b"civil service test. I'm very happy, I'm very content with what I have accomplished for my limited education and myrelationships. If friendship was wealth, my god, I would be well off. I got my health issues, but I'm going to be 75 inI was able to take two trains here and all and it's great, so I'm surrounded with good friends and all. \x02Carmen RodriguezBalancing Work and FamilyWorking women have historically had to struggle to balance work with caringfor their families. This Local 237/Oral History Project interview focuses on the rela-tionship of work and family.Following are excerpts of an interview with Carmen Rodriguez, a retired housingassistant and mother of four children. Rodriguez worked for the New York City Housing Authority for 15 years, first as asenior intergroup relations officer in the Lower East Side, then as a housing assistant at Pomonok Gardens in Queens.After she retired in 1988, Rodriguez and her husband, Victor, moved to Puerto Rico. There, she served for three years asretiree coordinator of Local 237 retirees on the island. Today, the Rodriguezes live in Newport News, Virginia, near theirdaughter.I worked all my married life. When I worked at Henry Street Settlement, before I worked for the Housing Authority,I had three children, two already in their teens. My apartment [in Vladeck Houses in the Lower East Side] burned down.My children werent home. My boys had just gotten out of school. My daughter was eight months old and she was stayingnearby. I didnt work anymore after that.Then a job as assistant director for a senior citizen program at Henry Street Settlement came up. I went to apply andthey hired me. The program operated at Vladeck Houses.When I got pregnant with my fourth childmy baby, my mamalaI thought about quitting because we were alreadyin the process of moving to Rosedale, in Queens. But I worked through the eighth month. I made the trip from Rosedaleinto the city. When she was born, I stayed home for six months with her. Then I went back to work, but I wasnt happy. I liked challenges, and the job had become setthere were no problems to deal with. Thats why I left. I saw an ad in theChief for senior intergroup relations officer at the Housing Authority and I applied.When I started working at Housing [in the Lower East Side], the only drawback was the evening meetings. Boy, we had so many evening meetings. My husband, God bless him, was a very, very good husband, a very good father. He would pick up the kids when I went to school, he would pick up the kids when I went to work or had meetings, hewould get me at the train station at nightbecause the Housing Authority would give you a car and a driver to drive youhome, but sometimes they had no drivers, so I would take the train and it would be late and my husband would come tothe station to pick me up.Those were hard times. My husband got home from work at 4:30, and that was a blessing. My seven-year-old got89 "