Tag #141801 - Interview #102477 (Zsuzsanna G. )

My mother was at home the whole time, she was a housewife. We could live from a window dresser’s pay so that we always had a maid. In the Filleres Department Store, my father earned good money, his salary was 560 pengos. Our rent, when we took that out was 100 pengo a month, which the new owner raised to 110 a month. Why did a family like this have a maid? Because at that time, house work was heavy physical work. Nothing was automated. The iron was heavy, it was a coal [heated] iron. Washing was heavy physical work, then there was cleaning, washing up, heating, bringing the kindling up, taking out the ashes. It was quite natural in that society that a family had a maid. This didn’t mean that the lady was a useless, red-nailed Madame, but that they worked together. My mother did the shopping and cooking.