by Studs Terkel
I never heard of anybody today going out helping anybody like that. Right here, say, I lived all these years, and when my husband was paralyzed all these years and sick, he never turned down neighbors of anybody passed away, for a flower piece, a sympathy to the neighbor. And yet when he passed away, nobody came to my door and said they were sorry to see Herman go.
The answer is selfishness and greed and jealousy. My own tenants, six months they don’t pay no rent. He can’t pay no rent, he’s a truck driver and he’s behind. Got four kids, I feel sorry for them, but I have to do something. I gotta pay taxes, I can’t keep up for nothing. But he says, “Gee, what the heck you bothering me for this rent for. You don’t need the money.” He said, “You’re loaded with money.” Now this is the idea, you’re always loaded with money. They don’t know.
But it’s deeper than this, the more I think about it. It’s this fear, fear of everything. Fear of the war in Vietnam, fear of communism, fear of atomic bombs. There’s a fear there. I am not afraid of nobody or nothing. The only thing I am afraid of is in case there should be an atomic war, if it hits me or anywhere close, I hope it hits me fast. And that’s all, there would be nothing of me. Just like striking a match.
Myself, I get confused. The President tells ya that he don’t want no war, it’s peace. You pick up a paper, they’re bombing children. And television, the guys being interviewed, talking about peace, and the picture shown where the women and children are being bombed and slaughtered and murdered. How long if I think that way and I have a bad feeling, how long will other people that their mentality’s not strong enough, to separate the cause of it? Fear. What’s gonna happen to our kids, our grandchildren?
Lotta them are afraid of their jobs, losing their jobs. Because the government’s maybe got some contract with some company. Fbr example, we got one fellow here works with the government, with this here carbonic gas or whatever it is. If he opens his mouth up too much, he can lose his job. And the senators or congressmen, they personally don’t take interest in their own country, right here, what’s going on.
The colored. We had a tavern on 61st Street and State, three and a half years, Negro neighborhood. I tell you I never was insulted no place by not a Negro person over there. They respected me highly. It took a white fella to come in and insult me because I wouldn’t serve him beer, he was too drunk. And if it wasn’t for these poor Negro fellas, I’d a probably killed this man. [Laughs.] Because he called me a dirty name.
It just burns me up when they say, Woo! Those Negro people! My kids would go out in the street, my little girl would be out on the street, nobody bothered, nobody touched. One day I’m lookin’ for my little girl, and she was only four years old then, and I went to the back yard. They had a quilt spread out on the lawn and had my little girl sittin’ in the middle, ’cause she had a white organdy dress on. [Laughs.] Little colored girls and boys all around, so she don’t get off and get her dress soiled. They were watching her. [Laughs. ] They don’t care how dirty the quilt got but just don’t get her dress soiled, watching her.
Today I had an argument. I just got mad because I heard them back and forth and they started telling: Those Negroes, they’re so filthy. Everything is the Negroes. I said, “Do you ever stop to think that the white trash of the white people do the same thing?”
I know they sit in taverns and booze all night long. That’s why we never did make a lot of money in taverns. My husband couldn’t stand it. If he knew there was a family man or woman, he’d tell’em, “Get out and go by your kids. You drink two, three glasses of beer, that’s enough. Go home, watch your children.” “What’s the matter, don’t you like our money?” they would say. “We don’t have to come here if you’re like that.” So we never made any money.
In Bridgeport, I know what’s going on over there. Old-timers that have homes, and they’re afraid that the neighborhood’s gonna be run-down. That’s what they’re afraid of. Because they listen to the reputation of State Street.
I don’t know how to explain it. I was never anti-Negro, because I don’t remember when I don’t know a Negro living next door. When I grew up, there was nothing for my father to bring a couple of Negro fellas that he worked in the mines in the gang with, for supper. Or my dad taking us by the hand Sunday morning after church, and it was nothing at all to spend Sunday morning after church to go by them. The first time I tasted homemade cornbread was by a Negro family.
