- Interview with Dee Collins and Harry Worrell
- Interview with Rickey and Eileen Haines
- Interview with Virgil O’Neal and Ralph Gerber
- Interview with Helen O’Neal Irene Abrams and Pearl Moore
- Interview with Viola Sparagna Irene Abrams and Dee Collins
- Interview-with-Ken-Yates-Viola-Spragna-and-Irene-Abrams
- Interview with Bob Lees Viola Spragna and Irene Abrams
- Interview with Richard O’Neal
- Interview with Washington and Betty Orme
- Interview with Bob and Ginny Lees
- Interview with Joan Spaeth Harper
- Interview with Gladys Myers
Dee Collins (DC)(1920-2020), Harry Worrell (HW), Jackie Krantz (JK). Worrell is
Collins’ nephew. Krantz is Collins’ daughter, who lives in California. Interview is
being conducted by Rita Moonsammy (RM) for the Tabernacle Historical Society.
[Explanation of how we’ll proceed on tape]
RM: First of all, what’s your full name, Dee?
DC: Lillian May Gerber Collins
RM: When were you born?
DC: September 2, 1920
RM: You were born before a lot of important things happened. And where were you
born, exactly?
DC: Well, up the road
RM: And the road is:
DC: This one — Medford Lakes Road, in Tabernacle. 532. County [road] 532. In a farm house.
RM: About how far from here was that?
HW: About a quarter of a mile.
DC: Quarter of a mile.
RM: Is the house still there?
DC: No. It was torn down.
RM: And were you born at home?
DC: Yes
RM: How many siblings did you have?
DC: Two
RM: What are their names? Or were they? And do they still live?
DC: My sister, Harry’s mother, was Pauline, and my brother, Arthur, and me.
RM: You were the baby.
DC: Yeah. Mmhmm.
RM: And how long did your family live in that house?
DC: Well, they couldn’t have been there when my brother was born, and he was born in 1917, I think. And — see there were two families. My daddy and his brother married sisters. So we were all living together until my other — my uncle and his wife, having so many children, that my daddy had somebody build us a home further down toward Tabernacle.
HW: Across the street like.
RM: On the other side of the road from this.
HW: Mmhmm. From the farmhouse, yeah.
RM: Is that house still there?
DC: Yes. You mean the house that my daddy had built?
RM: Is that where you grew up, Jackie?
JK: No.
RM: That’s where you spent most of your married life?
DC: No, no.
JK: But you spent the beginning of your married life there.
DC: Oh, yeah.
HW: Yeah. the beginning.
JK: As did your mother
HW: Right. Right, and my dad and I was born in that house.
RM: OK. So, the sisters married the brothers.
HW: Mmhmm.
RM: That means two Gerbers married two Worrells.
HW: No — Pepper.
RM: Oh, right. That’s the generation before you.
HW: Yeah.
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JK: And it was more than two.
HW: There was five altogether. Five from one family married five from the other
family.
RM: Wow!
HW: The Peppers and the Gerbers.
RM: So they’re all over Tabernacle. Offspring — and their offspring.
HW: Right.
RM: What were your father and mother’s names?
DC: Father was William Phillip Gerber. And my mother was — you know there was a question about her name.
JK: It wasn’t for sure Nettie? Nickname? Maybe?
DC: No. [Long pause]
RM: It’s alright. You can take time to think. It’s ok.
DC: [Chuckles]
RM: What did people call her?
DC: Nettie, I guess.
RM: And your dad. What did her call her?
DC: He didn’t talk much — he didn’t! [Chuckles].
RM: Maybe she just kind of read his mind about what should be done? In the
house? How did they meet?
DC: I don’t know. They didn’t tell me very many things.
RM: Well, a lot of parents are like that, they are. So he lived all his life in Tabernacle,
though?
DC: Well, they —
HW: I think a portion of his life. They really grew up, I guess, when they were
younger, down near Batsto.
RM: Oh!
HW: Because my grandfather showed me — it’s a home now, but it was a school.
Along the — I don’t remember the name of the county road — but – 3
RM: Is that where he was born?
HW: I’m sure it was in that area, called “Bulltown.”
RM: Bulltown?
HW: Uh huh.
RM: And is it the road that Batsto is actually on?
HW: Right. Yeah, I can’t remember the number of it.
RM: Me either, but I know when I go down 206, it branches off like that.[Motions left]
HW: Yeah. It branches off and then you come to Nesco.
RM: Yes.
HW: Make a left on that road, I don’t know you say it’s –
RM: It’s not so easy to read because it’s so small.
HW: Yeah.
JK: Do you think the Gerber kids were [??] siblings were born there? And they all
lived there then?
HW: I think so.
RM: What did their father do?
HW: Their father was — came from Germany over into Philadelphia, and from what I
gather, he was a baker, in a baker shop.
RM: [To DC] Do you remember that?
DC: I just remember hearing it.
HW: Yeah.
RM: But, I guess, did he have the bakery — did he work as a baker down there by
Batsto, too?
HW: You know, I never heard, but evidently they moved from Philadelphia to Batsto,
as near as I can remember. And they — they could have worked there at Batsto.
RM: It was still working then?
HW: Oh, yeah!
RM: ‘Cause this would have been in the late 1800s, early 1900s? 4
DC: ‘Cause Uncle Herb was born in 1900.
RM: Now Uncle Herb was one of the brothers?
DC: Yeah.
HW: Brother to her father
RM: Brother to your father, too.
HW: No
RM: I’m getting mixed up!
HW: Oh, you will! [Laughter] This is quite a family…
JK: His mother was my mother’s sister.
HW: Yeah.
RM: Ok. Ok, so it wasn’t the brothers.
HW: No.
RM: The two brothers who married them were, they were Peppers.
HW: No, Gerbers. The mother was a Pepper.
RM: Ok, ok. It’s the opposite of what I thought. So, it’s interesting that they moved
from Philadelphia, and he was a baker, right to the middle of the woods.
HW: Mmhmm.
RM: I know some people in Nesco, they probably passed by now, who used to do a
lot of gathering from the woods and process the stuff. Oh, I can’t remember their
name now, but I think it’s in here. [Pinelands Folklife]. Do you know if your family
ever, you know, used –did they make use of the stuff from the environment?
HW: Well they worked in the cranberry bogs, and helped build the dams, and things
like that.
RM: So was that true of your father? Did they work in the cranberry bogs and help
build dams, and things like that?
DC: [Nods]
RM: Yes?
DC: Whatever the rest did, he did. 5
RM: But then when he was grown, he started farming.
HW: Right.
RM: And your father?
HW: Well, I — the Worrell family?
RM: Mmmhmm.
HW: He worked at a chemical plant. Well, he did other things beside that. He
farmed a little also. And things got real bad around the Depression time, and he lost
his job that he had started. He went up to Skillman, New Jersey. There was a state — uh, something like over here at the Four Mile, the county, for children who were in
need of a lot of help.
RM: Oh, ok.
HW: He worked on — him and his brother, Stanley, worked there, you know, till
things got better, then they came back to their original job.
RM: At the chemical company?
HW: Mmhmm. They farmed along with it.
RM: And the chemical company was right here in Tabernacle?
HW: No, it was in Pemberton.
RM: Ok
HW: Yeah. It was called the [Permuda??] company. They made water conditioning
material.
RM: So this would have been in the 50s, to 40s?
HW: Well, really in the 30s. ‘Cause I was born in 1930.
RM: Ok, and he was doing that
HW: And her — in my grandfather and grandmother’s home.
JK: And by that time, they were in Tabernacle.
HW: Yes
RM: So do you know when they moved from the Batsto area to Tabernacle?
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HW: No, their home was fairly new when I was born, so it had to be in the 20s, that
the home was built. In fact, at the time, when I was born, they were just putting
electricity down this street…this road. (Meaning Medford Lakes Road.)
JK: Now were the Peppers already here? Were they in Tabernacle already?
HW: You know, I don’t really know the background of where they, you know,
originated.
JK: But they were an Irish family, weren’t they?
HW Yeah.
RM: So, about your dad, when he — after he was grown up, did he begin farming
immediately?
DC: Well, they bought this farm, and at that time they were thinking that they might have to go to war.
HW: One brother did. George Gerber. He was in World War I. That isn’t her father.
That’s a brother to her father.
RM: Brother to her father. OK, gotcha’.
JK: Father? Oh, father, right.
RM: Um, Dee’s uncle.
HW: Right.
RM: Ok. Did he come back?
HW: Mmhmm.
RM: So they bought the farm, but it was looking like we would go to war, so how did
that affect their family or what they did?
DC: Well, they just lived.
RM: Mmhmm.
JK: Did they not have to go to war because they were farmers? Pop Pop?
DC: I think so.
JK: Uncle Phillip?
HW: Phillip, yes.
JK. And then did they start the blueberry farm. 7
DC and HW: Later, later.
RM: So let’s go back to you [Dee]. Where did you go to school?
DC: In Tabernacle.
RM: Mmhmmm. Which school was it?
HW: Tabernacle Elementary School.
RM: It wasn’t the Friendship School? That was too old.
HW: Yeah, yeah.
JK: One room? Was there one room?
HW: Two room school. ‘Cause I –
DC: Now, I’m not sure of that even.
HW: Yeah.
RM: But you went there for all the grades? All the way up to eighth grade?
DC: Well, I had to go — our grade had to go to Vincentown. I don’t know if it was the seventh and eighth grades, or just the eighth grade. That’s where I graduated from. And I was afraid of the teacher. She was strict. I was afraid I wasn’t going to pass. [Laughter]
RM: But you did. You did pass. How did you get to school from here?
DC: A bus.
RM: There was a bus. So all the Tabernacle kids were going there for seventh or
eighth grade?
DC: See, I can’t be sure, because I can’t remember.
RM: But probably. Well, maybe some didn’t go onto school?
DC: I don’t know? I’m trying to think of the man that used to be the driver. He lived in a house near, where Alfors [Pharmacy on Rt. 206] is now.
RM: Where’s Alfors?
HW: On the highway on 206.
DC: Yates Plaza.
RM: Oh!
8
HW: Yeah.
RM: Ok. Uh huh.
JK: Mother, everybody calls you Dee. I’d like you to explain what you remember.
DC: Well, I’m not really sure, but we must have been talking about words, and I was always interested in words.
JK: So how does that connect with….
DC: They called me “Dictionary,” I think. [Laughter] Otherwise I don’t even know why.
RM: And after eighth grade, was there a high school to go to?
DC: Yes, it’s like, you know, Lenape is now. It was Rancocas up at Mt. Holly.
RM: Mmhmm. So kids from different towns went to that school.
DC: Yeah.
RM: And you went there? How did you like that?
DC: Well, we always thought we were backward.
RM: “We” meaning the people from Tabernacle? Why was that?
DC: ‘Cause we were poor, I guess.
RM: Was that the truth, or was that what the other people thought, because they
lived in a town?
HW: Yeah, that’s what I think she means. Yeah.
RM: And what about this notion of “Pineys”? A lot of people who don’t live around
here think, “Ohhh, if you go down there in the Pinelands, there’s somebody behind
every tree with a shotgun.”
HW & DC: [Laughter]
RM: Is that kind of what the people in the towns thought?
DC: Well, you know I’m telling you how I am. But some of the kids overlooked it. Now my cousin, Bee, you know, she even got to be the treasurer of her high school class. Was a year below me. So it’s just like Jackie said, my attitude.
RM: You may have felt they were thinking you were behind.
Where did your family go to shop?
DC: Well, mostly Medford.
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RM: And did a lot of the cranberry workers live in Medford? I know there are some
streets where there are workers’ houses.
HW: Mmhmm.
RM: Were those for people who, like, worked in the cranberry bogs?
HW: And farming. Now, before they moved to Tabernacle, when they were in Batsto,
they shopped at Egg Harbor.
RM: That’s right. It was closer.
HW: Yeah, in fact, [Vivian?] still does, I think, for a lot of things.
RM: So what did you do then after high school, after you graduated?
DC: Got married. [Laughter]
RM: Really, right away?
DC: Pretty soon.
JK: Can you talk about how you met dad, and how that came about?
DC: Well, I didn’t even know — his parents lost all the money they had. Their savings and everything. And so Mother Collins, that’s my mother-in-law, her brother lived in Indian Mills. You know — Shamong. And so they came to live with them and Jack didn’t come. He finished out his high school in Hammonton with a boyfriend. What’s his name? Bob? Was it Bob? He lived until he graduated from high school there. And then Jack’s mother came to our church because she played the piano sometime, I think. And I think Jack made a hit with the girls. [Laughter]
DC: But we used to like to go to Atlantic City, to the Steel Pier, and one time a busload of us went there, and for somehow, at the Steel Pier, something was wrong and we couldn’t do like we were supposed to, and kind of — Jack took over, and got it settled up so we could go in. And that impressed me! [Laughter]
RM: So then how did it go?
JK: Didn’t he have a job?
DC: He had a job with Mr. Haines.
HW: Oh, yeah.
RM: Haines, doing — ? What was he doing for Mr. Haines?
DC: At the shop?
RM: What did Mr. Haines have a shop for? 10
HW: It was a little ordinary –
RM: Store?
HW: Store, for groceries and cigarettes and stuff like that. Ice cream and –
DC. Gas. Gas, too.
HW: Well, gas.
RM: Where was that store?
DC: It’s still up there.
RM: Nixon’s?
HW: No. That’s another store.
RM: Ok
HW: There’s a big house two doors from the church, Methodist church. If you’re
looking at the church, on the right, there’s a big building there. And that was the
Haines’s store.
RM: Is it the one — does it have some big windows in it yet? Is anybody living in it?
HW: There had been up until about — what? Six months or a year ago? And I think, if I heard the story, it might have been that their parents or something left them a home, and they moved. And I’m not — that’s just hearsay. I’m not sure. But that’s where Jack started to help. And they also delivered groceries to different people. And I was only a little guy at the time, and I used to ride with him around his route that they took
people’s food and groceries to.
JK: [To Dee] I heard that he spent a little extra time at your house.
DC: Yeah, a little bit.
RM: So that’s how you got to know him better and your parents go to know him?
And then when did you get married?
DC: Well the date was March the 28th, 1937. (Correction below, 1938)
RM: And where was the wedding?
DC: 1938, I mean. Well, my brother and his wife, took us to Maryland ’cause you didn’t have to wait, like New Jersey had to, and when John made up his mind, he said, “Now or never!”
RM: [Laughing] Oh, wow!
DC: He was his own boss, wasn’t he? 11
RM: Very decisive. So where did you get married in Maryland?
DC: I was just looking at those things yesterday, and the guy was a minister –
JK: Elkton? Was it Elkton?
DC: Yes.
RM: Who went with you? Did your parents go with you?
DC: No, my brother and his wife.
RM: They stood for you?
JK: And he did ask Pop Pop’s permission, right? Do you remember what Pop Pop
said?
DC: Something — like “if he can take care of her,” or something.
JK: What I heard was “if you think you can take care of her.”
DC: Do you remember that, Harry?
JK: So he had his blessing.
HW: I probaby wasn’t around, I probably was outside playing.
RM: So did you have a wedding party when you came back here? And where did
you move into? Where did you live then?
DC: With my mom and daddy.
RM: And were your brothers and sisters still living there?
DC: Well, maybe for a while, but then Harry’s mother and father built a house, had a house built.
HW: Yeah that was it. In 1939, I think.
RM: So then you moved into that house with his parents?
DC: No, my parents.
HW: She was still there with her parents, and my mother and dad lived there while they were building the house next door. I was eleven at the time, and since I was born in my grandmother’s house, when they got ready to move, I said “I’m not going because this is my house.”
JK: Just next door. Just next door and it still is. [Laughter]
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RM: Let’s go back to what life was like when you were a kid. How long did your dad
work in the store.
JK: No no — her husband.
RM: Oh, right. Well, go back to her dad and mom, when they had a farm.
DC: Now the place where Jack lived in Hammonton, to finish out high school, was his boyfriend, and the boyfriend’s father called Jack and asked him if he would like to have a job in Hammonton. And so he went and got a job in Hammonton for the Atlantic City Electric.
RM: Then he continued to work there for many years.
HW: Yes
RM: But he also farmed.
HW: Yeah, actually right on this property. (Meaning 420 Medford Lakes Road)
RM: And now your dad, he was always a farmer? Your father?
HW: Yeah.
RM: And that property was where?
DC: Right up the road.
RM: Do you know how many acres he had?
HW: I think it was around sixty.
RM: What did he grow?
DC: Tomatoes. I remember going to Camden when my daddy; took a load of tomatoes there.
HW: Campbells. (Meaning Cambell Soup Compamy)
RM: Campbells, uh huh.
DC: And they didn’t have big fields of asparagus, did they?
HW: Well, quite big. Yeah, they grew mostly vegetables and corn.
RM: The kinds of things people grow around here now.
HW: Right.
RM: And did they sell it to bigger markets? Was there a produce auction around
here?
13
HW: No, there was people that would come and pick up their whatever and take it to
New York. That’s where most of the stuff that they grew went.
RM: That’s interesting — not to Philadelphia. Philadelphia’s close.
HW: Well, some.
RM: Some to Philly, some to New York.
HW: Yeah.
RM: And did you have to do any work on the farm when you were a kid?
DC: Well, we used to have some nights that we would — they would set out tomato plants, and the kids would come and do that.
RM: Help place the plants?
DC: You know, put the plant down and some other kid would. And then we’d have supper at Aunt Pauline’s.
RM: Aunt Pauline lived right near you?
DC: No she lived over here. Over next to –
HW: On (Rt.) 206. Their properties actually butted up against each other. Farther down.
RM: Did you ever have to help pick? Vegetables?
DC: Well, I did some blueberries, picked some blueberries.
HW: Did you ever have to pick tomatoes?
DC: No.
HW: I guess the boys did that.
RM: When did they have the blueberry fields? Was that from the beginning, or was
that something they started later?
DC: Well, started later.
RM: And are those fields and blueberries still here in the area?
HW: No. When their property — the farm was sold — they took the blueberries out and went to regular farming again. The people that bought it.
RM: Who bought it?
HW: Uhhh — I can’t think of their names. 14
DC: Bowker?
HW: No. Where the Four Winds Farm is. That’s where the old house was. They tore that down and built a new, more modern home.
RM: Now did the Russo’s or Contes, did they own any of the land that had been in
your family?
DC: No, they came later, didn’t they?
HW: They rented it. In fact, they farm it right now. A lot of that property — the
Russo’s.
RM: But none of the farmland now is in your possession? All of it was sold to others?
DC: [Nods]
RM: And what was your mom doing in the house? What can you remember — what
was going on when it was tomato harvest or peach harvest? Did you have peach
trees? Peach orchards?
DC: I don’t remember that.
HW: No, I don’t. No, it was mostly, you know, vegetables.
DC: I remember them once, in the kitchen. I don’t know if they were cleaning chickens or what, but they were working together.
RM: So you also had some animals?
HW: Horses. They had horses.
RM: To do the farming?
HW: The farming. And back then, tractors were just coming into existence.
RM: The horses were pulling plows and such? How about things that you — did you
raise your own pigs, chickens?
DC: We did, I think.
HW: We did, ’cause when I was, say eleven or twelve, what they would do was, you know, they would have their own pigs. Then, when it come time to kill the pigs — hog killings. All the local farmers would come in together and do it in one day. And I remember my cousin and I, Ernie, we would take off from school that day, to be around where the farmers were doing their thing with the pigs. And actually [laughs], they had dinners, you know, for all the men would come into the farmhouse, and we — you know — it was really something special for us. To see what was going on, you know. In fact, they would take the bladder from the pigs, and make a football out of it for us kids.[Laughter]
15
RM: Do you remember hog killing? What were the women doing?
DC: That’s what they were doing –
HW: Oh! You know, they’d take the internal part, the intestines, would make sausage with it — small intestine.
RM: The women were doing that?
DC: I remember them sitting in the kitchen.
RM: Mmhmm. Working together and talking. Did the children have a role? Did you
have to do something?
DC: No.
JK: Mother, I remember in Grandma’s house, when I was small, coming in and seeing this big structure, this big wooden structure, that took up almost the whole living room, and it was — had little pins around the wooden base — and the sheer curtains stretched across, and it was a way that the curtains would be dried.
HW: Yeah.
JK: Do you remember that?
HW: Oh, yeah.
JK: Do you remember that, Mother? That was one thing that Grandmom did, I guess.
HW: Yeah, that’s how they used to do it.
DC: What was she doing?
JK: It was a big wooden structure that the sheer curtains –
HW: And there was little nails all around that they would hang it up, stretch it.
RM: Do you remember your mom canning vegetables?
DC: Well, I don’t remember it, but she did.
HW: Yeah, they did. They even did, not only vegetables, they also did it with meat. I guess they call it “cold pack,” where they would from the animals. One time, they even, during the war, Second World War, they all got together and had steer, you know, in the field where the irrigation hole — where they pump water from now
–used to be pasture where the steer went.
RM: Who did the steer belong to?
16
HW: Well, my dad, my grandfather, my uncle, and I think Autie [sp??] after they would even kill a steer, then divide it up, when it was gone they would do the same thing.
RM: Do you remember, did you have any milk cows?
DC: Yeah. I remember — now see I can’t remember even –
RM: That’s ok. We can wait, we can wait.
DC: But they didn’t have any to market, did they?
HW: No, just for the milk.
RM: Did you ever have to milk the cow?
DC: No.
RM: Was that your brother’s job?
DC: No, I don’t think so.
RM: Did your family hire anyone to help with the farm? Hire any workers?
DC: No, because my dad and his brother, they did it.
RM: They did everything. There was a big family and they would help each other?
Did everybody go to the Methodist Church over here?
HW: As far as I know. I don’t think there was ever any church that they went beside
the Methodist.
RM: Do you remember if you would go every Sunday?
DC: Well, I believe so.
JK: Mother is now the oldest living member. You became a member at what —
twelve? Twelve or so? Can you remember?
DC: I guess so.
HW: My grandmother was a Sunday school teacher in the church.
DC: I was a Sunday school teacher, too, later.
RM: And did you have festivals and special events there? Do you remember, for
harvest time or Labor Day or July 4, or did the town do that?
DC: I remember — across from Seneca. What is that? Harvest Home? They’d have that.
JK: And what was that?
17
HW: Well, that was a community affair, you know what I mean, from the whole town. They would get together, and they had buildings you know. Well, not so much buildings. They had a — what do you call it?
RM: Kind of a shelter?
HW: Yeah. Right in that point. If you’re going Carranza Road, right in — branches off on Hawkins Road, right in that point. You know, back farther.
DC: I remember Russ Gerber ran all the way from Medford to there, for that –
HW: For that occasion.
JK: Did they do it once a year? And it was a big community party?
HW: Yeah. In fact, Shamong, their shelters are still there.
RM: And that was for the harvest time, at the end of the heavy work season.
HW: Mmhmm.
RM: And what kinds of things would they do there? Would they have contests…?
HW: I can’t remember — .
RM: Music?
HW: I’m sure they did. You know.
RM: Do you remember, Dee?
DC: Food.
RM: Lots of food? What are some of the things that your mom made that you
normally — that was your normal food at your house, like for dinner?
DC: Well, mashed potatoes and gravy, I guess. Roasts. Macaroni and cheese and succotash.
HW: Stewed tomatoes.
RM: Did you have pole limas?
DC: I was still trying. [Laughs]
RM: Trying?
HW: My dad did. He really had some nice pole limas.
RM: I love pole limas!
18
HW: I had some right here in the — what I call my garden, but the soil’s not the best for them, but we’d get enough to put in the freezer. Yeah.
RM: Did you have to help shuck those limas?
DC: No.
RM: Did your mom do that?
DC: Well, she worked.
RM: She worked hard. Was that something that the ladies would get together to do?
DC: I don’t remember?
JK: I remember helping, too, to shuck the limas. Yeah. And Lee. Lee helped. You
were working by then, so you were off the hook.
RM: And what kind of — did your mom make, like, jam? Things like that — jelly?
DC: I think she did make some.
RM: Did you have strawberries?
DC: Not a lot, but I think we got some.
HW: Yeah, they not only had the farm, they also had their small garden. You know, like strawberries just for themselves.
RM: And, now, did your parents live in that house until they died?
DC: Yes, mmhmm.
RM: And when did they pass?
DC: ‘70 –
JK: ‘75, ‘76 –
DC: Was it ‘74 and ‘75? I don’t know.
JK: No, ’cause Katie was born in ‘75, and Grandmom –
DC: And was Bill killed in ‘75?
JK: Yes, yes.
RM: And Bill was –
HW: Her brother’s son.
19
DC: Coming home from college, wasn’t he?
JK: West Virginia.
DC: West Virginia.
HW: Well, he had already graduated from college, and he went out West someplace
to an Indian reservation.
JK: In North Dakota or somewhere like that.
HW: Yeah. It was altogether different than what they told him it was going to be.
DC: Peace Corps, wasn’t it?
HW: I –
RM: The American version of that.
HW: Right. Well, anyway, he was on his way home from there but he stopped in to
his college to see, you know, friends. And left there and was killed on the way home.
RM: From a car accident? That must have been a real blow to the family.
HW: Yeah.
RM: So did your mom and dad die very close to each other?
DC: One year. Seems to me it was ‘74, but I know that [?] was born.
JK: I think it was ‘75 and ‘76, probably.
RM: How old were they then?
DC: I just saw it yesterday, looking up stuff. He was 88, I think, and she was 83.
RM: They lived pretty long lives. Did the town then have a mayor while you were
growing up, did it have a government, or was it just part of Shamong?
HW: When they separated, everything was — you know — they had their mayor, and I don’t know — back then I don’t — it was too small.
RM: Were any of the members of your families ever mayor or hold public office?
HW: No. School board and things like that they were on.
RM: So what did you kids, when you were kids, what did you do for play? Where did
you go? You’ve never been to Apple Pie Hill. Do you remember if there were ever
any big fires when you were living here?
DC: It was really bad when Vivian — they had a big fire, didn’t they? Up there. 20
HW: The closest fire that I remember was over here, the woods on (Rt.) 206. If you’re going south, it would be that woods right from Medford Lakes Road on down to where it’s all built up now. I remember that. It scared me to death.
RM: Were peoples’ houses destroyed?
HW: I don’t think — at that time it was just woods. The houses that were along the highway, were all protected. It was cleared far enough that it didn’t burn any homes
that I know of.
RM: That was around what year, if you can remember?
HW: I would say around 39. I was only a young kid.
JK: Harry, do you remember when Torusio’s farm burned down?
HW: Yeah. [Inaudible]
RM: Where was that?
HW: That was on Carranza Road. Go to the crossroads, make a right, it’s about a
mile down on the left.
RM: And their home was completely destroyed? Was anyone hurt?
JK: I remember going and seeing the barn and seeing the carcasses of the cows.
HW: Oh, yeah.
JK: Larry was in my class. Louie, I think, was older.
HW: Mmhmm.
RM: That was around what year?
HW: That was later than — I might be thinking of another one, the other–. What
farm are you talking about?
JK: I just told you everything that I remember. [Laughter]
HW: I didn’t know whether it was up, farther up Berkies [sp?], the Bricks people,
owned that farm.
RM: Was there a fire brigade, volunteer fire department, in Tabernacle?
HW: Well, I think that just started in 1940. Fellow by the name of Summers [sp?]
started the fire company, and that’s now the Tabernacle Fire Company. It used to
called Medford Farms Fire Company.
RM: Medford Farms was what area? It was part of Tabernacle. Can you show me
on here? 21
HW: I can tell you better. From Tabernacle-Medford Lakes Road all the way down
through to the point of Carranza and where our township line stops. All that area
where the firehouse is, in that area, and some across on the other side of (Rt.) 206.
RM: So it was fully within Tabernacle? It didn’t share a border with Medford or
Woodland Township?
HW: Well, they border, but it didn’t extend into the other townships. Medford
Farms.
RM: Did the area around here where you live have a special name? How did people
refer to it?
HW: Just as Tabernacle.
RM: This was Tabernacle. And in your lifetime, the township building was always
there.
HW: Yep. And getting back to the school, in the parking lot of the town hall is where
the small two-room school set on a kind of an angle. I went the first year, kindergarten, to school, and I remember, a friend of mine which was older, they used to come — you know, there was a steps came up from each side, and a little porch, and there was a cover like over, and I was walking in front of the steps. Somebody was ringing the bell and hit me in the head! [Laughter]
RM: Did you ever have peddlers, people who came in for knife sharpening or — do
you remember that? Or somebody that wanted to take pictures?
HW: We had milkmen that came and fish man from Tuckerton — Cramer [sp?]. A hokey pokey man that came, we called him.
RM: What did he do?
HW: Ice cream. Homemade ice cream.
RM: Where’d he come from?
HW: I’m not sure where he did come from.
RM: And that was when you were a kid?
HW: Mmhmm. Oh, yeah. Like they do today, ring a bell. A little old Model T – model
car. Homemade, you know what I mean, to suit their purpose.
RM: Now once you were married, you started — you were married in 1938, and
Jackie was born — .
DC: 1945.
22
RM: So in those seven years, were you working at home, helping with the farm?
DC: I wasn’t helping much.
JK: Existing.
HW: What year did you start with the telephone company?
DC: 1950. She (meaning Jackie, her daughter) was five.
RM: Did you ever belong to a sewing circle, a quilting group?
DC: Well, I went, but I wasn’t any…
JK:
[inaudible]
Your group.
DC: Yeah. Went to Aunt Rae’s, right next door.
RM: The group they called the Sew n’ Sews? Eventually they called it the Sew n’
Sews, right?
DC: Yeah I think so.
RM: So Rae said one time when I interviewed her, the sewing group when the
asparagus came in.
DC: Oh, yes
RM: Because that’s when work would start. I think we have a picture in here
[Pinelands Folklife.] This is something the Sew n’ Sews made, the Signature Quilt. I
think it probably has a lot of names that you’ve talked about on it.
JK: Mother had, and helped with, some quilts. She had — I want to say — Mother,
how many quilts do you have this group made? Three, maybe? I have one, and you
have at least one. So she had some made, and I know she helped with them.
RM: Do you remember when that group started, or was it before you were even
involved?
DC: No
RM: How about your mom? Was she involved here?
HW: Some, and even my wife used to help. Not as much, naturally because it was started before –
RM: It was quite an old group.
HW: Yeah
RM: Now did you do canning, pickling? 23
DC: No
RM: Making jam.
DC: No
RM: Your mom was doing that for you?
DC: I guess so. [Laughter]
RM: So why did you decide to work at the phone company?
DC: Well, I guess I figured it was time…
HW: Something to do.
RM: You and your husband figured it was time for you to go to work. And where did
you, where was that located?
DC: Yeah. In Mt. Holly.
RM: How did you get there?
DC: Well, I guess – I don’t know when I started to drive. Pete [?] took us, I think, to get her license.
HW: I’m sure you had it before you started to work.
RM: How did you like that job?
DC: It was good.
RM: What did you do there?
DC: I was an operator.
RM: That phone — plugging in? What area did that cover?
[Short discussion about Harry’s wife’s doctor appointment.]
RM: Now where is your house from here?
HW: Right across the street. [Laughter] I’ll tell you a story about that. My aunt and uncle, our aunt and uncle, had a farm in back of me. And they had a cow, or a couple of cows, or whatever. You know. And we used to go and get the milk from them. And every night –we’d go every day, fresh milk. Anyway, I remember telling my dad when we went by that property, I said, “When I get old enough to have a home, I’m going to buy that lot, and build a house!” And it worked out just that way.
RM: Why did you like it so much? 24
HW: Just the way — it had been farmed. It was part of this property that the only thing I can remember about the original owner, you know, was [Concannon?] her name was, and all these houses on this side of the road was part of this property on this side of the road. And that was sold to the Haines’s in Vincentown, and
RM: Haines’s are cranberry people mostly, right?
HW: Yeah, but they happened to be dairy people. They’re the ones that bought it. They bought this piece of property, and I bought the property on the other side. And they had sold a property between me and my cousin that she married an Abrams, and Abrams is from Southampton, not Shamong. And that’s how we, I guess, come to buy because I had thought about — I don’t know what it was about it, but I just wanted to buy that
[inaudible] when I get old.
RM: Well, congratulations. That was good!
HW: Well, anyway, to make a long story short, we were married at 19, my wife and I,
and two years later — three years, I guess it was, I was 22 when I was drafted into
the service for the Korean War. And when I came home, that’s when I started to build a home. Her brother Arthur — Ottie [sp?], we called him, he was a carpenter, and at that time, when I built a house, I had people from all over come and help, you know, put up the frame and do the roof. It took us a year to build it, because we’d work and work on weekends, nights and everything.
RM: But it was kind of a community effort to help build it.
HW: Yep.
RM: Can I get back to when you were a kid? What did you do when somebody got
sick?
DC: Well, the doctor could come out then.
RM: Where did he come from?
DC: Medford, I guess. Dr. –
HW: Doctor, what we called Dr. Ed Haines.
RM: Was there a hospital that anybody ever had to go to?
DC: Yeah, one of my uncle’s little boy died, I remember. Lester. We felt so bad about that.
RM: What did he die from?
DC: See, I don’t know. Don’t remember.
HW: I don’t remember. I guess he was maybe four or five.
RM: Are all your people buried in the Tabernacle Methodist graveyard? 25
HW: Well, it’s a Junior Mechanics graveyard.
RM: Oh! It’s just — I read that. It’s just by the one beside the church.
HW: No.
RM: Oh! Across the street! I’m just guessing like crazy here!
HW: Carranza Road, right? Make a left and you go down about three-quarters of a mile. You got out — that way — make a left and then it’s about three-quarters of a mile.
JK: On the left.
HW: It’s the Junior Mechanics. The one that’s at this crossroads, they don’t bury much in there anymore.
RM: Was it previously people who belonged to the church?
HW: Oh, yeah. The town –
RM: Did your mom have any special remedies she used, for a sore throat, or if you
had a fever?
DC: I don’t remember her complaining anything.
RM: Or with you when you got sick?
DC: I don’t remember getting sick! [Laughter]
RM: Well, maybe you didn’t. Look at you — you’re pretty healthy now. And living to
a nice old age. Just one or two questions about the town, and this area. How did you
feel when it started to grow a little bit? When they started to build houses and
development. How did the local people feel about that?
DC: It was ok, if they were good people.
HW: But I think some people kind of wished it didn’t happen.
DC: We sort of thought that we were kind of poor, didn’t we?
HW: We didn’t think it — we were! [Laughter]
RM: And the ones that came? Were they poor?
HW: I guess they were middle class people, so far as I know.
RM: Yeah, there are some pretty big houses now in Tabernacle. Did your taxes go
up, too? One time when — I think it was within a year that I moved there on Powell
Place Road, one of the men from — maybe it was Medford Oil — came to fix the
furnace, and he was talking a little bit about how things had changed in Tabernacle,
complaining that the new people moved in and the taxes went up, and the old folks
couldn’t continue to live here! And I thought, “Maybe I better move!” [Laughter]
“I’m one of the new people! Course, I’m paying the taxes, too.” So did the Pinelands
Commission — did those changes when the Pinelands Commission and the
regulations came in, did that affect you at all?
HW: No. It actually helped us.
RM: How is that?
HW: Well, they couldn’t build in the Pinelands.
RM: It meant that it didn’t continue to grow.
HW: As much That’s one problem that they have ways of getting around the laws for the Pinelands. A little scary sometimes. Well, just for instance, the way things are going with the pipeline.
RM: Ohhh, yes!
HW: Yeah.
RM: Yeah, they have pro-development people on the Commission now. But they got
a court stoppage on that, right? Maybe if we get a more conservation-minded
governor in next time, it will be safer. But I believe the county has done — the county
freeholders have done pretty well to prevent some of that.
RM: Well, I think I’m going to let you go for now. Is there anything else you want to
tell me, any story you remember?
DC: Jackie wanted me to tell when she was born, and Harry’s father took me to the hospital.
HW: In Mt. Holly. That was –
DC: ‘Course, he left me there. I remember lying there waiting for the doctor to come. I wanted the doctor to come! Because I didn’t know that I could help myself. I never had any training about having a baby or anything. So I just thought the doctor’s got to come. So he did, and I remember being home, in upstairs bedroom. It used to be your parents [Harry’s] before they moved. And I remember feeling contented with the new baby. [Laughter]
RM: How long did you stay in the hospital before you came back home? Do you
remember?
DC: [Shakes head “no.”]
RM: And do you remember, did they give you something to put you to sleep during
the birth?
DC: No.
RM: No shots. No gas. Just going through the whole thing, and you heard her first
cry. 27
DC: I don’t remember that! [Laughter]
RM: Well if you went through childbirth with no kind of anesthetic or anything, I
think you were pretty well tired.
DC: And my doctor didn’t charge any money. He didn’t charge any money of people that were in the service.
RM: Was your husband in the service at that time?
DC: Yes. He didn’t see her till she was three months old, I think.
RM: Where was he?
DC: He didn’t go out of the States. He was in Florida. He was in Texas, North
Carolina, he was.
RM: Did you move with him?
DC: [Shakes head no.]
RM: You stayed here all the time?
DC: Yeah, I did.
RM: SO he didn’t have to go to Korea.
DC: No.
HW: Actually, he was in the Second World War. I was in the Korean War.
RM: And when was he in the Second World War? What year? Your husband.
JK: 1945
HW: Yeah
RM: He didn’t go to Europe?
HW: No, he didn’t leave the States.
DC: He had trouble with his ears, wasn’t it?
HW: Yeah.
RM: So he was in the Second World War, not the Korean War.
HW: Well, the end of I call the Second World War.
RM: And he got to come home — how many years was he there? 28
DC: Two or three, I think.
RM: Must have been a worrisome time for you.
DC: Well, my family were close.
RM: That’s good. Any other stories you remember? [To Jackie] That you would like
to prompt your mom or ask about? Maybe you’ll think of some other things, because
sometimes when you start remembering some things, they remind you of other
things. My tape recorder and I could come back.
Well, thank you very much!
End of interview.
Interview with Rickey and Eileen Haines
Interview with Rickey and Eileen Haines
113 Carranza Road, Tabernacle, NJ 08088
March 29, 2017.
Present: Rickey Haines (RH) and Eileen Haines (EH)
Interviewer: Rita Moonsammy (RM)
RM: We’re starting! Do you want to tell me — first of all, would you both tell me your full names, your dates of birth.
RH: Ladies first.
RM: Eileen –
EH: Eileen Frances Worrell Haines
RM: Ahh! You’re a Worrell too! OK!
RH: Her mother was a Gerber.
EH: And my date of birth is May 17, 1944.
RH: Richard Christopher Haines. (Coughs) Excuse me. My date of birth is January the 23rd, 1939.
RM: And you were born…
RH: Right across the road.
RM: Right across Carranza Road. And what were your parents’ names?
RH: My parents were Richard Isaiah Haines and my mother was Ethel Katherine Tustin.
RM: How do you spell that?
RH: T-u-s-t-i-n.
RM: Was she from this area?
RH: She was from Philadelphia.
RM: How did they meet?
RH: Well, her father ran the farm across the road. And all this ground.
RM: Even though he lived in Philly.
RH: He was a florist in Philadelphia.
RM: What did he do, rent this?
RH: Well, I guess he farmed it — before me. And after — he died — I was only six months old when he died, after that they rented the farm.
EH: He had been married before.
RH: Yeah, he had two families.
EH: He had two families.
RH: All my relations had two families. [laughs] Except me.
RM: Well, women used to die in childbirth, and stuff like that, it wasn’t unusual, right?
RH: No, they didn’t.
RM: To have a second family.
EH: They didn’t. I mean, his second family was, the children were as old as his (second) wife. His (Rickey’s) grandmother.
RM: Oh!
EH: And when he died, he gave the ground to his grandmother and she had it as long as she lived.
RH: But she couldn’t (re)marry.
EH. But she couldn’t (re)marry.
RM: It was like in the will or something?
RH: If she (re)married, it (the land) went to her kids.
EH: And then, I don’t know how, his older children owned the ground –
RH: They got it in the will.
EH: Yeah, but what ground is it?
RH: It’s called “the picnic woods.”
EH: It was called “the picnic woods”
RH: That’s what we called it. That’s where they had the Harvest Homes (old farming communities used to call it the Harvest Home, but it was a town picnic that took place outside). It’s on Hawkin Road.
EH: And that was a big picnic that the whole town –
RH: Before my time!
EH: The whole town came to it.
RM: They didn’t do that while you were…
RH: No. That’s before me.
RM: Why did they stop?
RH: I have no idea.
EH: I do not know.
RH: Maybe because they died. I don’t know.
RM: I know that that was a common thing in farming communities, but…
RH: Used to have one in Shamong, too.
RM: And was that one going on at the time?
RH: Not that I know of. I don’t ever remember.
RM: Well, when did this area start to get suburbanized if you can call it that? You know, when did it start not being all farms?
EH: When was this road [Carranza Road] — this road wasn’t …
RH: This road was gravel when I was a kid.
EH: When he was a kid.
RH: And Medford Lakes Road, where Shawnee High School is, you couldn’t go through there in the summer time. It was all sand.
EH: Deep sand, like … Anyhow, his grandfather was — one of the kids were given the property on this side.
RH: The first family
EH: The first family was given the property on this side of the road, and they had called where my son lives — my son lives right next door — that was called the “pig lot.”
RH: “Hog lot.”
EH: “Hog lot.”
RH: Before me, it was always called the “hog lot.”
EH: That’s all of where — well, now — he calls it “Reidel Drive” but the township calls it “Ridell Drive.” All that area, was called — belonged to his…
RH: My aunt, from my grandfather’s first marriage.
EH: Your grandfather Tustin.
RM: That’s an interesting name. Do you have any idea of what that derivation was?
RH: No.
RM: I haven’t ever heard that name before.
EH: His grandmother’s house — well, when she died, this piece across the road was
deeded to his uncle and his aunt and his mother.
RH: Not together. They had all different….
EH: Each got different pieces.
RM: And it was farmland at that time?
RH: Oh, yeah.
RM: And that would have been around what year?
RH: What was?
RM: That she died and they each got their piece?
RH: When she died?
RM: Yeah, and it got broken up that way.
RH: I can tell you — if I can get it out. (Here Rickey is reaching into a cabinet to get out a book.)
RM: Is that your file cabinet? (Laughter)
EH: Anyhow, with his grandmother, well, his uncle got this piece right here, across
the road, and his mother and his aunt got, I guess from almost where Seneca’s
driveway is over and they decided to….
RH: Well, where Seneca’s driveway is was Foxchase Road. You know where
Foxchase Road is?
RM: Well, I know where the one (road) is that intersects with Powell Place Road is.
RH: Well, that used to come all the way out to here.
RM: And when did that get cut off?
RH: Oh, probably in the early 50s.
RM: Why?
RH: Well….
EH: They were farming it.
RM: Oh
RH: People that were farming it. (They) didn’t like cars going across there so they blocked it off.
RM: So is the property that Seneca’s on now, was that …. that was your…?
RH: Well, part of it. My mother’s and my aunt’s, and the rest of it belonged to Cutts brothers. And some of it, I guess part of (the) Beaumont farm, also.
EH: Yeah, it goes back to….
RM: Did you say Cutts?
RH: Yeah. Cutts brothers.
RM: Now who were they?
EH: They’re right up here next to the cemetery…almost to Holy Eucharist. Well, the
oldest one is… [Unintelligible]
RM: Give me a decade. You were alive. Did your grandma?
RH: When she died? Oh yeah.
EH: Yeah. My kids were even little then.
RM: Or your great-grandma. She’s the one that gave it to….
RH: No…My grandmother.
RM: Oh, I always have trouble with this! I ended up with Dee (Collins). They had to draw a little chart for me to keep clear who was who.
RH: I didn’t have a great-anybody (meaning great grandparents, etc.).
RM: They were gone by the time you came along?
RH: Oh, yes.
RM: How many siblings do you have?
RH: None.
RM: None? You were the only kid.
RH: Yeah, they gave up.
EH: And his father was an only child.
RH: And my father was an only child.
RM: So all those Haines on this property aren’t because of your dad. Not this
property, but around Tabernacle.
RH: Had nothing to do with my father. This property didn’t. My mother’s father.
RM: Where you live now?
RH: Mmmhmmm.
RM: And how many acres do you have?
RH: Fourteen, I think it is, now.
RM: So did you move from there here, after you got married?
EH: No.
RH: No. My mother and father built this house, and I moved in here when I was two years old, in 1941. And then they got divorced around, I’ll say, ‘58 or ‘59. And I lived here with my father, and then he got remarried, and I guess they lived here for about a year, and then I bought the house from them, and he moved to Medford Lakes.
RM: And that was in what year? That was before you and Eileen were married?
RH: Oh, yeah.
EH: That had to be around (19)60…?
RH: I was by myself. That was probably around (19)60 or (19)61.
RM: When did you guys get married?
RH: (19)63.
RM: So your dad lived in Medford Lakes with your stepmother.
EH: He was something over there, wasn’t he?
RH: Well, he was the assessor — tax assessor — and the court clerk, and he sold real estate.
EH: That’s pretty much why they went to Medford Lakes. Here he was…
RH: Here he was the tax collector until — and he had…
EH: The store.
RH: The store, next to the cemetery.
EH: Where it’s vacant right now. Holly had it for a flower shop.
RM: Yeah! Uh huh!
EH: That was the general store
.
RM: Oh, was the store that’s Nixon’s here — at that time?
RH: No.
EH: That was the post office at one time.
RH: He gives false information. He says that’s been here since 18-something. He’s full of shit! [Laughter]
RM: Well, it sounds good, doesn’t it?!
RH: Not to me it doesn’t! I don’t go there!
RM: Really? A matter of principle?
RH: Well, not because of that.
EH: Well, there’s a couple of reasons that have happened that…
RH: We won’t discuss that.
RM: You just don’t like to shop there.
EH: Yeah.
RM: And so, your dad had that store, and it was like a general store? And that’s how
he made the family living.
RH: Yeah, and I think that’s — and his father, his father was the tax collector, and when he died, my father took over for him, in Tabernacle.
EH: And he collected taxes right here at the house.
RH: He collected taxes here.
RM: Your grandfather’s name was what-Haines? What was his first name?
RH: My grandfather?
RM: Yeah, your dad was Isaiah?
RH: Howard.
RM: Your grandfather was Howard.
EH: His dad was Richard.
RH: Richard Isaiah.
RM: Richard Isaiah. Oh, right, ’cause your middle name — is your middle name
Isaiah?
RH: Christopher.
RM: I’m sorry. You said it before – Christopher.
RH: After my other grandfather.
RM: Ok, ok. Alright, I think I’m keeping this straight.
RH: I doubt it. [Laughter]
RM: So he didn’t do any farming. Your family hasn’t — your dad?
RH: No, he just…
EH: He just run the general store.
RM: Who was here before your grandfather? A Haines? Do you know that?
RH: His father, Howard K.
EH: But do you know — he lived over..
.
RH: Yeah, their house is still here. If you go down Flyatt Road, from the old school, go right across the highway, the first house on the right is the Haines house.
RM: And who lives there?
EH: We don’t know.
RH: No idea.
EH: We don’t know.
RM: So it’s like from the 1800s?
RH: Well, weren’t the pictures there in the — that I had down at the meeting?
EH: (Eileen is showing a picture.) This one?
RH: Yeah. Yeah, I guess that’s the bag.
RM: Oh, yeah! I loved looking at those pictures. Could have stood there for a long time and looked at them. So that was your great grandfather, right?
EH: I don’t know which one it was.
RH: [Unintelligible] — Frank Crain’s house.
EH: Frank Crain lived over…
RH: That house is on New Road, just past the school, on this side of New Road.
RM: Just past the Middle School?
EH: Yeah, kind of — the drive almost across from the driveway — like the far driveway.
RM: Does the house still look like this?
RH: Very close. It’s got an addition on the back.
RM: I’m going to have to look at that with different eyes now.
EH: That addition — I was going to say — this I don’t think is there.
RH: He was the first township clerk, Frank Crain, in Tabernacle.
RM: And was that C-r-a-n-e?
RH: Yes. Oh, no no no! A-I-N!
RM: A-I-N. (Crain) That’s the Haines house? And it’s still there, just across 206 on Flyatt Road.
EH: It looks a little different.
RH: First house on the right.
RM: I’ll have to drive over there just to see it. Now, are those relatives?
RH: (Looking at more pictures.) Yes, my grandfather and grandmother. Tells you on the back, I think.
RM: Howard…
EH: And Martha.
RM: Haines. OK. Around 1850. Or is that…? Yeah.
EH: 1800.
RM: 1800.
EH: 1900. Doesn’t it…?
RM: Wow, I should say!
EH: 1900, I think.
RM: Is it?
EH: Yeah.
RM: That sounds more like it, ’cause I don’t think his — yeah, that would be too long ago.
RH: My father was born in 1910.
RM: So nobody on that side was ever farming?
EH: You said he died there in — [Unintelligible]
RM: Nobody on your side was ever farming — that you’re aware of.
RH: Well, they were [?], that’s all I know.
EH: And this is the picture of the store before your dad had it.
RH: That store burned down. That’s where the original township records were…
RM: In the store?
RH: And that building burned down. And the house next to it is still there.
EH: Lily (Fitzpatrick) lives in it, and then the church is — the Methodist church is right next to that.
RM: And now — but is this where the store that — was the florist and now it’s closed up?
RH: Mmhmm.
RM: So did you help out in there? In that store a lot?
RH: When I was a kid.
RM: You did? What was it like?
RH: I never had a whole lot of time for it. She worked there.
EH: I worked there. That’s when I met my husband, there (meaning Rickey Haines).
RM: Really?
EH: Well, I knew of him before. But never really…
RM: So you were a Gerber.
EH. I wasn’t a Gerber. My mother was a Gerber. I was a Worrell.
RM: Oh, ok. So is Harry a cousin?
EH: Harry is my first cousin. His dad and my dad are brothers. Were 13 (other siblings) — my dad has 13 brothers and sisters.
RH: Didn’t have television in those days.
EH: Needed — my dad, I think, was the first that went to high school, out of the family, because they needed them to work on the farm, to keep the family going, you know.
RM: By the way, this is off topic, but I tried to call…
RH: Now the farm that they farmed, they rented from my grandfather, they lived across the road…
EH: At Foxchase. Where they lived at Foxchase.
RM: So where they lived, they lived down on Medford…
EH: Harry, yes…
RM: Close to Dee.
EH: Yes, the very first house in from the highway.
RH: Dee is Harry’s aunt.
RM: Right. So, did you [Eileen] live down on that road?
EH: I lived up here on Chatworth Road. Um. The, it would be, the — coming — if you came out Zimmerman Road, and came toward Tabernacle, I was the first house there on the right, and it’s still there, I mean, you can see the horses and all behind them there.
RM: So that was kind of close to where the Ormes live?
EH: Yeah, well…
RH: Well, across the field.
EH: Across the field, ’cause we would, when I was a kid, we would go up to the corner, and then walk up — that’s where my grandmother lived.
RH: Betty Orme was a Gerber.
RM: And she was a Gerber.
EH: She was a Gerber — Olive Gerber. Olive and George Gerber. And that’s where Aunt Betty, probably was born.
RH: Betty and her mother (pointing to Eileen) were sisters.
RM: And Betty was — who to Dee and ….
EH: A cousin. Just like I am. My grandfather Gerber and her grandfather….
RH: And Dee’s father were brothers.
RM: OK. They were two of the five brothers who married the five sisters. So did
these families get together a lot? I might not even know…
RH: Hell, no! They don’t even hardly talk to each other.
RM: Really? Why would that be? They’re just not — well, what about your family?
What about the Haineses?
RH: Don’t have any relations.
RM: That seems so funny, since there’s so many — you know, since the name is all
over.
RH: They’re not related.
EH: This was the Gerber Family.
RM: Oh, what a great picture! Now this is the Gerbers — who Gerber?
EH: That’s Harry’s father and my grandfather — and, not — Harry’s grandfather and my grandfather, Phillip Gerber, he lives around here where Four Winds is. He had — his farm was there. Rae Gerber — Edward was one of the brothers. And who else.
RH: We’re gonna have you really confused by the time you leave here!
RM: I’m not trying to keep it straight at this point! I’m going to end up asking you to
draw me one of those little things. And you know what else? I got a big map of
Tabernacle, and what I would love to do, is to get people to mark where these
different farms were, or houses. I got this great big thing. And we won’t try to do
that now, because I want to, you know, just listen to you tell me about all these
families. But it would be really nice to have a map, you know, that shows where the
different families were. So, we’ll keep that in mind. I’ll come back and bother you
another time.
EH: See, this was my father, and this was Uncle Pete. He lived here in Tabernacle; he lived on (Rt.)206.
RM: OK, and he was a Gerber.
EH: Worrell.
RH: Worrell.
RM: Worrell!
EH: And this is Aunt Emily, and she was an O’Neal, and she lived over on Flyatt Road, where the farm is with everything all around it, across from the sod farm, like. So they all stayed here in Tabernacle. But this was all his family.
RM: I love that. (Talks about her pipe dream of kids moving here.)
EH: I have the pipe dream! Because my son lives here, my other son lives behind them on Reidel or Ridell Drive, whatever you want to call it. They can come up through the field, and come up without have to go on the road.
RM: Oh, that’s nice. And they have kids?
EH: They have kids. That’s years ago, but the top one (gesturing at a picture), they have three kids. And — but the youngest one there, in her lap, is going to be eighteen in May. And now they’re at the college age, so they’re all going to go to college.
RM: And what do your sons do?
EH: Mike works….
RH: He’s uh — well, I don’t know what they do call it now. He works with Fish and Wildlife, and he’s the — well, he started out as heavy equipment operator, but now he’s the boss. He’s got his title over there. I don’t know what it is. (Unintelligible as Eileen goes to look for his business card in the kitchen.)
RM: And what about the other one?
EH: The other one…
.
RH: He’s an accountant.
EH: He is a CPA, MRA, PSA.
RM: Is his office around here?
RH: Oh, yeah. He has one in Medford Lakes and he has one — he works in Toms River.
RM: Hmmm. He’s got a hike.
RH: He goes all over the state.
RM: And how many kids does he have?
RH: Two.
RM: I figured there were grandchildren coming here when I saw that tire swing out
there.
EH: (Showing photograph) This is my youngest one.
RM: Rodney.
EH: And he works for Holman Frenier and Allison (Accountants) and this was Mike.
RM: (Reading business card) “Crew Supervisor, Equipment Operation, Bureau of
Land Management.” So he really knows what’s going on around here with…
.
RH: He doesn’t work around here.
.
EH: His main office is in Collier’s Mills.
RM: Where’s Collier’s Mills?
RH: You go up Route 539, and it’s up there, uh…
RM: By New Egypt?
RH: No, past New Egypt.
RM: Past New Egypt.
EH: But he works all over.
RH: He works all over.
EH: I mean, he can be over to Pemberton, around the water and all over there, or he can be putting birds out in Medford, off of Ark Road…
RM: Putting birds out?
EH: Yeah, pheasants, for the hunters. And…
RM: I didn’t realize they did that, the way the stock fish.
RH: Stock fish. [Unintelligible] by the bucketful.
RM: So what does he think of the Pinelands Reserve, the restrictions?
RH: I don’t think he’s ever said.
EH: I don’t think that’s he’s really likes the deal that’s up at Chatsworth, because he’s a hunter and it’s cut down a lot of their hunting ground, and that kind of stuff, you know.
RH: Oh, you’re talking about the…
EH: DeMarco’s property.
RH: Conservation laws.
RM: But it’s helped to keep the area from getting overrun, right, with more
suburban houses and development?
RH: Well, I think DeMarco should have sold the grounds to another cranberry grower.
RM: What are they doing with it now?
RH: Not growing cranberries.
EH: Hikers.
RH: It’s Franklin Parker Preserve, or whatever they call it.
RM: Ohhhh.
RH: You go in there and you hike, and I guess you can camp there.
RM: Now the Lees still have cranberries in Tabernacle.
EH: No.
RH: Down in Washington (Twp.).
RM: What other families are growing cranberries in Tabernacle?
EH: Cuttses.
RM: The Cuttses?
RH: Moores.
RM: Oh. Moores Meadows.
EH: Mmmhmm.
RM: Richie — Ricky — somebody whose name is Richard, too, O’Neal. He has an
insurance agency? I’m supposed to interview him on Friday.
RH: That’s her cousin.
RM: Your cousin? [Laughter]
RH: He used to be my partner.
RM: In?
EH: Farming.
RH: In farming.
RM: Oh, you farmed.
EH: We farmed all this property where Seneca High School is. It was a hundred acres that we farmed.
RM: How did you feel about it when they decided to put a high school there?
RH: Better than houses.
RM: True. That took a long time to get approval, didn’t it? Seems to me that I
remember the head of the Department of the Interior even came and made a visit
here at some point. A lot of wrangling about whether or not they could build a
school there?
RH: They put the school on the lowest spot, and they put eight thousand loads of fill dirt under there.
EH: I don’t know if it was eight thousand; it was a lot, a LOT! Trucks! I mean, I would count ’em. A couple hundred every day.
RM: Oh, my god. Your road must have been like — while that was being put up.
EH: Yeah.
RM: Why did they put it on the lowest spot?
RH: Don’t ask me. I have no idea. Have to ask the engineers that designed it.
RM: What’s it like with the school now? Has it changed things for you much?
EH: Not too much.
RH: No, not much.
EH: There for a while we were having an accident usually once a week, but that was a couple years ago, but I haven’t noticed too many accidents now. And just first thing in the morning — and a lot of times now, it’s before we ever get up because we’re retired and everything.
