Great_Nanny_1978_Side_A_mono.mp3

KLM [00:00:10] And I just thought it would be nice if we had some kind of a record of your... whatever you remember, your relatives' names...

CDL [00:00:18] Mm hm.

KLM [00:00:19] Where you were born, the type of housing... the number of... sisters, brothers, your mothers, what - your mother, what your father did for a living, whatever you... whatever you come up with, whatever you think of.

CDL [00:00:29] Now you want me to talk?

KLM [00:00:30] Yeah.

CDL [00:00:30] Well I was born on the East Side of New York, on Madison and Market. My mother and father - mother's, maiden, family name was Keefe. She was a Callaghan.

KLM [00:00:41] Now that was your - grandmother's - That would be your grandmother's name.

CDL [00:00:47] My parents - grandparents. Yes. Yes.

KLM [00:00:47] ...was Keefe. Oh I don't remember hearing you say that.

CDL [00:00:49] And the Callaghan was with a G. My mother's name.

KLM [00:00:53] Right.

CDL [00:00:54] One of her forebears.

KLM [00:00:55] Right right.

CDL [00:00:56] Mother was born in Cork, Ireland, and my father was born in a place called Hampton Wick, London.

KLM [00:01:03] Right. There's a castle there, Hampton Court. There's a castle. 26 miles out of London. I saw it on the -

CDL [00:01:09] I was born December the 10th, 1895. I'm one of eight children, six girls, two boys.

KLM [00:01:16] Now wasn't there another child, that didn't live?

CDL [00:01:19] Didn't live - was premature.

KLM [00:01:19] Oh. Where, where did that child fit in?

CDL [00:01:21] That was the baby.

KLM [00:01:22] Would that have been the ninth?

CDL [00:01:23] Ninth, yeah.

KLM [00:01:23] Oh, ok.

CDL [00:01:24] You want [indistinct]?

KLM [00:01:25] No, just keep going.

CDL [00:01:26] Oh I see.

KLM [00:01:27] Just keep going.

CDL [00:01:28] Mother and I spent a lot of time together, we used to talk about old times, I don't think anybody else in the family would, because I was a nosy -

KLM [00:01:34] Now you were... the -

CDL [00:01:36] Seventh child.

KLM [00:01:39] Seventh child. Ok.

CDL [00:01:39] There were, as I said before, there were six girls, two boys.

KLM [00:01:42] So she would have had a little more time for you, the others -

CDL [00:01:45] Well she lived with me after I was married and had children of my own.

KLM [00:01:48] Right. But even as a youngster she should have had a little more time -

CDL [00:01:51] Yeah, well -

KLM [00:01:51] for you .

CDL [00:01:52] of course, the other children were raised.

KLM [00:01:53] Right, right, yeah.

CDL [00:01:54] Because there was four years difference between my sister and I, who was Eleanor. I was four years [indistinct]

KLM [00:01:59] Oh you were. Oh.

CDL [00:02:00] I was born December the 10th, 1895. Now you want to know about father's family?

KLM [00:02:04] Yeah, Like the, the ah, whatever names, however far back you can remember the names.

CDL [00:02:08] Well, father's mother was a McCormick.

KLM [00:02:10] Now wait a minute. This is now, this is my father.

CDL [00:02:12] Yes, your father.

KLM [00:02:13] No I mean your father.

CDL [00:02:14] Ah, well he was a, I don't know his mother's name.

KLM [00:02:17] You don't know any of the relatives?

CDL [00:02:18] No, not of the English side of the family. I know my mother's.

KLM [00:02:21] He was a Dawkins.

CDL [00:02:23] Dawkins, yes.

KLM [00:02:23] And weren't there many boys in that family?

CDL [00:02:25] There were seven sons. There was one daughter and my father was the seventh son.

KLM [00:02:30] Now was his father seventh son by any chance?

CDL [00:02:33] Yes he was. Yeah.

KLM [00:02:33] He was. Seventh son of a seventh son.

CDL [00:02:35] Seventh son.

KLM [00:02:36] That's interesting.

CDL [00:02:36] My father was in the steamship business, I think you'd call it a stevedore. He worked for a man by the name of McGrath which was connected with the Munson line.

KLM [00:02:44] Now how old was he when he came over from England?

CDL [00:02:47] About fourteen. Came over in the tea trade, which was the Cutty Sark. The famous Cutty Sark.

KLM [00:02:53] Right. I mentioned that to someone one time and they told me that there were several Cutty Sarks.

CDL [00:02:57] Well they weren't the originals.

KLM [00:02:59] Yes.

CDL [00:03:00] Because my father wrote into one of the newspapers that wrote an article about it and corrected them on it, and they wrote back and thanked him very much for the information.

KLM [00:03:08] Oh. And when you mother came over how old was she?

CDL [00:03:11] Seventeen. Seventeen.

KLM [00:03:12] Oh she was that old.

CDL [00:03:14] And she went to work for an aunt, and her name was Sullivan, that was an, her father's sister. So there's another name in there, Sullivan.

KLM [00:03:21] Now she came, she probably sailed from Cork.

CDL [00:03:24] She came over in a sailboat, and it was lost going back.

KLM [00:03:27] Really?

CDL [00:03:28] Yes, yeah. And it took her twenty eight days to come over. Yeah.

