Ethel Schmidlkofer (H)
(6:41) Ethel Schmidlkofer describes the nuns at her school and her family's Christmases. 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 Na...
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| Format: | Electronic |
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Florence-Lauderdale County Public Library
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| Online Access: | https://cdm15947.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/oral_hist/id/200 |
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Electronic |
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Oral Histories Collection |
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Florence-Lauderdale County Public Library |
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Florence-Lauderdale County Public Library |
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Oral histories -- audios and transcripts |
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Oral histories -- audios and transcripts Ethel Schmidlkofer (H) Florence-Lauderdale Public Library |
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Oral histories -- audios and transcripts Catholicism; Nuns; Holidays |
| description |
(6:41) Ethel Schmidlkofer describes the nuns at her school and her family's Christmases. 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 8 of 12
Juliann Losey: Is there a big Catholic community here now?
Ethel Schmidlkofer: Well, it’s probably bigger now than it’s ever been. Really there were so few Catholics here for so long and other churches didn’t know much about us and back when the nuns wore their outfits, their habits, they wore a, it was called a coif. They had a white thing that came around here, and then this was pleated in tiny little pleats and came straight out. Then they had a black dress and then a black mantle over it. And it went to, to the ground and of course you couldn’t see their hair. They can wear anything they want now, well not anything they want. I’m sure they wouldn’t be- bikinis wouldn’t be allowed, but because of the way they dressed and because of the difference and so many people knew nothing about Catholics and told wild stories that they heard some places. My teacher had been a real tomboy, one of mine had been a real tomboy before she became a nun and she could take a paddleball and, I mean, she might could go 300 times without ever missing. She could take a yo- yo and just make it dance. I mean, she could do anything with it. And one day she, she had gone up to see if anybody had left any toys out or anything and there was a yo- yo laying there on the church steps. Anyway, she got to playing with the thing and literally, I mean, she could just do anything with it. And this little boy who was not Catholic came riding his little bicycle up. Now, of course he was riding and watching her at the same time, you know. Bless his heart, he rode his bicycle into one of the light poles, and it bent the wheel and everything. Well, she loved children so she goes running down there to help him, you know, she thinks he’s hurt. Well, you can imagine if you’re already afraid of them and here comes this big habit flapping at you. He, he jumped up and ran away. Ran off and left his bicycle and everything. Oh, she was so upset, she didn’t know what to do. So she took the bicycle up to the convent and she fixed it, and then she took it back down there the next morning. She wouldn’t take it till morning; she was afraid somebody would steal it. So she took it back there and set it up next to the pole and he came along and got it; I mean, you know, that’s just the way it was. And I mean, I can remember being asked really weird questions about the Catholic Church cause terrible information that went out because people just didn’t have a clue. And back years and years ago when the KKK, when the KKK finished with blacks, we were next in line. I mean, cause we were the next oddity. Catholics were just not, there just wasn’t a lot of us. There’s been a church out at St. Michael’s for almost 130 years and some of the most beautiful stained glass windows, and I mean, I’ve been to the Washington Cathedral. I’ve been to a lot of places and you won’t find any any prettier than those out there. They always have confession, usually on a, late in the afternoon, you know, and I always loved to go, because the afternoon sun would be coming through all of those vivid colors in the whole inside of the church. That’s one thing about the Catholic Church there’s always been people who really tithed or even gave more and the windows out there were bought by families and the names are there. And somebody said to me one time, said, “ Ethel,” said, “ There’s no Schmidlkofer window out there.” I said, “ Yes there is.” And they said, “ Well, where is it?” I said, “ Well, do you know where Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are?” She said, “ Yeah, they’re way up in the Sacristy. You can’t hardly even see them.” I said, “ That’s where one of theirs is.” I said, “ They were not, they didn’t want the recognition and they were going to put the name on every one so my great grandfather said, ’ Well, then I want that one up there.’” He didn’t want, he didn’t really, to him it was not about putting your name on it. It was giving it to the church.
JL: So, growing up in a large Catholic family, what were some of the holiday traditions that y’all had?
