Geraldine "Margaret" Winter

Geraldine "Margaret" Winter

Transcription
Oral History

Although there is no audio file available, Geraldine Winter (who also seems to have gone by Margaret) was interviewed as part of the Nampa Centennial Committee’s oral history project. She describes being raised in Nampa, sharing details of entertainment and fashion over time, her experiences in school, as well as details about her parents and grandparents.

Agnes Winter
Bill Winter

1985, May 8

Nampa Centennial Committee

Interviews recorded for the library's oral history program are copyrighted to the Nampa Public Library which maintains rights to reproduce the recordings in all existing and future formats for the purposes of preservation and access. Researchers may quote portions of interviews in non-commercial projects, unless otherwise noted. Proper credit should be given. No part of the interviews may be used in commercial, for-profit projects without permission from Nampa Public Library.

(Transcript of oral interview)

JULIA JOLLEY: Okay. Start at the beginning, and tell me about Nana’s sisters.

GERALDINE WINTER: In the 1920s, my mother and her eight sisters were arising in the morning ahead of each other in order to get a fair share of tortoise shell hair pins. The last one dressed and combed had a skimpy number to keep her rats -- a small hair piece which was worn over each ear -- in place. I was a little girl with my brother and sister who spent summer vacations with our paternal grandparents who lived seven miles north of Nampa on a farm. There was no indoor bathroom, no electricity. Saturday night, mother insisted we return home to Nampa to have a bath, shampoo, and attend Sunday school on Sunday morning. Then mother cooked for a threshing crew during the harvest season. The crew [00:01:00] consisted of a couple of fellows who traveled with the threshing machine, plus as many neighbors as were necessary to do the work. The noon meal was provided by the owner of the farm where they were threshing. Grandmother baked for days a bounteous noon meal. I remember the year that the recipe for angel food cakes was new and popular. As was the custom, all the food was put on the table before the men sat down. There were grandmother’s two or three angel food cakes all sliced on the table. The men pitched in and ate the cake as if it were bread. Grandmother didn’t recover from this for days, and she never served angel food cake to them again. In the ’20s and ’30s, we could skip grades in grade school so it was possible for a bright youngster to graduate from high school at an earlier age [00:02:00] than now. In the ’30s, the Depression was felt in Nampa. I remember committee meetings were held for the junior/senior prom to decide whether or not the boys would be allowed to send the girls corsages. They cost $2 or $3, $5 for the most elaborate. Anyway, the vocal parents won, and for the prom that year, there were no corsages. My father was assistant postmaster and supervisor for the present building of the present post office before he died. We never seemed to have a father at Christmastime for he worked along with the other employees until all the bulk of holiday mail was sorted and delivered. There was no quitting and going home at five PM. [00:03:00] One of the two family entertainments was playing poker. Often my aunts and uncles would come to our house for an evening of cards. They played on our round oak dining room table covered with an Indian blanket. If, by chance, my grandparents drove up in their Dodge Touring Car, the uncles grabbed the four corners of the blanket and hid it, plus its contents of cards and chips, in the closet. My grandparents disapproved of all card-playing. This same Dodge Touring Car that belonged to my grandfather occasionally took all the family to Parma to visit relatives there. We left very early in the morning and returned about dark. It was all-day drive. When the women in the ’20s became brave enough to have their hair cut or bobbed, a new business was born: the beauty parlor or [00:04:00] beauty shop. Ed Reeby had a barber shop, so it was natural that his wife should take a beauty course and establish a shop in the rear of the barber shop. I remember on the wall, Josephine Reeby had framed and hung one silver dollar and a quarter with a notation that that was her pay from her first customer, Mrs. Flora, who had received a shampoo and a Marcelle. One of the customs was to park your family car downtown on Saturday night. The family sat in the car and watched people go by as you ate Rodeo candy bars -- which were just new -- or drank A&W Root Beer. The stores were open until nine on Saturday night, and closed all day on Sunday.

JJ: Now, tell me about the Waldorf.

GW: The Waldorf was a cigar store [00:05:00] and a pool hall which my Uncle Brownie, Clarence Brown, owned and managed. And it was very popular because it was a place where pool tournaments were held. Much as we have bridge tournaments now, they had pool tournaments. My father was a sharp expert pool player and was the champion pool player in Nampa for two years that I remember. He was awarded a cue which had an engraved brass plate on it for his award for the championship. Then when we were in high school, we had football rallies, and big bonfires, and, of course, the snake dance downtown. And always this long snake dance went through the pool halls including the Waldorf. It was [00:06:00] the only time that girls got to in the pool hall, and probably some of the younger boys. But that was one of the attractive things in the rally to go in the pool halls.

