Phyllis Fencl

I was born in 1936. That makes me 82 years old now plus.

I was born about 12 miles south of here and I have lived there all my life with the exception of about a 12 month safari in the St. Louis that we did not enjoy very much.

I live across 67 highway from where I was born and raised so I've not been real adventuresome.

At that time we had a post office called Zion.

Loved it when I started to hire or went to high school had typing and we'd be told to type our name and address as many times.

A lot of those kids lived in Fredericktown. I lived in Zion, four letters.

Were you born at home?

I was born at home. There was a doctor present. I was born in July. Mother said it was terrifically hot.

I'll bet it was. Then eventually you married and is that when you went to St. Louis?

Yes, about a year after we were married we went to St.Louis. A friend of his had gotten him a job where he worked. I worked at a large insurance company, huge insurance company.

I had grown up in a community of family. All my dad's siblings lived within a two mile radius and my grandparents. My mother's two sisters lived in that same radius.

I went to school, grade school with numerous cousins. I don't even know how many.

We went to St.Louis and we were no one. No one knew who we were nor did we know who anyone was. It was harder to make friends. We were fish out of water.

You started to talk about your experience with your cousins in school. Was it Zion School District?

It was Zion School at that time. The building is still there. It's now a two room brick building. At the time, well probably still would be the case if there were rural schools.

It was the nicest, foremost school building in the county. It was brick of all things. Remember this is in the early 40s. There was no electricity through our area at that time.

We were located within less than a quarter mile even of what was then called Mississippi River Fuel Transmission. It's now Centerpoint Energy I think.

So they had power and they had running water.

Well, they couldn't share their power but they did pipe water into our school. So we had restrooms, not outhouses. We had a drinking fountain and this was the only rural school in the county that had those amenities.

We had a beautiful library, which I love, and that, I'm talking beautiful, had sliding glass doors and it was filled and I guess because the tax base, because of that Mississippi River Fuel Transmission, gave our district more income than a lot had. So every year the teacher got to order more books. I devoured them. I read books I didn't even like because they were books and I wanted to read.

But I had cousins. We were eight grades in one room when I started. I would have had cousins in every one of those grades. First cousins. All together there were seventeen of the first cousins. We're down to six now.

What would you say the population of Zion School was?

I can remember that there were sixty of us in that one room.

Sixty?

Sixty. One teacher.

That was my next question.

It was set up for, probably set up for fifty, but there were a few places where two children would have been in these nice desks. The only un-nice thing about those desks, they had inkwells and we had mischievous boys and girls with long hair.

At some point, probably it was, when I was in the seventh grade they completed another room attached to that same building and then we had two teachers and the three, three upper grades, six, seven, and eight went into the new room and the others were left in the old.

But they were equally nice and I think it's been actually proven that putting all those grades in there, you were exposed to the teaching, the knowledge, the recitations and whatever that every grade had.

One of our teachers, her name was Ruth Deese, and I don't know whether this was her decision or if it was state mandated. a lot of the time. you you you you you you you but she switched we went from fourth we could go one age group would go straight on the fifth but then the next year that fourth grader would then go to sixth and catch back fifth I don't know why I know it made fifth grade really dull boring but you were getting double exposure all the way through I think so when I graduated from eighth grade at that time all the rural schools and there were there were several I have no idea how many but several were the graduates were brought into Fredericktown school for an examination we had. I'm not keeping this in order but from examinations every year to be able to pass from grade to grade but then the eighth graders excuse me were all brought into Fredericktown and I was scared I thought I'm a country kid went to country school I was one of the top corner of the top grades in that exam and it turned out that all but a couple that I later went to high school with and I saw why they were ranked so high but all the rest of the top ten or so were rural kids there was benefit in that.

