Dryden, Mary (1902-1983) |
Worcester County Library: Local History and Genealogy Collection, Snow Hill Branch, Snow Hill, MD
|
Interviewee: |
Mary Dryden (1902-1983) |
| Interviewer: |
Vanessa Voss |
| Date of interview: |
1980 April 15 |
| Length of interview: | 27 Minutes |
| Transcribed by: | C Cole |
| Preferred Citation: |
“Name, Oral History Collection, Date of Interview, Worcester County Library, Snow Hill Branch, Snow Hill, Maryland.” |
Topical Terms:
Domestic Life
Education
Stockton (Md.)—History
Transportation
Worcester County (Md.)—History
Worcester County (Md.)—Social life and customs
Worcester County (Md.)—Women’s History
Corporate Terms:
Stockton High School
Stockton Elementary School
Location Terms:
Stockton (Md.)
Interview Begins
INTERVIEWER: This is Vanessa Voss interviewing Mary Dryden
MARY: I am Mary Dryden, and this is Thursday April 15th, 1982.
INTERVIEWER: Could you give me your age and your maiden name?
MARY: I am 80 years old and my maiden name was Mary Parker.
INTERVIEWER: What were your parent’s names?
MARY: My father was Dr. John T. Parker and my mother, Maude deWaal Parker.
INTERVIEWER: Can you tell me your grandparents names and their maiden names?
MARY: Gabriel deWaal and Nancy Dukes deWaal, were my maternal grandparents, and my paternal grandparents were Charles and Amelia Parker.
INTERVIEWER: When you were a child what kind of chores and responsibilities did you have around the house?
MARY: Well I washed dishes sometimes and I helped my grandmother with the kitchen. I don’t remember doing much else.
INTERVIEWER: Did you have a job outside the home?
MARY: No.
INTERVIEWER: Where did you go to school?
MARY: Stockton Elementary and High School.
INTERVIEWER: All through high school?
MARY: Yes, I graduated in 1918 from Stockton High.
INTERVIEWER: What was the discipline like?
MARY: Very good, we had no problems.
INTERVIEWER: What kind of subjects did you take?
MARY: I had English, Latin, history, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, science.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember any of the names of your teachers?
MARY: Oh yes. Our principal was Professor John S. Hill. He was a native of Snow Hill. Miss Lucille Taylor was my English teacher. Miss Mary Holland was my history and math teacher. Miss Anna Adkins was our manual trainer which corresponds to home ec. today.
INTERVIEWER: Where did you go to church?
MARY: Holy Cross Chapel Episcopal Church in Stockton.
INTERVIEWER: How long was it on Sunday? How long did it last?
MARY: The service?
INTERVIEWER: Mm-mm
MARY: Oh, about an hour.
INTERVIEWER: What did you do for recreation? Did you go ice skating?
MARY: Yes, we skated the mill pond. I was never very good.
INTERVIEWER: What kind of games did you play?
MARY: Well, we played Flinch, *unintelligible*, and 7 Up. My daddy taught me how to play 7 Up, which corresponds to fish nowadays. When I got older I played 500. Then as bridge came along, I played bridge. I played some basketball. We passed the ball around, I guess you call that softball.
INTERVIEWER: Did you go swimming a lot?
MARY: No.
INTERVIEWER: How about dating?
MARY: Oh yes. I had some dates.
INTERVIEWER: Did you do a lot of dating?
MARY: I had some. We usually went to the car auctions.
INTERVIEWER: What were the rules in dating? The rules set by your parents.
MARY: I don’t remember that I had any rules really.
INTERVIEWER: What were some major events in the community?
MARY: Well we used to have an alumni banquet on Easter Monday for the high school. And there were organizations in two churches. There were two organizations, one was from our church called the Busy Bees and the Methodists were (unintelligible), and they met every so often for social functions.
INTERVIEWER: What types of businesses were around here?
MARY: There was a very thriving oyster business then. Two barrel factories because in the wintertime the oysters were shipped in barrels, and then in the summertime potatoes were shipped in barrels. In those days we had two passenger trains south and two passenger trains north, as well as several freight trains.
INTERVIEWER: What was the population? Was the town very big then?
MARY: No. I would say probably 300 people in those days.
INTERVIEWER: What was the law and order like?
MARY: Sheriff Payne was the magistrate in Stockton and we really didn’t have too much disorder.
INTERVIEWER: What type of transportation did you use?
MARY: Horse and buggy.
INTERVIEWER: There weren’t any steamboats around at all.
MARY: No. There were sail boats down at George Island Landing and oyster boats, but no, we didn’t have any steam.
INTERVIEWER: Who was the first to get the first car around here?
