Interview with E. Francis Lynch

              E. Francis Lynch A Living Treasure

Hello, this is Doug Washburn for the Harford County Public Library. Today is 11/9/2012 and I'm with a Harford Living Treasure, E. Francis Lynch of Fallston. How are you today, sir?

EL	Fine, thank you.
DW Good. So what year were you born? EL	1928.
DW   And where?
EL	We were living in Fallston, but I was actually born in Saint Joseph's Hospital in Baltimore.
DW Oh, o.k. That was right about the time where families didn't continue to have births done at home.
EL	Right.
DW When I was setting up the equipment you indicated that your home place was actually right here where we are today?
EL	Right; that's correct.
DW And your mom and dad moved to Fallston in what year, do you know? Were they born here?
EL	They were both born here; not in Fallston, but in Harford County. DW   What did your mom and dad do to make a living?
EL	My father had a milk truck; he started the first milk truck line from Harford County to Baltimore. He hauled milk into the dairy in Baltimore. And my mother was associated with…She was a secretary actually and a bookkeeper at Motor Sales in Bel Air. And my uncle owned Motor Sales in Bel Air.
DW O.k. And what was that name? I should know that. EL	Hannah.
DW   Hannah, o.k.
EL	Herb Hannah. They built that big stone house on the corner of Tollgate Road. DW   Of course Motor Sales is about where the Risteau Court House is.
EL	Yes. In fact he sold the property, the old building to Chevrolet, Olds Mobile and Cadillac.
DW They had a guy that worked in the shop that did all of the front end alignments by the name of Brock
 
EL	I didn't know him.
DW He happened to be a friend of my father's; that was all. He bought several cars there; I know.
EL	Well my mother was there for years. DW   Oh yeah?
EL	And she and my aunt had the jobs. DW What was your mom's maiden name? EL	Terry.
DW   So did the truck line have a particular name or just Lynch Trucking?
EL	I'll tell you the truth; I don't know. We only had three or four trucks. In fact they were solid tires. That's how long ago it's been. He started the truck line and a man named White finally bought it. And I guess the Greers must have bought it from him; I don't know. My father primarily was a mechanic; that was his trade.
DW   What dairy did they haul the milk to; do you know?
EL	That I can't tell you. I don't know. It was one of the big dairies in Baltimore and they processed and pasteurized the milk and then came back.
DW How many farmers did he haul milk for? EL	No idea. A lot of them are still here.
DW   So what is your earliest memory in the county?
EL	I guess my earliest memory was…Well I guess Laurel Brook because that was our swimming hole. In the summer time we spent the bulk of it swimming.
DW   And that's the hill on the way into Bel Air?
EL	No, Laurel Brook; it's the old; it's the Little Gun Powder. DW   Towards Baltimore County.
EL	It's right within a couple miles back. It comes down and curves around and goes into Baltimore County. And that's where we spent many hours in the summer time. And one of my earliest memories, in fact I mentioned it here was in the summer time we had a church; Saint Mark's had a church that had a tournament and carnival that lasted all day on Saturday. Preparing for that was…I used to stay with my grandfather and grandmother which had bordered Saint Mark's. We spent lots and lots of time preparing for that. And then the big day was the carnival, of course. It was a big tournament and it was a big thing in those days. You know they had horses and things.
DW When you say tournament, you mean jousting? EL	Yes, jousting.
DW   Do you know what years that operated?
EL	I don't even remembered when it stopped but it was still going in, I guess, the early sixties. Either late fifties or early sixties they stopped it.
 
DW I know one of the last ones to end was at Saint Mary's in Pylesville. EL	Right.
DW   Theirs went much longer.
EL	I remember the last one we had. We also had a chicken dinner and a lot of people came out from Baltimore. Bus loads came out to spend the day at this thing. And the last one we had we served eleven hundred people in a little white hall. It's still there, the white hall. We now have a big, brick building that's used for school; not a full school, but a Catholic Committee School. We had eleven hundred people at the last dinner. We didn't even have good facilities there, but we did have running water. That was the one thing we had.
DW   Yes, the Health Department was less stringent…
EL	The Health Department wouldn't have let anybody in the front door. Of course I
remember Harry O'Neil and I used to wash dishes in a little sink which was no bigger than ours. The kitchen was in the back and we would wash dishes and re-use them at the same time. In fact we built a big, brick building up here now at Saint Mark's and it has several rooms in it and a big kitchen and everything. And we weren't allowed to serve dinners out of there unless we had a steam room in the thing. So anything we served we had to put on paper plates. It was twenty years from now but we used to live down there. And when we built this place here, the Health Department I think was practically living with us. They kept us informed all the time as what we were doing wrong. In fact we had to go through eliminations to even be able to build it here and we had nine acres down there but we couldn't build it down there because it wouldn't pass regulations. So anyway, the Health Department and I are not good friends.
DW   So where did you go to elementary school?
EL	Fallston. Oh wait a minute now, I went there for three years. It's right here; right beside us here where the church is on Old Fallston Road, where the Presbyterian Church is right there on this side of the church. It's now a pre-school or a nursery school or whatever. It was a little wooden building. We had three grades in one side of it and four grades in the other. There were seven grades. And after that, you went into the eighth grade; you had to go someplace else. But I didn't stay there. I only went three grades there. My mother and father were both at Motor Sales so I rode with them up to Bel Air. I went to elementary school from the fourth grade to the seventh and at the end of the seventh grade; I went to the high school. It's not like it is now; we only went to eleventh grade.
DW Right. So the elementary school in Bel Air you went to would be the one on Gordon Street that's abandoned.
EL	Right. I went to high school at the other building which is now the Board of Education, I think used it. I don't know what it is now on Gordon Street.
DW   Oh, o.k.
EL	The elementary school was in the old brick building. The other one is old too.
 
