Marion Hand Marker and Al Marker

Sandy Hook, Gateway NRA, NPS
An Oral History Interview with Marion Hand Marker
Daughter of Weather Bureau Meteorologist Clarence Hand
1930-1940
And husband Al Marker, former Army laborer 1942-43
Interviewed by Elaine Harmon and Tom Hoffman, NPS
March 30, 1989
Transcribed by Mary Rasa, 2011

Wagon with school children in front of U.S. Weather Bureau Building at Sandy Hook, c. 1930.

From left: Western Union tower and residence, U.S. Weather Bureau and U.S. Coast Guard at the tip of Sandy Hook, c. 1930.

Women posing in front of U.S. Weather Bureau c. 1930.

Aerial view of U.S. Weather Bureau, Coast Guard and other structures at the tip of Sandy Hook, c. 1940.

Photos courtesy of NPS/Gateway NRA

Editor’s notes in parenthesis ( )

Elaine Harmon (EH): (Tape cut off beginning)…and we are at the residence of Mrs. Marion Hand Marker and her husband Al Marker on Shore Drive in Highlands, New Jersey. The date again is March 30, 1989. We would like to just for our information to talk about meteorologist Hand and how Marion Marker came to Sandy Hook at around age 9 and lived there for 10 years. The years were 1930 to early 1940 and Clarence Hand was senior meteorologist at the U.S. Weather Bureau on Fort Hancock. Describe to us what it was like then.

Marion Hand Marker (MHM): Well, I was nine years old when we moved down there. It was in the summer and actually my first impression was of the water and being able to say this is the ocean. And I remember I think it was the second day we were there these two girls came around with a pail of fish. I don’t remember if it is going to be important. And it was Eleanor Gould Henfy and Jesse O’Neill Parker. And they were just kids too and they had on these crazy flowered pants and where I came from in Binghamton (NY) nobody would wear things like that. They said they were beach pajamas. (laughter) Anyway they gave us the fish and that was my first impression of the first people I met and…

Tom Hoffman (TH): What 1930? Okay.

MHM: 1930. The building was a gorgeous building. I would love to have it now. It was a big stucco building. And all the woodwork was oak, heavy oak beautiful old doors, even the baseboards and the staircases. It was a two story building with big windows. There were upstairs balconies I guess you would say over the lower porches and on the back and on front and one side. Lovely basement, Marie had lots of parties later on. And the basement had a full bathroom and a laundry room and a furnace room and lots of room for parties.

EH: Where was the residence compared to the U.S. Weather Bureau Station?

MHM: Well, the offices were the two big rooms across the whole front of the first floor and the quarters were the kitchen and dining room and beautiful butler’s pantry and hall were on the first floor and then we had a big living room and bedrooms were upstairs and a center hall. And, oh dear…

TH: This is the house that you lived in?

MHM: That I lived in, yes. And then you could go up the third flight of stairs to the roof that as a flat roof building. My father had an upper elevation where he could climb up to oil the anemometers.

EH: Your father was Clarence Hand and what was your mother’s maiden name?

MHM: Faith, Faith McConnell.

EH: And how many children were there?

MHM: Four. My youngest brother died while we were there. Two died. I think in 1931 and ’32. My other brothers became meteorologists. One just died two years ago.

TH: Do you want to name names of all your…

MHM: Well, Leonard, Leonard and Jimmy both went to Washington. Leonard was a forecaster and I don’t know whether Jimmy was a forecaster.

Al Marker (AM): Lenny was in the main center of weather down there.

MHM: Yeah. Jimmy was in the Air Corps down there and then Lenny moved out to Missouri and worked with the University of Missouri experimenting with crops, soybeans and cotton and the way the weather…

AM: Agriculture and weather had joined together and don’t tell them they are going to lose their crops. He had a laboratory in a van out there with all kinds of devices. He had a special cotton in Boot Hill, Missouri.

EH: Now you earlier said that your father replaced Mr. Dow in 1930.

MHM: Mr.Dow went to (inaudible) TH: From Sandy Hook and your dad replaced him.

MHM: Yes.

TH: And you were also saying he was senior man at the Weather Bureau.

MHM: Yes. My father was yeah.

TH: Do you recall like how many people worked together at the station?

MHM: Just Kenneth Murray, whose father had worked in the Postal Telegraph Tower over the years before we came here. And there were Coast Guard men who came over. I think they took forecasts. That’s all, my dad and Mr. Murray.

TH: Sounds like it was kind of a small staff.

MHM: It was great. Really. (laughter)

TH: What was your dad like? Give us his personality. Did he like it out there?

MHM: He loved it. We all loved it and he was offered Alaska, Panama, Hawaii and Ashville, North Carolina is it. Oh and another place was Mount Washington and, of course, he wouldn’t even consider. The weather is horrendous up there. But he turned them all down because he liked the Hook so much.

AM: Nantucket.

MHM: Well, that was in later years. When the Coast Guards took over the Weather Bureau building my dad went to New York City. And was stationed at the Battery there a couple of years and then he was transferred to Nantucket.

TH: What was his work day like? They worked during the day like regular hours.

MHM: Yes. No shift work and they were there to report storms. They would run up storm flags.

TH: Because you mentioned the flag pole.

MHM: Uh Huh.

TH: How high was that?

MHM: 80 feet.

TH: 80 feet.

MHM: And probably the pole was higher. And they well, they had storm flags for mostly small craft that they ran into but there were other kinds of gales and things but my dad would get up the morning and he would be in his office about 8 or 8:30. And did whatever weather men do you know periodic forecasts.

TH: And that wasn’t he almost like rolled out of bed, right because you were living practically right next door.

MHM: Yeah. Right. Yeah. No. It was right in the same building.

TH: Oh, you were in the same building. Oh, so it was the same, what we are looking at right here the photograph of the Weather Bureau Station is your home.

MHM: Yeah.

TH: Okay.

MHM: This, these were the offices these two front.

TH: Okay, right in front on the first floor.

MHM: And they had a little lavatory bathroom and this was a living room up to here and then bedroom, bedroom.

EH: You initially said it was a stucco building.

MHM: It was. No. It was stucco.

TH: Covered over.

MHM: With the shiny stones and they replaced it later with another type of stucco.

EH: Do you know when it was removed? This building here.

