Teamwork
August 27 2023
Mom and I were talking about her job after she had children, as I was wondering what made her decide to go to work, and in doing so, I learned about how God also works in our lives.
Mom said that when daddy finished running for congress the second time, his own father’s business was struggling, so he went to talk to her one afternoon when she was taking dry clothes down from the clothesline in the back yard. She said that he told her that he was worried about how they were going to financially make it, as they were trying to find a way to sell his dads business or take a settlement on it, and asked her if she would consider going to work to help out.
At that time mom stayed at home with five children… the oldest was just finishing high school. Mom said that dad was crying when he asked her to consider helping as he had always supported her desire to be a stay at home mom. Dad wanted mom to also be on his financial team, and not just on his work team. Mom was working hard raising five little girls and though she had a job at the cotton exchange, posting stock numbers, when she was in college, that had been a while. She needed help finding a job.
Mom said that was when her dear friend Marion, came to her rescue. Marion, though not someone who frequented the social scene much, still was someone who was there when she needed a friend and it was Marion who suggested that mom try out for the position at her episcopal church as an office manager because the current manager was leaving. Marion thought mom would be good as part of their team as well.
Mom was worried about taking a job in a church of a different faith, so she talked about her concerns to Monsignor Gilbert, our local priest at our Catholic church, who said “Cleta, Cleta” you should not worry about this…if you need the work, this is an honest job and you can take on the work with no concerns”.
So mom took the work at the church and quickly learned the church office procedures and was making 98.00 a week. But she said that their first house was only $13,000, to put her salary in perspective. To help my dad, she used her income, to pay for the groceries, and buy the clothing for us five little girls as she began shopping at outlets to economize, because up till then she made a lot of our matching outfits by hand.
She said that daddy made a chore chart for all of us girls so that we would also be on her team and help mom by ironing our own uniforms for catholic school, by doing dishes, and help cook dinner, or sweep and empty trash. Mom said that she really enjoyed things about her job as it was low key and she liked having dad only a few blocks away from her work, as he would pick her up and take her to lunch at the Holiday inn where one of their neighbors, Bitsy, was a kitchen food manager.
My sister Steph said that she remembers that when she got her first job working at the library after school, even though mom was working full time and had five little girls to take care of, when Steph worked library hours, mom would take her chores and do them for her so that she had time to do her homework. My mom was wonder woman.
After only working for a few months at the church, Mom said that she got a phone call out of the blue from a Mr. Edmundson who was looking for someone to take the occupancy supervisor position of the Goldsboro housing authority. When he called, mom said that she was flattered, but that she had only been in her current job for a short amount of time and should not leave.
But then she said that she felt like again she should talk to Monsignor Gilbert. even though she did not think she was interested. Mom said that Monsignor Gilbert was one of the seven members of the executive board for the housing authority, and she believed that Mr. Edmundson had probably gotten her name that way from him. Monsignor Gilbert suggested that she at least consider going to the interview before making up her mind, and if if she decided that the job was not for her, she had at least gone on the interview.
Mom listened to what he said and went to the interview, and learned that the salary offered, was double what she was making at the episcopal church, so she accepted because finances was the whole reason she went to work in the first place. When she told he minister at the episcopal church, that she would be leaving, he said that he understood, though he was going to be very sad to lose her.
Mom said that she never doubted if she could do the new job at the housing authority, even though she had to learn lots of government regulations, but she put her mind to learning and catching on quickly so as to not make mistakes, because the housing authority was audited regularly.
Mom said that the Brooke amendment, passed in 1969 authored by Senator Edward Brooke was supposed to cap rent cost at no more than 25 percent of income. But mom learned that many of her “residents” “income” was also money coming from the government in the form of “Aid to families with dependent children”.
Mom said when calculating income, she could not include food stamps that they qualified for and could also not count some other government subsidies that they were also receiving. Some of the residents were only paying twenty dollars a month for four bedroom housing…and mom said that the residents were disincentivized to get work and incentivized to have more children that they could not afford on their own. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aid_to_Families_with_Dependent_Children Mom also had no idea that this money given to low income families was being taken from Social Security.
In spite of these challenges based on laws that seemed goofy, there were things about this job that were nice as well, and mom said that because the housing authority was just across the street from the catholic school, an added benefit was that Tina, the youngest could walk to moms office from right across the street and go through the swinging doors of the kitchen and have a snack, do her homework for an hour and then go home with mom .
