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MARY PEARL LAWLER DAY
Interview by Jack FritscheR
May 8, 1972
This interview of Mary Pearl Lawler Day, mother of Virginia Claire Day Fritscher, and grandmother of Jack Fritscher, who conducted the interview, was recorded on audiotape at Virginia’s 921 Willow Lane home, Peoria, Illinois, on May 8, 1972, seven months before Mary Day’s death on December 6, 1972.
Present at the taping: Mary Pearl’s daughter, Virginia Claire Day Fritscher (age 52), and Virginia’s daughter, Mary Claire Fritscher (age 14).
Mary Pearl Lawler Day speaks, with great humor and warmth, in a lilting South Midland Dialect, in which “or” is pronounced “ar.” Her grandson, Jack, as an infant called her “Nanny” and the name became another one of her names. To some, she was “Mary.” To others, “Pearl,” a name she hated. To others, as the wife of Bart, or the mother of the priest, Father John B. Day, she was “Mrs. Day.” To her grandchildren, she was “Nanny” and “Nan.”
Mary Pearl Lawler, born October 2, 1888, married Bartholomew Day, July 12, 1911, and was widowed February 13, 1954.
Of her five children, three are mentioned in this interview. Her daughter, Virginia, with whom she lived in Peoria when she was not living with her other daughter, Norine, in St. Louis. Her son, John, was a Catholic priest with whom she lived from 1948 to his sudden death in the St. Cabrini Parish house rectory, May 9, 1967, Springfield, Illinois.
A short story partially based on information in this interview is “Silent Mothers, Silent Sons” and appears in the fiction anthology, Sweet Embraceable You: 8 Coffee-House Stories, written by Jack Fritscher, published in May 2000. Other incidents in this interview appear fictitiously in the novel, The Geography of Women: A Romantic Comedy, written by Jack Fritscher, and published in 1998. It was the Finalist Winner of the National Small Press Book Award for Best Fiction 1999. The Geography of Women was translated into Greek and published by Periplous Publishing, Athens, Greece, in December 2000.
The “voice” of the narrator in The Geography of Women grows out of the combined dialect, speech patterns, vocabulary, and stories of both Mary Pearl Lawler Day and Virginia Claire Day Fritscher. The interviewer, pointedly, knowing all these family stories by heart, directed the thirty minutes of these questions to accommodate the energy of his eighty-three-year-old grandmother. This transcription is absolutely accurate.
May 8, 1972
Jack Fritscher: [John Joseph Patrick Fritscher]: Nanny, thank you for doing this little interview. Tell me where you were born and anything else you wish to say.
Mary Pearl Lawler Day: I was born in St. Louis on Virginia Avenue, October 2, 1888. I had four brothers and no sisters. I always had a very happy life. Everybody was always good and kind to me and still are. I don’t see why lots of people say they wish they were dead. I don’t. I’m getting old. I’m almost 84. I am old. And I’m still happy to think I’m living. I have lots of good friends and all my relatives. I could live with any of them, and get along and be happy. Well… [She laughs.]
Jack: Tell me about your mother and father.
[John Patrick Lawler, born c. 1857 in St. Louis of parents from Ireland, died (age 63) 1920, in St. Louis and Honorah Anastasia McDonough Lawler, born 1861 in north St. Louis of parents from Ireland, died (age 63) 1924 in Kampsville at the home of her daughter Mary Pearl Day who cared for her.]
Mary Pearl: My mother and father were very good to me. My mother was a little on the jealous side, because my dad just idolized her. If she said we were wrong, we were wrong; even if we were right, we were wrong. Our dad always stuck with her, and that’s the way it went. As far as my dad went, I don’t think there was a better man ever lived, or better father. He was just wonderful. My mother was good, but she didn’t believe in sparling [spoiling] me. I did all the work.
Jack: What did you do when you wanted a dress and your mother wouldn’t give it to you?
Mary Pearl: Go to my dad and he’d say, “Now what does my little pet want?” He always called me his little pet. I’d say, “Well, Dad, I’m going to a dance and I’d like to have a dress.” He said, “Tell your mother.” I said, “I did and she said that I got a dress before the last dance I went to.” He said, “Well, is it still good? Did you tear it?” I said, “Nope, but I don’t want to wear the same dress, because it is going to be the same crowd.” So I would get the money for a new dress. Then my mother would get mad and say to my father, “Sparl her, just sparl her.” He would say, “She’s my only little girl and I’ll sparl her if I want to.”
Jack: Were those the nights he would throw his hat in the door?
