Connie Nicholson
You'd like me to just get you to say your name?
Okay.
Your name?
Connie Nicholson.
And when were you born?
Fourth, seventh, and 48.
Okay.
And where were you born?
Fredericktown,Missouri.
And you grew up here?
Yes.
Well, I lived on the, I don't know the address, across the street from where I live.
I was raised there.
I think I was going into the fifth grade.
I went to school at Fredericktown over there on High Street.
So you, as a child, you lived across the street from where you live now?
Yes.
The house that I bought now on 306 North Mine LaMotte, yes.
Oh.
Okay.
And you lived here your whole life?
Yes.
Okay.
I have four brothers.
And I'm the only daughter.
Did you keep up with them?
Yes.
I raised Mikey, Ricky, and Randy. And I got a brother who were 14 months apart. So I just helped take care of them as I was growing up.
Were you the oldest?
Next to the oldest. My brother is older than me, Jerry.
Okay.
So you're 14 months younger.
Yes.
So as a kid in Fredericktown, what did you like to do?
What I liked to do? Well, we used to play out in the yard all the time. We used to play tag, hide and seek at night, try to find each other. And we used to just get cans and put them on our feet and walk.
Then I got a pair of roller skates that had saved stuff off the box tops.
And I got them and then ma'am, that was the most happiest day of my life, I put them on to fit me and I just roller skated.
And then Christmas, my dad bought me and my brother a bike. We just got one gift. I thought that was the greatest thing ever, that bike. We didn't get much growing up back then, but we had a great childhood.
I wouldn't take any of it back. I had great parents, they always seen and give us what we needed growing up. It wasn't much, but we got something every year for Christmas, decorate the Christmas tree.
We'd cut out paper and we'd glue it around to make a circle, put it all around the Christmas tree.
And we took popcorn and get it all around the Christmas tree. Had the big old Christmas lights on there and we stuck it in a bucket, stuck it in water, because that's what you did back then.
It got dry, we'd take a spray bomb and spray it, put it up about two weeks before Christmas.
And we had a great childhood.
I just had a great father, mother, just didn't want for nothing. They loved us.
Now, when you walked on the cans, so you had to put some string through it so somebody could control it all?
No, we just stomped on with our shoes and we just kept going.
They didn't really come off.
We just kind of went on and curled around your foot.
Yeah, we'd walk on them.
We thought that was just great.
And then the roller skates, to put it around your shoe?
They just slid out to fit your foot.
You had a strap to put on them.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
And we had the Brown Shoe Company there.
And we used to, they had bars that went all the way around it.
And I used to get on them and walk all the way around them.
Oh, walking the bars.
Yeah, too.
Yeah, there wasn't nothing to do.
Yeah, back in the back of the Brown Shoe Company, we played baseball back there.
I think it was just, it wasn't blacktopped, it was just gravel.
Had that building.
We used to get on the, had a ladder light going up.
We used to get on the top of that.
Climb up on the roof of Brown Shoe Company?
Yes.
And there was a split.
I don't know about how wide you would think that would be, but I would straddle it with my feet.
Like, I would straddle it and would play hide and seek. I'd go to the top and they couldn't find me. And I'd be up there and they'd be looking for me.
My brother, I never did tell my brother I did that until later on. He says, no wonder I couldn't find you, sis.
So you mean there were two buildings and there was that much space between the buildings and you straddled?
Yeah.
I think it's still there.
I'm going to look for it.
I'll have to show you where it's at.
Sounds good.
Comes out the back door, because I worked for Ivan there for 13 years.
I worked at Brown Shoe as I got older, you know, worked there but it wasn't very long. You know, we used, I climbed the flagpole out front.
My mom would come out, get down off of that flagpole.
We had trees in the backyard.
I would climb clear to the top.
Boy, my mom would get onto me.
I was a tomboy, she'd say, get out of them, get down from that tree before you fall.
Of course I had to get down.
As soon as your back was turned, I was right back up in that tree.
Did you ever have any broken bones?
No, no.
And we had, when we moved in that house, had an old shed back there with a bunch of jars and stuff in it.
And we didn't have no running water or bathroom in that house.
Being in fifth grade, I guess, was around 10, 9 or 10.
And we had, it was a concrete thing, and the water, the pump was there, you know, like, and it come out, you know, like, like that.
We had an outside bathroom, we didn't even have an inside bathroom there for a while. You know. It was cold in the winter.
Well, you know what, it really didn't bother us kids, I guess.
We never thought nothing about it, you just, that's the way it was.
You had company, Mom ran you out of the house.
You was not included in any conversation that went on in the house between Mom and Dad.
They didn't talk or nothing like that about what went on.
We were just isolated.
We actually lived a sheltered life like that, just the way it was.
My Dad worked in St.
Louis.
My Mom stayed there, yeah, in that house.
And back then, we had, well, the train depot is still there.
The railroad tracks run right where town and country is, all the way back through there when I was a kid.
And they were still running?
Yeah, when I was a kid, yeah.
Boy, not, not really.
Was that a passenger train or was it for freight?
I think both.
Okay.
I think both.
And the train depot is kind of fancy.
It's still there, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
When they tore that up was later on, probably, before I got out of high school, probably.
Right.
Because it's been a long time, you just don't think of that stuff and remember it.
So your Dad, did he go up and work, stay up in St.
Louis during the week, and then come back on weekends?
Yes.
Sometimes he'd be gone for two weeks.
And then summertime, we went and stayed with my Dad.
And sometimes my Dad would take me up there, and I would stay by myself in the apartment.
But there was a store underneath us, and if I needed anything, I'd just hit on the pipes.
I was really mature at that age.
I could cook a complete meal at 12 years old.
I helped my mom can and everything all summer.
That's what we did.
I didn't get out to play, didn't realize it was our food for the winter.
My mom didn't waste nothing, not the apple peelings, nothing.
We made apple butter, homemade jelly, and Mom canned tomatoes, corn, green beans.
We didn't want for nothing in the wintertime.
Garden in the back of the house?
Yes.
Yes.
