{"id":4290,"date":"2016-06-16T14:54:23","date_gmt":"2016-06-16T19:54:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lizzieborden.org\/WomenatWork\/?page_id=4290"},"modified":"2016-07-26T05:56:47","modified_gmt":"2016-07-26T10:56:47","slug":"ledora-soitos-unedited-transcript","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/fallriverhistorical.org\/WomenatWork\/ledora-soitos-unedited-transcript\/","title":{"rendered":"Ledora (Isidorio) Soitos Unedited 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<\/strong><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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

Interviewee: (LS<\/strong>) Ledora (Isidorio) Soitos\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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

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

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

Transcriber: Deborah Mello<\/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

     <\/p>\n

    \n

    Note: This interview is unedited and transcribed verbatim from the original recording.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

    \n

     <\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Hello, today is June 3, 2015. My name is Ann Rockett-Sperling, I am interviewing Ledora (Isidorio) Soitos, who presently resides in Taunton, Massachusetts. Good morning. 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., May 3, 1921.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

    LS:<\/strong> My mother was born in Fall River, 1889. My father was born, I think, was St. Michaels. My father. And, uh.<\/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, wow. 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, was in the Sagamore, down the North End.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Oh, the Sagamore, so you all worked in there. 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. And I would have to count down. And one of the girls died at six months. They were born before me.<\/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.<\/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, Mass., the North End. And it was the \u2018Brick Block.\u2019 They were called \u2018Brick Blocks\u2019 because the mills on the 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. And so, uh \u2026 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. I remember the two youngest ones being born, 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. My younger sister was born November 1, 1929, and the stock market crashed the night before. 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

    JR:<\/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 my brothers 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 nineteen, um, 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 Monte Street.<\/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 tenements. So, we had the first floor; we rented the first floor. And it had four bedrooms. Till my father died.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JR:<\/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\u2018d 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

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

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

    LS:<\/strong> And my mother is forty-four, a widow with eight children. My oldest brother was twenty, I think. So, you know, there was, when you think of it \u2013 I was twelve. And the youngest 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. 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

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

    LS:<\/strong> Well, my oldest brother worked. Not in an office or anything, he worked in the mill first. He graduated 1930 from Durfee and he went to work in the mills, Sagamore Mill. I don\u2019t know what he did. Something to do with the yarn, it goes up in the things. I think it was about $12 a week then. My sister graduated 1931, Lillian, from Durfee and she went to work in the sewing shop right away, down Steep Brook. And I was telling her it was the Paroma Draperies. 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. And I would, I think, he probably made $10 a week, 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 went down. They didn\u2019t want to go to school. They went to Morton and 7graduated. My father said, \u2018You have to go to school or you have to go to work.\u2019 That or \u2026 Frank, he looked all over. Went to all the mills. Wanted to sweep the floors. So my uncle in Taunton, that is how we got involved in Taunton. My uncle in Taunton worked in Presbry Factories. He said to my mother \u2013 his wife was my mother\u2019s sister \u2013 he said, \u2018If you want to let him come here and stay with us, and we won\u2019t cost anything and he can bring his pay home plus we will take him in.\u2019 Because my aunt ran a restaurant for the workers at Glenwood Range. 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, came along, which is 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 school? Where did you go to elementary school?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> From Morton.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

    LS:<\/strong> Before Morton was Borden, I think. Borden School. And before that was Fulton Street School, 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Oh, you played that? What else did you play?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Every night. It was always a baseball game going or softball game going. The kids jumping rope.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> How about hopscotch?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> And summer was swimming down at Weetamoe Yacht Club, down the end of Monte Street. That is gone now.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JR:<\/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 was at the other end of Monte Street. And we lived, when we finally moved a second time, we moved in the six-tenement house which was on the banks of the Taunton River, and down below was Weetamoe Yacht Club. Only they, the guys that had money or something, belonged to that. Because they had a raft. 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

    JR:<\/strong> Now they had rides down there? They had rides on Bliffin\u2019s beach?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> I don\u2019t remember rides, but I remember going down 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 Braga from Charlie Braga Bridge was our neighbor with his three sisters, and we were friends. But he was older than me. He graduated from Durfee and then joined the navy right away. So that we didn\u2019t know it. Of course, he was the first one killed at Pearl Harbor. So, he had three sisters. And they lived on the, not the \u2018Brick Block,\u2019 but they lived on the tenements on top of the stores, where I drew a picture of for you. The stores on Brightman Street had tenements up there. And that was where the Braga family lived. But, they don\u2019t remember, it\u2019s funny I don\u2019t remember his mother and father. I remember his sisters, \u2018cause Delia and Adriene were friendly, more my age. He was older. 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 was down the road.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