Mary Pearl: Yes, he did that sometimes when they had a big argument. I don’t know about what. He never would argue with her. We lived near a little public square with a little park and he would go over and sit in that park for a half an hour or so, until he figured she had gotten over her crabbiness and then he would come back and throw his hat in the door first. If she threw it out, he wouldn’t come in. He’d go out and fool around in the yard a little while. But she never threw his hat out but once I think. When it was okay, he would say, “Well, I guess I can come in.” And she would say, “Oh, you damn fool.” He really was a wonderful man. I imagine nobody ever had a better dad than we did.
Jack: What was his name?
Mary Pearl: John Patrick….John Patrick Lawler. And both his parents came direct from Ireland. And of my mother’s folks, my Grandma McDonough—I don’t think she came from Ireland. I know my grandfathers did. My mother said her mother was born somewhere in north St. Louis. We’re all Irish all the way through. Irish and Catholic, thank God. There was never anything but Irish in us, so we’re really Irish—not the shanty Irish—the lace curtain Irish. Daddy used to say we were descended from Irish kings, because he one time had that blood disease only royalty gets. What’s it called, Virginia?
Virginia: Hemorraghica purpura.
Mary Pearl: Where the blood just comes out of your pores. Daddy was in the hospital for six weeks and they cured him by giving him horse serum and he was never sick again. [When she put Bart in the hospital, the doctor said, “You’ll be a widow by morning.”]
Jack: Tell me about the World’s Fair [The Louisiana Purchase Exhibition, 1904, St. Louis]
Mary Pearl: I was 16 when we had that fair in St. Louis. I was always small for my age, so whenever they had a kid’s day at the Fair I would go and get in free. Nobody ever knew I was 16. A whole bunch of us would get in. Only spend maybe a dollar or two all the while we were there. They had the Pike that had shows on each side with the hula-hula dances and just everything. It was great. That was in 1904, I think.
Jack: That was when they invented ice cream cones.
Mary Pearl: And the ice cream machines, we would all stand and watch them turning out the ice cream. We thought that was wonderful.
Jack: How much did the ice cream cost?
Mary Pearl: I think only 10 cents. Everything was cheap in those days, because nobody made good salaries. It was good accordingly, but not good like today.
Jack: Do you remember the first movie you saw? Or any actors?
Mary Pearl: Oh no. I’m trying to think of that woman’s name. She was a real rough talking thing.
Mary Claire: Mae West?
Mary Pearl: No.
Virginia: Marjorie Main.
Mary Pearl: That was the one. There was a show with a whole bunch of kids and their pop was an engineer and they kept hollerin’, “Pop, can I blow the whistle?” That movie, that was good.
Jack: Did you like Charlie Chaplin movies?
Mary Pearl: No. I didn’t like him then and I don’t like him today.
Jack: Why didn’t you like him? I don’t care for him either.
Mary Pearl: I don’t know. Just something about him. I’m that way. I just like you or I don’t like you. Nothing in between.
Jack: Tell me, Nanny, at the World’s Fair, didn’t you ride in gondola boats?
Mary Pearl: Oh yes, they were beautiful, the way they curled up in front. They had “lagoons” they called them at the Fair. We had a lovely time. I got in free because they thought I was twelve years old.
Jack: What was living in St. Louis like at that time?
Mary Pearl: Just about like it is now. I can’t see much difference. Of course, there is more to go and see now. I’d go to see my girl friends and they’d come to see me, and they’d stay til 10 o’clock and we’d walk each other halfway home. You wouldn’t do that in St. Louis today. But we did then and we weren’t worried about it, and our parents weren’t either, because nothing ever happened. But now it’s like every other big city.
Jack: Nanny, will you sing “Meet Me in St. Louis, Louie”? You did the other day.
Mary Pearl: I can’t sing no more.
Jack: You sang for me the other day.
Mary Pearl: I was just foolin’ then. Jack…. [Spontaneously, she sings.] “Meet me in St.Louis, Louie. Meet me at the Fair. Don’t tell me the lights are shining anywhere but there. We will dance the hootchy-kootchy. You will be my tootsie-wootsie. Meet me in St. Louis, Louie. Meet me at the Fair.” [They both laugh.]
Jack: Very good. [Their laughter continues.] Tell me your wonderful story about Francis Devine.
Mary Pearl: Ooooh. [Laughs at the memory.] That was my old boy friend. I went with him for practically two years. We were engaged, then I met the man I married.
[On July 12, 1911, she married Bartholomew Day, born October 17, 1887, in Hamburg, Illinois, of parents John Day (c. 1824-1900) and Mary Lynch (1844-1924), both born in Ireland; Bart died February 13, 1954 in Springfield where he lived with Mary Pearl and their son, John Bartholomew Day, in the rectory of St. Cabrini Parish where he was pastor, and himself died when he was 55, April 9, 1967, as Mary Pearl held him in her arms. She was 78 years old.]
