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

Bonnie: A lot different than it is today. Much different. We had a lot more businesses.   We had a nice plant where we could buy ice-cream. We had a bowling alley.  We had a skating rink.  Those were the fun things. We had a lot of grocery stores. We had the old company store where the miners would charge their groceries when they got their paycheck.  Sometimes they didn’t get a lot of money because it went to the company store. We had a studio where they took pictures.  We had confectionery where you could go in the back and sit and have sodas. The fun places were like Charlie Bucharies and the Union Lunch. We’d go in there and dance on Saturday night, um, if we were allowed. And that’s where I worked. That’s where I met your grandpa.

Cortney: How many brothers and sisters did you have?

Bonnie: One brother and two sisters.

Cortney: And what was it like growing up with them?

Bonnie: The two older ones were  - well, there was distance between our ages, so I don’t remember much about them except them going on dates and stuff. I used to like to watch them leave the house with their boyfriends. My brother and I fought all the time.   And not really fight  - he always tormented me. I always had to take him to the movie on Saturday nights. I didn’t like that. That was the big thing we went to see Roy Rogers and some of those old cowboy movies every Saturday night at the Palace Theater.

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

Bonnie: Well, I don’t think it was like it is today because of all the pressures that kids have now. If we was involved in anything, we could only do one thing. We could be in the band but we couldn’t take part in all the sports and things like kids do. You know all of them are involved in so many things. We had time at home as a family - we didn’t know what it was like.  I watch my grandkids every night.  I mean they don’t have hardly any family time together. They're so involved in school activities. It wasn’t like that when I was in school.

Cortney: What were some of the things you did outside of school?

Bonnie: I always liked music. That was a big part of my life. Matter of fact, that was going to be my career.  I was going to go to college and that was going to be my major - was music. But I have used a lot of music in my life but we pretended a lot. We didn’t have very many things. The only things I remember having as a child was a doll baby.  We just didn’t have all the things kids have today, computers, T.V.’s and all. We listened to the radio and played games.  We went up on brick plant and played.

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

Bonnie: Charlie Bushiars and Union Lunch and we would watch people bowl.  We would stand outside the window and watch people bowl and that’s about it. I mean, we just went to the movies sometimes here in town.

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

Bonnie: No clubs, we didn’t have anything like that. About the same in a way, football, basketball, that was about it. I mean, we didn’t have a lot of other sports like track, like they have now.

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

Bonnie: We went to each others houses got together that way. We didn’t go to town a lot. I don’t know. We didn’t have to be entertained, you know, like we didn’t have T.V. to watch.  We just kinda made our own entertainment. We got together at each others' houses. Sometimes we’d dance and things like that.

Cortney: What are some of the stories you heard while you were growing up?

Bonnie: Well, not a whole lot. Our family was always busy and so we all had things to do.  So there wasn’t a lot of sitting around talking. Just at the table’s about all. My dad worked long hours so I didn’t hear a lot of stories.

Cortney: What were important issues to you back then?

Bonnie: I don’t know if we had important issues. We worried about the war. I remember worrying about the war a lot.  That scared me.

Cortney: Can you tell us about the wars?

Bonnie: Yeah, The thing I remember is the roll downtown. The military roll had a list of names of all the men that was in Service, and it was really sad when we saw a star go up because we knew that the star meant that boy had lost his life.  Or there would be a star in somebody’s window and we’d know that that family had lost a son. And I remember the soldiers riding the train and seeing the girls tell their boyfriends goodbye. When they would leave to go to the service.  They rode the train then a lot. I didn’t meet your grandpa until he came back from the service and by that time the war was over. I didn’t have to tell him goodbye when he went to the Navy. In fact, I didn’t even know him when he went in the Navy.

Cortney: What did you do for money back then?

Bonnie: I worked at Union Lunch as a waitress and I babysat and that’s about it.

Cortney: What was it like raising your kids?

Bonnie: It was a different world. That was about the time when we started worrying about drugs. You didn’t hear about it a lot. It was just starting to come in at that time. Alcohol maybe a little bit, not a lot. I guess it’s just like any other parent.   I worried about the choices they were going to make with their life. Having three boys, well, it’s like I had two families.  Bill and Becky were the oldest and then I had the two younger ones. Even in that time period - which was five years between their ages - I had to worry about different things with the youngest two because that’s when we were really aware that drugs was going to be a big part of a child’s life as far as peer pressure. They were good. I didn’t have a lot of problems with them. Bryan, he was always more adventurous then the rest of them and one time when I was working at the courthouse I looked up and I seen this little face looking over the counter and it was Bryan. And I said "how did you get down here?" He said "Oh, I thumbed." And I said, "Why did you do that, Bryan?" And he said,"I just wanted to see if I could do it." He said, "I just came down to ride home with ya." I mean he did things like that. He wanted to grow up too fast.

Cortney: Do you have any more stories about your kids?

Bonnie: Only that they all made their own choices. What they wanted to do. Our oldest son is a minister and the next is our daughter and she works at Ohio Medical Center. She’s supervisor and Bryan owns his own car dealership and Bruce is supervisor for Herrs Potato Chips. They had a hard time getting started because there just isn’t that many jobs here like there used to be. Ever since the mines shut down it took a lot of the employment out of here. There's hardly a way for young people to make a living around here.

Cortney: Do you remember what it was like during the great depression?

Bonnie: Not too much. We were in Columbus and I was just small.  I can remember them talking about my dad standing in line all day for a bag of soup beans and a loaf of bread.  And he said he would never do that again and so he made a living the best way he could.  He started out selling auto parts out of the back of his car and that’s how he build his business.  And he ended up a successful man when it was all over with. It was kinda rough.

Cortney: What are some major differences between now and when you were a teenager?

Bonnie: Oh, there's a big difference. Kids don’t have the opportunities to use their imaginations like we did because everything is there for them. We didn’t know what drugs was. It was aspirin for a headache. We didn’t have any of those pressures. I don’t ever remember going to a party where there were drinks or things like that. The only thing we did was play post-office. Do you know what that is?

Cortney: No.

Bonnie: OK. The girls would get on one side of the room and the boys would get on the other side and we had a letter for one of the girls.  And that meant they wanted to kiss one of the girls. So we’d step in the next room and kiss. The other thing was spinning the milk bottle and we put a milk bottle in the middle of the floor and spin it and if a boy was lucky enough, the bottle would point to the girl he wanted to kiss.   And if not, he just had to kiss somebody he didn’t want to kiss. So that was our games, that was our thing.

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

Bonnie: It’s just really been sad to see all the businesses closing down and there's hardly anything left here. There’s been some good things in the past few years, but in general, things have really, there’s just no way, people have to leave here when they grow up or a lot of young people end up on welfare. It’s just hard for them to find a way to make a living. One of the big things I remember we did when we were kids is wait for the ice-truck to go. People didn’t have refrigerators then, well a few people did. But they had ice-boxes and we’d run out to the truck and he’d chip us off a little piece of ice in the summer time and we’d eat that ice. We loved to do that. We had so many things to do when I was a kid. Our big thing on Saturday night was sitting down on the street watching people walk by. We’d sit in the cars with our mom just to see who would walk by and what they were doing. What they were talking about, that’s our weekend entertainment.

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

Bonnie: Well, even though there's a lot of poverty here, I’m thankful that I raised my children in a small community.  People are more in touch and you know more about what's going on. I just think in a lot of ways, kids are lucky to be brought up in a small town. That’s about it.