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Okay, my name is Brandy Burns and I'm here at the Boise city hall interviewing Dick modry about his grandmother's house. 6 27 6 17, 6, 17 ashtray. Excuse me. So I thought that we could get started by talking about the house. Can you tell me about

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some of your early memories of the home? Well, um, it's it's quite a small house, you know, it's less than Less than 800 square feet and at one time my grandmother and grandfather, my mother, my aunt, my uncle and me were all living there. And so

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well, of course in those days, you know, I mean a lot of families did that. It was quite close, but it was it was just fine. And in the summers I slept on the front porch. It was it's actually an enclosed porch and that's a stone

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house. So it was not cold or not overly hot or anything. It was very comfortable and big kitchen, nice dining room. So we had no, we took meals together and it was just very comfortable. I remember some of the construction projects they did in remodeling the

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kitchen and you know, things like that painting and so forth. Yeah, I'm gonna take a little note on that so that maybe we can delve in a little deeper, deeper about what you remember on the remodeling projects and maybe when those happened, um, I've always loved

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the thought of a sleeping porch. So I wanted to ask you like during the summers, how did you have your room arranged in that? You know, we called it a porch, but it was all enclosed, you know, because there's windows on two sides and then stone

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on two sides. So it was totally enclosed. So I had a large chest of drawers that we got from my great grandmother's house to kind of break off the room and then I had my bed and it was always building models and such. And so I

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had those all over the place, cars, planes, Yeah, you get a lot of that. Uh the dresser from your great grandmother's house, which great grandmother was that andre my grandmother's mother, so she would have been in Nampa home. Okay. Um The porch was added later, right

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from the original 1907 construction. Well, you know, they keep saying that I have no recollection of that at all. None whatsoever. Um I just love the stone on that house. It's a really lovely home, sandstone. There's been a lot of changes to that neighborhood on this,

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with that rerouting of River Street. What was the street like when you were growing up? Well from Grand Avenue, do you know where that's at? It would be east or actually north of the house. There's an intersection up there. It was Grand Avenue, Miller Street and

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Street. So starting on Ash Street all the way to then, would have been the west side of River Street, which was a little bit past where River street crosses now. So River Street ran from like ninth Street all the way down to Ash and it ended

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right there and then it jogged over, it would have been east, it jogged or west right there, it jogged over there and then it ran a block so there was houses all along Ash on would have been the west side, no side all along there, there

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were houses, there was a couple of multi family dwellings, you know like duplexes and one lady had several apartments behind her house that she rented out single single room apartments, mostly old bachelors and so forth, but all the rest were pretty much single family dwellings. So

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that went all the way to River Street and then from river to the actual river, there was I think a couple of houses and then there was a big field and then there was the river and then there was a dirt road that ran all along

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the river, right along next to the river. And on the other side of the street from my grandmother's house, there was on the alley, there was a duplex in a little log cabin and another little cabin and a little lot. So there there was not on

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that side of the street, there wasn't a whole lot of dwellings and then there was what we call the Girl Scout Field, which would have been on the corner of Ash and River Street and it was basically a construction site for storage of construction buildings, like

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little offices, they move out to construction sites and those were our, that was our playground. Yeah, that was going to be one of my questions that was park or an area. That was just this big field. And of course, you know, with all those little houses

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there, you know, we could play cowboys and war and everything else over there. So that was pretty neat. Originally it had been a girl Scout area and there was a big fireplace there and then they, I guess they quit that. I don't even remember being active.

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So it was before I was ever around, but there was a lot of open fields down there in those days, you know, mostly along the river. Um how did I guess before I ask another question, would you be comfortable maybe drawing from memory how the neighborhood

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looked like just a little sketch? It's always fun to have because we were doing some research on the River street realignment and it's just really difficult to picture how that changed the area and I think that's really important part because it was an intact neighborhood. Yeah,

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the, the major change came um when they put River street through and I think, I think I was actually in college in, You know, so that would have been somewhere between 65 and 1970. I think when they, when they just made one straight stretch of River

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Street and that changed a lot because there were some houses on that short stretch of River street which was only a block and their houses all along both sides And of course they were all done away with and then then you had the traffic flow that

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went basically from 9th all the way to 16th Street, you know, on River Street. So that made that was a major change because we used to have a lot of, a lot of traffic going by our house, they would go to River Street, come to Ash,

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make a right turn on Ash and and go up through Grand Avenue and so forth. So it changed the traffic flow a lot too when they put that through Yeah. How busy was Ash Street there before the rerouting that a lot of traffic er Yeah, primarily

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around eight o'clock in the morning and five o'clock at night, you know, people going to work and coming from work. It was, it was pretty busy. Was it mostly from neighborhood residents traveling to the city? It was people from other parts of town going through it.

