INTERVIEWER: Did your family own a car?
VIVIAN: Own a car? Well after, I think about 1915, my father and brother had a Hudson Super 6, if you heard of that. It was a big car.
INTERVIEWER: Did any of your neighbors have a car?
VIVIAN: Well, I guess they did, but I don’t remember any particular time. Dr. Walters had the first car in Pocomoke.
INTERVIEWER: What was your first car like?
VIVIAN: Well it was, it would seat 3, 6, 8 people. It had 2 fold seats in the middle, more like a station wagon, except I think it had 4 doors, the best I can remember.
INTERVIEWER: How much did it cost?
VIVIAN: Don’t ask me. I don’t know. Plenty I imagine. But it took a big car for our family.
INTERVIEWER: Did you ever go to Public Landing?
VIVIAN: Oh yes, lots of times.
INTERVIEWER: Well do you want to describe what Public Landing was like?
VIVIAN: Well, it was just a little place, opening, there were houses a little far back, and one quite near the water, that somebody used to live there, who served meals and we’d go Sundays sometimes and have dinner there. They had a little pier that went out some distance, and we’d go sit out there and enjoy the water.
INTERVIEWER: What was Farmer’s Day, I think it is? Farmer’s Day?
VIVIAN: At Public Landing?
INTERVIEWER: Ahun
VIVIAN: I don’t know. But they had a day at Red Hills, the first Wednesday in August, was a great picnic day for everybody.
INTERVIEWER: What was Red Hills like?
VIVIAN: Well, it was kinda up on a high cliff from the water. You’ve been there, haven’t ya? But there wasn’t much there. Finally they gotta, built a pavilion, I don’t know whether they sold ice cream cones and things like that or not, but you could get in the shade if you wanted to, then there was a family that lived nearby, that rented little bathhouses to change your suits in if you wanted to.
INTERVIEWER: Did you ever go to Assateague?
VIVIAN: Once before it became popular. Recently, in the old day, but you had to go in a boat from Franklin City.
INTERVIEWER: What was Franklin City like?
VIVIAN: Well just a, as I remember it was just about one long street, that run down to the water, I don’t really know much about it.
INTERVIEWER: Did somebody have, own, anybody in your family have an instrument, or did you listen to the radio?
VIVIAN: Well my sister, my older sister played the piano, my sister Vesta played by ear, she could play anything she ever heard, by ear. I took lessons but I never really learned to play much. We had one of the first Victrolas that anybody around here had, and of course that led to radios and televisions.
INTERVIEWER: Where were the fairgrounds?
VIVIAN: What were they like?
INTERVIEWER: Uhun
VIVIAN: Well, they had a big grandstand and when they, the week of the fair they had these sideshows and things like that and races. Horse racing was most of it.
INTERVIEWER: Your family, did your family attend the fair?
VIVIAN: Oh yeah, we always went.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. Where did you get your toys from?
VIVIAN: My uncle Ira’s store. He had toys upstairs on the second floor. He sold some groceries, but his soda fountain and candy was the main attractions.
INTERVIEWER: How much land did your parents own?
VIVIAN: How much land? Well, they owned from this street here down to the river and over, right far over toward the river.
INTERVIEWER: They had right much land?
VIVIAN: Well, I think, it, my great-grandfather bought it, was supposed to be 300 acres and most of it was the woods, there wasn’t much cultivated, but I don’t think he was much of a farmer, because he spent 26 years going to the legislature, my great-grandfather.
INTERVIEWER: Did your family have any home remedies?
VIVIAN: I don’t know. I don’t remember, my grandfather was a doctor, and my great-grandfather, on my mother’s side, was a doctor. Great great-grandfather, I guess it was.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember the fire they had uptown here?
VIVIAN: I remember the one in 1922. It was on an Easter Monday. A very windy day, the wind was blowing this way, from the south and the, Mr. Davis, who had a store there on the corner of Willow and Second, had this store and he was out burning trash and the lady behind him went out and told him it was dangerous. It really was. And that’s what started the fire. And it burned, nearly, all that block down to the hotel. I don’t think the hotel burned and it blew across and burned my father’s shop and his brother’s house next to it and quite a few houses down there where your office is.
(This series continues next Saturday with recollections from another long-time area resident.)
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