Rexroat, Rollo - Interview and Memoir

              University of Illinois at Springfield 
Norris L Brookens Library 
Archives/Special Collections 

Rollo Rexroat Memoir 

R329R. Rexroat, Rollo (1893-1979) 
Interview and memoir  
1 tape, 90 mins., 53 pp. 

Rollo Rexroat recalls early 20th century life in Virginia, Illinois: his father's 
grocery store, merchandise and prices, Civil War veterans and stories, school, 
other businesses, and the area's land.  

Interview by Marjorie Taylor, 1974 
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Archives/Special Collections LIB 144 
University of Illinois at Springfield 
One University Plaza, MS BRK 140 
Springfield IL 62703-5407 

© 1974, University of Illinois Board of Trustees 

Preface 
This manuscript is the product of a tape-recorded interview conducted by Marjorie Taylor for the Oral History Office, Sangamon State University in January, 1974. Liz Curl transcribed the tape and Horace Waggoner edited the transcript. 
Mr. Rexroat was born in Virginia, Illinois, in 1893. He recalls his father's grocery store which included a variety of merchandise. Descriptions of goods and prices provide interesting reading and contrast to the twentieth century shopper. Some of the local Civil War veterans congregated there to tell stories and Rollo Rexroat recounts some of these. 
Readers of this oral history memoir should bear in mind that it is a transcript of the spoken word, and that the interviewer, narrator and editor sought to preserve the informal, conversational style that is inherent in such historical sources. Sangamon State University is not responsible for the factual accuracy of the memoir, nor for views expressed therein; these are for the reader to judge. 
The manuscript may be read, quoted and cited freely. It may not be reproduced in whole or in part by any means, electronic or mechanical, without written permission in writing from the Oral History Office, Sangamon State University, Springfield, Illinois, 62708. 
Table of Contents 
Rexroat's Grocery 1896 1 Ed Brass's Canning Factory 2 Grocery Stock 4 Civil War Veterans 5 Civil War Stories 6 The 1897 Fire 8 The Virginia Enquirer 8 Grocery Goods: Canned, Dried, Packaged 9 Civil War Battles, Pensions, Stories 9 Rexroat's Hunting Supplies 11 Trapshoot Medal Winner 11 Austrian Dishes at Rexroat's Store 13 Rollo Rexroat's School Days and Teachers 14 World War I Training Camps 16 Transportation and Delivery of Groceries and Goods 17 Move to South Cass Street 21 Delivery Wagons 21 John Stieler's Bakery and Restaurant 23 Nickel Hamburgers and Baked Pies 23 25
Ice Houses The Tile Factory, Dairy and Brickyard 25 
28
The Store Counters Penny Candy and Bunte Chocolates 29 Cheese and Apples 30 
Rollo Rexroat, January 18, 1974, Virginia, Illinois. Marjorie Taylor, Interviewer. 
A. • • . talk right into there? 
Q. Yes, just talk right in there. 
A. Just give the address? 
Q. Your name, too, please. 
A. The initial and everything? 
Q. Yes, everything, please. 
A. Rollo T. Rexroat, 382 West Hardin, Virginia, Illinois. 
Q. And then give your present occupation. 
A. I guess it's groceries. 
Q. Groceries. (laughs) 
A. Groceries and hardware, sporting goods, antiques. (laughter) 
Q. Everything. 
A. Yes, and so forth. (laughs} 
Q. When did your father begin the store? 
A. This place, we begin it in • 1896, I believe, 1896. Anyway, it was here in 1897, I know, and I think it was in 1896. 
Q. And what had he done before that? What had been his occupation? 
A. Well, he had another little place here in town besides living on the farm. He loaded shotgun shells by hand for a while and then started the store, besides farming. Machine shells--commercial shells were not verygood then; the hand-loaded ones were much better. So, he had about all he could do to hand-load shells. Had as many as four different men to 
load his shells with, sometimes. 
Q. Who were some of those men? 
A. I couldn't tell you that. I don't know who they were. 
Q. Did you ever help? 
A. No. That was before I was, of course, a year or two old. 
Q. Where was this shop? 
A. Down about . west side of the--where the bank is. There was the two little buildings in there; there was a building there, you see. 
Q. And then he finally thought that it would be better to move to town, 
was that the 
A. Yes, he moved to town afterwards and then he 
Q. Did he buy the store from someone else? 
A. Yes. He bought it from Ed Brass, I believe. 
Q. Is he the man who had the canning factory? 
A. Yes. 
Q. Now, your father was George W. Rexroat, Sr. 
A. Yes. 
Q. Well, can you tell me a little bit about Mr. 
A. Well, he . • . of course, as you know, he run 
come here to this store. 
Brass? the canning factory 
out here •.. a few years. Then it was the Virginia Canning Company and then they moved to Petersburg around over there for a good many years; still it's the Virginia Canning Company. 
Q. What did they can? 
A. Oh, pumpkin and sweet corn, tomatoes. 
Q. What did they put it in, tin? 
A. Tin, oh yes. 
Q. Did they have pressure to seal it? 
A. The last time I heard, but they don't use glass anyway. 
Q. Did your father--did he have a share in that packing company? 
A. Not that I know of, no. 
Q. But now, your father bought the grocery store . . . 
Rollo Rexroat 
A. He bought the store, yes, and he did buy some canned goods from the canning factory. 
Q. Oh, he retailed Mr. Brass's cans. 
A. Yes. Some of them, yes. 
Q. Do you know who was in charge of the canning? Did Mr. Brass do it himself? 
A. Yes, he was here. 
Q. Who was the person who told them how to do it and how much steam, and so forth? Was that Mr. Brass? 
A. Brass, yes. He knew how to do it. 
Q. And then that company's long since gone, of course. 
A. Yes, they've been gone twenty-five or thirty years, I guess. I don't know how long. 
Q. Did they have pretty much of an output? 
A. Oh, not too big, but they done pretty good for a number of years there. 
Q. Would the farmers sell their pumpkins to them? 
A. Yes. There was some of them raised them and some raised tomatoes and some raised sweet corn and sold it to the canning factory. 
Q. Oh. Where was the canning factory? 
A. (pause) Well, it's right in that corner where you turn to go out to the packing plant. The packing plant where the big sign is there. Where the hard road is right now. 
Q. Did they use coal to build up the steam, or do you remember? 
A. Well, I imagine, yes, because the coal mine was out there just about a quarter or a half mile there. I don't really remember, but I imagine they did. 
Q. When did they stop the coal mine out there? Was it the time of the bad accident? Did they ever mine • . . 
A. Yes, I don't think they done much after the accident. 
Q. I remember Sarah Chittick Fielden telling of her father being killed there. And she always said her mother said they'd wished they'd stayed in Ireland where they belonged. 
A. It must have been around 1900 when . . • 
Rollo Rexroat 
Q. Is that right? 
A. Just my guess. Now, that's just a guess. But I barely remember it running. 
Q. When your father took over the store, what did it carry in addition to groceries? 
A. I think groceries was about all, at that time. 
Q. What would be included in a stock of a grocery store? 
A. At that time? 
Q. Yes. 
A. (chuckles) Oh, dried peaches and dried apples, ra1s1ns, prunes,all displayed in bulk, of course. Sugar and flour in twenty-five, fiftypound sacks; dry beans, bulk; and very little canned stuff, I don't think,
right then. Probably had a few of the standards like corn and beans-­corn and tomatoes, and of course they hadthepumpkin there. 
VR. [Verna Rexroat, Mr. Rexroat's sister] Potatoes and barrels of pickles and stuff. 
Q. Yes, you had . 
A. Huh? 
Q. Bunn [Verna] says you had pickles and potatoes, too. 
A. Oh yes. They had all that stuff in the store, which I .•.. VR. Sauerkraut. 
Q. Sauerkraut? 
A. Yes, sauerkraut in barrels and pickles in fifty-gallon barrels. 
Q. Fifty gallons of pickles? 
A. Yes. 
Q. What kind of pickles? 
A. Sour. 
Q. No sweets? 
A. Sweet was in little ten or twelve pound barrels. 
Q. What about dill? 
Rollo Rexroat 
A. Dills was in barrels about ten or fifteen gallons. 
Q. Wooden barrels? 
A. Yes. 
Q. Did you return the barrels to the factory? 
A. I doubt it. I don't remember that. 
Q. How was the store heated? 
A. A big coal stove, round oak. 
Q. In the back? 
A. Right here. 
Q. Right here. Was that a community meeting center? 
A. Pretty much. All the old-timers would get in there and sit around the stove, in winter weather, especially. 
Q. Can you tell me some of the things they talked about? 
A. Well, most of them were old Civil War soldiers and, of course, they 
talked about everything about the Civil War, time after time. To hear them tell it, they'd fought them all. 
Q. Can you tell me who some of those men were? 
A. [Who] were the men? 
Q. Yes. 
A. Well, there was Ben McDowell . . • Scott Hurst . . . Charlie Kikendall ... those three were pretty regular all the time, and then there was others dropped in part of the time. Well, Cunningham and ••. 
Q. Who? 
A. Cunningham. Called him Scoop, but I don't know what his name was now--wonder--it's the one that's got the statue out there •.. 
Q. Oh, that one, yes. 
A. He dropped in occasionally. 
Q. I know who you mean. You mentioned Shoopman 
A. Well, he was--Nickie Shoopman, occasionally, but not too often. But those were regular and two or three others drop in pretty near . . . another two, if I could think of them. 
Q. Can you remember some of the stories they told? 
A. Well, I heard them all, but a lot of them I've, of course, forgotten.Now, Ben McDowell, he went from Atlanta to the sea with Sherman and he was a pretty good story teller, too. He told a lot of them. Some of 
them I remembered and some I didn't. You know they foraged all the stuff they ate all the way down there. And every company, I think, sent out a foraging party. And he talked about being out on a foraging party 
and I remember some of the things he said; he was quite comical. 
They went out and they had . . • had mules to carry the stuff back with and they come up to a big plantation and had a whole row of beehives, and they wanted some of that honey, worst kind. And they didn't know how to get it. So there was a nigger there and they told him they wanted some of that honey and they wanted him to get it. Well, he said, "Oh, I can't do that." He said, ''They 1 d sting me to death." "Oh well," theysaid, "they just as well sting you to death, as we'll shoot you, if you don't." He said that nigger made a run for the beehives and just went right between two of them and spread his arms out and tipped them 
over and just kept a going to the brush. Those bees come back onto their mules and onto them and the mules ran away and that was the last they 
ever saw of them. They just--canteens was bouncing up and down, going over the hill. (laughter) 
Q. And no honey, either. 
A. No honey, either. (laughter) 
Q. Oh, that's a good story. 
A. They told that and laughed. Laughed and laughed. And they also told about going out on a foraging and they'd go up to the plantations and theywouldn't have nothing. Well, they knew they'd had it, but they buried it. 
So, sometimes they'd get the niggers to tell them where it was .•• and 
if they didn't, why, they'd take their rifles and their bayonets and goaround over their yard punching them down in the ground. They'd find out where it was soft, they knew something had been buried there lately. So 
sometimes--! remember one time they found a whole bunch of cured hams 
down in there. But they took them. And, as I remember it, they wasn't allowed to bother the plantation people, the women; that's about all they ever saw. I never heard him ever speak of seeing any young men, at least; maybe some old fellows, but never--said they never bothered them at all 
only to take what they had to eat. And I don't think they took any of their silverware or anything like that. They couldn't handle it or take it with them; I think all they were looking for was something to eat. And they took that anytime they found it. 
They told me a hundred--I've heard a hundred stories but that's been seventy years ago. (laughter) Well, I remember them telling about some of them, when their lines were fairly close together and the front was 
not too severe. The pickets was always out ahead of the lines, you know, out there, and they'd get to talking and get together and trade. Our 
soldiers would trade sugar and things like that the South couldn't get 
for things that they couldn't get, for tobacco which they had and the North didn't. And things like that that one could get and the other one couldn't, why, they just traded back and forth; just like anybody else. (chuckles) 
Q. Was Mr. McDowell in a long time? 
A. I imagine he was, a couple--from the way he sounded, a couple or three years, probably. I couldn't tell you that for sure, though. 
Q. What kind of work did he do in later life? 
A. I don't even know that. 
Q. Was it his son who used to have the delivery business here in town? 
A. No. That was a nephew. 
Q. Oh. What was his name? 
A. The deliveryman? That was Ed McDowell. 
Q. Ed McDowell. 
A. Ed's father might have been in the army, but I don't know that for 
sure. His name was George, but I don't remember for sure if he went in the army. 
Q. Well, now--oh, Mr. Hillig was a veteran, wasn't he? 
A. Yes, but I never knew much about him, only he run the shoe store. He never was, as far as I know, was never in here to talk about anything. 
Q, Where was that shoe store? 
A. Up about where the insurance office is up there. 
Q. Oh, on the north side? 
A. West side. 
Q. Oh, the west side? 
VR. It was up farther. It was up about where the barber shop is. 

