Joseph P. Mosconi - University of Nevada, Reno

26 Joseph Mosconi
No. I was greeted by President Wilson
and had my examination and all, and then in
September I got a notice to stand by and then
11 November 1918, that’s when the armistice
was signed.
So you were almost about to go?
They told me to stand by.
Let’s go back and pick up that accident. You
said you were working in the box factory. You
were going to tell me about your fingers and
how you got them cut.
I got them cut in the rip saw they used
to make the boxes. Used to push the boards
through.
You’d push them through with your hand?
We had a picaroon and also with your
hands. See, you had a picaroon here, and then
like that [demonstrates] so I went down there
and here, see, that’s what happened.
You slipped and shoved your hand in there?
Yes.
So it took, what, 2 fingers off ?
It took this one here, this one here. See,
this joint here is gone. See how old I was? Then
this one here, too, was cut all the way around
here. And [Dr. Wilcox] stuck this piece back
on without the joint.
On your index finger?
I told him afterwards, “You got it on there
kind of crooked!” Anyway, Leland Nicholas
was my partner. In fact, I was the swamper.
He was supposed to be running those boards
through, and me, I’d be on the other side
pushing them out. He’d gone someplace, and
I was doing that so I got that cut.
Well, they found this piece here; they
couldn’t find this part from my thumb in
the sawdust...big sawdust pile. They wrapped
some rags over my hand here, and they
walked me from up there at the box factory
about, oh 1½ or 2 miles down to Dr. Wilcox
that lived over here. Then they laid me down
on a table—got me in the shed, kind of a little
house out in the back there. And talk about
anesthesiasts today and all this and that. They
handed my partner...I think it must have been
chloroform. They put a rag over my nose
here, and then Nick started.. .doctor told
him what to do. Pretty soon, the doctor says,
“Well, I think he’s about ready.” So he started
snipping on this here, and I pulled back and
he says, “Whoop! Give him another shot,
Nick!” When I came to there was some lady
there; I don’t know who she was. Nick went
back up to work in the factory, and so they
left this lady there to watch me, I suppose.
When I came to, why, I didn’t know what I
was talking about.
But anyway, that was the end of my box
factory work. And I never got a penny for
that. There was no such thing as industrial
[insurance] or anything.
They never paid any of it?
No.
Did you have to pay the doctor for all of that?
No.
Because that one dollar a payday covered it?
That one dollar took care of it.