Laurie: You were saying before that _________________________ was toward the town of ______________?

Evelyn: Well, here’s the thing… they wanted to come in here originally and… have you ever been down to Kingsford Heights?

Laurie: Mmm hmm. [Transcriber’s note: this is meant as an affirmative response.]

Evelyn: All of that was to be here.

Laurie: Mmm hmm.

Evelyn: Someplace they’re gonna put it… well that would change everything here, you know. That would change it, just, really completely. Uh… I don’t know if you’ve seen those buildings that the government put up or not, but they were like two apartments. There was going a log building, with a division in the center, and an apartment on each end. They were gonna come in here and put a whole mess of that. Well, at that time that they came, our toilets was outside, our pump was outside… alright, they wanted to have water (?) and everything modernized and build up there… well, put in these… buildings and have more of a… well, you’ve seen what they’ve got down there… they did a grocery…

Laurie: Mmm hmm.

Evelyn: …well…a…we had a general merchandising place, like I told you, over here. And we had an elevator and I suspect they begin to think about maybe the business coming in and it probably hurting their business up to a point. And they would have to change trades their way and they didn’t want to do it.

Laurie: So…

Evelyn: So, the town, older people, or the town people, got together and decided they didn’t want the ___________

Laurie: was there an actual meeting of people?

Evelyn: Yeah. They didn’t have the…they had decided that they would have to have it down there.

Bill: Well, they was runnin’ riff-raff in here from Gary and Chicago…

Evelyn: (unintelligible over Bill’s)

Bill: …and that was a big draw back.

Evelyn: …and they didn’t want that where…

Laurie: Mmm hmm.

Evelyn: First it drew just…uh…I mean, your old hillbillies, and like Bill said, riff-raff from Gary…and respectable people decided that they just couldn’t take it.

Laurie: Mmm hmm. So was there a town meeting though? I mean…

Evelyn: Well, they just…you…you had your older people that run the town…

Laurie: Mmm hmm.

Evelyn: ...had their meeting, like you would your board meeting, and decided that they must be moved down (?)…

Laurie: Now, who were the older people? Do you remember their names?

Evelyn: Well, Holmes was one that was really…I always thought was more instrumental than anybody else. It was more your business people.

Laurie: Ok. Now, when you say business, you mean the general store and the elevator and…

Evelyn: Well, all the people that had any…there, there was a couple stores. And your garages, and your, um…____________…there wasn’t any meat market at that time…there was a bus that came out here every hour, on the hour, from Laporte. People didn’t have cars; it was too short on gas. And if we wanted to go into Laporte, we got on the bus right there. Every hour, on the hour, it came from Laporte to KOP. And brought workers from Laporte out to work at the plant. Every hour, on the hour, it went through here.

Laurie: Mmm hmm.

Evelyn: So, if you wanted to go to Laporte, you got on that bus and you road it to town, and got your stuff, and got back on the bus that come out here.

Laurie: Hmm…

Evelyn: Yes.

Laurie: Now, the Ordinance Plant…I know it was built, I think it was in 1941?

Evelyn: Right.

Laurie: When was Kingsford Heights built? Was it built…?

Evelyn: Same.

Laurie: They were building it simultaneously?

Evelyn: Cause they was no place for all these people poring in.

Laurie: Mmm hmm.

Evelyn: So they had to have the workers, so they put up these government buildings by the _____________. And, uh, the town, then the business part, I don’t know if you’ve ever been down there…

Laurie: Mmm hmm.

Evelyn: The just ______ one long row of buildings down to the center there and then they had their businesses in that/ The stores, and, uh, let’s see if I can remember…____________ what they called the drug store, or, that thing on one corner…

Laurie: Mmm hmm.

Evelyn: ...and then there was a general grocery store, and a post office, uh, a fire station, uh, a place that made draperies. This man in Laporte come out here and make…he had, uh, a sewing place that made draperies for years and, uh, then there was about three…(unintelligible noises) ...so help me…three taverns, and a filling station/ And, uh…an auction house (?)

Laurie: Mmm hmm.

Evelyn: and a ____ist and a root beer stand…that’s right…

Laurie: Hmm…was there a lot of problems with the people who moved in between those and The Heights?

Evelyn: Oh, all kinds of problems.

Laurie: What kinds of problems were there?

