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Paperwork testing, testing, testing. Paperwork. This is March 12, 1997. This is Harvey Schwartz. And I'm with uh Robert Red Alexander in um we're in Castro Valley, California, right, United States, 12 March 1997. Um, Red, I was gonna ask you a couple of, just a couple of

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things like um Uh, when you were born and where you were born, born in Oakland 1916. October 16, 1916. I was born on Thirty-seventh between Grove and Telegraph in North Oakland. OK. My grandfather's house, my grandmother, my father lost my father in 19, I was born

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in 16. Uh I'm probably married my mother in 1914. I was born in 1916. He died in 18, you know, over two years ago, so I. Mother went back to work and she worked in the telephone company went back to work in the telephone company. My

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grandmother took me and raised me, an Irish grandmother come from Ireland. She was born in Kilkenny, Ireland. She came here when she was a little girl. What, uh, how, how did your dad pass away? Flu epidemic 1818. He had asthma to start with and. What had

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he done as a, uh, what had he done for work? What kind of work had he done, your dad? Well, he was an engineer on ships at that time he was in the navy. Maybe it went to, went to, England, or not France, you know, the,

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not England, France, and They, uh, they all came down with the flu over there. The whole ship loaded and they were transferred. He was on the West Gala ship with my uncle. My uncle brought him home and his mother. And uh my uncle was an engineer

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on ship now then one after one with the fire department. My grandfather was an engineer on ship from Scotland came over here. My father had asthma to start with and he came over here from Scotland. They thought he. The, the climate in the desert do better

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for him, you know. They pretty near killed him, so they had this doctor there told him to go to San Francisco because they had the nearest climate to San Francisco and they did that in Scotland. So then he grew up in San Francisco. My grandfather worked

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off of some of the ships off of the Aria, you know, on the Magnolia, the Manchuria. Pacific mail line, and that's where I met my grand, my, his son, my father, real, He, uh, Went to see as an engineer too for his father was an engineer

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and uh my uncle met him and brought him home and so he met my mother. Wow, when did, when did you, when did your folks first come over from Scotland? Do you know when? Oh, he came, my grandfather came from Scotland. I guess my grandfather was

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born in 1888 around the turn of the century around 1900s. But I know my uncle, uh, was in the and they had the 1900s, the Boston rebellion and China, he was the one working on the make sure at that time too, I guess when he met,

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met my, uh, met my father and grandfather. And they're on the Mercuria, the Manchuria or the Magnolia, I know which one I got the picture in there, which one of them is on it. But anyway, they were buddies who gives them a trip and we brought

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them home and he met my mother and he had, he bought himself a motorcycle, a big Indian motorcycle. My mother said she married the motorcycle. She didn't. The name. We were crazy about motorcycles. My mother was a wild one. She could get away with it on

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a boat or anything, do anything, you know. Well, now, um, your, That's my clock that the company gave me. It strikes on 8, right, right. That's right, yeah, every 8 hours it changes, you know. That's over here. See where I was at. That was 11. 11

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that was that was 7 times I went off that time. The next time we'll go 8 hours, 88 times, then we'll go back to 1, you know, up to 4. OK, um. So your, um, your dad and your granddad were basically Scottish. Oh yeah, my grandfather

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came to this country, he, he, after he quit the uh the shipping business, he went to work for the PG&E engineer down in the gas house making gas down in the steam to run steam up to the building. I know my grandfather, my mother telling me

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when I go down and said that's what your grandfather does. They see the steam go out of the manhole, you know, on a cold day they'd run steam from Clay Street up to the buildings up in Oakland, and they all went through under the ground in

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the paint, and that's where they had their heat, and he run that big boilers down there to the engineers. They told him, they say his name was George Alexander, and they said you've got to have a middle name. Everybody has a middle name in this country,

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so he took George Washington Alexander. And now that was your um your granddad. What was your dad's name? Dean Alexander. Dean Alexander. He was named after that general, uh, they were cousins or something. Remember that Dean that got caught over in China or something like that,

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shot up or something. He was a general, a dean. Well, he was in the news quite a while ago. Him and him were, they were cousins. I see. Named after one another. OK. And what was your mom's name? Marie, Marie Barlow. Marie. Her maiden name was

