Interview with Ruth Schillinger Burns

              Interviewee: Ruth Burns (RB)
Interviewer: Doug Washburn (DW)

DW	Hello, this is Doug Washburn for the Harford County Public Library. Today is 12 July 2006 and I am with a Harford Living Treasure, Ruth Burns, of Forest Hill. Mrs. Burns is a life-long resident of the county and was nominated by Jeanne Bayer of Joppa. Mrs. Burns, thank you for taking time with me today to provide an oral history for our county citizens to enjoy.
RB	I'm happy to.
DW	So, we always start with when and where you were born.
RB	I was born in Upper Crossroads. Actually I have a picture of where I was born.
DW	Oh wow!
RB	This is when they put [articles in the newspaper] in for the Country Store. My father was working in the store and this is the house where all three of us children were born. I keep saying he might have been born [the one standing] on the front porch, I don't know.
DW	Now is that deli still standing?
RB	Oh yes. I don't know for sure what it's used for now, but over the years it's been different kinds of stores.  [Rugs are now sold in the store.]
DW	So that would be at the intersection of Old Fallston Road and 165?
RB	Right.
DW	O.k.
RB	This house that they lived, they had about 10 years ago. We got to visit my cousins and we happened to mention places and she said your old house was moved. It was actually moved a long time ago, we just didn't know it. She told us where it was and we went to see it, but it just looks like a modern house, you know. They've done a lot to it and it looks pretty bad there but it's not a good photograph, I'm sure. I don't know how long my father had worked in the store there. He actually was born in Baltimore. His parents were German. They had come from Germany, but they both died when he was very young. He was only like seven years old. He and one of his sisters were taken to the German Lutheran orphanage in Catonsville. The orphanage is still there. It's not German Lutheran any more, but it's still in existence. He had an older sister but she was old enough to go with her family and live with them and work for them. So he was in the orphanage until he was probably fourteen. And apparently it was a custom for farmers in Harford and Baltimore County and all around to go to the orphanage and look over the boys and pick somebody who might be good to work on the farm. As he said, fortunately somebody picked him and it was people named Rutledge. Do you know where Rutledge is?
DW	Hess Road and 165.
RB	It's sort of a section; well it was the Rutledge family. They were always so good to him. I don't know the age that he would have left them or whether he stayed with them until he was married. I don't know how long. I had heard…I don't know that he had told me, but somebody had told me that when they finished working for the farmers that they were given a horse and buggy. I don't know. But then I know that he did go to work in the store. And he talked about the people there. Miles Curry. I've heard that name so often; I can remember that. [Laughter] He thought so much of him, but Mr. Curry died and so then he stayed on to help his wife in the store. But this article says that it was in 1915 that Ross Scarf bought the store so that's the year I was born. I was born in February and I think by the end of that year we moved to the farm. We moved to the farm, [missing dialog] Farm that was very unusual where Bel Air Road and Mountain Road join. Lynch's Corner is what we use to call it. It's where Mountain Road and Bel Air Road join. The farmhouse and all is still there. My brother has told me that a dairy owned the farm and my dad worked the farm. He didn't stay there too long because around 1918 he moved down to the Mountain Road to the store. And my brother has told me that he [my Dad] was the first one to really keep a store there. I think the front room of this big house had been made into a storeroom with shelves and everything was there already. And he started this store there. 
DW	And that was where did you say?
RB	At the corner of Singer and Mountain Road.
DW	Close to the golf course.
RB	Yes.
DW	Right where the golf course is.
RB	Like I say, I go past there and I can't really decide where the house was. The roads are all widened and everything. Now on the right hand side just at the intersection there is a house and that house was the barn on our property. And it was on the other side of the road from our house. I remember the barn and my dad very soon had it made into a house. But it's at the end of the house to the road so it was sitting like this. Well my dad sold lots on that side because he owned on both sides of the road. Now my mystery is, how was he able to buy this property? [Laughs] I don't know how you could…well, that's another story, I guess. Anyway, he sold lots and a man bought a section on the other side and up on the hill he built this beautiful home. But this house was on part of his property then. And he didn't like to look down on that house and there were some out buildings. So he had them all moved just a little ways through the garden. And the house now, the front of it faces the road. But I know it's the old house that used to be the barn.
DW	[Laughs] was it just a country store? Or was it just food or…
RB	They just kept everything, a general store.
DW	Oh, o.k. A general store, so it could be food or clothes and shoes.
RB	Right. One side had the groceries and of course we had the barrels. You had to weigh out everything, sugar and all. On the other side we had cases of sewing thread and all sorts of things on the other side of the store. One thing, or two things I remember are the candy case with the penny candy and the banana. There was a whole piece that was hung and then you cut pieces from it.
DW	O.k.
RB	He had a little truck and went to Baltimore and brought produce out from Baltimore. There was a red truck that came by and delivered bread. There was the ice truck that delivered ice. We did not have electricity then. I was in high school before we had electricity.
DW	High school, so…
RB	1930 or something. I graduated in '32 so it was about 1930, I guess.
DW	Were you still living at Singer Road and Mountain Road there?
RB	Yes.
DW	And what niceties did electricity afford the family?
RB	Well, pretty soon we could have an electric stove and I don't know whether I had… Of course the houses had to all be wired before they brought the current down the road, I know, and so I don't ever remember it being wired. But whoever built that house and I thought about this so many times, this must be a very farsighted person. I think he must have had it wired, because I don't remember anybody working on it. But he also had it prepared to have water in the house because we had a bathroom. We had to carry water up to it, but we had a bathroom. We had one of those huge tubs, you know. It was already and the kitchen had watered piped into it. So after we got electricity all we had to do was put a motor in the well and we were ready. I don't know how old the house was, but I think he was very farsighted.
DW	Yes.
RB	I think it was the kind that had the porch around the side and the front because part of that porch became the store. And part of it became the kitchen and then there's a little closed-in porch in between. It was a very nice place and I think he kept the store for about ten years I would say. But he went to work at Edgewood Arsenal when everybody else was going to work at Edgewood Arsenal during World War I, you know. And my mother kept the store but I think I was in high school about 1930 when they closed the store. But then after I was married, they made an apartment out of the store area, so we lived in the apartment for two or three years. Then we had a baby and we had to have a bigger place. [Laughter]
DW	Well, where did you start school?
