Mary Ousey

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East Falls Historical Society Oral History Interview

Interviewee: Mary Ousey (MO)

Interviewers: Wendy Moody (WM), Katy Hineline (KH), Joan McIlvaine (JM)

Dates of Interviews: December 28, 2023 and March 12, 2024

Transcriber: Wendy Moody

This transcription is a compilation of 2 interviews with Mary Ousey (12/28/23 & 3/12/24).  Both interviews took place at Mary’s care center in Newtown, PA.

WM: We are interviewing Mary in the Jordan Building of Chandler Hall in Newtown, Pa. Thank you for letting us interview you, Mary. Why don’t you begin by telling us where and when you were born.   

MO: I was born July 22, 1928, in East Falls. I was born at 3339 Conrad Street. In those days it was called 35th Street.

WM: So not in the hospital.

MO: No, at home. I was born at home.  And I slept in that bedroom for 55 years. I moved out of that house after 55 years.

WM: And did you have sisters and brothers?  

MO: Two brothers.  Now my first brother, Alson Lee, had a different mother than I did. My father had been married twice.  His first wife died when his son, Alson, was only two years old.  Alson went to live with an aunt and uncle of my fathers until my father married my mother, and he came to live with my parents. I don’t know how old he was by the time they took him, because I don’t know how many years before my dad married my mother.  So Alson was part of our family. That’s his picture up there. By the time I was born, he was 26; he was an adult, and he was like a father to me, you know.

WM: Do you know what year Alson was born?

MO: It was either 1902 or 1904. I think it was 1902.

WM: How do you spell his name?

MO: A-L-S-O-N.        

WM: Alson.  Unusual.     

MO: It’s English.  And that was my dad’s name as well. And then they had another son, Harry, 13 years later, in 1915.  And then thirteen years after that I was born, so I was kind of a surprise! My dad was 48 and my mother was 42.

WM: Wow.

MO: Unfortunately, my oldest brother was only 39 when he died.  In those days, tuberculosis was running wild in the city and all. Back then, when you had tuberculosis in Philadelphia, they put you in the sanatorium, because there was no cure for it. Alson contracted it, and they had to put him in a sanitarium up in Croydon.  And of course he died there. They had no medication to treat it with, in the day, and they just treated it with sunshine and so forth. And it didn’t work on him. It just went all through his body, so he died very young. We were very close, and I was only 10 when he died.

WM: Oh, how sad.

MO: So I never saw him again after they took him away. But my other brother, Harry, was thirteen years younger than Alson, and thirteen years older than me. Harry and I were never, ever close.  I often thought that he resented me because, here I am a baby and I have rickets, so I must have needed a lot of care. And I often think that maybe he was jealous because we were never, ever close. And I tried, but I gave up.

JM: Thirteen years is quite an age difference when you’re young.

WM: And with a gender difference too.

WM: When you were a kid, did you get into trouble?

MO: As a kid? Noooo. You didn’t have parents like I did. You wouldn’t be bad. My mother was a disciplinarian.  She had, well, it was a whip, really. It was a cat o’nine tails, they called it. Ever hear of that? It was leather and it was strips about this wide on a handle thing and it had hair on it. And that hurt.

That’s what she used.

KH: Where did she strike you – on your legs?

MO: On my rear.  And one day she hit me on the back of my legs.  I was in the yard, and I looked down, and I was bleeding, and I was screaming “You made me bleed!”

JM: She must have been very embarrassed.

MO: I know she was very mad at me. My mother was the disciplinarian; my dad would never hit you.

        Now, about East Falls…. I went to Saint Bridget’s and I graduated, of course, from there and went on to Hallahan. But when I was very young, in East Falls every church had a 4th of July picnic except St. Bridget. My mother was very active in church, and she got this other woman, Margaret Casey, to be active with her.  And they went over to Father Munyon, who was the pastor (note: from 1928 – 1947), and they asked them if we could have a picnic. Well, the problem had been there had been a picnic at one time and somebody had absconded with the money at the end of the thing, so he wouldn’t allow them. So he told them if they could get enough start-up money, he would give them permission to have the picnic. So my mother and Margaret and my brother, Harry, canvassed the whole parish, house to house, and came up with the funds and went over to Father Munyon – I don’t know how much they got, but yay number of dollars – and he was so impressed he allowed the picnic. And because of that he said, “I’ll get a place for you” and he got McMichael Park for us to have the picnic because we were a large group.   

      And all the churches had a parade on 4th of July with the band, and they’d go up and down a couple streets, you know, and then they’d go to the respective churches – their picnic grounds. And we did the same thing. So that’s how our picnic started.

WM: So about what year are we talking about?

MO: Oh, probably around. 1934. I was I was probably around six, I guess. I was very young.

WM: What do you remember about the picnic?

MO: Well, I loved it.  And if you went over and got into the parade, you got free tickets, but you had to get in the parade to get the tickets. And my parent – my father – walked with the group, you know, to keep the kids in the line. And other parents did too.    

KH: Where was the parade? Right up Midvale Avenue?

MO: Well, we went up Midvale Avenue. I know we went over to Conrad Street because next to me – she would have actually been Joan McIlvaine’s husband’s great, great grandmother – she was 94 at the time – I called her Grandma Boyd, and she would sit at the window, and the bands at every church would stop there momentarily and play for her.

WM: What was her first name? Was it Ella Boyd? (Ella Boyd lived at 3341 Conrad)

MO: She was Grandma Boyd to me – she died when she was 94.  Mary was her daughter who cared for her.  It was Grandma Boyd’s home. And she had a son, Charlie Boyd, whose wife died when May was born – May McIlvaine.  When Mae was born, her mother died, leaving three girls – May was the third one. Each member of the family was going to take one of the children, and Grandma Boyd said, “You’re not separating the girls, Charlie. Bring them home to me and I’ll raise them” I was maybe not even born yet, you know. But anyhow, Grandma took the three Boyd girls and raised them.  Mae was the baby, and Agnes and Ruth. Mary stayed home and was the housekeeper for them.  And then Ella Boyd, who was Mrs. McGlynn, and her husband, Hugh McGlynn, moved in there, and those two worked.  And they had one child, Claire. 

WM: You know, years ago we interviewed Ella Boyd McGlynn.

MO: Yeah?  She was a wonderful lady. Really very kind woman. And I grew up playing with Claire McGlynn next door. There we are in that picture, in back of the McGlynn house – Claire and I. Claire is the light-haired girl and I’m the dark-haired one.  Claire was just about a little over a year older than I so she got into class the year before I did.  And then I had to wait. When we were little, really little, our parents used to lift us over the fence, when we were not able to walk, so we could play together. And we would be crawling and playing in the grass.

KH: Now, what was your mother’s name?

MO: My mother’s name was Eleanor. 

WM: And what was her maiden name?

MO: Her maiden name was Smith. It was an easy one!

WM: Eleanor Smith. Where did you say she was born?

MO: She was born in Philadelphia, around 9th and Poplar – in that general area.

WM: And your dad – what was his name?

MO: His name was Alson, and he was born on Crawford Street.

WM: Alson Ousey.

MO: Alson Lees Ousey. L-E-E-S was the middle name. He never used it. I think it was a family name.  He was born in East Falls and he was probably, I don’t know, born at home. I would imagine he might have been, and they lived on Crawford Street.

KH: And what year was he born?

MO: In 1880.

KH: 1880 – oh, so he was old when you were born.

MO: He was born February 28th, 1880.  My mother was born August 25th. 1886.

WM: Tell us anything you remember your father telling you about East Falls when he was growing up.

MO: My father went to work very young, at nine years old, in Dobson Mills.  He was a mill worker – later he worked at Midvale Steel, then a place in Germantown that made rugs, and then at Philco.

WM: Do you know what he did at Dobson Mills?

MO: No.  His mother died in her 40s; she died pretty young. He had one brother that I knew of. I didn’t know him – they were all dead. His sisters were living; he had three sisters. And when I got this information from somebody in the Midwest who sent me information about my dad’s family, there was a Francis or Frank, and my father never mentioned him.  But he was on the listing that I received. So I would guess that he died as a baby. And he probably didn’t even know about him, you know.  But his two sisters stayed in East Falls. Three of them stayed initially, and then the youngest one was divorced. She had a big family, and she moved somewhere – I think somewhere in the Northeast.

JM: John’s (John McIlvaine) grandfather worked in the mill.  May told me how he worked in the mills, and she used to pack his lunch in a lunch pail when she was in elementary school and walked on down.

WM: Do you know what he did in the mill?

JM: It probably had something to do with weaving.  Mary, did your dad go to Saint Bridget?

MO: He belonged to the High Episcopal Church – Grace Reform, and later he became a Catholic around the time…we made our confirmation together.  He didn’t tell anybody. My mother was very active in church. So he went over and told the priest he was going to get instructions, but he didn’t want anybody to know because he didn’t know if he wanted to do it or not, so he didn’t want my mother to know. So he got up one morning and he said “I’m going to church with you today. I’m receiving my First Holy Communion.”  She said: “That’s not funny. Don’t joke about that.” So he made his First Holy Communion on a Sunday.  And then when I was confirmed, we were confirmed on the same day.

WM: That’s amazing. Anything else he told you about Dobson Mills or anything about his growing up?

MO: I can tell you that there’s another family – Radcliffe. My father lived on Conrad Street when I got older.  His mother – my grandmother – was Edna Radcliffe. She came from England when she was twelve years old and later married James Ousey.  Her brother, John Radcliffe, married and also lived on Crawford Street.  And another sister lived over there, who had a daughter Nelly. They were the ones that took my father’s son, Alson, to raise until my dad got married again. So he lived with his aunt and uncle there.  All these people were before my time. 

