Carmean, Edith (1904-2003) |
Worcester County Library: Local History and Genealogy Collection, Snow Hill Branch, Snow Hill, MD
|
Interviewee: |
Edith Carmean (1904-2003) |
| Interviewer: | Katherine Fisher |
| Date of interview: |
1983 January 21 |
| Length of interview: | 39 minutes |
| Transcribed by: | C Cole, Worcester County Library |
| Preferred Citation: |
“Name, Oral History Collection, Date of Interview, Worcester County Library, Snow Hill Branch, Snow Hill, Maryland.” |
Topical Terms:
Education
High School
School
Worcester County (Md.)—History
Worcester County (Md.)—Social life and customs
Worcester County (Md.)—Women’s History
Location Terms:
Public Landing (Md.)
Snow Hill (Md.)
Worcester County (Md.)
Interview:
INTERVIEWER: It is Friday, January 21st, 1983. This is an interview with Mrs. Carmean at her home on Washington Street in Snow Hill. Mrs. Carmean what is your full name including your maiden name?
EDITH: Edith Beauchamp Carmean.
INTERVIEWER: Do you mind telling us when you were born?
EDITH: March 25, 1904.
INTERVIEWER: Where were you born?
EDITH: unintelligible
INTERVIEWER: Down very far toward Public Landing?
EDITH: Not that far.
INTERVIEWER: Who were your parents?
EDITH: John W. Beauchamp and Sally Mary Gravenor Beauchamp.
INTERVIEWER: Do you, off hand, know the name of your father’s parents?
EDITH: John W. and Flora.
INTERVIEWER: Do you know her maiden name?
EDITH: No, I’m not positive.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. On your mother’s side, the Gravenor side.
EDITH: Alison Gravenor and Martha Purnell Gravenor.
INTERVIEWER: When you were born what were your parents doing?
EDITH: Farming. All his life he farmed.
INTERVIEWER: Did you have to help out around the house? Any chores or anything?
EDITH: Well, I think I did. My biggest memory of household chores was bringing in wood. We lived here since I was nine years old and we had a big back porch. On one end of the back porch we put the big wood or what we called the sap stove wood which was for heat. At the other end of the porch we put the split wood for the cook stove. It was all wood and it burned a lot of wood. But that was my chore. I had a younger brother and when he got old enough, he helped too. And, of course, I had to clean on Saturday, and things of that sort, but I never did learn much cooking.
INTERVIEWER: You stayed out on the farm until you were nine.
EDITH: No, we moved in town. We had a big family and the older ones could get a job in town, so we rented a house. And that was also was on Washington, and then we moved again on Washington before we moved here.
INTERVIEWER: You stayed on Washington Street.
EDITH: All my life I’ve been on Washington Street, since I can remember. We lived in town. I was about four when we moved.
INTERVIEWER: You don’t remember a whole lot about the farm.
EDITH: I don’t remember anything about the farm.
INTERVIEWER: That’s too young. Even after you all moved in town, you’re Dad continued to farm?
EDITH: Yes. He commuted by mule or a horse.
INTERVIEWER: That’s a different kind of commuting, isn’t it? You said you had a large family. You had older brothers and sisters?
EDITH: There were eight of us. All of us moved in town and, then one brother soon moved to Baltimore. Then one brother soon got married. He was married in 1913. We moved here in November of 1913, he got married Christmas.
INTERVIEWER: What were your brother’s and sister’s names?
EDITH: The oldest one was Lowder, and he was named for grandfather Lowder Alison. I don’t know where Lowder came from. We haven’t discovered why he was named Lowder. Then there was Edna Martha, Catherine Catter.
INTERVIEWER: C-a-t-t-e-r?
EDITH: Mm-hm. Her name started with CC. Then Reuben John, Susan Davis, that was from an old family friend. Sally Mary, Edith Ann, Louis Bennett, who was (unintelligible).
INTERVIEWER: Well, that is a big family. I presume then that your mother didn’t work outside of the house. She tried to keep track of all you.
EDITH: She did all the housework. She didn’t have an outside job.
INTERVIEWER: When you moved in town did you still keep a garden?
