Harry Farrell Baker

I was born August 22, 1909. My first memory is watching the leaves on the large Maple tree outside the window where I slept in the large crib in the last house on Powell Street just off Washington Street in Snow Hill, Maryland. Across the street was a large haunted house with a large hall with curving stairs, a fireplace that filled half the wall, and spooky lights. A little girl named Dorothy Dare had died there of TB and the neighbors said it was haunted because the lights flickered. Dark shrubbery and big Oaks surrounded the house. The family Vickers lived on our street and had two boys and two girls. Their oldest boy was about nine and he could imitate anything. Also nearby, the Lockes boys lived with their widowed mother who claims to have played the organ at the wedding of King George and Queen Mary, the grandmother of Queen Elizabeth. Next door lived the Williams family, a father, mother, and three girls. The youngest was my age, one was the same age as my sister Blanche, and the eldest was the same age as my sister Gladys. We all were very close.

I loved it when my sisters got together with the Williams girls and we went wild strawberry hunting. The Vickers boys would gather together the neighbor kids and we would do Mickey Rooney /Judy Garland acts. Elmer, the one who initiated everything, would play music with my father who would play the banjo and we would have a sing along.

There were five of us children, all brought into the world with the help of a black granny-woman except my youngest brother Wisehart who was named after the doctor who tended his birth. Wisehart's middle name was for Judge Robley Jones.

After my parents and Nanny Hales, I loved him more than anything in the world. I still hurt when I think of his tragic death at eighteen. He was my special charge and I would leave anything for him. He had golden curls and the happiest grin, eyes and a mouth like my son Vaughn. When he was eighteen, he was in the back seat of a speeding car that ran into the back end of a parked lumber truck in Powellville, Maryland.

My grandfather Pop Hales and grandmother lived a little south of us in town as he had sold his farm and moved into Snow Hill. I think I stayed with them more than I did at home. I remember so well staying with them and how much I loved my Nanny Hales, Charlotte Catherine. I was named after her. Those were the happiest days of my childhood. My best friend was a black girl named Lizzie who was my age and whose family lived behind the woods down the road by the spooky haunted house.

One day Lizzie and I were walking in Snow Hill and she walked in the street to avoid some white ladies on the sidewalk. I followed her in the street as well and they told my grandmother. That is about as mad as I ever saw Nanny Hales and she told my mother, and I was forbidden to see her anymore. But that didn't last long as Lizzie and I still managed to remain friends.

All the neighbors would get together and we worked nights making strawberry baskets in the old haunted house while we told ghost stories, stories about the wild west. By bedtime, I was really scared. I knew old Taney Bogus was out there to get me. On the way to school was the house of an old strange woman whose backyard was with bottles piled higher than my head. She was old, dirty, and had huge popping eyes and a grotesque growth that bulged from her neck. Then there was another old woman who always dressed in black and would go around and steal food. She wouldn't take it if you offered it, but she would steal it. So people began to leave food out for her to steal. Our neighbor Mrs. Williams was a good cook and she would cook food that we girls were to leave on the old woman's steps.

I liked school because there were so many books filled with wonderful stories. I collected any and all kind of scrap paper I could find so I could make drawings on them. The first boy who ever seemed to notice me was in the first grad in Snow Hill and he would buy me candy.

The Locke boys had a tree house in an old Oak at the haunted house and no one but the older girls were allowed to visit. We had a parrot that Pop Hale's brother brought home from one of his long trips at sea that he gave to Mom. I remember the men loved to get him cursing. He had belonged to a seaman and always saying, "Avast there mate", and "There she blows". He seemed to know when it was time for the kids to come home from school as he always saw us as he turned the corner and would yell to Mom, "Here they come". He was with us a long time. I cannot remember Snow Hill without Polly as he died just before we moved to Salisbury and all the kids in the neighborhood helped us have a big funeral for him. I do remember that Christmas in Snow Hill was always so wonderful.

We had no daily newspaper but about once a month we got our news when Pop would go to the pool room where the men all gathered and he would later tell us the news that he had heard. There was an Italian whose name was Granno who killed one of the townsmen. The locals talked about that as long as I can remember. The men formed a posse and came by the house looking for Pop. They looked for Granno all night and then finally found him in the morning. People came from all over the shore to the trial and the hanging. On Summer nights, Pop would play the banjo and sing, "Oh those golden slippers". The neighbors all sat around on our porch and sometimes sang along. Afterwards, everyone told their favorite ghost stories. We kids would both shiver and ask for more. Most of the neighbors had a little garden where they would deposit the scooped up droppings of the horses. When we bought fresh bread from the store, it would be piled high on their counters. They didn't have it very often. Pickles came in big barrels, peanut butter came in firkins bought by the pound. Women would wear rats in their hair to make their hairdo look fuller. Middy blouses were popular. This was a blouse with a sailor collar that came to a "V" with a little red or white star in the corner and a thin red scarf. Bathing suits were to the knee. They were tops and pants, with a skirt that you wore over that. A wet bathing suit was so heavy you could hardly get out of the water.