A. I can't think which building was right there next to it. 
Q. Where the barber shop is, she says. 
A. Maybe, yes. It's all being changed a little bit in there, you see. 
Q. Oh yes. Well, now this building here replaced one that burned, I believe. 
Rollo Rexroat 
A. The one that was here burned in 1897 and there was this one replaced--Dad come back in here in 1898, the summer of 1898, about a year, so he was out of here about a year. 
Q. Do you remember the fire? 
A. No. 
Q. Did the whole side of the square go at that time? 
A. The whole south side went. 
Q. What started it? 
A. Supposed to have started down in the furniture store above where Finney's Drugstore is, I think. 
Q. Oh. Well, then this whole block was rebuilt since 1897? 
A. Yes. 
Q. And do you remember when you came into the new store? 
A. I can remember the first time I came downtown when the store was here. (chuckles) 
Q. Why do you remember that? 
A. Well, out in front of the door they had skylights, glass, circles 
in it--in the walk to make light down there. And it was all lit up underneath there and I was afraid to walk across it. (chuckles) 
Q. That's where your father kept the dishes he sold. 
A. Well, later years, yes. But it was, that time, there was a printing office down there and that printed the Virginia Enquirer. 
Q. Oh? 
A. That 1 s why they had those ~rkylights, they had desks under there. 
Q. Now, is there a basement under this full building? 
A. Yes. 
Q. Well, how deep is the building? 
A. A hundred and twenty feet. 
Q. What was the editor of the Enquirer at that time? Do you remember? 
A. The Downings was in it. I don't know just who you would call the 
editor. Downing, I think, owned most of it. 
Rollo Rexroat 
Q. The whole family? 
A. Yes. 
VR. Who was his name? 
Q. Downing. 
VR. Yes, that's who I was going to say. Downing. 
A. Who you'd call the editor, I don't know. And then there was a McLemore that worked in there all the time. 
Q. Is that some relation to Callie Vail? 
A. Callie's father. 
Q. Oh. I haven't seen her in a long time. Well, when did you stavt getting canned goods in the store? 
A. When we started selling them? Well, I suppose we sold them right
from the start, some, but they got more as the years went by, more stuff canned--the most was packages--as the years went by, until he pretty near 
quit the bulk stuff entirely. All the coffee and everything was in the bulk. And the grain, started to be, and some of it was green,wasn't even cooked, roasted. Yes, I remember milling green grain-coffee. 
Q. Is that right? Did Mr. McDowell live to be quite old? 
A. Yes, I think in his eighties. 
Q. And did he stay in here and tell stories up to the last? 
A. Oh, pretty much. Not so much in the later years because there wasn't so many of them left and they wasn't ..• they couldn't do it so much, but back in, oh, close to 1900, there for a few years, it was prettyfresh in their minds, I think, and they were ..• yes, sir. 
Q. What was their feeling about the war? Did they think it was a necessary experience? 
A. Oh, I never heard them say either way. They acted like they had a good time but of course they didn't. They was a lot of--that was the first, 
Q. Can you tell about any of the battles? You remember their telling about any of those? 
A. Oh, they told about them. They told about • . , Pea Ridge and Lookout Hountain and all them, but just any of the particulars, why, 
kind of don't remember that. But I wasn't too old when they were doing that. 
Q. No, you weren't too old. You probably weren't interested either. 
A. Oh, yes! I remember them talking but I just didn't write :it down. (laughter) 
Q. Did most of them get pensions? 
A. Finally got pensions, ten, twelve dollars a month. 
Q. Oh, was that all it was? 
A. Oh, it didn't amount to nothing then. Pretty good then, helped a lot then for them, but later years, they worked them up a little bit. I don't know •.. 
Q. Well now, wasn't Mr. Treadway a veteran, too. 
A. Well . . . which one? 
Q. Marion, was that his name? Well, Aunt Emily's father. 
A. I don't know. 
Q. His wife was Ellen Pratt. I think he was a veteran in the Civil War. 
A. Could have been. There was a lot of veterans around here but there 
was only seven or eight or nine of them ever, you might say, looked at them, and then four or five of them quite a bit and . • . 
Q. Were there any Rebels around here? 
A. Jack Smith was a Rebel. And he come in, well, he stayed here. Well,of course, he didn't talk too much but sometimes they got to riding him about one thing or another, have to about get in a fight so they had to 
separate them. (chuckles) 
Q. Where was he from in the South? 
A. I don't know what part. I think it was in Virginia, in there some place. 
Q. Now, was he the grandfather of Mrs. Duckwiler? Louise Duckwiler? 
A. Yes, it would be, I believe. 
Q. Her name was Smith, I think. 
A. Yes. Should be. Her father was dead and Ed was her son. 
Q. Verna, I think you'd better come back here and get in on this, too. 
VR. Oh, he's doing all right. (laughter) 
Rollo Rexroat 
Q. What would they tease him about? How the Rebels got licked? 
A. Yes, he'd come out and tell them how they made the Yanks run here or there. They'd tell him, "Well, who wouldn't run if they'd see something like you coming out of the brush?" (laughter) 
Q. That 1 s a pretty good one. I've never heard one like that. (laughter) But there was no real bad feeling though? 
A. Not too bad, no. No, I don't remember that there were. Nothing 
really--not as bad as you might think, but, course, a lot of them would ride him a little bit but, take the whole thing, I don't think they 
Q. Did your father sell hunting supplies here from the beginning? 
A. What? 
Q. Did your father sell supplies for hunting? 
A. Oh yes. Yes, that's the way he started at first and he sold them 
from--well, still do, as far as that goes, a whole lot, but not nothing like it was a few years back. 
Q. I think it'd be interesting if you'd tell about your father's 
experiences as--see, what would you call him--a wingshot. Is that the term they used? 
A. Yes, he was a trap shot. He shot live pigeons. Raised them out on the farm. 
Q. Oh. Did you help with that? 
A. No. That was before I knew anything about it. 
Q. Well, tell us a little bit more about that. 
A. I don't remember too much about it. He shot quite a bit around over the country, different times. And we got one big solid gold medal that he won. It said Champion of America. 
Q. Oh? What was the date on that? 
A. About 1893, I guess. That's when he got it. A fellow by the name of Bogardus had it before that. 
Q. Captain Bogardus from Logan County, Illinois? From Elkhart? 
A. Elkhart, yes. 
Q. I knew his son. His son, wasn't he chief of police in Springfield? 
A. Yes. 
Rollo Rexroat 12 
Q. And my mother knew all the people because she was from Elkhart. 
A. Of course, I think Bogardus was older than Dad and Dad was in hisprime and, maybe, Bogardus had slipped because he was, really was a-­he won the championship in Europe, too, I believe. 
Q. Oh. Didn't he travel with a, oh, a circus or a wild west ... 
A. Buffalo 
Q. Buffalo Bill, maybe? 
A. Bogardus did. 
Q. That's what I thought •.. that I'd heard that. 
A. Yes, so I read. 
Q. Was he a Civil War veteran? 
A. I don't know. Could have been. 
Q. And your father defeated him? 
A. Yes. 
Q. And where was that shooting? 
A. Out in the old fairgrounds out here. 
Q. Oh, where Bill Petefish 1ives? 
A. Yes. 
Q. Is that right? 
A. I think it was around 1893. 
Q. Did your father shoot much after that or was he . • 
A. Oh ..• maybe for two or three years, but he never did shoot muchthat I can remember. Did too much running around and shooting at allthe shoots so I think he just decided he'd better stay home and takecare of. Got the store started here and stayed in and took care of it. 
Q. Did you or George do any shooting like that? 
A. I never. I've done a lot of hunting, but I never did much trapshooting. 
Q. Did George? [His brother, George Jr.) 
A. And George didn't either, no. He hunted some but didn't traps~pot. 
Rollo Rexroat 13 
Q. Would your father take you hunting? 
A. What? 
Q. Did your father take you hunting? 
A. He never went hunting after I--or anything, after I was big enoughto go. I can remember him going hunting some when I was just a smallkid but by the time I got old enough, why, he never hunted any. 
Q. What would he bring home to eat when he'd go hunting? 
A. Oh, he had rabbits and quail, I can remember that much. He didn'thunt too many ducks, or I don't remember. That's about all there wasaround here at that time. 
Q. When did he start having dishes in the store? That always intriguedme. 
A. Well, I imagine they had dishes pretty much •.. pretty early, afew. 
Q. Those that had his name on it and the pictures of the buildings,were they expensive? 
A. No, I don't think so. At that time, no. They are now. Q, Oh my, yes. (laughter) 
A. One that probably sold for thirty-five cents, be worth ten or twelvedollars now. I remember them all right. They come in, whole hogsheadof them, a hundred of them. But I couldn't say--! expect they sold someof them but--what am I doing? He probably give some of them away, too. 
Q. Well, I wondered, did people charge groceries for a year at a timeor how was that handled? 
A. Oh yes, that was a general thing sometimes. A lot of times they hadpeople run a year. 
Q. And then he'd • 
A. Go from crop to crop, or something like that. 
Q. I see. And maybe he'd give a dish when they'd paid their bill? 
A. Yes, might have. Did sometimes, some things, but might have done it. 
Q. Did dishes come in oatmeal sometimes? 
A. Oh, a lot of them, yes. Got to where there was so many of themcomein oatmeal, it didn't pay you to handle dishes. 
Q. Really? 
A. Yes. Got so many of them to give away, that you couldn't sell any. 
Q. (chuckles) Would those dishes that your father had--let's get back to them a minute--were they full sets or were they just odd serving pieces? Could you get a full 
A. Oh no, they were cups and saucers and little dishes, they were not plates or nothing like that. They were just one piece that you could . 
Q. Fill in. 
A. Well, they had small dishes. 
Q. Sauce dishes? 
A. Yes. Or just--some of them had churches on, I think, and schoolhouses-­old schoolhouse • • 
Q. I've got one of those. 
A. And the courthouse. 
Q. No, that's the one . 
A. I don't know whether there were any more or not. But that's all we got. I can't remember. 
Q. That was German china, was it not? 
A. Austria, I believe, wasn't it? 
Q. Oh, I believe you're right, yes. 
A. I know they said the guy come here and took some pictures, took the order and in about a year we got the dishes. 
Q. Oh, that's the way it was done. Do you remember when people used to talk about the college out where the high school is now? 
A. I don't remember too much about it. I remember that they always
called that the college up there, but there was never no college in my time. 
Q. But you went to school there? 
A. Yes, I went to school there. Oh, I went to college, which they called it that. (chuckles) 
Q. When did they stop calling it the college? 
A. I don't suppose they ever did until it burnt down and built the new one, they probably did. 
Q. Oh, it was the same building? 
A. Yes, I think so. I don't know about that, but it was always a college when I went to school. 
Q. Who were some of the early teachers you had? 
A. Oh, Harmonia Tate 
Q. Oh, I've heard of her. (chuckles) 
A. Mame Wyatt. 
Q. That's Mrs. Jacobs, Homer's mother. 
A. Yes. Yes. And let's see, Ella Wilson 
Q. Hy dad had her, I think. 
A. I don't know about that. 
Q. I think she taught in the country at some time, too. 
A. She might have, but I don't know. Josephine Sallee • Anna Suffern . • . . 
Q. Anna Suffern was an institution in these parts. (chuckles) I never had her, but I always heard about her. 
A. She was all right. She was kind of saucy herself but she was a good teacher. 
VR. Did he mention Ella Wilson? 
Q. Yes. 
VR. Josephine Sallee? 

