Mary Pratt McKay Interview

Mary Pratt McKay                   May 10, 2010

The Pocopson Township Historical Committee is at the home of Doug Fearn in Pocopson Township, and we are interviewing Mary Pratt McKay. Pat Burnett, Alta Hoffman, and Doug Fearn are present.

DF: Mary, to begin with, can you tell us where you were born and when?

MPM: Chester County Hospital, October 15, 1934.

DF: And where was your family living at that time?

MPM: The Cochran house on Route 52. It’s a brick house across from the Mews of Radley Run. And it was a apartment in there.

DF: So that was East Marlborough?

MPM: No, no; 52 on the way to West Chester. And that would’ve been--

DF: East Bradford.

MPM: East Bradford, yes.

DF: And can you tell us about your father and mother?

MPM: They had been married for two years. My father was, I don’t know how old. Anyhow, he was a farmer. The Pratt’s had farms in Pocopson, and my mother was Esther Chambers, and she lived many different places. She was a schoolteacher at the time. They married in 1933. They met at East Lynn Grange; they were grangers.

DF: So your father, then, was a farmer all his life?

MPM: Yes, or else he worked at the little store the Pratt’s had down at Pocopson, W. J. Pratt, where Ace Hardware is at the present time, and he would be delivering things like coal and other things that were sold at the store.

DF: Who were your grandparents? Where were they from? Where did they live?

MPM: My grandmother on my mother’s side--I remember her; I don’t remember my grandfather, although I think there’s a picture of my grandfather holding me at an early age. But he died of a heart attack. My grandmother lived many places. One of the main places I remember her living was across the Pocopson Creek from where we grew up. But they were hit by the Depression. That’s why my mother and my grandmother lived so many different places. And she rented a property from my Uncle Leroy Pratt who had a mushroom house there. My Uncle Lloyd lived with her also and they ended up doing very, very small farming at that property. But Mother had lived in East Marlborough etc. I always kind of laugh about the fact, since we are here for Pocopson Township, we can discuss all the relationships of the family. Going up the hill where Brandywine Ridge is now, there used to be a barn foundation there. And it appears from what my mother always said there was a big colonial house, which also burned down, and that was the Truman Lloyd property. That was where my Grandmother Chambers--she was Alice Lloyd--and my mother’s Aunt Anne, who was Anne Lloyd, and Lena Lloyd lived. And the farm where Lenape Forge and -- what is the name of that fence place?

PB: Fence Authority.

MPM: Fence Authority. The house that’s there is where the Clarks lived. On Creek Road there’s a development there, I can’t think of the name of the person that lived there. Anyhow, there’s a farm on the left and when I was growing up, Griffith farmed the property for them. That’s where the Chambers lived. The Clarks lived in the one I just discussed, about Lenape Forge etc. And Sager’s--my Aunt Lena Lloyd, who lived in the property going up the hill, she ended up marrying Hack Sager of Sager’s Mill and across Lenape Bridge. So I always kind of laughed, because in those days you married somebody next door, you walked to somewhere for your dates. Because here you had the Lloyd girls and Chambers lived on Creek Road, and Sager lived at the end of Lenape Bridge, and Clark lived at the Forge. And that’s who all my mother’s relatives were. As far as my grandparents on my father’s side, I don’t believe I remember-- Well, let’s put it this way: my father’s parents, I guess we’re discussing. Yes, I do remember them. Don’t ask me for what reason I’m thinking grandparents, meaning something else. My father’s father was W. J. Pratt. He built the white house in Pocopson that’s always flooded, and he had the business and he had the feed mill and the coal etc. business. And they had attached to their house a little country store. And he married Anna Pennell, who lived on Route 52 near Parkersville Road. That property’s one that’s still sitting there. It’s gone through many hands. At one time it was zoned commercial. I don’t know if it still is or not. Anyhow, they married and they had seven children, six boys and one girl. They were always expected to be working on any of the Pratt properties or Pratt endeavors. Grandmother--of course in those days you didn’t end up working anyhow, so Grandmother would be there taking care of kids. I suppose she’d work in the store. She was a short little lady, and she lived there for most of her life, as far as that’s concerned. So yes, I do remember my grandparents; I was thinking about grandparents of my parents.

ABH: Did she end up living with you folks? Was that your Grandmother Pratt?

MPM: Yeah, Grandmother Pratt lived with us when I was in sixth grade or thereabouts. I don’t know what age it was. She took turns. She lived with us and she lived with Uncle Arthur, who lived at Wawaset. And she would live a certain period of time with us and a certain period of time with them. It was a situation that my mother, I think, always vowed--or my parents vowed but I’m sure it was more my mother--they would never have that situation exist. And when there was a possibility of moving to Crosslands, they made the decision to go to Crosslands.

ABH: Would you name your uncles and your aunt on the Pratt side, Mary, besides Arthur and Roland?

MPM: All right. Uncle Arthur, Uncle Roland, Uncle Leroy, Uncle Norman, Uncle Herbert, Aunt Mildred. Do you think I have them all?

ABH: And your father, Merrill. And out of those, how many resided in Pocopson most of their adult life?

MPM: Uncle Arthur was at Wawaset. Uncle Roland was either in the farm across from the Forge or down in the family homestead at Pocopson, the white Victorian.

ABH: Norman?

MPM: No, Uncle Norman was not around this area; he was at Embreeville. Uncle Herbert was at Mortonville. Who else?

ABH: Your dad, of course, and Leroy.

MPM: Uncle Leroy had been married to Dot Brimmer, who lived on Route 52, property now owned by Yeltons, I don’t think Yelton owns the house, the white house on the road. And she passed away. He was widowed for a period of time, so I think some of the time, from what my mother used to say, he lived with them for a period of time. And then he married Esther Garrett, and they lived at the time, I think, maybe over in East Marlborough. I’m not sure where they lived. And then they owned across from us, had the mushroom house, and across from us, that’s Pennsbury Township, but still lines are lines; it doesn’t mean that much. Anyhow, he had this house and he had a mushroom house and, from the stories I always heard, he had ended up buying a new piece of machinery or something that had to be used in the mushroom house. He was turning it on or trying it out or checking it and unfortunately was standing in a puddle, and he was electrocuted. For the longest period of time, I don’t know that they were totally convinced of exactly what the death was. But upon examination they saw a little burned spot at the heart, and they determined that was it. At the time, his wife was pregnant with--it must’ve been Dickie, because Dickie was the youngest one. I don’t think they lived there; all I know is, I always remember Grandmother Chambers in that house. And Aunt Mildred lived in Philadelphia for a large period of time. She was a nurse. I don’t think in those days you had to have all the pedigree and all the training and all the other stuff she had to have, but she was at Philadelphia Hospital or some other hospital in Philadelphia, nursing, and just came home to visit and that type of thing. So, is that all of them?

ABH: Yes. And your Grandmother Pratt lived with you until she passed away.

MPM. Yes, one place or the other--either Uncle Arthur’s or our place. I think they were the two that basically felt the responsibility for taking care of her.

PB: Do you remember the schools that children in the family attended?

MPM: Who? My parents?

PB: And grandparents.

MPM: My father, the Pratt family, attended West Chester. I can remember Daddy telling stories about going to school with the horse-drawn cart and that type of thing . I remember him telling us stories about taking bags of candy from the little store and sharing it with all his friends at school. I think, at that time West Chester was small; it seems to me I’ve seen pictures where he was on the football team. He was not a big man, but in those days the schools were small and everybody had the opportunity to participate, which unfortunately is not true today. And he also attended Lenape School for a very short time. It would appear that his father was dissatisfied with the teacher, and so the Pratt boys were pulled out. Whichever ones were going there at the time went to Miss Jenny’s school. Miss Jenny’s school was Jenny Darlington. She had school on the second floor of the Pennsylvania fieldstone house on the Darlington property, and he always spoke glowingly of Miss Jenny’s school and always liked that one. As I said, when you couldn’t go to Miss Jenny’s school, you went to West Chester School. My mother always told tales about Uncle Lloyd having to go to one-room schools. I’m not totally convinced that she ever went to the one-room schools. She went to Unionville all her life and graduated from Unionville. So that would’ve been the schools that my parents went to. Mother lived a large part of her life, that part that she enjoyed the most and always spoke of, in East Marlborough Township. She at one time lived in the Patton house and I don’t know what other properties, but she lived in a number of places.