    JR:<\/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, 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 to a \u2026 Saturday night was \u2018Bank Night. And if you went Saturday night, of course, you had two movies, news; you were in there a long time.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JR:<\/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, I don\u2019t know why, but it was still open when I moved away.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JR:<\/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, I don\u2019t think owned it, well he might have owned it. I don\u2019t know. It\u2019s right near where the cemetery comes down. You ever come up Brightman Street? Well now, you can\u2019t go over the bridge, right?<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> We can go to the bridge, then you have to take a right or a left. You can\u2019t go down.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> See, our entertainment, a friend and mine in the summer time, spring and summer, at night, she would come to get me and she would say, Let\u2019s take a walk over the bridge.\u2019 And we would go walk over \u2013 I think they want to do that now – to Somerset. Because all the guys were on the bridge trying to get the breezes. There may have been men fishing then. And so that was where 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

    JR:<\/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, I think, first started it. And then the Empire, and I remember going way up to, I told you I couldn\u2019t remember that name, up to\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

    JR:<\/strong> The Plaza?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> The Globe. Yeah, and I was telling her that my neighbor in the six-tenement house, 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 to 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 someone who would pay for hers. So the two of us would go out to the movies for free.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JR:<\/strong> And is that how you got to the movies \u2013 on the trolley?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yeah, the trolley. I loved those trollies. We moved to Taunton 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. 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, which was gas, gas bulbs. 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

    JR:<\/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 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.\u2019 He said, \u2018I 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. My brother yelled, we had electric. We had electric in that tenement.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

    LS:<\/strong> See, I don\u2019t remember when, because we lived, up until 1932, we lived in the \u2018Brick Block,\u2019 which was gas. All gas. You had bulbs, a flame that come out of the stairway, because we lived on the second floor \u2013 at night, so we could see. And up top was a, you remember, you wouldn\u2019t remember, but we bought a globe. They called them a gas globe. In the drugstore for a nickel. When that globe would burn out, my mother would send us to the store to get a globe. But, otherwise, it was a lit flame that came out in the hallway, and you had to light it at night. That was the \u2018Brick Block.\u2019 But this one we moved to, I don\u2019t know when they got electric, but it must have been probably maybe 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. 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 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 Morton, which was nice, I liked that. But, I couldn\u2019t see any job in that, you know? And, I said so, 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

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

    LS:<\/strong> Yeah, in classes used to show us how to answer the phone, and talk. So, when I graduated, I wanted an office job. There weren\u2019t the office jobs, I think they were paying $12.00 a week for office. And but, there weren\u2019t, you had to go to Thibodeau college, and I saw that in your book, too. Thibodeau\u2019s 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 had transferred from Paroma Draperies up to Globe. She was working in a better dress shop. 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, she was working up there in the Paroma Draperies, she made $9.00 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 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, 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 California, when my husband was in the service. That was 1943. So I never went back. I went back, the floor lady was still there. She said, \u2018Why ain\u2019t you come back?\u2019 Because everyone had gone to the war. 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 she got me a job, wasn\u2019t sewing, it was on a table. They had, this was the whole floor was Cape Cod Dress. They didn\u2019t do any cutting or anything, that all came from New York by truck; 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, you probably don\u2019t remember, but they had loops here that \u2013 the belt loops \u2013 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, from Durfee, so all summer, I had been looking for work. So, we went in the morning. My brother, Joe, and 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 to work \u2013 to start working. And we got through, it 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

    JR:<\/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 on Pleasant Street; they were hiring. So, I went there in the summer, and went in the morning when they went to work, I went with them, and up Pleasant Street. Stood in line, from 7:30, I think it was, and I didn\u2019t get through that line and get into the office to get an interview until 12:00. And I don\u2019t know, I can\u2019t 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 Durfee Textile School 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, you know, that you pull back and forth, at home. She had a treadle machine, my mother. 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

    JR:<\/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 wasn\u2019t, I think, must have had a starter, but they were hooked to the wall, with the main power switch. And the floor lady would go up to the power switch for each aisle, so these power machines were both sides, you faced the girl who was working them. I don\u2019t know how many rows. And then, we say eight 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

