Holston, Lottie (1896-1992) 1982 Interview |
Worcester County Library: Local History and Genealogy Collection, Snow Hill Branch, Snow Hill, MD
|
Interviewee: |
Lottie Holston (1896-1992) |
| Interviewer: |
Alvin West |
| Date of interview: |
1982 May 5 |
| Length of interview: |
29 min |
| Transcribed by: |
David Nedrow |
| Preferred Citation: |
“Name, Oral History Collection, Date of Interview, Worcester County Library, Snow Hill Branch, Snow Hill, Maryland.” |
Topical Terms:
Church
Domestic Life
Education
Worcester County (Md.)—History
Worcester County (Md.)—Social life and customs
Worcester County (Md.)—Women’s History
Location Terms:
Greenbackville (Va.)
Snow Hill (Md.)
Interview begin
INTERVIEWER: May 5th, 1982. OK, can you give me your full name please?
LOTTIE: Lottie Fooks Holston.
INTERVIEWER: OK. And could you give me the name of your parents?
LOTTIE: My father was Irving S. Holston and my mother was Ida G. Holston
INTERVIEWER: OK. When were you born?
LOTTIE: January 9, 1896.
INTERVIEWER: Were you born at home?
LOTTIE: I was born in Snow Hill.
INTERVIEWER: OK.
LOTTIE: But we left there shortly after and I spent until 1918 in Greenbackville, Virginia.
INTERVIEWER: OK. Were you raised by your parents?
LOTTIE: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: Did you have any brothers and or sisters?
LOTTIE: I had one sister that was younger than I and one brother that was a great deal younger than I am.
INTERVIEWER: Could you give me the names of your brothers and sisters?
LOTTIE: My sister’s name was Katie Baylis, her married name, and my brother’s name is Irving S. Holston.
INTERVIEWER: Ok.
LOTTIE: The sister’s deceased.
INTERVIEWER: Ok. What did your parent’s do for a living?
LOTTIE: My father was a railroad man until 1918, when we came up here and he became a farmer.
INTERVIEWER: Ok. Um, how old were you when you started school?
LOTTIE: Oh…I don’t know…my mother and fath, no. My mother taught me to read and write and I could read and write and do all my multiplication facts up to the 10th, we called them tables in those days, before I ever started the school. And I think I started when I was seven, because in Virginia, you had to be seven before you could start.
INTERVIEWER: OK.
LOTTIE: But I had to…as I recall, it must have been in the second grade I started becau…I remember little or nothing about my early school days.
INTERVIEWER: Um, did you go to college after you finished high school?
LOTTIE: No. All the work I did was in summer schools and I went several summer schools…until I was in about the third year of…I would have been in the, junior year of college.
INTERVIEWER: Ok. What did you do for a living?
LOTTIE: Teaching.
INTERVIEWER: Ok. Were you ever married?
LOTTIE: No.
INTERVIEWER: Ok. Were your parents very religious?
LOTTIE: Were they what?
INTERVIEWER: Religious.
LOTTIE: Yes. We were...we were Methodist Protestants when we grew up. But um, then the Methodist Protestants and the Methodist Episcopal were united until we were always a member of the United Methodist Church.
INTERVIEWER: OK. Could you tell me about some of the events in your church that you remember when you were a childhood? In your childhood?
LOTTIE: In the church?
INTERVIEWER: Yes
LOTTIE: I can remember going to Sunday school. And I can remember going into the Meh, Meth, Methodist Episcopal church, as a member of the Christian Endev…no. Christian Endeavor. I believe they called it. And while at church, I can remember being a member of the Christian Endeavor and I can remember some of the things that we were taught in that, and I began teaching Sunday school at a very early age. And I had one Sunday school teacher that made a great impression upon my life. Many of the things I believe now she taught me.
INTERVIEWER: Um, could you tell me about some of the memorable events in your school days?