WM: Do you know the number on Crawford?

MO: Near the bottom of the hill, but I don’t know the address because they weren’t there when I came along.  They were gone, and their daughter didn’t live there anymore. But I knew her – she used to come to the house all the time. She married a guy by the name of Wrigley, but he was dead when I knew her.  She had two sons, Albert and Jimmy, and she married a man by the name of. Harker. And I used to kid them because I got cheated out of a cousin. Jimmy Harker married one of Bill Ousey’s daughters. They were cousins of mine, but on different sides, so I used to kid them about cheating me out of a relative.  Bill Ousey, my dad’s first cousin, lived on Plush Hill. Mike Ousey came from that side of the family.

WM: Do you remember Plush Hill?

MO: I was pretty young when I was up there to the house, so I don’t remember too much about it.

WM: Can you describe the house at all?

MO: No, I can’t.  From the outside, it just looked very big to me when I was very little.

WM: There was a wall along the side?

MO: I remember you went up from Indian Queen Lane and I’m sure it wasn’t dirt, but I keep in my mind it was dirt, and this big house was there.  To me it was a big house.  And I’m sure it was really big because he had several children. Bill was his oldest boy and he had a Jack Ousey, and I think Mike came from Jack, but I’m not sure. Jack would have been his grandfather.

WM: Do you remember when that house was torn down?

MO: No. No, I don’t remember. I don’t know. As far as I knew, they still lived there when I was a nurse working at Medical College. His wife was a patient.  And Ann, she was a sweetheart. She was a Gotwols from the Falls – the Gotwols family.  And her nephew, Jack Ousey was a pitcher on the East Falls baseball team.

WM: I’ve seen pictures of those athletic Gotwols brothers.  So going back, can you describe your house on Conrad? What was your address?  Can you talk a little bit about growing up there?  

MO: My father and mother bought it.  You’ve heard of a Father, Son and Holy Ghost house? Well, they lived in the back, and the Holmes family lived in the front. And all I remember of that is – I must have been about two or three when Mrs. Holmes died, and I loved her apparently, and I used to run down the alley – she came out the side door – and poor Mrs. Holmes – when she died, I was really upset. I don’t remember this, of course, I must have been two or three, but, apparently, they had to take me to the funeral – to the viewing – and I kept trying to make her wake up and I upset everybody. I guess my mother had to take me away.

WM: What was your house like?

MO: Three rooms straight out. They had one on each floor, so the first floor was your everything – your living room, your dining room, your kitchen. On the next two floors, there were two bedrooms on each floor.  The boys were on the third floor, and my parents were on the second.

WM: And you?

MO: And then I came along.  Mrs. Holmes had died, and I was about two or three. So the boys moved out – they didn’t stay there. My parents bought the front and just broke it through and made one big house.

So that solved that problem. But later on, they had put a shed on the back.  It was just wood, and it wasn’t very substantial. We had a stove in the living room and in the dining room. No heat upstairs at all. And when I was even older, you had to put your winter coat on to go out to the bathroom – it was an outhouse.

WM: I brought you a picture of your house.

MO: Oh really?

WM: I just took it.  I hope that’s 3339 Conrad.

MO: Yes, it is!! Yeah! (points to photo)

WM: Was the house always stucco or was it originally brick?

MO: Is that stucco I’m looking at?

WM: Yes.

MO: No, it was brick.  I had those front steps turned to the side, and then we had a side entrance.

WM: You had a side entrance?

MO: When my dad died, and he was going to be laid out there, Charlie said “You can’t do it, Mary; this floor will collapse.”  You know, he thought the building was too old. And I said, “Well, we have a side entrance.” So he put a light out here, and the people would come in here and go out the side. My mother insisted that he be buried from the house.

So where was your room? Were you on the second floor or third?

MO: Well, this was my parent’s bedroom. I was in the back. When they first took over this house, it was Father, Son and Holy Ghost. So what you’re seeing here was the front of the house. They lived in the back. I was actually born in the back bedroom. And then when they took over the whole house, the back bedroom was my bedroom as I grew up. So I slept in the same room I was born in all my life.

WM: And this this famous outhouse you told us about?

MO: Oh, that was in the back of the house.  You went out the back door of the house. There was another door in the back of the house, out of the kitchen. And it would be over on this side, the outhouse, next to their fence.

WM: Do you know what year they converted that to an indoor bathroom?

MO: We were apparently the only people left in East Falls with an outhouse. My father didn’t provide well, so we were poor, you know.  In fact, when I was a baby, not for that reason, I ended up having rickets when I was in an infant.  And the doctor kept telling my mother “Just breastfeed her. It’s OK.” So she was just breastfeeding me and I was starving. One of the Holmes girls had a baby around the same time and she said to mom “Take her to my doctor. There’s something wrong.” So Mom took me to this other pediatrician and I guess he scared the heck out of her.  When she walked in, he said “Why haven’t you had a doctor?” She said “I have a pediatrician.” He said “Is he blind? She’s dying.” That’s what he told her. And I was starving. And then they couldn’t get any formula that would stay down. I kept bringing everything up, and I ended up having rickets. You know what rickets are? So I’ve have a deformed joint on my left side and that threw my whole vertebrae out. My vertebrae have been out of place all my life because of the rickets.

WM: And how did that affect you?

MO: I was round-shouldered, and the nuns would always tell me to straighten up. And I couldn’t straighten up, and I said to the doctor “They’re horrid” and the doctor said, “Tell them you can’t straighten up!”  He was Jewish.  He got really upset with that.  He was really good to me, Dr. Silverman, he was really good.

WM: Did he live in East Falls?

MO: No, no, he was from Allegheny Avenue, down in that area.

WM: Do you remember what age you were when you got the indoor bathroom?

MO: After I got out of nurses training. OK, so actually before that.  We had a girl in my classroom – we were probably in 7th or 8th grade by then – and her father was a plumber. His name was Murphy.  Teresa knew when she was at my house, we had to use the outhouse, and she told her dad. So Mr. Murphy said to me one day when I was over there – he had eight kids of his own – “You know, Mary, if your parents will let me, I’ll put a bathroom in for you.”

      So he and his son came over and they put a partition in to make it part of my bedroom. And they put a tub and a toilet in.  Well, we could use the toilet, of course, but we couldn’t use the tub because we had no hot water and we had no heat upstairs. So it was after I started working.  And the man next door even said to me, “If we have a bad storm, come in here, because that side wall is going to go.” There was nothing between the bricks. So when I graduated as a nurse, I started to redo the house, you know.  I kept throwing money into it like you wouldn’t believe, because I’d take loans out, and I’d pay that off.  The first thing I did was the outside because the roof was gone, lapping was hanging down in the bedrooms on the third floor. I had the whole third floor redone, but I had all these crazy stairs in there from here, there and everywhere.

KH: From the two different buildings.

WM: Do you know what year the house was built?

MO: No, I better not say because I’m not really sure.

WM: So who lived in this little house next to yours?

MO: That little house? There was Grandpop Muench. There was nothing there, and this elderly gentleman – his son lived around the corner – he owned the houses on Indian Queen Lane, this man.  And Grandpop Muench – I was too young to remember this – but he had asked my mother if he could build a house next to hers. And she, you know, no value, she said she didn’t care.  She said, “Oh sure, you can build it in there.” He owned the ground. Well, he was clever. When I got older, I realized what he did. He used our bricks as that wall for this house.

All: Oh, no! (laughter)

MO: I was looking out at his porch one day, and I’m looking at it. It’s a brick wall. It’s here. Here’s a porch. And it’s bricks. And I thought, Oh my God, he built the house right up against us and used our bricks!  Later on, George and Florence Johnson bought the house.  Florence’s father owned the saloon at Indian Queen Lane and Conrad.

WM: What about the stores in East Falls? Where did you shop?

MO: In East Falls? Well, there weren’t many places to shop at in East Falls, except Clayton’s and McLaren and Leach, when I was young.  And then there was Sowden’s with the meat market on Conrad Street above Sunnyside. Oh, and on Sunnyside – how could I forget this? – there was a store that sold just about everything. You took a dish up, and they weighed it, and they sold it with ice cream, you know.  They put ice cream in your bowl.  You don’t remember that, but that’s how you got your ice cream. You took a bowl up there and they weighed the bowl so that they wouldn’t cheat you. And then they put the ice cream in it and you carried it home.

WM: What was the name of that store? Do you remember?

MO: Oh my goodness. I know that man’s name as well as I know my own. He was there for years.  He was on Conrad Street right there at Sunnyside.

WM: What about on Midvale?

MO: I don’t remember much of anything on Midvale.

WM: Or Ridge? Was there a 5 and 10 or a hardware store in East Falls?

MO: There was a hardware store at Midvale Avenue and Ridge Avenue, but, of course, I never shopped in there.  When I was really young, there was a store at the bottom of Calumet Street at Ridge Avenue, and it was owned by a Jewish man – a very nice man. And I was taken there a couple of times to buy shoes. They sold clothing and shoes. I can’t tell you the name of it because I was really young when I went there.

KH: Talk a little bit about what it was like as a kid on Conrad Street.

MO: In the block, there were stores. There was a grocery store, and on the other corner of Indian Queen Lane and Conrad, there used to be a bakery.   And where the beer distributors were, there was a haberdashery – an elderly lady had it at Bowman and Conrad, and there was a candy store. Across the street was Hohenadel’s, on that corner, and then next to that was McCann’s.Do you remember the guy with the big shoe…. He’d walk with a …? Well, his mother had a candy store there. I don’t remember that; I was too young.  But if you knew him, he was very popular in the Falls, the McCann family, and they lived on Conrad Street between Midvale Avenue and New Queen, in one of those houses.