PB: Did your grandparents ever mention where they went to school?

ABH: W. J. and your Grandmother Pratt? Did they go to Birmingham, to the octagonal?

MPM: I have no idea. I don’t know that I ever heard anybody discuss where they would’ve gone to school. Daddy never talked a lot about that far back. No, no idea. I know one time he said something about Grandfather Pratt having lived in Embreeville, but I don’t know whether he lived there when he was a young child or what. As far as we were concerned, everything we ever heard about it was when they were in Pocopson.

ABH: Well, then he would’ve gone to Romansville, because there was a school there.

MPM; No, I have no idea where they went to school, and no idea where Grandfather and Grandmother Chambers went either. I’m sure it was one-room schools; there’s no question on that.

DF: I guess I’m not real clear on where the house was where you grew up, in Pocopson.

MPM: Oh, okay, the house where I grew up in Pocopson: I was born in ‘34; we moved to that house in ‘36. It’s a Pennsylvania fieldstone house on Route 926. The farm my father bought in 1942 from his mother. The farm is now-- the landmarks that can identify where the farm is: Pocopson Elementary School was built on the last acreage that we had, so the farm started at Pocopson Road and went all the way up the hill until you got to what in those days was called Denton Hollow Road. It’s a vacated road these days. It was 67 acres. We also owned the meadow, the pasture on the opposite side of the road, which in the meantime has been sold to the Darlingtons, which is one of my sisters. And in those days, when we were farming that farm, we had to send animals across 926 to that pasture. And we were bordered by Albert Fox’s property on the north that would’ve been what today, recently, was turned into Toll Brothers’ development. What’s it called?

ABH: Riverside.

MPM: Riverside is what it’s called. But it was a dairy farm. The story my mother always had was that it was just a house, no electricity, no plumbing, basically walls and a roof. I remember stories about the fact that there were two little houses down by the driveway. I don’t remember either one of them, so they were down by the time I would’ve remembered them. I remember something about foundations when I was real tiny. Anyhow, I always say that they were self-made people, because when they moved in, in ‘36, there was no electricity, no plumbing, no barn, nothing you could call a planted lawn, no much of anything. It’s evident that when the house was built in I think 1725 or whenever it was, it was built by someone of means. I have a feeling it was Painter, or it was Painter property, because it always had big stones that were used for the hardscaping. Anyhow, they had to do all that, worry about the roof, because at some time or other a large part of the antiquity in the house was no longer there because the house had burned, parts of it, so a lot was destroyed. The barn and all the outbuildings were built by my parents. When I say parents, I mean parents. My father and mother did it; they did not hire anybody at the time. Basically, my father did not have any boys, he had three girls, and you were expected to do whatever work had to be done on the farm, no matter what. So yes, we helped to build the barn, the barn additions, and whatever else had to be put in there. And you did farm work and smiled at it.

ABH: You milked the cows, Mary.

MPM: You mean I did; you’re referring to me? Yes, yes. All of us girls had to end up working on the farm. I was the oldest, and then I had a sister Ruth and a sister Sarah. Dr. Darlington had to figure out how to remember us, so he one day came up with M R S--Mrs.--and therefore he knew which was the oldest and which was the youngest. So yes, Ruth and I had to milk every other night. The night we were not milking, we were preparing supper. And Sarah was in the barn most of the time, sweeping hay into where the cows would be eating it, but she did not have to milk. Lately, when I’ve been carrying the water buckets out for the dog, I feel I’m right back to my days of milking, where you took buckets of milk out to the milkhouse and dumped it in. We were raised in a period of time when girls weren’t supposed to be doing that kind of thing, but we did it. My parents were married during the Depression, poverty was a way of life, you ended up working. My daughter keeps saying, “I know, if you didn’t have animals to kill and vegetables that you grew, you would’ve starved to death.” But you were expected to work, and we all worked and worked hard, and people always like to use the expression “self-made man,” but my parents were self-made people, and they expected us to be the same.

DF: Is that house still standing?

MPM: Yes.

DF: Can you describe where that is?

MPM: Route 926, go up the hill from Pocopson Road. It’s between Pocopson Road and Brinton’s Bridge Road, or it’s between the Brandywine and Pocopson Creek. You go up the hill from Pocopson Road, past the entrance to Pocopson Elementary School; it’s really the exit from Pocopson Elementary School--

ABH: Which is built on Pratt property.

MPM: Yes, right. Go past the first driveway, which now is called Queen’s Farm or something. My parents gave us each acreage on the property. So this Queen’s Farm, which is now a farm where they’re growing vegetables and all kinds of things, was where my sister Ruth and her husband Jack Anderson lived and raised their family. But they sold to a family who are growing organic, etc. It’s being tremendously farmed. And Ruth and Jack moved to Crosslands. And then after that, to the right, there’s a curving black macadam driveway going up. It’s a fieldstone house on top of the hill, now pretty much surrounded by trees. The milkhouse was converted into some type of guest apartment. The barn’s been torn down. Right after the people bought it, they tore the barn down.

ABH: Who lives there now, Mary?

MPM: Katie Knob. And from what I understand, when the sale took place, Katie is related to Smedleys down on the Main Line or somewhere. She has two children, a son and a daughter. The property was divided, 6 1/2 acres when they got ready to go to Crosslands. Katie bought it because she’s into horses, and whatever acreage it was, it was ideal for horses.

DF: When it was a working dairy farm when you were growing up, what happened to the milk? How did the milk get to market from your farm?

MPM: It used to be picked up by somebody. At one period of time, we ended up shipping milk to Frame in Wilmington. One period of time, we were shipping milk to, I think it was Darlington Dairies, which I think later became Wawa.

ABH: Eachus?

MPM: No, we never had Eachus. I suspect it might’ve still been Darlington when we went out of the business, I don’t know. For a period you shipped it in milk cans and then you bought a milk cooler and you put it in the milk cooler and the tanker truck came in, pumped it out and took it where it had to go. This year’s storms brought back all kinds of memories because when you ended up with a tankful of milk, it was important for you to be able to get it out. Or if you had milk cans full of milk, it was important for you to get it out. The hill at 926, coming up from Pocopson Road, always drifted through solidly. The highway department would do what was necessary to open it, and then you would end up having to get the truck up the driveway to the tank. Basically, you just know that you were going to be out there shovelling snow wherever was necessary. Eventually you ended up getting blades on tractors, although we never had those, couldn’t afford them. I think Darlingtons came over once in a while. But most of the time it was just manual labor with shovels. And as I was shovelling many times, I remembered which storms we used to have to shovel out for the trucks. Basically, everybody helped everybody else. Brintons were farming Fox farm at the time, and they were farming their own place at Pocopson Road. Darlingtons were across the road from us. Those three farmers all were good friends and all helped each other. So, yes, we had to always worry about getting the milk picked up by whoever picked it up.

DF: Was 926 a paved road when you were growing up?

