Anne R. Somers and Margaret R. Somers

00:04 Hi, my name is Peggy Summers. I'm 55 years old the date today is October 8th, 2005 and my mother and I are sitting here today and her apartment, which is apartment number c-202 pennswood Village, which is a retirement community at Quaker retirement community in Newtown, Pennsylvania. And now I'm going to ask my mother to introduce herself to me and I'm going to ask her to give me her name her age the date and where we are.

00:44 Hi, I'm up and Summers.

00:51 At least known is that around here if you want to be technical, I'm and Marshall Ramsey Summers as Peggy said where in where in pennswood Village I'm she gave you the date, which is correct. I am 92 going on 983 and she's persuaded me to do what I feel is pretty strange thing to do with my age and that's to try to go back in and remember

01:30 What it was like to be young again?

01:34 Well, thank you. And I appreciate that you're willing to take on this strange task of trying to go back. I think it's a good place to begin would be to ask you about those four names that you have and Marshall Ramsey Summers. Can you first tell me about the the the and as far as you know, are you named is that name taken after anybody? Are you named after a relative? And yes, I was named after my aunt one of my apps.

02:09 And that your mother's sister or your father sister my mother sister and and did you know and and yourself? Yes, I do a very well. She lived with us. She and my friend her mother and mine and my mother's mother lived with us for the first at least the first 10 10-12 years of my life. That's a crowd full of women. So you had your mother your aunt Anne and your grandmother. What did you call your grandmother granny?

02:48 And what did you call your your mom?

02:51 Mama said that's so sweet. I always knew her as Mimi. Where did she get the name Mimi from? I don't know, but did you call her mom Z her until the day she died?

03:09 Well, I wasn't weather on the day she died. But yes, I did. Well that makes me feel better since I still call you Mommy.

03:17 And as you know my sister Sally who prefers to be called Sarah tried to call you by your first name for a while. I think the sound grown-up. Do you remember when she called tried to call you? And yes, I remember doesn't last very long. What did it feel like when your daughter tried to call you? And I thought it was fine. Okay. Well, do you mind that I call you Mommy?

03:46 No, I don't know why I don't know whether the posterity will take that very seriously, but if you called your mommy Mumsy, then now I feel a whole new license to be able to call you Mommy. So and you called your aunt and just bad and an

04:07 No, I called her Nana.

04:11 So you had you had Mumsy Nana and Grammy? Well, that's a collection and on the other side you had daddy.

04:20 Before we get to Daddy. I also had ye who was very important in my life. And who was another sister of my mother's who lived in Santa Fe New Mexico where I'm spending a lot of time in the in my teenage years. Oh, well, I'm going to make a note of that and come back to where I take it. She didn't living in your house with you. Then when you were growing up and where those the only two ants that that your mother had that you had your own your mother's two sisters. They were the only ones on my mother's side. I had an aunt on my father's side who lived you want to hear about her.

05:05 Well as she was married to a naval officer and when they win this country, they lived in Newport, which was sort of an elegant place and I used to I went up to visit her.

05:21 We all went up to my mother and took me up to visit her one summer. And then when I was in college, I spent a somehow I spent some time with her. I take it you mean Newport Rhode Island Yes Y'all is there any other Newport the home of the famous Newport Folk Festival and when my dad so you were named after Aunt Ann and before we go on I should make sure that I asked you where exactly this this was all taking place. I hadn't even gotten to that yet. You say you're you're 92. So you were born in 1913 if I have the math, correct? Where exactly were you born?

06:05 Well, depends, how do you find it? According to Legend? In fact, I was born in a little village called Bunton buntyn, Tennessee, which was just on the edge of Memphis. Memphis was a big city by by definition those days and Bunton has since was subsequently absorbed into Memphis, but at the time it was separate and do you want me to go on about that a little bit? Well, I'm going to see if you need a sip of water cuz you sound like your throat is getting a little dry.

06:53 So, okay. I want to hear about bun tonight. I always thought you were born in Memphis, Tennessee. So I'm very interested in knowing about Bunton.

07:06 Mountain was named for the man who built the original.

07:14 Portion about my home. He was a general practitioner named. Dr. Bunton. He actually delivered me in my in my mother's bed and Deb the home the home. I have a picture of it here, which is no use to you but it was a huge Place originally, I think around 10 acres and Deb combination of a very elegant Southern house in front and a working farm in the back and my mother and father made use of both of it to both parts of it today.

07:58 I was born in a very fortuitous time in fortuitous. That means happy. Does it fortunate fortunate time in southern history? Because my family saw them epitomized if they came from both sides came from a long long family tree is going back to 1214 Generations South to Scotland in both cases. And that's why you got your red hair. I guess I don't have it. But then they were both on the southern side of the Civil War and both families lost everything up my father lived in Virginia, and my mother lived in, Mississippi.

08:52 And they were the families were both just started wiped out and neither plus women didn't go to college in those days anyway, but my father is far as I know didn't even graduate from high school. He didn't have a chance to but after the war.

