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Orwin, Isabell (audio interview #1 of 3)
INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - This is the first of three interviews with Isabell Orwin conducted in the front room of her old-style bungalow home. The dark paneled living room is filled with momentos of her Lockheed years, which she enjoyed showing off. Orwin still sported the reddish hair seen in many of her photographs, and dressed up for the interviews. A very cordial person, she greatly enjoyed the interview and was very forthcoming. 4/21/1980
- Date
- 2021-01-25
- Resource Type
- Creator
- Campus
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- Notes
- *** File: rrriorwin1.mp3 Audio Segments and Topics: (0:00-1:04)... Orwin was born in Park City, Utah, which was a mining town at that time. Her father worked as a miner and was called a "potter monkey" because he did not drink or smoke. After her parents married, they moved into a boarding house where several young couples lived and were just starting out. Both of her parents were born in Utah. (1:04-5:37)... Orwin's paternal grandfather owned and operated a large hotel and a grocery store in Bingham, Utah. When the town caught fire, her grandparents stored the hotel furniture and the groceries in a wine cellar behind the hotel. They lost the combination to their safe, and her grandfather had to pay a man thousands of dollars to open it. Orwin has fond memories of the time she lived with her grandparents while her mother was recovering from appendicitis in Salt Lake City. Her father died in a mining accident in Arizona. (5:37-9:09)... Orwin's father's family eventually settled in Provo and he went to work as a miner when he was sixteen. When he decided to leave home, he moved to Bingham because he knew that her mother's family, who he had known from his hometown, lived there. He met Orwin's mother there and they married a few years later in Salt Lake City. Orwin was born in 1904. Her parents purchased a forty-acre farm in Garland, Utah, where her mother had two more children. Orwin's father was not a good farmer because he spent a lot of time away from home working in the mines, leaving her mother alone to manage the farm. In addition to farm animals, they owned several fruit trees. They sold fruit, butter, and eggs to bring in extra income. The farm covered most of their food needs. (9:09-11:34)... Orwin relates the story told her of her birth. Her mother delivered all three of her children at home, and except for Orwin, who was delivered by medical doctor, her siblings were delivered by a midwife. (11:34-14:33)... Orwin lived in Garland until her father died, at which time her family moved to Bingham, where she continued grammar school. When her mother re-married, they moved to Salt Lake City. Her stepfather was a miner and they moved around quite a bit, living in Wyoming and Nevada before settling in California. As a result, Orwin's schooling was not continuous and she never finished high school. As an adult, she took evening classes in subjects ranging from typing to beauty operation. (14:33-18:15)... Orwin talks about her father and her memories of spending time with him on their farm. After he died, her mother got a job with a dressmaker. When she became ill, they moved to Bingham to be near Orwin's grandparents, and her mother ran a boarding house there. She also earned extra money by sewing, baby-sitting, and working in the supply stores in town. (18:15-20:28)... After they moved to Bingham, Orwin was responsible for most of the household chores and her brothers were expected to bring in coal and kindling. They were also responsible for setting the table and making their own beds. Orwin and her brothers took orders from their mother without question. They were expected to come straight home from school and finish their chores before doing anything else. (20:28-21:29)... Orwin talks about her childhood and the games she played with her friends. She played in a group setting with boys and girls. During the summers, they were allowed to play in the streets. (21:29-23:04)... Orwin's favorite subjects in school were art, writing, and history. She was always an active person and participated in school activities. She and her girlfriends liked to dress up and pretend that they were movie stars. One of her childhood friends became a famous entertainer and Orwin recalls spending time at her home. (23:04-24:17)... Although her parents were Mormons, they were not religious. Orwin and her brothers went to Sunday school, but their mother gave them the option of choosing the religion they wanted to study. As a result, Orwin explored many different religious beliefs when she was a young girl, including Judaism. (24:17-25:20)... Orwin always wore dresses as a child. She ran errands for a woman in town who handed down her daughters' dresses to Orwin. Her mother would alter these dresses and add special decorations to make them look different. (25:20-26:55)... Orwin was paid .05 cents/day as an errand girl. She used her money to purchase fabric and clothing accessories, but always had enough left over to go to the movies on Saturday afternoons. (26:55-28:18)... Orwin's family lived in a boarding house above a butcher shop in the center of town. Bingham was situated in or near a canyon, and people lived in shacks in the canyon hills. All of the buildings and homes in Bingham were made of wood, which made the town susceptible to fire damage. The interview ends as Orwin is discussing a fire in the town. End of tape. *** File: rrriorwin2.mp3 (0:00-0:28)... Orwin's family did not own, but when they decided to move to California, her stepfather learned to drive. The trip from Salt Lake City to California took seven days. (0:28-2:24)... Orwin was fifteen years old when her mother re-married. Even though it did not bother her to have another person in the house, she liked it better when she had her mother all to herself. They were close, but her mother was too busy to talk about her own life. (2:24-3:36)... Orwin's mother did not prepare her for menstruation. When Orwin started her period, her mother went to the doctor and got some medicine for Orwin. The medicine was bitter tasting and her mother never explained the purpose of the medication. Her mother never talked to her about reproduction or sex. (3:36-5:04)... When she was a child, Orwin played with both boys and girls, but when she went to high school, they went their own ways. She didn't start dating until after she was eighteen. She recounts an incident when a girlfriend introduced her to a prospective suitor, but Orwin was so naive, she just