Interview with Thomas Dunlop, 1985 April 19 [audio]

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  • Dancing lessons at Breck's Mill; First car ride; Work and money; Trips and excursions; Bathing in the Brandywine and showers at Breck's Mill; Mother's linens; Haircuts
    Keywords: Automobiles; Bethlehem Steel; Cars; Dancing; Hagley Community House (Breck's Mill); Haircuts; Linens; Mack Trucks; Money; Philadelphia, Pa.; School; Scotland; Trips; Wilson Line; Work; YMCA
    Transcript: Bennett: It's nice to be back again with you, Mr. and Mrs. Dunlop, and last time that I was here we got as far as No. 116 which was dancing. Now, do you remember - did you do any square dancing?

    Dunlop: No, no, no.

    Bennett: How about round dancing?

    Dunlop: Well, I took lessons at - what was the name -McCuens, Mrs. McCuens, she was on...

    Woman: Delaware Avenue.

    Dunlop: Delaware Avenue.

    Bennett: And did you go in a group for lessons or...

    Dunlop: No, I went by myself. And then they had, they had classes from the Hagley House.

    Bennett: You had dancing classes there?

    Dunlop: Yeah, we had, you know, somebody come out – groups then, the kids around there.

    Bennett: Boys and girls together?

    Dunlop: Yeah, yeah.

    Bennett: Did that go on every winter, or how did...

    Dunlop: It was just natural - wintertime, you know, they...

    Bennett: Another thing that they did there.

    Dunlop: Miss Bubb was in charge of it and Miss Bradford, they had charge of it. See that was part of the YMCA, you know, you know what I mean - that was a branch of the YMCA down there.

    Bennett: At that time. About year would that be?

    Dunlop: Oh, I'd say, let's see, seven - I'd have to figure it out, I was about fifteen to sixteen years old when that was it.

    Bennett: And how about - that's when you really did the round dancing. Now, did you ever do the jigs like the Irish jigs and that type of thing?

    Dunlop: No, never did, no.

    Bennett: Let's go to cars, do you remember the first time that you rode in a car?

    Dunlop: First time, the first time I ever rode in a car, well was - Jimmy Tommick had one of the first Fords around there. You remember Jimmy Tommick, he's in there.

    Bennett: Yes, I do.

    Dunlop: I rode in that, you know, not much. But the first car I ever rode was in Bethlehem Steel, it was a Mack truck, it was a White truck.

    Bennett: Did you drive that?

    Dunlop: Yeah, I was only a kid then, I was working, I was learning my trade down there.

    Bennett: So you drove trucks before you drove cars really?

    Dunlop: That's right - not much, just around the plant. Front and West, all that used to be Bethlehem Steel.

    Bennett: Where was that?

    Dunlop: Front and West.

    Bennett: Front and West, okay, now I know where you mean.

    Dunlop: It used to be - that used to be Bethlehem Steel, that was a big shipyard at one time.

    Bennett: As a child, how did you make money?

    Dunlop: Well, we served papers, that's one thing we did, that's about it.

    Woman: Shoveled snow, our boys did.

    Dunlop: Well, not in my time - I shoveled snow when I got older, over in Westover Hills, but I was married when I was shoveling snow.

    Bennett: Did your parents ever give you any money, or did you always work for your own money?

    Dunlop: I didn't know what money looked like, we never had no money. No-o, not my parents never got any money. I was just talking about it the other day, kids today are lucky. We had to quit - go to work and that's it, school, she had to quit school before I married her, she had to quit school. Things was really tough.

    Bennett: They don't appreciate today like...

    Dunlop: They don't appreciate nothing - they get new cars and everything.

    Bennett: It's true. Did you ever go on a vacation when you were young?

    Dunlop: No, not when we were young.

    Bennett: How about, did you ever play on an outing on the Brandywine?

    Dunlop: Well, on that vacation, we never went on a vacation, I think I told you before, we used to go on a straw rides and like, Fourth of July, I think I told you about that.

    Bennett: Yes, yes.

    Dunlop: Shields's truck, I don't know how many hours it took to get up there, about four hours in that truck, you could walk as fast as it.

    Bennett: But did you go on any outings in the Brandywine, like Holly Island, what did you do there?

    Dunlop: Oh, we just - Holly Island - we used to - kids, we used to fish up there.

    Bennett: You'd fish there. Did you ever take a trip and visit your relatives somewhere else other than at the Brandywine?

    Dunlop: No, we never - Philadelphia - we went to Philadelphia on the Wilson Line or something, to see our aunt or somebody like that - we had aunts and uncles in Philadelphia.

    Bennett: And you would always go by the Wilson Line?

    Dunlop: That's right, went by boat, that was the cheapest way to go.

    Bennett: You know they're having a new - a boat that's going to be a restaurant and going to the Delaware River again, it's just started up this week.

    Dunlop: Yeah, well that's going to be wonderful if they don't mess up again - I just can't see it...

    Woman: We used to take a lot of moonlight rides on the boat.

    Dunlop: Years ago. They were a different type of people.

    Bennett: That 's right.

    Woman: They danced.

    Dunlop: No fights in there.

    Bennett: Did you ever take any music lessons?

    Dunlop: No.

    Bennett: How about bathing, how did you go about bathing? Did you have a bathroom in your house?

    Dunlop: Tub.

    Bennett: A tub, alright.

    Dunlop: Regular wash tub.

    Bennett: Okay. How about in the summertime, did you then bathe in the Brandywine?

    Dunlop: We went down to the Brandywine, yeah. Well, I'll tell you one thing, when I was young, we had showers and all. After they opened that Hagley House down there. We didn't have no trouble then because we had showers and you could take - that was wonderful.

    Bennett: Did that cost money?

    Dunlop: Five cents a month or a week or something, I forget, wasn't much. And then when you got the senior it costs ten cents and then you had the honor system and they were finding Hail Mary coins in there and everything else (laughs).

    Bennett: Did you get a towel with this?

    Dunlop: No, we carried our own towel.

    Bennett: You carried your own towel. How about soap?

    Dunlop: Carried our own soap, yeah.

    Bennett: How about laundry, did you do any laundry in the Brandywine or was that...

    Dunlop: No, but I got an idea for making some money.

    Bennett: Okay.

    Dunlop: Did you ever hear them say about the collar, the dirty collar?

    Bennett: Yeah.

    Dunlop: I've got a remedy to stop that.

    Bennett: Okay.

    Dunlop: Wash rag and soap (laughs)

    Woman: Keep your neck clean.

    Dunlop: Keep your neck clean, you're right (laughs).

    Woman: He never has no ring around the collar.

    Dunlop: No ring around the collar, that'll stop them.

    Bennett: At home, did you have a tablecloth on your table, on your dining room table?

    Dunlop: Mother had some wonderful linen from, well, we put that on when we had company, but she had some wonderful linen from Scotland.

    Bennett: That she brought with her?

    Dunlop: Yeah, wonderful, yeah.

    Bennett: White linen?

    Dunlop: Well - what kinda - she'll be back.

    Bennett: Okay.

    Dunlop: She can tell - they were good stuff.

    Bennett: In the kitchen on the table, did she use what we know as oilcloth?

    Dunlop: She might be able to ...

    Bennett: You don't remember, well I'll go back to that when she comes back and ask her. How about hair care, how often did you get a haircut?

    Dunlop: Oh, that's the $64 question, I could never remember that, but we sure would need it when we got it.

