File #4273: "Transcription"

Transcription

Emily Schmitt
4/10/17
HIST 441
Interview Transcript
Emily: Okay, so could you state your name and age?
Annabell: Annabell Reedy, I was a Reiman. I’m 88 years old.
E: Awesome. So how long did you work at birdhaven?
A: It must’ve been at least 2 years, uhm I didn’t work at the factory now I have in my
notes that I worked for Mrs. Clarke. My mother is the one that worked at the factory.
I would walk to and from work with her and work at the house, while she worked in
the factory. It was a long long walk.
E: How long was it?
A: Oh guessing now it had to have been about 3 miles, which back in those days that
was nothing.
E: So what did you do at the Clarkes?
A: I cleaned the house, washed windows, moped the floors, I moved furniture, thing
like that.
E: So how old were you when you worked for her?
A: Between 12 and 14.
E: So what did your mom do at the factory?
A: You know I’m really not sure, but I think she was planing or smoothing down the
wood things or the items that they had made.
E: So how did your mom and you get the job at Birdhaven and at the Clarkes?
A: A lot of the neighbors that my mother knew, they were friends, worked there, and
they needed more workers right away. I cant remember how old my mom was, but
if I was between 12 and 14 I could calculate it suppose and tell you then but she
would have had to have been in her--- you’ll have to work it out with math.
E: So what was like your average day?

A: Oh well I think my mom would start around 7 and 7:30 and we walk to work
through the fields and stuff which is in here and I don’t know if it was 5 o’clock when
they got off and I would work 3-4 days a week at Mrs. Clarkes.
E: So when you weren’t working at Mrs. Clarkes what would you do?
A: Stay home and work.
E: What would you do? What type of work?
A: Oh well I’d always milk the cow, no one could milk the cow but my mother, she
wouldn’t let daddy get home from work and milk the cow so I always milked the
cow morning and evening. We had chores I had an older sister and a younger sister
at the time. My older sister must’ve been 2 years older and my other sister was 15
months younger than me so we were kind of in-between. We always had housework
and we did garden work, we did the laundry by hand.
E: Can you tell me a little more about what’s in there? (In reference to her notepad)
A: Want me to read it to you?
E: Sure.
A: This portion of “Moved Home” is and in-between section of my life period of
reminiscing and this is titled “Momma and Me”. Many days weekly, were spent at
the bird haven factory area, the house as well as the factory. My momma at one time
had become a worker over in the factory and Mrs. Clarke engaged me to clean the
house for her. This had become a weekly routine, as I would walk to and from home
these days that I went there also. At this point I was 12, between 12 and 14, other
days I would walk to meet momma through many fields and wooded areas, crossing
fences of long forgotten and neglected old homestead. I recall one was called the
Suzy Henceburger farmstead. We began to whistle the call of the wipperwell, until
we could finally see each other (that’s how we knew we were getting closer and
closer to each other) and finally could see each other that’s how we would meet
each other on our return walk home. My momma was a slender, not tall, about 5”4.
I’ve often reflected back to these times, timing when to begin the walk, wondering
how she could make that long trek through all those fields and woods after a days
work out at the factory. She seemed energized by something, I never understood as
a young daughter. Now after all these past years I favor a few rejects from the old
Birdhaven factory, a half wooden bowl which is to be hung on the kitchen wall it
could hold fruit or whatever, also a magazine cradle of which I have removed
dowels making it into a doll cradle it now holds an antique baby doll filling it just
right. These are precious memories of which I treasure dearly oh to have those
years, weeks, even days, to reflect upon. Little do we realize these precious
memories at that time, only when we too have grown children then our momma
was. As a very young girl child I can still see and recall those tired, weary
housewives, coming out of that door at Birdhaven leaving a good days work. Yes

