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You are cordially invited to attend the public meeting of the Board of Education 101 Passaic Avenue, Passaic, New Jersey, on Monday, June 10, 1985 at 7:00 p.m. at which time a plaque renaming Memorial School No. 11 as the William B. Cruise Memorial School No. 11 will be presented to Mrs. William B. Cruise
July 1, 1990, "Then and Now." |
ETS - Do you Remember the time Mary and Sam Woldin got married?
WBC - Yeah.
ETS - Bobby Woldin asked me one time if there were ever any feelings of sadness in the families due to religious differences.
WBC - I don't recall that very well.
ETC - After they were married, they went to Atlantic City. Then they came up to our house and had dinner. At the time I was recovering from my appendectomy. It wasn't a big gathering. In fact, I was the only one home. I don't know where Bob was.
WBC - Where were they married?
ETS - It was 1930 in City Hall in New York City.
TSR - My grandfather told me it was performed by a man named Michael J. Cruise.
ETS - Well, for heaven's sake. At least they kept it in the family.
ETS - What were some of the remarkable characteristics or traits that you remember about Mother?
WBC - She had a good sense of humor.
ETS - She needed one.
WBC - I'll say. She used to lock the back door and hang the key up on the nail next to it. I don't know why she locked it.
ETS - It was easier to find the key that way.
TSR - This is an extract from the 1900 census. Here's your grandmother Flood who was operating a boarding house. Did you know any of these boarders? There was William Osborne, Stuart Moore, James Chambers and Charles Schermerhorn.
WBC - John McMahon was another one.
ETS - She lived on Perry Street, and then went to Montgomery Street, right?
WBC - Yeah.
ETS - You should see that area of Trenton now. It's terrible. But the house is still there. I can remember siting on the stoop when I was little. The other one was 214 Montgomery Street. She owned two houses, and Uncle John [Flood] had his dentist's office in 214. Then he moved around to Academy Street. His kids were little and they had a song: "214 Montgomery Street, Daddy's gone to another street." That's how I remember the number.
ETS - Bill, when we were little, what was Christmas like?
WBC - Like any other home.
ETS - I know that, but I remember in the house on Ferry Street [in Lambertville] we had doors that closed and you couldn't see the Christmas tree until after you went to mass and had breakfast. Then Mother would open those doors. Do you remember that? I don't remember Christmas very much. We had stockings on our beds. I suppose that was to keep us quiet. We hung the stockings on the bottom of the beds.
TSR - On the posts?
ETS - No. They were iron beds and they had little things on the bottom.
TSR - What did your parents tell you about Santa Claus?
ETS - I don't remember Santa Claus at all. I don't think his name was ever mentioned. Oh, I'm sure it was, but I don't remember. I remember believing in him and staying in bed on Christmas Eve. When I was little, I had a doll. I didn't get a new doll every year, but I'd get a new outfit -- a hat or socks. We also used to go down to the Elks Club and get a box of candy. When Pop was a little bit older, he'd come home and say, "Let's decorate the tree! Bob, go get the tree. Ella, go up and get the lights. Get the ornaments," and he would wind up just pointing [note by WBC: putting] us on, and every piece of tinsel had to be just so; every icicle just so.
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ETS - Bill, do you have any other memories of Thomas? What was he like?
WBC - He was very bright and industrious.
ETS - Didn't he get awards of some kind at St. John's School?
WBC - I don't recall any awards.
ETC - Uncle John [Flood] spoke of them. He was supposed to be a very bright young fellow.
KDC - Bill said once that he was only sick one day.
ETS - Yeah. He just came home from school, then he died.
KDC - He probably had been sick, but nobody noticed.
ETS - Bill, do you remember when Thomas died?
WBC - Yeah.
ETS - Do you remember your feelings at the time?
WBC - I felt very badly about it, like any brother would.
ETS - It must have been a shock to Everybody.
WBC - Yeah.
KDC - Bill, as a nine-year-old child, wouldn't have felt even close to the way his mother felt thought.
ETS - Yea. At the funeral there was a closed casket. They sealed it immediately. They wanted to avert any danger of spreading the meningitis.
TSR - What was the story about some Indian head pennies that he had in his pocked which Grandma carried around with her or had in her possession? Were they buried with her? My mother mentioned that one time.
ETS - No, I never heard that one.
TSR - You came over and helped clean out her belongings after she died, right?
ETS - Yeah, but I never heard of any Indian head pennies. The only thing that she had like that were some of Thomas' toys. Now, you and David were very small when she died, and you got a hold of them and were banging them. They were going to be gone in no time at all. One was a little zeppelin and the other was one of those little hand pump-carts you used to see on the railroads. They were very old toys. We should have given them to a toy-collector or something, but they were just taken away. I don't know where they ever went. We just didn't want to see them destroyed.
TSR - How about birthdays? Was there anything distinctive about the way you celebrated birthdays?
