Bunting, Annie G. (1897-1993)with comments from an unknown Man |
Copyright: Records are open for research. Copyright, including literary rights, belongs to the Worcester County Library. Permission to publish or reproduce must be obtained from the Worcester County Library which extends beyond “fair use”.
Worcester County Library: Local History and Genealogy Collection, Snow Hill Branch, Snow Hill, MD
|
Interviewee: |
Annie G Bunting (1897-1993) with comments from an unknown Man |
| Interviewer: | Katherine Fisher |
| Date of interview: |
1984 December 3 |
| Length of interview: | 1 hr and 24 min |
| Transcribed by: | Sylvia Hamilton, Worcester County Library |
| Preferred Citation: |
“Name, Oral History Collection, Date of Interview, Worcester County Library, Snow Hill Branch, Snow Hill, Maryland.” |
Topical Terms:
Great Depression
Local History
Ocean City (Md.)—History
Worcester County (Md.)—History
Worcester County (Md.)—Social life and customs
Worcester County (Md.)—Women’s History
World War I
World War II—Women—History
Location Terms:
Berlin (Md.)
Ocean City (Md.)
Interview Begins
INTERVIEWER: Ok, today is Monday December the 3rd.
ANNIE: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: And I am in Ocean City interviewing Annie Bunting. Mrs. Bunting what is your full name?
ANNIE: Annie Gilligan Bunting.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, you were a Gilligan before you were married?
ANNIE: I was a Spencer. Gilligan was my middle name.
INTERVIEWER: Gilligan was your middle name? Was it a family name?
ANNIE: No it was a friend of my mother’s. I was born next to the lighthouse.
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
ANNIE: And she and my mother were friends, she wanted me named for her.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: My mother put her name my middle name. My surname is Spencer.
INTERVIEWER: Ok your maiden name was Spencer, alright and you were born in Ocracoke?
ANNIE: Ocracoke Island.
INTERVIEWER: Ok, now what year did you come to Ocean City?
ANNIE: 1917
INTERVIEWER: Alright
ANNIE: March the 3rd
INTERVIEWER: You even remember the day?
ANNIE: Yes I do. I remember getting off the train.
INTERVIEWER: I was going to ask how you got here.
ANNIE: You had to come on the train.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: They had no bridge.
INTERVIEWER: Right
ANNIE: You either walked over the trestle.
INTERVIEWER: Yes
ANNIE: Took the chance or come on the train.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: You had to get the train in Berlin.
INTERVIEWER: Ok now did you come here from Ocracoke?
ANNIE: Yes
INTERVIEWER: That was a long trip wasn’t it?
ANNIE: Well right long but they.
INTERVIEWER: Did they have the ferry down in Cape Charles in Kiptopeke?
ANNIE: No, when I came the train ran on a big uh what do you call it a?
INTERVIEWER: Barge?
MAN: Barge
ANNIE: Barge and you come across a net and she hooked up with a locomotive in Cape Charles.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, I didn’t even now they did that.
ANNIE: Yes they did.
INTERVIEWER: Oh for goodness sake! Alright so you really did come by train from Ocracoke.
ANNIE: Yep
INTERVIEWER: The whole way alright and have you been to Ocean City before?
ANNIE: No I had a brother who lived here. Tom
INTERVIEWER: Alright, ok did you live with him?
ANNIE: Yes, over the apartment over the old um Dennis (unintelligible) camp.
INTERVIEWER: Ok right on Dorchester Street right on the corner of Dorchester and Baltimore.
ANNIE: On Baltimore
INTERVIEWER: Ok, what did your brother do here?
ANNIE: Well he fished but at that time he was a policeman.
INTERVIEWER: Oh he was?
ANNIE: He was the only policeman in Ocean City, they only had the one.
INTERVIEWER: Oh ok and so he was Tom.
ANNIE: Spencer
INTERVIEWER: Tom Spencer, ok um now when you said he had fished or he was still fishing?
ANNIE: Yes well they had the fish pounds at that day in time.
INTERVIEWER: Alright. What do you remember about them?
ANNIE: Well
INTERVIEWER: How did they operate?
ANNIE: They were uh put they were all right about off the pier.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: About a mile
INTERVIEWER: That far out in the ocean.
ANNIE: Yes and they had the horses to pull the boats out and put them to edge of the water with rollers under the boat then they connected the horses from the boat and then they all the crew jumped in the boat and rode out to the nets and fished and when they came back the boat met them and the boys as the sea would take them up the rollers and roll them back up the beach.
INTERVIEWER: Ok now.
ANNIE: There is one laying out there right now?
INTERVIEWER: Oh is that right?
ANNIE: One of those row, old boats, I think it belonged to old man Tom Elliot.
MAN: (unintelligible) the Davis and Lynch Fish Company
Annie: Huh?
MAN: The Davis and Lynch Fish Company.
ANNIE: Right in front of the Davis and Lynch Fish Company.
INTERVIEWER: oh ok
MAN: (unintelligible conversation)
INTERVIEWER: Yes there is.
ANNIE: Those were the boats they used no motors.
INTERVIEWER: Right just all rowing
ANNIE: All rowing.
INTERVIEWER: Ok what um the people who that worked at the fish camps.
ANNIE: Stayed at the fish camps.
INTERVIEWER: Ok that is what I was going to ask you.
ANNIE: They had quarters and they had a cook.
INTERVIEWER: They did?
ANNIE: They ate and slept right at the camps.
INTERVIEWER: Ok did many of them have their families with them?
ANNIE: No they were all men, they were just alone.
INTERVIEWER: Ok um do you know how much they were paid or how much wages they got?
ANNIE: I think they got about $30.00 a month.
INTERVIEWER: A month?
ANNIE: About 30 a month and their food.
INTERVIEWER: I was going to day.
ANNIE: And their lodging.
INTERVIEWER: Ok so that was for spending money.
ANNIE: Yes
INTERVIEWER: That they would have.
ANNIE: Yes
INTERVIEWER: Where did a lot of these people from the fish camps come from? Did a lot come from Ocracoke?
ANNIE: Most of them from down south.
INTERVIEWER: Would they? And came up here to operate it?
ANNIE: Yes well there was no industry down there at that time.
INTERVIEWER: Alright
ANNIE: And as the boys grew up maybe about 18 or 19, they wanted it for surfing and on the island there was nothing but just people and uh they would uh of course it was almost a contract every year that same group of boys would come for Thomas and Mumford and old man Lugman.
INTERVIEWER: Charlie
ANNIE: Yes, Charlie Lugman and he would meet Thomas. He was with Mr. Mumford and uh
Man with Annie: Mr. Hagan
ANNIE: And uh, Yeah Hagan.
INTERVIEWER: Mr. Hagan, ok.
ANNIE: And now let’s see and then later well maybe 10 years later Clifford Cropper. It was Clifford and Lyle. Clifford Cropper and Lyle Cropper, they had a fish camp.
INTERVIEWER: Ok I’ll be darn so it was a seasonal operation?
ANNIE: Yes seasonal.
INTERVIEWER: I hadn’t thought of that before.
ANNIE: They went to work in March and then they closed the camp in November on the 1st of November because of the fish.
INTERVIEWER: They weren’t running. Ok, they caught pretty much the same as what they catch now?
ANNIE: They had a train. They had a shed for the train. About, I’d say it was about a mile long and the train would back in then there and they load the fish in barrels and top them off the with ice of course they iced them and then put that uh I call it a grass bag but it has a different name.
INTERVIEWER: Burlap
ANNIE: Burlap and then the freight train would take them out to (unintelligible) and they didn’t have trucks they put them on the boat that comes from Baltimore, Light Street to (unintelligible) and they’d go into (unintelligible) in Baltimore.
INTERVIEWER: Now was Davis and Lynch in operation at that time?
ANNIE: Yes Davis and Lynch.
INTERVIEWER: (unintelligible) they didn’t have a fish camp or did they?
ANNIE: Yes they did. Every fish group, there was about well Thomas and Mumford and Clifford and Lyle and Hagan and oh what was the other one I said? Yes Thomas and Mumford, and they would all, they each had their own private places and they had a private cook for each camp and sleeping quarters for each camp.
INTERVIEWER: Ok and when they loaded their fish on the train it would be each separate?
ANNIE: Each separate
INTERVIEWER: Like transactions?
ANNIE: Yes, It weren’t like a boxcar it was like a gondola car.
INTERVIEWER: Oh ok and the barrels were up stacked on it?
ANNIE: Stacked up on it, uh-huh.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: And they’d get them by the barrel you never saw so many fish.
INTERVIEWER: Isn’t that something, what kind would they catch?
ANNIE: Every kind
INTERVIEWER: How about sturgeon? Did they catch that?
