Jim Moore and Margie Moore

Transcript

[00:02] JIM MOORE: I'm Jim Moore. I'm 51 years old. Today's date is the 18th of August 2019. The interview is taking place at my in-laws house in Seattle City, New Jersey. I am interviewing, uh, my mother, Margie Moore.
[00:17] MARGIE MOORE: Okay. My name is Margie Moore. I am 78 years old. Today's date is 18th August, 2019. Location is Seattle City and my interview partner is my son, Jim.
[00:32] JIM MOORE: [Clears Throat] Great. Well, mom, thank you for doing this today. I was going to start by just asking you to tell me a little bit about your mother, about her family, about where she was born, just to fill in some gaps that I might not know.
[00:44] MARGIE MOORE: Okay. My mom was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. She was one of nine children. And, um, she grew up in Kingsley, Pennsylvania, on a farm. And it was a beautiful farm. And, uh, eventually they moved to Darby, Pennsylvania, which is where I grew up.
[01:09] JIM MOORE: Where was she among those nine in terms of oldest? Youngest?
[01:13] MARGIE MOORE: Um, she was the oldest girl.
[01:16] JIM MOORE: How many girls and boys?
[01:17] MARGIE MOORE: There were three girls and five boys. Well, that only makes eight. So there[Laughter] were three-- three girls and six boys.
[01:24] JIM MOORE: Excellent. And do you-- did you have a close relationship with any of them?
[01:28] MARGIE MOORE: Um, not really, because they were never that-- we were never living that close to them. Except we did have a reunion every single year on the farm for the entire family, which could mean anywhere from 50 to 110 people.
[01:45] JIM MOORE: Mm-hmm.
[01:45] MARGIE MOORE: And it was magnificent.
[01:47] JIM MOORE: Excellent. Um, and, uh, so can you give me a sense of, like, what your mother was like? What do you remember about her growing up?
[01:55] MARGIE MOORE: Um, she was a very hard worker. She worked first for General Electric in some kind of an assembly line. I'm not sure what she did. And later on in life, when I was in high school, she worked at the Fernwood Diner in, I think it's Lansdowne, Pennsylvania. For-- she was going to go for about three years until I graduated from high school, but I think she ended up probably at about 16 years there. She worked the [11:00] to [07:00] shift.
[02:25] JIM MOORE: At night?
[02:25] MARGIE MOORE: At night. So she would come home at [07:00]. She'd always be there for us before we went to school, and then she'd go take a nap and she'd get up in the afternoon and do her work, and then she'd be there for dinner. So she was always around.
[02:38] JIM MOORE: Wow. She must have been tired. And, um, uh, any stories that you kind of capture her in your mind in terms of, uh, things that you remember her doing or that kind of capture her personality a little bit?
[02:50] MARGIE MOORE: Um. I remember her playing out in the front yard with you guys when you were four and six years old or so, and she's playing soccer with you[laughter] running all over the place, and by then she was probably, I don't know, 65-68 years old or so. And, uh, she was just.
[03:08] JIM MOORE: How about more from when you were growing up? Do you--? What kind of things do you remember from her other than the fact that she was hard working? Did you guys cook together? Did you--?
[03:15] MARGIE MOORE: We didn't cook together. I don't know why you're such a good cook[chuckles] but we didn't cook together but she was a magnificent cook. She was a really, really good cook.
[03:26] JIM MOORE: What do-- what do you remember her making that you were loved?
[03:28] MARGIE MOORE: Um, of course, her baba. Which was a great big baked, ah, potato pie that you baked in the oven--
[03:37] JIM MOORE: In a cast iron pan? Yeah?
[03:39] MARGIE MOORE: In a cast iron pan. Yes. And, um, I don't know what else she was really-- I don't know. it was very-- back then, it was a meat and potatoes kind of meal all the time. But she was a very good cook.
[03:55] JIM MOORE: And you talked about your grandparents farm. Um, any specific memories of them? Who their names were and what they were like?
[04:02] MARGIE MOORE: It was Mary and Martin Kozlowski. Um, they emigrated from Poland. They didn't emigrate together, but supposedly they came from the same city outside of Krakow. And, uh, somehow they met over here. I'm not sure how, but they met in Scranton. And I remember that, uh, my grandfather, I guess my grandmother, too, could not read or write English. And I saw a document the other day where my grandfather actually signed his name in a very, you know, kind of--
[04:40] JIM MOORE: Wobbly?
