Mariner, Norman (1887-1983) |
Worcester County Library: Local History and Genealogy Collection, Snow Hill Branch, Snow Hill, MD
|
Interviewee: |
Norman Mariner (1887-1983) |
| Interviewer: |
Karen Shockley |
| Date of interview: |
1982 April |
| Length of interview: |
1 hr 30 min |
| Transcribed by: |
|
| Preferred Citation: |
“Name, Oral History Collection, Date of Interview, Worcester County Library, Snow Hill Branch, Snow Hill, Maryland.” |
Topical Terms:
Farming
Public Hanging
Transportation
Snow Hill (Md.)—Fire 1893
Worcester County (Md.)—Education
Worcester County (Md.)—History
Worcester County (Md.)—Social life and customs
Location Terms:
Snow Hill (Md.)
Interview Begin
NORMAN: You didn’t go back, didn’t go back your desk and study it over, you stood up on the floor. That’s right, now. And if you went back again and you missed it you got on your knees and when she taken pneumonia and died, you know I cried.
GAIL: Is that right?
NORMAN: You all didn’t cry. Miss Ella Purnell, she was, she was red-handed and mean as the devil. She’d slap your head off and……..wasn’t but 6 rooms in Snow Hill. The school was right where, you know Bill Price lives? That’s where, that’s the schoolhouse ground. That whole square right there, where he is. A little bit back.
GAIL: And that’s where you went to school?
NORMAN: That’s where the school, old school grounds, I went to school.
INTERVIEWER: Were you born at home?
NORMAN: Huh?
INTERVIEWER: Were you born at home?
NORMAN: Oh ya. By George, I was born back here in Whitesburg and if you had to go and drive town get a doctor, why you’d be born and grown before the doctor got there. That’s right. You know them days, take you half a day to drive to Snow Hill and then the doctor get out there, well boron, run around like a spike. I’m exaggeratin’ now.
INTERVIEWER: When is your birthday?
NORMAN: Second of March. I was born in 1887.
INTERVIEWER: What are your parent’s name?
NORMAN: Well my father went by one name, but that wasn’t his name. E.A Mariner or Edward Alice. His middle name was Alice, his mother said she was goin’ name him Alice whether it was a boy or girl and they call him Al, see his name is Al, Edward Alice now. He went by the E.A mostly, see, and my mother’s Susan. She was a twin, and I got a, her twin’s here somewhere.
INTERVIEWER: What’s her maiden name?
NORMAN: Holland.
INTERVIEWER: Holland. Did your parents raise you?
NORMAN: Ya. I helped raise them, you mean. When I was home if you were big enough to drop 2 grains in a hole, you done it. When I was 6 years old, I didn’t go to school, ‘cause corn’s all planted. You had to plant it all by hand them days. Had trenches out, little holes, you had to go along and drop 2 grains. Whole big field, by the time you got corn done, plantin’ corn, first you planted was big enough to work. Take a whole bunch enough to work. Take a whole bunch to plant corn. A little kid, you know, drop 2 grains in a hole. That’s right. That sounds............Never went to school when it started, and never went to school when it stopped. As long as I could pick up corn, I had to pick up corn. Now they don’t even touch corn, you know that.
INTERVIEWER: How many brothers and sisters did you have?
NORMAN: I had a half-brother and 2 whole brothers and one sister. And I was the next to the youngest, and he was 7 years younger than I was. That’s Otho, you know Otho? He was 7 years younger than I was.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. How many kids were in your class at school? How many kids went to school?
NORMAN: In class?
INTERVIEWER: Ya.
NORMAN: About 20.
INTERVIEWER: 20 in your whole grade?
NORMAN: Ya.
INTERVIEWER: When did you get your first job? How old were you when you got your first job?
NORMAN: Job? Oh I was home. I was near about 6 years old you might say. I never went and had a job. Only stayed at home.
INTERVIEWER: You always worked on the farm. Okay. What you did do for recreation? For fun?
NORMAN: Well I was great for guns. I gunned a little bit. Set rabbit traps. I liked to set rabbit traps and most everything like that.
INTERVIEWER: Did you ever go to any dances or movies?
NORMAN: I can’t understand ya.
INTERVIEWER: Did you ever go to any dances or movies?
NORMAN: Done what?
INTERVIEWER: Go to the movies? Go see a picture at a theater?
NORMAN: I can’t understand you, I guess? What did she say?
GAIL: Did you ever go to the movies or the theater?
NORMAN: Ya, ya, ya. After they got something?????? Didn’t have nothing like that in till I was way grown or more. Didn’t have nothing, no theaters or nothin’.
INTERVIEWER: What sort of churches did they have? How many churches were in Snow Hill?
NORMAN: Church? Well the main church was just the Methodist, Episcopal and Presbyterian, and they used to call it Protestant Church, now they’re all Methodist now ain’t they? Christian Church came after a while and an Catholic, I mean an old Baptist Church. You know where that is now, don’t ya?
INTERVIEWER: Right.
NORMAN: That was there. The old Episcopal Church is about the oldest church, then Presbyterian.
GAIL: You always went to the Presbyterian, right.
NORMAN: No, no. I was raised up in a Methodist Church, I mean supposed to. My mother was Methodist. Now Eva’s father was Episcopalian and her mother was a Methodist, and when they got married they couldn’t jell which to go to church so they kinda switched over to Presbyterian, that’s where Elva got to be a Presbyterian. So I went to the Presbyterian Church as long as he lived. I went with him, I don’t expect I went any too much, though. I used to take her and go ‘round there and talk to the boys.
INTERVIEWER: What kind of transportation did they have?
NORMAN: Huh?
INTERVIEWER: What kind of transportation, like horse and buggy?
GAIL: How did you travel when you were young?
NORMAN: Well we had a horse and buggy, that’s the old way. Horse and buggy.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember the first paved roads?
