[Begin Interview] Hibbs: The mike may not work. Let's see. Just a minute. You
want to just speak naturally? You were saying just a minute ago about your father. What was his name? Your father's name?Spalding: Ed (?) Rapier.
Hibbs: Ed (Foon?) Rapier. Let me make sure- The following is an interview with
Mrs. --Spalding: I can't hear you.
Hibbs: All right. I'm just putting the first part on here. The following is an
interview with Mrs. Tate Spalding by Dixie Hibbs for the Kentucky Oral History Commission, the Prohibition 1:00in Nelson County project. This interview was conducted in Bardstown, Nelson County, Kentucky, on South Fifth Street, on the twenty-second of September. Twenty-third of September. What is your birthday?Spalding: Twenty-second.
Hibbs: Twenty-second of September. The birthday of the interviewee here.
Well Miss Spalding, would you give me your name, your full name, and your
parents' names and some of this information right here?Spalding: Well, what do you want first, the birth?
Hibbs: That would be fine. Yeah, your date of birth is fine.
Spalding: Born September the twenty-second, 1891.
Hibbs: '91. Ah.
Spalding: Place of birth, New Haven, in Nelson County. Parents' names Ed (Foon?)
Rapier and Sarah Thompson Rapier. I was educated in parochial schools locally, and then attended Beretta Academy 2:00in Marion County. Conducted by the (?) Hibbs: Right. Sister Loretta. Right.Spalding: And graduated from there in 1909.
Hibbs: Very good.
Spalding: And my husband was J. Lamott Spalding. No children.
Hibbs: Mr. Spalding was from Marion County?
Spalding: Huh?
Hibbs: Your husband was from Marion County?
Spalding: Yes. Yes.
Hibbs: Well, if you want to, you know, you've heard the term Prohibition, you
lived through the Prohibition period there, 1920 to 1933. What business was your family connected in at that time?Spalding: My father, all through my life, was connected with politics.
Hibbs: Politics.
Spalding: He was county clerk for several terms, county judge. And afterwards
went to Frankfort when the legislature 3:00was in session, but not as a, he was a, I think they called them, he was in the senate, door manager in the senate.Hibbs: Oh, right. Door manager. Okay.
Spalding: And then acted as, in his later years, when he was not able to work,
he did take various jobs as bookkeeper for road builders when they were on the road.Hibbs: Very good. Then in his political position and his county clerk, he dealt
with a lot of the distilleries and the distillers and things, that he knew a lot of those people?Spalding: Well, I'm sure he did. Now before I was born, he worked as a gager.
Hibbs: As a gager. Okay.
Spalding: At one time. And my father and mother were married ten years before
they had any children. Then they had six 4:00in the next ten. I just got here, I was born pretty late, and my mother was about forty-three or four, I think, when I was born.Hibbs: As a gager, of course, that's the government officer who--
Spalding: (?) with the distilleries.
Hibbs: Right. He would collect the taxes on--
Spalding: Inspect in the warehouses and things like that.
Hibbs: So he was very familiar with it. And what did your husband do? Was he a--
Spalding: Banker.
Hibbs: A banker.
Spalding: Always.
Hibbs: Always a banker. Okay. During, before Prohibition started in 1920, you
were old enough to remember. You say you graduated from college in 1909.Spalding: '09.
Hibbs: '09.
Spalding: I married in 19-- I have to stop and think when I married. I'm sorry.
Hibbs: Well, let's see. How old were you--
Spalding: I was married in 1915.
Hibbs: 1915. Okay. That would be six years after you graduated from college.
Spalding: Yes.
Hibbs: Okay.
5:00Spalding: And went to Lebanon to live.Hibbs: To live.
Spalding: And lived there till my husband died. Which was exactly twenty years.
Hibbs: Twenty years.
Spalding: He died young. He was forty-nine. I was forty-three.
Hibbs: Well then, does Lebanon have a distilling industry over there? Did they
have distilling industry over in the Lebanon area? Distilling? Over in Marion County?Spalding: Oh, yes. Oh, yes, they had a-- what was the name of that distillery?
Hibbs: Wasn't Coon Holler, something like that, was it?
Spalding: No. That was on the line. That was a different place. That was in
Marion County. But that was near where Maker's Mark is.Hibbs: Oh. Okay.
