Doris was born in Woonsocket in 1930, the sixth of eleven children. She had five brothers and 5 sisters. She married at 18 and had 6 children., 5 boys and 1 girl. She now has 9 grandchildren and 8 great-grandchildren. After she stopped working in the mills she spent 3 years working in the flower shop across from the old police station. Her favorite job was Uniroyal because she had a different job each day.
Anita married at 19 and had 1 child, she now has 2 grandchildren.
Delia was the youngest of three children with 1 brother and 1 sister.
She hated her first office job but she did enjoy her years at the Rubber Shop. She first worked there during WWII when they were making giant barrage balloons that she would crawl inside to conduct a quality inspection. After the war she made soles for sneakers. She remained at the mill until it closed. After the Rubber shop closed she worked at Narragansett Knitting and Woonsocket Coat & Suit. She married at 25.
Claudette was the fourth of six children with 4 brothers and 1 sister. She married her first husband at 18 and had 3 children. After the death of her first husband she remarried and had 2 more children. She now has 10 grandchildren.
Aurore was the seventh of fourteen children, with 8 sisters and 6 brothers.
She began working at 16 to help support her family even though she loved school and did well. Due to rheumatoid arthritis in her spine it was difficult for her to hold a job for very long.. Her shortest job was 3 months at Miller Electric.
Her favorite job was at the Electro Shop on Main Street where the owner, George Gleason, was very kind and understanding & designed the machines on which she worked.
Her husband was a truck driver, they had 4 children.
Barbara was one of three girls, raised by their mother who worked in the rubber shop which was across the street from their home.
Barb worked part time as an usher at the Park Theater from 16-21. She also worked at a series of mills throughout her adult life. Including Royal Robes, Finkelstein's, Miller Electric, Union Tool Company, Tupperware and Coby Glass.
She preferred "heavy work" to the office work. Her favorite job was working power and kick presses at the Union Tool Company.
She married at 18 and had 3 children.
Doris married at 21 and had 2 children. She and her husband both worked at Corning which was right across the street from their home. They would work opposites shifts so the children were never alone. After being laid off by Corning, Doris worked for Uniroyal until it closed. She earned her GED and graduated from keypunch school. She returned to Corning in 1977 moving to South Carolina with them and stayed with them until 1989. She retired to Florida for 25 years until returning to Woonsocket.
Eileen married at 19 and had 4 children. She loved her time working at Corning, where she packed bulbs, ran the company store and she was the president of the association which planned the picnics and holiday parties for the company.
After retiring she opened the Calico Shack where she taught sewing for many years.
Feeding the cards was a terrible job. A card is a wool combing machine which turned the raw wool into fine yarn. The job consisted of filling 20 machines with damp wool in 100+ degree heat. When the last machine was full, the first was almost empty. It was a hot, sweaty job. A rush, rush, rush job working like a fool. Sometimes I would work a double shift. I kept a handkerchief over my nose and mouth to keep the wool from getting into them. I was always coughing while working this job due to the wool infested air. It was the worst job I ever had. The pay was awful as well.