DW Now I know there was another school in between the Gordon Street two-story and the 1950's version that they just tore down for the big renovation. There was one in the middle there. So that's actually where you would have went to high school. Do you
remember…So since the grades were only one through eleven, was the curriculum a lot different than it is say today?
EL Well it was a different curriculum, sort of, I guess. Things were different, but we had some really good people that graduated from Bel Air High School and became stellar people in the community. Not myself but other people.
DW Oh I think you did. [Laughter] EL	No, not really.
DW Now I see that the Bel Air High School had a county basketball championship team? EL	Yes, we did. I was the center on that team.
DW You were the center? EL	Yes.
DW   Well, you are tall.
EL	I was that tall then. In fact, I'm shorter now than I was then. I was close to six foot, five, but now I'm closer to six foot, four. I shrunk.
DW I know the feeling. So that would have been this school that we were talking about after the Gordon Street two-story and before the 1950 one that they just tore down. That would be that high school?
EL	Right.
DW   What class school was it? Was it A or B? Or did they have classes?
EL	I don't know if it had a class. Earl Hawkins was my first principal and he later became President of Towson University. He was married to one of the Greer's. You know the Greer's in Bel Air? I think there were thirteen children; well he was married to one of
them. Bill Greer was a…maybe this was before your time. He was on the Legislature in the State Legislature.
DW   If it wasn't before my time, I guess it was a point in my life where it wasn't of interest.
EL	I'm sure it was before your time. My wife and I both went to Bel Air High School. She was three years behind me. In fact I didn't even know her in Bel Air High School.
DW What is your wife's name? EL	Spry. S P R Y [Martha]
DW   So in addition to the swimming hole on the Baltimore County line and the jousting
tournaments at Saint Mark's, I see that ice skating was one of your favorite things to do.
EL	Ice skating and sledding; as I put in here some place, as a child growing up we were free to roam through the neighborhood. We could go to the local swimming-hole, ice skate, play sports; not organized. We didn't have any organized sports.
DW   Right.
 
EL	When it was football season, we played football. When it was baseball season, we played baseball. And when the jousting tournaments were up here at Saint Mark's, we had a thing set up with rings and we rode our bicycles through it. We never had any organized sports. I wasn't even in the boy scouts. But we had a terrific time.
DW That would have been interesting riding the bicycles with the…What did you use, a broom stick?
EL	No, no. We got lightning rods and used the old lightning rods about this long and we put wooden handles on them like the regular jousting sticks. It was a big thing with us.
DW   Now could you lower the rings because I mean a horse would be considered a…
EL	Oh yeah; we made our own wooden things that they had. See we had metals ones up at Saint Mark's; big metal things. That was a big thing here at one time. People raised horses just to have a good horse to go to jousting. And yes I was very interested in I guess after…Let's see I was still in high school when I was interested in race horses. I raised a couple of race horses. Unfortunately they didn't do much, but we won a couple of races. They were cheap races in Timonium. But I always finished in race horses.
DW So were the Bel Air Race Track and the Havre de Grace Race Track were gone before you got interested in it?
EL	Oh no; no, no. That's where I got interested in it was the Bel Air Race Track. DW   O.k. You didn't own a horse at that time.
EL	Oh no. I was pretty young. I had a friend who was interested in racing too and we used to go down to the track in the morning and watch them work. We would take a coffee down there and watch them work them out. When the races came to Bel Air, it was another big event. I know people who took their vacation time so that it would coincide with the races. Usually it was about a month or two weeks or four weeks or something like that in Bel Air. It was a big thing in Bel Air.
DW They had two different kinds of races there, didn't they? They had conditional with a jockey and then they had sulky races too, didn't they?
EL	Very little sulky racing. That wasn't big at all. The regular racing was with horse jockeys. But they did a few…And they also had pony races.
DW   What is the distinction?
EL	Well the pony races were for kids; they weren't professional, they would just go out and get a ribbon or trophy.
DW   Did you go to the races in Havre de Grace also?
EL	Yes. In fact I went down and saw…This probably doesn't mean anything to you, but Coal Town and Citation were great, great horses and they both were owned by the same people in Kentucky. And when they came to Havre de Grace, I went down and watched them unload them from the state railroad down there. Citation was so good that they couldn't get a race for him because nobody would run against him. Have you ever heard of Citation?
DW   That one I have heard of, but not the other one.
 
EL	Coal Town was his stable mate. They were owned by Calumet Farm in Kentucky. DW   Can you spell that?
EL	CALUMET. They had a baking powder company and they were from Kentucky. But anyway, that was a big thing for me.
DW Of course just for our listeners the Havre de Grace Race Track is where The National Guard location is today and probably everybody knows that the Bel Air Race Track is The Harford Mall today.
EL	Right. I don't like the Bel Air mall. [Laughter]
DW   So in addition to races, they also had fairs there too, right?
EL	That was even a bigger thing before the racing came. They had a Harford County Fair and that was big time. I mean big time for us. I mean the regular people that followed that route like gypsies that set up the stands and everything. It was big. The whole area was filled with stuff.  [Prize stands, horse pulling contests]
DW   Was that a day, a week or a month?
EL	You know I don't remember. I know it lasted more than a day; it was probably more like…It probably started on a Friday and end on Monday or something like that. I worked for the Sheriff's Department sometimes and I was just a part-time deputy because the Sheriff was a friend of mine. He asked me one night to take duty down at the race track; you know everybody was gone and they were getting ready to…It was the last day of the racing so they were moving that night. So that was an interesting
experience; the way they tear that thing down. But the interesting thing was it was dark and everything down there. I kept hearing these noises back in the back and up in the stands. See we had bigger stands down there at that time. And so I went back to see if somebody was really back there and it was raccoons. The raccoons moved in as soon as the people left and it got real dark they moved in to eat all of the popcorn and all the stuff that had been thrown on the floor.
DW Who was the Sheriff at that time? EL	Sheriff Fulker.
DW   Fulker?
EL	Yes. He was Sheriff for years; for many years. [Raymond A. Fulker sheriff from 1947 – 1963 when he died]
DW What was the most interesting event that you remember from the time when you were a deputy?
EL	A deputy? DW   Yes.
EL	I guess one of the most interesting things was I wasn't a deputy at that time but I had to go to Bel Air one afternoon or one evening, rather; it was six or seven o'clock. And I got my car and went to Bel Air. When I went past Tollgate Road, it wasn't too far past, coming home; I was coming home then. I heard this terrific explosion and what it was it was there used to be a Tollgate House. It was a little stone house; you know that was a
 