KLM [00:03:31] Oh boy.

CDL [00:03:32] Yeah. And her mother took, her father had passed on, and her mother took her. And you had to take what they call a tender, to meet the boat.

KLM [00:03:38] Right, right.

CDL [00:03:39] And she said when she was up on the boat, that she wanted to change her mind and go back.

KLM [00:03:43] Oh.

CDL [00:03:43] So she had, ah, two sisters and one brother.

KLM [00:03:47] Oh is that all, in that family?

CDL [00:03:49] That's all in there. Well they've got married very late in life in Ireland, you know.

KLM [00:03:51] Right. Right.

CDL [00:03:53] They didn't have big families.

KLM [00:03:53] Oh. I never knew, you know, about her coming over. Did she ever tell you anything about the sail over, the trip over?

CDL [00:04:01] Yes. She said she came over steerage, but they were very well, ah, what would you say, supervised. Because they were all good-looking young Irish girls they didn't want anything to happen to them.

KLM [00:04:13] Oh.

CDL [00:04:13] But you had to have someone claim you, as they could take care of you when you got here.

KLM [00:04:18] Right. Right. How about sickness on board, did she say anything about that?

CDL [00:04:21] She never mentioned anything about sickness on board, but she said that everything was very nice, the food was good and everything was nice, but it was 28 days.

KLM [00:04:29] Oh, oh. Grandpa work his way over?

CDL [00:04:31] Yes he did, and they paid his way back, but he didn't accept it. He met my mother and fell in love with her, and married her.

KLM [00:04:38] Oh, so neither one of them ever went back?

CDL [00:04:40] No. Mama used to say "I'll go back when they build a bridge." She didn't like the water.

KLM [00:04:46] And you don't remember any of the names of his parents, his mother?

CDL [00:04:49] Not the family, not the fem-, family names, not the previous names.

KLM [00:04:53] Right. Right.

CDL [00:04:54] He spoke about his mother, quite a lot. His father, er his mother died very young with tuberculosis. [dishes rattling off mic]

KLM [00:05:04] That's background, that's background music. Yeah yeah we will.

CDL [00:05:08] His mother died very young, his father remarried. And they all had beautiful voices... In fact one of his brothers was a composer, Uncle Fred. I remember my father telling me about that.

KLM [00:05:18] Did grandpa's mother die before he left for America?

KLM [00:05:22] He was a baby when his, ah, ah, oh yes. And his father had remarried. And she was a very talented woman and encouraged them all with their voices and the music.

KLM [00:05:31] Oh.

CDL [00:05:31] And my father had a beautiful voice.

KLM [00:05:33] Did any of his brothers or his sister ever come over?

CDL [00:05:35] No. Friends came over and visited us, but not ah, any closer than nephews. And friends of the family, of the Dawkins family. From the old country.

KLM [00:05:45] Yeah. Did they all stay around London, did Grandpa ever say?

CDL [00:05:50] Yes, um, I had two first cousins who were Episcopal ministers. They were related to my father. They were Dawkins.

KLM [00:05:57] Right. Right.

CDL [00:05:58] And Uncle Fred was an organist, and a composer. I had quite a few pieces of his. In fact he composed a Christmas carol that I had for many years. And they also sent me over Handel's Messiah, which was considered, ah, beautiful music.

KLM [00:06:12] Right, right, and still is. You still get many recordings of it.

CDL [00:06:16] The Amen Chorus.

KLM [00:06:16] Oh.

CDL [00:06:16] What were the other ones we used to have? I've forgotten.

KLM [00:06:20] Oh isn't that something. What do you first remember, ah, as far as New York is concerned?

CDL [00:06:25] Very little. I never went to school in New York. We moved to Brooklyn and I went to school in Brooklyn in the Heights.

KLM [00:06:30] How old were you when you went to Brooklyn?

CDL [00:06:33] Oh I guess about six.

KLM [00:06:34] Oh you were that old.

CDL [00:06:35] Yeah, that old. But my sister [Eleanor] was young.

KLM [00:06:37] Do you remember anything of the house in New York?

CDL [00:06:39] Oh yes I do. It was an apartment house, it was at the corner of Madison and Market and there were stores under it. I remember a bakery. More than that I don't really remember.

KLM [00:06:48] What floor did you live on?

CDL [00:06:49] First [above the ground floor].

KLM [00:06:50] Oh you were right there. Remember anything about your weather, your winters, or...?

CDL [00:06:57] Ah, I remember putting a glass the water on the window sill and having it freeze in no time flat, so it must've been cold.

KLM [00:07:01] Oh yeah.

CDL [00:07:03] But I remember more about Brooklyn, because I mean I was older.

KLM [00:07:05] And where did you move when you went to Brooklyn?

CDL [00:07:07] When we went to Brooklyn, we moved to 26 Middagh Street, which was Brooklyn Heights.

KLM [00:07:10] Oh you stayed in that same house all until you were married?

CDL [00:07:13] Oh no no, I was married from 26 Middagh St.

KLM [00:07:17] But what was the address when you first moved over?

CDL [00:07:20] Um, from previous?

KLM [00:07:20] From New York.

CDL [00:07:21] 117 Madison Street.

KLM [00:07:23] Yeah but when you moved into Brooklyn you moved to -

CDL [00:07:26] To 26 Middagh St.

