Interview of Grace Walsh

INTERVIEW OF GRACE WALSH

(Start of tape- Side A) (No date, no introduction)

GW: Some of the shows. These things are dated way back. 1925, 26. A mutual cousin- one of my cousins was Bing Crosby, and we went in Seattle , Tacoma, and Spokane. He had this little , this little band stand and I never could go to school during the first month of school, because I had hay fever so bad I would have to wait until the first heavy frost and I would go to school.

Wherever I happened to be. I was sent all over. Out to Seattle, and I would beg to come home. School was starting, I was lonesome, I would follow the mailman for blocks, and finally convince my father to let me come home and they carried me off the train because when we got across in Spokane the sneezes started and it never stopped until I got to St. Paul. Well, I brought that memory book ofthose happy days. I brought you the yearbook of the Class of 1928 from New Richmond High School.

One of the smartest I ever knew was one of my debate colleagues Dick Thompson, special agent for the FBI for many years. He has a place up at the Apple River.

Here is a scrapbook, which I think has value. This is from all the years of high school in New Richmond. I have in there the basketball scores. We used to put out plaques in the city streets when we had a debate and people paid to come to them. George Oaks was the chairman, and he would give a long talk about the value of debate. How our hearts would be beating, we knew the values. We wanted to know whether we won the debate or not. Our speeches were always interrupted by Harry Smith. He was on the school board, and if he liked the argument he would say, Ata boy, atta boy. Our speeches were punctuated by "Ata boys" from Harry Smith. This is the thing that some of you would have fun looking over.

Over here is something I think is of great value. It is a collection of newspapers that came from the Washington Star and I have never opened them. A relative was married to a man that was head of the government printing office and this was from the Evening Star in Washington, DC. It is the 1961 presidential, enogral addition. They are all here. It is now 25 years old and it is all for you.

Now I have a little quotation to put at the end. I have left out an awful lot that I have missed about class reunions, we had a 50th one. I have some fun here about words that meant things different when we were young. "Erastondal says, in the misfortunes of life true friends are a sure refuge", and I think that these great friends are New Richmond people who have been a great refuge to me, and so I will end with this.

Wishing you always walls from the wind, and a roof for the rain, and tea beside the fire. Laughter to cheer you. And those you love near you, and all that your heart may desire. God ~·.. '

1 gave us memories that we might have roses in December, and in my life I've had many roses in December.

When I remember bygone days I think how evening always follows morn. So many that I loved were not yet dead then, and so many I love now were not yet born.

Thank you.

(clapping

Now I said I would answer any questions that I could if you have anything that you would like to ask me. About old days and old times.

As I approach the 77th year of my life. It was a great school, I hope you intended to support it. We thought it was a great school when what is now the middle school was in the new high school. Times have changed. Any other questions? Don't ask me how I am related to whom in this town because it could get . If you belong to the clan of Stevens or Early you are related to half the town anyway.

(clapping)

End of side A

(Start of Side B)

I stumbled over a piece of luggage and hit my head against a bed at my house. Knocked myself out, thought I was dying for sure. But after crawling to the kitchen and applying ice all I have left now is this one big bump, and the doctor told me that if I had not put that ice on it or if I had hit that hard an inch the other way I wouldn't be here.

The other example that I have to bring the bare on this is that having been on October 3 rd experiencing the merger of Northwest with our local airlines, when I say I am glad to be here I mean it again. I spent 15 hours in the airport in London. No explanation ofwhy we were being kept there. We waited and we waited and we waited. And finally we boarded and we got out over the ocean and for an hour when the captain said, I am sorry to tell you people we are dumping fuel as fast as possible. We are going directly back to London. We have a cracked wing on this plane. The woman sitting next to me turned to her husband and laughing feebly she said, well dear I always said I wanted to see London before I died. We prayed all the way back. In the six hours that ensued we got- a number of people got acquainted. A man said to me, where are you going? I said, I am on my way to Wisconsin. He said, we are on our way to Iowa, where are you from in Wisconsin. I said, I am from Eau Claire. Well, he said, we are from Roberts. I met Dr. Clap from the University oflowa and we had a regular old home week there. You know, people from New Richmond just get around. You have to realize that. I was visiting some friends of mine out in Boulder, CO a few years ago, and one night my host said to me, I am in Whites Law Firm in Denver, and I said, oh he was a friend of my neighbor Johnny Blood. She said, oh where was that? Do you know Johnny Blood? I said,

