Brooks:
…older
than others. The two top shelves are
very old. The two bottom shelves are
more or less of our wedding presents in there.
They’re only about 40 or 45 years old.
Dyer:
Was this item brought around the horn along with (___)…
Brooks:
Well evidently because in those days practically everything had to come
around the horn.
Dyer:
The craftsmanship is good, so it’s obvious it would’ve taken a master
craftsman for that…
Brooks:
Oh yeah, yeah.
Dyer:
…type
of work. Now we’re looking at a glass
door, rather large, that…
Brooks:
That’s originally went
outside, but they eventually built a bedroom on there and that’s the reason of
that glass door.
Dyer:
So that would’ve taken them out into the yard?
Brooks:
That would’ve taken them out into the yard, yes and they…
Dyer:
Well what do you think…
Brooks:
I don’t know why the door never changed and put a solid door on there,
but it always looked that way.
Dyer:
Did they only have one bedroom then in the original house?
Brooks: Yeah one bedroom to start with,
yeah.
Dyer:
And which one would that have been?
Brooks:
Well that one over there, I guess, in the front there…
Dyer:
Near the entrance?
Brooks:
Near the entrance there where that run into the bedroom right start with
see because there’s only the two of them to start with, see, and as the family
got bigger, why, they had to keep adding on here; and eventually they built two
bedrooms down in the cellar underneath there for two of the boys.
Dyer: Now in this particular room in
the other corner we have, I guess, the standard wash basin. That way would be for the ladies who were
fainting out here.
Brooks:
Yeah.
Dyer:
(___) (___). Well why don’t we walk out into the next room
and you can give us a description here if you will please. What we have in this room here…
Brooks:
Well this is the hallway and the side entrance. It goes over the beeper hats there; Mr. Cady’s hats.
Dyer:
Is the one on top with (__)…
Brooks:
That’s a ladies hat.
Dyer:
A ladies hat. Oh I…
Brooks:
Yeah. I don’t know whose hat it
was. I found it here in one of the
cupboards here and put it out there. I
don’t know whose hat it could’ve been.
Dyer:
Well three of them…
Brooks:
The three of them are Mr. Cady’s there.
They got his name inside of them.
Dyer:
Well they’re kind of a formal top hat…
Brooks:
Yeah.
Dyer:
…I
guess and the others a formal bowler and they’re placed around the mirror with
the walking canes.
Brooks:
Yeah and the old umbrellas.
Here’s a little bit umbrella that the women used to use for a little
sunshade with a little hand carved ivory.
Dyer:
Well look at that, gee, and that must be about 15 inches in diameter.
Brooks:
Yeah just about 15, 16 inches (___).
Dyer:
That’s made out of ivory though.
Brooks:
That’s all hand carved ivory.
Dyer:
It’s beautiful work. I suppose
that was considered a part of one’s formal attire when they went out…
Brooks:
They didn’t want the sun to get on their face to get a tan, so they had
that. Oh it’s about big enough just to
shade your face.
Dyer: Well now as we walk into the
next this is where…
Brooks:
This is one of the dining rooms.
Dyer:
This was the dining room and this is now your…
Brooks:
This is now my living room. I’ve
lowered the ceilings in here three feet and done this room all over, modern
furniture in here, and right here on this wall here originally there was a pass
cover right here where the servants passed the food out to the dining
room. I closed that off when I…
Dyer:
Uh-huh.
Brooks:
The only thing in here real old is the old stove over there which is
very, very old.
Dyer:
That’s a little larger than the one in the front.
Brooks:
Oh yeah it’s quite a bit larger than the one in front.
Dyer: Is that still in use?
Brooks:
Huh?
Dyer:
Is it still in use?
Brooks:
Oh yeah. I used it all winter
long.
Dyer:
Uh-huh.
Brooks:
Only heat I have in here.
Dyer:
And then the next room would be the kitchen. Now has this changed?
Brooks:
The ceilings have all been lowered in here and been modernized new sinks
and new stove and the clock up there is a very, very old clock. The pantry…the pantry…you don’t see pantry’s
anymore in homes.
Dyer:
That’s a gigantic pantry. That’s
a walk-in pantry with a full ceiling and cupboards.
Brooks:
Yeah.
Dyer:
No there’s not that type of storage area anymore. And then the back area is the porch. Is this the original structure?
