Interview with Lena Johnson Edwards

              Interviewer: Doug Washburn (DW) 
Interviewee:  Lena Johnson Edwards (LE)
Interviewee: Lena Johnson Edwards' daughter (LE's daughter)

DW	Hello, this is Doug Washburn for the Harford County Public Library. Today is the 8th of March 2006, and I am with the Harford Living Treasure Lena Johnson Edwards, currently residing in Parkville but was a resident of Harford County for some 85 years. Thank you for joining us.
LE	You're welcome. [missing dialogue]
DW	Well, we always start with who you were born and where.
LE	I was born in Madonna, right in the home that we lived in. I was born there in [July 27] 1915.
DW	1915. Where was the house respective to the intersection?
LE	It was one mile north on Madonna Road.
DW	One mile north.
LE	Yes.
DW	What did your Mom and Dad for making a living?
LE	My mom and dad – mother was always a homemaker. Dad started an open Madonna garage in an old building that the farmer had to store his farm machinery in, in 1917. So I don't know anything other than mechanics. I was born and raised that way.
DW	Mmm hmm. Now, the garage was right at the intersection of Madonna…
LE	On the left from today's Madonna Garage, it was on the opposite side.
DW	Where the gas station is.
LE	No, where Mike's store is. The store.
LE's daughter	The food store and the bank – where the bank was [Correction: is now]. 
DW	Oh, where the bank was. 
LE	Mmm hmm.
DW	Oh, ok.
LE	Yea.
DW	Ok, it was across Jarrettsville Pike. It wasn't across Norrisville Road.
LE	No.
DW	Ok.
LE	No.
DW	Oh, ok. Very good. Now, Madonna Garage, then your dad built that later?
LE	My dad built that, and I stated, in 1942. It was built – I have asked some of the relatives a couple of years before that but you stick to '42.
DW	'42.
LE	I think that takes care of it. And, that was my father's garage. He had it built and it was known as H. A. Johnson.
DW	Now, I saw in your write up too, that he was a Buick dealer?
LE	Yes. He dealt – the one he dealt under was Isaac Lee down at Perryman. We called him Dad Lee because when he left, he left a nickel with each one of us. [Laughter] And he was a real dad. He was a lovely old man.
DW	Mmm hmm.
LE	He really was. And dad did sell some Buicks. I can't tell you exactly how many but I know that he sold – it was about four or five. And they had to go to Detroit and drive them in. When they sold a car, you had to go to Detroit by train and then get your car and drive it to Madonna.
DW	And he sold them right from the garage where he did mechanical work?
LE	Yes. Yes, but working under Isaac Lee of Perryman, ok?
DW	Yes, ma'am. How about any of the other businesses right there at the intersection? You have any memories of those?
LE	Oh, yea. I sure do. It was a general store on Madonna Road opposite the old building, the farm where dad opened the first garage? 
DW	Almony's?
LE	Yes.
DW	Ok.
LE	But let's start to begin with all four corners of Madonna was owned by one person, Ford Cathcart.
DW	Mmm hmm.
LE	Does that ring a bell – at all?  I don't imagine.
DW	Not personally, but I do recognize the name.
LE	He owned on the same side as the garage. Up here was a bank barn. Do you know what I mean by "bank barn"?
DW	No ma'am.
LE	You could drive right into the barn because it was all earth and the way the earth laid you could put a building right there so it was a bank barn because people took a load of hay straight into the [Correction: second floor of the] barn. Ford Cathcart owned that with acreage, huge acreage around it, the farm. Right opposite that, he lived himself. He was born, Ford Cathcart was born, in that house.
DW	That would be the [Insert: northwest] corner across from [Almony's]…
LE	Of Madonna Road and Norrisville Road.
LE's daughter	Is that the corner where the High's Store is now?
LE	Yes. High's is in there now to make it up state. And Almony's store was opposite on Madonna Road and we lived one mile north on Madonna Road.
DW	How about the – what else was in the area – of course, Bethel Church.
LE	Bethel Church. I went to church and I walked to Sunday School every Sunday from my home.
DW	Mmm hmm.
LE	Mmm hmm. And I was, I joined Bethel Church in 1928. That has been just aware in going through the whatever back history they have of Bethel and I had forgotten many years ago when I had joined Bethel Church but they came up with that date. And it's in the history of Bethel Church that that was the date that I joined it. And I am the oldest [Correction: one of the three oldest] member[s] of Bethel Church. Now there's one woman that's older than I but she has not belonged to Bethel all the time. Me and Dick Henderson were in the same Sunday School class and we joined Bethel the same year, the same time. I remember that very well. I joined Bethel because to me it was a big thing in my life. Somehow I thought when you joined church there was always things that you were supposed to be doing. And I thought to myself, "What must I do now that I am a member?" Nobody ever came up with that answer and I didn't come up with it. 
