Mom was an orphan at 20, so she always worked — factories, piece work. One day when we were at a movie theatre downtown — I think it was the State Theater. She pointed to the proscenium curtains and said, “I made those.” Dad always did entry-level jobs. He worked in the foundry, as a bartender, at General Mills. He eventually got a job at Minneapolis Moline, a farm implements manufacturer. Moline was one of the first companies to file for bankruptcy and screw all the workers out of their pensions. Supposedly they passed laws in Minnesota to prevent that from happening – but it still happens. My dad worked there fifteen years. Dad was always active in his union. So was mom. She worked as a nurse’s aid at City General – which turned into HCMC. She helped organize AFSCME 977, the nurse’s aids union.
— Kathleen Farber
Mom grew up in Minneapolis. She went to Edison but graduated from Holy Angels. She always said her Dad was a businessman, but from what I could understand, he was a real estate flipper. They’d live in a house, sell it, buy another. Both Mom and Dad were only children.
Mom had tuberculosis when I was three. She was in the sanitarium for nine months. My dad had gotten laid off. We got some kind of relief, but it wasn’t enough. My Dad had to ask my older sister, her husband and child to come live with us and pay the mortgage.I missed my mom a lot.
Rosy the Babysitter
I was sent to a babysitter down the street. Rosy was a character. She wore a slip with a chain of safety pins hanging from it, nylons rolled down to her knees, quilted loafer-type slippers and curlers in her hair. She’d go down to the store like that.
Rosy’s husband frequented the Yukon Bar on Lake Street. When she thought he’d been down there too long, we’d go drag him home. He drank beer at home all the time. They were German and she had a tiny one ounce beer stein she’d fill up for me. A shot of beer. My parents knew about it and thought it was OK. I do love the taste of beer now. It doesn’t even have to have alcohol in it.
Rosy would make me barley soup which I loved. She was very clean. She used to make her own lye soap in the bathtub. She taught me how to play cards. She always smoked. She made me a birthday cake. She’d take me with her to Woolworths. Once every three months she’d buy a new oil cloth for the kitchen table. Rosy let me pick out the pattern. She’d buy me a plastic horse — the realistic kind, with saddles.
Working Class Union and DFL household
Mom was an orphan at 20, so she always worked — factories, piece work. One day when we were at a movie theatre downtown — I think it was the State Theater. She pointed to the proscenium curtains and said, “I made those.” Dad always did entry-level jobs. He worked in the foundry, as a bartender, at General Mills. He eventually got a job at Minneapolis Moline, a farm implements manufacturer. Moline was one of the first companies to file for bankruptcy and screw all the workers out of their pensions. Supposedly they passed laws in Minnesota to prevent that from happening – but it still happens. My dad worked there fifteen years. Dad was always active in his union. So was mom. She worked as a nurse’s aid at City General – which turned into HCMC. She helped organize AFSCME 977, the nurse’s aids union.
My Dad was also active in DFL politics. He used to write resolutions and present them at his caucus meetings. He would have all his resolutions in folders on the table. I was told, DON”T TOUCH YOUR FATHER”S PAPERS. When I was six, this man came to the door with a handful of papers. They were shiny and had that ink smell. I wanted to touch them but I knew I shouldn’t. Campaign literature. I think they had Mondale on them. My mother thought Mondale was really handsome. My father didn’t like her going on about Mondale.
Dad and I went door-knocking with the campaign literature. He’d have me run up and stick them in the door. If someone came out I would call him up and he would talk to them. I was supposed to just be quiet. My dad was what they call, “emotionally unavailable.” Door knocking, was one way to have a relationship with him. Today I am the consummate door-knocker and phone-banker. I drive people crazy because I am always pushing something. For a long time I rode the bus with the county budget in my pocket and if anyone complained about welfare recipients I would show them what a tiny amount is spent on cash assistance.
I’ve been doing phone banks for AFSCME recently, long-form conversations about what concerns people and motivates them to vote. It is inspired by the Marriage Equality phone banking campaign. We are encouraged to get into deep conversations with people. I love it.
