This project is sponsored by Historic Fairfax City Inc. Included are memories from a person's associations with a particular historical period, events and persons within a specific context. We can capture orally what is often not written down in order to capture the memories of long-time residents of Fairfax. An oral history candidate is an articulate representative of a group, an old time who can describe a past way of life. We know in terms of oral history, the best historical evidence is given in the words of people closest to the events. When I was in the sixth grade in the New Automatory School Building, the Ku Klux called Virginia Cavaliers in corporate had occupied the county state old school building next door to the New Environmental School. They published a paper weekly called the Peffa's County Thursday and on Wednesdays, Captain Mirrors by the Man in Charge got their kids from a 67th grade to come over in full papers on Thursdays so they did them the male and that's why I got started. When I was in the 7th grade, near the end of the year, Captain Mewd was flying, got me to feed me the hand press, printing cards and envelopes on the hand press, channel and price hand press. And After I'd done that a while full of papers and run the press for a while several months four five six months he started me into every Wednesday at the school I would come in and he showed me the California job case and I would set up his advertising display lines and the big headlines for the paper the next day on Thursday and I would work from then until later on at night setting up to his head by hand called sticking the tape and that's how I really got started. I graduated 1935 from open high school. And my father-in-law to be suggested that since I knew a little bit about printing I should go to Burton Line of Type School and learn to run a line of type machines, set type on the Type Setter, which I did. I spent nine months at Burton Line of Type School and then I went out and got job as a Type Setter on weekly newspapers. I started out the first job I got was a 15 cents an hour, 44 hours a week, had to work half a day on Saturdays, 15 cents an hour was a dollar a day, and a little bit later on, a little bit later on. I got a job with a lot of times a year for 22,50 cents a week. Big money. Yeah. Well, it was pretty good then. And I drove back and forward from here to Lee's bird, except on the weekends. Anyway, while I was working at the Loud and Times Mirror, another newspaper had started up called Loud News, a weekly newspaper. And there are a lot of types of operators, less than. And so they offered me $ types, operator, less than. And so they offered me $25 a week, and I took the job. After working at a lot of types of school, I bought some printing equipment and put it in the basement. And I was printing little jobs that I had in cars and things like brand, street and then Christmas, like 36, I sold my first job for money to that. That's a church lady's organization, two-color program, Christmas program. And that's when I really camped, starting in the printing business of the commercial venture. And after that I went around, started selling printing, go to the door to door, ask people if I could print for them, I got a lot of print jobs that way. At the same time I was going to the to the Washington Post, slipping up, trying to get extra work. Working up at my first job at Manassees at the journal newspapers, I one of the fellows was flying a club airplanes and he had an accident and that's when I first knew that he was flying and he of airplanes and he had an accident. And that's when I first knew that he was flying and he told me about it. So I went down and thought I'd try to fly myself. So I went down to Washington Hoover Airport and took a trial flight. And I liked it real well. Now tell where Washington Hoover Airport was. That's right at the end of it's right beside Route 1. Columbia Pike ran right through the middle of it. And it's right next to the highway bridge. 14th Street Bridge. 14th Street Bridge right at the end of it. And I would tie the plane down there to the Bible or our French post by the tail. And I walk across Route 1 and get on the bus and ride over to 15th and Pennsylvania Avenue about 11, 15 in the morning to try to get an extra day to work for a nickel. And if I work that the post, if I get off work, I walk across 15 street and get on a bus and for a nickel right back to Washington, who are airport, untie the tail telling my plan and took off, practiced my maneuvers for to get a commercial license. I used to fly over the White House, I fly over the Capitol, look down, can't do that. Things you couldn't do, no. Can't get near it. And then somewhere along the line, World War II came in. I had gotten my instructors ready, commercialization and instructors ready, and I was working for the Hachman Flying Service who had an Army contract to teach flying for the Army. And so that gave me an exemption, draft exemption, but along the back of November, they lost the contract, it ended. They didn't renew it and cut that program out. So I was walking down the street up here by the courthouse one day and I met Mrs. Chapman, excuse me, Mrs. Chapman, who was a chairman of the draft board, and she stopped and talked to me and told me that I was the next young to