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Owen, Mildred (audio interview #1 of 3)
INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - This is the first of three interviews conducted with Mildred Owen in her trailer home in the desert community of Yucaipa, California. She seemed to enjoy the interview experience and particularly the company of the interviewer. Owen's anecdotal style lent itself well to the interview process. However, her propensity to move from one episode of her life to another, which paralleled her peripatetic life pattern, made it difficult to construct a clear sense of chronology. 5/30/1980
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- 2021-07-26
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- *** File: rrrmowen1.mp3 Audio Segments and Topics: (0:00-4:21)... Owen's father and his parents immigrated to the US from Birmingham, England., while her maternal grandparents were originally from Canada. Some of her mother's relatives also settled in Vermont and Maine. [Note: Owen looks through family records in an attempt to locate information about her ancestors, and also introduces some photographs.] (4:21-9:28)... Owen's father and his family settled in Massachusetts, where his father supported the family by working as a carpenter. Besides building homes, he also carved bowling pins, bowling balls, and billy clubs. Owen's father got a job as a sheet metal worker at the shipyards owned by Bethlehem Steel, carving steel and brass instruments for the ships. He was the highest paid worker there because of his skill level. He was eventually joined there by his own father, who worked there until he became ill. (9:28-12:27)... Owen's maternal grandparents lived in Canada before settling in Quincy, Massachusetts, where her mother was born in 1884. Owen's grandfather worked at a granite quarry. He had to have his leg amputated after a large piece of granite fell on him, after which he supported the family by making home remedies and selling them to the public. (12:27-14:19)... Owen loved school, but had to leave after finishing the eighth grade ini order to stay home and help her sick mother with childcare and household responsibilities. During WWI, a neighbor informed Owen about job opportunities at a leather factory. Although her parents were opposed to her leaving home to go to work in a factory, eventually they gave their permission. She worked there for a year until she injured her hand and lost a finger. (14:19-16:29)... When Owen's parents were married in 1902, her mother was eighteen years and her father was twenty-two. She was born a year later in January 1903, the oldest of eleven children. Her mother had a baby every two years except for the eleventh child who was born three or four years after the tenth child. (16:29-17:56)... Owen details her household responsibilities growing up. Her siblings also helped with the housework. Their mother taught the boys how to cook and clean because she told them that they had to be prepared for the times when their wives were sick and needed help managing the house. Chores in Owen home were not divided along gender lines. (17:56-22:25)... Owen talks about her childhood, recounting among other things, the time that she fell in a lake and almost drowned. She describes her experiences in the various towns and communities in which they lived. In one place, she and her siblings were teased by the neighborhood children, which she attributes to the fact that her family was Episcopalian while most of the other families in the community were Catholic. (22:25-27:41)... Owen family activities usually involved weekend and holiday outings organized by her father's employer. She recalls the time she decorated her father's car for a parade. They were one of the first families in the neighborhood to purchase a car, which carried a lot of status at that time. Her father bought a car so that he could deliver the brass work he completed for clients as a side job. She recounts her parents' weekly shopping excursions to Boston. She was responsible for meeting her parents at the train station with a baby carriage to help transport their purchases back home. She was never afraid to go out at night alone and reminisces about the time she got separated from her father one evening while they were on their way home from Boston. End of tape. *** File: rrrmowen2.mp3 (0:03-0:48)... Owen recalls that her parents discussed family matters together and made joint decisions. Her mother never worked because "the women's place was in the home and the father brought home the bacon." (0:48-2:04)... When she was a young girl, Owen enjoyed roller skating, swimming, and dancing. She remembers organizing minstrel shows, comedies, and dance contests in her neighborhood. She also enjoyed going to Boston with her father to see shows. During this period in her life, she never considered her plans for the future. (2:04-3:34)... Owen went to work in 1918 when she was fifteen years old in order to contribute to the household income. Her first job was at a leather factory that manufactured shoe parts, for which was was initially paid $5/week. After a couple of months, she received a $2 raise. She turned her wages over to her mother who, in turn, gave her a .50 cent weekly allowance. During WWI, Owen also worked at a box factory and a powder factory where she manufactured bullets for the military. (3:34-5:26)... Owen shared a room with her sister and her brothers also shared a room. She talks about the sleepwalking phase she went through when she was a young girl. (5:26-9:10)... Owen right hand got caught in the roller machine she was operating at the leatherette factory; her third finger was injured and her fourth finger had to be amputated. She was rushed to a doctor after the accident, but the only treatment she received was a cotton batting wrap around her injured fingers. The doctor told her to return a week later only if she was in pain. She went to her personal physician later that evening for further treatment. (9:10-12:43)... In order to avoid age inspectors, Owen was told to hide in the attic of the leatherette factory and cover herself with the leather hides. During WWI, Owen and several of her family members contracted influenza. When she returned to the factory after she recovered, she was laid off. Although the factory owner told her that she "had a job for life" after she injured her hand, she believes that her absence from the factory during her illness was an excuse to let her go. The workers were mainly women, several of whom also incurred work injuries and were subsequently laid off. After her sister died from influenza, Owen took over her job at a box factory. (12:43-18:54)... After working in a box factory for a year, Owen answered an advertisement for a waitresses at a hotel in Old Orchard, Maine. She started out as a waitress for the hotel staff, moved into the dining room for the clerical staff and then the head waiter promoted her to a main dining