Mary Webster, born 1897
East Falls Oral History Project
Interviewee: Mary Webster (MW)
Interviewer: Cherie Snyder (CS) with Ruth Emmert (RE)
Interview: Sunday, June 21, 1981
Transcribed By: Samantha Kane, Student, Philadelphia University “Day of Service” (Fall 2009) and Wendy Moody.
CS: What kind of work did you do in the mills?
MW: I started out with sewing the numbers on the material. I had a big bolt of string around my waist. And I had fun, my sisters had fun in the mill.
CS: Your sisters also worked there?
MW: Uh-huh. For a while - but my sister worked at Wall & Ochs in town on Chestnut Street, my older sister she worked there for years and years.
CS: Which one Amy or Eva?
MW: Amy. But in a marriage, Eva married very young and she missed a lot. She really missed a lot.
CS: What do you think she missed?
MW: Well, I think she would have gone on to something better than the mill, course she had children right away, and her husband wasn’t very ambitious. And that’s sad, when you have a family and you’re not interested.
CS: She had a large family? How may were there?
MW: Yeah, Dorothy, Donald, Jean, Stanley- Stanley was killed in the war, and who was the other one? Five children. (Ed. note: the fifth child was Arlene)
CS: They were close too, weren’t they?
MW: Very Close.
CS: What age did you start working in the mills?
MW: About fourteen
CS: Same with your sisters?
MW: Mmhmm, no my sisters were, I think, they were older, but my older sister made out very good.
CS: How many years did you work there, just approximately?
MW: Well I didn’t work very long because my mother wasn’t able to do the work so I stayed home, that’s what I am, a housekeeper. Though I like it, I like it.
CS: Your sisters continued to work?
MW: Oh my older sister worked, she never married, she was an old maid, but I always felt sorry for my sister Eva because she had no life, I mean she loved her children, she took good care of them, but she had no life of her own.
CS: But she had a great sense of humor?
MW: Yes she did, yes she did. All her neighbors were nice to her.
CS: Was it hard work, working in the mills?
MW: No we had lots of fun, an awful lot of fun.
CS: David said you were a burler?
MW: Yes, after I did the string business, after I sewed the numbers on.
CS: Well what’s a burler?
MW: You pick out the flaws and they have a table that goes up this way and you have a tweezers and you pick out all the little knots and things. And then you pull them over and do them on the line, and then you pull them over and turn them. And then you had to go down the room and get another load, take it back and put it on your table and start over again.
CS: Were women’s jobs different in the mill than men’s jobs? Did they have certain things that the women did and certain things that the men did?
MW: Yeah, well the women did the burling, and the men did the machines, you know, the winding the thread. I can’t think of what it is.
CS: Were salaries different too, between the men and the women?
MW: Mmhmm
CS: Do you remember what you got?
MW: (Laughs) I didn’t get very much! But it was an experience.
CS: What were the working conditions like?
MW: Well it was nothing different, it was as likable as everywhere else. You know, they didn’t feel bad about it, it was kind of easy. They could talk on their lunch hour, they didn’t go home. They thought it was all right.
CS: You mentioned that you had a lot of fun, what kinds of things did you do?
MW: Yeah, fun. There was a little old maid there and they used to tantalize her a little bit. And she didn’t like it a bit. But they had lots of fun, and there were girls too, at this end of the table, two girls at the table. This one would be talking to you standing here about her. (Laughs). And I was like, ‘Don’t, don’t, she’ll hear you!’ And she said, ‘Ah!’
CS: So it was a good time to gossip?
MW: (Laughs). Yeah, oh yeah. But we used to go caroling up to Dobson’s. They were just a little past the women’s hospital. And they had a big stone house.( Oh look at the parade coming in! They were out camping all night those two girls!
(Laughs) So, where was I? We used to go up caroling, all the choirs went from the churches. And the men would come; there was a group with horns that would play. And we enjoyed it so much, and we walked all the way. We were walking until six o-clock in the morning!
CS: And this was Christmas Eve or just some time…?
MW: Christmas Eve. Mmhmm. And they’d give us money for the church. So one time when we were in there, Mary Elizabeth Altemus was home. And there was a boyfriend there, and she was kind of showing off. And she said, and we were all standing there, (of course we couldn’t sing when she was talking on the phone). She said, “Oh my,” she said, “you should be here,” she said, “There’s a crowd of people here; they’re looking at this strange telephone; they’ve never saw a telephone.” And that made me furious! I thought, “Oh if I could just go over to her and say ‘My dear, we’ve had a telephone for years!’ ” Laughs.
But we went there until they moved, I guess he died; I don’t remember him dying. Then he had a brother down on Allegheny Avenue.
CS: And which one was that?
MW: That was James. But this was James, oh that’s John.
CS: They always said John was the cranky one?
MW: Yeah he didn’t bother with anybody, much.
CS: At Christmastime, did the Dobson’s do anything for their employees? Did you get a bonus or a turkey?
MW: Oh no, no.
CS: Nothing? They didn’t do that back then, huh?
MW: Yeah, nothing like that.
CS: What would happen if you were sick and you couldn’t go to work one day?
MW: You would just go in the next day.
CS: Did they have a telephone? Did you call in sick, or did you just not go in?
MW: (Laughs). We just didn’t go in, we went in the next day.
CS: And you weren’t paid for that day?
MW: Oh no, oh no.
CS: What would happen if you were hurt on the job, something happened? Did the Dobsons take care of your medical bills?
MW: I don’t know about that. I was healthy. Laughs. Oh! I have a picture of Mrs. Altemus upstairs if you’d like to see it.
CS: We’d love to; we’d love to see it.
MW: She was a nice lady, very nice. Kind to you, speak to you. If she saw you, she’d pass you in the car she’d wave to you. That was nice; she didn’t have to do that.
CS: Can you describe how she looked?
MW: Oh she was tall, white hair when I remember her. And mostly wore black, I think.
CS: Why was that, did she just like it?
MW: I imagine she just liked it. In that time they thought she was really dressed up. And she wore that same hat for years and years and years, had it recovered. (Laughs). Poor Mrs. Altemus. But she liked the way that hat looked on her and felt, so she kept the frame and just had it covered over and over and over again. And her mother was the sweetest little soul; I don’t ever remember hearing her talk. But the family used to sit in the stairway, when we would go to sing. And Mrs. Altemus would be down with us. They gave us coffee.
CS: So you were actually invited in the house? Do you remember at all what it looked like? Or what your impressions of it were?
MW: This is what impressed me: the drape, one of the drapes, was over the radiator, and it must have been too hot, and it burnt. Well it wasn’t taken away and fixed, it was still there, and it was there the next time! (Laughs). So you see how we do things?
CS: So the rich maybe aren’t so different from us sometimes?
MW: (Laughs). That’s right! That’s funny.
CS: I’m also curious about the house, just because its not there and I think other people in this community had seen it and I never had. What was their house like on the outside?
MW: Well, when we were young, we kind of thought it was more like a castle, stones, you know. And they allowed us to go during the picnics on the grounds, and we had nice times. And the Mother’s Club used to go up there for picnics.
CS: And what was the Mother’s Club?