Lake Street, Circa 1955-1970
I grew up at 3051 Pillsbury, right off of Lake Street. We didn’t have a car. My parents took the bus to work. We took the 21 on Lake Street, or the 18, going downtown on Nicollet. We did much of our shopping by foot. On Blaisdell and Lake, there was a department store — Gimbels. That’s where my mother bought my first Barbie doll in 1961. I remember it was in the window. We were looking at it. They were new then. I had just had baby dolls. Mom wasn’t sure it was ok to give me a doll like that. Near the department store was a Kresge’s which was like a Woolworth’s but it had fabric — a sewing department. Kresge’s went out in the mid 60s, and the Glamour Beauty School went in. I had my hair colored there a few times when I was in my teens. When they had Dollar Days on the sidewalk, the Beauty Shop would put out little plastic bottles shaped like elephants filled with shampoo. I thought those were so cool.
Then there was Liebs — a woman’s clothing store. Not Dayton’s Oval room, but not Sears either. A step up. When we were working, my sisters Janet, Karen, and I would go down there and buy something special. My mom bought my children’s clothes at Woolworth’s. I got an Easter dress there with lavender flowers. They had a dressing room that was more like a phone booth. They had party supplies. I’d look at the patterned bridge score cards and wonder what they were for. Fancy napkins and invitations. Stuff laying flat on counters. Shirts wrapped in cardboard. The place was dim — not like stores today. Old, beat up, slivery wood floors. When you went in there it was quiet, stuffy and dry.
There was a men’s clothing store on Nicollet and Lake. The only time we went there was for Father’s Day or my dad’s birthday. They had boxer shorts — three to a pack — on the table and I got to pick out the designs. A Scientology Room sat on the Southeast corner of Nicollet and Lake. We were Catholic. My mom would say, “Don’t go in there,” so we didn’t. We went to Incarnation Church on 38th and Pleasant. It’s now a Latino congregation. A block down on 29th, there was a nightclub called Mr. Lucky’s. The Underbeats used to play there. My sisters and I weren’t allowed to go because Dad saw teenagers smoking outside of it. My mother smoked, but my Dad didn’t.
Mom called hanging out in stores or window shopping “bumming around.” It’s something we did together. When I got a little older, I’d bum around with my sister Karen. We’d go in the hardware store and look at the air mattresses they had hanging down from the ceiling — colorful, with whales and seahorses on them. In the late 60s they outlawed them at the Lake, so they stopped having them.
We used to go to Lake Calhoun ( Bde Maka Ska), and swim at the 32nd Street beach. My sister Karen wore a nose plug. I didn’t and I got an ear and throat infection. The doctor told me to stop swimming in the Lake. He called it, “a cesspool.” One time when I was in 6th grade, there were two wrestlers down at Lake Calhoun: Handsome Harley, and Pretty Boy Henning. Everyone thought they were something. One of them said something to my sister, but she didn’t pay them any attention. They were older. One had a scar on his back that looked like a knife wound.
We didn’t ride our bikes because they might get stolen. We were always told to bring our toys indoors. My parents were always worried about getting robbed. I think it was warranted, but not to the point that my parents were fanatics about it.
Class, Race and School in the 1960s
Where I lived the school districts overlapped. There were lots of kids then and the schools were overfilled. In elementary I had a choice of Lyndale or Whittier. I went to Lyndale because my parents didn’t want me to cross Lake Street by myself. In junior high, I didn’t have a choice. I was supposed to go to Jefferson which fed into West. It took me away from my elementary school friends. I asked them if I could go to Bryant and they said no. Jefferson was very different. The kids were well-to-do, from the Uptown and Lakes neighborhoods. They bused kids in from Bryn Maur. It was a whole different culture. The kids didn’t wear make-up or nylons like I did. Jefferson fed into West High School, but they wanted me to go to Central, Byrant’s feeder school. I had new friends by this time. I felt like I was always being uprooted. Central was rough and I knew that being a new kid it would be difficult for me. I put my foot down then and said to the administrators, “You are not going to take me away from my friends again”. My parents were indifferent. I had to advocate for myself as a fourteen year-old.It wasn’t hard to get into West. It was hard to get out of Central, because I was white. A lot of white kids were leaving, which is why they wanted me there. My sisters graduated from Central. I know their school rouser by heart. But I went to West.
West — on 28th and Hennepin — had a lot of stoners. Rich kids from liberal families, heading for college. The boys wore loafers with no sox. We were probably the worst athletic school in the district. I was different from them. People mistook me for an adult in the school because I wore women’s work clothes. I never had friends over to my house. My house was too small and shabby. Occasionally I went to the houses of other kids who lived in mansions on Lake of the Isles. Even the more modest homes were four–square with places to hang out. I felt like I didn’t fit in. I would have liked it to be with kids from my neighborhood. But there weren’t any kids anymore in my neighborhood.
