When was that party? After World War 2?

Alice: Christmas of 1947.

Interviewer: Where was the party?

Alice: At Algoma, a home that had belonged to Gen. T.M. Logan and Kate Virginia Cox Logan. And that=s in Buckingham County. (Copy of photograph of Algoma shown below was made by Bill Giannini.)

Interviewer: And it was a very old house, too, wasn=t it?

Alice: Yes, very old and gorgeous. I understand it was built in the 1880's.

Interviewer: I was only in it once before it burned but I recall it had beautiful woodwork.

Alice: Yes beautiful woodwork and huge rooms and the old type bathtubs with feet and one was white with a bow fashioned in ceramics on the tub.

Interviewer: You said that the other day and I thought the ribbon was part of the Christmas decorations.

Alice: No, it was made into the porcelain of the tub.

And one of them had flowers on it.

Interviewer: How did the toilets flush?

Alice: I think they had the long pull chain.

Interviewer: And there would be a cistern up above that would contain water?

Alice: I think so.

Interviewer: Well you were invited to a party in this house and by this time, the Logans are not living there any longer, but a family from Tennessee owns the house?

Alice: They were the aunt and uncle of a good friend of mine who also came from Tennessee and she was a friend of mine from Scottsville High School.

Interviewer: And you were a junior.

Alice: No a sophomore.

Interviewer: But you had met the love of your life by that time?

Alice: Yes that= s right. We had been going together since his birthday in October.

Interviewer: The party was Christmas.

Alice: Yes and I found out that his father (Curt Giannini) was a gentleman I had known all of my life but I did not know his mother (Evelyn Fenwick Giannini).

Interviewer: And who was to be invited to the party?

Alice: The aunt and uncle invited about 10 older couples from the community and then there were about 75 of us high school friends And if you had one of us you had us all. And in those days you just didn=t go to Charlottesville to the movies. You had parties on Friday and Saturday nights. Normally dress was casual, however, the Algoma party was semi-formal. Girls wore evening gowns and boys wore suits.

Interviewer: But it was supposed to be sort of period wasn= t it?

Alice: No it wasn= t. But in those daysB 1947B evening gowns had hoop skirts and crinolines underneath. You had a crinoline with a hoop in it.

Interviewer: And that= s what we had. And did you tell me it was red?

Alice: No it was maroon. Kind of a dark maroon.

Interviewer: Alice has dark hair and pale complexion so she would have looked gorgeous in maroon. And she has green Irish eyes.

So where did you go to buy the dress?

Alice: To Charlottesville. And to this day I can not remember the name of the shop. But my mother took me to get the dress and while in Charlottesville my maternal grandmother, Cora Quick Roberts, was in the store and she insisted on going to buy the dress. I had no idea of what she would pick because she was an elderly person and conservative.

When I tried this on, Mother thought it was a little too low cut. It had a bertha and then underneath were tiny little puffed sleeves. It had a fitted bodice that came to a V and then the skirt flared out over the crinoline and hoop which was the fashion of the day. And it had little raised things-- rosebuds-- at the hem which allowed the petticoat to show. It was sexy.

Grandma insisted that was my dress.

Now this will surprise you. I think we paid $15. 95 for the dress.

And Grandma paid for it.

Interviewer: And what about your shoes?

Alice: I had ballet slippers.

Interviewer: They were wonderful weren= t they? Went with everything.

Alice: Bill and I drove to Algoma. It had snowed previously so there were just skiffs of snow on the ground and it was a moonlit night. We went and I had not seen Algoma.

Interviewer: Ever?

Alice: Ever. We had just started going together. And I had never been there.

It was just awesome to see that house. It was around Christmastime and there was a main hall as wide as the house and it had a huge stone fireplace which was lighted. And there was a huge Christmas tree. Then to the right of the hallway was a large room with oak paneled doors which went from floor to ceiling and they were opened. Then there was a five piece black orchestra in tuxes. A buffet supper was served.

It was like walking into a story book or a novel.

Interviewer: What other dresses do you remember?

Alice: To this day I cannot remember any one except the one the blonde wore. The girl who walked down the stairs I told you about.

Interviewer: Tell about that?

