Bradford, Russell (1903-1992) |
Worcester County Library: Local History and Genealogy Collection, Snow Hill Branch, Snow Hill, MD
|
Interviewee: |
Russell Bradford (1903-1992) |
| Interviewer: |
Katherine Fisher |
| Date of interview: |
1979 March 27 |
| Length of interview: |
1 hour 30 min |
| Transcribed by: |
|
| Preferred Citation: |
“Name, Oral History Collection, Date of Interview, Worcester County Library, Snow Hill Branch, Snow Hill, Maryland.” |
Topical Terms:
Farming
Transportation
Worcester County (Md.)—Education
Worcester County (Md.)—History
Worcester County (Md.)—Social life and customs
Location Terms:
Newark (Md.)
Queponco (Md.)
Snow Hill (Md.)
Interview Begin
INTERVIEWER: Now let me see, let me see, you were, do you mind if I ask how old you are?
RUSSELL: No ma’m.
INTERVIEWER: Good, ‘cause that helps, you know in future years, it will help to tell what year. How old are you?
RUSSELL: I’m 76.
INTERVIEWER: Oh my, you know people get younger all the time, I think as I get older, people get younger, ‘cause I………….
RUSSELL: I’ll tell ya, takin’ everything down now, are you?
INTERVIEWER: Ya, so you know and what I’ll do, I don’t, we just go ahead and talk and then after this is completely and after I type a copy of what’s going down, I’ll send you a copy and if there’s anything that you don’t want included you just can cross it out, and then I’ll redo it and I’ll erase it on the tape and I’ll go back and erase what I’m sayin’ now, you know, ‘cause it really doesn’t matter, but it’s easier to just let the tape run than it is to turn it off and on all the time.
RUSSELL: Ya well that’s what I was wondering, I mean I figured you wouldn’t want everything on it, I mean ‘cause a lot of it does not, to concern to what your tryin’ to find out and what you want on it.
INTERVIEWER: Right, right, but that can be taken care of later.
RUSSELL: Ya, okay.
INTERVIEWER: And so we’ll just go ahead and talk, and then……now when I say later it may be, this sounds horrible, it may be two years before I get a transcript done, it takes about 40 hours to do one, which is a lot of time, and I’ve got about 50 tapes, and I haven’t started yet. So it’ll be awhile. Okay, now where were you born?
RUSSELL: Newark.
INTERVIEWER: In Newark itself?
RUSSELL: In Newark district.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. Were you born in the town or out in the countryside?
RUSSELL: I was born down here by Basketswitch, we call it, town where the basket factory is, down there, so they tell me.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, ya, you don’t remember that, did ya?
RUSSELL: No I wasn’t.
INTERVIEWER: Were your parents farmers?
RUSSELL: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: Okay if you, if you remember anything about, that your parents, you know told you about their farming or some of the crops they grew, or anything like that…..
RUSSELL: My father, my father worked in a sawmill and farmed it too in his earliest years.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
RUSSELL: And ‘course he wasn’t, he wasn’t a very big farmer, and that time, of course he’d gotten bigger as he went on, of course he never was a great farmer. Most people weren’t at that time.
INTERVIEWER: Right, because he used horse and plow.
RUSSELL: That’s right, that’s right.
INTERVIEWER: So you only could do as much as you could handle.
RUSSELL: And that’s the way I started doin’, mule and the plow.
INTERVIEWER: You did, with the mules, well that’s right you didn’t use horses, did ya and plow?
RUSSELL: No, I never used, we never used horses, we always used mules.
INTERVIEWER: Always used mules, okay. Let’s see you say your father worked in a sawmill………..
RUSSELL: And farmed it together.
INTERVIEWER: And farmed at the same time.
RUSSELL: Ya, he run them sawmills.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, now were these portable sawmills that would go around to different locations?
RUSSELL: Ya.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, I’ve heard about, I heard about them before. Did they sell the lumber for railroad piling or just anything?
RUSSELL: Any kind, any kind.
INTERVIEWER: Okay he just rough sawed it, did he?
RUSSELL: That’s right.
INTERVIEWER: He didn’t board, cut it out in boards or anything?
RUSSELL: Oh ya, he cut out in boards and, they, they later had band saws and stuff like that, but, but they sawed it right up in whatever they wanted it in at that time, according to the use, but it wasn’t dressed.
INTERVIEWER: Right, okay, but it was………did they use, would they use hand saws? Was he steamed, would he use steam, steam power?
RUSSELL: Steam power, ya.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. Alright, where did you first start farming?
RUSSELL: What’s that, for myself?
INTERVIEWER: Uhum, uhum.
RUSSELL: Right here.
INTERVIEWER: Okay right in Newark.
RUSSELL: Right here where I’m at now.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, right in this very house or………..
RUSSELL: That’s right, this very house.
INTERVIEWER: Oh isn’t that neat.
RUSSELL: I got married in 1924 and I moved here in 1925, and I been here ever since.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, now was, was your farming, what did you, did you have a crop, cash crop or did you farm just to support yourself?
RUSSELL: Just myself.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
RUSSELL: We grew potatoes, mostly, and corn after the potatoes. Then as we got a little bigger we had other things.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. They don’t grow potatoes much here anymore, do they?
RUSSELL: Oh no, no, used to, everything used to be in potatoes ‘round here, now then there’s nobody grows any.
INTERVIEWER: Why? Do you know?
RUSSELL: Couldn’t make any money.
INTERVIEWER: Couldn’t, alright, you could make more money in corn and soy beans.
RUSSELL: Got so you couldn’t make any money, you make one year in five that you’d make any money on potatoes, so we had just, well you might as well say we had to quit, you couldn’t make any money.
INTERVIEWER: Right. Well for heaven’s sakes, I didn’t know that. Now they used to ship potatoes out on the train.
RUSSELL: That’s right.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, here and up at Basketswitch too.
RUSSELL: Right.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, they loaded up there.
RUSSELL: And later, in later years they shipped a lot by truck, by still some by train too.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, for heaven’s sakes. Did you keep any, alright now let’s, I’ve skipped ahead, let’s go back to your early life on the farm with your father. Did you keep livestock?
RUSSELL: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: Chickens, cows?
RUSSELL: No, no, no chickens.
INTERVIEWER: No chickens.
RUSSELL: Well we had chickens on the farm, but not in the, for sale or anything, just a few chickens.
INTERVIEWER: Alright.
RUSSELL: Just a few chickens.
INTERVIEWER: Okay for your own use.
RUSSELL: That’s right and a few…….
INTERVIEWER: Like you’ve got sittin’ out here.
RUSSELL: Well we had more than that, but we had maybe 100 or some such amount. We’d get eggs, have eggs and chicken feed and then they’d sell a few eggs to the store, which they don’t do anymore, off the farm. And we raised, my mother raised turkeys, and…..
INTERVIEWER: Turkeys???????
RUSSELL: Yes, guineas and geese and all kinds of fowl. And then we might as well say we lived on the farm and we grew what we eat and we eat what we grew. That’s the way people lived in that time.
INTERVIEWER: Right. Did you have any beef cattle?
RUSSELL: No we didn’t have it. We had cattle, but not regular beef type. We had cows, we, my mother made butter, sole the butter and raised calves and sold them and that was the stock.
INTERVIEWER: Did you have any pigs?
RUSSELL: Ya always had pigs. Sold the pigs, we didn’t raise but very few to butcher, we’d sell the pigs to other people. Everybody pret-near had pgis, and I raised pigs, hogs for their own use. Pret-near everybody had their own meat. They’d kill their hogs, had their own meat. This old guy used to smoke it and then you’d go get a piece of meat whenever you wanted it.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. Now you would sell it then, would you sell it to a butcher or would you sell it to a town person who wouldn’t have access?
RUSSELL: Well we’d, we’d sell, we’d sell some to the butchers in the fall and a, they’d Mr. Tom Stant from Snow Hill used to buy a lot of the hogs and he’d make it up into sausage, and a…….
INTERVIEWER: Oh that’s his recipe that was so famous. Harris’s Market still carried it.
INTERVIEWER: Ahhh, I remember that.
RUSSELL: And he shipped sausage all over the country, pret-near, they said.
INTERVIEWER: Did he really? I didn’t realize that at all.
RUSSELL: Ya he shipped it everywhere.
INTERVIEWER: Ahhh. Now did your mother sell, she raised all these turkeys and geese and ducks and all that, did she dress any of those and sell them?
RUSSELL: She dressed all or about all of the turkeys and they were shipped to markets.
INTERVIEWER: They were?
RUSSELL: Markets in New York and Philadelphia.
INTERVIEWER: Well goodness.
RUSSELL: Shipped them for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
INTERVIEWER: Ya. Did you help?
RUSSELL: Oh ya. Ya I used to do all the killin’ of ‘em, when I weren’t nothin’ but a kid like.
INTERVIEWER: That’s somethin’. I’ve never grown up on a farm, I just don’t think I could kill one. I could certainly eat it though.
RUSSELL: I killed a many one.
INTERVIEWER: I bet so.
RUSSELL: We shipped by the barrels. We put ‘em in barrels and ship ‘em for Thanksgivin’ and Christmas.
INTERVIEWER: In barrels? Just, you don’t salt ‘em or anything, you just……………..
RUSSELL: No, no just kill ‘em.
INTERVIEWER: Just pack ‘em in.
RUSSELL: Of course in the fall of the year the colder weather then and what we would have………….
INTERVIEWER: Okay, in the cold.
RUSSELL: These last years, and with the trains, the train, passenger train, we had two passenger trains here a day, at that time, and we’d set it up on a passenger train this afternoon, say, and ‘bout 2:30, the train used to go north ‘bout 2:30, and those turkeys would be in Philadelphia, say the night.
INTERVIEWER: Alright. So they really were fresh.
RUSSELL: That’s right that is right.
INTERVIEWER: Fresher than we get today, I’m sure.
RUSSELL: That’s right, oh ya.
INTERVIEWER: Isn’t that something?
