by Ida Keeling
I gave her a quick smile. “No, there is no blood over there. Here I am, just fine.
Then I ran past her, out her door, down the stairs, and out into the street.
Estelle was standing right there in front of the building. She had her hands up to her face.
I asked, “What is the matter with you?”
She said, “I’m just so afraid.”
Weeks later, Estelle’s father heard about the whole affair. I had told my friend Dorothy who lived on the main floor of Estelle’s building. She told her father who relayed the story to Estelle’s father.
He caught up with me one afternoon and told me, “You didn’t have to do all of that.”
I said, “I didn’t want Estelle to get no beating because she forgot her keys.”
He said, “She wouldn’t have got no beating.”
I said, “I couldn’t take that chance. She is my best friend.”
So he said, “Well, thank you very much. I’m so happy that you made it. Please don’t try that again. Next time Estelle forgets her keys, let her stay at your house till I come home.”
Luckily for me, nobody ever told my parents.
WINTER BLUES
Looking out of my window in silence
watching the violent wind blowing snow
in all directions.
The freezing rain turns snow into a
mass of ice.
With fears of slipping or falling.
Then it happens.
Heels in the air.
Flat on my back wondering how
I got there.
I was being so careful.
It was also embarrassing.
After taking all the time to
get back on my feet
brush myself off
the first step I took.
Oops!
Down again
No telling when it will end.
CHAPTER 3
FROM SCHOOL TO WORK
Second Timothy 2:6 says, “The hardworking farmer should be the first to receive a share of the crops.” I guess something like that was going through my mind when I was confronted with the graduation requirements at school. I suppose I figured that since I had worked so hard at the store, I could get just a tiny crop in order to graduate. Boy, was I wrong.
I was a student at Textile High School in the Chelsea district of Manhattan. According to the Board of Education, the school was established in 1922 to meet the educational needs of the leading industry of the city. Apparently, New York City was the largest distribution and selling point of textiles in the world. Textile High School was the first technical high school devoted to a single industry. There was a textile mill in the basement and the school yearbook was titled The Loom. I took regular courses but also did charity work, which consisted of making nurses’ uniforms or gym suits for Catholic school students. We also made lots of other garments to prepare for work in the industry. The teachers gave you a mark which reflected the quality and quantity of your work. I did very well on zippers, collars, and sleeves. My marks were good in terms of sewing. I just didn’t care about many other subjects that were part of the curriculum, like science. I wanted to get the basics of sewing down pat so I could get an operating job. Otherwise, school was turning into a drag.
First of all, I was wearing a junior-high school uniform because I didn’t have money to buy a new one. It was a blue skirt and white middy blouse. I discarded the black tie but couldn’t do anything about the middy blouse which no one else at Textile High School was wearing. My outfit caused me to get teased, ridiculed, and pointed at by giggling girls almost every single day. Fashionably challenged though I was, I was determined to study and become better than those who looked down upon me for what I wore in my impoverished state. Yes, I was hurt, but I still wanted as much abundance for them as I wanted for myself. That is what I felt and believed that God would want me to do.
I didn’t have any money to improve my wardrobe or to buy just one meal at school, which I wanted very badly. For lunch every day, I ate a peanut butter sandwich that I brought from home. There was no money to buy a cafeteria lunch because all I had was ten cents for the round-trip carfare. One day, the smell of all that good cafeteria food just consumed me. I couldn’t resist. So I spent my five cents for a bowl of mashed potatoes with gravy. Having spent my carfare, I had to walk home from Thirteenth Street and Sixth Avenue to 144th Street, near Bradhurst Avenue. With every step, I regretted my impulsive decision even though the meal had been very tasty. The walk home was 145 blocks and I arrived home three hours later than I normally did. I was cold, hungry again, and tired. The family had already eaten and there was no dinner left for me because no one knew where I was. It seemed to me that it shouldn’t have mattered where I was. They knew I was going to come home at some point. They were just greedy and had eaten my share. I wasn’t fooled a bit. I curled up on the bed with all my clothes on and went to sleep.
It was almost time to prepare for graduation that was coming up in a few months. We had to make something special. Our choices were to either sew a coat with fur or a tunic with a matching skirt. I decided to create the tunic because it was cheaper to make. I was excited about the project when I approached Daddy.
“Daddy, can I talk to you?”
He looked up from whatever writing he was doing and smiled. “Sure, Deuce. What is it?”
“I need eight dollars for school.”
He frowned and shook his head from side to side. “What?”
“I have to sew a garment to graduate and get my high-school diploma.”
“Why does this cost so much money?”
“Because I have to buy the material from Canal Street.”
“I don’t have it,” he said flatly.
“Please, Daddy. I really need the money or I can’t do the project.”
“Did you hear what I just told you?”