LOTTIE: Hmm. Well, when we were in Greenback…in the early…in the early days in Greenbackville, when I say I think I started in the second grade, I have no recollection of, what grade I was in, but I remember there was four rooms in the school. Two up and two down. And my ideal of being promoted was to go upstairs…so I was to be…to go upstairs. Now what grade I was in, I don’t know. And it depended upon whether I could do division with two figures in the divisor. Well, when I went upstairs, and the teacher gave me, that she did the rest of the class, this test with two figures in the divisor, I couldn’t do it. And I was sent back downstairs. When I told my mother about that, of course she was greatly distressed, and she sat down and taught me how to do it. And the next day, I went back with a note to the teacher. And I can remember that teachers name because I always thought it was such a lovely name. Her name was Ethel Trebillion. And when…I taught I…mother wrote a note, I gave it to her and she sent me to the board that morning and she made me do long division examples with two figures in the divisor the whole morning. And I think she must have been a little provoked maybe, maybe my mother to, because the last thing she said to me you go back upstairs and if you tell your teacher, if you can’t do long division with two figures in the divisor, to give you one. Now, I don’t know how I got promoted, but that’s how I got upstairs. (Laughing) I guess it was in the 5th or 6th grade. I don’t know. Maybe 4th.That was one thing that I…stands out very vividly. And then, after I got into 6th grade, ah, my mother and father took me out from the Virginia schools and sent me to Stockton to school. And we had to goad a little pony…to, with a, into a carriage. And when the roads were too bad, or it was too cold to drive, we walked. That was four miles.
INTERVIEWER: Alright. Could you tell me about your visiting other towns in Worcester county? Like Ocean City?
LOTTIE: My visits there?
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
LOTTIE: Well in the early, very early days, I think we used to go by train. You go to Berlin and take another train and go to Ocean City. And then, later days, we got a car. We drove. Um, but I don’t remember too much about that. I don’t remember too much about my visits to other towns. I used to come to Snow Hill rather frequently, because we had relatives there, But it’s, as far as the other towns, I knew Stockton, I knew Girdletree, but I didn’t know much about the northern end of the county.
INTERVIEWER: That’s good. Have your Political views changed much since when you were younger to today?
LOTTIE: Um…yes and no. Because um, I don’t always stick to my...I’ve never changed parties. I’ve been with the same, um, political party. But that doesn’t mean that I have to vote for everybody that belongs to that political party. I think more about the people and what they stand for than I do of a party.
INTERVIEWER: OK. Can you tell me about the transportation system your parents used when you were younger?
LOTTIE: Well, in my early days, we used a train. A train. And then, um, that’s when we lived in Greenbackville. And after we bought a horse and carriage (unintelligible) and ponies, we could ride to school. We used that quite a bit. And then, when we got a car, we drove. Used a train too. And I have flown quite a bit.
INTERVIEWER: Could you tell me about your first car?
LOTTIE: First car?
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
LOTTIE: Huh…It was a Model T Ford. And I really enjoyed it.
INTERVIEWER: Could you tell me about the kind of foods you ate?
LOTTIE: Food?
INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
LOTTIE: Any thing that came to hand. Huh. I never war particular about food. And I’m not a connoisseur of good food. I mean, you eat to live not live to eat. That’s been my motto. And I eat most anything that comes around. Except olives. I can’t eat olives.
INTERVIEWER: Mmkay. Did you have a favorite when you were younger? A favorite food?
LOTTIE: Favorite food?
INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
LOTTIE: Not that I know of.
INTERVIEWER: Ok. Did your parent or your mother do any preserving of food? Like canning?
LOTTIE: My mother always canned. Preserved. And I do. I do (unintelligible), canning, preserving, pickling, make fruit juice and all that sort of thing.
INTERVIEWER: Could you tell me about your marketing procedures that your parents used?
LOTTIE: What?
INTERVIEWER: Marketing procedures. To buy food. The food you bought.
LOTTIE: I still don’t understand.
(Tape stop) (Tape start)
LOTTIE: My father and mother always had a garden, ever since I can remember. And then the other staple foods we had to go to the store for.
INTERVIEWER: Ok. Did your mother make your clothes?