Alice: All of us high school girls thought we were the cat= s meow that evening until the daughter of the house came down the stairs. She was a model in New York. She had on a white satin fitted dress that was almost strapless and it was split up to her knee and she had on gold platform high heeled shoes. And we= d never seen anything like that.

And her hair was long and beautiful.

We just sort of paled beside her.

And this was the evening when I met Bill=s mother, Evelyn, my future mother in law. I had known his father all of my life. He had gone to school with my mother.

Interviewer: And she= s called Ecky isn=t she?

Alice: Yes.

Interviewer: Go back to your outfit. How did you have your hair? It= s short now, but I can see it was long.

Alice: I wore it long and kind of pulled back a little.

Interviewer: How late did you stay?

Alice: I think around midnight.

It was a weekend evening.

Interviewer: Did they serve a punch? I mean something with alcohol?

Alice: Oh no. No. No.

Interviewer: This was in the days when people didn= t drink.

Alice: That= s right. Particularly high school people. It= s so different now. But then the big no no for a high school student to drink was beer. And very few people did. It was something you just didn=t do. Only people considered not really nice people did that.

Interviewer: The people who really wanted to get expelled from school?

Alice: Yes. There were no drugs or hard liquor.

Interviewer: I don= t think there were bars.

Alice: not here anyway and when you dated you either have a wienie roast on Friday night or have a party and play games and dance to records. It was too expensive to drive to Charlottesville to the moviesB maybe once a month.

Interviewer: You had other things to do at home because kids had more chores and things around the house or the farm to do than they do now. Go back now to the big party. Did they have servants helping with that party?

Alice: No, the lady of the house did it all.

Interviewer: She did everything? All that cooking?

Alice: I don= t really know. The food was there and she may have had that catered or brought in.

There were lots of ladies here who cooked for people. They would make dishes, salads or desserts for people. Maybe that= s what she did. I don= t know.

It was just like going into a book of ante bellum times and then leaving.

It left an impression on me.

Interviewer: It left an impression on me too. You don= t remember any of the other dresses?

Alice: I don= t. I think there were hoop skirts. Christmasy colors, probably, emeralds and deep reds. And one of the boys who had graduated from Scottsville was going to VMI and he was wearing his dress military uniform.

Interviewer: Oh yes and you said it had a cape?

Alice: It was a short cape that was worn over the jacket and it was worn with part of it folded back off and it was red underneath. The uniform was gray. So it just added to the occasion...

Interviewer: I am still confused. You hadn=t gone to Scottsville School until high school?

Alice: That= s right we came back to Scottsville after the war and I went to Scottsville High School in my freshman year.

Interviewer: So you finished high school and you= d had 11 years of schooling?

Alice: That= s right. Bill graduated a year ahead of me and he had 11 years also but that included taking the sixth grade twice when they moved them from Howardsville school in the middle of the sixth grade.

Interviewer: You all were married then after you finished high school? And Bill was in the service by that time?

Alice: that= s right. The Air Force had a program at that time in which you served a year. You did your basic and then you got out and you were in the reserves for six years, so he did that while I was finishing high school.

Interviewer: And then you got married at Scottsville?

Alice: Yes, at the Methodist parsonage at Scottsville. The Rev. Jack Taylor performed the ceremony.

But Bill got home on June 6 from his basic training and I graduated May 30 and on July 6 he got a two page telegram recalling him. It came to the Howardsville Depot.

Interviewer: Where you all living then?

Alice: After we got married we were living with my mother and Bill had got a job.

Interviewer: But intending still to go to the University in the fall?

Alice: Yes and I was going to get a job. But then this telegram came and we packed up everything and headed to Coropolis PA. He was there something like a month and they offered him four years of regular duty for his six years of reserve. So one minute he resigned his reserve commission and signed in for four years. So we were there for two years I guess, and he went to Selfridge Field in Michigan and we were there from March to July of 1952 and he came to the Pentagon.

Interviewer: Well that was near your home because you had spent some time in Alexandria when your mother worked there during the war.

Alice: Oh yes. And he stayed there until August of 1954.

Interviewer: And that= s when he came down to the University and you told me you lived in Copeley Hill?

Alice: Yes. Old Copeley Hill. It was made of World War II barracks and World War II military trailers.

Interviewer: Was it furnished? Or you had to bring your own?

