Interview with Alice Moore Interviewed on July 23, 2001 Interviewed by Jennifer Jordan of the Minnesota Historical Society Exhibit Alice Moore - AM Jennifer Jordan - JJ AM: I'm Alice Mae Moore ... Anderson. I used to be an Anderson.House I was born at 668 Duluth A venue in St. Paul and I've lived on the East Side most of my life. JJ: How old are you now? Open AM: Seventy-seven. I've been married fifty-three years. Society Project JJ: Why did you choose to stay on the East Side of St. Paul? Society AM: I was born on the East Side. My mom had eight kids. My father worked for the Griffin Wheel and he died at forty-one years old. My motherHistory was aHistorical widow at thirty-one with seven and a halfkids. She was pregnant. Oral I lived over by Ames SchoolHistorical one time, too. I can remember sitting in the hallway by the principal's office. Her name was Mrs. Bertch. We called her "Old Lady Bertch." We were a poor family. I don't know why we were eating sandwiches out in the hall, but she started screaming at us. That did it for us. We just didn't like her atMinnesota all, but we had to go to school. Then where did we move from there? I really can't remember. I know I lived on Bates Avenue and I lived whereMinnesota the mining built all those houses over on-was it?-Farquar... Whirlpool. We lived in there. Now I'm sitting here in this neighborhood. I'm all by myself. I'm not afraid to go to bed at night. I'm not scared. I don't go walking out at night, but I'm not afraid here. I never have been. JJ: When did you move to this house on Suburban [A venue]? AM: It was seven years ago, maybe eight now. My husband was gone. At one time, we lived down on Larpenteur A venue. I have a girlfriend I've known for sixty-five years. She lives over on Geranium [A venue]. We could walk all the way around Lake Phalen, her and I would. No problems. No things to scare you or anything like that. I don't know whether anybody remembers back at the Roxy Theater on Seventh Street. We got into the show for a nickel, a nickel! JJ: What type of shows did they have then? AM: I can't really remember, but my mother let us go. We had to earn everything we had. I don't know if anybody remembers Luis's Sanitary Bakery on Seventh Street when I was going to high school. Out of eight kids, I'm the only one that graduated from high school. JJ: What high school did you go to? Exhibit . AM: Mechanic Arts. I started there when I was young. Then we moved back to the East Side again and I walked from the East Side to Mechanic Arts every day, andHouse walked home across the Seventh Street Bridge. But I wanted to go to school there and there was nobody going to stop me. At that time, my mother had eight kids and we were on what they called ADC, Aid to Dependent Children. My mother got sixty-five dollars a month and had to pay the rent and buy the groceries. They kind of frowned on your wanting to go school. They wanted youOpen to go to work. My first job I had at FOK, Farwell, Ozmun & Kirk, as a typist. I earned nine dollars and three centsSociety a week. Look at the wages now. Project JJ: I know. What went on at that business?Society AM: Paints and furniture. They were right downHistory onHistorical Kellogg Boulevard. I worked there and then I got married. I had my son. My son was baptized at Peace Evangelical Church on Forest [Street] and Reaney [Avenue]. I was married there too. HistoricalOral JJ: Your husband, did he work in the area? AM: My husband worked for ArmourMinnesota and then he worked for a tire shop after he came home from the service. He was a farm boy. He lived up in Menahga, Minnesota. This neighborhoodMinnesota is exceptionally quiet. In fact, you get bored sitting here. JJ: What job did your husband do at Armour? AM: I really don't know. He was just a kid himself. See, I started going with my husband when I was thirteen years old. I was engaged to him when I was fifteen and I married him when I was nineteen and I had my first baby when I was twenty-one. JJ: Wow. AM: How about that? JJ: That's a long time. AM: We went steady for a long, long, long time. JJ: Why did he move to St. Paul from the farm? AM: I really don't know. His mom and dad were separated too. They were from Missouri. His mother worked at Armour, so that's probably why he got his job at Armour. We had a tough life, but we managed it. Every time I get another credit card advertisement in the mail, I say, "That is everybody's downfalL.credit cards." I have them and when I get them in themail.Irip them up and throw them away. If I don't have the money, I don't have it. I learned to liveExhibit that way. JJ: Did your parents always live in St. Paul? AM: I think my mother and dad were from Red Wing, at least myHouse mother was. Where they met or how they met, I do not know. One ofmy brother's ex-wives has the family Bible, but she won't give it up. Open JJ: Oh, no. Society AM: My son's birth is the last entry in that Bible. I don'tProject want to keep it; I just want to see it, but I have gotten it yet. So ... Society I wanted to go to college. Welfare says, "No,History no, no, no, no. You go out. You get ajob." When I got that nine dollars and three cents a week, half of thatHistorical went to my mother and half the welfare took away from her. They just lowered her payment. I don't know how my mother survived. I don't. And there's not one bad kid in the family.Oral We didn't get into trouble. When my rna laid down the law, you'd better obey. SheHistorical was a good mother. Yes. Sometimes, we were hungry, but we managed. JJ: Was the high school that you wentMinnesota to a vocational school? AM: No.Minnesota Mechanic Arts was a regular high school. I think they tore it down. It's up by the Vocational School. I even have my report cards. I couldn't go through graduation because that one year they wore evening gown. My mom couldn't skimp up enough to get me a cap and gown, so I didn't graduate with the class. I was already working, so I just went back and got my diploma. That was it. I always regretted it, but what else could you do? . When my granddaughter graduates from high school, she's going to have her. .if I'm still around. She just graduated from grade school. I've had a good life. I get lonely. .. JJ: What are some of your most vivid memories about growing up on the East Side of St. Paul? AM: We lived on Bates Avenue. Swede Hollow was down below. Right on the end of that street, all the kids in the neighborhood got together and that's where we played baseball, girls and boys. JJ: All right! AM: Another memory is my mother sitting on the porch holding my son in her arms. My brother, Leo, was over in Germany during the war and she was sitting there singing, "Uncle Leo is coming home. Uncle Leo is coming home." That's all she could think of was my brother. He didn't get home in time for her funeral. He never did. No. No. I had a lot of boyfriends. We didn't get to go many places. We did things together,Exhibit the kids in the neighborhood. We didn't have roller skates like the kids do now or bicycles or anything like that. JJ: Do you remember some ofthe other social places that the kids in the neighborhood would go to? House AM: We went mainly to church. I don't remember any places we could go to. We did a lot of walking. No, there wasn't places like that. Open JJ: Were most of the people in your church from the area, from your neighborhood? Society AM: Oh, evidently, yes. It's been a good many years. OfProject course, that Reverend Krueger ... we called his wife "Aunt Kate." She taught me how to cook. I babysat her kids. You know what they say about a minister's kids? They're little hellionsSociety and they were. [laughter] HistoryHistorical AM: We lived above Backer Fuel, upstairs. HistoricalOral One time when we lived on Bates Avenue ... I worked for Villaume Box and Lumber and I'd come home from work at two o'clock in the morning. How trusting a mother can be. She'd put the key to the house up above the door jam onMinnesota the outside. We'd come home and we'd reach up there and get the key, unlock the door, and go in.