I remember World War I. We had a neighbor that lived across the street who we called Uncle Moses (Shockley). He was the first dead person I had ever seen. The war started the next year and I saw his wife, who we had called Aunt Belle. She had her arm up against the fence outside her house crying like a baby. I still remember how upset I became hugging her legs and crying with her. She said her son Ralph had gone to war. He was gassed with mustard gas during the war, and when he returned he was never sober again, a victim of war.

His name was Ralph Shockley and he bought a car, one of the few in Snow Hill. We had to help him push it to get it started, then we would jump onto the running board until he stopped and put us off. That was my first car ride.

The first airplane I ever saw landed on a field on the right side of route 13 coming from the north into Snow Hill near the bridge across the Pocomoke River. My brother Bill and I wanted to see the plane so bad, we walked down to the Pocomoke River bridge, an area we never before had gone. Bill would not cross the bridge. I would run across to show him that it would not break down under him. He waited for me while I went over to see the plane and I told him about it when I returned.

We had a dog named Old Mark that waited for us after school about a block from the house. He saw us one day after school and came running to us. Ralph was drunk and ran over Mark in front of us and killed him.

My father kept bird dogs in Snow Hill. He worked in Wilmington as a machinist at Remmington, and sometimes brought his bosses down to the Eastern Shore to hunt. I remember their laughing at me sitting at his feet listening to his every word.

One day, Pop Hales hitched the horse to the wagon which he filled with straw where we could put the freezer of ice cream, and the fried chicken and other good things. Then we all took off to the annual picnic at Public Landing called Foresters Day. This was the greatest holiday in town since Christmas each year. We threw many "hellos" to others on their way to the same picnic. Everyone enjoyed that annual picnic. The ladies cooked their best goodies, each trying to outdo the others. This was really great eating.

Then August came and Pop Hales would kill a hog in the back yard. He would bring out the big iron kettle and the neighbors would come over. There was always one that made the best sausage, and another the bet scrapple. The women cut up the meat.

I can still remember the wondrous smells from the stove of my Nanny in the old slave house, the last slave house then standing, as she cooked her portion of the hog. I cannot now remember her name, but I can still see her in my mind. Her husband was so old he could not do much so she did the chores. By fall, their smoke house was full as was their vegetable cellar. They had a place they would keep butter and milk. Between their house and kitchen was a breezeway where they kept a cupboard to keep things cool. My nanny did a lot of sewing and another woman would visit her when she was sewing.

I can also remember that it seemed Pop Hales always had someone staying with him. It smelled so nice in their sitting room when they opened their closet filled with apples. I can remember going out to look at his potatoes with him to make sure their were no potato bugs, and he told me that he remembered when there were no potato bugs. I liked his herb garden very much. He would take me to visit his brother who was a sea captain and it was a fantasy land with all the things he had brought from around the world.

My big moment was when I was picked to play Betsy Ross in a school play on the Opera House stage when I was in the first grade. I still wonder why I was selected as normally only the rich kids were selected for such events.

I loved the duck pond and the fuzzy little ducklings. I remember Nanny so well calling 'chick chick" and throwing corn from her apron; and the odd looking ducklings with their tiny heads, and dark meat. Pop Hales always spoke about how stupid Turkeys were, holding their heads up to the rain until they strangled and fell over dead. Suddenly, Nanny got really sick and I was taken to Grandma Fannys, my father's mother (Fanny Bethard) and stayed all that summer. That summer Nanny dies but no one told me so I would have a great summer. They had a big farm on the river and a dock with boats, a grape vineyard with such sweet grapes. A family of blacks lived on their farm and the women worked in the house while the men worked in the fields. These men would sometimes drive Granny Fanny to town by carriage and I enjoyed these trips. I always got to select my choice of stick candy from the grocer. I enjoyed playing with the black children at her farm. The girl was my age and she and I were real close. I remember how frustrated I would be when her mother would call her to take care of her little brother because she had to work in Granny Fanny's house. Her little brother would not want his sister to hold him, and one day I spanked him for it. Her mother told Granny Fanny who then spanked me before them all. I still remember how humiliated I felt. Another rainy afternoon, I went to the barn loft where they had stored the grapes and ate grapes all afternoon. Again she was upset with me. It soon became time to return to school. I went back but things were never the same without Nanny.