JJ: Get to go in the pool hall. What did children wear in school back in the ’20s, early ’30s?

GW: We wore long cotton hose. Sometimes they were white and sometimes they were black. Finally, they became a beige color. And the girls wore sateen bloomers. They were either white or black. They had elastic on the legs that came just above the knees, and elastic around the waist. Then in the winter time, when we couldn’t wear knee socks, we wore garter belts, and these garter belts held these long ugly cotton socks up. And it was always a great day in the spring [00:07:00] when you could take off the garter belts and the long socks and put on knee socks, but it was also very daring. And I remember one time one of my friend’s mothers called my mother and said, “What do you mean by letting Mary Margaret wear knee socks to school?” But mother was very progressive, and she saw that her children were in the latest fashion. She was so progressive that one time she had the bathroom remodeled and repainted, and she had it painted a very bright and attractive lavender. And Clarence Radshew who was the popular plumber in town went home, and told his wife that Mrs. Heideger had the most passionate bathroom in Nampa because it was purple. Also, she was very fond of dishes, dishes of all kinds. And I remember when she first brought home a new set [00:08:00] of dishes and it was green, very green pottery. Until that time I guess they had used China and nicer dishes, but they started making pottery, and this was a very green. Her neighbor, Mrs. Burningame, came over the next morning after the dishes were unpacked, and mother said, “Well, Ethel, how do you like my new dishes?” And Mrs. Burningame said, “Well, they’re all right unless you (inaudible) some morning. (laughter)”

JJ: You always wore skirts and blouses to school?

GW: Yes, I think so. Although I remember some pretty dresses we had, but they were ruffled and very feminine looking.

JJ: Nobody wore jeans?

GW: We didn’t even know about jeans. I remember when the first pants as such were worn by girls and they were known as lounging pajamas. [00:09:00] Of course, they didn’t look like our lounging pajamas today now, or pant suits, or jeans, or anything like that, but they had big bell bottoms around the ankles. I remember mine was black sateen with orange. Must have looked like Halloween, but I thought it was dashing at the time. And I think I was in the eighth grade, and we had a very popular teacher, Mrs. Luzadder. She had taught hundreds of children in Nampa. And one day, a girl came to her class in what was called lounging pajamas. Mrs. Luzadder was horrified. I can see her yet -- she went over to the closet, got down her own coat, a long coat, wrapped it around this girl, and sent her home. And she said, “Now, you tell your mother that I’ve sent you home because you’re not properly dressed, and you’re to change this outrageous costume you have on, and put on a dress, and then you come back to school.” And the little girl did.

JJ: [00:10:00] Didn’t have to go to the principal or anything?

GW: No. No, I don’t think there were any demerits, or flunks, or anything of the kind.

JJ: Tell me about taking music lessons when you were young.

GW: We usually started about age nine, I think that was the popular time for girls and boys to start taking at least piano lessons. And we all took from a man whose name was Ben Moffitt. He was just a charming man. I think at that early age I fell in love with him. His music was all classical that he taught us. However, he did tell me that he played for dances on Saturday night. One time he said he wished he had a nickel for every time he played Johann Strauss’s “Maibetter Waltz” on Saturday night. It was the popular tune of the time. [00:11:00] He had recitals in his home, and the beginners played at the beginning of the recital, and then as you became more advanced, your turn was near the end. I always dreamed that someday I would get to play at the end. I’m not sure I ever did, but I remember a young man that was older than the rest of us, he always got to play at the end. He was Harold Packer, and he played beautifully. Mr. Moffitt, as I recall, was the father of the Boise Music Week. It was rather his brainchild that there be a music week, and Boise was chosen because it was larger and there were more facilities over there for having it.

JJ: Did you take dancing lessons, too?

GW: Yes. Along with the piano lessons from Mr. Moffitt, [00:12:00] all the little girls in Nampa took dancing lessons from May Van Destig who just recently passed away. She was the darling of us all, and so patient. She taught us, and then she taught our children, and then she even taught some grandchildren. She was educated in the east, and trained so her dancing was all very proper and it was of a classic nature, too. You learned the toe dancing and that kind of thing. Later on, she did some tap dancing, but usually it was all ballet and toe dancing. She, too, had recitals, and our mothers spent weeks making costumes and we spent weeks rehearsing, and Mrs. Van remained calm through it all. She was really one of the charming ladies that ever lived in Nampa.

