| Type | Audio |
|---|---|
| Title | Interview with Alfred Showell, 19 May 2004 |
| Post Date | Feb 28, 2025 |
| Description | This interview was conducted with Alfred Showell of Berlin, Maryland. In this interview, he describes his memories of life on the Eastern Shore in the early 20th Century. He describes some of his exploits in recreational fishing, his memories of the 1933 storm that hit Ocean City, family life in Berlin (MD) at that time, prohibition and bootlegging, and other small traits of rural life in the early 20th Century. He also speaks about changes he's seen over time, mentioning greater racial equality and rights for African Americans especially. This interview is digitized from the Pat Russell Papers Collection, which contains dozens of Oral Histories related to the Eastern Shore. For more information, see the [Edward H. Nabb Center finding aid](https://libapps.salisbury.edu/nabb-archives/local-history-archives/2000.020). |
| Transcript |
Title: Interview with Alfred F. Showell, 19 May 2004 Date: May 19th, 2004 Interviewers: Tom Pitts, Pat Russell Interviewee: Alfred Showell Introduction: This interview was conducted with Alfred Showell of Berlin, Maryland. In this interview, he describes his memories of life on the Eastern Shore in the early 20th Century. He describes some of his exploits in recreational fishing, his memories of the 1933 storm that hit Ocean City, family life in Berlin (MD) at that time, prohibition and bootlegging, and other small traits of rural life in the early 20th Century. He also speaks about changes he's seen over time, mentioning greater racial equality and rights for African Americans especially. [Recording begins] PAT RUSSELL (RUSSELL): This is a taped interview conducted by Pat Russell and Tom Pitts with Mr. Alfred Showell of Berlin, Maryland. This interview took place in the home of Mr. Showell in Berlin, Maryland, on the 19th of May 2004. I’m going to turn the tape recorder on if that’s okay with you. ALFRED SHOWELL (SHOWELL): What’s that? RUSSELL: I’m going to turn the tape recorder on if that’s okay with you. SHOWELL: Okay. RUSSELL: And, how old are you, Mr. Showell? SHOWELL: How old am I? RUSSELL: How old are you sir? SHOWELL: Who am I? RUSSELL: How old are you? SHOWELL: What’d she say? TOM PITTS (PITTS): How old are you? SHOWELL: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Ninety—I’ll be going on 97 in July in 27 days. RUSSELL: When is your birth date? SHOWELL: July 27th. RUSSELL: What year were you born? SHOWELL: 1906 RUSSELL: Where were you born, sir? SHOWELL: Where was I born? RUSSELL: Uh-huh [Affirmative] SHOWELL: Back here in Berlin. Just three steps down the other side of town. Here in Berlin. RUSSELL: So, you’ve lived here all your life? SHOWELL: Oh, yeah. Lived here all my life. I’ve been working—Uncle Sam kept me away from home longer than I should’ve stayed. Being in the army. RUSSELL: How long were you in the Army? SHOWELL: Two and a half years. RUSSELL: Where were you in the Army? SHOWELL: California. And I got killed there. I’m just lucky I’m living today. Them ships was blowing out of the sky like I don’t know what. RUSSELL: When were you in the Army? SHOWELL: Navy, I was in the Navy. RUSSELL: Navy. When were you in the Navy? SHOWELL: Beg pardon? RUSSELL: When were you in the Navy? SHOWELL: In ’44. RUSSELL: World War II? SHOWELL: That’s right. World War II, yeah. RUSSELL: What was your mother’s name? SHOWELL: Louisa. RUSSELL: Do you know her maiden name? SHOWELL: Pitts. RUSSELL: Your father’s name? SHOWELL: Alfred Showell. RUSSELL: When was your father born? SHOWELL: I’d have to ask the kids that. I can’t remember something like that, when he was born. But my daughter could tell you, I know. Back in eighteenth, I know. RUSSELL: Do you know where he was born? SHOWELL: When was he born? RUSSELL: Where he was born? SHOWELL: Here in Berlin. RUSSELL: So, you have a long Berlin family history. SHOWELL: Yeah, oh yeah. All of us were born here in Berlin. RUSSELL: And I understand from Tom you’re quite a fisherman. SHOWELL: Oh yeah, a fisherman. RUSSELL: When did you start fishing? SHOWELL: When did I start fishing? Let’s see, I was about sixty, thirty-eight—No, when I started fishing I was about twelve years old, a little boy when I first started. Just messing around with my [inaudible], you know. But when I went on my own I was grown. Going on my own fishing, I was eighteen, nineteen, and twenty. RUSSELL: Did you work at fishing to earn a living? SHOWELL: Did I work, you say? RUSSELL: Did you fish for fun or did you fish for— SHOWELL: Just for pleasure, that’s all. Just like a sport, you know. RUSSELL: Where did you go? SHOWELL: Ocean City, out in Assateague. RUSSELL: Where did you fish on Assateague? SHOWELL: On the surf. I stand on the surf bank and cast out in the ocean. RUSSELL: On Assateague Island? SHOWELL: That’s right. RUSSELL: Where on Assateague Island? SHOWELL: Where? RUSSELL: Yeah. Any particular place on the island? SHOWELL: Well no, just go on Assateague Island. Go up and down there. Anywhere you want. Between there and Ocean City there, so far there’s beach up and down, there’s plenty of fish all along there anywhere. RUSSELL: Did you go fishing over there before the storm of ’33? SHOWELL: Before ’33 storm? RUSSELL: Uh-huh [Affirmative] SHOWELL: Oh yeah, I fished a lot before the ’33 storm. Yes, indeed. RUSSELL: Did you notice any change in the fishing before and after the ’33 storm? SHOWELL: Well, right after the storm, there’s a big difference because there wasn’t no fish left. RUSSELL: Why? SHOWELL: I guess they go out to sea, the Atlantic. Go out in deep water. So, after a while, they came back. RUSSELL: When did you notice the change? SHOWELL: When did I notice the change? Let’s see. I went down there I would say I think about a week after the storm and there’s a big change right then. That made a big change. That storm, that ’33 storm, after that, wasn’t nothing going at all down there. RUSSELL: Can you tell me a little bit more about it? SHOWELL: Beg pardon? RUSSELL: Can you tell me a little bit more about the change that you saw? What happened? SHOWELL: Oh, oh what happened? RUSSELL: Uh-huh [Affirmative] SHOWELL: Well, you just go down there, the water would seem to be so rough, you know, down there. Rough water. Current was strong, you know. And the fish didn’t come in to eat. They’d stay out and eat in the water. So, after a while, it slacked up a little bit and they would swim in, swim in shore, closer. RUSSELL: What kind of fishing techniques did you use before the ’33 storm? SHOWELL: You say what kind of—? RUSSELL: How did you fish? What did you fish with? SHOWELL: Oh, I fish with a pole, fishing pole, like that one up there. Right on the side of the wall PITTS: [background] He has a big one up there. SHOWELL: Yeah, I use a surf, surf fishing pole, rod. RUSSELL: Well, when you started fishing, when you were about, when you first started fishing, what kind of pole did you use? SHOWELL: The surf pole. RUSSELL: Surf pole? SHOWELL: Yeah, yeah, yeah, fishing rod pole. RUSSELL: Wow! That’s a big one. SHOWELL: About—rod and reel, yeah. [Interruption, tape pauses] RUSSELL: Who taught you to fish, Mr. Showell? SHOWELL: SHOWELL: Who taught me? RUSSELL: Uh-huh [Affirmative] SHOWELL: The man I worked for which was Dr. Zad Henry, his name was. RUSSELL: How did he teach you? What did he teach you? SHOWELL: What did he fish with? A [unclear] with a handle on it. This would hold a string, you know, wrap it around a spool, like a spool kind of, and just take off so much and throw it out, you know, with your hand. RUSSELL: What did you catch when you fished with a hand line? SHOWELL: Hand line? Same thing you do now. Big blues, drum, all them. Same thing. I caught big fish and little fish. RUSSELL: When you were fishing with the hand line, where did you go? SHOWELL: Where did I go? Assateague and Ocean City. Down there at Assateague and Ocean city, too. RUSSELL: Did Dr. Henry give you any advice? SHOWELL: Did he give me? Uh-huh, he told me. RUSSELL: What did he tell you? What kind of advice did he give you? SHOWELL: When he said, first thing you do is go down, if you ain’t got a pole, you unline your line, spread your line on the sand and you have, you go to your hooks, put your bait on then pick your line up, twist it over your head like that, boom! [Laughs] Let go, you know, let go with a big humph. It worked. See, see, you have about a, about a six-ounce sinker on it, on your line, you know— PITTS: Weight, the weight. That makes it go, you know. SHOWELL: Yeah. PITTS: So, what did you do with the other end? SHOWELL: Other end? PITTS: Yeah. SHOWELL: Nothing at all. PITTS: But, I mean, to keep the whole thing from going over? Tied it? SHOWELL: Oh no, you wouldn’t ever be able to get the whole thing over. Not if you had any line on it. PITTS: Yeah, okay. SHOWELL: Yeah, Uh-huh. You have [unclear, many speaking], you know, how much line you have. Yeah. You ain’t gonna throw it all, you ain’t gonna throw it all in the water no way. It’s a lot of fun. I’d rather fish than eat. [Laughs] PITTS: We’re going to give it a try next week. SHOWELL: Yeah, yeah. RUSSELL: Did Dr. Henry go with you when you went fishing? SHOWELL: Oh yeah, yeah, he did go some. Yes, uh-huh. RUSSELL: How often did you all go fishing? SHOWELL: How often? About twice a week. RUSSELL: Which month did you