January 5, 2023
Narration
Bjorg settled into life in Brooklyn. At first she stayed with her sister Gerd. Norwegians emigrated to a certain area of Brooklyn – so Bjorg had her sister Gerd, and her sister Henny not far away. Remember Borgny? She also lived in Brooklyn!
Around this time, Bjorg changed her name.
She started going by her middle name – Irene. Maybe for English speaking people, Irene was easier to pronounce than Bjorg.’
So my grandmother became Irene – and from now on, I’ll refer to her as Irene.
Irene started working for a family cooking and cleaning – and she lived with them as part of her job. But some of her friends, like Borgny, worked in the Beech-nut factory.
Bessa: So I would go and I used to be so jealous of them because they worked in a factory five days a week and had Saturday and Sunday off. And I used to say to Gerd, Maybe I can get a job in the factory too. That would be nice. I could live with Borgny and Astrid. No, no, no, no, no. You stay right here. These people are nice.
Kristen: Seems like to me that a being a nanny for a family and living with them and taking care of their kids is a pretty high-up job for for an immigrant.
Bessa: It is.
Kristen: Like compared to a factory, I would think that would be more desirable than a factory.
Bessa: No, because the factory gives you freedom and more money. I saw the dances on Saturday night, I saw the dances on Friday night.
Kristen: Oh, and you couldn’t go to them?
Bessa: No, because I only had Thursday afternoon – I had to be home at a certain time. And I had Sunday from morning to a certain time at night. There was no going out at night.
Oh, but Borgny had said that they were hiring. So she said, I’m going to take you down to Beechnut. Don’t you remember that chewing gum?
Kristen: Beech-nut? Don’t they sell baby food?
Bessa: Yes, the same company. Beech-nut baby food, Beech-nut coffee, Beech-nut chewing gum.
So she takes me down for an interview, and the guy was very nice, and he’s throwing all these questions of me. And one was, What color is your eyes, Irene? I didn’t have a clue what he was saying. And Borgny was so mad at me. Irene, your eyes. Your eyes! I had no clue. Well, I didn’t get the job. He said, Irene, come back in three months. I said, Okay.
Narration
Irene had left her job cleaning for the family. And for a few months, she took house cleaning jobs. Irene moved in with Borgny and Astrid.
Bessa: The rent was $15 a week, which came to $5 per person. We had one living room, a tiny little kitchen, if you could call it a kitchen. We could cook and wash the dishes and we had a toilet and a shower. And then we had to go up about ten steps. That was our bedroom with a double bed that we shared, the three girls.
Kristen: You shared a double bed?
Bessa: A double bed, Astrid, me and Borgny, and we took turns sleeping in the middle. Of course, everybody hated the middle and we never fought. Everybody knew whose turn it was in the middle. This went on for a long time.
Narration
Irene was determined to learn English. She worked very hard at it. And she still wanted to work in that factory where Borgny worked.
Bessa: I paid very, very good attention to everything, and asked questions. And I wanted to read English so bad that I bought the – there was a magazine called – maybe you still have it, I don’t know, “True Story.” And it was easy stories and rough stories. They were true stories – all kinds of stuff in there.
And I would sit and read that. And every time I came to a word that I didn’t understand, I would circle it. And when my girlfriends came home, I would ask them, What’s that mean? What is that? That’s how I learned how to read.
Then I went back for an interview and I got the job.
Kristen: With the same guy?
Bessa: Yeah. Did he ask you what color your eyes were?
Bessa: No. He just laughed. He said, I knew you’d be back.
Kristen: So was Borgny still working there?
Bessa: Yep.
Kristen: So did you work together?
Bessa: God, this was chewing gum. Can you imagine this? She happened to be on a machine next to me one day – Borgny to my right, Shirley, my girlfriend to the left, and we’re packing gum. It has to go in a certain way. And if you make a mistake, you’ve got to stop the machine and the floor lady comes over and – it’s not trouble. But you shouldn’t make a mistake.
But one day Borgny says to me, Let’s see how many chewing gum we can chew at once. But so we’re chewing away and here comes the floor lady. And Borgny managed to get it out and – we were in trouble because we were not allowed to open the gum when we worked.
Kristen: Were you really in trouble?
Bessa: No. She just told us, Don’t do that. We had to look like idiots.
And every Friday before we got home, we were allowed to go down to the scrap room and we were allowed to take two packs each – that scrap room meant that those packs were packed wrong. So the employees were allowed to take two packs home each. So you know how much chewing gum was in the packages that I mailed to Norway. Boa, to this day says We couldn’t wait for those packages. We were the only ones that had chewing gum.
Well, he was a little kid, you know, he would go to the mailman. Is there anything for us today? Is there anything?
And now I got the pay was so darn good. I got $52 a week, take home.
That was good money. Now, I started to send some money to Mama. And if I had a ten or 20 later it became 20, I mailed it in a letter to her. I always said, Go and buy yourself some flowers. I’m sure they used it for food or whatever. And I paid off my loan to Uncle Louie, paid off whatever I owed.
Narration
Irene would eventually transfer to the coffee department at Beech-nut, packing coffee cans.
Bessa: Packing coffee was very tough because the cans came off a belt about and you had to take the can and throw it in a box. Boom, boom, boom. And it had to hit just right or they wouldn’t line up. And when you had the bottom full – just like this – and shoved it in. Next box.
Narration
On Saturday nights, that was when Irene and her friends went out and had fun. By the way, before she left Norway, she had broken it off with Endre. So Irene was a single woman.
Getting dressed up and going out to the dances was an important part of Irene’s week. She and her friends would meet up together before going out.
Bessa: And one Saturday night, we were going to go up there and and meet there, and cook something for dinner and have dinner there and then go to the dance. And your grandpa Torfinn was sitting there because he knew them, too. And I took one look at your grandpa saying, Oh, who is he? I didn’t talk to him that night because he didn’t come with us. He just sat there.
Kristen: Did he look at you?
Bessa: Yeah, he did.
Kristen: And do you think that he noticed you?
Bessa: Yeah, because before I left for the dance, he said, Can we meet him next Sunday? I said, Okay.
Narration
Thinking about my grandmother – coming from Norway, coming over on the ship knowing no English at all. And then she got right to work, and began really teaching herself English. On top of all that, she found friends and had fun.
I think it must have been scary in many ways. But she just kept going.
Next time, more about Irene’s romantic adventures, including getting to know Torfinn, more dancing – oh, and Endre returns.