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wife ... When I was a kid, he was elderly then. TIlere was a Cooley that lived in tl1ere--I don't know wl1ether that was his son or his daughter ...

We didn't see him for a while; we di&l't see him sitting under the grape arbor .. . He always talked to us; come to the fence and talked to us. I found out later that he went into the hospital for an operation. He had gallstones. I didn't know what a gallstone was wIlen I was a kid. .. He got all right, but I dim't see any more of him.

When the people used to die .. . [tlley] used to bury them from tlle living room. TIleY used to put a crepe on the door, and they used to go in tlle building from the living room. .. a purple crepe .. . And they would take them from there and take them to tlle graveyard. l1'1en the funeral parlors come along.

But ... I can't re:rnember wl1en I was a kid going to a funeral parlor .. . When they used to bury them, people used to stay outside and watch them bring the casket out ... You see the crepe on the door, you kind of--you didn't want to go near it. You never made any noise arOlmd the house...

My motl1er did a lot of ... bottling. She used to [make] .. chow chow. Chow chow wa the cabbage and . .. peppers, tomatoes, carrots, and cucumbers. And they 118ed to cook it down and they used to let it sit--had vinegar in it. In wintertime, you used to take the juice and put it over your . .. kale or spinach ...

1be huckster co:rne around, and you'd buy tlle spinach; then you'd wash it. .. You'd make a meal off of cabbage and potatoes . .. off of kale and potatoes--little piece of fatback in there, lot of fatback. And that was a meal. . .

Turkey was a big thing ... To get a dnnnstick, you had to be the elder ... My mother used to make stew ... You never threw nothing away . .. But you had turkey Thanksgiving and Christmas. And the chickens. We used to be able to buy chickens ... We'd cut the heads off, and [Mother] would pick them... That was a lot cl1eaper ...

I was grown up during the Depression on Stone Hill. . . [There was] so much to do ... You had your freedom--t.o a certain extent. You never wander off unless you told your parents. 1be fartllest we used to go would be over to Druid Hill Park to the swimming pool or the zoo. We always had plenty to eat. 1bere wasn't too much luxury, but everybody was happy--always had a place to sleep ... a nice, clean home. We didn't have all tl1e trimmings . . . The older you get, the more you fell in love w ith the Hill...

Vernon and Adele (Belt) Laumann

732

Vernon and Adele Laumann both come from Stone Hill families. Mele 's father, Amos Belt, was a brother ofDulsy Belt Cook. It was her son, Raymond Cook Jr. , who put me in touch with Adele. Vernon, Like Adele, did not grow up on Stone Hill, but his grandparents did. When he married Adele in 1946, Vernon moved in to the Belt household at 732 Puritan Street, where the couple stayedf or about ten years and established afamily. They now live in Pasadena in Anne Arundel County.

148

ADELE: [My parents] worked both at the lower mill ... [ f the] Mt. Ve on Mills . .. My father worked in the carding room ... My mom worlred in the spinning room. .. I think that consisted of working the thread onto the spools ...

My daddy did w ork in the mill for forty-five years ... My mother . . . worked nightwork; my father worked daywork. So, my father and I were at home while she was working at night. .. 3:00 to 11:00 [p.m.] . . .

I was bom over in the Remington area on west 29th Street. .. August 1st, 1927 . .. We moved in to Stone Hill about 1943 .. . I was working at Strauss, Royer and Strath ... in the shipping department. .. They were American Golfer clothing . .. lbat was up on west 32nd Street and Elm Avenue . . . They werer over top of the MoIIll!l1eDlal Printing office . ..

We used to bave "pound parties." We'd go to different people's homes ... on Keswick Road ... Everyone comes, and they bring a pound of something. And then you bave a variety... We used to do a lot of that back in my time.. .

My dad and mom, they rented the house from the mill company... And they paid $4.50 a week rent. .. I think my daddy took it to the office down at the mill. .. We might have lived there around ten years ... You bad to work in the mill company to be able to rent the house. And my daddy bad a heart attack, and he couldn't work anymore, so then we moved ... to 2955 Keswick Road...

There was a partially dug out basement there, but nothing that you could put any kind of a furnace or anything in ... We bad a coal stove in the kitchen ... and a kerosene heater in the Ii ing room. And that's all the beat we bad... We never bad a fIreplace ...