DW	Mmm hmm.
LE	I did later on in years, I was the president of our circle – for quite a few years, I was president of the circle. And I helped with all the banquets and Bethel used to serve a lot of banquets. Farm Bureau came there every year.
DW	Do you know how old the church is?
LE	The church that's standing there today, I am not sure of, no. But you know Bethel's had one, two, three, three churches. The first being a log cabin, and then a stone of a kind and I don't know what that was, and the one you see today. And to me the one that you see today must have – I don't know how they ever got the members to back that up because to me it's monstrosity because it was different from anything in the area.
DW	Now, I heard that they took the cornerstone from the second church and used it as a cornerstone…
LE	Yes, yes, I know that.
DW	Ok. I think it says 1802, doesn't it?
LE	Yes, I imagine so.
DW	I was looking at some of the old maps of that area and I noticed right next to Bethel Church was a limekiln. Do you remember that?
LE	Line kiln. Next to Bethel?
DW	According to an old map that I saw, yes.
LE	I don't remember. All I've been told about the church was that my grandfather hauled stones from Rocks cause that's the stone that's in Bethel Church is Rocks' stone is from Rocks. And he didn't haul it all but the farmers took turns and hauled it from Rocks on their hay wagons.
DW	How about, Harford Creamery Road is right up to the north.
LE	Well, Harford Creamery Road, you know Madonna Road goes down so far and then it branches off like this. [Insert: Going north] My home sits right down here right below the Y in the road. This is Wiley's farm [Insert: was on the left] and that's Harford Creamery Road. That's where it starts, Harford Creamery Road.
DW	Was there actually a creamery on the road?
LE	There was Harford Creamery on down quite a ways. And there was a creamery known there. I don't know but very little about this creamery although my mom, Catherine Markline Johnson, milked the cows in the morning and put them [Correction: the milk cans] in a wagon and hooked the horses to it and carried that milk up to the creamery, the Harford Creamery. And it was called Harford Creamery and they separated the cream from the milk there. I don't know how they charged them for that. I don't have any idea but she drove the horses up there and did that. That was her chore for the morning. I don't know why she had all the brothers she had. There was about six brothers but it was her job to do the milking and she did.
DW	Was Madonna ever called anything other than Madonna?
LE	No, not to my knowledge.
DW	Not to your knowledge.
LE	No. I'll tell you what. Madonna, have you heard this before? Madonna was a postmark and that has been written up in The Aegis and you should have something about this. Adelaid Kirkwood wrote this up and sent it to The Aegis. When that building was torn down that took care of the post office because it was a little general store just like Jarrettsville was when it was post office and store.
DW	And that was in the Cathcart building on the corner there that you're talking about?
LE	I'm in Jarrettsville. Madonna never had – when it had a post office you came right back Madonna Road – I would say maybe a quarter of a mile and there was a big house that had three rooms – I know this because my aunt lived there – Not that she run it or anything, it was run by somebody else. But Aunt Helen's husband bought that and they lived there for quite a few years. And it was one big room that housed the post office and a general store.
LE's daughter	Now was that right in Madonna?
LE	No, I said about a quarter of a mile down the road.
LE's daughter	Would it have been down near Miss Lizzy?
LE	Not that far.
LE's daughter	Ok.
LE	Not that far.
LE's daughter	Right across from Golden's [Correction: Grose's]. Almost Golden's [Correction: Grose's].
DW	How about, you say you remember the Fire Tower?
LE	Huh?
DW	The fire tower?
LE	The fire tower is in between Madonna and this…and where the post office was on the opposite side of the road. And of course, it's there today. Isn't it? They haven't torn it down have they?
DW	You know, I'm not sure, I haven't been there for a while. They don't use it anymore.
LE	To me, it's a thing that has always been there so I don't even see it. You know?
DW	And did you realize it's the second highest point in Harford County?
LE	Yes, I certainly do, certainly do.
DW	Right in the Madonna area, any other mills or stores that you recall?
LE	Well, I could talk about the Jarrettsville area.
DW	That's great.
LE	I want to know where that street is in Jarrettsville. There's a …
LE's daughter	There's a second road that parallels the West Jarrettsville Road. There's a second road that has been listed in Jarrettsville.
LE	Now it's in one of your books…but it comes out and I'll tell you where this is. You know where Roy Smith lived in Jarrettsville?
DW	No Ma'am.
LE	Mary Kay Smith? You have no knowledge her?
DW	I have no recollection of either of those.
LE	Mary Kay Smith taught the first, the first children in Jarrettsville, and Roy Smith was her son.
