Etchison, Katherine S. (1895-1990) |
Worcester County Library: Local History and Genealogy Collection, Snow Hill Branch, Snow Hill, MD
|
Interviewee: |
Katherine Stevens Etchison (1895-1990) |
| Interviewer: |
Terri Stripling |
| Date of interview: |
1982 April |
| Length of interview: | 53 minutes |
| Transcribed by: | R Jones and C Cole |
| Preferred Citation: |
“Name, Oral History Collection, Date of Interview, Worcester County Library, Snow Hill Branch, Snow Hill, Maryland.” |
Topical Terms:
Church
Pocomoke City (Md.)—Fire 1922
Pocomoke City (Md.)—History
School
Transportation
Worcester County (Md.)—History
Worcester County (Md.)—Social life and customs
Worcester County (Md.)—Women’s History
Corporate Terms:
Hartley Hall
Presbyterian Church
Location Terms:
Pocomoke City (Md.)
Worcester County (Md.)
Interview Begins
INTERVIEWER: This is an interview with Katherine Etchison
KATHERINE: My name is Katherine Stevens Etchison.
INTERVIEWER: How old are you?
KATHERINE: I am 86 years old.
INTERVIEWER: What are your parent’s names?
KATHERINE: My mother’s name was Stella Adkins Stevens and my father’s name was Alexander Hartley Stevens. My grandparents, my mother’s mother was, Katherine Savage Adkins and her father was John Henry Adkins. My father’s mother was Mary Jane Truitt Stevens Handy. She was married twice. His father’s name was A. Sidney Stevens. He was the first lawyer in Pocomoke. He lived in a house that was torn down to build the Post Office. It was very much like the Costen House. It was the same type of house as the Costen House. What’s your next question after the parents?
INTERVIEWER: Your childhood, and homelife. The chores you did.
KATHERINE: I had to clean lamps every Saturday morning. Frequently my mother made beaten biscuits and I would help beat the biscuits. She’d always make them out. We generally had to clean our own rooms and sometimes yards. But that was about the extent of our chores.
INTERVIEWER: Where did you live?
KATHERINE: We lived in many houses. My father had six children. His father died when he was twelve years old, and he was the oldest of four children. And before my grandmother remarried, married Mr. Handy, my father hadn’t really gotten out and kind of shift for himself. He rented houses. We’d move quite frequently, and everybody said we did because my mother was a great homemaker. And she used to light the house up quite a bit. My father would rent a house that wasn’t especially attractive, but by the time my mother had…that we had lived there for a while and she had sort of taken charge, it was sold. And we’d have to move again. So, we lived in quite a few houses. The last house my father owned was the original Hartley Hall. We lived out there when we were growing up.
INTERVIEWER: How long did you live there?
KATHERINE: How long did we live at Hartley Hall? About 30 some years. 35, 36 years. Of course, I was married, and I lived in Washington. And my sister, Rosemary, was married and lived in Columbus, Ohio.
INTERVIEWER: Did you have any jobs besides the things you did around the house?
KATHERINE: Did I have any what?
INTERVIEWER: Jobs
KATHERINE: I taught school. I’m a retired schoolteacher.
INTERVIEWER: When you were younger.
KATHERINE: When I was growing up? I don’t remember any jobs, except just chores around home.
INTERVIEWER: Where did you go to school?
KATHERINE: I graduated from Pocomoke High School and then I went to the Towson Normal School. It was the Normal School then. It was only two years. I started my first teaching position in Montgomery County, and I taught in Gaithersburg.
INTERVIEWER: What kind of a teacher were you?
KATHERINE: Elementary teacher. I taught sixth grade most of the time. After my husband died, I returned to Pocomoke to live with my mother. I taught here.
INTERVIEWER: In Pocomoke?
KATHERINE: In Pocomoke. I had heard that the third grade was always a nice grade to teach. I was nearly ready to retire. So, I asked the superintendent if he would let me have a third grade. At the time when I first came down, I was principal over to Stockton of just four teachers. And so when I went to Dr. Cooper and asked him if I could have a third grade, he said, “I think you’ve lost your mind!” and I said, “No, I’ve always heard that a third grade was the nicest grade to teach.” And I said, “I’d like to try it before I retire.” So, he gave me a third grade. But I’ve always kind of regretted it, because sixth grade was my…I mean, they told me when I was going to Normal School, they told me then that I should have older children. I couldn’t get down to the third-grade level, I mean, in my conversation and so forth.