    Bennett: When your parents made you go, I suppose, is that right?

    Dunlop: Half the time, they clipped around themselves.

    Bennett: You did it yourself, did your father do it or your mother?

    Dunlop: I don't know who done it then, I just can't recall. That was some problem, whether you got a haircut or not. She wanted to know about the tablecloth, did Mother have some good tablecloths?

    Woman: Yeah, linen ones, the ones she brought over from Scotland.

    Dunlop: And then did we have an oilcloth...

    Woman: Had oilcloth on the kitchen table, yeah.

    Dunlop: That's what she wanted to know.

    Bennett: Did - do you remember whether it was that checkerboard probably?

    Woman: Yeah, yes.

    Bennett: What color?

    Woman: Usually it was red and white, as far as I can remember.

    Bennett: And did - was that used to line the drawers and so forth as well?

    Woman: I don't know, I don't remember lining any drawers, only with newspaper.

    Bennett: You lined the drawers with newspaper?

    Woman: That's what I've seen his mother do, yes.

    Bennett: Okay, we were discussing hair care and haircuts.

    Woman: I guess they got them when they needed it.

    Dunlop: That's right.
  • Riding on a sled; Trips and excursions; Talented people in the neighborhood; Renting the family home; Flooding on the Brandywine Creek; Childhood toys and games
    Keywords: Baseball; Basketball; Brandywine Creek; Christmas; Circuses; Dominoes; Euchre; Flooding; Hagley Community House (Breck's Mill); Hogmanay; Shellpot Park; Sleds; Street-railroads; Toys
    Transcript: Bennett: I think we did discuss the outhouses, they were right out there Sleigh rides as well as wagon rides – now we did discuss the hayride wagon, how about sleigh rides?

    Dunlop: No, we had our own sleds and sled up Rockford Tower and down Breck's Lane and Barley Mill Road.

    Bennett: But you wouldn't hire a horse and a big sleigh and go on an outing?

    Dunlop: No.

    Bennett: Did you ever camp out overnight?

    Dunlop: No, not when I was a kid.

    Bennett: Do you remember amusement parks?

    Dunlop: Shellpot Park.

    Bennett: Okay, what do you remember there?

    Dunlop: Well, they had merry-go-rounds and stuff like that, it's a place where young people would hang out, pick up a date and stuff like that.

    Bennett: How did you get there?

    Dunlop: Mostly walked.

    Bennett: All the way over there?

    Dunlop: Sure.

    Bennett: Was there a trolley line?

    Dunlop: Yeah, a trolley line. When I was courting her, I walked from Breck's Lane over to Vandever Avenue and didn't think nothing of it.

    Bennett: And then you could walk from there, I guess, down to Shellpot if you wanted to, right?

    Dunlop: Well...

    Bennett: It'd be a long walk.

    Woman: It was a long walk.

    Dunlop: But mostly we went on a - sometimes we went on a trolley car.

    Bennett: How about beaches, did you ever go to a beach?

    Dunlop: Not till after I was married, not as a kid, no.

    Bennett: Do you remember the circus and the carnivals coming to town?

    Dunlop: Yeah, it used to be over at Front and Union.

    Bennett: What did they have?

    Dunlop: Everything, same as they got today.

    Bennett: No different.

    Dunlop: One of the boys that used to live out Breck's Lane got killed putting the tent up, fellow by the name of Howard Hand, pole fell on him and killed him outright.

    Bennett: Do you remember any people in your community that were extremely talented in a particular way?

    Dunlop: Yeah, let's see, one of them Rowe boys was talented. One of them Buckley boys - I mean they could take somersaults in the air on the street and stuff like that, they were acrobats.

    Bennett: Any artists that could...

    Dunlop: No.

    Bennett: How about singing, any musical - people that were -or dancers?

    Dunlop: No.

    Bennett: Play any instrument - anybody that might have played an instrument extremely well?

    Dunlop: Well, Mrs. Gallagher used to - back where Hackendorn, Mrs. Hackendorn, not the one you're talking about, the one on Breck's Lane, not that's years back, she used to teach piano lessons.

    Bennett: Your house, was it rented from the du Pont family, where you lived, it was rented from the du Ponts?

    Woman: It went with the job.

    Bennett: It went with the job.

    Woman: But they took so much out of the pay.

    Dunlop: What are you talking about now?

    Woman: Where we lived, but your father and mother paid rent. They paid rent, father and mother, but I don't know who to.

    Dunlop: We paid it to - in the Du Pont Building - what's his name: Winford or...

    Woman: Well, that was when we were paying for that house where we lived.

    Dunlop: Oh, that yellow house?

    Woman: Yes, yeah, but your father and mother, I don't know who they paid, but I know they paid rent.

    Dunlop: I don't know either, I don't know that either.

    Woman: Because I can remember it was ten dollars, but I don't know who they paid it to.

    Dunlop: I can't think of the man's name, it started with a W, I think.

    Woman: I can't remember his name either.

    Bennett: Do you know if any of the furniture came with the house, or was it all their own furniture?

    Dunlop: No, all of their own.

    Bennett: How about the stove, was the stove your mother's?

    Dunlop: Everything that was in the house you bought yourself.

    Bennett: You bought the stove yourself?

    Dunlop: Everything - wood stove and everything.

    Bennett: It was yours. Do you remember any floods?

    Dunlop: Yeah, I remember floods.

    Bennett: Would you talk about them, please.

    Dunlop: Well, I don't remember when they was, but I've seen it when they had to move all their stuff on the Main Street: clean out, all except the top floor. See as you go down Breck's - you know where you go down Breck's Mill? And you get a parking lot in there, well this side from there was houses all the way up, there were houses there.

    Woman: But when we lived there, it used to flood down there. What was the name of the street where Audry lived?

    Dunlop: That's Long Row.

    Woman: Long Row - the first floor would be flooded.

    Dunlop: Yeah, it would come out the road, but it never went up to the houses, it just - they had that stone wall and it only went up to the houses. But the other ones, they flooded them right out. Main Street, I guess, was what they called it.

    Bennett: Would they take the furniture and move it upstairs or would they must move it out of the...

    Dunlop: That's what they would have to do.

    Bennett: Out of the way completely.

    Dunlop: That was really, really luck, and then in the spring they had all that ice, you know. They used to cut ice out there.

    Bennett: They would cut the ice?

    Dunlop: Cut it for I guess Diamond Ice or somebody used to come out and cut it and take it away.

    Bennett: When you were a young boy, would you say that your mother had a routine, a house routine - like Monday she washed and baked and Tuesday she did ironing, or did she have a set way of doing things, or did she just do it when it was necessary?

    Dunlop: That's a $64 question - when you're a kid, you don't...I think it's more the girls were more aware of this than the boys, I think that's...

    Woman: I know she did all those things, because we lived with her for two years, but I don't remember her having any certain day, she baked and everything, but I don't remember her ever having a certain day.

    Dunlop: Now we had certain days now, here, I mean my wife and I, we have days - Monday we wash and whatever now. It's different, whenever being sick, we just changeover, some days till Tuesday.

    Bennett: I think that's for the most part, the ladies seem to have a routine and they would do the baking when they would do the ironing cause they were right there - not everybody, but some of them. Do you remember any house fires?

    Dunlop: No.

    Bennett: Don't remember?

    Dunlop: Don't remember anything being burned out there, no houses.

    Bennett: Do you remember the fire company, was there one?