RUSSELL: Now they wasn’t iced or anything, they were, say we’d kill ‘em today and we’d hang ‘em up overnight. Get the animal heat out of ‘em. We’d pack say tomorrow morning and…….
INTERVIEWER: Ship them up that afternoon.
RUSSELL: ………..
INTERVIEWER: No.
RUSSELL: But that’s the way it happened.
INTERVIEWER: Right, isn’t that interesting. That’s something. Okay. How many children were there in your family?
RUSSELL: There were 11 of us together.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, and you all helped worked on the farm?
RUSSELL: Oh ya, yes sir.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. Father used you there. Were there a, how many boys and girls?
RUSSELL: It was 6 boys and 5 girls.
INTERVIEWER: My dear, and you were all kept busy weren’t you?
RUSSELL: We were all pretty much busy, ya.
INTERVIEWER: I guess so. Where did you go to school?
RUSSELL: We a, we older children went to school out a Queponco.
INTERVIEWER: You did? Okay.
RUSSELL: That’s out there a, it’s out there Queponco way.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. Now was the school in relation to, alright, now I know where Lois Serman lives, where her house is.
RUSSELL: Well the school was right down there where them hogs are, ‘bout, that’s where I went to school.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, at ????? okay. I went out there the other day and looked at everybody’s house and tried to picture it in my mind so I’d know. Did you walk?
RUSSELL: Yes ma’m.
INTERVIEWER: Now that was………………………
RUSSELL: ‘bout a mile or a little better.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. Now you’d go, how did you walk? I mean which, how did you, where were you livin’ at that time? You were born up at Basketswitch.
RUSSELL: That’s right.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, now had you moved in between?
RUSSELL: We moved a, we lived 2 or 3 different places. We lived in Berlin one year. People them days used to move a lot.
INTERVIEWER: How about it?
RUSSELL: Years, in my earlier days, but anyway when we, I started school at Cedartown.
INTERVIEWER: Alright.
RUSSELL: You know where Cedartown is?
INTERVIEWER: Ya, I know where that is.
RUSSELL: It’s not very interesting, but anyway I’ll……………….
INTERVIEWER: Yes it is, do it?
RUSSELL: I’ll give you the whole story.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
RUSSELL: And we moved from there out to, out Queponco.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
RUSSELL: Do you know where Brooks Bounds lives?
INTERVIEWER: Ya.
RUSSELL: Well that’s where I was raised. I lived there, we, I was 5 years old when we moved out there, and I lived there until I got married, 1924, and I moved from there in 1925 and I moved there. And I’ve been here ever since.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, that’s good. Alright, so now, do you remember any of your teachers out at Queponco? Who they were?
RUSSELL: Oh ya. Miss Bessie Dennis was the most of it. I didn’t go to school much, I went through 7th grade and that’s as far as I went in the school. And a, she was a, she did most of the teachin’, and a, then we had one named, the name was Nellie Savage. She was from down around Girdletree, and a, that was ‘bout the height of my teachers that I had.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, did they board with different families in the area?
RUSSELL: Miss Bessie Dennis, she a, she was a Dryden before she was married, and she lived, she lived where Hilton lives, out there. I don’t know where, you know where he lives?
INTERVIEWER: Ya, ya.
RUSSELL: Well that’s, he’s my son, and that’s where my teacher lived and we lived in that next place, right over there where Brooks lives, and that’s where I went to school.
INTERVIEWER: Oh for heaven’s sakes, okay.
RUSSELL: And a, she done most of the teachin’ when I went to school.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, were your, were your classes, weren’t, it was a room school thing?
RUSSELL: That’s right, that’s right.
INTERVIEWER: There weren’t a whole lot of children attending?
RUSSELL: Quite a few.
INTERVIEWER: Well I guess if there were all in your family and I know Mr. Bounds had a whole passel in his family, I guess there were a lot.
RUSSELL: Well you see I went to school with Mr. Bounds.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, okay.
RUSSELL: Rodney.
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
RUSSELL: And of course he had several children, but that was later dates, you know. I ‘bout finished school and they were goin’ to school. Or I quit.
INTERVIEWER: Right, well you were needed on the farm.
RUSSELL: That’s right.
INTERVIEWER: And worked, yes you did. Well now did your, did your sisters go further in school?
RUSSELL: Oh ya, ya.
INTERVIEWER: Because they didn’t have to work.
RUSSELL: That’s right. Younger brothers and sisters went more than I did, ‘cause I was ‘bout middle way, in fact I was the 5th one, I think, and my sisters and some of my brothers they went ahead and graduated. Some of them went, my sister went, one of them, two of ‘em went to college and a………..
INTERVIEWER: Now when they went to high school they had to go to Snow Hill?
RUSSELL: That’s right.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, and they boarded up there?
RUSSELL: No, no.
INTERVIEWER: They went back and forth?
RUSSELL: Ya.
INTERVIEWER: That was quite a trip.
RUSSELL: And later, later years, they had buses, they met the bus out the 5 Mile Branch Road, out to the, went the farm to 113.
INTERVIEWER: Well that’s still a long way to get the bus.
RUSSELL: That’s right, and some of ‘em went, some of ‘em out there, neighbors out there drove a horse and buggy in to school, up to Snow Hill, horse and carriage.
INTERVIEWER: My that’s a long trip. Do you remember anything especially noteworthy or amusing or interesting that happened while you were at school at Queponco? Any special events or parties or celebrations or anything like that?
RUSSELL: We used to have, used to have box socials, they call it, called ‘em. The girls would make candy, of course I was smaller you know, but I remember it.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
RUSSELL: And they used have a box social, they’d put that candy and sell it and the girls that were getting’ bigger, you know, they’d have a box of candy and then their boyfriends, they’d buy the box of candy and they’d all have feast of it.
INTERVIEWER: Isn’t that cute, ahhh that’s good.
RUSSELL: Cakes and one thing and ‘nother.
INTERVIEWER: You didn’t know, you weren’t supposed to know who had made what.
RUSSELL: That’s right.
INTERVIEWER: Right.
RUSSELL: But they did find out. They’d find out, ya.
INTERVIEWER: Ahhh that’s good. Now was the school used for any other, well you said, would they have these at the school?
RUSSELL: Ya.
INTERVIEWER: These box socials?
RUSSELL: Ya, ya, ya they’d have ‘em at night.
INTERVIEWER: At night?
RUSSELL: Ya.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, and you didn’t go to school during the summer.
RUSSELL: That’s right.
INTERVIEWER: Did it start later in the fall than it does now?
RUSSELL: Now I don’t believe I can tell ya that. I don’t imagine so, but I, I really don’t, I really don’t………………
INTERVIEWER: I just seem to remember something, sometime that some of the schools out in the country would either start later or end earlier so that they could get out and get the crops in.
RUSSELL: I don’t remember that, I don’t remember of it.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, now, a, let’s see, alright, now do you remember, let me see, did your father get a car, or were you the first one to have a car?
RUSSELL: Oh no, no we got a car, we had a car.
INTERVIEWER: Okay do you remember…………..
RUSSELL: In later years.
INTERVIEWER: Ya, do you remember your first car? Or your father’s first car?
RUSSELL: Very well, very well.
INTERVIEWER: Could you tell me about that?
RUSSELL: Well, a, the first car we got was a Model “T” Ford, and I, I was just a kid, and a, the a, we come out at Newark one time, this is not very interesting to you, but anyway that’s where it begins, my brother was older than I was, well he was, I don’t suppose I was over 12 or 13 years old, and he, he wasn’t ready to go home, so the rest of us, we had, we were goin’ home, and a, with the lane, used to be right ‘cross the field, like everybody elses did, went cross and come to where Brooks lives, by Lewis Bradford’s, and they call that, they call that Lovers Lane……………….
INTERVIEWER: Oh my.
RUSSELL: And a, I drove the car home to Newark, I’s probably 12 or 13 years old and when I turned in, in Lovers Lane to go ‘cross towards home the tire, the tire blew out…………
INTERVIEWER: Oh no.
RUSSELL: Right new car too, but they had different tires. Wasn’t much.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
RUSSELL: And a, and that was my first experience, and then we, we a, Pop, he didn’t want it much to start with, that old Model “T” Ford, so he wanted a different one, so we a, we got rid of that one, and got a Niney Overland, they called ‘em.
INTERVIEWER: A what????
RUSSELL: Ninety Overland.
INTERVIEWER: Ninety Overland, okay.
RUSSELL: The cars, they were Overlands, they called ‘em, and bought it from J.H. Perdue, of Snow Hill, Ford dealer, which goes by now, and a that’s where I got the Model “T” and of course later years I got a Model “T” myself.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. What was the reaction of the general, people in the area to the car when you got it?
RUSSELL: Well there wasn’t too many.
INTERVIEWER: That’s what I was wonderin’.
RUSSELL: There wasn’t too many cars. There was some, maybe there was, I ‘pect there was about 3 in the neighborhood out there, at that time.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. Were the animals really frightened of it?
RUSSELL: Oh ya, ya.
INTERVIEWER: You know I hear that, and see pictures, but………..
RUSSELL: Ya, ya some of ‘em were and some wasn’t. You take, some of ‘em would take the field if they see a car comin’.
INTERVIEWER: For heavens, ah what would happen if you were driving and let’s say a team was coming towards you, with horses, were you, should you stop and let me go…………..
RUSSELL: Ya some of them would stop, of course some of ‘em wouldn’t, and if the horse got scared and run a little bit, they went on just the same, but a, a lot of ‘em soon got so they wasn’t afraid of ‘em.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, once they got used to it.
RUSSELL: Ya that’s right.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, a, now what would you do, let’s, you worked everyday, except Sunday, and……….
RUSSELL: Practically.
INTERVIEWER: Practically………….
RUSSELL: Five days and a half. My father used to go, when I got bigger, say 12 or 14 years old, my father and mother used to go to Snow Hill ‘bout every Saturday afternoon.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, I was getting’ ready to ask if there was, you know if you went on trips, you know, like to market and go places like that.
RUSSELL: Ya and then, then they used to drive horse and carriage, then we got the car, we got the car and then one of the boy’s, Pop never did drive a car, Mom either.