Q. Yes. 
A. Lee Springer. Then in the high school, why, we had mostly strangers. 
Q. Oh, people would just come in for a little while, then, and go on? 
A. Yes. We had Hiss Mason and . 
Q. Was that Hiss Laura Mason? 
A. Yes, Laura Mason. Esther Aspund taught there, too. She was living at Little Indian at that time. Then Mrs. Allen Atkins up there at the . 
Q. Oh, Walt's mother? 
' ' 
Rollo Rexroat 
A. Yes. And for just a little while in there, they had Kate Ballensham. 
Q. I've heard of her. 
A. She was supposed to have been a tough one, too. And that's about all of them I can [remember] right now offhand. I . 
Q. '~at subjects did you take in high school? 
A. Oh, algebra and Latin and English • • . some botany and zoology . • • VR. Geometry. 
Q. Verna says geometry. 
A. Yes, we did have geometry. In the second .•. VR. Physics. 
Q. Physics? 
A. In the third year. It was algebra the first two years. Then went into geometry. Had some German, too, in the last few years. 
Q. Was that discontinued when World War I came? The German? 
A. I don't know. I expect. 
Q. Now, you were in World War I? 
A. Yes. 
Q. What camp did you train in? 
A. Oh, four or five of them. 
Q. Oh, what were some of them? 
A. Fort Thomas, Kentucky, where I started, and went to Fort Sheridan up 
by Chicago and then Camp Custer at Battle Creek, Michigan and wound up in Chillicothe, Ohio. 
Q. Did you go overseas? 
A. No, I never got only to four different camps. 
Q. Well, you got to see the country a bit. (laughs) 
A. Got put in a regular army regiment and they kept that regular regiment over here. We was ready to go across when the first armistice showed up and then they had them--[we were] already packed. (chuckles) 
Q. Did they discharge you right away or did you • • • 
Rollo Rexroat 
A. No, I didn't get discharged till the next spring. 
Q. Oh. You stayed at it all winter, then? 
A. Yes, I got home, oh, February or maybe March. 
Q. How long were you in the service? 
A. Oh, about a year. 
Q. Can you tell me a little bit about how you lived in the army, the food and the living arrangements. 
A. Oh, most of the time we didn't fare too bad. We was alive. But after you moved from one camp to the other one--of course, you didn't eat very good. It didn't make any difference to me, I went to town or the PX or restaurant or any place else and got all I want, so I didn't hurt. It didn't bother me any. 
Q. (laughs) Can you tell me about some differences in the way the storekeeping was at World War I and now, some of the things you think are the main differences in storekeeping? 
A. Well • • . 
Q. I believe we're stuck here. I believe that's the end of the tape. Nope, we're still going. Can you tell about the difference in the way you received your supplies and about the people--how you ordered your supplies . • • 
A. Well, of course, originally everything come in on the trains, mostly from Peoria, some from Jacksonville, but Peoria had a big run here on groceries; where you'd come down on the CP&St.L [Chicago, Peoria & St. Louis], and then later, of course, they always got shipment by truck. 
Q. Did they send salesmen ahead of time or did you send 
A. Salesmen came in regular, about once a week or every two weeks, from different companies all over every place, about like they do now. They sent the order and they'd come in in three or four days, pretty good service down in Peoria at that time. 
Q. Was it easier to get supplies then than now? 
A. Well, maybe than right now. (laughter) Normally, it wasn't much 
different. Normally, you could get about what they had at the time, of course. 
Q. Would the salesmen come in on the train? 
A. Yes, they traveled by train. Some of them stayed all night at the hotel and some of them could catch a train out to some place else. 
, I 
Rollo Rexroat 
Q. Do you remember when they built that hotel? 
A. I •.. hardly think so. 
Q. George told me one time that there was a puddle of water there. 
They dug out the basement or something and they had a lot of water up there when they were building the hotel. Do you remember anything about that? 
A. No, I wouldn't say I did. It must have been a bit earlier than 1890. Now, I know they always--some guy asked them why they built the depot way out there in the country, asked some of the old people here in town. Well, they didn't know, "unless they wanted to get it out by
the railroad." (laughter) It was a good ways out there -when theywalked, you know, or had to take the bus. 
Q. Oh, you mean the old CP 
A. Yes. 
Q. Oh, now that's out where FS [Farm Service] is no-w, isn't it? 
A. Yes. 
Q. Well, that would be about a mile out there. 
A. Yes, it would be, pretty near, from here, town here. 
Q. Was there a kind of a bus or a jitney? 
A. Yes, they had a bus that would haul the salesmen in, or anybody else that's--well, sometimes, you know, it got so muddy that they couldn't 
hardly run. 
Q. Oh my, who ran that thing? 
A. Oh, Tom Chittick ran it, the first I remember. I think Arthur Smith run it some, earlier there; maybe others but I don't remember. 
Q. Was it a kind of a business on the back where people would face each other as they sat in there? 
A. Well, it was a regular bus. It had the seats on both sides and a step in the back. I remember that one. They always had what they called the express wagon that carried all the express out or brought the expressin and they had a couple of drays just to haul in--made a living hauling the groceries in from the depots in town. 
Q. Who were those men? 
A. I remember Jeff Treadway, that's Bernice's father, and different ones. Some of them stayed a good -while and some of them didn 1 t. I just--he 1 s about the last one I remember. 
Rollo Rexroat 19 
Q. I believe we're stopped now. Oh, I keep thinking this--I'm goingto hold this this way, so we can tell when it stops--when the tape'scompleted. Now, would you pay the draymen or would • . . 
A. We paid the dray • 
Q. You paid. About how much would that fee be? 
A. Oh, it didn't look like much now. I got some old freight bills. 
Q. Oh, you have! I think I'll have to come back another day when you'vehunted up some of those things. Now, did you buy things from the farmers,too? 
A. Oh yes, sometimes buy a wagonload of potatoes or something from themand also shipped in carloads of potatoes. We sold to some of the farmersthat didn't. Sold them from the track. Just take orders and get acarload and they'd buy them hundred-pound or hundred-and-twenty-poundsacks. 
Q. Would they keep all winter? 
A. Yes. 
Q. Well, why won't potatoes keep now? What's the difference? (chuckles) 
A. I don't know. They just ain't the potatoes we used to get. 
Q. Did you have red potatoes or white potatoes? 
A. We had Red River Ohio, mostly; early Ohios. Did have some white onesbut I wondered the same thing because these potatoes we get now, why,two weeks and they get to going bad. 
Q. I know it. 
A. In them days we kept them all winter. 
Q. Well now, did . 
A. I think they fertilize them so much, you know, that they just don'tkeep. 
Q. Maybe so, yes. Well, what about cabbage? Did you sell storedcabbage? 
A. No, if we sold cabbage later, we bought it from a produce house.Never did try--never raised much right here to have to store. 
Q. And you always bought eggs, I believe. 
A. Oh, yes. 
Rollo Rexroat 20 
Q. And what did you do with the surplus of them? 
A. Oh, shipped them and sold them to people that come through and madea business of it, and things like that. 
Q. You don't buy eggs now, do you? 
A. A few. 
Q. Do you? 
A. Not lately though. In the last month or two, I ain't bought any.(laughter) 
Q. How much would eggs bring a dozen? 
A. Then? Oh, a nickel. 
Q. A nickel a dozen! Well, that wasn't very--course, they didn't buyfancy feed for the chickens, either. 
A. No. No, they didn't, and they didn't--oh, they run up eight, tencents--way back there I'm talking about--was a good price for them. 
Q. Well, now, did you handle any meat? 
A. Nothing but cured meat--bacon; some country hams and stuff likethat, but it was nothing but cured meat. Oh maybe, in the dead ofwinter when the farmers were butchering, they'd bring a dishpan full ofgood country sausage, and • • . 
Q. Oh, you'd buy that? 
A. 
We sold that, yes. We didn't have any trouble selling that. Wouldn'tnow, either. 
Q. It's not legal now, is it? 
A. Wouldn't be, I don't suppose. 
Wish I had some of it myself. So itwas sausage. What we buy now ain't. 
Q. That's true. (laughs) Would people bring chickens in to you?Chickens and ducks and things? 
A. Well, not in my time, but real early before I can remember much downthere, I think Dad did buy chickens--live chickens. They traded them, youknow. I know they had a pen down there. We lived down there below theChristian Church where Mrs. Fanning lives now. 
Q. Oh, you did? 
A. Yes. And they had a big high fence back in there and sometimes they'dhave, oh, I don't know, looked like a hundred or more chickens and he'dsell them to the poultry house. Live chickens. 
Q. Well, when did you move down on South Cass Street, then? 
A. Oh, I don't know. 1905 or 1906. 
Q. Well, who owned that house before your family did? 
A. Kors, Henry Kors. 
Q. Was he an early county clerk? 
A. Yes, I think so. He worked at the courthouse and one thing and another. 
Q. And he drew the picture "The Indian Mounds." 
A. What? 
Q. He drew a picture of the Indian Mounds and said he'd been raised down there on the mound at Beardstown. 
A. Well, he might have, yes. I think he did. 
Q. And Mr. Martin, Judge Martin, put it in the book and he didn't putMr. Kors'name by the side of it. But that's who did it. I found it in something that Dr. Snyder had written. You know the picture I mean? 
A. Yes, I know, I've seen it in the book. 
Q. According to Dr. Snyder that was Hr. Kors'. 
A. That was in • . . 
Q. Martin's 
A. Snyder's book. 
Q. Yes. 1914 or 1915, some place along there. Well, can you tell me a little bit about Mr. Kors? Did you ever know him? 
A. Oh yes, I knew him. But he was in the courthouse was all I ever knew. I can't tell him •.. too much otherwise. 
Q. He was just pleasant and did his job. 
A. What? 
Q. He was a pleasant man who did his job. 
A. Yes, he was pleasant enough, very nice. 
Q. Did you have a delivery wagon out of the grocery store? 
A. Well, back in the early days, the wooden wagon delivered for 
four or five different stores around town. Delivered and made two trips each way in the morning and two trips each way in the afternoon and he hauled for all of us. We all paid him. 
Q. Well, who did that, now? Who ran that wagon? 
A. Oh . • • Ed McDowell did, but before him there was a guy in there I can't remember--then Cap Wells ..• Arthur Smith was the last we had. And he delivered in--they was all delivering with horses. But Arthur had a Model-T Ford truck. Finally, it just got to where we was the last ones delivering. Arthur was the guy and he delivered until he got sick and 
Q. That was it? 
A. That was it. 
Q. Well, now, you yourself would deliver to your friends, I know. 
A. Oh, I did after Arthur quit. Oh yes, I did that for years until they all died. 
Q. I remember that. (chuckles) 
A. Oh, I, once in a great while now, take something out to somebody there, but you might say it's done gone. 
Q. That's one of the modern conveniences we've lost. 
A. We're lost, that's right. Course, it don't make so much difference 
now, people are downtown every day, anyway, in the car. They don't need to be delivered but them days there was nobody--very few of them had cars. 
Q. And they had no way to carry that stuff. 
A. No. I figure there were . 
Q. Would you sell much flour, say 25-pound bags of . . . 
A. Oh yes, you bet you. That was--way back when; that's the way theybought it; never bought less than 25 pounds. We didn't even handle anything smaller than 25 pounds. 
Q. Oh. Well, then when did baker's bread start coming in? 
A. It replaced the other bread after a number of years. 
Q. About what time do you think baker's bread became prevalent in grocery stores? 
A. Well, not as early as you might think. 
I, 
Q. Oh? 
A. No, but back a little bit before the First World War. 1910 or 1911 or 1912, in there, it probably began to cut into the flour business. 
Q. Was there a bakery in Virginia? 
A. Oh yes, there was two or three. 
Q. Who were some of those men? 
A. Oh, John Stieler. 
Q. Oh, he was a baker? 
A. Oh yes. Yes, he was a baker. 
Q. I didn't know that. I've heard of him. 
A. Yes. He had a bakery there where . . city hall is, I guess-­the next one to it, where Doc Taylor is. 
Q. Oh, yes. 
A. And he'd bake good pies and he was a good baker. 
Q. Oh? Where'd he learn his trade, I wonder. Was he German? 
A. Germany, I suppose. 
Q. He came here from the old country. 
A. I imagine. And I don't know when they came. And then on farther there along the way, about half way of that block, there were several bakers in there. And, of course, there were some of them in with Stieler after he put the bakery in the restaurant there. They had a restaurant upstairs and the bakery in the basement. Yes. You could get a great big hamburger--a big one and a good one--for a nickel. 
Q. A nickel? 
A. With all the trimmings. (laughter) 
Q. You mean the onions and the pickles? 
A. Yes. What I mean, it was good. 
Q. And his own bread. 
A. Buns. 
Q. Oh, buns? 
Rollo Rexroat 
A. Oh yes, he makes them. And you get a dandy good--a real pie, better than most people bake at horne now, for fifteen cents. 
Q. The whole pie? 
A. The whole pie. 
Q. What kind of pies did he make mostly? 
A. Any kind you wanted. 
Q. He took orders for them? 
A. No, he just made • 
END OF SIDE ONE 
A. • • [Before I'd] go hunting, I'd go in and buy a half of a mince pie. I think for a nickel or dime or something like that and take the paper plates--had paper plates--and just foldtheother half over that half of pie, wrap it up and put it in the back of my hunting coat and eat that for dinner. 
Q. Oh, did he make his own mincemeat? 
A. I don't know. It was good, anyway. Good as anything you can buy. 
Q. Where did Stielers live? 
A. They lived down--the only time I remember, they lived down west of the old post office, there where Lynn's is. 
Q. Oh, where Maggie Lynn lives now? Oh, that's the Stieler house? 
A. That's where they lived when I remember them. 
Q. Of course, I didn't know them, but I always thought Hr. Stieler was just a grocery man. I didn't know he did all these other things. 
A. Oh, he ran that restaurant and bakery a long time before he--seems to me like a long time--before he went to the grocery store. 
Q. What would a full meal cost in that restaurant? 
A. Oh, a quarter. A full meal, too. 
Q. Did he do the cooking or did his wife? 
A. Well, he might have at times but he--he worked in the upstairs after he got done baking. 
. 