ANNIE: They caught sturgeons but they were a separate group.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, I didn’t know that.
ANNIE: Now the sturgeons uh they were like (unintelligible)
MAN: They had different fisherman for that (unintelligible conversation).
ANNIE: Maybe two men, maybe two men just went out especially for sturgeon.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, they needed a different net to catch (unintelligible)?
ANNIE: Yes
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: That was uh they lived next door to Ellen Lynch, what was his name? Mr.
INTERVIEWER: Mr. Parker?
ANNIE: Mr. Parker
INTERVIEWER: Oh my! Ok
ANNIE: And who was with Mr. Parker?
MAN: It was Charlie Parker and uh
ANNIE: His brother
MAN: Yeah
INTERVIEWER: I remember Henry but that must have been his son.
ANNIE: Henry was Charlie’s was uh.
MAN: Henry was Charlie Parker’s son.
INTERVIEWER: Ok was Charlie Parker’s son?
INTERVIEWER: No the other Mr. Parker’s son.
ANNIE: Yes because he had a son and a daughter (unintelligible) was the daughter who was the school teacher. She died of leukemia her first year in school, teaching.
MAN: Her grandpa did that for years, where the restaurant is now was his cleaning shed in uh when we were kids he’d make us sit in there rub salt in the caviar (unintelligible conversation).
INTERVIEWER: Really?
ANNIE: Yeah fishing industry was always in Ocean City you couldn’t then they had a place in New Jersey like it.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
MAN: *unintelligible conversation”
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: That was caviar
INTERVIEWER: Now was there a good market for that?
ANNIE: Yes indeed.
MAN: A good market, good money
INTERVIEWER: Alright, now the technique for fishing for sturgeon, was it much more difficult than the other kind?
ANNIE: No
MAN: Well yes the other kind were nets (unintelligible) they would float.
INTERVIEWER: Oh
MAN: The best sturgeon grounds south of the Delaware Bay it was right off in front of the old inlet. What do you call it?
INTERVIEWER: Sinepuxent Inlet
MAN: Right
INTERVIEWER: Ok that one down there?
MAN: That was the best ground and still is today you can still see sturgeon in the spring jumping.
INTERVIEWER: Can you really?
MAN: Yeah
INTERVIEWER: I didn’t know that. Now how far out did you go out for sturgeon?
MAN: About a mile a mile and half.
INTERVIEWER: Still go about a mile a mile and half out
MAN: On the shores out there.
INTERVIEWER: Alright right out there, that is neat.
ANNIE: (unintelligible conversation)
INTERVIEWER: It was
ANNIE: Berlin had no industry. They did have a flour mill but not very good.
INTERVIEWER: Right
ANNIE: (unintelligible conversation)
INTERVIEWER: Alright now when you came here it was 1917 you were living with your brother.
ANNIE: Yep
INTERVIEWER: What did you do?
ANNIE: I worked for Tom and Katy, Taylor.
INTERVIEWER: Alright Katherine Taylor and Tom Taylor and Katherine Taylor at the (unintelligible). What did you do?
ANNIE: Clean bedrooms
INTERVIEWER: Alight, now tell me something so we’ll have it on tape about an operation of the hotel in 1917.
ANNIE: Well they had a dining room. They fed their people and they had a lovely porch with rocking chairs and you could come in with a family and stay a week for 18 or $20.00.
INTERVIEWER: For the whole family?
ANNIE: Yeah
INTERVIEWER: And that would include?
ANNIE: 3 meals a day
INTERVIEWER: Oh goodness!
ANNIE: And they fed you good too.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: Yes they did.
INTERVIEWER: Ok you don’t remember who one of the cooks was do you?
ANNIE: They had one colored woman but Katy did most of it.
INTERVIEWER: Ok she did?
ANNIE: Yes she did.
INTERVIEWER: Ok I was wondering. Now was the colored woman name by any chance Annie Armstrong?
ANNIE: Something like that, I don’t quite remember but I think it was.
INTERVIEWER: I think so because I’m supposed to go interview her tomorrow.
ANNIE: (unintelligible)
INTERVIEWER: Yes she is still alive.
ANNIE: Is she? She must be 90.
INTERVIEWER: Yes she is. She is 93 or 94. She lives in Whaleyville.
ANNIE: Yes
INTERVIEWER: With one of her grandsons, I just found this out last week.
ANNIE: Yes
INTERVIEWER: So that’ll be interesting to talk to her too.
ANNIE: Yes
INTERVIEWER: Ok now in 1917 what were the two biggest hotels here in town?
ANNIE: (unintelligible) and The Atlantic.
INTERVIEWER: Ok, was there rivalry between them?
ANNIE: No everybody got along fine.
INTERVIEWER: That’s good!
ANNIE: Because everybody was filled.
INTERVIEWER: Alright
ANNIE: Everybody was filled, Katy had all she wanted. Ms. Dennis had all she wanted and they all served meals.
INTERVIEWER: And they all served meals.
ANNIE: Yep and then the old uh what’s the hotel Vern down here next to the power plant?
INTERVIEWER: Seaside?
ANNIE: Yes ole Seaside.
MAN:(unintelligible) The Congress Hall was on down farther.
ANNIE: Oh yes the Congress Hall was more of a private sort of home but it was a hotel.
INTERVIEWER: Oh ok.
ANNIE: The Congress Hotel is right where the (unintelligible) is new.
INTERVIEWER: The Inlet village?
ANNIE: Yes Inlet Village.
INTERVIEWER: Oh right there?
ANNIE: Right there, yep.
INTERVIEWER: Ok now I think of things every now and then. You have to have time to think. Ok um, was there a school here in Ocean City?
ANNIE: Yes uh there was a little house at the 3rd of where the (unintelligible) is now on.
INTERVIEWER: Caroline?
ANNIE: Yes Caroline
INTERVIEWER: On Caroline Street
ANNIE: And that held about just about 18 17 or 18 kids.
INTERVIEWER: Alright
ANNIE: That was about all was here.
INTERVIEWER: Oh ok that’s it so that school was there?
ANNIE: Now later what is now known as the City Hall was a summer school for teachers.
INTERVIEWER: Ok, ok
ANNIE: It was right down 3rd street right where it is now.
INTERVIEWER: Where it is now. Was it the same brick building?
ANNIE: Yes the same thing.
INTERVIEWER: Ok now that wasn’t known as the Dominican?
ANNIE: No that was about uh
MAN: 15th street
ANNIE: 15th street that’s what they call the Dominican College for the brothers the priests.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, it was connected to the Catholic Church?
ANNIE: Yes and the boys would come for I guess a rest that’s what they called it and stay in there for about four or five weeks.
INTERVIEWER: Oh ok
ANNIE: And they had a sailboat and they would sail up and down when they weren’t studying, they sail up and down the bay and I learned to know by going past the house and if they tore their flag or they tore their sail, they brought it to me to fix.
INTERVIEWER: You knew how to do that?
ANNIE: Oh I’ve sewn (unintelligible)
INTERVIEWER: And stitch right up?
ANNIE: Yeah!
INTERVIEWER: Oh that’s neat. At 15th street that was way out.
ANNIE: That was it. The end that was the end.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
MAN: It’s the (unintelligible)
ANNIE: It is now known as the (unintelligible).
INTERVIEWER: Alright, and it’s in the same location?
MAN: No it’s been moved out farther.
INTERVIEWER: That’s what I wondered, farther South or farther West?
MAN: Farther East
INTERVIEWER: Farther East Ok
MAN: There’s a real big (unintelligible) behind there and they had their water pumping station back there like a little lighthouse and a little shed beside it for their equipment for their little boats.
INTERVIEWER: Oh ok.
ANNIE: The next town a port was Katy Jenkins and (unintelligible).
INTERVIEWER: Yes and they’re the ones that moved it?
MAN: (unintelligible)
INTERVIEWER: Ok so they’re the ones who had it moved? Ok into the (unintelligible). For goodness sake! Alright yeah you mentioned sailboats.
ANNIE: That’s all there was.
INTERVIEWER: That’s what I was going to ask?
ANNIE: Fresh water we didn’t have salt water here because there was no unit closer than Chincoteague.
INTERVIEWER: Oh
ANNIE: It was all fresh water.
INTERVIEWER: Then in the 1920’s then the Sinepuxent it was closed?
MAN: uh – huh
INTERVIEWER: I didn’t know that. I was picturing that inlet as still being accessible.
ANNIE: No
INTERVIEWER: And the closest one was Chincoteague?
ANNIE: Chincoteague and the water was fresh more fresh water.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: And there were nets and fish and there was only about 18 or 20 inches of water all over the bay.
INTERVIEWER: Oh my goodness!
ANNIE: It’s not like it is now. No
INTERVIEWER: Oh I didn’t realize that.