INTERVIEWER: He didn’t? Oh really?
RUSSELL: No, no ever, neither one of them ever learned to drive a car.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
RUSSELL: One of we boys’s would drive the car for ‘em to go to the store, you know.
INTERVIEWER: Now, what, what would you get a Snow Hill that you couldn’t get here at Newark? There was a General Store you’d trade for food and stuff like that.
RUSSELL: It was ‘bout 4 or 5 here at that time.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
RUSSELL: Newark, but Mother used to take butter to Snow Hill and sell it and eggs and stuff like that. Of course there was more market to it up there, for that kind of stuff than there was here, see.
INTERVIEWER: Alright. Did she sell it to a store or did she have regular customers she’d go to?
RUSSELL: No she’d, she’d take it to the store.
INTERVIEWER: To the store and sold it.
RUSSELL: Ya.
INTERVIEWER: Okay and a, what would you all do if you went into Snow Hill with ‘em? What would you as young boys find to entertain yourselves?
RUSSELL: Well most anything. You’d just walk around town, I had, I used to, when I was a youngster, of course as I got bigger I begin to look around, you know, then a little more, but when I was younger, I had an uncle, I had an uncle, I had 2 uncles live there and they, they both had blacksmith shops.
INTERVIEWER: Oh really?
RUSSELL: And I used to go down there to my uncle’s blacksmith shop and a………………
INTERVIEWER: Watch him.
RUSSELL: Ya, and watch him do work. Put shoes on horses and mules, and make different things, you know, with, by blacksmith shop.
INTERVIEWER: Now who was this?
RUSSELL: Dave Bradford and Dan Bradford.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, do you know, can you remember where the shop was?
RUSSELL: Yes sir, very well.
INTERVIEWER: Well I’ll branch out in Snow Hill in a minute then, if you’ll tell me where that was.
RUSSELL: Well Uncle Dave was a, well they both, Uncle Dave was, to start with, he was right side of the river. On the right hand side, he used to, where that old building is, that, Cordrey building is………..
INTERVIEWER: Ya.
RUSSELL: Right on the bank of the river.
INTERVIEWER: Oh okay.
RUSSELL: Now that’s, that’s where Uncle Dave started.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
RUSSELL: First of me remember of it that way, and then, Uncle Daniel was over the river.
INTERVIEWER: Oh across the river?
RUSSELL: ‘cross the river on the right.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
RUSSELL: And a, and then Uncle Daniel, no Uncle Daniel was over there to start with, and then Uncle Dave moved over there too. Over there side-by-side, and then Uncle Daniel went into farm machinery business, farm implements.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, okay.
RUSSELL: And they were, they were in that for quite a while over there and then they moved over there to the Bradford building. Now you know where that is? Over where the magistrate is now and the judges. They build that building over there. They moved over there to over there. Uncle Dave died a young man and then Zed Mount had an old blacksmith shop, I don’t know whether you remember or not, few years back.
INTERVIEWER: No, I know the name, but I don’t know the person. Oh for goodness sakes, now they were brothers, evidently………………
RUSSELL: That’s right.
INTERVIEWER: But they had separate shops?
RUSSELL: That’s right.
INTERVIEWER: That’s unusual.
RUSSELL: That’s right.
INTERVIEWER: That’s neat.
RUSSELL: My father had, there was 5, 5 boys and one sister.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
RUSSELL: And they, everyone blacksmiths but my father.
INTERVIEWER: Four boys, 4 of them blacksmiths?
RUSSELL: Four of ‘em were blacksmiths.
INTERVIEWER: Well my goodness.
RUSSELL: And a, and two lived Berlin and two lived Snow Hill and my father and his sister lived in Newark.
INTERVIEWER: Alright in between. Well did the 2 at Berlin work together or did they have separate shops?
RUSSELL: No, no one of ‘em, he didn’t do much blacksmithin’, he, he worked for Harrison’s practically all his days, but he did blacksmith work and the other one, he had a blacksmith shop. He was right in Berlin.
INTERVIEWER: Right in Berlin. Well for goodness sakes. That’s unusual to have………………
RUSSELL: I ‘pect that’s the history of my people.
INTERVIEWER: Ya that’s neat. Okay, now did you ever go on the steamboat from Snow Hill?
RUSSELL: No.
INTERVIEWER: Okay I was wonderin’ about that.
RUSSELL: I used to be down there and watch her come in. Saturday afternoons. She used to come in town and dock there to the steamboat wharf, we called it. Down there where Worcester Fertilizer………….
INTERVIEWER: Okay right in there.
RUSSELL: Oh ya.
INTERVIEWER: I’ve heard that they had showboat performances come up, you know with entertainment and everything on the boats. Did you ever see any of those?
RUSSELL: No.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. That. I’m not sure when that occurred. Did the circus ever come through Newark?
RUSSELL: Oh ya.
INTERVIEWER: I know it came to Snow Hill, but would it come through here?
RUSSELL: But we never had, we never had a big circus set up in, one of the bigger ones, we never had one that size. We used to have medicine shows, little shows and things of that kind.
INTERVIEWER: They would come through here.
RUSSELL: But they would stop and they would set up here, but they were just smaller ones. The bigger ones would come to Snow Hill and then they’d go on to Berlin.
INTERVIEWER: Right. Now would you go to Berlin or Snow Hill to see one of these circuses?
RUSSELL: Oh ya, ya, I’ve been to those.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, now let’s get back into Newark, you said there were four stores…………..
RUSSELL: Four or five of ‘em here.
INTERVIEWER: Four of five of ‘em here. Alright can you tell me about them and tell me ‘bout where they were and a, I think I’ll be able to follow where, where you’re talkin’ about. I hope.
RUSSELL: Well there was a little store and fillin’ station down there before you get to Trinity Church.
INTERVIEWER: Oh there was?
RUSSELL: Right ‘cross from the cemetery, right there, opposite the cemetery, there was one there.
INTERVIEWER: Well now I’ve never heard of that one.
RUSSELL: And the post office, where the post office is, that was a store and a post office.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
RUSSELL: This old store that’s over on this far side on the corner………..
INTERVIEWER: Ya.
RUSSELL: ???????????? now, that was a store, it was a store on the other corner where that old building is. I’ll give you the history of that in a minute, and it was a store where the bank is……………
INTERVIEWER: My goodness.
RUSSELL: And there was a store down there where the store is now.
INTERVIEWER: For heavens sakes. Oh.
RUSSELL: All of them were in operation at one time, here.
INTERVIEWER: Competition is good but………..that’s a lot.
RUSSELL: That’s right.
INTERVIEWER: Now tell me something else about this one down across from old Trinity Church.
RUSSELL: Well that was just a little store and a fillin’ station like.
INTERVIEWER: I have never, you know in talkin’ to people, I’ve never heard any mention of that. That’s neat. You can’t, it’s all grown up now.
RUSSELL: It moved away.
INTERVIEWER: They moved it?
RUSSELL: They moved it away and it’s where Dale Godfrey lives now. That little bungalow there. It’s right next to Cecil Hunker’s. I ‘pect you know where she is.
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
RUSSELL: Well it’s right, it was right there on the corner where that wall is. It’s walled up. It was right there on that corner. Soon as you go in her lane there, on the corner.
INTERVIEWER: Yes, well for goodness sakes, isn’t that something. Alright, do you know who had that one?
RUSSELL: Oh ya.
INTERVIEWER: Okay tell me ‘bout that, and then we’ll have somethin’ on it.
RUSSELL: Luther Bowen and Les Bowen. Luther built it, or his father helped him build it, Luther Bowen and he sold soft drinks and ice cream and some groceries in there.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, did that. Alright now tell me ‘bout some of these other stores.
RUSSELL: Well the others were just general stores, and, but the one on the bank where the bank is, they, they used to sell second hand clothes in that.
INTERVIEWER: They did?
RUSSELL: Clothes and stuff.
INTERVIEWER: Well for goodness sakes.
RUSSELL: I think maybe they had some new, but mostly second, used clothes.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, who had that?
RUSSELL: Mr. Charlie Mumford used to run it, and a he’s the one I remember of, and then they moved it. Moved that over towards Bay Road………..
INTERVIEWER: Ya.
RUSSELL: And then they put the bank where that was and then they had it, still had a store in there and a barber shop, in there.
INTERVIEWER: Oh for goodness sakes. Who was the barber?
RUSSELL: Let’s see, Bob Richardson had it, and George, I think George Hoover was in there a while. Charlie Mitchell………….
INTERVIEWER: Alright.
RUSSELL: They were the barbers since I remember.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, now is Charlie Mitchell any kin to the Mitchell’s mill pond down on……………
RUSSELL: He was the son.
INTERVIEWER: He was the son, okay.
RUSSELL: Son of Joe Mitchell. He died down in Snow Hill. He lingered, he went to Snow Hill and he run that Texaco fillin’ station out, out….
INTERVIEWER: Toward, on the Pocomoke Road?
RUSSELL: Ya.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
RUSSELL: And that’s where he died at. He was runnin’ that when he died.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, alright. Used clothes, alright, that’s a new one for that. Alright what about the store across from where the bank is now?
RUSSELL: Well that’s the one I was gonna tell you about.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
RUSSELL: That was a store in one part of it, and a, it was sort of a, I gather you call it a boardin’ house, roomin’ house or somethin’ of that kind…………….
RUSSELL: The whole family near ‘bout gone, they moved away.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, okay.
RUSSELL: There was Mr. Taylor Dennis, lived there and run the, he had a big family, I don’t just how many of ‘em there was of ‘em, without your counting ‘em off; but he had a big family, anyway, and they, they had, they had, they kept rooms, had rooms and the salesmen used to come around, ‘course I’m going to far back for you, but…………..
INTERVIEWER: No keep on goin’.
RUSSELL: But anyway, these salesmen would come here on the train or get somebody to drive ‘em in a horse and buggy. That was before cars you see, or very scarce anyway, and a they’d come there and they’d put up there and we, they called it, they’d put up there overnight, see, and then they’d, these salesmen they’d go ‘round these different stores, work these stores, and sell ‘em whatever they needed and that was, whatever they bought was shipped in here by freight, you know, on the train……..
