyhound bus terminal. And that\u2019s where they were waiting for us. Well, he [my husband<\/em>] sent one fellow \u2013 he couldn\u2019t come to Los Angeles \u2013 he sent this other fellow [whose<\/em>] wife was with us \u2026 to Los Angeles to meet us at the trains to tell us what to do\u2026. We had rooms that a woman [Mrs. Jamieson<\/em>] rented out [at 609 West Mill Street<\/em>] \u2026 to the servicemen. She had a \u2026 Cape Cod house, so there was three bedrooms upstairs plus the hallway was a sitting room, and a bar, and she let us have kitchen privileges for breakfast, but the rest [of our meals<\/em>] we had to eat out. But, they went back to their camp which was twenty-two miles [away<\/em>]. [Ledora remained in California for ten months, and arrived back in Taunton on February 2, 1943.<\/em>]<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Do you remember the name of the camp? What camp it was?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yup, Camp Cooke [United States Army Armored Training Camp, Santa Barbara County, California<\/em>]. It was about twenty-two miles from Santa Maria.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> This has been wonderful. You have so many amazing memories.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Well, my mother had a lot of stories. We used to ask her about Fall River. Well, I\u2019m so glad you came.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> We thank you so much.<\/span><\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    FALL RIVER HISTORICAL SOCIETY Women at Work: An Oral History of Working-Class Women in Fall River, Massachusetts 1920-1970   Interview with\u00a0Ledora “Doris” Silveria Soitos,\u00a0n\u00e9e\u00a0Isidorio\u00a0 Interviewer: (AS) Ann Rockett-Sperling Interviewee: (LR) Ledora (Isidorio) Soitos Additional Commentary: (JR) Joyce B. Rodrigues, Fall River Historical Society\u00a0 Date of Interview: June 3, 2015 Location: Soitos residence, Taunton, Massachusetts Summary: Ledora \u201cDoris\u201d (Isidorio) Silveria Soitos was born in Fall River on May 3, 1921. Ledora\u2019s story captures the history of the village of Mechanicsville, located in the north end of Fall River, and the struggles and determination of her family to make it through the Great Depression. Mechanicsville. The Isidorio family lived and worked for three generations in Mechanicsville. The area was a densely populated, bustling neighborhood that developed after the Civil War during the \u201cera of new mills.\u201d Mechanicsville was dominated by the Mechanics and Weetamoe Mills. Mill housing, churches, schools, and businesses clustered around the new mills. By the 1960s, Mechanicsville would undergo a dramatic transformation, and Ledora\u2019s neighborhood would disappear due to urban renewal and the expansion of the Interstate Highway System. The Isidorio family. Ledora\u2019s maternal grandfather, James Emmett, immigrated to the United States from England in 1884. Her maternal grandmother was born in the United States of French-Canadian ancestry. They met and married in Fall River in 1887 and raised their family in Mechanicsville. He was a spinner; she a speeder-tender (i.e., an operative who sets up, operates, and oversees machines that spin fibers into yarn). Ledora\u2019s father immigrated to the United States from the island of St. Michael in the Azores in 1892, and met and married Ledora\u2019s mother, Anna Emmett, in Fall River in 1909. They both worked at the Sagamore Mills, he as a doffer (i.e., an operative who \u201cdoffs\u201d bobbins from a spinning frame and replaces them with empty ones), and she as a speeder-tender. There were ten children in the Isidorio family, four boys and six girls, all born at home with a midwife in attendance. Ledora was the sixth child. An older brother died as an infant of pneumonia in 1911. An older sister died at the age of seven months in 1918 at the height of the worldwide influenza epidemic. The Isidorio family lived in the Brick Blocks on Otto and, later, Monte Street, the Brick Blocks, originally built for workers of the Davol Street mills. As mills went into receivership and began to close in the 1920s and 1930s, some of these properties were acquired by banks in Fall River and rented out. Ledora recounts her childhood: caring for her younger siblings, coal stove heating, family traditions, neighborhood games, swimming in the Taunton River, dish and bank night at the movies, winning the family\u2019s first radio, electric lighting, and bringing lunches to the Sagamore Mill in dinner pails to members of the Isidorio\u2019s extended family.1 Ledora was twelve years old when her father passed away in 1933 at the age of forty-four, leaving his wife to raise eight children. The family struggled to make ends meet. All of the children went to work as soon as possible and brought their pay home to support the family. Ledora was able to attend high school. She took the commercial course and graduated in 1938 from B.M.C. Durfee High School. With no office jobs available and no work experience, she took a night course at Bradford Durfee Textile School to learn to operate a power-stitching sewing machine. The Isidorio family moved to Taunton, Massachusetts, in 1938 to live near Ledora\u2019s mother\u2019s sisters. Ledora, her sister and brother, and two neighborhood girls commuted from Taunton to work in Fall River. Ledora worked from 1938 to 1941 at Cape Cod Dress Company, where her sister was the floor lady, and at Monarch Textile Corporation, Inc. making chenille bedspreads and bathrobes. Her narrative clearly describes the factory work processes and the impact of the union on employees. Ledora met her husband in Taunton in 1939. They were dating when they heard on the radio that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Francis Silveria Soitos had enlisted in the Army in January 1941. He was immediately called up to active service stateside. Francis and Ledora married in April 1942. He was sent overseas in 1944, saw action in Europe, and was awarded the Bronze Star. He was discharged in October 1945. After the war the Soitos made their home in Taunton and raised one son and one daughter. After marriage, Ledora worked in Taunton at the Glenwood Stove Company, manufacturers of the well-known Glenwood cooking stove; and as a supervisor at the Taunton Municipal Lighting Plant. She retired in 1987 at age sixty-six after forty-nine years of employment. She is active in senior centers. See further reading for more information on the Fall River dinner pail in: A River and Its City: The Influence of the Quequechan River on the Development of Fall River, Massachusetts, second edition, 2013.   Note: This interview has been slightly edited for continuity and readability; in order to preserve the integrity of the conversation, the phraseology remains that of the interviewer and interviewee. Italicized information in square brackets has been added for the purposes of clarification and context.   AS: Ledora, could you tell us when and where you were born, please? LS: Yes. I was born at 38 Otto Street in Fall River, Mass[achusetts], May 3, 1921. AS: And how about your parents, where were they from? LS: My mother [n\u00e9e Anna Emmett] was born in Fall River, 1889. My father [Manuel Isidorio] was born [in 1889]. I think [it] was [in] St. Michaels [Lagoa, S\u00e3o Miguel, Azores]. My father. AS: In Portugal? LS: Yes. AS: S\u00e3o Miguel. LS: Yes. AS: Oh \u2026 what did your parents do for a living? LS: Worked in the mills. AS: Do you remember what mills? LS: Sagamore [Manufacturing Company, 1822 North Main Street, Fall River], was in the Sagamore, down the North End. AS: Oh, the Sagamore \u2026 How many children were in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallriverhistorical.org\/WomenatWork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4287"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallriverhistorical.org\/WomenatWork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallriverhistorical.org\/WomenatWork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallriverhistorical.org\/WomenatWork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallriverhistorical.org\/WomenatWork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4287"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/fallriverhistorical.org\/WomenatWork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5891,"href":"https:\/\/fallriverhistorical.org\/WomenatWork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4287\/revisions\/5891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallriverhistorical.org\/WomenatWork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}