S: my what?

S: Edwin Smith

S: April 23, 1912

S: Huh?

S: Uh Right here

S: I have to look I keep forgetting

S: No I’ll get it right here, see if I know it 7…756-4461

S: Yeah?

S: What I was doing while I was growing up well I didn’t go to the war into the service, I went in 1943

S: So that’d be uh 1912-1943 I’d be thirty something when I went into the service 28 or something like that

S: I wasn’t married no

S: And I didn’t get married until I met my wife there when I was 40 years old

S: She was 40 at the time too and we had our first child 2 years after we were married I got a job I’m going back now after I went to the service and you want before

S: My home address was uh 100 Hamilton Street Worcester

S: That’s where my…yeah, where my folks lived

S: My occupation? I didn’t have no steady occupation

S: Until I went uh I went to uh training school to learn how to run a (?) that’s a

S: uh (?) you know using different metals and things like that and I wasn’t working but a going to school and (garbled) felluhs that worked (garbled) general electric down in Lynn (garbled) and see If they get a job the salary was more than they paid ok so I went to and they say you wannuh come and I say sure I went down there and they asked me what I did and I said I learned to run a (?) in trade school sure enough they hired me

(laughter)

S: when you got to the machines you are supposed to have a toolbox yuh know with (?) and things like that so Charlie Bullgrady was the foreman and like a straw foreman in the department I went (garbled) where’s your toolkit and I reach in my back pocket and pull out a 12 inch scale and he says that’s all you got and I say you didn’t tell me I needed all these tools so he says I’ll tell you what I’m gonnuh do see that toolbox over there that’s mine he says you could use it but nobody else (laughs) so I didn’t have to buy any tools

S: so I went to work with general electric and I worked there from…from almost I forget how may years maybe 2 years something like that then the service and I run the (?) so there was drafting and people were going into the war so the foreman down there says what’s the matter with that (?) you there was a draft and if your number was selected and you had to report to them and they defer you if you wanted a deferment about 3 months 6 months foreman (garbled) what’s the matter with your board up there we tried 3 times to get you deferred because that was a big plant down there making all kinds of what you call war materials and company wanted to give me 3 months of what you call…deferment yeah a 3 month deferment and the company I worked for they wouldn’t deferment so I was drafted from General Electric I (garbled) I went into the service in 1943 now that was when Hitler was still in power and one of the greatest military armies that ever was assembled (?) yeah sure enough I went to Fort Devons in MA I forget where so I was in the service (?) had to be perfect shoes when they come to my shoes they say we have to wait for your shoes I say why what’s the matter with them and they say you’ve got a very narrow foot so you can’t go ‘til we get the right shoes so I stayed up at Fort Devons maybe for about 3 weeks before they got my shoes and they draft I mean after that I got shipped out to Brooklyn Field Mobile, Alabama for basic training so I shipped from Brooklyn field where I serve my what’s it called Basic Training wannuh know anything about my Basic Training I mean my army experience

S: I lived with my sister,

S: She was my father was still alive then (unclear) he was oh he was 70 yeah (?) worked for a company called [Brilliant Knights] on Franklin Street in Worcester they were made belts and everything for machinery you know big belts (?) it’s not even (garbled) my father worked there and I lived with my sister and she had well she had 3 children but they were all grown up you know one of em living at home there was…he worked on a railroad at that time and the other one working here and there and the youngest one I don’t know what he did…

(laughter)

S: so…

S: let me see, I didn’t have no city girl at the time I did a lot of sports played tennis football baseball any sport I was really good at and just so I worked oh and in 1929 that was during the depression I nobody had any jobs or anything you were lucky tuh in fact men on the streets selling apples for a nickel a piece and I was didn’t have nothing to do but play baseball and tennis things like that you know