Mom dressed us children and took us to visit Pop Hales where there was this strange woman who they said was Pop Hales wife. Nanny Hales died in 1916 and this was a new woman in his life. She was dressed and looked quite grand. I took an instant dislike to her, but it was mutual as she didn't like any of us children so we didn't visit very much anymore. Pop Hales would come to visit us instead.

Suddenly, people around us started to died from the flu. The undertaker couldn't make enough caskets so people were rolled up in sheets and buried deep in the ground. My father was working in Wilmington and we all had the flu. The only food we got was when we got a knock on the door and the one most able opened it. We also heard that people died of the colic, or the 'bad sore throat" which know as Strep Throat.

Sometimes we would have a special visitor to Snow Hill. I remember that we once attended a camp meeting and Billy Sunday was there.

I remember visiting Show boats and medicine Shows, as well as the first ice cream cone and the smell of the ice cream parlor.

I remember dying wool and the spinning wheel, visiting the miller for grinding wheat, and very large dollar bills.

When the World War I ended I was terrified. Mom took us downtown in Snow Hill where people were singing and acting unlike grownups should and it frightened me.

One August just before hog killing, a man came galloping his horse down the street yelling to everyone to get back inside of their houses until he told them otherwise. There was a mad dog loose in town and we stayed in all day and night until they finally hunted him down and killed him.

Sometimes we would take long walks in the country. We lived on then edge of Snow Hill and transients would take up housekeeping in any vacant house in the country. Some families lived for years in empty houses until the owner chased them away.

I remember a boy, about fourteen years of age, that lived on the next street. His mother would come out on the porch and call for him. He would run up to her on the porch, take her breast and nurse her for refreshment, and then return to play with the kids.

Then there was the attic. On rainy days I would go up and play in the old trunks. I would dress up in the old hats and dresses. There were old uniforms. It was exciting

Salisbury met the end of the good ole days. Pop was living in Wilmington, and Pop Hales was in Snow Hill. Mom was working in the shirt factory and I was taking care of my little brother. Gladys was married and my sister Blanche was gone with one boy or another.

The brightest spot was my little brother. I clung to him and he clung to me. They called him my shadow. He was such a beautiful little boy, always smiling. I remember when I had scarlet fever. Mom would not call the doctor because they would quarantine the house and she needed to work. As little as he was, he would ask what he could get for me. I told him I would like a cup of coffee, then I heard the little fellow trying to make it. I got out of bed and went down to help and fainted, falling down the stairs. When I came to, he was there crying, and trying to help me back up to bed. I remember that we never had enough to eat, nor had enough warm clothing. I still remember walking to school being very very cold. I always had to hurry after school and build the fire for supper. We mostly opened up a can of beans with bread which we had to get ourselves. How I missed the vegetables and other goodies.

After the school year, I was so sickly that Pop Hales sent for me to spend the summer with him and Aunt Nora, that's what she asked us to call her. I came by train all alone, and at the end of the summer they sent me back alone. When I arrived, there was no one to meet me so I walked home from the train. As I got closer, I could see that the house had burned down that summer. I stood there in shock, tears streaming. My neighbors told me what happened and that everyone was OK. My family was at Aunt Sula, which was about three more blocks. I had cried so hard that I could hardly walk that three blocks. But I was glad that I didn't have to live in that house anymore. Once when I went to the outhouse, a man was sitting on the hole dead drunk with a gallon jug.

Other things I remember in those first years in Salisbury:

There was the sheriff whose horse and buggy ran away and barely missed me as they came tearing between the porch and the fence. I rolled under the porch as the horse took the fence with him.

Next door was an elderly couple with a grown son who had T.B., and they built a little room for him on the side of the house. I was watching him through the window after his mother died. He had a pistol and kept shooting a anyone that tried to get him out of the room. Finally he ran out of ammunition and they took him away yelling and kicking in his nightgown.

I remember one evening I went to the store, which was closed, and on my return a car loaded with drunken men tried to get me in their car and I got away, ran home and told Mom. She went looking for them with her 22 rifle that Pop had taught her to use.

I had a sore throat and high fever on a very cold day. I was lying on the couch by the stove when I saw a little mouse that had come in the house to get away from the cold, and he was standing on his hind feet with his front feet up as he was begging me to get warm. I picked him up and took him to bed with me. He was very still in my warm feverish hands. Mom came in and asked what was in my hands. I told her about the little mouse which she took and bashed in its brain against the stove.