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Okay, neat. See, I'm already, I can't help myself asking about the neighbor and I'm like, I'm supposed to ask about the house today um before I go into the other ones and I don't want to forget, can you tell me about some of the remodeling projects

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that they, there's a back section of the kitchen um they tore out some cabinets and put new cabinets in and it looks like to me although I don't remember it looks like to me that there was actually a wall there, there's molding around there now and

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you can see see imprints of of what was what was a wall, but they put a new sink in a new counter and so forth. And one of one of my big remembrances was when they put um he rewired the house and then they put linoleum

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in the living room and the dining room and it was like inlaid linoleum and I can still remember the smell of the adhesive. And one thing that I also remember was that there was a bubble and we had at that time we had an oil stove

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in there, there was a bubble right in front of the, right in front of the oil stove bubble in the linoleum, They had to get a big needle stick it in there and stuck it out. It's funny how you remember weird things like that but that

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stuck through me all these years and I think there's probably still a little hole there where they where they suck that adhesive out, stuck it down. But but yeah they they did quite a bit a lot of painting um that the walls in that house are

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lath and plaster. So they didn't do a whole lot with that but they did do a lot of painting and wallpaper and those kinds of things at one time and I don't remember this also there was a doorway from the back porch into the bathroom and

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they wall that off and put a new tub in and so that that doorway is still there with the door but you know you can't get in it or anything but that's still there. And so they made made a major change in the bathroom too. So

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all the entrance from the bathroom was through the through the one bedroom, wow. The I'd like to talk about the bathroom a little bit because I remember my great grandma and stories from my great grandma about how mad she was when they made because she lived

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in a really old house in Shelly and how mad she was when the city forced her to put in an actual bath bathroom with running water instead of the outhouse. And I don't know I think that was like thirties or forties and Shelly. Did anybody in

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your family talk about that conversion in the home from? Okay. I think I moved in there I think in 1947 or 48 I was already done. Right, okay. Yeah. Although there was some this is kind of a sidelight, there was there was a couple of houses,

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there's an alleyway that ran behind the house from basically from Grand Avenue all the way to River Street and there's a couple of houses back there without houses and I remember I remember stories of my uncle and some of his buddies wait until the um people

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that live there with one or so of them would go in the bathroom and they tip it over and then we used to think that it was kind of cool to sneak in there you know go to the bathroom you know there was only a couple

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of them there. But yeah those are easy to remember. Kids do weird things they do but that's what makes them so great and where you get the really fun stories um You talked a lot about the painting and the wallpaper. Are there any colors that really

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stick out in your memory or patterns of paper? We had molding around paper molding around. I think it was well actually it was two rooms and at one time there was almost I think it was almost in one of the rooms. It was almost like a

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turquoise. Which sounds bizarre but yeah that was that was there for several years. That's neat. Most of the other rooms were white one. I think the bedroom was kind of like an off pink, very light soft pink. It still looks kind of soft, soft pink. We

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went in there the other week. I'm like I'm pretty sure this is the exact color. I have my craft room, I loved it. So the was that your grandmother's bedroom? Okay and that was the only entrance into the bathroom. Um Do you remember how your grandmother

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had her room set up? Yeah they're the bed was against the wall. What would that have been? The east wall I guess. You know when you walk in my directions I'd probably get them all messed up. You walk in like this and the room is like

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this and this is the entrance from what we call the dining room. Okay. And there's a wall of closet space along one side which would have been the left side. As you walk in on the right hand side. Her bed went up against the wall between

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that and uh that room in the dining room. And then so you're walking in the door and you go around the bed into the bathroom. Also there was a there was a doorway to the back porch on the other side of the room, on the other