WM: Was the bakery on the corner of Conrad and Indian Queen where Rowland’s grocery store was?

MO: The bakery at Indian Queen Lane later became a grocery store owned by Jean McGee Rowland and her husband.  The other corner, at Bowman Street, had a grocery store. Margaret Casey owned those two buildings, and it turned out that it became an Acme Market.  It wasn’t called Acme then, but it was a little grocery store. They had fruit and vegetables, not meat, but canned stuff and all. It joined the crowd, and it became an Acme Market.  On the other corner was Clayton’s, and they sold meat. That was an old family too, but later on Claytons was bought by a Jewish man, Max. He was such a nice man.

WM: Clayton’s was the building that became Epicure.  Did you happen to know Harry Prime? He lived above Clayton’s.

MO: Harry Prime? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah! He sang and became a singer.  I went to a dance one night to watch Ralph Flanagan – the dance was up in Collegeville – and who comes out to sing but Harry Prime!

WM: Yes! He sang with Ralph Flanagan.  What do you remember about Harry?

MO: I didn’t know he was with them, you know, and I was only in high school, so I didn’t go up and say anything to him. I just said to my friend “Oh, I know that guy!”  Well, he was playing catcher for the Falls team and my brother was a score keeper. He didn’t play, but he kept the scores or whatever they did, you know, records for them.

WM: He wanted to be a baseball player, but he was too small. That’s why he went into singing. Oh, that’s great that you knew him.

MO: Well, you know, one of the Gotwols was offered a time in the major leagues. I don’t know which team, but it was, Earl – “Torchy.” I think he was offered, but he couldn’t do it because he was Methodist, and he couldn’t play on Sunday. So he turned it down. They were a very religious family. In fact, Webby Gotwols became a minister.

JM: So the people who own Conrad Market, she used to win the Chili Contest all the time. I can’t think of her name.

WM: Her husband was Tom Leschak.

JM: Tom was the husband; was the wife Rita?

KH: She did make a mean chili.

JM: She did.  I sort of miss Conrad Market, but I’m very glad we have the one on Vaux – NouVaux.

MO: So as you went up the street, it was the Acme, the Casey building where the Bulletin was delivered, a yard with McClaren & Leach, the Boyds, Ouseys, Johnsons, a rental, and a bakery.

WM: Did you ever play at Hohenadel Brewery? A lot of the kids we interviewed said they’d play there.

MO: What happened with Hohenadel – they had a time selling it, and most people don’t know why. But you know, Cresson Street comes along and ends right where Hohenadel’s property is?  Well, Cresson Street went on.  And Hohenadel somehow or another managed to get people to extend his buildings onto that ground, which he did not own. So probably when they went to sell it, there was a big problem there, see? Some of the buildings that were attached to the big building really, were on ground that wasn’t owned by Hohenadel.

WM: How interesting.  Was it a working brewery when you were growing up?

MO: Oh yeah.  You’d sit out front at night and get sprayed. I said we’re being sprayed by beer. It was probably just mist, you know.

WM: Oh, somebody else told me that! She said that the kids would line up like baby birds with their mouths open, trying to get the beer!

MO: I didn’t know if it was beer.  We’d sit out front in front at night, you know, and you could smell the hops, and get sprayed with this stuff coming out.

WM: Really.

MO:  A lot of people from the Falls worked over there at the brewery.

WM: Did they?

MO: And apparently it was good beer in its day, but Hohenadel died, and his nephew or son – someone – took over, and the brewer either retired or died, and he was from Germany, and they had to get a new brewmaster. And the beer changed.  It wasn’t as good.

WM: You never met Mr. Hohenadel, did you?

MO: Never saw him. Never. You knew who he was.

WM: Did they make soda, too?

MO: No. Just beer.

WM: Were you ever in the building?

MO: No.  Once a year, they’d take their trucks and Huey McGlynn, Mrs. McGlynn’s husband – he was in the soda business – he used to deliver soda – so he would use his trucks, and anybody who wanted to go could sign up. And they had the trucks in front of Hohenadel’s.  And that morning, he climbed in his truck – we’d always go on Mr. McGlynn’s truck, you know. And I don’t know where they took us – somewhere where there was a lake. I was a kid. I don’t know how old I – I was pretty small.  And I remember going to this lake and Hohenadel paid for everything. They had all kinds of goodies, and the lake was there. You could go swimming or whatever, and they have all kinds of food and beer and sodas, and they paid for the whole layout.

JM: It was a wonderful outing.

WM: But it wasn’t Gustine Lake?

MO: No, no, no, no; it was further away. You had to go on the trucks, and they took you wherever it was. It was not far-far, but it was a distance.  I was a kid.

JM: Did your parents go?

MO: Oh, the adults had to go. They didn’t just take children. No, no, it was a family thing. And if you go down Indian Queen, even now, unless they’ve taken it out since I moved, in front of the house where the Hohenadels lived, there’s a big marble stone and it has Hohenadel written in it.  It’s down below the railroad. I don’t know if it’s still there or not. What it was for, was the carriages.

JM: How about that.

MO: After Hohenadel’s closed, the kids broke the windows, so the bats found a home. So we would come out at night and the bats would come with it. Yeah, that was fun.

KH: What you did on the street…. what did you do for play?

MO: We played on the street – we did hopscotch.  There were not a lot of cars then, so you could play in the street.  And we shot marbles.  Two doors up from me, there was another grocery store, McClaren & Leach,and they used to let us go in the side area where they didn’t use it. We would go in there and shoot marbles on the ground. And then there was a woman – her name was Bessie – I can’t think of her last name.  She lived in the apartment, and she had a teenage daughter.  And behind the grocery store, there was a garage, and in there they had a ladder that went upstairs.  For Bessie’s daughter, she had a table and chairs up there. So Claire and I and Immaculata O’Donnell – they put us in a basket and pull us up and we’d play up there and then they’d put us in the basket and bring us down.  My mother didn’t know that; she would have killed me.

WM: Did you go to other places in East Falls to play, like McDevitt or Gustine or the Bathey?

MO: I went to the Bathey and that was nice. And they had a Girls’ Day and a Boys’ Day. And if there wasn’t a crowd coming in, you were allowed an hour. And if the next group was smaller, they let you stay. But if the next group was the same size, you had to get out of the pool, you know.  I had a bad heart when I was a child – I have a heart condition – so I couldn’t ice skate, I couldn’t roller skate. I couldn’t ride a bike. I wasn’t allowed to do any sports.

     I couldn’t float, and I never even learned to swim.  I have to tell you what happened to me the first time I was there. I never saw a bath house. My mother was pulled in out of the ocean many years before, so she’d never let me go swimming. So, I pestered and pestered. She finally said “You’ll drown, you’ll drown!” So she finally agreed I could go. Oh, well, I was so happy. I get down there and you have to go through showers. Everybody had to go through this shower to get into the pool and somebody stood there – I guess one of the guards – and checked, I guess, if you needed soap or if you weren’t clean enough they made you get washed.  But we went through.  I was with Claire and a couple of other people. And I never saw a pool. They said “Go through to the pool. You have to get in the water. You can’t stay on the side.” So I watched everybody jumping in and I thought, well, I can tell, I guess you have to get in, you have to jump.  So I jumped in at the wrong end – at the high end of the pool! 

KH: Oh!

MO: And I was floundering, and Claire saw me jump in and she hollered because she knew I couldn’t swim. So they came in and they got me out. They put me on the side. And all I could think when I’m down there seeing all this green stuff, is my mother saying, “Don’t drown!” (laughter) “Oh, she was right. I’m drowning!” So, I got up and I’m sitting on the side and one of the guards, one of the women, said, “You can’t stay here.  If you don’t get in the water, you have to leave.” She said, “You can get in, but you have to go down there.”  She showed me where the ladders were.  She said, “You don’t jump in; you go down the ladder.” So Claire was right there. So they got me in the water again.

KH: Well, if Claire hadn’t come along, your mother would have been right! (laughter)

MO: They got me out and they got me back in, but, I don’t know, I often think, now that I was older, I always had a bad back.  My vertebrae were always out of place from the rickets. And I could never stay up, you know, I’d hold on to the wall and kick my feet and I’d go right down. And if I let go and tried to float, I’d sink.  So I don’t know whether it had to do with my posture. I don’t know. I was always making mistakes, making excuses, because I was always tense, probably.

KH: You were too thin. You have to have a little bit of blubber to float.

MO: Well, I was thin.  I got in the Service, and I was over in Hawaii, and I was down at the ocean, you know.  The Pacific, which is very calm – no waves. I was with a bunch of people from the military, and a couple of the sailors said “We’re going to hold you. You can’t drown. This is salt water. You can’t sink in salt water.” So, we get out there and they put their hands under me and they said “You can’t sink!” and they let go and I went down. And they were standing there saying “How can she sink in salt water?”

I remembered sinking in the salt water, and afterward I thought maybe it’s my spine. But the guys were saying “You can’t sink!” I said “Yes I can!”   

KH: Do you remember going to the movie theater?

MO: I remember the old movie theater. We used to go in there when we were kids, you know? And it was Saturday, Sunday, and Charlie, the man who owned it – he was such a nice man. He was so good to kids. If he saw a kid out there that didn’t have a dime, he’d let them in. And if he saw a kid whose shoes were falling off their feet, he’d take them down – there was this little store on the Ridge, and they sold clothes and shoes. He’d buy the kids shoes.  He was a good man, but he was Jewish.  And in the Falls, that was kind of, I don’t know. Anyhow, he finally got enough money to build a new theater, but before that, we go in and we’d sit there, and instead of sitting like this, we watched the back of the theater because there was a stairs, a ladder, there and a hole in the ceiling. So when we saw this man come in and start up the ladder, we knew the movie was going to start. Everybody would start clapping and yelling and we would sit right in our seats. 

