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\Ve used to have a stone battle every day practically with the Rementers 12 down at Wyman Park bridge.. . But if y u went over there and the caught you, they'd beat the heck out of you. .. And the same way with u s: When we caught an one in Hampden ... that didn't bel ng there, then we'd beat the hell out of them. .. And if you went up F alls Road around Union Avenue . .. all had to watch y ourself IIp there . .. But as time went by, and we come into our teenage, Remington began to come over and going with our girl s that lived in Hampden. And then we began to going with their girls. 1bat's how it all settled down.. . You didn't run around too lllUcll, really. You didn't ha e the money or anything like that. When you took a girl out the quickest thing was to take her to the movies, and take her to Cavacos aud get a sundae . And that w as big night for au. .. You only had about fifty ~nts .. .

Horace and Maxine McDonald 728 . Horace and Maxine McDonald came to Stone Hill from the Carolinas. as did many others, at the beginning of World War II They both worked in the mill, and after it closed down in [972, Maxine workedfor thefabric outlet that took over a parr ofthe building on Ches£nut Avenue. Today they are approaching seventy and both retired. For several years Horace has had trouble with rhe circulation in his legs. CUld when my ife and l firs t moved to Stone Hill, we could look across the back alley and see him in the summertime sitting out on his back porch with his beloved dog. Bo. About the rime the accomJXlnyin plwtograph was taken in 1987, Horace became bedridden, and I would have to go over whenl wanted to see him. Ul 1989 they sold the house and mo ed back to the Carolinas. Horace and Maxine always greeted me warmly. They let me photograph them on several ' ccasions, but they were reluctant to talk about life in Stone Hill.

Dorothy (Cook) Walter 713 Dorothy Walter has lived in SlOne Hill almost all her life. Both her mother, Dulsy Belt, and her fathe r. Raynwnd Cook, Sr., lived on [he Hill, and many ofher brothers COld sisters were born in ehe house at 716 Puritan Street, where her younger siSler Dora lives today. I had not seen Dorothyarowui the neighborhood,for she had not been well and comes oue of her house infre quemly. I had two taping essions with her, and she was indulgent

12

The people from Remington.

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enough to let me photogTaph her on three sqXlrate occasions--before I obtained {h e photograph

1 wanted. Dorothy raised her (Jwnjm1'l ily at 713 Bay Street and today lives there alone exceptfor frequent visits from children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. My mother was ... raised ... in Baltimore Cmmty .. . and m y father, he was born in outh Baltimore and went to school reo He used to go crab ing t.bere early in the morning, down in the--I guess in the Patapsco.. My father's father worked on the r ailroad, and they lived over ... at 716 Puritan Street. .. 1 wasn't born on the Hill. I was born up on Chestnut and 33rcL Katercorner from the Mount Vernon Church there used to be a big grocery store--a three-s tory building. Helen's parents ran it--Helen Bullock. .. I was bom in that house--my mother and father had an apartment there.1 3 .. The grocery store was downstairs. And they tore that down some years ago ... There used to be a Chinese laundry along there... [and a] shoemaker.. . The [wooden] building that was there originally was 10m down . . . And m mother and father moved into one of those little house that used to be on Singer Avenue ..". They burned down in the flfties . .. I was born in that one bouse. The doctor that we had lived over 011 the other corner from the church building.. . My mother's parents li ed there, and she rented the front rooms to the doctor, wbose name was Davies... She ubrented a room to him. . . Then . . . we moved down into the same house where Ms. Bullock lives [730 Puritan Street]. My father went to work for the mills then. .. My mother's mother--because my grandfather had died before my mother was married--li edin the house--lived down here where Mr. Sulli an lives [737 Bay]. .. I had two uncles, my mother's two brothers, that weren't married, that made their home there. And she died so~ti.me in the early twenties . .. [Her name] was Annie Belt. .. And then ... when the mill company started to sell the hou ses . .. my father bought this one up here where my [paternal] grandparents lived--and they lived there for a while with us . . My mother was twenty-six when she got married, and she bad her ninth child when she was forty- four ... And I had the two brotilers '\; ho aren't with us anymore--the one nex t to me and the younger one. And he made his home here with me. .. He was a schoolteacher... We were [at 730 Puritan treet] until ... around 1922 or '3... [I was hom in] 1914 .. . And I remember when we had the outhouses in the back ards . .. And I remember that tbey only had the two rooms downstairs... They built tile kitchen and the bathroom on. .. Then when they tore down the outhouses they put sheds there to hold coal. And my father's father was a railroader. And after they moved--tbey moved up on Keswick Road in a house, because my father had two brothers, and the one didn't work a lot-­ the other one did, and, of course hi s family was growing. . . . [1be] girls bad the big front room--there were fIve of us.. . We had a couple of double beds... [And] we had a smaller bed. But you don't have room for a lot of other things. Nowaday life is a lot different with hildren. They have to have· their own room. . . TIley have a lot more personal things . .. We didn't know the difference. We were happier than children are today. . .

