Abstract
Hazel Broughton grew up on Sand Run Road in the Cuyahoga Valley and lived in the Szalay family's old home. She has detailed memories of her family's vegetable garden, her friend's family's Carter Store in Everett, as well as the popular local square dances in Peninsula. Hazel attended Everett Church of Christ throughout her life, and is currently the only member who was a part of the original church. She provided details about the church structure, as well as the layout of Everett in the 1940s forward. Hazel currently participates in the church, as well as serves as the master of the Summitt County Grange chapter. In addition, Hazel provided details about the Park Service's transition into the valley, and what the changes meant for families living there.
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Interviewee
Broughton, Hazel (Doolittle) (interviewee)
Interviewer
Conklin, Carolyn (interviewer)
Project
Cuyahoga Valley Project
Date
3-21-2011
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
68 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Hazel Broughton Interview, 2011" (2011). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 518014.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/144
Transcript
Transcription sponsored by Cuyahoga Valley National Park
Carolyn Conklin [00:00:00] And then we'll start. My name is Carolyn Conklin from Cleveland State University, and today is March 21st, 2011, and Hazel, introduce yourself, please.
Hazel Broughton [00:00:12] I'm Hazel Broughton.
Carolyn Conklin [00:00:14] Alright. And Hazel, just to start off, could you tell us your relationship to the Cuyahoga Valley, how you came to live there?
Hazel Broughton [00:00:23] I came to live there after meeting my husband, who was not my husband at the time. We dated prior to that. And then we married, and then we lived in Akron. Then we moved to Everett in Mr. Szalay's house. And that was 1954, May 1954.
Carolyn Conklin [00:00:49] And where did you grow up?
Hazel Broughton [00:00:50] I grew up on Sand Run Road and Akron. We moved to Akron when I was nine and a half.
Carolyn Conklin [00:00:57] And how did your family make a living in Akron?
Hazel Broughton [00:01:01] My father worked at Firestone. He was a machinist and he had gone to Hower Trade [School] to become a machinist. Before that, he had worked in a dairy which is now defunct of course. It was the Montrose Dairy. He worked in the creamery. He bottled milk. They milked the cows on the property, brought the milk in, and they did the pasteurization there in the creamery and he bottled milk in glass bottles.
Carolyn Conklin [00:01:35] Did you ever visit the dairy?
Hazel Broughton [00:01:37] Yes, because it was my great uncle. He was the superintendent. That's how my dad got the job. It was they had many, many dairy barns. I'm going to say maybe four as I remember it, and the cows just roamed in the pasture. Now there's houses there. Then they had a central spot which sat on the corner of Sand Run or, excuse me, Revere Road and Smith Road. And the creamery was a two-story building. He was on the lower floor. It was very cold. It was very wet. He had to always wear boots that went to his knees because of the constant water that they had to wash, you know, and clean the bottles. So the office was upstairs. And, yes, I remember. It was very cold in there, even in summer, because it was a stone building.
Carolyn Conklin [00:02:37] What's your strongest memory of your father?
Hazel Broughton [00:02:41] My father was very handy fixing cars, but he was not a handy person anyplace else, like mowing the grass. He didn't care if there was a flower around and he just... And he couldn't cook. He could do nothing in that way. But my father played the guitar. We used to sing together. Our family did so.
Carolyn Conklin [00:03:13] And how about your mother?
Hazel Broughton [00:03:14] My mother? My mother... Well, my mother was a jack of all trades. When we lived on Sand Run, she had a big garden. They grew everything and she canned it or we ate it in summer, in season. So, she sewed. She made she took adult clothes and cut them down for us, my sister and I, to make children's clothes. We didn't have much. We didn't have electric. We didn't have a bathroom, no running water. A pitcher pump. Her gasoline washer sat on the back porch, and I got my hand caught in the wringer one time trying to help my mom. But that's... My mom had a hard life. But of course, that was the '30s.
Carolyn Conklin [00:04:06] Can you tell me more about the garden, what was in the garden, and the process of canning?
Hazel Broughton [00:04:11] The garden? We grew just about anything Mom could canned green beans, tomatoes. She grew some they did have some potatoes, but mostly it was lettuce, onions, radishes, things that would be eaten in the summer. She did have lima beans and we did we had access to grapes on the property. She didn't grow them, but they were on the property. So she would make grape jelly and we would go and pick strawberries in season. We would pick raspberries or blackberries and she would make jelly. So I was the helper because I was the oldest girl of four.