RB	Well, that's another strange story. I started school in Bel Air. The first, second and third grades I think I was in Bel Air. It was very hard to get to school then. There were no school buses or anything so as I thought back; I thought that was very strange. But I realized that my brother was seven years older and I think he had to go to… He had finished the seventh grade in a country school. He had to go to Bel Air to go to high school, so then my sister was five years older than I, so I guess they figured they my as well send all three of them to the same school. My dad had to take us to the bus to Bel Air Road. That's two miles and a half. And then we had to take the county bus; there was no school buses. McMann's bus, [missing dialog] McMann?
DW	I've heard of it, but I don't remember it.
RB	You did grow up around here right?
DW	Oh, yes mam.
RB	You did? Oh and you didn't know McMann? There were two Mr. McMann's and they just controlled the whole bus system. And then we had to catch the bus to come home, and then after the third grade I think my brother decided he would rather work than go to school. But I'm sure my sister wanted to keep going; she was a scholar. She was a real scholar and she loved school. So she kept us going to Bel Air School. But in the fourth grade I went to Bleak Heights School and that was only a mile and a half to walk. That wasn't bad. 
DW	Before you leave Bel Air, are you talking about the building on Gordon Street?
RB	Yes.
DW	O.k. The one that's…
RB	I know one year, it probably was the third grade, second or third, there was a building down back of the school where classes were held. I know Miss Nelly Ruth Bagley had us down there. But it was connected to Gordon Street.
DW	So, Bleak Heights, I'm sorry.
RB	That's o.k. I was there in the fourth and fifth grade. My mother had been a teacher you understand, so she wanted the best for us. And if things weren't going right we'd go to another school. I figured that out, anyway. I think she didn't care too much for the teacher or didn't think that the teacher was going to have me in the sixth grade somebody knew it was coming. So she sent me over to Wilna, so I went to Wilna School in the sixth grade. [Laughter] That was o.k. That was a two-room school; we were coming up in the world. It's funny, I had a teacher there and her name was Miss Reese and when I started to teach at Edgewood Arsenal she was the principal. So that was good. For seventh grade I went back to Bel Air. I'm not sure why but I went to Bel Air for the seventh grade and then four years of high school. It was a struggle to get there all of the time.
DW	Of course your brother would have been out by then.
RB	He was out and my sister was out. I think I was in the fifth grade and Anna was in the tenth. Now this was very hard for her, but she was willing to do it. My mother was taken sick; she had typhoid fever. My dad was working, so she stopped school and she ran the store. So you know she was a capable, very brilliant girl. And then of course the next year they wanted her to go back and keep going to high school. And she said no, she wouldn't be in the class with her friends. She didn't want to go. So you're probably not going to believe this, but after a while my mother thought she has to go somewhere, and I guess she wrote to Strayer's Business College. I don't know how much she told them, but anyway, the president of the college came to our house to talk to her. Isn't that hard to believe?
DW	Yes. [Laughs]
RB	You are supposed to finish high school before you go to college, that's the thing of it. After he talked to her, he accepted her and she went to Baltimore Strayer's Business College. She had a business education. I was glad when she got a job in Bel Air because then she got a car and I had a way to go to school without walking so far. [Laughter] I use to walk up town after school and go into the courthouse. There was sort of a waiting room there; bathroom/waiting room and I would wait there for her. At least I had a ride. Of course I always got to school at eight o'clock. Part of the time I rode with a man who worked at Motor Sales Garage and he had to be there at eight o'clock so I'd be at school at eight o'clock. We had a janitor named Bill. Bill lived in that delightful little stone house that was at Bel Air Road and Tollgate Road. Do you remember that little house? They tore it down and it broke our hearts. He was living there. Anyhow, if it was bad weather, very cold, very hot, or rain, he'd let me come in. [Laughs] I don't think children would go to school if they had to walk two miles and a half to get home. I had to catch the bus in the evening and then go down to Mountain Road and walk home. It was about dark when I got home.
DW	Let me back you up just a little bit. Tell us a little more of a specific location on Bleak Heights.
RB	Bleak Heights is on the corner of Singer and Clayton Road.
DW	O.k.
RB	And now the school building is torn down and a church was built on the location called Maple View Church.
DW	And the same for Wilna. Where was the Wilna School?
RB	Wilna was right next to Union Chapel Church on Old Joppa Road.
DW	O.k. I understand you are also into the history of Union Chapel Church quite a lot.
RB	This is my little history book. There is a picture in here that shows where the school was, too, I think.
DW	O.k.
RB	I guess I told a lie. [Laughter] It's not in here. It's in the one called Wilna from Bel Air to Joppa Wilna. It was put out by the historical society.
DW	Yes mam.
RB	I have it in there, but it was right beside the church. The first building was right beside the church. I think, of course the Wilna School that I went to belonged to the county, it was one that they had built. It was not the original one. It was a two-room school. That was the first hot lunch, too. We thought it was wonderful. Of course they had a stove in the middle of the floor. The teacher got this idea there were farmers around there that would give her some milk and she brought some cocoa and she made us hot chocolate. [Laughter] We thought we were sitting on top of the world.
DW	What do you remember about school days? What kid of subjects did you take? 
RB	Well, we took the usual. Arithmetic, History and I have my old report cards if you want to look at them. I was a fair student. I do know we didn't have all these reference books and that sort of thing. We had our textbooks and that was about it. We had Math, Reading, History, Geography, I think and Spelling. We usually had homework to do. We had a lot of seatwork time because with four classes, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh in a room, you don't have too long to devote to each one. So you did a lot of your own work. 
DW	Did schools have electricity and how was it heated?
RB	No, we didn't have electricity. We had a stove. I remember Bleak Heights, particularly the little building out back with the toilets and a place for the wood or coal, whatever they were burning. And the boys loved it when and sometimes girls got to go to get a bucket of water. We had to go to a neighbor's. Bleak Heights was wonderful. They had to go all away across a big field. It took so long. It was like a cooler thing that they poured the water into. And we had collapsible cups that we kept in our desks to take out to get a drink of water.
