Nash, Lila

Oral History #57 A

Interviewee: Lila Nash

Narrator:Holley Palmer

Tape#:57 A

Place of Interview: home of Lila Nash, 63 Bostwick Street.

Date: Feb. 1, 1985 (?)

Summary of Talk: Cradle roll from congregational Church, Great Fire of 1903, birth announcement in paper, Sunday school picnics at Twin lakes, district schools and Lakeville High School, school in the center of Salisbury, commuting to school, siblings, winter, frostbite, sledding, and Lakeville description. Lakeville train station, trestle and freight station, the lake, swimming, ice skating, ice cutting & ice houses, “The Patch”, playmates and fun, description of Robert’s Building, old Salisbury Bank building, Charity and Delia Fratts, Miss Josephine Cullen’s Milliner shop, silent movies at Robert’s Hall, elementary education, World War I, Girls Friendly Club, Lakeville High School graduates, class trip in 1921 to Washington, D.C. Wononsco House, cost of items on Washington trip total of $53,17th Annual conference of Chinese Student in the U.S. held at Hotchkiss School, American legion dance at Town Hall,

Property of the Oral History Project

The Salisbury Association at the Scoville Memorial Library

Salisbury, Ct. 06068

The first, 1985 this is Holly Palmer interviewing Lila Senior Nash. Lila has many scrapbooks of her life. We are going over the first one this afternoon. (Probably Jan. or Feb.) (This scrapbook is no longer extant.

Ed.)

HP:Lila, did you start this scrapbook or did your mother?

LN:I started it.

HP:You did. I love the pictures that you’ve got here, but you don’t have a baby picture, but you have

some things here. First of all let’s get you born.

LN:I was born December 7, 1903, in Salisbury, Ct. Therefore I was born in the year of the Great Fire,

and my birthday is on Pearl Harbor Day. One of the first things in my scrapbook I have the Cradle Roll Certificate.

HP:What church was that?

LN:That was the Congregational Sunday school. This is a Cradle Roll Certificate and this certifies

that Lila May Senior was born on December 7th, 1903 in Salisbury. I was immediately registered in the Cradle Roll of the Salisbury Congregational Church in Salisbury. It is signed by Hattie B. Norton and Thomas I. Norton. (John Calvin Goddard, Pastor signed it as well. Ed.)

HP:They were connected with the church.

LN:They were connected with the Sunday school. Thomas Lot Norton was known as “Uncle Tom”:

he was Superintendent of Sunday School for many years.

HP:Well, Lila when you were born in the early part of December, you were born in the house?

LN:Yes, my parents lived across from the Salisbury center, the Salisbury village. They lived in a

cottage on the opposite side of the main highway now.

HP:The day you were born there was this terrible fire there in Salisbury?

LN:No, it was the sameyear.

HP:Oh I see.

LN:The fire took place in the spring and I was born in December.

HP:Lightning must have struck the town the day you were born.

LN:But my mother told me that the fire leveled everything from St. Johns Church to the Academy:

it started in a tailor shop. She said the windows were so hot she could hardly touch them.

HP:My goodness. What is this, Lila, this darling little card you have here?

2.

LN:Oh, this is a little… it was send to me by the church when I was a baby. It is a little pamphlet

that was sent to my mother, “Where did you come from Baby dear?” etc.

HP:That was the new approach. Now this item here, was it from the local newspaper?

LN:This was in the local newspaper. “Mr. & Mrs. Ernest Senior are rejoicing over the arrival of a

daughter born Monday. She was a Monday Child Dec. 7th.”

HP: That would not have been called the Lakeville Journal then would it?

LN:No, no I don’t think so. I don’t know where this did come out of. It could have been the Journal, I

don’t know.

HP:Not many of us had a notice like that. You’re going to show us some pictures of you. You were

one of these children in this photograph?

LN: Yes, I’ m here, and this is my brother. This shows us where we used to go up to Twin lakes by train for the Sunday school picnics. This was taken at Twin lakes.

HP:Those Sunday school picnics were really something weren’t they? Something you looked

forward to. Are you the little girl with that big hair ribbon?

LN:That’s right. We always used to wear hair ribbons, don’t you remember? The girls all had hair

ribbons; you could see them in the school pictures.

HP:Now this picture here is the Lakeville Grade School on the steps of the Lakeville High School.

