Leake, Willye (1904-1990) |
Worcester County Library: Local History and Genealogy Collection, Snow Hill Branch, Snow Hill, MD
|
Interviewee: |
Willye Leake (1904-1990) |
| Interviewer: |
Karen Shockley |
| Date of interview: |
1982 April |
| Length of interview: |
30 min |
| Transcribed by: |
|
| Preferred Citation: |
“Name, Oral History Collection, Date of Interview, Worcester County Library, Snow Hill Branch, Snow Hill, Maryland.” |
Topical Terms:
Depression
Domestic Life
Farming
Transportation
Worcester County (Md.)—Education
Worcester County (Md.)—History
Worcester County (Md.)—Social life and customs
Location Terms:
Public Landing (Md.)
Snow Hill (Md.)
Interview Begin
INTERVIEWER: When were you born? When was your birthday?
WILLYE: September 11, 1904.
INTERVIEWER: Were you born at home?
WILLYE: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: What were the names of your parents?
WILLYE: Elmer Pusey and Nora Pusey.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
WILLYE: Well Nora I guess I should......
INTERVIEWER: What was your mother’s maiden name?
WILLYE: Tull.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. Did you have any brothers and sisters.
WILLYE: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: How many?
WILLYE: Two sisters and one brother.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. Did you have to help raise any of those? Or were they already grown?
WILLYE: I was the oldest. Yes I helped----?----because my mother was delicate. Sick part of the time.
INTERVIEWER: Did you help out around the house?
WILLYE: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: What kind of chores did you do?
WILLYE: Washed dishes. You mean mainly? Help wash and iron.
INTERVIEWER: Did you help her clean the house?
WILLYE: Yes, yes.
INTERVIEWER: What kind of iron did you have in those days? Did you have an electric.........
WILLYE: Iron on the stove. We heated our iron on the stove.
INTERVIEWER: Right.
WILLYE: We did the ironing.
INTERVIEWER: Did you ever make butter?
WILLYE: Oh yes.
INTERVIEWER: How did you make that?
WILLYE: Well with a churn by hand.
INTERVIEWER: An old butter churn?
WILLYE: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: And then what did you do? Did you put it in a mold? Put butter in a mold?
WILLYE: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: Did you ever make soap?
WILLYE: No, no. My mother did, but I’ve never made soap. She did.
INTERVIEWER: Do you know how she did it? Can’t remember. Did you grow your own food?
WILLYE: What we could. Yes.
INTERVIEWER: Did you ever have to help out in the fields?
WILLYE: Oh yes. Very much.
INTERVIEWER: What were your jobs?
WILLYE: Pick strawberries and then corn and...
INTERVIEWER: Did you ever drop tomato plants?
WILLYE: Oh yes. Help put out tomato plants and work in the garden.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. Where did you go to school?
WILLYE: Clark’s Grove.
INTERVIEWER: Is that around here?
WILLYE: No it’s been tore down.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
WILLYE: You know, it’s down below Weston, in the, William Weston owns it now.
INTERVIEWER: Why don’t you tell me what it was like? What was your school like?
WILLYE: Just a one room school.
INTERVIEWER: How many kids did you have in your class?
WILLYE: 2 or 3. I don’t really remember that too much. But I just remember one teacher taught 7 grades.
INTERVIEWER: How many children would have been in the school, probably in the whole school?
WILLYE: Well it wasn’t over 20, 20 some, I guess.
INTERVIEWER: Alright. Did they have the same kind of subjects that they do today? Just like reading and writing and......
WILLYE: Reading and writing and arithmetic. We had those. I don’t know what they have today.
INTERVIEWER: Did you have any foreign languages or anything?
WILLYE: No. No.
INTERVIEWER: Just English. Okay. What was your first job like? Your first job where you earned money for yourself?
WILLYE: When I earned money for myself? Well after I graduated I went to Chester. Marcus Hook, I worked in the silk mill with Marcus Hook.
INTERVIEWER: Silk mill? What did you do there?
WILLYE: Well I laced, you know this, well I can see it now, silk on reels, and we had to they called it lacing them, and then taking them off them reels. I worked there until I came home and.......
INTERVIEWER: How much did you get paid? Do you remember?
WILLYE: Huh?
INTERVIEWER: How much did you get paid for that, do you remember/
WILLYE: I don’t remember now. I came home and found out there was an opening in the Cordrey company and I goto a job there. And I kept that up until I was married. And I kin tell you what I got at Cordrey company. Ten dollars a week. They raised me to 15 dollars, and that was as much as any of them were getting in the offices at that time. Now that seems low to you.....
INTERVIEWER: It sounds like pretty good wages from what she’s heard. What did you do for recreation?
WILLYE: Went on picnics and.......
INTERVIEWER: Did you ever go swimming?