INTERVIEWER: Oh alright, I see.
RUSSELL: And then when they got through workin’ Newark, these, they called ‘em drummers them days………..
INTERVIEWER: Uhum, okay.
RUSSELL: And when they got through with ‘em, this town, then they’d have a, livery stable they called it, I guess it was used to, they called it livery stable them days, and then they’d load up their wares or whatever they had to show, in these horse and buggies and then they’d get up to Mr. Taylor let us have horses and stuff, buggies and then he’d, they send ‘em to Snow Hill. In Snow Hill and then they’d go to a hotel there for over four nights or whatever you call it and then they’d work Snow Hill, see the same salesmen.
INTERVIEWER: Right, right. Were there a lot of salesmen who would come through like that?
RUSSELL: Quite a few.
INTERVIEWER: Quite a few. Alright. Would they sell, one salesman come through and sell one thing or would they carry a whole lot of different things in their lines?
RUSSELL: Well they was, I don’t, I’m not too well acquainted with that, but I do know that they used to sell dry goods. They’d, of course a lot of this stuff was, wasn’t too much ready made at that time. I can remember that, and they’d have these, used to have these bolts of goods, they called it, you know what that is.
INTERVIEWER: Ya, right.
RUSSELL: They’d roll it up in a roll and they’d pile it up on the shelves on the back of the counter.
INTERVIEWER: Ahhhh, isn’t that neat.
RUSSELL: And a, we had one fella that came ‘round the store, he’d lay down on the counter, these women come in and they’d want some goods, you know, dress goods or somethin’, and he’d take a yard stick and say which one do you want, he’d hit it. ‘stead of him gettin’ up and puttin’ ‘em all down on the counter, he’d point at one, say you want that one or that one, have ‘em piled up, you know in a pile, well you could get some idea what color, you know.
INTERVIEWER: Ya, but let me tell ya if I’m gonna buy some yard goods I want to see it opened up in front of me.
RUSSELL: Well if you wanted it opened up, he’d get up and……………
INTERVIEWER: Right, you’d get up and get it. He wasn’t going waste any effort was he?
RUSSELL: That’s right.
INTERVIEWER: Oh dear. Okay. Now did, now Mr. Dennis’s store sold dry goods?
RUSSELL: He wasn’t too much of a store. It was a………….
INTERVIEWER: Okay more of a boarding house.
RUSSELL: Ya but they had a little bit of stuff in the, in the one part down on the bottom floor on this, out this side of it.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, now if your mother had wanted to make a new dress where would she have gone to get the material for that?
RUSSELL: Most any of ‘em, most any of ‘em carried it.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. They did that. Did she have a sewing machine?
RUSSELL: Oh ya.
INTERVIEWER: Treadle?
RUSSELL: Ya, pump it if you could.
INTERVIEWER: Ya my grandfather had one of those, so I’ve used it. I know how that is. Okay, now the ice cream parlor that you showed me, you know where that probably is now, the ice cream parlor we looked and thought maybe that might have been that same building. Where was it when it was in action?
RUSSELL: The a, well at one time they, just about all of ‘em carried ice cream.
INTERVIEWER: Did they really?
RUSSELL: Ya.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, okay.
RUSSELL: But it wasn’t much of a parlor. Now that one we were talkin’ ‘bout the other day, where that was, she sold ice cream. That was ‘bout one of her main things she sold was ice cream and drinks, and they used, used to steam oysters and sell ‘em in there too. That was mostly, most that she carried.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, and that was Mrs. Clara Dennis.
RUSSELL: Miss Clara Dennis.
INTERVIEWER: Okay and that was, let me see, it was across from where the bank is and down the street a little bit.
RUSSELL: That’s right, it’s down towards the store.
INTERVIEWER: Down, okay, down towards the store.
RUSSELL: It was on, it’s on the left, in that garden spot there. Just before you get to that house, was the store.
INTERVIEWER: Okay if I’m goin’ down to the store, it’s on the left here?
RUSSELL: That’s right, just before ya get to that house on the left.
INTERVIEWER: Oh okay.
RUSSELL: It was right down there, that street where the garden is.
INTERVIEWER: Where the garden is?
RUSSELL: Garden is, ya, right there on that corner.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. Alright, I’ll ask ya this, did any of these stores sell spirits? Which is what they called ‘em at that time.
RUSSELL: No, we’ve never had one in Newark sold, that they, they had a, they had a rulin’ or a law or whatnot, it could never be sold in Newark.
INTERVIEWER: Really?
RUSSELL: That’s right, it never has been sold in Newark.
INTERVIEWER: Well that’s good, and it never has.
RUSSELL: Don’t yet.
INTERVIEWER: Isn’t that somethin’, because I was reading……
RUSSELL: They had an ordinance, I guess you’d call it an ordinance…………
INTERVIEWER: Right ordinance.
RUSSELL: Ordinance, and they never would, would sell it here, but they’ve never been able to get it.
INTERVIEWER: More power to them.
RUSSELL: Ya.
INTERVIEWER: That really is good. Okay, now you said, you’re talkin’ about the train. Two passenger trains comin’ through each day.
RUSSELL: That’s right.
INTERVIEWER: And then freight train that come the same………..
RUSSELL: Ya.
INTERVIEWER: Same way?
RUSSELL: Well they didn’t have a particular schedule.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, okay.
RUSSELL: Freight didn’t. I think it come every day and maybe twice or maybe the, two trains come, but they didn’t run on a schedule. The passenger trains, the two passenger trains run on a schedule.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, and you could time that. Did you go on the train much?
RUSSELL: Well not too much, but I had, we used to go on it.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, where would…………
RUSSELL: A lot of people did, but I was, I was too young for it, the early days of it and then I got the automobile and then we didn’t want to fool with the train then.
INTERVIEWER: Didn’t want to food with the train then. Ahh, did you ever go down to Public Landing for Farmer’s Day?
RUSSELL: Many a time.
INTERVIEWER: Did ya?
RUSSELL: Many a time. Mule horses and wagons, or mules and wagons.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, how long did it take ya to get, just how long, if you were going by with your horse, mule and wagon, down to Public Landing?
RUSSELL: Take ya an hour and a half. Two hours, maybe.
INTERVIEWER: Well that wasn’t bad.
RUSSELL: Two hours.
INTERVIEWER: I’ll tell ya as long as the mule wanted to go you were fine.
RUSSELL: Ya but if you would take a, we’d, we’d load up a whole load sometimes. Have a wagon load.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, alright, so it was a hard load for him to pull to.
RUSSELL: Well it wasn’t that, you’d put ‘nough mules so that they could put it, see, 2 or 3 or somethin’.
INTERVIEWER: Oh okay. What did ya, what, what do you remember about Farmer’s Day when you went? What was memorable about it?
RUSSELL: Well………………
INTERVIEWER: Seems everybody went.
RUSSELL: That’s right. I remember, I remember ‘bout all of it. They would be horses and wagons along that road as you go down.
INTERVIEWER: Oh did they?
RUSSELL: On both sides. There wasn’t none of ‘em houses along there……………
INTERVIEWER: Oh okay.
RUSSELL: Before you get to Public Landin’.
INTERVIEWER: Well I didn’t know that.
RUSSELL: The first house, the first house was there was that old big house right there on the corner. The one that burned down a few years ago. They build that new home there, and that was, that was sort of a hotel or roomin’ house or somethin’.
INTERVIEWER: Ohhh, I’ve never thought of that.
RUSSELL: And there was a fence, there was a fence run all the way down there and people would have their horses tied at that fence all the way down that road, the whole lot down there would be full and tied up there and a, place would be full of people.
INTERVIEWER: Isn’t that somethin’? Now you’d take your food with ya?
RUSSELL: That’s right.
INTERVIEWER: And would you, would everybody eat as a family unit or would you get together with other families you knew?
RUSSELL: Oh no, no with your own family.
INTERVIEWER: You ate with your own family.
RUSSELL: They, they had a festival, they call ‘em, at Mt. Olive, they say, say you could tell ‘em by their teeth. They’d have blueberry, they’d have blueberry pie, ????????????? but they’d go to Mt. Olive, you know where that is don’t ya?
INTERVIEWER: Uhum.
RUSSELL: They’d go to Mt. Olive and have this festival, say on Wednesday night……….
INTERVIEWER: Right.
RUSSELL: Then they’d go to Public Landing. Leave right from there and go to Public Landing.
INTERVIEWER: Oh on Thursday morning?
RUSSELL: After they left the festival, they’d go to Public Landing for the Farmer’s, Forester’s Day, they called ‘em, that time Forester’s Day wasn’t Farmer’s Day.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
RUSSELL: They used to call people back in there, back Mt. Olive, back in there, used to call ‘em Foresters.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, okay.
RUSSELL: ‘cause they were out in the sticks. ‘course that wouldn’t work today, but it did them days.
INTERVIEWER: Now why did the name change to Farmer’s Day?
RUSSELL: I don’t know.
INTERVIEWER: I don’t know, maybe they, maybe the city people got tired of bein’ called Foresters.
RUSSELL: Ya, I imagine so.
INTERVIEWER: Heavens, that’s somethin’. Now when you went down like that, were there people there, well you say they were there from out of the forest, you know.
RUSSELL: Ya all round.
INTERVIEWER: All around the county?
RUSSELL: Ya.
INTERVIEWER: Would have come. Did some of them come up by boat?
RUSSELL: Ya.
INTERVIEWER: Got up there.
RUSSELL: There would be boats down there takin’ out a ride, if you wanted to go for a ride.
INTERVIEWER: Oh really. Oh, did you go ridin’?
RUSSELL: Ya, ya.
INTERVIEWER: Did they take you across to Assateague or anything, or just out in the bay?
RUSSELL: No, they just took you out in the bay, and maybe charge ya ten cents. You’d go out in the bay and take a ride, ‘bout maybe half was the bay and back. Let ya off and there’d be another crowd settin’ there ready to get on.