Evelyn: well, it was the idea that, it’s like Bill said __________ you riff-raff in there, they want to take over and run things (?). Things had to be set down to a pattern and they had to make it into a town ___________. They had to have the town organization to keep everything balanced.

Bill: (unintelligible)…it’s still a tough joint…

Evelyn: Oh, it’s tough.

Bill: Ok, they can hardly keep a policeman. And I know they had one down there and he got a gun with a tranquilizer and started shootin’ at dogs. That __________ make ‘em easy to take, you know? Course, they supposed to keep their dogs at home, but, he shot somebody’s dog and I guess it didn’t get back to their place and he shot it again. So they sue him, you know? Naturally, he lost his job, being the cop. But they can’t hardly keep a policeman down there.

Laurie: They’ve always had trouble out there?

Bill: Oh yeah. Yeah, thems cats, old cats all had kittens…

Laurie: Mmm hmm.

Bill: See, see, they’s tough when they come in here and them old cats all had kittens. And there’s one of them lived here in the town was a problem chills. But, uh, they had him in jail over the weekend. Doug Wildes. He lived down there. So they…always carried a national credit card, that’s five feet of hose and a five-gallon can.

Laurie: Mmm…When you say riff-raff, do you mean, like what? The blacks from Gary came in?

Bill: Well, the whites was just as low as the blacks.

Laurie: Oh…

Bill: It wasn’t a case of color. (woman in background speaking, unintelligible) It was just a case of uneducated people…

Evelyn: Like for instance, I was standin' over to the store one day and this old man and little boy got of the bus, barefooted. No shoes, nothing. And he says, "Grandpa, I told you we shoulda wore our shoes." Nut they didn’t know where to go or where they were going to finally end up at The Heights. I mean, the buses, they, they, just rolled off of the buses. They would come in here from Georgia, Tennessee, and they did it for years after the main part of the…they worked at that tire place, there was still was bunches of ‘em coming in.

Bill: Yeah.

Evelyn: Mmm hmm…(long pause) Cripes! You wouldn’t believe it!

Bill: Evelyn and I drove down there and she had a gal working for her down at this Kingsbury Inn and she started a sandwich shop over in The Heights. So she said, let’s drive over and see her. So we went over and buy there was three fights at that tavern in about fifteen minutes! And I said, "That’s about enough. Let’s go." And this old gal says, "They wasn’t really fightin’, you know." One guy come out there and tripped over his shirt and picked a guy up and throwed him down on the ground and we was a half a block away. We could hear him groanin’ when he hit the ground, you know. It was enough to paralyze ya. And Evelyn said, "No, as long as he ain’t got a knife and drawin’ blood, well, they ain’t really fightin', ya know."

(laughter)

Evelyn: I mean, uh, then they came in, and a lot of ‘em never went back. They just, when the buildings came up for sale, then things settled down, they sold a lot o f the buildings. Uh, Bill bought some for his brothers, and they could move ‘em if they wanted to, or, they could leave ‘em there.

Bill: well, the ones I bought had never been set up.

Female (unsure if Laurie or Evelyn): Oh, they hadn’t been set up?

Bill: No, they was just made and, and, I bought four of ‘em for four hundred and sixty dollars apiece. Then they, you know, the war was over, well after about…oh, 1950 I guess, I don’t just remember…but, uh, maybe it was ’47 or 8 even…but the boys would come home from the service and three of my brothers came back and of course, the first thing they had on their mind was getting married.

Laurie: Mmm hmm.

Bill: They’d been gone three to four years, you know, well, they was, uh, old enough to get married when they went. They’s 18, 20 years old.

Laurie: Mmm hmm.

Bill: So, that was the first thing on their minds, you know, well…

Laurie: (laughs – this covers something else Bill says)

Bill: I had my farm along 30 and well, uh, they oughta have a house, you know…and I said, well, I can buy a house from those guys for $416 and you guys help each other, you can build your own house. I said, you was working layin’ blocks and runnin’ concrete before you went to the service, and it’s the same thing now, you know? So, I got Charlie Pfeiffer to come out with a shovel and he get the basement up for forty dollars apiece, which was very reasonable.

Evelyn: I would, yeah! (laughs)

Bill: Four of ‘em, four of ‘em in a row. And he get them all out in a day.

Laurie: Mmm hmm.

Bill: One hundred and sixty dollars, that ain’t a bad day’s work with a, with a shovel, you know, and a tractor. So, then we bought the blocks and run the foundation in and layed the blocks up.

