Interview with Mary Braden Jackson, 1986 July 13 [audio]

Hagley ID:
Download
  • Additional descendants of her father, Henry Braden; discussing photographs from the McDade family, including images of Sam Frizzell's store, the Ferraro family, Charles du Pont's house, and Pat McDade with powder yard foreman
    Keywords: family history; Fels-Naphtha Soap; Ferraro family; Grocery trade; household soap; Industrial accidents; Ivory Soap; McDade family; Ned Edler; Sam Frizzell; Stutterers; tar soap; Webster Blakely; Women dressmakers
    Transcript: Bennett: Hello Mrs. Jackson, it's nice to be with you again today.

    Jackson: Oh, I'm enjoying it.

    Bennett: Okay. July 13, 1986, and first of all, you'd like to finish telling me of your family history and I'd like to hear the other family that you would like to include in the...

    Jackson: You want me to finish off with my father — and it's on?

    Bennett: Yes, it's going.

    Jackson: I will now finish Henry Braden's family. He has two other nephews born in Wilmington and he has grandchildren and he also had a grand— niece...

    [Unidentified woman]: Granddaughter.

    Jackson: Granddaughter - I'm all mixed up now. One grandson is Norman Holby McClaren and he is the third son, he was born July 5, 1910 and he also has — 1909 he was born. He also has another nephew, Arnold Frances Maxwell, and a granddaughter, Grace Ethel Maxwell Williams. They are the two daughters of Ellen Braden Maxwell.

    [Unidentified woman]: Is that everybody?

    Jackson: And he has — he also has — his first great— grandson, Charles Archibald McClaren, born January 21, 1929, and his other grandsons.

    Bennett: Is that everybody? Okay, thank you. I brought a few pictures today from a collection that was given by the McDade family. Do you remember the McDade family?

    Jackson: Yes, very well.

    Bennett: This is a picture of the McDade children as they were growing up — do you remember them?

    Jackson: Yes, yes I do.

    Bennett: Would you like to say something about them?

    Jackson: Well, they were a lovely family and a Christian family. They were Catholics and belonged to St. Joseph's Church. In my time there was Lizzie McDade, there was Rose McDade, Margaret McDade and Katie McDade, and a couple of sons, one was Francis McDade and I think the other was Pat McDade. I didn't know them so well, but I know the girls.

    Bennett: Were they girlfriends of yours or did...

    Jackson: Yes, we all played together on the Creek Road, we all went in swimming in the Brandywine Creek, we climbed trees together, we went up to Miss Mary's woods and we hunted walnuts, and we also hunted chestnuts, and we were all good friends and all played happily together.

    Bennett: That's nice. Now, this is a picture of —

    Jackson: Sam Frizzell's Store?

    Bennett: Sam Frizzell's Store, that's right. What do you remember about that, Mrs. Jackson?

    Jackson: It was a nice sized grocery store and he had a wagon and a horse, there were two horses, but he had a horse and he used to take orders — go around one day, take the orders, and in the next couple of days he would deliver the orders. They used to, at that time be allowed to go up through the Powder Mill Road, and he used to go up to the Upper Banks and up to Charles' Banks and up to the Chicken Alley and riding down through. At one time there was an accident, his wagon bumped into something, a powder car or something on the railroad, a little, small affair it was, and then they were very worried from then on, and then they stopped the wagons from going up through the yard, so they wouldn't have any accidents. But the children were always allowed to go up there and play in the powder yards and carry their fathers' dinners, lunches and breakfasts. And Sam Frizzell Store burned down, I guess in, I'd say in about '98 or '99, and there was a - all the men of the Village got water buckets and carried water from the creek to throw on the fire, but it didn't do any good because it was so far gone and it needed so much water, but there was no fire hydrants up there and there was no fire company, so the store burnt to the ground. Some say it was from oily rags and others say that they thought maybe he was failing in business and might have sold it for the insurance, if insurance was at that time.

    Bennett: Did you — excuse me.

    Jackson: All kinds of rumors were around.

    Bennett: Did you ever go into the store?

    Jackson: Many, many times. He sold penny candy and as soon as we got a penny, we went to Sam Frizzell's Store, it was the nearest store, and bought long licorice sticks, or we used to buy caramels or we used to buy sour balls. You got six sour balls for a penny.

    Bennett: Can you describe the interior of the store?

    Jackson: Well, it had shelves all around, one side of the store there was kegs and at the end was a great big table with big bags of flour on it, and some canned goods was on that side. Then on the other side there was all kinds of canned goods, and there was bags of sugar and there was detergents of all kind and the detergent that was mostly used was called the Gold Dust Twins, it had a lot of lye in it, but it really took the dirt out of the clothes.

    Bennett: I see he's advertising Fels Naphtha Soap on the outside, do you see that?

    Jackson: Fels Naphtha Soap was the main soap, it was the main soap at that time and tar soap was sold, well Ivory Soap was sold for the face, but tar soap was sold to wash the hair with and shampoo it, and everybody seemed to have a good head of hair from the tar soap, and kept the heads clean. And then he had a post in the middle of the store and around that post was baskets of apples, and basket of pears and basket of potatoes and all like that around the post in the middle of the store. But many a time he gave free pears and free apples to the little children on the Creek Road.

    Bennett: What was the color of the store, was it painted or...

    Jackson: The store was partly Brandywine granite, but it was whitewashed, part of it was whitewashed, then all of the woodwork on it — the porch and the railings and the windows, was a dark brown.

    Bennett: The gentleman with him, do you know who that is?

    Jackson: Yes, the gentleman with him was a young man called — they called him Ned Edler, and he had something wrong with his speech, more or less, I'd say, tongue-tied, should have been corrected, but wasn't, and he lived on West 18th Street from a very good family. But all they — they used to tease him a lot — but all the people were very good to him and wherever he stopped in, whatever time of day it was, he was given a cup of tea and a sandwich or whatever he needed. And he used to do a little bit of chores for Webster Blakely, he kept a saloon on Rising Sun Lane, down toward the bottom of it, down near Newport, and he got a little bit of change or money from there and Blakely used to buy him clothes once in a while. One time he bought him a white shirt, and for Christmas he gave him a pair of gold cuff links, or imitation, and he was very proud and very appreciative. And Sam Frizzell also was very good to him, he let him do the chores around his store because nobody would hire him for work and he was very appreciative and he lived a very good life, but he did have a stoppage in his speech, and a lot of the children used to tease him badly about it, but from a very good family.

    Bennett: Oh, thank you. Now, this gentleman, do you know who that is?

    Jackson: No. This gentleman is Perry Ferraro. His mother was an Italian and Mr. Ferraro was a Frenchman, very lovely couple, good Christian people. There was Perry - four children — Perry Ferraro and Eugene Ferraro and two daughters, Delphine or however it was pronounced in French, and then there was Mattie Ferraro and she was a beautiful seamstress; she'd make a whole coat suit for you and a waist to go with it, and only charged you five dollars for all her workmanship, and always fit, there was nobody ever complained about Mattie's sewing. And she lived to be up in her nineties.

    Bennett: What did Mr. Ferraro do, do you know what his job was?

    Jackson: Perry?

    Bennett: Yes.

    Jackson: Perry Ferraro drove a truck, a loading truck out of the lower yard and that's where he met his death. They were taking some heavy machinery up Rising Sun Lane when a piece of the machinery fell over and crushed his leg, and I believe the leg had to be removed, and he never had good health from then on, and he died. They all died - Mattie lived to be way down in her nineties and Eugene died. Eugene used to work over at the cotton mill, Hudson's there, doing chores of all kinds, then I believe he went up - into the lower yards to do some work, labor work, lower yard, but they're all dead now, the four of them.

    Bennett: Did you say that Perry Ferraro helped the people in the area?

    Jackson: Yes, Perry Ferraro was a good Christian man. He was full of fun, used to play tricks, but if there was somebody sick and there was no income coming in, no salary, Perry would go around the neighborhood and see that different neighbors in the neighborhood would bring them food and help to look after them.

    Bennett: That's very nice. There's another picture here, do you recognize this?

    Jackson: Yes, this is old Charles du Pont's first house on the right side, and there was two houses there then, Dougherty's lived on the other side and Fisher lived in the next — where Charlie du Pont lived. And then after that, Wilbur Jones come there and had two children, Victoria and Wilbur. And the Fishers were great up at Christ Church, she used to make loaves of bread at one time and Christ Church used it for the communion bread, great Christian people.

    Bennett: Oh. Do you know the names, the first names of the Dougherty's that are there? The lady is Lizzie, but do you know what Mr. Dougherty's first name was?

    Jackson: It was either Dennis or Pat, it was an Irish name.

    Bennett: There were so many Dougherty's, it's hard to keep them straight.

    Jackson: And Callahans, Caseys.

    Bennett: Okay, now I have a few more pictures here. That's Patrick McDade on the left, here's the magnifying glass. Can you - and it says "with foreman" — can you identify any of those other foremen? Or the men?

    Jackson: That foreman would either be Tom Stirling or Walker Matthewson, they were foremen there.

    Bennett: This man, you mean the first one next to — with the mustache would be — and how about the next man? In the shirt.

    Jackson: That looks — it couldn't be Frank, young Frank Matthewson. He was a brother to Walker. He lived on Breck's Lane.

    Bennett: How about the last man, do you know who he was?

    Jackson: The last man looks like, looks like Benny Haley, Joe Haley's brother, he looks like a Haley. They lived up the top of Rising Sun Lane — he looks like a Haley to me - that's what he looked like to me — the Haley looked like to me when I was a youngster.
  • Discussing photographs from the Craven family; her father's childhood job as a shepherd in Ireland; the wooden bench her family kept in the kitchen on Squirrel Run; various buckets used by the family for water
    Keywords: Child labor; Children--Health and hygiene; Dining room furniture; DuPont carpentry shop; DuPont Gun Club; Irish immigrants; Pails; Shepherds; Squirrel Run (Del. : Village); Trapshooting; Water-supply
    Transcript: Bennett: Thank you. Now these, I've seen pictures similar to that. This is in the collection that was given by Mr. Craven, and there's more than one of these gentlemen. Do you know who any of them — yes, they are?

