WEBVTT
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Barrett: You say [inaudible] O'Connor: Well, I was just telling you that
the length of time. Barrett: Right. O'Connor: And I was oh, I was so happy
in that job. We had we had a suite of offices and we were off by ourselves.
Nobody to bother us. In one. We. I took a week's
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Vacation at Christmas time, and I went to New York for a week. And I could
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O'Connor: See I'd had it. I had had an eye examination in October.
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And I talked to Dr. Udo and he told me I had
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O'Connor: 20 over 20 vision with glasses. And I, usually lunch with Betty
Mealey, a friend of mine. And I said, I'm going to buy your lunch today. I
just had an eye examination. I have 20 over 20 vision with glasses.
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I'm going to buy you lunch. She said, okay, so we went to [inaudible]. And
that was--
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O'Connor: in October. And I went to New York, for that week. I went back
to [inaudible][??].
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And my brother and my niece's husband took me to the plane to come home.
And when I got off the plane, I couldn't see.
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Barrett: Did they ever-- were they ever-- ever able to figure out what
happened? O'Connor: Well,
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O'Connor: Yes. The blood vessels behind the retinas had hemorrhaged while
I was on the plane. And there's nothing-- you can't do anything about blood
vessels. Barrett: Yeah O'Connor: But you look at me, you wouldn't know I
was--
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Barrett: Yeah, I didn't realize at first--
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O'Connor: Because it's the eye, the redness, the blood vessels. So I went
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O'Connor: into the hospital for three weeks. They couldn't do anything for
me and then the [inaudible] picked me up. You know, gave me the--
benefits. Barrett: Yes. O'Connor: I don't get blind pensions because I have
too much income. Barrett: Yes.
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Barrett: But you're living in the house now where you grew up early? Is
that right? O'Connor: Yes. Barrett: Your family's home?
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O'Connor: No. The first home was on Ann or Anne[??] Street in Homestead.
We bought this house in, 1929, just about three months before the crash.
And if we had waited-- if my mother and father had waited another six
months-- we paid $8,100 for this house, they could have gotten it for 5000.
Barrett: Yeah. Yeah. O'Connor: And my mother and father had-- they had
about $6,000
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approximately to put down on the house. And then the-- along came the
Depression. And then they had
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O'Connor: that homeowner's loan.
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Barrett: Did you ever hear? Barrett: Yes, I know what you mean. Part of
the New Deal.
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O'Connor: And my mother never missed a trip. So she went and applied for
that to pay the other-- the balance.
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And they gave it to her. And she-- they paid my mother and father paid $52
a month to homeowner's loan. And they came into this house. It was a-- a
contractor, and it was--
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O'Connor: This house was all renovated without any cost to us. Through the
homeowner's loan. Barrett: Yeah. O'Connor: They put a new roof on. And they
did all kinds of other work in the house. [Coughs]
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O'Connor: Through the homeowner's loan. Barrett: How did your mom and dad
feel about Roosevelt, or how did you feel, for that matter? Uh, this is--
this is something which he is responsible for, to some extent. Well, I
thought
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O'Connor: that was the best thing that he ever did. But do you know, that
we had friends-- and we thought they were pretty well to do-- That did not
make their monthly payments. They thought, oh, the government will never
take our house. But the government did take their house. It was two very
close-- Three close families of ours lost their house. There was Culverts
and Platitudes[??] and I think McWilliams, and they just were careless.
Every month I went to Mellon Bank in downtown Pittsburgh, paid that-- took
the book with me-- paid that $52.
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Barrett: How did your mom and dad handle the [uhm] the family budget when
your dad was out of work? Did-- did all of your kids just put the money
together into one--?
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O'Connor: My mother. My mother took all our money. But we got, you know,
we always got plenty back, you know, and we always were very well dressed.
But she took the money, until my brothers got married. And the last two
months before they would get married, she would let them keep that money.
Yeah, she would let them keep their full pay. Barrett: So that
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Barrett: they'd have a start when they got married.
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Had plenty of money. Yeah. O'Connor: And then, of course. Oh, I guess she
did other things to help.
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Barrett: Did either of your parents ever get interested in politics after
the United States?