[04:40] MARGIE MOORE: -- wobbly script. But he usually would put an X on documents.
[04:44] JIM MOORE: Wow.
[04:45] MARGIE MOORE: But they raised nine children, and, uh, a lot of those children went on to college and everything later, but the farm was wonderful. My-- one of my biggest memories is I-- my mom and dad and, and my sister and brother and I lived in Scranton, which is, I don't know, I think it was maybe 35, 40 minutes away. And so I was going to be left up at the farm for two weeks with my grandparents. At the time I was two-and-a-half. And my mom and dad came up after a week and they found out that when I would go up into the hillside with my grand-- my grandfather, to get the cows down, I learned how to say"You S-O-Bs."[Laughter] So my parents said, after a week, we're taking her home. That's enough. It was actually U-Gs S-O-Bs.
[05:41] JIM MOORE: And probably he didn't even know he was swearing. He was just speaking[Overlapping]
[05:44] MARGIE MOORE: That was his thing. The other thing I remember about him very much, as he would sit in his rocking chair in the kitchen and he chewed tobacco and he would spit into a spittoon. I've never seen anybody else do that.
[05:58] JIM MOORE: Wow.
[05:59] MARGIE MOORE: And my grandmother was absolutely adorable. She was only probably-- I don't think she was five foot three. And she had a-- I always said she had a like Santa Claus. She had a bowl full of jelly because she had something that ruptured in her tummy and so it really, really stuck out and she laughed all the time. But they were typical grandparents, from what you remember from a million years ago. They were-- she had a little gray bun and the glasses, and he always wore coveralls. And she also, as soon as you walked into her house, you were going to smell either cinnamon buns or homemade bread. Um[Overlapping]
[06:40] JIM MOORE: And you said she always cooked just by grabbing handfuls of stuff. Yeah.
[06:43] MARGIE MOORE: Oh, yes. No recipes whatsoever. And you had to lean over her shoulder to try to figure out what she was doing. But she, uh, she was-- she was just a wonderful grandmother, and he was too.
[06:57] JIM MOORE: Excellent. Um, and tell me about pops. About your father.
[07:01] MARGIE MOORE: My father? My father, um, he was also-- well, he was born in Warrior Run, Pennsylvania. Which I don't think is very far from Scranton. And, um, he met my mother at the hotel Casey and they got married[Crosstalk]
[07:18] JIM MOORE: Were they working there or?
[07:19] MARGIE MOORE: Pardon me.
[07:19] JIM MOORE: Were they working there?
[07:20] MARGIE MOORE: They both were working there. Yes. I don't know, is what really? Um, I'm sure it wasn't any high level job or whatever, but-- and my mother would spend-- send almost except for $5, she'd send all the money home to the family until she got married and to her mother. And, uh, my dad was-- my dad was a really special man. I, I loved 99% of him except sometimes he'd stopped talking to, um, my mother or his own sister when she was younger, if he got mad at them and it's a trait I never, ever picked up and wanted to pick up.
[07:59] JIM MOORE: And that went on for like days and weeks sometimes, right?
[08:00] MARGIE MOORE: Yes.
[08:01] JIM MOORE: Yeah.[Chuckles] So it wasn't like 10 minutes?
[08:01] MARGIE MOORE: Well-- with my mother sometimes it was actually months and it was pretty-- that's, that was his only bad trait. Otherwise he was a spectacular father.
[08:11] JIM MOORE: And what about his family?
[08:11] MARGIE MOORE: His family? He was from a family of seven, and he was probably about the third boy or so. I can't remember exactly. And there were, um, again, there was-- I think there were four boys and two girls. And I'm sorry again, I counted wrong.[Laughs] So there were three girls. And, uh, uh, he was a-- he was a really good man again. He was a really hard worker. I remember that when we lived in Derby, that while my mom was still working at GE, he was working at the Post Office in, um, Central Philadelphia. And they actually would just pass each other in the alleyway. And so somebody was always watching us, but they, they worked different shifts and everything to take care of it.
[09:00] JIM MOORE: When he was-- I always knew him as John Bronowski, but he wasn't born John Bronowski. Was he?