KLM [00:07:27] But you mother stayed there until you got married?

CDL [00:07:29] Oh yes. The same house.

KLM [00:07:30] Oh the same house.

CDL [00:07:31] Big house, three story and a basement.

KLM [00:07:33] Oh. You occupied that whole house?

CDL [00:07:35] My mother did, yes, and the family. Well, there was eight of us.

KLM [00:07:37] Did you rent that house?

CDL [00:07:38] My mother rented it, yes. It was a very pretty neighborhood years ago, we used to call it "the village." Everybody knew everybody else.

KLM [00:07:47] Oh. And you went to school there?

CDL [00:07:48] Yeah, the Assumption.

KLM [00:07:49] Oh that's where that parish was.

CDL [00:07:50] On, um. Hicks St.

KLM [00:07:54] And then you graduated from that school?

CDL [00:07:55] Yes, that school.

KLM [00:07:58] When - after you graduated from the Assumption, did you go on to a business school?

CDL [00:08:03] I did. And I worked in a wholesale liquor house on Fulton Street. I stayed, ah, I went to school at night, for my business school, and worked until I got married and I was 20 when I got married.

KLM [00:08:13] But you started to work when you were about 14 then?

CDL [00:08:15] Oh no. 16, 17. I was there for -

KLM [00:08:18] Business school took two years?

CDL [00:08:20] I didn't finish. I just -

KLM [00:08:21] But you went for a couple of years, the business school?

CDL [00:08:23] Yes, at night.

KLM [00:08:24] But where were you in the day between 14 and 16.

CDL [00:08:27] I worked.

KLM [00:08:27] That's what I'm saying, you went to school, you went to work right after grammar school.

CDL [00:08:29] That's right.

KLM [00:08:30] So you would've only been about 14.

CDL [00:08:32] Yeah that's right.

KLM [00:08:32] Yeah.

CDL [00:08:33] Until my fifteenth, probably.

KLM [00:08:34] Right. Right. Pretty young by today's, you know today's standards.

CDL [00:08:38] What the business school, what the grammar school considered [indistinct]

KLM [00:08:41] Fourteen. You'd be afraid to let them loose, you know. As far as that went. Oh that's very interesting, some of those things. Did any relatives ever come and visit?

CDL [00:08:51] A cousin of mom's came over, Joe Murphy. So there was a Murphy in some part of the family, just comes to me now. Very intelligent, in fact he taught me how to read and write before I went to school. My father taught me how to tell time. They taught you that in the first grade but I was never in the first grade. I went into the second grade. Which was a whole year more education than I should have had, unless I went to school.

KLM [00:09:14] Right. Right. Yeah. Oh I didn't know that. You never mentioned that to me. As far as that went. [recording stops]

KLM [00:09:29] [later] OK we could probably pick up from where we left off last time.

CDL [00:09:34] Mm hm.

KLM [00:09:34] I think we left off where you were just about starting school.

CDL [00:09:37] Mm hm.

KLM [00:09:37] You said you went into second grade.

CDL [00:09:40] Mm hm. That's right and I wasn't in first.

KLM [00:09:42] All nuns in that school?

CDL [00:09:44] Yes, yeah.

KLM [00:09:45] They wore the regulation habit?

CDL [00:09:47] Yes. They were Sisters of Charity.

KLM [00:09:50] Oh, oh. With the little bonnet?

CDL [00:09:52] Yeah.

KLM [00:09:52] The black bonnet?

CDL [00:09:53] And the leather [indistinct] and the big - I used to call it the witch's hood.

KLM [00:09:56] Oh, that's right. Did you go all day?

CDL [00:09:59] Yes. 9:00 [A.M.] to 12:00 [P.M.], we had an hour for lunch and went back till 3:00 [P.M.]

KLM [00:10:04] Oh you'd walk home?

CDL [00:10:06] Oh yes.

KLM [00:10:06] Oh. And have your lunch.

CDL [00:10:08] Mm hm.

KLM [00:10:08] Could you go with any of your sisters or brothers?

CDL [00:10:11] To school, no.

KLM [00:10:13] Didn't walk back together?

CDL [00:10:14] Eleanor didn't go, she was four years younger than me. So she wasn't ready for school when I was.

KLM [00:10:18] That's right, that's right.

CDL [00:10:19] And Julia was in school ahead of me.

KLM [00:10:22] Oh, oh. The boys at this point were they, they were probably out? No, they shouldn't have been out -

CDL [00:10:24] No, they were in St. James in New York, and both went to the high school. Frank and Charlie both. They traveled from Brooklyn.

KLM [00:10:32] They should have been in the grammar school the same time you were though. Some of them. Maybe they had different hours.

CDL [00:10:36] But Charlie comes, as Julia's older than me. And then Charlie's next.

KLM [00:10:40] Yeah, couple of years, couple of years.

CDL [00:10:42] See I don't remember that, see.

KLM [00:10:42] Yeah. Did you walk to school every day?

CDL [00:10:44] Yeah sure, walked in Brooklyn, walked, if you went away, went to New York you walked too.

KLM [00:10:49] How far was the school from the house?

CDL [00:10:51] Well in Brooklyn I'd say two miles, easy.

KLM [00:10:54] Oh that far?