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O'Connor: My brother Pat, the one who was the justice of the peace.
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O'Connor: He's the only one that did. Barrett: And was that regular
Democratic-- O'Connor: Yes. Barrett: Party politics? O'Connor: Yeah.
Barrett: And did your-- [stammering] is that your family's politics? I
mean, generally--? O'Connor: Yes. Barrett: Regular Democrat--. O'Connor:
Yeah.
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O'Connor: My-- Now, I'll tell you about my other brothers. You want me to
tell? Barrett: Yes, I
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Barrett: would.
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O'Connor: My brother Pat. My brother James went with Lloyd's of London.
Then, my brother Pat was the real estate insurance. He had his own real
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estate insurance business, and was justice of the peace for Bradock.
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O'Connor: He got that on both tickets, both Republican and Democrat. He's
very popular man. And he did a lot of the
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work for these
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O'Connor: men that, you know, they were just-- they had no homes. And
the-- Federal government that was giving them welfare-- They would say,
give that to him. They would make the check out to him, and he would make
sure that wherever they had rooms, that the rent was paid, that they were
clothed and that-- and then he would deposit so much in these little
restaurants, and these men could go in there and get--. See, they were they
were drinking their money. Barrett: Yeah. Yeah. O'Connor: And the federal
government-- government asked him if he would do that, take that
responsibility.
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Barrett: He administered the funds for the funds--.
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O'Connor: So you know how well thought of he was.
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Barrett: Yeah. Yeah. Because these fellows felt that he was kind of taking
care of them.
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O'Connor: Yes, because they were being taken by, you know-- You know, some
women will latch on to them and take their, you know, their money and so
forth. So they-- then he would give them a little bit of change every day,
so they'd have jingling money in their pockets. Barrett: Yeah.
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O'Connor: So that's what he did. Then my-- I told you about my sister-- my
two sisters and about myself and my next
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O'Connor: brother, John. He was the only one went into the mill to work.
And they said he was just as good as my father had been over in Scotland.
He was a real expert and they would call him from all different parts of
the mill. Other men told me this-- he didn't tell me-- to come to
straighten something out. Barrett: Yeah. O'Connor: And they had slabs that
were numbered and they would look and look and look maybe for a whole day
or something, and no one could find it. Then, they'd sent for him to his
mill and his. This man by the name of Graham-- he was a superintendent down
there-- He said, Scotty, you have eyes in your ass. That was-- Barrett: You
could find things. O'Connor: You could find at least, you know, different
slabs that they needed.
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Barrett: What was his job in the mill? Do you know? Was he a roller?
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O'Connor: Well, I guess he was something like a roller.
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Barrett: Yeah, some kind of skill job. O'Connor: Yes. Barrett: Yeah. And
did he work at that all his life? O'Connor: Yes.
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O'Connor: He worked at it all-- all of his life, until-- periodically, he
would get kidney stones. And he was always in and out of the hospital with
his kidney stones. He suffered terribly. Barrett: Yeah. O'Connor: Then
finally, they. They took the one kidney out. Barrett: Yes. O'Connor: And,
then, he was a great smoker. And he would smoke and smoke and he got cancer
of
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The tongue. He had to have his tongue removed, and his jaw or job[??].
Well, then, they put him on disability pension.
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Barrett: And when was that? I'm trying to figure out when he worked in the
mill.
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Well, he worked in the mill from-- Well he died in 1929. And he worked for
the mill from the time he was still in High School.
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Barrett: When your dad worked in the mill in Scotland. I'm wondering how
much of a change it was for him to come here and to--.
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O'Connor: It was a great let down. Because we-- we had the-- we had the--
the finest house in Scotland. It was-- and we had the town clock in our
home. You know, he was the big man. Barrett: Yeah.
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Barrett: Because he was superintendent of the mill.
