Read Online Don't Sing at the Table by Adriana Trigiani - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Adriana Trigiani
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decamped overseas for cheaper labor and materials. By the early 1990s, most of the mills were closed. The small towns punctuated with mills became bedroom communities as younger generations moved to more populous cities, seeking work.
Today, when you drive through my grandmotherâs stomping grounds in Pennsylvania, you see the abandoned factories, nestled among weeds, with broken-out windows and empty parking lots. Once-vibrant operations with names like Rose Marie Fashions etched in cursive letters on factory doors are gone. Small business was personal in those days, and often you honored a mother or a daughter by naming the factory after her. The entrance doors painted with signs indicating the operations within: office, cutting room, shipping, have peeled off with age.
The mills that sustained these communities are gone.
When I was in college in the early 1980s, I asked Viola to ask the current owner of her factory building for her sign over the door, which had remained there twenty-five years after she had sold the building. A few months later she gave it to me, rusted, with nail holes in it, but there is no mistaking the original grandeur: in bold white the name of her company, on a field of bright red. You could see the sign from a distance, a poppy against the gray sandstone. âWhy do you want this, Adri?â she asked me. âI want to remember your mill,â I told her.
The loss of the mill and all it represented was a blow to our family, and by extension, and no less devastatingly, to our country. Here we are, years later, and the effects of the loss remain vivid. Imagine a time when a machinist and a seamstress, one with a sixth-grade education, the other less, could join forces, form a partnership, start their own mill, employ a diligent workforce, and thrive .
The entrance to Violaâs mill. Note the sign over the door.
Imagine a time when you could fulfill a lifelong dream, after years of experience working for others, walk into a bank, and secure a loan to start your own business, building upon the knowledge that comes from making a living from the labor of your own hands.
Imagine a time when you could operate the business, and provide a community with steady jobs, buy a home, and educate your children. My grandparents did all of that, and as a sidebar, they were active in their community. They helped to build a convent for the Salesian nuns and subsequently a school in Roseto, with their fellow Rosetans, who pledged, at that time, a great deal of money, because they believed in educationâand put their money where their hearts were. When I read the ledgers now, I am so proud of them. They gave generously to causes they believed in. I never knew the extent of their philanthropy in financial terms until I studied the ledgers, because they never talked about these gifts, but I certainly understood their emotional commitment.
In later years, Viola could not understand how our country would succeed if we werenât supplying our people and the worldâs people with products we had made here, with our own hands. She knew that her small factory affected hundreds of lives, and the income of countless families, from the machine operator who placed the collar at her station in the mill in Martins Creek to the salesgirl who earned a commission selling that same blouse, off the rack, on the floor of Macyâs.
Every stratum of worker benefited from American-made goods. We demonstrated through our own efforts goods of quality, durability, and excellence. As immigrants, we were assured jobs, and once having mastered the skill, we could turn around and teach it to others. We were, in a sense, our product, as we defined it: consistent craftsmanship and excellent results, which meant American in the marketplace.
Further, my grandparents were prudent as they set the price of the blouse, knowing that to oversell the goods or undersell them, too, had a ripple effect. The idea was to stay in
Today, when you drive through my grandmotherâs stomping grounds in Pennsylvania, you see the abandoned factories, nestled among weeds, with broken-out windows and empty parking lots. Once-vibrant operations with names like Rose Marie Fashions etched in cursive letters on factory doors are gone. Small business was personal in those days, and often you honored a mother or a daughter by naming the factory after her. The entrance doors painted with signs indicating the operations within: office, cutting room, shipping, have peeled off with age.
The mills that sustained these communities are gone.
When I was in college in the early 1980s, I asked Viola to ask the current owner of her factory building for her sign over the door, which had remained there twenty-five years after she had sold the building. A few months later she gave it to me, rusted, with nail holes in it, but there is no mistaking the original grandeur: in bold white the name of her company, on a field of bright red. You could see the sign from a distance, a poppy against the gray sandstone. âWhy do you want this, Adri?â she asked me. âI want to remember your mill,â I told her.
The loss of the mill and all it represented was a blow to our family, and by extension, and no less devastatingly, to our country. Here we are, years later, and the effects of the loss remain vivid. Imagine a time when a machinist and a seamstress, one with a sixth-grade education, the other less, could join forces, form a partnership, start their own mill, employ a diligent workforce, and thrive .
The entrance to Violaâs mill. Note the sign over the door.
Imagine a time when you could fulfill a lifelong dream, after years of experience working for others, walk into a bank, and secure a loan to start your own business, building upon the knowledge that comes from making a living from the labor of your own hands.
Imagine a time when you could operate the business, and provide a community with steady jobs, buy a home, and educate your children. My grandparents did all of that, and as a sidebar, they were active in their community. They helped to build a convent for the Salesian nuns and subsequently a school in Roseto, with their fellow Rosetans, who pledged, at that time, a great deal of money, because they believed in educationâand put their money where their hearts were. When I read the ledgers now, I am so proud of them. They gave generously to causes they believed in. I never knew the extent of their philanthropy in financial terms until I studied the ledgers, because they never talked about these gifts, but I certainly understood their emotional commitment.
In later years, Viola could not understand how our country would succeed if we werenât supplying our people and the worldâs people with products we had made here, with our own hands. She knew that her small factory affected hundreds of lives, and the income of countless families, from the machine operator who placed the collar at her station in the mill in Martins Creek to the salesgirl who earned a commission selling that same blouse, off the rack, on the floor of Macyâs.
Every stratum of worker benefited from American-made goods. We demonstrated through our own efforts goods of quality, durability, and excellence. As immigrants, we were assured jobs, and once having mastered the skill, we could turn around and teach it to others. We were, in a sense, our product, as we defined it: consistent craftsmanship and excellent results, which meant American in the marketplace.
Further, my grandparents were prudent as they set the price of the blouse, knowing that to oversell the goods or undersell them, too, had a ripple effect. The idea was to stay in
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