Midland Remembers The Family of Dorothy (Tucker) and Maurice Crall, Sr.

Nancy Swift possesses something that no amount of money could buy. She has a three-ring notebook with her family’s history written by her mom Dorothy Tucker Crall and her sister, brothers and herself. Some fifty pages record the family’s story told by those six people. Their story begins with the arrival of grandparents Edwin and Maybelle Tucker coming to Midland from Indiana in 1906. Two children were born to them in Huntington City, Indiana. Merrill, their first-born son and a baby named Ethel who died shortly after birth.

The Tucker family moved to a farm on Eastman Road where in 1907 a second son Arthur was born followed by Chester born in 1908. (In the 1930’s both Arthur and Chester would play a pivotal part in establishing the union in The Dow Chemical Co.) Leon followed in 1909, Lawrence in 1911, Dorothy (who would become Nancy Swift’s mother) in 1914, Albert (Dick) in 1918. A little boy named Francis was born in 1919 and died of diphtheria in 1927. And in 1921 Walter, their last child, was born. In 1937 Edwin, the patriarch of the Tucker family, died in 1937 on the family farm In Larkin Township and Maybelle, now a widow, moved into Midland on Arbury Street.

Nancy’s mom and dad, Dorothy Tucker and Maurice Crall, were married April 20, 1932 In the Saginaw Nazarene parsonage by Reverend Charles Hare. They returned to Midland where Maurice’s mom had invited friends and relatives to a chicken dinner to celebrate her son’s marriage. In her diary, Dorothy commented, “Uncle Jack and Aunt Susie Rockwood gave us a nice tablecloth, our only gift.”

The newlyweds lived on Buttles Street until Zip Supinger and his wife moved from the apartment on Pine Street. They paid four dollars a week for the apartment. Dorothy became pregnant for their first child and was so sick she couldn’t stay alone so the young couple moved out to the farm with her mom and dad until after Maurice Crall, Jr. was born on March 14, 1933. Dr. Wilbur Towsley officiated at the birth. Dorothy remembered that he laid down to rest while waiting for the baby’s birth since the Tucker family didn’t have a phone.

When spring came, Dorothy and Maurice with their baby son moved into town, first on Buttles and then on Sayre Street where they shared the house with a family named Windover. The arrangement didn’t last long as Dorothy and Maurice had company visit one day and Mr. Windover complained that they flushed the toilet too many times. Maurice and Dorothy moved back with her folks on the farm on Eastman Road and Maurice was transferred to a job in North Carolina by The Dow Chemical Company.

On Aug. 31, 1934 Darlene (Dolly) was born in a house operated by the Poraths as a hospital located near the Dow clockroom on Ellsworth Street. Dorothy remembered that the cleaning lady at the hospital was also the cook and that it rained so hard that they couldn’t dry the sheets.

Shortly after Dolly was born, Maurice came back to Midland driving a semi-truck expecting Dorothy and the children to go back with him to Detroit. Dorothy hesitated because she didn’t like Detroit. She eventually gave in and they lived in an apartment house just off Woodward Avenue, sharing it with four or five other families. In her diary she wrote, “We all shared one bathroom. Really deluxe, huh?”

Maurice lost the trucking job and found one working in a car factory for awhile. He gave that up because he hated working on an assembly line and Dorothy persuaded him to return to Midland. Back in town, Maurice was hired again at Dow Chemical and the young family tried living in a small house trailer which didn’t work out because Dorothy was expecting their third child, Dale, and the heat in the small trailer was suffocating. They rented an apartment and proceeded to buy furniture, $5 for a cupboard, $15 for a gas stove. Maurice went to see Albert Asch about borrowing the $15. Albert Asch took it out of his pocket and handed it to Maurice. Later when Maurice paid it back, Albert put the $15 back in his pocket.

It was the height of the Depression and the Crall family made do with a card table, some folding chairs, an iron bedstead and a cot. When Maybelle Tucker said she would be ashamed to have anyone see her daughter’s apartment, Dorothy told her that she wasn’t ashamed and that they would buy furniture as they had the money to pay for it. When Maurice bought an electric refrigerator for $45, Dorothy wanted to know why he did that when they had a perfectly good icebox?

Work and a place to live continued to be a major problem. Maurice lost his job at Dow again. They moved again and again and on Oct. 6, 1938 Sally Ann was born and lived just three days.

Now the Crall family moved to North Carolina where Maurice again had a job with Dow. Dorothy noted in her diary that living in North Carolina had been “like the honeymoon we never had” and the children played in the Atlantic Ocean and she helped with the tobacco crop.

Back in Midland once more, Nancy was born Dec. 28, 1939 and Dorothy had the family Christmas tree put up in the bedroom so she could enjoy it. And the future of the Maurice Crall family was about to inherit a windfall thanks to the National Labor Relations Board.

While the Depression years weren’t the only impetus for labor unions, workers were slowly becoming aware that they had rights not just to be paid for the work they performed but to have protection from corporate management and capricious layoffs. Men who were sympathetic to labor unions were threatened with losing their job regardless of how good their work record had been. The Dow Chemical Co. was battling with the C.I.O. (Congress of Industrial Organizations) coming into the workplace. Men who wore C.I.O. badges or admitted they were in sympathy with the Union were first harassed and then fired. Dorothy Crall had two brothers, Arthur and Chester Tucker, and her husband, Maurice Crall, who were “let go” by the Company for union activity. For two years the three men had to find work elsewhere while the testimony went on in Washington, D.C. with top superiors of The Dow Chemical Co. called upon to explain why 30 workers had been fired when they were performing their jobs satisfactorily. The Labor Relations Board fought to absolve those 30 men from those unfair labor practices. The National Labor Relations Board was successful and several years of back pay were restored to those men. A worker could now belong to a labor union without danger of losing his job.

Nancy Swift has file copies of the proceedings in Washington D.C. with Dow supervision admitting the only reason the men had been fired was their C.I.O. membership. Arthur and Chester Tucker and Maurice Crall, Sr. had been vindicated.

With the largesse of the back pay, the Crall family bought a kit home from Sears & Roebuck and moved into a new home built on Walter Street in Midland on Dec. 3, 1941.

This ends Part I. Part II will appear in two weeks.