Interview with Billie D. Landbeck

              HARFORD LIVING TREASURES Mrs. Billie Landbeck
HARFORD LIVING TREASURES - MRS. BILLIE LANDBECK
Interviewer: Dale H. Neeper (DN)
Interviewee: Mrs. Billie Landbeck (BL).
Date: Wednesday May 17, 2000
Interview is taking place in the living room of the Aberdeen home of Mrs. Billie Landbeck.
Mrs. Landbeck will describe major events in her life and in Harford County, Maryland.
SIDE ONE
DN:	Mrs. Landbeck could you tell us where and when you were born.
BL: Yes, I was born November 19th, 1920 and most people are not aware of it but I was born in Hartsville, South Carolina. The reason being my mother and father were down visiting my Aunt Mary and I ques I wanted to be there with my mother when I was born so I came along about 7:30 in the evening and about two months later they came and brought me back to Maryland and I have been here ever since. And I am very glad.
DN:	Could you describe when you first came to Harford County, could you describe what our area 
was like?
BL:	It was pretty much cow pasture type area; it was a small town, I believe at the time we came 
here there were only about 1332 people in Aberdeen. Bel Air was not much bigger, of course Bel Air by then was the county seat. Aberdeen was originally supposed to be the county seat but powers that be I ques in the political field took it to Bel Air and it has been there ever since. Bel Air Avenue as you see it today was nothing like it was when I was young. The buildings were there, houses were there on Bet Air Avenue in the business part of town; they were torn down and the post office of course went in. The only building that has really remained true to form is the building were we used to have the O'Connor Piper and Flynn office which is on the corner of Bel Air Avenue and Park Street. That was the "Charing" Apartments they had apartments upstairs and two places on the bottom floor that were used as a doctors office, old doctor Delaney, God rest his soul, wonderful person. It is funny how you look back and remember things, I can remember his phone number because I worked at the telephone company and his phone number and Ivan's drugstore was 401 if you can imagine such a phone number starts with 2-6 these things come back in my memory and I think how wonderful it was and how easy life was in those days. It was just a whole different world then we life in right now, not ever this busy.
DN:	What did your parents do for a living?
 
HARFORD LIVING TREASURES Mrs. Billie Landbeck
BL:	My father worked for what was called NBC which was a national biscuit company, and he was 
a representative. They did not deliver bread, we had bread wagons or trucks that brought the bread but the National Biscuit Company and the American Biscuit Company were the people who brought the cookies and crackers and that sort of thing. He sold to Adam's Grocery Store that was an IGA store and George Adams and Victor Adams were the two brothers who ran that store. And you bought everything on credit if you wanted to or you could pay cash or you could pay once a month. I can remember the former major of Aberdeen, who was a major here for many many years never paid his bill, I don't think he ever did pay his bill in that store and he ran it up for years and years.
DN:	Very good. Can you describe a little bit about your childhood what it was like when you were 
growing up, and probably talk a little bit about how it was different for children today.
BL:	For one thing when I was little we made our own fun, we did our own games. For instance if 
you go out Mount Royal Avenue right now today it goes all the way out to Route 22 which is a dual highway. Mount Royal Avenue when I was a child and I lived right on Mount Royal Avenue at one time. Did quite a bit of my growing up there in that area. That road stopped where you turn to go into the Middle School right now, that is where Mount Royal Avenue stopped. There was nothing beyond that except trees, woods, fences and behind the houses where the Aberdeen High school is right now the North and South Buildings that was all open field. I can remember walking that fence; they had a split rail fence out there and the cows were on the other side. And I can remember a big persimmon tree where we used to go and we pull the ripe persimmons down, God help you if you ever tried to eat a green one. But back then we did not have refrigerators, we had an icebox and I can remember the little old black guy who had a totally round face and a totally round head and he was completely bald and he would drive up the street and he had the ice thongs and the icepick and my mother would say oh there is the iceman run out and get me 15 cents worth of ice. An I flew out and he took his icepick and he chopped of a 15 cent piece and took the thongs and carried them in and put them in the top of mother's icebox. And then we all took, all the kids in the neighborhood would gather around and we would take paper bags out and he'd chunk of a piece of ice for everybody so we could all put the ice in the paper bags and we would walk up and down the streets sucking ice and chewing on ice, it was wonderful. Those days were wonderful. I can remember very well that fun days and I was probably the worst of the bunch because I was the ringleader we go what we call jumping branches there was a little stream that follows up of Mount Royal Avenue and we would go jumping across the branches and the wider the branch
 