Where was that building?

LN:The Lakeville High School was situated where the Lakeville Post office is now. We started, you

know that there were 13 (14…Ed.) school districts, and we all ended up down in the Lakeville Grade School.

HP:Do you mean that you were going to elementary school in the same building as the high school

students?

LN:Yes, that’s right. This is the Lakeville High School.

HP:Can you remember any of the children in that picture? Can you tell me some?

LN:Oh yes, Dorothy Wheeler, Mary Bissell, Inez Peabody, who was my best friend, Clara Stone,

Marion Eggleston. There are many of them I know.

HP:You know what would be a nice thing to do is to list all of the people you can, put it down here

somewhere.

3.

LN:That I will do. We first went to the 13(14) district schools. I went to a little school located in

various parts of town. They were located thee to accommodate the smaller children who couldn’t, there was not transportation, so they had 13 (14) district school located where there was a population of small children. In that area we all went to that school for first and kindergarten.

HP:Now when you say there was no transportation, you mean of course that there were no school

buses as we know them today.

LN:Oh no, we all walked. My first school, when I was 5 or 6 years old, was up in Salisbury center, at

the center school where the Academy Building is now. That’s where about 30 of us went in that area. I stayed with my grandmother who lived up near the White Hart Inn during the week so that I could walk to the school because my parents lived down in Lakeville. We had no electricity in the building, we had no heat but a great big old black stove. We had no running water or fountain, so every morning before school opened; they would go to the watering kettle…

HP:Yes, of course.

LN:and get water and bring it over to the school for us to drink. That’s all we had to drink. But we

always walked to school, and it didn’t make any difference how deep the snow was, we had to be in school.

HP:Well, now Lila what did the children do that lived in Lakeville? What schools did they go to?

LN:As I said there were 13 district schools. There was one down on Town Hill, there was one near

Ore Hill, and there was one in Taconic and Amesville. There were 13 altogether.

HP:But where you were living in Lakeville, these were too far for you to walk.

LN:Well I couldn’t walk up to Salisbury Center.

HP:I understand that, but you couldn’t walk to the other school either.

LN:No, we weren’t supposed to. We were supposed to go to the schools that were in our area. It

was there to help the children in that area. That’s where we went-all the young children. Then we all ended up at the Lakeville High school after we got through the very first years.

HP:Did you like being with your grandmother during the week?

LN:Oh yes, I liked living with her. Yes, it was fun. Then I would go home. Sometimes I would take

the train.

HP:You took the train from Salisbury to Lakeville?

LN:And from Lakeville to Salisbury.

HP:How often did that train run?

4.

LN:Oh that ran every day. There was an 8:00 o’clock train, and they would put me on the train, and

I’d get off. Then I would go up to my grandmother’s house and stay. I’d go up Sunday night. Then Monday I’d go to school during the week.

HP: Just imagine being a commuter.

LN:Then sometimes my grandfather would drive me home with a horse and wagon.

HP:Your grandfather would take you back to Lakeville?

LN:Yeah.

HP:Now did your brothers go to the same school or were they older?

LN:Well, they were younger. They went to the same school. I had two brothers. There was Earl; we

used to call him Curly. Then I had a younger brother named Willard, but he died in infancy.

HP:Oh yes.

LN:he was very small.

HP:Now today is such a snowy day I was wondering what you would have been doing on a day like

today when you were 4, 5, or 6?

LN:Going to school

HP:Well now if it’s Friday afternoon, where would you play in the afternoon in Salisbury?

LN:We’d play around the house.

HP:Did you use sleds?

LN:Yes, we used sleds, but the snow never stopped. You must know the weather in those days was

a lot different than it is now. We had very big snowstorms and cold weather. We would sometimes get frostbitten.

HP:Do you remember getting frostbitten because you had to walk home from school?

LN:I remember one morning I got frostbitten, and my grandmother put me in a lot of cold water

which took care of that.

HP: Yes, that is what you do. It hurts, doesn’t it?

LN:A little bit, yes.

HP:but no such thing as calling school off.

5.

LN:Oh no, they never closed school. We would have to go to school if we had to plow through snow

up to our neck. Sometimes some of the kids would catch a ride to school on a milk sleigh, a milk truck, and a milk sled.

HP: The farmers were delivering milk, but they were doing it on a sled, (probably taking milk to the Borden creamery at Lime rock Ed.)