INTERVIEWER: Which church did you go to?
KATHERINE: The Presbyterian Church. We were all Presbyterians. The Presbyterian Church, the present one. The Dennises, that owned Beverly, were members of the Presbyterian Church. And Mrs. Dennis, I remember, Mrs. Jane Dennis, used to come in Sunday mornings, and in those days, they used to go in mourning, and wear their mourning clothes for years. She used to wear a black kind of a turban with long veils, all the way down to the hem of her skirt, and she used to have little white (unintelligible) around here and around her neck. But otherwise, she’d walk into church with this veil trailing in back of her, and she sat next to the front row. To reach church, she came in a carriage, and she had a footman and a driver. And they used to drive in the driveway that approached the side of the church. And the driver went back and parked the cart. And the footman that she had in those days told a story that I think might be interesting. “I remember my mother saying, that when the Freedom War was over”, this was footman, Richard… “I always , remember my mother saying when the Freedom War was over, and there was shouting and yelling, and the slaves were free, Ms. Jane Dennis told the colored people they could go, but that whoever wanted was welcome to stay. Some wandered off, but my people stayed and at Beverly my life had been wrapped like the (unintelligible) that have cared for me. There wasn’t any schooling then, what learning you got you just picked up. Grandfather was a blacksmith.” Now this is a colored fellow talking. “And wheelwright for the farm. And at seven I was put to work pulling weeds and cutting grass. I was a footman and later a butler. Miss Jane, she had a big carriage with a driver and a baggage man sat up high in front. She in the carriage and me as her footman on the step in the back. When we came to a gate, I’d jump down, open the gate, and jump back up. The carriage never stopped. The Dennises owned farms all over and we really traveled around. All plowing was done with oxen. Horses were for driving only. When I was twenty-one, Miss Jane called Pat and me in and she said she wanted to settle with him for my wages from seven years to twenty-one, and she paid him thirty dollars. They kept us good though. We raised tobacco and cotton on the farm and had sheep for the wool. And the old folks spun and made the cloth. And Miss Jane got patterns and cut out our clothes. There just wasn’t any ready-made clothes. Every man on the farm got ten pounds of meat every week. And we had our house and a garden. Everything came off the farm, except for little things and they had a store there for that. One fall they butchered 150 hogs and cured them down in the cellar for the meat for the hams. We used brown sugar and molasses for sweetening. Molasses got so thick in the winter, you could cut it with a knife. We just didn’t have much use for money. On a Sunday, I’d go to the Baptist Church near the farm and sit in the loft and sing and sing all day long. When we had free time in the evening, we’d go down to the river and fish. Many a fat bass I pulled out! It was a sweet time with no cares. And the days went by like heaven. When I got to be twenty-one, with the $30, I had itchy feet and left, and jumped here and there. To Chester to Philadelphia, to Chester to Philadelphia, where I had a new paid sweet job on the trolley line. Then I washed dishes in a big hotel in Berlin. And then I came back to Beverly and never wanted to leave again. I was a gardener and a butler and dressed fine.” The person that had this interview with Richard said, “His memory of his growing years is not to clear. It’s such a long time ago. Miss Jane died and the other Dennises had the farm. Then the Shettles bought it and he stayed on as gardener and butler. When Mr. Shettle died, Mrs. Shettle later married John Butler and they are the present owners. Uncle Richard remembers a great party the Shettles had and their two children. He called them Miss Sandy and Mr. William. When Miss Sandy came out and later when she married the spread of lawn of Beverly was covered with canopies from the stately front door down to the banks of the river itself. It was a sweet time. Everything went lovely and smooth and a person could really live then. He once took a two-week vacation. Mrs. Shettle called him and said I hate to see you leave but you have earned it, and here’s an extra ten dollars and I want you to telephone me, wherever you are collect if anything happens. He didn’t know much about this telephoning reversing business, but he remembered it. He went on a spree in Philadelphia. At the end of two days the city just went south. I got on the phone, Richard said, and called collect, just like he said, and it worked. And I came running back just as fast as I could. The loyalty he gave Beverly had not been forgotten by the proprietor, who now have installed him in a comfortable room at Hartley Hall in Pocomoke City. They send in the chauffer every so often to take him back to the farm. And he walks once again through the lanes of the spring flowers and along the riverbanks where one of the largest cypress trees in the United States grows.” That’s it.
