MARX, Isaac 2
THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
Oral History Office
SUBJECT: State Capitol, German stonemason
INTERVIEW WITH: Isaac Marx (Tape 1 of 1)
DATE: 2 June 1997
PLACE: 694 Old Manchaca Rd., Austin, Tx 78748
INTERVIEWER: Cheri Wolfe
TAPE I, Side 1
W: ...June 2, 1997. I'm Cheri Wolfe, and I'm at the home of Mr. Isaac Marx. We're in his outside office, outside of Austin. I guess officially at Manchaca. And we're going to be talking about his grandfather, Henry Marx, who was a stonemason - a German stonemason, who worked on the capitol.
Mr. Marx, can you tell me where and when you were born?
M: Where I was born?
W: Uh-huh.
M: I was born up here on Little Barton Creek, between Oak Hill and Bee Caves.
W: Uh-huh.
M: And that's where the whole family was raised.
W: And what year? What year were you born?
M: I was born in '21. In what...Grandpa Marx, he came over here from Germany. He heard about they were going to put, you know, have the state capitol built. And he came over here and was going to build it.
W: Uh-huh. Do you know any...did he come by himself?
M: Him and his wife.MARX, Isaac 2
W: He and his wife. What was her name?
M: And my daddy was born on the ocean. It took them a little while to get over here, so he was born on the ocean. So...
W: What year was that?
M: I have no idea. But it was a long time ago. My daddy'd be a hundred and twenty. He died...he'd be about a hundred and twenty years old now.
W: Well, maybe we can figure out what year he was born. What year did he die?
M: He died in '70. And he was eighty-nine, I believe, when he died.
W: Okay.
M: That was...be how much?
W: Hold on. If he was...if he died in 1970 and he was eighty-nine, that means he was born in 1881, on the ocean.
M: That's what he said. Grandma said that...I don't know.
W: She ought to know, I guess! Huh?
M: Yeah, well. Ma told me that she said that. Said, you know. Grandma couldn't speak no English.
W: Um. She never learned.
M: No.
W: What was her name?
M: Liza.
W: L-i-z-a?
M: Uh-huh, I think. Isaac Marx (Tape 1 of 1) 3
W: Like short for Elizabeth? Or?
M: No, that was it.
W: That was it. That was her name?
M: German name.
W: Uh-huh.
M: And they come over here and he was stonemason, you know - he lived in that limestone all of his life. And he come over here and when they built the capitol, when they supposed to start on the capitol, he done all the - him and some other guys done all the inside. All that inside is limestone. [inaudible]
W: Uh-huh.
M: And he built the house up here on the Barton...on the Little Barton Creek up there, right where I live. And...
W: Okay. Let me, before we move on to his other work... what did he do? Finishing work? Did he do carving? Do you know what he did?
M: Where? In the capitol?
W: Yes.
M: He...I don't know. He just put the inside wall in it. That's what he did.
W: Uh-huh. And he came by himself, just he and his wife, and then his new baby. And did they have...
M: Somebody said he had a uncle come here; he had a brother that came with him, but I don't...I never did...we never did find him. Isaac Marx (Tape 1 of 1) 4
W: Uh. Did they work on the capitol too? Do you know?
M: No, unh-huh.
W: Did they...did you all have other relatives here? In Austin or in Texas? Do you know?
M: No.
W: Now how did they know they were working on...they were building the capitol?
M: He heard it over in Germany.
W: That's amazing, don't you think?
M: Yes, it is. [laughter] And that's how come he to be over here.
W: Uh-huh.
M: And see, they were supposed to land up there at Ellis Island, and they landed in California!
W: They landed in...that's quite a [laughter]...that's a little bit different! How did that happen?
M: Well, they got blowed off course for six months. And they got blowed off course, and that's how come he be born on the ocean I guess. [laughter] I don't know.
W: Do you know what the name of the ship was? Or?
M: No, I don't know.
W: Do you know where they sailed from in Germany?
M: If you've got grandparents that speak nothing but German, you can't get much out of them! Of course, see, he was retired before I even, you know...I knew him the last seven years of his life; he was seventy-seven years old.Isaac Marx (Tape 1 of 1) 5
W: Uh-huh. Do you know where in Germany they lived?
