TIm: What do you think of me wearing this mask? Very becoming. Ah! Well, you know, they say you're supposed to wear it, so.  

Mom: Well, if you're around her, you better.  

TIm: Yeah, she can't get it. She can't get it. But you could. I mean, she would, it would be very frightening if Margie got it. Yes. Yeah, now, you know, I'm in the same demographic, too.

I just don't have an underlying... You're not that young. I'm not that young. Anymore. But I don't have a significant underlying condition. Although Margy reminded me I had pneumonia about 25 years ago or more, 30. Keenan had it at the same time for some reason. I didn't even remember it. But I do remember I had an x ray and they can, they told me I had pneumonia.

I don't know how long the effects of that are. Kevin... Kevin said this. Scared, yeah. You think he's scared? I think he is. I think he's more cautious than scared. I don't know. He just doesn't want to get it. He doesn't want to transmit it. Right. Nobody wants to do that. But, uh, it's pretty amazing. Pretty amazing.

Mom: The thing is, it's not getting over with right away. I thought it would be a couple weeks.  

TIm: So did the President of the United States. Yeah. But, there's never been anything like it in our lifetimes. It's just, it's highly contagious. Um, it targets that one demographic. Although, you know, over half of the, half of the people that are affected are under 50.

So it doesn't exclude anybody, it just has, it's more harmful with people that are older. Even little kids are getting it. I, Margie pointed out that a one year old or a six month old child died of it. I know. Did you see that?

Your family, your family, let's see. Strong. Strong. I mean, people had heart conditions. Your, both your parents died of heart related. Wouldn't you say?  

Mom: Yes, well, my mother was obese all her life.  

TIm: Was she all her life?  

Mom: Oh, I think so. You know, see their wedding pictures, she was never, not the wedding picture, maybe.

TIm: Anniversaries or something?  

Mom: She was not, you know, more like Maureen, big.  

TIm: She seemed to always have like a farmer dress on or something, you know what? I can't remember it exactly, but. She, she, she dressed to cover herself somewhat. As I recall. She wasn't all that warm and fuzzy, do you think? No. I wouldn't say she was cold hearted, would you?

Mom: No. She was more business woman type of person. She had that kind of... Study Club and all the affairs, Home Bureau. She belonged to and held office. Did she? Statewide. I didn't know that. Yes, went to Albany. Oh. She was, uh, very active in, and then we worked, of course, with the grades and church.  

TIm: Did she keep books for the farm and that type of stuff?

Was she responsible for that? Or your dad? Like accounting for the farm business.  

Mom: Oh, that I don't remember. Yeah. Who knows?

 There was a lot of, you know, like they had the cold storage where you had the sides of beef and all that stuff. I don't know who would be in charge of...  

TIm: They had cold storage? I thought that was for apples.  

Mom: Lockport cold storage. We kept our meat there. Really? Oh yeah.  

TIm: Oh, so you'd, you'd, you'd identify your meat, come in and...

I'm sure they did, yeah. I mean, you knew it was yours, it wasn't a community meat... Oh, no. Huh, it was like a side of beef or something? Yes, they slaughtered. It was from your farm? Right. Oh, your dad didn't butcher it, did he? Uncle Reuben. Uncle Reuben, was he a Kelly?  

Mom: Smith. Reuben Smith? He was married to Grandma Kelly's sister.

TIm: Oh, and he was a butcher? Yeah,  

Mom: I guess so. He was also, uh, a hunter. He stuffed birds. He had pheasants stuffed in his house. Taxidermy.  

TIm: Oh, yeah. Taxidermy, yeah.  

Mom: Huh. How he learned it, I have no idea. He was blind in one eye. Uncle Reuben.  

TIm: Reuben Smith? Uh huh. Sounds like an interesting guy. Taxidermy and butcher.  

Mom: Right.

And a farmer. They lived down near Wright's Corners. By the railroad tracks.  

TIm: So, would your father, like, take an animal to him and he'd slaughter it? Oh, they came to the barn. Oh, they came to your house? Yes. Did you ever witness it?  

Mom: Probably not.  

TIm: So, then, cold storage is not frozen then? It's just cold?  

Mom: Oh, no. Frost on them. Oh, really? Yes.  

Oh. It was frozen stiff. Really? Stuff, yeah.  

TIm: I thought cold storage was like...  