WM: So, Mary, when you talk about this, when you say the old theater, you’re not talking about the Alden, you’re talking about the one that was near the funeral home – the rounded building?

MO: I’m talking about the one that was at Frederick Street.

WM: OK, that’s what I thought.

MO: And it became a store or something, didn’t it?

WM: Now it’s a club – the Fallser Club.

MO: I don’t know what it became, but it was right across from the funeral parlor, on the other side of Frederick.

WM: And do you remember when they opened the Alden Theater further up the hill? The new theater?

MO: Well, the man, Charlie, I don’t know whether his name was Charlie, he built the new theater, and when he built a new theater, he allowed anybody who wanted to, to go into the old theater free. They wrecked the place! Oh, they broke the windows. They broke the doors; they wrecked it. Now everything that these kids were doing, I’m sure, in their day, they had been living there a few years and I’m sure that at some time or another., he gave to them or to their friends, and that’s what they did to thank him – they ripped the seats with knives. They wrecked it.

JM: What a shame.

MO: And he built a new theater. And people who lived there were really upset that that happened to him, you know.  The other thing he did – Christmas, especially Christmas, he bought all these expensive things. He gave bicycles, skates – you can’t imagine the stuff that that man bought!

WM: Is this the one who was Jewish?

MO: He was Jewish.

WM: And he bought everyone Christmas gifts? (laughter)

MO: For the kids.  He loved kids; you could tell.  He was good to children.  He would never see a child want, and he would never see a child that couldn’t go into his movie because they didn’t have the money.

WM: That’s lovely. So did you go to the new theater too?

MO: Oh yeah, sure, I was still there.

WM: And what was that theater like?

MO: You didn’t have to climb up a ladder. (laughter)  It was a nice theater.  Not really fancy-fancy, you know, but it was really pretty theater.

WM: Would you buy candy as you went inside?

MO: They sold candy in the back. Not like they do today. I don’t even remember if they just had machines that you could get something or not.

WM: How much did it cost?

MO: Oh, probably five cents or ten cents.

JM: Well, Mary, I remember I had two neighbors on Vaux Street, and after they got the kids to bed, even on a weeknight, they would get their husbands to babysit, and the two of them would go to the Alden Theater.  And that would be their night out.

WM: What are your memories of the library?

MO: I love that library. It was so beautiful. It’s really beautiful. The wood and the tables; everything!  I remember going there and I was usually by myself, because everybody else in school would be out riding bikes or doing this or that and I couldn’t do that. I had a bad heart, so I’d go to the library. Yeah, I would just go in there and get books out, you know, and maybe sit at one of the tables and read something. I didn’t do my homework there; I usually did it at home

      And I can remember we went in here, and way over on the left hand side, all the way as far as you could go, is where the children’s books were.  And there was a little divider. It didn’t divide the whole thing. You could go in on either side, but there was like a wooden something or other with books on it that I suppose you knew you had to go behind in order to get a book.

WM: I see.

MO: And I can remember The Wizard of Oz was out, and at that time, whoever wrote The Wizard of Oz wrote a book for each character, so I read all of The Wizard of Oz characters in the book. That was a big thing. Of course, I read the books back there for a long time. Then when I got into 4th grade, I was allowed to go into the adult section. And I couldn’t wait to get out of the children’s books, and you’re not going to believe why.  Right beyond this thing, right at the adult section, on this wall, there was the book – Fu Manchu. Oh, I thought, I want to read that Fu Manchu!  I couldn’t wait to get over that wall so I could get to Fu Manchu.  I don’t even remember what it was about, but that’s the first thing I grabbed – Fu Manchu.  Brilliant mind I had…(laughter)  Ah, I spent a lot of time in the library, a lot of time. Ella Boyd was the name of the librarian.  Very nice woman.

WM: Just to be clear, Ella Boyd, the librarian, was different from Ella Boyd McGlynn, the mother of Claire.

MO: Oh, yes. Two different people.

WM: Because when we interviewed Ella Boyd McGlynn, she said that she had been mistaken for the librarian because they had the same name.

MO: Well, Ella, the one that was Claire’s mother, she was a milliner, and she made hats at one time.  She worked for Gimbels.  She made their hats; she was a beautiful seamstress. When they stopped making hats, she went into the shoe department. She sold shoes for Gimbels until she retired.

WM: Can you describe Ella Boyd the librarian?

MO: See, to me, she was old, but she probably wasn’t as old as I thought. The only thing I can remember. was, she wasn’t a really tall lady, and if I was just a little kid, then you know she couldn’t have been very tall and maybe a little, not fat, but maybe a little bit overweight. And she was older to me. I would have thought she was somebody maybe in her 50s, when she wasn’t. She was probably a lot younger.  But she was there for many years and that would have been – let’s see, I was born in 1928. It probably would have been around. 1933 or1934 when I was going to the library.

WM: So someone told me once that to get a library card you had to pass a literacy test and a clean hands test. They looked at your hands and you had to be able to write your name and read something. Do you remember anything like that?

MO:  No. I know we had to sign something to prove who we were to get a library card.

KH: Did you ever go into the lower level, off Midvale?

MO: You went up the front stairs… I was never in the basement, no.

WM: Do you remember Breck School?

MO: I went to kindergarten there.

WM: Did you!

MO: I remember some things. If I remember correctly, there were people by the name of Hildebrand.  They had a big family, and then a girl that was in 8th grade when I was in kindergarten, my mother paid her to come and walk me to school.  And I remember we went down Indian Queen Lane, I think to Krail Street, and you went over Krail Street, and I think the school was right there. And I haven’t seen it in all these years, but I kind of remember doing that.

WM: Yes, because the Expressway came through; it’s gone.

MO: But I can remember going there. I never went back to look at it when it was still there.

WM: Can you describe Breck?

MO: When you went out to the yard to play at recess, it was fenced in, and all I can remember is going to that fence. We all ran to the fence because when you looked down, we were up higher. And when we looked down, there were little deer or something – there were animals down there, and we watched a few of them, you know.  I can’t remember exactly what they were anymore, but we’ve watched these animals.

WM: Oh my.

MO: One thing I remember about Breck School.  You had to take a nap, and we had to each bring a blanket – it, was like a long rug to sit on the floor. So you put the rug down on the floor, and you had to lay on it. The thing I remember, I hated milk. And you got a little bottle of milk, and you were expected to drink that milk, and then lay down and take a nap. Two terrible things every day – I had to drink that milk and take a nap. (laughter)

WM: Was the other school, the former school, Forest, still there?

MO: I don’t remember seeing that.

WM: Can you describe what Breck looked like, or what your classroom looked like?

MO: No, unfortunately, I just remember that back end where we went out during recess.

WM: Do you remember your teacher’s name?

MO: No. I think I was either four or five. Yeah, I was very young.

KH: You were there just for kindergarten?

MO: Yes. St. Bridget’s didn’t have a kindergarten, so if you wanted to go to kindergarten, you went to Breck. And then when I went to first grade, I went to Saint Bridget.

KH: When you were in elementary school at Saint Bridget’s, where was the school at that time?

MO: The schoolyard was on Stanton Street, and the opening to the school was on Stanton Street.

WM: So you were in the old school.

MO: Were we ever! The first couple of years in the lower grades – the first, second and third grades – you were actually underground.  I guess it was the basement, you might as well say, because the windows were way up here, you know. But those three rooms – the nuns would pull this great big pole to open the windows to get air in there in the hot weather. You know, there was no such thing as air conditioning.

Now when it was a day like this, when it was cloudy, you couldn’t see, because it was too dark in there, so we had to put our heads on the desk and take a nap – the room would get so dark that you couldn’t do anything; you couldn’t see. It wasn’t bright enough to read or do anything, you know. You couldn’t teach – it was like a storm. 

    And then if you went to the bathroom, you had to put your coat on and go outside and go down to a little closed in area and then go down more steps where the toilets were.  It was always cold in there.  You had to put your coat on to go out.

WM: And then you graduated to the upper floor?

MO: And then you got older. By the time you were in the 7th and 8th grade you had to climb all these wooden steps to go up to the top floor. There was a second floor and then a third floor. Just these little rooms were underground!

WM: I heard they had very large classes.

MO: No, about 30 children in a class, I guess, or somewhere around that. And at lunchtime, you had to go home for lunch. You went home. You had to walk home and walk back.

WM: You had to walk up the hill.

MO: When we got out of school on Stanton Street, we’d walk over to Skidoo Street – the nuns would escort us.  I would turn right on Calumet Street, go over the bridge and right down Cresson Street, on the other side of the tracks, crossing Midvale to New Queen and then home. The poor nuns walked up Skidoo Street, over the bridge with us, then back down Skidoo Street and back to the convent.  The poor nuns, I don’t know how they ever made it up and back again on that street, because we had a hard time because it would get so slippery. (laughter)

WM: Were there any other facilities at the school? Did they have a cafeteria or a gym?

MO: Oh no. The schoolyard was the gym.  There was a schoolyard on Stanton Street connected to the school. And it wasn’t paved. It was black top, crumbled.

WM: Did I hear there was a candy store across from the school on Stanton Street?

MO: No, not from the old school.  Across from the old school, there were all houses. There were Italian people who lived in there. A lot of my friends, a couple of classmates, lived on Stanton Street.  The old school opened on Stanton Street.  

WM: And which was your high school?

