Tim: Mom, I wanted to do another one of our little chats, okay? Okay. You said the other day you worked, uh, three months at, uh, Stauffer when you were pregnant. So that would have been the, uh, first three months of, uh,

She was born in 44. Yeah, so it would be the, this, the winter and, uh, maybe a month of spring in, in 1944. So, you came home. You stopped working when you were three months pregnant. You just, you were, where did you live when you, when...  

Mom: We had an apartment over on Cayuga Street, with Joe Copeland, and, what was his name?

Don't... Anyway, they had the downstairs apartment, we were second floor, and there was a third floor apartment up there. Was that occupied too? Yes. Uh... I think Missy Carrera lived up there. Did they really? But, we had a whole big floor of that house where Joyce Westat lived. On Keoghan Street. And we had two bedrooms in front and a third bedroom in the back.

And that's where the baby's crib was. And it was big and we had a living room, kitchen. And three bedrooms.  

Tim: Yeah, that sounds nice. Who was your landlord, do you remember? Joe Copeland. Oh, Joe Copeland. Was he related to  

Mom: Mr. Copeland? Josephine. Josephine? One of the, uh, Shorty Hadley's sister.  

Tim: Oh, but she married a man named Copeland?

Mom: Yes. Roy. Roy? And then they lived over here? Yes, and they moved over here. Their son just died,  

Tim: Paul Copeland. Oh, he was a classmate of mine, yeah. So then, Brian was born there. How long did you live there before you moved here?

Mom: 1946, August. Oh, so  

Tim: a year and a half or  

Mom: so from the time he was born. Because that was right after the war. And to evict anybody, you had to be a relative. Really? And so, Grandma Toohey had to evict the people that lived here, so that we could move in. I see. And it was because I was going to have another baby, and...

Tim: Oh yeah, August of 46. Yes,  

Mom: so Kevin, or Tim, you were born while we lived here.  

Tim: I see, oh. I didn't know there was another family that lived here that you had to evict.  

Mom: The... Husband, wife, and a son.  

Tim: So you were, you were just 21 when Brian was born. Right. Did you, do you remember if you voted in the election of 1944, you would've turned 21 in June?

Mom: I have said that I voted in the every election because we were very active in politics. Mm-hmm. and I'm, I, I can't prove it, can I?  

Tim: Well, the Board of Elections probably has those records,  

Mom: yes. But just say to me that it was, that was what we did, we voted.  

Tim: You would have been able to vote for Franklin Roosevelt.

Mom: Yeah. Your father was a committeeman as soon as he turned 21. Oh, was he? Because there weren't enough, population here to have a lot of Democrats in this Republican farm country.  

Tim: So, so you moved here, didn't you have to do some work or something to make this a little more hospitable?  

Mom: This was the living room.

Yes. The door to go out was right here. I remember. With two little side windows.  

Tim: It's funny, you came right into the living room, no foyer or anything.

Mom: Probably the dining room.  

Tim: Yeah, you'd have to walk. The dining room was like a central... distribution point.

Mom: All the homework, you remember the, I had a typewriter there one time.

I'd type up essays for you and Brian.  

Tim: I don't remember that, really? You don't? Thank you for doing that.  

Mom: And well, uh, and that's where I did sewing. It was a mess all the time, but I think we ate there.  

Tim: Where else would we have eaten? It was before the kitchen was expanded.  

Mom: I know, there wasn't room in the kitchen.

Tim: We must have had a big rectangular table or something. Oh yeah. So then, there was no downstairs bedroom because this wasn't, the addition wasn't there.  

Mom: Two bunk beds, four beds up in the front room.  

Tim: But when it was first up until, uh, Dennis, let's see.  

Mom: We had babies of course, at first it was just you and Brian were in the little room.

Yeah. Then I crossed till Maureen came.  

Tim: Where'd we put, where'd you put her  

Mom: somehow or other ? I think You  

Tim: didn't, you have to walk through her room to get to your room. Yes. That was, that's called cobbling things together. There was a bedroom that you had to walk through another bedroom to get to.  