Alice: It was furnished. Now the barracks were furnished to a degree. There were two bedrooms, a bathroom, a small kitchen and a large living room. Well the living room had no furniture...

One bedroom had twin beds and one bedroom had a double bed and there was a table and chairs in the kitchen...and this huge living room. You almost could have put half this house in the living room.

Well, one day when I was at work, Bill went down to M.C. Thomas and bought a whole living room setB coffee table, chairs and a sofa and the lamps and a rug.

Interviewer: And you hadn=t seen it?

Alice: No.

Interviewer: And did you like it? Well you didn=t have much choice did you?

Alice: (Laughing) We had a TV and a window air conditioner. We=d had the air conditioner at the trailers. We already had a TV.

Interviewer: It was pretty lean living though wasn=t it?

Alice: Well actually not. I think we fared pretty well. One of the marketsB I think ReidsB which would let you run a tab and you could pay at the end of the month when you got your check. And they had a wonderful butcher. He would cut meat the way you wanted it. I mean there were occasions when you took pop bottles back for the deposit. Bill=s cousin and her husband were living up there B he was getting a doctorate in psychologyB and she would call and say I=ve got a can of peas, have you got something we could put with that? But that was rare.

The rent for the apartment was only $38 a month. I told that to some of the students who lived in Copeley Hill now and they could not believe it.

Plus they furnished our oil.

Interviewer: That=s right you used those oil heaters.

Interviewer: I was wondering how Bill got interested in geology?

Alice: He= s always been. He really was more interested in archeology, but he has always been interested in both. But he thought that archeology would be a hard field to get work in.

Interviewer: Yes I would think so.

Alice: Well that= s what we thought until he graduated and it took him from June to October to get a job. Cause that was the first oil slump.

Interviewer: And then you moved to Stephens City?

Alice: Actually to Winchester and we stayed there 16 years and then we came back home.

Interviewer: So we= re back home in Howardsville.

Alice: Now we= re back home.

Interviewer: Has it changed much Alice?

Alice: Oh yes. Howardsville has.

Interviewer: You were back here when the 1969 flood happened?

Alice: No, but we came home that weekend.

Interviewer: To see if it was still here?

Alice: And it wasn=t.

Just about everything we knew was goneB from Camille.

That was August of 1969.

Alice: It was a nice little bustling community before that flood. It wasn=t anything humongous. It had a couple of stores. A Post Office. The train station. There were quite a few families who lived there before the flood. I can count 11 families who lived here before the flood.

Interviewer: And they tended to interrelate didn=t they?

Alice: Right.

Interviewer: The families might tend to marry into each other or be connected in a community of that size?

Alice: Yes. That= s right.

Interviewer: To move forward just a bit. You all returned to this area to live and you settled first in Scottsville before your house here was ready. But you telling me yesterday that your own daughter chose to be married here in Howardsville.

Alice: She got married in the Methodist Church here in Howardsville.

Interviewer: But it is an unusual church. It sits high up on a bank and has very steep front steps coming down from the brick building. The building goes back to the mid-19th century (1854). And the bride decided she was going to be married in February.

Alice: Yes. Feb. 15.

(Vicki Bibb, Alice and Bill=s daughter has been listening to the story and the interviewer directs a question to her.)

Interviewer: And you were the first bride?

Vicki: There were four weddings which took place there [in the years after regular services ceased]. We were the fourth.

Marvin and Maxine Ripley were the third.

Interviewer: Tell me about the dress. White?

Vicki: Yes, it was white with a long train, V neck. Veil.

Interviewer: And why did you pick that church?

Vicki: It was home. I had spent a lot of time with my grandparents Curtis and Evelyn Fenwick Giannini up on the mountain and this was home.

Interviewer: But they didn= t want you to be married in February at that church because of the weather?

Vicki: They were worried about snow. They were afraid we would have snow up to our noses but the day turned out to be a beautiful day. It was so warm we didn=t even need winter coats.

It was one of those February days that is just gorgeous. We walked from Hunter and Mary Fenwick=s. That= s where I dressed. We walked around to the church.

Interviewer: And what colors were the attendants Peggy Houdyshell and Diane Pace in.

Vicki: Pink and burgundy.

The flower girl, Catherine Perryman, was in pale pink. And the ringbearers were Thomas Bibb and Darren Snapp.

