Oral History Interview with Nellie Horlander

BETSY BRINSON: February 23, year 2001. This is an interview with Nelle Horlander. The interview takes place in her residence in Louisville, Kentucky and the interviewer is Betsy Brinson. [INTERRUPTION—TAPE STOPS] BRINSON: Ms. Horlander, let me get a voice level. Would you please, if you would, tell me, give me your full name and date of birth.

NELLE HORLANDER: It’s Nelle, N-E-double L-E, no I, P like in Paul, Pitcock, P-I-T-C-O-C-K and Horlander, H-O-R-L-A-N-D-E-R.

BRINSON: Okay, that’s good. [INTERRUPTION—TAPE STOPS] BRINSON: Well, thank you very much for agreeing to meet with me today.

HORLANDER: Right.

BRINSON: If we could begin—should I call you Ms. Horlander or can I call you Nelle?

HORLANDER: Nelle. Call me Nelle?

BRINSON: Nelle. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Nelle. Let’s begin, please, by giving me—I want to do a little bit of biographical background that, you, maybe to start where and when you were born. 1:00HORLANDER: Okay. I was born in Dry Fork, Kentucky. D-R-Y F-O-R-K, Kentucky. It’s in Barren County. It’s south of Glasgow.

BRINSON: Okay.

HORLANDER: Kentucky. Uh-huh.

BRINSON: What’s your birthday?

HORLANDER: February 9, 1929.

BRINSON: So you just had a birthday?

HORLANDER: Um-hm. Everything happens this month.

BRINSON: Tell me a little bit, now, if you would, about your growing up. What, what kind of family [ ]?

HORLANDER: Well, I grew up on a farm.

BRINSON: Um-hm.

HORLANDER: And with no running water and I walked to school. I had, I had, I have nine brothers and sisters. Four brothers and five sisters. However, 2:00when I lived in Dry Fork, Kentucky, there was only seven of us. There’s three of them born after we moved to Louisville in 1943. But I walked to school. I begged and cried when my older sisters went to school. I was the third one. We had three girls, three boys, three girls, and one boy. And I was the third girl down. And after my two sisters went to school, who were each two years older than me, I cried every day to go to school. And in Barren County, back then, I could start to school at the age of five, so when I was five, I went to school. I went to a one room schoolhouse and I—which is no longer there; it’s been torn down—but I would watch my sisters 3:00doing their work on the board, and I learned everything that they learned instead of what I was supposed to learn at my desk with my—there was, in my class, I was the only girl and there was three boys. There was just four of us in the first grade when I went: three, three guys, little boys and myself. And I, they didn’t know much of anything and I didn’t learn too much in my class. But I already knew my sister’s class, which was two years ahead of me and my other sister, who was four years ahead of me. I already knew what they knew. So, I was more interested in what they were learning than in what I was learning. And we worked on the farm. My brothers were younger, my little brothers. The next three were boys. So, the girls did most of the work. My mother did most of the work. My mother worked on the farm, worked hard, raising kids and worked on the farm too.

BRINSON: What sort of things did you grow?

HORLANDER: What else? 4:00Tobacco. Tobacco was the, the crop. Back then, they didn’t have the kind of tobacco they, of course, have now. We had to sucker it. We planted it in the plant bed first. Then we set it by hand. And then we s-, had, it grew and had suckers on it and we had to pull the suckers off, and they kept growing back, and that was a full-time job. And then we had to spray it and keep the bugs off of it and keep it from being eaten up by the insects. And it was—and then finally, when time come for us to cut it, we cut it and hung it in the barn. I climbed and hung it on, in the barn and everything. We did, I did the whole work. And that’s how I learned to hate tobacco. 5:00I despise tobacco. I never smoked. None of us smoked until my brothers went in service. My daddy smoked in one room of the house. But he didn’t smoke around us. And so, that was my life on the tobacco farm. And then, we raised a garden. I worked in the garden, plant it. We always, Mother always planted flowers and we worked in the flowers. We worked outside.

BRINSON: Of course, you were born just before the Depression.

HORLANDER: Yes.

BRINSON: Was that a hard time for your family?

HORLANDER: Yes. It was a very hard time. It was real bad. The, what, Daddy decide to go to the, come to Louisville was when he had to pay to have the tobacco that didn’t sell off the tobacco, from the tobacco warehouse to bring it back home. So, he knew there was no life there, so he left and then came to Louisville. 6:00He came to Louisville and worked in the yards. He was a horticulturist. My dad was one, the only son and he had some s-, he had two sisters, but he had just, there was just the only son. They sent him to college the first time. He went to college in Peoria, Illinois, but I forgot where it was, who it was. But he had some college training. So, he came—and he was a hor-, horticulturist and he worked at Seagram’s distilleries and did all that yardwork there and what have you until he got up in years, then he moved inside. But Daddy was always good at, at plants and trees and all that, that you, that you learn from that.