Evelyn: Course, they made very beautiful __________ and they put brick on the outside, and…

Bill: Well, they added to ‘em…

(Bill and Evelyn talk over each other)

Bill: ...so that they could.

Evelyn: ...those that intended to stay have modernized ‘em very beautiful and have fixed ‘em all up and some of ‘em are, you know, all fixed up. There’s a lot of ______, they never went back, they stayed here. And he had some that settled right here on this town from, uh, down in the hills, The Graces (?) lived right over there. They was from Kentucky. And there’s just some of 'em, they just never went back! They just stayed here, they liked it here, and, course, there was a big in surge from your, uh…some of ‘em, they…come, uh…There’s still a bunch of ‘em around here of the young people that’s working over here at the plant, that, uh, in casting service, that’s from Kentucky, and…

Bill: Oh yeah…

Evelyn: ...and, you know, they’ll come around, maybe they say (unintelligible)…some part of Kentucky and Monday morning they’re back for work. Just like you’d say, "Well, I’m gonna run over to Michigan City to get a sandwich." That means just about that much time and they’ll have a car where the darn rear-end’s a-draggin’ and the motor’s stickin’ out, and they still make the trip and they do it all the time.

Laurie: Mmm hmm.

Evelyn: But they’re up here after money and they take it back down there to do their spendin’.

Laurie: Mmm hmm.

Evelyn: They don’t intend to stay, they, there just here for, to work and I think you had the same situation that when the plant closed down they took their money and they went back. A lot of ‘em.

Bill: Yeah, I was going down, sittin’ there at the bus one time I stopped to…to…oh, New London… and people had _________ thirty __________ motel. I talked to ‘em and one of ‘em said, "Well…" the lady said, "Me and my man we went north." She says, "I don’t know if you know where it is, you know, but we went up to KOP and worked and we saved our money and then we came back down here. We own this piece of ground, so, we built these cabins on there, that is motels, in there, and there ‘er thirty of ‘em makes us a right good income." So they…

Laurie: Mmm hmm.

Bill: They got, they got…

Evelyn: Well, this a…

Bill: ...five or six dollars an hour.

Evelyn: Uh, when I worked for Mr. Klauf (sp?) into the restaurant, why, there was, uh, uh, one young man, he said, he said he had studied the ministry. And he, but, he, he wanted to do something, it was something toward that ministry too, he, he, wanted money, or course. And so, he went into caps (?) and he worked, oh, that’s Tri-State. See how easy that is says (?) ? (laughs) Oh, it was Tri-State old tire company over there. And, uh, he, he, of course, Mr. Klauf (sp?) collected rent every week, they had to pay it for the week. And he says it wouldn’t be anything for him to go over there and when he went to collect that rent and find ten of ‘em laying on the floor in that cabin. And coming in from Kentucky, and, he’d, he’d coax ‘em out and they was layin’ there, and, you know, I’d wonderin’, you know, uh, and, so they would have to pay rent. He’d come out there some mornings at breakfast time…

Bill: On the floor.

Evelyn: ...and when he’d come in there’d be half a dozen layin’ there ______________. And so, it just happened that Mr. Klauf (sp?), he went to collect the rent and there was all them extra people in that cabin. He was lettin’ them get a head start and he says they wouldn’t stay more than two weeks. But each probably gets spendin’ money to last them for about a month down there in Kentucky. And they disappear!

Laurie: Mmm hmm.

Evelyn: They just plum disappear!

Bill: Well…

Evelyn: Now he was here quite awhile…

Bill: They breeze into Warsaw, the same way in every other town, I guess. But, uh, I had a bus line from Warsaw to Fort Wayne and one January night a young guy and his wife got on and they told me they had just gotten married and was comin’ up to Wynonna Lake, he had a buddy up there, ask him come up on his honeymoon. And I said, "I don’t know him." I said Ewi McGwyer (sp?) knows all of them, all of them Kentucky’s that come up here and I said, I know where he’s at, so, I said, you just stay on the bus and I loved at Wynonna Lake, so, I went into Warsaw and then I turned around and went back to Wynonna Lake. And I drove down to Ewi McGwyer’s (sp?) place. It’s about ten o’clock at night, wrapped on the door, Ewi (sp?) got up outta bed. I said, "You know this man?" [Ewi’s reply] "Oh yeah! How are ya, you know?! Oh…" [young man’s reply] "Yeah, I just gotten married and I’d come up on my honeymoon, I’m lookin’ for so-and-so…" [Ewi’s reply] "Yeah, I know where he lives, but…", he said, "…he ain’t got no room for ya." He [the young man] said, "Yes he has. I got a letter right here from him said come on up." So, they come out, and it was a cold night so I drove down that far and they was livin’ in a basement. So I…went sown with ‘em, you know, and we wrapped on the door and the guy got up…and there’s one big room in the basement…and there’s one bed. Him and his wife and two children and the baby-sitter was sleepin’ crossways on that bed. "Oh! Come on in!", he says. "I got, I make plenty of room for ya, come on in!" So, the guy went in, now, where they slept, I don’t know, but…

