Latah County Oral History Collection

Selina Smith Pierce: We planned on staying there, but he got kind of homesick. Well, look home. So we came here and too. He had a farm here. I love it. Yeah, well, what they called Texas Ranch. He had a farm there, and he wanted to come back and start farming again. But he didn't last. I didn't like farming.

Laura Schrager: Did you?

Selina Smith Pierce: my son was born in New York.

Selina Smith Pierce: We were there for. Well, we were there a year, and she was married in August, and, And Arnold. We were married in August. My son was born. And all this is awesome. but on the 2nd of August, I married him on the seventh, and my son was born at 18.

Laura Schrager: Pretty good.

Selina Smith Pierce: We're like, okay, that was it. Yeah. You see, that's just the way it happened. And you know, so I that's how And then he wanted to come back home. He hadn't seen his books for three years. So we came back over here and he never he didn't want to go back that way. But I did.

Laura Schrager: All.

Selina Smith Pierce: That back in New York. I still wish I was there. I.

Laura Schrager: Were you able to take much stuff with you to Gary when you left New York?

Selina Smith Pierce: When I left New York. To bring to the U.S.. yes. I thought, no, no, no, no furniture of any kind or anything on the train. Then you were allowed a trunk. You know, you take the trunk. So we bought a lot of things in the trunk. wedding gifts and things like that. We bought them and.

Laura Schrager: Did you move out on the. On the homestead? Right.

Selina Smith Pierce: We went on a farm. We were heated. There was no house on his his farm. So he owned a farm, and. But he rented it. But we came out. We rented a place and stayed in a rented place, which I would call a shack. But then we only stayed there until he found one year. And then I think the next year he bought the store and then we moved into very good.

Laura Schrager: How was that? A lot nicer to live in. yes.

Selina Smith Pierce: It was a town and there was lots of nice people live there. Very nice. And we lived in the back of the store. I think I told you that before, until the fire. And we had,

Laura Schrager: Was that a pretty big switch to be living out in the farm? New York.

Selina Smith Pierce: yeah. You know, that was terrible. And I didn't. I didn't know anything about Farm Boy. So you. My father was a carpenter and a builder, but I didn't know anything about a farm. I just knew on a farm as a little kid that I didn't like him. And he. He knew I did. Well, I go back. I went back to New York State nine months.

Selina Smith Pierce: One time I guess he figured if he didn't get out of that farm business, that I wouldn't come. So, of course, it was nothing to that effect. But I mean, he just he bought the store while I was back in New York. And so then we came back and we went in the store business, which I liked much better, because I felt useful in the store where I run the farm.

Selina Smith Pierce: I didn't know much about farming and just and when they had threshers, I didn't realize what they did there. When you have threshers, all the neighbors came besides all your men that you had to feed and All right, that got my group. So I wanted to get out of there. I didn't like farming and it was hard work and it was hard work and making nothing.

Selina Smith Pierce: So I think maybe some people could have made a go of it, but I couldn't.

Laura Schrager: Well, some people sure stuck with it.

Selina Smith Pierce: Yeah, that's right. yeah.

Laura Schrager: Was that was the story that you ended up moving into in theory. Was that all.

Selina Smith Pierce: They. That was just.

Laura Schrager: It was, it was someone else that you bought.

Selina Smith Pierce: Out. Yeah. That was just a grocery store. Then we, we put in dry goods and, we, we made a bigger store of it besides groceries, there was two shoes. It was too, of a grocery store that on the side or so, you know, it was a small town. There wasn't, there wasn't very much for a person to make in a small place.

Selina Smith Pierce: And then he my husband worked for the Hazelwood Creamery. He put it in a cream station and we tested cream two.

Laura Schrager: In all for a while. You did both.

Selina Smith Pierce: You were on the store and the cream station at the same time, and he was sick. So much of the cream station fell on me a lot because I and they were big, heavy cans were terrible to lift, you know, up on the scales the way they was the first man that picked up the cream every day and brought them took it in, I don't know.

Selina Smith Pierce: They took it to Moscow and shipped from there or what, but he picked it up from our place. We tested the cream and paid the farmers there. They took and I liked to test cream.