BRINSON: Now, did you come with him, or did he come early and you came after him?

HORLANDER: No, my mother and daddy moved here before we did. Me and my two sisters, three sisters, stayed back in—well, two sisters. The other sister, Helen, was already at the university, was in Bowling Green going to school. And I was, myself, myself and my sister 7:00Jocille stayed until she graduated, and she graduated ’43. And then we moved here shortly thereafterwards. And then, in ’43, I started, after I moved here, I started to Louisville Girls High School, and I went there for three years. And I graduated 1946. So— BRINSON: And tell me about that. Was—it really was an all girls high school?

HORLANDER: Yes.

BRINSON: It was a public school?

HORLANDER: It was an all girls high school. Louisville Girls High School. Built way back years and years and years—a hundred years old. And they—which, since it’s been done away with. It’s, it’s now Manual High School. It’s, at, at Second and Lee Street.

BRINSON: Okay. And what was that like for you, coming from a farm in the Glasgow area up here to Louisville? Was that a culture shock?

HORLANDER: It was something else. 8:00It was terrible. Now, my daddy didn’t have a car and we walked everywhere. I had walked to school. I walked to, from where I lived on Colorado Street, the South End of town, out, just south of the University of Louisville, across the University of Louisville campus, over to Second and Lee to Hallock Hall, was the name of the, the—the senior high was on the third floor and the rest of it was a junior high school. And I was always in the senior high when I moved here. So, I went to that school. And it was a shock. It was an effort to get to school 9:00and then find my classroom everyday was something else. And go from room to room to classes was really, really mind-boggling and—but I got through that. And we talked, the teacher and I had so many terms of math, we talked them into getting us trigonometry in that school that year and I took trigonometry in my senior year. And I also, we took some special chemistry courses. In fact, I was, what I majored in, after I got out of there, I went to University of Louisville for two and a half years and majored in chemistry and math. But I went there for two and a half years. But, but my father then was working, like I say, at Seagram’s distillery at the time and, but we had so many kids, everybody had to help buy the, buy the food and everything else. And I had, during my college, 10:00I, or during my high school, I had a job at Walgreen drug store. I worked there six years and four months, downtown at, next to the Brown Hotel, 661 S. Fourth Street. I worked there. And I worked, and I got off and got home about one o’clock in the morning. I rode the streetcar from downtown, then I walked from Fourth and Colorado all the way down to Sixth and Colorado, where we lived at 600. And then I, and my mother always stayed up and looked out the window and watched for me to make sure nothing happened to me. But, then the bus driver would watch me—I mean the streetcar driver would watch for me. Then we got busses a little later on. But I worked there. And then I worked at Parkway Field answering the telephone because my sister, my oldest sister was the, the park, the baseball secretary at the time. And, well, she was the secretary of Ed Daugherty. 11:00And he was, he had the Louisville Colonels at the time. But, anyway, I, I worked there part-time too, on Sundays. So, I had two part-time jobs. And then later on, I got a job at Kaufman-Straus, which is a department store and worked all three jobs while I was going to the University of Louisville. Then after the guys came back from the war in 19-, after the war was over, I decided that it was useless to work there because I couldn’t get any job. They were coming back and claiming, reclaiming the jobs, so I got a job at, then, it was Southern Belle, as an operator.

BRINSON: And at that point, they probably weren’t taking any male operators, were they?

HORLANDER: No. There was no male operators. They were all women operators. And they, we used to, we had—you could write a letter requesting a job. 12:00We had job-bidding because we had a union then. The union came in in 1947—well, 1938, it was a, the pre-, predecessor to CWA, but in ’47, it was Communications Workers of America. And I would write a letter on certain vacancies they had. And they’d send a letter back, saying that it was a male job: that I couldn’t bid on it, couldn’t have it. But then that, that got a little better. It was 19-, and—I guess—I don’t know when it was now. But anyway, later on I got a job as a, as a—from the operator, I went to commercial clerk. And then I, that was a female clerical job. And then I went in, then I got a job as, as a service rep and worked that job eleven and a half years. And then 13:00I went from there to a service adviser which was a new department for oper-, in the traffic department at the time, where we trained and pe-, customers on their new equipment, their teletypewriters which was the, the computer of that day and, and the, all the different telephone systems that they had, automatic and manual, and went from place to place to the businesses within the city of Louisville, and I did that for about five years or longer. And then I went from there then, I finally bid on a communications consultant job and I got that job. And I was the first woman in Bell, in the South to have that particular job. But they hardly could say no because of my training 14:00at the time. But it was tough during, getting through the class. It was awful. And by that time, I had— BRINSON: Because you were the only woman?

