Burbage, Anna (1893-1985) |
Worcester County Library: Local History and Genealogy Collection, Snow Hill Branch, Snow Hill, MD
|
Interviewee: |
Anna Burbage (1893-1985) |
| Interviewer: |
Katherine Fisher |
| Date of interview: |
1983 May 25 |
| Length of interview: |
45 min |
| Transcribed by: |
|
| Preferred Citation: |
“Name, Oral History Collection, Date of Interview, Worcester County Library, Snow Hill Branch, Snow Hill, Maryland.” |
Topical Terms:
Funeral Business
Mortician
Worcester County (Md.)—Education
Worcester County (Md.)—History
Worcester County (Md.)—Social life and customs
Worcester County (Md.)—Women’s History
Location Terms:
Berlin (Md.)
Ocean City (Md.)
Interview Begin
INTERVIEWER: Today is Wednesday, May the 25th, and I’m in Berlin talking with Miss Anna Burbage.
ANNA: Miss Anna, right.
INTERVIEWER: Anna Burbage. Everyone calls her Miss Anna, that’s what I still think of you as.
ANNA: I know, it’s the truth.
INTERVIEWER: Miss Anna when were you born?
ANNA: October 1, 1893.
INTERVIEWER: Oh were you really? I didn’t know you were that old.
ANNA: 89, I’ll be 90 the first of October.
INTERVIEWER: You will won’t you. Oh for goodness sakes. Where were you born?
ANNA: In Berlin.
INTERVIEWER: In Berlin, okay, where in Berlin?
ANNA: You mean what house?
INTERVIEWER: Ahuh.
ANNA: Right across here where the parking lot is now. They moved it.
INTERVIEWER: Oh alright. What were your parent’s names? Your mother’s maiden name too.
ANNA: Mother’s name is Mrs. Stella Kate Raine.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, she was a Raine.
ANNA: Ya.
INTERVIEWER: And your father’s name?
ANNA: His was William Merritt, no Eugene Adkins, yes that was the father.
INTERVIEWER: Alright. Do………what did your father do for a living?
ANNA: My father, well when he lived in Berlin he was a paper hanger.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, okay.
ANNA: Mother didn’t like it up there.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, I was going to ask why he came here….
ANNA: Ya ‘cause she didn’t like it up there.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, so he came to Berlin.
ANNA: Ya, uhuh.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, did your mother do any work outside of the house or did the house keep her busy?
ANNA: No, she just worked home. She was just mother. She used to be postmistress here before she was married.
INTERVIEWER: Oh I didn’t know that.
ANNA: That’s been many years ago.
INTERVIEWER: Did you have any brothers and sisters?
ANNA: Only had one brother, died when I was 2.
INTERVIEWER: Oh my. Okay. Where did you go to school?
ANNA: At Buckingham High School. That’s where I graduated.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
ANNA: And then I went to summer school. I was a shop teacher and I went to summer school in Chatauqua, New York, every summer.
INTERVIEWER: Did you really?
ANNA: Ya, taught shop for 5 years.
INTERVIEWER: For goodness sakes.
ANNA: I taught the boys.
INTERVIEWER: Well that was unusual for the time, wasn’t it?
ANNA: Very unusual that time, yes.
INTERVIEWER: That’s great. How long did you teach?
ANNA: About 5 years. I taught in Berlin, Stockton, and Pocomoke.
INTERVIEWER: In Stockton and Pocomoke, too?
ANNA: Only half a year, part time then. Then I went to Pocomoke for a full year.
INTERVIEWER: Today when you think of shop teachers you think of a lot of discipline problems….
ANNA: Yes you do.
INTERVIEWER: Did you have any problems?
ANNA: No, uhun, none.
INTERVIEWER: Were the boys nicer?
ANNA: Nicer, yes a lot nicer. I rather teach boys than girls anytime.
INTERVIEWER: I’ll be darned. Did the parents support the schools? Were the parents active in……..
ANNA: Yes very active.
INTERVIEWER: In school work?
ANNA: Yes sir.
INTERVIEWER: How did you meet your husband?
ANNA: I was raised right next door to him.
INTERVIEWER: Oh……….
ANNA: I married him.
INTERVIEWER: He was the boy next door, wasn’t he?
ANNA: He was the boy next door.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, what year were you married?
ANNA: 1917.
INTERVIEWER: Okay and were you married here in Berlin?
ANNA: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. What was your wedding like?
ANNA: Just a simple wedding at home.
INTERVIEWER: At home.
ANNA: They didn’t have no church weddings.
INTERVIEWER: Alright that’s the point that I’d like to bring out. They didn’t do the big weddings?
ANNA: Very few, few church weddings. I don’t think I went to one the whole time I was growing up.
INTERVIEWER: Well I’ll be darned. What did your husband do for a living?