CDL [00:10:55] Yes.

KLM [00:10:55] Oh that's long.

CDL [00:10:56] Under the arch of the bridge. That was the Manhattan Bridge, the old Brooklyn Bridge, then the Manhattan Bridge later years.

KLM [00:11:02] Which bridge was first there?

CDL [00:11:05] Ah, the Brooklyn Bridge. But the Manhattan Bridge was being built when I, when we left Brooklyn. They had all the equipment going through. The first time I saw a lady with trousers on, she was a doctor. And they were laying the caissons. And the young man working on that used to get the bends. And that's, when they put that railroad in, Sadie picked up malaria and Mama got out of the place as fast as she could. It was digging. Like a miniature railroad.

KLM [00:11:30] Now this was from New York though. When you lived in New York.

CDL [00:11:33] Yeah.

KLM [00:11:33] Oh that's what she got the malaria and that's when you moved.

CDL [00:11:37] And we came to Brooklyn.

KLM [00:11:38] Now when, when, where were you when you developed diphtheria?

CDL [00:11:40] That was uptown New York on the east side in 34th or 38th street.

KLM [00:11:45] Oh how old were you then?

CDL [00:11:48] About three - well, Eleanor was born so I must have been... She was, I'm four years older than her so I must have been...

KLM [00:11:54] So you'd have to be four. Oh now that wasn't in the house that you mentioned last week then.

CDL [00:11:59] No I only mentioned Brooklyn, Middagh Street.

KLM [00:12:01] No you mentioned another house. You said you were born -

CDL [00:12:04] Yeah 117 Madison.

KLM [00:12:05] Right. And this was another house then when you got -

CDL [00:12:08] We moved from there.

KLM [00:12:09] - the diphtheria.

CDL [00:12:10] Yeah.

KLM [00:12:10] Was that further uptown?

CDL [00:12:12] Yeah.

KLM [00:12:12] Or how were you moving, uptown or downtown?

CDL [00:12:13] We moved uptown, came back downtown, then went to Brooklyn.

KLM [00:12:16] Oh. And when you had the diphtheria, did anyone in the family, else have it?

CDL [00:12:20] No. No. But it was, Mama thought I got it from digging in the yard. We never had a dirt yard, we always had a flag yard.

KLM [00:12:26] Oh.

CDL [00:12:26] And she thought I got something in the dirt there.

KLM [00:12:29] Well you had told me this story a couple of weeks ago about that diphtheria. Would you mind telling me that again?

CDL [00:12:34] No no.

KLM [00:12:35] Your doctor came in?

CDL [00:12:36] Came from downtown New York where we had formerly lived. And treated me uptown New York. And then as soon as I was well enough Mama finally got Pop to let her move to Brooklyn.

KLM [00:12:49] No but you told me the story, that was interesting, that at that time anyone with diphtheria was put in the hospital.

CDL [00:12:56] What was the name of that, the name of that hospital? Just for contagious diseases.

KLM [00:13:02] Was that one in the East River, on an island perhaps?

CDL [00:13:05] No that was, it wasn't on an island, it was like, you would say, in the direction of Bellevue, and that place. And so that's how, I can't think of the name of the ho- now it just passed my mind. I mentioned it the other day to Walter.

KLM [00:13:17] Now what was the story, you told me about having the prescription filled.

CDL [00:13:20] Mama used to take it out of the neighborhood, so they wouldn't find there was anybody with the diphtheria. I remember she had a brush she used to paint my throat with. I had scarlet [fever] with it. That's an eruption, you know. Nobody in the family ever got it. Nobody in the neighborhood got it. I was the only one.

KLM [00:13:36] And what did you say, you could hear the ambulance, she could hear the ambulance coming.

CDL [00:13:39] She'd get scared to death that the ambulance from Bellevue, but... I think it was another, now I can't think of the name of the hospital they put you on that. Willard Parker.

KLM [00:13:47] Oh, oh that was contagious diseases, Parker.

CDL [00:13:49] Yes, contagious diseases. But Bellevue was quite near so we must have been in the 30's.

KLM [00:13:55] I remember you told me this story, how frightened she was that they would take you away and put you in the hospital.

CDL [00:13:59] And you never came back, you know.

KLM [00:14:00] Oh, you didn't recover.

CDL [00:14:02] No. That's what she was worried for. Because Eleanor was very little, I remember her, Mama telling this story, later years. "Oh, this is my new mother." 'Cause Sadie was taking care of the family [indistinct] anybody else could help.

KLM [00:14:13] Oh.

CDL [00:14:14] But she [Mama] stayed with me.

KLM [00:14:15] Oh, well I guess she'd be afraid to come out, that somebody else would catch it.

CDL [00:14:20] Mm hm.

KLM [00:14:20] Yeah that was an interesting story.

CDL [00:14:21] Mrs. Donovan, or Donohue, or... She lived in the house, and she missed me, I was a nosy little bugger I guess, in everybody's house. And she said to Sadie, "What's the matter with Catharine?" And she [Sadie] said "She has pneumonia." She [Mrs. Donovan] said "Well I'm very good with sick, I'll help your mother to put on poultices." She [Sadie] said "oh my mother's very capable." We didn't want anybody in the house.

KLM [00:14:43] Oh you couldn't under those conditions.