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side of the bedroom. And was that a functioning? We didn't know so much a lot of time. There would be like a chest of drawers or something in front of it. Okay wow. I love this. Um in the dining room, did you have a table in

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there and chairs and all that good stuff? Um Sometimes it served as dining room and living room, you know like when my aunt moved out, my uncle went in the service, so we used that as a just a dining room. So it was tabled in chairs

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and we had my grandmother had a sewing machine out there and eventually that's where the tv was. And then in the other room, the living room that was, there was couch and chair and you know some end tables and so forth. And in the winter times

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I would sleep in there too on the couch that folded down. Ok when your aunt and uncle lived there, Was that the place their room? My yeah my mother and my aunt slept in that room and my uncle Um slept, he slept actually on full time

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until he went away to the military and that was like 1953 or something. He slept out on that front porch before I slept out there and I would sleep on the couch. I noticed a lot of closeness, it would have been like the house that my

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great grandma had, it was, it was intimate. That was one of the other questions that I had is because it is a small footprint house. Do you remember having a lot of get togethers in the home. Yeah. Can you describe some of those? Well every every

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thanksgiving, we would have a big dinner and you know it would be family plus some people in the, in the neighborhood would always come over so you know my grandmother would always fix a big turkey and and it was, it would be a pretty big dinner

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and she'd have her formal glassware out on the table and such and everybody would have wine including the kids, you know, because that's the way she was raised and her family came from a french dutch community in Missouri. And so that's just the way they grew

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up. So everyone would have wine for thanksgiving, but it would be a really nice meal. And then um in the summers we would always have barbecues for a lot of people, you know, in the backyard. So um, you know, the adults would go in the house

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and you know, they'd play cards and you know, visit and so forth. And it was my job to watch the barbecue, you know, turn the chicken over, turn the ribs over or whatever. So I was out in the backyard by myself. Oh, I love it. I

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did. I was wondering too how you and the family used the outside of the house, the property like in a barbecue, like when the summer barbecues when it was time to eat, Did you eat in the house or in the both both we had tables and

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chairs and such outside too. So some people would eat inside. Some people would eat outside? That's great. Um, now in the back there's that extension to the pioneer um walk, Pioneer Walk or Lovers Lane, was that still, was that a noticeable path when you were growing

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up there? Yeah, I'm gonna draw you a little because it's it's hard to picture because most people don't have any kind of an idea of what that actually was down there. So to do it this way, so here's the intersection, this is Miller and that went

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into this is Grand Avenue and this is Ash Street, Grand Avenue kind of went around and this is Ash Street, Okay, so there's an intersection and there was a there was a store here, Grand Avenue Market, which now is I think a community center or something.

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So when you're coming down miller and you go through this intersection there was also a little jog that went down here and that was unpaved, It was like an alleyway and that came came down like this and behind all the houses, all the houses down through

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here and it went all the way to River Street, the old jog of River Street, not the one that's you know because River River Street ended right right here, so it went down here, but also it went there was a circular ali for the sake of

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a better, better terminology, so this was this was all dirt, it was basically an alleyway. Okay. There was a house, big old house right here across the alley from our house and then there was another little house down here and this guy, his name, his name

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was bob Irving Irwin, I think what's his name, bob Irwin and he died many, many years ago, but on his property is where that pelota court was that they found, you know, they asked me where it was and I didn't know what it was when I

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was growing up. All I remember was there was a concrete slab back there that we used to play on and they were describing it and I said I'll show you exactly where it was. They dug down and when they put that made that little park back

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there, they didn't didn't destroy that, they just covered it up with dirt so that's still there. But this was this was always a circular alley and of course it's not there anymore. But this the this pathway that is still there was an alleyway at that time.

