| Summary: | (4:08) Ethel Schmidlkofer discusses the Florence Cab company of Florence, Alabama, which was owned and operated by her family from the early to the mid 1900s. 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 Ethel Schmidlkofer
July 21, 2009 Florence, Alabama Conducted by Juliann Losey and Rhonda Haygood
Clip 4 of 12
Rhonda Haygood: Did they have to have special training to be a cab driver, when they first opened?
Ethel Schmidlkofer: Well, basically, when you went to hire somebody, well when they first opened I’m sure they had to learn the rules and regulations, but when you hired somebody later on, most of the time, you let a, a new one ride with another one to learn the town, you know, kind of get used to that. And of course they, my grandfather was ahead of his time in a lot of ways, because he put radios in all his cabs, Lord I don’t know when, back in the thirties I think. So, by the time I came along and was dispatching, if a guy was lost or couldn’t find a place, I could walk, I could, I could take him by the hand and lead him to it, cause I mean, I had the map of Florence memorized. Not so good on Sheffield and Muscle Shoals, but we didn’t go over there as much.
Juliann Losey: Well, something I noticed, and this would have been probably on one of the original business cards, the Cab Company had two phone lines? Do you know?
ES: We had 100, which was 100 Cab Company, but that’s what half of the people called us, and half of us called - but the phone was 100. We had many more lines than that, because we had direct boxes, you’ve seen them I’m sure in some big cities or old movies and stuff, where there would be a box, just a little box with a phone up in it. Okay, well, when they picked those phones up, there was one at A& P and there was one at Hill’s, and y’all don’t know where either one of those was I’m sure. Well, Hill’s is where Fred’s is downtown. That’s where Hill’s was. And then A& P was down there, it was the store next to the parking lot next to the pawn shop. You know where I’m talking about?
JL: On Court Street?
ES: Um- hum.
JL: Um- hum.
ES: Okay, we had, had those two and then there was one down on the 100 block of West Tennessee, there was one down there. And then there were several scattered around town. There was one out at Cassimus Store in Weeden Heights. We had like four or five regular lines coming in and then there must have been eight or ten of those boxes around town in different places. There was one out at Seven Points, at Liberty Grocery. We did a lot of taking people to the grocery stores [ laughs]. And if a lady had a lot of groceries, the cab driver got out and took the groceries to the porch or to the house. We also delivered medicine for City Drug which was up there on the corner of Tennessee and Seminary. And of course you’d, that was rain or shine, no matter what, you delivered drugs, you know. We had people get dog bites, we had one man that got killed. The fog had rolled in, it was absolutely horrible. Now this was back during the World War II. And there was a lot of construction going on over at TVA and someone had called a cab over there and it was so foggy you couldn’t see. So, at first, my dad told the guy, said, “ We’re not even going to come over there. We can’t see to get in and out.” And the man says, “ Well, I’ll walk up to the road.” So, one of the drivers finally said he’d take it, he didn’t mind going. And my daddy told him, he said, “ Now listen,” he said, “ If you get over there and you can’t see,” said, “ Don’t you get out of that truck. Don’t you get out of that cab, cause,” he said, “ there’s all kinds of places over there where they’ve dug big holes to make basements or whatever they’re making over there.” This guy, he got over there, and he hollered back on the radio, he said, “ I can’t see a thing over here.” And my dad told the dispatcher, said, “ Tell him to stay in that car. I don’t care if he has to stay all night, you tell him to stay in that car.” Well, undoubtedly, it must have thinned a little bit or he saw a light or something. Anyway, he got out of the car thinking he knew where he was, and where they were building the big power building, he dropped in there and it killed him. So it wasn’t always a safe job.
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