We went back there, and green beans, as a kid, being the only daughter, I snapped everything because I was, you know, I did most of all of it.
I had to help take care of my younger brothers, because my mom was sick sometimes, you know, and it was kind of hard for her.
So I realized that.
I think my mom had another breakdown when my mom was 40 when Randy was born.
I know where they were all born, every one of them.
You wouldn't think I would remember that, being that young, because I was 13 years older, my baby brother, and you just have to do what you got to do to survive.
They were born in the hospital.
Ricky was born in Farmington.
I know the hospital, they built onto it, but it's no longer there.
It's on the old double, it used to be called the Old Mineral Area Hospital, and they renamed it.
Mikey was born there.
Randy was born in St.
Louis Hospital, because I was there.
I was there, left there, to take care of Ricky and Mikey.
When my mom was in the hospital and my dad worked, me and Jerry stayed there, and we took care of them.
I took care of them.
So you remember the garden.
Did you guys keep chickens or any livestock?
No, we didn't have anything like that.
We just made a garden.
And which school did you go to?
I went to Fredericktown, over there on High Street.
The school building is tore down, where I went to school.
I can describe it right now.
I mean, you don't think you can do that, but I got a good memory.
Remember, you went up flight of steps, and you went in on the left, was the principal's office.
And then, there's a hallway, and to the left, there was a room there where my teacher was at, and then there was a door that you go out of, go into the schoolyard to play.
And then there was upstairs, because everything was separated out.
It was seventh and eighth grade.
And the cafeteria still stands, that I ate in, and the gym is still there.
So where do the kids eat today at the elementary school?
It's still there.
That's the original building.
My grandson went to school there, from kindergarten to the second grade, and then it starts out on 72 out here.
Yeah.
So did they build the new school in a different place than where the old school was located?
Yes.
That is all, nothing there.
You can just drive in the back and come through, and the school sits by the cafeteria.
And there was another building next to that, I think it was a musical thing, that we did music there.
That is tore down.
It was next to the gym.
I can remember everything on my street that's been tore down, too.
The house next to me that I grew up in across the street, there was a house there.
Edmonds was there, Buddy and Tinker and Sue, and there's another brother and another brother.
His name was Bill, but I can't think of that one.
Oh, it's been so long, we used to call him, oh, Duke, we used to call him, we had a name, we used to chase this, had a fan at Separatist, we'd get out there and that's a Duke the Pew.
Oh, he used to chase us with water on us.
He didn't like it.
Yeah, he just aggravated us.
He had a good sense of humor, you know, as kids growing up, I don't know why we did that, but we did.
Duke, you spook us, and then you puke, we just made rhymes up.
He had a brother named Buddy, he ended up being a school teacher, and there was a White House on the end, Betsy Doogie, can't think of her parents' name, because it's been a long time, it's a White House, that got torn down.
She was a town boy, we were best friends.
She won homecoming queen in the 10th grade, didn't have a tavern across the street from me named Seaballs, it went through a lot of names since then, and they had a laundry, they had a house next door to that, that got torn down, and then they had a two-story house that they had rented through the years, and a laundry mat sat next to it, and they had a store there, it was Wes's store, that got torn down, and the little building next to it still there, it used to be an old barber shop.
Yeah, I was going to ask if all those were near West Market.
So I remember all that stuff.
I know, it just flowed.
And next to the White House is a detail shop now, but through the years, I don't remember what that was, and there was two more, there was another house that sat there, it got torn down, but the other house is still sitting on the corner, it's still there.
Did it flood a lot there?
Yeah.
That's probably why they found it.
Yeah, and there was a house next to me, a big two-story house, and it was Yalla, and then there was a blue one sitting on the corner, and that's called Church Street, and behind that, Benny Martin was there.
And down on the corner, there was a Yalla house, they tore that down, and the garage is still standing behind Seaballs, it used to be, but it's Tom's Bar now, it's still sitting there.
And there were more houses, there was another house there, and two or three more houses there, it got all torn down.
Did your house ever get flooded?
Yeah, I got a sump pump.
I mean, the one when you were a child.
No, it never flooded when I was there, everything got built up, it used to be all fills back in there, where the Mexican restaurant is now, and they got apartments there, and all that there, and the seniors were there, and none of that was there, that was all filled when I was a kid growing up.
Oh, that was filled all the way back, I can even tell you what was by New Arabank going down off to hell.
The one place is still there, the funerary home is still there, as a kid as I was growing up, that was still there.
Wilson's?
Yeah, Wilson's, down off the hill, there's a great big old white two story house that sat there right by the creek, and that one little building is still there.
That used to be the old gas company, that's what used to be, Missouri Natural Gas, that was there.
Did you attend church?
Yes, but growing up, I try to remember the churches I went to, I don't really remember that.
Okay, different ones then?
Yes, it's been a long time, some of them probably aren't even here yet, because I lived out on J Road out there, and I went to school there, and it's all tore down, because I was in second, third, fourth grade maybe, because I went to kindergarten up here to school, and believe it or not, I still know my kindergarten teacher's name, Mrs. Combs, I still remember that, laying down, not a pad, but on a towel I think, is what we laid down, and we didn't have mats back then, and I ran onto her one day, and I actually knew her.
I think it was at Town & Country.
You mentioned earlier about playing baseball behind the shoe factory, so I guess back then there were no like town parks or anything, you guys just played wherever there was vacant lots?
Wasn't any parks, there were houses, there were houses, there was no parks when I was growing up.
So just wherever there was an open area, you played?
Yep, now they had the swimming pool when I was growing up, as I got older, because I went there, that was there, and well, Teen Town's still there, before the old school barn, because I graduated there.
My son went there too, I think.
I guess it was a Teen Town pool, a pretty popular area?
Oh my gosh, yes, after the football games, we went in and it was football games, we was just giggling and carrying on, we was too interested in the boys, and you know, that's the way girls were, eee, giggling and carrying on, like you're goofy, that's what you do when you're 14, 15, 16 years old, giggling and carrying on.
