Recollections from generations past. (Katherine S. Etchison- 1 )

 

Katherine S. Etchison (1895 - 1990)

Date of interview- April, 1982 

(obituary excerpt)

(taught 10 years in Worcester

 County before retiring)

Transcript

Interview Begins

INTERVIEWER: This is an interview with Katherine Etchison

KATHERINE: My name is Katherine Stevens Etchison.

INTERVIEWER: How old are you?

KATHERINE: I am 86 years old.

INTERVIEWER: What are your parent’s names?

KATHERINE: My mother’s name was Stella Adkins Stevens and my father’s name was Alexander Hartley Stevens. My grandparents, my mother’s mother was, Katherine Savage Adkins and her father was John Henry Adkins. My father’s mother was Mary Jane Truitt Stevens Handy. She was married twice. His father’s name was A. Sidney Stevens. He was the first lawyer in Pocomoke. He lived in a house that was torn down to build the Post Office. It was very much like the Costen House. It was the same type of house as the Costen House. What’s your next question after the parents?

INTERVIEWER: Your childhood, and homelife. The chores you did.

KATHERINE: I had to clean lamps every Saturday morning. Frequently my mother made beaten biscuits and I would help beat the biscuits. She’d always make them out. We generally had to clean our own rooms and sometimes yards. But that was about the extent of our chores.

INTERVIEWER: Where did you live?

KATHERINE: We lived in many houses. My father had six children. His father died when he was twelve years old, and he was the oldest of four children. And before my grandmother remarried, married Mr. Handy, my father hadn’t really gotten out and kind of shift for himself. He rented houses. We’d move quite frequently, and everybody said we did because my mother was a great homemaker. And she used to light the house up quite a bit. My father would rent a house that wasn’t especially attractive, but by the time my mother had…that we had lived there for a while and she had sort of taken charge, it was sold. And we’d have to move again. So, we lived in quite a few houses. The last house my father owned was the original Hartley Hall. We lived out there when we were growing up.

INTERVIEWER: How long did you live there?

KATHERINE: How long did we live at Hartley Hall? About 30 some years. 35, 36 years. Of course, I was married, and I lived in Washington. And my sister, Rosemary, was married and lived in Columbus, Ohio.

INTERVIEWER: Did you have any jobs besides the things you did around the house?

KATHERINE: Did I have any what?

INTERVIEWER: Jobs

KATHERINE: I taught school. I’m a retired schoolteacher.

INTERVIEWER: When you were younger.

KATHERINE: When I was growing up? I don’t remember any jobs, except just chores around home.

INTERVIEWER: Where did you go to school?

KATHERINE: I graduated from Pocomoke High School and then I went to the Towson Normal School. It was the Normal School then. It was only two years. I started my first teaching position in Montgomery County, and I taught in Gaithersburg.

INTERVIEWER: What kind of a teacher were you?

KATHERINE: Elementary teacher. I taught sixth grade most of the time. After my husband died, I returned to Pocomoke to live with my mother. I taught here.

INTERVIEWER: In Pocomoke?

KATHERINE: In Pocomoke. I had heard that the third grade was always a nice grade to teach. I was nearly ready to retire. So, I asked the superintendent if he would let me have a third grade. At the time when I first came down, I was principal over to Stockton of just four teachers. And so when I went to Dr. Cooper and asked him if I could have a third grade, he said, “I think you’ve lost your mind!” and I said, “No, I’ve always heard that a third grade was the nicest grade to teach.” And I said, “I’d like to try it before I retire.” So, he gave me a third grade. But I’ve always kind of regretted it, because sixth grade was my…I mean, they told me when I was going to Normal School, they told me then that I should have older children. I couldn’t get down to the third-grade level, I mean, in my conversation and so forth.

INTERVIEWER: Which church did you go to?

KATHERINE: The Presbyterian Church. We were all Presbyterians. The Presbyterian Church, the present one. The Dennises, that owned Beverly, were members of the Presbyterian Church.  And Mrs. Dennis, I remember, Mrs. Jane Dennis, used to come in Sunday mornings, and in those days, they used to go in mourning, and wear their mourning clothes for years. She used to wear a black kind of a turban with long veils, all the way down to the hem of her skirt, and she used to have little white (audio not clear) around here and around her neck. But otherwise, she’d walk into church with this veil trailing in back of her, and she sat next to the front row. To reach church, she came in a carriage, and she had a footman and a driver. And they used to drive in the driveway that approached the side of the church. And the driver went back and parked the cart.