HARFORD LIVING TREASURES Mrs. Billie Landbeck
got the worse it was on our feet and my mother would say, don't you dare to come home with muddy feet I will ring you if you come in this house with muddy feet and of course I came in that house with muddy feet. But those were fun days as I say we had field day in Bel Air, the schools all met and we had what they call field day. And Mr. ?Goswald? would bring his truck and all the kids in the High School would gather and get in the truck and we pack our own lunches we'd take sandwiches and hard boiled eggs and home made cake and home made root beer and we take all these things and get in the truck and go up and we have flat relay and block relay and we had softball and we had hit ball. Those were wonderful, wonderful carefree days. Kids do have no idea under the sun what it would be like to live like that today. They have to have everything done for them and it is a shame.
DN: Did you spent a lot of time in the evening hours, were you reading or what kinds of things would you do in the evening? Kids today are of course TV watchers.
BL:	Ha, ha, sure they are. Now I will tell you something interesting we were talking about in the
office the other day, the difference between then and now. Then we would take a quarter and go to the movies. A quarter was my allowance for the week. You have to realize I was raised during the depression and for many of us today it is very difficult to go out and just arbitrarily spent money even if the money is there to spent we have become very cautious because you were raised during the depression when you did not do this because you did not have this. And I was lucky, I got a quarter a week allowance, 5 cents for the candy or the ice cream of whatever I wanted to buy and 20 cents for the movies. I would walk home by myself at night at 9:15 and never have a worry in the world. I was not afraid of anything, none of us were, nothing happened. We never locked our doors, I don't ever remember locking my doors until long after Stewart and I were married, certainly long after. Because of everybody was perfectly unafraid to leave their doors and windows open. We never had any problems, we even had tramps who walked through the neighborhood, people who traveled on the railroad because back then the B&O railroad which is now CSX. The freight trains would come through and they would drop people of and they had a way of pulling a mark where people would give them food and would do something for them. This does not happen anymore, obviously and for obvious reason you would not dare leave your doors unlocked anymore.
DN:	You mentioned the depression and the growing up during that depression time. How did your
family cope with depression and what did you see generally in Harford County, how the county itself dealt with it?
BL:	Well, for me I probably had the best of all world, we owned a restaurant, I never was without a
 
HARFORD LIVING TREASURES Mrs. Billie Landbeck
good meal. When lunchtime came the kids in school probably envied me because I had great sandwiches that were made at the restaurant before I went to school. In the morning I would walk, we lived right behind where I am right now. We lived on Park street and the restaurant was only a block away on Rte 20. If you look at where the Domino Pizza place is that is where we had a great big restaurant there that went all the way down to where they corner is of Warren Street. And so we owned a whole block in there and I had the best of all worlds. When I would go to school, Mary Ellen Bogard, who was then Mary Ellen Stark and I would bring the sandwiches to lunch and she then would buy the dill pickles and the soup across the street at Mrs. Pritchard. Back then Rte 40 was not what you see now, Rte 40 was Rte 7 and you walked right across the street because it was mostly a cow path across the street. We had only one building at the school for the High School and it's the building that you see to the South of the adjoined building on Rte 40 which is not any longer used as a school and the auditorium that is out there. We were the first class to graduate there in 1937. There were formerly two schools that they joined together and put that auditorium in the middle and put classrooms in between the two. And that is how that school became as big as it finally wound up being. But during the depression I can remember people starving, I can remember people coming to the door begging. We had beggars almost every single day and we were not the only people everybody did. And it did not matter where you lived and how poor you were people still came to your door looking for food, hoping they could scrounge something. Once in a while they would say I will work for anything, I will work for my meal. It was not a fun time to live because there was so much sadness and so many people went hungry. But fortunately my sister and I were two of the lucky people.
DN: You mentioned Rte 40, do you remember when that was constructed? Did that impact Aberdeen?
BL: Oh yes, oh yes, Everybody said it was the worst thing that could happen to Aberdeen. I remember when they put the dual highway in and everybody said oh we have to get better
Some of the houses that were on Rte 40 at that time are no longer on Rte 40 and I can remember them moving Florence Farring and Marion Greenland houses and today they sit on Walker Street which is about four or five blocks behind where we are right now. Those houses are still sitting there and they are still being used and they are absolutely beautiful what they have done with them is an admirable thing to do to safe older homes in the neighborhood. That should be kept and something done with them. The houses on the street on where I am right now are on Roger Street you go down a block down Roger Street from where I am sifting
 