Spalding: But (Waltham?) was the big distillery man, Nick Waltham.
6:00And then oh, the German. Begins with a "k."Hibbs: Okay. (?) That's all right.
Spalding: Oh, he had two children. One was a doctor. They were, of course, older
than I, both of them. What was his name? Well, it was all retired then. When did, when was Prohibition?Hibbs: 1920.
Spalding: Yes. I remember that well. Lamont had a friend (?) he indulged
sometimes too much, but he was a good fellow, and a very highly educated 7:00fellow. (MacHenry Bottom?) Hibbs: (MacHenry Bottom?). Okay.Spalding: That was his name. And on Election Day that year, he was very
interested in knowing whether it was going to be repealed or not. And he came up to where I was living, oh, that afternoon, kind of late. And oh, he was rejoicing. "It's going to be repealed! Get rid of it!" He was against Prohibition, of course. And he stood there and rejoiced and celebrated so long that he was late getting to the polls and didn't get to vote!Hibbs: That's counting your votes before they're used.
Spalding: We always had a good laugh over that. Nobody was more eager to cast
his vote, but he was rejoicing before it took place.Hibbs: This is in 1933? Or in the late--
Spalding: I think so.
Hibbs: Somewhere in there. In the '30s. Late, early '30s.
Spalding: But my family on both sides
8:00were always whiskey people. Always. My grandfather, my mother's father had the distillery that he started on his farm, which was over on (? Creek?) in (?) County. Then he took in Mr. Jimmy Lee (Atherton?) --Hibbs: Atherton Spalding: As partner. And so Grandfather became ill and they
thought he might not survive. But he told Grandmother, "Hold onto the distillery if anything happens to me." But she didn't. She was glad to get rid of it because Grandmother had ten children, six sons. And some of them imbibed too much. And she knew the evils of overindulging. So she couldn't get rid of it quick enough. And she sold it, their interest, to Mr. Atherton. Then Mr. Atherton moved off of Grandmother's place down onto the highway 9:00and started his distillery. And the town became known as Athertonville. That's how it got its name.Hibbs: But your grandmother that you're talking about there is the Thompson. The
Thompson grandparent?Spalding: Yes.
Hibbs: Thompson.
Spalding: Then my Uncle Bob Thompson, who lived to be my age, in fact, a little
up above, was ninety-nine when he died, and had a remarkable memory. He went through the Civil War.Hibbs: Oh, wonderful.
Spalding: But he kept us entertained with his stories about things. And getting
back to this (?) , he and Mr. Atherton worked together when Atherton bought out. And Uncle Bob was the distiller.Hibbs: Ah. Okay.
Spalding: And they became friends always until they died, both of them. Mr.
Atherton amassed a fortune, 10:00and went to Louisville, built a palatial home oh, up there on one of those, can't think of the location right off. But I know it will come to me. And he and Uncle Bob would exchange visits. Or rather, Uncle Bob did the visiting. Uncle Bob led a different type of life from Mr. Atherton. To begin with, Mr. Atherton became an invalid, more or less. He had a palatial home up there--Hibbs: Was it in St. James, or--
Spalding: Oh, up there, I know where it is, but I can't say the name. And he
kept a trained nurse with him around the clock. He was, Mr. (?), he was the father of Peter Lee Atherton, who inherited the distillery and operated 11:00it always. But Uncle Bob would go see Mr. Atherton annually, once a year, and spend a few days with him. And he told me one time, they would reminisce, and he said, "I told Jim, 'Jim, you and I have both got out of life exactly what we wanted.'" He says, "'You wanted money, and you accumulated and made it. And I wanted a good time, and I had it.'"Hibbs: That's wonderful. That's wonderful.
Spalding: But Uncle Bob married two rich women.
Hibbs: Oh.
Spalding: I think that helped him along the way of having his good time.
Hibbs: (Bet they ?) his good times.
Spalding: He never did any real hard work, although they had a good living. He
had four daughters by his first wife. After she died, several years after, he remarried. And although he was quite elderly, he had another child.Hibbs: Another child.
Spalding: Another girl.