Carolyn Conklin [00:04:57] And how do you can fruit and vegetables?
Hazel Broughton [00:05:02] The vegetables she mostly cold packed. And in later years, my mom was older and I was probably in my teens or early, maybe 13 or 14. She was tightening a lid to the jar because you had a lid and a ring and the ring you screwed on. So she was canning tomato juice. I happened to be there in the kitchen and she took it out of the cold packer and was screwing the lid tighter and it exploded, and she was burned very badly. And in those days, you just didn't run to an emergency hospital. But she hurriedly cleaned herself, you know, the tomato juice off. But it was... She had burns on both arms.
Carolyn Conklin [00:05:58] And so you mentioned that you had friends that lived around the Everett area and that you came to Everett? Tell us about that.
Hazel Broughton [00:06:05] Yes, my girlfriend's parents, when we lived in Kenmore, my girlfriend's parents bought the store in Everett. It had been known as Carter's store. It had two gas pumps in front. It was just a little general store that people could go in and pick up their groceries, bread, that sort of thing. But my girlfriend's mother had come from a family that had a store in Tennessee. Her mother and father were from Bristol, Virginia, Bristol, Tennessee. One side of the street was Bristol, Virginia. One side of the street was Bristol, Tennessee. I was there once. Anyhow, they bought the store and Mr. Hamilton worked at Goodrich, at the B.F. Goodrich plant in Akron. They wanted to be in the country. They wanted a store. So they bought the store and Mr. Hamilton continued to work at the Goodrich. So, Jane, being the oldest of two girls, the older—she was our age, my sister Mary and I—and we had walked to school together in Kenmore. We had played together, rode our bikes together, so forth, and her folks moved to the country. So in the summer, we decided we needed to go see Jane and my mother took us and we went out to see Jane. Well, it just so happened that the Broughtons lived next door to the store. Mr. Broughton, which was my view, former future father in law. He worked at the Goodrich, too. So he and Mr. Hamilton shared rights to go back and forth to the Goodrich. So that's where I met Jack. He had just graduated from high school in Peninsula, Boston High. So I met him. And of course, Jane had met him first. And naturally there was rivalry. I thought, oh, wouldn't it be nice to date him? And she thought the same thing. And living next door, she had an edge. But anyhow, we didn't date until November. But Mr. Broughton called square dances. He and his small orchestra went around to the various places, Richfield, Northampton, Peninsula. They had rounded the square dances and in November of 1946 there was a square dance and a round dance together at the Northampton Town Hall, which is still there. He was calling this dance and I tried my best to get to go and I don't remember who took my sister and I, but we got to go. And I danced with Jack because I knew him. Of course, Jane was there too, and my sister and others that we were acquainted with. But Jack asked if he could take me home if I waited till the dance was over and he had to take his father and mother home. I said, okay, of course that was a drive clear to Kenmore. And that's what happened. We started dating and we dated for two years before we were married.
Carolyn Conklin [00:09:26] What is the difference between a round dance and a square dance.
Hazel Broughton [00:09:29] A round dance is a waltz or a foxtrot, and a square dance is where you have four pairs of partners, a girl and a boy, and they face each other just like a square on each side. And the caller tells you what to do. And the music, of course, plays the necessary and appropriate dance. And I don't remember all the calls, but I can tell you how it starts. Forward and back. So you would meet your partners in the middle and then you would allemande left, and you would turn to your left and you'd rotate hands around the circle till you were back with your partner. And that was the beginnings of my learning of square dancing. And of course, now there's country dancing and line dancing and all the others. [laughs]
Carolyn Conklin [00:10:20] And what was it like to be at the square dance? What did it feel like?
Hazel Broughton [00:10:24] Oh, it was fun. And you worked up a steam because they were pretty boisterous and there would be maybe eight or ten squares. So now you figured there was eight people. And you multiply that by eight, you would have a big crowd. And in summer it got very warm in there and there was no air conditioning in those days, you know. Opened the doors in the windows. The best square dance I can tell you about is I experienced was a dance, which was called a street dance. And my father in law didn't happen to call this dance, but it was at the corner of Everett Road and Riverview Road. Now, they kept every road open to Riverview and you could make a left and go to Peninsula, but you couldn't turn right. That evening—it was a Saturday evening, I believe—they closed the the street off and we had a street dance. I had never been to a street dance. That was my first and only street dance. But we did. We just danced right in the street and the orchestra was on a hay wagon.
