What was it like when the railroad employment diminished?
It was serious because people were too old and uneducated to participate in other jobs. A lot of them went to custodial jobs. A lot of them got jobs as waiters and cooks. In some of the industries, the Gyco Corporation up in the canyon — they had a place where they employed a lot of black people. But they were just out of jobs. The railroad was apparently hard work, because a lot of the men died early and they didn’t make much money. You didn’t get a pension on your tips. You only got a pension on your salary. So your salary was smaller. Then, when the husband passed away, the wife only received half of his salary. It was really depressing and people were captured in the era that they have been giving. They couldn’t move because they didn’t have enough salary, they were too old to get along. Q: Tell us a little bit about housing. You would see in the newspaper a house for sell, a house for rent, a nice location for a porter or a waiter. Most of the black people lived between 24th and
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