'' 
Rollo Rexroat 
25 
Q. Oh. He worked hard, I'm sure. 
A. Yes, he did. He had an ice cream soda fountain in there, too, and made the ice cream himself. 
Q. Oh, he did? Well, what kind of ice cream would he make? 
A. Oh, that's all I remember is vanilla. But he probably'd made any kind. 
Q. Where did he get the ice? 
A. Oh, they had an ice house out here then. Clifford had one down here and out by the farm they had another big ice house. 
Q. Well, who had the one out by the pond? 
A. George Henderson, I suppose. 
Q. Well then, you say Mr. Clifford had an ice house? 
A. Had one down here behind--one down from Mark Skiles, back in there. 
Q. Oh, I never heard of that one before. 
A. It's the only one I ever knew Clifford had. 
Q. I didn't know Mr. Clifford had an ice house, that's what I meant. What was his first name? 
A. Bill. 
Q. What else did he do besides have the ice house? 
A. I don't know. I think maybe--well, he shipped his ice in from the old place. 
Q. Oh, I see, yes. And Mr. Henderson got his out here in the pond.Well now, was that a tile--was there a tile factory out there that made that pond? 
A. Yes, yes. They was on--right where Standard station is, along in there. 
Q. Who operated the tile factory? 
A. I suppose Henderson did and Charles Paul worked in it, maybe, and operated it and I think they all ..• it was those early years; later 
years some other--Arthur Hiles had the ice for later years and I don't think he ever run the tile factory or the brickyard, but it's possible. He run a dairy there, too. 