09:12 After the Civil War that came a. Of rather rapid reconstruction and he managed to get a job in Memphis shape his which sent them you came down from from Virginia and got a job in Memphis and mother somehow we went up to a party in Memphis and they met the mother always said the minute she saw him. She knew she wanted him to be her husband. I don't think it works that fast, but they did get married either either 1899 or 1900.

09:56 Are you suggesting that your father actually fought in the Civil War or his grandfather? I mean or his father your grandfather his father. His father father was actually a soldier in in the in the Confederate Army. He was a naval officer. I have a picture of it right on the wall here. In fact, he was a very important naval officer. He was he was there yet chief engineer for the

10:28 Merrimack, I think that famous battle between the first ironclads the Monitor and the Merrimack very important Civil War battle. This was your grandfather. Did you know him? No. No, I didn't. Did he survive the war? He wasn't killed in the war? No, he wasn't killed in the wall, but I didn't see him. My father was 50 when I was born. So there was quite a bit of time elapsed between the Civil War I buy birdies. Was that his first marriage Ono all as I recall you your you're you have brothers that were much older than you is that right? So he was probably still he was actually in his thirties when he was married. Tell me when you're about your

11:19 Well before I get to that I'm I'm fascinated with the Civil War part of the story your grandfather. Can you tell us his name?

11:29 The one who was the naval officer whose hanging on the wall.

11:33 I think it was Henry Ashton Ramsey. I saw the Ramsey is your father's your father's side Henry Ashton Ramsey and he he lived in Virginia you said is that's right. And your father's name was David. Is that correct? No, no, no. No David got in through. My mother's family. Yes. I know. He was Henry Ashton Ramsey Jr. All your father was Henry Ashton Ramsey Jr. So it did he go by hand or did he have a nickname?

12:14 My brother was named one of my brothers was named Henry Ashton Ramsey the third and he was called Harry. I can't remember what my mother called my father Henry all Harry or mr. Ramsey. She may have done that was Victorian day is so your father must have been if he was 50 when you were born, which was 1913. You said they got married and 18.

12:49 1899 I think 1899 the Civil War was over as I recall an 1864 V.

13:00 Remember, which one? Is it for five? Don't push me on that. I don't remember. I don't remember. So he was actually I'm not very good here. But he was actually alive during the Civil War your father. He wasn't born after the war it which means your grandfather was already married a married man when he was fighting in the wars at that sound right I expect so I never saw never having seen him. I didn't ask him do he had died by the time you were born. Did you did you ever hear any family lore? In other words did one always hears that Confederate Southern families, you know, they never give up the fight so to speak and you know, even today they insist on find are Confederate flags. Was there. Did you grow up in an atmosphere of sort of long Auntie Yankee ISM and long live the Confederacy?

14:00 No, no. No, I grew up in a very neutral atmosphere. I think they wanted they called it the wall between the states and they didn't talk much about it. So there wasn't sort of Civil War paraphernalia lying around or anything like that or old muskets and things that you'll often hear about. No, we had a sword from my grandfather.

14:30 I wait a minute. I'm mixing up the generations yet, but there was one of my progenitors who fought in the Revolutionary War and we had his sword hanging on the wall in.

14:46 In the house in Memphis. Oh, well, I let me try and push you in that get the little bit about this revolutionary store. You really have an amazing Americana story. So they they obviously do you know when approximately when they came from Scotland it was obviously it was before the American Revolution least or was it both on both sides?

15:13 Yes. Yes. In fact up doctor didn't out that Doctor David Ramsey you were right there with David wasn't David in this family was a historic. It was a surgeon and a historian of the American Revolution and

15:35 He's he's on hanging up on the wall layer. I think I think.

15:43 This is an Incredible family family history as I as I recall somebody wants to try to get it all down on a diagram on a on a family tree. Is that is that right? Yes, my mother took all of this very very seriously. My father didn't and my brothers didn't I didn't but my mother took it very seriously and I tried to find in preparation for this. I got up in the middle of the night last night and look for one of these fat one of these charts genealogy charts for the family tree on it going way back up on that was on Daddy's family, which would have had dr. David Ramsey on it, but I couldn't find it as the last time I saw it.

16:37 You know my niece Susan who is Sally's exactly the same age of Sally and she has the original picture of dr. David Ramsey. She had it end of my night my father mother left it to her when they died because they thought that that her husband my brother Harry look like so they insisted on leaving but not that that she have the picture. She is not very wealthy and she's been sold it and got a very very good price for it. But at the time I was she asked me and I dug up this genealogy chart showing him on that net help to the value of the picture. I think she could have been on Antiques Roadshow.

17:33 Well, you're so I've now figured the out the Ramsey side yet, and I've got the and which is your mother's aunt and the Ramsay which is this fascinating story. So let's learn a little about the name Marshall Marshall was on my mother's side and the myths about the amount Legion to he was a reverend but he was also an astronomer and he wrote a book about astronomy, which I also tried to find last night. I had it at one point, but I couldn't find it it it said it was it was interesting some of these Southern

18:21 Big shots that they are some of them quite well educated though. They hadn't been to college self-educated. Now. One thing that I think is absolutely essential to ask which many people would forget to ask cuz I almost was forgetting myself was on what means of resources were all of these big shots living doesn't sound like they were exactly working out there in the fields themselves. That was a White Knoll a white want to know what they were living on was the cotton Amanda slaves.