GAIL: Do you remember the first paved road?
NORMAN: Ya that was just Mile Lane, first I remember. And they paved that twice, and the last time they dropped tone log on it, they had a little mixer, just ‘bout as big as a horse car body and they rolled it in by the wheelbarrows, and it takes ‘em a whole year pret-near build that Mile Lane, and the second time they build it they got as far as Robin’s gate. Now you know where I mean by Robin’s gate.
GAIL: No, where was that?
NORMAN: And they left that thing there the whole of winter, balance of winter, right there, and you had to drive around it.
GAIL: Where was Robin’s gate?
NORMAN: This is part of Robin’s farm.
GAIL: Oh I see.
NORMAN: They had, all Robin’s farm used to run from the bridge pret-near to Mile Lane. And this was sold off when I bought this place. It was a 10 acre woods right there aside of me.
GAIL: Is that right?
NORMAN: Ya.
GAIL: It’s all clear now?
NORMAN: No, this was big farm, you know, ‘fore Robin sold it. Old man Truitt bought it I believe. I believe he’s the person who bought it. From down Virginia. Bought it from Robin.
INTERVIEWER: How long did it take you to travel in horse and buggy? Did it take you a long time?
NORMAN: Well if you, ‘bout 8 mile an hour. You done well.
GAIL: How long would it take you to get to Salisbury?
NORMAN: Well I drove 4 miles to Salisbury once and back again in one day. I left way before day and got back ‘bout midnight that night. They sent me after a 100 pieces of tull. You know about what that is, and when I got there, L.W. Gunby, there was no lines on ‘em, I drove right through Salisbury, no lines on ‘em. I wasn’t but 15, and a man moved ‘em on me. He load ‘em and said you’ll never get home with ‘em, they way up ‘bove, you know. 100 pieces of tile makes a big lot. I had to get, comin’ through that forest, all dirt road. I had to log.................lift up a limb of a tree over, you know, get underneath of it.
GAIL: How old were you then?
NORMAN: I was ‘bout, I went over at eighteen. I don’t know if I was eighteen or not. Wasn’t over that.
INTERVIEWER: What was your first car like? Do you remember your first car?
NORMAN: First car I had?
INTERVIEWER: Uhum.
NORMAN: Model “T”.
INTERVIEWER: Model “T”?
NORMAN: Ya. I wasn’t after a Model “T”.
INTERVIEWER: Do you have a driver’s license?
NORMAN: I did, I can still, but I stopped to drive on account of my eyes. I don’t have a driver’s license now, ‘cause I let ‘em run out, ya know. I haven’t driven a car, oh for 5 years.
GAIL: How old were you when you got your first car?
NORMAN: Well, I went after, I guess I got a car for about......How old was I? I got my car in ‘bout 1915.
GAIL: About 1915.
NORMAN: Ya and I went Buffalo, New York, take 2 boys with me for Herman Perdue. Do you remember Herman Perdue?
GAIL: Yes, I do.
NORMAN: I went to Buffalo twice for him and bought down 3 Model “T”’s.
GAIL: How long did it take you to get to Buffalo?
NORMAN: Well Buffalo, he carried me to Philadelphia, to take the train from Philadelphia to Buffalo. Three of us, the Trader boy is one of ‘em, and the Riley boy was one ‘em. I had 2 boys with me and we bought 2, and they didn’t have no signs up them days, like they do now, say from Snow Hill and this is number, roads is numbered and all, nothing like that. They give ya a list in Buffalo to Philadelphia. List of towns you should hit. They give it to ya, there right down there at the stations, Buffalo, the one’s that put these Fords out. You get one down, well we’ll say, say if you got to Snow Hill, which way to Pocomoke? Ya Know ya hit a lot of people didn’t even know way out of town. Didn’t have no signs on the road. All dirt road mostly. Take us about 3 days come down.
GAIL: I bet that was a dusty ride, wasn’t it?
NORMAN: They lost boys in Harrisburg. To get to Pennsylvania, and I went to start back after him and look for him we met him comin’. I don’t whether you remember Walter Trader. Used to live over here, you know, old man Sid Trader. That’s before your day, I expect.
GAIL: I don’t remember.
NORMAN: ’17. What year were you born?
GAIL: 1939.
NORMAN: Ohhh my. I moved here in’40. I’ve been here 42 years.
GAIL: Isn’t that something?
NORMAN: Last January.
INTERVIEWER: What was the town of Snow Hill like?
NORMAN: It wasn’t like……….it was hard to tell.
GAIL: What was the downtown shoppin’ part like?
INTERVIEWER: What kind of businesses……….
NORMAN: That’s all………you know I remember the fire. I was a little boy in the fire. The big fire of Snow Hill, all burnt, not many places that didn’t.
INTERVIEWER: What year?
NORMAN: It was ’93.
GAIL: Do you remember the town before the fire?
NORMAN: Not much to tell ya. See I wasn’t very old. That big fire, see I was born in ’87 and this was ’93. I was about 6 years old, and we lived, where this old house where I used to live. My father lived there 5 years before he bought up yonder.
GAIL: Do you remember anything at all about it?
NORMAN: Well I remember when we moved there. When we moved from Whitesburg, he owned that farm twice, two years. He had a store down Whitesburg and he rented that out two years before we moved there and I just remember when we had to come round this dirt road when I was a little boy. I don’t remember livin’ in the other place and he says that’s where we’re goin’. You know I remember that.
GAIL: Is that right?
NORMAN: He pointed that house there, says that’s where we’re goin’, that’s my first, ‘bout far back back as I remember. We lived there five years.
GAIL: What was the fire like? Do you remember when the fire burned?
NORMAN: Oh you see all round here. Turn right there, you could see all around. Was a big fire, you didn’t have nothing but big buckets to fight with.
GAIL: Did they get the water from the river?