NL:On the sled

HP:The boys would catch a ride.

LN:And then they would catch a ride on the…

HP:That was fine in the morning, but not at night.

LN:No we had to get home, but we weren’t there all day. We were there at 9:00, and then I guess

we were out about 2:30 or 3.

HP:Where was the best place to slide down hill?

LN:When we were small, we didn’t do much downhill sliding, but when we were older and down at

the Lakeville Grade school, the best place to slide down hill was starting up by the Holley-Williams House; we’d go right down to the brook, Burton Brook.

HP:No cars to worry about.

LN:No cars to worry about. We used to have what they called “rippers”. (An 8 foot toboggan with 2

sets of runners; the front runners were movable so it could be steered and the back runners were stationery. This kind of sled could hold 6-8 children. Ed.) Sometimes there would be a lot of us going on one “ripper”. We got a good start up by the Hotel (Gateway Ed.) hotel and the Holley-Williams House and go down route 44 all the way down to where Burton Brook is now. Then it was quite a long ways back.

HP:Oh I guess so. I guess that was. Could you describe the village (Lakeville Ed.) as you remember

it? Were there any buildings that we would like to know about?

LN:Yes, there was the Holley Block, which was torn down.

HP:Now that was up across the street from the Holley-Williams House.

LN:Then down on what we call Park Square down across from the park, where the Hose Company

was which was a little bit of a building there. Across from that was the store Heaton & Barnett.

HP:Well, it wasn’t Heaton & Barnett when you were a little girl.

LN:Right, but there were stores there.

HP:Was there a grocery store in town?6.

LN:Oh yes, that was in the Holley Block and then there was Roberts Store.

HP:Which is where the Lakeville Cafe is now. (The Boathouse Ed.)

LN:Then across from that was the “Hub”, what we called the “Hub”. That was where Ma Dufour

catered to the Hotchkiss boys and the Salisbury School boys. Then there was Dufour’s garage right next to it which has been torn down, but the “Hub” still remains as the Salis-Lake Jewelry Store. (This building

was moved in August, 1985, and is now across from the Salisbury Bank & Trust Company trust building at the end of Bissell Street near the new Lakeville Journal building. Ed.) All the other buildings down to the Shell Station (Patco now ED.) have been torn down. Then there was the Western Union station where formerly it belonged to the harness shop. Then there was a little sewing shop with novelties and where they sold thread, and that was where Miss Stuart had her little shop. Then there was underneath that for a long time was “Bessie’s Lunch”.

HP:Oh I remember that. That was about the 1930’s, but what you were just describing would have

been about 1914-15.

LN:Yes, then there was the little Hose Co. which was very small in a little building, not very large.

Out in front of that was the watering trough where the horses stopped to drink. Then across from that was the store that afterwards became Heaton & Barnett. They sold furniture and had men’s clothing, and they had a 5 and dime store in one section. There was a man by the name of Herbert Beebe who did framing of pictures. Then there was another little store connected with that down below and that was a Chinese laundry. Do you remember Charlie Wing?

HP:No, I don’t of course…

LN:There was a Chinese laundry and next to it on the side was a little house where the Andrews

people lived. At the end of that house was Charlie Wing’s laundry. I remember Charlie wing. He used to give us things for Christmas. He’d have some Chinese tea…

HP:Oh how wonderful.

LN:We always looked forward to it.

HP:You liked it, yes. When you took this train from Salisbury to Lakeville, of course the tracks went

right up there on a trestle, and there was an underpass or a bridge going there. Did you get off at where the Nursing Association is now at the depot? (The station across from Mizza’s Pizza Ed.)

LN:Yes, that’s right. We always looked forward to going over that trestle. It was quite…

HP:Scary?

LN:Yes, it was scary. Sometimes we used to walk the trestle when the trains weren’t due, but we

always came down and stopped at what is now the Welfare building and the nurse’s building; that was

the station. Then over from that and above that and that road that leads to the lake that was the freight station.7.

HP:I remember that. That was near the swinging bridge.

LN:Right

HP:Now you were mentioning the lake, and I know that you lived in Lakeville. You told me that you

lived in a house that is no longer there and that it was called the Holley House.

LN:No, it wasn’t called the Holley House, but it was part of the Holley manufacturing Company.

