My mom and I just took the Tenement Museum Tour in NYC, and this conversation happened afterward. In my head. And this is not a sponsored post, except by guilt.
Cast of Characters:
Ann Imig: Stay-at-home humorist LTYM National Director 2012, Mother of 2.
Jenny Levine, Tenement Sweatshop Matriarch 1892 , Mother of 2 going on 5.
Ann: I’m tired.
Jenny: (translated from Yiddish) Worrrrrd.
Ann : I’m working so hard! I’ve precious little energy to blog or tweet!
Jenny: I’m working so hard in my 300 square foot tenement apartment/garment workshop filled with my family of four, plus three workers (presser, baster, finisher) with no electricity (hasn’t been invented) nor running water, I’ve precious little energy left to clean out the tuberculosis spittoon in the cutting/basting/presser/sewing room/parlor/sauna or cough the coal soot out of my lungs. CLEAR! Watch the garment runner. He may only be 12, but he’s fast as hell.
CLEAR! Watch the midwife– she’s got to run down three flights for some water so I can give birth to my third in the back room before dinner.
Ann: Back room? I thought that was the pantry.
Jenny: CLEAR! Now if the presser could just get the hell out of my kitchen for once, I’ve got to make lunch for seven and then go protest the kosher meat price-hike before my water breaks.
Ann: Kitchen? I thought that was the walk-in closet.
Jenny: Do me a favor and keep an eye on baby Hyman. Yep, that’s his crib adjoining the stove and the twenty-pound iron. As soon as baby Sollie pops, Hyman gets the big-boy bed under the ironing board.
Ann: Bed? I thought that was the rag pile.
Jenny: Yes.
Ann: I can’t stay. Just stopped by to drop off a postcard for my show! Would you mind putting up a poster in your no-bathroom? Please join us at Listen To Your Mother Barrymore this Sunday at 3pm in Madison, Wisconsin!
Jenny: We work Sundays. Please stop leaning on Paulines’ bed. I know, you thought it was the kitchen chair, because it is the kitchen chair. Now either pick up the sheers or a sewing needle or come downstairs and help me beat back the meat-scabs. Those wenches don’t know what’s about to hit them if they buy brisket at 20 cents a pound.
Ann: Sorry Jenny, I’m plum tuckered out from sight-seeing and stuffing my face. You know how that goes. Well, Happy Mother’s day! Easy labor!
Jenny: Easy labor. That is when we work 12 hours instead of 17, no? CLEAR!!!
Hilarious! Love it! And… way to put things in perspective. Happy Mother’s Day 😉
My Grandmother on my mom’s side was a seamstress who made bespoke vests and suit jackets out of her 4th floor walk-up in Paris. The kitchen was 3 square feet, just room for one person, and the bathroom was in the hallway, no toilet seat, just 2 pedals on the floor that you squatted over.
She did the most beautiful work I’ve ever seen. (then again I haven’t been to Valentino’s atelier)and I can still see her steam ironing those men’s clothes with precision and dedication. Often Lindy and I would walk with her when she dropped them off at the tailor’s shop.
God, my mom’s family was SO poor. Mom worked her whole life to give money to her mother. She often makes me feel like a really shitty kid because I’m not half the woman either she or my grandmother are/were.
And Mother’s Day in France is not the same as it is here in the US so I always manage to forget to call her. See, a really shitty kid.
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An excellent reminder that we sometimes have it hard…but never that hard. Break a leg..lots of legs Sunday. You will rock the HOUSE, back room/pantry and all.
I can’t wait to hear about Sunday. You are such an amazing storyteller. Did you get your inspiration from your trip to the Tenement Museum in NYC?
Cheering for you, and your show, and all your essayists, and, um, the lady in the tenement who keeps yelling CLEAR!
Break a leg!
XOXO
A.
This was so very perfect! But um, did Jenny put up a LTYM sign in her window? Any chance we can get her to sponsor next year? I’ll put her on the comp list.
You are THERE! I see the finish line! Go, Ann, go!!!!!
Eeeeeeek!
xo T
Hooray for you! Folks are obviously listening!!
Well Orchard Street hasn’t changed much in a century, I’ll say. Could you mention to Jenny that I’m waiting on those pants? Maybe she can work on them while attending the show.
Thinking of you, Ann! Knock em dead tomorrow!
So loved this post, roomie (after reading it, I realized that we should have slept together in the tub and let our fourteen siblings have the beds).
Break some legs tomorrow, dearest!
Oh I love this, especially on the tales I had of a convo with my 90 year old grandmother yesterday who told me she delivered her placenta, at home, days after she was discharged from hospital after having her first child. They forgot to tell her it never came out. Nothing like a little reality check, from both of you.
I hope you are able to stand back and look at all you’ve created with LTYM. It’s amazing. Truly.
Ugh, there are major typos in my comment above. I haven’t had enough coffee. Hope it still makes sense.
Congratulations on another year of LTYM (now in 10 cities)!
I love this piece because it’s so frakkin’ true.
Hahaha!! Congratulations again, you!! I hope you’re proud. I know I am.
Happy belated Mother’s Day to you.
Thanks for reminding me to clean out my tuberculosis spittoon.
How embarrassing!
That Jenny is such a whiner!