MPM: Yes. But not a traveled road. 926, I would have to say, is one of the hugest, most gigantic changes as far as my look at transportation. When we went to catch the school bus, we walked from our house up 926 down to Pocopson crossroads, and that’s where we picked the bus up. During the winter the postmaster would have us come into what was the railroad station, now the veterinarian office, where it was nice and warm and we could stand and watch for the bus, that was always on schedule anyhow. But in those days you would walk that road and not be an ounce concerned. There’d be a car every now and then, but no type of anything. As I said, we also drove the cattle across it. Twice a day, cattle would go across 926 to the pasture. We presently live in the tenant house that my father built after his girls got to college and other places and he felt he needed help. I think maybe ten years he decided he’d have a tenant farmer. A good one, but Daddy was independent and he loved having his family helping him and wasn’t overly crazy about having to organize etc. a farmer. Nothing wrong with him, he just-- And he also got tired of 4:30 in the morning. So that’s when the decision was made to get rid of the cattle. Plus the fact that the traffic had been greater and greater, and somebody came up over the little cut before it was improved and hit, I think, six cows or so. It had just gotten worse. But my father was always very, very close to his family, and he just was enjoying farming really well when it was a family activity, more than when he had a hired person. Now 926 has gotten to the point that we don’t even like to discuss it. Thank God for the red light, although at first we didn’t think we would be crazy about it. There are times I still want to go through the red light to make a turn. But thank God for the red light because, during rush hour it helps to control traffic. To get out of our lane, which is at the bottom of the hill and not good vision, we know now--this is at night--twenty cars will be heading west, and then there’ll be a break and eighteen cars will be heading east. And that’s when we try to pull out. They did improve the S curve in Pennsbury Township, and there’ve been little if any accidents since they worked on improving that. When Hillhurst Farm had to be subdivided, they improved visibility on the part in front of the house I grew up in. But it’s terrible. And now we’ve added a new feature; it’s not new but it’s been revitalized, and that’s the railroad. 4:30 and 11:30 I think are the two times in particular they go through. Last week we ended up with an accident on the bridge over the Pocopson Creek involving five cars. The next morning I got up and the traffic was backed way up the hill, and I said, “Now what’s going on?” Well, it turned out it was the train. I don’t know what it was doing, but anyhow it went through at rush hour. And the day of the accident, Ray went down to direct traffic at Pocopson Road and 926. I ended up directing traffic at Brintons Bridge Road. Anyhow, Ray said, not only was the train going through during rush hour at 5:30 but decided to do switching and was going back and forth. He tried to give them a dirty look. At good times at the red light at rush hour you can have traffic stopped from Pocopson Road all the way around the curve up 926. So anyhow, somebody had called in to the fire company and said “It is not an accident; it is the train going through and therefore the traffic’s all stopped up.” And as Ray says now, it’s even getting to the point that it doesn’t matter what time of day the traffic is on 926. Needless to say, it’s much, much heavier at rush hours. I have to admit it too, when you talk with people in East Marlborough, they’re talking about the traffic on 926. Everybody’s trying to avoid Route 1, or they come off the bypass and they stay on Route 1 or get on 926 and make the connection to 202. That’s what everybody has decided to do. So the more people move in, the more traffic we have.

DF: Yeah, I remember when there wasn’t a single traffic light the whole length of 926.

MPM: Exactly right. Also, this is Pennsbury Township, but I remember when the intersection of Pocopson Road and Brintons Bridge Road was only a two-way stop sign; now it’s four-way. And I know there’ll be many times when I’m going to blow it, because you know at certain times you did certain kinds of things, and it’s habit.

DF: Was that same bridge over the Brandywine there when you were growing up or is that newer than that?

MPM: No, that same bridge was there, and if you drive across it now, you’ll know it was there. It’s supposed to be replaced or rebuilt or removed or what-have-you, but it’s bogged down in Pennsylvania. But yeah, it’s the same bridge.

ABH: You don’t remember it as a covered bridge?

MPM: No, do not remember it as a covered bridge. Do have a picture somewhere, if I’d ever find it in my stuff, that shows it in ill repair, but it was there. And my doctor canoes under the bridge that is there, and he said, “You don’t want to see under it.” And I tried to take pictures there a couple times, and the only time you could even dream of taking a picture is if you could be guaranteed there’s not a vehicle coming, because it vibrates quite noticeably.

DF: Yeah, it is a scary bridge. Did that area flood back then like it does now?

MPM: 926 at Pocopson? Oh yes, always upon always upon always. There’s always been many, many-- in fact, I would say there’s less flooding now, possibly, than there was as we grew up. Needless to say, when Grandmother Pratt lived there--and she was a widow for many years--we would go down and worry about her. Somehow or other Grandfather Pratt must’ve had great knowledge or luck, I don’t know. When it flooded in that house, it only got to the first step in the cellar. That step was never covered. It only got to there and it must’ve gone out the windows or what-have-you. It was always safe, but you always felt there could be that day when it wouldn’t be. So you would go down and you would take all the rugs up and put them on another floor, some place where they were secure. Uncle Roland used to go out and try-- Aunt Helen never liked staying there, so we usually would go down and get her out of the house. The older she got, the more upset she would get and, again, get the personal items removed so they’d be safe. And she would come up to our house and Uncle Roland would not, and some of us would still be down there when she was up home. Uncle Roland would go out there and try to tell these people, “It’s flooded; you can’t go across.” The older he got the more upset he got, and we were all afraid he was going to have a heart attack. People used to appreciate your trying to help them with something like that, and as time kept going they didn’t appreciate it all. And as we stand and watch it now, it’s even worse; they don’t respect flooded water. In 1942 something called, I think, Icedale Dam broke up in Coatesville. I remember that one because that’s probably the highest flood that I can remember. Mathers still had the Radley Run property. Since it was a dam that broke, the water came very, very rapidly and they couldn’t warn people. At that time, I would’ve been eight years old--and you’d be getting born.

ABH: No, ‘43.

MPM: Anyhow, at that time the store was still attached to the house, and they had to bring some kind of wagon and put a ramp on it so we could get to the store. A lot of the animals--cows don’t swim well--and I can remember big concern about Mathers’ cattle in the meadow and that type of thing. But that is probably the worst flood we had.

ABH: How far up did it come, Mary? Over the road?

MPM: It went up to where, at Aunt Helen’s there’s the bottom lane and there’s the divider. It came up pretty level with the little mound.

AHB: Almost to the railroad tracks.

MPM: You know, it goes like this and then it goes like this, and it came to where that little mound was, which would’ve been halfway up, if you drew a line between the post office and over, it would’ve been a line like that. It came up fast, no warning, and most likely went down fast. That’s the one that I remember as being the worst flood. But yes, it’s always flooded. Now, with some of the controls upriver, I think it doesn’t do it as much, but you can be guaranteed, if you have a horrendous storm in Coatesville, Downingtown, etc., there’s always going to be lots of water down here. But my cousin Joe’s daughter was the last Pratt that was living in that house, and she just couldn’t handle the floods and the flood threats. She moved out and nobody else was particularly anxious to have it, so it ended up being sold. Ace Hardware, Richard Moore, bought it, and that’s who owns it now.

DF:Can you tell us a little bit about where you went to school?

MPM: I went all my schooling at Unionville, all in the same building.

DF: Which is now Unionville Elementary.

MPM: Exactly right. In those days it was 1 through 12. Most of the time, I can remember who all the teachers were. Graduated from there in ‘52. My husband was in the first graduating class in the new building--first full year at Unionville High School in 1960.

ABH: --to graduate from that stage.

MPM: Yes, and it’s still a beautiful school. I not only went there; I taught in the district. And when they decided to work on elementary buildings, there’s always a debate: do you tear what’s there down? do you find another spot, etc? thank goodness whoever was involved had enough foresight to decide to renovate. It was also in style to renovate, and so if you go in that building now, they’ve done a very honest restoration. They kept the gymnasium, because it was a distinctive gymnasium. They kept the auditorium exactly the same. And now, we even have people who have decided that there are certain kinds of festivities, celebrations, etc., that they want to do in the Unionville Elementary auditorium, which at one time was the high school auditorium, such as the Harvest Queen for the Community Fair, and some other things. But as I tour the building in its renovated, changed state, I can see the same place I sat for math for four years. I can end up getting the same warmth in the rooms that I taught in. So they really maintained the honor and the integrity. Probably the most gigantically changed part of the building is what used to be the ag shop, which is where they put the library and a lot of other things. But yes, I went there for all twelve years.

