RICHARD DYER: On the other tape you were talking about the Phoenix Lake Pavilion and some of the dances at Phoenix Lake.  I understand this pavilion was destroyed by fire, was it?

AGNES BLACK: Yes.  I don’t know how, though.  I don’t remember how it burned down.  Whether it was a fire through the hills that took it to whether it was burned down for other purposes, or left cigarettes burning, or what; but it was destroyed and it was certainly a loss to the county.  At that time we had a fine band in Sonora and some of you folks will remember, or Mr. Dyer, you might have heard of…let’s see, what was his name?...Hender, Mr. Hender, was the piano player at that time and I believe Andy Morgan is still in Sonora, and I believe he was one of the musicians and I might say his name was Art Hender.  And he was well known in Sonora.  He was a fine musician and he worked for Pacific Gas and Electric Company for many years.  He was the head of the Pacific Gas and Electric Company in Sonora and he was one of Tuolumne County’s finest musicians.  And Andy Morgan and…I just don’t remember some of the other names, but Mr. Dyer, when you’re talking to some of the historians in the county that remember the music better than I do, you will find the names of those men.  And they had the finest dance band, well, for miles around from Oakdale, Calaveras County, or Tuolumne County. 

DYER: were they paid for playing?

BLACK: Yes.  We paid…the men paid to go into the dance.  In those days, the man took the lady to the dance and he paid for the couple…like, possibly a dollar-and-a-half maybe.  Well then, whoever gave the dance.  If the Knights of Pythias gave it or if the Native Sons gave it, they would charge so much for that dance and then they would have to pay the musicians.  It wasn’t a very large amount—that I can grant you—but they did get paid for their nights work and the dancers always lasted until three ‘o’clock.  And as many of the people know, and you have probably heard it, there is an old song that si still being sung at three o’clock in the morning.  Now, that is absolutely the truth.  There wasn’t a dance ended before three o’clock in the morning.  And I can still remember Art Hender and his group playing for Phoenix Lake and Columbia and they were very fine musicians.  To this day, I can’t remember the other musician’s names.  But they were fine musicians for this county.

DYER: did the proprietors usually sell food at the pavilions?

BLACK: In some cases. Now, over Columbia, some group put the food on.   If the Native Sons gave the dance, then the ladies—Native Daughters—would put the food on; and you would pay so much for the food like twenty-five cents for a sandwich or five cents for a cup of coffee, or something to that effect; and then there was always lots of cakes.   The people in this county were wonderful cake bakers and they did have fine cakes.  So at Columbia the food was three for you, and at Phoenix Lake the food was there, and lots of times of the dance was over at Columbia or in Sonora, the Old Gem Café was one of the old night spots of the county at that time.  It seemed like everyone ended up at the Gem Café for food if it was two o’clock in the morning—if they left the dance early—you’d always find then at the Gen Café for dinner, or the old Chinese restaurant, which was at one time down next door to Penny’s—where Penny’s is now—there was an old Chinese restaurant right in there.  I believe about where Joey’s Dress Shop is.

DYER: Now, Happy Hen Chow…didn’t he work in the…

BLACK: Yes he did and he went to school.  That’s the way he earned his way through school.  And I believe he went on further to College of the Pacific or somewhere.  He worked very hard for his schooling.  And that was a fine Chinese restaurant. It was sort of dim looking when you’d go in there and I remember going in there a s girl of about sixteen with a group that we had gone over to Columbia with and came back to Sonora and Jim Caferri was probably too frail to get in, so we walked to the Chinese restaurant.

DYER: Well, while we were talking about entertainment, were there other activities that you remember, special entertainers that came in, circuses…?

BLACK: When Mrs. Pease, who was later Mrs. Davis at the Curtis creek School, she was a fine musician and so was my mother very well interested in music and at that time the teachers had what they called The Teachers Institute—you might have heard about it.  The Teachers Institute for this county was one of the finest music weeks that came here and the called it Chautauqua.  Now, I would have to study to spell that word again, but it was called Chautauqua and it was the Teachers Institute week and I can very well remember my other taking me as a small child and to think that I’d have to sit through all of the opera singing and all of the classical music and still like it is beyond me.  But my other took myself and my sister to the Chautauqua.  And when you find more about the music of Tuolumne County, if no one reminds you of that, I wish you would ask some of the older people about the Chautauqua.  It was the most beautiful music, and ladies dresses, when they came out to sing, and the lights of the Sonora Theatre stage—at that time it was the finest theatre of the county—Sonora Theatre where, well, the street come up from Stockton Street now, where the theatre was.