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O'Connor: Yes. Yeah, it's a it's a very small mill, but Mr. Kennedy owned
it. And then my father-- Then we would go to the-- A place called
Saltcoats-- it was on the seashore. We go there in the summertime,
weekends. And then my father was a great gambler. He and Mr. Canby, you
know, they were, you know, on an equal basis. And Mr. Canby and he would go
to Scotland, and they would, you know, play the horses and, you know, do do
the wrong thing or own thing[??]. And at my Aunt Mary- she had never
married and she lived with us--
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And Mary McCann was my mother's maiden name. And my mother and she
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O'Connor: would take all of us to Scotland. We had owned a place in
Scotland by the seashore. I mean, in Saltcoats. It was right on the on the
seashore. And we would go there all summer or we would, go weekends, and my
father would go to Glasgow.
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Barrett: So it must have been a terrible disappointment to your dad to
come here
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and--. O'Connor: It was. He was-- he didn't work for about maybe eighteen
years before he died.
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Barrett: At the time that your dad was working in the mill, a lot of the
other men that were doing similar work were Slavic immigrants like Polish
and Slovak. O'Connor: Yes. Barrett: Was your part of town-- you know, where
you lived in Homestead at that time, what was the neighborhood like?
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Barrett: What kind of people did you live with? O'Connor: Well, for
instance, the the mayor of Homestead lived next door to us. So it was a
double house and it was, you know. There was a basement kitchen, and then
there was-- That's where the
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cooking was on. Barrett: Yeah. O'Connor: And then there were the living
room and dining room upstairs. And they had a dumbwaiter or something like
that. And then they had-- We had
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O'Connor: bedrooms about 3 or 4 bedrooms, you know, on the second floor.
And then there was the attic. It was almost four stories.
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Barrett: That sounds like--.
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O'Connor: It's been torn
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O'Connor: down and demolished. Barrett: Was it an old frame house?
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O'Connor: Yes, it was a frame house.
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And there was a little narrow porch in the front. And then there was a back
porch.
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Barrett: So this is not the kind of neighborhood where, like, let's say,
a
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Polish laborer in the mill would be living. O'Connor: No, they weren't.
They were mostly--. Barrett: Along the tracks.
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O'Connor: They lived down below the tracks.
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Barrett: And this was, you said, on Anne Street.
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O'Connor: On Anne Street in Homestead. And it's-- You know where Savior
Imago's Church is? Barrett: Yes. O'Connor: Well, it was-- We faced the
park. You know that Frick Park? Barrett: Yeah. O'Connor: Well, it was
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O'Connor: in that neighborhood. Barrett: So, that's pretty nice. O'Connor:
Yes. Barrett: And what what what kind of people lived there? What did your
neighbors do? You mentioned one was-- one
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was the mayor of the town. O'Connor: Well, he was mayor of the town, and
then there was a--
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O'Connor: Mr. Caldwell. He was a schoolteacher. He had about three
children. And his daughter Florence and I were good friends. What did he do
to you?
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Barrett: No, I'm fine. I'm just finishing, thanks.
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O'Connor: That sort of, you know--.
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Mostly, they were in real estate and they were here--
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O'Connor: Well, they weren't really mill workers that lived around us.
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Barrett: How did how did your mom and dad manage to make the ends meet
then, with just everybody working together like that? O'Connor: Yes.
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Barrett: All the kids and everything. O'Connor: We were never-- We never--
We were never poor, you know, you might say. Barrett: Yeah O'Connor: We
were never destitute. My mother was the manager.
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Barrett: Yeah, that sounds kind of common, that it was-- it was the mom
that had to kind of run the house. So that means that she took care of the
budget, family budget.
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O'Connor: She took all the money and then she distributed it.
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Barrett: Yeah. And always managed to make it work somehow. O'Connor:
That's right. Barrett: I'm realizing that there were a couple of things I
forgot to ask you, and it's making me lose track. What year were you born
in? O'Connor: Oh.
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O'Connor: No, I'm not going to tell you.
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Barrett: Okay, how about-- How about a rough-- Were you a little girl when
they came in 1913 to the US--? O'Connor: Yes. Barrett: --Okay.
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O'Connor: You can figure that out.
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Barrett: That's good enough then. Yeah, that's fine. So then you really--
you had-- you traveled a little bit while you were working, but mostly you
grew up and spent your life in Homestead. O'Connor: Yes.
