(These tapes were made by Debra Ogden Rose and her brother Kelly when they was interviewing their grandmother Doris Andrew Ogden and, in the 2nd tape, also their great-aunt Helen "Winkie" Andrew. The interviews took place in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

To preserve their contents for posterity, the tapes were later transcribed by Pam Gateley, Kyle Gateley's wife.

(TAPE 1, SIDE 1 recorded March 10, 1985)

DEBRA Well, Kelly and I were talking on the way driving over here and we realized that we don’t even know the names of your parents.

DAO You don’t even know—

Q I mean, I know your Daddy’s name, but I mean, but I can’t call it to mind right now.

DAO Well it’s Fred Andrew and mother is—and there’s some question as to whether Mother is Mother Marie or Mother Mariah.

Q Really?

DAO I think we started calling her Anna Marie or Anna—I think she was really called Anna Marie but Anna was her—

Q Anna, that’s right.

DAO —was her name and they were high school sweethearts.

Q Really? Oh.

DAO And your grandmother waited for your granddaddy to go to college and medical school and get established so he could bring her back. And nine years she waited for him, but she had other chances to get married. And he went out to Michigan—they had moved to Michigan—and he went out to Michigan and married her and brought her back.

Q You mean her family had moved to Michigan and they—but they went to high school—

DAO They went to high school together.

Q In upstate New York?

DAO They—actually they were around—came from around—your grandfather [great grandfather], that is who we’re talking about, my father, just (inaudible) [escaped being] born in a log cabin. His people built a house before he was born. His sister was born, I think, in a log cabin.

Q Hm. Where was that?

DAO Ontario. Lake Ontario.

Q In Canada?

DAO Oh no, Ontario (inaudible) Williamson, Ontario. And he was—I see where—the little [love of] horses comes down the family from him, you know, and one of the stories about his boyhood was that he used to ride the—I suppose they were farm horses—standing up, and he was going to be a circus rider.

Q That’s were it comes from.

DAO Yes, and the neighbors saw him and they were so scandalized that they reported it to his parents and they made him stop. I always liked that story. But you know he always did have a way with horses. He could control the horses. We had this little driving horse named Daisy out on the farm after we moved out there and he ran away with my grandfather and so he didn’t drive her anymore, but Daddy, could just, you know, he had one hand—

Q Um Hum

DAO And he’d wrap the reins around one side of his arm and then he’d have the whip in one hand and then his reins and, boy, he could just handle him just beautifully. And you know the famous story within the family?

Q About the train.

DAO About the train track—being shut on the train track.

Q Please tell the story.

DAO It—‘course he had a horse and buggy when he was first practicing and I think he had Mother and my little brother Alex, who died when he was a baby, but I’m not sure about that. But, anyway, he went to cross the railroad tracks and—what do they call those things?—The horse [gates] came down, you know, and shut him in. And the train was coming. And he couldn’t tell—I think there were two sets of tracks—and he couldn’t tell which track the train was coming on. So he pulled around parallel and he just talked to that horse and he said it just crouched and just shook.

Q That’s incredible.

DAO I think it’s one of the most incredible stories but it really shows what you can do with a horse. And I think that must have been (inaudible.)

Q My mother said something about the first Model T.

DAO Yes, I should tell you too, that your granddaddy [great-grandfather] had a man who drove for him. And he was—the family were friends of ours, too, in fact they, yes, he used to drive for him. He used to come over Sunday nights. And later he was in the real estate business in Rochester. (inaudible) real estate. But, anyway, what the transition was, he finally got rid of the horse and we got this little Model T Ford. And we drove out to Pultneyville for our vacations. And we had Curly, our little Cocker Spaniel. And in those days we had—I think they called it a (inaudible) a box on the dashboard, sort of. And Curly would sit there with his two paws on top of the box and his black ears blowing back in the wind, you know he loved it. And then it got hot so he picked his paws up.

Q Oh God!

DAO And we all rode in it with just a one-seater.

Q So this must have been—

DAO I was a little girl. I would have been—we moved away when I was ten. I mean we moved to the country when I was ten years old. And we used to go to Pultneyville for our vacations and I remember our driving there.

Q So, in other words, that was the time when your father had to have his hand—

DAO Yes. Well, this was before. We had the car in Rochester. I had a—sometime when you’re down at Winkie’s, she’s got an album with pictures that shows the lovely great big old house that we had and it now has a store front on it. 28 South Union Street is still there. What’s behind it, I don’t know. But I drove by it last summer. And 28 South Union is still there. We had a great big lawn with a beautiful elm tree on it and a five bedroom—six bedroom house with the tall ceilings and a croquet court that had holes all the way around the edge so that you could play like billiards, you know, carom, off the side.

Q Carom?

DAO Carom.

Q I think carom, yes.

DAO Carom. And he and a friend of his would literally spend hours playing a scientific game of croquet. And besides that, we had a barn on it and a chute that came down the corner of the barn and that was where the oats came down. Oh, and the other funny thing that reminded your mother of you. She said maybe this was where you got a—when he got this motor car he was curious at first about it, and he took the engine apart and then he put it together again and it started up. He thought he was going backwards and he went forward instead. And your mother said well that must be where Kelly gets his desire to fix everything!

Q Take it apart to look at it anyway.

DAO To change everything, yes. I always remembered that.

Q Well, do you remember as a little girl when you first started seeing these motor cars coming around? I mean , when you were really little, of course,—

DAO I wasn’t very old then, because (inaudible) I don’t know how many years we had it. I really don’t.

Q But do you remember when you didn’t have a motor car?

DAO Oh, yes. Out at the farm we had to drive to school with a horse and buggy. For years. No, we were without a car for years.

Q But then was a car something that people (inaudible) as soon as they could?

DAO We had—I remember one car we had briefly, anyway, that had seats in the back—that had parallel seats. I think you got in at the rear end of it as I recall. I don’t think we had that so very long. But we had a car before Winkie and I went to college. But through grammar school and I would say high school—but for years, anyway, I know. Certainly through grammar school we were driven to school three miles a day and three miles back. And there was a little district schoolhouse right opposite that Terry spoke about this in his letter. He was locating various things, you know. And he also spoke about the stone house which was behind it. He called it a carriage house which sounded very elegant. I wrote back and said the place you called a carriage house was a pigpen. And Daddy turned it into a shop ‘cause we didn’t raise them. No, he turned it into a shop. Oh, I was going to say, you know, most parents would have had us go to that little district school right across. And your granddaddy [great-grandfather] was absolutely determined that his decision to go out to the country would not affect our education. And so we went up to Sodus. And if it was too bad to drive, too much snow, they hitched up a team of horses and a bob sleigh and took us in that.

Q And then he had to come and get you.

DAO And we were a little bit embarrassed when we came—when we had to go home in that. We shouldn’t have been but we were.

Q Because you lived in the country?

DAO Well, the bob sleigh, you know, wasn’t exactly really fancy.

Q It wasn’t the normal means of transportation!

DAO No. Not the way out here you accept driving in a truck wherever you go. Nobody thinks anything about it. Well, it was Helen—it was Winkie and I, I think. We weren’t quite that much of a country life, I guess. I don’t know. But I do remember that we were a little embarrassed. But Daddy saw to it that we got there and then he had to come in again and get us. And if there was going to be a party or something in the evening, he would even drive us there and wait ‘til the party was over to drive us home. Because he felt - he didn’t want us to suffer for his decision.

Q So he became a farmer when you moved out?

DAO Well, yes he had to move out for his health, you see. And I was telling your mother that I think he was the only one. I think the other contemporaries in that area finally lost their lives because they would not consent to an operation. And he chose to lose his hand and take care of his family.

Q How old was he when he lost his hand?

DAO I can’t tell you. He was—

Q Were you very young then?

DAO Oh yes. I remember it very well. It would have been shortly before I was ten years old. You know how he lost it?

Q Um hum.

DAO He—you know how he lost it? That he lectured and used his hand to demonstrate what the x-ray did and they didn’t know that it did any harm. No, he had to move out for his health. And of course he was a surgeon, operating by hand as well as the experimenter. Have you ever seen the article that’s in the encyclopedia?

Q I don’t—well he must have been associated with a University? Or was he in private practice in the city?

DAO Oh, he was the roentgenologist—I think, he instigated [that department], I’m not quite sure, what was called the Rochester General Hospital. And then after when he did move back into Rochester—and this was after I was married and Kith² was a baby, I think. And they came in and stayed with us briefly until they got their own place. But he went back into Rochester—I think he was on the staff at (inaudible) for awhile. I think he was associated with Stafford Warren ⁶, and this writing which was published—he and Staff Warren—it was a juncture [joint effort]—(inaudible) medical paper for a magazine and did some writing which was published. But then when they built the Monroe County High School—the Monroe County Hospital—he designed the x-ray (inaudible) [department] and was the roentgenologist until he died.

Q In his eighties?

DAO Eighty-eight.

Q Eighty-eight.

DAO I think he was working right up to about six weeks before he died. Which I think is pretty marvelous.

Q So then he—you moved from Rochester because of his hand?

DAO Oh yes.

Q So he had problems other then just his hand?

DAO Uh, yes, his other hand was affected and several times he had to have just little minor operations on that hand. And I always remember that he finally lost the tip—had to lose the tip of his index finger. And he learned to do absolutely everything. I never knew anything like it. He could tie his own shoes and he just did everything. And it always amazed me. And it made me very unsympathetic for people that come around because they’ve got a little handicap of some kind (inaudible). Because I had this example of my father. No, he said that what really bothered him—he couldn’t fasten his collar button. Then he lost the tip of that finger. No, he had to go out for his health. And at first—he was a farmer’s son—he raised beautiful fruit. He did beautiful fruit. That made him raise beautiful fruit. But he ran the business (inaudible) and he eventually lost the farm. And that was when he went back in (inaudible) [the medical profession].

Q Did he work as a doctor at all when he was on the farm?

DAO Oh, he was called upon a great deal, yes. Somebody said at the time that all the chronically ill people—and here was a new doctor that came in from town, you know—and all the chronically ill people came to him. And he did practice. He had an office in town for awhile, but then he finally went back to Rochester.

Q Well, that’s how he had those carpets [carved furniture?] down there.

DAO The what?

Q The chair and the coat rack and—

DAO Oh, that was way back before we even left Rochester.

Q Oh?

DAO Oh, yes. That was—they were designed for the I suppose you would call a foyer now. We had a hall—a front hall in this house where we lived and all that furniture, especially the carpet, was especially designed for that. It had the hall rack, the table, the settee, and one chair. And there was supposed to be—he was supposed to do one more chair, a smaller chair, and one would be Daddy’s and one would be Mother’s but it was all designed for that one room. And he [a patient] did the carving to pay his bill.

Q And it was a German?

DAO German. I assume that Daddy [paid], you know, for the expense of it, I think he just did the carving. I think it’s a very interesting tale.

Q So then after awhile his health really improved.

DAO Well, yes. All that happened was that these little minor things—his hands were there. His right hand was very rough. His skin and his nails were very bad. They had been affected. But other than that, he was—

Q So he was one of the very early experimenters with x-ray along with other people, colleagues of his, and what he did was lecture. And he went around the country?

DAO Well, it was to be—he lectured to raise money for the x-ray department of the General Hospital. And your Grammy [great-grandmother] was a member of the (inaudible) what do they call it—Twig [a club]—which worked to raise money for the hospital. And Mother was the secretary of that at one time. And we have her secretary’s book.

Q Do you?

DAO I’ve always thought it should be turned over to the society. I think Winkie has it. I think it should be. No that was what he did but—

Q Do you remember that time as a child like when he—when all this was happening?

DAO When he lost his hand?

Q And obviously your parents—it must have been a really traumatic situation.

DAO Oh I remember it very well. Because I remember sitting on the stairs and crying. He played the flute before he lost his hand. And I used to accompany him. And oh, he was very gracious about it. And that was when—and then I heard he just lost his hand, was losing his hand, and he wouldn’t be able to play his flute. And I remember sitting on the stairs crying.

Q Interesting.

DAO And then later on the farm—I think it was his fiftieth birthday—to answer your question about how old we were. I think it was his fiftieth birthday out in the country—in the country—that we gave him, the family all contributed and give him what was called a mellophone which was a modified French horn which you could play with one hand. It had just three keys. And Mother—I just remember it so well—and Mother, we all gathered around the dinner table. And Mother was our "Toast Mistress." My mother. And everybody responded with (inaudible.) And Mother did the whole thing. She held it together. And that was the—and he brought music down to Sodus. He directed a group of people who sang and he brought a little orchestra that—I think it was a church in Rochester—they would come down and give programs. He brought a lot of music into Sodus.

Q Do you remember his parents, your grandparents?

DAO I never knew his father. But I knew Grandma Andrew. She didn’t play any great part in my life. She lived in Ontario and we lived in Rochester. And, of course, we went out and she came in. And I remember one episode. She didn’t approve of smoking. And Daddy used to like to smoke a cigar when he came home (inaudible.) And he came home one night and I ran and got him his cigar and he said, well I guess not tonight, Grandma was there. She wouldn’t approve of it, so I was a little taken aback. Because I thought I was being so nice.

Q Did his father die before you were old enough to—

DAO Oh yes. I’ve never really known, clearly, what happened to him. I don’t know what caused his death. Grandma Andrew came home from having been out somewhere and just sat down in her rocking chair and was removing her things or something. She just quietly died. I thought it was a wonderful way to go.

Q Was he a farmer?

DAO Uh, yes, they were farmers. Daddy’s people were really quite well-to-do as farmers. But Grandma believed in a child’s being humiliated and, you know, and kept a shirt too short in the sleeves, you know, or something like that. And she believed that that was good for the child’s ego. And Daddy was a very shy boy and one of the things he told us was—I think it must have been starting high school or something, it was starting a new school anyway. And he went the first day at opening time and he was so shy that he never went in. And so the next day he went and sat on the steps until the school opened and then he went in.

Q Now, did he have brothers and sisters?

DAO He had Aunt Ella, a sister. And I think there was one who died, too. [died in 1884 at age 16] But Aunt Ella I remember. That was his sister.

Q Do you remember anything about her?

DAO Oh yes. I remember her. I remember going out to the country to visit there and she had one of those dolls that had a china head and china curls and we were allowed to play with it. It was also out there—another memory—was they had browning ovens, you know, over the stoves, the old-fashioned stoves. And she was cooking a turkey and it exploded.

Q Oh!

DAO Blew it up—I remember that.

Q The turkey exploded!

DAO The steam inside of it or something and it jumped out (inaudible)

Q (Laughing) That would be (inaudible.) Now did she marry and have children?

DAO Oh, yes. She had one boy.

Q Do you remember who she married?

DAO I don’t. We were not very close. I don’t remember. It seems to me—but I know she didn’t have any family of her own and whatever she had went to her husband’s family, I think. Cousin Carrie. Of course, they were—our cousins were all quite a bit older than Winkie and I. Mother was the youngest of five girls. And also Mother was not married until she was twenty eight. And there were several years, I think, before Alex was born. And then after he died, I think it was something like five years before Winkie was born. So you see they were quite—

Q So your father was—

DAO And Daddy was about two or three years older than Mother.

Q So he was probably almost forty or around there.