EDITH: I’m sure we did. I can’t remember the first house having one, but I do know the second one did. We always had a garden here because we had a whole, this other lot here where the next house is. We had a front yard across there and we had big garden, and we had a lot of vegetables on this side. And at the back there was a big barn. We had two mules at a time, and a horse and a cow, right here. And then the next building probably the chicken house, I can’t remember where it was. Mom had a family of chickens you know, not for sale, and we got eggs from that.
INTERVIEWER: And milk from the cow.
EDITH: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: When you were living here you said there was a barn out back, what happened to the barn?
EDITH: When we bought this property from (unintelligible) we bought half of the lot, but we had all of the buildings on this lot. He moved the barn to the farm, which was all a part of the buildings, when he was working out there.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember when they moved the barn?
EDITH: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: How did they go about?
EDITH: Well if I can describe it. I maybe wrong. I think they had something like pilings on the ground that they put it on. The piling was on wheels and then they would pull the wheels with mules. That’s what I remember.
INTERVIEWER: All right. Going down to the farm, which is a part of Dover, that’s about from here, that’s nearly five or six miles.
EDITH: It’s about five. He used that barn until he died. And later years, not from him, the trail wasn’t made through us, but later, a schoolteacher, and it may be at that time he destroyed the barn. He renovated and built different buildings.
INTERVIEWER: You said your dad lived at the farm from ’27 until he died. Was that so he could run the farm more efficiently?
EDITH: Yes, he had more help at that time.
INTERVIEWER: Now you said they had a tenant.
EDITH: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: And then the tenants left, and your dad moved out there. Okay now, where did you go to school?
EDITH: In Snow Hill.
INTERVIEWER: Where was the elementary school when you attended?
EDITH: When I first went, I cannot remember where I went to in the first and second grade. I cannot recall. I remember entering the building which was at that time the old high school building on Federal Street, West Federal Street. I have a vision of registering or whatever, but the first classroom that I can remember was downtown over the stores, they were building the new primary and that would be on the western side of Federal Street.
INTERVIEWER: Is it near Collins Street?
EDITH: Yes, across it. Our classes went to school uptown over the building at the corner of Bank and Green Streets. And over the next-door building. We had two classes up there. And when we played at recess, we weren’t allowed to go up that street where the municipal building is now, was the fire building, at the back entrance was where they had their firetruck. I doubt that they had motor engines, I think they drove by horses. At the back of that building there was like a board wall with holes in it, across it, where they rolled their hose to dry. The class had the most fun to play on that like you would on swings. Then the next two years, the third- and fourth-class year, I was in the primary, and my teacher was Miss Mavis (unintelligible), who was a neighbor of mine of here. The fourth-grade teacher was Miss Garfield. That was at the big building on Pleasant Street.
INTERVIEWER: Who was principal? Was there a separate principal of the primary school?
EDITH: I think Miss Georgia Bonneville was there at that time, I think she was sort of the supervisor.
INTERVIEWER: When you went down to the high school, Mr. Humphreys was principal down there. Do you remember whether, I know you went to school to learn to read and write and all that, were there any social events connected with school? Did you have, was there a PTA, parties, or anything like that?
EDITH: No.
INTERVIEWER: You went to school. Were there any problems with discipline, particularly that you remember, or how did they handle it? Talk about school. Did you go to church?
EDITH: Always.
INTERVIEWER: What church did you go to?
EDITH: Whatcoat.
INTERVIEWER: Was Bates here at that time?
EDITH: Yes. Christian Church was here.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. And Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Old School Baptist.
EDITH: Old School Baptist was a wooden church and I think it had been moved out of one of the biggest churches here in town. But I don’t know who.
INTERVIEWER: I think it was the old Whatcoat Church in the cemetery and they moved it over there. I remember someone else telling me about that. Was church much different that it is now, was there longer preaching or…?
EDITH: Oh yes, the preacher would talk at least thirty minutes. Every preacher would talk up to thirty minutes and if he had a problem to speak of that he could change, he would talk for forty-five.
INTERVIEWER: When you went as a young child did you go before the preaching too?
EDITH: Yes, and preaching.
INTERVIEWER: And preaching and you had to sit through.