Just because my skin is white, that doesn’t make me better than he is. Or it doesn’t make him better if his skin is black. A lot of people think, my skin is white, I don’t even have to go to school.... One particular woman in this neighborhood, when her daughter wanted to go to school so bad, she said, “You don’t need no high school. What do you need high school for? Get married and raise kids.” “Gee whiz,” I said, “she’d make a better mother if she has an education. Don’t deny her. If she wants to go to school, get an education, give it to her, let her go. If you can’t afford it, it’s different.” But, “Oh, no, she don’t need it.” Today what is she? She’s just a baby factory, that’s all she is.
Education is very important. Always, always. I raised my children in the rottenest business a child can grow up in. They grew up and all got education from that tavern business. I could thank Roosevelt for it. If it wasn’t for Roosevelt being elected and repealing the Eighteenth Amendment, well, I’d still be bootlegging. [Laughs.] When I was sixteen years old, I knew how to make moonshine and home-brew. [Laughs.]
Oh, I done everything. I was a riveter during the war. I worked even in a rubber factory. In those days, they used insulation rubber around the automobile, around the windows, I was the trimmer on that. And I made steering wheels on a great big bandsaw. I don’t know how I didn’t get my arms cut off. [Laughs.] Made steering wheels and working in a candy factory. Now listen, just I’m telling you.... I wasn’t a bad-looking girl, I mean, I had opportunities....
You’re not a bad-looking woman now.
Thank you. When I hear people say, ah, the children are bad, delinquency from broken homes, and girls turn bad because they have nobody.... I had all the opportunities in the world to become bad. All of it. In fact, one case worker, Irma Cline, I’ll never forget....
...During the Depression, there was an old couple that needed a stove. And she wouldn’t give them the requisition to get the stove to heat their place up. So I went to the relief station and put that Cline against the wall. I got her by the throat and she suggested that I come in for the stove. And she said, “You’re not a bad-looking woman. Why don’t you get yourself a job and buy a stove yourself?” She thought it was for me. I said, “It’s not for me, it’s for an old couple.” I said, “I’m helping them all I can. I can’t help them no more.” And that’s when she made the suggestion that I am not a bad-looking woman. She said, “Why don’t you get married?” I said, “What do you want me to do? Get a mattress on my back and walk up and down 35th Street?” This get married. I had all the opportunities in the world to become bad. I didn’t. I worked.
I don’t see why people should have to struggle for everything that’s important to them. In the Constitution they tell us that under the Constitution.... I found out by being arrested, when you’re arrested you have no Constitution.
Why were you arrested?
For to end the war in Vietnam, with the students. I was demonstratin’. I think it’s good. It’s good exercise for me. [Laughs.] The only way I get my exercise is in these demonstrations. Marches, and for a good cause, I don’t mind that.
What made you join it?
Well, I tell you, my first husband, though he was no good, I don’t know if it was the First World War or what had to do with it, but he was wounded in the First World War real bad, that he was pensioned. Old Soldiers’ Home, all crippled up. Decorated in some kind of medal he got over there, to end all wars. So his sons won’t have to fight in the wars. Well, along comes Hitler, so then my oldest son, before the end he was old enough already. Tha
nk God that my first one come home safe.
And my second son, when the Korean War started, he was old enough to get in the Korean War. He had this thick, bushy hair head, when he come back, I think two and a half years, when he come back he was bald-headed. And he’s a different boy altogether. I think this Korean business had to do. Well, he isn’t...how should I tell you? ‘Cause maybe he’s a man now. He isn’t jolly any more, he isn’t... [she has difficulty here]...he’s very strict with his own children, it’s just like a bully...the army training, the meanness is in you. And left in you. He’s not...the meanness is not taken out of you when he comes down to civilian society. But maybe I’m wrong, I don’t know.... He was never a bully, now he’s a bully. And I guess they train ’em like that.
Now this boy I got, this last one. He’s a good boy, he’s never given me trouble. He’s never missed a day of school. He’s never been late to school. He’s never harmed anything. I tell you what kind he is, if there’s a mosquito, he won’t kill the mosquito, he says, “Oh, let him go.” [Laughs.] And gets along with everybody. And little kids, they’re just crazy for him.