go. They already taken my brother hard, young, and I'm a leamen young, and I would be the next and pretty soon. Well, I didn't want to get drafted. So while I was working at African flying services, Lieutenant Commander White of the Navy had been buttoned me to join the Navy and give me a commission to get a flight instructor. So after she told me that, I had to head down to his office on 15th Street and signed up for the entrance commission they sent me down to Acropolis, Christie to learn the Navy way. Then they sent me to a Norman Oklahoma, NES Norman Oklahoma, where I stayed for almost two years as a flight instructor. And after the two years, then they transferred me and changed my rating to A5L and sent me to the Naval Air Transport Command as a ferry pilot. Wow. Floyd Bennett Field. In the last two years, I was in the service. I spent freeing fire planes, mostly all kinds of planes to the west coast to put on the baby carriers and take out to the fleet. You had quite an experience. I checked in my logbook one day and I counted 33 different types of naval aircraft that I had checked myself right in and I've been checked out in and flew. But while I was in the Navy I had five dead stick landings. The most memorable one was the last one, which was a TBM, which is a naval torpedo plane totally abandoned. Same thing, President Bush came down in and I was coming from El Paso to Fort Worth and the motor quit on me. I was at 9,000 feet. So I landed it down in the desert about 50 miles west of Wink, Texas, to Berlin, then scratch it. Must have been scary. Yeah, I was pretty scared. Got out alive though. Well, I'd tell you, I wouldn't scare and fly, but after I'd come to a halt in the desert, I was real close to a ravine in front of me and I tried to get up out of the seat and I couldn't make it. That's how I carried along. Oh, too. I don't know how long I sat there, maybe two or three minutes, four minutes before I had enough of strength back in my legs to get out of the cockpit. It's a close call. And put in my radio call to help. And anyway, that was a fourth land. That was the most memorable one because that was the biggest single engine airplane in the world at the time. I wanted to move on from the kind of work you have done and so on to talking about any community activities or events that you remember over the years. In the 1920s, I was maybe seven, eight, nine years old and I can remember that we had a horse and buggy and I can remember that my dad got the Ford automobile And at that time, everything was farmland around here. And there weren't many trees. And I could sit on the front porch of my deads home there and look all the way over past St. Leo's. It was all farm land. I counted 18 dairy farms that we had back then. They were small dairy farms. I remember counting the milk cows in the Wilson fire farm down, they had 32 milk cows that we milked. Quite a few of the people had truck farms and they would raise corn and tomatoes and vegetables and take them into DC to the farmers market up around 6-3, 5th street, and so on. And they, the old kinds of vegetables they would raise and eggs and chickens and pigs, hogs, sown for meat, all small. We had a Charlie line there and it ran from the quarter of the steps up there to Vienna and the Vienna DeFolts Churchmen down to Fifth and Pennsylvania Avenue and DC and the people would get on that and take the stuff to market on the trial line. Talk a little bit about those buildings that you remember and what might be there today, what's replaced some of those. They had the Woodard Hall and of course this corner was the Fairfax Harrow newspaper plan. Then the next building took was what people now call a old feed store. But that's where I went to first and second grade across the corner there. From the courtyard steps was Fairfax Hotel. It had other names before that. I knew that Fairfax Hotel is right at the end of the Charlie line where people would come and spend the night and do the county business. Because it was quite a trip to come and do your county business over the courthouse, you could stay overnight. You know, when I'd be able to hotel, I did all the old fellows from the Civil War time and so forth would sit around and tell stories about everything a lot of stories about them in the Civil War. I remember Dr. Russell in particular used to sit in there and tell stories and and Mr. Zahle he was just as a piece at the time and ran the hotel and he told a lot of stories. I just sat around in the lobby and listened to him. In 1927, we organized the Fairfax Farm to a fire department. Mr. Baby was a president of, and he was also the operator of the Parapasgarara, just 4-8-6. And we stored the fire equipment in one of the bays down in the back under the garage until it burnt down, burnt down in September 30th, 1927. And across from that, let's see, it was Nichols Hardware. And then down on the far corner of Bill and Still There, corner of Maine and Maine in University Drive now, was Mechanics Street and that was the drug store and Dr. Roby It was a drugist the last minute was in there But you know mr. Caron the editor of the framerate car on newspaper Donated a small chunk of land by his office donated a small chunk of land by his office, which we found the far-departing built on one bay firehouse on. Still there. Now, was