RH: Well, so many people bring their kids to school.
EH: Yeah, not (on the buses, that irritates you?)
RH: The buses aren’t nowhere near capacity. And there’s hundreds, and I’m not exaggerating, hundreds of cars go in there in the mornings and come out. Hundreds of them!
EH: But it doesn’t really bother us, and…
RH: It doesn’t bother us, but I think it’s ridiculous.
EH: And in the afternoon you have the traffic and the buses, but it doesn’t really bother us. We said — we were irritated when they said they were going to put a school there and everything — we said “Well, we’re gonna move,” but it never….
RM: Didn’t have that big an impact in the long run.
EH: No, no.
RM: Well, that’s good.
EH: Well, the only thing, the impact that it had was the drainage that they have. My son’s house is low and with the drainage that there is, he gets a lot of water — well, he did get it in his basement, but I think that he’s got it pretty much, he’s got a couple, two, three sump pumps running all the time, you know, because of the way…
.
RM: So he’s more across from the school.
RH: Right across from.
EH: Right across.
RH: He’s on the corner.
RM: So he must get more noise or activity.
EH: He gets the bright lights…
RM: Oh, that would really bother me.
EH: But I don’t hear them complain or anything, ’cause their kids are at the age now where sports, and so they’re running constantly, you know. They have them in karate and so they…
RM: So are his kids going to that school?
EH and RH: Not yet.
RM: Oh.
RH: They’re over here — Tabernacle.
EH: (Showing pictures) This one is in second grade, and so when his mom’s not home, usually they’ll call and ask me “Will you meet the bus,” because the oldest one is in the middle school, and he comes home earlier, and they won’t allow him to get off the bus when — they’re the first ones to get off. They won’t allow them to cross the road, so he rides around. He goes past his house three times before he gets home from school. Now the second one, the youngest one….
RH: That’s his choice.
EH: Yeah. ‘Cause his mother did make arrangements for the second one to have somebody go and meet the bus, go across the road to bring him back across the road, and because he is a very nervous kid. And so…
RM: That gives him more confidence.
EH: Yeah, but they won’t allow — they just come in, and really and they have to stop, you know, it just does give one first car, I think, can get in behind them off Carranza before, you know, they have to stop, you know. But as long as he’s in the elementary school, I think somebody has to meet him, but otherwise nobody has to meet them.
RM: So the granddaughter who’s going to college now, she went to Seneca?
EH: Yeah.
RM: She just had to walk across the street!
EH: Well, the…
RH: Well, now they have to drive. [Laughter.]
EH: Well, our grandson and granddaughter both, they both went at the same time, and they walked through the woods, because there’s a little piece of woods between the two houses, and they walked through the woods and then they walked across their Uncle Rodney’s property to the school. You know. Now the youngest one, she don’t like to walk, so she would always get her friends to come in, and they’d come in this way and go pick her up and bring her back, you know. She plays softball, and
she has so much equipment that it was too heavy for her to carry, you know, so…
RM: So let me bounce back to — wait! Did you tell me what your dad did?
EH: My dad worked, he was….
RH: He worked in the mill.
EH: In the mill, GLF: Grain League Federation.
RH and EH: In Bordentown.
RH: That was the last place he worked.
EH: Yeah, which became Purdue eventually.
RM: What did they mill?
RH: Grain.
EH: My mother was a substitute mail carrier, for twenty year, I guess. She never became a full time, so she never got a pension or anything. She liked just being for them to call her and say “Can you come in?” and she’d get up and work that way.
RM: Did she have something she drove around Tabernacle?
EH: No! They had to use their (own) car.
RH: Her car.
RM: Oh!
EH: That’s right. You had to use your car.
RH: Use your — even the regular carriers had to use their own vehicle. They didn’t have a federal mail jeep. She [points to Eileen] did the same thing.
EH: I started…
RH: She was a full time…
EH: Yep. When I started, I was only a sub, and I had to use my car, but then they gradually got the mail trucks, and so then I became…
RH: They all have mail trucks now, but originally they had to use their own car.
RM: So when you were carrying mail, was the post office at that store still?
RH: No.
RM: Because you said the store was your dad’s…yeah It was where it is now?
RH: No.
EH: It was on Main Street in Vincentown. They tore it down, where it was. They’re putting a park in there now.
RM: So you had a way to go. You had to go up (Rt.) 206.
EH: Yeah. I had to go up to (Rt.) 206 and into Vincentown.
RM: So you carried mail in Vincentown?
EH: I carried — most of the time I was out here on Oakshade Road in…
RH: Shamong, mostly.
EH: I went down Oakshade Road and did Hollybush and across the road and did Tabernacle where Doug lives. What’s that called? Harrowgate. Did Harrowgate and then went back to the post office. Then my son was going to go to college, so I said I better go full time. Before I did that, I worked in the cafeteria at Tabernacle School. And I worked there all while the kids were in elementary school, elementary and middle school. Then I had the part time job at the post office, but it would just be Saturdays most of the time that I would work as a sub. And when she (the full time carrier) took a vacation, well then I would have to call in sick at the school, and go work there (post office), and then it came that there was an opening for a clerk’s job in the post office, so I went over and became a clerk at the post office. Well, I had twenty years all together with the post office.
RM: And that was your last job.
EH: That was my last job, yeah.
RM: (Talking to Rickey) And you did a number of things. But was any of them your actual job? You said you were a fire warden and something else.
RH: Section fire warden for the state.
EH: Well, you were a farmer way up until…
RH: I farmed, and when I started to work for the state. It was a part time job. And then it evolved into a full time job.
RM: Now you said your dad didn’t farm. He had the store. When did you decide to
farm?
RH: [Unintelligible]
EH: No, when you got out of high school.
RH: I farmed when I was IN high school.
RM: You worked for somebody else?
RH: No! I was on my own.
EH: That’s when Richard O’Neal and him became partners.
RH: After I got out of school.
RM: And now where was the land you were farming?
RH: Right there.
RM: The one across the street.
EH: He did farm this.
RH: Yeah, I farmed this. This ground belonged to her.
EH: Aunt
RH: And Rich’s (O,Neal) aunt
EH: [Unintelligible] Flyatt Road, where his father farmed.
RM: All this while you were in high school?
EH: After he graduated.
RM: You have a lot of initiative.
RH: Why not?!
RM: Why did you decide to farm?
RH: I don’t know, I….
EH: His aunt told me….
RH: Always wanted to farm.
EH: From the time he was a little kid, he’d go out and he would plant, I don’t know what if she said it was a carrot or what, and she said he would plant it and he would go, let it go for a little while, and then he would go out and he would pull it out and look at it and then he’d put it back in the ground again. [Laughs]. So I guess that’s what…
RM: He liked to watch things grow. So what did you start with? When you were in
high school?
RH: When I was in high school? Field corn. Then after that it was tomatoes and carrots and sweet corn.
EH: Then we went to pick-your-own.
RM: Oh, did you? Over here?
EH: Yeah.
RM: Now when was that, ’cause I don’t remember ever seeing a pick-your-own.
Conte’s was the — no! Four Wind Farms? Was blueberries. Yeah, I figure it must
have been him. But that was my first awareness. I was still living in Mt. Laurel. We
would come and pick blueberries, and then I think I didn’t know about Conte’s until I
moved here, but I didn’t — so you were before Conte’s even, before Four Winds
Farm.
RH: Yeah, well, Joe Conte moved here from Red Lion. He bought Bob Haines’s farm and one of the Fletcher (Fletcher’s was a dairy farm) farms. He used to farm on Red Lion Road in Southampton Township.
RM: Red Lion Road. That’s the one that goes off like that, off of 70?
EH: I think it’s on the Eayrestown, Red Lion-Eayrestown Road. The one that goes past the Red Lion Inn on that side.
RM: Oh, that’s ok. Right. So when did you stop farming?
RH: I don’t remember, really.
EH: Well, we were still farming when we had the fire. ’83, I
RH: House fire.
EH: The upstairs.
RM: This house?
EH: Yeah. See, it was a snowstorm, and I was still working at the school.
RH: It was a blizzard.
EH: It was a blizzard, and they had called the night before and said school was cancelled. And when we went to bed, we had a fireplace, and it had a heat-a-lator in it, and he banked it up and everything. I woke up about one o’clock, and I said to him, “Did you close the fireplace?” And he got up and looked and he… I don’t know what he saw, but he says…
RH: I saw that the wall was — I looked up the chimney and the wall was burning, outside the chimney.
EH: So I — he said, “Get the kids up”!
RH: What happened was the mortar had deteriorated and fell out from the chimney. It was a wooden wall, that…
RM: And you just happened to wake up.
RH: That’s all.
EH: And he said “Get the kids up,” and we got the kids dressed and went downstairs. Well, we called the fire company right away. We were downstairs before the smoke alarm ever went off. We were all dressed. But we did lose a little poodle, ’cause the poodle was in with the boys and the boys thought it had come out, and it didn’t. We lost the whole upstairs.
RM: Holy cow! How long did it — was the fire company coming from Tabernacle?
EH: But it was a blizzard.
RH: Well, not this firehouse.
RM: No, but the one over on (Rt.) 206.
EH: Yeah.
RH: Well, we had four of them in there. We had everybody.
EH: Yeah, there was all of them.
RH: We had Medford and Indian Mills, Vincentown, Hampton Lakes.
EH: They did — pretty much the upstairs. The only room that it was in was our
bedroom. It went right up — my closet was right there and it just burnt everything
in my closet. And his closet was on the opposite side of the room and it looked just
like newspapers hanging on the hangers in his closet.
RH: It just melted.
EH: You know, and….
RH: That’s what it looked like. That’s be your shirt hanging there. (Holds up a piece of newspaper.)
EH: And so, he was doing something that he wasn’t supposed to do at the time. He
pulled the electric meter off of the…
RH: That was the first thing I did — go out and take the electric meter.
RM: During the fire? Before the fire.
RH: Yeah, before the fire company…
EH: Yeah, got here.
RM: Because you weren’t supposed to have it there? Or why did you take it off?
RH: No, no, no! You’re supposed to call the electric company.
RM: While there’s a fire? And wait for…?
EH: Or the fire company calls them, or somebody calls them.
RH: You’re not supposed to fight a fire in the house if the electricity is on. So I took the meter and I put it in my truck. And after they had the fire out, I just put the meter back [unintelligible]
EH: And we saved the whole bottom of the house.
RH: We saved everything else.
EH: We could dry the water up and everything where the fire company had put
water on it. So we saved most of the things in the house, so we didn’t have to replace all of that. Our insurance did cover everything that we had to replace, but if we had left the water in here and everything, we would have had to replace all the wood.
RH: [Unintelligible]
RM: How long did it take to rebuild?
RH: Oh, we had it done by….
EH: February and we was done in June, I think it was. At the time we were farming
and they had just — ’cause we had cows over at….
RH: Just killed the cows.
EH: Yeah, we had just killed the cows for our meat, and they were hanging out back,
and we said we had too much equipment and everything for nobody to be here. The
insurance company rented a house trailer and we put it right next to the house.
RH: Right here. This room wasn’t here then.
EH: Yeah.
RH: They put the trailer right here.
RM: Well, that was good, but that was a change, living with…
RH: It wasn’t the best of house trailers. [Laughter)
Side B
EH: Yeah, we farmed until, what? Mike must have been going to high school?
RM: Why did you decide to stop?
RH: Financial reasons.
RM: It wasn’t…
EH: No.
RM: Didn’t pay?
RH: And then we built the co-op.
EH: Co-op down the highway and then they carted the corn down there to get
hydro-cooled.
RM: Now I’ve gone to the co-op, or I did, for some years ago, and I don’t remember
seeing them selling anything there but plants and maybe…
EH: They shipped it out.
RH: The produce was mostly all corn, was put on a truck and hauled to wherever.
EH: To New York.
RM: They don’t do that anymore?
RH: They’re out of business.
RM: Right. I know, but they get sold or it’s open again under some other…
RH: Yeah. Rich. A fellow named Rich from Hazel — or Redmond. I mean Redmond!
RM: But he doesn’t run it as a co-op anymore.
EH: Mmhmm. Just an outdoor farm market. Yeah.
RM: How many acres was it that you were farming?
RH: All together maybe a hundred and fifty or sixty. There’s a hundred across the
road.
RM: So your yearly round was like — when did you start for the new season?
March? Seems to me that’s when I see the ground starting to be turned over by the
tractors.
EH: Yeah.
RM: Did you ever grow asparagus? There are still some asparagus fields on — at
least there used to be on Medford Lakes Road, but I haven’t seen anything on there
for a couple years.
RH: I think there’s still a few there by the house. I think that’s asparagus, but that
might be gone.
RM: I know the Contes used to sell it in big amounts.
RH: You have to have at least two years to get the asparagus.
RM: But then does it grow every year? I know that it takes two years to get it.
RH: Long as you take care of it.
RM: So what’s the first thing? You’d start plowing, or — ? Tell me about what you’d
do.
RH: You’d plow first.
RM: Did you put cover crops on?
RH: Mmhmm.
RM: What would you put on?
RH: Rye.
RM: And then you’d just — there’s no kind of…
EH: They’d just cut that in when they’d plow.
RM: And then when would you actually start planting?
RH: Ohhhhh — April.
RM: Did you have help besides family?
RH: Yes.
RM: Where’d you get your help?
EH: Well, when we planted tomatoes, my sister-in-law and my dad’s sister, Aunt
Emily, and our minister’s wife would plant the tomatoes. It had a machine where
two of us would sit side by side and have this tray of tomato plants in front of us and
had a wheel that went around and you had to be ready to put it on the wheel and it
would plant the tomatoes. So we would plant two rows at a time.
RM: And then what did you have to do?
EH: Then we had to go back in between…
RH: You mean to grow the crop?
RM: Mmhmm.
RH: Well, you had to fertilize it, and spray it, and cultivate it.
EH: And we had to walk over and see if we missed. You know, ’cause sometimes you couldn’t get your plants apart to put them in there. So then you had to put…
RH: You usually had somebody walk behind.
EH: Replant.
RH: To plant where they missed.
RM: Did you have to weed?
RH: Yeah, that’s cultivation.
EH: Cultivate is what he would do with the….
RM: With the….
EH: Tractor.
RH: With a hoe?
RM: Yeah. After the plant was in and growing.
RH: Yeah, you had to.
RM: And then who picked the crop?
RH: People from Philadelphia.
RM: And were they — I remember the first couple years I was here I saw, I think it was Cambodians, would be brought out in a van or something from Philadelphia?
EH: Ours were just black people. They had a crew…
RH: They were mostly the same ones all the time. But they wanted to work.
EH: The crew leader.
RM: Right.
RH: They don’t want to work anymore.
EH: And they — it was — they would have one of those ladies, she would start a
fire…
RH: She’d have a charcoal grill and she’d cook their meals for them.
EH: Cook fish and all that.
RH: Very good food.
RM: I can imagine!
EH: I never ate anything. He would eat a little.
RM: Did the other farmers around here get similar…?
RH: They all did the same, too. For Campbells.
RM: And when did you start getting Puerto Ricans, I imagine were the first ones that
came.
RH: Same time.
EH: Yeah, we have a building down here that they built for the Puerto Ricans, it was
their house. We would — you would get them, what, in…?
RH: Get them when we start planting tomatoes.
EH: Yeah. And they were funny because they would have an inspector come out and inspect the house. You had to have screens on and you had to have mirrors and
everything.
RM: Is that the Department of Ag? Or Labor? Who did…?
RH: Labor, I think it was.
EH: And they would inspect it and they would put a — say on there that it was ok.
As soon as you put the Puerto Ricans in there, they would turn the mirror around
and they would take the screens off. (Laughter) Sometimes they would have a party
and they would drink and they would have a party. Well, one morning he went
down to get them and they had had a pillow fight, and he said they had feathers all
over the place! And that day they didn’t work. (Laughter)
RM: Now, did you have to get, like a permit to have them come in? Were they
migrants? Did they then go back to Puerto Rico?
RH: Yeah, they went back to Puerto Rico. We didn’t have to have permits. Most of
them came to the Glassboro — I can’t think of what it was called.
EH: You got them from…
RH: Because most of the Puerto Ricans at that time came through the Glassboro…
EH: He always went down to Glassboro and would pick them up.
RM: Would they have crew leaders, too?
RH: No. I was the crew leader.
RM: How about Mexicans? Did you ever have them working here?
EH: We never had them.
RM: ‘Cause I know the Contes and the Russos had a lot of Mexicans.
RH: Yeah, they came after the Puerto Ricans.
RM: In the 90s. None of those people settled here?
RH: Well, Larry Conte married one.
RM: Mexican lady, right?
EH: Now, my daughter-in-law…
RH: Our daughter-in-law is Puerto Rican. And her father worked for Bill Haines.
RM: Who?
RH: Bill Haines, in Hog Wallow.
RM: Uh huh.
EH: And he’s — she’s the one on that picture. (Showing picture.)
RM: I see. Pretty girl.
EH: She was one of their youngest. I think there was seven kids, I think. And Bill
Haines provided them with houses and all. And they stayed year round. I mean,
they would just go down (to Puerto Rico) maybe…
RH: Yeah, they lived there.
EH: A month or so.
RH: Well, Puerto Ricans are citizens of the United States.
RM: Yeah. Right. So that wasn’t an issue.
EH: Yeah, so… But that’s…
RM: But it isn’t like Hammonton. Hammonton’s got a lot of — Latinos there now and I guess a lot of them are Guatemalans.
RH: That’s why I’d rather go to the Hammonton Walmart. I get along with those people better than I did with the ones in Lumberton! [Laughter]
RM: Where did you go to school?
RH: Just up the road.
RM: The brick building?
EH: The brick building, yeah.
RM: That’s the alternative school now.
EH: Yeah, it was only…
RH: Four rooms.
EH: It was only four rooms when you went there, right?
RH: There were two classes each.
RM: Elementary.
RH: Right.
EH: And when I went they had added on the first two rooms, I think it was, so that there were six rooms, and they added the bathrooms, and a teachers’ room, and you went up steps to get to the older part.
RM: So did that — when there were two classes in one room, the one teacher was teaching two different grades at the same time?
RH: Yep.
RM: A country school. My mom taught in a country school. In Missouri.
RH: They had two different grades?
RM: You know, I don’t know that. I wish I’d asked. There are a lot of things you
don’t think about asking until it’s too late. But she was orphaned and she was in
foster homes for — from the time she was around ten until she was eighteen. And
she decided she wanted to be a teacher, and she went to school in the summer, to
college classes, and in the winter she taught. And she did that for eight years till she
got her teaching certificate.
RH: Well, I think a lot of people did (that) in those years.
EH: I was going to say, when you went, it was the same way, wasn’t it?
RM: And where did you go to high school, Mt. Holly?
EH: I didn’t. I was the first class to go all the way through Lenape. My brother, he
was the first class to graduate, but he went to Mt. Holly, or Rancocas Valley, for two
years, and then he did two years at Lenape.
RM: Now how many different towns was Lenape getting then?
EH: Same as what they do — Woodland!
RH: Woodland wasn’t then. No.
EH: No.
RH: But all the other ones were in…
RM: Yeah, but Marlton goes to Cherokee, right?
RH: All in Lenape District.
RM: Right, right.
EH: But they originally all went to Lenape.
RM: Mmhmm. Yeah. And your sons went to Shawnee, or did they go to Lenape?
EH: Our youngest son went to Shawnee. My oldest son went to vocational school.
There at Medford. The Vo Tech. Well, it’s called something else now.— IT.
RH: I don’t know.
EH: I don’t know what it’s called now.
RH: Burlington County Institute of — something.
EH: Yeah. Technology.
RM: What was like the biggest event in Tabernacle, usually. What were some of the
kinds of things that…?
RH: When I was a kid?
RM: Uh huh.
RH: Wasn’t much of anything.
RM: Did pretty much everybody…?
EH: The church was everything pretty much for me, I think.
RH: I didn’t go to church.
EH: He didn’t go to church. Yeah.
RM: But did they have things, like a picnic, or — and everybody …?
RH: Yeah, they had those things.
RM: Would go to that or only the church members?
EH: Mostly the church members. Maybe the PTA had something. You know, they
had a dinner that the school had a — ’cause you read in your dad’s thing about the
school having the — a dinner.
RH: Oh, the school had a venison dinner for the kids.
RM: For the kids?
RH: For the kids. I don’t think they could do that today.
RM: Probably there would be people object to the fact that it was hunted. So, were
most of the men around here hunters?
RH: Years ago, yes. Everybody hunted.
RM: And were there hunting clubs then?
RH: Oh, lots of them!
RM: With club houses?
RH: Mmhmmm.
RM: What was the closest one?
RH: Woodstown. You know where Russo’s Puerto Rican house is and irrigation hole
on Chatsworth Road?
EH: Where Hillman’s Concrete was?
RH: Right across the road? Right on the hill there. That was Woodstown Deer Club.
RM: And the name was Woodstown Deer Club?
RH: Mmhmm. The people came from Woodstown because, at the time, there were no deer in South Jersey. So all the people had to come up here to deer hunt.
RM: Oh, you mean farther south. Why was that?
RH: You gotta ask somebody more important than me! They just weren’t there! (Laughter) There was Shiloh. They came from Shiloh.
RM: Wow, Shiloh. That’s…
EH: Well, the Shiloh ones…
RM: That’s way down in Cumberland County — way down!
RH: They had a deer club right before you get to Bordentown Deer Club. It was a quonset hut.
EH: Yeah, side — it was a quonset hut.
RH: I think it’s still there. You just can’t see it anymore. It grew up in woods.
EH: Yeah.
RM: Now this New Harmony Gun Club, that’s…
RH: Chatsworth.
RM: Chatsworth. Did any of the people in Tabernacle belong to that one.
RH: I don’t think so.
RM: Did you ever belong to one?
RH: To a deer club?
RM: Uh huh.
RH: No, we just had a bunch.
RM: A bunch? Did your bunch have a name? The Tabernacle Bunch?!
RH: The Lower Forge.
RM: Lower Forge? Where’d that name come from?
RH: It came from Lower Forge! [Laughter]
RM: Where’s the Lower Forge?
RH: Up on the Wharton Tract.
RM: Was there a forge…?
RH: Before the state owned it.
RM: Was there a forge there? Is that how it got…?
RH: At one time, yeah.
RM: So, was that your gathering spot?
EH: They would go up…
RM: You had deer stands there?
RH: Well, they built a cabin there, and paid the state — I forget how much money
every year to have the cabin there. But then when the state bought the Joe Wharton
estate, they burned all the buildings down on it.
RM: So there aren’t any gun clubs…
RH: Not on state property.
EH: So you, when you were — or the kids, when the Haines, had blueberries up,
farming at Tabernacle Eagle [?], and he — they used his — what did he have?
RH: Puerto Rican house.
EH: Puerto Rican house. For their gunning club.
RM: So, when — would you go there and stay there for like a few days like some of
them did, when they came in from other places, or would you just go out on the
weekend or what?
RH: They would stay there for the week.
EH: They would go up on…
RH: Sunday and stay till Saturday.
EH: Sunday.
RM: And how long is the deer season?
RH: At that time it was a week.
RM: It’s just a week.
RH: It still is, the regular deer season. For shotgun, just a week. But you can hunt
deer now, from Labor Day to Easter, I think.
EH: Because of bow and arrow and…
RH: You have bow and arrow. You have…
RM: So they don’t have seasons for bow and arrow.
RH: Yes they do. But it goes on and on forever.
RM: Why?
RH: Money.
EH: The state gets more money. ‘Cause every season you have to have a different
license. He just…
RH: I just bought my license.
RM: How much does that cost?
RH: Well, being a senior citizen, you get the firearms for half price, which is half — is $15.50. And bow and arrow is $16.50. [??] a dollar more. Then if you want to hunt turkeys, you have to get a turkey permit, which I have, too.
RM: So you still hunt all those things? All those critters.
RH: (Nods)
RM: And is the Lower Forge Bunch still…?
RH: Not really.
EH: No.
RH: What’s left of us is just me and my cousin, Paul, who was — his father was in it. That’s how I got in it, ’cause my father was in it, too. But now we meet down here at my shop.
RM: Where’s your shop?
RH: Right down…
EH: Where the Puerto Rican house was.
RM: Oh.
EH: ‘Cause that Puerto Rican house was made into a shop, and then now…
RH: That’s what it was.
RM: When you say “shop,” do you mean “mechanics shop,” where you keep your…?
EH: Yeah, that’s what it was. Now it’s kind of a shop for breakfasts.
RH: Yeah, we have breakfast there every Sunday.
EH: Every Sunday.
RM: For whom?
RH: Whoever wants to come?
RM: Really?
RH: Mmhmmm.
RM: Well, I’ll have to come sometime? [Laughter]
EH: A restaurant stove that they have in there, and he has a dishwasher.
RM: Who does all the work?
EH: Him and my son.
RH: Well, I used to do it, but now Rodney, my youngest son, he comes up and does the cooking now.
RM: When did you start doing that?
RH: When did we start? Oh, hell! Ten years ago or more.
RM: Why?
RH: Well, a friend of mine had MS. He lived in Chatsworth, and I guess we started for him, originally.
RM: To raise money?
EH: No. Nobody pays any money. They just bring a dozen eggs or a pound of bacon or…
RH: We don’t charge.
RM: You don’t?
RH: Everybody brings something.
RM: But it’s open to anybody?
RH: Well, if I say it’s alright to come…
RM: Could I come sometime? [Laughter] Because it’s…
EH: It’s not the fanciest place.
RM: Excuse me! Do I care about fancy?
EH: Everybody, they just come in and they have coffee and…
RH: They get all the news for the week.
RM: Well, that’s why it would be a great place for somebody like me to go.
EH: Then my son, he gets up — between the two of them, they get up around 5:30,
6:00, and they get down there and they cook sausage and bacon and scrapple, and
then when people get there…
RH: Get ready the day before.
EH: They make pancakes and…
RM: Do you ever do anything like a barbecue?
RH: Well, we did for a few years. But we haven’t done that for fifteen, probably.
EH: Years, years ago, he used to have…
EH: A snapper soup.
RH: Yeah.
RM: No kidding! Well, that’s a real tradition.
EH: Every year we…
RH: I still make that.
RM: You catch the snapper yourself?
RH: I always have, but I haven’t done that lately.
RM: Where would you get them? Around here?
RH: Go right across the road to the crick and get one.
RM: What crick is that?
RH: Bread and Cheese Run.
RM: Bread and Cheese Run. Oh, yeah, I was looking on here [map] the other day.
EH: Right next to the cemetery.
RM: The, uh… [cross discussion about sites on map]
RM: Yeah, that’s Bread and Cheese. Do you know how it got that name?
RH: No, I don’t.
RM: That’s an old name, I assume.
EH: Somebody said that the Indians used to go there and they would have bread and cheese. (Laughter)
RM: Bread and cheese sounds good to me!
RH: I’ll have a little whiskey, too, with it! (Laughter)
RM: Have people fished in there a lot?
EH: No, it’s not that big. People used to, off of — [trying to remember] —
Friendship. People used to take their cars up to…
RH: Oh, they’d wash them! Yeah, they would pull in the crick and wash them.
RM: Wash their cars in the creek?
EH: Yeah. Just — Zimmerman — take Zimmerman Road and just go to your left a
little bit and…
RM: Now, Zimmerman Road coming from Medford Lakes Road or coming from Patty Bowker Road?
EH: Patty Bowker Road is Chatsworth Road, yeah. It was off of Patty Bowker Road,
you would — Zimmerman Road onto Patty Bowker.
RH: Right where the Girl Scout Camp is now — that property.
RM: Oh! Well, the Girl Scout Camp is on Powell Place Road, or part of it.
EH: It used to go next to Zimmerman’s.
RH: Oh, Ok! On — yeah.
EH: They used to pull in there.
RH: Yeah, I’m in the wrong place.
[Cross talk]
EH: They used to pull in there.
RM: To wash their cars or fish?
EH: RH: To wash their cars.
EH: But it was — you know where the Zimmerman property is?
RH: Right by the junk yard.
RM: No, I know Zimmerman Road, but I don’t know where the Zimmerman property
is.
EH: Well, the Zimmerman property is the big old house…. It’s an old, old house.
RM: Is it still occupied?
EH: I don’t know.
RH: I don’t think anybody’s living there right now. I don’t know. They might be, but
I don’t think they are. I mean, it’s habitable, but…
RM: If I come down Patty Bowker and then go on to Zimmerman…
EH: No, you don’t want to go on Zimmerman, you want to stay on Patty Bowker
.
RM: Patty…
EH: And you would make the turn off of Zimmerman onto Patty Bowker to your left.
RM: Going up toward Powell Place Road.
EH: Yes.
RM: Or going up toward Foxchase-Friendship Road.
EH: Yes, yes.
RM: And it’s on the left.
EH: It was on the left, and it was far…
RH: [Unintelligible]
EH: Yeah.
RM: You know, these things you mention, I’ve been passing stuff like that without
knowing it…
RH: Well, you wouldn’t know it.
RM: I’m going to have to go out and pay attention to them now.
EH: I don’t know whether there would be room to put the car in there now, it’s
grown up so.
RH: I don’t know if you could get to there because of the guardrail.
EH: Yeah, yeah.
RM: Why did people wash their cars there?
RH: It was easy. You just pull your car in there and wash it. That’s fresh water all
the time.
EH: It was easy, yeah. Fresh water all the time.
RM: I guess they didn’t have hoses at their house?
EH: I don’t think hoses were used at that time. They didn’t use them that much at
that time. I mean, if they wouldn’t have a lot of money, you know, so that they would
have been expensive to buy them.
RH: You have to remember there weren’t many people living here then. There were
no houses up where you live, nothin’. Couple of houses.
EH: There — the road — it’s not the road that goes to, back to the icebox.
RM: Icebox?
EH: The road that went back to the icebox?
RH: What the hell’s the icebox?
EH: Oh, you remember! Wasn’t it called the “icebox”? There was a…
RH: The only icebox I know was right out back here. We had one.
EH: No, it was called the “icebox,” I thought, went back almost across from where
they used to wash the cars. There was a little road that went back there.
RH: I have no idea. Never heard anything about an icebox.
EH: Oh, you did too.
RM: Why did they call it the “icebox”?
EH: I don’t know. I was a kid.
RH: Probably somebody threw their icebox there.
EH: I’ll have to ask [??], ’cause he mentioned the icebox the other day, something
like that, and…
RM: Ok, so they washed their cars in Bread and Cheese Run, but they didn’t fish.
RH: No
EH: There was never that much water.
RM: How about Friendship Lake or Friendship Creek?
RH: Well, that was all private then. You couldn’t…
RM: So there really wasn’t any place to fish?
EH: No place to fish.
RM: Or you had to go out of town, you had to go— ? Or did people fish much, they
just mostly hunted?
EH: I don’t know. I don’t remember people fishing much.
RH: Well, you — down to [?] bogs you could fish.
EH: Yeah.
RH: There’s people that still fish…
EH: Yeah.
RM: I heard that, I remember when we were doing that project, that people would
vandalize the cranberry bogs, sometimes go in and mess up the gates and stuff like
that.
EH: Run off the…
RH: Well, they do. Just for something to do, I guess.
EH: Just like these kids that went in Philadelphia and — that cemetery.
RH: Turned over the tombstones in Philly. Nothing better to do.
RM: It’s hard to think there’s nothing better to do, but…
[Cross talk about vandalism]
RM: So, you would go hunting — where would you — in the Puerto Rican house, is
that where you’d clean and butcher the deer?
RH: Yeah.
EH: Used to be a certain time they’d kill the pigs.
RM: Hog killin’.
EH: Everybody would bring their pigs down here and they would…
RH: Cut ’em up.
EH: Cut ’em up.
RH: Well, kill ’em.
RM: “Down here” meaning down here on your property?
EH: On our property right there at the building.
Interview with Virgil O’Neal and Ralph Gerber
Ralph Gerber (1927-2006) and Virgil O’Neal (1919-2010) tape transcription. With Viola Spragna and Irene Abrams. Interview seems to have been conducted in the home of Viola Cutts Spargna, perhaps in the year 2000.
This interview is wide ranging and covers many topics relevant to life in Tabernacle during the first half of the last century. Some of them are:
The history of the Gerber Family (Louis & Ada) in Tabernacle.
The history of the O’Neal Family in Tabernacle.
The Supplee Milk Company in Camden NJ.
The re-location of the Two-Room Schoolhouse on the corner of Carranza Rd. & Chatsworth Rd, to its new site on Carranza Rd. near Flyatt Road in 1936.
The 2-sectioned outhouse used by the students of the Two-Room School.
Anna Barthold – a teacher.
The Coming of electricity to Tabernacle in the late 1920s.
General household chores of early 1900s.
Bathing weekly in tubs in kitchens before indoor plumbing.
RG: Do you want to talk about the Gerber family? Louis and Ada Gerber that moved to Tabernacle about 1913. 1913 or 14. Now, I don’t know exactly.
Interviewer: Where did they come from? Where did they move from?
RG: Uh, I can’t think of it now. Where the little schoolhouse came from. Friendship, they came from around Friendship. Which was the other side of Chatsworth, of course.
Interviewer: Now how long had they lived in Friendship?
RG: I don’t know. I don’t know. All I know they came from there to Tabernacle in 1913 or 1914.
Interviewer: Now, do you know what they were doing in Friendship?
RG: Yeah, mostly cranberries and they would work in the turf. They would gather turf and move it from the cranberry bogs and that sort of stuff. They picked wild berries, huckleberries, when they were in season. That was before cranberry season.
Interviewer: Now what country did they……
RG: German, as far as I know, German.
Interviewer: Did they both come over together?
RG: I don’t know.
Interviewer: Do you have any history of that?
RG: I don’t know, I don’t know.
Interviewer: So, in 1914 they moved to Tabernacle. In 1913 or 1914 they moved to Tabernacle. Where did they move to?
RG: On Chatsworth Road. Of course, there’s no house there now. That’s where Brian Gerber lives there now. The little corner is where the homestead was. There was a house and a barn, a couple of barns. Of course, none of its there now, it’s all gone.
Interviewer: And what did they do when they came here?
RG: Well, when they came here, they more or less went into, I guess you would call it truck farming, raising asparagus and corn, field corn. That sort of a thing. And some sweet corn. I can remember when I was a kid, we used to put it in bags and, uh, till it would go to the New York market or the Philadelphia market. Either one, it would depend on who was going where.
Interviewer: Now were you already born when they came here?
RG: Oh no. I was born in ‘27.
Interviewer: Ok. Do you have brothers and sisters?
RG: I have a brother living and I lost two sisters who passed away.
Interviewer: Ok. Can you give us their names?
RG: The first one that passed away was my sister Dorothy. She was only seven years old. And whatever was wrong with her we may never know. They never said if they did know. Cause she was not much bigger than a baby when she was seven years old when she passed away. They more or less kept her in a room until she passed away. And my sister she just passed away about three years ago. From cancer.
Interviewer: How old was she when she got this disease?
RG: Oh 65, something like that. 65, 66. Somewheres along there. My brother lives next store to me. He’s what 70 now, I believe. I’m 73.
Interviewer: All of you were born in Tabernacle after your parents moved here?
RG: No not all, some were born in the Mount Holly hospital. I was born here.
Interviewer: Ok, you were physically born in Tabernacle?
RG: Yes.
Interviewer: Were you the only child who was born in Tabernacle?
RG: I think so, I’m not positive but I think so.
Interviewer: OK.
RG: At that time, my dad lived in the house where Joe Rogers is. That was a little teeny house at one time. Remember …. Well, that’s where I was born, there. We lived there for about a year and then of course my dad had the house built where I am now. On Zimmerman Road.
VS: Oh, and then when they built the other one where he lived.
RG: Yeah, he built that later. He built that around…
Interviewer: Let me… Where’s Joe Rogers house?
RG: It’s the second house on the left as you go by Hillman Concrete. It’s a yellow house now, before it was like I guess a two or three room house at that time, not very big. Of course, Joe Rogers he added on and expanded it and made a pretty nice place of it I think.
Interviewer: But your father built that house, or he just moved into it.
RG: No, no, I don’t know who built it. I don’t know anything about that. But that’s where I was born and that’s where I lived for about a year. And then we moved where I am now.
Interviewer: Ok. Originally when they moved from Friendship, they moved to the corner, that corner property where Brian Gerber is now.
RG: Right, Yeah. And when my dad married, he went to Roger’s place.
Interviewer: Now do you know how your parents met? Did they move here together?
RG: No, no, no. My mother is from Medford.
Interviewer: Your mother is from Medford.
RG: Right. That was Edith Gerber. Smythe then Smythe (Smith?) at that time. No, he was over to Medford for some reason. He had his first car, and it was a 1919 or something like that when he went over there. How he got to know, boy, I think it was like from playing baseball. And then were over playing baseball I suppose and that’s where he met her over there.
Interviewer: Do you know how old they were when they got married?
RG: My mother was seventeen, I think. And he was about nineteen I don’t think.
Interviewer: So, they met each other once he moved here, and your mother came from Medford. The children were all born, whether you were born in the hospital or you were born here. Ok. And they were primarily truck farmers. Now, how is your father related to other Gerbers in the family?
All: Laughter.
RG: Well, let’s see. Irene’s father and some of them are just uncles.
Interviewer: Oh, ok.
RG: That’s all I ever heard. Skimmer uh.
IA: My father and his grandfather were brothers.
Interviewer: Ok. Ok.
RG: And then there was a bunch of them.
IA: Right.
RG: We went through that earlier.
Interviewer: Now that I see the connection there. OK. And what do you remember about …uh. Well, we can start on any of these topics. Let me find out a little bit about Mr. O’Neal’s history coming to Tabernacle and then we can talk about what Tabernacle was like.
VO: I was born at Laurel, Delaware.
Interviewer: And what year was that?
VO: um, my father worked on farms down there. He worked for a man named John E Herm. He had 500 acres of farmland.
Interviewer: That was quite a bit at that time.
VO: And in December of 1925 we moved up to Tabernacle here, on Chatsworth Road there where Howard and Thelma Gravatt live. So, in 1927 we moved to Verga, well between Westville and Verga. My father went to work for Campbell Soup Company. They had a farm down there and he worked there five years.
Interviewer: Well, how did they come to Tabernacle? How did they end up choosing Tabernacle?
VO: Well, that is the thing. So, we lived there till ‘31. We moved to Moorestown. My father worked for C A Collins in Moorestown in Fellowship. Of course, we was in Fellowship, it’s Moorestown, you know. So, he worked two years for him, and my dad told him he’d like to have more money. “Can’t afford it, can’t afford it.” Of course, the Collins’ they used to have colored and Pollocks, polish work them. And they would work for practically nothing, nothing. So, he was going to Florida and he said to my father. “I’m going to Florida, which you know. I’ll be back in two weeks and we’ll talk it over.” So, my father he had made arrangements in talking with another farmer, and the other farmer, and the other farmer, Erstow from Marlton sent his son and another driver up to load up our stuff so we could move to Medford.
So, when we was loading stuff up on the trucks the mailman goes by and he leaves this in the mailbox. “Harvey when I get back, I’ll give you a raise, but don’t you tell the other fellows.” And we were on, you might as well say, on the express line you might say, and we moved to Medford in 1934. I went to Medford school from I don’t know just what month it was now, but anyhow they used to cut potatoes.
They had to have them all cut by March 17th because that was St. Patty’s Day to start planting potatoes. And I of course, had to run down the lane cause with the farm he had, you know where Bill Johnson’s farm is next to the Lenape High School, that was the farm. He had three farms: what was called the home farm, and Milton Place, on Evesboro road there – it’s all built up today – and this one up here. So, the fellow had the farm in back of it, was Harry Kirkbride. His brother owned this place where Bert was moving in to and he had to many things in the fire, going this way, going that way, going out leaving his wife at night, coming home three or four o’clock in the morning. And he went broke, so Bert bought it. And that’s where I wound up in 1936, in September.
Interviewer: How old were you?
VO: I turned seventeen and I got the car. Of course mother and dad one thing or another they come up here to church.
Interviewer: Come up where to church?
RG: Methodist.
Interviewer: Here in Tabernacle
VS: Right here in Tabernacle.
VO: And I of course, I came with them. When I got old enough, I had my license, why, Helen told you the rest. (all laughing)
Interviewer: Let’s go back to when your parents moved to the uh, home on Chatsworth Road. How did they decide to come? You know why they decided on Tabernacle?
VO: Well, we lived up there where Howard and Thelma lived. On the other side of the road goes back to where his daddy lives (Zimmerman Road) is where our dad and mother moved to in 1918.
Interviewer: They came to be near your grandparents?
VO: Louie her nephew, has got a thing up on the garage door there where Shirley has her beauty parlor, “Louis Gerber Farm, 1918.” Established 1918.
Interviewer: I see. Ok. So, they came up here from Delaware to farm?
VO: Yeah, for George A Moore.
Interviewer: George A Moore. OK. Were you born by then? Or no, you hadn’t been born.
VO: Born in Delaware.
Interviewer: You were born in Delaware. Well, how were you then when you moved here? I want to try and get this straight.
VO: Well, they moved up here, I was six. I must say I was born in July in 1919. And they moved up here in 1925, December.
Interviewer: Ok, ok.
VO: So, that would make me, I turned six. And I started school in Bethel, Delaware.
Interviewer: Ok, and do you have any brothers and sisters?
VO: I have a brother. He married a girl from Tabernacle here.
Interviewer: What is his name?
VO: Her name is Emily Worrell. My brother’s name was Asbury, Harvey Asbury.
Interviewer: Ok.
VO: He was named after my father and my uncle, first names. I think that was her grandfather’s name, Asbury. So, he got the name of Harvey from our father (unclear) you know.
Interviewer: Now how um, what did your parents farm, were they also truck farmers?
VO: This farm up here where Howard and Thelma is… This George A Moore was a good friend of John Herms, from Laurel, Delaware. Of course, that was a post office. And he wanted somebody, and my father moved up there and he went to work farming with Jack Waller. He had a movies in Laurel, he had a big clothing store and he liked to go out and mess around on the farm. So, my father went to work for him. Worked for him for a year and a half, we come up here.
Interviewer: Now, ok, when you came up here? Did he work for somebody up here when he came here?
VO: For J Moore. He was the president of Supplee Milk Company in Mt Carney.
IA: In Camden? In Camden?
Interviewer: What was the name of the Company?
VO: Supplee.
VS: Yeah, it was a very important. My goodness, very important.
Interviewer: Well, I’m not from South Jersey, so I don’t understand. I don’t know the names of all the companies, but I never heard of that one.
VO: Abbotts, that was Philadelphia.
Interviewer: Yes, I’m familiar with that one.
VO: Scott-Powell, they was in Camden.
Interviewer: Ok, I’ve got some milk bottles from that.
VO: Ok then you should have been old enough to see with what they used to have horses, the milk routes. They would walk up these steps. The trucks, the wagons, not the trucks, the wagons and everything was down on the first floor. And they had these steps, and the horses would walk up, up into the stable part of their living quarters inside and come down.
Interviewer: They must have been very wide steps, and shallow. For horses?
VO: I’d say about that wide. Bout that high.
VS: Oh my goodness.
VO: When they was coming down, they would walk just the same as you or I would.
VS: Fascinating.
Interviewer: To deliver the milk?
IA: No, the stable was up there.
Interviewer: Oh, the stables were up there.
VO: The stables was upstairs; the milk wagons was downstairs. The horse, the harness and all this was upstairs. And they would harness them up in the morning. Say you were a driver a wagon, you come in you had Jack and Jenny we’ll say, and whatever. You would harness them up, clean them off, harness them up. They had a man who would stay in the stable all night long. He would feed them all before it was time for you to come in to go to work.
Interviewer: How interesting. That was somewhat German. I think German farmhouses were designed where you had the living quarters upstairs, on the top floor. And then underneath they would have the animals.
VO: Now I was up in Maine, I gotta to stop to think what year it was. We went up there I was working over in Medford there for a fellow named Charlie Ships. Well, he owned some ground up there and the man he bought it off of had this cow barn. When came time to clean the barn out in wintertime why, it was up in Maine, up there in these hills you couldn’t get up and down cause of the snow. So, they had the chickens come out, we’ll say this is a chicken. This is the house, you walked across the driveway, or where we used to go across with the horses and wagons into the barn. Well, the horses were in there and the cows was in there and when they got ready to clean out they pulled the lever and it went down the stairs.
All: Laughter.
Interviewer: Very clever.
VO: In the spring of the year, that’s when they cleaned the barn out. Took it out and spread it.
All: Laughter.
IA: Very interesting, I wonder if they ever did that around here.
Interviewer: I was just going to ask that question. Have you ever seen anything like that design around here?
VO: They had this big doorway where they would go in with the horses and the wagons, fill up the wagon or spreader, or whatever, and they would go out and spread it. If the whether was too bad, they would put four head to the wagon or spreader.
IA: When the, this gets back to the Supplee Company in Camden. When they did their round with their horses, they only went with one horse and wagon. They couldn’t use two horses, did they?
IA: Wagon and deliver the milk bottles here there and everywhere.
IA: I’ve only ever seen you know, a single horse with a small wagon.
IA: Maybe they had a lot of deliveries to stores or something. Could they use a bigger, like a bigger arrangement?
VO: Well, these big doors that they used to go in, drive in, was doors you that wouldn’t think about having like we have down here. When they shut em, there was no air to get in.
IA: Yeah, but you’re talking about Maine again now. I want to talk about the Supplee Supply Company in Camden.
Interviewer: The Supplee Supply Company in Camden.
VO: Yeah. You used to go in the old Sears and Roebuck. Just get up past them and you get on Ferry, I think that was it. You got to the first curve to say where the school is now. Here on the right-hand side was this big building. A block or bigger.
VS: So that was Supplee. So, they had a lot.
VO: They had a road section of Camden. Scott-Powels had …
IA: Another dairy? My goodness.
Interviewer: Well now did your father work for dairymen, or did he work for truck farmers?
VO: Yeah.
Interviewer: Which? Which did he work for? The truck farmers or did he work for dairymen?
VO: He worked for George A Moore doing truck farming.
All: Truck farming, truck farming, ok.
Interviewer: Now let’s go back, what did you say about your siblings, your brothers? You had a brother?
VO: Yes.
Interviewer: You had a brother and a sister? Was Asbury your brother? Did you have a sister?
VO: There was two older ….. one lived to be eighteen months old the other died at birth. There was two older than him. One lived to be so many months old the other died at birth. And there was two between him and I, they both died at birth. Stillborn, or whatever you want to call it, you know. So anyhow, to make a long story short he got to goin with … and they got married. I remember the night we went up to, I know you heard of whom I’m gonna say, used to give out license for getting married.
IA: Yeah, my papa.
VO: Haines.
IA: Oh Haines, he was before my papa’s time.
VO: Nelson.
IA: Nelson. I didn’t know he did that.
VO: Well anyhow we went up there with my father. He wasn’t over twenty-one at that time. My father went up there and he signed for him. Of course, me I jumped in the car and went too.
Interviewer: How old were you at that time?
VO: He was twenty something.
Interviewer: So that would have made you 7?
VO: I turned eight in ‘87, or ‘27. They got married by Reverend Hess.
IA: Oh Yeah, I remember that name.
Interviewer: Now where did they get married?
VO: Right next store here at the parsonage.
Interviewer: Ok, over at the Methodist Church. Ok, I just want to make sure that was clear. Now Mr. Haines, Nelson Haines, who was he?
IA: One of the seven Haines brothers.
IA: Vincent’s father.
VO: Vincent and Samuel
All: Their father.
IA: And they have three sisters still living.
VO: He lives up here now where the…..
VS: Begins with a C and I can never remember that name. They do truck farming.
Many: Coger.
VS: That’s the place.
VO: You say it, I don’t care. But that’s where he lived at that time.
Interviewer: What did he do, what position did he hold?
VO: He was a truck farmer.
Interviewer: He was a truck farmer. Nelson Haines was a truck farmer. But he also married people….
VS: No, he did not marry people. He gave out licenses.
Interviewer: Oh, he gave out licenses. Did he work for the Township?
VO: Yeah
Interviewer: Ok.
IA: And I don’t know at that time whether they got paid. They probably did because when my father worked for the Township this way, he did get a very small salary.
VS: I don’t know whether Uncle Nelson besides giving out licenses, did he have to go around and quarantine people? Was he anything to do with the health? Because my father did. I remember did I remember the little placards that were nailed to the doors.
VO: I don’t know what to say about that part. Anyhow, he had a sawmill where Fletchers, over on the other side of the road, he had a sawmill over there. And in the wintertime people would go in the woods, or swamp we’ll say, and cut cedar and cart it out. And he would saw it up. There were people working for him. So, he had the sawmill making money in the wintertime in the sawmill.
Interviewer: Now Mr. Gerber, what do you remember of what your childhood was like growing up, what it was like growing up here. Irene and Viola we talked about what it was, what they did as children on the farms. What kinds of activities they participated in, you remember the kinds of things you did when you were growing up as children on the farms, what kinds of activities they participated in. Do you remember the kinds of things you did when you were growing up?
RG: We’d go with our parents. And if they went cranberrying we went cranberrying. They went out picked beans, whatever, you went with them. My mother took youngest daughter, I know, when we went picking cranberries, used to put her in a cranberry box while we was out the bogs picking cranberries. I was pickin blueberries up to her dad’s place up in the woods. Had to ride there on a truck to get up there and do that. As far as, didn’t seem like we had much play time, but we did have some. But then we had to go around to different farmers setting up tomato plants. And get together when my dad would come home from work. We’d go to her dad’s place and set out plants and might go across the road where Skimmer Pepper lived at that time. We do the same thing for him. I guess they got paid for it, I don’t know.
IA: Family probably went to family.
RG: In the wintertime, of course we had one school bus. It was a blizzard and all the men and boys who could handle a shovel got in the school bus. We went around the routes for the school bus. The next day it was all blown in again, but that’s what we did.
Interviewer: And where did you go to school?
RG: Tabernacle here.
Interviewer: Here, to the two-room building?
RG: Two room school, Yeah, that’s right. That’s where I started.
Multiple speakers, words unclear.
RG: I don’t remember the year..
VS: 1936
RG: Yeah, that’s right. It was ‘36. I remember Kenny talking about it. Cause they moved it with a horse. They had some kind of a turntable anchored in the road, somewheres up the road aways. And that horse would walk around, walk around and that dragged the schoolhouse up the road.
Interviewer: They didn’t have the schoolhouse on anything? It just moved on its….
RG: I think, oh Yeah, they had it, I suppose, on some kind of skids or something.
Interviewer: Oh, the horse wasn’t right there, pulling?
RG: They had a cable or something or a rope. And the horse would walk around this thing, wind the rope up, and pull the schoolhouse.
Interviewer: That’s amazing! I just thought it just yanked it along.
RG: No, one horse did it.
Interviewer: One horse, did it? By doing that?
RG: Must be like a block and pulley.
Interviewer: Pulley, that’s the thing, I guess.
Interviewer: Do you remember, oh, you want to add something to that. Go ahead.
RG: His father, and of course her father and a bunch of them, before they got to the cultivated blueberries around here, they used to go out and knock blueberries off the wild bushes. They had a belt made out of old automobile carpet. The leaves would go up to the top and the berries would roll down.
VS: Do you know Mark had one of those. And it disappeared before I had a chance …………
Interviewer: How big was it?
VS: Oh, it was like this…
Interviewer: A few feet across?
VS: No, they weren’t. They were about a foot and a half across, but they stood up. The back of it was elevated, so the berries could roll down this carpet. And they had a handle on it that you moved that you moved the carpet around and around and around. And they kept pouring on the berries. And as he told you, the leaves would stick.
RG: Right.
VS: And they would come back with, you know …. I guess you do it on a windy day, preferably. And the berries would roll down and be captured. And they were, … It was very different in those days. They had big crates, I’ve got a crate out there, that big crate, that’s got the two buckets in it. That was for blueberries.
Interviewer: That was for blueberries?
VS: And they were all in quarts. And there were tomatoes. It took a long time to fill up a crate of blueberries. Because they were teeny-tiny.
Interviewer: I was going to ask you how large were these wild …..
RG: They were like peas.
VS: Like peas.
Interviewer: Like the Maine wild blueberries.
VS: Yep, but they weren’t quite as small as that. They were more pea sized. The ones in Maine are very, very tiny.
Interviewer: Were they sweet?
RG: They were when they were ripe, you know.
VS: Well actually the blueberry wasn’t ….
RG: Did you ever get the job of turning?
VO: Well Yeah turning, turning the cleaner, yes. Never had to go out…..
RG: I did. I went out in the woods and helped and helped.
VS: Well and they were high bush blueberries.
RG: Yeah, you could pull them down.
VS: They were very tall. They weren’t the little things like in Maine.
RG: You had a basket tied around your waist, pull it over and go up and knock the berries off the branches.
Interviewer: Now did you have a special tool for knocking the berries?
RG: A short stick.
VS: Now the blueberries that they are talking about, the high bush blueberries, are not the ancestor of ours today, blueberries.
Interviewer: Ok.
VS: They came from the swamps, blueberries. I don’t know how much you did any swamp.
RG: Sometimes you call em upland berries and sometimes you call them swamp berries.
VS: Yeah, well.
RG: Both, whatever. Wherever you find em that’s where we went.
Interviewer: I’m sorry, go ahead.
RG: You grab a bush like this. One day when I was going doing this there was a snake sticking his head out.
Interviewer: What species of snake was it?
Interviewer: Did you hear any rattling?
RG: Not that I recall, probably a black snake. But I don’t know.
Indistinguishable comments.
VO: While we were living up here, her and I went to school out here…
Interviewer: Viola, that is.
Interviewer: Did you two know ….
VS: Sure, same class. Sure, sure.
Interviewer: Ok.
VS: I do not remember.
VO: You don’t remember going to school here?
VS: I remember going to school here. I remember lots. But I don’t remember the various teachers to well. But I do remember that I had a woman by the name of Anna Bartold. And years and years later when I went into Mt Holly to teach, there was Anna Bartold and she was still teaching first grade!
All: Laughter.
VS: And she is 92 now. And still is very alert as far as her mind is concerned. And I remember her, vaguely. I remember more about the building than I do remember about the various teachers, and the various people. I don’t think I was very observant in those days. I was five!
Interviewer: Exactly, you weren’t expected to do oral history some years later.
VO: Well, do you remember when the teachers used to bring Emma to school?
VS: Mrs. Kauffman? Was that Mrs. Kauffman who did that? Cause she lived in Medford?
VO: What was her maiden … Haines? Old “tinny” (?) Haines they used to call her.
VS: Oh, that’s the one that the woman I’m talking about. She was Anna Haines, at that time. Now she’s Anna Bartold.
VO: Yeah.
VS: No, she was from Vincentown.
VO: Yeah.
Interviewer: Now who’s Emma?
VS: My cousin. Emma New, Emma Beaumont.
VO: Yeah.
Interviewer: Go ahead.
VO: So, the three of us was going to Tabernacle School at the same time, the old two room school.
Interviewer: Now Mr. Gerber you went to the two-room school also. What year were you? You were behind them.
RG: Right, I was behind them. I think I was the last one that went to school there before they moved it. One of the last ones to go there.
Interviewer: Ok. Do you remember anything in particular about your time at the school?
RG: Two rooms. Two-seater outhouse.
All: Laughter.
Interviewer: Do you remember whether you were cold or hot?
All: Laughter.
Interviewer: This is interesting, we never talked about this. What was it like having to use an outhouse?
RG: You didn’t make any ……. cause that’s all you had home.
VS: Yeah, sure. It’s what everybody had.
RG: Everybody had an outhouse. I still have one.
Interviewer: Well, this is a very important for folks to know about, that’s why I am asking. Everybody had an outhouse, it was common, there wasn’t indoor plumbing…
RG: No.
RG: No electric.
Interviewer: Can you give more details, ok no electric, about it. You would be in class, what would happen? You need to go use the outhouse. Did you have to be specifically excused to go?
RG and VS: Sure, yes.
Interviewer: Ok.
RG: I mean you just didn’t get up and go out of the classroom.
Interviewer: Ok. And well do you have anything, anything you want to describe about it?
RG: You didn’t waste a lot of time out there in the wintertime.
All: Laughter.
VS: And you were out for recess, if you needed then you could go on your own. But otherwise, you were either supervised or alone.
Interviewer: Ok, anything you want to add to the outhouse discussion?
VS: Well, they were cleaned. They really were, they were cleaned. And then before they got so full, they had to be cleaned, they would douse the remnants with lime.
RG: Right.
VS: So, it wasn’t unpleasant, really. And everybody lived the same way. So, you did not think anything about it.
RG: That’s the way we were raised.
VS: And you used the daytime, I’m not talking about school, cause you didn’t have school. But at nighttime at home, you had the chamber pot.
RG: Yeah, we had in the bed….
VS: Sure. And that’s just the way it was. And that’s why, the woman in some of these programs is called the chamber maid. She wasn’t called the chamber maid because she took care of the room, the chamber, she took care of the chamber pot. (laughter by all). I mean, whether it was at home, or traveling, going to an inn as the early settlers did, they lived exactly that way. And it was just, just a way of life. Nobody thought anything about it.
Interviewer: Well, when did you, Irene when did you get indoor plumbing? Do you remember. Do you remember around what time?
IA: Not till electricity came. (laughter). I’ve forgotten, 1920 something. ‘26?
RG: Bout ‘28 or ‘29. I can remember …… Our house was about two or three years old when electric came. And they started putting electric in. The house where I’m living at now, when we moved there, was no electric.
