Q: Where did you live in Meigs County when you were young?

A: Born next door here and moved to this house here in 1924.

Q: Did you date much when you were a teenager?

A: Very little, I was mostly in athletic.

Q: Really? What type of athletics do you do?

A: Football, Basketball, Baseball, Tennis, and Swimming.

Q: Did you play for the Middleport team?

A: Yes.

Q: How was your team? What was your record?

A: We had one of the best teams in the 1930 that was ever around in this part of the country. Two years straight we went undefeated. There was one tie.

Q: What sport?

A: Football.

Q: What position did you play?

A: Fullback.

Q: How was Basketball back then?

A: Selected all Southeastern Fullback.

Q: Oh’ that’s real good. How far did you guys make it in the playoffs? Or did you have playoffs?

A: We didn’t have playoffs.

Q: You didn’t have playoffs back then?

A: No.

Q: In Basketball, what position did you play in Basketball?

A: Guard.

Q: At the football games was there a lot of fan support back then?

A: Yeah, considering the size of the town.

Q: As much as there is today do you think?

A: I haven’t been to a game for I don’t know how long.

Q: What did you do for fun when you were younger?

A: Swim, play tennis.

Q: What did you do like on a Friday night? What did you and all your friends do?

A: It’s according to what kind of a season you were in. Whether is was Basketball, or Football, or what.

Q: When you were younger, did you have a car?

A: No.

Q: When did you get your first car?

A: When I was 19 and started to Marshall College in Huntington.

Q: What kind of car did you have?

A: Used car, 1929 Chrysler Roadster.

Q: Do you remember when Cinemas came to Meigs County?

A: They were when I was old enough to know what a Cinema was.

Q: Where was it located here?

A: There was two up in town here, one at the corner of Second and Middle Street. The other one was on North Second, two doors up from the Middle School.

Q: Did you go to the movies a lot?

A: Yeah, in fact, I even worked at the Movies.

Q: What did you do ?

A: I took up tickets or whatever. My brother was the operator of the projectors.

Q: What kind of money did you make?

A: I didn’t make any money, all I got to see is the films.

Q: When you went to school, what was the discipline like back then?

A: Well we thought it was pretty strict.

Q: Like what type of trouble would you get in to?

A: I tried not to get in to any trouble.

Q: If, say somebody came in late for class, what was the punishment for that?

A: I don’t know if there was any.

Q: Do you think more people have came to Meigs County, as far as the population? When do you think it started to grow the most?

A: Well, I think it grew over the years but I think it’s decreased some.

Q: What do you think has had an effect on that?

A: Work I guess.

Q: How has that changed?

A: Well we had the New York Central Rail Road down there and we had Hobson Yards, in fact, 90% of the people I think worked for the Rail Road Company. Of course you had your coal mines around and different things.

Q: Where did you work?

A: I went to school.

Q: What type of an education did you need to get a good job around here?

A: Well, I don’t think there was any jobs at that time where you needed much more than a high school education.

Q: So after high school what did you do?

A: I tried to go to college but I had an automobile wreck and broke my arm in two places, injured myself in more ways then one. I had to drop out and never did get to go back there. Then I started to Rio Grand I played one season of football there then I had to drop out because I lost all interest in really going.

Q: What type of job did you get after that?

A: I worked several jobs. One of the youngest jobs starting out I worked delivery boy for Whites Grocery Store up in town, then I worked for Tri-Vesta Cleaners. I worked here in at the shop in and they moved the shop to Morgantown, West Virginia and I went down there with them. I come back here and I went in as the deputy sheriff of Meigs County.

Q: How long did you serve at that?

A: About two years. I served Middleport here in night police and merchant police combined for 19 years and 3 month.

Q: When was this? Like what year?

A: It would have been in the late 40’s early 50’s.

Q: So, what was it like doing that? Like do you have any stories about it?

A: Well, there’s lots of stories.

Q: Anything particular that you can remember?

A: Oh, picked up two stolen automobiles, caught some breaking and entering. That all went along with the job, made yourself feel good when you accomplished that.

Q: When you were a police officer, speed limit, what was it back then?

A: 35.

Q: 35, everywhere?

A: In town.

Q: What about out on the highways?

A: Out on the highways was I think 50. In the business districts at the time were 25. Residential was 35.

Q: How do you believe World War II effected Meigs County?

A: Mostly involved some of the boys.

Q: What was it like being rationed? What were your feelings on that?

A: Take it or leave it. It didn’t bother me any.

Q: Was it hard?

A: No, I’d say so, you have to make up your mind. If you got to do it or you don’t do it. That’s all there is to it.

Q: What type of rations did you have?

A: Well, I really don’t remember how, I guess it was certain things you could only buy a certain amount of. I really don’t recall.

Q: Were there any war factories around here. Made anything for the war at all?

