Frances Haber

SADY SULLIVAN: All right I'm starting the recorder.

FRANCES HABER: Okay. And this is for me? Thank you. Oh, isn't she cute? She's looks like a little Boxer.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah, well she's a Pug/Boston Terrier, so she's a combo.

FRANCES HABER: Well she looks like a little Boxer. If we get through looking, I'm going to tell you a nice story that happened to me in the hospital maybe I can tell it to you while you work.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah, well tell me now, what happened?

FRANCES HABER: Well, well I was in the hospital room I mean when I say [inaudible] I was very lonely, I was there for eight days, nine days and, uh, the people next door had visitors and I heard the people -- and the woman had cancer but I mean I heard them mention that her doctor was gonna be Dr. Zarcon [phonetic] whom I know, so I happened to give my two cents in there that Dr. Zarcon is very nice and then I heard the woman's daughter who was, you know, an early middle-aged woman, or was it was somebody there who said "Let her nuzzle your neck."

[laughter]

FRANCES HABER: And I'm saying, "Who's nuzzling whose neck?" to myself. I said, 1:00"Have you got a dog in there?" they said, "Yes, we have a therapy dog."

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

FRANCES HABER: And they brought me a piece of paper to sign that I will permit this -- what did I just call it?

SADY SULLIVAN: Therapy dog.

FRANCES HABER: Therapy dog, yeah. And, where did you put the bowls?

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, right here.

FRANCES HABER: Yeah, don't leave them on the table.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, okay.

FRANCES HABER: Because that's a wooden -- it's an old wooden table and it's got rickety legs.

SADY SULLIVAN: Where should I put them?

FRANCES HABER: I told ya, on the stone in front of the fireplace.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, that's a good idea.

FRANCES HABER: Put it next to the Boxer. She'll watch --

SADY SULLIVAN: Next to this beautiful Boxer.

FRANCES HABER: -- she'll watch it for us.

SADY SULLIVAN: Good.

FRANCES HABER: How do ya like my Boxer? She's got a rose there too?

SADY SULLIVAN: Yes, that's perfect. That's such a nice statue. And all of these Boxers.

FRANCES HABER: How do you like them, and you've got pictures of all of them.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah. Um, and where's the photo of -- oh, is this, Hansel!

FRANCES HABER: Which one is that?

SADY SULLIVAN: This is the photo of Hansel you were telling me about --

FRANCES HABER: I don't -- oh, is that the cutout?

SADY SULLIVAN: Yes, the cutout.

FRANCES HABER: Yeah, the cutout, the two cutouts I have.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, he's so cute!

FRANCES HABER: It's my Hansel. That's Hansel in the foyer.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

FRANCES HABER: That's Hansel and his little --

SADY SULLIVAN: This -- this painting?

FRANCES HABER: That's Hansel and his little peeny sticking out, I painted it.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter] Oh, good.

FRANCES HABER: Okay, I'm gonna ask you to put this some place where I'm not gonna lose it.

SADY SULLIVAN: Okay. Well, we can just put it here for now.

FRANCES HABER: That's the trouble with me, with the here for now.

[laughter]

FRANCES HABER: The here for now is a forever.

SADY SULLIVAN: And this is something, this is the, um, the Brooklyn Navy Yard tours so I thought you might ---

FRANCES HABER: How did you get ---

SADY SULLIVAN: Recognize this, this sign and these buildings.

FRANCES HABER: I don't -- I don't recog -- these weren't there in my day.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, so that's um, that's a postcard for tours that people are, are going on of the Navy Yard right now.

FRANCES HABER: So, so, where [inaudible] the, uh, picture.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, it's right here.

FRANCES HABER: Okay, do you happen to see a yellow envelope that looks like records, uh, CD's came in, I might be able to use one of them to put what you're giving me in.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, okay.

FRANCES HABER: Or, an envelope -- what is this?

SADY SULLIVAN: This is my -- this is my notes ---

FRANCES HABER: Oh this is, this is something you brought.

SADY SULLIVAN: -- for the interview.

FRANCES HABER: Now, somewhere here --

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, I moved stuff --

FRANCES HABER: -- or around --

SADY SULLIVAN: I moved some papers right over there.

FRANCES HABER: Well, see if you see a yellow envelope, an empty envelope here that's big enough to put this in. Come, come around this side.

SADY SULLIVAN: Okay.

FRANCES HABER: You didn't think I was gonna put you to work today?

[laughter]

FRANCES HABER: Okay, this is a plastic bag so I can see through --

SADY SULLIVAN: Right, this is for -- this is for the um, the notebook.

FRANCES HABER: Oh, you brought that?

SADY SULLIVAN: Or, this is what that notebook was wrapped in. So, this envelope has some stuff in it.

FRANCES HABER: Stuff or stuffing?

SADY SULLIVAN: I'm not sure what that --

FRANCES HABER: It -- it

SADY SULLIVAN: Maybe it was just packaging.

FRANCES HABER: Well when they said CD's -- you can throw this away.

SADY SULLIVAN: Okay. So this can go --

FRANCES HABER: Yeah, those --

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, is this -- did you need something here?

FRANCES HABER: No, those are the advertisements for the CD's, I get them regularly.

SADY SULLIVAN: Okay.

FRANCES HABER: And what you're giving me is going in this envelope.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, good.

FRANCES HABER: And let's do something to identify it as yours. What will identify it so I'll recognize it.

SADY SULLIVAN: Um ---

FRANCES HABER: Write your name on -- write your name over here.

SADY SULLIVAN: Okay.

FRANCES HABER: Write your name and your address and your telephone number ---

SADY SULLIVAN: Okay.

FRANCES HABER: -- or if you have an address label with you.

SADY SULLIVAN: I don't, but I -- do, I do have a card, um, but I'll get that after.

FRANCES HABER: Okay. Oh, you have your card, okay fine.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah.

FRANCES HABER: Okay. Then I'll tell you where we put it. There's a blue medicine 5:00case I have here that I left it on the couch, did you take it off for me?

SADY SULLIVAN: A blue medicine case?

FRANCES HABER: Yeah, well it's a blue, uh, [inaudible] case.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, in here?

FRANCES HABER: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: Okay.

FRANCES HABER: And this -- [inaudible]

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, okay.

FRANCES HABER: Ah, see I'm expecting you to give me more, more stuff, you already brought the flowers with you.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter]

FRANCES HABER: Leave it open here, lay it down, I have medicines in there.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, okay.

FRANCES HABER: So, I'm not gonna be able to look at what you're giving me too much today. When, when you're not --

SADY SULLIVAN: Okay. Well, well let me tell you a little bit about what I think that we should do is --

FRANCES HABER: Tell me what Mr. Sparr said besides whatever he said, how did you happen to meet him?

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, well he is involved with -- so the Brooklyn Navy Yard --

FRANCES HABER: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: -- is working on a history center that's going to be like a museum right in the Navy Yard --

FRANCES HABER: Oh.

SADY SULLIVAN: -- in one of the buildings on Flushing.

FRANCES HABER: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: And so Arnold Sparr --

FRANCES HABER: On Flushing Avenue?

SADY SULLIVAN: -- on Flushing Avenue, um it's, you might remember it, it was a brick building from the 1800s and it's right on Flushing Avenue so it's bet -- it's right by the main gate.

FRANCES HABER: Oh, that's --

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

FRANCES HABER: where they kept the tubercular vacs -- it looked like a colonial brick --

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, yes it does.

FRANCES HABER: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

FRANCES HABER: That's where they had like tuber -- as far as I knew, I really never knew but you know they had these men --

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

FRANCES HABER: And, and let me look through Mr. Sparr's, uh, book.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, I see. So well that space is now gonna be a history center that's open to the public so that people can come and find out about what has happened in the Navy Yard all of these years, and, um, and this interview that you and I are going to do will become part of the archives that will be part of the exhibit --

FRANCES HABER: Oh, isn't that marvelous.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yes, and they'll be archived forever ---

FRANCES HABER: Now, I have a small book it was written by Mr. Sparr and --- I can't find it here --

SADY SULLIVAN: Yes, it was Looking for Rosie, or something like that?

FRANCES HABER: Huh? No ---

SADY SULLIVAN: I, I know the book that you're talking about.

FRANCES HABER: Did you see it here?

SADY SULLIVAN: Um, no I haven't seen it here. Well, let's -- can we look through this and ---

FRANCES HABER: This is what I wrote, right here do you see that, that's in my ---

SADY SULLIVAN: You know what? I have, let me just show you ---

FRANCES HABER: On lined -- on lined paper, on lined paper.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yes, I have a copy of it from the archives.

FRANCES HABER: Okay.

SADY SULLIVAN: Is this, do you recognize this?

FRANCES HABER: I don't ---

SADY SULLIVAN: This is something that you wrote.

FRANCES HABER: It has -- yeah -- it has ladies pictures on the side --

SADY SULLIVAN: Yes, it does they didn't come up on the photograph.

FRANCES HABER: Oh, I see, okay. This is it --

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah.

FRANCES HABER: And this about tells you all that I know that I have or was able to think of it on that day.

SADY SULLIVAN: Right, well so would you mind, I'm gonna ask some questions that are repeats of what you've written here.

FRANCES HABER: That's quite all right.

SADY SULLIVAN: Okay. Well let's get started doing that.

FRANCES HABER: See, this is the uh, one of the, I don't know if it's the original, but the night that the curator called me --

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, right so this is the --

FRANCES HABER: Asking me about my experience I just pulled this pad out without that lady looking at us,

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- and I got my pen --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- and I began writing, and I wrote into the morning.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, fantastic.

FRANCES HABER: And I remembered the names of the guys I worked with, the bosses and the you know. See what I'm looking for in here, and it may be in my books back somewhere because people who go through these things don't put them back where they get them from.

SADY SULLIVAN: So, this is your letter --

FRANCES HABER: This was about --

SADY SULLIVAN: This is the letter that you sent to BHS in, um, in 1987.

FRANCES HABER: To who?

SADY SULLIVAN: Um, to the Brooklyn Historical Society.

FRANCES HABER: Oh, why do you call it --

SADY SULLIVAN: BHS. The, the letters. And so, we have a copy of this in the archive, and then you also gave BHS your ID card --

FRANCES HABER: Yes.

SADY SULLIVAN: Um --

FRANCES HABER: And you have it here too.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yes, that's fantastic. And so, this is a letter from, from Benjamin Filene who was a curatorial assistant --

FRANCES HABER: Mr. Filene. Right.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yes, and he's a professor now in North Carolina.

FRANCES HABER: Isn't that amazing?

SADY SULLIVAN: Yes. And he -- so he is sending you a thank you letter.

FRANCES HABER: Now, if I can't come across this thing by Mr. Sparr --

SADY SULLIVAN: On behalf of BHS.

FRANCES HABER: You could probably be able to get it from Mr. Sparr.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yes, I have the citation for Mr. Sparr's --

FRANCES HABER: Because I'm sure that I have the -- nobody really wants that book, but I don't know where it is right now because so many people have handled things.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, yeah. Well you've kept a wonderful archive, this is really good. And so, we have this letter which was written, it was written in 1987, and then --

FRANCES HABER: You know, everything is not original there are things I cut out --

SADY SULLIVAN: Right.

FRANCES HABER: From, uh, other -- okay.

SADY SULLIVAN: And so, I love this ID card --

FRANCES HABER: Ugly, ugly.

SADY SULLIVAN: No, it's a cute picture!

FRANCES HABER: That was 1943.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Well I have --I have a Navy and I have an Army one also because I also worked for the Army before I worked for the Navy Yard.

SADY SULLIVAN: Right, well let's do if you don't mind --

FRANCES HABER: Do whatever you want to do.

SADY SULLIVAN: Okay, here's what I'd like to do --

FRANCES HABER: I'd love ya to get these things back in the rings before we get going.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, I'll definitely do that.

FRANCES HABER: If you can, you know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Okay, let's do that at the end so we that we can focus on that.

FRANCES HABER: I -- I pulled the table out as you can see so we have a little room for you to lay it down.

SADY SULLIVAN: Okay, we can put this here and I'll put it back in the rings and we can figure out the order of things when we're done, but for -- for -- let's do our formal interview now.

FRANCES HABER: Okay, I hope you don't mind what I look like.

SADY SULLIVAN: You look great! And I can't believe you were in the hospital that long, and you really look fantastic.

FRANCES HABER: Thank you. [laughter]

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah, yeah. And I'm so glad, I'm glad you must be --

FRANCES HABER: And, well you got a lot of egotistical pictures of me.

SADY SULLIVAN: Good. [laughter] I'm excited to do that, um, so let's --

FRANCES HABER: You're such a nice girl!

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter] Let's --

FRANCES HABER: Oh, I was wondering, I wonder who's going to appear, you know she 11:00sounds good, but you know you can't always --

SADY SULLIVAN: I know, I know. It's a little weird, but I'm glad that --I'm really excited to meet you. Um, okay. So, here's what I'd like to do --

FRANCES HABER: You know, you can lay stuff down here, you know push it aside a little.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, okay, no no, I'm good. I would like -- let me make sure that we're recording, we are, good. Um, so for the record, today is November 12, 2009 and I'm here in Croton-on-Hudson at the home of Frances Haber and so if you would introduce yourself --

FRANCES HABER: If you look in the bag, you will see the picture of the house.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, oh, let me look.

FRANCES HABER: No, I gave you one, one of them is, you can give to Jennifer if you care to.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

FRANCES HABER: It's in the white envelope.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, there's photos in here.

FRANCES HABER: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: Great.

FRANCES HABER: Yeah, you can take the seal off, I just was putting food in there.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, all covered in snow --

FRANCES HABER: Yeah --

SADY SULLIVAN: -- that's really nice.

FRANCES HABER: -- and on the back you have my label.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, good.