Laurie: (laughs)

Evelyn: (big laugh) ...that’s right…that’s, that’s…

Bill: Talk about togetherness…

Evelyn: I told you, every chicken coup in this town, or anything that looked like a building, it had people in it, Bill.

Laurie: Mmm hmm.

Evelyn: Now, you couldn’t…even, even test _____________ income in the population.

Bill: Well, people bought new quant’s (?) and huts (?), you know…just to rent to them people. These people around here, within 26-30 miles, did that.

Laurie: Mmm hmm.

Bill: Made ‘em a good income.

Laurie: Did people around here mind them so much, other people coming in, if they could make money off of it?

Evelyn: Well, they minded because of, first, of the type of people that was comin’ in.

Bill: But since they was here, they was gonna make some money off of ‘tm too.

Laurie: Mmm hmm.

Evelyn: Yes, he’s got it right there.

Laurie: Oh…

Evelyn: And some of them stayed, some of the older ones, they stayed in the town and bought homes, and, and, well, like Pop and David Coburn (sp?), look how many years they stayed? And he, they, came up to work there…

Bill: Southern Indiana

Evelyn: Southern Indiana, you know, and Graves’ (sp?), and Mabel, and the Drives’ (sp?). I could name you a lot of ‘em that stayed right here ‘til, for years and years and years and years…

Laurie: Uh huh…Did a lot of the, uh, people around here work at the Ordinance Plant too?

Evelyn: I would say they did.

Laurie: Mmm hmm. What do you think then…before you were saying that, tis wouldn’t have happened if it had been a city, but the town was so old…?

Evelyn: Well, I think…you see, when they run these plants, they generally come in and either, they run these plants, uh…it’s like Bill said, you didn’t find them near a city.

Bill: Well, they, they, they spread ‘em out because…

Evelyn: Uh they took…

Bill: ...for safety’s sake.

Evelyn: They took near a small town, away from the city, they didn’t want ‘em near any city.

Laurie: Mmm hmm.

Evelyn: Cause, after all, they had problems there too. There was people killed up there. Neglect…

Bill: Well…

Evelyn: And…and…

Bill: Well, there’s always a chance the tide’d turn, that they’d start bombing here.

Laurie: Mmm hmm.

Evelyn: Absolutely. That’s why, why…

Bill: You see, even in, what, World War I? Did they came up with Big Bertha?

Evelyn: Mmm Hmm.

Bill: 75 miles that range of 75 miles, you know, and, uh…

Evelyn: Mmm hmm…that was one reason why they had this big fear too. The town was a little apprehensive.

Laurie: Hmm…

Evelyn: Well, years later when, after the war was supposed to be over, there was monkeying there and some ammunition stored there and around and there was a couple guys killed over there. It was a dangerous place to be.

Laurie: Mmm hmm…

Evelyn: Yeah.

Laurie: what do you think was the greatest change in town then? You know, what it was like before KOP moved in and then after it moved in…it really, do you really think it changed the town?

Evelyn: Oh definitely it changed the town! Cause, in the first place, you had a whole new combination come in.

Bill: Well, you see, this road out here was built then.

Laurie: 35? Route 35?

Evelyn: Right.

Laurie: That was never there?

Evelyn: No!

Laurie: What was it?

Evelyn: That was part, just, uh…

Bill: It was farmland.

Evelyn: Hey! This was a ____________ concept!

Laurie: Uh huh, and…

Evelyn: There was just a little, uh, those houses were over there, over the hill…

Laurie: Mmm hmm.

