This past Sunday, October 21, my grandparents took me to the shoe shop workers reunion at Museum LA. When my grandmother first told me what the event was I didn’t know what to expect. In the past my grandparents told me how they worked in a shoe shop, but I never really saw the whole picture until I went to the reunion.

When we first arrived there was a self tour through several rooms of artifacts from shoe factories in Lewiston and Auburn. Some of the items that were for show were fascinating to look at. As I was looking at a machine that made bed sheets my great grandmother came over and told me how they made the bed sheets. She told me that ever needle in the machine has to be threaded so that one sheet could be made. When I looked closer I saw at least two hundred needles. A few moments later another man came to me and told me how the workers were paid. On every machine was a dial that would be set to the shift you worked on. When the machine was working it calculated the amount of work you did to get paid. He also told how a few times he had forgot to switch the dial to his shift and ended up giving all his work to another shift. After looking through the museum section, my family went over to where the Green Ladle was serving a lunch and my grandparents started seeing people they worked with back in the 60’s. My grandmother introduced me to her boss and many other friends that she had back in the shoe shop.

Overall the reunion was very enjoyable, and I felt that I learned even more by having my great grandmother and my grandparents show me what they worked on when they worked in the factory. From now on when my grandmother tells me stories from her days working at the shoe shop, I will have a better understanding of what it was like working in the mills.