DYER: where the Bank of America…

BLACK: …where the Bank of America was. It was right along in there. 

DYER: that was a movie theatre?

BLACK: Yes.  It was called the Sonora theatre, and Mr. Odoul Restano was the owner of it—he and his father.  And I’ll never forget those beautiful costumes and the men’s costumes too when they’d come out to sing or play their instruments.  It was just something that I will never forget even though I was not more than possibly ten to twelve years old.  I can still see those ladies and men singing this opera music and songs and of course I’d seen my mother so interested in it and us, fidgeting around, wondering when it was going to be over. But…

DYER: But there were held at the Sonora Theatre?

BLACK:… Sonora Theatre.

DYER: Evidentially, they had movies there in addition to stage…

BLACK: Yeah, there were sonnet music…sonnet films and those were unusual too if the people today could just go to those sonnet movies again.  Now, I might tell you too for other entertainment as we’re talking about it, I want to remind you of this Chautauqua because you might find more out about it later on when you’re enquiring.  But our movies were held at the Standard...town of Standard, and at one time where the Pickering Lumber Company office is, there was a large dance hall and a pool hall and theatre.  It was all silent pictures and it was during World War I that it was, well, I might say, more crowded, more people were able to go until the epidemic of the flu came and they had to shut it down for the time.  But…

DYER: Was that the community center?

BLACK: Yes it was.

DYER: Or was it a regular theater or…?

BLACK: No, it was a community center more or less.  Other than the little church that it now in standard and the school, that was the dance hall and the pool hall for the men, of course the ladies didn’t go in there, but there was beer served and whiskey so… But the dance hall was a very fine floor.  It was all oak (__) and grooved floor and it was a wonderful floor.  But they tore it down before the time that I was able to go to very many dances.  And after the silent movies stopped there, then they rented the little church in Standard, and the man that rented it was from Jamestown.  His name was Mr. Robinson and he showed silent movies there.  And I might add that was about…he started there in about 1920.  1920 he started the movies in the church.

DYER: Now that is the church that is still in standard.  

BLACK: Yes, the little Red Church there on Standard. And he showed movies there for a good many years because I believe it was about 1919 or 1920 when he started showing them there after the pool hall and in the nice community center.  It was either torn down or burn down.  I think it caught fire and then they didn’t want to restore it again.  They wanted to build this new big office for Pickering Lumber Company which was Standard Lumber Company at that time, and they didn’t want to restore the old Anton Pool Hall, so I think it was torn down the rest of the way.  So the movies then—the silent movies—were shown in the church and we children walked from here to Standard to see the movies.

DYER: Did they have the old piano player…?

BLACK: Oh yeah.  But they had the regular piano player, you know, you paled it and it played.

DYER: Oh, like a player piano, huh?

BLACK: Yeah.  Yes, it was a player piano.  Then, in later years, Warden’s mother—now this was in 1922…23—Warden’s, my husband’s, father and mother moved to standard.  And his mother was a fine pianist, and she played for the silent movies for about two years… and we did enjoy walking up and seeing those and in that day they the serials, you know, they were continued.  So you just had to go!

DYER: Every Saturday.

BLACK: Every Saturday you had to walk to Standard to see this continued show.

DYER: what did it cost for one show?

BLACK: I think we paid fifteen cents for little children under twelve and twenty five cents for older, and probably adults paid seventy-five.

DYER: Well, because of the weather and because of the distances, I’m sure you had ways of entertaining yourself at home.  What family entertainments do you remember?

BLACK: Well, that was very good.  We had wonderful times here at home.  We had an old organ—we had to peddle it, you know—and my mother played a little bit; and our entertainment here was, with what little music we had, was little card games and checkers and just the regular little children’s games.  And when we couldn’t go out at night, well, there was six of us, so we divided up the games.  If two of us played fish—two of us would do that—and then two would play checkers and that was fine.  But we always found entertainment here at home.  We had nothing but the old thumb rack with the round cylinder records was our first phonograph and (____). And we just played games and listened to the phonograph music and read.  Our folks were great readers and we always had fine books to read. 

DYER: was it customary to invite people in for dinner?

BLACK: Yes.

DYER:  did your folks have any guests come in and…?