VS: No, well nobody had electric then.
RG: I was born in ‘27 and we moved there in ‘28, so it was after that when electric came.
VS: And then, uh,
Interviewer: So, plumbing followed the electric.
RG: Oh Yeah.
VS: For a long time.
RG: Long time.
IA: A lot of people were established in their homes and maybe they had to cut a bathroom, er a bedroom in half or something to put these bathrooms.
VS: Yeah that’s what happened right here.
IA: That’s what we had to do in the farmhouse.
RG: That’s what happened in my house.
VS: You only had one. You didn’t have three or four, you didn’t have a powder room, you had one!
All: Laughter.
RG: You take a bath in a tub alongside the kitchen stove. We did the same many, many …….
IA: Saturday afternoons.
RG: Saturday afternoon, Saturday nights. That’s when you got your weekly bath. You didn’t get one every day.
VO: You didn’t see the daily one.
RG: No way. No way, my mother would heat the water on the stove alongside….
Interviewer: I have one thing to ask you. How wide was the tub that you used? Was it a large tub?
RG: We still got one.
Interviewer: Do you, really?
RG: It was about that big around.
Interviewer: How big around? You have to describe it. How wide was it? What would be the diameter of it?
RG: About three foot, three and a half foot across.
Interviewer: Ok, and how high did it stand off the floor?
RG: Oh, about like this here.
Interviewer: Would that be two feet?
RG: No, no , no.
Interviewer: Not that much.
IA: It was what was used when they had wash day. The same, it was a wash tub.
Interviewer: Ok.
RG: That was the reason it was called a foot tub.
All: Laughter.
RG: And we had two of em. You’d use a scrubbing board.
VS: Yeah, Yeah Yeah, right.
Interviewer: And about how high?
RG: Bout the same height.
IA: About the same height, a foot and a half high.
Interviewer: Ok, ok. So, Saturday was, Saturday night was your washday?
RG: Yep. Ready or not you got a Saturday night bath.
RG: Mondays was mother’s washday.
Interviewer: Monday was for your mother’s washday. Was that for all of you?
All: Yeah.
VS: But they really had a routine.
Interviewer: Really.
VS: Tuesday was wash….. Monday was washday. Tuesday was iron day. Wednesday was, I don’t remember now… My mother had this routine and I have forgotten. But every day was a specific job. I don’t think they could have gotten through everything if they didn’t. Like we do we try to do it all in one day because we have all this helpful equipment, the appliances to help us. But they didn’t. And so, you didn’t do something else on the day that you had to do the wash. Because that took all day.
IA: By the time you heated the water, filled the washer, washed the clothes, run them through the wringer.
VS and RG: If you had a wringer.
IA: Which is best to have one.
RG: Right, right.
VS: One day, the following Saturday, was probably the day they baked. Because Sunday was coming, and you had to have special deserts for company if they came.
RG: You never knew who was going to come in on Sundays.
IA: No, not at all.
IA: Your father killed a chicken, and you know you had to clean that and get that ready for Sunday dinner.
Interviewer: Well did you have a wringer? Do you remember when you got clothes wringer?
VS: The one you’re talking about was a separate thing that……
IA and RG: It was on the washer as well.
IA: The washer twirled around and then the wringer was attached to it.
Interviewer: Ok, now that would have been run by electricity, that one.
RG: Yeah.
Interviewer: OK, ok.
RG: I still have one of those.
VS: You kept your old washer?
RG: I’ve got two of them. Donald’s got one in his basement and one out back.
VS: How about that.
RG: My mother’s house has still got one in it. She still used it, until, of course, she passed away.
VS: Oh….
RG: Regular wringer washer. I think my mother had one of the last ones you could buy. It’s still at my dad’s and my mother’s, I could use it.
VS: Well, that’s what she was used to and so …
RG: She didn’t want nothing else. Well, we didn’t get one until my son in law bought us a new style washer. Spin dry unit and that sort of thing.
Interviewer: Well did you get your washer, um, with the wringer, as soon as electric came in? Or was it done years after that?
IA: Ours was several years after that.
Interviewer: And what about you Mr. Gerber? Do you remember when you got that?
RG: No, I don’t specifically. No, no.
Interviewer: It was just (tape being changed)
RG: We had a heater well this run back and forth from … This goes one way, when this went across and go one way and come back it’d go another way.
Interviewer: Was that electric or manual? Electric or manual?
RG: Electric.
Interviewer: It was electric.
RG: His mother had it His uncle Jim, who was here last week. He used to say when he was out in the field working for his dad, plowing or something or another, he could tell when Edith was washing because you could hear that old washer … glug, glug glug.
All: Laughter.
Interviewer: Do you remember that washer?
RG: Yeah. It’d cool things off. You carried in wood in for the stove every day, to heat the hot water.
VS: Did you have the kind of stove that has the water tank on the side to the stove to heat the hot water?
RG: No, we didn’t. We just threw a bucket on the stove to heat it.
Interviewer: Did you have a stove that had a tank attached to it? (directed to Viola)
VS: Yes, uh huh.
Interviewer: Can you describe it?
VS: Well, it was just an ordinary cooking range. You know, it was about that height. And it was about five feet long, something like that.
RG: (Indistinguishable)
VS: It was about five feet long and it would stand up about the height of the table, which is what thirty……
VO: And outdoors, if your feet got cold, you know what they used to do?
All: No, no.
VO: Open the oven doors.
All: Laughter.
Interviewer: To warm up.
RG: Right Ralph?
VS: You always had hot water though.
Interviewer: And that was warmed by wood.
VS: Wood. On a wood stove.
VS: My father was always wanting to have the best things, the first things, you know. So, I don’t know how many other people around here did what he did. But he didn’t like putting in the wood, I guess. He didn’t like leaving the ashes.
All: Laughter.
VO: So, he heard about the, uh, fuel … It was kerosene. And there was a tank attached then to the stove. And it fed fuel to whatever kind of burners were put inside to use. I don’t know anything about it. Except I know we didn’t fiddle with it. We didn’t take care of the stove anymore except to watch that the tank was always full with the fuel. And it was always run.
Interviewer: Do you know around what time that was, what year that was?
VO: I was still going to school here, so I don’t know. I was still going to school here in ‘36 because cause that’s when I graduated from high school and when I went from here. Because when you go away to college, you only come home for the summer. You’re away from here.
Interviewer: Yes. I know what you mean.
VO: It’s not quite the same as always having lived here every day and sleeping here every night, you know. It’s a change of life entirely. So, I remember what happened before then. And we did have the small, I don’t know if they’re called Franklin stoves, I don’t think they were called Franklin stoves. But anyway, the stove in the dining room, between the dining room and the living room, and the parlor door was shut. So that was always cold (laughing). And I remember that was filled with them. We had that. For a long time, we didn’t ……. in the cellar.
But, scared me to death one night. The chimney caught on fire. And I don’t know how old I was, maybe eight, ten, whatever. I was afraid, it was dark outside. And I was afraid to go outside and go across to my uncle’s house and tell my father who was over there visiting, that we had a chimney fire. So, I opened the window and I yelled.
All: Laughter.
VO: And I don’t know how somebody heard me.
Interviewer: Do you know how old you were at that time?
VO: I don’t know, eight or ten or something like that. And, uh, he heard me, and he came over. And he doused, he opened the door, and he sprinkled salt. Put the chimney fire out.
All: Laughter.
VO: But I had visions of my house burning down. You know at eight or ten years old; you’re depending on an adult to take care of things. And I think my mother, she was not, she was not, she was like me, scared to death. It was up to me to do something and I did it. So, I don’t know what would have happened if he had not come home and sprinkled it with salt. She probably would have been able to do that if she wasn’t panic stricken. Right, you know, because she became panic stricken very easily. I think.
Interviewer: Was it common to have chimney fires in those days?
RG: Seemed like it, yes.
IA: I think so.
RG: I think so cause that was the main source of heat.
VS: Well, they…
RG: In the fall, they would, before they started using it to much, they would, my dad would go out and, in the woods, and get us a cedar tree the right size, put a rope on each end; one would pull it down and one would be on the top, he would pull it up in the chimney. That’s how the chimney’s got cleaned.
Interviewer: Can you describe that more? How would that get done?
RG: Because… well a chimney is about eight-inch square…
Interviewer: Right.
RG: So, they would get a cedar tree cause it was real… like a bushy and put a rope on each end of it. And one person would pull it down……
VS: Well, somebody had to go up on the roof?
RG: and someone would pull it back up. So, you’re pulling the tree back up and down in the chimney.
Interviewer: Right.
RG: And they’d the soot and stuff out that would come out.
Interviewer: Now what wood were you burning?
RG: Mostly oak, everybody mostly burned oak because they don’t like pine because of the sap out of it.
Interviewer: Right.
RG: Creosote, it makes too much creosote. Pine did, that’s why people didn’t like to use it.
Interviewer: Yeah that would…
RG: But at the time if they didn’t have a choice, they would use it. But the …. was oak or maple or whatever.
VS: And you had to have a place where you could go and gather your wood.
RG: Yes, right.
VS: I remember my father, back here, he had a wood lot, there is a development there, and uh.
Interviewer: He had a wood lot?
VS: He had a wood lot.
Interviewer: Where the church is now?
VS: No, no, over there, over on New Road.
Interviewer: Ok.
VS: What’s the name of that development? We sold the land to the people who developed it. Mallard Woods. That was my father’s wood lot.
VO: Didn’t I cut some wood for your daddy from up there in back of Tim Campbells in there.
VS: Probably.
All: Laughter.
VS: When you get tired of chopping you find somebody else to do it.
VO: With a horse and wagon, and we were living down here then. Then Samuel come over with his tractor, and Vince and Sammy Pepper, the three of us sawed the wood up for your daddy.
VS: Un huh. A portable saw? Yeah, a gasoline engine, it would have been, wouldn’t it?
VO: No, this was right on the front of his tractor.
VS: Oooooh.
VO: You hooked it up, you fastened it up there, take off and go.
VS: Well, there were a lot of gasoline engines for the tractors for the tractor used gasoline.
Interviewer: In a way. Yeah.
VS: They were innovative! Especially when they had to start working.
RG: Uncle Herbert used to have one that was a stationary engine mounted on a Model T truck chassis.
VS: Un huh.
VO: Yeah, Uncle Herbert had that.
RG: Yeah, you could go around my grandfathers, or my house, or wherever, whoever needed their wood sawed. We’d all get together and saw wood here today and tomorrow somewheres else.
VS: Yeah.
Interviewer: It was like thrashing.
RG: Oh Yeah.
IA: Your house today and somebody’s else’s tomorrow.
RG: Or next Saturday or whatever.
IA: Yeah, they went around. Families helped families.
RG: Yep, they sure did. They moved ready in the woods, in the woods.
VS: Well, that’s because families were big, and they stayed put. They didn’t go here, there and everywhere.
Interviewer: Not like they do today.
RG: Everyone helping one another, they kept one another warm. Right Irene?
RG: We used to do the wallpapering the houses.
IA: Yep.
RG: They used to go around house to house. Bunch of women be there and of course the men would help sometimes. Tear the paper off, the old paper.
All: Yeah, Yeah.
RG: You’d get the paste board out, somebody paste’s board, and put paste on the paper, and put the paper on the walls and ceilings. And sometimes there was six or eight women in there working on it at the same time. Maybe they do two or three rooms at one time, they’d be still working on it.
Interviewer: You should talk about that.
VS: You asked her one time, you asked Irene one time, did we miss anything? And I don’t think we did. Because we had all of these people around us being busy.
RG: Right.
VS: You talk about the cooking bees. Was it the Amish, well they were here too.
RG: Yeah, Yeah, oh Yeah.
VS: I mean, there was work, but it was fun. It was companionship.
RG: Right, right.
VS: You didn’t feel you were missing out on anything.
RG: No.
VS: Actually, I think a lot of the kids were happier than they are today.
Interviewer: Do you think that’s like, families today, that you’re related to, get together get together as much and help one another as much as they did back in the day?
All: No, no, no.
VS: Well, there’s nothing to set things for, for one thing.
RG: You hardly see each other on a Saturday now. Very seldom, the families ever visit. They used to over Christmas time. They used to go house to house. Go in this house, come out and go to the next house. All relatives. That’s what you did. Every night you go to two or three houses. Around Christmas time.
Interviewer: Uh huh. You visited one another.
RG: Yep, uh huh, yep.
IA: You see their tree and their gifts. You’d maybe spend a half hour with them and then you’d go to another house. Maybe two, three, four houses. You know, in one evening. Then you’d come home, set around your own tree and talk and …
VS: It was hard in some ways. But as I say everybody was doing the same thing, so you didn’t feel put upon, because you were doing this, that everybody else was doing. (laughter). And then, life was a pleasure.
Interviewer: Now what do you remember about when electric came in here? Um, the way you felt, the way your parents felt about having electric.
VO: We didn’t live here when that came in.
Interviewer: Ok, well you were in …
VS: Where were you? Did you have electricity wherever you went?
Interviewer: Where were you, in Moorestown?
VO: Well, they didn’t have electric there when we went to Moorestown. It went by but Aaron never put it in the house. It was too much expense.
Interviewer: uh huh. Yes.
VO: Then when we come to Medford, and there was no electric there. And when we moved up here …
Interviewer: Where’s here?
VO: ….. paid to have it put in the house, there whatever. Right down the road here. The first place there, of course the house has been tore down and a new one built there.
Interviewer: Ok, so this was this Chatsworth Road or Carranza?
VS: Chatsworth. Going towards Chatsworth.
VO: It was the first house on the right-hand side.
Interviewer: Where the church is now?
IA: Ok, where Joe Conte Jr lives. There was a big farmhouse there and that’s what he is talking about.
Interviewer: Ok, ok.
VS: We’ve learned a lot, huh?
All: Laughter.
VS: You’ve moved around a lot.
VO: Well not as much as some people did. You know what I can remember Irene? When I was going to school out here, there was snow, on the ground, and the boys was having a snow fight. Your sister, the one still living..
IA: Mildred.
VS: Bea.
IA: Bea.
VO: A bunch of the girls was standing over along the hall. One of the boys threw a snowball over there at the girls and hit her in the eye.
IA: No, I don’t remember that one.
VO: I know, you wasn’t going to school then.
Interviewer: How old were you when that took place?
VO: I was, well we moved from here in ‘28. Went to Verga or Westville or whatever. And when I went down there, I had to go upstairs, the grade I was in was in the firehouse. There was a four-room schoolhouse at Verga there and the first grades was in the firehouse. Upstairs. Teacher’s name was Miss Burn. So, when I went to second grade, I went to the school. You know. It had all eight grades. In that schoolhouse. Then they built an addition on to it, had an auditorium and a workshop for the boys and a shop for the girls underneath of that part.
VS: So, Tabernacle didn’t have anything like that. (laughter). There were two rooms and eight grades.
VO: Do you remember when they moved the school down the road there? With the Pat, what was his name, Orlando.
VS: Orlando.
VO: Hooked that one horse, had the school all jacked up. They pulled it down the road with one horse to where it is today.
Interviewer: Yep, I remember Irene and …
VO: Do you remember Ralph?
RG: Yeah, that was in ‘36.
VO: That was in ‘36?
VS: Well, this has been very interesting and entertaining.
Interviewer: But it is time. That’s right, we talked about that too.
IA: And Mike Rogers, was he the school bus driver too? He was for the high school.
RG: I remember him driving a bus.
VO: It had an extension on the back, and he’d pull into Vincentown and the front wheels would go up.
All: Laughter.
VO: That’s what kind of boys you used to have around here.
VS: Listen they did harmless things. Today the kids are in hot soup.
Interviewer: Yeah, it’s terrible.
Interviewer: Ok, we’ll um, there’s still a lot of things to talk about. I would like to talk about the uh,
END OF TAPE.
Interview with Helen O’Neal Irene Abrams and Pearl Moore
Interview held November 21, 2000. The interviewer is unknown and the first minute or so of the interview was not recorded.
The three interviewees are: Pearl Severs Gerber Moore (1915-2001), Helen Gerber O’Neal (1921-2012) and Irene Abrams (1926-2022).
Helen: Louis Gerber (The question probably was “what was the name of your father?” Helen O’Neal’s father was Louis Gerber.)
Interviewer: Uh huh and
Irene: You lived… where did you live when you were growing up? ’cause I don’t know.
Helen: I lived here in Tabernacle.
Irene: I know, but did you live on Red Lion Road?
Helen: I was born in Tabernacle.
Irene: Yeah, you lived down on…
Interviewer: Oh…Where can you…can you pinpoint where on Chatsworth Road, Helen?
Helen: It was on the corner of Chatsworth and Zimmerman
Interviewer: ok…go ahead… is that the house…the house is not standing…obviously
Interviewer: Okay.
Interviewer: Okay.
Irene: But a Gerber still lives there. Yeah…uh huh… sure a Gerber still lives there.
Helen: He still lives there. He built the house.
Interviewer: Uh huh… oh okay. So you were on the umn north side of Zimmerman Road? Which would be where all where Donald and his parents live?
Interviewer: Ok so are you related… are you related to that…to that those Gerbers? Okay Okay. So are you related to Donald, Irene also, right, Donald and his family…ok.
Interviewer: Donald and his family. And Pearl married…
Interviewer: You married a Gerber so you are related to the Gerbers also.
Pearl: I’m sister-in-law to Helen.
Interviewer: Oh, Okay. Excellent. Okay. Helen when did your parents or grandparents, who were the first to come to Tabernacle?
Interviewer: Your parents. And do you remember when they…
Pearl: When Jim was 3 or 4 years old. He was born in 1913 so probably 1916.
Interviewer: Around 1916 they came and where did they come from?
Interviewer: Where?
Helen: Tollertown, Green Bank.
Interviewer: Tollertown?
Irene: Didn’t Dee, no Honey, take us there one day…so no you weren’t around. It’s down near Batsto?
Irene: Yeah you have to go past Batsto and turn to the right and you go into Tylertown. It’s in back of the old cemetery somewhere.
Pearl: It’s in back of the old Batsto cemetery…in back of the old church.
Irene: Pleasantville…Pleasantville… That’s what it is called…
Interviewer: Do you know?
Pearl: I thought it was called Pleasant Mills?
Interviewer: Do you know why…now was your father married when he came here?
Interviewer: He was already married ok…ok…and did your mother come from Tylerville also?
Helen: No. She came from Chatsworth.
Interviewer: Okay, how did them come to meet?
Irene: We never knows those things.
Interviewer: You don’t know?
Interviewer: Interesting. Well, do you know why they came to Tabernacle and settled here?
Helen: They bought the farm…you know, where I said I was born.
Irene: Well I remember when we went there, it was in the woods. I don’t think that there was that much farming was there so if they wanted to make a living other than going in the woods and getting the goodies out of the woods they had to move to a farm. And there was still a lot of farmland around Tabernacle. It had opened up considerably by 1916. I would say.
Pearl: And their father was a baker, wasn’t he?
Helen: My grandfather was a baker.
Pearl: And they moved out of Philadelphia to Tylertown.
Helen: They came from… they came from Germany.
Irene: Oh my goodness… what would bring them to Philadelphia? (laughing).
Pearl: Because he had asthma and he had to give up the bakery.
Irene: ahhhh…I see. For health purposes.
Interviewer: When did…when was that? Do you have any idea Pearl?
Pearl: No, that I don’t know. Because Aunt Rae is the one who told me that.
Irene: Oh… It’s to bad we didn’t start this earlier. Not with the tape recording but we could have interviewed people if we had thought of it. And she would have been a wonderful one…and Herb.
Interviewer: I have heard that there are a few people who we really have missed.
Irene: Thank heaven for Ken Yates who remembers a lot. (laughing)
Interviewer: Ken does remember an enormous amount. I guess he sat and talked with a lot of people and just absorbed just ll their information. Um, ok, so in the early 1900’s your parents came here, bought some land and started a farm. Do we have any information about who owned the land prior, before, for example, when your parents came and started the farm?
Helen: I think it was a Shenski…
Helen: I think it was… mom and daddy bought… I don’t know the first name was…I know it was a Shenski.
Interviewer: It would be interesting to know how…
Irene: Well, Shenski…is buried here in the cemetery.
Interviewer: Ok
Irene: And they are uh ancestors of DeMarco because he puts he has flowers put there every holiday.
Interviewer: Oh
Pearl: Didn’t one of them marry a DeMarco?
Irene: Well, I don’t know whether that…oh was she a Senski…his mother I don’t really remember.
Pearl: You mean Demarco’s mother?
Pearl: No, she was an Alloway.
Irene: That’s what I was going to say…so Shenski had to be a generation before.
Irene: We could look at the dates on the tombstone and know for sure. You know, but I know there is a connection there.
Interviewer: Now what kind of farm did your parents have?
Interviewer: Vegetable farm. OK…is it…would you can you describe it?
Helen: He had tomatoes, asparagus, uh strawberries, corn,
Interviewer: Where did he sell the crops?Where did he sell…where did he sellthe uh produce?
Irene: The produce…where did the produce go?
Interviewer: NY…Oh, did he take it there himself?
Interviewer: How…
Pearl: A trucker, a trucker, wasn’t it?
Pearl: A trucker wasn’t it from Indian Mills/
Helen: A man run a truck…it was his business and come pick oit up and he would take it to NY.
Interviewer: Ah ha Ok, that’s a little different from a…
Interviewer: going to Camden. Yeah…
Interviewer: right…exactly.
Irene: that was a later era…that was my era… (laughing)
Interviewer: Exactly
Pearl: Did he ever pick wild huckleberries?
Pearl: Now did he ever have to take them over to Atsion to meet the train?
Interviewer: And where did the trai take him to?
Pearl: Probably Philadelphia I imagine.
Pearl: Philadelphia, I think…not positive. I would almost say it would be Philadelphia.
Interviewer: Now do you have sisters or brothers?
Interviewer: Can you talk about them? Would you talk about them? How many?
Helen: There are seven of us all together. My brother Milton, and Herbert, her husband James.
Interviewer: Harry?
Helen: my other brother Harry, he’s the youngest and my sister Thelma and my sister Cerrita.
Interviewer: Ok.Are you related to Thelma Grovatt?
Interviewer: She’s your sister.
Pearl: Oh you’re learning… You’re learning.
Interviewer: Ok.
Helen: She’s two years younger.
Interviewer: Ok. Ok. Now the picture really…the poices slowly get put together. Ok (laughing), and um…did all…did well Thelma has been here all her life?
Interviewer: Same as you. What about your brothers? Did they stay here? Did them ultimately settle here?
Helen: James…her husband.. he has stayed here. Herbert…he stayed. My brother Milton he lived in Mount Holly.
Helen: Harry stayed. But Cerrita she’s been all over.
Irene: I don’t quite understand. How did Herb and Milton go to the Friendship School? Because…
Helen: Because they used to live in Friendship before they moved to Tabernacle.
Irene: Your mother and father lived there? They went from Tylerville…
Helen: After they were married.
Interviewer: And then they came to Zimmerman Road.
Irene: Uh huh I see…there had to be a missing here there for them to be in that school.
Pearl: I think Jim, when they moved up here was only like 3 or 4.
Irene: We have a picture of him …he’s with the chickens… he’s about this big (laughing).
Irene: You’ve got that one two?
Interviewer: Ok and now how did they… do you know how by Helen they lived down in Friendship before they moved up to Zimmerman?
Irene: Probably wouldn’t have been to awful long.
Pearl: And Milton was born on 1906? Jim was born in 1913. So that’s 7 years.
Irene:Well they closed the school in 1917. That I know so at the time they probably either had moved already.
Pearl: They had moved…by then. Probably. Because, um,…I lost my count again. In 1906-Jim was born in 1913 so that’s 7 years right?
Pearl: 7 years difference. And then if Jim was say 3 when they moved up here that would be 10 years. So they would have lived at least 10 years in Friendship.
Interviewer: Ok.
Pearl: maybe, maybe 12…I don’t exactly know that part.
Irene: Well. You weren’t involved either.He wasn’t old enough to be your husband at that point (laughing).
Interviewer: Did you know what they did when they were living down in Friendship?
Irene: What everybody did. Cranberries bogs…cranberries.
Helen: Cranberries were in Friendship at that time I think and probably…
Irene: There was a lot of work to be done on a bog. Even today the same work goes on. Although it’s done with machinery. Right now they are busy sanding the bogs to settle the roots in again after all the turmoil they have been through in the picking process and uh that has always been.
Helen: They have been sanding in a different way.
Helen: The bogs would freeze over and then take the sand truck on the bogs and spread the sand that way.
Pearl: Before that they did it with horse and wagon.
Pearl: My father used to go up to Burgess with the horse and wagon and then they put the sandon the wagon, take it on the bog and spread it with a shovel.
Helen: Cause I remember my father used to help Uncle Julius.
Pearl: Then they finally did after it froze over.
Interviewer: Do you remember who owned the bogs? That your parents worked on?
Irene: Evans and Wills (laughter).
Pearl: We actually looked that up another time.
Helen: Earl Haines too, my father worked on his bog.
Irene: Those down here at Goose Pondor
Pearl: Well back in there somewhere. They are back in the woods somewhere.
Irene: In Goose Pond. Yes yes yes in Goose Pond. Which is on the curve on the way to Chatsworth.
Interviewer: So in the years preceding um actually that was a transition period they went from Tylerville to working at the bogs and living in Friendship and then getting their own land and starting a vegetable farm. Ok and um, do you remember what it was like for you? When you were growing up? (laughter).
Helen: We need a video for the expressions we have (laughter).
Interviewer: I know…I wish…I’m getting that organized but it’s not quick enough.
Irene: Yeah…children worked hard…We didn’t watch TV all day…did they…no no no!
Helen: I took care of the horses and the chickens. My sister Thelma milked the cow. And of course we always had the job since we got home from school carrying wood in.
Irene: What were the boys doing if you girls were carrying the wood?
Helen: Ah, they were all ready grown up.
Helen: There was 8 years between Jim and I.
Helen: I don’t ever remember them even living home.
Interviewer: So you ended up doing the boys’ labor as well?
Helen: Right, oh yes (laughter).
Interviewer: Are those fond memories?
Helen: Yeah…it didn’t hurt us.
Irene: Well but everybody wasin the same condition.
Irene: We didn’t know that it was supposed to be any different like the city kids.
Interviewer: I understand.
Pearl: We didn’t know we was poor until now (laughter).
Interviewer: It depends upon how you define poor Irene.
Pearl: We were better off with food of our own then many people in the city were starving to death.
Irene: We always had enough clothing even though it might have been handed down from someone older than you or a neighbor or something and they outgrew and gave to us. But it was a different kind of education that we had then they have today.
Helen: I guess we didn’t lose anything by it.
Interviewer: Now what did your…you said your brothers had all ready left the farm once you when you because there was 8 years between you and Jim. What..where did they go?Where did each of them go and what did they do?
Pearl: You don’t remember? (laughter)
Helen: Well, of course…Milton married and he worked at Birmingham and that’s where he lived.
Interviewer: Where’s Birmingham?
Irene: Oh, over on the way to Pemberton. Cybron was it Cybron already there: It was still the marl pits though.
Helen: Right…right.. He was there like a plant foreman…he had the license to do that…that was his job.And of course Herb.
Pearl: He went on to the county…
Irene: He worked at the Marlton plant for quite a while.
Helen: ThenHerb did and went on to State.
Irene: Oh, he worked for the state, not county?
Interviewer: and what did he do there Helen?
Helen: He drove a truck for the state of NJ.
Interviewer: Ok.
Pearl: That would be the Road Department?
Irene: And of course Thelma grew up and married Grovatt the farmer, but Grovatt came from Rancocas.
Helen: Rancocas…they lived in Rancocas first for a year I think.
Irene: And then he bought over here?Helen: Uh huh.
Interviewer: Now who else is there?
Irene: Who did you marry? Where did he come from?
Helen: Originally from Delaware.
Helen: That’s where he was born and…
Interviewer: What’s his name?
Helen: Virgil. They moved to Jersey I think he said when he was 6 years old.
Helen: And they bought the farm where Thelma now lives.
Interviewer: Oh.
Helen: And then his parents…oh he was living in Medford when we got together (laughter).
Irene: And how did you meet? I mean was there a common bond?
Irene: In church, uh huh. That’s a good place to meet.
Pearl: Uh huh. That’s where you met, wasn’t it?
Irene: Only I didn’t marry someone from Delaware. People look at me. How did you ever meet an Italian from Italy? Oh, he wasn’t from Italy any more.
Interviewer: So your husband’s family actually settled on the farm that is now run by Thelma and the boys?
Interviewer: And how long…do you know how long his family was at that farm?
Helen: Maybe two or three years? And then they moved to Mt. Laurel and then to Medford.
Interviewer: Ok. And what did they do?
Interviewer: They were farmers, so they bought land in Mt Laurel?
Interviewer: No?
Helen: They always worked for another man. Like you know to help…Then they finally bought a place here in Tabernacle.
Interviewer: And where is that?
Interviewer: Ok.
Irene: Yeah, O’Neal still lives there.
Helen: But the parents…his parents…built it and after he passed away Asbury bought it.
Irene: And it’s still a farm, just a different kind of farm like flowers and shrubbery.
Interviewer: Where is that? Which one is that?
Pearl: Well you go down Flyatt Road past the church and past, what, 2-3 houses, Contes… (unintelligible).
Irene: Just about 3 houses down church on the corner. No not the church where all the flowers are.
Interviewer: On the right hand side? Ok, I know exactly where that is and who was Asbury?
Helen: That was Virgil’s brother.
Interviewer: Ok…ok…so actually there’s family still there then? Ok, that’s what you are saying. Ok.
Irene: But Asbury’s son is and grandson.
Interviewer: Ok.
Irene: and uh one of the other sons has theinsurance business?
Pearl: Oh, ok…see I’mlearning things too.
Interviewer: So on 206…O’Neal is …ohhh…ok.
Interviewer: He’s the same…and he’s a member of the family…ok.Now I understand. And um..yes…everything is interconnected…really it’s all interconnected.
Irene: You know, for years, until I don’t know just exactly what census it was 1970…we were 700 people so you did know each other and lived here for years and years and if they weren’t intermarried at least they were related socially in some way.
Interviewer: Uh huh.
Pearl: he next censuses were 7000 that’s a whole huge amount of peopleto move into Tabernacle in 10 years.And now we are over 8000 and something.
Interviewer: Right.
Irene: And I’m not so sure that’s a good thing happened to Tabernacle either.
Interviewer: I would have to agree.
Irene: Everyone calls us pineys when we seemed dead out here and now they are all moving out here.
Irene: Get away from urban problems and bring them with them.
Interviewer: And bring them with them.
Irene: Or want us to have them.
Interviewer: Want us to have them but we won’t go there.
Interviewer: Well there are any number of things that what you know, Pearl, let’s talk about your family (it’s the same family).
Interviewer: But she may have things she wants to add to this.
Pearl: Um, my maiden name was Severs.
Interviewer: Ok.
Pearl: And guess from where …And you know from where…you shold know this.
Interviewer: Buzztown…so you’re related to Bob Severs?
Interviewer: That’s your…he’s your cousin? Ok ok. He lives in the house I was born in.
Interviewer: Oh really, that’s such a wonderful place. Yes, yeah, I was visiting with them some weeks ago.
Irene: Yeah and he boght the house, my father diedand my mother wasn’t one to live aloneand she went with my sister and then Bibby bought the house.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Pearl: Maybe she can answer a question we had…she just called it Bozarthtown. Did you ever use Bozurtown?
Irene: Yes, but I hated that from the day one.
Interviewer: Why..why was that?
Irene: They just cut off and didn’t say Bozarth. Because it’s always been Bozarth. But the older people, just like there was a guy named Charlie Bozarth. They called him Charlie Bozure.
Interviewer: So actually, Pearl, it has a long history the term Bozer rather than Bozarth?
Pearl: The older people, that’s what they called it.
Interviewer: Oh, I see.
Irene: But I always hated that.
Interviewer: Why?
Pearl: I don’t like it. I just don’t like Bozer.
Irene: It was not right. It wasn’t right. It was Bozarth and that’s the way it should have been.
Pearl: What so people say today? Now older people like me they would say Bozure because that’s the way I grew up.
Irene: I say Bozarthtown cause I hate the other.
Interviewer: I hear both but depending who I’m talking to.
Helen: To us didn’t matter any difference. Which everone you want to call it. We know where it is. They say either.
Irene: But the new people moving in it has developed with a lot of new houses they must be Bozarthtown.
Pearl: Yeah. I imagine they do. I really don’t know what they call it.
Irene: You said you’ve heard both.
Interviewer: I’ve heard both. Well…I can say it was one age group or another that is saying Bozure versus Bozarth but I have heard both. Now when we talk to Bobbie we’ll ask him what they say.
Pearl: He would probably say Bozure.
Interviewer: Now, did you know the Bozarth family? Can you tell us anything about them?
Pearl: No…no uh. I knew my grandmother of course.
Pearl: Yeah…oh. My grandmother was a Bozarth. Grandmother Severs was a Bozarth.
Interviewer: I see.
Irene: She was….Remember Mary Batterson?
Interviewer: Mary?
Pearl: Batterson. She lived next door to us in Bozarthtown.
Interviewer: So…yeah…you know.
Pearl: But she was…but then where she originated I really don’t know…I just don’t know.
Irene: Because there’s two groups of Bozarths, there’s one in Retreat, that’s another one. See my mother’s maiden name was Bozarth but they came in from the retreat area. So that was another gang of Bozarth’s. They weren’t related.
Pearl: Oh well if they were related they were far apart with my Haines family. We can’t say I’m related to themback in the 1600’s and something you kowand came down from this person.The blood is there but you don’t feel related.
Irene: And see that part I don’t know.
Irene: It could have been two brothers that did that.
Pearl: And my grandfather which was Severs before I never knew him he died before I was Born but he came from France.
Interviewer: Oh that’s interesting.
Pearl: And he was a redhead, he was a redhead.
Interviewer: Did you know where he settled?
Irene: It’s amazing ended how these ended up in the back woods.
Pearl: I know where they lived…where they lived.
Interviewer: Where is that?
Pearl: Oh I still call it Dingletown Road, Forked Neck Road. You go down Forked Neck Road you come to Forest Bridge Road you make a left and it’s off in there, not to awful far. They had a very small farm and I mean it was small and that house. Let’s see., well it’s Bobby’s house, actually that little house next to Bobby. That little log house they moved that from Dingletown Road off there.
Helen: Yes you did. We saw it on that tour.
Irene: I don’t know they moved it.
Pearl: They moved it. They moved it from there.
Irene: Tell me something about that farm. Did a family eventually move in there and they had a very young girl who was a real bad asthmatic person? My father had a blueberry field back in there somewhere. I don’t know I couldn’t find it now I was only 9…10…11…whatever. And he used to leave me there to pack the blueberries while he went off to work. But he didn’t feel badly about it you know because it was very isolated and the farm house was here and I was there. I have often wondered if I could find the place.
Irene: Scott…that’s right.Pearl: And her name I now forgot. I knew her very well.
Irene: Yeah well she died very early.
Pearl: She married and had children though.
Irene: Oh, I didn’t know that.
Pearl: She married and had children but then she didn’t live very long. But that’s off Oriental Road the one you are talking about. Yeah, now that was between the Severs , would have been between Oriental and on down Bard’s Bridge. That would be in that area.
Interviewer: Did you know when they moved the house?
Pearl: I don’t know when they moved the house.See that part never was…
Irene: Immagine moving that house.
Pearl: And see it was just the front and then the back kitchen they built later.Still very smallbut she had a lot of children in there.
Interviewer: What was her name again Pearl?
Pearl: My grandmother? Adelaide.
Interviewer: Adelaide?
Interviewer: Ok. And this is a new relationship that I have to get my mind adjusted toso forgive me if I get all the names wrong and all the relationships. Ok, you are a Bozarth. Your mother was a Bozarth…you are…
Interviewer: Ok. You were a Sever and your mother was a Bozarth… and she…what about her parents?
Helen: Her parents lived over in Retreat, on Retreat Road.
Interviewer: Ok, so they were Bozarths. The Retreat Bozarths. I am just getting this organized in my brain.Came to settle into.
Pearl: They have a small farm too.
Interviewer: Over in Retreat
Interviewer: Did they stay in Retreat and it was just your parents who ended up in…ah
Pearl: They stayed in Retreat, yes?
Interviewer: Your grandparents stayed in Retreat and it was your parents who uh…
Interviewer: It was your mother who married and moved out and how did she come…who was…your father…was a Severs obviously, and how did she-who is he?
Pearl: I know who he is but how they met I can’t tell you… His name is John.
Interviewer: John Severs.
Pearl: I don’t know how they met. I simply don’t know how they met because he was over there.
Interviewer: He was in Bozarthtown and she was in Retreat. Well now why… this is a stupid question… I don’t have a clear understanding of? How did it come to be named.. if she married a Severs why was it already named Bozarthtown?
Pearl: Well because that it was named Bozarthtown long before she went there. It was Bozarthtown probably from my Grandmother Severs because she was a Bozarth.
Interviewer: Oh.
Pearl: Bozarthtown over there became Bozarthtown because of that group of Bozarth’s.
Interviewer: The Retreat Bozarths.
Irene: No no. Bozarth up here.
Interviewer: Oh there were Bozarths up there.
Irene: Well there must have been several of them to be Bozarthtown.
Pearl: Well I know there was a Mary who married a Batterson and Charles who lived around there…well I guess until he died really her brother. And then uh there was Laura who lived up in Jenkins Neck.
Interviewer: They got around.
Interviewer: Where is Jenkins Neck Pearl?
Pearl: Where is Jenkins Neck? Don’t tell me you don’t know where Jenkins Neck is?
Irene: You ever go to New Gretna by the back road?
Interviewer: Yeah.
Irene: Go to Chatsworth and then you turn right.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Interviewer: Oh yes…that’s Jenkins…of course, you just have to jog my memory.
Pearl: There were several of the Bozarth’s. Now I understand that they lived in Orlando Platt’s house which was way back well I say way back a lane. I don’t remember because the only one I remember being there was Platt. Maybe they grew up there the Bozarth’s? Maybe that’s how come. I don’t know.
Helen: How many houses were in Bozuretown?
Pearl: When I kind of memorized that a little bit. When I was (little) it was about 1920 when I counted 10 houses.
Pearl: And now right in there I think I counted 38.
Interviewer: Yeah, yeah, yeah absolutely Ok. Now what was um you were growing up there…what were you doing? Um did you have sisters? Well obviously you had sisters and brothers.
Interviewer: Ok.
Interviewer: And 2 brothers…ok and who were they?
Pearl: WEll my sister was 15 years older.
Interviewer: Ok.
Pearl: That it was a lot of difference then. She was 15 years older and when she was 18 she went to Riverside. and he stayed around and he was a mechanic. And my brother was 1 year younger than her and he stayed around and he was a mechanic. And he married I think he was like 22 maybe or something like that when he got married. But he stayed in the area. Well finally he went up by Hog Wallower. Now I’m sure you know where that is (laughter). And he was a mechanic on their machinery and all up there. And then he finally came down and moved down to Vincentown. And he in the end was working for the State Of New Jersey Transportation. That is what happened to him.My younger brother, he’s 7 years younger than
Interviewer: Ok.
Pearl: And he lives in Burlington.He’s married, of course, and has lived around Burlington since he got married.He’s 79 and he’s still working at Arrow Safety.
Irene: And Arrow Safety is still in Medford?
Pearl:They work on a shoe thing, I guess he’s been a foreman for 50 some years.
Interviewer: An institution.
Pearl: Last time I talked to him (he said) “You know what, I am tired of getting up so early.” Then why don’t you just quit?
Irene: And what did you do with your life before you married Jim?
Pearl: Not a whole lot… (laughing), I married young.
Pearl: No, not 14. I foolishly quit high school you know and you know that was kinda dumb thing to do but I did it. But I felt I got a lot of education in those 8 years. In fact I think I know more than these kids coming out of high school today.
Irene: They have too much to do and they’re interested in sports and TV.
Pearl: So then I worked around home of course and then I sorted cranberries and that kind of.. you know.
Pearl: Scooped cranberries. And my father had a cranberry bog, not a huge one, but he had a cranberry bog. And right behind our house we had a small cranberry bog. And in the very beginning my mother used to go there and pick them by hand. And that I didn’t do a lot of picking, I did a lot of scooping and that’s damn hard work.
Pearl: And uh, let’s see, I was 17 in February and I married that next October. I was 17 and Jim he was 18.
Pearl: He was a laborer on the cranberry bog. He made $15.00 a week when he worked.
Interviewer: And that nw,you met him working?
Pearl: No, I met him…it was kinda of crazy how I met him. Every Saturday, early Saturday night, my father we’d go out to the store, the grocery store, and we’d get ice cream. That’s blinking, does that mean it’s done?
Interviewer: I’m watching the tape. That means it’s getting near the end so I’m going to watch it so we can maximize the tape. And then I’ll tell you to hold that thought and I’ll turn it over.
Pearl: I went out with him and I was getting ice cream and Jim came over. He was at the store and he says, “how would you like to go to the Sunday School Picnic?” And so I said “yes I would go.”
Irene: But you had already.. who knew… who he was.
Pearl: I knew him but only another kid. You know I went to school with him, but I mean only another kid.
Irene: When you went to school, where did you go? The two room building up here?
Pearl: Two room. Yes, that’s where I graduated from, of course, we graduated in the Hall.
Irene: About the school, that’s what we were talking about.
Irene: First date you went to the Sunday School Picnic down here?
Pearl: The Sunday School Picnic was held in Trenton.
Pearl: In Trenton, what was that called… I can’t think of the name of it now. It was A… a… An a Amusement Park?
Helen: Not Crabwalker ( Caldwalter ?).
Irene: No, no. It’s not there any more. They went there for a few years and that was one of the years I went.
Pearl: He wasn’t able to drive.
Irene: That’s what I was about to say.
Pearl: But I was friends with Ruth Gerber, which was her sister.
Interviewer: Irene’s sister.
Pearl: And her sister went with a friend that lived in Bozarthtown. That was Tommy Horner. He drove so we went with them. (laughter)
Irene: Isn’t it wonderful (laughter).
Helen: Well I learned something new.
Pearl: So then that was well, probably July? Yes, that had to be.
Pearl: In the summer sometime. I don’t know. No, I don’t know exactly. It would have been July or August I would say. Well then I just saw him just off and on. Not much from October to November. I guess because he got his license in November and from then on we went out together.
Irene: And you married him the next October?
Pearl: No I married the following…I married in ’32 and I started goin with him. This incident I have bee talking about was in ’29.
Pearl: Well we got married and I’m telling you we had nothing.
Helen: I think we all started that way.
Pearl: But the first house we went into belonged to a nurse from New York, a couple of nurses who only used it in the summer time. Well they weren’t using it anymore and they wanted someone in it to take care of it. So Jim and I went in and it didn’t cost us anything and just took care of the house.And of course we got furniture from everybodywho wanted to give us anything.So that’s how it started.
Interviewer: And where is the house?
Pearl: The house? On Chatsworth Road… it’s not there anymore but you know where the beauty shop is? Almost across from there.
Irene: And then again you wonder how two nurses from New York would end up here.
Interviewer: I was just going to say…I know. Do you remember the names of these nurses?
Irene: For a summer home…incredible.
Interviewer: Incredible.
Helen: They were nice though…very nice nurses.
Pearl: And her father was like the caretaker.
Interviewer: That’s Helen’s father.
Pearl: He kinda overlooked it you know for them. We lived there 7 years. Oh and my first 2 children were born when we lived there. Then we bought the farm in Bozarthtown.
Irene: But it sure was nice of him to do while he could. It’s too bad.
Pearl: Refresh my memory when I left off…Any how, we bought the farm in Bozuretown, which was only small. We had asparagus, and corn and grew asparagus was our main and we had strawberries too.
Interviewer: You know what year that was…you remember what year that was?
Pearl: We bought that in 1940, 1940 and then we finally he worked for Arrow Safety too. He was at Arrow Safety for a number of years. I don’t know how many.
Interviewer: What did Arrow Safety produce?
Irene: The tail lights, the turning signals, that was the Arrow.
Interviewer: Ok.
Pearl: Arrow Light. And then they finally got into sme other fog lights and I know what else.
Irene: And they are still in business, I didn’t know that.
Pearl: Still in business, so then…he in ’43 he left there.
Interviewer: He left Arrow?
Pearl: Arrow in ’48 and we went into the chicken business.
Interviewer: How old were you at that point?
Interviewer: How old were you at that point?
Pearl: At that point…well I was born in ’15 and this was ’48 so however old I was. (laughter)
Pearl: 33… so we had leghorns and we done good on our chickens and then of course the bottom went out then and we sold the chickens. We also had a small cranberry bog that we also ought. And that was a disaster.
Interviewer: Sounds familiar.
Pearl: We didn’t make much money. But then after we sold the chickens he got a job on the highway…he was in uh transportation, on the highway and he was there 15 years and then he had a heart attack…and he had so and he did not live to long after that and he died in ’74.
Interviewer: Oh, ok.
Pearl: But we built our house on Carranza in 1960.
Interviewer: Oh, ok, ok.
Pearl: And I’m still here. And in the meantime I foolishly married another guy and a…
Pearl: Anyway I was with him 10 years and we got separated and then we kind of ended that.
Interviewer: How many children did you have?
Interviewer: You had 4 children? I want to talk too about 1 child, 4 children.
Interviewer: By Jim?
Interviewer: Ok. How old are they and where are they now?
Pearl: My oldest one would have bee 63 in April. He died at 32 years old. But died young.
Interviewer: Oh, sorry.
Pearl: Second one, what would he have been? He would have been 61. He died at 50 of a massive heart attack. My next one was just 60. Thank God I hope I outlive him. He has L&L Redimix down the highway. And my daughter is Sandra Roth and she lives in Bozarthtown.
Interviewer: Oh..ok.
Pearl: Right across from that little house?
Interviewer: Oh sure, ok.
Irene: What does her husband do?
Pearl: He’s a salesman for L&L.
Interviewer: Ok and Helen…you had 1 child?
Helen: Yes. And he lives and he bought where they used to live.
Interviewer: This is going to get confusing…You got to go over that for me , for us, so we get it clear.
Interviewer: What is his name?
Interviewer: Bruce, ok.
Helen: He bought where Pearl and my brother lived in Bozarthtown.
Interviewer: Ok, ok.
Pearl: But he didn’t buy it from us.
Interviewer: Who did he buy it from?
Interviewer: Fitzpatrick’s. And there are Fitzpatricks who live right on Carranza Road. She’s across. Are they relations?
Pearl: No. He bought it from us…and then Bruce bought it from him.
Interviewer: OkAnd what does he do now?
Helen: He works for the state fixing. He travels all over the state fixing the heaters and burners.
Interviewer: Ok, ok, oh that’s a responsible job. I know we didn’t talk about your children either. We never got into that…no we didn’t. We are going to have to pick up on that descendants issue because we didn’t go through that. Well you know uh, here you know are the things we talked about over the few weeks that we did Dee, Viola, Irene and I got together. We talked about when electricity firs came, the telephone, doctoring, midwives, travel, cars, schooling , grocery shopping, the post office, um we talked about Nixon’s and Sam Scott’s, Haines Store. We talked about the movies and parties and did we talk about spelling bees? I have it checked off here but I don’t think we did. Uh no, churches, schools, Union School, so we have talked about a range of subjects. uh, you know. Why don’t we go , I’m real curious about fences.
Pearl: Well…right in Bozarthtown there was those fences when I was a kid.
Interviewer: Now how would you describe those fences? Because we have to describe it for the tape recorder.
Pearl: Well, All I can describe them as they were rail fences. That’s all, I never saw them being built or anything and by a picture of them is just like that picture… that’s what they looked like.
Interviewer: And do you want to describe them?
Irene: Were they straight like the cemetery building?
Pearl/Helen: No they were tall… they crossed.
Pearl: Oh, I don’t know what it is either.
Interviewer: Ok, I’ll find out.
Pearl: So that’s that. I just remember them being along the road and I remember the snow being all over them. That’s my memory, my memory of them.
Irene: Do you think they were there to define the property? Or were they there to keep the animals in or out?
Pearl: Probably animals in. You see they had horses. You never mowed the lawn…you know the horse mowed the lawn. If it got done the horse did it.
Helen: Right, and the cow, no mowers.
Pearl: Oh no mowers, no mowers at all.
Irene: Had they been invented? I don’t think they had been invented.
Helen: That long thing where the horses would draw and the man would sit up there and they had this long arm out and the men they would mow the hay for the horses.
Pearl: Of course horses couldn’t get enough to eat for all winter.
Helen: They had to mow some of the grass for them.
Pearl: That kind of mower they had, do you remember?
Helen: Well the farm where Thelma… do you remember rail fences? The had them there. You don’t remember that?
Pearl: Not there I don’t remember but I remember that in Bozarth…
Helen: Maybe they were easier for the farmer to put up and cheaper.
Pearl: They were wood…they probably got them out of the woods.
Interviewer: Did they make their own log fences?
Pearl: I would imagine they did.
Helen: Chopped trees down and split them.
Irene: Split rail fence? Ha ha.
Interviewer: They have and I know.. Stuart would know. He studies things like that. I’ll ask my husband.
Pearl: They would have went to a sawmill because there were saw mills way back then. So they may have had it taken to saw mills whatever they split.
Irene: There still is a sawmill in Tabernacle.
Interviewer: There is?
Irene: Vincent and Samuel Stills. Not that much, but they do.I don’t know who they do it (for).
Pearl: I don’t know either. I don’t know how they lift the darn logs.I don’t know anything about that..
Helen: They use a tractor to lift the logs.
Pearl: Is that what they do? No.
Helen: Vincent runs a tractor like a front end thing then takes it to a sawmill and they get it on the machine.
Irene: Do you know what they do? I should know these are my cousins but I haven’t seen the sawmill. But I don’t know what they do there. I mean uh, do they make fences? What do they make?
Helen: They do like lumber for anybody that wants to build something.
Irene: Oh really. They make regular lumber?
Helen: People will bring their lumber there or the wood and they make it into lumber.
Pearl: Uh.. I know they made some um for I don’t know what his first name is..Haines from Hogwaller.
Helen: To put in uh.. flood gates. Yeah, flood gates.
Irene: That’s wonderful, sure.
Pearl: So I know they do some work for him. Ok, who else? I don’t know that.
Irene: Well whatever you wanted they would make I suppose.
Pearl: And of course these other whatever kind of wood they…
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Interview with Viola Sparagna Irene Abrams and Dee Collins
Viola Sparagna (1920-2010)(VS), President of THS; Irene Gerber Abrams (1926-2022)(IA) Dee Gerber Collins (1920-2021)(DC) and unknown Interviewer (I) possibly Fran Brooks October 3 and 10, 2000
VS: In 1952 when Aniceto and I were married, there were thirteen dairy farms. And there are none today. And the last one disappeared in 1975. Saw, Sawmill Road, this is the road, which is on the way to, uh, Patty Bowker Road…
I: Yeah.
VS: That’s still a dirt road. They don’t want it paved apparently.
IA: I think they were paving it…
VS: Oh, they were paving it.
IA: They were working on it about a week ago.
VS: I haven’t been there lately and, uh, I know that when we had the last tour, we went through there and it was a dirt road. That’s good.
I: There’re building houses there.
VS: Yeah, well, I imagine so.
I: Uh, let me just note the date. Today is October 3rd, 2000. Um, I was going to ask you something about the dairy farms. Do you remember, do you have any recollection of any of those farms?
VS: Oh yeah. Up where Russo’s is…
I: Yeah.
VS: That was a dairy farm.
I: Do you know whose dairy farm it was?
IA: Allen’s.
VS: I think it was Allen’s. Francis was one of the daughters. They were older than I was, so I really didn’t…
IA: Forrest Allen was one…
VS: But I know their names are all down in the cemetery. The new cemetery, on the tombstone. So, we could get it from there if we really needed it. And then Bob Haines, where Sunny Lawn Farm is, that was a dairy farm. And then back in, I don’t know the name of that road, where Foulkes’ lives today, there was a dairy farm back in there. I don’t know where they all were because I didn’t travel around like that.
VS: But Beaumont’s down here…
I: Ok.
VS: …where the chemical (plant) is, was built on part of the property. The house, the Beaumont house is still there. It’s made into apartments now. I can’t think of anywhere else. There were… Aniceto remembers, heh, heh, because he was very interested in, in what was going on around here. And so, he said there were thirteen dairy farms. I tell you.
I: Ok.
VS: And Sunny Lawn Farm milk was taken daily to Mount Holly to the Holly Dairy which was there.
I: That’s what I was going to ask you. Where they took the milk?
VS: And I suppose all of them went there. Really, I don’t know that there would be another dairy that they would take it to.
I: Do you remember what kind of cows, the breed of cows they had? What they looked like?
VS: (Laughter.) I don’t remember anything like that. And I could never tell you that the black and white one was Holstein or Guernsey. I just don’t know. Now if you had Aniceto here, he would say this one is this and this one is this… but I don’t know, I never got them straightened out.
I: Well, the black and white are Holstein.
IA: Most around here were the brown and white, weren’t they? Guernsey
VS: I couldn’t tell you that, I couldn’t tell you that.
I: At that time, they probably were.
VS: (Viola reading from something she has.) “Now the triangle of Red Lion Road which is now Carranza Road going to the north and Hawkin Road was the site an annual Harvest Home held by the Methodist Episcopal Church. The famous chicken dinners were served in covered pavilions with tables and benches and there was a separate cookhouse.” It shows it here in the picture. “A thousand or more came from all over. There were several sit-down tickets sold. And usually, there were about eight sit-downs.”
But it didn’t say in the article how many people could sit at a table. You know, with the benches. It was a big, big affair at that time. And Middy gave me some information. It wasn’t a budget, but a report. And I don’t know where that is now. There are certain things I have to sort out and put in folders, so I can get my hands on it. That is one of the most interesting things I think about old Tabernacle. And it went on for years.
I: The chicken dinner?
VS: Yes. That is why we have the chicken barbecue.
I: Oh.
VS: It’s a renovation, although we don’t do it in the same place, and we don’t do it in the same way. But that’s why it was called a Harvest Home in the beginning. It’s only lately that we call it the chicken barbecue. Because people didn’t know what a Harvest Home was.
I: What is a Harvest Home?
VS: It’s a Harvest Home… is an affair that you have at the end of the harvest. Like the Pilgrims had the Thanksgiving dinner.
I: Ok.
VS: That’s exactly what it is. Only it took a different form in Tabernacle. And I’m sure in other places. Because Harvest Home is a… it’s not unique to Tabernacle to use the name for an affair.
I: Now where was the building?
VS: Do you know where Hawkin Road goes?
I: Yes.
VS: Off Carranza? It was in that triangle.
I: Ooooh. Now everybody talks about Hawkins Road vs. Hawkin Road.
IA: This is Hawkin Road.
VS: It’s Hawkin Road.
I: Hawkin Road?
VS: Absolutely, the “s” does not belong there.
I: How, do you know how it came to be there?
VS: You mean how the “s” came to be there?
I: Yes.
VS: Somebody who thought that Hawkin wasn’t right, that’s all. Somebody who made signs. And so, they said that’s not right; it has to be “Hawkins” Road. Why would it be Hawkin Road, well it’s Hawkin Road.
I: And who were a Hawkin?
VS: I have no idea. As a matter of fact, my father never able to tell me who Patty Bowker was. Nor who Patty White was. He knew they were there, and names were there, but he didn’t know who these people are. Like I don’t know whether Manahawkin would have anything to do with Hawkin Road. Because Tuckerton Road…
I: Yeah.
VS: …. went to Manahawkin.
I: Ok.
VS: From Philadelphia to Manahawkin.
I: Wow.
VS: And it could be that somebody who knew that they were going to go to Manahawkin, from this area, said we’ll do this road, which we’ll name Hawkin Road. I have no idea. That’s lost in antiquity. (Laughter.)
I: I wonder if it’s in… I haven’t looked in the book that, um, New Jersey… Burlington County Signposts, something like that. I think they … or South Jersey Signposts, I have to look it up. I have it at home, maybe it has a little history. It has all the roads; it goes over a lot of the roads.
VS: That’s interesting, I didn’t know …
Multiple speakers.
I: Yeah, I will bring, I will dig out a copy and bring it, because I believe it talks about some of the roads here and places. Maybe Hawkin is in there.
VS: Well, they’ve lost the name, I mean, uh, Hampton Gate Road was a proper name for where the road goes, as far as I am concerned. You know. And then they changed the whole thing to Carranza.
Now I think Red Lion Road, which was this road, is a much prettier name than Carranza Road.
I: Right.
VS: But what I’ve heard is, that they changed it to accommodate the truck drivers. Because the truck drivers would see the sign down here, off 206…
I: Right.
VS: …. that the Carranza Monument was up here.
I: Right.
VS: “We can take that Carranza Road.”
I: Right.
VS: But that’s Ok. It’s historical too in a way. But it’s not as pretty a name.
I: Right. And how did Red Lion come to be? That’s kind of an interesting ….
VS: Well, you know in the beginning when people could not, a lot of people could not read, they had to put up signs, with a picture.
I: With a picture?
VS: And, of course, I’m sure that down here the picture was of a Red Lion.
I: Right.
VS: And so, it became known in that area as Red Lion. I don’t know how other, because I know White Horse would be the same. The White Horse Pike would be the same thing. You know, and the Black Horse Pike.
I: Right.
VS: They were, there were, they’re ancient places.
I: Yeah, yeah. They are.