MHM: When the building was torn down? I don’t know. The Coast Guard used it as a hospital during World War II. In fact, you tell them about your part. (to husband)

AM: I was stationed in Boston going to Radio School the year of ’43-’44 and my mother was a cook for the nurses at the Station Hospital at Fort Hancock. She left the car and got a ride into the Post and I had come in from Boston that night very shortly to get out of Boston 4 o’clock and had to back (inaudible) To make a long story short I went down to visit her and I had something wrong with my foot. It had swollen up quite a bit and when I went to visit her she looked at the foot and she called in Captain (inaudible) and he took a look at it and he said, “You got blood poisoning bad.” Like with all military they’d say don’t look at your face they say lower your pants and I had red lines on the side of my hip. I was in pretty bad shape with this blood poisoning and said I am confined to the Coast Guard Sick Bay. The Coast Guard Sick Bay was her bedroom in her house.

MHM: Of course we never, we met in the 1950s. Never any contact so far.

AM: And I was confined there because they couldn’t take me across to the Naval Hospital in Brooklyn. The weather or something. Isn’t that strange? Never saw her or her mother or father or anything. (laughter) (inaudible) Very strange. I recovered by the way. (laughter)

MHM: I don’t know. (laughter)

EH: What were your other connections? I think your dad was associated to Fort Hancock?

AM: My dad was a plumber under…he did he worked down there. In fact, dad used to walk down from Hartshorne Woods where they lived over here. He would walk down. Terry Martin is the plumber. Terry Martin from Long Branch. He would walk down and get his supplies almost where Borough Hall is in the Highlands and walk back with his tools and hitch hike a ride on the old train that used to go to the Post. One day he told a story that the guy in charge, the conductor said civilians weren’t allowed on a military train. So the engineer said to him, “Eh I’ll let him on. Come here in the cab. You are not going to walk him to work. He’s got a (inaudible).” And he worked on the chapels and many building down there. And he did plumbing. See, years ago you did plumbing, tinsmith, heating (inaudible)

EH: Roughly year roughly would you say?

AM: It would be 1917 because my father went into service in 1918.

EH: And so your mother was you said a cook.

AM: Yes. She was the cook for Lt. Lemansky who was at 40 or 45 nurses. The building was located physically in back of the hospital. There was one or two buildings, nurses quarters. I can’t give you the numbers.

TH: At Fort Hancock?

AM: At Fort Hancock.

MHM: I don’t think they were there when we were there. That was built during the War probably.

AM: No.

TH: This was the First World War?

MHM: No Second.

TH: Oh, second, 2nd World War.

MHM: There were no nurses quarters when I lived there.

AM: No. I wouldn’t make it. No. 2nd World War from 1940, ’41 ’42 in there.

TH: Oh, okay. The wooden barracks that used to stand in back of the Post Hospital, yes. They were still nurses’ quarters.

AM: Nurses Quarters. I remember Lemansky was the head nurse in charge. Then she moved in and she worked for Colonel Beason and Colonel Weaver in the Post Hospital as a dietetic cook. I think one of those men, I think I told you when they closed it down she went to Fort Monmouth. She was a dietetic cook over there.

MHM: Do you get tapes of people who lived up at the point? You know the Western Union people or the Postal Telegraph, any of them, Jessie O’Neill Parker?

EH: I have her.

MHM: Did you get her on tape?

EH: Yes and I have Eleanor Gould Henfy.

MHM: I was going to have Jessie come over here today and then I thought…

EH: No. That would have been great.

TH: Yeah. We should have.

MHM: You have got Eleanor also?

EH: Yeah.

TH: You three are the chums over there.

MHM: Well, they were older than I but…I was always in their hair.

TH: But it was your own little community. Right, because you just have the telegraph…

MHM: And the Coast Guard people, ah huh.

TH: Right the Coast Guard, the Weather Bureau and the telegraph operators and their families.

MHM: Ah huh

TH: It was like your own little community.

MHM: Yeah. We were the civilians.

TH: Did you ever feel isolated?

MHM: Yes. I felt very conscience of the sort of the caste system in the military. Never gotten used to that. You know, the officer kids were sort of separate from the non-coms and yet they liked each other and, of course, we played with all of them.

TH: But still there was the…

MHM: There was a separation. There was a difference. I suppose they had to be because of military conditions and work but I have never gotten used to that.

EH: I can understand it.

MHM: Oh, here is something. Did anyone tell you about the old ordnance minelayers that used to.

TH: We’ve heard of it a number of times. What do you remember?

MHM: Well, we used to go up to New York to the Battery on those.

TH: So, you would walk from the Weather Bureau where you lived.

MHM: Or my dad would drive us down to the docks.

TH: What kind of car did you have? Do you recall what you had?

MHM: My dad was the kind of people who had a car every… as soon as it was paid for he got a new one. (laughter) The first one was a Ford a little Ford and then the next on two were Chevrolets and then he had two Plymouths and I think when World War II started he had a Plymouth which he kept until after.

TH: Did you ever have any problems out there with the car because you were at the tip of the Hook where you probably catch a lot of weather?

MHM: No. We had garages. We all had garages.

TH: Oh, they did have wooden garages, okay. So, you would drive down to the dock.

MHM: Ah huh and in that car he drove us down. We would go to the Battery and then what we do I guess we took subways to wherever we wanted to go.

TH: Roughly how long was it if you could recall? Nowadays it takes just about an hour. Remember we took the boat ride from Highlands to the East River near the Battery. (to Elaine)

MHM: I think it took longer. It took maybe two hours. I am not sure but I think so.

TH: Did it make any other stops being an Army boat?

MHM: No. No. They went directly to the Battery.

TH: Ah huh. No. That must have been a treat so you could go right up to the city. So what would you do? Would you go like shopping or…

MHM: We would shop. We would go to usually the lower part of New York. We would always go into the Aquarium. That was our first stop. You know, we were young girls then. Then we would go up to Wannamaker’s. Wannamaker’s was in existence then. Probably Macy’s I can’t remember.

TH: Probably. Those are the big department stores.

MHM: We went to the ones in the lower part. The real bargain places like Norton’s. Norton I think it was. And I can’t think of the name.

TH: Was Woolworth’s up there?

MHM: Oh yes. But anyway do you remember some of the old shopping places in lower New York?

AM: You got off the boat, the fireboat was always to the left. The aquarium was right in front of you.

MHM: It was on 14th Street.

AM: Klein’s.

EH: Klein’s.

MHM: Klein’s of course. That was the one I was trying to remember.

TH: Were these special trips or did you do it on a regular basis?

MHM: Just when we wanted to.

TH: Just when you wanted to. Was it free for you?

MHM: Free.

AM: Well, they went back.