Evelyn: But, (laughs), this was…I stood, in the high school window and looked over here and hoped that someday, I said, I’d like to have a home in that corn field and the girls laughed at me. They thought that was the biggest joke of the year. Everyone sittin’ over in the cornfield. All right…we had to take the corn down to fix, to get, a place to live here. It was hard for Mc…McCainy (sp?)…this was all field.

Laurie: Mmm…35, then and it was built by…the government? KOP?

Evelyn: When, when this was comin’ in…

Bill: Yeah, and wherever those evergreen trees are from here to the sand pile, up to the fort…that belonged to Earl Rhoda (sp?). And he set those trees out right after they built that road. And, huh, what they paid him for that road and for the dirt they made this overpass…I, I have no idea, but, it was a ridiculous amount. Now he’s 88 years old. He’s up in the nursing home there in Laporte, and…

Evelyn: No mind…

Bill: No mind…

Evelyn: He’s my uncle and he has no mind.

Bill: We took her Aunt Grace up to see him, that’s his wife, and he says, "Seems I outta know you." Then he talks to me, you know, well, he, he knows me… swell guy to visit with, but boy…when you made a deal with that old boy, you better believe it was in his favor.

Laurie: Mmm hmm.

Bill: And…

Evelyn: Now that road... you got that building, uh, the road, in the town there…Our road was over here that went through Kingsbury. It was 29. It was that one road through and that was it. And it went on through and took you into Laporte in an old winding way. And we had, we had a half-way house between Kingsbury…

Laurie: Mmm hmm…

Evelyn: ...between Kingsbury and Laporte there was a half-way house. So people from ___________ with horse and buggy could stay at the half-way house out there. So, people coming from Hannah (?), all with horse and buggy, could stay overnight at that half-way house if they wanted to. It’d be like an inn now.

Laurie: Mmm hmm

Evelyn: Alright, that was the road. And, it wound down, uh, when you’re going into Laporte, you come down, you dip down like this where you go ‘round, you make this curve. Alright, that road went clear over to the side and went on like this, and made a curve up and back. Up where your round barn is.

Laurie: Mmm hmm.

Evelyn: And up.

Bill: Yeah.

Evelyn: It was a lot longer to get to town. Then they put this road in, alright, your traffic increased tremendously. Hey! You wouldn’t believe it girl. Certain times of the day you absolutely better not get on that road.

Laurie: Really? It was that bad?

Evelyn: That bad. Every time a shift changed…

Bill: Course, it’s that bad right now.

Evelyn: Every time that shift changed, it was bumper-to-bumper. And there was a bus, every hour, on the hour, for all the workers from Laporte out here. And transportation…

Bill: Six from Chicago and Gary comin’ in there.

Evelyn: And those workers from Gary, they kept, they didn’t stay here, they drove every day. Well, like Bill told you, have any idea where Warsaw is?

Laurie: Mmm hmm

Evelyn: They come over here every day!

Bill: Lots of people, lot of ‘em. Yeah, I knew…

Evelyn: That far to work here.

Bill: Three, four, five of ‘em that was security men that drove over here, they…

Evelyn: They came from Gary. And, uh, Hammond…East Chicago…Kentucky…Tennessee…Georgia…you name it, and they came.

Bill: Well, even carpenters and construction men…

Evelyn: Oh yes, see, they put out a big ad that they wanted, you know, experienced carpenters and, you know, all…

Bill: Anything in the building trade.

Evelyn: And, my cousin worked over there in the cafeteria. It was a fantastic thing. It never shut down. It was all different shifts on that and it was a big one.

Laurie: Mmm

Evelyn: But they provided eats, but that was it. See, I mean, there was eats out there. If they got a break, they could go eat.

Laurie: Mmm

Evelyn: There’s a big cafeteria there, they could go get their eats at noon; their noon hours they could get their eats.

Laurie: Mmm

Evelyn: They didn’t have to leave that, there was just too tighter security for them to leave. Cheaper too. They didn’t…

Bill: Well, you gotta coffee break, where you gonna go in fifteen minutes?

Evelyn: Well, they didn’t want ‘em to leave. They had those outfits on and she says, you just didn’t leave.

Laurie: Mmm hmm…hmm…

Evelyn: Well, and I know, this was true even at Olen Masseson (sp?), where you handle ammunition. Because Mr. Klauf used to be a lot of the times come in and he’d have a long, they’d call up and he’d, he’d, get the food for the people in there so they wouldn’t have to take off those outfits.

Laurie: Mmm…

Evelyn: Special gloves, special uniform.