HARFORD LIVING TREASURES Mrs. Billie Landbeck
right now, Roger Street ended there, now it goes down all the way to Carroll Avenue. That was all woods back then. It's amazing the development that has happened in Aberdeen. I consider Aberdeen fortunate in one respect because the people in Bel Air won't be happy but we are not nearly as overdeveloped as the Bel Air area. That is frightening, when I go to Bel Air and I look how close the houses are how much that has developed over there and it is a busy, busy atmosphere. Aberdeen is still somewhat laid back. And I would hope for my own self and I know the people who are old timers in Aberdeen still feel this way. We would hope that it would stay pretty much laid back the way it is right now. Havre de Grace is the same way. I love Havre de Grace it is a wonderful city. You go to Havre de Grace you see all the historic places that are there and they are part of Harford County always has been for me. There is still some beautiful homes in the Bel Air area some of the older sections there are just absolutely to die for gorgeous. But some of the newer sections are just so overcrowded and so busy that it is a little heartbreaking to see all this development going on, even if I am in the Real Estate business, it's still a little heartbreaking for me to see all this development going on.
DN: Tell us a little bit about your schooling, what a schoolday was like for you. How you got to school and all those things?
BL:		We walked, we walked. I can remember, the only person I know of who rode a bus in my 
class, and I am sure there were others, but the only one I can remember very clearly was Ethel May Hipkins, who lived up by what they call Hipkins Corner which is the road, Robin Hood Road that goes in of of Rte 40. Hipkins owned that corner back there they had a little store and a little gas station I think they had two tanks and I know Ethel May rode the bus because I used to go home with her from school and spent the night at her house and was always very tickled because I got to ride the bus. When I lived in Aberdeen I walked, we all walked and I did not care how deep the snow was maybe it is remember back now to the time that I was shorter but it seemed to me the snow was always deeper then it was always up around my knees it never was my ankles I can remember the snow above my knees. I can remember how cold it was and when we got to school we took our outer clothes of and our caloshes and our boots and we put them under the radiators, the schools were heated with radiators and we put our mittens, our gloves and our coats and our hats and our leggings and we put them on the radiators in the classrooms to try and dry them out so they would be dry again by the time it came time to go back home again. Looking back, they were fun days. The school classes, I only went to school eleven years but then we only had eleven years, we went seven years of elementary school and we graduated then we went four years of high school and we
 
HARFORD LIVING TREASURES Mrs. Billie Landbeck
graduated. We were freshmen, sophomores, juniors, seniors and that was it and I can remember so well how wonderful it was because we thought we were smarter then anybody else of course we got out of school far too early I was only sixteen years old when I graduated high school. And so was almost everybody in my class except a couple of them who'd gotten kept back for one reason or another.
DN:	I know you have seen a lot of changes. I know you mentioned a few of them already about 
how Aberdeen has changed. Is there anything else that you can think of that you noticed a big change in Aberdeen over the years?
BL:	Well, of course the Proving Ground brought about a tremendous amount of change and I know 
we intend to address this area when VW/ll came along Aberdeen underwent a dramatic change. We did not have motels. Motel was not a word we even knew. Hotels we had heard about, the Hotners had a hotel but the people who came here did not live in a hotel they could not afford to, the rooms were at least $8 or $9 dollars a night back then and that was a lot of money back then. People in Aberdeen banded together and we all rented rooms. We rented rooms to the people who came to work at the Proving Ground. They shut down the racetrack during that time. Havre de Grace racetrack, which was a wonderful racetrack, that finally went the way of all flesh after it became developed people were not going to the races that much anymore. Of course during the was they were not going to much of anything like that. But the people we rented, by then of course Stewart and I were married during WWII, we were married in 1940 so when WWII came along we lived right down the street here on Roger Street and we rented two of our rooms upstairs and we slept downstairs and the boys slept downstairs. We had a Cape Cod and we were able to make arrangements to do that but everybody pitched in to help house these people and I can remember going to work at the Proving Ground. I worked for a man named Colonel Hess, a wonderful man, I adored him. He worked in the officers pay section, he was head of it and I left there just about the time I became pregnant with Ron, I decided to transfer over into the past desk area where they were wore uniforms and I remember getting the uniform and by the time it came I could not fit into it. Because Ronnie was coming along, so I stopped working. I never did to back to work at the Proving Ground. It became Aberdeen Proving Ground and Camp Rodman and a lot of people don't remember that there was a Camp Rodman here when you start our the Aberdeen Proving Ground Road you went to the gate that took you to camp Rodman and from Camp Rodman you went from there into the main part of Aberdeen Proving Ground which stills remains today. There were three stone buildings on the right going out there that were the Ordnance School
 