[09:04] MARGIE MOORE: No, he was born Stanislas Baranowskis.[Chuckles] And, uh, he changed it to Bronowski. A couple of the brothers changed it to Bronowski. One brother changed it to Baron. Um, there was a lot of names that had to do with that same family.
[09:21] JIM MOORE: And he did that when he was like 18 to make it easier to get a job or something, right?
[09:25] MARGIE MOORE: Yeah. Yeah. He also went to a, um, I'm trying to think of where it was. He went to a cabinet-making school and, uh, he was an excellent woodworker. Um, Christopher, our, our-- your brother would be very proud of that because Christopher's becoming a very good woodworker. And, uh, but in those days, there was no way he could find a job doing that. So he did it on the side. He built cabinets and my sisters and my bedroom. He built all these cabinets in my brother's bedroom and little nooks in the walls that were, you know, set into the wall to be, uh, um, medicine cabinets, things like that. But he couldn't do it as a full time job.
[10:11] JIM MOORE: So when did he start working in the Post Office?
[10:13] MARGIE MOORE: Um, probably soon after we got to Philadelphia. We got to Philadelphia-- or we got to Derby when I was a little bit more than three. And again, do I remember, as well as the fact that it was just told to me a number of times, or do I really remember this from the age of three? Our furniture didn't arrive on time, so we had no furniture. We were-- we bought a row house in Derby, and I remember laying on my dad's lap on the bottom steps of the staircase, taking a nap because we didn't have any furniture.[Laughter] And I don't know if I really remember that or not, but I can picture it.
[10:52] JIM MOORE: Yeah. So what was-- what was Derby like at that time?
[10:54] MARGIE MOORE: Derby back then was absolutely-- it was beautiful. It was small. Our development was all row houses and I don't know how old they were when we moved in, but they definitely all looked the same. Everybody had the same tree in their yard[Chuckles] and, uh, and they looked so much the same that when my father came home from work one night at midnight, he went about 10-12 houses down and walked into the house where this lady was watching television[Laughter] because the house looked just like ours.[Laughter] And when he walked in, then he realized he was in the wrong house and he didn't scare her to death or anything.[Laughter]
[11:39] JIM MOORE: Amazing. Um, and, uh, so tell me you had an older brother, older sister. Tell me about them and what you remember from them growing up.
[11:47] MARGIE MOORE: Um, my brother Jack was five years older than I was, and my sister Ellie was seven years older than I was. So I was the baby of the family. Um, they had their little spats and arguments and whatever. But[Overlapping]
[12:02] JIM MOORE: Between the two of them?
[12:03] MARGIE MOORE: Between the two of them. But nobody fought with me because I was that much younger, and everybody protected me and took care of me. Um, they both left home at the age of 18 and so I was home by myself for a very long time. My brother went off to the Marine Corps in Saint Louis. Uh, well, first he went to Camp Lejeune and he ended up in Saint Louis and lived outside of Saint Louis his whole life until he passed away. And my--
[12:32] JIM MOORE: And he was a sales guy? That was what he did with his life after he got--
[12:34] MARGIE MOORE: He was uh, in pharmaceuticals and mostly he traveled around doing that. My, uh, he also worked for the railroad for a while. I can't remember the name of it, but. And my sister, uh, she got married at 18. She actually married the man who was the, the brother of our next door neighbor. Um, Bob Harmon lived next door to us and she married Tom.
[13:00] JIM MOORE: Where, where, where was he? Did he just meet her because he came visiting Bob or did he live there?
[13:05] MARGIE MOORE: He didn't live there. He was in the Air Force but he came to visit Bob enough that he, uh, he was 10 years older than my sister. So she was 18, he was 28. And, um, they got married and one thing I-- well, there's a couple things that he did wrong. He made her, not made her, but he thought if she started smoking that she would look older. And so he started her smoking because she never smoked up until then. And she never stopped until she was probably 70 years old. And--[Background Voice]
[13:35] JIM MOORE: Okay.[Background Voice] That's a big, uh, starfish that goes by, uh, every, three times a day.[Background Voice].
[13:52] MARGIE MOORE: That's okay. And another thing he did too,[Laughs] he was going to show her how to do things because he was older and whatever and I wasn't there but they had dinner one night and they had a big steak and stuff, and he taught her how to cut it and when he did, it slipped off onto his lap.[Laughs]
[14:13] JIM MOORE: He was always sure he knew the right thing. I remember that. Yeah.
