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Women comprised the majority of salaried employees who worked at the house. While male employees, who often tended to the greenhouse, are listed by name on payroll slips, women's names do not regularly appear. Perhaps this is due to Mina's comment on a note dated 1892. She requested Mr. Randolph, Edison's financial secretary at the Laboratory, to: ". . . simply state department of girls as there are often changes, thus constantly altering names. The amount in this way will always be the same unless I tell you differently." At that time, "salaried girls" included a waitress, cook, maid, nurse, and laundress. By 1894 only three positions -- cook, nurse and maid -- were noted. A payroll note from May of 1897 listed a laundress, cook, nurse, maid and companion as being on salary. Additional vouchers from employment agencies suggest that Mina also hired temporary staff as needed. For example, on August 21, 1912, she contracted for a Kitchen Maid at $3.00, from the Orange Bureau of Domestic Requirements. An additional charge of $1.00, as a fee for an emergency, implies a last minute request.
While a butler was hired for a single day, January 23, 1901, from Mrs. L. Seely's Employment Bureau in New York, a regular salaried butler does not seem to have joined the staff until 1904. Henry Horsey's name appears as early as November 1910; he seems to have been part of the staff into the 1920s. Theodore Edison referred to Horsey as "the butler who was with us for many years." Lynn Given, Mina's personal secretary from 1931 to 1936 recalled that "When we had special big bashes, Henry Horsey was reinstated. And Henry Horsey apparently was the butler in the house for years and then he retired. And then on special occasions he would come back. He was a real honest to God butler."
Information provided by the 1915 New Jersey State Census indicates four staff members living on the property. Mary McMann, a forty-six year old, English-born woman had lived in the United States for twenty years. She worked as the Edison's cook. Occupants at the house also included two maids -- Julia Burke, a fifty-three year old American-born chamber maid, and Jennie Everson, the twenty-nine year old parlor maid. Jennie immigrated six years earlier, from Norway. The gardener, Ernest Walter, likely lived with his family in the living quarters at the greenhouse. In 1908 Walter entered the United States, at age thirty, after leaving his home in Germany. Listed as an alien, he lived on the estate with his thirty-eight year old wife, Elizabeth, and their two-year old son, Alfred. Elizabeth, a U.S. resident for 15 years, may not have worked for the Edisons as her occupation was noted as housewife.
The 1920 federal census also lists five employees living on the property. Mary McMahon (McMann) again appears as the Edisons' cook. Helena (Lena) L. Doyle, a fifty-four year old Irish maid and Joseph P. Flattery, the thirty-two year old Maine-born houseman also lived in the house. Ernest Walters, the gardener, and his family continue to reside on the estate. George J. Williams, a chauffeur, his wife, two daughters and son lived in an apartment in the garage. Other evidence of household staff during the 1920s appears in newspaper articles and personal letters. Several articles from the Fort Myers News Press, dating between 1922 and 1924, refer to the Edison's housekeeper and cook, Lena Doyle (Mrs. Michael Doyle and later Mrs. Phillips). In 1922, the paper notes that "the winter home [which] had been put into spick and span shape by Mrs. Doyle, Mr. Edison's housekeeper," and that Edison "sat down to a fine hot dinner that had been prepared with extraordinary care by Mrs. Doyle, who is regarded as one of the best cooks 'in all of 'Jersey.'" In a 1930 letter to her brother, John Miller, Mina inquires about the possibility of special quarters in the Garage for Queenie Adams, the Edison's cook in the 1930s.
Given's recollections provide the most detailed information regarding the service staff from any era. All household servants, she noted, wore uniforms:
Normal maids' uniforms. Some of them were black and white. It depended. . . they dressed for dinner. I mean, Joanna [Haufe] wore black and white for dinner. And then during the daytime, she wore mostly light colors. And Martha [Michel?] -- I can't remember what Martha wore -- but it seems to me that she wore black and white, too. And the second floor maid whose name I can't remember. They all had uniforms.
June Mates, who lived in the garage from 1927 to 1943, recalled that her father, Edison chauffeur Sidney Scarth, also wore a uniform and changed shirts whenever he went out. Mina paid for his suits which were made for him in New York City. Mina, June remembers, was proud to employ one of the best dressed chauffeurs.
Scarth was an Englishman, and the staff represented many multi-cultural backgrounds. House employees included women from Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland and Germany. Queenie Adams was an African-American from Florida. Daughter Madeleine remembers that the servants of her childhood ". . .all seemed to be of different nationalities, a league of nations. . . ."
Inventories support oral histories which indicate that live-in help stayed in rooms on the third floor. Unfortunately, the only association with a specific individual and a room begins with the 1931 residence appraisal which refers to "Miss Bogue's Room." Serving the household in various capacities -- piano teacher, secretary, companion to Mrs. Edison -- from as early as 1903, Lucy Durfee Bogue was considered a virtual family member.
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