LOTTIE: Most of them. Our coats were bought and things like that. But for the dresses, she made most of them.
INTERVIEWER: OK. Was your family for or against Prohibition?
LOTTIE: Rich or poor?
INTERVIEWER: Prohibition.
LOTTIE: Oh. For or against Prohibition. They were always for prohibition. They were very much against alcohol. And my mother hated cards. (chuckle)
INTERVIEWER: Could you tell me how the depression…hit your family?
LOTTIE: If it had not been for my mother’s…chickens, I think we would have been rather bad off. Because I didn’t have, couldn’t, didn’t get my money when I-I was teaching at the time. And my salary didn’t come in always, always when it should be. But with my salary and with my mother’s chickens and eggs and things like that, um, I can’t say that we were too badly hit. We, we didn’t have all of the things that a lot of people had. But I mean, there was no, nothing terrible about it.
INTERVIEWER: OK.
LOTTIE: I can remember with the children in school. I can remember one child that came from a, well, a family that was, had retired, the father had retired. And his money was invested in stocks. And when that was gone, when the stocks went bad and things like that, that family were in worst off condition than many of the others. And I can remember one day she said to me, (clears throat) ”Miss Holston, I think the depression is over. My father gave me a nickel.” (chuckle) That’s the first nickel that child has had for years, ah, months.
INTERVIEWER: Huh. Could you tell me about some of your family remedies that you liked or disliked?
LOTTIE: Family members?
INTERVIEWER: Remedies.
LOTTIE: Remedies?
INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
LOTTIE: I remember one time my mother put an onion plaster on me when I had, on my chest, when I had an awful cold. And I got up in the night and hung it out the window. I couldn’t stand the odor. And, I don’t know. I never did like to take medicine. But they never forced, my, my mother never was one for giving us medicine. What we got we came from the doctor, most of it.
INTERVIEWER: Uh huh. Did you ever go to any of the Forrester Day picnics they had at Public Landing?
LOTTIE: Mmhm. I remember coming up from Greenbackville and Franklin City on a boat once or twice, coming up there for Forrester‘s day. And um, I can remember the crowds, and I can remember… I don’t think I ever saw their covered wagons that they used to come in. I don’t think I ever did. You see, at that time that, I couldn’t, th-those things, we were living in Franklin City, we didn’t come here, or we were lived in Greenbackville and we didn’t come.
INTERVIEWER: OK. Did you have any family members who were involved in any of the wars? World War I, World War II, Civil War?
LOTTIE: Um. I had a cousin that was in World War I. And my brother was in World War II. He was in the South Pacific.
INTERVIEWER: OK. How long did you teach?
LOTTIE: 49 years.
INTERVIEWER: OK. What subjects did you teach?
LOTTIE: Well, in my first three years, I taught in a rural school where you had all grades. And then, the next four years I taught in Virginia. And I taught fifth and sixth grades, or just sixth grade. And then I came back and taught in a rural school again for a few years. And then I taught fourth, fifth and sixth. And I ended up just teaching sixth. In Snow Hill I taught sixth grade.
INTERVIEWER: OK. Could you tell me about some of the toys and games you played with as a youngster?
LOTTIE: When I was a child?
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
LOTTIE: I never did like to play with doll babies. I never did do that very much. (Chuckle) And my mother used to play checkers with us. And she used to play old maid cards with us… and when the year, when we lived, grow, we were growing up in Greenbackville, in the summertime, there were a group of us that played croquet every night. Now I mean every night! Six nights, we didn’t play on Sunday’s, but we played six nights to the week when the weather was good. And there were a group of several of the neighborhood children, you know. We played croquet every night in the summertime. And a, we used to play ball once in a while and the games that children played in school. But at the home, it was checkers and dominoes, old maid cards.
INTERVIEWER: OK. Did your father and brother do much hunting? Hunting?
LOTTIE: Did they what?
INTERVIEWER: Hunt.
LOTTIE: My father was a fox hunter. My brother, my brother never hunted.