NORMAN: Huh? Ya, did it with buckets, didn’t have no fire, nothing like that.
GAIL: Huh? So everything was burned.
NORMAN: Pret-near everything. Some of them houses they saved. Some way, I don’t know how. Only business sections were burned. Now you remember, building where I live, Maryland National Bank is now, you know there was a big building right on that corner. They tore it down to build this building. They call it some building. It was a office building, and it was built in ’94. It was built right after the fire.
GAIL: Right after the fire.
NORMAN: Ya.
GAIL: Is there anything standin’ now in the town that you know was there before? Any of the houses?
NORMAN: Well I expect I knew one house was standin’, but it’s tore down now. That’s where the post office is. You remember that?
GAIL: Ya, uhum.
NORMAN: Miss Disharoon lived there.
GAIL: See that was my great-grandmother.
NORMAN: What?
GAIL: Miss Disharoon. Elizabeth Disharoon.
INTERVIEWER: You learned this in second grade? You remember that don’t ya?
NORMAN: 4th grade.
INTERVIEWER: 4th grade.
NORMAN: I was in Miss Richards room. It was in the 4th grade. I haven’t seen it since, so I was in 4th grade and I started school when I was 6. I was about 10 years old.
SAUL: Can you pick that up?
NORMAN: You want me to recite that, darlin’, now?
GAIL: We sure do. We surely do.
NORMAN: I haven’t see that since I was a 4th reader. Miss Lizzie Richardson, now you didn’t know her, Charles Richardson’s sister, and she was the nicest teacher I went to, and we had to recite this. That was in that reader. 4th reader, it was a, see over here was one verse, and right on this other side was a schoolhouse and two verses, turn that leaf over, here’s four verses. Seven verses in it. I don’t know whether, do you know why I know it now? Why?
GAIL: Why?
NORMAN: I rehearse once in a while right in bed.
GAIL: Do you really?
SAUL: Instead of countin’ sheep, he says that poem.
NORMAN: It’s seven verses, you’ll get tired of listenin’ at it.
GAIL: No we won’t.
NORMAN: I’ll go ahead.
I wondered to the village Tom.
I sat beneath the tree.
Upon the schoolhouse playground,
that sheltered you and me.
But none were left to greet me, Tom,
and were few were left to know,
who played with me upon the green, just 40 years ago.
The grass is just as green Tom,
barefooted boys at play,
were sporting just as we did then,
with strides just as gay,
and the master sleeps upon a hill.
Which is coated over with snow.
That forded us a slidin’ place,
Some 40 years ago.
The old schoolhouse is altered some,
The benches are in place
My new ones burned liked the same.
Our jack knives had the paint.
The same old bricks are in the wall,
The bell swings to and fro,
It’s the music just the same, Dear Tom,
Twas 40 years ago.
The spring that bubbled in this hill
Is Ver low.
Twas once as high we could almost reach
And kneeling down to take a drink
But we started so. To think how very much
We changed since 40 years ago.
Nearby that spring up on the hill,
You know I cut your name.
Your sweetheart must beneath it, Tom
And you did mine the same.
Some heartless retch has peeled the bark,
Twas done sure but slow,
But just that once who’s name you cut
Died 40 years ago.
My lids have long been dried, Tom
My tears came in my eyes.
I thought of her I loved so well
Those early broken ties.
I’ve been to the old churchyard,
I took some flowers to strew,
Upon the graves of those that loved
Some 40 years ago.
Some are in the churchyard,
Some sleep beneath the sea
But none are left are old class,
Expecting you and me.
And when our times are come, Tom
And we are called to go
I hope we’ll meet the gold we loved
Some 40 years ago.
GAIL: That is remarkable. That’s wonderful.
INTERVIEWER: You learned that in 4th grade?
NORMAN: And I haven’t seen it since.
SAUL: That’s been better than 85 years ago.
GAIL: I just can’t believe that.
INTERVIEWER: I can’t either.
SAUL: He’s 95.
NORMAN: Huh?
GAIL: That’s wonderful, Uncle Norman.
NORMAN: Well, I know that’s cause I rehearse it too much.
GAIL: Helps ya sleep at night, huh?
NORMAN: I rehearsed many a many, God know how many times.
INTERVIEWER: What were some of the crafts and customs? Like did you make your own soap and molasses?
NORMAN: What she want?
SAUL: Did your mother make her own soap?
NORMAN: She did, oh ya. Save all that old stuff, you know.
GAIL: How did she do it?
NORMAN: I don’t know. Now you got me, now.
SAUL: Had 2 kinds of soap, that I remember. Had one that mother made outdoors. She had old rinds of anything, you know, she’d put out there. Lye and cooked that all up. Then she had stuff that;s a little nicer. Cold water soap she called it and that was compared to Ivory soap, as I remember it.
NORMAN: We had to plant corn by hand. We had to run around the rows and led one mule then I plowed and ya had to go down, make a list and then cross it out. It was a job plantin’ corn them days. My father, he didn’t drive us now, he led us. He didn’t say,’Go boys”, he said “Come on boys”, and we followed him all day.
GAIL: IT all had to be hand shucked too.
NORMAN: Yes sir.
SAUL: Every bit of it.
NORMAN: I used to be expert at it.
GAIL: Is that right?
NORMAN: Ya.
GAIL: How many people would help you do it? How many people would you have………
NORMAN: Not many. I’ll tell ya what, we used plenty of wheat till Thanksgiving. I remember one time we didn’t get it all in. They had one last piece we were gonna get in. Always put wheat after corn, and when, you’d have to gather all that corn, cut the shucks and bench them, plow the ground and then put it in. It was a slow job. I remember one time we plowed outside of a field and we got that plowed and it froze that night so hard they got inside and plowed inside and planted it there, and that outside stayed frozen the year round, it never did get in. It looked right funny. There was a little piece of wheat inside. The outside was plowed, but it wasn’t…………
SAUL: When it come time to replant the corn, did you ever replant any of it?