HARFORD LIVING TREASURES Mrs. Billie Landbeck
and they have remained the Ordnance school. But that is where Camp Rodman began and I can remember the phone number because the phone number for Proving Ground was 252 and for Camp Rodman was 360 and I can remember sitting at that switchboard and fencing all those calls. I tell you what else I can remember that was one of the most fascinating days of my life. I had stopped working for the telephone company after Steward and I were married and they needed help to run what they called the trailer and the trailer was were they kept the switchboard and it was a hand operated switchboard we did not have what they have today and I sat there at that switchboard and I suddenly opened the window and I looked out and, and they said quick look and I looked out and here came Franklin D. Roosevelt with his top down and his hat on and his cigarette holder out there and he stopped and waved and I was as close to him as I am to you right now it was just wonderful I was so excited. Ques what Stewart got mad because I only got paid $3 and 12 cents for that whole day work. I can remember that day so well that was one of the fascinating things that happened.
OH: You mentioned the Havre de Grace race track, did you ever get a change to see any races there?
BL:		Oh Lord yes, when Stewart was on the police force he used to be one of the troopers that 
directed traffic out there so he was able to go back behind the stands of course and he would take me out there and I go back in the back field or they let me go in the infield if I wanted to and I go out there and watch the races. I will never forget one time my stepfather, who was an absolute wonderful man, with race track thing, he loved the horse races and I would run his bets for him I would sit there beside him and he would say: OK take this up and bet on such and such. So we got word that a horse named Red Mike was going to win that day and it was like 50-1 so I bet my two dollars, which I had never done before in my whole life, I bet two dollars on Red Mike cause I knew that horse was going to win, we had inside information from the jockey, so I ran the bets for Frankie and I brought mine back and I pulled out the ticket, and here goes Red Mike taking of like he was running to beat the band and he got to the back field and suddenly I saw the jockey take his hand and pull back on the reins and pull the horse up so it could not win because the odds had gone up to 5-2 and they had decided they did not want him to win that day and I have never been to a horse race since. So tell me about Havre de Grace racetrack it was a wonderful place. I can remember the houses of ill-refute that were right there at the end of the racetrack. They had the Racetrack Inn and they had the Pink Elephant and I will never forget those places I have never been in them but I have sure been by them many a time and they were the talk of the county.
 
HARFORD LIVING TREASURES Mrs. Billie Landbeck
DN:	Where about was the race track in todays picture
BL: When you cross when you go out Rte 40 toward Havre de Grace there is a split where Revelation Street goes in you cross over the top of the railroad track and the road goes out and there is a traffic light at the end of there and you turn right and that is where the racetrack
was out where all the commercial stuff is out there now. All the big buildings around there it was a wonderful track. And that was a full mile track, they had a half mile track out in Be] Air but the one in Havre de Grace was and they called it the "Graul" a wonderful track a beautiful track.
DN:	Can you describe a little bit what Hanford County went through during WWII what you saw how 
you were involved in the war effort?
BL:	Well, Harford County had ..., in Aberdeen we had the USO building which has recently been 
torn down. We started out in the Aberdeen High School in the Auditorium of what is now the building that comes out from the school that was where we had the auditorium at that time and
that is where we first started entertaining the GI's during WWII and that is where the USO began. Everybody in Aberdeen went and it did not matter if you were married or single or it did not matter, they needed women there to go in there and dance with these boys and try to make them feel welcome and at home. Later, when what became the ARC building was put up and which now has been taken down, that is where the new Aberdeen building is going down on Park street on that corner, that building was what they call ARC building, the Aberdeen Recreation Center and that is where the USO was and it was USO there for many many years. We used to go there we'd bake cakes and cookies and take them for the soldiers and we would play cards with them, we would dance with them. And I can remember the Presbyterian Church, in their auditorium we would ..., they would set up days and they would bus out from the Proving Ground the soldiers that wanted to play ping pong or play cards, we had pinochle games and most of the county was involved in things like this. Of course I am particularly familiar with what happened in Aberdeen because that is where I did all my stuff, my mother did, my Aunt Harriet did. And I can remember Ruth Lee, all the women in Aberdeen, and these were all older women, I was young at the time. I was barely married and I had a family but we all did our part in trying to make the GI's feel welcome. It was a time when you did not date a soldier in Aberdeen because they were not the salt of the earth people you just did not do that. And then WWII came along and it changed everything, then you could date soldiers because it could be your brother, your father, your cousin, your uncle or your son, it could be anyone of those members of the family and the people's attitudes towards
 