    Jackson: This second one looks like Joe Williams, lived in the Long Row, and he used to...

    Bennett: In the dark suit?

    Jackson: No, this second one here.

    Bennett: Okay, yes, all right.

    Jackson: That looks like Joe Williams. That second one looks like Joe Shepherd, young boy, they were young, early twenties. He worked there, I think he worked in the office, Joe Shepherd.

    Bennett: I know you're working in very dim light here, that makes it difficult.

    Jackson: I can't place that last one.

    Bennett: Okay, all right. And then I just thought you might enjoy seeing this. This is the gals at Atlantic City from the area.

    Jackson: Oh, great, that's fine.

    Bennett: I just thought you might enjoy seeing those gals.

    Jackson: It looks like the Farren girls and the Bonner girls.

    Bennett: U-huh, you're right, it's on the back. I thought you might enjoy that.

    Jackson: Yeah, I do enjoy seeing them.

    Bennett: And is that Mrs. Hackendorn?

    Jackson: Yes, it looks like the Hackendorn girl.

    Bennett: Okay - the mother?

    Jackson: Yes — and this is a Farren, that's Katie Farren, yeah, the Farren's and the Bonner's.

    Bennett: I just thought you might enjoy looking at that. And this one, this is two of the McDade children, can you identify that building, do you have any idea of what that is?

    Jackson: Oh, this building here looks like on Main Street — this looks like Dick Avana's store on the end...

    Bennett: No, u— huh, it's not. Did you ever go to the Gun Club? Do you know where the Gun Club was?

    Jackson: That was up in Upper Banks wasn't it?

    Bennett: It would be up where the Experimental Station - yes, it was — now Mrs. Sheldrick talked about playing with the girls, they managed the Club, and the Company would have shoots, trap shooting and that type of thing.

    Jackson: Yes, the Gun Club, I heard a lot about it and never used to go to it. And I thought it was up toward - maybe it was up on the Concord Pike, but I thought it was up toward...

    Bennett: It's towards, but now see, I wondered if you might have recognized it, because see it had stands. You see you went up the stairs, and that would be spectator stands.

    Jackson: No, I don't know much about it.

    Bennett: By then, I think you probably lived in the other...

    Jackson: Well, I think maybe I had moved away by that time, could be.

    Bennett: Okay.

    Jackson: Well, I've heard a lot about them.

    Bennett: U-huh, but I didn't know if you had ever seen that.

    Jackson: They're all very lovely pictures.

    Bennett: Thank you.

    Jackson: I was glad I could pick out some of those people.

    Bennett: Before we get going on — I want to ask you — did your parents very often talk about the past in Ireland? Did they...

    Jackson: Oh yes, we lived in the past. I knew every stone that was in Ireland, and every dock leaf that grew.

    Bennett: They just always remembered?

    Jackson: Yes. And the mountains, when they used to go up when my father and his brothers was nine years of age, around that, they lived with a — worked for a shepherd, nine years of age, because they weren't much on educating them over there. And there was a lot of, not lambs, but like lambs up on a big mountainside, and they used to work at night, the two young boys. They'd take a lantern up there and they had shepherd dogs, and if one of the sheep got out of the flock, the dog would run and get the lost animal, bring it back to the flock. But what they mostly watched for was, I forget what they called it in Ireland, but if someone would steal an animal, somebody that would steal an animal..

    Bennett: They were like a shepherd, I guess.

    [Unidentified woman]: Rustler?

    Jackson: No, not rustlers. Poachers. All you people younger than me and couldn't get that word out.

    [Unidentified woman]: We never poached any time. [laughs]

    [Unidentified man]: I was never a thief.

    Jackson: And they - the young boys eight and nine years old was what was hired, the old shepherds that had all these sheep, and such like, they hired these young boys. They give then two suits of overalls a year, and bought them a pair of shoes and fed them, but they got no pay. And when my father reached thirteen or so, then he went over to Scotland and worked in the sugar houses, and he worked there until he left for America.

    Bennett: Now I have another question. I listened to the tape that we did the last time and you talked about a wooden bench, that I believe you still have, somebody has it? All right, and you said it was kept behind the stove?

    Jackson: That's right.

    Bennett: Would you tell me why it was kept behind the stove?

    Jackson: It was kept behind the stove, sometimes we put the wood on it to keep, sometimes we didn't, sometimes we cleared it off and when the little children got tired or sleepy, instead of going to bed, we used to go back there and lay on that bench in back of the stove where it was nice and warm, and they'd sleep. And if Mother and Father went away and the older girls wanted to play jacks and things, they'd let the little children back on that bench and sleep until Mother and Dad come home. And then it was brought out and put at the kitchen table to make seats, we had eight of us and Mother and Father was ten, eight, that was ten, and I think we had six or seven chairs and then the little bench was brought out and put on the outside of the table and two or three of the little kids — there was Charlotte, Annie and Mary - sat on that little bench on one side.

    Bennett: Do you think I could get a picture of it?

    [Unidentified woman]: Yeah, you can take a picture any time.

    Bennett: Okay, I'd like to have one if you don't mind.

    Jackson: Any time — DuPont's was very good this way — any time you wanted anything made, that could be made in the carpenter shop or paint shop, they were willing to do it for you. And my Father wanted that little bench, he had that bench made for back of the stove. And then we had a long bench out on the porch that went all the length of the side of the porch where we kept the two buckets of water on, a dipper in it where we drank, because we had to go to the spring for it, and then we kept a white enamel, large white enamel basin on it where all the children washed their faces when they got up in the morning and when they went to bed at night.

    Bennett: What was the buckets made of that kept the water that you drank?

    Jackson: Fiber, must have been fiber, they were like soft wood. They weren't all tin, there was some tin, but most of the buckets were red, and a dark red, and I don't know what you call them.

    Bennett: Like a wooden bucket?

    Jackson: Like a wooden bucket, but they were more like, I'd say these big fiber — but they were thick, the edges were thick.

    [Unidentified woman]: It wasn't redwood or anything?

    Jackson: Huh?

    [Unidentified woman]: It wasn't redwood?

    Jackson: Oh no, no, it was some kind of a mixture. It was either wood or it was something heavier than fiber, 'cause they were heavy, they carried a lot of water.

    [Unidentified woman]: Oak, could it have been oak?

    Bennett: Probably an oak...

    Jackson: I couldn't say exactly, I always called them...

    Bennett: But it was a wooden, I think, because - okay, because the other would get rusty.

    Jackson: Yes, wooden buckets. Well then we did have wooden buckets that we kept for carrying the wash water and for scrubbin in, wooden buckets. And they were quite tall, they weren’ t real small buckets, they were good sized buckets.
  • Getting a sawdust doll baby with a shoe box for a bed for Christmas every year; stockings filled with nuts, prunes, and an orange; mantelpiece decorations; using an evergreen bush or branch as a Christmas tree; turkey or stuffed chickens, plum pudding, and other foods for Christmas dinner
    Keywords: Alger, Horatio, Jr., 1832-1899; Christmas; Christmas cooking; Christmas decorations; Christmas stockings; Christmas tree ornaments; Christmas trees; Food habits; Industrial relations; Plum puddings; Working class families--foodways
    Transcript: Bennett: We left off last week about the activities and the routine of the family in the community, and today I'd like to start by talking about your personal family life in holidays. For instance, Christmas — would you tell me how you would have celebrated a typical Christmas with your family?

    Jackson: Yes, we had a very simple Christmas and there wasn't many toys — the little children used to get a doll baby out of the ten cents store, a sawdust doll baby with a black china head, it was ten cents, but to us it was beautiful. And we never had a coach, but Mother used to save new shoe boxes, put them away, and when Christmas come, she would give us each a new shoe box, the little ones, and she'd put a string through it and then we could make a bed of some kind in the shoe box, our dolls, that doll went in there and we could pull it all around the house through the different rooms and to us it was more beautiful than any doll carriage that was ever made.

    Bennett: Did she cover the boxes or did she...

    Jackson: No, they were just plain white shoe boxes — we made our own little bed. She used to give us scraps of goods that she had cut off from making dresses and quilts and things and we made — would be a colored bed in there, but still it was a bed for the doll.

    Bennett: And a...

    Jackson: We'd get two games and one of the games had to be an Old Maids' game and one game would be Parcheesi and we'd have checkers — checkers would be another game. They were sure to be in the lot. Then we got story books to read - "Little Red Riding Hood" and then another little simple book to read. And we read them and read them and read them all over. The bigger girls used to get Alger's books and read them.

    Bennett: Did you give your sisters presents?

    Jackson: No.

    Bennett: Did the family give you presents or did Santa Claus bring them?

    Jackson: No — well we thought Santa Claus brought everything. I think up until I was fourteen — I didn't want to believe there was no Santa Claus so I thought I wouldn't get anything if I didn't believe. And we used to lay awake in bed up in the attic, in the beds, all of us, and wait so we could hear the reindeers walking on the roof, but somehow or another we always missed them, we never heard - until we'd come down and see - and Mother would have our things in the back — or the other side of the kitchen — one was the kitchen, the other was like a little sitting room, there was a settee in there and a couple of rocking chairs and a little table - well Mother would have, on the settee, well it was just about - there was three of us — there was Anna, Charles and Mary, they were the three little ones, and our things were on - the other girls were bigger, I may have been twelve or thirteen, but I don't think they believed, but Mother used to give them a dollar, each one a dollar, and they went to the ten cents store and they bought all the toys for Christmas, and Mother saved the shoe boxes and that was our dolls.

    Bennett: Did you fill a - did they fill a stocking for you, did you hang a stocking?

    Jackson: Yes, Mother always bought us a new pair of stockings, we were sure to get a new pair of stockings at Christmas time.

    Bennett: No, I meant did you hang a stocking that was stuffed, like with fruit, you didn't hang...

    Jackson: We hung an empty stocking, black — a black, ribbed, heavy stocking. And of course then we could use — they were for us to use after Christmas. And Mother used to put some nuts down in there and we used to put a couple of candy toys and sometimes a little candy cane. Sometimes she'd put some prunes in there for us to eat, before they were cooked, sometimes we'd find prunes, and one orange. And I always thought that oranges were never around until Christmastime, I thought you would never get an orange any other time because Christmas was the only time we ever got an orange, and I thought the orange belonged to Christmas, that that was the only time they were ready.