VS: And I am so glad the name has stuck. (Laughter.) And of course, the Tuckerton Road is still Tuckerton because it went, as I told you, it went to Manahawkin and Tuckerton and that area. It actually went to Tuckerton.
Did you know that Tuckerton was one of the ports of entry? That George Washington settled ….
I: Oh, oh I have heard that. Yes.
VS: Well, it’s true, it’s true. People think that’s it’s not, but it is true. I mean they don’t, there’re not going to lie about it at Tuckerton Seaport. (Laughter.)
IA: We hope not.
I: Well, let’s see. One of these things, one of the issues that you brought up, but we haven’t discussed has to do with paying committeemen. What do you remember about the local government here?
VS: I do not know whether they pay the committeemen. They pay the tax assessor; they pay the tax collector. I know because my father was (laughter) tax assessor for a while. And he got paid, not very much. I don’t remember how much he got paid, but very, very, little. But about the committeemen I have no idea. I never heard that mentioned.
I: Now I was thinking for the Centennial that we should, we should, really, I was going to suggest this to Rick, Rick (Franzen), that we should identify all the people that are still living who performed various, um, duties for the Township and recognize them publicly. I mean there’s Rickey Haines, there’s Mr. Coppola …
VS: And you’re going to get the younger generation. You’re not going to get much of the others.
I: I know. I know.
VS: Did you hear Rick say they want the people to dress up of the 1900 hundred period?
I: They want the Township Committee people to get dressed up.
IA: For their meeting.
VS: Oh dear. Well, it’s nice. You say all these things and then….
I: It’ll be fun.
VS: …. and then eventually you know, you get settled down with what you are going to do.
I: Right, exactly. Exactly. Ok, so um, do you remember anything about the governing Tabernacle, any incidents that stand out in your mind?
VS: We didn’t always have a mayor; it was just a township committee. But you know and I don’t know when mayor, the idea of one of them become mayor, came along. Do you remember?
IA: No.
VS: Mayor Grungo, I remember. But I don’t know that I ever heard …. I was away a long time. So, I really don’t know a lot of this stuff that happened. I went away at college in 1936 and then I taught away. And it wasn’t until I married in 1952 that I came back to live here permanently. This was my home.
I: Right.
VS: This is where I taught and did that sort of thing. But, uh, I wasn’t here so a lot of stuff went on that I don’t know about. And in the summer, I was busy with the blueberries. (Laughter.) I didn’t have time to run around and do other things and get involved with other stuff.
I: Do you remember anything?
IA: (Unintelligible.)
VS: Well, they didn’t elect a mayor. Even today they elect themselves. They decide among themselves who is going to be. So, we don’t vote for the mayor. No, I really don’t know. I’m not even sure when it changed from three committee persons to five. Coupla (couple of) years ago?
I: Yeah, 19… I think the voters voted for that in …. 1997, and then it happened in the 1998 election.
VS: I thought it was about like that. I think it is a good idea to have five instead of three. (Laughter.) Especially since we’ve grown so….. I mean, I can’t believe this. I can’t believe this. In another ten years I’ll hardly know where I am if I’m still here. (Laughter.)
I: I don’t know how much it’s going to change. We don’t know how much it’s really going to change. But it is going to change, enough to know it’s going to change.
VS: Yes, it is. That’s right.
I: What about doctoring? Memories of doctoring growing up.
VS: They made house calls. You didn’t go to the doctor’s office from here. He came to you. I do remember that.
I: Do you remember any of the doctors who practiced? In Tabernacle?
IA: Dr. Betz in Medford would come out to Tabernacle.
VS: Yes, but even before that. Before that.
IA: Dr Azine?
VS: Yes. He was from Medford. And there was somebody else, but I can’t remember.
IA: That lived right here in Tabernacle, you mean?
VS: Well didn’t, … I don’t know if he lived over there on the, uh, Shamong Road or not.
IA: Naw, I think he just had a farm.
VS: Had a farm?
IA: I think he just owned that farm.
VS: Who was that? Was that Ed Haines?
IA: Yeah, um hmm. There was no ambulance service that I could recall.
VS: Oh my, no.
IA: But in the forties, when I had appendicitis, we did have a telephone, so my father called Dr. Betts. And he said, “well bring her to the office.” This was like, maybe, one thirty, two o’clock in the morning. So, we went to down to Medford, he examined me, and he said, “take her over to the hospital.” So, my father had to take me over to the hospital. That’s the year I have appendicitis, that was in the forties.
But I think if you were sick, you usually tried to, you know, go to the doctor or have him come out to your house.
VS: I think with most women, their neighbors, the women neighbors, helped them with their (nervous laughter) problems.
IA: I think they had a couple of midwives. I remember Aunt Rae used to help me with …. Aunt Rae Gerber.
VS: And she’s gone so we can’t ask her anything about that. Because when I was born, my mother almost died. And when my father came home from work, there was several women here. And they had worked, very desperately, to keep my mother alive. Now what they did, what was wrong with her, I don’t know. I was there, (laughter) but I don’t know anything about this.
I don’t know anything about it, except I heard this.
I: Right.
VS: And she had a fairly good life after that. She didn’t have any more children; I was the last. Because I guess … well they just decided it wasn’t worth taking a chance. That would be something for your husband to come home to.
And I don’t remember being sick too much. I do remember that I had something wrong with me. It must have been something with my stomach. And I cried and cried and cried, I wanted apples. I wanted apples. I still want apples. But anyway, the doctor came, and he was horrified to think that she had given me raw apples. I survived as you see.
I: That’s what settled your stomach.
VS: But that’s my earliest, that’s my earliest memory. And I don’t remember ….
I: Do you remember how old you were?
VS: Oh, I was maybe five or six. And then after that the doctors didn’t go out too much. Although Dr. Betts used to travel around the fire trucks and ambulances.
IA: Oh, he was really something.
VS: He wanted that excitement. Then we went to the doctor’s office for everything. I don’t remember the doctor coming. But then I guess I never was too sick. When I had the chicken pox, I just had three or four little spots. Here. (Laughter). But that was enough, that I was able to have shingles later on.
DC: I don’t even remember having the mumps. Ottie and I at the same time.
VS: Oh boy! Your mother had a good time!
DC: Had a doctor.
IA: Well, you just didn’t go to the doctor like you do today. If you had a cold, you would do it with …. Maybe a home remedy was supposed to cure you and you took that.
VS: Well, I remember my mother talking about there having been a diphtheria epidemic in the area and uh, there was this one particular woman, don’t ask me who they were, because I didn’t know that. This happened, I don’t know when it happened, you know. This woman had three children and she would not let them go away from the house and it was down a long, long, long lane. Do you know they all got diphtheria?
Even though she kept them away from people who might be a carrier and cause trouble for them. So, my mother she decided that there wasn’t much use in trying to keep people home, you might as well let them go and do their living. Well, this is what they use today, too.
I: Right.
VS: Uh, because my father, as tax assessor, also held the job of Health…. Health Warrant?
I: Officer?
VS: I guess he would be an officer. And I remember that he had to go around if there was measles, he had to go around and put up this sign. It said “MEASLES,” on the house where the measles was. They don’t do that today. Oh, chicken pox, he had to go to the house, and then the people were supposed to avoid that house.
I: Do you have any of those signs?
VS: No, I don’t have any of them anymore. No. But I do remember that.
IA: You had to be quarantined.
VS: And now today the kids go to school with all these problems. Because actually they have found out that it is better if you have mumps or chicken pox early, because when you get it as an adult it’s a very, very serious thing to happen to you.
I: Right.
VS: So, I guess that’s the reason for the change in the attitude of these communicable diseases.
IA: Well, they’ve learned so much.
VS: Well and then also they have all these shots that they give the kids before they are a year old, anti this and anti that and anti all the other things. But isn’t it strange now, I don’t remember hearing very much about tuberculosis, but it was very, very bad at one time; and Apple Pie Hill was a sanitorium for tuberculosis, as well as, I have been able to learn.
I: There was a building there?
VS: Yeah, yes, yes. Doctor somebody, but I wouldn’t know who. I would have to look it up. It may be in the book, I don’t know. But anyway, uh, in spite of everything tuberculosis is coming back. A new strain.
I: Yeah.
VS: Isn’t it weird that these new strains happen. Now that’s one kind of evolution I can believe in. I have to because it’s there (Laughter). The old, the old tuberculin drug does something to be stronger. So, there’re having a hard time.
I: ……………… in the hospitals in places like Russia, terrible, terrible.
VS: Well part of it may be diet, uh, diet too.
I: And conditions, their living conditions are so bad.
VS: It could be that I don’t know.
I: And really very little medical treatment in those countries. It’s also in hospitals in the U. S.
VS: I didn’t know that.
I: Yeah, there’s problems with TB and their having to segregate certain ….
VS: Oh my. Oh dear. ……….. The hospital is not the place to be.
I: Right, right, anything else? Anything else, anything else about any of the diseases, any medical issues that doctors…. Do doctors do a lot of prescribing natural remedies? What did you do when you had colds and viruses and …?
VS: Lived with it (laughter).
IA: If you went to the doctor, they usually had those little pink pills they give you. They were those sugar pills or something. I bet the drug stores did even have drugs then, did they? I mean as a kid I don’t even remember going to the drug store for a prescription.
VS: Well, I don’t think it was called a drug store then, was it? It still, in some places, is known as the apothecary.
IA: Oh, but the doctors would give you the pills that you needed.
VS: Yeah, I know they did. I know. So, I don’t know what you got …. We do know they weren’t like they are today. (Laughter.) They give you pills today. (Laughter.)
And the drug stores were one little bitty corner of it. So, I don’t remember, see. We didn’t, being out here, you took care of yourself. That was the way it was. Unless it was really, really desperate then you would go to the doctor. But if you didn’t have a phone, you really couldn’t call the doctor unless your neighbor had a phone. You know. So, it was better, (cough), excuse me, for you to go to the doctor, probably.
I don’t know whether they had regular office hours or not. Or whether you just went (laughter). Like she went in the middle of the night.
IA: I did.
I: Do you remember much about your experience having your appendix removed? What the hospital was like, what the care was like. What did the whole…
IA: Well, I…
I: How old were you then?
IA: Fifteen, sixteen. I think I was about that old.
I: And where was the hospital?
VS: Vincentown had a little bitty hospital.
IA: No, I would have…
VS: ….but you went to Mt Holly.
IA: Burlington County then. Burlington County Memorial. It has a different name now. So that’s where it was.
VS: And it isn’t anything like it is today. Nowhere near the size.
IA: But the doctor came in, in the morning and examined me and realized it was my appendix. And took me right in the operating room.
VS: And you didn’t have a private room. You probably had a bed with three or four other beds in the room with you. Because at that time ….
IA: That’s what they had.
VS: They didn’t, they didn’t have what we have today. They had wards. Even St. Agnes in Philadelphia, twenty years ago. I remember we visited somebody; they still had wards. Private rooms and semi-private rooms, they had them. But they were, we think, they are expensive today, but for the people at that time, they were awfully expensive. People go to the hospital that way. Now I don’t know whether Mt Holly had any private rooms. I have no experience with it.
DC: They did.
VS: They did.
DC: Fifties, the same way.
VS: How long ago though?
DC: Well, the seventies.
VS: Well, she went about the 1940s. They’ve made a big change since then. Oh my!
VS: I can’t remember anything more about “doctoring.”
I: Or midwifery.
DC: No.
I: Ok, well, what about grocery shopping? Where did you go for groceries? Uh, what were the kind of things you were able to purchase? Um, how did you get there?
VS: You mention something about you went to Medford.
IA: Yeah. My father would go to Medford. Ahem (cleared her throat). Used to be what they called an Acme Store. Only it was American Store then, on one corner, and an A&P on the other corner. And we would take our grocery order and give it to the clerk, and he would pick it from the shelf, put it in a box and we would pay for it and carry it out. No self-service like there is today. And then if you wanted to, there was a meat market down half a block from this American Store. You would go down there and buy, you know, your special meat if you wanted that.
VS: Something you hadn’t grown yourself.
IA: And this was in Medford. Now we did have a general store here, but they usually just had bread, maybe lunchmeat and cheese and just a few canned stuff. You got your big order, you know, from the bigger store.
VS: That store is in the same position that it was in 1850 when Willits started it.
IA: No, I’m talking about Haines.
VS: Oh, you’re talking about Haines’?
IA: Haines’, where the men used to gather.
VS: Well, they did in the other place too.
IA: Did they?
VS: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I remember, now I don’t know which place, but I was like eight or nine years old and I was very excited about getting candy, not where it came from. So, I don’t know whether it was, it probably was Haines’. Next to, practically beside the Methodist church. That’s the big yellow building there. That was a store.
IA: Right next the cemetery.
VS: Yeah. And uh, my uncle went there every Saturday night, I suppose to visit and to shop, chat and maybe to buy some groceries. But anyway, he always stopped in here and he gave me those big pink peppermints about an inch across.
IA: Penny candy.
VS: They were big. Big, big, big. And I used to look forward to that. And people used to talk about they were going out to the “Nickle.” Not Tabernacle, out to the “Nickle.” (Laughter.)
VS: Did any of your people talk that way?
IA: Yeah, my mother always did. Go out to the Nickle and get me this. Go out to the Nickle and get me that.
VS: Well by the time Haines’ store opened up, though, with Ralph, I think he did it because he lived next store. They had a lot of food in there. But I don’t think it was that way in the beginning.
I: Now that store’s gone, that’s the end…
VS: No, the building is there. It was a florist shop too, for a while, after it closed up as a grocery store.
I: It’s the building right next to the cemetery? Which is now a house?
All: Yeah, yes.
I: Ok. Ok.
IA: But at one time that was a general store.
I: A general store.
VS: They had gas tanks.
IA: Yeah, they even had gas pumps.
I: Ok, oh, ok. In front?
All: um huh.
IA: Right on the road.
I: Ok. Do we have any photographs of it?
VS: Not of that one. We have one of, uh, Scott’s Store, across the way. But that was earlier than this.
I: Ok. How much earlier?
VS: Oh, I don’t know. Thirty, no it had, they had gas pumps and uh, I understand that Sid (Sidney Scott) had a car repair shop in the back. But what I remember about it is the ice cream. (Laughter.) They had ice cream cones there.
IA: And penny candy.
VS: Well now he’s been gone fifty years?
IA: All of that I would say. Yeah, all of that.
VS: But anyway, cars were around, a few cars. I wouldn’t say there were a lot of cars, but there were a few cars and there was a gas tank. And now I suppose when he closed up, Ralph was always looking for (laughter) ways to make money so he took over the gas part of it, along with everything else. Because there was no other gas provided. I don’t know from when, down in Vincentown probably.
IA: Probably. There wasn’t any out on (Rt.) 206 or (Rt.)38, 39 or whatever it was.
VS: No, no, there weren’t. Actually, where the Texaco station is, was a swamp. That area, where the Texaco station is, was known as Bear Swamp.
I: Right, that’s right. That’s right.
VS: So that’s …. And of course, all the roads were not here.
DC: I think they had bears.
IA: They had to have bears.
I: There must have been.
VS: Earlier. I think, there probably was something in Vincentown. But I don’t think there was anything in between. And of course, if you went the other way, there still wasn’t anything here between and Manahawkin or New Gretna today. There used to be at Jenkins but not anymore.
I: When you say there isn’t anything, what do you mean?
VS: Gas.
I: Oh, gasoline.
VS: Oh, there’s plenty between here and there, but not if you want gasoline. (Laughter).
I: Right.
VS: You better have a full tank when you start.
DC: They had delivery service too from Haines’ store (be)cause my husband worked there.
VS: Oh, I didn’t know that. Of course, my mother wouldn’t let me walk up there. (Laughter). A quarter of a mile ….
DC: She said that uh, Mrs. Moore, Belle Moore, used to order New York strip steak.
I: I see, uh huh, uh huh.
DC: She used to stop and see me. (Lots of laughter).
VS: Where did she live at that time?
DC: Well, they lived over on Indian Mills Road.
ALL: Uh huh, uh huh.
VS: Was his father still working for the electric company at that time, or was or what did he do, the father, Jack’s (Collins) father?
DC: He was at ….Well, the Depression hit….
VS: New Lisbon
DC: Yes, uh huh.
I: And when was this? What period was this, Dee?
DC: That would have to be before we got married in 1938. It’d be ’37? ’36?
I: Now did people call up or did they drop their list by? How did that work?
DC: I have no idea.
VS: Well, where did Belle live at that time?
DC: Moore’s Meadow.
VS: Well, she probably didn’t come down here and leave a list. And him deliver it later. She may have had a phone.
DC: Possibly, I don’t know. I don’t know up where that Moore’s Meadow whether they would have had a phone or not. I, I don’t know.
VS: That’s a long ways for the phone to go at that time.
IA: Well maybe someone delivered the uh ….
VS: Well, she might have been on the way to somewhere else too. They must have had a car. At that time.
DC: I just remembered that. And I remember that we used to joke because, um, Dick sold black STOCKINGS. And he used to ask if any of our family would like black STOCKINGS to buy! (Laughter). That was a joke.
VS: Now, when Jack delivered these things? He must have driven a car too?
DC: Oh yeah, they had a little truck. I remember that. I don’t know if I had any pictures. Maybe I do.
IA: Yeah, you’ll have to check and see.
I: Yeah, that’d be wonderful.
VS: That’s interesting, I didn’t know that.
IA: Well, I don’t remember Jack working there. Not much more than that, I guess.
DC: One time when he stopped to see me, our dog got one of the slices of ham. (Laughter by all).
VS: Well, that came out of his paycheck. I’m sure….knowing Ralph? (Lots of laughter at the joke.)
DC: No, that was Dick (Haines).
VS: Oh, that was Dick. Oh, it was later than that.
DC: And when she says Dick, she means Richard Haines.
I: Rickey’s father.
IA: Yeah, he ran the store after Ralph left.
I: What was Ralph’s last name?
ALL: Haines.
IA: I wonder if they have photographs of the store.
VS: I don’t know.
DC: He founded the Arrow Safety, didn’t he?
I: He founded what?
All: Arrow Safety in Medford.
VS: The forerunner of our lights to tell us to turn to the right or the left.
IA: Directional lights
I: Oh really.
VS: That started up this way. And you still see these on some old trucks. I’ve seen them not to long ago. It was a blinker light.
IA: It was a light, and it had the arrows on it.
I: Actually, I have a recollection of them on trucks.
IA: There’s a few of them in museums, that’s why.
VS: Well Middy worked at Arrow Safety. Didn’t she? You did to, didn’t you?
DC: During my young years. (Laughter). Between junior and senior for one thing. I think after.
VS: And it was called Arrow Safety.
IA: Arrow Safety.
VS: Directional signals for cars.
I: And it was Rickey Haines’ father who invented them?
VS: NO, not technically.
IA: It would be his grandfather, Ralph. Wasn’t it Ralph?
DC: No, no, no. I don’t think Ralph was Dick’s father.
IA: Oh, was he.
VS: No, no, Ralph wasn’t Dick’s father.
DC: Because he had the other two boys. Ralph did.
IA: So, Ralph is the one that designed the directional signals.
VS: With help from Allie Fox.
DC: I really don’t know how Dick was connected with Ralph.
I: And were they patented?
DC: Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I: How interesting. Now that would be a really interesting thing to do, identify inventors from Tabernacle and their inventions.
VS: I don’t think there are very many.
ALL: (Laughter and all talking at once.)
VS: My great grandfather, is that right? Yeah. My great grandfather insisted that he had invented a loom for making stockings and socks and that sort of thing. And somebody got it away from him. He didn’t get the patent for it.
IA: Oh.
VS: He wasn’t, you know, he’s here in these little boondocks. I think he fought somebody in Philadelphia. But he always, he always, my father would talk about that once in a while. Because they were poor, and it would have been good, that money coming in from an invention.
Well, I can’t think of anything else about the stores of, you know we’re not talking about thirty or forty years ago. We want to go back, further than that.
I: Right. Well maybe we need to talk to Jack. We can get his memories of the store. Would he be willing to do that?
DC: (Laughter) I don’t know. In the right mood her would. Maybe.
(Tape stop for a short time possibly due to interference with the ringing telephone in the background.)
IA: (First part of Irene’s sentence is cut off.) They were crazy over him. They called him handsome cause he was the new fixture here in Tabernacle.
I: How old would he have been?
IA: Well, he went in the service.
DC: Seventeen or eighteen, I guess. Could be nineteen when he married.
IA: Yeah, we have a little bit of history here, of course, we don’t know. You know with the invention of the directional signal, Harker’s Auction Barn, that’s been in the (Philadelphia) Inquirer. There was a big tulip tree in front of the house in Four Winds. That made the Philadelphia Inquirer.
I: Do you remember when that was?
IA: No. I thought I could get hold of a picture, but I can’t seem to find it. What year that was?
I: Uh huh.
IA: That made us sit up, you know, and take notice a little bit. The trunk is still there, of course they had to cut down the tree (be)cause it was dangerous to the house, I think. And sometimes they would find dead people out here where the Mafia had killed and brought out here for burial (nervous laughter).
DC: And of course, Carranza.
IA: Yeah Carranza.
I: Right. Yeah, there’s been a lot of things going on in this little town.
IA: If only people had started talking about it earlier, then, you know, some of the older ones that could really remember how it was when they came here.
I: Yeah.
IA: Really could put a lot to it.
I: That’s why we have to do the best we can.
IA: Yeah. Viola does have a lot of history. It’s remarkable how much she comes up with.
I: Well, I guess she’s been collecting it and it helps to stimulate her own memory. When you start looking at the information, you start remembering things.
I: October, 10 interview with Irene Abrams, Viola Sparagna and Dee Collins
Can you tell us about Mike Rogers? Who he was and what he did in Tabernacle?
IA: Well, he was a resident of Tabernacle, and he had a little, small store down Route 206.
I: Now do you remember Irene where on 206?
IA: Yeah, across from the dog doctor, oh, what’s his name?
I: Dr. Stottle?
IA: Yeah, across from there.
I: Ok.
IA: And he had canned foods, bread and hardware. Nails, extension cords, some drivers and stuff like that. It was easy if you needed them. And he also drove a school bus. So, he would drive school bus and his wife would attend store.
VS: That was still (Rt.) 39 at that time, not (Rt.) 206.
IA: I’m not sure if that was (Rt.) 39 or (Rt.) 206.
I: Do you know where his family came from and where they settled here?
IA: Nope, in the time I remember he was around he was just here. Where he came from, I really don’t know.
But he had a going business. People would go there after bread. I’m not sure whether he sold lunch meats or not. I think it was like bread if you needed it, maybe oleo. That’s what we call margarine now. And it was stuff like that you’d pick up quick and didn’t need to much care while he was taking care of it.
I: Do you remember what his store looked like?
IA: Yeah, it was a rather narrow store. You went in and went to the counter and told him what you wanted, and he’d get it for you. It wasn’t a place where the men would gather and talk because he had regular hours, like maybe eight to five or something like that.
But he made a living off of it. Like I say, you know, he did (a) drive bus, too.
I: And did he have children here?
IA: Not that I know of. Not that I know of.
VS: There’s still Rogers around, but I don’t know if they are his descendants.
I: And there’s a building on (Rt.) 206, that um, if you’re going north, on the right…
VS: That was the store.
I: That was the store, so that building still exists?
IA: Yeah. I think Medford Speed Shop got their start in there. Now I’m not too sure but it seems to me some of those boys had a speed shop there.
I: I have to look at the list, but I wonder who owns the property now. And I know the whole building is closed up. I wonder if there is anything left over from his shop. Do you know when it closed? Do you have any recollection?
IA: No. Like I say, dates and years just pass through my mind.
I: Did he die here? Is he buried here?
VS: I don’t even know that.
IA: No, I don’t know that either.
I: Bob Lees might know that.
IA: Bob, yeah, he might because Bob’s homestead was down one of those drives in Medford Farms. You could question Bob about that.
I: Yeah, we’ll have to ask Bob Lees about if he’s buried here or if he has any relatives here.
Anything you want to add to this.
VS: I don’t know of any more about him, just remember him as a bus driver.
I: It’s interesting that the store still exists. I would be nice to get a photograph of the store and so that people know of the store and when it started.
VS: Irene, was it larger than what you said because it was narrow and the house was there.
IA: Yes, the house was there in the back
I: Which it still is. Was it narrow longwise or narrow horizontally…widthwise?
IA: When you went in the store, you only went 5 or 6 feet and the counter was right there.
I: That would make sense because that was the shape of that building.
IA: And then he’d have shelves in the back where he went to get that or this or whatever.
I: No self-service.
IA: No self-service. In any of those stores.
I: Anything about Nixon’s?
VS: (Viola is reading something she has.) “Tabernacle store and residence was built about 1800 by R. Willits. It was operated later by Henry Peterson. It was purchased and remodeled about 1900 by Charles Doughty. Later owned by Vincent Moore and most recently by Abner Nixon since 1962. Mr. Nixon’s grandson, Jack McGinnis, has operated the business since 1984. In 1877 a United States Post Office was established in the building. This office was in existence until the advent of the Rural Free Delivery Service.”
And I have a couple of photographs that must have been taken at that time. There are two that show two different scenes. One shows the house and the store beside it the way it is today. And there is an Oliver Plough sign. And it says on the back of it…that must have been in Doughty’s time. They made postcards of everything in those days.
I: I would really like to get postcards…I have talked to some people about making postcards of this site because it stills exists.
VS: Well, 2001 Group are talking about postcards too.
I: Well, I brought that up to them. I’m the one who suggested it.
VS: Now, this is a picture with a baker delivery truck and this one was during Doughty’s time. And also, an automobile. And my information says it was a two-cylinder Buick, the first Buick in the township.
I: Oh my. Do you know who is standing outside?
VS: No. You would never be able to tell. Maybe it was Mr. Doughty. But I doubt it.
I: Isn’t there a buggy in the background.
VS: Let me get my magnifying glass.
IA: (It) Sure looks like a buggy. There would have to be a horse around someplace.
I: This is a wonderful photograph. I wonder who took it?
VS: It doesn’t say it was the first car, just the first Buick in the township.
I: Do you know who you got these (postcards) from?
VS: I can’t remember where I got everything. People gave me stuff. (Viola using her magnifying glass). That’s a buggy. You know it looks like an Amish buggy and there’s a McCormick sign. I wonder what that McCormick was.
I: It could have been (garbled) …a plow?
IA: It could have been some farm equipment.
VS: That could have been a carriage. You were right that is a buggy. The buildings that are there (in postcard) are gone. Aren’t they, Irene?
IA: Yeah.
VS: You can see a buggy or Amish carriage.
IA: Yeah.
VS: I’m sure it was because they had them all over the place.
IA: There’s another one here.
VS: Yeah, I know and that’s a two-seater and the other one has four seats.
Now, there’s some information here about Nixon’s that this time. “The store also houses the Tabernacle Vincentown Telephone Company until the mid-1920s.” It says “the building was built in 1850 and a gathering place for local folks.” We remember, I remember people going there when it was Moore’s store.
I: Did it pretty much sell the same things over time?
VS: Oh yeah, from food to hardware. And it was self-service.
I: Oh, it was self-service.
VS: I’m taking that back. I’m thinking about today is self-service. Anyway, I remember my father telling me about one man who came into the store and got his groceries and whichever the proprietor was put them all in a box for him and the gentleman said could he have that taken (on credit), just take it and pay him later. The proprietor picked the box up and put it down under the counter. And the proprietor said when you bring the money, you may have your groceries. (Laughter) So he wasn’t giving anything on “tick”.
IA: On tick.
VS: That was the term, “on tick”.
I: That’s a new one for me. How would you spell that?
VS & IA: T-I-C-K.
I: Is it “on ticket”?
VS: No, no. It was instead of credit…”on tick”.
I: Now, where do you think it came from? Any…
IA: From the time I can remember, she was buying on “tick”.
I: You don’t hear that anymore.
IA & VS: Oh, no.
I: That’s the first time I ever heard that word.
VS: That’s a word that is passe.
I: Viola is looking up the word “tick” as an expression or the expression of…
VS: Here it is: “Tick: Chiefly British, informal (1) a score or account; (2) on tick – on credit or trust. We bought our telly on tick.” You see it mostly on British. You see, I wish I had known then what I know now. He told me that up where they had lived, you know where that Yates house is and where my grandfather’s house. Up on Chatsworth Road. They said that it was known as English Town. My grandparents came from England. They brought these words with them. So that’s probably why it was used here. Because they were where “tick” was used a lot. And that’s why it was in the dictionary.
I: OK. Now, that’s very interesting.
VS: Let’s see what else is in this article. It says that “many old general stores it was a gathering place for the local folk who wiled away the hours disgusting everything from agriculture to politics. In those days New Road and Tabernacle-Chatsworth Road, now heavily traveled, was simply wagon ruts. A four-part wagon shed (we see that in the picture) behind the store served as shelter for horses and carriages that were the main transportation back then. The shed has been torn down, but another out building, an old smokehouse remains. The store front was rebuilt in 1903 and Abner Nixon made significant changes and more have been made by Jack McGinnis (Viola added: Much more) and now is a self-service store with a deli and all sorts of modern inventions that the public wants.
The house Mr. Nixon recalls was not livable when he purchased it. Today the store is a thriving business and the house comfortably suits two families. The interior has been changed a bit, but the general store remains a clear landmark in the community as it has been for many years.”
And that’s it for Nixon’s Store for me. I could not add anything, except that it’s still a very busy place. A thriving enterprise.
I: What about Sam Scott and the gasoline.
VS: I have a picture about that, but I don’t know what it would be under. (Viola is looking through her files) And George Carmelia knows all about that.
I should call them and ask him to write or do something about Scott’s.
I: So, he would know about that.
VS: (Still looking through her files) I will get to that. I get there eventually.
I: I know you do. One step at a time. So, he knows all about…So where was Sam Scott’s and gasoline?
VS: Next to the town hall.
I: Next to the town hall.
VS: About where the…not the tax office, but…What is that little building?
I: The Annex. The construction office. And he had a couple of pumps?
VS: Yeah, I have a picture somewhere.
IA: They sold gas.
VS: Ice cream. Penny candy.
I: Do you know when it was started? Do you know when it closed up? Just ball park.
IA: More or less it catered to kids. Penny candy. Glass case. You could stand there and “want that one and that one, that one.” Maybe you only had a nickel so you could get 5 pieces of candy which was a big deal then. When I was growing up. We all enjoyed going there. He’d hand-dipped ice cream and I think he had bread, but I don’t think he had too many other groceries.
VS: And it says…I got pictures somewhere, but I don’t know where.
I: We have a picture of Sam Scott filling station 1927-1928 and it appears that his wife, Caroline, and him are at the pump. And Herb Gerber says, he might be the young man lounging on the bench. And photograph, courtesy of George Carmelia.
VS: He’s a relative of some sort. I don’t know his exact connection is, but he’s a relative. He spent his summers here in the Pepper House.
I: Was he a relation to…?
VS: Of some sort, but I don’t know.
I: How old is he now?
VS: He’s 87, like Aniceto (Viola’s husband), And neither he and his wife are very well.
I: It seems almost that if he is good, we could take a little trip down just enough… It might motivate or stimulate him.
VS: Well, they used to come to the Historical Society meetings and work with our projects. Runnemede’s a long ways…even when they were younger. They were good. They came to meetings faithfully.
I: So, they moved to Runnemede actually early on. It was some time ago.
VS: Oh, yes.
I: OK. And they still stuck with us.
IA: They are still interested in things about Tabernacle.
VS: He has things in his house that he wants to donate to the Pepper House. I guess we will have to go get them.
I: Yeah, you know that I would be willing to drive down there to do an interview. Even if it’s a half hour interview just to talk about…
VS: When I call, not regularly, but every now and then, to let them know of their condition and let them know what’s going on here. You know, they gave money regularly to the Pepper House when they came up here and were very interested in it. It’s too bad when we get old and can’t do things.
I: Maybe when you talk to him and see how he feels and maybe we could take a trip down there.
(Seems that tape was shut off for a while and then picked up again)
VS: …the yellow building next to the church. Between the church and the cemetery.
I: We haven’t really talked about the Haines Store. What was his first name? Do you remember?
VS: Was he Ralph that took that over. Or was it somebody before him?
IA: I remember Ralph having it then Richard took it over.
VS: I suppose we bought all our groceries there. I don’t remember now. I know I used to go there once in a while to get things, but I…Wasn’t he Tax Collector or something. Richard was Tax Collector.
IA: Yeah, Richard was.
VS: Ralph lived where Fitzpatrick’s live, next to the store. They didn’t live in the building where the store was. They lived in that big, big house.
IA: Yeah, the big white house.
VS: Where Fitzpatrick’s live. Now that’s a double house which was kind of unusual for this area. Because it wasn’t a farm house. You know, maybe there were two families when they built that house when they wanted to live together. And the store next door. I don’t know why they didn’t live in the store. A big building…maybe upstairs, I don’t know. But the store really, what I remember, was mostly food. I don’t remember he had farm implements and that sort of thing. Because by that time there were big enterprises in Medford sold all sort of that thing.
IA: Now, didn’t he sell feed for if you had a couple of horses, not a lot. Not a big truck load of stuff. Now, don’t they say there is still an elevator in that building or something?
VS: I never knew of an elevator. I can’t answer that.
I: Do you remember what years we are talking about?
VS: I was born in 1920 and I probably would go there when I was going to school. If I could walk up to the store.
IA: I imagine that it was in the 1930s. Don’t you?
I: Was it at the same time that Sam Scott’s store was open? Or did it follow Sam Scott’s store? And also, Mike Roger’s store? If you remember or recall?
VS: It wouldn’t have any effect on Mike Roger’s store because they were far apart, (be)cause they were open at the same time. But it would have an effect on Sam Scott if they were open at the same time.
IA: Sam Scott didn’t carry the stuff that Haines’ store did.
VS: I remember ice cream and candy. And the picture shows that they sold gasoline. I don’t remember Dick’s store ever selling gasoline. Do you?
IA: That I can’t answer. I don’t know whether he did or not.
VS: See it was Dick when I growing up. Ralph had already gone to other places and involved with our safety. So, the store didn’t hold any interest for him…he was in greener pastures. (Laughter)
I: Now is Rickey Haines…
VS: He’s not his (Ralph) son. He’s my nephew’s cousin.
IA: Well, Dick was his father.
VS: No, we’re talking about Ralph. Ralph had two boys, neither one of them was Richard.
I: Rickey Haines is not related to either one?
VS: His related, but not his son…to Ralph, (but) to Richard (Dick).
I: To Richard.
VS: Not Ralph. Whether he bought the store or…I have no idea. I just know that he ran the store after Ralph left. I used to go there. And he had something to do with taxes, Richard; but I don’t know what it was. Now, I was grown up by that time.
IA: He might have been a Tax Collector.
VS: He might have been. We’d have to go to the township record to know who was who and what.
IA: Who and when.
VS: I really don’t know. As a child you don’t think about these things. And if you don’t pay attention or know about it, then how can you recall it. You never know it in the first place.
I: Maybe someone like George Camelia would help in those gaps. OK…
VS: You mind if we do this before we do that?
I: Oh yes. Not at all.
VS: This is the colored cemetery and church. I have a picture this time. But they still do burials there.
I: Now, this was the building at the burial…cemetery itself.
VS: Yes, that’s right. That was the building. African Methodist Church.
I: Do you know when bond? (Note: Typist did not understand what she said. Sounded like bond.)
VS: I don’t know any of this stuff when it boned. (Note: Typist picked up the word “boned”, not “bond.”)
What I have here about the burials. There was a burial in 1993 in the Central Record. (Viola is reading from the newspaper) “Elizabeth Williams of Tabernacle. And she worked in Philadelphia for many years. She survived by 7 grandchildren and 7 great grandchildren. Services will be held at the Bradley Funeral Home in Marlton. And burial will follow in the African American Cemetery in Tabernacle.”
“And there was one (burial) in 2000 a Mr. Thomas Murray who was 101 of Tabernacle. He had lived in Philadelphia before moving to Tabernacle in 1960. He was a self-employed push cart manufacturer and retailer in Philadelphia. And also, a self-employed farmer. He was survived by his son, Arthur, of England. Funeral services were Tuesday at the American Methodist Episcopal Cemetery, Tabernacle. Arrangements were by Mathis Funeral Home, Medford.”
I have no idea when the little church burned. It was in a very dilapidated condition in this picture. And I don’t know who took the picture. They would have to spend a lot of money to fix it up and there were not many people.
I: Obviously, there’s family left here.
VS: No, I think Stiles was buried there when she died or he was. And they may be able to tell you something.
I: So, Fran Stiles may have information…
VS: She may know something about it. I don’t promise.
IA: Her mother maybe.
VS: Her mother…no it was his mother who died. And she died just recently. Next time I go over to the bank, I’ll ask her. Because this is all the information I have.
I: What about the topic we are going to discuss is the Lodge Hall and the Jr. Mechanics Building which is now Town Hall.
VS: Something else too. Because my cousin Marriott (Haines) gave me a lot of stuff. There was something about the Patriotic Sons of America.
IA: P.O.S. of A. That was some other lodge, I think, similar to Jr. Mechanics.
VS: I don’t know where they would have met if they didn’t meet in that building.
I: Here comes Dee. (Tape resumed)
VS: They met in the Jr. Mechanics building.
I: Do you know who built that building?
VS: Let’s see what I’ve got here. I’ve got badges, bags and buttons. Washington camp No. 186. (Viola pulled out a badge)
I: That’s gorgeous. Just gorgeous. (Admiring the badge) The badge.
VS: This is the Patriotic Sons of America and here’s George Washington and it says Patriotic Sons of America. This (badge) was made in Newark, apparently.
Someone asked: Was that your dad’s
VS: No.
I: What years do you think this operated?
VS: I’m looking
I: (Interviewer is reading off the badge) It’s made by the Whitehead and Hough Co.: Badges, banners, flags, buttons, advertising novelties; Main offices and factory Washington and Warren Streets, Newark, NJ.
This is interesting: the patent…
VS: This was written by Marriot (Haines) in 1985 when he gave me this stuff. He didn’t like what was on the plate. Anyway, “the correct name of the building was Tabernacle Council No. 49, Junior Order of United Mechanics. Jr. O.U.A.M. The date of the charter was March 27, 1874. And the structure was known as the Jr. Mechanics Hall. Facing the Tabernacle-Cross Keys Road, now known as the Tabernacle-Medford Lakes Road. The original building consisted of westerly 25 feet of the present structure with the entrance by door still facing Tabernacle-Cross Keys Road. The hall was extended to present size around the turn of the century (1900s) at which time a second wider door was placed near the center of the building facing the same Tabernacle-Cross Keys Road.
“There were three rooms on each floor plus an unfinished attic. Sliding doors divided the room at the foot of the stairway on the westerly end of the hall from the large room on the easterly end of the first floor. There was no plumbing. Frequently the Juniors permitted the Methodist Church to serve dinners, travel shows such as medicine or early movies on the first floor. One year the late Al Jones had an exceptionally large cranberry crop at Friendship. And he rented the first floor and basement to store and sort the berries. This led to a fire, which is another story.” And I know that it was in 1920, because when I needed a birth certificate, I was born in 1920, there was no records. I had to go to the office in Trenton to get my birth certificate.
“The council’s membership started to decrease after World War II. Finally, it got to the point where it was no longer practical to maintain the hall. By unanimous vote by remaining members the Jr. Mechanics home was donated to the Township of Tabernacle to be used as its principal building. The lodge retained meeting privileges so long as the council is in existence. That was October 6, 1966. Incidentally, it was used as a voting place for several years and were held in the room at the foot of the open stairway on the west end of the hall.”
And I have a note here from another place: Republicans voted on one side and Democrats on the other. They stood up to be counted. (Laughter)
I: What year was that?
VS: It doesn’t say what year. The information doesn’t give that, but we can find out about it. “The present entrance on the east end facing Carranza Road and the closed stairway were added by the township.”
Now I understand about that place in one picture that looks like there’s a door closed up and that’s the one that both doors…the one that is still in existence and the one that’s closed up on the side to the Tabernacle-Cross Keys Road. And there was no entrance on Carranza. That one was added by the township…since 1966? We have to find out about that. That’s what he said. By this time, he was still in his faculties, I guess. He was beginning to lose them, but it was hard to say.
Now, this book: State Camp of New Jersey, Patriotic Sons of America, for the term ending 1955, they met the first Tuesday of each month. Past president, William Pepper; President, Harry Pepper; Recording Secretary, Edward Gerber (Laughter); (garbled with laughter) Secretary William Gerber. Number of members recorded, this is the P.O.S. of A. not the Jr. Mechanics, numbers recorded end of June, 1955 – 13. Initiated this term – 0.
I: Were you related to any of these?
IA: Gerbers and Peppers. My mother was a Pepper. My father was a Gerber.
I: How are you related to those people?
IA: They all were.
VS: William was her father.
I: William was your father?
IA: Yeah. William was my father.
VS: Now, there were only 13 by that time because there were lots before. They kind of petered out. Then the Jr. Mechanics took over. My goodness…
I: Viola is looking at a book. What is the book, Viola? It’s a notebook of some sort.
VS: It doesn’t name it, but it is a membership book actually and it says that they had to pay 25 cents entrance. Now, that doesn’t tell us whether they paid dues every Tuesday of the month or it was 25 cents to begin with. Anyway, it said entrance fee and it says 25 cents paid. Then, that was 1914. No, that was 1947. my eyes, I’m telling you, are not that good., 1914. And this person Sam Alloway did not pay his 25 cents. (Much laughter).
I: Well, I think we should go back and collect it.
VS: And there are several of non-payment of dues. (Viola is going down the list) Non-payment, non-payment, non-payment. And the names are here.
(She talking to Irene Abrams) What do you want?
IA: II was looking at this page.
VS: 1914, ’15, ‘16
IA: That the date of death.
VS: So, it was after 1914, 1915, 1917, 1931, ‘33, ’35, ’50. Now, there were several that were dropped or transferred. And the latest entrance was 1951 and there are lots of non-payment of dues which means that they were not attending the meetings. In 1951 apparently…Let’s see what this is. Joined funereal benefit fund, 1952.
IA: I think they did give a little bit when the men died.
I: Now, do you thing the Jr. Mechanics became or was an outgrown of that organization? They were two completely different
VS: They were two completely different entities.
IA: Probably after this along come the Jr. Mechanics Lodge.
I: Bob Lees would have a lot more about that.
IA: Bob would know more.
VS: He was here after Fletcher’s viewing. And he stayed and stayed and he said that he wanted to go. (Laughter) And that’s when I learned he was a diabetic. I didn’t know he was a diabetic. And he has to be very careful, but he did eat drink a little bit of the wine. He said he could get away with that. And Aniceto gave him a bottle and Virginia has cancer. You did find out. Maybe I told you last week. And did I also tell you that he wants Aniceto and me to come up there and look things over.
I: Yes, and I saw him this weekend. I stopped by the house. And he’s going to do all that. He said that he would also like to participate. We are going to do that over the wintertime.
VS: Now, 1951, 1954. In 1950 it was $5.00 entrance fee. Do you want to hear some of the name who were there at that particular time?
I: Yes, yes.
VS: You know the end of the era.
I: Who they represent.
VS: You want me to read all of these from 1920.
I: Read a couple.
VS: Well, the man who had the store, Charles Doughty was a member in 1922. Phillip Gerber became a member in 1921. George Gerber in 1912. These are not the way they should be. I don’t know who kept this book. It doesn’t say. Lucian Hess, Melvin Horner, Joseph Yates, Clifford Worrell, Caleb Rogers, Charles Falk, Alex Falk, Samuel Moore, Edward Gerber, William Patton, Herbert Gerber, Sr., Custer Jackson, Winfield Haines.
IA: There all familiar to us because we’ve lived here all our lives.
VS: John Beaumont,
I: They’re becoming familiar to me
VS: Mervin Fletcher, Warren Abrams, Lee Pinkerton. The Pinkertons been around here.
I: And who are they?
VS: They lived up the Chatsworth Road somewhere. I don’t know just where? I remember the name. George Snow, Joe Simons, Mark Simons, Joseph Zimmerman and Amiel Zimmerman and they are the last on this page. They were the Funereal Fund in 1952.
Isaac Brown born in 1883 and he died in (19)66. Tillman Ellis, that name if familiar, born in 1872 and died in 1964. William Gerber born in 1888 and he died in 1977. William Pepper born in 18_____ (tape stopped)
(Laughter)
I: There are all of Dee’s (Collins) relatives
VS: And Irene’s
I: And Irene’s (Abrams).
DC: Our mothers’ were sisters (Pepper) and our daddies’ (Gerber) were brothers. (Note: This is talking about Irene Gerber Abrams and Dee Gerber Collins.)
I: How do you like that?
VS: Double, double.
VS: Did I say William Pepper born in 1881 and died in 1957? Harry Pepper 1890 and died in 1975. William Patton 1895 died in 1955. Herbert Gerber, not the Herbert Gerber, the one I know, born in 1900 died in 1978. What Herbert Gerber would he be?
IA: Vivian’s father
VS: Winfield Haines born in 1912. This book was not kept up to date. We’d have to look up his death. I don’t remember when he died. We’d have to look in the cemetery at the tombstone. Floyd Moore born in 1889 and died in 1962. So, I don’t know what they got in benefits from there funereal fund.
DC: It’s in my mind that they got $200, but I’m not sure.
IA: $200, yeah.
VS: $200, $250. They were getting up there in age in 1952. They were enrolled in 1914, 1915. The latest in 1935, Winfield Haines.
DC: Now, Jack was a member in one of those, you know, and he phased out. And they asked him to come back in
IA: Jr. Mechanics maybe.
DC: Because they wanted to build up the membership.
VS: Anyway, that’s about all the information I have. I have books upstairs what Marriott gave me. If I didn’t put them in here, they weren’t very significant to me at that time.
I: We can always pick up on the lodge if we have to.
VS: We’re talking again about the little cemetery that was originally part of the A.M.E. Church property.
I: Which is on Carranza Road.
VS: Yes. (Viola is reading from something she has.) “George H. Eares (Viola spelled his last name), a Civil War Veteran was interred there and his grave was annually marked with a flag of the Veterans Association. The grounds were resting place for Negroes employed in the near-by smelting industry. A tramp through the woods revealed occasional fieldstone markers indicting that the graveyard was at one time were more extensive. About 1960 it was used for burials of indigent Puerto Rican or West Indian immigrant workers. Since 1972 it’s been expanded and there are now numerous stones of recent burials, but no great effort is made to care for the ground.”
I met a gentleman from Leisure Town who went there on his own to make it more palatable to the eyes. But he was an elderly gentleman so I don’t know.
I: The boot camp is keeping it up now.
VS: The boot camp.
I: They are tending to it. It is much nicer. I actually do the front of it when I go out to pick up litter. I’ll go up there and pick up the front of it.
VS: Now, let’s see. We have the Jr. Mechanics Cemetery. The new cemetery was established in 1920 on land purchased on John Cutts, Sr. by the Fraternal Order.
I: Excuse me for one moment. The Jr. Mechanics Cemetery is north of the Methodist Cemetery. Right?
VS: North of the old cemetery.
(Viola is reading from something she has.) “The first interment was that of Albert Ellis, aged 6 in 1921. The child died as a result from a fall from a horse and wagon.”
This is about Eagle Cemetery near the site of Speedwell which is way, way up Carranza Road the other side of Friendship. “This cemetery is mentioned by Reverend Beck who was guided to it by a Fire Warden. Eagle was never more than a hamlet, but a man by the name of James McCambridge operated a hotel there. Tradition says that a priest was buried there. It used to be a wooden marker.
“Continuing on Carranza Road to Friendship when you would turn to the left, you would be headed toward Chatsworth on a road that once was proud two-lane highway during the hay day of the Sandy Ridge cranberry industry. The road would be rough in spots, like many old township roads, but today it is closed to traffic.
“The Wills burial plot is difficult to find because it is off the proverbial beaten track and the marker is by the site itself rather than out on the rough road. Long ago there was a wandering priest who traveled to several pineland’s outposts and villages to conduct outdoor services. Indications are that the land of the Will’s burial marker maybe found is part of the wide area consecrated by the so-called Padre of the Pines.” Refer to Henry Beck’s book Forgotten Towns. “He chose to consecrate land here what was in his time the thriving Eagle Hotel, which like Hampton Gate and several others, have long since vanished. The hallowed ground with the stone marker is inscribed C. W. Wills 1839 remains. Once there were other markers there as well which they often used pine slabs for markers. But over time took a toll on them so we no longer know who else may be buried in the sandy blueberry bush laden ground.
“The people buried here may have worked at Speedwell Furnace 1785 to 1839 run by Benjamin Randolph. Liquor sold in the Eagle and Hampton Gate Taverns was 6 ¼ cent per drink and a meat cost 12 ½ cents each at the Eagle Tavern. Randolph was also a cabinet maker of much repute and had the distinction of having made the writing desk that Thomas Jefferson used when writing the Declaration of Independence. How astounded Mr. Randolph would surely have been to know that a wing chair he made would be auctioned in the 20th Century for $33,000.
“The old stamping mill, also, called the “tonging” mill was in the vicinity of the Wills burying ground. It is hard to believe that so much activity used to take place in this quite over-grown area, but such was the case.”
I: What’s that corner called? You go out Shamong Road and cross by Tuckerton Road? What’s that building there?
VS: It was a tavern there. It burned down. What’s that corner? Naylor’s Corner?
IA: There’s a Naylor’s Corner, a Piper’s Corner.
VS: I think that was Naylor’s Corner. And there was a big, big building there that was an inn and a tavern.
Course the Tuckerton Road was an important highway even through it was a dirt road going from Philadelphia to Tuckerton. And Tuckerton was an entry port. Maybe that’s why the road went there. That would make sense. Maybe we could find out what happened there.
IA: Now, they call Patterson’s Corner. Used to be a stage coach stop.
I: Where is Patterson’s Corner?
IA: That’s in over in Shamong Township. That’s going toward Atco, Atsion Road, off of Oak Shade Road.
VS: So, you see, we really don’t know where Tuckerton Road ends. It could have continued onto a _______. We really don’t know. Maybe we should look into Henry Beck’s book for some other things.
I have one more thing before we close up today. This has nothing to do with what we’ve been discussing. This is altogether different. This is what I have accumulated about interesting homes, settlers and occupations. Arthur Haines settled in 1843. He was a farmer. John Haines, he settled in 1841 also a farmer. Henry Kimble, 1844 and he was also a farmer. And their address was Vincentown Post Office. Wesley Taylor settled in 1841 as a farmer and he was in Shamong Township at that time. He got his mail through Vincentown Post Office. By the way, we still get our mail through Vincentown Post Office.
I: That’s an interesting fact because people were very upset that don’t have a separate Tabernacle address that we’re still considered Vincentown. But that’s a historically…this goes back a long time, way back into the mid-1800s.
VS: What bothers me a little bit is that Chatsworth has its own Post Office. But I can understand that because it is really isolated. Shamong and Tabernacle are interconnected. Anyway, George Wisham came in 1856 and he was in Shamong Township at that time. It wasn’t until 1901 that part of Shamong was taken to become part of Tabernacle Township. Caleb Wright came in 1874. Now his Post Office was Atsion. And he had dry goods, groceries, poultry, flour and feed, as well as, being a farmer. When I accumulate more, I will add to this.
I: Were all these Haines’ related or were they separate families that settled here?
VS: Arthur was Ralph’s father and John was probably Carleton’s father, Harriet’s husband. I really don’t know the ins and outs. But there they are.
Interview with Bob Lees Viola Spragna and Irene Abrams
Multiple speakers: When they first came in 39 which is now 206, I never went because I didn’t own a skate but did you? No, I was too young. I remember me and Dee , Ruth went down there and skated. What traffic there was. Yeah. That was 206. Imagine doing it now. Oh my goodness, you can hardly get out on the road now.
Multiple speakers: Course up until now, maybe they put the light there. Cross the road. You know, there’s no trouble at all. Well it’s a big help the light down at Tuckerton. It helps a lot.
VS: Well, I think you did ask him when electricity first came in. I couldn’t remember. I think it was 1930. We did talk a little bit about the telephone, but it was the Vincentown/Tabernacle Telephone Co. It was in Vincentown, and Tabernacle had two lines: a number 8 line and a number 21 line. It was 21 because it was two short and one long ring. I don’t know what the 8 was but I don’t know if it was 8 short rings or what. I didn’t get that information.
VS: And the tar road, Red Lion Road it was at that time, now it’s Carranza Road, was tarred in 1927. And we talked about this. And I think we did mention this, you know, the connection. In 1877, there was put here, I think it was in what we now call Nixon’s Store, the United States Post Office and It was there until the advent of Rural Free Delivery service (RFD). Now that had to be somewhere else because Willett’s Store didn’t come until 1880. So we have to see if we can find out where the Post Office was. It could have been in this store, you know, this one next to the cemetery. We have to look and see if it was there in 1876 because it says so, doesn’t it, on that map. The Post Office was there in l8… we don’t know. The Willett’s store was on that 1876 map.
And Inawendiwin in conjunction with Indian Ann, she was supposed to be a princess of the tribe. What tribe, I never heard that either. Inawendiwin is supposed to be the Indian word for Friendship. Let’s see…Friendship Sawmill, it existed 1850 until I don’t know when. It not only sawed wood; it burned charcoal.
Interviewer: Who ran the Friendship Sawmill?
VS: Well, I don’t know. I’m just telling you what I have.
VS: And from here to Philadelphia was a 10 hour trip on dirt roads by horse and wagon and I have one more thing here. The land for the one room school house which was by the town hall was donated by a Charles Bowker. His name “Bowker” is on that 1876 map. But it didn’t say when. And the Union School House where my mother went to school over on Indian Mills Road were both one room schools, but the Union School was abandoned very shortly, and the one room school by the Town Hall of today became a two room school and it was moved to where it sits today and an eight room school in 1936.
Sp 1: Now, Mr. Bowker, I wonder if Patty Bowker is related to Mr. Bowker?
VS: Probably but that’s the strangest thing: My father always insisted that that road was not really Patty Bowker Road. That that is a new name for the road, but I have no way of knowing what it would be unless I looked up some of the old maps and, hopefully, they not only put the names of the house people but the road, which they don’t have on this map.
VS: Now, do you want to hear about Indian Ann?
Interviewer: Absolutely.
VS: Indian Ann was born in 1805 and lived to be 90 years old. She is buried at the rear of the old cemetery in Tabernacle. She was the last of the Lenni-Lenape nation to remain in New Jersey. The Indians were here long before the settlers arrived. The Haines in the area in 1682. (Laughing) As if that is anything wonderful. There were Indian relics that I have at Sunnylawn Farm and Patty White Hill. Now, Indian Ann wove baskets and we have one of her baskets. And sold them by going from farm to farm receiving bread and other food in exchange. Now that’s the only thing that I have about her at the moment.
VS: Now going back to Gilbert Knight that built that Knight-Pepper House about 1862. He himself was a blacksmith. Now this may answer the question Ralph asked me last week. He insisted that my Uncle William (Cutts) had someone else in the blacksmith shop with him, but I don’t think it could have been this Gilbert Knight. I think he would have been gone by then, but I don’t know who it was. I always knew my Uncle William had the blacksmith shop, but I never knew he had a partner. Now, the son of Gilbert Knight (this is all on the sign in front of the Gilbert Knight House) his son became Burlington County Clerk and was a member of the New Jersey Public Utilities Commission. Now, Gilbert Knight and his wife, I don’t remember her name, are buried in the old cemetery, quite close to the front of the cemetery, and I put flowers there all the time for them like I put for my family. I think that’s only fair.
Interviewer: Thank you.
VS: This is about the two room school. I don’t know why I wrote that. The triangle of Red Lion Road and Hawkin Road, and Red Lion Road is now Carranza Road, was the sight of an annual Harvest Home held by the Methodist Episcopal Church. The famous Chicken Dinners were served under covered pavilions and tables and benches. There was a separate cook house. A thousand or more came from all over. There were several sit down tickets sold. Usually there were about 8 sit downs. Now that was a big affair, especially for out in the country as it was these days, on a dirt road and far away. The people had to come from distances, because the Tabernacle people wouldn’t have made up a thousand or more patrons.
Interviewer: Now what does it mean to have 8 sitdowns?
VS: Well, could you explain that better than I could, maybe?
IA: Maybe they had six tables and they filled all those tables up. That’s one sitting. They get up then you set the tables. Another group comes in and that would be the second sitting. And on that way.
VS: Now, I doubt that they sold these tickets ahead of time.
IA: I don’t see how they possibly could.
VS: No, you had to buy your ticket when you arrived. And if the tables weren’t filled up when you arrived, you sat down and ate then. Otherwise you had to wait for the other people to enjoy … they were always chicken dinners and I know Millie(?) gave me something else somewhere but I don’t know where it is right now.
IA: How much chicken cost?
VS: Yea.
IA: How much potatoes was? How much coleslaw? And stuff like that.
VS: Yea, yea.
Interviewer: Where did all the chicken came from?
VS: Probably the Women’s , everybody grew their own chickens. And so, I don’t know whether they bought them or donated them. I’ll come across that somewhere. (Laughing) Now, they did more than that Harvest Home. The Harvest Home would be in the Fall…..you’re bringing the harvest home. Anyway, this is more information about the suppers. In 1877, the Methodist Church held a supper in the Mechanics Hall at Tabernacle. On Tuesday evening, 23rd instance proceeds for the benefit of the church and this was published in 1977 in the Burlington County Herald, Mt. Holly. (Laughing) look what’s on this next paper. Oh, the electricity that came to the township in 1930 was the Atlantic Electric Company and they stayed around for a long time. Till it was taken over by Connective.