ANNIE: My father in law was the first man had a marina on what is known uh as?
MAN: Somerset Street
ANNIE: Somerset Street
INTERVIEWER: Alright I know where that is.
ANNIE: Then he moved here to the White Marlan and (unintelligible). He stayed there till he died.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: And left it to the boys
INTERVIEWER: Alright now, so we can have it on record, who was your father in law?
ANNIE: (unintelligible)J. Bunting Sr.
INTERVIEWER: So then your husband was?
ANNIE: (unintelligible)J. Bunting Jr.
INTERVIEWER: Ok now while we are talking about it, how did you meet your husband?
ANNIE: Well he was in the Coast Guard and the war was on.
INTERVIEWER: Was it WWI?
ANNIE: WWI and I met him through who later who would become my Sister-in- law Lily. Lily Taylor and uh and then we got married and lived with his sister about almost a year and then we moved down town in that house over there.
INTERVIEWER: Ok on the corner of Baltimore (unintelligible)
ANNIE: Baltimore and the train passed right through to Delaware.
INTERVIEWER: It did didn’t it?
ANNIE: Yes there is the depot. The depot is over there. The depot is a half a block.
MAN: It moved.
INTERVIEWER: Yes that what I was thinking, it was there.
ANNIE: Yes they moved it (unintelligible) moved it up there.
INTERVIEWER: Ok uh did you get married in a church or just in a private ceremony?
ANNIE: No it was a private ceremony nobody because there was nobody much. Mr. Riddle was the minister here in the Presbyterian Church.
INTERVIEWER: Alright
ANNIE: Reverend Riddle.
INTERVIEWER: Now that’s not any connection to the Riddle Farm?
ANNIE: No, no.
INTERVIEWER: So that’s different?
ANNIE: No
INTERVIEWER: Ok now so we’ll skip around, so tell me about the churches, the Presbyterian Church was here?
ANNIE: The Presbyterian Church is what is known as is a Baptist Church.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, on the corner of North Division and Baltimore.
ANNIE: Yes and the Methodist, I believe they had a small Methodist church.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: They rebuilt it now, the Methodist Church.
INTERVIEWER: Alright
ANNIE: And the Catholic Church is right where it is now one Catholic Church here.
INTERVIEWER: Ok just the one?
ANNIE: uh-huh Star of the City.
INTERVIEWER: Right on Talbot and Baltimore. Was the Episcopal Church here yet?
ANNIE: Yes the Episcopal Church was here.
INTERVIEWER: In the same location?
ANNIE: In the same location.
INTERVIEWER: That would be 3rd and Baltimore? Were there, was there a colored church for black people?
ANNIE: No, yes there was a colored church at the, what is this street?
MAN: Somerset
ANNIE: Somerset
INTERVIEWER: Ok so that was there, was there a colored school?
ANNIE: No, no colored school.
INTERVIEWER: Alright Ok, when you worked, going back to when you were working at the Merview uh you had a colored cook there, were there other blacks that were employed?
ANNIE: No, no
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: Very few blacks over here.
INTERVIEWER: Alright that what I was wondering and if they came it was just to for the summer to work? (unintelligible conversation)
ANNIE: Well there were natives that lived on the west side.
INTERVIEWER: Ok on the other side
ANNIE: Ok there was a hotel what they called a hotel down town it’s far down.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, next to the water slide?
ANNIE: Yes and it was for the people who were uh dropped their cars which were very few but they wanted to have a chauffeur.
INTERVIEWER: Oh ok
ANNIE: The wealthy people who brought their chauffeurs and uh they would have a little cottage somewhere, they wanted uh (unintelligible) to have a place to stay.
INTERVIEWER: What was the name of that hotel? Do you remember? I can’t.
ANNIE: No and there was one in back near here, Katy Robbins.
INTERVIEWER: Ok had it.
ANNIE: Now that one down there, I don’t know the name of the people who owned it.
MAN: I can’t think of it.
INTERVIEWER: I can’t either. I’ll think of it later because I can remember it.
MAN: (Laughs)
ANNIE: Yes you can remember it. Katy Robbins lived right in back here where now uh Bill (unintelligible) owns the lot and has apartment houses.
INTERVIEWER: Ok again that’s on Somerset, between Baltimore and Philadelphia.
ANNIE: uh-huh non on the corner.
INTERVIEWER: Oh between Philadelphia and St Louis that was another place for blacks who weren’t employed here to stay.
ANNIE: Yeah
INTERVIEWER: Ok if blacks were working at the Atlantic Hotel and the (unintelligible) there were quarters at those hotels for them?
ANNIE: Uh yes I think they had like a basement quarter.
INTERVIEWER: Oh ok, they did that. Ok you said your husband had a marina.
ANNIE: My brother-in-law.
INTERVIEWER: Your brother-in-law had a marina. Ok, did he rent sailboats?
ANNIE: Yes that’s all he had.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, that’s all they had.
ANNIE: That’s all they had.
INTERVIEWER: And that was big business?
ANNIE: Oh yes.
MAN: And rowboats
INTERVIEWER: Ok and rowboats.
ANNIE: Yes
INTERVIEWER: Alright now if there was fresh water back here that meant there weren’t any clams or oysters?
ANNIE: No, no clams or oysters.
INTERVIEWER: Ok oh.
MAN: The oysters were brought in (unintelligible)
ANNIE: And brought down (unintelligible) Chincoteague.
INTERVIEWER: Oh ok
MAN: The water was too fresh (unintelligible).
INTERVIEWER: Ok too fresh for it ok, but know I remember seeing some old postcards showing the western side of the it was actually the first car bridge the one that was built in 16.
ANNIE: Yes
INTERVIEWER: Showing real big piles of oyster shells.
ANNIE: And do you know who Paymaster was on that ole bridge?
INTERVIEWER: No
ANNIE: Earl
INTERVIEWER: No he was the paymaster of the 44 the bridge that was built in 41, this bridge.
ANNIE: Yeah
INTERVIEWER: Yeah he was that but there was another car bridge that was built in about 1916 or 17 or so there was one before this one.
ANNIE: Yeah, that was down?
INTERVIEWER: What street was that?
ANNIE: What was that street called? We used to call it Blood Street.
MAN: No we call it Sub Division, don’t we?
ANNIE: Sub Division
INTERVIEWER: Yeah I think that’s right because it was south of the Railroad Bridge right? Or was it?
MAN: North of it.
INTERVIEWER: I mean north of the railroad bridge ok. Why did you call it Blood Street?
MAN: (Laughs)
ANNIE: Well all the Roughnecks hung out around out there. I think that’s why. I couldn’t guarantee it.
INTERVIEWER: Ok, so there is a reason for something like that.
ANNIE: Yeah because the Roughneck hung out, they were people that came in here not people that lived here. All the people who lived here was in the Coast Guard or the train or worked on the train, it was mostly.
INTERVIEWER: Ok and uh Mr. Bunting said there was a bar down on Blood Street which would have attributed to that.
ANNIE: Yeah
INTERVIEWER: Alright let me ask you at the Merview or the Atlantic or (unintelligible) were there alcoholic beverages sold?
ANNIE: No indeed there wasn’t any alcoholic beverages sold in this town till oh I don’t I guess in the 40’s.
INTERVIEWER: Oh for goodness sakes, now was there some bootlegging going on.
ANNIE: Yes because my (unintelligible) opened the first liquor store for the county.
INTERVIEWER: He did?
ANNIE: He did it for 32 yrs. and the guard.
INTERVIEWER: Well was in in the?
ANNIE: Right there?
INTERVIEWER: Alright on, ok between Dorchester and Talbot.
ANNIE: Yes
INTERVIEWER: On Philadelphia Avenue and so that was the first county liquor store.
ANNIE: Yes and (unintelligible) for 32 yrs.
MAN: Back in those times, there wasn’t any whiskey they ordered it.
ANNIE: Somebody would go off the island, you were allowed in 18 or 19 when the flu outbreak was on. You were allowed a gallon a month and it had to be signed for it would be hard yeah and beer you just didn’t have.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, ok now I remember seeing and you might not have been here at that time a picture of some Rum runners who were caught up on the beach.
ANNIE: Was I here?
INTERVIEWER: Were you here? (Laughs)
ANNIE: My husband helped catch them?
INTERVIEWER: He did, can you tell me about that because I’ve got a great photograph of it but I don’t know what happened.
ANNIE: Well they come (unintelligible) in town here and mingled with the people. People were friendly and it was a little different then than it’s now and they played cards and like that around stores at night and asked different ones if they wanted some work there was no work and they said yes. So they took the job and they said meet them at a certain place I think it was on down here where uh between the boardwalk and (unintelligible).