INTERVIEWER: Right, that must have been, that really must have been a treat.
RUSSELL: Oh ya.
INTERVIEWER: To do that.
RUSSELL: Just like it is today, only a different way.
INTERVIEWER: Ya. Did you go swimmin’?
RUSSELL: Ya. Ya. People go down there and go in swimmin’, didn’t have no bathing suits, they’d go in their overalls or shirt or whatever they had.
INTERVIEWER: Did you wear shoes?
RUSSELL: No.
INTERVIEWER: Oh that bottom of that bay down thee is just all, ohhhh. Was, I’m sure on Forester’s Day there were too many people, but was there any crabbin’ of any note around there?
RUSSELL: I don’t remember of ‘em crabbin’ at that time.
INTERVIEWER: Alright. I’ve talked to several people and they don’t remember crabbing, and I wonder it it’s because of the bay, of the inlet, you know up at Ocean City wasn’t cut through yet.
RUSSELL: No that didn’t make any difference.
INTERVIEWER: Didn’t make any difference. Okay. What, in the wintertime what would you do for entertainment? Did you go ice skating?
RUSSELL: Ya.
INTERVIEWER: Did that. Alright, wasn’t there a duck pond out Queponco? Some sort of pond that would freeze? I’m tryin’ to remember.
RUSSELL: We used to go back there, back of the school, in that swamp.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, oh back there where the pigs are?
RUSSELL: That’s right that used to freeze up. That’s where we went to school and then we’d go get out skates and hang ‘em and recess, dinnertime come, we’d take off.
INTERVIEWER: Ya and go back there.
RUSSELL: In that swamp.
INTERVIEWER: That’s good. Would the teacher ever go with ya?
RUSSELL: No she was an older lady. Well she wasn’t, she wasn’t too old, but she was…………
INTERVIEWER: She wasn’t skatin’ either.
RUSSELL: She wasn’t skatin’.
INTERVIEWER: Would you go out skatin’ at night too?
RUSSELL: Ya, ya.
INTERVIEWER: Alright would this be somethin’ that parents would join in with the children or just children?
RUSSELL: Not much, just some of the younger parents; but not the older ones.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, okay.
RUSSELL: Now they didn’t go skatin’ down there in that woods at night, but they used to have, there used to be a place down here, Henny Pond, they call it back here, ‘round here in the woods. They used to go skatin’ and down there to the water mill they used to go skatin’ on that. They’d go down there and build up a fire and go skatin’ down that at that mill pond.
INTERVIEWER: Right, okay. That’s Mitchell’s Mill Pond, okay.
RUSSELL: Ya that’s right.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, the a, okay, on Sunday evidently, was that a church day?
RUSSELL: That’s right.
INTERVIEWER: Alright where did, there’s a church up at Basketswitch?
RUSSELL: There used to be.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, used to be one there.
RUSSELL: The Trinity Church up here was moved. Well it wasn’t moved, they build a new one up town here. The one down, the furthest down.
INTERVIEWER: Ya, did a, do you know whether the old Trinity Church out there at Basketswitch, do you know whether it burned or if it was torn down?
RUSSELL: I guess it was torn down. I don’t think it burned down. I’ve been there, they used, they used to have festivals there.
INTERVIEWER: Oh they did?
RUSSELL: Ya. You go down there and they had ice cream and lemonade and stuff for sale, you know. And they had, I don’t know whether you saw one of them or not, they used to, they build a thing on a poles for a light, and they build a box on top of it. ‘Course now you think it’s gonna burn up, but it wouldn’t. They build a box on top of it, these poles and they be as high as this ceilin’ and they’d, they’d build a fire in there for light, in this, on this dirt. That kept it, that kept from burnin’ box up, is the poles.
INTERVIEWER: Well for goodness sakes. Now I hadn’t heard of that before.
RUSSELL: You hadn’t?
INTERVIEWER: No, no that’s new.
RUSSELL: Well you ask some of these older ones, they can tell ya all about it.
INTERVIEWER: And it was high enough so it spread light all over the area.
RUSSELL: That’s right, light up the whole thing. Have old lighter knots, light wood they call it, some call it, most of ‘em call it. Them lighters you pick up these old light wood knots and they’d burn just like coal oil. They’d burn a good while too and they’d lay them up on this dirt, set fire and that give ya light.
INTERVIEWER: And when the light went out, the party was over.
RUSSELL: No they’d put on some more, put on some more wood. Of course in later years they had latterns, too, but it wasn’t too light at that.
INTERVIEWER: Right, that’s good. Now on Sunday would, was it a matter of a, well now you’ve two churches here in town, MP and ME.
RUSSELL: That’s right.
INTERVIEWER: But they’re both supposed to be the same thing. Same preacher now and everything, too.
RUSSELL: Ya, ya, ya.
INTERVIEWER: Now would you go, would the family spend the day at church or would you……………
RUSSELL: Oh no.
INTERVIEWER: Go in the morning and then………….
RUSSELL: Ya, used to. And we’d have to go, we always had, I’ve always been, this church up here, Bowen we call it, I always went that one, and the Trinity used to have their service in the afternoon, years ago.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, okay.
RUSSELL: But the people wants to go somewhere else in the afternoon, they don’t want to mess their religion up with their…………..
INTERVIEWER: With their entertainment.
RUSSELL: Ya.
INTERVIEWER: Right hate to do that. Did the minister, now let’s say back in your father’s time, would the minister have been a circuit minister comin’ through or would he have lived here?
RUSSELL: No ever since I can remember, they’ve lived here.
INTERVIEWER: Alright that’s good. Okay, now let me think, I’ve talked about transportation and religion, and stores and, oh I know what I want to ask you about, the flour mill and the barrell, barrel place, barrel factory thing. Didn’t a Mr. Adkins………………
RUSSELL: Mr. Gordon Adkins had both of ‘em.
INTERVIEWER: Had both of them, okay. And a, this, the flour at the Adkins Mill was it a popular flour, did you grow you own wheat and everything?
RUSSELL: Oh ya.
INTERVIEWER: Everybody did that.
RUSSELL: Ya. You bring your wheat to the mull and what you wanted for your own use, and you just put it in the mill and then whenever you want a, if you wanted 50 pound of flour you’d and get it. Fifty pounds of flour and that was charged to your account if you had any, they put, they put your wheat in there and he’d give ya a slip, book and if you wanted to, whenever you get 50 pound you write it on the book or…………… of course he kept it on his book………………….
INTERVIEWER: Right and he’d take off what you’d put in.
RUSSELL: Ya you could, you could keep it to if you wanted to.
INTERVIEWER: Isn’t that something. You know I had no idea how that worked. I just figured you came in and he ground your wheat and there you were stuck with however much flour there was.
RUSSELL: No, they took, they too, he took a toll, they call it. They give ya maybe, I think it was 30-35 pound or 36 pound of flour for a bushel of wheat, which ya, if ya brought 60 pound you got back 35, whatever it was, and they, the meal you’d get meal for it, and he took toll out of that and a, if you wanted hominy, of course you don’t know nothing about hominy. You’ve never eaten hominy?
INTERVIEWER: I’ve been made to eat hominy. I don’t like it.
RUSSELL: You don’t? Oh I love it, I love it with sausage and…………
INTERVIEWER: So does my mother and father.
RUSSELL: It’s great. I got some up there now with a can, I opened it, but, anyway ya carry me, you carry your corn and, and you’d get hominy the same way.
INTERVIEWER: Alright now to do the hominy didn’t you have to use lye? And, or didn’t you grind it coarse and use, and you did that to it?
RUSSELL: I never seen it done. We never, my mother used no lye.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
RUSSELL: I’ve heard people doin’ it, but I never seen, I never seen it.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, well that’s neat.
RUSSELL: And we kids, we kids eat a lot of it. I love, I still love it.
INTERVIEWER: Well good, I’m glad you do. That’s neat. Well that’s, I did not know about that, so he ground wheat and corn and……..now ya didn’t, did you raise any other grains? Barley or anything like that?
RUSSELL: A little bit, not too much. We used to raise a little bit of buckwheat.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, okay.
RUSSELL: You take it, you could take it, you could take your buckwheat to the mill and you get buckwheat flour from that and make your pancakes.
INTERVIEWER: Oh my, now that I would like. That’s, I would love that. Oh good, alright. Now when you moved here you built your house?
RUSSELL: No, no.
INTERVIEWER: It was here?
RUSSELL: It was already here.
INTERVIEWER: It was already here.
RUSSELL: Belonged to my wife’s father.
INTERVIEWER: Oh okay. I was just wondering. When somebody put up a new house in your early years, did you hire a carpenter or did you do it yourself?
RUSSELL: Most of ‘em hired carpenters to do it.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. Was there a carpenter in this area?
RUSSELL: Oh ya there’s several…………
INTERVIEWER: Several of ‘em.
RUSSELL: Oh ya plenty of ‘em. Ya.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember who any of them were?
RUSSELL: Oh ya.
INTERVIEWER: Who were they?
RUSSELL: Mr. Sid Davis was a carpenter, Mr. Andrew Townsend was a carpenter, and Bill Davis that lives down here he undertook carpentry some, and a my brother-in-law, he was a carpenter, and a different ones.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, now did, they moved things, buildings around too, a lot, didn’t they?
RUSSELL: Not too much.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, maybe in town they did more. Seems like in Snow Hill they moved things.
RUSSELL: They moved one, they moved one now and then, but not too much. Most of ‘em were built on the site.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, they’d do that. And now this Mr. Townsend you mentioned, is that any relation to Mrs. Hunker? Wasn’t she a Townsend?
RUSSELL: Ya, ya. Which Townsend now do you mean?
INTERVIEWER: The one that was a carpenter.
RUSSELL: No.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
RUSSELL: Ya, ya, ya he was. Mr. Andrew Townsend, he was her uncle, Miss Hunker’s uncle.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, that’s neat.
RUSSELL: He’s a fine man too. As witty as he could be.
INTERVIEWER: Really?
