Helen Granger Boss - Special Collections - University of Baltimore

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BOSS; 056 1:2:17
I was a mean kid, an ornery kid, a scrappy k.id. I admit it. I've got a
lot of penance before I ever leave this world. I hope the Lord will let
me stay to do them. I really was somebody like that••• and rough as could
be••• always down around the river and half the time my mother didn't know
I was there. I take the children now> when I see them running sort of wild•••
One of them went up to the swimming pool a couple of summers ago and the
screen around it was raised up from the bottom. He went up there with two
brothers and crawled under that screen and was drowned. They say the mother
was home in bed. Well, my mother wasn't home in bed. And my mother didn't
drink, for that matter. I'm not bragging about it, I'm just saying she
didn't know half the time when I was down the river.
Kupchyk: What did you do down at the river?
Boss: Walk around down there••• One morning, I remember to this day, it
was on a Monday. MY mother was washing. She washed in the back yard with
a tub and a board. This fellow that I knew that tended to the boatyard
he was my older brother's age and my brother was five or six years
older than me. So I went down. The tide had come in and my brother's
boat had been washed up. The bow was up on the wharf or on another boat
or something. I called to him and said, "Charlie, look, that will dry
out in the sun today." He said, "You stand on that back end and I'll
hit this and we'll get it off there." He did -- me and that boat!
Well, I wrung my clothes out. We only had to come up past those
two big lots. I guess I didn't meet nobody until I might have got to
that 2100 block that did have houses on it. We had a side gate, naturally,
so I come up and gathered this dress up and wrung it out down there by
the river. That's the kind of little girl I was.

BOSS; 056 1:2:18
I walked up the street and I said to Charlie, "Don't you tell
Frank that I fell overboard because I don't want him to tell my mother."
So I got up there, it was real early I guess it was about 10 o'clock on
a Monday. So I went in the front door and my mother was in the yard.
We had a side gate, but I wasn't going in the side gate. I went up­
stairs and wrung the dress again as much as I could, and spread it out
under my bed (we all had wooden floors then) and put on another dress.
MY mother didn't know that I ever fell overboard.
Kupchyk: Whew, close call!
Boss: Close call, it was! Boy, I'd have got it. Then one time later
when we were young girls, teenagers, we worked over at this cotton mill.
And there were two belles that used to work there with us and they always
dressed nice. When we'd go over across that river from down at the big
hill there at the foot of Charles Street. We'd go over there in my
brother's boat. MY older sister would take us. You could pull up on
the shore like that and sit there. Back there they had a stage and tables
all out there. You could sit there with your boat pulled up on the sand
and they wouldn't say anything to you and you could watch the show.
Which we did.
So we used to tell them about how the show was and how the girls
danced and sing. It wasn't nothing, everything was tame to what you see
now days, but they were real people. So they wanted to go. We said,
"We'll take you." I got Charlie, this fellow, to lend me the boat.
could get the boat, but I had to get a pair of oars so he loaned me the
oars. Irene and I, we took them over. When it was time to come home, we
got in our boat, my brother's boat, and we come on across the river and
I

BOSS; 056: 1:2:21
Street. When the car come down it went through here and the beer garden
was over here. But if you wanted to go to Ferry Bar, that fifteen minute
walk would took you right down to the bar.
Kupchyk: Where would you sit and watch the baptisms?
Boss: Well, see down here these two hills were like this -- one on each
side. This was where the car would come through. Down on this side of
this hill, not in the gulch, but over on the other side•••
Kupchyk: The other side where the streetcar wasn't running.
Boss: Yes and more to the water. It was more flat land. The colored
people that came with them would drive their wagons on the flatter piece
of stuff and that's where we would sit. Up on that flat ground with the
hills behind us. That's where we would watch them. They'd pull their
wagons up there. They could come through the gulch and when they got to
this lower part, they must have got off someplace to where they got to
flatter ground, they would park their wagons here. They'd have (in them
days, everybody mostly made homemade ice cream) and they would have home­
made ice cream and cakes and sandwiches and meat and all. They'd have a
regular party. I don't know where the men would dress when they'd come
there. But they would come with a minister with this white robe on. He
would get in the shallow water when they first went in and he'd wet their
hands. Two men (I don't know if they were both ministers or if one
just helped him) they would take this person. They were mostly men in
their (well, you never could tell how old the colored are, I can't) so
they would lead him out into the deeper water and the minister would pray
for him.
Finally he would go on with the baptismal ceremony and then push him
down in the water and bring him up again. And then bring him up the