    Bennett: It was special.

    Jackson: Special.

    Bennett: How was your house decorated? Did you have any decorations?

    Jackson: Well, we had a mantelpiece, the mantelpiece always had — we called them lampikins - they were...

    Bennett: What do you mean?

    Jackson: Lampikins, well it was - Mother sometimes would buy a piece of China silk, would go all over the mantelpiece and she would tack it all up there nicely, the long mantelpiece in the kitchen, and then at the end of it she would push it up and then put a bow, and it looked like a bow, and the rest was — it was only about this wide. And then there was other times she bought crepe paper, years and years ago when crepe paper first come out, she used to buy crepe paper which was very dangerous because the stove was right under the mantelpiece, but the crepe paper never caught on fire. And she would put the crepe paper up, then pleat it all the way down. Then the dish clothes hung up under that mantelpiece and the crepe paper hid the dish clothes from anybody to see.

    Bennett: I see, did you use any Christmas greens, live greens?

    Jackson: No, at Christmastime we never had a Christmas tree, very few in the Village — I don't remember ever going around and seeing a Christmas tree in all the villages there - unless the du Ponts, I guess, but they didn't invite us. Well anyway, we used to go up on Kee's Hill and that's where Hallock du Pont built his mansion, and that was back of our house, back of Squirrel Run. We went up Kee's Hill to the woods and if we found a little green bush growing, still a little green, we would bring that bush home, or if we couldn't find that, we would go up the trees and cut a branch off or a limb off that had green leaves on it and we'd bring it home, we would turn a peach basket upside down, and that hole in the peach basket, we'd make larger and stick our tree or the branch down in that, and it stayed there, and then - we didn't have any ornaments for the tree — we would cut pictures out of the funny paper because they were red, green, blue and all colors, and we would put a string, or a little piece of ribbon, on those - they was only about this square, like that — then we'd put ribbon or a piece of string and we hung them all over these little branches or leaves and we had a beautiful Christmas tree and enjoyed it so much in our bedroom.

    Bennett: That sounds neat, it really does, very nice. How about food at Christmas, was it special — the dinner?

    Jackson: Yes, du Pont's used to give a turkey to most of the men, a turkey, and if we didn't have a turkey, Mother would take a couple of nice, big chickens — we had our own chickens — take the big chickens and stuff them and bake two chickens, sometimes three chickens, because they'd be about five or six pounds - because we had to have dinner and supper, so we had both of them, and she'd fill them with filling, and the filling was really good. And she baked them in the cook stove, in the oven, and she'd regulate the fire for them, and then we'd have mashed potatoes, mashed turnips, and Mother had put up tomatoes and she'd open tomatoes and have stewed tomatoes and maybe to have a little extra, she'd open a jar or two of string beans. And she used to make plum pudding, made it herself. Never had no fruitcake, but she did make - and that was very much like fruitcake, plum pudding. And Mother used to make a cream sauce to go over that plum pudding and she always put a good bit of brandy in it - my Father loved it - the brandy was really good and he enjoyed it and he said no one ever made a better plum pudding than mother, because he knew Mother was generous with the brandy. And us children, we'd eat it, too.

    Bennett: Did you have cookies? Was there any cookie baking?

    Jackson: No, we never had any cookies.

    Bennett: Did you have extra guests at Christmastime or...

    Jackson: Oh yes, oh yes, and you didn't have to invite them like you do now, they would come. And when us children would peel potatoes and turnips, Mother would say, "Now put in plenty of extra, two or three more extra because your Uncle James and wife might be out and they'll bring five children with them, so we want to have extra." And they never were invited, but they always got there when there was a good meal going on, but they were welcome, everybody thought it was just fine to have company.

    Bennett: And they always would come at Christmastime?

    Jackson: They would come, mostly at Christmastime or a holiday — either for dinner or a supper at night, and the older people eat first, then all the children would sit down and they just got as much as they wanted. There was plenty, Mother always made plenty. She used preserving pots to cook in, no little pots, no little ten cent pots or nothing like that.

    Bennett: Well, you had too big of a family.

    Jackson: Yes. And they were iron pots and they stood on little feet, little feet on the stove.

    Bennett: Was the dinner, the supper rather, different at Christmastime than a normal supper. You said you had dinner and then you had supper.

    Jackson: We'd have dinner at one o'clock or so.

    Bennett: But that wasn't supper at Christmas?

    Jackson: Well then at supper, Mother would slice down the cold turkey, and she'd make potato cakes out of what mashed potatoes were left and she'd heat the turnips up, and whatever was left, she'd heat over. Then she'd make a pan of baking powder biscuits, she'd make about thirty of them in a pan and they'd be like a little baseball and we'd have them. And she'd have plum pudding and sometimes Mother would make a plain cake, but she always made it in a pudding pan, it would be about this big, she never put an icing on it, but it was really good, and she would turn it out and we had plenty of that. And sometimes she would put - for extra and luxury - she'd buy prunes and stew a box or prunes or two, they were only ten cents a box then, and we thought that was great. Or she'd open a jar of applesauce and we'd have applesauce, and she'd put plenty of nutmeg and cinnamon in it — doctored it up.
  • Getting ten cents for ice cream on her birthday; roasted duck on Thanksgiving; her sister working as a secretary for Lammot du Pont; Halloween mischief and stopping by Alfred I. du Pont's house; firecrackers on the Fourth of July
    Keywords: Children--Social life and customs; David MacAdoo; Du Pont, Alfred I. (Alfred Iré né e), 1864-1935; DuPont Building (Wilmington, Del.); Firecrackers; Fourth of July; gun powder; Halloween costumes; Teenage boys; Thanksgiving Day
    Transcript: Bennett: How about birthdays — was it special when it was somebody's birthday?

    Jackson: No, no, we didn't celebrate any birthdays, but Father used to give whoever — whatever birthday or who it was — he'd give them ten cents that they could buy ice cream.

    Bennett: Just for the birthday person?

    Jackson: For the birthday. When I was nine, I was afraid he'd forget, so I went out to the wood shed where he was cutting wood and I said, "Father, don't forget, this is my birthday." And he said "How old are you, darlin'?" And I said, he always called me "Lamb", he said, "How old are you, Lamb?" And I said, "I'm nine." Well he said, "I'll give you a penny over." And he gave me ten cents and I thought that was great, and I kissed him and hugged him, for the ten cents.

    Bennett: So there was no gifts, then, from anybody?

    Jackson: No - never knew there was a birthday hardly.

    Bennett: Was there ever a birthday cake, no cake either?

    Jackson: No, no birthday cake, we couldn't afford it, we were poor.

    Bennett: How about...

    Jackson: We had plenty to eat.

    Bennett: Oh, yes, yes.

    Jackson: We weren't looking for a party - it was a party to get a good meal.

    Bennett: You were accustomed to that, I know.

    Jackson: Sure, we had good food.

    Bennett: How about graduation from school — was there a special...

    Jackson: No, there was no fuss made over that. And you went to school and you graduated, and then Father would say, "Well, I'll give them both six months of business school, take up shorthand and writing." One of my sisters, Isabelle, I think years ago she was secretary to Lammot du Pont, but she just, she didn't finish Alexis I. du Pont School, but she had a good education and she worked for him, worked herself up. You didn't have to be educated and have a college education. You could go in the DuPont Building and if you had passed the seventh grade and had a pretty good education, you could work yourself from the mail room up to a stenographer or a secretary, anything you wanted to. I'm taking you back, now, eighty years ago.

    Bennett: It was different, yes. Then you're really saying there was no special observation of any occasion, like a birthday or...

    Jackson: Well, Thanksgiving - we had a good dinner at Thanksgiving.

    Bennett: All right, I'd like to hear about Thanksgiving.

    Jackson: At Thanksgiving, Mother used to - sometimes she got duck, we had ducks, sometimes she'd have a couple of ducks roasted and she used to make a lot of marmalade and she would glaze those ducks with marmalade and they were very, very good and she would fill them. And then beside filling the ducks with filling, she had a pudding pan that she'd make extra filling in and put that in the oven to bake - to cook also, and she'd take the drippings from the ducks and put around it at times, and sometimes she'd put the neck of the duck on each pan at the top of it and that filling tasted just as good as if it had been baked in the duck. And mashed potatoes and string beans and turnips and maybe fried cabbage or something like that.

    Bennett: Was it traditional to have ducks for Thanksgiving or just...

    Jackson: No, no, you could have chicken. A lot of people had ham.

    Bennett: But in your family it was duck or whatever?

    Jackson: Well, I remember a couple of them that we had roast duck.

    Bennett: How about Halloween, what went on at Halloween?

    Jackson: Well, Halloween we had to make our own fun. We used to get dressed up in — I always took a pair of Father's overalls and turned them halfway up and one of his old shirts and then one of his old derby hats or something, and the other girls would take their mothers' old dresses or wrappers or things like that. Some of them would take a sheet and put it over them, you know, as a ghost, and things like that. They never bought any suits in the ten cents store, or any store, there was no Halloween suits. And then we went around and the first place we went to would be Alfred I. du Pont's house up on Breck's Lane. And Alfred I. was always there with a couple baskets of apples. And of course we had pillow cases with us to fill and we went up there and he would give us apples or pears or anything he had - he used to have a lot of little sickle pears, used to give them — we liked them sickle pears. And sometimes he had the cook bake a lot of ginger cakes like — little round cakes like this and we'd get them. And then sometimes he'd give us all a dime — money. He was good to the children. Alfred I. was great, I thought he was one of the greatest du Ponts there were, I loved him. He was good to the children, good to the working men's children.

    Bennett: Yes. Did you mask your face in any way or make it less...

    Jackson: No, just took an old piece of cloth and cut the eyes out.

    Bennett: You did cover your face then?

    Jackson: Yes, but we made it ourself, we couldn't afford to buy - well, I don't know whether there was any faces or not, we never had them, we made our own. And Mother sometimes used to have a piece of old, red calico or something, and she'd cut the eyes and mouth out of that, one had a red one on, one had a blue one, one had a white, most all of them. I never saw no Halloween faces when I was a child.