M: No, I don't.
W: Or were from?
M: No. Franklin, I think. Something.
W: Franklin?
M: Somewhere over there.
W: Or Frankfort?
M: Whatever that is over there.
W: So who's your...your grandfather and your great-uncle and then...?
M: Now, he said it was...one time...but didn't have no kids, because he adopted five or six boys, and they're up at Boerne right now, those are.
W: Who didn't have any kids? Henry?
M: My uncle.
W: Oh.
M: My grandpa's brother.
W: Henry's brother.
M: Yeah.
W: What was his name?
M: I don't know what his name was. I done forgotten. But anyway, he adopted some boys and they're up at Boerne. They ...we went up there and tried, but we couldn't figure out nothing. You know, they said they was adopted, so...it didn't match up. [laughter]
W: Well, it's interesting they ended up in...Isaac Marx (Tape 1 of 1) 6
M: See, he'd been dead for years!
W: It's interesting they ended up in Boerne. I mean, is that where they lived?
M: That's where they...that's where those guys that he adopted lives.
W: Is that where he lived too?
M: But he's been dead for, you know, fifty, sixty years. More than that. Longer than that.
W: Uh-huh. And you don't remember his name?
M: Unh-huh.
W: But he didn't work with stone, as far as you know?
M: No, he didn't, no. Just grandpa did.
W: Uh-huh. And he worked with the limestone?
M: Limestone, it was his trade.
W: Did they...did your family, or did he or your family talk about the work that he did on the capitol? I mean, was he proud of it? Or...
M: Yeah, hell, he worked three years, I think, about three years, ...[inaudible]... said that. And of course, now this is just hearsay...I'm not...
W: Well, that's what I'm...
M: He built that old rock house up there where they lived in and went down...he walked down to the creek, down to the creek to the Fisher place - the old Fisher place - it's three miles. He walked down there every day. And catch a guy down there and then he rode with him in a model-T up to Isaac Marx (Tape 1 of 1) 7
M: the capitol to...
W: Oh, to the work site. So, in Oatmanville? What was Oatmanville at that time?
M: What?
W: Oatmanville. In Oak Hills?
M: Oak Hills.
W: Uh-huh.
M: But that's where he lived all his life up there, you know, and all our lives too. We've had it over a hundred...had that property over a hundred years up there.
W: So, he must have been a man of some means if he came over with...and he bought land.
M: He knew what he was going to do! He brought his tools with him.
W: He did?
M: Yeah.
W: Do you have any of them left?
M: No. They're all...it's some of them scattered around, but I don't know where they're at. My brother out in San Angelo has a few pieces of them. And my brother that died, his wife and them destroyed all theirs - all his. So, I wouldn't know where...
W: What kind of stuff did they have? Chisels?
M: Pitching tools and chisels with teeth in them, you know, to make...make it pretty on the rock, make the rock pretty and all that stuff. He was a...he made stone...Isaac Marx (Tape 1 of 1) 8
M: headstones for the Boggy Cemetery over here.
W: Bogget?
M: Boggy - Boggy Cemetery.
W: Boggy - like B-o-
M: Boggy, yeah.
W: B-o-g-?
M: Yeah, it's right over there.
W: E-y? Or?
M: Yeah.
W: Okay. I'm sorry - go ahead.
M: That's what he did for years and years after, you know, after. But I'll tell you where you want to find some of his work - up at Oak Hill. There's an old rock store up there; it's...I guess it's over a hundred years old, and it's intact - I mean exactly like the day he built it, right now.
W: Did he build it by himself?
M: No. Him and another guy.
W: Uh-huh. Was the other guy German too?
M: Yeah, Pattons. I guess they were, I don't know.
W: Oh - P-a-t-t-o-n? I saw that.
M: Yeah.
W: Well, so, okay, they...
M: The Pattons had it built, you know.
W: Yeah, yeah.
M: The other guy, I don't know what he was. Isaac Marx (Tape 1 of 1) 9
W: Uh-huh. Where did they land in California? That's amazing to me. Is that...
M: That's what he said!