Jack: What year was that when you had both Francis Devine and Grandpa in love with you?
Mary Pearl: Oh gosh. I was married in 1911. About 1910, the winter of 1910, around Christmas 1910 all this happened. I think I knew him [Daddy] about six months before we got married July 12, 1911.
[She always called her husband “Daddy,” because he was the father of their five children; and he always called her “Mom.”]
Jack: How did you meet Grandpa?
Mary Pearl: Visiting up in Hamburg, Illinois, at the Jones’s home, my mother’s cousins.
Jack: How did you travel up there?
Mary Pearl: On the boat up the river. We’d get on at 4:00 o’clock in the afternoon in St. Louis. We’d dance all night, and get up to Hamburg the next noon. I used to love those boat trips, with a band and a dance. Really nice.
Jack: Did you have a room to sleep in on the boat?
Mary Pearl: Yeah. What’d they call them? Berths, cabins, something like that. My mother and I went up there two or three times. We had lots of fun like that.
Jack: And what happened? The story I’ve always heard is you were driving along in a horse and buggy coming from the boat with your cousins and you saw a red-headed man walking across a field, and you announced, “That’s the man I’m going to marry,” and your cousins said you couldn’t because you were engaged to Francis Devine, and you said, “Not any more.”
Mary Pearl: No. We visited my mother’s cousin, Mrs. Jones, and she said to me, “I know a nice young man who would be nice for you to meet.” I said, “I know lots of nice young men.” She said, “Well, he and his mother are coming up tonight.” And when they came up, well, I must have fell for him right away and he for I, because I broke my engagement to Francis as soon as I went back home. Six months after, we were married. We only went together six months.
Jack: Didn’t Grandpa go out west for awhile?
Mary Pearl: Yes, between the time we met, and before we got married, to Portland, Oregon. He had a brother, Tom, worked out there. Tom came home with Dad and visited their mother [Mary Lynch Day] for about four or five months and then Tom went back and that’s where he died—and got married out there too. [Bart Day had 4 brothers: Tom, Joe, John, and Jim. He had one sister, Margaret who was known as “Aunt Mag.”]
Jack: In your wedding story, my Mom always told me that in Hamburg when you saw the man walking across the field, you liked everything about him, but that he had red hair.
Mary Pearl: I never cared for red hair. When Daddy went out to Oregon he had red hair, and when he came back his hair had turned black. And then we got married.
Virginia: Tell Jack about how Francis Devine threatened to kill you on your wedding day.
Mary Pearl: Yes, Francis always said that because I broke the engagement that he’d kill me on my wedding day. I said, “You won’t know when it is.” We were getting married in secret. [So they could not announce the banns of their marriage.] But Francis found out, and there he was out in front of the church, but I wasn’t a bit afraid. He didn’t come near me, nor I didn’t him. And I never once saw him….well, once, after that, I was going to the bakery for my mother, and I was on one side of the street and he was on the other. I didn’t notice who it was walking toward me—’course more people walked in those days than they do now ’cause everybody has cars. I heard somebody holler, “Hello, Pearl,” and I thought, who is that, and I looked across and there he was. And I said, “Oh…hi, Francis,” and he said, “Can I come and talk to you?” And I said, “That’s up to you.” So he did, and that was the last time I saw him.
Jack: But I thought Francis Devine showed up on the porch at your house one night when you and Grandpa and Uncle John—when he was a baby—were having supper?
Mary Pearl: Francis did come up. The doorbell rang one night. We had a long glass door. They used to call them French doors, and I could see it was him, and I didn’t know whether I should open the door or not, so I did. I said, “Well, what do you want?” He said, “I just heard you lived here and thought I’d come by and see you.” I never let anybody scare me. He says, “Can I come in?” I said, “That’s up to you. You can if you want to. You’re perfectly welcome.” So he came in. Then he wanted to see John. John was about six months old. I went and got the baby and showed it to him. He said—stayed maybe a half a minute more: “Well, I only came for one reason, to see if you were happy, and I see that you are very happy, and goodbye.” And I never saw him from that day to this. But we went together for over 2 years.
[This story of Francis Devine coming to the porch is the base of a major dramatic scene in the novel, The Geography of Women: A Romantic Comedy.
Jack: When you were a little girl in the 1890s, what were some of your favorite things?
Mary Pearl: I don’t know. I was one that kinda liked anything that had a little fun to it. I liked to jump rope. We used to jump rope so much. There was an old French woman used to say: “That Pearl Lawler she makes my Julie jump 116 times. That’s too much jumps for my little Julie.” Jack, ’cause I could jump so much, and Julie’d say she couldn’t and I’d say, “Just go ahead. Keep it up.” And I’d make her jump. [Laughs.] I had the devil in me, like your mom [Virginia].