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Barlow. Barlow. Barlow. That's a big, long pioneer family here. My grandfather was born in my mother's downtown. I don't know much about my father's side, only that they were born in Scotland. I worked on the ship. My father came home, met my mother. He went in

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the service and. They told me very little about it because I tell you there was a religious business in mixed in between here somewhere, you know, because my Irish grandmother Catholic and they were Presbyterians in them days they didn't, and they were Masons. My father was

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4032 degree Mason and my grandfather was way up high in the Masons. He was some knights of Saint George or something. They looked like an admiral. They wore a hat and sword and everything like an admiral and uh the two families. Never got together and when

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I was a little kid, they took me up to my father passed away. My mother took me up to see my grandmother and grandpa up in Diamond, lived in Diamond at that time. He worked, he quit the shipping business, went to PG&E, and he had a

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big home on Diamond up there in Diamond. Took me up there and he had a lot of oriental vases he brought from China when he was working on the ships. And I guess I knocked over one of the vases that broke and they said, take that

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brat home and don't bring him back. My mother had to have a big fight and I never saw my grandfather after that at all. When I was a little kid, I was about 12 years old. I was downtown with my mother going across on Broadway in

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Oakland and uh he says uh there was a lot of people going across in the streets and uh yeah some days had streetcars going up and down Broadway. And he says, there, there goes your grandpa's across the street. A lot of times I, I look, I

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say, well, you're looking the wrong way, you dummy. Look over that way, you, Uh, just, you know, tall, white haired man among the crowd. He was very tall. And we went through there and, uh, that's the only time I ever saw him, right on the back

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of his head, you know, way over across the street. What, what kind of work had he done when he worked on ships? Engineer. He'd been an engineer. In the engineer. OK. And your dad was also an engineer? Yeah, my uncle, my uncle was an engineer in

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the Indian room, and then he went to work for the fire department after World War One. We come back. He was on the West Galact too. What was, what was his name? My uncle, yeah, I borrowed. He's my mother's brother. He's my uncle. His first name

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was Henry. Henry. He worked for the fire department. I got his badge in there. He put in. 40 years an engineer in the fire department. I didn't quite get the sequence where your, your, your dad went to the desert for a time. Oh, when he was

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a little boy. Oh, when he was a little boy, when they first came from the asthma so bad that they thought. With everybody has it over in Europe they have the flu or epidemic or some of them thing they bought it. Somebody told him if he

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went and lived in the desert he'd be sure of that. If he did that, it pretty nearly killed him. Right. So they moved to San Francisco. So they moved to see. That's how he got, that's how he got to San Francisco. Now you mentioned your mom,

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um, Uh, went to work for the telephone company after your dad died. Oh, before. Oh, no. She went to work for the telephone company with a little girl, a young girl. She, they had men working in the telephone company for that time, and they give the

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people a hard time. They get drunk, and they have a trolley line running down to the bar, you know, to get a, bring that up to the pier. So somebody got that idea to put women on, see if it, it works better with women. That's on

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the old Franklin office on Franklin Street in Oakland. So my mother was about, oh, yeah, she was, Maybe 16 I guess or so. Or 15. Heard another girl heard that they were hiring girls up at the counselor's office. So they went up to see if they

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get a job. Of course, they lied about their age, I guess, too, you know. And they, they hired them. They got, they got, they got a job. And she worked with, she was working at the phone company and told them, So I, I came along. Uh,

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how many years from now? She was born in, Let's see how many years I can figure it out. She was born in 1890. So when she'd be 16, that'd be by the time the 1904 earthquake in San Francisco in about the year 906. So she must

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have went to work about, around that time and I didn't come along until, Till 16, so there was another 10 years that she worked in the telephone company, so I can figure that out pretty close to it was 10 years she worked until before I was

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before she met my father. Well. He met my father at 14. Would be 8 or 9 years anyways, uh, I don't know if there's one that's taking it down real close. Anyway, then she, when she met my father, he had this big old motorcycle to ride

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around with, so then she, And I guess you, you, Uh, went back in the World War, World War One came along, so they went back in the service and my uncle too, they went back in the service. And uh They were on the ship together, the

