INTERVIEW OF CARL AND DOROTHY LIEPE
BY JOHN AND HELEN BRANIFF
JULY 5, 1980
(Carl, tell me what year were you born and where?)
Well, I was born in 1911, in the old house up the street.
(What do you mean up the street? Where would that be?)
Well, on Cologne Ave. Just a mile coming from Rte. 30.
(Where did you go to school Carl?)
I went to school mostly right across the street from my home and when I was in fourth grade I went to the school across from the Irishman’s Pub. That was the old two room school. I went to school down there for three years I guess.
(That was located on the corner of Aloe and Cologne Ave or rather between the railroads wasn’t it?)
Yes, between the Reading and the Penna. Railroads. At that time, of course, the Germania Fruit Growers was where we went to buy our candies and cookies.
(Was that right next to the school?)
Practically, yes.
(Tell me, as a young man were all the roads paved around here?)
None of them were paved John,
(How about the White Horse Pike?)
No, the White Horse Pike wasn’t paved either. That was a gravel road. Up until the time they put the cement down there was no tar roads there was just gravel roads, all the roads were gravel.
(Have you any idea when they paved the road?)
I think it was in 1921.
(How about Egg Harbor, did that have paved roads?)
I’m not sure John, because I used to go once in a while to Egg Harbor with the folks in a horse and wagon and I don’t think there were any paved roads in there at that time when I was a kid.
(How about in Wintertime?)
Well, in the wintertime I don’t know what most of the streets were like because we stayed home.
(You didn’t have any sleighs with horses or anything like that?)
No, we didn’t have any sleighs. I don’t think there were any sleighs in the neighborhood that I know of. I don’t remember any anyway.
(How did you get your mail delivered?)
You had to go to the Cologne Post Office. At that time it was on the Reading Railroad at Aloe Street and Cologne Avenue.
(Did you, as a child, have any deliveries at all at the house?)
Yes, we had the butcher and, I don’t think the baker cane around until later.
(Did they have sleighs?)
No, horse and wagon.
(How about when it snowed?)
If it snowed hard you didn’t get any service that was all, you waited until it got lower. And of course on the farm we had our own pork and a cow.
(When you went to school what kind of games did you children play?)
I don’t really remember John. I don’t know if we really played many games at all. We just played around the buildings and all and just played in the dirt.
(Did you play anything that looked like baseball?)
No, we never played anything like baseball till we went to school. For one thing I had very few playmates. There was nobody around to play with. I used to play with some of the children of folks who came to pick blackberries. My dad had this place in blackberries and I played with some of those children. I don’t think we played anything in particular though.
(Did you play tag at all?)
Yes, we played tag or hoop.
(How about bean bag, did you play that?)
No, we never played that.
(Remember a game where you took the broom stick and cut off about six inches and sharpened both ends then lay it down on the ground and take a short stick about three foot of the same broom stick and hit the point? It went up in the air when you hit it like a baseball?)
No, we never did anything like that.
(In other words you didn’t have any of these so called city games?)
No, not that I know of.
(When you were a young child and they took you to church festivals did they have any games there or carnivals? What did they have in a way like that?)
Not much John. The only thing we had was the Atlantic County Fair in Egg Harbor.
(What did they have there? Do you remember the rides you had there?)
Well they had the Ferris wheel and the doggem cars but I wasn’t that young then either. The families, a number of them from around here, would get the horse and wagon and pile the kids in and go to Catawba on the river and we’d play there.
(Let me ask you Carl, did your father take you into Atlantic City in those days when you were real young?)
No.
(How old were you when you first got to Atlantic City?)
I was probably sixteen or seventeen when I got to Atlantic City. Before that we didn’t have much transportation.
(How did you go in by train?)
No, by that time, when I did go, I went with some of the young fellows that had a car, a Model T.
(How was Atlantic City in those days?)
Well, it wasn’t a Honky Tonk Town at that time of course. We used to go to the Pier and places like that. We used to go to the dime a dance places. The trolleys were still on the streets then too.
(Did you go to any of the beauty shows, the pageants?)
Yes, from 1934 on, yes.
(It was quite a thing to do in those days wasn’t it?)
We used to have a friend who lived in Atlantic City and we’d go down there and go to the movies. At that time though we used to watch them building Convention Hall. That was 1929 I think.
(That is an old building then. What else do you remember of that time Carl anything in particular or outstanding? Were there any disasters, any hurricanes or fires or anything?)