Mom said that it was the answer to a prayer to be so close to the school so she would not worry about Tina going home by herself.
Another benefit mom said was that our aunt Birdie worked as an accountant also at the housing authority, so mom felt really happy to have her nearby even though their jobs did not really intersect. She said that Aunt Birdie would take a morning break right at ten fifteen am. and would walk a few streets away to a friends house where they would share an egg, and then she would be back fifteen minutes later exactly.
Mom’s description of her new boss, Mr. Edmundson sounded like a description of Lou Grant on the Mary Tyler Moore show as he was a large man with thinning hair, and was a great boss. Mom believed for many years that she got the job because Mr. Edmundson had talked to Monsignor.
But years later, when she went to the funeral of a friend, (Mrs. Thornton, who was mutual friends with Mr. Edmundsons wife, because all of the ladies played bridge together), mom learned that Mrs. Edmundson was the reason he had hired her. His wife, who worked at a small local bookstore, knowing he needed a new supervisor, told him about mom because she admired all of the books mom bought.
The books mom chose, for my dad, were by G.K.Chesterton. and other good books and Mrs. Edmundson told my mom at that funeral, that she felt these choices were indicative of her caliber and spoke of my moms good character, which was a huge compliment.
Mom said she was surprised and happy to learn that she got the job because of who she was, not because of who she knew. The ladies in that community supported each other and their families, and were great team players.
In addition, during her tenure, Mom said she never took sick days, unless she was actually sick, where other employees took sick days as personal days which my mom felt was not fair or ethical. So years later, when they changed the benefits and paid employees for all the sick days they did not take, my mom was able to retire six months early with pay, because of all the sick days she had accumulated. My mom was on board with honesty.
And on her retirement, she found out from the most recent auditor, who was a retired full colonel in the military, that his audit of her books just a few weeks prior, was the best one he had done in his career and that she should be proud of herself because everything in the books was in order as it should be.
From her early childhood through today, Mom has always had a great work ethic. She helped her own mom who had eight children, from the time she was a little girl, rocking the twins to sleep and went on to be a team player everywhere she went.
It could not have been easy and mom tells stories of how as a child, in their little first house, she shared a room with three of her seven siblings, sleeping on the foot of the double bed with her two sisters Bettye and Joyce, while her younger sister Marie slept in the twin bed. When her sisters felt like she was in the way, she just moved to the floor with a sheet and a pillow, which was her hard bed, when she was not sleeping in the rocking chair, helping the twins to go to sleep.
I learned that after my mom left her work at the housing authority, there was a scandal years later because someone working there was embezzling funds from the government, pretending to be paying an employee, yet keeping the funds allocated for that position, for himself, in addition to his own salary. https://www.wral.com/story/ex-officials-at-housing-agencies-plead-guilty-to-crimes/12879541/
I have come to understand, learning about people, that the ethics a person has in their home, teams up with the character that they demonstrate at the office and a person is not two different people, one at work and one at home. What a person does when they think no one is looking is a good indication of who they are as a person all the time. Public Positions of authority in government cannot be separated from the private lives of these individuals and the analogy of how a well cannot bring forth both salty water and pure at the same time is indeed fitting.
My mom and dad sent us to Catholic school, because they wanted us to learn more than Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. They wanted us to first learn about God, the ten commandments, and things like honesty, integrity, faithfulness, and humility. They felt that these values build a person’s character and teach more of what God wants us to be.
For mom, work has always been a blessing, and because of my mom, the housing authority was also a blessing for those needing low income housing in Goldsboro. Because of her ethics, and her ability to always be a team player with efficiency and concern for others, she was able to continue there for more than twenty five years, providing a wonderful service to the community. Mom knows the current executive director of the Goldsboro housing authority, Matilda Bedford and said that she worked with this lady who is very pleasant and who lived in the country and helped raise her daughters children. Mom said that this lady is as honest as the day is long and that is good news.
To this day, my mom continues to be a team player, always a help and resource person for me, my sisters and her friends and neighbors and church, taking people food, taking them to run errands or to appointments, and helping fund missionaries and helping with gardening, while cooking delicious meals and keeping up family communications. We are so grateful for her example in our lives where her exemplary personal life, shines through in every aspect of her day.