INTERVIEWER: So, he lived in Hartley Hall after that?
KATHERINE: Yes, he lived at Hartley Hall. There is the carriage that they drove to church. A picture of it.
INTERVIEWER: They must have been awful rich to drive something like that.
KATHERINE: Now, what’s your next question?
INTERVIEWER: Still on the church, what influence did it have on the community?
KATHERINE: The Presbyterian Church is one, of course, Rehobeth church is the mother of the Presbyterian faith in the United States, I guess. The first Presbyterian minister came over at the Rehobeth church.
INTERVIEWER: What kinds of things did you do for recreation?
KATHERINE: In the summer we had Chautauqua. It was an organization that traveled, and they put on programs. They even had Sousa’s band one time. And they were very, very lovely. They had a great deal of music and lectures and then of course they had hometown musicals and plays, and frequently in winter a stock company would come and put on a show every week. I remember one stock company had a woman in it with the name, they called her Stella May. Well, my mother’s name was Stella. But it wasn’t Stella May, of course. And some of her grands started calling her Stella May after that stock company was here and they called her Stella May all of the time. And then in summer we had excursions to Ocean City. And we had excursions to Red Hills. Now Red Hills is down near Sign Post. I don’t know whether you know where it is or not.
INTERVIEWER: I’ve been there a couple of times.
KATHERINE: We used to go down there on Sunday School picnics and take big baskets of fried chicken and all the things that went with it. And frequently when we at Red Hills they would send a boat over from Chincoteague and would take us over to Chincoteague. They didn’t have the bridge then. There wasn’t any bridge to Chincoteague. The only way that people from Chincoteague could get off of it is by boat. The only way you could get there was by boat. We used to go over there from Red Hills on these Sunday School picnics. Many times, there were straw rides. Of course, with horses. And I remember one straw ride a girl was sitting up front driving the horse and she fell off. Both the wheels of the wagon went over her, but the road was so deep with sand and mud, and dirt that it didn’t hurt her very much. I mean, she wasn’t injured to any great degree. And then they used to have boat trips down the river, where they’d take the picnics. They used to go down to Williams Point. Well there wasn’t any Shad Landing. But they had a great many stops along the way. I think that’s enough of that. Some of the games we played, I wrote these down. Annie Over. Two sides and we’d throw the ball, we’d have a building between us, and we’d throw the ball over, and if they caught the ball then they could run over and catch you. If you were a prisoner, you had to go over on their side. Then we did a lot of roller skating. Somebody said, “Well where in the world did you skate?” Well there was only one place that had a cement sidewalk and that was the Citizens Bank. They had a cement sidewalk. All of the other sidewalks in Pocomoke were bricks. Of course, you can’t skate on brick walks very much, especially in those days because they were not level. But we used to go down to the bank and skate there. I remember that my roller skates were rather hard to put on. They had clips that clipped to the shoe, instead of straps. I used to hate to put them on and take them off because you had to have a key to work the roller skate. So, we always used tablecloths at our meals. And sometimes I would try to get in the house and get seated at the table so the tablecloth would hide my skates and I wouldn’t take them off. But my mother would always make me take them off if she saw me first. And then we played a game called Hopscotch. Do you know anything about hopscotch?
INTERVIEWER: Mm-uh.
KATHERINE: Well we used to play that an awful lot. And we used to hide are old thing that we used to throw. We’d get a good one that we could throw easy and you’d hide it sometimes. And we played Hit the Wicket, did you ever hear of that?
INTERVIEWER: No.
KATHERINE: Well that was you put a stick up against a tree and you had another stick that you hit it with. And if you were it, somebody else had to hit the wicket and then you had to run and get it, and while you were running to get it everybody else hid. And then it was like Hide-And-Seek. That person had to go look for them. And we had Prisoner’s Base. That was similar to Annie Over except the sides stood on opposite sidewalks. And Croquet of course. And throwing horseshoes. I used to be fairly good at throwing horseshoes. And then as a teenager we used to play tennis. We had one tennis court in Pocomoke.