MW: That was a group of all kinds of women, housekeepers, and they had it for years, in the Falls. And Mrs. Altemus was interested, and she helped them out occasionally. I got in on the tail end. And they used to do nice things; they had a choir, they met at the library.
CS: At Old Academy or up at the Falls Library?
MW: Mmhmm, the Falls.
CS: Somebody in another interview told us that Mrs. Altemus, she thought Mrs. Altemus actually worked at the mill a little bit when she was younger; do you know if that’s true?
MW: Oh no, I don’t know, I didn’t know that.
CS: Maybe in the office or something?
MW: Yeah, maybe.
CS: What would you say might be your most vivid memory of working at Dobson Mills? What just stands out more than anything, or a feeling you had about Dobson that just stayed with you?
MW: Well there was many, it was fun. I had lots of fun. Lots of fun, and then later I worked at the Harry Clayton’s store, on Conrad Street. Between Sunnyside and Bowman.
CS: So you worked there?
MW: I worked there. I remember twin boys that worked for them, one worked at the grocery store, where I worked, and one worked at the meat store down at the next corner. And they were the skinniest kids I ever saw! (Laughs). And they were demons! This one, every time I went down to the cellar- of course Mr. Clayton didn’t care when I carried up from the cellar- I used to carry up cases of cans, up the cellar steps. And I met his son not too long ago, and he said, “Mary, how did you like, uh, remember what you got for salary?” I said, “Yeah I remember.” He said, “Eleven dollars.” I said, “Oh no, oh no, Harry, no! Seven dollars!” Laughs. Because I remember when he gave me that seven dollars one week, I went home and I said to mother, we are going to Rowl’s (?) in Germantown, and I’m going to buy you something. So, I bought her a seven dollar pocketbook.
CS: Oh I bet that was a big deal.
MW: Laughs. Oh boy was that something! And she said, “Oh child,” she always said oh child, “Child, oh that’s a shame you shouldn’t have done that.” So this boy that worked with me, he would hide down the cellar, and I didn’t know he was down there, and he would jump out at me, and I would get a hold of him, I could handle him, you know, he was skinny, and I would get him and I would thump the back of him. And he would laugh, you never knew that he felt it because he wouldn’t let you know. Laughs. But he would do it again the next time!
CS: And how old were you when you worked there?
MW: I must have been about fifteen, sixteen.
CS: David said something about pushing a truck?
MW: At the store? Oh I pushed everything! I cleaned the shelves, I cleaned the windows, I did everything!
CS: Well was the truck an automobile truck?
MW: Oh yeah, actually no it was a car, an old fashioned car. And you know there’s a street-Division Street- between Sunnyside and Bowman, and they treated me like I was a boy. ‘Mary come on you have to help push the car!’
CS: Were you as little as you are now?
MW: Oh I guess I was littler than I am now. There had to be about four of us pushing that car, through the little old street. And they didn’t think anything of that having a girl push the car. That was nothing! What are you talking about, you know! Laughs. Oh but through it all, I enjoyed my life. Really, I didn’t have anything, but I enjoyed life. So I can’t, he put, did you have the paper that he wrote on?
CS: Yeah let’s take a look, let me just ask a couple things, I usually like to start out asking, but it doesn’t matter when I ask them. And then we can go to some other question. When were you born?
MW: I was born in 1897.
CS: What day?
MW: The day? Oh, August 11. We have a cradle that all our children were in, it’s a wooden cradle that I put over
RE: I was going to bring that up. They had a family cradle.
MW. It came from England.
RE: It came from England. The youngest girl said that was what was wrong with her – that when she was in it – that was Gladys – she said – she cried - anyone who was minding her at the time had to rock the cradle and they rocked her sideways –back and forth - and her head banged on one side – banged on the other side – back and forth – and she always said that that was what was wrong with her.
MW: Well there was a hole bored in the side of the cradle, and we put a string in there, and we used to pull the string up at the end, you know. Maybe that’s what wrong with me, I don’t know. Laughs.
CS: Were you born in East Falls?
MW: Yes. I was born on Sunnyside, lower Sunnyside.
CS: And your parents were born in England? Both of them were born in England?
MW: Mmhmm, the same town.
CS: What town?
MW: Osset.
CS: Do you know, I don’t know England, do you know what part of England that was? North, South, East, West?
MW: Yorkshire.
CS: And do you remember just approximately when they came? Were they a young couple?
MW: Yeah, he came first. See when there’s a family, the oldest one would come first. And after he got a job, the next one would come. And the father would stay over there until they were all over here.
CS: Was he married to your mother at that time?
MW: No, he was a young boy. And, let’s see, that’s how they came over.
CS: And she didn’t know him when she came over?
MW: Oh yes she was keeping company, that’s why they sent him back again. He went back over to bring my mother, and she lived with these people, until they could afford to get a place. But, the girls, there were two girls, they used to make fun of him, when she came over it was in February, and she had on a white hat. In those days you didn’t wear a white straw hat in February. And one of them said to her, “Is that the only hat you have?” She said, “No I have a black hat.” And they said, “Oh well wear that, don’t wear the white one, that’s for summer.” And they used to tease her a little bit, you know, she was green.
CS: They were married in England then?
MW: Yes, because her mother was furious at her for going, coming over here.
CS: Her parents were angry with her because she came to America?
MW: Mmhmm, so you know she must have been sad when she came.
CS: And you don’t have any year that they came over? How old would they be now? When was she born?
MW: Oh I don’t know, does it say on that paper?
CS: Was that Mary and Joseph (Smith)? They came over in the late 1880s just approximately, that’s what the note says here. And your grandmother returned to England in the early 1890s with your two older sisters, Amy and Eva.
CS: Did she stay long?
MW: I don’t imagine.
CS: And then came back and never went to England again. What kind of work did your father, do you know what kind of work your father did?
MW: He was a weaver. He worked at Dobson’s. But he then became a clothing salesmen, he knew the materials, you know. And that’s what he had as long as he lived, until he retired. He worked in Wanamaker and Brown’s first - that was down at 6thand Market. Then he went up to John Wanamaker’s, and then they had the, what should I say, the boss. They had the boss on his floor, um, died. And they put a younger man on, in his place. Now they should have put a man that was used to the job. And he stood at the upstairs and looked down and there was another man moving. And he said, “You see all those white haired men down there? Well they’re going to go.” This was when my father was still living, working. First thing you know, he was the one that went, and the others were put back again. You know, a smart alec. So, you never know, you never know!
CS: Did the, did it seem like a lot of people who came over from England would work in the Dobson Mill?
MW: Yes, an awful lot of them, because they knew the material, they had done the work, you know.
RE: But in England was it noted that if you get to America that you go live in East Falls and you’ll get a job in the Dobson Mill?
MW: Laughs. They used to go down to the water, and wait to see if there was anybody that got off that they knew. And they would direct them right up to East Falls.
CS: They meaning some of the workers or some of the people..?
MW: Some of the workers.
RE: I always wondered how they decided where in the United States they were going to go when they got here.
MW: Yeah, yeah. They used to go every time the boat came in they went down.
CS: The boat came in to Philadelphia?
MW: Uh-huh. Yeah.