[14:16] MARGIE MOORE: Absolutely. Absolutely. But he was also a very good man. They had five children. And, um, they lived in Chester for a while after they got-- when he got out of the service, which was not that far from us, about a half hour. And then they went down to North Carolina and lived in different places down there. She had a farm at one time. She had a gift shop at another time. Um, she was a very talented woman. She-- I always say, I'm glad that I was never jealous of her because she was a magnificent artist. And, uh, she was just-- she was a sweetie pie.
[14:52] JIM MOORE: She was definitely. So what was, uh, what was Derby like as you were getting older? Maybe after they moved away, where did you go to school?
[14:59] MARGIE MOORE: I went to Blessed Virgin Mary School through grade school through the eighth grade, which was right. That was the church in Derby. That's where dad and I got married. And I went to that school. And then, um, I went to West Philadelphia Catholic Girls High School. Um, the trolley ended up in Derby. So I would walk down the hill and through-- through the town to the trolley stop. I'd take the trolley to a certain stop and then I would take a bus, and then I would walk the rest of the way to school. And my claim to fame there is, although I never went in because the nuns would have killed us, I had to pass by bandstand, which you probably don't even know what that was.
[15:43] JIM MOORE: Isn't that Dick Clark's rocking--?
[15:44] MARGIE MOORE: Dick Clark's Bandstand.[Laughter] But the nuns really put the fear of God into you. That, oh my goodness, you go--
[15:51] JIM MOORE: Don't show on TV.
[15:52] MARGIE MOORE: -- and there were a lot of girls that did go in there.
[15:54] JIM MOORE: I'm sure, I'm sure. So how long did that commute take to get to school?
[15:57] MARGIE MOORE: Oh, it probably took 40 minutes. 45 minutes or whatever.
[16:01] JIM MOORE: And what do you remember about high school?
[16:03] MARGIE MOORE: Um, I went to school with 3200 girls in the one school. So there was about 800 in each classes I went up. Um, girls from all over, so I, I really-- I never kept in touch with any of them, um, after that. And the boys school was about six blocks down the street, and that was West Philadelphia Catholic Boys High School. They really kept us apart back then.[Laughs] But it was a good school and I had all different, um, nuns from different, um-- what do you call them?
[16:39] JIM MOORE: Denominations or whatever. Yeah.
[16:40] MARGIE MOORE: Yeah. And I remember one of them was, um, she called herself Lavinia Cucumber. That was not her name. And I remember her probably more than any of them. She just run up and down our aisles, and she was just-- she was like a crazy[Laughter] crazy woman.[Laughter] Another nun I remember from grade school, which I think my mother got very tired of hearing about it, was my first grade teacher was Sister Angelina. And I thought that if Sister Angelina said anything, it was the truth and it was what I had to do. So my mom would say, I should do this, and I'm saying, no, I'm sorry. Sister Angelina said I should do this.[Laughs] She got tired of that.
[17:23] JIM MOORE: So what did you do in high school? What did you do for fun if you weren't going to do the sock hop with Dick Clark?
[17:28] MARGIE MOORE: Well, I didn't go to the sock hop with Dick Clark, but the girls from my town and some of them went from Derby. Some of them went to different schools. Uh, we did go to dances that were not that far away. And I don't remember what else we did besides that besides going shopping in 69th Street, but mostly it was just going to some dances.
[17:50] JIM MOORE: Mm-hmm. And, uh, when I know that you met dad through the shipyard. But what, uh, did you start working right after high school?
[17:58] MARGIE MOORE: I came right out of high school, and I went right to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. And I worked in the supply department, and I traveled to work with, uh, two men that were, um, in the shipyard, as you know, uh, welders--
[18:15] JIM MOORE: Steel workers or something.
[18:15] MARGIE MOORE: -- steel workers, whatever. And, um, one of my friend's mothers, uh, she worked she was down the street. And so the four of us would ride to work in, uh--
[18:28] JIM MOORE: In a carpool type thing.
[18:29] MARGIE MOORE: We carpooled.
[18:30] JIM MOORE: Right.
