The Joe Hill House

by Ammon Hennacy

In 1961, Hennacy co-founded a house of hospitality in Salt Lake City, Utah, which he named after Joe Hill, the labor songwriter and organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or Wobblies.) The house lasted until 1968. This account is excerpted from The Book of Ammon (Fortkamp/Rose Hill, 1994) and is reproduced with permission from the publisher.

Arriving in Cleveland, Ohio, to visit mother and brother and sisters I had a phone call from Mary Lathrop in New York City, saying that she had quit her job and wanted to come with me to Salt Lake City to help start the Joe Hill House...

A friend told us that a Catholic student at the university had raised $240 for us to start a House, so we looked around and found this location near the employment office and skid row. A friend in the east gave us $100 to pay the rent ahead. We got two months free rent and paid two months ahead, which brought us up to November first. Meanwhile I slept on the floor here and we looked around for furnishings, carrying bits of lumber from the alleys on our way from Mass early in the morning. Ren Mabey, a seminarian and ex-Mormon, who I had met several years before in Mt. Angel, Oregon, mopped our floor and gave us a few furnishings. We bought a secondhand small rollertop desk, and a rocking chair. When we went to get the money collected for us by the student, it turned out that he could not be found, but Mary worked and we were able to make it...

Mary painted a mural of the execution of Joe Hill which is twelve feet by fifteen feet and is the prominent feature of our house. As you can see, Christ is in it as another One who was framed. The I.W.W. wouldn't print it this picture because it had Christ in it, and the Catholic papers won't print it because Joe Hill is in it. Mary also painted a mural of the Holy Family, a picture of a Russian pilgrim, something resembling a Russian icon, St. Joan and the Wicked Bishop, etc. We believe we are being true to the memory of Joe Hill by feeding the tramps and transients for whom he cared and in having no Bible-banging. We do have radical meetings each Friday night...

A friend gave us an electric hot plate and we cooked on that. Finally some Ute Indians, who were up on trial for chasing an Indian Bureau man off the reservation, stopped in their truck and brought two stoves from a priest across the tracks. It took us several weeks to get the downpayment and the authorization for gas, but finally we could cook on a gas stove. My friend, Francis Gorgen, stopped in for a visit of a day or two. It seems that again, by reverse action, we were to be helped, for a priest sent a young Catholic alcoholic to us, and he slept here nights. He ate where he worked, it seemed, and told us that he had bought us a hot water heater, which was soon delivered. Upon seeing the heater, Francis said he would stay over a few days and connect it. While looking for the connections, he bought us a gas refrigerator secondhand and connected it and the stoves up. By this time the folks who had brought the heater came and got it back, for our friend had not paid a cent on it and was already in jail for some other larceny. I looked around and went to buy a heater from a company secondhand. The man, who was a Baptist, said if we were doing good work he wouldn't take any money for it, so Francis soon had it in working order. I got two laundry tubs secondhand, but some welding needed to be done before they could be connected. A man came with a portable welder after hours and when he had finished he said "Hell, I wouldn't charge you anything, for I used to hop freights myself."

Francis finally stayed three weeks and the kitchen was in running order. Later I bought a shower bath for thirty-five dollars, and Francis installed it. Meanwhile our friend was out of jail and was collecting money and cashing checks for more liquor, all in the name of our House. I got the Mormon daily to print a notice that no one was collecting money for us. I went to one paint company and got two-and-a-half gallons of light grey paint; then I told the next company about it and they gave me the same, and another company upped it to four gallons, and our walls were clean. I went to a paper company to ask for toilet paper and was given a carton of it. Then I went to three other companies where each gave a carton a year. A cracker company brings us crackers, and a few coffee companies have given us coffee. I have written to General Foods saying that here was the opportunity to have Postum given free instead of coffee, but the company had no imagination and answered "no." The Hershey man gives us plenty of cocoa. Mary and I carried 120 pounds of wheat on our backs for nearly a mile; and it is ground on the old coffee grinder I had in Milwaukee when my girls used to ground their own cereal for breakfast. Nearly all the bread companies said that if they gave to one they would have to give to all. I told them to break down once and see how it felt. Finally one baker allowed me to get two baskets of bread three times a week and another, hearing about it, allowed us two baskets once a week. The Spudnut folks gave us doughnuts twice a week and a pie company did likewise. But milk and egg folks wouldn't budge.

Mary and I went around to the merchants saying, "We are pacifists, anarchists, subversives, and Catholics too radical for our bishop, but we need sugar,etc." We got it. Readers of the CW over the country who know me send bits of money at times, so I make it alright. One hundred dollars a month is enough. I know that if I do the best, the best will be done by me.