Q. A dairy? 
Rollo Rexroat 
A. Arthur did. 
Q. Now, Carl Ericson ran the brickyard, too, didn't he? 
! I 
A. Carl Ericson, yes. And before that Antone Anderson ran it. 
Q. Now, I don't know about him. \fuo was he? 
A. Oh, he was Carl--he raised Carl Ericson. 
Q. Oh, from Sweden? 
A. I guess. Anyway, lots of them other Swedes including Ericson. Antone Anderson was at the end of that street which goes down east of the Catholic Church, down in there, at the end of that street. 
Q. Oh, I know, yes. 
A. You go down there you can see where it's all dug out in a low place there . 
Q. Well, did Carl Ericson grow up in Virginia, then? 
A. Far as I know, because he was fairly grown when I remember him--he 
was grown. But he was in the brickyard down there and then afterwards, well, I guess he used up all the clay there and moved back there and dug some more. 
Q. Was that clay considered fine clay from around here? 
A. Well, I think it made very good what they call sand brick, I believe it was. 
Q. Were the streets in Virginia paved with that kind of brick? 
A. No, it wasn't paving brick. A lot of the places were built with it. 
Q. Oh. Chimneys? 
A. Stores. 
Q. Stores? 
A. And houses, maybe, I don't know what all. But they built chimneyswith it, no doubt. I think it was considered a good what they call soft brick. Of course pavements was hard brick, shale brick. 
Q. Frank Lyons fired the kiln the last time it was ever fired. 
A. Who? 
Q. Frank Lyons. 
Rollo Rexroat 27 
A. Lyons? I don't know. 
Q. Oh, you remember Sherman and Cecil's father. 
A. Yes, I know him. 
Q. I've heard him tell that. 
He's been gone about ten years now, Iwould think. 
A. 
I don't think it's been fired out there for longer than that, though. 
Q. Well, it was quite a while before that--well, maybe twenty years or
thirty years before he died, he had done it, but he told about it. 
He
had a job someplace else and they brought him back to fire it, becausenobody knew how to do it. (chuckles) Can you think of any buildingsin town that have that brick in it? 
A. I couldn't tell you for sure any of them. 
I'm not sure ••• aboutthe Presbyterian Church. 
Q. Is that right? 
A. I don't know. 
Q. Now, the front of your store, what kind of brick was that? 
A. I think they were hard brick. They were a different brick. Now thesides may have been, but the front's brick, or different brick. They are. 
Q. Now, the basement was originally used by the newspaper and what wasthe second floor fixed for? 
A. Oh, it had different things; it has a dentist up there and doctorsand chiropractors and • • . 
Q. (chuckles) Who were some of those people? 
A. Well, Doc Fulton was up there, a dentist. 
Q. Never heard of him before. 
A. And • Doc--let's see, I don't know, Blackburn was up there, too,I believe, at one time. 
Q. Is that right? 
A. And a couple of chiropractors were up there for a while. Who wasthat? I can't tell you their names. 
Q. Is it full, the same length as the downstairs? 
A. What? 
,.
'. 
Q. Is the upstairs the same length as the downstairs? 
A. No, the upstairs is only eighty foot. 
Q. I see. 
A. Back part's a sky light. Same length as this building. 
Q. Now, I wish you'd tell me about the counters in this store. They always intrigued me. 
A. The what? 
Q. The counters. 
A. Oh. Well, I don't know much about them only that they've been here all of my life and I think they were used when Dad got them after the fire. So I think they were originally dry goods counters. Cause theyhad tacks drove every six inches and yard to mark off the yards, and they always told me that's where the dry goods counters were. 
Q. Is that so? They're solid, walnut, aren't they? 
A. Yes, they're all solid walnut. One solid board about twelve foot long and, I don't know, thirty inches wide, anyway. 
Q. Well, they're awfully nice. Now, these other shelves, were they built a . 
A. They were built in when the building was built. 
Q. I imagine this was considered a model for modern merchandising when the store was 
A. At that time, yes. 
Q. Well, it's very interesting now. 
A. Yes. It's not the best, though. But it was, at that time, they were 
all right because ... they are hard to reach and there wasn't nothingself-service. Everybody waited, the clerks done all the reaching for them, so it didn't make a difference, but nowadays, when people do their own reaching, why, they can't reach those top shelves. 
q. 
(chuckles) Who all worked in the store with your father? 