TH: Yeah. It was the Army.

AM: You got a lot of permission to the Battery was pretty safe up there.

TH: I just want to get back to your building the Weather Bureau. In your photographs it looks quite sturdy. Was it?

MHM: Oh, it was. It was wonderful. It is a shame it had to be taken down. It is like the officer buildings, you know, how beautiful they are. They were bigger. They had three stories.

TH: I know it was. I know it survived World War II. I think it was torn down sometime after World War II. Any idea how old it was? Was there any cornerstone you might remember? Did it look old when you were there?

MHM: It probably was probably the same vintage as the officer and the NCO was…

TH: About turn of the century.

MHM: Probably. And it was see how this small molding is. It was big heavy molding and it was oak.

TH: Yeah. Because it looks…

MHM: And hardwood floors.

TH: It looks pretty sturdy. That’s why.

AM: You have got to remember Tom..

MHM: Oh and we had big glass doors and not only the outer doors but the inner doors were glass doors. The entrance on the side here was glass.

TH: On the porch, yeah.

MHM: And then there was another inner door.

TH: And you could be walking around up on the roof?

MHM: My dad didn’t like us to but we could. This was came up to about here when I was a child.

TH: Oh, up on the roof. Yeah.

MHM: You couldn’t fall off.

TH: Yeah the top of the wall was about…

AM: What about fire place?

MHM: Oh yeah. We had a fireplace in my bedroom as well as one in the living room. They had blocked the one in the living room over for some reason I don’t know.

TH: Yeah every now and again they do that to save heat or try to.

MHM: Yeah. That was closed in but the mantle was still there.

TH: What was the mantles? Were they wood?

MHM: Big heavy beautiful. In fact, I have pictures of that.

TH: Look, if you want me to go up in your attic I will. (laughter) I am kidding. I am sorry.

MHM: Now let me see if I can find a picture of my mother.

TH: Roughly how big was like your bedroom? Was it a large?

MHM: Well, it had three big windows and I mean big windows in all of them, every bedroom. Well, let’s see. It was big enough for a double bed, and a dresser and a desk and you know.

TH: Yeah.

MHM: It was very roomy. It was very roomy.

TH: Was that your family’s possessions or was it provided by…

MHM: Oh, no it was our own.

TH: …government.

MHM: Oh, no we had to bring our own. Yes.

TH: It was all your own furniture. Okay.

MHM: Yes.

AM: Were they hardwood floors, Marion?

MHM: Yes. Throughout, beautiful. I can remember…

AM: They never built anything of a permanent structure unless it was going to last a long time. That’s why that (inaudible)

TH: Yes.

AM: No matter where you go in the government.

TH: Especially wartime when they had to build them fast.

AM: We had seven boarders that rent, stayed with my mother. She rented rooms and things and they were just roofers. (inaudible talking) Let me tell you about up on the hill here. The interlocking of our family and the Hartshorne’s it was Dr. Trask, you know the history.

TH: He married into the Hartshorne family.

AM: His wife was a Hartshorne. That’s right. She was…they tore the old mansion down and that old mansion up on the hill was this thing they put pegs in it. They put bulldozers on it but they couldn’t pull it down. They had to cut it up in pieces to dismantle it.

TH: Because it was pegged together, the mansion?

AM: Yes. Like mortise and tenon with the pegs through it. You know, you can’t do what they do today.

TH: Yes.

AM: Where you pull it together and it all falls apart. And I worked with the Corps of Engineers in the summer of ’42 as a laborer but being I was young they put me on many things. So, I worked for the foreman and I would be like a troubleshooter and I would do anything from run the switchboard, to put out the lights, to work with the steelworkers tying steel and stuff and came that winter and I had to go back to school because I wasn’t of age for the service yet. And I worked that winter for a foreman named Schofield and we poured that thing. We poured like 1500 yards of concrete over like the middle of the magazine. Yeah. They had trees or pulls like this and you could just walk between them. The heat in there was tremendous when they poured it. They built a row and stacks up there and they had their hoppers in there and cement and gravel. The truck would come up and next one around and unload and cycle it like that. And they took a virgin hill and cut it down and made a ramp into it. It went this way into the gun emplacements. The one on this side facing east would be north they hit marl way down on the bottom and they had to dig manually because through the marl because the clam shells wouldn’t even go through it. But when we were digging in the marl, the virgin earth we found tree limbs and leaves.

TH: You mean way down?

AM: Way down.

TH: This was the foundation for Battery Lewis, the 16-inch gun battery.

AM: Battery Lewis, the one on this end. I don’t know what they called it (Gun #) 1 or 2.

TH: Well, if you were looking, if you were out front looking at…

AM: Yep. It would be to your right.

TH: It would be to your right so that’s the north gun emplacement.

AM: Okay. But that was maura and when you dig it delays water and this black stuff you find tree trunks and branches and leaves and that area has never been excavated because my grandfather worked for Benjamin Hartshorne and the Indians still lived on Skunk Hill when he worked for Benjamin Hartshorne.

TH: Where is Skunk’s Hill?

AM: Where the white hornet’s nest is no longer being used up there. Where they had the air drone thing.

TH: Oh, the long range radar complex (Highlands Army Air Defense Site).

AM: Right.

TH: The Missile Master.

AM: Right. Grandpop worked in the house called Portland and I think I told you the story of that.

TH: That’s the…

AM: That’s the Carton estate right now.

TH: Right by the riverside.

AM: Right by the river. He worked there. He said Mr. Hartshorne used to get annoyed because the Indians used to come up and pound on the door and wanted food or supplies. I was told this. I am 64, maybe 8, 10, 12 years of age. I heard these stories from my grandfather. My grandfather was almost 88 when he died.

MHM: There are lots of pictures upstairs in the living room that showed that mantle.

AM: Within 100 years there weren’t any Indians there. They were given the rights when the oldest Hartshorne owned Sandy Hook and everything that side of the hill including the Trask which was one of them, Noonan and the other ones. So it is strange. My grandfather worked in New York. He was a Dane. My grandmother was Irish and when they got employed by Hartshorne he came down from New York and worked for him and on Tanbont Road all my relatives lived because the renegade cousins sold him that road to people not of the family because the family didn’t want to let anything go. So, that was quite a bit of pictures in the old family albums of the Carton home and the history and some other boats and things.

TH: Roughly how far down did you go concerning that foundation?

AM: Oh god.

TH: In your estimate because they had to go a way down with all that concrete that they poured.

AM: The original hill I would say at least fifty foot or more down.

