Don't Sing at the Table (5 page)

I was eleven years old, and this trio of identical dresses fascinated me. Lucy had created a uniform for church and social events, in the form of this dress. She would accessorize it differently for various occasions. Sometimes she wore a locket on a long chain, other times a pin at the collar. Often, according to the season, she would wear the dress with a navy blue cashmere cardigan from Italy, which was kept folded in her drawer, without a pull or a stain or a hole. Her only sweater looked new, and I knew she wore it a lot. She took care of everything she owned as though it was irreplaceable.

I went down the stairs to ask her about the dress situation.

Lucy was sewing at her machine. There was a bright work lamp over it, on a snakelike coil. She'd push and pull that lamp around, up, and down to see her stitches in the best light, then move it out of the way (after all, the bulb was bright and hot) when she released the wheel to wind the bobbin. When she finished a job and stood up, she'd swing out of her rolling stool, with its low back and handmade pillow seat, like a concert pianist who'd just finished a concerto on the stage of Carnegie Hall. She was one with her instrument: the sewing machine.

When I came into the room (and I was so chic at the time—an eleven-year-old with style, wearing a long rope of wooden beads with a navy blue scooter skirt), she looked up at me and smiled. Beamed. Whenever I came into the room, she'd light up, so
happy
to see me. No one ever in the course of my entire life was ever as happy to see me as she was. Looking back, now, I realize that you only ever need one person who lights up that way when you enter a room. One person is all it takes to give a kid confidence.

“Grandma, I have a question. Why don't you have a lot of clothes?”

She smiled. “I have plenty of clothes.”

“No, you don't. You have three dresses and one coat. And the dresses are all the same. You only have two pair of shoes. Three, if you count those.” I pointed at the plain black leather lace-ups.

“How many dresses should I have?” she asked.

“More than three.”

She laughed. “How many can I wear at one time?”

“One.” I was no fool. That was an easy question.

“So how many do I need?” she asked.

I thought for a moment. “Well, I guess the answer is one.”

“So you see, I have too many.”

I had to process this logic. After all, my fashion gene had kicked in, and here, my Lucy was a creator of clothing, she could make anything she imagined.
Anything
. I wanted to see her wearing the goods. And I wanted to see
a lot
. Her simple, straight black skirt and white blouse wasn't enough.

I had seen pictures of the dresses, skirts, blouses, suits, and coats she had made for my mother and her twin sister. I knew Lucy could make evening gowns of chiffon, sundresses of cotton pique with eyelet lace, and eventually an exquisite peau de soie silk wedding gown for my mother, which I was allowed to look at but never touch. The skirt on my mother's wedding gown was a full 360-degree circle skirt with layers of white tulle underneath. Lucy was capable of high fashion. I knew Lucy had chic and cool
in
her, I had
seen
it, so why wasn't she wearing her own couture? I didn't even know how to express this to her; in my mind, it seemed insulting to point out that she didn't have much. So instead I asked, “Why the polka dots?”

“White polka dots on navy blue are classic. You can wear that fabric to a wedding or a funeral or a party, and it's always just right.”

Years later, when I moved to New York City and was making my living by day as an office temp to finance my theatrical dreams at night, I lived in a boardinghouse. I needed a dress to wear to weddings and funerals and the occasional fancy party (with the dual purpose of making connections and eating enough hors d'oeuvres at Manhattan parties so that I wouldn't have to buy dinner later). “Beauty on a budget” didn't begin to describe my circumstances. Like every girl without connections that ever moved to New York City to find a job and make a life, I was
broke.
Everything I made went to rent and playwriting. But I needed to look good, to give an impression that I was serious and had taste, and maybe, if there was a miracle to occur, that I was actually going places.