Laura Schrager: And would you test the, the cream for, how clean.

Selina Smith Pierce: It was for butter Butterfat?

Laura Schrager: You didn't care how of dirty it was.

Selina Smith Pierce: yes, we did. We did send some back at the brewery and we found a mouse and one. And now my husband just took in them the cream right out until over, over. And you wouldn't take it. You wouldn't even shipped that so you couldn't make that the good cream. You know?

Laura Schrager: Yeah.

Selina Smith Pierce: Things like that could happen when we really didn't realize it.

Laura Schrager: But before the, the fire came was the, the grocery store that you had there, was that, Is that all it sold? The one that you ran before the fire? Was it just a grocery store?

Selina Smith Pierce: No, we had the cream station was on it too.

Laura Schrager: That. even before that, from.

Selina Smith Pierce: The minute I couldn't say for sure.

Laura Schrager: But you started that really early on the cream station.

Selina Smith Pierce: Yes, we did. But. And I always stayed there until my husband was called here for the cream. Whipped cream regular called him because the Hazelwood Creamery bakery was having some lawsuit or something. And they called him here as a witness. But then he decided when he got up here that he'd just give job up. So that's how we got this book.

Selina Smith Pierce: And he knew I didn't like it down there very well. it was lovely people and very, very nice people.

Laura Schrager: are there any people that you particularly liked or.

Selina Smith Pierce: I like them or of course I especially like the neighbor. And well, after we born, we point out we built a small building and started in there and then we moved and made a home of it, moved that over on a lot and, and we made our home in that that's where we lived till we bought a big house up on the hill, same street that we was living on.

Selina Smith Pierce: But it was up on this, I think it was called Idaho Street. I'm not too sure of those streets. Never went by name anyway, and we.

Laura Schrager: Were you able to make a fairly good living at the store?

Selina Smith Pierce: Well, we made a living and that was all. Well, it really wasn't too much of a paying proposition. So that's why when he came up here, he decided to go to work up here. So he went to a seasoned roper.

Laura Schrager: Was it better in the the earlier days than.

Selina Smith Pierce: yes. Yes, it was. Right, because after we burned out, we had quite a struggle. You know, you get paid for your bills, but we only had $1,000 insurance. Know frame building and it went up like paper. Everything burned. We didn't get a thing out.

Laura Schrager: Could you tell me that story of the fire? And what I want to, to start with is, some of the, Well, there were two reasons I remember that you said that you thought it could, you know, that it was like we said.

Selina Smith Pierce: One of them being that was one thing I felt, I don't know whether it it could have been any good. Ben I don't know what would have started it other than, this druggist next to us. He had unpack dishes with Excelsior, and now they it could have been that there was a bonfire or something. A little spark in there, but it seemed like it would have started before 3:00 in the morning if that ever happened.

Selina Smith Pierce: That's always been my idea that there was.

Laura Schrager: I thought you heard some noise.

Selina Smith Pierce: I did. I heard somebody walking between the buildings. There was a space where people could walk between our building and the hardware. And I heard someone and I said to this girl, a niece of my husband's was with me. And I said, somebody walk between the buildings here. And it was only about 15, 20 minutes when the and one of the neighbor was knocking on the door and she said, Come help us put the fire out.

Selina Smith Pierce: We ran out. And when we got outside, that fire have got had broken it gone, got right in our building and it we had a hard time to get back in because the blaze was coming right over the door. So we ran in and my son was three years old and he was screaming bloody murder in his crib.

Selina Smith Pierce: And so I just grabbed him up and sent him on his knees with this little baby and got him over to the hotel across the street. And I told her to stay with him, but she didn't come back to and see if she could help me. But I told him to stay out. I stayed in there until I was had to inhale so much smoke.

Selina Smith Pierce: The doctor said, Give me the medicine. Then I just caught my head off, thought I was going to die before my husband got home. But. And I didn't care if I did only for my son.

Laura Schrager: What were you what did you go back in for?

Selina Smith Pierce: Well, I thought I could get some things out to see what we were. We all. We went back in to get my baby.

Laura Schrager: Yes. yeah, Yeah, I. It were you would been went back in for after that.