Carolyn Conklin [00:11:40] When the dancers were in a hall, like the Northampton Town Hall, did they decorate it? What did it look like inside?
Hazel Broughton [00:11:47] They really didn't decorate it unless it was like Christmas or something special. No, they... Everybody just came to dance, and there would be an intermission halfway through. And they usually would start about seven, eight o'clock, more like eight o'clock, and they would go 10, 10:30 with a half-hour break, because after all, those musicians did get tired. There usually was a pianist, a trumpet player, a violinist, and sometimes a drummer and/or someone that played the saxophone, another wind instrument. But they got tired so they'd take a break. So halfway through, they'd get a 20 to 30 minute break. So everybody else if there were refreshments there to buy or served, why, that's when everybody got their break.
Carolyn Conklin [00:12:35] And who attended the square dances? Was it a younger crowd or a cross-section of everyone?
Hazel Broughton [00:12:39] It was a cross-section. You had older people like my in-laws who were, you know, older. Then you had people my age and my husband's age who were like the 20-year-old or less bracket, and you had anyone in between. So, yes, but usually, not always but usually the older ones would sit out and clap while the square dancing was going on, but they'd get up for the slow ones, the waltzes and the foxtrots.
Carolyn Conklin [00:13:10] Do you have any more memorable stories from the dances?
Hazel Broughton [00:13:14] Well, I can tell you that I learned to dance before I ever met Jack. My uncle was Hungarian and Coddingville Dance Hall was the best in the area. They said it was a floor that swayed and don't ask me how that is. But there was some mechanism that when you were on this dance floor, it would sway, go up and down. I don't know how it was made. But my uncle loved to dance and he loved to polka. So he taught me how to polka. And that was before I ever met Jack and my father took me. So I was I was young. I was probably about 12 and my uncle would dance around the floor and he was one that took a lot of territory. And when you're dancing the polka, you try to all go in the same direction. If you don't, you're going to bump into somebody. But people were... The Coddingville Dance hall was a long hall, but it had beautiful hardwood floors and the orchestra was up on a stage and there were probably five or six in that orchestra. I don't even remember how many, but that was where I first learned to dance. And I love to polka. I just love to do it now. But I did that.
Carolyn Conklin [00:14:38] Can you describe the polka?
Hazel Broughton [00:14:40] Oh, yeah. It's two steps real quick and two steps to the left and two steps to the right and two steps and then you circle while you're doing this. And my uncle was a pro at it. He could, he could just maneuver. And that's where I learned to polka and I loved it. And fortunately my husband knew how to polka and he was a good dancer.
Carolyn Conklin [00:15:04] Were these dances, were they kind of unique to Everett? Did people come from far away or were they kind of in the different communities?
Hazel Broughton [00:15:15] They mainly were for the community, but people that liked to dance, they would get wind or knowledge of a dance being in Northampton on a certain night or they'd get knowledge of Peninsula's dances. Or... Now, the ones that Coddingville, they had theirs on two set nights a month. They weren't every week, but it was like the first and third or second and fourth. But usually they were held in a town hall, sometimes a school, or a church that had a gymnasium because a gymnasium had a good floor.
Carolyn Conklin [00:15:53] And were these... Were the dances held on most weekends? Was it a monthly event?
Hazel Broughton [00:15:58] It was usually on a weekend, usually Saturday night, and they would be set nights that, for instance, the Grange in Peninsula, the one I joined eventually after Jack and I were married, it was on a Saturday night and it would be like the first and third Saturday night. And then you might go to Northampton on the second Saturday night or you might go to another one, a different one. But they were correlated because you wanted to draw the same people. And if people liked to dance, they danced every weekend and it didn't matter. Now, the older they got, the less they attended. But it was fun. It was entertainment. And that was before TV, before a lot of other organizations. So.
Carolyn Conklin [00:16:50] And were the dances the main social event?
Hazel Broughton [00:16:54] Yes, yes, they were.
Carolyn Conklin [00:16:57] And so that, was that where you would meet new friends?
Hazel Broughton [00:16:59] Right. And then there was a group of young people, naturally, because after all, if their parents had danced, they were more likely to. But then, of course, we came into the jitterbug stage, you know, after the Second World War and rock and roll and all the other stuff that came. And, you know, old people don't think that's dancing. [laughs]
Carolyn Conklin [00:17:29] What other social events were held?