MAN: It was the old Flynn building we called it across from the Atlantic Hotel.
ANNIE: Yeah Ms. Flynn lived there and on a certain night they told them to meet them half of Ocean City’s young men they were down and out and they needed work and they went on down because there’s no inlet they went on down I guess about a mile below where the inlet is now and this constable I can’t remember what his name was to Berlin.
MAN: Al Peters
ANNIE: Al Peters was going down the beach to hunt and he saw all these glass bags all heaped up and all these groups of men so the Coast Guard kept a line running from each station so he put in dime and he called the Coast Guard and said he better come down here there’s being a load of whiskey or something loaded here at this spot. So then he drove on and then they took their equipment, guns they had one truck and they went down there and they caught them all and it was some of the big businessmen in Ocean City and they stayed right in that firehouse three months. They would take them home and let them take a bath and get their clothes changed.
MAN: And some of the farmers too!
ANNIE: Yes old man John Smith. Do you remember him?
INTERVIEWER: Yes
ANNIE: Well he had his mule and uh cart and he was hauling it across and putting it in a truck that was on the road and the name on the truck was a name of some (unintelligible) in Chester, Pennsylvania but there were no such a thing. It was just a fake and they caught them all. When they out well after they got out they couldn’t let them leave because these gangsters, we called them, had guns and said you don’t leave.
Tape suddenly stops then starts again.
INTERVIEWER: Walked the beach right?
MAN: Right, foot patrol
INTERVIEWER: Ok, foot patrol and you went five miles north and five miles south of your respective stations.
MAN: Right
INTERVIEWER: Ok what procedures were used to make sure you walked where you were supposed to when you were supposed to?
ANNIE: The clock told it.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
MAN: You had a clock and two checks to carry with you with numbers and you had a box on a patrol line and you put your checks in there if you were a little ahead of the other fellas.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
MAN: You were supposed to bring his checks back to him sometimes you had to wait around.
INTERVIEWER: Ok in case he wasn’t there yet.
MAN: Yeah and the key you hit the clock with the dial on the clock had a number.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
MAN: And when you came in that number showed on that dial.
INTERVIEWER: OK
MAN: The minute you were there and then the other clock was the same way for the other fella.
INTERVIEWER: So they would keep track of where you were.
ANNIE: In the day time, if it was foggy too.
INTERVIEWER: Oh you did it during the day too?
ANNIE: Yes
MAN: It was foggy or snow you had to walk that same patrol, the watch was the 4 o’clock to 8 o’clock in the evening was known as the dog watch. One man would go in the tower and he had to hold that tower until the patrol man started at 8 o’clock then he would take his clock we called the (unintelligible) patrol. Then the other patrol man (unintelligible conversation).
ANNIE: Is that the garbage man?
MAN: Yeah every two hours you were manning the tower with relieve.
INTERVIEWER: Oh
MAN: He had to take his patrol then.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
MAN: Then you would call the other man (unintelligible conversation) the 12 o’clock watch. *unintelligible conversation a lot of background noise*.
INTERVIEWER: That was very closely monitored wasn’t it?
MAN: Oh yeah
ANNIE: Oh yes
INTERVIEWER: Yes indeed. Now during WWI aside from Coast Guard patrol that I’m sure they were especially active. Were there sightings of ships off the coast here?
ANNIE: Oh yes
MAN: The were torpedo (unintelligible)
ANNIE: We had a boat that torpedoed off here.
INTERVIEWER: You did?
ANNIE: With veterans on it.
MAN: See what they don’t realize (unintelligible). The Delaware Bay is just 18 miles to the north of us the ships are traveling from overseas it’s coming right at you going into the Delaware Bay.
INTERVIEWER: Oh alright, that is right and that would be a prime entry point.
MAN: That’s right
INTERVIEWER: For a ship trying to break into our defense lines.
ANNIE: These boys didn’t have any engines.
MAN: (unintelligible) then Rehoboth were being torpedoed and what have you.
INTERVIEWER: Oh my goodness!
MAN: *unintelligible conversation because of background noise*
And he was a rifle instructor teaching the younger fellas how to *unintelligible conversation because of loud background noise*
At each station they had a firing range, that’s where I learned my rifle experience there wasn’t boot camps at that time.
INTERVIEWER: Ok so you did it locally and handled it out of each station.
MAN: Yeah every station transferred so many men up to the rifle range.
INTERVIEWER: Ok, off in North Ocean City, well it’s not in North Ocean City it’s you know those watch towers that are on the beach?
ANNIE: Yes
INTERVIEWER: Were they for WWII?
ANNIE: I, Yeah II
INTERVIEWER: World War II, Ok
ANNIE: They tore them all down.
MAN: Yeah they were observation towers.
INTERVIEWER: Alright they were. Ok now did you as a woman during WWI here in town did you have any extra responsibilities or anything?
ANNIE: I was a spotter.
MAN: In WWI now.
INTERVIEWER: WWI?
ANNIE: No WWII
INTERVIEWER: Ok now go back to WWI then we’ll go up to WWII during WWI was there anything in particular you did?
ANNIE: No nothing everybody stayed in tended to their own business you didn’t what was going to happen next.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: No radios, my father-in law was the only one who had one it was called A Super(unintelligible) them little ole radios they had and he was the only man on the beach who had one over there.
INTERVIEWER: Oh my goodness. (unintelligible conversation)
ANNIE: We would get the news from Atlantic City.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: And that was it. Amos and Andy and then a little bit of something else then we would get the news.
MAN: You had the news (unintelligible)
INTERVIEWER: Ok
MAN: They were two commentators then you had it that was it. (Laughs)
INTERVIEWER: That was it. Now during WWII you were a spotter?
ANNIE: Yes
INTERVIEWER: What did you do as a spotter?
ANNIE: Well we had a little house with a walk all the way around.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: A stove and a phone and a ledger.
INTERVIEWER: Ok, where was this?
ANNIE: It was up well uh just where the carousel is wasn’t it?
MAN: No that would above the (unintelligible) station where the carousel is now. You were between uh
ANNIE: It was all bushes and brambles and you didn’t know where you were you just went.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
MAN: You were at 25th street.
ANNIE: Yes you didn’t have a light. You couldn’t have a light on a car.
INTERVIEWER: Oh you couldn’t could you?
ANNIE: No
MAN: Everything was black.
ANNIE: You couldn’t have a light on a car. You couldn’t have a light so when you went to print your ledger instead your stuff in your ledger you had a flashlight light you held it there. You wrote down your report on the ledger.
INTERVIEWER: And you used blackout curtains and things in your house and everything?
ANNIE: You put your lights out on your gas stove.
INTERVIEWER: Oh even that little?
ANNIE: Oh yes a lot people would use black curtains but I didn’t. No you didn’t have no light.
INTERVIEWER: And you would run regular shifts as a spotter?
ANNIE: Yes you took shifts sometimes you take somebody else’s if you had time. I didn’t have any time. I had more time than I needed because all my folks were in the service. It was just me and my dog.
INTERVIEWER: Well then you did have time to do it?
ANNIE: I would go somebody Annie Krilling, Ms. Sacker, Estelle Powell and like that we would go every night. We went every night and these Army were stationed in here.
INTERVIEWER: They were?
ANNIE: They were brought in here 4’ o’clock every afternoon and stay late till the next night.
INTERVIEWER: I didn’t know that.
ANNIE: They slept in a church in Berlin in the Methodist church.
INTERVIEWER: Oh ok
ANNIE: Yes and they ate out of the Forman’s kitchen. They’d cook it the food and pass it them out the window. They couldn’t come in because it was a small place.
INTERVIEWER: Alright oh ok, how long were they stationed here?
ANNIE: For years, the duration of the war but not the same group of men. They were transferred. Everybody in the United States knows me (laughs) they’d come from Tennessee or Kentucky a lot of these people would come down here and wanted to know they were here didn’t they? And there is a boy and a girl still living and married and they live in Florida and they stopped last summer to see me. His name is Bud Shoot and he was I believe he was lieutenant and uh Betty was here with her father and mother and these boys were from all over the United States.
INTERVIEWER: Well ok
ANNIE: Now the ones across the inlet, the inlet had been cut then and they didn’t get anything like that but we cooked something every night and carried and if it was freezing they would come in and eight in the morning and they didn’t pick them up till four it would be dark and they had so many positions and they had a sergeant riding in a truck checking them.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, making sure they were there.
ANNIE: Were there
INTERVIEWER: Where they’re supposed to be.
ANNIE: And we would come, chicken, Ms. Connor and Ms. (unintelligible) we’d make chicken, (unintelligible) biscuits and beans and carrots and open the back of the car and carry all we could carry and we got them a cup each because we knew about how many posts we had and uh a spoon we even, which was out of order, got them some candles to see, they had to pour the coffee and (unintelligible) each and then they slept with the candles in the ground.
