It was May of 1957 when I graduated from good ole Gadsden High School, in the town of Gadsden, Tennessee. If you can call Gadsden a town that is, because actually it is just a spot in the road that gets smaller each year instead of larger. I couldn't wait to leave there and start a real life of my own, so a week after graduation I got on the Greyhound bus with an extra $10.00 in my pocket. My two older brothers were living in California, and I thought that, for sure, the streets must be paved with gold, because when Frank or Paul would come to visit, they appeared to have lots of money. So with my hopes and dreams, the $10.00 I had managed to save over the price of the bus ticket, and a suitcase full of all my possessions. I headed west. After a few hours on the bus, everyone started talking to each other, and we all would joke and tease with one another. The other people on the bus got a kick out of me, because I was so small I could curl up in the seat and go to sleep so easily. It got to where I would always wake up and yell out, "Where are we now?" and the others would in harmony all yell back, "We are still in Texas." From that one and only Greyhound bus trip I took, I developed a real dislike for Texas and still don't like driving through it to this day.
The bus would stop from time to time for breaks and meals, and about the 2nd or 3rd day out, suddenly I found that my $10.00 had almost disappeared. So instead of going into the cafe for meals, I would buy an apple and go back to my seat and eat it. The lady that had been in the seat next to me the whole way must have noticed my sudden change; and the next time the bus stopped for a meal break, she insisted that I let her buy me a hot meal. It seems I suddenly had been adopted by this motherly type person, and by the time we got to the bus terminal in Los Angeles, we were great friends. It was arranged with my brother Frank, to come to the bus terminal and pick me up when I got there, but he told me to call him first. Well, since the only pay phone calls I had ever made all cost ten cents at that time, I had saved the dime for the call and got the operator and told her the number. When it started ringing, she told me to insert an additional 25 cents for the call; and she didn't seem to care when I told her I didn't have any more money. Luckly for me, the lady that had taken me under her wing was still there and waiting to see if I got my brother, so I had to ask her for the quarter to finish the call. When Frank got there, I introduced him to her and told him I had to borrow the quarter from her, and he looked so embarrrassed and started figiting around in his pocket for the money to reimburse her; but she wouldn't take it from him. I sure do wish I had kept in touch with this special angel of mercy, but I didn't, and today I can't even remember her name.
My desire once I got to CA was to become an actress, since I had been in the drama club and in plays in high school, but it was never to be. I got to Los Angeles at midnight and the next day at noon, my sister-in-law came home from her job and said, "Come on, I hear the phone company is hiring now, so I will take you up there and see if you can get a job with them."
This was to be my first job interview and first job (if I got it) off the cotton farm, so I felt very nervous as I walked into the employment office. When I went to the desk, I told the lady that I wanted to apply for a job, and when she ask me what job I wanted to apply for, I said operator, since I didn't know that the telephone company had anything but operators. It took about 4 hours to complete all the tests and interviews; but before I left that afternoon, I was told that I had a job with them as a long distance operator. I had to go to the high school and get a work permit, since I was under 18 years of age, but I was to start working the following Monday morning. She told me the job would pay $49.50 per week for a 40 hour work week, and I thought I was going to be rich. Compared to $3.00 a hundred to pick cotton on my dad's farm, that was a definite increase in what I could earn in a week. When I started the job the following Monday, they had two of us and one supervisor that trained us. Back then the switchboards had ten cords per positon and you had to take each call as the lights came into the board and connect them to the city they were calling. Near the end of the training process I was given a list of cities in CA to learn to pronounce, and when I had my turn, the supervisor rolled in the aisle laughing at the way I pronounced them with my southern accent. She even gathered some of the other supervisors around to listen to me say the names, and they all had a good laugh. When the training period was over I really liked it and always tried to get all my ten cords up at one time, before the calls ended. However in about 10 mo. a supervisor told me that I should transfer to office work because operators that were new employees would most likely be getting laid off soon.
I took her advice, went in for more testing and transfered down to Los Angles in a division called Toll Circuit Layout Bureau-Division of Revenue Studies, which was on 4th St. in the Old Subway Terminal Building. Later our group moved across the street to a company owned building and it was there that I met Ed Gerard. He was working on another floor but we met in the company cafe and before long he invited me to go to Disneyland with him. About 3 mo. later he ask me to marry him and being young and foolish I thought this must be love, so I married him. I continued to work about five years longer before I left on my first maternity leave.
We had two boys and together we worked and made a home for them as best we could. We were married for almost 20 years, but for many of those years I knew somethng was missing from my life; and finally we divorced, but stayed friends for the sake of our sons. |