FRANCES HABER: With the dog -- now take a look at that doggy face.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter]

FRANCES HABER: Anything like yours?

SADY SULLIVAN: Um, she has that, that flat, that cute --

FRANCES HABER: Yeah --

SADY SULLIVAN: -- flat curvy nose.

FRANCES HABER: That puggy, that puggy look too.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yep. Oh, good. Thank you.

FRANCES HABER: And the other is a picture of my fireplace with the dog house --

SADY SULLIVAN: Yes.

FRANCES HABER: -- because you, I didn't know if Jennifer is a dog lover, but I think I have an extra one in there, which I don't know is an extra house or an extra dog, uh, a mantle.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, okay.

FRANCES HABER: I think it's an extra house.

SADY SULLIVAN: Thank you.

FRANCES HABER: Okay, you see an extra house in there?

SADY SULLIVAN: I didn't see -- you mean there's two --

FRANCES HABER: I think there are six gifts --

SADY SULLIVAN: -- of the house?

FRANCES HABER: There may be two of the house.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh no, there's just two photos. One of the house --

FRANCES HABER: Okay.

SADY SULLIVAN: -- and one of your mantle --

FRANCES HABER: In the foyer before I forget, in the foyer up front I put the other one away, I figure oh, they're probably not even coming. So, you'll get one of the house, that's for, for uh, Jennifer.

SADY SULLIVAN: Okay, good. Um, thank you.

FRANCES HABER: And that'll be a Christmas card.

SADY SULLIVAN: It's lovely in the snow --

FRANCES HABER: And that's your little goodie bag to take home.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, thank you!

FRANCES HABER: You have a biscotti in there, you have a Hershey chocolate --

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, oh!

FRANCES HABER: -- from the Halloween collection --

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh!

FRANCES HABER: -- and a lollipop --

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, thank you --

FRANCES HABER: -- so before you --

SADY SULLIVAN: -- so this will be good for the train ride home.

FRANCES HABER: -- I'm getting right, and you have a -- Kleenex in there, or a paper towel which you, you know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Great, thank you.

FRANCES HABER: And on the outside is the name of Westchester Hospital [laughter]

SADY SULLIVAN: Which is -- is that where you were?

FRANCES HABER: No, I was in the uh, Hudson Valley Hospital this time, Westchester Hospital is a little further east, and that's where they have the uh, what do I call it --list -- listograph, uh, tipsy, is the name of the --

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

FRANCES HABER: -- procedure that I had.

SADY SULLIVAN: And that was for kidney stones --

FRANCES HABER: Yeah, right.

SADY SULLIVAN: -- is that right?

FRANCES HABER: And, it's not like it sounds, you just lie on a very comfortable -- what feels like gelatin inside, I don't know what it is, it's probably the x-ray equipment.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And it's comfortable, you don't have to do anything, and I had two very nice nurses, one named Maryann [phonetic], the other one Maureen [phonetic]. And a female doctor, whose name, uh Shelley Kramer, gosh I remember names!

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And uh, they were very nice, and they called me -- the first week they called me every day in the hospital. Uh, I thought they were interested in me, and I think they were really interested in the -- how the procedure had gone.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. And so, tell me what happened. So, you had that procedure for kidney stones, but then you said that you had, you weren't feeling well and it turns out you had a small heart attack.

FRANCES HABER: Yeah, well I have a heart problem before as I have heart -- conges -- congestive heart failure.

SADY SULLIVAN: Uh huh.

FRANCES HABER: And, I'm not even sure I had a heart attack this time. I said, they need the money. I -- I have, you know when you have Medicare, Medicare pays 15:00for all this.

SADY SULLIVAN: Right.

FRANCES HABER: So, uh, they don't worry about you, that you're not gonna come up with it.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: But they'd like to get me into rehab and from rehab into a nursing home. First they make you dependent in rehab --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- and I don't want to go with the nursing home of course no matter what this is, I love it. People come in "well it's not too clean", I already -- I heard that today. "And we gotta get someone to clean it up," to me this room is messy but it's clean.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. And it's cozy and it has all kinds of things that you like --

FRANCES HABER: Well, that's guy that came last he was a man, he was very nice but they don't like things.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm, Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You know, they're only rare men, usually they think they're -- people think they're fairies anyway when they like things.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter]

FRANCES HABER: Men have to be afraid to acknowledge they like things.

SADY SULLIVAN: That's true.

FRANCES HABER: They gotta be fishing poles and guns or something like that --

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah.

FRANCES HABER: -- for them to want collections, or knives. This is the sword my grandfather left me, you know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Anyway, I'll let you go on, I'm interrupting you.

SADY SULLIVAN: Okay. Well how about, would you introduce yourself to the recording?

FRANCES HABER: All right. Now?

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: My name is Frances Haber. I was born [date redacted for privacy] 1923 in the city of New York, in the Flower Fifth Avenue Hospital. When I was two and a half years old, we moved to Brooklyn and there pretty much I remained because Brooklyn was my home.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. And so, tell me about where you lived in Brooklyn.

FRANCES HABER: Oh, I lived originally when I was two and a half, we moved to Willoughby Avenue, Willoughby Avenue between Sumner and Throop. It's not Willoughby Street, it's Willoughby Avenue, and -- in a nice house. Uh, it was these grey stone, uh houses -- and I have a picture over there. If you want to see it now or later.

SADY SULLIVAN: Let's do it later.

FRANCES HABER: Okay. And um, our landlord was Mr. Guardino [phonetic] who owned an ice cream factory called Sunshine Ice Cream Factory on Myrtle Avenue, but the reason I'm mentioning, he was such a good landlord it was hard to believe. He had a mustachio and wore a derby --

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh!

FRANCES HABER: -- and we lived there for a number of years until we moved across the street into an apartment over the garage of a mansion. We -- we lived over the garage of course.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And, uh, had a long driveway, and it had seen better days, but the Bloombergs still lived there. There were a number of people who lived on Willoughby Avenue who had kind of evaded the Depression by knowing some information that some other people didn't because they stayed rich during that time.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh!

FRANCES HABER: You know, to me, my mind.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Uh, what else would you like to know?

SADY SULLIVAN: Um, tell me a little about your parents.

FRANCES HABER: My parents were Henry and Rose. Over in that corner I have a 18:00thing with my picture and uniform on it, it's a box, be careful you don't drop it because it's broken. But um, it's in the corner laying on a table.

SADY SULLIVAN: I see it.

FRANCES HABER: And as a matter of fact, if you look up alongside the book stack you'll see my parents picture -- they -- my mother didn't have a bridal gown --- yes, that top one --

SADY SULLIVAN: I see this photo, yes.

FRANCES HABER: Yes, that's my mother and father.

SADY SULLIVAN: Okay, so they were Henry and Rose.

FRANCES HABER: Henry and Rose Haber.

SADY SULLIVAN: And, um, where were they from?

FRANCES HABER: My mother was from Russia. At that time it was still Russia. It didn't become Russ -- uh, Poland late, until later when they had all -- after the Russian Revolution they had divisions or whatever. But my mother came, she came -- came from a place called Kowell, Kowell is spelled K-O-W-E-L-L, which I did not know until recently, until, uh, I went to my nephew's house in California we got my mother's picture collection out and I the photographer's 19:00address and it was K-O-W-E-L-L.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh!

FRANCES HABER: And, uh, I don't know if it kept the same name --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Because after that, my mother left when she was fifteen to bring, uh, seven-year-old cousin to her parents who were living in the United States, they were living in a place my mother called "Hahtford". Which was Hartford, Connecticut.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter]

FRANCES HABER: You know, [laughter] that's how she talked! Hartford, Connecticut. And, uh, my mother lived with her for a while. They had a Kosher restaurant, I don't know if they owned it or if they were working for some people, but my mother left them, came to New York where she had an aunt, lived in the aunt's house on the East Side of Nee York where all the immigrants, and of course it looked --

SADY SULLIVAN: The Lower East Side?

FRANCES HABER: Lower East Side, Avenue B or Avenue C --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And uh, that's where the aunt lived and that's where they lived, they had twenty people to an apartment. My father lived in a room with two other fellows, they all slept in the same bed I think.

SADY SULLIVAN: Where was your father from?

FRANCES HABER: Austria. And uh, Austrians considered themselves much higher class.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You know, they spoke, originally, German, my mother spoke Russian. That's why when they got married they didn't understand each other.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter]

FRANCES HABER: And my father spoke English immediately because he had gone to what they call a gymnasium, like we would say gymnasium, but a gymnasium in Europe was like a high school but a little higher education, and you know, and he played soccer and he felt himself very superior because he was the oldest son and his parents planned for him to be a doctor. Well when World War I was coming 21:00along, they figured we better get our doctor out of the country because my father came to New York at that time ---

SADY SULLIVAN: To, to avoid ---

FRANCES HABER: -- make way ---

SADY SULLIVAN: -- World War I --

FRANCES HABER: -- yeah, make way, and uh --

SADY SULLIVAN: And was his family Jewish?

FRANCES HABER: Yes. Yes, we're all Jewish. And what are you?

SADY SULLIVAN: Um, English and Irish.

FRANCES HABER: English and Irish ---

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Okay, so anyway. Because I was figuring, you know, [inaudible] from where you came in Brooklyn.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, from Greenpoint. Well the neighborhood is still very Polish, but not me.

FRANCES HABER: Do you know where Winski's is?

SADY SULLIVAN: Winski's?

FRANCES HABER: It's spelled W-I-N-S-K-I.

SADY SULLIVAN: No. Um, what is it, is it a restaurant?

FRANCES HABER: No, it's not a restaurant ---

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

FRANCES HABER: It's a place where they make Polish sausage.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, um, I'm sure cuz there's a -- I live off of Manhattan Avenue, where there's still a number of ---

FRANCES HABER: Yeah, there's probably ---

SADY SULLIVAN: Polish, but I don't eat meat so I don't go to the sausage stores. 22:00Which is a shame because I know that that's --

FRANCES HABER: It's probably not a shame when you think about that murder we just had where the man was making sausage in one house and the guy was killing women in the other house.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, right! Oh my god, in Cleveland.

FRANCES HABER: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: That was awful. [laughter] Yeah, that's true.

FRANCES HABER: And everybody's smells had blended in on the sausage.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter] Yeah, that was crazy.

FRANCES HABER: So, it shows that the pigs smelled a little better.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter]

FRANCES HABER: I'm sorry to say that --

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah.

FRANCES HABER: -- those poor women.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah.

FRANCES HABER: Those poor women were probably all prostitutes, that's why they went into his house. Anyway, you can go on with what you --

SADY SULLIVAN: Um, so then your parents -- your parents met and --

FRANCES HABER: I'll tell you how they met. It was the 4th of July, and nobody went anywhere or did anything that I know of, of course this was long before I was born, my mother saw this handsome young man, and if you look at him you'll see he truly is.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Look at his picture.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You see. Of course girls are prejudiced I guess where their 23:00fathers are concerned.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm, both of your parents are good looking.

FRANCES HABER: Yeah, but my father really looked to me, he had this very Germanic look and he was able to get jobs that other Jewish boys couldn't get because they -- he didn't have a long nose, you know, or anything.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: He -- or an immigrant look, you know, he looked Germanic and super race kind of thing.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And so, he got to be a waiter at Feltman's in Coney Island for the summer he got to be -- well he waiter in the Pennsylvania Hotel which was then named something else and he was very superior whatever he did, if he set a table you knew the table was set and you were eating fancy, the napkin was folded and put in the glass and whatever. The rolls were put on the table evenly, you know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: We didn't eat that way at home, that's the way my father set the tables for his sister's wedding or something like that. And, uh, what other -- 24:00where else do we were going with this --

SADY SULLIVAN: Um, so how did --

FRANCES HABER: My mother had nobody --

SADY SULLIVAN: -- how your parents met.

FRANCES HABER: -- nobody but a couple of aunts finally she saw him and she didn't know much English but she saw he had a watch so she said "what time is it?" And he told her the time, and uh, she wanted his attention she had no fireworks, she found herself a stick after all she was fifteen, or sixteen, or seventeen, but she was immature all her life in some ways. And, you know, she always wanted to be part of the fun.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You know if you went to Times Square on New Year's Eve and the people were yelling "Happy New Year", she'd go "Happy New Years! Happy New Years!" while someone was stuffing a bunch of con -- confetti in my mouth they weren't even looking at me and she was yelling "Happy New Years" and he was telling her to keep quiet.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, [laughter]

FRANCES HABER: But she always liked being part of the fun, that was her -- her nature. And so she got this stick and there were a couple of steps there and she began banging on the steps so he saw a young girl, pretty girl, big breasts, I 25:00guess he figured he was, you know, finally making his way in America.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And uh, so, or she probably spoke to him first, you know, they got introduced. And uh, he probably didn't like meeting a Russian girl much anyway he knew his family wouldn't like, that that was not high class.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Or educated or whatever, you know people always look down on each other.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And, uh, they ended up getting married and he got a job on the Fifth Avenue Bus Company driving a bus, and, uh, they lived happily ever after for many, many years, you know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: But, uh, I didn't live happily ever after because, uh, let's see I liked Italian boys [laughter] --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And, you know, my parents did not like that. And moved to California and I got a job as Rosie the Riveter, but I came back because my mother didn't take my sister's pay but she took my pay because my sister worked 26:00for the Los Angeles Athletic Club because she's different from me she wore -- you know there's a song now, "Uh, she wears short dresses, I wear, uh, t-shirts. She wears high heels I wear sneakers."

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh! Yeah, yeah.

FRANCES HABER: Well that's how it was with my sister except we didn't wear sneakers in those years.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: In those years, sneakers was for gym purposes only, or you know summer going to the beach.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Uh, my sister wore ankle strapped shoes and silk dresses, you could buy silk dresses, three bucks at Klein's in those days.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, wow.

