Oral History Transcription

Oral History Interview Interviewees: Delbert (Bill) E. Sheads and Elsie Sisson, Tape II Interviewer: Florence Naeve May 18, 2005

FLORENCE NAEVE (FLORENCE): Today is May 18, 2005. My name is Florence Naeve. I'm the interviewer. And I am interviewing Delbert Sheads, who is also known more familiarly as Bill Sheads, and his sister Elsie Sisson. And we've become such good friends over this first hour of the interview, this is tape 2, that I'm now going to be now referring to them as Bill and Elsie. And we had just finished up the first tape, and we had learned a lot of wonderful from Bill Sheads, and we were kind of finishing up on his varied and distinguished career doing a number of things over the years, his 35 distinguished years as a forester with the state forestry department, and his work working with his father and helping to build and shape Burke the surrounding area, and, of course, his fine service in World War II at Normandy, in particular, and now we want to talk just one more piece about his role with the fire department. He was with the volunteer fire department. I believe you were chief, and you can correct about this, when the burning of Ossian Hall was necessary. There's been a lot of bad myths associated with that, and I'm so glad that you have the opportunity today to set the record straight. So if you could tell us what year this occurred and what precipitated the burning of Ossian Hall.

DELBERT SHEADS (BILL): Okay. Ready?

FLORENCE: I mean, I'm sorry. Not Ossian, yes, Ossian Hall, yes. Please go ahead.

BILL: Okay. Go back in history a little bit. I had been there so many times with my dad to visit. And that's why I really liked the place so much. But I had Fairfax fire department when I was 18. I've been there now 64, coming up on 65 years as a volunteer fireman up there. Not real active anymore. I go for the historical stuff. And during that period of time, in later years after the war and all, I became more active, like in 1951 I started being really active in the Fairfax volunteer fire department, also in Burke. But there was so much going on in Fairfax and taking so much time, I let my dues drop at Burke, so I'm no longer in the Burke volunteer fire department. I can't tell you the exact year. I would have to look that up that Ossian Hall had to be destroyed. I was the volunteer county fire chief appointed by the Fairfax County fire commission. And that job was just sort of being around, and helping out, and going to any major functions and things like that. So one day the chief of Annandale fire department called me. It was Gaines, the chief. He said, I'm all upset. They have a contractor. The bank purchaser of the Ossian Hall are wants to burn it or wants to get rid of it. And I thought, well, daggone, a historical place like that. And I said, is there no way that you can talk him out of it or get the supervisors to change it or something? And he said, I don't think so. The president or the vice president at the time was a good friend of some of the people on the board, and I think he had mentioned it to them. The thing about it, I think the site planning had already pretty much gone through, and so they were not interested going back with a lot of money and rechanging the whole thing.

FLORENCE: Well, was it in decrepit condition? Did it have termites?

BILL: Well, I'm sure it had termites, but the old house was somewhat run down. I don't know who lived there after Senator Bristow passed on. I don't recall any of those people, but there were some people that farmed the place and all of that, a big barn that they kept. Well anyway, we got together then with the builder, and he emphatically said, no, they're going ahead with it, and if we don't want to use it for our training purposes, then they would have to bulldoze it. So that was the end of negotiating with him. We set up a date, signed the papers that we could have it. I was chief training officer for the fire department for Fairfax County at the time, what we termed as fire schools and things for the firemen. And we set up a fire school there and had firemen from all over the county, both the volunteer and the career people coming in to get training. We used that house for, I don't know, two or three weekends, mainly Saturday and Sunday because when you're working with volunteer people, that's when they're available. And we used it and various evolutions in there and a lot of work outside and things like that. And then we, on a Sunday I recall, we had to let it go, and it burned. I was almost in tears when those big columns across the front had started to burn. Anyway, that's pretty much the story of Ossian Hall. Annandale fire department had that building as their logo on their apparatus and on their patches and what have you. But it was kind of a sad thing to me, I mean, not kind of. It was a sad thing to me period because I had spent time there with my dad and many times with Senator Bristow. He bought a lot of timber from Senator Bristow. Senator Bristow owned, he didn't have much timber on the north side of Braddock Road, but his main timber holdings were the south side of Braddock Road from the Lee's place all the way down to, I forget the name of the little stream down at the bottom there on Braddock Road before you get out to Backlick Road, and from there over to the railroad. He bought timber, various tracts of timber from a certain place, many acres at the time.