HARFORD LIVING TREASURES Mrs. Billie Landbeck
soldiers changed; for any service people it changed dramatically during WWII. And it is, I don't think it has ever gone back, it slid back a little but basically people do not have the same feelings for soldiers and sailors and marines as they did back in those days before WWII. That made a big change.
DN:	Do you recall any of the rationing or anything like that?
BL: Oh yeah, good heavens yes, we had food stamps, what today would be known as food
stamps. You were given an certain allotment of stamps, so many of them for butter and so many for milk, for meat or whatever and I can remember, because Stewart was on the police force, once in a while we would get lucky when there was an accident and a tractor trailer or a truck of some sort crashed and they had something like butter on it we would get butter in huge blocks; they would be like 4 feet square, 4 feet high of buffer and Stewart would bring them home and they were frozen and he would bring them home and he would chunk them up and try to get them to where he could give them to people all the neighbors. And they used to love it when Stewart would come and he would say butter or whatever it happened to be for that day. But I can particularly remember that day with butter, sliding butter across my kitchen floor, he brought four of those huge things in at one time and we had to cut all those up and give them to everybody that we knew. But oh yeah, there was rationing back then and I can tell you something else interesting. We lived right down here on Roger street during WWII we had blackouts and everything had to be black if you wanted to smoke a cigarette you had to smoke it somewhere where you could let the ash the blow of the cigarette been seen outside. And I remember one time the siren went of and everybody turned the lights of and I had a radio sitting in the middle of the window and all of a sudden I get a knock on the door and this man came over and said I'm sorry but there is a light shining and I said there is no light on this house and he said yes there is and then he walked over to the window and he said the tube from the radio was shining a very small light out that window and had to put a black cloth behind it so that it wouldn't shine and I said heavenly days I never even thought about it. And I can remember FBI agents coming to the house; we never locked the doors as I said and they would come up and spent the night, they were looking for awols and they would come in the house; they knew where we lived and the AWOLs, which were the Absent Without Leave guys, they were told to come up here and try to pick up certain ones and they knew who they were looking for. I would wake up in the morning and find FBI sleeping on my couch, I would give
hem breakfast and they would go on their way but they always knew where to find a free meal.
DN:	You have already described quite a bit of changes in Harford County that you have seen but if
9
 
HARFORD LIVING TREASURES Mrs. Billie Landbeck
you had to pick the one what would you say was the most dramatic change you had seen in your lifetime in the County?
BL:	To me the worst change has been the overpowering building in the western part of the county, 
in the Bel Air area, Aberdeen I hope, never follows close behind because we are still somewhat small town, somewhat laid back and I probably said that earlier, but it remains the people in this side of the county are kind of overpowered when we go to Bel Air. To drive up and to take fifteen minutes to go from my office to the Bel Air mall on a Friday afternoon or a Saturday morning is unreal because it only takes me that long from Aberdeen all the way to Bel Air. And it is just the overcrowding in that area is just kinda dismal to me. The building in all of Harford County has just overpowered everybody some of the things that have changed, you look at cable the TVs and the computers. The computer age has certainly changed things dramatically. But the biggest change in Harford County to me is the tremendous development that has been going on. Not all of it is bad, don't understand me wrong, some of it is really good and if it is well planned and thought out there is not a problem but sometimes I think that they started to soon to do too much too quickly.
DN:	Real Estate has been a big part of your life, how did you get into that occupation?
BL:	My husband and a state trooper who was a radio expert had come up to fix Stewart's car one
day and we were living down in Swan Meadows and it was pouring down rain and I said you know the kids are all in school now and I really need to find something to do I can't sit at home it is driving me crazy. He said you ought to do what Ruby did, Ruby is his wife, I said what did she do? He said she went in Real Estate business. I said great idea. It was pouring rain I got in the car and drove to Paul Cronin's office and when I got there I walked in and I said Paul you have hired a new real estate agent and he said who? And I said me and he said great give me five dollars I handed him five dollars I signed some papers he sent if of to the real estate commission and a week later I had a real estate license. Three years later I took a ten question test and I got a brokers license and I have been at it ever since. And today I am the strongest advocate in the state of Maryland for more education to get these people to know what they should know to be in this business because there has been such a change since the day that I got into this business and I love it.
DN:	That was one of the next questions I wanted to ask you. How has the real estate business 
changed and the whole industry at large?
BL:	When I came into this business in 1949, I could take one side of one sheet of 81/2 by 11 paper 
and I could write a listing contract. I could take the same size piece of paper and I could write
 
