Howard Herron Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

Howard Herron
Q: Cantata?
A: Cantata. They'd have everybody speak a little piece. I guess they
still do it.
Q: Did you have a special Easter dinner?
A: Well, no, at home we did but not at church.
Q: Did you have traditional ham?
A: Oh, yes. Oh, I don't know about that.
Q: Did you color eggs?
A: My mother used to color eggs. They'd get sassafras roots and color
them, used the roots to color them.
Q: What color did you get from sassafras?
A: Beige, browns and some other kind of weed they got they used for
coloring, I can't remember. I know, well, it was just first one thing
and then another.
Q: What were 4th of July celebrations like when you were a boy?
A: Now you're getting to where you're coming into the Auburn's Free Fish
Fry. They used to have the biggest affair here. We had ten saloons and
nine churches and they had a big platform built in each corner of the
square. And they bought fish by the ton, and they'd build it, and they'd
fill it with lard, and they'd fry this fish. And you'd come and get all
the fish you wanted for nothing. The saloons furnished the money and
Auburn had a band. They didn't have a high school band in them days,
they'd have just an ordinary band with different ones around town, taught
themselves mostly. They could play pretty good and they had outside
entertainment would come, actors and tumblers and things like that. And
I remember the people would come here and they'd bring, oh, from Virden,
Thayer and Waverly, they'd bring a wagon and bring their tea and hay and
corn for their horses. And they'd sleep under the wagons, and they had
their own blankets and stayed for the three day fish fry. All free.
Q: Three days?
A: Three days and before the fish fry we'd get in cars and they'd take
the band. And I always went with them and we had a billy goat we'd take
along too. And we'd get off in a town and we'd parade and tell them all
about the fish fry and us kids, we'd go along. We had a little fish
about this long out of cardboard and a string in there with a loop and
we'd hook that on to all the cars and it was in every business house
about the Auburn Fish Fry. And I remember the tumblers would be on one
corner and on one they had a tall pole. They set it up in front of the
Nazarene Church or just about in front of it and I forget how tall it
was. And they had a cable run from it to the northwest corner of the
square and this Okay Stewart was his name, and he got on this platform