For Grandad, WW II (and fate) Put an End to the Depression

from Emil Stefanik  b. 1938

My grandfather was from Cleveland.  He owned a clothing store and held some stocks and lost everything in the depression. He took a job in a small steel mill  where he earned 50 cents an hour.  He was too old for the war.  He heard about the need for workers in the war plants so he moved his family to Camden, New Jersey and got a job in the shipyard.  His pay went from 50 cents an hour to a dollar an hour with plenty of overtime.  Grandad, my grandmother and my mother also got help to pay for some of the rent.   He always told that it was fated for him to make that move because the first ship he worked on was the U.S.S. Cleveland.

 

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