NORMAN: My father would replant 3 times in one…….raise up on fodder.
SAUL: About that time you got tired and put it all in one hill.
NORMAN: Ya, that’s replantin’.
SAUL: Ya, replantin’.
NORMAN: Give me so much corn, you know, go out and replant it. So much corn in your pocket. Go out there and replant that corn, that’d take a hoe and mess in hills, ya know, dig a hole and put, and go all the way and I wanted to get tired of that corn and I dug a very big deep hole, put it down…………every bit of it come up.
SAUL: You didn’t do that anymore, did you?
NORMAN: No. Lord. Boy there’s a lot of changes since I was a boy.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember any bad men in town? Like did they have lynches?
SAUL: Did you ever attend a lynchin’? Where a colored man got lynched, in town here?
NORMAN: Done what?
GAIL: Did you ever attend a lynching? Was there ever…………
SAUL: Did you ever see anybody get lynched?
NORMAN: No, no I didn’t. I seen people get hung though.
SAUL: Well that’s the same thing.
NORMAN: They were hung right out there. One was a colored man and the one was a……that’s since I was married. One was a colored man. There was a woman I moved on me. I went to Old Creek……….there was a little house that sit down there. And after a while this man, nigger, his name’s Asbury Dickson, I remember his name, and his wife died, and he was just as mean as he could be. You know she went to live with him, I told her, I said you better not go, he’s mean. Wasn’t a year before he hunted her down, she left him, I guess, and killed her with a shotgun. I saw him hung. Then there was a white man, his name was, a Italian, he went out here and he killed a whole family, out there, white people, and they hung him.
SAUL: That was a legal hangin’. That was done by the…………….
NORMAN: Huh?
SAUL: That was legal hangin’. That was legal?
NORMAN: Ya.
SAUL: He was tried and convicted and that was…………
NORMAN: Ya, ya. Both of ‘em, both of ‘em were convicted.
INTERVIEWER: Where in town did the hangin’s take place?
NORMAN: Out there at the poorhouse. You know where the poorhouse is?
INTERVIEWER: NO.
NORMAN: It’s out there on the way, Berlin. They used to Almshouse out there, you know the people that didn’t have no homes, the carried to the Almshouse, and that was out there in that woods. I know where the woods........there’s a church right there by, you know...........
SAUL: Is that the Mennonite Church house?
NORMAN: Huh? It’s a church out there, close.
GAIL: Is it the Mennonite Church?
SAUL: Mennonite, isn’t it?
NORMAN: Right aside of a woods.
SAUL: Ya.
NORMAN: Well right in that woods there, about, oh it’s about twice as far as we are from the road.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember prohibition? When they said, you know that drinkin’ was illegal.
SAUL: He remembers that alright. That’s about 1918.
NORMAN: Remember what?
SAUL: 1918. Prohibition, when you couldn’t buy whiskey.
NORMAN: Oh ya, oh ya.
INTERVIEWER: What did you think about that?
NORMAN: Well I don’t know.............
SAUL: He never did drink anything.
NORMAN: No. Don’t fool with politics too much. I’m disgusted more, the longer I live the more I’m disgusted with it.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember the Great Depression?
NORMAN: Well the thing of it is, that’s all I do remember. That’s all I ever had.
INTERVIEWER: Your whole life was a Great Depression?
NORMAN: Ya, ya.
INTERVIEWER: Was the times really bad during the Great Depression?
NORMAN: Oh my. Well I’ll tell you rough, now the Depression was, I heard that asked over a, Tic, Tac, Toe the other night, and I answered before they called it. He didn’t answer it, he missed it. It was when the, Grover Cleveland was President. When I was born, and he went out the year after I was born, in ’88. I don’t know whether, I don’t know whether he was runnin’ against Harrison, Benjamin Harrison got elected, a Republican, and he’s, Grover Cleveland’s the only president that ever did all of a term and skip a term and come back and got a second term. Had that the other night too, and I answered it before the fella, he missed it. See he come back and then, that was a depression, that was.
SAUL: That was way, way before.........................
NORMAN: That’s from ’92 to ’96. That’s when that was.
SAUL: That was way before the Great Depression. The Great Depression was 1930-40, you know.
NORMAN: Oh yya.
SAUL: That’s when the Great Depression was. It started under Hoover, then Roosevelt finished it out.
NORMAN: That was a depression. I’ll tell ya what we did, we hauled a thousand bushels of corn in 19.............that depression in ’92 to ’96, put it board a boat, there go to Crisfield, thousand bushels corn. What you think we got for a thousand bushel corn, in August? I helped haul it, I was big enough to drive a mule and haul it, and put a thousand bushel corn aboard to go to Crisfield. Dishroon and Moore. I remember the company. Have you heard of them?
SAUL: Oh ya.
NORMAN: I’ll tell ya where.....................
SAUL: Where the post office is.
NORMAN: Where the post office is.
SAUL: That’s right.
NORMAN: Ya. 300 hundred dollars. 30 bushels, 30 cents a bushel, that’s all we got for that.........way in August, shelled corn and..........
GAIL: All that work.
NORMAN: It wasn’t but a quarter, ya. My father raised a lot of hogs and we killed them hogs, have ‘em loaded and carry ‘em to Princess Anne, and pen em around Princess Anne. What do you think we got for ‘em? 5 cents a pound, dressed hogs. We couldn’t get but 4 in Snow Hill, that’s the reason we hauled ‘em to Princess Anne. They didn’t sell ‘em now to a wholesaler, or nothin’, retailed around, had ‘em all engaged around private homes. 5 cents a pound and had to her liver and light skin, just give that, didn’t charge nothing for that. Well we carried around 3,000 pound of hog. We got 30 dollars for goin’ and so, it paid us to do it, but better’n raisin’ ‘em, wasn’t it?
