Claudia Lakey and James Duke

[00:03] CLAUDIA LAKEY: I'm Claudia Lakey. I'm 53 years old. It's January 21, 2024, in Memphis, Tennessee, and I'm here with James Duke, who I've known all of my life, because he happens to be my father.

[00:16] JAMES DUKE: And I'm James Duke. I'm 81. And today is January 21, 2024, in Memphis, Tennessee. I'm here with Claudia Lakey, my daughter, and I guess that manages the relationship. And I have known her all my life. All her life.

[00:35] CLAUDIA LAKEY: All my life. Not all of your life. So I ask you here because when my grandmother passed away, you gave a eulogy for her and talked about her work starting the union in the laundry that she worked in, in, I think, Springfield, Missouri. And I found it very interesting, and I hadn't really heard that story before. I haven't really heard it since, except when we were rehearsing this. So what can you tell me about that?

[01:07] JAMES DUKE: Well, I'll back step a little bit and tell you that I think your grandmother, Lois Snow, was a tough old bird. I didn't know her until I was 21, and she was probably 60 or 65, somewhere in that range. And so most of the information I have about her during her time with that steam laundry in Springfield, Missouri, is almost secondhand, but built on some documents that I've managed to dig up and find out about her. She was a farm girl from the area near Springfield, Missouri, on the edge of the Ozark Mountains. And she was one of four daughters and an older son of a farmer couple who lives in that area. And her dad traveled about building gas stations for an oil company. So he was gone a good bit of the time, and she and her sisters were required to do the farm work. Her brother was exempted from that. It was kind of quite unfair. And then later on, he was the one who got to go to college, and none of the girls could.

[02:36] CLAUDIA LAKEY: How big was the farm?

[02:38] JAMES DUKE: I don't really know how big it was, but it could not have been, I don't think, more than maybe 50 to 100 acres. It's not really good land down there for row crops. You can grow cattle and that kind of stuff, but it's rocky land, not really fertile except in the river valleys. Anyway, because of her background, she had no skill, no tradable skill. And after she got married in 1931, I think it was, if you had a child a year later, your uncle Bill, the depression, well and truly had sat in, in that part of the country, and employment was hard to get for everybody, and people had a difficult time starting their lives, if you graduated from high school or something, you couldn't find a job. You had to continue living at home and just take whatever menial employment you might so you can contribute to the family soup pot. She, her husband's family, mother and father, your great granddad and grandmother, and his brother and his wife, Clarence and Fern all lived in the same household. And we don't really know, but it's possible his other brother, Glenn, lived with them at the time. Anyway, she had a full time. She got a full time job working in a laundry, in a steam laundry. And if you've ever heard the term sweatshop, that clearly defines what a steam laundry is, at least in those days, they were lucky to have a fan and they had a production schedule. You had to do so much piecework each day to a certain standard, and you might lose your job. And they worked 44 to 48 hours a week, which is six days with half day on the Saturday. Sometimes the pay was menial, no more than 40 or $0.45 an hour.

[05:01] CLAUDIA LAKEY: And you said that you adjusted, that you figured it out and it's around $7 an hour.

[05:06] JAMES DUKE: That's right. It was right. At $7 an hour in today's dollars.

[05:10] CLAUDIA LAKEY: In today's dollars.

[05:10] JAMES DUKE: So it's just below what's today's a minimum wage. And spread over across, spread across a year. It's only is less than $20,000 a year, right. Not even today. That kind of money is not enough to raise a family honor, sustain a family back in the household. I'll let you know that. Fred, the grandfather, your grandfather, your great grandfather, excuse me, was working for the railroad, for the Frisco railroad. And your grandfather was working as a truck driver part time. And your uncle Clarence was also a truck driver. And none of those jobs paid well. So your grandmother's employment was vital to the family, even though they all shared one house, one rented house in Springfield.

[06:11] CLAUDIA LAKEY: You know, we talked about that. It took all of those people working together to maintain one household during the Depression.