TH: You mean from the surface up there?

AM: Yeah. See it was a hill and we had the house up here.

TH: Right.

AM: Well, to build the guns they dug it out with clamshells. You know, what a clamshell is don’t you?

TH: The old steam shovel.

AM: Well, it drops like this.

TH: Yeah and they grabs, it comes together.

AM: It’s got teeth.

TH: Yeah. Comes together.

AM: They built this opening and then they built a ramp down into it so you could get down to the base instead of jumping in on ladders. And the sod and you got down into it and Dylan Hamstreet was the construction official. Dylan Hamstreet and Lynn Story was the labor foreman and I can’t remember the captain. I can’t remember all these things.

TH: And the mansion stood…

AM: Stood up on that precipice there and they had to destroy it. And the beech trees they had beech trees like this.

TH: And what is that, over four foot in diameter?

AM: They were tremendous. It was a crime to take them down.

TH: Around the mansion?

AM: Yeah.

TH: And the mansion stood where Battery Lewis now is?

AM: I would say so. Yes.

TH: Just right up there because that is the crest of that large hill there.

AM: Yeah because then we had to, see the lower road that went down to the garage and then went down later the Air Force had it all the way over on the cove side.

TH: Down by the river, right on the riverside there. Okay.

AM: Because up towards that dredging we built the reservoir we had to build it there and we built (Battery) 219 but that massive concrete they poured into that I have never seen such a thing.

TH: How long did it take to build?

AM: About two years I would say. They brought in the barrels. I don’t know the history of the barrels if they had been on a battleship or not. The same barrels they used were 16s (inch guns). They come in on two flatcars down there in the Highlands. And they were rolled over on this conveyer, whatever it was. It went under the bridge on the far side and they put in a cap up on the hill to dig in as a dead weight and they pushed them back to get up Portland Road and they brought them up Portland Road.

TH: Godfrey Azoy, Athoy.

AM: Doesn’t strike me.

TH: He was an Army captain. He was responsible for getting the guns up the hill to Lewis.

AM: Okay.

TH: Godfrey Azoy. A-Z-O-Y. Athoy or Azoy.

EH: He’s dead.

TH: He passed away and we didn’t get to interview him.

AM: He was with the Corps of Engineers?

TH: Yeah.

EH: His wife lives in Shadow Lake Village according to George Moss and I finally did get her address to invite her to the Lighthouse.

AM: Those guns, I don’t know if anybody took pictures of them.

TH: They did.

AM: I was always going to take pictures. They were tremendous. You should have seen all these flatcars and I mean in this town it was like a giant…

TH: Movies were made.

AM: Gulliver’s Travels.

TH: Because Captain Azoy told me he even asked me when I first met him at the Sandy Hook Museum he introduced himself with his wife and started telling me he was the captain in charge of their delivery and getting them up Portland Road. He says, “Can you imagine two 16-inch gun barrels being brought up that winding road? I said, “No.” He said, “I am the officer who got them up the hill and I want to tell you something they had movie cameras there. Army Signal Corps filmed it.” He says, “Do you know anything about the films?” I said, “No. This is the first I have ever heard of it.”

EH: Amazing.

TH: So, that I do remember in my conversation with him is getting the guns up there on Portland Road. (laughter)

AM: Its bad enough to drive up Portland Road.

TH: So somewhere if the film survives, there was a film made of it.

AM: I don’t know if they put them in before they put the roof in or not. I can’t tell. But I came back from service, I went up there and they were in place.

TH: Were they still building it when you left for the service?

AM: Oh, yeah.

TH: Okay. So they were still constructing it. Were you…

AM: I remember them hauling dirt from there down to Kingman-Mills. They were also activating Kingman-Mills down here. They were putting all the camouflage dirt and bringing down trees and stuff.

TH: From up here?

AM: Yeah.

TH: From that spot?

AM: Yeah.

TH: From the Trask estate where you were excavating all that went down to Kingman-Mills?

AM: Yeah. I used to drive truckloads of dirt. The second summer of ’43 I went back and I said, you know I don’t want to be a laborer now. So, I took a truck driver’s job. I made 75 cents and hour.

TH: As a laborer?

AM: As a truck driver, 75 cents an hour and you worked, we worked seven days a week. We did camouflage. We dug up trees, balled them and set them there for the winter and got them ready and then when the spring came they were all ready to be lifted up.

TH: What kind of trees?

AM: I don’t know. There was an Irishman that ran the squad up there that picked out the trees and marked them and would measure out by the perimeter dig the trenches.

TH: From up on the Trask estate?

AM: Yeah.

TH: From up of the woods up there growing natively?

AM: In fact, all of the Locust that whole road where you come down that turn there, there is a narrow road we made that wider, very wide and we put in all the honeysuckle. I worked with them on those fences there. Those fences go almost two feet underground.

TH: The Army boundary fences to mark it out.

AM: Yeah. That creosote burnt. We used to wear gloves because you don’t want to get it under your skin.

TH: Because it’s sticky stuff.

AM: We put a fence around it.

TH: Did they, did you, was there shiftwork? Were they building the gun battery night and day?

AM: Yeah. That’s how I got to work on the nightshift because I had to go back to high school. So, my foreman says I can use you if you want to work. So, I went to school in the daytime. I got out at 3:30 and went to work at 4 and I would work 4 or 5 hours, whatever they needed me that night.

TH: And they must have been employing a lot of local folks like yourself?

AM: Yes. Yes. All around the area here. I used to have, I had a 1923 Cadillac. And I said ‘23. And I got the best gas card because they told it had 28 miles a gallon. In a gas shortage and I used to take five or six guys to work with me and that’s how I got the card. I think they called it an A card.

TH: Carpooling.

AM: Or something like that. You got stamps.

TH: Did you bring your own lunch with you?

AM: Yes.

TH: Yeah.

AM: We used to eat in the big tool shed. There was a big tool shed they had there.

TH: It was a lot of hard work.

AM: Oh yes. When you were working construction you always double clothed, double boots, goulashes and stuff.

TH: Well, what time of year, by the way what time of year was this when you were working up there?