We go to Teen Town, because my mom let me go, because I was a good kid, I never got into trouble, my mom let me do a lot, because when she grew up, she was sheltered so much, she said she would not raise us kids like that, because when I said I was going someplace, that's where I went.
We had a curfew, we had to be home at a certain time, but my mom wasn't mean to me, like grounded me or nothing, she gave me a little leadway if I was late or something, or something happened, you know, pretty much I was, I was homeless, well I got to be at home, of course you stay all night with your cousins and do things, sneak off and go to Flat River, I never told my mom, I don't think, but as we got older, we had discussions, we kind of laughed about certain things, I was a pretty good kid though, some of my girlfriends had to get married, that wasn't for me at all, I was too much of a tomboy, you didn't kiss me, I didn't like that, nope, we ain't going that route, you know, you giggle and carried on, that's about it, and the stock car races over there in Cobalt Village, we went there, I remember it was every Friday and Saturday night, but every chance we got, we got, as I grew up, we didn't go to the, you know, the show up town, the theater, eleven, twelve years old we went, my brothers walked me, you know, because I was living in a house there, across the street, and my brother kind of looked after me and stuff, we'd see spooky movies, like the fly, help me, help me, and they'd get underneath the bridge and scare us, and I'm just screaming, running all the way home, you know, we had a good, I had a good childhood, trust me, I wouldn't trade it for the way the kids are raised today, you think about it, and my older friends that I went to school with, Pat from the seventh grade all the way to the eighth grade, she didn't finish because she ended up getting married, but she stayed married to the same guy, and we meet each other now, our friends, and we sit and talk about the things, our childhood, you know, the things we've done and the way the kids are raised now, they don't have a childhood, they don't even know what love is, they're all in broken homes, and they're growing up, in kindergarten now, there's no Santa Claus, you know, my grandson comes home, grandma, there's not a Santa Claus, and I says, well who told you that, because I babied him, I called him Poopy, and our baby talked to me, don't care, I love him, he's my only grandchild, and I raised him the way I was raised.
If I can go back, you were talking about the football games, that would have been when I was in high school.
The school that burned down was the high school.
Yes.
So the football games would have been that rock wall enclosure?
Yes.
Yeah, that was the football field, and we sat in there, and my girlfriends were cheerleaders, they'd get out there and cheer, I never wanted to be one, but I got out and I tried and just went my thing, so me and my girlfriends got together later on, it used to be Carla Fowler and Linda Seaball, that was her maiden names before they got married, and mine was Shoemaker, so we went with that, we all got together, I was cleaning her house, Carla Fowler, she lived out going east out there, and they built houses out there somewhere, and Linda happened to be there, she said, you ain't changed a bit, you ain't all, said, you looked just like you did when you were in high school, so who are out there, let's do some cheers.
Well, we was out there doing that, we had a ball, and we had the 5 and 10 store, that was Ben Franklin, we had Penn Hirsch, it was an alley, Penn Hirsch was next to that, and we had Kelly's Jewelry store, and I still can't think of that tar store where the lawyers are right now.
I remember Shultes.
Shultes, it was, Shultes was the store that had a bunch of stuff in it, like household wear, and just a little bit of everything in that store, because I knew him, it was an alley, you know, where Penn Hirsch and 5 and 10, Ben Franklin was, goes right there, he was right on the corner, I know exactly where he was at.
So how was Shultes different from Sonderman's, that's right across from the courthouse?
Sonderman's, I think, was more of a furniture store, more of a furniture store.
And then what was Seabass, you know, how Seabass is now?
It was a furniture store.
So those two were always, they always had similar things?
Yeah, it was always a furniture store, because that was Linda's dad, and then her brothers ran that corner there.
But the Democrat News was across the street from the funeral home Wilsons, they were there, that's where it used to be when I grew up, the Democrat News.
Yes, yes, I guess that's Lincoln Drive, Lincoln Drive is just coming up, Lincoln Drive and hitting the stop sign.
I don't know if that's Lincoln Drive, or not yet to stop sign, but it's Lincoln Drive from town to country coming all the way up by the bridge.
He was on the right hand side of Lincoln Drive and East, yes, I'm not sure, yes, and I have Pryce's thrift shop because I had met the son uptown there at the thrift shop, the senior thrift shop, I was talking one day, and I said, yeah, I remember that.
It was downtown, I think, there too.
Now was your father a plumber?
Yes, my dad, yes, John Shoemaker.
And then your brothers were Rick, you said Rick the baby?
No Randy was, he's the one that passed away last year, he was the baby, he was the plumber.
Ricky is a central heating, airing, and cooling.
Mike is next, he worked at Chrysler and retired from Chrysler.
So Mike is an in-between, yes, it's Jerry, me, Mike, Rick, Randy, 13 years older than Randy.
You know, I know your father when we first moved to Fredericktown.
Did you know my mother, Juanita Shoemaker, she was a shrum, she was a shrum.
We needed a plumber, and so your father and Randy came to the house, and Randy was working with my father because they worked down there at Jimmy Thal's, and he quit, my dad took him in, and then Ricky worked at Gifford's Lumber Company across town before they moved out there on the highway, wanted him to be manager, he didn't want to do that.
So he just kind of took off when he was on with my dad.
Well we had just come from St.
Louis, and your father said he had been up in St.
Louis, he didn't care for it because there was nothing to do up there.
My father?
Yeah, he said that to us, and so I guess he was back down here to live in the 80s.
He didn't still go up to St.
Louis then?
No, it was way before then because when I graduated in 1966, my dad was working for himself.
He was going back and forth and doing work and from the job that he learned, and what he did up there, I think he did electrical work and plumbing and he did things, and I think carpenter maybe, I'm not sure, but I'm sure some of that that he did, and he just eventually got on his own.
Down here?
Yes, working for himself, and he did quite well.
I asked him what he meant by there's nothing to do in St.
Louis, and he said they've got a big park up there, Forest Park, but you can't hunt, you can't really fish, and so he preferred to come down here where there was more freedom to do those kind of things that he liked.
I went to that park.
