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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Mobile Postcard Album
Subject
The topic of the resource
Mobile postcards
Description
An account of the resource
An album of postcards of Mobile, donated to the Mobile Public Library, Local History & Genealogy division
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Mobile Public Library
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
jpeg
Type
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Images
Identifier
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Mobile-Postcard-Album
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
These items may be used for educational and research purposes, but may be protected under U.S. Copyright Law. While MPL may own the physical objects, it is up to the patron to determine and satisfy copyright restrictions when using this material.
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Text
Any textual data included in the document
Huge Brookley Field Recreation Center and Hostess House, is used for Dances, Athletics and all social affairs by the military and civilian population of Mobile. The famous Mardi Gras ball of Mobile is held here every year. This colorful event brings many thousands of visitors from all over the country to witness and participate in it.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Postcard
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Fort Whiting
Subject
The topic of the resource
postcard
Description
An account of the resource
Image of Fort Whiting, Brookley Field Recreation Center, Mobile, Alabama
Creator
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Colourpicture Publishers, Inc.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Carter's News Agency
Format
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jpeg
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
image
Identifier
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PostcardAlbum-FortWhiting
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This item may be used for educational and research purposes, but may be protected under U.S. Copyright Law. While MPL may own the physical object, it is up to the patron to determine and satisfy copyright restrictions when using this material.
Brookley Field
Fort Whiting
Mobile
postcard
-
http://digital.mobilepubliclibrary.org/files/original/ea76f95b570158eb97a888a568ca0419.mp3
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Growing Up In Mobile: Depression & Wartime, 1929-1949
Subject
The topic of the resource
Mobile during the Depression and World War II
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Judy Walton, MPL Youth Services,
Erin Kellen, MPL Youth Services,
& George Schroeter, MPL Local History & Genealogy
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Mobile Public Library
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1983
Contributor
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USA Photographic Archives,
Spring Hill College,
Mobile Historic Development Commission
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
jpeg
mp3
Language
A language of the resource
English
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This file may be freely used for educational uses as long as it is not altered in any way. No commercial reproduction or distribution of this file is permitted without written permission from this institution.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Elizabeth Vickers Courtney
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Cassette tape
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
27 min. 4 sec.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Lalie Felis
Location
The location of the interview
27 Hillwood Drive, Mobile AL
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
Lalie: Today is July 1, 1983. This is Lalie Felis. I'm interviewing Ms. Courtney at her home at 27 Hillwood Drive. This interview is part of the Growing Up in Mobile Oral History Project. (?) is taping this interview today. We're going to be talking about Ms. Courtney's experiences growing up in Mobile during World War II. We'd like to thank you for talking to us about your experiences growing up in Mobile. To begin with, can you state for the record, your full name and when and where you were born?
E.V.C.: Elizabeth Vickers Courtney. I was born in 1930. Do you want the date? February 2nd, 1930. I was born in Mobile.
Lalie: Who were your parents and what did they do for a living?
E.V.C.: My mother was Gene Inmas Vickers; my father was Marion Richard Vickers. My father was an attorney and my mother was a housewife.
Lalie: Did you have any brothers and sisters?
E.V.C.: Yes, I had one brother. His name was Marion Vickers, Jr. He is 5 years younger than me.
Lalie: Where did you live in Mobile when you were growing up?
E.V.C.: Well I was born, when I was born we lived on Houston Street, then we moved to Old Government Street, then we moved to Ashland Place, and then we moved out to Springhill and I lived in this house next door here, my mother's house, when she still lived, we were there since 1936, I was 6 years old when we moved here.
Lalie: Where did you go to school?
E.V.C.: I went to Visitation Academy through the 6th grade, and I went to Springhill School, which was a public school by Mary B. Austen, and then I went to Murphy, and then I went off to school after that. I went to Washington D.C.
Lalie: What was your favorite subject?
E.V.C.: I guess Math.
Lalie: Who were some of your favorite teachers?
E.V.C.: Well, Ms. Mary B. Austen was our teacher in the 7th grade. [...] She died in the middle of the year when we were in 7th grade. She was a great person, she was absolutely one of my favorites. And I had some good teachers at Murphy, Ms. Edith Murphy taught me math and she is also pretty famous in Mobile. She died about 3 or 4 years ago and she loaned me a couple of books and I guess it was her father that Murphy High School was named for, I'm not sure, or her husband, I forgot, anyway she's related to the man that Murphy was named for. Ms. Gay (?) was a Latin teacher at Murphy that I liked, and Ms. Bragg (?) was my Science teacher. I guess that's about, well let's see, that's about all I can think of.