2 sure. He is from New Richmond. The next night there was a telephone call for me. My host said, Mr. Wade Halvorson. He said that man is the President of Supply. Is that the same man who is calling you? I said, sure. That is my friend shorty. He said, how do you know him? I said, we were kids together in New Richmond. The following night Shorty called me up and said, guess who has just come to Boulder. He said Butchy Jackson is in the law school. Let's go out and see him. I said, I'd love it. So I came back that night and I said to Mr. Neason, well I just met the new head of your law school. Oh he said that is interest, he said, my niece is going to be his secretary. Then he paused, and he said, he isn't from- how do you know him? I said, he is from New Richmond. Then my hostess said, you know I am taking a marvelous course in history from a man who heads from that part of the state. I am not sure - he is from western Wisconsin. I said, what's his name? She said, his name is Dr. Hew . I said oh he is from New Richmond. At that point Mr. said to me, say Grace, how many people are there in New Richmond? Well, when I lived here it was 2,248 with a guaranteed addition from the Snoose Larson family every few years. I am a very absent-minded professor and there are many reasons why this is so. My former secretary at the University, Mrs. Sullivan, knows a lot about these things, and she can verify that they are true. But they say that you should laugh at yourself, because other people are going to laugh at you anyway.

Moments to remember I thought. Well now, I'll divide the speech in half and I will talk about moments I remember from all around the world, and then half of it I will spend on memories of New Richmond. So I have got Mary clued. The first half is going to be on anywhere, and the second half is going to be exclusively New Richmond.

After I got through with the tenth inning of the World Series last night I started jotting this down and I realized I could go on for several hours, so we have got to have some terminal facilities.

Now my losses, well I could write a book about that for sure. My travel agent says that he is going to have a special chapter in his memories just about me. Oh Carl I said, what are you going to put in? Well he said, I could tell about the time that you lost all your money in London. Do you remember that? Oh yes, I remember that very well. He said, I could tell about the time you booked a cruise on the ship that never got to shore. I said, I remember that very well. It was Christmas and I was visiting some friends of mine in Texas, and we came in and turned on the late news and it said, so the MS. will not be arriving at nor will it be leaving Port Everglades tomorrow. I said, that's my ship. I ran to the telephone. No answer from the newsroom at the station, no answer from the lines. Well, finally I got on another ship and had a marvelous time. They called us the refugees from the . Carl said, nothing like that ever happened to me before. I booked that cruise for you, and you never got on that ship because of a coral reef out in the Pacific. Then he said, you had the whole town in an uproar. Don't you remember that time that you were coming home from Berut and you were on the plan that got away. Here I am with my little instamatic taking all the pictures of these Arabs running around in the airport. My they were acting so excited. No wonder, they were taking over the airport. We didn't know it. I often thought ifl had been on the other ship that they took out to the desert and blew up -now that would give me something to talk about. But instead I got away and at midnight that night here was President Haas up at the airlines. Oh thank God he said. I couldn't imagine all these people greeting me. They thought maybe I was on the plane that got blown up, but I was on the one that got away. Well, I have had a lot of crazy times-

3 things have happened to me. I have lost my money so many times I couldn't begin to tell you about it. Now the only thing good about this is that ifl get Alzheimer's and Passover nobody is ever going to know the difference because I have been like that all my life. The big giveaway is something I will never live down. I was- oh I had a great big swag of money. It belonged to the University and I was turning it in. In those days we had a 400. I was going to Chicago to give a speech, and I get to school that morning and the telephone rang- the voice said are you the great Grace Walsh that had a check for 99 cents made out by the State of Wisconsin? I said, yes that was a settlement on an account. They said, well somebody just turned it in to this station up here and we will keep it for you. I said, thank you very much. I taught an hour, my telephone rang again. It was friend of mine from the history department. It is a good thing you are a pal of mine Walsh he said. I just picked an interesting thing off your car, a billfold with $200.00 in cash. Then all of a sudden it came to me what I had done. My car was in the garage attached to my house. The telephone rang and I thought it was somebody getting an extra car that we needed for a trip. Somebody was yakking about something that didn't have anything to do with school. I jumped out and jumped in the car and took off for school. Now I was switching purses to take a good purse on the trip, and in my rush I forgot and I left the purse with all the money on it on my car. I cut across Margaret Street and when I went to turn down the hill the wind caught it all- almost all except the $200 that stayed on the billfold. So, when I heard that news I knew what I had done. I took some students, and said just look out the window. If you see anything tell me. I told them the tale on the way up. There were all these police cars and sirens, and I said, oh there has been a terrible accident. I must report my loss to the police. The boys were yelling, hurry up you are going to miss that train. I said, it will only take me a minute. I have to tell them this. I got out of the car. The policemen were starting toward me, and they were laughing. They said, I think you were going to report you lost a few things Ms. Walsh. There were all these checks made out to me. They had fist fulls of them. The filling station attendant told it this way. He was filling a car with gas and he looked down- lO's, 20's rolling in the fall wind. He looked against his hedge. It was plastered with money. Huh, he thought. There has been a bank hold up and they are trying to get away. He called the police. They surrounded the area. Then I arrive and they said, there is a telephone call for me. I never been in _____ in my whole life. Who was wanting to talk to me from there. How did they know I was going to be there. I said, I got to take this. The boys said, your going to miss the train, your going to miss the train. I got on the line. This is a reporter from the Herald Telegram, will you please tell us what is going on. You see, what happened was that everything they were picking up had my name on it. They were calling it in to the police station, and so I said, I am sorry I can't take. I hung up, jumped in the car and went up to the depot. I thought, oh what a way to treat the press. This is bad PR, so I called them and I said, I am sorry, my train is late and I can talk to you now. What do you want to know? That night the paper came out with the headline "Professor of Speech Speechless." I was. That was one of my great losses. I lost my purse in St. Paul. Oh, I left it on the car again. This is an old habit of mine. Somebody - I went to pay for parking the car and I had no purse. Then I remembered what I had done again. I did everything I could -I notified the police, they came out, they were very sympathetic. Four days went by and I was saying goodbye to that money when somebody called and said, is there someone by the name of Grace Walsh at that residence. I was, fortunately i was visiting relatives with the same name. This woman and her daughter found the purse. They called who it said to call in case of illness or death and nobody answered. They called my telephone number in Eau Claire, and nobody answered. The woman said to her daughter, okay finders keepers, we have done all we can do.