DF: How many people were in your graduating class?

MPM: Thirty-eight. And I think small has a lot to be said for it. Now, I’ve lost track of the number who graduate but having worked in education for as many years as I’ve done, retired now thirteen years. In those days, if you had a chorus, they were happy to have a voice, didn’t have to be exceptional. If you had sports teams, they were happy to have players; you didn’t have to be exceptional. Of course, that was true of all the schools in the Southern Chester County League. So you ended up with a situation, all you had to do was be a warm body, go out for something, and you made it. You didn’t have to go through cuts and other things that gave you a lousy self-concept. Every now and then I look back and think, did we tend to take it for granted? I don’t know, but having raised two children through the system, I just knew that being totally a part of everything, and you didn’t have to worry about being out of anything, had a lot to be said for it. Not that I suggest we go back to thirty-eight kids in a graduating class. but I think smallness had something going for it.

DF: Yes. Who were some of your childhood friends?

MP: I end up getting many friends and always having my friends, but I’m not the kind that maintains a close, tight relationship with lots of people down the road. I could list the people who are my friends, who’ve probably been friends for a long time. That doesn’t mean I’ve seen them for a long time. When I was in ninth grade, Jeanette Meyer’s father was transferred down by the Reading Railroad to be the stationmaster and he also became the postmaster. But anyhow, his daughter Jeanette was my age, and so we were very, very close, from ninth grade to, I would say, the first year of college. She started college with me but then she got married, and we kind of went separate ways. Mary Larkin Dugan would be one that I would definitely list as a good friend. Again, in the same class going through school. Janet Heess was one that was a good friend of mine. A lot of these friends I picked up from junior high up. I would probably have to say, number one, we didn’t have time in those days for doing anything with anybody else. At the last class reunion, Jeanette made a comment about how hard the Pratt girls always worked, and that’s exactly right; we always ended up working very, very hard. And so we didn’t have much time to be involved with friends or that type of thing. Basically, too, my sister’s fourteen months younger than I am, and my other sister’s four years younger, and so, you know, being sisters, we’re all very, very friendly. And then we used to joke and say, ”There isn’t a Pratt family and there isn’t a Darlington family; there’s a Pratt-Darlington or a Darlington-Pratt family, because if they weren’t at our house, we were probably at theirs, so we were very close to them. We had activities like 4H Club, and we had friends when we went to 4H Club; Alta would be a friend. Her father and my father were best friends, absolute total best friends. I always remember the story--and I have a feeling it was Alta’s mother who told it--about the song somebody sang: “Wedding bells are breaking up that old gang of mine.” And I have a feeling that the Bittles were the first ones married, but it was a comment: “Okay, the gang’s not existing to the extent it was.” I can remember visiting with the Bittles and having them visit with us, so Alta would be one. It’s the kind of thing, we don’t go to everybody’s house. As I keep looking back on a lot of things, yes, I was raised in a situation: one, you just didn’t have any idle time; you weren’t expected to have any idle time. My parents felt, if you quit on a job, you’re going to be a failure in life, or if you aren’t working every single minute of a day, you’re going to be a failure and nobody’d ever want to hire you. Everybody loves to read. I didn’t love to read, because, number one, we didn’t have the books, and number two, my father felt that was not a good occupation of your time; that was a waste of time. And you’d better not be sitting in the house doing nothing; you were supposed to be productively using your time. First of all, our house would not have been in any condition to have good friends or anybody come visit. It just didn’t work, and lots of times I’d be doing homework till midnight or something. You’d develop friendships with who you were with at the time. It wasn’t a situation where you’d have somebody coming to visit you continually, or you’re at their house. You just had good, loyal friends and that type of thing. And I know I can recultivate them at any time. They’re still there, it’s just the fact that we’ve all gone on our own “productive” ways. A lot of my good friends are still either gainfully employed or very involved with volunteer activities that are taking a lot of their time and energy.

ABH: A lot of your social gatherings revolved around organizations that were farm-centered, like the 4H and grange and farmers’ club. Could you embellish upon how those affected your life?

MPM: Oh, very definitely. Grange, of course, is where my parents met, and they were always loyal grangers, and  we just always went to grange from the time we were able to go.

DF: And where was that?

MPM: Brandywine Grange, over in Sconneltown, now housed on Sconneltown Road. A very active grange, with tons of very talented people. Yes, I would say in growing up the three things that were most involved in our life would’ve been grange, 4H Club, and Birmingham Meeting. Those would be the three strongest organized social activities.

ABH: Forum.

MPM: Oh, and Birmingham Forum, which doesn’t exist any more. But my parents stayed in contact with many of their friends, and needless to say, they had children the same time. So in grange, yes, I can remember being in a play. I don’t know what the play was, but Bill Peter and I were the leads. I look back, and I don’t even know how I got into it. I often think, yes, I guess I accepted whatever challenge came. Either I was too ADD or too stupid, but I always said yes. Or I always ended up doing something which I had no idea what I was getting into. We had juvenile grange, very involved in that. And as I said, my mother was a lecturer of the grange. At my mother’s memorial service, it dawned on me more than it ever had done, was her piano=playing. It was something I took for granted. You went to grange, she was playing the piano. You went to Birmingham Meeting, she was playing the piano. This was just, to me, a normal way of life. Everybody’s mother must play the piano. I never even thought about the fact that she was unique in this playing the piano. She tried to teach us; that was horrible, didn’t work. She was lecturer, that meant the program-planner. But yes, for years upon years upon years involved with grange. and I wouild probably say, during my growing up the thing I was the most involved in was 4H Club. The 4H Club was started, I think, when I was nine, which means I was too young to belong. But Mary McMullen and Louise McMullen started the 4H Club, and Anna Sharpless, all friends of the family, and farmers. I mean, everything in growing up, was farmers. Everybody was on a farm or farming or it was farm-oriented. So I was into 4H Club, all kinds of activities, all kinds of leadership roles, etc. until the day I couldn’t be a 4Her any more.

PB: Did you have project animals that you showed at the state and county level?

MPM: We never went up that high. My parents weren’t into going to all this type of thing, and I tend not to either. Like in grange, there was state grange and national grange. There were lots of people who were into that. They were not into going on to those levels. And I find that in Lions Club--I’m in Lions Club now--and these people are so excited about international this and that and my reaction is no, we don’t tend to go there. We had pig projects. One of the first ones, of course, was gardening. And I can remember Bob Powers teling us about weeding and getting the weeds out of your garden, and all this I can remember from when I was nine or ten. Well, of course weeding was something you were not anxious to do. Now, as I sit here and try to pull them out from the gardens I have, I say, “The man was right, the man was right; it is taking the strength away from everything!” Pigs--we ended up with pig club for many, many years. And now I find it so interesting, because it used to be you tried to keep the pig real slim and long, and you go up to the state farm show now and you see them completely the opposite of what you worked on and tried to do. And Birmingham: Horace Darlington could never understand the word ‘no.’ He would call you on the phone and while you’re saying ‘no’ he’s still talking, so all of a sudden you’re superintendent of first-day school or you’re doing something, like David Darlington, they had him being treasurer of first-day school. In looking back, you appreciate the fact that certain people recognized your ability and decided you should have challenges and provided you with challenges. So yes, I was active in all those things. And Birmingham Forum: we were not old enough to be members of Forum, of course, when we were young, but the big deal, the big thing, was everybody in Birmingham Forum--and this started out as an offshoot from Birmingham Meeting, of course--was Christmas caroling at Christmas. And again, my mother being the teacher she was and also the piano player, she and Horace Darlington always had the programs kind of picked out. Mother would have Alta sing some kind of solo. My son remembers her having him play the trombone. I can’t remember, but he seems to remember that he had to play a trombone solo and the ??. Again, we did everything in groups. It’s like when my daughter started going with a young man in ninth grade, and I said, “Okay, but you’re going to do everything in groups. No one-on-one; it’s a group type of deal.” We didn’t even think about it. We were just all a group. We all had a ball. I look at my oldest granddaughter, and that’s the kind of thing she does. She lives in Northeast. They had the prom recently. Some boy asked her to go to the prom, I guess, but in the meantime it was Melanie and Charles and three other girls. That’s the way we did things as we were growing up. But getting back to Christmas caroling, we all just had a ball. We always looked forward to the McMullans, where we’d have cranberry juice. In those days cranberry juice was not popular, and so we’d end up carrying on about this cranberry juice, and all of us were of a certain age group, teen-age, the youngest were probably about eight years younger than I, and it was the kind of thing, you know, you went to somebody else’s house and you figured, okay, you’re going to get such-and-such. One time we went to Brandywine Hall and the lady was very agitated and she said, “Oh no, not another one of these groups!” And I think she ended up escaping. We just had a ball, and like I say to Anna Steel all the time, every time I hear Gloria, which was Horace Darlington’s favorite, and we couldn’t sing it, there are just certain songs that bring back the good times of doing things all together. I would say the closest one, growing up, would be Jeanette Meyer, who’s now Jeanette Screem.