Lalie: What did you want to do when you grew up?
E.V.C.: Um, I guess, I just wanted to get married and have children. We didn't think about having careers as much at that time, you know, girls just kind of [...]
Lalie: What were some fun things that you did when you were growing up?
E.V.C.: We used to climb trees, we used to build pine straw huts. Our favorite thing was to go to the pumping station and go swimming, where the reservoir is over there and they had these big swimming pools that came from a waterfall that came out of the reservoir and that was the big thing.
Lalie: What were the things that your family, that you and your family did for recreation?
E.V.C.: Well, let's see, we used to go over the Bay, sometimes, and...I can't really think of too much that we did as a family. We took a few trips, not too many. We used to go to Chattanooga, we went to Lookout Mountain a couple of times, my grandmother used to live out there.
Lalie: Did you have any hobbies?
E.V.C.: Um, I used to play alot of badminton, that was the big thing when I was a teenager. We had a court up there. And, um, I was one of the Girl Scouts, I did alot of work with them.
Lalie: Who were some of your best friends?
E.V.C.: Um, Sally Title(?) was a good friend of mine, she used to live about 3 or 4 houses up on Hillwood and she's still a good friend of mine. (?)Phillipson (?) in fact she's on the library board [...] and Nettle Grier (?) was a good friend, her name is Simpson(?) now. Nettle was a real good athlete, she still is, she used to have a horse, we used to have a real good time riding her horse, I wasn't that good at it but she was and we used to play alot of baseball and football, we played with the boys alot, there weren't too many girls at Springhill, everybody kind of just got together and we did whatever the boys wanted to do really and...what was your original question?
Lalie: Who were some of your best friends?
E.V.C.: Oh yeah, and Mary Cook was a good friend of mine, she moved out here I think when we in the 7th grade and she was also really good friend of mine, she works for the CIA...and that's about it I guess.
Lalie: Did young people at this time gather in any certain places?
E.V.C.: Um, no, not at Springhill, we just played in the woods or at somebody's house, some people had little, what they called playhouses, they were kind of like doll houses, you know, they were just a little room that was built separate from the house, alot of people had those, and we would do that but most of the time we really played outside.
Lalie: What were some of your favorite places in Mobile? E.V.C.: Well, we used to go to the Country Club, and swim and hang around up there alot and uh, I thought I had written some other place down here, of we used to go to Weinacker's and get milkshakes and sodas and things like that. Do y'all know where Weinacker's was, it's not called Weinacker's anymore, but it's on the corner of Government and Catherine Street, I think it's a Delchamps now, it was a drugstore and that was kind of a favorite hang out. And also Van Antwerp drugstore downtown, was a big hang out, they used to have a lunch counter, we used to go down there and that's where we would eat.
Lalie: What was your favorite music when you were growing up?
E.V.C.: Well, of course the Jitterbug was popular at that time and the big band [...] big band music, and later we got into show tunes.
Lalie: Who was your favorite sports figure?
E.V.C.: Good question, well, I remember Joe DiMaggio, baseball, Babe Ruth, and Joe Lewis, I remember him real well in boxing, heavyweight champion, um, Bobby Jones I guess, in golf, that's all I can think of off hand.
Lalie: What styles of clothing were popular?
E.V.C.: Well, when you're saying the 30's and 40's, you know, you're taking a large period of time into consideration, so, if you start back in the 30's, uh, you were just coming out of the roaring 20's and just coming out of the Charleston era. In the 30's the skirts went down, you know, and then the new look came along in the 40's, and we wore these full skirts and everybody wore half the petticoats under the full skirts, I mean just daytime clothes, you know, like a wool skirt, real full, with a plaid petticoat, you always had to have a plaid petticoat, something that showed, you know. And the new look was a little short jacket and a scarf and that was not exactly when the new look came out but I think it was like in the middle 40's. The 30's were kind of a dull period, the dresses were very drab, after the 20's you know when they were real short, and then flash to the 30's it was kind of dull.
Lalie: What was your favorite food?
