Live-in/Daily Household Help

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m curious about people’s experiences, both as children and adults, with live-in or daily help (servants). Cooks, maids, housekeepers, valets, butlers-- whatever terminology fits (or fit in the past) your situation.

I’m not talking about “Downton Abbey” stuff-- armies of uniformed maids and liveried footmen-- but I think there was a time in the USA (not sure about elsewhere) between the early 1900s up through the 1950s (or later) when it was not unusual for ordinary, middle-class families to employ a live-in maid or housekeeper of some kind. Not strictly for child care, but as household help.

The neighborhood where I live has modest, Craftsman-style homes built in the 1920s and just about all of them (including mine) have maid’s quarters at the back of the property. I like to read the Real Estate section of the New York Times (especially The Hunt) and there was a comment recently that most apartments in “pre-War” buildings (and even into the 1950s) had a room meant for live-in help. I’m reading a series of murder mysteries set in England in the 1920s and the unmarried, age 30-ish, Scotland Yard detective has a “daily” who comes to his apartment even when he’s out of town for extended periods of time!

I was always fascinated by the assumption in the P.G. Wodehouse “Bertie Wooster” stories that an adult man could not be expected to maintain his household of one without, at a minimum, a butler/valet, a housemaid, and a cook-- all live-in or daily. (Yeah, I’d like to have a super-capable Jeeves, too… :roll_eyes: But somehow I manage without him.)

Several of my middle-class contemporaries (I’m in my 70s) had a live-in cook or housekeeper in their childhood. Black or Hispanic women were readily available for such work in the South, including South Texas. (Cf. the film, The Help.) One friend remembers fondly the Black woman who moved in to cook and clean after my friend’s father died very suddenly leaving six kids. The mom had to resume her full-time career as a nurse to support the household. Other friends grew up with a “daily” person who cooked and cleaned and whom they regarded as part of the family.

I’m wondering what y’all’s experiences is/was with live-in or daily help. I’m not thinking so much of nannies, or someone who does strictly child care (although, by all means, share those stories, if you’re inclined to).

And those of you who live (or lived) outside the US. Maybe your family had occasion to move to another country for a while where live-in help was provided or was assumed to be routine. In 1949 Japan we had a Japanese maid, even though my dad was the lowliest NCO.

Note: In my threads I’m not terribly fussy about sticking within a narrowly defined topic-- I want discussion, conversation, stories.

2

I’m about your age. I grew up in Portland, Oregon, and I didn’t know anyone who had any kind of hired help. Among my friends there were maybe three fairly prosperous families, who could afford for the mothers to stay at home and cook and take care of the house, but they didn’t have hired help, even part time. My family did not have even that luxury, my mother worked full time, and then came home to her second job, with which we children were expected to help. I suspect that the tradition of which you speak ended with WWII, where there were plenty of good-paying war work jobs for women whose men were off fighting.

There was one house in my neighborhood that took up an entire (small, oddly-shaped) block, and that we used to call “the mansion,” because there was only one. They probably had one or two servants. (It’s now called the Thomas J. Autzen House, maybe it’s now a museum or something.) But I didn’t know them or anything about them, except that they did give out candy on Halloween. It didn’t look like a servant who gave it out.

3

I’m from a solidly working- to middle-class background. My mom’s parents worked the family farm that had been passed down through five generations; my dad’s father was a machinist and his mom a housewife. My dad was a doctor and my mom a bookkeeper (after their divorce). I was thinking, “Well, if course we didn’t have daily, much less live-in, help!” But then I remembered that not only did we have an au pair when I was very small and we lived in Switzerland, we lived in Indonesia for three years in the early 60’s, and we had a cook who lived in a small house behind ours and a gardener who doubled as a driver. Once we moved back to the US when I was 7, though, we never had household help again.

Every now and then I daydream about having enough money to hire a housekeeper. As if it’s ever get organized enough to do that!

4

Thanks, both of you, for those comments. :slightly_smiling_face:

The thing is… I believe that in the era and place I’m talking about, household help wasn’t considered a luxury, but a given, if not an actual necessity. Even in a family with a SAHM. Like I said, all the houses in my neighborhood have accommodations for a maid. Probably there was a pool of available workers, relatively uneducated, who already had the necessary skills by virtue of being a daughter or mother in their own households.

Think of how today it’s common to hire people to take care of your yard, even if you’re able-bodied enough to do it yourself. You simply may not want to, and the the labor is available at an affordable price.

Yes, this is the kind of thing I’m thinking of, too.

