Howard Herron Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

Howard Herron 2 2
Q: A rod or a guide?
A: You didn't have a wheel to turn.
Q: Did it have a top on it?
A: No, yes, no, it didn't either. It didn't have a top. I think I
lived in a wonderful age and I suppose you and other children or kids are
going to see more than I ever seen because you can't stand in the way of
prosperity, progress. Because well, everything, I seen the horse and
buggy go, I seen the automobile come, I seen the radio come, I seen the
television come, I seen them go to the moon, or the planet up there and I
guess I've seen quite a bit.
Q: Yes, you have.
A: And you and a lot of people your age. You'll see a lot more stuff.
Q: It's hard to imagine.
A: Yes, you can't stand in the way of progress.
Q: Well, let's go back again a little bit to springtime when you were
little. Do you remember what Easter was like?
A: Oh, yes, we just had Easter eggs, that's about all that, and we all
went to Sunday school of course and that was the birthday of Christ or
the Resurrection.
Q: Yes, did your mother have a new hat?
A: Oh, yes, my mother, she made hats.
Q: She made hats?
A: Yes, my mother was a good seamstress. She made hats and she was a
good and wonderful cook and she always had some kind of a doings around
Easter.
Q: She designed her own hats to wear to church?
A: She designed them and she made them and sold them. She made all our
clothes until we came up here and I had my first "boughten," first pair
of "boughten" pants and oh, I always thought that was the finest thing I
ever had. Because she'd take Uncle John and Uncle Bill's suits and she'd
cut them down and rip them all up and make me and my brother a suit of
clothes just like she could anybody. She could sew, in them days, they
had to do that.
Q: In church, did you sing?
A: Yes, we had Mrs. Hedrick, I told you about her. She was my Sunday
School teacher and they'd always have an Easter Cantata or something like
that, whatever you call it.