And the footman that she had in those days told a story that I think might be interesting. “I remember my mother saying, that when the Freedom War was over”, this was footman Richard… “I always , remember my mother saying when the Freedom War was over, and there was shouting and yelling, and the slaves were free, Ms. Jane Dennis told the colored people they could go, but that whoever wanted was welcome to stay. Some wandered off, but my people stayed and at Beverly my life had been wrapped like the (audio not clear)) that have cared for me. There wasn’t any schooling then, what learning you got you just picked up. Grandfather was a blacksmith.” Now this is a colored fellow talking. “And wheelwright for the farm. And at seven I was put to work pulling weeds and cutting grass. I was a footman and later a butler. Miss Jane, she had a big carriage with a driver and a baggage man sat up high in front. She in the carriage and me as her footman on the step in the back. When we came to a gate, I’d jump down, open the gate, and jump back up. The carriage never stopped. The Dennises owned farms all over and we really traveled around. All plowing was done with oxen. Horses were for driving only. 

When I was twenty-one, Miss Jane called Pat and me in and she said she wanted to settle with him for my wages from seven years to twenty-one, and she paid him thirty dollars. They kept us good though. We raised tobacco and cotton on the farm and had sheep for the wool. And the old folks spun and made the cloth. And Miss Jane got patterns and cut out our clothes. There just wasn’t any ready-made clothes. Every man on the farm got ten pounds of meat every week. And we had our house and a garden. Everything came off the farm, except for little things and they had a store there for that. One fall they butchered 150 hogs and cured them down in the cellar for the meat for the hams. We used brown sugar and molasses for sweetening. Molasses got so thick in the winter, you could cut it with a knife. We just didn’t have much use for money. On a Sunday, I’d go to the Baptist Church near the farm and sit in the loft and sing and sing all day long. When we had free time in the evening, we’d go down to the river and fish. Many a fat bass I pulled out! It was a sweet time with no cares. And the days went by like heaven. When I got to be twenty-one, with the $30, I had itchy feet and left, and jumped here and there. To Chester to Philadelphia, to Chester to Philadelphia, where I had a new paid sweet job on the trolley line. Then I washed dishes in a big hotel in Berlin. And then I came back to Beverly and never wanted to leave again. I was a gardener and a butler and dressed fine.” The person that had this interview with Richard said, “His memory of his growing years is not to clear. It’s such a long time ago. Miss Jane died and the other Dennises had the farm. Then the Shettles bought it and he stayed on as gardener and butler. When Mr. Shettle died, Mrs. Shettle later married John Butler and they are the present owners. Uncle Richard remembers a great party the Shettles had and their two children. He called them Miss Sandy and Mr. William. When Miss Sandy came out and later when she married the spread of lawn of Beverly was covered with canopies from the stately front door down to the banks of the river itself. It was a sweet time. Everything went lovely and smooth and a person could really live then. He once took a two-weekvacation. Mrs. Shettle called him and said I hate to see you leave but you have earned it, and here’s an extra ten dollars and I want you to telephone me, wherever you are collect if anything happens. He didn’t know much about this telephoning reversing business, but he remembered it. He went on a spree in Philadelphia. At the end of two days the city just went south. I got on the phone, Richard said, and called collect, just like he said, and it worked. And I came running back just as fast as I could. The loyalty he gave Beverly had not been forgotten by the proprietor, who now have installed him in a comfortable room at Hartley Hall in Pocomoke City. They send in the chauffer every so often to take him back to the farm. And he walks once again through the lanes of the spring flowers and along the riverbanks where one of the largest cypress trees in the United States grows.” That’s it.

INTERVIEWER: So, he lived in Hartley Hall after that?

KATHERINE: Yes, he lived at Hartley Hall. There is the carriage that they drove to church. A picture of it.

INTERVIEWER: They must have been awful rich to drive something like that.

(Continues next Saturday here at The Pocomoke Public Eye.)

Katherine Etchison was my great aunt. She was very much into reading and in late 1959 she gifted me with a subscription to National Geographic magazine beginning with the January 1960 issue. It was an amazing gift, opening up a world of things which I never imagined existed. After a few years, however, it resulted in great consternation from my parents, as one NEVER discards a copy of National Geographic. I had literally hundreds of copies under my bed and each night I would pull one out and review wonderful things from previous browsing.

Eventually I graduated high school and departed for college. When I first returned six months later my collection had mysteriously disappeared. My parents said they had to go because the weight was causing the floor joists under my room to sag.

Your friend,
Slim