CDL [00:14:45] And we'd got the doctor in trouble too.

KLM [00:14:46] Yeah, if your mother was afraid that you'd be taken away to a hospital.

CDL [00:14:50] Mm.

KLM [00:14:50] Oh, that must have been some siege. Did she ever say how long you were sick with that?

CDL [00:14:53] No. No.

KLM [00:14:55] No?

CDL [00:14:55] Kind of remember myself because they used to, the boys used to give Mama money to give to me, they could come to the door, and I had a pocket. I had a lot of change. I remember sitting up in bed.

KLM [00:15:04] Oh really. Yeah. Yeah.

CDL [00:15:06] I can't imagine... I couldn't have been, ah... well Mama used to say "you remember that, and there's things that were later and you don't."

KLM [00:15:13] Oh it must have made an impression. Especially if she stayed in that room with you.

CDL [00:15:18] But I always said that's where you got the dedication to be a nurse, 'cause you never got it from me.

KLM [00:15:22] Oh. Well, she may have liked it.

CDL [00:15:23] She did. She was a very intelligent woman. Sadie used to say that. [indistinct] was the one who put the spoilers[?] in the family.

KLM [00:15:31] What did she paint your throat with?

CDL [00:15:33] It looked like, smelled like carbolic if I remember right. But it had a little thing she had to put on her hand like this. And it was a little bristle, brushes. A little black -

KLM [00:15:44] And it went inside your throat?

CDL [00:15:45] Mm hm. I imagine there was cultures on it.

KLM [00:15:50] Yeah. Like an [indistinct] type thing too or something. Isn't that something. And you don't remember any kind of medication with it?

CDL [00:15:58] No. No. That I can't recall.

KLM [00:16:00] Don't know, huh. Well that was interesting when you told me that. I thought that was, ah... show the fear and the fright of a mother at that time -

CDL [00:16:12] Yes.

KLM [00:16:12] - that she would be fearful that you would go -

CDL [00:16:13] And see I was the seventh child.

KLM [00:16:17] Yeah.

CDL [00:16:18] Well, she lost a baby, after Eleanor, you know.

KLM [00:16:20] Well then she was frightened after that and you moved shortly then, after that.

CDL [00:16:23] Yeah we moved to, I never mention where we lived, it was a terrible dump on Fulton St., before we went to Middagh.

KLM [00:16:27] Oh.

CDL [00:16:27] [indistinct] too cute.

KLM [00:16:31] Well it would be better to tell, because you would be getting up in the world, you go from a poor place and eventually move to a better -

CDL [00:16:38] I remember Julia used to say, we used to go by the house for quite a while, getting the woman out. 'Cause her lease ran out and Mama was getting a lease. And Julia and I used to walk past 'cause it was a lovely neighborhood. And Fulton Street was trolley cars, and elevated trains, and that. And it was over a butcher shop.

KLM [00:16:54] How many stories would that have been?

CDL [00:16:56] Three.

KLM [00:16:57] Three stories. Two - was there anybody behind the butcher shop?

CDL [00:17:00] No no, just the butcher shop was the ground floor, and there was the first floor, and there was the floor we lived on, that was the top floor. Mamie lived on the first floor. She went in there as a bride.

KLM [00:17:09] Oh, and you had the second floor?

CDL [00:17:11] Yeah Mama had the second.

KLM [00:17:12] And how many rooms would be in there?

CDL [00:17:14] Six.

KLM [00:17:15] Would you have three bedrooms then at that time, or two?

CDL [00:17:17] There were three and then like an alcove off the living room that Mom and Pop and Charley used to sleep in. It was kinda crowded, Kathryn.

KLM [00:17:24] I would think so because didn't you always have some relative or friend that you would have to put up or something?

CDL [00:17:28] Oh sure, anybody came off the boat.

KLM [00:17:30] You had to -

CDL [00:17:31] And you know how mommy used to [indistinct] I told you the winter clothes were stored in a bolster. Blankets and, what I mean by winter, bed covering.

KLM [00:17:40] Now where would you put the bolster?

CDL [00:17:41] Well, trimming on the bed. You had no storage.

KLM [00:17:45] Yeah well you had no built in closets.

CDL [00:17:46] No, only what you used to call a -

KLM [00:17:49] Wardrobe, thing you would have. Oh that's where she stored the winter things?

CDL [00:17:54] Yeah, she made a bolster. And then she used to make our winter stock[ings] - she crotch[eted] - knitted our own stockings in the wintertime she'd knit at the cotton ones for, the summertime she's getting ready for the winter.

KLM [00:18:05] Now these would be over the knee?

CDL [00:18:06] Yeah, long.

KLM [00:18:08] What'd you have, pin garters onto your drawers or something?

CDL [00:18:10] We used to have something called drawers waist. Had garters, instead of the, like they call a training bra. This was a drawers waist, with little things that your garters went on. Had long stockings .

KLM [00:18:20] That's how you hooked the stockings on. Yeah.

CDL [00:18:23] It's quite, it's too bad that I didn't remember a little more because you kids get a kick out of it, like I used to get a kick out of mama.

KLM [00:18:29] Yes, telling -

CDL [00:18:30] I don't think anybody in the family she talked as much to. As she did to me.