HORLANDER: The only woman. And by that time—and most of them in my class were management people out of the [ ] unit. Wasn’t many in the [ ] unit. It was a class for management and craft together, communications consultant. Most of the jobs now are going to management. But I, I had then, by then, I had taken two leaves. And I lost my job as a service advisor because I had my second baby. I mean, I had—well, I had my first baby and then I had another baby and that first baby I had in 19-and—and I had gotten married. I was single all this time, you see, and then I got married in 1963 15:00and I had my first child in ’64 and my other child in ’65. And after I had one in ’64, they replaced me on my job. So, I had to, I was off on leave, but I, then I, when I came—and I had no job when I came back. They didn’t have to hold the jobs or anything. So then, when I had my second job, child, I came, the doctor gave me permission to go back to work from the hospital so that they wouldn’t replace me. And I went back when he was nine days old. So— BRINSON: That was what year?

HORLANDER: That was 1965.

BRINSON: Okay. Okay.

HORLANDER: And, and then, from then on, I held the communications consultants job until I went full-time for the union when I was elected local president of the local— BRINSON: Well, stop there because I want to ask you to go back and tell me when you first started to be interested in labor unions.

HORLANDER: In labor unions?

BRINSON: Um-hm. And, 16:00and what prompted you to get involved?

HORLANDER: When, when I found out—my dad, like I say, worked at Seagram’s, and I, he wanted to get me a job in the lab. And, as a, because I was a chemist and I did end up with a chemistry certificate, somewhere, for what good it is. It’s not any good. But anyway, he, then he found out that I couldn’t be a chemist. I could work in the lab, but what I would be doing would be washing the test tubes and cleaning up in the labs. So, I thought, That’s no good for me. And I didn’t, I didn’t like that and I didn’t understand it. Now, I thought, Well, that’s ridiculous. So, that’s when I started thinking, Well, they, we need some protection 17:00and we need s-, something done. We need a lot of things. And we’ve got to get something guaranteed to keep the, the employees working in, in a fair way. So, that’s when I started getting interested. That’s when I realized that the—now I, I remember back at my days in, in U of L. There wasn’t, union wasn’t even mentioned, ever. And I, but, I was thinking one day, we, in my math class, Professor Greene was his name, and he had asked the guys in the class to work this problem on the board and they’d come up and they couldn’t get it and what have you. Finally, he’d say, “Well, I guess I’ll have to let little Miss Pitcock do the problem.” 18:00And he did that all the time. They could not do it and I could. So, one day, I went up to the board, and I said, “If I can do this problem, why do these guys—and I can do more than they can—why do they make more than me? Why are their jobs better than mine? Why can’t I get a job making more money because if I can do the work, why can’t I get a better job? Why can’t I make more money?” And he then didn’t send me up as much as he used to. But, but I brought that up and s-, that was in, between ’43 and ’46.

BRINSON: So your, your awareness of— HORLANDER: [ ]. Uh-huh.

BRINSON: The role of women workers goes back a ways.

HORLANDER: Yeah. Now the first person that I ever knew in the labor movement, woman, was Thelma Stovall. 19:00And she was speaking out on behalf of women way back. And she was—but she was the secretary for local. That’s what women did. And, the tobacco workers union, when I first met her.

BRINSON: And when do you think that was? Do you remember?

HORLANDER: That was back in early ’50s.

BRINSON: Okay. Okay. When did you first join the union?

HORLANDER: Nineteen-fifty.

BRINSON: Okay.

HORLANDER: I joined the union— BRINSON: Which union would that have been?

HORLANDER: Just Communication Workers of America. I joined the union on, in February of 1950. No, no wait a minute: ’49. I joined in 1949.

BRINSON: And how many, what was the, not just the membership, but of those who became active and came to meetings and whatnot. How did that break down in terms of women 20:00and men?

HORLANDER: Well, in my particular union—now first of all, when I was in that service advisor, we had seventeen people in there. And I organized that bunch and it was thirteen. In my particular union, in this district, we represented the clerical workers. They were under the contract. And we didn’t have the right to work. So, we could have a union and, and people join the union. So, I organized my department. And lots of times, we would go and we’d go out after work and eat and then we’d all go to the union meeting. And all of us would go. And that happened by, a lot of different, we’d have one or two active women and they’d bring their whole crew with them. And we had u-, women at union meetings in my particular union. But now, in most unions in the labor council and what have you, 21:00there were not. But in my particular one, there were women that came around, and there were active union women.

BRINSON: And were, were you, were women allowed to hold leadership positions then?

