Mary Schroeder - children, Four Locks

Mrs. Schroeder: Yeah. And in the middle of the deck then we had a ring where we tied the children with a harness.

Mr. Wesley: So if there were children on the boat, you tethered them just like a dog or —

Mrs. Schroeder: Yeah, 'we tied them. They couldn't fall overboard.

Mr. Wesley: And that ring bowl was on top of the cabin.

Mrs. Schroeder: Yeah, on the deck.

Mr. Wesley:Did the, now you mentioned this ring bowl and they tethered up the very young children, I guess when the mother was, the wife was riding the boat, they'd have children of all ages from babies on up.

Mrs. Schroeder<>: Oh yeah, we'd have all children on there. I don't know if this one's tied or not. She's a pretty good sized child. I don't know. She might have a rope on her. But real small children, we always kept a harness on them.

Mr. Wesley: Always kept a harness.

Mrs. Schroeder<>: Yeah.

Mr. Wesley: Yeah, that would have been, had they fallen over in one of those deep locks or something, that would have been the end of them.

Mrs. Schroeder<>: Been the end of them.

Mr. Wesley: Now, you mentioned Murphy's grocery store, I imagine there were stores at some other places along the canal.

Mrs. Schroeder<>: Well, up at Four Locks they had a store. Up here at Point of Rocks they had a store, they had a store and a beer joint up there.

Mr. Wesley: Point of Rocks.

Mrs. Schroeder<>: Yeah. I don't know if you, you ever been up there?

Mr. Wesley: Yeah.

Mrs. Schroeder<>: Well, part of that, part is, I think that is the store part, the saloon part I think they tore down. They had a store and they had, the other part of it was a saloon. Part of the foundation is still --

Mr. Wesley: It's right along the canal.

Mrs. Schroeder<>: Yeah, at the lock. Yeah, there used to be a saloon there too and up at Four Locks, they had, there's where we'd stock up with our mules, at Four Locks. There's where we got our feed. Corn and hay and all that kind of stuff..
If we need harness, I think, ropes, I won't say for sure but I think we got our ropes and all there, tow-lines and stuff there. That's the only place along the canal I think was where we stocked up on.

Mr. Wesley: Your mule feed.

Mrs. Schroeder<>: Yeah.

Mr. Wesley: I imagine down in Georgetown there would have been stores along M Street too that you could have got, grocery stores in Georgetown.

Mrs. Schroeder<>: Yeah.

Mr. Wesley: So you'd, down there, you could say if you had some time to lay over, the kids could go up there and get candy.

Mrs. Schroeder<>: Candy, and we'd get pies and cakes and go to the bakery and places like that.

Mr. Wesley: So, I'll bet you were disappointed if you got to Georgetown and there was no lay over.

Mrs. Schroeder<>: Kept on going, go straight on through. Boy, we didn't like that a little bit. We liked to lay over at least two days. We've continued many a time, just go straight on through to the lock.

Mr. Wesley: Just unload and right on back.

Mrs. Schroeder: Yeah.

Mr. Wesley: So the lay over days were what you really looked forward to on the canal.

Mrs. Schroeder: Yeah, but the men, they wanted to go straight on through so they could get back and get another load. Not us, not the children.

Mr. Wesley: Not the children. Do you remember if the, I imagine a lot of the lock tenders wives kept little gardens and things.

Mrs. Schroeder<>: Oh yeah, most all the lock tenders had gardens.

Mr. Wesley: Little vegetable gardens.

Mrs. Schroeder Yeah.

Mr. Wesley: And maybe sometimes you could get…

Mrs. Schroeder<>: Oh yeah, they'd give us vegetables and things like that.