INTERVIEWER: Right, right. Well they might have been on patrol but they had nice food didn’t they?
ANNIE: Well they were scared to death some of these boys (unintelligible) and some men were married and had families back home. I got uh a privet, is what they used to call them (unintelligible) and a bowl and spoon I had it ready. One went in and ate his stuff while the other walked he only had a distance of a cartwheel all around he couldn’t go no further because the sergeant was driving up over the sand hills and watching them. Billy Bounds gave me a cute little house, the pattern house, the Atkins Company had built and I put it up there and it got burned down. We went down one night and they were down and out and they were going to get some pay dock for that house and I said who said so. He said it’s wrote up on bulletin board and I said well you aren’t going to get paid for it so I went to Billy Bounds and he said forget it and I said they aren’t going to do anything Billy don’t you bother but they didn’t do anything either but my name was written on the bulletin board. When he called, we knew right where each station was and they said who comes there and we said Ms. Bunting so they said come in. It didn’t make no difference I weren’t with them that was the password.
INTERVIEWER: Ok gosh well did they ever see anything?
ANNIE: Oh yes the blimp was off here all the time.
INTERVIEWER: Now this is our blimp?
ANNIE: Our blimp
INTERVIEWER: For sighting things?
ANNIE: Yes right in (unintelligible) that’s why we after, the planes were over but we didn’t have (unintelligible) and I’ll never forget the password it was (unintelligible) as soon as you picked up the phone that’s what you said right into Philadelphia it was underground and you just said east one mile south, she’s coming out of the east going south that was the password. We didn’t say she’s coming out of the east and going south of course there was no German planes it was mostly our planes but we didn’t know that and they didn’t know that and they kept that up for three years.
INTERVIEWER: For goodness sake.
ANNIE: I have one in the museum. Have you seen it?
INTERVIEWER: One of the log books?
ANNIE: No it’s a record about that big plane (unintelligible)First Command, First Air Command New York City (unintelligible) for hours you spent.
INTERVIEWER: Oh well for goodness sake.
ANNIE: There had to be at least three more because Annie (unintelligible) had one (unintelligible) Gibbs had one and I guess there was just two. Annie and mine because everyone else is dead. We put in more time than anyone since being all our husbands were all Coast Guards and we could do that much and it was cold up there too, we burned coal night and day we were there night and day. Daytime you didn’t stop either no.
INTERVIEWER: Let’s move back to WWI, I want to go back. When you came back from 1917 let’s say 17 to 25 or so, what did you do for entertainment here in Ocean City.
ANNIE: Nothing
INTERVIEWER: Nothing? (Laughs)
ANNIE: Nothing, you read a newspaper or a book or you had to go to bed and try to get it off your mind. You’d wonder if we woke up the next morning the war would be over.
INTERVIEWER: Ok so that was really (unintelligible) here.
ANNIE: At 8:00 there was nobody on the streets or nothing. No lights anyway and nothing. It only took two policeman, one or two policeman in this whole place and they just sat in there and talked.
INTERVIEWER: (laughs) so if something happened someone would tell them.
ANNIE: Yeah, now in WWI the Sesha was sunk off between here and Lewis with a load of soldiers and the boats no motor boats but everybody had a boat took them off the beach with the horses like they do at the fish camps and they went in search of them they got a SOS from Lewis was the main office and they brought in about thirty and assembled the jail then it was and I got out of my bed and slept two boys in my bed some went down and slept where anybody had a room or any place they could stay and the Coast Guard always kept a chest of clothes anybody would give them clothes they kept it and they’d get fed. I gave them beds, underwear and we went down here it burned down the old uh.
MAN: (unintelligible)
ANNIE: No across the street from the attic (unintelligible)and made soup and fed them.
INTERVIEWER: For goodness sakes
ANNIE: And then the cutter, she got the message she steamed in and she carried about thirty into Lewis.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: Some of them needed hospitalization. They were on what you call a catamaran. It was like a boat (unintelligible)all could get on it.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: Yeah I have a picture of one of them nice looking boy. And the last that they brought in there was fourteen and they were all shot up dead there was thirty some in two boats. They towed them here where they built that new condominium and some was beaten some was wrapped in blankets one thing or another anything they could grab and in uh WWII they got SOS and they went out about sunset and they searched all night and they found fourteen and one was (unintelligible) cook who cooked for her in the summer this was in April just a day or two before the war ended and they were all shot up dead. My deal took the army over here to the ice plant ice them up like you would fish and they took them to Norfolk for identification and the blood was running out of them.
INTERVIEWER: My dear that must have been horrible.
ANNIE: Yep and they said, you didn’t even know where the war was. The war didn’t go Ocean City.
INTERVIEWER: Well that is as close as you wanted it to come.
ANNIE: Well it was little bit too close. We didn’t know if our boys would come back or not. We stayed in the inlet all night long sitting in a car waiting to see if they were coming in and when the sun come up the next morning we could see way off there coming in it was a coal car they had sunk and it was a crew of course some of them didn’t make it but it was fourteen of them.
INTERVIEWER: Ok that was WWII? Thirty in WWI. OK, My dear.
ANNIE: And they said the war didn’t bother us. They weren’t here to find out. (Laughs)
MAN: There are some trenches dug up back of a uh the Elliot Farm there (unintelligible).
ANNIE: Huh?
MAN: Over back of the pond there are trenches still dug up back in there.
INTERVIEWER: Yeah
MAN: Trenches (unintelligible)
INTERVIEWER: Well you know I’ve been back there Sally Bounds and I doing things you used to do and I never knew why those depressions were there.
MAN: Those were trenches
INTERVIEWER: That was trenches from WWII.
MAN: Right
ANNIE: They had them at the end of Baltimore too.
MAN: On Captain’s Hill we had one of those observation towers like the ones you’ve seen at the beach that’s what that was before those houses are.
INTERVIEWER: I didn’t know that either. Well I guess this really was (unintelligible conversation).
ANNIE: They had them under the boardwalk. Yes.
INTERVIEWER: (unintelligible conversation)
ANNIE: They had the machine guns nestled under the boardwalk.
INTERVIEWER: They did?
ANNIE: Oh yes
INTERVIEWER: That is just amazing to me.(unintelligible) (Laughs)
ANNIE: It don’t sound right.
INTERVIEWER: It doesn’t sound real.
ANNIE: Yeah but they had them under there.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: And they would and they would drill over here sometimes you’d see a whole lot of them with their guns and they drill and hide and yeah know stoop or get under a step or anything. Yeah they had to do than in order to keep a crew in. Now they would ship a crew out nearly every day.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: And when they left here they said Mrs. Bunting we aren’t going to get treated when we get out of here like we are being treated here.
INTERVIEWER: They were right to.
ANNIE: A lot of them never come back
INTERVIEWER: I bet not.
ANNIE: No
INTERVIEWER: Well with them being around here that much although they went out too fast for much marriages to be going on between (unintelligible).
ANNIE: Oh now Billy Baker was in the Coast Guard. He married Pete Crawford.
INTERVIEWER: Right that was always confusing to me, Pete being a woman but (laughs)
ANNIE: Yeah you stayed here you see you didn’t get out and there is a boy his name is Wood and he has a filling station.
INTERVIEWER: Jack
ANNIE: Jack well he married a girl from here now he was here in the time in Roosevelt uh had the uh what did you call it?
MAN: The CCC.
INTERVIEWER: Oh the CCC camp.
ANNIE: Yeah
INTERVIEWER: Alright, where was the closet CCC camp?
ANNIE: Right down where Lyle Crawford uh Dickey Crawford lives in that street.
INTERVIEWER: Oh right across from Heron Creek?
ANNIE: Yeah
INTERVIEWER: Across from me where I’m at.
ANNIE: And (unintelligible) Mumford’s father was in charge of all that.
INTERVIEWER: Oh I didn’t know that.
ANNIE: Yeah
INTERVIEWER: Now that was in the thirties?
MAN: uh-huh
ANNIE: Yeah
INTERVIEWER: Ok that would have been in the 1930’s.
ANNIE: And there were several of them boys there was another one married a girl named uh mm. I’ll ask you if she you think she ever went outdoors. I can’t think of what his name is. Mallory (unintelligible) he married.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: I’d be by her house but I never see her.
MAN: She was (unintelligible)
ANNIE: Yeah was in that area too (unintelligible).
INTERVIEWER: Now the CCC camp was out there?
ANNIE: Yeah that’s right it was.
INTERVIEWER: Now what did they do?
ANNIE: They dug ditches.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: And cleared land and anything that uh
MAN: and irrigation ditches too (unintelligible).