4 But her husband said there is one more thing we should do. We should look in the area where the purse was picked up and see if anybody by the name of Walsh lives there. They called, I got it all back.

Okay, now I am on my way to Whitewater. It is December. I have four carloads of students and we stop to make a telephone call. We are walking around and visiting. We got in the cars and stopped in Madison for fuel, and it was a windy awful, it was a stormy night in December. I went to pay for the gas- no purse. I had left it in Tomah in the pay station out at the road. I called a traffic cop up there and he said, ohMs. Walsh my wife went to school with you. We will go right out there. I said, I know exactly where it happened. They went out and they didn't find it. I didn't have any money and all these students had a State "B" for a dinner that night and they don't have too much money either you know. So, the next morning they took the assets of the tournament and said, when you get home write out a check, we will cover you until tomorrow. So, I was canceling credit cards all over the United States, and when I went to a party that night, there was a telephone call for me about midnight. It was a cousin of mine calling. She said, cuz I think you are going to report to have lost something. It was midnight now. She was in Superior and had just come in, and a man had called her to ask her if she knew who I was. Well, of course she did. He said, I have her purse. But she didn't know where I was. I was somewhere in Whitewater in a dormitory that had no telephones at that time. So, the next object of the game was to find out where I was in Whitewater. She called everybody she knew who knew me in Eau Claire, and finally someone gave her a clue. They gave her the name of the coach who was holding the tournament in Whitewater, and so they said I was at this party. I was. It was right across the street from where a friend of mine lived and they guessed. She was there. So I stopped the next night and what happened was -plowing this man turned up - plowing for the county- turned up the purse under the snow, called Superior and stopped the next night and I got my money back.

I was robbed in Dublin. That was just a few years ago. We had been warned within an inch of our lives to watch out for pickpockets in England and Ireland. Especially in the Dublin Post Office. So, a well dressed woman steps up beside me and wants to borrow my pen. I am busy writing a card to my dentist in Chippewa Falls who had been promised a card from Dublin. We were leaving in the morning early -the Pan Am strike was going on and we had to get back to school. When I turned back I said to her "I am in an awful hurry. I am late. I have to get back to the hotel." I said, "if the other person on the other side can't help you, I will." I turned back and what was missing? Well, there was my little folder that had in it my theater tickets to see Maureen Potter. She is an outstanding comedian oflreland. Sort of the feminine Bob Hope of Ireland. She is just a great comedian here if you ever have a chance. And our plane tickets to go home. All gone. By the time I rushed out and got in touch with the airlines and got back to the hotel my roommate was wondering what had happened to me. I told her, but I had it all fixed up because they were just wonderful. It was Trans World Airlines. I told them I had our reservations made to go back and I told them what airlines we were on. I think they would have - I had money - I still had the travelers checks at that time. So I got back to the hotel and I said to my friend, "come, let's go to the th~ater anyhow." We got over there and it was all sold out. When we got up to the window I said to the man, "you know there are going to be two seats just before curtain. They are in the eighth row." I remembered that. And I said, "I don't think anybody would have the nerve to use those tickets because they were stolen from me this

5 afternoon in the post office." I said, "will you let me buy those two tickets that are left just before curtain." He said, "No ma'am I will not. Anybody treated that bad in Dublin this day is not paying twice for her tickets." He called us over just before curtain. "Show these gals to their seats will you please." Wasn't that lovely. That is the luck of the Irish. Another time I made an agreement with a roommate. The last time I was over. We had agreed that we would each go our independent way if we wanted. I wanted to go to the theater. I got down there that night, and I had no reservations. So, when I saw the line way around the block I got out of the cab and I thought- this time I lose. See, I got a reputation of never having missed seeing a show that night I want to see it. When it has been sold out a year I have a way , but I will tell you about that some other time. So, I walked up. The usher came out and said, "I have the two tickets for those Americans." They were standing right ahead of me. I didn't get in the line yet. I am standing there and I overhear this and I said, "and there is another praying American who has only tonight to see this show and would give anything in the world to get in." Get to the back of the line he said. I thought oh, this is the end. Two minutes later out he carne. "May I please see that praying American single." I got to see the show that night.