A. 
Well, Frank Bristow 

Q. 
I remember him. 

A. 
And Oscar Gaines. We worked in here at the same time. They were working here, I think, when the fire burned. 


Rollo Rexroat 
Q. Oh. 
A. I believe so. VR. Al Houston. 
Q. Al Houston, she said. 
A. Al--yes, Al Houston . 
VR. Al. 
A. • and Bill Decker. That's about it. 
Q. How old were you when you took your stint? 
A. 1915's when we started to work. 
Q. But you'd worked here before that? 
A. Oh, before that, yes. What time we wasn't hunting or going someplace. 
(laughter) But then, why, from then on, why, except for the war, I don't think I missed very many days. 
Q. No, I don't think you have either. Do you still have penny candy? 
A. Penny candy, yes. But them days we had all kinds of bulk candy and for a penny you got as much as you get for a quarter now. 
Q. Where did you get your candy? Was it from the factory? 
A. Now? 
Q. No, then. 
A. Oh yes, a lot of it we bought right from the factory. Kept a lot of good chocolates and all that stuff; bought it--they came from a factory. 
Q. You make me hungry. (chuckles) 
A. It's making me hungry, too, when I say good chocolates. (laughter) They were. 
Q. And did they come in boxes or you bought it in the bulk? 
A. Five-pound boxes. 
Q. Five-pound boxes. 
A. The chocolates did. They were Bunte and they were topnotch. 
Q. Is that from Bloomington or Peoria? 
A. I don't know. I don't remember. (tape stopped and started) 
Q. Oh, that's an old Bunte candy box? 
A. Bunte, World Famous Candies. 
Q. Is that a real old box? 
A. Yes. 
Q. Well, that's real interesting. 
A. You see, you slip the (opens the box) • . . (pause) 
Q. Well, that's a--and would those come eve·ry time or did you have to refill those boxes? 
A. I refilled them. 
Q. I see. Then you could see what's in there with those nice glass tops. 
A. Well, (pounds on something) 
Q. They're awful nice. And it kept things clean. 
A. You see, those boxes were five pounds a box; the top layer, if it was good chocolates, were all in little paper cups. Well, you took that top layer off and slid it in here and 
then you sold out of the • . . 
Q. Oh, I see.! (chuckles) 
A. box where it wasn't--in the little cups and they had the little cups right down to the finish. 
Q. Well, that was nice, wasn't it. 
A. Yes. 
Q. That was good managing. 
A. So you put it in there and 
Q. Could you keep them in the summer, too, or did it get too hot? 
A. I don't think so. If I remember them, we kept them all the time. 
Q. Well now, I can remember your cheese. Where did you get that good cheese? 
A. Oh, we bought it from a grocery house. There were grocery houses and they got it from Wisconsin. 
Q. Wisconsin cheese, then. Where did you buy your apples? 
Rollo Rexroat 31 
A. Oh, just at produce houses, as I remember, mostly. Once in awhile, some in the country because some of them's pretty good applesthen. No bugs. 
Q. Where do the bugs come from anyway? 
A. I don't know. (chuckles) 
Q. And I can remember you would have interesting baskets in here. 
A. Yes, those were handmade baskets. 
Q. Where did you get those? 
A. Oh, there's four or five brothers around Arenzville and a few otherplaces named Alexander that were all basket makers. And about every
year they'd come through with a hayrack load of baskets. 
Q. Hayrack? 
A. Yes. And sometimes Dad'd pretty near buy the whole load, hundredor more. 
Q. Well, how much would he give--how much would he sell them for? 
A. Oh, I suppose they sold for a dollar. 
Q. Would those be clothes baskets? 
A. What? 
Q. Were some of them clothes baskets? 
A. Clothes baskets and little baskets and most of them big bushel feedbaskets. 
Q. You don't have a one left, do you? No. You do. (laughs) 
A. Got some little ones. 
Q. Have you really? Do you sell them? No. I didn't think you would.(laughs) 
A. The last we bought from them, oh, several years ago, we went toArenzville to the burgoo. And wandering around over there, why, I runacross one of these brothers over there by that west street in town; heset there in front of a house, had a whole mess of baskets. And I wentaround and I went around and found George and I says, "Those guys areover there with a whole bunch of baskets." So we went right back overthere and we bought everything he had that we could haul in the car.(laughter) 
Q. They're all gone now, of course. 
-·····-····---------------------------------­
Rollo Rexroat 
A. Yes, they were clothes baskets. There's a few clothes baskets that 
we just couldn't get room in the car for with everything else. But they came through, at least, once a year. 
Q. I didn't realize that--! always thought about baskets coming from the Ozarks. I didn't realize they came this near home. 
A. They made them there. That's the only ones I ever remember getting. 
Q. What did they use to make the baskets? 
A. Oak. 
Q. They split it right down there, then. 
A. I remember one time a fellow, he come in, he said, "I'll come into town and bring the stuff here and if anybody's got chairs and stuff like that that they want bottoms put in, why, tell them to bring them up at a certain time and . " 
Q. Is that right? 
II
A. we'll put new bottoms in their chairs." 
Q. What'd they charge for that? 
A. I don't remember. Maybe a dollar. Wasn't nothing then. Now'd be I had one put in. I had one replaced, one of those hickory bottoms, whatever you call them, but they were . • • 
Q. Hickory splint. Wasn't that what they called them? 
A. Yes, but I'm thinking these were oak splints. 
Q. Oak splints. I wish you'd tell me about your experiences with the plants. I know you've been highly respected in that field. Now, I want to hear that. 
A. Well . . • I started to hunting them fairly heavy in about 1953. 
And every year I'd take in, oh, a thousand to the museum. And I kept,generally always, kept a--one of my own. I'd pick a couple of them and send the best one in to them. In all, I expect I sent about eleven thousand. 
Q. That's an awful lot of plants. 
A. And along at the last, the Western Illinois University--! had a selection--they wanted some plants. And I, instead of picking two, picked three, and give them one. I sent them three or four or five thousand. And I've still got about ten or eleven thousand in those 
boxes. 
Q. Oh! In those boxes up here! Is that right? 
A. And the university wants them, so I expect some day I'll give them to them. 
Q. University of Illinois? 
A. No, Western. Oh, the University of Illinois'd like to have them too, as far as that goes, but •.. 
Q. Now, I'm from the University of Illinois. (laughs) 
A. Well, they've got three or four hundred thousand over there, but Macomb didn't have many . 
Q. I guess that's right. 
A. . so it wouldn't amount to pass them to. They've got some of mine up there now--the University of Illinois. They took some of the special ones. 
Q. Now, you've had several named for you, haven't you? 
A. No, they never did name any of them for me. I didn't get them that 
wild. (laughter) I found a lot of them, though, that hadn't been found in the state before. 
Q. Could you name some of those now? 
A. Well, lipocaupa, micoyah, shelvoria meticulara. [Spellings of plants are phonetic only. Appropriate botanical source guide not available.] 
! ' Q. Did you use books to identify those? 
A. Some of them. Some of them, I could do it fairly easy. Otherwise, I'd just send them in to the museum and let them identify them. But some I got to--along the last few years, I could 
Q. You got pretty good, too. 
A. See, I had a pretty good idea of what they were before and I didn't have to look so much, but at first I took quite a little trouble from it. 
Q. Where did you find these plants? 
A. Where? All over twelve, thirteen counties. 
Q. I wondered how far you went. Which counties did you go to? 
A. Oh, I went to Cass and Hason first, then Horgan, and then I got into Menard; then I went over into Schuyler and Fulton and Brown and Pike and got as far as Adams. 
Q. Oh, you did? 
:i' 
Rollo Rexroat 
34 
A. Yes. McDonough ... 
Q. Did anybody around here ever raise indigo? 
A. Not that I know of. You find indigo, wild indigo. 
Q. Around here? Does it color? 
A. I expect it would. 
Q. Next time you see some of that, I'd appreciate a chunk of that. See what I could do with it. 
A. I think the leaves turn purple when they get blooms and begin to dry and turn • • • 
Q. Oh? Do they use the leaves or the root for the coloring? 
A. I don't know. 
Q. You don't know about that? 
A. No, I don't know about that. I don't know whether it's the same 
plant or not, but there's two or three kinds of indigo growing around [here]. 
Q. How did you first get interested in all these plants? 
A. How did I? Oh, I always was, more or less, then naturally as soon as I found an excuse for hunting them, why, I went and done it. I always liked to hunt for them, knew what the other plants were beforehand. 
Q. You hunted plants rather than animals, then, in later years? 
A. In late years. I hunted both, but then later, why ••. 
Q. Did you do lots of fishing, too? 
A. Oh yes, quite a little. 
Q. Who killed the pheasant that's stuffed up there on the wall? 
A. I did. 
Q. You did that. Who stuffed it for you? Or did you do that, too? 
A. No, I didn't. I believe Ivan Baxter's boy stuffed that. Oh, no, no. They didn't. There's a fellow by the name of John Catlin from Springfield. 
Q. John Herbert Baxter did stuff some, though, I remember about that. 
A. Yes, he did. He stuffed that little merganser duck up there. 
Rollo Rexroat 35 
Q. Oh, he did? Really? I saw him when his Aunt Marie Reed wasburied and he has a full beard. He said he thought he looked likethe picture of his Grandfather Baxter. (chuckles) I never wouldhave known him. 
Now, where did you find most of these unusual plants? 
Would theybe in groups together or were they all scattered out? 
A. Oh I found more of them in Cass than Mason, first. 
Q. In what kind of areas? In wooded areas, or swampy, or . 
A. Swampy. 
Q. Swampy. Down near the river? 
A. No, not around the rivers, they would overflow too much, but theyfind them in potholes, down in potholes, sand potholes and places like
that. 
Q. Sand potholes, I don't know about that. 
A. That's where the wind blew out forty thousand years ago and left ahole there and it held water. 
Q. Oh. Where is one? I don't know about them. 
A. Oh, there's some over in Mason County of that type. 
I think there's
one there--you know where George Wingler lives? 
Q. No. 
A. It's a pond in the sand, anyway ••. 
Q. Oh, I see. 
A. . it was native, I mean never . • • 
Q. Dredged out• 
A. It wasn't dredged out or nothing, it just [sat] there through time.And there's another one dmm in--west of George Huffman1 s in the sandthat was an original pond. 
Q. It's blow sand, isn't that the phrase they used? Blow sand? 
A. Blow sand was--it'd blot out areas. They'd blow out and they'dblow down to the hardpan and then they held water. 
Q. Well now, the hardpan wasn't too far down some places, was it? 
A. Oh, maybe twenty feet, twenty-five, thirty feet. 
Rollo Rexroat 36 
Q. Would there be--go through hardpan to get water? 
A. Yes, they would if they had to. 
Q. Would the water be more apt to be found in a place like that? 
A. No. I don't--no. All them places, all they had to do was drive
a point down and get water. But these, mostly it was surface waterthat filled those kind. 
