Not at all, not at that time. After a while I did well with Miss Naomi.
I don't remember whether she closed up or I just got a better offer. I
went to work for Ben. He decided he wanted some in service, in-house
seamstresses, and I went to work with Ben. Now at this time Ben's Men
and Boy's Shop was on Broughton Street near Jefferson. He hired me to be
one of the seamstresses there. It was always more than one of us, and
after I worked with them for a while, I went and worked for Jacob's
Men's Store, which was further down Broughton. After working for
Jacob's, I was in now doing a little bit of lady's alterations too, and
at the time when I was working for Jacob's, I decided that this was just
not enough for me. I just wanted to learn as much as I can about sewing.
So then I started, I heard about a vocational school that I could go to,
which was right here in Savannah at Cuyler Street School, which is on
Thirty—no, it was on Anderson where the EOA office is. I went there and
took a tailoring course. I took a tailoring course there, and it was a
vocational school, and the course was for two years, and after
graduation, our tailor, our instructor rather was a man. He taught the
class. There was one lady in the class that won, I think, first prize
for the year, and I just was so disappointed because I wanted to win
first prize. I couldn't repeat that because I had already graduated, but
I could go back and get another year training. I wouldn't get any credit
for it, but I just figured that it was something else. He knew that I
just did not get, and I went back and got another year with him and the
year after I finished with him, he passed on. But he was such a dynamic
instructor that you had to learn everything that he had because he would
insist that if you didn't understand a subject, a part of what he was
trying to teach you, he would know it before you would leave his sight.
So anyway, that's where I got my tailoring skills from.
While I was working, still working downtown when I graduated, this was in
1950 I graduated, I went to one of the ladies' stores downtown where a
lady, one of the owner's of the—not the owner—one of the managers of the
stores—. It was a chain
Page 4of stores, and she offered me
an alteration department, and I didn't have to pay any rent. But I had
to do the repairs for the store and answer the phone for all incoming
calls. It was on the balcony like, and that's the service that I
rendered to the store for free rent. That's where I started building up
a clientele.