DAO I’m not quite sure but that’s approximate, I mean the length of time. But I think it was quite—I think it was about five years. Maybe it was six. Winkie would probably know for sure. And then I was about a year and a half later. So Winkie and I are very close. I was supposed to be a boy. Winkie was supposed to be a boy.

Q Got to have those boys!

DAO And I still maintain there’s nothing sweeter than a baby girl.

Q Aww—well—

DAO There’s nothing sweeter than a baby girl!

Q I agree. And Barb’s going to have a baby girl.

DAO I think so too. Do you think so?

Q Yes.

DAO I do too. So does your mother—or so does— I don’t know what your mother thinks. But I understand Ned wants a boy. (Laughing.)

Q So your brother Alex he had a—what did he have, tuberculosis?

DAO Well, no. It was called cholera infantum. And I haven’t any doubt in my mind but what it would have been curable in the modern—in this day and age. All I remember hearing was that they found his tooth marks in a green pear or green apple that some neighbor had given him. That’s all I—that’s all I—

Q And he died before you were—

DAO Before Winkie was born.

Q He was a year and a half old or something?

DAO He was fifteen months.

Q Was that really ever talked about? Did you parents ever talk to you about it?

DAO Well, I just knew about it, you know, but I think—no they didn’t stress that. And I remember Daddy saying once well probably if Alex had grown up, he would have been off to war. If he had lived. So—but it must have been a very, very traumatic experience.

Q And, of course, they were living in Rochester at the time?

DAO Oh yes. Daddy had his—we had this big house and he had his offices there and the waiting room which was really the library. And really my mother, an interesting thing that I remember, was that he had what was called a static machine. And I can remember it so well. A great big—it stood on four legs and it was glass. And it had the two brass balls. And when he turned it around—turned around the blue flakes went back and forth. I remember it just like—

Q Oooh. I remember some of those back in science.

DAO Do you?

Q Yes. Just really small ones.

DAO Oh, well this was, oh probably at least as long as that table. And it was in his office. And it was just a real picture.

Q So, your mother moved to Michigan just shortly after she got out of school?

DAO Yes. While Daddy was still studying. She—after she graduated from high school—and there was a little story about her and I never knew whether it was true or not. But she was—there was never drinking in the family—in our family, I mean. We had cider which turned, but that’s the only thing I remember. But anyway, the story is she was going to have to play in a recital or something and she was so nervous that somebody gave her a little swig of whiskey.

Q (Laughing.)

DAO She got to her recital all right. But whether that’s true or not, I take no responsibility. I never knew her to drink. But anyway, that was the story. But then she graduated from music school and then she taught. And she had a little pony and a cart that she drove. The pony’s name was Nellie. And she drove to her lessons. And Daddy would have been around then. Well, he went to the University of Rochester, of course. But, anyway, she could not ride the pony. The pony tossed her every time. Daddy would get on and just no trouble. (Laughing) But I always loved that, driving a pony to give music lessons.

Q So where did she go to music school?

DAO It was called Edgar Sherwood [?] Music School. It was a year I think (inaudible). She had a lovely, lovely touch on the piano.

Q Now, her parents, your grandparents on that side?

DAO They were the ones that lived with us out at the farm. I mean they had their own living—they had their own sitting room and bedroom, but they had their meals with us. And Grandpa used to for awhile at one time do some of the driving with the horses on the farm.

Q What did he do? What was—

DAO They were farmers. He was a farmer.

Q So what drew them to Michigan? So they went to Michigan shortly after your mother got out of music school?

DAO Well, I’ve never really tried to get—pin myself down to—would you say chronology, is that the right word? Just when everything happens. These are the pictures—these are the stories that have come down and the pictures that I have in my mind when I was little. It was Mother, you know, my mother was an invalid for years and the (inaudible) [collapse] of Daddy’s business was very, very hard on her.

Q An invalid?

DAO Oh yes. She was very definitely an invalid. I don’t know if it was tied in with us or with the change of life, you know, the menopause, I don’t know. That was when—you heard of cousin Lora?

Q Yes. I remember cousin Lora.

DAO You do?

Q I remember cousin Lora.

DAO Well you know she moved out to the country with us to help.

Q I would have remembered her. (Inaudible) little girl wouldn’t I? Wasn’t she still around?

DAO Well, I—yes. She came back and lived in a [Methodist] home in Newark and I used to go out every so often visiting out there.

Q I remember visiting cousin Lora at the house.

DAO Yes. And then she—when Winkie and Grammy moved down to New York, to Long Island [she went] to be a companion to Mother, really, to take care of her and sort of run the house.

Q So she did—

DAO She was Daddy’s office nurse in Rochester. And then when he lost his hand she moved out to the country with us. And that was when Mother was very much of an invalid. I can remember her just lying around.

Q So cousin Lora also lived at the house, then? (inaudible.)

DAO Yes, she was the office nurse there, Daddy’s office nurse.

Q And then your two grandparents on your mother’s side lived there?

DAO Not in Rochester.

Q No, but when you all moved out.

DAO Oh, when we moved out, then Lora went too.

Q So did your mother actually recover?

DAO Yes. Yes she had an amazing—well she was the one that used to say that she would get up in the morning—well I don’t remember whether it was that she didn’t feel like tipping the world or that she did feel like tipping the world. I think that was it. And she was very, very quick on the rebound if she had any—you know she’d be ill one day and then up the next. And I was telling your mother that when we were in college we had our laundry boxes that we sent home and then Mother did all our laundry. And then it would come back out beautifully sorted and folded and I found a gray hair in it and I cried. I remember going to see (inaudible.) And another thing that I’ve treasured, you know, we never—we were rarely alone at the farm. Well just really practically never. I mean Mother and Daddy and Aunt Winkie and I. There was, of course there were grandparents there and then Aunt Clara and that’s Mother’s sister. She was the sister who when her sister fell asleep on the carpet, Aunt Clara sewed her down.

Q (Laughing) What?

DAO And the other thing that she did that I remember was that she had—Ned had a pair of shorts that needed mending—under shorts—and she mended them for him. And when she returned them to me she had sewed [ruffles on them] (Laughing) But anyway, she used to come down, of course, because her parents were there, you see.

Q And she was your aunt?

DAO She was my aunt. She was there a great deal. I remember he [referring to great-uncle, Bert Wells] loved boats and he built boats. He built a motor boat. And he used to keep it down in the creek on the farm there. And it was in one of his motor boats that we took Betty across Sodus Bay when she was two weeks old, I think. Three weeks old.

Q Oh.

DAO And then there was the hired help, you know. People have to keep a hired hand. And I remember one of our close friends, Margaret Sentell (?) and family, said that she always remembered that Mother never compromised on the table. The tablecloth was always smoothed out. The table was carefully set out of how many people under one roof. She never compromised. I thought that was—

Q So it sounds like you were saying that you had a lot of other people—

DAO Yes. And we just used to wish so much that it would be just the four of us. But it was, you know, it was the way it was. And it had its good things too. And besides that we had at two different times, we had a young man who came and worked for Daddy. They were Cornell graduates. And one Elden Barress(?) was—we were particularly fond of. And I guess that Daddy was almost a father to him. I learned that in later years from him. I didn’t realize it. He was a University of Rochester (inaudible) which your grandmother was. And he came and called on me when I was living—we were living on Kilbourn Road. And we had another one that was from New York. We didn’t think so much of him as we did Elden. But it was from him that they called your little finger a "pinkie." (Laughter.) So they, of course, they lived in, you see. So it made a big family.

Q So your grandparents on your mother’s side were very much a part of your life?

DAO Uh, yes. I don’t think that they were a part of my daily living but I never felt close to them really. I can remember my grandmother—we had a big cozy green chair in the living room. And I remember being all curled in it reading. And Grandma walked through and she glanced over at me and gave me the most disapproving look ‘cause she thought I ought to be out helping my mother or something.

Q Oh.

DAO And I remember that I just kind of squirmed a little and I settled right in and kept on reading. (Laughing.) That—I used to—I can’t—Dear, these things keep coming. Tell me to stop when I should.

Q No!

DAO But she had quite a tummy. And I used to sit on her lap and play the piano. (Laughter.)

Q So your grandfather helped out your father to a point.

DAO They, as I understand it and I didn’t know this for a long time, I believe they turned over what money they had to Daddy and Mother. And in return, Daddy kept care of them for the rest of their lives. And he did raise beautiful fruit. And I can remember he did grafting. I can remember his cutting the sides and putting some of the (inaudible.) And oh, there’s so much, Dear, there’s so many memories. Getting up in the morning, bright and early, to go out and see how many lambs had been born and whether a colt had been born. I think that it really, you know, had a tremendous influence on my life. My love of country. And we had this creek that ran at the bottom of the hill. The house was on a hill and a creek ran at the bottom of the hill. And then farther up south, there was a lovely waterfall. And in the spring of the year we used to walk up the creek on the stepping stones and pick violets along the way and walk up toward the falls. And my room was in the corner of the house toward the falls. And I’d go to sleep at night and listen to the falls. Lovely. There were more water falls then (inaudible.) They were really (inaudible.)

Q That’s like in later years, when you listened to the lake. And the waves.

DAO Yes.

Q (Inaudible.)

DAO Yes. I don’t hear them as much now that the cabin is moved back as I did when it was right on the edge. But—(inaudible) lovely memories. So when we—when I got—when we were in college, we used to every spring year when some nice lovely day came, we would just pick up and take the train out to Sodus and walk the three miles to the farm and surprise Mother and Daddy and spend the weekend. That was one of the nice things we did.

Q So how did you and Granddaddy meet?

DAO Hm?

Q How did you and Granddaddy meet?

DAO In college. He came back from the war in my senior year. And he was supposed to have graduated the year before. I mean ordinarily if he hadn’t gone into the service he would have been a year ahead of me. But of course we finished together. And believe it or not, because in this day and age, you would be—you could hardly be able to believe it. In those days you really needed to be introduced and his mother and father lived next door to very good friends of my mother and father.

Q Um hum.

DAO And he wanted to meet me. And so the friends next door wrote him a little note of introduction to give to me.

DAO What did you do?

Q I just turned the tape over.

DAO You turned it off?

Q I turned it over.

DAO Oh.

Q Then you dated or courted each other for three years—or you were engaged to him for three years?

DAO Oh, no. No, we were engaged three years. No, I was mad at him a large part of the year.

(Laughter.)

Q The first year that you met?

DAO The year that we met, yes. And then he wrote me an awfully nice letter. And we were engaged on the shores of Honeoye Lake. He—it was Memorial Day. And his father was supposed to have given a talk, a Memorial Day talk, and he couldn’t make it. And he sent your Daddy—your Daddy—my—your Daddy, yes—

Q Granddaddy.

DAO Yes. to take his place. And he and his mother⁴⁵ and (inaudible) I think—well anyway—no I guess maybe he—well anyway, they went out and she came back. But friends of ours from college who had a car came out and the four of us had a picnic after his speech, his maiden speech. After that, the four of us went down to the shores of Lake Ontario [Honeoye Lake] for a picnic. Two of them wandered off and the other two became engaged. (Laughter.)

Q And that was—what time—how long ago?

DAO That was my senior year which was 1920. And then we were engaged. Then he graduated and he went to Harvard and I went to Normal School and studied kindergarten. And he graduated three years later, passed his bar exams, and was taken into the law firm of Judge Spencer^X7. And we were married in October. And his pay after four years of college and three years of law school—guess what his pay was? $28.85 a month—a week. And I earned more money than he did. I taught half time and I got $90.00 a month for teaching half time.

Q Hum! (Inaudible)

DAO (Laughing) It’s unbelievable, isn’t it!

Q Three years, boy, four years of college and three years of Harvard Law School! (Inaudible) Well, I think we would like to keep on the period before you were married before we start talking about that because I (inaudible) picture of that time.

DAO Well—

Q I think just, I mean, just the fact of how you went to school—that in itself is pretty unusual of women of that time. I would think. I mean just the fact that you went to college.

DAO Well, that was just—Debbie, I’m just amazed of the circumstances that Dad sent us to college. We each won a state scholarship. Winkie did when she graduated and I did.

Q Now, where did you graduate from?

DAO Sodus High School.

Q You were still in Sodus High School.

DAO Yes. And then the other thing that I think was very unusual, too, was that was my father’s sending me to Normal School when I was engaged to be married. Because he said he wanted me to have something to fall back on. And I thought that was very, you know, not the usual.

Q No it isn’t especially since you were going to be married.

DAO Especially a girl.

Q Since you were engaged to be married.

DAO Yes and I was engaged to be married.

Q Well, did Aunt Winkie go to college?

DAO Oh, yes.

Q She went immediately upon graduation and then you followed. You were a year behind her?

DAO I was just one year behind her.

Q Okay. So she went ahead by—

DAO She graduated in ‘19 and I graduated in ‘20. And she went on and had—was one year ahead of me in college. And—but when she graduated, she went right into teaching junior high kids—these great big—and she had an awful year. You know, she was just fresh out of—with no experience and she—it was a miserable—and she gave it up. And she went back and lived at the (inaudible) [probably farm] for awhile and taught violin.

Q Interesting.

DAO And then she finally decided to get back to teaching and that was—she went back. I think she went to (inaudible) first and then shortly after that (inaudible.) And she was a very successful teacher but not a dedicated one. I just hand it to her (inaudible.) Your Daddy and I were both very proud of Winkie when she did it that way. She had a lot of heartache. She had really a marvelous life. You know that magazine, Dear, is just being recognized all over the country. [The Walt Whitman Museum's Westhills Review]

Q Oh really.

DAO She said that the manuscripts for this next one have just poured in from prestigious people.

Q Um hum. Interesting.

DAO But she didn’t hold (inaudible.) Do you know the problem with that? I don’t know that you do. Well that the magazine, the board has been very obnoxious. They have tried to take over and handle things. And they’re not going to—the editing staff is—was acting like (inaudible.)

Q Oh dear.

DAO And here I just—

Q Well, let’s not digress to that!

DAO (Laughs.)

Q That is odd. That’s—everyone wants to get their little fingers involved I suppose.

DAO It seems so strange when they’ve got such a successful thing on their hands.

Q Well when you went to college, I mean, it’s probably different than now. Did you live in a dorm?

DAO No, there were no dorms.

Q Did you live with a family?

DAO We lived—we rented a room and you usually had breakfast.

Q With a family?

DAO Well, by ourselves or however and then we had dinners out. And it was not—that’s not a good thing. You know a dormitory’s much better to live on campus and have a campus life.

Q But I suppose there—

DAO Well, there were no campus—there were no dormitories for women. There were fraternity houses for men and I guess—yes, because Daddy was—well your grandfather⁵⁴ was a (inaudible) too. Your grandfather [great-grandfather] and your daddy [grandfather] were both Alpha Delta Phi's. I have the certificate. Two of them. One’s (inaudible.)

Q Well it just seem to me that that was a very, like you said, a very unusual thing for a father to have done that—to send both of his daughters to college.

DAO And with that, Dear, we went back to Rochester for music lessons.

Q While you were living in Sodus?

DAO While we were living in Sodus, we went back to the same teacher that we had—I began—I was only five years old when I began studying. And Winkie was six or seven—six years old. And I studied off and on until I was well into high school. And Daddy would drive us to the (inaudible.)[trolley]

Q Was that once a week or once a month?

