INTERVIEW WITH EDNA MEYER AND RETHA (BOLDING) BEVERIDGE ________________________________________________________________________ An interview conducted by Jerry Abbitt with long time friends, Edna Meyer and Retha (Bolding) Beveridge. Edna graduated from Glendale High School in 1918 and Retha graduated in 1926. They were interviewed on four different days, May 12, 1992, May 18, 1992, August 6, 1992, and August 28, 1992. UV: [Inaudible] JA: What I got out of that was that George Vancil? RB: Vencil. V-E-N-C-I-L, Edna, or S-I-L? EM: V-E-N-S-I-L. [Glendale City Directories list the name V-E-N-S-E-L.] JA: S-I-L. Okay, now start with him. He got a pair of peacocks? EM: From a Mexican woman. JA: Okay. EM: His aunt, Emma Wilky (who was also my aunt) wanted the first pair he raised. So he raised a pair and gave them to my aunt. Then he decided to sell the remaining pair and mother [Clara E. Wilky Meyer] bought them from him for $5.00. JA: What a buy! [Laughter] EM: Because he wanted a gun. JA: Okay. EM: When Mr. Vensel brought the peacocks over their legs [were] tied together. When he took the hen out of the buggy she flopped and broke her leg. My mother was very upset about that. My dad [John J. Meyer] said he could fix it. He splintered her leg and that was the beginning of the peacock flock. She got well. JA: She got well. Hobbled around a bit? EM: Oh yes, she was able to hobble and fly onto the roost but she was lame. But that didn’t keep her from raising a big flock of peacocks. JA: Okay. RB: Edna, at the most (that you had when I was young), how many peacocks would you say that you had at the time? 1 EM: I wouldn’t know. Oh, I would say maybe fifteen or so. RB: Yes, I think so. EM: But when I cooped them up (when Jimmy rented my place) I think I put about sixty in the coop. RB: Oh really? JA: Wow! EM: I had a big long coop for them but one by one they died. RB: How did your dad happen to send peacocks to Obregon, the president of Mexico? EM: I don’t know exactly how that happened. Somebody in Phoenix [Maricopa County, Arizona] who had government connections down there [but] I don’t know just who it was. [Inaudible] JA: Where was Obregon at? In Mexico City? RB: Mexico City. He was the President of Mexico. JA: Do they still have descendants from your peacocks? EM: I don’t know. RB: Jerry, when I was in Mexico in 1970 we went to the palace and there were peacocks on the grounds in Mexico City. JA: I’ll be! RB: So not until just recently did I know that Mr. Meyer had sent the peacocks to Obregon. But I would say that those that I saw on the grounds were the descendants of the Meyer ─ EM: Oh, I didn’t know that. RB: ─ peacocks. EM: I am learning something! RB: Yes. JA: That is fantastic! EM: I remember him building a crate for them. He had to put them in a crate. 2 JA: Do you know about what year that would have been? Or even [what] decade? EM: Oh goodness, it was before 1910, I’m sure. I was quite small. JA: Okay, so just for the completeness of the story here on the tape. The [Louis] Sands purchased a pair [of peacocks] from your parents and that pair was the start of ─ EM: I suppose so. JA: ─ the [ones] that were at the Sahuaro Ranch. RB: Yes, because Mr. Sands’s sister (at that time) owned the Sahuaro Ranch and undoubtedly, got the peacocks from her brother. [Charlotte Sands Smith purchased Sahuaro Ranch in 1927. She went the Chicago World’s Fair in 1930s and purchased three peacocks, a cock and two pea hens. She gave little ones to her brother and they were at Manistee until after the grandchildren and friends shot them with their air rifles. Sahuaro Ranch peacocks are not descendents of Meyer’s peacocks.] JA: Oh? RB: Because I can remember when the peacocks came to the Sahuaro Ranch. JA: Okay. RB: I couldn’t have been over eight (maybe) at that time. We would go out past there on our way to swim in the canal. JA: Did you swim in the canals a lot? RB: Oh, yes, we had what we called Glendale Beach? Hasn’t anyone told you about that? JA: No. EM: It was right below our house. [Laughter] JA: No kidding? Tell me about it. EM: That is the reason that I know her [Retha] so well. I remember seeing her when she was a little girl. RB: [Laughter] EM: My mother wouldn’t let us go swimming. It was unsanitary. She didn’t want us in that dirty old ditch. 