After being wounded in World War I. Charlie Hardy became a boiler maker in the Portland shipyards in 1917. Joined the union. For awhile the family "lived like kings." But the postwar depression left him jobless. and he and his wife and kids Joined the stream of migrant workers following the .Oregon crops. When the growers tried to cut their pay in half. he organized the farm workers. struck. and won. But he was blacklisted and had to move on. The family arrived in San Francisco broke. Bertha got a Job in a laundry and Joined Laundry Workers Local 36.