ABH: Any other social functions? Picnics?

MPM: Yes. This is another reason why I say my parents tend to be self-made. My father always had visions and dreams, and it may have taken many, many years to get them, but the interesting thing is, a lot of his visions he ended up accomplishing. Somewhere along the line he decided he wanted a pond down in the meadow. He had it built at the location, which I understand used to be an ice dam. Pocopson Creek was dammed up, and ice was made in this particular-- We’d always say, “Why this indentation? Why this such-and-such?” And when it floods, that’s the way it works on flooding. So he built the pond, and I don’t know how many years, the pond was where we all would go. We’d figure out how to drive the car down and we’d swim, or we’d have a picnic. I can remember some of the days, like the wind we had lately, the napkin was in your face and the food was on the ground. We had a diving board. Daddy made sure that ??Reinold put a deep end on one side and a shallow end on the other. And in winter you could ice-skate, and we don’t have many of those winters any more. This winter was one of the ones that’s been the closest to it. The pond was where we all went and had picnics and social gatherings. Again, when my parents were going through the Depression and a house with no electricity and too much work to do, we didn’t have friends over. They didn’t have time to go visit with friends, I guess, but as they got older and we all got older, then the socialization became more pronounced. Then Daddy had always decided he wanted a swimming pool. He knew the exact location where he wanted that swimming pool. And so it came to fruition, we got that swimming pool. And again, we had to have the dogleg for the diving board, and we had to have the part that was all level for certain people to be able to be in there. When I got engaged in ‘65, one of the first big projects my husband got involved with was building the pool house for the swimming pool. The only time that we ever entertained, and we always had to muck the house out for, was New Year’s Eve. They had been in the 500 Club from 1934, I think. I have no idea how long. Their church and grange and 500 Club were their social activities. Well, for New Year’s there were three couples. My mother had always had very close friends and stayed involved with those very, very close girl friends. So they ended up having New Year’s. And you knew you never made any plans for New Year’s because you knew you didn’t dare touch that New Year’s they were having. And that was about all the entertaining they did; they went to grange-- And my mother’s view of working at home was on the property. She was a total helpmeet to my dad. She totally cultivated corn, she totally did this, that, and the other. And we had the distinct honor of cleaning the house. But it just was not a house that you would think about entertaining in or having guests to. But then she got to the stage where, oh, this was successful, so now we’ll try-- all of a sudden it was grange, it was garden club, it was Birmingham Meeting--any organization she belonged to, came, and when there wasn’t an organization here, it was either grandkids, aunts and uncles--so it was a busy place. So those were fun places. That’s one of the things that you totally miss, the swimming pool and the fun we used to have around that. Of course, Mother did a great job, and I’m referring to the gardening. Now, Mother and Daddy were always into gardens. I can remember having to garden up where the Yins now have part of their oriental growth. If you go up to Pocopson Elementary School, you can look out and see all the stuff they have growing. But I can remember, come March 17, we’ve got to get up there and plant the peas. They had Logan, I think its name was--the white mule--and I can remember the days of gardening when the white mule was used, because, number one, that’s what everybody was using, but number two, I doubt that we could afford anything. And for years upon years we couldn’t afford any kind of stuff. I can remember my father getting so excited about being able to buy such-and-such.

ABH: The first tractor, maybe.

MPM: Yeah, the first tractor. But anyhow, we’d end up going up to garden. There was no choice; you will go up and garden. And my one sister was so wonderful; she always cooperated. And again, we had to do things to make money. We raised turkeys, we raised pigs, we raised chickens, we grew tomatoes for Campbell’s Soup, we ended up haying, and when you put in hay, you had to take the stones off the fields. Well, I jokingly say, and I know it’s true, in those days we didn’t have titles and I just always called it the Pratt trait because my dad was the same way, my grandfather was the same way, my Uncle Roland was the same way. I can look at each relative and figure out which ones have the Pratt trait, and today they define it as ADD. And then I would complain, and Ruth would’ve picked twenty baskets of tomatoes and I might still be on number twelve, or she’d picked up tons and tons of stone. And of course Sarah didn’t matter; she was four years younger so we’re not going to get upset with her. You just spent your time working hard, doing all those kinds of things, but then they started having the time that they could--

ABH: It wasn’t the most tillable piece of property, either; it was hilly.

MPM: My father was one of the first people who decided to go into contour farming. Again, another thing that they were into was agriculture, working with the extension service and that type of thing. So we used to go to demonstration plots, and ag progress days, though a lot of this was as we got older, a lot older, like married with kids. He always felt bad because he didn’t have a college education. He didn’t need a college education. Number one, in those days a lot of people didn’t have college educations, but number two, he was a smart man. And he accepted challenges, and he was ADD, but he ended up somehow-- we can all remember Bob Powers walking across those high hills and when the land was sold to the school, one of the things we said, because we knew it was going to take awhile to get through the township etc., etc., one of the things that we said to him was, “Please keep it vegetated; do not let this go without keeping something, because erosion is really bad on this property.” I told him about the fact that my father used to talk about this one swale, which is still there, but how he could remember you couldn’t see the horse and the wagon and the machinery because the ditch was so deep. He knew that you had to figure out how to do this. And of course those were the days of Bob Struble working with people also, and the Brandywine Valley Association. Yeah, Bob Powers from the extension service came out and walked it and laid it all out in contours. At the end the Hicks Brothers were farming it some. But I can remember him coming across the Brandywine bridge, “Oh, isn’t that beautiful! Isn’t that gorgeous!” It’s one of the things, now even with the school there. The supervisors at the time were very anxious not to have the school on the side of the hill; they wanted it up on the top. A lot of people don’t realize how deep it is, into the ground. I told the guys up there excavating one day, “You know you’ve moved more land here in a few months than my father did in his whole eighty-one years.” But as you come across the Brandywine bridge, you look across and that hill is still absolutely gorgeous, just beautiful. But he was one of the first ones that were into contour farming and it used to be so beautiful. And now of course one of the big pluses on the school property is--okay, schools are schools--but one of the things that I absolutely love, and my father would be so thrilled and my mother, I think, maybe saw it once, is the sledding. Oh, the sledding on that hill is so wonderful! I can remember the times that we went sledding, one time or maybe a number of times on toboggans. Zoom! hayfield, fine, pick up speed! hit the cornfield, hit some other kind of thing! It’s lucky we didn’t break our necks.

ABH: --cars at the bottom--

MPM: Well, I think a couple times we got practically to the Pocopson Road.