fish in? SHOWELL: What month? We would start, we would start fishing about this time [May] and wind up the last of November. RUSSELL: What were you catching at the end of November? SHOWELL: Oh, uh, it would be blue fish, drum, trout, like that. And then you get some perch, too. And blue fish. They’re fun to catch. Only thing you got to mind is they’ll bite you. You go to take that hook out of his mouth [inaudible]. PITTS: They’ve got sharp teeth, don’t they? SHOWELL: Oh boy. They’ll cut a finger off like a knife. RUSSELL: What was the most memorable fish that you caught when you were a boy? A young boy. SHOWELL: You mean at one time? RUSSELL: Well, what was, which fishing trip do you remember the most when you were a young boy? SHOWELL: Fishing like with Mr. Zed? RUSSELL: What fishing trip stands out in your mind when you were a young boy? SHOWELL: Oh, oh. RUSSELL: Was there a special fishing trip? SHOWELL: No, no, not necessarily. No. I just know when the fish was going to start biting. Sometimes I want to go to Assateague, sometimes I want to go to Ocean City, sometimes I want to go up to Lewes, Delaware, you know, change your mind. PITTS: Was there a time you fished back then that you caught a big one or one that gave you the biggest fight? SHOWELL: Yeah, the best time to fish is in the fall of the year. That’s the best fishing time, from September on through October and November. That’s your best fishing time. RUSSELL: Were there any signs connected with fishing, say your best fishing time? SHOWELL: What’s that? RUSSELL: Were there any special signs which indicated the best fishing time? SHOWELL: Best fishing time? RUSSELL: Were there any signs, say like if the moon was cupped up or the moon was cupped down? Were there any signs? SHOWELL: No, no, I didn’t see any difference in the moon or nothing. Some people would say that. But I never, I never did see. PITTS: How did you tell when it was the best time to go fishing? SHOWELL: By the tide. PITTS: Huh? SHOWELL: By the tide. See, you have to show up in the day when the high tide isn’t as low, yeah. RUSSELL: Did you have a chart when you were, when you first started fishing? Were you able to use charts? SHOWELL: When did I start? RUSSELL: When you started fishing, were there charts? SHOWELL: Yeah, when I first start, I want to start on low water. Fish on that ‘til it got high. High water, yeah. Start on low water then you got, you got all that time to fish on ‘til it gets high. And that’s the best time to go. Ain’t no need in hardly going if you’re going to wait to go on high tide because fish’ll be down [unclear]. You got to work with the tide. PITTS: Were calendars out then that told you when there were high tides? SHOWELL: Oh, yeah. You can tell. Uh-huh. Yeah, I can, I can go out here on the beach right now and tell you when the tide’s high or low. RUSSELL: How could you tell? SHOWELL: By the way it’s coming in. All you got to do is stand there a few minutes and you can tell. And just a little while you stand this place and maybe it’ll run by you a little bit where you’re standing. And you stand there a few more minutes and you get still while it’s still going further and further and further. And after a while you watch it’ll come back to you and keep on going and going out to sea, go on back out, the tide will. That’s—there ain’t no need in fishing on a low tide. You want to start on, you want to start on a low tide and fish on it until it gets high. RUSSELL: Do you remember the storm of ’33? SHOWELL: Indeed, I do, I want to Ocean City. RUSSELL: Can you tell me about it? SHOWELL: I was in Ocean City during—the next morning and late that afternoon, too. Went as far as I could go down without the water getting to me, you know. RUSSELL: What did you see? What was it like? SHOWELL: What’s that? RUSSELL: What was it like? SHOWELL: What was—the storm—like the one you mean? RUSSELL: What did you see during the storm of ’33? SHOWELL: What did I do? RUSSELL: What did you see? SHOWELL: [To Pitts] What’d she say? What did I see? PITTS: The wind and the rain. How was it? SHOWELL: Oh man, it was tough. You better mind how you went out there to it. The wind would blow you down. That wind would be blowing hard. PITTS: What mile per hour wind would you say it was? SHOWELL: Oh, I would, I would say somewhere at least sixty miles an hour and gusts’d hit you. It, it’d turn you head over heels if you didn’t watch yourself. I’ve had, I’ve really had some fishing, some fun down in Ocean City. I was young then, you know. I liked the, you know, wild and crazy stuff, you know. PITTS: You had a lot of energy. SHOWELL: Yeah, energy. [laughs] RUSSELL: What kind of fun did you have down in Ocean City? SHOWELL: Fishing? RUSSELL: Uh-huh [affirmative] SHOWELL: Oh man, you know it’s catching the fish, you know, and get hold of one. He ‘low me, sometimes he get off, sometimes he won. But you just hoping he wouldn’t get off. PITTS: Right, yeah. SHOWELL: You got to handle them pretty, pretty easy. Because you handle them too rough they break loose. Then you can come in and you got no fish. But you handle him right, you can get him in. This, pulling him in right slow, you know. Don’t rush him. RUSSELL: Did you see any of the pound fishermen when you were down in Ocean City? SHOWELL: Any pound fishing? You mean like they used to do. Went pound fishing when I was a boy down there. I remember it. Done pound fishing. They get in the big boats and go way out to sea, and they had nets on great big poles like that. The nets, you know, fishing nets, and that’s what they fish. The fish would get tangled in them nets and they’d have to pick them out. Throw them in the boats. I remember, I was a boy, I’ll never forget it. I hear a great rumble and the Earth just shook and you know what it was? It was the men out there in the surf blowing up the fish pound poles. PITTS: Blowing them up? SHOWELL: And they made a mistake some way or another and they was blown all to pieces. I never will forget that. I was a young boy, they was blowing the fish pound poles up, you know. PITTS: Now who was blowing it up? Was it— SHOWELL: It was the [unclear] doing it. It was dynamite PITTS: Oh, really? SHOWELL: Uh-huh [Affirmative] PITTS: Now they were fishing that way or were they trying to do something else? SHOWELL: No, no. They were getting their poles up out of the ocean. Getting them out. Clean the ocean out. PITTS: Oh, cleaning the ocean. SHOWELL: Yeah, you know, getting the fishing poles up out of the way of the boats going through so they wouldn’t, so the boats wouldn’t happen to run into them, you know. Yeah. PITTS: So, they used regular dynamite? SHOWELL: Oh, yes sir. And this morning, man, the house just shook while I was standing right by it. I come to find out these men were out there dynamite fishing poles up out of the ocean and I guess something happened wrong. Hit the wrong button or something. But they all blowed to pieces. Uh-huh. I was about ten years old when that happened. RUSSELL: Did you do any oystering? SHOWELL: Beg pardon? RUSSELL: Did you do any oystering or clamming? SHOWELL: Have I ever clammed? Oh yes, uh-huh. You know what I do when I clam. I clam in the bay, Sinepuxent, and wed them out, you know. Start wading, you know, feel them out with my feet. PITTS: Okay. RUSSELL: How did you do that? SHOWELL: Just walk and be barefooted, you know. You get out there and walk and you feel one on your feet and you feel your hand underneath and you put them in your bag [Laughter] RUSSELL: Did you do that for fun or did you do that to make money? SHOWELL: No, no. I never did fish or clam for money. Just to get something to eat, you know. Eh hey(?) PITTS: That was the main diet back then, wasn’t it? SHOWELL: Yes, sir. Fishing. And in my life to fish or clam is fun, too. Now, now I never did any clamming—I mean oystering. You got to use the oyster right soon, you know? You ever seen anybody oyster, have you? PITTS: I can’t say that I have. [Laughs] RUSSELL: How did they oyster, Mr. Showell? SHOWELL: Well now. Let’s see. They got—I don’t see none here. I was going to try and show you. I need two knives or two forks and I’m going to show you how they, how they figured it out. [Ethel Pitts is getting two knives or two forks.] PITTS: I need two knives or two forks. SHOWELL: No, just two of anything. They’re the same. ETHEL PITTS: They’re the same. SHOWELL: Yeah. Now this is your pole you clam with. You’re clamming now. All right? Just like that. Dip it, dip it down in the water like that. This is like a shovel down here. And you walk it like that. When you got it like that, then when you get it loaded, you pull it on up and dump ‘em. PITTS: Okay. SHOWELL: Yeah. PITTS: Now, on the bottom is what? A shovel like? SHOWELL: Yeah. See, on the bottom you got a opening there. When you push down, you push the handles together, that comes up and that holds your, that holds your clams up. Just like you would put them in a bucket. My [unclear] is simple. [Unclear] liable to think they work you pretty hard. [Laughs] A lot of fun. RUSSELL: What did your father do for a living? SHOWELL: He, well he, was just for fun he would go fishing. He liked to fish and he would go crabbing, you know, like that. But as far as his working, mostly he was a farmer. He farmed. RUSSELL: Where did he farm? SHOWELL: Where did he? RUSSELL: Uh-huh [Affirmative]. SHOWELL: Right here