“Model City,” Urban Renewal
When my family first moved to Lake and Pillsbury, the people who lived there owned their houses. There was a lady down the street with an immaculate lawn and flowers, and a Sicilian couple next door who owned a gas station. Their house was extravagant, with a mural of Venice. There was a lady on the block whose grass was lime green, and she had flowers. I went in her back yard once and I was stunned at how beautiful it was. A big shade tree, lawn furniture. It was like a foreign country to me. Our yard was terrible.
In the mid 1960s, all the homeowners on our block left. We were the only family left who wasn’t renting. It was hard to make friends, because people came and went. There were riots and some looting in the 1960s and the stores started to close on Lake Street. The city responded with an urban planning project. In North Minneapolis they called it Pilot City. In the fifth precinct where I lived, they called it Model City.
Model City wanted to buy our house. They made my parents a deal. They could buy a house with the same number of bedrooms anywhere within Minneapolis and the city would pay the difference. My mom wanted to move to North Mpls. My dad wanted to live in South. We ended up on Holmes Ave. in a big beautiful house my parents could never have afforded, near the lakes and closer to some of my friends at school. They tore down our old house and built Findley Place — subsidized townhouses.
Work and Growing Up Early
On the corner of Findley Place and Lake, was La Pizzeria. It had a Gondola room. The guy who owned it was Catholic and he hired all these underage kids — thirteen and fourteen years old — who were going to De La Salle, the Catholic high school. I started working there when I was thirteen. My older sister Karen was waitressing there and I came in and helped her bus tables. Then I started answering the phones and writing up the orders. Later I worked as a waitress.
I worked through junior high and high school. I worked at 510 Groveland, delivering things to rich people, at the Kentucky Fried Chicken–two or three jobs because I was too young for full hours in any one place. I always had my own money. I went to rock concerts, saw the Beatles, the Doors.
My parents didn’t push college. They didn’t talk about getting married, having kids, just work and supporting yourself. Mom would say, “You can be whatever you want, even the Governor,” but they didn’t plan things. Their big thing was, “Get a job.” I graduated when I was 17. I had this idea that college was more expensive than it was and I didn’t know people who were going. I had taken tests at school that said I could be a psychologist or a judge. I thought those jobs sounded stressful. Mom wanted me to get a trade. She watched this matinée movie on TV when she worked nights. They tow main sponsors —Plywood Minnesota, and Minnesota School of Business….
The Minnesota School of Business was actually more expensive than the U. It was a secretarial school, basically. It still exists. It was $2000 for a two-year program. I paid for the tuition myself, selling Avon and working at Powers Department store — my first full-time job. At the business school I took speed writing, and I learned the difference between a statement and a bill of lading. I was there for a year, until my mom had a massive heart attack and was bedridden. I quit to take care of her.
My Dad had lost his job at Moline by then and was working at North Central Airlines as a maintenance person. He would not help care for mom. I was working at Century Camera on the weekends. There was animosity building up between my Dad an I. He was having an affair. Mom told me she was going to confront him about it on the day she had a heart attack. While she was sick, he stayed out all night. I decided that once my mother was better I would move out. I didn’t think to ask my sisters to help me. Twenty years later when my parents moved in with me, I wrote up a contract, enlisting my sisters’ help. I was still 18 when I moved out. I got an apartment on 24th and Harriet. I didn’t have a job but I had $1,500 in the bank.
Sexual Harassment in the Workplace
I took the summer off — went out at night with my best friend. In August I began working at the President Bar. I made $600 a month. A lot. I was paying $125 for rent. The bus was fifty cents. That puts it in perspective. It was a union bar. I had insurance and weekends off. I worked there eighteen months, until a bartender told me I could make even more at the Hyatt, a quiet piano bar. It was more money — $800 a month– and a union place too. But I was lonesome at the Hyatt. The people in the President were my people — South and Central high school grads. They thought like me.
The theme of the bar at the Hyatt was automotive. They had hubcaps and hoods from old Model T Fords. Then they decided they wanted to change to a beach theme. They wanted us to wear white shorts and pale blue polyester tops. At that time I was a size five, 115 pounds. The smallest top they could get was a size 8. Because I was so short, the blouse came down to below the shorts and looked like it was all I was wearing. I told him I wouldn’t wear it.
Around this time there had been some sexual harassment suits in the news. Bosses weren’t sure anymore what they could get away with. There was a suit having to do with uniforms at Henrices. My manager capitulated. Later he showed me this bunny suit, all black satin. He joked, “How about you wear this?” Well, I knew if I wore that I could make it a lot of money. I said “Great!” He couldn’t believe it because I had used the sex discrimination card to get out of the other uniform. I even said I would pay for it myself. He said No.