13 T he C arroll family Ii ed ab ve th e store. Dorothy's birth pres umably to ok: place acros s the street, on the 11 rthwest c orner of 33rd and Chest nut, wher her grandparen s s ubrent ed a room to Dr. D vies.

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I was married when I w as eighteen.. . We didn't have as many [clothes] as dilldren have nowadays. We had what we needed. . . Every fall, my father--most of the time I went with him- I w as the oldest, and I would help him shop. My mother would rather stAy home w ith the children • .. W e'd get so many new dresses for school--maybe three--and a unday dress . .. And we always had ~ good pair of shoes, and a pair to play in.. . \Ve had to change them when we came home from school. .. My father's father always had a shoe last, and,he would half-sole them for us. See, that saved a lot of money. .. ometime he would bring it down, and do it outside if the weather was fit--in the side yard' we liked to w atch him. . . A big thing that's different these days--1 think YOIDlger children are more intelligent and aware of things, because they grow up a lot faster than we did. We were more interested in playing and things like that. We didn't have TV.. . The difference I think now is that--yOID1g children, the-y see so many things on TV, and what the one next door and the one down the street has, they 1m e to have. Things weren't like that. .. W e had games . . . like dominos and checkers . .. We had paper dolls we had crayons and books . .. and we had balls and ropes and . .. roller skates... We had to go out on the sidewalk. .. Now these alleys here weren't paved t.mtil the forties . .. I still have my taJ b ills. We always had nice clean dothers to wear... My mother had a water -power wasber-- i would take her all day to wash. he didn't do it all in one day . . . I remember the fIrst electric washer that she got. It was the very week that my sister [Dora] a r here was born. She was born the 29th of M ay. The next day was Memorial Day. My father had a holiday. So I helped him do the laundry. You remember certain things more than others... After we come home from school ... we bad t change our clothe s. V.le played mostly

in the yard. We had a big yard there, and that's somethin g a lot of children in the cit don't have... R ainy days, \ve had to play inside... 1 sort of helped raise the rest of [my sibling ]. I was mother to all of them ... even since they've been grown.. . TIle middle brother ... went out one day and he didn't come b ack . . . I don't know whether he asked permis ion... When be did come home he'd missed hmch, and he'd missed his ditmer. So ... my father punished ~ and he bad to stay in, and be bad to w ash dishes for a whole week .. We w eren't beat. 'W e had some thing taken away or we were grounded.. . [Father] had a temper at times, but what bothered him most would be if one of the boys told him something that wasn' t true ... Whene e.r my father came home from work, the h ildren would £lm to lrim, and he'd pick them up and hug them and kiss them... Of course he didn't have m uch time, because he worked two jobs most of the time... He w orked in the mill in those days ... [Father] went down south ... and learned about machinery and th ings for the mill, because he was the boss. .. He had two floors there at one time, the spinning and the wea ing. .. He went d wn maybe for a m onth or two. My m other was se enty when she die d. She died in '58 ... My moth~r w a four years older than my f ther. And my fatller died in 1%5. . . TIley went to work at seven in the morning... And he came home to IID1ch. .. And my mother always had a nice hmch for him... And then when he worked night work, he'd go to work in the afternoon ... and then we'd take his lID1ch down to him--two of us because usually it would be dark in the wintertime ... Because he worked in the lower mil1. .. We always had a little coffee pail. . . She had soup, and w hate er she had for his h ot meal. .. My father played in a band ... a sliding trombone! .. when the mill company had their picnics ... straight up Clipper Road. .. Those cia s, you knew everybody that lived armmd here, because they all worked in the mill, one person in the family at least... At on time I worked down there . .. I worked in the weaving room under my fatber... It was hot. .. You couldn' keep the windows up because

70 of the threads on the spools . .. You had to go up and down and make sure the threads on the spools was fed through the thlngs right. . .

