Savage, Evelyn (1898-1998) |
Worcester County Library: Local History and Genealogy Collection, Snow Hill Branch, Snow Hill, MD
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Interviewee: |
Evelyn Savage (1898-1998) |
| Interviewer: |
Bobby Kitchens |
| Date of interview: |
1982 April |
| Length of interview: |
30 min |
| Transcribed by: |
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| Preferred Citation: |
“Name, Oral History Collection, Date of Interview, Worcester County Library, Snow Hill Branch, Snow Hill, Maryland.” |
Topical Terms:
Fish Camps
Storm of 1933
Storm of 1962
Transportation
Worcester County (Md.)—History
Worcester County (Md.)—Social life and customs
Worcester County (Md.)—Women’s History
World War I
WWI
Location Terms:
Ocean City (Md.)
Interview Begin
EVELYN: I’m 83. I’ll be 84 in November.
INTERVIEWER: What is your complete name?
EVELYN: I’m Evelyn Jeanette Webb Savage.
INTERVIEWER: Do you live here all the time?
EVELYN: Oh yes. No, I was born and raised in Wilmington.
INTERVIEWER: What was your parent’s name?
EVELYN: My mother’s name was Mary Louisa McClintock Webb, and my father’s name was George W. Frame Webb. He was from around Bowers Beach, around up in that section, my father was.
INTERVIEWER: When you needed like food and stuff did, did you go, make a special or was there like a market near-by?
EVELYN: Oh ya we used to come down to Ocean City on the train. They had to come down, excursions, and my sister was married down here and we used to come down to Ocean City and she would meet us.
INTERVIEWER: How about Public Landing? Did you ever go to Public Landing?
EVELYN: I’ve been there a couple of times with a friend. A lady friend.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember that wooden sliding door they used to have there?
EVELYN: We didn’t stay there that long to see.
INTERVIEWER: What can you tell me about it?
EVELYN: Honey there ain’t much I can tell ya about Public Landing.
INTERVIEWER: Did you ever go to Farmer’s Day or it might have been called Forester’s Day?
EVELYN:
INTERVIEWER: You never did. Did you ever hear anyone talk about it?
EVELYN:
INTERVIEWER: Did you ever hear of Red Hills? Go right across the Virginia border?
EVELYN: Red Cross?
INTERVIEWER: No.
EVELYN: Oh the border line.
INTERVIEWER: A place called Red Hills. It was right across the Virginia border.
EVELYN: Oh no.
INTERVIEWER: Did you ever know anyone who went there or anything?
EVELYN: Down to Chincoteague?
INTERVIEWER: How ‘bout Assateague? Did you ever go there?
EVELYN: Oh ya.
INTERVIEWER: Were you there, They used to have Scott’s Ocean house there.
EVELYN: Scott’s the paperman?
INTERVIEWER: They had a hotel on Assateague, like.
EVELYN: Hotel?
INTERVIEWER: Did you ever go to that?
EVELYN: No. Didn’t know there was a hotel there, except Mr. Scott had the Scott paper company in Philadelphia or Eddystone. He had a home over there.
INTERVIEWER: It might have been him then.
EVELYN: It could have been him ‘cause a friend of mine cooked for him.
INTERVIEWER: What do you remember about Assateague?
EVELYN: The wild horses.
INTERVIEWER: Do you like them too?
EVELYN: Ya I like them.
INTERVIEWER: Have you ever been on the Pocomoke River?
EVELYN: No.
INTERVIEWER: Have you heard any superstitions about it?
EVELYN: No. No.
INTERVIEWER: You haven’t?
EVELYN: I love nature. I would’ve loved to went on the Pocomoke and the Iron Furnace. We used to go there but it wasn’t nothing but weeds. You couldn’t get around it and there was a tree growing out the top.
INTERVIEWER: A tree grew out on top of it?
EVELYN: Ya, uhum.
INTERVIEWER: What about shipyards?
EVELYN: No. I remember the shipyards when they had the war. The First World War.
INTERVIEWER: How big were the ships that they built?
EVELYN: Honey, I couldn’t tell ya.
INTERVIEWER: Did they build a lot or you don’t remember?
EVELYN: Well see they were workin’ for the government then, the First World War, and I don’t know, and my father was a paint mixer and he had a little place of his own at Jackson Shark and so they made paint for the shipyards.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember a character, not really a character but an animal named Jake in Berlin?
EVELYN: Jake?
INTERVIEWER: Ya, it was an alligator that somebody had.
EVELYN:
INTERVIEWER: You don’t remember. Have you ever heard of any superstitions or legends around here?
EVELYN: Oh honey’s I’ve heard from an old man, I heard from an old man and everything was on himself, though. He would talk about this, what he’d done and what he didn’t do, you know. But it was always on himself nobody else.
INTERVIEWER: Well what were some of those things?
EVELYN: Oh ‘bout diggin’ holes under a fence and going to the…………..oh I couldn’t tell ya honey, it’s been so long I couldn’t tell ya.