in Berlin. Out, out in the country. RUSSELL: How large was the farm? SHOWELL: How large was it? ‘Bout sixty acre. ‘Bout sixty acres. RUSSELL: What did he grow on the farm? SHOWELL: Com and soybeans, white potatoes and sweet potatoes. And we used to work all day, come home eat our supper, and the moon would be shining pretty, you know, and we’d go back, back on the farm and work two or three hours while the moon was shining. You had to do it. U-huh. PITTS: The moon provided the light. SHOWELL: Yeah. Uh-huh [Affirmative]. Yeah. Yeah. Shucked corn, shucked com, stripped blades, cut tops. Bet you don’t know what all that is? PITTS: Oh, yes. I do know. SHOWELL: Cutting tops, stripping blades? RUSSELL: What are cutting tops and stripping blades? SHOWELL: Cutting tops out of your com stalks, com. RUSSELL: And what is stripping blades? SHOWELL: The com stalk has blades on it and you, you do down and take your hand and push down and pull the blades off, off the com stalk. RUSSELL: What did you do with the com? SHOWELL: Carried it to the farm, to the bam, and keep it for the wintertime for the team. For the cattle and horses. That’s what we fed ‘em on in the wintertime. RUSSELL: What about yourselves? Did you grow most of what you needed? SHOWELL: Yeah. We growed most. RUSSELL: What did your mother cook on? SHOWELL: We growed com, oats, and rye and barley. That was the stuff we growed. White potatoes and sweet potatoes. RUSSELL: What did your mother do? SHOWELL: Well, she was a housekeeper. She be the cook. RUSSELL: What did she cook on? SHOWELL: Ah, an old wood stove. You have a stove in them days, they never would have stayed in oil or coal, that’s what you bum, wood, way back there. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a wood cook stove or not, did you? RUSSELL: No. How does it work? SHOWELL: Well, it’s got lids on it and you start your fire, you know. She put wood in the stove so it wouldn’t go out, you know. Keep, keep wood in the stove. You get some of your best cooking on a wood stove than on gas or electric. Whole lot better. RUSSELL: Did you have any favorite meals? SHOWELL: Any what? RUSSELL: Favorite meals? SHOWELL: Favorite meals. Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah. RUSSELL: What were they? SHOWELL: My favorite meals way back then would be chicken and pork, called hog meat, and beef, that’s cattle, you know. You have good eating. Then you have good eating. RUSSELL: Did you have your beef on the farm or did you—? SHOWELL: Oh, yeah. Uh huh. Oh, yeah. A lot of people raised their own beef. Farmers did. RUSSELL: How did you keep your food cool? SHOWELL: How did you what? RUSSELL: How did you keep your food cool? PITTS: She be cool? SHOWELL: Oh, yeah. Well, in the beginning you had ice, you had your ice boxes. Ice boxes. You open the door and put you put ice in a big box. Put your ice in the ice box. Not refrigerator. The ice box. PITTS: Ice box on top right? SHOWELL: Oh, yeah. Uh-huh. That’s where, that’s where you kept your stuff cold. Cool. You have to put ice in the ice box. RUSSELL: Where did you get your ice? SHOWELL: Get what? Well, in the beginning when I was a teeny boy what they done they go down to a creek in the wintertime and cut, cut it out in blocks, the ice. Cut it out and bring it up to a building and they would store it in there. Put a layer of saw dust and a layer of ice. A layer of saw dust and a layer of ice and that would keep your ice all summer. That would keep your ice all summer long. RUSSELL: How would you know which ice was yours? Did you have to buy the ice or—? SHOWELL: No. No, you didn’t. No, you didn’t. You had water. Let it freeze. The water would freeze down to the creek, you know. Or a river what would be. And you’d have to go down there and cut the ice out in blocks and haul it up to your house. RUSSELL: Okay. Okay. So, you stored it in the sawdust in your house or around your house. SHOWELL: Yeah. You’d have a place for to store it in. You put a layer of sawdust on it and a layer of ice. And ice would sit out a whole year ‘til you used it up. RUSSELL: What kept it from melting in the summertime? SHOWELL: What’s that? RUSSELL: What kept it from melting in the summertime? SHOWELL: That sawdust. You know, you can go to the ice right now and buy that ice and throw sawdust on it and it won’t melt. RUSSELL: Why is that? SHOWELL: I don’t know why it is. But that sawdust will keep ice. Certainly will. PITTS: So, you, so you put a layer of, a layer of sawdust— SHOWELL: —Yeah. And a layer of ice— PITTS: —A layer of ice. SHOWELL: Uh-huh. [Affirmative] PITTS: How, how, how tall? SHOWELL: Get it as tall as you can handle. As tall as you want. Used to be an ice house right over there. Right behind that big white house there, you see. Used to be an ice house stood there. Just an ice house, you know. And they’d go down to creek here and cut the ice in the wintertime and bring it back and store it in that building with sawdust and ice. That’s what they used summertime. PITTS: Now could anybody get the ice or did they sell it, or—? SHOWELL: Yeah, yeah. They sold it. PITTS: Sold it. SHOWELL: Yeah, yeah. Just like they do now. Yeah. Yeah, and it seems like in a couple days it’d be much thicker than they do now. You know what I mean, for them days. Wasn’t no trouble. RUSSELL: What were your chores on the farm? What were your chores on your responsibilities on the farm? SHOWELL: What was what? RUSSELL: Your chores? SHOWELL: [Unclear] RUSSELL: Chores? Responsibilities? What did you do to help your father? SHOWELL: What did I do to help them? RUSSELL: Yes. SHOWELL: Oh, well, what he’d be doing, I’d try to help him. Taken up white potatoes, taken up sweet potatoes, shucking corn. Uh, anything like that get to help him. RUSSELL: How did you learn to do that? SHOWELL: How did 1 learn to do it? Well, just watch him. See how he done it, you know. Watch him see how he done. Try to do the same thing like he was doing. Wouldn’t be no trouble—you wasn’t too lazy. [Laughs]. RUSSELL: Was it hard work? SHOWELL: Some of it was. Yes. It was. RUSSELL: What was harder than another? What was the hardest task? SHOWELL: What’s the hardest thing? Well, the hardest thing would be taking up white potatoes and sweet potatoes. RUSSELL: Why? SHOWELL: They would. That would be the hardest thing of it all. RUSSELL: Why? Why was this so hard? SHOWELL: Well, ‘cause you had to dig ‘em out of the ground. Then you had to pick ‘em up, put ‘em in the baskets, load the baskets on a wagon, and carry ‘em to the farm all the way up to the house. RUSSELL: What did you use to carry the potatoes? SHOWELL: What did you use? Just horse and wagon. Have a horse, you know, pull the wagon in. Yeah. RUSSELL: How many horses did you have on your farm? SHOWELL: Well, well we only had two mules. Two mules. They use mules or horses either one. You’ve seen mules, haven’t you? You know. Well, a mule, you know, is a, he’s built like a horse only thing just a different name and works differently than a horse does. PITTS: Well, can a mule outwork a horse? SHOWELL: Oh, yeah. Yeah. And you know, what you can do, you know, if you just no one got time and don’t worry yourself to death, you can treat a horse just like you can yourself You tell him what to do and he’ll do it. [Unclear] and tell you, “Go get me that wood over there.” An’ you take a horse and tell him, “Giddyap and move” he’ll do exactly what you say. You can train just like you do a horse. Just takes time to do it. PITTS: Certain terminology. Certain words. SHOWELL: You got to have patience. And until, you tell a horse, “Gee.” You tell him to “gee” that means for him to go to his right. You train him. You tell him “gee” he’ll turn and go to his right. You tell him “Hubba, hubba,” he’ll go to the left. [Laughs] That seems funny, don’t it? PITTS: We had, we had one, my grandfather taught one to do that. SHOWELL: Yeah. PITTS: I used to work him. SHOWELL: Yeah. It’s a lot of fun. PITTS: And they would, they would, they knew what it meant. SHOWELL: They mind what you say. PITTS: Yes. SHOWELL: Yeah. Yeah. You can, you can learn ‘em just like you can a person when you’re speaking. Tell him what to do and he’ll do it. [Unclear]. PITTS: Can I ask a question? SHOWELL: Sure. [Tape pauses] PITTS: —Worked on a farm. SHOWELL: Oh, yeah. Uh-huh [Affirmative]. PITTS: Now the farm that you grew up on, what did they have? Those things that you were describing were they on the farm that you grew up on or were they on the farm that you worked on? SHOWELL: Well, now. Just depends. Now, where I was raised, not on a farm almost. I was raised in a house just like this. This be on a, you know, just a little garden spot. But when you go to the farm, it was work. You go to the farm. PITTS: Okay. You went with your father? SHOWELL: Yeah. Uh huh. Might be about seventy-five, some of the farms be as much as a hundred acres. Some of ‘em were fifty acres, forty acres, thirty acres. Meat farms would be more than a hundred acres. RUSSELL: Which farms did you work? SHOWELL: Which ones? I worked on ‘em all. Some of ‘em all. I worked on big farms and little farms. RUSSELL: So, you and your father traveled from farm to farm. SHOWELL: Uh-huh [Affirmative]. Yeah. What we, what we do, we work all day on a farm maybe and didn’t get done what we wanted to do that day, an’ that night after we had supper we’d go back on the farm and finish it up and be dark then. Go back on the farm an’ work until we did finish it. Pretty moon shining out, you know. I say, young children wouldn’t do that today, would they? [Laughs] PITTS: They run and hide. [Laughs] SHOWELL: They wouldn’t do that today. [Laughs] RUSSELL: How many farms do you think you worked on? SHOWELL: How many farms? During my lifetime? Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know. RUSSELL: Can you name any of them? SHOWELL: What’d you say? RUSSELL: Can you name any of them? SHOWELL: Name the farms? When we done, when we done that, we get on a farm and den we had such a, so many acres numbered, you know. Somebody’d say you go to the Number 10 farm, lot, or you do Number 6. See, we, we know where it was at. It was like that. RUSSELL: Did your father work with anyone else on the farm or was it just you and your father? SHOWELL: What’s that? RUSSELL: Was it just you and your father who worked on the farms or did you work with anybody else? SHOWELL: Oh, yeah, yeah, ah [unclear] you take the whole family work together. Everybody helps. My father had maybe five or six children, see. And they all get out together and work and work together. Work the same, on the same farm. RUSSELL: How many brothers and sisters did you have? SHOWELL: How many brothers? [Unclear] got to count ‘em. See, four brothers wasn’t it, Mabel? ETHEL PITTS: Mabel, she left already. SHOWELL: Oh, yeah. Let’s see. Let me count ‘em, count ‘em up. Yeah, I had four brothers and three sisters. RUSSELL: Do you know their names? SHOWELL: What? RUSSELL: Names? What were their names? SHOWELL: One was named Julie, one was named, course I’m Alfred, and there’s another named George. And all my—I’m the only brother living now. RUSSELL: So, it was Joseph, SHOWELL: Joseph, yeah. RUSSELL: Alfred SHOWELL: Yeah. Uh huh. RUSSELL: And George. SHOWELL: Right. RUSSELL: Who was the fourth brother? SHOWELL: Who was who? RUSSELL: Was there a fourth brother? SHOWELL: No. There was four brothers. RUSSELL: And your sisters, what were their names? SHOWELL: Beatrice, Esther, and Julia. RUSSELL: Beatrice, Esther, and Julia. SHOWELL: Yeah. Uh-huh [Affirmative]. We used to have some fun out there, too, work on a farm. [Unclear]. Nighttime go home and eat your supper and when it come bedtime you better go to bed or else you get a whipping. [Unclear]. PITTS: Who was the oldest? Were you the oldest? SHOWELL: No. Uh huh. No. I wasn’t the oldest. My oldest brother he was ninety-nine. He died last year. PITTS: What was his name? SHOWELL: John. PITTS: John? SHOWELL: Yeah, he was ninety-nine-year-old when he died. He lived a good life, didn’t he? PITTS: Yes. SHOWELL: Ninety-nine. RUSSELL: Did you have a favorite brother or sister? SHOWELL: Not necessarily. No. RUSSELL: Who did you have the most fun with? SHOWELL: What did I do what? RUSSELL: Which brother or sister did you have the most fun with? SHOWELL: Oh, oh. I can’t think now. I don’t know. Well, I had a lot of fun with all of them to tell you the truth. I didn’t see much to it. RUSSELL: Did you get into any mischief as a child? SHOWELL: Did I do what? RUSSELL: Get into any mischief? SHOWELL: Oh, yeah. [Laughs]. Yeah, whole lot of it. RUSSELL: Can you tell us about the mischief you got into, Mr. Showell? SHOWELL: What’s that? RUSSELL: Can you tell us about the mischief you got into? SHOWELL: Well, one would be, he’d tell us to do something and he’d come home and it wouldn’t be done. [Laughs] We’d play around, you know, and wouldn’t do it. RUSSELL: And what would your father say when he came home and it wasn’t— SHOWELL: He wouldn’t mess around. He’d get mad and we’d get a switch and beat us. Good whipping. That’s what would happen. RUSSELL: What other mischief did you get into? SHOWELL: What other kind? Let’s see. Well, maybe other kind of mischief, maybe, he’d let us go somewhere and we wouldn’t behave and wouldn’t come back like we said. We come back way later and that would make him mad. ‘Cause my mother wouldn’t say too much. No. She let him do all the fighting. Yes, sir. PITTS: You never, you never snuck his pipe or anything? Did he smoke or anything? SHOWELL: What’s that? PITTS: Did your father smoke? SHOWELL: Yeah. He smoked an ol’ corn cob pipe. PITTS: An ol’ corn cob pipe. SHOWELL: Uh-huh [Affirmative]. PITTS: Did you sneak it every once in a while? SHOWELL: Yeah, yeah, I did. Yeah, he’d tear me up, too. [Laughs] I got my grandmother’s pipe now out here on the porch hanging on that thing. She smoked. PITTS: Yes. SHOWELL: My grandmother’s pipe. Way over a hundred-year-old. It’s out there now on the wall on the porch. That was my grandmother’s pipe. You know, the old people way back then, they smoked pipes. Did you ever know they did? RUSSELL: No. I didn’t. SHOWELL: Yeah. RUSSELL: Why did they smoke a pipe? SHOWELL: Well, I guess ‘stead of smoking cigarettes, they smoked a pipe. In them days you go store and if you wanted one cigarette, you could buy one cigarette, you could buy two cigarettes, three cigarettes. Today you got to buy a package, you know. Them days you could buy one or two. You want a cigarette, you want one, you could just buy one. PITTS: Was smoking tobacco very easy to get hold of? SHOWELL: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Most ‘bout no trouble to get. That was, that was one thing I took up, too. I store and commenced chewing tobacco. My dad would catch me sometimes I think he going to make me swallow the juice when I was chewing it. [Laughs]. PITTS: Did he ever make you swallow it? SHOWELL: No. PITTS: He never caught ya? SHOWELL: I guess he thought it would be too bad to swallow that stuff. ‘Cause that would make you sick and I know it if you swallowed it. Yes, sir. [Unclear] Course she’s the one who was mean, I guess. Big difference today and there was then. You could trust the kids way back there. When I was corning along, you could trust us, you know. Working all the time into something. But today, they run wild today. RUSSELL: Did your grandmother or grandfather live with you? SHOWELL: Live with me? RUSSELL: Did they live with your mother and father? Did your grandmother and grandfather live with you all? SHOWELL: Live with us? Yeah, uh-huh, yeah. I lived with my parents until just about grown. Uh-huh [Affirmative]. Yeah. RUSSELL: Did your father ever go fishing with you? SHOWELL: Go fishing? No, he wasn’t no fishermen. He never cared nothing about it. Who started me off was the man I worked for, you know. Me and my wife, you know, worked for a private family, family here. He taught me how to fish and bought me a rod and reel. Bought me a rod and reel so I could go fishing and, boy, that was fun. Yeah. They were, they were nice people. RUSSELL: Who did you work for? SHOWELL: His name was Dr. Zad Henry. RUSSELL: And what did you do for him? SHOWELL: For him? RUSSELL: Uh-huh. [Affirmative] SHOWELL: Well, I worked up at the house, kept the yard cut, and all that stuff like that, you know, kept the yard cut and clean up around the house outdoors. My wife she would cook. She done the cooking. She was the maid in the house. We worked, we worked there about twenty-six years for him. ‘Bout twenty-six years. When the time which I was glad I did, when the time come to end it. I’m sitting down on what they bought. Him and his wife got together and save for us working and bought us this home. That’s what I’m doing sitting here today. That’s true. Yep. RUSSELL: Where did you meet your wife? SHOWELL: Where did I meet her at? Down at Assateague. You know where Assateague is? The house, the house down there at Assateague, we called it Genesar down there. It’s a two hundred, I don’t know whether its two-hundred-seventy-one-year-old. I think it is now. Yeah, yeah. It’s a little over two-hundred-year-old. Where my wife’s family lived. RUSSELL: How did you meet her? SHOWELL: Where did I meet her? RUSSELL: How did you meet her? SHOWELL: Oh. Just a, just happened to be, you know, around here and yon, you know. Happened to run up on her. And I said, “You are mine.” PITTS: That was it, huh? [Laughs] SHOWELL: Yeah. PITTS: Did you have a courtship? SHOWELL: Huh? PITTS: Did you have a courtship? SHOWELL: Yeah. PITTS: Did you? SHOWELL: Yeah, we had a lot of fun in our lifetime coming up. Big difference in what they are today. Big difference. RUSSELL: What changes have you seen? SHOWELL: Beg pardon? RUSSELL: What changes have you seen? SHOWELL: Well, you didn’t, one thing, you didn’t tell of no dope. Wasn’t no need to worry about that. And you didn’t hear a thing about you’re going to buy whiskey or beer or anything. You were going to buy, you didn’t go to a place to buy whiskey or beer. No, indeed. You couldn’t get it. PITTS: Did they make their own? SHOWELL: Hm? PITTS: They made their own beer and whiskey back then? SHOWELL: Um, oh, yeah. Yes, sir. PITTS: Instead of buying? SHOWELL: Yeah. Right down the road here. Off down in the woods ‘fore ya get to, ‘fore you get to Ayes creek down here, there used to be old whiskey stills. That ol’ woods was full of whiskey stills. Men be down making whiskey. And the law would go in there and blow them tanks, them tanks, stills up, you know. In another week they’d be right back down there again. More stills. [Laughs]. They couldn’t break, they couldn’t break that ring up from having no whiskey. RUSSELL: Who was making the whiskey? SHOWELL: Beg pardon? RUSSELL: Who was making