Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Did your mother have a "maid" when you were growing up?

I grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta, a lower middle class neighborhood. In 1960, I was 9 years old and we had a "colored" maid. All the ladies in the neighborhood had a maid.
The black section of Atlanta was 15 miles away, on the south side of town. These maids would ride up Peachtree Road on the Peachtree Oglethorpe bus. The housewives would pick them up at the bus stop.
I remember one maid was named Mattie Dollar. I do recall, when it was time to take Mattie back to the bus stop, she would ride in the back seat while my mom drove.
My mom was a Chicago yankee. And I asked her why the maid had to ride in the back, she just said "That is the way they do things down here."

This was before the Great Society, no welfare, so these black gals were glad to have a job. I guess they worked pretty cheap because all the neighborhood moms had a maid. Mattie Dollar would work on Mondays and Wednesdays at our house, and then work at other houses the other days.

I do remember going to the gas station with my mom in 1960, there were two drinking fountains. One had a big sign that said "WHITE" and the other said "COLORED."
I said, "Mom, why do the coloreds have to drink from a different fountain? Do they have some terrible disease?"
My mom said, "That is the way they do things down here." She could not explain it.

I do remember my mom saying that Mattie Dollar had 6 children and she sent every one of them to college. Unheard of in those days.
I think that one of her kids is Creflo Dollar the preacher but I am unable to confirm that.

My Mother was in medical school when I was born and my Father was away most of the time, so she had a live-in house keeper/cook who was with us until I was 5 or 6 years old.

Betty was 18 and just out of high school when she came to work for us and I remember my Mother saying that she taught herself how to cook with a Betty Crocker cookbook. Betty was very nice, just 7 years younger than my Mother, who treated her like a younger sister. When she left, my Mother bought her a baby blue Ford Falcon and gave her a nest egg to help her get started in the next chapter of her life. My Mother's version of a 401K was to put $10 per week into a passbook savings account that Betty got when she left.

My mom too, except she got a dishwasher at about 72-years young. Mom taught a class called "Bachelor Survival" which about half the guys around here should have taken. I could sew a button, darn a sock, and cook a pot roast by 4th grade.

Mom is now 92, God Bless her.

When I was a little kid, we had a black maid named Rainy. I was crazy about her. I used to say she was made of chocolate. She took no insult at all, nor did I intend any, as I was only three or four. She was our maid till I was a bout six.

After that, our maids were always from Central America. My mom kept the maid we got when I was about eight till just about six years ago. She died a couple years later, then my mom died a couple years after that at age 84.

Have a maid, seriously?
I’m the oldest of seven kids. We had no money for a maid, and didn’t know any one that had a maid.

My mom had two.
Sister and I cleaned our rooms, each took a bathroom, dusted the living room furniture and alternated nights washing dishes. At 16 we did our own laundry. Mom was no dumbass, and certainly had never heard of child labor laws. I bussed tables at a family friends restaurant every Friday and Saturday night starting at 14. Started me down a bad path.... Waitresses taught me how to drink, smoke, Gamble and a few other things I shouldn't have known at that age!

Didn't have a maid until we moved down south and my mother had her 4th and 5th boys. Took 5 loads of laundry a day to keep up. This was pre-64 and she hired a mature black lady who had a blind husband and no children. Her name was Lela. She came 5 days a week, cooked, cleaned, and minded the preschool kids. Mom paid her $100 per month. which was about $1 per hour, while she managed a bowling alley during the day. When I went to work in a local filling station a few years later I made $.50 per hour. Lela stayed with us until the last two kids graduated from high school in the 70's. By then her husband had died and I was in the Army. My parents moved to a different state and one of my younger brothers stayed in town and he and his wife kept kept an eye on her after she retired and drew Social Security. She owned a little one bedroom "shotgun" house that was always clean and kept up, and she left it to my brother and his wife when she died. She had nieces and nephews in the city an hour away, but they never had much to do with her. She was part of our family. There was a lot right about the rural south back then. Not sure much of it has survived.

Sure did: my sister and I.

Maid???/

What's a maid????

After dad passed mom scrubbed floors for the rich folks to keep Us fed.

No we always had family.

I remember both Grandmothers and a great aunts helping out when I was young.

Both sides of my family were close when I was young and growing up. I remember Grandfathers, Uncles and my Dad always working on projects at family houses including our own, From minor fixes to building addons to houses including plumbing and electrical.

Was that way until I was in my teens then everyone started going their own ways.

Part of the American Dream I guess.

With 5 kids i don't think that any funds were available for a maid.


Besides she had 5 little folks to help,what could go wrong.

We had a few "cleaning ladies" who would come in once a week in the late 60's - early 70's.
My Aunt & Uncle in Louisiana had a maid, Lula, and a yard man, Robert. I remember Robert would take a break and have his "taters and tea" out in the carport. My Mother asked him why he didn't come inside in the air conditioned house for his snack and he said "because if anything is missing, the black man took it". My Uncle had a nice lawn mower but Robert would bring his old beat up one from his home which was literally on the other side of the tracks. I really got my eyes opened to a whole different world when we visited them.

Mom did growing up during the war. They also garrisoned troops in their home.

I'm one of those guys that can't for the life of me figure out how "middle class" or even "lower middle class" folks as some here have stated could afford a maid, housekeeper, "man" etc.

We had a single wage earner family, 4 boys that came about every 2 years, then a girl finally when the oldest boy was 16. Dad had one new car he bought in 1963 when there were only 3 of us kids when we lived in a 3 room apartment back east. That car lasted a good many years, 1988 or so? After we moved to Cali and two more kids came along, even working good paying Union jobs and such, there was no leftover $$$$ for hired help. Mom would have loved it though.

We rarely ate really expensive food, like restaurant or steaks. Staples like noodles, rice, pancakes for dinner, whole chickens, lots of hamburger and cheap roasts served to keep 4 growing boys going, little sister ate just l like a little sister.

Maids were for folks that lived high on the hill. Same with yard men and mostly even for paying a mechanic to work on anything, car, washing machine, etc.

I'm amazed that folks supposedly similar to our family could afford a gal to come in.

Mom surely would have loved one though.

Geno

I was raised by a single father that worked at GM during the day and painting cars at night. That guy worked his dick off so we could have everything we wanted... and a cleaning lady 😂

My mom had one in Finland where she grew up until she was 7. I know their house had a separate servants staircase. It’s now a school or daycare. When I inherited a 200-300 year old dresser of theirs it had the old maids uniforms in it. I’m not sure if they hosted parties where they would make women wear those or if those were relics from the old world.

My mom and her parents came down several rungs on the social scale by the time they moved to the US though.


My folks hired a Gardner out by the time I was about six, and when I left for school my parents hired a maid for about ten years til they retired.

Hell, MM, my brother was an only child. Guess who did all of the work !!

No, just me. Mom and Grandma and I were the inside help. Dad and my two brothers were the outside help.

Mom worked two jobs, besides her regular work she did at home.

Lynn

So Rocky you have had the same women for how many years?

You had a maid growing up. Your mother was probably Kant and so were you