RUSSELL: Yes sir. He was really witty. I’ll tell a little incident. One time he was goin’ uptown, he used to, in his older days, he’d go up there to that little store and fillin’ station. He’d go every night after he’d eat his supper. He’d eat supper early. Of course he was getting’ along in years and a, Mr. John Bedsworth, he went down there one, going down there one night, dog came out there and bit him……………
INTERVIEWER: Oh my heavens.
RUSSELL: And a, he was in the store. He went in the store and he was goin’ on about the dog bitin’ him, and a, Mr. Townsend said, said you can’t blame the dog, said most dog will take a bone if it rubs across………..
INTERVIEWER: Ah, he did have a good sense of humor, didn’t he? Oh my dear.
RUSSELL: He said you can’t blame the dogs, most any of them will take a bone. I never forgot that.
INTERVIEWER: No that is, that is a good thing, goodness. That reminds me, was there, let’s see doctor. Was there a doctor in Newark?
RUSSELL: Ya. Dr. Lingo was, come here, I don’t know, he died a young man. He doctored here. He lived on Bay Street in that big house.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, where Marshland’s are now?
RUSSELL: No.
INTERVIEWER: No?
RUSSELL: Where Willison’s, Willison’s buildin’, that was his house and a, he had an office there in the yard, and they moved that over here to Whiton, on the road, right there beside the road, Whiton.
INTERVIEWER: Oh really?
RUSSELL: His office is still standin’ there. People live in it.
INTERVIEWER: Oh for heavens sakes. Now I’ll have to go to Whiton and look. I haven’t been there for a while.
RUSSELL: Well ya go cross the crossin’. It’s a little square buildin’ right there just before, just have to get over the river, that high ground there.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. Now was there an undertaker in Newark?
RUSSELL: Ah no, I don’t know, I don’t remember ever bein’ an undertaker here.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, you’d go to, you’d have to go to Berlin?
RUSSELL: I had an uncle was an undertaker, but he lived in Berlin.
INTERVIEWER: Oh he did. Who was he?
RUSSELL: Curt Evans.
INTERVIEWER: Evans, alright, now somebody else said that name. I just figured Anna Burbage had been there forever and ever.
RUSSELL: And he used to make his own coffins, they said.
INTERVIEWER: Did he really? For goodness sakes, my. Now where was his establishment in Berlin? Do you remember?
RUSSELL: I don’t believe I remember.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
RUSSELL: I think it’s somewhere around there the blacksmith shop is, but I don’t ever remember goin’ there. ‘Course he died when I was a pretty young boy.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. Now was, well this was your uncle. He was the one that didn’t do too much blacksmithin’ or was he a different………?
RUSSELL: He was different.
INTERVIEWER: Different uncle, that’s right, he was an Evans.
RUSSELL: He was on my mother’s side.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. He was on your mother’s side. Okay.
RUSSELL: He was an old man when she married him.
INTERVIEWER: Oh okay. Now was your mother from Berlin?
RUSSELL: No she from Newark.
INTERVIEWER: Right, for goodness sakes.
RUSSELL: My father was from Newark and she was from Newark.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, stayed right here. Let’s see, I’m tryin’ to think if there’s anything I’ve left out. Can you think of anything else, that you know, that would add…………………
RUSSELL: But getting’ back, goin’ back to that mill and the barrel factory.
INTERVIEWER: I forgot all about that.
Russell; Now he had a, he had a sawmill there attached to the flour mill and a stave mill. He made barrel staves and he made the barrels.
INTERVIEWER: He made the barrels themselves, too?\
RUSSELL: The barrels themselves that we’d put potatoes in. We grew potatoes.
INTERVIEWER: Oh alright, and he made the barrels.
RUSSELL: Everybody, at one time everybody grew potatoes here, just about and he had the timber. He cut the timber and I’ve heard people say, which I know he did, he’d go in the woods and cut the tree down this morning and a, tomorrow morning it’d have potatoes in ‘em, in the barrels?
INTERVIEWER: Oh my heavens.
RUSSELL: He’d saw the staves up and make barrels out of ‘em that day and have potatoes in ‘em the next day.
INTERVIEWER: I thought wood had to cure.
RUSSELL: Well it was supposed to, but they didn’t do it. Get in a hurry, they’d put ‘em, maybe some of ‘em that same day, and he had the whole operation down there.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, now that’s just been burned recently, hasn’t it?
RUSSELL: That was, that was a new barrel house. He built that one later, the flour mill was built, was put up about, somewhere around 1915.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, now that’s the one that’s still there?
RUSSELL: That’s the one still there and the sawmill and the stave mill and stuff was, and the barrel, where they made barrels were all attached to that at one time and the, he a, as the business got bigger he built this……….
INTERVIEWER: This new part?
RUSSELL: New part over across the street there and that’s what burned down.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. The other part has long since just disappeared.
RUSSELL: That’s right.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. Done that. Now who did, there were men workin’ for him evidently, in this operation?
RUSSELL: Oh ya, ya.
INTERVIEWER: Now would they have been local men?
RUSSELL: Some of ‘em, most of ‘em were. Ya, ya.
INTERVIEWER: Were they black? Did they use black labor?
RUSSELL: Some, some of both.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
RUSSELL: Some of both.
INTERVIEWER: Was there a sizable black community in Newark in the early 1900’s?
RUSSELL: Not too much. There’s more colored, of ‘em now than there was then.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, than there was then. But that must have been a really thriving operation to do all that.
RUSSELL: Oh ya.
INTERVIEWER: Now did he have children?
RUSSELL: Never had a child.
INTERVIEWER: Oh he didn’t. Oh for goodness sakes.
RUSSELL: And he farmed it also. He was also a farmer.
INTERVIEWER: Well he did hire a lot of help.
RUSSELL: Ya, and he, he went broke in his younger days and then come back and thrived, good.
INTERVIEWER: Isn’t that something? Now his brother was a blacksmith. Right?
RUSSELL: His brother was a blacksmith, right.
INTERVIEWER: Now he did have children.
RUSSELL: Ya.
INTERVIEWER: Ya……’cause they………somebody I’m supposed to know, oh, Otis Northam’s grandfather was, I mean Sid’s grandfather was the blacksmith.
RUSSELL: That’s right, ya.
INTERVIEWER: That’s why. Okay. Can you think of anything else?
RUSSELL: I think I’ve talked enough. I’m gonna let you talk.
INTERVIEWER: No, I’m tryin’, tryin’ to think if there’s anything that we haven’t touched upon. We’re really getting’ a beautiful history of Newark and a picture, you know of it. You don’t happen to have any old photographs?
RUSSELL: No I don’t.
INTERVIEWER: Ohhh. I’m gonna find somebody with old photographs yet, of Newark or Queponco or something.
RUSSELL: Now Mr. Arch Holloway, I don’t know if that would interest ya, used to own pretty near the whole neighborhood out there in Queponco. William Holloway’s father.
INTERVIEWER: Oh okay. Now I talked to Mr. William Holloway, but he’s such a modest person, you know, and he just said his father had a farm out there.
RUSSELL: He had several of them.
INTERVIEWER: He had several of them. Okay he did say his father traded horses and would go to Baltimore and bring back horses for sale.
RUSSELL: Ya he used to sell horses, mules, and colts.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, my. He must have been a big farmer and a big businessman.
RUSSELL: Well he was, he was. He was a successful businessman, he was a hustler too. He drank a mess of whiskey…………
INTERVIEWER: Oh my. You never know.
RUSSELL: He drank whiskey at one time that man did.
INTERVIEWER: Isn’t that something.
RUSSELL: And he was a big rugged man. He was as strong………He lived right ‘cross front out here. Front of me here.
INTERVIEWER: Alright.
RUSSELL: That’s where he died.
INTERVIEWER: He did say he moved in here.
RUSSELL: That’s where he moved, right cross the street here.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. That reminds me of the fire, the fire in Newark. Now were you, were you, you were in town then?
RUSSELL: I was right there.
INTERVIEWER: You were right here.
RUSSELL: I was livin’ here, but I was…………..
INTERVIEWER: But you were right up there……..
RUSSELL: I was right up there when it was burnin’.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember what started it? Or how it started?
RUSSELL: It stared in the store.
INTERVIEWER: Now which store?
RUSSELL: The one that’s there now.
INTERVIEWER: The one that’s there now.
RUSSELL: Not that one, but the one that was there.
INTERVIEWER: Okay this is Barbley’s store.
RUSSELL: That’s right.
INTERVIEWER: Okay and the old one there.
RUSSELL: That’s right.
INTERVIEWER: Do they know what started it in the store?
RUSSELL: I don’t think so.
INTERVIEWER: Just, it just happened.
RUSSELL: Of course they had wood stoves, it probably started in that, but I don’t know that.
INTERVIEWER: Ya, alright. Now it burned the Masonic Hall……..which……….
RUSSELL: That’s right. There was a house right beside the store. There’s a driveway between…….
INTERVIEWER: That’s the way, the interesting things that come out. Okay, the Masonic Hall was a big building.
RUSSELL: That was a great big building.
INTERVIEWER: Was it brick?
RUSSELL: No, no.
INTERVIEWER: Okay it wasn’t brick.
RUSSELL: No, no it was a wooden structure.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
RUSSELL: And beside that was a little barber shop, and that was right across the road from this little soda place.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
RUSSELL: On the opposite side of the road.
INTERVIEWER: On the opposite side of the road. Alright.
RUSSELL: And they all burned.
INTERVIEWER: Oh for goodness sakes. And the store was the only one that was rebuilt. The barber shop, nothing else was?
RUSSELL: No. Claude Mitchell owned that barber shop.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. Did that. Now do you remember any interesting incidents about fighting the fire that night? Or trying to put it out or anything like that?
RUSSELL: Ya, I remember several of ‘em around here never even woke up. They were asleep and never, never, slept right through it. Berlin firetrucks and Snow Hill pulled right through here and they were a blowin’ and all that commotion and some of ‘em never knew it. One man lived ‘cross, right ‘cross the street, road here, I mean across on the other road but right ‘cross from here. They put his house out, the roof fell apart, they put the house out and he never even knew it.
INTERVIEWER: Oh for heaven’s sakes.