    Dunlop: No.

    Bennett: Did you have a fireplace in your house?

    Dunlop: No.

    Bennett: Did you ever hear of the custom of putting a piece of turf on the fireplace mantle for good luck?

    Dunlop: Never heard of that.

    Bennett: Must be Irish.

    Dunlop: Must be.

    Bennett: Must be. What was your favorite homemade toy?

    Dunlop: I didn't have no toys that I remember. I never had anything. I was different kid, we never had no money, we just...

    Bennett: So then did you ever have any store-bought toys? Maybe from Christmas or something that you might have had a favorite?

    Dunlop: See, it's different for me, we never celebrated Christmas. We celebrated Hogmanay, and that's New Year's.

    Bennett: Did you get a gift for Hogmanay, would that be a...

    Dunlop: No, the old people, not the kids - that's all that was. They had whiskey and all that stuff. Now the Irish and the American kids, now the younger generation, our children went to - up there to Laird's parties and stuff like that and all and they got Christmas things then, but my family never had enough money to buy anything. The stuff that I got was secondhanded or something they threw away and I fixed up. I was just talking about it last week, I had a tough life. Yeah, I didn't have no bed of roses.

    Bennett: Well, you were busy, really, working, you didn't have time for toys for the most part.

    Dunlop: We had to get the potato bugs off the potatoes and drop them in kerosene and stuff like that.

    Bennett: How about games?

    Dunlop: I think I told you about that one we used to play -Hunt the Hare.

    Bennett: Yeah, yea.

    Dunlop: That's about it.

    Bennett: Did you have any games that you played indoors in the winter?

    Dunlop: Dominoes.

    Bennett: Dominoes - was that your favorite?

    Dunlop: Well, the whole family played this - Scotch game. Outside of that - and we used to play Euchre, stuff like that.

    Bennett: Did you have any hobbies?

    Dunlop: Well, let's see, what do you mean hobbies - fishing?

    Bennett: Well, let's say - I meant in the winter, or indoor hobby, like collecting stamps, somebody might do.

    Dunlop: See, we had basketball, you had a library, it was just the same thing there as what was in the YMCA. Same identical thing, it was a Godsend out there.

    Bennett: I think so.

    Dunlop: Yes, it was.

    Bennett: Outdoor games and hobbies - that again would be, I guess, at Hagley House, right?

    Dunlop: Yes, that's right, everything was in the Hagley - that's where everybody went, that's where we all congregated.

    Bennett: What was the name of the basketball team, do you remember?

    Dunlop: Mount Vernon.

    Bennett: Mount Vernon. Do you remember the baseball team?

    Dunlop: Well, it was named Mount Vernon, too. And later on, you know, Les Madison, his father worked for Alfred I., he used to run the Hagley baseball team, but that's later on.

    Bennett: There was a team I’ ve heard of called the Blue Rose baseball.

    Dunlop: Never heard of that.

    Bennett: That might have been before, that might have been one of the first ones, but I'm not really sure.

    Dunlop: Before my time.
  • Neighborhood midwives; Home remedies; Dumping garbage; Using an outhouse; Family decision making
    Keywords: Accents; Childbirth; Dumping; Garbage; Landfills; Languages; Little Italy, Wilmington, Del.; Medicine; Midwives; Mustard plasters; Outhouses; Remedies; Sears Roebuck catalogs; Sisofo tailors
    Transcript: Bennett: Did you ever whittle?

    Dunlop: No.

    Bennett: Do you remember who in the neighborhood was the midwife?

    Dunlop: Mrs. Baird, wasn't it, Mrs. Baird and Mrs. Andrews.

    Woman: Yeah, two of them.

    Bennett: Mrs. Baird?

    Dunlop: Mrs. Baird, yeah.

    Bennett: B-A-I-R-D?

    Dunlop: B-A-I-R-D.

    Bennett: And Mrs. Andrews?

    Dunlop: Andrews, yeah. Her name was - what was it – Aunt Maggie, Aunt Maggie Andrews.

    Woman: Yeah, we called her Aunt Maggie.

    Dunlop: And while I think of it, I was talking to one of the Lloyd girls and she was at a party for Bud Kindbeiter, you know, he's in a wheelchair.

    Bennett: Can you tell me where he lives?

    Dunlop: He lives with his daughter.

    Bennett: Yeah, I know, but I don't know where that is.

    Dunlop: She could tell you, Laird. Yeah, I could get the address for you.

    Bennett: Okay, cause I'd like to see him, and he's in a wheelchair, huh?

    Dunlop: That's what she said.

    Bennett: Well, I know he had trouble with his legs. I went to see him at Pelleport, but the day I got there, he had gone.

    Dunlop: Well, you know his father, his father had both legs cut off. And he's the greatest man for jokes, you know, he was really - for a man like that, he was a jolly man.

    Bennett: I guess he was a character all of his life.

    Dunlop: He had one joke he used to tell, he said - I'll never forget, he said when I was playing football, he said "I was playing in the back field and I got this pass and the funniest thing, instead of running under the goal posts, I jumped over them, I thought you had to do that."

    Bennett: He's a funny man. The midwives, you knew, I mean all births were at home?

    Dunlop: Yeah.

    Bennett: Do you remember any home remedies that your mother used when you got sick or anybody in the family got sick?

    Dunlop: Do you remember it?

    Woman: No.

    Bennett: Nothing special?

    Dunlop: No.

    Bennett: Nothing like for a sore throat or a mustard plaster?

    Woman: Mustard plaster, I remember his mother making a mustard plaster for a cold in the chest, yes. That's the only thing I can remember.

    Bennett: Then we'll talk about accents and foreign languages, your parents did have an accent, I'm sure with their Scotch.

    Dunlop: Mother's brogue.

    Woman: I used to like to hear her talk.

    Bennett: Did they speak any other language?

    Dunlop: No, just American.

    Bennett: Yes. Do you remember fretwork that's done with a coping saw?

    Dunlop: Nup, never heard of it.

    Bennett: How about garbage dumps - boy, we're jumping all around, aren't we?

    Dunlop: Garbage dumps?

    Bennett: Yes, do you remember the garbage dumps?

    Woman: Yeah, there was one in back of us, where even the du Ponts dumped their garbage.

    Bennett: In back of which home?

    Woman: Where we lived on Breck's Lane.

    Dunlop: Back of W. K.'s home.

    Woman: Back of W. K.'s where the railroad track ran, and they used to take all their garbage back there.

    Dunlop: And they filled that big hole up, whatever it was.

    Bennett: And then start over somewhere else, I guess.

    Dunlop: I don't know where they went from there. They were dumping there when we were living on Breck's Lane.

    Woman: Yeah, when we were there.

    Bennett: Did you dump in there too?

    Woman: Yeah, everybody.

    Dunlop: Everybody did.

    Woman: They collected our garbage and trash, but that's where they took it to dump it.

    Bennett: Okay, it was collected by a garbage collector?

    Woman: No, the men that worked for du Ponts or Mr. Laird or Mrs. Laird.

    Dunlop: They had their own garbage collectors.

    Bennett: And then it was dumped in there?

    Woman: U-huh.

    Bennett: Okay. Do you remember cleaning of the privies?

    Dunlop: Yeah, yeah, yeah. What a smell.

    Bennett: Who did that?

    Dunlop: They had regular people, I don't know their name, but they come around with a big tank, you know.

    Bennett: How often did that happen, do you know?

