Re: One Story Assembly Plant What If?

Posted by Dave Brownell On 2014/6/23 19:15:33

My wife's Aunt Rita moved to Detroit with her husband to seek work in the early years of the Depression. They had left family in Pennsylvania because the mining jobs had dried up, and their Russian-speaking relatives in the Motor City assured them that car plant jobs still existed. Her husband ended working somewhere else, but Rita landed her first and only job at what she still called "the Packards." She worked with other women in the upholstery section where she either put springs or padding into seats. When her husband got re-employed back in PA, she reluctantly quit "the Packards" and moved back and started having babies while he built General Electric locomotives in Erie.

Only recently, did I put the old stories Rita would tell about her days at "the Packards" with what must have been going on all over the EGB plant. From what I've been told, the plant was populated with workers of every description, but many were from Eastern Europe and our southern states. All probably knew that others wanted their scarce jobs and they'd better be good at it or else.

I don't know what years Rita worked at Packard, but some of the friendships she made there lasted for 30-40 years. I once tried to pin her down as to the years, but she only told me that she felt lucky to have the job making seats for cars they could never hope to afford. That kind of spirit made them successful later on. Both their kids graduated from good colleges and became leaders in their communities. With that success, the mother who had her one job at "the Packards", was finally able to buy their first new car in the early Fifties. Not a Packard but a new Olds 98. Some stories don't end the way you want them to.