ANNIE: Yes, yeah anything so the government would have a cause to pay them.
INTERVIEWER: To pay them
ANNIE: It would be a dollar or seventy-five cents or whatever and a place to sleep.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: It was the Depression.
INTERVIEWER: Well let me ask you about that. By the time the Depression came the inlet had not been cut.
ANNIE: No in the 19
INTERVIEWER: In the early 30’s, what effect did the Depression have on Ocean City?
ANNIE: Well it was pretty bad. There was no work.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: Or anything going on except the fish towns in the summer like I told you.
INTERVIEWER: Alright
ANNIE: Then in the winter that was it.
INTERVIEWER: Ok, did you have fewer people coming down than the summer?
ANNIE: Yes, oh yes. It’s almost like it is now. You’d see some new ones now and then but
INTERVIEWER: But that was all.
ANNIE: It was only the wealthy that could do it.
INTERVIEWER: Ok they would do that. Ok now farmer’s that I talked in the Depression as they said they never made money but they always had plenty to eat.
ANNIE: Yeah (unintelligible).
INTERVIEWER: Now was enough food a problem here in Ocean City?
ANNIE: Well they would bring it over here and say I could buy a quart of lima beans for a quarter.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: Green lima beans all shelled.
INTERVIEWER: I don’t think you’d be able to buy that now. (laughs)
ANNIE: I’d buy a pound of butter for a quarter.
INTERVIEWER: Did you have the money to buy it with?
ANNIE: Well yes, you had to skimp. The Coast Guard didn’t pay much money.
INTERVIEWER: Right ok but at least you were still receiving a regular pay check?
ANNIE: Oh yes
INTERVIEWER: From the Coast Guard.
ANNIE: Well the Coast Guard paid your husband.
INTERVIEWER: Right, you didn’t get it.
ANNIE: Yeah you didn’t get it nothing.
INTERVIEWER: At least your family
ANNIE: Yeah
INTERVIEWER: Was getting money coming in.
ANNIE: Yeah about forty –two dollars a month.
INTERVIEWER: Wow
MAN: You would get twenty – five cents a day for low cost assistance (unintelligible).
ANNIE: They had to pay themselves too.
MAN: Twenty-five cents a day.
INTERVIEWER: Twenty-five cents a day?
ANNIE: They had to feed themselves too.
INTERVIEWER: The Coast Guard station the food didn’t come with it?
ANNIE: No!
INTERVIEWER: I, you’re kidding?
ANNIE: No the bunks. You had a place to sleep but that was all.
INTERVIEWER: Well what could you buy for twenty-five cents a day?
MAN: (unintelligible conversation)
ANNIE: Bread, sugar was about three cents a pound.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
MAN: So you pretty much would hold your money for the thirty days more or less then you ran a little store bill for whatever necessities you needed.
ANNIE: Any you paid it the next time.
MAN: The economy and the price range was different too.
INTERVIEWER: Yeah
ANNIE: The sugar was about three cents a pound.
MAN: (unintelligible)
INTERVIEWER: Right, now was there a cook at the Coast Guard station?
MAN: Well one man.
ANNIE: Well one of the boys had to cook.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
MAN: And when that one was off, the crew would have to rotate. The other cook’s turn had to come.
INTERVIEWER: What if you couldn’t?
MAN: You had to learn.
INTERVIEWER: You learned. (Laughs)
ANNIE: They could have a garden. They could raise them a pig and they could add a net and they could go out and haul all night and get some fish and they could live a little better.
INTERVIEWER: I see.
ANNIE: (unintelligible conversation)
INTERVIEWER: But up here there wasn’t a garden?
ANNIE: Nothing no oh no.
INTERVIEWER: No alright.
ANNIE: Honey you don’t know the half of it. (Chuckling)
INTERVIEWER: I’m glad. (Chuckling together) no but I’m certainly learning.
ANNIE: You can’t explain it.
INTERVIEWER: No, you have to go through it.
ANNIE: There is no rich people here. (unintelligible) Lynch and I guess John Mumford and W (unintelligible) Larson came four years after I did after he got out of the war.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: He came here as a meat cutter for Jack Lynch, for John Lynch. *unintelligible conversion*, and this Lynch and Ethel Kelly ran the store and Ethel lived over the bank that is where Kelly was born.
INTERVIEWER: Oh my goodness sakes ok.
ANNIE: And there was no rich people here and the house that Harlan Perdue had.
INTERVIEWER: Right
ANNIE: Belonged to Mr. Taylor, (unintelligible) Taylor.
INTERVIEWER: (unintelligible) Taylor I’ve heard that name.
ANNIE: Father, it wasn’t as tall as it is now. It was lower but they’ve raised it up since.
INTERVIEWER: Alright and put the stores under it.
ANNIE: Yes, Ok, stores under it. The one, The Regal Restaurant that was your Aunt Georgie’s house.
INTERVIEWER: Ok she was Georgie what was her last name?
ANNIE: Ludville
INTERVIEWER: Ludville ok
ANNIE: Yeah, oh yes I’ll never forget her she was a pretty as a picture.
INTERVIEWER: Was she really?
ANNIE: Oh yes great big eyes and she come to our house so pretty.
INTERVIEWER: Oh my
ANNIE: Yes indeed. I remember Georgie.
INTERVIEWER: I’ll be darn.
ANNIE: Yeah
INTERVIEWER: Now let’s see. I forgot what I was going to say I get so interested listening. Alright when you came in 17 there was a post office here?
ANNIE: Oh yes a post office down stairs in the hotel where we lived downstairs.
INTERVIEWER: In the Dennis Hotel, Ok what about a food market?
ANNIE: No food market but (unintelligible) well we called it (unintelligible) it was John Lynch’s store then there an old store down it was Mrs. Lynch’s father, it was old man uh oh.
MAN: Was it Purnell?
ANNIE: Huh?
MAN: Was it Purnell?
ANNIE: No, I know his name excuse me but he had like a country store.
INTERVIEWER: And that was on Philadelphia Avenue?
ANNIE: No it was down in where (unintelligible) Trimper down in that area.
INTERVIEWER: Oh alright down south of division street below south division street.
ANNIE: Yeah
INTERVIEWER: Ok so there was a country store there and there was John Lynch’s store where (unintelligible) is now.
ANNIE: Yes and that was it.
INTERVIEWER: And that was it.
ANNIE: That was it
INTERVIEWER: Ok did you have to go to Berlin for things?
ANNIE: Yes you did.
INTERVIEWER: Ok alright.
ANNIE: We went to Berlin to get bacon. They had it in the slab.
INTERVIEWER: Right
ANNIE: And you could get flour and sugar they didn’t have a lot because flour and sugar would spoil.
INTERVIEWER: Ok, were there people in town, they didn’t have gardens.
ANNIE: No well some of them had a little place in the back they could plant string beans or some turnip greens or something.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, just something little. What about raising chickens or anything?
ANNIE: Well they could raise like uh a dozen chickens
INTERVIEWER: That would be all.
ANNIE: That would be all no farms.
INTERVIEWER: So you were really be dependent of stores?
ANNIE: Yes oh yes you could take a flat basket? You know what a flat basket is?
INTERVIEWER: Yes I know what a flat basket is?
ANNIE: You’d take that and a quarter and go down near to the end where the museum is and you could get enough fish for 3 or 4 days for that.
INTERVIEWER: Ok alright.
ANNIE: Because they were small and they didn’t ship the reels the small ones.
INTERVIEWER: You didn’t have to go fishing?
ANNIE: No
INTERVIEWER: You just went down and bought them.
ANNIE: You just went down bought them. You took your basket and went down and bought them.
INTERVIEWER: Right, did you uh what did you do for refrigeration? Was the ice plant here?
ANNIE: Yes, an ice box yeah that ice plant was here but you had a ice box. (unintelligible conversation) because I had one.
INTERVIEWER: Yes
ANNIE: And you kept that full of ice and kept stuff in there to keep it from spoiling.
INTERVIEWER: Did they have a delivery man for ice?
ANNIE: No, you had get it.
INTERVIEWER: You went and got it.
ANNIE: Yeah
MAN: Elsey
ANNIE: Oh Colored Elsey.
INTERVIEWER: Ok I remember him.
ANNIE: Yes Elsey had some(unintelligible) for women folk they did that.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: But Elsey would carry it
INTERVIEWER: Ok up there. Ok now when you came to Ocean City there were cars? You weren’t using horses and wagons?
ANNIE: Oh yes there weren’t too many. Harry Ludman had a car. My father-in-law had a (unintelligible) Ford.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: There were about four cars.
INTERVIEWER: And that was all?
ANNIE: That was all.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: Well there was no bridge. You couldn’t do it.