So did you, I'm guessing you walked to school you're probably pretty close or

Actually we were about two miles from school but all those cousins I was speaking about my parents did not allow me to leave home and walk to my grandparents were the first cousins were and that was a little over half mile I would be taken there and then I could walk the rest of the way in nice weather other than that dad gathered up the whole kitten caboodle it took us to school. Coming home then I and my sister who was two years younger than I had to stop at our grandparents and stay there until dad came home. Mother was to stay at home mother with our baby brother it was up to dad to do that shuffling.

So you went on to Fredericktown. right

was the next step in your education and did you end up graduating.

Yeah

Did you go on after that what was your next...

I went to MAC, you know what MAC is.

Yeah. so high school in Fredericktown was that Marvin College? That they call it now?

There were three buildings at that time just high school there was a building that was designated high school. The Marvin College was the auditorium

okay

And a VOAG department underneath. I was never down there and then they had built that granite building that's still there and I don't know when it was there when I got there it was the gymnasium so activities plays and so forth were done either in the auditorium or in the gymnasium. And the classrooms were for the most part in the high school building. the home-ec department was also in that old Marvin College. we had some pretty fancy surroundings.

Was it ever at there was a college?

Yes, my dad went to college there.

What were your favorite topics, favorite areas of study.

Probably English, I hated history now I'm sorry now I love to get back into it but it doesn't stick now. and I loved Home-Ec I got to be a national officer in the FHA Future Homemakers of America. so that was that was pretty cool cool. Cool was not a word then, meaning what does now.

what was the word then, do you remember?

Neat neat okay it was neat.

Yeah

We had some pretty creative high school teachers they worked drama into the English classes, loved that. art classes I am absolutely no artist. Our art teacher entered some of us in the competition in St. Louis. I won something there I designed wallpaper for a nursery.

Did the depression have any effect on your childhood.

It must have but I didn't know about I didn't know we were at a depression. We lived on a farm this community in that two mile radius all my uncles and aunts except one had farms. We raised huge gardens. My granddad had planted, established an orchard and several different kinds of fruit. On our place we had a huge cherry tree that in my memory it says that every summer that thing just more profusely couldn't have been every summer but that's what I remember. But leaving from that there the cherries with them. We had a big pear tree, same thing. the orchard was for granddad's kids and my grandmother my goodness she never let one thing go to waste whether it was produce a string or what have you. So it was a community family based thing and we didn't know that we were kids did not know we were in a depression. We had all we needed in then some because we'd have to empty out canned goods after a year or two to make room for more.

Did you sell or trade, was there any kind of local store in any way that you guys were sort of like a market of any kind, that were you...

There was the post office and a little grocery store but as far as, there was no bartering or trading there. Mother had hens and ducks and I know I can remember washing eggs and putting them in these large crates that would have been probably 18, 20 inches cubes probably held six dozen I don't know, but I could remember doing that. And dad sold them at a store here in Fredericktown, it was Kinders Store and it was over in North Town, they called it then. It's dead town now. He raised livestock during the World War that had me scared because it didn't. I said this to Bill last week I was scared, I didn't understand war. I do not understand war today. I don't know what they were using mules for in Second World War. But dad raised and trained mules for the government and one of the fields probably the one of the larger ones was devoted to those mules and we children were told do not ever go in there. I remember dad got a shoulder broken working with those mules, didn't stop him he went ahead. One of my great uncles who also lived in this same radius raised livestock also and I never could understand why he had to buy so much feed, commercial feed. we didn't he raised some crops. I now can drive by there and see why poor poor ground. Rocks rocks rocks everywhere and that wasn't the case a mile and a half two miles where we lived. You could grow nice gardens and nice crops and so forth. But at any rate buying all this feed it, the feed they got maybe this was very common I don't know was in printed cloth bags so my aunt and their old maid daughter washed, ironed wash, starched and ironed those things opened them up and my mother's generation my, for my for my generation, bought a lot of those feed sacks. They were 25 cents a piece and they made our dresses.

Well they were muslin right?

Something on that order of something like that yes cotton they were a heavier weave than muslin as I know muslin.

Were they coarse.

