Sophie Zielinski was 44, Polish, a landlady on Chene Street with six cold-water flats, three of them already empty because nobody could pay.
She had a claw hammer, a borrowed Ford truck, and no patience left.
On January 12, 1932, after watching the Kowalskis across the street get put out with a baby six weeks old and a coal stove still warm, Sophie walked across with that hammer, knocked the new lock off with three swings, and carried the stove back in herself, with Mrs. Kowalski holding the door.
By February there were twenty-two women, Polish, Black, Italian, Hungarian, wives, widows, factory girls laid off from Briggs, all with hammers, all with a list.
On January 12, 1932, after watching the Kowalskis across the street get put out with a baby six weeks old and a coal stove still warm, Sophie walked across with that hammer, knocked the new lock off with three swings, and carried the stove back in herself, with Mrs. Kowalski holding the door.
By February there were twenty-two women, Polish, Black, Italian, Hungarian, wives, widows, factory girls laid off from Briggs, all with hammers, all with a list.
They called themselves nothing at all.
The newspapers called them the Moving Crew.
For two winters they followed the bailiffs.
For two winters they followed the bailiffs.
When an eviction went out, the crew went in that night. Locks knocked off, furniture carried back up three flights in the dark, stoves re-piped, windows stuffed with newspaper against the cold, a pot of soup left on to warm, so the children coming home from school would find home still home.
They moved two hundred and eleven families back in, between January 1932 and March 1933. They lost count of stoves. Sophie kept count of hammers broken, seven, notches cut in the handle of hers for each one.
The police arrested Sophie twice. The judge dismissed both times. The second time he told the bailiff, off the record, to stop calling, he was tired of seeing Mrs. Zielinski in his courtroom.
When work came back in 1934 the evictions slowed, then stopped. Sophie went back to collecting rent when people could pay, and not collecting when they could not, which was most of the time for another three years.
She kept that claw hammer hanging behind the kitchen door until she died in 1961, seven notches deep in the hickory handle, head worn smooth on one side from knocking off locks.
Her great-granddaughter has it now, in Detroit, in a toolbox. She used it last winter to hang shelves in her first apartment. It still pulls a nail clean.
They moved two hundred and eleven families back in, between January 1932 and March 1933. They lost count of stoves. Sophie kept count of hammers broken, seven, notches cut in the handle of hers for each one.
The police arrested Sophie twice. The judge dismissed both times. The second time he told the bailiff, off the record, to stop calling, he was tired of seeing Mrs. Zielinski in his courtroom.
When work came back in 1934 the evictions slowed, then stopped. Sophie went back to collecting rent when people could pay, and not collecting when they could not, which was most of the time for another three years.
She kept that claw hammer hanging behind the kitchen door until she died in 1961, seven notches deep in the hickory handle, head worn smooth on one side from knocking off locks.
Her great-granddaughter has it now, in Detroit, in a toolbox. She used it last winter to hang shelves in her first apartment. It still pulls a nail clean.
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