Like I said, we moved a lot. This time to 119 Newton Street. One time the man upstairs got sick and they asked me to run to the corner pay phone and call a doctor. Here I was, about 12 or 13 and had never used a telephone. I did not know how to make the call. We did not have a telephone in our house until I was in high school.

Even though we had moved out of the area, Webster Street School allowed me to continue the 8th grade there, so I could graduate with my class. I would take the bus to school. After school I would take the bus to where my father now worked as a tailor. His shop around the corner from the Paramount movie theater. I would stand at a table cutting threads. Mr. Cook, a colored man, would drive us home. This was during the 2nd world war and I had a vivid imagination. There was a drug store on the corner of the tailor shop. Every night as we drove passed, it seemed like the lights of the sign were different. I thought it was giving messages to the enemy.

Cutting threads was my first paying job for which I received the pricely sum of $3.00 a week. This was also my allowance when I was in High School and it was for bus fare, lunch and the movies. Three dollars went a long way in those days.

I had two interests, teaching and sewing. I decided on the sewing and went to Essex County Vocational and Technical High School and majored in dressmaking. I liked high school, always liked school. Later on was sorry that I did not pursue my interest in teaching. But in those days I did not think my folks could afford to send me to college, so I took my second choice.