FLORENCE: Thank you very much. I really appreciate that. I know you have many, many stories, and I wish that we could more of them today, and if we have time in the project to come back to you, we certainly will try to get you in for some more stories. But we now need to move on to your sister's --

BILL: You want to talk about the forestry business or do you want to --

FLORENCE: We're going to have to ask your sister some questions, and if you need to consult with each other to help jog each other's memories, that's fine. So you were both born fairly close together. You're about a year and a half apart.

ELSIE: I was born in '21. He was born in '23.

FLORENCE: The beginning of '21, and he was born --

ELSIE: '23.

FLORENCE: Right. So you were about a year and a half or so. I guess, no, you were two and a half when he was born. And did you have other brothers and sisters?

ELSIE: We had one older sister.

FLORENCE: One older sister. So you were the middle child, and did your older sister make you take care of the baby? Did you have to do that?

ELSIE: No, we had to take care of her.

FLORENCE: Oh, okay. Now did you ride a bus to school?

ELSIE: No, we walked.

FLORENCE: You walked to school.

ELSIE: I mean, what are we talking about, high school or grade school?

FLORENCE: Well, both.

ELSIE: Well, you see, we went where Jennifer Addington lives.

FLORENCE: So you went to White Oak.

ELSIE: That's the school where we went, White Oak. And we walked around the road, or sometimes we'd walk through the woods. We had a path that went to the woods. And when we'd go through the woods, we had a little stream we had a little stream we had to cross, and they had rocks, and you'd have to step on the rock. And back in those days, you brought home all these books. You didn't just go home. And you had big old geography books and history books, English books, all that stuff. And here you go walking with all these books. And we had one boy that lived up the road and he would leave early. When we'd go walk through the woods, he'd leave early and go down and take a wild, what is that, and tied it over so that we'd go down and hook our toe in it, and we'd fall with all these books and we'd have to go down and pick them all up and get started again.

FLORENCE: You didn't have knapsack.

ELSIE: That didn't happen everyday, but once in a while it did. But, yeah, and then we went that. We had a three room school. One room had the first, second, and third grade, and then we had another room had the fourth and fifth grade, and then another room had the sixth and seventh grade.

FLORENCE: Now was that a private school or a public school?

ELSIE: No, it was a public school.

FLORENCE: And so you did well there, and it was time to go on to high school.

ELSIE: I went on to Fairfax High School, which was Paul VI. And my sister had gone to Clifton because we didn't have a high school. And she had gone to Clifton and the last year, I guess, before she graduated, they had to go to Oakton High School, and then Paul VI now, which was old Fairfax High School, that opened up in the middle of the year. And so she went to Oakton for half a year, and then moved over to Fairfax High School then. And then when that was over, then I started there.

FLORENCE: So when you were growing up, what kinds of things did you do to have fun, because obviously you didn't have television, and you didn't have video games and computers and all that other stuff, or did you not have a lot of opportunity to play? Did you have to spend a lot of your time helping your mother in the house and things like that?

ELSIE: Not a lot, but I did some. But we'd go out and make our own fun and play, and my brother and I, Billy, he'd get on one of the house and I'd get on the other side of the house, and we'd throw the ball high over and bat it back again, that type thing.

FLORENCE: Did you ride horses?

ELSIE: Yeah.

FLORENCE: You got to ride horses.

ELSIE: We had in later year, well, we had horses because my uncle, Ed Dooley, he had the first snow plow that I know anything about. And it was made out of big boards like this, and then made like a V, and then you put another board across here, and had a big old rock that was on there to hold it down. And then he stood there and drove the horses. And that's the way he plowed the highway because he worked for the county.

FLORENCE: I'll be darned.

ELSIE: And the horses were named Tom and Bessie. And he plowed all around the roads there near where we lived, and I don't know how far he went, do you?

BILL: No. He had a section of Lee District. I don't know which one it was. Anyway, out to as out as 236, Little River Turnpike, and then over to Pohick Road, I know that far because I traveled with him.