IA Yea, mmmhmm.
BL: Good Morning!
Interviewer: Good Morning. BL is here. Your always rushing around.
Interviewer: Hmm. It sure is, this beautiful of December 5th.
BL: Well, I just stopped down to see Gene(?) I wanted to see something in the newspaper. I wanted to go over that.
VS: What newspaper?
BL: Gary Mitchell’s never been informed. Nothing. Nobody knows nothing.
Interviewer: I know.
VS: The Burlington County Times or something?
Interviewer: I don’t get that.
BL: A future article in there again one more time.
Interviewer: O my.
BL: As you know…
Interviewer: I decided last night, Bob, after, you know…after I’ve been…
BL: I know you’ve been pushing the issue. You know, the interesting part of this, the administrative (end of this conversation) Laughing
Interviewer: We’re here today it’s 12 December 5th 2000 with Irene, Viola and BL. And BL is going to give us biographical information today as well as information about Medford Farms as well as anything else that comes up.
BL: Well, I guess it all began in Camden on Hayes Avenue. My father was a printer, Tom L, my mother worked for Kraft Food Company in Philadelphia. She used to write the advertising materials up. They were one of the largest feed producers in through this area. They married in 1936. I was born 1937. They first probably less than a year I spent on Hayes Avenue and they came, someway, they got out in this area. Well Medford Farms really started to develop after the Depression. The original tract I think was 380 odd acres and it had a bad forest fire went through it. Around 1929, 1930.
Interviewer: They moved to Medford Farms?
BL: Then the property was… in fact, Medford Farms originated at the Old Red Lion store. The owners were there and a gentleman from Philadelphia stopped there. He was a real estate tycoon and he bought property. I did one time know what the figure was, but it was ridiculous 300 some odd acres.
Interviewer: For $35,000 dollars.
BL: If it was that, yeah. He had a friend by the name of John Richter who was a licensed surveyor and developer. So he started to lay the thing out in lots, of course, they never came to the township. They just laid out paper lots. Most of the lots and streets were paper streets. They never really connected or did anything whatsoever. And they started a mass selling of the lots which were $25.00 a piece. A family by the name of Morgan bought the lot that my mother and father had and they built a 10 x 12 house on it. Ah, the rumblings of the war were off in the distance, but things didn’t look that promising, so they put the property up for sale and my mother and father bought it for, I think, it was $325. And my father was worried that, if this becomes a reality and we do go to war, I want my family in a nice, safe place. So, we came here, I was one or two years old, I guess.
Interviewer: Do you know how they heard about …
BL: I think they just took a ride, truthfully, I think that’s how they came across it. Really wasn’t anybody…There wasn’t that many people there at that time. There were 95% summer people. In fact, it was shantytown. That was, I grew up it was shantytown. I got my ears boxed at least once a week for years. I think that’s why I decided to move to this side of town, truthfully. Because it had a little stigma with it. And I guess in some respects it was. There were quite a few families that lived in car bodies. I remember with the biggest house in town was helicopter crate. The people bought the helicopter from the government, had it delivered to the yard, took the helicopter out, put doors and windows in it and lived in it. For years. That had to be on Hill Road. The highway itself was then Route 39, was pretty well developed with gas stations, little restaurants, mom & pop operations. As a perfect matter of fact, we had more commercial ratables in the early 40s than we do today.
Interviewer: Where was…you brought up the Red Lion Store. Where was that?
IA: Right across from the Red Lion Inn. It’s now closed up.
VS: Why did they close it up?
VS: Well, they were getting old and getting tired.
IA: Oh, the flower shop.
All: No, the one on the left hand. Oh, that one, Oh, ok.
BL: That was a grocery store…
VS: It’s been closed for 15 years.
Interviewer: Oh, I loved that building.
BL: The last one that was in there was a pizza which just didn’t seem to belong in that location. Really didn’t.
Interviewer: So, excuse me a second, Bob, it seems, Bob, Medford Farms stretched from there…
BL: No, it actually started just about where the speed shop is now. Ah, what do they call that? It had a name. Remember? It was Cedar Manor on the far end which would have been where McGoverns and the bank and all is. They call that end Cedar Manor. That first part up there had a name. And the middle where Mary Rogers store was was called Huckleberry Hill. You gotta remember that, Huckleberry Hill. Well, anyhow. Let’s see. Medford Farms was pretty well spread out. I would say we probably had maybe 20 families full-time when I was going to school and then it started to grow. After the war…
Interviewer: What year would that have been?
BL: Probably the early 40s.
Interviewer: Ok. It was spread out and that’s when you had the 20….
BL: Yes. I would say around 20 maybe 25 full-time. Summer ones were where what was called Cold Water Run which is the lake that no longer exists that be off of Lakeview Drive. There was a beautiful lake back there and there were quite a number of summer homes, mostly owned by people out of Philadelphia, and they would come in the summers. In fact, they almost had a country club back there. I can remember when the lake operated full time, they had people took care of the place, built little buildings and had all kinds of picnic benches and stuff like that. But that was pretty much in existence in a falling-down condition until there was a drowning in the lake, and , of course, that was when the nasty lawyers reared their head and talked about possible lawsuits and Brick owned it at the time, same ones that owned the dairy farm up here, Roger Brick, and he brought a tractor down and pushed the dam out and that was the end of that and there’s never been any water in there ‘til this day. But I remember that well. That was probably in the mid-60s. I would think early 60s when they took the dam out. It was all dirt roads and, like I said, they were paper streets so half of them ran into people’s front yards and wherever have you. There was no road making or anything from the township. If somebody became fairly well known in the community on this end, they had good relations with the township, then they might bring the grader over which, then, was a pull-behind grader. They pulled it with a tractor and it was a little self-contained unit that they would just take up and down the road and that was it. It was up to the public to keep the road open. I can remember where my mother was, half the winter, we went through the woods because you couldn’t get down the roads. The roads were in such bad shape. The mudholes were so deep. Right in my mother’s area, right next door was Jim Summers who was the one that started the original building code for Tabernacle in probably 1954 or something like that. He became a committeeman.
Interviewer: Go over this again for me; what road…
BL: Lake Road
Interviewer: Lake Road…Oh ok.
BL: Which would run down from where Teddy’s (Yates) got the plaza now. On that corner, there was a gas station which I do have pictures of at home with two gravity-feed gas pumps.. I used to work there when I was about 7 years old, I guess, and my pay for the day of pumping gas up to the top and filling tanks was a bottle of Holly beverages which was a 3 cent bottle of soda and I thought that was good money, you know, do the work and watch them do mechanical work. They had no garage. They worked out on the ground on a piece of canvas and they did some beautiful work there. It was really amazing. As a matter of fact, the people that had that garage are the ones that got some notoriety in the Carolinas with the movie, “Thunder Road”. They moved from here and went down to the Carolinas and they started building moonshine cars to run moonshine with. Their name was Wilson. Remember any of them?
Interviewer: What was a moonshine car, Bob?
BL: They had a big tank to put the illegal alcohol in and they were like a high speed, glorified Hot Rod and built to take hills and mountains and all that stuff and they’d outrun the Revenuers. That’s what they made their livelihood from and then when the movie industry got involved, they were featured in the movie and they built all the cars for that, but, as far as I know, there is still some of the same family in the South now and they’ve done very well. They’ve gotten into speed racing and all that kind of stuff. They would probably now be fourth generation.
Interviewer: And their name was?
BL: Wilson.
Interviewer: Wilson?
BL: Mhmm. Wilson and Allen. There was two families there.
Interviewer: Do any of their relatives still live?
BL: No. They all went down to the South. Things were starting to grow too much probably around 1948 something like that. Things were popping and they thought it was time to get out of here ‘cause we were getting neighbors. On the corner which would now be the gateway going into Teddy’s project, there was a hotel and there was 3 or 4 cabins behind it. There name was Russo, no relation to … They were from New York. In fact, that’s the house we used to sit in and wait for the school bus because the doors hung wide open for probably 20 years. I tore that house down when I first started contracting when I was about 17, I guess, and that’s the material I used to build the house for Erik Hilts that took over the Haines’ store, the one on the end of Riedel Drive. That’s what that house was built from. Next to now going up the hill would have been a family by the name Vermender . He was a cook in one of the Atlantic City hotels. He used to catch a bus. He would go down on the weekend, probably on a Friday night and come back Sunday night and then she ran a little, sort of like a greasy spoon out of there during the weekdays. I don’t think they ever had that much business, but that was just one of the many…there was a place to get…
Interviewer: What years are we talking about?
BL: In the late 40s, maybe 1950s. Something like that. I would say 49, 50, 51. Medford Farms started to take off. A lot of the service people had a little bit of money and started to become available and buy the properties. Then lots went for $25 to $75 and upwards, now I guess a property in there would probably bring $40,000. I remember in the early 60s I bought quite a few lots with what would now be Summit and Woodside and I paid $45 or $50 an acre for them and I sold them when them got up to $300 an acre and that’s what I built my house with. I made a profit, but now I look at those today and I was a little behind the eight ball. (laughter)
SP1: You sold too soon!
BL: I never thought this thing would ever happen. I can remember, I grew up with Teddy, and him telling me when I first sold a piece of that ground that I was foolish, that I should hang on to that ground, and I said that you’re never going to see what you see in Earlton and up that way, you know, it will never come out here. (laughter) We had to. There were probably two stops, three stops for school in the entire area. I, for years, got the school bus at Mary Rogers grocery store on the hill. Before it was a grocery store, it was a candy store. It had a picket fence out front, it had a brick walk, and we used to open the gate to go down there and she had penny candy in the store. I was allowed to go up there because there was no traffic. Oh, I can remember playing on the highway. (laughter) I can even remember going into the early 50s when I got my first pickup. We’d built a big sleigh. We’d pull that sleigh every time it snowed, we’d pull that sleigh clean down to Atsion and back and we would get scads of kids and adults and then we’d all go over to Bud Dolfins (?) house and we’d play his player piano and drink hot chocolate. That’s where we kept ourselves occupied and we used to get a lot of snow then. No matter what they say. A lot of snow. And a lot of skating. Remember when we used to ice skate next to the school up there. On…where Russo’s got the pizza now. That used to flood in there.
IA: The duck pond.
BL: Yep. Unhuh. Now you’d tell somebody there was a pond there, they’d never believe it. But that was froze and you brought your skates back and forth to school with you and you went out there and skated.
Interviewer: Now when you referred to the hill, would you go over again where the hill is?
BL: Ah, well it would be just about where VETCO is now. That was called Huckleberry Hill. There was, I believe, trying to think what kind of denomination church. Do you remember a church in there?
VS: I was stuck in this house. (laughter)
IA: I don’t remember a church.
BL: There was a church in there and that was…Jim Summers lived next…he got a house from Hog Island Lumber. I believe it probably cost him $300. something like that and he had it delivered in the yard and I remember father and everybody helped him put the house up. That’s how things were done. I mean barn raisings were not a new thing in that area. People did for one another and helped one another. And then they had a series of health problems. Jim left with his family, went to Philadelphia and when he came back, he bought that property and he also bought property where Foley’s, where the Indians have the gas station now.
SP 1: The Mobil gas station?
BL: Mmhm, yeh. They bought the church. They tore the church down. And I was probably 14 or 15 because we didn’t even have the facilities to move the lumber. Most of it was carried from that one place to the hill, they built another house there. And that’s were Jim raised most of his family. He served as Committeeman, I would say, probably I’m gonna say up to 8 years on the township. Let’s see…what else is interesting up in there…I remember when Frank Grungo and Joe started building those stations when they had enough money, they would run another three or four rows of block there and, initially, some of their early work was done with only concrete pads. They didn’t even have a building over top of it. And Joe lived in the tiny little house which would have been before Harvey Rogers, between Harvey Rogers and there was an Emmons, Paul Emmons. The house has since been torn down and then Yegger, Yegger, Bobby Yegger lived there, now it’s the Henrys. Jimmy Henry lives in there now, but there was a teeny little house there and that’s were Joe Grungo raised his family. And Frank lived in his mother’s house which was right next to the one that burned down a few years back. It was right next to the station. That’s were they lived and started their family. And slowly added…
Interviewer: What year would that have been?
BL: 1945, 46 somewhere in there, right after the war. They both were in the service. And when they came home, they took their muster outside and started the garage. We had Schwartzwalders, not Schwartzwalders, Indians have the store now, Sandy’s, that was a little grocery store. Lauer, Ed Lauer had. Mmhm. That was…
Interviewer: Do you know when that was started?
BL: I would probably say 1955, 56, somewhere in there.
IA: I would say so.
BL: Yeah. Then we had that; we had Mary Rogers up where…
IA: Which, excuse me, we talked about earlier as Mike Rogers.
Interviewer: Oh, OK.
BL: Yup, yup. Mary/Mike, Mary/Mike. Mary was a Lippincott came out of Medford and Mike was an uncle to Joe Rogers up here on Chatsworth Road, would probably be, supposedly be a direct descendant of Indian Ann.
Interviewer: Oh, really. Well how about that? Joe Rogers? How so?
BL: He would probably be five generations up the road. Through the…would that have been a sister to the Robert that Indian Ann was married to. I think.
VS: But I thought he was a Negro?
BL: He was…there was colored in the family. If you can remember Mike Rogers, he…
VS: He drove the school bus!
BL: Yea! (laughter) They lived in a little log cabin right next to the Emergency Squad. Remember that little log cabin set right out on the road?
IA: Yes, I remember that.
BL: That’s where they first got married. That’s where they lived.
VS: You must remember. I told you. I was in this house. My mother didn’t go anywhere unless she could walk there. There was some sort of a mental block. So, naturally, I didn’t go either. So I don’t know all the things you’re talking about. That was a log cabin.
BL: It was torn down and they built a pre-fab house. Fact is, the couple that bought it was Gary and Robin Michaels. He would have been of the Michaels that lived there by Zimmermans on Zimmerman Road and they just got married. They bought the house, tore it down and built a new one. But it was a log cabin. There were a few of them around in the day. We had another Negro who did an awful lot of work. Irene, you gotta remember him, preacher, colored preacher. Farm labor for everybody. Brawny. He walked. He walked everywhere he went. He had a set rate was 25 cents an hour for anything you wanted done. He did a lot of the basements. Drove a lot of wells. He would walk around, carry a sledgehammer and a well driving cap with him to drive wells. He put down wells and then his log cabin burned down and he dug a cave used some of the remains of the burnt, charred wood, dug a cave in the side of one of the holes they had dug to build the dams in Medford Farms in Brickie’s old bog and he lived in there for quite a number of years. In a cave in the back.
Interviewer: Did he have that…what was his name again?
BL: Sylvester Waters was his right name, but we all called him “Preacher”. Everybody called him “Preacher”.
Interviewer: And does he have any family still remaining here? (mumbling in background)
BL: Lord he’s been dead I want to say 20 years, but I think I better resay maybe 45 or 50. (laughter) Let’s see what else is a highpoint in that area. We had a shoe store. We had … somebody had shoe repair, too. We had the bakery. We gotta remember Dora Lawrence, Dora Lovett, where McNally’s was. Oh, yes, a full-blown bakery with a resident baker on the premises. That would have been late 40s, mid 50s. Yeah, something like that, that would have been mid 50s ‘cause then it went to Antonelli’s and became the Italian Kitchen where all of us young people hung out. I’ve got their jukebox home from the l950s.
Interviewer: And which store was this?
BL: Where McNally’s toys are. I’m trying to think what’s there now. It’s terrible. I go by it all the time and I don’t know if there’s anything there now.
IA: I don’t think there’s any store…Just a…
BL: Just a private home. In fact, I should have some pictures of that back before it was an Atlantic gas station. Well, in fact, almost every property on 206 had a gas station, gas pumps, maybe one or two tanks, something like that.
Interviewer:: So which home is it? Is it still standing?
BL: The property is still there. As a matter of fact, she was Dora Lawrence, she would have been, what, one of Tabernacle’s first fatalities, I think. She was a Merchant Marine. She ran one of them oil tankers and they lived up here almost across from Harry Haines where Lester Eckert’s is now. They had a house there that burned. (mixed dialogue) She lived there then she moved into Medford Farms. She got in with her sister-in-law and brother…wait I can’t think of his name…Ernst Whitman, and he was a baker from Philadelphia and they decided to open a bakery shop and they did quite well there. They really did. I mean to think what we had and what we don’t have. And we think we bettered ourselves? No. I don’t think so. (laughter)
VS: This was before everybody had wheels. And so far away.
BL: Yah. Yes, Yes. Oh, Lord, I can remember Pete and Cliffy and them when we went to school, I mean…
Interviewer:: Who were Pete and Cliffy?
BL: Worrell. If you wanted to stay for something after school, there was no late busses and all. Or if you wanted to go to Mount Holly to the movies on the hill, you rode your bicycle because, well like our family, I think we did three Fridays a month in Mount Holly and one Friday in Hammonton. Some reason they went to Hammonton for certain foods and stuff like that. And if you didn’t work yourself into that trip, you didn’t go no place because nobody…and my father used to take up car loads of people every day come to the house at 6 o’clock in the morning that worked in different places in Mount Holly. We used to take Charles Moore because he worked the eagle’s eye.
Interviewer: What was his first name?
BL: Ah, Charles. Charles, yeh, yeh.
VS: Father of this woman up here, Louise Moore.
BL: Or Frankie that I just saw at a viewing the other day. Boy he had two strokes and looks older that I am. Boy, makes you wonder. Russell gone. (laughter)
Interviewer: It’s all connected.
IA: Did they go to Hammonton because they wanted Italian food?
BL: Well, they did. They used to buy…well, your pastas and stuff like that were probably reasonably priced. You remember, you only had so much to stretch. At that time, my father worked for the Central Record, oh, not Central Record, the Mount Holly Herald. He worked Mount Holly Herald for, probably, I’m gonna guess, at least 15 years. He was head of production for a whole grand total of $25 a week, I think, and that was go to work be there by 7 o’clock in the morning and you got home when you got home, and like Thursday was the day the paper went out and, I mean, there was many a time when it would be early Friday morning when he came back from work, and then he started a small shop at home and then he started a small shop at home. He printed from home and then probably 19, I’m gonna guess, 1950-51, something like that, he went to the Central Record. He started there. Then I worked there because my father got sick in ’53. I was still in high school, and, then, I started doing his work there. I didn’t even have a driver’s license. I used to drive from Medford and I worked there at night. They left the door unlocked for me, and I would go in and I would set heads and stuff like that. They did all the linotype work and I would set heads for the paper. That’s how I paid my father’s hospital bill and then I tended door for Leonberg Funeral Home to pay for his funeral.
SPl & 2: Shhsh. Oh.
BL: Old Sam wanted me to go into the mortuary. He wanted to send me to school. He made me a beautiful proposition, but I was a bull-headed kid and didn’t want no parts of it. I was gonna do it on my own, no other way. I was gonna be a builder. I made up my mind and that was it. I wasn’t gonna be an undertaker. I wonder sometimes what would have happened… (laughter) But you were always on call if he had a problem. Pick up the remains. Tend doors and all that stuff. I still have a habit, if I go to the undertaker and there’s someone coming through the door, I still hold the door open for them. Welcome and all that, y’know. I enjoyed it; I enjoyed the people. That was the…
IA: That’s where you see the people…
BL: Yes, that’s where…
IA: That you haven’t seen for years.
BL: That was like the work with the Post Office. The Post Office was never a job to me. I enjoyed the people. That was when you sold yourself. We had no rules or regulations. We did what we saw fit as long as we got the job done. That’s the way the Post Office used to be run.
Interviewer: When did you work for the Post Office?
BL: Ah, 1954 to probably ’65.
VS: In the building itself?
BL: No, out on the roads, on routes.
Interviewer: Hmm, you delivered mail.
BL: We didn’t go up as far as the Meadows then. We used to go up to Shinske’s and turn around there. That’s where you’d get your mail if you lived in the Meadows. But if you had something special, I’d go up to the Meadows with it or I’d wait until I got in from Birches and then go through. That was the nice part of knowing everybody. Always the easiest way. Those were the days when I used to pick little kids up for groceries, and I’d pick somebody’s grandchild or something like that and I’d drive them an hour, half an hour, to get them to their grandmom because Momma had to go someplace, something like that. Nobody every said nothin’. The groceries that we used to handle from Dick Haines’ store in the winter when people couldn’t get out. I’d stop and say, So and so called in an order or sent in an order, most people didn’t have telephones then, sent in an order. Could you take it with you? I would take a box or bag or somethin’ like that. Dick had a Model “A” with a box in the back and so did my Mike Rogers. They used to deliver groceries and most of them were on books or on the side. I mean, the people would run all winter long until things would pickup and then they paid their bill. I mean, boy, I wonder if the Acme would do that today. (laughter)
Interviewer: Sure. Of Course. I don’t even think Sandy’s would do that now.
BL: But Ed Lauer used to do it. Ed Lauer had a lot of them on the books. Mary Rogers was unbelievable. She would send a little kid in there with a little note or somethin’ like that, you know, and write it all on the bag. No computers, no nothing else. She knew what she had in the store. Harvey or Mike, we called him Mike, had a little hardware store out there and you named it, he had it. It may take an hour to find it. Go to the door, open the door. He’d start kicking stuff outside so you could get in the hardware store to find what you needed. That building is still standing.
Interviewer: Where is that building?
BL: That building is slowly falling down. That’s across from Vetco. That little white building right on the road.
Interviewer: That’s where you were saying the road is very narrow. Ok. Every time I go by there …
BL: Inside of the old place, it’s still pretty much the same. I was in there …don’t tell the township but there are some structural problems in there, so I was in there trying to help them do some steel engineering to shore the house up. But that building probably dates back to the Depression. Then, of course, I opened the front up and I…antique dealer came out from Lancaster area and he opened the front up and put all that up and it didn’t go. It isn’t an area to sell antiques in at that time. But…
Interviewer: So the window work across the side, that’s all…
BL: The original all had…
Interviewer: What year was…
BL: That was probably done 1960, I would say.
Interviewer: OK.
BL: ’63, ’64 when we started another push, but all those little windows in the original store had little paper tops on them like this and all single-paned windows in it.
Interviewer: Like a triangle at the top. Ok.
BL: And they were thick probably three bricks thick that wall and they were all stucco inside and out, but they ah…
Interviewer: Who lives there now?
BL: Ah, a family, oh boy, he works, the husband works for Scales, young Frankie Scales, drives a dump truck for them and she would have been one of the Jerry Glenn’s daughters, Beth. I don’t know what her married name is. That’s who lives there now.
Interviewer: Do they realize that they are living in an historic building?
BL: Probably not. There’s not a whole lot left of these in Tabernacle, unfortunately, so many of them went down. What we called Cedar Manor, that’s where the marble place is, the bank, whatever else is in there now. The old pizza parlor that’s empty now…That had a log cabin in it, too. I can’t remember what her name was. Dombrowski, wasn’t it? Do you remember?
Interviewer: Dombrowski? (mumbling)
BL: No, the house. She sold ground off there and that was Tabernacle’s second sub-division, called Cedar Manor.
Interviewer: Where J&B Floor Covering is now? That little strip…
BL: Mmm, yeah, that was all pines in there. Little short pines. That whole thing looked almost like you went out in the middle of the plains someplace like that, but they called it Cedar Manor and there were a few big cedars right out along the road. What else did they have in there?
Interviewer: We’ll give him time to think it (end of recording)
BL: Well you know we’ve been through that. Well ya know I still catch myself doing that today. I mean a lot of people are still aunt and uncle Charlie. I can remember when I was little coming into the little church. You could touch the walls if you put your arms out.
Interviewer: Which church was that?
VS: Right there where that building is. It was a small church here to begin with.
BL: Built what, in the 30’s? 39?
VS: Oh no, it would have to be before that.
BL: I can remember it had a little gold leaf in the window.
VS: 1916, about 1916 I think. I think
BL: I can remember when the water tower was out ….
VS: Oh yea.
BL: Ernst was the first house and Walter was in the second house? Walter (Goldy??). I went to school with …..
VS: It wasn’t two houses, it was a two family house. Ernst and his father lived on one side and Walter and Goldy lived on the other side.
BL: Whatever became of …..?
VS: She’s in California, she’s not well. She’s had a lot of tragedy in her life. But she’s surviving. She was here a couple of years ago.
BL: I tried to catch up at Christmas time with Alice, to keep track on what’s going on there. Cause I never get to see any of them anymore. I did get into see …. last week I guess.
VS: Well Anice has been out of the hospital and a nursing home.
BL: Yea that’s what they were telling me. He’s been in Cadbury, that’s a shame.
VS: Yea, he was back in the hospital last week.
BL: …. lived in a teeny house where a..
VS: Yea, I don’t know their names. But till he built them a house.
BL: Yea I think I could still probably go up this road , or I could go up Medford Lakes Road
Multi speakers, garbled.
BL: It was an oiled road down as far as Carranza, just to the school and everything was graveled from there. Your road was still dirt, remember that? All the time you we going to school.
Interviewer: That’s Medford Lakes Road.
BL: And the other side was dirt and gravel. There wasn’t a hard road I guess other than Route 39. I can remember the big time when we all went out and watched when the war started and there used to be a round circle, with a number painted in the middle of it on the corner of Hawkins Road, which told you what road you were on. And they painted that over so the bombers wouldn’t know where they were. If I remember well I stood out and watched while they painted it away. That’s gotta be 41 or 42. Funny some things stick but other things I can’t remember anything of.
VS: Well you’re marvelous. (laughter).
BL: I can remember each one of those families.
VS: This is what we’ve done so far. Dee Collins, Eileen and myself and Kenny Yates, we have had him back too.
BL: Yea, I’ve got to get together with him one day because like we’ll go to a meeting and start talking and all of a sudden – mumbling, many speaking.
BL: When …. was little he used to come to our house. We used to have a lot of the young people come and they would play cards at our house when I was like so… I can remember Joe coming and playing harmonica after they’d play pinochle or something like that. And they would play monopoly at our house. I was to little to get in on the game but I remember sitting there.
VS: And we had Pearl Moore and Helen O’Neal and Helen said her husband remembered more than she did. So the next week I had Ralph Gerber and Virgil O’Neal. And he was full of … wasn’t he?
Interviewer: He did, we have to have them back because we have to talk about….
VS: I’m with you. I’ll put down here Ken Yates and Bob Lees.
Interviewer: Right, absolutely.
BL: I gotta stop at Ralph’s now. That’s usually what happens when I go there. We’ll get on something again (laughter).
Interviewer: Well then we need to get . It will be hard for Janice to separate the conversations.
BL: You know who would be good if we could get her? Janet …..
VS: We never thought of that.
Multiple conversations – garbled and laughter
BL: I think I saw more of it (tv) the month she was down. I’ve got one and put it upstairs. We’ve only got one TV in the house. We don’t use it that much. And I’ve seen some of these day shows.
Interview with Ken Yates Viola Spragna and Irene Abrams
Where Ken Yates and his family lived on Carranza Road.
How the Tustin Hotel burned.
Carranza Rd. was once Red Lion Rd./Hampton Gate Rd.
Ralph Haines (owner of Haines’ Stoore) was father of Johnny and Arthur Haines.
Ken Yates and Ray Worrell created the Township’s first tax map.
Local state roads have the numbers they carried as US highways on old bridges. Rt. 206 is Hywy 39, Rt. 70 is Hywy. 40, Rt. 73 is Hywy. 41. These numbers are the year of their construction.
Cost of moving 2 Room School and preparing new foundation (and adding 2 rooms?) was $9,000.
“Cheese Box” school bus was driven by Evie Holloway.
Arthur “Skimmer” Pepper was school janitor.
Sam Scott’s Store had gravity fed gas pumps.
“Skimmer” Pepper’s son, Joseph (Bucky) opened Sam’s store when he was ill.
Ken Yates’ father, Joseph, worked for George Wisham in the 30s.
Yates Family arrived in Tabernacle from England(?) in 1880s. Kids married into Haines, Allen and Horner families.
Carleton Yates’ 3 story house was on Chatsworth Rd.
Allen’s Dairy had a red-haired “cowpuncher” named Lillian Kaplan.
Charles Foulks invented the (traffic?) signal light.
Dairies included: Beaumont’s, Victor Allen’s, Furman Foulks’, Bob Haines’, Roger Brick’s
Laning strip for barnstormers in the 30s.
Chicken farms included: Dawman, Backard
Why Ken Yates is also called “Teddy”.
I: Tuesday the 24th and we are here, um, with Mr. Ken Yates
KY: Teddy, one or the other.
I: Ok.
KY: Back in the late ‘30’s Arthur and Johnny Haines were the sons of Ralph Haines who owned Haines’ Store in Tabernacle. And we used to play with Arthur and Johnny down at the old Bread and Cheese Run here on, used to be Hampton Gate Road, now it’s Carranza Road.
I: Now when you say we, who are you referring to?
KY: My brothers, my brother Joe who has passed away and my brother Dick and myself. Cause we lived, we lived in the Tustin Hotel. It burned down, right here on Hampton Gate Road, or Carranza Road at Fox Chase. That’s where we lived, the big two-story house and it burned down April, I think, April the eight 1956 or ‘58 (note 1958-NJ marriage index). It was the day Judy Gerber got married cause when we was coming home from the fireside reception, we came by there and that’s when it burnt. Someone was playing with matches and it set the shed on fire and it blew over and set the old house, hotel, on fire and burned it down. But I lived in that house when the Harvest Home across the street used to be on the point of Hawkins and Hampton Gate Road or Carranza Road.
I: Was that Red Lion Road?
KY: Red Lion Road too up to this point. It was Red Lion Road up to Route 532 and of course this was the only paved road in Tabernacle.
I: This meaning…
KY: Carranza Road, Flyatt Road, and Old Indian Mills Road was the old highway to Atlantic City. And there was no 206 then. 206 wasn’t built until 1939, by WPA workers. But going back to the Haines boys, Johnny, and Arthur, they built a train. They built actually a wooden train. It had marbles for ball bearings. It would actually turn. We played in the crick and picked up sticks and stuff out of the crick. But it was amazing, the fun we had, you know, by playing right there on the water’s edge …
I: Making your own fun.
KY: Yea. And the fact that the Tustin farm … Now Mrs Tustin, at that time, she lived in Philadelphia and she had a flower shop in Philadelphia. She owned a flower shop.
I: And what year was that? What year are we talking about?
KY: We’re going back into what would be the early thirties for her living in Philadelphia and having the flower shop. She never came out here. She never came out here until the, I would say, the late forties. Middle forties, something like that. That when she come, I think, that’s when her husband passed away and then she came here to live in her summer home. That was their summer home there.
They owned that farm, the Fox Chase Farm. And Richie Tustin lives in it today. Richie Tustin lives in the home that Mrs. Tustin lived in, up until her death when she was 90 some years old. Well, she lived with her daughter, Elizabeth. Liz, as she just sold the farm to the Carranza Farms. She owned the part from the Fox Chase Road to the chemical plant. And that’s what Lenape High School just settled on last week. So that now belongs to Lenape High School. But that belonged to Liz. Cause there was three children: Liz, Catherine, and Richard. And Richard’s son, young Richard, lives in Mrs. Tustin’s home today.
VS: And Katherine married …
KY: Katherine married Richard Haines and they built a home. You know I was going over that. You know there was only thirteen from, including Town Hall, Haines’ Store, the parsonage, Methodist Church, there was only thirteen houses from the intersection here all the way to the Vincentown line.
VS: Yes, yes yes.
KY: Cause there was only the Beaumont Farm, that Georgie Beaumont built, …. and me and Georgie built next to the Beaumont Farm. Kaplans lived across from that down a ways. She used to, her and cow puncher, she used to drive a milk truck for Victor Allen.
Allen, Victor, worked his team of horses and they pulled the hay. Where Russo has their road stand today but it was right on the farm building. The barn was right on top of the road. It wasn’t over, thirty, thirty feet, if it was that much, from the edge of the road. Uh, I don’t think it was thirty feet. And they had pull… and they used to have a like a hook, a gaffing hook or something. And they would put that in the hay and two men would be up topside and a team of horses would pull the hay up. And then they would pull the hay into the hay mound, loose. Cause there was no combing back in those days. So with animals. I mean everything was with horses, horse and buggy.
And my grandfather was, he owned three farms back in the early thirties er, and late twenties and early thirties. And he died penniless and on welfare because he loaned people money, even on their notes. And then the bank foreclosed on each farm. He owned three farms in Tabernacle, Joe Yates did, old man Joe Yates.
They foreclosed one farm cause this guy didn’t pay the note. And they foreclosed on the next farm. First thing you know he died a penniless man on welfare.
I: Going back to the Tustin Hotel. When was that hotel built?
KY: Yes.
I: When was that hotel built?
KY: My god, I don’t know. It had to be in the early ‘20’s. Or prior to that, maybe, even.
I: Why was it built there, at that particular…
KY: That was the highway. See, Red Lion Inn, the highway went past Red Lion Inn.
I: Ok.
KY: The old highway, Red Lion Road was the old highway up until you come to, there was no circle then, ok, it was like an intersection. Red Lion Road continued on around until it passed Pinelands Plumbing and intersects and goes toward Medford. And if you look at Old Red Lion Road, ah, there’s a road to the right of that, when you go by the custard stand.
There’s a little road to the right that travels alongside of it. (Note: he appears to be talking about the area north of Route 70, by the Evergreen Dairy Bar). In fact, the old telephone poles are still there on the old road to Medford. Same as the old road to Route 72. There is still prints of the tar, the old tar road to the right, as you’re going east on Route 72, on the right hand side is the old road.
I: Well, the Tustin Hotel, was that what used to be (on) Hampton Gate (Road)? That was the road to Atlantic City or New York?
KY: Yes.
I: Ok, that was through Red Lion.
KY: Yes. And then it came up to the old school here in Tabernacle, and went right, down Flyatt Road, to the intersection with Old Indian Mills Road, turn left at Old Indian Mills Road, and cross 206. Wasn’t there then now, but it went right on across 206, which is there now and went into the Methodist Church in Indian Mills, or Shamong, and it went to the left by the old, by the old Harvest Home. There was a Harvest Home in Indian Mills, which is still there. The same as we have, we had as a Harvest Home here. I remember…
I: We didn’t talk about the Harvest Home.
VS: That’s because it’s not yet….
I: That’s ok. No, no that’s ok.
VS: We haven’t done it yet.
I: The one, the one, um, the one that was at, is at, Hawkin Road.
KY: Yes.
I: Is that, was that…
KY: They were built the same but two different, uh, townships. See you gotta remember Tabernacle….
VS: Your talking about churches, churches.
KY: Yea, yea. But you gotta remember that Tabernacle was taken out of Southampton, Chatsworth and Shamong. Tabernacle didn’t exist before what, 1903?
VS: 1901.
KY: 1901. That’s why the old deeds, when I became assessor, back in 1958. A lot of the old deeds, I read into the old deeds. And the old deeds didn’t even mention Tabernacle. The old deeds called for Shamong…
VS: Um hum.
KY: Or Southampton or Woodland. See, so that’s how I picked up a lot of my information from the old deeds that I used to research. See, I was the youngest assessor ever to be appointed in the State of New Jersey. And elected in the State of New Jersey. And what I did, I instituted the uh, tax map. I got Ray Worrell, a distant relation, young Ray.
Ray was in an engineering firm just starting out and the firm he worked for, and is part of now, owns part of it, uh. His firm did the tax map and then after we had the tax map, he and I had reevaluations done. It was the first reevaluation, the first tax map we ever had. It had to be done. You didn’t know what was what without a tax map. You didn’t know who owned what.
I: Do we have copies of that original tax map?
KY: Yea.
I: Yea somewhere.
KY: Yea, well see it’s all what ya call revised sections of the… Some of the pages have never been changed. That. I had; I had an old one. Uh, but the old map is around.
I: Ok.
KY: But see now going back to the Depression, I wasn’t in the Depression and that’s when 206, which was Route 39. If anybody cares, cares to stop and look at any one of the bridges…
I: Yes
KY: On Route 70, or Route 39, you’ll see it says U.S., U.S. Highway 39. Cause that’s the year it was built. Now Route 70 was built in ‘40. And U.S. 40 is on, it’s stamped in the concrete bridges on that. Uh, Route 73, was built, was built in ‘41.
I: My, they were busy, weren’t they?
KY: Yes. Well, you be surprised the amount of men, and they worked those days. I mean the men that poured concrete it was all done…
VS: Mostly by hand.
KY: Yes. Cause I have, cause I have a, when I retired from Fort Dix, I have a picture and it shows the old fashion grader and everything the men in civilian clothes and some of the military, building, building the Fort Dix-Pemberton Road. It’s amazing.
Uh, now uh, though I don’t… I remember the old, the old school house. There was four teachers, and there wasn’t over, if there was twenty of us.
VS: Now which school house are you talking about?
KY: I’m talking about the four “bedroom” (classroom) when they moved it. When they moved it.
VS: Oh when they moved to make it four.
KY: When they moved it in ‘37. Wasn’t it ‘36 or ‘37? When they moved it.
VS: ‘36.
KY: When they moved it, I think the total cost was like nine thousand dollars. And that was for the foundation, digging it, and doing the foundation. And they moved it over with teams of horses and uh, set it up on there. And they added the other two rooms. It was nine thousand dollars and that was for doing the foundation. Cause the farmers did it and they got the carpenters around the area and the carpenters were you know, all local. Did all the work.
Then the WPA came into existence, in the Depression, and they had the… there the ones that did the curb. It’s funny, that they did the curb work but they never oiled the road, around the school. They graveled it, but they curbed it and graveled it but never oiled it. Why I don’t know, cause we had the WPA toilets out there, in case something happened to the toilets in the school. that’s what we had.
And the “cheese box,” Remember Irene?
IA: Was that the little school bus?
KY: Yeah, Evie Holloway drove the “cheese box.” The little bus that held about, about ten. About ten kids. Then we had the “cheese box,” we called it the “cheese box” …
I: Why did you call it the “cheese box?”
KY: I don’t know. Because it was so little. It was so little. And that used to run to Sandy Ridge, went to Moore’s Meadow and Sandy Ridge, and it picked up the Gerber girls. We only had, we only had three families, That was the Sooy girls, Helen, and Pearl Sooy. And they were on what they call Sandy Ridge.
I: Where is Sandy Ridge?
KY: Sandy Ridge is between Moore’s Meadows and Quaker Bridge, on the right side. When you go to the sandy area, it’s a little hill,
VS: We talked about it the other day.
I: Oh, ok. Is it across the railroad tracks?
KY: Yes. Sandy Ridge is about two miles, Sandy Ridge is about two miles past the tracks. And as you enter into a curve, you’ll see a sandy area. And there used to be two or three houses setting there on the right-hand side. And that’s where the Sooy girls lived. And uh, Evie Holloway drove the bus.
When I was in school Evie drove the “cheese bus” up there. And Skimmer drove, he was a janitor, Skimmer was everything. He was a janitor; he was the caretaker….
I: His last name?
KY: Skimmer Pepper, which lived in the Knight House, that we own across the street.
VS: We used to call it the Pepper House.
KY: Pepper House. That’s where Skimmer lived. Arthur Pepper was his name. We called him Skimmer. I don’t know how he got his name. It’s Skimmer. But he liked his wine so maybe that…
All: Laughter.
KY: Right? And uh, uh, He felt so bad when the school board came and told him he couldn’t drive again. Right? Cause he drove up until I guess, he was in his middle sixties, and then they said, Skimmer you just can’t drive anymore.
But that’s when, well like I said, we had my graduating class was only, if it hadn’t been for the three that was left out, left back or four that was left back, there would have only been eight. But as it was, I think there was eleven or twelve in 1947, we graduated.
That’s why, when I, I think I held the first seventh and eighth grade reunion at the Countryside ten years ago. Eleven, eleven years ago.
VS: Tell me something. Do you remember anything about Scott’s Store?
KY: Sam Scott. Yes, I do. Sam Scott’s Store had the old-fashioned gas pump, two gas pumps, same as the Haines’ Store here. And what you did you wound it, cause everything was gravity feed in the cars too, the Model A cars. The gas tank was up on top, so gravity fed you didn’t need no fuel pump. See. So everybody bought five gallons of gas. So, you would wind up….
I: Why was that, Ted?
KY: Cause the thing only went to five gallons. The glass enclosure, see, it was about the size of a 12-quart bucket in circumference. But the height of it, I guess around two foot to the top of the tank. It was glass. Yeah.
And they wound up the gas up into there and then you put it into you’re your thing, and then just opened the nozzle, and it just gravity fed down. Cause at a lot of places there was no electric. So that’s why you did it by hand. That’s the way his gas pump was.
Now Sam Scott’s Store, we used to, I used to go to the Methodist Church and we used to wait for my father, we used to go from the Methodist Church over to Sam Scott’s Store and we’d buy a piece of candy and set in there. It was always nice and warm; he had the old wood stove a burning. And uh, and then he’d sell candy, cigarettes, cigars, pipes, ice cream, uh, and that was about it. You could get no milk, but bread. You could get bread because he had no refrigeration.
I: Now that’s what store that was across the street?
KY: Yeah, where Skimmer… It was across from the Haines’ It was diagonal…
VS: It was on the property where the Township….
KY: Pepper?
VS: No, no.
KY: That’s right. The Township owns now. It was almost directly across from Holly’s Flowers, or Haines’ Store. And then, there was an old garage next to it, big enough and Skimmer Pepper, he used to pull that… Now here’s how little traffic there was in town.
VS: Laughter.
KY: Skimmer, used to pull, he didn’t back the bus in, he pulled the bus in. No kidding, he pulled the bus in the garage. And he backed in out by himself in the morning when nobody was around. So, you know there was no traffic because Sam Scott’s store sat maybe five foot to the porch, there was an overhang. Like an overhang you could sit in at night and talk.
And that’s what we used to do. Cause Earl Harker, her brother-in-law, Earl, opened it up into a pool room, back into the fifties. Right?
VS: Right.
KY: That was when it was Sam Scott’s. Because it was closed for years. Then Earl got a hold of it and made a poolroom outta it. But, like I say…
I: When did he do that, more or less?
KY: Pardon?
I: When did he do that?
KY: That was in the evenings. Cause he…
VS: No, when, what year?
KY: Oh, that was in the fifties. It was about ’49, I think. Cause I got married in ‘51 and he had the pool room then. And then he could have, cause he used to operate…. Then he opened up his barbershop. And he used to do the barbershop during the day and the poolroom at night. Yes.
I: How old were you at that time?
KY: I guess I was fourteen. Fourteen, fifteen.
VS: When did you get married?
KY: No, no, no, no. I had to be sixteen. That’s right, I got married in ’52. I was eighteen.
VS: Oh boy.
KY: I was a week from being ….. I graduated in ’51 and married in the beginning.
VS: I see. Very, very young.
KY: Yeah. I’ve been married 48 years.
VS: Well, I have been told that, Sam Scott’s son, I can’t remember his name now, he also was a mechanic and took care of the cars when they, uh, wouldn’t run properly.
KY: I’ve never, never, never met Sam Scott’s son, but I remember Sam. And everything. And uh, it was funny when he took sick, when he took sick the boys use to come down. Bucky, Bucky used to come down, Bucky Pepper. Skimmer’s, Skimmer’s son, he used to come down and open it up once in a while.
I: Uh huh.
KY: Bucky would open the …. That’s, that’s Hope’s husband. Across the street.
VS: Joseph.
KY: Joseph, yeah, we called him, we called him Buck. Cause when I was a young boy, fourteen.., thirteen.., fourteen years old, I worked in Indian Mills for Everett Abrams and Bucky worked for Franz Frisco, and his brother Sam, which lived across from right here, he worked for Everett. Cause it was my brother, myself, and Sam, and then Dunfy from Medford Farms, he worked down there. And the two Rubin boys. Which one Rubin boy today is in the business in Lumberton, uh, you can see a sign, it’s on the right-hand side there across by the apartments.
VS: yeah, yeah, yeah.
KY: Ted Rubin, plumber. And he’s the plumbing inspector next to….
VS: Good things came out of Tabernacle.
KS: Yeah, now my mother, my mother still living today, and she lives in my house on Lake Road. She’s eighty-eight and a half years old. And she picked cranberries by hand at the Moore’s Meadows for Phoebe Moore. Now Phoebe Moore lived right down here next to the uh, the uh, Junior Mechanics Cemetery, across from Mrs. Tustin’s house.
VS: Next store to the Bread and Cheese Run.
KY: Yeah.
VS: The Bread and Cheese Run is in between the cemetery and their property.
KY: I call it two different things. I call this tree in, across the street from you, the dead tree that’s in the county easement, to have them cut before somebody gets hurt with them. And I called, it was jammed up by beavers…….
VS: Oh, those big oak trees down here, oh I’ll miss them.
KY: No, no, no. They’ll just be topped. The dead ones, the dead ones.
VS: Oh, ok.
KY: And I called the Bread and Cheese Run, it’s got beavers in it. And it was backing the water up. Before it goes through the uh, the uh culvert.
VS: My goodness!
KY: Yeah, it was really backing it up bad and I told them, I said, if you don’t do it, I’m going to take pictures and put them in the paper. Oh advertising, this is the way, they got it cleaned out yesterday.
VS: Well, this must be between Carranza Road and your house, then.
KY: No, the beavers are working, no the beavers are working there right by the Junior Mechanics Cemetery. And there’re damming it up right before the big pipe. My God, the pipe’s this big around. Big as this! The pipe’s big around as it goes underneath the road. And they were damming it up right at the mouth of the pipe.
VS: Ok, ok.
KY: Yeah.
VS: Well now when you do that the man who has the farm is going to miss out on his irrigation hole.
KY: See, what they used to do years ago here in our ….. and the deeds, they would trade a horse. See. If you had a horse and I wanted a piece of land, see, you would know, I’ll take your horse and give you a piece of land, such and such. So that’s how my father bought the two and a half acres, right there across from now Conte’s, which used to be Allen’s farm. So, my father paid the tax. And my father worked for this man, George Wisham. Remember George Wishman?
I: I don’t remember him.
KY: Well anyhow, anyhow back in the, uh, early thirties uh, my father worked for George, a dollar and a quarter a day, husking corn all day and then he used to drive a school bus, a dollar and a quarter. For driving a school bus, for a total of two dollars and fifty cents.
I: What years were those?
KY: They were, they were in, in the late, late twenties, early thirties.
I: Now, Ken when did your family come to um, Burl…, Tabernacle?
KY: My Grandfather…
I: Can you give us the background please?
KY: Well, my grandfather came from England. They come from over on a ship from England and there was nine children.
I: Do you know when he came over? What year?
KY: Oh my God, it had to be, it had to be, in the early, early twenties.
VS: Oh, that late?
KY: I think so. I’m not sure.
VS: Not in the late 1800’s?
KY: It could be. It could be, it could be in the late 1800’s. I guess you’re right because … See, my grandfather and his brother owned where Carlton Yates owns today. You have him already in the historical book.
VS: Sunny Lawn Farm.
KY: Yes.
VS: He owned Sunny Lawn Farm.
KY: And uh. So uh, my grandfather was half owner of that farm. And at some point, or another they decided to go out on their own and they split. And so he took that and my grandfather started buying up other farms in the area.
VS: It would have to be in the eighteen….., late eighteen hundreds…
KY: Yeah, it would have to be. Yeah.
VS: Cause in order to do it that way.
KY: Yeah, cause I don’t know the history of the family uh, of Peter Yates. See Peter and Joseph were brothers.
I: Ok.
KY: And Peter bought up there… Peter and Joseph bought that when they landed here.
I: And Joseph was your grandfather?
KY: Yes. It probably was the late eighteen hundreds.
VS: What is so amazing is that so many people ended up in Tabernacle. We do not know why, except that I told you when my father…did mention a few things. And he said up there where Bakely’s used to live, and where your cousin, or whoever he is, that was known as Englishtown.
KY: Englishtown. Yeah
VS: You knew that too?
KY: Yes.
VS: So there had to be a connection with people in England to bring all these people here. But I have never known whatever…
KY: Now see, I never found it out, or I never checked into it, but where my blueberry field was, I was told, I forget who told me, but there used to be a settlement. A small settlement of houses right in that area, that’s after you pass the Birches Road or Moore’s Meadow’s Road on Carranza, on Route 532. Up there, where you see the Lone Oak sign, well right in that area there, there was a settlement of houses.
Right in that area. And it’s …. And then it started up again. Because of, like I said, I uh, there’s one, two, three, four, five. There’s five or six houses right there in that little intersection. If you ride down to Moore’s Meadow’s Road, there’s one, two, I think, there are two or three house’s on the right, two houses on the left. Then you got two houses in the intersection. Uh, Ray Adams’ old house, I think. They sold him to Mr. Thompson’s brother. And he’s dead now.
I: Ok, so your, your grandfather came with his brother.
KY: Yes, from England.
I: From England. And somehow ended up here.
KY: Yes
I: In Tabernacle. Well, it would have been at that point… It was probably before Tabernacle became Tabernacle.
KY: It was, it was.
I: Right?
KY: Yeah.
I: Ok.
KY: So, it had, it had to be late eighteen hundreds.
I: Right.
KY: Cause he was seventy five when he died. And he died in 1950, or 1940, ‘46.
I: That’s right. If he died in 1946 and he was seventy-five. Ok, so that would have made him. It would have made him 1871 when he was born. OK.
KY: ‘71, ‘81’, ‘91. It would have to be, it would have to be between ‘91 and ……
I: Well Ted, Ok, now tell me, your grandfather had how many children? Do you know?
KY: Nine.
I: Nine
KY: Nine, it was five boys uh, six boys and three girls. My father …
I: Who did he marry?
KY: He married Garner, her maiden name was Garner. Lena Garner. Now she was part Indian descent.
I: Leni Lenape?
KY: Yeah. Uh, and uh, Eckert’s were in there, we’re related to the Eckert’s, too. Lester Eckert lives down the street. They farmed the farm across from where my grandfather was… passed way and was viewed there in the house. That was years ago you weren’t viewed in a funeral home; you were viewed in the parlor of the house. Now, you should notice, I said parlor.
VS: We had a Funeral Parlor here?
All: Laughter.
KY: No, no, no. People were viewed in the Parlor of the house.
VS: Oh, yes, yes, yes. That’s where they had it. We have a parlor, when my father built this house in 1912-13, he put a parlor on.
VS: And it was separate, there’s no door there now. Because I had it taken away for the heating. But it was closed up and it was only used for special, special things.
KY: I can remember we had more services; we had more services back in the thirties and forties than we do now. Ok, we had the breadman, milkman …
VS: Fishman.
KY: Fishman. Junkman
VS: Ironmonger. Ironman
KY: The old rag bag clothes… That’s how they used to go down the road. And there weren’t no junk around in the woods. You wouldn’t see that. They talk about recycling. Recycling is old fashion, cause they recycled years ago. Everybody thought that’s something new, that’s not nothing new.
Because during the second world war you couldn’t find an old car, a stick of metal, or nothing in the woods or no place because it all went to make the war.
VS: Patch up or make this.
KY: Sure.
I: Ok, so your father really was one of ….
KY: One of nine, yes.
I: One of nine.
KY: And, uh, and my Aunt Bertha she married uh, she married a fellow, uh, by the name of Haines, Ethelbert Haines. And they went up to the Birches and he was, his father was the manager of the Birches for, this was for whoever owned it. I don’t know.
VS: This is cranberry bogs, right?
KY: Cranberry bogs, the manager of the cranberry bogs. And he used to repair all of the equipment and so forth and so on, the boy did. He never went off the …. It was funny, the father and the son, never left the property for employment. Because there wasn’t, I mean everyone more or less stayed on the farm.
When the children got married, they didn’t go out and have a house of their own. They lived in with the family. That’s the way it was back in those days. I mean, uh, cause you had no vehicles. Everything was pretty much horse and buggy.
I: Now, who, who married in, in your father’s brothers and sisters? You mentioned one. Who else, who did the others marry?
KY: Well, well my uh… Well ok, that was the oldest daughter and then my father came after her and he married my mother which is still living, and she was polish. And her mother came from Poland and she had eight children.
I: And what is her name?
KY: Josephine Yates, and she lives in Lake Road where … in one of my houses today. Very healthy, don’t take a pill. Doesn’t take a pill, goes out and rakes the yard everyday. Yeah, if a leaf falls, she rakes it.
All: Laughter.
KY: And then my, uh, Uncle Charles he married a girl right here from, uh, from Tabernacle, she was born and raised in Tabernacle and her name was Allen. Her mother was Stella Allen. And her name was Grace Allen.
I: Is there a relation between Allen’s Feed and uh…
KY: Probably, it’s hard to say. Yeah, probably.
I: Ok.
KY: And then uh,
VS: They came from Southampton.
KY: Yeah, yeah. And then my Uncle, my Uncle George he married a girl from Whitings.
VS: My goodness, how did he meet up with her?
KY: I don’t know, but he married..
VS: Many miles (laughter).
KY: He married… her name was uh, uh, Thelma?
VS: Thelma was the daughter.
KY: Yeah, Thelma and Janet were two children. But, uh, anyhow. And my Uncle Wes was in the second world war and his appendix broke. And he married a girl from Medford.
I: Wait, wait wait. He was in the second world war, his appendix broke and he came back here?
KY: Yeah, and he got poisoned and the poison went to the brain and he was never right after that. And he just uh, worked at menial jobs. He worked for Jeff Simmons up there at the dairy farm for years, lived alone and… cause the wife… he just …It was a shame, what happened.
It was a shame, what happened to him because he was such a nice young fella. A good scraping guy and everything but he was just after the poising of the brain he was never …… He laid…. that’s when the second world war they made all the hotels hospitals in Atlantic City. See. Every hotel went into a hospital in Atlantic City and that’s where he was.
And he had, I think they opened him up twenty-one times cause they didn’t have the facilities. And they drained him and drained the poison out of his system, and he laid in there for seven or eight months in the hospital in Atlantic City. Finally, they released him and so forth…. but he still was not right. So I can tell you he married Mucklebee, Sarah Mucklebee from Medford. And uh, she’s still living today, and he passed away last year, he was 70, 78.
And they my Uncle Floyd, he married uh, uh, Anna Horner. And they both passed away two years ago. Him and her passed away six months apart.
And Calvin, he married a girl from Vincentown. He’s the baby of the family and he’s the one that had polio from the Korean War and he wasn’t expected to live past fifty. And he’s seventy-two now.
VS: Laughter.
KY: He had two children and he’s doing very well.
I: Is he still here in Tabernacle?
KY: No, he lives in Medford. He can out of the service and went to marry this girl and they lived in Medford and worked in the Medford Knitware Mill. Both of them did for a few years and then he went into the service and that was it, he never worked a steady job since then.
VS: Well, how many of ….
KY: He picked blueberries for me on crutches….
VS: How many of your Yates family still live in the Tabernacle Township?
KY: I am, Grace, Grace Yates is still here with her daughter Grace. Uh, cause they had three girls and a boy. And they are all gone except Grace and Gracie. And I, myself, uh, ok, Uncle George’s son Tommy, he is living in the household, but there’re both dead. So, it’s myself and Grace are the only two Yates’ left.
I’m the only original Yates and then my brother’s son is lives next to me, Joseph. He lives next to me. My nephew.
VS: So, there’s three Yates’ families.
KY: Yes. There’re still three Yates’ families. Well, including Carlton. Carlton in a home now on Tuckerton Road, I think. Over there near the rest home with Mr. Gerber. It’s funny, Mr. Gerber and Carlton are, I think, both the same age. I think they both went to the old one room schoolhouse that we have down here.
VS: Yes, they did.
KY: Both of them. Carlton Yates and him were both the same age and there they are in the rest home, side by side together.
VS: Now Yates is not mentioned in that.
KY: Well Carlton Yates went there.
VS: Well, let me write that down because I don’t have…
KY: Carlton Yates is the same age. Yes.
VS: I’ll add Carlton Yates.
KY: Carlton and Herb Gerber are the same age.
VS: to the list of students.
KY: He had a heart surgery at 83 years old. In Deborah, Carlton did.
VS: Oh.
KY: Yes.
VS: Is Carlton the one who lived in the old house up there?
KY: Yeah, he was never married.
VS: I think the house is empty now.
KY: That’s right. The house is empty. He lived there, never married….
I: Up where? Up where?
VS: Um, Chatsworth Road uh, the old …..ing house.
KY: It’s a beautiful stone house, brick house. It’s got a beautiful lawn, on a hill, like on the right across from the entrance right to…uh, is it Harrogate?
VS: No, Harrowgate is up…
KY: Or not Harrowgate. Washing Way.
All: Washington Way.
KY: Right across from Washington Way, after you pass Washington Way you’re your gonna come to Buttersworth Bogs Road. But just before Buttersworth Bogs Road there’s a…
VS: It’s a three-story house.
I: Ok.
VS: Small, three story house. Old, old, old.
KY: Never painted. Never painted, the barns fell down and probably his money is in there underneath something. He never brings it to the bank. OK?
VS: That’s the way they did it.
KY: And he had an old horse, and it didn’t kill the horse. The horse got around it. But he lived there alone, all by himself. He never married, never had a little piggy and never went out with a woman. And uh, he uh, after his brother John died and he went out of that house and that one they tore down. Out in front of Eschenberg’s it was.
Remember the old homestead.
VS: Yeah, yeah.
KY: And then he moved over into this, I would call it a tenant house. And he lived there ever since. No electricity, no running water, and that’s the way he lived until… He never knew what it was to, uh, have electric at all. Kerosene lamp…
VS: Well, he went to bed with the chickens.