Not that I remember John.
(Did you have an awful draught here on the farms by any chance? Anything memorable?)
No, as far as I know we didn’t seem to have the draughts that have occurred in later years.
(Tell me did you have any travelling circuses come in here?)
No. I don’t remember any. Some of them may have been in Atlantic City I don’t know. Not in this area that came a lot later.
(During high school years did you play any games at all then?)
I’m sorry John but I didn’t go to high school. When my grade school days were over I had to go to work on the farm and I didn’t do any high school at all. Of course later on when I got into business I took a lot of short courses at Rutgers and all to help me out.
(What kind of a farm did your father have?)
Vegetable farm. Vegetables and berries. He was large in black berries. As a matter of fact, right where we are at now this was all black berry fields. From the property line up to the house was all black berries fields. All the neighborhood children used to pick them.
(What happened to the black berry business?)
I don’t know. My dad originated this black diamond black berry that we used to have here. It was a very good shipper and that’s the reason they used that a lot. I don’t know what happened to the black berry business. I don’t know if you can buy the black berries any more.
(It’s hard to buy a box of black berries, maybe once every season you see black berries around. Black berry pies or tarts you don’t see any more or anything.)
We used to have quite a few goose berries and things like that.
(Carl, I don’t even see currants on the market anymore! Did you people raise anything like that?)
We didn’t raise them particularly for sale. We raised goose berries and black berries for sale mostly. Some raspberries, currants, we had a couple of bushels I know and my dad liked that.
(Can you buy any of those around here? I guess you can’t get the children to pick them now can you? Are they hard to pick?)
Black berries and goose berries all have thorns.
(What do you do with goose berries?)
What we used to do, we’d put on a pair of gloves, leather. The goose berries would hang along the stem. Then you just take your hand and pull them off leaves and all, strip it bear. Then we had a fanning machine. We would put the gooseberries in, blow the leaves out and the goose berries would come rolling down.
(In my business they vacuumed it out. They passed along a belt, there was a suction here and the lite stuff went up in the air and they just passed along and got all sucked up in the vacuum.)
This was hand operated John.
(That’s interesting. Isn’t it strange how these fruits are disappearing from the market?)
Yes, you can still buy gooseberry plants. I’m going to have some in my new garden.
(I don’t blame you. What happened to all your black berries, did you have to rip them out because there was no business?)
Yes, there was no market for them anymore. Why I have no idea. I don’t even know if there are any or very few of that original black diamond the one my dad developed from a seedling around that I know of.
(Do you still have a bush of it?)
No, I don’t. I wish I did.
(That’s too bad. Was it a very seedy berry?)
Of course, most black berries are seedy to an extent but these were quite large and rather juicy.
(Did they lean to the Loganberry at all?)
More on the Loganberry side yes. But it was a rear dark berry, black.
(You can’t buy loganberries either can you?)
No, I think there is a lot of that stuff out west but they can’t ship them that far.
(Isn’t it strange no one around here bothers with them? You only see them in cans now?)
I don’t know what the story is.
(In other words then, most of your business then was really in black berries and truck farming?)
Yes.
(Was there anything you specialized in, in truck farming?)
No, mostly, I think the biggest part was in sweet potatoes.
(The real Jersey Sweets?)
The Old Jersey Sweet Potato, yes.
(The ones that are hard to find now also?)
Nobody wants them. They want the sloppy ones, the yams.
(Tell me, why did they go into disuse?)
I don’t know why. I think one of the reasons was that the old Jerseys didn’t keep as well and didn’t ship as well. The yams can take more of a beating.
(I was told by a farmer that raises Jersey sweets, and I’d like to have you bear me out in this, that you don’t dare dig them too soon, that they have to ripen in the ground.
Yes, they have to cure.
(They also said the less you handle them the better off you are.
That’s right, they are not adaptable to the type of machinery we have today see. What we used to do when we had the sweet potatoes; we would plow them out with a horse plow. It was a special type plow and the mull board was like fingers so that some of the dirt could filter through. After that you had them plowed out then you had to go along and pick the whole bunch up and lay it on top of the hill to let them dry out and then you would go along and pick them all by hand and put them all in baskets and you didn’t throw them into baskets either.
(In other words you let them dry off on top of the ground. How long did that take Carl, provided it didn’t rain?)
Usually plowed them out in the morning and then around noon time you’d do them.
(The same day?)
Oh yes, the same day.