ELSIE: And then he also, that was in the snow when we had snow. And then in the summer, then he'd hook the horses to the mowing machine and mowed the sides of the road to mow the stuff there, the weeds and stuff there. And everything was going along great, and the cop truck came along one day and hit Bessie and killed her.

FLORENCE: Oh no.

ELSIE: So that was a very sad day.

FLORENCE: I guess.

ELSIE: But then we had a horse named David that, I named him after one of my boyfriends, David Bailey, from Rockville, and we renamed him Davey Bail. And my brother and I used to ride him.

FLORENCE: Well, tell us about the spelling bee that, was it just one time, or was she in charge of a lot of them?

ELSIE: No. This was the only spelling that I remember. I'm sure they had others.

FLORENCE: And this was at White Oak, right?

ELSIE: Right, uh-huh. And my mother was in the spelling bee, and she spelled down all the teachers and she only went to the fifth grade now over at the old Ashford schoolhouse. And my grandfather wouldn't let her walk to the other school, which was all the way down to White Oak. He wouldn't let her walk down there, so she had to quit. But she read a lot. But this night she spelled down all the teachers, all but Willie Harlow. And Willie Harlow had been a teacher earlier in life. And mother missed by one letter and Willie won the spelling bee.

FLORENCE: So this was a spelling bee for grownups then.

ELSIE: Uh-huh, yeah.

FLORENCE: Do you remember what year that was?

ELSIE: No, gosh.

FLORENCE: Do you remember how old you were?

BILL: You would have been about 12.

FLORENCE: So the whole family was there to see her.

ELSIE: Oh yeah.

FLORENCE: Oh, that's wonderful.

ELSIE: I'm saying the whole family. I guess just us kids and mother. I don't think daddy was there.

BILL: I guess he was because he had to drive us down.

ELSIE: Was he? Oh, okay.

BILL: She didn't drive back then.

ELSIE: Maybe so.

FLORENCE: And your father, was it your father who would tell the story of paying a toll?

ELSIE: Oh yes, uh-huh.

FLORENCE: Could you tell us that story?

ELSIE: He used to say that he was riding his horse from Culpeper back down this way to Ravensworth or wherever he was going to. And he went by a lady standing by a post. And he said she said, he thought she said, cold, ain't it? And he said, yes, it is. And so he went on, and he thought, well, I'm not sure what she said. So he turned around and went back and said, I'm not sure I understood you. She said, I said, toll gate. And it was a penny for him and a penny for the horse.

FLORENCE: I'll be darned.

BILL: Along the same line, he stayed overnight at Stone House, the old stone house up on 29. He stayed there at least two times after he mentioned it. But that was like 50 cents and 50 cents for his horse, which they took care of.

FLORENCE: So when you were growing up, did you go and visit your father's family down over at the Ravensworth area a lot, or did you tend to stay over in the Burke area where your house was?

ELSIE: Well, I stayed with grandma a lot, but not at Ravensworth because they had a house in Annandale.

FLORENCE: That's what I meant. You would visit with your grandmother.

ELSIE: Oh, I stayed there a lot, yeah.

FLORENCE: And did she tell you stories about the Ravensworth, the Lees or anything?

ELSIE: Well, I'm sure she used to tell me a lot of stories about when she was growing up as a child. And we'd sit on the porch at night after we'd finish supper. And she'd tell me all these different things when she was little and all that. And I just loved grandma.

FLORENCE: Now I seem to remember your brother Bill mentioning that there was, I guess, an aunt who sort of got, was a favorite of Mrs. Lee's.

ELSIE: That was Aunt Eda, my father's sister, Arneta. And she traveled with Ms. Lee. She went as a companion. She traveled with her all the time.

FLORENCE: And so I guess there were some stories there about --

ELSIE: I can't tell you those, but I do know that Neta was with her a lot.

BILL: The two I recall that she spoke of was one to New York and one to, I believe, Florida one time, train.

FLORENCE: So your brother went off to war, World War II, and you stayed behind. And were you married at that point?

ELSIE: Yes, I was, and I had two children. No, I had one child. And they were talking about who was going to leave first, me or him, if he was going to the war, I was going to the hospital to have my second child.