No, no it was more like a linen type weave. But we would it was a big deal to go over to uncle George's and I was to pick out material mother would make our dresses for school and she was very creative. She'd make cute dresses. We had these big thick Sears catalogs, Montgomery Ward catalogs. Mother would look at the little dresses in there she could come up with the same styles and we'd get to school and like this cousin or that cousin would have on a dress. It was always dresses in those days. No jeans slacks what have you. They would have the print that I thought about that one but then I chose, but that was that was a lot of the reason that we didn't feel deprived I guess because of depression. And we were all on the same level. There were no richer kids than we were.

Were vehicles very common?

They were, I know that my dad put his car up on blocks in the garage because on the farm and he also was the livestock trader. He had to use that truck so he put the car up and didn't use it during the war because we had to have stamps for gasoline and so forth but every Saturday then dad would bring that truck in and he had his tools. We had springs on our place and that made a spring branch, we called it like a little creek. Well he would drive to that scrub out the the back of that truck and that's telling me that not everybody had a vehicle. And then on Sunday morning he went around and picked up the people who did not have vehicles and brought them to church and I guess, I guess all five of us packed into the, into the cab of the truck. But then three of us were very small.

Was your church in Zion or...

It was at Zion it's called Twelve Mile Baptist Church, it's right there, yet, same place and it's a red granite building and, and it's about a half mile from our house.

Is it still being used today?

Oh yes, oh yes except last Sunday no. The red hat ladies here in Fredericktown did a Christmas church tour I forgot what else they called it in the county and ours was one of the churches that was toured.

How many years have you been the officer?

Baptists have what they call clerks it's a secretary what have you I've been the clerk there since 69. One of my aunts was the clerk before me and her dad, my grandfather, was the clerk before her. The church was established in 1855 and we've only had four clerks and one of them was one of the charter members who established and has been in my direct family. That's gonna have to come to an end or too much longer.

I understood from my own mother-in-law that winters were a very slow time and maybe quilting was done during winter.

Oh yes, the aunts, and there were a few people in that community who were not my aunts or my cousins, quilted. They would at times go to somebody's house a bunch of them, gather together maybe, eight ten and work on a quilt for that person whose home we were in, came to our home and to the aunts homes and so forth. Oh my grandmother as I said never wasted anything but she gave me, eventually down through the years, a coverlet that she made. Granddaddy had sheep they had sheared the wool my grandmother carded it, I think that's the first step. She spun it she dyed it and she wove this coverlet. Her loom was probably probably 36 inches maybe 40, I'd have to look at it again. And she had to do this in two lengths it has a pattern, a little tiny check pattern and well, it wasn't just checks, geometric pattern. And then...

What did she use to dye it blue.

She has told and I don't remember, no, it sounds like Indigo but I'm not sure that she would have had access to Indigo. It's, it's gone through all these years goodness knows how old it is it's going to be well over a hundred years old and it's still a vibrant navy blue. But then she it was probably one of her better ones and it certainly is mine I used it a few times but mostly it's just on display. And I know she made a lot of cotton ones that they they used and she gave to her kids and we used them on our beds so. It was it was a totally different age. Mother would tell about how, you asked about vehicle swung them she said they she could remember they'd hear a vehicle, a motor vehicle and they'd run to look at it. And then as she got a little older they'd hear a plane go over well before mother died she drove, she flew from here to California a couple times and from Texas I think so they flew to Texas but she flew back after having ridden with one of my cousins down there.

she also flew back after she took her Amtrak down just for the trip experience with all these things that we think we couldn't do without now and with the shortcuts we can take, mother was very progressive and...

Adventurous?

Yes.

So thinking of things that we think that we have to have, what are some of the things that you remember like how did you stay cool in the summertime?

You didn't. Our house was a two-story house you avoided the upstairs. But also there was there was um porch, a railed-in porch on the second floor and if we did go upstairs, we three children would make a pallet out on that porch to catch the breeze. We waded in that spring branch, we swam in the creek but there was no electricity until I was about 12 years old, so there were no fans, the old general home fans that were they were at church. we didn't bother with those at all.