Mom: Well, they put apples in cold storage. There they don't freeze them. But what we had was a frozen...  

TIm: That was like a frozen locker then. Yes. Oh, I didn't know that. But was the beef already, was it already butchered?

Like these are steaks and these are whatever else and hamburger or whatever?  

Mom: No, I don't think so. It was just a slab of beef. Oh. What about pork? That's why I just wondered, I don't know if we slaughtered pigs.  

TIm: Did you have pigs, though?  

Mom: Oh yes, everybody had pigs. Baby, baby pigs. And if they were too small, we'd have one in the oven to keep it warm while it grew.  

TIm: What do you mean?

Mom: A little baby pig. Oh God, they were pink and beautiful.  

TIm: Why didn't the mommy pig take care of it?  

Mom: She probably had like twelve, you know, baby pigs in the litter. So if there was a tiny one, my mom would bring it in and warm it in the cook stove oven.  

She didn't leave it on high and make bacon out of it, did she? That's amazing! She'd actually put it in the oven? Was it a wood stove oven? Yes.  

TIm: Geez, I don't even know how a wood stove oven would work.

It had an oven door on it? Yes. Did it have a stove top where you could boil water and  

stuff?  

Mom: Yes, that's how we heated the water to do laundry. In a big copper tub. Ah.  

You had a bathtub in your house, didn't you? No.  

On the kitchen floor. What do you mean? A washtub on the kitchen floor. You put the hot water in and the kids got into it. I never, don't know if my mother and father, what they did.

TIm: You never saw them in a bathtub? No. Good Lord.  

Mom: Really? We didn't have a bathtub until Dad remodeled in the 30's. And then we had a bathroom. Did you have a shower then? I don't even know. I don't think a shower. That was probably the first time we remodeled. And the only time.  

TIm: And then you put a bathtub in.

Yes. Did it have claws on it, like feet? Yes. Did it? Ooh. So it was cast iron probably.  

Mom: Well, we had one here.  

TIm: That had feet on it? Yes. I don't remember. That had a faucet. You just turned the faucet on and it filled the tub, right? Ours here. Right. Okay, good. But yours you had to fill it with water from another source?

Did you have to go out to a pump?  

Mom: Well, that'd be cold water.  

TIm: Yeah, but then you bring the water in and you heat it on that stove, right? Right. Did you take a bath with your sisters or anything, or was it one at a time?  

Mom: That tub on the kitchen floor, I don't think it would fit.  

TIm: But you took, you were say 12, 13 years old, you took a, you took a bath in your kitchen?

I

Mom: don't know, not 15.  

TIm: Why were you in the Falls then?  

Mom: Pretty close.  

TIm: Well, 13 then. Uh. That's amazing. Did the people have curtains up and closed doors so you had some privacy?  

Mom: In the middle of the kitchen floor? Yeah. That's when we were kids. A few years old.  

TIm: Well, you said in the 30s it was remodeled.  

Mom: I don't remember ever seeing my brother take a bath.

TIm: No, you didn't? No. Of course, he was how many years older? About eight. Yeah. So when you were ten...  

Mom: He was 1916, and I was 23. Okay.  

TIm: Hmm. Well, that's really interesting. What a change the world has. Do you remember a shower at any time in your first shower? Was that in this house as a married? Probably here. We didn't get a shower until 1959.

Mom: Well, that was probably my first shower. No kidding. Unless, I can't think where I would have stayed.  

TIm: Maybe a hotel. Probably a hotel. The time you were married in 43?  

Mom: We didn't stay at a hotel. We went to Myra, Myra, uh, who was the postmasters here in Sandborn? I don't know her son in New Jersey. We went there and stayed the,  

TIm: is she a friend of yours or a friend of dad's?

Mom: She was as, uh, Grandma Toohey's sister Myra Barber,  

TIm: and oh, our Aunt Myra that we used to visit in Alcott. That  

Mom: was Aunt Grace.  

TIm: Yeah, but didn't Aunt Myra stay with her?

Mom: I don't think so.  

TIm: Wasn't Aunt Myra a little tiny thing?  

Mom: Yes. Yeah. But she was a postmaster in Sanborn.  

TIm: Wait, what a busy job that must have been.

How many people lived in Sanborn? Twenty seven? Huh? No, they probably had five or six hundred. I don't know.  

Mom: I don't remember.  