FLORENCE: Oh my.

ELSIE: But he beat me.

BILL: But Clarence, your husband stayed. He went after I did, didn't he?

ELSIE: Yeah.

FLORENCE: Clarence was your husband.

ELSIE: Uh-huh.

FLORENCE: And where were you living then?

ELSIE: My mother had given us land and we built our house, and we lived in our house. It was right on Twinbrook Road next door to him, which is now Twinbrook Road.

FLORENCE: Right. And so your brother's off at war, and your husband's off at war, and you're home with two children to take care of.

ELSIE: He wasn't there yet because he wasn't married, he didn't have any children, so he went before my husband did.

FLORENCE: Okay. So you weren't married until you got back?

BILL: No, I was married while I was in the service.

FLORENCE: Oh, I see.

BILL: Yeah, I got a 10-day furlough one time from Texas and three days coming up and three days to go back, and that left me four days at home. High school sweetheart in Fairfax County school, and we were together a lot.

FLORENCE: So did you visit with his, so you had a house right next door to each other, so you could sort of, the family was all together and could help each other out. And so during those war years, did you have a victory garden? Was there rationing?

ELSIE: We always had a garden all our life.

FLORENCE: Right. But, I mean, did you grow any kind of special things during the war?

ELSIE: Not that I know of.

FLORENCE: Did you experience, I know that there were a lot of things like sugar and flour that were rationed. Did that have a big impact on you, or did you find that you were pretty self sufficient with what was growing locally?

ELSIE: I think so.

FLORENCE: When your mother started doing the fundraising for Good Shepherd, was that when you were growing up or was that later on?

ELSIE: Well, that was more later on, I guess, because we didn't have a parish hall at old Good Shepherd at the old church, which is now down at Nash's. We didn't have a parish hall, and so my mother and father used their house, their home, to have oyster suppers, and bingo games, remember that in the front yard? They'd build a stand. And ice cream socials. For all those things they'd come to mother's and have that.

FLORENCE: Wow. And was that when you were growing up?

ELSIE: No. Well, I guess it was.

BILL: Yeah, I guess it would have been in the 30s and 40s.

FLORENCE: The church itself was located near the intersection of Twinbrook and Braddock, right where the bank now stands.

ELSIE: Right where the bank stand.

FLORENCE: And then when Good Shepherd decided to build a new church, then they located where they are today at Braddock and Olley. And was the old church then moved on to the Nash's property?

ELSIE: Well, gosh, if I could remember. I think we sold the church to a Baptist church, and then Nash traded, or somewhere Nash got the church so she could build a shopping center. And then she moved the church down next to her house, and Aaron lives in it.

FLORENCE: He still lives there today.

ELSIE: Uh-huh.

FLORENCE: Have you been in the church?

ELSIE: No. I didn't want to go in it.

FLORENCE: Didn't want to see it. Have you seen it since it was converted to a house?

ELSIE: No, I don't want to go in there. I remember it as a church.

FLORENCE: And it was a small church, I gather.

ELSIE: Mm hm.

FLORENCE: Do you remember how many people it sat?

ELSIE: About 80.

BILL: Yeah, I guess you could seat 80.

ELSIE: I guess, about like that.

BILL: It had the big pot bellied stove right in the middle. And that was the job for us youngsters, mostly hauling and cutting firewood for that stove and heating it up.

ELSIE: My mother would get up in the mornings very early on Sunday morning and go up there and build the fire so that church would be warm when people would come in to the service. FLORENCE: Was there a pastor in residence, or was he a traveling?

BILL: Traveling.

FLORENCE: Traveling pastor.

ELSIE: Well, we were connected with Truro church of Fairfax.

FLORENCE: I see. So you were sort of a satellite church or new church for Truro church. I see. And so your family sort of adopted the care of the church when the pastor wasn't there during the week. And then on Sundays, got everything all ready for the services.

ELSIE: It was closed during the week unless we had some sort of a service.

BILL: I would say most of it was between the Sheads family and the Dodsons that took care of the church.

FLORENCE: Now did your family build the church?

ELSIE: No. I don't know who built it.

