| Summary: | (6:05) Mr. Crouch describes street paving in the early 1900s and his marriage proposal after returning from the war. This interview is part of an oral history project funded by a grant from the Alabama Historical Records Board, managed by the Alabama Department of Archives and History staff, using funds provided by the National Historical Preservation and Records Commission.Florence- Lauderdale Public Library Digital Archive
Interview with Carroll Crouch July 10, 2009 Florence, Alabama Conducted by Juliann Losey and Rhonda Haygood
Clip 5 of 14
Carroll Crouch: I always thought, I’ve always been fascinated when I walk, walk or ride down Court, I mean Wood Avenue, you know, going to town, by what used to be there and what’s there, what’s there now, you know. In my young day, they paved Royal Avenue when I was young and if they were doing a street today, I’d spend a lot of time just watching them, if they was doing it like that. They had horses, and they had what they called a slip scrape, it, it had these lines off the horse, that was hooked to a big shovel or pan- like structure, and they would go along and pick up the dirt like this and take it where they needed the dirt, or, whoever was operating the horses would take that, and then, you know, dump it. They had the two big handles like a wheelbarrow. And they would dump that dirt. And I watched them do that, you know, and it was amazing cause there would be maybe three, four or five of them doing that and they would, that’s the way, they didn’t have bulldozers or, or front- end loaders back then, or any, anything that compared to it but that’s the way they moved the dirt or packed the dirt or something like that. And then they had a steam packer; it was right across the street in front of this house, a big old steam engine outfit that they patched the, I mean, not patched, but they put the, the asphalt pavement down. Well in 19—, about 1925, that was going on, sometime between 1925 and ’ 27, and they put curb and gutter in here and the sidewalks. And they also put a storm sewer. I used to get into that thing and you could walk nearly to East Florence. It was tall, pretty tall for me back, of course I wasn’t very, I, I was maybe ten or less, and I‘ d walk down through there, it’s a wonder I hadn’t got lost in there some time. But there was these places where you see the water run into them, you could crawl down through there. But they put the sanitary sewers, you know there wasn’t any sanitary sewers in Florence till about 1917 to amount to anything, and everybody had to have the outside toilet, you know. Well, of course there was a stigma to anybody, they was not proud of it, you know, but just about everybody in Florence was subject to it back in the early days. But this was in 1920; I’d say it started about 1925 to 1927, somewhere along in there. And of course, I was born in ‘ 21, so I was maybe six or seven years old, and I watched all this operation go on. And it was amazing that what they could do back then. Those streets are still paved, you know. And the curbs are still there and all like that. But the worst part of it is, see, the Depression started about 1928 and the people began to be out of work and first one thing or another. And about 1929 or 1930 the city put assessments on all, for all that improvements and it was quite a bit even back in those days, that each house that the owner was charged with so many, so, so much taxes. Well, a lot of people been out of work and didn’t have no provisions, you know, for making that payment, to, to the city and so most of Royal Avenue at one time, was just in land with the unpaid taxes. My daddy lost this house then, and we moved over on High Street which is past Simpson Street and rented a house. That was in 1930 and after about two years, Daddy bought the house we rented, you know. And then I lived the rest of my life, at that time, in Florence, until the war, till I went off to the war.
Rhonda Haygood: How old were you when you went to war?
CC: I was about twenty or twenty- one when I went to the war and stayed in there three and half years and part of it was in combat in France and then I come back. I had a girl that I had met here in Florence, but she lived in Birmingham. And we had been corresponding and all like that and I decided ‘ I don’t want to get married at twenty- four! I want to do things, I don’t want to get married’, but nature took over and I, I called one day and I told her I, I wanted to come down and talk to her. So I went down and I told her that I wanted to get married, you know, and she said, “ Well, you’ll have to tell Daddy.” Well, I didn’t know him too well, but back then most everybody had woodstoves or wood heaters, you know, or cooked with the wood. And we come back from, we was up near the Vulcan in Birmingham, that’s where I went up there to propose, so we had borrowed his car, we didn’t have a car. So we come back and went, I went up to him, and I said “ Mr. Acton,” said, “ Can I talk to you?” That was her father and I was scared to death. And he had that old, big axe, and was cutting wood. And that stuff just falling, just split and falling like paper, you know, and I, I guess I was thinking deeply that, that this is not a, this could be a dangerous place. But anyway, he said that, I said, I told him, I said, “ We,” or, “ Maxine and I want to get married,” and “ I been expecting that,” that’s what his reaction to it, you know. But I thought that was kind of strange at the time. And so we married in June the third, 1945, after I come back.
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