I worked alone at the bar, but I was supposed to have a lunch break and a free meal as part of my contract. The manager said “You can eat at the bar between customers.” I said “No. I need a break. You give me my free sit-down meal or I will have pickets out on the sidewalk.” I had never been to a union meeting. The only thing I had done with the union was participate in the waiter and waitresses race at their yearly picnic, balancing champagne glasses on trays. But I knew my rights because of my parents, I knew I could push this guy. I got my break! The manager waited on people while I ate. Afterward the cooks were like — “What is she going to do next?”
An Apartment on Lake and Hennepin, 1968
My sister Karen was 81/2 years older than me, but we became best friends when I was still a kid and she a young woman. My other sisters got married and had families. We both remained single. Half of my adult life I lived with Karen. We had been living together for 20 years when she died last September. She got her first apartment in 1968. I was still in junior high. I spent a lot of time there. It was on the corner of Lake and Hennepin above shops, in the old brick building where Calhoun Square is now. The steps were made of stone or marble, worn from people walking on them. She lived on the third floor. We dragged a Christmas tree up those stone steps. Three flights. After Karen passed away I thought about going to see if the old stairway is still there.
The place was a wreck. We painted the cabinets bright yellow and orange — the psychedelic colors going on then. We decided to use high gloss paint. The apartment had one window that was glued shut. It was summer. Hot. We both got high on paint fumes. I had gotten paint on my shirt, two circles around the part of me that sticks out the farthest. When she took me to the bus stop on Lagoon and 29th we were laughing so hard about my T- shirt, we could hardly stand up. Some guys in a car saw us and gave us a hard time.
We worked so hard on that apartment. She had blue and white wallpaper in the bathroom. The rent was $75 a month. She paid two months rent to get a guy to install the paper. Karen was working at La Pizzeria and she spent every penny she made. There was a green corduroy couch she wanted and never got. She talked about it the rest of her life — not getting that couch.
It was so hot in that apartment. She took the doors out to try to cool it off. She replaced them with gold-colored beads and a golden shag rug. She had a bookshelf of bricks and board. Bohemian. She bought an air conditioner , but it would only run if she didn’t have the lights, TV, stereo, or clock on. If she forgot and turned on the light the fuse would go. There was no caretaker there. She had to deal with the fuse box.
I had a key to Karen’s apartment and I would go there before and after school, even when she wasn’t there, and listen to the stereo. We bought the stereo for $120, but then we couldn’t carry it home. The guy said, “I can put it in the car for you.” We told him we took the bus. We couldn’t carry it on the bus. The guy gave us a ride home. We listen to that stereo all the time. Melanie Safka singing I don’t eat Animals and They don’t eat me. Beethoven’s Greatest Hits, Ike and Tina Turner, Funkier than a Mosquito’s Tweeter, Delaney Bonnie and Friends, Only you know and I know.
Losing a Sister and Best Friend
When Karen was dying, I moved her bed close to the kitchen. She was dozing in and out. I went to load the dishwasher. I told her “I’m just going into the kitchen. I’m still here.” She said “Yes Kathy, I know. You are always here.” She died on Saturday morning at 4am, September 19, 2015. Three days earlier we watched Jeopardy together. She was still answering questions. When she found out she was going to die, she said, “But there are so many more books I wanted to read!” When she was in high school she read this book, Life Without George, published in 1960, about a woman who restarts her life after her husband dies. The memory of that book came back to me recently.
When Karen died, I kept thinking two things. The cliché – “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” and, “Life Interrupted.” You are just going along, and then it’s all over. After her death I keep coming across all this minutiae — a receipt for the last movie we went to. Grocery lists. There is a Burger King close to our house. When I pass it, I remember all the times Karen would say, “I’m hungry and I don’t have any money.” I would answer, “Well if you want to go to Burger King, I’ll pay for it….”
Yesterday I talked to an AFSCME member about staffing our booth at the State Fair. It got me thinking about the first time I staffed the booth, maybe 16 years ago, before the “new” labor pavilion was built. I took Karen along. We had this survey on clip boards we wanted people to fill out. I think it was about health care. Karen wasn’t real big on persuading strangers to do things, so she prepared the clipboards for us and arranged the postcards and pens. She was always officious. She had a certain unique style.
I have begun Life Without Karen.