Mom: And that's when the bunk beds started.

Tim: Yeah, well by, by nine, by fifty nine everybody was born.  

Mom: Except Colleen. Colleen was born in fifty nine. And there was no room for her. So that's when we added on the living room and my bedroom. Now. Yeah.  

Tim: But that only added... And a  

Mom: bathroom. The bathroom used to be the only one that was down here.  

Tim: There wasn't a shower in this downstairs bathroom, was there?

Hmm. Well, it worked out. Remember that story about somebody falling through the ceiling here?  

Mom: Uncle Dick, right here.  

Tim: In this room, in the den? It was the living room. Yeah, were you here when that happened?  

Mom: They were putting a bedroom on upstairs. Dad and Dick and everybody. You know, build your own.  

Tim: Yeah, so what happened?

Was he overweight or something?  

Mom: Oh, heavens yes. And the sad thing was, that one of our wedding gifts was a big coffee table with a blue mirrored glass top. It was in this room? And Uncle Dick broke through and the ceiling all came down and hit my coffee table. Broke that. The Davenport was over there.

Tim: Were you worried about him, or were you worried about your coffee table?  

Mom: My furniture. Was he hurt? No, he hung on up there. Oh, he didn't land on the floor. He just knocked the plaster down.  

Tim: So they had to pull him back up? Yep. That had to be sort of funny. Did Dad laugh?  

Mom: He was not here. I was here. Oh. I wasn't laughing.

Tim: No, I guess not. Was Uncle Dick by himself then? Was he doing the work himself? Well, he and Dad. Oh yeah? But wasn't the bedroom there when you moved in?  

Mom: It was an attic like place. It was an attic? It was a barn.  

Tim: But you said a family had lived here before  

Mom: you. Well, but I don't know what was up there.

Tim: Gee. It wasn't like...

Mom: Because there was a little bedroom over there and another one on this side. So  

Tim: had the animals occupied this space at one time? Cows and... Yes. Really?  

Mom: Huh. If you get up in the attic, there's still big rafters and barnish... Like barn style rafters? Yep. That's why it's so solid and people are amazed at it being no sound.

You don't even hear cars here.  

Tim: Well built, yeah, that's true too. What kind of heat did you have then?

Mom: None. What do you mean? Well, we had a coal stove. It served us. Yes, we did. Coal was delivered. Was it a chute? The chute was here on the north side, and the coal bin was at that corner of the basement.

Tim: Okay, so how did the heat come up from the coal fire into the house? Registers. Oh, there were registers? But there's no forced air or anything, it's just the heat rising, right? I'll bet it got pretty warm.  

Mom: I guess we were okay.  

Tim: Yeah, I can barely remember that. I think a truck came up and it had like a long attachment on it.

It wasn't that long though, I'll bet, by... Kelly's Coal Yard. Was it? That's where Grandpa Fred Toohey worked, right? Or worked. Hmm. So eventually that got converted to oil. You got an oil tank out here, remember? Yes.  

Mom: And then natural... And I'm trying to think of the name of that company. Perkins?  

Tim: Wasn't there Perkins Oil?

There was a Perkins Oil. And there was Simon Oil.  

Mom: Yeah. I don't remember. Probably Perkins.  

Tim: Do you remember when you first listened to the radio? I guess you were a little girl.  

Mom: I remember my dad having a little... radio on the farm, and he would get the baseball games from Buffalo, and it was, you know, at that time, they read the ticker tape, and you could hear the ticker tape coming in, and the announcer would read it off to tell the score of the game, and that's how we were connected to each other.

Tim: Yeah, didn't they, didn't they have, like, sound effects, they'd, they'd make a hit or Something, and even though they weren't at the game. Not that I remember. Some of them did that, maybe not the Buffalo announcers.  

Mom: I don't think we had very good reception. I think Dad spent more time getting the static out.

Tim: But what about those Norman Rockwell scenes of the family sitting around the radio listening to a fireside chat from the president or something? Do you remember those type of things?  

Mom: Well, yes, there was an attraction. And who was the priest that preached back then? Oh, Dad listened to him.  