W: That they tried to get to Ellis Island and ended up in California - all the way around.
M: That's right - come around.
W: Yeah.
M: Well, it blowed them off course.
W: How did they get to Texas from California? Do you know?
M: With a wagon. Come all the way down in a wagon.
W: Um. And then when they got here, bought some land and he built the house?
M: Yeah. He had several pieces of land. You know, down there on Barton Springs - you know where 290 runs into Barton Springs Road?
W: Uh-huh.
M: You know that hill that's cut down there? They cut all that big hill up and put that filling station and all that stuff back in there.
W: Uh-huh.
M: He owned that whole thing, plumb back to Bluebonnet at one time. [laughter]
W: Wow.
M: But that was long years ago.
W: Uh-huh. And he built the family homestead himself? Isaac Marx (Tape 1 of 1) 10
M: Yep. Everything.
W: So it sounds like he stayed in the stone business all of his life.
M: He was in it all his life. He did. All his life. See, up there at the house, that's limestone; that's the limestone place up there, you know, where you get the limestone. He made them headstones. And he'd make curving stuff to go around them graves.
W: Uh-huh.
M: That's what they...
W: Did he have his own business then?
M: Well, back then they didn't...there wasn't no businesses, you know; they just worked for...they'd get a contract for something, you know, and do it. And then somebody'd hire them to something else, you know, something like that.
W: Uh-huh. So it's not like he had a shop or something.
M: No. No.
W: He went out to the job site and worked?
M: Yeah. But he quarried at his home there. He quarried his rock there at home, you see. And he'd...like he sold three or four headstones, he take them down there and set them up and all that stuff.
W: Uh-huh.
M: And he stayed at the house, you know. But when he was working on the capitol he had to go down that creek, go to Isaac Marx (Tape 1 of 1) 11
M: that guy's house down there, and then went to the capitol and worked.
W: What was the guy's name? Do you have any idea?
M: I have no idea. I heard...I know it, I've heard it, but I don't...I can't.
W: Um. And where? On what creek? On Barton Creek?
M: Yeah, down on Barton Creek. The Fisher place, the old Fisher place is where he lived. Hell, there's a golf course down there now, and it's Lost Creek - that's what it is down there now. That was our place - Lost Creek.
W: Uh-huh.
M: It's in that...[inaudible]...up there.
W: And you're how...you still own, in your family, the home place?
M: No, we sold it, and they bulldozed everything off.
W: Oh, that's too bad.
M: Can't even tell we'd been there.
W: Do you have any pictures of it?
M: There might be some around, I don't know. [laughter]
W: Well, it sounds like he knew the business from beginning to end. If he knew how to quarry...
M: Well he...that was his business over yonder, you know. That's why he come over.
W: And he knew how to do finishing work and, you know, engraving. That kind of...
M: Yeah. Like on them headstones, them roses and stuff, Isaac Marx (Tape 1 of 1) 12
M: you know, like they put on them... Hell, he could put them on there just as - with a chisel.
W: Uh-huh.
M: With a chisel about that wide and...
W: Did your...what was your father's name?
M: Emil. Emil.
W: E-m-i-l?
M: Yep.
W: Did he go into the business too?
M: No.
W: Did any of the Marxes follow in your...?
M: None of them, not any of them.
W: Um. That's interesting.
M: My uncle up there quarried rock. I've worked in that quarry up there, in the later years - that was in 1937 - we started in 1937 and we...I stayed up there about four years. But they kept it 'til, you know, fifteen years or more, twenty years.
W: This is your father's brother?
M: Yeah.
W: What was his name?
M: Otto.
W: Otto?
M: Uh-huh.
W: So he went into the quarrying business?
M: Well, he wasn't...he just quarried 'em, he didn't...he Isaac Marx (Tape 1 of 1) 13
M: just sold them, you know. See, we'd break them old rocks off, take them plugs and cut ‘em and break them and turn them off on the edge and take a hammer, a sledgehammer, and hit them and they'd bust off in slabs about that wide.
W: What about? What is that - four inches wide or so?
M: Yeah about. [Inaudible]...deer on these houses? All these houses? That's the way...[inaudible]
W: Uh-huh. Do you...one thing that's interested me is whether they had machinery then, or if they did most of it by hand.