AM: I worked in the summer of ’42 as a construction worker doing whatever they told us to do. Like I said, digging trees, digging things, moving. I used to unload steel trucks. I got pretty good at that. They bring in these enormous steel trucks with these big rods on them. We call them rebar today and two guys get on it. Two guys below and you snapped those wires and hand them down and lay them down in rack, number them and all that stuff. Then we were tying steel, making the mesh, the mesh is all about this big and then they would be tying them and the union came along and they used to say we couldn’t do that because we weren’t steel workers. And they got about five times as much as what we get tying steel. So Schofield I told you was the night foreman. He picked me as his trouble shooter, I don’t know, gopher. He said, “Go down and bring up the bulldozer from down below. Bring it up to the reservoir. I got a guy there to grade off tonight.” So, I did that. Of course I wasn’t licensed with a dozer. One guy stopped me one day and said, “Do you have a driver’s license?” I had a government pickup truck and I said, “Yes,” and I showed it to him. He said, “That’s a New Jersey driver’s license.” I said, “Yes.” He said, “You don’t have a government license.” He started giving me, I said, “See that big ugly foreman over there Schofield,” I mean when he barked you could hear him all over the hill up there. “Discuss it with him.” That man never came again. I said to him, “Did a guy come to see you?” “Yeah.” He didn’t tell me what happened but he must have scared the guy to death. Then I used to go in and run the switchboard. The signal people had wires all over. The old fashioned switchboards with the plug ins and things. It was very…

TH: Yeah. Let me just ask one other question… was it good money at that time what they were paying?

AM: 75 cents an hour. I worked in a factory in the hill across the church for a couple of weeks and made $16 a week for 5 and half days and I moved out of there to 75 cents and hour. You could buy what you call Reeboks or sneakers for 69 cents. So if I worked an hour I could buy a pair of shoes. You could buy dungarees with copper rivets for 79 or 89 cents. That gives you an idea.

TH: Yeah. Yeah. It’s hard.

AM: It was good work. We cut down trees we cut up trees we used them for all different things. We did electrical work. I used to work with the electricians laying out wires. I worked with the carbide tips. When we could get wires out, we up the carbide in it stick it in somehow. I used to run the vibrators when they poured cement. They shoved them down to make no holes. You know there could be no cavities.

TH: Let me ask this, the Trask family did they give up their, because that was all their property. Did they give up…

AM: I think the government took it over or they gave it to the government because the 99 year lease was the thing I remember for Sandy Hook. Sandy Hook belonged to the Hartshorne’s. You know that.

TH: Yeah back in the old…

AM: Richard.

TH: Richard Hartshorne got it.

AM: And it was supposed to revert back to him if and when it wasn’t used for a military place that is why I think it was getting hairy I think when the Park Service came in. I think the Coast Guard it’s there. I don’t know how they worked it out.

MHM: But do you think there should be some more out there, some use for those buildings?

TH: There will be in the future.

MHM: You think so?

TH: Yeah. I don’t know what kind or how or when but that is what they want. And they want year round use which is hard in the wintertime. It’s too cold to walk around out there in the wintertime.

MHM: Oh, I tell you we stood it and we lived way out at the point and it was terrible.

TH: Well, how was your building? How was the Weather Bureau? Were you warm?

MHM: Oh, it was warm. In fact, my father liked it too warm really and …

TH: Was it coal burning furnaces that you had?

MHM: We had coal. And hot water, big radiators.

TH: Where did you get your coal? Was that piled in the basement?

MHM: It was in the basement. It was a regular bin. I think it must have been shod in. It had to be.

TH: Coal delivery truck.

MHM: Ah huh yeah. That’s right. It was in the front and it was, I know where it was. There was a stairway down on the outside. And the bin was first and then into the furnace room.

TH: Who got that chore? Was there someone working at the Bureau?

MHM: My father would do it, yeah.

TH: So, it was warm and I guess maybe it helped by having, being the building what again now it was a mixture of…

MHM: There was tile too.

TH: Tiles.

MHM: They ran into problems with the tiles.

AM: Was it red terra cotta?

MHM: Yes. Underneath the stucco. In fact George Ellis.

AM: It was a red tile with multiple holes in it. Reddish in color. They called it terra cotta.

TH: Yeah. I have seen it. We find it.

MHM: George Ellis’ father used to work out there repairing. We used to have leaks.

TH: And who where they?

MHM: George Ellis, Ethyl Ellis’ husband’s father.

TH: Her husband’s father.

AM: The one who had been in the ship with my father.

TH: And they worked out there?

MHM: Well, they would get contracts and do bids.

TH: Oh, contractors to do the work. And you say they were having problems with the…

MHM: Leaks. I remember now in the third floor, up in the…

TH: From the roof. So that was a problem.

MHM: Ah huh.

TH: Besides, you had started to mention much earlier that your dad would raise warning flags on the pole.

MHM: Ah huh.

TH: And of course he had to operate the, what do you call it the machinery, the weather…

MHM: Actually there was no machinery.

TH: The instruments I am talking about. I should say not machinery, the instruments.

MHM: The instrument, the shelter where they read the…

TH: Temperature.

MHM: Yes. The temperature gauges. The barometer.

TH: The wind. Yeah. AM: What do you call the cups?

MHM: The anemometers.

TH: Yeah because your dad is in the picture he is right by the cups yeah.

MHM: And there were cups up on the roof also.

AM: How did the Postal Telegraph, you always told stories to me that they knew one another. Did they work together?

MHM: No. They were just buddies. They were great, great friends.

AM: (inaudible)

MHM: No. No. They were just friends, great, great friends. We were all very close out there.

TH: And I am sure there was record keeping involved right because they had to keep…

MHM: Oh, my father kept beautiful ledgers of the weather reports. Very meticulous.

TH: Yeah, I know that because they are still like that today.

MHM: Do they still have them?

TH: Yeah. Oh yeah.

MHM: That my dad, his entries.

TH: Well, his entries probably ended up if they were saved they might have ended up in the National Archives. The hand written records, they might have.

MHM: Very neatly, and if he had an error some how he would take it out. My dad was a very meticulous man.

TH: Did he ever measure tides because I have come across…

MHM: I don’t know.

TH: That might have been the Geodetic Survey Office though or another government agency measuring tides because I have seen references that at the Army docks there at the wharf they had a tide station to measure the ...

MHM: I don’t think he did. He may have. I can’t say for sure.

TH: But he was probably more with weather with atmosphere.

MHM: He was with weather. I remember when they were in Nantucket he would get so annoyed because they forecasts that they would take would have to be sent down to New York and then it would be published in New York and by the time it got back to where it was supposed to be, the weather was different. It had changed and he would have to put the forecast out that was completely different.

TH: The time factor.

MHM: The time factor. Yeah, it would have to do down to another office and back.

TH: Some things never change.

MHM: I can’t find right now but there is someplace pictures inside of our house but I ran across these. Maybe you have run across these pictures and I have the names of all the people.