GAIL: I’d say so.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember any folk tales or legends, old legends about Snow Hill or the area?
NORMAN: No I don’t.
INTERVIEWER: How about the music? What kinds of songs did they have? Was it, do you remember when the jazz............
NORMAN: What did she say?
GAIL: Do you remember what the music was like when you were young?
NORMAN: No, I’m no musician. I don’t know.
GAIL: No, don’t remember too much about music.
NORMAN: No, no.
SAUL: Old timey hymns, I imagine, and my old Kentucky Home, Old Man River, Swanee River and all that stuff. That was the songs they had.
NORMAN: Ya. I never could sing or, wasn’t cut out for a singin’ boy, I think.
NORMAN: I remember when old Goodman came to Snow Hill, the boys grandfather.
SAUL: Norm you tell ‘em a lot of good things now.
NORMAN: Well ya goin’?
SAUL: Ya, I gotta be goin’. I’ll see ya all.
GAIL: Now when Mr. Goodman came to town............
NORMAN: Now do you remember Lottie Fooks?
GAIL: Yes.
NORMAN: Do you remember the little store she kept?
GAIL: Yes. Ahuh.
NORMAN: That’s where Goodman’s store was.
GAIL: She had a little hat shop.
NORMAN: Ya, she had that little store. I think Gus Payne got that, I believe.
GAIL: Right.
NORMAN: Ya know Doc Aydellote, had 2 of ‘em. He was a, Dr. Aydellote was a, he owned both of them. He had his office then Lottie Fooks had a, I think he, he’s got both of ‘em ain’t he?
GAIL: Uhum.
NORMAN: Well that’s, used to be 2. Goodman’s store was in there. It wasn’t as big as this room. You remember how little it was?
GAIL: No I don’t remember too much about it, when he first started.
NORMAN: Lottie Fooks there.
GAIL: Now I remember her store, just barely. It was............
Well that was where Goodman’s started in business. Old man Goodman, he’s old man Goodman, he’s, he had 2 sons. One of ‘em drowned, his name Ben, I believe, I believe, and the other’s Jess.
GAIL: Jess is the one, is the........
NORMAN: I don’t know what year that was now, it’s way before Lottie Fooks went in there, of course. The fire started right there. Church there now, ain’t it, on the corner?
GAIL: Is that where the fire started?
NORMAN: Ya. Marion Dryden.
GAIL: What started the fire? Do you know?
NORMAN: Well they blamed old Marion Dryden, I don’t know whether he did or not. He’d sell ya cigar, and wouldn’t let ya light it in town, and old man, old man Church, I believe he’s Church’s grandfather. He went in there and bought a cigar and start to light it and that was after the fire you know, and old man, old Marion Dryden told him he couldn’t light it in there, huh you started the fire here, you don’t let anybody light it, you started one here, once. Come right out. That was Marion Dryden. Now you didn’t know him.
GAIL: No.
NORMAN: Did you know Put Dryden?
GAIL: No.
NORMAN: No. Well this girl’s father, Hopkin’s girl’s father. That was Put Dryden. Well you know Elsie Dryden.
GAIL: Yes.
NORMAN: Well now Put was her uncle.
GAIL: Uhuh.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember steamboats?
NORMAN: Ya. Steamboat used to make 2 trips to Baltimore a week. Had a Maryland and a Tiburai, I went to Crisfield once on the Maryland. That’s the only way you could travel, you know, down here. Went to Crisfield, and they said they cut a canal down the mouth of this river. Them days they had to come over the mud, they’d get stuck in the mud and the old man, Howard was Captain, and they said he didn’t get stuck all the time, he want to stay down there overnight on Saturday night, see they laid over Sunday, and play poker and he didn’t want to come back to Snow Hill. They told that on him but I don’t think it’s right, so I was once, and they didn’t get it stuck in mud. I was comin’ from Crisfield, I come on the boat, and left there Saturday morning early. We got there Sunday afternoon. That long, got stuck, you know. ‘fore they cut that canal that mud was bad to get over. You couldn’t get over unless you hit high tide. But now I’ve been there, that canal, they cut a canal inside.................
GAIL: In the river?
NORMAN: Ya, right the mouth the river. This river, this river boat couldn’t go up Snow Hill for a long time, since I was a boy. Used to land right there at this Robin’s farm. Do you, where along in there, goes right down Robin’s farm. That’s where the boat used to land and then have to run to Snow Hill. They cut 2 cuts through there. They called it first cut and second cut. Right there where that park is, that’s cut through there. That ain’t the main river.
INTERVIEWER: Ya, it’s man made.
NORMAN: No it comes out there right there at that sandbar. That’s the right, the main river comes around like that, you know, so they made them 2 cuts so they’d get through to Snow Hill. I remember when that was done. They had mud machines here.
GAIL: How long did that take?
NORMAN: I don’t know, a long time.
GAIL: I bet so.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember any social events, like Farmer’s Day?
NORMAN: Oh my ya. Well they used to have Farmer’s Day, you know, certain day, and they, they went down with mules and wagons. They have a big festival at Mt. Olive. Do you know where that is?
GAIL: Uhum.
NORMAN: Up here at Mt. Olive, that’s what they did. Is that church still open now or not?
INTERVIEWER: Yes, Mt. Olive Church is.
NORMAN: We’ll they’d go that church. They’d have that festival there the night before Forester, we called it Forester’s Day, and they’d be out there with the mules and wagonos and that festival was over they’d keep on right down Public Landing for the next day, and they’d be lined up. Public Landing wasn’t nothin’ but a little spot, well no you couldn’t, nobody get down there. That was a right good spot down there now. That was a right good spot down there now. Didn’t used to be like that. Wasn’t no parking room down there hardly, just a little landin’ that’s about all, and a pier.