FRANCES HABER: But my sister always needed clothes, so she got to keep her -- and she also wasn't making as much money as I. As a riveter, I was making as much money as a man.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: So, I didn't stay there, I threw my clothes over my arm and I ran away and I --

SADY SULLIVAN: So --

FRANCES HABER: -- came back to Brooklyn.

SADY SULLIVAN: -- right, but let's, let's back up and, and talk about your earlier years in Brooklyn --

FRANCES HABER: Well --

SADY SULLIVAN: Before you moved. So, you --

FRANCES HABER: -- my earlier as far as my memories go, and I, I really can remember some things from when I was two and a half, but I don't know what they meant.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, well tell me.

FRANCES HABER: I remember my mother getting a new dining room set when we'd just moved there and I went into the kitchen and I found a knife and I began cutting the leg and I --

[Interview interrupted.]

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, is that your phone?

FRANCES HABER: Nope, that's my nephew's.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh. [laughter] That's an awesome birthday card.

FRANCES HABER: Uh, that was a card -- he has his girlfriend that he lives with and she's very handicapped, she almost terminally [inaudible] he's like "I don't know how long she's gonna be with us" but she's got some kind of thing in her foot among other things, she's always been sick.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And apparently he's attracted to handicapped girls cause he married one and now he just lives with one.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: So, Steven, don't make so much noise.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter] Okay, so you were saying you started to carve into the 28:00leg of the dining room set.

FRANCES HABER: Yeah, I was two and a half.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah.

FRANCES HABER: Well my mother came and beat me up, 'cause this was a brand new dining room set, she never had anything before that wasn't secondhand, you know, and you know "Second Hand Rose" from Funny Girl?

SADY SULLIVAN: No.

FRANCES HABER: "Second hand Rose, they call me second hand Rose. Even the piano in the apartment, papa got for five cents on the dollar." You don't know that?

SADY SULLIVAN: No, I don't.

FRANCES HABER: Oh, well if you ever get to hear uh, you know, Funny Girl or see Funny Girl with Barbra Streisand.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah, I know of Funny Girl, but I've never seen it --

FRANCES HABER: Anyway, my mother's name was Rose --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- and believe me it wasn't secondhand, it was probably seventh-hand, and we had a white enamel table and odd chairs, one was a leather chair which my father sat in the kitchen, and my moth -- and we had white painter chairs, and uh, we had no living room, we had the dining room, so there 29:00was six chairs to the dining room. People came, they could eat, you know, the family, and they sat in dining room chairs.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: We had no television and we had no radio, but we were the first to get a radio in our -- that I know of, you know --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- uh, we had an Atwater Kent and what we got on the radio was Rudy Vallee which my sister liked and I hated him cause she liked him, I guess --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- and uh, he sang, "My time is your time," and uh, I think Guy Lombardo was around by then, and uh. Let's see, my mother had the news on, that was the time that the Lindbergh baby was kidnapped.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And my mother constantly kept the radio to hear about the kidnapped baby who was eventually found dead.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And, uh, I don't know, if you want to go into all these things cause --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You know, you're getting my earliest memories.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yes, I like this, this is good.

FRANCES HABER: Ah, but my mother used to -- on Saturday my mother used to like 30:00to put the Jewish program on, which I like now too because it had a lot of lively songs, which

I didn't like then because the teacher told us to listen to Walter Damrosch who had concerts for children.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

FRANCES HABER: And my mother's -- you'll hear him some other day, you know, she says --

SADY SULLIVAN: It was at a conflicting time with the Jewish program?

FRANCES HABER: Yeah, right, right.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

FRANCES HABER: So, we got to hear this man, his name was [inaudible] sing, "bing bong bing bong, bing bong, bing bong," you know.

SADY SULLIVAN: And so was it -- what kind of stuff it was, it was more entertainment, it wasn't um --

FRANCES HABER: It was entertainment music, it was yeah, he had a great voice, a great baritone voice --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And, you know, he was much exalted in the Jewish theatre, and uh, but you know, I was a kid, radios didn't belong to us.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: They belonged to the adults.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm

FRANCES HABER: You go out and play.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And uh, the -- later on they began having "Bobby and Betty" and 31:00uh, "Chandu the Magician" and stuff like that, still you go out and play. Well, one of the reasons was my father worked nights. And so, he had to sleep days.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

FRANCES HABER: So, you didn't bring friends into the house because your father was sleeping.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm, and that's -- he was driving a bus at night?

FRANCES HABER: At that time, he was driving a pumpernickel truck to grocery stores selling Strummer's Pumpernickel, you know, he had a route.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And he delivered the pumpernickel.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, neat.

FRANCES HABER: Yeah. And uh --

SADY SULLIVAN: Where was the bakery?

FRANCES HABER: On Park Avenue in Brooklyn, 413 Park Avenue. Funny you should ask --

SADY SULLIVAN: You have an amazing memory!

FRANCES HABER: Funny you should ask! [laughter] 413 Park Avenue. Uh, that was not near our house and my father had to take either a Franklin Avenue trolley car and change to another trolley car, or walk in the big snowstorms, or worst 32:00comes to worst the trolley cars didn't run on the account that they couldn't get those huge electrical things that are attached to the wire.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: He would -- we had the elevated trains.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And he took the elevated train and he had to walk in the snow and ice, and I didn't -- you know as a kid I didn't think it was so tough, I didn't know why he -- we didn't have a telephone, but when we finally got one and he called up to see if he can get someone to load his truck and he'd be cursing, you know, and I'd say, "What's he -- it's beautiful, it's snowing?" [laughter]

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And he's so angry and I'm so glad, it's snowing!

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And I guess kids nowadays are like that anyway.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Oh. But, you know, we lived through it and as the neighborhoods changed, my father once came home and said to me, he said, "You know, I know the father of one of your classmates." I said, "That's nice, which one is it?" He said, "The colored one." And I said, "We don't have any colored girls in our 33:00class." She was my best friend and I didn't know she was colored. [laughter]

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh. I mean did she have light skin or you just didn't know?

FRANCES HABER: She didn't have -- her name was, uh, Mildred Dusilza [phonetic].

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And they came from Dutch Guyana, and she didn't have light skin, but she was brought up on Quincy Street.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And uh, she did have little brothers who were black --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- you know, out of a mixed marriage. It wasn't a mixed marriage, they were all black, but you know, various shades of black.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: But this is when it just began.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And I have Mildred's picture in my graduation album.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

FRANCES HABER: I said, "I don't know any black girl in my class." He says, "Her father knows your name and he knows all about you, I would think you would know her too." Which I travelled home on the trolley car with her every day.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: [laughter]

SADY SULLIVAN: So, but I'm confused, were you -- did you not know that she was black because you were a little kid and you just didn't know or did she not look --

FRANCES HABER: I never thought about it!

SADY SULLIVAN: -- Oh. Mm hmm.

FRANCES HABER: I never thought about it. At that she was -- we had had a black girl in our class in elementary school is was Rita Chrisalou [phonetic] and the whole Chris -- Chrisalou [phonetic] family was known, they lived on, uh, Pulaski Street I think.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And they were good students, and they were, you know, it was not like Bedford-Stuyvesant became later on where everybody had to move out.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And uh, I even had a little girl I used to visit there where, there was a father who was a janitor, he was black as the ace of spade and the mother was white and pale and this little girl had blond, kinky hair but she was a baby, she was beautiful!

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And I used to go to visit her, I never even thought about those things, this is what I'm saying.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You know, and this was Willoughby Avenue, where we had Myrtle Avenue on this side and we had DeKalb Avenue on that side. You know, and gradually the neighborhood changed.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And everybody got out, you know. Nearly everybody got out.

SADY SULLIVAN: What was that neighborhood called when you were living there?

FRANCES HABER: Uh, we called it Williamsburg at first because we were [inaudible], first of all. But it was really Bedford-Stuy -- it was really -- not Bedford-Stuyvesant -- it was Stuyvesant Heights.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And uh, then we knew it as Stuyvesant Heights, which sounded much better, where do you live, you live in Stuyvesant Heights, not Williamsburg.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Williamsburg was over toward the bridge and that was where the poorer people lived, but they were all white too.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You know, mostly Jewish, Williamsburg in those days.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Uh, what I didn't know was the word "Hasidic" --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- you know, but uh, at that time I didn't know that. So, uh --

SADY SULLIVAN: And so, who was living in, in your part of Stuyvesant Heights, meaning like the ethnicity.

FRANCES HABER: It was a mixed bag, it was uh, my girlfriend Marsha's father was a laundryman. My girlfriends Esther and Gerty [phonetic] whose mother and father were sisters and brothers, you know, uh --

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, they're in --

FRANCES HABER: And uh, Gerty [phonetic] was dark-skinned, and so was her father. And they were also, besides the fact that their fathers worked on the trains --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- the elevated trains, and I was so proud when I went to pay my mother's bills downtown to get on the train and the trainman knew me and he opened the gate for me.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

FRANCES HABER: And, "hello, Frances," you know, and I'd go in and he'd greet me and I'd sit down and get off the platform and uh, that was -- they were both Mr. Friedlander, so apparently their grandmother, I guess had been married to a Mr. Friedlander who was Jewish.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And she was uh, apparently -- she spoke nice English with a Southern accent, so I think that -- I don't know where -- but she had Christian children in -- I don't know why I'm telling you all this ethnic stuff, but it really is part of the history.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah.

FRANCES HABER: She had Christian children who lived in Massachusetts --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- and Esther and Gerty [phonetic] sometimes would say "We think 37:00she likes her Christian grandchildren better." You know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: [laughter] I don't think so, cause actually she lived in Brooklyn too.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And, um, so there were a couple of careers in the family because in the daytime when the men went to work on the trains, the women took care of the apartment houses by cleaning the floors, showing apartments, collecting rent, you know, doing what superintendent's wives do.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: They were not janitors, because there were janitors too to do the cleaning.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You know, it was not a bad neighborhood. And, uh, we had -- I don't want to --Esther and Gerty [phonetic] lived in the Mayflower. No, Gerty [phonetic] and her sister Claire lived in the Mayflower, they were sisters. Uh, Esther and her sister, Minnie, and -- uh -- Shirley, she had two sisters, they lived in Hoover Court --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- and Hoover was a dirty word at that time.

SADY SULLIVAN: Why? What did that mean?

FRANCES HABER: Hoover was President of the United States when we had the big Depression.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And they asked him what he's gonna do about the big Depression, he said nothing.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And that's what he did.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And so, we all suffered through the Depression, but as you see now through our recession, no matter what you do doesn't seem to help anyway to get the jobs back.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You know, he wasn't going to put any stimulus into whatever it was. Here we put stimulus but who are we stimulating, the bankers? And then they go on trips?

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And everything else with the money? I mean this is the biggest boondoggle in the world, I'm beginning to think Hoover was better.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: At least he wasn't spending our money. Most, most of us do not pay -- uh, we paid taxes in that we paid rent, landlords pay taxes. Those were --I'm sorry, I'm not getting fresh. [laughter] Uh, landlords paid taxes.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Taxes were not known to me, you know at that age. But one day, I 39:00came home and my father was very angry. Now, I'll have to pay taxes, because they had lowered the tax rate, to people who made 3,000 dollars a year.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Actually, he never did have to pay it because he had two children and enough deductions --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- so that by the time -- but of course he had to make out the papers.

SADY SULLIVAN: I see.

FRANCES HABER: And we all know that feeling, whether we pay you or not, we don't like to having to make those papers out and making up those little lies.

SADY SULLIVAN: Right.

FRANCES HABER: You know, I mean if you have uh -- if you're rich enough to have a -- why can I never remember the name of the guy who does your taxes?

SADY SULLIVAN: An accountant?

FRANCES HABER: An accountant do it or a CPA, or whoever --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- does it, so he takes it out of your hands. Then he's calling you every ten minutes asking you questions anyway.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: So, I don't know how much you want to know about early Brooklyn [laughter]

SADY SULLIVAN: Well that's great --

FRANCES HABER: But these were my friends, Marsha Friedman at one end of the 40:00block, Esther and Gerty [phonetic], Esther -- and -- well Esther and Gerty [phonetic] were my friends.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Claire and Minnie were her sister's friends and she had a younger sister Shirley which part of the time was my friend, 'cause I was a little younger than Esther and Gerty [phonetic].

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: So, all very smart girls.

SADY SULLIVAN: And what about other -- did you -- you said something, you mentioned Italian boys --

FRANCES HABER: Oh, well they --

SADY SULLIVAN: -- was there Italians in the neighborhood?

FRANCES HABER: Well the Italians in the neighborhood were not -- my landlord was Italian.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Uh, we were predominantly Jewish, except for we had a Mr. Tims [phonetic] who was a professor at St. John's College, he came from Wisconsin, and he had a lovely beautiful wife, they lived in our building and uh, I didn't have a doll. I had a carriage because one girl moved out, uh, and they gave me a Ratan [phonetic] carriage I wish I had it now.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Because it would've been an antique.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Doll carriage. And the biggest fights evolved because my sister had been sick and been in the hospital and people ordered her a baby doll, and when my mother was cleaning, where do you take the baby doll, you put it in the carriage.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And my sister would come home, "She took my baby doll, which I got for being sick! And she put it in her carriage!" My mother would say, "no I was cleaning and I put it in there."

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter]

FRANCES HABER: You know.

SADY SULLIVAN: And is your sister younger?

FRANCES HABER: My sister was older, four and a half years older.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: She did not like me anywhere near her friends, and of course her friends were my friends because their sisters were my age.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: So, what was I gonna do? Stop having friends because her older sisters were friends? But I don't think you want to know that.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. [laughter] Um, well.