worn and weary but usually smiling content to be on their way home for their
families, just like my momma. They’d chat then separate each going there way, two’s
even three together, home to finish that day to do what each must do to prepare for
the following day. Another days work at Birdhaven factory, a good, reliable pay for
those in need. Yes this truly is God’s country, our beautiful Shenandoah Valley
growing much more beautiful as the years rush by faster than our own Shenandoah
River, quietly but steadily flowing.
E: That’s great.
A: That’s just a portion of it and I got other stuff. I hopefully I want to get it entered
into the Shenandoah book and put it all together as “MVD Home” like moved home.
E: That’s awesome. So do you remember what the community was like? Like how
the people interacted with each other like did people get along?
A: Oh yes! I can remember and a store back in Basye, which you have to go by to get
to Birdhaven. Everybody knew everybody and they knew your business as well as
we knew their business there wasn’t a secret, you couldn’t keep a secret in a small
town like that.
E: So what were the grounds of Birdhaven like? Do you know?
A: The grounds?
E: Like were there multiple buildings? How was the factory laid out?
A: There were, I don’t want to call them motels but like cabins, especially up at
Basye I think they were Bryce’s, before there was a Bryce’s with huge homes and
everything and they had a grocery store and a post office all in one. I think that is
still the same place the Bob Folkohouser and I think it may be a son or grandson that
runs the store. I haven’t been back since we’ve moved back, we’ve only been here
about two years.
E: Would you want to go back?
A: Oh yes. We will eventually. There has just been so much, I had broken my hip and
I took a while recuperating from that back in Pennsylvania. Then I was kicking off
my boots here up on the hill in a cabin just like this one and I slipped on a rug and
you know where they show you on your x-rays, there is a thing on there its metal
there is a round ball but there is a cap on it, when I fell I knocked the cap off. That
was in February, the 1st of February. Painful. It was worse than anything I have ever
ever had, that why I am here now at my daughters, she seldom leaves me alone but
you have to be alone sometimes. I still drive a little bit not a lot but I leave every 3 or
4 days, you have to or else you go stir crazy.

E: Yeah. So do you know why you and your mom ended up leaving Birdhaven? Why
did you stop working there?
A: Well I was going to school then all the time and we moved from there, down in
that area, my grandma and grandpa lived down farther away from Birdhaven. He
died first he went to go get the mail down a long dirt road to the main mailbox route,
and lighting struck him and he was killed. Not too long after that my grandma died
they had put the house up for sale and that was Frank and Susana Barb that owned
that house and people from Washington bought it and built a stone house close to it.
I think we moved to Basye, closer because it was just through the field, in the
backwoods I’ll call it and we moved there so that’s why we moved, it was a few
years after that,it wasn’t right away.
E: Do you think working at Birdhaven or at the Clarkes shaped your life in anyway
or your moms life?
A: Oh I’m sure. You know in those days everybody had to work. We weren’t affluent
people we were poor people like everyone else who lived around us, so were all in
the same boat basically. I enjoyed it we worked up at Bryce’s as teenagers my sister
and I, making beds and doing the room’s stuff like that cleaning up in-between.
Momma was still at Birdhaven at that time or before im not sure, me memory is not
the best it will come and go and sometimes its gone. So we were well known there
and more in the book will tell you the happenings of the things that happened here
because I to scool at Triply High School and I left there at 12th grade of course. I
didn’t happen to catch a picture of it because I was long gone because I was out
working where they had better jobs, waitressing, I worked at the Southern Kitchen
in New Market for a couple years, worked at the restaurant in New Market another
restaurant, wherever you could make money. Young teenagers boys and girls were
working there was no lying around then besides the housework that we did at
home.
E: So do you know why Birdhaven ended up closing down?
A: You know we had moved away then from the Birdhaven area and I think when
new people, I’ll say the sons and daughters I can remember one son cause I could
see him as he stood in the doorway, that’s the only time I could remember him there
at the house and he lived there with his momma, but I cant remember the father,
maybe because he was always at the factory, I’m not sure.
E: So what was the Clarkes relation to Birdahven?
A: They owned it!
E: Oh they owned it? So what were they like?

A: She was a precious person to work for very considerate, kind. I can see her when
she was standing in the kitchen you know these things fly threw a person when I’m
this age when you see a person and then they’d forgotten about it. The son was tall,
but I can’t remember the father, I don’t know why. Yeah they owned Birdhaven and
it is nothing absolutely nothing because when we first came back from Virginia from
Pennsylvania we took the tour up there, we knew one of the men who was working
up there he and his fiancé. They were trying to I think rebuild it into--- they had a
hoop house. Do you know what that is?
E: No.
A: Well I didn’t either. A hoop house is well there are a lot of farmers, their not all
farmers but they are growers, they would use this plastic, long like a building its
arched like this (hands up in the air creating an O) and you can grow year long. This
has become prominent down here, which I didn’t know about it either. We went
through the one the women; Shanda was the women’s name, she had tended it from
planting the seeds she had cucumbers growing on one side and they were like this
(fingers measuring out about 12 inches), other things that were growing there were
peppers, and I cant recall the other green stuff, but they had a regular garden there
and this was in the cool months of the year. They would take these to markets in like
Harrisonburg, I remember that they had a place that they took it up there and
Birdhaven, the business I’ll say would sell it, they had fruit markets up there, and
they would make sandwiches I think on the place, they did a fantastic business. But
they had decided not to go that route I think it was the granddaughter of Mrs. Clarke
that I met once, and I don’t know if I met the husband or not, the owner that owned
it then they were renovating it, they had torn down a lot of it, the had town down
the old buildings of course. They had stuff; they had storage backed up in the back.
Have you ever been there?
E: No
A: Oh I was so amazed when we saw it, we knew the young couple real well, now we
got to go there and see it.
E: So what was the biggest change from when you worked there till now?
A: The modernization of it. And oh the entrance way is absolutely beautiful. Oh it
was nothing but a dirt road when we worked there.
E: So you said that you walked 3 miles to work? So im assuming you lived 3 miles
from Birdhaven. Where there any people other than the Clarkes that lived there? Or
was 3 miles normal?
A: Oh yeah. Well this was on the dirt road coming from Basye, you’ve not been back
there so its kinda hard to explain. You’re coming from Basye on Mechanum Rd and
they have it posted that they have it all. Its so changed, so beautiful, the entrance