HORLANDER: They were allowed to, but they didn’t. They were so willing to just take the little job of just taking the minutes and what have you that they didn’t go for hierarchies. Now, like I said, I was first. I was, in my union, I was the secretary-treasurer. I was the first to job steward. And then I was, I held all kinds of committee chairs. And then I worked in the, as a secretary-treasurer and then we split 22:00that office. I became that in, I think, ’54, and I think in ’59, then, we split that office and made it into a secretary and treasurer. So I took the treasurer’s part. And then I was treasurer until I ran for local president. And I ran for local president and I won. And— BRINSON: That would have been about when? To the, what, what period of time? It’s not the— HORLANDER: We’re talking about in the ’60s.

BRINSON: Right. Okay.

HORLANDER: I don’t— BRINSON: So, you became president in the ’60s.

HORLANDER: Yeah. I became president early ’60s.

BRINSON: Early ’60s. At what point do you think that you became involved in what I call the modern Women’s Movement in Louisville? 23:00HORLANDER: Back in the—we formed an organization called Kentucky Women Leaders, called KWL. And that was, that was in the ’60s.

BRINSON: I don’t know that group. Tell me about—what was their— HORLANDER: It became the Kentucky Women Advocates, KWA, where it’s still going. It was just a group of women who went to Frankfort to try to lobby for women’s issues.

BRINSON: And how did, do you know how that group initially came together and who, who it represented among women?

HORLANDER: Just all women’s organizations that had a representative there. And there was some from several unions, Women’s Political Caucus and American Associa-, Association of University Women and all kinds of people at the time.

BRINSON: Okay. Okay. And what kinds of things did you lobby for in Frankfort?

HORLANDER: Equal pay for equal work. 24:00Guaranteed leave, medical leave. And— BRINSON: Of course, you already had the ERA ratification here. But later you had another, to rescind— HORLANDER: Well, we, I, we, I worked here to get the ERA ratified.

BRINSON: Okay. Tell me about that.

HORLANDER: Wish I had the dates for you. But the Equal— BRINSON: Well, it was ratified in 1972, and then there was an effort to rescind it— HORLANDER: When Thelma Stovall— BRINSON: Right.

HORLANDER: Women—under Julian Carroll and Thelma Stovall was then governor and she did not retract it.

BRINSON: But you were part of the group that worked for the initial ratification?

HORLANDER: Yes.

BRINSON: Okay. I, I don’t know anything about that and I haven’t seen any papers. What can you tell me from your recollection? 25:00HORLANDER: Well, actually, in the, when it got passed the first time, we—it wasn’t a whole heck of a lot about it, kind of, kind of sneaked it in there, and it got ratified. And a group of the people who voted that was in the state legislature at the time that voted for it then later voted to rescind because they found out—they thought it would be mixed up with, because it had the word sex in it, that it would be mixed up with that problem, and so they changed their mind. But actually, it wasn’t that hard to get it passed in the very beginning. There was a few people that were—but now, after they tried to rescind it, 26:00we had a lot going on and Phyllis Schlafly came here and spoke and what have you. All the people in the pink dresses. We marched in Frankfort and did our thing all the time and worked a lot on that. Every, every opportunity we got. But it was, it seems like a long, long time ago. And, then, of course, it was a pretty long time ago. But the ratification to get it wasn’t as hard as after it was ratified, then they found out what they didn’t know about the bill and we had problems then with the rescission of it. And that’s where a lot of the activities— BRINSON: And actually, as I recall, the, the legislature did vote in the majority to rescind it.

HORLANDER: Right. But she vetoed that.

BRINSON: Right. Okay. Tell me about Thelma Stovall, 27:00if you would, a little bit. Again, I’m new to Kentucky, so I know a little bit, but— HORLANDER: Well, Thelma, I always—she spoke out and was one of the few women who spoke out. And I learned a long time ago—see, when you speak out, you get labeled the B word, so you have to watch what, around, especially the labor movement—I guess around all men—when you speak out and pick the right times, because you could speak out on everything, and then they don’t pay any attention to you. So you have to kind of be smart enough to realize what is the biggest thing for you to rebut at this meeting or at this, whatever’s going on. But Thelma did. But she was the best person in the world, would give you the shirt off her back. She is, and she 28:00is just delightful, and when she was in the legislature for over twenty-some years. And then when she went to be lieutenant governor, she was still the same old Thelma. She’s a, she lives in Mumfordsville. Right? Yeah, Mumfordsville. Same old country girl, see? And tobacco worker. But, and she never changed. Never changed. She was always—and everybody, I’ve never heard anybody say that they did not like Thelma. But she did speak out. And, and some people listened. And some people, in later years remembered what she said. They were listening, more than we thought, especially in the Labor Movement.

BRINSON: Was there a coalition of labor union women here?

HORLANDER: Yes.