12:00They were all, all his children were girls. And what was I going to say? Something about, oh, Mr. Ernest Fulton's father, and Mr. John Fulton, they were all living in those days, they were our lawyers. (Town?) lawyers. And Uncle Bob would always come here on county court day. We lived out here where Miss Rapier lived, who recently sold that place.Hibbs: Right.
Spalding: And that was horse and buggy days, of course. And when you'd come,
you'd also spend the night, more often than not. And Uncle Bob would go up on court square with the older people his age, and they would all reminisce. Did you ever know, or know of, (?) Hibbs: Yes. I knew of her. 13:00I don't think I knew her, but I knew of her.Spalding: Well, I wouldn't think you'd remember her. Well she was a very highly
intelligent, attractive woman, and married late in life, Mr. Fulton, who had grown children. And the story goes that I heard them tell that Uncle Bob and Mr. Fulton were up on court square one day, talking, when Miss Carrie appeared on the scene. And (?) said, "Carrie, come here a minute. I want to tell you something. Do you know Bob (?)" She said, oh, yes. And he says, "You know the man got married when his age was seventy years old? And had another child?" And oh, they thought that was absurd! And Mr. Fulton, he said, "Now, you believe that or not?" And she said, he said, Mr. Fulton said, "I think she begged that baby someplace." And Miss Carrie said to Mr. Fulton, "Well Mr. Fulton, you're not too sure about your own. 14:00You don't know any different." So that was (?) take anything. That set Mr. Fulton down.Hibbs: That's right. You're not too sure about your own, huh? Well we were
talking about the lawyers, the Fultons and (Banks?). When they closed the distillery, when they closed the distillery here with Prohibition, it had some type of effect on the whole economy, I'm sure, whether it was attorneys or farmers or what. Or do you remember any of that?Spalding: When that happened, again, I say I wasn't living here.
Hibbs: Okay. Well, what happened in Marion County when that happened? Do you
remember whether your husband said anything about the bank losing any money? Or--Spalding: No, I don't recall anything about the bank or the (?), no. There were
three banks in Lebanon as far as I know. 15:00They were all prosperous. My husband went in as a clerk but became cashier, which was considered the head of the bank. Just had one cashier, you know. And he died young. He was only forty-nine.Hibbs: Well, let's see, what other things? We talked a little bit before we
started recording about the moonshiners. There were moonshiners around.Spalding: Oh, yes. We heard of that. And as a child, I recall the vicinity of
several of them were out here on what they call the (Monks?) Road. Went out to New Haven and turned into the (Monks?) Road. And we had a young white girl helping us at home at that time whose father was a moonshiner.Hibbs: This is before Prohibition, even. So the
16:00moonshining went on even before--Spalding: Oh, yes. Yes.
Hibbs: So then there was a market for it even before Prohibition came in.
Spalding: Well, because it was so cheap. So much cheaper.
Hibbs: You didn't have the federal tax on it.
Spalding: Sold by the jug.
Hibbs: Well then when they closed the distilleries, what happened, do you
remember anything? Or did you hear any talk about what happened to any of the distilleries?Spalding: Well, the distilleries, it incapacitated a lot of work, you know.
Hibbs: Yeah.
Spalding: People were laid off work, and it was hard. People were searching. But
those eras had come all along.Hibbs: All along.
Spalding: Every generation has them, you know.
Hibbs: That's an interesting point to think of, that that wasn't a, that was
just a period to wait out until something better came along then. Like you were saying, you're talking about the repeal of it.Spalding: But we had three distilleries here, you know. When was it? We had Tom Moore,
17:00and we had Mattingly Moore. That was Mr. (Eden's?) distillery. And then there was one out on the (Bolston?) Hibbs: Walker? Was it a Walker?Spalding: On the (Boston?) pike, at the edge of town.
Hibbs: Right.
Spalding: And I can't think what that one was called. But it was a prominent
one. There were three very prominent ones.Hibbs: What about out there at Nazareth? There was one on the railroad, close to Nazareth.
Spalding: Withrow.
Hibbs: Withrow.
Spalding: Yes. There was one out there. And Green Briar--
Hibbs: Green Briar, right.
Spalding: --was over here. Oh, this area was full of them. You couldn't turn
around but what you'd run into them.Hibbs: Run into a distillery. Okay. Do you remember any of the distilleries, or
any of a factory being set up to help provide employment to any of these people who were out of work? Or any plans 18:00to try to open a distillery with some other use? I'm reaching way back.Spalding: The most I can recall about that was road building.