Forest Park?
Yes.
My mom's brother and wife lived up there, Vernon and May, and she had three boys, and we used to walk from the apartment where my dad lived.
We walked there, and there was a restaurant there that we stopped off at, and we went to the park, but then everything where dad lived, it was not a good place, and we didn't go to the park.
You couldn't turn your kids loose because there was, like, dangers, so we didn't really stay a whole lot.
We just maybe one time we went there, and that was that mom wouldn't take us back where they lived.
It was not the best side of town, because I could remember talking to my parents.
My grandpa worked up there, too, and he went once to go get a paper, and they stabbed my grandpa, and I remember to this day, I couldn't have been very old, I was maybe seven.
We didn't think my grandpa was going to live, he didn't know he had gotten stabbed, and he passed out.
Someone had found him, and he ended up in the hospital.
They stabbed him and got him in the lung, I think, yeah, and he didn't think he was going to make it, but he pulled through.
I just remember them saying that, and it scared me because I was real close to my grandpa.
He was staying there with my dad, I think, up there for some time, and went back and forth, I guess, drove himself, and I guess he was there up there in the apartment, and went, yeah.
Did your grandfather also live here as well and spend time here?
Yeah.
He lived over, he lived Franklin Street, Franklin, lived on Franklin Street.
Let's ask a little bit about your cousins, you mentioned your cousins, like did you have a lot of family, extended family here?
Yes, yes.
Yeah, my mom's brother had three boys, and my one brother that my dad had died at the age of 40, he had open heart surgery, and he sent him home, and he started hemorrhaging.
They took him, Uncle Tony, he ended up passing away, and Corrine, that was his wife, they had one boy.
My dad had a brother named Fred, he passed on, he had two boys.
He still lives where he does on Sea Highway, he still got the same farm.
I didn't know my dad's mom because she passed away when my dad was 12.
She died in childbirth, and I barely knew my grandpa, my dad's dad.
I'd seen him a few times.
He lived out there with Uncle Fred for a while, lived in a little trailer, I barely remember him.
They're all passed, well his sister, Irene, she passed on, was my dad's sister, then the other sister, Ruth, boy I'm guessing at this, she passed on, and there's one living left in St.
Louis, and I can't think of her name offhand.
Do you remember things like Azalea Festival, were there any festivals like that that you attended?
Not really, we didn't.
Community celebrations or anything?
Didn't, no.
We just had a carnival come around around 4th of July, and I can tell you exactly where it was at, right down where I lived on that lot right there.
Remember going down, we lived out on J Road, remember the day we were going, I come out the door, I got stung on the arm with a wasp, and all that hurt really bad.
My mom put baking soda on there, went on, and I remember going down there, I just couldn't wait to get there.
It wasn't very big, we had rides, but we just went to be going, you know, we don't remember rides and stuff, just walked around I think, I remember being down there, it wasn't very big.
Right, was there a county fair for the time or no?
No, not that I remember, as growing up we always had to end up being to Azalea, as I was growing up.
So you graduated from the high school?
My brothers went there and graduated.
And, well the old one, the middle school?
Yeah, the one that burned.
Did you go to?
No, I graduated, I went to grade school over there on High Street, where it's at now, seventh and eighth grade, and then I graduated, you know what, I've got my pictures at the house, my mom saved my book when I was in first and second, I have all them.
Did you read much as a, did you use the library much as a child?
Yeah, I liked to read, yeah.
Any favorite areas of?
I liked reading, like literature, like reading, I just liked to read, I liked animals, you know, like dogs and things like that really, it was more my interest because I just liked horses, dogs, and I grew up playing cowboys and Indians, me and my brother and marbles, that's all we had, these little plastic horses, and we'd go to the five and ten Ben Franklin and go up there and buy them in a bag, and they had saddles on them, the guys on them, the Inions and everything, and we used to play with them, had little fences that went with it and everything, you didn't touch my stuff, my brother's wasn't born then, when I was playing, we had jacks too, throw it up in there, you know, ten jacks, you know, we played that too, that's what we played growing up.
Be quick to get those jacks, oh I was good at it, had a baton and twirled that when it came out and out there throwing itself in the head, I learned how to do that, and jump rope, we jump roped as a kid growing up, that's just one thing you had to do.
Did you go fishing?
No, my dad didn't fish but I went hunting with him when we lived on J Road, and that place we lived in is still there, I used to think that driveway was so long walking to catch that bus, and you look back and you think, that is so silly, I walked the woods, this one we didn't get snaked but we caught lizards and played with them, my dad went hunting and I went with my dad, and he would kill squirrels, and I would throw them over the back, and my dad called me sissy bug, and he was cleaning them squirrels, dad split them squirrels, and he said, sissy, grab that skin, turn it back, so the hair don't get on it, he said when you do, my dad took a knife and cut it, and I pulled it off and he would say, I can't believe I done this, I was one sick child, he said, he said, reach in there and pull them guts out, reach in there and pull them guts and sling them, my mom, come home, she did not like that, because that put them on my back, and she would say, I don't know what I'm going to do with that child, and dad said, leave her alone, that's what she wants to do, leave her alone, I've got pictures of me, snow shirt on, got a hat on, cowboy hat, got guns and holsters on and my underwear on, I still have that, my mom said to me, like to beat my, you know what off, so did you hunt more with your father than your brothers, my brothers didn't hunt, my brothers wasn't born then when we lived out there, my mom was pregnant with Mike when we lived out there, my mom was really big, my dad was still working in St.