it still a situation where people you'd get men to volunteer to take a certain period of duty. So if you got a call, how would you know there was a fire? A whistle, siren that blew. Huge siren, it was the phone call from my dad's garage. Fair nice garage. And they were through the switch and turned it on. People would come running. And they would come around. Did you ever volunteer with it? Yeah. I was. Yeah. I've been on volunteer farm and ever since it started. Even though I was under age. What do you feel or some of the secrets of living a long life such as yours? What what made it happen? How did you do that? So I would say just pure Irish luck. OK. We are going to begin with your earliest, actually, your earliest family history here in Fairfax. Yes, I'd like to begin at the beginning. It all started in 1904 when my grandfather, J. W. Pops, senior and grandmother Rebecca moved from Cloverdale, Virginia to Fairfax Circle, or Fairfax period. There was no circle there in those days. But I was born in 1928 at Fairfax Circle in a little bungalow to bedrooms, no basement, unfinished attic, an uncle lived in our attic with us. And even though we had a very small house, we had a very active house. My parents were mentors and mom and dad and everything to all the kids in the neighborhood. We had a lot of kids in the neighborhood and we were allowed to come to our yards and as long as they knew where we were, we were okay and which was a good thing. We were very active. We belonged to waters baptised in the Okten Methodist Church in Okten, Virginia. That was a big part of our life and still is with me today. A really big introduction to Fairfax Circle was in 1931 when my grandad, was in 1931 when my granddad, JW Pops, he gave the land and he was on the commission for the the building of Lehighway which was to bypass the old Lehighway 237. So I was a talk in my dad's arms at the time so that was my first introduction when they had the steam show come in to dig to start the construction. So that was, and it's in that picture is in the Roundtable book, the history book. And all of the roots came in there, oriented Boulevard 50, 29 to 11, 237 all emerged in one place and actually we called it suicide circle. And why was that? Tell me the story about that. Because if you're tooling up one of the highways and didn't realize that you were coming up on a round circle, you hit it crashed. And it crashed. That's right. So my dad, they had lots of accidents at that time. And particularly on Friday and Saturday nights when people were out more than usual. Nothing like the traffic today, of course. But they would come up on this mountain of dirt and crash and he would go down. So my sister and I finally were so upset over this every weekend that we were not allowed to go get out of our beds or go out of the room. So we had to stay put. I can imagine. Our neighbors were Jerome and Marie Gibson and Jerome Gibson is was. He's deceased. They're both deceased of course, but he was a renowned gunsmith and they never had any children so we, they had their nephews, we'd come down from Pennsylvania and we spent a lot of time up there, they had an old nag and old horse and we used to ride the horse down and get stuck through in the middle of the circle like like, you know, the big mound, the dirt or whatever, but it was lots of fun. We were raised with guns and we were- We were- We were- We were- We were- We were- We were- We were- We were- We were- We were- We were- We were- We were- We were- We were- We were- We were- This is sort of a, you have to get your violin, you know, to hear this story. And she tells it once in a while, just for fun. And I won my sister terribly, which is two pieces apart. But anyway, she tells the story that they came out from the newspaper. I guess it had to be an evening star to talk to her and I about being raised on this thing. So who do they pick? They pick me for the photograph, and I was showing how to aim a gun. And when it came out in the paper, I had the wrong eye of. Oh, so they never let me live that. Oh my goodness. And she said, well, that serves you right. She said, you always got to do everything. So we go up the highest point of Picket Road and sled all the way down from where the Makers home place is and not home place, but where they had owned. And that's that old house that's still standing. They all have to take it right. We develop now with a subdivision. Right. They've taken the original house and made up like a clubhouse. But you sletted from there down there all the way down to Fairfax Circle and then we had to walk back and we all sletted a lot also on the country club, on the Navy Country Club. That's been there a long, long time. So we never got recommended. Nobody ever said you can't do it. Was Army Navy Country Club a country club then? It was a country club. And a golf course then. And you sletted on it. Yeah. That's just fantastic. And my sister and I, we were raised with seven male cousins. And six of them lived up the road of peace, as they said, in those days. And they were at our house, practically lived at our house. And through two or three of them, they were caddyed at the golf course. And they were good golfers today. A couple of them should have been pros. That was fun. I went into high school when I was 12 years old and at