An Interview With My Grandmother, pt 3

     Last week, Grandma told us about her first full time job at Consolidated Handbags, meeting the man who would become her husband, and the various mishaps her two children got into. If you missed that post, click here. 
     In this final interview with my grandmother, she shares some closing words about how things have changed since she was young, what she would tell her younger self, and what legacy she hopes to leave for her children. 

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Gloria: So how has the world changed since you were young?

Grandma: Oh, tremendously! It went from… laughs Just to put it very briefly, it went from a wall phone in the general store that you had to crank up, to now, I have a phone in my pocket! Laughs So there's been a lot of technology since I was little girl. Cars were not as plentiful as they are today. Washing machines, dryers, were not available at the time. They are so common now, that people just don’t even appreciate them. The most spectacular thing was to see the man on the moon. That was awesome.

Gl: What was that like?

Gr: Well... chuckles. My husband George was very interested in it but I was so busy being a homemaker that I didn’t really pay much attention. But on the day that the man landed on the moon, I had the flu. And I was halfway asleep and George woke me up, he says, “You got to watch this, you got to watch this!” And it was the landing on the moon. That was just… I mean whoever heard of man going to the moon?! And there it was right before my eyes.

Gl: That is so neat! So what is your opinion on modern technology?

An Interview With My Grandmother, pt 2

     Last week, Grandma told us about her run-in with a wild goose, some of the prejudices she faced as a Mexican, and the time she told a neighbor girl Santa Claus isn't real. If you missed that post, click here.
     In this second part of a three-part interview, Grandma tells us about her job at Consolidated Handbags, meeting her husband, and life as a stay-at-home mom.

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Grandma: I started working the summer that I graduated. It was terrible because jobs were hard to find because all the high school kids were out looking for jobs. So I took any job, I took part-time jobs, it didn’t matter, I just wanted to be working. By this time, Mother had stopped working at this plant that made clothes for the military. For some reason, that summer, at the end of summer, she quit working for those people. Instead she got a job with this handbag company. So here I was that summer looking for jobs everywhere. And toward the end of the summer… let’s see when was it? In November, right before Thanksgiving, Mother says, "Well you know, they’re hiring people where I’m working, you might want to go and ask for a job there." I said "Ok, that’s fine, sounds good." Well I did, and because I was her daughter, they hired me. And they kinda liked me because I was doing the job. The company was growing really fast, and so they decided to have a department for small items for women. And so they put me in a little cubbyhole, a little space there. They were primarily going to go into the gloves, so I was to receipt the great big cartons of gloves that came in. They were different styles and they had to be sorted out by style, by color, and all this. And I delighted in doing it, it was nothing. I got an order and it came on a piece of paper, they want this, this, that, and that. And I just whipped through, I got the order, and filled it up. And I had it in a basket, and the people that did the packing, they’d come and take it, and they knew what store it was going to, and all that. That was fun! Laughs That was fun, I didn’t mind doing that at all. And I just did it very quickly, and I did it so quickly that I got my orders filled up real fast. And everything was marked and all in its  proper place where I could find it. So they decided to take me out of that little bitty place that I had and they made a bigger area for me. And they started building it up with gloves, with the wallets that women used to carry, the small ones, bigger ones, and evening bags, real small evening bags, jewelry boxes, just all these little items. And so, I had a place for everything and everything in its place! 

An Interview With My Grandmother, pt 1

     Recently, my lovely grandmother agreed to do an interview with me. She told me all about her life growing up and offered some wise advice for growing up today. This is the first post of a three-part interview with my grandma.

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Gloria: So first off, where were you born?
Grandma: Steel Store, Texas, but on my birth certificate it’s Robertson County, Texas.
Gl: Ok, cool. What was it like growing up?
Gr: In my real, real young years we lived out on a farm, and it was just farm life. You know in those days, most everybody was raised on farms. It was fine, I grew up, I learned a lot as a little girl. At that time I only had two brothers and two sisters, and the sisters were a lot older than me. 

Gl: So when you were on the farm, what were some of your chores?
Gr: Carrying water, because we didn’t have running water in the house. We had to catch rainwater, or we had to go this well and it was made into a pump. And we usually filled up the barrels or whatever container for water for bathing primarily, for washing clothes, for drinking, and cooking. That was my job. I had two pails and I had to go to the pump and bring water to the house for the drinking water.