BLACK: Not many guests, but we had one neighbor, who was a very close friend of my families, Mr. and Mrs. Hooker. And they lived down on what is now the Tinnen —West Tinnen Ranch.  And Mr. Hooker would walk up.  His wife didn’t often come, but he would come maybe twice a month and on a Sunday and come and eat with us.  And lots of times my mother had Bishop Graves, who was the bishop of the Episcopal Church in Sonora.  He and his wife often came up and had Sunday dinner with us and had Sunday dinner with us, or many time they invited us I there.  Bishop Graves was a fine man for young people; he had, where the Guild Hall is now, he had games there.  And lots of time if we were able to get in the church, he would invite my mother and father and our family to stay and have dinner and then play games afterwards in the Guild Hall.  And we were all very small children at that time.  Not many of the neighbors came in for dinner.  Out table seemed to be pretty full with eight of us at the table.

DYER: I’m sure that you were expected to set only the best table when you had your guests—especially the Bishop.

BLACK: Oh yes.  And I might say too that Bishop Graves had his horse and buggy that he came out in and we children, all six of us, were baptized right in this room.  And he came out and baptized us and then four of us were confirmed in the Episcopal Church here a year later.  After my mother died we were confirmed, but we were baptized while she was living. So he was a fine Man, Bishop Graves and he wife.

DYER: It would seem that you had a full schedule of activities. 

BLACK: all year long.

DYER: Now, let me jump in on that for a minute and capitalize on some of the famous holidays and throw them out and see if you remember some of the interesting things on these holidays.  For example, Christmas.  Was that a special occasion in your family? Today, Christmas had become so commercialized, but as you think back do you thin of a different type of Christmas—while your mother was here especially?

BLACK: Yes, it was.  Us just farm people, we didn’t have too many Christmas gifts like we get now—a whole tree full.  But I can remember my father just going out and getting us a pine tree, and we decorated it with very few things that we had—maybe some popcorn, or made some little bows out of ribbon, or each one of us one or two little favorite Christmas balls that we put on the tree and each one of us helped decorate the tree just before going to bed on Christmas Eve.  And then Santa clause was supposed to come while we were asleep, so…

DYER: But you didn’t open the gifts Christmas Eve?

BLACK: No.

DYER: you decorated the tree…

BLACK: …and then went to bed.  And in the morning we…

DYER: Did you have real candles on the tree?

BLACK: Yes, we did.  And I might tell you that I still have the candle holders and the candles.  They’re kind of melted-like, but they’re still put away in a box—the candle holders that we used.  But we had to be very careful because of catching the plain tree on fire.  And we watched very carefully, but we didn’t have any trouble.  And the (___) was done. So, we did have a very active Christmas Party. 

DYER: Well, Agnes, we are talking about Christmas when your mother was here.  Do you want to spend a little bit of time and describe the exchanging of gifs?

BLACK: Well, yes.  I think that was more fun than anything.  We each had our gift on the tree, but we didn’t exchange very much.  My mother and father…of course, everyone at that time thought that Santa Clause put them on, and we had one gift a piece.  No exchanging, we was just given our gift off of the tree, but we had plenty of candy, and oranges, and nuts at that time.  And Christmas was real nice.  It was usually a rainy day or sometimes we had snow.  And our room wasn’t very big, but we had a fireplace and our family was here together for Christmas.  There wasn’t any company that came in on Christmas time—maybe a few days later or something, but o Christmas day we had a big Christmas dinner and just enjoyed Christmas by ourselves.  It was no big expense, and our Christmas cards were all made by my mother. She made them…

DYER: She’s artistic, so I’m sure they were beautiful. 

BLACK: Yes they were.  They were just made out of construction paper and my father usually drew the scene, or flower, or whatever it was, and my mother water-colored it.  And there were very few cards sent out.  Most of them went to England to our cousins and our aunts and uncles, but few were sent there in the county.  But in those days you’d send only cards to far far away people. Christmas time with your neighbors was maybe a few days before or a week before you’d call on them or go and see them, and if they drove by your house you’d wish them a Merry Christmas.  But there weren’t cards sent to everybody in the county like they send you now.  But our card were hand-made and they were pretty. 

DYER: Was the turkey the main course?

BLACK: no.  We either had…lots of time we had a goose or chicken or sometimes it even just went to roast beef.  We didn’t have any turkey of our own, so we didn’t buy any.  There were very few turkey in the county at that time…and very few in the butcher shops.  It was usually…well, my mother had a goose at Christmas time because we raised them—they were here on the ranch—or we had roast beef.  That was our main course because my father at mother really liked roast beef.

DYER: New years.  Was that a big day?