FRANCES HABER: We played in the streets. You really could go out in the street at any time and find a friend.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You know. Go out and play, you find a friend. My father left for 42:00work in the morning around four or five o'clock in the morning, my mother was still sleeping or pretending she was asleep. I'd get dressed and go sit on, there were two steps in front of the apartment building and wait for the milkman to come by with his horse, so if I had some sugar cubes I'd go pet, give this poor horse -- or an apple, I'd give his horse one. I'd give it to everybody.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And, uh, you know, I had no pet, so I that was it.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: That horse came, and I was very happy just seeing the horse.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: 'Cause none of my friends were out.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And everybody said, "What are you doing outside? Go on home, you shouldn't be out here."

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter]

FRANCES HABER: And of course, my father would come by back with his truck cause he used to bring friends home, hot bread.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, nice.

FRANCES HABER: What's that noise I'm listening to?

SADY SULLIVAN: The telephone, do you want me to get it?

FRANCES HABER: Yeah, please.

[Interview interrupted.]

FRANCES HABER: Find out who it is.

SADY SULLIVAN: Is it right here?

FRANCES HABER: Not there, they're not connected.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

FRANCES HABER: The white one, pick the white one.

SADY SULLIVAN: Okay. Does this one answer it?

FRANCES HABER: The French -- pick the white French one.

SADY SULLIVAN: Hello, Mrs. Haber's house?

FRANCES HABER: You have to press a button.

SADY SULLIVAN: Hi, um, hang on just a second. It's Maryann Lefler [phonetic].

FRANCES HABER: Yeah, tell Maryann the girl from Brooklyn is here.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter] Um, I'm -- I'm from the Brooklyn Historical Society. I'm interviewing Frances right now. Okay.

FRANCES HABER: Ask -- ask her if there's anything important!

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, she said -- she hung up. She said that she'd call you back later.

FRANCES HABER: Alright. Thank you.

SADY SULLIVAN: Sure. Oh. All right.

FRANCES HABER: I don't know, you know, what you want to emphasize, and I --

SADY SULLIVAN: Well --

FRANCES HABER: -- and I know, I know I'm telling you so much trivia, that's so 44:00much garbage that nobody even wants to know.

SADY SULLIVAN: No, this is -- this is really good details that I like to know. We do want to talk about -- we do want to focus on the Navy Yard eventually. But we'll get there, because this is -- you have such --

FRANCES HABER: Is that where you met Mr. Sparr? Where did you say you could see him again?

SADY SULLIVAN: Um, he's part of the Navy Yard history center.

FRANCES HABER: All right.

SADY SULLIVAN: He's part of the group --

FRANCES HABER: If I can't find my book, you can find Mr. Sparr, because he mentions me a lot in the book --

SADY SULLIVAN: Yes.

FRANCES HABER: -- because whatever information he got about the personnel anyway, but he also has pictures of the water, of the ships and anybody who worked in the Navy Yard, I feel, this week would've been very happy to see the USS sail -- the part -- the seal parts -- are you aware of what I'm talking about?

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, the -- from the -- from New York Harbor?

FRANCES HABER: Yeah, well the USS -- the United States ship was built with steel 45:00from World Trade Center wreckage.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, no I didn't know that.

FRANCES HABER: Oh, that's something to know ---

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

FRANCES HABER: -- because they gathered up the -- you know in World War II --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- most of the stuff that the Japanese threw at us was our scrap steel, at least our scrap steel went to our ship this time.

SADY SULLIVAN: Right.

FRANCES HABER: I say our ship.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: But in the Navy Yard we built the Missouri.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: I didn't build the Missouri, I was a clerk typist. But, you know, you did tasks associated with it, and the Missouri was new work, and I was in repair.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: So, a lot of the ships even that come in today when I hear about Kearsarge, and I hear about this ship and that ship, I kept records of the costs, they were phony records anyway. You know, the government would, had to shell it out whatever it had to shell out.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: The cost of labor and materials and uh, movements of the ships 46:00because the ships would get moved and the supervisors and the men would have to know where they're working that day. Like if they would take a ship -- a ship and put it in dry dock and you know, the Navy Yard was a big place and the man goes to dry dock and the next day and they moved it, or Bayonne even. So I kept, which was to me, very confidential job, you know I felt very important with that job because they would call up and ask for me and give me the information but the object in giving it to me was that that I could -- we didn't have duplicators, you know mimeographs.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Well there were mimeographs with these blue things that got -- that got blue ink all over you --

SADY SULLIVAN: The roller things?

FRANCES HABER: -- yeah, something. We didn't have one.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: So, I had to type up copies of these things for the supervisors, so they could tell their men, 'cause that was confidential information, not to be given out until the given time.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. So, would that happen every day? You'd have to send them --

FRANCES HABER: I don't remember. It happened when it happened, actually.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Uh, Navy Yard ran on a twenty-four hour basis, there was no such thing as Navy Yard stops.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Um, well let's -- I want to get to the Navy Yard stuff and we'll talk about a lot of details --

FRANCES HABER: Well that's Navy Yard stuff.

SADY SULLIVAN: But let's -- let's first -- I just had a question, um, you told me before that your mom had a beauty parlor?

FRANCES HABER: My mother had a beauty parlor on Tompkins Avenue, across the street from a park called Tompkins Park, and that was between Van Buren and Lafayette.

SADY SULLIVAN: Ah.

FRANCES HABER: Actually, the park was between Greene and Lafayette.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And, on the other side it was Tompkins Avenue, Marcy Avenue, and Bedford Avenue.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Now, when they built the Independent Subway --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- prior to that we had, uh, IRT and BMT --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Which was Interborough Rapid Transit and -- I don't know what it was --Brooklyn -- Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Were two private subway lines.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And they were eventually consolidated, and that was about the same time that I went to work as a transit cop, I wasn't really -- we call it a transit cop -- I wasn't working for the Transit Authority, as a matter of fact I was only a provisional because they had been those Civil Service tests during World War II.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. Um, so, going -- going back in time cause we'll --

FRANCES HABER: The reason I told you this little bit of information --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- Is to my knowledge, that's how it became known as Bedford-Stuyvesant, because that was the name of that -- that station.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, right. I remember you telling me that on the phone.

FRANCES HABER: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: So that was the --

FRANCES HABER: And after I told you that, I'm saying, but you know Stuyvesant -- 49:00Stuyvesant Avenue to my knowledge was not near that subway station.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: But it was known as Bedford-Stuy -- Stuyvesant --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And when the neighborhood became a -- became the hood, it began being known as Bed-Stuy.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And then when uh, Ms. Ethel Kennedy, she did a restoration, you must be aware of that --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You know, that was a Bed-Stuy restoration.

SADY SULLIVAN: Right, right. Um, so your mom's beauty parlor, who was the clientele there?

FRANCES HABER: Nationality-wise or what?

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah.

FRANCES HABER: Oh, there were poor people. My mother got three items for a dollar.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And, she didn't make a lot of money, perm and a wave you could get for two, fifty, if you wanted just the ends.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And, you know, if they had the machines with the wires hanging down, you ever see them?

SADY SULLIVAN: Like the big dryers?

FRANCES HABER: No, it wasn't a dryer. It was uh, what they called a krogonal 50:00[phonetic], uh, one was krogonal [phonetic], one was spiral, they called that a spiral machine. If you wanted like, long curls --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- if you wanted a softer perm and a wave, if you were an adult --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- you got that and they wound it around like you would a child's long curl.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

FRANCES HABER: And, but women generally got krogonal [phonetic], it was cheap but they rolled it up and they put a lot of silver paper on it and then they put some hot clamps on it, and they became machine-less waves because a lot of women were afraid of the machines, afraid of getting electrocuted.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

FRANCES HABER: Sitting under all those wires.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And there were many accidents that happened in those days.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, no!

FRANCES HABER: Yeah, women's necks got burnt from the -- you know the hot, uh, things that they put on your neck.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: 'Cause I went to beauty school, I went to beauty school on Atlantic Avenue.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh!

FRANCES HABER: And for some reason or another they called it -- Manhattan/Brooklyn School, or the Manhattan Beauty School

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- but it was in Brooklyn --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- and it was across the street from the Long Island Railroad --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. When did you go there?

FRANCES HABER: After I got out of high school, I couldn't get a job --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- and my mother figured even though she considered herself a staunch union lady, pro-union because my father was very pro-union, she hated the idea of giving a worker -- sixteen, fifty minimum change -- minimum pay --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: So, if she had her children working for her, she gave us eight dollars.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter]

FRANCES HABER: And, of course, we lived there and ate there, so she felt justified.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. So, after high school you went to beauty school and then worked in your mom's beauty parlor?

FRANCES HABER: I didn't work there much, I didn't like working there. I didn't want to be a beautician. I didn't want to work for my mother mainly.

SADY SULLIVAN: Right.

FRANCES HABER: And I don't know that another beautician would've hired me because, uh, times were bad, there were not -- they -- they had -- the unions had now come in and you had to pay a sixteen, fifty minimum wage.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: It doesn't sound like much money to you, but before they used to be giving --

SADY SULLIVAN: Was that per week, or --

FRANCES HABER: Per week.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Before they used to be giving them eight, ten dollars for whatever you can get -- we had a young man who worked for my mother, he got a little more money cause he was a big, good looking guy, who the women liked to have work on them.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Larry, his name was. I don't know his last name. And, uh, maybe he maybe got a dollar or two more.

SADY SULLIVAN: So, and --

FRANCES HABER: And he brought clientele with him, you know, that was another thing, if a beauty person, even I guess today, goes to work into a beauty shop, and they've left another place, and they tell their old clients who like the way they do their hair and whatever the story is, well those people might go to the new place --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- so they're bringing in clientele.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: I don't know if you wanna know all this.

SADY SULLIVAN: I do, I do.

FRANCES HABER: You do?

SADY SULLIVAN: Um, and, so then I'm curious because I forgot to ask, although I 53:00know this, you went to Eastern District High School.

FRANCES HABER: Eastern District High School, and there's the yearbook that you saw.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yes --

FRANCES HABER: Bring it over.

SADY SULLIVAN: -- and you graduated in 1941.

FRANCES HABER: Yeah, '41, that was the year World War II began.

SADY SULLIVAN: And --

FRANCES HABER: And all that year I couldn't get a job, I mean I can get just temporary jobs through U.S. Employment, and they -- they had they wouldn't allow me to use a typewriter, I had to print everything by hand.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm.

FRANCES HABER: And, uh, you had to know your geography, and we made up cards that were sent out to people in the United States, so if a man was --- if he made shoes, uh, and he had something to sell to a shoe manufacturer, he had all these cards with names and addresses of people all over the United States. We didn't have computers ---

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Even telephone books, a lot people didn't have telephones.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Yeah, must've been in a [inaudible] mood one day.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah, this is great.

FRANCES HABER: My name is Frances Haber, it's alphabetical.

SADY SULLIVAN: All right, let me look. So, this is your yearbook from --

FRANCES HABER: My yearbook from high school.

SADY SULLIVAN: From Eastern District High School, oh and there's a good photo of the building. Marcy Avenue and Keap Street --

FRANCES HABER: Yes, and that building was built in 1895.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, wow.

FRANCES HABER: I've pretty much forgotten what order that's in. I guess we were pretty much like high school kids all over.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. Oh, this is neat, there's a section called Our Town, a series of sketches about Williamsburg.

FRANCES HABER: Oh, we had a lot -- lot of very talented kids in our school.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah.

FRANCES HABER: Uh, you know, imagine these kids come out, mostly look forward to going to college.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Uh, a lot of them did though, they managed to work their way in eventually.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You know, uh, and uh, but a lot of them were good writers. I was a good writer too, but I was a lazy kid, and I didn't really wanna sit down and do schoolwork to begin with.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. I like this, the Melting Pot, this was sort of what I was asking about, who was living in your neighborhood and you were describing --

FRANCES HABER: Well, we had the Polish people that came because we had an annex in Greenpoint --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- and who came from that annex were the boys. guess if they were Jewish mothers, they didn't want their sons to go to, uh, co-ed high school and they sent them to Boys High because they felt they wouldn't be distracted by girls.

SADY SULLIVAN: Right.

FRANCES HABER: I mean, this is my own opinion --

SADY SULLIVAN: Yes.

FRANCES HABER: But, we didn't have that many boys in our class, and yet I'm sure there were just as many boys our age in the neighborhood as there were girls.

SADY SULLIVAN: That's interesting.

FRANCES HABER: More maybe.

SADY SULLIVAN: Right.

FRANCES HABER: More, because they had bigger families, and somehow or other bigger families usually had more boys.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. Oh, wow, so this has one essay called The Melting Pot --

FRANCES HABER: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: -- by Yvette Fine [phonetic] --

FRANCES HABER: Oh, there were a lot of, as I said, a lot of very smart girls that even kind of foresaw what was worth having, we had people who turned out to be great people, I don't -- I can't think of who they are now.

SADY SULLIVAN: I also like that it's spelled Williamsburgh with an "h" at the end, I don't see that very often anymore.

FRANCES HABER: Oh, well they do down south.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. And then, this is a neat photo of the Williamsburg Bridge.

FRANCES HABER: Well, when my neighborhood became Bedford-Stuyvesant, there was still Williamsburg, and the Williamsburg Bridge, if you took Tompkins Avenue trolley car, it would take you over to Delancey Street --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- and Orchard Street --

SADY SULLIVAN: Right.

FRANCES HABER: -- and those streets were fabulous, because you can go there and if you had a few bucks, you could buy a few bras for a three dollars and a few 57:00pair of -- pairs of panties, which you know, you'd have to pay a little more money in a local corset store that some woman ran by herself.

SADY SULLIVAN: Right.

FRANCES HABER: Did you find me?

SADY SULLIVAN: I did find you.

FRANCES HABER: Yeah, I -- I cut the picture out to have uh, uh, my mother kept my, my photo and at first I said I wanted -- she only let me have one made, and she said "I paid for it, it's mine," you know, and eventually she gave it to me --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- but uh, so I cut the thing out of -- I had the picture made, and uh, I colored it and painted it, and put it back in.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, good. And so it says here --

FRANCES HABER: "Skills equally with voice and pen to soothe and something to hearts and minds and then."