CS: And you had, um let’s see, just two sisters? Amy and Eva?
MW: Amy, and Eva, and Gladys, and one boy. Oh yeah! Ida; Ida died when she was five.
CS: Older or younger than you?
MW: Younger, no, older!
CS: So you didn’t know her? Or you did?
MW: No, I don’t remember her.
CS: What did she die of?
MW: I think it was spinal meningitis.
CS: Did most women have their babies at home or did they go to the hospital?
MW: At home
RE: Edna Wooley mentioned Miss Dunns?
MW: Yeah, she was, I think she was Irish, but she was a very good nurse, and she never had any trouble getting work. And then she got to know these two women on New Queen Street- they owned some of the houses on New Queen. I can’t remember their name right now. But a lot of people had her, she brought a lot of children into the world.
CS: She had a sort of hospital on Henry Avenue, a three story house? And instead of going to the hospital when you had your baby…
MW: I had David up there.
CS: And did you walk up when you got kind of heavy, you walked up?
MW: Uh-huh. I walked up. On Henry Avenue near Ainslie, the end house in the row. It’s still there, I think.
CS: But it was a house? Like a small private little hospital. Was she a midwive or a nurse?
MW: A nurse. She was very pleasant.
RE: Did she have a doctor come in?
MW: Yes
RE: She didn’t deliver the babies…
MW: No, Dr. Entwisle.
CS: About what years did she have the house? Was it there for as long as you can remember?
MW: No, she hasn’t been there for quite a while. Well she was getting up in age, you know. She was a lovely person, she was comical. Her sister lived with her, and one day I said, “Miss Dunn, I hear a noise, like somebody tapping, where would that be?” And she laughed and she said, “That’s my sister, she’s doing a jig down there.” Laughs. And she was such a sober looking person you’d never think of such a thing, you know?
CS: Why did you choose Miss Dunn’s to go to have a baby?
MW: Because I didn’t want to go to the hospital.
CS: You were scared of the hospital?
MW: Yes
CS: Did everyone have the same feeling?
MW: I don’t think so. I think in years past, you know, they were more in the home.
CS: Was she less expensive?
(tape is blanked out for a minute or two)
Resumes:
MW: …I could kill that man so easy. I don’t know who ever gave him the outfit.
CS: What was his name?
MW: Dr. Roe. And when my sister had Dorothy, the oldest girl, she had her home, and he came one day and I was in the room and I didn’t know how to get out, I hated him so. He was annoying, you know. He would put his hands on you. So, um, I crawled under the bed. And my mom was in the room too, and I think she must have given him the goat eye and told him where I was, so he leaned down and got a hold of my leg and pulled me out. Well then I just hated him a little more. And then my mother would say sometimes when somebody was sick, “You’ll have to go down to the doctors and get some pills, he’ll give them to you.”
And I would say, “Yeah, well mother, I don’t want to go.” “Well you have to go because there’s nobody else to go.” So, my girlfriend went with me, Esther, remember her? She went with me. And I said uh, “I came for pills,” oh I hated that man! And he said, “Well you can’t have them until you sit on my lap.” And I said, “Well I won’t sit on your lap!” He said, “Well, all right,” so here he slipped them to Esther, and he sent me a note saying that he…
CS: So in those days he was a very old man?
MW: Oh he was, he was. You could tell to look at him. So, um, when we got a little closer to home, she said, “Listen Mary, here’s your pills, he told me not to give them to you.” Then I hated him more, how much hate can you hold. Oh dear it was awful, it was awful. Anytime my mother would say, “Go down to the doctor…”
RE: Dr. Zinn(?) was like that too.
MW Was he? I kinda thought he was!
RE: You had to stand flat against him and he had you put your arms around his waist and hold him tight and he held you while he looked in your eyes to examine your eyes because he said it was steadier that way, but he never made the old ladies stand that way.
MW: They were a thing of the past. Oh dear, it was awful. It was awful. Anytime my mother would say go down to the doctor …
CS: I bet you didn’t get sick much.
MW: No, I wouldn’t say I was sick. Laughs.
%20acting.jpg/:/)
Mae Mohr, January 10, 1902
Photo: Mae Mohr (center) on-stage
East Falls Oral History Project
Interviewee: Mae Mohr (MM)
Interviewer: Cherie Snyder (CS)
Date of Interview: April 13, 1983
Transcribers: Dustin Balton, Philadelphia University, April 19, 2010 and
Wendy Moody, June 9, 2010
CS: Mae, what year were you born? Do you mind if I ask?
MM: 1902, the exact birthday is January the 10th.
CS: 1902. Were you born here in East Falls?
MM: No, I was born in Fishtown, Ammon (?) Street in Fishtown. That’s in Kensington. But my brother, he was just 17 months younger than me, he was born in Labby Hill.
CS: That’s over here?
MM: Yeah, they tore it down, they tore the houses down to put that project up.
CS: Ah, where the Schuylkill Falls housing project is? So you had moved by the time your brother was born?
MM: Yeah, my brother was born in there. I was born in Kensington.
CS: When did you move here to East Falls then?
MM: That was in 1912. In between time I had another brother and he was born up in Hatboro.
CS: Was the brother that was born here in East Falls born after 1912?
MM: Yeah, Well, no. He was born in 1903, my brother Jim.
CS: In East Falls?
MM: Yeah. In Labby Hill.
CS: So your family came here for a while in East Falls? I see.
MM: And we have been here ever since.
CS: I see. So, you said you moved here in 1912?
MM: That was because we moved out to Kensington and my mother had another little girl, then we moved back here.
CS: I see. Were your parents born in East Falls?
MM: No they were born in Ireland.
CS: Did both of them come over from Ireland?
MM: Yeah. They were married here in East Falls. In the Grace Church down here.
CS: Ahh. They were living in East Falls at the time?
MM: Yes.
CS: What brought them to East Falls?
MM: Well, she had a sister here. And I guess that’s why she came here.
CS: Did they work in the Dobson Mills?
MM: My mother did, yes. My mother worked in the Dobson Mill.
CS: Can you remember when she was still working there?
MM: No.
CS: Or was that before you were born?
MM: Well, I don’t recall.
CS: And how many brothers and sisters did you have?
MM: I had three brothers and I was the only girl. The other one died right when she was an infant.
CS: And so when did your family settle permanently in East Falls?
MM: Well we moved from there up to Calumet Street and that’s right there at Dobson Street, 3632. We lived there, and from there we moved here.
CS: So you grew up in this house too?
MM: Well I was married from here.
CS: Tell me about the houses you lived around in Labby Hill.
MM: Well, I could show you them if you’d like, we have a picture.
CS: Sure, I’d like to see that. Did you rent the house?
MM: Yeah, we rented. We didn’t have the money to pay for it.
CS: How about the one on Calumet Street?
MM: We rented that and then my father wanted to buy a farm. He was always a gardener. And so we were just at the age that we were interested in the girls and boys, and so we didn’t want to go, so he started looking around the Falls for a house and we came over here and we got this one.
CS: How old is this house?
MM: Well, about I guess it’s almost 100 years old. I’m one of the oldest ones on this street right now.
CS: Really?
MM: I mean the other people that lived here before all moved away or died.