DW	Made out of?
RB	Aluminum. [Probably tin]
DW	Aluminum.
RB	I guess. That's what they looked like, aluminum. Yes, I wish I would have kept one. Grey and they were just collapsible and you would put them down and put them in your desk. And playtime was fun. We played dodge ball and once a year we went to the Fair Grounds for Field Day. And we played other schools. We each had our own dodge ball team and we'd play other schools.
DW	Now where was the Fair Ground?
RB	Where the mall is.
DW	Ah, the racetrack.
RB	Yes.
DW	The old racetrack in town.
RB	That area was where the Fair Ground was. Yes, we looked forward to that. Then we got badges for certain things. At the school we did some of the things. We could walk the beam and chin. There was one other thing; I forgot what that was. But at the Fair Ground we threw the ball. You would throw it over your head and if you got a certain distance, you got a bronze. And then next year when you were a little bigger, you'd get the silver. I've got them in there. So that was done at the Fair Grounds.
DW	I've heard that story before.
RB	I only remember dodge ball as being the only game. Now that's the only game I remember. They probably ran some races, too. I wasn't a good runner, but I used to play dodge ball. I always said I did real well in dodge ball because I was sort of the fat kid and they always said, "get the fat kid first." You know you could always [hit] them, but I was pretty fast, too. [Laughter]
DW	Now you said your mother was a schoolteacher. In Harford County/
RB	Yes. I know two schools. I think maybe she taught at Upper Crossroads for a couple of years, but I can't be positive because she told me she taught Ross Scarf and I'm sure the Scarf's went to Upper Crossroads. But I do know where she lived when she taught at Prospect, that six-sided school. 
DW	So you were out next to Darlington.
RB	That school was in use for a hundred years. Did you know that?
DW	No.
RB	From 1830 to 1930. I just looked in Mr. Wright's book the other day. Well she was friendly with the people she boarded with. Now of course teachers had to board near where they taught. I know when I got married those people came to my wedding. So she made very dear friends on the way. Then she taught at Castleton and she made friends there. Apparently that family was descendent in some way from Lady Jane Grey. So when my brother was born, she named him Henry Grey. That's how he got his name. I have a letter that her mother wrote to my mother's sister, one of the other's in the family. And she talked about Ida that was my mother being at Mrs. Hughes' at that was when she was teaching at Prospect. One day the Superintendent, Mr. Wright, and his sister-in-law came to see her and that afternoon they went to the Hughes' for tea and had a very nice visit. And Mr. Wright encouraged Ida to come and see him if she was ever in Bel Air. Now that bowled me over when I think about Superintendents. [Laughs] This is C. Milton Wright's uncle. I forgot his first name. I thought that was very, very interesting. I think I told you I've been in the schoolhouse and I don't know how they ever had school in there. I think by the time you put a stove in there…You know these books that are out with post card pictures? Well, in one of them, there's a picture of the school and those pictures were taken in the twenties or close to thirty so it was along in there. I thought that must have been an interesting place to teach. When she married in 1907 she had to stop teaching because married women were not allowed to teach. So that was the end of her teaching career but she was always interested in it because she taught Sunday school. I know I had my first year in college when she organized this big community Bible school. It was held at Old Post Road School. 
DW	Was it the same location where Old Post is today?
RB	Yes.
DW	Which is Route 7 and 24 area.
RB	She went to all the churches around. The dominations didn't matter, and most all of them cooperated. We had a school full of kids. It was wonderful. And I had had one year in college so I was allowed to be an assistant to the first grade teaching. [Laughs] I had the little ones. I don't know how my mother found this out but she had a trained supervisor from Baltimore City come out. And it was for two weeks so we always had Bible schools for two weeks. They only have them for one week now. It was two weeks and I know she stayed with my mother. She had devotions every morning. It was a very, very fine Bible school. I think it was because she always loved working with children.
DW	Do you know of any of the other names of the…A lot of the schools had two names. You were talking about Prospect. Have you ever heard that called anything else?
RB	No.
DW	No? O.k. It was also called Green Spring.
RB	Oh was it?
DW	Yes mam.
RB	Oh, o.k.
DW	Castleton was also called Franklin.
RB	I have heard that. I tried to look up schools. There were two schools at Castleton though, weren't there? It seems like I couldn't straighten out where she was.
DW	Oh, I don't know.
RB	I didn't know how far… I couldn't trace that back. I don't know whether Bleak Heights had any other name or not.
DW	Let me see, I tried to do a little research on that before.
RB	I think I can tell you why it was called Bleak Heights though because it kind of sat out there where the wind went across. [Laughs]
DW	Ah.
RB	That's the only thing I can think of.
DW	There was a couple of schools that got their names that way.
RB	Was there?
DW	Yes.
RB	It wasn't so high, but yet I could see Singer Road the whole way. It was a wonderful place to sled in the wintertime because there's a little hill like this and then another one like that. It ran down by the colored church, the McComas Institute. They had a nice church there. And there's the Methodist Church and then there's a rather steep hill and then down at the bottom of that was a stream. Then you go up and then along there is Bleak Heights, so I guess that's "Heights". Oh that stream was fun. One of the boys who came from further down Mountain Road, they kind of cut through the woods there, and he found a watermelon along the way. He just happened to find a watermelon and put it under the bridge there. And that night it was so good and cold. [Laughter] Oh funny things happen.
DW	Now we had talked a couple of minutes ago that you did a history of Union Chapel Church. Can you talk about that a little bit more?