3 RB: Up on the Arizona Canal (above the Sahuaro Ranch) there was an area that the men of Glendale cleaned off the bank of the canal [and] put sand on there. [They] cut steps, now this was before APS [Salt River Project not APS] cared what you did ─ JA: Yes. RB: ─ particularly at the canal. They cut steps in the bank of the canal so the ladies could be led down into the water. We kids just jumped off the bank into the canal. They made ramadas. It was a regular place where you went in the summer. JA: No kidding? RB: Yes. EM: Oh, I thought those steps were for the dogs to get out [in the water]! [Laughter] RB: [Laughter] JA: [Laughter] EM: I know they have steps on by the CAP [Central Arizona Project] for the animals to walk out. JA: That is right. I have never heard anyone talk about that. RB: Oh, really? JA: That is fascinating. RB: Lot of the people from Peoria [Maricopa County, Arizona] would come down and picnic. It was great! The Fourth of July and different holidays [like] Memorial Day. You went to the cemetery and then you went out to Glendale Beach and spent the rest of the day. These ramadas that they built (just the framework) they used the fronds off of the Washingtonian Palm [trees] to cover and make shade. We went there very often in the summer. EM: Did you ever heard of very many getting drowned? RB: No, no. EM: There is another thing. RB: Edna ─ EM: Nearly every day someone else gets drowned. 4 JA: Yes. RB: Edna, the only child that I can remember (in my lifetime) [drowning] down at Glendale [Beach] was the little Payne boy that lived at the corner of Lateral 18 and C Avenue. [59th and Myrtle] The Payne’s, there was Marvin and Norman and John Payne. [Gordon Albert Payne, son of Leslie Marvin and Josephine Payne died of accidental drowning on November 20, 1922.] EM: Yes. RB: Their little brother (one of the little [boys]) drowned out there in front of the house. And that is the only drowning that I can ever remember. EM: Across from the high school, weren’t there some people by the name of Thuma? RB: Yes, Thuma. EM: Didn’t a little Thuma child drown in that ditch? JA: Yes. RB: Yes. JA: I was interviewing Frank Thuma and he didn’t tell me how she [Harold Webster Thuma died of accidental drowning on September 28, 1918] died but that she [he] died right there. RB: Yes. EM: She [he] drowned in the ditch. I remember ─ RB: That is right. I had forgotten about the little Thuma girl [boy.] EM: ─ a little boy who lived on 67th Avenue off of Indian School [Road], a little toddler. [He] got away from his mother and walked out in to the ─ RB: Canal? EM: No, the stock pond, the cattle pond [inaudible] to drink. [He] walked in there and when she went to look for him, he had drowned. RB: Between the time that the Payne child and the Thuma child died, there would be quite a space of years. When this little fellow drown down off Bethany Home [Road] it wasn’t as if something like that happened every year. Or happened every week, it seems like we are having now. 5 EM: Yes. JA: Yes. RB: Yet we just lived in the canals! EM: People lived on banks of the canal. Little [children] played ─ RB: Oh, sure! EM: Heck, we lived on those laterals and we played along the ditch all the time and never fell in. We would get a spanking if we had! [See Note 1: for an explanation of the Lateral system and the ones in or near Glendale.] JA: [Laughter] RB: Lateral 19 was right across from where Edna’s home was on Glendale Avenue. It would be 67th Avenue and Glendale Avenue now. As the water came over the head-gate it would wash out quite a hole. Across from her home there was a particularly good hole. This would be just down beyond the Glendale High School where Edna lived on the next street, 67th Avenue. JA: Yes. RB: Opposite her home was one of the best swimming holes that there was in the area. JA: No kidding? RB: The very best one, Jerry and Edna, was the hole down on Lateral 18 and Glendale Avenue. Right there at the intersection of Grand Avenue and Lateral 18 was the town’s swimming hole.