thinking it was another house, knocked on the door and
a lady came and said: ‘I just told you around front
I didn’t want any of your vegetables and I still don’t. Now git!’
Kathryn was a shy, sensitive little girl. This rebuff must have jolted her or at
least made a strong impression, for it remained at the top of her list of childhood stories.
Kathryn went to Saints Peter and Paul’s School and received her first
communion in 1911 when in the fifth grade and at the age of 10, the usual age then
for that ceremony.
When she was 14, she went to work at Footer’s Dye Works, saying she was
“16 but small for my age." As an ironer she had to stand on a box to reach the ironing
table. In later years, Mother bragged about
that first job: Footer’s was famous! Why,
people from all over the world sent expensive
garments to be cleaned, like velvet robes from
aristocrats in England.
In 1920, Kathryn married Charlie
Rohrer and the following year I was born.
Some aspects of our early family life have
already been recounted in these pages.
Lasky's Clothing Store, that early-
Twenties workplace of my mother, was
situated next to the railroad subway entrance
on Baltimore Street, a short walk from home.
She was a salesperson, and how she qualified
for that type of work I don’t know. It could
well be that she was hired on the basis of her
good looks and appearance - pictures of her
from about age 21 on generally show her to be a pert little lady, stylishly coiffed and
dressed. Later she worked at the Star Clothing Company, a men’s store, as a
bookkeeper. I don’t know how this was possible, given Mother’s brief schooling.
In 1933, Mother and I moved in with her parents at 529 Fayette Street. I lived
there until I was in my nineteenth year. And before I write another word, let me say
that I am ever-grateful to my grandfather and grandmother Wallace for taking my
mother and me in. Oh, I was not anxious to move. In the apartment at 422 Baltimore
Avenue we had a large bedroom, while at Wallaces’ we brought to nine the number
of persons occupying one small house.
43
Kathryn Wallace at age 14