Selina Smith Pierce: I did as I went on in the store part. I didn't go back out where the fire was coming through but the before I got out, you know, you really don't realize what you're doing. You were just about crazy. And I was trying to get the cash register out because I hadn't taken the money out of it that night.

Selina Smith Pierce: And I was trying to get that out. And there were no lights after 11:00. They just they had a light and the man would go to an animal and I was trying to get him out and I was doing it by the light of the fire. And I couldn't see too good until the streamers we had decorated for Halloween.

Selina Smith Pierce: And those streamers caught fire over our head. I hate when this man, Mr. Wade, came in and he carried me out of the bar and we said, You going to burn up in here? But you know, you're fighting for what you can get. I thought maybe I could get some things out. But what I did get out. Burned right across the street.

Laura Schrager: It burned across the street.

Selina Smith Pierce: The fire was hard to see. There were eight buildings burned.

Laura Schrager: How to get across the street.

Selina Smith Pierce: The fire was just so hot, it burned things across the street. I had a trunk. I carried that trunk out and it burned across the street pretty badly. But not bad enough that it burned anything inside. But the the trunk all went to pieces with an anchor. I had some things in my wallet. I did save that money.

Selina Smith Pierce: But. But that was a hell of a big loss.

Laura Schrager: Your husband wasn't there then?

Selina Smith Pierce: No, he was hands poking him. And the man next door. They run the store.

Laura Schrager: Next door, the drug store or the hardware?

Selina Smith Pierce: Hardware. They had come up to Spokane.

Laura Schrager: Were people pretty good to you after the fire? Did they help you? Did they, you know, try to help you?

Selina Smith Pierce: Well.

Laura Schrager: Yeah, you know, put you up and.

Selina Smith Pierce: yes, the doctors, they took me right over to the doctors and I stayed. That's about doctors. And he had lost his of his books and all his office too. So we, we were the everybody around there was pulling in. The other fellow just let them. That's where they took me right over there. This is the way the one that took me to where I go.

Selina Smith Pierce: And this niece, his niece that was with me, we couldn't find her and didn't know where she went and the one next morning. But I knew she was out, so I wasn't too worried. But our father was he was out looking for. But she went with some friends, stay with some friends, and she used to go to school at three.

Selina Smith Pierce: I don't know why. I never did know who took my son over to the doctors, but somebody did. And then they were looking for me.

Unknown Speaker: And I was in there.

Selina Smith Pierce: And I hated to leave. I wanted to stay there and try to get something out, you know, So I could only get them back if only I couldn't see what I was doing. It was too dark. The light of the fire and smoke, you know, there's just about as much smoke as anything else. Things that happened quickly, though.

Laura Schrager: And that was because the it was was the buildings were real barren.

Selina Smith Pierce: Well, the buildings were all frame buildings and so they were they burned quickly. And especially in the hours when the fire started in this lean to this main, this drug is ten lean to to our building. And that's where he had unpacked these dishes. And that's where the fire started right in there. And then, kerosene. We had kerosene barrel right there.

Selina Smith Pierce: And, you know, when you get kerosene, you spell it all over. And I thought I was just saturated with kerosene. You see, that is I went that much faster.

Laura Schrager: But how did you get back started in the grocery business?

Selina Smith Pierce: Well, my husband started up again. He built a little building and went in. And when these people that we were renting out, they put up a brick building for him. So we went back in business. But we were there too long after that when we sold out to another party that had burned out, but they burned out by themselves.

Selina Smith Pierce: It was a butcher shop and they had pretty sharp caught fire and burned, but they left quite a hot fire that night. When they went out, they said pretty sure got from the fire, from the stove. They all heated by stoves, you know.

Laura Schrager: And so you sold out to a butcher shop or no, did you run the grocery store?

Selina Smith Pierce: We just from the grocery store, yeah. But you both you're buying before we did. And then she was his wife. He died soon after, and then he bought us out and started up in our store after when we we sold out to Mrs. Bennett for that.

Laura Schrager: Was that second store that you ran? Was that any different than the first one?