room waitress and gave her the responsibility of training dining room waitresses. During the winter months, Owen and the waiting staff accompanied the head waiter to Florida where they worked in resort hotels. These recollections lead Owen to reminisce about her experiences working as a "Harvey girl" after she moved to California. She worked at Fred Harvey's restaurants in Death Valley, Sequoia, and the Grand Canyon. (18:54-20:29)... When she lived in Massachusetts, Owen spent her free time organizing entertainment in her neighborhood and going to parties with her friends. She also enjoyed dancing and roller skating. (20:29-23:13)... Owen continued to send money home to her parents when she was working in other states. One year while she was working in New York she used her earnings to purchase Christmas gifts for her siblings. She explains that she grew up with a giving spirit and she mentions the time she saved someone from drowning when she was twelve years old. (23:13-25:32)... Owen worked at an ammunition factory during WWI. It was located only twenty minutes from her home and she hitchhiked to work most of the time. She worked there for only two weeks because she became sick from inhaling gun powder. This factory was a dangerous place to work and she remembers several explosions occurring during the brief period she was employed there. End of tape. *** File: rrrmowen3.mp3 (0:03-4:36)... Owen clarifies the chronology of her work history in California. After she was laid off from North American following WWII, she went to work at Fred Harvey's restaurants. She spent the 1920s working at resort hotels, which is where she met her husband (William Owen), in Augusta, Georgia. They were married in 1929, a year after they met. During the 1930s, they went back and forth from Massachusetts and Georgia before finally separating in the late 1930s. They divorced in 1943 while she was living in California. (4:36-11:26)... Owen details her waitressing work for resort hotels on the East Coast and in the South. Between 1920-29, she worked summers in Maine and winters in Florida. She usually had one or two months off between seasons, during which time she took odd jobs. [Note: in subsequent interviews, Owen clarifies that she worked at the donut and dry-cleaning plants during the postwar years.] Owen shows the interviewer several photographs of the resorts where she worked in the 1920s. (11:26-13:56)... Owen enjoyed working at resort hotels because she met a lot of nice staff and customers. Initially, the hotels paid the fare for waiters and waitresses to travel to the resort, but stopped this practice when people failed to show up for work after arriving in the designated area. The waiting staff was paid a salary in addition to room and board, but they really depended on gratuities. She recounts once getting a $35 tip from J. Edgar Hoover. The head waiter usually sat the good customers in her section. (13:56-18:29)... When the Depression hit, Owen was a newlywed living and working in New York. Because her mother had not prepared her for menstruation or sex, and she was unaware of any birth control methods, she became pregnant right away. Her husband sent her to live with his sister in Georgia. Their first child, Herbert, was born in 1930. When she started menstruating at the age of seventeen, she went home and told her aunt, who advised her what to do during menstruation and told her that it would happen every month. Owen mother took her to the doctor because she was worried about Owen starting her period so late in life. (18:29-23:34)... Owen family warned her not to marry her husband because he had trouble keeping a job. After their son was born in 1930, they moved to Massachusetts and she began working as a housekeeper. Between the birth of their second child in 1931 and their third child in 1934, they went back and forth between Massachusetts and Georgia. She decided to separate from her husband after he returned to Georgia when their third child was born. She eventually moved out of her parents' home and into an apartment with her children. She quit working at that time and began receiving welfare. Her husband did not pay any child support after they separated. (23:34-27:17)... During WWII, Owen decided to go back to work and got a job at Bethlehem Steel Shipyard. She talks about the hospitalization of her two-year-old son, who was placed in a sanitarium where he stayed for eleven years and received several operations on his legs. When she suspected he was being used as a guinea pig, she checked him out of the sanitarium. End of tape. *** File: rrrmowen4.mp3 (0:00-3:25)... Owen describes her life in the years leading up to WWII. After the war started, when she went to work at Bethlehem Steel Shipyard, her second oldest son managed the home and took care of his younger brother. End of tape.
- SUBJECT BIO - Mildred Owen began working at North American Aircraft in 1943, and remained there for two years until she was laid off. The first of eleven children, born in Boston, Owen began working after she completed the ninth or tenth grades, first in a leatherette factory and then a munitions factory. Starting in 1920, with the exception of one year when she worked at a box factory, she worked as a waitress on the hotel/restaurant circuit for the next nine years. This is how she met her husband, who worked as a waiter, who she divorced in 1943. After Owen married, and for the next five years during which her three sons were born, she worked as a domestic. Then, during the Depression, and until she went to work in a shipyard in Massachusetts in 1942, she remained home and received relief payments. Following her job at North American, Owen worked at various chains of the Fred Harvey restaurants in California, returning to Massachusetts in 1951, where she worked at various odd jobs and cared for her ailing mother. At her son's suggestion, she returned to southern California in the mid-1970s. She was enthusiastic about the Rosie the Riveter Revisited project and remained in contact with both the interviewer and project director inquiring about the progress of the project. TOPICS - family background and history; father's work history; socioeconomic status; childhood; education; household responsibilities; siblings; family life; religion; work-related injury; living arrangements; and social lfamily life; parent's marital relationship; childhood; work experiences and injury at leatherette factory; wages; housing and living arrangements; WWI influenza epidemic; waitressing on resort circuit, including Froverall work history; husband and marital relationship; waitressing at hotel resorts; wages; menstruation; housekeeping; living arrangements; welfare assistance; and son's leg injuries and hospitalization; Note: tThis side of the tape is only 3:25 minutes long, during which Owen discusses her life in the years leading up to WWII; The audio quality of this interview is fair;
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