5

My moms grand parents were the live in help on a grand estate in Philadelphia.
Nan was a cook, Pops took care of the horses and dogs.

In the thirties my grandparents for a time took jobs at a prison and my mom was shipped off to a foster family for awhile.

Later when they were able to buy house Mom was a latchkey kid who had to cook and clean and manage the cocker spaniels they bred. Oh the stories she could tell!

Dads living arrangements were stable but cramped as they housed other relations arriving from Ireland.

6

My mom had help. She had broken both hips. 3 surgeries. She could barely get around. A very caring woman came twice a week. Mostly cleaning. But would also take her to Dr visits.

I did a lot of that as well. So did my cousin. I live 100 miles away. Way up in the mountains. I was hardly ever home on weekends. Last time I sent my cousin over, she broke her ankle rushing to help my mom. They both ended up in the same hospital that night.

My Mom has since passed, and I gifted her helper (certainly won’t call her a maid) $4000 from my mom’s estate for being such a kind helpful person.

Not live in or daily help, but I had a ‘crew’ to do it. A neighbor of my moms also helped. I made sure he had a key to moms house. He flew slicks in Vietnam. Good guy, knows his stuff.

7

Mom and dad married in 1949, and in 1951 he bought the house that my Great Auntie had been born/lived in til she sold it to my dad =) It being a rather sizable Queen Anne monstrosity, had a nursery with 2 bedrooms, a play room [?] and quarters for the nanny; there was also servants quarters. Mom and dad had a live in maid [mom lived in the house when Dad was on an unaccompanied tour overseas and with Dad in Germany from when I was born til kindergarten. Then we all moved back just in time for him to get sent to Vietnam ]

I remember our nanny, and one of the maids [the one when we got back but not the one before i was born =) ] We dispensed with the nanny when I hit 9 and my brother 11, and the maid shortly after when we moved to a much smaller house. We did have the occasional day maids, generally when my mom was ill [she had a nasty year with pneumonia, and then a really bad time ending up in a hysterectomy, both times we ended up with a day maid because mom was unable to clean. I did the cooking both times as I started learning to cook when I was 8.

Hm. When one has a maid, one tries not to be a total pig, one puts their laundry into the hamper, books on shelves, toys into hampers [I have this great antique Chinese wicker hamper that was my toy box as far back as I can remember. Now it holds spare comforters and towels =) ] Dishes get rinsed and put into the dishwasher [it had a dish washer!!! for a house of the 50s to get brand new appliances WOW =) Dad also installed brand new electric washer and dryer, replaced the coal burner with town gas - all the modern conveniences =) [got to keep the little Mrs happy =) ]

8

My Mother was sickly and died early. Lots of sibs.
Daddy always had a maid/house keeper/kid minder.

He also acquired a Marine buddy (Uncle Gunny)who followed us around. Sometimes living in the house, sometimes just close in the neighborhood. He was always around to ‘boss’ us.

The maid/cook person always had to do a quick learn of my diet and insulin needs. And how to tell what was going on with me.

Usually after a few months they ran screaming from the house. We were a handful.

We had one who stayed years (Laura Love). A plump, little short thing with a big mouth and a drinking problem. We loved her. Great cook.

9

I grew up in Sierra Leone and we had live-in staff. Well, they actually lived in a separate building, not the house - no room inside anyway.

When we came back to England in the 50s, My army officer father was entitled to a batman (a soldier assigned to a commissioned officer as a personal servant) or an allowance in lieu. We used the money to pay for a cleaner for two days a week.

More recently, when our kids were small and my wife and I both worked full time, we employed a lady, one day a week, to do the “heavy” cleaning and ironing. She stayed with us for several years until her mother fell ill and she went back to Germany to care for her.

10

When my dad was very little his mother was very mentally ill and eventually became institutionalized. They had 4 very little kids at home.

My grandparents had joined the Mennonite church by then, as there was a church that came to their Cleveland suburb (it’s still there!) The Mennonites sent a young woman to be the nanny/housekeeper while grandma was away.

No idea how they all lived in that tiny 3-bedroom bungalow!! But they did. Grandpa, nanny, 2 baby uncles, my dad and my aunt. I don’t think it lasted very long, maybe a year or so. Grandma got her shock treatment and was sent home.

Some 30 years later, grandma died. A year or so later grandpa married the nanny. He moved from the city to her family farm in Ohio’s Amish Country and they were together 25 years before grandpa passed.