They owned it because that was the time that the Holley manufacturing company was in full swing with their knives. My grandfather Senior and my father were both employed at the Holley Manufacturing Company.

HP:Was that near the warehouse for the railroad, the house that you lived in that is not there

anymore?

LN:No, it was right behind the Holley Block.

HP:Oh, alright, yes, now going to the lake in the summertime when you were a youngster. What

was it like at the lake when say you were 5 years old?

LN:Well, there was nothing there. It was the lake. There was just a little grove. There was one little

house where the boats were. The grove was there. They used to go over there swimming, but we never liked to go alone. I remember one time we went swimming, we didn’t have swimming suits then; we had on some kind of funny-looking outfits. My little brother and I went over on the trestle there right near Factory Pond. I remember we were trying to get in there. We were reaching for something, looking at some fish, and he fell in.

HP:Could he swim?

LN:No, he couldn’t swim, and I remember that I was able to get him out.

HP:That was something you didn’t tell your mother and father right away.

LN:Well, I couldn’t very well keep it from them because he was soaking wet. When we got home,

we both got spankings.

HP:I’ll bet you did.

LN:So everybody would go over swimming. There were no life guards. There was nothing there;

you just took your chances.

HP:In the wintertime was there ice skating?

LN:Yes, there was a lot of ice skating. It was lovely.

HP:Did they build fires?8.

LN:Yes, and I remember they used to do ice cutting on the lake.

HP: Yes, tell us about that.

LN:David Doty used to cut ice on the lake: that was before Frigidaires were prevalent. They had a

lot of ice houses around. There was one down on Walton Street where David Doty used to fill up his ice house. They would pack it with sawdust. They did the ice cutting. There were 2 or 3 of those (ice houses) around town.

HP:You had to put a card in your window saying “Ice Today”.

LN:Right.

HP:And they would stop and bring you ice.

LN:That was the way we had to keep food cold.

HP:That was when you were a little girl. Do you remember when your family got the first electric

refrigerator?

LN:No

HP:I remember when my grandmother got it; it was a big, big day.

LN:It was a big thing. No, I don’t remember that because we lived in two or three different places

before we went down to the house behind the Holley Block. We lived up on what we called “The Patch”. We moved from Salisbury where my mother and father lived to “The Patch”. Those houses were all for rent, and they were formerly used for the Davis Ore Mine company.

HP:Where was that?

LN:That was up where the Iron Masters Motor Lodge is.

HP:Oh yes.

LN:That was all an open field. There were about five houses left over that were for rent. We had

one of them, the one in the rear. Then there was a Perkins…

HP:They lived there in the big house? (Pastorale, now a private residence Ed.)

LN:Yes, in the big house. Then there was another house where another Perkins man lived, Mr. Will

Perkins who was a brother of Mr. Jon Perkins. Another house had a family of Booths. They had about 8 children.

HP:Oh lots of kids to play with.

9.

LN:There was another house where the Jones lived, and they had 9 kids. So there were about 21

children on “The Patch”. In the center of the houses was a big field. As I said the weather in those days was different from what it is today. We used to get some very hot summers. The kids on a hot night, the houses got pretty warm,

HP:I’ll bet they were no air conditioning.

LN:We all used to take a blanket and we’d all go out and sleep in the field.

HP:I’ll bet you played games together there in the field.

LN:Right, There were enough of us to do that, you see.

HP: What a good time you must have had.

LN:Yes, we had birthday parties with just the kids on “the patch”.

HP:You didn’t have any Girl Scouts at that time or Boy Scouts, or anything organized. You organized

your own fun.

LN:Yes, I never went belonged to Girl Scouts, but we did have Camp Fire Girls. I did get into that one

time. We made our own fun among ourselves on “the patch”.

HP:Well, that sounds like a lot of fun, and I bet you knew Betty has, Betty Perkins Haas.

LN:Elizabeth Perkins lived in the big house, and she was one of the crowd. Then we had-over

where she lives now-a family by the name of Cohen lived there. They raised William Hickey, Billy Hickey. He was brought up by the Cohen family, and he was also in the crowd. The Perkins has an apple orchard there. It was really quite a nice place.

HP:Oh it sounds like it. Lila, what is this program that is here in your book. It says,”Given toby

the Lakeville School”. Did you put on a play?

LN: We were always putting on plays.

HP:Where did you put your plays on, in the school?