19:00 So so so slaves on both sides of the family and one in the Virginia side and the Mississippi side. Do you have any knowledge of what kind of plant I assume they were plantations. Were they large or small what what approximate I mean, obviously you wouldn't know the exact number but are we talkin about large large numbers of slaveholding or rather? You know what they would call the sort of lesser less her number one or two.

19:31 On a two slaves. I wanted to plantations that you could live on that today.

19:43 But in both sides they were they had actually cotton we're living off of cotton. So it couldn't have really been one or two. I mean, they must have had field of cotton in order to survive. I mean was this in the very typical fence where they were growing the cotton and then selling it and it raw Cotton On the Mercantile markets in the cities.

20:06 Well, I'm maybe I should have been that. I'm sure of that for my mother's side the one who lived in in, Mississippi. I'm not sure what my father my grandfather who was a naval officer and what they did before that. I don't know. I don't know. Do you know what your when your father was growing up in those say 30 years after the Civil War after your grandfather had retired as a naval officer. Do you do you know whether that he was any idea what they were living financially at the time or what means of resource how my father was they were broke they were absolutely broke because the largest wreck them and that's why I at my father never graduate from high school, but I'm somehow or other. I don't know how he landed up in Memphis.

21:06 Working for a phone. Call Stewart Gwen g w y w n e. I think it must have been some family connection and he went to work. So as I was that what kind of they were cotton Brokers which to me means that they were middleman between the between the farmer the plantation owner and the mill who bought the cotton now middleman at least in the English History. We're always the most unpopular of people. They were what it where they the ones who literally went and collected the continent and took it some hit by some means presumably by horse and carriage to the cities. They were going back and forth.

21:56 Well, I don't think they did it by Horseman. I don't know. I really don't know that I can remember going down to my father's office a couple of times on Front Street in Memphis and there was a it was a huge.

22:15 Display of a samples of cotton and it was a special technique of pulling it and that what you were supposed to reveal by that was the quality of the cotton and how it would fare in the in the Mills and they would be all of that would be spread out.

22:41 For a Salesman, I guess to come in and view the so does that mean that your father when you were growing up that your father was basically not a not a wealthy man in your early years or had he moved up the the ladder so that he was in the higher-ranked by the time you were born. Yes. He had moved up he became president of the of the company you started his I don't know what it's like I guess but now he became president off at 10th and how how big and significant at company was this

23:20 I don't think it was very big but it was quite respected and he was quite respected death. It was interesting very interesting retry the relatively brief. In southern history Leia.

23:36 I have said I said they were both wiped out by the Civil War. But during the day I was born into this brief. Of prosperity. I said I was born in 1913, which is just that they just before the war broke out and we'll walk around Italy brought great prosperity to the South the price of cotton went up very substantially and

24:07 I think that. During World War 1 was the most prosperous and it was a very dim in my life and my family's life when we thought we were prosperous to that disappeared very fast in the in the post-war. Ending up with my father being bankrupt by the by the end of the twenties, but during the Indy

24:32 That. Of the of the will of the first world war in the house which witch doctor Banton had originally built as a Valium. It was a substantial house for that day, but we became the sort of a mcmansion in my back in the days when doing me at the End by childhood when my mother when we expanded very much.

25:07 Was would would do the prosperity that your father family came into during the war. Would that have fallen under the category of War profiteering?

25:21 You is very very Loosely. He was not in had nothing to do with any Munitions or anything of that sort. But the South's just the economy prospered during that period presumably for the goods that uniforms and all the material and probably parachutes and all that sort of thing. That's that's actually very fascinating and your mother. She came from Mississippi. Did she come from a you also said she came from a civil war family. Did you ever know her father or your grandfather on her side and had he fought in the Civil War? No, I did not know him.

26:06 You know, how old moms he was when Mimi was when she got married?

26:13 She was much younger than my father.

26:20 I would think maybe about 12 years younger than he and when she is Southern Belle and had her head she grown up by that time had her family recovered. I mean, did she grow up and some considerable wealth in Mississippi?

26:41 And she washed date. They actually had two homes. I had a home in Kentucky as well as Mississippi and they went to Kentucky every summer because the yellow fever was so prevalent in Mississippi and they went up there they drove up there and have a picture of that house too in Lexington. It's now a funeral Paula know what was the name of the town in in Mississippi. For some reason. I remember the name Vicksburg. Is that correct? It was Vicksburg, Mississippi and what exactly is yellow fever and why it why was back to hitting Mississippi at that time?

27:22 Yellow fever it's it's something that's transmitted by mosquitoes.

27:29 It's a bit. So almost twice in my Larry cause malaria can be chronic. Well people die of malaria, too, but yellow fever takes you fall faster.