RUSSELL: ‘Til the next morning he didn’t know we had a fire.
INTERVIEWER: Goodness gracious. I think I would know, especially when you hear the firetrucks coming through, ‘cause they’d have to make a noise.
RUSSELL: They did that. They didn’t hear though.
INTERVIEWER: They didn’t hear ‘em though, my goodness. Oh well most of your effort then was made to keep other houses from catching on fire.
RUSSELL: That’s right, ya, there was no……….
INTERVIEWER: Ya, ‘cause you couldn’t do anything with the others.
RUSSELL: Ya, no. The wind was blowin’ a gale and it was as cold as I don’t know what, that night.
INTERVIEWER: Okay ya it was in the spring, but it was cold. Wasn’t it April?
RUSSELL: No, no I don’t know when it was.
INTERVIEWER: March?
RUSSELL: No, no I don’t know when it was, but it was cold as I don’t know what, I know that. I know that very well.
INTERVIEWER: Goodness. Okay. I thought of something else, alright this Mitchell’s mill down here, what was it used for? What did it grind?
RUSSELL: Meal.
INTERVIEWER: Meal okay.
RUSSELL: Grist mill they call that.
INTERVIEWER: Okay just a grist mill. You’d use that for feed too, right.
RUSSELL: For food.
INTERVIEWER: Food for yourself, but would you grind it for feed for your horses and things too?
RUSSELL: Well it was just a small affair, you know. It, people didn’t grind much meal for their horses.
INTERVIEWER: Okay you just gave them corn?
RUSSELL: Ya or……..later years they got so they crushed it, and they used what they call a crusher, crush the cob and all up, you know, but the meal, the meal you had to make that out of the corn shell.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, okay, they’d do that. Now was there mech…..what I’m trying to figure out is if the mill was here and the mill was there………….
RUSSELL: I’m sure that one was there long before this.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
RUSSELL: And then, you know they still do though, they claim now that water ground was much, a lot better than, which I ‘pect it was, ‘cause they grind it slow, the water mill and the other ones they just turned the thing on, and, they claimed they heat it. I don’t know if it makes any difference. It’s all good. Ya, okay. Alright. I remembered that, now let me see if I can think of anything else before I leave? There weren’t any brick buildings in town were there? Early? I’m just picturing it now, until the bank and that bank hasn’t been there that long has it? And I drive right by it and see the date on it every day.
RUSSELL: It’s been there a long time. It was a……
INTERVIEWER: I’ll look when I go back.
RUSSELL: I don’t remember when it was built, tell you the truth.
INTERVIEWER: Right. It’s got it, you know in the corner there, and I never think of it. What is is. Okay, but there, there aren’t any other brick building. Oh did you have a telephone office here?
RUSSELL: No never did.
INTERVIEWER: Never did?
RUSSELL: No.
INTERVIEWER: Okay it ???????????? When did you have your first telephones?
RUSSELL: I don’t know. I was just a kid, like, youngster.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, alright.
RUSSELL: The first telephones we ever had, they probably, telephones put here before that but we got, we had a, we got a telephone line out in Queponco when I was a youngster, ‘cause the farmer’s built it.
INTERVIEWER: Alright. Oh you had to build your own lines?
RUSSELL: They built their own lines them days.
INTERVIEWER: Oh I didn’t know that.
RUSSELL: And the people on that line from over in Indiantown. Mr. John Truitt and a Will Truitt…………
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
RUSSELL: That’s George’s……….I don’t know whether you remember George Truitt?
INTERVIEWER: George Truitt, ya.
RUSSELL: His father and uncle, lived over in Indiantown. They were big farmers at that time, and they were supposed to have been money people, but like a lot more they……didn’t have much, but anyway, that’s the way it was. And they helped to build this line over there.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, so it went right across the river and came through…….
RUSSELL: Across Whiton, I mean they crossed a, a, Givans Crossing.
INTERVIEWER: Ah now you hit me with a name. Where’s that? Right up there past Lois’s?
RUSSELL: No.
INTERVIEWER: No?
RUSSELL: That’s Whiton Crossing up there.
INTERVIEWER: That’s Whiton Crossing alright. I thought it was right, now where’s Givans Crossing?
RUSSELL: Givans Crossing, you know where Marvin Tyndal lives/
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
RUSSELL: It’s right straight back of that and it comes out, comes ‘cross out there Sidney Cropper’s. Right ‘cross his field.
INTERVIEWER: Ohhh. Okay. Alright, you can’t get to it now.
RUSSELL: No, no the road’s growed up.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, that’s what I thought.
RUSSELL: You could get to it from this side, down as far as the swamp but you can’t, you couldn’t get across.
INTERVIEWER: Couldn’t get across okay. I had never heard that at all, and that’s really good now that we hear something about Givans Crossing in something we’re reading, we’ll know where it is. So they built it all the way through there and so all of your operator’s business was done through Snow Hill.
RUSSELL: That’s right.
INTERVIEWER: Okay and you were all on one great big party line?
RUSSELL: It was, I ‘pect there was 15 of ‘em on one line.
INTERVIEWER: Oh my dear. That could be very hectic at times.
RUSSELL: It could be now.
INTERVIEWER: Ya.
RUSSELL: You would never get to use it, now. Course people didn’t talk then much, as they do now.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, and they used it if they really had to get up with somebody.
RUSSELL: And they’d tell them what they wanted and a……….
INTERVIEWER: And that would be it, okay. Good. Now electricity, now Newark, did it have a power plant?
RUSSELL: No.
INTERVIEWER: No, didn’t have that.
RUSSELL: No Eastern Shore Public Service come through here at first.
INTERVIEWER: Okay came through there. Now that was when you were little too?
RUSSELL: No, no that came after I was livin’ here.
INTERVIEWER: Did it really?
RUSSELL: Ya.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
RUSSELL: There was a few of ‘em around here had electric, had electric plants of their own……..
INTERVIEWER: Generators?
RUSSELL: Ya, generators.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, but the line didn’t come through?
RUSSELL: No I don’t remember what year that came through.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, but it was after 1925?
RUSSELL: Oh ya I was livin’ here when it come here.
INTERVIEWER: Well for goodness sakes.
RUSSELL: My electric bill was a dollar and a quarter, when we first got it. I remember that.
INTERVIEWER: A dollar and a quarter???????? Oh my. That’s just wishful thinking.
RUSSELL: Ya.
INTERVIEWER: But now what, you didn’t have much……did you have much to use electricity?
RUSSELL: No, you didn’t have anything, scarcely, but the light.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, ‘cause you had.
RUSSELL: And they had a, they had a chain on ‘em.
INTERVIEWER: Alright and you pulled it off and on.
RUSSELL: You pulled the chain off when you went to bed, and people were tight with that.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, ‘cause you didn’t, you used ice boxes, right?
RUSSELL: Oh ya, ya. I used ice box several years after I came here.
INTERVIEWER: Ya that’s something I can ask. Where did you get your ice?
RUSSELL: Well there used to be a delivery came through here from Berlin………..
INTERVIEWER: It did?
RUSSELL: And they went from house to house………..
INTERVIEWER: Well now I didn’t know that.
RUSSELL: Deliverin’ ice.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, now what company was that?
RUSSELL: Davis Ice and Coal.
INTERVIEWER: I didn’t know that they were doin’ it that early.
RUSSELL: Ya.
INTERVIEWER: Now did they make the ice like they do now?
RUSSELL: That’s right.
INTERVIEWER: Okay they did that.
RUSSELL: The first, the first of us ever having ice was ‘fore I got married. We used to get a, there was 3 of, 4 head of us. William Holloway and Rodney Bounds and our folks and Mrs. Holloway over here and we get up, we’d get a keg of ice twice a week and we’d saw it up and we’d carry William’s and Rodney Bound’s and ours out to Queponco. One time they’d come, next time and get it, see.
INTERVIEWER: Alright.
RUSSELL: And Mrs. Holloway, we got her, got her a fourth of it, and that’s the way we got our ice.
INTERVIEWER: For goodness sakes.
RUSSELL: They’d come along, they’d dump it out there, Mrs. Holloway’s whole cake, right there in her yard and we’d, we’d chip it off and each one get his piece and we’d carry ‘em out there.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, now how big would that whole cake have been? Now, I cannot, I remember my grandmother getting ice in the ice box but she got a, just a small piece.
RUSSELL: Well they had a, it was a, it was 300 pounds in a cake.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. So you divided that in quarters?
RUSSELL: We got about 75 pounds. And we cut it in four pieces…………
INTERVIEWER: Okay, and then you’d take it home.
RUSSELL: Just fit in the refrigerator, icebox.
INTERVIEWER: Right. I had never thought to ask anybody about that before, and that’s neat.
RUSSELL: Well that’s the way we got our ice then, of course after we, after we moved here they had the deliver then.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, and it was cut to fit.
RUSSELL: Cut to fit.
INTERVIEWER: Right, before you got it. Now before you had the ice, did you have spring houses?
RUSSELL: Ya.
INTERVIEWER: On the farm?
RUSSELL: That’s right, that’s right.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
RUSSELL: Well it wasn’t a spring house.
INTERVIEWER: Well no, but it was……
RUSSELL: It was water, was a, we called it a milk house. My father and mother had one built, and they had it insulated then, and it was tight inside and had a, had a trough went through it. It was longer than this, in fact it was about that wide and they put, we kids had to pump cold water and go pour in that trough and change it sometime during the day, you know, when it gets warm, and then Mom, my mother would put stuff in that, in a bowl or something and set it in that water, see…………………
INTERVIEWER: And that would keep it cold.
RUSSELL: Close that door and everything, ‘course it was dark in there and kept the cool air in there. And we had to take up out apple tree to keep the sun from hittin’ it…………
INTERVIEWER: Alright, and now was it dug down in the ground?
RUSSELL: No, no.
INTERVIEWER: Just up………
RUSSELL: It was up ‘cross the ground. Up off the ground.
INTERVIEWER: Up off the ground, and done that.