E.V.C.: Spaghetti and meatballs, I guess. We didn't have pizza in those days, I think it was unheard of, I think the first I ever had any was when I went to Europe in 1954, I had some then.
Lalie: Did you have a favorite rest or eating place in Mobile? E.V.C.: Um, the Dew Drop, it's been good all these years, y'all know about the Dew Drop? And, uh let me think, Constantine's was downtown at that time and it was good. We didn't have very many restaurants in those days.
Lalie: What was downtown Mobile like when you were growing up?
E.V.C.: Well, it was just like a small town, you know, that you would go through, I guess. Dauphin Street was the big, the prime property, you know like Fountain Square, and we had 3 or 4 good stores down there, and Constantine's was a good restaurant and Van's was a (?). The Square was alot prettier then than it is now, not so many bums hanging around, it was a nice place to go. It was kind of like any small town.
Lalie: Where did people shop?
E.V.C.: Well downtown we had Gayfer's and Hammel's and Goldstein's, that's a jewelry store, and (?), that was a shoe store, and Cress's (?) was a 5 & 10 cent store, they were all in the same area right on the Square. Madison's (?) was there, it was a men's store. We had, I guess a line of them.
Lalie: Where was the edge of town?
E.V.C.: The edge of town was really I guess you'd say where the Loop is and, uh, I guess maybe Florida Street before you really got into Crichton, Crichton was kind of a separate area.
Lalie: What kind of transportation did you have besides cars?
E.V.C.: When I first moved to Springhill there was a trolley, it came out and tracks ended up there near where Mary B. Austen's School is and it came at kind of an angle from Springhill Avenue, it didn't come by the same route that the roads are on, it just came kind of through the woods. But it wasn't, that didn't operate too long, I can't remember when it stopped but probably in the late 30's and then they put in a bus there. We used to ride the bus to Murphy and back, well we rode it home, my father used to take us to school. We always rode it home, buses were alot safer then than they are now, although they were still crowded, of course there were certain [...]. Most families you know had the one car, I mean it was kind of, I can't remember when we got our second car, it was I guess, I think it was in the 40's when we got our second car, most families just had one.
Lalie: What are some of your memories of World War II? E.V.C.: Well I can remember the rationing. Sugar was rationed, shoes were rationed, we got 2 pair a year, which wasn't too bad for the grown people but if you had growing feet, you know, it got bad. And whiskey was rationed, and oh gas, I guess that was the big thing, you know, it didn't bother me too much, because I wasn't driving. It was really though, if you wanted to go somewhere and you had to save up your gas tickets or borrow some from somebody else or get em someway or another. It was hard to have enough to get where you're going.
Lalie: Do you remember any changes in Mobile during this time?
E.V.C.: Brookley Field, you know, was built in Mobile at that time and that was a big thing , you know, because of the big installation it was, they hired alot of people, and they had alot of military personnel.
Lalie: Did more people move to Mobile during this time? E.V.C.: Oh yeah, alot of people. When the shipbuilding industry built up and like I said Brookley hired alot of civilian help, besides the military personnel. We had a big [...]
Lalie: Did you know any of these newcomers?
E.V.C.: Yeah, we knew the General at Brookley, General Molass(?) and his daughter was in my class at school. I guess my parents knew some others, I can't think of any offhand.
Lalie: Were there any newcomers moving into your neighborhood?
E.V.C.: Yes,uh, this is during the War that we're talking about? Housing was kind of hard to get during the war, you know [...] One of our good friends, Carter Smith, I think she's the one that told y'all to contact my mother and probably me too, she has alot to do with the Historical Society and historical thing in Mobile, but they had been living in St. Lewis and they moved back to Mobile at that time and they weren't able to find a house, you know, that they wanted, on this street or anywhere near, they finally bought one over in Springhill, not Springhill Manor but Country Club Village. Springhill Manor and Country Club Village were two of the housing projects that were built during the war and they were supposed to be temporary housing but they're still standing. People have remodeled and added on to them. So they moved in there, I remember that. Oh, we really didn't have too many newcomers on this street, because everybody that lived here had, you know, lived here for a long time, there were not too many people moving and like I said not many houses were available during that time.
Lalie: How did people feel towards these newcomers?
E.V.C.: Um, I don't remember any ill feelings towards the newcomers. Maybe some in the older generation might have had some but me, I've always been glad to meet new people, it was fine with me, I liked it.
