INTERVIEWER: This is Vanessa Voss interviewing Mary Dryden
MARY: I am Mary Dryden, and this is Thursday April 15th, 1982.
INTERVIEWER: Could you give me your age and your maiden name?
MARY: I am 80 years old and my maiden name was Mary Parker.
INTERVIEWER: What were your parent’s names?
MARY: My father was Dr. John T. Parker and my mother, Maude deWaal
Parker.
INTERVIEWER: Can you tell me your grandparents names and their maiden
names?
MARY: Gabriel deWaal and Nancy Dukes deWaal, were my maternal
grandparents, and my paternal grandparents were Charles and Amelia
Parker.
INTERVIEWER: When you were a child what kind of chores and
responsibilities did you have around the house?
MARY: Well I washed dishes sometimes and I helped my grandmother with
the kitchen. I don’t remember doing much else.
INTERVIEWER: Did you have a job outside the home?
MARY: No.
INTERVIEWER: Where did you go to school?
MARY: Stockton Elementary and High School.
INTERVIEWER: All through high school?
MARY: Yes, I graduated in 1918 from Stockton High.
INTERVIEWER: What was the discipline like?
MARY: Very good, we had no problems.
INTERVIEWER: What kind of subjects did you take?
MARY: I had English, Latin, history, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, science.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember any of the names of your teachers?
MARY: Oh yes. Our principal was Professor John S. Hill. He was a native of
Snow Hill. Miss Lucille Taylor was my English teacher. Miss Mary Holland
was my history and math teacher. Miss Anna Adkins was our manual trainer
which corresponds to home ec. today.
INTERVIEWER: Where did you go to church?
MARY: Holy Cross Chapel Episcopal Church in Stockton.
INTERVIEWER: How long was it on Sunday? How long did it last?
MARY: The service?
INTERVIEWER: Mm-mm
MARY: Oh, about an hour.
INTERVIEWER: What did you do for recreation? Did you go ice skating?
MARY: Yes, we skated the mill pond. I was never very good.
INTERVIEWER: What kind of games did you play?
MARY: Well, we played Flinch, (audio not clear), and 7 Up. My daddy taught
me how to play 7 Up, which corresponds to fish nowadays. When I got older
I played 500. Then as bridge came along, I played bridge. I played some
basketball. We passed the ball around, I guess you call that softball.
INTERVIEWER: Did you go swimming a lot?
MARY: No.
INTERVIEWER: How about dating?
MARY: Oh yes. I had some dates.
INTERVIEWER: Did you do a lot of dating?
MARY: I had some. We usually went to the car auctions.
INTERVIEWER: What were the rules in dating? The rules set by your parents.
MARY: I don’t remember that I had any rules really.
INTERVIEWER: What were some major events in the community?
MARY: Well we used to have an alumni banquet on Easter Monday for the
high school. And there were organizations in two churches. There were two
organizations, one was from our church called the Busy Bees and the
Methodists were (audio not clear), and they met every so often for social
functions.
INTERVIEWER: What types of businesses were around here?
MARY: There was a very thriving oyster business then. Two barrel factories
because in the wintertime the oysters were shipped in barrels, and then in
the summertime potatoes were shipped in barrels. In those days we had two
passenger trains south and two passenger trains north, as well as several
freight trains.
INTERVIEWER: What was the population? Was the town very big then?
MARY: No. I would say probably 300 people in those days.
INTERVIEWER: What was the law and order like?
MARY: Sheriff Payne was the magistrate in Stockton and we really didn’t have
too much disorder.
INTERVIEWER: What type of transportation did you use?
MARY: Horse and buggy.
INTERVIEWER: There weren’t any steamboats around at all.
MARY: No. There were sail boats down at George Island Landing and oyster
boats, but no, we didn’t have any steam.
(Continues next Saturday here at The Pocomoke Public Eye.)
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