    Bennett: Did you do any mischief?

    Jackson: Yes we did.

    Bennett: [Laughter] Let me hear about it.

    Jackson: We used to go around and throw — the night before was mischief night, the night before. We used to go around and throw the outhouses over and see that they were all down before we went to bed. One night we threw one over and old Davy MacAdoo was in it.

    Bennett: I've heard about that.

    Jackson: Old Davy MacAdoo - and I'm telling you he never got over it, and he hated a kid from that day on, you couldn't [write?] anywhere around his yard or his house. They never knew who did it, and my Father used to get on us...

    Bennett: Were you there?

    Jackson: Yes, of course. And my Father used to watch our outhouse for a long, long time and see that nobody threw it over, but after Father got to bed, I used to tell the gang what time he would be coming up to bed, then they threw the house over. And Pop says, "When in the hell did they do it? For I watched until pretty near midnight." But they knew, because his daughters had told them when he went to bed. I was bad.

    Bennett: Talking with Catherine Hackendorn, her dad would turn it over first.

    Jackson: Yes, he saved them the trouble.

    Bennett: Yes, he turned it over [laughs].

    Jackson: Some of them did do that, they turned it over before the kids would.

    Bennett: Just in case, but I think that's funny about Mr. MacAdoo.

    Jackson: Mr. MacAdoo was in the — we threw it over. My father said, "He didn't know his own daughters had anything to do with it. If I ever knew any one of my children had done it," he was sure his children didn't do it." He said, "I'd cut the legs from under them." He never knew it was our legs that did it.

    Bennett: Did you do any other mischief?

    Jackson: Yes, we used to, if the brooms were out or any chairs were out on the porch or around, we'd take them and throw them across the street or throw them somewhere - clean the porches off or anything that was hanging up. They used to hang towels out, a roller towel, you know, when they washed, the roller towel, everybody used the roller towels until got black. But it had to get black on every spot, and we'd go up and pull the towels down and the roller off and we'd empty the water buckets. We'd empty the rain barrels, they always had a rain barrel full up. We'd make sure all them rain barrels were empty and laying down on the ground.

    Bennett: Did most of the people bring their towels and those kind of things, loose items, in the house for that night?

    Jackson: No, we didn't think it would be done - didn't think it would be done to their house, but it was. They had the roller towel and the roller.

    Bennett: They were trusting.

    Jackson: Yeah, they didn't believe. They thought with their own daughters being in the crowd that nothing would happen. But they misjudged the daughters. It was fun.

    Bennett: Oh, that's funny. And especially when you look back on it.

    Jackson: I look back on it, but I think, oh, how simple we were, but it was fun.

    Bennett: Oh, yes, you had a lot of fun I'm sure. How about the Fourth of July?

    Jackson: Well, the Fourth of July we were always - Mother bought us some little shootin crackers and then Bess Beacom's family, they used to buy the Roman candles and different ones bought different kinds of shootin crackers. And we used to go up on Kee's Hill, there was a big hill right in back of us and we'd go up there and get on the highest rock we could get on and we would shoot them on fire and we'd shoot the Roman candles off, and we just had a grand time just wasting money and shooting these things off.

    Bennett: Where did you buy them?

    Jackson: Where?

    Bennett: The firecrackers, where would you buy them?

    Jackson: Oh, it would be in the ten cents store. Mother would be in the ten cents store and get — she'd get a package, they were — oh you would get a package like this of little shootin crackers.

    Bennett: Oh, okay.

    Jackson: And we used to shoot them off and then the Roman candles. Well, everybody went to a ten cents store to buy them days.

    Bennett: What else did you do on the Fourth of July?

    Jackson: Well, the larger boys used to get their fathers to steal some powder, and they used to bring the powder home and then they'd get empty tin cans and they would put the powder in the tin can, and there was something else they - I don't know whether it was sulfur or what it was - and they would tighten the can up and put a light to it and then it was a terrible noise in it, like an explosion. And we used to throw the cans away up over the sheds and all and explosions - from the can — but it would be DuPont's powder that we had — their fathers used to bring some of it home, and then the boys, like the McDade boys and Davy Ward, Eddie Beacom, Joe Constano and Eddie Beacom was in the crowd, and Joe Shepherd, Joe Williams — all those younger boys, I would say about sixteen, fifteen or sixteen. They were the ones that handled the cans and made the explosions. We never did, we were afraid. But no one ever got burnt, no one ever lost a finger, you know, there was never nothin happened. Everybody was all in one piece when Fourth of July was over, but we kept that up from morning 'til night, putting off these things.

    Bennett: Well it was fortunate. Were there parades on the Fourth of July?

    Jackson: Never, never any up the creek.

    Bennett: Wasn't there — wasn't that a day off — a holiday for the men, I believe — Fourth of July?

    Jackson: No, the DuPont's did not give holidays, you would work the week around. If you took the day off, you lost that day's wages. DuPonts were never very liberal with giving vacations, they worked all day Saturday, they allowed one hour off earlier on Saturday than they worked other days.

    Bennett: I thought they had off Fourth of July and Christmas.

    Jackson: Not unless it was in the late years, it wasn't in my Father's time, and my Father worked many a Christmas. The powder mills run twenty— four hours a day.

    Bennett: Yes, his job was different.

    Jackson: That's the kind of a job there was. And anybody that worked in the powder, it didn't shut down for holidays, that powder had to be made to be shipped, because it was in demand. That powder yard, it was built in 1802, that was the greatest powder, the DuPont powder was the greatest powder in the country, and the foreign countries. Because it was black powder and it was the best that was made, until they went to dynamite, then they changed from the black powder to dynamite.
  • The 1902 DuPont Company Centennial picnic; following the soldiers' parade to cemeteries on Memorial Day; Easter foods; Irish Protestant celebrations on July 12 for the Battle of the Boyne
    Keywords: Anniversaries; Boyne, Battle of the (Ireland : 1690) celebrations; commemorative objects; Company picnics; Company--Centennial celebrations, etc; E.I. du Pont de Nemours & amp; Easter; ginger ale; Holidays; Irish American families; Irish Americans; Irish Americans--Societies, etc.; Memorial Day; Memorial Day parades; Men--Societies and clubs; Orange Order; Religious life; Saint Patrick's Day; Sarsaparilla; Shellpot Park (Wilmington, Del.); Willow Grove Park amusement park (Willow Grove, Pa.)
    Transcript: Bennett: Did you attend the picnics that the Company gave — they had a big one in 1902, do you remember that one?

    Jackson: Yes, I attended — that was the hundredth anniversary of the DuPont powder and I attended. And the DuPont's gave out free lunches in the shoe boxes, they were like shoe boxes, but it was a very good lunch and if you didn't get enough out of the first box, you could go back and get another box, which a lot of them did. Then they had a stand up, we would get all the ice cream we wanted for nothing, and soft drink, all the soft drink you wanted for nothing. But there was no ice, you drank it hot, and the only soft drinks in that time was sarsaparilla and ginger ale, was the only two soft drinks — sarsaparilla, but I never hear of sarsaparilla any more.

    Bennett: No, I don't either.

    [Unidentified woman]: No, it's not on the market any more.

    Jackson: Sarsaparilla and ginger ale, but we had all that we wanted of it. Then they gave us a little gift, and it's too bad I didn't keep mine - I don't know where they went to - they gave us a little pewter mug, and on the pewter mug, on that pewter mug was the history of the DuPont Company, Eleutherian du Pont and Perry du Pont I think it was, originated the black powder in 1802 and this was the hundredth anniversary, 1902. And every child, woman and man got one of those pewter cups. Mrs. Crowninshield asked me years ago, she said, "Would any of you girls have a pewter cup that we got?" None of us had one, I don't know where they went to, I guess we just threw them away and they deteriorated, went under the ground or maybe went in the water - creek, or something like that. But today, they'd be priceless. Then the morning after the picnics, us children were pretty clever, cagey, we would get up, about half— past five in the morning, when it was just turning light, and we would all go up on Kee's Hill and walk around to see how much money we could find. We did, and many a time we found nickels, you know, and dimes and around these stands, maybe a quarter. No matter what we found, we found money, but we went up at five o'clock or so, soon as the light come on, because we knew somebody must have dropped money, sometime, some way. I never knew of anybody finding five dollar bills or anything, but that change to us, that was as good as five dollar bills. So we were smart, we were cagey, we knew what was what, but we had a good time. And then they had a dance floor up there, and there was a prize given out to the best dancers, and a gold pin, well, the two best dancers that were selected in 1902 was Liza MacAdoo and her boyfriend, John — Jack Miller, because she married Jack Miller shortly after. They took the prize and they each got a gold pin, was on a - and it was gold across it and on that gold was, you know, for the best dancers and the year of 1902, DuPont's.

    Bennett: That would be a nice souvenir, wouldn't it?

    Jackson: I imagine, I imagine Liza Miller, I imagine they're still - because a daughter-in— law of Liza Miller is still living and a granddaughter, so you see it could probably could have come down to one...

    Bennett: In the family, I'm sure, that's very nice.

    Jackson: I would think so.

    [Unidentified woman]: Garnett — he was quite a dancer too.

    Jackson: Yeah, Garnet — that was her son, Garnet Miller - she married Jack Miller.

    [Unidentified woman]: He got many prizes.

    Bennett: Did they have fireworks that night?

    Jackson: What — Halloween?

    Bennett: The night of the — Fourth of July picnic?

    Jackson: Yes, they used to put some fireworks up up on the hill, there was a stand away down toward Barley Mill Lane and there was a stand there, but no one was allowed down there near them but the older men, and they put them off — Roman candles and they used to have something - it was called a flowerpot — they put the flowerpot, light it up and all the little flowers would pop out. They looked like flowers, called it the flowerpot.

    Bennett: That sounds pretty — very nice. Were there parades?

    Jackson: No, no parades.

    Bennett: Were there parades at Memorial Day?