GAIL: What was the festival like? What did they do at the Festival?
NORMAN: Well they had a regular country fair. They have the, now, don’t they? Just have a church festival and ice cream and everything, you know. They’d have them, they used to have them back here in Nassawangoo.
GAIL: Everybody carry a dish of food? You mean?
NORMAN: No, no they’d buy that. The church folks put it up.
GAIL: I see, I see.
NORMAN: The church does it.
GAIL: Did they have games or dancin’ or anything there?
NORMAN: No, no.
GAIL: No, just.........
NORMAN: No, no just sellin’ ice cream and stuff like that, and baskets. I think they used to sell baskets. Up on the high bidder, you know. I think, put up baskets of lunch of a sort. Maybe they did especially with Mt. Olive and carry on down there, I don’t know.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember the Pocomoke Fairgrounds?
NORMAN: Well I been to the fairgrounds. Now Barbara, you know, I ‘spect you know her, don’t ya? John’s daughter over there. She right, she lives right on the fairgrounds in Salisbury. I’ve been there several times. Well Pocomoke had the prettiest fairground I ever saw. There, there grandstand sloped right down. Ah right smart, you look right down on where the races. I go by there now and see that hill and that twas a natural hill. That was a pretty fairground. Of course it’s all done away with.
GAIL: What did they do with the fair?
NORMAN: Well they’d trot horses more than anything else, and gamble a lot.
GAIL: Was it for families or just for men?
NORMAN: Everybody.
GAIL: Everybody went?
NORMAN: Ya.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember the Snow Hill racecourse?
NORMAN: Snow Hill? Ya. By George, Alger, he had a horse, he had a horse out there several times. Sold his horse for 900 dollars. That’s big money then, ya know.
GAIL: Where was it?
NORMAN: That was there just before ya get to Patty’s bridge on the left.
GAIL: On Public Landing Road?
NORMAN: You know where it is?
INTERVIEWER: Ya.
NORMAN: Past that house on the left, over there. I used to go see a girl over there, that house. Don’t Jim Devereaux live there? Didn’t he own it? The house on the left, after you get out there by, before you get the fairground, before you get this racetrack.
GAIL: Jim Devereaux owns a house out there.
NORMAN: Huh?
GAIL: He owns a house out there.
NORMAN: Well that’s the one. Just past that a little piece. It was on the left hand side before you get ta, you know you kind of make a bend there before you get to Paddy’s bridge. I ain’t been over there. You know they stopped goin’ thataway now mostly. And that’s where the fairground, I mean the racetrack used to be. That was a private racetrack. I think Wimbrow owned it, part of it. Willis Wimbrow.
GAIL: And your brother sold a horse for 900 dollars?
NORMAN: Alger had a horse and, he raced it, and she got to be a right fast horse, in her day now, of course there’s not, sold it to somebody over to Salisbury. Got 900 dollars, that was big money then. I don’t know how he, I remember he, old man Tom Purnell run that hotel. Had a livery stable over in front of it. Do you remember that?
GAIL: No I don’t remember that, but I remember hearin’ that.
NORMAN: It’s more like……………livery stable, and old man Tom owned that……I think, and used to have drummers come to the hotel and then they’d go by train, and Alg went over there and hitched horse, over there to the livery stable and, and, a drummer wanted to go down and meet the train????????? So old man Tom told a nigger go over there. Drive this drummer down there. Nigger did it, so Alg sued old man Tom Purnell. Drove the horse down and ruined the horse pret-near did. And old man Tomm, Alg didn’t get nothing. Tom Purnell beat him. Takin’ it out of court.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember Ocean City? Did you ever go over there to Ocean City?
NORMAN: Oh ya.
INTERVIEWER: What was that like?
NORMAN: Well ain’t nothing like it is now. I saw where them big buildings is. I rabbit hunt in there, ain’t been long.
GAIL: Used to rabbit hunt where the big…………
NORMAN: Yes sir. There was, you’ve seen this swamp here, don’t ya?
GAIL: Uhuh.
NORMAN: I got into it where them big buildings are. That’s the worse swamp I ever went, tried to go rabbit huntin’. I went with Sam Ayres, he’s dead and gone. We used to go up there rabbit huntin’, and that’s the worse swamp I ever got in my life and them big buildings……………nice swamp go in rabbit huntin’ to that swamp, and I couldn’t hardly believe they’d put them big buildings right in that, that, right in that swamp.
GAIL: Was there a boardwalk? At Ocean City?
NORMAN: I don’t remember. I don’t think so. Maybe it was. Didn’t go too much, ya know. Only way you’d could go, is, used to have excursions down there. Ocean City wasn’t much to it them days.
GAIL: No?
NORMAN: They had, they had parties down there right, I used to go down there fishin’, lots.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember the hurricane that came and………..the hurricane that came and destroyed everything down Public Landing?
NORMAN: Well we had hurricane destroy everything pret-near everywhere else. I don’t remember that to say when it was.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. Did you ever visit Assateague?
NORMAN: Ya, ya.
INTERVIEWER: What did you do when you went to Assateague?
NORMAN: I don’t know. Not much though.
INTERVIEWER: Did you go to the doctors very often?
NORMAN: To a doctor?
INTERVIEWER: Ya.
GAIL: When you were young?
NORMAN: No, no I was lucky not to go to the doctor. I didn’t know nothing about goin’ to the doctor.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember when doctors made house calls?
NORMAN: Ya. House calls?
INTERVIEWER: Ya.
NORMAN: Well now I’ll have to tell ya the experience I had. I used to run a thrasher, steam thrasher. My father had a steam-thrasher and I run her.
GAIL: When was this Uncle Norman? About when was this? How old were you?