MO: I went to Hallahan in, I guess, 1942, because I graduated from high school in 1946.  The first year I went to Saint Peters Annex, and then after the next three years, we went to Hallahan.  It’s closed now.

WM: Tell us about going to Saint Bridget Church.

MO: Saint Bridget’s Church, as you know it right now, that opened in…I think it opened in 1927 because it opened before I was born.  I remember Claire – the girl in the picture there, the blonde, saying that she was the first baby that was baptized in the new church, and she was a year older than me. That would be Ella’s daughter.  So probably the new church opened around 1927.  The old church, when I was in grammar school for the first one or two years, we had to put a play on every year, and it was in the old church.  They had a stage, and each class had to get up and perform on the stage as a unit. I don’t know whether they sold tickets or if it was free. I really don’t know.

WM: Do you remember what the plays were? Were they religious?

MO: Well, we just danced and sang. And the others… each class did something.  Ella only had the one girl. Mr. McGlynn was such a nice man. He had three sisters, and they lived down from the church, on Midvale Avenue below the church. And I used to go down with her sometimes on Sunday – we’d stop in and see them. And then one of them finally married late in life. But Claire was the only niece that they had.  Ella was the only one that had children. He had a brother, Mr. McGlynn, who was a twin, but he didn’t live anywhere in the area. He was in touch with us, and I remember him dying and Mr. McGlynn being very upset.  Whether they had any children or not, I don’t know. But as far as I know, Claire was the only niece that they had, and they really spoiled her. She made out like a bandit at Christmas time between them, and May, and the other girls all lived there – when Claire was born, May’s two sisters. So Claire had a candy store full of toys! She had everything under the sun.

JM:  And then she went on – didn’t she have 13 children?

MO:  Yes. (to Joan): You buried my godchild not too long ago, in November. Brian.  He was my godchild.

JM: Was he really? Was he McKeever?

MO: Claire was his mother (Claire Boyd McKeever)

WM: Do you remember the different pastors at St. Bridget over the years?

MO: I can’t remember all of them.  Let me see. Father Cartin was the one before this one. He was there for a long time, Father Cartin. (note: 1952-1973).

WM: Did you like him?

MO:  He was OK. A lot of people did not like him, really. As I understand it, some of them were trying to get him changed.  And it was a permanent pastor. When they came there, it was permanent until they died. So I don’t know if that was true, but I had heard there were rumors that some of the people didn’t like him and they were trying to get him out, but they couldn’t. I never had any problem with him.

JM: Didn’t somebody donate a new coffee pot to St. Bridget – somebody who owned a restaurant?

MO: Yes, he was the general manager for the Linton restaurants, and they lived in East Falls. I can’t remember his name. It’s terrible.  His wife and my mother were in the same Sodality group, and they became friends. And so my mother and this Margaret Casey worked on the Bingos and they made the coffee and it was in the old hall.

WM: This was in the old church?

MO: This was in the old church, and then they moved over to the newer church hall. And he donated a coffee urn like they used at Linton’s, and then he went over and showed my mother and Margaret how Linton’s made the coffee so that they could make it.  He said “But don’t tell anybody!”  They made Linton’s coffee, and everybody said “Oohh, your coffee is so good!” She couldn’t tell them why it was so good! (laughter)

WM: That’s so interesting.

MO: Yes. And then when I got older, my mother is getting up there, and Margaret, who worked with her, her brother had died – he had kept her.  As I was saying, she really stayed home and took care of everybody as they died – her mother, so Bill was the only one working, and when he died, she had no income, so she got a job at the mental hospital up on Henry Avenue that had opened (EPPI) and she got a job working in the kitchen.  She couldn’t get to bingo until later at night, and the coffee had to be made early, you know. So, I went over. Mom had to climb up to pour the stuff in the top of the urn. So, I went over to help her, and I ended up working on the bingo selling tickets. (laughter)  Father Gaughan used to be here.  Remember Father Gaughan?

JM: Was he a redhead?

MO: Yes. And he went on to become the Pastor up at St. Matt’s in Mayfair. And when I got up there to Mayfair, I thought I was in his Parish, but my block – the other side of the street was his, and this side was St. Tim’s and I was on this side.

JM: I’ll be darned.

MO: But I did get to see him.  He invited me to his 50^th Celebration of his Ordination, when he was ordained.

JM: Did he stay at St. Matthew’s a long time, Mary?

MO: He died after I moved in there – shortly after that.

JM: I’ll be darned. Well, do you remember what year it was when you decided you had to sell your house on Conrad Street and move to the Northeast?

MO: I moved to the Northeast in 1982.

WM: Did you ever see the Kelly family at church?

MO: When I was little, and they were little, we would be at the Children’s Mass, and they would come and sit on the side with their parents. They went to private school.

     But Jack, when he got older, was in the Vespers Boat Club, and a lot of the boys that I went to school were also members of the Vespers Boat Club.  And the rumor had it – I don’t know from my own knowledge – when Jack, the father – he was a rower – went to row in England, they wouldn’t allow him to row in the sculls because he worked with his hands. So, when Jack came along, he was going to make sure that Jack never worked with his hands and that didn’t happen to Jack.

     Jack liked to row and was good at it.  So Joseph Poland, Robert Walton, Jackie McIntyre, and Paul and Jack Bergen – some of the boys who were in my class – were in the Vespers and they all rode with Jack in the Diamond Sculls – they went over to England, and they won.   And I’m sure his Jack’s father’s chest was probably swelled because he was vindicated, since they wouldn’t allow him to row.  Can you imagine?  But that’s the way it was. But the young Jack made it.

      I knew Jack because, at one time over at Saint Bridget’s, Father Donahue, when he was there, had the altar boys – lots of boys went in to be priests when he was there. I think it was through him. He was very good to the guys, but strict. And on Monday nights, he had something in the fall, in the evening for high school, and he would have, lots of times, a speaker – somebody talking on Communism or something, you know, or he would just have it himself. And then after this hour, they had, down in the basement, all kinds of things for the guys. Machines and all.  Or you could stay upstairs, and they had dancing. So, Jack Kelly – the Kelly girls never came – but Jack came because the guys in my class were in the Vespers Rowing Club with him. So he’d come over with them, you know, to the dances at all. So, I got to know him. He was a nice guy too. I don’t know what happened to him. He apparently changed a lot from what I saw in the paper. But he was a nice fellow. 

WM: Do you remember seeing Grace?

MO: Oh yeah, she was beautiful. She was really beautiful.

WM: Tell us a little bit about her.

MO: She would come when she was visiting (from Monaco); she’d go to Mass. And I always went to 10:00 and she usually went to 10:00.  If she was there, I’d see her coming into church. Nobody talked to her. I mean, Father Cartin would go down and meet her and walk her into church. I don’t know whether he thought people were going to surround her, but they didn’t do that. That didn’t happen in East Falls. But she was really gorgeous. Her mother was too.

WM: I’ve heard that.

MO: Mrs. Kelly, I remember, was so wonderful   She had been a model. And what a nice lady. I loved her. She was very active at Medical College, and I worked out there. And every year – back when they had more ground there – they don’t have any place now – she was President of the Board of the Women’s Auxiliary. And she would roll up her sleeves and really work to help out. Some of the ladies would come with their big cigarette holders and just sit, you know.  They were members of the club, but they didn’t get their hands soiled. But boy, she wasn’t afraid to work. She got out there and she really helped out.

      Then I went to work there, years after I was out of the Army.  Mrs. Kelly’s daughter, Lizanne, had taken her place as Chair of the Auxiliary. Bob Lambert was the Medical Director, and I was the manager of the Utilization Review Department, reviewing the patients in skilled care that are in the hospital.  My office was part of the management offices at that time, within the area with his office. Lizanne would come with her mom, and she’d see the doctor, I guess. And then they would bring Mrs. Kelly to Bob’s office. Lizanne would go to the meetings and leave her there, and then she would come back and pick her up and take her home. And we’d put Mrs. Kelly on the couch and put a blanket on her, you know – let her take a nap.  She was so nice. She was really sweet, and Lizanne was too – very nice.

WM: I heard that Grace’s mother used to organize a big fete outside the hospital to raise money. Do you remember these fairs?

MO: I just remember the thing that they had on the grounds there. That was a big thing.

WM: Can you describe that?

MO: Well, they usually were selling hot dogs, or something like that, and they had a place for flowers. They sold plants and things, anything that they could make some little money on.  She worked on that.

KH: What was your role at the Medical College? You said you had a little office.

MO: Well, I was Director of Utilization Review – that’s reviewing charts to make sure that patients who are in skilled care belong, because if they’re not, the insurance companies wouldn’t pay for it and would cut it and the hospital would lose money. So our job was to pick it up early, and say to the doctor ”This is no longer skilled care. You really have to discharge this patient unless they have something to tell you that could qualify them to stay.” That type of thing.

WM: What made you want to go into nursing?