Lalie: Did you have alot of new students enrolling in your school?
E.V.C.: I guess we did. I don't remember any crowded situation in the school. I'm sure we had more because there were more people moving in but I don't remember any great crowding.
Lalie: Were the mother and fathers of any of your friends in the military or working out in Brookley Field?
E.V.C.: I would say no. We had met, like I said, the Molasses(?) but they weren't really close to us.
Lalie: Do you recall seeing alot of servicemen or military personnel?
E.V.C.: Some, not much.
Lalie: Do you remember people in Mobile volunteering for war work?
E.V.C.: Oh yeah, I remember we knitted sweaters for the Red Cross at the Mary B. Austen School. We knitted little bitty sweaters, size 4, and size 2 I can remember doing a couple of those, and they were sent to, you know, people overseas that needed supplies. And we knit squares, we knit afghans I think, to send to people in the cold who needed some cover, we knit squares and sweaters. Alot of people did volunteer for the Red Cross and all kinds of things like that.
Lalie: What about women employment? Did they work anywhere?
E.V.C.: Well I'm sure they did, you know, hearing about Rosie the Riveter and everything, but I was too young to really pay that much attention to it and of course my mother didn't work and you know the people that I knew very well did, but you know I'm sure there was alot of that.
Lalie: Do you remember any of the ways in which the war affected everyday life in Mobile?
E.V.C.: Well, of course the rationing, you know, was a big thing and of course I remember each day being so interesting in the news. Well, alot of our friends had sons that were killed, things like that, and of course you were always on edge wondering who was going to be next. My family didn't have anybody that was really in the service directly connected with them so we didn't, we don't have anybody that close to us but we had alot of friends who had loss.
Lalie: Do you remember the blackouts and the air raid drills?
E.V.C.: Yeah, I remember those vaguely. I don't remember how many we had but I do remember them.
Lalie: What were some changes in the appearance of Mobile?
E.V.C.: Well, I can remember, Springhill was just really in the sticks and when we moved here, this street wasn't paved out here and my mother had you know landscaped her property over here and livestock kept coming in the yard and tearing up and stepping in this new [...] and tore it up so she built a cattle gap, built this fence out here. Y'all know what a cattle gap is? It's iron bars, like see where the driveway is up there, where the opening is in the fence, you put these iron bars and you cement them into the ground and they're about this far and they're about this wide, and the cattle can't go across em because if they step, you know, they would go down in it, and so that was to keep the livestock out. In fact there's a cattle gap right here, between [...] that's what that was too, although that's a draining system now but originally I think it was, we've always called it a cattle gap. So it was quite different out here than it is now. This really went way out in the woods.
Lalie: Did Mobile look different or seem different after the war?
E.V.C.: Well of course it built up, so I'd say we were in the sticks before the war and then, I can remember when Airport Boulevard was called Grant Street and it was just a two way street. There was hardly anything on it between the Loop and out here. At that time, when I first started driving, which was probably about 1946, I guess, my mother always said, "Don't go to Grant Street, it's too lonely." Can you imagine Airport Boulevard being lonely? But it was, there was nothing on there. So we'd always come Old Shell Road, and of course Dauphin Street wasn't there. Old Shell Road was more populated so we felt safer driving out on town, can you believe that?
Lalie: What things seemed to stay the same?
E.V.C.: Oh dear. Some of the buildings downtown, you know, like the Merchant's Bank, that's been there forever. Well you know, the whole plan of the city stayed the same, just built up, some of the old homes, Government Street, in a way, it's the same, in a way, it isn't, it's been so commercialized but still alot of the old homes are still there and the beautiful old trees. Everything else pretty much stayed the same except for the shopping centers and traffic is so much worse and of course South Alabama being built out here, you know, changed it a whole lot. That's all I can think of on that.
Lalie: Did Mobile remain dry after prohibition?
E.V.C.: Um...hmmm, do you mean during prohibition or after it was repealed?
Lalie: During prohibition.
E.V.C.: During prohibition. Well, everybody was kind of, getting it from somewhere. I don't want to incriminate everybody but there was plenty of it around, of course I was too young. I can't remember when prohibition was repealed, but I think it was, I can remember my daddy having kegs in the attic, and that was after we moved down here and that was 1936. I don't remember exactly when it was repealed but it was going around.