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Okay, can I take a picture of that? Thank you. Yeah, we've got a very good drawing but it illustrates it really well. Yeah, because there's you know, you can look at the different plats of the different sections of the neighborhoods and there's a lot of interesting

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angles and I've never really seen a good map that shows the area. So it's definitely a difficult area of town. Individual visual right? And they when they made that part back area, you know, they kind of destroyed this this area and this this dirt thing around

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here was boarded by bob's back door. And then there was a bunch of houses over here, the back and these were all on River street on that short section of River street in the old old days. There was I think like a bakery here and a

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couple of other shops back here. But that was like 1920 or something like that. There's so much research to do in this neighborhood, it's really exciting. Yeah. One time there was 1, 2, There was four grocery stores down there That's there, I think I'm only aware

00:21:59.030 - 00:22:20.870

of one and I thought that was a near 13th street. Can you tell me where the others were? The main one was Grand Avenue Market and that's that's on Grand Avenue and 12 12 Grand Avenue. That's probably because that building is still there. And that was

00:22:20.870 - 00:22:44.080

actually too, That was actually two stores. The main store was owned the whole property was owned by Rolling crisp and he was a meat cutter and that was that was the largest store down there And he was open six days a week. And it was it

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was a decent size store and I think that's what the community center is or whatever it is now. Then on one end of it it would have been the street end of it, there was another little tiny store, it was still the same building and that

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was run by his mother and she was open seven days a week, you know? So when his store was closed on sunday her store was open and it was just basically something for her to do I think, you know. And so so there were there were

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two stores and then he built a house for her behind the store and then I half a block away Going towards 13th Street on the alley of there's an alleyway between 13th and 12 that was on that was right on the corner of the alley and

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Grand Avenue, that was Pearl grocery, that's been down for a long time and that was owned by the Ramseys and I actually still see one of their kids who's like a year older than me, I see him occasionally, he lives over in Rupert I think, but

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and then they owned a ranch somewhere too And then there was another little tiny grocery store and as I was growing up it wasn't open that often but it was open for a while and that was on the corner of 13th and Grand Avenue and I

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think there's a taekwondo studio there now and that building is still there and then there was another one on the corner of River Street and 14th I think and I have very Little memories of that store but there was one there okay, 13th is about the

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area and most That I know the most about just because I've lived there the apartments at 13th in river, so I'd walk up 13th a lot and see some of those little buildings that are still there but so yeah, so if you lived on Let's see

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13th in river okay, so there's a house, I think there's one house remaining there now on the other side of the street from those apartments that belonged to my great aunt it's like a hair salon now and we used to go over there when I was

00:25:22.230 - 00:25:38.920

young they had a little little house in the back where originally I think was a garage but my uncle had fixed it up and so he had set up like a little kitchen back there and a little game room and we'd go over there and he

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had a pool table and part of it. So we would go over there and play pool and he had a pop machine and we'd drink pop and stuff. He was quite the entertainer. He worked at the hotel for many many years. And uh anyway so and

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then I don't know after he died eventually that back house burned down but her friend house is still there and it's functional. Yeah. Yeah. I love looking at there's that one is really lovely and then they're on River Street as you're going like you're going towards

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14th street there's like two or three more little houses historic were those originally there as well? The one on the corner with the turret that belonged to Virgil Stuart And then the next two houses were owned by, he was a minister. In fact he's the one

00:26:35.780 - 00:26:53.410

that started wayside chapel which turned into Mike's Americana. Um But there were those two houses that he owned and then on the other side of the street there was, you know, where those apartments are on 14th and river, there was houses all along there. And so

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most of those are, they probably started going away when they developed the River Street corridor there, wow, I have a soft spot for River Street. Um Oh, I have a question about like, where were your neighborhood boundaries, but also like as a kid, you know, how

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far could you go from your grandmother's house? Like what was your, your area? Oh, I'd go visit my friends and we'd all play and it was mostly from her house. I had some friends that lived over on 11th street, but most of them were down on

00:27:40.120 - 00:27:55.820

13th, 14th and 15th, so I would go down there, you know, and we'd roll around there and then obviously the river, what, she didn't want me anywhere near, but you know, probably went there a little bit. Yeah, I went there because she was a lot of

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times, like, especially in the summer, you know, she would be working and I'd be home by myself and so me and my buddies would go down the river and float in the river and and we're the steel bridges on, I guess that would be Eighth Street,

00:28:12.400 - 00:28:30.990

you know, the walking bridge, you can drive across there, well there's a little island down there underneath that underneath that bridge. So we would go down there and we would walk on the under structure, would climb on the under structure of the bridge and then we

00:28:30.990 - 00:28:46.640

drop down on that island and we'd, you know, we'd have marshmallow roast and hot dog roast hot dogs and some of the guys would tie up, you know, boards to the structure of the bridge and you know, do a little surfing and stuff. But we used