way is just marvelous. You should really take your camera back there to get some
pictures of the entrance way anyway. They gave us a tour of it and showed us the
old buildings and stuff like that and of course the factory has long been gone I
understand.
E: So do you know what they made in the factory? Like woodworks but of what
kind?
A: Well like I said they made small items, I don’t know if they made anything big or
not. She’s got so much moved like her magazine cradle/magazine rack; I know that
was one of the things. When they made mistakes on it or had a slash in it then they
would put it in the back and then anyone who worked there could get it for almost
nothing I think, yeah you were allowed to buy it, they almost gave it away I believe.
People were poor then and I mean poor, I mean I treasure my doll cradle that was a
magazine cradle.
E: Do you still talk to any of the people that you met at Birdhaven? Do you know any
of them still?
A: Oh they’re all dead. That was 60 years ago, at least. I know the mother of one of
the woman that I had met here at an auction and she was a Henceburger and I knew
she worked there, but its just a faint remembrance. So many of the people that I
knew at my age, they’re gone. This women that I had met, she had a stroke, she died.
E: Do you remember any stories?
A: That they used to tell?
E: Or that you remember? Like any funny stories that really stuck out to you that
you remember?
A: No. It could be later because I’ve been bringing this to my mind now, so I’m not
sure. There’s a lot that 88 year old its called when you have it packed so far, there’s
so much up there (motions towards head), that’s what the doctor told me because I
wasn’t being able to remember things, he said its not that you’ve not been able to
remember its just so full up here. I have a book I have written then I’m on my second
one that I couldn’t remember, he said “it’ll come back to you but it comes in flashes,
and when it comes in flashes write it down so you’ll remember it later on”. Yeah.
E: So what did you do after you worked in the Bryce area?
A: It was called Bryce’s resort, they had across the road do you know where the
bowling alley is?
E: No

A: Have you ever been back there?
E: No
A: You haven’t been back to Birdhaven?
E: No, that’s our next stop.
A: Okay you should’ve gone there first. Are you originally from here?
E: No I am actually from Northern Virginia, we are trying to gather as much
information as we can about Birdhaven.
A: My younger sister, she lives in Staunton, I’ve been talking to her since we’ve
begun talking and I’ve been writing this and she came up with the name of the place
that we used to walk through field, it was an old dilapidated building there it was
huge farm at one time, the Suzy Hencburger place. I didn’t put it in here did I (in
reference to her notes) but there were a lot of flowers that always grew in old home
places always like the Easter lilies and daffodils always there you know where
people lived. The fences were all broke down some of it was wire some of it was
wooden. We had a path through there; you know we cut through there to go to the
grocery store too, to go up to Basye.
E: That’s really cool.
A: Yeah. What I should have done, everything has been so busy here the past 6
months, is to make a run back there that might have brought back more memories. I
had a,what was that box, it was a box it had Birdhaven on it, its in storage I know, I
have no idea in what storage area it would be. It was like a cardboard box this size
(with hands measures out about a foot) and when you took the lid off—do you know
what a jewelry box looks like? That little layer there, it was there and it had the logo
of Birdhaven on the top of it. Now they had those back there so when you go back,
I’m trying to think of where they would be, because we saw them. Ask them if they
have any of the small boxes, they’re in storage they are out in a building that he
showed us.
E: So do you remember anything specific about the house you worked in, like the
Clarkes house?
A: I can see it going up the steps, it was a large home, pristine, who ever kept it up
before I got there if she was ill or what and she needed help, but it was beautiful, old
furniture, antique furniture like I said it was pristine, neat, no scatterations like the
cane hanging there stuff like that. She was a very neat person. I can’t think of what
her first name was, of course we never called her that, it doesn’t make much
difference. She had to have been in her, age bracket them, I’ll say in her 50’s or 60’s.
E: And you said she has a son, correct?