    JR:<\/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, you wouldn\u2019t get your \u2013 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. I think we were on the third floor and had to walk up three flights of stairs. No elevators or anything.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JR:<\/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. For what I, 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, they 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 \u2013 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. 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 do all this, 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

    JR:<\/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, and he was the boss of everybody. 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

    JR:<\/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. 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, that you are talking about or the one up the Flint?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Up the Flint. No, not the Flint, Globe. The Globe mills.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JR:<\/strong> The Globe Mills was Cape Cod.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> The dress was Cape Cod. They were supposed to be better dresses because they were rayon. They made cheaper dresses, they were cotton. You told me how many \u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

    JR:<\/strong> I don\u2019t know how many they made.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> They had the whole mill.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JR:<\/strong> But they had twenty-two hundred employees.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> That was big.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JR:<\/strong> It\u2019s almost impossible to believe, isn\u2019t it? Twenty-two hundred.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Twenty-two hundred. How many floors? They must have had a lot more floors.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JR:<\/strong> They had all the Durfee Mills.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> My son, 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 \u2018Oh, let\u2019s go.\u2019 So, I said, \u2018Okay.\u2019 We got in the car and it was around two o\u2019clock \u2013 one o\u2019clock around here, I think. So we got in, and of course 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 and the cars were parked both sides of the street. I was going crazy driving my car. And then we got on, uh, is that Wellington Street, where St. Michael\u2019s School was?<\/span><\/p>\n

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

    LS:<\/strong> And they were letting the school kids out. And then we went down Weetamoe Street, Weetamoe Street, and that\u2019s where the mills \u2013 see, my grandmother lived down there. They used to have, uh, uh, car houses \u2013 not long tenements, but I remember going down there to bring something from my mother. Uh, that\u2019s where they were when they came, I guess. That must have been all knocked down. I was young. I had to be awful young because that\u2019s when her husband was still \u2013 he hadn\u2019t gotten burned yet. He got burned in, uh, 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 \u2026<\/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 \u2013 planting potatoes. He had a lot of grapevines that his friends used to come and help him, uh, the grapevine, tie the grapevines and everything. And so, uh, it seems, that I\u2019ve heard the story now, too, and from what was in the paper \u2013 uh, he worked all day there and at night he must have laid down on the cot, the cot, to sleep and he probably had had beer or wine; wine probably in those days \u2013 they made their own wine, and he must\u2019ve fallen asleep smoking.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

    LS:<\/strong> There was a house next door but they didn\u2019t notice it until the morning. So, of course, he \u2013 and he was, uh, that was in 1926, and he was only, what, fifty?\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> What did we say, forty-four?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> But his picture was in the \u2013 my niece got that from Somerset. She went down there and I\u2019d told her about it, and everything, \u2018cause she was doing this when she retired.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

    JR:<\/strong> There it is.<\/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. This here.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> He was fifty-five, it says right here.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Yeah. I think at the end there they said it might have done, be due to alcohol. They put that in there.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Because they wouldn\u2019t put that in today.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

    JR:<\/strong> Oh, that was me, too.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> You, too?<\/span><\/p>\n

    JR:<\/strong> Me, too.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> See! And, oh, she was \u2013 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 \u2013 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 was English because he came from Lancashire, England, and her mother was French Canadian, so she spoke French. Her and her sisters, they get together.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

    LS:<\/strong> French \u2013 they all spoke French. She had three sisters and one brother, so, uh, they\u2019re out, they\u2019re out there now. Two sisters lived here and the other sister lived in Boston \u2013 the youngest sister, and the boy, the boy, after World War I he came back, he went, he married and went to live in 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 \u2013 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 \u2013 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, y\u2019know, what we would take \u2013 my sister\u2026. We never went to a restaurant to eat. No.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

    LS:<\/strong> Whatever. But the prices were reasonable \u2013 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? Or did you get it \u2013 did they have, did they sell anything at the mill?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> No, no I can\u2019t remember what we had to drink \u2013 must have been water. We had soda. I don\u2019t remember drinking soda, I\u2019ll tell \u2018ya. But, uh, you know, you think of these things and, uh, you say, \u2019Well, 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, uh, my sister, the oldest one and me, I remember that. My aunt, my mother\u2019s aunt, had twelve children and out of that twelve children I think, probably, she must have had eight girls and four boys, but they weren\u2019t all working at the same time in the mills, but most 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. Oh, she had a table went from here to here to the kitchen. She baked pies; she did everything. They had this lunch pail, the bottom, uh, enamel pail with a handle and she\u2019d have the name, who it was \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 thing \u2013 I wish I had one \u2013 she\u2019d put it in that would have the mashed potatoes and the meat or whatever that she had cooked, and then on the top had the dessert \u2013 pie or 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 and, luckily, I think they were all in the same mill. And they would meet us; we\u2019d go in and, and the noise. That\u2019s why my voice is so loud, you know. My mother\u2019s was loud, too. My daughter says, \u2018Ma, you talk too loud\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