ANNA: Well he was a, he was a mortician and then he had a marble yard. Did a plenty in that.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, where were………
ANNA: He first trained as a carpenter….he’d like to be a builder, yes sir, but when he went to go with his father, and when he got older he went in the business.
INTERVIEWER: Alright his father was a mortician, also.
ANNA: Uhum, yes.
INTERVIEWER: During his father’s time were there other morticians in the area?
ANNA: There was an old man named Mr. Kurt Evans, where the flower shop is, over the flower shop he had a place of business. He didn’t do very much work. Curtis Evans.
INTERVIEWER: Curtis Evans. Alright, I’m sure your husband and your father-in-law have told you some of the earlier practices, when somebody like way out in the country died, your father-in-law dealt with horse and carriage, I’m sure.
ANNA: Yes and Jack did too, ‘cause he came along at that time.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, okay. How were, what were the funeral procedures like back, let’s say around 1900?
ANNA: Well they were all horse drawn horses.
INTERVIEWER: Alright.
ANNA: Some people had white ones for younger people and black ones, we only had the black, dark ones, Mr. Burbage did, I know, and a, of course when the body died there were no funeral homes, they went and embalmed the body in the house and they stayed there until you had the funeral. Most of the time they would have the funeral home and sometimes the church, but not often, because the roads were so bad, see there were none paved.
INTERVIEWER: Alright. It was so difficult to get from one place to the other. Okay. Well if the person died let’s say on Monday, when would the funeral director be called?
ANNA: Right away.
INTERVIEWER: Right away and then the funeral would take place right away?
ANNA: No it’d be the next day or maybe the next day.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
ANNA: The third day.
INTERVIEWER: The mortician would go out and embalm the body and then what other functions did he have?
ANNA: They would come in and pick out the casket.
INTERVIEWER: Alright.
ANNA: And then he would go back and dress the body. Most the time they didn’t have what they call a viewing like now. Just a few friends the night before and all that.
INTERVIEWER: Did the family sit with the body?
ANNA: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: Was that a custom then, they didn’t leave them unattended?
ANNA: No, somebody or sometimes the neighbors come and sat up every night.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, throughout the night.
ANNA: Yes’m, throughout the night.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. Was that just (area erased, personal comments). Was the practice of sitting with the body, was that a tradition or were there superstitions surrounding that?
ANNA: No, just tradition.
INTERVIEWER: Just tradition, okay. When they came in to pick out the casket, where were the caskets made?
ANNA: Made?
INTERVIEWER: Uhum.
ANNA: Well of course we made a lot it……’cause I had to learn to make them, and then I had to go and line and cover them. ?????????? about, let’s see, about, how ‘bout it was when Mr. Burbage got the first metal casket, nothing but wood, ???????? and Jack bought it and his father said you’ll never sell it, and in about three days they sold it. He didn’t think that thing would ever be sold.
INTERVIEWER: I’m sure, isn’t that something? So you made some of them here. Did you, did you have, how many people, let’s say around 1900, the mortician would be your father-in-law and then your husband was helping…….
ANNA: No, not 1900, no.
INTERVIEWER: No not at that time?
ANNA: His brother was helping him then.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, his brother helped him.
ANNA: Mr. Harry Burbage.
INTERVIEWER: Okay and the two of them could pretty well handle things?
ANNA: Ya.
INTERVIEWER: Where did he train to be a mortician?
ANNA: Under old Mr. Jimmy Wise.
INTERVIEWER: Oh.
ANNA: See this started in 1810 and came right on up.
INTERVIEWER: In 1810.
ANNA: Uhum.
INTERVIEWER: Oh I didn’t know that. Well now Mr. Jimmy Wise was the gentleman that carried a gold top cane?
ANNA: Yes. He’s the one that got, was the oldest undertaker in the United States.
INTERVIEWER: Alright. I thought I remembered that. So it’s carried on right through him.
ANNA: Ya, right through.
INTERVIEWER: That’s nice.
ANNA: Isn’t that wonderful?
INTERVIEWER: Yes and it’s still going to be carried on.
ANNA: That’s right.
INTERVIEWER: That’s nice. That is. Now, alright what role did you play in the undertaking business?
ANNA: Well in the business, when Mr. Burbage was in there I only helped, I helped to make caskets and cover them and line them. He died in 1927 and we took the business over in 1928. Of course I was in litigation at that time. Now Jack had owned part of it then, and then, he and I went in business together in ’28.
INTERVIEWER: Alright and then you worked together.
ANNA: Yes in 1934 we built this place together.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, that’s what I forgot to ask, where was the business in 1910?