Louis and coming back, I remember all this, mom got pregnant with Ricky in the house that I grew up across the street and with Randy, so when you talk about Jay, you mean Jay Highway, yes, and you said you had an outhouse there, what were some of the other things you remember about that house, on Jay Road or the one in front of Jay, it was a small one, it was concrete, I can describe it to a T, and I tell you what, I was just like in a second grade, second grade, a third, you know, lived out probably a couple of years, you go into the door and on the right side was the bedroom of my mom, down on the left side was the kitchen, you went on through, I remember the living room being here and there was another bedroom on your right hand side, that was me and my brothers, we had twin beds, and you went out and we had a back porch, but at the time we didn't have a back, dad put a toilet stool in, we didn't have a tub, I only remember a shower, we washed off in a wash pan, soap and water, that's what we did, and we had a back door that you could go out to the back, cause I remember that so well, so when was the bathroom put in, were you still living in that house across the street from where you live now, was there a bathroom eventually, yeah my dad put that in eventually, probably six months later or a year, I'm just guessing, it wasn't too far, you know, oh okay, yeah cause it was a room but it wasn't used, dad made a bed, we had a back porch that come up, it's still there, and this is the one in Frederickton, yes, how old were you, well when I moved there I think I was going into the fifth grade, cause when we moved from Jay Highway, I forgot this, Shulty Lane that crosses over where the bank is there, that's Shulty Lane up in there, we lived there, there's a little house that we lived there, it's torn down now, but the other house is still there, where the guy lived, where we rented from, and there was a big old barn back there, cause I remember till this day he made things, the house was small, it wasn't, you were really close to the train station, yeah, but at the time as a kid I didn't know that was there until we moved in the house, when I was going into the fifth grade, we lived there and we had an outhouse there, we had a bathroom, we had a little pot that went to the bathroom at night cause mom would let us get out, and I remember walking and dumping it, cause like I said, when Mikey had to be born then, but when I think back about that, that's really hard cause I know my mom was pregnant when we lived on Jay Road, I remember her really being big and she was sick and wasn't feeling well.
So this would have been somewhere in the late 50s?
Yeah, I was born in 48, yeah, cause I know I was going into the fifth grade because I went to school in the building that they tore down.
I was going to ask about the TV and things like that.
Oh yeah, I remember everything in the house, you mean the one where I was raised here on the north mile of Lamont, we had TV, it was, oh well we had a radio, it was like square and round, mom kept that in the kitchen cause dad built kitchen cabinets and it was sitting up there, it had little shelves that come out round, three of them.
My dad, that house didn't have anything in it, no kitchen cabinets, nothing.
So my dad built that in there, no closets, my dad built all the closets and made our room and petitioned it off, my dad did.
And our TV, I can remember that so well, it was brown, top square, you square and it sat on four little legs, black and the tube was round.
I'll never forget that, black and white.
How old were you when you got that?
Probably about in the sixth grade and we sat in there and we watched, it wasn't a whole lot going on, it was really the news and we watched, I remember, but back then I didn't realize it but I do now, Matt Dillon and all them old shows and we used to sit up late at night and watch the Twilight Zone, I remember that, I remember that eye and I didn't like it at all, it scared me, it was a real scary fact when you were a kid.
Mom used to let me stay up on Fridays and Saturday nights late because sometimes Dad didn't come home but when Dad came home we went to bed at a certain time because that was the time for them.
You didn't make noise, you didn't do anything, you didn't turn the TV on, you were quiet until they got up, you didn't knock on the bedroom, you didn't do nothing, you did what you was told when Dad told you one time, it wasn't the second time, it's just how it was.
You didn't complain about what you eat or nothing like that but if you didn't like it, my mom never made us eat nothing we did not like.
She said you try it, if you don't like it you do not have to eat it.
Growing up she was raised like that and she said she would never raise us like that.
She was scared to death as a kid growing up, they went to funerals and they didn't understand a lot back then, I understand that, Mom said she would never do us that way.
She grew up being afraid of the dark.
Me and my mother was pretty close, you know we talked about a lot of things growing up.
She said well she wasn't going to raise me like that, my mom raised me well.
I got almost going tears because my mom was a good mom to me and I loved her with all my heart, my daddy was good to me and I lived a real good childhood.
I wouldn't trade it for nothing in the world but I'd go back and trade any of my childhood, I would just go right back to it.
I was a happy kid, I was loved and we didn't get a lot but I tell you what, we were loved and we were told we were loved you know.
My mom made all my clothes for me growing up because I weighed like 70 pounds, it was pretty tiny.
My mom was a good seamstress, she made my wedding gown without a pattern, made all my clothes, I could go to Pennhurst and look in there and I still got pictures of the libs blouse my mom made me and my girlfriend.
Do you take after your mom more or your father?
Well people say that I look like my dad but as I get older growing up I can see the resemblance, I got a picture of my mom on my wall right now.
My aunt gave it to me because when my mom got sick with cancer, I took care of my mom until she died, she died in my house.
I took care of her because I loved her, my mom would have done it for me, I mean my mom was a good mom, I could call my mom at midnight, I don't care what was going on, my mom would come down, my mom never could drive.
So when I was in high school, mom says you're not going to be like me and I says what do you mean mom?
She says you're going to learn to take care of yourself, you're going to learn to do what you want to do when you grow up, you're going to get your driver's license.
So I took driver's ed and got my driver's license and learned to drive and my brother taught me how to drive a standard about three weeks before I got married.
Got me on the old parking lot, shoe factory parking lot, 1962 Chevy, three speed and floor, red hard top, I did it right back, round tail lights.
Now who drove to Park Hills, that time you said you went up to Park Hills when you were with your cousins?
My first cousin.
And she lived in Fredericktown?
Oh yeah, married to my dad's sister, I don't think it was Ruth, I thought it was but it might not be.
Dad came from a big family here, a lot of sisters.
She drove up there, you don't even want to hear what this stuff be done.
Oh my goodness, we were really goofy.
What was the big deal in Park Hills to go behind the show?
Well it was Flat River back then, it was Flat River, it wasn't Park Hills, it was Flat River.
But it was a big deal to drive down that main street and go behind the show.
Now did people cruise in Fredericktown like that too?
Oh when we were growing up, yeah we cruised around the pig out there, the pig was the big deal.
We went around the pig, this is what we did, right around town.
I got my license, daddy bought me a 1962 Nova Chevy convertible, automatic in the floor and it was gold.
Come home one day, he said I want you to go outside and get something out of the car for me.
I said okay dad, I was 16 and there it was set.
