Tim: Did you ever hear when you were a kid about the, uh, uh, the, uh, pandemic of 1918? You were only five years old. Oh, they didn't call it a pandemic. What'd they call it, the plague?  

Mom: Uh, I have to think about it.. that's when, supposedly

 Johnny, Matt's brother, Johnny, developed a mental problem. It was...  

Tim: Because of that flu? Yes. What year was he born, do you know? Before that, obviously. Yes. Like 1915 or 13 or something? You'd have to look it up. I always thought he had scarlet fever for some reason. No? It came from the epidemic of 1918, you think.

Yes. I'm not sure. But when you were five or six years old, did you...  

Mom: I didn't know anything. I lived on a farm.  

Tim: Wait, that doesn't mean the news doesn't travel and... It didn't. What about... I  

Mom: don't think there was any, any, upset. No, not until the 30s when the market collapsed. That was probably the first I was aware.

Tim: First exposure to like national events? Hmm. Yeah, but you know, history can be anecdotal. People would have memories, your mom and your dad and your grandparents. They'd say, I remember Teddy Roosevelt getting shot in Buffalo, uh, getting, becoming president in Buffalo after McKinley was shot and things like that.

You know, newspapers have been around for a long time. Do you remember getting a newspaper when you were a kid? No. Really? No. The radio became a source of news at some point.  

Mom: I remember my dad sitting with this little contraption trying to get a Buffalo Bison baseball game.  

Tim: You told me about that before, yeah.

Mom: Because Uncle Harry... Kelly worked for a bakery in Buffalo, so that was a tie up of  

baseball.

But I don't remember much else. We didn't have much communication with anybody.  

Tim: Even neighbors? What about the Grange? Did your father belong to the Grange? Oh yeah, I did.  

You did? Yes. What he was like a four H for Grange or something?  

Mom: Oh God, no. It was like a, a fraternity -sorority for you. What do you mean?

We weren't supposed to talk about what you did or who you were.  

Tim: That was, they had the, that was a Grange rule.  

Mom: Well, it was, if you look it up, you'll find out.  

Tim: So you used to go to meetings there  

Mom: Probably. Or dinners and performances?  

Tim: What? What do you mean performances?  

Mom: We'd wear a gown and or a robe.  

Tim: You would, yes.

You would. You rehearse for it? Probably, yeah. Like when you were eight or 10 or 12? That age, huh? It was. Did they have graduations or, or levels like Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts have where? You, I can't remember. That wasn't that long ago. You don't remember? 1929. 1930.  

Mom: I was in 29 I was six years old.

Tim: You turned seven in June, didn't you? No. Turned six, seven. Give me a break. Did you ever have a diary? No. No journaling? No. No.  

Mom: Probably wasn't even thought of.  

Tim: Well, some people kept journals. Yes, they did. Charles Darwin kept a journal. How old was she? Charles Darwin. Oh, Charles Darwin. Origin of species.  

Mom: How old was he?

Tim: Well, he wasn't that old when he went off into the... That's why I said, [???] No, no. He was... He didn't live any... Did you know he was born on the same day as Abraham Lincoln? Same day, same year. But, uh, I think he died... He lived past Lincoln, but not much. Probably till 1870 or so. I'm not sure. Maybe 1780. 1880, rather.

So that's interesting. No newspapers. He didn't have the radio until the 30s, right?  

That's not, and Tim, they weren't radios. They were contraptions.  

Marconi made 'em right. What about medical treatment? Did you remember going to a doctor or did the doctor come to you?  

Mom: Well, I had to go to a doctor.  

Tim: See what doctor's office Or did the doctor, well, they come to the house.

Would they?  

Mom: The biggest thing was my hands. And that's when I was 11.  

Tim: Oh yeah. You didn't go to a hospital for that, that was treated  

Mom: well. I can remember I had tonsillitis and my dad, I remember standing against a door frame. He said, you have to take this aspirin. And I was a little kid, probably about seven years old, and I wouldn't swallow it.

And my dad was, I know he was on his hands and knees. He said he gotta do this. Trying to make me do what I was supposed to do.  

Tim: Was he lovingly doing it, or?  

Mom: Oh, lovingly. Oh, he wasn't like that. My dad and I were. You were close? That's why I was out on the farm with him. Where I'd rather be.  

Tim: You'd go out on a wagon or a trail, a tractor or something?

Yes. Did he have a tractor?  

Mom: Many. I got a, uh, log, uh, log boat. You could ride on the boards.  

Tim: He let you ride, drive it sometimes? Not very much. Gas powered, right? Horse. Ah! Really? You remember that? Like your grandfather. You mean one horse or more?  

Mom: Mostly one horse. Down the lane, across the road, into our other farm part.

Tim: And you sit on a, I don't know, like a...  

Mom: Which was rocks and rocks.  

Tim: Bumpy, huh? Awful. Where was your sister? Did she come out with you?  