ANNA: It was over, you know where ???? the fillin’ station is, the little fillin’ station, but next to it, well between there and the Peter’s building there was an office, a big tall building right behind that, and that part by the fillin’ station wasn’t there then, you know, that’s where the business, but we didn’t have any funeral home, we didn’t have funerals there. Everybody had it in their own home.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, now, when you built this, it was in response to people wanting to have funerals out more………….
ANNA: No, I don’t know, we just, it just got to a point that, go over the mud roads and it was hard on………and we decided to build a funeral home and we thought, well, Jack says I don’t expect that the country people will like it, they’d think we’re too smart, ‘cause we’re just kids, like ya know, he said they’ll think we’re too smart. But they were people that loved it, because they’d come once, we’d get the body and they only had to, all those people had to go back over those roads, the people that went to see that body, they could come into town and see it.
INTERVIEWER: And when they came in town they could do something else too.
ANNA: That’s right, see.
INTERVIEWER: They made one trip, combine it.
ANNA: That’s right, it was really a success of that kind, rather, we just didn’t know how they’d take it. Of course we had to borrow the money. We sure…..
INTERVIEWER: Right, oh for goodness sakes. Now you are still owner of the business.
ANNA: Yes, uhum.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, so you have been in the business since 1927, ’37.
ANNA: No, ’28. ’28 yes.
INTERVIEWER: ’28, 1928, that’s a long time too.
ANNA: In fact 53 years in it and I hadn’t counted up lately. It is a long time, you seen a lot of changes in 53 years.
INTERVIEWER: What are some of them that you’ve noticed especially? I know the change, or your father-in-law noticed from wood to metal caskets.
ANNA: Ya, but a, oh I don’t know. I think the people, people in those days were very, very sentimental, they didn’t control their feelings as much as a person does now. The dead to them was just something, was really, I want to say horrible, but it was, they had a feeling of God in them, but of course now people take death as something that had to come.
INTERVIEWER: Right, they accept it.
ANNA: There’s no screamin’ or crying. Things like that. Of course we found out a good bit among the people that come over here from, displaced people, people like that.
INTERVIEWER: Oh alright.
ANNA: ‘Course their ways was different from ours.
INTERVIEWER: Right and you had to learn to deal with those.
ANNA: Ya, both ways. I’ll never forget one time we’d been out in a heavy snowstorm, Jack had been out in the little horse cart, well the next day was just as bad snowing and everything, they brought this old lady and her name was ?????? and she commenced to gabber-gabber just as hard as she could go and Jack said to Frank, her son look if you mother wants to cuss me, will you please tell her to do it in English, I can’t understand that stuff she’s talkin’. He said no, she wants you to come out, take my father out of the casket, stand him in the corner, so they can take a picture of him, like they used to do over in England, over in Europe. She was from, I don’t know, I guess from the Scandinavian countries. He was just fumin’, I tell ya, he says I’ll be damned if I’m going out in the snowy road again, I’d like never got there last night. Had so much of that, I remember so well, this was earlier, we went to get a body and the people were Polish, I believe, and they lived out here on Temple Hill out toward Libertytown, a little slope, and we had to go in there with a wagon to get the body, and they swore and cursed at us from the time we left there, till we went out of sight.
INTERVIEWER: Oh my dear.
ANNA: Thought we’d taken it away, you know.
INTERVIEWER: They didn’t understand.
ANNA: Didn’t understand, couldn’t understand it.
INTERVIEWER: For goodness sakes. You don’t think of those things, you know, unless you’re in it, that makes a difference. When did music first start being a part of the service?
ANNA: ’28.
INTERVIEWER: In ’28, okay. It started here. Okay. Now, the, I’m going back, back again ‘cause I wanted to follow this, you know, the funeral business on thought, I may think of some more things. Oh I know, when did you get the first hearse that was not horse driven? When was that? Or about when?
ANNA: As a matter of fact, I can tell ya just when. In ’18.
INTERVIEWER: 1918.
ANNA: 1918. They bought a chassis of a, I don’t know if it was of a Rio or what it was, and Jack carved the panels in wood. I’ve got them up in the attic and they made the hearse ???????????? but they had to still sit up high, not as high as they used to. No they didn’t set inside, that’s right, ‘cause motor driven, the other type you had to sit high. I’ve seen Mr. Burbage come home and I’d look over, well I lived right next door to them, he’d pret-near fall off that top seat. It was so cold comin’ in. Black horse, just as pretty as they could be.
INTERVIEWER: Where were the horses stabled? Did you have stables?
ANNA: Right over there, over on Vine Street where Jean used to live, they had great big stables.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, okay. Did, when you got the motor drawn hearse did you just stop the horse altogether or…………
ANNA: Yes we quit using the horses altogether.
INTERVIEWER: What did you do with the horses?
ANNA: Sold them.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, okay. Coming back to your going to school in Berlin; do you remember any of your teacher’s names?