KLM [00:18:35] Well I thought she probably had a little more time. You were one of the younger of the children.

CDL [00:18:38] Sadie used to love to see her come up because she used to bother Sadie.

KLM [00:18:41] Oh well this would be after you were married. Do you remember your shoes? My kids kid me about high button shoes. Did you in fact wear high -

CDL [00:18:49] Lace. They were mostly lace. She didn't want us have thick ankles like I used to say to you kids.

KLM [00:18:54] Now how about your, your dress lengths when you were little kid like that. Were they long?

CDL [00:18:58] They were long. Mommy used to make a lot of our clothes, she even made our coats.

KLM [00:19:02] Oh.

CDL [00:19:02] She was a very good sewer. The only thing is, [lowers voice] she couldn't read the patterns, that's 'cause she couldn't read and write.

KLM [00:19:07] Right, right. Well .

CDL [00:19:07] But she could just tell you, when I would sew, she said "you got that wrong. Where that is, that's for two pieces. You're supposed to double your material." I'd say "you know what I'd like to do, I'd like to throw this whole thing out the window."

KLM [00:19:18] Yeah, patterns, I don't like patterns, it's like making an atom bomb.

CDL [00:19:21] But she was very good. She always made her own sheets and pillowcases. She bought a bolt of muslin, and that was bleached till it was white, and she made her own sheets and pillowcases, and those beds were spotless. She was very clean, mom. That's why she and I didn't get along.

CDL [00:19:35] Oh yes, of course. Mrs. Clean. She did all that washing in the kitchen?

CDL [00:19:40] Yes.

KLM [00:19:40] In a big tub. Rub a dub.

CDL [00:19:42] Rub a dub dub. And was many years before that, I don't remember it, was downtown in New York, that you had wooden tubs. And you could not put those away unless you left water in them because the... the copper... the tub would...

KLM [00:19:58] Would dry probably.

CDL [00:19:59] Deteriorate. Yeah. And you'd lose the tub.

KLM [00:20:01] Was there running water in the houses? Do you remember?

CDL [00:20:04] Yes, cold.

KLM [00:20:06] A pump type thing or a faucet?

CDL [00:20:07] No. We had a pump, and later in Brooklyn we had faucets.

KLM [00:20:13] Oh boy that was some job to do that wash then.

CDL [00:20:14] Can you imagine the kids? What she used to tell about when Julia took to... What happened to Julia? [indistinct] I guess. No, my father fell overboard. Before Julia was born. And she used to wash down in the sub-basement so she would have the house looking nice when the men came to see Pop.

KLM [00:20:31] Oh.

CDL [00:20:32] It was a forester[?]. Fell overboard half-loaded, you know.

KLM [00:20:35] Oh I'll bet that sub-basement would probably have rats and everything else in it.

CDL [00:20:37] Yeah. [indistinct] and all your coal was in the backyard in a shed.

KLM [00:20:40] Oh.

CDL [00:20:40] It was primitive, really primitive.

KLM [00:20:43] Well that's the things that I'm interested in, the different, you know, that, washing, washing the clothes, just the cold water. So she had, what, a pot, you had. Did you have a coal stove or a wood stove?

CDL [00:20:54] You had a big boiler. That you boiled your water in. With the -bucketed it out, and if you wanted it, and of course a coal stove.

KLM [00:21:03] It was coal. Wasn't wood?

CDL [00:21:04] No, coal. Mama had wood and coal both.

KLM [00:21:04] How were those houses heated?

CDL [00:21:09] Well, you had ah, oil heaters -

KLM [00:21:12] You had central heating?

CDL [00:21:13] No no gee, oil burn - oil heaters, Kathryn.

KLM [00:21:15] Oh in each room.

CDL [00:21:16] Yes. Not in each room. Some part of the house was terrifically cold.

KLM [00:21:20] Oh.

CDL [00:21:21] So was our apartment. We were, a bride and, just shortly married before Walter was born. 54th St. we had no central heat.

KLM [00:21:27] Oh, so you probably wouldn't have heat in your bedrooms then?

CDL [00:21:30] In New York we didn't have gas.

KLM [00:21:34] Well -

CDL [00:21:34] You didn't cook with gas.

KLM [00:21:36] You didn't cook, yeah.

CDL [00:21:36] I was saying to Walter when I'm timid now, I said, look back at my mother, she was afraid of her life for the gas because when you lit the gas it popped. And she'd pop away from it.

KLM [00:21:44] Well that must have been later on though, gas.

CDL [00:21:47] Yeah, later, we had no gas in New York.

KLM [00:21:49] Because you wouldn't have gas, you wouldn't be cooking with coal I don't think, if you had any way to get gas in the house. Were there always sewers, do you remember?

CDL [00:21:58] Well you didn't have outhouses, so you must've had sewers.

KLM [00:22:00] Probably. You never had an outhouse even in Brooklyn?

CDL [00:22:03] Wait a minute. Charlie told, tells about going down to the toilets, were in the back yard and finding two dollars.

KLM [00:22:08] Oh really?

CDL [00:22:09] He never stopped going, he wanted to go back and find two more, two dollars. He used to go up on the roof and throw it[?].

KLM [00:22:14] Now was that an out house then?

CDL [00:22:16] I would call it that. I didn't, I don't know where the flush to that, see that I don't remember.