RUSSELL: Off the ground and when the water got hot in there, you’d go, had a hole in it you’d pull this plug out, let the water run out…………
INTERVIEWER: Alright, and put fresh water.
RUSSELL: And then you go put some cold water back in there, of course that was our job, you know. They had plenty jobs for ya, then.
INTERVIEWER: Ya, they did indeed. Now you a, okay, you pumped your own water out on the farm, out there?
RUSSELL: At that time you did.
INTERVIEWER: Right.
RUSSELL: We later, we later got a windmill.
INTERVIEWER: Oh you did?
RUSSELL: Ya of course we had a lot of………..
INTERVIEWER: It’s not out there now?
RUSSELL: Yes it is.
INTERVIEWER: Is it still there?
RUSSELL: The framework is.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. Oh. I’m gonna have to go out there and look again, too. I guess I missed that.
RUSSELL: I think it’s still there. I’m sure, I’m sure the frame is.
INTERVIEWER: I could have missed it. I’ll look again, then.
RUSSELL: Now my daughter lives up here. Their windmill is still up there.
INTERVIEWER: Ya, ya.
RUSSELL: It’s just like that.
INTERVIEWER: Ahhh, that’s good. Now I’ll ask, you know this will help too, ‘cause there are a lot of people in this world that don’t know how that windmill worked. It went down the, you drilled your well……….
RUSSELL: That’s right.
INTERVIEWER: Under the windmill…………..
RUSSELL: Not necessarily.
INTERVIEWER: No, okay. Please tell me ‘cause I’m confused.
RUSSELL: Well ya couldn’t drill a well under the windmill very good.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
RUSSELL: ‘Cause you see all your framework and everything had to……..but it’s just like any other well, drill it, drive the well pump, pipe it in.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. Now you had piped in water when you moved here?
RUSSELL: No, no, no we hadn’t got that far along when we moved here. We had water home……….
INTERVIEWER: Right, because you had the windmill.
RUSSELL: We didn’t have water here.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
RUSSELL: We had a pump here and had one in the, down the barn. We had a barn there then, out here where the………..
INTERVIEWER: Ohhh. And had one down at the barn?
RUSSELL: And had one down the barn. Had one up to the house.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
RUSSELL: Had one in the porch, was in the porch, here.
INTERVIEWER: In the porch, okay. Do that, oh that’s neat. People speak of the good old days, I’m real glad I’m not there, ‘cause it was nice talkin’ about it, but it certainly is a lot of hard work.
RUSSELL: You better believe it was hard, a lot of hard work. You thought nothin’ about it.
INTERVIEWER: Right.
RUSSELL: You thought nothin’ ‘bout it.
INTERVIEWER: Right, right, you really wouldn’t have thought about it. Did you keep pets? Like cats and dogs? Things like that?
RUSSELL: Oh ya, ya we always had pets.
INTERVIEWER: Did you ever in Berlin see Jake the alligator? Have you heard of him? He was an alligator that used to live in Dr. Franklin’s drugstore window.
RUSSELL: Dr. Franklin’s?
INTERVIEWER: Ya.
RUSSELL: I don’t remember Dr. Franklin havin’ a drugstore.
INTERVIEWER: Ya, it was real, maybe back as early as 1900, 1905, that’s a little before you.
RUSSELL: That’s a little early for me.
INTERVIEWER: Ya, but a, that reminds me……….
RUSSELL: I remember Dr. Franklin.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
RUSSELL: I remember him but I don’t…….
INTERVIEWER: Whoa now, now this might have been his uncle that had the alligator at the drugstore, I’m not sure. But anyway that was a pet that reminded me about………..Okay, now you didn’t, there weren’t any big chicken growing sets, you know big chicken houses any……….they’re recent.
RUSSELL: No, that’s right.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
RUSSELL: A small house, on ‘bout 500 chickens.
INTERVIEWER: That’s a lot to take care of.
RUSSELL: It was then.
INTERVIEWER: Yes indeed, ‘cause you had to do it all by hand.
RUSSELL: That’s right. Yes indeed.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, well if you can think of anything else, I’m sure I’ll think of something else later.
RUSSELL: I thought of right much, some weren’t no good.
INTERVIEWER: That’s, that’s good, it’s surprising the number of things that you know. Just like the windmill and things like that. A hundred years from now people won’t know about it.
RUSSELL: I believe I told you ‘bout the Bowen farm out here. Bowen, they just sold here a few weeks ago……….
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
RUSSELL: And a, John Whalley, he want 2 men ?????? Marvin Tyndall and myself went, and he started asking questions. I could tell him all, ‘bout all of it that he wanted to know. He says I believe you did know. Of course I lived here might as well say all my life, and a, ‘course when I was a youngster I didn’t get out too much, but after I got a little older I got out.
INTERVIEWER: Did that. Did you ever go to Ocean City when you were young? Before you were married.
RUSSELL: Oh ya, ya, ya. We used to go every now and then.
INTERVIEWER: Did you go on the excursion train.
RUSSELL: I’ve been on the train.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, did that. Alright.
RUSSELL: Went over the old railroad bridge.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. Ya I’ve got some postcards of that, so I know where it is. I’ve got some pictures of that excursion train, too.
RUSSELL: Ya, ya I’ve been on that trip. Went right over there on that excursion train.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. I’ll bet I know what I’ll ask you, mosquitoes, were they as bad when you were growin’ up as they are now around here?
RUSSELL: No.
INTERVIEWER: Alright. I just, I just happened to think that, ‘cause you never hear anybody comment on, being bothered by them.
RUSSELL: They, we always had mosquitoes, but, the worse I can remember, one of the worst times, was about the time. ‘Bout the time I got married, and a, ’24, I thought mosquitoes about as bad then as I ever saw.
INTERVIEWER: I’ll be darned.
RUSSELL: And a, of course I’ve seen them bad a lot of times after that, but, but my wife’s father, he had, he lived up here where my daughter lives and he had some help work for him and a, lived on, and they grew tomatoes, and a one fall the mosquitoes was so bad they picked tomatoes with overcoats on ‘em, and they put on a straw hat over head and tie mosquito net ‘round there, ‘round their head to keep mosquitoes from eatin’ ‘em up.
INTERVIEWER: Now that’s bad.
RUSSELL: And then, and then later years they ditched these marshes, and then the mosquitoes, was nothing like as bad and now they let these ditches fill up and the mosquitoes have go right………..but the environmentalist won’t let ‘em do anything ‘bout it, they say.
INTERVIEWER: No they’d rather swat mosquitoes.
RUSSELL: Ya.
INTERVIEWER: Oh heavens. Now that reminded me of something else. Ohhh in your farming days around have there been locusts? You know every now, several years ago there was this big thing with locust and everything coming out, and grasshoppers and all that kind of things, were you bothered by them? To any great extent?
RUSSELL: When I was younger, when I, my younger days the insects wasn’t nothin’ compared to what they are today.
INTERVIEWER: Really?
RUSSELL: That’s right.
INTERVIEWER: Isn’t that something?
RUSSELL: You’d spray potatoes for potato bugs and that’s ‘bout all the sprayin’ you done.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
RUSSELL: Now they’d spray fruit trees a little bit, but not too much. But as far as the farmer, the ordinary farmer that’s, that’s the only bug they was bothered with, was potato bugs.
INTERVIEWER: I’ll be darned. Well that’s good to know.
RUSSELL: And we did that with a, with a hand spry, with a hand pump and a horse cart.
INTERVIEWER: Oh my dear, that was hard work.
RUSSELL: You better believe it was hard work.
INTERVIEWER: My, ‘cause I’ve used one of the, you know a hand pump. The kind you hand on your back and work it with, I’m done in after a while. I’ll be darned, okay. And were there any disease epidemics? Now I seem to remember something with typhoid……….
RUSSELL: Ya, ya………..
INTERVIEWER: That went through?
RUSSELL: It was more, there was more typhoid then than there is now.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
RUSSELL: Years ago I had a sister had typhoid fever when I was a youngster. Lord they kept here quarantined, in for months.
INTERVIEWER: For goodness sakes.
Russell; And a, a lot of people died with it too.
INTERVIEWER: Uhum. I think I, my mother had a sister who died from it. This would have been around, this would have been around 1915 or so, somewhere in there.
RUSSELL: Ya. But a, typhoid is very seldom, you hear tell ‘bout………..
INTERVIEWER: Right nobody has it. I guess because of the, have vaccinations for it now.
RUSSELL: Well they’re more particular with their foods and stuff like that. You get some contaminated food, give you the typhoid fever.
INTERVIEWER: Right, right. Did you have fresh fruits, I mean other than local? Was there any place around you could get oranges and things like that or were they a Christmas treat?
RUSSELL: They were more or less a Christmas treat.
INTERVIEWER: Christmas treat. Okay. That’s what I thought.
RUSSELL: I’ll never forget one time, there was an old fella used to go Snow Hill, he lived over in, he lived in the forest, you know, and he, he called everything “her”. Said one time that was a great sayin’ “with her”. He went in the American store and I guess, several years ago, he got a grapefruit, he didn’t know what a grapefruit was and he said he started home. He’d haul wood to Snow Hill, he started home, he got started home, he bit into that grapefruit, said “Boys, her ibg, but her sour”, he said. He thought he had an orange, you know, and he bit into that, said,” Her big, but her sour”.
INTERVIEWER: You know, but you know if you hadn’t seen one before……..
RUSSELL: I know he didn’t know no better.
INTERVIEWER: Right, I’ve done the same thing with some fruit, you know, a mango or something like that, that I’ve never seen. You know you look at it and think what do you do with the thing?
RUSSELL: My wife was a great one for tryin’ stuff like that. She’d try anything but I’m not that way. I know it’s good when I go to eat somethin’.
INTERVIEWER: You always let her try it first, see.
RUSSELL: I’ve seen her go to restaurants ‘fore and she’d order somethin’, she couldn’t even eat that, she’d try it, but I always ordered somethin’ I could eat, that I knew I could eat.
INTERVIEWER: That’s cute. Well I think we’ve just about finished. I have enjoyed it.
RUSSELL: I’ve enjoyed talkin’ to you.