BOSS; 056 1:2:23
Boss: Today. But you never heard them call these children down or
nothing and there never was anything like that. Nobody bothered you at
all. Only thing, the time they had the baptism, the sun was going
down. We were sitting on the hill like this and the river down here and,
of course, that's the west and the sun would be shinning. There would
be a lot of sun in the evening, if it was sunny at all. Sometimes they
didn't stop at all unless it was a downpour, I guess. And then they'd
have their feast.
That was a nice thing. I don't know that they ever had it anywhere
else, but I know that they had it there, because we went there.
Kupchyk: What do you remember of Frog Island?
Boss: «chuckle» Oh, that was •••• I remember plenty because that's just
where I lived. This girl's father, Irene's father, kept a concession
across the river and his place would be just about where the new hospital
is -- the South Baltimore Hospital. He had a concession over that and
this was where he would be. This, say, would be Ferry Bar. Up this way
on the other side of the hill now I'm talking, up on this side was
another•••park. This was Johnny Klien's Park.
He's the one that I said that my sister used to take us and bring
the boat up on shore. They always let us sit there and watch the show and
all. Then you walked up through the grounds and you come to Kirby's
II Park. Mr. Slagle, Irene's father, had this concession up there where he sold
clam chowder, crab soup, and steamed crabs and live clams and things like
that. No shrimp. We never heard much about shrimp in them days. But
he was up here. Over here across the water above the Bar••• Say this is
Ferry Bar sticking out on the west side of the old wooden bridge. When
the tide was low, you could see all the sand on the bar. It was just

BOSS; 056 1:2:24
like a point sit out on the bar. Then the bridge started right here, the
old wooden bridge. On this side was another pavilion, on the east side
of the old bridge, and that was Carl's Pavilion. A man was telling me
the other day, he said, "That was an expensive place." It was open
Saturday and Sunday, but the beer that you bought was like fifteen cents
a bottle. The men mostly went to the cheaper places. Anyhow, the bar
sit almost this close to•••in fact, a lot of the sand was of that right
under that old bridge, the old wooden bridge.
The wooden bridge didn't open like a drawbridge does now up in
the air. It spun around on a plot of ground and sat over top of that
plot of ground that had flowers growing on it and a man living there••••
Kupchyk: So it swung sideways?
Boss: It swung around. Say this was the piece of ground and this was
this man's home here, Mr. Marshall. (I worked with his daughters and
knew him well. He had three daughters.) He lived there, this Mr. Marshall,
and he had like a turn thing. He had to turn it when the bridge••••He'd
bring it around and it would sit••• It wouldn't sit down on his ground, it
would just sit over top of it. His place was left all right until that
boat went through and then he'd wind it back so it would be across the
water.
Kupchyk: So it did kind of go sideways?
Boss: It went sideways instead of up. You can use your imagination, but
that's how it was anyhow••••and that went over to Brooklyn.
Kupchyk: What else do you remember about Frog Island?
Boss: I don't know whether I told you or not, I walked on frogs.
Kupchyk: Tell me again.
Boss: Irene used to take her father's dilLner over there on a Sunday.

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BOSS; 056 1:2:25
Her mother would fix his dinner and we would walk down there. This Mr.
Drum over here that Mr. Slagle worked for -- this Mr. Durm had his boat­
yard here and that's where you could get the launches to go over to this
Kirby's Park. Up here was Charlie Durm's. He had boats where he would
hire them out. He would hire a launch out or you could get a launch up
there.
Then up there when I said that you went through the Dead Man's Gulch
and got out here••• and this beer garden was over here -- Tod's Beer
Garden. There was a lady named Miss Lizzie Flood. She lived a couple
doors from me down there in the big house. She had a man working for
her and they used to hire out boats to get across there. Still you could
go up in town and come around in the stretcar to get over there, too.
There was three ways of getting there••• about four ways to get there.
So this day•.• every Sunday she took her father's dinner. We'd go
down here to Mr. Durm's, down here to this lower part because her father
had his concession down here at Kirby's. We'd go across there. We'd
wai t and the man would take us in the launch. We'd go over there and
walk around through them there places down here to where they'd have this
show. Then sometimes we'd be in here like, go right over here. And
we'd walk around and this place here didn't have any show. He had a dance
pavilion.
Kupchyk: What place was this?
rooD Boss: Mr. Kirby's. This was where Mr. Slagle worked -- where he had
his concession. People from down near Klien's would walk up there and buy
crab soup and clams and steamed crabs and things like that. It set a
little out over the beach -- not the water, over the beach like. This
evening it had been an awful storm. It thundered, it lightened while we