MO: I always wanted to be a nurse since I was a kid. I did something that was probably crazy.  One of my friends in the Falls – her aunt was quite wealthy, and she had a lot of stock, you know. I didn’t know what a broker’s office was, but she knew I needed a job in high school.  I only had a little job on Friday night and Saturday in the Five & Dime, so she talked to her broker, who happened to be Vice President down at Reynolds & Company in Center City.  She told him that I really needed a job, so Pat said “My aunt has an appointment for you to go down and see Dorsey, I think his name was. So I went down, and I’m sitting there waiting to be seen. I can tell you this; this is funny. These men are all coming in and they’ve got cigars hanging out of their mouth, and hats and all; it was wintertime. They’re going through a swinging door and disappearing. I waited and waited, and finally a woman came out and she said “Come with me. Mr. Dorsey will see you.” So, we go through the swinging door, and face this way, and here’s this big room, all glass, and these guys got their ties hanging down, and they’re talking, and the phones are ringing. And I think: What kind of place is this?   I go around the corner and hear all these men who I saw walking in there. They’re all sitting in chairs. They’re looking at a board with all these numbers and all. I thought, “Oh my God, it’s a bookie joint!”  I thought “I’m going to be arrested. I’ll be thrown out of school!”. I was a wreck.  So, I go into Dorsey’s office. He interviews me and he hires me, and I’m like “OK…” So we come out. The brokerage has a cage where all the business they made take place, so we get out there, and he says, “Buzz this for me.”  So the buzzer goes off, the door flies open, and we go in. He introduced me to Mr. Roger and he said “Mary’s going to work here. She can type a little and she can file, you know.” So he said “OK, tomorrow after school.” I was going to go in every day after school and I couldn’t wait to tell my mother, right? I said, “Can I go tell Pat?” She said “Sure.” So I went up to Pat and I said, “Oh, Pat, I think your aunt – now you would have had to know Pat’s aunt; she was so prim and proper, and Pat’s mother came in and she said “What’s the matter?” And I said, “Oh, Mrs. DeVine, I think this is a bookie joint.” Well, she was hysterical and said, “It’s a brokerage office, you know!” That’s how I got my job.

WM: Where did you go to nursing school?

MO: Saint Joseph at 16th and Girard Avenue. The Charity Nuns with the big white hats were there when I started out, and then the Franciscans took over my second year. I graduated from there in 1949.  I went there in 1946 and graduated in 1949.

      Cardinal Dougherty, you know, he was the Be All and End All in Philadelphia.  And the Charity Nuns had that hospital.  It was 100 years old when I graduated. I think the first ten years, the Saint Joseph nuns had it, and from then until 1946 the Charity Nuns were in there. And their lease was up, and they were due to sign a new lease. The head nun was sworn to secrecy and wasn’t allowed to tell the other nuns that he wasn’t renewing the lease.  When they went away on their retreat, they wouldn’t be coming back there.  Some of them were old and had been there a long time. They would be going back to the Mother House and reassigned.  And we were never told.  So, the building was owned by him, and he wouldn’t renew their lease.

JM: Oh goodness.  That was Cardinal Dougherty.

MO: He put them out, and the day care center too.  Anything good, they were gone from there. Anyhow, I can remember working in the kitchen, and one of the nurses came in crying. I said “What’s the matter?” She said “They’re coming!” “Who?” “The Franciscans!” ”What!” There were a lot of us from Hallahan and we said “The Franciscans are coming!” We were all upset, and first thing you know, half an hour or so after we did the cooking for all the special trays like the diabetics and the one floor of private rooms, here comes this nun. They’re carrying on with his strange nun wearing the Franciscan habit and Sister says “Girls, I would like you to meet Sister So and So.  She’s going to take my place.” Well, we all stood there and bawled right in front of her.  We cried and cried, and she said, “Oh, they’ll be good to you.”

     War was on, and there was a shortage of residents, shortage of nurses. So what you did, you went to class and after you were there six months, you got a cap. And when you got a cap, well, you also worked a little bit on the floor, you were on and you were assigned to give a bath or something like that. And then six months later, we had a big ceremony. That was a big thing to get your cap.  It was just that you made it, you know, you got capped and they had a Mass and all for you. And we celebrated that big time, and now they don’t even wear them!  But anyhow, we were capped, and you went over after the capping and on the bulletin board, it would tell you where to report – your name and where to report and what time. Well, that was when they start putting you on 3:00 to 11:00 night duty. The only thing, you were on 3 to 11 night duty by yourself! With no aide.  We had no orderlies in the whole hospital. Nobody but you. And there was a night supervisor on 3 to 11, and a night supervisor on 11 to 7 who were graduates of there.  And on Maternity, there were graduates on both shifts, because you had the delivery room and they had to give oxygen, you know.  And if the doctor didn’t make it, they better have somebody there that knew how to deliver that baby. So they had graduates up there on that shift. But the hospital was running by the students.

JM: Wow.

MO: And that’s why it was cheaper to go there to train because they weren’t paying graduate nurses to work. We were working, we did the work, but we didn’t get paid.  Of course not. They were teaching you. You were learning.

JM: Well, it worked.

MO: But the really good part about it, you know, at one time I was going to go to the University of Penn, because I figured in the big hospital, you’d learn more. And then I got involved with the Charity Nuns when I was in nurses training.  Friends of mine in the Falls, her sister belonged to this club, and they were Catholic school girls and boys, and Charity Nuns had a day nursery on 17^th.  And on Sunday night, they had a dance, and it was $0.40 to get it. And they talked me into going down with them, and the nuns would be there. They’d stand in the doorway, and they had all the toys and all for the kids, and the kids’ chairs and tables. And they’d push them aside, and they had the jukebox, and we would dance.  And then, in an hour or so – it was over 10:00pm – but about 8:00, they would serve tea or coffee. And you had to sit in the kids’ chairs – we had no place else to sit.  There were tables there for tea, coffee. And at 10:00 it was over, and you all went home. Now the $0.40 that you paid to get in there, the nuns kept it, and twice a year – Christmas and I forget, we would go to the Cancer Home. We would always go to Philadelphia General Hospital. Every Sunday you were asked to go, but most of us would go every Sunday and the guys would pick the patients up and put them in wheelchairs, and we would push them down to Chapel, and then we would take them back.  And this money that we had put aside, when we went to the Cancer Home, we would buy little things of powder and alcohol or cigarettes, and we gave everybody one little gift. We didn’t have a lot, and at PGH, we made sure everybody got a little something. It was just a nice group of people.

JM: That was a very, very nice thing to do.

MO: They were a nice crowd. Nobody drank; nobody smoked. None of the guys did either.  They were from the Catholic Boys High School. And we would go to each other’s homes on a Friday night or Saturday night. Some of them had jukeboxes. I had an old Victrola, and my mother would roll up the rugs, wind up the Victrola, and we would dance in the dining room. Somebody would have to run over when it was winding down! It was a really a nice crowd.  In the summertime, we’d go on hikes in the afternoon – Saturday afternoon or whatever.

WM: After you graduated as a nurse, and you said you were a military nurse.  Where did you work?

MO: After I graduated from basic training, I had to go to… well, that was the thing… I joined here in Philadelphia, of course. And I signed up to become a nurse in the Army in April. And then we got a notice that they had to cancel our physicals because the place that they were giving them was being renovated or some crazy thing. Well, they were screaming they needed nurses. The Korean War was on.  And this was April when I signed up. I never got called to have my physical until September.

     And when I went down, they still weren’t in the place where they usually give them.  They had a place with big tables and so forth. And this doctor said to me – he was a psychiatrist – “Tell me about yourself.” I said “Well, I was born.” “Don’t be fresh with me!” And I gave him some smart answers, you know? And then it came time for my physical. And I thought, “Oh boy, if they see my back, I’m not going to make it.” So he examined me and he said to me. “Do you have problems with your back?” and I didn’t lie. I said, “I’m a nurse; I do nursing every day, doctor.” “Oh, yes” he said “Of course.” That was the end of that; he let me in. Now if he had X-rayed my back, I wouldn’t have gotten in.

WM: That’s so interesting.  Going back to East Falls, do you remember the Old Falls Tavern?

MO: I remember it.  Did they pull it down? I didn’t know that.

WM: Yes, they put a gas station there.

MO: Well, yeah, I had dinner there. It was nice there. It was really very nice.  Good food.  And there was a place up at Gustine Lake – there was a restaurant.

WM: The Anchorage?

MO: Yes, The Anchorage.  When I graduated from nursing, I ran a couple reunions for my class, and we went there. We had dinner at The Anchorage.  That was a nice place too.

WM: Did you ever interact with the children from the other schools, from Mifflin or Penn Charter?

MO: Not Penn Charter; no.  You see, I lived down in the old section of the Falls, so most of the kids I interacted with were my classmates, like they lived on Sunnyside. It was Julia McGonigle; she became a nurse also.  And now I’m godmother to one of her kids.  I said, “My godchild in Kentucky is 67 years old!” My friend Julie died. We were friends from 1st grade. And then Lois Quinn; they’re all gone. The Quinns lived on Bowman Street. Pat McCann – she lived on Bowman Street. Jean Lautenbach and Barbara Dalton lived on Tilden Street.  Kathleen Woods – I don’t know about Kathleen; I lost track of her, but I know Jean and Julie and Lois have passed.

WM: What do you remember about East Falls during World War II?

MO: Well, during World War II, they sold stamps. You know, Bessie Dobson Altemus?

WM: Bessie Dobson? Had you ever seen her? Tell us about Bessie.

MO: She was a wonderful lady, and she was beautiful. She had pure snow white hair. She wore nothing but black, ever. Maybe after her husband died, she always wore black; I don’t know. But when I knew her, I never saw her in anything but black.  She used to ride around in a chauffeured-driven car.  Two of her servants had children, little girls, and she often would have them in the car with her. Three little girls – and they were always dressed alike. So I imagine Bessie took care of that.

     She belonged to Saint James the Less Church. And she lived in a mansion on Henry Avenue. The front of it faced Henry Avenue.  I was never in it, but when St. James had the 4th of July picnics there for St. James, the front door was open, and you could look in and see this huge mansion with these beautiful chandeliers.  It was a gorgeous place, I’m sure.  My father belonged to that church, and then they joined the Grace Reform somewhere along the way. I was never in the house, but my dad took me up there for the picnic.  I was just a little kid. St. Bridget’s wasn’t having their picnics yet, so I must have been maybe five or so. But I remember going on the grounds.  It was beautiful. Their daughter was a rider.

