We lived in a little 2 room house at 606 E. Chestnut.  I built a garage on it.  I can't remember now why we built a garage because I don't think we kept a car in it.  We did have a Model T Speedster.  It was a kind of a frame with a sport body put on it.  A home made sport body.  We had it about 6 months or so and I couldn't do much about getting it to run very good and we finally got rid of it.  We didn't have any indoor plumbing but we did get water which was something we had not had before in houses.  We always used wells.  We didn't have any sewer.  We had coal oil lamps when we moved there and I wired the house and put in a few receptacles too and we bought an electric iron and then an electric washing machine and got pretty well fixed up for appliances, I tell you.   

 

I had arranged for a job through the Chicago Engineering Works.  The job was with Western Electric.  I was Inspector of telephone equipment.  I could probably have gotten a much better job if I would have kept my wits about me and done the least bit of planning.  I was a newlywed.  I had never even heard of an interview.  I wasn't expecting any questions.  I couldn't even remember ohms law!.  If I had been at all prepared, I could probably have gotten a job as engineer aid or even engineer!

    

At any rate, it was quite an interesting experience.  I would check out the piece of equipment to be inspected and the blue print which contained the specifications.  Then I would make the necessary electrical and mechanical tests needed to verify the correct assembly.  This was at the Hawthorn Works.  If I remember correctly, it was located at West 22nd St. and 48th Ave.  

 

We hadn't been in Chicago long before Virgie decided she wanted to work there, too.  She went one day and they gave her a job, mostly filing blue prints, (I think), a job entirely foreign to her.  She never went back, not even to check out or collect her pay.  

 

I think there were two main principal reasons why I didn't want to stay there.  I was used to the great outdoors.  This job was too confining.  Chances for change or advancement did not look good.  People there with me had been working right there for 25 years.  That did not appeal to me.  I went to Western Electric and got a job and worked there for about 2 months, I guess it was.  I didn't burn my bridges behind me just in case I wanted to come back.