    Dunlop: When it got filled (laughs). Just depends how many in the family.

    Woman: Good old days - I wouldn't want to go back and live them.

    Bennett: That's something we can leave behind us, right?

    Woman: Yeah, that's where I went too.

    Dunlop: Used Sears and Roebuck for - tissue papers.

    Woman: I came from the city and had all those conveniences and went out there and had nothing.

    Bennett: It's like camping out, isn't it?

    Woman: Right, cried for a year.

    Dunlop: She never read no newspaper out there in the wintertime I'll tell you that.

    Bennett: Well, I believe it (laughs). Did you use anything other than the Sears and Roebuck catalog as paper?

    Dunlop: Not that I ever remember - we never used no toilet paper, I know that.

    Bennett: No, no, I'm sure. But did you save, like newspaper or other types of paper?

    Dunlop: No, grabbed just anything that was out there – Sunday paper or something like that.

    Bennett: Whatever. Was it cut in sizes, or did you just leave the whole paper?

    Dunlop: No, you tore it.

    Bennett: You tore your own.

    Dunlop: You got the size you wanted.

    Bennett: Would you say that the people in the area got along very well, or was there a lot of conflict?

    Dunlop: No conflict, never, nicest people in the world. Never - I mean if you had an argument or something, sometimes you'd fight it out, but there's no malice, best man win. Very seldom.

    Bennett: Between the parents, let's say - I mean the older people with the neighbors, that would still be the same?

    Dunlop: That's right, if I done something wrong, they'd go to my father. He wouldn't ask me - he'd go to work on me, that's it. They were right, I was wrong, no matter, that's how it was.

    Bennett: Yeah, that's different today, too.

    Dunlop: Oh, you better believe it - get locked up if you bother them now.

    Bennett: That's part of the problem I think, true.

    Dunlop: Did you say you have a boy?

    Bennett: Have two, but they are grown. In your home, who made the decisions if it was buying a big item – your mother, your father, or was it a joint decision?

    Dunlop: Wasn't no joint, wasn't no joint decision, it was my father.

    Bennett: He was the boss, huh?

    Dunlop: He was the boss. Many a time my mother bought stuff and never told him. He was bad, bad on that.

    Bennett: So she just really did it and kept quiet?

    Woman: Right.

    Bennett: She was smart, right?

    Dunlop: That's right. I remember the first long pair of pants he got, suit, and I don't know where she bought 'em, but I went out on a Sunday morning with a gang of fellows, and it started to rain and that night when I took them off, they looked like they had shrunk about that far, they were...

    Bennett: Shorts (laughs).

    Dunlop: We didn't know nothin’ , Mother never knew nothin’ about clothes, and you know - anybody could...

    Bennett: It was different than it is now anyhow, don't you think, I mean the products?

    Dunlop: Well, when I was 17 and 18 years old, when I was married: Daddy was 19: well, I was 17, I used to pay $65.00 for a tailor-made suit, Sisofo's: $65.00.

    Bennett: That would be a lot of money in those days wouldn't it?

    Dunlop: You better believe it was a lot of money.

    Bennett: You would have a first-class...

    Dunlop: Best! They used to be two of the best over in Little Italy we called, over on Union Street: fellow named Tait and Sisofo.
  • Cooking and getting food; Floor coverings; Doing the laundry; Going to Hagley Community House (Breck's Mill); Scottish Nursery rhymes
    Keywords: Books; Burns, Robert, 1759-1796; Clothespins; Cooking; Fels-Naptha; Floor coverings; Hagley Community House (Breck's Mill); Laundry; Linoleum; Poetry; Recipes; Rugs; Scissors grinders; Soap; Units of measurement; Wash lines
    Transcript: Bennett: I recognize the name Sisofo. I'm going to skip the next few for a few minutes until your wife comes back ‘ cause I think she'll be able to answer - oh, there she is, okay. Recipe books, did your mother have recipe books or did she...

    Dunlop: I want to hear this one, she'll tell you. A pinch of this and a pinch of that.

    Woman: No, no she had no recipe books or she didn't go by any recipes. What she made, she just knew how to make.

    Bennett: How to make it, m-huh.

    Woman: And when I first was living with her and I asked her how to make something, what did she tell me? A nipple of this and a pinch of that - a nipple is a handful, a handful of flour or a handful of sugar (laughs), and a pinch, a pinch of this or a pinch of that, that's the way she told me and I had to figure it out myself.

    Bennett: Watch. So then she didn’ t really have any recipe books to speak of?

    Woman: No, no, what she made, she made from her head.

    Bennett: She knew how.

    Woman: Just how to make it.

    Bennett: From her mother, yeah, I think that's how you learned. Were the meals fancy meals or were they just substantial, home-cooked good food?

    Dunlop: That's it. Meat man come around twice a week, bread man come around.

    Woman: That was towards the end, I think, but not from the very beginning.

    Dunlop: When I was a kid, meat man come around, Gilson.

    Woman: Oh, Mr. Gilson came around.

    Dunlop: Gilson is one of them, I forget the other guy's name.

    Bennett: Did you have a more elaborate meal on Sundays than you would during the week?

    Dunlop: No, just regular routine, I mean, there was never any special. We was great porridge eaters and rice eaters, you know. You people today, you get for rice pudding, you give a little- we got a big soup bowl full. Something like that.

    Bennett: Did you ever have apple cider?

    Dunlop: Oh yeah.

    Bennett: Did you make it or was it...

    Dunlop: No, we bought it.

    Bennett: It was bought, it wasn't homemade. Did you have a smoke house?

    Dunlop: No, no.

    Bennett: Do you remember any smoke houses in the area? What were your floors covered with, was it rugs or wood, linoleum, how were they...

    Dunlop: Most of them, out there with Mother's was wood, wasn't it? All I remember.

    Woman: Well she had - linoleum on the kitchen, yeah.

    Dunlop: Outside of that, it was just...

    Woman: I think she had some rag rugs, you know. Rag rugs that they made themselves.

    Bennett: I know what you mean, the braided type. How was the wood floor cared for, do you remember that, Mrs. Dunlop?

    Woman: No. One time I put something on my floors. We had two rooms when we first went to live with his parents, and I put something on the floor and I can't remember what it was, but his father got after me for doing it. He said it would ruin the floor.

    Bennett: Maybe you washed them down with water?

    Woman: I don't know what it was, seems to me, if I remember, it was some kind of a polish or something, but he didn't want it on there.

    Bennett: A wax perhaps.

    Woman: It might have been, but I don't really know. It seems like I remember it was some kind of a liquid, but he didn't want them done.

    Bennett: Do you remember any peddlers?

    Dunlop: Any what?

    Bennett: Peddlers.

    Woman: No, I don't remember anybody.

    Dunlop: I don't remember any offhand, if you think about it.

    Bennett: They would come and try to sell you items?

    Dunlop: The one that I remember used to have - one guy, I don’ t know his name, he used to come sharpen knives and stuff like that, come around with a little wagon - he didn't have a wagon.

    Bennett: That's the only peddler you remember?

    Dunlop: Most of my time was all wagons, there wasn't many cars around.

    Bennett: The meat - would there be a meat wagon or did you go down to the store for, like meat?

    Dunlop: For the meat? They come right to the door.

    Bennett: Oh, they would come to the door?

    Dunlop: Yeah, there was John Gilson, and his family lives out on: what's the name of that street over thereby...

    Woman: Westhaven.