it? SHOWELL: People you know. People just like they do today. Some people drink today and some don’t. People who want to fool with that stuff, they make some, they make whiskey. RUSSELL: Did you know the names of anybody who did it? SHOWELL: Beg pardon? RUSSELL: Did you know the names of anyone who did it? SHOWELL: Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know. I know some of ‘em still living, too, that did it. But I believe all dead that I remember. One, one man was named Charlie Brown. He was the biggest whiskey maker around. His name was Charlie Brown. RUSSELL: Charlie Bell? SHOWELL: Charlie Brown. RUSSELL: Brown. Charlie Brown. SHOWELL: Charlie Brown. Yeah, uh huh. He was a big whiskey, I mean, bootlegger. Boy, he made some whiskey, I mean. Him and his men. RUSSELL: How many people did he have with him? SHOWELL: Well, well it might even be ‘bout two besides his self RUSSELL: Where did he sell his whiskey? SHOWELL: Hm? RUSSELL: Where did he sell his whiskey? SHOWELL: Where did he sell it? To anybody who wanted it. Them people come along and they’d buy a gallon or five gallons like that. Some of ‘em would buy five gallons, you know, and then take it and sell it, sell it their selves. Yeah. Well, I’ve seen. I’ve seen many a gallon of whiskey made. Many a gallon. RUSSELL: Was he black or white? Was he black or white? SHOWELL: The men who make it? RUSSELL: Yes. SHOWELL: Both kinds. As many men who was black as was white. Many whites as there was blacks. Yeah. PITTS: Who was Charlie Brown? SHOWELL: Charlie Brown he was, he was a white guy. He was a nice old grown man, too, he was. Nice man. RUSSELL: Was that the way he made his living or did he do anything else? SHOWELL: No. That’s the way, that’s the way he made his living, living. An’ I tell you what, I tell you what, you know something else. You know where Sinepuxent is, don’t you? Yeah. That woods all down there, back in there, that’s where they have the whiskey stills. Yes, sir. RUSSELL: Did they have special recipes for their whiskey? SHOWELL: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. You got to know how to make it. Yeah. RUSSELL: Did the blacks who made whiskey have a different recipe from the whites who made— SHOWELL: No, no, no. All the same thing. All the same. You want to make good whiskey you had to do the right thing. You want a good whiskey. RUSSELL: What would you use if you wanted a good whiskey? SHOWELL: Hm? RUSSELL: What would you use if you wanted a good whiskey? SHOWELL: What would you use? Now, [unclear] I don’t know much about what they would use hardly to tell you the true. Oh, yeah. But anything I know they use corn. They let, they let com soak in water so long, an’ so long. An’ take the, an’ take the, take the juice from the com and boil it up. Let it boil and boil some kind of way. Then take diem whiskey stills, you know, you don’t see whiskey stills? PITTS: Just on television. [Laughs] SHOWELL: Well, I tell you the truth, I don’t see how, I don’t see how a bootlegger ever got by like he did. You go in the woods, you hear that thing puffing and blowing almost the whole woods when they’re running whiskey, you know. When they’re cooking it. Yes, indeed. I don’t know how they got by with it like they did. For you could hear it to plain, you know. You could be walk through the woods, you could hear it. Hear that thing running. [Tape Pause to turn off air conditioner] RUSSELL: I’m going to take you back to the storm of ’33 again. [END SIDE A, TAPE 1] SHOWELL: —notified that it was coming two or three weeks ‘fore it got here. RUSSELL: What did it look like when the storm was coming in? SHOWELL: Coming in, it was black, black heavy clouds, you know. You could see it up in the sky. Wind started blowing. Boy, you could look out on what they told you and depend on it, too. Tell you a storm going to hit you next week, and it be here next week. RUSSELL: Where were you when the storm came in? SHOWELL: Beg pardon? RUSSELL: Where were you when the storm came in? SHOWELL: Where was I? RUSSELL: Where were you when the storm came in? SHOWELL: You say what did I do? What’d she say? PITTS: Where were you? SHOWELL: Oh, oh. I be right here at home, you know. Right at home. Wasn’t nothing else we could do but stay at home. I couldn’t get nowhere. Couldn’t get nowhere. Might as well stay home ‘cause it’s going to be wherever you went anyway. RUSSELL: Did you go down to Ocean City after the storm? SHOWELL: Oh, yeah. Uh huh. I was down there, I was down there before the storm. RUSSELL: What did Ocean City look like before the storm? SHOWELL: Water, water rushing over, all over the boardwalk, everywhere. Water everywhere. Corning out of the ocean, you know. Swells come up there and beat across the boardwalk. Boy, it be a mess. And people wouldn’t stay down there either. They go out. You didn’t tell ‘em to move, they moved. Yes, sir. RUSSELL: Did you fish in Sinepuxent Bay before the storm? SHOWELL: Yep. RUSSELL: What was fishing like in Sinepuxent Bay before the storm? SHOWELL: What was it like? RUSSELL: Uh huh. SHOWELL: Well, well, just, just before the storm, it wasn’t nothing doing. ‘Cause it seemed like the fish, the water knows when the storm is corning an’ it gets so rough, you know, and everything. All fish go way out in deep water. They go out there is deep water. RUSSELL: What kind of, what kind of fish did you catch in Sinepuxent Bay before the storm? SHOWELL: Oh, trout, caught trout, hardheads, blue fish, say what they call ‘em, mutts, drum, all, a lot of different kinds of fish. RUSSELL: And what kind of fish did you catch in Sinepuxent Bay after the storm? SHOWELL: Same thing. Same thing. Yeah, same kind of fish. RUSSELL: So, with the ’33 storm, the inlet, you got the inlet in Ocean City. SHOWELL: The inlet, that’s what cut the inlet in there. The ’33 storm. You know man tried that and they did. Had a machine and stuff and tried to cut it. An’ every time he cut one, it would fill up. That ’33 storm come and the Lord put through there and it ain’t ever built up has it? PITTS: It’s still there. SHOWELL: It stayed there. That just shows you what God can do and what people can do. Yeah. ‘Cause that inlet still cut there. ’33 storm cut it in there and it’s still there. RUSSELL: Did it make any difference with the salt water coming into the fresh water? SHOWELL: Oh, yeah, yeah. See, the bay it was fresh water. See, you see, you got a bay down here and an ocean, you know. The bay was fresh all the time. But that inlet cut through there and made all waters salt. RUSSELL: How long did it take to go from the fresh water to the salt water? SHOWELL: Oh, no time. ‘Cause that inlet, you see, when that inlet come in there, this, just flooded Ocean City, you know. The ocean and the bay met right there together they did. They just mixed in no time. RUSSELL: But you still caught the same fish? SHOWELL: U-huh [Affirmative]. RUSSELL: Didn’t make any difference— SHOWELL: Well, the fresh water fish got so much salt it killed a lot of ‘em and then run ‘em away, too. Fresh water fish couldn’t stand that salt water. Yes, sir. RUSSELL: Did you go over to Assateague before the storm? SHOWELL: Oh, oh, yeah, yeah. RUSSELL: You went over to Assateague before the storm of ’33. Yeah, yeah. See, my, my, that’s where my wife was raised at mostly. Over at Assateague. RUSSELL: How did you get over to Assateague? SHOWELL: You see. Well, if you want to go on the other side, you can do there and would be a barge that would cany you and your car over. Yeah. RUSSELL: Did you ever do any hunting on Assateague? SHOWELL: No, I never did hunt down there. I never did. Used to be some good, nice hunting down there. Course, now I hunt deer, you know, I like to go down and shoot deer. You can rabbit hunt. Something like that. Or, quail. Something like that. RUSSELL: Did you know any of the hunting lodges down there? SHOWELL: Any what? RUSSELL: Did you know any of the hunting lodges down there? SHOWELL: Any of the hunting places? Is what you mean? Yeah. Let’s see. Now Assateague, Assateague was a great hunting place what I was telling you about Assateague. ‘Cause you couldn’t go over there, you couldn’t go to Assateague like you can now. Only way you could get across to Assateague is you had to put your- car on a barge, go on a boat, you know. But no way you could drive down there, no kind of way. There’s no way you could drive. RUSSELL: Did you know anyone who worked at any of the hunting places? SHOWELL: Yeah. Uh huh. RUSSELL: Where did they work? SHOWELL: Where did they work? There on Chincoteague? RUSSELL: Over at any of the hunting places. SHOWELL: Oh, oh, oh, oh. Where you talking ‘bout Assateague just now. Assateague was a, that’s just all that was. That was a hunting place. Assateague was a big place to hunt. RUSSELL: Did you know anybody who worked over in the hunting places at Assateague? SHOWELL: Oh, yeah. Conwell Purnell, four houses down the road there, he worked down there until he retired. He ain’t been too long retired. He worked down there for years and years. Just where you could go without going to Assateague, he worked all the time. Yeah. RUSSELL: Did you know anyone else? SHOWELL: What’s that? RUSSELL: Did you know anyone else? SHOWELL: Yeah. Yeah. I did know two or three more. PITTS: What about Jack “Pot Pie”? SHOWELL: Uh-huh. Yeah. Jack “Pot Pie.” Yeah. Uh-huh. PITTS: Did he? SHOWELL: Jack “Pot Pie” he was, he was the ferryman. He, he take the boat over [unclear]. Carry the cars over on to the beach, you know. Them hunters come down in boats, you know, they want to go hunting, you know. And you stay on this side, you know, and they come in their cars go on. Drove on this barge. Take ‘em down on the beach, on the beach side, and they go on fish, uh, hunt. They go hunting den. I’ll tell you it’s a big change down there what it used to be. PITTS: Now was that owned by individual, Assateague at that time, the hunting areas, was it owned by different— SHOWELL: Government property. PITTS: Who? SHOWELL: Government’s property. Belong to the government Yeah, uh huh. There. RUSSELL: What changes have you seen on Assateague? SHOWELL: I think, I think all that now is government property, I think over there. PITTS: It is now. SHOWELL: Yeah. Uh-huh. RUSSELL: What changes have you seen on Assateague? SHOWELL: What changes? Well, before, before what I’m talking about. Before you couldn’t get over to Assateague, you know. Now den you go down there without any trouble. Go down there with your car a flying. Before you couldn’t even get on Assateague. Now you can go over there all you got to do to get to Assateague and get a ticket, get in line, get a ticket and go where you please over there. A ticket, I think, is ten dollars and you can go in there. Yeah, you can go all over where you want to go. PITTS: Were there ponies? SHOWELL: Hm? PITTS: Were the ponies— SHOWELL: Yeah. PITTS: Could you see them back then? SHOWELL: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. PITTS: They ran free? SHOWELL: Yeah. Yep. Yes, sir. Yep. Couple ponies, you know, they got them spoilt down there ‘cause now then, you know, you don’t watch yourself, leave your window down in your car, they’ll pull everything out in there. [Laughs]. They go stick their head in there and pull everything out. You know, people down there from feeding ‘em, you know. PITTS: Yes. SHOWELL: From everybody feeding ‘em, you know, they got used to it. They’ll look for your cars. Figure windows down, I guess, pull everything out of your car you got in there. RUSSELL: Did you know any black watermen when you were growing up? SHOWELL: Any black watermen? Did I know any? Oh, yeah. Yeah, you talk about Jack “Pot Pie” now. He’s one of the best watermen ever had around there. Wouldn’t be a storm too bad he couldn’t take a boat and go and come. That man, he knew, he knew the water. Knowed how to handle ol’ boat. PITTS: What did he catch? SHOWELL: What did he catch when he goed over there, catching maybe drum, trout, perch, blue fish and all like that. Now, now you only got so [unclear] how to do that. You got yourself a rig that can take people back and forth over there fishing. Yeah, yeah. Charge ‘em so much to take ‘em. RUSSELL: Did you know any of the men who cooked on Assateague? SHOWELL: That cooked? RUSSELL: Uh-huh [Affirmative]. SHOWELL: Yeah. I did know, probably it’s been so long ago some of ‘em take. I don’t believe I know, I don’t believe I know, I guess there’s some over there now that might know who’s cooking. Might know still cooking or not. But Assateague was something. PITTS: Were there any blacks that you knew that cooked over there? SHOWELL: That cooked over at Assateague. I was just trying to think. I don’t believe I do now. PITTS: Were there back then? SHOWELL: I don’t know. I don’t know Venie cooked over there or not. She was pretty close ‘cause she down at Assateague, you know. See, that’s where she lived. PITTS: Oh, Aunt Venie. SHOWELL: Uh-huh. [Affirmative]. Yeah. RUSSELL: Who was the gentleman who worked for Bob Jackson? SHOWELL: Who do what? RUSSELL: There was a gentleman who worked for Bob Jackson— SHOWELL: That worked for Jack what? RUSSELL: Bob Jackson? SHOWELL: Yeah. Bob Jackson. Now who is Bob Jackson. RUSSELL: He had the Breakers down in Ocean City and the casino down in Ocean City. He had somebody who worked for him at the casino. SHOWELL: I don’t know who that was then. I don’t know. PITTS: The casinos? You mean when they had the slots? RUSSELL: Yeah. PITTS: You remember when they had the slots down there? SHOWELL: Oh, yeah, yeah. Uh huh. Yeah. Yeah. I used to go to Ocean City a lot in 1933. They‘re back there then. PITTS: What? What where? What? The slots were back there then? SHOWELL: Yeah. Uh-huh [Affirmative]. They even played slots in the [unclear]. Way back there. When they, when, they took ‘em out everywhere. I don’t know how come. But they did. RUSSELL: Did any of the black watermen oyster? SHOWELL: Hm? RUSSELL: Did any of the black watermen oyster? Or were they fishermen? SHOWELL: Were they what? RUSSELL: Did any of the black watermen oyster? SHOWELL: Did they fish? RUSSELL: Oyster? SHOWELL: Yeah. You say did they fish? RUSSELL: Did they go oystering? SHOWELL: Oyster? They fish and oyster and clam, too. RUSSELL: What kind of boats did they use? SHOWELL: Just a plain, just a plain ordinary boat. Most the time won’t be no cabin. Be an open top boat, you know. Wouldn’t be no cabin on it. RUSSELL: Did any of them use houseboats? SHOWELL: Houseboat? Oh, yeah. Urn hum. Yeah. Yeah. You can see a houseboat now every once in a while. RUSSELL: Could you describe the houseboat that they used? SHOWELL: Could I describe it to you? RUSSELL: Uh-huh. SHOWELL: Let’s see. Well, I tell ya. It look sort of like, you’ve seen what they call campers, ain’t ya? You know, like these campers people use you know and they drive in, you know, sleep in and eat and everything— PITTS: Right. SHOWELL: It’s like one of them. I call ‘em campers. I guess what they call ‘em. Them houses, you know, on wheels. PITTS: How did they move ‘em along? Did they have long poles or what? How did they—? SHOWELL: In the morn, you mean? PITTS: No. How did they get from one point to another? How did they propel it? SHOWELL: Oh, I tell you what happen. I tell you what happen. See, the amount of boats that in the water, way back in the beginning had ‘peller on ‘em. I guess that’s when I was born maybe. But now you got motors in ‘em. PITTS: Yeah. But how did they use ‘em then? Back then? Back in the 30’s? SHOWELL: How did they do what? PITTS: How did they move ‘em? SHOWELL: Move the boats? PITTS: Yes. SHOWELL: Oh, they wandered around from time to time they moved the boats. PITTS: I mean how did they move them in the water? How did they, did they have paddles, oars, long sticks? SHOWELL: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It moves, moves on a boat, too. PITTS: Back then? SHOWELL: Oh, yeah. When the storm of’33, yes, sir. Yeah. Plenty of boats had the motor then. Yeah. That was getting to be an old thing when ’33 come around here for motors. Yeah. ’33. You know, those who go out fish pound, ya ever seen ‘em go fishing out in the ocean in the fish pound boats? PITTS: Okay. Yes. SHOWELL: I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t have that job. That surf is too rough. They go out there, fish them fish pound and come back in and overloaded with fish. (Laughter) RUSSELL: Did you see any unusual events when you were a young boy? SHOWELL: Did I do what? RUSSELL: Did you see anything unusual, unusual events? SHOWELL: Anything unusual? RUSSELL: When you were a young boy? SHOWELL: I don’t do I can remember right now. RUSSELL: Fires, or? SHOWELL: Only thing I, I can remember that. See whiskey stills. I had never seen one. When they made whiskey, you know. That was the one with the whiskey still. I never did, I never did see one of them ‘til the later years. I see many, men had ‘em everywhere them things. No wonder man catch him ‘cause he kept them things a long [unclear] out in the woods. Running you know, making noise. Man, you can’t help but know where somethings at ‘cause making so much fuss you can hear it. Like a train running up and down the tracks. You can hear that thing running plain, without any trouble. RUSSELL: When you were a young boy did you go to school? SHOWELL: Yeah. Little bit. I had to work a whole lot, though. RUSSELL: Where did you go to school? SHOWELL: Where? Old’ Flower Street right here in Berlin. RUSSELL: How many students, how many other students went to school with you? SHOWELL: Oh, ‘back den, let’s see, I guess it would be a hun-, maybe the whole school would be a little over a hundred. RUSSELL: How many classrooms were there? SHOWELL: How many what? RUSSELL: Classrooms? SHOWELL: I was just trying to think what you mean? RUSSELL: How many rooms were there in the school? SHOWELL: How many rooms? Oh, let’s see, I believe, the smallest school I ever seen didn’t have but one room that was the smallest school. Then I remember seeing four room, three rooms, and the school they had down at Assateague just had one room. Just the one room. It was just ‘bout, it was just ‘bout the size of this room right here. That was all. It was just about this size. Just one school. RUSSELL: Did you go to that school? SHOWELL: No. Uh-uh. PITTS: Is that the school Aunt Venie went to? SHOWELL: Hm? PITTS: Is that the school that Aunt Venie went? SHOWELL: Um. Yeah. PITTS: Genesar? SHOWELL: Just one room. I think they went to it. Yeah. Just one room, that’s all. PITTS: How many rooms were over at Flower Street? The one that you went to? SHOWELL: How many? PITTS: How many rooms? SHOWELL: Over there? PITTS: Yes. SHOWELL: Oh, yeah. I don’t know. That school was there. Maybe three or four