Lalie: What were the differences between Mardi Gras now and then?
E.V.C.: Well, of course, they used to have the coronation on the wall on the waterfront, I never did see that, that was before my time, my mother talked to me about that all the time. So that was quite different. And it was just on a much smaller scale than it is now. Basically, you know, everything was still, we'd still have the same coronation.
Lalie: What did you do for Mardi Gras?
E.V.C.: What did I do for Mardi Gras when I was young? Well, we used to go downtown and I remember one of the best times I had was when I went down with just 2 or 3 friends and I had just [...] and my momma let me go by myself. We didn't do a thing, we'd just walk around town and have lunch at Morrison's and you know it was just so much fun being on my own.
Lalie: Did you and your friends ever discuss the war?
E.V.C.: Well, I guess we did, you know, I just don't remember that too well, and like I say, I'm sure we, most every family had somebody that was in the service that was connected [...] get by without being affected by it. I don't remember. I remember when, the day that Roosevelt died and that made a big impression. I remember coming home on the bus that day and finding out. I can't remember exactly which year he died but I was at Murphy then so I guess it was probably early 40's, 43 or 44.
Lalie: How was your family affected by the war?
E.V.C.: Well, not a whole lot, as I said, because we didn't have anybody in the service, but of course we were affected by the rationing and things like that but, you know, it didn't affect my father's business, you know, he was a lawyer. It affected us in some ways because of the transportation, because of the gas rationing, because we did live out here in the sticks and we weren't able to just drive into Mobile anytime we wanted to like y'all can do now, like we all do.
Lalie: Are there any other things from the war you might want to add?
E.V.C.: I can't think of anything.
Lalie: You've been very kind to let us interview you today. We'd like to thank you.
E.V.C.: Well, thank you, I've enjoyed it.
Lalie: This interview will add to our record of this time. Thank you very much.
E.V.C.: Okay.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Elizabeth Vickers Courtney Interview - 1 July 1983
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Oral history interview of Elizabeth Vickers Courtney at her home at 27 Hillwood Drive
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Mobile Public Library
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Growing Up in Mobile : Depression & Wartime, 1929-1949, Interviews
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Mobile Public Library
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1983
Relation
A related resource
Descriptions of Oral History Interview Tapes
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
mp3
pdf
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Growing-Up-in-Mobile-Elizabeth Courtney Vickers Interview-1983
Brookley Field
Constantine's
Dew Drop Inn
Elizabeth Vickers Courtney
Mary B. Austen
Mobile
Murphy High School
oral history
rationing
Weinacker's
World War II
-
http://digital.mobilepubliclibrary.org/files/original/8974a3829b376272b20cfbb796b08d60.mp3
cdbcdec8248de6b95f3d66271f7a2afb
http://digital.mobilepubliclibrary.org/files/original/ebf7939e98d5bf369729615f6b9dfa9d.pdf
73c1b864ca6af0e8111cf3adbef60a88
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Growing Up In Mobile: Depression & Wartime, 1929-1949
Subject
The topic of the resource
Mobile during the Depression and World War II
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Judy Walton, MPL Youth Services,
Erin Kellen, MPL Youth Services,
& George Schroeter, MPL Local History & Genealogy
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Mobile Public Library
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1983
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
USA Photographic Archives,
Spring Hill College,
Mobile Historic Development Commission
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
jpeg
mp3
Language
A language of the resource
English
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This file may be freely used for educational uses as long as it is not altered in any way. No commercial reproduction or distribution of this file is permitted without written permission from this institution.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Reeve Carlson
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Mary Francis Plummer
Location
The location of the interview
The Haunted Bookshop in Mobile, AL
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Cassette tape
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
19 min. 39 sec.
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
R.C. : Today is June 21st, 1983. This is Reeve Carlson. I'm interviewing Mary Francis Plummer at the Haunted Book Shop. This interview is part of the Growing Up in Mobile Oral History Project. Tommy Oberding is assisting with the interview today. We're going to be talking about Ms. Plummer's experiences growing up in Mobile during World War II. We'd like to thank you for talking to us today about your experiences during the time you were in Mobile. To begin, would you state for the records your full name and when you were born.
M.F.P. : My full name if Mary Francis Young Plummer and I was born in October, 1913.