    LS:<\/strong> When, when I went to work there I didn\u2019t know they had a union, uh, because they didn\u2019t say you have to join the union or anything. And, uh, but then I found out that, uh, after I was working there a while, ah, the union \u2013 the girls with the union \u2013 I guess 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> So then, New York dress shop had a strike. New York \u2013 the same union, so then they wanted us at the Cape Cod dress to go on strike, which it had nothing to do with us, for support of them. Well, my mother needed the money. My sister and I, and she says to me \u2018We\u2019re not going to go walk outside on the sidewalk and not get any pay \u2013 pay for gas to come here \u2013 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, the 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 \u2013 I don\u2019t know if you had to work a certain amount of time. But anyway, first thing you know, uh, it got settled. So, uh, we, uh \u2013 they came back to work; well, they were mad, you 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, uh, now this was Globe Four Corners and the mill was here. I don\u2019t know what street that was that goes down to the water or whatever.<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Was that Dwelly or Slade?<\/span><\/p>\n

    JR:<\/strong> It might be. Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Right where the Polish Club is?<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Slade Street, I think. I think it was Slade Street.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Well, way down the end and to the right, I remember, was more mills.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JR:<\/strong> Well, that was Duro. It\u2019s Duro today. In those days it was something else. I know where it is.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> So I went down there, looking for a job and, ah, they had a sewing shop there, but you know what they made? They made chenille spreads and the robes. Do you remember the chenille robes, that had the design, you 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 that lived here, she\u2019d never worked in a sewing shop, so I got her a job. So she worked, I don\u2019t know if we worked piecework, I think we worked piecework 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. I was telling her my husband 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 Taunton. I never had a boyfriend, I\u2019ll tell \u2018ya, never \u2013 not in high school or, uh, 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, that was a big thing when we moved onto the street. Five girls, they used to say \u2018the house with five beautiful girls\u2019 and we\u2019d laugh. Then, then 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 a general \u2013 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 high school, so that was \u201938, \u201939. I would say it was at the end of \u201939, so I was just eighteen. And he was too, because he graduated Taunton High. 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 cousins\u2019 across the street, she 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 tonight? It\u2019s opening up tonight. And I had just finished telling my cousin, \u2018Oh, would I love to go to that Raynham Auto Drive Theatre,\u2019 I says, \u2018It\u2019s opening up tonight,\u2019 and she says, \u2018You can wish again \u2018cause you\u2019ll never go.\u2019 I come back and told her, \u2018I\u2019m going to show you something.\u2019 And so I said \u2013 so we went; he took me \u2013 his father\u2019s old Chevrolet \u2013 and then we went across the street \u2013 the big milk bottle that\u2019s still up on Route 138. We had a cone of ice cream; that was my first date.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JR:<\/strong> Thirty-five cents a person \u2013 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, his spending money because he didn\u2019t have money. His mother and father, 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 Leodora is. Who did you say you were named after?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Uh, my mother was a spinner. She went to work in the, in the mills there, uh when she was, uh, twelve; she had to leave school, she only went as far as fourth grade, I think, she told me. And uh, she, uh, went to learn to be a spinner. Well, 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. She, she 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, 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, Leodora? How many children did you have?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> Two.<\/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 came from Faial, Portugal; sixteen years old, and they had thirteen children \u2013 they had thirteen children; they couldn\u2019t afford it, so sixteen, they sent him over here to his aunt in Dighton to work on a farm. But my mother-in-law lived here.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JR:<\/strong> I, 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. It said S-O-I-T-O-S \u2013 but his brother, Souto. \u00a0His 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JR:<\/strong> Oh, it\u2019s Souto.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> He 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 and, uh, came into \u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

    AS:<\/strong> Ellis Island, I\u2019ll bet.<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> And then they had to put him on a bus to Providence. 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 at the, 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 and there was somebody they knew with a car that could take them to Rhode Island somewhere, Pawtucket or something, to a bingo game.<\/span><\/p>\n