Hazel Broughton [00:17:33] Well suppers, covered-dish suppers, and church and Grange were held, and in Everett, I have to tell you this, that my neighbors who lived across the street, every year they had to have for many years a neighborhood supper. It was just us involved. And they wouldn't invite everyone. They would invite just a couple. And then the next time they had it, they'd invite a couple different ones, because after all, there was only like 20-something families that lived in Everett. But I remember saying, well, isn't there something I can bring? Oh, no, you just come. We're just doing this for our neighbors. And I thought, how sweet.
Carolyn Conklin [00:18:24] So about how many people would come to these suppers?
Hazel Broughton [00:18:26] Usually six or eight, because they would fit around the dining room table, and if it was summer and she could have a picnic outside, there might have been a few more. But mostly it was just just the close proximity.
Carolyn Conklin [00:18:41] And what type of, types of food did you enjoy?
Hazel Broughton [00:18:45] Well, it was it was good old-fashioned home cooking because that's what she was. Usually it was like a roast beef or fried chicken or something of that sort. And then she would have mashed potatoes and gravy, of course, usually some kind of a vegetable, green beans, peas, you know, and a salad. And there was always dessert because my neighbor, he didn't think that dinner was ever, ever complete unless you had... What have we got for dessert? Chester would say. And it was usually a homemade pie. Sometimes it would be cake and ice cream. But you know, that... He was an old-fashioned guy and she was an old-fashioned... They were like my second set of parents because they were nearly the same age. And I did rely on them after we moved to 4722 Riverview Road because they were so handy and so wonderful. And she was a schoolteacher and she had several of my kids in school.
Carolyn Conklin [00:19:49] Do you have a favorite memory from one of those suppers?
Hazel Broughton [00:19:53] Yes, I do. My daughter, this was long after my daughter Deb had moved to Spain, stayed—she went as a student—stayed, married and had her first child. And they came back to visit. And this neighbor that lived right across from us, and naturally her little boy didn't speak English and she was fluent in Spanish. And my neighbors across the street invited us all because Debbie was home to visit. And we took her son, my grandson David, and we ate dinner. Well, of course, he didn't speak English and something was put on his plate that he didn't recognize. And he said, of course, I couldn't understand because I don't speak fluent Spanish... So he asked his mother what it was and she told him what it was. And he said, whatever it was, I don't even remember now. He said, do I have to eat it? And she said, yes, you do eat it and hush. And so he nibbled at it here and there. And I know whatever it was, he didn't... He thought it was horrid. And we all laughed about it afterwards. But we were not hurting her feelings because she fixed it in so much love, you know. [laughs]
Carolyn Conklin [00:21:22] What other times did I guess members of the community get together?
Hazel Broughton [00:21:29] Well, church, probably because most of us that lived in Everett all went to Everett Church—Everett Church of Christ was its proper name—and we had we had hamburg fries in summer at the outside fireplace. And the neighbor that lived across from me, he was part of the reason we had the fireplace and he had a huge skillet. I don't know where he ever got the skillet, but it was a huge skillet, would hold a bunch of hamburgs and and he would usually put his apron on and he would fry hamburgs. And this was really sponsored by the adult Bible class but anybody could come. Those of us that had families and usually we didn't have much else. It was just hamburgs. Somebody would bring homemade pickles, somebody maybe would bring potato salad or baked beans or something like that. It was not a big event, but we'd have it outside. And now we had a few benches that we brought out in the summer so that we could sit. They brought a few tables out so we could sit at the tables. And it was just once a month we had a hamburg fry. And other than that, I remember them telling about the penny suppers they used to have before I ever attended the church. They had them in the church basement. And what they did is everybody brought dishes of food. So when you passed through the line and you took a spoonful of food of whatever, how many pieces, how many different dishes were along there, you paid a penny for every spoonful. And that's how they just had a little fundraiser. Now, I was not there for any of those, but I heard him talk about that, and they said that was so simple. But most of the garden produce was either grown in their own gardens or canned at their homes. So when they made something and they brought it, it was freely donated and then they just paid a penny for their portion. So I don't know how much they ever made, but I know that they must have had a lot of fun because they had a lot to talk about for that time. But I do remember the covered dish suppers at the church and everybody brought shared.
Carolyn Conklin [00:23:54] Is the Everett Church of Christ still there?