BRINSON: What can you tell me about that? I don’t know anything at all, I don’t think.

HORLANDER: Well, we just recently—we used to have three chapters. 29:00I was the state vice-president from the originally, of the Coalition of Labor Union Women which was formed 1974. I was a charter member. I was one of several people who went to Chicago to form it. We were expecting about a handful or a roomful, and there was over three thousand came on their own from all across the nation to form the Coalition of Labor Union Women, 1974. Make a long story short, I was the, elected the Kentucky vice-president. We had three chapters: one in E-, E-town, one in Louisville, and one in Lexington.

BRINSON: E-town is Elizabethtown?

HORLANDER: Elizabethtown, um-hm. That one fell by the wayside a couple years ago. Lexington fell by the wayside maybe three or four years ago. The Louisville chapter was here and just recently a autoworker ran and the autoworkers has taken over the chapter. So, you’ll have to find out what’s happening to CLUW 30:00through them, because I’m no longer associated with the—I just pay my dues to the national, the chapter.

BRINSON: Tell me though, when CLUW first organized here, was that after the ’74 Chicago meeting?

HORLANDER: Uh-huh. Yes.

BRINSON: So you all came back and said we need a— HORLANDER: Came back, started organizing.

BRINSON: Okay.

HORLANDER: We formed the chapters and we were, started, we was going to start one in Owensboro, but it never did get off the ground. We tried in several other places throughout the state, but it’s like all women’s groups: the, somebody’ll work for six months or so and then they fall by the wayside and you can’t get young people interested in it because they, they’ve got it better today than they had it before and they don’t realize how, what it means to keep it. But, until 31:00they lose it, and then they’ll find out the hard way.

BRINSON: How many members do you think there were at the most at any one time in CLUW in Kentucky?

HORLANDER: In Kentucky? There was—well, you have to have fifty members to have a chapter. I mean, to have a, astate vice-president, and we always had a state vice-president. So, there—a hundred, a hundred and twenty—something like that, probably.

BRINSON: Okay. For, not, for the three chapters?

HORLANDER: Yes.

BRINSON: Okay.

HORLANDER: The Louisville chapter has had quite a few at times and then it dwindled down and then it—it’s difficult to keep them.

BRINSON: Tell me, Nelle, about the early program of CLUW. What 32:00was the, what were the goals, the mission?

HORLANDER: Well, basically the goals of CLUW is to organize the unorganized; equity in the workplace; be involved in their union and run for office in their own union; and be involved in pol— [INTERRUPTION—END OF SIDE A] BRINSON: The, the goals and the mission of CLUW.

HORLANDER: That’s basically it.

BRINSON: To, so, be involved in your own— HORLANDER: Union.

BRINSON: Union.

HORLANDER: And political, politics.

BRINSON: And hold office if you can.

HORLANDER: And hold office.

BRINSON: Okay.

HORLANDER: The highest office that you can hold.

BRINSON: Okay. And then, did CLUW become involved as an organization in any of the other Women’s Movement issues in Kentucky?

HORLANDER: Oh, yes. They, we were involved in all the issues that affected women and women’s issues.

BRINSON: Can you talk about that a little bit?

HORLANDER: Well, the— BRINSON: Like, like the ERA and [ ].

HORLANDER: Well, [ ] and the ERA 33:00and all the laws, what few they are, to protect women, we, we were active in all of them and nationwide, too. And then, there were no national officers of the Ken-, AFL-CIO until after CLUW was formed, and then they, women got elected to top office. And we have some now.

BRINSON: I’m trying to think if it, Addie Wyatt, is she— HORLANDER: Yeah. Addie, yeah.

BRINSON: Part of the founding of CLUW?

HORLANDER: Yeah, Addie was one of the founding mothers.

BRINSON: And then there was a woman named Joyce Miller.

HORLANDER: Joyce still is.

BRINSON: Is she still? I haven’t—I actually used to know her, but it’s, I haven’t seen her in thirty years or so.

HORLANDER: She’s still active. She’s still—well, I say she still is. She was the last, she’s not the president now. Gloria is now. But she was— BRINSON: Gloria?

HORLANDER: Don’t ask me that.

BRINSON: Okay. It’ll, it’ll come back later. But these were women 34:00who were active with CLUW at the national level.

HORLANDER: Uh-huh.

BRINSON: And was there—I wanted to ask you about the Kentucky CLUW. Was there any involvement in the whole pro-choice issue?

HORLANDER: Oh, yes.

BRINSON: There was. So that didn’t divide the membership as a— HORLANDER: No. No, CLUW was pro-choice and took a stand on pro-choice.

BRINSON: Okay. Okay.

HORLANDER: Yeah.