SADY SULLIVAN: Yes.

FRANCES HABER: I gotta tell you something about that story.

SADY SULLIVAN: What was that about?

FRANCES HABER: I was on the knock and boost committee along with another girl named Ruth Weidberg --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- and we got to choose our own sayings out of Bartlett's 58:00Familiar Quotations.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

FRANCES HABER: And, I -- Ruth picked mine, but she wanted me to pick one about, uh, she had a nice figure --

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter]

FRANCES HABER: -- uh, "A beautiful woman nobly planned, to love and something and command."

SADY SULLIVAN: Let's find her, what was her last name?

FRANCES HABER: W-E-I-D-B-E-R-G, she was also a very smart girl. And we were the knock and boost committee.

SADY SULLIVAN: What is "knock and boost?"

FRANCES HABER: Well, knock and boost, you can either write something good or bad.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, I see.

FRANCES HABER: We didn't name it, we just were -- it had that name as we came along.

SADY SULLIVAN: Is this her?

FRANCES HABER: Is the name W-E-I-D-B-E-R-G?

SADY SULLIVAN: Yep. Ruth Weidberg.

FRANCES HABER: "A perfect woman nobly planned?"

SADY SULLIVAN: Um, "The glass of fashion" --

FRANCES HABER: Oh.

SADY SULLIVAN: -- "and the mold of form, the observed of all observers."

FRANCES HABER: I don't know why I thought she -- it said "a perfect woman nobly planned to love to cherish and command."

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

FRANCES HABER: That's what I thought it said.

SADY SULLIVAN: No, I don't know. Maybe it says that in another place.

FRANCES HABER: Nah, it probably doesn't say that at all. She probably changed it.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. [laughter]

FRANCES HABER: Yeah, she probably found something she liked better, because that's what we did.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You take care of me, I'll take care of you.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: The rest of them had to depend upon us to do theirs --

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh --

FRANCES HABER: -- they didn't get to pick theirs.

SADY SULLIVAN: -- so you, that means you were on the knock and boost committee, so you chose all of these quotes for all of these students.

FRANCES HABER: Yeah, well we had to choose them from the Bartlett's Quotations --

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

FRANCES HABER: We didn't make them up.

SADY SULLIVAN: That's so fun.

FRANCES HABER: These are, these are out of Great Works, these, uh --

SADY SULLIVAN: Right, the Bartlett's Quotations.

FRANCES HABER: Yeah --

SADY SULLIVAN: So, these are --

FRANCES HABER: I probably have a Bartlett's Quotations even in there.

SADY SULLIVAN: So, you would choose based on something about the person.

FRANCES HABER: Well, uh, mostly they were flattering, like we had boy Jerry 60:00Bloomberg, he was good looking, he was smiling, he was redheaded, and uh, you know, it was a joy to look at him, and that's what, whatever we picked for him -- denoted, I can't tell you any of the other things I, uh, maybe, maybe, the other one that I said, was for Ruth Sherman.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

FRANCES HABER: She also had a -- well she didn't have a nice figure for nowadays, she was just a straight little girl who wore sweaters.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter]

FRANCES HABER: No, you know, she's we didn't have much to wear either, you know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. This is that one, Ruth Sherman. "A perfect woman, nobly planned, to warm, to comfort, and command."

FRANCES HABER: Oh, to think I haven't seen these people for how many years.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah.

FRANCES HABER: I'm eighty-six now, so it's about sixty-five years, seventy years.

SADY SULLIVAN: Wow. And so, your activities, you were on the honor roll, the knock and boost committee, um, you were secretary of the biology club, and you --

FRANCES HABER: Ah, you know I didn't do anything, I picked up the phone and I --

SADY SULLIVAN: Um, camera club --

FRANCES HABER: You just sat in the office so nobody come and steal the pens.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter] Oh, well this is really neat. It's neat to see your --

FRANCES HABER: You know, you gave up your lunch period, and you'd gain some credits and you'd be important because you'd be, uh, they didn't like me 'cause I got a big mouth.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. Um, what do you mean? What kind of -- why was that not?

FRANCES HABER: Well I'd butt into conversations, you know, I was the typical Williamsburg girl [laughter]

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. Was that -- was that a gender thing? Like they didn't want the girls to be as loud as the guys?

FRANCES HABER: That was an inherited thing from my mother.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

FRANCES HABER: She wanted attention, she got the stick and she banged on the thing and she wanted this guy, believe me, no girl was gonna get him. He didn't know what happened to him.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter] All right, so when did your family move to California --

FRANCES HABER: You finished with this?

SADY SULLIVAN: Well I'm gonna put it -- just for now because I wanna keep asking you questions.

FRANCES HABER: Okay. When did my family move to California?

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Uh, sometime I, I was working for the War Department from the beginning of the War, the first week of the War, I got called to, uh, 49 Whitehall Street.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: For -- I didn't even know where it was at the time.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: I was in Manhattan, and that was what would've been around World Trade Center.

SADY SULLIVAN: Right.

FRANCES HABER: And, uh, I was not familiar with that neighborhood.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Except where the employment agencies were. Where I had not for a whole year been able to get a job and my mother thought I was faking.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: That's why she sent me off to beauty school. Well, as soon as she learned I was getting a job that earned money, I was able to quit beauty school. 63:00She spent 100 dollars for that, lost her money.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: [laughter] And --

SADY SULLIVAN: But you got -- so you got a job, is that where you took the Civil Service?

FRANCES HABER: Uh, I took the Civil Service when I took the job, I was unemployed, and that's also an interesting story, when I think of it. My father, he always thought he could better himself, and you know, everybody does.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And he was driving a bakery truck and he was making a living, you know, was the way we lived. We didn't get much, but, you know, we were better off than a lot of other people.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: At least we had two breads a day. [laughter]

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And, uh, we, food was cheap. A man came around, Italian man, would come around with a horse and wagon, and maybe three other guys, "Ah, senora, senora what I give you today?" The woman say "What's that?" he's "broccoli, you never hear of broccoli?" she never heard of broccoli, "you take 64:00it and you boil the water, and you put the salt in and you put it on the table, and your whole family -- you know he'd give her a big, and he'd sing, "Oh, [inaudible]," and a woman upstairs would call down and that's how streets were.

SADY SULLIVAN: That's amazing.

FRANCES HABER: Well that's, those were the Brooklyn streets.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah.

FRANCES HABER: Kids would -- we had no elevators, kids would call, "Ma, ma, throw me down a penny," --

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter]

FRANCES HABER: -- "there's a man selling גרגירי חומוס," you know גרגירי חומוס in Jewish is, uh, you don't know Italian, pasta ceci, ceci beans? Chickpeas.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

FRANCES HABER: Chickpeas, you know chickpeas.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: In the desert, in the Bible, the Jews who were traveling forty years, they had chickpeas, because they would heat them in the sand and eat them.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: I don't know if that comes into this because that's not Brooklyn.

SADY SULLIVAN: But that's a really neat story. [laughter]

FRANCES HABER: Well, they -- you know, how did they survive for forty years in the desert? Uh, because they were dried vegetables, the chickpeas.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And if they were ever to get to water, you know or they could -- who knows what they ate, you know?

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: But Jews were always very careful about not eating meat.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And uh, you know, because when -- it was not Kosher. They didn't have chickens -- although I guess wherever they rested they seemed to have a few chickens or something they ate. Well you know, mostly you think of Jews eating chicken soup with noodles and uh --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- matzoh balls in there. [laughter]

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. [laughter]

FRANCES HABER: What do you think of Jews as eating?

SADY SULLIVAN: Um, well, I --

FRANCES HABER: 'Cause you don't live in a Jewish neighborhood, so you don't get exposed to much Jewish food.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, but I've -- I've helped -- I -- in college my roommate always --

FRANCES HABER: Where'd you go to college?

SADY SULLIVAN: Wellesley, in Massachusetts.

FRANCES HABER: Wellesley! That's fancy.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter] Yes, and my roommate was the president of, of Hillel at Wellesley --

FRANCES HABER: Oh.

SADY SULLIVAN: -- And so I would always help her make the latkes every time --

FRANCES HABER: Oh, oh well you are [inaudible].

SADY SULLIVAN: -- So I have made thousands of latkes. [laughter]

FRANCES HABER: Yeah, can you make a spinach latke?

SADY SULLIVAN: No, I've never made a spinach latke.

FRANCES HABER: You make it like you make other latkes.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You mix it with a little potato mix too because uh, you know it'll hold it together --

SADY SULLIVAN: That sounds good.

FRANCES HABER: -- And egg and matzo meal, and you make a batter, then you drop it in a fryer. Or else you could go like this and, [inaudible] you know if you want to [inaudible]. They're very good.

SADY SULLIVAN: That sounds really good.

FRANCES HABER: Yeah. You can buy them in the supermarket, they're expensive, they're about three-something a box.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And it's "Doctor" -- I forgot the name, the name is "Doctor" something.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Spinach pancakes --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- Very, very American.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. [laughter]

FRANCES HABER: Skinny, very American.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: But you make it at home yourself, you put egg in it, and uh, 67:00matzo meal --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- And you could use frozen, chopped spinach.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: If they have fresh spinach or whatever, and you can make a meal with that.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You know, it's a dairy meal if you don't like to eat too much meat.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And uh, [laughter], ya can make it in bacon fat if ya wanna feel better, but uh --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- But, generally they use oil, uh butter, we ate a lot of things all fried in butter.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Eggs fried in butter, you know everything else. But my mother when she fried and nobody was looking, she used Wesson oil, peanut oil --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- And stuff like that.

SADY SULLIVAN: What kind of food did you grow up eating?

FRANCES HABER: Every kind of food except we didn't have an un-Kosher food in our house.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Uh, I ate -- when I discovered Trent's on Broadway -- you know Broadway? In Brooklyn?

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Okay, so, uh, there used to be a Woolworth's on Broadway in 68:00Brooklyn, and uh --we didn't have much money, but if you had a nickel you could get, it wasn't a malted exactly, it was a cold drink, you know, I always the cold drink, it was made with frozen milk and strawberry and they put it in the machine --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm.

FRANCES HABER: -- And uh, you know, it would be, uh, milk would be mostly water anyway.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You know, they weren't using whole milk, they were mixing it with water, they kept it in, uh, do you know a malted milk, uh, tin that they use to make malted milks. The silver cups they stick in the malted milk machine?

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, like the tall -- oh yeah those --

FRANCES HABER: The candy stores would keep them in the freezer.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Or they took them out and they put the icy milk in it, they could fake it because they could take the scoop and just lift it like that, you think they're taking a whole scoop of ice cream in, put just a little bit of ice cream and the rest is ice.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: But it's delicious just the same.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And you put the powder in the uh -- well, you're going to learn a 69:00lot from me, how to make a malted!

SADY SULLIVAN: I know! [laughter]

FRANCES HABER: Yeah, well. Do the best you can, use non-skim -- use the skim milk, freeze it --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- A little frozen ice if you can --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- And whatever flavoring you have, you have a little strawberry jam, or you know, whatever it is.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Whatever syrup you have.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Chocolate syrup.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. Um, so let's talk about, you worked, you were working somewhere in California, that was related to the war effort.

FRANCES HABER: Yes.

SADY SULLIVAN: What were you doing there?

FRANCES HABER: I was working for Douglas Aircraft, well, I couldn't -- when I got to California, they wouldn't give me a job -- I went to the War Department first thing, I figured, here I am, I'm experienced, I know recruiting and induction, I can make up the whole service pamphlets for the men, and I went in there and there was a man there. He must've been coming out of the bathroom, he had on his [inaudible]. And, he just came out --- and I had taken a long trip 70:00cause everything in California is far away. I always thought it was like Brooklyn, you get on it and in fifteen minutes you're there on the trolley car.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You can go to the East Side in a half -- in less than a half hour.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You know, but uh, you would ride and every few blocks, they'd come and ask you for another nickel. So, I'd gone to Olvera Street, which is a Mexican neighborhood because they had their federal building there, and at that time in California, there were no real high buildings because it was against the law because of earthquakes.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: I don't know what changed them, because they build them now, but they probably build them better, I don't know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: I was at the Federal Building. I was out of there in two minutes. He said, "Are you a native son?" I said, "Son? Do I look like a son?" Or, something like that, I was not fresh then.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You know, I had read a book before that about a black man in the South who spoke to a white woman, and they wanted to lynch him, and so he ran 71:00away. His name was Bigger, and he ran away, and uh, they eventually lynched him.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: That's why it was called Native Son, because he's born here. Native Son, Richard Wright wrote it. I don't remember when I went to the bathroom last, but I mean I can remember the books.

SADY SULLIVAN: So, was he -- so you had read this book --

FRANCES HABER: So, I had read that, and I was wondering why is he asking me am I a native son as he said, is it 'cause he thinks I'm black? I was as fair as could be, I -- I had -- when I was a child, I had white hair, it was as white as it is now, you know --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- as I got to teenager it began turning ash color --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- and as I grew older, it was still blond, but you know, dirty blond.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: So, I used peroxide, and I was always a blond.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And, you know, you can see my eyebrows and my eyelashes and that 72:00was the pride of my family.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: So, uh --

SADY SULLIVAN: So, what did he mean by saying -- asking you if you were --

FRANCES HABER: Are you a native son? What he meant was, are you a native Californian?

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Nobody was a native Californian but the Mexicans.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And the Indians. Who was a native Californian?

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: So, uh, he said "I have nothing for you." And there was no Depression there, they needed me, but he didn't want me.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And so, I left.

SADY SULLIVAN: Why do you think -- was it -- so there's --

FRANCES HABER: It was prejudice, I told him I came from Brooklyn.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- And I was a New Yorker, it was prejudice.