Jack: What was your favorite dress when you were a little girl?
Mary Pearl: I don’t know. I always liked pink. Anything in pink I liked. So my mother would get me pink. I was dark complected, same as you, and it always looked good. I had a good life, Jack. Specially with my dad. “Anything my little pet wants, she’s my only little girl, and she’ll get it.” And my mother would say, “You’ll sparl her. Just go ahead and sparl her.”
Jack: Did you have any pets when you were little?
Mary Pearl: We had rabbits. I had four brothers. We had everything. Not at once, but at different times. Squirrels, even white rats. Aggh!
Jack: What were your brothers, the Lawler brothers, like?
Mary Pearl: They were wonderful, every one of them, Jim, Ed, Jack, and Will. Course they were all good to me. They were railroaders, all but Jim.
Jack: What did he do?
Mary Pearl: Head bookkeeper at Simmons Hardware Company in St. Louis. The other boys, Jack and Bill, they were railroaders. Of course, Ed, I was gone before he did much of anything, because he was the baby of the family. They would say, “Press my suit today, Sis?” I would say, “Yeah, but you have to pay me for it though.” And they’d leave a ten dollar bill in their pants pocket, knowing that I’d find it.
Jack: Sounds like a good racket.
Mary Pearl: [Laughs.] Oh, it was a good racket. They gave me everything I wanted. “That’s a wonder!” Dad always said, “I was a little afraid to marry you, because I knew darn well you got everything you wanted.” I was the only girl, you see, and they were good to me.
Jack: Did you have any jobs when you were a young girl?
[From 1948 to 1967, Mary Pearl and Bart lived with their priest son John in his parish houses as housekeeper-cook and gardener. When Father John died, Mary Pearl not only lost a son that morning, she also lost a place to live. The story of her later life is used as basis for Jack Fritscher’s short-story fiction, “Silent Mothers, Silent Sons,” in Sweet Embraceable You: Coffee-House Stories.]
Mary Pearl: Yes, I worked at Simmons Hardware Company as a stenographer for six months and at Norville Chapways [sic]. Those were the two biggest hardware companies in St. Louis. I worked in the bookkeeping department.
Jack: Isn’t Simmons where your brother worked too?
Mary Pearl: Yes, Jim. For a long time, and then he went into the arl [oil] business. He was one of the head men in the Shell Arl Company. And he’s got his picture, you remember, Virginia, and what would you call it, a notification or something, citation, all the employees signed it and gave it to him.
Jack: What did you think of the First World War when it happened? Did you know it was coming?
Mary Pearl: Well, I used to hear them talk about it, but we couldn’t get out of it. I’ll never forget the first morning. They said, “We’re at war,” and that was it. They shot at one of our ships. Dad didn’t have to go because he was married, but if it had lasted another week he would have been gone. He was registered and ready to go.
Jack: What did you think of the 20s?
Mary Pearl: They were very nice, the Roaring 20s.
Jack: What did you do for fun?
[In 1920, Mary Pearl was thirty-two and the mother of four—soon to be five—children. Virginia was one year old. Bart, thirty-three, was a school teacher and a mail carrier on a Star Route with the U.S. Postal Service.]
Mary Pearl: I don’t know why they called them the Roaring 20s. I think it was because of the dances. They had these wild dances. We didn’t think they were wild then. Nowadays they think they’re wild now in their dances, but it’s nothing like we danced. We had lots of fun. It was mostly the waltz, the two-step, and the cakewalk. They had those at every dance we’d go to. They really did give a cake to the best two.
Jack: Do you remember the Russian Revolution in 1917 when the royal family was killed?
Mary Pearl: No, I really don’t. I guess I wasn’t paying much attention. What was that [noise]?
Jack: Just the tape machine squeaking.
Mary Pearl: Oh, I thought it was the dog [Spot].
Jack: What about the Wall Street Crash? Do you remember that day?
Mary Pearl: I remember it was terrible. Everybody suffered from that. I remember the newspapers came out with extras then. They didn’t have television like they have now. And that’s all you’d hear was, “Extra! Extra! Extra!” They’d charge a quarter or 50 cents and people’d pay them and get that “Extra.”
Jack: Where did you go to school?
Mary Pearl: Blow School.
Jack: What?
Mary Pearl: Blow. B-l-o-w. On Leffler and Virginia. It’s still there, a great big beautiful building. They still have school there. I went through 8th grade there and then after I graduated I went to St. Mary and Joseph’s Academy and took up bookkeeping and short hand.
Jack: St. Mary and Joseph’s was a high school?