BILL: It was back in 18-something. It was probably Fitzhugh.

ELSIE: I think so. And my mother's sister was Mary Ellen Dodson, Aunt Ellie we called her. And she took the communion vessels home and took care of them. And on the days that we were going to have communion, Aunt Ellie lived just right down Braddock Road from the corner up there. And just about where Olley Lane, just before you get to Olley Lane, her house was right in there. And we could see, she'd be walking up the Braddock Road to the church carrying the communion vessels. And so we'd set it up on the altar. They'd fix it on the altar, and then when church was over, she'd gather them all up and walk them back home, clean them up and take care of them until the next service. Now that was my mother's sister, Aunt Ellie Dodson.

FLORENCE: So there was intermarrying between the Dodsons and the Dooleys.

ELSIE: Mm hm, yeah. What did you say, the what?

FLORENCE: There was a family relationship between the Dooleys and the Dodsons.

ELSIE: On yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh.

BILL: My mother and Aunt Ellie are sisters.

FLORENCE: Oh, I see. That's just so fascinating.

BILL: Olley Lane she spoke of, Aunt Ellie, the Dooley, Aunt Ellie Dooley, married Olley Dodson, so when they decided to do something, they named that street Olley Lane.

FLORENCE: Well, their son used to be called, his nickname was Snake, right?

ELSIE: Right.

FLORENCE: And it was his father Olley who built the road. ELSIE: And Uncle Olley was dead when they built the road.

BILL: Pat, one of the older boys, Pat was the main instigator, I think, because he built it. So he had that lane in there, and then later on --

FLORENCE: The state took it in the '30s when the state took the roads, I understand. Is that right? He gave it to the state.

BILL: In the '30s? Yeah, I guess it was.

FLORENCE: During the Depression.

BILL: Don't let me interfere here, but she mentioned our uncle Ed Dooley that worked the county roads. And he also had a grater on wheels pulled by the horses to grate these back roads and all. And he had a wagon, and the county trucks would bring the gravel as far as that S curve on Burke Road coming in from 236 right there at the cemetery, and that's where they dumped it. And he'd have to take his horse and wagon and go up there. I'd ride with him in the summer time and help him load gravels and rock, whatever, on that, come back and put them in the mud holes on some of these roads.

FLORENCE: So most of the streets or roads in the area were gravel roads, right, dirt and gravel?

BILL: Most of them were just plain old dirt, yeah. Some had some gravel.

FLORENCE: So that was an upgrade to get the gravel road.

ELSIE: And Guinea Road was mud.

FLORENCE: So it was like that, would you say, until after World War II?

BILL: No. There was some bridging, culverts and all, put in before between the '30s and '40s.

FLORENCE: Part of the public works things. So would you say then that in some ways getting around in traffic had its own challenges back then because you had to ford streams, and if you couldn't get through one way, you had to go another way?

BILL: I think Elsie mentioned a while ago that there were certain places, the car had to stop and let the other one come by.

FLORENCE: So for a woman to be driving a vehicle back then was no small thing because it was such a challenge, I guess.

BILL: Yeah. But you didn't see but two cars a day.

FLORENCE: But you both had cars.

BILL: Yeah, my dad.

FLORENCE: Did you each have a car when you were growing up?

ELSIE: Oh no. We didn't have until I was married.

BILL: You didn't have one until after you were married. I had a, my sister, my older sister, Anna, well, she was born in 1918, by the way to give you an idea of how much older she was than we. But she worked in Fairfax County courthouse and she needed a car, so she and I both went together and bought a 1940 Chevrolet from my wife's uncle who had a Chevrolet dealership in Fairfax. And we had that until. My dad said, you be careful, and come back, and I'm going to give you $1,000, which he did, and, of course, we took another $600 and bought a new Chevrolet. I had a '46.

FLORENCE: Who owned the horse riding stable at Braddock and Twinbrook? Is that a relative of yours?

ELSIE: Braddock and Guinea?

FLORENCE: I'm sorry, at Guinea, yes.

ELSIE: No, that was Herman Maverick was the one I first remember. And then he sold it to Patty.

BILL: No. No. No. Hung himself up there in Fairfax.

ELSIE: Oh, that's right.