11

South African here - employing paid household cleaners is a standard middle class thing here. Historically known as the “maid”, nowadays called a “domestic worker” or the dehumanizing “domestic” shorthand. Usually a Black woman, under-educated, with a family, often the only one formally employed.

Nowadays usually not live-in, but up until the 90s that was quite common, and many houses still have separate “maid’s quarters” (because heaven forbid a Black person slept under your roof!) which were repurposed since. Many others might have an outside-access-only toilet for the help as an relic of those times.

Black nannies are also common (often doing double-duty as cleaners).

Somewhere around 1-in-6 to 1-in-8 Black women in SA work as domestics - around 800 000, down from a peak of 1 million in 2000. Firm numbers are difficult, as a lot of the employment is undocumented - domestics are supposed to get minimum wage and be registered for UIF benefits, but many are exploited and underpaid.

Around 60% of domestic employers are White, 10% Coloured or Indian, and 30% Black. This is a great change from even a couple decades ago, when most were White.

Somewhere around 50% of White households employs at least one full-time domestic, although this varies by location - in Cape Town, it’s ~30%, in Johannesburg, ~60%, in Durban, ~80%. (although those are old numbers, ratios have probably changed)

My household employs one domestic worker for two days a week, for general household cleaning. About 75% of my friends also employ someone part-time like that. A couple have full-time domestics, and the rest don’t have any.

A fully-employed domestic worker working 40 hours a week should make around R4000/month by our minimum wage laws. That’s US$230. A month. That’s a fucking pittance. That’s less than what we pay our domestic worker for her two days a week. And like I said, a lot of domestic workers don’t actually see that full amount they’re legally owed.

12

Not daily, but we had a cleaning lady once or twice a week when I was growing up (1970s/80s). My mother still has the same person come in once a week coming up on 40 years.

My wife and I had a full time live out nanny for our kids until they were in school for the full day. She continued on with us cleaning once a week for a few years after that.

13

Oh my goodness… there is a Hallmark movie in there somewhere… :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

14

I have a vague recollection that we briefly had live-in help when I was a child; but I don’t remember the situation well at all; the only thing I remember clearly is being told by my mother that she decided it wouldn’t work out because the woman who was helping complained, among other things, that we were being cruel to the dogs because my mother wouldn’t spread hamburger on their Milkbone biscuits. That was an odd enough idea that it stuck in my head; I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody who spread hamburger on their dog’s biscuits. [ETA: except, I suppose, for that woman (I’ve forgotten her name; I’ve forgotten a lot of names from my childhood); if she wanted us to I suppose she must have done it herself at some point.] Mixed with the kibble, sometimes, yes; but ours did get meat mixed with their kibble.

I think it was the mid-1950’s and certainly some time in the 1950’s. My mother was a SAHM, which I’m pretty sure was more common at the time, but had some health problems. We were middle class. In my mother’s youth live-in help had been very common but it wasn’t any longer, by then. The house had no specific maid’s quarters but part of it had at some points been used as a separate apartment so I suppose she used that part, though I don’t remember.

15

Back in the 90s, my disabled mother had a woman who came in twice a week to clean etc. The NHS provided a daily service to get her up in the morning and to bed at night, but that was limited.

The woman she paid was, in the opinions of my sister and me, not worth the money. She didn’t clean very well and we had a strong suspicion that she was stealing small amounts of cash. The problem was that Mother liked and needed her, so we felt that so long as it didn’t get out of hand, it was best left alone.

When Mother passed, that woman didn’t even come to the funeral.

16

Our childhood house had a small apartment above the carriage house (aka garage) which my grandmother stayed in for a while. I was one of 4, 3 brothers who were 6 years older (1 then twins 10 mos later) and my father was a teacher and my mom was a school bus driver so they had the same/similar times off. Grammy would watch me while they were gone in the morning, and then I would hang out with my mom until it was time for her to do the afternoon bus runs, then it was back to hang out with Grammy. I’m sure that apartment was the “servant quarters” back in the day.

I’m semi-disabled now - and have someone come 3 days a week to help with chores: laundry, grocery shopping, meal prep, walking the dog, light cleaning, etc. It allows me to work from home full-time and takes some of the pressure off my husband on being the primary caregiver. (His mom also lives with us and had a stroke last year, so she doesn’t get around much). I’m not on medicare or medicaid, this is not a CNA or home healthcare worker, it’s that outside help you are talking about. I pay for it out of my own pocket.