RB	The first one was built in 1821. It's very unique because it was not a Methodist Church; it was a Union Church. There were Methodists, Episcopalians, Quakers, and then the Christian Church actually started there, too. They all used the church. Probably different groups at different times was on Sunday or some nights. But their organization had all the denominations represented, and they got along wonderful. But then the Quakers left and went to their Quaker Church in Fallston. I think it was. And of course the Christians started Jerusalem Christian. Episcopalians went somewhere else, so then it was left to the Methodists. It's been a Methodist Church ever since. Of course it was an MP at first, we were one of the first ones who split from the ME denomination at this [missing dialog] [in 1828]. So we were always Methodists Protestants really. The old church stood for a long time. I think it was torn down about 1939 or something. It was after I was married, I know. I was married in '37 and it was after that. There's a Mr. Magness who helped tear it down and he took some of the logs and rebuilt a cabin. Have you ever seen it? It's off of Whitaker Mill Road. It's not far… You can almost see if from Whitaker Mill Road. He didn't build it quite as big. Instead of three bays, it's two. He told me the window frames are original and of course the logs he did the siding off of it. But my husband was they're helping to tear it down and he doesn't believe in throwing anything away. So he ended up bringing home the alter railing and both of the posts. There is one of them for my table.
DW	[Laughs] Wonderful.
RB	Well they [the posts] just sat down at our building for years and years. My brother-in-law was a carpenter and he knew it was down there and so one Christmas he surprised me. He had it made into a table. And the other one, one of the men in the church made a little table for the church. The same man… I guess I was getting ready to move before I realized that this alter railing was down in the basement. He [my husband] had fixed a place to put the platform, the Christmas platform and all of this overhead down in the basement. And that was Ken Chilcoat; do you know that man in Bel Air? The Chilcoats? Well, he liked to fool around with things and I showed him and he said, "I think we could make a cross out of that". And he did and it's in the front of our church and it is beautiful.
DW	Union Chapel?
RB	Yes. So, I'm glad we had some of the other things. Not everybody is interested in the other things. Most of the people who are at our church now, I call them new. [Laughs] They're not new, they're just don't know much about the history or the community. I love the church. The one we worship in was built in 1900. We still have the original light fixture, of course a big round fixture. It's electrified, but it's the original one. There are some beautiful stain glass windows and all that sort of thing.
DW	You spoke a little while ago of Bel Air. You mentioned Motor Sales and the Fair Ground. What other memories of Bel Air do you have?
RB	Well, Preston's Stationary Store was there. I know three generations of Preston's'. There was a bowling alley sort of behind Preston's. That was wonderful. I'm sure that down in [the alley] there was a building. I think the lower part was a garage and then there were apartments above it. I think my sister lived in there for a while when she was first married. Bond Borman's of course door was there I guess when I was there. The courthouse. Hirsch's Men Store has been there forever. Richardson's Drug Store was on the corner where the podiatrist office is now. The Armory, of course. And I think on the left hand side, of course there's a church across on the left hand side, but there was a little building in there that was our library. I'm pretty sure. Later the library moved up to the church that closed. I think they used the church for a while for the library. I know there was a little building across from the Armory that was a library. I don't remember what was on the corner where Lutz's building is. Well, Lutz's building came along pretty soon. I guess I was in high school then.
DW	Let's take a brief break. I've been watching the time and I need to flip the tapes over.
[TAPE 1, SIDE 2]
DW	O.k. We are still talking about Bel Air. Well, let's go back to the Fair Ground. Besides the school activities out there, is that where the county fair was?
RB	That's where the county fair was, yes. We had a Merry-go-round, and a Ferris wheel. I hate the Ferris wheel and I didn't want to get on. I screamed. I remember where we could throw a ball and knock the milk bottles down and win a prize. All sorts of little things like that. And of course there were exhibits to visit… I think the farmers were bringing their things in. I wasn't much interested in that.
DW	Was that just a once a year event?
RB	Yes, but we had the [missing dialog] Races there that were just wonderful.
DW	Weekly, monthly?
RB	No. They came special for the fair but then I don't know really how often they came. I really don't know. They were there for the fair but then other times, too I think. When we had our field day; that was a different day than the fair. That wasn't the county fair; that was just a field day or school day.
DW	Do you remember when the roads started being paved in the county?	
RB	Yes I remember but I really can't tell you the years. I know all the time I walked to school they were dirt. We moved to Churchville in 1950 and my dad sold his place a few years after that and the Hawkins was candy people bought it. But it was only a few years. I think we knew at that time it would probably be torn down because they were going to widen the road. Now whether it had been paved at all, and was just being widened, I'm not sure. I know when we had snow we had trouble getting them cleaned off. They weren't cleaned off very much.
DW	Do you remember any mills or creameries or blacksmith shops?
RB	Yes. There was a blacksmith shop at the corner of Old Joppa Road and Mountain. There were canning factories. There was a canning factory not far from Bleak Heights School. The McComas family lived across the road and there were two families of them, the father and the son. The father's home was right down Winter's Run and he had a canning factory there. In the summer time workers came out from Baltimore and there were little houses by the canning factory where they worked. They were not paid in money, they were paid in little coins and they dealt at our store. We would take the coins but then we'd get them redeemed for money. A lot of local people worked at the cannery too, but the basic workers are the ones that came out from Baltimore. They just stayed during the canning season. Like I see the crab pickers come up from the south, Mexico and around and they'd pick out the crabmeat. I remember going sled riding with my big brother down near Winter's Run on the McComas property. It was a very steep hill. I'm still scared. Those were the big guys. They had a long piece of tin to sled ride on. Several people got on that. My brother had taken me along. I was scared to death but it just went like lightening down. I was afraid we were going in the water, but they always managed to get it stopped somehow. [Laughter] I was asking him about that ten years ago or so. I said how did you get that thing to stop? He said we had a stick over on the side and we'd scrape it on until it stopped. [Laughs] Sled riding was really a great sport. Like I said down Singer Road was wonderful because of those two little hills. Some of the big guys would make a fire up at the very top and then one down at the very bottom so you could sled at night. It was great. The hard part was pulling the sled all the way back. It was fun. Once in a while we would sled to school. We would take our sleds and that was fine going to school but you know we had to pull them home in the evening. [Laughter]
DW	Better the other way. Walk in the morning and then ride home at night. [Laughs]
RB	It was the opposite though. We could ride in the morning and then we had to walk home at night. Kids don't get tired like we do now. It wasn't as bad. I remember getting ready for school on the cold winter days before we had electricity. We had this big cook stove. You'd go down in the kitchen to put your shoes and stockings on. You'd have long stockings and you could get your shoes warm before you went out. We had over-shoes. I remember when galoshes came in style. It was the style to leave them unbuckled, and walk with them hitting. [Laughs] The buckles were hitting each other. One of the great things about snow too, which I'd be afraid to do now because I don't think it's very pure. But when we had a heavy snow and it was deep, light and fluffy, we made ice cream. I think my mother just took milk or cream preferably if you had it and she put sugar and vanilla in it and thickened it with the snow. It was wonderful. [Laughs] That's the only ice cream we had in the winter. That's mostly the only ice cream we had, although in the summer for 4th of July, we usually bought a freezer of ice cream. That was the big treat.