FLORENCE: Oh my. Well, tell us that story.

ELSIE: Oh gosh. I can't think of their name.

BILL: Caldwell. Rufus Caldwell.

ELSIE: Yes. Rufus Caldwell.

FLORENCE: And he owned it?

BILL: He owned it, and then when he sold out to Ruffian, I guess, he bought a place up on Sager Avenue in Fairfax. And that's where they lived, he and his wife. They had two boys and one girl, didn't they?

ELSIE: Mm hm.

BILL: And after they had grown and gone and whatever happened. But anyway, one day (indiscernible) (NOTE: This reference is at 1321) hung himself in the basement there. I didn't know anymore about it than that. I didn't know why. Maybe because of his financial status or whatever.

FLORENCE: So he had moved on by then and was living in the city of Fairfax.

ELSIE: I don't know if you ever heard of Rebel Hill.

FLORENCE: No. What is Rebel Hill?

ELSIE: It's on Braddock Road. It was you get down to the road that turns, what's the name of that?

BILL: Lee Chapel.

ELSIE: -- Lee Chapel Road.

BILL: No, Wakefield Chapel.

ELSIE: Wakefield Chapel, that's right. And it had all these curves in it, and when anybody bought a new car, they'd go to Rebel Hill to see how well it came up. So my father bought a new car and he went down and picked up Mr. Minor, who was a friend of his, and was driving home, and the car just came up like a dream up Rebel Hill, and he drove all the way home. Talked about it when he got home, and discovered he'd driven all the way from Annandale in second gear.

BILL: But that hill was right this side of where she said the Long Branch there, and then Wakefield Chapel Road. And from there on up to the top was quite steep and crooked, a big bend in it. The remnants of it is still there, I think, on the right side. I think if you look closely when you go down. Another thing, my dad and I went hunting one time back, I guess, I don't know when, but I was youngster. And he came home and he had this tin, what was it, canteen from Civil War style. I think it had a CS on it, so it must have been that Confederate states. And it was rusted out on the bottom and had been laying on the ground. But he picked the thing up and brought it home. And I suppose that maybe some of the Confederate soldiers camped down in there, and it got its name, Rebel Hill, which is known as the Confederates were rebels. So as far as I know, that's probably the way that Rebel Hill was named on Braddock Road.

ELSIE: General Braddock came up there. And they said there's an old fort over in the woods. I never saw it.

FLORENCE: I want to ask you some questions about the kinds of changes that you've seen. You grew up in a time when Ossian Hall was there and Ravensworth was still there. It didn't burn until 1928.

BILL: Was it '28? I was thinking a little earlier than that.

FLORENCE: But you were certainly born at that time.

BILL: '26, I believe, was it not?

FLORENCE: I'll take your word before mine. But this was a very rural, agricultural area, and I guess the main sources of revenue were farming and --

BILL: Timbering.

FLORENCE: -- timbering. And there was the dairy farming, right? And so between those early years, your first early years, as early as you can remember, just, say, the transition being right after World War II, I want to ask each of you what was the biggest change that you saw. And then after that I'm going to ask you about the biggest change from that period to the present. So whichever one of you would like to go first on in terms of changing whether it's the number of people, or what people did, or what you did, or just whatever piece of it seemed to be most different for from when you were the tiniest little person to just after the war.

BILL: Well, the demographics didn't change much during that period, I'm telling you that I can recall in our area. And you go down in the eastern end of the county, closer to D.C. and all, federal workers, it did. But right up in our area, I can't think of any appreciable change other than some of the roads were being graveled over the dirt, not hard top but just gravel. The one road that was hard surfaced road was the road from --

ELSIE: The cemetery.

BILL: Was it that far up? I didn't think it was. I thought it started at the church.

ELSIE: And McCatham Road.

BILL: Yeah, from the church to Burke.

ELSIE: It started up at the cemetery.

BILL: That was the first, McCatham Road.

ELSIE: It came down to our corner, and down to Shing Row's corner, and then on to Burke.

FLORENCE: Well, did you have electricity and telephone service back in those days?