INTERVIEWER: Where was that?
KATHERINE: At the high school when the high school was on Walnut Street. We’d have to get out really early in the morning if we wanted to play because somebody else would get it before we did. And then in wintertime we did a lot of ice skating. I remember the river was frozen over many times in my childhood. And people skated on the river. We used to coast. We didn’t have any hills around here. I remember very well that we used to take our sled and go to the Presbyterian Church. You know the steps are rather steep there. Well they were wooden steps, and we would coast down those steps and go all the way across the street, because there was a drive opposite the walk. Mrs. Costen, that lived in the Costen House, used to sit in her kitchen window, if she’d see us, she’d make us stop. We found out that she’d take a nap every afternoon, so our coasting was done while Mrs. Costen was taking her nap. Enough of that, I think.
INTERVIEWER: Let me see. Something about your brothers and sisters.
KATHERINE: I had three brothers and two sisters. There was six of us. We had a very nice home. Our mother was always delighted for us to have friends to come in. She had parties for us. It was a house for everybody. I remember my sister said one time, she had this one person that came to see her so often, and I heard my sister say, “I wish she would stay home so I could go to see her.” She was always at our house. We had a very nice home.
INTERVIEWER: Did you raise your own food?
KATHERINE: No, not to any great extent.
INTERVIEWER: What were the businesses in town?
KATHERINE: I imagine they would like to know about the businesses that are not here now. They used to make barrels in Pocomoke, because the farmers shipped their potatoes in barrels, so they had a barrel factory. And they had a basket factory where they made baskets for the tomatoes. And that was at the Schoolfield Mill, and the Schoolfield Mill was out near the, it was on Clarke Avenue, where the first railroad station was, the early one. They had shipyards. In one shipyard that made boats, and I mean real sure enough boats. And they used to launch the boats and that was a big time in the town when they would launch a ship. Many times the ship that they’d launch reached the entire width of the river. I mean that was the size of the ship. They had lumberyards. They had a bottle factory at one time. I remember that when I was a little girl. Somebody was talking about it one day and they said, “I don’t ever remember a bottle factory.” And I said, “I do.” I remember I looked in the window one day and they were making bottles and bottles on kind of a belt, carrier belt. It was down on Clarke Avenue. I think when I was a child, I explored all the time, I mean I was always looking for something. My father had an ice cream manufacturing. He manufactured ice cream. He had a factory down on Railroad Avenue. There was a soft drink factory in Pocomoke. They had glass smiths. We had three glass smiths shops in Pocomoke. Of course, horses then. Automobiles changed all that. They had wheelwrights and cabinetmakers. I remember Mr. Farlow was a wheelwright. He had a shop. I used to, we lived not too far at that time to Mr. Farlow. And I used to go over to his shop in the morning and he would use a wood shaver, I guess you would call it, they would come out in curls, you know? And I used to pin the curls all around my face. They had a sausage manufacturing place, where they made sausage. The man’s name was George Johnson. They had oyster bars where men used to go in. I don’t think women ever went in an oyster bar in Pocomoke at that time. Where they just served not anything but oysters, serve them all different ways. They had a carriage factory in Pocomoke, where they made carriages. Livery stables. They had three livery stables. A millinery where they sold hats. Shoemakers, they had a bakery, and we had an electric plant right in Pocomoke where they made the electricity. The Presbyterian Church was the first church lighted by electricity, I think, on the shore, because the man that owned the electric plant was an elder in the Presbyterian Church, and I think it was through him. We had millers, flour mills. Two flour mills where they made flour. And they had an ice plant. There are some of the things ….
INTERVIEWER: It sounds like Pocomoke was pretty big.
KATHERINE: It was. I don’t think the population of Pocomoke has changed too much. At that time when I was growing up it was around three thousand. It’s four thousand now. It may be around four thousand, but I’m not sure.
INTERVIEWER: It sounds like there was more industry then than there is now.