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BOSS; 056 1:2:26
were over there. Her father said, "Don't go home yet, wait until it
stops." So we did. Then we walked down here to Mr. DurIn's place•••
We walked down here where the boat comes in, like a stage and like that.
We walked down there and stood on there and waited and the launch would
come and pick us up and take us back across the water. This storm had
been in progress before that, but it was clear then. The sun was coming
out, like about now.
We walked through these fields which we always did. But, ye gods,
did I tread on frogs! I said to her, "Let's get out on Light Street
where then! s a little bit of pavement." I think these frogs have mostly
fell where the sun had draw them up. They say the sun draws them out
of the pond and then they hatch in the clouds. Then they fell down and
we were treading allover them in this grass. And you felt terrible.
I wasn't that big-hearted or sympathic that I wasn't afraid to kill a
frog. I never killed a frog, but I mean I wasn't happy about walking on
them. At the same time, oh, it's a nasty feeling. So we got out where
we would get on a little bit of a pavement. We figured that there
wouldn't be as many out there because there hadn't been no ponds there
that they dragged them up out of.
Kupchyk: What did you think of the noise all the frogs made?
Boss: Oh, did I love it. I remember. I said I'd love to live there now
and let the frogs sing me to sleep at night. I would. In that old back
bedroom where we lived in the corner house and all them lots was in the
back of us and all. You'd hear them frogs making that noise. Finally
you'd wake up and there in the middle of the••• say about eight o'clock
in the morning or so in the summer when the frogs were out, you would

BOSS; 056 1:2:28
They had a sort of a building there, I don't know what they used it
for. But I know when I was a girl, about eight or nine years old, I
saw Houdini get out of his workings down there. They threw him overboard•••
wasn't many peo:yle there at all. Even then (I was little then) I thought,
gee, any other time there'd be a big crowd here, but it wasn't. They
put him over in this trunk. Us kids, we had no other••• outside the movies
when they came along and they were a nickel •••but outside that•••we
didn't always have a nickel to go to the movies. But I say, I often
wondered why there wasn't more people that day and he was going to perform
like that. But I was real•••I knew he wasn't coming up. «chuckle» But
he did.
That was our Sunday walk, you know, over the Light Street Bridge.
They started building the new bridge -- the new Brooklyn bridge now, or
the Hanover Street bridge in 1917. That was started because it was
right before my father died. Now see, that was all boundary down there
where you could look across to these summer resorts where they had the
show and they had the dance pavilion and all and Mr. Kirby had the stage.
Naturally, he had an orchestra there, people would dance to it. That
was his amusement, more or less, because you could go to Mr. Slagle's
for beer and other refreshments. But then when you came down he only had
the stage and he sold fish sandwiches and things like that. Now on
this side of the bridge•••
Kupchyk: Which side was that?
Boss: On this side of the new bridge, Hanover Street bridge, this is
Cromwell Street, the lock insulator's way here almost at Light Street•••
Kupchyk: At the north end of Cromwell?
Boss: No, at the east end of Cromwell where the jerkwater came through

BOSS; 056 1:2:29
and where right middle way you come to the GuJ.ch. This was the Gulch
right here where you come into it. And on the other side of it was
Jake Snyder's. That's a big important thing because Jake Snyder was
there for years. He sold fish sandwiches and he had a bar. He was on the
west of Cromwell Street alongside of the new bridge.
Kupchyk: The new Light Street bridge?
Boss: No, the new Hanover Street bridge. The Light Street bridge was
the old bridge. And Jake had that place there. You say -- what bounded
it? There were these shore homes where people went in the summertime.
Down here further was another place called -- the fellows called this
woman "Mom McMaho:n;' her name, I say Mrs. McMahon-had another place
like that. But I don't think she cooked. She just sold beer and other
things like that.
((end»