KY: Yeah. Him and his dog, him and his dog lived in the one room. They never lived in the rest of the house, they just lived in that one room.
VS: Well, that was the way it was for many people in those days.
KY: Like I say, I remember the Fox Chase house had no electricity. Mrs. Tustin’s Fox Chase house had no electricity. We had no electricity when we moved to Indian Mills. We moved twenty-one times.
I: Oh, my word.
KY: Twenty-one times from the time I was a little kid.
VS: Oh dear (laughing).
VS: You never moved here, did you?
VS: Now I was told that where the Russo homestead is, was the old Wisham house. Do you remember?
VS: Down the main…
KY: Um hum.
VS: There was a new…
KY: It had an addition, had an addition, yes. That is the old Wisham house.
VS: Ok, so we were right. It’s the Russo homestead now.
I: Which Russo homestead?
VS: Well, you don’t see it from the road. Unless you go up Carranza…
I: Oh, it’s the one… go up and make a left. Near where Madelyn lives.
KY: Yeah. Madelyn lives on one end and then the family, the mother and father lived on the other end. They’re both passed away and now Brenda just moved in there.
I: Ok.
KY: Brenda is going to live there until her house is completed or something. She is going to live there for six or seven… That’s Joe and Natalie’s daughter Brenda. And she has two children.
I: Ok.
KY: So, they’re living in there now.
VS: Ok, so I was right.
KY: When I worked for the Russo’s when he had horses and I used to, I used to take care of the horses for him and milk the cows and take the eggs out from the chickens and all that kind of good stuff when I was a little boy. But they came here, right about during the second world war. The Russo’s did. Prior to that, the place uh, Horace Jennings was farming that farm, the Russo Farm, prior to that.
But Allen’s had a milk service. Victor Allen, Victor Allen had a milk service. They bottled milk and cowpuncher. Remember the red-headed cowpuncher? They called her. I never knew what her right name was.
VS: But we knew her.
KY: Yes, but she lived with Mrs. Kaplan. Was a Jewish lady and her husband was a captain in the Navy. (census research shows Matthew (Naval employee) and Lillian Kaplan lived with children David and Mary on Tabernacle Road) And he retired. I never met him.
But she used to take us to Philadelphia, Mrs. Kaplan, she took us around more, my two brothers, or my brother and myself and their son. They only had one son, David. And I think they had a daughter, uh, I don’t know, but there was a lot of age difference between the two children. So uh, but she used to take us to the deli in Philadelphia back in the early forties. And then take us to the Jewish delicatessen, get us those sandwiches, you know with the Jewish pickle and ah so great.
VS: Because her name was spelled with a “K.”
KY: Kaplan. K..A..P..L..A..N.
I: And do you know how she ended up here?
KY: No, never knew. But they were the last house in Tabernacle Township, on Hampton Gate Road going towards Vincentown, on the left.
I: Is the house still there?
KY: Yes, the house is still there. In fact, a classmate of mine lived in that house and just sold it. Uh, um, two years ago. It was up for sale and she just sold that place.
VS: Is it still the last house?
KY: No, no, no. There’s been her relation Shirley Gerber, or Shirley whatever.
I: Powell.
KY: Powell. I think Shirley’s almost the last house, isn’t she, on the left.
VS: I don’t know if she’s the last on or the next to the last one.
KY: Close to it.
VS: Yeah.
KY: Because I knew every person…
VS: Well sure you did.
KY: I knew every person in Tabernacle, Indian Mills and Chatsworth.
VS: Cause there wasn’t that many. (laughter).
KY: True. I mean, you uh had to, on the road from 532, the intersection of 532 to 206, you had her father’s house.
VS: Five houses.
KY: Yes.
TAPE ABRUPTLY ENDS MID SENTANCE
RESUME
KY: You have Philip Gerber’s house, which is Irene’s father’s property. And then you had uh, Uncle Ed’s, a farmhouse, which was just sold here a couple of years ago. And then you had Hosea Moore’s right across the street from them. This was before Arthur and all, and Uncle Bill. Uncle Billy, and then Harry Worrell’s father built next to his father. Right?
IA: Right.
I: This is on Hampton, originally Hampton Gate Road?
KY: No, no, no no. This is on, this is on Route 532. Between Town Hall and 206.
I: Oh, ok.
KY: There was only three farm houses then. Four, four, …… Haines farm right on the curve. And my father lived there.
IA: So, your mother and father lived everywhere.
KY: Yeah, right. And Furman Foulks, now the guy whose father, Charles Foulks, was the one who invented the signal light and in Ralph Haines’ store. Furman farmed and had a successful dairy farm over where the old O’Neal farm is now. And I don’t know what happened to him, but all of a sudden he went out of the dairy business. But there used to be, uh, seven dairy farms in Tabernacle, twenty- one chicken farms.
I: Do you remember who owned each one of those dairy farms?
KY: Uh, dairy farms, let’s see. There was the Beaumont’s, down here on Hampton Gate Road. They had the first one as you come into town. And then there was Victor Allen here. Furman Foulks owned the one on Flyatt Road. There was Jeff Simmons up on the left-hand side of the road at what used to be Nelson Haines. Course Nelson Haines, that’s where Bruce Haines lived next store.
I: What side, which side?
KY: It was his grandfather, Nelson Haines, Bruce’s grandfather who fell off, they were shingling the roof of the barn, fell off, broke his neck and it killed him.
VS: He had a dairy farm; I never knew that.
KY: Yeah, yeah.
I: Which road was that on?
KY: This is on Carranza Road. They call it Breeze Hill. Yeah, the Kruger farm.
I: Oh, ok.
KY: You pass it all the time. And then there was uh, uh, Bob Haines’ dairy farm, Sunnylawn Farm. And then there was Roger Brick’s dairy farm. Off of, sets back off on the right-hand side. Let’s see, one, two, three, four, five, six. Who’s the seventh one?
I: Montgomery houses?
KY: Montgomery, well I said Roger Brick. See, that’s when back in the depression, for entertainment, people, they used to have a landing strip there. That was hayfields. And they mowed it close and they used to have airplanes that’d come in, on Sunday afternoons, and the people would just flock there, and that was your entertainment on a Sunday afternoon. The airplanes would take off, guys would stand on the wings, and they would do loop-to-loops. Right? You remember that? You don’t remember that?
IA: I never got taken there.
KY: Yeah, yeah, they had that. That was back in the thirties. And, uh
VS: Well I don’t know what tak……so long.
KY: Yes, yes.
IA: You go in the planes; they take you up.
VS: For a price?
IA: For a price, of course.
KY: Now the chicken farms, I couldn’t begin to tell you all the chicken farmers. In fact, Jim Gerber was one back in Bozarthtown years ago. And there was two Eschenberg brothers. They used to fly dirigibles during the second world war over top their houses cause they swore up and down they were German. They came here from Germany. So, they were watching all the German people.
Basically, we were at war with Germany. And uh, uh but that was a number of chicken farmers. There was Darwin, down there on the right-hand side. You remember Darwin, you crossed it, I mean Medford Lakes road, from 206 on uh, Darwin’s lived there. They had chickens there. And then Backard.
I: Who’s that?
IA: Mr. Backard.
KY: Carl Backard. He wound up working for the federal government. He was spackler for the government. He used to spackle all the seams in their buildings and so forth. Carl Backard did my house. Everybody did work on my house now passed away.
But it was funny, now the Bread and Cheese Run, go back there on the Bread and Cheese Run, I can remember when people used to pull their car, off of New Road and down in and put it right in. Cause it was solid in the bottom of it. And they’d pull their old model A in and that’s where they’d wash their car there. And they’d wash their car over by the oldest house in Tabernacle, the Zimmerman’s the Zimmerman’s house there. There was no bridges. You went right through the water.
VS: They ignored it, the water.
KY: That’s right. They went right through. Did you talk about the Blue Comet that used to run?
VS: No, not yet.
KY: There was the Blue Comet used to run, uh, from New York and through here and you could hear the whistle blowin. And what happened, uh, there was a big storm and the bridge, uh, partially washed out and the Blue Comet crashed. Well not crashed, but run off the track up there, and uh, that was almost around the same time that, uh, the Hindenberg ….and uh.
I: Crashed.
KY: Yeah, down in Toms River. Bout the same time that that happened. And after that’s when the goodwill pilot, right?
All: Carranza.
KY: Yeah, Emilo Carranza. That was all within the same era, time. You know, up there. And my father went to the Hindenburg. Now I don’t know, you know, I can remember him talkin about that. But other than that I wouldn’t know what went on. You see more about it on television, it’s amazing the pictures they have of that. The way it burned and so forth. Somebody had a movie camera there taking pictures of that. Cause it was just amazing…
VS: Well, they were there because they were expecting it to come in. It was really a very big event that was taking place.
KY: Yeah, yeah.
VS: So, they were going to be there taking pictures of it. They never expected it to be the big event that it was.
KY: They had; they had an article on New Jersey channel the other night about the cranberries. I hate to switch from one thing to the other, but the cranberry pickers. And they showed the pickers in different… in Whitesbog. All the, all the pickers, they picked by hand.
It was amazing how they harvested those berries. Cause I used to remember my mother saying ………………. But when you figure you see the vines, to get the cranberries off, you know it’s amazing that… how technology has really brought things to the point that now they say the cranberry grower can’t make it at ten dollars … I think it’s ten dollars and ten cents a barrel. From eighty-five dollars a barrel down to ten dollars and ten cents. You know.
IA: Because of the glut on the market.
VS: People can’t use that many cranberries.
KY: But see the Cutts family, and I guess her (Viola), what was … and all those related to your father somehow. What, however.
VS: There father and my father were brothers.
KY: But they, they all lived in the house, it still hasn’t been torn down, it’s up there.
VS: Laughter.
KY: They got married. They kept getting married, but they all lived home, in the homestead, didn’t they? It took them quite a while to build their houses. But all those homes you see, all that wood was cut off of their property. And they got their sawmill here and they would, they would mill their stuff and then they would build it their selves. The brothers would get together, all, Walter and John and uh, …..
VS: Ernest and Ross.
KY: and Ernest and Ross. The four boys.
I: Now, on Carranza road, I guess up that way, there…
VS: To the north.
I: To the north, sorta near the old house that ended up being torn down, across the road, there was a structure there. Um, you can still see some of the, it’s very heavily wooded now and overgrown, but there was a house there. Maybe I’m to close to that one. I have to drive, I have to go out and look.
VS: The house that was torn down…..
KY: Right here, right across the street, right here.
I: But somewhere right past … maybe it’s past it on the right-hand side going north.
KY: Well, that’s the one I have been telling you about. It’s the Cutts brothers.
I: Ok, that’s the one…
KY: That’s the one that fell down.
VS: No, no, no, no. Here’s uh, there’s a road that goes in, and I forget who lives back in there, but it’s before, just before you get to the cemetery.
I: Yes, it’s a road to the right.
KY: Yes.
VS: It’s a lane.
KY: School teacher lives back in there. Lenape schoolteacher. Yeah, three houses in there now.
VS: But that’s only a small woods. And it goes over towards his house. On New Road.
KY: Back there right behind me.
I: Ok, well I was thinking this is something that I, that is closest to Carranza, closest to the road on Carranza. You could see it heavily, … when I go out there, I will try to identify specifically. But you could see there was a structure there at one time.
VS: That’s before you get to the property that’s going to be the school. It’s right beside Bread and Cheese Run. Practically. It’s about just before you get to Bread and Cheese Run. The one I’m talking about. She’s talking about, it’s a small woods, wooded area, in there. Past, uh, it’s not even as far down…
KY: Hanny Reeves, remember Hanny Reeves old house?
VS: Yeah.
KY: Then Hicky Thomas built one next to Hanny Reeves’s house.
VS: Yes.
KY: Are you talking about the woods after that? Of Tustin?
VS: No.
KY: Or the woods before?
VS and Interviewer: Before.
KY: That was an open field. That was an open field. When I was a young boy that was all a farm. That was an open field. That’s between uh, Allen’s and uh…
VS: Duffy Allen.
KY: Duffy Allen. That was between Duffy Allen’s field and Hanny Reeves’ house. It’s a low ravine in there, but that used to be farmed. When we hunted it, when it grew up in grass there was a coupla trees and the pheasants used to hang in there. We loved to pheasant hunt in there. It was nice to pheasant hunt in that area. But there was never a building there.
VS: I don’t remember one.
KY: No there was no building ever there. The only building, you’re probable talking about the one next store to the church. That’s the only one falling down the remnants of a building.
VS: She doesn’t mean a house, she means a foundation.
I: Is there still a foundation there. Is that what I am looking at, is the foundation to the house?
KY: Well, there was a foundation to the old icehouse or whatever they had here.
I: Ok, maybe that’s what it is. Ok.
VS: Well, I just, let me get my bearings here. I know…
KY: The one we just tore down at our church, our church just tore down, across the street, I was responsible for getting that done. Because, uh, we didn’t want someone to get in there and get hurt and so forth and the insurance….
VS: Well, they’d taken everything out of it? Laughter.
KY: Yes, of course. …………………… and they never roofed it again. It’s a shame, if the roof had been done it had’d been a nice house. And that was another thing. There was no inside bathroom in there and it was just…. It first time I ever seen an outside privy, with uh, lathe and plaster. The first one I ever did….
All: ooh and ahs
KY: Lathe and plaster, the same as the house. And the guy who tore that down, Larry, whose working over there right now, it’s your son (Irene’s). Ok, her son, did the machine work to tear that down, he said “Can’t get that house is so well built.” He said “I had three sides of it down,” and he said, “I hit that with my hoe and it come over and came right back up and stood right back up straight.” “Wouldn’t come down.” Yeah, her son Larry told me.
Multiple speakers – unintelligible
KY: But it was so, … the floors were rotten, the roof was rotten, it was a shame.
I: If the roof had been saved the house, the rest of the house would have been.
KY: Oh yeah.
VS: Well, it could have been sold repeatedly.
KY: Yes. There were, there were… four other …
VS: But they would not even hear about this. That bothers me.
I: Why is that?
KY: I don’t know, but I tried. I tried to buy it from the girls and they wouldn’t… I just couldn’t get to first base with them.
VS: Grace went to first base with you.
KY: Oh yea.
VS: But the other two wouldn’t. In fact, she is the one that is responsible for selling it.
KY: Oh yeah.
VS: Prevail, prevail, prevail. But eventually she won, but it took years. For her to convince…
KY: And Jimmy used to work for me as a young boy. He worked for me down here when I had the beans and cabbage on Katherine Haines’ farm. Where Rickey (Haines) lives today, I had … I raised beans and cabbage there. Just before…
VS: You’re a busy man, you think?
Multiple speakers.
VS: Tell em what you do now, you build houses.
KY: I do. In fact, I just gave Steve Scales a price his morning. I sub everything out. You know. I just telephone and do it that way.
VS: I know I have to ask you a question that doesn’t have anything to do with that. (recorder turned off, then resumed with new topic).
I: Why don’t we talk about, … What did your father end up doing when he, when he …
KY: When he left the farm, he got married…
I: He was born here, I have…
KY: Yeah, my father was born here. All of us, nine children, were born here. Yes. And I had seven children. But my father wound up going to work during the second world war, he went to work for the New York Shipyard. And then, prior to that he worked for the highway department. State Highway Department. Then he wound up, when he died, he lived right here in the homestead. And he worked for the Burlington County Highway Department.
I: OK.
KY: Then he had leukemia. That’s what my father had, leukemia. He was in bad shape. But my mom, she lived in Burlington, came back here, I brought her back here.
VS: Well, you lived in Burlington too.
KY: That’s for a short time, yea, back in 1946. I was in Burlington for like six months. That’s when I found out my name was Kenneth.
All: Laughter.
KY: I always knew my name was Teddy. Everybody knew me as Teddy. When I put my name on the side of my truck in letters that big, Ken Yates, nobody knew who I was!
All: Laughter.
KY: It’s the truth. And uh, but I went into the highway, onto Burlington, my mother and father separated, in ‘46. Anyhow, I was in the eighth grade and I went to Robert Safety Junior High, which I talked to a girl last Sunday night, over there.
We was having dinner at that fancy place on the railroad there, whatever the name of it is, and I, uh said, have you ever heard of Robert …. Was you born here? She said “Yeah.” So, I said where do you live? She said, “Burlington Township.” At where, near Salem Road? She said “Yeah.” I said, “do you know anything about Farneville?” She said, “Where’s Farneville?”
I said Farneville starts from JB Bakery and goes up High….
I: Farneville? F. A. R. N. E. V. I. L. L. E. (actually Farnerville)
KY: Yeah, part the call Farneville
I: Ok.
KY: And that was from JB Bakery all the way up to the top of Springside Hill and took in that area all the way out to Salem Road. She didn’t know that. So, then I said how about the Robert Safety Junior High School? She said, “where was that at?” I said well, that was right across from the old high school and that’s where the seventh and eighth grade children went to, Robert Safety Junior High. But anyhow, I got my tonsils… I had tonsilitis, so I went in the hospital in Riverside, Zurberg Hospital. And, when I came to, the nurse she was calling me Kenneth and I wasn’t responding.
She said, “what’s the matter, don’t you know your name?” I said, “that’s not my name.” My name is Theodore!
All: Laughter.
I: What’s the history of Theodore and Kenneth?
KY: Ok, I was gonna tell you. So anyhow, the nurses, uh, I’ll tell you what, when my mother comes in here tonight, she’ll tell you who, what. So, I ask mom and mom said your name is Kenneth.
The history behind that is, I went to see my Aunt Mary which I hadn’t seen in thirty-three years, Sunday, this Sunday past, and her husband’s name was Ken. My mother liked the name of Ken, so she named me Kenneth. My father raised so much H…, that he was bartending, and he used to hang out at the bar here, Theodore Batterson’s, cause the old bar, that was a poolroom, that was a poolroom when it first started. Theodore Batterson started that as a poolroom.
That was his best friend. So, his name was Theodore. So, to keep peace in the family, we’ll call him Theodore. And that…
I: So, it’s really Theodore Kenneth.
KY: No. No, it’s not even Theodore at all. Not at all. Not even on my birth certificate. It’s Kenneth Yates. I’m not Theodore, Teddy….
VS: But everybody calls you Teddy.
KY: Yeah.
I: Ok. That’s funny.
KY: Yeah, I can tell. A few of the younger ones that’s heard so they call me, they’ll hear my wife, so they call me Teddy. But other than that, so that’s how I got it.
IA: I always said he was Teddy and then when he moved to Burlington and he came back Ken.
KY: Came back Ken.
All: Laughter.
VS: What does Dorothy call you most of the time?
KY: Ken. And anybody’s close to us they’ll say Kenny. So no matter where I worked, I got two names. Kenny, or the old-timers call me Ted. And the newers call me Ken. That’s what I did, there was four Ken’s in the last office where I worked, so I said just call me Ted. Cause there was too many Kens.
Interview with Richard O’Neal
Present: Rich O’Neal (RO) and Interviewer, Rita Moonsammy (RM), Folklorist from the Tabernacle Historical Society.
RM: Can you tell me your full name and where you were born and when you were
born? If you’d like to keep that book, you can, and I’ll pick it up another time.
RO: My name is Richard Lester O’Neal, born November 19, 1930 right here in
Tabernacle at the end of Carranza Road — Hawkins Road and Carranza Road. There’s an old farmhouse there called “Foxchase Farm.”
RM: Foxchase Farm?
RO: Right. That’s where the new high school, Seneca High School, is now.
So I hadn’t gotten too far away from town. I moved away when I got married, and
then I came back.
RM: Who were your parents?
RO: My father was named Harvey Osbury O’Neal.
RM: Osbury? Osbury?
RO: Osbury.
RM: Oh. Like Asbury Park.
RO: Yes. My mother was Emily Worrell O’Neal. And she was one of the Worrell
Family. My grandmother was named Carrie Worrell. My grandfather was William H.
Worrell. He farmed Foxchase Farm when I was born. And — .
RM: Your mother — what was her maiden name?
RO: Worrell.
RM: Oh, ok. And your dad was O’Neal.
RO: Yes.
RM: Where did his family come in? I haven’t heard about them before.
RO: They came from [?], Delaware, back in, probably, 1926 – 27, something like that. The moved up from Delaware to Verga, New Jersey, which is Woodbury area.
RM: What’s the name?
RO: Verga. 1
RM: V-e-r-g-a?
RO: Little community on Route 130, Westville, Woodbury area.
RM: Is it actually a town, or is that just a name for an area?
RO: A name for an area. It was a small community just like Tabernacle.
RM: Ok.
RO: It’s where — well, they moved up there to work for Campbell Soup Company.
They were farmers.
RM: In Gloucester — the farm?
RO: Yeah. And they worked there for several years and eventually moved to
Tabernacle.
RM: Did they own a farm there?
RO: No, they were sharecroppers. And they moved up in Tabernacle, and — I’m not sure who they worked for, but they moved to the Howard Grovatt Farm, which is known by many people. Well, that was back in the (sic 19)29s era. That’s how my father met my mother. She lived at the Foxchase Farm. Before, they were down in Red Lion. They farmed a farm in Red Lion area. And then my dad — I’m not sure who he worked for when I was first born, but he got a job working for a gentleman by name of Hall. And this gentleman’s father was one of the original owners of Campbell Soup Company. And we lived at Moorestown area, off of Lenola Road. Actually, it was Lenola.
RM: Was that all farm area there?
RO: Yeah, that was all farm area then. It was a fruit farm and Mr. Hall’s father had a green thumb. He raised flowers and shrubbery, even though he was a successful person with Campbell Soup Company. And that was back when I was first born. I only remember what my childhood experiences were then. I started school at the Lenola School. It was about a mile and a half from the farm to school. And so, when the weather was good, I walked to school and walked home. And when it was storming, my mother or father came and got me. No school buses back them days, you know.
RM: So, the farm was in Lenola, and your house was where?
RO: Right there on the farm. We lived as a tenant at the farm.
RM: But then did you move into Moorestown?
RO: No.
2
RM: Ok. So when you said that Mr. Hall had a green thumb and raised flowers and
everything, did that have anything to do with your dad’s work?
RO: Well, my dad was an employee of Mr. Hall. And the older gentlemen who Campbell Soup [represent?] he lived on Chester Avenue in Moorestown. Had a good sized home there, and my dad was, at different times, had to go do landscaping work in Moorestown, but most of the time his work was right there at the farm. They raised fruit, apples and peaches. I can remember, some of the peaches were as big as grapefruit, and I knew the Cutts Family when I was in kindergarten because they used to come to the Hall Farm for peaches. The Cutts Family is from here in Tabernacle. They had a huckster route in the city of Camden.
RM: What in Camden?
RO: A huckster route. They took fruit and vegetables and went in once a week,
and….
RM: And sold from a wagon?
RO: Well, they had a truck, yeah, at the time.
RM: And that was in what? The Forties?
RO: In the early — more like (sic 19)30, (sic 19)31. Well, I started school in (sic 19)35, so it was about in that period of time, but they knew about the peaches we grew. For some reason, I don’t know how or why, but I remember them coming and they paid big money for special peaches which they were handpicked and handled specifically for the huckster route. They weren’t like market. And they went right down the street in Camden, and sold (to) the customers. There was no road stand those days, like there is now, and the people in the city of Camden — most of them didn’t have automobiles. That worked out to be quite a project for the Cutts Family. And that’s – the gentleman — there were five brothers: John, Walter, Ross — I’m trying to remember — [?], I forget what the other ones’ name was. They all worked together and they — John Cutts was connected with the state politics, and he was usually, he was one of the — he was the oldest one and he kind of directed the rest of them of what to do and how to do things, you know. Then they ran blueberries from North Carolina.
RM: North Carolina?
RO: Yeah, they still have, I think they still have land down there. Not positive.
RM: Why North Carolina when this is a big blueberry place?
RO: Well, they were smart enough to know that the blueberries, when they first
come in season, bring good money, so they went in North Carolina and planted them so they’d have them three or four weeks ahead of time. And they were quite
successful; and they had several migrant workers. Colored people, who come up
from North Carolina, to work up here in blueberries and also in the cranberries.
They’d go back in the winter time; go back home. They’d bring them up in a school
bus, truck, however, you know. I’m talking back in the Forties. 3
RM: Right. Right. So your dad worked for Hall. Did they call it “Hall’s Farm,” or did
it have a name?
RO: Yeah. Hall’s Farm.
RM: Are there any Hall’s that still have farming over in that area?
RO: Not that I know of.
RM: And did they ever have any farmland over here?
RO: No. No. In fact, I’m almost sure there was some — I’m not sure who owned the
Grovatt Farm, back then, but I’m sure there was some connection through Campbell
Soup that my father moved up here. And my dad — I guess, probably about 21, 22
years old, when he first moved here to Tabernacle. And then, my grandfather — I
never found out for sure who he worked for, but then he left Tabernacle and went to
Medford and operated for a gentleman by name of Bertram Stowe, and that farm is
where Johnson’s farm market is today. And I can remember as a kid working there
for Bert Stowe planting trees, you know. [Laughs] I carried the trees while the men
folks planted.
RM: You were a kid?
RO: Yeah, I was a kid, and I was happy as a lark. I got a quarter for helping them!
[Laughs] They didn’t — I just happened to be there and it was handy for me to get
the trees. They were tied up four to five in a bundle. I’d carried them to the wagon,
right to where the men folks, the ground was, had marked — measured and marked
for the plants every so far apart. And I’d take the trees and then they’d dig the dirt
and I’d put the roots down in the ground where they should be. I’d chase back and
And any of the members of the family who could get there, always come to
Grandmom’s for dinner.
RM: And that’s when they were living at Hartford Road, across from Stowe Farm.
RO: What they did when I was born, it was the farm. I wasn’t old enough to
remember, you know. I don’t know for sure. I was probably four years old, probably,
when I moved from Foxchase Farm to Lenola. And during that period of time, I
started school in Lenola. Went to kindergarten for one week, and they put me up in
the first grade. The reason for that was my Grandmother O’Neal, fell off a stepladder
while cleaning windows, and hurt her back. And my mother had to stay and take
care of her while Grandpop worked. And my dad, he had to travel back and forth
from Medford to Lenola, and I spent quite a lot of time before school with my
grandmother. She was laid up from the back injury. She taught me how to do my
numbers, my alphabet, I could tell time, and…
RM: Home schooled.
4
RO: I was home schooled and when I started in Lenola School, they found that I was
already advanced than the other folks, so they put me in the first grade. So I was
always the youngest kid in class from that point on.
RM: So you were in the Lenola School how long?
RO: I’m not positive whether I was there for two years or three years.
RM: And then you came over to Tabernacle elementary?
RO: Nope. I went to Medford.
RM: What school was that?
RO: The Allen School in Medford.
RM: Allen?
RO: Allen School in Medford. That’s the oldest school.
RM: Is that still there?
RO: Yep. Branch Street.
RM: Is that the one that’s on the street back there behind the library?
RO: Yep. Behind the library.
RM: Oh, I didn’t realize that school was that old?
RO: Oh, yeah. That was — I guess that was built maybe 1929? Or the early Twenties, you know. Yeah. I wound up there in fifth grade. So I was in Lenola School till about fourth grade. And, yeah, I had — you know I’ve never thought back then, but I went to Medford school in fifth grade and then sixth grade. Sometime sixth and seventh grade, my Grandfather Worrell, passed away. Died from appendicitis, burst appendix. And so the family sold out and my grandmother retired.
RM: And that farm that they sold out was….
RO: Hartford Road.
RM: But he didn’t own that — ?
RO: He didn’t own that. They leased the farm. I didn’t know who it belonged to, but
somebody in Moorestown.
RM: So they just sold everything they had.
RO: Yeah. They had an auction and sold everything. And my dad went to work for
my grandmother’s brother.
5
RM: Your Grandmother Worrell?
RO: Grandmother Worrell had a brother — Frank Worrell.
RM: Yeah, I see him. [Looking a photograph.]
RO: He’s in Mt. Holly. Now there are two Frank Worrells.
RM: He had a son named Frank.
RO: My grandmother had a son named Frank, and she had a brother named Frank.
RM: Your grandmother was….
RO: Carrie.
RM: Was she Clifford’s sister?
RO: No. Clifford’s mother.
RM: Oh! She was married to William Worrell?
RO: She was married to William Worrell and she had three brothers.
RM: I haven’t interviewed anybody that says they’re related to them yet. They’ve
talked about working for Moores, or land that Moores owned. Ok, so you were
telling me — we were talking about Frank. Somebody…
RO: I told you there were two Frank Worrells.
RM: And you told me that because, you told me something about one of the Franks
that you or your dad worked….
RO: My dad worked for Frank Ellis.
RM: Ok. He worked … Ok. Gotcha’.
RO: And I went from Medford to Lumberton.
RM: Frank Ellis lived in Lumberton?
RO: He lived Route 38 and 541. He owned a beautiful home over there. It’s gone
now. You know the intersection of Route 38 and 541? Mt. Holly Road?
RM: Yeah.
RO: Moorestown – Mt. Holly, Medford – Mt. Holly Road?
RM: Mmhmm.
6
RO: At the intersection of Route 38, on the way going to the hospital, there was a
farm there. Nothing but houses now, and businesses now, and on the left side of the
street, going in towards the hospital, is where my dad and mother went to work
there for my uncle, Frank Ellis.
RM: On his farm.
RO: Yeah. And we were there — one year? And my dad had an opportunity to start operate a farm himself. 1943.
RM: The war years.
RO: And that’s when I came to Tabernacle.
RM: And where was that farm?
RO: On Old Indian Mills Road. You know where Vincent Haines lives? You know
Indian Mills Road?
RM: Tell me where it is and I may know it. [Laughs]
RO: In front of Sequoia school house, there’s a road called Flyatt Road, goes out to
206. You go down towards the highway. There’s an intersection. That’s Old Indian
Mills Road.
RM: Oh, that’s the one, if you turn right off — coming from the center of town — if
you turn right it kind of goes up….
RO: On an angle and back to the highway.
RM: Yeah. To (Rt.) 206. That’s Old Indian Mills Road.
RO: Right.
RM: Oh, I use that road all the time when I go south.
RO: Yeah. Yeah. And then it goes on [?] and comes out at Shamong Diner.
RM: Mmhmmm.
RO: Ok? Where it comes back this way, comes back to (Rt.) 206? There’s a stretch in between that and Harker’s Auction that’s (a) dirt (road) and behind CVS.
RM: Wait. I’m getting mixed up between. Where does that road…?
RO: Ok. Let me take you from here. (The “here” that Rich O’Neal mentions is from his O’Neal Insurance Agency, Rt. 206, Tabernacle, NJ business.) Go up to the traffic light at Medford Lakes Road.
RM: Mmhmmm.
7
RO: Make a right. CVS is on the…. Well, then you go up there 50 yards, and there’s a continuation of Old Indian Mills Road behind CVS pharmacy. Ok? If you follow that, too, it’s only a block from across the highway. And it comes out back here at the
intersection close to Carranza Road, where it comes out on 206. That’s Old Indian
Mills Road. Back, I guess in the Thirties, that was (Rt.) 206, or Route 39. Old Indian Mills Road. And when they come through and built (Rt.) 206, they straightened it out on through here. Old Indian Mills Road goes to the right, coming from the Red Lion
Circle and it’s only a block back here, one street over, and goes on across to Medford Lakes Road, by CVS, goes on to the left of (Rt.) 206, and they used to follow that going south.
RM: So it crosses (Rt.) 206.
RO: Yeah, it crosses (Rt.) 206 and then it comes back up, and Indian Mills Road comes back out on (Rt.) 206. When they came through here, that was classed Route 39, this
RO: Yes. It was all farm area, and they — most, several of them were — well, the
Horner family lived there and most of them were real handy carpenters.
RM: Did you say the Horner family?
RO: There was several, and in order for you to not get real confused, you need to
mark down the names and the different description of who they were, or whatever.
RM: Well, I won’t worry about them right now, but how did the area get the name
Bozarth?
RO: Well, I think somebody by the name of Bozarth —
RM: Settled there first?
RO: Yeah, and that’s where Patty Bowker must have come from.
RM: Really? Somebody told you that?
RO: Oh, I’m putting two and two together. I don’t know! I’m trying to find out!
[Laughs]
RM: So there were a few families, or it was like a town?
RO: There was a little community there.
RM: Did they have a church?
RO: No.
RM: Just some houses and asparagus farms.
8
RO: They were small houses. Each house there was probably only one bedroom
type. Have you been in there? Where do you live?
RM: I might have been by there and just not. I live on Powell Place Road near the
intersection with Foxchase across from Wimbeldon (Dr.), Foxchase-Friendship Road.
RO: Oh, yeah, I know.
RM: So that isn’t — you know, my usual travel routes are Foxchase to New Road to
Medford Lakes-Tabernacle Road, or down (Rt.) 206, or up to Route 70. Or I take New
Road up to (Rt.) 206. I don’t drive around a lot in Tabernacle?
RO: Have you been to Carranza Monument?
RM: [Whispers: I hate to tell you but I haven’t.] One time I got lost going down
Carranza Road. I wasn’t really lost. I was looking for something and it wasn’t where
I thought it was. And I was looking for a place to turn around. And I went farther on
Carranza Road than I ever had. But I still didn’t ….
RO: And now I heard you mention Friendship. That’s going past Carranza Road.
RM: I’ll tell you what. I’m going to go down all these roads now and look for this
stuff. ‘Cause I’m curious. Are there many of those little houses left down there on
Bozarthtown?
RO: Yep, there’s one of them looks like it’s set right on the ground.
RM: You think somebody’s still living in it?
RO: No. Right now I think it’s for sale. (As of 2018, I believe the house he is referring to is the Severs’ House which is a house built around an 1800’s log cabin.)
RM: And nobody’s farming those — .
RO: Yeah, Russo’s farm it.
RM: Oh! Russo’s are farming all the way down there?
RO: Oh, yeah, yeah. They’re farming in there. And then — .
RM: Wait a second. That’s down Carranza Road.
RO: You go down Carranza Road. You know where the feed store is?
RM: That’s Russo’s stuff across from there, right?
RO: Yeah, from where Russo’s stops, there’s a road going in Bozarthtown called Brace Lane. You turn in there, and the road goes around like a snake. First house you come to on the left side, there’s an old A-type farmhouse that belongs to the original Horner Family. Tom — he’s dead now — Tom Horner was the last one that owned it. 9
RM: Lived there?
RO: I’m not sure who lives there right now. Russo’s farming it, and then all the
houses on the right side of the street are all new ones. Been built there in the last — .
RM: Right. Some of them are pretty fancy.
RO: Yes. And — [the lady indicating Ann Boyles] here at the front desk, she lives there, next to the — well, the second last one, she’s on the right. And then there’s a house right next door that belongs to Georgie Horner, and his dad lived there and Georg(i)e’s grandpop lived there before. And there’s two houses right there that are original, you know, Bozarthtown. And then you come to an intersection –.
RM: Wait a second, you go down Brace Lane, and — .
RO: Yeah, you wouldn’t know unless you’ve been there what I’m trying to describe
to you. You go down Carranza Road to Brace Lane, and make a left turn.
[Tape trouble]
RO: You need somebody like myself to take you around and show you where these
places are.
RM: Yeah, I’d like that. I may ask you to do that.
RO: Anyway, it goes around and in the town of Bozarthtown, there’s a crossroad, and you follow straight. It will bring you back on Buttersworth Bogs Road, and come
back out on Chatsworth Road.
RM: And Buttersworth Bogs, were there cranberry bogs there?
RO: There’s a cranberry bog in there, yeah.
RM: Now? Who owns that.
RO: Sammy Moore.
RM: Is that area called Moore’s Meadows?
RO: No, no. That’s on up Carranza Road about a mile.
RM: Ok. If I go down there, then I’m going to pass Bozarthtown.
RO: Yep. Now when you’re at the intersection in Bozarthtown, you make a right. It’ll
bring you back out to Carranza Road. And that’s where Dingletown Road starts.
RM: Dingletown Road starts at Carranza Road. Where you cross Carranza Road, it
turns into Dingletown Road? Or what?
RO: If you’re going up Carranza Road — .
10
RM: If I turn right on Carranza off of — .
RO: No. Up where?
RO: Same building, yeah.
RM: How far back does that go?
RO: Before I was born.
RM: Seriously? It’s that old?
RO: The gal — Beulah — she was a Moore. And she lived across the street.
RM: Which way?
RO: Where Nixon’s store is. That property belonged to the Moore Family.
RM: And that building that’s there now, was that there then?
RO: Yep.
RM: Was it a store or was it a house?
RO: Store.
RM: And whose family ran the store at that time?
RO: It was shut down for several years. Vince Moore lived there and his wife
[unintelligible]. And back in the days when I first moved to Tabernacle, when I was a
kid…when I moved back to Tabernacle, the telephone system back those days was
party lines. They’d have nine on a line, you know. If you wanted to use your
telephone, you’d pick it up and Annie (Moore) would be on there talking to some neighbor, you know….[unintelligible] and some of the men folks weren’t very nice when — . And if you wanted to know anything about Tabernacle, you’d call Annie Moore. She knew everything that was going on! Her son was named Vince, and he was in the service, and he got killed in the military in World War II. And Beulah was the daughter of Anna. And Belle [?] Haines was another daughter of Anna’s. (Beulah Batterson owned a bar across the street from Nixon’s called “Beulah’s”. As of 4/2018 it is called Village Pub & Package Goods, 539 Chatsworth Rd., Tabernacle, NJ.)
RM: How did Beulah come to — did she build that tavern?
RO: Her husband did. Pete Batterson.
RM: Batterson?
RO: Batterson.
RM: Where did he come from?
11
RO: I don’t know, he was around here. I don’t know any history on him. And — .
RM: Could you eat there, or was there just — ?
RO: Oh, yeah. It was not a restaurant. It was just a bar, you know. But Saturday
night things really jumped there.
RM: Did they have music there sometimes?
RO: Well, no professionals, but most of the people in town either played harmonicas
or violin or banjo. That was their entertainment, you know. Then half the womenfolk would get drunk and they want to dance with everybody.
RM: The womenfolk would get drunk?
RO: Oh, yeah! Big time went on there, yeah. [Laughs]
RM: Even with the members of the Tabernacle Methodist Church there? I thought
the Methodists frowned on drinking.
RO: The ones who were the kingpins of the church didn’t go there. They drive by,
you know, and look straight ahead. [Both laugh]
RM: Well, it was right in the middle of town! It would be hard to miss, hmm?
RO: Yeah, but as I say, everybody knew Beulah’s. I talked to people from Camden
coming up here, who’d been in Tabernacle, and everybody knew where Beulah’s
was.
RM: Richey (Haines) said that he farmed — .
RO: Yeah, I was going to say, did he mention the fact that he and I farmed the
Foxchase Farm before the school bought it?
RM: He told me that. Yeah. How did it come about that you guys — oh, well, first of
all, where did you go to high school?
RO: Rancocas Valley [unintelligible]
RM: He (Rickey Haines) went there?
RO: Yeah.
RM: Is that how you knew him? Or just from town.
RO: Well, being in town, you know. His dad (Richard I. Haines) owned the store, you know. (This store they are talking about was next to the Tabernacle Cemetery.)
RM: Yeah, right.
12
RO: From high school, I say 1943, I graduated in (19)48 — I had a sister, was eight years older, and her and Rickey went to school together. And I forget now what
[unintelligible] went to Mt. Holly High School. Traveled back and forth on the school
bus.
RM: So you weren’t in the high school at the same time as he was.
RO: No. He’s eight years younger.
RM: Mmhmm.
RO: He and I started farming 1960.
RM: How did that partnership come about?
RO: I went to work for Prudential and he was getting out of school, and I grew up on
a farm. I farmed right next door to his house, the field, while I was in high school.
RM: With your dad?
RO: No, myself. When I was in high school. I did [in the past] with my dad.
RM: Whose property was it then?
RO: Belonged to my aunt, Stevie Ellis Moore. Grandmom’s sister. And — .
RM: Grandmom — ?
RO: Grandmom Will. Carrie Will. Stevie Ellis Moore.
RM: So you farmed it for her?
RO: Her husband passed away before I even known him. He was kind of the …
auctioneer — crier for sales.
RM: Yeah.
RO: And I don’t know. He owned cranberry bogs up in Moore’s Meadows, and he
owned that (property) — there was a house there that she lived in. She was a widow for, I guess, fifty years. He died as a young man. I don’t really know how old he was. He was dead before I remember. And he was successful in a way — an auctioneer, as well. He cried sales.
RO: Rickey’s mother remarried a military man and she met him (at) Fort Dix, going to war. He was connected with the Air Force. I don’t know how to describe it, but he
moved to Florida. He was connected with the space (industry)– a good paying job. And she moved to Orlando.
RM: He didn’t tell me anything about her. What local family was she part of?
RO: Tustin Family. 13
RM: Oh, yeah. He did tell me. So, she divorced his dad, early on, and then he got a
stepmother eventually, right?
RO: Yes, he did. Yeah. Rickey’s mother was a high flyer.
RM: What’s that mean?
RO: [Laughs]
RM: She liked the good life?
RO: Lot of men knew her, real well. [Laughs]
RM: So she married that — . But she kept that property?
RO: Well, she didn’t have nothing to do with it.
RM: But she still owned it, so when it was time to build the school, then — .
RO: It belonged to Rickey’s grandfather, Christopher Tustin, (who) was a florist in the city of Philadelphia. I don’t know whether he told you that or not. And he — during the Depression, he bought Foxchase Farm. And he had a girlfriend that he kept in the city, run the flower store, and Rickey’s grandmom wound up out here on the farm. And she brought the kids with her. And Rickey had an uncle, Richard Tustin, which — Rickey’s cousin lives there now, the tenant house. Did he tell you about him? He owns the other half of the farm there, Richard Tustin.
RM: Now, “the farm” — what’s left after they sold to Seneca? Or that property right
next to his house?
RO: You know where the street goes in to the Seneca High School?
RM: Uh huh.
RO: Right by the side of it there’s a farm. Right there. The school’s on the left side,
going in. Just picture the high school.
RM: Now I’m standing in front of the high school — .
RO: Yep. The main drag going in.
RM: The main drag.
RO: There’s an open field on the right. That’s half of the Foxchase Farm.
RM: And that’s where his cousin lives.
14
RO: Yeah, in the little house, as you’re coming down Carranza Road. Go by the
cemetery, which is on the left. There’s a stream and there’s a little house, alongside
of the woods.
RM: Is that being farmed?
RO: Yes, it is being farmed. Richey’s not farming it. He rents it to somebody else.
Gardner Family from Indian Mills.
RM: Hmmm. So there’s a lot of farming going on. A lot of it is rented. Most of it still
owned by families who have been here a long time. That’s pretty interesting.
RO: The rest of the family, originally, were two brothers come from Mt. Holly.
Grandpop Russo owned a farm on Woodlane [?] Road and 541. There’s a liquor
store on the corner. The county buildings are all on the right side, and I guess the
old farmhouse is gone. Westhampton. That’s where Tony Russo, I guess it is, had an accident. He just lost his life. He’s the third or fourth (with the name of Tony or Anthony Russo). And young Anthony, who’s running the farm now, I don’t know if he’s four or five (with the same name), you know.
RM: They’ve been there a long time.
RO: They come up there during the war from Mt. Holly. Tony (Antonio) and Louis (Luigi) Russo.
RM: They came to Tabernacle from Mt Holly during the war.
RO: Yeah. They moved in 1940, I guess. About that time.
RM: I wonder when they moved to Mt. Holly.
RO: Grandpa — Great-grandpa — lived in Mt. Holly. I don’t know when they started
there.
RM: I was thinking that maybe they’d moved up from Hammonton since there were
so many Italian farmers come over in the late 19th century.
RO: No. They been in Mt. Holly, since I don’t know when, you know. But — .
RO: Don’t remember. Somewheres in between.
RM: Somebody said that he started out at Old Red Lion Road, right around in there?
RO: Yeah. That was his dad’s farm. And then — .
RM: So is that the one that goes in front of the Red Lion Inn? Is that Red Lion Road?
RO: Yes.
RM: So there is a farm back there?
15
RO: Not now. It’s built up and industrial equipment and that kind of stuff (are there in an industrial park). His father had that farm and then you know where they raise sod on Carranza Road? The brick [?] farm? Well, Joe Conte’s father, back during the war, when I first moved, he farmed that farm up there, as well. Joe Conte and I were the same age. He went to Pemberton High School, and I went to Mt. Holly. Tabernacle went to Mt. Holly High School. Vincentown went to Pemberton.
RM: He was living in Vincentown?
RO: Joe Conte — his dad — lived on Old Red Lion Road.
RM: Old Red Lion Road is in Vincentown. Yeah.
RO: I never knew him until he come to Tabernacle. His father passed on and Joe’s
mother was a believer in insurance, and that’s how they bought the farm. Old Man
Conte was worth a bundle in insurance. And they sold land, from what I understand,
on a financial standpoint, what we call, you know [jail?]. Was financial [?] he had
owned the land, and his mother swindled Tony Sorino out of the liquor store and out
of Medford. Well, that’s a long story. I won’t get into that now.
RM: That’s at what’s called “Conte Plaza,” now, isn’t it? (Here the interviewer is mentioning Conte Plaza on Stokes and Jackson Rd., Medford, NJ. The liquor store on the corner belonged to Tony Sorino, called Sorino’s Liquor Store, now called Canal’s Wines Unlimited)
RO: Yes. Them boys, well, [unintelligible]. [Both laugh]
RO: We used to raise tomatoes, Campbell Soup, and I spent a lot of time driving a
truck down to Campbell’s, wait sometimes 24 hours getting a load off of the truck,
you know.
RM: Waiting in line?
RO: Waiting in line. Did they — Campbell’s Soup had trucks lined two and three
miles from the city of Camden. You know where the bridge is? They had a plant
right there at the foot of the bridge and on both sides of the entrance to the bridge
and it’d go all the way down Second Street, clear back to that shipyard. Gloucester. I
don’t know if you — .
RM: Yeah, I have some knowledge of it.
RO: Two miles back there! And they’d load the truck up maybe once every hour, you
know, and — .
RM: What did you do to kill time when you were sitting in that truck?
RO: Bullshit, you know, and talk. You had to sit near your truck, close enough, so
some kids wouldn’t steal jacks and wrenches out of it.
RM: I guess there were people from all over South Jersey sitting there.
16
RO: Yeah. They’d have four or five hundred trucks all at one time. Then the City of
Camden had so many complaints, they moved them — I forget what they called it —
on Fairview Avenue, Kaigns Avenue — there was a big parking area. And then they
started to park trucks in there, and then they’d move out four or five at a time. That’s
to keep them off the street, you know.
RM: So there were people from all over. Could you get a good idea of what seemed
to be the better and worse places to farm? South Jersey?
RO: Tabernacle and Indian Mills is as good as anywheres. And there are different
types of farming. Different types of soil. Some places in South Jersey, you couldn’t
grow anything without having irrigation. Only in the last few years — well, Rickey and
I had irrigation, but we couldn’t afford what we should have had. Today they have
automatic sprinklers which move theirself. We had to pick them up, the pipes, and
carry them one section at a time. Walk in mud up to your knees, you know. Today
it’s a whole lot different. You see a whole line of pipes going across the field. It stays
at a certain period of time — a few seconds, a few minutes — and automatically goes
real slow and goes across the field and it’s watering. [Unintelligible]
RM: So what were the areas that didn’t need much irrigation?
RO: Every area needed irrigation at one time or another. If it didn’t rain for a couple
of weeks, things would dry up. Usually when it’s dry, is a critical time for their crop
to need water. For example, corn, after next year [?], you don’t have water there, you
don’t get a nice looking ear. It’ll be all short and stubby, you know, and dry on one
side.
RM: What about, you said there are different types of soil. How would you describe
Tabernacles compared to, say, Hammonton?
RO: Hammonton is all sand. They’ve got to have irrigation down there to raise
anything. And part of the area is real sandy, good — ideal — for sweet potatoes, and
early crops, like in the spring time, is ideal for lettuce. Any kind of greens ideal for
this kind of weather, long as it’s not freezing, grows excellent lettuce and that kind of
stuff. Spinach.
RM: And that’s by Hammonton.
RO: Yes. You go South Jersey, further, like Mullica Hill and that area, that’s ideal for
fruit farms and that kind of stuff. Having a lot of that ground down there is all sandy
and they have to have irrigation there. Indian Mills is a little bit heavier soil, and you
can raise a whole lot more variety of different things. You have to kind of — you don’t
pick your area unless you have the opportunity to pick it, you know, but you have to
know the soil. You gotta know how to handle the soil. Know what you can raise on
certain kinds of soil, and it’s — like I say, it’s not one area any better than the other,
except the fact that you’ve gotta know what you’re doing.
RM: And where you farmed, what kind of soil was that?
17
RO: There at Foxchase Farm, that’s sandy — they call it “loam,” which is not a real
sandy soil, but a mixture of a combination of heavy and lighter things. Now I have a
farm on Flyatt Road, between where Conte Farm is and (Rt.) 206? That’s all heavy
ground. Flat, wet soil. It’s ideal for raising grass or hay and corn and anything like
that. I don’t need irrigation there. Now it’s be better if I had it there, but I never
had the need for it for what we grow there.
RM: What do you grow?
RO: Hay and corn. Soybeans. When I farmed with Rickey, we raised everything, you
know. With certain crops, you’d plant in a certain area, and back there, and
depending on how sandy the ground is, or how heavy it is, you know.
RM: So you’d plant sweet potatoes in the real sandy ground. What would you plant in the little heavier ground?
RO: Any kind of cucumbers, tomatoes, and any kind of plants. Anything that’s
planted in the ground, you’ve got to have water on it, to keep it going
RM: So root vegetables were ok in sandy soil?
RO: Yeah.
RM: Were carrots and potatoes, too?
RO: White potatoes, sweet potatoes, any — carrots. We’d raise half of the farm was
dedicated to Campbell’s Soup. That’s when they had the factory open. We had
carrots and we also raised tomatoes for Campbell’s. And what stopped us from
contracting with them — well see, they cut the price on tomatoes. And we had to
have a machine to harvest them and that’s a hundred thousand dollar investment in
the machine.
RM: What do they care how you harvest them?
RO: Well, they were dictating to kind of control the type of tomato they were looking
for and they wanted to buy them cheaper. Picking by hand took a lot more labor. If
you harvest it by machine, you save 50% of the harvesting cost. So that’s what they
— what they come along and said, we get enough farmers to grow them by machine,
and if you plant — for example, we used to have 40 acres of tomatoes. And Rickey and I figured if we buy a $100,000 machine, we’d have to have a double higher acreage to make it worthwhile to make that kind of investment. And so, we couldn’t see spending a $100,000 for a machine not knowing for sure you couldn’t pay for it in one year, and then the contract with Campbell’s Soup was only on a yearly basis. So if you bought the machine and then they say they don’t want you for another year, you’re stuck with the machine. What are you going to do with it? You can’t eat it. You can’t sell it.
RM: Wasn’t there any place else to sell to?
18
RO: No, not the same market, you know. There were a few small can houses in
Vineland and Millville and that area. Other places not as handy as Campbell’s was.
We just had to stop growing and then we got into sweet corn heavier. And one year
we had a hail storm. Lost thirty acres of sweet corn by hail just chopping it all to
pieces; and then you couldn’t do nothing with it once it’s chopped by hail. It was all
ready — the thirty acres was like ten acres of it was ready today, and another ten
would be ready five or six days later. And in a week or ten days, the balance. And
when the hail come, it took it all. The ears were formed but not mature, you know.
RM: That’s devastating. It’s like somebody giving your paycheck and then you
watch it go down in the sewer.
RO: Yeah, same difference.
RM: No wonder people don’t stay in farming. That’s why I said the fact that there’s
so many families still in farming out here, is really incredible.
RO: It’s a shame for anybody who does work on a farm and know the risk that there
is with it. Too many people look at what goes on have no idea what it takes to make
it go on. And they see, for example, you go to Russo’s Market. You pay a dollar a
pound for tomatoes. They say “Holy Christ!” Like somebody took [?], but they don’t
know that it costs 99 cents to grow that dollar a pound tomato. And then all you
have to do, like on sweet corn, if you don’t spray at a specific time on each variety,
once they get in it and get it on the whole field. So, it don’t make any difference what
kind of degree you got in school, that don’t teach you how to farm.
Interview with Washington and Betty Orme
This is an interview with Washington and Betty Orme taking place at their home on 51 Zimmerman Road in Tabernacle, NJ. The interviewer is Rita Moonsammy, folklorist and member of Tabernacle Historical Society.
WO: (unable to understand or not close enough to recorder) ….Indian Mills. You don’t want that…(cut off by RM)
RM: That’s not true. You know that people that live in other places have different eyes on Tabernacle. So, they knew different things that Tabernacle people didn’t think about.
Well, the first thing we want you to do is tell me your first name and when you were born and where.
BO: Well, I was born right here in this house. My mother went into the hospital and they left me here, so my dad’s two aunts took care of me until mother came home.
RM: Your maiden name is?
BO: Gerber. My dad was a George Gerber. See the picture up there in the middle. That’s my dad’s whole family, 11 of them.
RM: Was he one of the five brothers?
BO: Yea.
RM: Elaine was telling me…
WO: (interrupted with correction) Eileen (Haines). laughter
BO: (pointing to the ones in the picture) That was Julius, Phillip, Charlie, Norman and my dad, George. Pauline, Aunt Florence, Aunt Kate and Aunt Lizzy. I’m missing one. I have to see it closer.
RM: Which two took care of you when you were born?
BO: Aunt Pauline and Aunt Kate.
RM: Did they live in this house?
BO: No, no. They had a big farm out on (Rt.) 206 which now Cramer owns it.
The (township) administer out here. He bought that house. My dad was working, of course, so they had to have someone take care of me. So later on she said that we didn’t want your mother to die, but we liked to have a little daughter.
RM: So didn’t Pauline and Kate get married themselves?
BO: Oh, ya. The oldest one, Aunt Pauline, had one child, Pearl. And then Aunt Kate had twins, but they died at birth. So, they never did have children.
RM: So your dad was George Gerber. And your mom was…
BO: Olive Weeks. She came from Weekstown down near Egg Harbor.
RM: How did they meet?
BO: Well, the Gerber family was down in Bulltown near Batsto. So, they had a home down there. My dad had a car, so they tell me. One of the guys told me that George had a car. So, wherever George went, we all went.
RM: Where was your grandfather’s place where all these kids grow up?
BO: It was in Bulltown near Batsto.
RM: So how far is Batsto from here?
BO & WO: About a half hour from here.
BO: I worked at Batsto for several years as a secretary there. I went there every morning and every night.
WO: I worked there for 30 years as a state ranger.
RM: Was it a historical property at that time?
WO: They didn’t buy Batsto, the state of New Jersey, until ’53.
BO: (corrected WO) ’55. Cause I was pregnant with Bobby at that time.
RM: What was it doing before that?
WO: Well, it was the Wharton Estate, private.
BO: The Richards owned that then. It was opened to the public, but then the state took it over and bought it.
WO: 96. It was 4,000 acres and then the state bought for X amount of million of dollars.
RM: It was a tourist destination for as long as you knew it.
BO: They had glass blown there. The residences were there. They had all sorts of things. They were very active, you know. And at that time the house there had craft persons. They had candles, and weaving, pottery. I loved it.
RM: I went there one time. I think it was in the 70s. I remember the potter. Meeting the potter and going in there. The weaver wasn’t there. I remembered we peeked in the window.
WO: (asked Betty) We have a picture of the weaver. You have the picture?
FM: Let’s go back. What year were you born?
BO: 1931.
WO: August the fifth.
RM: So your mom’s name was Olive Weeks and your dad was George Gerber and you were born in this house on 51 Zimmerman Road. Was your dad farming at the time?
BO: No, we only got two acres here. We had a small garden, you know.
RM: What did he do for a living?
BO: He worked for the state of New Jersey driving trucks. Dump trucks. I don’t know what.
RM: And your mom was a homemaker.
BO: Yes.
RM: How many sisters and brothers did you have?
BO: I had one sister and that’s Eileen’s (Haines) mother.
RM: And that is?
BO: Beatrice. Beatrice Worrell.
RM: I heard that 5 Gerber brothers married 5 Pepper sister. And then somebody said “no, no, that wasn’t true”. But people tell me that it was true. What do you say?
BO: Aunt Lizzy the youngest girl married a Patton from Jenkins Neck. Well, then Aunt Clara Pepper was not connected with our Gerber family. No, Aunt Kate and Aunt Pauline.
RM: Wait. Kate and Pauline were Gerbers. This would have been female Peppers marrying male Gerbers.
BO: They were ladies marrying male Gerbers. Pauline and Kate married Harry and William Gerber. (Betty corrected herself.) Pepper.
RM: Lady Gerbers married male Peppers. OK.
BO: Well, Harry’s grandmother, Aunt Met. I don’t know what she was. You got probably that from Dee (Collins) and Harry (Worrell).
RM: No, if I did, I don’t remember.
WO: You’ll have to see Harry.
BO: I don’t think if Aunt Met was a Pepper. I don’t know.
RM: So, but you do know that some Peppers married Gerbers. Which one?
BO: Pauline and Kate Peppers. Ok. I don’t know what Aunt Ellen was. She married a Gerber. She married my dad’s oldest brother. I don’t know what she was.
WO: You have got to organize what you speak because it gotta make sense.
RM: I need to write it down. I need to get all the people on paper to show who was who. I haven’t done that yet. I have some of the people and write it down and check with all of you. So, you just had a one sister?
BO: Yes.
RM: So she is where?
