Recollections from generations past (Elmer A. Brittingham -10)

 

Interview Transcript

Interviewer: Did you ride the train much? Other than riding to Ocean City?

Elmer: Oh, not much. Oh, yes, days we did, because if we went anywhere, that

 was the only way to go. Sometimes we would go to Washington to baseball

 games. But the times we went to Philadelphia, we had boys that played on an

 athletic team from this area, we went by automobile. I remember going once

 to Washington, going to the Smithsonian. We went by train. We went, I don’t

 know, we’d go up to Wilmington. And then you don’t have to go around.

Interviewer: Do you remember Red Hills? Near Snow Hill?

Elmer: Oh, yeah. That was an old place to summer. Like a resort. Not a resort,

 but like a beach with a hill high above it, wooded. And the beach was fairly

 nice. It was, best I can remember, south of Public Landing. We never went

 there too much, but I knew it was there.

Interviewer: What kind of legends and superstitions did they have? Like about

 the woods? And the river?

Elmer: I’m not much on superstitions. I can’t help you much on that.

Interviewer: Well, did you hear about them?

Elmer: Yeah, perhaps, but not being of a superstitious nature, I probably don’t

 remember too many. I really can’t help you much with that one.

Interviewer: I’ve heard that the river, the Pocomoke River, gets one person a

 year. And the next year it’ll take 2.

Elmer: Yeah, it gets many if they can’t swim well, I’ll tell you that.

Interviewer: The hangings. Did you ever go to one?

Elmer: I never went to one. They did have public hangings. The one case, this

 Italian person who came as a laborer on a farm. The family took him in, and I

 don’t remember who he killed, somebody in the family, two of them, I think,

 but they hung him. And my older brother, you know, he didn’t see it, but he

 heard about it. And this house we lived in…I was 7 years old..on 3rd Street.

 And so he had me stand on a chair and he took the cord off the curtain and

 wrapped it around my neck, tied it to the rod, and then pulled the chair out

 from under me. I suppose I got red in the face. I don’t remember it, but I

 heard them talk about it a lot of times.

Interviewer: Before they hung somebody, I heard they would drive him

 through town and then take him out somewhere…

Elmer: I don’t remember that. But this time, I didn’t see it, but they took him

 from the jail, after he was tried, to the scene of the murder. It was a farm with

 woods right along side, that’s all. It was like some people went for the

 excitement, but the really good people didn’t go for those things.

Interviewer: (audio not clear)…some of your high class people wouldn’t be

 seen there?

Elmer: That’s right. Of course, all the drunks and the bums went. Usually.

Interviewer: What kind of music did you have then?

Elmer: Well, we came into the jazz age, so to speak. They had a glee club in

 the school. I never played in it, but my sister did. I got a banjo mandolin and

 played that like a mandolin. Then I had a (audio not clear) and I took a few

 lessons. And taught my sister to play. And she caught on quite well and

 continued to play. But, I never stayed with it long enough. I liked it alright, but

 the Scotsman I took lessons from, he charged me for every lesson, I

 should’ve been prompted by it, but I guess I didn’t have the knack for it.

Interviewer: Were there any big storms that happened around Pocomoke?

Elmer: Not really. Yeah, we had places at time where the hurricanes struck.

 The place down here by Accomac. It was many years ago. I did see it,

 afterwards. It was about half a mile and 100 yards wide. Cleaned out like

 every tree, everything.

Interviewer: Like a tornado?

Elmer: Yeah, a tornado. I said hurricane, but it was a tornado. Yeah, but

 nothing really big. There were no houses there, but everybody could see

 what it had done.

Interviewer: What about the Farmers’ Day. Or Foresters’ Day? Do you

 remember that?

Elmer: Oh, at Public Landing? They had a day every summer for the farmers. I

 don’t know. We didn’t go to that after we moved to town much. But they did

 have it and they still have it. Most of the time, now, I think different families

 gather up around at Milbourne Landing for Farmers’ Day…(audio not clear)

 Now they got it down to families.

Interviewer: Do you remember Klej Grange?

Elmer: Yeah.

Interviewer: Did you ever go out there?

Elmer: Yeah, but I can’t tell you too much about, I just know that they made

 plans to expand it, to build it up on a higher level and hope one time have a

 canal go through onto the bay, but it didn’t materialize. But I’m not up on it.

Interviewer: You didn’t know anybody from there?

Elmer: Yeah, there was a woman who worked in the Salisbury State library

 who was involved for a while, but I can’t tell you her name or anything.

 The details have sort of left be because (audio not clear). But I did know

 about it. It's where Mark Pilchard lives now, the man who is in the legislature. 

--End--

(This series continues next Saturday with recollections from Mrs. Flossie Douglas who began teaching in Worcester County in 1926.)