A: Yeah, they had Tim’s fish plant down here in Pt. Pleasant, outside of Pt. Pleasant. Out side of that, I don’t recall any, close by anyhow.

Q: How do you believe the Depression effected Meigs County?

A: Well, Meigs county has never been a rich county. We’ve always been able to plug along, make due with what we had.

Q: What were your parents names?

A: You mean their given names?

A: Yes.

A: My father was George. He past away in 1928. My mother’s name was Clara Mae. She was the daughter of a West Virginia farm owner in Winfield. My father worked on the railroad down here. He lost an arm, a left arm in a rail road accident.

Q: Do you have any bothers or sisters.

A: I have two brothers.

Q: What are there names?

A: Charles and Raymond. They’re both past away.

Q: Did the Depression effect your family much?

A: Well, only to a point to the things we liked to of had that we couldn’t get. We did without until the time come when you could get it. You put up with it.

Q: What was it like when the flood of 37 happened?

A: That was a dandy. We had about seven feet in this room here. Seven feet of water. My mother and her husband, my step father. We owned the house next door and people rented that. They came over and stayed up stairs. Then drive a John Boat out here to the front porch and get out on a boat on the roof, get in the up stairs window. It was quite a problem.

Q: How long did it take for the water to go down?

A: Several days, I don’t know exactly how long it was. It could have went down a lot quicker as far as we’re concerned. You don’t have much say so over that.

Q: What was one of the worst winters you remember ?

A: To me any winter is bad. I don’t like winter. I couldn’t pick out any certain one.

Q: Do you remember what you use to do for fun?

A: Oh yeah, Middleport Hill was are favorite place. We’d go to the top of Middleport Hill. At that time Mill Street went clear to the river. And the railroad trestle, Mill Street went down under the trestle and down through the river. It was paved, brick. We use to get on a sled on top of Middleport Hill. We usually had someone on the sled with you. You would come down off of the hill, down the street, and down to the levey. Down on the ice if there was any. That was our big place to go every winter when the snow was on.

Q: You said you like to swim a lot. Did you swim in the Ohio River?

A: That’s the only place I had to swim. There wasn’t any pools around here then. Yeah, I spent many a many of hours. My mother even told some of the kids that come here after school, I don’t know where to find him. They wanted to find me, she said I was either at the river or the tennis courts.

Q: Like, what type of swimming did you do. Did you do long distance or did you do it for the fun of it/

A: I use to swim the river over and back six times without stopping. One time there was three of us went to Syracuse beach on a Sunday. Jumped in the river at 11:30 in the morning, and at 5:30 I pulled up at the levy and one of the other boys pulled out at Smokey Run and another one pulled out at Pomeroy. I loved Sports.

Q: Did you play Baseball?

A: Football, baseball, basketball, track, everything but golf. I was not into golf.

Q: What kind of sports did you play in school?

A: I played three. football, basketball, and baseball. I was selected all Southeastern Full back in Football and All Southeastern Guard in Basketball. They didn’t pick any of our players in baseball.

Q: What is your most memorable moment in sports?

A: They’re all memorable. Well I guess as far as I am concerned, it is when they selected me for all Southeastern Fullback.

Q: Did anybody come to you and ask you to go to there college?

A: No. I talked to Paul Daniel, he was a coach at Marshal. Then I got hurt. I told him I was going to have to drop out cause I had an injury to my head, I broke my arm in two places and I had a hard time. I can’t hardly do anything now. I had a hard time in class, I was having really bad headaches every night. So I told him I was going to drop out and come back next year if I recuperated alright. He said well, that will be fine. But the next year they changed football coaches. The new coach and a couple of his coaches came up and talked to me one day. He said, we will let you know. Then I went to Rio Grand. The next to last game in Beckely, West Virginia. That ended that. We were playing Marshall the last game of the year which was the only game I wanted to play and I didn’t get to play that. Walked to school one morning and slipped on an ice spot. My knee went out of place again. I went to President Lewis office and told him I dropped out of school. That’s what I did, I just put it all behind me. I didn’t like it. I was there on an athletic scholarship I couldn’t play half way. I had no other way of going. Like I said my father died when I was Fourteen years old. We didn’t have but very little. I think my mother got a pension in about $38 a month. That was we lived on. I’ve worked several different places. During WW II I worked up at Rimmedo, Oh. On the yard force. I worked the radio operator for about four and a half years. Then I came back here and worked on the police force here. I went to work for the time keepers for Ohio Department of Transportation, the garage out there. Then I retired.

Q: Was there anything that I haven’t asked you that you would like to comment about?

A: No, not that I know of.

Q: Any memories you would like to share?

A: No, I’ve had quite a few good things in athletics that I’ve been real proud of and everything, but I don’t go around bragging about them.