Page 194 - Always Virginia

182 Virginia Day Fritscher

Jack: What color was your hair?

Mary Pearl: Always dark, never black, just a real dark brown.
My mother had coal black hair, but mine wasn’t as black as hers.
Now, of course, it’s white, and has been since I was 43. [When
she had gall-bladder surgery, she said, “The ether turned my hair
white.”]

Jack: What were the names of some of your friends?

Mary Pearl: Oh, May Devine, Francis Devine, Irma Langford,
Dora Friederling, Oscar Eichorn, her [Dora’s] cousin—that’s how
I remember him so much. Oh, I just had lots of friends. Bertha
Powell. Some of them would say, “If you go with her, I can’t come
down. You’re with her.” I said, “Well, It’s too bad that I have to
have just one girl friend.” My mother would say, “You just go with
whomever you want to, it’s none of their business. If they don’t like
us, then stay home.” But Irma Langford, I think, was my best friend.

Jack: What was your house like? Can you describe it, coming
in the entryway and all that. The one that you lived in when you
were a teenager, let’s say. About the time of the World’s Fair [1904].

Mary Pearl: Well, I guess that time was after my mother and
father had their own home [7800 Minnesota]. The house was a
big red brick. At that time, they hadn’t raised the roof, but it had
a lovely attic up there. I mean, sleeping rooms up there. The boys
slept up there. We had six rooms. I can see the little gate. And we
had these flagstones from the front gate to the front door. We had
a grape arbor in the back where we used to come and sit. People
didn’t have all the advantages they have now, like fans. We went out
in the yard to get fresh air. Very nice. That’s where I lived when we
were first married [and Bart got sick with Hemorraghica Purpura].

Jack: Can you describe what your room looked like?

Mary Pearl: Just an ordinary room with an ordinary bed,