INTERVIEWER: How did you get interested in teaching school?
LOTTIE: In that day and time there wasn’t much else to do. I wanted to be a nurse, and my father was very much opposed to it. So that there just wasn’t much else to do but teach, I don’t know if there were any particular interests there. I always liked, I always liked school work. And school work was not hard for me.
INTERVIEWER: Did you visit the fairgrounds often in Pocomoke?
LOTTIE: I never was there but once.
INTERVIEWER: OK. Could you tell me about it?
LOTTIE: The fairgrounds?
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
LOTTIE: I don’t remember a thing in this world about it but the horse race. I don’t remember a thing about that then. I was never there but once.
INTERVIEWER: OK. Did you know how to swim when you were younger?
LOTTIE: No. I didn’t. My father was always afraid we’d get hurt. And we never were allowed to do things like that. Never to swim, to ride a bicycle, or things like that. He was always afraid we’d get hurt. That’s a bad way to rear a family.
INTERVIEWER: Did your mother teach you how to sew or knit or anything like that?
LOTTIE: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: OK.
LOTTIE: She taught me how to do house work. And how to sew and knit and plant a garden and all these other things.
INTERVIEWER: OK. What were some of the other things you had to do as a youngster around the house?
LOTTIE: I don’t know if there was any special duties. We always did a part of the work. We cleaned and we washed windows and we helped with anything, cooking, or anything that was to be done.
INTERVIEWER: OK. Could you give me your mother’s maiden name.?
LOTTIE: Gravenor.
INTERVIEWER: OK.
LOTTIE: G-R-A-V-E-N-O-R
INTERVIEWER: OK. And your grandparents names?
LOTTIE: My father, my mother‘s father was named Allison Gravenor and her mother was Martha Gravenor. On my grand. On my father’s side, my grandmother was Ellen Jane Ratledge, before she was married. And my grandfather was James Henry Holston.
INTERVIEWER: OK, and did they live in Snow Hill?
LOTTIE: Um, no. They lived in the country hereabouts.
INTERVIEWER: OK. And what did your grandparents do for a living?
LOTTIE: Um, my grandfather Gravenor was a carpenter and my grandfather Holston was a farmer.
INTERVIEWER: How old were you when you got your first car?
LOTTIE: Oh, I’d say 23 or 4.
INTERVIEWER: OK, (clears throat)
Tape stops.
Tape starts.
LOTTIE: Well in those early days you did not have to go to a school, a normal school as they were called. Ah, you went out of high school and took a teachers examinations. It was given on a countywide basis. We’d all meet in someplace, um, Snow Hill usually, and you’d take a teachers examination. Now there were many rural schools, at that time. And nearly all teachers, especially those who did not go to a normal school, there were a few which did but those who did not go, usually went out into the one room schools. Now each one room school had three trustees. And it was considered quite an honor to be a trustee and to make rules of, of a rural school. So when you wanted a job, you went to the trustees of that school and asked for, ah, the teaching position. And it was up to them to say yes or no. And then of course, after you made that, um, I mean after they told you yes, then you made a contract with the Board of Education, which was located in Snow Hill. Now that’s how I got my first job. I came to the trustees of the Cedartown school, and that was back in 1913. That was the first year that teachers were paid monthly. Prior to that, they had been paid on a quarterly basis, which was about every 10 weeks. But that time, now my salary at that time, was $300 each year. I paid $10 a month board. And, um, then, you, um, I went home every two weeks and paid my fare home. But I was able to save about a hundred dollars that year out of the 300. If you were out in the rural areas, there wasn’t much to spend your money for, (unintelligible), that was it. But teachers were highly respected in that day and time. Especially in a rural area like this. They were looked up to and there were not, um, you didn’t have too much trouble with discipline. You did have trouble, but, usually you were backed up by the parents. So that didn’t make it so hard as it was before. You’re responsible for keeping your room warm. You were your own custodian. You were your own fireman. And you always did that with the help of some of the older boys. But there was a responsibility. And I often wondered what happened to the children, and what happened to the teacher when she went right out from high school, with no experience whatever, to teach children. And I can remember, I don’t know why boys and girls that in day and time would ever need to know compound proportion, but you were supposed to teach it, and I didn’t know how. So I wrote back to my principal where I graduated from high school, and asked him to explain it to me on paper. And he did “How to Teach Compound Proportion”. Now, I don’t think anybody’s ever had any use for that, but I never taught it. I know never have. But anyway, that was one of the things you were supposed to do, you know, teach all these things with no doubt. And they, the Baltimore count, the old Baltimore County course of study and I hated that with a vengeance, because it was made for a county that was a large county near a metropolitan area. And here you were down here in an isolated section and I don’t think anybody ever used it. Finally we made one of our own.