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West Galops. For some reason, they were on the same ship. So then when they went to France, They shipped to, my father was shipped over to them, Uh, Connecticut Battlefield, Connecticut, and then they, they came back and went to Baltimore, and they, they, a whole bunch

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of ships, they died. They were all sick. The whole ship was sick with the flu. They, they think they play, they brought it back over here with them. Yeah, I know it was a big, it was a famous epidemic actually. Yeah. It swept over the Western

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people died at that time. Yeah. We all had, had it home there too. Uh, see, I was, I was born, see, I was born in 16. He didn't die until 18, so I was home two year old and I didn't have the flu, but everybody, my

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uncles and, All the other, my mother, all, we all had the flu weeks or so at a time, you know. But anyway, my mother, when I was born, she quit the telephone company. So she'd been there with them all them years, you know, and she quit

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the telephone company and, of course, she had to, you know, so then they, it's different than they are today. And then, uh, when my father died, she, you know, my grandfather, her father owned the. People's Express years ago in Oakland. He owned the Express store. That's

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a big long story there too. You know, he was born in Alameda, old pioneer. His father came out from over the wagons from out here. This is your mom's, uh. Well, I'm talking about my mom's people now. I don't know. Yeah, right. Any more about my

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father. Yeah, no, that's, that's, yeah. In fact. In fact, my father had a sister, And then she married a man named Baldwin, and I don't, I never saw her. I never, never did see her. I know I never saw my grandmother. I don't, I couldn't tell

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you what they looked like or my grandfather, and I know I don't even see the back of his head from when I was too young, doesn't remember anything like that anyway, they, um. Uh, my aunt called me up one time and said, I'm your aunt. I'm

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very sick and I'd like to see you before anything happens to me. I said, Well, sure, where do you live? I'll come up and see you. I have nothing wrong with anything like that. I, I've never done whatever fight between my family. I was Christian in

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both churches. I was Christian in the Catholic Church and Christian Presbyterian Church, so there was a hell of a friction at that time. So my mother told my grandpa where to go, and she never saw him anymore. After my, my father had already passed, so she

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had to go out and get a job. She said to him, you know, she hadn't had to support me. I mean, I didn't, I wasn't. They can just for me. I, I come here without. Want to be here. I didn't know, I had nothing to do

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with it. So, He went to work in the candy store across the street from the telephone company. She went across the street and got a job there because she knew that she could buy candy and ice cream and stuff in there, you know, right across the

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street from the, the television on Franklin Street and so can I ask you a question? May not know what the answer to this. By the way, sometimes I nod rather than talk because I want your voice, not mine, most of the time. Is there any, was

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there any possibility that the telephone company wouldn't take your mother back because she had a child? Sometimes they were, those companies were real old fashioned them days she just figured she was out, so she didn't even bother going over and ask them. She, she quit them.

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See, I quit. They have no maternity leave or any of that. No, there was nothing, nothing like that in them days. Nothing like that in them days. That was completely you, you, you, you every time you go home. If they feel like taking you back, they

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take you back and they didn't want to take you back, then she didn't even bother going down and asking them. She went down to, I, I don't know everything about it. I'm too young, you know. Maybe she went back and they didn't give her a job

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back or maybe she was just afraid to go back and things, you know. People them days didn't, didn't, Didn't push anything in, in the government or anything like that. You didn't, never heard of such a thing going down and say, oh, that guy wouldn't give me

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a nice job. I told him to sue him because he wouldn't give me a job. There was no such thing as suit. Nobody ever sued anybody for anything back in them days. And she went to work in the candy store because she got a good job

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there and maybe paid as much much more than maybe the candy store. I mean, they told somebody this. Anyway, one of the guys came in on the Valentine's Day to buy some for his wife and he said, hey, what are you doing over here? He knew

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her. She was in the company over there. He was a Same time she went to work at the company and he, he's already got upgrading going up there a little in a job, you know. What are you doing over here? I said, well, because I got,

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got married. And I have a son and my husband died. I gotta have a job. I have to support him, you know. Because my mother's taking care of the boy. He said, well, he said, you come right back over and go to work over here. I

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said, well, I'm not going back and start over again. He said, if you come back, he said, you never left. He said, I'll fix the books. He said, you never left the place. So, Someday you'll get a pension. Your pension will be from the day you