Interviewer: And a reception. Tell about the reception.

Vicki: The reception was at the Tri-County Riding Club at Keene.

Interviewer: And is that sort of the party place around here.

Vicki: That= s sort of the closest place that has enough space to accommodate people. We=ve had lots of family gatherings there. Anniversary parties, birthday parties, retirement parties.

It= s just a nice place. It= s in the country. And it has parking.

Interviewer: Did you grow up knowing your husband Mr. Bibb?

Vicki: No, but this is funny. Our paths crossed. Our families were connected. ...

Interviewer: And then after the wedding did you all settle down in Charlottesville?

Vicki: He=s a musician and we traveled on the road together for almost two years and then settled in Charlottesville in 1977.

Interviewer: And you have a business

Vicki: Yes, Plantscapes Florist. We=ve been in business 25 years.

Interviewer: But your interest in flowers goes back further than that

Vicki: To my grandfather. Helping him in the summertime. In the yard, in the vegetable garden. He loved flowers too, and he knew as a gardener that you need a nice balance of both.

Interviewer: And that was your Giannini grandfather?

Alice: She never knew my father (Robert Lee Adams).

Interviewer: Of course. Your father died young at 46. (April 14, 1943.)

Alice: She did know my mother (Annie Myrtle Roberts, 1904-1962.) She was 10 when my mother died.

Interviewer: Alice= s mother sounds like a very courageous woman to me. To move to Alexandria in wartime and as a widow to raise two little girls.

Vicki: Yes, that would take a lot in that day and time. But of course most women had to step up to the plate in that time because men were gone to war.

Interviewer: But there was also a financial need there too. A widow wasn=t always left with a great deal... Social Security was new and it didn=t pay a great deal.

Alice: I think we got $11 apiece a month, but Daddy when he died in 1943 was making $15 a week Of course we were only paying $10 a month in rent and a can of peas cost ten cents

Interviewer: Tell me about your mother having to find a place to rent that would take children.

This when your family moved to Alexandria from Schuyler after your father= s death.

Alice: We had to live with aunts and uncles while Mother kept trying to find a place for us and

they wouldn= t rent to people with children. They would rent to people with pets, but not to people with children. Mother had been looking and looking and we= d been looking one entire day and we went to answer an ad and the lady said, A Absolutely not, we won= t take children.@

Well just then a woman came downstairs with a dog and Mother said, A You=ll take people with dogs but not people with children. Hold that apartment for me, I=ll be back.@

AIt won= t make any difference,@ the woman said. A We don= t take people with children.@

Mother got up and was going out the door and she said,@ I won= t have children when I come back. I= m taking them down and drowning them in the Potomac River.@

And we left.

I was worried all the way down the street that the police would come and arrest this woman who had threatened to drown her children.

Interviewer: You did find a place to live though?

Alice: On Duke Street extended and later at Prince and Fayette Streets.

Interviewer: Did you miss Schuyler much?

Alice: No I just adapted to city life. I had a lot to do. I had to learn to cook and I had to look after Joan (a sister who is five years younger) and take care of the house.

Mother worked seven days a week for almost two years. She was home at night but she worked every day.

Interviewer: And Joan is about five years younger.

Alice: She was born in 1938. She was five when Daddy died. I took her to school her first day and registered her.

Interviewer: And then after the war you all came back here?

Alice: Yes, Mother got a job in Scottsville at the rubber plant and I entered Scottsville High School and that= s where I met Bill Giannini.

...

Interviewer: And now you all are back hereC you said that a lot of family gathers here for holidays and occasions.

Alice: Oh yes. We gather for Easter and for the 4^th of July. There were 35 here for Easter Sunday dinner.

Interviewer: What was the biggest dinner you ever served here?

Vicki: I think maybe close to 50.

Alice: And mostly it= s family and maybe a few friends of family.

Interviewer: You mean all those people are related to you?

And these are Gianninis and Fenwicks?

Alice: Aunt Helen Fenwick used to come all the time. (Helen was Evelyn Fenwick Giannini= s sister) and then Aunt Mary, Hunter= s wife, and her daughter used to come.

Then most of the rest of them are on my sideB my sister Joan and her three children and their families plus my other sister= s five children and their families.