HARFORD LIVING TREASURES Mrs. Billie Landbeck
a contract of sale. The other day I faxed a contract to California and it was 25 pages long. It was absolutely unreal, I stood there at the time and the question you asked me, I answered myself that day standing there, look what a change I have seen. It is unreal the paperwork is devastating and the biggest change we find right now is that the computer age has hit us and if you are not into computers and you if don't know what you are doing on a computer you might as well forget the business because you have no business being in it. You can't survive to well in this day and age unless you are computer sensitive and know what you are doing on a computer and I will tell you fiat out right now I am the worlds worst on a computer I am not great but I am learning.
DN:	For many you years you have been active in real estate in the county but also in the state and 
on a national level could you describe some of the activities you have been involved with on all three levels?
BL:	I .... It is gonna sound like I am patting myself on the back, I don't mean to do that. But in order 
to tell you what you are asking me I have to start with Harford County which was then the Board of Realtors which is now the Harford County Association of Realtors. Back when I became President in 1971 there was another broker who sat at the table who said that it would be a cold day in hell before they would be a woman President at the Harford County Board of Realtors. And the next year I proved him wrong because I became the first woman President. The following year when I was going out of office I became the first woman to serve as a Director for the Maryland Association of Realtors. Five years later I became the Maryland Association of Realtors first woman President. If I had to do it over I would do it I loved it, it was wonderful. That year when I became President of the Maryland Association of Realtors, three women in the whole United States were the first woman Presidents of their Boards at that meant that we were automatically a Director of the National Association of Realtors. The following year I was elected, on my own, not because I was a President, but I was fully elected by the Directors of the Maryland Association of Realtors to a National Directorship and I served as a Director for thirteen straight years. One of those years I was the National Regional Vice-President and that took care of West-Virginia, DC, Delaware, Maryland all of this region that we are in right now I was the National Regional Vice-President, it was a wonderful year because I got to travel to all these places and all of these states and they were wonderful to me. I received the warmest welcomes you can imagine. I even performed for them, I am a ham, the one thing that I did when I was Regional Vice-President, they had a Realtor talent show which they did for several years in a row and I only performed in one of them but I
 
HARFORD LIVING TREASURES Mrs. Billie Landbeck
performed on the stage of MGM Grand Theater in Las Vegas and they introduced me as the last of the Red Hot Mamas, that tells you anything about me and what I do. But it was wonderful, I had such a good time doing that.
DN: That is amazing. What kinds of social activities where there in Harford County for young people?
BL:		Not a great deal. Some of the things .. .You are talking about young people, I don't know if you 
are you talking about youngsters as High School age or young married couples?
DN: Both.
BL: When we were first married I can remember when we had the ARC, people back then had parties and they had them at the ARC and they had like fifty tables. I can remember Paul and Betty Cronin, went together with Mary and Travis Greenland and Florence and Jim Farring and they entertained at the ARC and it was a desert bridge and they had all kinds of desert that the family put together and they had coffee and tea or soft drinks and the tables were set up and they had an area for pinochle, they had a lot of 500 tables and a lot of bridge tables. Now I am a avid bridge player, have been all my life. Well I say all my life, ever since I have been married. I am a duplicate player, I love tournament bridge. I haven't played for many years because Stewart and I decided just to do ... well we took up golf frankly and when golf came along I gave up bridge, I gave up a lot of things for golf. But back in those days Norman Lee and his wife had a big party up at the ARC. But that is what we did, that was fun, We would go there like at seven o'clock in the evening, you would have desert and then you would play bridge all evening. And then they would give out prizes and everybody would go home. And we were home by ten o'clock, nine thirty - ten o'clock. We did not have big evenings. New Years Eve, that was a big evening. We had the dance at the ARC, we had entertainment there. I can remember back in those days, Minstrel shows were permitted. I have put on eleven shows for this town. I put on seven Minstrel shows, I did the Centennial show, I did the Bi-centennial show. I have done high school .... I have talked to boys in the high school kick course routines as well as the girls doing kick course routines. I have had a great time doing things like that but I can remember we had a radio show back then, Harry Storath and I. I played the piano for him and he was the crooner. Harry Storath sang "Dream while you are feeling blue." I can remember that as well as if it were yesterday. And we were on Channel.... on the radio station WASA we had our own program, it was really neat. Today there is still people that come up to me and say: "Do you remember when you and Harry were on the radio?". Sure I do.
 
