The worth of a hired girl in 1930
Mother went to work for Virgil Russell in 1930. She was a "hired girl", which means she did anything that needed doing: Washing, ironing, cooking, babysitting. I have a few pages from her 1930 diary where she had first started this job, and she wrote about how homesick she was. I believe she went home on weekends. Virgil Russell was a cousin to my father, and it was at this job that Mother met Daddy and his brothers; they worked for Virgil also.These pages, though, are ones where she kept track of her wages. I don't know how they figured her time. It is obvious that Virgil often couldn't pay her in full. Click on them and you should be able to read them.
I'm going through stuff like this, deciding which should go on our family tree site. I hope you find it as interesting as I do.
I'm going through stuff like this, deciding which should go on our family tree site. I hope you find it as interesting as I do.
I do enjoy your memory box. I remember my mom talking about being a hired girl too. After she got out of school she worked for a family doing whatever was needed. I know her older sister did too. It must have been a way of life in those days. Unless you were wealthy and that was a different matter. She never talked about what she was paid.
ReplyDeleteThat was very interesting. They didn't get paid much because there wasn't any money to paid with. She sure kept a good record of it though. Helen
ReplyDeleteThe 30s were a tough time.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing-I'm jealous as I wish my Mother kept things like this that would give me insight to who she was in the past. I feel like I never got to know her before she passed. My Dad gave me a few grocery bags of papers to be shredded a few months ago and in it were some checks that my Mom had filled out and I kept a few so I wouldn't forget what her handwriting was like. After awhile I had to laugh at myself, sitting there in front of my shredder holding a handful of canceled checks, bawling!
ReplyDeleteI hope you have a great weekend with great weather, Jeff