MARY: It was either Mr. John Houston or Dr. John Phipps.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember getting your first car?
MARY: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: What was it like?
MARY: It was called a Liberty. In fact, we didn’t have a car until 1920 and I was the driver.
INTERVIEWER: I bet that was fun. Do you remember going to any Farmer’s Day or any fairs?
MARY: Oh Yes. Pocomoke had it’s fair. That was a big excursion. Then we went to Red Hills the first Wednesday in August, and then the first Thursday we went to Farmer’s Day.
INTERVIEWER: What happened at Farmer’s Day?
MARY: Well it was a picnic and we usually went in the water that morning and people who could swim, if they enjoyed swimming, and the rest sat away.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember much about Assateague. Did you go over there?
MARY: No. We used to go to Pope’s Island Coast Guard Station at George Island Landing. We would go by boat and then we’d walk across the sand and the marsh and go to the beach and go into the ocean.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember an alligator named Jake?
MARY: No.
INTERVIEWER: How about any legends or superstitions around here?
MARY: There was a farm hand on the Pocomoke Road that had a snake that walked.
INTERVIEWER: It walked?
MARY: Yes, it would take a few steps. I had never seen it but that was one of the legends. I don’t remember the name of the first one, but some man who was an oysterman, he worked down in the oyster bay and sailed, was lost at sea. His wife used to say that she heard him calling her sometimes at night.
INTERVIEWER: How about the storms?
MARY: Of course, the one in 1933 when the inlet was cut. It’s the one I remember because it occurred on my wedding anniversary. My husband and I had planned a little trip, but we weren’t able take it. We had big one in 1954, I believe it was, and 63, I believe. But I don’t remember any real bad ones when I was a child.
INTERVIEWER: How about big snows? Do you remember any big snowstorms?
MARY: Oh yes. Back in, everywhere in 1946 we had one. A real blizzard. The men had to go to Snow Hill and my husband and three other men here in town started but they didn’t get any further than beyond Girdletree. They couldn’t make it.
INTERVIEWER: What type of music was popular when you were a child? What type of music did you listen to?
MARY: Well when we started dancing, I think first it was waltz. I remember the turkey trot and the …..
INTERVIEWER: Were there any fairgrounds? Did Stockton have a fair?
MARY: Well the fire company used to have a fair in the summertime. Then we had medicine shows.
INTERVIEWER: What were they like?
MARY: They were mostly similar to puppet shows. Punch and Judy and things of that sort. And I remember one summer or two, Stockton had a couple nights of entertainment similar to minstrels.
INTERVIEWER: What was that?
MARY: Well Pocomoke had this minstrel and they would put on shows and have music.
INTERVIEWER: Sort of like a festival?
MARY: Somewhat similar.
INTERVIEWER: Is there anything else that you remember that we haven’t talked about?
MARY: In 1926 the new school was built in Stockton. It was one of the first more or less modern schools in the county. As I say that was finished in 1926. And it stood for fifty years or more, but it’s been demolished now. Then the children were later bused to Snow Hill or Pocomoke, which hurt Stockton. Stockton had a very disastrous fire in 1906. I don’t remember much about that, but I remember a few things.
INTERVIEWER: What part of Stockton?
MARY: The middle of the town. They were all wooden buildings at that time. There were two stores that were destroyed and the hotel.
INTERVIEWER: What was the hotel name?
MARY: (unintelligible). Mrs. (unintelligible).
INTERVIEWER: Is that a place that everybody went?
MARY: Well in those days, salesmen traveled on horse and carriage. There was a livery stable adjacent to the hotel. These men stayed at the hotel and would put their horses at the livery stable.
INTERVIEWER: Was there a place in town that all of the adults and everybody sort of hung around?
MARY: (unintelligible) office, were primary for the men. He liked to play dominoes. In those days when people went to the store to do their buying, there were usually benches or chairs around the pot belly stove and they could sit around and chat.
INTERVIEWER: See if you can think of anything else.
MARY: The night of the fire, there were a couple of stores in front. The lady had a millenery shop at the time, came out of her shop with her nickel lamp in her hand and was walking down towards the bay and the other lady had put as much of her yarn and such, as much as she could, in a baby carriage to save it. The pet dog of a friend of mine was just there and she ran up the railroad track.
INTERVIEWER: What did you normally do on Sunday? Did you have a big dinner?
MARY: Yes. We usually had a big dinner around one o’clock. In the morning I went next door to the Methodist Church to Sunday School. My mother was speaker, and we had to act older. And then in the afternoon we went to the Episcopal Sunday School and mother was superintendent there, and then they asked her to lead. So that’s what, we went to church mostly on Sundays.
INTERVIEWER: Thank you very much.
MARY: You are certainly welcome.