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O'Connor: And then in 19
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29, we bought this house. We paid $8,100 for it. My mother had--
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O'Connor: I always say my mother because she had all my money, but they
had, you know, over $5,000 and put it down on the house, too. So the
mortgage would be,
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O'Connor: so high. Barrett: And everyone was still at home here with you
at that time. O'Connor: Well, they were leaving.
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O'Connor: They were leaving, and we weren't in here too long. So there was
really no one here but my brother John and I. You know, that's when they
started to get married. They all got married close together. Barrett:
Yeah.
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Barrett: Something happened to my family. Everybody got married at one
time--.
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O'Connor: The reason they bought the house was so we'd have room. You
know, lots of room. Barrett: Yeah. O'Connor: See, we have two beautiful
rooms up on the third floor here and-- And a complete apartment on
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the second floor-- Furnished apartment-- and then this place. So we had
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O'Connor: lots and lots because those rooms were bedrooms.
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Barrett: And what-- what did you-- what did your your life revolve around
while you lived in Homestead? I mean, how, for example, how important was
the church and what kind of other organizations did you belong to?
O'Connor: Well.
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O'Connor: The church was very important. You know, we'd go to benediction
at night, you know.
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Like on a Friday night, and go to benediction on Sunday night and, you
know, maybe walk around with
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O'Connor: boys or, you know, just have dates.
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Barrett: It was a way to socialize as
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well as--. O'Connor: We would go to Kennywood. You know, Kennywood was not
a rough spot then. A nice place to go.
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Barrett: What did they have there? What would you do when you went up?
O'Connor: Kennywood? Barrett: Yeah. I mean, did-- O'Connor: They had those
Ferris wheels.
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O'Connor: They didn't have these, you know, dangerous things. Just the
merry go round, Ferris wheels, the, the, the rowboats. You know, we go out
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O'Connor: on the lake. Barrett: Somebody told me that at one time they had
dancing. O'Connor: And
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then they had a dance hall and-- Oh, that was wonderful.
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Barrett: So a lot, a lot of the young people would go up there.
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O'Connor: Everybody went to Kennywood.
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Barrett: Was that mixed up ethnically? I mean, like with people from all
over the town-- all different nationalities.
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O'Connor: Homestead, West Homestead and Munhall. There wasn't Homestead
Park then. Homestead Park was not. Homestead Park was undermined. Coal
mine, and Mr. Bainbridge who was the-- Was a real estate man. And he
always-- he took a liking to my mother and to our family, and he was always
very helpful. And he-- He knew my mother had this money before we bought
this house. And he took her,
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my father out to Homestead Park and-- Lots-- And our next door to
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O'Connor: my sister for instance. There was a lot that sold the past
number of years for $5,500. A lot. Those same lots, bare lots, you know,
no, no housing or anything on it.
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He wanted my mother to buy those lots for $50 a lot.
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O'Connor: Yeah, we could have been millionaires.
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Barrett: They've been worth a lot of money now. But they decided on
getting this house--. O'Connor: And they just-- My mother got this house.
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O'Connor: Then my brother [inaudible]-- My brother John was in the mill.
Then my brother Dan, he's a podiatrist doctor. Barrett: Yeah.
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And so it sounds like he went to school the longest of anybody then, did
he?
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O'Connor: Well. Well, they went to school,
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night school. My brother Pat, he coached.
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O'Connor: He was on Carnegie Tech. He went to, went to college there, you
know. And he coached the soccer league over there. Carnegie Tech. That's
the one that was in the real estate. Barrett: Yeah. Yeah.
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O'Connor: And he took courses over there. My brother James, you know, he
was
00:19:01.000 --> 00:19:15.000
O'Connor: self-educated, you know, after he went to Saint Mungos. And then
my brother Dan went to New York to take his-- to be a podiatrist.
00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:20.000
He lived with my brother and his wife. First couple of
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O'Connor: years. Barrett: How did education end up being so important in
your family do you think? How did your mom and dad feel about that?
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O'Connor: Because, I think because they were great readers. My mother
would sit-- would read till three and four and five o'clock in the morning.
And then and-- one thing that my mother had, she always had help.
00:19:46.000 --> 00:19:50.000
Barrett: From the kids, you mean? O'Connor: No.
