Fearless Females - Day 12 Working Girl

In honor of National Women's History Month, I will be following the blogging prompts from The Accidental Genealogist blog. The prompts are interesting and I am truly enjoying this.  Here is day 12.

March 12 — Working girl: Did your mother or grandmother work outside the home? What did she do? Describe her occupation

I have written in the past about some of the work my mother, Shirley Hoover Plummer,  has done as I was telling some of her stories.  Today I will try to give you a history of all the work she did outside the home. 

I don't know much about what she did in her early years.  My older brother didn't remember her working until they were living in Missouri.  He remembers when he was young that the whole family went out to the cotton fields to work.  He was probably around six and he would work along side Mom while she picked cotton.  My youngest brother would have been around four, he doesn't remember if he picked cotton or not.  My mom was pregnant with me at the time.  They had six kids to raise and needed to make enough money to take care of them.

They moved back to Indiana a little while after I was born and not too long after Mom had my little sister.  She stayed at home and took in laundry while we were young, and did anything else to help support the family.

I remember Mom being at home most of the time I was growing up.  My dad became disabled when I was in middle school, so my mom took a job at the Ford Motor Company plant in Connersville and worked on the line at the factory for a few years.  I think she left there because of lay-offs.

She then went to work for the Purdue University Extension Office and taught people how to cook.  She worked there until their funding ran out.

Next, she worked at First Street Market, a little grocery store, that was owned by my husband's mother.  She worked there for a few years.

Her last job was driving the transportation bus for the Senior Citizens Center.