Hazel Broughton [00:23:57] The building is still there. It's on the National Historic Register. It was built in 1906, I believe, or seven, might've been 1907. And then it changed its name in 1992 to the Church in the Valley when John Fisk took it over as his church, and he died three years ago. So it's still Church in the Valley. It does have the plaque on the outside of the building that it is on the National Historic Register, Historical Register. And we have two services now, and unfortunately I'm the only one that attends from Everett Church of Christ. We have one other member and she is 91, but she doesn't attend anymore. She's still technically a member, but she doesn't come. She's not able healthwise. But whenever they want to know something about the church, they always come and ask me. And I said, I feel like I'm a fixture here. But I did see it through its first expansion when it was Everett Church of Christ. In 1967, we had additions put on and we were modern. We had bathrooms and we had running water. We got rid of the outhouse. And so since then, we have tore that addition off and added a giant, what I call a giant fellowship hall. We extended the sanctuary and so we practically doubled the original church size with what we have now because we have a basement under it and the fellowship hall and offices on the second floor. So.
Carolyn Conklin [00:25:56] What did the original church look like?
Hazel Broughton [00:25:59] The original church was just a frame, a wood frame building. It still has its belfry, and the bell is rung on Sundays yet. And it had... They bought the pews from some other church that went out of business. That was before I came. And they bought the pews. They are a curved pew. But when we added on for Church in the Valley, the carpenter outfit that did it, you have to look very closely to tell which are the new old pews and the old pews. And what we did according to what the design was, we moved the pews on each side forward and put the four on each side and back. So and he even made hymnal holders, the hymnal rack. He made them. They're not identical, but they're on the back. And but the wood is just a slight bit lighter. But if you didn't... And the ornamental wood cutouts on the end on the outside of the pews, he duplicated that. And we added two new windows, which are shorter windows. But he duplicated the wood trim because it's dark and it's wide trim and wide under. He duplicated that. And I said if I hadn't seen the old, I would have a hard time knowing that this was new because it looks identical. They tried to keep it identical for the historical part. So they've done it. They did a very good job. I'm very proud of it. I'm proud I lived through it. I thought it was never going to live through it. It seemed like it took forever because we had to do so much to jump the hurdles of getting the land from the park. And we got it for like a token fee of like 2,000 dollars because we needed the parking area behind. And now we have a beautiful, beautiful parking lot. It's very scenic. And fortunately, with working with the park as long as we did, we kept saying we'll get there. But we didn't think we were going to take that long. [laughs] But we got it. Mr. Debo of the Park was wonderful for us, for our planners to work with. And he's no longer the superintendent of the park. But that's... He gets he gets the credit. And he... This was something that had never been done in the Park Service before. Never before have they had hamlets like Everett and a church and all these other things within a park, a national park. Well, you know, when you're... When you're treading for the first time, there's a lot of hurdles and a lot of pitfalls. And we thought we were going to be a pitfall, but we persevered and we made it. And it's been there for three years now.
Carolyn Conklin [00:29:25] Can you tell me about that process? What were some of the challenges you had to go through?
Hazel Broughton [00:29:30] Well, one of the things that I thought was so stupid, I'll never forget when I heard it, we could not take out any... We were supposed to take out the old cedar trees, the old pine trees, but we could only take those pine trees out between da da da and da da da because Indiana bats might come and nest there. I said, really? Do they know Indiana bats are here? No. Well, we had to wait that out and then we had just a certain time, so many months, that we could take out those trees to start the process of the digging for the foundation. The other thing we couldn't do, we couldn't dig in the ground until so many people came out and dug for the artifacts that might be under there for the hope Indians that might have been there years and years before us. So we had to wait that out. So it was little things like this that, you know, you don't think about. You just know you want that land, you want to get started. It's got to all be excavated and dug out. We persevered. We made it.
Carolyn Conklin [00:30:43] And when was this?
Hazel Broughton [00:30:44] Three years ago. Three years ago.
Carolyn Conklin [00:30:46] And how long was the entire process?
Hazel Broughton [00:30:48] It was about... It was about... Well, probably it was more like seven years from start to finish, close to seven years. From the time we first approached the park, because that was our first step, we had to approach the park. And of course, we got a good saying going in church. We're waiting on Kansas City. It's sitting in Kansas City in somebody's basket, in or out basket, we're not sure which... And it got to be funny, but we didn't lose heart. It did seem like a long time, though.