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start here to back. She goes, You'll never, never know when you're left. I'll fix it on the pension. So you're a good worker. I want you back there. So she went back to work. She said, Don't come here and quit the country. So I went back

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to work and she got to be finally she got to be a supervisor and then on the switchboard, you know, going along, and then she got later on she got to be a, a troubleshooter. She. Keep harmony between the girls, you know, they oversee, you know,

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go for to to, you know, they have a problem in their office from the girls fighting with one another. They send her out there. They give her a car and she never learned to drive and she wouldn't take the car. She'd take the bus or streetcar,

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you know, to the. Like in the middle of the night you go out, you know, in the middle of the night, you know, you work the night shift. Always worked the night shift and she, she go out and uh. That's just nicely. Well, your car, your,

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your cars and you never use your car, you know, some, she let some other guys use it, you know, they said they're not supposed to do that. That car was signed to you and uh you, you use it, and if you don't use it, you take

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a taxi and we'll pay the taxi. Oh, I don't want a taxi. So she can't take the bus, you know, the streetcar and go from one place to another. They love her. She, she, she worked 47 years for this company. Wow, she had a little pin

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that diamonds for every 5 years or something they had to take that so many diamonds on that she couldn't. But for now, But uh she tried to make 50 years, but she, her eyes went bad and her hearing went bad, so she. Thank you. Varicle veins

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and the like, she couldn't travel too much on the buses and stuff, so she's, Quit during the war. She quit during the war, so she worked all the way there from 1906 essentially until the period of the war. Yeah, that would be. Well, she's been moving

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in on that 47 years 47 years she quit in wow that's not counting the 3 years she went out right no they did the same thing with me down in Pacific dry dock. I I, I, I quit them one time and they, they got me to

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come back. They, it's my time to drink. I, I worked in the same. They took over the company that I worked for. They went broke. I went to Martin. No. I worked for Martin Noli. I quit Crawley. I went to work for Martin Noli, and Martin

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Noli Crawley bought them out and they said, Hey, will you come back and go to work for us, you know, we'll tell you. I said, Well, they make my time. I never left you. OK. Oh, that's good. Just tear your paper up. Uh, we'll get, we'll

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get into that. We'll go back onto that one. I mean, but do, do you know, you don't know the name of the guy who, um, Who saw your mom in the candy store. No, I wouldn't. OK, right, for the record, we don't know that name. OK.

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It'd only be a while. It'd only be a guess, but find it out and find out, go down to the telephone company and find out who were working, people who were working that time, and who, you know, there's a dozen guys, you know, sure, sure, which

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one would it be, um, and let's see, her, her name was, um, her full name was, was. Marie Alexander, Marie Barlow was her maiden name. Marie Barlow Marie Alexander when she married my father, right? And you say that your, your grandparents raised you during much of

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that time. Her mother raised her mom. That's what my mother, her mother, grandfather. My grandfather was Barlow. I could go under the name Barlow. I was always on the street knowing that it was a Barlow kid, you know. If I broke a window down the street

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or shot an arrow through somebody's house, then that damn Barlow kid down the street, he's the one that raises all the hell around here, you know. I see and they were pioneer. That's a pioneer family you're saying, but they're Irish. Well, my grandmother was. She come

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from Ireland. She came from Kilkenny, Ireland. Uh-huh. And, and she married this fellow from Alameda and borrowed, but he came, his father came over the plains, Holding and build a house in Alameda. Alameda wasn't an island then. It was a peninsula. Yeah. Come in there and,

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uh, he covered wagon and he bought a big piece of land for $25. And uh from from Spaniards and then he gave away pieces of the land to get neighbors to come and live next to him so he'd have backup neighbors around him. And uh he,

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he got to be constable in Alameda. There's a whole record of him in the Alameda County. I can go to the Alameda County library and get you on him. It's OK. Uh, he, he, he has a big long record on him in Alameda buying and shooting

00:19:05.570 - 00:19:16.660

the City Hall up because they raised his taxes. He shot the City Hall full of holes because they raised his taxes and they took his gun away from him. See, I got a watch in there. The, the watch is so big you had to have a