Were there any caveats about how soon you could swim in or go into the creek?

Oh you must wait two hours after you ate.

Sure.

You couldn't go in.

What about, like, after did it have to be after June or something, okay?

No, when the garden was taken care of for that day, we had huge gardens, and the blessed things had to be hold row by row by row.

I wasn't sure if polio was there was a fear polio involved...

There was, yes, there was a one of our next-door neighbors daughter had polio she made a pretty successful recovery she's still living today.

And what about the childhood, I guess we call them diseases, which you can be inoculated against, but the measles, whooping cough did you have experience with those?

I had measles three times, whooping cough, chicken...

Three times? I thought once you got it...

Well they call them big measles, little measles and red measles.

So, rubella and three-day.

No doubt.

Did you have to stay in a darkened room when you had measles, do you remember that?

Not the room wouldn't, rooms were not bright anyway at that time. But I couldn't read not allowed to read, hard on your eyes and maybe it was.

What was the doctoring like, was there one there in Zion? Were there a lot of house visits or?

We came to a doctor in Fredericktown there was an a doctor who lived very close to us. It would probably be a two three mile three mile drive and I had double pneumonia when I was five and they got scared, too worried to go to Fredericktown to get the doctor and that doctor tended me. And it was a long drawn out thing this was before penicillin. And he was there my grandmother and some of my aunts sat with me at night so that I didn't choke to death.

You said you were born at home was that fairly common?

Yes, yes. The hospital was not here until 63 I think, when it opened and we were too far away from from most hospitals.

So, you went to MAC, what were you hoping to do when you went to MAC?

I wanted to be, you're gonna think I'm, I wanted to become a librarian. And I didn't become a librarian, I just haunt them. In our home we have many, many, many books.

What was your, how did your experience at MAC guide anything afterwards, did it open doors for employment or?

I can't see any difference other than just like a sponge soaking up some things. What I did with it was the same old thing, I think.

Have you been employed outside of your home.

Oh yes.

Well, shall we hear anything about that?

We married very young 19 years old our first child was born, nine months and four days, four days after we were married. And then the next one the only other one was four years later, they're both daughters. I didn't work outside the home until the oldest one had started to school and the youngest one was almost four years old. And we lived across the highway from my mother. She kept the little one while I worked. At that time I worked a total of about 12 years, two years at Brown Shoe, in the office, I hated that job. And then there was a loan company here in Fredericktown that was managed by someone I'd gone to high school with and he asked me several times about coming there so I did and I worked there ten years. And by that time we had our first grandchild and I didn't work I stayed home till she started to school, kept her. And then I went to work for SMTS, the Transportation Service here. And I worked there almost 30 years and retired from there. Part time, you know Bill Osborne hired me and he said it will just be part-time.

But?

I never worked less than a 40-hour week. many of them were 60, 70 by the time I retired because the company was growing and and the personnel was not for a while. So I had many hats it didn't even have time change hats just do. During these periods that I was working we built our home. We didn't, we had it and I would run home at noon to see what they had done, and decide that, oh I really wanted... that builder was glad when I went back to work. But he did a great job and we're still enjoying that home. Those girls of ours married and we became grandparents and that has progressed on to we are now great great-grandparents.

Great-great-grandparents.

I'm not old enough for this.

That house is in Zion?

Yeah.

Now you come into Fredericktown every week, how has Fredericktown changed?

I used to love to window shop.

What were your favorite stores?

Figlers probably, they had the quality that most of the others didn't. And I love to sew I left that out. Oh I love to sew and we had fabric stores, can you imagine just fabric and patterns.

Do you remember the name of the fabric store?

No I don't.

Were these around Court Square just like, where did you, like I know Fredericktown now and the Court Square and that sort of thing.