27:40 Is that because that area of the country is swampy and and marshes and that sort of thing. And so Kentucky was dry. Yes is Kentucky also cotton country.

27:55 That was Hoss country. That's what I felt. So by by the time she met did she bring as they would say a dowry to the to the family or did she just bring house? We put this a lifestyle in which he expected to be accommodated rather rather. Well, mostly a lifestyle, but you did bring a lot of furniture one of which I have quite a few pieces here including that what not pointing to right now. This is it came up from from Vicksburg that would make that would make them really old as in Antiques. And what about the bed that you sleep in did that come from your mother? Yes. Yes. It did was at the bed you were born in well, that's the that's the mythology. I'm not sure that I think I was probably born into it another day.

28:55 But this cuz this was my bed all through my childhood. It had at Easter on it. I have to stir at the time and it's a canopy UC that in Henry the eighth's pictures of that sort of thing that I have a recollection that that canopy was on the bed in our house in Haverford, but that when we moved to Princeton the ceilings were too short and you had to get rid of it. Is that correct? That's correct. That's great. You remember what you did with it. I could set up and I'll garage for quite a while until it just has degenerated deteriorated completely. Yeah.

29:38 That's fascinating now it so your mother came with a sort of luxurious lifestyle. And as I recall that included you being brought up by a governess, which I assume was the standard mode of childhood caretaking in the South. That's right, but the stage before that and that's where Manny came in and I had them as well as my Mammy. There's a picture of her holding me.

30:10 Daniel and

30:13 I was never told and I don't have no idea whether she she wet-nurse me or not. She may have cuz I'm sure my mother who was very very thin Slims. You can see them even then a picture on the wall. But anyway, she was she was wonderful to me and as you can see she was a

30:40 A real stereotype

30:42 How long did she eat until what age did she stay with you? Is she and what she paid or did she eat what she a live-in servant?

30:51 I think technically she was paid but I think it was probably two or three dollars.

30:59 A week or a month or something like that Roman. Was it mostly room and board and was she married. Did she have a family?

31:08 I don't know that I don't know that.

31:11 How long did and you really called her Mammy, by the way, is that right? And how long was she your Mammy?

31:23 Well, it's probably until Mademoiselle Pinero arrived.

31:29 Where am I?

31:33 My brothers

31:36 Who was nine and 12 years older than I was raised. I said bye they were married at the turn of the century my father and mother Jack was born very promptly thereafter and that the two of them were raised with German goddesses.

31:57 But by the time by the time of the sum of the first world war, it was not was not wise to have a dream and living in the family. So mother switch to

32:11 That was LPGA. I was a French governess and she came and took over and that she was with me I guess until I went to school and I didn't go to school until I started know. I guess I was nine years old when I went and went to school and I was very very fluent in French practice. Practically Yeah by limbo and maybe that was the beginning of my problems that when I went by and it did go to school. I was put in the third grade for everything but French put in the 9th grade for French, which what made me a Oddity right from the beginning.

32:58 Before we go to your your school. What was what were those first nine years like we did you have regular? What was Mademoiselle or Madame Mademoiselle. First of all, do you remember liking her when she nice person? And did you have regular lessons every day where she would sort of sitting down and teach you to read and all that sort of thing. And and one more question. Why was that the custom not to go to school until you were nine years old. What was the reason for that?

33:33 What my mother thought I would get a more cultured.

33:38 Upbringing by being trained by off.

33:42 Buy a governess, sir. But that was not out of the norm that children would would be kept at home. What would they say? They called homeschooling was that was that General custom among well-off Memphis families know I don't think it was I think it was it was rather Rhea.

34:12 But mother thought

34:15 I deserve the rare education. What were those did you have friends during those nine years at all, since you were kept out of school. Did you know any children your own age or and did you have any playtime? Yes. I had play type and I had one friend one friend only Helen Duffield and I was never permitted to go to her house, but she came over and we played in the sand pile under.

34:44 Do you know why you weren't permitted to go to her house?

34:50 Mother didn't approve of her of her mother.

34:54 I don't know whether she was an alcoholic or something but isn't didn't approve of it and she never would let me go over there. So hell and came over and played with me. Well, that sounds interesting during do you remember what you had with a wood in those not before you were went off to school where I know things were really different. But those first nine years. Were you close to your mother? Was it a happy childhood? I know you must have been your brothers were so much older than you that you probably didn't really know them that well.

35:28 It was an unhappy, but it wasn't a particularly close relationship.

35:36 I didn't see that much of them.

35:38 I guess it was a very I should say.

35:46 Almost home Victorian saw the family.

35:51 They were they were very decent very very decent and religious in the best sent in the good sense of the wood that we all win every Sunday to Biscuitville church around the corner.

36:13 And that by then of course, it would help slaves, but we had a lot of servants.

36:20 I think they'll about at least four or five servants in this house all black hell you're hardly a child that was forced to do chores and and that sort of thing you brought up you bring up the church. How important was bad in your family that were you did you have to take any religious education or Sunday school or that sort of thing. Yes. I went to Sunday school. It was important in a non-emotional way. There's nothing like her you been jellicle my emotions today. The Episcopal was

37:04 Really quite too laid-back, I guess to say yeah.