ANNA: Yes indeedy. I can tell ya every one of them. Miss Henny Bell, no wait a minute, no, now wait a minute, yes Miss Henny Bell was the first one I believe and Miss Minnie Timmons was the second and Miss Daisy Raine was the third that was my aunt. I despise her, and Miss Sally Tingle was the next one. Miss Daisy Wise was the next one and Miss Ella Massey came next and then Miss Nettie Carey.
INTERVIEWER: Oh for goodness sakes.
ANNA: That’s right down the line.
INTERVIEWER: Alright and all ladies.
ANNA: All ladies
INTERVIEWER: Okay, who was the principal?
ANNA: Miss Nettie Carey.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, she was a teaching principal.
ANNA: Yes, uhum.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. Where was the school at that time?
ANNA: About, well now wait a minute, almost where the post office used to be, right in there.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, right in, right by the shirt factory.
ANNA: Ya wasn’t any shirt factory.
INTERVIEWER: Right, okay. I think I have………………..
ANNA: Was the school and they the, what we used to call the old Derrickson building, real old building, that’s where the first, that was where the first, what you call it, for boys, where, academy.
INTERVIEWER: Oh alright.
ANNA: And the girls went to, I forgot what they call that.
INTERVIEWER: I don’t know.
ANNA: Would it be a seminary?
INTERVIEWER: It could be, a female seminary. Yes, yes. Did you in school, when you went to school. Did you do much more than reading and writing and serious subjects? Did you have any like Home Ec., or things like that?
ANNA: Yes, we used to do painting and used to do, I remember so well, we had real fine linen ????????????? here and we painted on those and we made aprons and things like that, pretty?
INTERVIEWER: Oh okay. Well that was, that was good. What would you do for entertainment, let’s say through your teenage years? What did kids do for fun?
ANNA: Well now we went together, they never went singly, in those days, all together, and they usually had taffy pulls and they made popcorn balls when we all got together. They just all went in bunches, they didn’t go one at one time.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, did you travel much?
ANNA: No, no.
INTERVIEWER: What about going to Ocean City?
ANNA: Well you could go to Ocean City on a train in the summertime, but in the winter nobody ever went there.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, just in the summer.
ANNA: Uhum, just in summer. Cost you a quarter to ride down there.
INTERVIEWER: Oh for goodness sakes and the train station was over by the fire house?
ANNA: Right where the fire hall stands.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, all that was there. Would you ever go to Snow Hill for anything? Was there a reason?
ANNA: Well I would when they had teacher’s meetings. That’s where you took your examination too, but just to go down there, there wasn’t any………….
INTERVIEWER: Right, nothing attracted you there.
ANNA: Now I remember going one time with my father, Mr. Robe Tillies ???? was judge, he was born and raised here and my father and he were very close friends so we drove down to him one day. I remember being down there, and I remember so well, Talley told us that day, he said Gene theses young kids nowadays are getting’ smart, he said, they are? Said yep, said I had a whole garden, go down the garden, she said there’s white potatoes they had bugs on them, he says alright, I’ll give you a quarter, go back and pick up a strawberry basket full of potato bugs. Well he said he brought me potato bugs and potato bugs and potato bugs. So I said, look here son, I know my potatoes can’t be this buggy, oh no he says I’ve been on did everybody else’s. He got paid for it, doing everybody else’s potato bugs.
INTERVIEWER: That’s a good tale. He probably went on to be a successful business man too.
ANNA: I bet so too. I bet so too.
INTERVIEWER: Where did you go on beyond high school? I know you went to summer school in ????? was that enough or……….
ANNA: Every summer, yes.
INTERVIEWER: Every summer, okay.
ANNA: I’ll tell ya, Miss, Miss Pilchard was our shop teacher and, girls teacher, and every night I’d go up to her, I was very fond of her, and she taught me everything about???? ‘cause when she left and I could do just what she did. In the summertime she ????????
INTERVIEWER: Well that was quite a trip, wasn’t it?
ANNA: Yes, it was. You went to Philadelphia, then you took a sleeper that night to go to Buffalo and you had, I remember it had two engines pull something else and when we got to Buffalo we got out there and went on a little, other train to Maidsville and the school was right near Maidsville.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, did you go by yourself?
ANNA: No I went with Miss, I went with Miss Lillie Heward, from Ocean City, I mean Snow Hill.
INTERVIEWER: Yes, from Snow Hill. Alright ‘cause I thought traveling, a young lady traveling by herself wouldn’t have been done then.
ANNA: No indeed, that wouldn’t be done. I went through from Philadelphia to, on the night train, ‘cause you had a sleeper. My dad went and put me on the train.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
ANNA: And you could ride the trolley car from Chautauqua to Niagara Falls for a quarter.