JJ: Did boys take [00:13:00] lessons, too?

GW: A few, but they were considered sissy in those days, not athletic as boy dancers are considered now.

JJ: Do you still have that picture of the dancing class?

GW: Yes. We used to have parties in the old parish hall that belonged to the Episcopal Church, and it was a nice fair-sized hall with a stage, and we had recitals there. Then one time when we were in high school like about sophomores, we had a costume party there. And Mrs. Van Destig was the -- I’m sure the instigator and the chaperone for it. And both boys and girls went in costumes. And, of course, being just freshman and sophomores, we didn’t know much about ballroom dancing, but, bless her, she danced with every boy that evening. And we all were in the same boat, so we all felt quite [00:14:00] comfortable learning to do ballroom dancing from Mrs. Van.

JJ: Do you want to tell me about the Interurban?

GW: The Interurban was another form of family entertainment. After church on Sunday or Sunday school, the family would take their picnic basket which the mother had filled with goodies, and we would get on the Interurban streetcar in Nampa, and we would go around the loop. I don’t remember if you could go both ways or not, but it went from Caldwell, and then out to Middleton into Star, and into Eagle, and Boise, and Meridian, and then back to Nampa. And it took a long afternoon to do that, and you would get off the Interurban and have your picnic lunch, and get back on, and then come on in. It didn’t have a very [00:15:00] regular schedule, and on Sunday’s it was more for fun than anything else. But it was a form transportation between the cities, and they called it the loop around the valley that the Interurban made.

JJ: And it would stop and let you picnic and then wait for everybody to get back on?

GW: Oh, yes. Yes, no regular schedule on Sunday.

JJ: Now, had some aunts and uncles that rode it over to Caldwell.

GW: Yes, I think Aunt Eddis and Uncle Fred rode it over there to get married, didn’t they? They were in Boise, and I think they rode it to Caldwell to get married, and then they rode it from Caldwell to Nampa, and mother prepared the wedding breakfast for them that morning. And we little kids were all tittering and laughing about having a new uncle in the family, probably being just very obnoxious, but we thought it was fun.

JJ: [00:16:00] What about the first car you had?

GW: Our first car was a Star Touring Car with the icing glass shades on it for winter, you know? It was black, and, oh, my dad was so proud of it to think that he was able to buy a car. There weren’t too many of them in Nampa, but they were all about like that, they were all touring cars. And, of course, mother learned to drive. Daddy insisted that she did. So one afternoon, she took the neighbor lady, Mrs. Bowen, and her four children, and took us three, we all piled in, and mother took us for a ride around the neighborhood. Then when we returned home, she turned the corner to park in front of our house, but she just kept turning, and turning, and turning and she landed in a big poplar tree. But just made an accordion out of right front bender. Well, of course, she was in disgrace after showing off to the neighbor, [00:17:00] and the children, and everything. So she went in the house, and flung herself on the bed, and cried, and cried, and cried. Somebody let my dad know, or maybe he just came naturally, I don’t know, but he came home. And he laughed, and laughed, and laughed. He was a very even-tempered man and full of fun. He was a very pleasant man, loved jokes, and really, to him, life was one great big bowl of cherries. He loved it all. So, of course, he laughed, and laughed, and that made her cry louder and longer. But, eventually, he had the car repaired, good as new. And it was our custom out to go out to the ranch which was our paternal grandparents farm out north of Nampa. It was custom on Sunday to go out there for dinner after church. And we would have a big family dinner with grandmother Heideger [00:18:00] and return to Nampa in the evening. So Sunday came along, and it was time for us to go out for the dinner, and mother loved to go because she was so fond of grandmother Heideger. They were more like a mother and daughter than a daughter-in-law. So daddy said, “Well, you know, we’re going out to the ranch for dinner as usual, but Jessie, you’re going to drive.” And she said, “Oh, no. I’m not. No, I’m not. I’m never going to drive again. Never, never, never.” And he said, “Well, we won’t go then. We’ll just stay home.” Well, of course, this bothered her terribly because she so loved to go, and all of us children wept and wailed to think we couldn’t go on Sunday. So, finally, she acquiesced and she drove out there. Well, then, of course, that was just the breaking the ice point, and from then on, she always drove. She drove until she was -- oh, I think almost 80 years old.