Selina Smith Pierce: Well, of course, it was a brick building and you felt more safe in it, Of course, But we didn't go in on as big scale as we were before.

Laura Schrager: really?

Selina Smith Pierce: we did. we didn't have the money to do it. No, but we took a awful beating. My folks helped to sell everything they wanted to come back. They'd leave, and that's where I wanted to go, but he didn't want to. So we come up here and goes, you know, So we moved up here, and I've like, good hands.

Selina Smith Pierce: Okay. All right. I should have been, like, down there. They were nice people and very nice people.

Laura Schrager: What did you do in the store? What was your what worked? Would you help keep the books there?

Selina Smith Pierce: Yeah, I kept all the money. Went into the creamery. He kept that. But then we had sold them to Mrs. Bennett. When we got that creamery.

Unknown Speaker: I, I,

Laura Schrager: Did you do any of the, you know, the buying for.

Selina Smith Pierce: No, I didn't do any of the buying. He did all that. I wouldn't have bought One of the things he bought like one. Well I wouldn't have put in any. Yeah. I wouldn't put in a line of shoes. You know, that takes an awful lot of money to put my shoes in. Now, we sold one pair of shoes out of that whole bunch from me buying that no insurance on them, virtually.

Selina Smith Pierce: We only had $1,000 insurance on the whole thing. So you know how far that would go and then into your heart. You don't get it all.

Laura Schrager: When he you weren't able to get all all of them?

Selina Smith Pierce: No. The insurance company, no insurance, I don't think will pay the full amount. I always have to take a spoonful out. You know, after that and I don't know how it is today. I hope I never experience another fire. I even wake up and think I smell smoke. I get up, go through this house, like.

Laura Schrager: Were there social club third groups that you were? yes.

Selina Smith Pierce: Yeah, Yes. We had a lady's age and the church were.

Laura Schrager: What did the church and church do?

Selina Smith Pierce: Well, we had them. this is a methodist church that I we belong to. And it was a nice church and real nice period that is now we have this Salvation Army, and we got a building right now with the church. Used to be that has a real nice church. That's where we used to. Until now I must be belongs to the ED things and I'm a methodist.

Selina Smith Pierce: therefore we don't. He goes to his church to anything, but he hasn't been able to like.

Laura Schrager: Did the women, did the women do anything who belong to the church, you know, in terms of, you know, projects that they had.

Selina Smith Pierce: yes. We didn't love, we didn't make, well, some different things. And a lady in Lady said we did things. We had to make them ministers salary.

Laura Schrager: You had a minister that was there.

Selina Smith Pierce: Yes, he was permanent there. It was a we had a there was a church, an apartment for the minister. I guess they have a here right.

Laura Schrager: Now. I'm not sure whether they still have an income. The church.

Selina Smith Pierce: Yeah, I know the church there because I don't do it every year. Okay. The church that's up on its own, right across from where we used to live, we lived in that big It used to be a big yellow house. I don't know what it is now. There's an awful big house we bought that lived in my. Yeah.

Laura Schrager: Did you, did the minister, was he, Was it the same one all the years or.

Selina Smith Pierce: No. No. They will be going. Come, you know.

Laura Schrager: Were they single men often or. No.

Selina Smith Pierce: It was all married.

Unknown Speaker: All go. Yeah.

Selina Smith Pierce: I went to they were, they have a nice high school and they got a nice I guess now in dear high school, in grade school and there's two church these two churches. Yeah. It used to be three. They used to be one up over on the north side. And this one, the church where we went to was right across the street where we moved.

Laura Schrager: And, after the fire, did most of the businesses reopen were they.

Selina Smith Pierce: Only are say, they, they all but the doctor doctor left town so we didn't have a doctor too. And I think all of us did know there was a pool hall. It didn't open and there might have been several.

Laura Schrager: Or so there was one was a grocery store after the fire was in there.

Selina Smith Pierce: That didn't burn. There was one grocery store didn't burn out with all of above us. It was on the next block above us. But that whole block, when the fire burned, it took that whole block on that side, on the west side, but it didn't burn the buildings down on the other side. No.