Tears of shock and frustration filled my eyes and spilled down my cheeks. I was so shocked because I used to help Daddy with the cart and he would promise to pay me four dollars. Most of the time I didn’t get it, but this time I really needed the eight dollars to finish high school.
He turned back to his paperwork and the conversation was over.
How could he leave me hanging like that without even trying to raise the money for me? Wasn’t he proud that I even cared about graduating?
Because I couldn’t come up with the money to make the tunic, I couldn’t march with my class. Instead of getting to graduate and receive a real high-school diploma, they gave me a certificate. I tore it up because I had worked so hard at my studies and didn’t get a chance to show what I could do. It seemed so unfair, and I was upset about it for many years.
There were still a few weeks of school left, but instead of going to school the next day, I decided to just go and get a job. It was not like I was going to be allowed to graduate anyway.
It was not unusual for children of the 1930s to leave high school before graduating. Many had to quit school and help work to support their families during the Depression. Others were just anxious to be grown-ups. And many never entered high school in the first place. After all, there were no laws back then that said you had to go to school until you reached a certain age or your parents would get into trouble. Since I didn’t know a whole lot of people who had graduated from high school, I didn’t really think about the effect not having a high school diploma would have on my life. If I had, maybe I would have just asked Daddy to transfer me to another school—one without a graduation project that he would have to pay for. I didn’t know anyone who was my age and even thinking about entering college. Could I have finished high school and worked my way through some little college out of New York by sewing for people? I never even thought of the idea, and I’m not sure if scholarships or financial aid of any kind was even available at the time.
It is a weird case. I didn’t drop out because I was on drugs, alcohol, hated school, or because I was pregnant and bei
ng asked to leave. I dropped out because of disappointment. It has occurred to me now that maybe if I had told the school principal why I was leaving, maybe the administration would have taken up a collection to raise the eight dollars for me. Or is that just my imagination? Times were so bad that they probably didn’t even notice when one tiny girl just walked away.
One thing is for sure: a high-school diploma wouldn’t have done me one bit of good in the factories. It wouldn’t have gotten me a job as head of the factory or foreman. That job was almost always held by a man and they certainly weren’t going to have no black woman bossing all those people around. I don’t think I ever saw a single black woman running anything that she didn’t own.
So, I guess it comes down to the question of how my life would have been different if I had finished high school and found a way to go to some Negro college in the South. Would I have met and married some safe boy whose family didn’t mind him getting mixed up with a girl of West Indian descent? Maybe I would have become a teacher.
I wish that Textile High School would have had school psychologists to help me cope with the disappointment or, better yet, after-school jobs where I could have earned the eight dollars.
Young people today do not realize that they have resources available to them that we could never have dreamed about. This was long before the civil rights movement, student rights movement, hippie movement, Great Society programs, or any other kind of way for a wrong to be addressed in any kind of real way. Either your parents had the means and the desire to push you ahead or you somehow got out in the world and made your own way the best you could.
When I became a mother, I stressed education above everything else. But when I was growing up, legally obtained money trumped school. My siblings and I were trained to be business (money) minded and independent from an early age. I remember Omena would go to the wholesale place and get men’s socks and handkerchiefs and sell them on Saturdays after working in the factory all week. I would relieve her for a few hours each Saturday. All of the sisters sewed their own clothes to save money on store-bought garments. In those days, almost everybody learned to sew because material was cheaper than buying ready-made clothes. We were all petite so we had to alter almost everything. We bought or remodeled every single outfit, and all of us worked in a factory at one time or another. We all tried to have a hidden nest egg, so when I started working, I tried to save a dollar out of every paycheck.
Going to work turned out to be so different from going to school that the year went by faster. I also felt like I got old quicker. After leaving high school because I wasn’t properly dressed, I got into the habit of walking a great deal every day to ease my sorrow. One day, I had walked a very long way before I looked up at my surroundings. I felt tired when I realized that I was in a strange neighborhood. I noticed a sign in a candy store window that read “Girl Wanted.” I thought, Oh boy, a job! So I went inside. There was an old man and a young woman just sitting there.
The old man was fat and had sparse red hair on his big round head. He wore glasses with round frames and peered at me but said nothing. The girl had dark hair and looked Spanish. She could not have been much older than I was.
“May I help you?” she asked.
“I’m here about the job. Your sign says, ‘Girl Wanted.’”
“Yes. We need help behind the counter. Get started.”
“But I don’t know what to do.”
“Stay here with Papa. I have to go home, but I’ll be back soon. I’ll show you the job then.”
So she was his daughter. Boy, was I surprised. They didn’t look anything alike. She left before I could think of what to say next so I took off my coat and went behind the counter. The daughter had not been gone five minutes when he pointed his finger in my direction.
“Take off your clothes.”
“What?”
“I said take off your clothes.”
I grabbed my coat and left that candy store so fast I forgot my cap.