JJ: Did you get to stay out on the farm and play with [00:19:00] children in the neighborhood?

GW: Oh, yes. We had little neighborhoods friends out there. Clay Mill’s family had joined my grandfather’s farm, and he had -- Harry Mills was his only boy, and then he had four girls. We used to swim in the same ditch that divided the two farms, and I called it the drain ditch, but recently I met Helen Mills, and she said, “Oh, Margaret, don’t say that. It sounds so dirty. You’re supposed to call it the latteral.” So we shared the latteral in our young days, just swimming dog fashion out there in the water. Then, once in a while, Uncle Henry would take us frog fishing. And in the same ditch, there would be frogs, we would take a homemade fishing rod -- a branch of a tree with a line and a piece of red flannel on the end [00:20:00] because that’s what attracted the frogs -- and we would catch frogs under his supervision. And we’d take them home, and he’d clean them, and grandmother would cook frog legs for us which, of course, now in a fancy dining room is quite a delicacy, but we ate them and thought nothing of it. And as you cook them -- if you don’t know this -- as you cook them, they wiggle around in the pan. (laughs) So it was quite --

JJ: They’re still jumping. (laughs)

GW: -- to us to watch the frog legs.

JJ: Speaking of eating, what was it like to eat at the Dewey Palace? Did you eat there as a child? Was that fashionable?

GW: Yes, very fashionable. And when I was in high school, one of my closest friends was Johanna Parlentley, and she stayed with the Brogdens who managed the dining room at that time. So lots of times, Johanna has taken me and two or three of the other girls, we’ve been back in the kitchen of the Dewey Palace [00:21:00] Hotel eating out of the huge refrigerator when the dining hour was all over. But it was a very pretty place. Mrs. Brogden was from Holland, and she had brought with her a collection of Delft plates. And there was a plate rail all around the dining room of these lovely pieces of dinnerware on them. It was all (inaudible). And Mr. and Mrs. Brogden were very colorful figures. They both, of course, were from Holland, and had quite an accent. And they had no children. I never knew if Johanna was a relative or just a very, very dear friend. Her name was probably -- she was French, so I don’t remember the connection about it, but they were awfully good to her and she was a sweet girl. So we used to go down there after school, [00:22:00] and play around, and we were in high school then, of course.

JJ: Did you have like your prom party there?

GW: Yes, I remember one prom there. We used to have a dinner and a dance, and they would have the dinners there, and then we would have the dance, usually, in the high school auditorium which was smaller than the ones now. It was out at -- well, what was the old West school?

JJ: West?

GW: Mhmm. Had it all decorated much as they do now, and the promenade. However, the music was entirely different.

JJ: I’m sure.

GW: You didn’t have any and rock ’n’ roll.

JJ: What about other stores downtown and downtown Nampa back when you were in high school? Where did you go shopping on Saturday?

GW: I can’t remember too much about that, but two main mercantile stores were the Golden Rule -- which later became C.C. Anderson’s [00:23:00] -- and Fox which later became Van England’s. And, of course, there’s the Fox Hy-Vee out at the mall, but those were the two main stores. I remember a dress shop that was run by a Mr. Smith. And most of the fashionable ladies bought their dresses from Smith’s. It was about where that Yesteryear bookstore is along there in that block. Then my grandfather had a blacksmith shop, and it was located where Nafziger’s Men’s Clothing Store is now. As the crow flies, it would only be about two or two and half blocks from the Roose home, grandmother and grandfather’s home which was at 224 16th Avenue South. And it’s said that grandmother could [00:24:00] stand on front porch of the house and call down to Frank and tell him to bring something home from the grocery story that she needed. She worked awfully hard. She had 12 children, and the standard of living, of course, at that time was entirely different than it is now. They made their own fun, and all the fun and entertainment was in the home. There were no bowling alleys, or picture shows, or things of that kind. And grandmother, of course, washed on the board -- had no appliances like that. And she baked on a wood stove, and she baked seven loaves of bread every day. But if she wanted to skip a day, then she would bake 11 loaves, and grandfather would bring a few loaves home from the bakery downtown. Imagine that. One year, she was voted the mother of the year in Nampa. And not because [00:25:00] of any great social talents or accomplishments, but because she had the most children. (laughter)

JJ: Oh, dear. Twelve children.

GW: Let’s see, mother would have been her third child, and she was the fourth white child born in Nampa. There were lots of Indians and Chinese babies, of course, that were born before mother.

JJ: With 12 children, did Grandmother Roose have help?