00:19:16.660 - 00:19:32.620

gun on the other side to balance your, the watch is so damn heavy. Big silver watch. Uh, I got his cane in there, my grandfather's cane. That's good. In 191,870, they gave him a cane. He started getting crippled up and gave him a cane. The odd

00:19:32.640 - 00:19:45.870

fellows. I see. And his, um, I'm gonna show you the cane. OK. You know what? Well, you got a letter. I got a letter. OK. You hang on the doorknob right there, the door inside, yeah. I guess I don't think. Sure. I want to see his

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box too. OK. Um, and he married me. She, she was in live in San Francisco. She came around the horn, came down on a sailing ship with her father, you know, from Ireland. This is Henry Barlow's wife, hm, Henry Barlow's wife we're talking about, yeah, yeah,

00:20:00.710 - 00:20:16.480

yeah. Henry, uh, no, Albert Barlow, not the Henry Barlow. Albert. Oh, Albert, OK. That'd be my grandfather Albert. Henry was his son. So Albert is the, is his father, is Henry's father, OK, um. He was Henry Barlow too. This one, him was Henry Barlow too. They

00:20:16.480 - 00:20:32.760

named their son after their grandfather. Oh, they did after his father, but they, um, but, but they, but you, but your mom was Catholic. They were Catholic, yeah, yeah, from, from the, from the Irish side, but my grandfather, uh, the pioneer grandfather, he didn't want any

00:20:32.760 - 00:20:43.440

religion. He didn't, they never, never bothered him, but at the end when he was dying at the end. A little Scotchwoman came up, wanted to know, she said, Didn't you get a priest for that, man? She said, No, he didn't, he didn't. Well, you know, I'm

00:20:43.440 - 00:20:54.840

going to get a priest. So she got a priest and brought a priest down. Well, grandpa had a stroke, you know, and he was out. That was 1927. I remember I was only about, I was 11 years old. I remember my grandfather. He was a real

00:20:54.840 - 00:21:08.090

nice guy. He was really swell to me, and, uh. The priest said I can't do nothing for him, so he's out, you know. I have to talk to him first so he can't baptize. He's never been, has he ever been baptized? No, he's never been baptized.

00:21:08.150 - 00:21:21.240

He didn't baptize anybody in the family over there in days, you know. I said, well, he said, I have to go and baptize him. He said, I mean, everything's great, you know, and, but I have to have his word. So finally he came to the next

00:21:21.300 - 00:21:36.950

day. And they said, uh, this little skatwoman was there living next to my, well, he's a good friend of my grandmother. And uh she she went back up and got the priest to come down and it was 3 or 4 blocks 40th. 37th Street down to

00:21:36.950 - 00:21:49.740

37th when I was born. And the priest asked me, he said, Why, why didn't you ever you like to join the church? Yeah, he said, Why didn't you join after all these years? You're 70 some odd years old. You're 75. He said, Well, nobody ever asked

00:21:49.740 - 00:22:11.180

me. Good question. Nobody ever asked me to join, so I just never did. And what have you been doing for work all along? You may have mentioned him. He was an express business, express, express, moving trunk. Freight, freight on the, on the, on the People's Express

00:22:11.180 - 00:22:24.300

Company. Him and 3 other fellows went in 2 other fellows went into business. They were on 1st, 1st and Broadway in Oakland. My grandpa had a horse and a wagon when he was just a young fellow. 20 years old or so and then he would haul

00:22:24.300 - 00:22:35.010

a trunk for 50 cents up to your house. Everybody had timber trunks them days and they come in the Overland Saloon on 1st and Broadway. The train came in. That's as far as it went. Then you had to get a boat or something to go to

00:22:35.010 - 00:22:47.060

San Francisco. So everybody get off in Oakland. They have to transfer your, your trunks over, you know, and they move them to your house. And then they, uh, two other guys there, they start saying I'll move it for 35 cents. I'll move it for 25 cents,

00:22:47.080 - 00:23:02.860

and hey, you guys, we're, we're cutting one another's throat. Let's go into business together. So all three went into business, you know, they opened the People's Express. I'm, I'm talking about 1870, way back in them days, right, right, um, got it. OK, um. Tell me if

00:23:02.860 - 00:23:14.340

you could something about your youth. I know that at one point when you were about 7, you were sailing in the bay and the boat went over and you were in the water for 3 hours. Well, that's, uh, that was, um, I was older than 7.