My father, mother, my Uncle Emory, and my husband and I [were all in the house at 732 Puritan Street in 1946] .. . Uncle Mose [Uncle Emory] ... he was a good old soul. He drank a lot. . . He's been found in the alleys, lying there, and one of the Jones boys, if they hadn't seen him, they would bave ran right over him. .. He could come horne ever so drunk, my mother never bad to pick one stitch of clothes up for that man. .. He hung his suits and all in the cupboard...

My cousins over in Remington, they used to get him and put him in a little red wagon and shove him down, and then he'd go down 29th Street. lbat's why 1 say, I don't know why he never got killed ... He was an old man then... He was a bachelor. He never married. ..

We bad a playground down there where the B y Sc'Outs center is now... We used to have swings and merry-go-round and sliding board, and a sand box there. And they used to bave benches around where you could sit and watch your children .. . I used to take my children over there ... But .. . they took all the stuff down. They said that they bad problems with men down there on the benches, and drinking ...

The best thing 1 can remember is my daddy's yard. He had[a] beautiful yard and rose bushes, and he took such good care of the yard. ..

VERNON: [My parents] tell me when they first got married, they lived down here on Stone Hill ... 712--where Eastons live at now ... Pacific [Street]. And they told me that they were the first ones that had gas stoves. And when they bad the man come to tum the gas on, and show them how to operate the stove, they bad a crowd of people there, was watching them... 1ben they moved out on Keswi k Road where the Gulf Station is, the end house ... 1 remember when they tore [the house] down.

[I was born in] 1924 ... 1 know all the people that lived here that worked in the milL .. Amos Belt ... my brother Joe . .. Franklin Justice ... His mother and my motber were

149

sisters. [Their name was] Redman.. . My mo ther's name was Martha, and .. . Franklin's mother was named Annie . . . [Their father] used to have a little candy store .. .

The Robinsons... [Alma] lived in the house where we lived (732 Puritan] . .. Robinsons \\Tere some relation to me. Some kind of cousin. ..

We come around here and played with one another. . . Kenny J oOOson . .. Kenneth Hood ... the Streeter boy ... Vemon Marston... We always played ball together .. . on Green Hill. .. That's over where you've got the Boy couts building now... [It was] Cook's Hill; then they got it called Green Hill. .. They used to have ball games over there before the 29th Street bridge was built ... in 1937. That's when they did away with the ball games and all over there...

Stones used to play over there, Stone's Pleasure Club ... because I used to nm the foul balls ... for the two games. Then I'd get a quarter for the day ... [Adele's] mother ... never missed a game .. . And her father [also] . .. [Bem Stone] supplied the equipment and whatever. And then he had a bus that used to ride the people to the games ...

Dalton's had like a . .. bigger grocery store, had canned goods and meats ... right next to Bem Stone's store ... Then they bad Childs's store aC1"OSS the street on the corner . .. He sold groceries, same as Bem Stone ... But Childs's had chickens in the back of his store under the basement. Which you would go out and pick out the chicken you want, and then he would cut its head off and pluck it and fix it for you and give it to you all cut up... Because we as kids used to go back there and watch him when he'd grab them and fix them ...

[Ms. Way's and Ms.] Shreve's ... sold mostly candy and a little bit of grocery stuff. . . practically the same thing. Just candy for the kids, and groceries. I don't think Shreve's had meat. .. Justice, that was my cousin's ... 2917 Keswick Road. .. That's where Justice lived, and that's where they had the store ... They had the store in the basement; then they came from out of the basement and went up on the top.. . And he sold snowballs in the summertime, and doughnuts . . . and cereal, and mostly candy for the kids.

ADELE: I used to buy my buterscotch Laddies there--one peruly. Those things would last you practically all day ... It was butterscotch inside, but it was real thick. And it had chocolate coating on the outside...

I didn't know Vemon before he went into the service, but I traveled around with his sister, Betty. And after he went into the service, then I started to write to him... Then when he came out of the service, then he came around to the house... We got married in 1946.

VERNON: But she was going with ... Charles Kelp before she went with me.. . ADELE: They lived on Keswick Road... I used to go around with ... Dot Kelp.. .

And she was like a sister, because I never had any sisters. She was always at our house. And if my mother bought something for me, she'd buy it for her...

VERNON: I helped her father one time. He wanted to get water out to his rosebushes, because he liked rosebushes. That's all that man lived for was rosebushes. So I drilled a hole through the wall in the basement to put a spigot outside for him...

Harry H. Everest

738

Harry Everest came with his parents to live at 738 Puritan Street at age eight in /930. His father left the home, and when Harry was thirteen, his mother took him and his brothers to