    Jackson: Yes, the soldiers used to parade and decorate the veterans' graves and then all the children — some of the mothers and fathers followed them, and we followed them from one grave to the other, we followed them from St. Joseph's graveyard, then we followed them from there to Green Hill's graveyard and watched them saluting, you know, shooting over the graves, then we went from there to Mt. Salem. And sometime the larger of the boys that were older, they used to go up to Lombardy, up there by Rockland, and they would watch them there. When they started out in the morning, they started at seven o'clock, they had a parade after them with the children, and some of the mothers and fathers went too, followed the soldiers. We used to say, "Oh, tomorrow we follow the soldiers." And they saluted all the dead soldiers, the dead men - veterans.

    Bennett: Was there any other kind of celebration for Memorial Day?

    Jackson: Oh, we all gathered flowers, went up in the woods and gathered all the flowers we could gather, made as many bunches as we could, and if there was anyone dead in the family, why we smothered the grave with bunches of flowers. Now they could be buttercups and they could be daisies, or they could be violets, but there was plenty of flowers. I think that was the only time anyone bothered, but they really were smothered in flowers Memorial Day. Because strangers coming in shouldn't see the graves of the family with no flowers on — been a disgrace to see graves with no flowers on them, so we always made sure. Mother used to make us go out and pick flowers from morning until night, and make as many bunches as we could and lay them on the grave, so we wouldn't be disgraced by people saying there was no flowers on the Braden's graves, that would certainly have been a disgrace to the family, no flowers.

    Bennett: How about Easter?

    Jackson: Easter? We had to go to church and go to Sunday School, and we always had something new. Mother used to make us a new dress or we'd get a new pair of slippers or maybe a new hat, it was something new, but not entirely the whole outfit. And we didn't have baskets, but Mother used to take a piece of cloth and tie it up some way to look like a basket and in there she would have hard boiled eggs that she colored. [pause while tape is switched]

    Bennett: And she put them in, you said a cloth...

    Jackson: Mother used to take a piece of red cloth or blue cloth and she would take it up in the corners and tie it together like and then she had a nice ribbon, bow like over the top, ribbon, and we carried them. We didn't have baskets, none that I ever saw.

    Bennett: Did you have special food on Easter Sunday?

    Jackson: Yes, Mother used to get a ham, bake a ham, 'course you'd get a ham then for seventy— five cents. Bake a ham and she'd bake potatoes. We'd have baked potatoes that day, she'd make hot biscuits and then in the evening she'd make a large yellow mixing bowl of potato salad and she'd cut hard boiled eggs up on the top. And then we had plenty of hard boiled eggs — just hard boiled eggs cut in half, you have all you want of them — eggs and ham and potato salad, and she'd make a plain cake probably.

    Bennett: That was — cake would be a special...

    Jackson: Oh, yes, we didn't have cake every day. We only had pie like in November, Thanksgiving. Mother used to make a pumpkin pie and she used to make mincemeat - she made her own mincemeat, and they were good, and she had plenty of brandy in the mincemeat.

    Bennett: Your father liked that too, I guess?

    Jackson: Yes, father - oh Father thought she was a wonderful cook, she was very free with the brandy. Now what was it you were going to ask me?

    Bennett: Did you help celebrate Irish — St. Patty's Day?

    Jackson: No I didn't.

    Bennett: You didn't help celebrate it?

    Jackson: No, we were Protestant and my Father would not allow us to associate with them, we couldn't. He was an Orangeman, a Protestant and we celebrated the 12th of July - the Protestants celebrated the 12th of July — that was the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland.

    Bennett: Okay, and would you tell me about your special — what you did?

    Jackson: Well, the 12th of July was a great holiday for all the Irish, that's when they could get off from work at DuPont's because DuPont's recognized that was a special day for the Irish, the 12th of July. And they would hire a bus, sometimes two buses, maybe more, and it was free, and it was an Orange Lodge, two Orange Lodges in Wilmington, and they would take us up to some park, Willow Grove or some big park — mostly it was Willow Grove, and up there, that restaurant up there would always have food just for the Irish — ham and cabbage and sauerkraut and something for us — and Irish stew, and they made a big pot of vegetable soup and we got a big dinner up there for about thirty cents — we didn't carry no lunches up with us - some did, but most of them — because they catered to the Irish and every food they made was for the Irish - soup, stew, and ham and cabbage, the sauerkraut and corned beef and things like that.

    Bennett: Did a lot of the families go?

    Jackson: Oh my goodness, every Protestant went at the time — there was more Protestants on the Bank than there was Catholics. But St. Patrick's Day was the Catholics - they celebrated it. But the Protestants didn't go near St. Patrick's Day and the Catholics didn't come near the Orangemen's Day, there was a separation there and they were very stern and strict about it.

    Bennett: What else did you do other than go up to Woodside Park or Willow Grove?

    Jackson: Willow Grove — well, all the rides were free to the children, there was a big dance up there - the older girls all danced all afternoon and then there were sliding boards and toboggan slides and — well everybody spent the day, had a good time.

    Bennett: Did you have special banners or special...

    Jackson: Oh yes, we had an Orangeman's badge around you.

    Bennett: Like a ribbon? Would you describe it for me please, what you wore?

    Jackson: No it was made of purple velvet and it come from around here and all the way down, crossed over here and then there was all gold gilt all through it saying what the number of the lodge was - this is 313 Lodge and on down, what it was, Orange Lodge.

    Bennett: And everybody wore those?

    Jackson: No, only the men that were Orangemen.

    Bennett: Okay, but now how about the children and the wives, did they wear something?

    Jackson: The wives and the women had paper orange hats, they made them themselves, or they made them in their lodges, and they had a piece of, like a cross in here, paper cross, paper, just to look orange. And we had a parade, once in a while we had a parade in Wilmington on Orangemen's Day and went out to Shellpot years ago, had a parade out there. And then we used to go up to Philadelphia, see there was a lot in Philadelphia, then sometimes you went over to Jersey, Burlington Park. And one year they held it up in Philadelphia, see, then the next year they held it in Jersey, and then the next year they held it in Delaware and that was in Shellpot Park and we went out...

    Bennett: Now what years would that be, Mrs. Jackson?

    Jackson: Well, in the late 1920's and the early 1930's, on down into the early 1940's. I'm taking from my age, I'm thinking back from my age, how old I was when we used to go up there.

    Bennett: That's the way you have to do.

    Jackson: I'm five years older than the year, so I never have no trouble counting up the years.

    Bennett: That makes it nice.

    Jackson: Five years older — and if anybody watches their age and compares it, they'd have no trouble knowing when things happened, the years it happened.

    Bennett: Yes, that's true.
  • Valentine's Day; Delivering the mail for the "B" families after picking it up at the grocery store; 1952 DuPont Company 150th Anniversary celebrations; her friendship with Bess Beacom and picking apples and fox grapes
    Keywords: childhood mischief; Company--Centennial celebrations, etc; Cooking (Jelly); Crowninshield, Louise du Pont, 1877-1958; Du Pont, Henry Francis, 1880-1969; E.I. du Pont de Nemours & amp; Elizabeth Beacom; Ice cream, ices, etc.; Orchards; Tomboys; Valentine's Day
    Transcript: Bennett: Did you get valentines at Valentine's Day, was, were they...

    Jackson: Not unless the children wanted to send mean ones, they were paper ones. You got ten of them for a nickel in the ten cents store, and it was saying something nasty to you that they wanted to mail — they'd mail them to you. We didn't get too many - sometimes they'd just put them under the door.

    Bennett: Under the door.

    Jackson: Under the door — didn't take time, they didn't have the money — it was only two cents for mailing, but sometimes we didn't get — they used to put it under the door. A lot of things come around, just put under the door, not mailed. So the post office in Washington didn't get much money for mail from us. And we had two cents mailing the letters — we got two deliveries a day, I mean in town — 'course up in the DuPont's Bank, we had to go down to the store, he was the postmaster, and he had a row of boxes down in front of the store and in them boxes was A, B, C and all and you'd go down - and when I went down I'd say, "Give me the mail all under B." And anybody had a B, ours was Braden, then anybody had a B, I'd run all the B's up to Squirrel Run - Beacoms, Buchanan — and Blakeley — any B, anybody had a letter, I was the mailman, I brought their letters up and delivered them. 'Course I'd get an apple or a ginger cake I got something for the delivery, wasn't money, but it was better to me. And anybody else that went down, if they went ahead of me or if they wanted a day I didn't go, they'd bring our mail, we were all mailmen, got the mail and delivered it.

    Bennett: Well, see, whoever was there did the job.

    Jackson: Sometimes I used to say, "Give me all the B's and give me all the C's." And I had quite a delivery 'cause [Consonos?] lived next door to us.

    [Unidentified woman]: What did you buy with all that?

    Jackson: We got apples and ginger cakes and spice cakes — we didn't get money, was no money.

    Bennett: Now would you tell me about the 150th anniversary?

    Jackson: Yes, the 150th anniversary was in 1952, I was 57. Well, it was up on Mrs. Crowninshield's estate and everybody was invited, the public and anybody that wanted to go up there. I guess there was, oh a thousand, maybe more than that there, 'course all the du Ponts were up front, nevertheless, I had a good place to see. Then they erected a wheel and it was out of a graining mill, some called them grinding mills, some called them graining mills. My father always said graining mills, and some called it grinding mill. Well this grinding mill had blew up and it was right below Mrs. Crowninshields's estate, down along the Hagley Yard road down there, and it blew up and killed Sam Buchanan, that was in 1906, and that wheel had laid around there all them years and it was erected, this big wheel, it was like a cog wheel to me, I just said it was a big cog wheel - it was erected up on a post by her estate down toward the end of her estate where she put up the Pompeii up there, it was down towards there. And we saw it, we had ice cream and cake and all the ice cream was made homemade up at Henry du Pont's, and that was Mrs. Crowninshield's brother, and all the ice cream we could eat was there and lady fingers and all kind of fancy cakes, they come out from Hanna's. There used to be a place called Hanna's - ice cream and all these different cakes, but the ice cream was made up at Henry du Pont's. Whenever we went up to an affair at Mrs. Crowninshield's, the girls from Sunday School, thirty or thirty-five, she always had ice cream sent down from Henry du Pont's and then the cakes and things were made at Mrs. Crowninshield's. But she'd give us a big dinner, she'd have turkey for us or fried chicken.

    Bennett: Now you mean when you were one of her Willing Workers?