rooms. Yeah. On Flower Street here. She take, they take down Genesar at Assateague, there wasn’t nobody down there to go to school much, you know. They didn’t need nothing but one room. One room would take care of all, all people down there you went to school with at a time. RUSSELL: Were there a lot of young people, a lot of kids going to school here? SHOWELL: Yeah. Uh-huh [Affirmative]. Lot of young kids went to school right here in Berlin. RUSSELL: Were they black and white? SHOWELL: Beg pardon? RUSSELL: Were the students black and white? SHOWELL: Black, black or white? RUSSELL: Black and white. SHOWELL: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. In the beginning, no, black, black [unclear], white [unclear]. That’s in the beginning. No mixed schools then. No mixed school. And the north I think they did. I think they did. I’m not sure about that. But I know there were no mixed school down here I do know that. Ain’t been no mixed schools here for the last, ain’t been too long ago. There wasn’t no mixed. Ain’t been too long ago. RUSSELL: What do you think has been the biggest change that you’ve seen? SHOWELL: Hm? RUSSELL: What has been the biggest change you’ve seen in your lifetime? SHOWELL: What she say? I didn’t understand you. RUSSELL: What has been the biggest change— SHOWELL: Biggest change? RUSSELL: —that you’ve seen in your lifetime? SHOWELL: Oh, oh, oh, oh. Biggest change. This is the biggest change I’ve ever seen is [unclear] go where you want to and doing like you ought to like human people. That’s the biggest change. Now one time you know the black people couldn’t do nothing, didn’t have nothing, [unclear]. But now, they fixed so you can go. And the King man cause of that. And Luther King and— PITTS: Martin. SHOWELL: —Martin, yeah, Martin Luther King, and Kennedy president. They cause the colored people to come in and be as good as they are now. Colored people had a good chance since they got in office. If they hadn’t been in office, things, things would still been Jim Crow. I believe that. PITTS: Do you think Abraham Lincoln made a difference? SHOWELL: Yeah. Abraham Lincoln was the startin’ of it. Yeah. Abraham Lincoln was the starting of it. Yeah. George Washington he wasn’t no good to black people. He was president, you know. He was the first president. But he wasn’t no good for the black people. Abraham Lincoln was. RUSSELL: If you had any words of advice— SHOWELL: Hm? RUSSELL: If you had - what would be the words of advice you would give to young people? To people coming up? SHOWELL: What? Advice I would give ‘em? Well, first I would tell ‘em treat everybody alike. Treat people good. Treat people as you want to be treated. That’s what I would want from you, you know. That’s what I’d want to do. Be what you are and try to make other people be what they’re supposed to be, you know. Treat everybody alike. Be nice to people. I believe in that. I don’t think, I don’t think you can go wrong if you treat people nice, do you? RUSSELL: No, I can’t agree with you more. I can’t agree with you more on that one. I guess as a final question, for me, would be what is the biggest change that you’ve seen on Assateague Island? SHOWELL: The biggest change I’ve seen on Assateague Island? Well, the biggest thing I’ve seen on Assateague Island is, is the way you go in and get back. That’s the biggest thing ‘cause at one time we had no way to get down there and get back. That’s when I was a boy. When I was a boy. Now then you got all kinds of ways to get down there and back. When I was a boy, the only—it was too far to walk. (Laughter) But I tell you what me and my wife did, right here in this house, we would get out sometime on weekends and walk clean down to Assateague and back. [Unclear]. It’s more than a mile from here. We were doing it. Get right out on this highway and start walking and walk clean to Assateague and come back. PITTS: How long would that take? SHOWELL: Oh, gosh. It would take a long time. Pretty near a day would be gone by the time we go there and come back. Day would be ‘bout gone. See her mother and father lived down there. They farmed. Had farms, you know. And they farmed down there. And we would be sometimes on weekends, get out here and walk down there and walk back. And sometime, we, I tell you how long it would be. Sometimes we wouldn’t even meet a car or even see a car either goin’ or comin’. Dependin’ on [unclear]. Yes, sir. Be down the road many time and not even meet a car. Not see a car. PITTS: Now did you use horse and buggy? SHOWELL: Hm? PITTS: Did you use horse and buggy? SHOWELL: Oh, yeah. Horse and buggy. All you, that’s all you see was horse and buggy. Horse and buggy. RUSSELL: When you were growing up did you have a favorite holiday or favorite time of the year? SHOWELL: Yeah. Uh-huh. Thirtieth day of May. RUSSELL: What was that? SHOWELL: Hm? RUSSELL: What was the thirtieth day of May. SHOWELL: What was it? That was the freedom for the black people. Thirtieth day of May. RUSSELL: Tell me about that SHOWELL: Well, I can’t, ain’t much I can tell you to much about it, I don’t think. RUSSELL: I don’t know anything about it. Can you tell me something? SHOWELL: Well, what, I can just tell you about that what a big difference is. A black person didn’t have a chance. That’s the difference. Not way back, black person didn’t have a chance to do nothing. Today he has. Right? Now see, yeah, that’s the big difference. PITTS: Now the thirtieth of May— SHOWELL: Uh-huh [Affirmative]. PITTS: What did they celebrate back then? SHOWELL: Oh, that’s when, that’s when black people was freed. The thirtieth day of May. Yep. Black people was freed and use that thirtieth day of May that’s when they were freed. Do as the white man does, you know. You know what the white man is, you know like that. PITTS: On the thirtieth of May, that was the day you could go anywhere you wanted. SHOWELL: Yeah, yeah. That was the day you was supposed to be freed. The black people, [unclear] RUSSELL: How did you, did you do anything special that day? SHOWELL: Hm? RUSSELL: Did you do anything special that day? SHOWELL: No. We didn’t. People would just have, go out and have maybe have picnics and stuff what you call picnics, get togethers and stuff like that. Least they still do. That’s why they celebrate it now. See we have parades here on the thirtieth of May. Thirtieth day of May we have parades. I don’t know whether you remember or not, do you, no? Here in Maryland we have parades on the thirtieth day of May. Big turnouts. PITTS: Memorial Day. SHOWELL: Memorial Day we call it. That’s what takes Memorial Day on the calendar today. Yep. RUSSELL: How did you celebrate Christmas when you were growing up? SHOWELL: Do what? RUSSELL: How did you celebrate Christmas when you were growing up? SHOWELL: How did I celebrate it? Well, uh— RUSSELL: When you were a little boy. SHOWELL: Oh, oh. Well, I tell you how we celebrate then. Getting toys and stuff. (Laughter). Getting’ toys. We didn’t get toys we want Santa Claus. PITTS: What kind of toys did you get back then? SHOWELL: Well, sometime you might want a pair of shoes, sometimes you might want a bicycle. You know, may want a suit or something. That kind of stuff. I’ve seen time, and I’ve seen Christmas coming your way and you get a bunch of nothing. (Laughter) Yes, sir. Didn’t get much of nothing. PITTS: Now is there a big change in the weather back then compared to now? SHOWELL: In the weather you say? I can’t say there is much you know. PITTS: Did you get more snow here then? SHOWELL: I was getting’ ready to say that’s the only thing. We get more snow way back there than we do now. We don’t get no snow now according to what we used to. No indeed. Sometime we get maybe three or four feet of snow and be another one come on top of it before it leaves, you know. Now you don’t get enough snow now sometime to cover the ground. RUSSELL: How did you dress in the wintertime when you were growing up? SHOWELL: How’d they dress? RUSSELL: With that kind of weather? SHOWELL: You ain’t gonna, all you could put on. Yes, all the clothes you could find to put on to keep warm. Then you better, you better not do no sitting around then you better be in the house still working you know be working pretty good to keep yourself warm. That would be cold weather. RUSSELL: That would be cold weather to be working out on the farm. SHOWELL: Yeah. Yeah. You be getting, gathering the com in, stuff like that you know. Putting that away so that it would be keep. Some days be so glad wouldn’t be fit to be outdoors. RUSSELL: How did you dress and still be able to move and gather? SHOWELL: I’ll tell you what, you let it come cold on you, you put on enough clothes you go on. You go on (Laughter). When you say you’re cold, you make out all right. I did. Put on all the clothes I could find and get work, you keep warm. Yes. PITTS: Stay moving’. SHOWELL: Yeah. Yeah. RUSSELL: How did you heat your house? SHOWELL: How did you heat the house? With a coal, with a wood stove. An ol’ wood stove, keep the wood cut up, you know, and put wood in the stove. RUSSELL: So, you had a wood stove in addition to the wooden cook stove? SHOWELL: Yeah. You got, wood stove and the cook stove all done the same thing. The wood stove you done your cooking on it and kept warm, too. RUSSELL: What about at night when you went to bed? SHOWELL: How about at night when you go