Carolyn Conklin [00:31:33] What is your current involvement with the church? What do you do?
Hazel Broughton [00:31:36] What do we do? We have two services on Sunday morning, 8:30 and 11. We have—in fact, tonight I'm going to church board meeting—trustees meeting. We have that once a month. We have... Every three months, the first Sunday of the quarter, we have a combined service at ten o'clock and we have a luncheon afterwards. In between we have weddings. We're having a wedding at our church. One of our members is marrying this Saturday. She is... I think it's a six o'clock wedding. I play for the weddings on occasion. We have three of us that play. So this week I'm not playing, I have one in July and the other lady has one coming up. I think it's early July, I have mine at the end. And last year we had quite a few weddings. I can't tell you how many. I'd say maybe a dozen last year, but this year so far, we've only got four or five planned. That could change. In between, we have Wednesday night prayer service. Now that we have a new pastor who started July 1st, we are having a video series on a Sunday night. Once a month. He's tried to plan— it's only been for... this will be the third month that he's tried it since he started—a video series to draw people out on Sunday evening. Normally, we don't have a Sunday evening service. Once a month, he's now trying a two-hour prayer service on a Wednesday night. The weather has not been good for winter. [laughs] Unfortunately, we didn't have to cancel any Sunday services, but we did have to cancel few others. So our minister is 47 and he's young enough. He has three sons, wife. So he's young enough to try for us to include a generational gap there. We have more people that attend second service than we do first. And during the second service, we do have a Bible school for children, which we don't through the first. We do have a nursery and it's attended through the second service. Let's see, anything else going on there? We have quite an active group. We have a lady who has volunteered all her services outside for the flowers and we have one, two, one, one man, a member who has been mowing our yard. And this year, due to a change of one of our member's church, he changed from our church to another, he couldn't push the snow anymore. So we had to find a new snow plower. So we had to hire someone to plow the snow. And this winter, we really needed it because we're on a hill. And it did get icy a few times.
Carolyn Conklin [00:34:52] Okay, so we're going to switch topics.
Hazel Broughton [00:34:54] Okay.
Carolyn Conklin [00:34:54] So I want to take you back and ask you, you know, what do you remember about the local businesses in Everett?
Hazel Broughton [00:35:01] The local business in Everett, of course, the two businesses that we remember most was Szalay's selling sweet corn from their home, and that's where they sold it, next to the store. And they had it in their outbuilding, which was a good-sized two-story building. It's still there. And of course, that's part of the park offices now. So they sold corn. They start planting. They'll be planting corn again probably by the end of April. The soil has to be a certain heat for them to start. And of course, now it's the third generation and the fourth generation because John Jr., John Szalay Jr. and his son are now the third and fourth generation, so that they're still selling corn, but now they sell it from a different place than they used to. Where we used to live at 4563 Riverview Road, they built, after we moved from there, later they built the building behind which was there, is their present selling place. But they farm all the land and lease part of it from the park. And they do have in southern Ohio, they do have some leased land down there where they can bring tomatoes especially and some other produce. They truck it up to their Everett stand, you know, there. But originally, I can tell you that I remember when I first moved to Everett and lived in Mr. Szalay's house, old Mr. Szalay, their kids would be hoeing in the fields. And mind you, Paul had four kids and John had two kids, and there would be six kids of assorted ages out there hoeing in the fields because the mechanized that they have now and the fertilizing and getting rid of weeds and so forth was not there. And so I can remember those kids still standing in the field hoeing, probably not real ambitious because after all, hoeing is a dull, dull job. But that was... They sold the corn as soon... They always said they'd have it by the Fourth of July. That was the same. Fourth of July. Knee-High by the Fourth of July. But sometimes it isn't there. Sometimes it's a little later. But they end now with pumpkins and they go through Halloween. So November 1st, it's closed. It's done, it's gone. But they still sell their corn and other vegetables. And of course, the store had some meats, some produce, not very much produce because they had to buy it or truck it in. But it was mostly canned goods, packaged stuff, chips, packaged foods, boxed foods. But Mrs. Hamilton was a great lady. She knew... She was also the postmistress for a while when Everett still had the post office. And she was a fine lady and her husband too. They are both dead, but Jane is still alive and in lives in Texas, I believe. And their other daughter Sandy lives in California. But those were the two big, big events to buy. B
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