Hibbs: Road building. Okay.
Spalding: The joke was about these ex workers, distillery workers. You'd see
them leaning on shovels.Hibbs: Oh, okay.
Spalding: They were all out on the highway, supposed to be working, but were
leaning on shovels.Hibbs: Now they were working for the state highway. Were they working the state
highway or the county?Spalding: Oh, all highways. We had no highways until we had automobiles.
Hibbs: Right.
Spalding: And I was graduated from school before we ever, before I ever saw an automobile.
Hibbs: You've certainly seen a lot, then, in your life.
Spalding: Well you know my father used to say, he had lived to see everything
invented. He thought he had, but he hadn't.Hibbs: He hadn't. Right.
Spalding: Because of
19:00course the Edison talking machine and photographs. Those were unheard of things. And he saw the railroad being built over there at New Haven. And he said, "And I lived almost long enough to see it go out."Hibbs: To go out. Right.
Spalding: "So it come in, and I saw it go out."
Hibbs: And the telephone. Of course, he (?) Spalding: Telephones. No, they were
unheard of, those days. And phonographs. And what was the first stage, they weren't called phonographs. They were called Victrolas.Hibbs: Victrolas. Uh huh.
Spalding: And oh, they were wonderful. We just thought they were wonderful. Then
we got so we made our own records.Hibbs: Oh, how did you do that?
Spalding: We'd get the cylinders with the bottom of, they weren't (?), I guess
you'd call it. And we'd put them all like you'd put that thing on something and turn it on. Then 20:00we'd talk and sing.Hibbs: I didn't know you could do that.
Spalding: And you know, (?) had a beautiful voice. And his children have records
of his voice that were made back in those days. And he was a Catholic. And so many of his children, well, two of them, became religious. And others married. And at all the celebrations, the same "Ave Maria" was sung. And records were made of (?) singing that Schubert's "Ave Maria."Hibbs: Oh, that's nice.
Spalding: Which is a priceless thing, (?) you know.
Hibbs: That's right. Can you give me an idea of what period, what period of time
you're talking about when you did that record making? Was it the early 1900s? or 1920? I'm trying to think when you--Spalding: (?) I'm old enough to have (?) professions, so--
21:00Hibbs: I'm just trying to get some idea of what time.Spalding: Oh, I would say that was in the '30s or the '40s.
Hibbs: Okay. Well, I wasn't sure what time period you were talking about.
Spalding: I would think so. It would have to be, because I was grown with children.
Hibbs: Okay. Right. That's wonderful. Of course I know I talked to other people
about Will Stiles, who was your brother-in-law.Spalding: Yes.
Hibbs: And we discussed how he came about his first distillery. He wasn't a
distiller. I call him a cattle buyer. Is that the right word? He bought and sold cattle, and farms, and things like that?Spalding: Will Stiles, you could say, never had any certain profession.
Hibbs: Oh. Okay.
Spalding: He operated mainly on trading, I would say, if anything.
Hibbs: Trading. Okay.
Spalding: He would trade anything!
Hibbs: Anything. Okay.
Spalding: And (Coffee Crume?)
22:00was living then. And the Crumes had some wealth. Mrs. Crume was a, well, they got their money from Mrs. Crume. The father's name was Sam (?) and there were several of those children. And one of them is living, one of the descendents.Hibbs: Mrs. Moore?
Spalding: Miss Moore.
Hibbs: Yeah. Right. Moore. Right.
Spalding: Yeah, she's one of them.
Hibbs: Right. I thought about--
Spalding: Well, (Cocky?) couldn't always have as much money, pocket money, as he
wanted. So he thought up this scheme how he would go to the store and they could buy anything. And he'd buy shoes and things that were more or less expensive. Will Stiles' size.Hibbs: Oh, okay.
23:00All right.Spalding: And then they met and trade them to Will.
Hibbs: Trade them to him. Okay. We're doing fine.
Spalding: I don't know whether any of his people appreciate those stories or
not. But they were true. And I say, he would do that. And Mr. (Demery?), he and Will got to be more or less kind of partners at one time. And Mr. Demery was a little higher educated, I would say, than Will. Both of them just had county school education. But Demery went a little higher. And Will used to say that they'd go out on a trade, they one time bought up a lot of overcoats.Hibbs: Overcoats.