toll-gate road where you paid a toll. Right at that spot there was a terrific explosion. These guys were coming up from Baltimore. They had Rap Brown who was the…You remember the name?
DW   H. Rap Brown.
EL	Well he was locked up in the Bel Air jail and they were coming up to get him out. And they had a lot of explosives in the car and somewhere along the line a radio wave set them off and blew it up. In fact they blew most of that building up.
DW As I've read, they exploded and they had actually moved him here in order to try and get a fair trial.
EL	Well he was on the Eastern Shore. You don't fool with the people on the Eastern Shore; I don't know if you know that or not. Because when I went over there to teach, some guy said well don't try to tell them how to farm on the western shore; just go with them. I learned that and I made many great friends over there. But anyway when Rap Brown was in there they were going to have a lynching mob; or they had a lynching mob. They were going to take care of him down there. So they secretly got him to Bel Air. So then these guys; I think they were from Baltimore that learned about it and they were going
to come up, I guess put the explosives in there, but it didn't work.
DW I think they wound up taking to Cecil County, didn't they, after that? EL	I don't know. I don't know what happened.
DW   I don't remember the details.
EL	All I know is that it scared me to death because I had just gone by this; I was on my way home from Bel Air. When I went to Bel Air, I thought well this is funny; there was nothing in Bel Air. Nobody was moving, there were very few cars parked on the street because everybody was scared that something like this was going to happen. But I went in for something because I was coming home; I had just passed where the bowling alley was and there was a terrific explosion. I didn't turn around and try to go back to see what it was. [Laughter] I did speed up a little bit. Well anyway that's the Rap Brown story.
DW   Yes sir. I see you spent a lot of time on Bush River.
EL	Yes. I had a friend whose father was a member of the Bush River Boat Club and he had a big close to a hundred foot yacht. We used to water ski. There was one pair of water skis down there. They were his, my friends. Well the Sheriff was Sheriff Bowman and it was his son who had the water skis. We were the only water skiers down there but if you go down there now on the weekend, you have to watch yourself or you'll get run over by water skis. We stayed there many, many hours and we used to crab there.
DW   Yes, it's good crabbing. I don't know whether it still is or not.
EL	Well it is, but one of the places you get the most crabs is where the sewage comes in. [Laughter] We go to Rock Hall and crab.
DW   And there was…so you could actually go to the club for a nice dinner and…
 
EL	Dancing; I put that in here. That was really a highlight of our young career. They had nice dances down there. Again Rivers Chambers was a black orchestra. Rivers Chambers was the leader of it. It was just terrific. And they always had them there for a dance. If you mentioned Rivers Chambers to somebody older [younger] than you are,
they wouldn't know who we were talking about.
DW   Yes, I saw that in the write-up but that was not a name that I recognized.
EL	He played "They Cut Down the Old Pine Tree"; which was his favorite, signature song or his signature song. It went on and on and on and wanted you to sing. It was fast, if you wanted to dance you could dance fast.
DW   Now was he a local?
EL	No, no. He was just an orchestra there; they would hire him to come in. He was pretty [good], not nationally famous, but he was famous in this Baltimore area.
DW So after you graduated from high school did you go right to college or did you go in the service?
EL	No, I went to, unfortunately I was never in the service because I graduated from high school in 1945 and I went right to the University of Maryland. That's not true; I worked at Edgewood for a year. In 1946 I went to the University of Maryland and I graduated from there in 1950. I went four years there. And I graduated in Agriculture and became an Agriculture teacher. And that's what I did in Kent County; I taught Agriculture and I also taught veterans who were coming back from the Korean War. And they got a subsidy; they were subsidized to take classes. I had them two nights a week; they had classes two nights a week in the high school. I had to go visit them on the farm at least twice a month and see how they were doing and any suggestions I made and so forth.
They got a subsidy for that.
DW Was that in Kent County or was that in Harford County? EL	Both.
DW   Oh, both.
EL	I didn't do it in Harford County. A man named Boyer did it in Harford County. In fact I came over and rode around with him. I was teaching Ag in high school in Kent County and I came over and rode around with Mr. Boyer to see how it worked because he had Harford County. Did you know Bill Boyer by any chance? He was big into farms; he was a farmer, but he is dead now.
DW No, I know that North Harford High School is the Ag School in the county today and has been for probably fifty or sixty years.
EL	Mr. Baity was the big Ag teacher in Harford County for years. DW   Highland High School _ 	.
EL	I did student teaching at Dublin High School. DW   O.k.
 