Selina Smith Pierce: In fact, there wasn't any buildings right across from where we lived. It was and they did not begin. And that's where we built the house. Then we built the store. And then after we didn't use it, then the new store. Then we moved this one store over, made a home for us. So. So that's where we were until we bought the big house up on the hill.

Selina Smith Pierce: Then I took teachers, we sold out and I took teachers to board and I bought them for $30 a month.

Laura Schrager: Room and.

Selina Smith Pierce: Board room. But I had a full house and that was an awful big house. Well, there's another lady that took them and then I she took boarders also. But she restricted to her boarders, so. And they didn't like to stay that way or want to come down, say something that I here.

Laura Schrager: Remember any of the teachers that you that you boarded.

Selina Smith Pierce: yes, I was first. She's married now. Miss Dow and Patty Cox, and she's married to I didn't know her name.

Unknown Speaker: And everybody.

Selina Smith Pierce: The first one I took was because it was Maine. I wanted Maine Gravitate Maine Women. One. I think that easier. Please tell you don't have a shop for men. You do women.

Laura Schrager: I mean they don't mind the the meals are simple and yeah in the rooms simple.

Selina Smith Pierce: But I had awfully nice girls. more. Let's see, I had one called was Inga medicine.

Laura Schrager: And were most of these women and the men, were they fairly young?

Selina Smith Pierce: Yes. one may now have one married now on the salary. They could, they couldn't get married. So was. Or there was a lot of them. I can't think of the names I bought teachers. I think about three years. Then I bought the telephone men that came in to change the lines during the summer. After the teachers left, I had them.

Selina Smith Pierce: I had 12 men I brought in and I had breakfast at 6:00 in the morning, but they left on Friday afternoons and then come back on Monday noon. So that would give me a little time to do what I wanted to do.

Laura Schrager: What did they do?

Selina Smith Pierce: Those telephone they put in the telephone line, they they put down on the ground. Just in fact. And my my husband's sister was a telephone operator there, and she's the one she sent them to me now. I absolutely told them I wouldn't take them. So they went to see this. I sent to this other woman that took the schoolteachers and she was it has be was a name.

Selina Smith Pierce: She was Melissa's wife. And I'd go, I don't work there because I just didn't want anybody. I wanted to do a lot of canning, you know, and get ready for peaches in the fall. And they came back and I said, no, they didn't want to stay with her. She wanted to do one too much. And they kept raising that price me till I broke down.

Selina Smith Pierce: So I made more on those telephone men. And I did all the teachers all year and they were a lot easier to please. But I used to make six pies every morning in my life, you know, make six pies. I would drove me home. That's why I'm an old, broken down woman now.

Laura Schrager: And that's why you're in such good shape now and say.

Unknown Speaker: Well, I'm good.

Laura Schrager: We have people a lot younger than you or don't get around nearly so well.

Selina Smith Pierce: I don't know. I don't give them any more.

Laura Schrager: Yeah.

Selina Smith Pierce: I could have an operation on my.

Unknown Speaker: Knee, you know, Think I knew who.

Selina Smith Pierce: I would have had that before.

Laura Schrager: But some of the other businesses that were on Main Street when you were there and what they sold and you know.

Selina Smith Pierce: Well, Sam Anderson, he had a store. He had about the same as we did. And it was Mr. Gorey. Now, both of these and then and Mr. Gorey, he had the drugstore.

Laura Schrager: And what kind of things would he sell?

Selina Smith Pierce: And then we saw all kinds of drugs. Yeah, most anything and drug and also we put in a line of little fancy dishes and little things like that, you know, no.

Laura Schrager: Little.

Selina Smith Pierce: Gifts. Yeah. And then there was the bank on the corner that in doing that was brick. And then the next place, I guess, was it was an open a lot and it was groceries. And now Anderson's didn't and Sam Anderson didn't doing what we did because he was across over across the street from the bank and the bank being brick it they couldn't catch it couldn't catch five but there was a building and some of them now there was a hall and it was ice cream confectioneries for a woman.

Selina Smith Pierce: And she's one come coal dust. And then and that was the I see everything going on. Then there was there.

Laura Schrager: Was a hardware store, you know.

Selina Smith Pierce: There was a well Mr. Curtis had the hardware store next to us and then there was.

