MARGARET 'MUGS' RYTTER

MR. BARRY:

I'm now with Margaret Rytter. It is April 26th, 2006. The most important question is everybody calls you Mugs. Why?

MS. RYTTER:

It's a childhood nickname. My cousin couldn't say Margaret and he got out Muggy, and eventually it's gone to Mugs.

MR. BARRY:

And it's been Mugs ever since?

MS. RYTTER:

Yes.

MR. BARRY:

Now, you grew up in Dundalk?

MS. RYTTER:

Yeah.

MR. BARRY:

What was it like? Where did you grow up and what was it like?

MS. RYTTER:

On the other side of the park, the second house, 3 Playfield, and safe as anything. You could walk through that park midnight, people would say hi, you say hi. Go get a soda, really nice. We had little stores and the churches were all full. A lot of people went to church then.

MR. BARRY:

Was pretty much everybody in the area working at Bethlehem Steel?

MS. RYTTER:

Yes, there or Western Electric, yeah.

MR. BARRY:

And so it was kind of a community?

MS. RYTTER:

Yeah. I had a lot of the Lynches and the Todds and the Marrows all came in to school, so I went to school with a lot of them.

MR. BARRY:

And they were who for the people who don't know? The Lynches and the Todds were who?

MS. RYTTER:

Yeah, I graduated with Morris Todd.

MR. BARRY:

What was his father's position?

MS. RYTTER:

Farmer.

MR. BARRY:

He was a farmer, I see.

MS. RYTTER:

I think they all were.

MR. BARRY:

What was it like to see Dundalk as a farming community?

MS. RYTTER:

Yeah, it really was. All the ______ went over there, there was a ball diamond when I was a kid, the teams used to play, and we went right straight down to snake hole, swimming beach. It was a clear enough area, that was all.

MR. BARRY:

What did your father do?

MS. RYTTER:

He was a car inspector on the railroad at the Point.

MR. BARRY:

So he had already worked at Sparrows Point for quite awhile?

MS. RYTTER:

Yes.

MR. BARRY:

What was it like growing up in a Sparrows Point family?

MS. RYTTER:

Well, let's see, I had relatives down at Sparrows Point, my grandmother, grandfather and aunts and uncles, so every weekend we would get on the old 26 and ride down and spend the weekend with my grandmother, and she would have all the things I like to eat, and I knew a lot of the kids that I went to school with down there, because we only had eight grades over here. We had to go down to Sparrows Point.

MR. BARRY:

What was the town like at Sparrows Point?

MS. RYTTER:

It was settled. You could say that for it, the streets kind of would look empty unless it was time for mothers to be going to the grocery store or hanging their wash out, and I have a lot of friends still from high school. In fact, her walker [points to her dog] , Goldie Lispecter -- did you see The Eagle [Dundalk newspaper] this week?

MR. BARRY:

Not yet.

MS. RYTTER:

Because her picture is in there, somebody wrote about her, so I'm using her as a walker, and we have been good friends ever since high school.

MR. BARRY:

So did your dad have to work shift work?

MS. RYTTER:

No, he worked all 7:00 to 3:00.

MR. BARRY:

So you had it a little bit easier than a lot of the families that we hear about where the kids had --

MS. RYTTER:

Yeah, and we lived on Playfield, which had two, four, six houses on it, so we all knew one another and we all played together. Of course the rest of them are Catholic, I was the only one Lutheran, and I remember Mr. McCartney lived next door to us, he would get out his fiddle and play These Golden Slippers. You could hear him all over the neighborhood, and a lot of nice people.

MR. BARRY:

When did you start working?

MS. RYTTER:

I guess when I got out of high school, went up to Hutzler's [main department store in Baltimore City]and got a job.

MR. BARRY:

What year did you get out of high school?

MS. RYTTER:

'38, and when my dad didn't think $13 a week was enough, so he got me on down at the Point, but I worked '40, '41 and up until September of '42.

MR. BARRY:

And what did you do?

MS. RYTTER:

I flipped sheets of tin.

MR. BARRY:

Tell us a little bit about the tin room. What was the tin used for?