R.C. : Who were your parents?
M.F.P. : My mother was Frances Fuller Thompson, my father was James Madison Young, and they were in Henderson, North Carolina.
R.C. : What were their occupations?
M.F.P. : My father was a druggist and my mother kept house.
R.C. : Did you have any brothers and sisters?
M.F.P. : I had three brothers and one sister. My sister was older than I and my three brothers were younger than I.
R.C. : When did you move to Mobile?
M.F.P. : In September of 1940.
R.C. : What was Mobile like when you moved here?
M.F.P. : When I came, I knew only one person, he was the Episcopal minister at Christ Church, and I was going to be the Director of Religious Education at Christ Church. I knew most of the people in Mobile at that time soon after I was here for a week. But every time I would go to town I would see nobody I knew, and it was a strange feeling.
R.C. : What are some of your memories of World War II?
M.F.P. : Well, first of all, as I said, I knew practically mobody and then all of a sudden I knew everybody in town. I was given a map of the city and a list of parishioners, and told to call on the people, and I knew everybody, and I would go to the post office and I would see my friends, and I'd go through the park and I'd see my friends, and all of a sudden World War II came along and we were flooded with strangers.
R.C. : Do you remember any changes during this time?
M.F.P. : Loads of changes. You couldn't find a house to live in; you couldn't find food to eat; you couldn't find tired to put on your car; you couldn't find gasoline to ride around on. Everything was short, and Mobile just began to grow and grow and grow.
R.C. : Did you know any of these newcomers who came during World War II?
M.F.P. : I met quite a lot of them. Brookley was established and a couple of people from Brookley Field would come in the Haunted Book Shop. I might back up a little bit and say that at Christ Church my husband was a Boy Scout master over there and I married him, and I left my job as Director of Religious Education to help him with the Haunted Book Shop. And there I met a lot of strangers.
R.C. : Did any of the newcomers move into your neighborhood at this time?
M.F.P. : Well, our Book Shop was in the little building over on Conception Street with a driveway through it. Upstairs we rented rooms to people who came to work at the shipyard, so we saw lots of people.
R.C. : Did people in your neighborhood rent rooms to newcomers?
M.F.P. : Yes, they did. One night we went out, we were going to dinner with a stranger who was in Mobile, showing him the city, and we just walked out and left the door open to the Book Shop. When we came back we found a sailor in there selling books. He had taken over, the money was all in the cash register and everything was fine. He said he had a grand time running the Haunted Book Shop for us while we were out. Never saw him before.
R.C. : How did people feel toward the newcomers?
M.F.P. : I think there were mixed emotions. My husband and I, we used to enjoy meeting them and sometimes we would take them home for the weekend. I remember one of my prettiest china dishes, a boy from Australia was fixing us a Sunday dinner, and he sat this platter on the stove and it cracked. But, we used to take people out to ride and all the girls would go down to the USO Hall and entertain the soldiers and dance with them and feed them. All in all, we tried to make them welcome.
R.C. : Were the fathers and mothers of any of your friends in the military or working at Brookley Field during this time?
M.F.P. : No, I had a brother in the military service, but he was stationed in Germany. He never did get to Brookley Field.
R.C. : Do you recall seeing a lot of servicement or military personnel during this period?
M.F.P. : Yes, they were all over the streets of Mobile and the stores would stay open late at night, and you'd see them on Sunday. The town was just floating with military people.
R.C. : Did you know anyone who worked in the shipyards or in other defense industries?
M.F.P. : I did indeed. One of the girls that I lived with just before I was married (I had an apartment), she was a welder at the Mobile shipyard. Some people would think that she was just as pretty as she could be and she was doing a patriotic job, and other people would say "I don't think that women ought to be in the shipyard welding."
R.C. : At this time were you working here at the Haunted Book Shop?
M.F.P. : Yes, I was.
R.C. : Do you remember people in Mobile volunteering for war work?
M.F.P. : Yes, as a matter of fact, before I was married, when I was working at Christ Church, I used to work all day and then I would go down to the Scottish Rite Building, for the "Command Center" (we called it), and we would plot airplanes and where they were, and we'd work there every night from nine until twelve o'clock.
F.M. : I have a question. Since you worked at Christ Church, do you feel that religious involvement is greater now or less now than it was when you first came to Mobile?