Tim: He wasn't Coughlin, was it?

Could have been. He was kind of a radical. Radical, yes.  

Mom: But that would be something we might all listen to. Of course, as kids, we didn't give a hoot.  

Tim: What about things like comedies and so on, like those radio shows? Nothing until you kids came along. Really? You don't remember any of those? No. Huh. But then, in the fifties, that grew and became a television thing, right?

That's, that's nice. How about a car? Did you have a car when you, in 1944?

Mom: I didn't drive for years, until, was it after you were born? My father, yes, because they were going to California. My father took care of me. Even being married. He said, you have to learn to drive. Just because. That was a nice event. Yes.

He gave you lessons? I think it was more Ruth Monin.  

Tim: Where did Grandpa Hoag live at the time? Where the Tops is. Oh, back there, okay. I didn't realize that. So he was close by. Geez, you had Grandma Toohey right here and Grandma Hoag, Grandpa Hoag and Grandma Hoag, uh, five blocks away. Right. They all come down and have Sunday dinner with you?

Mom: No. Anyway, Dad had me learn to drive. We didn't have a car, so I took my test in some old Ford that was awful. Was it his? I can't remember at this minute, but I passed my test because the guy was so nice to me. I know I went up over the curb once, backing up.  

Tim: Well, you didn't hit anybody or anything.  

Mom: No, so I got my license to drive.

Tim: But you didn't own a car, you and dad didn't own a car? No. You must have eventually though.  

Mom: Eventually, because then I went to work. And motor vehicles before that, Stauffer Chemical, but I didn't, I don't remember if I drove there, if I rode with Mr. Baldwin.  

Tim: Well, but mom, that was, that was, That was before you got married, you worked at Stauffer.

Yeah. So you didn't, you weren't driving then. No. You probably, you said you didn't drive until after you lived here, right? You got, you got to Stouffer somehow. It wasn't a bus.  

Mom: I know. Maybe my dad took me, I can't remember.  

Tim: It's funny, did Matt Toohey ever work outside of the village?  

Mom: Uh, When we got married, he worked at, what is that place for protection?

Tim: Protection. He worked, I guess he worked at some vegetable place or something at one time, remember? Yes.  

Mom: He delivered vegetables and produce for an Italian name.  

Tim: Uncle Cleland had stories about that, how he, he knew, he had, he encountered Dad someplace in Niagara Falls with the owner of that company. I can't think of who that was.

Not Cacciatore, was it? No. I know the name, I just can't think of it.  

Mom: I can't either. But anyway, he worked there quite a while, but,

I can't think of the state or federal government he worked for, and there were just a bunch of men at the, oh dear. It wasn't customs. No, it was down by Modern Disposal.  

Tim: Model City. Yeah, it didn't have anything to do with the nuclear dumping they did there. Did it?

Mom: Let me think about it, and I'll try to come up with it.

Tim: He goes, used to go to Red Books and have a beer?  

Mom: Probably, or two or three.  

Tim: Did you ever go out there? No. You never went in that bar out there in Model City? No. I thought it was a kind of a hangout. It was just men drinking, huh? Uh. I remember Dad and Dick Crew told me they used to go there. Oh. Dad, Dad would say that when they'd pick a fight nobody better in a fight than Dick Crew.

Oh. I don't know what kind of fights they had. I don't either. Did Dad hang out with Uncle Pat in those early days? No. He didn't? Really?  

Mom: Uncle Pat was more, uh, churchish. Or another word. I don't know. No.  

Tim: I thought for some reason I had this idea that they'd sit in Schneider's or, uh, Carmelo's or uh, Schoomaker's and drink together.

Well, they must have been a romantic, like, brother's idea I had. They didn't really hang out? No?  

Mom: That I know of, of anything outside of family connected.  

Tim: They used to go to funerals together, didn't they? Probably. I remember that. I always thought that, like, Uncle Pat would discover who had died and they'd go off and go to a funeral and then go drink.

Mom: That was common.  

Tim: It was a practice? Yes. Well, I got enough of our talk for today, okay mom?