    Dunlop: Westhaven - he was one of the first homes ever built out there. Then he used to live up there Church Street, he built a home up there and left there. But he was, there was another guy, but he was the main one.

    Bennett: I think of that more of a merchant than of a peddler though. Peddler would have little items or little trinkets or...

    Dunlop: I don't remember anybody like that.

    Bennett: The clothes, the clothes were washed, the clotheslines and pins - was the line of wire or of rope?

    Woman: Rope. As far as I remember.

    Bennett: Did it have the wooden support poles or did you have the pulley kind?

    Woman: No, it was wooden poles.

    Dunlop: No, it was wooden poles, and X in and shoot 'em up in the air.

    Bennett: What kind of pins were used?

    Woman: Regular, you know clothespins, the long ones that you pushed in the - not the ones that clamp like they have today.

    Bennett: Did the washtub have a wringer?

    Woman: No, not hers, no, not my mother-in-law's.

    Bennett: Did you have a clothes boiler?

    Woman: Yes.

    Bennett: How did the washtubs get emptied?

    Dunlop: With a bucket, there wasn't no outlet that I remember, used to bucket it out.

    Woman: In the summertime we would wash outside, everybody had a wash bench, you know, a long wash bench, now they're antiques, people are buying them for antiques.

    Dunlop: We used to get the water right out of the pump in the kitchen.

    Woman: Out of the pump in the kitchen, but there was a pump outside too, right outside the back – outside of the kitchen, and we used to wash out there. We'd have one tub for washing the clothes and one tub for rinsing, and that's the way she used to do most of the washing 'cause I didn't like to wash - and I would do the ironing 'cause she didn't like to iron, that's the way we split it up. But then in the wintertime, we did it in the kitchen. We would have the bigger boiler with the clothes on the old black stove in the kitchen, that's the way we did it.

    Bennett: And then you would bucket it, dump it out by bucketfuls?

    Woman: Yes, you'd have to bucket it out and empty it, yes.

    Bennett: And where would you - out back?

    Woman: Out back was like where the water come out from the pump, there was a long, wooden trough and it would run down.

    Dunlop: Trough, run down.

    Woman: But in the kitchen, was a sink, we had to empty it into the sink, that way.

    Bennett: Did you use homemade soap?

    Woman: No. I think she used it, she had made it...

    Dunlop: Fels Naptha.

    Woman: ...at one time with the lye and the lard – she had made it, but it was - I never wanted to use it 'cause it was too strong.

    Dunlop: Wasn't that the one you used all the time: Fels Naptha?

    Woman: Fels Naptha when you bought it.

    Bennett: I think most people used Fels Naptha.

    Woman: Yeah, but I know your mother made it, used to make it once in a while.

    Bennett: My next question is - do you remember Hagley House, Breck's Mill Community House? I know you do, this is - we call it Breck's Mill, you called it Hagley House.

    Dunlop: Oh it's Breck's Mill, down at the bottom of Breck's Lane.

    Bennett: Yeah - that's the question, and I know you do remember because you've talked about that so often.

    Dunlop: I remember it, sure, I went - it was there - well see, that - let's see - nineteen, I just forget, well I can remember when I was seven years old in 1912, I mean 1913, and I was only seven, right.

    Woman: You were born in 1905.

    Dunlop: Seven years old, that'd be 1913, seven and five.

    Woman: That would be 1912.

    Dunlop: I remember when I went there when I was 12 years old.

    Bennett: And you went there for a lot of fun things?

    Dunlop: That's right, that was it. That was the YMCA, that's what it was. It was a branch of the YMCA and it was run by Mrs. Bubb and Mrs. Bradford. Now her father, that Bubb was General Bubb from the old Civil War.

    Bennett: B-U-B-B?

    Dunlop: That's correct, that's guaranteed there.

    Bennett: Okay. Do you - I'm going to talk books now, do you remember any nursery rhymes?

    Dunlop: No.

    Woman: Only the Scotch ones.

    Bennett: The Scotch ones, yeah, I'm sure you would. Did you have any family books?

    Dunlop: Bobby Burns we had some on.

    Bennett: Again, that would be the Scotch? Did you have any books of your own?

    Dunlop: No.
  • Boats on the Brandywine; Ice; The family garden
    Keywords: Asparagus; Boats; Brandywine Creek; Bugs; Cabbages; Cucumbers; Dahlias; Fertilizer; Gardens; Ice; Kale; Kerosene; Parsley; Parsnip; Peonies; Potatoes; Radish; Rhubarb; Seeds; Squahs; Thyme; Trees; Vines
    Transcript: Bennett: Do you remember boats on the Brandywine?

    Dunlop: What's that?

    Bennett: Boats. I'm changing these subjects so fast.

    Dunlop: No, no, I don’ t remember no - well, somebody might have a boat to pick up wood or something that they made, but there was no...

    Bennett: But do you remember seeing anybody build these boats?

    Dunlop: No, no.

    Bennett: Did you have ice for drinks in the winter?

    Dunlop: We never used ice.

    Bennett: Never used ice.

    Dunlop: Only in the summertime.

    Bennett: You did use it in the summer?

    Dunlop: Oh, yeah, we had ice.

    Bennett: And would that be delivered?

    Dunlop: Yeah, we had that delivered.

    Bennett: How did you fertilize your garden? Your father, how did he...

    Dunlop: Mostly chicken manure.

    Bennett: That was mostly - did he carry or did you carry water to the garden for the plants?

    Dunlop: Yeah.

    Bennett: How would you do it?

    Dunlop: Buckets, and the rain took care of the rest of it, that's when I was a kid. We had a lot of stuff in that garden, you name it, we had it. We was talking about that the other night. Early Rose was the first potato.

    Bennett: Early Rose? Did your father start the early plants inside in a cold frame before putting them out?

    Dunlop: He had - what's that place down there?

    Woman: He had a hothouse.

    Dunlop: He had a hothouse, he had that cold frame, yeah.

    Bennett: Okay, and then he sold to other people?

    Dunlop: No, he didn't. No, he just made for...

    Bennett: No, just for himself?

    Dunlop: Yes, that's all.

    Bennett: He did start them out - What did he do about, in the garden, problems of the animals and how did he keep animals out? Did he put a fence around?

    Dunlop: No, they come up - rabbits got it, they got it, that's all.

    Woman: Well, there was a fence...

    Dunlop: Fence around it, all the way around.

    Woman: Whole yard, the whole, big yard.

    Bennett: But there wasn't a fence around the...

    Dunlop: They could dig their way out, the rabbits could.

    Bennett: What did he do about insects and diseases of the plants? In the garden?

    Bennett: We sprayed once in a while, I forget the name of the stuff, we used to - we had a big, well you push it – five-gallon drum; you pumped it and it sprayed solution.

    Bennett: You mentioned that you had to pick the little potato weevils?

    Dunlop: Yeah, we'd pick the potato bugs off and drop them in kerosene. But we sprayed such things as asparagus and cabbage and stuff like that. Potatoes, I don't remember spraying them.

    Bennett: Did you have any - did he use like crop rotation, do you have any idea of whether he rotated the crops because of the soil?

    Dunlop: I don't know that, I can't tell you that.

    Bennett: How about the picking of the crops, it was all done by hand, I'm sure, yes.

    Dunlop: Yeah, well potatoes, you dig them.

    Bennett: Yeah, but it was done all by hand, you didn't have any - did you ever have a scarecrow?