37:11 They were very good people just very good people.

37:18 And did you have a sense of that all the class structure at all? And it sounds awfully sociological but I mean it it were you aware of people who are less off less well-off than you or were you just not exposed to them and those early years.

37:38 Well, Helen Helen the girl who came over would have been an example of that. I never would have thought of it in those terms of course, but I'm sure that that's one thing my mother had in mind that she was not the same class, you know, if you wouldn't have used those times, but I think that that's what you meant was your house at that it were you living in Bunton still all this time. And in the family house that was always called the family house that you always went back to was that always the same Bunton how sword it was was it did it ever end up in Memphis proper?

38:18 Yes, it was a it was acquired by Memphis just adjust a salt into it and became part of Memphis the there was a railroad and streetcar station. That was just a block block down this way.

38:37 And it continued to be called a Bunton station. But from that time on it was all call Memphis and that's that's what the saint that's the house that though. He's been known as the family house and ones with pictures and it has a kind of Plantation Southern colonial-style. Look. Yes, it does have its red brick in head the fault for a white pillows in front of it. And with this picture does not do justice quite to what it what color is taking much later in Winter. That was a great deal of greenery around trees around it. So it was really very very beautiful. I just loved it too and it was sent way back from the road Goodwin Avenue was our address and it must have been for 500 feet set back with a big circular gravel driveway.

39:37 Cycle around at 2 to get to the front door and nobody use the front door except for a party or something. We that came around the back and while I had a Porte cochere.

39:48 What's that? What's a portrait shaft? It's a yen.

39:56 Well, it's a French wood porches is door and could share is for the carriages. So it it was a carriage door. That was that was just held up by chains, but it came out over the driveway so that the lady is could step out without getting wet. So if these of course, we're all horse and carriages, right? No, no automobiles. They were already automobiles. But oh of course 1913. Do you remember horse and carriage days or so has your recollection is already. What did they call them Horseless carriages?

40:39 Well, if that's how you remember automobile test, how did you meet Helen Duffy given the the real class-divided did I expect you lived in there? Any recollection? I've been a idea maybe mother imported to give me something to do know. I really don't know. She live very close by on the we lived on Goodwin Avenue, which was still there an elegant Street Country Club. Memphis Country Club is right across right across the street from us, but on this side was lower class Street, Midland Avenue, Midland Street and that wet.

41:32 Next door and that's why the hell I'd live to see the other side of the tracks definitely wanted to ask you whether you have any pets in those years. Did you have either cats or dogs and sit sounds like it would have been an ideal place for animals do cats always has almost always had a dog collie first who was run over and killed finally and then Dale wasn't very cute to live with us for a long long time. I don't remember his name or your colleagues name and where you attach to your pets? Yes, I was I was I didn't have to feed them. But so I I come by my animal-loving very legitimately.

42:29 Not cats we had no cats in the family at all. My brothers were writers and I wash for a short time and they said that the back part of the house was a working farm that we had it at various times. We had two horses. We had a we had for a long time a Jersey cow and why my cholesterol is always been bad. I think it's those Jersey Jersey cows have such very rich milk and that's a plus why my mother wanted to have it and for awhile or a while we had a mole which scared me to death and I still see what I think of it. I don't know. I guess the boy was brought into to try to produce her Offspring for the Jersey cow, but I guess once once I got a little too close to the Bulls.

43:29 Ariel had to chase me a little bit and I never got over it quite being scared of that. That's an amazing Story, the whole bit scary. It was a it was a guy ball pit bulls are guys.

43:52 Are you a little bit more? Do you want to tell me about what what made your mother finally decide to kick you out of the nest and into school and and was it a public school or private school? And how far away was it? It was a private school or public school girls school in here. There's something about to about that. And as I said, I went in this mix grated situation. I was not happy at school.

44:35 Yes and know I am but I work very hard and I got good grades. And that was my sort of my salvation. And I was not when I guess whatever the equivalent to him for a workaholic was then but I was very unpopular with my classmates so much so that I may have told her that it won one point. I heard I was in the in the girls room and go to the bathroom and I heard we had stole that then and I heard one say to another that day and Ramsey was the most unpopular girl in my class. That's horrible. What a terrible things.

45:24 Of her did you did you cry? Did you tell anybody about it?

45:32 I don't know where that cried. If not I probably did.