CS: What did the houses look like? Can you describe them for me?
MM: Yeah, it was only about 6 or 7 houses on that road and the thing went almost straight up.
CS: Did you rent them from the… was it the Weightman family?
MM: I think they were on the other side of Ridge Avenue. And then they rented this part and they used to dump all their coal over on the other side. I guess my father worked there; it said in this here that he had been working for them.
CS: That’s what I had thought that they rented to workers. Do you remember the name of the company?
MM: I can’t seem to find it in my mind right now.
CS: Yeah, I know it too, I just can’t think of the name myself. Was it a pharmaceutical company?
MM: No, no.
CS: Okay. Well when you moved to Calumet Street what were the houses like there?
MM: Well they were regular row houses.
CS: Is it still standing on Calumet Street?
MM: Oh yeah, they are all still standing. My uncle owned two of the houses, he lived in one, and we lived in the other. And we have been nearby; we lived here about five years before I got married.
CS: What other kind of work did your father do?
MM: Well in the olden days he used to be a conductor in horsecars.
CS: Oh really?
MM: And then he took up gardening, and he worked for Percy Clark over in Bala Cynwyd, their daughter Anna married Nelson Rockefeller. So he used to take care… Her parents didn’t give her spending money and for them to make money they had to raise something. So they raised chickens and my father took care of all the chickens for her. Then she would sell the chickens back to her mother and the eggs back to her mother. Then when she got married my father was invited to the wedding.
CS: To Nelson Rockefeller’s? Did he go?
MM: Oh yeah, he was there.
CS: Did you remember him talking about it at all or was that before your time?
MM: Yeah, he didn’t say too much about it.
CS: Was the wedding held here?
MM: In Bala Cynwyd. Married at her place Percy Clark. When we lived on Calumet Street there were no houses up there on Warden Drive. No houses up there at all
CS: What was it? What did it look like?
MM: It was just like lots, you know just ground. Except there was one place, we called it the duck pond and my brothers and them used to go up there and one time they went up there to swim or bathe and this here park guard he was riding around on horses then… his name was Adams and he came along and caught them and they all ran through the woods. And then right there at Warden Drive to Henry Avenue - there were no houses there - and there used to be a spring that ran right there along the inside of where the painting is now. A spring used to run down there all the time.
CS: With good water?
MM: It was always running. I always thought there was a spring under that from the houses up there, you know you never know.
CS: Was it parkland or was it privately owned by someone?
MM: I guess it must have been owned by somebody, but there were no houses built on it.
CS: Trees? Did it have trees around?
MM: Yeah, and then we didn’t have this here playground (McDevitt), which all the churches used to have… Fourth of July we used to all meet over there at the playground, but it wasn’t like it is now, see they have the expressway there now, it was just a plain hill and then they had the service there and after the service every church went to their own picnic ground. They had done that for years and years and years.
CS: And what church did you belong to?
MM: I belonged then to the Falls Pres. But later I moved to the Methodist. My father was the treasurer for the builders fund at the Falls Pres.
CS: Oh, really?
MM: I was married in the Falls Presbyterian. And when Billy was born the minister (Rev. Cook) that married everybody, well he had retired and he came back in August to, you know at vacation time, to preach and when he did it I took Billy back and he christened him back there. So he’s got a little bit of everywhere in him. Presbyterian, Methodist, and now he’s a Baptist.
CS: He is well covered then. Well you mentioned about the Fourth of July picnics, what was it like at the Fourth of July picnics? What did everybody do over there?
MM: Well, they only had the exercise over there, but then each one went back to their woods. Well the Falls Pres., they met, their church was right down there where you make the turn to go up to Wissahickon. The big church was there and in the back it was the park owned piece of ground that we always had our picnics back there. They used to put the swings from one tree to the other and you could swing. And then on Sundays there was not much to do - in that part down there, it was like the Boardwalk; everyone was walking around.
CS: Now which park was this?
MM: Right down the end of the street here. Down the block and we used to walk every Sunday…
CS: You mean along the river?
MM: Yeah, right along the river all the ways down to 33rd and Dauphin. And that was an ice cream parlor down at Formers. He is one of the members over at the Academy. Ed Former. They had made their own ice cream and they used to walk down there every Sunday night for ice cream.
CS: Oh gee, that’s quite a hike, you earned it!
MM: Well, that’s all you did on a Sunday, you had nothing else to do.
CS: Well tell me about this Fourth of July service; who would they have speak? What would go on?
MM: Well the church provided all the stuff; we had lemonade, sandwiches, and peanuts and they used to have all kinds of games – a peanut scramble. It’s the same they do now, they just meet up at Penn Charter. Up there.
CS: Yeah that’s what Edna Woolley had mentioned.
MM: On Christmas we used to go out carol singing and see Dobson’s, they were Presbyterians so we used to go up there and carol sing for them at Dobson’s estate.
CS: Where was that located?
MM: It’s up there where the Abbottsford Homes are. That was all the Dobson’s Estate.
CS: And you would go up carol singing?
MM: Yeah, we would go carol singing and we always got fifty dollars for carol singing and so all the churches used to go there.
CS: And who would give you the fifty dollars?
MM: The Dobson’s.
CS: Did you ever see Bessie Dobson?
MM: Oh yeah, they used to come to church and the mother, the old Mrs. Dobson she used to wear those little tiny bonnets on her head with the tie around her chin, you know?
CS: So you are saying they went to your church?
MM: They went to the Falls Pres, they were members of the Falls Pres. The old Dobson her hair was all snow white.
CS: Bessie?
MM: Yeah, Betsy, snow white.
CS: I understand she was a beautiful woman. What were some of her activities in the community? What kinds of things was she involved with?
MM: Well, she was pretty active in different things. I just don’t know all the stuff. And then before when the hospitals came up here, my brother he was painting up on the third floor, up here and he had a torch and it exploded and it caught him on the back of the leg and his pants got on fire and he got it out before he… we never knew, because he was always kidding around and we were all down here and he was hollering “Fire! Fire!” and we didn’t pay any attention to him. But he quick jumped in the bed and the whole back of his leg - and the Women’s Hospital wasn’t up here then but my aunt, they had just moved on this side of Calumet Street, at like a store and that’s where they started. My aunt, she was cleaning there, and told the doctor about my brothers leg, so she said well bring him on down. So Jimmy went down there and he was a patient before they started up here.
CS: And where was that located again?
MM: On this side of Calumet Street. On Ridge Avenue.
CS: So, it was like an office there?
MM: It was like a, it looked like a store, and they kept their supplies and stuff in there. That’s where they first came in from down there, before they had even started building up here.
CS: So, they were actually practicing medicine?
MM: Yeah, because the doctor he gave - and my brother when he went down to this doctor down here all he did was tell my mother to put corn starch on it, and every time my mother put the corn starch on him it would take the flesh right off it. And so then when he went down there, whatever stuff they gave him, it was something blue, it healed up right away.
CS: Where did you go to school?
MM: The Breck, down here.
CS: And tell me where that was located again.
MM: On Krail Street, right down at the bottom here. I’ve got a picture of that in here too. It was a small school and then they built the bigger school and from there they went up to Conrad Street.