S: In fact I they used to say what can you do well I can do any job and this friend of mine says would you like to become a mason tender, well you have to mix sand and cement and carry it into plaster that wall cemented by men with plaster and I have to work 8 hours I mixed in what they call mixing bed just put so many shovels of sand to a bag of plaster and I had these two men going I mixed up and then carried what they called a hog, hardest work I ever did in my life we’d jump on a big square where the plasterers were working and they’d put it on the walls and in them days the walls would have framework and what they call laz and some of em was made of wood not most I should say all and they brought in what they called wire laz and you could just nail them up and then take the thing and plaster it up and then introduce 2 uh what they call browning coat and then they come back and do the finishing coat and the plasterers they were pretty good and they had a big what they call a straight edge and they put the straight edge and draw it down like that and (unclear) put it on a tray and (unclear) put that straight edge it’s supposed to be very straight and they put it up there and if they see any light coming through they put the plaster up too so they put that straight edge right on there and they were pretty good, they come along with a thing called vermiculite and um it was (unclear) bags filled with little pebbles light as anything so instead of having the laz the uh sheets they put this uh vermiculite and the plaster oh it was light as a feather made of I don’t know what the vermiculite was made of but it was very soft and so many pebble sin a big bag oh that was a picnic compared to mixing

S: I worked at uh I worked with different (unclear) there was a contract where we do a house one man I forget how many years he worked at Holy Cross College you know you still got the Field House up there

S: We worked there in fact they were building it then and the uh… the plasterer I was working with an Irishman…(unclear)…I said to the felluhs workin’ there how much do you get? And he says we get a dollar and a quarter I say you what?! You get a dollar and a quarter? Oh (?) Hey Jimmy these two ordinary helpers here get a dollar and a quarter an hour. I says you’re only paying me a dollar ten so I say you pay me a dollar and a quarter or I’m quitting so he (unclear) so I quit and I was around for a while and George Pratt he was a Scotsman and went with (?) George Pratt had a job (?) downtown and that was his pet project and we went by (unclear) there was a city corner exchange and Min had a canopy yuh know and the plaster underneath there so the Scotsman say to me you mind if I ask how much they pay you and I says a dollar ten and he says what?! I say yeah that ‘s why I quit him he says the basic pay for tenders is a dollar forty an hour and you’re getting it now, that was a thirty cent raise

S: Hm?

S: Yes, it was.

S: Hm?

S: Well my sister, my father was working at the time and I don’t know how much they paid but we lived on Hamilton street on the second floor and I really don’t know what they paid because I came home and pay them ten dollars (unclear) and I don’t know what they I now when we first live don Cohassit street my father’s uh the rent at the time was fourteen dollars a month

S: That’s pretty good so we lived on Hamlin street then we moved up to Plantation Street that was a little higher (unclear) then when I turned to the service my sister and my father moved to Hamilton Street…

S: What?

S: I do not know too much about rationing because I went into the service but I guess right before…that was 19… right in the middle of the depression…that’s when I got out of high school I got out of high school in 1931 and the depression started in 1929 that’s when I was right in the middle there was no jobs to be had and my father was working but he was getting a small pay maybe 40 cent s an hour and he had a hard job oh lord he used to work at the place they called the… (unclear)…the uh big uh pit they get the (?) from uh (?) bundled rope and all depends what kind of (?) it was and then they take the hide and then put it down in these baths for so long and there they use the hides and everything to make belts and natural what they were known for oh he had a tough job

S: Pear Harbor? No wait yes I do I think they hadn’t bombed Pearl Harbor at that time I don’t know do you know what date it was…

S: Well ok I really don’t know much about it whether they bombed it while I was (unclear0 I don’t know I can’t tell you much about pearl harbor…

S: What?

S: Well we didn’t know why…no we… we had …the army and you could enlist if you wanted but I was drafted in 1943 I wen up to Fort Devons and so I don’t know much about Hitler but we were read you know and things like that and Professor Goddard you know about him a professor at Clark University