HARFORD LIVING TREASURES Mrs. Billie Landbeck
DN:	Well, you mentioned golf, when you first started playing golf there probably were not to many 
courses that you could play on, were there?
BL:	No, I learned to play golf out at the Aberdeen Proving Ground on what they call Plumb Point, 
that is a nine hole golf course on the old part of the proving ground and a guy named Wisner was the Pro out there, wonderful man and what a teacher. He took four of us out there and we took lessons from him and then we played that course and then we would come home. And then the people built Swan Creek Country Club. I am the last remaining member of the original Swan Creek Country Club, and I hate to give up my membership and I won't give it up yet. I called them just recently, just before I lost my husband and I said I want to keep my membership, put me back on the social membership so I can play golf again. And I am going to take up golf again because I love Swan Creek, it is a wonderful golf course. We had only the Proving Ground Plum Point and then later we had Swan Creek after that they build Ruggles, which incidentally is a championship course. That is a wonderful golf course and it is now open to the public. I can go out of my front door now and in less then 10 minutes I can hit 8 golf courses and I really did not have to drive that far. That is how many golf course we have today. Today I was fortunate to arrive at Chapel Road and coming down I saw the back of the new part of Bully Rock where they are building a new park and course. It is a wonderful golf course, it is a little pricy but it is a wonderful golf course. And it is a beautiful golf course. You look at wetlands right up here, how many blocks is that away. Right of of the end of Gilbert Road is wetlands. You go down on Rte 7 right on that side of Aberdeen there is Beach Tree. I mean, there are so many golf courses that are so close to us that anybody who is interested in playing at any price there are all levels of prizes in golf courses here now, which there weren't in those days.
DN:	Could you tell me some of the outstanding people that you have met from the County, State 
and the Nation, that you consider to be outstanding?
BL:	Well, of course one of my favorite people in the whole wide world is Paul Cronin. He was an 
attorney here in Aberdeen and probably one of the best liked people in the County, he was a wonderful, wonderful person. I look back over the years at some of the people that I have come to know and with whom I have had, not necessarily a close personal relationship, but with people whom I have had a great deal of contact with. I can remember when Dale Hess was a big name around here. For one reason or another not all of them great, but I am very fond of Dale. He and I have had a good relationship over the years and I feel that people who are nice to me and who do not do anything to harm me or my family they are going to stay my
 
HARFORD LIVING TREASURES Mrs. Billie Landbeck
friends. I am a very loyal person. Wilmer Cronin was Paul's brother and there is a lot to be set about Wilmer, but he did a lot of good things in his life too. Norman Lee who died far too young, he and his wife were killed and eh, or he was killed and his wife lived on of course, but they are a wonderful family. The Mitchells. I can remember the Mitchells lived in Perryman and they always swore that someday I would be living in Perryman because I dated Perryman boys a lot, before I was married. Of course I never moved there, but they were a wonderful family. Curtie Morgan, one of the most wonderful people I have ever known in my life and I am so sorry to see them leaving Aberdeen. But you got to remember Curtie Morgan is in his nineties now and It is time for them to get away from the big house to take care of and they will be sorely missed in this town because they are very much loved, both of them. I have had a lot of good friends in the political arena and there far to numerous to mention. I can remember William Donald Schaefer, bless his heart. I was a Republican and he was a Democrat and he appointed me to the Maryland Real Estate Commission. That is something else I did not mention to you before talking about real estate, but I spent ten years on the Maryland Real Estate Commission and that is a case of being a judge. What is amounts to is you are ajudicating the law in the State of Maryland and it is a very interesting thing to do but believe me ten years was plenty of that. My own family, my John, who is an attorney, who is a judge, they are wonderful to me, Steven who was a State Trooper and is now in Elkton and probably is going to go back to work with the Sheriffs Department because he loves policing and just can't seem to get away from it. He and his wife, they are wonderful to me. Ron who is a retired Senior Master Sergeant in the Air Force. They are all close to home, Michael is the one we lost but who was so full of love that it is almost impossible to believe that he is really gone. There are people in the county that are very dear to my heart and I would be remiss if I mentioned one and did not mention all of them because they are all very close to me. It has been a love affair for me with this town and for this county for so many years.
SIDE TWO
DN:	Ms. Landbeck, you have been a volunteer for many health related causes and I know you are 
a speaker for the transplant resource center. Do you think that people today are more or less healthy then in the past?
BL:	Probably more so, we have made so many strides in the medical industry it is ... this 
profession has done such a wonderful job in what they are doing. And the money that raised has gone in my opinion has gone to so much research and has helped so many people. I look at the day and I think I probably will live to see it. Cause I don't plan on going at all, of course.
 