(That sweet potato farmer we have down the street, I think he leaves them lay out overnight and the next day, in the afternoon he picks them.)
Well that’s alright if it isn’t too damp or cold overnight.
(I’ve kept his sweet potatoes up until, oh, I bought them in Oct. and had them until the beginning of June. I also noticed that it’s not smart to buy the small ones. The bigger they are the better they seem to keep. The small ones dry up quickly. The large ones, there’s so much to them it takes them longer to dry up. )
Yes, the smaller ones do dry up quicker.
(Is there anything to keep them from drying up like that?)
No, not really, if the humidity could be regulated. They have been able to do it but they don’t do it commercially though.
(It’s alright to keep them humid then?)
Yes.
(Tell us something else Carl. What churches did you have?)
There were no churches in the neighborhood. The only thing we did have was a Sunday school in the school building. That started the German Sunday school in 1912.
(I thought that was the English Sunday school. The German Sunday School goes back, they said, to the eighteen hundreds.)
Maybe I’m wrong about that then. I didn’t have anything to do with the German Sunday school.
(They spoke primarily German in this vicinity then?)
Well, this was a German settlement. As a matter of fact that’s how my grandparents got there because this was all German here in Egg Harbor and they saw the ad in a German paper in Chicago.
(You were right Carl, the German Sunday school was in 1910 and the English Sunday school was from 1912 to 1916.)
I just got in on the tail end of that. Before that I was too young.
(You said your grandfather came from Germany, where about in Germany do you remember?)
Osnabruck, in Hanover Province.
(That’s Northern Germany?)
Yes.
(They came from Germany to where?)
Well, of course they migrated to New York and him and his brother came over and they went to Chicago.
(That’s strange I wonder why?)
I really don’t know why they went to Chicago. It was a growing city I suppose at that time.
(What year was this, have you any idea?)
In 1858 I think. Then my grandfather was a shoe maker. He worked at that business in Chicago until he had enough money to send for his sweetheart to come over and they got married here in the United States.
(When did he go to New Orleans?)
That date I don’t really know.
(It had to be after 1865. It had to be after the Civil War otherwise he wouldn’t have gotten down there probably Eh?)
I don’t know exactly what time it was because one of my Uncles and one of my Aunts were here...
I think it was before the Civil War really, because they came here in 1864.
(The Civil War was in 1865 so I was before the Civil War. You don’t know why they went to New Orleans, do you?)No, I think just pioneers, you know, moving. I think they went down on the river boat.
(Maybe they went down to Bourbon Street?)
I don’t know where they settled down there but, anyway, one of my Uncles was born down there and one of my Aunts were born down there I think. Then they had some sort of plague. Anyway they came back to Chicago because everyone was sick and they got out of there.
(They went back to Chicago then?)
Yes, they went back to Chicago and he went back into the shoemaker business there. I suppose he worked for some one. I guess because his brother was there he went back to Chicago. His brother was in the coal and lumber business. He started the coal and lumber business. I guess his brother had a little better start. He married into the Waterman family. The fountain pen people. They were quite well off. Then really, I think the reason they came to New Jersey was that, my uncle, the one born down there in Chicago, he had Asthma and the Doctors said he should go in the Pine Area where there is an abundance of Pine woods for his Asthma. Of course they looked it up in the German papers in Chicago. I know in Mullica Township, at that time, the tax assessor had a copy of the letter that my grandfather wrote inquiring about farm land etc.
(He still has it?)
I think it’s still there in Mullica Township. We have a copy of it.
(That’s interesting. Tell me, do you know what they paid for the land?)
I have no idea on that. Money was never mentioned in any of that. I don’t suppose it was too much. I think these were all twenty acre farms at that time. They bought on original twenty acres. They came and cleared and cut down a lot of trees and made themselves a log cabin at the beginning. That was in 1864.
(We heard that the land at that time when it was sold it was sold for more money than it was twenty years ago. You could buy it cheaper twenty years ago than you could when it was bought originally by these farm people. That they paid, in Germany, something like $200 an acre for it in an ad company. I even said, "My God, how could they ever pay it off in those days? And later on it was selling for twenty and thirty dollars an acre here twenty years ago. We bought some for thirty dollars an acre.)
I have no idea on that. I’ve never heard anybody say. People weren’t interested in selling maybe twenty years ago but now in 1934 you couldn’t give it away, particularly because you had all you could do to pay your taxes really during the depression.
See Part 2
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