[18:30] MARGIE MOORE: And they would-- the men would get out, like, at [04:30], and we didn't get out until [04:00]. Uh, they got out at [04:00], and we got out at [04:30]. So, boy, they were at the door when we were there.[Chuckles] And I worked on the eighth floor and so many people, including myself, it was like a herd of cattle. We would run down the steps and not wait for the elevators, and I was running down the steps because I had to get into this car that was waiting just for me. But--
[18:57] JIM MOORE: I'm always amazed at how much work, uh, doesn't get done in the world for the last five minutes of every shift[Laughter] because I know I always see people packing up their boxes and stuff as they're getting close to the end. So, uh, how did you meet dad?
[19:09] MARGIE MOORE: Uh[Chuckles] uh, we went to a, um, a place in new Jersey. We went to a place in Philadelphia where you could have dinner and have drinks and whatever. And dad came over and asked a girl that I was with. We were-- I was with several girls. He asked this girl to dance. And so he talked to her for a while and whatever and he never met me that night, although I certainly saw him. And about two weeks later we went to Schillings in New Jersey and he came up and to talk to me and, uh, I started telling him, I think he thought he had it pasted across his forehead. I said, I don't know, you sound like you come from Massachusetts somewhere.[Laughter] And gee, the way you handle yourself, I think you're in the Navy and maybe you're on a submarine and he's just-- just, my God, how does she know all this about me? And at that point, he had never noticed me two weeks before.
[20:11] JIM MOORE: But did you tell--? When did you tell him that?
[20:13] MARGIE MOORE: Oh, soon afterwards.[Laughs]
[20:15] JIM MOORE: And so, uh, what was it like being a Navy wife?
[20:18] MARGIE MOORE: Um, it was good. It didn't give me what I thought it would give me, though, because when I was growing up, you didn't fly here and there or whatever. Um, the only place I ever got to was we drove out to Saint Louis to see my brother. I'd go with my mom and dad. So I had never been on an airplane and never gone anywhere. So I thought, when I married your father and he's in the Navy, I thought, oh my goodness, I'm going to see the world. So we got married. We moved to New London, Connecticut, because his-- we moved to Groton, Connecticut, because his submarine was in New London, Connecticut. And um, after that he was transferred to Washington, DC. And we moved down there. And that's where we have spent the rest of our life in that area. And so although I never got to travel as a Navy wife, it was only seven years that we were I think it was seven years that we were married and he was in the Navy. He got out because he was, well, maybe several things. But the thing I remember is, um, when his submarine came back after four months. He was scared to death that Christopher, your brother, that he would not-- that Christopher would not recognize him because he had been a long way-- away for so long. Christopher was like two.
[21:40] JIM MOORE: Right.
[21:40] MARGIE MOORE: And, um, so he was loaded with toys when he came off the submarine that he had picked up in Italy and whatever. And I think he just decided he had missed so much of your lives in such a short time that he wanted to get out. So he got out and he got a job in Virginia and we just stayed in Virginia.
[22:01] JIM MOORE: So when you were in New London, what was it like when, when the husbands would be gone for 4 or 5 months at a time? What did you do?
[22:07] MARGIE MOORE: Well, most of us would go home. I mean, I went home to my parents. I just took Christopher home with me, and we went down there for part of the time. And then I would go back a couple of weeks before he was coming back. But it was a very tight knit group. It was a very small wardroom of wives. Um, it was seven. And most of us all lived in the same neighborhood of little apartments. And so we would get together to make sure that we ate well and whatever we would get together, make meals for each other and, and, uh, it was a very tight knit group. Um, I always laugh because, again, I told you, my mom made very plain food. And one time, the captain's wife, she said, we're going to have a party. And she said, you, you and you, you make lasagna. And I thought, oh my gosh, I've never made lasagna in my whole life. So I went out and bought a pan, got a recipe, and I made lasagna. And the next party she says, you, you and you make cheesecake. And I'm going, oh, I've never made cheesecake in my life. So I went out and got a pan and I made cheesecake, and I made cheesecake the rest of my life. So I guess it was good for me because it expanded my horizons.
[23:17] JIM MOORE: That's interesting. So not only was the captain in charge of the men, but the captain's wife was in charge of their wives?[Overlapping]
[23:22] MARGIE MOORE: The captain's wife was very much in charge of you. She really was. Is that the way.