DAO Oh, I really don’t remember how often it was, Dear. But I remember her. She had studied in Berlin. Miss Sperber [?].

Q Did your mother work with you?

DAO Mother practiced. She sat down with both of us every day.

Q So Mother said something about this Mrs. Davis. She got my curiosity up about Mrs. Davis.

DAO I’m very curious to know why she happened to mention—we did mention her yesterday but I wonder why it stuck in her mind. Because I guess she either remembered her—I don’t know. She was a wonderful person. But that’s all I can tell you. I mean I really treasured having really known her, you know, because her outlook was wonderful. And she had—went back to covered wagon days.

Q Was this a friend of your parents?

DAO She was the mother of—well actually, Dan Peeler. Dr. Peeler was a baby specialist in Rochester, and Jean Peeler [his wife]. His—Dan’s older brother was in the war with your daddy [grandfather]. That was the contact. He let him know when he knew his brother was coming to Rochester and that’s how he met Dan Peeler. And we spent a fair amount of time—and actually in later years, he took care of the girls when they had their children things. And Mrs. Davis was Jean’s mother and she lived with them. And she had a lot of respect.

Q Did she tell you stories about—

DAO Well she told us about her experiences, yes. Well you know my life has covered the span of just having a telephone—new. And in those days we had to have two phones. We had a bell phone and a home phone, Daddy did, because he was a doctor you see. And there were the two systems so he had to have them both so that anybody could call him no matter what system they were on.

Q Oh, because there were two systems?

DAO There were two systems—home and back.

Q Oh! Huh!

DAO So we had two telephones.

Q Uh huh. And when—do you remember when your first phone came?

DAO Well, I always remember that there were phones.

Q Okay, yes.

DAO And that and then the coming of the car. And my grandfather was afraid to ride in the car.

Q Really?

DAO Yes, Grandpa was. He was apprehensive about riding in the car.

Q And wasn’t your mother afraid of the phone?

DAO She didn’t, yes. Well they were very new, you know. They were very new.

Q And she just didn’t understand what it was all about?

DAO Well, I don’t know. It—she had—we had a maid at $3.00 a week. And Aunt Winkie has the door bell that mother used to use to summon the maid. You rang a little bell.

Q Was she a person that had come from Rochester to you or was she—

DAO No, this was all in Rochester. This is before Daddy moved out, you see. Before—I have very clear pictures of some of the rooms in that big old house they had. The big master bedroom had a gas fireplace set up. And as I recall we used to roast marshmallows. And our little dog, he had a red felt slipper that he used to play with. He was acquired in Rochester. And he did not die until I went to college.

Q Really? And he was the one that rode around in the car?

DAO Yes.

Q (Inaudible.)

DAO He was supposed to be Winkie’s and my dog but Daddy was the one who used to make him mind. And he was Daddy’s. I remember—that’s another memory I had. When Daddy came out of the hospital and Curly was so happy he came home and he started to jump on him and somebody stopped him because Daddy wasn’t very strong. (Inaudible.)

Q So you think that moving to the country was probably very hard on your mother?

DAO Oh yes. You see she had waited nine years for Daddy to get established, and she didn’t think she was marrying a farmer. She thought she was marrying a physician.

Q Hum.

DAO Daddy was unusual in the fact that he took care of the people he loved. So many times doctors do not want to take care of, you know, family. He operated on his sister, for cancer, that never came back. And when I broke my arm which I did when I was a little girl and fell off my bike. I broke my elbow. And he had another physician in to sew it. And he said when it got right down to it, he said I just had to do it myself. So he asked—the other man was a senior physician, but he said he just had to do it. And he did a good job of it.

Q Did I miss something? (Debra) Grandmommy was saying that how her father took care of the people in the family, which is kind of unusual sometimes because a physician won’t take care of his own people. (Kelly) Oh, okay. (Debra) And he operated on his sister?

DAO Yes, for cancer. And it didn’t come back. And he also, if you read the article you would know, he first developed the—or suggested, I guess, the use of x-rays in dental work. I remember after I graduated—way after—it must have been my fiftieth reunion. And I saw a contemporary from, you know, from my class who was a dentist. And he said, you know, your father was the one that did that.

Q Really? Wow!

DAO Incidentally, it’s not of the past, but in a way, but I was reading—I get the—I belong to the United Nations Rochester Association that your Granddaddy was president of at one time. And I’m very loyal to it for his sake partly, and partly because I love it. But anyway, they were reviewing past history of your Daddy’s—your Granddaddy’s manuscripts. He was first vice-president of one of the very initial organizations that set up the United Nations (inaudible.) Oh, one other thing that we used to do was to have camping parties on the farm, in the woods and the lake. And they were real camping parties because we slept in a tent. [back at the Sodus farm]

Q Oh!

DAO And we had—this was during college. And some of our friends would come down. Boys, local boys—or the boy that Winkie was engaged to at one time. But anyway, Mother would make a delicious—cook a chicken and gravy and biscuits and everything and bring it all down to us. (Laughter.)

Q That’s a rough night. A rough—so this was when you were in college? And then you would come back and do things like that?

DAO We did that. We did that and then—now what year—you know the years. I have to separate them into the years. We had one camping party and it must have been before I met Ned. So it must have been, you know—of course I didn’t meet him until my senior year. But anyway, we were driving somewhere, I guess to Sodus, and the boy that was on the wheel—and I was on the front seat with him—got to playing with the car. And we came to a very big turn. And we lost control of the car and went off in the field and landed in a ditch. That’s where I got my scar.

Q Oh! Had it been one quarter of an inch in one direction or the other, none of us would be here, right?

DAO It was very close to my jugular vein. And I cut both knees open. And the boy that was in the back seat went through the roof!

Q Good grief! I’ll bet your father—

DAO Or his head went through the roof, anyway.

Q I’ll bet your father wasn’t very happy with that.

DAO Well he wasn’t very happy over the doctor that sewed up my cut.

Q Really?

DAO He just kind of drew it together. Well I have the kind of skin that has a little ridge—what do they call it that you get?

Q Scars of (inaudible.)

DAO What?

Q Your skin scars easily?

DAO I don’t—yes. It doesn’t smooth out into a smooth scar.

Q So how big was your farm?

DAO I think it was one hundred and seventy-two acres.

Q Hum. That was big.

DAO With a creek on the side. (Inaudible) woods.

Q And you raised sheep?

DAO Yes. And he also went into chickens and had a chicken house that had electricity so you’d turn it on so they’d lay more eggs.

Q Huh. Did your mother become very involved with the workings of the farm? When she got there?

DAO No. She didn’t do anything except in the house. No she was not really a, you know, not a farmer I don’t think. No she didn’t do anything.

Q Although she grew up on a farm?

DAO Yes.

Q Herself.

DAO Yes. I believe so.

Q You said her parents were farmers.

DAO Yes. I don’t think about it. She was—there are some dear tales about her. She had a little silk dress, or something. And they found her making mud pies in her little silk dress as a little girl. (Laughter.)

Q I suppose our rebelliousness comes down through her! (Laughter.) Right. Well I like the story about the—

DAO I think she also tried—I think she—if I’m not mistaken she also tried rolling up a little cigarette—you know they used—

Q Oh my! Oh mercy!

DAO I think so. I’d better check that with Winkie. Maybe that shouldn’t go on the records but it seems to me—but I remember her making mud pies.

Q But it was her sister, your aunt, that sewed the ruffles on—

DAO Sewed the ruffles on your Dad’s—on your Granddad—

Q And sewed her other sister to the floor. (Laughter.) And what happened to those sisters?

DAO Well Aunt Clara never married. But there was an Aunt Ella on both sides. Daddy’s sister was named Ella and Mother’s next oldest sister—Mother was the youngest—then Aunt Ella. Then there was Aunt Clara and then there was Aunt Alice. And Aunt Alice was the oldest, of course, and she was cousin Lora’s mother. And she had two brothers, Gilbert [Elbert] and Lester [Leslie]. And that was Aunt Alice. Aunt Clara didn’t marry. And Aunt Ella—I think Aunt Ella had about four children and then they went West. And we lost—well Winkie and I are the only ones left. All our cousins were much older than we were because Mother was the youngest and she married so late.

Q Waited so long.

DAO So there were—for instance Lora was our cousin but she was much older (inaudible.) And Aunt Ella’s family, as I say, moved West. She was supposed to have married—made a good match but he didn’t turn out to be such a—much of a husband I guess.

Q In what way was he—?

DAO I can’t tell you.

Q You don’t really remember the exact name?

DAO There was Uncle Harve—and I think he was—you know I’m not sure which Aunt Ella’s husband he was, whether it was on Mother’s side—but we didn’t like him.

Q Oh.

DAO Well he was the kind that thought his children ought to take care of him. That was—and—

DAO Well, that’s quite a sound there!

Q It’s just the beginning.

DAO Just the beginning? What happens next?

(Again the tape was turned off, then continues with an answer.)

DAO —never allowed to go to a public dance. And they gave private dances in those days and we would go to those. But Daddy would never allow us to go to a public place to dance. And you know after I grew up and I went someplace with your Daddy [grandfather] to a public dance and I looked around at what I saw there and I thought well maybe Daddy would (inaudible.) (Laughter.) It was very interesting. Yet I never fought, you know, unduly so. I mean I don’t think it rebounded to my detriment or anything. I think it was probably very good.

Q So, I mean, obviously probably both your parents put a lot of value on your education and coaching and—did that—

DAO We had lots of music, you know, because—

Q Especially from your mother.

DAO Well no, Mother didn’t play very much.

Q But yet she taught music?

DAO Well, but that was when she—before ever she was married. And by the time—no she didn’t—but when she did we used to just love it. Because—no she didn’t. She really didn’t play very much. And—but Daddy just did love it—music. And my Grandfather Hunt, I have been told, had got up out of bed one night when we were playing. And he got up—he’d gone to bed—and he got up and came out to listen to the music. So I think he must have had a real love of music too. And but we had Daddy’s—as I say he played the mellophone when he lost his hand. And Winkie played the violin. And then we had people who came down—my father when he was in college in Rochester, directed the choir in the Methodist Church in Rochester. So it was—and as I told you we brought a lot of music down to Sodus. And Winkie and I played at a graduation in the opera house [in Sodus], she and I. She played violin and I played piano. That was the year that Ned’s father died [1922]. (Inaudible.) That of course was (inaudible.) Your Granddaddy was supposed to fall in love with me when I had the part in the play.

Q Oh!

DAO I had the lead in the college play in my senior year.

Q You had the lead? What were you?

DAO Prunella.

Q Prunella?

DAO Yes. A real Prunella! (Laughing.) That was the name of it. I have a picture of the newspaper article in my kitchen.

Q Oh, you have that? I’d love to see that!

DAO I’ll have to get it out. I have it filed away—clipped the newspaper. Do you want me to get it out now?

Q No, I don’t think you should do that. Well—

DEBRA This is the second session, March 24th, 1985.

DAO It wasn’t on then, was it?

Q No it wasn’t. It’s on now.

DAO It’s on now.

Q Well, anyway, Kelly and I were just thinking that maybe we should save more of the discussion about your parents until Aunt Winkie gets here. And then we can have a discussion between all four of us about that. And maybe we should start around—talking like around the college years and when you met Granddaddy and all the years (inaudible.) (Kelly) Some story that you know of Granddaddy before you two met. (Debra) Yes, maybe talk a little bit about Granddaddy’s past.

DAO Well, of course I—

Q Granddaddy meaning "Ned."

DAO Yes. Well I don’t—you know I didn’t know him until he was in college..

Q Right.

DAO So that was the only story, really, that I know about him was when his parents bought the little old Ford—I guess a Ford Touring. And he just went and picked it up and drove it home without any instructions or anything if you can imagine—

Q No I can’t.

DAO Imagine a lack of traffic and to be able to pick up a car and drive it?

Q Uh huh.

DAO That’s what he did. So—

Q This when he was a young age?

DAO He would have been—oh I suppose he was of age to drive.

Q If they even had ages.

DAO Well, I don’t know. I don’t suppose you had—I don’t suppose you had to have a license then. And his father, they always said, couldn’t even drive a nail straight. He had no skills with his hands.

Q And this was his—

DAO No, his own father. He was a minister, a Methodist minister.

Q Now didn’t he have a stepfather?

DAO Yes. Papa Briggs was his stepfather. So I don’t—and I lived with them after I was engaged to your—let me get this straight—engaged to your grandfather. And the three boys were all off at school and they had a big house on Dartmouth Street. And I was going to Normal School. And they invited me to live with them. So I really treasured that time because I got to know, particularly, his mother.

Q And this was in Rochester?

DAO Um hum.

Q And who was his mother?

DAO Gertrude. Katherine Gertrude.

Q Oh.

DAO Kith’s named for her.

Q So it was Gertrude—

DAO Katherine Gertrude Mikels.

Q Mikels.

DAO Ogden Briggs.

Q Briggs! (Laughter.) And his father’s name?

DAO And his father’s name was Horace Greeley. And of course your cousin—your mother’s first cousin’s name is Horace Greeley. He was named for him.

Q So Horace Greeley Ogden was his name.

DAO Um hum.

Q And then—

DAO And his—Grandma Ogden I knew—his widow. [now referring to EMO’s mother] And she made pinwheels with raisins in them and they were delicious! And on a minister’s salary, you can image what that would have been. Three children all went to college. [These three are Jesse, Edward and Terrence; the following three are their father and his brother and sister:] And that would be Horace Greeley⁴³ and James Ogden and Ella—wait a minute and Aunt Ella, yes, who married Dr. Duvall. Dr. Duvall—he was chairman of the philosophy department, I think, at Ohio Wesley [Wesleyan]. And he was the one that married your Daddy and me—your Granddaddy and me because Daddy Ogden had died. So he was the one—I don’t know—I don’t think I told you that story either. That we didn’t want to have in the ceremony to "love, honor, and obey." And he made a mistake and without thinking, of course it was routine, and he said that and he quick crossed his fingers behind the microphone. This was Uncle Trum we called him. And one of the guests there saw him cross his fingers. (Laughing.) It was kind of fun.

Q So you knew Granddaddy’s father.

DAO I knew Granddaddy—I knew Dr. Ogden. He was Dr. Ogden.

Q But he died before you were married?

DAO Yes. He married Uncle Jess and Aunt Helen.

Q When did he die? [1922]

DAO Well he had an operation and we always felt that the surgeon wasn’t too—he was a member of this church.

Q Why did he die?

DAO It shouldn’t have happened.

Q Really? What did he have the operation for?

DAO Well it was—I think it was a kidney or gall stones or something like that. (Inaudible.)

Q Fairly routine?

DAO Yes. It never should have happened.

Q Routine operation. That would have been in 1920 or so?

DAO I was in college. No, it would have been earlier than that because I remember getting the word that he had died. Aunt Winkie and I were playing for graduation exercises. I think we were playing in the opera house there in Sodus—the graduation exercises when we got the word. And I got away, I guess, the very next day I went down to Albany to be with him [Edward Ogden].

Q Do you remember that time?

DAO Do I remember?

Q Um hum. It must have been pretty traumatic.

DAO Oh I should say. I do remember very well. Just a little thing. I remember Mummy, we called her, going by the table—dining room table that was set—and her housewifely instinct, you know, I can just see her. Took her hand and smoothed the tablecloth right there. You knew her heart was just breaking, you know. But that little housewifely gesture came out. It was a pretty sad thing.