LE's daughter	That's the school they go to [missing dialogue] across from where the High's Store used to be, where the Subway is now. The one that's down behind that hedge. Next to the [Insert: Kurtz] furniture factory .
LE	Mary Kay Smith lived and this was her home place, lived next to Kurtz Funeral Home and Kurtz today owns where the church, Asbury Church was. Martin Kurtz bought Asbury Church to make it into a funeral home.
DW	Right. Correct. I agree. [Laughter]
LE	And they[Insert: the Smiths] live[d] on the opposite side of the road from Asbury Church, right straight across the road. One year, Roy's wife taught English in Jarrettsville School.
DW	Now which of the six Jarrettsville schools are you talking about? The academy?
LE	In the 1930's.
DW	Ok, so that would be …
LE's daughter	Jarrettsville.
DW	…the fifth school that is actually, was the brick building…
LE	Yea, I know…if I had all the pictures I could tell you. The first Jarrettsville School that was made mostly all of wood, burned down.
DW	Correct. Right. It's the first brick school that was called Jarrettsville High School.
LE	Yes. That was it.
DW	Ok.
LE	And she taught, she, Roy Smith's wife, taught the first Jarrettsville brick high school in Jarrettsville. And I took care of her son when she taught. I was a kid about 16 maybe, and took care of the son that she had. But, getting back to this street that comes out, that books shows the street comes out beside Roy Smith's home or Mary Kay's home. When I speak of Mary Kay, I'm talking about the Smith home, because it belonged to Mary Kay's past and there was a right of way in that lane that came into his home that went on back to a large farm back here.
DW	Did that road go on through to Schuster Road?
LE	It was nothing but a right, it was nothing but on paper because – I know this to be the truth –Roy said to me one day, I'm keeping the child of his, he said, "Lena, try to find out if whenever there's anybody going to use this lane other than this family because I have read – and this is true, he said –if you can swear that nobody that owned the farm has used this lane back in here – I called it a lane, If I found out that nobody else had ever that, I could shut them out. Did that happen? Do they. I don't know. But when this came out in one of your books of this street it was definitely right beside the Smith household and he went back to the farm. It's a large farm back there.
DW	How about, you remember the old hotel on the corner?
LE	I remember, I don't remember being used a hotel. But you always knew, "Gee, that's where the old hotel sat." And it definitely was a building there and that I know.
DW	That's where the second firehouse was on the corner. 
LE	Oh yea.
DW	Keene Dodge uses that now. How about the general store? Ward and …
LE	General Store sat opposite the hotel.
DW	There's – Gas & Go is there now.
LE	It had…well there was Burkhart and Burton at one time that ran that store. I believe George Burkhart ran it by himself one time. That's about the end of what I can tell you. How many used that store as a living.
DW	You're referring to Clarence Burton. He was the postmaster there.
LE	Yea. Yea, he was. This is just funny because the people of Jarrettsville took care of Mr. Clarence all his life because if Mr. Clarence came out of the house and went into the garage everybody said, "Don't go down the road today 'cause Mr. Burton's going to back out in the road." And he did. He did every time and never looked. So, I've always said Jarrettsville took care of Mr. Burton. 
DW	Do you remember the old Jarrett Manor?
LE	Well, that was opposite – on the opposite [Insert: north] side of Jarrettsville Store.
DW	Where the 7-11 is today.
LE	Yea.
DW	Did you ever visit the house?
LE	No.
DW	Just north of the current post office, where the graveyard is, one of the original churches was there. Do you remember that?
LE	No, I don't remember. The original church was called Calvary. And it was in back of the general store on that road going to Forest Hill.
DW	Oh, ok. Where the Methodist Church is now, the United Methodist.
LE	Yes. Yes, that's where… It burned down. Most all the buildings, they only had boards to make a church or anything they built so all of them burned down eventually. Everything burned.
DW	Since you were talking the Jarrettsville School, how about the Madonna School? Is that where you went?
LE	Madonna Store was on Madonna Road going north on the corner opposite High's today.
LE's daughter	No, Mom. The school. Where was the school? Madonna School?
LE	Madonna School was just about one mile again from my home.
LE's daughter	Still going north.
LE	And Madonna School never did have more than – when I went there  [Onsert: 1921-1927]– never did have more than twelve, fifteen children went there.
DW	And how many classes did they have? How many grades?
LE	Seven grades.
DW	Seven grades.
LE	Yea.
DW	Didn't the school actually sit in the middle of a current road at the intersection of Cox [Insert: Road]?
LE	As of today?
DW	The building, I'm asking, did the building sit where the asphalt is today at the intersection of Cox Road?