00:28:46.640 - 00:29:05.960

to search for, we used to float the river almost every day we would go and this was before Anderson Park was here, we would go to Julia Davis Park and float down to what is now ann Morrison park and walk back up and do that. Three

00:29:05.960 - 00:29:24.860

times we did that all the time. How was the, because we just did the 50th anniversary of the Greenbelt. How was the condition of the river? Um when you were doing that and access to the river, what was that like? Was it easy to get to

00:29:24.860 - 00:29:45.680

or because Ash Street ran all the way to the river and there was, like I said, there was a dirt road that ran from right next to the river parallel to the river. There's a dirt road that ran from 13th street. Yeah, 13th street all the

00:29:45.680 - 00:30:03.160

way to night. All the way to ninth Street. It was just a little dirt road and it was on the other side of the street or the other side of that dirt road? You have the river. On the other side was a Forest Service Service center

00:30:04.370 - 00:30:23.920

That went from 9th street to 11th. And and it was bordered by that Dirt Road and River Street And there was an old plane that they had down here in D. c6 that we would crawl over the fence and get in there and play. Yes Lot

00:30:23.920 - 00:30:51.130

of playgrounds. Yeah. Well that's so great. Um so Ann Morrison Park was developed in 50 or dedicated in 59 or around there. It was 6060 years this year. Um did that change how you use the river or played like now that there was like another whole

00:30:51.130 - 00:31:09.690

other park just across the river? Well it did open up a lot because prior to that time all of that property that is now ann Morrison park was pasture land, pasture land and kind of swamp land you know But I remember there was somebody that had

00:31:09.690 - 00:31:32.640

a whole bunch of angus down there. Um We call ourselves bold, we go across the river and run run through the pasture land because we're afraid of them. And then there's a what we call the rock crushers right before you get to Americana and I think

00:31:32.640 - 00:31:49.070

there's still some kind of little falls there but they would dump cement there. And so the water would come down the river in those days was was actually pretty clean. We swam in it all the time and stuff that but it created no like natural waterfalls

00:31:49.070 - 00:32:07.470

when they dumped that stuff down there and then there was a big um sand and gravel. Company Quinn robin sand and gravel, which we played in a lot. That was, that was another one of our playgrounds after they'd gone home. So we'd ride our bike up

00:32:07.470 - 00:32:27.070

the hill and we'd jump off the sand piles and stuff. So it was, the neighborhood was very good for kids, you know, there's a lot of places to play, a lot of things to do down there and so it was, it was really a pretty good

00:32:27.070 - 00:32:42.910

place to grow up. It sounds like it was, it was safe, you know, there was a few what they call joints, you know like some of the winos would hang out but you know, they never bothered anybody, there weren't very many of those, but I remember

00:32:42.910 - 00:33:06.900

the people next door to to our house and actually the foundation is partially still there. Okay, so that's the one that's closest to river and it's a partial lot now and they had a full basement and I guess when they when they cut river straight through

00:33:07.410 - 00:33:24.600

they took that house and the one on the other side of there and they divided, they took portions while they took the one they took their whole property and then a portion of what used to be the thomas's house and um they never had a key

00:33:24.610 - 00:33:49.060

to their house, they never locked their doors ever, they never even had a key. So you know, it was a pretty safe area, wow, that's neat. I wouldn't expect that just in Boise in general, but that's pretty neat. Um It's here. Huh? I have this kind

00:33:49.060 - 00:34:16.260

of jumps back into the house. Um but I remember seeing this really cute curtain on the back kitchen door, what were the other furnishings in the home? Like? Were there some curtains on all the windows or blinds curtains and pull down blinds? Um kitchen. We ate

00:34:16.260 - 00:34:31.270

a lot in the kitchen too. And there was a full size table in there and table and chairs and then of course the stove and the refrigerator, which, you know, we moved around in different places over the years. But um yeah, we ate, we ate a

00:34:31.270 - 00:34:51.840

lot there and then we had, we had a little what we called a trash burner and it was a stove that was probably this high and that wide and this deep and we would light a fire in there, you know, to keep the kitchen warm and

00:34:51.850 - 00:35:09.190

then in the other room, the dining room we had, and we'd, we'd do it with coal for a while and get rid of that and then you put an oil stove and I think we went through two or three iterations of that. And one of my,