TH: No. No. And of the Coast Guard.

MHM: Look at all the Coast Guard at that time. And there is Joan Dempsey up there and her brother who died while they were out there. Where’s Joan’s brother? I think that is Bobby. There was a little girl after that. But this is Nelson O’Neill. That was a Coast Guard boy. I think this was an Army, I don’t know, Skippy, Donny Warren and Skippy.

TH: Donny, Warren and Skippy.

MHM: Oh, Skippy is the dog.

TH: Yeah.

MHM: Ronny Beachum, Sonny Mulhner, Roy Conover. That is the one I was trying to identify. His father was a sergeant out there.

TH: You have got everybody identified. That is great. And now where is that building?

MHM: I think that is the new Coast Guard building.

TH: Which is still there then. Yeah. Yeah. Because they are posing it looks like yeah.

MHM: That’s the new Coast Guard building and these are all the people. There is Captain Morris.

TH: Oh they would get a kick out of seeing them. I would like to make a copy of that.

MHM: Oh sure.

TH: And give a copy to the Coast Guard Commander because they don’t think history but when you present them with an old photograph or somebody who was out there they all get excited and they definitely want to talk to them.

MHM: I am just trying to find things that are pertinent.

TH: Well, just getting back to your dad, where was your dad from? Was he from New Jersey?

MHM: He was born in Pennsylvania and he lived most of his life until he came to the Hook in New York State and he lived in Syracuse, Rome and he lived in Elmira and he went into the Weather Bureau in Binghamton (NY).

TH: Do you know how he found his interest because then your brothers followed him?

MHM: He wanted me to be, to go into the Weather Bureau.

AM: She could have been the first weather woman.

TH: Yeah.

MHM: But I had no desire.

TH: But where was his interest. He was just interested in changing atmospheres or …

MHM: I really don’t know but he was just always interested in it.

TH: And he tried to get you...(laughter)

MHM: And my two brothers are in it. And I would have had to go back to school and take Physics and Chemistry I guess and I wasn’t interested at that time but both of my brothers did and they both went higher than my dad.

AM: (inaudible)

TH: What was your dad’s routine? Like when he got up he had breakfast and..

MHM: Well he had to. They took forecasts I think every eight hours. Eight, four, eight, I think it was just three times a day they took a forecast.

TH: Yeah during the day.

MHM: And I don’t know what exactly except weather work, you know.

TH: And he just wore the civilian clothes, like in the pictures you have of him here.

MHM: Oh yes, ah huh. And there was enough work for both him and Kenneth.

TH: Did he have any interest in Sandy Hook like…

(Tape end and starts with a new conversation. Looking at photographs)

TH: Was that a Ford?

MHM: I don’t know.

TH: Was that a Ford V8?

AM: Looked like a Plymouth. You could tell by the knob in the front.

MHM: Yeah, my dad had a Ford and he had a couple of Chevys. My dad changed cars every…with my mom it was a bone of contention in our house (laughter) every eighteen months I think. He and Mr. Vann had both, competed with each other. Oh, here is a good view from the back beach, from the ocean beach. That’s a good one.

TH: Okay, yeah. That’s looking back from near the ocean there. Towards…priceless.

MHM: This one was from more out. And this one is more toward the point.

TH: Yes. Looking from the point back towards where you are living. Look at, that has all changed.

EH: It reminds me of a sort of like a desolate feeling.

MHM: It was but you know I loved it.

TH: Could you, like we can see today we can see the sky scrappers?

MHM: Oh it was maybe something I just took for granted. The sunsets were gorgeous. Just gorgeous. Best place in the world.

TH: Still are. You know when you were living there they were building the Empire State Building. It was being built when you were at Sandy Hook. And can you remember what you said? You said oil tankers used to come around.

MHM: Oh yes. They were right there. They were so big, they seemed so big and always we saw all sorts of shipping going through.

TH: Any like Navy ships, like U.S. Navy?

MHM: We saw the fleet come in in the early ‘30s. I think it was maybe 1934 when the…

TH: When the battleships...when we had a battleship Navy.

MHM: Ah huh and remember when the fleet came it?

AM: Around ’34.

TH: Yeah. You said that yeah.

MHM: In fact George Ellis’ mother and another lady came over to watch it with us. This is one of the O’Neill boys. This is Billy. He was in my class in school.

EH: Now who were your immediate neighbors? Remember we talked about the Gould’s and the O’Neill’s is that correct?

MHM: Yeah. The building right next to us on the other side, the Coast Guard was on the other side, one side and ones next to us were VanCott’s, then the O’Neill’s and the Buono’s. They were Western Union people. Postal Telegraph people were Mr. Gould and Phillips and oh and Mr. White.

TH: In that building there for the Western Union? That’s the Western Union Telegraph Tower on the right. There is a building next to it.

MHM: Oh yeah that must be it. It wasn’t joined. I thought they were together but maybe not. They must have been separate. Must have been the Phillips and the White’s and the Gould’s. I thought were there at the same time if my memory is right.

TH: Yeah. The Gould’s were there for a long time.

MHM: They were there and the White’s, Johnny White. And Mr. Holts was the captain of the Coast Guard when we first went there and Mr. Moran came, George Moran. We used to play on the batteries, the old batteries and roller skate where we could, of course, it’s all full of sand. There was a sidewalk along our house. We used to roller skate on that which was a, and then we would skate down on the Post.

TH: Around all the yellow brick buildings?

MHM: Those little sidewalks, yes. And also at the old batteries along the beach. They are all broken down now.

TH: Yeah. The old concrete gun batteries.

MHM: We used to go and play theater in those places.

TH: Theater?

MHM: Yeah. Because you could go around the base of the gun I guess it was and it was like a theater. We had more fun.

TH: Yeah with the steps, yeah.

EH: I remember Eleanor Henfy described Sandy Hook as a big playground to all the children on the Post.

MHM: It was. It really was. Tennis and swimming.

AM: You gotta remember Sandy Hook was a restricted area. You just couldn’t go in there.

MHM: We used to ride bikes all over.

AM: So they had their own private thing in there.

MHM: We would play tennis in the morning, swim in the afternoon and do whatever we wanted to do there.

TH: Well, your dad enjoyed fishing and he could probably just walk out to the tip.

MHM: Right. Put our bathing suits right on and go out to down to the beach.

TH: Where would you swim?

MHM: In the bay.

TH: In the bay. Yeah, where you could walk right on the bayside there.