LE	Just about right. When I went to school there it was in the little woods and they had cut down and made us a little playground there and the rest of the playing you had to make for yourself. Ms. Louise Wiley, my teacher, used to play ball with us. We made our own rules and regulations and by gosh, we stuck with them religiously and Miss Louise made them just as the same as us kids and she had passes just the same as we did. She only played ball with us when she could be a and take a child's place.
DW	[Laughter] Do you remember what you studied? What your subjects were?
LE	We had reading, writing and arithmetic. And we had geography. We had… we started off with the first, second, third and fourth, right on up to seventh grade. We all sat there in the same room, listened to each other tell their story or whatever the teacher had for them to talk about.
DW	Did you have electricity?
LE	No, indeed. We had three windows on one side and two on the other and that was our daylight.
DW	How about heat?
LE	A big pot-bellied stove in the middle of the room. And it was wood and right there's the reason it burned down, I think, because every morning a certain boy was – I don't know whether he was paid or whether he wasn't – I couldn't tell you. But, he was to go there and start the fire in the round stove. He would start the fire and I imagine when he started up, a tinder went up and out the chimney and landed right on the shingles and laid there and smouldered and caught fire.
DW	And this would have been in 1930's, do you remember?
LE	I think in the early thirties. Something like that.
DW	How about, before we started the recording, we were talking about the school in Jarrettsville that burned.
LE	Yes, I did go [Insert: 1927-1929]. I went over – Madonna burned, then they sent all the kids to Jarrettsville School.
DW	That would have been the brick building or the [missing dialogue]
LE	No, it was brick. It was brick.
DW	The brick one, ok.
LE	It was brick.
DW	That was '33. How about the school in Jarrettsville that burned? You were talking about that before we started recording.
LE	Well, that was in my older sister's life and that was – she went to Jarrettsville, and she's about, maybe nine years older than me. Maybe just six, I'm not sure.
DW	How about any of the other businesses in Jarrettsville? 
LE	Grimmel's been there as long as Jarrettsville's been there.
DW	Yea.
LE	Grimmel's is the first one I can think of.
DW	Now are you talking about the Grimmel store close to the post office? Or a different one?
LE	Well, Grimmel had all of that in that corner there. He owned it all. Charlie Grimmel. 
DW	And the business was…?
LE	Anything that you needed from a handful of sand to the most expensive door you could get to put on your home.
DW	Like a lumberyard and hardware store.
LE	Lumberyard and hardware. Yes.
DW	Do you remember the first telephone office in Jarrettsville?
LE	Yes. And, [chuckles] telephone, we had one in our home. We were on the 7F – whatever number you had and in our home it was 7F22. And to ring, you rang it right from your home. Right from this thing on the wall. You rang about three times and that would – about two times a long ring and then two short ones and that was 22. And then you answered your phone.
DW	[Chuckles]
LE	And it was called "7 F 22".
DW	Do you remember who the operator was in Jarrettsville?
LE	Miss Mary German.
DW	Mmm hmm. And, and, the….
LE	Then Margaret Waters? Yea, she married a Waters. Yes.
DW	And that was right next to the Keene Dodge today.
LE	That's right. That's right.
DW	How about Daughton and Burcham Store, the old one.
LE	Daughton was there whenever I was a kid, yes. And then Burcham bought it from Daughton.
DW	Remember the dirt floors in that store?
LE	Huh?
DW	Do you remember the dirt floor?
LE	The dirt floor? Most churches had dirt floors, for that matter. My husband was president of the Lions, Jarrettsville Lions Club [Insert: in the late 50's]. The year he was president a tornado went through our house, the woods in back of us, straight across to the old brick church and tore that old brick church into smithereens. Tore the top right off it.
LE's daughter	The one she's talking about is on [Route]165. The old Baptist Church.
DW	Ok.
LE	Anyway, when Wayne got done with it, there it was dirt floor in there, in that church. When the Lions got done with it, it had a wood floor. They took everything off at the top and put a new roof on it. It was in excellent shape.
DW	Still standing today.
LE	And it's still standing there today and if it hadn't been taken right away, Lord knows where it would be. That old church had a ladder you climbed and there was a little slit – when they made the church they made this little slit because they wanted to climb this ladder and watch for the Indians through this little slit because the Indians would come and break up their meeting and be on their way.
DW	Any other old businesses that you can remember? Waters Brothers?
LE	Oh, yes, there was always Waters Brothers. They were hardware, again, and feed.
DW	Did it used to be a blacksmith shop there?
LE	That's the way it started out, as a blacksmith shop, is the way I understood. It started out as a blacksmith shop and increased and increased until you know what's there today [Insert: Smith's Hardware].
LE's daughter	Mother, tell him about the blacksmith's shop in  na.
LE	There's a blacksmith shop at Madonna. That's going south on Madonna Road [Correction: Jarrettsville Pike] and it was run by Jim Thompson. You certainly have heard of that.