INTERVIEWER: That’s right. You couldn’t do it that the train wasn’t coming.t
ANNIE: You could take a chance from Andrew Truitt. He was the man that kept the train housed and he had communications to Berlin.
INTERVIEWER: Alright
ANNIE: And so the train is leaving here now if you think you can make it alright. So Harry Ludman had a.
(tape ends)
(Tape begins again)
INTERVIEWER: Ok now, did you get much further from Ocean City then Berlin?
ANNIE: No
INTERVIEWER: Did you go to Baltimore Philadelphia?
ANNIE: No if you did you took the train and went into Baltimore.
INTERVIEWER: That is something you didn’t do regularly.
ANNIE: No you didn’t do much, much of
INTERVIEWER: Ok you just didn’t do that.
ANNIE: No and the depot was right the next block down.
INTERVIEWER: Right it was close enough to do.
ANNIE: Yeah
INTERVIEWER: Ok now did you swim?
ANNIE: Nope
INTERVIEWER: Well I know I love this. More old people I talk to even the ones that lived in (unintelligible) right next to Public Landing. I asked the ladies if they could swim, nope.
ANNIE: I couldn’t swim a stroke.
INTERVIEWER: And here you are.
ANNIE: My here my husband got a (unintelligible) in the bank, a gold medal for life saving. He saved a woman and a girl.
MAN: (unintelligible) a medal of honor for his country.
INTERVIEWER: Really
ANNIE: Its ninety-nine and 9 tenths pure gold.
INTERVIEWER: Oh my dear you better have that in the bank.
ANNIE: And it has the eagle and it’s the same and the pin that holds it and it had another pin but he didn’t get it he never answered the letter (unintelligible) but he had an excellent (unintelligible). He kept the whole beach with bather. The bathers because the lookout was right there by police station and most of the time (unintelligible) but some of them couldn’t even swim. Dan was an excellent swimmer.
INTERVIEWER: Alright ok now so the Coast Guard also looked after bathers?
ANNIE: Yes they had too. They had no lifeguards.
MAN: In fact till recent years they were the only ones.
INTERVIEWER: Alright and that was it and you knew if you were a bather you knew that there was only that one guy.
ANNIE: Yes
INTERVIEWER: And you had to care for yourself
ANNIE: and Childs had a bathing, had a pool.
MAN: Most of the bathers were no further than two blocks.
INTERVIEWER: Ok they were for safety sake.
MAN: Division and Caroline Street that was about it.
INTERVIEWER: Alright
ANNIE: Childs had a pool.
INTERVIEWER: Did you go in it?
ANNIE: Nope
INTERVIEWER: You didn’t want to.
ANNIE: No I’m afraid of the water. (Laughs)
INTERVIEWER: Well now did you go out in the sailboat?
ANNIE: Nope
INTERVIEWER: Nope ok.
ANNIE: No I
INTERVIEWER: Here you’re surrounded by it born surrounded by it.
ANNIE: Yeah my folks were are all boatman all of them. My brother used to be a captain on the ferry between (unintelligible) in Pennsylvania and they made their living in the water. But not me.
INTERVIEWER: Oh
ANNIE: I’m afraid of it.
INTERVIEWER: Ok now what about the other women like hotel owner’s local women here? Was it something that women just didn’t really swim back in your age?
ANNIE: They never got a chance. They done the work. The women run the beach and they still do.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: The women
INTERVIEWER: Took care
ANNIE: Yeah
INTERVIEWER: Alright now cold weather, do you remember the bay icing up?
ANNIE: Yes and skating on the bay.
INTERVIEWER: Ok so you did skate?
ANNIE: No
INTERVIEWER: Oh you didn’t skate! (Laughs) I thought.
ANNIE: I would watch Thornton. I would watch old man Thornton skate.
INTERVIEWER: Was he good?
ANNIE: Oh he could cut a figure eight or anything.
INTERVIEWER: He could?
ANNIE: Oh could he! He was a little old man, old man!
INTERVIEWER: Old
ANNIE: Old, he lived in what we called it a floating (unintelligible) then right back in the back street.
INTERVIEWER: Right
ANNIE: And when that bay would freeze over he could skate (unintelligible) and back.
INTERVIEWER: Oh goodness!
ANNIE: There was no inlet or anything.
INTERVIEWER: I was going to say and it froze because it was fresh?
ANNIE: It would freeze and in 1918. I don’t think we had enough dirt to bury anybody hardly.
INTERVIEWER: Oh really!
ANNIE: Oh yes it was the bitterest winter I ever saw.
INTERVIEWER: Was there a lot of snow or was there.
ANNIE: A lot of snow and the CCC boys would come and get it out so you could get out of your house.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: And the city would do their part.
INTERVIEWER: Oh for goodness sake!
ANNIE: That was coldest winter I ever saw.
INTERVIEWER: And that was in 1918?
ANNIE: 19 and 18.
INTERVIEWER: Oh my, were you married?
ANNIE: Yes
INTERVIEWER: You were just married?
ANNIE: Yes we lived over there.
INTERVIEWER: In the Dennis hotel.
ANNIE: Uh-huh
INTERVIEWER: Ok, young people, did they do bon fires and skate on the bay?
ANNIE: Well some few not long a couple of hours and that would be it they didn’t stay late too cold and then those people didn’t let their children stay out later than eight, eight or nine. The electric lights went off at eleven o’clock.
INTERVIEWER: Oh they did.
ANNIE: Yes there was no lights in the town after that.
INTERVIEWER: The plant shut down.
ANNIE: The plant shut down.
INTERVIEWER: Oh
ANNIE: We didn’t have any night lights.
INTERVIEWER: I didn’t know that.
ANNIE: Yeah
MAN: The thing like this light out here had one bulb in it and there wasn’t many around in those three blocks. They only had one I believe that burnt most of the time and that was down what you call a switching yard (unintelligible) because of the locomotives.
ANNIE: It was eleven o’clock when the lights went off.
INTERVIEWER: And usually everybody was in bed by then.
ANNIE: Oh yes, you went to bed by 8:30.
MAN: (unintelligible) had a lantern. They didn’t have flashlights at that time.
ANNIE: We lived pretty primitive in them days.
INTERVIEWER: Right, alright now by comparison to let’s say Berlin were you living more primitively?
ANNIE: Than Belin?
INTERVIEWER: Uh-huh, I was just wondering.
MAN: (unintelligible conversation)
ANNIE: Yes, Berlin was pretty primitive too.
INTERVIEWER: uh-huh
ANNIE: They would close their stores at six in the evening in the winter and uh there was Burbage and Powell’s and Farlow’s pharmacy belonged to a Jew his name was uh what was his name?
INTERVIEWER: I want to say Furbush but that’s not right.
ANNIE: Well Furbush had a store.
INTERVIEWER: He did but that was down further.
ANNIE: That was further up.
INTERVIEWER: Uh-huh I know his name and I’ve been told it.
MAN: Is it Rhoades?
ANNIE: Huh?
MAN: Rhoades
ANNIE: No I bought my sewing machine off of him. It was called Farlow’s pharmacy where he is.
INTERVIEWER: Right
ANNIE: What is that man’s name?
INTERVIEWER: I don’t know. I’ve had people tell me and they referred to him as the Jew who had the store. (Laughs)
ANNIE: Yes
INTERVIEWER: And that’s all I remembered (Laughs).
MAN: (Laughs)
INTERVIEWER: Because there wasn’t any Jewish people in the area.
ANNIE: No
MAN: Well you were all one the same.
INTERVIEWER: It didn’t matter.
ANNIE: Yeah
MAN: There wasn’t any regards to being international. There wasn’t anything like that.
INTERVIEWER: Right
MAN: There wasn’t anything in religion. The Catholic Church up here. She grew up working with the Catholic Church and (unintelligible conversation).
ANNIE: (unintelligible conversation) and would help me. Mrs. Thacker would help me. She was the only Catholic I knew and she would help me she was a good soul. We didn’t have any prejudice or anything like that.
INTERVIEWER: Alright ok, but you didn’t have blacks who were living here.
ANNIE: No there was one street and we called it Bud Street.
INTERVIEWER: And there was mostly blacks here?
ANNIE: Well yes I would say there were four or five families.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: And over where that green house is over there was Elzie and Mary. Elzie was the one that never (unintelligible) and they didn’t bother anybody.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: They stayed to thereself and the white people respected them and they were nice folks.
MAN: They lived over the water over where the bulkhead is now. There was uh a big what we call it a little duplex and there were two families that lived right out there right over the water.
INTERVIEWER: Right over the water
MAN: They had a little dock come to shore and them next building was a colored church.