Kupchyk: Why did they call Bill Bailey "Peg Leg Bill"?
Boss: 056 1:1:14
Boss: He had a wooden leg. This thing fit up around his thigh, or it might have been
around his knee, I don't know. When it got down toward his foot it had a point on it like
part of a broomstick. -- about that big around -- that was put on right under the knee and
that was what he walked with. He didn't have a cane or anything. That was as good.
I know that artificial limbs must be a whole lot better in this day and age, but that's why
they called him "Peg Leg Bill". But they mostly called him Bill Bailey, but he was "Peg
Leg".
Kupchyk: Did he play the piano?
Boss: No, but we had a man there that did play the piano. That was a crippled man. He
used to play the piano at the saloon down here. I showed you where. We turned the
comer and I said my son owned the house. Well that place down there was called
Pierson's, Charlie Pierson's (yes, write that down). He was a big fixture in this vicinity.
Kupchyk: Why so?
Boss: Well, he had the largest glass of beer in the city for a nickel, that's true, and he
had a crippled man there named ...Gil Turner. This Gil Turner used to play the piano,
and he used to play this song, because he came to our house one time with my uncle, my
mother's step-brother.
Kupchyk: Let me stop and turn the tape around.
Boss: OK
((END TAPE I SIDE 1; BEGIN TAPE I SIDE 2))
Kupchyk: Yes, I noticed you recorder when I came in.
Boss: Anyhow, this Gil Turner. . .I don't know whether Gil was crippled or just had an
artificial leg or anything, but he played the piano. I think he had something wrong -­
whether he could walk with a crutch or what, I don't know.

BOSS; 056 1:2:15
He came here with my mother's step-brother, Edward, the one time. He brought him
there to play the piano and he used to sing. He sang this one song called "I Can't Change
It". I don't remember all of the verses but "I Can't Change It", "I can't change it" was at
the end. This fellow had gotten married and at the end it said,
"It was a great surprise to me.
I had half a woman and half a tree,
but I can't change it, I can't change it.
"But maybe someday I'll try.
I'll chop her up for firewood
in the sweet by-and-by."
And he used to sing that song, and for me it was real funny, of course I was only a little
bit of a kid then.
Kupchyk: Was this inside of the bar that he would play this?
Boss: He would go in there, but this night he came to our house. I guess my uncle said
to him, "sing 'I Can't Change It' " and, no doubt, that's how I got it, because I could
hear it and then know it. As a child it just run right through my mind like water.
Kupchyk: And you still remember it.
Boss: Lord, yes. In kindergarten where I used to go over across that big lot from 2048
South Charles Street -- this was the end of2048 South Charles Street and this as all that
big lot in front of me -- I'd go over there and cross Light Street and this little Mission sat
right over there. I didn't go into the Mission because I was Catholic. I did go to the
Mission but I used to go to the 9 o'clock Mass at St. Mary's ofcourse, I had to; if you
stayed home you got your head cut off. Anyhow, in the afternoon they had 2 o'clock
service in this little wooden church, this is on Sunday. I used to go there because kids
in the neighborhood would say, "Miss Haddie says to bring you too because you sing ­
you come over to the Sunday School", and I did. I went there on

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BOSS; 056 I:2:l7
I was a mean kid, an omery kid, a scrappy kid. I admit it. I've got a
lot of penance before I ever leave this world. I hope the Lord will let
me stay to do them. I really was somebody like that•••and rough as could
be•••always down ar01,md the river and half the time my mother didn't know
I was there. I take the children now" when I see them rnnnjng sort of wild•••
One of them went up to the swimming pool a couple of summers ago and the
screen around it was raised up from the bottom. He went up there with two
brothers and crawled under that screen and was drowned. They say the mother
was home in bed. Well, my mother wasn't home in bed. And my mother didn't
drink, for that matter. I'm not bragging about it, I'm just saying she
didn't know half the time when I was down the river.
KupChyk: What did you do down at the river?
Boss: Walk: around down there•••One moming, I remember to this day, it
was on a Monday. MY mother was washing. She washed in the back yard with
a tub and a board. This fellow that I knew that tended to the boatyard -­
he was my older brother's age and my brother was five or six years
older than me. So I went down. The tide had come in and my brother's
boat had been washed up. The bow was up on the wharf or on another boat
or something. I called to him and said, "Charlie, look, that will dry
out in the sun today." He said, "You stand on that back end and I'll
hit this and we'll get it off there." He did - me and that boat!
Well, I wrung my clothes out. We only had to come up past those
two big lots. I guess I didn't meet nobody until I might have got to
that 2100 block that did have houses on it. We had a side gate, naturally,
so I come up and gathered this dress up and wrung it out down there by
the river. That's the kind of little girl I was.

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