Q How did Granddaddy deal with that? Was he close to his father or—

DAO Well, I think so. I don’t think—you know they had the—the three boys and their father sang in a quartet. They all sang together. I think they were all very congenial. 'Course it took Uncle Jesse—I don’t how many colleges he went to but a number of them before he finally graduated. (Laughing.) But he—I think the story was they read Shakespeare to him, I think, when he was about three years old or something.

Q Really?

DAO Yes. And he was one of these people that had so many talents that he didn’t find his niche, really, until World War One [World War Two]. And then he really did. He made a wonderful success at it. In fact, I believe, (inaudible) what’s the other one? There’s two different ones (inaudible.)

Q Now Granddaddy is the middle son?

DAO Yes.

Q And was Jesse—

DAO Jesse was the oldest and your Granddaddy and Uncle Terrence who was a minister.

Q What was Uncle Jesse?

DAO Uncle Jesse—he tried everything. He tried insurance, he tried teaching, he tried everything. And it was just like putting a round peg and a square hole. He just didn’t fit into anything. And he got into working—he married Aunt Jean after Aunt Helen died. [this was well after WW II] And he went into communities, run-down communities, and studied the situation and recommended something that they could do to help people go on and—

Q In Appalachia.

DAO In the Appalachia, that area. And always kept themselves in the background, you know, they promoted the—made the people feel that they were doing this, you know. And he and Aunt Jean were just a wonderful team. And they were sent to the Gold Coast by England to evaluate England’s program—five year program. And they went (inaudible) anyway, it was quite an experience. They really were tops in their field. So it just goes to show if you find your niche, you know, what a difference it makes.

Q And it also goes to show that it might take you up (inaudible.) So what was the story about Granddaddy enlisting? (Debra) You’re jumping ahead. (Kelly) No, this is jumping back.

DAO When he enlisted, well he wasn’t old enough.

Q Now he would have been going to the University of Rochester at this time?

DAO He was, yes. He was really of the class of 1918.

Q Okay.

DAO But he graduated with me in 1920 because he went into the service. And he did say he was eighteen when he wasn’t eighteen. And it caught up with him in the Second World War.

Q ‘Cause then he—’cause the records said he was too old?

DAO Yes. (Laughing.)

Q So he dropped out of school like a lot of young men at the time did, and went into the service. And then do you know—did he go overseas?

DAO Oh yes he went overseas. And actually he contracted tres champs[?] I think it was, over there. And he was ill and it kept him from being sent out. And the family, you know, was kind of—had the feeling that maybe that was what saved his life because he was not able to go when his group went. Also you’d be interested to know that he was a champion ping pong player of southern Italy. (Laughing.)

Q Yes. So in the First World War what was he—what division or whatever it was he was attached to?

DAO He was in the Air Force. He was a pilot.

Q Okay, but there really wasn’t an established Air Force back then. He was still through the Army. Yes, the Air Force was a division of the Army.

DAO Oh was it? Well you may know about that but I don’t. I don’t know but he was a pilot.

Q And he actually flew combat?

DAO What?

Q He flew in combat?

DAO No, this illness kept him from going. And then I guess it must be that the war actually came to an end before he actually went into combat. I’m not just—of course I didn’t know him then, you know. I didn’t know him until he came back. And I think one very interesting thing (inaudible) when he came back. He stoked coal to get in shape for football.

Q Interesting.

DAO He stoked coal on the ship when he came back. And he was an officer so that—he would appear in the Officer’s Mess but he was stoking coal, too. And when he came back he was captain of the football team. The year of our (inaudible) year. So—uh oh!

Q What do you remember of the war—the First World War. You were in college at the time.

DAO Yes I was and about really—and it’s amazing to me—but about all I remember is the hoax—the first time that they declared war was over and that wasn’t the date and they had to set—and the whole college departed from classes. You just left. You didn’t go. Yes. And then the real—then the real victory date was later. But that is really about all I remember.

Q So it really didn’t affect your life at that time?

DAO And he wasn’t—he didn’t come home for—I think there was some reason he, I’m not quite sure, but he did something that delayed his getting on the list to come home. And he took advantage of it to travel quite a bit. He even got into Spain just very, very briefly. And he really made the most of staying over there for awhile so that he didn’t—

Q Sorry. So I remember one time you spoke about the plague. The influenza or something?

DAO Oh it was during college. Yes, during college I remember the influenza. People died of it.

Q Right.

DAO I guess as many people died from that as died in the war. And that was probably—

Q (Inaudible.)

DAO That’s right.

Q Do you remember—what do you remember about that?

DAO Well that’s about all. I think I knew somebody who died. A boy from Sodus who died. But that was as nearly as I was touched by it. See I didn’t know your Granddaddy when he was—until he came back for the senior year. But I do remember riding in the trolley, which was the way I got back to college. See Winkie—how would that be? She graduated the year before I did so I must have gone back alone to college. And I remember having an unexplained sense of excitement. That something exciting was going to happen. Wasn’t that fun?

Q And this was when you back for your senior year?

DAO That was my senior year. On my way into college I just had that sense that something exciting was going to happen. And it did!

Q So did you meet Granddaddy shortly after your senior year began?

DAO Um hum.

Q And then you dated or courted—

DAO We didn’t date very much as I think I told you. I got mad at him.

Q I know. I remember that.

DAO But then he wrote me a lovely, lovely letter that sort of changed—

Q Straightened you—

DAO Straightened everything out! (Laughter.)

Q So what was the reason you got mad at him?

DAO Oh, I don’t talk about that!

Q Oh, Grandmommy, you have to! We have to know these things.

DAO No, I think we’ll leave it that I was mad at him.

Q Okay. Of course what we imagine might be worse than what’s acceptable. (Laughter.) So was it towards the end of your senior year that you became engaged? Was it Memorial Day?

DAO Memorial Day on the shore of Honeoye Lake on the day that Daddy made his maiden speech.

Q What was he talking about?

DAO Well, it was a Memorial Day service. I didn’t hear it. I came out later with another couple of friends of ours. (Inaudible) picnic.

Q And then the two discreetly removed themselves?

DAO Yes. They later married.

Q Um hum. And then the two remainders got engaged. So then after you graduated then and then Granddaddy graduated, then you lived with his parents while he went to law school. Harvard law school.

DAO What about it?

Q You lived with his parents while you were in (inaudible) [Normal] school.

DAO Part of it. I think part of the year. Yes. I lived with somebody else the first part of it and then during the school year they asked me to come live with them. And—which I did. And your dad—Granddaddy used to come out summers and work for my father on the farm which was very nice.

Q Oh, I (inaudible) wouldn’t you?

DAO Oh yes. I knitted him a heavy white sweater and it had a turn-up band around here and Mother—you know Grammy’s sugar cookies with raisins?

Q Oh yes.

DAO And your Granddaddy liked those. And he would put a part [of them in] the little band in the sweater and go out to work.

Q So that would have been two or three summers.

DAO Yes.

Q And then were you married just shortly after he graduated? [from Harvard Law School]

DAO Yes. He graduated in June and we were married in October.

Q Okay.

DAO He got his—passed his New York state bar exams. And just as soon as he could. And went into Judge Spencer [Judge Spencer’s office]. And was very quickly made a partner. And I think I told you we were married on $28.85 a week, didn’t I?

Q And you made more money than he did.

DAO And I made more than he did because I taught half time, $90.00 a month. Boy—

Q How long did you continue to teach?

DAO Well, only part of that year because I was expecting Betty. She was born in August and I don’t remember just when I pulled out, but I spent part of the year teaching.

Q Where did you go on your honeymoon?

DAO We went to Albany. We drove with friends that were in a church venture. Your great-grandfather (inaudible.) And they offered us their home. They were going to be away and they offered us their home.

Q And then you went back to Rochester?

DAO Back to work. October 20th. What a beautiful Indian summer day. Absolutely beautiful. Incidentally, did I tell you that Terry⁸¹⁸ wrote me that they’re dismantling that lovely old house?

Q I think you said something—where you had the service?

DAO The one that I was married in. And that Betty was born in. And that I spent all those years in. That beautiful old house.

Q Okay, that was the one in Rochester?

DAO No, that was in Sodus.

Q The farmhouse.

DAO The farmhouse where I was married. And Terry indicated a desire—a sentimental desire—to have some of it—rescue some of the lumber. I haven’t heard anymore about it but I feel kind of sad about it.

Q Of course you would.

DAO Excepting that it was running down, it wasn’t being taken care of. Which was sad, too. Winkie and I both decided we really didn’t want to go by it again. I guess that’s repetitious, isn’t it?

Q No, it isn’t. How much longer did your parents stay in that house?

DAO They stayed until Kith was a baby.

Q And then they came to Rochester to live.

DAO They came to Rochester and they stayed briefly with us until they got their own apartment and Daddy returned to x-ray work. And then they maintained their own apartment from then on until he died. And he worked up to six weeks before his death.

Q At eighty-eight.

DAO Eighty-eight.

Q I was just kind of thinking that, let’s see, (inaudible.)

DAO Well it was very soon. It’s all in the records, you know, and I have it in the log. Anytime you want to see it I brought the log back with me if you ever want to look at it. I’ve got to write up the last two summers. I hope—you know already the summer before last is vague in my mind. No, he—it was early in the (inaudible.) Well, the record is there. You want to know the story about little Grammy and the palace? [at Oakdene]

Q Oh, yes.

DAO Oh, it wasn’t a very big story. But it stuck. Well, she swept the path from the cottage in the woods. She swept the path from the cottage to the outhouse. And somebody said oh, that’s perfectly beautiful. Why that’s like a palace. And you know that stuck all this time.

Q That’s where the name came from, hum. I know, I just think about the lake and it never occurs to me that those are outhouses.

DAO Well I used to be a little bit concerned that when you went to school and read about palaces that you might have—might wonder a little bit.

Q Really!

DAO But I guess it never bothered them really! But—

Q So you were married what year? It was October 20th—

DAO I was married in 1923. And that was the year that your granddaddy graduated from Harvard law in June. And we were married in October.

Q Um hum.

DAO And I was twenty-four.

Q And then—so then you lived in Rochester. Did you live in a house or—

DAO We had an apartment. We had an apartment. Betty was born in an apartment, your Aunt Betty. [Betty was born at the Sodus farm] And then we bought a house on Eastland Avenue. And we lived there all until all the children were gone. [Confusion here: four of us in grade school; Betty starting high school when we moved to Greenaway Road after the Depression] All five of them. And then the Depression came. And suddenly, the money wasn’t there anymore. Then after that we rented—we went to Pultneyville for summer vacations. while still at Eastland Avenue] And I remember your Aunt Kith—a little baby. She couldn’t really—she was just creeping but she loved the water. And every time we tried to take her out she’d just cry.

Q So then when the Depression came—

DAO We lost that house. [at Eastland Avenue]

Q Um hum. And then Granddaddy, didn’t he become the town attorney or—

DAO He was town attorney.

Q Was that before the Depression?

DAO Yes. Let me think. He—yes. he was town attorney for quite a number of years and they saved the job for him while he went—while he enlisted in the Second World War. And the man who worked—who was handling it offered it back to him. But he turned it down.

Q Um hum.

DAO But later on he was town attorney for the town of Greece. But he got tired of it. But I—I should have to tell you that at one time, believe it or not, while we were living on Eastland Avenue, I had a maid, and a laundress, and a gardener. But that all gradually ended when the Depression came along.

Q Well, what do you remember about the Depression?

DAO Well, that. (Inaudible) our house go. And we rented and Daddy, of course, enlisted when the war came. And thank goodness I could understand his need. I knew he just had to do it. And he was (inaudible) to help. But it took its toll. It took its toll on our finances, you know.

Q Because (inaudible) by the time he enlisted, the economy was looking up and (inaudible) finances.

DAO Well, see, he came back in ‘45 I think it was. But he had—

Q When did he enlist?

DAO The girls were all college age [Kith was a high school junior] and we had to—oh what was I going to say? Oh, paying your income tax was delayed if you were in the service. But we had to make it all up when he came back.

Q When did he leave? When did he enlist and leave?

DAO He was in three years and a half. And I think he came back in ‘45.

Q So he went in in ‘41.

DAO (Inaudible) remember that (inaudible.)

Q He was gone—he was gone for that whole time?

DAO We were together, I think not quite a year at two different times. We all went down to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and lived with him where he was stationed. And we went down in time for the girls to go on to school. Then sometime during that year he was sent to Washington. I think it was Spokane. And then we joined him again in Colorado Springs.

Q Um hum. Then—

DAO So I had about a year in two different segments out of the three and a half years. But the rest of the time—

Q Eventually overseas.

DAO Betty was in college then. And she came out to Colorado and had a year at CC [Colorado College]. She had five years of college because she couldn’t get all the credits (inaudible.)

Q So how long was he overseas?

DAO I think he was there two winters.

Q Okay, let’s backtrack a little bit now. You bought the Lake in 1931.

DAO Um hum.

Q And that was three couples that (inaudible.)

DAO Yes.

Q Can we talk about how you found the Lake and how you decided to—

DAO Well, have you heard us speak of Howard and Gladys Spencer?

Q Yes. Is this Judge Spencer?

DAO Judge Spencer’s son.

Q Okay.

DAO And his wife. And they had a little touring car, as she called it in those days, and they just would pack up their lunch and would just go exploring. And they could take a sealed road and take it, you know, and drive down and investigate. And that’s how they found this abandoned farm. And there were two places that we considered. One was near Rochester but it was smaller. I think it was maybe only forty acres, but I’m not quite sure. And we decided that that was too close to Rochester. Because we didn’t want everybody to feel that they could drop in any time, all times, and this was more remote and it was farther down the road. And of course it was bigger too. And the little farmhouse was still there. And that was dismantled and (inaudible) into there. And I don’t know whether you want the history of the building or the furniture.

Q Um hum.

DAO Well, it was designed by a Rochester architect. And the supervisor, the one who supervised the actual building of it, was from Rochester. He was the brother of a good friend of ours who was a contractor. And they had local help at twenty-five cents an hour. And the people were glad to get the work, you know.

Q And this would have been in the early thirties.

DAO This was—you see this was right around the Depression time. I don’t remember just how long the Depression was so—

Q Was the cottage built in 1932?

DAO The cottage was built, I think, in ‘32.

Q ‘32.

DAO ‘32. And the cabin—they called it the boy’s cabin—was the workmen’s cabin to begin with. And it just had a canvas roof. And somebody made away with the canvas roof after we had it a little while. So then we put the permanent roof on it. [the Guest cabin] But then Howard—no, it was Hazen and Jean pulled out. Jean—they weren’t too interested. They pulled out first.

Q Now, who were they?

DAO Well, they were very good friends of ours. We had a little group that was called the "Ping Pong Group." And there was four couples. They were one of the couples.

Q Okay.

DAO Jean and Hazen Pratt. And so they pulled out.

Q What year was that?

DAO Fairly soon. I don’t—I can’t tell you what year it was. Then Howard^X3 and Gladys moved to Mt. Vernon, New Jersey. [some time later] So that took them away. So we were the only ones that were using it. Then later on—I guess it was when—well anyway, we, your Daddy and I bought it. [after WW II] It’s all down in that book but I can’t give you the year. But we bought and that’s when we named it Oakdene. Because, of course, we didn’t have any right to it, but then it was ours. We could name it what we wanted to. We had—there were several names: The Wilderness was one that was considered. And that suited it very well. And I think Brown Creek Lodge was another name we considered because the creek, you know, was called Brown Creek. Brown Creek. And but then Oakdene was just it.