ETS - No. We just had a birthday cake and candles. Bill never had to go to school on his. When he was little, and even after he became a principal, he always told the kids they closed the school because it was his birthday. Actually, it was Columbus Day.
KDC - They went home and told their parents there was no school the next day, not because it was Columbus Day, but because it was Mr. Cruise's birthday. They believed it. Some of the parents would see him and say, "I hear there's no school because it's your birthday." I'm glad they had a sense of humor.
WBC - We were talking before about how we were able to get by after Pop died. I went to work in the bag mill. I was in high school at the time, and worked in the bag mill until I got fired. Then I worked for Lou Butts in the candy store. Then I came to Passaic in 1924. I used to go home weekends and work in the soda fountain so I could make a few dollars.
ETS - How long did you go to Trenton State College?
WBC - Two years.
ETS - And when did you graduate?
WBC - Nineteen-twenty-four. Someone stole my shoes from the locker-room, so I had to borrow a pair of shoes to graduate.
ETS - When did you work in the bag mill? Between high school and the time you went to Trenton?
WBC - Yeah. I also worked for the New Jersey Power & Light Company. One day it was raining, so we decided to clean out the inside of the water tank. I wasn't very big and I had to crawl through this hold and I chipped the scales off the inside walls of the tank. When I was finished, I had to go out backwards down the ladder. I couldn't turn around. I was scared to death. I thought I was locked in there for life. When I was working for the light company, I would stand at the bottom of the pole and the lineman would call down for things. One time he called down for a piece of #6 wire. I didn't know what #6 was or #8, so I just threw something up to him. I wasn't very useful. That was between the time I left high school and the time I cam to Passaic. I drove a truck that summer.
ETS - During the flu epidemic you drove for Dr. Williams, didn't you?
WBC - Yes. I drove for Dr. Williams?
ETS - How old were you?
WBC - I was only 17, or 16 I think. I had to look through the steering wheel. I couldn't look over it.
ETS - He wasn't old enough to have a license.
TSR - Who was Dr. Williams?
ETS - He was a practitioner, or a doctor, in town. Where there was the epidemic, there were so many people he had to go to see. Uncle Bill drove the car for him. He took him around town while he went in and out, so Uncle Bill was exposed to the flu. The doctors say this may have contributed to the Parkinson's Disease which he has.
KDC - Yeah.
ETC - Bill, when Pop died in 1924, you came to Passaic, right?
WBC - Yeah.
ETS - Tell him how you got here.
WBC - I had to borrow money from someone to pay my car fare. I borrowed money from Lou Botti. I worked for Lou Botti in his candy and confectionery store. We also sold ice cream. I made soda and ice cream.
ETS - Yes. Thank you. My golley! I haven't seen this one for ages. These people are all dead now. Uncle John's first cousin died not too long ago. Uncle John's over on the right in the back, and there's Uncle Vesty. Here's Alma McGuire. She's still alive. I just saw her daughter who lives in Yardley, going to church last week. This one is Aunt Rose. Is this an extra copy?
TSR - Yes. You can have that if you want it.
ETS - Where did you get this?
TSR - From Joe McGuire. I saw him in 1975 in New Hope at Peggy Ott's house. I copied his original and returned it.
ETS - Yeah, I'd like this. I'll give it to Alma McGuire. Thank you. I don't think my mother was at this party. She got left out of this one. "Let's have a party and not tell Nellie." Uncle John's here, and Aunt Annie. Nellie got left out, but here's Uncle Vesty. He was a crabby one.
KDC - I never did see them much, although I know they were at our wedding. Oh, I remember what happened. They had moved and we sent the invitation to the wrong place. Somebody said, "Of all the people not to get an invitation to, it would have to be Aunt Annie." It was a terrible thing to do. She came anyway, but I guess she never got the invitation. Somebody must have told her she was invited -- your mother, I guess. I remember Aunt Annie coming and saying, "I wasn't invited, but here I am."
ETS - Yes, that would be Aunt Annie. When she heard I was going to Korea, I though she was going to have a stroke. She said, "Nellie, she'll be getting married and come home with a Chinese husband." I told her, "If I do, Aunt Annie, I'll see that you get free laundry service." She was always giving advice out to everybody.
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Cpl. James R. Fourtner recalled of his time in the European theater: "Living conditions were relatively primitive. We rarely had hot water for shaving, a real necessity when one had to wear a tightly fitting oxygen mask for many hours. Shower facilities were available but again rarely with hot water. Any time we got a short leave, we would head to the Red Cross-managed Mostyn Club, near the Marble Arch in London, where our first priority was to soak in a hot bath!"
Cpl. Albert O. Maranda - mentioned in his World War II diary staying at Mostyn Club, March 1944: "Taxied to Mostyn. Red Cross Club and got a room. Beds not so hot, but nice clean sheets..." (Diary was previously on the web at http://www.nh.ultranet.com/~durgin/DiaryAlM.html.)