All that Figlers was on the corner that has that funny no, no, no. That was the lawyers office, Snap Graham and and Reed. Even earlier than that it was Hill's Sporting Goods and next door that was Figlers. And then there was Economy Sales which was essentially a liquor store. The only place in town that carried Bibles and if I had to buy a Bible I came out carrying it like this, don't put it in the bag. Then there was a department store.

So two department stores, Figlers and another one.

There was P and Hirsch and there was Federated, later there was Blair's and that's all of the north side of the street and where Seabaughs was, is, is, was Schwaners, it was kind of a department, well it was, it did not sell ready-made clothing. It also carried fabrics, shoes, carried the Brown Shoe shoes. A doctor's office, Tom's Shoe Store and then it it was shoe repairer and so forth. Another called, it's called lumber company but it wasn't, it was hardware.

Oh Shultes?

No, no it was before now I'm going up from Seabaughs going...

Okay.

...West, it was before you got to Shultes and before your time. The the same family Jones Brothers was over on the other side of the street. And another Jones or else a man that had married one of the Jones ran that hardware store and then Western Auto was before Shultes. And then drugstore, Dicus drugstore, where you can have lunch. And then that end building up there well Huff's Cafe which is now Madison, that restaurant that's there, it was Huff's Cafe to begin with, I think, at least in my memory. And the corner building then there was sometimes a Kroger store, there was a Ward's store, Ward's grocery type then it would be a department store, then it would be another grocery store. It went back and forth but that was the main block and that was where I did most of shopping. Grocery stores, my goodness we had grocery stores in those days.

Was there a butcher?

Yes all those grocery stores, no Kinders especially which is where Jack's Barbershop is now.

This would have been, not sure what time we're talking about, but the mines were running for a good long time and I'm guessing the town was bigger and a bit more, compared to today, probably seemed more lively or more...

Well the lead mines were very, very active and productive then. And when they closed down sometime in the 50s, the town started going down we didn't have the industry, we didn't have the jobs, then Brown Shoe closed down and and you see what we have today.

Now there was a train did you ever take the train in or out anywhere?

I only took the train, I only rode a train one time and that was from, what's the big train station in St. Louis...

Union?

From Union Station to Columbus Ohio oh I left out one of the most interesting things. I said that I became a national officer in FHA. To be installed and so forth, all over the whole nation's kids, girls were brought to Columbus Ohio. Now times were very different this would have been in 52, I left on my 16th birthday.

Who accompanied you?

Pardon?

Who accompanied you? Your parents or a teacher?

No there was, Missouri was divided into regions and we met up I was in a region, well the regions met up there at Union Station and there were there was only one sponsor of time lady. There were a bunch of us girls. We got to a hotel in Columbus Ohio it was called the Dishler Wallach Hotel and we were taken to the desk or guided to the desk and then we were asked to move over to one side. And everything got very quiet and a few people came in and we looked around the person in the lead was Harry S Truman. There was no great body of Secret Service people around him. There were a few people four or five at the most. And he looked around and said why all these girls there were a little over 2,000 of us all together. Of course they weren't all in that hotel. But there were a bunch of us I think, I think Missouri had around had 200 and something. And he, they told him that it was FHA convention and so forth and he said well is there anybody here from Missouri and our little hands went up in the air so he talked to us a few minutes and he said, he told us what floor he was on, he said and at such and such a time just before dinner time that evening, he said I'd like you to come to the door of my room and sing the Missouri Waltz for us. Oh my goodness we were we were very surprised shocked and we got to our rooms and then this sponsor lady said how many people know the words to the Missouri Waltz? We had to scramble to put together a verse of it but at that time we went to his door and a bunch of scared kids sang the Missouri Waltz to the President of the United States.

Wonderful.

Now how could I have almost missed that good question.

What a great story. Yeah.

He shook hands with I don't see how he could have shaken hands with all of us and I'm not sure I got to, I don't know whether I did or not. Probably not or I definitely know what I could tell. It was a big thrill I had that...

Take that story back to your family.