I worked do'Ml in a shirt factory for a while. I was on! fourteen . . . You still had to get a pennit to work at fourteen. . . lbat w as .. . rigl acms s from the Lord Bal imore Hotel. .. I had an aunt that worked there... [I stay d] abou tw years. And I made seven dollars a week. .. Then I w orked down at the mill . .. 1 worked there in the weaving roo~ and then they had that--they started to make some kind of woven material, like a padding that they used for ironing boards . . . They taught me how to do it, and I worked there for qui te a while. . . I think [1 made] about nine dollars .. . I worlred mostly in tre. spinning [room] ... I worked with a girl that ... used a Ii e next door to me. And we went to school together . Outside of that, I never made a lot of friends . .. Her name was Erma Hood. .. They had the cafeteria, and then I know at least once a ear they had a dance down there for the employees . . . TI1at had 0 be around 1930.. . [1 went ] but I'm not a dancer... We were young in those days . You more or 1 s s go and watch the others . .. They had regular picnics up off the Clipper M ill Road. . . I didn't work [again] at all until my h usband was ill .. . in the tiftie s. And I worked a few years at Hutzler Brothers .. . The children were in high school, and I wanted the younger ones to stay there . .. Every day there would be several [arabs] . . . (They sold] fruits and things ~ of course we always had one that sold nothing but watennelons . And then we--I remember w hen we lived down a t 730 Puritan, every Saturday afternoon the ice· cream man would come down. But be sold water ice.. . And they alway s had a smaller cone and a bigger De. And you could get them for pennies in those days. And they usuaUy had two flavors ...

And my father worked at-like, Saturday nights--nights before holidays when. the A & P store s were open. . . They bad one here on Kes1N1ck [and 33rd Street] where the candy kitchen used to be. He worked there for a w hile. They had one up at 36th and Chestnut, where the tlower hop is .. . He worlred at that one... Wherever they needed a person to wor~ that's wrore he worked.. . We never had a ar. Not with eleven people in !.he family. We would ha e had to have a busl .. And then he also played in this band. .. They'd practice.. . And then they'd p lay on the lxYdt 1113.t went to T olchester in the moonlight . . . And on the Fourth of July he'd be in about three parades--of course, be got paid for all that. .. And when the had treet carnivals, they would play. Y u know they would put up a platfonn for the band, and they'd have this treet dancing... They used to have that right up here on Keswick Road during the war years... Right between Bay Street and 33rd Street. .. They would lose' off. .. You know where the par h fronts are .. . on K swick? .. 'They w ould have stands set up there--sell refreslnnents and t.hings . But the M others' Club sponsored that. Because eluring the war year they had a Mothers' Club, and they used to meet in this basement store up here at Keswick and 33rd . .. every week. .. M s. Streeter used to belong to it. Anyone that bad their sons in the service [belonged]. My m other belonged to it. .. Some of them kept together, and they used to go to Atlantic City for a weekend--Ocean City in later years and up until ... the sixties some of them were still together... 1bey were responsible for putting the monument up there [at Keswick and 33rd). Because that' s what the money from the dances and the different things that they had (was or]... So times they'd have covered-dish suppers and things like that... [My husband's] parent li ed in Reist stown. And we'd go up there... We put a gar n in. We'd help grow some vegetables and things, because all during the w ar years we did the same thing . .. We had to get extra gasoline--go to the ration board to ge t [coupons] .. .

7 1

I C"a.t.lIled everything I could get m hands on. We made out all right. .. But a lot of people don't do thin gs like that these days . . . When we negotiated to buy this house, I was expecting my second hild. .. And then I lost a premature baby in '43. lbat w uld have been six... So I raised five . But those days, people didn' t worry a lot about things like they do now. And life was .. . slower m oving, and I think people were more relaxed, and they didn't try to do too many things like they do now .. F or this [house, we paid] . .. eighteen hundred. .. We paid six dollars a week. . . And the man that handle the property .. . used to come around every wee k and collect the money. · . We paid more for a new car in 1952 than I did for my house in 1934! . . Most people had children that went to school. A lot oftbe people went to the churchhere around in Hampden. You just got to mow people. People were different in those days ... When you live in a place like here .. . you get to know people around you more. And. then, when 1 fIrst went t school we didn't have 56 School, we only had 55 ... And you did know most everybody around--either from church or school. .. After the war years, especi ally on Keswi k R oad, a lot of people sold their houses to real-e state agents, and on both sides, houses are rented . .. these da s... ArOlmd here [in Stone Hill] , most of the people held on to theirs for quite a while . Now in the last ten years .. · a lot of people around here have moved away... A lot of people that came from the South . . · to work in the mill , after they retired ... wen t back down south. ..