LN:No, Robert’s Hall was our recreation building; in the high school we had no big room where you

could do these things.

HP:There was a big hall in the Robert’s Building on the second floor, was it?

LN:Third floor. The first floor was the grocery store and the dry goods store. On the second floor

there were offices, like Dr. Bartle was a dentist there. He was the school dentist; he took care of our teeth. He was on the second floor, and there was a beauty parlor on that floor.

10.

HP:This is the building that we are talking about that is right in the center of Lakeville where the

Lakeville Cafe is today. (Now it is the Boathouse Restaurant. Ed.) On the third floor was this great big hall

LN:A great big hall and that is where we had all our activities from the high school. We had our

proms, we had our plays, and we had our dances. That was where we had our center because there was no big room at the high school.

HP:It says here” A Perplexing Situation” that was the name of the play you put on in 1910.

LN:Right, the school…

HP:You have got people listed here: John Stuart was in it, Virginia fall, Miriam Everts, William

Raynford, oh dear

LN:Chester Johns and Marion Booth, now they were 2 of the people in “the Patch.”

HP:Now over here is something, oh no, this is the same thing I guess. This is a Christmas song that

you did. Well, everybody in town must have come to that, right?

LN:Right, yes this was the only recreation we had, it centered around…We put on all that.

HP:And a piano duet with singers. Well, let’s go to the next page and see what you’ve got here.

Whoops wait a minute. OK You were a mathematician in 1914. Tell us about that.

LN:I was 10 years old. I received a certificate of proficiency in arithmetic for performing the 400

rules of arithmetic.

HP:Right including fractions with accuracy and rapidity.

LN:Right this is signed the 8th day of June, 1914, in the town of Salisbury. Then it is signed by Miss

Cleaveland. She was the teacher.

HP:And this is either the principal or …C.L. Warner.

LN:That’s right C.L. Warner; he was the Superintendent of Schools.

HP:Well now what is this little thing?”— My children are at the child’s own mother as she stood

there just before she died.” What about this?

LN:Well, this was given to me {this is a picture of the child} by a lady by the name of Charity Fratts.

They lived over the bank, the Salisbury bank (now the founders Insurance Co. Ed.) There were 2 sisters Delia Fratts and Charity Fratts; they were elderly women, and I used to, when I lived down in the Holley house back of the Holley Block, go across the street and visit them. Up in that same building there was a

11.

milliner shop, and these two old ladies had an apartment on that floor and across the way from the milliner’s shop run by Miss Josephine Cullen. I had…

HP:She did hats, too, didn’t she?

LN:She did hats. I have her looking glass that she had in her milliner shop.

HP:I have a little advertisement that she had-framed. You say here, “Always to keep and not

destroy”. Well, I would say that you are keeping it.

LN:Well, I think it was just something that the old ladies…

HP:Well, I think it is just darling.

LN:gave me to make me feel good.

HP:Now we go to 1915, 1917. Lila, this is around the war. The stamp was 2 cents and a letter from

the Edison Studios.

LN:When you got to that age, you went to the silent movies, and you got to see these actors. So I

wrote to this boy…

HP:His name was Andy Clark.

LN:Andy Clark and he wrote me a letter…

HP:Wasn’t that nice.

LN:from the Edison Studios.

HP:Now you didn’t…Had you seen these shorts (films) here in Lakeville?

LN:Yes

HP:Wheredidyougo?

LN:We used to see movies, silent movies at Robert’s Hall.

HP:I see.

LN:We used to go there to see silent movies, and there would be a piano player. One of them was

Margaret Spurr who played the piano. You would have a newsreel, a comedy and then another movie.

HP:Well, that’s fun. That is what you did with your time. Now here you have from Salisbury Public

Schools: “This certifies that Lila May Senior has satisfactorily completed the course of study for the grammar department of Salisbury Public Schools and is entitled to this testimonial.” I see C. L. Warner signed this.

LN:He was the Supervisor, Charles Warner.12.

HP:This was in 1917.

LN:1917, and it is signed by Elizabeth Currier, the teacher.

HP:Now you’re going to High school, right? When you finished this, you went to high school.

LN:I went to high school.

HP:Now here we’re in 1918 in the first World War. Rose leaves from France you have here.

Somebody sent them to you from there?