Q So what was the origin of Oakdene?

DAO Our name.

Q That’s where Ogden was? Okay. And called it Oakdene (inaudible.)

DAO That’s what the origin was, our name.

Q So when—how did you come up with the money to (inaudible.)

DAO Well, the inheritance from, let’s see—Mummy died. I think maybe it was—but it was an inheritance that made it possible for us. We had another (inaudible) that had invested for us, but that was another thing that troubled our years after the—after the war. Because of investments, you know, that (inaudible.)

Q Um hum. Now Papa Briggs was quite well off before the Depression and then lost a lot of—what did he do?

DAO It was his business. He didn’t have any business when I knew him. He was retired.

Q Oh.

DAO But at one time I know he manufactured towels. Now I really don’t know what else. But he followed the market very, very closely. And he invested for his sister as well as himself. And I always thought it was what they would say now, a "bum rap." That he had bought on margin. And he went back to the bank to pay it off and they said, oh no you’re good for it, you know. And he had been on the board of the bank and everything. And they sold—his stocks were so good that they sold them. The people that had poor stocks they—that was how it lost it. So it goes to show that he was really, you know, he tried to—I thought it was pretty tough.

Q What year did that happen?

DAO Don’t know.

Q When did he marry Mummy?

DAO When did he—well, I would just have to guess at it. But it was really—the two couples, your great-grandmother and great-grandfather. And we called him Papa Briggs and his wife Minnie Briggs. The four of them were really good friends. And Papa Briggs lost his wife and Mummy lost her—your great-granddaddy. And they married eventually. And not too long after Granddaddy—your great-granddaddy. The generations get away from me. So that was—then he had this beautiful place on Chatauqua Lake that he had built so lovingly, supervising everything. The woodwork was just satiny, you know, because it had been so carefully done. And he had to give that up. And he moved into Jamestown.

Q During the Depression. And you and Granddaddy lost your house?

DAO Yes. We had to let it go. Let it go back to the builder.

Q And that was just happening to everybody?

DAO Well, it was just—Cap and Lucille McChesney^X5 had to give theirs up. You know people were just hard hit.

Q Um hum, yes.

DAO You know, suddenly you were doing all these things. We were vacationing at Pultneyville every summer, you know, and had all this help—

Q A gardener and all that—

DAO Yes and then suddenly the money wasn’t there!

Q So how long did that last?

DAO Oh I really—let’s see. We rented Greenaway Road. And I really can’t remember how long we were there, but it was while we were living on Greenaway Road that Granddaddy enlisted.

Q Um hum.

DAO It was a very nice house with lots of room.

Q So that was shortly before the second world war. (Inaudible) enlisted.

DAO We were living there and your Granddaddy was—oh wait, I can pinpoint because Kith’s graduation from high school. And then I think it was that we were able to—your Granddaddy went to Florida for training and then he was sent to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and we went down to join him there after school. So I was left to close every house we lived in during the war.

Q So then the Depression hit in the late twenties?

DAO No, the Depression was around ‘31.

Q The stock market crash was in ‘21 ['29]. And then that was the big.

DAO I don’t remember that. I just remembered 1931. Of course that was when we must have—well actually the Spencers were the financiers. They put much more into it [Oak Dene; they financed it] than we did. And they bought out Howard and Gladys [Hazen and Jean]. But then when we were able to we bought Howard—

Q You bought into that share thing—

DAO Howard and Gladys bought out Jean and Hazen’s share. And your Granddaddy always said that Howard and Gladys furnished the money and we furnished the children. (Laughing.)

Q So you must have bought the Lake really before—

DAO We bought the Lake in ‘31. Three couples.

Q And that was before you lost the house in Rochester?

DAO That would have—yes.

Q Okay. I just assumed you lost the house in Rochester when the stock market crashed.

DAO Well, it’s all connected. But it was not overnight. I mean there was a period of—but like I say when suddenly we found that the income wasn’t there—nothing.

Q Now was that the time that Granddaddy became the town attorney?

DAO Uh, he was town attorney while we were living on Eastland Road, but he was town attorney before that. And he offered to reduce his salary because time were rough.

Q So. Those were—what was the feeling—what was happening to other people during the Depression?

DAO Well, I told you Lucille and Cap McChesney who were among our best friends lost their home. And I know Howard and Gladys didn’t have very much. Howard took his lunch to work, you know, part—to save, you know. And people were just hit.

Q Um hum, did you have a sense at that time of what was happening in the world—like why this was happening?

DAO It just amazes me how—when I think how I follow what’s happening in the world now—I just didn’t, Dear. It hadn’t—it didn’t—you see I didn’t meet Daddy until he came back—your Granddaddy, I mean, and I don’t think I was awfully aware of what was going on. I do remember certain experiences. I remember the songs like, you know, "Over There, Over There" and the "White Cliffs of Dover" and all the songs that were sung around. And—but—oh, I think I did—a boy that I went with who went to Syracuse University, I did knit him socks. I remember doing that. (Laughing) For the war [WW I]—he was in the service and I knitted socks for him. But I didn’t know Daddy.

Q Um hum.

DAO Granddaddy!

Q We know who you’re talking about! So you weren’t nearly as aware of things in the world—

DAO No.

Q (inaudible) communicating (inaudible.)

DAO Well there wasn’t. No, we didn’t have radio or didn’t have TV.

Q Was Granddaddy during those years—do you think he was—I mean it must have been very hard on him, of course. He had five children and his wife to support and, of course, things had changed and I know this was very hard on him. Was he real protective of you in that sense or did he have a sense of what was happening in the world? During the Depression?

DAO Your Granddaddy was very much, I think—you know you might be interested to hear what Uncle Teddy had to say when your Granddaddy died. I got that tape. I got it for this.

Q You did?

DAO Um hum. And you might—because he really—we had just a very informal gathering in the living room and he just talked about him. And I think you might really like to hear what he had to say.

Q Um hum. Definitely.

DAO About him. I never have had the sense—I was happy in my role as wife and mother.

Q Um hum.

DAO But I was—I mean I didn’t have the need to have a career that some people to have. And I think, apparently, Daddy respected my opinions and he—so that I didn’t have a sense of—well, I guess that—I didn’t say it very well. Sometimes he would talk over some of his law cases with me to get the layman’s reaction, you know, when he was going to try a case. And—

Q Sounds like he valued your opinion.

DAO Well, this was giving the layman’s, you know, how something would hit the—so that I didn’t have the—well I feel that he respected my mind.

Q Um hum. Okay.

DAO I remember my father—when we were engaged—I remember MY father saying you have to go some to keep up with him! (Laughing.)

Q Do you remember—are you familiar with the history of the lake at all before you bought it?

DAO Not really, but, you know interestingly, Toby who works, you know, in that egg place, has run into people that know it. And—

Q Really?

DAO And it’s been quite interesting.

Q Do you know what year was the last year they farmed the area?

DAO No. Of course it’s very stony, you know.

Q Um hum. You know I wonder what they even raised besides apple trees. They had a few apple trees.

DAO Apples, yes.

Q Was there really quite a few apple trees? I don’t (inaudible.)

DAO There was an apple orchard.

Q But it was pretty well run down when you got it.

DAO They were old. But the apples self-planted. They’re still gathering. Toby uses them. He’s making maple syrup too.

Q Really? Did you have a sense during the, say during the Depression that the Lake was like a refuge?

DAO Oh, very definitely, Dear. And that was another phase of the Lake which I can hardly believe when people were very much concerned about what—about the bomb [atom bomb, post WW II], and we actually went so far as to stock up at the Lake. And that was the only time that your father [grandfather] I think brought a gun out. And I can’t, you know, I can hardly believe that. And we told Winkie if anything happened in Long Island that she should head for the cottage just as fast as she could come.

Q That was right after the (inaudible.)

DAO I can’t—I really can hardly believe it that we could have done it, but we did.

Q What about during the Depression? Was there ever a sense that things might get so bad that you might have to live off the—(inaudible) [Oakdene land ?]

DAO Oh, no. But it was definitely a—it’s always been a refuge for me.

Q Of course!

DAO And of course I went out—I really felt that that was where I gathered up steam for the year. Because, you know, we let the five girls loose, so to speak—

Q Yes!

DAO —and told them they could make as much noise as they wanted to. And they were dependent upon themselves for entertainment. And they were and they found it. And they were just busy with riding and grooming their ponies and putting on plays and putting on circuses. And I remember a circus that they put on. And they had a tick race. They set up a card table and they had a tick race. And they—you know it doesn’t happen, that sort of thing, anymore—but we used to have delivery of milk. And the dairy that delivered our milk came out with thirty bottles of chocolate milk! Just for everybody. And they said, well if we’d known there were going to be this many people, we would have brought more.

Q Oh.

DAO That sense of—doesn’t exist anymore.

Q The girls—were they aware of the Depression at all?

DAO Well, I think so. I think much more of the Depression than the affluent time. Because, you see, they were at the age—they were just at college age [later] and the—what do they call it—the "Four H" [sic] men had gone off to war. College was not the same.

Q That’s true. ‘Cause of it.

DAO And of course out in Colorado Springs we were much more aware of the—

Q Um hum. So really, basically, the Depression, hard times, really started for you in the early thirties and continued on until Granddaddy got back from the war?

DAO Yes and then he had to adjust and start to get back in. And then, you know, he did have a nervous breakdown.

Q He did? I think I heard something like that.

DAO You know in the end he had to close his office. And that was when we had our wonderful trip south. The only trip we ever had by ourselves. We had a wonderful time. But it was because he had to get away.

Q What year was that?

DAO I can’t recall.

Q How many of the girls were still at home?

DAO Nobody. We were alone.

Q Okay, so—

DAO We were living on Kilbourn Road. We bought Kilbourn Road when Daddy came back from the war.

Q Oh, okay.

DAO And we had—we had about fifteen years, I think, on Kilbourn Road before Daddy died. And he died in ‘60—no ‘59. (Inaudible.)

Q So but all the girls had graduated from high school when he died?

DAO Oh yes. Yes, the girls—Cricket was the last one to go to—well they didn’t all graduate, you know.

Q Well, they graduated from high school.

DAO Oh yes. High school.

Q Well, no. If—now Mother was born in ‘30. So she would have been fifteen when Granddaddy—when he got back from the war. So she was still in high school. (Kelly) Yes, but maybe (inaudible.) (Debra) Well, yes. But when they bought Kilbourn Road when Granddaddy returned, then there was—

DAO Yes. The younger girls were going to Monroe High School. The younger ones.

Q Right.

DAO Actually, Betty and Kithie didn’t have too much time (inaudible.) No, they—Helen and Polly and Cricket all went to Monroe High School from Kilbourn Road. I know they thought maybe it would be too far out for the boys. But it wasn’t. (Laughter.) And from the time Cricket was little, she went—there was—when we were living on Greenaway Road which would be—I was chauffeuring five days a week to Eastman Music School. All five of the girls were studying from Cricket to Betty.

Q Um hum.

DAO Polly—’course Betty’s the only one that continued. But Polly studied right through up to her senior year in high school. But she didn’t graduate from (inaudible) at that time. But, no, they all studied. Your mother tried drums and violin and piano.

Q Can’t see Mother banging on drums. No.

DAO Well she had those pads, you know, that she practiced on.

Q So during—

DAO I—excuse me. Go ahead.

Q I was going to say, during the war, then, sounds like you were on the road a lot.

DAO Well, I drove all the five girls and the dog to Colorado Springs.

Q What year—what year were you out here?

DAO Well it must have been—I can’t tell you precisely, dear. It was Kith’s senior year in high school. Of course that’s where she went then. And Betty must have had one year—at least one year at Eastman School and then studied at CC. And I can’t tell you the years that they graduated.

Q What was this place like? What was it like out there?

DAO Uh, that was while Daddy was still here. But then he had to go away and, of course, it was not a winter place.[Coyote Haunt] And we had to find a place to live down in town. And I remember his saying he was looking for a place for us and he said he’d seen this place on the Boulevard [Road]—Cheyenne Boulevard [Road] and he said well he would like to tell, you know, talk to me about it. And he said he saw a couple of women walking up the walk to look at the house. And he turned to the owner and he said I’ll take it. (Laughing.) And we moved—we didn’t have any furniture. But we moved—we got beds from the Air Force and we all slept on cot beds.

Q Huh!

DAO And Betty and I even slept, you know, this way in one so that a soldier who she knew and she had brought home could stay on with us. And I think he had a toothache or something, but, anyway, I’ll always remember the next morning I served him soft eggs. And he looked down at them. He said he hadn’t seen anything like that. He didn’t want them. And then Betty—a Rochester boy that she knew in high school turned up in the Air Force out there and he was with a bomber group and I had invited them all for dinner, this whole group. And I spent all my coupons to get meat and all of a sudden they were all called back and they had to report. And they couldn’t come to dinner.

Q Oh—-

DAO All but this Bob Schaeffer, the one man that knew Betty particularly.

Q Uh huh.

DAO And they all protected him. They knew where he was going to be but they all protected him and they didn’t want all of them to go back. So he was the only one. And the next day, I think it was, I received a beautiful bouquet of pink roses. And it said from the crew of such-and-such that couldn’t make the dinner.

Q Oh—

DAO I sent that—it was in a vase and I had it (inaudible.) I sent it to Betty one Christmas or her birthday or something like that. That was a good place for it to go.

Q Huh.

DAO That was really something. ‘Course Betty was briefly engaged to him. That was one of her several engagements. (Laughing.)

Q I wasn’t aware that Betty had had several engagements!

DAO You didn’t!

Q No.

DAO Oh, we have—one time, I guess it was when Daddy came back. This was really a funny one. We were having—the family were having dinner downtown in Rochester and Betty announced to us that she was engaged to be married. And you know what we said? Well, who to? (Laughing.) And Daddy laughed her—literally laughed her out of that kitchen. (Laughter.) Oh, I thought that was crazy!

Q So he came back in ‘45 and then you bought the house on Kilbourn Road. And then did he return to private practice?

DAO Yes. He tried very hard. He really investigated. He went to Washington, D.C. and he considered getting into some other phase of law work. And he finally came—nothing developed for him and he finally concluded that his training, his friends, his background, and everything were there in Rochester and that that was what he would do.

Q Um hum.

DAO I always felt that he should have been in some international position.

Q (Inaudible.)

DAO He had the languages. He came back from the first war after having flunked French in college. He came back and I think got honored or something. He lived with a French family at one time and really made a point to learn the language you know. And he spoke Italian and French. And I just thought he—and he was definitely, as Uncle Teddy said and you will hear if you listen to that. He reached out into the whole world. He was, you know, just interested in the world.

Q In World War Two he was in intelligence?

DAO In the second world war.

Q In the second, yes.

DAO ‘Course he was too old to be—but you know he did qualify as a bombardier so that he could go out with his men. He went on, I think, it was seven or eight missions so that he would know just what circumstances he was sending his men into. And therein I was very lucky.

Q (Inaudible.)