S: And he was one of the first professors that had rocketry you know? In fact there’s a golf course out in Auburn it’s called the (?) it has nine hole course and on the ninth hole they got a monument you know sticking up from the ground saying this is where the professor conducted his experiments on the rockets because you know they didn’t have the big rockets like the Germans but…they he had a stand and iron frame about 6 or 7 feet high and the rocket right in that cradle there and he set it off and it goes up in the air pretty high but that’s where he conducted his experiments but he was known as one of the first people in the US to…rockets, the Germans gottuh give it to them they smart they knew they could use rockets you know so for …imagine Hitler they came up with the what do you call it the bus bomb a bomb that they built with a motor in the back and wings like that so that it would be airborne and had like a dynamite thing so that it would explode so we got over there and we could here it puh puh puh puh and like we says okay you get three warnings how close it was and the last we go to air raid shelters because they didn’t know where it was going with that motor started but they could see that plane coming out from the rear and the bus bomb and (?) had what you call a little spitfire oh it was great.. airplane…young kids… 19 could fly um and they could see the bus bomb and then they get up under the wings and then that would make the bus bomb follow you onto open land so it wouldn’t land where the people were at but then while we were uh the Germans came up with what’s called a tightened missile it was a rocket they put uh they started in some kind of (garbled) disappear (garbled) it’d come down in London I remember going to London one day, I went the next day and the building was completely gone

S: (garbled) that bus bomb I mean the we call it the B2 um in fact when they had trees in uh the army out wherever they have…(unclear) that’s when you get old you lose your train of thought

(laughter)

S: I learned a lot about the war after by reading you know because I was very I used to love to read I’ll never forget when I was younger used to be paperbacks and you could by them and I’ll never forget the name was Burdell Sanders and he used to write about 2 brothers uh Dick and uh Rick and uh well they they attended Yale College and uh… There was another author...I don’t know, he wrote about Tom Swift and this young felluh that was supposed to make this and that (unclear) I’d, we’d trade them one I read for one I hadn’t read…

S: Oh yes some of my fiends I went to school I one of the friends I had he died a couple of years ago he lived here too they both worked at the Worcester Post Office and uh…(unclear)…Timmy Flemming and Floyd and we used to go up to St. Stevens church on a Thursday and we played Pitch you know and we...I used to drive Flemming up there until one night it was so raining I was scared I could barely see you know so I said Timmy I’m gonnuh I can’t drive I’m not gonnuh drive anymore I’m too dangerous so I used to drive in the daytime until just a little while ago before I came here had an accident fell down and I hadn’t been I mean Timmy no Dennis (unclear) went up there but I told him I had to quit because of the weather he had a friend Jimmy Foley he worked in the Post Office too so he used to pick me up and drive me up there so I played and… until I fell and broke my knee cap and didn’t go up there anymore and I don’t know when that was

S: Which one do you mean the US government or just local

S: Well…this was before the war… I wasn’t working at the time and I tried to get a (unclear) you had a US State representative put your name on a state list

S: So there was a friend of mine…he… he was a state rep…could get me a job got me a job during the summer working 5 weeks but I wanted a job I wasn’t working just hanging around so I went I told a friend of mine gee I would like to get on the safe and he said well didn’t jack help yuh and I didn’t ask him and he says come on with me so he took me down to an office on Franklin Street and there was uh the head of that part of the (?) people and Jimmy told ‘em gee this kid is tryin’ to get on the state and (?) representing’ and he said yeah and he picked up the phone and he said I want to talk to Paul called him the by the first name and he said well when he comes in you tell him to call me to tell the guy call him and I got on the state yuh know I worked on the state I don’t know how long so many years I get them mixed up

S: no I was, my parents were all born in England, my father mother and I had I had uh 3 brothers which 1 I never saw I guess he died in England and brother Jack, William and my sister and we all lived in, and my brother Jack he was married and my brother Stanley he lived with us and I don’t know when he married a girl in (?) and so that meant me and my sister and my father and her (garbled)

S: Yeah pensions in them days I think that like the telephone company that was a good company to work for now (Brilliant Knights?) I don’t know if they had a pension plan my father worked until I was in the army I guess …(?) in fact the girls used to work for the telephone because they had a pension plan but there was a lot of factory work they didn’t have a pension plan you know they had no Medicare or anything you had to pay for all that yourself

S: No no no there was all kinds of people Irish French Lithuanian all different backgrounds

S: Yeah it was quite a neighborhood I mean there wasn’t so many English people but my father was one of them and there was a lot of Irish up there and there was Italians and French predominant thing was and Irish and Italian

S: Oh yes well sometimes no I can’t say there was any friction between the Irish and and…we got along pretty good in fact up in at that time Hamilton Street, Building Square and all of Plantation Street and (?) Ave and (?) Ave was all called (?) and it was Grafton Hill and it was supposed to be… if you came from Grafton Hill you were supposed to be tough you wouldn’t take anything from anybody where you live Grafton ill they leave you alone.