M: [laughter] Oh, no. You know how they got it upon the ...got the rocks up on the wagon?
W: No.
M: They had to roll them up there with...put the boards out the back and if you couldn't roll it up there, then they'd take the wagon - scotched your wagon and then take a mule and pull the [inaudible]...block and tackle on to it. Take a mule and pull it on up in the wagon. That's how they got them up there.
W: So as far as you know, they didn't have any kind of machinery? No pneumatics...?
M: No, not whatsoever. Nothing. That's right. Not no nothing. He had rocks up on his...on that two-story house up there, and how he got them up there I don't know - that weighed, you know, five hundred pounds.
W: Uh-huh.Isaac Marx (Tape 1 of 1) 14
M: I don't know...nothing.
W: You know, I've read about all the convicts they had out there quarrying...
M: On the hill?
W: Yeah. Did you ever hear anything about that when you were growing up?
M: Well, it's Convict Hill, that's all I... They had a railroad out there, you know, to haul them rocks. See, everything was pulled by wagon, except the train. Wasn't no cars. And they had a powder... When I went to school out there, they had a powder thing underneath that bluff, underneath the Convict Hill there, where they kept their powder - their blasting powder.
W: Oh, like a little cave like?
M: It was a big cave...[inaudible]
W: A big cave. Uh-huh.
M: We'd go in there, just pitch dark, and go in there where miner's go. And see, that's back in '37.
W: Uh-huh. Did...so none of the convicts helped your father with any of the quarrying or?
M: Uh-huh. See, I don't know how they worked - the state did it, you know - quarried the rocks and they hauled it to town on the train. Then grandpa got...they brought them to the capitol, then grandpa and them took it from there. They put them in the building.
W: Uh-huh. You know, I bet a lot of those convicts, IIsaac Marx (Tape 1 of 1) 15
CW: mean, they learned some good skills, in knowing how to quarry...
M: I'll bet you're wondering how they got that damn thing up on top?
W: Oh, the Goddess of Liberty?
M: Yeah.
W: Do you know?
M: No. [laughter] But they really...you know how they got it up there?
W: Unh-huh.
M: They took it up with them.
W: What do you mea, they took it up with them?
M: On the scaffolds. They had two lumberyards of lumber there on that capitol where they scaffolded it.
W: Uh-huh.
M: After they passed them lower stories, you know, was it two stories there on the bottom? or one? Then they...
W: I know there's a basement and then a ground...
M: Floor.
W: Ground level - is that what you mean?
M: Then when they got up on the dome, see, they put the scaffold on there, all the 'way around - inside and outside. W: Uh-huh.
M: Yep. That's how they got it.
W: I wonder if that was a good paying job? Any idea?
M: He made pretty good money, I think. It wasn't thatIsaac Marx (Tape 1 of 1) 16
M: bad, I don't think.
W: Did he buy the land when he first got here or with wages that he earned?
M: He...probably with the wages he earned down there. See, he bought one, two, three different places, I think he bought. Back in the depression he lost them all. Lost everything. And except the place up there, the old homestead.
W: Uh-huh.
M: People were mean back then! You couldn't leave your stuff out nowheres - somebody'd steal it.
W: In the depression you mean or when?
M: Oh, Lord, yeah, you couldn't turn your back on 'em; they'd get it. Them people on that mountain road over there is mean people! [laughter]
W: Um.
M: Steal...
W: Did your grandfather have other...talk about other people who worked on the capitol?
M: Well, see, that's before my time.
W: Uh-huh. I mean, I wonder if any...there must have been other German workers who came over.
M: Oh, yeah. Yeah. You could call old Marvin Krechmyer [sp.?]; he knew the guy that hauled my grandpaw up to work.
W: Oh, in the model-T?
M: In the model-T, yeah. Isaac Marx (Tape 1 of 1) 17
W: Uh-huh.
M: I think, I'm not sure that he did.
W: Is he here in Manchaca?
M: No, he's up at Oak Hills.
W: Uh-huh. What's his last name?
M: Kreikemeier, Marvin Kreikemeier [sp?]