[06:19] JAMES DUKE: Yes. And that's one of the reasons that people couldn't, when they, for example, graduated from high school, couldn't go off and start their own life. Their contribution to the family home was too vital for them to go off anyway. Working conditions were not good, and that's pretty common throughout the country at that time. But when Franklin Roosevelt got elected in the early thirties, 1932, I think it was, one of the first things he did was to basically introduce and get passed through the legislature the ability of labor unions to negotiate in defense of their members for the employees. Up to that time, management either would not negotiate at all, or they would just fire the employees or close the store. And that and early legislation under Roosevelt made that illegal. And one of the first women's unions in existence popped up in the 1860s, and that was women's laundry workers union. That was in New York, but in Springfield, Missouri, unions were antithetical and were not looked on with great favor by any of the employers or by the government. Local government, state government, even the feds had been against unions. And because of poor working conditions, your grandmother and some of her colleagues that work at the laundry talked about, you know, we ought to start a union, stand up for ourselves, negotiate for our working conditions and our pay and all sorts of things you might do at a sweatshop. Lois, as I understand it, talked to her boss about union stuff, and he told her, if you join the union, I'll fire you. Well, you can't get fired when your job is vital to the household, you've got to toe the mark and bow your head and keep your shoulder down. But your grandmother, being the Lois, being a tough old bird, would not accept that. So she and her colleagues bound together, and they formed a local of the women's Laundry Workers International in 1937, and it changed the structure of work in Springfield, at least for the laundry workers after that, after she found that she was still having to take in laundry at home to make a little bit more money for the family, she was doing laundry at home by hand, and a local businessman for whom she did the white shirts, and he had a white suit that she took care of for him. She went to him with a proposal and said, if you'll buy me a washing machine, electric washing machine, I will take care. I will guarantee you to continue taking care of your shirts to your kind of standard. And so he did. He bought her a washing machine, and that way she was able to continue taking in laundry from others in the neighborhood. So that was her contribution to the family after the union was formed and she left the steam laundry there in Springfield.

[10:16] CLAUDIA LAKEY: She was a tough old bird, because I know during that time, all of these people were living in one household, and she was not only doing the laundry for that household, but she was doing the cooking and cleaning and caring for everybody in that.

[10:33] JAMES DUKE: Yes, I suspect her. I don't really know, but I suspect her mother in law, Pearl, helped with the housework. Her sister in law, Fern, was famous for not doing anything ever. I only knew her later in her life, and she wasn't doing anything then, not that she was a bad person. She just didn't contribute.

[10:57] CLAUDIA LAKEY: And grandma worked in the laundry until she retired, didn't she?

[11:01] JAMES DUKE: Yes. She left the laundry there in 1930, in the late thirties. But then when World War two started, she went back to it and worked in the laundry through World War two. And her husband, your grandfather, took ill and couldn't work for a long period of time. And Clarence, his brother, had moved up to Peoria, Illinois, and gotten a job with the caterpillar tractor company. It turned out to be a really good job for him. And so he suggested to his brother, why don't you come up? So he and your mom had been born by then. He, your mom and Lois moved to Peoria and he couldn't get a job at Caterpillar because he was physically could not do the work any longer. So Lois went back to laundry work in Peoria, and she worked it, laundry in Peoria, Illinois, until she retired in the late seventies, early eighties. And she eventually was the supervisor of the floor there in the laundry. And obviously a reliable, durable employee and somebody that I've known since I met your mom in 1959, and she was a stalwarth and her husband with a poor health. He died when your mom was 14, I think.

[12:38] CLAUDIA LAKEY: I think 1515.

[12:40] JAMES DUKE: And I didn't meet your mom until after he had passed away and met her in high school. But your grandmother continued to work at the laundry and maintain the household. Your uncle Bill lived there at home and contributed to the house. He worked for the Walgreen drug company, first in a store in Peoria and then otherwise he ended up as assistant regional manager, I think it was in a district up in Wisconsin. But anyway, they pooled their resources and were able to buy a house. They had a small home there in Pekin, Illinois, a suburb of Peoria. And she and her brother and your mom lived there together after your grandfather died. And then when her son Bill moved away following his job, she continued to live there and she was paying for the house the whole time and doing, of course, doing everything. Your mom and I got married, and while we didn't move far away, we did move 10 miles away. And so she struggled on by herself and helped us out some, as young couples always need some help, and your grandmother helps us a good bit. And then your uncle Bill came back to Pekin and he had married, brought his wife, and was in the house with her for a while and she soldiered on. But anyway, she continued to work in the laundry business until she retired.