00:23:14.430 - 00:23:29.750

I was older than 7. I was not old enough. Oh, you were when that incident occurred? Yeah. Oh, I guess I was 1716, 17. 0, you were in your teens by that time. You were a teenager by that time. Oh yeah, yeah. I built a boat

00:23:29.780 - 00:23:48.990

in my backyard. OK. Um, tell me about your education then and where you went to school and stuff. I was my because Irish grandmother, they had me go to Catholic school. I didn't get along very good there. I mean, I, I was their maintenance people. I

00:23:48.990 - 00:24:01.810

did all their work for them. I mean, in the school, I, Fix anything that went broke, I'd fix it for him. I had a great novelty for fixing things when I was a little kid, you know. I mean, my uncle, he was an engineer in the

00:24:01.810 - 00:24:15.810

fire department at that time. He quit the navy and then the fire department. He had a married and had a wife, and his wife died in childbirth, and grandma took, we raised all the grandkids. There were 6 of us, 66 cousins, first cousins all raised together,

00:24:15.900 - 00:24:27.640

and I was the youngest of all of them. Well, they were all over 12 years or so above me. By the time I got to be 12, they were 24, we got out and getting married, you know, leaving home. Leaving poor grandma, you know, behind. Well,

00:24:27.720 - 00:24:41.300

grandma took all the kids in and raised all her grandkids. They all had trouble. One aunt, her husband got killed by a railroad train all over them. Another one is divorced. My father died. Another one of his wife died. So they're all, Grandkids all came back

00:24:41.320 - 00:24:51.670

to grandma said, Well, I take one, I take the other one. She raised all the grandkids in the house. They all raised 3 girls and 3 boys. They're all raised together, you know, just like brothers and sisters. We're like brothers and sisters. All had different names

00:24:51.670 - 00:25:09.810

though. And uh there was Albert Branson and the tear. Alexander Barro, all different, different names, you know, they all went to Catholic schools and And I did too. My mother went to Saint Francis Sales School, so I went there, but I didn't get along very good

00:25:09.810 - 00:25:23.990

as far as my spelling and reading ability was terrible. But everything else was fine. I history and geography, everything was perfect, you know. I mean, I mean, I did all the maintenance work for him. Started out by the shades wouldn't go up. They pulled the shades,

00:25:24.040 - 00:25:33.430

the shades wouldn't, they wouldn't come back down again, so the springs had sprung. So I was taught how to take that at home and put a fork on it and turn this, turn the fork around and get the little dog to go in and the spring

00:25:33.430 - 00:25:46.830

that certainly worked fine, you know. May, may I ask you, where, you know, you, you were in the era that we're doing the taping. I mean, you're known as a master model builder. You've been a shipwright. Where did this ability come from? Do you, do you

00:25:46.830 - 00:25:59.670

have an idea where this ability to work so well? With him for my uncle, so he did all the work at home, you know, they all did. He was a, Pretty good, you know, he's fixing things around the house, you know, and everything like that. Just,

00:26:00.220 - 00:26:13.020

just really just started it. I don't know. I mean, it comes from my father's side, I know that. I mean, he came from my mother's side where, where, where my grandfather was. He was an express manager moving stuff, and I learned to. In my early days,

00:26:13.330 - 00:26:31.940

and, you know, run away down school down to the waterfront and got tangled up with building a boat home like boats and, you know, I was building boats in my backyard and model ships and fixing things, you know, hell. 6 years old or so, 667 years

00:26:31.940 - 00:26:45.540

old. I don't, don't go get driving yellow and put it in the rudder, let it go down the gutter. But I had to make things and fix things, you know, we used to make guns, shoot rubbers, you know, put a clothespin on the back end of

00:26:45.540 - 00:26:57.000

a gun, you know, and make a gun when I was a kid. We shoot, uh, gangs, you know, we had to talk about gangs today. We had gangs, we Because one gang would be in the front, that was the good guys and the bad guys would

00:26:57.000 - 00:27:06.520

be in the backyard, and we try to take the backyard over, you know, or the Indians were back there and the cowboys were out in front, you know, and they took these rubbers and hit you, they were out, you know, that's when you're out of the