    Jackson: Children - Willing Workers, that's right, yes. Well, I was in the twenties and thirties - we went there for many years. But there was quite a crowd there and there was some wonderful speakers about the DuPont Company. Just something like when I'd come over, how old it was...

    Bennett: You mean in 1952?

    Jackson: Yes, yes, quite a lot of speakers and the du Ponts, a lot of the du Ponts - Irenee du Pont spoke and I think Coleman du Pont was living at that time, I think he spoke on it, all those older du Ponts spoke on the tragedies. But Sam Buchanan lived next door to us and left a wife and six children. And the du Ponts gave her five hundred dollars and a house to live in, that's all the widows got when their husbands were killed. Then they could — then some of the du Pont might take them to be their laundress or help work in the house and they paid $1.50 a day and they'd get maybe two days, sometimes three, not often, and then they used to take in a couple of boarders and make money that way. And the children weren't old enough to work.

    Bennett: When you attended the 150th Anniversary, did you receive a special invitation because you had grown up along there?

    Jackson: No, we were up to Mrs. Crowninshield's that time and she told us we were all invited, for all of us to come up there, we didn't always wait for an invitations, we knew something was going on.

    Bennett: Well it was such a special occasion, I just wondered if...

    Jackson: No, I think a lot of people just come up there because they knew it was going to be a celebration. I don't think there was too many invitations sent out for anything like that.

    Bennett: I've seen some very beautiful engraved ones.

    Jackson: Did you? Well it could have been, maybe some did get them, but none of us was.

    Bennett: I just wondered if all those that lived and worked around there might have gotten a special...

    Jackson: Well, it might have been some of the older mill pensioners or something, but I know I didn't have anything - Bess Beacom didn't have any.

    Bennett: But you said you had a....

    [Unidentified woman]: Would it have been to the family? Would it have been invitations for some of the du Pont family?

    Bennett: But I just wondered if, well some certain people, I just wondered if the...

    Jackson: Oh, the Consono's all went up there — they didn't get no invitation, the Buchanan children went up there and Liza Miller and Jack, 'course Jack worked in the machine shop. And Bess Beacom and Madeline they were - none of us had any...

    Bennett: Did you all sit together? Did they have a special area for all of you?

    Jackson: No, you had to stand, we were way back toward the woods, you had to stand, they didn't have seating, everybody stood.

    Bennett: I guess I've seen that, now that you say that. I saw a picture of Mrs. Crowninshield and a few people on the steps of the Henry Clay Building that day — I think she gave that property at that time.

    Jackson: She left her property for the Museum, because two gentlemen were in there one time when we were there for dinner, well we were there, and she introduced Bess Beacom and I to them, I don't know what their names were now, but she said, "These are the two gentlemen I'm leaving my house to." And she laughed and joked about it. She gave us their name, but I didn't pay that much attention to it, but we met them.

    Bennett: Probably Dr. Heacock, he was the first...

    Jackson: Felix du Pont and James du Pont was there at that time and they were asking Bess Beacom and I about the past, about growing up in the powder yard and such like, and I told him about how we went up there to get walnuts and pick flowers and play around up there, and I was telling him a number of things and they both come around me and James du Pont, I think, put his arm around me, and he says, "Oh, how we'd love to come to your home some time and interview you." But I said not at this time, because I was just getting over a nervous breakdown and depression at that time. And they've been after me for about, oh I know seven or eight years for an interview, but I never felt up to it until now.

    Bennett: We've heard Bess Beacom, she's done...

    Jackson: There wasn't much Bess missed.

    Bennett: Well, and I don't think you did either.

    Jackson: No, there wasn't much Mary Braden missed either.

    Bennett: Peas in a pod.

    [Unidentified woman]: They were two of a kind.

    Jackson: We were palsy walsy, Bess and I, and we could have fun over nothin.

    Bennett: This is the first time I've heard the girls turn over the outhouses, I mean — so I know now what kind of a little lady you were.

    Jackson: Oh, we were tomboys.

    [Unidentified man]: We tried to hide that.

    Jackson: We were tomboys. Oh, Bess and I, we could climb trees better than any boy could - go up a cherry tree, sit up there and eat the cherries. The farmers used to say up around Summerville, there were orchards up there at one time — I think Hobson's had one and Howett's, there were Howetts and her people had one, and the farmers would say to us, "Now you children can come in, pick all the apples off the ground you want.” We had pillow cases with us, we used to take them, and they would go on down to the barn and get out of our sight, and as soon as they got out of our sight, Bess Beacom and I would go up and shake the best limb up there and we had plenty of apples. So when the farmers came back, we were picking apples off the ground, but they were the ones we shook down. There was some good ones on the ground too. And Mother used to make apple pies and applesauce. We'd take them home, nothing went to waste. We used to go out picking blackberries by the bucketful, and Mother would make blackberry jelly and blackberry mush.

    Bennett: They'd be worth something today.

    Jackson: And where we used to get the blackberries was a woods right across from Shields' Lumber place, right across and it was in a thick woods, I don't know if it's there now, and that's where the best blackberries grew. And there used to be trees there and on those trees grew fox grapes and we used to pick buckets of fox grapes and Mother would make jelly out of that.

    Bennett: What are they?

    Jackson: They are like a large white grape and they were called fox grapes and they were sort of striped a little bit, but they were white.

    Bennett: Oh, okay, I think I know what you mean, but I never knew what their name was.

    Jackson: Well, maybe that's not proper, but that's what we called them.
  • Alfred I. du Pont's Punch and Judy show at Breck's Mill during Christmastime; demolition of Charles's Banks houses and the Rising Sun Lane covered bridge; the Spanish American War cannon houses used for a play house and practice for the fife and drum corps; dances and card games at Breck's Mill; dances at Eleutherian Mills when it was a clubhouse
    Keywords: Breck's Mill; Charles's Banks; Courtship; Du Pont, Alfred I. (Alfred Iré né e), 1864-1935; Eleutherian Mills (Greenville, Del. : Dwelling); Fiddler Jones; Punch and Judy; Rising Sun Lane covered bridge; Spanish-American War (1898); Working class--Social life and customs
    Transcript: Bennett: What would you say was the favorite holiday of the whole community?

    Jackson: Christmas.

    Bennett: Christmas?

    Jackson: Everybody voted for Christmas and for Old Kris come to see what they were gonna get. And no matter how little, we were very appreciative, and loved it. They were all out of the ten cents store, people had no money. Well then, when Alfred du Pont, you know, used to give us the Punch and Judy Show down Breck's Mill. He always give the little girls a doll with hair on it - oh, we thought that was wonderful, and he picked every little child up and hugged them. And we didn't care about it being Alfred du Pont, we enjoyed that big, long beard he had and we'd fondle it and look at it. We'd ask him where he got that and he said, "Santa Claus put it there." And he'd kiss us and give us each a doll and maybe a couple of games — Old Maids or Checkers or something. Oh, we never missed that — rain, shine, snow hail — we went to Alfred I. du Pont's Punch and Judy. We saw Punch and Judy...

    Bennett: Did he have Punch and Judy every year?

    Jackson: Most every year, Christmastime, yes. We were always waiting for the Punch and Judy Show. No matter how many times we saw it, it was all good to us, we enjoyed it. Cause there was no moving pictures, there was no television, there was nothing else to see. And we thought that was great - the little things slapping each other and knocking each other down and throwing them out of the place you know. And we could watch that time after time.

    Bennett: Good. I think we're sort of to the end of that part, now I'm just going to ask you general questions and I'm going to just let you tell me what you know about it. The first one I'm going to ask you is, if you remember any of the houses being torn down? In your time.

    Jackson: Yes, Charles Banks was torn down.

    Bennett: Do you remember Charles Banks being torn down?

    Jackson: Yes, that was below Chicken Alley. They finally tore it down because the water wasn't good, there was something wrong with the water, or they couldn't get water to run down there and it was too close to the yard because Charles Banks, and then was what they called the Iron Bridge, then right under the Iron Bridge was the powder mills. And Charles Banks, they thought, was too close to the powder mills.

    [Unidentified woman]: Couldn't we make this another time, it's four o'clock? Your face is flushed and I think you've had enough, I really do.

    Jackson: Maybe she's asking so many questions - what do you think?

    Bennett: It's entirely up to you and your niece.

    Jackson: Well, I mean, we've had such a terrible time coming here to have it, and we've been through so much excitement, that I don't want to have to go through it again.

    [Unidentified woman]: I know, but that's why your face is so flushed.

    Jackson: Oh, I'm all right, dear, there's nothing wrong. What time is it?

    Bennett: Well, it's four o'clock.

    Jackson: Well, we'll go on another half hour and then that's it, to half past four. I'm all right, Hon.

    Bennett: Just relax, look how relaxed we are. We're enjoying everything you're saying.

    Jackson: As long as you're enjoying it, I enjoy doing it. I'm going back in memories. [Miscellaneous comments about continuing and comments about the air conditioning.]

    Bennett: You do remember Charles Banks being torn down?

    Jackson: Yes, as a little child. We lived in Chicken Alley, but I was very little at that time, but I went back to Charles Banks many a time — took walks and saw it. And it was torn down, I think the reason was, there was something wrong with the water at that time and I think it was too close to the powder yards. The powder yards was right under it, like, under the Iron Bridge. And to go to Charles Banks you had to go over the Iron Bridge.

    Bennett: Yes. Do you remember any major renovations - to the houses or to the buildings or to — any major changes?

    Jackson: Well, if you needed your house papered, DuPont's had the painters and paperers.

    Bennett: No, I mean like a building, that they might have converted something — for instance, you did mention to me out at Wagoner's Row, what did you call that? The Cannon House that became...

    Jackson: Oh, that was in the Spanish American War. Yes, that was in 1898, they built two cannon houses up there to protect the properties and the powder yard, and there was cannons in there, but after the war was over, they took the cannons out, but left the little houses there and us children, the boys and the men, they used one - there was a fife and drum corps and they practiced up there. Then us girls took the other cannon house over for our play house. Used to go up there and play games and it was near Sandy Butt and after we — we'd leave our clothes up in there and when we left Sandy Butt, we'd go up there and dress, in that cannon house.

