“It was a lonely life. But there were woods and creeks and meadows and places where you can just sit on a hill under a tree and let the sun shine on you…” Produced by Rich Elliott. Transcript for Growing Up Rural I live in the country, it’s halfway between two towns, Valparaiso and Chesterton. […]
“It was the dirtiest place in the mill. But I guess they made a decent salary. So he encouraged my father to leave Florida and move to Gary.” Transcript for How We Ended Up Coming to Gary We grew up in the neighborhood that was near Pulaski School. My grandfather lived in the neighborhood. He […]
“We saw the writing on the wall, we knew it was coming.” Produced by Rich Elliott. Transcript for Bethlehem Gave Up the Ghost Bethlehem Steel’s a conglomeration of other steel plants that were merged or brought in from other areas. And it was all back east—you had Maryland, you had New York, you had Pennsylvania. […]
“I got to watch that. This was big for me. It was something that I just dearly loved…” Produced by Rich Elliott. Transcript for I Was All Over That Mill Bethlehem Steel had just opened up this whole new steel mill just a few miles away, and I always wanted to get into the engineering […]
“I think it’s the exact opposite. I think those are the reasons I can do it.” Produced by Carmen Vincent Transcript for In My Own Skin I was born in Texarkana in Texas. It’s a city near where Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana come together. And then when I was two we moved to Northwest […]
“You can never forget who you are.” Transcript for Remember Where You Came From I say to my grandkids all the time, you can never forget who you are, but you have to remember where you come from. You know what the WPA is? It was a work program that Roosevelt set up for people […]
“My mother said, ‘Always leave a job to where maybe you could go back to it.’” Transcript for How I Tried to Leave My mother said, “Always leave a job to where maybe you could go back to it.” And that was how I tried to leave. Any job I left I tried to leave […]
“We were good workers, and we did our job well, but we didn’t have a passion. You have to have a passion in life.” Transcript for It’s the American Dream You come here for work, and you work in the steel mills, and it’s simple as that. I mean, my grandpa worked in the steel […]