W: How do you spell that?
M: Hell, I don't know.
W: [laughter] Well...
M: He lives up on 71; you know where the Y is?
W: Uh-huh.
M: About...let me see if I can spot him for you. You know where that little service station is on the other side - right across from the trailer park there? Down from the trailer park, a little bit down from the trailer park there?
W: Um...no. It's been a while since I've been out that way.
M: Well, he lives right in there on the left.
W: Well, if I stopped and asked, somebody'd probably point me in the right direction.
M: Oh, yeah. They could tell you in a minute, 'cause he's been there over fifty years.
W: Uh-huh.
M: Yeah.
W: Did he have people who worked on the capitol?
M: See, he was...he's a German too. And then he couldIsaac Marx (Tape 1 of 1) 18
M: understand all that stuff that these people talked about.
W: Uh-huh.
M: And I couldn't. So, he may know more than I do about that.
W: Did your father speak German?
M: Oh, yeah. When they didn't want us kids to know anything, hell, they'd just speak German.
W: [laughter] And you didn't pick it up?
M: No, I couldn't. You know, I wasn't there enough to do it.
W: Uh-huh.
M: See, we lived about, oh, I guess a half-a-mile, you know, across the creek from Grandpa. And if we'd go to bother him, he'd run us off! [laughter]
W: Well, it sounds like you learned some. Did he teach you directly, your Grandfather Henry? Or did you mainly learn from Otto?
M: What?
W: That quarrying.
M: Oh, there wasn't nothing to it, it's just...
W: Just hard work.
M: Take a brace and bit, bore a hole in the rock, and put plugs and...[inaudible]...
W: Yep.
M: You know what that is? Isaac Marx (Tape 1 of 1) 19
W: Uh-huh.
M: Put it in there and put that plug in there and take a hammer and hit it, and it'd just crack open. You just turn it up and take a hammer and split 'em. That's all we did. And sell them for two dollars a load, [laughter] back in them days.
W: Uh-huh. Into slabs and then that's what people veneered their houses with?
M: We'd have rocks about yea big, you know. We'd break them up...
W: What? That's about how big? Three feet?
M: Oh, from a foot up to three feet big.
W: Uh-huh.
M: Yeah. We'd load them on the truck and take them downtown and throw them in the boxcars. You know, they'd ship them.
W: Really? How did you get orders for them?
M: Oh, they had connections. You know, it ain’t like today. In them days, you could go out there on the road and want a ride. Hell, just go out there on the road and somebody'd pick you up - the first car'd pick you up.
W: Uh-huh.
M: Today you can't do that.
W: Uh-huh. That's how we got our connections. I knew everybody from the city limits of Austin to Dripping Springs - I knew everybody by name.Isaac Marx (Tape 1 of 1) 20
W: Uh-huh.
M: Can't do it now.
W: Uh, did you...you know, if nine hundred people worked on this thing I'm interested in...
M: There's a lot of them.
W: ...where they all went. I mean, what happened to them?
M: They're dead!
W: Well, I know that. But I mean, did they stay in Austin or did they move on? Did you hear any stories of anybody else who worked on the capitol?
M: I imagine there are a lot of them that live right here in Austin. Hell, there's a bunch of them - lots of them. But the granite, the granite, when they put the granite on there, he didn't touch that.
W: Only limestone. Those are different skills I guess.
M: Yep.
W: Working with the two different kinds of rock?
M: Yep. He just put that limestone inside - that wall's about - what? - six feet thick.
W: Are they? I didn't know they were that thick.
M: Yep. Pretty thick. May not be, but they're pretty thick.
W: Uh-huh. You know, I've read that some Italian limestone carvers came over and did some of that finish work. Did you know anything about that or hear anything about it?Isaac Marx (Tape 1 of 1) 21
M: No. But he said...Pa says he never had nothing to do with the granite part. He just worked on the limestone.
W: Uh-huh.
M: Yep.
W: Well, it sounds like he had a pretty good business then. You know, after...
M: He made a living. Made a living.
W: So he built the family house, he built that rock store, had the headstone business...
M: Yeah, he had...you know, he'd done that for a living. You know, like he got an order for 'em and he'd do it. That's how he made his next month's groceries - just like that.