I have had terrible experiences with stage fright. I remember the time in Madison when I was asked to speak at a conference in the summer on supervision. I was not a supervisor. I wasn't in the field of education, so I wrote back and said, "this is a mistake." "This intent is intended for somebody else." I am walking up the hill, I am in grad school that summer. Out comes the Daily Cardinal with the headline, "Supervisors Feature oflnstitute Tomorrow," and here are seven names and there is mine among them. I rushed into the School of Education. Dr. Barr was in charge of it. I asked for him. He came out and said "Miss Walker we are so glad to have you here. We are looking forward to your address tomorrow." I said, "I have no address tomorrow. I was invited to this, but I declined." "Oh" he said. "John has gone to India. The mail must have followed him. I am absolutely desperate. I am on the way out to the airport now. The program is all in print. Please, if you have a heart help me." He said, "It's a payoff." I said, "Okay, alright, I will help you." I turned around and went down the hill and went to the card catalog and got out books on supervision. A name here, a name there, a little quotation here, a little quotation there. I dressed up the next day. It was the hottest day you could ever imagine. Went down the hill to the theater, it was full of school administrators. I was a high school teacher at the time in Chippewa Falls. There was Mr. Luree, the former superintendent of the schools at New Richmond at one time. He waved to me and I waved to him. I had my little packet of notes and I wasn't scared of anybody. Then out comes Dr. Murrey and he said, "I haven't conferred with any of the seven people here, but in view of the temperature and the fact that we want to hear from everybody I am going to give each candidate here 10 minutes to speak alone. We will proceed." He started alphabetically. I started slipping the notes to the back of the heap because somebody said what I was going to say. I kept slipping and I thought I am dreaming. This is a nightmare and I am going to wake up. This isn't happening to me. Then my name was called. I was the last one. They were talking about Democratic concepts of supervision and how great they were. The night before at our table someone said, "I'd like to talk to the supervisor. I'd tell them what I think of them." And I had no place else to go. So I just looked at them all and I said, "my you think your smart don't you?" "Let me tell you what your teachers think of you." And I just laid it on. At first there was just a shocked gasp. Then I saw Mr. Luree just looking around, and then they liked it. They clapped and I had a good time.

6 I went up to Rhinelander. That was an awful experience. I was asked to speak specifically for a teacher's group there, and when I got up there I had my little package of notes. They had assigned the topic. I was all ready. The chairman said, all set to go? I said, sure. So we got up there and pulled out the notes. I had never seen them before in my life. Strange handwriting. Here I was without a note in the world. So I just adlibbed, what else could you do. The next day a student of mine came in and said, "Miss Walsh I hope I didn't cause you any inconvenience. You know I left the notes for my term paper when I was having in conference with you and I wonder if you found them?" I said, "Oh yes, they have been up to Rhinelander and back."

Then the time I spoke to a state convention at Watertown. Oh, that was the worst. It was a formal dinner. All these VIPs of my church were there. Just before I was going to be introduced I turned, and a woman knows just what this is. Zipper in the back of a low cut formal. I turned to the lady next to me and said zip me, zip me. She leaned back and said I can't, it's broken. Then my name was called. What can you do. I got up there. I didn't gesture at all. My hands were clamped to the side. As I was giving the speech suddenly I was thinking, I got to get out of here. As I had to drive back to Watertown from Eau Claire that night and I asked to me on before the business meeting. I am thinking, how am I going to get out of here? So, I started going back to the , and I kept talking and they kept turning their chairs. I got around there, I kept talking, they kept turning their chairs. I got back there and the door was about there. I said, if you are wondering why I did this to you it is because I broke the zipper in the back of my dress and this is not to be a topless performance. I turned and I shot out the door. A few years later in Milwaukee a woman was staring at me and she said, "I've seen you somewhere." Then she started to laugh, "Oh you are the lady who broke her zipper at the state convention."