BILL: No. One thing that she was mentioning about my mother and dad letting the church use the house, he built the house during the Depression in '29, '30, '31, somewhere along in there. He told me a couple of times that he made more money for the period back at that time than he did at any other time. But the dollar value then, not today. And he built that house. He had it wired. Had all the fixtures hung. Had an electric pump in the well, the back porch. And at that time it was a real modern house, modern kitchen with cabinets, and place little thing to put the flour in and shake it out, open the cabinet and turn the thing. It was a modern house and it had a furnace and radiator heat.

ELSIE: And a bathroom.

BILL: And the bathroom, one bathroom upstairs, full bath, and no electricity. And it sit there for nine years before they moved from the old farmhouse into it. And I've always thought, and maybe Elsie can expound on it a little bit, but I always thought that probably my grandmother Dooley had told my mother to take care of her dad, and after he died then I think this is when they decided to move. But he was living when my dad built that house, that bungalow over there. And it was a full basement in that house. They had their oyster dinners down there. They had other functions out on the front lawn, the ice cream festivals and whatever else, bingo. And then they had the inside of that house when you came in the front door, you were in a big living room. And right to the right was the dining room, but it was an arch about as wide as that window there, about six or seven feet wide. So basically one big thing, and they had dances there. They let them have dances, a number of dances in there.

ELSIE: Church.

BILL: All for the church. Everything was for the church. And really the only damage that was done from all this was that the men, I think, in particular, always after dancing, back up to the wall and put one foot up against the wall. And, of course, that was already around the rooms there. But other than that --

ELSIE: It was square dancing.

BILL: And my dad called figures. He was a figure caller. He called figures lots of places before World War II. We would take him over to Euline Arena sometimes, big old skating rink down in Alexandria, north Alexandria. Big old country building down there. And he called figures. He called figures at some of the, up towards Centreville. He didn't drink, he didn't smoke. I think maybe I've heard him say damn a couple of times in his life, maybe about something that I did.

ELSIE: Fairview School.

BILL: Fairview School, he called figures there down at the Catholic church.

ELSIE: St. Mary's.

BILL: St. Mary's. By the way, my mother, the Dooleys were Catholics. And my mother was a Catholic and went Catholic church and rode the train, it was her dad and all up to Frederick Station, St. Mary's. But after we were born then she changed because the church was right close.

FLORENCE: It was Episcopal.

ELSIE: Not until after my grandfather died, though. We couldn't change because he was diehard Catholic.

FLORENCE: It wasn't that big of a leap.

ELSIE: But then we started.

FLORENCE: You have so many stories, but I want to give your sister a chance to answer some things, too. What did you see from your perspective as the biggest change from when you were a little tiny girl to just after World War II?

ELSIE: Well, as far as, I don't remember a whole lot changing. We already had our house built. Of course my mother wouldn't let me stay there with the two children and my husband went in the Army. So I had to come back home with my babies, and we rented the house, my house. We rented it to three different people, three different families. But I don't know of any changes that I could remember.

FLORENCE: Well, let me ask you this. Did you make all your clothes, or did you go --

ELSIE: I used to make a lot of them. I made all my daughter's dresses and things when she went to school. She had long curls, and she had a big bow that went with every dress. And they used to, Olga Robinson was one of the teachers, and she lived there in Burke. And she said, I've never seen any child in my life come to life looking any cuter than that little old Joyce Sisson, and go home looking any worse. I would sew here the bodice to the skirt part. And then she'd be climbing around and pull the threads out, and here would be a rip. And the bow would be anywhere but on her head. It would be wrapped around her leg, or hanging out of her books case. But anyway, yeah, I made all of her clothes, almost to high school, I guess.

FLORENCE: So did you go someplace to buy the dry goods, or did you order them in a catalogue, or where did you buy your material?

ELSIE : I usually bought them in Alexandria at one of --

BILL: Montgomery Wards.

ELSIE: Montgomery Wards.

FLORENCE: So did you take the train in or did you drive in?