Laura Schrager: The yeah, there was a.

Selina Smith Pierce: Division of the store that burned on the corner, was born as his name, and that he burned out completely everything.

Laura Schrager: What did he.

Selina Smith Pierce: So he, he had a grocery store and open everything. Kind of like we did too.

Laura Schrager: My was there.

Selina Smith Pierce: It was a buildings at Boyne but I can't remember just what they was cause I know there was a pool out that we know about. And I would I didn't pay much attention to the other buildings because across the street there was a sort of a hotel and a but then none of them burned on the other side of the street.

Laura Schrager: I thought you said the hotel did because your trunk was in there.

Selina Smith Pierce: No, that was an old place.

Laura Schrager: it was in your in your place, but it didn't burn to the.

Selina Smith Pierce: Yeah. I carried it across the street but it caught fire. It didn't burn the contents inside but it might to outside the trunk. But I don't know what anything about it, but it was things in there that didn't amount to anything. I saved things. And then the map, the thing and the things that did all my silverware and I had $300 put my my son's and my folks had sent it in his presence and I put it in the suitcase and put it under a bag.

Selina Smith Pierce: And I said, if ever this place catches fire, take that. So case out because I had all my silverware in and things that I wasn't using, they in the back was stored in some glass and things. I never thought of that. After the fire burned, everything was too. I never once thought of myself. If I had taken that and got out, I've had something.

Laura Schrager: And that's what they say about fire.

Selina Smith Pierce: Yeah, you just go crazy doing what you're doing. It's hard to even remember what you did do No water in the town. We got our water from the town pump. We all carried a bucket of water and we wonder why we went and got it. So that was another thing I like.

Laura Schrager: We like to carry the water. No.

Selina Smith Pierce: I know. I haven't been.

Laura Schrager: Do they have sewers?

Selina Smith Pierce: No, No, they have No, but they didn't. They had no outside. Which everything was real work.

Laura Schrager: But did those same men go back into business after the fire, Mr. Curtis. No.

Selina Smith Pierce: Well, Mr. Curtis. And then. But he sold out right soon after it came through. Let's see who bought him out. I believe George Lawrence. Somebody bought him out. He, too, has also died. Same. And that kind of died, too. Yeah. And Mrs. DeVaughn, she's the one that had the confectionary store and ice cream and candy. And she also sold me over some, you know, like, no, nothing elaborate, but you could get something there.

Selina Smith Pierce: Sandwiches and things like that.

Unknown Speaker: yeah. Well, and.

Selina Smith Pierce: Mostly work, but I just stop and think of it. But they're all gone. Mrs. Devine. I hope that was passed away. She lost her mind and her husband went out. Or he went out hunting and he was going under fence with his gun loaded and his gun went off killing. And then she lost her mind. After that, she had two children.

Selina Smith Pierce: One of them. I don't know what one lives here yet, but, one was killed in the war. The one that paddled around with my son all the time. He was to our house. But she was home. But that fire was so frightening. It really. It. I tried to forget it.

Laura Schrager: Do you think that that far had a big effect on Dearie? On, you know, after the fire were. Were things so quite different? Yeah. Yes, that's I've heard that from someone. But how, how did things change?

Selina Smith Pierce: Well, you see somebody lost the buildings, they lost the there things that they had. And you know, it takes a lot of money to start up again. And there were some that just couldn't. But there's this store now that, they built for Albert. He, she, we were renting a building in them. These worked on brothers. They built them, they built a brick building for us after it.

Selina Smith Pierce: And, of course we went back in business, but a misses the point in the then and then, then there's now, I think still and very there's some empty lots where they burned in there. I don't know. I'm going to be a visual on here, but all of the post office was in the, was in the drugstore.

Unknown Speaker: And I tried to.

Laura Schrager: So you'd agree that after the fire that, you know, the dear and, you know, as a town wasn't able to recover.

Selina Smith Pierce: No, I don't think it ever did come back like it was. I really don't. They may now, I don't know because I haven't been there for quite a while. I think there's a lot more buildings have been built down on the main street, goes to town. It isn't called me. I guess my view of Main Street, I don't know.