MS. RYTTER:

Well, the tin made the cans. Some orders we would know what cans they were making, and other orders we didn't, and we would pile them up and the director would come by and count them. He would pile them up and give them to the crane. Those women really worked, and we had Mrs. Alexander as our boss, very sturdy straight woman, lived over in Turner's Station, but she really enjoyed having her job and always looked neat and precise, and she would tell you about your mistakes if you made any. We got a little lunch hour, about half hour lunch hour. Three o'clock we were done.

MR. BARRY:

Did you have to apply for the job or did you just --

MS. RYTTER:

Yeah. Go down, put in an application. Cy Loavecan, did you ever hear of him?

MR. BARRY:

No.

MS. RYTTER:

He worked down there in the office. He's the one that I went to, and he's also the one that filled my application when I quit.

MR. BARRY:

So you worked at Hutzler's for a couple of years?

MS. RYTTER:

Yeah.

MR. BARRY:

Working where, which Hutzler's?

MS. RYTTER:

It's on Howard Street, and I worked in the wrapping department.

MR. BARRY:

So you had to take the street car downtown. What was it like going into Baltimore city at that time?

MS. RYTTER:

Well, when I was a kid I used to get real sick by the time I hit Baltimore Avenue, but then as I was riding it every day to Hustlers I could find somebody to talk to and it kind of eased it up, but it was scary riding a street car, because there are a lot of people you didn't know and not everybody was friendly, but Hustlers was a nice place to work.

MR. BARRY:

So Dundalk was like a small village at the time where you knew everybody?

MS. RYTTER:

Yeah.

MR. BARRY:

And then you had to go into town and it was a bigger --

MS. RYTTER:

We had the Strand Movie, which is now a Dollar Store. We had a bakery right next to the Strand. We had an old five and ten next to them. Then we had a police station, fire department, and then I worked in the gift shop up there for fifteen years and they had a gift shop and a hobby shop and the restaurant, and it was just a nice community. Rundall ice cream around the corner, and then the third building was a restaurant and Duke's hardware store, he was there for a long time. And you don't remember any of that?

MR. BARRY:

No. So after two years your father thought you could make more money down at the Point?

MS. RYTTER:

Yeah, and I don't remember what I made.

MR. BARRY:

Was the tin room already in operation when you got there?

MS. RYTTER:

Was what?

MR. BARRY:

Was the tin room already functioning when you got there?

MS. RYTTER:

Oh, yeah.

MR. BARRY:

About how many people, how many women worked there; do you remember?

MS. RYTTER:

I wouldn't know. I wouldn't know. Just seemed like everybody had like not a desk, but we had a place where they put the piles of tin. Another one there, another one there, there, and we weren't supposed to talk to anybody. The directors would get us in conversation once in awhile.

MR. BARRY:

So the way the work went is that some -- were the sheets delivered by a crane to your table?

MS. RYTTER:

Yeah, they would load them down, and then we go sheet by sheet looking for the menders, and then they come back and count them and hoist them back up again.

MR. BARRY:

So you just did that all day long?

MS. RYTTER:

Yeah.

MR. BARRY:

Did you get paid by the sheet or did you get paid by the hour?

MS. RYTTER:

The hour.

MR. BARRY:

Was there any time when you went out into the plant, or did you pretty much stay in the tin room?

MS. RYTTER:

No, just the restroom, the lunchroom.

MR. BARRY:

Was it a separate building?

MS. RYTTER:

No, it's all the same. Steps up to the lunchroom.

MR. BARRY:

But the tin room was a separate building?

MS. RYTTER:

Yes.

MR. BARRY:

It was all women?

MS. RYTTER:

Yeah, and then some men worked in the office there, and the directors were all men.

MR. BARRY:

And You worked there from 1940 until '43?

MS. RYTTER:

Until September of '42.

MR. BARRY:

Until September of '42. And why did you leave?

MS. RYTTER:

I was getting married. I was getting married on the 12th, so I left three days before that.

MR. BARRY:

Did your husband work at Sparrows Point?

MS. RYTTER:

Yeah, he was a civil engineer.

MR. BARRY:

Did you meet him at the Point or did you meet him in town? Did you meet him at work?

MS. RYTTER:

No, neighbors of mine knew him because they all shot bows and arrows, and she thought we ought to meet, so she had us for a blind date, we kind of hit if off. He was from North Dakota, so he didn't know too many people.