CS: Can you describe what a day was like going to school?
MM: Well, we always had to walk from Calumet Street because no one was ever here, and then we didn’t have this railroad station down here and right up here at Indian Queen Lane, we just had a box station. Before they built this big one. So, I mean I’ve seen quite a few things in my day.
CS: I think you have. How would you say the community of East Falls has changed since you were a child? What are the changes you have seen?
MM: Well the only thing I can see is the kids around here. They really have changed.
CS: How do you mean?
MM: Well, between doping and robbing and things like that, that’s all they are doing out there.
CS: What would kids do when you were growing up for fun? Or what did they do that was mischievous?
MM: Well, I was talking to my brother the other day and he was saying about this here man on Calumet Street, he owned about 6 or 7 houses on the other side of the street and he used to have a back road – not on the street - that would take you down to Midvale Avenue. And up here - the tap room - he used to carry a kettle, you know get a kettle of beer.
CS: A kettle of beer?
MM: Yeah, he got a kettle filled with beer and brought it back home.
CS: I’ve never heard of that.
MM: So he came around the back road and they did it every night, I guess he had it for supper, so they got a string and they tied it from the post to the other post and when he’d come up to it, he would trip on it and his beer went flying, but he just got up and walked right back to the saloon to get it filled up again.
CS: So the kids did that?
MM: Yeah, and my brothers and all them they all liked to swim and they used to go to this rock out in the Schuylkill River – a big rock - so they would go out there and they weren’t allowed to swim and Mr. Furman, he was on the police boat, and every time they would see him they would really have to swim away.
CS: Were there movie houses? Or places that kids went?
MM: Yeah, we had one that was down there at Midvale Avenue. It used to be a market or something down there, at Frederick Street.
CS: You mean with the Betsy Ross building that’s there, it says Betsy Ross Flags.
MM: I guess that’s what it was.
CS: Did you ever go to movies there?
MM: Oh yeah, and then George Stubblebine - he lived across the street - he had a butcher shop down there, on this side, and a house over there. He was an undertaker and in those days they had to drive in the wagon and then he had a stable up at the top.
CS: The house right across the street?
MM: Right across the street there. He has like a two-car garage back there.
CS: The white house? And he was an undertaker?
MM: Turner and Dex, they were cousins I think.
CS: Was that his name, the guy across the street?
MM: Dex, yeah. Well they are not there now. My father used to go over there after he died to help Mrs. Dex. And then she had a colored maid, and it was just the two of them in that big house, so he used to go over every morning. They had a coal stove and he would go over and fix it for the day and then he would go over at night and fix it for the night. So she gave him that there chair over there. It’s an antique.
CS: So she gave him that, little press back chair?
MM: It’s got a pearl right there in the middle of the back.
CS: Isn’t that beautiful? So that came out of that house over there? It’s beautiful. Did he operate his business out of his house there?
MM: No.
CS: That was just his own home?
MM: Yeah, now their business was – McIlvaine’s was on this side and Turner & Dex’s was on this side.
CS: Turner and Dex were partners?
MM: No, their office, funeral parlor.
CS: But they were together? Turner & Dex?
MM: Yeah.
CS: Oh I see, on the other side of this street.
MM: And now Turner is up in Roxborough. And now McIlvaine they moved down there. They were right next to the firehouse down there, a police station we had a police station down there.
CS: Down on Ridge Avenue?
MM: Yeah, down on Ridge. And they were next door to the police station and then they moved up here to the Literary.
CS: Is the building where McIlvaine’s…
MM: No, I believe it’s all torn down.
CS: Ahh, all torn down.
MM: They were all torn down. And where Turner and them were it is just like a gas station. It’s an empty lot right now.
CS: You mean near the Mobil station, is that was you mean?
MM: Near the gas station at the bottom of the street.
CS: Arco. That’s where it used to be. Is that what you are saying?
MM: Yeah.
CS: Why did they tear all these buildings down?
MM: They just laid there.
CS: Were there any great disasters in East Falls? Any great big fires or any mill fires or disasters? Anything you remember?
MM: Well the only one is when the Old Academy was on fire.
CS: And when was that?
MM: I was taking care of it then. I guess it was 25 years or so back. And they were working on the walls, painting it, and I had come over and this was at lunch time and the men were sitting outside eating, when the people from the steel mill came over and said that there is smoke coming from under your roof and so when they went in they called the fire department, but the whole third floor - the roof was burnt right out. They said that when they were chipping on the wall wires must have crossed. So they really ruined it all the water came flying down and all the clothes went out the window. And all the play books came out the window and then that dome up there -there were about ten firemen hanging on it trying to pull it down thinking the fire would be up in there. And then the women around here said don’t tear that down it’s a landmark. So he took responsibility to take care of anything that would happen. But it’s still hanging that way.
CS: So they didn’t get it down?
MM: No, they didn’t get it down.
CS: Now that we are talking about the Old Academy, how did you get involved in the Old Academy?
MM: Well my father, see in the olden days you couldn’t collect anything if you were out of work. If you owned a house you couldn’t collect a penny. So my father just went over there and just did little jobs.
CS: He was out of work at the time?
MM: And so Stanley Smith, he was a member of the Old Academy and he, I guess they didn’t have anyone to take care of the place so then they came over and asked if my father would be interested. And so he just went over to look, he never made coffee before or anything like that, he never even made coffee in the house. He went over and they took him on. It was just like clockwork he would go over there and he would puddle around and he would come home at around 12 o’clock and Kate Smith was always on the radio and he would come home and listen to Kate Smith. Then he would go back again. So he had that for about 5 or 6 years, he was 86 when he died.
CS: Now what were his duties? What did he have to do?
MM: Well the things that I was doing, help and maintenance. If you ask any of the old members they can tell you all about Mr. Montgomery’s this and that.
CS: What was he like as a person?
MM: Well, this is a small picture of him.
CS: With a mustache?
MM: This was one when he was working over there.
CS: Oh, he was a dignified man. Very dignified.
MM: Yeah, so that is my brother’s wife. She died at the house, 24 years old when she had twins, this is my other brother’s kids.
CS: So he was responsible for doing the maintenance work? Keeping the place in order, did he have to make coffee?
MM: Yeah. When I was born he had double pneumonia then and that was down in Fishtown and he had both his lungs back then. But from that time on he was never in the hospital. He was never sick and then he got a cold and he was all choked up and so they said you should go to the hospital and get something, so they took him down to the Presbyterian Hospital and so we called up about 12 o’clock and they said oh he is fine. They were going to take him down to have his chest x-rayed and when we got down there he wasn’t in the room and so after a while the nurse came and so she said the doctor wants to see you in the office and so we went to the office and he said we did everything we could to save him but he must have scared him to death. They hadn’t even gotten to the x-ray room and it was such a shock on him that his heart just stopped. It happened so fast that they didn’t even have a chance to do anything and so I took it temporarily till they got somebody.
CS: And how old were you then?
MM: Well, I was married and I had it since ‘49. I spent 33 years and maybe one now.
CS: That’s quite a temporary job.