Interviewer: While the tape recorder was turned off, Alice and I discussed some homemaking procedures from years ago and I thought we ought to get them on the taped record.

I was not familiar with home canning in which you actually canned into tin cans. Alice was saying that her father used a large drum, cut a hole in it and made it a water bath for tin cans and that you got a topper from Sears with which you would top off the can.

How many quarts would your mother can, have you any idea?

Alice: Meats I don= t. I know there were a lot of tins. Glass jars, I know she= d do 100 quarts of green beans. She canned green beans, butter beans, corn, tomatoes, peaches, apples. She cooked sausage patties and put them into glass jars.

Interviewer: That must mean you butchered.

Alice:: Oh yes, I hated butchering. My job was grinding the sausage and Mother wanted it ground three times and that made the arm a little sore.

Interviewer: And you had sticky fingers.

Alice: She fed the grinder. She was afraid for me to feed the grinder.

When we did the smokehouse, Daddy smoked his hams with small hickory and sassafras twigs. They were rubbed with a brown sugar cure. He= d build a fire on the top of a tin on rocks in the smokehouse and he would build it and I kept it going. You had to cover your face just to go into the smokehouse.

To add sticks to this thing to keep it going all day.

Interviewer: Now he was doing hams?

Alice: Yes, he did what is called sugar cure. He mixed up brown sugar, black pepper and molasses plus other things. I= m not sure of the total ingredients. It was an awful looking mess, but it tasted good.

Interviewer: I am amazed at the amount of time that went into food preparation from gardening to canning to cooking.

Alice: You had to. Before we got electric we had an ice box and Dad had his own tongs and he used to bring a big block of ice from the commissary at Schuyler to put into the ice box.

Interviewer: (to Vicki) Your mother was saying that after they got electricity the first thing they bought was a Norge refrigerator.

Alice: My big first though after the electricity came was radio.

Interviewer: I agree. Do you remember Lum and Abner?

Alice: Yes, Fibber Magee and Molly, Bob Hope. Inner SanctumB the squeaking door.

Interviewer: What about bedtime? That was simple when there was no electricity.

Alice: We had oil lamps, but we didn= t stay up much past dark. And it was cold. It was colder then in the winters. I remember when it would snow in October.

It would snow enough that you wouldn= t see the ground until April.

Interviewer: And that was Schuyler. Your father gardened more than farmed, didn= t he?

Alice: Yes. He raised the vegetables that we ate and canned. My mother always made jams and preserves. We picked a lot of wild berriesB blackberries and strawberries. And we made apple butter.

Interviewer: Would you make that outside?

Alice: That really was big doings. Kids loved that because we got to stay up all night.

Interviewer: You had to stay out with the kettle?

Alice: Yes. The ladies would come B mother= s two sisters in laws, Grandma Roberts (maternal grandmother), my great auntB would come early in the morning. They would have been to the orchard and bought apples if they didn= t grow them. I think the apples were Winesap although the Albemarle pippin was another popular apple. But they would come really early and as soon as breakfast was over they would start peeling and they would peel all day. My great aunt had a copper kettle that was huge and sat on a wrought iron rack and it sat several feet off the ground. The kettle was just huge and there was a great big wooden paddle that you stirred with. Then when the men came home they would put the kettle on. They would start the fire and put the kettle into the rack and add the apples and put it onto the fire. They would stir it and cook it all night long. Then some time in the night they would add all these spices.

Interviewer: And that would turn it brown?

Alice: Yes and toward dawn it would be apple butter and they would jar it.

Interviewer: You didn= t have to put it into a cold bath?

Alice: I don= t think so. I think they just canned it hot and sealed it.

The kids loved staying up all night. All the kids would come. It was fun.

Interviewer: What about Thanksgiving? Did you have a big Thanksgiving?

Alice: Not like they do now. I can= t ever remember having turkey at Thanksgiving. We had roasted chicken, but not turkey.

Interviewer: I think the Thanksgiving turkey was something that came along about the end of the Depression. A boost to the farm economyB turkey for Thanksgiving. That= s about when Thanksgiving became a national holiday, I think. (Actually President Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving a national holiday.Editor's note.)

Alice: Our Christmases C we were talking about that earlier. Christmas you started out with your Christmas breakfast at home and with Santa Claus.