Spalding: Raincoats.
Hibbs: Raincoats.
Spalding: Oh, they bought a stack of them! And they sold
24:00all those things, Will and Demery. And Will, Demery would say to Will, "All right, now, Will, let's just go (?) and we'll play nonchalant." Will says, "What do you mean, nonchalant? I don't know what you're talking about."Hibbs: Play nonchalant.
Spalding: Oh, we used to have a lot of fun, teasing the two of them, you know.
Hibbs: I can see that.
Spalding: But Will was a born trader. And then he got where he made his big
money, got trading within the whiskey.Hibbs: In whiskey.
Spalding: He did. And he also was a booker at the race track.
Hibbs: Ah, okay.
Spalding: After I was a widow, I became friends of old Colonel, I forgot his
name. But anyway, I went to his home one time there in Louisville. And he told me a lot about Will. He was a, he at one time was the head of the detective agency in Louisville, this colonel.Hibbs: Oh. Okay.
25:00Spalding: And he caught Will on the racetrack.Hibbs: Okay.
Spalding: And penalized him, you know. And Will was then trading with a
politician from Kansas City who used to come here at the track and put up thousands and thousands. And Will was booking. And Will made his money nine times out of ten, or he wouldn't have kept it up, you know? But that was illegal at that time. But this colonel, I wish I could remember his name. But in after years, I know we became friends. And he knew I was the sister-in-law of Will. And he'd say, "You know, I liked Mr. Stiles, and I would hate to have to penalize him, but I had to do my duty."Hibbs: Kept apologizing.
26:00Spalding: (?) He paid those fines and that was--Hibbs: That was it. Well, that period, around here, when whiskey was so
important, and the economy was so important for us to have it shut down, then they had to look around for something else. And maybe this trading was a way of, his way of--Spalding: You know, Will was (?), he was an only child. And he was (?) money.
His father died when he was quite small. And his mother remarried later on. And Will never liked that stepfather. And so he didn't live with them much, have much contact with them. As a consequence, (Mr. Tichener?) that was his mother's second husband's name, 27:00she fell out with Mr. (Tichener?), too. And she would live around different places. Well, when Will became prosperous, which he did, he financed her. He gave her, I don't know that I would know it, I couldn't recall it because I never knew, but I know it was an ample sum of money for her to live on well. He gave her property where that store is up on Main Street. Dry goods store on the right hand side.Hibbs: Oh, the Louisville Store?
Spalding: Louisville Store. He gave Miss Tichener that store. And at that time,
it had apartments up above it. She got all her income from that. That was hers. He gave it to her. But she wouldn't stay there. She'd go down to different towns around. She had friends. And she would love to visit with them. And they loved her. She was good company. And she'd visit with them. But 28:00Dixie, I'm afraid I haven't been of much value-- [End Side A. Begin Side B.] Hibbs: I just turned that over so that we can continue our conversation.Spalding: This is yours.
Hibbs: Yes. All right. Thank you. To be sure we didn't have a stop there when we
were in the middle of a story or something. You were talking about, you said of course you didn't have any children, but you had nieces and nephews, and contact with people--Spalding: Great-nieces and nephews. And I couldn't live without them.
Hibbs: Big family that way.
Spalding: They're all good to me.
Hibbs: Right.
Spalding: Very thoughtful of me.
Hibbs: Well, you've been good to them as they grew up.
Spalding: Well, it was a big disappointment to us that we had no children.
Because Lamont loved them, and I did, too. As a consequence, we always had some 29:00in our home.Hibbs: Right.
Spalding: And as I was in Lebanon, this crew in Bardstown would bid which one
got to go to Aunt Tate for Thanksgiving or Christmas or Easter or whenever the holidays come. We always had some of them.Hibbs: Right.
Spalding: Then those Johnson boys in Louisville, they come out every summer
during the Chautauqua. Our house was headquarters. And Nancy Arnold--Hibbs: Right.
Spalding: She was one of them that was there. And she had a bicycle.
Hibbs: Did she bring it with her?
