I’ll make some cookies for the kids. We’ll sing songs and go to church. Don’t blame yourself for not being productive and providing. We’ll survive.”
About the only thing running with some proficiency and productivity in the whole of the city was Honest John’s electrified trolley car, courtesy of the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company. Everything else was shut down, boarded up, closed for good, and the effects of depressed times showed on the sallow yet still young features of Quindlen’s face. There were dark circles under his bright eyes. His small, short frame was somewhat bent, making him look a decade older than he really was.
Galloway had earned the reputation as “honest” because he kept a rigid schedule driving his trolley. He was always on time as any engineer would be. Natural for a German, quite remarkable for an Irishman if you believed in what you were told was true. But, John Galloway had also earned that nickname because he had the saintly, and oft times annoying habit of getting men out of their warm beds and making them get to work on time. When a regular fare wouldn’t board his trolley at the proscribed minute, John would dash out of his street car and bang on the poor man’s door.
In that way he made honest men out of idlers and hung-over drunkards, better yet, and for the most part, John Galloway woke a tired man from a few precious seconds of much deserved sleep. After all, if a man missed one day of work, he might never be able to find another job. This is how it truly was during the days of idle hands and poor prospects three long years after the crash of ’29.
For men everywhere it was worse than hell; worse even than the Great War. Nobody starved if you fell in the trenches of France. But now, the enemy refused to show its face. And, you can’t kill what you can’t see. To not have a reason to wake up in the morning is worse than death. This is what being unemployed actually means.
Work is life. Work is heat. Work is a meal on an empty stomach. If you have a wife and little children, work is a miracle.
For Eugene Quindlen, work would have been an answer to a prayer and a penny candle at
St. Bridget’s.
REGINA | 81