That's right. Our installers had found their way. They knew they wanted
to go CIO. We already had a charter, but we were working in buildings
where the telephone operators, lineman, and so forth were members of …
well after that strike, the National Federation of Telephone Workers was
reformed into the Communication Workers of America, CWA, and they were
trying, I guess, to strengthen CWA and move it away from this company
domination. We were trying, and they wanted to stay independent, we were
trying to move these people out of the CWA into the CIO Telephone
Workers Organizing Committee. So, it was that kind of organizing effort
that I engaged in there for a while. But even at that point, I wasn't
really dedicated to a life in the trade union movement. I was an
installer. I would do most of my organizing on the job. I had not really
decided that that is what I wanted to be … It just wasn't that strong.
There was no question in my mind that … the CIO was the way for the
people to go, that we needed a strong union, that we needed all of that,
but I made no decision at that point to be an active strong leader in
trade union movement or anything like that. It didn't happen that way
then.
What happened was about a year and a half after the
strike … well, nine or ten months after the strike, we had our first
child … Linda was born, and about six months after that Pat developed
TB, and we were living and working in Fort Worth. So, she had to go into
the hospital in Dallas, which was 30 miles in one direction from Fort
Worth, and she had a sister in Mineral Wells which was about 50 miles
west of Fort Worth. So Anne took Linda, Pat went into the hospital, and
I moved in with another sister and brother-in-law there in Fort Worth,
we just broke our family up completely. One day after work I would go
see Pat at the hospital, the next day I would go over to Mineral Wells
and see Linda, … it was tough years … a tough time, but at least I could
see her, it wasn't too far, and I could see Linda. Oh, just a few weeks
after she went into the hospital, the company decided that even though
there was plenty of work for me to do in Fort Worth, they wanted me in
Wichita Falls, which was way out west in the state, and I went to them
and asked them to change their minds, to let me stay there in Fort
Worth, explained my problem, and the guy I talked to said well, that's
your problem, not mine, and you're going on to Wichita Falls or else. We
had a union meeting that night …