INTERVIEWER: Oh boy!!!!
ANNA: For a quarter.
INTERVIEWER: Isn’t that something, my.
ANNA: I remember so well, ridin’ the trolley to go, one afternoon going to see Niagara Falls. Miss Lillie Heward was on there with me, ??????????? every place you stopped they put on a fruit sale, and of course this young boy got up and got some for me, well he had some and I thought he should, but she wouldn’t let me take it. She was funny. Her father was the man that ran the “Maryland” from Snow Hill to Baltimore.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, he was captain.
ANNA: Captain Heward.
INTERVIEWER: Right. Wasn’t there something tragic that was, was it the Hewards that some of their family drowned?
ANNA: Yes it was, and I can’t remember who it was.
INTERVIEWER: I can’t either, but that just sort of…….
ANNA: It’s in your mind, yes, mine too, yes.
INTERVIEWER: I’ll be darned.
ANNA: They were nice people.
INTERVIEWER: The, when you first got married, where would you do your grocery shopping? Did Berlin have grocery stores?
ANNA: Yes. Oh yes, the Bostons, and oh they had several here. Bostons store was the main meat store.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
ANNA: And Mr. John Ayres had one right down where…………
INTERVIEWER: Where John Donaway is?
ANNA: No, where, I guess it’s near there. Was the same building that the loan building was in there.
INTERVIEWER: Oh Exchange and Savings, Peninsula…………
ANNA: No, it was…….oh, where Hickman had his offices.
INTERVIEWER: Alright.
ANNA: That was Ayres.
INTERVIEWER: Alright.
ANNA: That was a right good size, and right beside it, his two sisters, Mary and Manda did sewing.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, how about that.
ANNA: Dresses that you wanted takin’ in.
INTERVIEWER: Oh alright. Where would you go for clothing? Philadelphia or did you……………
ANNA: Heck you never got to Philadelphia. Didn’t have money enough. We’d do well to get to Ocean City.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
ANNA: No………….most of them mother made.
INTERVIEWER: I was going to ask if your mother sewed.
ANNA: Ya my mother was a beautiful seamstress.
INTERVIEWER: Oh how nice. She used the treadle machine?
ANNA: Yes. That’s all we had, had no electricity.
INTERVIEWER: Right. When, well Berlin had electricity fairly early, didn’t it?
ANNA: Yes, but I can’t tell ya when.
INTERVIEWER: No but with its power plant it did that. Okay. Do you remember, and I don’t think you go back this far, do you remember an alligator named Jake?
ANNA: I sure do go back that far.
INTERVIEWER: Oh do you?
ANNA: Mr., Dr. Tom Franklin had the alligator, Jake. And had a big wire thin in back of his, it would be back of, what’s John….. John Howard’s Style Guide, part of that, there was a great big cage back there. Oh once or twice a year he’d put it up in his drugstore window for everybody to see it, and once a year, once a year old Jake would get out. He’d root himself out………..
INTERVIEWER: Oh really?
ANNA: Yes sir, in those days, didn’t have no gas lights on those corner, just dark, when we came home and everybody’s afraid to go out at night, ‘fraid to step on Old Jake. Scared to death of Jake and they have to hunt and find him in the darndest places. Put him back in the pen. Oh it was about this long.
INTERVIEWER: I’ve got a postcard with him in it.
ANNA: Have you? I’ve never seen it.
INTERVIEWER: And he’s a big thing…….. Did you do any ice skating?
ANNA: Yes sir.
INTERVIEWER: Where?
ANNA: Down at Trappe Pond.
INTERVIEWER: Alright.
ANNA: There were 2 ponds there then. We went every chance we would get, but there was a dirt road out here, we had to walk all the way from here to Trappe to skate.
INTERVIEWER: You walked?
ANNA: Ya, you walked.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
ANNA: No other way of getting’ there.
INTERVIEWER: Right, okay. What about swimming?
ANNA: Well I gave, the swam to Ocean City, but not as much ?????????? we did, they had Sunday School picnics but there wasn’t anybody that went swimming.
INTERVIEWER: Alright. That seems to be the way. Not too many people did swim.
ANNA: No uhum.
INTERVIEWER: It just wasn’t done.
ANNA: Oh James C. Handy, ‘course he raised down there and he was a world swimmer, you know.
INTERVIEWER: Right, he’s still alive, isn’t he?
ANNA: Yep.
INTERVIEWER: Yes, okay.
ANNA: He was here some time ago.
ANNA: Did you say you wanted my grandmother and grandfather’s name?
INTERVIEWER: Yes if you can remember their names.
ANNA: Oh yes, my grandmother, my mother’s mother was Rosie Andasia Rayne and his name was John Nathaniel Rayne.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
ANNA: And my father’s father was Thomas Chadwick…..