DW	Mmm hmm.
LE	Yea.
DW	Actually, the name changes there to Jarrettsville Pike, doesn't it?
LE	Yes.
DW	Yea, ok. So you're down right next to the entrance to the old Tommy Simons farm.
LE	Yes. Well, you see that wasn't Tommy Simons' farm. You know that's just about way into Jim Thompson's.
DW	So was that blacksmith shop still operational when you were young?
LE	Yes, if you catch Jim in the right mood on the right day, you could catch him and he would shoe your horse or do whatever blacksmith job had to be done, Jim could do it. Jim and my mother went to school together. To the same school that I went to, Madonna. Jim was a smart cookie. I'll tell you why. Jim only paid income tax once or twice and that's why you had to catch him in the right mood at the right time because if Jim had done enough work that he was going to have to pay income tax, you waited till he got ready. It's the truth.
	[Laughter]
LE's daughter	Tell him what Jim ate.
LE	Jim came up to the store in Madonna, the general store at Madonna. And I've heard many times his main food was a can of pork and beans and crackers. And people say that will not kill you because look how old Jim lived. And he would drink. Old Jim and Ford Cathcart were like this because both of them liked their booze too much. Much too much. Jim and Ford used to go to Jacksonville and that was the closest they could buy booze. Finally, they knew Jim was getting too much to drink so they threw him out and told him he had to go home. In fact, they put him in a car, they knew whose it was, "he'll take you home." So that's the way they got him home. But do you know what he did when he got home? He and his bunk went back to Jacksonville.
DW	Hmm.
LE	And it didn't do any good to throw him out. He was going to come back the first time somebody stopped. All I want is to go to the Four Corners [Insert: Jacksonville].
DW	You were talking about Kurtz earlier. Were they still cabinetmakers?
LE	No, not in my life.
DW	Strictly undertakers.
LE	Just strictly undertakers. But boy didn't the boys get a haul out of that? Because Mr. Kurtz had antiques in there that were so old he hadn't any idea who they belonged to to tell them to come get them or anything. So the boys just got a fist full of money out of that. They also sold a – instead of – what do they call the first one in line – hearse, the hearse drawn by horses.
DW	Let me turn the tape over.
LE's daughter	That hearse is in the present funeral home. 
LE	It's sitting inside.
LE's daughter	It's completely been renovated and it's sitting inside. 
LE	That was a beautiful hearse. 
LE's daughter	It even has some of the original tools to work on like the wheels, some of that stuff is still in it. If you ever go into the funeral home for a viewing or something, ask Benny or Gladdy if you can see it. It's where they keep all the coffins for people pick out? In that room. It's gorgeous. It's got sterling silver on it and [is very charming] .
DW	How about any other recollections of old businesses in Jarrettsville? You lived to the south, down close to the old Baptist Church? Well, when did you get married?
LE	I got married in 1936.
DW	Thirty-six?
LE	Yea.
DW	So, you went through World War II?
LE	I did.
DW	And rationing?
LE	Oh, my, yes.
DW	Big impact on you? It affected you a lot?
LE	Well, being a farmer we didn't have to pay it with as many coupons. And my sister in town would have some sugar coupons that she didn't use, cause she didn't do a lot of canning, and I did the canning so I got her coupons for sugar. Oh, you were just busy as a bee trying to figure out now how many coupons will this have, and this have. You had to get – I know Daddy had to have a pair of boots and to get enough coupons to get a pair of boots was pretty near impossible unless you had somebody that was going to give some that they might have had. I'll tell you a cute one. My mother – during the World War – Dad was in the new garage…
LE's daughter	Was this World War I or II?
LE	Huh?
LE's daughter	World War I? or World War II?
LE	No, World War I this was. 
LE's daughter	All right.
LE	This was in World War I. And Dad was not making enough money and the neighbors saw this. And they told mother about it. They said, "Now we saw," (this would be their Dad's nephew) "we know that he walked up and was gone long enough to get an ice cream cone out of Mom's freezer and then he walked back licking the ice cream." So he told on himself because the time was the thing that made them aware that he to get that out of Mom's freezer. And he didn't pay for it. He just lifted it up and took it.
LE's daughter	And that was out of the little store at the garage?
LE	And that's, well, Mom was keeping the front of the garage where she kept some candy and small things like that. For children mostly. And all of that money, somebody was taking it because nobody in there to – Dad was in the back doing his mechanic work, and nobody in front, So Mom said, "Looks to me like I got to go to the garage," which she did and then by golly, it paid off. They were stealing things, much, much more than we had any idea of.
DW	Hmm. Well you also must have gone through the Depression too. So how's that…
LE	I was, we were married at the end of the Depression, '36. We thought we'd put it off for three years already but we decided there was no jobs to get work. There was no way to get any more money than we are trying to get hold of now. So we went ahead and got married. And we've been happy ever since.