ES: Oh man! Well, every Christmas and every, well particularly Christmas, every Christmas we had to go to Grandmother’s for lunch and you couldn’t get out of it, you couldn’t stay home and play with your toys, didn’t matter how bad you wanted to. And my mother and Daddy would always say, “ Well now, you can take one of the toys with you if you wanted to.” Well, you knew better than that, cause with that many cousins, you wouldn’t, somebody’d break it, you know. So you just had to learn you might as well not fuss you’re going. My grandmother and granddaddy lived above the Cab Station, they had built themselves a big apartment up there and so she just put tables out everywhere and they always fed us, the kids, first and you knew you were beginning to get grown when they moved you to other tables. And then my granddaddy would eat and then he’d get us out of the way so they could do their thing. And of course lots of exchanges of presents at Christmas. My mother, Daddy, my sister and I most of the time, now, would go to midnight mass on Christmas Eve which is really the, probably the prettiest mass of the whole year. There’s something really special about going at midnight and coming out and seeing the stars and all. And I can remember coming out of church one night and the moon was huge and it was, the sky looked like it was nothing but stars and then just all of the sudden little snowflakes just as we were coming out of church. It was just like, there was no clouds up there and yet here are these beautiful snowflakes falling. It was just, almost like a miracle, you know. And I believed in Santa Claus for a long time, because one night we got back home from midnight mass and Santa Claus had been there and not only that, but Santa Claus smoked a cigar. And my mother and daddy never, never, never admitted that they let somebody, they said, “ No, the, the person that came didn’t smoke a cigar.” Well, he smoked a cigar in our house that night, and they never did convince me otherwise. But, like all big families, lots of closeness and then sometimes little, you know. Mostly with my dad and his family, most of the time there’d be one or another of them that was, you know, made somebody mad or said something or you know. But for the most part they got along really well and I guess in big families you pretty much have to. |
| title |
Ethel Schmidlkofer (H) |
| titleStr |
Ethel Schmidlkofer (H) |
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Florence-Lauderdale Public Library |
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Florence-Lauderdale Public Library |
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FLCPLoral_hist200 |
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https://cdm15947.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/oral_hist/id/200 |
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http://cdm15947.contentdm.oclc.org/utils/getthumbnail/collection/oral_hist/id/200 |
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1782468788471463936 |
| spelling |
Ethel Schmidlkofer (H)Catholicism; Nuns; Holidays(6:41) Ethel Schmidlkofer describes the nuns at her school and her family's Christmases. 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 LibraryFlorence-Lauderdale Public LibraryEthel Schmidlkofer2009-7-21sound; textaudio/mp3; text/pdfEnglishIs part of the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library collection.Contact the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library for permission to use.Florence- Lauderdale Public Library Digital Archive
Interview with Ethel Schmidlkofer
July 21, 2009 Florence, Alabama Conducted by Juliann Losey and Rhonda Haygood
Clip 8 of 12
Juliann Losey: Is there a big Catholic community here now?