[14:24] CLAUDIA LAKEY: I have a question?

[14:26] JAMES DUKE: Yeah.

[14:27] CLAUDIA LAKEY: Yesterday, when we were preparing for this, one of the questions on there was about how you met mom.

[14:33] JAMES DUKE: Oh, yes.

[14:34] CLAUDIA LAKEY: And you mentioned that it was because Aunt Sarah was mom's friend and it was when you went to high school. But were you romantically interested in her when you met her?

[14:44] JAMES DUKE: I.

[14:45] CLAUDIA LAKEY: Or she was just someone.

[14:46] JAMES DUKE: Almost immediately I remember being quite struck by her. I remember seeing this vision. She had little curly hair and cute little girl, and I was bowled over, kind of. We went on one date. We went to a Halloween bonfire someplace. Went with my sister and her husband, what's now her husband, her boyfriend, to some farm someplace there in Illinois. And your mom wouldn't go out with me again. And anyway, I very shortly joined the Navy, so I was out of the picture for a few years.

[15:24] CLAUDIA LAKEY: I think she said you mumbled too much.

[15:26] JAMES DUKE: Well, I had just moved there from Birmingham, Alabama, and she couldn't understand what I said. She claims she tells a story that I told her about at my school in Birmingham. High school there, a dog, a collie had gotten into the school, was wandering around, and she thought I was saying a cow. And so she decided, I dare not go out with this boy anymore. That's what she said.

[15:51] CLAUDIA LAKEY: But y'all wrote to each other the whole time you were in the navy?

[15:55] JAMES DUKE: Pretty much the whole time. Maybe not immediately, but I wrote her regularly as I sailed across the Atlantic many times, always out in the ocean. I worked shifts in the navy, and so I had a long nights with nothing else to do but to write a letter to my girlfriend. Okay, I'm going to change the subject a little bit and talk about you just a little bit.

[16:20] CLAUDIA LAKEY: Okay.

[16:23] JAMES DUKE: When you in high school, you were a math whiz. You were absolutely a math whiz, which is something I always struggled with. And so when you went to college, I thought, well, she's going to be a math major and maybe an actuary or something. I don't know what she'll do. But then you changed, and, I don't know, you kind of end up with sort of a general major. And then you started studying economics, and you graduated with a major in economics and just had little jobs around for a while, but then you became a teacher. What prompted you to become a teacher?

[17:07] CLAUDIA LAKEY: I didn't set out to become a teacher. I kind of backed into it because Joe and I, my husband and I had one child who went to daycare, and daycare was very expensive, and Ben was sick all of the time. And so when we had our second child, it became apparent to me that I could earn as much working part time as I would net working full time and paying daycare for two children. And I was really worried about how sick my second child would be in daycare.

[17:48] JAMES DUKE: They get introduced to every germ around, don't they?

[17:53] CLAUDIA LAKEY: And so Joe finally agreed that we could give it a whirl. I would work part time, and he would work full time, and I worked part time at JC Penney's selling fine jewelry. And Joe worked days at FedEx corporate side, and he would get home at about 515. And I would leave the house and get to work at 530 and work until, I think, 09:00 and then come home. And we did that for a little while. And then I got a second little job doing mailings for the Memphis restaurant association, and I could do that out of my house. And so I worked those two jobs. And about not quite a year after I quit working full time, the boys went to Mother's Day out. And so the director of the Mother's Day out program asked if I would like to substitute some, and I said, sure, why not? And a mother's day out is, it's a few days a week, a couple hours a day. So it's not a daycare, but it's a chance for mothers to have a chance to go grocery shopping or whatever, and children to get a chance to socialize.