[23:26] JIM MOORE: It always was, or was that just her personality?
[23:28] MARGIE MOORE: I don't know about other ones but it certainly was her personality.[Chuckles] But she was a nice woman. I didn't have any problems. Some wives had problems with her. But maybe those wives had problems too. And the wives that were-- some were Navy nurses, and so they would stay in the area because they had a job. And but again, most of us I did it twice because dad went on a four month, that was the longest he had been away. And they came into port for the weekend for about maybe four days or so, and the next boat that was supposed to take their place had some problems and had to stay in port to get it fixed, and dad's submarine had to turn around and go back out for another four months.
[24:12] JIM MOORE: Wow.
[24:12] MARGIE MOORE: So he was gone for almost eight whole months.
[24:14] JIM MOORE: Yeah. And do you wish that, uh, you'd ever been posted to Japan, like some of them?
[24:19] MARGIE MOORE: Oh, yes. Yes, I that was my dream that we would get posted somewhere overseas and that for two years or whatever, that we'd be able to live overseas. And I really wanted to enjoy that life, but it never happened. But afterwards, um, because of what we did in our business and had these contracts with all these foreign countries, I got to travel the world.
[24:44] JIM MOORE: I remember your first trip, uh, besides maybe Puerto Rico or something. Your first real trip abroad. I got a postcard every day when I was a freshman at college[Laughs] from all the exciting.
[24:53] MARGIE MOORE: Do you remember the letters I sent you all through your first year of college?
[24:57] JIM MOORE: Mm-hmm
[24:57] MARGIE MOORE: Um, a lot of them were on the backs of, um, check deposit slips from 1 to 20--
[25:02] JIM MOORE: Yeah.
[25:02] MARGIE MOORE: -- and I write a line on each line?
[25:05] JIM MOORE: I remember because, uh, I remember such a big difference when I went to London and, uh, I think dad was worried that we were going to miss each other a lot, but it was just his email was getting going. And so you could arrive at work and have an email from me every day, which was a lot different than having a letter like that.
[25:21] MARGIE MOORE: Absolutely. Uh, I would write to dad every day when he was away. And because he was so busy, I did not get many letters from him, which I wasn't happy about, but he just didn't have the time.
[25:35] JIM MOORE: Yeah, it doesn't surprise me. I can't see him as a big letter writer.
[25:38] MARGIE MOORE: Yeah. But he also hardly ever left the ship when they were in port because he had so much to do. At least that's what he tells me.[Laughs]
[25:44] JIM MOORE: Yeah. And, um, so you moved, um, to Washington in 1968. Tell me-- tell me about that move from Little Groton to Washington.
[25:53] MARGIE MOORE: We, uh, dad had-- I was pregnant with you. And so I went and stayed with mom and dad while he came down to. He went down to Virginia to try to look for a house because he had to start work soon. And he looked at about, without an exaggeration, about 300 homes. And there were a lot. There were several of his friends that were getting transferred here that not from that boat, but that were coming down here. And they said they just couldn't afford it and they were going to try to get different orders because it was not cheap. So he started showing-- I came down and then I was staying with my aunt and uncle. My mother's, uh, my--[Overlapping] I'm sorry, my father's sister. I was staying with them, um, and he took me out to see homes, and I was so disappointed. I can remember the first one, the roof was sagging so bad[Laughs] and I thought, oh, my gosh, is this what he expects me, us to live in? And then he took me to this cute little home in Springfield, Virginia. It was 15 years old and it had almost half an acre, and it was in perfect condition. It was owned by one family for those 15 years and we called it our gingerbread house. It was just a really cute little house. And so we moved in there and stayed there for about-- only about two and a half years. Then we moved to Reston and--
[27:16] JIM MOORE: Was that just to look for a bigger house or a different neighborhood or what were you looking for?