Q. Have you heard this story that all the Sangamon River valley wasriver at one time and there's a great underground river there. Do youknow anything about that? 
A. I don't know about Sangamon but I heard over in Mason County therewas a big river, Mackinaw or something that--still is, runs underground. 
Q. Is that right? Does it hit Cass County at all? 
A. Not that I know of. 
Q. Well now, how do you account for having found these plants? 
Theywere just there; no one recognized them? 
A. Oh, just nobody ever picked them up, I guess. 
Of course, most ofthem had been there for thousands of years. Course, I found a lot ofplants along the railroads and places that were new to the state. But
they could have been brought in on rail cars, and were, probably. 
Q. Oh, I never thought about that. 
A. There's a ditch out along the edge there and I found a lot of them,different ones, that's ••. 
Q. Out here? 
A. Oh, different railroads. I'd hunt along the railroad and the railroadyards and where they had big switch yards and cleaned out their cars andfind plants there that didn't belong to this country at all. 
Q. In Beardstown, is that where you 
A. Beardstown was one and Roodhouse and anyplace such as--this railroad,I'd hunt the railroad. And of course, along some of the railroads youfind the old original prairie. 
Q. Where is there any prairie grass left now? 
A. Oh, lots of it. 
Q. Is that what that is down there in Gumm Town? 
Rollo Rexroat 37 
A. Might be. 
Q. Tall. 
A. Along the ditches, I expect, some place along there. I see. It'salong the roads. 
Q. 
Did you ever hear any of the old farmers talk about breaking theprairie grass? 
A. Yes. 
Q. How did they do that? 
A. Most all of them used two or three or four or five yoke of oxen. 
Q. Oxen! To break the prairie? 
A. To break that sod. They were better than horses. 
Q. Were they stronger or more even-dispositioned? 
A. ~1ore even-dispositioned and it was full of snakes and they didn'tspook from snakes so bad. 
Q. Oh! (chuckling) Horses are afraid of snakes? 
A. A lot of them. 
Q. I didn't know that. 
A. More so than oxen. 
Q. Now, didn't Joe Black do something about a plow which they used onthe prairie? Do you remember him? 
A. Joe . • . 
Q. Wasn't that his name? 
He was a builder and he built the MethodistChurch and the Christian Church. 
A. I don't know, now. 
Seems to me like there was somebody around here
that did do something to a plow but I can't just remember what. 
Q. I think he put two plowshares together and it was quite a laborsaving device during the Civil War. I read that sometime. 
A. We could probably use that all right where they'd been broken before,easy pulling, otherwise you probably couldn't pull two of them through·that sod. 
Q. Would they burn it off before they broke it? 
Rollo Rexroat 38 
A. I don't--never remember them saying that, but they burned it offpretty near every year, I think. 
Q. They did? 
A. I think so. 
Q. I don't see how they could turn it under. 
A. Well, it ~rough going, I guess. 
Q. Was it a steel plow? 
A. They just couldn't break it until they got steel plows. 
Q. Oh. So this country wasn't settled until the steel plow came along? 
A. No. A lot of it wasn't. It's come back to that. I remember Charlie
Kikendall, when they come into this country in about 1850, probably, or1860, coming down that way and he wanted his dad to settle in that landup along there at Guerny. That good farmland where it's fifteen hundreddollars an acre. 
Q. Yes. (chuckles) 
A. And they were farming ridges then and it was all--that was all swamp.He wanted his dad to settle there. Dad says, "Son, we couldn't make a
living here." He [Charlie] said, "I wanted him to settle there becausethere was ducks nested along all the corn hills." On all those ridges,
out in the cornfield, why, the ducks'd hatch along in the hills. 
Allsummer they's And they went down and settled out north of townout here--old Bowman place. Wasn't too hot. 
Q. Oh, the Bowman place? 
A. Bowman. 
Out there by Finn, I believe that's where they settled,right along in there someplace. 
Q. Oh, is that right! 
A. And he went to school there at Germany and Gould . . . 
Q. Was he the preacher? 
A. No. 
Q. Ernest Logue's grandfather, maybe? 
A. Yes. He wasn't a preacher but he might have preached a little. 
He
taught school then. 
And he taught school out there--I suppose Germany-­and Charlie had done something. He'd gone to town and been in a fightor something and the old man was going to lick him the next day. 
But
Charlie run off and went to the army. 
So, years later, down on the 
Rollo Rexroat 
Mississippi someplace, he run across the old man Gould. He said, "You going to lick me now?" And he says, "No." He says, "I guess you've got enough fighting by now." (laughter) 
Q. Was this during the Civil War? 
A. Yes. 
Q. Was Mr. Gould in the war, too? 
A. Yes. 
Q. Well, for goodness sakes. 
A. They met down in Mississippi during the war. 
Q. Well, for goodness sakes. (laughs) 
A. He says, "You going to whip me now, are you?" He says, "No, because you've had enough fighting, I think." (laughter) 
Q. Well now, when they first came in here, they had to have water and they had to have wood. Was that one reason they went in those . 
A. They settled along the breaks where they could get water and wood and timber and--had to have it to live, far as that goes. 
Q. And the poorest land there was. 
A. Yes. Wasn't as good as the swampland that they passed up. 
Q. When did your folks get in here? 
A. Well, they come in this courtry in the thirties. 
Q. Now, that was the Petefishes. 
A. And the Rexroats, too, I imagine. 
Q. Where did the Rexroats come from? 
A. Virginia. 
Q. And your Grandmother Petefish was Nancy Strickler. 
A. Yes. 
Q. I remember that from the blanket that she wove. I saw her name on it. 
A. And they come through in a wagon. But the Rexroats come down the Ohio River in a boat; they went that way. And part of them, as I understand-­the men, the father--stopped in Kentucky someplace, and some of the boys in the family and two of them came up here. One settled over around Arcadia--and that's our ancestors--and the other one was over around Macomb, McDonough County. There's Rexroats over there, yes. So, they all come down the river in a damn boat. (chuckles) 
Q. Well now, that was a rather common migration line, wasn't it, to Virginia to Kentucky? 
A. Yes. In the thirties, the early thirties, there was quite a migration through here. 
Q. And they would stay in Kentucky, maybe, oh, a generation or two, and then come on sometimes. 
A. Yes. But these--! don't think at least, part of them stayed in Kentucky. Why, we've had those Kentuckians come here years back and say that, "There's a lot of Rexroats down there where I come from." 
Q. Were there? And they came by the river? 
A. Yes, they went to Kentucky by the river, by the Ohio River. 
Q. In Kentucky. You wouldn't know what part of Kentucky they came from? 
A. No, I don't know now. 
Q. There used to be a story that they came from Adair County in this part--a lot of them did--and they floated down Greasy Creek and they went by boat and they got off and landed on the Schuyler side of the Illinois River. That was one line of migration. 
A. Well, one line was the Ohio River, from Virginia where they started and they--where they floated down and I guess the father of the whole bunch stayed in Kentucky, and some of the children apparently did because they say there's a lot of them down there in places. I don't know any of them. 
Q. Is that an English name? 
A. Probably German. 
Q. Well now, this Petefish ancestor of yours came over with the Hessian soldiers, I've been told. 
A. So the story goes, yes. 
Q. What was his name? 
A. I don't know. I have known, but I couldn't tell you his first name now if I 
Q. I've always heard that story. 
A. I always heard that he did and deserted and stayed over here. 
...
,---------------·· 
Rollo Rexroat 
41 
Q. Well, many of them did because there was nothing else to do. 
A. And the Stricklers were Swiss. 
Q. Oh, they were? 
A. That name. But the Rexroats supposedly came from England. It's a common name, it wasn't--Vern Rexroat looked it all up and had a book on it or something and said they moved from Germany to England, and married an English woman. I said, "Well, we're German then." "No," he says, "they stayed in England a hundred years before they came over here." 
Q. Well, now, the royal family was German who moved to England. So that maybe they followed along that--that's another migration. 
A. Well, they said they lived in England a hundred years before they . • . They always said Rexroat meant red king. 
Q. Oh, I didn't know that. (laughs) 
A. Rex means king, you see, and Roat was red in German. I don't know. 
Q. What can you think about--let's see, how do we put this. Is merchandise better quality now or just different? 
A. Well •.. it's different all right and I would say the quality is down, way down. 
Q. (chuckles) How long's it been going down? 
A. Oh, ten, fifteen years. 
Q. How do you account for that? 
A. Cheaper. Make it as cheap as you can and get as much as you can. 
Q. Oh. Different philosophy, then. 
A. Different people. And they used to be a lot of these factories and stuff were owned by a family, took pride in what they were making and selling. And then the big outfits would get ahold of and buy them in and then they'd cheapen the article and try to sell it on the good name that the original owner made. 
Q. I see. That's a good point. 
A. And for a few years, they do, and now they all do. And they--all of them small factories and plants and canners are owned by a big outfit and they got it all their own way, so they just make it cheap. 
Q. And you can't do anything about it. 
A. Can't do nothing about it. It's pretty good. You get by with it, but it isn't what it used to be. 
Q. It's not the tender loving care. (chuckles) 
A. No. The older families that run these businesses, these factories and things, maybe the family owned most of it. They took pride in making it good. And they did. But anymore, there's no such thing. 
Q. Are there any small family-owned companies now that you buy from? 
A. I don't know of a one. 
Q. Not any? 
A. No. 
Q. Not even the old basket men? (chuckles) 
A. No. All the good ones--they don't belong to any of the original owners anymore. 
Q. Then what about your hardware business? When did you start bringing that into the store? 
A. Oh, Dad handled some earlier, and then he kept picking up a little more light hardware, farmer hardware we called it--nails and saws and hammers and buckets and tubs and all that kind of stuff. We never did handle what you'd call heavy hardware. It won't sell. 
Q. Pots and pans you had. 
A. Oh yes, pots and pans and all that stuff, but 
Q. What kind of material were used in these pots and pans? 
A. Oh, originally, there were--most of them I remember were granite and 
Q. What color granite? 
A. Blue and white, blue spotted and 
Q. Oh, that'd be pretty. To sell? 
A. Maybe. 
Q. We might talk about that someday. (laughs) 
A. And in the later years it was white. The first granite was heavy. 
We got it down to where it was cheaper and tended to chip off easy. 
And then they used some tin. And then, of course, later, by 1910, 1912, 
1915, we got a lot of aluminum by then. 