45:37 I've started about someone doing that time. I started going out to Santa Fe and visit my aunt at the A and for some reason and I'm still I still like I lay awake last night trying to see why it was that I had such as I seem to be a different person when I was in Santa Fe from in Memphis, but the Memphis environment just just add in my teenage. Just did not agree with me at all. Did you feel like you didn't you obviously must have felt like you didn't fit in but did you have any sense of why you didn't fit in did you feel like that? They were the other girls were different from you. For example, I always my image of the Southern schools for girls would be that they're basically training you to be a debutante and I have my own

46:37 Recollections, when we lived in Haverford Inn in Princeton of what it was like being around those rich girls that some reason we're always beautiful and fan and all look like they were debutantes was that part of it? Yes, I think so. I think so. I wasn't I wasn't all that bad looking at is a picture here at the time of the of the commencement. But except that I had to wear glasses you are beautiful not bad-looking is and under is a kind of understatement. That's what makes the you're saying that you were unpopular unusual. It's usually pretty anyone that it was as beautiful and pretty as you is usually considered popular. Do you attribute this to the glasses? Well, I think it had something to do with it and it was sort of cause-and-effect.

47:32 My family was my mother was very strict with me.

47:37 I was held back from so many things and at one point she she decided that the glasses were the problem and she took me to New York to quack by the name of dr. Bates who believed in in curing nearsightedness, which was running the family haven't decided this by all sorts of quackery.

48:07 He's still around the Bates method is still believed in its as I recall. It's our movements. Well, there's all sorts of crazy things took away my glasses and then I couldn't see and I had to sit up front on the first row is always at school. And that was that was a terrible. Did you fight with your mother or were you just kind of was the was the culture just one of acceptance that if she did that that's what you did. Yeah. I know I was a very obedient and child and I hated the glasses too. So I was

48:49 Glad to try something to get rid of them to your recollection. Were you the only girl in your class that wore glasses? And how many girls are in the class? Are we talking? Is this a small little bitty School?

49:06 Well, it was a

49:10 I don't say on here. It was a private school.

49:17 I don't know if it was probably about 25 20 or 25 each other. I mean it's not like today's schools with her. So did you have any friends in the in the school letting 9th Grade 9 years old you were starting in third grade and except for the the French. How long did you actually graduate from that school? Did you go from third all the way up to 12th grade? Yeah, this is graduation. I was

49:48 What's the word for valedictorian or something because I had nothing else to do? Yes. I had them I had a few friends but they still have tolerated me and what how old were you when you first went to Santa Fe? And how did you get to Santa Fe by the way by train? Is that seems like it'd be a long way. Oh, yes. That was a fascinating trip on the Atchison Topeka and the Santa Fe. I went with my mother first when I was 10 years old. I think I should took me out that my head. That's another long story. Ye had a quiet day yet. Wonderful Old Ranch House in Santa Fe and that she had he had us come outside and I just loved it. Once I took one of my friends with me she was sewing

50:48 Yeah, I tried so hard to get me over this inferiority complex that I have coarse developed very clearly it in my teenage years and then I went back to three times afterwards. Can you tell me tell me a little bit about about ye what was her? What was her that I take it that was a nickname and she's as you said was your mother sister, how did she end up in Santa Fe? That's a long way from Mississippi cheap presumably grew up in Vicksburg. Also. Yes, that was an interesting story. She married a man named David mccombe another David in the family and he was a stockbroker. I guess they moved to New York and he was doing very well. He thought

51:46 But then she somehow got to.

51:52 What is it that the regular versus?

51:56 Consumption consumption yeses, and she was a doctor.

52:05 I don't know whether the weather the famous place at pizitz Saranac New York where they had TB hospital. I don't know whether she tried that a Wella that wasn't open yet. But anyway, she was. She once he was diagnosed. They told her to go west to a very dry climate and go to bed for a year actually go to bed for a year. So she did and I guess I can't remember with Uncle David. We will then I'm not I probably probably did he have a daughter and

52:46 Is she got completely? She said she did she stayed in bed for a year, and she got completely well and loved the West so much. She didn't want her to go back to New York and

53:07 And at they looked around for a place in the west that they could they could live in while I said, he was a stockbroker. He thought he had a lot of money. It was sort of like my father this went all wrong.

53:28 They found this place in Santa Fe and it was it was just perfect and they developed it and she lives by our own. A lot of little.

53:43 Adobe houses around it chicken houses and fruit how it fruit Sellers and things and dab.

53:55 I don't think she ever went back to New York again. She went through it to do Europe. What?

54:03 She was a deeply spiritual person.

54:08 Unlike my mother who is not a mother was just a good Christian.

54:15 What day is spiritual in the organized religion, but she committed Episcopalian also or spiritual in a more assertive transcendental way boss she was there yet. She was a committed Episcopalian and she went to Episcopal church and and we wouldn't read and I when your father and I will marry we went out there to be married and she insisted we have a Biscuitville Minister officiate at the wedding, but beyond that she did a great deal of reading.

54:53 Mother my mother could not read she has the same problem that I have in that you have. What is it called exotropia. She's know what it was at the time. She just said she had weak eyes and she just couldn't read but if you look at the headlines and then he was paid for that be about it, but my aunt my aunt had to go to us and yeah, and she read a great deal and she read in all kinds of that all kinds of religions. So she was both use both committed to the end.

55:30 Going in deeper. So when you went out to Santa Fe, did you start going by yourself? Your first summer? You went with your mother. Did you eventually start going out by yourself and spending three months or so every summer with with Aunt yay.