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O'Connor: Somebody's coming in to help. Barrett: Oh, I see. O'Connor: To
help with the abortion and the ironing and cleaning. We had all kinds of,
you know, foreign little-- one foreign woman. She was, just like this.
Barrett: Yeah. O'Connor: And her name was Sophie. And during World War[??]
she had one son, and she-- My mother and she got along so well. No one
could understand a word that woman said. She was lavish[??], but my mother
could understand it. Barrett: Yeah O'Connor: And she used to make her own
clothes for with, sacks, you know, flour sacks. Barrett: Yeah. O'Connor:
And then she would have it tight around the middle and she was just
moving[??] around, so. And here she only had one son. And the reason she--
My mother-- We could have got more glamorous person to come, I guess my
mother-- But my mother felt sorry for her because she-- evidently this was
an illegitimate boy she had. Barrett: Yes. O'Connor: And my mother would
let Sophie bring him.
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And he played with us and-- She just idolized my mother.
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O'Connor: And here along came World War One and he was killed. You know,
she disappeared. She must-- We, always thought she committed suicide
because she never came back to our house.
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Barrett: Yeah. You mean when he died, she just vanished.
00:21:13.000 --> 00:21:26.000
O'Connor: When he died, you know, she just vanished. She had one big
tooth. I still remember. She had hardly any teeth, but this one big tooth
hanging down here and she, you know, she laughed.
00:21:26.000 --> 00:21:27.000
Barrett: Do you know where she lived? Did she live--?
00:21:27.000 --> 00:21:29.000
O'Connor: She lived down below the tracks.
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I don't know where she lived, but just--.
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Barrett: So then your mom did have some time for herself and she could do
her reading and everything? O'Connor: Yes. Barrett: What kind of things did
she readto you? Do you remember?
00:21:42.000 --> 00:21:48.000
O'Connor: History. They loved history. They read all kinds of history
there.
00:21:48.000 --> 00:21:51.000
Barrett: Yeah. And your dad read quite a bit, too? O'Connor: Yes.
00:21:51.000 --> 00:22:07.000
O'Connor: We were all great readers. Barrett: Yeah. O'Connor: No, I have
these talking books I just finished reading, All the President's Men.
Barrett: Yeah, yeah. O'Connor: Did you read that? Barrett: Yeah. O'Connor:
I couldn't lay that down. Yeah, I just finished it this morning.
00:22:07.000 --> 00:22:11.000
Barrett: Yeah, I haven't actually read it yet, but I know about it because
everyone's talking about it.
00:22:11.000 --> 00:22:13.000
O'Connor: And I didn't think they'd have it on the talking book.
00:22:13.000 --> 00:22:22.000
My sister and my niece. And they said, Oh, I wish you could read this, you
know? So I called and sure enough, they had it. Yeah, I sent it out to.
00:22:22.000 --> 00:22:28.000
Barrett: Your dad wasn't too tired after working in the mill all day to
come home and sit down and read.
00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:52.000
O'Connor: Oh no, and he belonged to a-- They belonged to a bowling out
Schenley Park. You know those outdoor bowling? Barrett: Yes. Yes. O'Connor:
And you see, he he had a lot of medals in Scotland for championship bowler.
He was a champion bowler. So that was there. And then they belong to the
AA-- AOH, and they go down
00:22:52.000 --> 00:23:00.000
there and play cards. Barrett: Yeah, that's Ancient Order of Hibernians.
Yeah. So that, that some of their social life revolved around that kind of
thing.
00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:02.000
O'Connor: My mother belonged to the LCD
00:23:02.000 --> 00:23:13.000
Ladies Beneficial. So something like that. Catholic organization. And they
would have parties and things.
00:23:13.000 --> 00:23:15.000
Barrett: So it sounds like they're pretty active.
00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:26.000
O'Connor: Yeah, they weren't-- And we were all very active. That time
bridge became, bridge became very popular. And we used to have,
00:23:26.000 --> 00:23:32.000
you know. We all belong to different groups of bridge players.
00:23:32.000 --> 00:23:45.000
O'Connor: Whenever we were going to have the bridge club here, this house
was torn apart. Barrett: Yeah. Yeah. O'Connor: You know, cleaned. Barrett:
Yeah. O'Connor: And it was always cleaned. Yeah, but it was curtain-- You
clean curtains and windows washed and all that.
