This digital story was created in conjunction with the Smithsonian's Museum on Main Street program and its Stories from Main Street student documentary initiative, called "Stories: Yes." The project encourages students and their mentors to research and record stories about small-towns and rural neighborhoods, waterways, personal memories, cultural traditions, work histories, as well as thoughts about American democracy. These documentaries are then shared on Smithsonian websites and social media.
Students at South River High School in Edgewater, Maryland, recorded this story.
Speaker 1: My name's Jean Trott. I'm eighty nine years old. I live in the house I was born in.
Speaker 2: I'm Danny Easter. I'm eighty one years old.
Speaker 3: My name is Betty Rosetta Turner. I am seventy two years old. And I lived here, Galesville is my home. And I lived here from the time I was born, up until 1989. Then I moved to Annapolis.
Speaker 4: Reva Turner Selma. I'm seventy eight years old and in Galesville all my life.
Speaker 5: Pauline Weckersberg. I'm seventy two. Lived in Galesville seventy two years.
Speaker 6: My name is James Proctor. And I've lived in Galesville sixty four years. I would have lived here, came to Galesville in 'sixty two. And I'm ninety five.
Speaker 7: [1:17] My name is Joan Bell. And I'm an artist. And I'm eighty years old. And I came to Galesville at seventy four the first time, and we brought our boat down here to have Parchy's boat yard go over the reading. Because we were going to sail to Bermuda. And when we came back, we um, uh, my husband said "This is a nice town, the dogs are running loose." Now what that means is that people are tolerant, and very easy going. And we never went back Annapolis, where we were keeping our boat. Instead we decided we're going to stay in Galesville and we have kept our boat down here ever since.
Speaker 8: [2:00] My name is Jeffrey Smith, and I am sixty one years old. And I've lived in this area outside of Galesville where I was born in Cumberstone, the right adjacent, and then in Galesville now for about fifteen years. But I grew up, I went to school here, and I'm from this area.
Speaker 1: [2:27] The working-class people, the people who really cultivated Galesville itself. Um, composed of, of German heritage. Or they were Mormon, and that was very - and carpenters. Those three things. And through the years they've gradually built houses, and farmed, and so on. And all these young towns around here, these little villages, that's the women that live here. They didn't have a lot of things, to bring something up. Well today it will be a tourist attraction. People from Baltimore will come on the steamships. Come down, spend a weekend here in the country. Because it will draw, they want to draw people down here to spend a weekend, or to spend the summer. They carried produce, and tobacco, and seafood, I'm sure. And live animals, everything. Automobile chasing more than anything.
Speaker 2: [3:41] Well I worked there for like three or four years. Yeah. They used to shuck on [?]. And then they, uh, I used to bay charge to, put all the shells on the bed for the ones that's shucking. 'Cause I didn't really shucking honestly. It be cutting up my hands. Some people could really make good money out there. You wasn't getting much, eighty five cents a gallon. You got to shuck a lot of oysters to get a gallon. [Interviewer] How much is like -
Speaker 2: [4:05] Say you paid, you got eighty five cents for an hour working. All I seen them had was a sheller, basters, that they put their oysters in. And a cart that you brought 'em on. To push them out there. Yeah, I know some of the Teller's families, Boone Family, And uh, Gross Family used to work there.
Asset ID: 8536
For a complete transcript, please visit the Museum on Main Street website: www.museumonmainstreet.org