DAO Right. And he was. But they stopped him. They wouldn’t let the officers do it anymore. But that’s what he did.

Q But he was stationed in—

DAO I never was allowed to know. I knew he was in England but that was all. And I had—there was an older woman, a Mrs. Gilbert, who Ned was very fond of and who took an interest in him, apparently. And she sent me once one of these postcards, you know, connected—a whole series. And she said in one place, she said your husband must often walk over this bridge, you know. And she sent me some rosemary—I think it was from her garden. But I tried to plant it but it was frozen, I think, and I couldn’t. But that was an awfully nice contact. And I think there was one place where she told me something and they cut it out. Yes, they censored—they—and I never knew where he was exactly, you know exactly where he was. Of course I could write to him.

Q But you just knew that it would get to him somehow.

DAO Yes. But I never knew just were he was.

Q Uh huh. So he was over there for two years then?

DAO Uh, two—let’s see. I went up from Colorado Springs—he was—I went to Wendover Air Base in Utah. That was where he was. And I left the five girls. I guess probably that was the first time I left them ever alone. I left on the train—I got on without having anyplace to sleep but they got a place for me. And I had one night up there.

Q (Inaudible.)

DAO And I didn’t even get to sleep with him. I had a room in the nurses’ quarters and he had to sleep in the officers’ quarters.

Q Oh!

DAO And that was when I brought the—one of his men in his group had a car out there that he wanted to get back to Rochester and I brought that car back for him. And that’s a trip I’ll never forget either.

Q Hum. So he just—he felt very strongly that his role was to be involved in this war?

DAO Very, very. To do what he could to help.

Q And that—

DAO And I’ve always been very, very thankful that I could understand that.

Q Um hum. How about the girls, Mother and Aunt Kith and everybody. Did they understand what was happening? Or did they understand why he wasn’t around?

DAO Oh, sure! Yes, they had—he wrote letters and they wrote to him. And I think that the school was probably—it was a little hard changing the schools, you see. Cricket suffered the most. She had a—she had a teacher in Harrisburg [Colorado Springs] that was let go at the end of the year that she had. A very poor teacher. ‘Course Betty was in college. So—

Q That must have been quite a turmoil for him, you know, thinking that at one point, well this war isn’t going to last long so maybe I shouldn’t go. Maybe I should stay and take care of the family. Or, you know, maybe it is going to get drug out. I think I’d better go. Gee, it must have been going through his mind.

DAO Well, it—he just had to go. He had to go.

Q But he didn’t enlist immediately after we declared war.

DAO I think after Roosevelt’s fireside chat. I can remember listening—I know right where I sat. And I was listening to Roosevelt and his fireside and I knew that Daddy would go.

Q Was that—how long after Pearl Harbor and declaring war was that—

DAO Well, I don’t know exactly but it was, you know, followed.

Q Well we declared war in December ‘41?

DAO I can’t tell you. I don’t remember the exact year. But I remember that.

Q Well everybody does remember.

DAO No, I mean I remember listening and having the conviction and knowing that your granddaddy would just have to go and do what he could to help. ‘Cause it was just a part of him.

Q Um hum. Is that how Roosevelt announced it to the country through his fireside chat?

DAO I think that’s where he put the situation before the people.

Q Do you remember when radio first came into your life?

DAO I think it was not until we were living on Kilbourn Road. [Greenawy Road]

Q Really?

DAO We were one of the last people to get one.

Q Because (inaudible.)

DAO I just, yes.

Q It was the late thirties (inaudible) I think it was (inaudible) the last network I believe started back in (inaudible.)

DAO Boy, you wonder what’s going to happen next now don’t you?

Q Not too much, actually.

DAO Well, aren’t you following ABC—ABC is joining, you know, merging with this other company. And of course CBS, you know, Jesse Helms, who—I just can’t stand it. He’s trying to get hold of CBS through getting an organization to buy up stock. And he wants this—Dan Rather says he has said outright that he wanted to be—wanted to be Dan Rather’s boss.

Q I don’t think Dan Rather would take to that.

DAO Well, what do think?

Q (Inaudible.) So when you listen to—okay if Roosevelt had fireside chats, where did you hear this? Did you have a radio then?

DAO Well we must have because I remember listening to it. Isn’t that funny—funny because—we must have had.

Q Those were really important, it seems to me, during those years. The fireside chat thing with Roosevelt.

DAO Well he had a very persuasive—yes. Would you like some cold lemonade or something?

Q No this will be fine.

DAO Well, I, if that—

Q Are you getting tired?

DAO Um hum.

Q Okay.

DAO —art shop and that’s where I learned about silver and antiques and picture framing and had a very interesting time. And I worked there and then after Daddy died, I worked in the children’s library in the Rochester Library. And I had a very interesting doing typing for a friend of mine, Frances Von Stipe(?), who was one of Walter Littman’s research people.

Q Oooh!

DAO And I typed and edited the Lamont letters for her. And she had expected to incorporate them in a book and then the family decided against it. But that was very interesting. And I think I got the whole sum of $2.00 an hour for my typing and editing. But it was interesting. So I did that and I went into the guided observation program into the education department. Had an interesting year there. And then I came out here.

Q Um hum. So Aunt Cricket originally worked for Mr. Bailey?

DAO Aunt Cricket worked for Mr. Bailey before she went away to college.

Q And you had to go to her job?

DAO I can even remember what I wore when I went down to apply for it! (Laughing.)

Q What did you wear?

DAO I had a very smart brown jacket—suit. And I think I wore a brown tam if I remember correctly. I wanted to look as smart as I could.

Q Oh. What year was Aunt Cricket born?

DAO Huh?

Q What year was Aunt Cricket born?

DAO ‘33. ‘24, ‘27, ‘30, ‘31, ‘33. I have to go down the line! I gave Aunt Cricket credit. She is really upbeat! She’s terrific! She’s—

DEBRA: This is April 11th, 1984. (Actual date April 11, 1985.) Okay you can talk. Now go ahead.

DAO I thought it was marvelous that Daddy managed to send us a card.

Q I think so too.

DAO And I guess (inaudible) gave the wrong impression but (inaudible.)

Q So you feel that—Aunt Winkie—you feel that—I mean I definitely have a sense that it was unusual for women to go to college.

HHA No—I don’t think that’s true—

Q Was the (inaudible) starting to really—

DAO No. Because our friends from Sodus went—Margaret and Hilda.

HHA Yes.

DAO No I didn’t mean to give that impression.

HHA Well quite a few—a high percentage of the boys and girls in my high school class went on to college. It was—really in a way it was taken for granted almost. Certainly we were not pioneers. But I think that around about 1905, it was somewhat more unusual. And of course your grandmother—your grandmother Ogden was possibly a little nearer the pioneer period then we were.

Q She would have gone to school when? When would she have gone to college?

DAO Grandmother Ogden?

Q Right. That would have been—

HHA Daddy’s grandmother. Your Mummy.

DAO Yes, that’s right.

Q So if Granddaddy was born in 1898, she would have probably gone to school—she would have graduated in the 1890’s somewhere.

HHA Was Ned born in ‘98?

DAO 1897.

Q Oh.

DAO And I was born in ‘99.

HHA Well then Ned and I were born in the same year.

DAO No, you were born in ‘97.

HHA I was born in ‘97.

DAO Ned was two—Ned was two and a half years older than I.

Q Oh.

HHA Well then he must have been born in ‘96 or—

DAO Well he was sixty two when he died and I was sixty. So—you know I get all mixed up between talking about your grandmother and Grandmother Ogden.

Q But we know what you mean.

DAO Yes. I think I said something in there. I think that I said that Aunt Alice had—I think I said two brothers, I’m not sure, and it was two sons and cousin Lora. Now I may be wrong.

HHA I think you did.

DAO I thought I picked that up when we played it last night. I don’t know why I said that.

HHA I think it is very interesting that your Grandmother Ogden, your Mummy, who was a brilliant student should have had a Phi Beta Kappa key from the University. But the University did not present Phi Beta Kappa keys to women. And years and years afterwards when her children were grown up, the college changed its policies—

Q Did they really?

HHA And it was retroactive and she was presented with a Phi Beta Kappa key and she had a lot of fun teasing her husband because he didn’t have one. (Laughter.)

DAO I don’t remember that.

Q Do you know what she studied when she went to college?

HHA No.

DAO No but I know that she was very, very fond of Browning. And—

HHA She probably was an English major, don’t you imagine?

DAO I imagine so. After Granddaddy, or Daddy, or your great-grandfather—wasn’t it?—died, she gave a series of lectures to earn money on Browning.

Q But now, Granddaddy’s father died fairly young, didn’t he?

DAO Yes, sixty. We talked about that. Due to the operation.

Q Right. And so then around that time she did some lecturing?

DAO Well, yes. In Rochester before she was—before she married Papa Briggs.

Q So by the time you girls went to college, it was much more—it was becoming—

HHA Oh yes. It was not extraordinary.

DAO No. I don’t really—don’t know why I gave that impression but—

Q Well I don’t think you gave the impression so much as it maybe was just me being curious and of course—of course you were—things were very different than they are now, certainly. Especially—

DAO Yes. It was—we didn’t have dormitories.

Q Right and you even had separate classes, so—

DAO Yes. Absolutely. But maybe as Winkie said, it was more Rochester.

Q Rochester being more used to that type of thing.

DAO Well they didn’t want the women.

HHA Rochester, I think, was slow to accept co-education.

Q Why do you think that was?

HHA Maybe Rochester is off its—

DAO There is a book called—

HHA I don’t want to say slow.

Q Conservative?

HHA Ultra-conservative.

DAO There is a book there called " Smut Town USA" and it is Rochester.

Q Oh, dear.

DAO "Smut Town USA" I think it is.

Q That’s interesting.

DAO I have it if you want to read it.

Q Oooh. Where did Mummy Ogden go to school?

DAO The Ogdens all went to DePauw. And that’s how Aunt Kith happened to go to DePauw. She went there and Daddy Ogden went there, Aunt Ella, Uncle Tom, they all went there—and Hod Ogden, your mother’s cousin, went to Depauw. And I think he—oh, and Bob Ogden went to DePauw. That was sort of their particular college.

HHA Five Andrews have degrees or had degrees from Rochester.

DAO How many?

HHA Five. Papa, 1883.

DAO Yes.

HHA And you and Ned and Betty.

DAO Betty was Eastman of course.

Q So you graduated in what—you must have graduated in ‘20?

DAO ‘20. And Winkie graduated in ‘19.

Q ‘19. And your graduating class was about sixty, you said? So your graduating class must have been the same?

HHA I imagine so. I never thought numbers.

DAO And then I went to Normal School for kindergarten training and taught kindergarten. Taught second grade too, but I liked kindergarten better.

Q Well, I would be interested in hearing more about your father and mother, especially just some of the stories.

DAO Well you know—Winkie was going to—no you were going back another generation, weren’t you? She remembers some stories telling about—tell her about the one Professor Clinton(?) and the bicycle. Stories that our father told about college.

Q Uh huh. Okay.

HHA Our father told wonderful stories about early days in college. And pranks and also idiosyncrasies of the professors. He told wonderful stories and I should have captured them and I didn’t. I just remember one. I remember—and I may remember it because the man was still functioning when we were in college.

DAO He wore sneakers didn’t he?

HHA Yes. He was the head librarian when we were there. And very eccentric. He always wore sneakers. Consequently, you never knew when he was coming. And of course in the library there were wonderful ways to get away with your friend or friends. But he might appear.

Q Because of his sneakers.

HHA But that’s really beside the point. He was a young librarian when our father was there and he rode one of the high bicycles, you know what I mean?

Q Um hum.

HHA Long after anybody else did. Finally, the boys stole his bicycle and put it up on top of the library and then they all chipped in and they bought him a modern one. (Laughter.)

Q Oh, that’s crazy.

DAO I wouldn’t have known that one.

HHA I just wish I could remember more of those stories. It’s a shame that I don’t.

Q So he was a librarian when your father was there and he was—

HHA Still there!

Q —still a librarian when you were there.

DAO When we were there.

HHA He had become an institution.

Q Boy, it sounds like it. And he still wore sneakers?

HHA He still wore sneakers.

DAO Of course in those days, people didn’t wear sneakers the way they do now.

Q No, that’s for certain.

DAO Oh, it was very unusual.

HHA I—there are things that you might be interested in. There is a legend that the Hunts—of course that’s Grandma’s maiden name and my middle name and Alexander’s middle name. There’s a legend that the Hunts came from Flushing, Long Island. And there was quite a bit of money. And the patriarch in the family wore diamond buttons on his coat.

Q My goodness.

HHA That’s one thing I have heard. And another thing that I have heard is that—that particular ancestor—and I don’t know the name—when he was married, came down an aisle in the church with all his family behind him. And the bride came down on the opposite side of the church trailed by all her family. That was the custom.

Q Interesting.

DAO I wonder if that’s what—from that has stemmed the idea that the bride’s friends sit on one side and the groom’s friends sit in on the other.

HHA Yes. I should imagine so.

DAO I never knew that either. And I didn’t know the other legend either.

HHA No?

DAO The myth or whatever it is.

HHA It’s a legend, I am sure.

Q Do you know what kind of business that (inaudible)?

HHA I have no idea. I just know they—our—they were from Flushing, Long Island, which is now (inaudible) City. I also—I was quite interested when I was teaching, there was a man teaching in the junior high school whose name was Daniel Hunt.

DAO Oh, really?

HHA Yes. And that, of course, was our grandfather’s name. And I should have spoken to him to find out whether—of course he was on Long Island and I just wondered whether he knew anything about this legend concerning the Hunts. And you probably know that Grandma Hunt—no not Grandma Hunt—yes, Grandma Hunt, of course, Mother’s mother—was ready to teach when she was thirteen.

Q Oh, really?

HHA She was so young, she couldn’t get a job. She had a teaching certificate at thirteen!

Q Oh, I didn’t know that.

DAO I didn’t either. I think I have known it in the past but I’d forgotten. I told you she’d remember a lot of things that I don’t.

Q So what were the circumstances surrounding that, do you know?

HHA Her being so young?

Q And so educated or so ready to do that.

HHA Well, of course, I don’t think the requirements then were what they are now. I don’t know anymore about it but just that, that she had a teaching certificate at thirteen. I think probably that was about the time when her mother died, don’t you? And I think that she kept house for awhile and then her father married again. And we used to hear occasionally about the stepmother. The stepmother was a New England woman and a wonderful housekeeper. And she used to make thirty pies at a time and they used to freeze them in the snow and bring in pies when pies were needed. Also in those times when they had a big family party, the adults sat down and ate and the children had to wait until the adults were finished. And they were even put outdoors, as I understand it.

DAO Oh my!

HHA To play. To play, of course. And—but they’d peek in the windows.

Q To see how things were progressing.

HHA Sometimes I wonder what that I imagined that!

DAO I never heard that.

HHA But I do know that the children had to wait until the adults ate. That’s interesting. Of course it’s quite the opposite of what happens so many times now.

Q So your grandmother died when your mother was about thirteen, then?

HHA No—

Q And then your grandfather remarried?

DAO No, no. Grandma didn’t—Grandma lived to be an old lady.

Q No, I thought you said that your mother’s mother died.

DAO No. She was the one who was thirteen.

HHA No. Mother’s grandmother.

Q Okay, your mother’s mother, right. So it would be your mother’s grandmother that died.