Interviewer: Did you believe in Santa Claus?

Alice: Oh yes, it was a real shock to me to find out there wasn=t one. And at a late age, let me tell you.

Interviewer: How late?

Alice: It must have been after Daddy died. I was almost 11 when he died. Mother told me because of Joan. Joan was five years old. We were living in an apartment by then and there was no way she was going to walk in with packages and not be seen. It was disappointing.

But now a days a child that old would have to be really naive to still believe.

Interviewer: I never believed in Santa Claus. You see I was an only child and I got adult status almost immediately. Everything was confided.

Alice: But you got citrus fruit. You never saw citrus fruit except at Christmas.

Like citrus fruitB lemons, limes, oranges. You never saw fruit except at Christmas. And we got candy made like fruits and we got toys. Every year I got a doll. One year I got a doll carriage and a doll. She had a Persian lamb fur coat.

It was a little doll. One year a table and chairs and a set of blue willow dishes.

Interviewer: Oh my.

Alice: I kept those dishes for years and then one year Mama let Joan play with them.

The set of dishes had a tureen and cups and saucers.

I don= t know how they managed that financially, but they did. We had nice Christmases.

The other thing was that right after breakfast and you had Santa Claus and presents, you were invited to somebody else= s house for lunch. And then dinnertime you went to someone else= s houseB until you had been to everybody= s house in the whole family.

And this went on all Christmas week. It was a time to show off your cooking and your best dishes, your best cakes and your best pies and your tablecloths and all your things.

Interviewer: Now this was pretty non alcoholic?

Alice: Oh yes. Mother and daddy made blackberry wine and that was the only thing I every knew Daddy to drink, except one night on a visit to his sister (Lucy Adams- Reese) in North Carolina when they brought out a jug of A white lightning .@ Other than that I never saw my father drink anything but a glass of wine with fruit cake.

In fact, I don= t think I ever saw a drunk person until I was nine or ten years old. I knew they did it, but I never saw them. Not in my family. Saturday night in Schuyler was like brawl time in the restaurant down there. I don= t remember the name. But you never saw that because you were at home. And they had the best hot dogs you ever ate. You could go there during the daytime and get a hot dog, but you did not go at night or over the weekend.

It was like a working man= s bar. There were pool tables. But there was a restaurant there. And you could get the best hot dogs. And we used to get one occasionally. It was down in Schuyler proper next to the post office and the commissary was across the way. It was like that song A You owe you soul to the company store?@ Well that was the company store. They owned most of the buildings so they got the rent. But they furnished you water, lightsB when electricity came-- and you paid a minium rent. And you bought whatever you needed. They had a pharmacy and a pharmacist. At one time they had a hospital and a doctor. The hospital folded during the Depression, but the doctor stayed on for a long time. But the hospital went.

Interviewer: Was he your father= s doctor?

Alice: Yes. He even paid house calls. I remember he came to see me twice.

I remember he came to the door and knocked. It was rare. Because you just didn= t go to the doctor. When there was a knock on the door I thought it was Uncle Tom Adams but it was the doctor who came in. I remember to this day the suit he had on. It was glen plaid.

Interviewer: And you knew you were sick, if the doctor came to your house.

Did the doctor give you a pill?

Alice: Maybe some aspirin because that= s about all there was.

And when I got blood poisoning in the back of my leg he came. I learned to ride a bike on the school grounds over there and there was an old barbed wire fence down and we were coming back with the bike and in getting over the fence, I snagged my leg and I had to go to the doctor and they treated it. This was in the days before penicillin. I sat with my foot up on a pillow for some days. And the doctor came to the house then.

But Uncle Tom did come. He came the first day of school and brought a calendar, a pencil, a tablet and a comic book.

Interviewer: And you were almost seven when you started school. Do you remember your teacher?

Alice: Yes, Miss Dorothy Moore. She taught school for many years.

Interviewer: And you could read when you started school?

Alice: Yes. Mother had wanted me to go when I was about to turn six. Here= s what happened someone moved in here with a son my age B same birthday. They allowed him to go to school.

Interviewer: But they didn=t allow you?

Alice: But he had been to nursery school up north somewhere so that was their reasoning.

