BALL:  Used to play at all the, everything that we ever had around here, and by the way we did have a band um a little band of Indians, one of those little round things, what did they call em……….. that’s it and the bank would play and that was over where Leonard’s mill was too and up in back of where Leonard’s mill is now was the old Forrester’s hall, did anyone ever tell you bout that?

CURTAIN:  No

BALL:  Well there was one up there and that is where they used to hold the dances of course now.

CURTAIN:  I guess dancing was ahh

BALL:  The folks that were in the Good Templer’s didn’t go in for dancing Methodist’s the strong straight Methodist’s didn’t believe in dancing. My uh I’m sure my grandparent’s I know didn’t and my parent’s didn’t.

CURTAIN:  Did you dance?

BALL:  Yes I did, but um my parents became more liberal you see but not my grandparents they didn’t believe in that, the Forrester’s Hall was up in back and there is where they used to have the dances and it was that was a social activity too so there were only two groups that would be working in the community and uh that’s great I think.

CURTAIN:  Surely, surely, Um did the band go other places to play?

BALL:  They would play throughout the county and whenever there was anything, just throughout the county as far as I know because of course transportation was a problem, whenever we would have our Fourth of July picnics then they would usually perform at that time too and then the baseball team? Did anyone tell you we had a baseball team? Lionel should tell you about that. I wish, I just hope you’ll be able to talk to him, I think he’d enjoy talking to you about that, if he’s able. I’ll see if he is. And it may be that John, Steve Richard’s might be able to go with you, you know and it would help with something, John Richard’s the brother of ……… see how he feels about that. Because it’s just too bad, because Lionel used to play on the team and that’s why I thought he might be interested in telling you about that, and that we always had down at Lander’s Ranch. Lander’s was just a big open area I’m sure you don’t know where that is, it’s over this hill and down beyond uh behind the Dinamo House over this hill and from the Dinamo House is this way you see, you remember the Dinamo House right? Well then over this hill quite a distance down so that it would be about level with the back of the Dinamo House is this big area that we always used for all of our recreation of that sort for outdoor recreation and we would have our big picnics, Fourth of July Picnic’s oh that was a big time around here, and always the woman folks would make little picnic pasties and they were the ones that were made small and they were just meat and onions and parsley, without potatoes and they were made about six inches. That was the sort of thing they used to take to the picnics, and they would have horse races and uh a big baseball game and the baseball team by the way traveled throughout the county too and there was a very big rivalry with Summerville, and that is one reason for this thing that is coming up right about now with our schools, because Summerville and Soulsbyville were arch rivals in those days. With everything more or less.

CURTAIN:  Did they play games though between the same teams.

BALL:  Oh yes they would play and that’s why we were arch rivals because our baseball team and their baseball team, it was too the death like Stanford Cal. That sort of thing.

CURTAIN:  I keep hearing about Summerville in connection with Tuolumne and the Summerville School.

BALL:  Summerville IS Tuolumne school in other words except that they have brought the High School out this side of it off the main but Summerville is the Tuolumne School.

CURTAIN: Oh I wanted to ask you about the carolers someone told me about the carolers at Christmas time, didn’t you go.

BALL:  It was our church, and uh they were very, very beautiful Cornish Carols and uh we would practice for those, I mean the old timers I mean the old, they were the ones who had the beautiful voices, Roy Ev’s husband had a just a very beautiful voice and his brother was a tenor and Will Barron had a deep voice and mother had alto I mean those carols were very, very beautiful from an old book, oh Francis that’s another old family too Francis family that’s May Francis, folks were originally from here, and her dad was the one who had this old English Carol book.

CURTAIN:  Would she have it? The book?

BALL:  It was given to mother, uncle Joe gave it to mother in fact that was another tradition with our family that on Christmas when we were all together the Francis Family and the Barron Family always celebrated holidays together. One year we would have Christmas here and Thanksgiving the next year and we would sing these Christmas Carols so uncle Joe Francis gave the book to mother and that book was lost for many, many years with the original carols and Ruth Rundle asked me about those the other day and I said I have no idea where the book was. I didn’t have, but I have found it, it’s not in very good condition but I must tell Ruth about it. I didn’t find it my sister-in-law did.

CURTAIN:  Is it here?

BALL:  No I don’t have it here, my sister-in-law has it. It’s in very bad condition though it got soaking wet and I feel so badly.