Q. That was the best. 
A. Well, I expect it was the best. I put the granite ware as we call it. 
Q. But you sold iron things in this store. 
A. We sold some iron. 
Q. What pieces were they? 
A. Hostly skillets, in my time. 
Q, Oh, iron skillets. No kettles? 
A. No, I don't remember whether we sold any iron kettles or not. 
Q. Butchering kettles, maybe? 
A. I don't remember that we did. We might have back before my time. 
Q. I don't suppose you could find a butchering kettle now. 
A. Antique. All your sales have them. 
Q. And you sold butcher knives and things like that? 
A. Oh yes. Sold them up until just lately. 
Q. Is that right? 
A. Yes. Couldn't butcher with them but they use them for kitchen knives. We sold all that--scythes and spades and 
Q. Rakes and hoes? 
A. Yes, and hoes and all that and rakes; light hardware, as we called it--farmer hardware, you might say. But we didn't ever--well, we did sell some oil stoves and gasoline pressure stoves and that, but .•• 
Q. Coleman lamps, didn't you sell those? 
A. Yes, we got a lot of Coleman and Aladdin lamps. Hy gosh, there's hundreds of them. 
Q. Do you still have some of those things that will make it--what do you call those? Mantles, was that the word? 
A. Yes, we still got some. 
Q. You do have. And then you had stovepipe? 
A. Never handled much stovepipe. 
Rollo Rexroat 
Q. Oh, you didn't? 
A. No. Never did have much of it. Maybe once we got some and didn't get any more. 
Q. Now, what brand of canned goods did you carry? 
A. Oh, back in the early days we had what was--Blue Ribbon, it came out 
of Peoria, that was top brand. And then later we got Richelieu and Del Monte--they come out of Chicago. And, of course the others, I mean, Van Camp's, they had their own. They were an original, an old 
family company out of Indianapolis. We had that. But most all the groups selling had a brand that they owned. 
Q. That Richelieu was the one--I remember the apricots. 
A. Well, that's something that's going down. A big outfit bought it and away it went. 
Q. And the quality went right down the drain. 
A. It was still good but it wasn't 
Q. Not like it used to be. 
A. It was just standard after they got it. 
Q. What about butter? Did you buy butter from farmers? 
A. Yes. 
Q. Where did you store it until you could sell it? 
A. Well, we had a refrigerator. If it was good enough to sell, we'd put it in there. If it wasn't, we'd just throw it in the barrel and sold it for grease. 
Q. How much did you pay a pound for butter? 
A. Oh, twenty cents, I think maybe, seems like. 
Q. Then, what'd you sell it out for, a quarter? 
A. Probably. And then what we got for that we throwed in a barrel was seven or eight cents. 
Q. That was just accommodation. 
A. Yes. 
Q. Well, when farmers didn't have any ice, it's a wonder they could do it. 
Rollo Rexroat 45 
A. About three-fourths of it went in the barrel. 
Q. Is that right. What kind of churns did the women use? 
A. Oh, most of them had just an ordinary jar to churn with. 
Q. Oh, a wooden one? 
A. No, tinware. A few of them had a wooden one that you turned thecrank, but not very many of them, I don't think. Most of them, I
remember, churned with an ordinary churn. 
Q. A Daisy? (chuckles) 
A. No, that was afterward. Daisy come late. About all they'd churnwith Daisys was some for their own use. 
Q. They only had about a gallon, didn't they? 
A. Yes. 
Q. Did you sell Daisy churns? 
A. Oh yes. We sold quite a few Daisys. 
Q. I think there's one in my basement. 
A. What? 
Q. I have one. 
A. Have you? Antiques. Antiques to beat the band. 
Q. Well, what about people and their attitude towards antiques nowadays?What's your thinking about--! know you see them come in here and go overthings that you wonder why it hadn't been thrown away. How do you explainthat? 
A. I don't know. There's a lot of things that don't seem antique to me,the Daisy churns didn't. But they're sure antique. They'll bring nine,ten dollars now. 
Q. Really? 
A. I had some I sold four and a half [dollars] five, five and a half,six and a half, run up to seven and a half right in front of me. 
Q. What did they sell for originally? 
A. Three or four dollars, five, four and a half, maybe. I think theygot a little higher than that, maybe five and a half at the last. 
Q. But, they were good thick, heavy glass. 
Rollo Rexroat 
46 
A. Yes, one of those jars is worth three dollars. Old price on it. I got some of them, that's how I know. 
Q. The what now? 
A. The jar. 
Q. Oh, the jar, separately. 
A. They broke them. 
Q. Oh, I see. And you have some of those left over? 
A. We kept spares. We kept extra, you know, and sold them. Three quart and a gallon. 
Q. And you sold lots of lamp chimneys, too, didn't you? 
A. Oh yes, sold a lot of lamps and lamp chimneys and all that stuff. 
Q. How much would a lamp chimney bring? 
A. A dime. 
Q. Were they standard size or did they come in different sizes? 
A. They were standard, number ones and number twos. 
Q. And then those were the little fair lamps, the little teeney ones? 
A. Those were different--the oughts and double-oughts and whatnot. 
Q. The wee ones. (chuckles) Did you sell sausage grinders? 
A. We sold food grinders, yes. Once in a while used for sausage, but 
I don't know if we sold big ones or not, but we did sell some that they did use, but it didn't grind too much. 
Q. That's a big job. 
A. Yes. They wasn't commercial grinders but they would grind sausage. 
Q. And you sold lots of crocks, I believe. 
A. Oh, sold lots of stone jars and crocks and all that stuff, milk crocks and • 
Q. Where did you get those crocks? 
A. Where? My memory, a lot of them come from White Hall. 
Q. White Hall! Not from Monmouth? 
Rollo Rexroat 
A. We did have a few from Monmouth, I think, but most of them from White Hall. 
Q. Did you ever get any pottery from Ripley? 
A. Not that I know of in the store. 
Q. That was earlier, wasn't it? 
A. I think so. Maybe, Ripley. I don't think there was any come out of here. 
Q. They made those dogs over there. 
A. What? 
Q. They made dogs at Ripley. 
A. Yes, I know. 
Q. And churns, stone churns. 
A. They made everything there. Jars, crocks. 
Q. That was considered very fine clay, I believe. 
A. Well, I guess it was all right. I got a big jar up there that came from Ripley. Ten-gallon jar. 
Q. Does it have the maker's name on it? 
A. Yes. That's how I know it. 
Q. And you sold paint too, I believe, at different times. 
A. Paint? 
Q. Yes. 
A. That was a little bit later than the early times. It was like in the thirties, maybe. 
Q. Did the Depression cause a big difference in the way the store did business? 
A. Oh, yes, bothered us some but we got through it all right. 
Q. Wasn't any fun, though. 
A. We didn't worry too much about it as I remember it. 
Q. Did people have trouble paying their bills then? 
Rollo Rexroat 
A. Well, yes, more so. They got paid, why, we expected it. 
Q. Well, maybe that's the answer. 
A. And then, why, people--poor people--you carried them from one job to the next or one season to the next. Over winter, why, instead of going on relief, the groceryman kept them. 
Q. That's an interesting point. 
A. They didn't--the grocery stores kept them in the winter when they 
Q. And when the groceryman didn't keep them any longer, why, then we had to have welfare offices. 
A. Oh, they had a rough time. 
Q. Yes, they did. 
A. And maybe they could get a dollar or two or three relief if theyabsolutely couldn't get money, but most of them got through with the 
grocery stores helping them. 
Q. That's an interesting point. Did you sell kerosene, too? 
A. Yes, oh yes. 
Q. How much did that bring a gallon? 
A. Oh, I think about a dime. 
Q. I guess it's much more now, isn't it? 
A. Yes, I'd say four and a quarter, anyway. Maybe more than that now. 
Q. Did you sell any of those little--! remember seeing little heaters that were blue on the outside. Real pretty things and they . . . 
A. Oh, a few maybe. 
Q. What did they call those things? 
A. They were little Perfection heaters, two dollars or so. They were 
mostly all Perfection ever put out. And we had plenty of the little room heaters, is about all I remember. 
Q. They were just a tiny oil stove, then? 
A. Yes. About so big around and setting up on . 
Q. They were pretty, weren't they? You have any of those left? 
A. No. 
Rollo Rexroat 
Q. Long since gone. (chuckles) 
A. I guess you could, probably, still buy one, I don't know. 
Q. Really? 
A. I wouldn't be surprised. 
Q. I'd be afraid to, though. 
A. Yes, I wouldn't--! wouldn't want one in a room where I was. 
Q. No, I wouldn't .. 
A. You'd get smothered. 
Q. Now, you say you sold both Aladdin and Coleman lamps? 
A. Yes. 
Q. Now, what kind of fuel did they burn? 
A. Well, the Aladdin burned kerosene or coal oil, they call it, and the Coleman burned gasoline. 
Q. Wasn't that dangerous? 
A. No, it was in a tight tank and you had to pump it up; it was air tight. We never had anybody had any trouble with the thing. 
Q. And you have spare parts for those lamps? 
A. Some. 
Q. Well, for goodness sakes. I suppose then people kept on using them for cabins and things after . 
A. Oh yes, they still use them once in a while for a cabin if they don't have electricity. Of course, the whole country's got electricity now. 
Q. Well, we have it today. Tomorrow we wonder. (chuckles) And then you were very much interested in fruit jars, too. Tell me about your interest in the fruit jars. 
A. Oh, that's just since two or three or four years ago when I knew we 
couldn't get them forever and I had a bunch of fruit. jars up in the basement, and around here, and I drug them down and there was a whole lot of other stuff and junk that we don't want and selling it for antiques. 
Q. And people are delighted to have it. 
A. Yes. Every few days I'll dig around someplace and find something and take and throw it up on the counter . . . 
Q. Sells pretty well, doesn't it? 
A. Things that I think would never sell, why, may go the next day and some I think will sell, they may be there for a month. 
Q. (chuckles) Well, you're just cleaning out the closet in the basement. 
A. That's right. Anything we want, we don't sell. In other words, the better stuff. (chuckles) 
Q. Well, why do you think people are so interested in antiques now? 
A. I just don't know. They like to look at the good old days. 
END OF TAPE