Oh yeah and I have a huge picture of it was different I'd been to St. Louis a few times in my life, but Columbus Ohio was a little different.

What about community organizations, was there anything that stood out to, anything else that you belonged to?

4-H back in in my younger days, one of my aunts was the sponsor for that, she was the one that lived closest to me and I could walk to her house or, for the meetings.

There is one question here do you remember any important community traditions, legends.

Well for one thing you better go to church on Sunday and we did. And you better not be caught hunting or fishing on Sunday. Every year a tradition my grandparents wedding anniversary was 22nd of June so the Sunday that was closest to the 22nd of June the entire church congregation the family which was all part of that congregation, and the community, gathered at their house. And my poor grandma cooked and cooked and cooked well the family members especially mother and the aunts cooked up food and brought it. Their house is still there but you can't see it because it's so grown up with some terrible trees, junk trees. But they had a big yard and they set up tables and saw horses and doors and so forth I don't know probably close to a hundred people every year came there for that. And I wonder some of them even knew what the, why they were there. It was just way you go there this it would usually be the third Sunday and in June and there were some pictures of groups and then but that time I guess they were my grandparents great-grandchildren's coming down to that. There's a long stretch my oldest cousins they had three daughters fairly close together and the youngest one was ten years older than I and then they got a surprise way down the road and got one that was I've got a son that was three years younger than I. but anyway by that time you know when I'm a young kid they already had children they were people of every age there and one of our favorite kids pastimes we didn't have playgrounds and so forth except at school and we didn't have playgrounds at school. We just had grounds yeah was climbing in the barns everybody had a barn because we all lived on farms. We girls did to climb up in hayloft and we'd have our separate rooms and play house and school and and what have you and now I don't want to go in there, there were spiders or whatever.

Spider, snakes the things that so many people are kids are afraid of today was that just something didn't bother you?

I was always scared when it wound around her neck. I was always scared of spiders particularly granddaddies and granddaddies give me the creeps to this day. But one of my older cousins was a big prankster and I had said that my sister and I and eventually my brother would wait at granddaddies until dad could come pick us up and take us on home this had to be in the summer though not a school time. Somebody had killed a snake there in the yard and I knew that in my grandmother's garden she had often killed copperheads. Well to me a snake was a snake I didn't like the nasty which, they're probably not nasty. But anyway my cousin knew this snake was dead and she picked it up and around her head and turned it loose and when she did it hit the back of my neck wrapped around my neck and I fainted. I came to my grandma had her broom using it on my cousin the brush end. She never ever threw another snake at me, probably never threw another one period. certainly not in grandma's sight.

How many siblings did you have, don't know if you ever said that.

I have one sister one brother both younger than I, and both gone. The old one was a tough one. I outlasted them. we have five grandchildren 12 greats and 2 great-greats plus some spouses along so our family of four has expanded a bunch.

When, when, do you remember, things like, in Fredericktown, Azalea Festival and the county fair, were there things like that?

I do, there was a Madison County Fair back then and it's been kind of revived on the same order. but that was the only carnival type nearest to a carnival type thing when I was growing up. didn't didn't get to come to it very often. and there was something that was really aggravating to me about it. my dad was a very well-known businessman he'd take two steps and somebody would stop him. mother would be in charge of the two young ones and dad had me. So I got to listen to a lot of dry conversation and finally we'd get to a ride or so and then they'd start close them down, it was time to go home. but mother, mother made up for a lot of that she was so creative. if we had a hail storm mother would run out and gather up as much hail as she could in a water bucket and then she'd quickly mix up a ice cream, a batch of ice cream put in a smaller bucket and then stand there and turn that in the ice and we had ice cream. We didn't have a refrigerator so unless you went to town and and when we did out here, how do I tell that. Right at the very edge of town there was a little grocery store and they had Duffner's ice cream and dad would stop there and we'd get an ice cream cone and those were such a treat because you couldn't have them at home unless. It was south side grocery and it's, the building is still there and they've done it over into a dwelling now. mother had one, mother was an orphan she was raised by her aunt and uncle and her two stepsisters first cousins lived there in our community. one of those married my dad's brother but there was a son and he lived down Bell City or in down that area and two three or four times a year we would visit. we went there most of the time and they would come usually like once a year those were big events in our lives. and I can remember taking those cousins three of them were older than I and I remember taking them down to the barn and showing them our play places and our horses and life was a whole lot simpler then. our playground equipment at school we had a baseball on the bat and you better not lose that baseball and then later on the school ground was enclosed by fence and there was a big wire gate because there had to be a driveway there to get the coal in for the furnace.

