Tim: [00:00:00] Well, what was it? What, what do you, I said what street was it on, Mom?  

Mom: Million Dollar Highway. Oh, was it? Yeah, just a couple miles from us.  

Tim: That's where Grandma Hoag...

Mom: We were in Warren's Corners. They were between Warren's Corners and Wright's Corners.  

Tim: That's where Grandma Hoag grew up? Yes. Million Dollar Highway, huh?

That's a pretty cool name. Did it come to all the way to Lewiston then?  

Mom: Yeah. It was a... The greatest highway built at that time, from Rochester to Lewiston, where the Rochester people got on the boat to go to Toronto, because a lot of the, uh, their relatives were there.  

Tim: Hmm. But they didn't need a million dollar highway to get on a boat, did they?

Mom: Back then, yes. Or they'd of had the dirt [00:01:00] highway. Oh. There weren't any cars.  

Tim: That's great. Well, yesterday, you know, we were talking about the Chicago World's Fair. That had to be a great experience. Yes. Did you bring any souvenirs home?  

Mom: Oh, I don't remember, because after that we moved to Niagara Falls. So if we had souvenirs, they probably got tossed.

Tim: Didn't you move furniture and everything though? Yeah. When you moved? Do you actually remember moving? No. No? But you remember the house in the falls, you showed it to me. When would that have been, like, 35 or 36?  

Mom: We had, I had two years of graduate in 39 40, so we went 38 39 and 39 40. Ah. In high school.  

Tim: What a, what a change to go from the farm to...

Middle of the city.  

Mom: A hayseed probably .  

Tim: You made friends though, [00:02:00] didn't you?  

Mom: Those We were on the corner and around onto Haverly, a house behind us. Gertrude, what was her last name? Gertrude became my best friend. Oh, that's good. Her mother all of them Italian. Her mother cooked in the basement. You know they,  

Tim: did she make her own pasta  

Mom: Probably.

Ooh.  

And, she stayed a good friend those couple years, and she got married and moved to, uh, it was a ranch house on the corner of, of, uh, River Road, and, uh, Oneida Street? Kenwood or someplace around there.

Tim: Oh, that's great. That was before the war or after the war?  

Mom: Oh, we came to Lewiston and, well, [00:03:00] first of all, we moved to Maryland.

Mildred and I went to college in Maryland. That didn't last because our dad, he moved us all there, but he moved us all back. Gosh, what a guy.  

Tim: It was his way though, right? His way or no way. Was it, is it true that you told me once he, uh, would drive from Maryland to Lockport to get a haircut? Right. What would he stay, where would he stay when he came back to Lockport?

Mom: I have no idea.  

Tim: Hmm. Was he stubborn or was it just...  

Mom: Oh, I think a Dutchman.  

Tim: In a way? Probably. So, did you go from like a one room school house to Niagara Falls High School?  

Mom: Yes. That had to be... Two rooms. You had two? Although we went to Lockport first, for two years. Freshman, junior, freshman, sophomore [00:04:00] year.

Niagara Falls, in Lockport. Then to Niagara, then to Niagara Falls.  

Tim: I don't want to forget about the Civil War thing. I tell so many people that you met a Civil War veteran. I, I, maybe it's just me, but it just seems so... In your heart? Yeah. It's so remarkable. Well, guess what he might have... He probably was born maybe in 1840 or 1845.

He could have very well met somebody who fought in the Revolutionary War. Right. Would be 70 years earlier or so. And I just, the arc of history gets me. Do you remember what he looked like? Not exactly. He had to be in his 80s or closer to 90. In the late 1920s.  

Mom: I picture a little bit older man. Oh, if I'm right, I don't know.

Tim: Did he talk about the war when he was with you?  

Mom: Oh, certainly. Really? But I'm too young, Tim.  

Tim: You were about seven or six? [00:05:00] Yeah. Yeah, but you knew he was...

Mom: I was more impressed with just the fact that we had somebody at our table. Yeah. Different. He was different.  

Tim: Where was your father when he was there?

Mom: Probably across the table from you.  