EDITH: Mm-mm.
INTERVIEWER: Did you have Sunday School picnics or excursions or anything that you remember?
EDITH: I’m sure we did, but there is nothing that stands out. No one occasion.
INTERVIEWER: What would you do for fun, let’s say in the wintertime for entertainment? Up until you were graduated. Was there a place to go ice skating, did you go ice skating?
EDITH: On the river and I never went.
INTERVIEWER: But they did skate on the river.
EDITH: And Public Landing, but only in severe, very severe cold, one of those cold spells we had.
INTERVIEWER: When you got up into high school and started to get interested in boys and vise-versa did you do much single dating? What would you do?
INTERVIEWER: Okay. You didn’t single date so you would go around as a group.
EDITH: Yes, and in this neighborhood, it was more just this neighborhood than any. I would get in the car…
INTERVIEWER: You had a car?
EDITH: We had a Ford. This house was the centerpiece of this whole neighborhood and they would all come in and we would play hours at a time. When it was weather that you could get out in, we played Hide and Seek. The girls against the boys. There was always a light pole on this street and that was the goal. That was where you were free when you came. We had two blocks that we played on. That is part of my memories that was good runs. They were quite young boys and they were all about foolery.
INTERVIEWER: That sounds like good fun. Did you go to Public Landing much?
EDITH: I don’t know if you would call it much or not. I remember my father had a Ford and he let me drive it. Unintelligible. And Public Landing Road was all of those, you know, railroad, and round about thirty-three inches, the ruts. So, I had a friend (unintelligible) living nearby. She and I went down to Public Landing on this particular Sunday afternoon and we went down into one of these potholes and the top, the roof of the car was strapped down and we went down like this and the roof went back like that. We were scared. We didn’t know whether we had torn the car up or not. I don’t know who fixed it, but we got it put back. And we went on further down. And coming back we did the same thing again.
INTERVIEWER: When you were going down to Public Landing then were there amusements there still?
EDITH: What date? We were talking about it when I was about sixteen.
INTERVIEWER: Which would be about 1920, right?
EDITH: Yeah.
INTERVIEWER: And I know the amusements were gone in ’33, that storm washed them out.
EDITH: I don’t know when they were gone.
INTERVIEWER: I don’t know either. They might not have been there that early.
EDITH: I can’t remember when they started. I have a snapshot of our class reunion, I think would have been ’22, which would have been one year. And they in there a pier right at the beginning of the bay like it is now, but it couldn’t be the same pier. We were backed up to that and we had a picnic.
INTERVIEWER: Did you ever go down for Farmer’s Day or Forester’s Day?
EDITH: I wasn’t there. I was about fourteen. My brother and his wife had been married in 1913. In 1914 I would have been 10 years old. Well, when I was about fourteen, I went to Chincoteague, went to pony penning. And my brother in law from Chincoteague came up on what they called the Big Fishing Boat. It had no hood or covering over it. It was built like a big canoe and it had bars across it to sit on. And he met us there and I went to Chincoteague with him for a visit.
INTERVIEWER: I bet that was a trip. Wasn’t it?
EDITH: That was a trip. And we went out from Chincoteague while I was visiting there one year, I don’t remember which year, and we went down the bay. And I remember sitting on one of these benches and my head went over this way and my feet went up in the air, I fell off the bench! Going back to Forester’s Day, the first deviled eggs I ever ate, we went down to Public Landing for a picnic and my new sister in law had made them. And we went up in the yard, Mr. Deguibert. Do you know how to spell that name?
INTERVIEWER: D-e-g-u-i-l-d-e-r-t.
EDITH: I don’t think it has an l.
INTERVIEWER: There isn’t an l.
EDITH: But we spread the cloth on the ground, and everybody got around it and sat right on the ground. She brought the deviled eggs, among other things, but that’s what remained in my memory, because that was my first introduction to deviled eggs.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember the racecourse at Snow Hill?
EDITH: No. I know where it is and all that, but I never went.
INTERVIEWER: I am trying to determine. Some people say they raced horses, and some say later they raced cars.
EDITH: It was horses as far as my memory goes.