DW	When we started the conversation I didn't really ask what were your mom and dad's names?
RB	My dad was Henry Schillinger; a good German name. My mother is Ida Johnson and the Johnson Farm is still at Upper Cross Roads. There is a fourth generation still living on the Johnson Farm. After you go through where this store used to be, there are several little houses. I think with the new road there are a couple of stores and things in between, but after you finish that the first farm on the right hand side is still the Johnson farm.
DW	Which direction are we going?
RB	We're going south, I guess it is.
DW	Towards Baltimore County.
RB	Yes, towards Baltimore County. The farm isn't as big as it used to be. They sold off parts of it and they only farm for their own fun. They just enjoy having it. Two of the girls live in the original house that my grandfather built. And something interesting that I didn't find out until a few years ago. If you go into the front door to go upstairs, you know the steps usually go up right in front of you. Not that house. You walk down the hall and the steps go up the other way. I think it makes a lot of since but I've never seen a house like it. There's a house built on each side of it where the other children have built. We like to go up to the Johnson farm once in a while.
DW	Do you know why your dad built the steps backwards?
RB	My grandfather.
DW	Grandfather.
RB	I have no idea.
DW	O.k. There was no reason that he ever said? Privacy or something maybe?
RB	Maybe there were other houses done that way at the time, I don't know. I had just never seen it. My grandfather was a Justice of the Peace. This has to be the last one that never got used because this is 1906 and he died in 1907. [Laughs] I can't read the name of the Governor, can you?
DW	Oh wow. Well, Tillman is the last name. I don't know what the first name is though. Oswald? Was it Oswald Tillman?
RB	Tillman. Oh, o.k.
DW	T-I-L-G-H-M-A-N.
RB	Oh yes.
DW	I think that's O-S-W-A-L-D.
RB	I couldn't read the signature.
DW	Oh, that's the Secretary of State. Here's the Governor.
RB	Yes, that's the Governor.
DW	No that one I can't read.
RB	I guess it's always been the style. If you're important you sign your name so you can't read it.
DW	Well politicians should be doctors. [Laughter]
RB	When I saw the date on it, I thought that's very strange because I know he died the year my mother was married. He obviously had had it. It's only good for two year I believe it said. So I guess he had other copies. My mother said they used to sit on the back steps and they weren't supposed to. The cases were brought to the house. The people came to the house. They sat on the back steps. You know those houses always had back steps and they could hear what was going on. Kids have always been kids, right?
DW	Yes. Well, after you got married or maybe before I'm not sure. You were also a schoolteacher.
RB	Yes I was.
DW	So tell me something about that.
RB	Well I graduated from Towson. It was a three-year course when I graduated but they had started the fourth year and we were given the option of graduating or staying to take the fourth year. Most of us wanted to try to get a job. It probably wasn't the wisest thing because we had to get that other year in later. I think it was '61 before I got a degree actually. We did graduate with a teacher's certificate after three years. So then my first teaching job was at Edgewood Arsenal. I think I was pretty lucky to get the Edgewood Arsenal. It was a nice school. I found this bulletin, which I didn't know I had which was written the year before. It's one of their magazines. They had put it out in the spring before I went to teach there in the fall. Some of it which I didn't know until I read this the other day. It started as a government project, because the government children had no place to go to school back in 1922. If the children were still paying tuition when I was teaching there, I didn't know about it, which of course I wouldn't have had any reason to know. But they probably were since the parents did not pay any taxes. The county provided the teachers and the books. The government supplied the building and the electricity and all of that. Then the parents had to pay something for the students to come to school. Like I say didn't know anything about that. The county paid us.
DW	Sure. I'd like to get a copy of that.
RB	I thought you'd might want to because I'm sure there's not much known about Edgewood Arsenal School.
DW	No.
RB	Because it was only in existence from '22 until '42, I guess.
DW	Well when the Arsenal came there in 1917 they actually dislocated eight schools out of the area.
RB	Oh. How they'd do that?
DW	You know, they came in and took over the land and the farmers had to move out. You know that was the corn and tomato territory.
RB	I could see Perryman. But in '22 there was still a school in Edgewood. There probably had been another one. I don't know, I hadn't thought about it.
DW	That's it what I'm talking about actually on the APG grounds. Edgewood Arsenal and Aberdeen Proving Grounds.
RB	And then of course there is Fort Hoyle. It seems like its part of Edgewood Arsenal, but it was a whole separate unit. They had their own commander and everything. You just went from Edgewood Arsenal to Fort Hoyle right by me. A little what we called a [missing dialog], a little trolley you could [ride]… We took the school kids over there. They had a theatre over at Fort Hoyle. Fort Hoyle had cavalry there. My husband worked at the Fort Hoyle PX. I know the year we were married, the cavalry went on bivouac to Baltimore County. We knew where they were going, but my husband had to go. He actually worked in the filling station but he had to go to work in their commissary. Actually where they gave them beer, I think. But they sold the beer. Because his sister and brother-in-law were visiting us the weekend that he had to work. When I said I knew where they were, they said well lets go over and see him. So we rode over there and I walked down to where my husband was and he said get out of here. I said I thought you would be glad to see me. He said this is no place for a lady. Leave here right away. [Laughter] I'll never forget that. I said I see so and so. There was a man working with him. I said I see his wife. He said if he wants her in here, that's his business but I don't want you in here. [Laughs] I was real proud of him. So we went home but that's how I knew for sure they went on bivouac with their Cavalry. I don't know they had it. It was a whole separate unit, though. It was a separate station.
