Otter's Rock

in the 1940 census, there is a domestic servant listed as residing in my house. her occupation is listed as "maid", so I guess that she was a maid of all work, although there could have been a cook who lived out. there's call bells for her still extant on the second floor, although they're not connected to anything anymore.

we do not live in a mansion. it was built as, and still is, a niceish middle-class house.

it just occurred to me to go check the 1950 census. no maid at that time, although other houses close by still had them. this house was occupied by a partly-retired label salesman in his 70s, his not-in-work wife (also in her 70s) and their daughter in her 50s, a never-married salesgirl.

houses close by were paying between $400-500 for a live-in maid. one thing I noticed is that in the 1940 census, in addition to there being MORE maids, more of them were US-born. many more of the maids in 1950 were born in Eastern Europe.