| Mary Lou's Father
Venedocia, Ohio, Si's Home Town
Len: The first thing I am going to ask you, Si, is, how old
are you?
Si:
March the 28th, I was 87 years of age.
L: Where were you born?
Si: Venedocia, Ohio, in Van Wert County. Read
about Venedocia's rich history.
L: Tell us a little about what it was like when you were a
boy. How big was the town?
Si: The town consisted of one street, running north and south,
and two streets crossing it. The cross streets were very short,
and the main street would probably take about five blocks
in an ordinary town, city today.
L: Your father was postmaster, is that right?
Si: That's right. He was postmaster in '96 until about the
time that he passed away. It was a Republican town, and we
had two Democrats living in it, and [laughs] it was
easy to make sure that it was a Republican postmaster.
L: Was that his only job?
Si: No, he also. When he came to this country, he went, he
expected to go into farming. And, early on the first year
that he was here, he had an accident cutting corn, that made
him stiff legged, and he couldn't do the work that would be
required on that leg if he were a farmer. And he took up harness
making.
L: Is that why they called him "Saddler" Evans?
Si: That's right. And I was Little Saddler. That was my nickname.
L: Your father's name was David Evans. Wasn't there another
David Evans in town?
Si: Oh, several of them. Yes. He had no middle name, so he
was David Evans, and he took the name Jennings. He was living
in Jennings Township, and he took the name Jennings, so he
became David Jennings Evans.
L: How many of you were there? You and your sister Alma?
Si: That's right.
L:
When you were a boy, did you do a lot of work around the house,
that kind of thing?
Si: I was an expert dishwasher. And the only fights or scraps
I can remember were between my sister and me as to which one
was going to wash the dishes. Neither one objected to washing
the dishes or drying them, but we did to monkeying with the
pots and pans, and if we could shuffle it off on to the other,
that's what we did. Of course, we took care of a lot of things,
like preparing kindling. Everything was burning wood at that
time, wood or coal, and it required kindling every day.
That was about the extent of it, until I was about 15, 14
or 15 years of age, I went out and worked on a farm during
the summers, and received a man's pay for it. I did a man's
job, too. [Laughs].
L: What kind of school did you go to?
Si: We had a grade school that was located right by the house,
practically in our yard. There were two fences that I had
to jump over to get into the school yard, with an alley between
those two fences.
L: How many students in the school?
Si: That I don't remember, but it was a two-room school.
L: Did they have a high school?
Si: It became a high school about the time that I was [text
missing?] stayed in the eighth grade for. They didn't have
grades in those days, but you took the grade school branches
and after I had completed what would be the eighth grade two
or three times, they had high school, a two-year high school.
L: And how old were you when you left for college?
Si
goes to college
Si:
I wanted to get the inscription on a certain widow's tombstone
for her son when he died. It read, "My life has been full
of trials and tribulations. As for my future, God only knows."
And I made the trip, I was going to have a picture of that,
because I knew the boy, he [inaudible]. But the tombstone
was weathered, and you couldn't get a picture of it in any
description. It ws soft stone that had been worn away by the
sands beating on the tombstone.
L: [inaudible]
Si: Yes, because they didn't, didn't treat her son right.
And that where she got the idea.
L: What did she mean by that? What was the situation?
Si: Nothing. [Inaudible]. He was a little... Well, I
won't say that. I was going to say that he was a little off
the path, but I don't know.
I don't want that to get out, you know, in Venedocia, because
some of his relatives may still be living there. I don't know.
L:
What's your first memory, the first thing you can ever remember?
Si: Oh, I don't know. It seems to me I didn't. I just knew
everything when I was born. [Laughter]
L: You probably did, too. [Laughter]
Si: Oh, I couldn't answer that question.
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