MHM: We used to seine for bait and sell it to the fisherman.

TH: Really? Where would the fishermen be? On boats?

MHM: In front of our place towards the point around there was a dropoff from the beach and they would cast from the beach.

TH: Surf fishing.

MHM: Surf fishing. And we would get bait and take it and sell it all. And it was great and I had beach plums that were bitter sweet, bayberries, holly, we had access to all of that, lovely.

TH: What would you do with the beach plums? Would you make jam or…

MHM: My mother did.

TH: She had her own secret recipe like everybody seems to have. (laughter)

MHM: I don’t think it was.

TH: Yeah. It’s kind of basic, yeah.

MHM: I don’t remember. I never made it.

TH: But she did.

MHM: Ah huh and we had lovely she always had bittersweet and bayberry bouquets in the house.

TH: Would she go out and pick it?

MHM: Ah huh. We could pick that but we weren’t allowed to pick the holly. They would bring it to us, you know.

TH: What about poison ivy?

MHM: All you wanted. (laughter)

TH: Did you get it?

MHM: It’s worse now. No. No I didn’t get poison ivy too much.

TH: I guess kids being kids, some of the other kids…

MHM: My brother when they went out, in fact there is a picture of him in here camping with the Boy Scouts. They went out and were pulling poison ivy with their hands. It was so blistered.

TH: And back then about the only thing would be calamine lotion?

MHM: Probably. I was never, I can’t see bothering poison ivy but Lenny was.

TH: By the way you mentioned when you roller skated down to into the Fort Hancock area, did you play with the Army children too?

MHM: Oh sure. They were all…

TH: Boy, there must have been a small Army of children.

MHM: We were but there was nothing for us socially out there but playing together.

TH: Just playing together. And kids had bikes I am sure.

MHM: We all had bikes.

TH: And scooters.

MHM: Probably

TH: You managed to get around even if it was by walking.

MHM: Oh, we walked.

TH: Your neck of Sandy Hook was a lot more remote. You had farther to go.

MHM: But it wasn’t…

TH: You didn’t as a kid, yeah, it was your playground.

MHM: Yeah and…

TH: And nobody would come by and tell you to get off the gun batteries?

MHM: Never. Never. We were never restricted. That I know of.

AM: Your father would just give them a bad weather report. (laughter)

MHM: No. No. No. There was no restrictions.

TH: How about school?

MHM: We went to school I think it was in the old 7th building, battery. It was the big long (Building 102, formerly the 7th Coast Artillery Barracks)

TH: The red brick barracks. The 7th Coast Artillery, yeah.

MHM: And Pearl Murray and Miss Shelly and Peggy O’Keefe Conover and I can’t remember the other one’s name were our teachers.

TH: Where abouts were the classrooms in the building? If you went through on the main porch on the front porch.

MHM: The main porch, Miss Murray, Miss Shelly had the farther left room and she had when I started there she had 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th. She had four classes you know because there weren’t too many of us.

TH: Yeah. So everybody in those classes she would teach all together in the room.

MHM: Yeah. Yeah. And she was good. I mean we thought she was. And then the little children, Mrs. Conover had over to the right. I think she had Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd.

TH: Yeah, the younger.

MHM: No. She must, Miss Murray had the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th then I think when the third teacher came the 4th went in with her, the 3rd and 4th. I am not too sure. But we had the lower floor.

TH: The first floor where you come in. And what grades did you attend there?

MHM: When I came I skipped the second part of the 4th. I went in the 5th to the 7th.

TH: And that Pearl was your, what was she like? Do you have…

MHM: She was lovely, lovely lady and she had a great repartee with us all. I remember I cut my hand on the door. I had rubber soles and the door didn’t have a guard on the window and I remember I slipped on the wooden floor and put my hand through… my finger permanently. And she would go up every day that I had to go to the hospital to have it dressed and learned a lot about her there.

TH: In the hospital in Fort Hancock?

MHM: Ah huh. And they brought in this surgeon to do my hand.

TH: They had to stitch it and...

MHM: Yeah. I had cut all the tendons. Cut all around this way and they operated on it again but they could never get it back right.

TH: I just want to ask you did Pearl live there?

MHM: She Pearl lived in Highlands. Her father had been in the Postal Telegraph Tower in the Highlands here.

TH: Oh, up at Twin Lights.

MHM: Ah huh and she was secretly married at that time. I guess her parents didn’t want her to be married and she was in her early 30s. Anyway, it all worked out.

TH: You are lucky. Secretly married and teaching.

MHM: So, yeah.

EH: You later went on to work in the library, is that right?

MHM: Yeah.

EH: How old were you? How old were you?

MHM: When I graduated from high school, 17, 17 years old. And Colonel Samoney was the Post Chaplain and he asked me if I wanted to do that. Maybe I should have gone off some other place and gotten a job but I liked it so I did that.

TH: You mean the Post Library at Fort Hancock? Where was that now? Where was the library?

MHM: It was, it became the Post Exchange during World War II. It housed the Barber Shop, the Library and the old Gym and then the Bowling Alley. (Building 70)

TH: Down in the basement yeah. Is that where Max Duze, was he in that? No. He had the laundry, he was further…

MHM: He had the tailor shop.

TH: He had the tailor shop. Okay. One of the barbers was Louie Brignola.

MHM: Louie Brignola and he and the father.

TH: Yeah. He is till around. We interviewed him like we are interviewing you. Yeah.

MHM: Where is Louie?

AM: He lived in Long Branch.

TH: Yeah and then he moved away. He moved to Florida and he didn’t like it and he came back.

MHM: Louie came back.

EH: And I was told by one of his relatives he moved a block away from his former house still on Washington Avenue. We are looking at a receipt, January 29, 1949 with a letter head E. Zoller, Z-O-L-L-E-R and son. Sold to Mr. Al Marker Jr of 62 Sea Drift Avenue, Highland, New Jersey, Building T-259. That part thereof 25 feet 4 inches wide and not less than 42 feet in length. Price $750. Then it describes end gable will be dismantled in sections and placed on floor of the building. Also two additional single windows will be supplied. Electrical equipment in the whole of T-259 will be supplied to be removed by Mr. Marker. This building is sold on an as is where is status. Removal time of February 15, 1949. Inclement weather will extend this date by mutual agreement. Signed Alfred W. Marker and R. …

TH: Can’t make it out but it says Zoller and son contractors Whitman Road in Saratoga Avenue, Huntington, Long Island, New York.

AM: They were the people who bought vasts amount of and destroyed them for lumber and took them away.