(laughter)
I: ok so do you remember when Franklin Roosevelt died do you remember…

S: Yes, I do.

S: (pause) I do remember (unclear) I remember he was a great president everyone thought he was a great president I remember the retirement plan he was the one that brought that in and he died while he was in office I don’t know when he died that’s when Truman was vice president at the time and that Roosevelt I consider two of the best…and I remembered uh… Truman uh Roosevelt died during the war and Truman was the president and we didn’t have them bombs when we had what they called the atom bomb and this was big bomb America had and no one else had and they had these experiments out in…(?) and they had the bomb and Truman had to decided whether they could use this bomb or not and because you drop that bomb and a big cloud would rise up and then things within how many miles just burned them and everything so he had to decided that’s when we were fighting Japan

S: no we were fighting England no that was uh in Japan somewhere

S: They gottuh decided where to use it so they chose a little town where not too many people would be killed you know and (unclear) they dropped that bomb and whatever people there I’m sorry but if I don’t the way we’re going we’re gonnuh lose a lot of Americans so he was the one who gave the orders to drop the atomic bomb and he I guess he dropped two of them one was (?) the other I forget the cities but then shortly after that the Japanese (?) because he couldn’t…kept dropping these bombs…I remember seeing a picture after the atomic bomb was dropped a girl running down the street with her hands up no clothes on the bomb had been (unclear)….that was terrible

S: Well I don’t know whose got the bomb? I don’t know the question of who has the bomb cause soon after the war Russia Stalin and Hitler Mussolini they were the leaders before the war started and of course Hitler was the one who declared war on parts of (?) oh what a picnic he had went through those lowland Belgium and things like that no opposition but the English people uh had sent over to France I guess there was uh (?) who declared war against Hitler because losing my train of thought…

S: Well it wasn’t Roosevelt then it was uh

S: Well it’s hard to say but he did it and says if I don’t do this he says there’s going to be a lot of soldiers killed….

S: Well yeah in a way I do because after all the (?) they were really they need to do something the Japanese might have won that war because they had that big navy and what they call the fighter I forget the name of that…

S: What airplane though I forget the name there was (unclear) we went to basic training we went to uh Fort Charter out in Missouri and so the we didn’t know what they were going to send there were different satellites telephone and pilots you know and they instructed us if you become pilots at that time there was what they call the P51 it was fastest plane there was yuh know and the Germans no not the Germans the Japanese had this what’s the name of that and they could maneuver very (?) yuh know and so the guy says if you become pilots and you are fighting the Japanese I forget what they called you have to (?) because the planes they would fall apart but maneuverability (unclear) if you miss him just take off because you can outrun them but you can’t outmaneuver them but they had these you know people who crash into the buildings fighters they’d aim at whatever big target they had and commit suicide like a big warship you got these planes they were killer you could shoot them and they’d fall apart but….

I: Right so I think we’ve covered just about everything um do you remember how you stayed up current events before you went to war did you um listen to the radio to get the news…

S: Newspaper

S: Newspaper, in Worcester there was the (unclear) Worcester Post and the Telegram and Gazette no there was no gazette they only had the Telegram in the morning and the evening post like in the afternoon and uh I had a hundred customers all during the week except Sunday Monday-Saturday 2 cents a paper if you had a paper route you could sell it yuh know because you had a paper to (?) …I’m quittin’ so what you wannuh do give me so much money I learned that you could make more uh like a dollar a day up at the Worcester Country Club that’s a golf course and it’s still goin’ on (?)…you go up there and they…

(At this point I run out of tape and take some written notes. He went to Commerce high. He talked about women who played at the Tatnuck County Club; you had to be very wealthy to go there. Also talked about the poem he wrote about meeting a girl in England that he broke up with when he met his future bride. He allowed me to take a copy of the poem.)