Charles LeRoy Lewis - Special Collections - University of Baltimore

LEWIS; 099 I:2:34
Very nice boy; Mrs. Robey deserves a lot of credit. Frank
wasn't a college man - he was a self educated man and he done
a lot for our neighborhood . . . a lot for it. ~ u t he was
one of them that run it, but it was an attempt just one of
those things didnt t work at that time.
Harvey: What was it, food?
Lewis: Food, yes . . .all food, strictly food - no furniture
nothing like that. And it was strictly food, and they were
these - they might have been there longer, but I would say
three or four years at the most,that they were down there
and they were very nice. Will Martin, he married Daisy-
- my grandmother she was an orphan my grandmother raised her,
Daisy . That's why I know them so w ell, and I knew
Will so well. Daisy died a good while ago - Will ain't been
dead too many years.
Harvey: Will Martin - he's dead.
Lewis: Yes, he's dead; so's Frank Robey. I didn't know
Heath.
Harvey: O.X. . . . one last question. Maybe we can wrap it
up with this one. Why do you think the m ill owners had these
places out here?
Lewis: Had what places?
Harvey: The m ills.
Lewis: The mills . . . well, in them days the mills had to
depend on the water. Don't forget, those mills operated on
water as well as they did on steam when they first started out
- it was practically all water power. And naturally they