MR. BARRY:

How did he happen to get to Sparrows Point?

MS. RYTTER:

Well, he left North Dakota because they had a drought of seven years, and he rode the rails to Idaho and he worked in the gold mines in Idaho. The only way in or out was snow shoes or skis he said. Then he hoboed to Ohio. He drove a cab. Then his sister lived in Washington, D.C. and she was hired on with General Spatz of World War II to watch his children. So she said there were opportunities for him to come there, and his brother Henry had already moved to Virginia, he was a carpenter. So he came to Washington and went to a technical school, got a job down at the Point. He lived over in Dundalk at Mrs. Slimmy's on Baltimore Avenue.

MR. BARRY:

One of the rooming houses? Was it a rooming house?

MS. RYTTER:

Yeah. She had about three roomers I think.

MR. BARRY:

Well, in the time then in the end of September of '41 the union came into Sparrows Point. Do you remember anything about that?

MS. RYTTER:

No, other than going down to see my grandparents and going into the kindergarten once in awhile and the movie, and I think Dr. Elder down there was the one that delivered me, and I just had a lot friends down there so I would go spend weekends with him.

MR. BARRY:

I'm talking about at the plant there was an election in September of 1941 for the steelworkers to come in. Do you remember anything about that? Were the women involved in that at all?

MS. RYTTER:

No.

MR. BARRY:

And then after you got married then you stopped work?

MS. RYTTER:

Hmm-hmm. Yes.

MR. BARRY:

Did you ever have a temptation to go back and be a Rosy?

MS. RYTTER:

No, never did. I wanted a family, so we had three boys, and then ten years later we had two girls, and we lived in the apartments on Liberty Parkway, and we bought down at York Way and we bought down Watersedge. My house is still at Watersedge My daughter and her husband have it now.

MR. BARRY:

So you have never been much out of Dundalk?

MS. RYTTER:

Uh-uh.

MR. BARRY:

Except on vacations?

MS. RYTTER:

Yeah.

MR. BARRY:

What do you like about Dundalk?

MS. RYTTER:

The people. You can go to any store and buy anything and everybody knew you. Walk in a drugstore and Cal Hunter, the pharmacist, "Hi, Mugs." Walk into Rundall, "Hi, Mugs. It was nice.

MR. BARRY:

Well, tell us a little bit then before we finish about the tin room. Did you have to wear gloves?

MS. RYTTER:

Oh, yeah, and the tin would cut our gloves lots of times, but we could always get a new pair. Had to wear uniforms that wrapped around.

MR. BARRY:

And did the company provide those uniforms for you?

MS. RYTTER:

Yeah.

MR. BARRY:

And Were there requirements about how you had to dress and talk?

MS. RYTTER:

Only that the uniform you had to have and it had to be starched a little bit, and the gloves.

MR. BARRY:

So that every day before you went to work you had to put on a starched uniform?

MS. RYTTER:

Yeah.

MR. BARRY:

Now, did you ride to work with your dad?

MS. RYTTER:

Yeah, I did, because he dropped me off at the tin mill and then he would go over to the railroad.

MR. BARRY:

And then picked you up on the way home?

MS. RYTTER:

Yeah, like on the street car.

MR. BARRY:

What was it like riding the street car?

MS. RYTTER:

Swinging and swaying.

MR. BARRY:

Lots of people though?

MS. RYTTER:

Yeah. It was a nice old street car.

MR. BARRY:

Did you ever get a sense of how big it was down there at the Point?

MS. RYTTER:

Yeah. You go outside and wait for the street car or wait for somebody to pick you up and it was just vast, all over the place. You just knew there was something over there because they were building something there because there were buildings, just huge, look at it now.

MR. BARRY:

So you never collected a pension or anything from -- never worked there long enough to get that?

MS. RYTTER:

No.

MR. BARRY:

Did you ever go back to work after your kids were older?

MS. RYTTER:

Yeah. When Bob was -- I guess he was nine or ten. Mrs. Thomas and Mrs. Hackman in the gift shop on Dundalk, they asked me to come work for them. Of course I had known them since I was a little kid. So I went up to work for them 9:00 to 1:00 every day, and I enjoyed that too because a lot of people came in. Sold cards and gifts. It was a good town, and the hobby shop was right next door, and they moved over to Saint Helena, and I don't know what's up there now, a day care center or something. Cigarette store is what the gift shop is.

