Keith Tillotson

The Boardinghouse (1942)

I was staying downtown in Echo Park, and at Lockheed you didn't get paid for two weeks. I'm getting' a little hungry – I don't have enough money. I was only paid off with a few bucks. My boss, the foreman at Lockheed, told me that his wife's mother who lived next door to him, she runs a boardinghouse. Right out in Sun Valley, up the road from Lockheed about a mile or two. So I went out there and she took me in. I think the rent at Echo Park was 90 dollars or something like that, and she took me in for about 20 dollars a month, board and room.

It was about a mile up to work. That's where I met Junior Burr. He worked at Lockheed also, and lived at the boardinghouse. And a few other guys – I think there was about seven or eight others – I don't know how many.

While I was there at that boardinghouse, I decided to pack up all that stuff of Vicki's and send it to her. I did. And the package, I wanted to insure it a little bit. So I put my name on it and where I lived. And then, one day I get a phone call from her. She wanted to come up and see me again. I remember while I was talkin' to her, the landlady – she had a phone on the wall in the kitchen – I'm standin' there and my arm's getting' tired. So she brought over a broom and put it under my arm to hold my arm up.

Vicki wanted me to come down and get her. I said "Well ok, I'll do that." I don't have a car. The landlady let me have her car to drive down there. I brought her up and we moved in together. And then Vicki's mother came down from San Francisco. She didn't like that too well, so that took care of that. She talked her into goin' back with her husband.

So I came back to my boardinghouse. That lady that had the boardinghouse – she was wonderful. The meals she put on! I raised my own rent there, 'cause I don't how she could make out. She'd have a whole plate full of eggs cooked up for breakfast, and piles of bacon. I paid her five dollars more a month. We did it by the month.

I'm star boarder there now. I got to move into the house – I didn't have to live out in that little shed in the back, you know. I'm star boarder.

Next: The Full House (1942)