that point too, I was eligible to join Joe's daughters, which a lot of people do not know what it is. It's a religious organization based on the Masonic affiliation and my dad and my husband later were members of Henry Lodge here in Fairfax. So then after, you know, I had, I went through line there all the way through to up beyond the Queen and that took me three or four years. And then Tom Chapman, who was the clerk for the Circuit Court at the time, him and I more or less got a Bethel started here in Fairfax. And we were the first guardians. And we met in the Old Town Hall. That was the Masonic Lodge. Oh, in Fairfax City. In Fairfax City. Okay. In those days that's where the Masonic lodge was. And how old were you at this time? At that time I was probably I was married when I was 19 so at that period because I'm out of job's daughters when you're 18 so I was married at 19. My husband waited for me to go through line because you could not be married to do that. And Tom and I started the the battle, let's say call it here in Fairfax and we were the first audience. We had a ball in high school. I talked about that. We had tops next to puffs, always to do it like that. At Perfect Circle, Howard Johnson's 28 flavors of ice cream and the best hot goat's ever ate. And a lot of the kids worked at Howard Johnson's, a lot of the high school kids. And so we were allowed to have them at our house, and everybody in Saturday night, our house was four kids after they got off from work. And my parents were so flexible that they let us, many times, roll up the living room rug and we danced and we had our music and our records. So we had a lot of fun. So the development of tops and how our Johnson's came with the with the the creation of Lee Highway that definitely gave it that opening and you were a part of the beginning of all of it. Yes that's right. And tops was like a drive-in. It was a drive-in and we had more, you know, they had the trays on the side of the car. Right. And you're a trace and we had more trays and models always picking up salt and pepper shakers. It was never a big thing with my sister and I because it's too close to home. I mean as far as hanging out there, we were already there. But I still, through this day, have a lot of friends that tell me they hung out there. But the nice part about going to Fairfax High School was that 21 years ago, the jocks, we had boxing and they were state champions in one year and our boxing coach was the, he taught shop, I guess it was, he taught shop and he was a boxing coach and so that's one thing you wouldn't miss, you wouldn't miss a box and match, and you wouldn't miss the football games. And so 21 years ago, the dogs got together and they decided that we should have a reunion. And amazing. The quarters, you know, and you either went to the games. So we went to a polysale in South Carolina, 50 of us. We've done that for 21 years. And this is all we'll be on a cruise. Oh my. Not 120 because a lot of them couldn't go on a cruise. Right. But we've stuck together. I want it. Need to tell you though, we lost our coach this year, the age of 92. And he didn't miss one reunion. Oh, one reunion. Oh, one reunion. That's really wonderful. Even Miss Branson's wedding to be there with us. Oh my goodness. Yeah. He said they know better than to put it on that weekend. And we were married in 1948 and in the open Methodist, the little church, the chapel. We had no sanctuary then. it was the little chapel. This chapel was 100 years old in 1998, which happened to be the 50th anniversary of our marriage. So it just coincides. Very nice. A fashion show, and I got into my wedding dress. So I was very proud of that. Very nice. And we were married 53 years. I lost him in 2001, which was 2.001, which was seven years ago. I'm good Friday, April 13. And we had a very colorful life. I worked after the government thing. and I worked at the title company. I went to work for Rust and Rust and Fairfax, which was one of the prestigious law firms at that time. That was Jack Russ, grandfather, and his father. And where was that located? That was located on 123, Chamberlain's's Road directly across the Old Courthouse. And I loved working there. They were wonderful people and we had a really nice job there. Senator Russ was a very, very colorful person and I had been used to go up to the Shannondor river with him on their place and fish and it was a real nice experience and my husband had a very colorful career and he was, he worked for the Virginia Power Company not today it's the minion power but it was Virginia Power Company then and VEPCO as they called it. And after that he went into the clerk's office, the circuit clerk's office and he became the first court administrator of the circuit court of Fairfax County Circuit Court. Had 13 judges at one point and he was there for 30 years and when he retired from there he took a part time job with the county attorney's office out at the Taj Mahal as they call it the Fairfax County Government Center and keeping their law library and at the same time the chief judge had appointed him as a marriage salient which you some of you know as JPs or justice of the peace and those I see. But then they changed it to marriage so much. So that was very colorful too. We had all weddings here, weddings there, weddings at the