MM: But I enjoy it, I mean I am always meeting somebody. Everybody there is always nice to me, yeah I like it
CS: Well, tell me some of the things that you do. I know some of the things you do but I am interested for the purpose of the tape. So tell me some of the things you do.
MM: I paint most all the sets.
CS: And you are how old?
MM: 81 and I have made about 5 or 6 slipcovers for the red sofa over there.
CS: Over a period of years?
MM: Yeah. When they needed one for a show they would get the materials and I would make a slipcover. I am working on one right now for over there. Lori Cosiack (??) got me material so I am working on one upstairs now. And I help with all the sets and they used to have the English Lodge meet in there and I used to have to move the chairs around and fix it up for them and do that. And I do a little bit of everything to tell you the truth. I don’t know, I keep saying I am going to quit but as I say it I don’t want to sell the house. I’d have to go into an apartment and I don’t know what to do with an apartment. I have freedom of the whole house. My son wants me to move up there. He says you don’t have to live with me but you can get an apartment up there. But still my friends are all down here. So I am still stuck around here.
Lizanne Kelly LeVine and Peggy Kelly Conlan...
Photo: Kelly Family
Interviewees: Lizanne Kelly LeVine (LL) and Peggy Kelly Conlan (PC)
Interviewer: Cherie Snyder (CS) with Ruth Emmert (RE)
Date of interview: April 24, 1981
Transcribers: Anne Farnese and Wendy Moody
N.B. This tape is in poor condition. A large portion of it is inaudible. At times, the interviewees speak over each other and it is difficult to understand what is being said. Also, their voice are quite similar so there is difficulty understanding
which sister is speaking. A.F.
CS: Ok, well, we can start out by, just, what were the names of your parents and when did they come to East Falls?
LL: Peggy, you start with that one.
PC: Well, Daddy was born and raised in East Falls.
LL: Was he born in East Falls or was he born in New York?
PC: He was born in East Falls, Lizanne, I’m sure…
LL: Well, now we’re taping and we’re not quite sure about that one... He came when he was little; the family was originally from New York.
PC: Yes…
LL: Yeah, from Vermont. East Falls they came to, settled.
PC: But I’m pretty sure Daddy was born here.
LL: The earlier ones were born in Vermont. It was a very large family. Ten children.
CS: And your mother?
LL: Mother was born in the Strawberry Mansion area.
PC: 33rd and Dunne?
LL: Yes, and then when they were married in 1924, they moved right to the corner of Ridge and Midvale while their house was being built on Henry and Coulter Street.
PC: They lived over a store on the corner.
LL: Didn’t they live in an apartment over a shop?
PC: I don’t believe it was a shop. It was a saloon called the Gunboat.
LL: Well, I knew they lived in an apartment above…
PC: Right on the corner.
CS: And how many children were there in the family?
LL: In our family?
CS: Yours. Brothers and sisters.
PC: Four. I’m the oldest, then my brother Jack, then Grace, then Lizanne here.
CS: Are you revealing what years you were born in, or…
LL: No. Peggy was born in 1925, Jack in 1927, Grace in ’29 and I’m 33.
PC: You were born in ’33!
LL: Well, we don’t have to go into that… (laughter)
CS: How did you see East Falls change since you were growing up? In appearance? In makeup?
LL: Since the project, the Schuylkill Falls Project, was built there has been a great change. Before that it was just nice and gradual. That changed East Falls completely, in my way of thinking.
CS: When was that?
LL: Late ‘40’s, because I went to school at Ravenhill Academy and I remember when the project was going up and Reverend Mother was rather concerned because our hockey field looked over the project and she was greatly concerned that all these houses and stuff were going up. And that has to be the late ‘40s when that went up.
PC: Sure.
LL: And also the other thing that grew up were the houses across the street - – I don’t know if that’s East Falls - on the other side of School House Lane - there used to be a big forest down there - all the houses across the street from Ravenhill Academy on School House Lane.
PC: It still kept a lovely appearance and openness.
LL: Another thing, of course the whole area has grown up, we used to go down Henry Avenue and walk for miles and see nothing. There were never all those houses there. Those, I guess, go all the way to Roxborough. I remember when they talked about the Henry Avenue Bridge being opened to go across into Roxborough.
CS: How did you get across before then?
LL: I would imagine old Ridge Avenue. Down in the Falls. You went through the Wissahickon. There used to be a riding academy not too far from here.
PC: Right off of Henry Avenue
LL: And we used to go riding there and down to the Wissahickon.
PC: Wasn’t it Dupont Street? Rector Avenue. It’s still there. I saw horses crossing Henry Avenue just this morning from Andorra. They’re still crossing Henry Avenue with all that traffic. They’re crossing with traffic lights now.
CS: Did you both go to Ravenhill?
LL: Yes. Well I graduated Ravenhill, Peggy graduated from Stevens School.
PC: Grace went to Ravenhill but then graduated from Stevens.
LL: And our brother went to Penn Charter. So we all went to school right in the neighborhood. We all walked to school. We used to walk down through people’s property and up the hill up to Ravenhill – Roseneath farm was there.
RE: “The Nuts”
LL: Well, yes, the nuts. Well, Ruthie…
CS: Where was that again?
LL: It’s right down the end of Warden Drive
CS: Where is that again?
PC: The back of the property went all along Warden Drive there at the bottom of the hill but the entrance was up on School House Lane so it went right on through. A very lovely deep property.
CS: That’s not there?
LL: Oh, yes, it’s there. The original house has been ripped down and Textiles School bought it. And Textiles School has now bought Ravenhill. And they bought Lankanau School.
PC: And they bought your old house.
PC: And they bought my house. I lived on School House Lane when I was first married.
CS: Are they using that building?
LL: Yes, the president lives there.
RE: They are buying up all over.
LL: I don’t know who the Levys sold theirs to - Temple.
PC: Probably, but Goldie Paley, I believe, belongs to Textiles. And that’s used as a little museum now; it’s lovely. We went there the other day. But the big – Leon Levy’s house – big house down in sunken hollow – that’s Temple, I think. Or maybe it’s Textile.
PC: Textile used to use for soccer practice up front on School Lane, but the actual house; LL: I thought Temple – they gave it to Temple – I think the Leon Levy’s – right on the corner of School House Lane and Henry Avenue – beautiful White Corners – I wouldn’t be surprised if Temple hadn’t given it over to Textiles or University of Pennsylvania. Textiles is getting so big now.
PC: They might not need it.
LL: They might not need it but it would be lovely to have.
RE: Leon Levy was head of…
PC: CBS.
RE: CBS; that will identify him.
PC: But when they first moved to the neighborhood they were with WCAU and KYW, the radio stations.
CS: Were they living here when you were here?
LL: Yes, we were here.
CS: They had kids your age?
PC: Yes, Lizanne’s age.
CS: What were your most vivid memories of going to Ravenhill?
LL: Going to school – the farms. I started when I was two years of age. I was Baby Jesus in the crib.
PC: Lizanne was Jesus, I was a wiseman and Grace was a shepherd.
LL: And I was in the crib – I remember that – I don’t know why
PC: We used to cart Lizanne to school. The nuns were sweet. They would take your little sisters at any time you wanted to bring them.
LL: On rainy days mother used to ship me off to school.