to bed? Fill it full of wood and tomorrow morning it be some still, some fire there. Fill it full of wood at night before you go to bed. Them great big ol’ chunks of wood, it still be fire when you get up the next morning. RUSSELL: Was it warm upstairs in the bedroom? SHOWELL: Oh, yeah. Uh-huh [Affirmative]. Wasn’t too bad at all. RUSSELL: What was the worst winter you ever experienced? SHOWELL: What was the worstest winter? [unclear]. The worstest winter was when all that snow used to fall ‘because we don’t have no snows now like then. Like nothing no more. We used to have snows that come in last three or four weeks before they leave. That, that was the hard part about it. Getting, getting around to do something’, you know. Be such a big snow you couldn’t get out and do nothing. RUSSELL: What did you children do when you couldn’t get out and do anything? SHOWELL: Just stay in the house. Mess around ‘til it’s gone. PITTS: Was there any games that you played? SHOWELL: Yeah, yeah, games like that. Yeah. PITTS: Anything special? SHOWELL: No. Maybe dominoes, checkers, or tic tac toe or, you used to do that—tic, tac, toe? PITTS: Yeah. SHOWELL: Something like that. Uh-huh [Affirmative]. Yeah. RUSSELL: I think I’ve learned quite a bit today. Tom, do you have anything— SHOWELL: I was getting ready to ask you a while ago, do you remember ‘em? Do you remember when black people weren’t allowed in Ocean City on the boardwalk. RUSSELL: I’ve heard about it, Mr. Showell, but I don’t know anything about it. Can you tell me more? SHOWELL: No. I can’t tell you nothing. I just knowed that in July and August we weren’t allowed, we couldn’t walk on the Boardwalk. RUSSELL: What happened when they did— SHOWELL: ‘less they in Ocean City. Huh? RUSSELL: What happened, what happened if they did go on the Boardwalk? SHOWELL: Well, they’d be locked up or beat half to death with something’. Now, I’m not lying’. No. You been there many a time, ain’t you? PITTS: Yes. SHOWELL: No place for black people. Way back years ago. Way back years ago, I mean, now. Way back. Way back years ago. You better not, you better not be caught on that Boardwalk walking up and down there in July and August if you’re black. That was something, wasn’t it? RUSSELL: Yes, it was. SHOWELL: Now, I’m telling you way it was. That was in my day. RUSSELL: Can you tell me more about it? SHOWELL: It was in my day when I was a young. I wasn’t grown. Yes, sir. PITTS: Now they had slavery back then, though. Were they still having slavery in the area? SHOWELL: Uh-huh. Yeah. See way back black peoples, white man would, would use the black people slaves, you know what that is, do you? Yeah. RUSSELL: How did you feel about it? SHOWELL: Well, I wasn’t I wasn’t no slave. I wasn’t old enough to be a slave, see. That was before I come along. RUSSELL: Did your mother or father or grandmother or father? SHOWELL: Yeah, yeah, they were way back. They were way back there in the beginning. [Unclear]. RUSSELL: Where did they work? SHOWELL: Beg pardon. RUSSELL: Where did they work? SHOWELL: Where did the work? Well, they just, work on the farm an’ stuff. Maybe for little or nothing which they had to do. PITTS: There were plantations then? SHOWELL: Yeah. Yeah. Have you read anything’, have you read any books on the slavery, about the black people did, how everything was? RUSSELL: I read, but it’s different when somebody tells it to you. SHOWELL: Uh-huh [Affirmative]. RUSSELL: Did your mother and father ever tell you what their lives were like? SHOWELL: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, when I come along that time I know what lives were like ‘cause during that time my life wasn’t, wasn’t worth two cents. And they were worse than we were treated. See? RUSSELL: When you were in Ocean City did you ever go to Henry’s Hotel? SHOWELL: Yeah, yeah, we—that’s still standing’. RUSSELL: What was it like? SHOWELL: Um? RUSSELL: What was it like? SHOWELL: What’s it like now? RUSSELL: What was it like when you were a young person? SHOWELL: Well, it was, you know, you just go down there, rent your room, and, just like you do in a hotel. PITTS: Did they serve, did they serve meals back then in there? SHOWELL: I don’t, I don’t think— PITTS: They ever served meals. SHOWELL: I don’t think so. That place is worth some money today, you know. PITTS: Yes. RUSSELL: Connie, Connie Purnell was telling me about Excursion, Excursion Days. SHOWELL: Beg pardon. RUSSELL: Connie Purnell was telling me about Excursion Days. SHOWELL: Yeah. You know Connie Purnell? RUSSELL: I talked to him a couple of times. SHOWELL: Yeah. He lives right down the street here. RUSSELL: Right. SHOWELL: He used to work at Assateague all the time. RUSSELL: Right. We did a few interviews together. SHOWELL: Yeah. Uh-huh [Affirmative]. RUSSELL: Just like I’m talking to you with the tape recorder. SHOWELL: Yeah. Uh-huh [Affirmative]. RUSSELL: And he was telling me about Excursion Days. SHOWELL: Yeah. That’s right. RUSSELL: And he was saying that those were the only days when blacks were allowed on the Boardwalk. SHOWELL: Three days in a year. That would be in September. PITTS: In September. Labor Day. Was Labor Day one of them? SHOWELL: Yes. I don’t remember whether that started it or not but I know that they give ‘em three days to go on the Boardwalk, the black people, and that was the stupidest thing I ever hear tell. (Laughter) RUSSELL: And he was telling me as you did— SHOWELL: Hm? RUSSELL: Connie was telling me just as you did that the rest of the time you weren’t permitted on the Boardwalk, you weren’t permitted in Ocean City. SHOWELL: No. That’s right. RUSSELL: And if you were caught on the Boardwalk, you had to find a place to run and hide to and he said that Henry’s Hotel was one place where he went and hid. SHOWELL: He ain’t lying’. He told the truth. RUSSELL: And then he told me another place. There was a second hotel down there that they would ride hide to. SHOWELL: Yeah. PITTS: Roadside? SHOWELL: There was a place they called Roadside down there. RUSSELL: But that was really, you know, that was really all we discussed. SHOWELL: Yeah. RUSSELL: Was it the same way for women as it was for men? SHOWELL: Oh, yeah. Uh-huh [Affirmative]. No different. Women was treated the same. Better not be caught on the Boardwalk. Walking up and down the Boardwalk. Was in my day. [Unclear] go down there and was scared to go on the Boardwalk when I was a kid. When I went on the Boardwalk it better be in September. That’s the truth. RUSSELL: Where did you go when you went to Ocean City? SHOWELL: Where’d I go? Well, when Ocean City season over, I’d go anywhere I wanted to then. They made it free to colored people. But it had to be after September. July and August better not be caught up there messing ‘round. They’d beat you half to death or do something to you. PITTS: Was everything still——were all the stores, all the stores and things were open in September, or? SHOWELL: Yeah. Yeah. They keep the Boardwalk open PITTS: And kept everything open? SHOWELL: Boardwalk was for the colored people have a chance. Yeah. Merry-Go-Round be open, ferris wheel, all that, all that would be open and they would make some money, too, ‘cause them colored people go down and, boy, they’d enjoy their self (Laughter). Yes, sir. And all that would be open. I know that ‘cause I remember myself PITTS: Did you take advantage of the bumping cars? Did they have those cars? SHOWELL: Oh, yeah. Bump into one another. (Laughter) Now, I’m going to say one thing, I know, I never have no trouble here in the United States since I been live. I’ve been living. I’ve been living 96 years now. I ain’t never had no trouble with people. Never have. Had to trouble white or black. I get along real good. RUSSELL: Connie, Tom, I’m sorry, I was thinking about Connie Purnell. Tom, do you have any other questions? PITTS: No, I don’t think so. I think we’ve just about exhausted him unless he’s got some questions— RUSSELL: Do you have any questions of us? PITTS: That you want to share with us that we didn’t ask. SHOWELL: What’s that? PITTS: Do you have any questions that you want to share with us or anything about Assateague or Ocean City or the area that we didn’t ask that would be interesting? SHOWELL: Only thing I know that I can tell you about was this, I know. I’ve been over in this area when you couldn’t go on the Boardwalk. That’s one thing I do know. If you were black. Better not get caught on the Boardwalk. No, sir. PITTS: And you never had any problems like that in the Assateague area, though, right? You could always go, go pretty much where you wanted down there. SHOWELL: Yeah. Uh-huh [Affirmative]. On Assateague the only thing I know is keep on the sand. (Laughter) That’s the only thing you have to do is keep on the sand. RUSSELL: Thank you so very much, Mr. Showell. SHOWELL: [Unclear] You go to Ocean City, they’d work you to death but you couldn’t [unclear]. You go down there, they work you to death but wouldn’t allow you to go on the Boardwalk. Not ‘til after September. [Unclear] PITTS: It’s come a long ways since then, hasn’t it? SHOWELL: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yes, indeed. Yes, sir. RUSSELL: Thank you so much, Mr. Showell. SHOWELL: Well, you’re very welcome. [END SIDE B, TAPE 1] |
| Duration | 1:33:24 |
| Recording Date | May 19, 2004 |
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