EL	In Maryland we could pick a school where we wanted to go so I just picked one where I knew I could live here. Mr. Baity was the big everything at University of Maryland Ag Department. They would always talk about Mr. Baity. I think it was Earl Baity.
DW   I believe you're right.
EL	His son was in my class and I think he later became the Ag teacher at the new North Harford School.
DW   O.k.
EL	I don't think he would have been there while you were there.
DW   Now when I was there, the Ag teacher was a guy named Bob Cobb or Robert Cobb.
They were not local.
EL	There was also an Ag department in Bel Air High School. DW   And this would have been in the fifties?
EL	Yes, because I graduated in the fifties.
DW There was a lot of competition between Bel Air and North Harford; one was the Pea Pickers and the other was the Duck Farmers. [Laughter]
EL	I remember playing basketball, I guess it was at Highland High School and they didn't have any gym or anything. I mean a place to dress or anything, so they gave us a classroom to dress in. So we would be getting dressed for basketball and looked over here and there were all these girls looking in the window. They were laughing at us. I mean we had clothes on and stuff. That was Highland High School; I'm pretty sure.
DW Well that would have closed; that would have converted into an Elementary in 1950 when North Harford was open.
EL	Well I graduated from Bel Air High School in 1945. DW   Right.
EL	And then we were talking about the service and I went to Maryland and I had to take ROTC down there for two years. If you were [not] in the service you had to take it. When I was there, there were loads of people coming back. In fact Maryland was super over crowded because all the veterans were coming back. And we had regular uniforms and we drilled two days a week and we had classes three days a week. We had to do that; that was a must. You had to do that for two years. And then if you wanted to really go serious, you went two more years and then you came out of it with commission. And then after I was over in Chestertown; I guess I was there a year or so. I was called by the Bel Air Draft Board to come do my duty. And so the guy who was a state supervisor in
the veteran's Ag program asked me if I wanted him to go up to speak for me because he said it's hard to find somebody to take this job. So I said it's up to you; I really didn't want to go. I had just gotten married and had a little baby and I didn't want to go, but I didn't say that. So I said it's up to you what you want to do. So he did; he went up and I went in and had my physical and everything down at Camp Holabird, I guess it was in those days. When I came back, it was off, so I didn't have to go.
 
DW Well for our listeners I know that in WWII that if you were a farmer, you were deferred as opposed to the factory workers. That's how the ladies got into the factory working.
EL	Well the war was over anyway. DW   Oh, o.k.
EL	They were just deciding who was still supposed to go, I guess. A lot of my friends went in right after high school. Now wait a minute; no I guess it was right after high school because I started at Maryland at '46 and I graduated in '50.
DW   What did you do at Edgewood that year?
EL	I worked in the veterinary animal section. I was always interested in that kind of stuff; animals and farming. I worked in the veterinary animal section and we kept animals
there for…(this won't be published, will it?) testing. It was a big operation at Edgewood but they did testing on animals. We had all kinds of animals, rabbits, rats and mice, five horses, everything; every kind of animal, domestic animal and they tested them. If they didn't do testing on them they would have to do testing on…And they did test some stuff on soldiers.
DW Some of that controversy has been in the news in the last several years. EL	Yes, right.
DW It was something about whether they were properly notified and such. Well, let me back you up a little bit. So you were active at Saint Mark's.
EL	Except when I was in Kent County.
DW   Right. And I saw that you were an altar boy there for many years.
EL	In fact I finally got off because I was so much taller than the priest. [Laughter] My brother and I were both altar boys. He was in the service; he 	of the service. He left and I was there with the priest. We were both…I was six foot three or four in those days and my brother was probably about six foot two. He was older then I am, but he never got as tall as I was. But we were standing up there and we had a short, heavy-set priest and he used to stand between us facing out. So I finally gave it up.
DW So this would have been around the time of The Depression that you were doing this. You were born in '28 so The Depression ran into the mid-thirties. I guess that would have been the time you started. You usually start around six or around nine, I guess.
EL	No I started when I was about seven, I think. It might have been eight; I don't know.
You know The Depression I guess it never affected us as you might think it affected us because we had enough to eat and we had things to do. We didn't have any money. As kids we made money by mowing lawns and picking beans and picking corn and tomatoes that was hauled into Baltimore to the market. In fact I used to go in sometimes with the farmers. We would work all day loading trucks and we would take it in at night into Baltimore. Down near the harbor is the market. I didn't know if you were familiar with Baltimore. And we would try to get there around eight or nine o'clock although the market didn't open up until 2 a.m. But if you got there early and got in line…Anyway my point is we'd walk all over Baltimore City in those days and there was no problem. Nobody ever even gave it a thought. We were walking around Baltimore as kids; well
 
we weren't little kids but I mean young and maybe two or three of us walking around. We went to the movies or did anything we wanted to do and then we'd come back to the truck and by that time in the morning, the produce would be sold. Like an A&P buyer might buy the whole truck-load or he might buy half of it or a quarter of it and some other company would buy the rest. But usually they would take a whole truck load at a time.
DW   Would that be Lexington Market that's eight blocks out of the…
EL	No this is not Lexington. This is right about where The Aquarium is now; right in that area.
DW   Oh, o.k.
EL	Right on the water because they were also coming in from the Eastern Shore. For example: watermelons; boat-loads of watermelons. When I say boat-loads, it's not a great big ship, but a boat-load. They would sell them at the market too. We would be home before six or seven o'clock in the morning.
DW   And then off to work another day. [Laughs]
EL	We didn't get paid for just going down there. That was just enjoyable for us. But yes I have picked peas [beans] and picked tomatoes both. The truck that would go in, usually at least, still had stuff to do here would bring; the back of it would be full of colored people. Some of them would be a whole family coming out and they would work farming all day picking. Then he would take them back in the afternoon. For example we got a penny a pound for picking string beans. Imagine picking a hundred pound bag full of string beans. That's pretty long and hard work.
DW   Right.
EL	And that's a dollar. But that was not as I said we were never wealthy but we never lacked anything. We had food and entertainment but we made our own entertainment. As I said we never had anything like they do now with the play grounds and the school things. We had school teams. See when I was in high school we had a lot of competition among the schools like Dublin, Highland, Jarrettsville; they were all high schools in those days. What is now North Harford was probably three high schools. We had teams we would play and went out of the county. And then we did play some bigger teams in Baltimore, basketball. We usually got beat.
DW Now would that just be on the school property or would you go to something like the Bel Air Race Track.
EL	It was on school property. DW   School property.
EL  The only thing I remembered and I don't think I; yes, I do think I put this in here. One of the big things in my life was we played for the county championship in the Bel Air Armory. We played Aberdeen for the county championship.
DW   I didn't realize that it was at the Armory.
 
