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Chapter 4 Jobs Are Just Chances Frederick Challenor left his home in Barbados at the turn of the twentieth century, bound for New York City. Like most immigrants, he expected to find greater opportunities in his adopted home than in the one he had left behind. In 1907, he married Aletha Dowridge, a fellow Barbadian whom he had met in America, and the newlyweds set out to establish a life together in Brooklyn. They welcomed the birth of a daughter, Elise, in 1908. Just about a year later, however, mother and daughter returned to Barbados as Frederick struggled to find a steady job to support his family. The couple's separation lasted until late 1910, but Elise remained on the island permanently to be raised by her grandmother . Finding themselves in dire financial straits once more, exacerbated by Aletha's failing health and inability to work the long, hard hours required of domestic servants, Aletha returned to her mother's home in Barbados at the end of 1911. She did not join Fred again until 1913 as he tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully to make ends meet and bring his wife back to Brooklyn. "I am kept without any money but hope for better days," he wrote in one of his earliest letters. They were a long time coming. The nearly fifty letters Fred sent to Aletha during their periods apart reveal his constant, overwhelming concerns about money. The contents are replete with his agonized apologies for sending so few "greenbacks" to her and Elise, his tales of ever-changingjobs that always proved disappointing , and his efforts to get himself out of debt. "I just want to pay all who I owe then I will feel better to myself and be a little independent ," he admitted nearly a year into their first separation. In the months since his wife and daughter had left, Fred worked in one apartment building earning twelve dollars a month, then as an elevator operator for four dollars a week. He quit both. He subsequently took a job at a shoe factory, but explaining he was "weary with it" continued searching for a good janitor's position. Unsuccessful, he reluctantly left the factory during the summer to work on leisure boats. Frederick found boat work demeaning and unpleasant but he could not pass up the chance to make enough money in tips to bring Aletha back to him. 108 Chapter 4 During their second separation, Fred found work for a time as a domestic servant with a family in the city, though he finally gave up that job in February 1912. "I just couldn't stand the worry any more," he apologized in his letter to Aletha. "I have been gaining nothing by the house so what's the difference." Instead, Fred made plans to go back to the shoe factory, and for once his prospects seemed relatively promising. "The old man at the factory wants me to stay with him altogether and he will pay $12.00 a week," he wrote Aletha optimistically. He also had another offer to work as a janitor for fifty-five dollars a month. Fred chose the janitorial position and quickly regretted his decision. "[A]fter going to work on the 1st of April I saw where it would not suit me to keep the place ... somebody has to be in all the time and the houses were not together." He quit. Having "lost out" on both opportunities, Fred decided to return to the boats for the summer. "I shall beg you not to feel any discontented [sic]," he pleaded with his wife. A summer serving as a waiter on the boats and a protracted illness left him with only forty dollars to take the family through the difficult winter months, forcing Aletha to remain in Barbados still longer. "All thoughts of coming home are abandoned until later," he wrote. Fred "met with a great disappointment" when he could not secure a job on one of the passenger ships that ran between New York and the Caribbean. "What little [money] I did have is gone.... I am back in the shoe factory now in a week.... You better spend Christmas with your mother and Elise and then I will get you over." Fred tried once more to take an apartment job, this time running the elevator. He soon gave up the position though, claiming "it was giving me [a] cold." Finally, he returned to the factory, though sickness severely diminished his...

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