ANNIE: And the colored ones worked on the train. The ones who would come here. They would shovel coal over the (unintelligible) they would move it. They worked on the train because one lived right in back of us here. Louise and what was the other one’s name? Sam Henry
MAN: Katy Robbins
ANNIE: Well Katy Robbins run the hotel (unintelligible conversation)
INTERVIEWER: And Sam Henry?
ANNIE: Sam Henry yep.
MAN: And Bill Pitts
ANNIE: And Bill Pitts
MAN: (unintelligible conversation) and they lived on the water.
INTERVIEWER: Ok and they lived on the water.
ANNIE: Yes they lived down there and never bothered anybody.
MAN: (unintelligible conversation)
INTERVIEWER: I was going to say. You all played together.
ANNIE: Now Fred and Bill played with them, we called them Amos and Andy. One of them died of emphysema. (unintelligible) the Henry boys I think they were.
MAN: They grew up back here.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: Huh?
MAN: They grew up back here?
ANNIE: Yeah and we had a fence that is all that kept us apart and their mother was names Louise and I bet she weighed 300.
INTERVIEWER: Oh my, dear.
ANNIE: She had two boys and a girl.
MAN: (unintelligible conversation)
ANNIE: He had to carry oxygen.
MAN: (unintelligible conversation)
ANNIE: And you didn’t teach your children not to play with.
INTERVIEWER:(unintelligible)
ANNIE: You didn’t teach your children not to play with them.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: Because where I was raised, we had one colored family. She was a slave. She lived to be 116 years old.
INTERVIEWER: Oh Lord! I bet she could tell a lot.
ANNIE: And we called her Aunt Winnie. I have a school paper here one oh my school friends she died about September and she was 104.
INTERVIEWER: My goodness!
ANNIE: And here name was Sara Ellen Gaskins.
INTERVIEWER: Ok, she would have been related to Frank? Probably somewhere Mary and Frank.
MAN: She was probably kin to Frank.
ANNIE: Yes
INTERVIEWER: Mary was from here so Frank would have been.
ANNIE: My mother was a Gaskins.
INTERVIEWER: Oh ok.
ANNIE: uh –hmm, do you know well my nieces got it. She’s got the title to the island.
INTERVIEWER: To Ocracoke?
ANNIE: Well the king of England signed it to the Howards.
INTERVIEWER: Oh for goodness sakes!
ANNIE: And my grandmother was a Howard.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: They had plenty of land and now they’ve brought all up just like they have here. Now they’ve got nothing.
INTERVIEWER: It’s turning. It’s not as much fun.
ANNIE: The Indians lived there then.
MAN: It’s modernized now. They got hotels down there.
INTERVIEWER: Right
(Tape ended suddenly and started again)
(Tape Begins)
INTERVIEWER: Ok during the II World War, trained boy scouts (unintelligible)
ANNIE: Boy Scout troop, yes and they (unintelligible) from England was blowed up right off the island and they even had the tickets the stub of their tickets in their pocket where they had been to Morehead City to the movies that night and the next morning they found three of them route 10 and Cunningham and two others washed off on the beach as far as here to the red light out there.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: And they buried them and built a fence around it and the boy scouts keep it up and they come from England once a year the families do and I have a cousin and she’s a teacher and she goes over to England she has a day’s ride after she gets to London on a train to see them people.
INTERVIEWER: For goodness sake!
ANNIE: I had a card but I don’t know where it is of the graveyard where the people of the island buried them. You see the boy scouts found them dead along the beach.
INTERVIEWER: Now let me ask you a question you will know or Mr. Bunting you’ll know. The captain that is buried out there Captain Till. Is there a group from Philadelphia that used to come down?
ANNIE: Yes the Canteen Club.
INTERVIEWER: Ok tell me some more about that, the captain was he shipwrecked off here?
MAN: Yeah where the Commander Hotel is. He came ashore there. There’s two of them. There was two bodies there.
INTERVIEWER: Oh I didn’t know that.
MAN: Yeah the captain and one of the crew is buried with him.
INTERVIEWER: Ok alright.
ANNIE: (unintelligible)
MAN: Yeah they belonged to some kind of a club. They would come here sometimes in July every year.
ANNIE: They would drink beer. Then canteen club they called it.
INTERVIEWER: Canteen?
MAN: (unintelligible) and sing songs. They did that for years up here.
ANNIE: They used to do that when I first came but after that but then it wore off they don’t come now.
MAN: (unintelligible conversation)
ANNIE: He was and Irishman I think.
MAN: (unintelligible) in the library. You might watch for we call it sketches for the log book for the old galleons would wash ashore here. Well the captain made notations in his log, the only thing he had on the vessel at times if it was stranded or lost. He would take or send it to the sheriff in Snow Hill and the sheriff had the record for years.
INTERVIEWER: Oh
MAN: And each sheriff passed it one to the other. They kept those old records some of them may come in your possession. They went all the way back to 1556 I think.
INTERVIEWER: Oh for goodness sakes.
MAN: I had seen one here in town not long ago and I trying to remember if he left a name who it was showing me that transcript of that log. It shipped in Oaks Island and he was two cannons shots from shore when he stranded out and he was trying to getting in (unintelligible) Island which isn’t there and he had so much gold and silver jewels and so much (unintelligible) and so much mahogany. He was coming in Chincoteague Bay. (unintelligible conversation) to pick up naval wares. It contained so much turpentine and so much wax, resin and all this stuff he was supposed to pick up and then go to Philadelphia and his crew couldn’t stop the Natives of Chincoteague from coming aboard and ransacking and they had already spilled it all off his deck when he was ready to leave but he was going to try to go to Philadelphia and transfer his crew to another vessel and come back to the sheriff in Snow Hill and him down here to salvage what they could find. Under the treasure room what they called The Captain’s Quarters it’s like a secret compartment, he was in hopes they wouldn’t find that but there was a nor’easter came after that and his vessel was completely destroyed.
ANNIE: You’ve been keeping track of that uh.
MAN: There is a little sketch this girl gave me of the letter that he had written to his brother who lived in Accomack and somehow or another the record got out of my stuff and it was published later in this magazine Chesapeake and his brother lived in Accomack. I can’t even think of the captain’s name now.
INTERVIEWER: I’ll be darn! They were a wild group on the beaches weren’t they?
MAN: Oh yeah, at time, (unintelligible) of the Coast Guard really. The honorary ones in these villages would put a lantern on their horse and put him on a sand dune. They could see a ship. They could see her light a light right on the saddle and then get that horse to run you know and when they would see this light was coming to them because they were looking for these inlets She would run out on the beach then they would go out and ransack her.
INTERVIEWER: Oh my goodness, they would set them up?
MAN: Yep they would take her cargo.
ANNIE: Have you been keeping track of that boat in Lewisville remember that *intelligible*
INTERVIEWER: Yep (unintelligible) that’s going to be exciting.
MAN: (unintelligible)
ANNIE: There’s a bit of money down there if they can get it.
INTERVIEWER: There is indeed. Alright
MAN: All those ships had a quite a bit of gold.
ANNIE: Yeah
MAN: They were all Spanish ships (unintelligible).
ANNIE: Well do you know where uh they called him Old Teach.
INTERVIEWER: Blackbeard?
ANNIE: He was killed as far away as I am from that restaurant.
INTERVIEWER: I’ll be darn because.
ANNIE: There’s a place you can’t find no bottom.
INTERVIEWER: Really?
ANNIE: They call it Teaches hole.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: That’s where he was killed Ocracoke Island.
INTERVIEWER: Ok is there a little plaque or something there?
MAN: No
ANNIE: No (unintelligible)
INTERVIEWER: Ok there is something because when I went there it was with Sandy Bounds and we were about thirteen years old.
ANNIE: There used to be a dock and ice dock went off there.
INTERVIEWER: Ok because I remember somebody talking about it there.
MAN: Now you went down, we call it the Navy pier.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
MAN: The Natural Resources has an office there.
INTERVIEWER: Ok
MAN: There is a map on the wall.
INTERVIEWER: Yes
MAN: And they had trinkets of the island and so forth that’s probably where you were.
INTERVIEWER: Yes that’s where I was.
MAN: That’s where the Coast Guard stays.
INTERVIEWER: Right, gosh that’s been a long time.
MAN: (unintelligible)
ANNIE: Well the state still has an office there.
MAN: (unintelligible) mother was raised not far from there.
INTERVIEWER: Right ok
MAN: She had an aunt her home was just the opposite of the Coast Guard (unintelligible)
INTERVIEWER: Ok
MAN: It’s her stomping grounds as you might say.
INTERVIEWER: Right
MAN: (unintelligible)
ANNIE: I was raised right next to that light house.
INTERVIEWER: You were? Really?
ANNIE: Yeah!
INTERVIEWER: Ok
ANNIE: Go over there and look at it.
End of Interview