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While living on our family’s farm, I went to a rural school, which included
grades one through eight. In seventh grade, they gave us the opportunity
to take the eighth-grade exam. I did, and passed it, so I was able to
skip a year in school.
When I started as a freshman in high school at age 12, September 1919,
Father sold our farm and my family moved to town (Croswell, Michigan).
To my delight, I discovered part-time employment readily available.
The Croswell Jeffersonian Newspaper (Croswell,
Michigan)
After we were settled in our newly-purchased home, I applied to suitable
companies who were offering employment. Although classes were not yet
in session, one promptly responded. The Croswell Jeffersonian, a weekly
newspaper, offered me $3 a week to work after school during the week
and on Saturday.
Fascinating duties included writing local accounts in longhand, then
converting them to type, preparatory for printing. During those long-ago
twentieth-century days, few newspapers had typesetting equipment. Laboriously
I set each item by hand, one letter at a time, before placing each completed
article in a one-page printing frame.
After I had a page frame prepared, our printer examined the accounts
for spelling and sentence structure. He then tightened hundreds of individual
pieces in a cast-iron printing frame and carried the ready-for-printing
page to an ancient flatbed press.
Everything went well until the following spring when the unexpected
happened. A transferred frame somehow loosened, and accumulated parts
fell on the printer’s feet in a jumbled mess because he hadn’t
sufficiently tightened the pieces in the frame. Aghast, I watched the
proceedings while he glared at me.
“Pick the mess up,” he demanded. “I’m leaving for
lunch.”
With a sinking feeling, I realized how many hours would be required
to sort hundreds of pieces of type for an entire page. Not wanting to
leave, yet reluctant to stay because I felt he was asking too much of
me, especially since it was his fault and not mine, I took one last
look and departed.
Hart Canning Factory (Croswell, Michigan)
For at least three weeks I remained unemployed. During summer vacation,
I worked on the local canning factory farm, tending growing crops and
picking fruit in season. Each day a truck, funded by the company, transported
workers.
Farm work paid handsomely. For an eight-hour day I was paid 30¢
an hour. Each week I deposited money in a bank savings account, budgeting
for the coming school year expenses, including necessary clothing and
school supplies. My budget also included money for future college study.
The following fall I did not apply for a part-time job. Instead I wanted
more time for study as well as school social functions. For three years
I worked during the summer at the canning factory farm.
Detroit Business Institute
After high school graduation, June 1923, I attended Detroit Business
Institute, a business school located 100 miles from home. I paid for
my tuition out of the “tuition account” I set up while working
on the farm during high school. To underwrite living expenses, I worked
at the school’s Gratiot and Mack Avenue branch cleaning and tidying
up the quarters. The part-time work paid $15 each week, an amount sufficient
to pay all living expenses.
Chevrolet Gear and Axle Assembly Plant
After completing required courses, the school placement service helped
me to locate office work with Chevrolet Gear and Axle Assembly Plant,
paying $30 a week.
A Variety of Jobs at the College
Two years later, with sufficient funds accumulated for at least one
year, I enrolled in a state college in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Then it
was called Michigan Normal College. Today it is known as Eastern Michigan
University.
During my first year of college, I worked part-time at various campus
jobs, including mowing lawns and doing yard work for professors and
other individuals.
During my sophomore year at college, I received an appointment as State
Reporter for the Detroit Free Press. At the same time, I was asked to
operate the school’s publicity department. Between the two, I made
almost $100 a month, sufficient to pay all college expenses.
Then I Got Married
September 30, 1929, I married my college sweetheart, Rose Emma Gulden.
We were blissfully unaware of the imminent 1930s Depression years.
We lived in a rented two-room apartment in Ypsilanti. She completed
a fourth-year degree requirement and I my third. Rose graduated with
a Bachelor's Degree in Physical Education in June 1930. She then secured
a teaching job in Armada (her home town), some 60 miles distant, teaching
physical education classes at the local high school and coaching the
girls basketball team.
I continued to live in our quarters near campus and visited her on
weekends (where she rented a room from the minister and his wife).
Depression-Era Employment
June 1931, I completed my degree requirements and graduated with a
Bachelor's Degree in English and Speech. Then I sought a teaching job.
During the entire summer I located nothing.
With a school year about to start, in desperation I signed a contract
to teach in a one-room schoolhouse near Mt. Clemens, Michigan. My pay
was $95 a month for nine months, a sum we made do with during the Depression
years. The school where Rose taught in Armada lost its funding, so she
too taught in a one-room schoolhouse near Mt. Clemens; and was paid
only $50 a month. This continued for three years.
With 20 million unemployed, we felt fortunate to have even a meager
income. In time the Depression abated and I secured a teaching position
in Fraser, Michigan, where I taught English, Speech, and Typing at the
high school level for two years. (Rose decided to stop working and raise
a family, soon thereafter becoming pregnant with our first child Rosemary.)
I look back on those years teaching at the one-room schoolhouse as
some of the most rewarding years of my life. Pupils from surrounding
communities wanted to learn. We became friends and many stayed in touch
throughout the years.
Today, after years of teaching in secondary schools, I am now retired.
Nearing my hundredth birthday, I still do part-time jobs writing for
newspapers, magazines, and the Internet.
Coming Soon
Part II — My Employment
History: Post-Depression through the Present
If you have questions or comments about this Web page or site, e-mail: mary@vanmeer.com
© 2002 Leo VanMeer
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