courthouse. And he, I think he did about four weddings a day or two before he passed away. Oh my goodness. He's very proud that he worked for Fairfax County for 50 years. Very active, yes. Actually, they made him an honorary member of the Barr Association. And just before he became really ill the last time, they honored him at Buzzwood Compton Club and there is a plaque in the warehouse today and I have one year on my wall. Very well loved. Yes, that sounds like. We had a lot of wonderful memories with the Gar association. I mean, we attended everything and we had a wonderful, wonderful rapport with them. Will you begin by telling me a little bit about how each of you individually decided to become lawyers? What was the path that you took you there? Please look me for the older brother to speak. Mine was pretty easy because my grandfather, our grandfather, I should say, was a lawyer. He practiced in February, County and in Washington, DC. We had two uncles who practiced law with him. Our first step father, Charles Pickett, was a member of the same firm that we're now in. And it just when I was in college and just going on to law school, it was simple. That's the thing to do. I was in the very end of World War II. I did have some GI Bill and I was in the University of Virginia right after the war. I spent three years in, excuse me, in college and then went to law school for my fourth year of college and two more years of law school. And I got out of law school in 1952 and started practicing in the building next door. I was in the service, having been drafted during the Korean War after I finished college. And I was going to have the GI Bill and I didn't know what to do when I was getting out of the service so I decided to go to law school and that's how I ended up in law school and have been practicing law with my brother for 48 years but before that he started practicing in 1952 in this firm. And this firm was the oldest continuous law, is the oldest continuous law firm I think in northern Virginia, having been started in the 1850s. So with this law firm, you have to start with Colonel Moore, whose picture is on the wall over there. And then his son, our Walton Moore, and Mr. Keith and McCannlich and a whole bunch of people, Charlie Pickett, our stepfather, whose pictures also appear. They were in this luffer. And we're old time, all of them lived here in the town of Fefax. And you two were lived in Langley as you were growing up for part of your life, you know, growing up years. I was born in Langley on Techie Run Road. I remember it very well. The day he was born they had a little closet next door to the master bedroom and they put me in there, wouldn't let me, all these people going in and out and in out there wouldn't let me go. I've been having trouble with him ever since. That was, you should have known when they put you in the closet. What trouble was it? I should have. But anyway, we lived on Grandfather's. I was born in a tenant house on Grandfather's farm there in Langley. And it was a self-sufficient farm. He had his own cow, his own pigs, his own chickens, his own sheep, had an apple orchard and grew his own crops by that he had vestibles and wheat to feed the horses with him. And he had one, a handyman that did most of the work there on the place. And he had a place he kept his hands. He had a cellar that was kept cold all the time, just a one for place to grow up in Langley. In 1946 Henry was overseas and father died and he came home, got in emergency, fellow who came home and perhaps you can tell them more about that, brother. Well, I was thinking you were going to tell about our father dying over here in the courthouse right across the street from us. And yes, I came home, got an emergency furlough, came home. I was home, what about a week and a half, I guess. And came in one night at 0130 or something in the morning on Sunday morning. My mother was waiting up and said, you better hurry up and get in bed, because you've got to get up early and go to school. They had called down Charlottesville and talked to the dean of admissions. And on Monday, I started school. So that's how I got started in my college education. And told my dad our father was on the board, his own appeals. And they had a case where the Happy Hill school is in Langley now. They own that house and that was Grandfather's house and Grandfather was dead by that time. And they were having a hearing to have a permit to get a school and father had disqualified himself from the border zone of the hills because it was his property they were having hearing on and he dropped dead right there outside the hearing in 1946. And I have to keep on correcting him if you don't mind first. Well that's the old brother. We expect that. He's been struggling with this all along. I think it's the country day school now. I just didn't have the help. That used to be what it was. Okay. I stand corrected brother. How old was your father when you died? 48 or 49, I think. Oh, OK. So he was young, right? And in 1947, mother married Charlie Pickett. And Charlie Pickett was a well-known lawyer here in Fairfax. And at that time, they bought a house on what was then known as Sherman Road, SCHERMA and N, which the Freelanders had owned before. And we moved to Fairfax in 1947. I was away at Tisple High School to town. but in