WILLYE: No, I don’t care much for swimming. Water’s never been very........I never..........It’s alright to look at, but I never cared much about the water.
INTERVIEWER: How about going to dances or communities?
WILLYE: No, I never. I went to the movie once in a while.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. What sort of churches did they have? Basically the same ones they have now?
WILLYE: Yes. Ahun. Of course ours was a smaller, they added on an addition there, since.........
INTERVIEWER: What year was the addition added to the Christian Church? Do you, I don’t remember, do you?
WILLYE: You’d find that in some of the records of the Christian Church, I’m sure. You remember when it was.
GAIL: But I don’t remember the date.
WILLYE: All we had then was the sanctuary.
INTERVIEWER: Just the sanctuary.
WILLYE: Just the sanctuary. And we held our Sunday School classes, had to have all our Sunday School classes and everything in there.
INTERVIEWER: That’s the Snow Hill Christian Church.
WILLYE: Well that’s the only church I know much about. My mother and father carried me there in their arms, and I’ve tried to serve ever since.
INTERVIEWER: What kind of transportation did they have?
WILLYE: Horse and buggy then. In those days.
INTERVIEWER: Did you have horse and buggy, your family?
WILLYE: Yes. We lived out in Nassawango neighborhood and that’s way we had to come in and it taken us an houru for the horse and buggy to come in. Of course now you get in the car............
INTERVIEWER: Five minutes.
WILLYE: 5-10 minutes, I guess is the most......
INTERVIEWER: How many people would the buggy hold, Mrs. Leake? Do you remember?
WILLYE: How many people?
INTERVIEWER: Would the buggy hold? How many could you bring with you?
WILLYE: Well we had what you call a surrey and it was a double carriage. And that held our family but I mean just a regular buggy, well 3 was about all you could get.......
INTERVIEWER: But you could put maybe 6 in a surrey.
WILLYE: Ahun.
INTERVIEWER: What were the roads like?
WILLYE: They were dirt roads.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
WILLYE: At the time.
INTERVIEWER: Did it take a long time to travel?
WILLYE: Sure.
INTERVIEWER: Did you ever go from like here to Pocomoke or her to Salisbury? In a buggy? It would probably take about all day to get there and back.
WILLYE: Yes, and you see we didn’t have this road then open to Salisbury, that was just a dirt road, I mean we didn’t have a nice road like we got now.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. What was the town like? What kind of businesses did they have? Did they have a lot more stores than they do now?
WILLYE: Oh yes. Snow Hill had a lot more stores. If you’re talking about Snow Hill.
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
WILLYE: Yes, I stores.....we had at least 2 clothing stores.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember the hotel?
WILLYE: Oh yes, yes. That was........I was sorry to see them move the hotel. Hotel here and.............
INTERVIEWER: Grocery store, right downtown.
WILLYE: Oh yes. All downtown together, you know. Now we can’t even go downtown and buy a loaf of bread.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
WILLYE: One nice store though, down here.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember any elections that they had?
WILLYE: No, nothing outstanding in elections.
INTERVIEWER: How about crafts and customs that they used to do? Like weaving. Did you ever weave or..........Did you have quilting bees?
WILLYE: Yes we had quilting bees, and you know on the farm, I don’t remember any weaving, but we had quilting.
INTERVIEWER: Would neighbors get together or how was that done? You had quilting bees, how did you do that?
WILLYE: The neighbors all got together.
INTERVIEWER: And make them for each other?
WILLYE: Ahun. And then my mother-in-law did help me quilt 2 or 3 after I was married. She and I did those. But they had quilting bees and wood cuttings.
INTERVIEWER: Really?
WILLYE: Wood cuttings was something that they used to have in the neighborhoods.
INTERVIEWER: I bet they were fun. Did the men.......
WILLYE: The men of course, they sawed up the woods you know, and all, while the women, well we cooked then a meal for them.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember Mrs. Leake, when they had, like thrashing wheat?
WILLYE: Oh yes.
GAIL: Now that I remember when I was little.
WILLYE: Yes indeed. We had very............and they were great days for cooking for women too.
GAIL: The men did all the thrashing and the women would get together at each other’s homes and cook huge meals for all the men. And they had everything to eat.
WILLYE: Yes. And those men were hungry. It’d taken some food too.
GAIL: Tell some of the things they would cook, like for a thrashing.
WILLYE: Well I........................
GAIL: I remember they used to have like ham and turkeys maybe and fried chicken and........
WILLYE: Just anything, I was trying to think, of course one of the things Mrs. Leake made, slaw.. she made good slaw. And that stands out in my memory, as one of the things the men looked forward to. I remember Mr. John Gordy, Mrs. Leake I hope you got some slaw in the bag, when he came in you know. And they, of course I suppose different ones had something outstanding like that. Of course we had all meat and different things.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember any executions or lynches?