People I remember. New York. I love New York, but oh the characters there. I am telling you. Go shopping in New York. Oh, the pressures. Honey, dear, don't pass by that little black number, it's sexy. Let's not skip it. That's what makes the world go around. You try that on, it's just made for you Honey. Then you go into the linen shop. You want to buy a little bridge cloth. "Listen Dear we have the most beautiful banquet cloth here. It is half price, you can have it for $300." No, I am not interested in the banquet cloth. Another man rushes up, "what did you say?" Did you tell her she could have that? That's not the one that is $300, that's still $600. You said it, I am stuck with it. Should we wrap it up lady?" No, I said. I want a little bridge cloth. I finally had to walk out because I couldn't get it.

Then I am on the bus one day. It's the World's Fair in New York. A lady sits by me and she says, "are you going to the fair?" I said, "Pardon me?" She said, "Are you going to the fair?" I said, "I don't know." "What do you mean you don't know, everybody is going to the fair," she said. She said, "You take my relatives. I had my cousins I never heard from in years and then they write and say we are going to the fair. Maybe we can stay with yus. You know what I did? I had a nice extra bed that folds up. I went out and I sold it. Then I answered their cards and I said, dear cousins I am glad you are coming to the fair. I am sorry we don't have any place to keep yus." Then I went to the fair, and well. Time is slipping I guess. I can't go into that one.

It is something these trips to these places.

7 Then in London. Oh, the characters you meet in London. By a big crater that was bombed out during the war there stands a man beautifully attired. The guide says, on this spot they dropped so many hundred tons of bombs. He turns to me and says, I was there you know that day. I said, you were. It must have been awful. He, said, yes you know it is. It was a bit of a blast. Then my friend Lillian was in charge ofthe Institute of International Education. She went down with me to the- stalls for the antiques. She had just said she had cashed her check. Somebody said, lady your purse. Her purse was wide open and her money was all gone. She said, how inconvenient. I am so glad they left my glasses. I said, Lillian it was your whole paycheck. If that had happened to me I would have been in a dither. I said, are you really as calm and reserved as the British are supposed to be, or aren't you excited, aren't those butterflies running around. She said. No not at all Grace. You see I lived through the blitz and the bomb. At first you could hear them, and then we couldn't hear them until they were there. I learned long ago that I would have been insane if I hadn't learned that the loss of material things is not so very important after all. I remember Lillian.

I remember the afternoon in Italy when I got on the bus, and I was going to the depot. All of a sudden the conductor points to me and he says, you, you. I couldn't understand. What goes with this fellow? He said . I said, why. I was carrying a shoulder bag. So, I wanted him to understand that I wanted to go to the depot. He pretended he doesn't understand English. So, I go, choo, choo, choo, choo. Oh yes. There are all these passengers wondering what happened to their conductor. He takes me by the arm. Belladonna, you know if you are overweight Italy's a great place to go, they love you. He took out to my compartment leaving all these people wondering what had happened to their streetcar conductor.

Then there was that night in Japan. I was going to the World's Fair in Japan now. The guide had said to us, there are two people at this VIP gate - the two most important exhibits are the American and the Russian. If you go, he said, try to get the man because he doesn't like to admit he does not understand English. The lady nobody gets by. The fair was so crowded that night that all the in our party decided not to go back the next day. The guide said, now if you have a VIP card, he said, you might try it. So there was a cue around the American exhibit and the Russian exhibit was blocks, so I walked up to this gate. I am looking for the man. He is not there. Just the woman is there. So I flipped out- the only thing that I had that I thought looked kind of important was my university ID with my picture on it. I hand it to her. She said, this is for very important people. I said, yes I know. I stood there. She said, people who are handicapped. I said, yes I am, and I held up my . She peered at me and she said, oh you are very handicapped aren't you? I said, look, this is the only time I have a chance to see the exhibit of my country. Now I said to myself! am important. I am handicapped. I said, if you have a heart just think what you could do for international relations this night. You could let me through that gate. She said, you are so right, and she let me in. I was the only one out of 80 people on that trip around the world who saw the American exhibit at the Japan World's Fair.

Well, anyhow, I have been to Norway. I told this story once before, but I love it. A Norwegian was talking to his friends and he said, well, he says, I gotta go now and take my lesson. He says, when you get up to the 80 mark night school gets pretty hard. He says, vocabulary, all that grammar. The friends says, what are you taking? He says, Hebrew. Why are you taking Hebrew at your age? He says, I am looking over the obituaries - when you get up towards the

8 80 mark you see your pals in there quite often. So he says, I figure I am going up to the pearly gates so who am I going to meet? The first guy I am going to meet is Moses. You know he is sure to be up there. What does he talk? Hebrew. Those apostle boys. There will all be there. They will be talking Hebrew and I want to talk their language, and I am learning it right now. Well his friend said, you are pretty sure of yourself aren't you? What if you go the other way? Then what? Then, well, he says, I got no problem in communicating whatsoever. He said, I learned to speak Swedish when I was kid.

