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Ida
Mae Stoneburner Age: 72 Occupation: Homemaker Hometown: Glouster, Ohio Interviewer: Josh Hartley
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Question: How has living in this part of Ohio affected Ida?
Interview:
Q: Did you do anything for the war?
A: No not really. I took care of my seven children, we traveled to Florida. My husband was in service down there. We went back and forth on the train.
Q: How has living in this part of Ohio affected your life?
A: Considering all the tornadoes and everything that has happened, we are pretty well protected. I'm really thankful of that.
Q: So, you said that you went to Florida to visit your husband. What did you do in Florida?
A: Well, my kids finished their school year, we came back in July. My husband had to go over seas. We liked the beach. We found very interesting things on the beach, seashells and things. I've always kept shells. I have them all in my shell collection. I made the shells into a big ball, which I have hanging on my ceiling. Q: About when did you start collecting shells?
A: Well, I always liked shells and rocks. My main thing in all my life was cooking, because we had to survive and I cooked at Ohio University. They taught me how serve and prepare. I graduated from one job to another.
Q: Any other hobbies?
A: I sew, I started the quilt project for the town. I worked 14 years in that. Everybody came and we sewed here in the house. We was giving our money from things we made to help the town. It was called The Glouster Project. I worked at that for 14 years. The mayor let us have the old Depot Station for our Headquarters. We made meals and crafts. You can see the quilts and stuff down there now. We have a big quilt, each block has, a project, a house, or a church, or a historic memory of Giouster. The block I did was the old black man with a wagon. He would deliver at the store. They had an orchard, and a slaughter house. There was a place were we made ice. You could go in the store and smell the ammonia, from the machine that made the ice. Thats how they preserved everything. Like stores today. Every block was a building in town. We had an artist from Columbus. She went around and sketched all the buildings. Then we made the quilt blocks. We put pieces of material together for each block to look like what it was, that she sketched. The one I did about the wagon, the kids in town liked to ride in the wagon, when he delivered groceries from farms.
Q: What was the Glouster Project?
A: It was hard work. We accomplished alot of things. We did the blacktop on the turn
around at the park. We put in 8,000 dollars and the town put in 2,000 dollars fro the project. We made more parking spaces, we bought a mower for the town. We cleaned all the stores windows. When I left the project we had 30,000 dollars. So we really made money. We put it back for scholarships for Trimble students. We made the first cement walkway over at the High School. It was for the handicapped people. We cleaned the city building. We fixed 20 antique chairs that they had. We wove bottoms for the chairs. We did so many things. I had a heart attack and I had to give it up. Were open on Tuesdays and Saturdays. We recycled old clothes and made them into rugs. We even took old lard and made soap. Over at the warehouse in Nelsonville. They had some flour that busted. We took the flour and made Play-Dough out of it. We had a big list on the wall of the stuff we recycled.
Q: How did you make the soap?
A: Well, you take the grease, and melt it. Then you take it off the stove when it's melted, and stir in the lye. And that foams up. Then it forms something like gravy. Then we poured it into a box like mold and let it harden.
Q: Is there anything that we had not gone over that you would like to tell us? Stories or anything?
A: Well, I don't know of anything. There is a lot of things, old people in town. Well like the Berscheriff's that owned the old ice store. They made Eskimo Pies. Charlie had the Confectionery and he was a good person. If any kid needed help he would help. He bought my son's football shoes. Jan a friend of mine, he bought her a prom dress. He was good to all the kids in town. He was an old bachelor. The kids got to work in his store. My daughters got to work there.
Q: How long did your son play football?
A: Well, one played about 3 years. The other wanted to play but, he broke his foot. He worked in the bakery at night to help out.
Ending: Thank you for the interview.