I went to B. Altman's to look for a dress. I scoured the racks. And almost without looking for it, I came upon a navy blue and white polka dot dress with short sleeves, a square collar, covered buttons, and a matching belt. The skirt portion was fitted around the hips and fell into pleats above the knee. It was the 1980s, so it had shoulder pads. At this point in the book, my friends are laughing as they read this, because they know The Dress; they have pictures of me in it, because I wore that dress absolutely
everywhere
, from the Benton/Doughan wedding in Wareham, Massachusetts, to a funeral in lower Manhattan, and every other event I was invited to in between.

I wore it professionally on interviews, and socially to parties, and on days I will never forget, like the autumn day in 1988 when I signed with my first literary agent, the impeccable Wiley Hausam at International Creative Management. Whatever Lucy had wanted to impart to me about sticking with the classics and keeping things simple in the wardrobe department somehow got
in.
When I wanted to jazz up that dress by day, I wore white gloves with it. And when I wore it at night, I'd drape fake pearls like Coco Chanel. Lucy was right. I never had to worry if the dress was appropriate, because it was, and remains ever so.

This effortless style is known as
sprezzatura.
Lucy took it a step further. When you have good taste, and you know what is required, you never need agonize about what to wear. You will hopefully find that one article of clothing that looks good on you, and says who you are, and that's nice. But the important lesson is that having the right dress in your closet means you don't have to waste time shopping incessantly for clothes, buying things you will never wear. The navy and white polka dot dress saves time and money, neither of which should ever be wasted. That dress also made me feel pretty, which is the best reason for wearing it, second only to emulating Lucy, who it seemed, had common sense and good taste, the two characteristics that make an otherwise good woman a lady.

Chapter Three
The Factory Life

Viola at age 14, around the time she began working in the factory.

M
artins Creek, Pennsylvania, is a small village in the green flats of the northeastern Pennsylvania countryside on the way to Easton, which, along with Allentown and Bethlehem, completes a trio of cities known for steel, manufacturing, and university life (Lafayette, Lehigh, and more).

A few miles down the road from Viola's house, farther still from Roseto, and only seventy miles from New York City, Martins Creek was the perfect location for my grandparents' new factory. It was far enough from the bustle of their friendly competition, and yet had an experienced workforce of machine operators who could cut, assemble, and sew fine blouses for the postwar American woman.

Martins Creek was not unknown to my grandparents. Viola's baby sister Lavinia lived there with her husband and their family, as well as her sister Edith (Ines), who, with her husband, owned and operated an atmospheric Italian restaurant called the Little Venice. It was there, at the bar, that my grandfather first heard of the availability of the empty factory nearby, resulting in their purchase of the building.

Located directly behind the restaurant, past a flat grove of pear trees, was a two-story gray sandstone building on a neat green acre of land. The lower floor would host the cutting room, while the upper floor would be used for assembling, finishing, and shipping.

Garment factories were set in residential neighborhoods in these small manufacturing towns, which was convenient, as women (operators) could walk to work after dropping their children off at school. In the 1940s it was unlikely that a family would have two cars, so the women walked, while their husbands drove to work to the slate quarries, or Bethlehem Steel, or Alpha Cement. The needs of the workforce were considered from the outset by management. Viola knew the key to long-term success was to build a reliable and excellent team, so she put the word out through her known channels in Martins Creek that she and my grandfather were to soon open a mill. The applications poured in as they readied the physical plant.

Own Your Own Business

The entrance to the mill was strictly utilitarian. A set of rough-hewn steps and a potchkied landing made of wide wooden planks with gap-toothed spaces led to a glass door. Inside the door was the clock punch, and off to one side, the office.

Over that entrance, in catchy red and white, was the name of the company: “The Yolanda Manufacturing Company.” And more to the point, the name of the co-owner, my grandmother. The power of that name, and what that meant in the world, was not lost on the buyers, middlemen, suppliers, or machine operators, or on our family. Viola's given name, Yolanda, defined the endeavor. Viola may have had a maiden name that sounded English, Perin (most Venetian names don't end in vowels), but there was no hiding behind the Anglican sound for her. She was upfront and proud to be Italian American, the daughter of immigrants, from the Veneto.