00:27:06.520 - 00:27:20.440

game altogether. See how many wiped all the other guys out. But it was just constant fishing thing when I went to school. I was tall for my age, and they put up flowers around. Pictures on the, on the boards, up on the, over the board. I

00:27:20.440 - 00:27:33.860

always call her to reach the sisters and have me put them up for them, you know. That was their stepladder. And then, uh, put the flag up and take it down. Faucets leaked in the galley. I fixed the faucets for them, put new washers in for

00:27:33.860 - 00:27:45.980

them. I taught all my uncle taught me all that at home because he was an engineer, you know, I come from an engineer family can help him about that, you know. So I'm always clever in fixing things. I still. God, I fix things over at the

00:27:45.980 - 00:27:56.730

church. I, I belong to church over here. I'm constantly fixing. I got things over here all the time fixing something for them, you know, candlesticks over get broken. This gets broken. All kinds of things get broken over there. I, I'm, I'm on call all the time

00:27:56.830 - 00:28:15.730

over here fixing things. And I fixed everything around here. I know, I know all my own housework and everything, but anyway, I used to fix everything down there. Um, you know, the, When the boiler, The, the guy that run the boiler when the cold, he, he,

00:28:15.820 - 00:28:25.490

he got hurt. Some fellow hit him on the head down at the church, and I, I went down. I'd run the boiler for him in the cold weather, turned the boiler on and get it going, you know, the, the steam heat for the school, you know,

00:28:25.680 - 00:28:36.860

and things like that. One day they figured there was no heat coming through the, through the heaters, you know, in the, in the classroom, and I went to look at my So in the end somebody had poked the pencil down that little valve at the end,

00:28:37.160 - 00:28:50.000

broke the pencil off, and I drilled it out for them and well they got steam all the way down. Oh, I was wonderful, wonderful. I could do anything for them. But anyway, now at some point, at some point I got mad. No one left. Oh, you

00:28:50.000 - 00:29:03.110

got, you got, OK. Oh, finally I got mad. I got cut out right. They keep me back. I was 2 years behind, you know. And my poor mother, she worked in a telephone company. She'll come in the company and come over and see me. I live

00:29:03.110 - 00:29:15.340

with my grandmother, but she, she got married again. We got remarried again in 1927, she remarried again. And I didn't like the guy. I don't want to go to live with him. I don't want to stay with my grandmother. So, And of course I lost my

00:29:15.340 - 00:29:27.550

grandfather again. The grandma had to have some. I figured she took care of me with all these years, I'm gonna pay her back. So the other kids are all leaving home, you know. So I stayed home and took care of her. Uh, you know, to the

00:29:27.550 - 00:29:39.110

parents around and take care of the place. That's why a lot of ability there, you know, to fixing things up around the house and everything. But anyway, and our son was living home, so he worked in the fire department. He worked for 3 days to be

00:29:39.110 - 00:29:55.830

on, 3 days he'd be gone, so. Anyway, uh, I went on to, Getting dissatisfied with, you know, I wanted to, See, well, it started out by, because I want to see your mother, you know. I want to take my mother down to, uh, go down to

00:29:55.830 - 00:30:06.110

school and see him. And he said, you got to help the boy. His spelling and reading is bad, you know. He's real bad. He can't spell cat. Uh, he's been in school for how many years and he can't even spell cat, you know. I don't know

00:30:06.110 - 00:30:24.310

what was the matter with me. I just couldn't, couldn't catch anything, you know. So anyway, Uh, Finally wound up for one day at the end of the teacher told, I wanna see you. I don't wanna see him. I wanna see you. Your grandmother. Oh, grandmother can't

00:30:24.310 - 00:30:37.110

come down. She's got rheumatism. She's, we live miles from the school and, uh, she, she can't do that. Yeah. Grandmother was getting up, she was getting Alzheimer's hitting her. She didn't know that it was going to come, I had to bring my report card home this

00:30:37.110 - 00:30:46.190

time. I just turned it over and she'd find it and I'd never look at the other side. I'd take it back to school, you know. It was, uh, it was. Here, let me, let me, uh, turn the tape over, OK? Yeah. OK.