Having an “outsider” help in the home is a weird thing - I’ve been using one for about 3+ years now, and each time someone leaves and I have to hire someone new, it can feel very invasive - having to explain all your quirks and needs and literally air your dirty laundry LOL. You feel very bougie and lazy too - even though it is really a necessity. And it’s uncomfortable when someone is not a good fit, but for all the stories about the weird times, I’ve been grateful for the 2-3 workers who have just become part of the family during their time with us.

17

When I was in elementary school I had a friend from India. His family had a live in servant. Her quarters were a cot in the corner of their mostly finished basement, separated by a screen on a stand, and she some shelves and a big trunk. She cooked and cleaned for them, and seemed to love my friend as much as his mother did. She made some delicious food, including a form of incredibly good oven baked version of fried chicken. They ate a lot of things there that I wasn’t allowed to try because they were too spicy, and my friend got in trouble a couple of times for trying to trick me into trying some. I had no idea at the time this woman probably got paid next to nothing and probably had no choice in her life but to work for this family.

Other than that, my grandmother considered live in help a couple of times as her condition declined but she wanted to maintain an image of independence in her own mind so she opted for day workers. Several of them as they would get fed up with her and quit after a while but eventually come back, probably for the money, but perhaps curious how such a horrid stingy old woman could have such a nice generous family.

18

The 1900 House documentary which aired on PBS back in 1999/2000 is pretty illustrative of why that’s the case. The 4-hour series features a modern family attempting to live the lifestyle of late Victorians for three months. The first hour is something of a This Old House style production of finding the right house to restore to the state it would’ve been found in 1900, along with the search for the family. The remaining time follows them through the trials and tribulations of living such a life as closely as possible.

Granted this is no small family, they have four kids, but the difficulty of running a household, no matter the number of kids, is readily apparent. Everything you can think of takes forever compared to today.

Laundry? Takes an entire day, if you have the whole family to help you. First you build a fire since soda crystals don’t work in cold water. Then you’re soaking and agitating your huge quantity of clothing, undergarments, and bedding in a boiling cauldron. After that squeezing it dry as best you can, hanging it out on the clothesline, then when it dries (hope it’s not raining) ironing every single piece with a hunk of metal you have to keep reheating on the stove every minute or two.

Cooking? Hope you got up early to stoke the stove so you can cook breakfast. You might need to run out to the store to get some meat or cheese, or hope the door-to-door salesman stops by in a timely manner with fresh goods. You have chickens in the backyard to tend to because eggs are expensive but they’re good breakfast food. The ice in the icebox melted and your milk has gone sour, but at least that’s delivered daily by the milkman. You’re constantly watching every pot and pan because you have no temperature controls and the food could burn in a flash if you’re not careful. Then you have to wash all the dishes with harsh soaps that destroy your skin and still necessitate scrubbing and scouring. Once breakfast is done it’s time to start cooking lunch. Once lunch is done it’s time to start cooking dinner.

Cleaning? Like cooking once you’ve finished it’s time to start all over again. The layers upon layers of clothing everyone wears, plus all the soft furnishings, curtains, pillows, and a lack of vacuum cleaners and dust-absorbing cloths means that fluff and dust appear seemingly out of nowhere. Carpets need to be taken outside and beaten, same with curtains and upholstery. Any cleaning you do just seems to stir up more dust and lint. You don’t even have fans to blow some of the dust out the window.

Because of all this, the 1900 House family had to hire a maid, and social norms even dictated as much to signal to everyone else that you were solidly a middle class family. The maid (technically maid-of-all-work) also cooked, and wasn’t live-in, but I think she worked something like 12 hours a day 7 days a week.

Home appliances and chemical detergents were critical in reducing the need for domestic servants.

19

When I lived in the Congo 1961-62 most UN people had a servant who came in during the day, cleaned, and cooked the big midday meal. Not live-in.

My wife taught at a nanny school in our town, and one of her jobs was arranging rooms for the students. They did a certain amount of child care for room and board, and as a kind of final exam worked full time for a few weeks. It worked out pretty well, but of course we got first pick.

20

I grew up in a (very) lower middle class family and I don’t think I even knew anyone who had a live-in maid. Even my wealthy relatives didn’t, although I am sure they had regular help, just not live-in. When my mother got older she did hire a woman to come in one day a week to clean and iron.

Now we have a couple who come in every Saturday morning for an hour or so and clean (and do all sorts of odd jobs as needed–our lucky day was the one when we found them). My wealthy son has a cleaning couple (mother and daughter, actually) every second week although they could easily afford live-in help.

I guess I did have a cousin who, after his wife died leaving him with two small kids, got a live-in maid. But she became more than live-in and they eventually married.