Jobs for a young person, male or female, were a lot more available in the late 20s, when my father was a teenager, and in the 60s when I was, than they are today. If you lived in town you could deliver groceries, pump gas or work in a department or five and dime store, like Woolworth’s or W.T. Grant’s. In a rural area you could always get some sort of agricultural work. Even some of the sizable corner grocery stores in my day needed bag boys.
One place my father could always get work was at Merwarth’s Greenhouse and Truck Farm, in Williams Township just outside South Easton, Pa., where he lived. Even when he was in high school he used to go out there weekends and sometimes during the week.
The year he was 15 he had been working right up until Christmas time, because when you have a greenhouse, there is inside work even in the cold weather when you don’t have truck patch crops or outside flowers to contend with.
One job you have to perform 24/7 is to keep the fires going that provide the heat for the greenhouse, to keep it and anything inside from freezing.
The skeleton crew that was working at Christmas time were due to have Christmas Eve and Day off, but the fires still would need to be tended. Syl Merwarth, the owner, asked my father to come out Christmas Eve to tend the fires to which he agreed.
Later that day as the workers were leaving, they got their pay envelopes, of course in cash, and everyone got $5 or $10 as a bonus – everyone but my father. As he walked home he reflected on this and determined that he would not go out there Christmas Eve, and that the place could freeze up and everything in it.
However, when he told my grandfather about the day’s events, my grandfather would not let him off the hook for tending the fires. He had promised and that was that.
Naturally as he headed out to the greenhouse he wasn’t too kindly disposed toward the greenhouse, the owner, and anything else that happened to cross his mind.
When he got there and entered the greenhouse, not very willingly disposed to tending the fires, the owner came out of his house carrying a small box, saying “The fires are already taken care of. We didn’t want to give you this in front of the others.”
In the box was a gold cased Elgin pocket watch with a flip open back where his name was engraved. He carried that watch for the next 30 years, except for when he was in the Army and stopped carrying it only when repairs on it became to expensive. I have it yet and it will go to my oldest grandson.
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