a way that's where we moved and lived. And I lived there till 1958. Tell a little bit about how the Sherman Road became renamed to the Pickett Street. Tell a little bit about that. Well, Sally Pickett, our stepfather, was a very conservative person and his great, great uncle, I think, had been the picket in Pickett's charge. And Sally Pickett was a dedicated southerner. And he went up to the town council one night and said to him, said, gentlemen, it's a little embarrassing for me to be living on a road called Sherman. I'd appreciate it very much if y'all would change the name. And I believe Ed Pritchard, who was a mayor at the time, said, said, well, do you have a name in mind? And he said, no. And then they said, decided they said, well, how about Picket Road? So that's how the name was changed from Sherman Road to Picket Road. And the next morning, the other people who lived on the road woke up. And the name of their road had been changed without any notice to them and nothing they could do about it. And then in 1958, when I got out of law school, I was an assistant come off the attorney in Fairfax County for a couple years and then I joined the firm which my brother was in at that time and was Charlie Pickett, Jim Keith, my brother Henry and myself in 1958. I think that's 1960 who was was in the head of an eye. I've been practicing in that firm with my brother ever since 1960. And talk a little bit both of you about how the customs related to law practice and relationship between attorneys have changed over these 48 years that you've been practicing together. Well, how about starting a little earlier than that? Good. Because when I started, there were very, very few lawyers. We would have lunch together. The judges only had two. They would come and join us and we'd all sit together down at the corner. Where was that place to eat here in Fairfax? Well for a while we used to go over to what was the name of the school? The old coach in. Yeah, the coach in. That's gone. Oh yeah. Almost everything's gone. And, but we knew everybody and they, it was a very collegial. A lot of just everybody was friends and some of that has disappeared because you don't even know the people and they're not as friendly and not as congenial. In 1960 when I started practicing law here there were 73 lawyers who were members of the Fairfax Ball. I'd say it's over 5,000 today or something like that. And so we knew each other, you know, and you'd try a case with another lawyer and then have lunch the next day together. There was no animosity whatsoever. And we had one page real estate contracts, a formed with one page on it and we all use that same form. We had a minimum fee because of the lawsuit and said you can't fix the price of legal fees, basically, is what it said. When we were all making our overhead by handling real estate settlements, and after that ended up, that was taken away from the lawyers and given the title insurance companies. And so then everything came. You had to charge by the time and that beleblow hours. And you just didn't have the same amount of time to devote to pro bono work that you did when you had this, you made this basic money from hand and settlement, you made a good disagree with what I'm saying then. No, I've never made any money since. Thank you. One of you mentioned that today it seems much more specialized. Talk a little bit about that. You can't do everything the way you used to. You're just talking about real estate. You almost can't, if you don't specialize in real estate, you can't write a contract. And you can't record a deed. So that's just what has happened. You've got to specialize because everything, I can remember when we started, we had a a little code which was about that thick. At one point we bought a, they increased it to the size of it and they put out about ten books with the code in it. We bought a sort of bookshelf that they would fit in. In the next year, they added some more laws and the darn thing wouldn't fit. So, and now you've got about four or five. You'd need four or five of those to hold the code. They keep passing more laws and making it much more complicated. Well, when I started practicing law, the law you did everything, he would do an adoption, he'd do the divorce, he would do the DWI cases, he would do the wills, he would do the probate, he would do the personal injury cases, he would do it all. But you just can't do that anymore because you can't keep up with all the law in all the different fields. You just can't. The law has changed and gotten so specialized now. And we've had some interesting cases over the years. I think the most recent interesting cases we had a case against who originally from India and we ended up a case involved $3,500. And we got a judgment against them for what, 125,000? Something like that. But anyway, we just felt very good about what we accomplished for this couple, for me. Good. So you team up together whenever you can. When we team up together, we're tough to beat. Yeah. That's great. The Mr. Sherwood, when and where were you born? Born in the city of Fairfax on August 21st, 1919. Can you tell me what your earliest memory is? When I was about age three, somewhere along there, I remember a snowstorm, a sister got in the box and went outside and the box and her her sitting down the street and