M.F.P. : In my particular church I think it's less than it was. Caper Thadley (Capers Satterlee?) was a very civic-minded person and he had a nursery school upstairs for the mothers who were working during the war. The church parish house was always open to organizations that wanted to meet there, entertain the soldiers, or have dinners. The people from the auxiliary were made aware of the men being in town and were really working for them.
R.C. : Do you remember any of the rationing during World War II?
M.F.P. : I surely do. You couldn't get tired and you couldn't get gasoline. My husband had tuberculosis, and right after we were married he went to get some insurance and they told him his other lung had gone bad on him. My minister advised us to go back to the doctor who had done the surgery on him to begin with, which was in Tennessee, and I can remember crying all night long because I didn't have enough gasoline to go and I couldn't get enough gasoline to go back to Tennessee. Finally, I guess my heart took over, and people loaned me stamps, which, of course, was strictly against the rules, you didn't borrow ration stamps, but I did and we went to Tennessee to see the doctor.
R.C. : What was Mardi Gras like?
M.F.P. : There was no Mardi Gras during the war. It was completely stopped.
R.C. : Do you recall any unusual or outstanding persons in Mobile?
M.F.P. : I don't know that you would call them unusual, it seemed rather queer to me though. I remember distinctly a man coming in one day to buy some Pocket books, and while I was selling him Pocket books he was telling me about wanting guns out of Mobile into the foreign countries. Another funny story was, a girl was working for us in the book shop and somebody came to my husband and said "Do you know this girl? She's a spy," and so my husband felt duty-bound to go over to the FBI and talk to them about the girl working there and tell them that she had been reported as a spy. It turned out the girl was working for the FBI.
R.C. : Do you remember any other ways in which the war affected everyday life in Mobile?
M.F.P. : Yes, everybody went to the seventh grade at Barton Academy, and of course every seventh grade child knew every other seventh grade child, and after the war the schools sprang up all over Mobile. Not only was there just one big Murphy High School or one bid seventh grade, there were many different schools. Now there were a lot of people that didn't even know each other any more.
R.C. : What were some of the changes in the appearance of Mobile?
M.F.P. : Well, every business place was busy, the LeClede Hotel was where I move d my shop from Conception Street to Government Street. It was a busy, buzzing street. The old courthouse was there, the Alabama Hardware and Sears Roebuck. Of course they tore down the Alabama Hardware, they tore down Sears Roebuck and moved it over on Royal Street. Then, in the sixties they built that Springdale Plaza and all the stores from downtown, Sears Roebuck and Hammels and Kaysers and Raphaels, and all of those stores moved out to Sprindale Plaza. And then of course they built Bel Air Mall right across the road from it, and downtown was almost a ghost town.
F.M.. : Mrs. Plummer, why did you move your shop the first time?
M.F.P. : Because the building we were in on Conception Street was leaking, and water and books don't mix very well. So we found out that Government Street, on account of where the Railway Express Company had been at Government and St. Emmanuel Street, was available, had enough space and it was a good location.
F.M. : And how long were you there?
M.F.P. : Twenty seven and a half years.
F.M. : How did your bookstore get its name?
M.F.P. : My husband and Adelaide Trigg, Adelaide Marsten Trigg, opened it in 1940, and about that time Christopher Morley was a very popular writer. He wrote his first book, Parnassus on Wheels, an old book-seller had a book shop in a covered wagon, and they traveled up and down the eastern seaboard selling books. They could produce the right book for the right person at this right time. When he married, he and his wife settled in Boston, and they ran the Haunted Book Shop and it was haunted by the ghosts of all great literature. They lived in the house and the books were right there; it's a good spy story because they had a wall in the Haunted Book Shop and a spay came in and left messages for other spies. Quite entertaining, you ought to read it sometime. We wrote him and asked him if we might name our shop after his story and he wrote back a real cute letter and said other shops had tried it and they'd all gone broke but it'd be brave to try.
R.C. : Did Mobile look different or seem different after the war?
M.F.P. : Very different. With the coming of the war there were so many people. When you;d drive through the Bankhead Tunnel they had built a school over there called Blakely School, and they had built houses all over there, people lived on Blakely Island. Of course, after the war they tore the houses down, and people all moved out on the western side of town, but there were houses all down Conception Street and people actually lived right downtown. Now of course people would come down in hats and gloves, and meet at the Battle House.