PC: The classes were so small – 6 girls in my class.
LL” I was the only one in 1st grade
PC: For one year she was the only one….
LL: So I just walked around to all the different classes. When I graduated our class grew up to a big booming 17.
CS: Really? Were there boarders there?
LL: Yes, many boarders. There were a lot of Spanish-speaking girls because it was an order of nuns that had convents…
PC: In Manila and Nicaragua.
LL: People would send their daughters to Ravenhill.
CS: When you went to play, did you play mostly at home or go to playgrounds in the area? What did you do?
PC: We didn’t go – Ididn’t go - to playgrounds. We had most of our athletics after classes at school.
LL: We didn’t get home until it was almost dark. When we got home from school after hockey we walked home. We did have a tennis court in the backyard and my brother, when he was young, – I guess dad did it – put a basketball court in. And the neighborhood kids used to always come over, even after Kell stopped playing and was in college. The kids, the McIlvaine kids and their friends, used to come and play basketball in the court.
PC: And football in the side lawn.
LL: Yeah and a little bit of baseball in McMichael Park. We went over there and if you’d have a baseball game going. I was never much for softball; we watched them really. But McMichael Park was quite the thing in the springtime. That was about it. We didn’t go too far afield.
PC: There was a lot of activity in our house.
LL: We used to walk over here in early spring, coming to Alden Park and going swimming over here in the swimming pool, when this first opened.
PC: Yes, when this pool opened, right here where we are now.
RE: When you were little?
PC: We had friends that lived here in the apartments and we would visit them and go swimming with them.
LL: And go swimming. The swimming pool here, now it doesn’t do it, but it used to, it’s an indoor pool now, but it used to have a roof –
PC: A sliding roof.
LL: And it was opened in the summertime. And before we went to the shore, cause you see, we were gone all summer long, and we’d come over here and swim. We’d walk over here and swim.
RE: You see, Lizanne, You said why I did exactly the same thing as your children did. My children went to the “Bathey.”
CS: What’s the “Bathey?” (Laughter)
RE: It’s a public - a city-owned swimming pool down there and they called it the “Bathey.” And it was free. And it opened a certain date and closed a certain date and you could go any day and it had a lifeguard there. And they also went to ---what was the…
PC: Oh! Down, right down on the Schuylkill Drive? You mean? You mean Gustine Lake?
RE: Gustine Lake! They all went there to splash around but not to Alden Park Manor—you see you were different. (Laughter)
PC: It’s just that we went to school with these girls.
CS: And they lived over here?
PC: Yes, and we’d walk over here.
LL: And our brother, some of them were boys who went to Penn Charter that we knew who lived here.
CS: Were you involved in any of the local community organizations?
LL: Just our school—when I was in school I was at the Vernon Park, something or other, Germantown—it was a Germantown Organization. But, no, we really weren’t involved too much in the local…
RE: The hospital…
LL: Oh well, Medical College. That is a different story.
CS: Go ahead about that ‘cause I know your whole family was involved there.
LL: Well Mother, Mother just started that. She just started that. I don’t know how Mother got involved but I think…
PC: Mother got involved because she taught there before she was married. Mother taught athletics.
LL: Athletics at Penn and also Woman’s Med - it was Woman’s Medical College then, she taught basketball.
PC: The students. Athletics. But then they were so busy, they soon dropped their athletic program.
LL: Yeah, It wasn’t necessary for the medical students to take athletics. But Mother was teaching at the same time at Penn.
LL: And they also had lack of room—they used the gym you know. So Mother was very involved in Medical College for a long, long time. And just kept going. And when we were children… Pause….Do we tell that we stole flowers?
PC: Oh yes... (Laughter) It’s been told so many times, believe me. (Laughter)
LL: Well Mother used to have a fete—there used to be a fete.
PC: A Spring fete—gourmet fete.
LL: They used to have a lot of booths and everything around and there was—we always had to raise money and there was a flower booth. And also we had a flower booth right outside our front. On Saturdays we would decide it would be a good day to sell flowers in the late spring. And the Godfrey gals and the Kelly gals would get together and we would make---The day before up until it was, oh, 7o’clock, 8o’clock ‘til you couldn’t even see, we would climb the fence and steal Old Mosie Brown’s – well that wasn’t bad--the violets…
PC: The violets. Stealing Mosie Brown’s - he never even knew they were there in the back of his huge property. He had acres and acres and acres and we climbed the fence and would make-up all the bouquets of little violets.
LL: And daffodils
PC: But then all our neighbors in the back of the alley, we used to send Grace and the little ones up to steal all their—the neighbors’ flowers and we set them out at front and as the neighbors would go by in the morning we would sell their own flowers to them. Or we’d send the little ones with a little basket on their arms to go knocking on the doors. And they couldn’t resist these sweet little girls who had just stripped the backs of their gardens.
LL: It was for a good cause.
PC: I don’t know if they knew or not.
LL: Oh I’m sure they did but no one said anything. No. It’s sweet. It’s cute, no one said anything.
PC: Poor Mother she wouldn’t have approve if she had known—Mother didn’t realize that we were being…
LL: Mother knew exactly what was going on (laughter)
PC: Do you think she did, Liz?
LL: Mother! You did know!
RE: I think that your memories of the hospital fete in the front of the hospital when they used to—that would be nice.
LL: Well, we used to do that for years. Mother was in charge.
PC: Mother was in charge of it.
LL: Well, not the whole chairman but she was in charge of the chicken pot pies.
PC: Dinner. Well, the dinner came after. I can remember when they had the fete before they even had the dinner Liz.
LL: Well, Mother was in charge of the chicken pot pie dinner.
PC: And the strawberry shortcake dinner. It was a big success.
LL: And what we used to do—we’d sell chances and the cars---what we did for that hospital! I just shake my head when I sit at board meetings now. But it really---
PC: We fed patients; we were nurse’s aides and all that.
CS: So you worked in the hospital?
PC: Yes
LL: Our new president in the hospital is Morrie Clifford, Maurice Clifford, I should say, I shouldn’t call him by a nickname. He was just inaugurated. He’s a delightful person and I, we had, Mother and I, went to a dinner though for Doctor Fay. Marion Fay has always lived in East Falls who used to be President and a Dean of Medical College.
PC: She lived on Queen Lane.
LL: They just honored her the other day with dedicating a wing, the Marion Spencer Fay Wing.
PC: Oh really?
LL: Yes. She had a lovely reception and Mother and I went and then they had a dinner for her and we went there. And then we just inaugurated a new president, Maurice Clifford. He will now be living in East Falls—he lives in Chestnut Hill now but he’s moving to The Oak Road—is that East Falls?
PC: Yes.
LL: He’s moving there and he is a delightful person, he really is. The first time I met him I was working at Medical College in the pre-natal clinic in 1955, and you were in charge of volunteers.
RE: Not really, Marie Hess was. (overtalk)
LL: You worked with Marie and you stuck me in the pre-natal clinic (Laughter).
RE: I remember.
LL: I was pregnant too. And you know what? They got better care than I did I think.
They did.
RE: But she saw life in the raw as far as having a baby because she delivered her baby, I didn’t realize it.