Spalding: Transportation in those days was on (?) didn't have buses. Yes, she'd
bring her bicycle over. Then they'd fight over who would get to ride the bicycle. And I have vivid pictures now of many funny things. One was our bedroom windows had a view of the street. 30:00And one morning, oh, at daylight, I happened to just turn over and look out the window. And one of these redheaded (Dawsons?) me and Nancy's bicycle, just riding and riding, before daylight came.Hibbs: Cause he didn't have to worry about her--
Spalding: Oh, he knew he wouldn't get it when she got up.
Hibbs: You know, something else I thought about earlier, you know, as we talk I
think of things, and then I forget to ask you. Did you ever have any medicinal whiskey prescriptions? Did you ever get a prescription from the doctor to go get any medicinal whiskey during Prohibition? Did you ever see any of those?Spalding: No. We had plenty of doctors' prescriptions otherwise, but not
connected with Prohibition. I've had nine major operations before. But I'm still here.Hibbs: Still here. You sure are. I know that there was a real market in those
prescriptions in the big cities. 31:00I just didn't know if out here you had to have that prescription or everybody knew people who had whiskey.Spalding: No. No.
Hibbs: Did you ever know anybody that was arrested for transporting whiskey
during that period?Spalding: I can't think of right now.
Hibbs: Well, that's fine. I'm thinking of other things on the-- was there any
temperance, or temperance leagues, or ladies against drinking? You know, they had these anti-alcohol groups that would march.Spalding: APA?
Hibbs: APAs, okay. Did they have anything like that around Marion County or
Nelson County?Spalding: Oh, those groups, I think, were everywhere, more or less. And some of
them more active in some vicinities. And then they had something 32:00else, too, that was opposed to liquor and drinking. I forgot what that was called. But personally, I never was involved much with those associations because my own people and my husband's people always leaned the other way, if anything.Hibbs: Well, I didn't know if they were very strong, or if it was just small
groups like you say all over. Were they, did you ever hear sermons in the church, of course I know you were Catholic, did you ever hear the priest talk against drinking or against the distilleries?Spalding: Well, the Prohibition, or the election, that was never talked from the
pulpit. Never. Now, morals, drinking to excess or any of those things, may have been. I can't recall whether they were or they weren't, any more than other morals. 33:00But as for election, things like that, it never came up in my church. Never.Hibbs: Your father was in politics. And of course he knew, was he alive during
the Prohibition period? When did your father die?Spalding: Papa died six months before Lamont. He died in--
Hibbs: '34.
Spalding: In the fall. And Lamont died in 1935, so he died in '34.
Hibbs: So he saw Prohibition come in, and then he saw it rescinded.
Spalding: And then go out.
Hibbs: That way.
Spalding: But his great expression was, it ruined the country.
Hibbs: Ruined the country.
Spalding: Prohibition ruined the country.
Hibbs: What do you think he meant by that?
Spalding: He said it made thieves, rogues and liars out of everybody. But never
stopped people from drinking. And made many drunkards, he thought. Because they'd get it in quantities, 34:00and drink more. Whereas if they could go in and buy a drink--Hibbs: Yeah.
Spalding: Oh, Papa was very anti-Prohibition.
Hibbs: Was he in a position, in an elected position or anything during
Prohibition? You say he was a county clerk. Then he went to the legislature and--Spalding: Yes! He was bound to have been during Prohibition. Because everybody
else was, too, you know? His opponent (?) in the races that he would run, he ran for county clerk several times, then finally was defeated there. Then he ran for county judge, and was elected county judge. And finally lost out there, too. Which all of them do.Hibbs: Yeah. Right.
Spalding: But he knew nothing else but politics, practically. And then got on as
a representative up at Frankfort. 35:00Hibbs: I'm trying to think of what else we were-- You know, we still have, in Kentucky, we have so many counties, and we have the local option elections, which have created a lot of dry counties, where you can't purchase alcoholic beverages. Do you remember anything about there being dry counties in the early part of the century? Or any part of Nelson County being dry? Did you ever hear that term?Spalding: I remember a lot of local option talk and all, but I don't know that I
can help you there, although I know some were dry, and some were wet, as they called it.Hibbs: I didn't know if that was a strong political thing, like you say your
father was more pro-whiskey, in terms of the 36:00economy and the industry. I didn't know whether that was ever used against him in elections? Or that people felt that strongly about it?Spalding: Well, people were, whatever counties were wet, the inhabitants of the
dry counties visited them, got their liquor.Hibbs: All right. They were not ignored by the rest of (you?) Spalding: They
made the wet countries more prosperous. The wet counties, I mean.Hibbs: That's wonderful.