BRINSON: And did you all go to Frankfort to lobby for— HORLANDER: Yes.

BRINSON: Okay.

HORLANDER: We went. Pro-choice. A lot of women went to work with the groups on pro-choice. That was one of the things that, that the women in CLUW were strong for.

BRINSON: Well then, in the ’70s also, we began to see programs that were organized for battered women— 35:00HORLANDER: Yes.

BRINSON: For displaced homemakers— HORLANDER: Um-hm.

BRINSON: Some for rape victims. Did CLUW take a position or were you involved in, in those areas in any way?

HORLANDER: Yes. We, we worked with the other organizations on all of those.

BRINSON: Okay.

HORLANDER: We tried to be a part of all of them as they went on.

BRINSON: Okay.

HORLANDER: We worked on, within other women’s groups. And that was one of the goals of CLUW, too, is to work with other women’s organizations for the betterment of the women, period. And that’s what we did. And sometimes we’d get in trouble with our, our own unions because of a position we might have taken, and they would say, “Well, it’s not our position. That’s her position.” And we’d say, “We’re not representing them. We’re representing ourselves.” 36:00BRINSON: So, what do you think the, the Kentucky CLUW accomplished? And you’re still going today, apparently, at least in Louisville. What, what do you see as the major accomplishments?

HORLANDER: Of CLUW?

BRINSON: Um-hm.

HORLANDER: Well, in Kentucky I think that we have gotten—we have a, we have yearly meeting and—used to have two a year, but we only have one a year now—but, in connection with the AFL-CIO, and we usually have it at, during the state AFL-CIO convention. And I think we’ve gotten some respect from the other labor union men within Kentucky. And we do have some women in elective offices, including presidents of locals in the state now. And we didn’t used to have. So, we do have some. But— BRINSON: And is CLUW today still taking a position 37:00on various social issues?

HORLANDER: I assume so. I, I’m— BRINSON: Until you, until you left?

HORLANDER: Until I left, we were.

BRINSON: What kinds of issues, for example, when you left? I’m trying to get a sense of whether the issues have changed over time.

HORLANDER: Well, basically, they haven’t changed. You know, everybody says years and things change. They really don’t change. We’re still trying to get the first things we tried years and years and years ago: to get equal status with men. And forget the sex of the individual. And until we get the Equal Rights Amendment passed in three more states, and get it passed in this country, I don’t think we’re going to make much difference.

BRINSON: You continue to work on the ERA?

HORLANDER: Well, 38:00that’s another one. I was the co-chair for years with Dr. Allie Hixon and she, and they made it a committee in the KWA, and she decided we needed to have the thing again and then she talked me into taking the chair and then, I’ve got some of the records, finally got some of them. And we, I’ve, supposed to be the chair right now, but I’ve told them they’ve got to find somebody else. I can’t do it. And I do have some of the records on the pro-ERA alliance. But it is, we went to, Emily Boone and I went to St. Louis to one of their state meetings, I guess, two years ago. And then we donated some money that we had, some of the money we had in our treasury to them to try to get it passed. 39:00And there was updates on that. I, and then we also talked and get information from Florida and North Carolina and a couple other states that might see some hope of maybe getting the other three states. But, but it’s, right now, I’m, I’m trying to, I mean I’m, I told Allie, I just can’t, I can’t do it. I can’t even think my name, much less worry about all that. And I have other obligations that I’ve got to take care of.

BRINSON: Um-hm. Who is Emily Boone?

HORLANDER: She is an activist in Louisville. She has her own agency. She’s kind of a social worker type that helps people that have problems.

BRINSON: How old is she? What’s her age?

HORLANDER: She’s younger than me. 40:00I don’t know. Emily’s probably in her fifties.

BRINSON: Okay. Okay. Are there other women in the Kentucky CLUW over the years that have played real leadership roles within CLUW that you can identify for me by name?

HORLANDER: Well, Barbara Heath is still the treasurer. H-E-A-T-H. She’s also the treasurer of the Louisville local of CWA.

BRINSON: Um-hm. Okay. Anybody else?

HORLANDER: And then Sue Cook was the president of the chapter until the autoworkers took it over. And now it’s Vera Newton. But Sue was. Sue’s got—her husband’s had a heart attack and is on dialysis and she’s got problems too. She’s not able to do as much as she used to do. But she was very active in CLUW.

BRINSON: Um-hm. Um-hm. Okay. Were you ever involved in any other women’s organizations of any kind or— HORLANDER: I belonged to them all.

BRINSON: Belonged to them all? [laughs] Okay. Okay. 41:00Do you think that the Women’s Movement was— HORLANDER: Anymore, I’m not paying dues to all of them. I’m being a little more selective because I don’t have the money to do it. But I, I belonged to all women’s organizations, most of the women’s organizations in the state.