CURTAIN:  Do you know any of the carols?

BALL:  Now Ruth can give you those, they’ve been singing those carols, they’ve been singing those carols at Christmas time in the church, and I no longer am a member of this church, but they have, they are singing them there, I think they may have recorded it. I don’t know.

CURTAIN:  What can you tell me about the church?

BALL:  I can’t tell you very much about the church, just when it was, well we saw this picture and it said. My mother, my family were very, very strong in the church and we were as we were growing up but this I don’t know even when it was dedicated, I do have a picture of the dedication ceremony somewhere.

CURTAIN:  This picture was taken 1895.

BALL:  This was taken in 1865 I thin I have a picture showing the laying of the corner stone, would that be interesting to you?

CURTAIN:  Oh yes it would.

BALL:  If you wana turn that off. STOP

BALL:  I think it says 1906 corner, laying of the corner stone.

CURTAIN:  Corner stone of Emmy Church Soulsbyville, laid in 1906 (reading aloud)

BALL:  Now did you see one of those before? You might like to take a picture of that one I don’t know, would you?

CURTAIN:  Yes I would like to, I’ll look through these and see which ones I’d like to take pictures of. Um I want to go back to the Cornish people. Some where I’ve heard reference to Tommy Knockers and in parenthesis it said Elves. Do you know any? And I don’t know anyone who knows the story.

BALL:  I don’t know anything about that.

CURTAIN:  it was on a tape that um and the tape ended abruptly and his talk and I think it was Don Segerstrom.

BALL:  Who was talking about em?

CURTAIN:  I’m not sure or whether it was Judge Hodge.

BALL:  By the way, Judge Hodge yes, so I really don’t know about Tommy Knockers, it must be an old legend, and you didn’t get that from Don, Don Segerstrom’s tape I wonder if Marietta Segerstrom. I think she’s been trying to get more information about Soulsbyville too, because she talked to my sister-in-law and she said well I must talk to Dorothy then to find out what I can about the history of Soulsbyville and I said, “well anything I can remember I’m glad to help” but I’m not that far back but there are some things I do remember.

CURTAIN:  But before all of you are gone that know something about it, it needs to be down on paper.

BALL:  That’s very true, because it’s so entirely different it’s just hard to believe the way things are now, even when I was growing up and I’d go up to that old post office I was telling you about to mail a letter at night, it was dark we didn’t have any lights around except in the houses so I came home and thought I was being followed by a big dog hid in the house, the next morning when Roy, he worked for my dad so of course he saw everything that went on and he said that there were big lion tracks right behind me, followed me home all the way, well of course I would have been petrified but you see that we were really back in those country days, we just didn’t have any of the things of real civilization no lights, no telephone.

CURTAIN:  And though you see that this is a little very old town it still doesn’t carry the resemblance to what it did in those mining days.

BALL:  Oh no absolutely nothing, across from the store there is that old cement tank out in front and right next to the tank we had a big building open at each end where we kept our stages that we used for delivering our groceries and things of that sort, I thought I had a picture I was gona show you how, this (refers to picture) this is showing one with we folks with it but that is the way, the sort of the thing we used to take out to take our groceries too you see. Those are our horses and our old wagon with the top on it I suppose is Suri but.

CURTAIN:  Did you take Sunday afternoon rides or anything like that where we hear about the sort of thing? And Mrs. Nichols said that this Draper Mine Road was called Lover’s Lane down here.

BALL:  Very often we would walk that way, we would walk, what I was gona say was (refers to picture) the four horses that we would have to use to take out our groceries out, that’s the reason I had that picture, but um yes we would walk and after church services at night  then the young people would walk down perhaps as far as um Black Oak Mina and come back and that was the way we, that was the only thing we had to do you see.

CURTAIN:  Back tracking a bit, the horses remind me I was wondering  when you said that you had horse races did you use the same horses that pulled your vehicles?

BALL:  We had other horses, for instance my dad had two horses that he uh, just riding horses and as we were growing up we had horses, each of us had a had our own horse that was our method of transportation when Ev was in the hospital with her first baby in Sonora Roy would ride down on a horse to Sonora to see her and I remember one time he would very nicely let me ride down on the horse with him too and that was a long way to go at night you know after work.

CURTAIN:  How long do you suppose it took?

