Radio School 1944 - Life in the big City, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
My first job out of high school in 1944 was at a Hide Fur Wool and Tallow company in Owatonna. My friend Annette Denker was the secretary there and she needed some help when the wool season started. There were various buyers in the counties surrounding Steele county and they would buy the wool and get it to Owatonna and my job was to check and see if their paperwork was right and OK it and send them checks for the wool. They also bought hides from various places and then took them by truck into St Paul where they sold the hides. The place smelled to high heaven but you got used to it after a few mins and it didn’t bother you anymore.
I stayed with Annette’s folks and it cost me $2.50 for my room and breakfast. I bought a meal ticket at Oaks café for $5.00 and that was for 15 meals. I was able to save about $10.00 a week and so at the end of a couple of months, I had $50.00 dollars saved.
I got a letter from someone in Minneapolis and they had a radio school there and they said if you took their training you would be able to get a high paying job. So I wrote off and the man came down and I paid him $50.00 and then borrowed another $150.00 from my folks so that I could go to radio school.
My job was finished with the Wool company so I talked my friend Myrtle into going to Minneapolis with me. She was not going to radio school but jobs were plentiful and so off we went. My Mother went to Minneapolis with us and we went to the radio school and then found a room to rent and Myrtle went to a company during war work and I got a job as a waitress downtown at 6th and Hennepin in the middle of the entertainment district.
I would get up in the morning and go to school at 9 am and finish at 3 pm. Then I would go back to the room and then head downtown on the streetcar to get to work at 5pm and work until 10pm. The job paid minimum wage which was 40 cents an hour. That was enough to pay for my room and eat and buy a few things.
I learned how to type faster and learned the international Morse Code and how to teletype. I had a half year typing in high school and by the time I left I was typing about 50 words a minute. We also learned radio theory and had to pass a test to get our license which I never used.
We used to get on the streetcar on Sunday and ride all over Minneapolis and then we would go to St Paul. Think it cost us about ten cents.
I learned how to make sundaes and malts and we sold a lot of pie with ice cream. The café only had stools and it was combined with a tobacco shop at the intersection of 6th and Hennepin and there was a bowling alley over it. It had a steady bunch of customers and they worked for the CNW railroad as billing clerks and then the guys that ran the movie projectors came in for coffee and pie. Had a bartender come in every night and we saved chicken for him as he wanted a chicken sandwich every night. He always tipped me a dime.
A newsstand was right outside the café and he was selling newspapers. He was always saying "Extra extra read all about it". That was the way we got news back then.
A bunch of us girls went to see Duke Ellington as he was playing at one of the theatres close by. I still remember that and they told some funny jokes along with the music.
I rented a typewriter and when I got home from work I would practice my typing. Myrtle was working nights so we did not see much of each other. Just went home one time before I was hired along with 17 other girls to go to work for the Santa Fe Railroad. They hired us sight unseen and we all got our tickets paid to go to Chicago and we went to the main office of the Santa Fe Railroad and they asked us what state we wanted to go to. I picked Oklahoma as I had an Aunt living at Elk City. I did not know if I would stay or not and I wanted to see some of the country.
That is a little bit about my time at the radio school and big city life.