KATHERINE: There were more industries. And people used to come to Pocomoke to shop from all the surrounding, all the area, the Virginia part of the Eastern Shore. Now the livery stables, we had five hotels in Pocomoke, and as I told you, three livery stables. And salesmen used to come down. Of course, the transportation then was train mostly. And they would come down on Monday and go to the hotel and stay. Then they would hire a horse and carriage from the livery stable and go down all the area around. But Pocomoke seemed to get most of those travelling men, instead of Snow Hill or Princess Anne. I think maybe it was because they fed them so well. But many of them came here. Our five hotels, we had the Parker House, the Clarke House, the Ford House, White Hotel and then there was a River Hotel down by the river. I don’t know who stayed there but it was a very low-class hotel. The River Hotel.
INTERVIEWER: Did you have a policeman or sheriff?
KATHERINE: We had one policeman. His name was Mr. Stroud. And Mr. Stroud also delivered ice.
INTERVIEWER: You must not have needed to be protected.
KATHERINE: We lived at Hartley Hall and one time, this one time in my life I remember. Everybody left home and looked around for a front door key so we could lock the door, and we didn’t have one. And we had to have one made. Our front door wasn’t locked for years and years and years, day or night. So, you can imagine…
INTERVIEWER: When you lived at Hartley Hall was that sort of out of town then?
KATHERINE: At one time when Dr. Murray wrote his history of Pocomoke, that was in 1840 something, I think. The boundary of Pocomoke, your church was in the country. Your church, the boundary started there. Linden Avenue that was all woods and swamp. We used to skate out there sometimes.
INTERVIEWER: When the swamps were frozen?
KATHERINE: Because there was a little bit of water, but it was enough water to freeze, you know.
INTERVIEWER: It must have been awful small.
KATHERINE: Well it was. It was just a tiny little thing.
INTERVIEWER: Well, how did all those businesses fit in that little area?
KATHERINE: I don’t know.
INTERVIEWER: Unless they were like in the same vicinity.
KATHERINE: I remember when the mill used to blow whistles and it was quite a sight to see the people coming from those mills, you know, when the whistle blows, or going to work when the whistle blows. But we used to set our clocks to the whistle. Where do you have transportation?
INTERVIEWER: That’s the next thing.
KATHERINE: We had five trains a day at Pocomoke. And we had one at six o’clock in the morning that went north, I think. And we had two between one and two o’clock, one went north and one went south. Then we had one at eight o’clock and I don’t recall whether that went north or south, I’ve forgotten. I think it went south because it seems to me, I came home on it once. And then we had one at midnight. And then we had steamboats. And the steamboats, I think we had three a week. And I have something here that I want to…. Would you mind helping me lift that up? Now this is when a steamboat arrived at the station. This is something that somebody had written up. It’s perfect because I remember it so well.
“The Arrival of the Steamboat. There was always a crowd on the wharf when the steamboat was due. The farmer’s sons all newly washed and combed. The more sophisticated white-collar town boys and the neighborhood girls in finely starched dresses. Negros with their shining teeth indulging in wild horse play, but careful to avoid jostling white folks. One would have a (unintelligible) and a group would start dancing and clapping hands. All of these vessels are remembered with brushed carpet, easy chairs, shining brass on steps and rails. Everything as clean as a pin. The fare to Baltimore from Easton was fifty cents which included a clean berth, a private stateroom with extras. When the deep-throated whistle sounded,” and I’ll say here that many people went to see the steamboats come in. That was one of our pastimes, was to go to the wharf and watch the boats come in. “When the deep-throated whistle sounded every eye would be fixed on the bend. A whiff of smoke might be seen in the sky and at last she swims into view. Here she comes! What a moment! She drifts slowly alongside, with engines stopped. How big she is! What majesty and what grandeur! The white coil lines are flung ashore. The wharf tender jumps, catches the line and hauls it on the holster, drops the heavy loop over the wharf post. The captain on the hurricane deck signals to the engineer to reverse speed, while every face on the wharf turns admiring regard at that Superman in blue and gold. In those days, every small boy on the shore dreamed of becoming a steamboat captain. The gang plank was run ashore and a scene of (unintelligible) activity took place. The passengers did not go aboard yet, that would have been to miss half the fun. Jazz had not been named, but the Negro roustabouts with their banging hand trucks conducted all their operations in the rhythm of jazz. Prancing, shaking their shoulders, rolling their empty trucks on one wheel, and singing in time. The racket was terrific. After the dead freight was on, the cattle were loaded. If the beef had horns two grabbed him and pulled while a third walked followed behind pushing his tail. An animal would often escape where upon a mad chase took place, everybody hollering to get her. At the very last the passengers walked over the gangplank and were hustled on board. The steamboats left Pocomoke in the afternoon, arriving in Baltimore in the early morning. The service had traditions that helped to make each trip on a steamboat a festive occasion. For one thing it was an unwritten law that the captain should be a gentleman as well as a navigator. He was expected to play host to the passengers to see that everyone had a good time.” That expresses exactly what happened because I been dancing the wharf many times.