Mary Pearl: Yes. I went there two terms, and then I went to work at the Simmons hardware company as a stenographer and then at Butler Brothers. And my Dad made me quit. He said my mother needed me at home. He said, “It’s too bad if a dad and four brothers couldn’t keep a mother and a sister.” I wanted to work, because I had lots of fun.
Jack: How did you meet Francis Devine?
Mary Pearl: Being with his sister. She was a friend. I didn’t know she had any brothers. Two weren’t married and one was. We went as far as being engaged until I met Daddy and I broke it up. Francis Devine’s mother and dad came down at Christmas and wanted me to reconsider and go with him, and I said, “No.” They said, “You don’t know if this other guy loves you or not.” I said, “No, I don’t; but I know I love him. So that’s it.”
Jack: What was your house like at the turn of the century? Did you live in the same house all the time when you were a little girl in St. Louis?
Mary Pearl: No, my mother and dad rented for a good while in that one house on Minnesota Avenue for fourteen years, and Daddy [Bart] and I moved to the house [in Hamburg] that Daddy [Bart] bought—in fact, it was his mother’s house that we bought. [Grandma Day also owned the house next door where she lived.]
Jack: But what address was that where you lived when you were a girl?
Mary Pearl: 7800 Minnesota. My Dad [John Patrick Lawler] raised the roof, a kind of attic like, and there were rooms up there and two more rooms down the stairs. We had a nice big home for the five of us and our parents.
Jack: Was that the house where the roof caught on fire while you were taking a bath?
Mary Pearl: No, that was in Cannon’s house [we rented in Jacksonville] after we were married and had Virginia and all of them. [1932] I don’t know how it started. It was a gas stove. I don’t really know…I was in the bathroom taking a bath to tell you the truth and I really never did.
Virginia: I was doing the dishes and the flames started shooting.
Mary Pearl: And Daddy took the pan of dishwater, some greasy water, and poured it on it and, of course, that made it worse. So the firemen came down. They were all gonna rush right in through the front room and I wouldn’t let them. I said, “Go around to the other door [the kitchen door]. Daddy never did get over that. [She laughs.] He said, “Mom would rather see the house burn down than let the firemen dirty her living room.” [Much laughter.] I said, “I’d just house-cleaned.” I wasn’t gonna let them in. I was a character, I guess. [Laughs.] Oh, my.
Jack: Tell me about where you lived on Pershing Avenue. What that apartment was like. [5536 Pershing Avenue]
Mary Pearl: [She tells instead of Kansas Street.] It was beautiful, brand new. We were the first ones to live in it [1912]. They called them the “Bridal Flats.” There were fourteen units, and there really were all just newly married couples that lived there. We had, I don’t remember, a kitchen and a bedroom and a hall and a livingroom. ’Course that was enough just for two, you know. They’re nice yet. They used to call it Kansas Street, now it’s called “Holly Hills.” They look as good as they ever did.
Jack: Pershing Street was changed to Kansas Street?
Mary Pearl: No, you’re thinking of Pershing Avenue, that was the last place Dad and I lived when we were in St. Louis [during and just after the War, 1941-1946]. But our first place was on Kansas, now called “Holly Hills” so it sounds a little more stylish. When we were first married we moved to Hamburg [Bart’s hometown] and then we moved back to St. Louis [Mary Pearl’s hometown] on Kansas Street.
Jack: Tell me the story about when Grandpa found the butterfly.
Mary Pearl: Oh God. [Laughing.] Norine was living a block from us in the hotel up there [on Pershing]. She had an apartment. Jim [Chumley, Norine’s husband] was still in the service and “across” [colloquial for overseas, fighting the War in Europe] which John [as an Army Chaplain] was also, and Daddy went up to see Norine for a little while in the evening. I don’t know. For some reason I didn’t go.
Virginia: Daddy went to walk Norine home.
Mary Pearl: Yes, and when Daddy came back he found this great big butterfly. He saw it on the bushes in the front yard of the hotel and he went back up to Norine’s and wanted to know if she had a sack, and she said, “Why would you want that?” And he said, “Oh, I saw a great big buttefly down there. I think its asleep on the bush, so if I can get it, I’ll bring it home to mom.” So he did catch it, and he got it in the sack, and he came home laughing. He came home, and I was in bed, and he said, “Come here. I wanna show you something.” So I got up. He opened the bag really easy and he said, “It’s gone.” I looked at him like he was crazy. I said, “What’s gone?” because there he was holding open an empty sack. He said, “I had a beautiful butterfly in there, but it got out.” [Laughter.] I couldn’t believe him. He said, “Well, you call Norine up right now and ask her.” I said, “Norine, is your dad crazy, or did he find a butterfly?” “Oh, Mom,” she said, “he brought it home.” I said, “No he didn’t. He had an empty sack when he got home.” It must have got out someways, ’cause he opened the bag and said, “Look at my beautiful butterfly.” And I said, “I don’t see no butterfly.” And he said, “It’s gone.” I never will forget that. We put him on about that all the time. He said, “Well, you all think you’re smart. You think I didn’t have any. He said, “Norine knows I did,” and I said, “Nah, you just thought you did.”