DAO Yes. Yes.

Q That’s what I meant to say. So your grandmother’s mother died when your grandmother was thirteen or around that age. And then her grandfather remarried to this New England woman.

HHA Um hum.

Q Do you remember her name?

HHA No, I don’t know whether I have it anywhere but I don’t recall. I might have it somewhere.

DAO Who were Polly and Theophilus?

HHA Well, they were Hunts, weren’t they?

DAO Well, Grandma was a Hunt.

HHA By marriage.

DAO What?

HHA By marriage.

DAO By marriage, yes. Laurenda Wells was our grandmother’s name.

HHA Laurenda Wells was our grandmother’s name.

Q Laurenda Wells—

DAO Laurenda Wells Hunt.

Q Now what is the Willard line?

HHA That was Papa’s line. And his mother was a Willard before she was married. They’re very—a very interesting family. Maybe your mother’s already—your grandmother—maybe your grandmother has already told you about them.

Q I have heard little bits of stories about them, but nothing—

HHA Well, they came to this country very early, however, not in the Mayflower. So many people have come in the Mayflower that one wonders how the Mayflower ever held up! (Laughter) But they came—I’m not quite sure of my date. It’s either—and again I probably have it somewhere. But it was either 1620 or 1630. I think it was 1630. And they came to the Plymouth Colony which was the other side of the bay from what became Boston, I think.

Q Um hum.

HHA And the man’s name was Major Simon Willard⁷².

DAO I thought we were not direct descendants of Major Simon Willard. I thought that was—

HHA We’re not direct descendants of the clock maker¹⁰³⁹.

DAO Well, I thought—

HHA We’re not direct descendants, no, because we’re not Willards. But Grandma Andrew was a direct descendant.

Q Well that makes you a direct descendant.

DAO That makes us that.

HHA No, but—

Q ‘Cause you’re—that’s direct.

HHA I don’t—

Q That’s direct. It’s not direct when the descendant is somebody and then has a sister or something and then you’re descended from that sister. That’s indirect.

HHA Well—

DAO Anyway, her name was Willard.

Q Okay.

HHA Well I—

Q So that family came over very early.

HHA Oh, very early. And Major Simon Willard was a very important figure in, of course, the early colony. I don’t suppose there were very many people and I don’t suppose it was as difficult to be one of the top leaders in those days as it would be now. Sure not. But he really was entrusted with a great deal. When Katherine—when Bill—your Uncle Bill was studying at MIT, I visited Katherine and him. Ned was a little boy. Just a baby. And Bill borrowed a car—of course he didn’t have one—and we had a wonderful drive all around Cambridge. And we came to a grassy rectangle out in the country where several roads met, just a small rectangle, where there was a historical marker. And, of course, I love historical markers so we stopped to see what it said. And it marked the spot where a committee of men left an indication of a survey they had made. I think they were marking off Massachusetts or something like that. And there were three men and one of them was Major Simon Willard.

Q Oh, how interesting!

HHA And I got such a kick out of it if you could imagine! I wonder whether Kith remembers that.

DAO I didn’t know that either.

HHA You didn’t?

DAO No.

HHA You didn’t! I must have told you at the time because I was really quite thrilled.

Q That’s really neat.

HHA And I should have been prepared for these things because I have actual facts, but I’m sure I’m just a little doubtful about some things. But Willard married the president—I think the second president, but I’m not sure about that—of Harvard. And also one of the Willards was a minister and his parish was the Old Trinity, the church in which Paul Revere hung the lantern that guided "One if by Land and Two if by Sea and I on the Opposite Shore will Be. Ready to Ride and Give the Alarm to Every Middlesex Village and Farm."

Q And the Old Trinity Church was—

HHA Oh, yes. You have a Boston chapter, haven’t you?

Q Um hum. And I—is that the one in Cambridge?

HHA I think it’s in Boston.

Q Boston. I couldn’t remember. Oh, of course, I guess it would be in Boston.

DAO They weren’t—at least I didn’t think we were direct descendants from some of those people.

HHA No, I—

DAO And there is generally—

HHA There’s a definition there that I—defies me.

DAO And there is, as you said, the clock maker.

HHA The clock maker, yes. I think one of the very most famous clock makers in this country was a Simon Willard without the major in front of it. But Major Simon Willard had an enormous family. I think he was married three times. He probably wore out—

DAO Really, you mean—

HHA He probably wore out his wives. And I think he had around nineteen or twenty children.

DAO Oh my word!

HHA A huge number of children. So that was a lot of people to come down, you see, and a lot of lines. And Major—and the clock maker, Simon, came down one line and we came down another.

Q But they—so maybe we’re not directly descended from the clock maker but we are of Major Willard ‘cause he was the—

DAO Isn’t it funny, I never thought we were directly descended from Major Simon Willard.

HHA Oh yes we are.

DAO We are.

HHA I think.

DAO I guess it’s the disciple Andrew that we are not sure we really—(laughing.)

Q What is the disciple Andrew?

HHA The Apostle!

DAO The Apostle.

Q Oh, okay. (Laughter.)

DAO Well they claimed that they have carried the records back so that it indicates—

HHA That’s right. I—

DAO What indicates that we may have come from him.

HHA I don’t know how much further back the name goes, but certainly one of the disciples was named Andrew.

DAO (Inaudible) Christian about that.

Q Christian.

HHA And Greek. It means manly.

Q Manly. Andrew does?

HHA Um hum. I read that just last night. Night before last, I mean. I had fun at—your grandmother went to bed and I had fun with her encyclopedias over there.

Q And you looked up Andrew.

HHA I looked up Andrew. I didn’t find a great deal, but I had fun.

DAO I’m surprised that would be in the encyclopedia.

HHA Well it wasn’t as a disembodied name. It was there. There were several Andrews listed. And one of them was the disciple Andrew.

DAO Oh.

HHA And it seems that in a British museum, there is an ancient volume called "The Works of Andrew" telling the things that the disciple Andrew did. What did you do?

Q I was just looking for this other tape. So what—okay the Willards, then were English. They must have been English.

DAO Scotch-Irish.

HHA No, the Andrews are Scotch-Irish.

DAO The Andrews are Scotch-Irish.

HHA The Willards are English. They came from Horsmonden.

Q Now I remember a story about one—somebody that came over very early because he was (inaudible) service.

HHA That wasn’t so early. That was in 1776.

Q Oh, okay.

HHA That was early, 1776.

Q Right.

HHA But not like 1630.

Q Uh huh. Who was that?

HHA Well that was the first Andrew in this country. Men, young men, used to—I think this is literal—find the king’s, what was called the king’s money in their pockets. It was a summons that they had to—they had been conscripted for the army. And this particular Andrew—I don’t know whether his name’s Alexander or not. It might have been William. Those two names seem to alternate. Didn’t intend to be in the army and he was hidden, I think, in the coal bin or something like that, by a sympathetic person and escaped on one of his brother’s clipper ships. A brother of our ancestor was the owner of clipper ships and he got to this country in that way and came to New York. But he didn’t enjoy the city life. He hated it. And gradually worked up further and further north ‘til he got up to the Ontario region I suppose.

Q So there have been Andrews in the Ontario region for a long time.

HHA I don’t know. I think so.

Q Now was he Scotch-Irish?

HHA Scotch-Irish. The saying is that a Scotch-Irishman is a Scotsman who went to Ireland to be born.

Q So then where is the Hunt family from?

HHA Well, Flushing. Oh, I think they were English. I don’t know anything prior to the Flushing story.

DAO And the Ogdens were English.

Q Okay—

HHA So I guess you’re three quarters at least!

DAO —And the family, I think this Christmas or last Christmas, said he really was going to do something about it but he never did. I just know very little excepting that, you know, your grandfather’s—let me get this straight—grandfather I guess it would be was a minister. And I think one of them somewhere was a circuit rider—circuit, you know, he rode—

HHA The ministers to town—parson.

DAO The ministers rode from town to town. Who would know the story about that? I don’t know. I don’t think I would—and Helen, there was some incident where there were two brothers and one of them was to—had to go into the army and one stayed at home.

HHA Oh, that was—that was our grandfather⁵⁵!

DAO Was that our grandfather?

HHA Oh, yes. That was our grandfather.

DAO And they drew lots to see which one would go and it was not our grandfather that went and I believe the other one was killed—

HHA Oh yes he was. I can tell about that. The two brothers had contiguous farms.

Q Now was this your father’s father or your mother’s father?

HHA My father’s father. Grandpa Andrew whom we never knew. They had neighboring farms. And they felt that one of them should go into the army.—this was the Civil War—and the other one take care of the two farms and look out for the two families. I think Uncle Alvin was the younger—

DAO (Inaudible.)

HHA Oh. surely. Was the younger of the two. Anyway, he was the one who went. And I have a letter, still, which he wrote. He was fearful that he would be killed.

DAO It is a very pitiful letter, really.

HHA Papa, when he was a little boy, had to—was sent down into the field where his father was working to give him—to tell him that the news had come that his brother had been killed. And Dad said that he remembered it so vividly. He said that his father was cutting corn, I think—what would be that curved tool they’d use to cut by hand?

Q A saw by hand?

HHA No, not a big saw but a little short—

Q Sickle?

HHA Sickle, yes. He was cutting corn with something of that kind and he tossed the sickle into a wooden piece of machinery or something that was nearby. Just tossed, inserted it, you know, just threw it down. And sat down on this piece of wood or log or whatever it was and pulled his hat down over his eyes. Dad could remember that. And we knew his descendants—of Uncle Alvin—Uncle Alvin’s wife had a baby after her husband’s death and the little baby was named—it was a girl and was named for him, Alvinette. And we called her cousin Ally. And she was quite a character. She was quite attractive, very vivacious. And when she was a little girl, she was fond of Papa, she was charmed of Papa. Of course she was just a little thing and he was a young man. And she used to bother him, just terribly. And he was working in his shop one day, you know he always did love shops. And he couldn’t stand it any longer and he picked her up and put her out the window and set her down on the ground on the other side of the window. And she stamped her little foot and she said, "Fred Andrew, don’t you let your angry passions rise!" (Laughter.)

DAO Oh, I remember that story. I think, no I think I would remember it.

Q Isn’t there some story about when somebody was killed in the Civil War and somebody else knew about it—(inaudible.)

HHA Our Uncle Bert was in the Civil War. He was a major. You’ve heard about him. You’ve told about Uncle Bert. He was at our house so much when we lived on the farm. We were very fond of Uncle Bert. He was a sweet man. Very whimsical.

DAO Well what I can remember about him is the whole expression on his face. He could be looking down and this quizzical smile would light up his whole face.

HHA Come over his eyelids. And you knew he was laughing inside. He was a darling man!

Q Well now, who—was he whose brother?

HHA He was Grandma Hunt’s brother. His name was Wells. Her name had been Wells. Uncle Bert Wells.

Q And he had fought in the Civil War?

HHA Yes.

Q He was a major?

HHA He was a major. And at one time we had some help in harvesting that had dinner in the house. And one of the men got to reminiscing about the Civil War. And he told a fantastic story about something that happened—I don’t know what—in which he played a very elite role and Uncle Bert said nothing. But after these men were all gone and the subject came up, Uncle Bert said, "I commanded that platoon." He’d never said a word! (Laughing.)

Q Oh, wow! This means (inaudible.)

HHA He said the man made himself out the hero of the occasion. It would be characteristic of Uncle Bert.

Q So do you remember when you were younger hearing stories about the Civil War from your grandparents’ generation?

HHA I don’t remember many. Just the two I’ve told you. At least I don’t think of any at the moment.

DAO (Inaudible.)

Q These people that fought in the Civil War would have been in their fifties or so—sixties.

HHA Uncle Bert—when we knew Uncle Bert, he must have been sixty or seventy. I don’t how old he was when he died.

DAO His—there was a flag. I know there was a flag on his coffin.

Q Oh. Did he die when you were children?

HHA I think we were in college. He—

DAO He was killed. Stepped off the—

HHA He stepped off a curb in front of a car.

Q Oh, dear.

HHA But they thought, perhaps, he really died before he fell.

DAO But the driver of the car was completely exonerated.

Q Oh. What do you mean—

HHA That he had a heart attack or something like that. Fell from the curb and just happened to fall in front of a car.

DAO He used to—I’ll always remember his little brown satchel. At the lake, do you remember his little brown satchel? What you called a satchel.

HHA Um hum.

DAO Do you know what that was?

HHA (Laughing.)

DAO It was a suitcase—it took the place of it. But it was a kind of a bag with a top across here and a handle. And he would come trudging down the road, walking from the trolley. We never knew when. And he would arrive, make himself a part of the family. And then one morning after maybe a couple of weeks or something, the little brown satchel would come downstairs and we knew he was leaving. (Laughter.)

Q Interesting.

HHA Oh he was really a darling.

DAO He was really a dear.

Q What did he do?

DAO He was a boat builder, Uncle Bert.

HHA Not professionally. For himself.

DAO He built the motor boat that we had down on the creek that we took Betty across Sodus Bay in. I think that was mentioned in—that was Uncle Bert.

Q (Inaudible.) So what did he do for a living?

HHA Oh he was retired by the time we knew him.

DAO I really don’t know other then—

HHA I don’t know what he did.

DAO I don’t either.

HHA I don’t—I can’t imagine what he did. Except of course he was in the—

DAO Excepting to build boats.

HHA Well, he was in the war—

DAO And he was in the service.

HHA In the service. I really don’t know what he did. He had a harrowing experience. We used to worry about his—well another thing that he would do would be to—he loved the water and he was at Sodus Point once—not Sodus Point. Where was it that he used to go? The Bluffs? Lake Bluff?

DAO Well—

HHA I think Lake Bluff. You know that place?

DAO (Inaudible.)

HHA It’s—we passed the entrance to it many, many times probably between Sodus and Wolcott. A vacation spot, really. A pleasant little spot. But he used to row to our farm and pull his little boat up on the shore and come up to the house. And he did it when he was quite an elderly man and we used to worry a whole lot. And on one occasion a storm came up and his boat overturned. And I don’t know—

DAO A neighbor saw him—

HHA A neighbor, I think, saw him.

DAO And rescued him.

HHA And Papa was called immediately.

DAO Oh, I remember that so well. And they said that his hands were so—they were just glued to the boat hanging on.

Q Wow!

HHA And it would—he didn’t have enough strength to get himself to shore against the waves. And he would be washed out clinging to the boat, washed back in again, and washed out and back in again. Anyway, they got him up to the house—I don’t think I was home, were you?

DAO Yes. As I remember—

HHA Oh, well you probably remember it more vividly than I.

DAO He laid on this couch in the dining room when they brought him in.

Q Oh!

HHA I remember Papa worked over him. Gave him whiskey and brought him—

Q Uh huh.

DAO Oh I remember it very, very well.

HHA Well you were there and I wasn’t.

Q Do you remember how old you were? I’m just trying to place this time.

DAO No, I—if Winkie wasn’t there I don’t know whether that was college or not.

HHA I must have been in college.

DAO But I was there and I remember, you know, his breathing and—

Q So he must have been easily seventy years old.

HHA Oh I would think so, I imagine.

Q Good grief, that’s—

DAO And he survived.

HHA He might not have if Papa hadn’t been there.