    Bennett: Did that become any body's house to live in after that, do you know?

    Jackson: No, they were small; they were like sheds. No, they were small. They might have been torn down later, I don't know. No, they weren't any larger than a nice— sized shed.

    Bennett: Oh, I was picturing a larger structure.

    Jackson: No, no — like a shed.

    Bennett: You don't remember then any — do you remember when the new bridge was put up? Do you remember any of those things, any changes?

    Jackson: No - below Rising Sun?

    Bennett: Yes.

    Jackson: Well, they used to have a covered bridge there, then they put up the bridge...

    Bennett: Do you remember those kind of changes?

    Jackson: Yes, sure. That covered bridge was put up and kept there because it was mostly all horses and carriages and on a stormy day or when a storm come up, the carriages was supposed to go in that bridge and be protected from the storms — the horses. That's why we had the covered bridge, to protect the horses. Oh, yes, I remember that. Ethel's brother got two large nails or bolts or something out of that bridge — kept them for - because he used to swim in that creek so much, so when they were tearing it down, he was up there, I guess about 18 to 20, I'm not sure, and they threw these big iron nails - oh, they were about this long, but they were all iron, and the top of them were square...

    Bennett: That's a foot long!

    Jackson: Yeah, that's what they were - on that covered bridge, they were about this long, and they were iron and they were heavy. And he took two of them for a keepsake. I think he gave one to Dennis Rowe, his father was a DuPont man, I remember him coming home. And he says, "I got a keepsake of the old bridge that we used to play on, and swim underneath." I don't know where they ever got to.

    Bennett: Do you remember other social events at Breck's Mill other than the Christmas parties that you attended?

    Jackson: Yes, it was a dance hall. And St. Joseph's sorority, they used to give their dances about once a month. Then there was card games played there, but the only thing they played was Euchre, card games. There was dancing and card games there. Every week there was something going on.

    Bennett: Anything else that you might remember?

    Jackson: Well, if there was somebody getting married, and they were giving them a shower or a little affair or something, it was given in Breck's Mill. We were - up there, the village people were allowed to use Breck's Mill for what they wanted.

    Bennett: Did you — do you remember the Blue Rose Baseball Team?

    Jackson: Yes, I heard of it, I didn't have anybody in it — we had no brothers, but I heard of it other words — I think Joe Shepherd belonged to it and Joe Williams belonged to it and I think Ed Williams belonged to it and his brother, the younger boy, and the Millers — Garnet Miller and Joshua Miller.

    Bennett: Do you remember Alfred I.'s band?

    Jackson: Yes, well I knew of it. They practiced in Breck's Mill and Sam Buchanan belonged to it, Albert Buchanan belonged to it, Frank Matthewson belonged to it and Walter Matthewson belonged to it. And Sam Buchanan was, he played a bass, bass horn, and he could sing bass.

    Bennett: Oh, he sang?

    Jackson: Yes, he sang bass. And Alfred du Pont thought a lot of them Buchanans.

    Bennett: And Fiddler Jones, do you remember?

    Jackson: Yes, Fiddler Jones, oh I knew him. Many times at a dance and years after du Pont's left Mrs. Crowninshield's home, it was a club. And we used to go up there and they held dances up there. And Fiddler Jones was always up there and there was another old man — it wasn't Sandburn, but it was something like that name - they played. There was only about two or three fiddlers up there. And it was mostly all the violin that the people danced to.

    Bennett: Tell me about the place — Mrs. Crowninshield's place — when you went up there for dances. What was it like up there?

    Jackson: Well, it was bare, and a lot of the rooms upstairs were barred off, you know. And it was just plain — there was none of those powder rooms, nothing like that there. I think there was an outside toilet at that time, years ago, in the early nineteen hundreds. I think it was outside. If there was toilets inside, they must have been stationed off or something because I don't remember going to a toilet — always went outside, because a lot of them used to go out with the boys, you know, and we'd sit on the ground and when they'd come in they'd be all full of leaves. And some of them used to say, "It's a wonder that fellow didn't brush the leaves off of his girlfriend before he brought her in." But they'd been sitting outside and there was a lot of leaves, but it was always a telltale — when they came in there was always leaves where they had been sitting down. Courting.
  • Other events held at Breck's Mill; borrowing books from the library at Christ Church; going into the powder yard with her father's lunch and picking flowers and walnuts; getting candy from Blakely's store after the monthly store bill was paid
    Keywords: Alger, Horatio, Jr., 1832-1899; Breck's Mill; Candy; Christ Church Christiana Hundred (Wilmington, Del.); Du Pont, Alfred I. (Alfred Iré né e), 1864-1935; Employees--Recreation; Fathers and daughters; Grocery trade; Swimming; Tencopanican Band
    Transcript: Bennett: Do you remember anything else that went on at Breck's Mill? Do you remember the shows, the theater, the Brandywiners? That might have been later on.

    Jackson: Well, sometimes there was an orchestra come there, or music come there, but us kids wasn't interested in the music, we didn't bother with it, but we knew there was something going on at Breck's Mill.

    Bennett: I understand...

    Jackson: [crosstalk] It's been more used since I left the Banks than it was before, but it was a place for us kiddies to go. We used to go through there and play.

    Bennett: I understand they had a Boy Scout organization there at one point.

    Jackson: Well, I think they did, but that was in later years, and then the library...Our library was up at Christ Church. They had a small room and it was filled with books all the way down, every part. And you could get children's books on up to larger books, you know, for older people.

    Bennett: For the entire community?

    Jackson: Yes, anybody could go up there. Oh, they could get somebody that went to Christ Church to bring them back a book, and they were always returned - honest in them days.

    Bennett: So that was really the first library?

    Jackson: That was the only place I knew you could get books, and I used to go up there because I was very much interested in Algers books, about the little bootblack, you know, and the little boys that turned out to be so good, and raised so poor. And I was always enthused and I always liked them books, and there was quite a lot of them. And then if you went to Sunday School and you didn't miss a Sunday going to Sunday School, you got three books given to you at Christmas. And if you missed one Sunday, you got two books, and then if you missed more than that, then you only got one book. But I always aimed to get three books, and I mostly always did, and they were always Alger's books. I always sort of stuck to her reading. It was a good parable in those stories. How to be good.

    Bennett: The Alfred I. — The Tencan — I can never say this — the Tencopanican Band — that was his band. Do you remember that?

    Jackson: I knew it was, but I didn't go and attend it any time. I was little, but I knew they was, because I remember Sam Buchanan used to take his big horn and go to it.

    Bennett: And you knew that he would — never actually heard it?

    Jackson: Yes, I knew — guess I was only about three, or four, something like that. Band didn't interest me at that age, you know.

    Bennett: You told me that you were allowed in the powder mills?

    Jackson: Yes.

    Bennett: Would you tell me how you learned what you know about the powder mills? Like, some of the children were not allowed in. You were allowed in, your dad would show you how things were done?

    Jackson: Well, if you were carrying your father's lunch or his breakfast or anything, you had to go into the power mills to take it to him. And then you could stay as long as you wanted. I used to carry his breakfast, I'd carry his lunch. He must have come for dinner at night — supper. And then when I went up there, then I roamed all around the mills and went to see — if there were flowers, I'd go around and I'd pick the flowers, and a lot of the powder men used to swim in the races up there, and I used to watch the men swimming in the race. There was a race on one side and the creek on the other, and a lot of the powder men, when they had their time off, they'd go up there and swim. They took their bath up there in the race - my father did too.

    Bennett: Were he discuss the powder yards with you — to be careful, would he caution that you...

    Jackson: No, I'd just say to him, "I'm going on down through the field and up the hill there. I'm going to pick violets and flowers." And he'd say, "Oh, all right, dear, now you run back again with the flowers." And I did, and then the walnut trees were further up where his boiler house was and we used to go up there and take the green shells all off and put them in the basket, or whatever we had, and when we had about a bushel or half a bushel, then our father would carry them home for us, put them on the shed room. Because we were always told that the walnuts — the kernels were never sweet or good until the second frost hit them.

    Bennett: The second frost.

    Jackson: The second frost — I don't know why there had to be two, but they were never good until around Halloween. Then we made molasses candy, we made candy with it, and when we made fudge, the nuts would be in it. And then Mother used to make walnut cake, plain cake with walnuts in it. We used them for a lot of things, we liked them. Lots of times we used to just break them and we used to have - we called them [sat?] irons, they had a handle to them, you put them on the stove to get hot - [sat?] irons, irons — and we used to take one of them and put it between our knees and turn it upside down, with the flat end of it, and then we'd take a little hammer out of Father's shed, and we'd break nuts. We'd break the nuts one night, then the next night we'd pick them off for Mother to make molasses candy. She got very little [walk in?]. She only went to town once a month. Then mostly she brought home a bag of white peppermint, which we didn't like. We used to tell her to buy the other kind of white candy cause it was a chewy candy. So then she didn't know whether she was buying the peppermint or the white candy, but she mostly bought the white candy that we could chew, and that was the kind we liked — didn't like the peppermint.

    Bennett: Do you remember...

    Jackson: I remember paid the store bill, Blakely, we paid his monthly store bill, be either six dollars a month — maybe go to nine dollars a month if we were extravagant, and then he always gave a big bag of candy to bring home that all of us could have plenty of candy when the store bill was paid. We always waited for Pop's check to come home so Blakley's could cash it and send up the bag of candy. We didn't care if the store bill was paid or not, but we wanted the candy.

    Bennett: That's good, I like that.
  • Debating the location of the former Brandywine Manufacturer's Sunday School and its later uses; men who got jobs with the DuPont Co. after their father's were killed in industrial accidents
    Keywords: Brandywine Manufacturer's Sunday School; Dean, Paulina du Pont, 1903-1964; Industrial accidents; Rural schools; Seitz family; Telephone stations
    Transcript: Bennett: Do you remember the Brandywine Manufacturer's Sunday School?

    Jackson: No, the only school I remember was Christ Church. Remember St. Joseph's and then Green Hill and Mt. Salem.

    Bennett: That was before you time. It's the one that is directly across from what was the Belin House.

    Jackson: Oh, that — I know the older girls went — the older girls went to that Sunday School and later — years later Polly du Pont bought that property and — Simpson was her name, and she lived in that, and that was the old Sunday School years ago.