Well Mother thought this was totally unfair. Mama could sometimes be like that, so she went to school with me on what was supposed to be my first day and Mama talked to the principal

I can see him yet. He was standing on the stage at the school and he had on a seersucker suit. Mama was talking to him about letting me go to school She argued the point but she lost, so she bought all the school books for first grade and taught me at home.

I am surprised that I wasn= t so bored in the real first grade.

Mama had been to the Kleinberg Academy and to Lynchburg College and she had been secretary to the dean of the medical school, so she could do it.

Interviewer: Then did they put you into the second grade?

No, that= s what you meant when you said you were surprised you weren=t bored to death in the first gradeB you= d been over the material with your mother.

Alice: Yes. Then when I did get to the second grade my teacher was Miss Valda Embrey. When I went to the second grade, Mr. Reid became principal at Schuyler. Mr. Reid and Miss Embrey started to court. Everybody knew about it and they eventually married and were happily married for many years.

My third grade teacher was Mrs. Thurman. My fourth grade teacher was Mrs. Strickland.

And that was the end of my career at Schuyler.

Interviewer: After that you went to Alexandria and you did all right?

Alice: Oh yes. I never got put back.

Interviewer: How big was the Schuyler School. Alan Bruns said his school at Howardsville was really tiny.

Alice: We had first through 11^th grades. About 20 students to a class so say 220 students. Kids came from Rockfish and Faber and the Glades all by school bus. If you lived within a mile of the school you had to walk.

Interviewer: It was much larger then than the Howardsville School (which was first through sixth grades).

Alice: And then they closed the Howardsville School and in mid-year and sent them all to Scottsville. Scottsville was a larger schoolB first through 11^th grade. It had about 400 students.

Interviewer: Bill said last night that Howardsville School was closed in mid year and they sent them to Scottsville for the second half of the sixth grade and then had them take it again. There must have been some reason to close mid-year. Maybe it was the war or gas rationing or something like that. Speaking of war do you remember where you were when Pearl Harbor happened?

Alice: Oh yes. We were in the living room at the apartments at Schuyler and Daddy was listening to the radio. He always listened to a program when we got back from church on Sundays.

He liked the music and he used to turn that on when Mama was preparing dinner.

And that= s when I heard it. Mama started crying and everyone started to run out of the house telling everyone else.

They had the sounds of planes and things coming on the radio.

Interviewer: Then did the school prepare for attack?

Alice: No. ... In Alexandria we had the blackout curtains and the warden used to come around and tell you if you had a light leaking. Then you did not see any traffic and no street lights and a military vehicle with hooded light. The only guards I remember were the Marines who lived on top of the torpedo plant to guard the torpedo plant. They had a big old bulldog that was their mascot and they had a basketball court and a tennis court.

When I would go to Aunt Gladys to take Aunt Mary walking we would see themB the ones not on duty-- playing and the dog running around barking. It was kind of strange.

Interviewer: Great aunt Mary?

Alice: Daddy= s aunt. She was a Davidson. She was a sister to my daddy= s mother.

Daddy= s grandfather was born in Virginia. His name was William Nelson and he was in the Civil War. Later the whole family moved to North Carolina and then they came to Virginia. Then sometime between my oldest sister been born in 1927 and me being born in 1932 they all went back to North Carolina except Daddy and Uncle Tom.

Interviewer: It= s interesting how families moved together and would go all the way to the west coast together.

Interviewer: Alice, I think we have done it. We have a good interview. Have you any thoughts you want to add.

Alice: Maybe I should tell you the minister story.

Interviewer: You had better or it will burn a hole in my curiosity.

Alice. You remember how the ministers would come around during the week and visit?

Interviewer: Yes.

Alice: I used to hate that and whenever Mr. Kessler came I hid. He had a famous saying. He would say, when he got ready to leave, A I guess I will take my hat and coat and pass on out.@

Well I would hid under the house when I saw him coming, but one day he caught me at the door and I said Mr. Kessler why don= t you take your hat and coat and pass on out.

Interviewer: There went another big switch off the tree. How old were you?

Alice: Oh definitely pre-school.

Both are laughing.

Interviewer: And on that I think we will take our hat and coat and pass on out.

(The Brunses have been visiting the Gianninis for two days and were preparing to return home that afternoon.)

Bill and Alice with their daughter Vicki and Vicki's husband Gary