$20.00’s in a Suitcase

Jess soon found work driving truck at Clearfield, where the government was building an army facility.  He had to join the union but was making $85.00 a week.  He worked ten hour days and drove thirty miles to work.   I was working shift work at the radio plant and we didn't see much of each other but we both had week ends off.  We saved our money and lived as cheaply as we could.  Jess wanted to buy a farm.

Each week we would cash our checks and get twenty dollar bills.  We kept them rolled up in a suitcase, in the closet.  We didn't lock our apartment and we didn't worry about it being stolen.  A married girl living next to us was sick and needed medicine and didn't have any money.  She borrowed twenty dollars and brought it back the next week, when her husband cashed his check.  I didn't even worry that she knew we had money in the closet.

In the spring Jess's job was finished and he wanted to come back to Archer to help farm.  A man who had worked with Jess wanted to sell his eight ft. trailer for $225.00 and his Maytag washer for $25.00.  We paid cash for both of them.