Laurie: Yeah.

Evelyn: Not enough time to do that, so, he’s come and get their grub.

Bill: Well, even eight, eight years ago, they had a coffee shop in there. Evelyn worked there.

Evelyn: Mmm hmm

Bill: In there, across from Trans-State. And, uh…

Evelyn: There was some, and there was quite a few businesses running. Course, she fed a lot of people. There was, there was a, Trans-State tire was just a zooming at that time. And Olen Masseson was still running, at the time. There was quite a few big businesses running at that time. And then there’s been a terrific change and, uh, in fact, I told you, in my mind, this Wolfcrest (sp?) was the last one in right at that period. And then the next thing you know, there’s the big change and slowly we get away from the tax situation. There’s been others came in.

Laurie: So, Kingsbury’s really changed from a farming community to…

Evelyn: Well…

Laurie: ...industrial workers?

Evelyn: There for awhile it sure was!

Laurie: Is it back to being more of a farming community now?

Evelyn: Now we’re kind of back to more of a farming community, yes.

Bill: Yeah. We don’t have too many guys working in industry right here, out of Kingsbury. But, uh…

Evelyn: Well, not just now…but there for while…

Bill: Well…

Evelyn: …for years, they just, half of ‘em were, if they had a job, it was at KOP.

Bill: Well, about half, about half of the workers worked the steel mills or somewhere…

Laurie: Mmm hmm

Bill: They go to Gary. See, this guy next door here, __________, he goes to the steel mills and old Sarge (sp?) across the tracks goes to the steel mills. Champ (sp?) goes, Michigan City, don’t he?

Evelyn: That’s right.

Bill: …but, uh, they, they, flock outta here like a bunch of quails, go this way and that way…

Evelyn: This, uh, Kingsbury’s no more than a suburb of Laporte.

Laurie: When do you think it started becoming a suburb?

Evelyn: Well, I’m gonna tell ya. All the time I was in high school, I sure could count the houses between here and Laporte. There wasn’t no Glendale. There, uh, wasn’t no Anderson Addition. There wasn’t any of them even yet when I graduated. There was nothing like this, no way.

Laurie: Mmm hmm

Evelyn: It was all farms clear up the road. Big farms. These buildings, those homes, came about, well, in fact, that one long white, uh, brick house, that there was put when Olen Masseson was coming in. Cause that big shot that run that? That was his home. Now I remember that.

Bill: But either side of the road from here to Laporte, you know, you might have to drive off for a little bit, but, you’ll find a colony in there.

Laurie: Mmm hmm

Bill: You take the next road down and go that was and that’s all built up in there. And, uh, then the west side of the road up through there is built up two or three different places.

Evelyn: See at one time, there was just, well, let me see…there was the Palmer Crass (sp?). Let’s see, after that __________ five houses up there. There was the Palmer Crass (?) place and the old Shelt’s (?) home. And then there was an old root beer stand up there where George Wicks lives now and, in fact the, part of his house was part of it.

Evelyn: …oh, they ran up the road, shoot! There wasn’t no like the Lenox and all them in there. None of that was built in there, none of it.

Laurie: When the Kingsford Heights opened up, was there much interaction between Kingsbury and Kingsford Heights? Like, when Kingsbury had community dinners, or anything, did the people from The Heights come?

Evelyn: No.

Laurie: Did having The Heights there, and all these new population, did that effect the community spirit of things? Cause you told me some nice stories…

Evelyn: Well no, I don’t think that, I can’t say that it did. They developed that as a town down there. It was a town within itself down there. They have their own governing body, they have their own stores…

Bill: They’re kind of getting it straightened out now. They got a new town board and a new Marshall.

Evelyn: They, they, they were kinda…

Bill: Kinda…

Evelyn: ...they didn’t mix very much, no…

Bill: Sent the renegades to the penitentiary.

Laurie: Hmm

Evelyn: No.

Bill: But, uh…

Evelyn: But, you see…

Bill: Oh, a year ago, a young guy come in here with a fella…and, uh, down on his luck, winter time. And she just cooked a kettle of beans, and I said, "Ya hungry?" [he said] "Yeah, yeah." So, we just sat there at the table and ate a good helping of beans. And, uh, he was living with his fiancé, and, and, that’s a common thing down there.

Laurie: Mmm hmm

Bill: And, so, I’ll give him ten bucks. I says, well, you can’t have this girl going hungry.