00:35:09.200 - 00:35:27.970

when we had colon wood stove in there, one of my chores was when I got home from school was to bust up coal, big chunks of coal and bring it in and chop wood that was, that was my chores. And it was always nice when when

00:35:27.980 - 00:35:43.040

we would swap that for an oil stove because you don't have to I didn't have to do any of that stuff so but we had a stove for a long time. We never had central heating until I was in college. Okay. No, no I think my

00:35:43.040 - 00:36:06.480

last, it's probably my last year or so of high school. I think we got central heating in there and all the other time we'd have a stove. But what year is that, 1963 or so. Do you remember approximately the year when um the oil stove came?

00:36:08.170 - 00:36:30.370

Um Actually I think in my recollection I think the first the first one that I did remember was an oil stove and then we got rid of that. We got a warm morning colon wood stove and we kept that for a while for several years and

00:36:30.370 - 00:36:55.740

then we got another oil stove and then we got to central meat. We had a wood stove growing up and it was just so much fun that your is getting the wood in. Yeah, there was a garage at the back of the property right next to

00:36:55.740 - 00:37:10.490

that next to the alley and they would deliver the cold back there and there was part of it was a little area where they there's little windows in the back and they dump the coal through there and I'd have to go back there and get it

00:37:10.490 - 00:37:31.150

and I have to chop wood back there. And then the other part was my grandfather had trains back there for a while and when you quit using it as a garage. But then my grandmother had chickens also that she had back there by the back, by

00:37:31.150 - 00:37:45.930

the garage, there was a little area that she had fenced off and she had chickens back there and I remember going back there and she had a stump and she would use my uncle's Boy Scout hatchet and whack the chickens and uncle, you know, they flop

00:37:45.930 - 00:38:12.530

all over the place. And I got those memories, that's why I don't like chickens. Yeah, she had a lot of chickens for a while and she kept them for the eggs and the meat. I was wondering if your grandmother had a garden vegetable garden, where they

00:38:13.040 - 00:38:27.650

are you familiar with the way the property looked before they adjusted the line for that. Okay, well, you know, it kind of goes at an angle now on the side where you've got the new apartments there and then you've got, I guess they're gonna call it

00:38:27.650 - 00:38:48.180

Irma's walk. Well, the property line was kind of like this in perpendicular to the street, so what they did was move the property line like that. And so that's why that area between the wall and her house is not very big because it used to be

00:38:48.180 - 00:39:07.310

the property line was like that and it would run all the way all the way to the alley. So the back corner of that was the garden area always had a garden, always a garden and you know she'd raise you know carrots and all kinds of

00:39:07.310 - 00:39:28.980

vegetables, peas and beans and and there was an apple tree. Let's see there's I think there there there was an apple tree just behind the house and there was a cherry tree and then the yard was kind of divided in half at the back of the

00:39:28.980 - 00:39:44.000

house there was a fence from the neighbor's property over to the back of the house and so everything behind that we considered to be the backyard and then there was a side yard that was all grasp and then right in front of the house there's a

00:39:44.000 - 00:40:01.380

little section and that was all grasp and then of course then there was the hedge all the way across and so in the backyard there was the apple tree, there was an oriental apple blossom right in the middle and there was a cherry tree and a

00:40:01.380 - 00:40:25.090

peach tree and they were all they were all good producers, very good producers. And so downstairs the cellar area if you if you go down there you'll see some um walls that are are some some pantry type things that are there. Well they would always can

00:40:25.100 - 00:40:44.130

my grandmother would always can and there and that's why they stored the stuff down there but it was quite a production. Yeah they did that every year. Did your grandma have like your aunt and your mother and help. My mother would come over and it was

00:40:44.140 - 00:41:00.940

you know that's just what they did every year you know and so you know she always did tomatoes so they would can tomatoes, they would can apple sauce, cherries, get cherries off the tree and can those and you know there was there was always a lot

00:41:00.940 - 00:41:24.090

of fruit around. Did your grandmother also grow flowers all along the guess that would be the east side of the house. There's myrtle and what it is. It's a ground cover in in in the spring you have these little violet flowers and there was roses along