TIm: It's a little hamlet. All farmers, probably. Yeah, all farmers. Triclers live in Sanborn, don't they? Tricler family. Pipers? Triclers. Triclers, yeah. Yeah, they're a Sanborn family. It's the only family I know there.

That's amazing. I wonder if that was the, uh, post office for the reservation. Probably.  

Mom: That would know. Yeah. Don't they have their own?  

TIm: They do not. They don't, no. Oh. Probably Model City, or, or something in Wheatfield. I don't know. Never thought of it. Probably, maybe Lewiston Post Office is their post office.

I think it is, probably.  

Mom: Town of Lewiston would be...  

TIm: Yeah, they're in the town of Lewiston. But so is Sanborn. And so is Model City. Yeah. Sanborn doesn't have a post office now, I don't think. Or does Model City? They still do, yeah. It's in Washouda's building, yeah. Washouda built that big office building and one part of it is a U. S. post office. Oh. Well, gee, so you might not have had a shower until 1959. Maybe not. You were thirty We took baths. You were thirty six years old. Yeah. You must have gone to hotels someplace that had a shower.  

Mom: We didn't go to hotels.  

TIm: No? Well, you went to New York once or twice  

Mom: Probably when I traveled with the village.

TIm: Didn't you used to go places with Monins or something, like Cleveland, or?  

Mom: Yeah, but we didn't take showers. You didn't? Wash up, bathe.  

TIm: Did you have, uh, did you ever use deodorant in those days? Was deodorant something more like a 60's thing?

Mom: Boy, you're good. I'm testing your memory. I know, and I don't remember.

I want to say Mum, deodorant or something. No. Mum. That's close.  

TIm: Underarm, like a roll on. A roll on.  

Mom: But I don't think I probably used one much before I started working. Because I didn't get dressed up very much around here.  

TIm: No, you were working hard with your family. Yeah, deodorant. It's like probably a late 50s invention or something that became more prevalent.

I can remember in school at Lewport, there were some kids who smelled. That wasn't because of the absence of deodorant, it was the absence of hygiene. Oh, yes. You know, they just smelled. Their clothes smelled. In a

while. Probably once in a while.  

Mom: Yeah. Not so much.  

TIm: The French used to be famous for that. You know, they just didn't use deodorant or bathe that often, I guess. But, still encounter it. I don't remember when I, we first were introduced to deodorant. Probably in high school. I don't remember. Now you got these deodorant sprays that are fragrances and last 48 hours or whatever.

Do you put deodorant on after you bathe? Now? Not anymore. I don't perspire. You don't get sweaty? Not at all?  

Mom: No. No under arm perspiration.  

TIm: Good. I guess that's good. Sometimes the body needs to sweat.  

Mom: My cheeks are cold now. There's no circulation. My hands, my feet, my face, the extremities.  

TIm: This is a nice chat I've been, I've been taping you, you know.

What kind of message do you have for your children and grandchildren about this virus? Just keep on? About what? What kind of message do you have for your children and grandchildren and great grandchildren to get through this crisis, this pandemic?

Mom: It's going to be a history that'll go on for years and years, and the grandkids, their grandkids will be hearing about it, and unfortunately, it's taking too many lives, and we aren't prepared to beat it. That's pretty obvious. Yeah. I don't know if there's any way to beat it, but we could have done better.

I think that what's been going on Uh, if the, to me, if the, the scientists knew about this, why didn't they pressure more to get a remedy,  

TIm: I guess priorities. Unfortunately, they,  

Mom: because we think it's Trump, but maybe there was somebody before him that should have done something.  

TIm: Well, yeah. I read a story this morning about the, uh, SARS in 2009 depleted the stockpiles of certain things and they really weren't adequately restored. I guess, you know, there's so many conflicting points of view. I like the idea of a Warren Commission or a, you know, whatever, similar to the Kennedy Assassination Commission or the 9 11 Commission. We're objective groups. Find out why.

Accountability. Mostly so that it doesn't happen again.  

Mom: Right. Somebody.  

TIm: But that's a ways away. Gotta get through this, these months.

Mom: And I think that's gonna be the big thing is the loss of everybody. Businesses will never revive. It's really serious. Some won't.  

TIm: Some won't.

Mom: Well, big ones are okay, but I think.  

TIm: We'll see, won't we, Mom?