    Dunlop: Nup.

    Bennett: Where did your father get his seeds?

    Dunlop: Oh, I can never tell you that.

    Bennett: A lot of people would save them from year to year?

    Dunlop: Yeah, one to another.

    Woman: That's what he did with his.

    Bennett: He did?

    Woman: Where he got the original ones, I don't know.

    Bennett: But he did save them year to year.

    Dunlop: Yeah, after he got them.

    Bennett: And there was stores in Wilmington and also there was mail order.

    Dunlop: Stores in Wilmington was names Pierson's.

    Bennett: Okay, but you don't know whether he mail ordered as well?

    Dunlop: Never mail ordered, I remember. We used to go to Pierson's down there at Fourth and French.

    Bennett: U-huh, yes.

    Dunlop: You remember that, do you?

    Bennett: Yes I do, in fact that closed up not too long ago, well, I think, in the last ten years. Did he plant early and late cabbage and did he plant more than one planting of beans and lettuce and that type of thing?

    Dunlop: Yeah, he had it rotated.

    Bennett: Okay. Do you have any idea of the dimensions of the garden - could you come up with a size?

    Dunlop: That's pretty good size, I don't know offhand. I'd give you a rough idea...

    Woman: Wasn't acres or anything like that.

    Dunlop: No, it wasn't that big. It was, well it was the length, almost the length of the house, I mean the house on down the lane to the yellow house – do you remember that?

    Bennett: Can you put it in footage for me, let's - it doesn't have to be accurate, but let's put it in ballpark.

    Dunlop: It was, I'd say, let's say it's two squares by two squares, two squares long.

    Bennett: Okay, by a square you mean - let's picture a football field.

    Dunlop: That's ninety feet.

    Bennett: Okay.

    Dunlop: It wasn't that big.

    Bennett: Okay, about a half of a football field?

    Dunlop: About half.

    Bennett: Okay. Did he plant thyme, which is an herb, do you know?

    Dunlop: He planted thyme and parsley.

    Bennett: And did he plant cucumbers?

    Dunlop: Yeah, we had everything.

    Bennett: How about squash?

    Woman: Radish, squash.

    Bennett: Do you remember where the rhubarb was planted?

    Woman: Yeah, it was with the flowers.

    Bennett: It was in the flower garden?

    Woman: Yes.

    Bennett: Cantaloupes?

    Dunlop: No.

    Woman: He never fooled much with that.

    Bennett: Parsnips?

    Dunlop: Yeah.

    Woman: Oh yeah, made parsnip wine.

    Bennett: Parsnip wine?

    Dunlop: Yeah, that's pure white.

    Bennett: I've never heard of that.

    Dunlop: Yeah, it will knock you for a row too.

    Bennett: Kale?

    Woman: Yeah, yeah.

    Bennett: Pumpkins?

    Dunlop: No.

    Bennett: Did you have asparagus?

    Dunlop: Yeah.

    Bennett: Where was it?

    Dunlop: I forget where it was, it comes up every year.

    Bennett: Yeah, like the rhubarb, you see. You don't remember where it was?

    Dunlop: No.

    Bennett: Was it, maybe, with the flowers?

    Dunlop: Maybe it was, I don't know.

    Bennett: You said that...

    Bennett: Did he have a compost pile as well as the manure?

    Woman: Oh yeah.

    Bennett: How much of the garden, would you say, was in potatoes?

    Dunlop: Well we had, I'd say one, two - we had about ten rows of potatoes. We had the Early Rose and then we had another batch.

    Woman: The other night you said you done four or five bushels or something - the other night when you was talking about it.

    Dunlop: Yeah, we got about about five bushels, six bushels, enough to last you a good while.

    Bennett: Through the season, I'm sure.

    Dunlop: Yeah, well anyhow, after the Early Rose got done, then we put another - cutting the later ones too.

    Bennett: So would you say maybe...

    Dunlop: Well, I would say that the potato had about this room here, about three times as long.

    Bennett: Not a quarter of the garden wasn't in potatoes, not really?

    Dunlop: No.

    Bennett: Good half of that. Did you have vines and shrubs and flowers around the house?

    Dunlop: Yes we did, we had that what-you-call-em vine, we had that great big tree with them - locust tree, big locust tree, yeah, that was a tremendous tree.

    Woman: Lilac trees, a lot of lilac trees, and what he planted, he raised prize peonies.

    Bennett: Peonies, they're pretty, I wish they lasted longer than they do.

    Woman: He used to sell the bulbs, you know, people used to buy the bulbs off him, but there was nobody around there that had the garden that Mr. Dunlop had, nobody on Breck's Lane had that kind of a garden.

    Bennett: Did he sell any of the vegetables?

    Dunlop: No. He sold some of his dahlias though, he had some prize dahlias.

    Woman: That's what it was, dahlias, yeah.

    Bennett: Did you gather dandelions?

    Dunlop: Nope, we was no dandelion eaters.

    Bennett: Did you have watercress?

    Dunlop: Nope.
  • Relatives living with the family; Interactions with the du Pont family; Dealing with bees, bugs, and other insects; Snow removal; Medicine; Men's underwear and clothes; Trunks
    Keywords: Baird, Joe; Baking soda; Bees; Bugs; Clothes; du Pont family; Du Pont, S. Hallock (Samuel Hallock), 1901-1974; Family; Flies; Friends; Peregoric; Relatives; Shoes; Snow; Snow removal; Tonsiline; Toothbrushing; Trunks; Underwear
    Transcript: Bennett: Did you have any relatives that lived with you?

    Dunlop: Nope - oh yah, I had - for a while I had my uncle and aunt, his brother and his wife.

    Bennett: For about...

    Dunlop: Oh, about a year, maybe not that.

    Woman: And the father raised his nephew from Scotland.

    Dunlop: Yeah, yeah, he come over - well he only, well he was there about five years, I guess. He worked at Bancroft.

    Bennett: Well, then he really - he raised another...

    Dunlop: Yeah, he raised his brother’ s boy.

    Bennett: Did you ever visit in the du Pont homes?

    Dunlop: Not when I was seven years - no.

    Bennett: When you were...

    Dunlop: No, saw them after, you know...

    Bennett: Yes, but you didn't go into them as a child? Did you have any rats and mice?

    Dunlop: Yeah, we had rats and mice.

    Bennett: What kind of a problem, would you tell me what you did about them?

    Dunlop: Shoot them with a shotgun, the rats. Then, see after we got them cats out there, we never had no trouble, we had about four or five cats.

    Bennett: That took care of the problem?

    Dunlop: Oh yeah, no trouble.

    Woman: As a boy, he played with Hallock du Pont, they used to play together.

    Bennett: But you didn't go visit in the house?

    Dunlop: No. I knew what his house looked like after I got married, 'cause I chauffeured for her, Mrs. W. K.

    Bennett: But as a child, you really...

    Dunlop: No.

    Bennett: What did you do about flies and mosquitoes.

    Dunlop: Let them bite you.

    Bennett: Did you have screens?

    Dunlop: Yeah.

    Bennett: How about bees and wasps, what did you do?

    Dunlop: They just stung and went on about their business.

    Woman: I used to get stung every spring, oh yeah.

    Bennett: Snow removal - what did you do about removing the snow?

    Dunlop: Used a shovel, that's all, didn't have no - well outside the road, they took care of it with the snowplows, we used a shovel.

    Bennett: Did you, as a young boy, try to make money shoveling snow - I know you said you did later.