[19:16] JAMES DUKE: Our mother's day out programs typically run by churches?

[19:20] CLAUDIA LAKEY: Yes, pretty much so, especially in the state of Tennessee. And there's. There are reasons why, in terms of how you can establish a school in Tennessee that mean churches overwhelmingly have it.

[19:35] JAMES DUKE: Easier than other places, licensing and insurance and so forth.

[19:38] CLAUDIA LAKEY: Mm hmm.

[19:39] JAMES DUKE: Okay.

[19:40] CLAUDIA LAKEY: So anyway, she asked if I would like to substitute at the mother's day out, and I said, sure, why not? And the first time I subbed, it was like. It was like coming home. It was what I was supposed to be doing, and I understood. I understood how everything worked together. So I did that for a while. I substituted, and then I got to have my own classroom and mother's day out, and that was a few days a week, and the kids could go with me. And so it worked really well for our family.

[20:21] JAMES DUKE: You mean your sons.

[20:22] CLAUDIA LAKEY: Mm hmm. And I got to quit working at Penny's and just worked at the mother's day out program. And then I moved to a different day school, which was a five day a week kindergarten program and taught. There was an assistant teacher there for a little while.

[20:42] JAMES DUKE: But had you worked on your education degree by then?

[20:46] CLAUDIA LAKEY: Not at that point. I knew that I wanted to go get my education degree. And so my husband was sick for a while. He had a brain tumor, and I didn't work for a couple years. When he finally got back on his feet, I went to graduate school and got my master of arts in teaching. And I thought, when I graduated with my master of arts in teaching, I thought, I'm going to go teach elementary school. I'm going to go teach fourth grade or second grade or something like that, and I'm going to be a real teacher. And none of the doors that opened were in elementary school. Every opportunity that presented itself was in early childhood. And that has continued to be the truth that the few times that I have looked around at other positions, elementary opportunities just don't present themselves to me. But I'm very good at what I do. I'm very good at teaching young children. I understand child development very well. I connect with them. I can break down more difficult concepts into smaller bits so that they can understand them.

[22:01] JAMES DUKE: Are you saying that these preschool kind of schools are not just babysitting?

[22:10] CLAUDIA LAKEY: They're not. Research shows that birth to age five is the most crucial brain development time. And so it doesn't have to be structured academics and flashcards and abcs and one, two, three s. But a setting where they are encouraged to explore and play and make connections and a safe environment is essential for building new neural pathways.

[22:40] JAMES DUKE: But that investigation, is that directed or guided in some fashion?

[22:45] CLAUDIA LAKEY: It can be, but it can also be open ended, letting the child do their own exploring. Sometimes it can be presenting a certain set of materials that they can use to explore. Sometimes it is taking materials that they're already using and helping them use them in a new and different way, but really presenting them with opportunities to make new connections.

[23:13] JAMES DUKE: Is there a particular day or event at school that, looking back on it, maybe even at the time, you thought was really funny or humorous?

[23:29] CLAUDIA LAKEY: There are lots of humorous things.

[23:31] JAMES DUKE: But dealing with little children, I think so, yes.

[23:34] CLAUDIA LAKEY: One of my coworkers down the hallway has a board up, and it's called things children say. And this year, one of the things on there is don't pick your nose with the alligator. I don't know the rest of the.

[23:46] JAMES DUKE: Story I observed that ruled my whole life.

[23:50] CLAUDIA LAKEY: Yeah, it's a very important rule. But one thing that stands out is one of my first years at the school that I'm at now. We had an old fashioned playground with pea gravel and a sandbox that had seen a lot of better days. And so the kids would find interesting things buried in the sandbox or. Or just on the playground to play with.

[24:14] JAMES DUKE: There are a lot of trees around that.