INTERVIEWER: That’s where Chad’s name was from.
ANNA: Yes, ……..but anyway he came here, he came over on the Man of War and he and a boy named Bobby jumped ship at Chincoteague, and then he went south and married Elizabeth Merritt and finally came up here and settled out here at Sinepuxtent. Little, little clump or woods that ivy’s all over the trees. And he’s buried back, in back of that, he and all of his family.
INTERVIEWER: I didn’t know that.
ANNA: Yep and he was Thomas Chadwick, my grandmother was Elizabeth Merritt from Virginia.
INTERVIEWER: Alright.
ANNA: And a, in the, my grandmother always had a light in her window, ‘cause she had 2 boys and one of them was lost at sea and she always kept a light in this little cottage. It was, it wasn’t anything big, it was small, so in case that boy would try to come home and couldn’t find the way.
INTERVIEWER: Isn’t that nice.
ANNA: Yes it was.
INTERVIEWER: Ahhh. That’s something. Now how did, okay Mr. Wise was the undertaker, how did your father-in-law, how did they get, how did he get to be an undertaker?
ANNA: Well Mr. Burbage was a contractor, I mean a builder, not a contractor, didn’t have contractors in those days, and he lived in Philadelphia. He was born in Philadelphia, so was Jack, ……….., but Mr. Burbage was there during the Depression, ??????? the 1893 Depression and he couldn’t get work anywhere, he was a Democrat and a, he always was a Democrat ticket, so he would just, the kids were just starving, they went, Mary Grace said you go to the ward master I think he can get you work, so he went up there and said, My kids are starving for something to eat, and he said I’ve just got to have work, he never was lazy, ?????????? during the Depression, he said well are you willing to take, vote Republican ticket, he said well it’s against my principles but I’d do it to feed my family, so he did, and he gave him a job at the old Broad Street Station.
INTERVIEWER: Oh for goodness sakes.
ANNA: This happened. That’s how Jack happened to be born in Philadelphia and his mother was from Lodes Crossroads. She was an English, Roseanna English.
INTERVIEWER: Oh alright, I’ll be darned. (personal conversation erased) Personally when you got your first car, other than the hearse?
ANNA: No I don’t.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. It was probably after you were married though.
ANNA: Oh yes, oh my Lord yes. I was coming along then. I remember the first car I ever saw. It was old man, I want to say, oh who was that, Mr. Bill Burbage, that’s Alberta’s father, and it was comin’ to town, it made all sorts of noises and all the kids that were uptown get to see the car come to town.
INTERVIEWER: I bet so. My dear. Did the circus come through Berlin?
ANNA: Yes indeed. We got, my father would get me up every morning, 3 o’clock, go and see them unload the circus and see if the elephants put up the tents. They did all the pulling.
INTERVIEWER: And they really did it.
ANNA: And they was big, three big thing. We went just crazy about circuses, kids were in those days.
INTERVIEWER: I’m sure.
ANNA: Always went to see it put up.
INTERVIEWER: That was an exciting time. Where did, you did not, your funeral business did not embalm black people………….
ANNA: We did everybody.
INTERVIEWER: You did everybody?
ANNA: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: ‘Cause I was wondering if there was a black mortician.
ANNA: No, but when Jack had his first heart attack in ’39, I believe it was, the doctor wouldn’t let him, he says you’ve got to cut down on work, you can’t keep this up or you can’t live, and he said well let’s set down and figure it, so the colored people they never carried any insurance, never did and we figured out and in 10 years in, we never had but 600 dollars?????????? Then they had the Masons over in Salisbury.
INTERVIEWER: Oh alright, that was the closest, that was the closest one.
ANNA: They had a colored undertaker over there.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, was that Jolley?
ANNA: Oh no, no.
INTERVIEWER: No that was still later.
ANNA: Stewart and, I forgot the other ones name or wait a minute, I forgot the other colored man’s name. Stewart was the main one.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, okay. Now the undertaker in Snow Hill was Hearn.
ANNA: Ya, Hearn, okay.
INTERVIEWER: Was there back in those days association of undertakers or did you see each other in passing or………..
ANNA: No a, now Mr. Hearn and my husband saw each other and Vernon Stevenson from Pocomoke all learned under Mr. Jimmy Wise, the undertaker that was here.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, so they had that in common.
ANNA: Yes, ‘cause they wanted to learn and they…….
INTERVIEWER: That made a difference. When you were growing up I did you have pets?
ANNA: Pets?
INTERVIEWER: Uhum.
ANNA: Any kind of pet I could get. Had a duck named Tamer once.
INTERVIEWER: A duck?
ANNA: Duck.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
ANNA: But a, now my mother and father were Southern Methodist. Had a church right over here on Pitts Street and it burned??? Whenever the new preacher would come to town we would always have him to save, to afford a place to live, ‘cause then he preached at Campbelltown and Taylorville and Berlin.