TH: That was the era because we were, America was deactivating going surplus.

AM: There was nothing wrong with the buildings. There was just a T (Temporary buildings built for the War) it was tenth for ten years. Of course, they have got some in Monmouth that were 30(years old) I remember working in and they didn’t remember what the T was for. I used to keep documents. Yeah. I moved it for how much, $350. De Lucca, he was the house mover that moved it for me.

TH: Was he local?

AM: Oh, I went through 9 different house movers. I kept all my records of building that building.

TH: That’s great.

AM: My payments and stuff. Many, many years ago.

EH: How marvelous.

MHM: You know it’s been so nice of Eleanor and Jessie and well Dottie isn’t here anymore. I sometimes think when you are in a group..

TH: Oh, the memories. Yeah.

MHM: We used to play, they had playhouses we used to play paper dolls and things in their back yards.

EH: Eleanor described it to me. She said there were like orange crates and that was your furniture. And paper dolls out on the beach and to entertain yourselves you had to find your own entertainment. There was not like television and video games and all the other stuff we have today.

MHM: Yeah. Yeah. But my parents used to have parties. And well we all went to each others houses and we played Monopoly.

TH: I am sure you had a radio. You had a radio out there and you would listen to all your favorite radio programs.

MHM: My father did. He loved the Lone Ranger and the Witches Tale and all the things and I don’t remember them all, Amos and Andy.

TH: And you socialized like you said with people living right up there could socialize together.

MHM: Yeah, we had nice times.

EH: I just realized we have to go. We have Florence Adaire waiting for us and she said to say hello.

MHM: Florence Adaire, oh.

EH: Can I use your phone just a minute?

MHM: Oh course. Gosh, I had some other pictures. We will get together again. There is Mr. Dancott. That is not a good shot of him in my father’s office. There is my dad. This is in Nantucket. He was a really nice person. He died awfully young. He was only 60. He had retired.

(Tape skips)

TH: And you dressed up there.

MHM: No. There is my brother Jim and Donald Moore and he died. This is Coast Guard boy. I forget his name. This is Kenneth Murray’s mother. I have nice pictures of her. She lived until she was 92 and Kenneth…

TH: I’d like to see this one.

MHM: Oh there is Jessie and her mother-in-law and I don’t know who they are. This was a pony they got from Chincoteague one of the wild ponies they got in a round up.

TH: Really?

MHM: The Moran’s got it.

TH: The Moran’s of the Coast Guard got it and brought it.

MHM: They had a rooster. He was a son of gun. You had to watch for him. He would chase you. This is out on the skating that was Bill Talley. That’s the tower. (inaudible talking in background.) There is my dad.

TH: That’s great. There’s your Bureau. Is that the side of it there?

MHM: That is the back.

TH: Oh, that is the back.

MHM: That’s the coal. That is the driveway that had like a round turn around. The coal must have been shot down in there. My mother had this decorated so nicely. She liked to do things with plaster of paris, you know, and making, she had a Japanese garden out there and fish netting and it was kind of nice.

TH: It looks like it could be a sun porch.

MHM: It was it was very sunny. That is Cale Rinner. That is Billy. Oh, this is the Boy Scouts camp on the Hook.

TH: Oh really when they had the Boy Scout Troop out here.

MHM: That is Clifford Simpson. I think that is Ray Conner. I am not sure and there is Nelson O’Neill. There is Jessie’s Jean. There is Jessie and Lee, the one who was killed. And the little girl and there is Cale Rinner and Mrs. Moran and Billy Talley. We had such good times on that pond. And that is looking up into the tower.

TH: That is a neat one.

MHM: Now, these are all Binghamton but that is the type of work my dad did. I think they really didn’t want to leave the Post. They had no choice. TH: Where is that now, when you had a hurricane here?

AM: I think this is Donna. This is right here in the town. You can recognize some of the places.

TH: With the high water.

AM: High water was right out here. They were landing in our yard in boats. The water was from here you couldn’t see the Hook or anything.

(talking about irrelevant topics)

MHM: I remember the Schmitts, the Scotts, the Baileys.

EH: We met the Bailey’s.

MHM: You did?

EH: The Post Surgeon’s family, Kitcheon Bailey.

MHM: Well, no these were officers, he was a doctor. I don’t know what his rank was probably major. That was Margaret.

EH: Yes, Margaret Bailey. We met her.

TH: Don’t start. Now you are getting into other things.

EH: Margaret Bailey Morganther was her married name. Morganther and the whole family, yes we met them. We tape recorded them all.

MHM: And the Stout’s. The Stout’s were non-coms. Billy Stout and the Conner’s.

EH: You talked about the Connett’s, the Bonnets.

MHM: Oh yeah we were great friend. They came to the, I think they replace the Phillips. The Razga’s.

EH: You knew Claire Razga Steiner. Was that her name?

MHM: Eleanor.

EH: Eleanor Razga Steiner, okay.

MHM: I’ve got pictures taken at the last reunion we had there and I wonder if she was alright.

EH: I haven’t heard from her. But we know of Al Germaine who was a frequent guest of the Razga, Uncle Louie Razga. He always talked about. Al Germaine and his brother were frequent guests probably at the same time as you. Did you know the Simpson family well?

MHM: Oh very well. We all got along we always did. They were very good friends. They were older than I was. (inaudible talking) The Simpson family had a lovely garden. They also had a turkey and one was a thick tom turkey. We would try to sneak through the yard you know going from their house down to I guess it is Magruder Road. I can’t think of it now. He would chase us.

AM: My grandfather worked for another family. This is Ben Hartshorne’s recommendation of my grandfather 1898 for the employment when he left.

EH: (reading recommendation) “Otto Marker has been my employee nine years as butler and leaves now only because of a complete change in my household. He is respectful, obedient, sober and honest.” Signed W. Hartshorne Highlands, New Jersey, October 1, 1898. That is incredible.

(talking about things irrelevant to interview)

EH: We neglected to give the date of birth for Clarence Hand as being 1898, March 25, 1898 and then he died in 1960, October 9th, 1960 and where did he die?

MHM: He died at his summer home they had. He retired to go fishing. They had built a community club, a lakeside club and the men had some left over dirt, gravel and cement so my dad thought he would put it down in the cellar of the little summer home they had and it was too much exertion I think and he took a sudden heart attack and died.

(tape stops and restarts)

EH: Clarence Hand born 1898 died 1958 which is the year Marion and Al Marker were married.

END OF INTERVIEW