DAO And we had one other—remember Cooley Dugan—came—

HHA That really turned out to be quite silly.

DAO Well, he was a college friend and he had borrowed a boat that he was accustomed to sailing with somebody else and was sailing down to visit us at the lake and his boat capsized. And I think again our next door neighbor saw them—saw him and the boat floating down the lake. And tried to get out to him and broke an oar, as I remember. And poor Cooley, he saw this boat coming out to get him and then he saw it turn around and go back.

Q Oh no!

HHA He was sitting on the keel of the boat.

DAO And—

Q So at least he was out of the water?

DAO There’s some—I’ve forgotten how it finally worked out but he was rescued and came to our house. And I think they picked up the boat later on farther down the lake, didn’t they? As I remember—

HHA Um hum. I remember that he had borrowed a—Papa had a set of Robert Louis Stevenson and he had borrowed one of that set to read as he sailed. And Papa’s book went to the bottom of the lake.

DAO I think he lost a camera and quite a bit of other—

HHA He was your—our age.

DAO Yes, I said he was a classmate. He was in my class I think.

HHA He was a good friend of Ned’s, wasn’t he?

DAO Yes he was an (inaudible.)

HHA So there were quite a few adventures.

DAO Adventures out there.

HHA I remember that the Sodus Record—that was a weekly paper that came out in Sodus—had an article about this accident to Cooley Dugan. And I remember one of the sentences was "the young man retained his equilibrium and sat on the keel." (Laughing.)

Q Great, great! But your uncle, of course—

DAO Oh, this was just a rowboat.

Q He—that was different story.

DAO And he was, of course, much older.

Q Yes.

DAO Oh, yes. I remember that. And, you know, if this neighbor hadn’t seen him—

HHA We used to say of Uncle Bert that he could smell a party. As surely as there was any kind of party at our house, Uncle Bert would turn up.

DAO Right (inaudible.)

Q Now did he have any children?

HHA He had a daughter and granddaughter. We scarcely knew them. Although there was a relationship there.

Q Well one thing that I think Kelly was surprised about when Grandmommy was talking about growing up on the farm was that how many people were actually in the house.

HHA Yes.

Q How many people actually lived there or were always there or—and I don’t know, that was surprising to me.

HHA Um hum.

Q But I think that must have been so much more common then—to have large—

HHA The expanded family.

DAO Well, and of course, you know, it was customary when they had extra help in that they were fed.

HHA But that didn’t happen very often.

DAO No, not very often.

HHA Just at harvest time.

DAO Occasionally.

HHA One day.

DAO But yes that wasn’t regular, but of course Elden lived with us. (Inaudible)

HHA He was a man that was pleasant to have.

Q And then you had your grandparents and—

HHA Cousin Lora.

DAO Clara, of course.

HHA Aunt Clara was in—well she had her own—she lived in Rochester. She was a nurse.

DAO Well, yes, but she came out every vacation.

HHA Oh yes. We always expected Aunt Clara. Did your mother tell you—your grandmother tell you about the wonderful Christmas parties we used to have?

Q I think you mentioned some but you didn’t elaborate on them. But you can do it now.

DAO Well I think I probably told you that there were five families that took turns. And I remember eating ’til it hurt.

HHA (Laughing) I do too!

DAO And I also remember sleeping in the attic and I thought that was more fun.

HHA We did have a lot of fun. That was the—

DAO All the girls slept in the attic. And I think I also told you the funny—

HHA We shouldn’t repeat that.

Q Oh no, please go ahead.

DAO The funny story about Uncle Joe(?) and Aunt Alice when the roof blew off. Did I tell you that? He was very droll as Aunt Alice was too. (Inaudible.)

Q (Inaudible.)

DAO I think I told you that.

Q Some of the things I know I’ve heard (inaudible) on the paper (inaudible.) And also going—telling us about I believe it was a sister of your mother who sewed her ruffles—

HHA That was Aunt Clara.

DAO That was Aunt Clara and the ruffles on Daddy’s—on your Granddaddy’s underpants.

Q That’s a great story.

DAO Yes I thought that it was.

Q So who else was commonly at the big house? Who else was a frequent visitor at the big house?

HHA At the farm house.

DAO At the farm house? Well, I don’t—

HHA (Inaudible) Uncle Bert.

DAO Uncle Bert and—

HHA Uncle Bert and Aunt Clara. Of course, Cousin Della used to come a lot. She—

DAO I wish so much that we knew the puppets. I can only recite the very first when Aunt Clara and Mother were dressed up—had their hands dressed as puppets and sang that song—

HHA Mr. and Mrs. Pickens.

DAO Mr. and Mrs. Pickens. But I can’t remember farther. I think I told you that too.

HHA They lay under a grand piano.

DAO Under (inaudible.)

HHA Aunt Alice had a huge old fashioned piano. Enormous!

DAO That wasn’t called a grand piano was it?

HHA Well that’s the nearest thing I can think of.

DAO Well there’s some—there’s another square piano.

HHA Square piano! Huge.

DAO Yes, huge.

HHA They lay under that and dropped a curtain down so that you couldn’t see them. All you could see was the arms of the puppets—dressed up as puppets, forearms.

DAO I think that (inaudible.)

HHA Oh it is? Oh I guess you’re right.

DAO And I think that should have been—

HHA Who dressed them up?

DAO Cousin Della.

HHA Cousin Della dressed them up?

Q And who’s Cousin Della?

HHA Well have you heard of our Cousin Dorothy? Dorothy just died two or three years ago.

Q Oh.

HHA Well, she was really our second cousin.

DAO Well Cousin Della and our mother were cousins and they were brought up pretty much like sisters.

Q Okay.

HHA Her name was really Mary Clarinda. It wasn’t Della.

DAO They were both mixed nuts. And Helen, am I not right that the big boys used to in school when Mother was a little girl—

HHA Yes.

DAO They used to put her up on the (inaudible) post and auction her off.

Q Oh!

HHA I thought they put her on a table.

DAO Well, whatever, something.

HHA Auction her off.

DAO I think she was a cute little girl.

Q Oh (laughing.)

DAO And quite a flirt, I think, as she got older.

Q Oh. So Cousin Dorothy and your mother were very close.

DAO No, Dorothy was my generation.

HHA Dorothy was the child of—Cousin Della’s daughter.

DAO She was older. She was her—yes. And her—oh dear, that’s kind of good. Her niece, Dorothy’s brother’s little daughter, was not much older

HHA Frances.

DAO Frances Loomis.

HHA I got to thinking last night about our rooms on the farm. When we went out there, the first work that was done was the finishing of, finishing off, re-papering, painting, was for our grandparents. But the second work that was done was to do two rooms, one for your grandmother and one for me. And Daddy let us choose our paper, each one of us. And she chose all of her flowers. I think apple blossoms. And painted her furniture cream. Do you remember that?

DAO Um hum.

HHA She did it herself. And Papa did the papering. And I chose a very fine black and white design with a dramatic frieze around the top. Festooned black with clusters of roses. And I remember—

DAO That is not the picture I have at all.

HHA I saw it when I went out there with Sharon that time and her brothers.

Q And the paper was still there?

HHA Still there. My paper. And the woodwork was white. And I painted all my favorite lines from poetry on the door in black with gold initial letters as I remember it.

DAO You made up that gold.

HHA (Laughing.)

Q What were your favorite lines?

HHA Well the one I remember now was from Sanskrit and I can only remember the last—"For all"—I don’t—just remember part of it—"For all our yesterdays are but dreams and all our tomorrows are visions—are visions of hope. Look well of there for unto this day, such is the salutation of the dawn."

DAO Aww—

HHA I loved it!

Q How wonderful.

HHA And we had little narrow windows the width of a standard window but only shallow. And my bed was right by one of my windows. It was a nice big room with several windows. And I could lie in bed and look up the stars.

Q And did you hear the waterfall?

HHA All night long!

Q So you all heard the waterfall.

DAO Beautiful, beautiful.

HHA A silvery sound. If I were to hear that now, it would be very moving.

DAO Well we did hear it when we stopped—stopped on the bridge.

HHA Um hum, yes we did. All through high school I—of course I was crazy about that time about violin. And I used to practice all evening before I went to bed which was early, probably nine o’clock or nine thirty. And then I used to get up at four o’clock in the morning to get my lessons done—my school lessons.

DAO We both got up at four o’clock in the morning to do our studying.

HHA I imagine we did. I just remember about me!

DAO Huh?

HHA I just remember about me. (Laughing.)

DAO Well, I remember that I got up at four o’clock in the morning to study too.

HHA Which shows—which shows how—with each person, life begins with her. And goes out from there. (Laughing.)

DAO (Laughing.) It’s funny, though, I can’t understand the two rooms because I have such a different idea.

Q What is your (inaudible?)

DAO Well I thought that one—I thought they were papered alike but this would be the beginning when I was ten years old. That my room was pink and yours was blue and that it was kind of a chambray paper with a border along the top that went with it. And that—

HHA Well maybe—maybe we had those other papers later.

DAO Later. That’s what—

HHA Maybe. I don’t know.

DAO That’s my impression. But I don’t know.

Q Interesting.

DAO Yes it is. And I—

HHA I—you might be right. You might be right.

DAO Daddy taught us how to paint our furniture.

HHA Hers was cream and mine was pure white.

DAO Yes.

Q Do you remember when you first—Aunt Winkie—when you heard about your father and him having to have this operation and then when you had to move or when you (inaudible.) Do you remember?

HHA I knew it for a long time ahead of time. But they didn’t—Mother and Dad didn’t know I knew.

Q How did you find out?

DAO I don’t think I knew until it actually happened.

HHA I did. And I remember that our principal at school whose name I’ve forgotten, in a gun accident, had a hand shot off. Do you remember? Or at least so mangled that he lost it.

Q Um hum

HHA All the children knew that. And when he came back to school I remember that. And I remember thinking—I think I even said something to my friend (inaudible) thinking that might have—Papa might have—our father might have lost a hand too, but he hasn’t. But of course he did eventually. But I—

DAO I wonder how you happened to know. Did you overhear a conversation or something?

HHA I suppose.

DAO Suppose so?

Q Did you—that must have been really fearful.

HHA Oh it was a terrible thing. Terrible. I remember—well I just don’t want to talk about it, really.

Q Really?

HHA Um hum.

Q It just makes you feel things that—

HHA Yes.

Q Oh. Then he raised fruit.

HHA Um hum.

Q And did a lot of grafting.

HHA Of course he—having the mind that he had—when he knew he was going to be running a farm, he went to great lengths to learn the latest—all the latest theories. He subscribed to magazines that her could gather information from. He had a very fine mind. Very alert.

Q Um hum.

HHA I remember some of his theories about fruit raising.

Q What were they?

HHA Well he got from his reading that the orchards should be cultivated. So our orchards were all cultivated for one thing. Most people’s orchards were allowed to grow to grass.

DAO Well they’ve gone back to grass.

HHA They’ve gone back to grass. I guess the theory was changed again. But he—

DAO Scientific farming.

HHA Yes. He believed in scientific farming. I remember one full old apple orchard on our farm. Really gnarled old trees. There were other orchards, too, that were young and very beautifully taken care of and commercial looking. But this old orchard was just ancient and it had the darlingest flowers. I don’t think I’ve seen any flowers—except in possibly roses which I believe are related to apple blossoms—that moved me so as those apple blossoms.

DAO Those were apple blossoms!

HHA Oh, they turned me inside out!

Q Did—when you were living on the farm, did you have really bad winters? ‘Cause I remember winters in Rochester. And did you have—snow—

HHA I can remember when the snow drifted up—halfway up the windows. You’d look at your window and it would be solid snow. But we were cozy warm inside. The fire burned all the time in the fireplace. Of course we had other heating, too, but the fire—in weather like that the fireplace—the fire never went out. Dad would bank it at night and go down in the morning and stir it up again.

Q And then—

HHA I can remember when we’d come home from school from that three mile ride and we’d be cold and that fire would be blazing and you’d have cocoa. Hot cocoa right by the fire. And then also we used to roast chestnuts.

Q Um, how wonderful.

HHA And you know what? We’d bury them in the ashes and they’d burst.

Q Oh!

HHA And they were so sweet and good.

Q And when they burst it was time to eat them?

HHA Yes. And they were hot—

DAO Oh, one of my pictures I’ve had is Mother gathering up the chestnuts. We had two beautiful chestnuts when—

HHA I thought we had more than that. I thought we had a grove.

DAO Oh, whatever. But she went down to gather chestnuts and the crows came and just loosened everything up. And the chestnuts came down so fast. She had a wonderful time picking them up.

Q Oh!

HHA She picked up bushels.

DAO She picked up bushels of them and she sold them.

Q Wow!

HHA She sold them and she bought you and me each a beautiful sweater.

DAO Was that it? I don’t remember we got a sweater but I always remember that.

HHA The crows. Like the birds that dropped manna from heaven. (Laughing.)

Q Hum.

DAO I wanted to tell you that also in those days, we used to have a dressmaker come into the house. Did I tell you that?

Q No.

DAO Even when we’d sold the house in Rochester and we were going to move out and Mother—and we stayed in the house until school was out. And we had—a seamstress came in and made me my birthday dress.

Q Ooh!

DAO A pink silk with lace. And then later on out in the country Mrs. Eddie came way out—

HHA She came out and stayed a week.

DAO —and made our bathing suits.

Q Wow!

HHA She’d come and do all sewing for the season coming.

DAO And do all the sewing and then go back.

HHA Did she come twice a year or once?

DAO Oh, I don’t remember that.

HHA I think probably once.

DAO I just remember that she came and—

HHA And she’d come and stay a week and do everything that was—all the sewing that was needed.

DAO Yes.

Q Was it fairly standard?

DAO Well I suppose so. For some people anyway. That was Mrs. Eddie, wasn’t that right?

HHA Mrs. Eddie.

DAO And of course you know our bathing suits were bloomers. Red, very pretty—red tops with white braid on the center collars—

HHA Center, center collars.

DAO And long black stockings.

HHA I remember the first time I saw Mother in a bathing suit and she looked just like a little girl and I couldn’t get over it.

DAO I could see her trying to swim.

HHA Yes, I can too.

DAO She could almost go just a few feet and sure as anything she’d go down. She—she never—

HHA And she worked so hard to (inaudible.)

DAO She worked so hard and she could go about so far and that was it. That was it. She never did learn to swim.

Q It’s hard to imagine wearing a bathing suit like that and actually going swimming.

HHA And stockings and sneakers.

Q And sneakers, hum.

DAO And when we were little and vacationing at Pultneyville which is a sleepy little old town, then when four o’clock came, everybody paraded down the sidewalk to go swimming. And it was just that time.

HHA Eleven o’clock in the morning—

DAO Eleven in the morning and four in the afternoon.

HHA Four in the afternoon.

DAO And that was when the people went swimming. And we had dinners at the hotel. And when dinner was ready, they rang the great bell. And everybody that was supposed to went there for dinner (inaudible.) And I just—you just can’t imagine that atmosphere now.

HHA No.

DAO Very different.

HHA I remember we used to buy great big marshmallow hearts as big as that! Pink marshmallow coated in chocolate and they had a prize in the middle.

Q Huh.

DAO You didn’t drink your milk.

Q Oh, I guess you’re right, I didn’t. I need to do that.

DAO I don’t think you had a very well-rounded—