Recognizing their professions

Cornell Capa. LIFE Magazine, 1948.

For this Mothers Day weekend, I'm looking back at the professions for some of the grandmothers and great-aunts in my tree. I'll start with my Gumpy's mother Alma Oyler Jones, who was listed as a cook in a restaurant in the 1940 US Census, living in Indianapolis. I wish I knew more about which restaurant and what type of cooking she did. By the 1950 US Census, she was working as a saleslady for Danner's Five and Dime store in Irvington, Indianapolis. According to her obituary, she worked there for ten years.

Alma's sister Emily worked as a teacher at Sugar Plains in Boone County, Indiana. Emily was my Gumpy's elementary school teacher, fondly remembered in his chapter on School Days at Sugar Plains from his self-published year 2000 collection of short stories.

My great-grandmother Blanche Lamon worked as a stenographer for Bankers' National Bank in Evansville for a few years after high school, before meeting my great-grandfather Harry O'Brien and moving to Indianapolis. The daughters of Allison's 2nd-great-grandmother Carrie Rech Freyling also worked as stenographers when they moved to California from Evansville in the 1930s.

My grandmother Blanche O'Brien operated a beauty salon in Broad Ripple, Indianapolis.

My great-grandmother Lois ran a restaurant called Turner's Lunch in Indianapolis from the 1930s until her retirement in 1963. The restaurant was rather notorious and frequently mentioned over the years in the Indianapolis newspapers as a site of illegal gambling, counterfeit sales, and illegal whisky. Lois received a beer license for the restaurant in 1935.

According to my Mom, Turner's Lunch was frequented by workers at the Diamond Chain Factory and Eli Lilly on Kentucky Avenue. The building was torn down when Lilly expanded their headquarters. She remembers going there often, and that Grandma Lois made good fried chicken, meatloaf, stews and other diner specialties at the restaurant.

Also on my Mom's side of the tree, my great-grandmother Manuela Portillo worked at the Tucson Steam Laundry when she first arrived in the United States in 1922. Manuela's daughter Lydia, my Granny, became a certified ceramics instructor (40 years) and worked 21 of those years at Riverside Park in Indianapolis.