When I think about the incident now, it makes me shiver and wonder if the store was just a front. Perhaps they weren’t really selling candy at all. Maybe it was an enterprise that lured broke young girls inside and then forced them into prostitution. Not one family member knew where I had gone walking that day. Poor, dumb me could have been snatched or sold off and never seen again. After that, I tried to always let someone know where I was headed.
The next day I went down to the factory district to get whatever work I could.
I didn’t have enough speed experience on the sewing machine, because in school speed didn’t count. Quality did. I tried many factories that day, even those that did not have a help wanted sign outside. It was the only way to gain experience and pick up factory speed while looking for a better job. But I was turned away because they had no openings.
I finally saw another “Girl Wanted” sign. This was a job which mainly consisted of running errands and paid six dollars a week. I took it to accumulate some money. When I wasn’t running errands, I helped make fancy buttonhole looks and then delivered them to Rockaway, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Manhattan. I had no idea what to expect as a worker in someone else’s company. The only real work experience I had was helping out in Daddy’s store, which was not the same as punching a time clock or having a set lunch hour.
At home, everyone was delighted that I was going to work. No one noticed or cared about my thwarted high-school graduation. I was going to earn money and bring some of it into the house. That was all that mattered. There was no point in complaining to Mama because, even if she agreed with me, my father’s decision was the only one that mattered. There was no point in going back to him, because he hated having to explain himself on a subject more than once. It made him really angry. There was no point in complaining to my older sister, Omena, because at that point in her life (she would later change), money meant a lot more to her than a piece of paper which said that you had read some books.
I brooded about the lost diploma when I had time to myself. Sometimes, I would let my imagination run ahead of me a little bit. I would picture myself coming down the aisle of the auditorium and filing into the reserved student seats with the rest of my class. I would see the beaming faces of my parents and siblings as they sat down and looked eagerly around for me. I would hear my name being called and then watch (in my mind’s eye) my legs stroll toward the podium. Then (in slow motion), the principal would hold up my diploma which had a red bow tied around it for all to see before placing it in my eager little hand. The fantasy didn’t stop there. I clutched the precious paper and looked from side to side with a big old smile on my face as I went back toward my seat. Before I reached it, Mama and Daddy leaned over and grabbed the hem of my brand new white dress. As they held onto the piece of my garment, I heard them whisper, “We are proud of you, Ida.”
When I started that first job, I found it hard to concentrate on the task in front of me because the whole world around me was just so new. There were people who spoke languages that didn’t sound familiar to me at all. Plus, in school you could raise your hand and go to the bathroom or get water if you wanted. In the factory, break times were rigid. Unless you were sick, there was no way to do either of those things unless it was break time. In my daddy’s store, I could see the sun, the rain, and people walking to and fro, going on about their lives. In the factory, there was no way to know what the weather was like outside. You were in this enclosed space, and most of the time, the windows were way above my head. This was no accident. They didn’t want people day dreaming while looking out the window. Factory workers had to concentrate on the piece of fabric in front of them at all times. Just looking up and rubbing your neck was likely to get a questioning stare from the manager. That first day, it didn’t take long for my eyes and neck to get tired. But I instinctively knew that reporting my ailments to the manager was not likely to end well for me. So I kept my head down, eyes glued to the garment.
When I was told that I had to go out
side to make deliveries, I almost leapt for joy. I didn’t mind the traveling, and my day seemed shorter.
WINTER’S DECORATION
The fallen snow upon bare
branches.
Icicles hanging from buildings
below.
Missing are leaves that danced in the
breeze.
While birds happily sang in the
trees.
CHAPTER 4
STANDING ON MY OWN TWO FEET
Psalm 147:3 says, “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” I was about to get some all-too-direct experience with heartbreak and wound binding.
At nineteen, I worked in a factory and at any other odd jobs that I could find. I didn’t go out that much and never on dates. We did things as a group instead of being paired off. It was 1934 and we were still living through the Great Depression. Money was a constant worry. My brothers, sisters, and friends were always trying to work by babysitting, washing windows, or mopping up for somebody. The going wage was only twenty-five cents a day. That is all we got paid.
Once, I was keeping two children, taking them out every day and then bringing them back around dinner time, and I got twenty-five cents each time. Often, their mother didn’t have the money after I had worked all day. I kept taking the kids out until she owed me six whole dollars. I said to myself, This is too much, I’m overdoing it. She is taking advantage of me. She probably thinks that I’m a fool. Six dollars was a lot of money back then. It was time to have a powwow.
When I approached her, she looked up and gave me the type of benevolent smile that people bestow on toddlers before patting them gently on the head.
“I need the money you owe me. I can’t keep minding your babies for nothing.”
“Ida, you just have to wait. I can’t help you none right now.”
“We need to get this fixed today.”
“I tell you what, I’ll get another girl to keep the kids. How about that?”