INTERVIEWER: Did you ride on the train?
EDITH: Yes, at Greenback. During World War One I went down to the station to get the train to go down to my aunt’s. And at that time the neighbor’s name was Miss Betsy Thomas. She later married Howard (?). I was knitting in the station waiting for the same train. She was going to visit her sister, Mrs. Warren at Thompson(?). She talked me to death in that station while we were waiting for the train. And I was a child.
INTERVIEWER: And you’re still knitting.
EDITH: Yes. Crocheting.
INTERVIEWER: Was the train a steam engine at that time? Did it have smokestack and was it dirty to ride on?
EDITH: I think so.
INTERVIEWER: What about steamboats? Were they still around when you were in town?
EDITH: Yes. The steamboat used come (unintelligible). I think it’s landing time was each Saturday. It could have been more than that. I know we went down there to watch. And Captain Heward, he was the captain on it.
INTERVIEWER: He had a house here in town?
EDITH: Yes, it’s on the corner of Federal and Morris.
INTERVIEWER: Does Mr. Jones live there now.
EDITH: George Jones now lives there. His daughter was my second-grade teacher, Miss Lilly Heward.
INTERVIEWER: When you were in high school what sort of sports were there?
EDITH: Well, for girls there was basketball and volleyball. And Mabel Hudson now, who was Mabel Dunlap in school, was the head captain of everything she played.
INTERVIEWER: She was really very good.
EDITH: Oh, she was really the best player. And another friend of mine, Naomi, at that time Trader, now Vincent, she was a guard. I can’t recall all of them but another one was, I can’t think of her name.
INTERVIEWER: The basketball and volleyball teams, would they play other schools in the county or just each other?
EDITH: I guess they had to. When we had Field Day, that’s what we called, and that was the playoff of everything, the races and the relays and all the games.
INTERVIEWER: And all the counties would participate in that.
EDITH: I think so because they had it at different towns.
INTERVIEWER: Did you play basketball or volleyball?
EDITH: No.
INTERVIEWER: Was this during school or after school? Was it more extracurricular activity?
EDITH: coughing
INTERVIEWER: Did Snow Hill have a police force back when you were young?
EDITH: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember any of the policemen?
EDITH: Yes. The first one that I can recall was Mr. Will Purnell and his son, Randall, also was one. It was years after because Mr. Purnell retired and went to work at the (unintelligible). He ran a filling station at the corner of Pocomoke Road and 30(?). At the end of his, you know.
INTERVIEWER: Was there a lot of crime around?
EDITH: No. Nobody committed crime.
INTERVIEWER: What about Saturdays in Snow Hill? Did quite a few people come in?
EDITH: Yes. All of the stores were very busy. My husband was a barber and Saturday was a very long day. Very long day.
INTERVIEWER: He shaved people too, didn’t he?
EDITH: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: Let me ask you that. I think you told me when you were married but tell me again.
EDITH: I was married in 1923. In December.
INTERVIEWER: Who did you marry?
EDITH: I married Frank B. Carmean. We were together 52 years. We were very compatible.
INTERVIEWER: Was he a barber when you married him?
EDITH: Yes, he was a barber. The way we really started dating was the firemen always had a play, and he was a fireman. So, he had the play and started escorting me home. And at that time there were three girls that were in the play. And three of the firemen walked us home each day. And one night we all walked the whole distance to take the other girls’ home and we were so tickled about silly things that we don’t know now why neighbors along the street didn’t call out or something like that, because it was just a great fun. But it was such innocent fun. Nobody would have been afraid to say something to us. But now if a group went by being loud you would be afraid to open your mouth. But we were really loud, just having fun about silly things that were going on.
INTERVIEWER: Once you got married, where did you live?
EDITH: I’ve always lived here. We moved here in November 1913. My mother and father bought the place and we stayed on. Then when Pop moved back on the farm in 1925, we rented and in ‘27 we bought. So, I haven’t been anywhere else since 1913.
INTERVIEWER: Do you have children?
EDITH: No, I never had any.
INTERVIEWER: And he barbered until he retired?
EDITH: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: Now, have you worked outside of the home when you got married?
EDITH: All my life.