Evelyn: I would’ve let her went hungry myself.

Bill: Ok, I would too if I had known everything. But I didn’t.

Evelyn: I had him in jail. I recognized him! (laughs)

Bill: I didn’t know it…but, he had worked over at the prison and they caught him carrying marijuana in. They railroaded him, framed him, you know, to hear him tell it.

Evelyn: Framed him (said over Bill). But, he was peddling it…

Bill: Doing the same thing down there. Now there is the amazing thing. When they find a batch of marijuana, it’s worth millions of dollars. Why don’t those guys pushin’ it have some money? They never do! They never have no money.

Laurie: Hmm

Bill: So, I fixed this guy up, then I find out his name is Shelts (?) and found out that they’d canned him over at the prison. I told him, well, I used to work over there and, I said, that was an easy thing…to get framed over there, as far as that goes. And it was. But, the kids from here could go down there and shack up all night.

Laurie: Hmm

Bill: And we can do without that.

Evelyn: I think I understand what you’re trying to ask me. Eh, I would say, during the war, there wasn’t anything normal anywhere. I’ll put it just like that. Through the war, everybody’s minds, they lived from day to day. How many people was killed? How many people was saved? Where were they going to? What, what, uh, was done away with and how many was gonna live? And, was their son killed, or, was he alive? Our minds didn’t center on activities too much.

Laurie: Mmm hmm

Evelyn: No. It was day to day living at the time that it was. But, after the was, then a change had to take place, you understand. So then they went in and set up, more or less, a governing board of The Heights itself. And those the ones to buy homes, they bought ‘em. And those, eh, like I told ya, who come up to line their pockets and run back like Bill told you about, the people where he stopped, they beat it back. But, this went on, you understand, for years afterwards. Not just that time but…Like I told you, down there to the restaurant that kid __________ up, they come up here to the last straw, til practically everything was closed down up there. They was still dribblin’ in.

Bill: Well, I think there seventeen houses down there now that you can take from the government. But, uh…but, could you pay for ‘em? I know people at, boy, you could get them for about $100 dollars a month. But the thing they didn’t figure on was taxes. The taxes on ‘em’s $500 dollars a year.

Laurie: Hmm

Bill: Now that…quite a lot of tax.

Evelyn: You got a whole new town down there now. And I would say that you got a variation of people in it. You’ve got some good and you’ve got some bad. And a lot of ‘em went back, droves of ‘em went back. And just, old cars, they come up here in old cars just loaded, runnin’ over to get work. Anyway, they could get here, by train, or by bus, or by car, they came.

Bill: But they pretty quick got a new car.

Evelyn: Oh yes, that was the first thing your hillbillies’ll get is a car.

Laurie: Hmm.

Evelyn: But, any place that they could stay, they stayed. They wanted that money to take back. That was their intention. Lot of ‘em went back, but, a lot of ‘em stayed and remodeled. They bought and fixed their homes up. So now it’s more or less settled in as a small town down the road.

Laurie: Mmm hmm.

Evelyn: It’s not connected in any way.

Laurie: What do you think Kingsbury, this area, would’ve been like if the Ordinance Plant hadn’t moved in?

Evelyn: If the Ordinance Plant had never moved in… well sir…

Laurie: What type of community do you think this would be?

Evelyn: A very close-knit…ah…here’s the thing…you got to remember this. This don’t really have anything to do with the Ordinance Plant. It’s the extension of Laporte out this way and the increase in your population that’s come on through the years. You had this tremendous increase in population after the war situation. So slowly, but slowly, there’s crowding out and wanting to get out, so, the next thing you know there was Anderson Park. Oh, oh well, where did that come from, see? Oh well, they liked that. They wanted to get out of town, the next thing you know there’s Glendale.

Bill: They, earlier on, got more people than we got here.

Evelyn: And so, here we are. Next thing you know it’s, it’s, it’s expanding population thing that they got all over…

Laurie: Mmm hmm

Evelyn: …that’s causing a drastic change.

Bill: We’re, we’ve got a post office, but we haven’t got an official that’s been elected in _____. But you ______ is out here.

Evelyn: We’ve got a, Harold is a, his Dad was postmaster. He’s a soldier. Harold was a soldier too.

Bill: Got a town board, self-appointed.