Jack: When you lived on Pershing, during the War when I stayed with you so much, wasn’t there a step up into the bathroom?
Mary Pearl: Yes, I’ll tell you how that looked. There were two rooms. One was called the dressing room and one the bathroom. You’d go in first to the dressing room and then a step up, and that was the bathroom where the bowl and bathtub was.
Jack: What did you used to drink in there at night in bathroom?
Mary Pearl: Water, I guess.
Jack: No, you used to put something into a glass that would fizz.
Mary Pearl: Oooooh. That was Bromo Seltzer. You went and got Grandpa and you said, “Come on, Grandpa, come quick, Nanny’s drinking Duz!” [Much laughter. Duz was the name of a very sudsy soap.] “No,” Grandpa said, “that’s Bromo Seltzer.” I don’t ever take that no more. You know you put it in a glass and it would fizz up, and you thought it was suds. You were gonna get somebody to save Nanny from herself.
Jack: What’s the first thing you remember when you were a little child?
Mary Pearl: Oh, gosh. I don’t know. I remember that mother always bought me little red slippers and I used to love them for the summer. I had a little white dress trimmed in red. Of course, me being the only girl, I got everything that come out as soon as it did come out.
Jack: How did you wear your hair?
Mary Pearl: Curls. I just had long curls, for a long time, until I guess my Mother started to braid it after I went to school awhile.
Jack: What kind of books did you read when you were a little girl.
Mary Pearl: Mother Goose rhymes, such as that. I used to love to read. After I was out of school and my Dad and Mom made me quit working at Butler Brothers, I think I read every book in the St. Louis library, ’cause it was all I did.
Jack: What were some of your favorites?
Mary Pearl: Oh God, Jack….I loved Ben Hur. I read that two or three times. I really can’t remember all of them. Zane Gray, mmm, I loved that. I had more fun than anything else.
Jack: Did you travel on any trips when you were little?
Mary Pearl: Not much. My mother went to Tennessee one time, but I stayed home. I was old enough to take care of the house while she was gone. My dad had relatives down there [in Tennessee] by the name of Lawler.
Jack: What color was your hair?
Mary Pearl: Always dark, never black, just a real dark brown. My mother had coal black hair, but mine wasn’t as black as hers. Now, of course, it’s white, and has been since I was 43. [When she had gall-bladder surgery, she said, “The ether turned my hair white.”]
Jack: What were the names of some of your friends?
Mary Pearl: Oh, May Devine, Francis Devine, Irma Langford, Dora Friederling, Oscar Eichorn, her [Dora’s] cousin—that’s how I remember him so much. Oh, I just had lots of friends. Bertha Powell. Some of them would say, “If you go with her, I can’t come down. You’re with her.” I said, “Well, It’s too bad that I have to have just one girl friend.” My mother would say, “You just go with whomever you want to, it’s none of their business. If they don’t like us, then stay home.” But Irma Langford, I think, was my best friend.
Jack: What was your house like? Can you describe it, coming in the entryway and all that. The one that you lived in when you were a teenager, let’s say. About the time of the World’s Fair [1904].
Mary Pearl: Well, I guess that time was after my mother and father had their own home [7800 Minnesota]. The house was a big red brick. At that time, they hadn’t raised the roof, but it had a lovely attic up there. I mean, sleeping rooms up there. The boys slept up there. We had six rooms. I can see the little gate. And we had these flagstones from the front gate to the front door. We had a grape arbor in the back where we used to come and sit. People didn’t have all the advantages they have now, like fans. We went out in the yard to get fresh air. Very nice. That’s where I lived when we were first married [and Bart got sick with Hemorraghica Purpura].
Jack: Can you describe what your room looked like?
Mary Pearl: Just an ordinary room with an ordinary bed, walnut, a single one. A little dresser, a little wash stand, Jack, with a little curtain around the bottom of it, with a cistern with a bowl, and big pitcher, where I could wash my face in the morning.
Jack: Did you have electricity?
Mary Pearl: Yes. First we had gas, for a long time, but the systems were together. Gas was on top and the electric was around it. I think that’s the way it was. And so we got the electricity, ’cause everybody wanted electricity rather than gas.
Jack: When did you make your first telephone call?