INTERVIEWER: Well when you were talkin’ about storms earlier, tell me all you can remember about those.
EVELYN: ’33 storm?
INTERVIEWER: Any storm that might…………
EVELYN: Oh honey I’ve lived through many a storm.
INTERVIEWER: What are some of the worst?
EVELYN: Well ’33 and ’62, but in-between that we had bad storms and before the ’33 storm we used to have the northeasters and they would break into the cottages you know. You’d see pianos floatin’ in the bay and beds and bed linens and mattresses.
INTERVIEWER: How about snow storms? Do you ever remember any snow storms? What can you tell me about the ’33 storms?
EVELYN: About………well ’33 we had bad winds. Everyone’s bad winds and so, now let me think. I don’t want to tell you somethin’ that’s not right. ’33 about the inlet that was washed through and a lot of the houses washed down. Honey you go to Miss Anna Bunting, honey, and she can give you a good story. Something for you to write about. She could tell you, yes, more than I can.
INTERVIEWER: Well, why don’t you tell me about the ’62 storm?
EVELYN: Oh the ’62 storm. Well before that we did have a storm and it came up in the morning, oh around, before lunch and by that afternoon it was rainin’ and blowin’ to beat the band, by afternoon it was all over with. My, a friend of mine was out to see us and the electricians were testin’ your meters, so he said to him, he came out on the bicycle from Ocean City, he said how long you gonna be before you go over, he says this keeps up we’re goin’ now, so he got in the back of the truck and went back over to Ocean City. That was before the ’62 storm. And of the ’62 storm it came up in the afternoon or evening, anyway just like I told you before, my husband and I was sittin’ in there watchin’ television and a picture tube. I thought it was the picture tube in my television, and it wasn’t, see, but I turned it off. I said oh-oh, there’s a picture tube, so then I went out in the kitchen. I was workin’ on Christmas stockings and the light went off, and I said to my husband, I said Joe did you turn the lights off, he said no, and the lights in the back of the house stayed on, but all the front lights went off, so, if I’d knew what I knowed today, honey wouldn’t ever went to bed. Never, but I didn’t know till the next morning and I pulled the curtains aside, I said Joe look, I said look where that water is. It was over our pump house. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it and our driveway, you couldn’t get past our driveway to go down into Ocean City, the old Ocean City, see. You couldn’t get there. And boats washed up on the shore, up on the people’s porches. So they brought people out on boats, clear up to Elm Street. You know where Elm Street is? Clear up there, the water was clear up there in ’62, and it was in my back porch ‘bout an inch, and I never had water in my house before, never. And we had a cat, just like the old cat. She was meowin’ and I tried to get hold of her and she was floatin’ down and then she came back and I grabbed ahold of her and I brought her in the house. Well they took a porch off the little house next door and carried it clear over to the woods. You couldn’t get no further, for the woods, see. Anda, it likes I told ya ‘bout the electric poles going through just like match sticks. Never saw anything like it before. And the tide was one way and then another way. My husband said it went all directions. He knew about the weather. He could tell you better than the weather people today could tell ya. People that works on water, you know they can tell ya. And so, I , the next night I wouldn’t go to bed until I saw the tide down. So when I saw the tide going down, I went and got, went to bed, and the next night it came back up again, see, and the next night I said I’m not going to bed and I’ll see if the tide goes down and it went down past the house, the summer house, past there, then I went to bed. So then it subsided you know, and didn’t come out nor more. I’ve had a lot of experience, but nothing like Miss Anna Bunting. She could tell you. She could make a nice book for you.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember a person name Zippy Lewis?
EVELYN: Oh Zippy Lewis. I knew her off-springs. Miss Masten and she was married twice and her first husband was Sam, a baker, and then she married this other one. I forgot who he was. But she was, oh Zippy Lewis is still with her, and they say there’s a lot of money buried on the beach that she had.
INTERVIEWER: Did you remember her?
EVELYN: No.
INTERVIEWER: You didn’t?
EVELYN: No.
INTERVIEWER: How about the World War? The wars, can you remember, what this, like what happened around this area?
EVELYN: The First World War?
INTERVIEWER: Both. Any I mean………
EVELYN: Well the First World War, see we couldn’t, we didn’t have things to eat much, and my mother used to get some dark, had to get this dark flour. She baked. She did her own baking see. My mother was Pennsylvania Dutch, and they were great for cookin’, see. So all she could get was this dark flour and my mother would bake bread out of that. We didn’t like it but we had to eat it and my brother was in war, the Second World War. He was in India, and he was a painter and he had his own shop and he wrote to me. He says, Evelyn don’t do without nothing. She said they send good butter over here and the natives put it on their hair, slick their hair down. He said if you can get it, you get it. Don’t you deny yourself nothin’. That was the Second World War. But the First World War, my husband was in that, but he didn’t stay long because Mr. Ludlum, he owned a fish camp see, and my husband worked for him and he got him out ‘cause that was accepted, needed the fish, you know.