LL: Well, I couldn’t believe it! I kept going to my obstetrician, Joannie Roberts, who was also a graduate of Medical College.
PC: Yes, Woman’s Medical
LL: And I said Joannie, they give pills and all that stuff, I’ve seen what they do, and you’re not doing that to me (laughter)
RE: The clinic patients always got better care than any private patient ever did. The diabetics. The diabetic clinic I worked in for years and I never heard of such marvelous care as they got. Their lectures, and their education, and their testing, and their medication—everything was much better.
PC: Well I know the one time I was there in the clinic and Maurice Clifford—it was his first year at the Medical College and I used to have to weigh the patients and take some specimens and do paperwork and then put them in the cubicles and call the doctor to come visit them. And as I put this one patient, she had been there for many years cause it was her 20thbaby, so I put her on the table and I said, “Oh my God! Morrie!” I didn’t call him Morrie then—“Doctor Clifford! There’s a baby! (laughter) And I tell you, he came running and that was—he does remember me from that. He says, “Boy do I remember you ‘cause I’ve never seen anybody look so mmmmm (laughter)
CS: Was the affair at Woman’s Medical that raised money all-day long?
LL & PC: Yes (In unison)
RE: Oh it was wonderful!
PC: It was fun.
RE: It was like a small town thing which we don’t often get in the big city. And you could go there in the morning with your children and they would be amused, and you could eat, and you could buy, and you could take chances. And you could meet all your neighbors up there and it went on up there all day and dinner by Mrs. Kelly with her chicken pies and then on into the evening. And we had fabulous things at our hospital fair that no other hospital could have had—like a painting, an original painting, by you, of the Prince.
CS: And when was this?
LL: Well, this was back—it lasted until about ‘56
PC: I forget the year of the last one…
LL: It was about ’56 because they built the one wing and we couldn’t do it anymore—I mean, space.
CS: It was held out on the grounds outdoors?
PC: Yes
CS: What time of year?
PC: May, the end of May.
LL: Just because of space you just couldn’t have it anymore. But, well, Peggy was very big on …
PC: Lemon sticks. If I cut another hole in a lemon I (laughter) lemon, Lemon sticks, yes. (laughter)
LL: It was fun. And I do know, I know the fair lasted to ’56 because after that it might be ’57. I don’t think it did because I had Gracie. It was May 17th -I had the baby and the fair was going on and she was born in 1956, so I know the fair was going on till 1956.
Now after that…
PC: Well then Germantown Hospital always had their Rose Carnival and then the Abington Hospital had the …
LL: June Fete
PC: June Fete and Memorial had an affair but we just stopped ours.
LL: Well it was really because of the wing and the space.
RE: I heard, I don’t know how true it is, that when the Project moved in there, that a lot of undesirables came and swiped and vandalized
PC: Yes it was very difficult
LL: It was during the fair
PC: It was very difficult.
CS: Now what year was it then that Woman’s Medical opened? In the 20’s?
LL: Oh, Woman’s Medical - It was in town.
PC: Woman’s Med opened in 18--, oh it’s very old – 18…
RE: Not in the Falls though?
PC: It came up here about 1935?
LL: No, no, earlier than that—’24, ‘25
PC: Up here?
LL: No—you look in the front of the building, darling.
CS: I was thinking it was in the 20’s somehow
LL: Well, it’s in the 20’s—something in the 20’s babe. Oh gosh, I’m on the board and I should know and I don’t know.
PC: When it moved up here.
CS: Was your family involved at the time it opened?
PC: Mother was.
LL: Mother was almost from the inception.
PC: Yes. Well, I think after several of us were born, she really went over there constantly because it was just down the street; it was so nearby.
CS: I read somewhere that also a circus that you used to have at your house—is it a tale or true?
PC: We just did that one year but it was a big circus for the children but that went toward the fete. That money went into the hospital, to the hospital
LL: Mother arranged it. I was too young to remember really — what were you in that circus?
PC: I was the ringleader, dear.
LL: Oh—I was Tom Thumb, probably. And Dixie our niece, our cousin, she was very tiny. Well, she was married to Tom Thumb. We had the Tom Thumb wedding. (laughter)
LL: I was about four and she was three so I don’t know too much about that circus.
PC: Grace, I do remember, Grace was a tightrope walker—except the rope was on the ground - it was laid on the ground.
LL: But she did a beautiful job—she looked the part. And Fordie’s daughter or something who was—he was the Wild Man from Borneo.
PC: Oh certainly.
CS: Who was that?
LL: Fordie, our colored guy, our chauffeur, his son or something was the Wild Man from Borneo (laughter)
CS: Did people pay to get into this?
LL: Oh yes. It was all for the hospital.
CS: And what year would you say?
LL: 1938?
PC: Yes, about 1938.
CS: And it was just your family or did you have friends?
PC: No! All our entire neighborhood was in this. It was big! Oh there were hundreds of people there. In the whole big tennis court. Oh it was a big circus!
LL: All the funeral parlors gave Mother the chairs—Mother could get anything from anybody…
PC: Yes. (laughter)
LL: Any affair—call Charlie McIlvaine for chairs. He was a lovely…
PC: It was a big one.
LL: That was only one year however. Should have done that again.
PC: Maybe we should institute that again before poor Mother dies (laughter)
CS: Where is the house located?
LL: On the corner of Henry Avenue and Coulter Street, yes.
CS: And that’s still there?
PC: Yes, it has been sold.
LL: Mother sold it once and it’s been sold again and I think that’s all. I don’t know who owns it now, I really don’t.
CS: And how long did you live there—did the family own the house?
PC: Yes. Forty-four years, about 44 years.
CS: And it was sold?
PC: Daddy died in 1960 and Mother stayed on. She said as long as she had her little man, Fordie, her little helper, she would stay. And stayed there for a number of years alone. And then when Fordie died, she went.
LL: Twelve years ago Mother sold it.
PC: Yes.
RE: But you had other help in the house. You had a couple.
LL: Yes German help. Mother always had German help.
RE: Because I remember I had gotten a day’s worker who had come over from Germany. She was a—she worked in a hospital, not a nurse, and she was a Christmas gift from Doctor Fieldler’s wife’s mother in Germany. Her mother said, “What do you want for Christmas?” She said, “Somebody to help me with the housework.” And she sent her this girl from the hospital. And she was too heavy a worker and she couldn’t have enough work in the house. So, she, Mrs. Fieldler, asked me if I could use her and I said, “Sure.” And she came up and worked for me and she spoke often of my friends the Kelly’s, meaning the couple. She was friends with them.
LL: Franz and Theresa, the German couple. Well Franz and Theresa. We had one couple, we had Luchese, Mrs. Luchese, who was German.
PC: Was she German or Polish?
LL: Polish-Luchese. And her daughter stayed with us and went and became a doctor at—studied at Medical College.
PC: They were from Ohio
LL: And her mother worked for us and the daughter graduated from Medical College and she stayed with us and then we had Franz and Theresa who were German. Because Mother speaks German.
PC: But then after the war, it was difficult getting the German girls over that Mother used to have all the time. They would learn English quickly and then get married.
RE: So you see Cheri, their life was not like mine.
LL: My life was not like mine, then, too—I know that.