KLM [00:22:20] You don't remember that stuff. Yeah.

CDL [00:22:22] It's too bad he's not here, he could tell you.

KLM [00:22:23] Yeah, he probably would remember a lot more.

CDL [00:22:25] He was telling your, your brother Walter about how he... Mama came up on the roof, man had pigeons. And Charlie went up there. To look at the pigeons with another kid. And he hid in the tank. We had a tank for water -

KLM [00:22:39] Oh for the water, for the rainwater?

CDL [00:22:41] Yeah. Back, see there was no pressure then, you had to come down from that thing.

KLM [00:22:45] Right. Right.

CDL [00:22:46] And Charlie hid in that. So when my mother and father were gone, he came out. He was up there, they knew he was up there -

KLM [00:22:53] Oh but they couldn't find him. Oh, isn't that something.

CDL [00:22:55] He said he could have drowned.

KLM [00:22:56] Sure. And they never would have found him. Yeah, yeah. I read one time that the reason the apartments, you know you had some six story buildings, the reason you had six stories is water would go that high without power behind it. Electrical or gas power or something. I never realized why there were so many six story apartments before elevators. But that's why, the water would get up to the top.

CDL [00:23:18] Well where Mamie lived, in Henry Street after she left mom's house on Middagh Street, she had three faucets. Hot and cold and a tank, the middle one was for the tank on the roof.

KLM [00:23:30] And what would you do with that?

CDL [00:23:31] Well if you needed a supply of water and it was shut off in the city, you could use it. That's how she figured Walter Cribb [Mamie's son] lost his eye, he fell there. She doesn't know how, how it happened, when she picked him up she saw the blood.

KLM [00:23:42] Right. But it was at the sink getting water or something.

CDL [00:23:44] Because Tommy Olsen - Cribb was older than Walter and he did it a day before.

KLM [00:23:50] Oh so he was following suit.

CDL [00:23:51] Well she went a long, long time before they took his eye out. And he hated me with a vengeance. I was afraid of him before your brother was born. [indistinct] tough shoes, you know. And he tore the laces, so that I couldn't bend over -

KLM [00:24:04] Oh, and put them back on again. He was a tough kid. Well you think 15 minutes is enough for today?

CDL [00:24:11] Yeah sure.

KLM [00:24:12] Get yourself tired, and -

KLM [00:24:21] [later] OK mom, we'll start another session now. Last time we went on, we got you up to, talking about your bathroom and so on.

CDL [00:24:29] Mm hm.

KLM [00:24:29] And I did ask you about running water. What did you do to take a bath?

CDL [00:24:34] You had a metal tub, that you filled with water. And if there was more than one to have a bath you might get that water for yourself, and then never be changed for two more.

KLM [00:24:47] Oh, oh.

CDL [00:24:48] But that was on Saturday night and then a lot of the apartments in New York had ah, what would you call that material that tubs are made of? Soapstone?

KLM [00:24:56] Oh yes yes.

CDL [00:24:57] And that would have a center piece in that. And that could be taken out for baths, and then you had running water which was quite an innovation. It was a lot of work on the parents or the mother especially, to give you the baths.

KLM [00:25:10] Now would that be hot water then?

CDL [00:25:12] Well you'd have to boil it.

KLM [00:25:13] You boiled the water.

CDL [00:25:13] Well it was running water.

KLM [00:25:14] Yeah but not hot running.

CDL [00:25:15] No no, you'd make your own. You want me to keep on?

KLM [00:25:19] How about soap? Did Grandma have to make the soap?

CDL [00:25:22] Oh no she used to buy, never anything but Kurtman[?]. Kurtman's soap, yellow soap common soap. You got your bath and your hair washed with that, and... it was utilized everything that your body needed or your clothes needed.

KLM [00:25:36] You don't remember her ever making soap?

CDL [00:25:38] Never.

KLM [00:25:39] No she wouldn't go in for anything like that.

CDL [00:25:40] She was afraid of it. Because you had to boil that fats. And she was always afraid of that going on fire.

KLM [00:25:45] Oh, or someone would get burned. I think before you probably mentioned that originally she cooked with - do you remember her cooking with wood or just coal?

CDL [00:25:53] Wood and coal.

KLM [00:25:53] Wood and coal. But in Brooklyn you had gas.

CDL [00:25:57] We had gas in Brooklyn. We had gas in a part of New York, when we moved, that was just put in of recent years, and mama was afraid, as I said, she lit the match and she used to jump back from it. 'Cause it used to pop.

KLM [00:26:10] How did you light that house, Mom?

CDL [00:26:12] Ah, gas. And later years we had mantels, that Charlie was the custodian of those.

KLM [00:26:18] These were gas fired mantels?

CDL [00:26:19] Yeah you lit them. They were like a, it looked like a, a mesh. And then when you put the match to them to get them ready for the wood in your mantels... We had little coverings on them and that would make your light, and it was a good light. But my father always preferred the oil lamp.

KLM [00:26:34] Do you remember the oil lamps?

CDL [00:26:35] Oh yes.

KLM [00:26:36] Only before the gas?

CDL [00:26:38] Oh yes. We had, in the living room, we had one on the wall with what they called a reflector in the barrel[?] and in my recollection it was a mirror. And that, nobody had those, because my father really had a little more to do for his home and family than a lot of the neighbors had.