Spalding: Yes, they did.
Hibbs: Well, I'm afraid they still do that. Still do that. Yeah.
Spalding: There's some things you can't legislate, I think. Morals have to be
inhibited in the person. You can't make a person moral by making a law.Hibbs: So your father said it made liars and rogues and thieves out of
everybody, out of a lot of people, I guess he'd say.Spalding: So Dixie, I'm going to ask you a personal question. I hope you won't
resent it.Hibbs: Well, let me see. I may be-- All right. I answered the personal question.
It didn't have anything to do with this, so that's why I didn't record that. 37:00(?) One other thing that went through my mind a minute ago, you said that Will Stiles took the bets at the race track, and he had some connections in Kansas City. Do you know of any people that came from Chicago or St. Louis or some of the big cities in here to buy whiskey? Was there any trade back and forth with any of those? I don't have to have names. I'm just wondering if there was any--Spalding: No. The only person of much importance was that man from Kansas City.
And he was a very prominent politician, that man. And you would know his connection if I could think of his name. But my memory doesn't work very quickly like it used to. Things come back. I'm not completely senile.Hibbs: You're not.
Spalding: But sometimes it takes a long time for the things to get back. But
that man's name, he was, I remember that man from Kansas City very well.Hibbs: Well I know that some of the information we've been getting
38:00talks about the Moores went out to Colorado and set up a distillery, and different things like that. So I thought, I didn't know if you knew of any--Spalding: Well, at one time after Prohibition was repealed, Will opened up the
Withrow distillery. Now what is that man's name? A group of Jews came down here from New York. You remember Jane Newman.Hibbs: Yes. Yes.
Spalding: Well, Mr. Newman was Jane's husband. And he and Will, they operated
Withrow distillery out there for a while. And then, I think, truthfully I think they fell out. I think Will discovered that 39:00Mr. Newman was trying to outsmart him. And I always thought Will could just about act as smart as most of the Jews. And he was able to protect himself, so they separated at that time. But Jane Newman and Nanny were great friends then, and (?) and Amy and all of them went together a lot at that time. Oh, those old memories. Now they're all dead and gone, I think. I don't know whether Jane might be still living. Because Jane was really a Russian by birth. But she evidently was brought to New York with her family as an infant, more or less. She was raised and she went into acting. She was a New York City, what do they call it? Where they have the--Hibbs: Oh, the Rockefeller Center?
Spalding: Rockefeller Center. And she was an actress there at one time. And she
was, quite a disparity in ages 40:00between her and Mr. Newman. Mr. Newman was quite a bit older than Jane.Hibbs: They lived here? They lived here in town. They didn't just visit?
Spalding: Oh, yes. And they rented. They never bought property. But at one time,
when (Nellie?) and Will lived where, oh, up there--Hibbs: (?) station?
Spalding: --on the corner, where there's a filling station now.
Hibbs: Right. Third and Broadway.
Spalding: Well then Will bought (Shoney?) house. And they moved up there. Then
Jane and Mr. Newman moved in that house down there. Then at one time they rented a place across the street, where Daisy (?) lived. Well, they lived over there for a while. Oh, I doubt if you'd remember, because Dixie, I've been in this house thirty-three years. 41:00Hibbs: Thirty-three years. Wonderful.Spalding: And that was long before I bought this place.
Hibbs: Right.
Spalding: Forty years ago, I would say. Those things are beyond your memory.
Hibbs: Well, I can remember forty. If I really reach for it.
Spalding: Well, you can remember forty years ago, but you have childhood memories.
Hibbs: Yeah, that's right. I don't remember (?) No, I don't have much memory (?)
Spalding: Which are different from, little pitchers have big ears, though, sometimes. They hear lots of things.Hibbs: That's right. That's why I said that this is a situation where hearsay
intentionally doesn't matter. Because it's--Spalding: Don't always hear the same, that's right. [End Interview]
42:00