BALL:  Oh I suppose a couple of hours at least and we didn’t waste any time because I had a real fiery little horse of course I was a real tom boy in those days. And we’ll go back to the horses, they would do the horse racing in which they would have such things as long poles and try to catch circles that were hung from trees and in other words race down and see how fast they could go and how many of those they could get on their pole and then they were timed, it was quite a big deal for people from this are to have.

CURTAIN:  I saw a picture of boxing too, some people boxing in front of the store?

BALL:  It wouldn’t be this store, it must have been down at the West Store and then across from the West Store was the a saloon and that was the, the West’s had that Saloon too.

CURTAIN:  Only one saloon in town?  Well I would think so with the Cornish people.

BALL:  Well with the Cornish people yes.

CURTAIN:  I hear about an old cemetery with maybe half a dozen people buried there, a family and then a Dr. Someone?

BALL:  I haven’t myself, I have never seen that cemetery myself, I know my brother was talking about it too, it is over, did anyone tell you where it was?

CURTAIN:  No.

BALL:  As far as I know it was over, how am I going to straighten this out? I believe down as I said over this hill toward Lander’s Ranch and before you get to Lander’s Ranch I believe it was right in there, that area. Although it seemed to me that I also heard someone say it was over the hill and back behind the church, I really do not know.

CURTAIN:  There probably is no trace of it.

BALL:  There probably aren’t any headstones or I doubt if there are anything if I could only find that, there may be some thing in my brothers, or there maybe something in Don Segerstrom’s did you hear the full tape of his?

CURTAIN:  No his tape was cut off in the middle of his talk and I didn’t hear any, in fact in the beginning he talk actually and…..

BALL:  Well I’m sure there must be some information around about that. I wish I had been interested in this earlier my parents, I wish we’d had tape recorders before all the people were still here that could have talked into it and I wish my brother had taped some of his, I still think somewhere I will someday run across a part of the history of Soulsbyville that my brother had I do not know.

CURTAIN:  I want to back track to your family. Did your uh were your mother and father married here? Or did they come, your grandparents came here first didn’t they?

BALL:  My mother was born in New Alma Den, that’s an old mining town and her father was the Superintendent of the Alma Den Mine. Alma Den wine, grapes are in that area, that is where that whole old town, they lived ion old town. Then her father came to Belleview this Belleview over here and he had that mine over there, and of course the family were there too, and evidentially that is where my mother and father became acquainted and that where I don’t know. I don’t know where they originally met but um I suppose the people from Belleview would be coming over here to church and so on cuz I know we used to go, there was a shortcut road to go over the hill that went down into Belleview from out by …….Vista and it just went right over the hill out there and it wasn’t a very big distance and I suppose probably my father they would probably take groceries over in that area and deliver too, so I guess that’s probably where they originally became acquainted.

CURTAIN:  Because you father was in you’re your grandfather’s store.

BALL:  He was with him in fact his, in the store picture where ever it was that I had it he was the one that was up on the, where ever the one was that you wanted to have, he was up there with Roy on the top of the store, where is that? Here this is my grandfather and this is my father.

CURTAIN:  I assume your father and them were married here?

BALL:  They were married in Alma Den, I think, I’m not sure they may have been married. (refers to picture) This is my father and this is Evelene Nichols as I said and I thought my grandfather was standing there on one of the pictures but he isn’t in that one. They may have been married in here, but that I’m not sure at this point.

CURTAIN:  How many of you children are there?

BALL:  There were three of us, my sister and my brother both gone. My sister died oh, five or six years ago I guess and my brother died about two years ago. Both died very suddenly, so it was rather (INDISTINCT). So I am the only one left of this part of the family. Except for Beverly. My brother had two daughters. And um, that’s the only part of us that are left.S

CURTAIN:  All the Barrons then?

BALL:  All the Barrons then, yeah.

CURTAIN:  Unless you think of something else, I may well come up with something else but, (Both speak at once – CURTAIN:  says “to tell me things?”) But, I’d like to get your impressions of Soulsbyville today.

BALL:  I don’t even know ten people in this town anymore.

CURTAIN:  Is that right?

BALL:  And I read in the paper, all the – it seems that all the people that get in trouble, it says Soulsbyville. I don’t even know them. There are very few of the old people that are old-time people that are left in Soulsbyville. Just died out, I suppose, more or less, and moved away. And there just aren’t that many people left.

CURTAIN:  There’s Mrs. West?

