Page 188 - Always Virginia

176 Virginia Day Fritscher

Jack: What did you do for fun?

[In 1920, Mary Pearl was thirty-two and the mother of four—
soon to be five—children. Virginia was one year old. Bart, thirty-
three, was a school teacher and a mail carrier on a Star Route with
the U.S. Postal Service.]

Mary Pearl: I don’t know why they called them the Roaring
20s. I think it was because of the dances. They had these wild
dances. We didn’t think they were wild then. Nowadays they think
they’re wild now in their dances, but it’s nothing like we danced.
We had lots of fun. It was mostly the waltz, the two-step, and the
cakewalk. They had those at every dance we’d go to. They really
did give a cake to the best two.

Jack: Do you remember the Russian Revolution in 1917 when
the royal family was killed?

Mary Pearl: No, I really don’t. I guess I wasn’t paying much
attention. What was that [noise]?

Jack: Just the tape machine squeaking.

Mary Pearl: Oh, I thought it was the dog [Spot].

Jack: What about the Wall Street Crash? Do you remember
that day?

Mary Pearl: I remember it was terrible. Everybody suffered
from that. I remember the newspapers came out with extras then.
They didn’t have television like they have now. And that’s all you’d
hear was, “Extra! Extra! Extra!” They’d charge a quarter or 50 cents
and people’d pay them and get that “Extra.”

Jack: Where did you go to school?

Mary Pearl: Blow School.