LN:Yes. Well, during the First World War we used to write to the different soldiers, and we would

send them things like cigarettes or…then I had these…

HP:You’ve got a collection of answers alright.

LN:Yes, I’ve got a collection of answers. I got these rose leaves when they went to France.

HP:This is a Frank H., a cartoonist.

LN:He was a cartoonist from a Chicago paper. He was from Chicago and he was a cartoonist. He

made up all these things, and he sent them to me.

HP:What is this drawing over here?

LN:This is a cartoon that he sent from France.

HP:From France, oh boy! “Lizzie Sweet alias Lila Senior” Which one are you supposed to be, this

one?

LN:I am supposed to be this one. I used to get the mail, and when the letters would come, they

were addressed to “Miss Lizzie Sweet, Lakeville”. The Post Master got used to who that was.

HP:He knew it was Lila. My goodness, you were something, weren’t you! You still are. Let’s go on

with more of these postcards you got from soldiers.

LN:Well, I got-you remember Bill Raynsford?

HP:Yes, He sent you one. Here’s one signed Bill. I guess it must be.

LN:This card came from Honolulu. He was stationed in Honolulu. These were all cards from the

different people. I don’t know…

HP:This says “Miss Fearless & CO.” the Friendly club. Tell us about the Friendly Club.

13.

LN:Oh yes, the Friendly club was where the Masonic Building is now. (41 Sharon Road Ed.) That

was called the Girls Friendly club; that was one thing among our recreation in town. It was started by Mrs. Joseph Parsons and the Milmines.

HP:OK so you put on plays there, didn’t you?

LN:We had little plays there, and we used to meet there at the Girls Friendly Club.

HP:So how old wee you then, was it high school?

LN:This was high school.

HP:Well, this play you put on, it says, “You’re just Lizzie, the ghost-Lila Senior.”

LN:Right, the others were all older people and they just had to have a smaller girl.

HP:You’ve got Marion Bartram, was it, and Mrs. Heffernan, Allen Judd, and Florence Cleaveland,

and these are all the guests.

LN:Who was that first one?

HP:Marion Bartram

LN:Who was the next one?

HP:Mary Largen

LN:Oh yes, Mary Largen used to work in Robert’s store. They were all young girls then; all gone

now.

HP:Here we have the graduation from Lakeville High School. Here are the graduates: John Dubois,

Ernie Goddard, Tryphena Evarts, and Terry Soules.

LN:it seems to me that Tryphena Everts is the only one left of that group; all the rest are gone.

Terrance Solan just died this past year. What year was that?

HP:I don’t know. You’re not in this graduating class.

LN:Oh no.

HP:You must be over here. No that’s the eighth grade with Josephine Bohlmann.

LN:That tells about the different ones who are in…

HP:Maybe you’re in the next one-graduates of the high school. In those days, now let’s see. Is this

right? Just 4 people graduated?

LN:Just four people graduated in 1920. That was the year before I graduated.14.

HP: Then over here in this other year, we have only 9 people that graduated.

LN:That’s right. There’s only 4 here; we had a lot of drop outs in those days. I remember when we

started out, my first year there were 30 of us in the class, and by the time the 1921 graduating class ended up with only 3 of us: myself, William Barnett and Inez Peabody.

HP. Oh for heaven’s sake and they put on their regular graduation for you three?

LN:Oh yes, we all had the proper tone.

HP:Now tell me about your class trip in 1921.

LN:Well, we were the first class to go to Washington, D.C. We had a Miss Pendleton, a teacher,

who went with us. There was a teacher and the three of us.

HP:isn’t that exciting!

LN:We gave a play to raise money for our expenses. We went to Washington, D.C. and on the way

we stopped in New York, and went up the Statue of Liberty. Then we went on to Washington, D.C. The whole trip cost us $53.

HP:Can you imagine that? So there were altogether about 5 of you that went. This says 1921 here.

LN:That was when there were 3 of us in class and the teacher.

HP:Now this is the picture of the high school. I remember that building; this is 1921.

LN:Yes, we were entertained at the Wononsco House.

HP:Now where was that?

LN:That’s up on across up next to the Holley-Williams House.

HP:That’s what they tore down eventually.

LN:They tore that down. It was a summer inn. That’s where Inez Peabody was, and I was up there

most of the time so Inez Peabody, who was in our class, had us up there for a graduation luncheon.