DW	Well obviously we don't have any cavalry here in the services anymore so how long did Fort Hoyle last?
RB	I don't know. I really don't know how long it lasted. That was '37. I can't imagine why they had it. It may have been just for show or something. It was a separate unit and a separate commander. Of course it's all Aberdeen Proving Ground now. No matter what you call it, which continually confuses me. I was there for ten and three quarter years. I'll just say ten years to make it easier because I was at Churchville for twenty-four and a quarter so I say twenty-five and ten. It gets too confusing. The last year I was at Edgewood Arsenal, I was Principal. Sometimes I think I was foolish. The Principal was leaving. She lived in Baltimore City, Mrs. Stansbury. She wanted to teach in Baltimore City, which made sense. They were building the new school in Edgewood and I think they had someone lined up to be Principal in that school. So here was a year where they needed somebody. And I guess I had been there longer than anybody so I called myself "Acting Principal". It was a very rough year. We had to do rationing. That's another thing we did at night just for fun. Teachers get to do a lot of things. We use to take the census way back too. I know one night we were doing the rationing and I was riding with one of the other teachers who lived over on Harford Road. She went by my house and she could pick me up. We went out to the building. There was a building out in the… We called it the "Project". It was a part of Edgewood where they had built houses real quickly because they needed housing and that's where the school was built too. There was a building used for community things and that's where we worked. We'd had snow and we'd had a really bad snowstorm and I thought we weren't going to get home. We got as far as my house and she stayed there. Just one of the interesting sidelights of things we had to do. The main reason I think about it is sometimes I think I have a guardian angel because only by the grace of God am I here. I know. It was the last day school and everybody had left except for this other teacher and I. I had papers to fill out and I was sitting at my desk working and I thought I have to go to the bathroom. So I got to the back of the room and I heard this crash. I knew what it was and I turned around and looked. In this room they had this huge globe and it wasn't plastic. It was fastened with a pulley. I suppose other teachers might have used but I never touched it. But it was hanging right over where I was sitting. And the crash I heard was that globe hitting my chair. So I know if I had been in my chair, I would not be in this chair.
DW	Mmm hmm.
RB	So I'd say I had a guardian angel that year. But it was a pretty rough year. Another thing we did in Edgewood Arsenal, which is an interesting thing because of the war. They came to the school and fitted each child with a gas mask. And then built shelves in the back of each room and each child and the teacher had a gas mask. But they never gave us a drill to put them on. They fitted them one time. [Laughs] We never used them. Thank goodness we didn't have to, but we never practiced putting them on.
DW	That was because there was testing there? Not because of the enemy but because that was the test center.
RB	There's a gas mask factory at Edgewood Arsenal and they make gas there. It's very dangerous, yes.
DW	Now is the building that you were a teacher in still standing?
RB	I don't know. I haven't been back to Edgewood. It was just below headquarters. It wasn't joined but it was close to the headquarters. So it wasn't far in. I don't know what happened to it. I'm not real sure. I think it was '43 and '44 that I was Principal. That was the last year. I think we moved out in Edgewood to the new school in the fall of '44. I think we were out in the new school in '44 and '45 and '45 and '46. In '46 I left in February or March because Sandra was born in August. It was not popular to stand in front of the children if you were pregnant. It's o.k. now, I know. But the new school is very nice. I don't know for sure what the school is used for now, but somebody told me that it was used for first, second, and third grades. But I don't know whether that's true or not because I know they have built other schools since then. 
DW	Well, you were talking about rationing and when I think of rationings like rationing gas and rationing sugar?
RB	That's right.
DW	O.k. so…
RB	You didn't have to live through that, did you?
DW	No mam.
RB	Oh our gasoline was rationed and sugar.
DW	When you say teachers had to do the rationing, do you mean that they were disbursing stuff to the children?
RB	No. We were disbursing it to the parents.
DW	Oh, the parents. O.k.
RB	That's why we did it at night. They came and applied and we gave their rationings. They could only buy so much. People were very careful about the gasoline. And you were really required to carpool. You were forced to carpool and you wouldn't dare drive by yourself. 
DW	Now was that part of… I mean did you get paid extra for doing this?
RB	No.
DW	No, this was just part of the job.
RB	And the reason I remember taking censuses too was I was married because I remember the Principal saying Ruth you can do certain streets in Edgewood because you have a husband and he'll go with you. [Laughs] Edgewood has always been Edgewood. You know you read about it in the paper. It's a shame because they're so many wonderful people in Edgewood but there's always been an area where you are just a little bit afraid of.
DW	Wow.
RB	But we didn't have any trouble.
DW	So then at the end of your ten and three quarter years at Edgewood, you went to Churchville.
RB	No. I stayed in the apartment in my parent's home until 1950. In 1950 we built the house in Churchville.
DW	Well I meant you became a teacher in Churchville School.
RB	Yes, after… Well, I didn't intend to teach. I wanted to have a family and I wanted to be home. I even bought my retirement. How foolish can you be? I was retired. So we built our house and moved to Churchville. It was a holiday, but I'm not sure what holiday. Anyway, pretty early long about October or November the Principal from the school came to my house and introduced himself. He said he was looking for a teacher to finish out the school year because a teacher had left. I said I know I can't do it because I had not been very well and I knew I was going to the hospital. So he left. I went to the hospital and I was doing fine and along about March he came to the house again. It might have been the first of April, but in the Spring he came. He said I'm looking for a teacher for that same room. I learned later that there had been three.
DW	[Laughs]
RB	If I had known everything, I probably wouldn't have gone there. But the last was a man and he had to go into the service. He said he just wanted [me] to finish the year. And I thought well, why not? After all we built a house and we could use the money. And my sister lived next door, so she kept my little girl. So that's all I went to do was to finish that year. I don't know, I kind of liked it and the money was nice. I went back [Laughter] for twenty-five more.