00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:53.000
Barrett: Were you and your brothers and sisters in any kind of
organizations? What what kind of things did kids spend their time at?
00:23:53.000 --> 00:24:25.000
O'Connor: Well, my sister, my two s-- I wasn't a joiner because most of my
friends were in downtown Pittsburgh, where my sister worked in the
Monongahela Bank here. And my other sister worked for Hugh[??] O'Donnell
and his three drugstores. And they were involved with, people, you know,
that worked around Homestead and so forth, and they had these bridge clubs.
But most of my friends were from Pittsburgh and I would go to Pittsburgh
most of the time. We'd go to the theater.
00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:31.000
You know, the Nixon Theater. Barrett: Yeah. Yeah. O'Connor: And our
Saturday,
00:24:31.000 --> 00:24:44.000
O'Connor: I would leave here, meet these girls for lunch, and we'd have
lunch and we'd go-- A couple of times we went to the Gypsy tea room and
then we'd go someplace else for a good lunch.
00:24:44.000 --> 00:24:50.000
And then we'd go to maybe a movie. Or, the theatre.
00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:54.000
O'Connor: And then we'd have our dinner, and then we'd go someplace else.
00:24:54.000 --> 00:24:57.000
Barrett: Sounds like you had a full day? O'Connor: Yes.
00:24:57.000 --> 00:25:01.000
Barrett: And those were mostly friends from work then? O'Connor: Those are
friends that I met downtown.
00:25:01.000 --> 00:25:13.000
Barrett: But you still spent-- I mean, is this, is this when you're when
you're older and you were more active in parish activities when you were
younger or did you stay pretty active? O'Connor: I wasn't very active.
00:25:13.000 --> 00:25:18.000
O'Connor: You know, my two sisters belong to the Catholic daughters.
00:25:18.000 --> 00:25:24.000
Barrett: Was that parish that you belong to at that time Irish Catholic?
Or mixed up?
00:25:24.000 --> 00:25:26.000
O'Connor: They're very Irish. Yeah.
00:25:26.000 --> 00:25:42.000
Really, really Irish. And that, church. Well, it's very active when we came
in. That's where we went, you know, to Sunday School.
00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:48.000
O'Connor: Then it burned down.
00:25:48.000 --> 00:25:56.000
Then they rebuilt it and they had the dedication-- We were all down there,
and they had-- There
00:25:56.000 --> 00:25:58.000
O'Connor: were so many that they couldn't all get in the
00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:03.000
church, so they had it on the outside. And my sister and her husband,
00:26:03.000 --> 00:26:14.000
O'Connor: they were standing there, and my sister happened to see this
pickpocket. And he was going from one man's wallet to another. And she told
Ed, you
00:26:14.000 --> 00:26:19.000
know, he's a big, tall, handsome fella. And she told him. Then he watched
too.
00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:21.000
O'Connor: And he said, Mary,
00:26:21.000 --> 00:26:29.000
you you keep your eye on him. And he said, I'll go get the police. Barrett:
Yeah. O'Connor: And so he went and got the police. And so I can remember--
00:26:29.000 --> 00:26:31.000
Barrett: Then they grabbed the guy.
00:26:31.000 --> 00:26:45.000
O'Connor: And they grabbed the guy and he didn't get far with the wallets.
And of course, the, you know, the names and addresses were-- Yeah, but he
was a slicker and she just happened to see him do it. Barrett: Yeah.
00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:59.000
Can you remember now that you mention it, somebody was telling me something
yesterday about crime and you know, even in a pretty small town like this--
Can you remember anything about that? And who was involved in it?
00:26:59.000 --> 00:27:16.000
O'Connor: Well, not above the tracks, but below the tracks. There was what
they called-- I just-- This is hearsay now. Barrett: Yes. O'Connor: The
Carter Gang, and they were, they were supposed to be very, very bad. You
know, and they called them the Carter Gang.
00:27:16.000 --> 00:27:22.000
And I only know this from hearsay. Oh, Mr. and Mrs. Stewart that were
friends with my mothers and father.