I thought what, here comes dad and dad said well that's yours to drive.
I'm on what, mine dad?
He said yeah and he said don't put gas in it, don't put all in it, don't do nothing, just drive it, here's the keys.
And I said well what about putting the top down dad, I got to show off.
Dad put the top down, I'll call my girlfriends.
Boy I tell you, that blonde hair back boy, fixed the cell phone and I said come on girls, we're going to ride around, that's when I met the one that I married.
Yeah, we was at a football game, of course you think you're something flipping around.
I was older than 16 then but I was driving that car and I said oh I just love blondes and I said really?
Who cares?
And I was dating the guy in the band, well we were just goofy back then when I was 16, we broke up and going back and forth, I remember my girlfriend had gotten in a fight over him.
It was just blown goofy.
We went in dancing, I met him, he asked me out, oh I tell you, you're just goofy when you're growing up.
But we had a ball with that car though, riding around and when I met him, we went to the A&W Root Beer Stand at the time, I pulled in.
He had his foot hanging out, it's A&M now, that was A&W when I was a kid growing up.
They had a lot of burgers, great big and sodas and stuff, oh yeah that was the main thing, that and the pig.
And then they had, oh it's tore down now, it's right across from the New Air Bank on 00, you know that big steep hill that's coming out, they had a Dairy Queen there, I don't remember the name of it, and they still had the liquor store there, Bud's Liquor Store was still there, but they tore that down, that was still there, that was still there as a kid as I was growing up.
Across the street there wasn't nothing there, the bank, there wasn't nothing.
That's Schulte, the street, the big hill going up, that's Schulte isn't it?
Yeah that's Schulte Lane, yeah, yeah.
And they had a restaurant there, it was called the White Scott Cafe.
I'm surprised I hear it was a Dairy Queen, I'm thinking about the Dairy Bar, it seems like that's been there for a long time.
No that was there, I used to walk down from high school and eat there, eat there.
But there was one there because my girlfriend worked there as a car hop, don't remember the name of that.
But that liquor store was still there when I was growing up, because I remember it's plain as day because whenever we lived there, and I think White's Restaurant was across the street where that filling station is now, because I was a waitress there.
That did used to be a restaurant.
It was White's Cafe, it was part fair.
Because I lived there, because we walked down there when we lived there, I was about seven years old when we lived on Schulte Lane, on the left hand side on that little house, I was telling you about.
We walked down there for some reason, me and Jerry, I think maybe to go get mom something, could have been cigarettes.
Back then you could do that because my mom smoked.
Yeah, they would sell them to kids, the kids could buy them.
I'm pretty sure we walked down there, it was getting dark and not quite dark, but I wasn't by myself.
My brother walked with me because my mom, back then you didn't have to worry about the things that are going on today.
I do believe it happened, it just wasn't knowing, knowing, you probably just got away with it, you couldn't look into it, because they don't have the things that we have today.
But I probably did, you heard about the thing on the news, but we never listened to the news.
I didn't, because you're a kid, you don't pay no attention to that.
You were off playing, doing other things.
Now you mentioned your, so where did you meet your husband?
At the football game, just out of high school, around high school and getting out of high school.
Okay.
Because I turned 18 in May, I mean April before I graduated.
And what about jobs, work?
Oh yeah, I forgot about this.
Across from the pig, now it's coming to me, Grandma's Cafe was a truck stop.
I washed dishes at 12 years old, my aunt, my mom's sister, she was 19 years older than me.
We were about the same age.
Shirley, Jerry and me, we grew up together and she got me a job there and I stood on a Pepsi box, square box, because it was wooden and the water come up, and I washed dishes back there for a long time, I worked on Fridays and Saturdays.
This was across from the pig?
Yes, it was Grandma's Cafe and we had the villa on double O, that was the villa.
And they would go there and dance and party and they would all come in there and eat because it closed 1, 1.30 and it jam packed and I worked 11 nights, 7 in the morning washing dishes.
At 12?
Uh huh.
Wow.
In the summer?
No, I was in school.
Wow.
My goodness.
I was a smart kid.
I made 50 cents an hour.
What days did you work?
I worked, I didn't work during the week, my mom wouldn't let me do that.
I worked Friday nights and Saturday nights from 11 to 7, mom said that if it affected me, like my school work, like Sunday morning I got off at 7 and everything and my mom said I could do it as long as it didn't interfere with me going to school being tired and it didn't interfere.
I worked there for a long time.
I got a social security card when I was 12.
So after school did you take a nap on Friday afternoon?
Oh no, I was hyper.
So then you just went to work?
Didn't faze me, didn't faze me one bit.
I loved it.
It was a certain kind of freedom, it was probably fun.
Oh I got tips and everything, you didn't believe it.
They said I could clean tables off, well anyway, they went open the door and I come out.
I was so cute when I was 12 years old, it was pathetic.
I was really little and tiny and you know I stood on that box.
They dropped money down in the glass and my aunt actually got mad at me because they give me tips.
For washing dishes.
Because I was cute.
I was so little, I mean I weighed 70 pounds not even that because I wasn't even in high school.
You can imagine how small I was at 12 years old.
I was going to say you're still little.
The water come up to here and them dishes back then were heavy.
I picked them up, well back then it was a, they were on wheels, here, here, three trays and they were full.
They throwed everything in there, I had to dump all that off and when I got done they said they got busy, I could go clean the tables off and wait.
I had just one guy, truck driver, he tipped me about washing, my aunt really got mad at me.
You're taking my tips.
But the owner said that I could do that if I wasn't busy, I could come out, I could clean tables and help if they got behind and I kept my work up in the back and that lady back there just want this, you know she worked with my good friends.
She said you're the best little worker I ever seen.
She says nobody's ever helped me like that.
She says you just run here and run there.
I go get steaks and stuff out of the freezer.
When I wasn't doing the dishes, I'll go get it, run back there and come in, jump back and do my dishes.
She called me back there, she said if there's anything you want, she says I'll fix it for you but don't you say nothing.
I says oh I won't.
You mean like food?