55:47 Something like that feel and what was it like they're did you did you mostly hang out with you? I know how how did you get so close to her and you were still you're still young? I mean 10 11 12 years old, right. Did you go every summer all the way through until you graduated from high school?

56:13 Oh, I don't even know it was not quite that.

56:18 Systematic and I did go back go to Newport one summer. I know but after that I did go by myself. Yes, and as I mentioned that during the what is

56:35 The Memphis family became more and more broke to the point that Daddy was responded bankrupt and

56:48 I remember a couple of the trips. I made the sound of a I did on the bus.

56:53 Not much fun birthday. It was a

56:58 It was what the together and do you remember how many days would that be on the bus?

57:05 On the bus would probably be 3 at least 3 days you had to sleep on the bus and you went that was by yourself that your mother would like. She wasn't worried about safety by that time. She didn't have much control.

57:20 You are a teenager in other words and did your father's bankruptcy was that because of the whole economic structure of the cotton industry was essentially the bottom was falling out of that industry because of industrialization in the north. Yes, and also the fact that my father I think it was so honest and it didn't do any chicken read all the middleman who are too honest. I didn't say a very very well, I don't think we'll so how did they live once he went bankrupt? And did you have to get rid of all your servants and that's what you were able to keep the house. How did you survive?

58:06 Well

58:12 Bankruptcy is not a simple thing. He was a bank took over the business as I recall and he was employed by the bank. So instead of being president of an independent company. He was really a really became sort of a clerk for for the bank who own the business must have been devastating to go from president and owner of his own company to being reduced back to a clerk did that have ramifications for the whole family must have really affected people.

58:48 Yeah, I can remember that. He ended up going to work on the streetcar and that he had to walk to the to bunten station to the streetcar and he got run over at one point and he had to go to the hospital and then

59:07 That was the beginning of the end for him.

59:11 TDM semi recovered from that but never really yeah.

59:18 And I remember anything. I can remember best best about that people used to ask him when I wash it in the hospital and he said, oh it was the worst thing of all is one of these nice nice lady nurses came in and I couldn't get up couldn't get out of bed to hold a chap all of us up the southern gentleman. And by that time you must have since he was already fifty when you were born by he was getting into his mid-60s go to and that was a lot older than than it is now it wasn't it.

01:00:01 Yeah, he's probably I can't remember exactly how old he was when he died, but it was a

01:00:11 Just

01:00:14 I guess I really can't remember if I recall from you're telling me that I'm sure that it was your already had left the South by the time he died, but he must have essentially retired stopped working at some point after that accident or did he have to keep slogging through to for the family to keep going on? Well, he had some point after that accident. He had a stroke and he was in bed for three years.

01:00:48 Okay, and by now you had made the rather fateful decision to go north for college. Is that right and tell me about that episode in what made you do that and did ye have anything to do with that?

01:01:12 She may have indirectly but directly that was my other Aunt Nana. Who who?

01:01:22 Was always

01:01:25 Always pushing me and hoping that I would be smart and she left me $5,000.

01:01:37 What to go to college and that's what I went to college on. So she she had some independent means but the way she stood still living with you all these all this time was she as they would say a spinster Aunt who never married while she was a spinster Aunt who never married, but I think she had died and I think she left this in a wheel.

01:02:00 To go. She wasn't she didn't hurt her financial life was not tied up with your with your father. She had her own independent inheritance from her father. Well, it wasn't much of an inheritance. So she wouldn't have been living in in the way she was but I think the fact that she was and I think I would think back now with a great embarrassment size of the room that she was living in the fact that she and my grandmother lived with us.

01:02:38 What was one reason that was one reason that we could go on living in that in the big house as long as we did and because they were contributing their own money, which they had gotten from your grandfather presumably that as an inheritance, so I assumed that was never talked about in the family. My mother had a saying that

01:03:08 Do lady ever talked about it? Was that certain things that no lady ever talked about it particularly in mixed company and that was religion.

01:03:19 I'll politics.

01:03:22 Something else and sex and sex your mother actually said sex said 6, but she applied it and we would never supposed to talk about those things. She certainly wouldn't have fit in in today's world. Would she since religion politics money and sex are pretty much cover that exhaust the conversation.

01:03:55 Hello, are we okay?

01:03:57 Hi, this is Peggy again and getting an summers's remarkable story, and we left off talking about her summers in Santa Fe witch and her graduation from high school and her finally getting out at the South and getting to Vassar College. And I'm going to ask her how how Vassar in particular has she ended up at Vassar College as opposed to any other college.

01:04:38 Hi, I'm trying to remember exactly how I got that myself.

01:04:46 Oh.

01:04:49 Remember I wanted to go to Stanford probably because it was in the West Baden because father away from the south.

01:05:03 I remember now that my mother had a friend. My mother was among other things was a very odd number of the Garden Club of America, which that means she what is you got that dirt under my fingernails, but she was she plans Gardens.

