Cortney: What was Glouster like when you were growing up?

Bill: Oh, it was a lot bigger, a lot of stores.  We had four doctors, and two movie houses, four big grocery stores, confectionery. There was a shooting gallery in the parking lot by the bank, you know across from the Moose? There was a shooting gallery there. It was a boom town when the mines were all working.

Cortney: How many brothers and sisters did you have?

Bill: One brother.

Cortney: And what was it like growing up with your brother?

Bill: Oh, we had a pretty good time. Back in the 30s there wasn’t any money to spend and we always figured out something to do. Played baseball in the summertime, swam, and it wasn’t bad.

Cortney: What was school like when you were a kid?

Bill: I went to a two-room school house for eight years. There was four grades downstairs and four grades up. It was a good school. You learned in that school. If that teacher told you to do something; don’t go in that next day with no excuses. You better know it. It was a good school.

Cortney: Where were some of the major hangouts when you were a teenager?

Bill: Jimmy Hooks and John Downs store up there in Oakdale. Everybody loved it up there. I don’t know if they even ever closed. We’d loaf in there til midnight around the old stove. It’s just be packed with men and kids in there.

Cortney: What were some of the popular sports and clubs for the young people?

Bill: Wasn’t no clubs. He’s the only one in Oakdale who had a radio and we’d go up there in the summer time and listen to the Cincinnatti Reds play baseball.

Cortney: What were some of the sports? Any sports?

Bill: Baseball, everybody played baseball.

Cortney: What were some of the things you did for entertainment before T.V?

Bill: Well, when I was a kid growing up it was shooting marbles. I liked to play marbles and my mother just about skinned me because it was like an alcoholic.  I couldn’t hear two marbles rattling and I had to get into the game.

Cortney: What were some of the pressures you faced growing up?

Bill: There wasn’t any pressure. Kids were good then. People never locked their houses, never had to worry about anything. For one thing my teenage years  - the Second World War was on. And for four years when I was in school in high school the war was on. We just lived from day to day, worried about your family.

Cortney: What was the wars like?

Bill: It was rough.

Cortney: What were important issues to you back then?

Bill: Oh, that’s a good one. Getting good grades in school and passin' on to the next grade was all I was really worried about.

Cortney: What did you do for money?

Bill: Anything I could do to earn a dime. It wasn’t a dollar. It was a dime or a nickel. I saved up all summer saving up ten dollars to buy a buggy. When I was a kid, I bought a buggy off a guy for ten bucks then my dad traded the horses off.

Cortney: What was it like raising your kids?

Bill: It was like a three-ring circus. They were just typical teenagers. Always into something - especially the two youngest boys.

Cortney: Do you have any good stories to tell us about them?

Bill: Oh, you don’t have enough time.  I could tell you stories about them boys. They liked to paint.  They painted the whole back of the house. They painted my lawnmower. I uh, built them a couple of go-carts that you could pull -  that you could pull and ride, you know. And I told 'em I said, "Now when I get home from work, we’ll take them up back and paint them." Now these boys were only maybe five and six years old at that time. I got home that night and they had the back of my house painted blue, my lawnmower, my shoes blue, the windows blue, they had everything blue. But that was just one of the things.

Cortney: Can you tell us what it was like living through the great depression?

Bill: It didn’t affect us like it did a lot of people.  We lived on a 125 acre farm and we raised all our own food. There wasn’t much money around. Dad always had a little bit of money. But he worked at it and I remember his two sisters and one of them had five children and one of them had six.  And they lived with us for two years and you talk about a house full. There was a house full of people there. My dad raised all the food and everything and it’s like I said, it wasn’t as bad for us as it was a lot of people because we had and lived on that farm.

Cortney: Can you tell us anything about the Millfield Mine disaster?

Bill: The only thing I can think about is that I went to school with a couple boys that their dads were killed in the mine down there. Now I remember what happened is the gas in the mine exploded.  Now I don’t know how many people it was now, but I think it was about 78 people were killed. I don’t know how many people were killed: it got the whole one shift. When it exploded, the whole mine exploded.

Cortney: What are some of the major differences between now and when you were a kid?

Bill: It’s a 180 degrees difference today the kids have got so much peer pressure. Drugs and alcohol. When I was a kid growing up we never thought about stuff like that and today it is uh, you just worry all the time about the children because it is just something that the world is changing so fast. And the kids, I’ll tell you the truth, we’ve got good kids.  There’s all good kids, but they're growing up today. It's just they have so much stuff now, television and the cars. Shoot, when I was growing up they was lucky to have two cars up that valley. Now the kids they have to have a car and they….it’s just so much different. People that…drugs mostly and alcohol today. When we didn’t have to worry about that when we were growing up.

Cortney: What are some of the changes that’s happened in Glouster?

Bill: It’s really went down hill. I mean it has. Friday and Saturday night in Glouster you couldn’t hardly walk down the street there was so many people in town buying groceries at that time and that’s no joke. During the war I remember one thing during the war -  the second World War. Old ladies that used to live out on East Branch where the lake is now, they came in town every Saturday night.  They came in town every Saturday night with team of horses and their lights on and they would tie up right there in front of the Moose. Where the Moose is now there used to be a barber shop in the bottom of that. They would tie up there, go buy all their groceries and light them lanterns and start home. Them lanterns were on the front of the buggy and they carried their groceries home.  And the town, I mean it was just packed. You just couldn’t - I mean it was  - you walked down the street and there just wasn’t hardly any room. Was there?

Cortney: What are some of the stories you heard growing up? Like some of the stories your dad told you that you remember.

Bill: I could tell you stories all day long.  Nothing in patricular, just mostly that little Jimmy Hooks store and John Downs store up there  - you’d go up there and they were all older men and was my age today and the tales they’d tell!   Boy, I remember we got a new radio in 1936.  We listened to the radio. All there was Lum 'n Abner and Inner Sanctum.   It was scary.  People had to use their mind when they had to visualize what they were hearing. We had one boy up there, on Sunday night, there would be about half a dozen boys maybe eight listening to that Inner Sanctum. Well, this one kid I had to take him home every Sunday night, he was scared to go home after that show.  Boy, that radio show was scary and you’d hear that door a squeaking and, boy, he was scared to death. I’d have to about - like here from the railroad track  - to take him home.

Cortney: Is there anything that we forgot to ask you that you’d like to tell us about?

Bill: Ah, nothing in particular. When I was a kid growing up, I worked at strip mine my senior year in high school. When I got old enough, I enlisted in the Navy. Spent a few years in the North Atlantic, got out, went to work, and married your grandma. And that’s about it. That’s about the only thing I can tell ya.

Cortney: All right, Thanks!

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