BRINSON: Okay. Do you think that the Women’s Movement in Kentucky was successful?

HORLANDER: I think we done a lot of good, but it’s difficult to make many gains. We worked hard, but like I say, all women’s organizations have trouble, struggling, to keep alive and to keep people active within them. And that’s the problem. I know, I did quite a bit of speaking on behalf 42:00of the labor movement, different schools and what have you, at the University of Louisville as well as high schools and what have you. And most of the young kids, when I, they would read my bio and it was the Coalition of Labor Union Women, they were all interested in the union in the women, the union part more than they were the women’s part. And I found that encouraging and delightful, but I, unusual. And then asked questions about that. That’s what they wanted to know more about. And they, because they, I, they could see further getting out of school and getting a job and wanting to be involved in the labor movement. And I kept telling the unions that, that I found that change over the twenty some years that I was on the staff of CWA and did a lot of that, that I, I found a change 43:00in the people. A lot of them were interested more in unions. And too, there was, I tried to bring it to the attention of the Labor Movement that in the future there’s going to be a lot of clerical jobs. Not going to be man-, manufacturing jobs, construction jobs, there’s going to be the, a lot of the office jobs, and that’s where the workers were going to be and that’s where they’re going to put a lot of women. So, and they needed to kind of keep that in mind to keep the Labor Movement alive, it would have to be.

BRINSON: Tell me, the twenty years that you worked for CWA, what were some of your responsibilities?

HORLANDER: Okay. As a CWA rep, first of all I took the job of two people, a man and a woman. Peg Stanton was a female staff person 44:00and she, and her husband Merle Stanton. And then I took their job. So, what I had to do, the whole ball of wax. I had to organize, be in charge of organizing. I had to train all the stewards and officers, do the training all over the state. I had to handle all third-level grievances. And I played attorney and handled all the arbitration cases at the third-level. And that’s it. Organizing, grievances, and training was basically— BRINSON: But you did this for the whole state?

HORLANDER: For the whole state.

BRINSON: Did you travel a lot?

HORLANDER: Traveled the whole state. From, from Fulton, Kentucky to Pikeville, Kentucky. 45:00BRINSON: Um-hm. And how—did you have children still at home at the time? How did you— HORLANDER: Yes. Yes, I had two young children when I first—see, I wasn’t—I got married in ’63, had one in ’64 and one in ’65.

BRINSON: Um-hm. So, your husband was supportive?

HORLANDER: Yes, and he, he took care of the kids some. I had my mother. My mother was living. My mother took care of my two children, thank God. That’s the reason I feel obligated to take care of my daughter’s children. But I, and I took them with me on a lot of things. And I had—but it was very difficult to do.

BRINSON: Um-hm. Have— HORLANDER: And I’d drive all day to some place, have a meeting, and drive back that night so I could get home for my kids for the next day, the next morning.

BRINSON: Have your children become involved in labor unions in any way?

HORLANDER: No, 46:00it never worked where there has, they have been able to. Now, my daughter works at UPS and she’s been there thirteen years, I think. But she works in a department that, that’s not organized.

BRINSON: Um-hm.

HORLANDER: She works in career opportunities for them. And she’s—but I think it’s rubbed off on both of them.

BRINSON: Um-hm.

HORLANDER: And Jeff works at Power Creative. He’s a, he’s got a degree in commercial art and he works at graphic designs.

BRINSON: Um-hm.

HORLANDER: And so, neither one of them has ever been actually in a union. But they both learned—I, I hear them, when I hear them talking and when they’re speaking up for themselves, you can tell it’s, a lot of it’s rubbed 47:00off. And especially her.

BRINSON: Was your husband in the union?

HORLANDER: Yes. He was a member of a, of a—well, he worked on permit when they built GE. He was an electrician. And he worked on permit, which meant he paid one percent of his salary for union dues to be able to go back on the job and work. And after there, he went to the post office and belonged to the postal workers. Then he went to the postal workers to naval ordnance. And then that was the machinists local 830. And he, then he went into management there. And when he, when he retired, he was in management, not eligible for union membership. But he was, he was supportive of a, supportive of the union.

BRINSON: How did you two meet?

HORLANDER: Through 48:00a friend of mine who lived next door to him.

BRINSON: Um-hm. So, it wasn’t through any sort of labor union event?

HORLANDER: No. Dottie worked at the telephone company with me and was in the union, but it was, she was a neighbor.

BRINSON: Okay. Well, I know your [ ]— HORLANDER: But we went together for eleven and a half years before I married him.

BRINSON: Hm. What, why do you think it took you so long?

HORLANDER: I don’t know. He said the only reason I married him was because he had more seniority than anybody else. [laughter] I, well, I decided that I was getting older and that if I was going to have any children—I always wanted to have some children, at least two.