INTERVIEWER: What did you do in the summertime when you weren’t teaching?
LOTTIE: Um, I went to summer school a great many of the times. I taught um, no, I didn’t teach. I went to, um, business school for two summers. Eight weeks in each summer. Because I had planned to leave the teaching profession, and I thought I would l go into the business world. But, at that time, the bottom dropped out of the business world and teaching, again, was about the only job you could get. So I stayed into it. And then I worked a couple of summers. I worked one summer in, um, Washington. And that was just after World War I. About, during the time of World War I, I guess. And let me see. Oh, another worked, no. And I worked another summer in Wilmington, Delaware. And then I spent many summers in summer school. About the times I was home here on the farm helping to do whatever needed to be done.
INTERVIEWER: Ok.
Tape stops.
Tape starts.
LOTTIE: I can tell you more about the teaching than I can others. In that day, when I first started teaching, there were no library’s in the schools. And in the homes, um most homes would have a Bible, it’d have an almanac, and a, occas, most of them took a weekly newspaper. But daily newspapers were very scarce. Now if you wanted a library in your school, the Board of Education would give you ten dollars, if you match that, with a ten from the school. And in this particular school where I was in in Cedartown, we had a social, some kind of ice cream social or something, and raised ten dollars. And then we had twenty dollars then to start a library with. And I remember I boarded with the family by the name of McRoberts, and they had recently moved here from Ohio. And Mr. McRoberts told me, me, that if, the first book he wanted us to buy for the school, he was one of the trustees, was P.T. Barnum‘s Beast, Bird and Reptile. Now P.T. Barnum was a first rate showman here in America. And he had sent cowboys from the west, into Africa, to bring back these wild animals. And I remember that there were some of them, for instance, the giraffe. They tried to bring the giraffe, and he couldn’t stand the voyage. They tried two or three times and the long voyage from Africa to America. And, he brought, there was one in London. And people from the United States went to London to see that giraffe. Now, um, no, I don’t think it was a giraffe. It was a gorilla. It was a gorilla. Now that book told the story of how the Cowboys from the west went into Africa and took, got these animals. Well that was the first book we bought and that book was read and read and read until it was almost, well, almost torn to pieces. It was loved by every boy and girl in the com, school. I think because of how he just, it was interesting. It was the days when people, when boys were interested in the cowboys. That day passed a few years later. But it was in the time when they were particularly interested in cowboys. At one time, a woman told me, not long ago, she remembered another book in that library that was about a dog. Now she was interested in animals and pets, you know. And she was particularly remembered that book about the dog. I don’t recall the name of the book. But that was one of the most interesting adventures in teaching I think that I undertook was to try to establish a library. And it did have some effect on the community, I think. And then later when I was teaching, we began to work with music in the, on, rural schools. You see, in, ah, people there were not pe, not the day of radios and televisions. And if, some people had, what they called graphophones, in those days. And I can remember the ah, first graphophone that a came into the community. There was only one telephone in the community at the time. That was in the general store. So there wasn’t very much of what we would call, something to be really refreshing, to a rural family. Of course they had taffy pullings and parties and quilting and all that tother thing, but um, most of the interest centered around the church and the school. But the church played an important part in the rural community at that time. That’s all I want…
(chuckle)
INTERVIEWER: Mmhm.
Interview End