Tim: Was he? That's amazing. That would, that would be like, I suppose, something like, uh, yeah, like, uh, Vivian or, or Zeke or, uh, Katie seeing somebody who fought in World War II. You know, similar time frame. I'd, I'd have to do the calculation, but that's amazing. That's great. So anyway.

It just gets me that somebody goes from living on the farm like that to the middle of the city of Niagara Falls. Now, it's not New York City or London, but it was probably a city life, and probably more people, probably twice as many people lived in that city then than live in it now. [00:06:00] You know?  

Mom: Well, Niagara Falls High School was quite a,  

Tim: quite a...

It was a regional high  

Mom: school, so... You know, stand out or something.

Tim: Did you enter, did you go into like, uh, clubs and things in high school?  

Mom: I was invited to join a sorority, and I went a couple times, uh, I can't think of the gal's name, it was on Maple Avenue and, and Lewiston Road, out that direction, and somehow or other, I just, either with my mother, or my sisters, or somehow, I just didn't think I fit, and I declined their invitation to join.

Tim: You still had a social life though, didn't you? Did you go to dances and things like that?  

Mom: Oh, movies. Really? And, I must have had more friends than Gertrude. Because, I can remember, maybe it was just [00:07:00] Mildred and I, you could walk, we'd walk from the north end to the south end. Walked to movies.  

Tim: Well, from where you described, it's a perfect location to go to either of those places.

Right.  

Mom: Very near Niagara Falls High School.  

Tim: Two blocks. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Was Pine Avenue, like, thriving as, like, an Italian region?

Mom: Oh, yeah. I'll bet. But my dad, I can't imagine how he fit in. Well, he didn't. That's why we moved.  

Tim: Where did he work when you were doing that, when you lived there?

Mom: I don't think he worked.

Really? Mother had, uh, a roomy house. We had a nurse that lived with us. The hell.., I'm losing my mind.  

Tim: Well, just because you don't remember someone's name doesn't mean you're losing your mind.  

Mom: She was older than Rachel. Nice lady. And she roomed in our house. And I don't know what [00:08:00] mother did, then she got a job at J.

N. Adams. Is that in Buffalo? Yeah, Niagara Falls. Oh. Falls Street.

Tim: It's like a Burgers? Not a Burgers. What was the store downtown Niagara Falls? Beers.  

Mom: Oh, yes. Across the street. From. There was J. N. Adams, you know, the movie houses, the cataract house. Was  

Tim: the Gluck building there then? Woolworth's. Was the Gluck building there then?

Remember the Gluck building? Where  

Mom: was, Marine Bank was on the corner. Ah,  

Tim: the big stately place where I worked for a while, remember?  

Mom: So did I. Did you when you were? Behind the towers. Yeah. And upstairs. Yes, it's a great building. Shoot the stuff to the tubes.  

Tim: They had that Pneumatic tube. Yeah.  

Mom: So did Jenn's downtown  

Tim: on the, on the north end.

Yes. So then you end up, did the family get [00:09:00] together and say, dad, we wanna move to Lewiston? Or did he just someday one day say, we're moving to Lewiston? Yes. And off you went. That's when you lived on ninth Street. Right. I lived over here. I thought you lived on ninth Street Up where Tops is. I did. You lived in two different places in the Village?

Yes.  

Mom: Oh, we first over here. Before you turned onto River Road.  

Tim: Oh, right there. Where John Baldasara lives now.  

Mom: Rix house. Oh really? Yeah. Lived there. Uh, I said, uh, Of course, we were new in town. Mildred and I would walk places. The drugstore, what was it? Colson's. Colson's. Yeah, but there was another one over here from Niagara Falls.

Tim: Oh, God. McLeod's? Not McLeod's.  

Mom: No. They had a store [00:10:00] in Niagara Falls.  

Tim: I never knew that.  

Mom: Oh, I've got to think some more. Anyway, you could walk around Center Street and stop and get a milkshake at the drugstore. They had the tables at the drugstore. Yeah, like soda fountains. Yeah. And, uh, that was our entertainment, I guess.

Tim: When you moved to Lewiston, Mom, though, you had graduated from high school already. Right. Had you been to Maryland and then come back? Yep. I see. So, what did you think about doing with yourself when you were back in Lewiston, where they had a little bit of college under your belt? What did you decide to do?