R.C. : What kind of hats did the ladies wear?
M.F.P. : Good, big, floppy hats with flowers on them, and gloves.
R.C. : Were feathers on the hats popular at that time?
M.F.P. : No, I think there were flowers more than feathers.
R.C. : Did Mobile change during the war?
M.F.P. : Changed very much.
R.C. : What things changed and stayed the same?
M.F.P. : To tell you the truth, I don't know that anything stayed the same. Goldstein's is still downtown, and the Haunted Book Shop is still downtown, and Gayfers, I think they're the only things that are still here that were here before.
R.C. : Did you or your friends ever discuss the war?
M.F.P. : Oh we would get together and talk about it, in fact, we still do get together and talk about going riding on Sunday afternoons and taking the soldiers and working at Interceptor Command and some of the things that used to happen down there.
R.C. : Did you know any of Mobile's writers or artists?
M.F.P. : I expect I know most of Mobile's writers. Caldwell Delaney has written a good many books, in fact most people give his book Remember Mobile, as a gift book to people who come to Mobile, move away, and they want a gift to take with them. But, he has written about ten different books. Evelyn Dahl wrote a book called Belle of Destiny, and Judy Rayford used to write books ( Judy died about a year ago), but he was known all over the United States. Eugene Walter has written books and he lives here now and writes for the Azalea City News. Mobile has always had a lot of writers; Erwin Craighead and Ernest Spinoloza, and Kathleen Johnston; of course, now they have Terri Cline and Roy Hoffman, Jay Higgenbotham; we have quite a lot of authors.
F.M. : Did you know ......?
M.F.P. : Yes, indeed I did. In fact, my husband offered to build a building for him to store his papers in if he would just let Mobile have them, he never would agree to let Mobile have them. I'll tell you another story about him: he sold the Gutenberg bible in New York, which was not a Gutenburg bible, and it sort of ruined the name of mobile booksellers for a while.
R.C. : Are there other things from the war you might want to add?
M.F.P. : Right this minute I can't think of anything except the only thing we're sure of is change.
F.M. : The boys here were fascinated with the blackouts and that sort of thing. Why don't you add one or two things about air raid drills and so on.
M.F.P. : All the cars had black paint over the top half of the lights. Of course, you would have to turn your lights out at certain times. You could hear a whistle going off and you'd run for shelter. It was quite exciting.
R.C. : Was there were an air raid?
M.F.P. : Not an actual air raid, just practices/
R.C. : How many air raid drills were there in a day?
M.F.P. : There would only be one in a day, in fact they would only have on in maybe a month. But sometimes, they would have an air raid and the sirens would go off and you'd have to lock up your business and go out of town. They had evacuation routes, and they'd tell you which streets you could go out and where you were to meet. Then you would leave.
R.C. : What would happen if you were in an airplane at the time when the siren went off?
M.F.P. : I never had that experience, I don't know. Of course, we were all supposed to keep a certain amount of food on hand in case anything happened, to be ready.
R.C. : Were you ever caught in a car when an air raid siren went off?
M.F.P. : No, I was usually in the book shop. I did have to close the book shop and get in the car and go to the edge of town.
F.M. : Where was the edge of town?
M.F.P. : I think I went to Spring Hill, I'm not sure.
R.C. : You've been very kind to give us your time and to share with us your memories of World War II. Listening to you will add to our record of this time. Thank you very much.
M.F.P. : Thank you for coming, it was a joy.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Mary Francis Plummer Interview - 21 June 1983
Subject
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Oral history interviews
Description
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Oral history interview of Mary Francis Plummer at the Haunted Bookshop
Creator
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Mobile Public Library
Source
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Growing Up in Mobile : Depression & Wartime, 1929-1949, Interviews
Publisher
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Mobile Public Library
Date
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1983
Contributor
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Tommy Oberding
Frank McClowsky
Format
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mp3
pdf
Language
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English
Identifier
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Growing-Up-in-Mobile-Mary Francis Plummer Interview-1983
Relation
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Descriptions of Oral History Interview Tapes
Brookley Field
Caldwell Delaney
Christ Church
Erwin Craighead
Frank McCloskey
Haunted Bookshop
Jay Higginbotham
Mary Francis Plummer
Mobile
rationing
Reeve Carlson
Tommy Oberding
World War II