During the years that Tin City was in operation many families came and went, and most, if not all of those families had children.  Even though many women and children took up residence at Tin City, there is little information on them and their daily lives, unlike the men who are mentioned in issues of the Crescent and the University Archives.  Little is known about the women because they were not the students so their only connection to Evansville College was living in Tin City and their husbands who were students.

Women and children at Tin City were just like every other woman and child at the time, they just happened to live at Tin City.    Like many women of the 1940s and 1950s, the women at Tin City usually did not have a job other than caring for their children and doing housework.  Most women did not attend classes, but all of the women had at least a high school education.   Although that was not always the case, in some cases the women would either graduate college or attend college until they were married. One former Tin City resident, Margaret Kilgour, had a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology and she minored in Psychology (Tin City Interview: Kilgour). Some of the women who lived at Tin City would sometimes attend college until they were married, and then they would drop out and take up the responsibilities of a wife and mother.

Most women did not have a job, other than being a full time housewife and mother to, usually, multiple children.  Women would also share babysitting duties to help each other out. They would take turns watching all of the children while they played in the front yards, so that the women could take turns running errands and doing other chores that children might complicate.  The women would often socialize in the front yard, and occasionally get together to play cards or other games.  “The women, they formed a Bunko, I don’t know if you’ve heard of it or not, a little Bunko club,” said Mrs. Duvall, a Tin City resident from 1947-1949. (Tin City Interview: Mr. and Mrs. Duval).

 Some of the women who lived at Tin City did have jobs outside of the home.  One example was Jeannine Wambach, in her interview she said that she had a job working for the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation while living at Tin City, “I worked for the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation…  I had to quit when I was about 4 months along…  So I got another little part time job… and as soon as I had my daughter in November I was back at work again in January.   Back at the Vanderburgh School Corporation...” (Tin City Interview: Jeannine Wambach)   Other women occasionally had jobs for a short time, but not the entire time they were living at Tin City.  One of those women was Gloria Stone.  When asked whether or not she had a job while living at Tin City she replied, “… Yes I did go to work… I did have a job.  I worked at the state hospital.  Briefly, but not for the whole time…” (Tin City Interview: Mr. and Mrs. Gary Stone)

There is also not much known about the children who lived at Tin City.  The people who were children while living at Tin City were too young to remember what life was like when they lived there.  Some light has been shed on what life was like for children at Tin City through photographs from Tin City and the few memories that their parents possess.  The photos of children at Tin City often depict the children with dolls, bicycles, and other common toys that children play with. (Photo: Tin City Kids, April 1952).  Some of what we do know about life for children at Tin City comes from the Tin City Interviews.  Karen Lobeck Brass was a child who lived at Tin City, and she recalled that a lot of the children would play in the front yards, or ride bicycles, “We’d ride our bikes. Uh, I remember we played quite a bit in the front lawn…” (Tin City Interview: Karen Lobeck Brass).  She also stated in her interview that she remembered the mothers having their children go inside for an afternoon nap because they thought that would reduce their risk of getting Polio.

Although there is little known about the day to day lives of the women and children who were living at Tin City, we can learn as much as we can through reading the Tin City Interviews and through the continuing excavations being conducted by the Archaeology Field Methods Class here at the University of Evansville.  Maybe with time and further research we can begin to have a better understanding of what life was like for everyone who lived at Tin City, and not just what the lives of the veteran students, but of their wives and children as well.