Well, I have been to Australia and New Zealand, and Tahiti and Hawaii and Alaska and Israel. To the theater in New York, and I have just come back from seeing a dozen new shows in London and in Dublin. I spent 48 years in the classroom. My roots are very deep in the state of Wisconsin. My grandfather was the democratic sheriff of St. Croix County in 1879. I will have you know however that there is one member of our family who always wanted to vote a straight ticket, but she couldn't. She explained it to me just before she died, the day before she died. She had lived to know that John Kennedy got to the White House. She said, now Grace when Warren comes to my funeral I want you to tell him something. I said, mother Warren is the Governor, and he is a pretty busy man. I don't think he has. She said, he will be there don't you worry. You tell him when he gets there that he is the only man in the world who ever got me to vote a split ticket.

Bobby Kennedy was in our house. My relatives are mostly Republicans. I tried to teach them to think straight, but you know how it goes. They came to the door and my mother said, the threshold is boys. Kennedy has stepped across it. She said to me afterwards, you that you had a lot of nice boys at the house Grace, but that I think that that Bobby is one of the nicest ones of all.

I didn't get to talk much about Ireland and I love it. I am a little biased of course. I remember what the Irishman said to me, what are you in such a hurry for? would know if he were here. He said, don't you Americans know that the lad that made time made plenty of it for all of us. When I am hurried I look at that picture over my fireplace. I think of what he said, and in my frustrations I think of that. I think of the time I was going down the cliffs of Warren. We had booked ships to out to the islands and people looked at this steep decent - no rails, and they just backed away. I said to the guide, if you hold my hand and I keep looking at the wall I will go. Oh, I was so scared, but I went. That is what I always do. I wish I wouldn't be so adventurous. I went down hanging on to the wall and not looking. I get down to the bottom and here is this little up and down in the waves. I couldn't make it, I couldn't even come close. I said, this is where I give up. The people in the party are standing way up above looking down at us, and a great big fisherman in his black apron steps up. He says, stand back lads I'll take care of the dame. He lifted me up and he set me in the boat. He says, I will be waiting for you when you come back darling. He was. He gave me a kiss. From then on all the fellas on our trip would say, stand back lads, I'll take care of the dame.

Then there was a little . When I said to him, oh it is beautiful. The little garden that he had. With all the little wheels he had made himself. I said to him, he was about 85 years old I would imagine. He was tell him the names of all his flowers. I said, Burnard have you ever

9 been married? He said, oh dear God no. He said, sure the one that would have got me, wouldn't she be on her way to the chemist for arsenic for me in no time. They have a way with words.

But now let's get back home.

Charlie Phillips was a great head of the English department at the University of Notre Dame. One summer when I was hard up for cash I was selling door-to-door. That's why I have always been kind to door-to-door salesman and clerks. I worked in JC Penney with Maggie McDermitt one whole summer and I fitted corsets and men's boots, and I would be so tired at night. I would walk up by Machine Shop. I would take off my shoes and walk through the back alley to go home. Those were hard times, but I sell and dictionaries. I was the head salesman in the United States. Do you know why? Charlie Phillips was sitting at home on Mrs. Maroony's porch one day and he said, Grace those are good dictionaries. Would you like me to say so in writing? Well, what he wrote said, every home with children should have a copy of this dictionary, signed Charles Phillips. I just flipped it from door-to-door. New Richmond is full of Webster's dictionaries. I couldn't afford one myself, but I sold a lot of them to other people.

Now, getting on to New Richmond. I was not born in New Richmond, but I have always thought of it as home. Someday my bones will be up on the banks of the river with many of my family there. My first memory of New Richmond was when I was about 4. We were living in what was then the New Richmond hotel. John O'Malley had a head of a deer and he used to put that on and he would run up and down the steps with me. I thought he was just wonderful. I loved those days when we lived at the New Richmond hotel. Then we moved into our house. It was next door to . There were two houses that were just alike. Archie Johnson later lived in the one, and Doc Armquist in the other. I adored Doc Armquist. He used to swing me on the swing and he invited me to dinner one night. He said at the table, Grace would you please pass the butter. I said, I'd like to doctor, but I can't. He said, you can't, why not? I said, my mother made me promise that I wouldn't touch anything on the table. He never got over telling about that story.

Then there was the morning that Sabin was born. I was telling Dr. we wanted a baby, and I see Dr. coming. We didn't have sex education in the elementary schools at that time. Here he was coming with this little back satchel, and I thought, our baby. He didn't come into our house at all. He went into Armquist's. I am sitting on the steps and pretty soon I hear Sabin crying. Sabin is born. The next day we were downtown. I was with my mother and Dr. was standing on the corner. He said, how is my dear little Gracie? I said, don't you ever talk to me again. You brought the baby to Armquists instead to our house. He said, well the houses were so much alike I got a little mixed up.