    But there were three Dobson boys that came here. There was John, James, and Bill.  Now, James and John ran the company. I don’t know if Bill was involved or not. I didn’t know any of them. I know that Bill married an aunt of my dad’s, and I didn’t know her or any of these people. The reason I know about this is from the Warners, who lived in the Falls. You remember Mary Warner? Maybe not. Well, they lived on Indian Queen Lane, and they were members of the church, and her son married a girl next door to me. So, they were telling me that Bill and his wife were buried there, and they were going down to their family and they took me along. So, I went to see Bill and I don’t even remember what her first name was, but they were distant relatives of mine. They were aunts and uncle, you know.

WM: Were they buried at Saint James the Less?

MO: Yes.  They were buried with a child. They had a little girl in the grave with them.  And the Warners didn’t know anything about that, of course. But the Dobsons all belonged to Saint James.

WM: What was Bessie’s personality like?

MO: Oh, she was a sweetheart. She was a sweetheart.

WM: Where exactly was the mansion?

MO: You know where the project is on Henry Avenue?  That whole ground when the project is.  That was a bad thing that happened there.

WM: That was Bessie’s house.

MO: That was Bessie’s mansion.  It was her father’s mansion (note: Bessie’s father was James Dobson), and then it went to Bessie. And when Bessie could no longer stay there – she was going to move to the Bellevue – she gave the mansion to the City with the stipulation that it would never, ever be used for what it’s used for.  Ever. I was in the Army at the time I heard this; my mother wrote to me. People were hearing that that’s what it was going to turn into. So, the buses went downtown fighting this and they were told, “Oh, no, no.  It’s not going to be bad at all. It’s just for the people coming in for the war effort because of the mills”. So that’s what happened. A lot of people came with their families and so forth, and right before I came out, the families there all got letters saying if you made over this amount of money, you couldn’t stay there. You had to get out. That’s when it was turned into – a low housing project.  That would have been – I was in the Army in 1954, so it happened either at the end of 1954 or the beginning of 1955.  Margaret Aiken – do you remember Margaret Aiken? – she was the Director of the Nursing School at MCP (Medical College of Pa.).  She lived on Midvale Avenue. She had to move out of there and move to Midvale because she made too much money. People couldn’t stay any longer.

WM: Were you there when the mansion came down?

MO: No.

WM: So what was Bessie doing for the war effort in East Falls?

MO: Well, she used to come down, and she would help with the stamps. She would even sell the stamps.  Two doors up from me, where the beer distributor was, well, remember I said there was a place in the back? And they had stairs by them.  But they had a place back there with a desk and all, and you could volunteer and go back there and sell stamps.  She helped sell the stamps and all, and I’m sure she did other things that I wasn’t aware of. She was probably into committees and all, you know, and the people in the Falls and, through her, I’m sure, they were able to get wool.  They got blue for the Navy, and they got taupe for the Army.  My mother made sweater like crazy and every boy that left East Falls got a sweater and three dollars. $3 wasn’t much, but they all got a sweater and three dollars. They were going to the Navy; they got the blue.

WM: Oh, that’s a great memory. Do you remember when the war ended?

MO: We went down to Center City.  I was in high school. I belonged to a Catholic Action Club when I was in high school, and it was down on 17^th and Summer Street, and the Charity Nuns had it.  On Sunday night they had a dance, and it was forty cents to get in. The nuns were there, and they had a jukebox, and we danced and all.  There were boys from the boys’ high schools and girls from the girls high schools. And on Sunday morning, we’d all be at Philadelphia General Hospital – that’s no longer there either.  We would go out there and take the patients to church. The boys would pick them up and push the wheelchairs down to the Chapel. We would do that on Sunday.  There was a Linton’s nearby, and we would go and have breakfast, and then we’d walk to Broad Street to get the subway. And then that night we went dancing. 

WM: Sounds wonderful.

MO: And the forty cents that we paid to go to the dance every week was saved. And at Christmas time, we went to the Sacred Heart Cancer Home and gave all the cancer patients little presents, you know, and we sang them Christmas carols.

WM: Do you remember the Depression in East Falls?  Were there hucksters on the street?

MO: Oh yeah, yeah. Well, we had hucksters in the Falls before the Depression, and Mr. Hay, I think his name was Hay or something like that. And we had a milkman whose name was Mr. Trigae, and he lived on New Queen Street. He had two white horses who pulled his cart.  He would come in front of Claire’s house on certain days, and he would bring the white horses.  Claire and I would sit on the steps, and he would feed them.  He would put the feeders up there and the horses would be munching away. I always thought that was great to watch the horses eat.  I don’t know where he went; maybe had some lunch himself. I don’t know; we weren’t interested in him.  But he’d always give us a piece of ice from around the milk bottles and we’d be sitting there with our ice watching the horses eat.

WM: Were there other peddlers or hucksters?

MO: Let’s see. When I was really young, there was a breadman   And they used to come around and you could buy chickens or could buy your turkey at Christmas time. They’re still in business. I can’t think of the name of it right off the top of my head. And my mother always bought eggs every week from them.

      And let’s see who else. The one man who sold the vegetables and all, he was a Fallser. And when he couldn’t do it any longer, his son took over. I remember his son’s name was Harry and I’m forgetting the last name. I was never good at names, I tell you.

WM: You’re doing wonderful.  Do you remember any big events that ever happened in East Falls?  Fires? Police? Famous people?

MO: Well, there was a fire when I was young, but that was at the bakery right on our corner of Conrad and Indian Queen Lane. And the family lived upstairs, and they had to throw the little girl out the window. Somebody had to catch her.  But everybody was OK.

WM: Do you have any special memories of holidays? Christmas, Halloween, Easter?

MO: Well, my mother’s two sisters, we always had Christmas dinner. Sometimes, my one sister’s daughter would come, but then when they start having children, they had Christmas at home.

WM: Did anything happen in East Falls – any caroling? Christmas tree lightings?

MO: I’m sure they had lightings and all, but I was always working. You have to remember that. I don’t know if I sometimes had Christmas off, and if I did, I helped cook at home if we were having company. I was there, and I had to be the driver. I had to pick my aunts up and bring them there and take them back. And so my holidays were not anything that I could really do on my own.

KH: What about Old Academy?

MO: Oh, I love that Old Academy! Frank Muench’s daughter – she and her husband had tickets and they used to take me once in a while with them. And then I started to buy tickets and each time I bought them, I’d get closer.  I finally got two in the front row. I was so happy I got the front row seats, and then I went in the Army, and I lost them. I never went back after that.

     Once, I think I was the last row, Lizanne Kelly, Grace’s sister, was in the show and her husband (note: Don LeVine) was sitting in front of me.  And she had to kiss guys, and their friends with him were teasing him about her.  Anyhow, I was behind them.

WM: Do you remember what the name of your newspaper was when you were growing up? Did you have a local East Falls paper?

MO: All I remember is the Bulletin and the Inquirer.

WM: Yes, they’re the city papers, but no East Falls paper?

MO: I don’t remember an East Falls paper.  There was a paper – I don’t think it was an East Falls paper. It seems to me there was a paper in a neighborhood somewhere.

JM: Roxborough had The Review.

MO: That’s probably what I’m thinking of. Yeah, it could be that. 

KH: If someone asked you what life was like when you were growing up in East Falls, what would you say?

MO: I loved it there. I love East Falls; I still do. I always consider East Falls my home. I had a lot of friends there, you know.  One girl – she’s 88 – she still calls, and we talk every day. Her name was Jane Hemphill, and she lived on Crawford Street. Her sister was my age – she was the youngest one in the family. There were three girls.

WM: Was there a strong sense of community?

MO: Yes. My mother, like if anybody died, she would always make potato salad. If they were going to have something in the house, she’d always bake a cake, make potato salad, or whatever.

WM: Did you ever go to Woodside Park?

MO: Oh yes. When I was a little child, my father and I would walk to Woodside.  His sister sold the tickets on the merry-go-round, so I’d be on the merry go round and they’d be talking away and I’d be riding! And he would let me ride on a couple of other things, you know, and then we’d walk home. And, oh, he used to take me fishing down to the river.  I had a wooden stick, and I’d sit there on the bank. And he’d sit there, and we would wait and wait. And he’d say “Are you ready to go?” and I’d say “No! No! Maybe I’ll get a bite! Maybe I’ll catch something.”

WM: What would you catch there, if you did catch something?

MO: I never caught anything! Never had a bite! Every once in a while, we walked – he liked to walk, and I liked to walk.  So there were still some woods around.  When he grew up, it was all woods.  When he was a boy – I could tell you this –he used to swim on Midvale Avenue. There was a creek, and it was deep enough that you could go swimming there.

WM: Do you know which part of Midvale?

MO: Right through East Falls; all the way down to the Ridge.  All the way down to the river – it went into the river. And I understand that when they started to build St. Bridget Church, the reason it’s so high is that it hit water. And a couple of people have said to me, who lived on Midvale Avenue, they had water problems. “Well, we’re sitting on a creek bed” I said, and they looked at you like you’re crazy. I only know this because when he was a boy – he was a good swimmer, he swam in the river as well. But he used to swim down Midvale Avenue.

WM: Well, the library, they told us, was built on a duck pond.  The basement used to leak….

MO: It’s sitting on a creek. Midvale Avenue, where you drive down the center, was a creek.

WM: Did you ever go to the upper part of East Falls to play, like McMichael Park?

MO: The only place we’d go is to each other’s houses up on Tilden Street.  There were no homes on Ainslie.  Behind there was all open land, so we’d go back there and play, because they had very small yards, where you could go out in the back and play.