I began having nightmares from my fever and missed a great deal of school that year, perhaps only attending one month that entire year resulting in failure. My parents would send me back to Pop Hale's house in Snow Hill but Aunt Nora, his new wife, would send me back home. All I had was my little brother Wisehart and my studies and I was determined never to fail again. I also started to develop my drawings and had some of my happiest memories drawing. My parents purchased the house next to Aunt Sula and she became the one I went to for information. Mom was always so busy. Aunt Sula was busy also, but would talk to me while she worked. She was seamstress and made such beautiful clothes, and uncle Harvey was a barber. She kept her house very clean, and I spent more time with her than at my own home. I learned so much about sewing from her and realize now what a talented and intelligent lady she was.

Mom, my sister Blanche, and Wisehart went to live with my father in Wilmington where he was then working, and I was left with my sister Gladys who was then pregnant with Mildred and came to live in our house. Her husband Dorsey was driving a taxi. The next few years were even more desolate, and it even depresses me now to think about them, as I was sick with the fever very much. I was very thin and people would remark that I needed to stand in the same place twice to make a shadow.

During this period, I remember that they built the Hotel Wicomico and made a street that went through from Main Street, calling it West Main. At the same time, they built the school, which is now called Junior High but was then Wicomico High School. Later they built the City Park where there was once a swimming hole. We would go to that swimming hole and as we walked through the weeds leeches would stick to our skin and suck our blood.

I also remember the train passing and the engineer waving to us. Sometimes there would be a private car attached to the train and it would appear to be so beautiful. Sometimes it stopped and we could see the lovely girls and shiny things inside. My fertile mind would fantasize about them and where they were going.

I went to Wilmington to live when school was out. Pop and Mom lived on a houseboat, which was one of many that people maintained on which they could party on weekends. Our toilet was a tar drum that I had to drag to the river and empty for 25 cents. There was an old store there that sold broken and stale candy for 1 cent each. That is where I met an old sea captain that had the houseboat next to us. My brother and I would sit there by the hour listening to him. He asked us to call him Uncle Dock. When I returned to Salisbury for the next school year, I wrote him and he wrote back and sent us the princely sum of $5.00. Afterwards, I wondered what happened to the $5.00 as it disappeared.

We then rented the house and moved to the country on what is now known as Pemberton Drive. I had to quit school in the sixth grade and stay home and take care of the house and cooking. Mom drove the car to the shirt factory while Pop worked in the winter months as a carpenter, and the farm in the summer. I remember we would pick sun warmed tomatoes, and they would bring cantaloupes to the house and we would pack them in crates under the big Oak tree. We would eat the ones we thought would be the sweetest. I was given a little biddy that I called Henny Penny. She followed me everywhere. Uncle Tom Mumford came and helped with some of the farm work. Once, Pop took the whole family to visit Uncle Tom and help him with his farm. I rebelled and wouldn't help. Uncle Tom said, "You don't work, you don't eat". At supper, I went in and ate and no one said a word. They were great days in the country and I would go in the country and sketch everything on anything I could find.

We moved from there when I was fourteen (1924) back to Salisbury. I worked in the same shirt factory as Mom. The work was so hard for me that I used to fall out and faint. They would pick me up and put me back to work.

I first met Harry at a house party in Melson, and the second time after the Women's Auxiliary of the Odd men. He was involved in the initiation of new members.

My first trip off the Eastern Shore was with Harry to visit Jamestown and my sister-in-law, Nell Gosnell. Her husband Frank had started some of the first bowling alleys.

• Gas stations gave away dishes
• We had a major drought and dust was on everything. In 1936, an unusual flowering bush came up in the yard.
• Gabriel Heater was the top radio commentator because of the publicity of the famous Scopes trial.
• Introduction of Rollerskating
• We convicted and executed a local woman and her carpet salesman for killing her husband with a window weight.
• Taking Pop Pop Baker to the store to shop and then to the circus that visited Salisbury
• Empress Eugene Hats
• The first hair permanent
• The picture puzzle
• Skating parties at night
• Chinese Checkers
• Prohibition of liquor

Things I remember during World War II:

• Bike Parties and family picnic
• The New Year's Eve party after war was declared on December 7th.
• Home Remedy classes
• Blackouts Warden patrols
• Harry Junior says his first curse word "Ishilla"
• Escalator at R.E. Powell
• Being a member of the Junior Board at the hospital