she was sitting all the way down the street to the old railroad station there, the cemetery and traffic. I was about three years old then. That would have been in the early 1920s. Yeah, the snow was the early 20s. They were heavy snowers. Well, my father used to run sawmills all over the county. And he took one of his sawmills over there to Tyson's, with now Tyson's. And he located it next to the toilet ball building. Are you familiar with that? Yeah. And that's okay to sawmills there. And he roomed and bored at my grandmother's place. So he met my mother, by rooming and boarding with her mother. OK. mother's place. So he met my mother by rowing and boarding with her mother. Okay. What do you remember most about the depression, the great depression? Well I can remember the problems my father and mother used to have. They kind of kept it away from as much as possible. In the early 30s though I was sick for quite a while. I had a rheumatic fever and I didn't walk for a year or two. My father carried me everywhere I went. So I remember from a sick bed one and anything else. Obviously, what school in Fairfax too? Where did you go to school? The Fairfax Elementary School, which is now a city sold down to what it is now. The museum? No, the museum is next to it. Okay. The museum was the old school then they built a new school right next to it. Okay. And the first year of that school, school opened with my first year in school. Okay. 1925 I think it was. So it was brand new. It was brand new. Right. I'm going to fast forward a little bit here. What do you remember about December 7, 1941? You want to know where I was and what I was doing? Well, I had been drafted into the Army in May of that year and I had gone through everything in Maryland and then later transferred to Texas. I was with the armored force in Texas and on D7 to 7th I happened to be in the orderly room with a company commander and others discharging boys who had been into for 12 months and we got up telephone call. This lady was on the phone and she was excited and she called up and I happened to answer the phone in the order room and she said, we're at war, we're at war. And I turned around to Captain Bebitt and I said, Captain, your wife's on the phone, she's got us at war already. You better take this call. And that's what I was doing on D77. That's a great story. Were you surprised to hear that we were at war? No, frankly, I wasn't, because several nights before that, I was in a tent wherever I was. I don't remember exactly where it was. Ambassador grew, I think his name was, Ambassador to Japan, had four war in the country in his speech that we would like to be at war. So I really wasn't totally surprised, but that was only a matter of few days. Well you were in the military when the war started. I had been in since from May until December. I was looking forward to getting out of the year too. That didn't happen. What did you do during the war? I was, I was later an ordinance officer with the Eighth Air Force. And what theater were you in? In European theater. And how long were you in Europe? Thirty months. Were you married then? No. Okay, so you came back? No, I made up my mind. I wasn't going to leave any sweetheart at home. So I didn't bother with the women until I got back. Okay, so you came back? How did you meet the future, Mrs. Herwood? Well, during the war my mother used to have rumors and borders and a couple of them were teachers in Fairfax County and they were, when I came home and was hanging around the house doing nothing, one of them called up one night and wanted to talk to another girl that was still living there. And I happened to answer the phone and I said, how about getting me a date? She said, you get me one and I'll get you one. So we worked it out that way. And if I got to sell the girl a date and then Mack Downs, who the cell that I ran around with in those days. And he and I went to fall stretching and met these two girls. And the one girl that already made a date with another boy and she ran out the back door when we got there. And we said, damn, she gonna run out of that guy. So we scared the other boy after that, I think. But then the other girl that was right here doing all this had a roommate named Nan and that was the girl that I met. That's how I met her. Yeah, tell us about any ghost stories you might have heard. Well, the one she's referring to is a story that will follow you as to tell of an old gentleman named Stuart, I think, with his name. And every once in a while, he would assemble in the country store at Chantilly and drink their beer and have an evening of boiling. And then after he got darker a little bit later than the night, they'd ride home on their horses. And this night, this old gentleman was riding home from Santa after he had celebrated a little bit. And he rode down the road and all of us, it was Lord Pendor. Now, Pendor was a little crossroads church that dressed up what is now a fair oak small. May they hear you right there with Lord Pendor? Westdox Road and... Westdox Road in 1550. Right. And Pendor Church was one of the churches on the Methodist charge from Fairfax. In those days a preacher had a charge of so many churches. Anyhow this was riding down, coming back to Pender to his home, and all of a sudden that was out of the side of the road, you