00:27:22.000 --> 00:27:25.000
Barrett: What sort of thing would they be involved in?
00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:32.000
Oh, fights. I remember Mrs.
00:27:32.000 --> 00:28:01.000
O'Connor: Stewart saying that-- there were a gang of them. The brothers.
And they fought among themselves. And she told us, and I never forgot that,
that she watched one of the brothers, dragging another brother by the hair
of the head over the railroad tracks and along the, you know, down there.
That's how bad they were. Barrett: Yeah. O'Connor: And they were the
people.
00:28:01.000 --> 00:28:06.000
Older, you know, real old people, still talk about the Carter gang.
Barrett: Yeah.
00:28:06.000 --> 00:28:09.000
Can you remember things like bootlegging during the Depression?
00:28:09.000 --> 00:28:10.000
O'Connor: Yes.
00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:13.000
Barrett: That's pretty widespread then. Yeah.
00:28:13.000 --> 00:28:20.000
O'Connor: [Laughs] My father made-- He had his own little steel or
still[??]. We lived down on Ann or Anne[??] Street and he lived next door
to the chief of police.
00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:22.000
Barrett: Yeah, well, that's probably a safe place to be.
00:28:22.000 --> 00:28:27.000
O'Connor: Yeah, and he had his own. And he would get 100 proof every
time.
00:28:27.000 --> 00:28:34.000
And Mr. Stewart, he could never make a mistake. You know, I couldn't
understand why my father could make it. Barrett: Yeah.
00:28:34.000 --> 00:28:37.000
Barrett: Do you know if your dad made it at all back in Scotland or--.
00:28:37.000 --> 00:28:39.000
O'Connor: No. No, they didn't need him to make it. [Laughs]
00:28:39.000 --> 00:28:43.000
Barrett: Get any place, I guess.
00:28:43.000 --> 00:28:48.000
Yeah. O'Connor: That would put lagging. Then there was a
00:28:48.000 --> 00:28:49.000
O'Connor: crusader.
00:28:49.000 --> 00:29:00.000
Reverend Wood. [inaudible]
00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:10.000
Barrett: Was there any kind of Catholic temperance organization? Oh, yes,
there still is. Like Pioneer Total Abstinence Society or something like.
00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:17.000
O'Connor: And, you know, you go to confession and the man who to
confession and then tell them that they had got drunk. It's a big sin
there.
00:29:17.000 --> 00:29:18.000
Barrett: Yeah. O'Connor: And then the,
00:29:18.000 --> 00:29:27.000
O'Connor: the priest would make them say the pledge. Barrett: Yeah.
O'Connor: And of course, that would only hold good til the next payday.
[Laughs]
00:29:27.000 --> 00:29:29.000
Yeah, I remember,
00:29:29.000 --> 00:29:35.000
O'Connor: you know, different people taking the pledge, each took the
pledge last night.
00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:37.000
Barrett: But it didn't last too long, as you remember. No.
00:29:37.000 --> 00:29:41.000
O'Connor: No, I only know this from hearsay.
00:29:41.000 --> 00:29:58.000
Barrett: Would people up in this part of town? I know. I know, a little
something from talking to people about saloons and things below the tracks.
But were there-- did people up in this end of town where you lived down on
Anne Street? Were there saloons up there and--.
00:29:58.000 --> 00:30:06.000
O'Connor: Yes, there's a saloon. Mcewen's lived or had a saloon up-- We
lived in that house, I told you, that had
00:30:06.000 --> 00:30:11.000
the basement kitchen. Well. That was then--
00:30:11.000 --> 00:30:24.000
O'Connor: Next was the barbershop, you know, across the alley. See we
lived in this house, and then this was the alley. See the house was
[inaudible]. This was the ally and then there was a barbershop,
00:30:24.000 --> 00:30:30.000
and then there was a--
00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:34.000
O'Connor: Shoemaker. Shoe repairman.
00:30:34.000 --> 00:30:38.000
And then there was a food store. And then there was a saloon on the
corner.
00:30:38.000 --> 00:30:41.000
O'Connor: Archie McEwen.
00:30:41.000 --> 00:31:41.000
Barrett: Was that an important place in the neighborhood where a lot of
people gather?