W: Uh-huh. Did any of your other relatives ever come over from Germany? In later years?
M: Didn't have any. Grandpa had a brother and a sister, I believe, in his family.
W: And the brother came with him.
M: The brother...no, the brother didn't come with him - he come later.
W: Oh, he came later. I see.
M: Yeah.
W: Uh-huh. This is the one who didn't have...who had the adopted kids.
M: Had the adopted kids.
W: Oh, I see. I thought he came with him.Isaac Marx (Tape 1 of 1) 22
M: And then they named them Marx, but they wasn't no kin.
W: Uh-huh.
M: That's the way it went.
W: And did you say that your...that Henry's grandfather came too. Did you say three of them came?
M: No. Grandpa and grandma came together. And then the brother come later.
W: Okay.
M: His brother.
W: Yeah.
M: And that's all of them.
W: And you never knew anything about your mother's people?
M: They come from England.
W: From England?
M: Yep.
W: But she married in Germany?
M: Married...no, she married here - they married here - my mother and them did.
W: Oh, oh, okay.
M: See...they married; that's hardly ever rare. It's pretty rare to find a German and a Englishman together like that, but...
W: Uh-huh.
M: That's the way it went.
W: How did they find their way to Texas?
M: Well, [laughter] is this going to go out on...you going Isaac Marx (Tape 1 of 1) 23
M: to play this everywhere, ain't you? [laughter]
W: Well, I'm going to put it in the library, with your permission. But if you don't want anybody to hear it you can...
M: But what I heard, what I heard of it, that my grandpa, my mother's Daddy, got one of these little ole girls pregnant over in England...
W: Oh, and had to leave, uh?
M: They were royalty, you know, and they run him out. So, they come to Texas and bought this big ranch up here - it's Dripping Springs.
W: Um. What were their names?
M: Rutter. Rutter.
W: R-u-t-t-e-r?
M: Yep.
W: Uh-huh. So he brought the girl with him?
M: What girl?
W: The pregnant one. Or did...
M: No, no, no, no.
W: So he married after he got here?
M: Oh, yeah. After he got here.
W: Okay. Okay.
M: He married a...she's supposed to have been a maid they brought from England over here. The Rutter people did. They lived down on Barton Creek over there, and there was a maid, and so grandpa went and met her and married her.Isaac Marx (Tape 1 of 1) 24
W: Uh-huh. And that was your grandparents on your mother's side?
M: That's right. And that's all of them too. No connections with nobody else that I know of.
W: Um. And when did that happen? Roughly. When did he come to this country?
M: It was about over a hundred years ago. But Grandpa Rutter and his daddy and momma come. And it was just the three of them came. But he was born over yonder in England.
W: Uh-huh.
M: But Pa was born on that...he said he was on the ocean. Grandma said they hung diapers out on them guy wires on the ship.
W: [laughter]
M: So I guess he was.
W: That makes sense. I wonder if they missed their home in Germany? Did they ever go back and visit?
M: Never said nothing about it if they did. Didn't say. Well, that's about the time, you know, when all them Germans was immigrating over here. You know, he could go downtown - it wasn't no problem at all to find some more Germans. Hell, New Braunfels, right here, is full of them. And Fredericksburg, up there, is full of them. So, it wasn't no problem for him to talk. So that's probably why he never did talk much English - mostly German.
W: Well, actually I hadn't thought about that. I mean,Isaac Marx (Tape 1 of 1) 25
W: here he was, had this...sounds like a good business, but did he speak English at all?
M: Yeah, a little bit.
W: So I guess enough to take orders and stuff.
M: Yeah. And the kids did it too - you know, took it for him, a lot of them. The old man had...he had a hell-of-a good education. But you know, he's thirty-something years older than I am - he was thirty-something years. So, in the later years there'd been kids that, you know, done all the English talking and him...
W: Uh-huh. Do you have any pictures of him - Of Henry – around, that you know of?
M: We don't have any. But Loyce, up there, has got the pictures of them - Grandpa and Grandma.
W: And this is your brother?
M: Was my...but he's dead.
W: Um.