There was a dividing line between the Italians who changed their names to assimilate in business or fit in socially and the ones who did not. Viola didn't have any patience with faking it. She always felt badly for the Italians who, upon entrance to the United States, had their surnames changed or misspelled by a processing agent.

However, when it came time to put her name on the business, there was no way it would be the Viola Company. The name was my grandfather's idea, and it was, perhaps, the best gift he had ever given his wife. She was proud to give the company the name her immigrant parents had given to her. Viola was also eager, at long last, after years of working for others, to stand behind her brand, determined to deliver a product close to perfect and assume the role of the eight-hundred-pound gorilla to ensure quality control. They opened the mill shortly before Viola's thirty-sixth birthday, in 1943.

Made in the USA

A blouse begins with a sketch that is broken down by piece and via size by measurement. The fabric is purchased by the mill (the price is negotiated), along with the extras: buttons, zippers, piping, specialty collars, embellishments or embroidered insets. All these elements were purchased from salesmen who become an ongoing and important part of the process of manufacturing, an extended family of suppliers, purveyors, and salesmen as familiar to my grandparents as the workers on the plant floor.

The cutting room was on the ground floor of the factory, and the machines, office, finishing, and shipping were on the first floor. The five-foot bolts of fabric were delivered, sealed in plain brown paper casing. The fabric bolt is mounted onto a roller at one end of the table, and then pulled along the length of the table, then rolled out, back and forth, with thin sheets of paper applied between the layers. On top of this layer cake of fabric, thin pattern paper printed in midnight blue ink with the dimensions and parts of a blouse is placed, carefully, to use every inch of fabric and avoid waste. You had to be a bit of an architect when looking at the pattern paper. Sometimes I could make out collars, or a placket or a sleeve, but most of the time, this massive pattern looked like a map of a world I didn't know.

Over the table, a stainless steel saw with a very thin blade and a cover was pulled down from the ceiling and operated by the cutter. He artfully handled the blade, slicing through the layers of material, following the pattern exactly. The cutter had to be physically strong, have a good sense of concentration, and wield the blade precisely.

Two men called graders would assist him, removing the pieces as they went. This is not a scientific observation, just my own, but I never saw a short man in the job of cutter. The man who handled the blade was always tall and lanky, with long arms.

Upstairs, the main room of the shop was an orderly succession of sewing machines set out in rows on either side of a wide central aisle, attended by small metal stools with low backs. At the end of each row was a large canvas bin on wheels, where the assembled goods were placed, to be taken to finishing, where the sleeves were turned and the blouses pressed, then hung, bagged, or boxed.

Overhead, an elaborate spiderweb of wires provided electricity to run the machines and illuminate the work lamps over the threaders. The bulk of the machines were for sewing, but there were additional models for detail work like buttonholing and grommet placement. The sewing machines looked similar—black enamel casing over the curves of the body, spiked by the silver wheel, needle shank, threader, and bobbins—but in time they also assumed the personalities of their operators. Some ladies made cushions for their stools; others organized their tools (short-handled scissors, small screwdrivers) in small boxes or initialed cups. They kept their personal effects in the metal drawers underneath the machines. There was room enough to tuck their purse, lunch, and odds and ends.

At the far end of this large room was a loading dock. A large roll-away door lifted up and out on a track, which turned the back of the factory into an open-air space. A Silver Line tractor trailer would pull right up to the dock, a temporary bridge would be snapped in, and the stock would be loaded on, in bags, ticketed to ship, or on hanging racks on wheels, or folded in boxes individually like unwrapped presents. Due to the volume of goods produced by local factories, the expense of the truck rental was often shared with other mills. These trucks were loaded, then driven into New York City, where the goods were distributed through middlemen in the garment district of midtown.