SADY SULLIVAN: Was he prejudiced because you were a New Yorker? Or a woman? Or Jewish background? Or what?

FRANCES HABER: How do I know? He didn't know what background I was because we didn't get that far.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: But they did ask you in those days on an employment application --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- What your, who your pastor was or whatever words they used that would --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- That a Jewish girl didn't know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Right, mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And what church did you attend?

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You know. I would know because I knew Italian boys, so if they went to, what was it called? Saint -- Saint Blaise -- they went to a church because they used to have a, uh, Italian musicians come out and play Italian songs --

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

FRANCES HABER: -- That, you know, kids would dance to in the gutter.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: In front of the Saint Blaise.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: So, but I, I wouldn't do that, I wouldn't lie on an application.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: But I was always hurt, you know, because you were asked, you know --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- I don't think he could tell I was Jewish, I was very, you know, very fair and very everything. They didn't expect Jewish children to be that fair.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And, uh, and they weren't because they came from Russia.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Although Russian kids could be that fair, but I mean, uh, fewer Jewish kids usually had dark hair.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: In my experience, but, see I had a girlfriend she had like light 74:00brown hair, so her mother used to buy Marchand's Rinse which was really peroxide --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- And -- to bring her hair to my color because she liked it.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. And so, what did you do when you didn't get a job there?

FRANCES HABER: I didn't get the job that day and I was very discouraged because my sister and I arrived in California with very little money, we had a nice room that this cousin had found for us. It had a little dressing room --

SADY SULLIVAN: Excuse me.

FRANCES HABER: You want a Kleenex?

SADY SULLIVAN: Nope, I'm all set, just a sneeze.

FRANCES HABER: Okay, uh, we had nicer furniture than we had, it was a bedroom with twin beds. Uh, she said he bought it second hand but it looked pretty good to me.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You know, although we had nice beds too, but my parents bought metal beds, they're called Simmons beds, and you know, in Brooklyn they're always worried about bedbugs.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: So, uh, you know, when you live in nice sunny California or something, you didn't have that problem. Not that I know of, anyway.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Everything was fresh air and sunshine.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And uh, the woman was very nice to us, but we had cooking privileges, we shared a bathroom with a man and a boy, we hardly ever saw them, so it was nice. I went to work as a riveter, they sent me to school on a midnight. I was only eighteen, nineteen years old, here I am traveling to Santa Monica and I -- I had a -- this cousin said they're hiring in Douglas Aircraft. Well I heard they were hiring, I figured they need clerk typists, I was a good stenographer, I was a good typist, but if they didn't wanna use you for that, they weren't gonna use you for that.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: So, when I got there, and it took me like an hour and a half to get there, uh, I found the employment office and you went in these places, they were bigger than the Navy Yard, but you know --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- they were tremendous where they built airplanes.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And inside and outside and hangars and I'm walking through the streets. And, you know, I was a kid from the streets, but California, gee. So anyway, I got the job and they sent me to school at night.

SADY SULLIVAN: To learn how to --

FRANCES HABER: To learn riveting and drilling.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And um, people were nice, because they were not Californians either. What happened was when the War began, the Okies and the Arkies, people from Oklahoma and Arkansas, who really were worse -- much worse off, got into their jalopies and they all traveled into California to find work.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And they were really nice people, they used to say to me, "You talk so funny." [laughter] And I used to listen to them, "You talk so funny. You say a winter coat? That ain't a winter coat, it's a winter coat, a winter coat." Cause I said, you know, I just -- I went to work and I put a deposit down on a 77:00winter coat, you know? What else kinda conversation can you make with people?

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter]

FRANCES HABER: They says, "Win-ter coat, what kinda coat is that?" I said, "The kinda coat you wear and it gets cold and it snows." "Ohh, you mean a winter coat!" And every time I opened my mouth I was saying something wrong.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter] Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And, uh, but they were lucky, they had jeans. I had never seen girls in jeans before.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh!

FRANCES HABER: We had to buy overalls, you know. Or jeans at that time. I had to spend my money, you know, buy safety shoes and jeans.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Anyway, that night, one night I got sick. I had arrived there at work, put myself on, and I got sick, and I thought I just couldn't make it anymore. So, they let me go sick, so I walked up a few blocks to where the bus stop was, and I waited, I waited an hour. The buses stopped running at night! And I had to go all the way back to the section where I lived which was known as 78:00Wilshire. I didn't know the names of all the buses --

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

FRANCES HABER: -- I knew I took the La Brea bus, you know, and stuff like that, and I had to keep a lot of other things in my head. Luckily, they had benches in the bus stops, so I sat down and I saw a woman in the house across the street, and I'll never forget this house -- had a big oval glass in the doorway, it was rather a nice house, it must've been about -- it was after midnight, and they must've heard terrible things about all the people coming into California, because I crossed the street, I climbed the wooden steps, and the woman looked at me, I was still a kid, and I was trying to say, could she do something about getting me transportation. I didn't have enough money, but I knew my sister had some money, if he got me home I could get the money and pay him for, you know, whatever it was.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Uh, she pulled the shade down.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh! Wow.

FRANCES HABER: So, I stayed there till daylight till the buses began running, I sat on the bench.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, that must've been scary.

FRANCES HABER: No police cars, huh?

SADY SULLIVAN: Was it scary to be --

FRANCES HABER: It wasn't scary because there was nobody out that was bothering me.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And I came from Brooklyn, people didn't bother me, I was not afraid of people.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You know, coming from Brooklyn, you learn there are all kinds of people.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And you talk to all kinds of people.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: It wasn't until later on that you got scared, that the neighborhoods are changing, people are getting held up, these are people coming from the South, never had anything, now they see people who have pocketbooks --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- you know, or whatever it was.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Uh, the first time I ever became aware of two black people. I thought all black people were relatives, or something because there were two 80:00people with stockings on their heads, a man and a woman. He had a pail in his hand, he was laughing, she was laughing, and they were workers, they were going into this house, and I told ya that a lot of people had -- had bypassed the Depression --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- they had money, they owned property --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- and they had servants, but they were having a, you know, a few good laughs and so did I. And I just stood there and looked at them, you know --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- and I thought oh, they must be brother and sister or what -- you know I didn't even know what I thought, you know I was just watching them because they were different.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And, uh, not that Jewish people weren't different.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: They were very different, they all spoke with different accents, they came from different places in Europe.

SADY SULLIVAN: Right.

FRANCES HABER: But, everybody managed to get along, really, we -- you know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: My mother was a fighter, my mother would argue, uh, she had an argument with a woman over, she said that woman sorta came into her house, ah, 81:00kitchen table and took a Little Orphan Annie book. She didn't, I --I don't think she did. I mean, they had this big fight in the street, and everybody's yelling, "Fight! Fight! Fight her!" and I real --- I found out why later on, my father had been invited to an apartment upstairs to play cards with the men, and my mother didn't like being left out. She always thought she could sit with the women and gossip or whatever it is women did --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- exchange rem -- rem -- and she sent me up to get my father, and I had to climb the stairs in that building up to that apartment, and that's when I was frightened, and these were all my old people --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- But I was frightened because my mother and Mrs. Koppelman [phonetic] were having a fight in the street. It ended up being nothing but everybody's yelling "Fight! Fight! Fight!" my father came down and took my mother home.

SADY SULLIVAN: Wow!

FRANCES HABER: This was the kind of excitement you had.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter] Wow. And so --

FRANCES HABER: I don't know what you wanna put in the story, but my mother and father are dead, so they won't know what you put.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter] So why did your family move to California?

FRANCES HABER: We received a postcard from my father's cousin, his name was Irving, Irving Haber, and he was describing the glories of California. It showed orange orchards, I think that's why I gave you the oranges.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: It showed orange orchards, and he said, "You could reach out your window and pick an orange in in the morning." You couldn't. You did, you got arrested because that belonged to somebody else.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter]

FRANCES HABER: You know, you were riding along the bus and you passed an orange orchard, you were not allowed to take an orchard that was hanging off -- I'm sure lots of people did but you know --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- You were not lot allowed to because that belonged to the property of that man. In Brooklyn, I don't think we learned about property values like that.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm.

FRANCES HABER: 'Cause people didn't have much anyway, who, who had oranges? Who had apples?

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: I mean, the only thing that I ever saw, uh, was there's was some neighbors that had little blue flowers, we called them bluebells, they really weren't, they were just weeds.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And one day I wanted a flower, I know I went in and took one, and I got scolded, I was told I can't go to somebody else's property and pick the flowers, you know?

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Most people would give you a flower if you were a child.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: If it was a real flower, I don't remember anybody gave -- 'cause there weren't many flowers in Brooklyn except if you went to Brooklyn Botanic Gardens.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Which was one of the most beautiful places in the world.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You know, Japanese people came to Brooklyn to see the cherry blossom trees.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. It is beautiful. So --

FRANCES HABER: And when I was in the 7A, my parents had already moved to Crown Heights, but I didn't wanna go to school in the new school, I wanted to finish with my friends in Brooklyn. My mother ended up not letting me, but I did 84:00anyway, cause -- cost ten cents a day for coffee, oh she also had to give me lunch money. Whereas the other way she just left a sandwich or something for lunch. She got up in the morning and cooked, I can't say she didn't, she made those spinach pancakes --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- She made salmon pancakes, you know, something that would serve for lunch. She made a salad, uh, you know, she always could think of something to make, that she could.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. So, your family moved out to California because a cousin had --

FRANCES HABER: He wrote about, this -- come on out -- they were lonely.

SADY SULLIVAN: Right.

FRANCES HABER: And, uh, people were settling this area called Wilshire.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And that was a beautiful area, we had never seen houses like that, they were all white and you walked in and you had rugs in the halls --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- And mirrors, you know --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- It wore off because I missed Brooklyn, I really did --

SADY SULLIVAN: Yeah --

FRANCES HABER: In Brooklyn we had marble halls, on a rainy day you'd go sit in -- we had a front hall, you know, that's where the doorbells were --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- and then you had another hall that lead to the stairs --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- and, uh, we had a super who washed those floors everyday. We had -- it was clean house, I told you that was where we had the landlord that owned the ice cream factory.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, yes, but tell me, where was his ice cream factory?

FRANCES HABER: On Myrtle Avenue.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

FRANCES HABER: Sunshine Ice Cream Factory. But when his daughter got married, he gave her an apartment in our building -- I say our building, it was his building --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And, uh, they assembled in the biggest part of the hall, and she must've had about six or eight bridesmaids, and they were all dressed in pink and green, the horsehair hats were green, they were made of -- they called horsehair, I don't know if you know what it is.

SADY SULLIVAN: No, I don't know what that is.

FRANCES HABER: It's a kind of straw that's very thin --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- And it has like a full brim --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- And they had pink roses, and the girls had dresses like old-fashioned kind --saw Williamsburg style, I mean you know, George Washington style --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- skirts --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- green dresses, you know, and they carried pink roses, and they were all the most beautiful girls in the world -- they were all Italian girls as the -- as far as I knew --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- And his daughter's name became Mrs. DeStefano [phonetic].

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Everyone once in a while I see that name I'm, "I wonder if any of these children are hers."

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And she got the apartment in his building, he thought enough of his own building and his own tenants that he gave his daughter an apartment there --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- And I told ya, we had this, this, St. John's College, uh, 87:00professor --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- Who came to live in our building too --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- And when Mrs. Tims [phonetic], this is funny because he washed the floors everyday, when she expected company, she got out on her hands and knees and scrubbed the stairs.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: So, we got the feeling that maybe it was constantly cleaner, I don't know.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter]

FRANCES HABER: See my mother used to like to sit out, we lived on the ground floor, and she used to like to stick her read end out the window and wash our windows with Bon Ami. You know, that's a big job doing windows with Bon Ami.

SADY SULLIVAN: What's Bon Ami?

FRANCES HABER: Oh, I see you're naïve.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter]

FRANCES HABER: Bon Ami is a little box of white powder that has a little chick on it that says, "Hasn't scratched yet", and you would use it to clean silverware --

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh!

FRANCES HABER: -- Or glass, you know, cut glass --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You know where they sell it? They sell it at the Vermont store.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

FRANCES HABER: They sell all of these old products.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And nobody wants to do that much work because after you put that white powder on, like if you put it on your -- that's how you went to your china closet -- and everybody, no matter how poor, generally had a few pieces of sterling silver in the china closet. If they didn't, they had pewter, or they had -- is that my phone again?

SADY SULLIVAN: Yes, would you like me to get it?

FRANCES HABER: Yeah, please. That's your job.

SADY SULLIVAN: Okay.

FRANCES HABER: Find out who it is.

SADY SULLIVAN: Okay. Hello, Frances Haber's house. Hi, this, I'm Sady, I'm interviewing Frances. From the Brooklyn Historical Society.

FRANCES HABER: Who's that?

SADY SULLIVAN: Um, sure, can you tell me your name again?

FRANCES HABER: That Steven?

SADY SULLIVAN: Okay, sure. It's Sue from Dominican Sisters.

FRANCES HABER: Oh, that's why she doesn't know --

SADY SULLIVAN: And she wants to set up an appointment for tomorrow, can I bring 89:00you the phone?

FRANCES HABER: Uh, all right. If it can reach.

SADY SULLIVAN: I think it'll reach.

FRANCES HABER: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: I'll hold it -- oh, oops. Nope, it popped out.

FRANCES HABER: Uh, pick up the portable phone.

SADY SULLIVAN: Okay.

FRANCES HABER: I don't think -- I don't know if that portable phone [inaudible] --

SADY SULLIVAN: Hello? Okay.

