Finaly we arrived in the Big City to look for work…
Eve Marie and I found an apartment in Greenwich Village for a month.
I found a job in a dress shop doing alterations.
Eve Marie’s job hunting escapades were fantastic and exasperating. She was born in Germany originally and this was during World War II and she was considered an enemy alien. She was trying everywhere with no luck.
One time she was supposed to go to an interview in a man’s hotel room and she was suspicious of the set up. So she asked me to wait in the hotel lobby and if she didn’t appear after a certain amount of time, I was supposed to go looking for her. Well the man turned out to be a real gentleman, with a very interesting job to offer her and her qualifications were perfect, except for her alien status and she didn’t get the job.
At the very end, I tried again to find a job at Valentina’s fashion design house and others, but it was summer, 1940 – the war and there was very little going on and since I had no documented experience in fashion design to speak of; no references, no resume, no one was ready to hire me right away.
We had to leave New York City…………………..
We had enough money to keep the apartment for a month, but at the end of the month even Eve Marie still hadn’t found a job and we had to go our separate ways.
I went back to Detroit, Michigan and Eve Marie went back to live with her parents in Tampa, Florida.
Years later, when her daughter was already 10 years old, we saw each other again. We were both married by then. We had a good time reminiscing about our Summer at the Mount Washington Hotel and our time in the Big City.