Selina Smith Pierce: It, across the street toward Main, they were just street. I guess they did have streets too, because they were where we bought that big house up on the hill. near the school was right close to the school, and that was either house, so we didn't have a street, but nobody went by their street numbers or anything.

Laura Schrager: I remember the last time you said something about how that that store that you opened on Main Street, the. The banker. Yeah. And.

Selina Smith Pierce: Well, he didn't. It didn't. He started to build it, but yeah, and he made him stop it didn't get finished building it. Yeah. So then I, I don't know what he did is he said there's not supposed to be a store on that street but there are and there was at that time there was a service station there and I'd go right in the service station.

Laura Schrager: And you been afraid of a fire?

Selina Smith Pierce: Starting at my.

Laura Schrager: I had you.

Selina Smith Pierce: no, I didn't. yes I did too because I when we first moved in there, that was my first thought that we were moving in the back of that building and there was just this one door to get out. And, there's now, there was a, a little hallway that we had to go out, go into the store through that way.

Selina Smith Pierce: And there was a window there and we ran out to try to put the fire out. My, his niece was with me and we went out this honorable to sleep and I left in my sleep. But I had broken that window and it had awakened him and he was just screaming bloody murder when we got in and the fire was coming right through there that way so we couldn't get out of the door and get into this door.

Selina Smith Pierce: That's right. And we had mailed up another door on the other side. So because we didn't want anybody coming into our quarters that way is where we lived. But we took I took a chair and I chair one a million pieces before the door window, but I broke the door down. I got it down and we get out that way.

Selina Smith Pierce: That's the only way we got into the store part because there's the back with caught fire first to the back and our storeroom all was blaze when we came back in and we just did give in. And that was all within 10 minutes later we never could get into my baby. I, he would just point out where I would have been something.

Selina Smith Pierce: So I've been terribly afraid of fire. I was saying, if I smell smoke, I get up and go through this whole house. I go downstairs, even any time of the night, I just go down to the furnace. All right?

Unknown Speaker: Everything's all right. And I can't get over that.

Selina Smith Pierce: Fear of fire.

Laura Schrager: Are there any other things that you remember from dairy? You know, things that happened? you know, events in the town or what? Events in the town?

Selina Smith Pierce: they used to have a strawberry festival where every year.

Laura Schrager: And, what was it, a a parade?

Selina Smith Pierce: Yeah, man. Well, I had a big town, but that was after we left. That was my. Well, when I lived, they started there. I guess they kept them to about two years ago now. But they also had a strawberry range. We raised some of the nicest strawberry you ever saw, and that was out on Texas Ridge. I guess you know where it was.

Selina Smith Pierce: That's where we live.

Laura Schrager: First, where could you sell the straw moves.

Selina Smith Pierce: Or he took them to Moscow. Not much trouble. So now people are very anxious to employ them. So strawberries, I never forget one of them. I was happy. beautiful berries. I'd like to get a hold of them now, but they can't raise them. And now they say there's something in the ground.

Unknown Speaker: That they can't very well.

Laura Schrager: Did they have 4th of July celebrations from.

Selina Smith Pierce: When they used to before we came? They I don't know where they didn't live here. They just had big times. I guess that was before my husband was in the service. Well, dear, it was a nice little town. It was nice people, very nice people.

Laura Schrager: Friendly in were most of the people that lived in town, were they just the people who were connected with the business was.

Selina Smith Pierce: No, not a lot of people in town. They worked in the woods. You see, the men would get in the woods, they'd go be gone all week on weekends.

Unknown Speaker: So I had a lot of.

Selina Smith Pierce: I think a lot of them doing that. Yeah.

Laura Schrager: And most of them can come home every night though now.

Selina Smith Pierce: Well they could I guess now They didn't used to, they didn't have the cars they have now.

Laura Schrager: Would you go on to Moscow much from dearie.

Selina Smith Pierce: yeah. We bank and to Moscow most of the time. that's what we're going to try and we did most of all we were the banks there too. We've bank there and in Moscow, we as we went in Moscow, quite a lot more. Do you go to a nice little town like Moscow?