Brooks:
No the back porch, originally, was just a type…a sort of a shed affair and when we fixed the kitchen over, why, we
built the back porch and enclosed it all in glass, the windows all drop down to
the sides there. We used to eat out here
in the summertime. Now I used it…in the
wintertime, I keep all my friends in there.
We built a bath up in the wash room,
laundry room over there.
Dyer:
Well let’s walk out to the outside porch, Mr. Brooks, and let’s see that
feature of the house now. We’re walking
out through the…
Brooks:
…through
the kitchen.
Dyer:
…through
the kitchen.
Brooks:
This is the side entrance, side porch.
The porch runs all the way around to the front.
Dyer:
Now this was not the original…originally this was not the main entrance?
Brooks:
No originally that was the entrance here onto Norlin
Street is the front entrance, but I don’t use the front entrance anymore. I use the side entrance. It’s handier because the house is so
big.
Dyer:
The oak tree is a gigantic tree.
Is there any idea the age of the oak?
Brooks:
Well evidently the oak was here when the house was built because you see
the house was kind of built around the oak tree.
Dyer:
Uh-huh.
Brooks: And the earliest pictures I have of the oak tree was about 1886 and it was just a
little bit higher than the house then.
It’s grown quite a bit since then.
Dyer:
And then the area surrounding the oak tree, I guess, what you call a
patio that you have bricked over or was the brick original?
Brooks:
Well the brick was put in here originally. The brick were all made over (___) in the early mining days. If you examine the brick closely in the
sawmill file, there’s pieces of gold quartz in the brick.
Dyer: Huh.
Well you think that brick will last (___) (___)?
Brooks:
I don’t know, I have no idea. I’ve had to
replace lots of it, but lots of it original. You can still see the quartz in
the stone of it.
Dyer: And then as you go down the
stairs, you would go to the bedroom that’s been…
Brooks:
The cellar and a bedroom there that’s been added to it there.
Dyer:
And that bedroom is under the…
Brooks:
Under the front bedroom.
Dyer:
Front bedroom?
Brooks: Yeah.
Dyer:
Have you made any significant changes in this area, Mr. Brooks?
Brooks:
No I haven’t made any changes at all; done a
lot of rebuilding, the floor on the porch I’ve had to replace, some of the
steps I’ve had to replace, but I haven’t made any changes. I’ve tried to keep it as is.
Dyer:
Is the roof the original roof?
Brooks:
No, no the original roof…oh let’s see I forget how many years ago we
replaced that, but the original shingles were all hand-made.
Dyer:
Huh like shank?
Brooks:
Like shank but they were made it
shingles.
Dyer: Uh-huh.
Brooks:
And they were spin out of pine and they were planed,
hand planed…
Dyer:
Oh my…the work.
Brooks:
And then they were all dipped.
You can see the finger marks on the shingles where they took them out
and dipped them in paint.
Dyer:
Well I’ll be darned.
Brooks:
Yeah that’s what made them last so long.
I saved a few of them when we replaced, but I don’t know whatever
happened to them now.
Dyer: Uh-huh. Well this certainly is an elegant home now
and it certainly must’ve been one of the finest homes in Sonora during the
1850s, ’60s, and thereafter.
Brooks:
Yeah evidently. It’s the oldest
home in Sonora now. There’s
some businesses on the main street, but at a home, this is the oldest home in
Sonora.
Dyer:
Well evidently Mr. Cady was a rather successful businessman to be able…
Brooks: Evidently, he had a store here
down on the main street here on Washington Street, and then he was postmaster
here for a good, many years; and he dabbled in politics quite a bit.
Dyer:
Uh-huh. Well with this location
it, certainly, was convenient for him to go down to his Washington Street
store...
Brooks:
Oh yeah.
Dyer:
…or
to conduct any downtown business because he could walk back and forth.
Brooks: Yeah.
Dyer:
Well, Mr. Brooks, we’re going to compile all the photographs and the
deed you so generously let us copy and also some of the plans done by the WPA
people and hope to compile this into a very interesting report, but we’d like
to make it available for people in the community and students to listen to and
research, so do we have your permission to use this at the college?
Brooks:
You sure do.
Dyer:
We certainly appreciate it, sir.
Thank you very much for this very interesting interview.
Brooks:
Ok.
END TAPE
General
Information:
Interviewer: Richard Dyer
Interviewee: Munsell V. Brooks
Name of Tape: The Home of John S. Cady
When: July 1973 & August 30
Transcriber: Dee-Ann Horn
Transcribed: 3/16/2018