He’s a policeman?
Yeah. He always wanted to be a policeman and I...He’s a boy, I never let him have a toy gun. I says, “I don’t want my children to have guns.” I won’t buy a gun, I won’t allow in my house a gun.
I never did fight, I’m not a fighter, I never fight with policemen even. [Laughs.] I left my husbands to it, but I never fight with them. I’m afraid. I’m too big, I weigh three hundred pounds, my husband weighs 150 pounds. If I hit ‘em, I could kill ’em.
I don’t want my son to go to Vietnam. All right, he’s got a dangerous job, he’s a policeman. So I feel different about it. He’s got a gun on him, he’s doing everything what I’m against. But as long as he knows...he knows I don’t believe in police brutality. No way. No way. If I ever hear that he’s brutal in any way, I don’t care—he never got a whipping—but I would beat the shit out of him. I would. You got to defend yourself, but you don’t have to provoke it.
Because when I was picked up after that demonstration, there was a lot of them police were there, trying to provoke us on. Even the matrons, they’d come to me and say, “Now, missus, why are you demonstrating with these Commies?” Students. And here’s a priest, nuns, marching along, and police calling them Commies. I don’t see that. She’s got the upper hand, the matron, she takes my purse away, takes my glasses away, then she says you can make one phone call. I said all right. Then they lock me up in a cell, everything’s taken away from you. I says, “Can I have a paper cup so I can get a glass of water.” This is four o‘clock we were picked up. No, I wait till ten o’clock.
But then she takes you again, they just move you from one cell to another cell, and then they fingerprint you and take your picture and all the time, they’re talking, they says, “You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Why don’t you stay home and mind your own business? Why don’t you take care of your family, instead of going mingling with all these bunch of hoodlums and bums?” This is the only time I ever come in a bunch with the intellectuals, the educated students, university students. Here I’m in this neighborhood sitting here, I could become a dummy. And there I learned something. I learned geographical locations, the games we played. That I haven’t played since we were kids, you know, in spelling class. [Laughs.] But this was not a spelling class. And all these different freedom songs. But the beauty part of it is they take your glasses away, then they come around and bring Bibles for you to read. And you can’t see your hand in front of you, how you gonna read the Bible?
And I said to her, the matron, I says, “You got the upper hand all right, I’m not gonna argue with you.” “Shut up.” I says, “I’m not saying nothing, I just said you got the upper hand.” “Shut up.” That’s all what they know, just shut up. I could probably buy and sell her if I wanted to.... I pay her taxes, I pay her wages, I pay big tax, I pay $1,200 a year for taxes, how much taxes she’s paying? But I can’t talk to her. I have no right to say nothing to her. I’ve seen people get arrested in southern part of Illinois. My father was arrested for bootlegging. I never seen him treated like that. And here, I’m marching peacefully, and he says, “Are you gonna move or you don’t move?” I says, “I’ll move.”
The cop?
Yeah. So I moved a little bit. He comes back again, he says, “I told you to move.” So I moved again. I says, “I’m movin’.” He said, “Are you gonna walk to the patrol wagon peacefully or do we carry you?” [Laughs.] And I took a look at him and I says, “Look, I don’t want your officers get ruptured,” I says, “I’ll walk.” [Laughs.] And then he recognized me at the HUAC....
At the anti-HUAC, we weren’t doing nothing. We were just marching because they were persecuting the doctor.50 I don’t even know the doctor, I only know his reputation. I don’t know him personally, but I know what I read about him, what a good doctor he is, what a humble man he is. And so I said, “Well, I gotta go defend that man. I gotta be one of the people to be counted.” I can’t set home. The students that were arrested were marching here. They were happy to see me. The police, too....
He said, “Hi, there.” He called me by my name, the policeman. I said, “How’d you ever remember my name?” He says, “Aren’t you the little lady that didn’t want my officers to get ruptured?” I said, “Yeah, gee.” Then he smiled. And every one of them officers, they were real nice to me. I thought, you know, maybe they’d get snotty or sarcastic or stuff, but even some of them were singing freedom songs.