DW	Well, you've certainly see a lot of changes in the county and in 85 years. What changes have occurred that you think were good?
LE	They were all good. They were. Everything came up. Once the Depression seemed like it was over, when I say we didn't, our grocery bill had to be five dollars and not a penny more. And things that we did buy ourselves but were paid for, we always said that was a penny earned but a penny saved. And a penny meant something in those days. 
LE's daughter	What could you buy for five dollars? What groceries?
LE	You had to have some flour in the cupboard. You had to have some sugar in the cupboard. You had to have some coffee. There was nothing that was unusual that you could buy. You had to have baking powder, you had to have vanilla as a … When you made your jelly and I made all my jelly, I didn't have anything like Certo and all that to make jelly out of. I stood there at the stove and watched it boil until it got a certain look to it and then I knew that it was ready. We'd take it up in a little saucer and it would gel right there in front of me. I lived the hard way and I guess you might say, the easy way. Lots of them wouldn't say the easy way but they'd say there wasn't an easy for you. But we were happy.
LE's daughter	Tell Doug about how you could see the great Baltimore fire from the _____ .
LE	The Baltimore Fire, my mother, now Mother was a Markline and she lived on the old Markline home [Insert: on Harford Creamery Road], had a long lane from Wiley's that circled around like this. And in the middle of that lane, she said the fire was so intense in Baltimore, burning Baltimore down that you could read a paper sitting in their lane.
DW	What year was this?
LE	Well, I think it was, Mother had a long picture that was made of the Baltimore Fire and it had '47 on that paper.
DW	1847?
LE	Yes. She valued that pictured very much. Very much. Well, a lot of her family lived in Baltimore at that time. And so, indirectly, it hit her pretty hard. So this picture she had, and it was a long narrow picture, about that long and just a narrow picture but it showed charred buildings.
LE's daughter	Mother, tell Doug about how Dad discovered the fire at the old [Insert: Madonna] schoolhouse.
LE	That's my husband, which he turned out to be, he wasn't a husband at this time, he was working for his dad and they were farmers. And he had taken a load of manure in a wagon over to another part of the farm but was coming up Cox Road which was right – Madonna's was right in the middle. And as he came up over that knoll he said, "I saw flames all around the chimney at Madonna School." And he said, "I whipped the horses and I was the first one to tell them the school was on fire."
DW	So he saved a few lives.
LE	He did because the teacher did not know it yet. She didn't know there was a fire on her head. My sister said I would dream at night because I could see the cracks in the boards and it was the flames she saw. It was getting ready to fall in. So he saved lives. And the closest fire engine, you know, was in Jarrettsville, no Bel Air. At that time Jarrettsville didn't have a fire company. I was taking care of this little boy for Roy Smith, whenever they turned on the first fire siren in Jarrettsville, well, it woke both the whole town up, everybody was out, wanting to know what on earth is wrong. [Laughter] What is wrong? And it was that they had never heard a fire siren before.
DW	Mmm.
LE	And because I was living with them at the time to take care of this child is why I was in Jarrettsville.
DW	We need to take a break here, I need to change the tape.
	While we were taking a break, you were talking about some things that had gone on in the area.
LE	When my father got the first automobile that you crank the windows up and down, Dad and Mother, were used as the first ambulance. That car. 
DW	This is Madonna or Jarrettsville?
LE	This is still at Madonna because that's were lived. And they were called for people that were coming home from the hospital or going down to the hospital. And called for people that were coming home from the hospital or going down to the hospital. And Union Memorial was the one you went to all the time. That was the closest hospital there was to Madonna. Mother was the same as a nurse for the community. Now, we have always in every county and in every country you have a little "character". So here was Ed Richardson and he was the character at the time. But Ed came to Mom and he called her Miss Katie, which her name was Katie but he always said "Miss Katie, I got something in my eye. Can you do anything about that?" She said, "Ed, I don't really know whether I can or not." She looked in his eye but couldn't see nothing. She said, "Lay down here on this daybed." She said, "Now, Ed, I'm going to put in your eye a flaxseed." And a flaxseed is an oval seed about that big. Any way she put that oval seed, flaxseed in his eye, pulled the lid down and told him to stay there and keep his eye shut. So she went about her business, doing her work, finally she said, "Ed, I want to open your eye, I want to see if this has done any good. She said "We're lucky, Ed." The flaxseed was right here under the eye and it had with it the dirt. That was a flaxseed that was oval and it was straight and had no ridges, no nothing on it, but it would travel around through your eye and bring out whatever is foreign in there. And Mom could handle that. I've seen her do it.