ELSIE: Well, my aunt in Rockville. I used a lot of my time at my father's brother's, and they didn't have any children. And when school was out, he was right over there to get me. And I spent most of my summers in Rockville, a good part of them. And when I'd get there, my aunt would always have, she was a real seamstress, and she would always have a pattern and the material for me to make this dress. And it had to be right exactly by that pattern. If you think, well, we don't need this stitch, we did it. And, yeah, she taught me to sew. And when I was in high school, my last year, I had extra credit I could take, and I took home ec. And Ms. Gordon was the teacher, and when she would be busy with somebody over here and somebody over there would need help, she'd say, Elsie can you go over and help so and so? I was helping the teacher to teach how to sew.

FLORENCE: Well, it sounds like you were quite the seamstress. Did you make clothes for other people and do seamstress work for people, or was it just your daughter?

ELSIE: My child, only for Joyce. And I made all of Buddy's shirts, my son. When he was little, I made all his shirts.

FLORENCE: And so if you needed dungarees, or pants, or shoes, you would just go into Alexandria then.

ELSIE: That's where we shopped.

FLORENCE: And how long would it take you to get from Burke to Alexandria?

BILL: Less time than it does now.

FLORENCE: Really? Is that right? And so would that be a Saturday thing, or would you go during --

BILL: Saturday nights, Saturday evenings.

FLORENCE: And how late were the stores open on Saturday night? ELSIE: I think 9 o'clock, yeah.

FLORENCE: Is that so? That was the one night of the week that the stores were open?

ELSIE: No, they were open all nights in the week.

FLORENCE: Let me ask quickly ask you this. Growing up, you didn't have electricity. You had to do everything by hand. You had to have strong muscles whether you were hauling up water out of the well or helping your mother churn the butter or whatever. And then in later years you have all these wonderful appliances. And did you like having all those appliances, or did the butter taste better when you churned it yourself? Did you like having those --

ELSIE: I liked that homemade butter, but things are much easier nowadays than what they used to be.

FLORENCE: So you miss the butter.

ELSIE: Right.

FLORENCE: Well, thank you. And, Bill, in the last half century or so, what's the best and the worst that you've seen?

BILL: Oh golly.

FLORENCE: And, by the way, we're down to our last five minutes.

BILL: I guess closed in shopping is probably the best thing that I can think of that's happened. I hate to see all this environmental change, taking away the forest lands, which is our livelihood, and, of course, mine, too, in forestry. But I really can't say, and to tell the truth, I don't like to see all this development done, but we have to. I don't know what else that I could say about what I like or dislike. I don't like the heavy traffic that we have, but that comes with it. That's all part of the deal. If we're going to have people come in and buying houses, we're going to have traffic. So that's the thing I dislike most, I guess, is all the traffic. Although I grew up with it and I get along with it, but I don't necessarily like it. I have so many of my friends that come down from some other place. I'll never go back to that place; I can't drive down there. When you go up it's a little easier. But I can't think of anything significant that I could say other than what I've already said.

FLORENCE: So pretty much you're happy with the way things have changed, and you still feel like --

BILL: I'm happy with it because I have to be happy with it. That's the reason behind that, being happy with it. What do you feel like?

ELSIE: Well, I feel this way. As long as I can't have my own home, I didn't have to sell it, but I did. I couldn't be happier than I am at Heatherwood.

FLORENCE: Well, that's great. And you've been able to stay where you are in your house.

BILL: No. We're next door to it.

FLORENCE: Right. But, I mean, you're still right in the area where you grew up.

BILL: Yeah. We took one of the new ones because it's all one level. And we've got steps, but we don't need them. We have two big bedrooms upstairs and a bath, and the same thing in the basement. Another big family room down there. But we don't use them. All my historical stuff, and Army stuff, and fire department stuff in a little room down there that I have to go down and get that every once in a while. In fact, I've gotten together now for a talk I'm making Monday after I get back, the 23rd. I'll be making a talk to the senior citizens group in Fairfax on World War II.

FLORENCE: Well, this has been absolutely wonderful, and I hope you two have enjoyed it. I know we really have, and you've added tremendously to the wealth of information that we've gathered and have given us a lot of good new stuff. So thank you.

BILL: We've enjoyed it.

ELSIE: Yes.

BILL: We get talking, and there's so much more we could spend another four or five hours.

FLORENCE: I'm sure you could.

ELSIE: Well, I've enjoyed it.

(END OF INTERVIEW)