BALL:  Yes?

CURTAIN:  And Mrs. Nichole? And you?

BALL:  Hm? I’m here.

CURTAIN:  And Mr. Barron?

BALL:  And, uh

CURTAIN:  I mean, Mr. Wall

BALL: (Both speak at once) No, uh, he wasn’t here he was from, Placerville area.

CURTAIN:  Oh, I see.

BALL:  And very few, there’s just very few of the other people – uh, Norma Davie is here, that’s one of the Davie family, ???? Lyle Pearl’s gone, and Lyle’s away from here. The Cairns are here. They have that mobile home, across from the (dining hall) building. Right next to that. I think that’s where they are. They live right in that area anyway. And other than that there just aren’t any of the real old families that are here.

CURTAIN:  Now all these little, well, shacks that I see, are these just people who’ve come in because they find it an inexpensive place to live? Or what ???

BALL:  It very well could be. For instance, now that the people across the street, the Hamiltons, By the way, that is one of the old families, Hodges. Did you have it down?

CURTAIN:  Yeah.

BALL:  One of the real old families. Where their house is, originally was a great big barn. I remember that. And then below that, there was a house where I think Ms. Pickle lived. And there was just nothing but houses for all along the road. And of course they were built along the road because our roads were so very poor. That was the only – They had to be able to get to the road in order to be able to move at all. Because of course we had no snowplows or anything except, as I said, when my grandfather would take the old, his horses and go through with the old sled, and clear the roads so people could go through and go to school. We walked to school the whole time. And I – The old house, there’s a great many of them, have not, are in disrepair, they have not been kept up. And that is one reason for shacky-looking buildings I guess. Just like now, in front of ours we’re working at it.

CURTAIN: (Both speak at once) I mean some of those that I see with all the junk around them, and over there by Baker Mine Road, and just some of the places that look like they are either are not made

BALL: (Interrupting) They’re just Johnny-come-latelies, really. And they aren’t, they do not, they are not what I call the community people. They have come in. And yes, probably because the rents are very reasonable, our property is reasonable, or something of that sort.

CURTAIN:  So you don’t have any community closeness, as such, anymore.

BALL:  Not anymore, no. We all more or less just go our separate ways. I am trying to think. In the house, did you know Buela Kingsley?

CURTAIN:  Yes.

BALL:  The house she lives in now, right across from the old school, that white house right across from the old school, that originally belonged to the Oxman family. I heard my grandmother talk of them. They were one of the old original people that came into this, and I believe he was Brownley Oxman who was the Methodist bishop. G. Brownley Oxman, I think. They lived in that house. And then, after they left, the – names elude me. People that went to Ceres. Had a grocery store down there. What was their name? Lived in that house for many, many years. Before the Kingsleys lived. I can’t think of their name right now. An old, old family. Hamm, Hamm.

CURTAIN:  Hamm?

BALL:  H-A-M-M. I think two “M”s. But what I was going to say is that if you can think of anything, or if I think of anything, or if you want to build up on any of these other things, I’d be glad to do it again, if it would help you.

CURTAIN:  I just appreciate this so much. You have given me lots of help.

BALL:  Well, uh, I wish I could do more. And I will try to find some of those other things. I really don’t know where all the other pictures are.

CURTAIN:  Well, thank you a lot Mrs. Ball.

(Subject change and some mike noise – was this from previous recordings? They are talking about a photograph?)

BALL:  Well this was the type of our summer recreation. And Dad would um, hitch up the wagon and so forth, and we would take everything up to our campgrounds which was usually up around Strawberry, and uh, you can see we even had a little stove. And they would set up the whole camp, we had a tent, off in the distance, and everything was set up, just that way, and these are the Francis folks. This is my brother, and these were the – that’s May’s mother, and May’s three brothers, before May was born. And we were in this – this is me. Always had my hair hanging down. I was a real toughie. So –

CURTAIN:  This is your mother?

BALL:  This is my mother, this is my father. And so then, we’d go up, and we’d stay up there probably a month or two months at a time. And the menfolks then would come up on weekends. I ??? with the horses or in a wagon, or some…

End of file: 30:44

General Information:

Interviewer:  Curtain, Bess

Interviewee: Mrs. Robert Ball

Name of Tape: Early [History of] Soulsbyville (ball_r_2)

When: 1973

Transcriber: Naomi and Alden (1/22/08)