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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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was very good to her, very nice to her, sent a man over to see her, helped her with the funeral. Everything was all right. Their insurance company would come right around and she'd begin to get her benefits and the two children would get theirs. The insurance company came around and the first thing that the young investigator asked to see was the marriage certificate, which working class people usually keep in a bottom drawer, all done up in a nice envelope tied with a string. They always know where the marriage certificate is. Other people forget where theirs is or lose them, but I know that working class families always have the marriage certificate.

Well, she couldn't produce the marriage certificate. Finally she broke down and cried. She said she had never been ceremonially married to him. The insurance company at once protested that this was not a legal claim on them, although the employer had filed the report and given the proper version of his death, that he was killed in the course of his employment, cited his widow and children. The widow had made her claim. We'd accepted the case and it was before us before the insurance company investigated. I think they'd even paid her the first week's payment at the employer's behest.

Then they protested it and we went into the whole





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