BO: She passed away. She lived across the field. You can see her house down there.
RM: Did the rest of your family stay in Bulltown?
BO: No, none of them stayed down there.
RM: Did they all move up here?
BO: Most generally yes.
RM: Did you father farm in Bulltown?
BO: No. That was just kinda houses. If they had a little piece of ground, that’s all they had, you know. I don’t know what they did then.
WO: It’s just a little teeny town. It wasn’t much as far as farming. What I gather…
BO: (interrupted WO) What’s there? 5 or 6 houses.
WO: (continues, but unclear who he is talking about) he’s been dead for years. When he was alive I talked to him about Bulltown. He said “I was there then with house and a sawmill and he went on and on and on. He’s been dead for many years. He’s the only one I talked to about at Bulltown and the houses and Gerbers at that area. It didn’t seem much about farming.
BO: Even now you don’t see much farming. They don’t have that much ground.
RM: Was it near Egg Harbor?
BO: Near Batsto.
RM: Where is it?
BO: Off of Rt. 542 makes a loop and comes…
WO: Flourtown-Bulltown Rd. What are you going to do?
BO: You just go off 542, comes in, cross and back out.
WO: I got the map on the desk out there on the table right now.
RM: So is that a regular town or was it just an area? Like Speedwell or Friendship.
BO: Yes, we always called it Bulltown.
RM: It wasn’t like a town like Tabernacle?
WO: Oh, no.
RM: What town was it in?
WO: Green Bank, no. Batsto. Greenbank. I don’t know.
BO: Why, don’t you have no maps?
WO: It’s there on the map.
BO: Don’t they show townships too?
WO: No, no. It’s an area where they all lived. A gathering of houses.
RM: Do you suppose they worked at Batsto and settled there?
BO: No, when they settled there, my two aunts did work at Batsto,,, housekeeping, cleaning, cooking and things like that. They were the only two. Probably teenagers or older when they did that. None of the rest of them worked there.
RM: Was the family living at the Batsto Mansion at that time when your aunts worked there?
BO: Yes
RM: Oh. I didn’t realize it had been a tourist place for that many years that far back.
WO: Nothing was there. I was there before the state bought it twice. There was nothing there but me. There wasn’t a tourist place you would think of tourists.
RM: They didn’t have those cabins rebuilt and restocked.
WO: Oh, no. There was nobody there.
BO: People lived in them then. People owned them. People might have owned them or just rented them. I really don’t know.
My mother’s girlfriend was caretakers of the Mansion. So, we went there quite a bit, you know.
RM: Oh..Interesting. Was that a working post office at the time?
BO: Yes, it was. It was hand stamped.
WO: Hand stamped
BO: Well, they can still get it done now, but they have to make an appointment.
RM: Oh, I didn’t realize that. Now, tell me about you, Wash.
WO: There’s nothing about me.
RM: You weren’t born; you were hatched. (Laughter)
WO: That’s right. I’m an outsider completely. You gotta talk to her (meaning Betty).
RM: Now where were you born and when. She can’t tell her life story without you, can she?
WO: Yes, she can. I didn’t come here as far as she’s concerned. About 50 years ago. I married up with her.
RM: Ok, now you’re from Indian Mills? When were you born?
WO: Same year she was born (1931). We’re both the same age. 86. She’s not 86 yet.
BO: You see I was married before. He’s my second husband. I have two sons by my first husband. The one lives in Virginia and one lives over here in Indian Mills.
Then him and I, we’ve been married 49 years.
RM: So who was your first husband?
BO: Bill Lemmon. He was from Indian Mills.
WO: Her boys are named Lemmon, naturally. Joey and Bobby Lemmon.
RM: Was his family in Indian Mills a long time?
BO: Yes, all their lives.
RM: Were they farmers?
BO: Well, they lived with Uncle Jim and he had a big farm. So, I guess you could say that they did work on the farm. Ya.
RM: Uncle Jim was? Your husband’s uncle?
BO: Yes, Emmons was his last name. Jim Emmons.
RM: Is the farm still there?
BO: The farm is still there. They tore the building down. That was a shame because their doors didn’t slide outwards like ours, but slid inside the wall. It was so neat, you know, and he had a lot of paneling brought over from England somewhere. It was beautiful wood. Just a disappointment to see the house tore down.
RM: But somebody is farming the land or did they put houses on it?
BO: No, Abrams is farming which is all of Indian Mills and Tabernacle.
RM: Abrams is…they got a house right off (Rt.) 206. What is that road that goes off like that (Rita is jestering with her hands showing a road that comes off the main road.)
BO: That’s Old Indian Mills Road.
RM: That’s Old Indian Mills Road. I see their name all over the place.
BO: Yes, there’s a lot of Abrams over there.
WO: A lot of Abrams. A lot of them are dead. In fact almost all of them. The only thing left now is the great grandchildren.
RM: But they’re still farming.
WO: The kids are. I guess going back three generations by now.
RM: So, Ok, you were born in Indian Mills. (jestering to Wash). (Talking to Betty) So your first husband was from Indian Mills, a Lemmon. How old were you when you got married?
WO: 12.
BO: He quit school at 15.
WO: 16. Maybe, I don’t know. Maybe 17. That’s right.
BO: I got married the year after I got out of high school.
RM: Were you two the same age.
BO: No, he was two years ahead of me. He was a baseball player, a pitcher. He was so good that the A’s took him for an interview and all. But he wasn’t tall enough at that time.
WO: Now the height doesn’t matter. But in those days he wasn’t tall enough. Can you believe it?
BO: He was a very good pitcher, you know. He won a lot of games and all.
RM: Who did he pitcher for around here? How did he start out?
BO: Indian Mills group. I don’t know if they had a name, really.
RM: Was there a high school baseball team?
WO: There had to be. Sure.
RM: Where did you go to high school?
BO: Mt. Holly.
RM: Did he go there too? (meaning Betty Orme’s first husband)
BO: Yes, most all of us used to go to Mt. Holly, you know. Bussed there every morning.
RM: Is that how you met him, from his being on the baseball team?
BO: Probably.
RM: And then
BO: Our churches was over there and Chatsworth.
WO: Three churches.
BO: We always worked together. If we had any stuff being done. I went. He went. Other people went.
RM: OK. Those three churches were the Tabernacle Methodist. OK, what were the other two?
BO: Indian Mills Methodist and Chatsworth Methodist.
RM: Nobody has mentioned those two to me. I heard a lot about Tabernacle Methodist. (Laughter) Nothing about the others.
BO: Our preacher, then, had to go to Tabernacle and Chatsworth, then Indian Mills. He had to go to three churches every Sunday.
WO: Every Sunday. In fact, horse and buggy days.
RM: The congregations weren’t big enough to support them all by themselves.
So, Tabernacle Methodist stills does things with Chatsworth. Like what?
BO: We used to have covered dishes dinner up there in the evenings. And then for special services, we’d go up there for it.
RM: So, some of the people who go to Tabernacle Methodist go to Chatsworth Methodist?
BO: Just a few.
WO: They’re petering out now.
BO: Chatsworth is gonna have to close I think.
WO: They don’t go to church as much as Tabernacle people. So maybe they’ll close it.
RM: Do they have a church like Tabernacle’s?
WO: Ya, ya. They have a nice church. Beautiful church.
BO: Pine paneling inside. Beautiful.
WO: Beautiful. It’s all made with pine paneling.
BO: Then one of the men up there did some windows for them. (They are referring to the stain glass windows for the Methodist Church in Chatsworth.)
WO: Why write a book about the Pinelands when almost everyone is dead. Why talk to them. Go talk to the graveyard. All of them is gone?
RM: We have to start interviewing younger people. People just don’t think about writing things down until it’s too late.
BO: Just like us. We didn’t ask our parents to tell us about the past. We have no idea.
WO: Just like Sandy Ridge. What do you know about Sandy Ridge where your parents came from on that wall. There was nothing there then and there ain’t nothing there now either.
RM: Your parents came from Sandy Ridge? I thought they came from Bulltown?
BO: They did. But each one of the brothers after they got married lived up on Sandy Ridge for a while so they were able to purchase ground here in Tabernacle.
RM: Where is Sandy Ridge?
WO: Straight down Carranza Road.
RM: You know I think Eileen Haines said that Gerbers were living along that road.
I think she said that they lived on both sides of Carranza. And the ones living on one side didn’t talk to the others on the other side of the road.
BO: Probably (laughter)
WO: Might be. Who knows?
RM: So, you call it Sandy Ridge.
BO: Ya.
WO: Ya, to this day. We call it Sandy Ridge.
WO: I don’t know what she called it. Who called it that?
RM: Eileen and Rickey.
BO: She called it Carranza Road.
RM: Why, what’s it called Sandy Ridge Road?
So Bulltown is just the area?
WO: Ya, there are holes there. I can show you the cellar holes.
RM: Cellar holes?
WO: That’s all that’s there. Where they used to have a house. Now, it’s just cellar holes. Ya, they must to all had cellars in them days.
RM: People had cellar to store their vegetables there.
BO: Ya, we used to have potato bin in our basement. It was split in half. This side was for regular potatoes and this side went for winter potatoes.
RM: What’s the difference between regular and winter potatoes?
BO: I don’t know I just picked them and planted them.
FM: Were they all white potatoes?
BO: Oh, ya. They all had different names on them.
FM: So, they were different varieties so they lasted.
WO: According to what the farmer planted.
BO: But we finally had to take the bin out, cause it was only made of wood and the termites began to eat on it so we don’t have it down there no more.
RM: OK. I am really interested in Sandy Ridge. I don’t know why I have not heard that name before.
WO: I don’t know what they don’t use that name before they speak.
RM: Maybe it’s because they lived there.
WO: She’ll tell you who lived there.
BO: Harry Worrell’s mother was born up there.
WO: Why don’t you talk to Harry? He’s the one you got to talk to. He knows everything. She don’t.
BO: Well, the bus used to come down and pick us up, but you had to walk up. If you didn’t walk there, you missed the bus. They didn’t come down here to put you up. (Transcriber doesn’t know where Betty Orme had to walk to to get the bus. At the time of interview Betty lived on Zimmerman Road. Did she have to walk to Chatsworth Road or to Carranza Road?) If you missed the bus then you would have to walk all the way to school then.
WO: Now they come to the door. Ain’t that nice.
RM: OK, your dad didn’t farm.
BO: No.
RM: Did you help on farms around here?
BO: The big farm out there on 206.
RM: Now, again that was Paulina Gates farm.
BO: Ya. They had, what did Harry say, it was 30 acres, I think. They have it in asparagus. Me and my cousin cut asparagus every day until July the fourth.
WO: Every acre. Every inch. Think about it.
RM: (The season starts) in April.
BO: Oh, ya. Sometimes we started in March, but not too often. You got to have warm weather for asparagus to grow.
RM: Did you pick blueberries?
BO: Oh, ya. That was up at Chatsworth though. The Gerber’s and Pepper’s
boys had many acres up there.
RM: So you would do blueberries. Could you help with cranberries at all?
BO: I sorted cranberries when my oldest boy was born. I had a lady that took care of him, so I sorted cranberries and we did that up at Hampton Gates. That’s down at Atison off of 206 way back in the woods.
RM: Is that still there?
WO: The land is still there. The building burnt to the ground. It was the packing shed.
RM: Who owns that?
BO: (Trying to remember)
WO: The State of New Jersey owns that, part of Wharton State Forest. Part of the 96,000 acres.
BO: No, Can’t remember the names. Stella Kitchen’s (or Hitchins’) mother, Nora. The son’s worked for a man.
WO: Oh, ya. Nora would tell you, but she’s dead and gone. You mean before the State bought it.
BO: He took me up there not too long ago and even the houses they lived in were gone.
RM: There’s been a lot of fires over there. Right?
WO: They have been doing a lot of prescribed burning, the fire service does. They tend the ground in that respect. They do a good job. Fire took the packing shed and there is just flat land there now. It’s State’s land. 96,000 now it’s 110,000 or something.
RM: It’s all part of Wharton Tract?
WO: All of it. As far as I know. I don’t know.
BO: When we heard that they was gonna buy it, I was President of the PTA over at Indian Mills and they said we are getting up a petition. Names on the petition so the State won’t buy it. We had a lot of names on the petition. We knocked on doors and everybody signed that lived in Indian Mills.
WO: To buy the acreage. The State took the acreage away from the town.
RM: Why didn’t you want the State to buy it?
BO: Cause the State wouldn’t give you no money for taxes. So the taxes went up.
WO: Less acreage. Indian Mills lost land. Tabernacle lost land. They all lost land, these townships. When Wharton was purchased. Wharton State Forest.
RM: Was it empty land they bought? Were there houses?
WO: We tore them down for the State of New Jersey.
RM: Who’s houses? People were living in them?
WO: I think they were more or less historic type structures, but we took them to the ground.
RM: So, who was paying taxes on that ground before the State took it over? Someone had to be paying taxes.
BO: Oh yes. Someone was. That’s why they didn’t want the State to take it over. They wouldn’t get any money.
RM: I guess the people didn’t mind. I guess they got money from the State. So, Indian Mills lost a lot of land?
BO: (affirmed it)
RM: Shamong?
WO: That’s Indian Mills. Shamong and Indian Mills are the same.
BO: Shamong is the township.
WO: You are saying the same thing twice.
RM: Are they still?
WO: Shamong is the township.
BO: With Indian Mills as the town.
RM: Oh like, Southampton is the township and Vincentown is the town.
WO: Yes, You got it.
RM: So Shamong Township lost a lot of land.
WO: Total loss.
RM: I see. So, you got married. You had 2 kids. 2 sons. Did you go to War?
WO: No.
BO: If you worked on a farm…
WO: You didn’t have to go to War. But I didn’t work on a farm.
RM: (Talking to Betty) So you lived here?
BO: I lived there (Shamong) for 17 years then came back here. After the divorce.
RM: And you mommy and daddy were still here?
BO: Yes.
RM: And you raised your boys here?
BO: Yes.
RM: How long before you met Wash?
BO: (counting up from her divorce) ’55, ’65.
WO: About 10 years, I imagine. Running around (Transcriber couldn’t understand).
Laughter
RM: I can see he just charmed you.
WO: I sure did.
RM: So, you were working in those 10 years?
BO: I worked for Tupperware which is now in Indian Mill, right down near the Thimble Inn, the restaurant on the corner. There were several buildings down there and one was them was a Tupperware place and I worked in there after my kids got on the bus. I could walk over and I pulled and packed Tupperware to be shipped out.
RM: Help me know what road that was on again? Where was that?
BO: What’s that road called going to Atco?
WO: Jackson Road. I don’t know.
BO: The one going from Tumble Inn up.
RM: Is the Tumble Inn still there?
WO: It is, but it’s called another name by the barroom. By another name.
BO: It’s a big fancy restaurant that you pay dearly to eat there.
RM: Oh, ahh.
WO: Cattycorner, across from the WaWa.
RM: It begins with a C. Ya, it a stucco house outside. That’s the only fancy restaurant over there.
WO: Fancy restaurant. I don’t know.
RM: The restaurant begins with a C, but I can’t think of it now. (Transcrber’s note: They are referring to LaCompagnola.) So, it was called the Tumble Inn originally.
WO: Ya. Originally.
BO: He (referring to Washington) was bartender there.
RM: That’s why he’s such a charmer.
BO: It was next one. Now it was starting a church. A church is there. That’s where I worked at Tupperware.
RM: And that was across the street from WaWa?
WO: No. The restaurant is on the corner and the building she worked was on the same side as the restaurant, but down further from the Tumble Inn.
RM: Is the building still there?
WO: Ya. Ya.
RM: What’s in there now?
BO: I think the building we worked in is now a church.
RM: I see. So you were really involved in farming.
BO: Just cutting asparagus, really.
WO: She was cutting asparagus like some of the ladies around here which was quite a chore because of some of the acreage was quite large and you cut from dawn till dark. Tomorrow morning you were out there at dawn again until dark and you keep doing that to make a buck. In them days you make a dollar bill. She had to feed them two kids cause her husband didn’t feed them.
RM: What happended to him?
BO: He drank.
RM: Ah, that’s a shame.
WO: Tumble Inn. I fed him plenty of them.
Laughter.
RM: When you were growing up in this house, how old is this house?
BO: When was it? 1814.
WO: NO. I don’t know when. You got to read some of the deeds. Around the turn of the century…1900. This house was probably… Herb Gerber, dead and gone these many years. Wash, Washington was my first name; he called me Wash. It’s been here ever since I moved here. I said when did you move here Herb?. And he said 1914 and this house was standing when I come up the road, dirt road. He (Herb Gerber) built that house and that other house across the road (Zimmerman Road). So he said he was here in 1914, but what do I know.
RM: Has this (house) had anything built on to it or is this the original structure?
WO: Oh no. It’s been added on through time.
BO: Your sitting in the new. Has been all added. And I got a laundry room which I never had before.
WO: And we got an out-house in the house.
BO: It went to John Sheinski to Harry Simpkins, 2/10/14. From there it want to Daddy (Betty’s father) in Oct. 1920. Then it turned to us 1898.
RM: 1898?
BO: No, that can’t be right.
WO: No, you got it backwards.
BO: Oh, house built on our ground 1898.
WO: Ok, that’s how old the house is.
RM: Your dad didn’t have it built. He bought it from somebody.
WO: It was here then.
BO: He (Betty’s dad) was 26 years old when he bought it. You see, all his other brothers bought big farms. But he just bought two acres.
WO: Two acres here.
RM: But they (Betty’s father’s brothers) farmed and he didn’t.
BO: He worked for the State of New Jersey driving a tractor trailers, trucks.
RM: Your mom stayed at home all the time.
BO: Yes. When she was a kid, she worked up in north Jersey because one of her sisters married and lived up there and was a Kaisers. So she went up there and did secretarial work. Then she came back home and I guess that was when she got married.
RM: That was quite an adventure, I guess, that time for women.
BO: Yes.
RM: To go up there and work. What did you kids do for fun?
BO: Jump rope, played Hop Scotch and played baseball once in a while.
RM: Were there other kids around for you to play with?
BO: Ya, she had two boys and two girls.
RM: The Gerber over there. They were cousins.
BO: Ya. And they had two boys. So we all just got together. Once a month my dad on the front porch here, he would have men come from Jenkins with their guitars and they would play music. And we would put up Japanese lanterns out there. And people would dance out there on the lawn. And all these families.
RM: How nice. And you would have food?
BO: Yes.
RM: What would they serve at an event like that?
BO: They would have cakes, cookies or something in the evening.
RM: Was it blue grass music?
BO: Ya. More or less I guess you would say. Guitars and mandolins.
WO: Violins.
BO: So if you look down at the corner and I got my dad’s accordion.
WO: That little box. That’s her dad’s accordion. It’s pretty old.
RM: That’s great.
WO: I don’t know how old it is. I never did know.
BO: No. I don’t know how old either.
WO: Mighty old.
BO: But of course it would be no good because what’s you call it.
WO: Bellows.
BO: Ya. Bellows are no good.
RM: Do you remember some of the songs they played?
BO: No, I don’t.
WO: Out of the hymnals. Most of the time, honey.
BO: Nick and Patton boys. Nick was the last name and Patton, them boys come from Jenkins, down towards New Gretna.
RM: Is that a little area or a town.
WO: I think they get their mail from Chatsworth, honey. All Chatsworth mail.
RM: Those people you just mentioned, Nick and Pat.
BO: Uh huh (affirmative). Nick and Pattons.
RM: Would they go other places and play too?
BO: I don’t know. If they just came here once in a while.
RM: That’s pretty cool. I haven’t heard anything like that.
WO: I have a picture of them all with their instruments and what they were playing. That photograph, you can see what instrument they’re playing. Three or four had instruments. That picture is right here in this house, but right now I couldn’t tell you.
There are a lot of people I know. But they are all dead. Everybody in that photograph.
RM: Would you let me come back and take pictures of your old photographs? After you had time looking for them.
WO: I gave most of mine away like the schoolhouse across from the Tumble Inn. The schoolhouse, I gave that to Myrna Sheinski. She wrote me a nice letter. Where is that now if you’d like to read some of that stuff?
BO: You have to take care of your stuff.
WO: We don’t take care of most of that and the thing to do with most of that kind of stuff and all my life not being from here cause I’m an outsider and you have to get this stuff to people here. Give it to them. So I’ve given what little tiny bit I have…it might have been important. I don’t know. I don’t have anything any more.
RM: It’s pretty hard what to keep and what not to keep. You would have your house full of stuff if you keep everything. I would clean out file drawers and stuff recently. I would come up with something and think whether I should keep it or pitch it.
WO: If you got someone to give it to, it’s nice in that respect. That’s what I do. I make sure I find someone to give it to. On of my step-sons, just here, just left, I gave tools to him. My step-sons, whatever I have in tools I give to these two boys. I give it all away. He wants me to stop doing it. If he wants to do a little work around here, a little carpentry work, he can’t cause I’ve given it all away. The drill and the saws and everything I buy and I have fine stuff. And he knows it. He said, “Listen, Stop it! Whatever we got here, leave it here.” My point is I’ve given everything away. What little I have.
BO: But when you’ve given it away, then you realize that we need it.
WO: When someone talks about it like yourself, I would if I had that picture. I might still have that picture.
RM: Well, when you come across something, maybe he will know what to do with them. Give it to the historical society or a museum.
WO: That picture of mine of the memorial.
BO: That’s in Town Hall. Not Town Hall. The Historical Society has it.
WO: That’s from the ‘30s.
BO: That was Katie Buzby’s from Chatsworth.
WO: Buzby’s.
BO: He (Wash) gave them (Tabrnacle Historical Society) the picture of the first Carranza Monument affair they had up there. And what are we going to do with it. So, I gave it to the Historical Society. And they have it in the museum up there at the Pepper House.
WO: Museum. It should be in this house with this family. Give it to the people who want to make a big “hoo-wa” about it.
BO: It’s with the Historical Society.
RM: Did you go to church more than once a week?
BO: Wednesday night I have Bible study. Sunday you went to service and then Sunday night you went back to another service. This mostly singing, you know.
RM: And the church had social events?
BO: Yes, for like the Ladies’ Aid. They had meetings one week at your house and one week at my house. Something like that. And us kids had to go. And the ladies had there meeting and one lady sent us from the room and kept us busy. We’d do different things.
RM: What were the Ladies’ Aid people doing?
BO: At our meeting we would prepare for a covered dish or a dinner. We have awful lot of dinners at our church, especially during the winter. We got a spaghetti dinner coming up, soon now.
Tape: One of One.
Side B
RM: Where do you mean? (Pointing to Chatsworth and here in town.)
BO: Tabernacle (United Methodist Church).
RM: When you have one, let me know. I want to go to that.
BO: I think on May the 5th.
WO: You’ll meet a lot of people there. We’re all going to be there. That’s no exaggeration.
BO: One woman I said to, “You’re here for just the salad.” Cause I seen her go back twice. She said, “I don’t come for spaghetti. I come for your salad bar.” We do have a good salad bar.
RM: I know. I went to the Historical Society barbecue one time. That was really good. I was upset this summer because I had to be out of town on the weekend they had it. I remember that…
BO: They had a half of chicken, corn on the cob, Jersey tomatoes.
RM: And they had all those cakes and pies. It was so hard for me to sneak two of those.
RM: So, did you as kids every play in the woods?
BO: Oh, ya. Out back over here we would find where the moss mostly was and that would be like our living room cause you could sit on it. It was nice and soft. He did have a daughter over there. So her and I played in the woods.
WO: Beulah
BO: She passed away with cancer.
FM: So you sat on your little moss living room. What would you do there?
BO: I don’t know. What kids do.
RM: Did you go deep into the woods?
BO: Ya, we would walk. Where would we walk to?
WO: I don’t know. You would come out to a creek or a road.
BO: We went up to the end where the houses are. Went back in that woods and we walked across to where…the Chatsworth Road, somewhere.
WO: Ya. On Chatsworth Road.
BO: We did a lot of walking and bicycling.
RM: But there were only dirt roads. Right?
BO: Uh Huh (affirmative)
RM: Were there any creeks or ponds that were around here going to?
BO: Up there at Chatsworth. There was a place that we all went ice skating to. They’d have fires up there.
RM: What road is that?
BO: This road right here. Chatsworth Road. There were cranberry bogs up there. But they are no more. They’d fill them up with water and they froze.
(Geese are squawking)
RM: I love to hear that.
WO: Chatsworth Road. I can see it from here. You see where those poles are and the cars. That’s Chatsworth Road. That’s the main drag…8 miles, 9 miles, whatever it is.
RM: Did you go fishing?
BO: No. We went clamming though. My dad loved to clam. So, we’d go down to Long Beach Island and clam. Then you didn’t need no license or anything. And my dad would have an inner tube with a bag over it. And we’d just throw them in there.
WO: A basket inside the inner tube. The inner tube was blowed it up and it would float. And you’d tie a string from that to your waist. And you’d walk along with your clam stick, rake. Get the clam up and throw it in the basket. Get another clam up and throw it in the basket cause the basket was always with you. A basket sitting inside the tube and the tube was tied to your waist.
BO: My dad would always use a rake to get them up. There comes a time when you had to have a license to do that.
WO: Oh, it all different now.
BO: They came up and said “Do you have a license?” My dad said “Yes, I do.” He said “what about her?” He said “She don’t have none. She’s not clamming.” Well, I was getting them up with my feet. Pick’m up and throwing them in.
WO: Between her toes. You can dig them up with your feet if you want to.
RM: What would you do with the clams?
BO: Bring them home and eat them.
WO: Oh, dear. Food, food.
BO: Make soup. I make Clam Chowder, New England or Manhattan. I make them both. Make Deviled Clams. We eat them on the half shell.
RM: You still make those things?
BO: Un huh (affirmative)
WO: The most she made was…the church wanted a clam chowder dinner…17 gallons. We had a half gallon in the kitchen for our supper. And she said, “Get that half gallon. We need it.” 17 ½ gallons. They took it all. That Church is zzzzz. Eat, eat, eat.
RM: Was that Manhattan or Clam?
WO: It was 12 and 5. It was 12 red and 5 white. That’s how I call it. I don’t know the name of them.
RM: Do you put bacon in your white or salt pork or anything?
BO: Bacon.
RM: Bacon, potatoes, onions, sour cream?
WO: They go through it like you wouldn’t believe.
BO: Milk in the white.
RM: Boy, that’s a lot of clams to shell/shuck.
BO: What I do any more is buy the clams in a big can.
WO: Gallon cans.
RM: Where do you get that?
BO: Well, Nixon;s out there, when they go down there to get supplies for their store, they’ll pick me up a case.
RM: Where do they go?
WO: Wherever they get their wares.
BO: Restaurant store. But they taste much better if you use fresh clams.
RM: Is there anybody around here who does that?
BO: I don’t think so. Everybody else makes different. Cause…
WO: She’s the only one that makes clam chowder. I don’t know what anybody else makes. I don’t know.
RM: Did the ladies in the church put together a cookbook?
BO: Yes, they did. They’re working on one right now.
RM: Really. Do you have the old one? Can I get one?
BO: You can’t get one. They’re all out. (Chuckle)
RM: Ooooh.
WO: A lot of people are gone now. I guess their sons and daughters have got the books. The books are still around here somewhere. But most of the people aren’t alive anymore. See so here. It’s six years old. They get pretty worn, the books. They don’t stay together. The leaves fall out. The pages come out.
RM: They have food spots on them. That’s the way my old cookbooks are.
RM: So, Wash you were in Indian Mills.
WO: I was other places before that even.
RM: Where?
WO: In southern Jersey.
RM: Where?
WO: It doesn’t make any difference really.
RM: You don’t want me to know?
WO: It’s nothing but Franklinville.
That one’s in nice shape, honey. (They are probably looking at some cookbooks.)
I was thinking about the one you had out yesterday with all the pages falling out.
BO: That’s the….ah.
RM: This is a beauty. Now I’m going to see names in here that I heard. Tustin. That was Eileen’s family?
BO: Rich’s family.
RM: Tustin. I haven’t heard anybody talk about Johnson. Bea Worrell.
BO: That’s my sister.
WO: That’s her sister.
RM: Ahh. Rae Gerber. Betty Orme. Shirley Gerber. Oh, I wish I could get one of these. Now were they all in a cover like this.
BO: Yeah. Un huh.
RM: Oh, that’s a nice job.
BO: Like I said they are working on adding more to it or building another one or something.
RM: Bread and butter pickles.
WO: Eileen makes them. Boy, they’re good.
BO: Potato Leek.
RM: What?
WO: Bread and butter pickles.
RM: She gave me a jar.
WO: She did. Boy, you’re very fortunate.
RM: You can’t have it. (Laughter)
WO: I can’t have it.
RM: That and her cranberry sauce
WO: Oh, that’s wonderful. Cause she makes the best.
BO: The other soups that the ladies make are Potato-Leek, Split Pea, Cream of Broccoli, Onion, Beef Barley, Cream of Potato, Vegetable, Tomato Meatball, Turkey Rice, Spinach White Bean and Spinach Orzo.
WO: The Spinach Orzo is good.
BO: At the bazaar in October, that’s when I make my Clam Chowder.
RM: Do you have that to eat or do you sell that?
BO: We sell it by the quarts or pints. Or they can eat it there.
WO: My buddy calls our church the Church of Many Meals. (Laughter) I said, “Allen, you know that it spells come, C-O-M-M. Church of Many Meals. COME.” He got to laughing.
RM: That’s great.
WO: But it is the Church of Many Meals for some reason
RM: Well, if it brings people in. It’s food. Listen to me. I want to go to the barbeque. I want to go to the spaghetti dinner.
I noticed that there wasn’t Asparagus soup on there.
BO: No, there wasn’t. That’s right.
RM: Did you ever make Asparagus soup?
BO: Oh yeah, that’s the first thing. When the asparagus comes up, that’s our supper that night.
WO: Do you see the logo on the side of our township trucks? One of the pictures is asparagus and tomatoes.
RM: No, I never noticed that.
WO: Well, it’s on the side of the trucks. I always see asparagus tips. Show her.
(Possibly getting a book or pamphlet to show the town logo.)
RM: Is this the historical society booklet.?
BO: Yeah.
WO: See the asparagus on the right side at 3 o’clock. 3 o’clock on the circle.
RM: Oh yeah. Is this corn?
So, how do you make it? Is it your mom’s recipe?
BO: Yeah. We cook the asparagus the way we want it. And then put canned milk with it. Salt and pepper. Butter. That’s it. Some of them I start putting potatoes in it.
WO: Which is OK. But…
BO: We just like the asparagus.
RM: I just cook it in chicken broth and then put some milk in it.
BO: Oh.
WO: Oh, chicken broth. We never had with chicken broth.
BO: That would be different.
RM: If you just buy the chicken broth, it doesn’t give it an overwhelming flavor.
It just adds more value to the flavor. Sometimes I don’t do that. Corn. I make corn chowder
WO: Oh, that’s good.
RM: I use a little bacon. Cooks some onion in the bacon. Then I use the corn off the cob. Sometimes what I do is cook the cob that I cut the corn off of it. I put that in the water to get some of that flavor and then the corn. And sometimes potatoes. One time I put too much potatoes in it. That wasn’t good. I have to be careful about that. Then some milk too. A couple of friends asked me for that recipe.
BO: Oh.
RM: Because I try to eat corn almost everyday.
BO: We do too. We don’t bother during the winter, but when it’s in we…
WO: We don’t grow it because this place is corn forever. Corn and asparagus. This whole township is.
RM: I used to like when Conte’s would sell big bundles of it. Russo’s doesn’t do it.
Have you been to Russo’s since they bought Conte’s?
WO: Yes, in their building out here at the corner, but Joe Conte’s farm I don’t know much of what’s going on.
BO: I imagine you can still buy a crate of corn. Asparagus, yes. I guess they still got it. They didn’t cut it under or anything.
WO: Joe, I don’t know if they still got asparagus. Joe’s been died and gone, but I mean I was over there all the time at Joe Conte’s place. Many years, cause we would get deer bait for the deer that they would throw out and we did many jobs over there for that. But anyway, I don’t know if they left the asparagus. You know what he would do. But a lot of times he’d cut that asparagus up then plant another little field of asparagus. I’d think what’s he going? Cut it up. Plant it.
RM: What do you mean? You mean what he cut up he’d plant what he cut up? Cut the field?
WO: Cut the field.
BO: Then plant somewhere else in another field.
RM: Does it stop growing eventually?
BO: No, when we were working the field on (Rt.) 206, 35 years old, the last cutting we did and that produced just like a brand new field.
WO: Wonderful.
RM: So where are the asparagus fields around here that you know of?
WO: I think they’re mostly all gone.
BO: I was going to say there ain’t none unless…
WO: You have to go to Westingham out here on the highway. He’s got the biggest asparagus field. Tony Majeski used to have plenty asparagus, but he’s died and gone many years ago.
BO: Indian Mills don’t have any of those.
WO: No, Indian Mills don’t have any asparagus. It’s funny. It used to be you’d have asparagus forever.
RM: But you said on (Rt.) 206?
WO: Yeah, your cousin.
BO: Oh, Lester Worrell.
WO: Lester Worrell.
BO: But he’s only got a small patch.
WO: That’s the biggest patch she’s gonna see.
RM: Where is that on (Rt.) 206?
BO: You take this road here. That’s Chatsworth Road right off of (Rt.) 206.
WO: Red light.
BO: You make a right.
WO: You make a right. No, you make the left and it’s on the left about a block down. As soon as you make that left on (Rt.) 206 at the red light at the end of Chatsworth Road, you make that left. It’s right about ¼ mile.
BO: You’ll see three houses. His house sets back.
WO: Right on the highway. That’s the biggest around here. Someone else got a bigger field? I don’t know. It used to be all asparagus here. All asparagus.
BO: I liked it when Russo’s was a cow farm. You get milk, butter and cheese.
RM: When was that?
BO: Oh, I don’t remember when. Do you?
WO: I was just passing through to go to Chatsworth, 60, 80 years ago. When I come out of the service.
RM: Was it Russo’s farm then?
BO: No. Allen’s. Allen’s
RM: Was that A-L-L-E-N or A-L-L-I-N?
BO: I think so. E-N. Not sure.
We would just go out there and get our milk and cottage cheese and butter.
RM: Oh, yeah. That would be nice. And when did that stop?
WO: When the guy died.
BO: Yeah, I guess it was when they died.
WO: Sure.
BO: I don’t think they ever had children, just workers.
RM: Who were the workers then?
BO: Puerto Ricans, I guess. Mexicans. Wherever they could get them.
WO: A lot of them come up from Hammonton, but they came from a far place before they ever got to Hammonton. I think these farmers every now and then knew the route to get workers. A couple of them that I knew come up from Hammonton. Now, Chippy Pepper had Orientals up there in Chatsworth at his farm. He said the Orientals, he didn’t like the way they worked. They’re no good. He always told me that. Chip did. But anyway. You know the roundabout between the farmer and your help. Sometimes they keep the help for a long time.
RM: I know that the Mexicans they have there came back every year.
WO: We got to know them pretty well. We was always there, my friends and I. But anyway, many years, many years. And you get to know them. Vamos sai oh. Vamos. And all of that, whatever.
RM: So, did you make anything else out of the asparagus? Sorry, I’m bouncing around here.
BO: We always froze it. But first we used to can it, but then we found out that it was easier to freeze it.
RM: But when you were a kid there wasn’t a freezer?
BO: No. Then we had an iceman would come around. Leave the ice to the icebox.
WO: He’d bring it with a horse and buggy. Chip off 25 cents or something. I remember horse and buggy. You tell him how much you’d want to pay. A quarter, 25 cents. He’d chip you off a 25 cent piece.
RM: You packed asparagus? You cut asparagus.
BO: I cut asparagus. My mother always packed. I hated packing.
RM: That was worst than cutting?
BO: Well.
WO: No. You cut from dawn to dark. She did that. I never did.
BO: I was a packer in the summer. You’d put so many in. And you had to get all the way up there. You were suppose to get so many bruised ones around and put the little stuff in the middle. And then close it up and tie it tight. Then you cut off the butts.
WO: (Laughter) Sneaky, sneaky.
BO: But we did have a certain size. If you got below that, you couldn’t call that a jumbo or a small, medium. So you couldn’t stick a lot of little ones in the middle.
WO: I never saw your mother do that in packing. I didn’t know that.
RM: How about the blueberries, picking and packing?
WO: Oh boy.
BO: I just picked. Never packed.
RM: That’s hard. My kids went to the 4 Winds Farm once. It was so hot out. I just thought how to people stand out here and do this all day.
BO: That’s what I tell them around here. I don’t know how we stood that. Of course, we were younger then.
RM: You weren’t used to having air conditioning. Right? So you didn’t think about
that it was so horrible that I need to be somewhere else.
BO: Then up there in Chatsworth. They would bring pickers in from Camden on a bus. When the airplanes come and sprayed, they didn’t make us get out of the field even. They just sprayed right over top of us so some of the black ladies got petrified. They started running. They tripped over the bushes. One got hurt. What a big mess, ya know.
WO: DDT. What’d they spray?
BO: I think it was DDT then. Yeah.
RM: Oh my God.
BO: They sprayed right over our heads. They never called and told her uncle that they were gonna spray, so of course by the time you see them come, you ain’t gonna get out of the field.
WO: You’re all white like the bushes.
RM: Good Lord.
WO: No communications too much in them days I think is what she’s trying to say. I wasn’t around.
RM: So, what did you do with the blueberries? Did you eat a lot of blueberries?
BO: Quite a bit, I guess. We made blueberry cakes, blueberry pies, blueberry muffins.
RM: And corn. Did you pack corn?
BO: I did pack corn. We had to be out there at 4 o’clock in the morning to pack. And by 10 I said, “I’m hungry. I gotta have a break,” you know. He said, “All this corn here. You want a break. Help yourself. Eat what you want.” And then it is good raw.
WO: It is excellent raw. Really is.
RM: Fresh, right off the plant.
WO: It is really, really is. I don’t know how people don’t know that. It is great. You don’t have to cook no corn for me not when it’s fresh off the stalk.
RM: I know that some people over cook it. Like my sister. She want to take care of the corn. I say, “No, I’ll take care of the corn.” She likes boil the heck out of it. “No, three minutes, that’s plenty.”
BO: We do ours in the microwave anymore.
RM: Yeah. I do too, now. Actually it kind of steams it.
BO: Yeah, and when you undo it, all the silk comes out with it
WO: Comes right off. Soak them and the silk comes right off. Everything comes off.
RM: Oh, I love that fresh corn. Oh, my God. I even make salad out of it. Cut it off the cob. And a little green pepper and onion and mayonnaise and my kids love that. They love that.
RM: So, that was the way you made some money?
BO: Yes. My dad, he was a fast picker. So he’d say you have to have 100 pints by noontime and another 100 by the time you left at night. If not, you’re goofing off and I will know it.
RM: Pints? How did you measure it by pints? With corn.
BO: No, no. This is blueberries. So I couldn’t goof off like the other kids did. I have to get my 100 or I get, not a whipping, I get a scolding.
RM: How much did you get for pints?
BO: 2 ½ cents.
WO: For picking them. That’s not for selling. That’s for picking. That’s what she got.
RM: Who’s blueberries were those you were picking?
BO: Gerber and Peppers in Chatsworth.
RM: Where did they sell them?
BO: Pemberton for blueberries.
WO: Pemberton, I guess.
BO: There was a big… Well now they got one in Chatsworth. They haul their stuff right there.
WO: They have a huge building for blueberries in Chatsworth, where it is now.
RM: A co-op or something.
BO: Ya. Where they take their cranberries now.
WO: All the cranberries from down below, come up there.
RM: What about the tomatoes?
BO: They used to take them into Campbell Soup. They don’t even do that no more.
WO: I don’t think there’s that many tomatoes like years ago. Chatsworth don’t. We don’t. Unless Russo’s does. He’s the biggest farmer around.
BO: They used to put them on the trucks and send them into Camden.
RM: Ya, a lot of South Jersey produce went to Camden back in the day.
WO: They didn’t go into the service as far as joining the Army and Navy because they were farmers. And they were feeding the world. And you was exempt. All those guys cause all of this was farms.
RM: Did you pack tomatos?
BO: No.
RM: The folks across the street, they were farming?
BO: They just have probably a ½ acre.
RM: So, no big farms on this road?
WO: Sod farms, both sides of this road. As you leave our house right there and in the back. All sod. All the way to the other end, Patty Bowker. If you want to call them farms. So, that’s sod farms.
RM: Oh, sod. Did it used to be produce farms?
BO: Yes, when I was a kid they had sweet potatoes and they’d bring Italian families in when it’s come time to harvest. And my mother would get so mad at me. And she said, “Don’t you go and beg for food off them ladies.” But it smelled so good what they were cooking.
RM: Really? They’d cook out there?
BO: Yes, so the rest of them could keep on working.
RM: Why did they pick Italians?
BO: I have no idea.
RM: Who’s farm was it?
BO: Bonner’s at that time which was connected with Zimmerman’s.
WO: This is Zimmerman Road. It is all Zimmerman’s now. In fact this street is Zimmerman. In fact we just left him this morning at the viewing.
RM: So there are Zimmerman’s?
BO: Yes.
RM: So, Zimmerman’s settled here and that’s why it was named Zimmerman Road.
BO: He was mayor of our township when they named this Zimmerman Road.
RM: Mayor of Tabernacle?
BO: Yes.
RM: When was that?
BO: Was that after I moved back with Mother or before?
WO: It was somewhere right about there.
BO: ’56-’57.
WO: In the ‘50s. I wasn’t here. I was over in Indian Mills.
RM: But they have children? Zimmerman children?
BO: Yes
RM: They own the sod farm?
BO: Un huh (affirmative)
RM: What was the name of the people who owned the sweet potato farm?
BO: Bonner.
RM: How do you spell that?
BO: Bonnard.
RM: What happened to him?
BO: I guess they died. I don’t know.
WO: There’s no name like that that we know of.
BO: Like Zimmerman’s, could be an offspring from them. I don’t know. We have to ask them sometimes.
WO: Michael. Probably Michael don’t know.
RM: Where are the Zimmerman’s now?
WO: There’s a house on this side at the end of this road. There goes a car right down to it now. That’s Zimmerman house.
BO: But nobody lives there now. It’s empty.
WO: It’s empty, but it’s historic, very historic.
BO: They have a new house there on Carranza Road. No New Road. They got a house over there and another over there and another. A lot of houses on New Road that belongs to the Zimmerman’s.
WO: Beautiful homes. Aren’t they, honey?
BO: Yes.
WO: Well, they got the bread.
RM: Where do they have the bread from?
WO: I don’t know. I think they own half this township. I don’t know. But they’re very nice people.
BO: Then they own ground over there in Old Indian Mills Road. Back in there. That’s a sod farm.
RM: So, they’re not farming produce. They just farming sod. How long have them been farming sod?
BO: Ten years.
WO: Oh, much longer than that. Ten years, are you kidding. I don’t know. I remember Jack and he’s died and gone. And that’s Markson’s daddy. He was cutting and mowing those gangs below those 100 acres out here. And I talked to him and he’s been dead and gone for 25 years, I guess. It was sod then, so it was sod for quite a while. I’d say at least 30, it’s been sod. I’m just guessing. I don’t know. I bet it is 30 years easy.
RM: I bet it is too because I think there was sod farms around here when I moved in.
WO: What year did you move in?
RM: ’88.
WO: ’88. I bet it was here then. What’s your first name?
RM: Rita.
WO: Like Rita’s Ice.
RM: I don’t know Rita’s Zeise. Who’s Rita Zeise?
BO: The drink you get over ice.
WO: The kids go nuts over that.
RM: Oh, Rita’s Ice. I thought you were saying Rita Zeise.
I like the gelato they call ice cream and the ice inside. Especially with the cherry ice. And you mix it in. There’s a lot of them around.
RM: Where did you do your shopping when you were a kid? Where’d your folks shop?
BO: Mt. Holly. Oh, Camden for our clothes. We’d go to Kaighn Avenue in Camden. You know, clothes for the school year. Groceries we went into Medford. There was a couple groceries store in there.
RM: Now, was the Ben Franklin bridge up when you were a kid?
BO and WO: Ya, ya.
RM: Did you go to Philly?
BO: Never got there.
WO: I walked across it cause I remember doing it. My mother. Holding my mother’s hand. And I would imagine. I am always trying to figure that out, but I never did know. I gonna say, 5 or 6 or 7, 8 or 9 (years of age). Somewhere right there as I walked across the Ben Franklin Bridge. And why my mother and I walked acrossed it, hand in hand, I don’t know. But we did. I remember that well. So, that’s 80 years ago. I was there then.
RM: I thought the bridge went up around 1920. Because I know that Camden was a thriving town.
WO: When they built that bridge, which is one of the things I hardly know, it was the only bridge to Philadelphia from Jersey side in the beginning years. Now we got a couple of three other bridges besides the Delaware River Bridge and my mother and I walked it. But I remember being up on the crown of it, that was on the bridge. That’s all I know.
RM: Ya, that would make a big impression on a kid.
WO: I guess, ya. I don’t know what kind of year I would have been. I am 86 now. I don’t know.
RM: How did you two meet?
WO: Go a head, tell her at the shot gun. Shot gun wedding. That’s how we met.
BO: Well, both of my sons like to hunt. The bigger one, the older one he went in the service when I met him (Wash). And Bobby wanted to go hunting, but he was a short guy and short arms. And so he had to have a gun that was short for him. So I went up to ask him (Wash) if he could get me one. And then he met me on the way home from work one night and he said I got the gun. I looked at it and said that ought to fit him.
WO: Double barrel shotgun. No big deal.
BO: Brought it home and I thought he was going to ask me out. So he didn’t. So I said what are you doing tomorrow night? Let’s go out. (Laughter) So that’s how it started.
RM: Good for you, but you said you ask him about the gun. How did you even know how to ask him? When did you ever see him (Wash)?
BO: Well, my first husband was up at the Tumble Inn all the time.
RM: OH!!! So when you’d go to get your husband out of there, you’d see Wash.
BO: So, Bobby was real thrill that he got the gun. He still got it today even.
RM: And how old was he when he first got it?
BO: (Sounded like) 9 years old.
RM: Now, was your husband a hunter?
BO: Ya, but he didn’t take the boys with him. They went out, but they always went with somebody else.
RM: So, where did they go with when they started?
BO: Just friends around.
RM: Kids or grown-ups?
BO: Grown-ups.
RM: Do they belong to a gun club?
BO: Neither one of them.
RM: Deer club?
BO: No.
RM: How about you, Wash. Do you? Did you? Which one?
WO: Indian Mills Deer Club. Was the name of it. What we called it.
BO: Defunct now.
RM: Did you have a clubhouse?
WO: Oh ya. Very nice one.
RM: Where?
WO: In Indian Mills.
RM: Where?
WO: Ah ha! You’re trying to find hot tub(?) It’s right on Stokes Road.
RM: On what?
BO: Stokes Road.
WO: You know where they have trap shooting. Trap shooting. Over there. Where you hear BANG, BANG. Where you hear it all the time.
RM: Oh no.
WO: You don’t know.
RM: Maybe I hear it. But don’t know it’s trap shooting.
WO: Well, what can I say. It’s up there by Tumble Inn. It’s on the same road.
BO: When he was in the club, I’d cook for them when it was deer week.
WO: The whole gang of us.
BO: You had to have breakfast, lunch and supper. And I got paid good for that though. They gave me a nice tip for that afterwards. So that helped my kids get some Christmas presents.
RM: Oh, that’s good.
BO: But it was rough getting up at 4 o’clock though
WO: But the ladies that did that and sometimes a couple of men that cooked for the gun club during deer week…We call deer week here in Jersey…those people that did that cooking at 3 o’clock in the morning for all the deer clubs for that one particular week of the year made big money. We tipped heavy. And we paid them excellent for they were gonna cook for 30-40…10 or 12 or 15 of us night after night, day in and day out, we tipped them heavy and we paid them well. So anybody that did that made Christmas money. Deer season was right before Christmas
BO: Then I would give them desserts. I made rice pudding and bread pudding
WO: Unbelieveable.
BO: And when they got another year and I wasn’t there the next year, they come to me and said “we didn’t get no desserts.”
RM: How many were you usually cooking for in that club?
BO: 20 of you.
WO: Ah, between 20 and 25 in those years. We were in good shape and then we lost head count. That petered out. When we were in good shape, between 10, 20, 30 men. You earned your money cooking for them at 3 in the morning.
RM: When was it?
WO: ‘50s and ‘60s that I know of.
BO: There’s nothing left of the club anymore. Is it?
WO: The building is still standing. The walls are still there. But we had the ground. Ernie Hart said that as long as you have a gun club you have a gun club here. If it ever dissolves, the ground comes back to me. I don’t know if she sold it. She’s been dead for years. Everybody’s dead.
RM: So did you do all that cooking here?
BO: They had their own kitchen.
WO: All clubs had their own kitchens.
BO: You just had to get all your things out there.
WO: She only did it for one year. Most of them girls did every year and looked forward to it. Big money for Christmas.
BO: Well, somebody had a friend that needed a job so they gave it to her instead of me the next year.
RM: Did you do it all by yourself or did you have some help?
BO: By myself.
RM: And the dishes too?
BO: Oh ya.
WO: Everything
BO: They didn’t have dishwashers then either.
RM: So, they come in for lunch?
BO: Ya. Or if they didn’t come in you would have to pack them lunches. But they mostly came back there.
WO: Most of the club come back for lunch. A lot of the them from time to time would have to stay out cause it was too far away from the gun club to load up everybody to get back. So, we would have sandwiches. So whoever did the job had to make a lot of sandwiches for that day. But we told them ahead of the time, “Make sandwiches for tomorrow. We’re not coming back for lunch.” Cause we know what we were going to do. We know what ground we were going to drive for deer hunting.
RM: Did you hunt from your stand?
WO: No, no. You drive deer. You line them up and drive through the woods screaming and hollering. Run them out. Run out.
RM: Is that how people did mostly?
WO: The gun clubs did. You drive the deer really. Is what you do. That’s what a lot of gun clubs did. There was a lot of gun clubs around. All these townships had lots of gun clubs and many hunters. And you would line up and drive your deer to the men lined up a mile long through the woods. Run them out. And they’d be up there to come through.
RM: Were there any accidents? Anybody accidentally got shot?
WO: I imagine there was from time to time. I think so.
RM: But you don’t remember any of those?
WO: No. Not really. Not in our club. No. All the clubs drove deer. There was a lot of clubs. In Buzby Store (Chatsworth) they kept a running record every morning. You’d come in for breakfast. If you wasn’t hunting at a gun club, you’d go in Buzby’s for breakfast. That was that club, that club, that club…all along the whole wall. The club would tell the head count. They got one deer last night; they got two; they got one. When one come in and told he got one. Oh, your club didn’t have any, now you got to get one. Good. They were lined up on the wall. We saw the head count.
RM: Was there competition among the clubs kind of?
WO: Well, we always wanted to kill more than anybody else as far as deer hunting.
RM: Did you ever like give awards in the club?
WO: No.
RM: Is it, was it limited to one deer per person?
WO: Per person. Hunting license hanging on your back pocket. Hanging on the back of your jacket…hunting license. You’re allowed one deer a season. But if you got 20 guys, you know, everybody can keep shooting. We never got 20 deer. So we always had more licenses than deer.
RM: Do you cook a lot of deer, Betty?
BO: When I have it. Cause we freeze it so we have it the rest of the year. He makes jerky.
WO: Deer jerky. The real McCoy. There’s all kinds of stuff you throw in. You can understand and know about it. I make what I call snapper soup. The real one. The genuine article but I don’t know about anybody else. But you can do that…what’s that bean thing they have at the church?
BO: Chili.
WO: I said, “What the is that?” Chili? Chili?
BO: I don’t. I don’t make my own chili.
RM: Did you also hunt other things?
WO: Birds, rabbits, ducks, geese. Mostly ducks and geese.
RM: Where?
WO: In this area.
RM: On the water?
WO: Ya. Different bogs.
BO: I haven’t had duck in a long time.
WO: We haven’t had duck. I haven’t shot a duck
BO: Or rabbits.
WO: Haven’t shot a rabbit.
RM: Do you use a boat for duck hunting?
WO: Ya, I have a boat. Yes.
RM: What kind?
WO: Just a plain…a little rowboat. I’ll call it a rowboat.
RM: Does anybody around here use sneak boxes?
WO: Yes. You see them going up the road up to Chatsworth on a trailer. He’s driving his Jeep and hooked on the back is a duck boat. All weeds stapled down the side of the boat so you can’t see the boat.
RM: Was anybody building any of those around here?
WO: I don’t think so. Maybe down the shore. I bet you down the shore.
RM: You said that you worked as a warden for the State?
BO: Chief Ranger.
RM: Ranger. Sorry. Rich Haines was a warden.
WO: He’s a Fire Warden. You see there’s 3 divisions…Forest Fire, Parks (could not understand this word) and Parks. That’s me. Rickey Haines, Forest Fire, Forestry. Clear logs, trees, oaks, pines. Forestry. The slash is that way. My slash is the big patch. His slash is this way on the shoulder. We’re talking about identification or whatever organization you belonged to. Rickey Haines was in charge of forest fires in this area. Quite prominent.
RM: So, what was your responsibility in that area?
WO: I was in charge of law enforcement in the State park service south of Trenton. Every park south of Trenton. I didn’t like it much because you had to keep going to all the parks. You had to go down south to all of them parks, west and north and east, down the shore. That was my job.
BO: He’d get call in the middle of the night…Boy Scouts was lost. Can you come and find them? So he’d get out of bed and go. It’d be morning when he got back, if he got back. Other people lost, you know.
RM: So, was that what you had to do…mostly lost people?
WO: Oh no. That only happened when it happened. I don’t know, maybe it would happen once a year.
RM: So, what did you do? What else did you do?
WO: I supplied the personnel, the ranger personnel in the State parks service fire supply….
End of Tape
Interview with Bob and Ginny Lees
Oral account told to Ann Franzen & Mary Ann Silvers, March 6, 2013
Robert “Bob” Lees was born in 1937 (died Feb. 28, 2014) in Camden, NJ to Donald and Marceline Lees. Both parents worked at the Pratt Foods Plant in Camden and met in 1933-34. Donald was a printer at the plant. Pratt Foods made feed for horses and chickens.
Bob moved to Tabernacle when he was 4 years old. His father still worked in Camden. They bought and then later built their house in the Medford Farms housing development. Bob has a picture of a Mr. (Frederick) Reynolds who developed the Medford Farms area to be summer homes for people to enjoy Pleasant Lake. After a young black male was found drowned at the lake, the dam was knocked down and the lake was drained. Bob felt that he lived on the “wrong side of the tracks” because he was referred to a living in Shanty Town.
Virginia “Ginny” Bakely Lees was born and raised in Tabernacle in an area called Sandy Ridge. She was one of 11 children born to Stanley (mechanic) and Florence (laundress; office work at the J. Chein Toy Factory in Camden, NJ).
Bob went to school in Tabernacle. He would get a bus to bring him to school. He went to the Mt. Holly High School which he had to get the bus which would take him to Tabernacle School and get another bus to go to Mt. Holly.
Bob worked at his own construction business building his own house in 1969 and outbuildings along with other houses, churches and schools. He started work at the age of 8 pumping gas at a gas station on Rt. 206 where Yates Plaza is now. Bob also set linotype for the Central Record where his mother had a weekly column. Bob gave to the Tabernacle Historical Society a copy of one of his mother’s article entitled, “Memories”. (See below the article.) Bob was appointed, on a yearly basis, to the Tabernacle Police Force in 1955-56. At that time the Chief of Police was Joe Snow. He also joined the Fire Co. Peter Laws or Moss was the first Fire Chief.
The following is a re-typed copy from the original of Bob Lees’ mother’s column for the Central Record, circa 1975:
268-0387 Mrs. Donald Lees
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“MEMORIES”
This week I would like to do a bit of reminiscing with our readers, having come to Tabernacle in 1941 I have seen many changes I’d like to tell you about. Lake Road, where I live, was just that, a narrow dirt surface. The section I live in is known as Medford Farms which is still Tabernacle Township, it is a land development which was developed by Homestead Development Corp., in 1939. Most of us built our own homes since there were the war years we did have many problems getting materials. Electric, telephone and gas services were curtailed at that time, we had to have ice men, I wonder how many remember Garret Giberson (now owner of Gibey’s Bar) and the late Vincent Nixon coming around with their ice trucks we also had, when it was available, 8 party telephone lines, this true, they will pick it up when it rights, we took the first ambulance calls and some fire calls, may during the nite and you could hear the other parties pick up their phones when it rang in several houses. At that time I wrote for the Central Record a column called Medford Farms News which was a bit of a problem with the party line phone, Beatrice Worrell at that time and for many years wrote the Tabernacle News column. I resumed writing 7 years ago. Our school consisted of 4 rooms, 3 teachers and a principal with Eleanor Friday as helping teacher, how many remember principals Dorothy Yeagle, Lawrence Winchell and William A. Shine? They served here in the late 40’s and early 50’s. Also our old friend the late “Skimmer” Pepper, he was our janitor and bus drive(r) combined, never did a child cross the road without Skimmer holding them by the hand to make sure they got across safely. There has been 4 rooms added to the old school and later on another large school was built (on New Road) we now have 29 class rooms in use and by the looks of the population growth we do need more rooms. Our school was used, not only for school business but for all Township affairs, now we have a fine Town Hall with separate office(s) for the various departments of the Township, we also have a court which is in session once each month with our own Bert Dailey as Clerk. I recall our court was the magistrates office, just a stone throws from where I live. Mary Schreiber was the Magistrate, she still lives there, and the late George Schreiber, was Constable.