EL	Where that's where I graduated from as a matter of fact. Bel Air High School had an auditorium but it wasn't as big as the Armory. So they needed something big like the Armory. It was a center for dances and things. I think the National Guard used it more than they are now. I don't know if they even use them at all. That was the National Guard's headquarters. A lot of the grown men in my day were in WWI. Like I imagine Mr. Bowman for example; he was gassed in WWI. In fact I had an uncle that was gassed in WWI. You know the girl who just died; her picture was in the Aegis, Esther Dombrowski?
DW   O.k., yes.
EL	Well here and her father's name was Everett and he was a Captain in the Army and he was gassed in WWI.
DW   In Europe.
EL	Yes, in Europe. That's what I was supposed to tell you. There was a theatre in Bel Air named the Argon Theatre. Was that before your time?
DW   Oh no.
EL	Well do you know why it was called the Argon Theatre? DW   No.
EL Well because Mr. Burkins was in Company "D", I believe and they were all gassed and friends. They weren't killed, but they all have lung problems. And one of them was Earl Burkins and he built this theatre and named it the Argon Theatre. That's where it got it's name from.
DW Because of where they were when they got gassed? EL	Yes.
DW   O.k.
EL	They were in the Argon Forest, which was one of the big battles in France at the time.
Like the Battle of the Bulge is now for WWII. This was WWI. DW   O.k.
EL	And that was Esther's father that was in the same Company "D". I think it was Company "D". That's when they, their headquarters was the Armory.
DW Now that's just a couple of doors down from Richardson's Drug Store. EL	Well that was our main hang out.
DW   Richardson's Drug Store.
EL	I was there looking for girls and there weren't any girls. [Laughter] DW   Big soda fountain.
EL	Yep, that was a big time.
DW   Right next to the back door is on Pennsylvania Avenue side.
 
EL	Yes, we spent many times in there and we always met there on Sunday morning, a bunch of us guys and discussed our Saturday nights and things like that.
DW Well there were nice table and chairs in Boyd and Fulford, wasn't it? EL	Yes.
DW Yes; that was another place to go. They had booths and the round stools in Richardson's.
EL	Yes well Richardson's was more for us. Boyd and Fulford's was a nice place. In fact you know the lady that was running that, just died.
DW   Street?
EL	Street, yes. Well her husband was the Pharmacist there. Of course I guess he still is the Pharmacist.
DW   As far as I know
EL	He graduated with my wife. My wife graduated from Bel Air in '48 and I graduated in '45.
DW He was still the Pharmacist not too long ago, I know. I guess he still is. His name is Gene.
EL	Gene Streett; yes.
DW What other businesses do you remember on Main Street beside Richardson's and Fulford's?
EL	Well Kroh's Market was on the corner. Do you remember that? DW   Kroh's was on Bond Street when I was growing up.
EL	That was the cleaners.
DW   The cleaner's is on Pennsylvania.
EL  Kroh's Market was right on the corner on Main and Pennsylvania Avenue. He had a lot of; he used a lot of fresh stuff. He had all kinds of fresh corn, beans and different things that were in season. And what wasn't in season he used to bring in a lot.
DW O.k. the corner where the pizza shop is today? EL	No, it was directly across the street from that.
DW O.k. so it would have been across the street from the pizza place and across the street from Lutz.
EL	Lutz was on one corner and Kroh's was on the other corner. Well Kroh's was there before Lutz where the pizza place is and Richardson's was on the other corner. That was our main hangout; Richardson's Drug Store.
DW So this was…Let me see there was a jewelry store on that corner in the later years. I don't remember the name of it.
EL	Oh, I remember it.
 
DW Where Kroh's was. Kroh's would have been caddy corner from Richardson's, right? EL	Right.
DW And was that Bata Shoe at that time? EL	Yes Bata Shoe was next to them.
DW   O.k. where the pizza shop is was Bata Shoe.
EL	Later one store up there was a hardware store at one time. They were in business a long time. And then next to that was Woolworth's.
DW That's where Fred Ward Surveying is today. EL	Do you know Fred?
DW   I don't know him now; he's dead.
EL	He was in my class. We were good friends.
DW   He did some survey work for me some years ago, but I didn't know him.
EL	He was more successful financially then I was, but he was a nice guy. A lot of people didn't like him but I liked him. And then across the street from there was…across from Woolworth's was Guercio's Store. Their store is now; what is it? It's like a bar.
DW It was Georgetown North for a while. EL	Georgetown North.
DW   And now it's Irish something or another Irish Pub.
EL	Well see Georgetown North used to be Mr.Guercio's store.  In fact he was the County Treasurer or what do you call; like 	did for me.
DW   Oh, Harford Living Treasure.
EL	And just not too long ago; well it's got to be a little time because he's dead now. He lived to be a hundred and two. Anyway, he had Italian; they had everything, meat, canned goods and everything right there right across from Woolworth's. Henry owned Benson Meat down here [on Rt. 1] and he still owns that building. It's an _ 	 building now. Actually its Guercio, but everyone always called him Graceo.
DW   Is that G R A C E O?
EL	G U E R C I O. Everybody knows him. They knew the Guerico's. In fact Henry was born the night of the Bel Air fire. That's how I remember it. Henry is a year older than I am. A lot of things burnt down in Bel Air that one night.
DW Now you're over on Thomas Street. EL	I'm on Main Street.
DW O.k. The only fire on Main Street I've heard of before was where Preston's was. EL	Yes well Preston's was Main Street.
DW Yes, but wasn't that the seventies? EL	Yeah.
 
