Photo courtesy of PANL NA 1233

I worked most of the time with one boss. She was a hard old soul to work with, but we didn't care. We worked on and didn't take notice to her. She wouldn't let me stand up long enough to wipe me nose. Oh, she was a hard old ticket. She used to say, "Look at Nell over there laughing. The young girl's telling something now. Look, they're laughing now. Look." She watched every move. You had to laugh sometimes. Somebody would bring up something that would make you laugh, however tired you was. I used to always have two young girls, Jane Hickman and Elsie Crowley, bring in me fish and they was the real charmers, you know. Oh, how I used to laugh at they two.

The boss would get $10 more than the women that were working with her. The last summer I worked on the beach, I made over $100. Not very often I made $100 in the 14 years I was at it, and they'd only give you $10 cash. You had to take up the rest of it in their store. Only $10 and a paper - what they used to call a credit note. Every time you want something to their store, you had to carry that paper. That was the wrong part of it. 'Twas not even a fair play 'cause they had two prices. If you went in with $1 you got a different price than you would if it was on your credit note. That's the way it was - two prices. It was hard for your work, 'cause you wanted to get what you could for every dollar and stuff used to be expensive. They wouldn't get that to work today on people, no my dear.