INTERVIEWER: Alright he was kept busy then wasn’t he?
ANNA: Yes traveled with a horse and buggy.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. Back in those days was church really important?
ANNA: Yes, very. It was the main theme in life.
INTERVIEWER: Alright.
ANNA: Pret-near everybody went to church.
INTERVIEWER: Good. Were there like more than one service on Sunday? Like Sunday evening or……..
ANNA: They always had service Sunday evening.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
ANNA: Then they had Sunday school and they had service in the morning.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, so that was important.
ANNA: Yes, very.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. Now you, okay, any of the fires that were in Berlin, now you remember at least one of them, don’t you?
ANNA: Oh ya I remember, I remember the one in ’98.
INTERVIEWER: Oh yes you did.
ANNA: Yes, see I was 6 years old.
INTERVIEWER: That’s right.
ANNA: And I remember I had just started school and a, I took my books, I was scared I was late. They called me up in the middle of the night and my grandmother had fallen down the steps trying to pull out a trunk and they brought her over there. She had a broken hip.
INTERVIEWER: Oh my dear.
ANNA: And they woke us up bringin’ her in. And that was bad fire. The next fire was when the mill down here was burned. I believe that was in…………
INTERVIEWER: 1907?
ANNA: Ya that’s the one.
INTERVIEWER: I think so.
ANNA: Well I saw that when it burned. This same church burned down here. Started up in the cross, was the first thing that went.
INTERVIEWER: Was it really?
ANNA: Ya it burned all the way down. Course then???????????
INTERVIEWER: Right, right. And it did that. Goodness. Well what did………….
ANNA: I’m not sure, I think the Presbyterian Church burned about the same time too.
INTERVIEWER: I think so. Mr. Pitts had said that this fire was that side of town. Well didn’t there used to be some hotels in town, other than the Atlantic?
ANNA: Ya. It was, there were, gosh, when the town building now is, was Savage’s Hotel.
INTERVIEWER: Alright that was the Park Hotel.
ANNA: Ya, Park Hotel.
INTERVIEWER: Park Hotel……….that seemed to be really big.
ANNA: Oh it did and it had a big yard on the other side of the front…………
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
ANNA: And a, it had a big, on one side of the front it had…….that old white things around it. Every patch of land had flowers and grass.
INTERVIEWER: Oh okay.
ANNA: Now every one of those fires, Jack was in the fire company, and he got up a ladder, had a right brand new suit on. That’s where we were married I think???????? And somebody took the ladder away, didn’t know he was up there, trying to get an old man out?????? The old man was on the floor and Jack was trying to get him out and they took the ladder and Jack had to jump out and he landed right in a whole mess of rose bushes. Tore his new suit all to pieces.
INTERVIEWER: Oh my dear.
ANNA: I’ll never forget that.
INTERVIEWER: The, okay the fires then, that hotel was never rebuilt.
ANNA: No………..
INTERVIEWER: Okay, was there another hotel uptown?
ANNA: Yes, there was a hotel up where, right across from Acme market now.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, that was the Majestic.
ANNA: Yes that’s right.
INTERVIEWER: Alright.
ANNA: ???????????? hotel. They did take transient, somebody come to stay a week or two they could stay there.
INTERVIEWER: Alright, okay. Alright, what about a, I talked to people in Newark and Newark was dry. You couldn’t buy liquor there. What about Berlin? Were there any places you could buy drinks?
ANNA: Ya you bought it at the hotel.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, alright. You’d do that. Was there any, like a, today you have bars, that type of things. Did the hotels have bars or……………
ANNA: They had bars, yes. That’s the only place you could get it.
INTERVIEWER: Okay……….were there in Berlin in the early years?
ANNA: I can’t think………….
INTERVIEWER: Fraternal clubs, that kind of thing?
ANNA: Except the Masons and the Odd Fellows, is the only thing I can remember.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, did they have regular meeting places?
ANNA: Oh ya.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. Where were these building?
ANNA: The, you know where the old Treasure Chest used to be? That was their building. ??????????? I think they still use that for Odd Fellows.
INTERVIEWER: I think so.
ANNA: And then the Masonic building, right down, before you get to the Acme on the opposite side of the street.
INTERVIEWER: Yes on the opposite side of the street.
ANNA: It had a light with a, Masons and Eastern Star lights up at night, you know.
INTERVIEWER: When was the Eastern Star formed?
ANNA: I’m afraid to say ’20 and it may have been ’22. Now I didn’t get in it until 1932.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
ANNA: But I think it was 1920, I’m afraid.
INTERVIEWER: Alright. When, did Berlin have dirt roads in the beginning, didn’t it? Streets.