Ethel Schmidlkofer: Well, it’s probably bigger now than it’s ever been. Really there were so few Catholics here for so long and other churches didn’t know much about us and back when the nuns wore their outfits, their habits, they wore a, it was called a coif. They had a white thing that came around here, and then this was pleated in tiny little pleats and came straight out. Then they had a black dress and then a black mantle over it. And it went to, to the ground and of course you couldn’t see their hair. They can wear anything they want now, well not anything they want. I’m sure they wouldn’t be- bikinis wouldn’t be allowed, but because of the way they dressed and because of the difference and so many people knew nothing about Catholics and told wild stories that they heard some places. My teacher had been a real tomboy, one of mine had been a real tomboy before she became a nun and she could take a paddleball and, I mean, she might could go 300 times without ever missing. She could take a yo- yo and just make it dance. I mean, she could do anything with it. And one day she, she had gone up to see if anybody had left any toys out or anything and there was a yo- yo laying there on the church steps. Anyway, she got to playing with the thing and literally, I mean, she could just do anything with it. And this little boy who was not Catholic came riding his little bicycle up. Now, of course he was riding and watching her at the same time, you know. Bless his heart, he rode his bicycle into one of the light poles, and it bent the wheel and everything. Well, she loved children so she goes running down there to help him, you know, she thinks he’s hurt. Well, you can imagine if you’re already afraid of them and here comes this big habit flapping at you. He, he jumped up and ran away. Ran off and left his bicycle and everything. Oh, she was so upset, she didn’t know what to do. So she took the bicycle up to the convent and she fixed it, and then she took it back down there the next morning. She wouldn’t take it till morning; she was afraid somebody would steal it. So she took it back there and set it up next to the pole and he came along and got it; I mean, you know, that’s just the way it was. And I mean, I can remember being asked really weird questions about the Catholic Church cause terrible information that went out because people just didn’t have a clue. And back years and years ago when the KKK, when the KKK finished with blacks, we were next in line. I mean, cause we were the next oddity. Catholics were just not, there just wasn’t a lot of us. There’s been a church out at St. Michael’s for almost 130 years and some of the most beautiful stained glass windows, and I mean, I’ve been to the Washington Cathedral. I’ve been to a lot of places and you won’t find any any prettier than those out there. They always have confession, usually on a, late in the afternoon, you know, and I always loved to go, because the afternoon sun would be coming through all of those vivid colors in the whole inside of the church. That’s one thing about the Catholic Church there’s always been people who really tithed or even gave more and the windows out there were bought by families and the names are there. And somebody said to me one time, said, “ Ethel,” said, “ There’s no Schmidlkofer window out there.” I said, “ Yes there is.” And they said, “ Well, where is it?” I said, “ Well, do you know where Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are?” She said, “ Yeah, they’re way up in the Sacristy. You can’t hardly even see them.” I said, “ That’s where one of theirs is.” I said, “ They were not, they didn’t want the recognition and they were going to put the name on every one so my great grandfather said, ’ Well, then I want that one up there.’” He didn’t want, he didn’t really, to him it was not about putting your name on it. It was giving it to the church.
JL: So, growing up in a large Catholic family, what were some of the holiday traditions that y’all had?
ES: Oh man! Well, every Christmas and every, well particularly Christmas, every Christmas we had to go to Grandmother’s for lunch and you couldn’t get out of it, you couldn’t stay home and play with your toys, didn’t matter how bad you wanted to. And my mother and Daddy would always say, “ Well now, you can take one of the toys with you if you wanted to.” Well, you knew better than that, cause with that many cousins, you wouldn’t, somebody’d break it, you know. So you just had to learn you might as well not fuss you’re going. My grandmother and granddaddy lived above the Cab Station, they had built themselves a big apartment up there and so she just put tables out everywhere and they always fed us, the kids, first and you knew you were beginning to get grown when they moved you to other tables. And then my granddaddy would eat and then he’d get us out of the way so they could do their thing. And of course lots of exchanges of presents at Christmas. My mother, Daddy, my sister and I most of the time, now, would go to midnight mass on Christmas Eve which is really the, probably the prettiest mass of the whole year. There’s something really special about going at midnight and coming out and seeing the stars and all. And I can remember coming out of church one night and the moon was huge and it was, the sky looked like it was nothing but stars and then just all of the sudden little snowflakes just as we were coming out of church. It was just like, there was no clouds up there and yet here are these beautiful snowflakes falling. It was just, almost like a miracle, you know. And I believed in Santa Claus for a long time, because one night we got back home from midnight mass and Santa Claus had been there and not only that, but Santa Claus smoked a cigar. And my mother and daddy never, never, never admitted that they let somebody, they said, “ No, the, the person that came didn’t smoke a cigar.” Well, he smoked a cigar in our house that night, and they never did convince me otherwise. But, like all big families, lots of closeness and then sometimes little, you know. Mostly with my dad and his family, most of the time there’d be one or another of them that was, you know, made somebody mad or said something or you know. But for the most part they got along really well and I guess in big families you pretty much have to.http://server15947.contentdm.oclc.org/u?/oral_hist,200 |