Mary Pearl: Oh, I don’t know. I couldn’t begin to tell you.
Jack: Do you remember your first automobile ride?
Mary Pearl: No. I don’t even know who I went with. Boy, I can remember standing out in the front yard, and out walking, and I’d say to mom, “Come on, quick! Here comes an automobile down the street.” Everybody called ’em automobiles. Nobody called them cars yet. The first ones were electric. And my mother would come out and say, “Well, isn’t that nice. Maybe we’ll have one someday,” she’d say. I can still see an old woman…she used to sit in one like this [sits up very stiff and proper] and then she’d have that thing—what do you call it?—and they pull in and pull it out, and go rrrrrrr! She lived in our neighborhood and she looked like a paste doll. [Laughs] She looked terrible. Mmmmmm.
Jack: What did you and your friends think of sex when you were teenagers. You don’t mind my asking, do you?
Mary Pearl: No. I…I guess just about like they do now, Jack. There wasn’t a whole lot of difference. That’s what I often say. The only thing that I can see that’s different: people or kids or youngsters are all more open with things than they used to be. You used to be almost afraid to ask or say it. In those days, you weren’t supposed to know nothin’. You were supposed to be dumb, but now they’re not—which is better. My mother was fair, though. If I’d ask her, she’d tell me, because she always said, “I’d rather you get the answers from me than somebody else. You don’t know how they’d tell it to you.” You know. And me being the only girl was kind of tough with four brothers. But I got everything, I have to say. I had four good brothers. Only Jim. Jim was kind of haughty. If he wanted me to do something for him, like he’d come downstairs, and maybe wouldn’t bring his cufflinks, and he’d say, “Go upstairs and get my cufflinks, Sis,” and I’d say, “Who was your slave girl last year? I’m not gonna do it.” He’d say, “Ma, make her go.” She’d say, “No. She don’t have to wait on you.” Then he’d get mad and he’d say, “Just wait until your birthday comes. You think you’ll get something from me.” I’d say, “Well, keep it. You wouldn’t give me enough to put in my eye anyway.” And I’d win the fight. We always did, always argued. If we meet today, we’d still do the same thing. He always thought he run the place, but he could never run me. My mother would always say, “Take up for yourself.” [Laughs.]
Jack: Do you remember Isadora Duncan?
Mary Pearl: No, I don’t.
Jack: Did you have any pets when you were little?
Mary Pearl: Oh yes, my brothers had everything. We had white rabbits, little squirrels.
Jack: I mean any special dog?
Mary Pearl: Oh yes. I had a big Saint Bernard that Aunt Nell gave me. When it came—a little puppy like this, you know—and he grew up to be so big and then he got ferocious. So we gave him to some friends of my mother’s down in DeSoto, Missouri, by the name of Long, because as soon as any stranger come in the yard he’d leap for their throat, and a policeman told us we had to get rid of it.
Jack: What was your dog’s name?
Mary Pearl: Don. He was a Saint Bernard. Oh, it was mine. I had him from the time he was a little puppy. He sure was a pretty dog, but he was too mean for the city.
Jack: You started to say your mother said something about him?
Mary Pearl: She told me I had to get rid of it. I couldn’t have it. Aunt Nell gave it to me, bought it for me.
Jack: What year did your mother die? [Honorah Anastasia Lawler McDonough]
Mary Pearl: Mmmmmm. I have to stop and think now, when did she die? I don’t know, Jack. My dad died first [in St. Louis].
Jack: What year did he die?
Mary Pearl: ’53, I guess.
Jack: Your dad didn’t die in 1953.
Mary Pearl: No, Daddy [her husband Bart] died in 1953, didn’t he. [Actually, Bart Day died February 13, 1954.] Ohhh, Virginia, do you remember when my dad died?
Virginia: When I was six months old. February, 1920.
Mary Pearl: Yes, he died in February—February 11. I remember that.
Jack: And your mother died how much later?
Mary Pearl: She lived with me six years [in Kampsville] and then she died. But she was never happy. I didn’t ever think she’d live that long, because—I don’t know—my dad just gave her everything. I did the best I could, but I couldn’t wait on her hand and foot like he did, ’cause I had five kids to take care of. She came up and lived with me until she died. And she always told me she didn’t want to be buried there. I said, “Well, no. I know that, ’cause you’ve got your lot in St. Louis.” That’s like me, wherever I live when I die, I’ll be buried in Springfield because that’s where Daddy and John are, and that’s where my lot is. That’s where I bought it.
Jack: Could you describe that morning when Uncle John died [suddenly at age 54]?