A: I don’t remember his age at all because he was a real tall fella. I can see him
standing in that doorway or when you kinda come in he’d be standing there. I don’t
know what kind of car he drove it’s been so long; it’s something I wouldn’t
remember anyway. I wasn’t into cars then.
E: So did you do anything else or did you just clean the house?
A: I used to work in her garden. I was a garden freak, I love to work in the dirt,
tended to her flowers, planted them and I still do I love to do that. I pulled the
weeds from the onions that’s one of the things I can remember in the garden.
E: So how close was the main house to the factories like was it close to each other?
A: It was walking distance, oh yeah. There was a creek I think as your going up the
wooden steps, on the right there was a little tiny creek going there, yeah, then there
was the Birdhaven gravel, well it was dirt then.
E: So did your mom enjoy working there you think?
A: Oh yeah. She’s like me she always liked to work, to keep busy, she was always
busy with her hands.
E: Did they work on the weekends or was it just the weekdays?
A: I think it was just the weekdays.
E: Okay. So like a typical workweek now?
A: Yeah.
E: So when you worked at the house what was your schedule like? So you got to the
house and did what?
A: It wasn’t set roles, she was very lenient. Good to work for. I would just say what
would you like me to do next or something like that. It was always like if there are
dishes wash the dishes, make the beds, clean up, pick up, neat up, bounce the pillows
on the furniture all that stuff, do the bathrooms. I cant remember if they had a
bathroom in that house or not, I’m trying to think, I cannot remember, I’m sure they
did but I cant remember. Because back then they did have bathrooms in homes.
E: So did you do anything fun on the weekends when you were younger, or did you
just work the entire time?
A: We used to walk up to Basye, they had a bowling alley up there, underneath
because there was a restaurant and a little store, no it wasn’t a store what was that
place? Well there was a little place rinky dinky but I remember the bowling alley

was you came up around the curve and drove in it. We used to walk with outher
kids from other areas there were the Walker twins I know we would get like 4 or 5
or 6 of us together and walk in the evenings, that way we would have company
walking back at dark.
E: So besides the Walker twins who else would you go with? Just like friends? Or
people that just lived near by?
A: Oh yeah everybody walked mostly, especially teenagers. I know there was a
young boy who lived down in a farmhouse; I remember because he used to ride the
school bus, they called him Jessie James Barb, I remember him. Oh god that’s been so
long ago, oh my. There was a lot of Barb’s who lived there in the area, it was Barb,
Barb, Barb, Barb. We stemmed from Barb’s my mother did she was a Barb. My dad
of course was a Reiman they lived over in Forestville; they had a big farm over in
Forestville.
E: And you lived on a farm?
A: Yeah I lived there; I would go over in the summer time when I was big enough to
thin corn. When the corn came to be thinned that’s where Annabelle went. You
couldn’t even see the end of those fields and there was another girl about my age
that lived a couple houses down, it was like 3 or 4 houses in the area next to
grandpap and grandma’s farm. At that time grandpap would hire people, kids you
know to thin corn. You don’t know what thinning corn is do ya?
E: No can you explain it to me?
A: There were fields of corn, not like in your garden; I mean literally fields of corn.
When they planted it they planted it row by row by row of course and when the
machine would drop it, it would drop to many kernels in it and we would go by each
row and pull the suckers they’re called the suckers. Here’s your corn (motions with
hand from table to as high as her hand can reach) here’s your sucker (motions hand
only few inches off the table) you pull those up and threw them away so that the ear
of corn could get more strength from the other two, and anything over 3 you didn’t
leave it there you pulled them up, and at the end of that row you could have
lemonade if you wanted to or whatever. You never thought you would get to the
end of that row, but we always had fun doing that there was always 4 or 5 of us
doing that, working in the fields, you know friends, kids my age. So it was something
nice to do. I stayed over there during the summers sometimes.
E: How long would that entire process take to do all the fields?
A: Oh I can’t remember that honey that would take weeks.
E: Weeks?