You were asking if I knew Oogy Lots. His father was the butcher in our store. Oogy introduced me. It was the nicest introduction I think I ever had. When he was the Superintendent of Schools in Maniwoc. He got up and said, I could tell you all about her educational qualifications. Let me tell you the truth. I was the one who piled the wood in their basement. I was the one who picked the potatoes off the vines in their garden. He said, I have known her all my life. My friend. I always remember that. It was at his son's graduation from high school.

10 Then those early days at Little Ole St. Mary's. The sweetest little teacher taught me my ABC's. Her name my Sister Maurina. Then there was Father Boise. The day he was killed will live in my memory always. It was right there are you are going up toward the Catholic Church where the train came through. His car stalled on the tracks. If he stayed in the car he would have been saved, but he jumped. He was young, he was beautiful, and we loved him dearly. I will never forget the anguish of this community at his death that night.

I remember being the fairly queen in Miss McDonald's play. I remember dancing the minuet with Johnny . When Miss Melcher had a dancing class for us. I remember how we used to have those home talent shows, and we had the old opera house. The stage was across the street. One night Miles McNalley all dressed up in his cavalier outfit came out on the stage and he was wearing buckle overshoes. Someone on the cast said, tis a dark and stormy night I see by your He looked down and there is was with the four bucked overshoes. He said, indeed it tis thus sir, and he tossed them off the stage. Nobody knew the difference.

Then, the library. Oh, that lovely lady in the library. Her name was Miss Walham. She used to wear those white things. It was upstairs over a store, a drug store. Oh, I remember when I read "Little Black Sambo" I loved it so, I kept it. I didn't know that had racial prejudice in it. I just loved it.

Then I think of the things that children used to do. I remember going by the place where the Chinaman was killed. It was in the paper not long ago. And when we were little children. How cruel little children could be. We didn't realize we were showing racial prejudice. We'd say, Chink, chink, Chinaman sitting on a fence, trying to make a dollar out of 15 cents. We didn't know we were doing anything we shouldn't do.

Then there was Cornel Hawkins. One day, the Cornel always used to recite poetry to us. He was an old old man. We were laughing at him when my father came along. He took me by the hand and he said, you will never laugh at the Cornel again. He said, I will tell you why now. He said, there was a cyclone, and the night of the cyclone the Cornell's new home was blown away, his wife was killed, his children were killed, and the Cornel didn't draw too many sober breaths after that. He had the sympathy of the entire community. He was a brilliant young lawyer of this town, and the tragedy of that cyclone stayed with him all his life.

When we were children we used to sit and listen to horrible tales of the cyclone. We didn't need to have movies like they have now. Down in Williams Hardware store the people were trapped under the pipes and the fire started on the people couldn't get to them. They were dying and begging to be shot. I sat and I listened to all that.

Six years ago when we had that storm in Eau Claire. I remember those cousins of mine. The Stacks, Molly and her husband and little boy. They almost got to the door, but just missed it by a minute. If they got in the cellar they would have been saved. The three of them were killed. This night in Eau Claire when they stopped the show because there was a tornado, and everybody was laughing. We were all trying to get down the steps. I was terrified. I thought,

11 get down, get down, get down. I was reliving the stories that had been told to me when I was a child in New Richmond.

Then there was high school. We had some of the greatest teachers that ever lived in New Richmond High in those days. I can verify that. What I am, as far as what I have accomplished in speech, I owe to the teachers at New Richmond High. A great teacher of who used to put on the Gypsy Rover, and we all learned the lines of everybody in the play because we started practicing in September and the show didn't go on until March. We rented costumes. It was an extravaganza. The likes of which you can never imagine. That was Hazel Melcher. If she ever taught us one thing, it was to project. She put us on the stage in the opera house, and she would get up in the second balcony, and whoa to the one who couldn't be heard. Now, we were sixth and seventh graders. We were taking what we called then, ______

Then came Mildred , , and she was a modern wonderful teacher of speech. She had been let out on a race bias thing in Superior and she came to New Richmond.

And then the greatest of them all was Harvey Penny. Harvey Penny taught us things in debate that were years ahead of our time.

My colleague was Don Olson. I can blame him for getting into this business. The first time I debated publicly was on the resolve that John W. Davis would be the next President of the United States. We had sat through on the old the election where the Democrats tied over the 100 ballets. Alabama 20 votes for Oscar W. Underwood. My mother said, what that child would have been. Her eyes will be like two burn holes ----'---- This child is learning history, and together we would countdown over the 103 ballets in that convention. He and I. I learned a lot about politics then, but not ever as much as I learned when I went to the White House Conference on Aging. If there ever was a misuse of taxpayers money, that was it. We sent over 6 million. You sent so many of us down to Washington. 2000 or something like that. The Democrats went out of power, the Republicans carne in. I got my tickets to go to the Convention two weeks after I got home. It was awful. What a contrast that was to the convention in Anaheim in June. Everything planned to the hilt. It was a gorgeous presentation and that would take a whole evening to tell about that.