MR. BARRY:

I know you are still active, you go to the Historical Society.

MS. RYTTER:

Yeah, I go there every Thursday, and I go to the laundromat on Mondays, and I go to Bible study down at St. Timothy's on Tuesday, and we have senior club down at my church on Wednesday, and Thursday I'm up to the Historical Society.

MR. BARRY:

How do you pack all this activity in?

MS. RYTTER:

Well, I am blessed with very good friends that pick me up.

MR. BARRY:

Good.

MS. RYTTER:

Because I'm past the time I could walk up there.

MR. BARRY:

Did you ever drive?

MS. RYTTER:

No.

MR. BARRY:

Never had a driver's license?

MS. RYTTER:

Never did. I had five kids that towed me around and a husband.

MR. BARRY:

Okay, great. Any other memories of Sparrows Point? Do you ever see any of the other women still around from there?

MS. RYTTER:

The old company store we used to go over there and buy stuff.

MR. BARRY:

What was that like?

MS. RYTTER:

It was a great big place, and they had the meat and the groceries and they had something else over here you could get shoes upstairs, and my mother's cousin worked there so she always saw that I got waited on, and other than that I don't remember too much about it.

MR. BARRY:

Now, did your dad shop at the company store most of the time, or did he shop up here in town?

MS. RYTTER:

Yeah, sometimes he did. My mom did, not him. I remember the B Street clubhouse and the drugstore was down on the corner, and there's another drug store further on down D Street and Eddie's Supermarket.

MR. BARRY:

Well, was the town segregated at that time?

MS. RYTTER:

Oh, yeah. D, E and F were all white. And over on H -- no, I, J and H were black, but they didn't come into the town itself proper too much, maybe for grocery shopping and they were likeable.

MR. BARRY:

Must have been hard to see that town torn down?

MS. RYTTER:

Yeah, especially at Bagan Beach, because we used to go down there and swim all the time. Yeah, things change. Look at Dundalk, all the little stores we used to have, nothing.

MR. BARRY:

Well, everybody who lives here loves it.

MS. RYTTER:

Yeah.

MR. BARRY:

And Feels very defensive about how people --

MS. RYTTER:

People are coming back and buying houses.

MR. BARRY:

Sure. I think it's an area that's going to come back.

MS. RYTTER:

I wish my kids would come back, but they won't. They like big houses. I don't, never did.

MR. BARRY:

Well, any other stories about the Point that you can remember? When you worked down there, did you have parties? Did you girls go out at all?

MS. RYTTER:

We saw the girls at work, maybe on the street car going home, but we didn't mesh with them.

MR. BARRY:

Were any of them married or were they pretty much all single women?

MS. RYTTER:

Huh?

MR. BARRY:

Were the women in the tin room pretty much all single?

MS. RYTTER:

No, there were quite of them that were married. The ones that lived in Highlandtown were all married, and the ones that lived in Turner's were all married, but we just didn't congregate except at the lunch hour, that's about the only time.

MR. BARRY:

So if there were people there from Turner's Station, the tin room had blacks and whites working together?

MS. RYTTER:

No, they were all white.

MR. BARRY:

All white?

MS. RYTTER:

All white. We call it White Turner's.

MR. BARRY:

I see. I didn't know there was such a place. I always thought Turner's Station was a black community.

MS. RYTTER:

No, there's on old part of Dundalk that divides to the highway. That side is all white, this side is all black.

MR. BARRY:

I see. And was the bridge there then so they could walk across?

MS. RYTTER:

The street car bridge and a railroad bridge, but they tore them both down I guess.

MR. BARRY:

All right. Okay. Well, I appreciate your time. Any other memories of living in Dundalk?

MS. RYTTER:

I can't think of anything, Bill.

MR. BARRY:

Okay, good.

MS. RYTTER:

It was so long ago, you kind of forget.

MR. BARRY:

And you weren't there that long.

MS. RYTTER:

Yeah. I appreciate you coming and showing interest.