Yeah.
I was allowed to eat, you know, meals and stuff but anything special she would fix it for me.
So my brothers, Randy was a baby and he was on a bottle at the time but Ricky and them, he was about three or four, they're about 15, 16 months apart, maybe two years between Mike and Rick and Randy and well we didn't even know what donuts was.
We didn't sell nothing.
We didn't even know what that was and I was looking at them donuts.
I would say oh we didn't sell the donuts and I'd say I want to buy them, you know, before I leave and people that work there like me so well, maybe the owner or the waitress I don't remember but they said well if we don't sell them, you can have them and they would wait for me every Saturday morning and Sunday morning.
They knew when I was coming home and I would get the, don't have my mom, make sure my mom had her coffee and I would say well you can take what you want and I did that for a long time so I really love my brothers, you know.
It sounds like it became like a little family tradition.
It was something that they expected.
Oh they were waiting for me.
Yeah, so it became a thing.
I would make my mom a drink of coffee and I would make my mom's coffee and I'd come home and go and I'd say mom, I said I'm home mom because I wouldn't go to bed right then because I couldn't sleep, I'd go to bed at 9, 10, 11 o'clock and get up about 4 or 5 or something like that.
I didn't sleep much because I wanted to jump up and run around because it was Saturday, me and my girlfriend had to wash my hair, get myself ready, you know.
So did you do your business, was this Saturday and Sunday?
Yeah.
I only worked Friday and Saturday, you know, so I had to, I could go to the early show and come home before I went to work.
Oh gosh.
Oh yeah, that's a mess.
Were you ever, like, thinking about school and that aspect of your personality, were you ever a part of any clubs like Debate or any of that?
No, no.
Girl Scouts, no.
I never did nothing like, I was too much of a tomboy to worry about that.
Right.
I was too busy beating up the boys because I couldn't play Cowboys and Indians out there on J Road.
Right.
Mom put me in a dress and I remember to this day.
I brought me to second grade, no girls can play Cowboys and Indians because my brother was in school too, a year ahead of me, and I said, yeah, who's going to make me?
They just let me go, hair all slick, but I looked at myself and went, eww, eww, look at me, eww, and Mom, you let me do that?
Right.
But you were happy then, doing that.
Oh yeah.
Back then, they didn't care what you done.
Right.
I mean, I was a good kid, you know.
You pick on me, I didn't care if you beat me up or not, that's just how I was.
Because I was raised with brothers and never always played with boys because there was no girls.
And they let me play and they said, I ain't going to play.
Our brother said, well, you'll play, you'll get beat up, which one do you want?
You think so?
Well, you just have at it.
I'd beat them up, throw down, face be all beat up, black eye, I didn't care.
I'd just jump right back, you'd have to knock me out.
Mom says, well, I'm like my dad.
I was just thinking the same.
You were feisty, but you had a heart of gold.
Yeah, the boy.
Because you brought back the donuts.
Right.
Yeah.
Well, it was a mess growing up.
But you know, we, we just.
But you have good memories.
Yeah, my girlfriend, Betsy Doogie, she was a tomboy, she was bigger than me.
And we just kind of stuck together, you know, like, well, usually as you grow up, you outgrow that stuff.
When you get 12 years old, you outgrow it.
But growing up, like my mom always taught me that don't let nobody hit on me.
Don't think you can stay, you don't have to stay with nobody.
You can think for yourself.
My dad says, you got common sense, use it.
You know, right from wrong.
Do what you need to do with common sense.
You know, think before you do something.
Do you remember any thinking about the community and the town, are there any particularly interesting people that you remember, well, Mom Murray, she's about 80 years old, not about 11 or 12.
She lived on him right now.
It's Cornerstone Church.
That was a house.
I went in that.
I used to think she was spooky where she lived.
Of course, kid, you're goofy.
And she was an old lady.
And mom made friends with her and she used to come down to her house every other day and visit us in the house that I grew up in.
Remember she had her ankle, she had white hair and worried about hair, and she's a real nice old lady.
And they used to go up there and she burnt coal.
She had a coal, it was in the basement because I went with her.
Had a big living room.
Boy, I remember that was so big when I was a kid.
And then you walked in and it was a kitchen.
She had a wood stove.
And I went down to the basement, she'd fill that old stove with coal, gobs of coal.
Mom called her Mom Murray.
I never knew her last name.
She's called her Mom Murray.
That's all I knew her by.
I don't know if anybody would ever even know her now, really, on how my mom got to know her.
But she used to walk up there and sit on the porch.
Of course, that's all redone in front of that now.
She sat on the porch.
Used to go by and ride my bike.
Well, come up and visit me.
Of course, I was a dumb, stupid kid and I was a good kid.
I liked old people.
I'd sit and talk to her.
I was a strange kid, I guess, cornerstone church now.
So that's where she lived.
Yeah.
Used to stop off and talk to her.
She was really a nice little lady.
And across the street, the Brown Shoe Company, they had some kids.
Wood something.
Oh, I can't think of it.
Shoot.
Lived there.
And they built on the front of that and made a restaurant out of that for the shoe factory next door.
Still on there.
It's all brick.
Is it?
It's on the Z-Road?
It's on my road I live on, North Mines and Mott.
That building, it was a donut shop at one time and it was a restaurant.
It was different things.
And that house, that's Ivan's house now.
That one on the hill, it's white.
It's on the same side.
It's my house, the blue and white house for the shutters.
And then the house next door to me, boy, I can't think of where I've ever saved my life.
I know their names.
It starts with a W.
They lived there before I lived there.
And my girlfriend lived there.
All my girlfriends lived there.
Can you believe that?
Yep.
Marcia.
We run around together now.
I met her going up here to the dances through the years.
Well, oh, Marcia.
She lived there.
And Donna lived there.
Ferguson lived there.
My girlfriend, we grew up together.
She worked at the bank.
She married white, the white, Donna White, Tom White.
Lived up from, you know, Northmont, Lamont.
She lived there.
And then Gracie Moyers.