NORMAN: Well I was married, I used to run a steam-thrasher for years down around the sawmill, and a, but this steam-thrasher, on the way back here, past you know where Gerald Holloway lives? Way past that, I had to come by here and go over a creek. Used to take a good while, old steam-thrasher, they don’t go very fast, and ‘fore I got along here my eyes got a hurtin’ me and night come and I got over the bridge there, bridge I had to come this way, the old bridge, I was afraid to go over that, afraid she’d break with us, so when I got over there, I just run her right there, there used to be a schoolhouse. Do you know………………Bates lives? His name Bates? Do you know where Mrs. Strickland, no Westfall lives?
GAIL: Yes.
NORMAN: Well used to be a schoolhouse right up there on the corner. That was alll woods them days, and that schoolhouse. And I just run this steam-thrasher right in and come home. I was blind 2 days.
GAIL: My goodness.
NORMAN: And I didn’t know what was the matter with me eyes. And Dr. Straughn come out and stayed with me a whole half a day and he never found out what was the matter with me eyes and so after the eyes got better the people wanted to have their wheat thrashed and I couldn’t go, so I went out there, was 2 cogs drowned right in front of me and throwed that sawdust right in my eyes. I could rake it up with my hands. You see at night I couldn’t see it. Just to think of it and Dr. Straughn stayed with me a whole half a day and what’d ya think he charged me?
GAIL: How much did he charge ya?
NORMAN: A dollar and a half.
GAIL: For goodness sakes.
INTERVIEWER: My.
NORMAN: Now don’t, now…………………………….
GAIL: Stayed a whole half a day.
NORMAN: Whole half a day.
GAIL: For a dollar and a half.
NORMAN: Ya.
INTERVIEWER: How about the dentist?
NORMAN: Well the dentist, why I didn’t go to the dentist much.
GAIL: Did they have a dentist when you were a young boy?
NORMAN: Ya.
GAIL: There was one?
NORMAN: I forgot who it was. You know I had a set of teeth made. Mr. Cabler, ain’t that his name?
GAIL: Yes.
NORMAN: He’s goin’ out of business and he says I was the first that didn’t go back to him, have ‘em adjusted. But I, mine got brokekn. The upper plate did and he had to make me another set, but he didn’t charge me, but my first set, I think about 50 or 60 dollars. That’s all he charged me for the first set, that upper plate I had to go get a new upper plate and I had all kinds of trouble and I have trouble with it yet and I don’t believe it started with me. I ain’t been 3 or 4 years. So Mrs. Cabler was his bookkeeper, I believe.
GAIL: Right.
NORMAN: So he fixed my teeth, this upper plate and guess what she said to me?
GAIL: I don’t know.
NORMAN: 120. Mr. Sterling in there, he says I ought to give her a dollar and 20 cents, but she charged me a hundred and twenty dollars for the upper plate. Hundred and twenty dollars, and he used my old teeth. He told me he used me old teeth, said old teeth just as good as new ones. Used the old teeth and I got a whole set of new ones.
INTERVIEWER: What were the funerals like?
NORMAN: Huh?
INTERVIEWER: What were the funeral practices like a long time ago?
NORMAN: Funerals.
INTERVIEWER: Ya.
NORMAN: Well that didn’t have too much of that to do. I think they’d bury ya for about 50 dollars. I know I had a colored fella, I thought a lot of, he lived with me 16 years, and he, he said his first wife give him strychnine cause his fingers was like that and his toes was like that, and he lived with me and he done work too, but fingers like that and his toes,????? And he said I believe I’ll leave, I’ll go work the old mill, you know, ???????? you know heh’s handicap, wasn’t he? He’d come wantin’ to move back and I had a house down there and a woman died in that ‘fore he moved back and he didn’t want to go in the house ‘cause that woman died. Now you know they’re all funny like that………….I went build a house down on that stone road and he said he come back home to die. He come back. He died in a year and so I thought I’d help his widow out so I give her 25 dollars. Well you went and bought a vault then for 25 dollars. I ought to have went and bought a vault, she said she kept the 25 dollars and put him in a box. I was always sorry I didn’t go buy the vault to start with.
GAIL: Uhum.
NORMAN: So that was vault. Now what does a vault cost, now?
GAIL: I’ve no idea. A lot.
NORMAN: Well when John was buried, now what you think his funeral expenses, what’d ya think his funeral expenses was? And I didn’t have to buy nothin’ but the marker. See I had a tomb in Elva and I just had to buy a marker, you know, you’ve seen ‘em.
GAIL: Right.
NORMAN: You got mine there now with my name on it and the year I was born, but they said I better buy when……….mine was 80 dollars. When John died it was 185 dollars. Gone up that much.
GAIL: That’s a lot.
NORMAN: Huh?
GAIL: That certainly is a lot.
NORMAN: And his funeral expenses cost me 2,100 dollars. That’s what his funeral expenses was. More’n that now. It’s gone up, gone up.
INTERVIEWER: Well Uncle Norman, that’s all the questions I have to ask you, would you like to add anything else?
NORMAN: No, I don’t know of anything.
GAIL: I’d like to ask a question. When you were a small boy what were the chores that your mother had to do? What things did your mother have to do when you were a small boy that women don’t have to do now?
NORMAN: Well she had to do everything. Cook everything, bake everything. We didn’t buy much.
GAIL: What did you eat in the wintertime? How did she, did she preserve food in the summer?
NORMAN: Plenty of chicken and plenty of hog meat. That’s about all.
GAIL: How about vegetables? Did you have any vegetables in the wintertime?
NORMAN: No, not wintertime.
GAIL: No vegetables.
NORMAN: No.
GAIL: Did she can or…………..
NORMAN: Well she did, ya she canned all the time, all she did have to can.
GAIL: Did she dry any kind of food?
NORMAN: Ya, dried apples. Put ‘em out and let ‘em dry. I believe ya used to lay ‘em out and let ‘em dry. Didn’t ya?
GAIL: And then what would you do? Put them in barrels or pack ‘em? How would you keep ‘em?
