Betty and Angelo Schianni Oral History | The Mine Whistle (00:44)

They went through many hardships. I remember when we were going to school they’d wait for that whistle to blow to see if there was work. If it would blow there was no work, and how many times out of the week Ang would that go, two or three times? Sometimes they were lucky if they worked two days a week. Our mothers and fathers were under so much stress just thinking where’s the next meal going to come from, where’s this going to come from, you know? But, then, they didn’t have cars, they lived in houses that they paid five or six hundred dollars for, and there was no actual debts. They lived from pay to pay and made sure they bought food and clothes first.