INTERVIEWER: What did people do around here to help it, help the war out?
EVELYN: Honey, I didn’t know of anything.
INTERVIEWER: I mean did they, like you said they build ships?
EVELYN: That was in Wilmington that was in Wilmington. Had shipyards.
INTERVIEWER: Did they have to cut down around there? You said they had to. What things were real shortages?
EVELYN: The First World War, I wasn’t down here, during the First World War. My husband was born and raised down here, see, but I had, he was my boyfriend see, and he went to war, see, and he didn’t stay very long, and my brother-in-law, he was married and they had a child, and he went the same time my boyfriend did and my boyfriend got out faster that he did because what he done was more important, see, fishing.
INTERVIEWER: Where did your boyfriend go?
EVELYN: Fort Meade. I used to go down there see my brother-in-law and him. Another girl and I would go. I had to have somebody else with me, see. I couldn’t go alone.
INTERVIEWER: How about World War II?
EVELYN: World War II?
INTERVIEWER: Around here what did they do?
EVELYN: Let me think, World War II? It wasn’t as tough in World War II as it was in One. I don’t know of anything that we were denied see, but in the World War I, we was.
INTERVIEWER: It was? When you said your husband worked fish camps, what can you remember about fish camps?
EVELYN: Oh they used to feed the men, see, and they used to go down there and stay a week. After we were married, he had to go down and stay a week. They had their cot and everything and they fed ‘em there, see, and they fed ‘em good too. But my husband said some of ‘em used to complain. He said they didn’t have that good at home. I think Miss Anna Bunting, I think some of her relatives worked in there.
INTERVIEWER: When they went fishing, how did they do it?
EVELYN: Oh a big pound boat, big pound boat and horses, big horses, like the Clydesdale. Great big horses like that, used to pull the boats up on the shore, when they come, came out by the pounds, see. And I went out one time, me and some girls, I was workin’ at the old Atlantic Hotel, you don’t remember that. I bet your parents does. He said if you get some girls together and we’ll go out in the ocean, and I did. And it was beautiful, beautiful early in the morning. See that sun come up. Oh it was gorgeous. So then,, as far as the, anything else, they had these great big boats and some of them went when they had the second, in ’62. All those camps were washed away.
INTERVIEWER: How about when they got all the fish together and all, how did they ship them out?
EVELYN: Oh they would pack ‘em in ice and ship ‘em to New York, Philadelphia and different places like that. And they had these box cars see, to ship ‘em in. And like I told ya, I was watchin’ that old box car and they had brought the horses and all over before it got so bad, and I would watch that old box car and she would just go. Go, go, go. Finally she went down in the bay. I can’t see it now, it’s too much trees, now.
INTERVIEWER: When they shipped them, did they go by boat or train or both?
EVELYN: Train.
INTERVIEWER: They did?
EVELYN: Yes, and that there, that old railroad bridge, see we used to have excursions go down Ocean City and they used…..
INTERVIEWER: And they would ship them out in box cars?
EVELYN: In a box car. Load ‘em up, you know in barrels, and they had, I got an old box home now in my daughter’s house that they used to get the twine in and I know somebody that would love to have that, but…
INTERVIEWER: Antique?
EVELYN: Uhum. Because it’s old, see. And I used to, I varnished it inside and wait till it dried and I used to pack my blankets and things in there see. Oh it’s a big square thing, ‘bout like that.
INTERVIEWER: What else do you remember about Ocean City?
EVELYN: Ocean City?
INTERVIEWER: Ya?
EVELYN: Well the ’62 storm, Ocean City, the sand was. I don’t know how deep it was, and after they started to clean, I said they’ll never be opened by summer. But they did. Hugh Cropper, he went to work right away and got things, trucks and things come in there. Bulldozer to bull doze that sand. And they were open by summer season. I don’t know how in the world they ever done it. I don’t know.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember like any motels or anything that were down there, like when it first, when Ocean City first started building up?
EVELYN: Well you’ve heard of the Plimhimmon?
INTERVIEWER: Ya. That’s what I was…..
EVELYN: That was the furthest, that’s only how far it could go on the beach, because the others was over there by bushes and , the coast guard used to ride horses. Have a little dinky…..Cape Isle of Wight. But you couldn’t go up there no further than the Plimhimmon.
INTERVIEWER: Did you ever go there? To the Plimhimmon?
EVELYN: No, I never went there.
INTERVIEWER: What kind of stores were down there?
EVELYN: Mr. Lynch had a store, now Mr. Laws, he had, and I think he sold it, I don’t, I don’t know much about Ocean City anymore, because I haven’t lived there, in Ocean City you see, but I tell ya, you go to Miss Anna Bunting and honey, and she’ll give you a good history, right now, more than I can give you, ‘cause she was here for years, see. And she’s a wonderful person, too. Now you go to her as soon as you can get to her and she’d give you a good story, a good write-up.