DW	Twenty-five more.
RB	Twenty-four and a quarter.
DW	When you and I talked on the phone to arrange this interview, you had asked me when that was built because you know I worked on a lot of the schools. The schoolhouse that you were in at Churchville was built in '31.
RB	'31. I found that out later, too. It was in Mr. Wright's book.
DW	Oh, o.k.
RB	But I couldn't, I didn't know at the time.
DW	Well like I said I have done some research on schools. Had you ever heard that called Cola?
RB	No.
DW	I found a reference some place that at some point Churchville was also…
RB	I bet that was the one-room school that was there. There was a one-room school near where the church is I'm told.
DW	Yes there was.
RB	I don't know if that was it because Mr. Cole had the store across from the school. We always called it Cole's Store.
DW	It still is.
RB	Yes, that's true.
DW	It still is Cole's. I interviewed a lady not too long ago that worked there.
RB	Margaret Cole? No, you didn't interview her, I don't believe.
DW	No.
RB	Well, she was made a Living Treasure, Margaret.
DW	Yes.
RB	She's the last one of the Cole's. She's at the retirement home over in the valley in Baltimore County. What is that one? She still calls me. She has the fantastic memory. You should interview her just for fun sometime. She'll call because she gets the Aegis Paper and she'll read about somebody and she'll tell me all about their relatives and where they used to live. I get so tickled. She just has a good memory and of course she lived in Churchville all her life. That was a great little country store and Mrs. Cole was so nice. I think they spoiled my husband. He played Santa Claus for them a couple times at their parties for their employees and all the families. She found out he liked pie better than cake so his birthday came one time and she sent out a pie. [Laughs] That's when neighbors are just neighbors. You know it was just fun.
DW	Well, you've certainly seen a lot of changes in the county in ninety-one years.
RB	Oh my, a lot of changes.
DW	Some good, some bad?
RB	Some good, some bad. I think Harford County, as a whole has been good. [Laughs] I hate to see all the farms go, but then I know people have to have a place to live. It's like where we built. My brother-in-law's brother owned property there and lived in the original house. So he sold lots to my brother-in-law and he sold to us and to his nephew so we had three houses in line there instead of one. That was another name you used to hear a lot, Plummer, Plummer's around Churchville? His sister had the big house in Churchville that was next to the church. It was a beautiful old house. Of course there's a little mall in there now. Dr. Street bought it from her but he said it wasn't worth fixing up. It was a beautiful place and she had the first post office in there at her place. Churchville is all changed now. The Presbyterian Church is still there. That's an old church. I see where Margaret Cole has just sold the last of all the furniture and everything that was in the house there, just last week. Mr. Travers is selling it and Margaret was talking to me on the phone and she said now somebody said I ought to be there. And I said no, no, no Margaret. You don't want to be there and see your things sold. That's what I thought and I'm not going. [Laughter] My daughter told me when I was going to move up here, she said I can tell you one thing, you are not going to have a yard sale. So I didn't need to have a yard sale. I had grandchildren…
[TAPE 2, SIDE 2]
DW	O.k. while I was changing tapes, you indicated that you had some information on Stepping Stone.
RB	Well, this Mr. Bull was, I think his father was a builder in Harford County. I don't know, his father and grandfather, or his father and uncle, but he himself was a banker and lived in New York but he was just interested in everything that he could collect about farms. He even collected old clothes and books. He bought this farm place on Mackton Road. It's up on Rt. 136 and that's where he kept storing all of his things. When my brother retired, he was very interested in that and so when I retired I had to get interested too. It really was nice but he died before he could find a place where he could move all of this that would be available to everybody. He died in '76 and it was '78 when the state bought the Susquehanna Park. I went up to move the things down there. His wife was still living. She's pictured here. They had an organization with different people to sort of govern it and to see that it was carried on. People volunteered to help. I found the other day, and I didn't know I had this. It's the seventh annual old time arts and crafts and there's no date on it. But it had to be before '78 so he had evidently had it seven times one weekend during the summer and advertised it. People came from Baltimore and everywhere around and it was a very nice day. They'd demonstrate as many of these art and crafts as they had people for. They had entertainment and it was a real fun weekend. And of course it's carried on down at Stepping Stone now. It's a big, big project but he had all kinds of demonstrators and pages of entertainment. I see I'm a patron so this has to be after '75. I was around when they were moving. These pictures are fun to me because I was a guide and this is my sister-in-law. We were up there on the weekends just as guides. They came from the Aegis to take some pictures and we said go a head take any pictures you want to. He said, well it would be much nicer if you using the loom and the spinning wheel. And we both said we don't know how to use a loom.
DW	[Laughs]
RB	Well just sit down there. It doesn't matter. So I'm using the loom it says, and she's using the spinning wheel. [Laughs] But I guess it was good advertisement. I haven't been down to Stepping Stone for a long time but it's grown and grown. They have a canning house there now and the other buildings are all fixed up. It's really a great place.
DW	But it did start up in the Mackton Road area.
RB	Right.
DW	When did that move?
RB	'78. 1978.
DW	From Mackton to where it is now?
RB	Yes.
DW	Oh, o.k.
RB	But he died in '76.
DW	So when did he start Stepping Stone in the Mackton Road area?
RB	It must have been… I don't know how long he'd been collecting, but I'd say this is about 1975 and it's the seventh one so it was seven years before that, I guess.
DW	Mid or late sixties.
RB	I didn't know about it. It was fun. I used to work on the weekends. It was only open on the weekends of course. People came from everywhere.
DW	Still do, I think.
RB	Oh yes it's a big thing now. They have all kinds of things now. I'm not sure I approve of all of them. They even have permission to sell liquor on certain weekends. Anyway, they have Russell Terrier Day. They have dogs and they have all kinds of special days. Christmas is a beautiful time to go. They decorate the house. It's really pretty.
DW	Does the house that's there have any historic significance? 