INTERVIEWER: Everyone went down there to watch them come in?
KATHERINE: No, not everybody, but that was one of things we liked to do. We used to enjoy going down and watching. The trains, I didn’t tell at the time, but there used to be a bus. There used to be two buses that met the trains from the livery stable and the buses took the people to the hotels or if you wanted to go to the station you’d call the livery stable and they’d stop for you. One thing I have overlooked that I hadn’t told you. We had a fair in Pocomoke. Had horse racing. And that fair ran for years and years and years, every summer and that was quite a big event.
INTERVIEWER: What kind of things? Was it just horseracing?
KATHERINE: Horse races and it was an agricultural fair too. People would take their products there and they would give them prizes. They had side shows like a carnival, but it was a fair. But the horse racing was really very good. Of course, they had a bandstand and they had a band. Pocomoke used to have a band, from the Pocomoke adults had a band. Here’s a picture of the fairgrounds. Alright, what’s your next question?
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember when you got your first car, when your family got a car?
KATHERINE: I remember the first automobile in Pocomoke. That was Dr. Walters. I’m sure you don’t know him, well it’s Henry Walters’ grandfather. He had the first automobile in Pocomoke. He was a dentist. There used to be a man down in Virginia that had a great big automobile, and Mr. Parker, the proprietor of the Parker House, was a good friend of my mother’s. And Mr. Bodley would come up in his big automobile and Mr. Parker would come around and collect all of us children, ours and friends, and take us for a ride. Oh, that was, we thought that was just a wonderful thing to happen. Probably I was six or seven years old, but I remember it very well.
INTERVIEWER: Did you ever learn to drive?
KATHERINE: Oh yes.
INTERVIEWER: Did you just get in and start driving? How did you learn to drive?
KATHERINE: No. I think my husband taught me to drive. I drove until I broke my hip. After I broke my hip, I kept my car two years thinking I would do better, you know, and I would be able to drive.
INTERVIEWER: Did you ever go to Public Landing?
KATHERINE: Yes, indeed. We used to have Sunday School picnic, a couple of times. Just as we did at Red Hill and Ocean City.
INTERVIEWER: What kind of things. You just had a picnic there?
KATHERINE: Yes, we’d just bathe and eat. We had, oh I guess, supper. Anyway, we’d eat a meal and we used to crab. Catch crab.
INTERVIEWER: What is Farmer’s Day?
KATHERINE: I don’t remember that they had a Farmer’s Day at that time.
INTERVIEWER: Forester’s Day, maybe? Forester’s Day or Farmer’s Day?
KATHERINE: The farmers, I don’t know anything about the farmers there at Public Landing and I told you about Red Hill, and Assateague, wasn’t even… I didn’t know anything about that.
INTERVIEWER: You had to get there by boat.
KATHERINE: The Pocomoke River. You have Pocomoke River there. Pocomoke River is a very treacherous river. You can wade in the Pocomoke River, maybe up to your knees, and the next step would be like you were stepping off a hedge top. I remember when we were children and we used to have a place that we called the Little Winter Quarters. There wasn’t anything there but the river. Sometimes we would go there, take a lunch and go to the Little Winter Quarters and one boy, one of our brothers or somebody, would go out find how far we could go and drive a stick, because they could swim. All the boys could swim in those days, but the girls couldn’t, because we didn’t have a swimming pool or anything like that. And they would drive a stick so that we wouldn’t go too far.
INTERVIEWER: And you would just wade in?
KATHERINE: We used to go to the Pocomoke River through Winter Quarters, through the woods out here. We used to get arbutus and teaberries. Teaberries are good to eat. You’ve heard of teaberry chewing gum.