PB: Do you remember what transportation services were available when you were growing up? public transportation?

MPM: If you got all the way to Lenape you would get the Shortline.

ABH: Bus service.

PB: And where would that take you? Into West Chester?

MPM: Yes.

PB: Or the opposite way, to Oxford.

MPM: Yeah, I guess, I don’t know. The only place I ever wanted to go was to West Chester, and we didn’t do that very often. Jeanette and I one time decided we wanted to go to a movie. My parents wouldn’t have taken us, but her father sometimes would take us places, but for whatever reason we wanted to go to the movie, so we walked from the crossroads up to Lenape.

PB: Was the trolley still working then?

MPM: No. I never remember trolleys at Lenape. I remember the trolleys when I worked at W. T. Grant & Co., during my college years. The trolley came to Gay and High, and that was the end of the trolley tracks. And Grant’s was the store right there. But I don’t know when the trolley stopped. If my husband was here, he’d be glad to tell you. That’s one of his little projects.

PB: And how was mail delivered?

MPM: Mail has always been delivered the same way for the majority of us: post office box. You went to the post office. The post office, as long as I ever remember, was located in the railroad station. John Baker was the postmaster, and then it was a man by the name of Harry Tyson, and then after awhile it was moved out of the train station over to Heyburn’s feed store, and that’s where Harry Tyson was. And then eventually it moved to Lenape Inn, and that’s when I was township secretary and they were getting ready to close it, and we did a campaign etc. to keep it open. So it stayed at Lenape Inn until Richard Moore somehow was able to get it back to Ace Hardware. Now, today you can get mailbox delivery. I prefer not to have it. I still have a mailbox [at the post office] and every now and then we have the usual go-round: they’re going to close it, they’re going to close it. But it’s very busy and people from everywhere come to make use of it. But I don’t know when West Chester mailbox delivery started, but I never used it. Going back to school: one of the things that I thought of, in World War II, we had to worry about gasoline, rationing, etc. For a period of time, and I have no idea how many months it was, basically we  two families, the Pratt and the Darlington families, were on this side of the Brandywine, and everybody on the other side went to Chadds Ford. As I said, I walked an eighth of a mile down to the bus stop all the time, we all did, couldn’t get away with that now. And Darlingtons walked all the way from Hillhurst. And during World War II they decided they couldn’t afford to do that. The bus came down there, picked us up, turned around, and went back. So they decided that we had to get on the bus at Lenape Inn. At that time there was a little trolley station still there--railroad station, I guess it was, Reading Railroad.

ABH: And the taproom.

MPM: Yeah. So, again, there was some nice little railroad master that, on the super-cold days, would let us come into the little building. Some days we decided to walk down the railroad track. Some days we walked Pocopson Road. I don’t know how many months it was, but still, when you’re discussing the history and significance of stuff, that was a definite situation. Again, in those days the schools were very involved, so you were out collecting milkweed silk for the parachutes, and the school was selling war bonds or whatever, so there was a definite involvement of the schools in that type of thing. The Darlingtons and us, we learned how to walk on railroad ties and railroad tracks.

ABH: You remember the rationing of other items?

MPM: Oh yes, and I have a scrapbook that I made during that period of time. I suspect I must’ve been in sixth grade when I did the scrapbooking. You know, it’s a new skill, scrapbooking, but it’s been around for a long time. Yeah, I have some of the ration stamps, and I have some of the other things during that period of time. Yes, I can remember the blackout curtains.

ABH: What items would be most commonly rationed, Mary?

MPM: Sugar. I don’t know. Gasoline.

ABH: Butter?

MPM: Well, we wouldn’t have had to worry about butter.

ABH: How about shoes?

MPM: I have no idea.

PB: Did you all have POWs working on the farm during that time?

MPM: No. No, basically Pocopson has been always pretty--I don’t want to say provincial. It’s not been overly worldly; it’s been kind of--

DF: Isolated.

MPM: Yes. Prattville at one time, or Darlingtonville, it was that type of thing.

ABH: Very self-contained.

DF: You grew so much of your own food and everything, but there were lots of things that you would have to buy. Where would you shop?

MPM: My parents shopped from a man named John Bair. It was in West Chester. Probably way at the beginning, they might’ve gotten stuff at their own little general store. But I can remember it was a big deal, whatever night of the week it ws, we had to go to Johnny Bair’s to get our food. It’s across from Dr. Spellman’s office. It was Miner and--Alta, help me, which street is it? Anyhow, it’s one of the places in West Chester that they cut the end of the building off when they built it. They had a charge account there, so there were tons of times that I’m sure we didn’t have the money. I can remember the discussion of not having the money, or being so happy that they could pay John Bair’s bill. And I remember my father also talking about how many people owed W. J. Pratt. My father used to tell the stories of delivering coal to the big mansion in Radley Run, delivering coal to the big Biddle house on Birmingham Road. And I often remember my father talking about how many bills just got written off, that Grandfather Pratt would just write people off.

ABH: And that was B-I-D-D-L-E. They were the rich ones from Philadelphia, not my family.

MPM: Yeah, that’s the one where they’ve just finished spending the $400,000 to remodel. Anyhow, I can remember the big long stick getting stuff off the counters.

PB: It was like a general store.

MPM: Yes. And it was just a neat social thing. The man was really, really nice. Truthfully, my father never met too many people that he didn’t get along with and weren’t friends with. So that’s where we would’ve gotten our staples. And it was a period of time where they would give you aid or whatever was required or necessary. If you go in there now, they’ve fixed the house all up so you can’t even recognize it was a store. It’s at Miner and New, and now it’s a residence but in those days it was a general store.

DF: I’ll have to look at that next time I drive by.

PB: How was voting done in the township? Where would people vote in your lifetime?

MPM: I don’t remember.

ABH: Do you remember your folks going to vote? Did they go to Locust Grove or did they go to the post office, Mary?

MPM: I would suspect strongly they voted, but I have no idea.

ABH: Where did you go to vote, for your first voting?

MPM: Township building.

ABH: Which was then--

MPM: Denton Hollow Road.

ABH: Where it is now.

MPM: Yes.

ABH: So that was the poll.

DF: In the garage?

MPM: Yeah. I think that’s where I went the first time.

ABH: You never went to Locust Grove to vote?

MPM: No, never.

PB: Do you recall when there was a configuration of the political system in the township?

MPM: What do you mean by that?

ABH: Remember when zoning came in, remember when committees were first formed? Because previously the way the government structure was in our township when your parents and my parents were in their youth was very loose. You didn’t have this supervisor, planning commission, all of that. But it came about in your young adulthood.

MPM: Oh, I would suppose strongly it came about, about the time that I was definitely involved with township work. I don’t think it was in existence for too long before I became secretary of the township.

PB: When was that?

MPM: Well, let’s see: Donald’s forty. About forty years ago.

PB: Oh, okay.

MPM: Because when I was teaching, it was still the law that women should not bear children while they’re in the teaching profession. And so my son, who will turn forty this December, at the time he was born, I had to resign. So I spent nine years substitute-teaching. I’m eight years older than my husband, and I had the more years of experience and more college credits, which is what influences teachers’ salaries, and so two thirds of the salary went pfft because I had to quit. And one of the jobs that I did was township secretary at the time. There weren’t the number of committees that you have now. The number of committees keeps proliferating; every time I see there’s another committee and another committee and another cause. I would say at that time it was basically planning and zoning. You had the Building Inspector and the Roadmaster, part-time Roadmaster.

ABH: Did we always have the three supervisors?