sure.

And we got a volleyball and a few of us were allowed to be on the outside of the gate.

That was your net.

And that was our net. we played volleyball when they built that second room on then they put in some equipment but that was after I was too big to use it. it was a small kids merry go round. see saw, that kind of stuff.

So you were in eighth grade and you felt like you were too old to use it.

There were, like I said around 60 kids lined up we had two recesses 15 minutes morning and evening and then an hour at noon. if I had wanted to get down on that thing, those things I wouldn't have gotten there. the little kids got the time and the use of them. one thing when I was baptized again all these cousins and then that Mississippi River fuel had a bunch of houses six houses but back of the pumping station itself and so there were some kids from there but when I was baptized they were in the teens of us to be baptized I was the youngest and the smallest it was November baptized in the creek oh so my mother wrapped me up in wool from head to toe as much as possible and we went down to this creek place to be baptized and the pastor looked us over and he said he thought he told us later, he thought I might get scared and back out or something so he said we'll take her first. you know what that meant, I had to stand out there wet while the rest were baptized. But mother had a blanket or quilt or something to wrap around me, that was that sticks in my mind pretty well.

Well, you said you don't like winter, so yeah maybe that helped. Did you say where your family, your parents, your grandparents how did you know how they ended up in this area?

My grandfather was a Whitener, my grandmother was a Clonier her mother was a Graham. They all came from the same area back when in the South Carolina area when, when this area was being settled Marquand, some of the Whiteners stopped off there and my granddad was Ben Whitener, BD Whitener. he had a brother Lawson one they call poli which must have been Napoleon, John Henry. John Henry had a department store here it's at some point but they were gone except for Lawson by the time I was born. my dad was the youngest of the four brothers and there were only two more younger than he was and my parents were married almost seven years before I was born so there's a, there's a gap there that I don't remember some of the oldest ones. but there was a picture, Fredericktown put out a calendar some years ago of with old pictures for each month and one of them has that John Henry Whiteners delivery wagon for his store on that. I've got it somewhere and I don't know where. But that's how they got here. I know very little about my mother's parents they died when she was a baby.

So they settled this area, about what year.

They got Federal Land Grant papers going back to the 1840s.

Okay.

Yeah, he has a better grasp on that than I do.

Federal Land Grant.

Yeah, we've been around here for a long time. but none of, none of my Whitener cousins are alive the first nor their kids, there, there are no Whiteners that are my direct relatives. I don't know why they, why they chose this area. Unfortunately I said I hated history you know I didn't ask the questions that now I would love to have the answers to. There's one more thing...

Yeah.

When AJ and I dated, were engaged and talked about being married, my grandma was living with my parents and she said oh honey you can't marry him. I said why not? She said you're related. Because his mother was a Graham, my grandmother's mother was a Graham and that was all she said. Well I knew there couldn't be a very close relationship but I don't think it was even that same day she said honey you're either 13th or 23rd cousins to him. she said and I don't know which it is I don't remember and I'm not gonna count it up again. She was a cute feisty little thing.

Phyllis had told her that she couldn't be kin to me because dad came to country and the only relatives he had was his brothers but he married a woman, he married a Graham.

And they were thick on the ground.

Well I'm honored to be your first interviewee.

As are we honored to have your.

It's been fun.

This is fantastic.

This is exactly what we hoped for yeah.