FRANCES HABER: Hello, Sue? Oh, you're Susan Schwadran [phonetic] Oh, so glad to hear from you. I'm fine, oh I asked about you. Yeah, I brought the, uh, notebook you made out of your son's binder. Sure. Oh. All right, very good, oh that's wonderful. Yeah, I'm so happy to see you because I was thinking I wouldn't get to see you. Yeah the only problem is, uh, I had a Jospeh today, yeah, and he's 90:00very, very nice, I said, "You coming to see if my house is clean?" and of course now he told me we have a problem with my house, it's not clean. You know, I've been through this before, I don't think I can live through that again. Well he has good things planned about bringing somebody else in but I also have somebody else and I don't -- I think this phone is gonna -- the battery is gonna go because this is a portable phone. Yeah, fine. What, yeah good I'd be glad to see you. Okay, so long, by the way, have you ever used your menorah? Okay, very good. Okay, so long. Okay. Do you know how to get -- you have to put this in the cradle, so --

SADY SULLIVAN: Yes, so that it charges.

FRANCES HABER: Do you know how to get that other wire back in?

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, so that it -- is it not charging?

FRANCES HABER: This one can charge, but the ---

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, I put the other phone wire in, yup.

FRANCES HABER: You did put the other -- I mean after it came out, you put it in.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yep, it's working.

FRANCES HABER: So, if it rings, okay, I don't want you to have to go running to the bedroom, that's why I asked you.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yep, it's working.

FRANCES HABER: Yeah, these are not connected.

SADY SULLIVAN: Okay. All right. So, we're still recording. So, I -- you had told me, going back to California, um, you had told me, so that you were working at the Douglas --

FRANCES HABER: Aircraft as a riveter.

SADY SULLIVAN: -- Aircraft as a riveter, and then you decided that you wanted to come back to Brooklyn.

FRANCES HABER: I decided I wanted to -- I came -- come back to Brooklyn because I was lonely, I had no friends.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And, uh, my sister knew how to make friends, but my sister was the kind of girl who wore ankle-strap shoes, you know that song, did I mention it before? That song, "She wear short dresses, and she wears high heels, I wear sneakers and I wear t-shirts?"

SADY SULLIVAN: Yep.

FRANCES HABER: Well, I didn't wear t-shirts, and my sister didn't wear short dresses, because long dresses were the style, but she had long silk dresses and she had ankle-strap shoes and she worked for -- she made much less money than I did --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: But she got to keep more of her money that way, because my sister needed clothes to go to work --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- And all I needed was a pair of coveralls.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: So, my mother decided that I was the cash cow --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- And, uh, I couldn't go out much because, I went out one night and I stayed out past nine o'clock and when I came home my mother was in the window crying --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm.

FRANCES HABER: -- And you know, carrying on, and I came in, and what had happened was the young man who was training me on a riveting machine --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- And his name was Warren, I forgot the -- his first name was Warren, Jones, the last name was Jones, Warren Jones --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- Can't remember names like Jones --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- Uh, he was going to the Navy the next day --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- And I was taking over his job, so it was his birthday also, so I stopped at a store called Pig and Whistle which was, I'll tell you the truth, it wasn't as good as an -- I don't know if you still have Ebinger's in Brooklyn?

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-mm.

FRANCES HABER: Well there's an Ebinger's, or a Jewish bakery --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- There were plenty of Jewish bakeries in Brooklyn ---

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- But it was the best you could get, at least I thought, it was just a different, you know, anyway they had petit four and all these very fancy French pastries ---

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- And I bought a birthday cake. So, I had a little money secreted because I didn't let my mother take all the money, well she was taking all she could get ---

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- If for we had just moved there and they had just financed a trip for California for us, but then, you know --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- And my mother was not one to let go of money lightly --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- So, uh, I bought the cake, and I didn't tell my mother, I 94:00don't know why, but uh, I just didn't --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- And I took a cab to the address he had told me --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- And he lived in a boarding house and the lady in the boarding house made coffee and we all had a party --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm.

FRANCES HABER: -- And after that he drove me home.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Well, mom was in the window, crying, crying. And I thought, I'm not gonna live like this.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Every time I go out, she's, "Well I thought you went back to Brooklyn." I says, "Well here I am, I didn't go back to Brooklyn."

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: But the next time she and my father went out to the movies, and I was left

home and I had no place to go, and I had no money to go sh -- and you know going shopping was -- well I had no use for clothes because I was wearing overalls to work every day.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: So, uh, I threw an arm full of clothes over my arms and I already had a ticket, because I had someone send me a ticket, and uh, took a taxi down to the railroad -- it's funny how you, you, you just do it.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Just do it, you know, an arm full of clothes, and I could see the cabbie looking at me, he looked like I was a burglar and I stole somebody's clothes but he didn't care, and I told him I had to go someplace where I could buy a suitcase, so he took me to a hop shop -- oh I knew -- I was afraid to take -- we had luggage in our house that we had used.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: But I was afraid that my mother would send the police after me saying I stole her luggage.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Which, I don't know, she would or would not have --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- but that's what I thought. So usually that was [inaudible].

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: So, I have to fix these legs, they hurt.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, sure.

FRANCES HABER: Okay. So anyway, I got on the train, I traveled all the way, and I didn't have much money. Um, I met a Marine, he took me to breakfast one morning, and stuff like that, he was coming back -- I think he was sent back 96:00'cause he was a little nuts, but all right he was a nice guy.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter]

FRANCES HABER: He lived somewhere in the middle of the United States, one place -- one guy I met was from Wisconsin, the other one lived in Bowling Green, Wisconsin.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Was it Ohio or Wisconsin, anyway.

SADY SULLIVAN: How long was the trip?

FRANCES HABER: Oh, probably about five days.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And, and the bus ride was over five days, and that was terrible.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: When we left New York, my sister and I, my father came to the bus station --Greyhound bus station. I don't know if you know, um, on Caton Avenue in Flatbush was a bakery called, can't remember the name, they were a wonderful bakery --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm.

FRANCES HABER: And he had cookies from there, and my sister was not much of an eater and she was also a socializer, so on the bus going out there -- well I'll 97:00tell you this part of the story first. It's out of sequence but I'll tell it to you. She was afraid that I would eat all the cookies and I might have if she left them near me, but she took them to the back of the bus, where she met some other people. And she ate, a lot, and they ate and I probably had my share, but you know, I could hold more.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: I'm that kind of person.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And all of a sudden on the bus ride, she got sick. And she was throwing up, and then my sister said, "Sure, you found yourselves a soldier." What happened when she got up out of her seat and she went to that back seat, there was a soldier on the bus and he just came and sat down in the empty seat.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: But he was nice enough, and every time he saw a young mother who was taking her baby to see her husband in a camp somewhere, that he would get up and he would give her his seat, and I would hold the baby for a while --

SADY SULLIVAN: Aww.

FRANCES HABER: -- Because we knew that this was a young girl -- these were teenage girls with babies, taking them to show them to their fathers.

SADY SULLIVAN: Where were their fathers?

FRANCES HABER: In camp, in uh, servicemen. They were servicemen.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, okay.

FRANCES HABER: They were young servicemen as we have now --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- and they all had -- they left babies behind.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And, this was their last [laughter] -- they were leaving -- they were leaving -- the girl was giving.

SADY SULLIVAN: Right.

FRANCES HABER: So anyway, uh, my sister when she tells this story says, sure she found a soldier and he sat down next to her, and I couldn't sit down in my seat anymore, well what is she thinking? Empty -- that there's gonna be an empty seat on a crowded bus?

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: So --

SADY SULLIVAN: So that was how you got out to California?

FRANCES HABER: Yeah, but going out to California, my father said, he said, "I got you the best," he says. "You won't sit over a wheel, we chose your seat. Air-conditioned bus, you'll be fine." Got to Philadelphia, we all got off the bus, and along came a yellow-type school bus. It had sealed windows, and I 99:00thought well if it's got sealed windows, it's gonna have air conditioning. Like heck it did.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, no!

FRANCES HABER: All the way to California, they would change buses, but it would still be the same yellow school bus kinda thing.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

FRANCES HABER: All windows sealed, and boring -- you wanna see the United States? We traveled across the country, what did I see? I saw cornfields, I saw cows, hardly ever saw a farm or a person.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And that was the United States in those days.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter]

FRANCES HABER: I mean, I thought I'm gonna see the United States, I'm gonna see big cities, I'm gonna see, you know, stores, I'm gonna see something.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: I saw cows.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter] Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And so, we traveled, and when we got to Texas, it was just before California, out came, I'm sure it was not the same one, the air-conditioned bus 100:00that my father told us about.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

FRANCES HABER: And of course, we had our cousin picking us up, I had a cousin who is long dead, uh, but he came in his car, and he picked us up at the airport, and uh, we looked at the houses and they were beautiful, they were white, I thought I could live in a house like this, he says, "Oh you'll live in a nicer one," you know they had gotten us an apartment, and uh, I think they had gotten us an apartment, yeah. Uh, it was a nice house, it was a white stucco house --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You walked in, you didn't see the tiled halls and the marble halls, but what I think -- and what Brooklyn, they had nice marble halls and, course I don't know where in Brooklyn you live in, where do you live in?

SADY SULLIVAN: Um, yeah we don't have a hallway, it's just, just entry stairs to the apartment.

FRANCES HABER: Oh, that's an old building. You live over stores?

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Oh, yeah, that's what they call, forgot what they call that, but 101:00anyway, people would buy it and make money.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: They'd buy it, you know, and use the store and rent the apartments to people.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Oh, great. Uh, taxpayer they called it.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, that makes sense.

FRANCES HABER: Yeah, taxpayer.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter] Yeah, it was built in 1930, the building I live in.

FRANCES HABER: That's when they were doing that, because of the Depression.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And they would go into any old business that they thought that they could get up enough money to stock a store.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You know, sell housedresses, sell, uh, bras and panties, stockings, nylon stockings -- nylon stockings didn't come in until I graduated from high school.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: But you know, they had rayon stockings, and they had lyle stockings, cotton stockings, and of course we wore anklets, and we became known as -- my mother would say "She's a bobbysoxer," I wasn't a bobbysoxer, I didn't know anything about b -- except in the comic strips.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. [laughter] But you wore the little bobbysocks?

FRANCES HABER: Huh? I wore the little bobbysocks, they're fifteen a pair.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And you know, you'd go to the store once a week, and you -- you'd probably had holes in it by then because you wore it all week, course you couldn't take 'em off they'd be wet in the morning, you only had one pair.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: [laughter]

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And so, you got a new pair.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You know, and you had a pair of, uh, silk stockings. You can get real silk stockings. And, for less than a dollar.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: But they'd get ruined as soon as you put them on. You used to have to sew the run up and have stockings with three seams in them.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. So, going back to when you -- you took the train --

FRANCES HABER: I took the train back.

SADY SULLIVAN: -- to come back to Brooklyn.

FRANCES HABER: Yeah, yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: And so, um, and so what happened when you got back to Brooklyn?

FRANCES HABER: Well, when I got back to Brooklyn I went to a friend's house, boyfriend's house. He was Italian, he was very handicapped, my parents didn't want me to marry him.

SADY SULLIVAN: He was handicapped, what -- in what --

FRANCES HABER: He had had, he had had polio as a child, he was terribly handicapped.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

FRANCES HABER: Course his body, one arm almost useless. I'll tell you the truth, if my mother left me alone, I wouldn't have even met up with him.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: It's just that when she took -- moved me to Bedford-Stuyvesant from Crown Heights, and I had friends there, and now I had no friends again, he'd be out there sitting on a milk box, so I'd talk to him.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: He took me home, they fed me macaroni, he said, "Ah, you know, that was really nice."

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: [laughter] But uh, you know, he never was able to get a job, he was too handicapped. Later on, I told him to go to the priest and tell the priest that he wanted a job, and he didn't want a job -- they would give him telephone operator jobs, and he says "I don't wanna be next to a handicapped girl and people are gonna get me to marry her, we'll be two handicapped people together."

FRANCES HABER: Mm.

SADY SULLIVAN: And my mother sent my father after me, and so I was taken to an uncle's house and told me I could live there, and meanwhile I had contacted -- 104:00I'll tell you what, I was pretty smart, I didn't know how smart I was, I had contacted Civil Service --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- And I got letters, you know, asking me to come in for interviews.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And when I came for the interview, I got the job at the Navy Yard.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yay! So, was this the --

FRANCES HABER: Didn't even know where it was, how to get there, but I got there.

SADY SULLIVAN: So, you got a letter saying --

FRANCES HABER: To report for an interview.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, and so then what happened?

FRANCES HABER: I don't know if I reported to Civil Services Commission or to the Navy Yard --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- But, by then, uh, I was getting a little smarter, and uh, they told me I could take the Flushing Avenue trolley car --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- And I knew where Flushing Avenue was, 'cause I had passed it on my way to the annex of my high school.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: I knew -- I knew about it because the Five and Ten was there, actually.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Woolworth's was there.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And also, across the street from the Woolworth's was a Truns, do you know Truns?

SADY SULLIVAN: No.

FRANCES HABER: Truns is a pork store.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm.

FRANCES HABER: And of course, we never had pork in our house.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: When I bought a quarter pound of liverwurst, I think it was 105:00fifteen cents, made a sandwich, and it was so good, that I was forever a liverwurst eater.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter] And is that a pork -- is that pork --

FRANCES HABER: It's made out of pigs -- pigs -- pigs liver. Who knows what it's made out of, it was delicious.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter]

FRANCES HABER: And that was a very clean German store, Truns.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Very clean store.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And they were glad to get the fifteen cents for the quarter of a pound, you know, it was, uh, those were the prices there.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: That was across the street from the Five and Ten, if I had another nickel I'd go across and get that cold drink I told you about, which is not quite a malted.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. And so, when did you start -- tell me about your first day at the Navy Yard?

FRANCES HABER: My first day at the Navy Yard was not in the supervisor's office where I eventually worked. My first day at the Navy Yard, I went in and, you know, you do all the preparations, they take your picture -- a picture that I 106:00had taken --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm, for your ID?