Mary Pearl: Well, I was down in my room [in the St. Cabrini Rectory]. Millie [Imelda Honerkamp, Uncle John’s longtime housekeeper] had got up. I was just about dressed when she come down and she said, “Nan, come quick! Something happened to our father.” Our father? It never dawned on me that she meant John. She said, “Father John!” I said, “Well, what happened to him?” She said, “I don’t know, Nan,” she said, “but come quick.” She took ahold me by the arm and we ran up the hall and he was…uh…laying on the bathroom floor. And I got down on my hands and knees, and put his head in my lap, and he just looked at me and smiled, and he was gone. But anyway he knew: I was there. Millie said he was, uh, and when her and Father [Corbett, the assistant pastor] found him—that he was just reaching for the shower to turn it on, and I guess that’s what gave him the heart attack. And they laid him on the floor. Then they called me. I’ll never forget that day. I can remember now, though, Father Corbett told me, he said, “You got ahold of me and you just beat me in the chest with your hands as hard as you could hit me,” and I don’t remember it. He said I was just excited and he was holding me tight, you see, ’cause I was screaming and everything and I was just a-beating on him. Wasn’t that awful to do that?
Jack: No, people do that all the time.
Mary Pearl: He was nice. He came to see me one time I was at Norine’s [in St. Louis], and he and Father Haggerty came and Noreen saw them [the two priests] and just because she had on her robe she wouldn’t go and let them in, so I never got to see them and they never came back. I think they knew she was in the house. So do I hear from ’em? I don’t anymore. Father Haggerty I do on Christmas and everything, but not Corbett.
Jack: Do you remember when you used to come up to Peoria and see me during the war?
Mary Pearl: I remember coming up. Only you used to sit on the top step when you knew it was me, and you’d say, “What you got for me, Nanny?” [Laughs a lot.] You always knew I brought you something.
Jack: Do you remember one time when you came in and you picked me up and you had on a sharp brooch, and I caught my cheek on it and cut it?
Mary Pearl: Yes, it scratched ya. Oh, I never! Boy, that taught me a lesson. Whenever I was gonna pick up a little baby, I’d take a pin off. They used to wear them—remember, Virginia?—wear a pin or a brooch or something up here, and it scratched poor Jack’s face.
Jack: And made me as ugly as I am today.
Mary Pearl: It didn’t feel very good getting scratched.
Jack: Who did you say I look like now?
Mary Pearl: Uncle Jim Day. I think you’re just the image of him. And he was handsome. I’ll say that too.
Jack: Keep saying it.
Mary Pearl: He was one of the Lawlers, of the Days, I mean.
Virginia: He wants that on record.
Mary Pearl: [Laughs heartily.] He really was!
Jack: He was one of the Days. Tell me about him.
Mary Pearl: He was a steamboat captain. He was a good guy. He was married once and his wife died and he never remarried, and he had one child, Howard. I met Howard a couple of times, but I don’t know whether he’s living or dead, or what now. Of course, naturally, he wouldn’t have kept track of me, and I didn’t him, because I didn’t know how to do that, wherever he’d be.
Jack: Of all the things you remember in your life, what sticks out most in your mind?
Mary Pearl: Oh…I don’t know….I can remember when I was 18, though, when my mother knew they were going to bring me a surprise party, but I didn’t. I can remember laying there. I just put my head down on the dining room table, and I was half asleep, and I heard the bell, and I said, “There’s some funny looking people at the door.” And she said, “How do you know they’re at the door?” And I said, “Well, I heard the doorbell.” And she said, “Well, go and see who it is,” ’cause she knew who it was, and when I went, I thought I’d die! They had pans and were hitting on them with spoons and everything else and were making noise.
Jack: Was this for your birthday?
Mary Pearl: My 18th birthday. [October 2, 1906]
Jack: Who were these people?
Mary Pearl: Oh, lord! Dora Friederling and Hattie Austin and Bertha Powell and Francis Devine and George Devine and Jim Hill. I can see Jim yet. He was a little short guy. He was a nice fella.
Jack: Did they bring you presents?
Mary Pearl: No. I think they brought me a big bouquet of flowers. We had lots of fun. My mother knew they were coming and so she had a big cake baked. How she ever baked it with me around I’ll never know, unless she sent me someplace. We had a nice evening. That’s when I was eighteen.
Jack: What was it like riding on the trolley cars in St. Louis?
Mary Pearl: Oh! I never thought nothing of it, [but those trolley cars] they were open all the way through from one side to the other. They used to call them “Thumb-er” cars. You could get in or out just anyplace you were sitting. When you wanted to get off, you’d get off. They had those even a long time after they put the new ones on. They were very nice. But they have the university cars now. They have the same kind in Canada as we have. They were all so much improved. Well, Jack, I’m [giggles] tired.
Jack: Okay. Thanks, Nan.