00:41:24.090 - 00:41:43.120

there and she always had in the back along along the house and we had a fence between our property and the thomases. You know the ones on the river strike street side and there was roses all along there. She always had a lot of roses. She

00:41:43.120 - 00:42:05.240

always had a lot of iris and tulips and those kinds of things and lilacs, a lot of lilacs and stuff. So it was the lawn was nice. The flowers were very nice. It was a nice looking yard and a lot of people down there and on

00:42:05.240 - 00:42:23.280

a street where their their property up and always had flowers and fruits and so forth have to find one of the pictures that we have of the neighborhood and the historical society has it. But there's this couple and she's kind of sitting up on a tree

00:42:23.280 - 00:42:46.470

stump but around the yard look does look very nice around her. I've always really liked that photo interesting. How about your aunt's house? Did she keep a garden and flowers there as well? She had flowers, she didn't, she didn't do much with vegetables or fruits. Their

00:42:46.470 - 00:43:10.620

backyard was kind of set up for um entertaining. You know, they built a really nice barbecue pit back there and they would always have parties and such. My uncle Andrew um He He was quite a character. There's if you go down main street between 10th and

00:43:10.620 - 00:43:33.550

11th on the east side west side, you know they've got those posts with pictures on there if you've ever seen those. Okay, well he's one of those and he worked at the y he for many, many years and I have I have some um things of

00:43:33.560 - 00:43:52.400

his, he used to he was a waiter and he used to have this little section in the paper every day it's called Andy says and he would have the menu of the day and then quick clip. It's of cute little things that he would say and

00:43:52.410 - 00:44:16.800

I have a book that's you know, got all these dates in there and then his little snippets in there and yeah, I kept that and he also was the precinct committeeman for many years. So I have his book that has my address, all of the families

00:44:16.800 - 00:44:50.110

down there. So for Precinct Committee was that for voting? Yes Neat. And that area went from 16th to Think 16-11 Street in the railroad tracks to the river, wow. Oh yeah. Those would be really great to see sometime if you'd like to share them. Okay. Um

00:44:51.380 - 00:45:08.780

I think we're almost at an hour and so I feel like we've covered a lot today and I don't want to repeat a question that I may have asked earlier. So are you okay ending today? Yeah, I do have just had something that popped into my

00:45:08.780 - 00:45:30.050

mind about the house and this is something that was a big part of our childhood, my childhood is there's an attic on that house and there's not a second story but there is an addict there and I was always into electric trains and so um they

00:45:30.050 - 00:45:52.040

put some plywood on the rafters up there and we built put tracks around there. So in the summertime there's a trap door over the back porch, we crawl up there and keep that trap door open and we open those transit or the um you know the

00:45:52.040 - 00:46:09.560

two shot like um windows at the front you know which are now I think louvers but in those days there was glass there were windows, we'd open those and then we'd stay up there for hours with those electric trains running the trains up there and we

00:46:09.560 - 00:46:24.180

did that a lot and you know it would be 100 degrees up there and I think you know she my grandmother had a lot of insulation put in and those tracks I think are probably still there. Yeah but yeah that was yeah me and my buddies

00:46:24.180 - 00:46:46.050

we'd we'd crawl up there and we'd run those trains for hours. I love it. My grandpa had a room in the house that he ran the trains and then moved it to the garage and I love hearing the stories. My grandfather and one of our neighbors

00:46:46.320 - 00:47:03.240

they made a little town in our garage and they had it in there for like I don't know a year or so and they had switches and trains going every which way and stuff. Yeah that was pretty cool. So my little trains weren't you know that

00:47:03.250 - 00:47:20.280

it was just like one set of tracks that went around. It was still fun though. Yeah but that was you know everybody all my relatives that came to town and the kids we'd all go up there really adults and kids alike wow that is really neat

00:47:20.280 - 00:47:35.110

to know about the attic. Was it used any other time one year. No well until when it got cold it was it was too cold about there so we didn't do it but you know for all summer and in the fall and in the spring we

00:47:35.110 - 00:47:52.430

go up there, wow. I didn't even think there'd be an attic in there. It's great to know. And we just we had we had plywood on half of it and the other side was just insulation and rafters. So you have to be careful where you walk

00:47:53.260 - 00:48:03.770

not to stick your foot down through the ceiling. Oh that's great. Well we'll end today. I'll turn this off.