Laura Schrager: Where did you get most of your groceries from.

Selina Smith Pierce: You mean? Well, you know, men came through and took orders from all the stores and they were shipped from Spokane and into Deering. They'd come by free.

Laura Schrager: Would you get a shipload every week or so?

Selina Smith Pierce: yeah. Do you know they would come along? So not every day you'd get some groceries or some things, you know, we were the toy store put in and the produce there, they didn't. Nobody cared. So we got quite a big trade on produce.

Laura Schrager: What were you able to sell on the way of produce. So what were you able to sell? What could you store?

Selina Smith Pierce: Well, we took everything in the line of, you know, one of the, like tomatoes early in the season and, and radishes and stuff like that. We always got.

Laura Schrager: Would you buy from the local farmer? You mean you got them?

Selina Smith Pierce: No, they would come from. We'd have them produce houses. Course they came down, took orders.

Unknown Speaker: Shipped to me and how.

Laura Schrager: Would you run? Did you have meat?

Selina Smith Pierce: No, we didn't have meat. There was a butcher shop up above. But that's the one. Didn't burn on the other side of the cross. From the street up above us.

Laura Schrager: Did you have any smoked meat type stuff?

Selina Smith Pierce: yes. We used to handle smoked.

Laura Schrager: Did you have Cheez-Its? Yeah.

Selina Smith Pierce: Yeah. cheese. You know, we cut it down. People come in, tell you about what size cheese. You go.

Laura Schrager: Did you deliver?

Selina Smith Pierce: we started it, but we quit because it was too much. We did to some people, like elderly people that couldn't get into the store, and they'd call them out, but we'd take an order out to.

Laura Schrager: The other things. Did you have, Did you have credit? Did you ever.

Selina Smith Pierce: yes. That's what kills a person is they credit. Yeah, It was an awful lot of people. And we burned out. The bills were paid. They were some people very honest and brought in their slips. What? They had some paid.

Laura Schrager: Would you. Did you extend credit to them again if they thought.

Selina Smith Pierce: well we did. Yeah I wouldn't but he would. And his sister worked with us in the store. One girl came in and she. the biggest order. She had the counter just full and she said to priest and so sister in law said, you know too much here now she commenced to put things back on the shelf and I want to go tell her on the back the basis for she never having the thing.

Selina Smith Pierce: Okay. But they were people that never would pay but boy they buy things and I didn't think we could afford to get rid of them.

Laura Schrager: But you never.

Selina Smith Pierce: They would get them for nothing.

Laura Schrager: But you couldn't refuse because you'd get in trouble then.

Selina Smith Pierce: Well, no, you can, you can refuse. If they didn't pay.

Laura Schrager: I mean, your husband would owe you.

Selina Smith Pierce: And he wouldn't turn anybody down. Yeah, I did. My sister and I did this.

Laura Schrager: One other story I remember about Lew Wells, his funeral.

Selina Smith Pierce: The cards lady.

Laura Schrager: Yeah.

Selina Smith Pierce: Yeah.

Laura Schrager: I remember. You said that you went to that funeral.

Selina Smith Pierce: I did? Yeah.

Laura Schrager: And there weren't any other ones.

Selina Smith Pierce: Yes. I got to thinking after that, they.

Laura Schrager: Were all there were.

Selina Smith Pierce: It were a little people too. Yeah. After you left, I thought about that. I thought that they were. They were good. She was like good people. And they were just. They were two colored families, was all. It was there in this Mary. Yeah. She, she belonged to our Lady AME to just like one of us. Pretty good name, but.

Laura Schrager: You know, there were a lot of other, Negro people that showed up for that funeral.

Selina Smith Pierce: Though. Well, they weren't too many people because, there wasn't too many people to go, you know, colored people there, wasn't they were the only colored people in the. That is, there were two families there.

Laura Schrager: What was the other one? King that was related.

Selina Smith Pierce: The one was he was a I don't recall. I never saw her husband. I don't know whether he was dead or what. I don't know what happened. Yeah, but she had two two children, Mary. We talked about her. She was an awful good woman. She and I had more than I could do. I'd go on Mary Hill, go make sure she's passed away.