GW: She had a dressmaker who would come in -- I don’t know how often, once or twice a year probably -- and sew for these nine girls because with all the baking, and the washing, and the ironing, and just the things that you have to do every day, she had no time left over for sewing. So she would have this seamstress come in, [00:26:00] and grandma had a sewing machine, and the lady would fit, and cut, and get the girls all outfitted properly before school started. And then, of course, they used a lot of hand-me-downs, too.

JJ: With 12 you could pass them down a while.

GW: Yes. And mother remembers when grandfather would bring like maybe eight or ten pairs of shoes home, all different sizes, and they would be in issue boxes tied around with a string. He’d bring them home, and all the kids would sit down on the floor and try on the shoes that fit them. They didn’t go separately to the store to buy their shoes. And they all grew up with relatively normal feet, I think. (laughter)


JJ: And Grandfather Roose wanted them all to wear shoes?

GW: Oh, yes. It was a sign of poverty and a sign of neglect if a man couldn’t make enough money to keep his children in shoes. They might be in rag [00:27:00] and tatters on the top, but the philosophy was then that you must have your children with shoes. So these old rascals, of course, would run around barefoot all day long. Next to their home, there was an orchard there on 16th. And they would play in the orchard, they’d be barefoot all day, but when they saw their dad coming down the street, they all ran and got their shoes on because he would not have his friends say that Frank Roose’s kids went barefooted.

JJ: You said that grandfather would bring home bread from the bakery. Did they have a grocery store or separate shops for everything? What was the first grocery store?

GW: The first one I remember -- and I’m sure it wasn’t the first one -- but the first one I remember was called Hostetler’s. And it was a grocery store much as they had in those days. Of course, it wasn’t a supermarket at all, [00:28:00] but they weighed out things for you instead of so many packaged things. And there were no ready mixes and that kind of thing. There were fresh vegetables and fresh fruit. And then the bakery would be separate, the meat market was separate, and you bought your meat over the counter, it didn’t come in a cellophane package. And the first meat market I remember was Anketell’s, and then the other one was King’s. And those two were rather competitors in the business world downtown. Mr. Anketell continued just to have a meat market, but Mr. King branched out established the packing company which later became the Red Rose Packing Company. That was his trademark name, I think, the Red Rose. And then Barber’s bought it. And then a shoe store would be separate, too. Now, what was the name of the shoe store? [00:29:00] It was Mr. Barnadough that worked in it, and I don’t remember the name of the shoe store. There was a variety store that was Blake’s. Charlie Blake had a variety store, and, of course, we called it the five and dime, and you really could buy things for a nickel or ten cents. Quite different from the dime stores now. My grandmother always bought her glasses in the five and dime store. They didn’t go to ophthalmologists, or oculists, or anybody like that to have their glasses fit. There probably wasn’t one in town. But she would go in, and I remember going with her when I was just a little girl. And on the counter where the glasses were displayed, she would pick a pair up, put them on, and look to the back of the store, and then she’d try another pair on, look to the back of the store, and try on several pairs. [00:30:00] But I mean she’d find one that she thought would do for her. And then she’d try several pairs on to see which pair she thought would do for Poppy -- Poppy was my grandfather. So she would go home with two pairs of new glasses, one for her and one for him. And they didn’t have electricity in their house, so you know their eyes had to be very good to see with these kind of glasses with a coal oil lamp at night.

JJ: To read and do sewing.

GW: Read and do sewing. She did very fine sewing on a treadle machine, an old quiet treadle machine. I was five years old when she taught me to sew on the sewing machine. She was a woman of great patience. Mother wouldn’t let me sew on her machine because it always had to be in good running order, and she just knew a five-year-old little girl would have it all in need of repair. But grandmother was more patient. She’d let me sew on her sewing machine, [00:31:00] and we made doll clothes. We made a doll house of two orange crates, and grandmother helped me paper the walls, and we made carpeting for the floor, and we made cardboard furniture. And she was very ingenious, and very creative and original. So, of course, I just adored her.

JJ: You mentioned doctors. Who was the first doctor in Nampa? Do you remember?

GW: Well, Dr. Smith delivered me. I’ve forgotten his first name. His daughter was my age, her name was Dorothy, we were very good friends when we were little girls. And then Dr. Kellog, Dr. George Kellog, Sr. After those two, then came Dr. Sway. Those are the first three that I remember. There was a Dr. Cole before then, and he delivered some of grandmothers’ babies.

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