WILLYE: Not in this neighborhood, our neighborhood of Nassawango.
INTERVIEWER: How about Prohibition? Do you remember that? When they said alcoholic beverages were illegal? That no one could drink?
WILLYE: No, I wish that was enforced today, we’d have a better country.
INTERVIEWER: How about the Depression? What was that like?
WILLYE: Well............
INTERVIEWER: Where did you live during the Depression? Did you like here?
WILLYE: No, no. On the farm. Leake’s farm. That was after I was married. Well we were married right in the Depression.
INTERVIEWER: What year were you married?
WILLYE: ’28.
INTERVIEWER: Yeah. And then things started going wrong.
WILLYE: Yeah we were married……..The thing that stands out in my mind about the Depression, it was a depression alright, I don’t know, but we as a church we trying to pay for our parsonage at that time and we were having a bake sale, Saturday. That’a all banks closed and we didn’t know, I paid my, the first I knew about it, we were selling eggs, Nock’s hatchery, I stopped there with my eggs and they said I’m sorry we can’t give you any money for your eggs today. We’ll see that you’re paid, but the banks have all closed and we can’t do anything about it right now. So I left my eggs there and didn’t get any money and came on in to the bake sale with the things that I had for the bake, and Aunt Lizzie Disharoon and I were the ones that were selling the things that day, and there’s the old American Store. Do you know where that was?
GAIL: Where the pharmacy is now. Right?
WILLYE: Yes. No not where the pharmacy is now, where the pharmacy used to be, it was across the street. I don’t know……But anyway everybody came in and oh things looked nice. We had chicken salad and lots of things for sale. And everybody, it looks good, but nobodys got any money, or if they had any money they were afraid to spend it right then, because they didn’t know, and I know Aunt Lizzie said, this Uncle Levin was, went to the bank on Saturday morning and he gave his money and she says we’re just about out. And he can’t get none this morning. Nobody could get a thing.
GAIL: It must have been a scary time.
WILLYE: It was. You just didn’t know what you were in for, what was going to happen. I remember we finallyy stayed there till we made $10 on our bake. We couldn’t, we did’t sell out that day, because people just didn’t have any money. So we did…………of course things were so much cheaper, you think $10 sounds little then, but you sold right good bit then to make $10, because things were………
GAIL: That’s probably like a hundred today.
WILLYE: And that was the beginning……….but we all managed. It was, of course we on a farm had plenty to eat.
GAIL: They had it better than some of the others.
WILLYE: Yes, yes. We made out better than some of the rest and we got our money for our eggs and things…………it was a hard time for a lot of people. I think they really, but as I say we living on a farm, you don’t, can always furnish things for the table. Cause in those days you didn’t buy very muchh, you just grew your things. Taking care of, you canned your fruits and you killed hogs and taking care of your meat and…….
GAIL: Nothing was wasted either, was it?
WILLYE: Hun?
GAIL: Nothing was wasted.
WILLYE: No, nothing was wasted. And what you bought were just the things, like sugar and coffee and tea and baking powders and things of that sort, just about all.
Gail: Just your staple things.
WILLYE: Yes, the staple things.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. Do you remember any legends or superstitions about this area?
WILLYE: I can’t say I do.
INTERVIEWER: How about music? What kind of songs did they have or you know, did they have bands that played musical instruments and things like that?
WILLYE: Oh yes, they, bands and then we’d get together and sing hymns and, out in our neighborhood, one would get around the organ. We did so much to amuse ourselves in those days and so somebody’d play. Well I had an organ and I could play things. They sang some and then at school, well they’d have, they had bands and different………..
INTERVIEWER: Did people kind of look down on strangers or were they……………
WILLYE: I don’t know. They did it to some extent, I think.
GAIL: Suspicious of them, I guess.
WILLYE: Yes. They didn’t accept them as good as they do today, I would say, cause, well there just different and the times. We didn’t know foreigners as well.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. How about the steamboat that they had then? Did you ever travel on that?
WILLYE: No. The steamboat came up the Pocomoke River.
GAIL: I guess they brought things into them……….
WILLYE: I was getting ready to say, they brought up a lot of………..a lot of freight came up on the boat.
INTERVIEWER: How about Farmer’s Day? Do you remember that?
WILLYE: Oh yes. That was a great day.
GAIL: Tell her about Farmer’s Day, as you remember it.
INTERVIEWER: What time of year did they have Farmer’s Day?
WILLYE: It was in August.
INTERVIEWER: August?
WILLYE: Oh yes, it was the 4th Thursday, I think. It was sometime…..It was on a Thursday and it was in August. Well all the farmers, that was one great day.
GAIL: Where was it held?