HP:Oh my goodness, that’s what you ate there; this is your commencement, your senior class, at

Robert’s Hall. So you never had a graduation in your own building.

LN:No we didn’t, no.

HP:Here we are with, yes, William Barnett, Lila Senior, and Inez Peabody-only the three of you.

15.

LN:Only 3 of us and there were 30 when we started, but that was the time when they changed it

from a 3 year high school term to a four year. So there were many drop outs; there were 27 who dropped and didn’t get to graduate.

HP:Now a lot of people would like to read this Lila to find out the names of some of these people I

recognize in the lower grades.

LN:Here’s the 8th graders.

HP:Here’s Hoppy Rudd.

LN:Hoppy Rudd, Donald Parsons, Alice Dubois, Frances Branch. Amelia Rossiter who still lives,

Ed and Lester Patchen.

HP:Where? Oh yes, Oh, he’s in 8th grade; you’re giving graduates of the 8th grade.

LN;Here’s Oscar Lovett who lives in Lime rock. He used to work for the town.

HP:Oh that’s wonderful. Now what do we have on the next page?

LN:This is the bill that I had from the Washington trip.

HP:You kept a record of how much you spent for everything.

LN:Everything and we could get our meals in those days for about $.75.

HP:Now this was individual; trolley $.08.

LN:We had souvenirs.

HP:Cafeteria $.65, you say right here.

LN:Breakfast at Child’s $.25

HP:Trolley to the Capitol $.10

HP:Cafeteria $.65 boat to Mount Vernon $1.10, eats on the boat $.55 Supper $.75

HP:Then you paid your hotel bill $5.75.

LN:The fare from Washington to New York was $8.79. The total was $53.00

HP:Right, you’ve got it there in black and white. Did you and Bill Barnett talk about that afterwards

for a long time?

LN:Yes

16.

HP:It made such an impression on both of you, I should imagine.

LN:Yes

HP:Are these graduates or signature of people…

LN:This is a conference. It was held at Hotchkiss School to which I was invited and some of the local

people.

HP:Here is a ball.

LN:This is a ball, the 17th Annual Conference of Chinese Students in the United States.

HP:Did they have Chinese students going to Hotchkiss in 1921?

LN:Well, they had some, and they had them all over the country, and up in Ithaca, at Cornell and all

around. It was in that day and in that time all the Chinese students who came over here to get an education in American colleges had to go back to China. They were not allowed to stay here. They had conferences before they went. This year 1921, September 13, they had the conference at Hotchkiss School.

HP:That’s when they had dances, and they gave out little cards and you signed up the people you

danced with.

LN:That’s right and I went up…

HP:Now tell me about some of these people; Henry, Terry…

LN:They were all Chinese student, and Alfred tong was the Chinese student that I went with. Miss

Margaret Williams was our chaperon at that time. When they were talking about the Chinese people that came here…

HP:Oh you did tell us about that.

LN:That summer they had all the Chinese people here, and I said after the conference, we had 2

Chinese students stay here for a couple of days. I got a girl friend and another and myself, and we went out with them. They wanted to go to a dance in Salisbury. We said that we would take them. Fortunately that Saturday night they were having a dance up in the Town Hall. It was the old fashioned dances, the round dances and the square dances. So we went in. I remember that George Barton and George Belcher, George Barton was the Post Master then and George Belcher worked up front. They were in the American Legion. The American legion was giving it. When we went in, they were on the door.

HP:I bet they wondered where you got Chinese escorts.

LN:Yes, they did. George Barton called me over and said, “Lila, you can’t bring these boys in here.”

HP:Oh dear, discrimination.

17.

LN:And I said, “Why not?” They said, “Because you can’t. You can come in, but you can’t bring those

fellows with you.” Anyway I went right in with them.

HP:Good for you!

LN:We started to dance. You know everybody in the hall sat down.

HP:What a humiliation!

LN:Right and we were the only ones dancing on the floor, and after a while we left. I have often

thought that, that I went in with them.

HP:I’m glad you did what you did.

LN:Today it is a different story.

HP:It certainly is. Did you tell the Chinese that were visiting us in 1984 about that situation?

LN:No, I didn’t; I thought about it, but I didn’t.

HP:Just as well we forget that maybe, but it did exist, didn’t it?

LN:Yes, I always gave myself credit for doing that.