DW	You know, earlier you said your Mom was a homemaker so where did she get her nurse's training or ….
LE	She didn't have any nurse's training. The Indians taught us an awful lot. I'm sure some place, that's an old Indian remedy for that problem. Do you know Oak Crest right here has an old lady 99 years old that's half Indian? She's a very sweet old lady. She's over in the care center and I go see her often, so I know she's going to turn a hundred next birthday. She told me herself, she said, "I know how the Indians lived because I lived with them. I am half Indian. She isn't really black, she's just – but not white.
LE's daughter	Mom. Tell him about riding to school in a pony cart. [Laughter]
LE	Oh, yea. [Chuckles] At one time one of the boys, Everett [Insert: also known as "Boots"]Cathcart had a pony and he would take us to school in the pony cart. That was a big treat, you know. A big treat. It was always a treat to get to ride on the pony cart.
LE's daughter	Which school?
LE	To Madonna. To Madonna. I want to tell you something else that nobody ever knew I did. The Madonna School was just made in this little circle, with the school here and woods all out around here. We'd climb a sapling, got up as far as you could go in a sapling and get that tree to rocking back and forth. Touch your toes over there and give them a spring and touch your toes over here and that's the way we entertained ourselves. That was part of our lunch hour. I did it. Of course, the boys were supposed to but not this boy. [Laughter] Because I was a tomboy, I liked to do things. I was born between boys and then if I didn't like to do boys' things, just get out. So I had to be a boy.
DW	How many children did your Mom and Dad have?
LE	There's six of us. Four girls and two boys. During Depression we were never hungry. We were never cold. And I think we were a happy group because we had to make our own entertainment. Always. We had paper dolls that we played at night with a lamplight. And that was something you was mighty careful of. Now this mother drove into your head mighty, mighty, day after day, that that would catch fire if you knock it over. We took the Sears Roebuck book. It was a nice thick one you know, like this, and a pair of scissors but first we had to find out which one's mother was going to let us cut out because it had to be a year old or you couldn't have it. So you had to find out which one Mom was going to let us have. Then you got a pair of scissors from her because she did a lot of sewing. She's made most of my clothes. And we cut out our own paper dolls. We cut out our own settees, we cut out our own chairs, we cut out our own tables. We were learning to keep house, right there, but it was an entertainment too. And then at night when you stopped playing, you had a certain box that you would put it all flat in. Very careful and tomorrow night you started over again very likely.
DW	Since your dad ran a garage, did your family always have a car? 
LE	Pretty much, yes. I can remember when we had what they call the touring car. And there was front seat and a back seat and no wind-up windows at all. You had curtains that they had to get out of – everybody jumped out of the car and all the seats came up. You took them off. Dad took them off and laid them out very carefully. And the curtains were down under here on the flat part of the car and everyone of these fit this touring car. And it took fifteen good minutes to ever get them up you know. But the first cloud came up in a, you stopped right then and got the curtains out and put them up.
LE's daughter	Were you the first ones in the area to have a car?
LE	Yes. Yes, yes, the old touring car and I have a picture of that one. And you know who's in that car? Goldie Grose. I showed it to her and she just laughed. "Lena, I remember that old car."
LE's daughter	What about the beggars that used to walk the …?
LE	And then something else. Madonna School was a place for beggars or we called them "tramps". And they tramped the road and they stopped at your house and ordered a sandwich from you. He didn't give you nothing, he had nothing to give you. He was a tramp and he just ate his sandwich and went on his way. And Miss Louise Wiley, that taught me was also my neighbor, and he came down by the Davis before school started and she said Lena, would you like to walk down to the school with me? I'm going down to see that everything's all right. And as we stood inside, you had to go through two doors to get into that school. We went through this door and the next door. As we stood there, a piece of paper was slid out from underneath the door and Miss Louise opened it up. It said, "Don't come in here now but you can come in tomorrow." And he didn't want us to come in because he wasn't supposed to be in there. There was a man in there definitely. I'm sure. Miss Louise and I just turned our little feet around got back up where we belonged. Scared to death. Ole me, I was just a kid, I was just frightened to death. 
LE's daughter	Tell him about the barn fire.
LE	Oh, Nanny's Fire? A barn fire. The farm that my parents in laws were farming at the time in the area, a pretty large radius, there was a barn burner and you've heard of that many times, I know. He burned, he had burned that barn once when he first started burning barns. He had burned it and Mr. Streett the owner of the farm had built it back up again and that's when my father-in-law was farming there. They came from North Carolina and farmed this to make a living.
LE's daughter	Mom, locate the farm. Tell him where the farm was located.
LE	It was located in Norrisville. If you know Broadway goes through Norrisville, branches off to the right. You took that road and another branched off – what was that one named?
