.... It was really quite surprising. In 1938 a bit of the nation’s economy had picked up, but the unemployment rate was still totally unacceptable. Minneapolis was actually one of the brighter spots, and five of the six Belladettes immediately found jobs. Only Emily, the one most in need of a paycheck, had no job. Emily, the star of the commercial course, with better grades than the other five Belladettes, was interviewed and interviewed but never hired. When the personnel woman at the Federal Reserve Bank doubted Emily’s authenticity, Emily was close to exploding, but she did not. She only reiterated pleasantly that she was born in Minneapolis and afterward blurted out to friend Frances all that had taken place. Later Frances would recall the devastating impact this seemingly innocuous query had had on her friend. It was a blow Emily would not forget.
With two daughters now unemployed and Baby Jackie to be cared for, with house cleaning opportunities few and far between, Louise was forced to visit the Minneapolis Welfare Department. Carrying the infant in her arms, she stated her predicament to the welfare worker. Was there any way of getting help from the family of the child’s father? He had offered to marry Natalie, the baby’s mother, provided she would go to Alaska with him. Natalie had refused, and he went alone. The young man’s father? He had a good job and was on the Minneapolis School Board. The social worker almost laughed in Louise’s face: “Forget it. Why, he is big in the Farmer-Labor Party and you’re just an Indian.”
Natalie was immersed in her writing. She now was part of the Writer’s Workshop, a WPA program where published writers could teach and mentor the would-be’s. At home she wrote and she wrote. Meridel LeSueur had taken a very personal interest in Natalie, recognizing both talent and fragility in this eager young woman. When it became imperative that Natalie now had a little daughter to support, Meridel even helped arrange a position for her—as librarian at the Minneapolis Labor School. This too was a WPA program, and it meant a paycheck, small as it was.
The WPA: Yes, Emily had hoped to do better. She was very attractive, a little pixie, one might say, with her straight black hair now set each night in pin curls to match the style of the times, always looking fresh in her one and only pair of silk stockings, black pumps, black purse to match, a simple skirt and blouse, never without her bright smile and outgoing ways—yet Emily couldn’t find a job. There was no other choice. Emily too signed on with the WPA. At least the placement woman recognized some unusual potential. Emily was sent to work at the Minneapolis Public Library.
Her first week at the library, Emily phoned Frances, who was also now employed downtown. “Come over to the library; we’ll have lunch in the cafeteria.” When Frances arrived, Emily met her on the stairway. She had just learned about the library lunch rule and she didn’t like it at all. In the employees’ cafeteria, the WPA workers were required to eat together at a table quite separate from the others. Emily refused. Instead the two friends sat outside on the library steps, eating their bag lunches and commiserating with one another. Emily may have felt a bit demeaned, but at least both she and Natalie had paychecks to support the little family at home—Amie and Jackie, now an adorable four-year-old. Years later, Jackie would write:
Amie, my grandmother, was always putting up friends and relatives. She was very, very social as was Emily with her friends. I remember Mr. Jorgensen, who spent a lot of time resting and talking at our house, and Mr. Tomahawk, who stayed for two years. People from the reservation would often come down. I can still hear the warm, humming sounds of activity that surrounded me. I was pretty special, too.
In December of 1941, everything changed, and it all happened so suddenly. On Sunday, the seventh, Japanese planes bombed Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, where much of the United States Pacific fleet was docked. Most of the battleships were sunk; many, many sailors killed. The following day, President Roosevelt asked the U.S. Congress for a declaration of war. The Congress voted to declare war, with but one nay vote. Congress could hardly do otherwise, for Japanese forces were already invading the Philippine Islands, an American outpost in the Pacific.
But that wasn’t all. A great European war was already in progress. In the fall of 1939, Germany, under Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, had invaded Poland, and by December of 1941 Germany controlled most of the European continent, including vast areas of the Soviet Union. Germany and Japan had a mutual defense treaty that obligated Germany to declare war on any Japanese belligerent. Thus the United States’ declaration of war on Japan triggered the German declaration of war on the United States. Subsequently, on December 11, the United States Congress declared war on Germany.
In fact, the United States was already helping the beleaguered British Isles by sending material aid to England, although Roosevelt was roundly criticized for these efforts. But now, at the end of 1941, there was a sea change in the nation. Every activity, economic and otherwise, would have to play a part in arming the nation for what amounted to two separate wars, each against a most powerful enemy. Suddenly young men were enlisting in droves. And those who didn’t enlist would soon be drafted, for a selective service system had already been put in place.
The WPA program tasks were promptly altered, all to serve the war effort. In another year, these programs would all but disappear. Eventually, Natalie and Emily would find better jobs, each in a “war plant,” as most manufacturing industries came to be known. For Emily, this meant making parachutes at the Honeywell plant near her home. Now she was in a position to take a few courses at the University. Almost every evening she rode the streetcar to the university campus, studying on the way, both forth and back.
Even Amie—Louise—found her niche in the war effort, although she didn’t quite view it that way. The young Ojibwe men, no different from their black and white brothers, were going off to fight the war. The WPA reservation programs were fading fast, and scores of young Ojibwe women from northern Minnesota, many of them hardly more than teenagers, were arriving in the city, finding jobs. For them Amie feared the most. She was still close to the tribulations of Natalie’s adolescent years, and she would wish all that on no one. Thus Amie let it be known that the Na-gu-aub Club was meeting in her home. Word spread fast in the community—in 1942 there were fewer than two hundred Indian residents in the entire city—and the club was born. Each Saturday ten or more young women met at Amie’s home. There they could put their frustrations, their fears, their ambitions into words. Amie listened well. Frequently, there was laughter, sometimes even tears, and always tea and homemade cookies. The Na-gu-aub Club was thriving, a comfortable refuge in a strange city.