BRINSON: Um-hm.

HORLANDER: That was my goal: two. One for each lap.

BRINSON: [laughs] Right.

HORLANDER: No more than that. One for each hand.

BRINSON: Well, and you had them close together, too.

HORLANDER: And I had them—and, but, I, you know, I had one when I was thirty-four and one when I was thirty-five, so.

BRINSON: Um-hm. So, you were pretty busy there for— HORLANDER: And then 49:00it was—yes. And it was very demanding. And somebody had followed me around then and written an oral history, they’d really have gotten a lot of stuff because I was really busy, and I could think a little better than I can right now.

BRINSON: Well, I know you’re officially retired.

HORLANDER: Yes, in Novem-, of ’96. July 2, 1996.

BRINSON: Are you still active in any organizations?

HORLANDER: I pay— BRINSON: You said you paid— HORLANDER: I pay full dues to the local. I’m a full paid union member. And I am on the Legislative Political Committee. I’m a delegate to the Greater Louisville Central Labor Council on behalf of my local.

BRINSON: Um-hm. Um-hm. And does that involve regular meetings?

HORLANDER: Yes.

BRINSON: And—okay.

HORLANDER: Meeting every month. The Labor Council meeting and— BRINSON: What are the issues right now, do you think, facing labor union women? 50:00Are they different than when you helped to start CLUW?

HORLANDER: No, there’s more—they’re the same.

BRINSON: Um-hm.

HORLANDER: The issues are trying to have equal pay and equal job.

BRINSON: Um-hm. Okay.

HORLANDER: And equal access to all jobs.

BRINSON: Okay.

HORLANDER: And some of them don’t—and so many, and it’s not only in the labor unions, but in women’s organizations—once they get themselves a job, they forget about you. And they don’t bring any mentors. I mean, they don’t mentor anybody and they don’t bring up anybody to replace them. And they just say, let them do the way they did, you know. And I, I don’t feel that way. I’ve always tried to, try to get some people. Like I say, when I trained stewards, I always tried to get younger people. And in our organization, in the telephone company, we didn’t have any young people. They were all older. But I tried to get as young as we could because if we didn’t, 51:00then my effort was wasted. They’d be fell by the wayside in a few years. So, that’s the problem now. We need to get more younger people involved. And— BRINSON: Well, of the younger people that you may know, do you see any hope in being able to do that? Do you see an interest there among young people for working on social issues or— HORLANDER: Not really.

BRINSON: Okay. Okay.

HORLANDER: I’ve tried to put it in the heads of my grandchildren, but it doesn’t seem to get there right.

BRINSON: Well, I, I think I’m coming to the end of what I know to ask you, but is there anything, Nelle, that we haven’t talked about that you think is important to say here or to talk about? 52:00HORLANDER: No, not— BRINSON: Okay.

HORLANDER: Just, just keep on keeping on. And I guess if a few of us, even though we’re old and gray-headed and, or dyed-hair people, we can—I call it mature—I guess we’d better just keep on keeping on as long as we can. And I guess that’s what I plan on doing. But I have to watch my priorities. Unfortunately, it was, losing Harold was a big blow to me and I still haven’t gotten over it. I’ve got so much paperwork to do and so much stuff as a result of his death and all that it’s just so exhausting that I just can’t do anything else.

BRINSON: When did he die?

HORLANDER: Huh?

BRINSON: When did he die?

HORLANDER: He died—it was a year, year ago. January 30, 2000.

BRINSON: So it’s been pretty recent. Was it sudden or— HORLANDER: Well, he had, he had, he’d been taking high blood pressure medicine all his life. And the medicine damaged 53:00his, one of his, heart, parts of his heart. And—a valve. So he had a new valve put in in ’98. And he was doing fine and what have you. And then he had some arthritis problems, and he took some more medicine for arthritis and it gave him some blood clots in his, well, it gave him—I forget what you call them—sores inside your stomach. And they operated on him there, and he never did recover from that.

BRINSON: Um. How old are your grandchildren?

HORLANDER: I have one that’s eighteen, one that’s sixteen, one that’s fourteen—my granddaughter—one that’s three and one that’s six months.

BRINSON: Um-hm.

HORLANDER: This is a— BRINSON: And they all live 54:00here [ ] in Louisville?

HORLANDER: Yes.

BRINSON: I’m going to turn the tape recorder off at this point.

HORLANDER: My son, my son got a scholarship to MIT.

BRINSON: Oh.

HORLANDER: But I would not let him go because I wanted him to go to the University of Louisville so he’d stay here. I’d see him go there and marry some girl way off someplace and— BRINSON: Hm.

END OF INTERVIEW