INTERVIEWER: Um-huh.
KATHERINE: Well, same flavor. We used to collect teaberries and arbutus and then go on to the river and have our lunch and wade there at the river. The roads were so that it was hard to visit. Now I am talking about the very early times, probably when I was a child. And people lived on the river and used boats to visit back and forth. But the people inland generally rode horseback to visit.
INTERVIEWER: Do you know anything about Jake the alligator?
KATHERINE: No. Legends and superstitions. I told you about the fairgrounds, haven’t I?
INTERVIEWER: Yea, you told me about that. Do you remember any big storms or hurricanes?
KATHERINE: The windstorm in 1922, no that was fire. There was a storm that cut the inlet. I have forgotten the year that that storm took place.
INTERVIEWER: I think it was around ’30.
KATHERINE: I don’t know, but there used to be, there wasn’t any inlet at all down at Ocean City, from the ocean to the bay. There was land there. And they had a storm there one summer and it made that inlet.
INTERVIEWER: Just cut it in there?
KATHERINE: Yes. Do you know where I’m talking about in Ocean City? Where the bay and the ocean are connected?
INTERVIEWER: Yea. Did you ever go to Ocean City?
KATHERINE: Oh yea. We went to Ocean City. We used to spend the month of July in Ocean City when we were children. This is (unintelligible). They used to have an all-day Ocean City Excursion. The trains would put it on. And we’d get on the train at Pocomoke and change at Salisbury and go on to Ocean City. We’d leave in the morning quite early and return around nine o’clock. And this was how much it cost.
INTERVIEWER: A dollar?
KATHERINE: Yes, round trip. There’s the Excursion. And this was the old station on Clarke Avenue. And then that is the new one. That was a Saturday. Everybody used to come to Pocomoke on Saturday to shop. The farmer’s brought mostly their butter and eggs and their farm products. And then they would take them to the store and trade them for sugar and flour and things of that kind.
INTERVIEWER: They would come from all over?
KATHERINE: Yes, the surrounding country.
INTERVIEWER: Pocomoke has changed then.
KATHERINE: Oh my.
INTERVIEWER: We always go somewhere else to go shopping and they all came here.
KATHERINE: You better cut that thing off if we’re just going to talk.
INTERVIEWER: Ok.
KATHERINE: The last fire was 1922. There was a man that was burning some trash in a trash container on Second Street. Right across from, well it was on the corner of Second and Willow Street. And he was burning some trash in the back of his store and it was very, very windy. And the wind took the fire down by the Peacock Hotel now, but it was the Parker House. It burned the whole block where the vacant store is on the corner and the bank and Scher’s. It burned that whole block. And then it went over across and burnt two blocks. And Front street was completely destroyed, both sides of the street. People moved their furniture out into the street. And the fire even burned that. Every house on Front Street was burned. It went on down to the river. I think the reason it was such a big fire was because the water, there was something about pressure, the water pressure, it didn’t and then the wind was blowing. My father had a store. That wasn’t burned. That was right next to Vincent’s store. He had retail ice cream and that wasn’t burned. My brother at the time, and his wife lived above that and of course they expected that to burn. So, my oldest brother, Sidney, drove downtown to help this brother that lived there, but he didn’t get downtown. There was a Mrs. Lloyd that lived on Market Street opposite the Maryland National Bank, they lived there. And she called him, and he stopped, and he took her furniture out, we lived out to Hartley Hall, he took her furniture out to Hartley Hall. My sister said when she went out somewhere, she went out about the fire. And when she came back to Hartley Hall later on in the afternoon, it started in the morning. She said the porch and the yard was completely filled with furniture that people had moved out there trying to save from the fire. And she said they didn’t have any lights. They got some candles out and I think somebody made some yeast flour biscuits. My mother wasn’t home. She was visiting me in Washington.
INTERVIEWER: You weren’t here when it burned?
KATHERINE: No, I wasn’t here at the time. Rosemary said that she was invited to a bridge party that day. And the hostess gave the refreshments to the firemen. The firemen from other towns that came. They were going to have a dance that night and the refreshments that they planned to have for the dance they gave those refreshments to the firemen too.