Evelyn: We have, uh, here’s the thing…you’ve got o think about all these extra children that has come along, extra people. No, not, maybe they was a result of the war, I wouldn’t know. But, I do know that we’ve had a population explosion there for awhile. So that, uh, they wanted to live somewhere…

Laurie: Mmm hmm.

Evelyn: So, somebody that had money started building their homes and selling them.

Bill: We’ve got a family over here, the kid’s old enough to drop out of school. I don’t think he got very far as far as that goes. But, he come over and he wanted some used materials to put a door on the basement cause that’s where he slept.

Evelyn: Now, this was in zero weather, he come over here. I mean, it was so bitter cold that night, you could hardly stand it. And they was sleepin; in the basement without any door on it. (laughs)

Bill: There’s three boys and about two girls over there, and their father and mother. And the house isn’t very big, so, the boys haveta sleep in the basement. But there wasn’t even a door on the basement.

Evelyn: Like I said, this is getting to where it’s practically a suburb of Laporte.

Laurie: Mmm hmm.

Evelyn: It’s just the idea of being able to live out away from the factories and businesses. That’s why I love it out here, on account of the air. My mother, they gave her about three months to live when she first came out here. My goodness, she lived to be 83 after she got out here. And they said it was no thing but, just a, the, they did live near the big railroad tracks up in Laporte because my Dad was in charge of the, uh, Farm Bureau Ball(?) plant and worked at the Farm Bureau. And he was, uh, the machinist at the building. So, they asked him to live, they owned a house, and they asked him to please, to stay there. Well, it got to my mother.

Laurie: Hmm

Evelyn: Mmm hmm. Just about killed her.

Bill: About eight years ago, when I come out here, a couple had sleepin’ bags and was sleepin’ off in the woods some place, you know. And then they leave their sleepin’ bags there during the day time while they worked. They went back on night and the dogs had got in and tore ‘em all up. (laughs) That, oh, a year ago, we had a guy down here, the old man kicked him out. So, he takes his sleepin’ bag and goes to the woods, you know, and, I don’t know whether he’s on dope, or not, but finally they rounded him up. Put him on the 7^th floor there at the hospital. I took his brother up to see him and talked to him, visited with him, give him a little money…I guess he’s getting’ among all right now, but, you know he…

Evelyn: Most of the people here now work away from here.

Bill: Well…

Evelyn: Now, I don’t, I said most.

Laurie: Mmm hmm.

Evelyn: There is some that work in the KOP area in some of the businesses…

Bill: Well, several of these young guys workin’ over there.

Evelyn: I say some. But most work away from here. They still…

Bill: ___________house up here hires a bunch of people, but, not outta here. Diaper’s (sp?) about the only one outta here that…works over there…

Evelyn: Yet, why it’s just like a suburb, ‘bought the best I can describe it. Now didn’t used to be that way, you understand, because…

Bill: Some of the women from here work there too.

Evelyn: It’s, it’s, difficult to go to Laporte, uh, even when I was just a kid. If we got there once a month we were lucky. If I got to town once a month, that, that was really great. But, as I got up in high school, uh, my folks went once a week. Uh, we had one car and that was for work. And, uh, the church’s set up here, so, we didn’t need no car to go to church and the school’s set here. We didn’t need no car to go to school. And so, if we got up to here, uh, a few groceries we were lucky. But, as a rule, my Dad bought them on the way home from work.

Laurie: Hmm.

Evelyn: So that we didn’t even get the car for Sunday.

Bill: Well, that, that highway out there is a race track right now. Just watch out there for half a minute.

Laurie: Hmm.

Evelyn: Well generally, I come home a little after four and they’re tailin’ me. But you should see, you should’ve seen it years ago when there’s a lot of people from Laporte that worked over there. That bus was full every time it come.

Laurie: Mmm.

Evelyn: Every time a shift, that bus was full. Paid so much, bus company took it over, and…Like I said, we didn’t have no any place to go anyway. So, we rode, we rode the bus to get our groceries what little we bought up there.

Laurie: Mmm hmm.

Evelyn: We would go up and, and buy our groceries, and…Cause you’re A & P was downtown Laporte and so was your Krogers at the time.

Bill: Your fare was a quarter, wasn’t it?

Evelyn: The fare was a quarter. You could go to town, you can _________ around with a car for that. And, I mean, if you missed one bus, there’s another in an hour… cause it came every hour.

Laurie: Hmm.

Evelyn: And it did that for years long after I was…(laughs) Now she’s gonna she what she’s got…(tape turns off)

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