[27:19] MARGIE MOORE: We were looking for a bigger house. It was a very tiny house. And so when we were getting ready to move to the house, uh, looking for another house, we had found a house that we really liked. And I called that night and they said, yes, it's not sold yet. So we said, okay. So someone came to look at our house that night and we said, sure, you can move in in 30 days. And the next morning we went to buy the house that we had looked at and it was sold. So there we are with two little boys, two and four years old, and we have nowhere to live. And, uh, and my aunt and uncle said they would put us up in their downstairs. And I thought, well, that's not going to work out. So we started riding around one day and we looked at this house in Reston that was for sale by owner, and we walked around it and I loved it. I thought it was just really a nice house. It was in a cul de sac and it looked like a really nice neighborhood. And so dad said, thank you. We went out the front door and I said, what do you mean, thank you? I mean, we need a house and they want to move out in two weeks. So we walked around the yard, we went back, knocked on the door and said, we'd like to buy your house. So we actually had a house to go to within that 30 days.
[28:33] JIM MOORE: Excellent.
[28:33] MARGIE MOORE: So we stayed there for four and a half years and that was a really nice neighborhood.
[28:37] JIM MOORE: I have fond memories of that-- I don't remember the Springfield house other than visiting it when I was older.
[28:40] MARGIE MOORE: Yeah.
[28:40] JIM MOORE: But I definitely remember--
[28:42] MARGIE MOORE: Well that that was a great house. It had kids in the neighborhood that were your age, and it, uh, it had bike paths everywhere, and it was so safe back then that I'd let you go out the door and ride your bikes around and go to your neighbors and friends and whatever, and really didn't worry about it.
[28:00] JIM MOORE: I think we walked to school. There was crossing guard at every street.
[29:02] MARGIE MOORE: That's right. You walked to school, which didn't happen in the next house[Laughs] because the next house we moved to--
[29:08] JIM MOORE: There were no sidewalks.
[29:09] MARGIE MOORE: -- there were no sidewalks. So you were not allowed to walk to school. And so we moved to Great Falls, Virginia, where we have lived ever since. It's been 45 years.
[29:19] JIM MOORE: And, uh, so tell me a little bit about what you remember in terms of how Christopher was as a kid, how I was as a kid.
[29:29] MARGIE MOORE: Um, well, in my estimation and sometimes I think maybe I overdo it or whatever, but you were very, very easy to raise. There were no problems with you so ever. Um, when you were just born, Christopher would go out in the front yard. He was-- well, right after you were born. He's like two and a half. And if I wanted him to come in for lunch, I would just holler at the tree in the front yard and say, Christopher, it's lunchtime. And I knew he was sitting up in that tree[Laughs] and you were just, um-- it was really easy then. We had a, uh, the one thing we did have is we had a pa-- daddy, dad called up one day from work and he said, someone wants to get, not get rid of, but give away their little dog. He said, the dog fits in my pocket. And I said, oh, and we didn't know anything about dogs.
[30:22] : So we said he could-- he could bring the dog home. And it was a Chihuahua and pug combination, which was not a very Chihuahuas are a little too, uh, rambunctious and skittish and whatever. So you were still in your in your, uh, bassinet or whatever and or a little chair in the kitchen and Christopher was on the floor and he pulled a rug over his head just playing and the dog got very upset that Christopher was getting hurt or whatever. And he jumped at him. And I said, Christopher, don't do that. He did it again. And he got him right below the eye with his tooth, the dog's tooth. And I said, no, this can't be. So we only kept the dog for maybe three weeks or so. His name was Swister.[Laughs] And Swister was what your dad and his family used to call pastries. So Swister didn't last very long and we had to take him and all his toys and give them away.
[31:18] JIM MOORE: And was it the Brooks's that gave us KitKat?
[31:20] MARGIE MOORE: The Brooks gave us KitKat. They were our friends in the Navy. And we went there for for dinner one night and as we were getting ready to leave, they said, you know, we're getting transferred and it was to a foreign country, I forget where. And they said--
[31:32] JIM MOORE: Philippines or Japan. I think, yeah.
[31:33] MARGIE MOORE: Yeah, it's much too hard to try to take an animal with us and so would you like our cat? And we said, oh, I don't know. And we drove down the street, turned around and came back and said, yes, we'll take the cat. And we kept kick it for 17 years. And she was a really she was all black and she was a really, really good cat and very good for you guys. She--
[31:54] JIM MOORE: And when, when did you decide to go to college? Because obviously you didn't go straight out of high school.