Did you meet Matt Toohey then?  

Mom: I went to Kelly Business School. Oh, I forgot, yeah. And I didn't finish that. Mildred did, but I didn't. You didn't like it? Ah, enough is enough.  

Tim: That's what you felt? You didn't like it?  

Mom: of typing or [00:11:00] whatever. . That was hard. I had to learn to do it without fingers. Oh geez. I forgot. Yeah.

But then I got a job at the bank. I was free.  

Tim: So, but you still lived at home. Yes. And you and Mildred would go to work together? Well, I can't even  

Mom: remember Mildred. Isn't that awful? Well, that's, that's, no. We lived in the same house, same bed. We never had separate bedrooms. I can remember the bedroom up here, of our bed, and where the closet was.

Cause I hid something in that closet. Can't remember now. But I can remember the setup of that house.  

Tim: In, in, on Ninth Street? Or in Niagara Falls?  

Mom: It was on the, was on center Street, Tim.  

Tim: Oh, I'm sorry, I thought it was...  

Mom: Right where Tops is. I see. [00:12:00] They're not on Ninth.  

Tim: Well, there were those little cabins up there.

Oh,  

Mom: that was Ogden's.  

Tim: It was? They  

Mom: owned them? Yes. And, uh...  

Tim: You know who bought one of those cabins and moved it to Lake Ontario? Lake, down by the lake, is Betty Helms. She stayed there in the summer. She had it decorated. It was beautiful. Really? Yeah, he asked her how old it was once when I was there to see her about something.

She said, oh, this was up where Tops was across the street. Huh. She bought it, had it moved there, and then expanded it. But you, you, your house faced Center Street. Right. Ah, okay. I didn't realize that.  

Mom: It was, like I remember, the kitchen had been added on. Gus Bono lived next door, on that side, and he was at, where'd I work, then after the bank.

Tim: Did you work at, [00:13:00] did you work at Spirella or something?  

Mom: No, it was one up, um, uh, chemical, they railroaded the chemical out, and the fumes used to come down to Lewiston.  

Tim: You're serious? Stoufer. Stoufer chemical. Yeah. I didn't know you worked there.  

Mom: That's where I worked when I got married. And once you got pregnant, you couldn't work anymore.

Tim: You're serious, really?  

Mom: Right. Not because of the fumes, it just had a rule. A rule. No pregnant women.  

Tim: You should have objected to that.  

Mom: I stayed for three months because I was so dumb. I didn't know why I was... Barfing up.  

Tim: You didn't know you were pregnant. No . Well, you got three months out of them when they wouldn't have let you work there.

If you had known.  

Mom: Sometimes I was a telephone operator, sometimes I was a secretary.  

Tim: Remember what kind of money you [00:14:00] made?  

Mom: Oh God. Probably $10 a a day. I doubt that. Hmm. How did you get there? I only made, I think, 13, 000 when I left, uh, motor vehicles.  

Tim: Oh, no, you had to make more than that, Mom. No, I didn't. It was the 90s, 1990s.

We'll have to go back and look at your tax returns if you can find them. I wouldn't know how. Yeah. That just doesn't seem right. I would have thought in the 90s  

Mom: you were... It was a government job in Niagara County, Tim.  

Tim: Yeah, but, I don't know. I'll look it up. I'll see, I'll bet I can find out what the county clerk made.

You had to make half of what the county clerk was making. Wouldn't you think when you ran, were the head of that office? Yeah,  

Mom: I ran for county clerk to have Mike.

Tim: Mike who?  

Mom: He only lasted one term. He [00:15:00] moved to Syracuse or someplace.  

Tim: Oh, I remember them. He got a job, not Syracuse. He got a job with the power authority.

They sent him up, up north. Oh. Heavyset guy. Mike, what was his name? North Tonawanda. Yeah, I remember him. Redmond. Oh. Mike Redmond. Why, did he run in a...  

Mom: I wanted to run and... Who was the woman on the... She came in and talked to me, thought it wasn't appropriate for women to run or something. Elsie Paradise?

No. Oh. I don't know who that was. You got me thinking. Yeah.  

Tim: Well, anyway. This is the second installment of our little chat, so I'm going to shut it off.