    JR:<\/strong> So you met your husband, you met your husband, 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 or \u2013 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 also, from Taunton High. So, he joined the National Guards; that was before I went \u2013 was 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 wasn\u2019t on yet. So, uh he joined National Guards just to get the extra money. Well, Franklin Roosevelt put the National Guards to go to camp for a year and he went to Camp Edwards. His outfit \u2013 all Taunton boys. They stayed altogether, all through the war, and not one got killed.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

    LS:<\/strong> Wasn\u2019t that? One got hurt \u2013 the cook, 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. We were still, 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. He had two sisters and a brother, but the brother didn\u2019t come with us. And, uh, so we went to Camp Edwards to see him. So we went there and then 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 the mother\u2019s house and the brother was listening to the radio \u2013 they had a radio \u2013 and he says, \u2018Ma,\u2019 he says, \u2018the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.\u2019 \u2018Where was Pearl Harbor?\u2019 \u2018Hawaii.\u2019 \u2018Where\u2019s Hawaii?\u2019 I says. He says, he starts saying Roosevelt was on then, so we listened, and about maybe an hour or two later, in comes Francis, my 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 they all \u2013 home he came. And, uh, he stayed the night and then went back the next day. So, uh, he stayed there, of course, then \u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

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

    LS:<\/strong> Roosevelt says you 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, which was nice; They built bunkers and, uh, 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, said, \u2018Uh, let\u2019s get married.\u2019 I says, \u2018I can\u2019t get married. He says, \u2018What 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.\u2019 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\u2019d 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, oh, 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, did you have a dress like your sister had?<\/span><\/p>\n

    LS:<\/strong> We went to church, 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, uh, went to Fall River; I wanted the pictures at Jette\u2019s \u2018cause that\u2019s where my sister had her pictures, and we went to the Chinese Restaurant down on Main Street there. And, uh, all of us, the wedding party and his aunt and uncle and my mother. 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 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. Then he started going \u2013 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. And 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\u2026 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 here; four days it took us. We changed trains in Chicago and got a Pullman. 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. She didn\u2019t lose anything, and I had that whole extra that I was saving \u2019cause I think it must have cost close to \u2013 well, I can\u2019t say now. But we went here April 1, 19, uh, uh, 43. Yeah, 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, \u201cYeah, 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 \u2013 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 not 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, uh, when the, when the Pullman porter says, \u2018Next stop is Los Angeles,\u2019 but he didn\u2019t say how long; we jumped up, start getting \u2013 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 You don\u2019t see them \u2013 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 rickity train \u2013 to Lompoc, 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, which was a little town, farmer\u2019s town, but they had a Greyhound bus terminal. And that\u2019s where they were waiting for us. Well, he sent one fellow \u2013 he couldn\u2019t come to Los Angeles \u2013 he sent this other fellow \u2013 his wife was with us, uh, to Los Angeles to meet us at the trains to tell us what to do, and that was good and we had rooms that a woman rented out \u2013 rooms to the servicemen. She had a 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 we had to eat out. But they went back to their camp which was twenty-two miles.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

    LS:<\/strong> Yup, Camp Cook. Camp Cook. 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

     <\/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 Interviewer: (AS) Ann Rockett-Sperling Interviewee: (LS) Ledora (Isidorio) Soitos\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Additional Commentary: (JR) Joyce B. Rodrigues, Fall River Historical Society Date of Interview: June 3, 2015 Location: Soitos residence, Taunton, Massachusetts Transcriber: Deborah Mello 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 is unedited and transcribed verbatim from the original recording.   AS: Hello, today is June 3, 2015. My name is Ann Rockett-Sperling, I am interviewing Ledora (Isidorio) Soitos, who presently resides in Taunton, Massachusetts. Good morning. 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., May 3, 1921. AS: And how about your parents, where were they from? LS: My mother was born in Fall River, 1889. My father was born, I think, was St. Michaels. My father. And, uh. AS: In Portugal? LS: Yes. AS: S\u00e3o Miguel. LS: Yes. AS: Oh, wow. What did your parents do for a living? LS: Worked in the mills. AS: Do you remember what mills? LS: Sagamore, was in the Sagamore, down the North End. AS: Oh, the Sagamore, so you all worked in there. How many children were in your family? LS: My mother had ten children. All born in the second floor cold-water flat in Fall […]<\/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\/4290"}],"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=4290"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/fallriverhistorical.org\/WomenatWork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5892,"href":"https:\/\/fallriverhistorical.org\/WomenatWork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4290\/revisions\/5892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallriverhistorical.org\/WomenatWork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}