For fire protection we used nearby Vincent Fire Company, in 1941 a fire company was formed here in Medford Farms. The old building was dedicated in 1942 with Pierson Law as our first President and David Reed our first Fire Chief, we started out with an American La France Truck. New we have a 3 bay fire house which houses a 1954 G.M.C. Pumper, a 1968 G.M.C. Tanker and a 1974 Ford Pumper. Our President is Bill Gaskill and our Fire Chief is Edward Gallagher. We moved in to the new building in 1970, the building contains a large kitchen and dining area which is excellent for catering purposes, Bingo games are held each Wed. eve with folks coming from near and far to spend a pleasant evening. We had no emergency service in Tabernacle in those days but were grateful for the Vincentown First Aid Squad’s help but like Topsy we just grew and had to learn to stand on our own feet. By l953 the newly formed Squad was able to purchase a 1939 La Salle Ambulance which was housed at the garage of the late Mr. and Mrs. Fred Whittemore on Hawkins Road. In 1956 land was purchased and a building started, it was completed and dedicated in 1973. We now have a 1974 Medicruiser, a 1965 Oldsmobile and a l965 Chevrolet Van. We are all proud of our crackerjack Squad and equipment which most of us have had to use including myself and mine.
I have seen many businesses get started, wonder how many remember “Lees’ Print Shop”, which my late husband and myself operated, they were the fun days, I have many happy memories of the shop which I gave up 8 years ago. I still have many of the samples of school programs, dance posters, wedding announcements, farmers tickets etc, we have added a number of restaurants, a medical building, bank, nurseries, garages galore, grocery stores, the Country Workshop which my son Robert operates and many other business establishments. We also have a nice Mobile Home Park, for Senior Citizens.
When we came here we had no police except the local constable in the40’s the police barracks was in Hammonton now we have a fine building on route 206 to serve our area. Our churches have grown along with the times. The Tabernacle Methodist Church was here long before my time but they did build a fine educational building in 1957. The Church of Christ, I remember had a very small church which had been built in 1916, by 1957 a large church was built and in 1969 an educational building was added. The Medford Farms Baptist Church was started in 1950 in the old fire house, in 1951 a small building was placed on route 206 at the present location by 1953. A chapel was added and used up until 1968 when the present church was dedicated. We also have 2 churches that many of our Black neighbors attend, they are the Temple of God on Tuckerton Rod built in 1950 and the Tabernacle First Baptist Church located on Flyatt Road built in 1951. When we came here we had but 1 mail route, to-day we have 6 routes with a large post office serving us from nearby Vincentown. We also have a C.B. Radio Club which does a great deal of good in the community, they are meeting at the old fire house as is a new Baptist Church which is just getting organized.
How many remember when we use to go to Dick Haines General Store and pay our taxes there? No waiting in line then, Dick was our Tax Collector he is at present Assessor of Medford Lakes. We use to vote at the old school now we have 2 districts one at Town Hall and 1 at the Squad building. Another big change has been the addition of Shawnee High School our youngsters attended Rancocas Valley Regional Hi School then Lenape before Shawnee (was) built.
New homes have been going up daily with many new developments starting up, I wonder what it will be like in another decade, seems as if Tabernacle has a good dose of “Growing Pains” at present time.
To our newcomers, call me with your social items, call the Central Record with Commercial items.
Tabernacle Historical Society
Oral History of Robert & Virginia Lees
Interview: March 6, 2013
Interviewees: Virginia & Bob Lees
Location: Home of Virginia & Bob Lees on 700 Chatsworth Road, Tabernacle, NJ
Interviewers: Ann Franzen & Mary Ann Silvers (Tabernacle Historical Society)
Transcribed by Allyson Burke, Rowan University intern, May, 2013
THS: Were you born in Tabernacle?
Bob: I came here when I was four, I think.
Virginia: I was born I believe up on Sandy Ridge which is no longer, there’s no houses there anymore.
THS: What were your parents’ names?
Virginia: Florence and Stanley Bakely.
Bob: Donald and Marcileen Lees.
THS: What were their occupations? What was your father’s occupation?
Bob: He was a printer. He used to work for Mount Holly Herald. Then when that closed, he worked for the Central Record; and he worked for them until he died.
THS: And your mother?
Bob: When my mother and father got together they worked for Pratt Foods in Philadelphia on the other side of the Ben Franklin Bridge. She did the paperwork and she wrote little history stories and stuff. Pratt Food did horse feed and chicken feed and all that sort of stuff, and she’d write the little history stories on it. My father was a printer in there and that’s how they met. That was back in 1933 or 1934.
THS: And Virginia how about your parents?
Virginia: My father was a mechanic and my mother, before she went to the J. Chein Toy Company, she took the laundry and washed clothes and that from the local people here, and then worked in the J. Chein Toy Company in Burlington that doesn’t exist anymore. Half of my family worked there.
THS: Where did you go to school?
Bob: Right here (Tabernacle) and Mt. Holly High School.
THS: What building?
Bob: Oh, the old school (Carranza Road, now Sequoia). The others didn’t exist. We had four rooms when I went.
THS: What is now the Sequoia School had four rooms then. And that was the whole school?
Bob: Yeah, that was it.
THS: What years were you there about?
Bob: 1944 or 1945. We didn’t have kindergarten, I started in first grade. I left there in ’49, so maybe in ’43 I started, something like that. It may have been ’43 I went from 2nd to 3rd grade. I jumped a grade.
THS: And then you went to high school in Mt. Holly?
Bob: Yup and stayed there the fours years and that was it. By that time my father had passed, and we were up to here in debt. My father was in the hospital for twenty seven months before he died and there was not any insurance back them. It took me eleven months to pay that off, but they were nice. They didn’t take the house. But we owed more to the hospital than the house would have been worth anyway. But they accepted twenty-five dollars a month, I think, and as time got better we sent more and more until we paid it off.
THS: Can you remember any of the people who were in your class here in Tabernacle?
Bob: Of those that are still alive and have stayed local I’ve kept up with them until now. Carolyn Folks, she was a year behind me.
THS: That’s Carolyn Hershman.
Bob: Yeah.
Virginia: Shirley Powell, who was Shirley Gerber.
THS: Can you remember any of the teachers?
Bob: Well, for my first and second grade was a sister-in-law to Clarence Grovatt. Third and fourth grade was Harriet Haines, whose husband was Robert Haines they had….
Virginia: Sonny Long Farm.
Bob: Yeah, Sonny Long Farm. I think fifth and sixth grade we had quite a few changes during the class year. And seventh grade was Ms. Yeagle and eighth grade was Winchall.
Virginia: Lawrence Winchall.
Bob: He’s still alive; lives somewhere down in South Jersey.
THS: There are several topics I would like to ask you about, but why don’t you start telling us about what you want to tell us and show us.
Bob: My mother wrote for the (Mount Holly) Herald and wrote for the Central Record for probably forty years, and here’s one of the copies of one of her updates. This is probably written in maybe the late 70s.
Virginia: That’s all different pages, all one story.
Bob: Yeah, it’s all one story. That’s about some of the stuff that went on in the Medford Farms side. Growing up I lived in Medford Farms or what was commonly called “Shanny (shanty) Town”.
THS: Lake Road?
Bob: Yeah, that was “shanny town”.
THS: I lived on Lakeview.
Bob: That’s changed now. It’s not what it was then.
Virginia: It’s not “shanny town”.
Bob: Even then we where not accepted in Tabernacle. I grew up with all these kids. I could go to school with them and everything else, but when it came dating time and all that you couldn’t take out a girl from Tabernacle. We were on the wrong side of town and that was it. That was the way things ran.
THS: Do you know the date of this article (referring to Marcileen’s article)?
Bob: There may be something in there. I just was thumbing through it a few minutes ago.
Virginia: When did you think it was? 70s?
Bob: I’m thinking it’s the late 70s (1970).
Virginia: Well, she died in ’84 (1984).
Bob: Yeah, and she wasn’t doing any writing at that time. In probably the ‘50s she would work for the editor of the Central Record; and they use to send all the paperwork, all the writings and stuff like that, to mom and she would reread them, rewrite them, and update everything that was in them and then I would take them back up there because I worked at the Central Record after hours. I had a key and I would set up the headlines and all that stuff and I did that for quite a few years.
THS: Monotype?
Bob: I could do some line and type. But that business has completely changed now. I couldn’t make it in the printing business today.
THS: Was your mother the force behind the Memorial Day parade?
Bob: She was involved with it. This article was one of the ones put together when the Historical Society first began. We had a lot of good historic places here that have fallen by the wayside, and burned and been torn down. There is very little history left in Tabernacle. But nobody worried about it when all this development came.
THS: I always understood that the oldest house is out around Buttersworth Bogs.
Bob: It should be in Bozarthtown Road and it should be Little Bells.
THS: It’s a log cabin, but it has been covered with siding.
Bob: That house still exists.
Virginia: Are you sure that was the log cabin?
THS: To my understanding under the siding is a log cabin.
Virginia: You would never know it.
Bob: That’s something else that I don’t know. I talked to the family up there and they say the tenants up there would like to take it down. They say the maintenance is so bad and the house is slowly sinking into the ground.
Virginia: Do you know where it is?
THS: I think so. It’s right up from Fay and Keith; and Betty lives next door. I take the third grade up there for a tour; and really you’re just looking at a house. You can’t see what it was.
THS: Your mother ran the Memorial Day parade until 1983; and I remember her well because I use to participate in that with various groups. It just amazed me that people just showed up. There were no notices.
Virginia: Here you go, I have an original one that’s in glass, but I photocopied one. This is my aunt Lena. She lived right on the corner of Bozarthtown. She’s Lena Horner. It has people on it like Beatrice Worrell, Charlie Cutts, and Mamie Prickett. She owned the old house that Susan Nixon lives in. The big white house.
THS: The one connected to Nixon General Store?
Virginia: No, the one up from the store. The big two story.
Bob: She lived in the old house originally. Then they built that new house where Susan is. That was probably built in 1909 or 1910.
THS: That’s apartments now isn’t it?
Bob: Yeah, the store is apartments.
THS: Isn’t that other house apartments?
Virginia: No, somebody bought that. That’s an interesting picture. I know all of them.
THS: I am going to number them and you can tell me who is who.
Bob: This is one of the early township maps. I think this is one of the first that showed the layout, land development, and some of that stuff.
THS: It says 1974 historic features.
Bob: I should have the original tax map in the office, from 1963 or 1964. I held onto that because I can still look things up when somebody talks about it.
THS: Well, let me ask you this? I see a question here. The friendship school, tell me where that was.
Virginia: That’s funny. It was up beyond Carranza monument on the gravel road that goes to Lee Brothers. When you got to the bogs, you made a left and there was a big old house there. Mingy, a little Spanish guy, lived in that school house and raised chickens there.
THS: Mary Ann and I went to a presentation the other night about a book that was written about the forgotten places in the Pine Barrens, and in it the author had a map of Friendship and showed the school, but there’s two friendships in Tabernacle and you can see here on the map they have it out by Powell Place Road, which was wrong.
Bob: Well, there was a school there too. Where Donny Spath’s father lived. And that’s another historical site that should have never been destroyed and it was torn down. That was a beautiful house in the day. It was probably then originally a two room school.
THS: Well, I wonder what they would have called it. They couldn’t have called them both Friendship School.
Bob: No, it didn’t have that name.
THS: I remember going on a historical tour and Donny Spath did a little presentation over there and now that you bring it up, I remember him saying there was a little school there. There was a marker too where the towns came together.
Bob: The four corners. Also one of the state agencies went down there and wrote what the tree varieties were and the age of the trees; and all that has been pushed down by the Girl Scout Camp.
THS: Now this map I have, we do still use because Tabernacle has such a weird shape. It always ends up being a big long (piece of) paper. Bernie the egg man?
Virginia: That was Bernie Struthoff. You know where he lived? Four houses down. It was all poultry. Where Washington Way is he worked there earlier years. And my first husband who lived by Powell, they had like 4,000 chickens and we used to collect the eggs. And Eschenberg, below the hill by Buttersworth Bogs, that was another one. And Zimmerman’s was all chickens. Back in the 40s and 50s.
Bob: Even into the 60s, they were still existing, but they were going up to New York to do their sales because there was nothing in this area.
Virginia: I would go as a kid with the Eschenberg’s and we would go to Trenton Farmer’s Market. I guess they went like once a week like on a Saturday.
THS: And Zimmerman’s was on Zimmerman Road?
Virginia: Yeah, back on the end, where the farm is.
Bob: And where Sam Haines’s Farm was; that was the other part of Zimmerman’s.
That’s sod grass now.
THS: And where was this Haines property?
Bob: That just sold. There was federal money and funds going into it for open space.
Virginia: But that was Old Indian Mills Road.
Bob: And then that road went all the way down and came out through Carranza Road originally.
Virginia: You know where you pass Conte’s and come out you make a left right down there. It would be on that road, as soon as you go around that bend it would be that field. It would run past where Carolyn Folks lived. Her parents lived back in there, and if you went far enough, it came out the other way. It was Jody Haines in the old house and right out to Trusios Cow Farm out to Carranza Road again.
THS: So there were a lot of chicken farms.
Bob: There were a lot of chicken farms and dairy farms.
THS: The poultry farms, did they have more than chickens? Did they have geese or ducks?
Bob: Most of them were just on the farm site but nothing for retail. It was mostly the egg business.
THS: How about blueberries or cultivated crops?
Bob: We had a lot of blueberries, and even a lot of cranberries back then. In fact there’s a lot of what was cranberry bogs back then is now grown up.
Virginia: Now Elmer Paterson who was the other one that lived in the big white house by Fett’s bar, that had the blueberries years ago (and) the big white house by Conte’s. You take Flyatt.
Bob: Couples, Elliot Couples and Aaron Moore.
Virginia: Because when we were kids we picked. I picked for Anachito way up in the woods.
Bob: That was Charlie Cutts’ originally. They were set up in Ivanhoe, North Carolina.
Virginia: And Fletcher’s Farm they had the big silos right opposite of where the town hall is and the cow barn. The house is still there, but it’s redone.
Bob: That was originally Victor Allen’s (Dairy) when I was a kid. Because where the sports are played on the Tabernacle School now was originally an apple orchard. There used to be signs up around it for us not to steal apples.
THS: We need to get a map of where originally these farm properties were.
Bob: The papers I gave you I think there was a sketch in there. Yeah, it’ll give you a pretty good map of things right there.
THS: Yeah, I think we’re looking for where the old homesteads and farms were. That’s not on here.
Bob: So much of that is gone now.
THS: Tell me about when we had a police force.
Bob: That would have been in 1955-56, when I first went in the firehouse. The townships sort of had a police force for all intent (and) purposes because by law we were required to have one. And the township sort of kept tabs of who we were (the policemen) and if they liked you and you didn’t make problems then we would be appointed yearly. When we had a fire or car accident, we were called; but other than that we didn’t do anything.
Virginia: Was it you and Joe Snow?
Bob: Joe Snow was our Chief.
THS: Now my husband thought Bruce Haines was a police man.
Bob: He came in probably. Bruce was a little younger than I was, and they came in after that. I kept my position I guess until the Township in ’70 (1970) talked about starting a police department and then whichever ones that looked like they were going to be appointed came and wanted my badge and everything else and being a nasty little kid, I wouldn’t give it to them. I gave it to them to put in the new emergency squad. I don’t know if it ever got put in there yet or not, I was told to come back because they were making a showcase and were going to put some of that stuff into there. I had badges and stuff like that which you (you = Virginia) hated to give them up, but I had nothing to do with them anymore.
Bob: (hands picture) Both of these were where Yates’s plazas are now. And a couple of cabins then. That was on the corner where the big pond is across from the Emergency Fire Company, the new fire house. I tore that (showing picture of old house) down in 1955. People lived there, the Russo family, but no relation to the Russo’s that live here now. I want to say it was torn down in ’57. When Dick Haines sold his store and Shultz, Eric Shultz, built a house on the end of Hawkins Road, but they didn’t have enough room for their kids. I tore that house down (showing another picture of a house); took that material (from the teardown house) up there and built the house bigger so they’d have a place (room for all) to live.
THS: And this gas station was there when?
Bob: That was there when I was a little kid, because I worked there when I was maybe 7 years old. I used to pump gas for them and that would be a free three inch bottle of soda. That’s what I’d get paid for doing a day of pumping gas.
THS: So the ‘30s?
Bob: Yeah, I would say the ‘30s (1930s) that was there. And they did major repair work in a building that had a leaky roof beside that place. Teddy (Ken) Yates would know more about this one (showing picture of where Yates Plaza is now). This is where his property is now and so this one would mean more to him.
THS: So the gasoline was 14 cents?
Bob: Yep.
Virginia: You know that gas station by Chairville, the one that’s closed now?
THS: Yes I was thinking it looked a lot like that.
Virginia: Well, I took a picture of it when the gas on their sign was 85 cents a gallon. I have the picture of it somewhere and the house is still there but I don’t know what happened there.
THS: I think the sign is still up.
Virginia: Yeah, but there’s nothing on it.
Bob: (hands picture) This is the lake. It was two feet wide.
THS: There’s streams through there. The lake was long gone, but there’s a story. I didn’t know the lake had a name.
Bob: Yeah, Pleasure Lake. That’s what that was called. We had a little fellow drowned there. I’d have to say that was in the ‘60s (1960s). I was working in the post office then.
THS: But he was not a member of the association?
Bob: He was swimming from the dam end. And the other thing is years ago the blacks and whites were separated so. And he was black so he swam down there, but he never came home that night. And his parents, as a matter of fact, his mother stopped at our house and took a bunch of us and we walked all over the place. We couldn’t find him. And then that night they drained the lake and then we did find him in one of the dams.
THS: Now did they sue? I had heard that the parents sued the association.
Bob: They never actually sued, but everyone was afraid they were going to. After that they brought a loader in and dug out the dam; and when they took the dam that was the end of the lake and that was it.
THS: I had heard that it had broken or something in a storm and they just never repaired it. Now this is where Medford Farms development is?
Ann: Lakeview Drive was where I used to live and Lake Road is on the other side of the dump road. Old Indian Mills Road is what it really is, and this lake, Pleasure Lake, was in between and many acres back there and several times they tried to develop it, but it turns out that even with the lake gone, it’s so much wetlands that they would have had to (add) 15 to 20 acres per house and they just couldn’t do it and its been up for sale several times over the years.
Bob: That use to be a beautiful…
THS: It used to be a beautiful place for summer homes by the lake.
Bob: One of the first kids I went to school with, probably second or third grade, lived right across from the lake. His father worked for Shibe Park.
Virginia: What was the kid’s name? Did he work for the Phillies or the A’s?
Bob: The A’s, now you’re dating yourself because the A’s have been gone for what 50 years. They use to take us there for school. We didn’t have school buses then, but one school teacher if you did exceptionally good maybe they’d take piles of 6 or 8 of us in a car and take us there.
THS: How did you get to school?
Bob: Went down Hawkins Road, down as far as to where Sam Moore lived which would be Worrell Road. That’s where we all walked to get the school bus. They didn’t have any runs to get back to us.
Virginia: We had buses here though.
Bob: Well, they were coming later. We had two buses and that served all of Tabernacle and it took us to another bus which took us to high school.
Virginia: I hated going on that bus because I got sick everyday. I can’t take the stopping and going.
THS: So you had a bus that took you to the Tabernacle School; and then for high school did it take you to the Tabernacle School again and then you got on another bus?
Bob: Sometimes we would do that; and then that was starting to change probably in the early ‘50s (1950s) then we were getting a lot more people.
Virginia: That was Ruth Pattenberg, the bus driver. Right?
Bob: It was Evy Holloway first. She was the first bus driver we had and then she got expecting with Shirley that (who) got killed on a bicycle in an automobile accident.
Virginia: His friend, what was his name?, use to walk to Medford Lakes and get on the bus there because he was from “shanny (shanty) town”, Ray Watt, he wanted to be a movie star.
Bob: He claimed in high school that he went to Medford Lakes and lived there.
Virginia: He was a nice looking guy, but he would walk to Medford Lakes to get the bus because he didn’t want to be known as coming from “shanny town”.
Bob: We had lots of problems with Medford Farms and “shanny town” years ago.
THS: Now what year were you born?
Bob: 1937.
THS: Okay, so you were born where?
Bob: Camden. Yeah, my father when he left Pratt Food in Philadelphia, then he opened a print shop. The last one he had was on 27th (St.) across from Memorial School. The new big high school they built in Camden. I should have some pictures of that. And then after we were living here, we had a cabin that we lived in. And I guess it was 1943 we had a hurricane hit in Atlantic City. We didn’t have power for 15 or 25 days something like that. My father had went in to work in Camden and he couldn’t get back home from Camden. And the day he came home from Camden, which was probably 10 or 12 days later, I remember my mother was like “We’re gonna have a meeting right now”. And took my dad in the house and she told him “Either you’re going to give up the shop in Camden and come out here and find work local or we’re moving to Camden.” She was not going to live by herself with me. And we’d take my bicycle and push it up to Mary Roger’s store to get groceries because we didn’t have anything else (meaning transportation).
Virginia: Did you know that Mary and Harvey Roger’s store?
THS: No.
Virginia: It was right across from Vetco (Rt. 206) on the hill where Jerry Glenn’s daughter lives now. The store was in the front but they put a house in the back; and the old building is falling down (be)side of it.
THS: Now where was this cabin that you were living in?
Bob: It was on Lake Road, second house down on the right side and I’ll show you pictures of that in here and also the house is still there today which was built in 1944, I think.
Virginia: That your dad built?
Bob: Yeah.
THS: Were you the only child?
Bob: Yes
Virginia: He didn’t have anybody to fight with which was different from my house.
THS: And you had how many kids in your family?
Virginia: Eleven. Six boys and five girls. And four boys are gone, Stanley, George, Jimmy, and Vernon.
Bob: (shows picture) This is the house from the ‘40s (1940s). It had one room and a curtain that pulled down through the middle of it. It had a pitcher pump inside and an outhouse in the back.
Virginia: That’s your father in that picture. Isn’t it?
Bob: Yeah. My father was active in the township, active in everything.
THS: (looks at another picture) This is Mr. Reynolds.
Bob: That was the developer that started Medford Farms. That’s his picture there.
THS: What was his first name, do you know?
Bob: Frank, Frederick…I’m going to say Frederick. There’s probably third generation or fourth generation now that still has that house. It’s the Underwoods (family’s last name) or some of them.
THS: So you tore down?
Bob: We tore down the first, the cabin; and built the house in the same location.
Bob: There’s Eddie Gallagher on one of them. That would have been Eddie Gallagher. He knew your husband (meaning Virginia’s first husband) well.
Virginia: He was big in the firehouse.
Bob: Yeah, it had to have been maybe 10 years ago.
Virginia: Has it been that long? I’d say maybe six.
THS: (points at photo) Is this you when you were young? It says “Robert”.
Bob: No, that’s Bobby Buchanan. He’s one that would be interesting to get to talk. He’s older than I am and my father use to take him back and forth when he went to Camden in the morning and he went to school in Camden because he thought he could get a better education. He knows if you get him on a good day.
THS: (looks at house photos) So, you dug a basement?
Bob: Yeah, it was a little partial basement because when that big hurricane came I remember the water came up and we had a coal stove in the basement and that flooded that and had a hot stove in at the time and that split up and we didn’t have any heat.
THS: I guess you don’t know how much it cost, this house?
Virginia: Probably a lot cheaper than it is today.
Bob: Well, this one was $17,000 that included 50 some acres of ground with it. (talking about property at 700 Chatsworth Road, Tabernacle, NJ)
THS: This house that we’re in now?
Bob: Hhmm. In 1960.
THS: 50 acres originally?
Virginia: Well, we owned in the back too.
Bob: I had a lake in the back and I got caught up in bankruptcy in a construction business in 1971 and I sold the ground down there. That was a big mistake, but I bailed myself out.
Virginia: This is the third or fourth owner (of the property that he sold).
Bob: Last time it sold it was a million and a half dollars. And I sold it for $16,000.
Virginia: I think it’s the third owner. The bus company owned it too. Didn’t they?
Bob: Yeah, Meredith (Bus or Transportation Company).
Virginia: It’s a big one level house. I cleaned it one time.
Bob: A forty foot living room or bedroom something like that.
Virginia: Well, the living room has that big open fireplace that looks right through the room.
THS: So there’s a lake back there?
Virginia: Yeah, that he (Bob) put in.
THS: And it’s still there?
Bob: Yeah. It’s not being taken care of right now so it’s growing up (meaning trees and weeds).
THS: What stream is feeding that lake?
Bob: The one that comes across from Sooy Place. It feeds from Friendship originally. Harry’s Causeway Road (now Patty Bowker Road) comes up along the edge of that and comes into us. I cleaned it out years ago. And then it used to be my rule when the kids wanted to use it for fishing and (would have to) take care of it, but then in the spring, always Easter, we would clean it.
THS: So this is your dad’s print shop?
Bob: Yup
THS: Next door to your house?
Bob: Yes
Virginia: Is that still there, the building?
Bob: Yeah, it’s been combined with the new home.
Bob: (shows new picture) Well, you remember, (he) was head of the courts tied into (the) Grungos; had the Italian restaurant.
Virginia: Antonelli’s
Bob: Yes, Antonelli’s, Do you remember Antenelli’s, the pizza place?
THS: No
Bob: It closed up.
THS: Was it where the Tabernacle Inn is?
Virginia: No, it was opposite where Frank Grungo lived. Where the (east) Indian (owned) store was. You know where it’s now Dunkin Donuts and all that. Back a little bit was Frank Grungo’s house and across was Just Between Friends Catering and that was Antonelli’s.
Bob: No, that was Ruggiero’s.
Virginia: Okay, I know where it was, by Frank Thodes, where they sell the cars,
J & G. You know where the cars sale is, that was a little coffee shop. Opposite that his aunt Dora Lovett had a bake shop. That was Antonelli’s which was a hoagie shop.
THS: Now this says “Miller”.
Bob: That was the family when I was real little. Those pictures are probably from 1939. We never had a camera back then. People didn’t have all these contraptions, and I think my father probably borrowed a camera to take pictures. And a lot of these I had given away and I wish I hadn’t because I had pictures of everything that was in Medford Farms at one time. This one existed when you were living back there, but it’s on the corner of Hawkins and Lee Drive.
THS: A friend of mine lived there for many years. They put the swimming pool there.
Bob: Webb?
THS: Yeah, Russell Webb. Was this that house?
Bob: Yeah, that was the house originally.
THS: I don’t ever remember this building, was it the garage?
Bob: Yes, that was the garage. The house became bigger than the garage toward the later years.
THS: Well, the house wasn’t very big I’ll tell you; and they were constantly changing it. I’d go and visit her in the morning and if I came back later in the afternoon the walls would shift.
Bob: This was right across what was Shrine on top of the hill.
Virginia: Where’s that at?
Bob: Where Laurie Earls’ mother and father lived.
Virginia: That’s near the lake.
Bob: Yeah, right across from the lake, right on top of the hill.
THS: This was on Lakeview Drive, and this is what a lot of the houses looked like typically.
Bob: This is the other one that was once there.
THS: They were cabins, summer cabins. That’s all they were made for.
Bob: That would have been (a) fellow by the name of Tate. He owned a humongous junk yard in Philadelphia and made a bundle of money during the Second World War. All the scrap he bought here and sent over to Japan to make the planes and all the stuff.
THS: For the Japanese?
Bob: Yeah, I remember that story well.
THS: But that was going all over the country.
Bob: This was Hawkins and Indian Mills Road, right on the corner. If you look at that house it still looks basically the same.
Virginia: Does anyone have pictures of before they built Seneca? Where the house was on that corner when you came out of Hawkins?
THS: I haven’t seen any.
Virginia: I took pictures before they built Seneca.
Bob: I never got a picture of that. I was there when the house burned in 1958 I think maybe ’57. It burned to the ground. That was a four story big old hotel. I guess you would call it originally.
Virginia: Who lived there before?
Bob: Helen O’Neil, that’s who was in it before it burned.
Virginia: And then it was the bungalow and now the bungalow is in Conte’s field because Conte’s son split up with the Fletcher girl and he lives married to a new lady, a younger one, with horses in that field. And they moved that little house from the corner when you come off of Hawkins Road onto Carranza.
Bob: That house was right across the intersection.
THS: The house is now on Flyatt Road, where they repositioned it?
Virginia: Yeah, you’re right it is.
THS: Pete Moss?
Bob: Yeah, that was the first fire chief that Tabernacle had in 1941.
Bob: (shows new picture) That was our house originally. Looks pretty much like it does today except the big addition added on by the new people.
Virginia: This is the one that Frank built. We didn’t see new houses that looked like that.
Bob: No, that they tore that down and put in the new modern contraptions.
THS: (new picture) What’s it say on the back?
Bob: That’s probably the Summers’s house.
Virginia: Yeah, Bonnie and Betty.
THS: Looks like it says Jimmy and Betty.
Bob: All three of them are still alive. We just buried Bonnie’s husband about a month and a half to months ago.
Virginia: Jack Schafer.
THS: Now when you moved out here in your earlier recollections, route 70 didn’t exist yet?
Bob: No, it still did. It was S41. I think it was and we lived on route 39. 206 was 39 and..
THS: They moved parts of that, didn’t they?
Bob: They did a lot of changes there. And where Hawkins Road crossed what would be (Rt.) 206 today that was all painted (large route numbers painted on the street) and it told you the Route numbers and what was North and South. And I remember going there. I must have been four or five years old. That’s when the state decided the (enemy) airplanes were going to find out where we lived and bomb us so they painted over that. Doesn’t exist anymore but that was originally 39 and painted on the road was North, South, East, and West. We had civil defense when I was involved with it during the Vietnam War. Second World War… my dad was involved with it (Civil Defense) during the Second World War and they would make you turn the lights off and all, but very few people in Tabernacle or Medford Farms had lights. We didn’t get electric I think until ’41 when they ran the wires from 206 and went across the dam and if something happened by us there was no electric on the other side of Medford Farms.
THS: And that was coming from Atlantic City?
Bob: Yup, Atlantic City Electric.
THS: Because when we first moved in the early ‘70s, we would use electric all the time.
Bob: Yeah, that was pretty standard.
THS: Because from the way my husband explained it we were at the end of the line for Atlantic City Electric, and then when they built substations around here, then that all changed, we hardly ever lose it (power) now.
Bob: You didn’t have the seven party telephone line then did you?
THS: No, I did as a child, (but not in Tabernacle).
Bob: The first telephone for Tabernacle, for the Fire Department, and all things concerning Tabernacle, was at Jerry’s. (He) had the Speed Shop.
Virginia: Jerry Clarke
Bob: Alec Morrison originally. They owned that and then my father was involved (with) the township and then finally they gave us an extension and that was a seven line number, seven dials and all that stuff. We never had the door closed in the house because that was open to anyone in the township who needed to use the telephone and mom had a little cup sitting there. If you had any change in your pocket, you’d put the change in there.
Virginia: Did Morrison rent those cabins at one point?
Bob: Yup.
Virginia: I keep connecting that with Satler. Satler was where the American Gas was.
Bob: And then there was that one, (points to picture) this one also had cabins.
Virginia: Who was this?
Bob: That was on the corner where Teddy (also know as Ken Yates) is now. That’s where Yates Plaza is now.
THS: So what did you use for lighting then?
Bob: Kerosene lamps.
THS: You didn’t have gas either? You still don’t?
Bob: No. Kerosene lamps and kerosene stoves.
Virginia: We don’t want no gas, because all these people are getting gas and when one house blows they’re all going to blow.
Bob: Dee Collins, her husband when he got out of the war in ’45, they got married and he went to work for Atlantic City Electric. Dee Collins’s husband Jack, and he got my father the first electric stove and then we had to get something done to the electric so there was enough power to make the electric stove work.
THS: Because it would have taken more power.
Bob: Yeah, you had to have three wires, I think we only had two wires to the house then.
THS: What was your stove powered by then?
Bob: At first it was kerosene. Three burner(s) and it had a little pump on the side to pump the kerosene and it would push it up into the stove. Mom would worry to death about that. Then when we got the electric stove, it went down in the cellar and mom did all her canning down there, and we bought very little because she canned. We had a humongous garden then. And everyone else did the same thing, not like today. Then Mayor Rogers didn’t come until, I’m gonna say ’48 (1948).
THS: What did you do for refrigeration?
Bob: We had the ice man. I think that(‘s) one of the papers (meaing: article for the Central Record or Mt Holly Herald) mom wrote. That’ll tell you who the ice man was at the time.
THS: And the heat was wood burned?
Bob: Dad got a coal heater and he put that in the basement. That’s when he dug the hole to put that in and then that big storm came and the water came up high enough it hit the heater which was hot, and of course, (being) hot cast iron blew all apart and that was the end of that.
THS: Where did you get the coal from?
Bob: Vincentown, where the brick came from actually. There’s a lot of history in these rooms. (Pointing to their wood stove) This came from the original Smithville that’s manufactured the door. I made the stove but he made the door. I got that along Rancocas Woods.
THS: Oh you found it?
Bob: Yup, dug it out of the dirt. So that probably dates back to the early 1800s.
Virginia: The stove really puts out some heat when I crank it up and open the wheels. I run that all night, I get up 3 or 4 times a night to keep it going, to save on fuel.
Bob: Allen’s Homestead in the middle of Vincentown where the little dry goods store was, right up from the Vincentown Methodist Church; that house burned and I rebuilt that house and I brought all the brick home and that’s what I built this fireplace with.
THS: Where did you get the mantle?
Bob: I made that one.
Virginia: This was all woods when he got the property.
Bob: These are out of a dairy barn in Vincentown, the four windows. I made cupboards out of them.
THS: And how long have you been in this house?
Bob: I built the house in ’69 and I built the shop in ’60.
THS: Tell me about the Junior Mechanics. You became a member…your father was a member?
Bob: My father was active in it for years and on his death bed he had two requests. He wanted me to go into the Masonic Lodge, but I had to be 21 for that one. And he wanted me to go into the Junior Mechanics which I had to be 16. So when I turned 16 I went in. I couldn’t for the life of me for a long time figure out why he wanted me to go into it, but then I found out how involved it was. It’s really close to going under right now. It’s a pity, because we don’t have any membership.
THS: How many people were in it, do you think, when you joined it?
Bob: I gonna bet 45 at least.
Virginia: They’re all passed.
Bob: Yup, they’re all gone. We’re down to 14 right now.
Virginia: You, Harry Worrell, Wash (Washington) Orme, Richard Tustin.
Bob: I got a new guy from Woodbury. I got one from Williamstown. I just lost two. We had a little feud with Teddy and the organization; and Teddy (Ken Yates) hasn’t been back and we lost a few people with that.
THS: Now, you own the building (meaning: Jr. Mechanics) that is now the Town Hall?
Bob: Yeah.
THS: And did you use all that space?
Bob: We had a thing where you slide those things down a long trough. (He’s trying to think what it is called.)
Virginia: Shuffleboard?
Bob: Yeah, we had dart tournaments, and stuff like that. There was no television, nothing like that, so that’s where people went and that’s what kept membership up. And we had dinners in there. We held weddings in there on the secondary story.
THS: Do you own the cemetery across from that or just the one down (the street on Carranza Road called the Jr. Mechanics Cemetery)?
Bob: The one down.
THS: You still own that?
Bob: Yup. (The organization of the Jr. Mechanics owns the cemetery.)
THS: And there are still plots in that?
Bob: Nothing available.
THS: And when was that cemetery started?
Bob: 1913. That was originally meant for the owners of Tabernacle and members of the organization, and then in the late ‘50s when the courts made all these decisions that everything is public, no matter who they are or what they are you have to open the doors to them.
Virginia: You use to get volunteers to help with it (Jr. Mechanics Cemetery), but you don’t get volunteers anymore.
Bob: The world has changed. It’s about profit. Everyone is like “how much am I getting to do this?” You never paid for anything in the Junior Mechanics. You never paid for anything in the Church. You never paid for anything in the cemetery. You never paid for nothing. It’s a pity right now to see some of the stuff that’s being done at the Pepper House. Everything was done by volunteer(s). You’re putting windows in there and I’ve got material here, but can’t find anyone to climb to the second and third story.
THS: We were hoping to keep the windows original.
Bob: They changed them.
THS: I don’t even know what kind of windows they were. Were they small panes on top?
Bob: They were changed in 1975 maybe. The historic society hired someone to rebuild everything and there was a beautiful front porch there, which now you’re having court agencies tell you can’t build a porch there in the front. I sat on that front porch almost everyday when I rode my bicycle home.
THS: Do you have the windows from the original house?
Bob: No, I don’t. I wasn’t involved when that was done. I still might have some of the windows out of the Methodist Church. A lot of the house is made from the original glass out of that. I took the original panes and made new closets and stuff out of them.
THS: I wish we had pictures of the original Pepper House.
THS: Well, we do have a picture with the porch.
Bob: Have you ever went (gone) up to visit Hope Pepper? If you could get her to sit down with you sometime, there are pictures there you people would not believe.
Virginia: She wouldn’t give them to you, but she might photocopy them for you.
Bob: You got to get her in the mood.
THS: I used to work with Hope so she knows me. I would like to put that porch back on as a long term project. There was like an annex building with a lean-to kitchen and shed or something. That should have stayed because that would have made a nice office.
Bob: That was my last plan, that stove and the pump was suppose to go in the kitchen. I built several of them in some of the other schools in the county.
THS: Hope said her granddaughter or maybe a niece, took the cupboard out.
Bob: A hoosier.
THS: There’s nothing in the kitchen that looks like a kitchen other than the kitchen table.
Virginia: There’s no cabinets or nothing?
THS: No, there’s no cabinets, no sink, no stove.
Virginia: What happened to all that?
Bob: That was all torn out when the township took over. All the carvings on these cabinets, in the kitchen and in here, are original hollows from what was in the township hall.
Virginia: You mean the design?
Bob: I built all (of) them, but, yeah, the design. All these cabinets are built from the trees that they took down when they built the first ball field here. I helped clear that ground. It aggravates me now when I see money being passed around for some of this stuff today. I know you gotta use a contractor once in awhile but everything down there was done by the community.
THS: No one wants to do it or knows how to do it.
Virginia: That’s the problem.
THS: Or they’re getting too old so they can’t do what they could (have done before).
Bob: I wanted to do that work in the Pepper House, and I had then upped the metal and all to finish those windows on the second and third floor; and I had one volunteer who was gonna do the climbing for me and then he had a bout with cancer and that was the end of that and I couldn’t find anyone else.
THS: Well, that’s why we’re trying to get some younger people involved because you can’t have people in their 70s and 80s doing that. And then you gotta worry about insurance and all that.
Bob: Well, insurance and all that didn’t exist back then. Nobody worried about that.
Virginia: What about Skimmer’s Pool Hall, did they ever mention any of that? Skimmer Pepper’s Pool Hall that was right there in the parking lot of the town hall.
Bob: Sam Scott Store and gas station.
Virginia: But that was Skimmer’s pool hall, sat right there in the corner parking lot for the Municipal Building. You weren’t allowed to go there. Your mother wouldn’t let you.
Bob: No, anything that had liquor don’t go near it or wild women.
Virginia: Dick Haines had the store there. Me and my sister worked for Sonny Lawn Farm which is on Carranza Road, Harriet and Bob Haines, she was the school teacher. And me and my sister we lived, you know where Brace Lane goes up Carranza, and you go into the middle of Bozarthtown (Road). There was an old house there that we lived in and I moved up here when the house was boarded up when I was eleven. I was born in Sandy Ridge, and you ever hear of Rossicks? Rossicks is where Charlie Wills and Betty Wills up on that lane…
Bob: That big development now with them million dollar houses Sohn Lane…
Virginia: Well, I was maybe two or three there…then we moved. We lived in Jody’s house in Bozarthtown, but we lived in that old house there. Me and my sister worked for Harriet Haines, and if you go by there, I don’t know who lives there now, but the house is still there and the lawn is still big. Floyd Yates, who lived in the tenant house, he would mow that lawn. Me and my sister would rake that lawn. We were like eight or ten. We would rake it and she would give us fifty cents and lunch. We would take our little fifty cents and go and buy penny candy.
Bob: That was a beautiful house. There was a lot of history there. His father would have been a freeholder. This township was divided for political reasons (really meaning put together) from Westampton, Eastampton, and Southampton so they could get political position. And if you followed the traffic lines and you wondered how the property runs the way it does, it ran by those families.
THS: What churches were here?
Bob: Originally the Church of Christ and the Methodist Church. And there was a black church up where the other cemetery is on Carranza Road.
Virginia: There was a church up there?
Bob: Yeah, there was a church up there. It burned down.
Virginia: What are they gonna do with that cemetery? Is someone gonna buy it?
Bob: There’s a lot of people that want it, so far no one can find who legally owns it.
THS: What cemetery are you talking about, the black cemetery?
Virginia: Yeah.
THS: And there was a church that turned into that?
Bob: Yup.
THS: And what road is that on?
Bob: Carranza and Yellow Hill (Roads).
Virginia: It’s before where Rita lived, right before Pearl Gerber. Somewhere there, the green house.
Bob: That piece of land goes all the way through and out to Yellow Hill. It’s a big piece of ground, not a wide piece, but a long piece.
THS: Now how far back did the Church of Christ go?
Bob: 1912 or 1913, I think.
THS: See, I always thought until we came across a picture of the old building, I always thought that that whole thing popped up in the ‘70s (1970s)
Bob: When I was little my mother knew most of the women in there and we would go to special services in there. They had no music, nothing else. It was two pews wide and maybe 6 pews or 8 pews deep.
Virginia: It’s a good size now.
Bob: Oh yeah. The first building they tore down. They built the church, the Cutts Brothers did. It was all wood. I helped build the second church for them. That probably would have been the early ‘60s. They use to do everything (by) local people. They wouldn’t hire out anyone else. And then your Baptist Church in Medford Farms, that started, I’m gonna guess, in the early, early ‘50s. That started in the Firehouse and then they bought a little government building that was in sad shape and they moved it and put it on the lot where the new church is. And the church that sits there now, the brick one, they built that in the ‘70s.
THS: That’s right before Newbert’s (Auto Repair)?
Bob: Yeah.
THS: That’s actually in Southampton now.
Bob: Yeah, the property line comes across it there somewheres.
Virginia: That’s a Baptist Church there?
Bob: Yeah, and then there was a Baptist Church on Flyatt Road the black’s had. As far as I know that’s empty now.
Virginia: What’s the one on Medford Lakes Road that’s part of Medford? The one that Harry Fine taught at.
THS: Lord of Life?
Virginia: Yeah.
THS: That’s in Tabernacle.
Virginia: Is it?
THS: That’s fairly new.
Bob: That was some of Amos’s ground. That was originally a big part of the trailer park. And then when Amos died, the son, rather than expand it, because toward the end we were having trouble with the trailer park we even took one trailer out because if we hit 100 we had to provide water testing, and this, that, and the other thing.
THS: When did that start, the trailer park?
Bob: I’m gonna guess 1968. I date things with where I was working or where I was.
THS: Well, we (Ann & Rick Franzen) moved out here in ’72 and it was established then.
Bob: I put the first ten trailers in there.
THS: I think we got quite a bit of information today.
Virginia: Well, I just wanted to tell you a few things if you didn’t have anymore questions. I just wanted to see if they know (looking at Bob). Well they knew Harvey and Mary Rogers and Ruggiero’s, the hoagie place which we told them where that was across from Grungo’s house. Just Between Friends, that’s where it was Ruggiero’s hoagie place. I wanted to tell you about the poor families that I remember. We were one of them with eleven children. Now all of them didn’t have eleven children, but I wanted to tell you about the ones, Maglenos, did you ever hear about them?
THS: No.
Virginia: I believe they had two sons and two daughters. The one boy shot himself, I don’t know about the other, when they were 12 or 13. And the father was very abusive, physically, sexually all of that. The girls killed him, cut him up, and took him to Florida.
Bob: There’s a lot of things that you never hear about.
THS: Where did they live?
Virginia: Up Sooy Place. And then the other family was Simcox.
Bob: Now, they are probably over the township line. They’re where the big fire was last year.
Virginia: Okay, well, they were all alcoholics, and they only had a daughter. Well, I used to work for Yates, pulling sweet potatoes and all and she worked there too and her daughter was a pretty young girl. She hung herself because of the alcoholics. And they lived, it was like a movie in the fog in the swamp, and that poor girl, she was friends with my sister, she hung herself in the basement.
THS: The mother did or the daughter?
Virginia: The daughter to get away.
THS: How old was she?
Virginia: Probably 12, 13, or 14, somewhere around there. Harvery Decant had two kids, Dora was my friend and Danny got killed on Carranza Road. I believe they lived in a trailer where the ball park is.
Bob: That’s how the township got it because no one could pay the taxes that were left on the house after it burnt down.
Virginia: So this airplane you were talking about came to see them and landed in Zimmerman’s field, and when they took off to say goodbye they crashed in the trees and got killed.
Bob: That was in the end of the Second World War because he was an aviation guy and he was coming down because the Decant boy was in the service too during the Second World War.
Virginia: Okay, now, I’m gonna tell you another one. Krantz boys had a store. You know where the Co-Op is? You go up a little farther and I think the house is still green and Closet Doctor had a garage there (near by on Rt. 206). Right there that was a gas station and a store. We use to go there and get our ice cream. That house is still there, I don’t know who lives there. The Wishums, that’s another poor family. You know where Haines lives in that big old house down here, where the deep water…what’s that water?
Bob: Oh Russo’s .
Virginia: Where Russo’s… Is it Natalie Cassano lives opposite of Haines’s?
Bob: Yeah
Virginia: Okay, Cassano lives there and Haines was over here. There was a two story owned by Wishums if you go into the old grave yard. Because one time family from Florida, a daughter of one of the originals, wanted me to go to the graveyard to find the stone. If you go there, somewhere near the front is Wishums.
Bob: Wishum was the biggest politician Tabernacle had before it was Tabernacle and they gave the ground for the original school. The second or third generation that I remember drank alcohol and didn’t work and lost the whole farm and what’s Russo’s now was originally Wishum.
Virginia: The Thackers that was a big family and I have a picture I found in the newspaper. They were so poor. They lived in a little one room.
Bob: And the kids got put in the car bodies to sleep. They would bundle the kid up in front of the stove and then carry him out and put him in there.
Virginia: And the Learners.
Bob: Yeah, they lived in a big tepee and that was maybe six months or a year before Woodland Township started getting rules and regulation. They’re on the property line (meaning: township boundary line).
Virginia: And what about the Slaters? Where did they live? They were around here.
Bob: Medford Farms.
Virginia: Weren’t they the ones with bed bugs all the time?
Bob: Yeah, they use to take the poor kids once a week and pour kerosene on their heads because the bugs were so bad. They were nice people. The state took them over. I think the Children’s Home in Mount Holly. Probably a third of the kids I grew up with ended up there because their parents couldn’t take care of them.
Virginia: Sweet Adeline’s…Do you remember where that was?
THS: No, I don’t know.
Virginia: That was an Italian restaurant.
Bob: Where CVS is now.
Virginia: It was a pizza parlor and my daughter worked there. Then it was Sweet Adeline’s. It was a restaurant and my mother use to take and do people’s laundry and I’d go pick up the clothes. Beulah’s Bar is now the Pub. I use to go in there and get the beer rags and her clothes and all.
THS: Beulah’s Bar?
Virginia: Yeah Beulah’s Bar…It was a hell hole.
THS: Wasn’t it something else before the pub?
Bob: Oh, it has been ten different people in there.
Virginia: Where the guy got hit with the bat what was it then?
THS: I thought, aren’t you talking about the Tabernacle Inn?
Virginia: No, the one across from Nixon’s. That was Beulah’s Bar.
Bob: It’s changed so many times. When we were kids in school, we’d go over there and stand on the fence to watch the activity out over there. They’d have dancing, they’d play music out there and they’d dance in the road, and then they’d have a fight and go back in and drink a little more and then they’d come out and play some more music. We’d go over there and that was entertainment for us kids. That was another rule, don’t ride over there on your bicycle. Soon as I left home, that’s where I went there to watch the show.
Virginia: At Goose Pond we used to skate up there. Spanish Villa that was Fett’s?
Bob: No that was across from it but it burned down. Next to Krantz’s was the Spanish Villa.
THS: Villa D was what the Tabernacle Inn was called.
Virginia: Right. Villa D that was a wild place.
THS: Yes, it was male strippers at one point in the ‘70s. Well, you’ve given us a whole lot of information.
Bob: I wrote down the properties I wanted to talk about. That’s a full list right there. You could find lots of information on that right there.
Virginia: Magleno’s is in our graveyard in the back and Bebe
Bob: Which one? The one that got killed that started the Emergency Squad?
Virginia: No, Fred Bebe’s two little boys that were walking on (Rt.) 206 and one was carrying a gun and killed the other one by accident.
Bob: That was the one who started the Emergency Squad. They had a meeting at our kitchen table after that (accident) because we couldn’t get an emergency squad to come because they were coming out of Vincentown and Mount Holly and boy had died right out on the road.
Virginia: It’s funny, you walk that graveyard and you see so many you knew. It’s like you really don’t want to see that, but they’re all there.
THS: Well, you’ve been here for your lifetime so.
Virginia: Well, it’s funny because I have a big family, but half my family doesn’t have a plot and I don’t know where they’re going. They should have got it early on like we did.
Bob: It’s a shame that we’re not going to be able to expand (Tabernacle Cemetery). This is gonna be the end of it because there’s too many rules and regulations today.
Virginia: The thing is with that graveyard is nobody wants to take it over.
THS: You have to put vaults in now.
Virginia: We use to get volunteers to help us, but we(‘d) go down and get the big dumpster for the Christmas clean-up and most of it we do it ourself because no one wants to volunteer.
Bob: I can’t really even get any cooperation from the township. It’s a shame and it’s not the present bodies to be; it’s some of the people you got running things in there right now.
THS: I guess you need publicity with this. You need to put it in their website and in the papers. Well, your gang knows about it, but our gang maybe not. Well, let’s wrap this up. We appreciate all your time today; and we’ll probably want to come back in another time. We’re also talking about it at the Historical Society meetings. So thank you very much for your time and all these materials we will take good care of them.
Obituary taken from the Courier-Post Newspaper, March 2, 2014
Robert D. Lees
Age 76 * Tabernacle
Robert “Bob” D. Lees, a lifelong resident of Tabernacle, passed away Friday, February 28, 2014 at 2:30pm. He was 76. Son of the late R. Donald and Madeline Lees. Bob was the husband of 42 years of Virginia “Ginny” (nee Bakely). He was the father of Virginia E (Brian) Hildebrandt.
Bob owned the Country Workshop with his wife, Ginny, for 30 years. He was a well-known self-employed building contractor. He worked for the U.S. Postal Service as a rural mail carrier from 1955-1966. Bob was an active member of the Tabernacle United Methodist Church, A current Chaplain of Methodist Men, a Trustee, a member of the Visitation Committee and a Greeter at the Church. He was a member and Past Master of Central Lodge #44m F & AM, Vincentown. He was a member of the Jr. Order of United American Mechanics Council #49, Tabernacle serving as Secretary, Trustee and Chaplain. He was Superintendent of the Jr. Mechanics Cemetery, Tabernacle. Bob was a charter member of Tabernacle Emergency Squad. He was a Past Officer and Member of the Medford Farms Emergency Squad. He was a member of the Tabernacle Historical Society and was well versed in the history of Tabernacle. Bob was an avid country dancer. Bob was always there to help whoever needed it.
Funeral Services will be Friday, March 7 at 11am at Lechner Funeral Home, 24 N. Main St., Medford. A viewing will be held Thursday evening, 6-9pm with a Masonic Service at 8pm and a Jr. Mechanices Service at 9pm, and Friday morning, 10-11am at the Lechner Funeral Home. Burial is in Jr. Mechanics Cemetery, Tabernacle. In lieu of flowers, contributions in Bob’s memory may be made to the Tabernacle UMC Bell Tower Fund, 166 Carranza Rd., Tabernacle, NJ 08088 or American Diabetes Assoc., 1060 Kings Hwy, N., Cherry Hill, NJ 08034.
Interview with Joan Spaeth Harper
Joan Spaeth Harper (age 73, moved to North Carolina)
Phone interview Nov., 2014 by Mary Ann Silvers
Joan gave the Tabernacle Historical Society original pictures of her father’s property which is now Camp Inawendiwin, Camden County Girl Scout Camp on Powell Place Road in Tabernacle, NJ.
Father’s name
Mother’s name
Joan
Donnie
Her father bought all the land that now is owned by the Girl Scout Camp as of 2014.
Joan’s paternal grandfather opened a sheet metal business in 1892 in Camden, NJ. The business was taken over by his son, ___________Spaeth (Joan’s father name) when he moved to Tabernacle, NJ. Joan’s father had a roofing, heating and sheet metal, iron works business in the Friendship Schoolhouse which was on Joan’s father’s property. We can tell this by looking closely to the picture of the extended roof with truck picture. __________________________(business name on truck) Joan’s father lived to be over 100 years old.
This original Friendship Schoolhouse is not the Friendship Schoolhouse that the Society takes care of which is located on Carranza Road and on Tabernacle Twp/Lenape Regional High School property as of 2014. Our Friendship Schoolhouse came from the town called Friendship located east on Carranza Road down passed the Carranza Monument. The area was called Sandy Ridge in Washington Township, NJ where there were cranberry and blueberry fields. Ezra Evans and Joshua Wills “started” the town of Friendship or what the locals called “going to the Quakers”. The children of the workers were educated at the Friendship Schoolhouse until 1918. They were then sent to Chatsworth for schooling. Howard Gerber, Gladys Alloway DeMarco and others lived in Tabernacle. When the school was closed, the building was used as a storage shed and a then a goat barn.
The Girl Scout camp property had a gristmill and outbuildings belonging to the Amity Cranberry Co. The gristmill was either torn down or weathered away. In 2013 the Girl Scout camp offered the old Amity Cranberry Co. office building to the historical society. It was too far gone to be salvaged. We have blurry photos of that building. The Society was in touch with the Girl Scout camp and turned it down. Really we had no place to put it and no funds to move and restore it.
Joan went to Tabernacle School which was located on Carranza Road. This schoolhouse is now Sequoia Alternative School for the Lenape District. (Sequoia moved out of building in 2017 when a car crashed into the right corner and broke through. Driver was speeding down Flyatt, injured; but alive.) When Joan went there, it was a four room, then a six room and then an eight room school. She called it Tabernacle “Tech” school. Joan graduated from Rancocas Valley High School in Mt. Holly in 1959. She noted that 1960 was the last class to graduate from RV. Was a new school built called by the same name? Was this when Shawnee started?
Joan pointed out that Russo’s Farm was Fletcher’s Dairy. Sometimes after school was let out, Joan and her brother, Donny, would go to the dairy for a bottle of milk. Sometimes they would ride their bikes to school. On the last days of school they would take their horse.
Interview with Gladys Myers
Present: Gladys Myers, Mary Ann Silvers, Pres. THS and Harry Silvers, photographer
Harry scanned pictures of Heinrich and Sarah Myer, along with their Marriage Certificate. He also scanned picture of Ethelbert (Bert) Haines, husband of Mary (Mame) Haines. Aunt Mame was Gladys’ aunt.
We interviewed Gladys Myers because she has relatives that are buried in the Tabernacle Cemetery and would like to have the ground replenished at the site of her grandparents and aunt. The tombstones are sinking. Row 34, Lot 3.
Gladys Evelyn Myer: Born November 4, 1927 and will be 91 years old on Nov 4, 2018.
Seems like she never married or had children. She never mentioned anything of the sort. Gladys was named after a pen pal that her mother had in the early 1920’s. Her mother put a note in with the cranberry boxes that were being shipped to the Midwest from the cranberry bogs on Stokes Road. A “Gladys” had written back and when Gladys Myer was born, her mother named her after this pen pal, Gladys. Gladys Myers did meet the pen pal when Gladys was in her early teens.
Gladys’ Grandparents and Aunt are buried in the Tabernacle Cemetery, Row 34, Lot 3
Heinrich (Henry) Myer came from O(hole in certificate)abruch, Heutschland, Germany, and settled in Folsom, NJ where there was a German settlement. He married Sarah Rolier from Folsom in 1878. Marriage registered in Philadelphia. Sarah died in 1943. See pictures of Heinrich & Sarah Myer and their Marriage Certificate. According to Gladys, Henry Myer established a church and bought farmland in or around Weymouth. It also seems that Henry bought land in Tabernacle which some people called the “Peach Farm”. According to Rick Franzen, maybe the Myers along with Ethelbert Haines owned the land where the Haas family home is now as of 2018. That’s between Powell Place Road and South Park. Rick said there was a farm on South Park Rd. called “Peach Farm”.
Gladys’ Father was Fred (just plain Fred) Myer and was a Chevrolet (Chevy) car dealer in Medford. He taught Gladys’ mother, Katherine (Catherine on birth certificate) E. LeMunyon, how to drive her father’s car; they fell in love and were married on November 3, 1923. They married in Maryland. Gladys said that her father had only 9 days of formal education. He started school when he was 8 years old. He told his father that it was not for him and quit after 9 days.
Glayds’ Aunt was Mary Haines, was also called Mame Haines. Mary married Ethelbert Haines. Mary is buried in Tabernacle Cemetery. Ethelbert may be buried in Medford or Folsom.
Tabernacle Historical Society 