Recollections from generations past (Elmer A. Brittingham -5)

 

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

Interviewer: How was your church? Where was it?

Elmer: Well, when I was going, it was Salem.

Interviewer: How long did you stay there?

Elmer: I left when I was 22 years old.

Interviewer: How long did you stay? Like when you went in Sunday morning,

 how many hours did you stay that day?

Elmer: Well, we usually went to Sunday school. Sometimes an evening

 church service, but the morning Sunday school, an hour and a half.

Interviewer: Did you get out in time for lunch?

Elmer: We just went to Sunday School. We alternated. Most of the time we

 just went to that and sometimes we went to Sunday night service.

Interviewer: What time did you get out of the Sunday night service?

Elmer: Well, it was an hour.

Interviewer: An hour? So, it wasn’t much different? You didn’t stay for a real

 long time?

Elmer: No.

Interviewer: What kind of influence did the church have on the community?

 Was the church a real big thing? Or was it just something you did on

 Sunday?

Elmer: Largely like it is now. The Baptists fought with the Methodists. And the

 Methodists fought with everybody. And the Catholics stayed to themselves.

 And that was about it. In 1940 when I was with the Post Office, when I went

 away to World War II, there probably weren’t 4 Catholic families in the area.

 By the time the war was over, with the influx and everything, we had a

 Catholic church very shortly.

Interviewer: The same one that’s here now?

Elmer: Yeah.

Interviewer: Did you ever go ice skating?

Elmer: Oh, yeah. When I lived on Front Street, to the right of us, leading up to

 Stevenson Lane, toward Winter Quarters, to the left of that, all winter, the

 water stayed in that whole area coming in from the swamp and in the winter it

 would freeze in there. You’d go to the swamp and put your skates on and

 skate all the way to the river. There were places you’d make pads. There were

 the cypress trees and stuff and you’d make space. And skate in big circles

 and everything. You were always taking a chance, but after you really learned

 to skate, you weren’t taking as much chance. It wasn’t that deep if you did

 fall.

Interviewer: So, it was frozen all year? All winter?

Elmer: No, it would be only frozen at times. It would be a week or two and

 then lay off a while. We never played ice hockey or anything too much. We

 did try to knock the thing around a little bit…Not enough ice really. It was

 more ice than we had for many years  after that.

Interviewer: What about dating when you were younger? Did you go out on

 dates?

Elmer: Not very much. I had a twin sister. And everywhere she went, I had to

 go. With 2 other girls, probably. That explains….I was girl shy. We always had

 1 or 2 in the house, all summer, and whenever they went out, I’d have to go

 along, a protector or something.

Interviewer: When you lived on your farm, were you self-sufficient out there?

 Or did you have to go to town a lot?

Elmer: Well, we always went once a week. We had country stores. My

 grandfather ran a store, down on, oh, half a mile away. We’d go there. But

 we’d go to town about once a week.

Interviewer: Going into community life now….What kind of major events did

 you have during the year?

Elmer: On the farm?

Interviewer: In town.

Elmer: Well, in the summer they had (audio not clear) I don’t remember if it

 was 2 weeks or 1…The (audio not clear) brought in good shows and

 musicals and things we ordinarily couldn’t afford or didn’t have in a small

 community. They had special plays for the children. My sister went, but I was

 always  working.   And, of course, the usual parades and everything. Fourth

 of July  and all that stuff.

Interviewer: So, they had more parades then than they do now here?

Elmer: Well, each community had little things. And then we had the fair. And

 when the circuses came to town, we didn’t go too much for that. Although,

 later on I did, but we didn’t go. My father didn’t care too much for them. He

 did bring us to a big circus. It wasn’t Barnum and Bailey, but it was one of the

 bigger circuses they had. One year when they were here, my father brought

 us in. I thought they were great because of the horse acts they put on. And

 the tigers.

Continues next Saturday here at The Pocomoke Public Eye.