WM: Was the reservoir there?

MO: Oh, yes.  That was always there. Back when I was little, people used to walk around it until the Second World War.  Then they were afraid somebody tried to poison the water, but up until then, on a hot night, a lot of Fallsers would be up there walking around. My dad and I would go off and walk.

WM: Were there any farms up there, or any animals in the upper part of East Falls?

MO: Now, my father, at one time, had chickens.  He raised chickens and he ate them. He went hunting with his brother in laws and Jimmy Buchanan, who was the pharmacist up there on Bowman. Well, he and my older brother were buddies and my dad and him and Brudge Kelly – I don’t know if you know Brudge – he’s been dead for a long time, too. They all would go hunting together.  His other friend was Max White.

KH: Where did they hunt?

MO: I don’t know. And he’d bring deer meat home sometimes.  One time I went out in the yard and he was skinning a rabbit, and then the rabbit was on the table – I couldn’t eat that rabbit!  My father was wild. “What do you mean you can’t eat that rabbit! It’s good meat.!”

WM: When you were little, was there a lot of area undeveloped in East Falls, like that whole Queen Lane Manor? Was that being built then?

MO: In East Falls? Oh, there was.  My father – when he was younger – and even when I was there, we used to go walk. You know where the mental hospital is?

JM: That must be EPPI (note: Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute).  Well, it’s not used now for a mental hospital.

MO: Well, it was a state mental hospital, and then MCP (Medical College of Pennsylvania) bought it and we ran it as a mental hospital, too. I don’t know what it is now.

WM: Did your dad walk there?

MO: That was all woods. We used to go walking there. I’m trying to remember the streets.  Tilden Street – the houses on the right side of the 3300 block of Tilton – behind them was all woods.  You used to go into the yard.  My friends who lived there, you could go out and play in the back because there was nothing there. Ainslie Street – half of Ainslie Street – was all woods above Conrad. These are all above Conrad now.  They were all new homes in that area. Midvale Avenue – those…what do you call them?

JM: Studio homes.

MO: Yes, that was all woods.  Above Vaux Street on the right hand side, that was all woods.  And at one time, I think I told you, at Midvale Avenue, was a creek bed.  There were a lot of wooded areas.

WM: Did you see a lot of building going on when you were growing up?

MO: Yeah.  Indian Queen Lane, across from the hospital from Vaux Street up, that was all woods.

WM: Did you play in the woods?

MO: We played in some of them, yeah.  Ainslie Street and behind Tilden Street.  Oh, and behind Bowman Street, too.  They weren’t really woodsy, but there was nothing there.  Medical College – we used to go up there on the grounds, because the only two things there were the hospital and the nursing building – the medical school. There was nothing else, no other buildings. Beautiful woods, beautiful trees, and in front that garden was always there – that circle.  And the rest of the place was woods. And you could go up at the top of Indian Queen Lane and there was dirt road right into the hospital grounds. We’d play in there when we were kids.  We didn’t make a lot of noise or anything. Nobody chased it.

     And my dad, he knew mushrooms, so I go with him to pick mushrooms. He liked to pick mushrooms. He and I loved mushrooms, and the wild mushrooms taste a lot different than the regular mushrooms. So we go hunting for mushrooms in the woods near where Eastern Psychiatric was built. And my mother – she wouldn’t eat them, but she’d cook them.  She’d make mushroom stew for us.

JM: So your dad probably knew the difference between the poison mushrooms and the good ones.

MO: Oh yeah. You know, he was raised in the area, when he used to swim on Midvale Avenue.  It was a creek bed. He would swim in the river too, but he would go swimming on Midvale Avenue.  When he was growing up, a lot of places, I can imagine, were woods.  Where I lived, in that section there, was the original East Falls. They were all the row and three-story type homes. And some of them were the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.  I think maybe the Boyds, maybe at one time, were probably that too, because later on, I remember him saying, they had added the shed and all in the back.

WM: Who was your doctor growing up? Did you have Doctor Fiedler?

MO: Well, I had Doctor Silverman when I was a child.  After that I was in nursing, so if I had a cold or something, I just ask if they would give me a prescription and listen to my chest. So I didn’t have to worry, and I was never sick. I was fortunate. Whatever happened to the heart, I outgrew it. It was never there after that.

WM: How did Conrad Street change over the years?

MO: In my time, later on, many of the stores became saloons.  And the people that bought the saloon across the street from me, he was a Fallser, but he didn’t care who came in there, and it became a dive.  And outside, they’d have to park all these double-parked cars with these teenagers. Radios would be blaring, or they’d be out there laying on it, sunbathing. You know, it was awful.

WM: What was the name of that bar?

MO: Well, I know the guy that owned it, his name was Taylor. I don’t know what they called it.  I called it many things… (laughter)

JM: I think they used to call it Taylor’s Tavern.

MO: Yeah. And Murphy had the other one.  Now Murphy’s was a quiet place, but Taylor’s no. And then the store at the corner had closed, so these teenagers would come out and hang out on the corners.  And they got into a fight one time with the kids from the projects, the colored kids.  People across the street, well, you didn’t know them, but the Lintons had a home. It was beautifully kept, and these people moved in there. Their kids were selling drugs out on the porch. The parents were in there, and their kids are out there selling drugs, and all these cars are pulling up buying drugs.  And then they also got into a hassle with the kids from the bar. Because Taylor’s nephew was up there on the corner, and they came back, and they shot up the corner and Taylor’s nephew got shot.  He didn’t get killed, but the boy hit him.

JM: Now, that sounds the way it is today, but not in East Falls, but Philadelphia is full of guns.

MO: Yeah, right. Well, I had to get out of there. I had to put that gate and lock in, because they were using my alley for a toilet.  You know, it was awful.  It was really awful. I couldn’t believe it. I was born in that house, you know.

WM: Was this around in the 1960s or ‘70s when this was happening?

JM: Mary moved in 1982.

MO:  I moved in 1982. My mother died in 1973, and it had started to get bad then and it just kept getting worse and worse and worse. I woke up one morning – I slept in the back of the house – and I thought I was dreaming. I said “No, they’re shooting!” and I got up and looked out my window. There were three cops in my yard shooting up….

WM: Oh my.  Wow.

MO: And then I went through the house and looked out front – cop cars all over the place. I thought, and the CEO at the hospital said, “We got to get you out of there!” I couldn’t afford to leave. I didn’t have the money, and real estate was 18% interest at that point.

WM: Oh yeah, that’s back when it was high.

MO: So when it came down to 12%, I thought I got to do it.  So I had to go FHA. Nobody was going to buy a house in that locale, you know.

WM: What became of your house?

MO: You know, that house that I lived in, was turned into apartments.  I heard that from Jane Hemphill.  She told me that it was an apartment house, so I don’t know if it still is or not, but it was funny. I sold it to a young couple – the fellow lived around the corner from me and so did the girl, and they were in there about six months, and she was kind of a floozy. And she left, and they had a little girl, and she left them. And then I heard it was bought.   And then Jane had told me that he sold it, and it was made into an apartment.  But you know how in the Philadelphia Inquirer, it would tell you about the sale of the properties and how much? Well, it was about maybe 10 or 12 years after I had sold it, and I’m looking at the paper, and it has my address in there!  It sold for $200,000.

WM: Oh my.

MO: $200,000!  And I got maybe $32,000 or something like that.  And that wasn’t clear, because I had to go FHA. I only cleared, after taxes, I must have cleared about $27,000.

KH: It looks lovely now.

MO: Well, it doesn’t look like much, but I poured so much money into that house, because it was never kept up.  And so I just kept pouring it in, because my mother wouldn’t move. And, of course, before I left there, about maybe two years at the outset, I had the whole back wall taken down. It was wood, and I had it rebuilt in cinder block, and the whole interior was redone.  I had Donatucci from South Philly build a new kitchen, and it was beautiful. I was so happy with my kitchen, but I had to leave because I was afraid I was going to get shot.

WM: Oh, they lived on that side. Oh, yeah, and this side was that man who stole your wall.

MO: They always had a gate on theirs.  And it looks like they have a metal gate here, but they always had a wooden gate on that.  And he had died a long time before, and that house was sold and the people that bought it died, so I don’t know what happened to it after I left there. They left just before I did. There was nobody living in there.

JM: Well, I’m glad that the neighborhood has come back since those wild days when you felt you had to leave.

MO: In that area?

WM: It feels safe now.  Family oriented. A lot of babies, strollers, dogs.

MO: What was happening down there in East Falls – the young people that were marrying, their kids were going to school, and that project down the Ridge was taking and beating their kids up, taking the money off the little ones going to school. So when the kids were marrying, they weren’t buying in the Falls anymore. They were buying in Roxborough, and Celeste told me that.  She said they’re coming back there. She goes to the saloon over across the street.  She married Caruso; she’s divorced. She married one of the Carusos.  And she said that the people are now coming back to East Falls. 

JM: Well, I’ve heard some stories about people who, you know, moved to the suburbs and they weren’t happy there because they didn’t know their neighbors, whereas, you know, it wasn’t really like a community.

MO: Even up in Mayfair, you didn’t know people. I lived on that block for thirty some years and I didn’t know that many people on the block.

JM: But you had some nice neighbors. Yes, you did.

MO: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Right near me, because I got to know them. But I worked and I wasn’t around, and they probably worked and they weren’t around.  I didn’t even know their names at the other end of the block, you know.

WM: Well, thank you so much, Mary. You’ve given us so much information.

MO: If I think of anything more, leave me your phone number and if I find those pictures, I’ll mail them to you.

WM: We’d love to see them. Thank you.