WILLYE: At Public Landing. And when I first knew about Farmer’s Day, was before we had a car, back then when I was a child and we always prepared, Mother would prepare the night before, what we had, we didn’t have a refrigerator like they have today you know, so you couldn’t prepare your food as far ahead, we’d prepare, and we’d start out, of course we went by horse and buggy. And we’d start out real early in the morning. She cooked the biggests part of the night, to get things, get our dinner and all ready, you know, go down there, and you, there was crowds at Public Landing, and we did enjoy it so much.
GAIL: Well now Public Landing must have been different than it is today.
WILLYE: Oh yes.
GAIL: Where did you all eat? Where did everybody eat? Was it just like a shore bank?
WILLYE: I’m trying to think………..those tables there. They had tables there in that first pavilion for a long time. I don’t know, when, I don’t think they were there though when I was a child. My memory isn’t too good.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember the Pocomoke Fair Grounds? What were they like?
WILLYE: The Pocomoke Fair, yes I’ve been to the Pocomoke Fair at Pocomoke. That was another big day, I think there was more than one day, but I never went but one day. We tried to get over there maybe one day.
INTERVIEWER: Did they have, sell food, like baked goods and have things like that?
WILLYE: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: How about Ocean City? What do you remember Ocean City, as being like?
WILLYE: Well I was going out in company before I got to Ocean City, to tell you the truth. Cars had come into existence and we went, and it was nothing like as large, as it is today, but there was a boardwalk, I remember that. Oh there’s one thing, the water used to come up and go under the boardwalk.
INTERVIEWER: Ya, that’s what I understand……….
WILLYE: And now look how far it is out.
GAIL: Did they have Fisher’s Popcorn in Ocean City then? It’s been there a long time, I know.
WILLYE: Yes, yes they did. The thing that amazes me is that water going under the boardwalk at that time you know. And now we see how far out it is, how far away.
INTERVIEWER: How about Public Landing? What was that like? Did they use to have rides and stores and…….
WILLYE: Well Public Landing, if it hadn’t been for the, I imagine it would have grown up to be a nice place………..
GAIL: The storm?
WILLYE: If it hadn’t been for the storm.
GAIL: ’33, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it ’33?
WILLYE: I was trying to think what year it was. I think it was ’33. Oh yes, I jotted down some things here, that I thought that was what you were…….
INTERVIEWER: Okay, tell us.
WILLYE: Well they had a merry-go-rouond, when I was young.
INTERVIEWER: Did a lot of people like to ride on that?
WILLYE: Yes, I’ve been on the merry-go-round, when I was young. And there was an ice cream parlor, that’s what we called it then, theater, where they had movies. Yes. Bowling alley, dance hall, boardwalk. There was a boardwalk extended, that was all the present boardwalk, as your going down, that was down from the present boardwalk, along there. Then there was another boardwalk that went out to Mr. Purnell’s home. He had a home out there, in the water.
GAIL: Oh really, he had?
WILLYE: And then there was an amusement center, restrooms, bath house, where they could change their bathing suits, you know. And a, I’ve got down here, I guess this is, Farmer’s Day was the first Thursday in August.
INTERVIEWER: The first Thursday in August. Okay.
WILLYE: Yes, Public Landing was a very nice place, before that storm hit it.
INTERVIEWER: How about the doctors? Do you remember any of the doctors that they had around here?
WILLYE: Around here?
INTERVIEWER: Yes. The ones that used to make house calls and……………….
WILLYE: Don’t ask me names, I don’t remember……….
INTERVIEWER: Well if you don’t remember any names, it’s okay.
WILLYE: Ya, I can, Dr. Landers, Dr. Ferris, yes he tended to my mother for quite a long time.
INTERVIEWER: How about weddings? What were the weddings like?
WILLYE: Well you didn’t find too many church weddings.
INTERVIEWER: Ya, that’s what I understand, now.
WILLYE: Most of the couples went to the Parsonage and got married.
GAIL: In other words, they weren’t big affairs?
WILLYE: No, they wasn’t. But they did get married, thank goodness.
INTERVIEWER: Ya.
WILLYE: I always wanted a church wedding myself but my mother wasn’t well. The reason I didn’t, my mother was very delicate, and she, I don’t know, she said, “I just couldn’t go through it.” So when she said she couldn’t go through it, we went to the Parsonage and got married. Otherwise I would have had a church wedding.
INTERVIEWER: What were funerals like? Were they like they are today?
WILLYE: Very similar.
GAIL: Were they in funeral homes or were they in church?
WILLYE: Was more in churches, in those days.
INTERVIEWER: Well Mrs. Leake that is all the questions that I have for you. Would you like to add anything? Anything you can think of?
WILLYE: Right now I can’t think of anything.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. Thank you very much.