01:05:22 And she had a friend in Philadelphia was President one year of the Garden Club and some out other mother mother got to know her pretty well and she had two daughters. Who would oh, yes. She was very rich and by this time mother was very poor and she had two daughters business butcher who had gone to Vasa SoMo the thought that that that must be the thing to do.

01:05:53 And she thought that I should go to Vasa that you yourself heard of Vassar College before before this happened. I had heard that but I didn't know anything about it, but then I went did you have to go through the whole application process? I mean Vassar was a very competitive course you got good grades, but did you understand? What a seven sister College mint?

01:06:23 I didn't get particularly good grades. I got good grades in French and English, but I've always had the feeling that I was an example of affirmative action in Reverse pour hick white Hicks.

01:06:42 Did they wanted for Vassar that they wanted some kind of diversity? Yeah. Yeah. That's what I meant. I'm just can't believe that I have a past the the SAT for arithmetic for math for Math and I'd had no science. I had not even had a course in biology none at all. So I'm just sure that I say that that I was a case of affirmative action. Did you apply apply to anywhere else besides faster or in those days did one just apply to the one school you if you wanted to go to I think so I think so cuz I don't remember getting any objections from anyway, so when it got time to go and pack up, did you have a feeling did you have a feeling you are leaving the South for for quite a bit or these days when kids go to college, but you know there.

01:07:42 The next weekend to do their laundry, but Vassar Poughkeepsie, New York is a very long way from Memphis, Tennessee and every sense of the word.

01:07:53 Yes, you're absolutely right. I had no feeling of going back and forth. In fact, telephoning was very very rare.

01:08:02 Oh and Violetta riding was so bad. My father finally made out of address to himself a bunch of Penny postcards gave them to me to please send the once a month or something. That is so sweet. Did you did your mother drive you up to Vassar or did you take a train or a bus and cleaned it? And did you have like an enormous trunk of stuff clothes and things like that my mother never drove it. Also she didn't drive me to Vassar up and I have been in Santa Fe. That was the sum of that. I was on crutches and I must have taken the train up to do.

01:08:48 Gypsy at the New Yorker to someplace cuz I remember at one of my Santa Fe friends actually driving me through the gate and do and do what and do what it do. Vassarette. Remember that first that feeling but you hadn't seen it before right you didn't show up for interview is like and what was your first reaction when you saw it, did you feel like you were you were back in the south?

01:09:21 I don't remember.

01:09:24 I really don't do you remember the dorm that you were put into or your roommate or anything like that or your first feelings about the Vasser experience? Yes. I was put into a m into it what was called a sweet. It was two rooms one room. Everybody slept in the other room looks at our desks in and I had to do a five of us. I think four or five and one of them was very very interesting on Nancy Harkness. She was very rich game from Boston the Boston area. I was smart. She had dad been to best hot best private schools of theory.

01:10:13 She broke all the rules. She used to dated Aviation instructor from the Poughkeepsie airport. And she used to go out and climb indoors at night is up there. She was amazing. She later on. She helped helped found the women's Air corps.

01:10:46 Yeah, she said she was cuz she was quite a gal at

01:10:50 That was your your freshman year and how about the other ones? Did you have any problems with roommates as you know, when I went to Vassar I had a roommate that I just couldn't stand in it. It was just a terrible terrible way to start the year.

01:11:08 No. The others were sort of ciphers. I think I was still playing. I was still playing bridge. I don't know that if I told you that the last my senior year in high school. I played Bridge every afternoon, I think.

01:11:26 Send that I I still played a little bit of college with a couple of the girl couple of those girls. Never played since I've never played a bad Umbridge sense will Bridges extremely addictive as I recall when I was playing it and it's often a way to sort of, you know, get friends to that. Did that help?

01:11:53 Well, I played mostly with my roommates. See I had four roommates sell five of us and that's sweet today. So I don't think it did very much for my social life. Well, let's start by asking you about going on about your social life because something you had you felt very out of place in your high school and I'm interested to know how you begin to feel Visa V all the other girls in general. You know, how did you feel it bass or did you feel like you fit in more or did you sort of feel like a southern outsider?

01:12:33 No, I think I did pretty well. I was an outsider.

01:12:39 But I did I worked at it.

01:12:42 And actually in my I think with my junior year, I got to be class president, but I looked at it. I really worked at it hard. What does that mean working at it?

01:12:56 Oh, I tried to cultivate the people who were going to select to the class officers and

01:13:07 Went out of my way to try to get the attention of some of the powers that be able to something that I would never have thought off in the in Memphis. But what made you even beside you or think you wanted to be class president? What where did that when did that impulse start? Was it a interest? Were you interested in politics at that stage? No, no, and I don't know how it started today. I had to I had to

01:13:40 A little more little more successful life because I've been inside a favor for a couple of Summers by then.

01:13:49 I think Sally has one one year off he or she says before he is a basa. She spent a summer dig in New Mexico to read I went to Santa Fe One Summer on crutches. We should we should all that once there is a picture of you on crutches and I wanted to ask you where you are and crutches and I how did you end up on crutches?

01:14:21 Aya fancied myself Play-Doh