On days when I would visit the factory with my grandmother, it was usually a weekend, so the mill was empty. Even when the factory was idle, a haze of dust hung in the air from fabric filaments. In bright sunlight, the fabric dust looked like gray snow.

I'd go through the drawers under the sewing machines to steal chewing gum or bogart a small silver bobbin of hot pink thread while Viola was in the office checking the mail. There were all sorts of things in the operators' drawers— photographs in small leather cases, rosaries, and coins for the soda machine. An old-fashioned refrigerated chest was positioned in the front of the factory loaded with chocolate and orange A-Treat Soda. Viola would often enlist us to tear union labels (ILGWU) off a spool—we were quick with our small hands—to be sewn in the collar of the blouses, or to turn sleeves on finished blouses. If we weren't ripping tickets, she gave us a magnet to collect straight pins from the cracks in the factory floor. We would place the pins in a box, to be reused in the cutting room.

Viola ice skating in the 1950s.

The bins at the end of the aisles were filled with bundles of piecework that the operators would sew together the following week. Fresh from the cutting room, these bundles looked like a stack of puzzle pieces, tied together with streamers of fabric from the edges of the cut fabric.

The wise manufacturer negotiates deals, looks for bargains, and develops a sixth sense for exactly how much trim or how many buttons or zippers are needed on a certain job. It's the salesman's job to suggest options, one button over another or a particular brand of thread. Sometimes my grandfather would buy basics in bulk, knowing that he would need inventory on stock items like small clear buttons for neck loops, or sturdy white or black thread.

All the elements needed to make a blouse factor into the cost for the manufacturer as well as the labor and overhead. My grandparents ran a union shop, so they included pension expenses and fees in their bids. The price of a blouse is negotiated in lots, and the manufacturer is paid for his work by the dozen. It's the job of the manufacturer to negotiate the profit margin.

Viola often worried about “meeting payroll,” because things can go wrong in the process of garment manufacturing. The mill was responsible for errors. These errors (an uneven stitch, a collar set improperly, a pocket in the wrong place) had to be fixed, and this cost the mill time and money. It was an ongoing challenge to stay in profit. After all, human beings were making the blouses by hand, so you could count on errors. By contrast, you could also count on great artistry and speed, in the hands of experienced operators.

Observing operators working at their machines, heads bowed in concentration as they spin the wheel, guide the fabric through the threader, and pump the pedal, is like watching an orchestra on the stage at Carnegie Hall. There is a syncopation to their movements, and a rhythm to the whole.

In the heyday of production, fifty employees (including cutters, factory floor workers including graders, sample makers, examiners, operators, collar setters, buttonholers, and pressers) assembled the pieces on the machines, which resulted in a finished blouse.

A blouse moved through the operations of the factory from cutting to assembling, to pressing, and on to finishing, where the blouses were hung, ticketed, and bagged, looking as they will when you peruse them on a rack in a department store.

Viola was The Boss. She ensured every blouse that shipped from her mill should be of the highest and best quality. She would not only oversee the work but sit down among the operators, like a pace car on a speedway before a great race, and lead the effort. She led by example, as well as by the following factory rules:

• Hire the best employee.

• Use the specific and special talent of the employee.

• Be able to perform every task that you hire someone else to do.

• Work alongside those you hire; to oversee is not enough.

• Pitch in when there's a deadline.

• If an operator is out, sit down and take her place.

• Have an understanding of the equipment, and how to repair it.

• There is no such thing as a silent partner. When you owe someone money, they own you.

• Do not be smug in success. Stay humble and you'll stay in business for the long run.

• When you take a risk, no second-guessing, no looking back. Plow.

Viola was a tough boss. She was relentless, and told me she made operators cry from time to time. The pressure was on, and everybody felt it; every person had to process that pressure. I think of the operators when I have a deadline. I think of the pressure to be perfect and to work nimbly and quickly when you're tired, or don't feel well, or are distracted by life at home or responsibilities to your family. Like them, I remind myself that I'm doing it for my family—and like them, I focus.