RB	Yes. It was a farm originally, I think and the house that's there is the original house. It's been added to, but it's the original house. I did know the man's name that they bought it from. I don't know that the property is really historical, it's just that it's the buildings there were old, you know, at the Main House. It's nicely located. The fences were built with stone without any mortar. And I saw the last couple of years they had had groups come down and demonstrate how it was done. It's not an easy thing to do, I understand. They have weddings and special occasions down in the front yard and it's very nice.
DW	I think those kind of stone fences were fairly common in the mid eighteen hundreds.
RB	Oh, I'm sure they were. I don't know whether there are any others around here. But when we had craft day, we had demonstrators there from everywhere. They would demonstrate all sorts of things. It was very interesting. It was a lot of work. I was in charge of the demonstrators for a couple of years, so I know. [Laughs] I won something. They have some craft people too. Once a year they have their big dinner. They still send me tickets, you know. I was taught from childhood that you do not gamble or take chances on anything. And I never did, so I usually just sent them a contribution and sent the tickets back. No, I don't send the tickets back; I just send a contribution. So last year I said, "Oh shucks, I'm going to put my name on these tickets". My name was the first one drawn they told me. [Laughs] I don't go of course any more. And this was the prize, a pair of ducks. I can't wait to get that pair of ducks. I thought my grandson would really want them but he didn't take them. [Laughter]
DW	There is a whole decoy museum down in Havre de Grace.
RB	Oh yes. It's fantastic. Havre de Grace is a great place anyway. There's so many things down there to see, I think. I like it.
DW	It's a very historic town.
RB	Yes, the boardwalk there is nice. I guess they got it all repaired after the damage from the storm a couple of years ago. The lighthouse.
DW	Yes, I just climbed that a couple of years ago. [Laughs]
RB	What?
DW	Climbed up in the lighthouse.
RB	Oh. [Laughs]
DW	Well, are there any other topics that you think are important for our listeners to be aware of?
RB	I'll think of things later.
DW	[Laughs] That's very normal.
RB	I did enjoy the years at Edgewood Arsenal and I think it was unique. One of my girlfriends, she's in that picture. That's my eightieth birthday. You see that big stone down here has Osborne on it? The Osborne Farm? Well Mary Osborne and I went all through school together. She taught at Edgewood Arsenal, too. She considers herself very fortunate too because the government really… I'm sure they published this magazine for them. I know there were times when it wasn't easy to get supplies. In fact, early forties schools were not over-supplied. But if we needed something, we asked Mr. Sprager up in headquarters, we pretty much got it. We wanted to have a May Day, so they built us a nice platform right down by the woods. Things like that that we really didn't get at other schools.
DW	Mr. Sprager?
RB	Sprager
DW	Now he was associated with the Arsenal, not with the Board of Ed.
RB	He was our contact with the school. He worked at headquarters but he was the school representative. Another thing we could do that I don't think we could do at other schools was we had six teachers and we took turns preparing lunch for all of us. Some of the children went home for lunch if they were close enough. The others had a half an hour and they ate their lunch and they went out to play. We didn't have to supervise them at all. They played very nicely and in the mean time the teach who was in charge would go to the teacher's room and fix our lunch. When the children went out to play, we would get together and have a half an hour to eat our lunch together. And I think now, oh my goodness, I don't believe they could do that. Children can't play with themselves now, can they?
DW	Not unless it's with a video game. [Laughter]
RB	That's right. Now I'm not saying that we never had a problem, but that was pretty nice. One little girl I remember one year she insisted I go home to lunch with her. Hey I don't think I should go home to lunch. She asked me several times and I asked the Principal and she said oh sure go on. So I walked home and had lunch with them and came back. [Laughs] And the way transportation was then I had to go early and of course I didn't have a car. I didn't need to drive. I rode with the man next door who worked on the Arsenal. I had to go a little earlier and came home a little later, but that was all right. We got our work done and that was very convenient. Most of the teachers were doing that. We had one girl who came up and she lived up near Pennsylvania. She rode with somebody too.
DW	You are in a time period where the schools were still segregated in the general public. Was it also segregated at the Arsenal?
RB	I don't think we ever had a black child. I just don't think they were living on the Post. Now we had Edgewood children. We had one little difficulty. We had officer's children, non-com children and the general population, the one's from Edgewood. So once in a while if you had an officer who thought they were a little bit better but very little trouble. But I don't remember any black children walking in from Edgewood.
DW	How about black service men?
RB	Isn't that funny, I don't recall a one. Only officers lived on the post, though. So that might be a clue. But you're right, we were segregated and they wouldn't have come there anyhow, I guess.
DW	I thought maybe yours would have been integrated just because it was military.
RB	Yes. I expect it would have been. But in the years I was there, I do not recall one time. I hadn't even thought about that. I remember being in Churchville when we were first integrated, but we did not have any problems at Churchville that I know of. Now one little boy did crack me on the leg with a baseball bat, but I don't think that's because he was black. [Laughs] Accidents happen everywhere. The thing of it was they were playing softball of course and I saw them getting in the batters box and they'd be swinging that bat around and I though somebody is going to get hurt. So I went over and I told them not to swing your bat around because they might hit somebody. I didn't take two steps until he swung that bat and I had to go to the doctors; I had a hematoma. [Laughs] That's par for the course. Churchville was a very nice school to work into. We had the same Principal, Mr. Hacket. I think he taught a year or two in the little school. And when the new school was built in '31, he was the Principal and he was the Principal until 1969, I think. Having the same person, he knew everybody, and people really respected him. He was a good Principal. We are still friends with some of the people. We all agree it was like a little family. The teachers were just like a little family. A few years there, there was four or five of us, right after school was out, the next day, we would go to Pennsylvania. It was a big day out. We'd shop and have a good time. Mr. Hacket heard about it and don't you know one time we were ready to go and he came and said now you just have lunch on me and he gave us some money. It was just like a family.
DW	[Laughs]
RB	I'm afraid it's different now.
DW	Well, with your permission I will make some copies of some of these things that you have here and say thank you very much for your time.
RB	Oh well, my pleasure. Here is my picture that I approve of. 
DW	O.k. I'll get that one too.
RB	I'm not real young. Leave it in there if you want to.
DW	Oh, I can take that one. Thank you very much.
RB	Oh, thank you.