A: Yeah it would depend on how many people you had pulling the corn through the
fields.
E: How many hours a day would you do that for?
A: We would work till noon. I can remember one time it was so awful hot, even
though you would have the corn to shield you, and when we went in because it was
across the road from granpap’s farm and I went on an laid on the swing on the porch
because I got sick and I drank spearmint tea, and I drank to much of it and got
sicker, and I cannot stand to smell it to this day. I do not drink tea at all, none,
because of that episode. So it’s these things that come into your mind and what you
did. I was probably oh I don’t remember, but I was big enough to thin corn.
E: Did you do anything else; you said you milked the cow?
A: Grandpap always milked their cow, I milked the cow at our house we lived at
grandpa’s and grandma’s place, the other this was momma’s family. Now the
thinning of the corn was my daddy’s family.
E: Did you do anything else other than thin corn?
A: We would work in the garden, pull weeds, picking up potatoes when they were
plowed you know harvested. We always worked, we worked everyday, everyday!
Sunday’s grandpa and grandma went to church and we went to Sunday school, I can
recall that of course, all the time. So it was weekdays weekdays weekdays. Each
summer was busy doing things and I know grandpap Barb or I mean Reiman used to
plant peanuts on his farm where we planted corn and that was always a fascination
to me. You know when you pull a peanut up? You don’t know what that is.
E: No, explain it to me I’m very curious.
A: Peanuts grows--- when you plant it you hull it, you know what a peanut is in a
shell?
E: Yeah.
A: You take that out its called green peanut. You plant the beans inside that peanut.
Plant it in a row; do you know anything about a garden at all?
E: Mhm.
A: You know how you would plant onions, a set, it would be onion set, onion set
onion set, that’s how you would plant peanuts it would be peanut, peanut, peanut,
peanut. When they grew it would be growing like spinach or kale, it was real like
this (motions with hands) underneath the soil, granddad always knew when it was
ripe that’s what we called it, or “ready to pull”, and you would pull them up and the

soil was nice, and then you’d shake off the dirt, and you would lay it on a place like
brown bags, they didn’t have newspapers then, and for them to dry, then you would
hull them, I mean take the green stuff off like the leaves and stuff. Have you seen the
peanuts in the store? That has the peanuts in the hull?
E: Yeah.
A: Okay. That hull is a cardboard around it, it’s kind of a cardboard, yeah well you
have to roast those, you have to put those in the oven and roast them. They’re
delicious that way.
E: You did that in the summers?
A: No the fall, they were growing during the summer.
E: Then you went to school? Did you go all the way through high school?
A: Mhm.
E: Then what did you do when you graduated high school?
A: I went to grade school 1-6th, down below Birdhaven down further, do you know
where Gerome is?
E: I think I’ve heard of it.
A: Okay. It’s a little town you close your eyes you missed it. We would ride the bus
and up till 6th grade you walked to school. It was called Lindamoot school, it was 16th grade, in one school. Sits on a hill, it’s a house now I think they renovated it. After
you went through that school you rode the bus to Mt. Jackson. I went to Triply High
School.
E: Then what did you do afterwards?
A: Well to go to high school I had an aunt and uncle and they had 2 children that
lived in Mt. Jackson so I could go to high school it wouldn’t cost me anything I stayed
with them and worked at their house. I did housework, I ironed a lot I was
perfectionist at ironing. Give me a white shirt, I love to iron. I would do their
bathrooms of course so I could earn my way to school, and that’s how I got to high
school.
E: That’s awesome. Then after high school what did you do? Did you still live in the
area? Did you move?
A: I moved from town to town I think because I was dating then, and that’s when I
met my ex-husband, that’s a story I don’t tell. So anyway it was a good life.

E: You said you moved back here from Pennsylvania, what made you move to
Pennsylvania.
A: My husband drove a tractor-trailer; they had a station in Verona that’s just before
Staunton, of course we lived up there for awhile because it was close to there work,
wherever they got located you had to move too. We lived down here until nineteen
ninety--- I can’t remember it now, but they moved from Verona which they call it
Staunton down to New Market. Do you know where the Pidthen home is in New
Market? They called it the Pidthen home, it is now a—down on the left it is now a big
huge place up on a hill like I think it might be a care place for older people I believe. I
haven’t gotten into much of the town to know where exactly things are because I’ve
been busy. When the relay station came to New Market then we moved back down.
We lived in New Market we lived there we lived in Strathmore for 7 years before we
were transferred to Pennsylvania. Now another station a relay station for the
trucking company, its called Mason and Dickson, went up to the outskirts of
Pennsylvania—Harrisburg, we lived at Strathmore then, do you know what that is?
Strathmore farm is? The B and B breakfast. Do you know where Cover Bridge is?
E: Yes Yes.
A: Around that turn after you come out of that bridge was, what we always called it
the Strathmore house. They have now made it into a B and B, but I believe they’re
closed. We lived there for 7 years, while the men mostly stayed up in Verona in
hotels. That’s how we got to Pennsylvania.
E: Well do you have anything else you would like to say?
A: I can’t think of a thing until you get down the driveway and I’ll think I should have
told her that! Well leave me your phone number and your full name and I’ll call you
if I think of anything else.
E: Yes of course just let us know.