know, some girl on a white horse and dressed in white and she was selling home to the road and rode down the road with him. As they got closer to Pender, she all of a sudden disappeared into the woods. And so this old fellow was riding the horse cut, he got out and tied it and hanged it on the bush where she went into the woods and thought he'd come back next day and see where she went. So he did that and he came back and he went back in there and they located these two. The place it was, it was a very exciting, these two generals that were lost in the Battle of Pender, I guess it was. And the graves are still up there. I think they're still there, don't think? Yep, that was the Battle of Chantilly, that's right. Battle of Chantilly was instead of vendor? Well, it was vendor, but it was called a battle. Well, you see another battle of ox hill, is it? That's more like closer into Fairfax. Well, anyhow, those two generals were buried there, and I think you say they're still buried there. Well, there were their markers for them. Yeah, and that's how those boys were found. Apparently there's a story about a car and the sheriff and your brother or something. This was in 1933, and in 1933, as you know, we were under provision. And these people who drove whiskey through here, and it comes through here, and they'd be arrested by the probation officer, probation officer, who happened to be John Millen. And every time he'd stop somebody on the road or something, they'd arrest them for hauling whiskey, and they'd confiscate their automobile. Then the sheriff was later on in a certain time during the month or the year selling these cars at auction off the court has loan. Well, they had this old monotone, a lot of T-4 there, that they had confiscated and the sheriff's curvy was selling it. And it had been wrecked and torn all half of the pieces and one much of anything. And he put it up for a bid and brought the bid ten cents. And the sheriff said, sold to a young man here, there's been ten cents. So he said, now you've got the job of moving this off the courthouse yard. And what run, obviously? He wouldn't do anything. He got somebody to take a record and pull it home from. The court has down to where we lived, put it in their backyard, and so Stacey took the wheel to hold it and had a tire on it, and he sold the tire for a dollar. And then he went out in the woods here in Fowler-Aidius Rod and one of these junk piles and put that on it which meant you could drive it. And then he had to get a wheel somewhere. We used to ride it up and down the streets of Fairfax on the sidewalks. Tencent car. Tencent car. So then in a year or two past and you saw that the George Burn, who was a carman, he used to work for my father, and he made us saw me, saw me all that of it, you know. He got things to run and he put a belt on the rear wheel and run and built to the saw and cut wood for the fireplaces around here and those days. And that's the story of that car. One final question for you and you know why they call it camp Washington? Oh yes. Mr. Stoner came here from somewhere. I don't know exactly where West Virginia is someplace. And he built a, he had that piece of property right there at the intersection of Route 50 and 211 then it's 29 now. A whole couple of acres of land and he built a circle, a little one room cabins with a wash basin in the corner. And a central bathroom for all of them. About six or eight of them there. He named it Camp Washington. That's when the first tourist camps are out here. And he named it Camp Washington the area you got the hotel to name. And what were tourist camps? Tourist camps came along with the automobiles in the late 20s. And the automobiles started retraving around the country and replaced with people spending the night. So like a hotel? Yeah, it substitutes for a hotel or a tourist home. My mother and father and a tourist home for a long long time. That eventually bought Camp Arstin from Stoner and then tore down all the cabins and built several modern homes, two or three bedrooms of homes. And then later on they got torn down and bested company moved in there and two or three others stayed, stayed here for a while in the road and condemned the service station that used to be there. Did your father build the frozen custard sand that used to be there? No, it was on his property, he didn't build it, he just ran it. There was a restaurant, a reference to a restaurant called the Black Lantern Inn. Now the Black Lantern Inn was across the Warrington Pike from where my family chose was. You know, once the whole lady is in there, it was a very nice place. Of course it serves Sunday dinners. And the Warrington pike is the only one. The warranted pike is two eleven, yeah. And 29 of me is the highway. Yeah, one of the warranted pike intersected with the little river turn pike right there. And they later became known as Camp Washington. Right. And that's where is that where borders is now? Borders is right behind where it came, where the black light in the end was. Okay. Well thank you, Mr. Sherwood. All right, I'm enjoying it. I wish I could think of these things I could probably shoot them. You've actually, we've covered quite a bit, actually. You've started about 20 years late. Now your memory is very sharp. Your memory is very sharp. You did a great job. you