Description
Evelyn Rodes was born in 1915 in Gonzales, California. Her grandparents had moved to California from Europe and eventually her family came to own a large and successful farm. Tough economic times resulted in foreclosure and the family moved from the farm to Oakland. Her father, Albert Roy Pura, soon became a contract laborer finding work on the Bay Bridge. Rodes recalls her father’s stories of working on the bridge during its original construction. She recalls driving her father to work one day, terrified to drive back alone over a partially completed roadway. This interview helps contextualize the lives of one of the many workers who helped build the Bay Bridge – most of whose voices are lost to history.