thought of him as a brother. (5:04-11:02)... Orwin describes her mother's rooming house in Bingham. The family lived in just one room plus the kitchen. Given these close living quarters, Orwin never had any privacy. As she and her brothers got older, they stopped changing their clothes in front of each other. All of the tenants at the rooming house were miners who mined the quartz, copper, and ore in the canyon hills. Although they slept and bathed there, Orwin's mother did not prepare their meals. Most of the miners stayed there for short periods of time. Orwin recalls that whenever a dynamite explosion was about to take place, a whistle was blown so that Bingham residents could take cover from falling rocks. (11:02-14:32)... When she was a young girl, Orwin did not have any ideas about her future. Orwin liked her mother's fiance, but was disappointed and sad when they married, fearing that her stepfather would take over. However, he turned out to be like another one of her mother's children. He was not bossy or overbearing, and her mother continued to make all of the decisions in the family. In some ways, her mother's strict parenting style relaxed after she re-married because Orwin's stepfather often laughed at the children's mistakes, making it difficult for her mother to correct them. Her mother never worked again after she re-married. (14:32-17:16)... Orwin's stepfather worked as a mining engineer. After he married her mother, he found work in Salt Lake City and the family moved there. They moved briefly to Wyoming, but the harsh winter climate did not suit her mother and they returned to Salt Lake City. In 1923, they moved first to Nevada and, later that year, to Eagle Rock, California. Orwin's stepfather took a surveyor's examination and went to work for the Department of Water and Power in Los Angeles as a surveyor. Even though her family moved around a lot, she made friends wherever she lived, and still corresponds with some of them. (17:16-20:21)... Before they got a car, her family traveled from city to city via train. When they lived In Wyoming, her mother and stepfather began saving money to buy a car and purchased an open-air Chevrolet when they moved back to Salt Lake City. When the family moved to Eagle Rock, California, her stepfather got a job reading meters for the Southern California Gas Company. Later, their landlord taught him about surveying and he began his career as a surveyor after he passed the examination. (20:21-25:33)... Their living conditions and economic status improved after Orwin's mother re-married. However, she did not graduate from high school and began working shortly after the family arrived in California. When she was seventeen, she got a job in the distribution department at a laundry facility. She gave her mother her earnings and, in turn, received a weekly allowance for her lunch expenses and streetcar fare. After she quit the laundry facility, she went to work at an insurance agency for $16/week. Her mother began charging the children $10/week for room and board; Orwin used her remaining pay for her transportation, lunch, and clothing expenses. End of tape. *** File: rrriorwin3.mp3 (0:00-6:59)... Orwin worked at an insurance agency between 1925-28, quitting in order to stay home and take care of her ailing mother. She was unemployed for a year, until a neighbor got her a job at Packard Bell Radio, where she learned how to solder. She worked at another radio company as well and was consistently employed during the Depression, probably more than some men. She never felt any resentment toward her for working during the Depression while so many men were unemployed. In September 1941, a neighbor persuaded her to apply for a job at Lockheed. After she filled out an application and was interviewed, the representative wrote "soldering" in red letters on her application. She was hired in December 1941 following the attack on Pearl Harbor. (6:59-8:27)... Orwin lived with her parents while she was working and contributed her earnings to her mother, who handled all of the finances for the family. Orwin and her brothers were all teen-agers at the same time and had a happy adolescence, inviting their friends over for regular social gatherings. On Saturdays, Orwin and her mother cooked and baked and they always prepared a big dinner on Sundays. (8:27-10:03)... Saturday nights were always reserved for dancing. Orwin usually accompanied five or six of her girlfriends to dances at the Palomar, a club located near her home. She also did favors for her brother so that he would take her to dances. (10:03-10:53)... Initially, Orwin was not excited about working at Lockheed and assumed that she would be there for only about two weeks. However, after she started working in the plant, she realized that it was going to be a challenge and she enjoyed meeting new people. End of tape.
- SUBJECT BIO - Isabell Orwin applied for a job at Lockheed even before Pearl Harbor, but was called to work only after the attack. The first of three children born in Park City, Utah, Orwin completed the ninth or tenth grade in Salt Lake City. After her father's death in a mining accident, the family moved first to Wyoming and then to Nevada, following her step-father's work. She attended school in Nevada for a while until the family moved to Los Angeles in 1923. She held a variety of jobs until 1929, when she went to work at Packard Bell and Gilphelan Radios. Because of her eleven year electrical assembly work and the skills she had acquired, she was confident that she would be hired at Lockheed. As a forty-one year old single woman at war's end, she made herself a "key" person and was not laid off. She worked at Lockheed until her retirement in 1972, working her way up to lead position. Even after retirement, Lockheed remained an important element in her life and she regularly participated in functions sponsored by both the union and Lockheed Employees Recreation Club. TOPICS - family background and history; birth stories; childhood; father's work history; farm life; schooling and adult education; father's death; mother's efforts to support the family; living arrangements; chores; childhrelationship with mother; menstruation; dating; living arrangements and conditions; mother's second marriage; relationship with stepfather; stepfather's work history; migration pattern in the west; schooling; jobswork history during the Depression; insurance agency work; soldering work at radio companies; Lockheed hiring process; housing and living arrangements; family life; social life and activities; and ideas about worki
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