Mrs.Kleinschmitt

At last! I am 17 and through with school and now I can start to live! Or so I thought when I was

at an age where you know from nothing.

My brother, Fred was living in Minneapolis going to the U and renting a room from an old widow lady who rented out rooms in her home because it was so convenient to the campus. When she heard that I was looking for a job, she invited me to come and stay with her until I found one.

Wow! How could I refuse? Free room and board until I found a job!

So I got on a Greyhound bus one day, said goodbye to my mother, who was wiping away the tears,

much to my surprise. (my mother was not the crying type)

Those days the bus from the Iron Range to the Twin Cities took many hours, and I finally arrived in Minneapolis at 11:00 PM. Now I had to call Mrs. Kleinschmitt and tell her to tell

my brother to come and get me. I had never seen a dial phone before! But I figured out how

to dial and my brother hopped on a streetcar and came downtown to meet me.

We took a streetcar back to his place of residence.

Then I met Mrs. K. I'll never forget this experience.

She had rented out all her bedrooms and even had converted her living room into a bedroom in

order to make a living. She also did alterations on wedding gowns.

So her dining room was now her living room, and this is where I would sleep. I wondered where Mrs. K would sleep. She only had one room left for herself----her kitchen. So each night

she would set up a folding bed in her kitchen, and that is where she spent the nights, at least when I was occupying the day bed in the "living room".

"I don't allow anybody in my kitchen!" she exclaimed that first night, "Except you!" It was no wonder. Under her kitchen gas stove with the long legs she had stored all her spices and canned food and other items right on the floor. She really needed more cupboard space.

The next morning she made me a fried egg and toast breakfast which I ate in a tiny eating space in the kitchen. After breakfast I wrote a few lines to my mother on a postcard which Mrs. K insisted upon reading before I could send it.

She said I couldn't use the upstairs bathroom because I might get a terrible disease. All those

college boys used that bathroom and heaven only knows what I might catch.

So she arranged for my bathing to be in her basement standing in a tub, soaping up, and pouring water over myself. I hoped nobody was peeking in the basement windows!

Then she looked over the few clothes I had taken along and told me what to put on that day.

She insisted that I should start smoking because she was going to introduce me to a crowd and

smoking was the "in" thing to do. I told her it was illegal to smoke at my age, and so she relented. She decided when it was time for me to take a little rest. She would me allow five minutes lying on the day bed. She actually timed me. I wasn't even tired!

Almost every evening Mrs. K would drag out the card table for a game of bridge with my brother and another student. She accused my brother of cheating. One night, I woke up to

hear her exclaiming, "That damned brat!". I thought she meant me and I was petrified. Then

she said, "I'm going to hitch hike to Houston!" She had a daughter who lived in Houston, so

I figured I was off the hook.

I found a job at Warner Hardware in downtown Minneapolis and Mrs. Kleinschmitt found me

a boarding house to call home. It was a big old mansion, owned by her friend, in walking distance to the loop.

The food was wonderful, but I was put up on the third floor with just a bed and a chest of drawers. It was dormitory style. No privacy, no nothing. And somebody stole my underwear.

So I had to get out of there.

Which I did. She got mad and wouldn't speak to me anymore, and raised my brother's rent.

I shouldda stayed home!