NORMAN: No, I don’t think so.
GAIL: No.
NORMAN: My Lord, when I was, when we went farmin’, well you know how I was treated, so I went and bought a fish pounds. Five fish pounds from Will Shockley. You didn’t know him did ya?
GAIL: No.
NORMAN: Well do ya know Ted Gladdin’?
GAIL: Uhum.
NORMAN: His wife?
GAIL: Uhum.
NORMAN: Well that’s Will Shockley’s daughter. He started Tri-State Oil.
GAIL: Right.
NORMAN: And he had, before he started that, he had five fish pounds in the river. I bought him out and I went in the fish business. I went in the fish business in ’32 and I fished them pounds. To go down there, I’d leave home four o’clock every morning, meet, I had a man helping me, his name Sweegin, and we’d run down as far as that clubhouse is. We had a pound there. We had five pounds in that river and I’d be back to Snow Hill with fish and he’d tend the fish. I’d come home and milk eight cows, by hand, didn’t have like they a dairy now, all fast and go right and milk it. You’d had to pen one up and milk ‘em, and one I had to tie the legs to keep from kickin’ me. I’d milk them eight cows and turn it out . I had a cream separator, and Elva would make butter and then I’d go farmin’ all day and get to bed about 9 o’clock and be in town 4 the next morning. Now you know I’m goin’ through with it.
GAIL: What would you eat for breakfast in the morning? About that time?
NORMAN: Sometimes didn’t eat no breakfast.
GAIL: Is that right?
NORMAN: Ya, didn’t eat no breakfast. Not ‘till I went and come back. And when, that’s Elva got Blue Dollar price for her butter.
GAIL: Is that right?
NORMAN: And we didn’t have no refrigeration, whatever. Nothin’ but an old well, put it down this well, cream down there and butter. And we shipped 30 pounds to Crisfield, and 30 pounds to Philadelphia, and they waited for it. Elva got Blue Dollar price for it, and it wouldn’t bring about 30 cents here. We got 60 there. They wanted that butter. I tell ya why, she made such, she had a job to print that much butter.
GAIL: I bet she did.
NORMAN: I’ll tell ya why we made such good butter. I got a churn upstairs, she’s up there now, and it’s a swing churn and you take these churns, where you turn and crankin’ it, they break the grain of the butter, but this old swing churn, ya swing her and she turns that butter over, over like that, ya know. Every time she went, turn that over, well when you got done churnin’ that butter that churn, there was a great big hunk of butter, and that, wasn’t no job ta put it in good shape. And we shipped it down to Crisfield of a night and they’s land there in good shape, and no refrigeration now, just down that well, and Philadelphia the same way.
GAIL: How did you keep your milk?
NORMAN: Well we turned the milk out, we give that to hogs till we got cream off it.
GAIL: Did ya?
NORMAN: We paid for that cream separator, Dan Bradford. You remember? Do you……………Hargis did. All the Bradford’s did.
GAIL: Yes, I remember them. I remember the Bradford’s.
NORMAN: Hargis dead? Harry dead?
GAIL: Uhum.
NORMAN: Well he had some daughters there. Are they all dead too?
GAIL: No I don’t think so.
NORMAN: Dan Bradforod and he had a brother, they were blacksmiths once, but they got themselves machinery.
GAIL: Then they sold cars, right?
NORMAN: Ya.
GAIL: Ya, their son is still livin’. They have a son that’s still livin’.
NORMAN: Uhuh.
GAIL: Hargis does.
Norman; Well ya see I don’t know tell, I, there’s a lot gone and I don’t know it. I don’t go to town much no more. Don’t drive.
GAIL: How did you keep your food, if you didn’t have refrigeration, so how did you keep it?
NORMAN: Didn’t keep ‘em. Didn’t have much to keep.
GAIL: In other words you killed………………..
NORMAN: Your meat, we had that cured, you know.
GAIL: Right, uhuh. And you killed the chickens as you needed. Right?
NORMAN: Ya that’s right.
GAIL: You got your flour and all that from town.
NORMAN: Well count two bags of wheat town, get it all in flour. I used to do, I used to go down see sister, you know, down Crisfield, I carried along 2 bags of flour and wheat, stop Pocomoke and had it in flour and carry it down and give her all of it, and after a while she said didn’t use any more, so I quit that.
GAIL: How about sugar? Where did you get your sugar?
NORMAN: We bought 2, 2 pounds of sugar for 12 cents.
GAIL: Two pounds of sugar for 12 cents!!!!
NORMAN: Six cents a pound. My Lord that’s all we paid for sugar for a long time. Now what is it? 50 cents, ain’t it?
GAIL: I think so.
NORMAN: I tell ya now, I got to have my coffee sugared. That’s the only way I use sugar, in my coffee. But I want my coffee 2 spoonful’s of sugar in it. I don’t want it, I shouldn’t have that much sugar or not, but his wife, when she’s here she takes my, you know, she’s a trained nurse, she takes my blood pressure. Wear that arm out, takin’ my blood pressure. I like it. I mean…………..she says I’m makin’ out alright, so…………..
GAIL: Well I think you’re remarkable for 90……How old now, is it now?
INTERVIEWER: 5.
GAIL: 95. I think you’re doing super well for 95.
NORMAN: Well my father lacked 7 days of being 90, and my mother, she lacked just 5 months being 76 and sister, oldest one side of me, she was just 91 and a month. She was 91, she was just 2 years and 2 months older than I was. She was born 2nd day of January and I was born 2nd day of March. Two years, see. Two months, 2 years and 2 months older than I was and she died in ’76.
GAIL: Well we thank you for all of your…………
NORMAN: I don’t know much.
GAIL: I think you know a lot.
INTERVIEWER: I think this will help out a lot.
NORMAN: Huh?
INTERVIEWER: I said I think this will help out a lot.
THE END