[24:15] CLAUDIA LAKEY: Yes, it's a very shaded playground. And so one day I was sitting on a bench talking to another teacher, and I was watching the kids play, and I noticed that one of them had a stick with what looked like leaves on the end of it. And I thought, hmm, that's kind of interesting. And I watched them for a little while longer, and I started to think that maybe it wasn't leaves. And so I got up and I went over to look at what they had constructed, and they had found the outside of a squirrel body and a squirrel skull. And it was on the end of the stick, and they were carrying the dead squirrel parts around. And so I took that away from them and disposed of the squirrel and then watched.

[25:02] JAMES DUKE: Did they object relieving their.

[25:06] CLAUDIA LAKEY: I don't remember them objecting to it, but we washed hands really well after that. So there's always interesting things that you get to do and participate in when small children are involved.

[25:21] JAMES DUKE: I recall there being an instance at another school that you worked at, I think just for one year, where you came home from work with your legs all black and blue. From a child kicking you.

[25:34] CLAUDIA LAKEY: Oh, yes. I had a bruise on my thigh that took months to heal from a child kicking me with the corner of their shoe. But I don't get into too many. There's not too much physical stuff.

[25:51] JAMES DUKE: You don't have to wrestle them down?

[25:53] CLAUDIA LAKEY: Oh, no, I don't wrestle them down. Last year, well, the past two years, because in my classroom there's, I teach the younger kids and another teacher teaches a year older. So we had twins who came in, and on Wednesdays their mother would pick them up early. And so the other days of the week, at after nap time, we would just let them keep sleeping. And they slept until after the aftercare person came in. But on Wednesdays, we had to wake them up, and they always woke up kind of grumpy and. And everything. And so Wednesdays was snuggle day. And so I would wake them up and we would sit in the rocking chair with one on each side, and we would snuggle until mom got there.

[26:34] JAMES DUKE: That sounds very rewarding, very pleasant. I wish I could do that.

[26:38] CLAUDIA LAKEY: Yeah. Not very many people get to do that at work.

[26:40] JAMES DUKE: No. Even at home.

[26:42] CLAUDIA LAKEY: Yes. So that was, that's going to be a special memory. And so that's one of the things that I like about early childhood is that it's still appropriate to give them a hug, it's still appropriate to pat them on the back. The no nos around touch have not really emerged yet. Of course, there are lines that you don't cross, but you're able to be more demonstrative with younger children.

[27:19] JAMES DUKE: Do you have a notion of when those no nos kick in, that you're not allowed to, for example, hug a kid and so on?

[27:26] CLAUDIA LAKEY: They start emerging towards the end of my age range in that, like, we have a classroom bathroom and we enforce, people deserve privacy in the bathroom.

[27:39] JAMES DUKE: Okay.

[27:39] CLAUDIA LAKEY: And so you're not allowed to peek in the bathroom. And we have a spot that you stand if you're waiting your turn. And if you poke your head around, then somebody will tell you you're peeking at me and they will make you not do that.

[27:53] JAMES DUKE: So peer pressure.

[27:56] CLAUDIA LAKEY: Yes, peer pressure can be a good thing.

[27:58] JAMES DUKE: I'm sure it can. Probably guides us through most of our.

[28:01] CLAUDIA LAKEY: Polite society to a great extent. Yes. Yes.

[28:06] JAMES DUKE: So do you think you will keep doing early ed as you're doing now for the foreseeable future? Have no plans to go otherwise?

[28:16] CLAUDIA LAKEY: I don't see me leaving early childhood. It's where I think I belong, and I think it's where my talents get used the best, and it's very rewarding to me.

[28:27] JAMES DUKE: It doesn't pay well, though, does it?

[28:29] CLAUDIA LAKEY: It doesn't, but luckily my husband makes decent money.

[28:34] JAMES DUKE: So you're paid through reward your other rewards rather than payment?

[28:39] CLAUDIA LAKEY: Yes.

[28:40] JAMES DUKE: Well, that's good to know, but I.

[28:41] CLAUDIA LAKEY: Plan to do it until I retire.

[28:45] JAMES DUKE: Okay, good.

[28:46] CLAUDIA LAKEY: Yep. So I think we're done.

[28:50] JAMES DUKE: Yeah.