home, and after they were married one or another would take their father out - he had
to rely on them because he didn’t have a car of his own. Like any fisherman, he savored
the success of a nice catch of bass, or whatever was in season, and he was just as tickled
to come home with a turtle, for his wife’s turtle soup was an epicurean’s delight!
Every so often, Theodore visited his brother, Will, at Solomons Island,
Maryland. He would take two or more of the children along; Mary never went,
because there was always a baby too young to travel. It must have been a rather
arduous but exciting trip for the kids: about 125 miles by train to Baltimore, then
perhaps 70 more miles by boat down the Chesapeake Bay to the point on the southern
Maryland peninsula where the Patuxent River flows into the bay - Solomons. It was
worth it to Pop. It meant salt water fishing and he was in his glory for a few days.
He was a longtime member of the fraternal organizations of Elks and Eagles.
In addition to certain benefits, perhaps insurance, which membership afforded him,
the social outlet was well deserved by this hard-working man. So what if he downed
a few beers on his day off and came home a little tipsy.
Theodore did not make big wages and yet he managed to buy a house and,
with the indispensable help and economies of his wife, to feed and clothe his large
family well. But, generally, large expenditures were not possible. There was never
a car. Central heating never supplanted the coal-burning “frost killer" on the first
floor (the upstairs rooms were frigid in winter). But items that came to be recognized
as necessities were eventually acquired, such as an electric washing machine and
refrigerator, which became affordable when there were three or four children-
boarders adding to the household income. And yet for a long time there was no radio
in the house, even after radios in homes had become quite common - until one of the
girls bought one. When Pop came home from work and discovered it, he spent the
evening experimenting with it and he was soon hooked like the rest of us on certain
popular shows of the day - “Amos and Andy" for one.
Theodore Wallace was not overtly religious but he did fulfill his Catholic
obligations: Mass on Sundays, grace at meals, bedtime prayers on his knees. He often
went with his wife to evening devotions. There was no question of his moral integrity.
He did not have an extensive wardrobe, but in public he was a natty dresser,
especially during summer in his light suit, white shoes and straw hat. In retirement,
he smoked cigars - an improvement, his wife and girls felt, over his railroading days
when he chewed his tobacco. He cussed sometimes when angry, but the only gutter
word I ever heard him use was that irreplaceable word for expressing disgust: “Shit!"
Except for Pop’s almost exclusive attention to the coal fires in winter,
household chores were outside his province. He was not a handy man: I don’t believe
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