M: She married another guy, but they don't come around anymore. [laughter] But you could...she'd talk to you - I know about it - and show you if you went up there. She lives up there in...well, what's that subdivision up on 290 above Oak Hill there?
W: Um. I don't know.
M: You wouldn't know?
W: Unh-huh.
M: I built a hundred houses in there.Isaac Marx (Tape 1 of 1) 26
W: You stayed in the construction business?
M: Uh? Oh, I was a carpenter all my life.
W: Oh, I didn't know that! Well, we need to talk about that too then - a little bit. Where did you learn to do all that?
M: Just picked it up. Just learned it by the hard way. You know, got me a job, went on from there.
W: What did your father do - Otto do for a living?
M: He worked them ole rocks. That's what they did. But me and Herman, my brother that died, we was in...worked for the same guy - Nelson Pewitt [?] over here in Austin.
W: Uh-huh.
M: And we just had the houses lined up for us. He just kept them lined up, slab after slab.
W: Um.
M: We worked forty-something years for him.
W: How come you didn't go into the rock business?
M: Well, I did for four years. And it's too hard! [laughter]
W: [laughter] Too hard! Well, what's...I mean, it's hard work or it's hard to do or...?
M: Oh, it just kills...kills you to lift all them ole rocks up. They didn't have no machinery, nothing. I've got some cousins - second cousins – in it right now.
W: Really?
M: Yeah. They're up there on the other side of Round Rock Isaac Marx (Tape 1 of 1) 27
M: up there. But they got big ole machines and stuff to dig it with.
W: Uh-huh. Is their last name Marx too?
M: Yep. They're my second cousins.
W: Okay. So that means...how are they related to you?
M: Well, their daddy's name Woodward – [Willard ?] and he's my first cousin.
W: Uh-huh.
M: And they'd be second cousins.
W: Uh...
M: See, Woodward's [first name?] daddy and my daddy is brothers.
W: Okay.
M: And they're still in the business.
W: But you don't have the quarry that Henry had originally?
M: They're all covered up. You could find some up there if you went up there and looked, up in them hills.
W: Uh-huh.
M: Most of them are all filled in and you know, everything, but...
W: Were you ever interested in caving? Since you fooled around a lot with rocks and...
M: No. I got out of that rock and started driving nails and that was it! Forty years.
W: Uh-huh. Isaac Marx (Tape 1 of 1) 28
M: Me and Herman built nearly three thousand houses - framed 'em - we didn't build them, understand me. I built this one, but we'd finish the outside, frame it, finish the outside and then we'd go to another one. And then the sheet-rockers, you know, all the trim men and all that - roofers and all that stuff.
W: Uh-huh.
M: We done a lot of them. One a week. He'd turn one, and my four men and me would turn one, and his four men and him'd turn one - every week just about.
W: That's hard...
M: That's hard work.
W: Hard work too.
M: You're down on that slab and it's a hundred and three degrees - pretty hard.
W: Did your...is your grandfather the only one in the family who carved tombstones?
M: He was the only one in the rocks. Except my uncle up there, and he sold the rock, you know. He had it on his place; he just quarried them and sold them. But he didn't, you know, didn't cut nothing.
W: Uh-huh.
M: Nothing like that.
W: Did he have like a book of patterns that you would look at and choose one? Or how did he make them up? Or did he...Isaac Marx (Tape 1 of 1) 29
M: What - them tombstones?
W: Yeah.
M: You'd have to go over to the cemetery - it's something to see. But...
W: Okay. Well, you said you'd take me up there! Remember?
M: I'll take you up there, if you...my grandpa and grandma's up there at Fiskville [Place? Cemetery?].
W: How far away is that?
M: Uh - 'bout fifteen miles.
W: Uh-huh.
M: It's up there. Sure, I can show you all the rock and everything. I can show you that old rock house you'd went by. You want to go?
W: Yeah!
M: How much time you got?
W: Well, I didn't bring my camera, is the problem here. Let me...
M: I'll let you use my candid. We can ever stop there.
W: Okay. That would be good.
END OF TAPE 1, SIDE 1, ABOUT .. MINUTES.
SIDE 2. - BLANK.