MPM: Yeah. At my period of time it was Jack Anderson and John Gebhart and J. Folsom Paul. But things were becoming more and more complex. At the time, we had Red Bridge and Beversrede going in. I feel that most of the contractors, all of them, probably, had good integrity. Except for farm business, it was the first time I was in contact with businessman, who want to do the best job they can do, the cheapest they can do, and get away with whatever they can get away with legitimately, not taking advantage of somebody. And at the time we had a strong planning commission, and there were a number of ordinances and developments being put in. And I strongly believed that we needed to have--and this is organization--certain kinds of checklists. The job was becoming very huge, and I was there for six, seven years--I don’t know what it was. At that time I felt we needed someone that was a township manager, somebody who was paid to have the responsibility because down the road Builder X may be ignorant of certain rules, or Builder X may be very knowledgeable of this new organization of supervisors, and if you didn’t have somebody kind of keeping people honest--well, at the time they didn’t feel they needed any township manager. And so now there are lots of times I see stuff being done that I know there’s a law on the books; I know there’s something else somewhere or other. I was just talking to somebody this week who was discussing the township manager position again, and I said, “Well, I discussed this many, many years ago, that this was a position that was needed.” I said, “I find it interesting that the East Marlborough township manager was hired while I was Pocopson Secretary,” and I helped train her. And I have seen that job evolve into what I felt Pocopson needed. And I strongly still feel that, if you’re going to have all this complexity of building, which is the name of the game, you’re not going to stop it, you’ve got to figure out how to control it; you need somebody who’s knowledgeable of everything, who has certain powers assigned to them to be able to speak for the township and do what has to be done. That’s my soapbox for the day.

ABH: That’s okay. Mary, what developments do you remember as being the first that went into our township?

MPM: I have a feeling it had to be Brandywine Hills. I remember when I was in college, maybe high school but I think college, babysitting for the--what were their names?--but it was up at the big house in Brandywine Hills. So at that particular time, the development was started.

ABH: Murphy and Molette.

MPM: Yes, Murphy and Molette. And I remember all the discussion about Murphy and Molette. Murphy used to come visit my dad. Again, we had lots of people who loved to buy hay, buy this or that, and again, you always had the socialization, but farm socialization’s very different from other types of things. You know, people either buying eggs or they’re stopping in about this or that, and I have no idea whether it was Murphy or Molette that came to my dad, but he kept up on all the news. I remember all the discussion about this development going in. I can’t understand why, when I rode on the school bus, I don’t remember seeing it going in, because I usually maintain visual images quite well. But I’m sure that was the first.

ABH: Do you remember Lenape Heights?

MPM: I remember all the discussion about Lenape Heights. I don’t know how, but anyhow the concern about water running off into whichever was the first one; there’s Lenape Heights and Lenape Acres. But it was a situation of the concerns, about the time I started being secretary, they were concerned about water running down through Larry Daylor’s, and there was concern about water running through the lot that at that time was Coyles’ and dumping down into Lenape or what-have-you. They were worried about the erosion of the person’s land or lawn and worrying about controlling it. That was the original, the front part of Brandywine Hills. And I remember everybody’s reaction that Lenape Heights and Lenape Acres was not Brandywine Hills. It was not the same price. When Brandywine Hills went in, it was the epitome of--

ABH: --planned development.

MPM: Yeah, and it was nice homes. I mean today, nobody’s dying for them because they were all split-levels, most of them or a large number--split or ranch. I went and babysat for people in there, and at that time I don’t think it was that old. But I just can’t visualize seeing the houses going up, not to the extent of the ones you see going up now.

ABH: And this came after the Pocopson Home was built and the prison farm first was built, or--

MPM: I don’t remember, have no idea. I remember all the discussion on the Pocopson prison.

ABH: That came in before the prison, because Forum went through it.

MPM: Yeah, I remember going through it, remember going through the prison, remember Pocopson Home.

DF; At the home where you grew up, when did you get electricity, plumbing and telephone, those kinds of things? Were they available?

MPM: They probably were available. Electricity: well, Mother and Daddy moved in in ‘36, because that’s when my sister was born. I would suppose sometime around then. I don’t know when, but she always talked about having no electricity. And didn’t have plumbing. Now, we must’ve had some kind of plumbing, because I remember the farm sink in what eventually became a dining room, and I don’t know whether it just dumped out on the ground, or exactly what. I do remember the cesspool being dug for it. I don’t know when we got the plumbing. I might’ve been too young to particularly remember it, but I remember using the outhouse all the time, and the chamber potties. We did not have-- Heavens! we must’ve been pretty old when we were still using outhouses.

ABH: We had ??? plumbing when I was a child.

MPM: It was probably when I was eight or nine. We went through a number of different kinds of heat. You heated only one room. We had coal oil. We had a coal furnace, but I’m sure the coal furnace came after the coal oil. And then I remember my father getting so excited about the fact that we could get oil; we didn’t have that dirty dust. They wouldn’t have to worry about it, because everybody had to do it, whoever was given the job of putting the coal in.

PB: Did the coal come in on the railroad from Reading? to the Pratts’?

MPM: To the Pratts’. And I think you might be able to still see them. I don’t know. I haven’t walked back there, so I don’t know if Moore tore them down. I know the ones at Wawaset, we just drove past there the other day, and those have been torn down, the ones right before you go across the Wawaset bridge. There used to be, I think, three bins there at Uncle Arthur’s place.

PB: You can see the outlines of them, built into the hill.

MPM: There used to be three bins there. I think there were four bins down at the home place in the back. Somebody one time said that Ace Hardware was storing certain kinds of things in there. I have no idea, because I haven’t walked back there for awhile. There was a blacksmith shop, which I haven’t mentioned yet. The house was here, the barn which burned down a few years ago was here, and then-- here’s the railroad, here’s a tree and grass and then there used to be a building right against the railroad track where they used to unload feed or whatever in there. And then there was a siding and there were four binsunderneath. But the blacksmith shop was-- it kind of had a Y in the driveway, aloop. And my father always wanted to be a blacksmith. He used to go out with whoever the blacksmith was and be with him, He loved that type of thing. Again, if I ever get around to not being involved with so much in life, I might find the pictures because I do have them. I think that’s stored with all my mother’s stuff because she wanted me to take the photographs and enlarge them, and she had them hanging on her wall. And how long she’s been deceased and they’re still stored somewhere! Someday I’ll get to them.

DF: They’d be great to see.

MPM: Oh yeah, I promised her she’s going to get pictures; I didn’t say when.

ABH: She’s good for her word.

MPM: Yeah, that’s a comment somebody made one time: “It may take Mary a while to get it done, but she will get it done.”

PB: Now, when that coal would come in to the Pratts’ store, would there be trucks taking it out to deliver to people, or would people come in there to purchase it?

MPM: Probably both ways. As I said, I remember my father talking about delivering to the Mather estate, delivering to the B-I-D-D-L-E estate, and some more of the wealthy estates that were in the area. I think Jacobs was one of them. That was one of their jobs; if Grandfather Pratt got an order, they had to deliver. I kind of remember something that must’ve been traumatic. There must’ve been one time we had a really bad snowstorm, and that time they lived where we lived, but the dairy farm that he was working then was up across from Lenape Forge. That was the Pratt farm there, which is now the Lenape Forge office. They’ve torn the barn down, they’ve torn the outbuildings down, they’ve torn everything down or they’ve subdivided it off. And I can remember, I think he walked from our place, across Brintons’, over to the property, because those animals had to be taken care of. I don’t remember what year Grandfather Pratt died. The interesting part is, he was eighty-five. My father said he was going to die at eighty-five, and that’s when he died. I always remember, they had to work in the store. He raised us the way he was raised. My mother raised us the way she was raised, which we all do. They had to work in the store, they had to work in the feed mill and make deliveries. So it always came up when Radley Run was being developed, that he knew all the nooks and crannies, or he’d tellyou what window he’d deliver the coal into. But I would suspect it was both ways, because I think the W. J. Pratt situation was like a lot of the hardware stores today.

ABH: Mary, do you think because of your grandfather’s store, that that is why we’ve had this natural progression into Ace Hardware being where it’s located?

MPM: Oh, yeah.