    Dunlop: When I was a young boy, no.

    Bennett: Who was your best friend?

    Dunlop: My best friend?

    Bennett: M-huh.

    Dunlop: When I was a young boy? Fellow by the name of Joe Baird.

    Bennett: Joe Baird?

    Dunlop: Yeah, he's passed away, but his name is all through the Brandywine. His mother was a midwife, one of the midwives.

    Bennett: Okay. And you remained friends over the years?

    Dunlop: Oh, yeah, yeah.

    Bennett: Did you play together and go to school together?

    Dunlop: Yeah, we went to school and everything like that.

    Bennett: Did you have medicines for the flu and for colds?

    Dunlop: What was the one with the giraffe on there? Member that?

    Woman: Tonsils.

    Dunlop: That's the one we had.

    Woman: Tonsiline.

    Dunlop: Tonsiline.

    Bennett: Tonsiline.

    Dunlop: It had a bottle and had a big giraffe on it.

    Bennett: Oh, oh the sore, okay, yeah. What did you do about diarrhea?

    Woman: Peregoric.

    Bennett: Peregoric, okay. And toothaches?

    Woman: I don't remember them.

    Bennett: How about headaches, what did you...

    Dunlop: Toothaches, we had that toothache wax. It was a toothache was and we used to put it in there.

    Woman: And I remember one time your mother heating a salt bag for an earache or something, taking a salt bag and heating it, to put on one of my boy's ears, had an earache. That was his mother.

    Bennett: Salt bag.

    Woman: Yeah, salt in it, and heated it and it held the heat. And put it on his ear.

    Bennett: To keep it...

    Woman: Yeah, they had no heating pads.

    Bennett: U-huh, that would be a home remedy, then, well yes. How about headaches, what did you do about those?

    Dunlop: Never had a headache in my life.

    Bennett: I wasn't allowed to have one, my mother said "you're too young to have a headache, you can’ t have one.”

    Woman: I had migraine headaches all my life.

    Bennett: Oh, they're terrible. My sons both get them. My father did.

    Woman: My mother, my grandmother, my daughter, it's inherited.

    Bennett: That's right, that's exactly what it is.

    Woman: It's inherited, yes.

    Bennett: Did you have toothpaste?

    Dunlop: No-o-o, we used - well, I'll tell you, I remember as a kid, we never done much brushing teeth.

    Bennett: But when you did, was it a paste or was it a powder that you got.

    Dunlop: We used baking soda - wasn't it baking soda?

    Woman: Baking soda and salt.

    Bennett: Now we're going to talk about men's underwear (laughs). Did you have long Johns - the winter underwear?

    Dunlop: Yeah, yeah.

    Bennett: And what did you wear in the summer for underwear?

    Dunlop: Well, we just didn't wear no underpants or nothin', just regular...

    Bennett: Just your...

    Dunlop: You just put your clothes on in the nude, there wasn't no shirts or nothin', that's all I can remember.

    Bennett: How about, like in the summertime then, you would just wear pants, right?

    Dunlop: Yeah, that’ s right.

    Bennett: Bare feet?

    Dunlop: Yeah, bare feet.

    Bennett: Okay, now for Sunday, would you wear - get all dressed up and then take it off...

    Dunlop: Shoes - go to Sunday School.

    Bennett: I won't go into the ladies' clothes with you. The clothing - would it come mostly from the Sears catalog or would your parents go downtown?

    Dunlop: I guess she bought 'em in town, she never ordered anything my mail, you know. Like store, I don't know the stores that were there then. I guess - well I don't think ten cents stores sold stuff then, did they?

    Woman: I don't know.

    Bennett: Did your father wear a tie to work?

    Woman: No.

    Bennett: A necktie?

    Dunlop: My father never dressed much.

    Woman: He was a plasterer.

    Dunlop: Plasterer. He never went out for dressing up.

    Bennett: Did he belong to any men's groups, like unions or fraternal organizations or...

    Dunlop: He belonged to the Scottish clan.

    Bennett: Scottish clan.

    Dunlop: That's it.

    Bennett: Any social clubs? Or church clubs?

    Dunlop: No. Not as I know. He might know, but I don't know, remember them, no.

    Bennett: How about your mother...

    Dunlop: She's Scottish Clan, she was former chief and so was my father.

    Woman: And the circles at church.

    Dunlop: Lady McDuff was her name.

    Woman: Church, she was active in the church.

    Bennett: Which church was this?

    Dunlop: Greenhill Presbyterian.

    Woman: Greenhill Presbyterian.

    Bennett: Did she have a fan that she used - a hand fan?

    Dunlop: I don't remember her using a fan, do you? Piece of newspaper (laughs).

    Bennett: U-huh, a lot of people did that. How did you keep cool in the summer, what was...

    Dunlop: It was cool out there, it was really cool. We never needed...

    Woman: We never seemed to be hot.

    Dunlop: Never need no air condition like they have today.

    Bennett: Well, those walls were so thick for one thing, the stone walls.

    Woman: I used to love to see spring come so we could open the doors and the windows.

    Bennett: It's a beautiful area out there. Did you have a trunk room?

    Dunlop: A what?

    Bennett: A trunk room.

    Dunlop: Not that I knew of of.

    Bennett: Some of the Irish people refer to - seemed to be a room on maybe the third floor, for storage and so forth.

    Dunlop: Where they come from over the other side with the trunks, yes. We had a trunk, but we didn't have no room for it. We had a couple of trunks. They just stayed in the bedroom, yeah, big old trunks we had.

    Woman: Brought over, yeah.
  • Mother's Scottish cooking; Premarital sex; Tools; Bum's Woods; Leaving the Brandywine
    Keywords: Bread; Bum's Woods; Cleavers; Kennett Pike; Kentmere; Laird, W. W. (William Winder), 1910-1989; Premarital sex; Rolling pins; Scones; Sex; Shortbreads; Toast; Tools; Westover Hills
    Transcript: Bennett: How about, did you have, your mother, you said, made special Scottish cookies: did she make biscuits as well? She really baked the Scotch bread?

    Dunlop: She made scones, Scotch scones, short bread, that's it.

    Bennett: Did she make rolls at all?

    Dunlop: I don't remember - she made bread once in a while.

    Woman: Bread - she made bread.

    Bennett: Did you have toast, or would it usually be bread?

    Dunlop: Yeah, made toast.

    Woman: We had a lot of toast.

    Bennett: How did you toast your bread?

    Dunlop: Over an oil stove, sit it on that - had a regular screen there, set the toast on there.

    Bennett: Like a wire?

    Dunlop: Yeah, that's right.

    Bennett: Okay, and would you turn it over?

    Woman: Yes, yeah.

    Dunlop: Yeah, you'd turn it over, if it didn't burn up.

    Woman: It had two - it went together, it was a screen you pulled together, you put the toast in there. Toast one side and then you'd turn it over.

    Dunlop: I had some of that burnt raisin bread this morning.

    Woman: I didn’ t burn it, he did it yourself.

    Dunlop: I know that.

    Woman: But I can remember his mother toasting bread with a long fork - over the coals.

    Dunlop: Over the coals, yeah. Fork about that long.

    Bennett: The toast in the screen, how many pieces would that hold?

    Woman: Four.

    Bennett: Four pieces. Was there much letter writing done in your family?

    Woman: His mother wrote to her family over in Scotland.

    Dunlop: I don't remember my father writing a letter.