KLM [00:26:55] Some of your, yeah, more than some of your friends had. Now when you had the gas light, they would be stationary?

CDL [00:27:03] Oh yeah, they came down from the ceiling, you couldn't move them.

KLM [00:27:05] Oh they did come from the ceiling?

CDL [00:27:06] Oh yes. It was - and the, the one house we lived in had meters. And you had to have quarters ready. There was no man to take the index, but as soon as your lights started to flicker, you dropped the coins in. We had a couple of quarters, you drop a couple in, you'd have light for quite a while.

KLM [00:27:21] I thought they would all be connected to -

CDL [00:27:24] Meter?

KLM [00:27:24] The wall. As your -

CDL [00:27:26] In the ceiling.

KLM [00:27:27] As - Oh. High?

CDL [00:27:28] High, yeah.

KLM [00:27:29] And could you pull them down to -

CDL [00:27:30] No, no they were permanent.

KLM [00:27:31] Oh they were, wherever they were...

CDL [00:27:32] They were stationary.

KLM [00:27:35] Now where did you have electricity put in? Do you remember the electricity being put in?

CDL [00:27:39] We didn't have electricity till we were quite a few years in Brooklyn, in fact my sister Mamie didn't have electricity when she bought her house in Bay Ridge, on Forty-second Street.

KLM [00:27:48] Do you remember the wiring put in? Was there a big deal made of it?

CDL [00:27:51] There was outside - yes. It was outside wires. And then years later they put them underground. Remember I told you, Mamie, the man gave her the estimate for overhead, and the overhead wasn't ready then, and she wouldn't pay the man till he put them underground. We had no lights! We had to go back to the lamps again.

KLM [00:28:11] Well what kind of publicity was there when electricity was going to come in? Were you excited about it?

CDL [00:28:18] I don't remember. I guess we must've been. I don't remember that quite so well.

KLM [00:28:23] That, I would think that would have made such a great difference.

CDL [00:28:26] Oh sure it was, and when Mamie's house she bought on Forty-second Street was many many years later than I'm talking about. She had no electricity.

KLM [00:28:33] Oh.

CDL [00:28:34] And that's when she got the man to give her the estimate and put in the electricity.

KLM [00:28:37] Put in the wires.

CDL [00:28:38] Because Mama lived in the top floor of the house and Mamie lived downstairs.

KLM [00:28:42] Now when you, who did the shopping basically your mother?

CDL [00:28:45] My father bought the meat. But the only thing, meat and vegetables came from the wholesale markets in New York. My father was a stevedore and he had access to things like that. He paid for it, he wouldn't take it for nothing. But the dry groceries, like the sugar and the milk and the things like that, the milk we had delivered, and the sugar we stopped in, mostly Rolston's[?], and the butter we went to New York for that, and to a dairy. And -

KLM [00:29:09] How would you get to New York?

CDL [00:29:10] By the ferry. The Catherine [Ferry} or the Fulton [Ferry], whichever direction. I took my piano lessons on Madison Street. I would take the Catherine Ferry for that. But if you're going to other stores that Mama used to have us go to to shop, it was mostly in the business sections, tea and coffee places, that's where we used to get our coffee and tea at five pounds.

KLM [00:29:28] Now when you, how would you get to the ferry?

CDL [00:29:30] Walk.

KLM [00:29:31] There was no other way to get there?

CDL [00:29:32] Oh gee no. No trolleys.

KLM [00:29:34] No horse carts?

CDL [00:29:35] No. There horse cart, the trolleys were horse-drawn then.

KLM [00:29:38] But they weren't available to you?

CDL [00:29:41] Well it was too short a distance.

KLM [00:29:42] Oh I see.

CDL [00:29:43] And then it cost money. You know, a dime or whatever.

KLM [00:29:46] How many times a week would someone shop?

CDL [00:29:48] Well the heavy things were delivered from New York.

KLM [00:29:51] Now what kind of a conveyance -

CDL [00:29:53] Truck. Horse and truck.

KLM [00:29:54] Does that come over on the ferry, the horse and the -

CDL [00:29:56] Oh yes, I told you Frank Young used to deliver us and your father was the one that got him into the newspapers as he was a truck driver.

KLM [00:30:02] Oh you know you don't think of these things of how, how anything got anyplace.

CDL [00:30:05] Yeah.

KLM [00:30:06] By horse and buggy.

CDL [00:30:07] Horse and wagon. And Frank[?] of course, if you moved from one house to another, that was horse and wagon.

KLM [00:30:14] Horse and wagon too.

CDL [00:30:15] There were very few automobiles and in fact when we moved to the Heights they weren't allowed to go up Columbia Heights in a horse and truck.

KLM [00:30:22] Now -

CDL [00:30:23] They had to drop it [on] the side street and walk.

KLM [00:30:25] You said there were very few automobiles. When did the automobiles come in fashion?

CDL [00:30:31] Gee, I can't recall.

KLM [00:30:33] But you remember automobiles when you were little?

CDL [00:30:34] Oh yes, yeah. Open, open, and you wore a coat and a hat so you wouldn't, open, they were open, you didn't want your hair to get mussed up and you didn't want your clothes to get mussed up, 'cause you're really in an open car.