ANNA: Oh ya I remember.
INTERVIEWER: Right.
ANNA: No ‘cause years ago this street wasn’t here. Mr. Will Pitts, Mr., yes William D. Pitts lived over there in this house where???? Pitts used to live. Well this street wasn’t here, that street opened on Main Street.
INTERVIEWER: Oh I didn’t know that.
ANNA: Ya in back of that house. It’s got a big porch there and flowers and trees that was the front of the house and some years later they opened this and called it Williams Street after Mr. Will Pitts father.
INTERVIEWER: I didn’t know that. I always wondered why that house seemed to face the wrong direction.
ANNA: It did, it faced the main street.
INTERVIEWER: I’ll be darned.
ANNA: You see the lower floor of that is brick-that house.
INTERVIEWER: I didn’t know that.
ANNA: A big house inside.
INTERVIEWER: It is?
ANNA: I hate to see it going down. I wish you could keep it ‘cause it’s such a…….
INTERVIEWER: Right it could be…………..
ANNA: And it’s a landmark and it’s a good place. Yes it’s a shame.
INTERVIEWER: Yes but it’s a, it cost too much money anymore, I’m afraid.
ANNA: Ya I’m sure it would too.
INTERVIEWER: To do anything like that.
ANNA: I think my great-grandmother Rayne was born there. Her name was Polly Pitts and I think she was born right there.
INTERVIEWER: Oh I’ll be darned. They didn’t move around much did they?
ANNA: No they didn’t. And Cousin Feeny lived over here where the, the parking lot is. That was Mr. Bill Pitt’s sister.
INTERVIEWER: Oh okay.
Anna; And a, right here was Doctor Pitts, had a, brick building here in this corner, I don’t expect you remember it?
INTERVIEWER: No.
ANNA: We tore it down, after I bought the place, and he lived here in this house. He had his office in back, and several years later that Dr. Cohen had a dental place there.
INTERVIEWER: Alright. When you were little…..That reminds me, who were the doctors in town?
ANNA: Dr. Ned Derrickson, then Dr. Cyrus Derrickson and Dr. Holland.
INTERVIEWER: Alright.
ANNA: Not this Dr. Holland, old Dr. Holland was the ??????? doctor.
INTERVIEWER: Okay was his first name Ebe or Ebe?
ANNA: Yep Ebe Holland.
INTERVIEWER: He lived down across from where Mr. Pitts lives now.
ANNA: Ya he lived right in the house where Mr. Pitts is livin’ now.
INTERVIEWER: That’s right. That’s right, right where he lives.
ANNA: And Dr. Derrickson lived what we call Cedars and where ?????????? young doctor, ??
INTERVIEWER: Right, I’ll be darned. Well did the doctors back then, they made house calls?
ANNA: Oh all together. Nobody had an office.
INTERVIEWER: That’s all they had.
ANNA: Ya.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, what about dentists? Were there early dentists?
ANNA: Ya, we had an old Dr. Cullen. I remember with me, he gave me a needle that wasn’t clean and I had lockjaw from it.
INTERVIEWER: Oh my.
ANNA: I know he was the only dentist here.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
ANNA: Old Dr. Marshall was really a dentist but he never practiced.
INTERVIEWER: Oh he was just here.
ANNA: Ya he lived here and they said he was, his wife was the pharmacist in Farlow’s.
INTERVIEWER: Okay that was that. What about movies?
ANNA: Have what?
INTERVIEWER: Have early movies, theaters here?
ANNA: No, uhun.
INTERVIEWER: Okay that came later.
ANNA: I think that came about the time my kids were……….
INTERVIEWER: Right about that age.
ANNA: ‘Cause I believe it was 10 cents to go in the afternoon.
INTERVIEWER: Oh my.
ANNA: On a Sunday, Saturday.
INTERVIEWER: And now it’s five dollars no matte when you go.
ANNA: And the big event was the Chautauqua, it came here on a big tent, and you bought a ticket for that and they had all kinds of entertainment. Everything all on the grass. Chairs on the grass too.
INTERVIEWER: Alright. Did families go to that? Was that………
ANNA: Oh ya it was quite a family affair.
INTERVIEWER: Alright and then…….
ANNA: We used to sell tickets for it.
INTERVIEWER: Oh you did?
ANNA: Ya. Used to go to every house, pret-near, sell those tickets, ‘cause I remember I walked all the way down to where Fran Quillen lives now and old man Mr. Hyde lived there I believe, I don’t know whether it was his or not, anyway this old man says what in the world are you getting’ out of it, you’re getting paid I know. I said I’m not getting’ anything out of it. I had to buy my ticket the same as anybody else. Well people enjoyed it. Every year they came.
INTERVIEWER: Well did they come in the summertime?
ANNA: Yes, ahun.