Philomena Dalton was born in Colinet, worked in St. John's and now resides in Admiral's Beach, St. Mary's Bay. She enjoys playing cards, knitting and crocheting.

MY FIRST JOB

I was 16 years old and it was October month. The people I was going to work for came and picked me up. They were friends of the family who lived in St. John's. When I first went there, I had two aprons that my mother made from flour bags. They had bibs in the front and tied in the back. I also had two dresses, one for Sundays and one for the week-days, undergarments, personal items and $2.00. That's all I had to take with me and it fit in a small suitcase. I worked in a private home on LeMarchant Road in St. John's.

When I went there it was a Sunday evening and the woman told me what my work was for Monday morning. The first thing I had to do was the laundry. I didn't have to use a scrubboard. They had a wringer washer, but they had no dryer. So I had to hang out the clothes. Once the laundry was done, I would have to shovel coal that the truck dumped off down into a shute. The coal went to a coal bin just off the kitchen. I also had to cook and clean. I had to scrub hardwood floors on my hands and knees with a brush. After I scrubbed the floors and hallways, I would have to scrub a paste wax on them. Once the wax dried, I'd take a cloth and shine the floors and bannisters. I also had to scrub the brass outside doorknobs in the wintertime. My hands got sore and I had no money to buy cream. I wrote to my mother and told her and a few days later a bottle of Vaseline came in the mail.

The rules were very strict. I wasn't allowed to have anyone call me or to use the phone. I had to be in by 10:00 p.m. and I wasn't allowed to have any visitors. I can remember one night a friend from home called me and the lady of the house told him that I wasn't there. I overheard her. It was a three-story house and I had to sleep on the third floor. There was no heat up there. It was freezing in the winter and too hot in the summer.

I was getting $5.00 a month. When I went there first, I used my money to get some personal things. I also had to save money to buy a pair of winter boots. Once I had what I needed, I put a dress on installment at the London, New York and Paris, and a pair of shoes at Parker and Monroe. I saved enough money to buy the new dress and shoes to go home to the garden party in August. That was the big thing back then.