    Bennett: The Seitz ladies lived in it before the yard closed up.

    Jackson: And before that, when I was really little, Captain Stewart and his wife lived in that — Captain Stewart. And he was away up in the DuPont Powder Yard. He was a big boss in the powder yard. Captain Stewart, because Mother's last baby, Mrs. Stewart was very good to me and had to take care of it and Mother named the baby for her, Florence. Our last baby was called Florence.

    Bennett: Now, I don't know whether we have two things in mind or if the names are similar. Let me show you the picture, because the one house that we call the Gibbons— Stewart House...

    Jackson: Yeah, I knew where that was.

    Bennett: Okay, that's what we call on the Blacksmith Hill and the other is the Sunday School. And I just want to make sure I have this straight.

    Jackson: Well, my older sisters might have gone to it, but I didn't.

    Bennett: No, you would not have.

    Jackson: Charles' grandmother might have.

    Bennett: Now this house here — and that's a picture of the Stewart family at this house, which is still standing, this part. You see up here in the distance?

    Jackson: Yes.

    Bennett: That's the bookkeeper's house, that was the Belin House, and straight across from that is the Sunday School that was turned into a residence and it was a telephone exchange for the yard. I thought there was a picture...

    Jackson: That was toward, them buildings were toward Rockland, up that far, I think up toward...

    Bennett: It's really just right up the road a little.

    Jackson: Above the Upper Banks.

    Bennett: It's right up — it's below Free Park.

    Jackson: Yeah, well, the older girls went to that Sunday School, but I never did.

    Bennett: It's — now who did you say lived there?

    Jackson: What — in the old Sunday School?

    Bennett: That you might remember, yes.

    Jackson: Well, Polly du Pont - Simpson is her married name, she moved into a building there up near Buck's Road, above Wagoner's Row, as you go toward Mrs. Crowninshield's estate. And that had been an old, old Sunday School. Then they turned it into an office for the DuPont Company and after that Polly du Pont, Mrs. W. K.'s daughter, Polly du Pont, married Simpson, she made that her home. I think she still has that estate.

    Bennett: Okay. Now this house, do you recognize that one? Now that's the Stewart family. The Gibbons family were the first ones to live there. I thought I had a picture of the Sunday School.

    Jackson: Well, I think that was the house I'm talking about. Was that the place the Seitz went into?

    Bennett: Seitz went into the one up above; it was the Sunday School. This is the Stewart House. No, the house you were talking about, except the location seems different to me, was the Sunday School. This one is down below, this is closer to the yards. Maybe...

    Jackson: This is closer to the Upper Banks. Upper Banks is just below it.

    Bennett: Yes, coming down Smith Lane, they're all coming — this is Smith Lane.

    Jackson: Yes, that's right. And down below her was the Upper Banks.

    Bennett: This is the Stewart family, do you remember them?

    Jackson: Well, if it's the Stewart that I knew about, he was called Captain Stewart and her name was Florence Stewart and she was very good to our family.

    Bennett: Do you know the next family that moved there? After the Stewart family, do you know that? Who they were by any chance?

    Jackson: It wasn't Seitz, was it?

    Bennett: No, Seitz is up the road. What did you say Captain Stewart's wife's name was?

    Jackson: Florence. Our last baby was called for Florence.

    Bennett: You don't — I'll bring you a picture of the Sunday School and I'd like to go over that again with you.

    Jackson: Well, Charles' grandmother, my oldest sister, Jenny, she went to that Sunday School. Then she went to a one-room schoolhouse up in Rockland. And the teacher there was Annie McGarvey, school teacher.

    Bennett: The Sunday School was before your time, and at that time when you were a child, it was then the telephone exchange for the yards and it belonged to Christ Church. Originally it was the Sunday School for Christ Church. And then it became the house for the Seitz ladies.

    Jackson: In later years, where Shepherds lived, right across from the machine shop, was Shepherd's house, and when they moved Shepherd's out, they made it a DuPont office and my brother— in-law, Andy Jackson, he was head of that office, he was a draftsman, he was in there, and the telephone exchange was in there. Of course Joe Williams run — and at first Florence Seitz took care of the telephone company. Then the Carraro girl, not Edna, Elsie — Elsie Carraro come next, she took care of the exchange. Then Joe Williams took charge of it and Joe Williams, he worked every Saturday and Sunday and all extra days, Joe Williams, he was in that office, I remember that. And that's right across from the machine shop, right above the museum, and Hallock du Pont uses it for a place for dogs. He breeds special dogs, or he did, in the machine shop, he had that, he took that, right across from that on the same side was a yellow house and it used to be Shepherd's house. Joe Shepherd lived there — Minnie Shepherd and Lizzie Shepherd I think, and Harry Shepherd. And that was the exchange for the DuPont Company.

    Bennett: I think it probably moved down to where you're saying, yes.

    Jackson: Yeah, it moved from up there down to there.

    Bennett: But that house in between we know that the first foreman was John Gibbons, we know the second family was the Stewart family and nobody knows...

    Jackson: Well, that must have been Captain Stewart.

    Bennett: But you don't know who moved in after the Stewarts?

    Jackson: No.

    Bennett: Nobody does?

    Jackson: No.

    Bennett: Isn't it funny how there's blanks.

    Jackson: Just a blank in between. See I was getting older - well I was eighteen when I left the DuPont Banks and we moved into the city.

    Bennett: I'm going to ask you next if you knew of anyone that got a job at the DuPont Company because the father was killed in an explosion?

    Jackson: Yes, I think they were. Joe Williams' father was killed, he wasn't in the powder, but he went up on Alexis I. du Pont's School to paint the flagpole quite a distance up, and he fell and he was killed, and Joe Williams and Harry Williams and Ed Williams all worked for the DuPont Company.

    Bennett: Do you know of any - now like the - who did you say — Buchanan?

    Jackson: No the Buchanan boys, no those two boys was Harvey Buchanan and Earl Buchanan, they never got work in the DuPont Company. And Bill Buchanan was in charge of the shop on Maryland Avenue, but his father didn't get killed, [Albert?] Buchanan, he wasn't killed in the powder.

    Bennett: No, I just meant people that might have gotten a job because their father had...

    Jackson: Well, they could, they could.

    [Unidentified woman]: ...was killed in the, what do you call it, when they exploded — in the yard.

    Jackson: No, Tom Walker's father was killed in the explosion, but Tom Walker got a good job in the DuPont Company and he was head of the Hall of Records at the foot of Barley Mill Lane — Tom Walker, and his father was killed. And I'll tell you two more that got jobs in the DuPont Company, John McElhinney and Bob McElhinney both — their father was killed in the powder and they got jobs in the machine shop or worked - they were both machinists I think - then they ended up down on Maryland Avenue in the DuPont Shops on Maryland Avenue. Both of them, their father was killed, they got work in the DuPont Company.

    Bennett: My next question, we've discussed part of it which was if you remember Sam Frizzell's Grocery Store. We've done that one. Do you remember Tim McCarthy's Blazing Rag Tavern?

    [Interruption when staff person comes to say the interview will have to move to the Green Room as the tables have to be set.]

    Jackson: Okay, is there anything — or would you want to come back and see me another time?

    Bennett: I think - let's do it another time. I've made a little doodle-daddle here and we'll do the taverns and stuff...
Details
Title

Interview with Mary Braden Jackson, 1986 July 13 [audio]

Date Created

1986-07-13

Scope and Content

Jackson's second interview describes Sam Frizzell's store, the du Pont family as landlords, Christmas and Thanksgiving traditions, and Easter and Fourth of July parties, Mrs. Crowninshield's Willing Workers, the library at Christ Church, and daily life along the Brandywine. She also describes the 100th and 150th anniversary celebrations of the DuPont company in detail.

Interviewee

Jackson, Mary Braden

Interviewer

Bennett, Peggy

Biographical Note

Mary Braden Jackson (b. 1895) grew up in Chicken Alley, Long Row, and Squirrel Run. Her father, Henry Braden, was an Irish immigrant who worked as a fireman and engineer at Hagley Yards, and her mother, Elizabeth Baxter Braden, was a Scottish immigrant. Raised by her stepmother after her mother's death, Jackson grew up with her five sisters along the Brandywine.

Note

Part 3: Television is playing in the background; Cuts off from 0:46:31 to 0:46:41 when tape side was turned over

Place

Newark (Del.)

Subject(s)

Children
Reminiscing
Domestic life
Manners and customs

Subject(s) - Name

E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company

Find all items with name(s)

Jackson, Mary Braden
Bennett, Peggy
E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company

Genre

oral histories

Language

English

Type of resource

sound recording-nonmusical

Extent

1 sound cassette (90 min.) : analog. TRT 1:27:05.

Physical Details

A and B
Part 3: 1:27:05

Repository

Audiovisual Collections and Digital Initiatives Department, Hagley Museum and Library

Original Collection

Eleutherian Mills-Hagley Foundation interviews on the history of the DuPont Company Powder Yard (Accession 1970.370)

Original Identifier

1970.370.262
88

Finding Aid

http://findingaids.hagley.org/xtf/view?docId=ead/1970_370.xml

Item Location

Box 6, Casette 261

Preferred Citation

[Description and dates], 1970370_9513_jackson_part3, Box 6, Casette 261, Eleutherian Mills-Hagley Foundation interviews on the history of the DuPont Company Powder Yard (Accession 1970.370), Audiovisual Collections and Digital Initiatives Department, Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, DE 19807

Access Condition

Access to this item is provided for educational and research purposes only. The user assumes responsibility for obtaining permission from the copyright holder to publish or distribute this material. If you would like more information, please contact askhagley@hagley.org

Hagley ID

1970370_9513_jackson_part3

Other Format (Identifier)

2026_061713_08

PID

islandora:2277770

Digitized material in this online archive may document imagery or language that reflects racist, ableist, sexist, homophobic, or otherwise offensive and harmful beliefs and actions in history. Hagley Library is engaged in ongoing efforts to address and responsibly present evidence of oppression and injustice in our collections. If you are concerned about the archival material presented here, or want to learn more about our ongoing work, please contact us at research@hagley.org.