TIle Mount Vernon .. . [Methodist] Church. .. All my grandparents went there. My parents did a lot of work in [the] church. I cLld too years ag . .. W .were all raised in the church. All of my children belonged to it. .. M y father was on the offtcial board .. When my oldest son and my Y01mgest brother, which was only two years older than my son, when they joined the Scouts, then I was a Den Mother. .. And I also was a Girl Scout leader.. . We had a young m an that had the Cub Scouts. And we had a meeting, and we had some y01mg boys t.hat wanted to come in, and one boy that had cerebral palsey . And this young man that had charge of Cub Scouts be just didn't want to take him. And I didn't like it. And I said to him, "That's not fair. There's nothing wrong with the child." . . He was slow. He showed some effects when be walked, but be was going to public school. .. So, he said if I would take him in my group, then he'd consider it. Well, we did. You know, now days pe-ople are easier willi things like that. .. It's just like the pecial Olympics and things that they have for hildren... 1ben with the Girl Scou ts--something funny- -my Y01mgest son--when I first started, we used to meet in the afternoon... When we went on hikes, we just took him with us. And I always did say he was a girl scout before he was a boy scout. We still joke about that! .. A c'Ouple generations back, the way people looked at things--I know how people used to be about religion. .. 1 guess there are some to this day that a re the same way, that--tbey didn't like, for instance, a Prote stant person to many a Catholic. t used to be a big issue... Because I had a cousin. One of my mother's sisters ... one of ber daughters ... married a Catholic, and her father wouldn't have anything to do with her.. . My farther and mother, maybe years ago they were a lit tle prejudiced. .. We just never talked about a lot of things. But I had a brother that turned Catholic for his wife-. I bad another brother that married [a] Catholic. Of course, those days, you couldn't be married inside the rail--as trey used to call it. They've changed a lot of things in the Catholi Church, and today you could be... I always taught mine not to be that way. We eli us sed a lot of things like that. .. [1be Depression:] The school, around Christmas time--I suppose the Parent-Tea'Chers Association did that--they would bring a box of clothing, and the church would have bas ts of food that they gave to people that had big families. My father even accepted some--he didn't

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want to, but they insisteet " You ha e a large family, so you take it." And he was on the official board of [the] Church... 'We had one mlnister up here at chU1'Ch that would take money out of his own pocket and give to some children, if they ne.eded--to the parents--to buy shoos ... [or] a w arm coat.. . They br ought clothing .. . maybe a few days before hristrnas ... I remember the two teachers that we had had in the higher grades at school brought them down. . . TIns was at night. They waited until, I guess, after the children, the smaller ones were in bed. .. And they bad some nice things in tOOre--fairly new--that they had collected from different places. . . [My father] thanked them for i.t. Now, my father he was a proud m an, but when you have big family . . . I remember one time when I was rather small, somebody gave m y m other a ticket to'I'he Empty Stocking Club. I don't know if you ever beard about it or not. . . It wa more or less a Chri tmas party .. . It used to be at the Fifth Regiment Armory. And they'd have a show. And we'd have Santa Claus. And then they'd give e ery child a stocking. And it would have some candy and things in [it], and down in the toe of it th ywouldhave ten shiny, new pennies . That was a big thing in those day s ... And then the girls would all get 8 doll and the boys wou ld get a toy. .. I don't !mow whether they still have the same thing under another name, or wha now, but for years and years they had that. . . They had an organization that did it. .. You looked forward to it. . . It was m bbed.. . My mother didn' t g , because she had children there [at home]. But, they bad--we always bad somebody around in the neighborhood that was going that would take us and look out for u . .. I don't ge t ut a lot [n ow] . .. The mill closed in '72... And then they sol the rest of the houses that they owned. .. Tre big difference too in years ago, when everyone that lived ar01IDd worked for the com any you knew about people. .. I'm not so easy to make friends with, myself. .. You just sort of feel isolated when you don't know that many different people .. . when you get ol der, especially... 1bis house over here at the corner had been sold a couple different times... And we had a young couple that moved in there. I guess it was about '72 . .. I knew that something had-­ was going on over there. And they raided them for--for selling marijuana . .. It doesn't pay to g t too friendly 'th people.. . It used to be when people moved in the neighborhood, you'd take them a hot dish, or take tmm a pot of hot coffee. . . but [in] later years people don't do that. . . People did that when you had a death in the family too ... 1bey knew people would come ba k to the h use and probably fix a meal, or something. Now, I had that with M s. Kelbaugh down here when my h usband diecL .. And she sent ... cake or something up to the h use. . .

Dorothy (Wilson) Matth ews 719 1 met Dorothy Matthews courtesy of the maibnon. Bay Street is just one street renwved from where 1 live at 719 Field Street, and when 1 received her mail, J would walk it over [0 her. Dorothy did not nwve in to Stone Hill until about 1940, but she was f amiliar with the area from childhood. One ofthe reeasmlS she moved to Stone Hill was that her m other was living at that time on Field treet.