LE's daughter	Church Lane?
LE	No, Church Lane came from Norrisville in. It wasn't Church Lane. Anyway, there was another little road that branched off there that this farm – the main barn and house stood there. It was very nice living there. Very nice. We lived many places but do you know why we lived many places? People off the manor found out that we would live in their house while they took a vacation for a month or a year and we would take care of their house, rent free, so that meant money in our pockets. So we had to live in their house to do this, so we lived here, or here, or over there.
DW	And this was you and your husband or your parents?
LE	No, I'm with my husband.
DW	Ok.
LE	Margie was born, she was born at Madonna. We were still with Nanny and Papa. Pat was born in Norrisville. You know, all you kids were born in different places because of this getting rent-free. And anything you worked out, by gosh, meant money in your pocket.
LE's daughter	Mother, the barn fire that I was talking about is the one where they caught the guy who was burning barns. 
LE	Well, that was right in Norrisville and right at Dad's barn.
LE's daughter		Yes.
LE	Nobody knew that he would've tied a dog on the first floor of the barn. And this man that burnt the barn made it known, asked somebody, and it might have been Dad, I don't know, if the dog got burned up. And nobody knew the dog was there but dad. So that give him away and from there, Dad had to come up and go to court to let them know why he was the last one to see the dog.
DW	Let's go back to changes in the county and how about changes you've seen in 85 years that maybe didn't suit you or didn't suit your thought. Too much housing or changes in anything.
LE	Changing. I don't know. We lived on Charles Street and that was one of the best changes we ever made. These little gals loved that creek [Insert: Winter's Run] and Bel Air gets used to but I don't think it does all because the creek's not big enough, it's water from this creek. And I can't …. do you remember?
LE's daughter	Winters Run.
LE	Winters Run was right in front of our house and these little girls played in that creek morning, noon and night. We loved it there very much and then we sold that and built a home on Morse Road and that's where most of them got married from.
DW	Well, we've been going for over an hour, anything that you would care to …
LE	I heard many people say this statement, "Oh, the schools over now, the kids will be home." And to me that was terrible talk because when my kids were with me, I was happy and I didn't know why they weren't happy.
DW	Yea.
LE	But there's many a statement said just like that. Now the kids will be home. They never heard that did you?
LE's daughter	No.
DW	Any other last stories you'd like to share?
LE	I don't think I have any more. I thought I told you the last one when I said I got on that little hickory stick and swung it clear over till I could touch the ground and come back and touch it over here. I thought I was something.
LE's daughter	Whatever kind of games did you play?
LE	We played ball but it was called a town ball, Margie, and we made our own rules and Miss Louise read and agreed to it and made us stick to it. And we all knew them and nobody argued. That's right, cause she enjoyed playing ball as much as we did. She said anything that you kids do, I do. And she did but she expected that when it came time to get in the school, she expected us to study. I want to tell you one thing. I said I went to school to Georgia Turner. To me, Georgia Turner didn't teach me a darn thing. Now that's nasty but I went to high school and Mrs. Smith taught the English there and she embarrassed me to death. I was so embarrassed. I had to write something where I would use t-o and t-o-o, and t-w-o. And to me, "to" is spelled t-o and that's it! Now at that time, I had no idea that there was a t-o and a t-w-o… or too, t-o-o. Well, she….and I know what happened to the teacher. She don't know the difference between t-o and t-w-o. But she embarrassed me by letting it known to the whole class, that I was a dumbbell. And I wasn't the dumbbell because Georgia Turner never taught it to me. So, I ….
LE's daughter	Mother, you forgot about the ambulance.
LE	When Jarrettsville Lions Club decided to have an ambulance corps as well as fire and of course, nearly all of the Jarrettsville Lions belong to the fire company too. Anyway, Wayne was on the ambulance corps and filled his time in there, very definitely. He also rounded up enough money to help buy the first ambulance for Jarrettsville Lions Club.
LE's daughter	Do you remember how much it cost?
LE	I don't. It was a Cadillac, so it cost money.
LE's daughter	Tell Doug how you, how they alerted for the drivers for the ambulance. 
LE	They called your house. If you were on duty from – 12 o'clock tonight till 12 o'clock tomorrow you were on duty. When they called your house and told you you had a call, you had to go to the firehouse and get the ambulance out and take it wherever the person is and pick him up and take him to the hospital. And some of them got siren-happy I think. [Laughter] And would always use the darn siren instead of being careful, I guess, but they were jacked up for that, I know, some of them. SO I think that's about all I got.
DW	Ok, I appreciate your time very much. I'll say thank you, and congratulations on the proclamation.  [Laughter]
LE	There's the young lady that did my – put me where I am. [Laughter] And that one. I can't leave her out because that's my youngest daughter.