But I can’t see why they allowed them Nazis, like all right, one of the Nazis that were demonstrating against us, here he took his hand and grabbed by his privates and he went and shook his privates at this lady that was behind me, a Negro woman. And I said, “Boy, that’s a very intellectual guy doing that.” And he says, “To you, too.” And the officer was looking at him doing that, and if he was on our side, somebody doing like that, they probably would put him in jail. They can do it. So whose side is the law on? We don’t know for sure whether Hitler’s dead or alive. [Laughs.] We got a lotta them here.
Was that the first time you were ever arrested? When you marched for peace?
First time in my life, and I’ve done some things that I shoulda been arrested for. [Laughs.] Like I said, I was sixteen years old, I cooked moonshine, and they could smell it. The chief, who lived right across the street, never pinched me. I made home-brew and they never pinched me. And I ran parties all hours of the night, and nobody had me arrested. For peace, they arrest me. I said, “My God,” I said, “I wonder if I murdered somebody in Mississippi, would they arrest me?”
You see, how I got arrested.... I had $750 worth of savings bonds in my purse and about $470 cash money. Then I had the title, the deed to the property that I was changing. I went to take them out of one box and closer to home. In the meantime, this demonstration was going on. And these students see my peace button and ask if I could help them make the amount of people look bigger.
In the cell, I hear a banging on that steel wall. And I’m a heavy woman, but tacked onto this steel wall is the other cell. And every time I move, that wall would move and shake. [Laughs.] And some voice from this other cell hollers, “Hey you, quit moving in your bed. Every time you move, you knock me out of my bed.” Her bed would bounce up, you know. And she said, “What are you arrested for?” I said, “I’m arrested for peace.” I said, “What are you arrested for?” She said, “Me, too. Soliciting.” I said, “Without a license?” She says, “Why do you need a license?” I said, “Where you from? You from Chicago? You gotta have a license for everything.” She said from Long Island. I said, “When you come to Chicago, you go County Building and you ask for a solicitor’s license. Then nobody can arrest.” [Laughs.] Then the matron comes, she said, “Will you shut up?” [Laughs.]
Later on, she said, “You was kidding me.” And I said, “Yes, I was kidding you, I know what you mean.” But I said, “You girls are foolish anywa
y.” I said I had a tavern on 61st and State and I used to see girls get picked up and they picked them up, the police themselves. And these are white policemen, I’ve seen ’em. And they come in and tell my husband, get that streetwalker out of here. They call her worse names than streetwalker. And my husband would say, “If you know she’s such a woman, why don’t you put a mark on her, so people could tell? I don’t want to get my face slapped, going to tell her, you so-and-so. Listen, she’s not doing no harm. She comes in, spends her money, just as good as anybody else’s.”
I’ve seen where the policemen picked up these girls and the girls would flip their wallets over the bar and let my husband hold their wallets for them, because the policemen would take their wallets from them, take them a couple of blocks around and drop them off in the alley some place: “Now, next time you better have more money. See?” They’d take the money from ’em, encourage it: go ahead some more. In fact, if you don’t have more money, they’re gonna give you maybe with a billy club, the beating or something. Yeah, the vice squad. Now this I live with, I seen it. And if it went on then, it’s still going on now.51
Maybe some day I will get hurt. I don’t distrust nobody when I’m out. I never turn around, like a lot of women, turn around to see who’s following them. This is a funny thing, the matron, she asked me, she said, “You with all this real-estate property, all these deeds and titles you’re carrying, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. How are you not afraid to walk the Chicago streets with all this in your purse?” I said, “Lady, you’re a matron and you don’t have faith in Chicago?” I walked through State Street, Cottage Grove, and Halsted many times, nobody bothered me. I could tell a person if he’s out to hate me or he’s friendly. I mean, is he gonna be taking me? When I was in the tavern business, you had to be that way. And yet I lost. Somebody, some I trusted....
