“Of Good Moral Character”

I have found very little information about my great-grandaunt. That may have been intentional.

I have a few photos of her. And I’ve found a copy of a wedding announcement as well as a newspaper article announcing her marriage. But other than that, I have very little to illuminate me on an ancestor who seems to have been one of very few in the family—especially of that generation—who left Jefferson County, Kansas, and saw and lived in other parts of the country.

Vera Curry (1879-1966) was the younger sister of my great-grandmother. Vera left their small town of Winchester to be a “Harvey Girl.”

Harvey House restaurants were a chain of restaurants that sprung up with the completion of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad. They were usually located either in the station itself or very close by. British entrepreneur Fred Harvey envisioned an experience that would attract more visitors to the American Southwest, offering a “civilized” approach to riding the rails for pure pleasure.

I suspect that when travelers of that time disembarked from their train and saw the familiar Harvey House logo, the familiarity of the brand might have been similar to seeing a McDonald’s restaurant for those of us growing up in the 1960s. Variety or novelty was not the objective. Rather, the familiarity of the menu, atmosphere, and prices, consistent from one location to another—the “brand”—was the whole point.

In 1883, after a rowdy brawl involving his male wait staff, Harvey began hiring only females. He placed ads in Midwestern and Eastern newspapers reading: “WANTED—young women, 18 – 30 years of age, of good moral character, attractive and intelligent, as waitresses in Harvey Eating Houses on the Santa Fe Railroad in the West. Wages $17.50 per month, with room and board.”

Thousands of women, my great-grandaunt Vera included, responded.

“WANTED—young women, 18 – 30 years of age, of good moral character, attractive and intelligent, as waitresses in Harvey Eating Houses on the Santa Fe Railroad in the West. Wages $17.50 per month, with room and board.”

Harvey Girls were expected to adhere to a curfew and keep their uniform fastidiously clean, to name a few of the strict policies. Getting married meant the end of a girl’s employment. Knowing that Harvey Girls were required to be single, proposals by clients were not uncommon.

This phenomenon was noted by humorist Will Rogers:

“In the early days, the traveler fed on the buffalo. For doing so, the buffalo got his picture on the nickel. Well, Fred Harvey should have his picture on one side of the dime and one of his waitresses with her arms full of delicious ham and eggs on the other side, ‘cause they have kept the West supplied with food and wives.” –Will Rogers

Whether Vera met her future husband in her role as server, I do not know.

Whether Kingman, Arizona, was the Harvey House location Vera chose or it had been her assigned location, I do not know. Nor do I know whether she worked at other locations while employed by the company. Harvey Girls often had a choice of where they were stationed as well as the ability to change locations.

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I would love to know what a typical day in Vera’s life was like as a young, single woman, working far away from family back in Kansas. I have so many questions.

Did she make lifelong friends with other Harvey Girls? What did she do on her days off? Were her customers travelers from far away, or was her clientele more local residents? What were her living arrangements? What was it like for her to go from the harsh winters and flat terrain of northeast Kansas farm country to a place of high elevation, in a desert with minimal vegetation, moderate winters, and blistering heat in the summer? How did she meet her future husband? How long was their courtship?

Not only do I have little information about Vera, but I have found even less about the man she married: Ralph Boston. Nor do I know how the two met.

What I do know is that they married and were divorced within a few years. Vera lived in San Francisco, where they had made their home, for the rest of her life and never remarried.

I suspect that judgment about Vera’s life choices from the very religious family and church community from which she came may have kept discussions about her back home to a minimum.

How great would it have been to discover that she had kept a diary! I would love to have read about her travels, the people she met, and the experiences she had, both as a Harvey Girl and later in her life.

Written for the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge: Week 31-“A Day in the Life.” PROMPT: Our ancestors were more than just names and dates. This week, explore an ancestor whose daily life you know something about (or that you wish you knew something about).