DW   O.k.
EL	No, it wasn't the seventies either; it was before that, I think. I'll tell you when it had to be because Henry is my age and he was born that night. And I'm eighty-five [84]. I think there were four or five boys all together. They took over the store which is now? What is it called now?
DW   It's a restaurant again. I mean it was Preston's and before that I think it had been, I think
 	.
EL	Oh, you're talking about up on the corner. Guercio's was across from Woolworth's; right across the street.
DW   That's the fire you're talking about?
EL	Yes. A lot of the town was on fire. They had no; they didn't have the facilities and they didn't have fire walls and that kind of stuff. It was wood.
DW   Right.
EL	I don't remember because I wasn't there.
DW I just don't remember the Main Street buildings catching. On Thomas Street there was a wheel factory that I know burned, but I hadn't realize that stuff on Main Street also burned.
EL	You'd have to ask somebody. I think Mr. Guercio could have told you; he just died a couple of years ago at the age of a hundred and two. Now Henry is a year older and we are good friends. In fact we play tennis together right now.
DW So as far as cipe things; it says interested in political expression CIPE [Citzens Interested in Political Expression].
EL	Oh CIPE; yes.
DW   What is that about?
EL	Well we started a club here, a political club and we met in homes. Anyway, we didn't like the County Executive.
DW   O.k.
EL	He hadn't even run yet, but we didn't want him in the office so that's why we started it up. And we met; I don't remember how often we met. I had a little book some place that
 	that had that. But anyway I was in that and I was Chairman of it at one time. I was trying to tell you somebody…Bill Greer who is now dead was a representative. We had several people that went out of that club and became interested in government. One was Bill Amoss. In fact he came right from that house down there and asked me if I would be interested in helping him. He was a farmer as a matter of fact. He was interested in running for County Representative and he asked me if I would be interested in helping him. I said sure. He said do you think we could win and I said sure. So he did and he won and he was the representative for several years. And that's why Billy is named after him. They were farmers right here in Fallston.
DW   Was it noted as Democratic or Republican side of the fence?
 
EL	No, Citizens Interested in Political Expression. We had these meetings and at each meeting we had a speaker. And the speaker was usually somebody that had office in politics in Harford County. And they willingly came and we had meetings; we usually had a social afterwards and it was a nice organization. I guess if it leaned any way, it
leaned Democratic. Now I'm a registered Democrat mainly because at one time if you weren't a Democrat, you didn't have anybody to vote for in Harford County.
DW  Really?
EL	A Republican never got elected. In fact Senator O'Neil was the first Republican that I can remember that ever was elected. He was in partners at one time with my Uncle with Motor Sales when they had the garage business. He was a lawyer. He quit the business and got his law degree at night school. And maybe you have heard of John O'Neil?
Well that's his son. And Harry O'Neil is his son. He had several sons and a couple of daughters.
DW They had offices on Courtland Street. EL	Yes.
DW Back when the Masonic Lodge was still between Courtland and Office. EL	Is the Masonic Lodge still active?
DW   Oh yeah, but it's over on Gordon Street now instead of on Wall Street and Bond Street.
EL	I remember I knew a couple of people that were in it at that time and it was a very active organization in town. I was in the Knights of Columbus; I'm still in the Knights of Columbus. In fact I rarely go to meetings any more but I still pay my dues.
DW I knew one of your greatest accomplishments that you are proudest of, your family. You have two doctors, a state auditor, two teachers and a librarian.
EL	Yes. Well Kevin; you know Kevin [Martha] and I have a daughter who is a doctor of Chemistry; she has a PHD in Chemistry. She works for Chevron Oil Company and she does very well, of course. And her husband is a doctor of law and he's from Bel Air. His name is Sedney. In fact he's right now the Assistant Secretary of Defense in
Washington. In fact they're buying their house down here. Nobody lives in it but they come up on weekends a lot. That's David Sedney and he's a doctor of law. In fact his daughter is a doctor of law; graduated from Georgetown. We've got more degrees
than…And what good do they do you unless you use them, because we've got a couple of my grandchildren who have degrees in goofy stuff. Like one of them has it in Art.
That's not goofy but what can you do with it? I think her best job was in the Peace Corp. I always tried to impress my seniors who I taught for years in high school. When the spring came they would all start to talk about going to college and I said get something that you can sell. Like go into the health field or the law field or something that you can sell. Otherwise, you are going to have a tough time.
DW   Well is there other things that come to mind that you would like to reminisce about?
EL	Well one thing that I did mention was about the traveling zoo. That was a nice thing I do but it wasn't in Harford County; it was in Baltimore City.
DW   O.k.
 
