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.
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