FRANCES HABER: And by that time, I was staying at my grandmother's house in the Bronx.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Uh, I think I was. I don't remember. Uh, and my -- my aunt was telling me to go for Civil -- Civil Services too, you know, she's -- and then she was the one who told me that this war is not gonna last forever, why don't you study for something and she had uh, newspaper, the Civil Service newspaper, I forgot what you call it. Anyway, it doesn't matter, there were two Civil Services newspapers.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And they advertised become a policewoman. And I thought, why not me, and when I used to go to from Brooklyn to my grandmother's house, and I'd go up a trolley car ramp to go over the bridge, I would see my shadow, very tall and I would picture myself in a uniform.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And so, I went to Delehanty which was the Civil Service school --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- And we didn't have classes often, because they didn't know 107:00when the War would end and the city was not going to make women cops, I don't even know if they made men cops during the War --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- Because they had promised to give the cops back to the cops who went to the War.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, right.

FRANCES HABER: And they did not want the cops to come back from War and have to lay off a bunch of cops they had hired meanwhile, although it wouldn't have made any difference because the city was growing so fast.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And they do needed -- did need them.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And, uh, eventually we got appointed --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. And so, you were one of two women who were the first --

FRANCES HABER: I was one of two women who were the first transit cops --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- Because there had been no list for transit cops, 'cause I told you just a little while ago that they were owned by private companies, the IRT and the BMT.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And -- but at the time they were planning the World's Fair, and they built the Independent Subway to go all the way out to the World's Fair --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- And they needed more cops -- they hired more men and I guess they figured, in proportion to the men, they had to have women that they could move throughout the whole city, so the first two of us were hired.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And I was then working, the War was over, cause I was working -- what happened was I got laid off from the Navy Yard and I shouldn't have gotten laid off 'cause I was a permanent Civil Service, but they had girls who were sent there by politicians, uh, durations for six months and they kept them on.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm.

FRANCES HABER: And when I went up to ask, you know, I opened my mouth and I asked, about why I got laid off and they kept them on, I came before them, I was permanent Civil Service, they said "Well they're just clerks, and you're a clerk typist." But one of the reasons I had been sent down to work in the supervisor's office was because they needed someone who was a clerk typist. And those girls, I don't know who they were -- I mean I knew who they were, but they must've 109:00either quit school -- they were barely -- they could barely type.

SADY SULLIVAN: So, what would a clerk do, that was different from what a clerk typist was doing?

FRANCES HABER: They did timecards.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: They would go and get -- the supervisors would bring the timecards to them and the timecards, I don't even know, that was stamped for, we got moved from one side to the other, and this was the way they kept track of who was working, who was not --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- and generally a male supervisor who was a plumber or a pipe fitter or whatever his trade was, would supervise that operation and bring the card. They would do that, the men would do that, because a lot of them cheated. They had what you call, uh, ghosts, one guy would move to -- his card and somebody else's, and they weren't there.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, they would submit a timecard but they weren't there?

FRANCES HABER: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh.

FRANCES HABER: And somebody would stamp his timecard, that's why they had the supervisor supervising it, they couldn't have girls -- women doing that --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- Because we were kind of a lower grade from theirs.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And, uh, I really didn't even know anything about it except that one of my supervisors had a brother who was killed in service, and he caught the guys doing that. And they said, "Come on, you're one of the guys what are you making such a big deal about it?" He goes, "My brother died in service, and you're cheating on the government, what are you doing while you're not here?"

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You know, getting paid for it.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And, a lot was going on, they had bookmak -- uh, they wouldn't let me answer the telephone at first because we had a guy who was a bookmaker, and he answered the telephone. [laughter]

SADY SULLIVAN: What do you mean? What was he doing?

FRANCES HABER: In the office. He was in -- he was another clerk. But he sat all day, he looked like, uh, Hardy. Laurel and Hardy.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, yeah.

FRANCES HABER: He looked like the fat guy.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter]

FRANCES HABER: And uh, he was Italian, his name was Joe Frizzella [phonetic] and he wore his hat in the office on his head --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- And the calls would come in, they -- he didn't want me to take those calls that were his calls, he said, "If the call's for you, I'll give you the phone," you know the same as you giving me the phone.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And it would be operations calling me to give me the ship's movements --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- Which he was not privy to.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You know, there were lots of things that went on that I couldn't question, you know what I mean? I liked what I did, the men fed me, because I had no ration books, when I ran away my mother kept the ration books thinking I'd come back when I got hungry.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And uh, the men brought good food in.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And uh, they'd bring things like roasted peppers, and ham on Italian bread, and you know, Italian -- uh -- long hair always a pretty long thing, and they'd cut a piece of that, they had an apple they'd peel it, they'd 112:00give me a piece of the apple.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You know, I was a pretty kid, I was young, and they -- they were looking to get sociable, too.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Of course, they were married.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: But they were good to me.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And eventually, I was even in a carpool and he didn't take any money from me, and I -- he had -- he was starting up an oil burner business, this man, and uh, he wasn't born in this country, so he was afraid to write -- fill out applications and write a letter, and I had plenty of time between what I had to do, I wasn't working that hard there.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You know, only at times, you'd work in a flurry, and -- don't say that in the thing that I didn't work very hard there.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, no.

FRANCES HABER: Because, you know, they want -- they want you to -- I don't want them to think there was downtime and you were all lulling around doing nothing.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: But I would be waiting for them to call me from operations to get those things typed, and if you typed fast and stuff like that, you did it, and 113:00there was a lot of social conversation, bosses came in from the ships and they sat at the desks, they did what they had to do, which mostly drink out of the bottom -- bottom -- bottom drawer, they'd have a bottle.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter]

FRANCES HABER: You know, and I was right next to the head and I hid behind the file cabinet, I was a little shy, very little shy, and when a ship came in, there was only one pay phone that the sailors could use, and they all came to use the phone it was a long line and I sat next to the head, I didn't know what the head was, that was men's toilet.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And uh, they'd all come in, they'd look, I'd be the first woman they saw, and some of them right then and there would ask me out, some of them when I'd be walking along the road leaving at night, [laughter], a -- a Dutch -- Dutch sailor gave me his address and I gave him mine and he wrote to me, and then I got tired of writing to him, I stopped, you know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: But I think he wanted to come to America and live after the War.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: It's always interesting enough in many ways.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. Um, and did you ever go out with any of them?

FRANCES HABER: No, I didn't. I was afraid as far as, uh, the American sailors didn't ask. I -- I didn't really have the Americans -- the Dutch ones did, foreign ones did. I think that a lot of them wanted to come to the United States. I think most of the Americans had girlfriends they left behind, you know, no matter how young they were, and then dreamt about them.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And I don't say they wouldn't go out if I got chummy with them.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: But the men at our table, we had long six foot oak tables, which we used for desks and typewriters. Oh, I, uh, forgot, I got lost somewhere when I was telling you about my Civil Service job.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: I had applied and they told me to come for the test, well you had to bring your own typewriter. We didn't have a portable typewriter and my father 115:00had rented a typewriter in advance so I could practice on it, I hadn't been to school for a while.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And I had this huge Underwood typewriter. My father was working that day and my mother had her business, I had to carry the typewriter myself to -- from Bed-Stuy to Christopher Street. I don't know if you know how you get there.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm.

FRANCES HABER: You go on the Independent Subway, and you -- you go into -- it's somewhere in the Village, is Christopher Street.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And I carried the typewriter in. And a young man actually offered to help me along the way, I was afraid maybe he'd steal the typewriter --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- And I wouldn't be able to take the tests so I wouldn't take his help.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: [laughter] That's New York for ya.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter]

FRANCES HABER: And I got there, and uh, the agreement with the rental company was, when you left, you left the typewriter there. Cause my father took it home so I could practice on it.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: So, I got a good mark, I got hired -- uh -- the day the war began, I guess it was -- the third -- it was, uh, December 7th, the war began, by the 13th I was working.

SADY SULLIVAN: At the Navy Yard?

FRANCES HABER: No, at the Army.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, okay. Tell me about this part, we -- we missed that part before. So the first, this is before you went to California.

FRANCES HABER: Yeah, that's why I told you I knew all about recruiting and induction, and uh --

SADY SULLIVAN: Right.

FRANCES HABER: -- and everything else.

SADY SULLIVAN: So, December 13th --

FRANCES HABER: Before I went to -- December 13th I went to work for the Army at 49 Reynolds Street, didn't I say that? I think I did --

SADY SULLIVAN: You did --

FRANCES HABER: -- I was telling you that was in -- where the World -- across from the -- where the World Trade Center was.

SADY SULLIVAN: Yes, I remember, but I thought that's where you went for the Civil Service Exam, I didn't know that you --

FRANCES HABER: Uh, no. I went to Christopher Street for the exam.

SADY SULLIVAN: Okay, so wait, let's just clarify.

FRANCES HABER: Do you know anybody that knows all this junk?

SADY SULLIVAN: What do you mean?

FRANCES HABER: Do you know anybody that remembers all these things?

SADY SULLIVAN: You have an incredible memory for addresses and names and you remember, it's like really, really amazing. It's great. So, I need help remembering -- [laughter]

FRANCES HABER: I -- I -- I have my [inaudible], but 49 Whitehall Street was the Army building at that time.

SADY SULLIVAN: Okay.

FRANCES HABER: It was a big brown building, and it had a staircase going up each side like a southern mansion.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: In kind of like that.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. So, for your job, so you graduated from high school in 1941, and then you went to -- when did you go to beauty school?

FRANCES HABER: In 1941.

SADY SULLIVAN: Uh huh.

FRANCES HABER: I graduated -- I was born in January, so I didn't have to -- I didn't start school until the right time to go to kindergarten. I went to kindergarten for a year when I began school.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And I thought I got left back, it's just that my mother registered me in kindergarten, I had to stay there a whole year --

SADY SULLIVAN: Ah-choo.

FRANCES HABER: God bless you -- until I was six.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. Oh, I'm all set, thank you. So -- so you -- and so then 118:00you went to beauty school and were working in your mom's beauty parlor, and is that when you got the job?

FRANCES HABER: I was hardly working but all right.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter] And then you got a job at the Army?

FRANCES HABER: These are clean, they're just mashed up.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, thank you. Then you got a job at the Army? Thanks.

FRANCES HABER: Yeah, with -- with, uh --

SADY SULLIVAN: Is that what was next?

FRANCES HABER: Huh?

SADY SULLIVAN: Um, was the Army next?

FRANCES HABER: The only -- that was 49 Whitehall Street.

SADY SULLIVAN: And then was it -- were you working there when you went to California?

FRANCES HABER: Uh, yeah. I didn't want to leave there, I was so glad I had a job, I had a Civil Service job, I had Civil Service salary -- I thought this was going to last forever, I didn't know that war wouldn't last forever.

SADY SULLIVAN: Right, and so what were you doing there at the Army -- at the Army building?

FRANCES HABER: Typing.

SADY SULLIVAN: Typing.

FRANCES HABER: Typing.

SADY SULLIVAN: And it was --

FRANCES HABER: I was also a stenographer, but they did not use my stenographic 119:00services, the government being the government, is very like other places. There was a sergeant in the next office and his sister was his secretary.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: I don't think she came from a Civil Service list, she just came in because he was there and she got the job and --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- You know, nice girl. And, as a matter of fact, we had a colonel there, and --you know -- I mean I've been fat most of my life, so, you know, fatter than this --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- So I'm not gonna talk -- but this woman that weighed about 300 pounds came and she was the colonel's girlfriend.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And every day we would watch her take -- him take her to lunch and eventually they made her a supervisor, I don't think she came from any Civil Service list.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You know, everything is done [laughter] --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- But I had Civil Service status, and another girl came, she had been working in Washington, she had a son that she left behind here with her 120:00mother and her husband, because she needed the money.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You know, and as soon as the War began -- she had Civil Service status, so she was able to come back.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: She had been working for Veteran's Administration.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. So, what were you doing, what was your job at the Army?

FRANCES HABER: I was making out booklets which were the serviceman's record, they gave all -- all his pedigree ---

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- And everything about him.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: You know, they were pretty careful, [inaudible] but they asked -- you even had to ask them if they were homosexual or anything like that, and they didn't take them --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm.

FRANCES HABER: -- At that time.

SADY SULLIVAN: Would people be honest about that?

FRANCES HABER: There were guys who didn't wanna go in might be honest about that.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh!

FRANCES HABER: There were plenty of guys that when they got in who had never been homosexual before, that became homosexuals, you know.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter] Yeah.

FRANCES HABER: It's uh -- uh -- "When the girl I love isn't here, I love the 121:00girl on the [inaudible]" so, it was, you know.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So, so you --

FRANCES HABER: You're gonna have to send me a picture of you, cause I'm not seeing you right in this light.

SADY SULLIVAN: Oh, okay.

FRANCES HABER: You can let the boyfriend in.

SADY SULLIVAN: [laughter]

FRANCES HABER: What does he do?

SADY SULLIVAN: He does graphic design.

FRANCES HABER: Oh, that's nice, my nephew does that.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm. Yeah, he enjoys it.

FRANCES HABER: Yeah.

SADY SULLIVAN: So, you were working for the Army with a Civil Service status, then you went to California and were working at the -- as a riveter --

FRANCES HABER: Well, when I went for the -- when I went for the exam -- when I went to be tested for it, they told me I failed the typing test, now I was a good typist, I didn't fail that typing test.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And I'd just applied for a job as a clerk typist.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: Clerk -- clerk means carrying a paper here to there, sticking it in alphabet, you know --

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: -- Clerk doesn't mean much.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: In a -- maybe now it does -- maybe you have to be a little smart, 122:00but I mean then, uh, they were lots of, loads and loads of people.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: People were coming from everywhere.

SADY SULLIVAN: Mm-hmm.

FRANCES HABER: And coming to get the jobs in California, and everyday there were new faces.