EL	I was actually sponsored by the Maryland Academy of Science. I had a station wagon that I packed with stuffed animals and live animals and posters and everything. And I was scheduled to go to different Recreation Centers in Baltimore City. I would pull up in the morning at a certain time and unload all of this stuff and put the posters around and the kids would come in. Most of the time they would sit on the floor in the school in the gyms and I'd give a talk on this kind of stuff. It wasn't high biology but the importance of animals and plants. And they would sit there and a lot of these were black, by the way. And they would come in and gather around just as interested as could be. I'd usually have a couple of live…I had a thing at the zoo that I could get live snakes or anything like that I wanted. I usually had a couple live ones. It was really something; it was great. It got some nice write-ups in The Sun Paper. I made a dollar an hour and I think they gave me a little mileage for my station wagon. I packed all of that stuff up and I'd do to one rec center in the morning. I never had any trouble unpacking because all the kids would help unpack. And the afternoon I would do another rec center. I was over at 	once. This was several years ago and they were little kids.
Well they are so little anymore, but most of these were smaller kids. One told his
mother, there's that snake man. [Laughter] The snakes impressed them. I had another gym at Loyola College that I could use through Loyola College for the one group I had in North Wood. And I had a Gardner snake and other snakes that weren't poisonous and I used to let them handle them if they wanted to. I'd take one or two out at a time and this boy was handling this snake and the snake came up through like this and turned his head and opened his mouth and just chopped this boy right there. That was the only one I ever had bitten. I was really worried so when I came home…I was usually home by one or two o'clock. The lady from the Academy of Science called; no I called her and told her what had happened because I knew something would come up about this. She said don't worry about it; the boy's mother already called and the boy was so happy that he was the only kid that had ever been bitten by a snake. I was worried to death about him and that's what happened. He was a hero on the block.
DW   It wouldn't be that way in 2012, would it?
EL	No it wouldn't; it probably wouldn't be. Although this wasn't too long ago; but it wouldn't be that way now a days. They'd probably have a law suit.
DW   Yeah, you'd be in court for the rest of your life. [Laughs] Well…
EL	Another thing I was thinking; I didn't mention it in here but I didn't. I've been a guinea pig for fifty years for the National Institute of Health. I did that when my first principal came and told me about it since I was in Science there. And another fellow who was interested in it was a Guidance Counselor so we could go down in pairs. We went to the old City Hospital and stayed two days and they really went over us. I mean they used all this crude equipment. But anyway the Guidance Counselor quit and the Principal quit; he was the one who told us about it. But I stayed in it and I'm still in it. In fact I was there last year. You go in and you spend two days. In two days they go over you. In fact it is a good thing because I get an electric cardiogram; I get the diabetes test and all kinds of tests. In fact I had prostate cancer and the guy told me several years ago that I had two nodes on my prostate. He said don't worry about them; you're o.k. He said but keep in touch with your doctor about this and I did. They picked up about five years later, prostate cancer. They got it early and I took the [radioactive] seeds for it. I was
 
debating whether to take the seeds or have it cut out or what's the other thing? I was talking to Kevin about it and he said to take the seeds. He said that prostate operation is tough. It's a tough operation. So I did the seeds and so far…and that was over twenty years ago and I go every year for a test and everything is fine.
DW   How about some changes in the county that you think have been for the better?
EL	Well when this first starting happening I really didn't like what was going on because we've had this place to ourselves. Especially in Fallston and Fallston is one of the biggest growth places all of a sudden. But it didn't take long for…Well I'll give you an example. Our church went from; when the church was full, two hundred. We had a wooden church up here; we had two hundred at the time and that was full. Now we have five masses. The church holds six hundred and we have five masses in order to accommodate. That is a big change. But I love it; the people, the church and everything else. It's just great.
DW   How about changes not so good?
EL	Well I guess there is one that's the worst I guess and one is traffic and one is crime. I don't know; I'm pretty happy. [Laughs]
DW   That's good. Happy is good.
EL	You know it gets bad sometimes when you go someplace and it is over-flowing, but
it's…I have a lot of good friends that come here and they always amuse me. One of the things is they always talk about the cow in Bel Air.
DW Oh; Betsy! EL	Betsy, yeah.
DW   Betsy, the cow.
EL	That was Mr. … [Deaton, the county surveyor] I'll have to ask 	. That's one of my short-comings is my brain; one of many. But anyway, they always said it was so amazing that that cow was there in Bel Air. They can't get over that. Mr. Deaton; he was the county surveyor and that was his little hobby and that ground where the shopping center and all is now. He had two Jersey cows and one of them died earlier and there was one left there for a long time. But everybody couldn't get over the fact that there was a cow right there in town.
DW Even after the mall was built, she was still there. And it wasn't until later that the other shopping center was even built. I've seen many, many pictures of her in the newspaper.
EL	I've always argued with people about Klein's Store. The first Klein's Store was right up here where the railroad is in Fallston. That was Mr. Klein, Ralph's father; the guy that owns it now, Ralph.
DW   Right.
EL	In fact I was raised with Ralph. Ralph is the same age or might be a year older than I am.
DW   His name was Maurice, wasn't it?
 
EL	Yes, Maurice Klein and that was their store. But most people will argue that the first store was at Forest Hill. Because when Mr. Klein sold his store to Amrein's, he moved to Bel Air and retired. He lived right on the corner of Bel Air and Main Street or Main Street and Route One. And then he got tired of being retired. In fact Ralph was at Maryland when I was there. And Ralph was taking Business courses and Ralph came home and bought him a store up there. That's where the first Klein's Store was in Bel Air, in Forest Hill. They have five stores now. They are very, very civic minded people. In fact, thanks to them and some other people, Upper Chesapeake is here. He was a large, large fundraiser for them. Ralph was now and of course Ralph is in charge. Well I miss all the farming here. Use to be from the railroad track going up to Pennsylvania;
there were big dairy farms. I don't think there are any dairy farms around now.
DW I just interviewed a gentleman, Reg Traband and Reg said that when he moved here in 1960 there were five hundred and ninety-five dairy farms. And now there is about twenty-five left.
EL I know Reg very well. I just ate at the table with him last week. We went to the same funeral. It was one of my wife's garden club's member's husband died. Reg's wife is very big in garden clubs. We ate at the same table.
DW Yes, that's a significant reduction from five ninety-five to twenty-five. We are back and you were commenting on missing all the farming that has disappeared from the county.
EL I just miss it because my field was Agriculture and I just miss the farms, but there are still some farms here. Well as you said about the numbers; what was the number you gave me there?
DW Well that was dairy farms, now. EL	Oh, o.k.
DW Reg said dairy farming had been about five ninety-five when he came here as an extension agent in 1960 and today it's about twenty-five. Of course most of the farmers have moved to grain and beef instead of dairy.
EL	And sun flower seeds. DW   Yes.
EL	Have you seen any of those fields of sun flower seed?
DW Well actually yes; down on Jarrettsville Pike in particular and I think a year or two ago there were big fields up around Madonna. The one on Jarrettsville Pike actually made the CNN website this year.
EL	Oh really?
DW   Yes sir, if you are on the computer.
EL	I miss the cows and the animals. We just don't have any. Most farmers had, like I was telling you about the truck farmers; they were mostly dairy farmers. They did truck farming too. I had a year-long thing with them; I miss that. But you get used to the people and they have the same right to be here as we have and they contribute a lot, an awful lot. Like the church I was mentioning; the church where before half the people in
 
