 |
Beulah Gerber Occupation: Unknown Age: 75 Hometown: Coolville Interviewer: Bub Simmons |
|
Beulah Gerber Occupation: Unknown Age: 75 Hometown: Coolville Interviewer: Bub Simmons |
What was life without electricity like for Beulah's family?
Transcript
Q: What is your name?
A: Beulah Gerber
Q: When was you born?
A: 1924
Q: Did you live in Coolville all your life?
A: Yeah just about.
Q: What was your mother's and father’s names?
A: Barr
Q: What was their occupation?
A: My father was a bus driver. My mother didn’t work.
Q: Did she take care of the kids?
A: No, I was the only child.
Q: Were your parents born and raised in this area?
A: Yeah, uh huh.
Q: What was is like growing up as a kid in Coolville.
A: I enjoyed Coolville on the count of my husband, of course he died, but we went to all of the basketball games and we really had a good time. It's enjoyable when you can take someone with you, I didn't enjoy myself if I had to go alone.
Q: Where'd you attend school?
A: Down here in Coolville.
Q: Did you like school?
A: Well now, I didn’t go clear through school. When I did go to school I didn’t like it.
Q: Did you have any goals or anything you wanted to get done?
A: No.
Q: What did you do for fun?
A: I would gather up toys.
Q: Did you have electricity when you were born?
A: No.
Q: What was it like with out electricity?
*A: Oh my goodness, we didn’t have no refrigerator or nothing like that. Then when our electric come in we were just as happy as could be. Of course we got everything electric then. You ought to have seen the way we felt when the electric truck came through, it was nice. Kids don’t remember stuff like that.
Q: How was your house heated? Did you have a wood burner?
A: Yes we did for a while.
Q: Did you grow up in a pretty wealthy family?
A: No.
Q: Did you ever want to be any thing when you grew up?
A: No, I didn’t.
Q: Did you ever have an idol?
A: Well you know, I don’t remember.
Q: So you said you was born in 1924? So you lived through the Depression and all that. So you lived through Vietnam too?
A: Oh honey my family's been in every war. Vietnam and all of them, everyone of us has been in a war of some sort.
Q: Do you remember anything about WWI and WWII?
A: I remember WWII but not WWI.
Q: What do you remember about it?
A: Oh, you know I just can't say I remember too much. It's been a long time ago.
Q: A lot of people worked out of the home in WWII, did you stay at home?
A: Oh I stayed at home, my kids grew up on the farm. I just didn't go anywhere.
Q: How many kids did you have.
A: I had 3 boys and one died.
Q: What were the boys' names?
A: David, Michael, and Jarold.
Q: Were you ever married?
A: I have been married twice.
Q: A lot of people married young when you were a girl, how old were you?
A: Oh yeah, I was sixteen.
Q: What was your first husband like?
A: Well, we was divorced, but we got along okay.
Q:Was there anything that you'd like to talk about that we haven't asked you about?
A: No I can't think of anything.
Q: What was your childhood like?
A: Well my childhood was pretty lonely, I was the only one in the family. What I enjoyed most was riding horses. We lived on a farm then.
Q: How many horses did you have?
A: I don't know really, but I think it was about four.
Q: Did you have chores you had to do when you were growing up? What were they?
A: I had work I had to do too. We mostly lived on a farm and we had gardens. And I remember driving a pair of horses, plowing corn.
Q: Was it hard work?
A: Darn right it was hard work!
Q: What hospital were you born in? Were you born in a hospital?
A: Yes, in Parkersburg.
Q: Did you have hobbies when you were growing up?
A: Yeah, I did quilting, and I helped my mom on the farm until she died.
Q: How old were you when your mom passed away?
A: When my mom died? She was seventy-four, I don't remember exactly what date.
Q: Thank you Ma'am.