ABH: Okay, so can you follow from W. J. Pratt’s store and then what building eventually, because there was a store there before Ace?

MPM: Yes. Heyburn was there. Ahrens. I don’t know what else there would’ve been. And then there’s Richard [Moore]. Now it’s not Richard; it’s whoever’s renting from Richard because Richard still kept the property but--

ABH: He called it Brandywine Hardware and then it became Ace, correct? It was called Brandywine Hardware?

MPM: Who, Richard?

ABH: Yeah, or was it called Ace?

MPM: Oh, he’s both. He’s part of the Ace chain. Up by Dutch Way, they call that one True Value. And I think Pyle’s store in Avondale was Ace. It’s part of a chain. But their real name was Brandywine.

DF: I think they started out as Brandywine Hardware before they became affiliated with Ace--

MPM: I think so, too, yes.

ABH: So we went from Pratt to Heyburn to Ahren?

MPM: Well, I don’t know exactly what all the names were. Heyburn might’ve had a different name in between. Who knows, he might’ve maintained the Pratt name, I’m not sure. But yeah, I remember my father sending me down when, I don’t know who it was, with the big truck. In those days they had a place, Here’s where you pick up your hay or whatever you’re picking up. And there were scales. That was one of the things when the flood in ‘42 came, it pickedup all the boards from the scales, and everybody was worried about somebody falling into this huge hole into the ground where the scales were. My father-- Again, you don’t argue, you don’t discuss; if you’re told to do it, you do it, and that’s the end of that. Basically, the two of us were too much alike, but that’s all right. Anyhow, this scale was there, and then it was a roof with the sides. I cut too short! And so the building’s kind of leaning, or the covering over the scale was, so I had to come home and tell them that I--

PB: Do you have memories of Lenape Park?

MPM: Not tons, but yes, I have memories of Lenape Park. Again, it’s not the kind of thing we went to all the time. It cost money. You might go once a year, if you went. Fireworks, we didn’t have to. We lived in a hilly farm, and in those days, the tree row between what’s Toll Brothers now and the school property was not that high. So it was another one of the gatherings, and after Ruth built her brick house up on top of the hill, we also went and had picnics that day. Again, a lot of stuff’s family. We’d have a family picnic, knowing the fireworks are going to be there so the Andersons and the Darlingtons and the McKays and the Pratts are all up there with all their little kids, and whoever else decides to show up. And we would sit and watch the fireworks. And Father every now and then: “Boy, that’s a penny stinker.” Because in those days you didn’t have the huge, elaborate fireworks that you have now. Once in a while you’ll see some of the unexciting ones go up, but I always have memories of him having this reaction: “Boy, we came to see this?” And I think we might have gone down once, for fireworks, and I have a feeling maybe they might’ve decided they were never doing it again because we weren’t that big and maybe we carried on or maybe were scared, and they decided we don’t need this experience again. But the merry-go-round was wonderful and the crazy house. It was probably as we got older because it would be one of those deals that the Pratt-Darlington crew would all go together and do whatever it was. We always looked at it as a nice place and walked through but not obsessed with it. I know my husband went there a lot, but that was a different generation. Not a different generation--well, eight years later.

ABH: He was in Kennett; he wasn’t farm folk, Mary.

DF: We only have a few more minutes of tape left here, so are there any other questions?

ABH: We should have it recorded that Mary went to West Chester State Teachers College, which is now--

MPM: West Chester University.

ABH: And also got her master’s degree there, and is she could finish off by telling the years she’s contributed to Unionville High School and the Middle School as their media specialist. Mary, would you tell a little about your career?

MPM: Yeah, I’ve had an interesting career. People ask me about my career. Number one, I’ve always gotten away with looking younger than I am. Number two, when I started teaching, I started in Caln Township, part of the Coatesville School District. And then, one summer, Mr. Talley, the fifth-grade teacher at Chadds Ford, decided he was going to leave Chadds Ford. And Mr. Emery came and asked me if I would like to go to Chadds Ford. He had this position in fifth grade, which I said yes to. Then I taught fifth grade at Chadds Ford for I don’t know how many years. And then Chadds Ford had to be renovated. Already they’d moved the sixth grade to Unionville Elementary, but they were now out of space for the fifth grade so they moved the fifth grade to Unionville Elementary. And for reasons not to be mentioned an agreement was made that, if I didn’t take a ?? job elsewhere, I would be promised a job at Unionville Elementary, where I was, but instead of teaching Chadds Ford kids, I’d be teaching Unionville. So I stayed at Unionville Elementary, teaching fifth grade with Unionville Elementary kids. In ‘65, my husband came to take over a class that a man who was going to go into drama was teaching. Although I had known of him and his family for years upon years, it was the first time we’d worked together. And we got married. The principal at the time didn’t feel that a husband and wife should be teaching the same grade, so one of us had to make a move, so I moved to sixth grade. In the meantime, I’d gotten my master’s pretty much before we got married. Then I was working on certification in audio-visual services or media, so I finished this and then they started planning the middle school. By this time Ray and I had decided it appeared there weren’t going to be any children. We weren’t having any particular success. And when you’ve decided you’ve figured out where you’re going and what you want, that’s when you get pregnant, which we were very happy about. So Donald was born in December, so I had to quit because that was the rule of the day. And again, because of the salary being cut, we decided--because in those days teachers’ salaries were very poor--that I would end up substituting. You worked to develop your reputation, and lots of times I was two days a week, three days a week--a large amount. And I did that for nine years because by this time I had had a second child, and the school board was not into wishing to hire anybody back, that had been there. In the meantime the middle school had opened and Ray was doing the library job. Then Ray went back to Unionville Elementary and I was offered the position in the library at Unionville Middle, and I was there for many years. At the beginning, when I went back to the library position,it was decided that I needed to finish off my certification, so I had to go back and get nine credits, where I thought I’d only have to get one. So I got the certification in media. At this time my daughter was three and I went back full-time. I don’t know how many years I was there. I had wonderful volunteers helping me. I had a good program, I thought, going. And then Hillendale was built, and the person who was librarian with me was going to go down to Hillendale,  Mr. Ramberger. And Mr. Ramberger also taught computers. Mr. Marinelli taught computers. They were all??heading out so somebody in their infinite wisdom-- Now, I really wanted this, but somehow or other somebody else got into the computer line, because it fit right with the technology that I had trained in. Well, this other person decided they wanted to do it, so, I said, “Okay, I’ll stay in the library and I’ll run what I think is a good program.” Well, Hillendale opened and somebody had suggested me to be the computer teacher, and I indicated when I was told that I had been suggested and they wanted me to take it, I said, “I don’t need this at my stage of life.” And the comment was made, “Mary, you have never refused a challenge.” And I said, “At this age I don’t need another challenge.” Well, needless to say, I took the challenge. I have trouble saying no. So for the last six years of my career, I was swimming upstream, horrendously hard, teaching computers to middle-school students. And then thirteen years ago, Ray and I decided to retire. They wished us to be substitutes. I went back for about four days, and I said no. Ray didn’t want any part of it, period. I went back and substituted for about four days, and I finally decided, No, this is not for me because the nine years that I did it, I was very successful. But you have to build a reputation. And in our world today, if you tend to raise your voice the wrong way or make an accidental move, there would be a problem. So I said no. So we retired and I retired out of education. The next year I took care of my three nephews because their mother went back to work full-time. And now, through grandchildren, I stay in contact with children. But also, I try to advise people who retire that there’s one thing they need. It’s known as an 8.5 X 11 sheet of paper with two letters written on it: N O. But if you’re in the world and into things, why, everybody asks you if you’ll do stuff, and I haven’t done a very good job of saying no.

ABH: Well, we’re glad you didn’t say no to the oral history, Mary.

MPM: Well, I hope I’ve done a decent job.
 DF: It was great, and it’s amazing that this two-hour tape has gone two hours and three minutes, so we caught everything.