INTERVIEWER: What kind of work did you do?
I went through high school, ended with the eleventh grade, you know, and between tenth and eleventh grade I was (unintelligible) with my subjects so, when I came home, I had one year of shorthand and typing from the tenth grade. And in the fall, they had two terms of course which I took to have a job. That was in October and March. In October of that year, the girl that was working for Mr. John Staton (unintelligible), so she took time off. They sent for somebody from the high school just to sit in while he was in court. Because at that time, because of this being (unintelligible) time, any lawyer who had a case from the state through that whole term had to be in court. They did not have a time limit of time. So that Mr. Staton and Mr. Whaley had to both be in the courtroom. They had built their office in the front of the court, on the second floor. I was sent up from school to fill in and I stayed there for three weeks to learn during her absence. And after that they asked me to work on Saturdays. I quit. That was 1920 and I quit in 1978. I had a brief period out. That’s when I worked.
INTERVIEWER: Goodness gracious. You certainly have. You’ve seen a lot too, going through there. You’ve seen a lot of changes just in the courthouse itself, in the building.
EDITH: It’s hard to recognize now.
INTERVIEWER: Now when you went there in 1920 describe the building to me if you can.
EDITH: Well, outside it had no wings. And I think about ‘53 it just had one wing.
INTERVIEWER: You said, and this is something that I didn’t know about, that there were no case assignments.
EDITH: Not timed.
INTERVIEWER: Not timed. They just came up however they came?
EDITH: Well I suppose it came by the number on the docket, but you had no date set.
INTERVIEWER: You had a lot of lawyers around Snow Hill then waiting for cases.
EDITH: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: Where would you eat? The lawyers? I know today I know where they eat lunch. Was there a place?
EDITH: 1920’s.
INTERVIEWER: In the ‘20’s. So, they would just eat at whatever soda fountain happened to be in town at the time.
EDITH: As far as I can… I never thought of it.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember any really bad storms, be it snowstorms or hurricanes?
EDITH: In ’33.
INTERVIEWER: Were you here in Snow Hill at that time? I know it did a tremendous amount of damage at Public Landing. Was there any water damage here in town? Did the river rise?
EDITH: The river rose but I don’t think there was any damage. I’m not an authority on that.
INTERVIEWER: Any particular snowstorms stand out as being really severe.
EDITH: Every snowstorm was severe.
INTERVIEWER: One would have been just as bad as the other if they were to have done that. You said your dad had a Ford. Was that the first car that he got?
EDITH: Mm-huh
INTERVIEWER: Was it open?
EDITH: Open sides, and if it rained you had the side curtains. They had eyes and drapes for wind.
INTERVIEWER: Who were the doctors here in town?
EDITH: There was an old gentleman, Dr. Aydelotte. I think he had stopped practicing, but he lived many years after. And Dr. Riley. And Dr. Paul Jones, he was our family doctor.
INTERVIEWER: Were there dentists?
EDITH: Dr. Ricketts, we had a dentist before, I never went to him, but he was a Dr. Deshields. But Dr. Ricketts took his office and he was my only dentist.
INTERVIEWER: With your mother having eight children were there any home remedies that you remember her using? If you had a bad cold what would she do? Today you run to the doctor if you cough.
EDITH: No, we didn’t go to the doctor for that. It was just something that she rubbed on the throat. A lot of the times it was coal oil was for your throat.
INTERVIEWER: Coal oil! She would rub it on your throat, on the outside. For goodness sake.
EDITH: And of course, you had castor oil to take for the inside every once in a while.
INTERVIEWER: I’m glad they don’t do that anymore. You didn’t enjoy it.
EDITH: I’ll tell you a story that was told. They said that this girl went into the drugstore which had a soda fountain and she asked for a bottle of castor oil to take home. She ordered that. So, (unintelligible) he said. “Can I buy you a milkshake?” She said, “Fine.” So, she drank the milkshake and she got ready to leave and she said, “Now I’ll take the castor oil.” He says, “You’ve already had it.” He had put it in the milkshake.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, my.
EDITH: It probably wasn’t even for her.
INTERVIEWER: Isn’t that something.
Interview Ends