    Woman: His father didn't never wrote, it was his mother. She did a lot of corresponding because she had a large family, and she did a lot of corresponding.

    Bennett: Do I remember correctly that she was never happy here?

    Woman: No.

    Bennett: Yeah, that's what I thought you had said.

    Dunlop: No, she never became an American citizen.

    Bennett: Do you know anything about saltpeter bag making, do you remember people doing this?

    Dunlop: No.

    Bennett: Do you remember the willow peeling?

    Dunlop: No.

    Bennett: Did your father, well he didn't work for the DuPont Company actually, no? Now, I'm going to ask – this is a little delicate, but it's here - what was the beliefs in your time about premarital sex?

    Dunlop: Do you want to answer that question?

    Bennett: No, it's just for you (laughs). The boys - what did the boys, your friends, what did they think about this?

    Dunlop: Never talked a thing about it.

    Bennett: You know, that does not surprise me too much.

    Dunlop: That's right, they wasn't - sex wasn't in our minds when we was young boys. When I was a young fellow, we was - I don't know - we played with the girls and everything. They wore bloomers, like in the gym, we never had no bad ideas, I didn't anyhow, now there was a few, you know. They never bothered me any.

    Bennett: And then did the boys get off at some point, some age and discuss sex and so forth, did you have any...

    Dunlop: No, I never heard anybody discuss sex, none of the guys.

    Bennett: That's something. I'm going to ask you next about tools in your kitchen. Do you remember what your mother used mostly in the kitchen? Was there any special tools that she had?

    Dunlop: I don't think Mom - I don't remember having a pair of pliers or nothin'.

    Bennett: No, I don't mean that - like - do you remember that she had a particular great big bowls that were unusual or maybe her rolling pin or some items?

    Woman: Oh, she had a rolling pin and she had a cleaver - I'll never forget that.

    Bennett: She would use the cleaver?

    Woman: To cut the - chop the meat. And a man came to the door one time and she had this cleaver in her hand and she walked to the door and the man turned around and run away (laughs). She was cutting meat out in the kitchen and she went to the door with it in her hand.

    Dunlop: Mom was a big woman. She was built like Mrs. Bennett here, wasn't she?

    Woman: Yeah.

    Dunlop: She was six foot.

    Bennett: Oh, was she?

    Dunlop: Weighed over 220 pounds and you didn't see a bit of fat on her. I've seen her pick up 200 pounds and walk away with it, never even grumbled.

    Bennett: Oh, the ladies were tougher in those days, they were.

    Dunlop: Well she was, she was brought up in a dairy. She made her own butter, but Mom can make butter, she made her own butter.

    Bennett: Yeah, I think - how about the tools in the shed – do you remember how your dad organized the shed and kept his tools for the garden?

    Dunlop: They were just put in there when you got done using them and went back and got them again, that's all.

    Bennett: Did he keep them well cleaned and oiled and so forth?

    Dunlop: Yeah, he had them push harrows - now they got motors to run them. He had them cultivators, too, you know.

    Bennett: How big was his shed?

    Dunlop: Oh, I'd say - wasn't that big - I'd say 8 by 10, something like that.

    Bennett: Did - I think I know the answer to this already – did your father ever use any cologne or toilet water?

    Dunlop: No.

    Bennett: Did your mother use perfume?

    Dunlop: I don't remember. My Daddy, the only perfume he used as cologne was whiskey (laughs). He liked his drink.

    Bennett: How about potty chairs - did you have...

    Dunlop: Not as I can remember.

    Bennett: Did you ever have chamber pots?

    Dunlop: Not as I can remember, maybe...

    Woman: Yes.

    Dunlop: Maybe she can...

    Bennett: You do remember?

    Dunlop: Out there?

    Woman: Yes, your mother's house - sure.

    Dunlop: For the kids?

    Woman: Yeah, for everybody, everybody.

    Bennett: Well, for the winters, I'm sure.

    Woman: Yeah, right, kept them under the bed, yeah.

    Bennett: Were they pretty ones, sort of...

    Woman: Some of them were, yeah.

    Bennett: China or...

    Woman) Porcelain or - yes. Every bedroom had one, you know, for the children, and they were kept underneath the bed. That was another thing I couldn't get used to, after having a bathroom (laughs). Oh. I thought I - I didn't know what I got myself into.

    Bennett: I believe it. And really you weren't that far from home, really.

    Woman: No.

    Bennett: But what a difference, it's just a few miles. Before I turned on the tape recorder, you were discussing was it Bum's Row - what did you call it?

    Dunlop: Bum's Woods.

    Bennett: Bum's Woods - would you tell me about that, please? We were discussing the train and the...

    Dunlop: Well, you go out - it's out where Westover Hill is, you know where Westover Hill is?

    Bennett: Yes.

    Dunlop: You know the Kennett Pike, that bridge you go across, there's a bridge there, do you remember that bridge?

    Bennett: M-huh, yes.

    Dunlop: Well, it's right out to the end of there, that's called Bum's Woods, right on out as far as you can go. There might be houses there now, but that's...

    Bennett: And why was it called Bum's Woods?

    Dunlop: That's where the bums used to lay out.

    Bennett: Okay, and...

    Dunlop: Off the railroads, you know they had campfires and everything out there, you know, stayed over there.

    Bennett: They would come on the train, would then just jump off the train, so to speak?

    Dunlop: Jump off the train.

    Bennett: And you say occasionally stop for a meal or something, or try to get a meal?

    Dunlop: Yeah, sometimes they'd walk in the house for a meal. They were harmless, I mean, that's why they called it Bum's Woods.

    Bennett: Just wanted a meal. Because that's where the bums hung out.

    Dunlop: Yeah.

    Bennett: Did you say that they were employed at Bancroft, some of them? You said some of them went to Bancroft Mills?

    Dunlop: Well, they went down that way, I mean, that's the only way the train would go.

    Bennett: Oh, okay.

    Dunlop: The train went down. See, the train went on – that was the branch went down past - right past Alfred I.,I mean, Alex I. du Pont School, and went under that bridge that we were looking at, you know, and right on down into Bancrofts, down into Kentmere. You know where Kentmere is?

    Bennett: Yes, yes.

    Bennett: But the other mail line was up towards Pennsylvania and went in to Front Street, that was the Reading Railroad. I think they still run tours up there once in a while.

    Bennett: I think so, yeah. So that's Bum's Row, huh?

    Dunlop: Bum's Woods.

    Bennett: Bum's Woods, I have Row - Woods. Mr. Dunlop, when did you leave the Brandywine?

    Dunlop: When'd I leave it?

    Bennett: U-huh - that area.

    Dunlop: I left there in 1951.

    Bennett: You stayed on Breck's Lane until then?

    Dunlop: Yup, 1951, and went out to work for Braden - that's a - you probably seen his picture in the paper the other day with Ford. Yeah, I went to work with him, supposed to take over superintendent: his father was an alcoholic and I just couldn't get along, he wanted that house, so I quit and went back to the trade. I left the trade to go there through Chick Laird recommended me, but it didn't pan out. I was there nine months, no, not quite nine months. I went there in April, left - when did I left? November, December?

    Woman: December.

    Dunlop: December, I left in December. I went back to my trade the 15th of December.

    Bennett: Well, I'm at the end of my questions. You've answered 217 of them. And I want to thank you both very much, it's been a pleasure meeting you and I've enjoyed talking with you very much.

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