BLACK: Well, not very big, no.  We didn’t have a very big one, but for my brothers they were allowed to go out and shoot a shotgun.  That was their main thing for waiting for New Years.  They’ could go out at midnight and they were allowed to stay up until midnight.  And when they’d shoot the shotgun or set off the firecrackers, that was our main New Years part.  We did have a nice dinner, but we very seldom had any company in for new years.  And we had no liquor of any kind in our house.  My mother and father were both against liquors and so we didn’t have any and my brother—oldest brother—was not able to go very far because we had no way of going for New Years.  So we kind of just stayed home and the bog event was shooting the shotgun at midnight. 

DYER: what about fireworks? You mentioned firecrackers? Did the boys make their own or did they…?

BLACK: Well, we’d keep some from Fourth of July.  My mother kept a package or two just so that we kids have something to make noise with on New Year’s night— New Years Eve.  But that’s all we had.  Out New Years was very quiet.  When we got older, sometimes we’d go to a dance on New Years.  My oldest brother would go, but very few dances for New Years did we get to go to until we were fifteen, sixteen years old. 

DYER: Were there special radio programs or special entertainment at the theatre on New Year’s Day?

BLACK: Well, there might have been something in Sonora, but we never did get into it.

DYER: well, let’s get to the Fourth of July.

BLACK: Fourth of July? Oh, that was the biggest fun of all, Fourth of July. It was usually held in Sonora at that time.  And if we could go to town about ten o’clock or eleven—just before the parade started—then Sonora was just lined with people for the Fourth of July parade and the fireworks.  In those days they didn’t seem to stop us from shooting the fireworks.  We had them right down the street.  But the parade and the fine celebration and, oh, ice cream, and candy, and things like that were our main thing for Fourth of July.  And how well I remember the Fourth of July.  During all of the harvesting time and the hard work of the green flashing and all, that was the one day—Fourth of July—that all of the farmers would go to town.  Whether they had to thrash the grain or not, they stopped on the Fourth of July.  And the young boys that helped with the thrashing, they would take their little bit of check that they had—their little bit of money—and to town they would go for Fourth of July.  If they had to walk into town, or ride a horse in, they would go to town on Fourth of July.  And I think that was one of the main fun days of this county was Fourth of July. 

DYER: Was it a patriotic observance?

BLACK: Oh yes.  Everybody had their flag out that had one and we always had a man speak.  It was usually the justice of the court or some man that could speak very good.  He would be on the platform right where the Bank of America is, on that wide part of the street.  In fact, at the little end of that street was the fountain—the old fountain.

DYER: that’s Washington and Stockton where the fountain was.

BLACK: Yes, right there.  The fountain was on Washington and Church.

DYER: oh, church?

BLACK: Yes.  It was on this end of Washington Street, right where we go up Church Street.  And the big fountain was right there and we used to circle around it to make the turns.  And that was the wide place, and they built the pavilion right near that fountain and we always have to stand and sing the Star Spangled Banner.  And in those days, you really stood with your hat off and your hand over your heart. Everybody did, not just a few spotted people—it was everybody.  And there again are Louise Davis, or Louise Peas, who was our Curtis Creek School teacher, was one of the finer singers in Sonora—he voice carried so far.  And we had fine singing and music; we had a band.  And then we always had to listen to a speech.  So that was Fourth of July along with the parade.  And then everybody mingled together.  Everybody spoke to everybody; everybody was a neighbor and a friend. And you’d enjoy ice-cream at Madam’s Ice Cream Parlor—which was the finest ice cream in the county—and Fourth of July was just one of the summer time fun days.

DYER: It’s always been a highlight I think, in the history of the county, a highlight of people’s activities during the year.

BLACK: Oh, I think so.  And if they couldn’t come to Sonora, the little town that couldn’t get into Sonora had their own Fourth of July celebration.  Now, of course, it’s changed over to Columbia and they don’t have it in Sonora anymore, and why they gave it up I’ll never know.

DYER: do you remember other special holidays, Agnes, that you especially observed? Thanksgiving?

BLACK: Thanksgiving was quiet, but it was, like you say, a big feast day and all of the families (most families) got together that had any relative close by.  They’d all go to grandmother’s house or the old family home.  Here, our family was all together, but we had no relation in this county…in this state to even invite.  No grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts, uncles, or cousins.  They never came here from England so our family was just…

END OF TAPE

General Information:

Interviewer: Dyer, Richard

Interviewee: Black, Agnes

Name of Tape: Agnes Black on the Black Ranch (black_a_3_0)

When: 9/5/1973

Where: Wards Ferry Road

Transcriber: Ariella (3/5/09)