there were related to me and all that. But now nine-tenths of the people I don't even know, but I know them to speak to them and so forth. And I have a lot of good friends who are here from the city for example. They came here from Baltimore and all over. They are making great contributions. Of course the contribution of crime is not good.
That's a very small percent of the number of people who are here. In fact it's pretty well located in one area and that's partially our government's fault.
DW I interviewed a gentleman just this week that had talked…well he was a dairy farmer in the early years and now he does grain and beef.
EL	Who was that?
DW   Harold Smith. They called him Hap Smith.
EL	Oh. They are big farmers and see they're great people. They stuck it out and paid their taxes.
DW   His sister is married to Grimmel and they are big farmers, too.
EL	They are big dairy farmers too. I mean they did have, I don't know if they still have cows or not.
DW   I don't know.
EL	I know one of them did. Well Hap Smith went to the same route as I did; didn't he? As a treasure?
DW   Yes.
EL	The Smiths have been farmers for years, but they are hard-working and smart farmers. I mean they are about the biggest farmers in, or among the biggest farmers in Harford County.
DW Smiths, Grimmel's, and Martins. Between the three of them; they do an awful lot of acres.
EL	I guess Smiths do more acres than anybody in the county. DW   I don't know.
EL But as far as how do I feel; I'm perfectly satisfied. I don't like the traffic and neither does anybody else. In fact I don't hardly go into Bel Air unless I have to because it's worth your life. [Laughter] It's not your life but it's worth your car.
DW Well, I think we've covered a nice variety of subjects unless there is something else you would like to talk about, I'll say thank you.
EL	No, I can't think of anything except I was very happy to get the Treasure thing.
DW It's a nice program. It's been around since 1980. The Harford County Library has an extensive and well-known collection. You will be a nice addition.
EL	What is the addition; what happens now?
DW Like I told you, you'll get a transcript and we'll make a video and an audio and there will be a folder put together in the Maryland Room of the Bel Air Branch. Patrons can check it out just like a book. A lot of the oral histories are listened to by school kids
 
working on projects trying to see what businesses were around and what it was life like in the earlier years. When Grand-dad says I walked to school five miles each way up hill; this gives them a little insight.
EL	I don't think I said how far I walked to school.
DW   Well if it was next door, it must have been about fifty feet. [Laughter]
EL	That was only the first two grades, but I took a bus later. We had to pay for the bus in those days. Each person got a monthly bill for the bus. And then the county took over and they took care of the busses. Have you read anything about Mr. Wright, the Superintendent of Schools?
DW   He has written several histories in the county.
EL	He was the Superintendent when I was first in school. And then later Doctor Hawkins became it and then he became President of Towson State. I guess the next one was Ben Carroll I believe was my next Principal. And then Doctor Harkins became Principal. He was the Principal when I was in high school. A lot of community life was centered around the school and the church at that time. I mean you didn't have Dancing with the Stars like they do now and that stuff. I went to one of those one night. My wife wanted to go and see somebody. Did you ever go to one of them?
DW One of the ones in New York? EL	No, no here.
DW   Oh, o.k.
EL	They have one at the big development down there. DW   Bulle Rock?
EL	Bulle Rock, yes. It's local people Well the County Executive was big time in that and… DW   It's a fun-raiser?
EL	I don't know whether it is or not. I think this is a big thing with the people. Did I say the County Agent? It was the County Executive. He thinks he is a big dancer and he is as a matter of fact; he's pretty good. I've only been to one. We went down to Bulle Rock one night and watched them. They have a nice crowd there all of the time watching. It's good, but a lot of those things that used to be important to us, like the jousting
tournament and things like that; that's not here anymore except up at Saint Mary's; I believe they still have it.
DW   It's gone now.
EL	They still have the chicken dinner up there though, I believe. DW   Oh yes; twice a year.
EL	We have some dinners but they're not as intimate I guess to say. Another thing that interests me is we went down to this new restaurant down here on the corner.
DW   The Texas Steak House?
 
EL	The Texas Streak House. Last Saturday I had my daughter and son-in-law were up; they come up here about every other weekend or living down there part-time. And we went down there for dinner. Well it's an immense parking lot, but it was even full. You had to look around to find a place. So we went inside and it was about at least over an hour
wait. Well I don't wait an hour; I'd rather eat at McDonalds then wait a half hour. But
that's the kind of thing that is different and that people like. Whenever a new restaurant opens up in Bel Air…well you know what it's like. For the first year it's crowded and
then after that you're on your own, I guess. I had never been in this steak house yet. In fact my grand-daughter works for the one at Penn State. They have one up at Penn State and she goes to Penn State and she works for the one there as a waitress. And most of
the people are very nice. We go to Saint Mark's Church and as I said it's went from two hundred to ten times that many or more. People are extremely nice. And you always have the people with one gripe. One thing that gripes me is seeing someone who moves in here and wants night lights and cement walks. Well that's not necessary in most places; it is in some places. But overall, it's very nice. I'm satisfied.
DW   Good.