HARFORD LIVING TREASURES Mrs. Billie Landbeck
But I think the day will come when we will see the end of cancer. I think most forms of cancer will be conquered in my life time. I and truly believe that is going to happen because they have made such great strides in it. And yes you talked about the transplant resource center. It is one of the dearest things of my heart. When Michael died he was an organ donor and shortly after he died I received a letter from the transplant resource center saying: that his heart was in the body of a sixty year old coal miner down in Virginia, who had been given one month to live if a heart was not found. Today the man is alive and well and functioning. His kidneys went to the New Jersey kidney bank because they were desperately in need of the kidneys. One kidney went to a 54 year old insurance salesman and the other went to a 26 year old lady who had a six year old daughter. And today they are both alive and well and functioning, and I know that Michael lives on. And it is a great source of comfort to me to know that his life was not all in vain.
DN:	Absolutely. What are some of your hobbies and your interests that we have not talked yet?
BL:	Of course my greatest hobby is golf. I played first team for Swan Creek for 22 years and loved
every minute of it and wished I was doing it now. I am not that good anymore. You lose two things in golf, you lose distance and you lose concentration when you get older and I hate losing both of them with a passion. And I love my bridge, I plan on going back as I told you before, I lost my husband about two months ago and I am going back to playing bridge again and doing some of the things that I like to do. When I was caring for him and not that I had a problem of doing that at all. It is never a pleasure to take care of someone in those circumstances but it certainly is something that you do with love and caring. And I don't begrudge a penny or a minute that I spent doing things for him. And know it is time for me to get on with my life and do the things that I want to do. You don't realize that I have nine grandchildren and I have almost eleven great grand children. John's daughter Amy is expecting their first child and that will be the eleventh one. And I don't know if this is ever gonna stop but I certainly hope it isn't because I can tell you right now you can step over kids and grandchildren to get to the great grand children, they are wonderful.
DN: That is terrific. Now this is a really difficult question for you Mrs. Landbeck. If you could change Harford County today having what you already lived through and seen how Harford County was, what would you change?
BL:	It is a really, really, really easy answer. I would change the perception that everyone has that 
does not live in Aberdeen of what Aberdeen is like. It is a wonderful place, the people here are warm, they are friendly, they help their neighbors. It is just a really to die for great place. I can
 
HARFORD LIVING TREASURES Mrs. Billie Landbeck
look at the family that we have raised and our grandchildren and some of our great grand children who have gone to school in Aberdeen and they have all turned out remarkably well. There is nothing wrong with the Aberdeen schools. You get good teachers and bad anywhere and the same thing is true of Aberdeen that is true anywhere else. I am delighted to know that Aberdeen is now going to be a magnet school and not only is it in the middle, it is on the way to being done. And I found that out yesterday at the Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce. I am thrilled to death about that. I am delighted that we are going to have our ball club which is already here and the stadium will be built. The things that I would change about 1-larford County would be just the perception that people have that there is nothing good east of 1-95 and believe me there is an awful lot of good over here. All they have to do is come and find it.
DN: On that very positive note, Mrs. Landbeck, I want to thank you for all the information. I know that we have just touched the surface of all the experiences and memories that you have of this county, they certainly are a wealth of knowledge. I certainly appreciate your time today.
THIS CONCLUDES OUR TAPE WITH MRS. BILLIE LANDBECK.