But my time is going. My time is going.

Oh, we put on charm school. We went dancing at the Riverside with ____ and Tom __ every Tuesday night.

We went hitching boggs. Children today don't know what that is. Some of you remember. It was our occupation on Saturday mornings. We would go out and sit on these wrecks that the farmers drove into town. We would hitch a bog and we would go out to Casey's Comer and we would wait, and we would catch a bog corning back to town. We would have a round trip for nothing and lots of fun at the same time.

This community has always been very ex-communicable in many, many ways. I remember going down the street and there were two different nationalities running for Mayor. I said to Mr.

12 Vanmeeter with his little notebook, Van do people vote on ethnic lines in this town? He shook his figure, Grace Walsh you've been away too long. He said, you should remember by now that what church you go to isn't what counts. So much when it comes to election. The question is this, and this divides our people. Do you bank at the First National (Laughing).

I remember Reverend MaHood. He was at the Congregational Church. There was a great religious bias at that time. They burned the Klu Klux tent out in the Roberts area, and Reverend MaHood got up in the Congregational Church and condemned the Klan, and we loved him for that.

I remember sitting in the basement at the store when the Minister who was at the Evangelical Church. You always had to go to the Evangelical Church suppers always because my father says, they were the people who really paid their bills and they were his good customers. So, we always went to the suppers. Here we were in the basement of Tom and Nellie's store. The high school had burned. We were going to church downtown in the stores .. Open classrooms, I should say so. New Richmond had them years before anybody else thought of them. We had partitions with no tops on them, and the study hall was in the middle. There were two rows of classrooms. We would take a piece of chalk. When we put a note on it- a piece of chalk on it and we would toss it over to the next room. It would make the whole rounds of the whole study hall before the hour was over. Do you think kids do things these days. Well, look in that scrapbook and you will see some other evidence of other silly kids in their time.

There was Mike at the Post Office. I said to him one time, Mike ifl had eloped wouldn't you have felt guilty? We had a big store box for the mail, and I couldn't let my father know that my boyfriend was two years older than I. My father didn't think we should be going steady because I was too young. So, Mike used to go through the mail and when it was addressed to me he would hold it out and I would pick it up general delivery. My father never knew that.

When the 840 came through at night, oh we were glad when it was late because that was the signal to come in from playing. Run sheep run.

Then there was memorial day. You know the civil war veterans were still alive at that time. I saw Tommy McNalley do a rendition of this for a group in New York one night, and it should have been on TV. It was priceless. He was Dale Oaks tooting the horn. He was ______singing the Star Spangle Banner. He did the whole woman's relief corp, everybody that was in that parade. Memorial Day in New Richmond.

There was Tommy McNalley and there was Mickey McNalley. Now in our group we loved Mickey McNalley because he used to come to our French class up in the high school because he had been to Europe and his mother didn't want him to forget French. He was a dear boy. But Tommy, he was a demon and we didn't like him. He used to tattle on us, he used to follow us. He said to me not long ago when I was in New York, he said, you know it's a good thing for you that they didn't have those child abuse laws when I was a kid because, he said, you and the Lynch's and that gang of yours. You certainly could have been arrested. We look him out one day by the , and we told him to get out that maybe there was something wrong with the tire, and we drove off and left him. Wasn't that awful, wasn't that terrible?

13 Christmas Eve in New Richmond. I can see the stars on those pine trees. I always used to have to go down and meet my father, and Santa Claus always came when I was away.

Then there was the basketball team. Donny and Bernie. There was Dean and there was Shorty. All that gang. I could walk out in the cemeteries. Both our cemeteries here, and I can see these names of these dear people I loved.

Dr. Armstrong, what a wonderful man he was. How he called me one day and he said, Grace I know you may have problems. You are going to college and your father just died, but he said, would you please put my bill at the end. He said, don't worry about it. Wasn't that nice? I remember just a couple years ago: I was in a white dress and I went to call on him. Oh stay a minute, stay a minute longer. I said, doctor I am sorry. I have to get over to the cemetery because I want to get the grave ready for Memorial Day. He said, well you know Grace, I think my Frank Walsh friend would like it very much if I take care of the grave. Now you just sit and talk to me and I will take care of it. I told that to and she said, I am sorry Grace, he may forget. But when I went back in the morning it was done and Dr. Armstrong had done that. His son Tom. What a wonderful boy was he. Here there are.

Well, our idea of fun in those days was a , records of the Edison, the records we had, the ball teams we had. We used to play at the Baker House. We would rush down to the newspaper with the results of our baseball.

Well, there is a legacy that I am going to leave. One is happy memories. Many, many happy memones.

(End of tape