Mom: She was, no, she was more into cooking.  

Tim: Who, Mildred? Yes. And Rachel was even older, she was... She was more gone. Yeah. So you were like the apple of his eye? I hope so. Yeah. That's interesting.

I didn't know that you belonged to the Grange. Did the whole family go to the Grange dinners? Yeah. You take a covered dish, you know, a covered dish. Oh, sure. Yeah, it had to be fun.  

Mom: Probably my mother worked in the kitchen. But they had one of those. The Great Hall was right at, we call it Million Dollar Highway.

And, what was the one that went down the hill to Aunt Harriet's?  

Tim: Chestnut Ridge or something?  

Mom: No, uh, right at Warren's Corners, anyway. Great Hall. Great Hall is here. Woodcock's garage over here. And the school's here.  

Tim: Woodcock, was it called? That's the guys who run a, uh, brewpub in Lockport now.  

Mom: Probably grandsons now. Woodcock's garage, and we lived down the street, or a road. We didn't have streets then.  

Tim: They lanes then, right?  

Mom: Well, it was paved because it was a million dollar highway. Well, that was paved. From Rochester to the Lewiston Bridge.  

Tim: Yeah, we've talked about that before. Yes. Was it a million dollars a mile?  

Mom: I think for the whole thing.

Shootin shootin match.  

Tim: Ha, ha, ha. It didn't exactly make Lewiston a booming town though, really. In fact, it was built to get to the bridge, I assume, right?  

Mom: Right. And they were anxious to get that. That's when population changed. The Canadians wanted to come over here for their beers. When they used to close their restaurants.

Tim: They weren't open on Sundays.  

Mom: And women couldn't go in the bars.  

Tim: Women couldn't go in the bars in Canada? Oh, no. What kind of prudes were they? I thought they had a little French in them. A little Joy de Vive. No?  

Mom: You're talking over my language. I don't know.  

Tim: Joy for life. You know, live life. No?  

No?  

Mom: Oh, the rules were women could not go to...

Bar rooms.  

Tim: How'd they meet men? At the church?  

Mom: Probably. But anyway. And they couldn't drink after 11 o'clock. So that's when Snyder Bradshaw would be open and everything would be ramped up.  

Tim: I imagine Niagara Falls drew a lot like that too. Oh sure, everybody. A lot of people in Canada have memories of maybe a little past that but of coming to Buffalo or Niagara Falls or Lewiston.

They still do, people. It's not the draw that it was then. Canada's liberalized, somewhat, in that regard. They still have, uh, Ontario owns the, uh, liquor stores, so there's some...  

Mom: But at that point, they didn't. They had very strict, strict laws about hours and people. Hm. Men and women. Maybe they were right, I don't know.

But usually that just makes people want to... Kick the traces more [?] , right?  

Tim: Yeah, I agree, yeah. It's tight, you feel tied down, you gotta bust out.  

Mom: We'll go someplace where it's not so strict.  

Tim: Yeah, that's interesting.  

Mom: What I don't know is, Dad probably knew Canadians.  

Tim: You didn't really know any Canadians?  

Mom: I didn't, but he probably did, from hanging out at the bar in Bradshaw's.

Tim: Well, and the restaurant had Canadian trade too.  

Mom: That was much later. You're talking the 40s? I'm talking about 20s. In the 30s  

Tim: and the...  

Mom: Yes, before I even got to Lewiston. That was when the Canadians...  

Tim: They were a big part of the nightlife and so on?

Mom: I think so.

They probably kept a lot of businesses going.  

Tim: Did you ever walk across the Lewiston Queenston Bridge to Canada?  

Mom: I don't remember if I ever did.  

Tim: And I loved that bridge.  

Mom: It was shaky.  

Tim: Yeah, well it was a suspension bridge.  

Mom: Yeah. I think that's why I probably never said, yes, I will.  

Tim: Not sure that's the bridge that, you know, there was one bridge there that Roebling designed.

The guy who designed the Brooklyn Bridge. Who did? His name was Roebling. I think it was Francis Roebling. Designed the Brooklyn Bridge. But I think he also designed a bridge that, uh, spanned the Niagara. It might have been the one that was taken down there in the 60s or 70s. When they built the big one.

Right. Uh, but I'm not sure. It might've, it might've, Could've been a suspension bridge. Well, uh, the Brooklyn Bridge is somewhat of a suspension bridge, I think. It's built on pillars, but, you know, it's got those cables. Yes. I'll have to check that out. Mrs. Ro, Ro, Robeson, was it Robeson or Robeson? Robeson. She wrote a book about that, I think.

About the,  

Mom: I think so about the bridge, which I never read.  

Tim: Yeah, I have it at home. I'll bring it in. I'll bring it down. I think I, I think she wrote it.  

Mom: I got a book here. Somebody did for history.  

Tim: What is it? What's it, what's the subject?  

Mom: I don't remember.