She was the assessor up here, or Thompson, it's Thompson now, Gracie Thompson.
She was an assessor there for years.
She's retired now.
She lived in the blue house down the street from when we all grew up together.
But they built a restaurant for the people working at Brown Shoe.
Yeah.
The house next door to me.
They built onto it, the front of it.
It's all concrete.
They painted it a tan color now.
And the back of it's red, I think, because they like brick.
You have to pass there and look at it.
I'm the blue and white house.
Yeah, Northmont, Lamont.
And the old Brown Shoe Company is there.
I'm right across from it.
And the house I lived in is right, right, right there.
Across from me.
Yeah.
And then I bought that house.
Isn't that weird?
Yeah.
Marcia, did you bought that house?
Yeah, I bought that.
Oh, we used to go down to the basement.
We used to play Ouija board.
Why were we so goofy?
We used to run up them stairs and scream.
That's when Donna lived there.
Not Marcia, but Donna.
When we were 16.
Boy, we were goofy kids.
I got pictures of us across the street of that house that I lived in.
Me and Donna standing there.
I took it and gave it to her.
She ran it off.
Somehow, her place caught on fire or something.
She lost her pictures.
I said, I got a picture of me and you.
Had a lot of hair then.
We both had a hair and a page, boy.
Bangs.
You had one grandchild.
Yeah, and I have one son.
I only had one child.
I was married four years before I had him.
His dad was a helicopter pilot.
He set the helicopter down in the Brown Shoe Company lot.
Yeah.
Well, there was no...
He flew that back from Radcliffe, Kentucky when he come home on leave.
He flew me into Flat River into the, well, I think he landed it at the Farmington Airport.
He flew it from there to come back is what he did.
It was in the paper and everything, a big write-up.
He was in the army.
He got drafted.
He already knew that when he met him.
I only had three weeks and got married.
Everybody thought I had to get married, but I was married to him four years.
He was good to me in everything, you know, but when he come back, he was just like kind of different.
Was he in Vietnam?
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
He went to Vietnam.
I went with him.
We went to Texas for him to be a helicopter pilot.
Then he went to Alabama, six months in Texas, Fort Worth, and we went to the Enterprise down there in Alabama.
He finished school when he come.
He went to Vietnam, and I flew to Hawaii.
He was an officer, and they offered him lieutenant or captain, and he didn't want to.
He got out.
When he come back, he was just different.
Didn't even get pregnant with my son.
When he come back, we was stationed in Radcliffe, Kentucky for 18 months.
He wanted me to have a baby when he left.
I says, no, I'm 18 years old.
I'm not doing that.
All my friends were pregnant and this and that, and I told my mom, I says, I don't want to have any kids.
I'm 18 years old here, haven't even lived my life, but I ended up raising my son by myself anyway, but that's okay.
I see now, when I had to work, what I missed with my son, but I had to work.
I didn't have a choice, because then when you left home, you got a job, you worked, that was it.
You didn't move back.
What other things did you do during that time?
I worked in a factory for 17 years in Farmington.
It built best.
It's a fancy factory.
I had good insurance.
I raised my son without no child support, bought my house and my home.
So were you living in Fredericktown when you worked at the factory?
Yes.
So you drove up?
The house I bought now.
Yeah.
And your husband?
No, he was from Farmington.
He lived out there on D Highway.
He just had a pretty good life, I guess.
And your sister got along really well.
She was 14.
As a matter of fact, if they knew what they'd done, if they'd done, Melvin and Helen probably wrung my neck instead of hers.
She drove a standard better than I did to have that old Ford, Brown Ford, column.
Back then you didn't have insurance.
Well, she does.
She gets me on that hill in Flat River, that big hill you're talking about.
I said, Bonnie, don't get me on a hill, because I'm just learning to drive.
She could drive.
When we got it, I let her drive.
But till this day, we are still close, me and Bonnie.
She still lives on D Highway, that house that she was raised in burnt.
And there was a shed, and she made a house and built a house there, and there was another house.
She got that, I guess, after her mother died with cancer.
As an adult, did you garden or do other things?
You talked about gardening with your mom.
Yeah, I learned.
I knew how to do that.
My mom canned and stuff.
Yeah.
But I don't do it anymore.
I had enough of that.
Yeah.
And you do it every summer growing up.
Right.
At 11, 12 years old.
Half a year.
And you're taking care of a baby, diapering and washing the diapers out, because then we had a bathroom.
You dump it in the stool and flush it and wash it, had a bucket, a little bit of bleach.
That old wringer type washer, mom taught me to do it, so I wouldn't get my arm caught in the air.
And I said, mom, because I was a smart kid.
I mean, I wasn't that old, 12, you know, when Randy was born, I was some 13 years older than him.
Right.
And I'd bring the diapers, did all the laundry, hung the clothes, I did all that.
I did not have a childhood.
Mom taught me well, sweetie, I didn't have a bunch of kids.
Mom said, I always thought you'd have, mom said, I always thought you'd have a bunch of kids, because I was kind of wild.
After I'd gotten divorced and went on my own, I mean, I just, me and my mom butted heads for a while, but dad never said a whole lot, because I was daddy's girl, but I outgrew that somewhat.
But we was always kind of close, so through the years, after mom passed away, me and my dad really got close.
But times changed.
It was getting to where, you know, I had a boyfriend, but, you know, he left and go and come, but I had my own place, but they just didn't approve of my lifestyle, and we just lived different lives.
But before my mom died, my mom kind of understood, you know, and I'm thankful for that, having to work and be gone and work in Farmington and go back and forth, worry about where my son was at.
I mean, I brought him up.
He was a good kid.
Did he go to school in better times?
Yes.
He graduated high school.
Nope.
He went to the same school as I did, because they were still there when I grew up, but I moved to Farmington.
I lived up there for a while, and he went to the Doe Run school for a while, and the high school, because he went with his dad when he was struggling to get to know him.
And I let him go, but I was not happy about it.
Sometimes you have to let your kids learn their own lessons, because they all have lessons to learn.
The best lesson is, they learn it themselves. you you