[31:00] MARGIE MOORE: I did not go right out of high school. I started when you boys were, um, going to school every day. So I had the day free, and I started classes up at Northern Virginia, and I took classes there, and then I transferred to George Mason. And I did it all during the day while you guys were at school. It took me almost about six and a half years to get through college. And then I got a business administration degree, and dad started his business in 1976-75. And, uh, I would go in and help once in a while. And then I said, uh, or we decided that I was going to come there full time. And I asked dad many times, I might, you know, am I treading on your place or whatever? And you said, no, no, it works great. So we've been working together ever since then.
[32:53] JIM MOORE: It's interesting. I don't know almost anybody whose parents worked together for 50 years except for my wife's parents and you guys.[Laughs]
[33:00] MARGIE MOORE: That's right. That's right. And most people, if I ever tell them they're going, they could never work with their husband or wife.
[33:08] JIM MOORE: Um, so, uh, tell me about a friend that that you, uh, everything we've talked about so far has been mostly about family. Tell me about a friend that's been important to you in your life.
[33:18] MARGIE MOORE: Um, my friend Dottie, who we just saw yesterday.
[33:23] JIM MOORE: Um-hmm
[33:23] MARGIE MOORE: We-- well, two days ago. We stopped on the way to see our city to see her.
[33:26] JIM MOORE: Where did you meet her?
[33:27] MARGIE MOORE: I met her through a couple people that worked with me at the shipyard. Uh, well, she was actually the friend of one of them. Uh, and we eventually four girls decided that we would go to. We would rent a place at the shore every for every weekend and we rented it in Spring Lake, New Jersey. And I don't know why, because that was mostly New Yorkers that came there.[Chuckles] But, uh, Dottie was one of those four. And, um, we just became-- I was a good-- we were friends then, but we did that for 4 or 5 years, and then, um, I just got to know her better and better, and she ended up being my maid of honor. And, uh, we have been friends ever since. We see each other. First, we only saw each other as, as girl to girl. We would meet halfway and spend the day together but now it's couple to couple that we get along so well with her husband and. And dad gets along so well with Charlie. So it's been a lifetime. It's so it's been-- if I'm married, how am how old am I married? 53. It's-- she's been my friend for about 58-59 years.
[34:42] JIM MOORE: So how long did you work in the, um, the shipyard before you met dad? How many years?
[34:47] MARGIE MOORE: Uh, from the age of 18 until I got married in 1966, which was six years later.
[34:55] JIM MOORE: Excellent. Um, so, uh, is there anything you've got to five grandkids now?
[35:02] MARGIE MOORE: I do.
[35:02] JIM MOORE: Uh, any anything, uh, that if you think about their kids or their kids, kids, uh, anything that you'd like them to know about you, about your parents, about your family, that they might not know otherwise, that you want to share with them?
[35:14] MARGIE MOORE: Um. Just that, I don't know what I could say about that, really. Um, no, I'd have to think about that. I don't have an answer right away.
[35:30] JIM MOORE: Well, how would you describe yourself to them if they wanted to get a sketch in their mind of the kind of person you are, what would you tell them?
[35:37] MARGIE MOORE: Somebody that[sobs] couldn't love them more[Laughs]
[35:47] JIM MOORE: Always very quick to cry, I know that. Something I always remember about you is how quickly you got to know people. So, you know, if I would or dad would wander away from you in some European city or whatever. We always come back and you'd be sitting down talking to somebody and making quick friends.
[36:01] MARGIE MOORE: People always ask me directions[Laughs] which no one ever should have asked me directions, because I don't have a sense of direction at all. But no, I, uh, well, just like we had this little block party here, and I sat down with the people at the next table last night and turned out that half of them were from places right around me. And, uh, it was just-- it was really reminiscing.
[36:26] JIM MOORE: But it's interesting because there's I think that, um, that's definitely not dad's personality.
[36:31] MARGIE MOORE: No.
[36:31] JIM MOORE: It's not Christopher's personality. It's not really my personality. But you have a real way of connecting with, uh, with strangers very quickly. And I always remember my friends always talking about how easy it was to talk to you and things. I think that's the part that I remember the most.
[36:43] MARGIE MOORE: I find it easy, and I find it comfortable and--
[36:47] JIM MOORE: Excellent. Well, thank you very much for doing this. I really enjoyed learning some things I didn't know before, and, uh, I appreciate it. Maybe we can do it again soon.
[36:55] MARGIE MOORE: Thank you son. Bye.