THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM
INTERVIEW WITH: Bernardine Rice
INTERVIEWER: Esther MacMillan
DATE: November 29, 1988
PLACE: 401 Presa Street, San Antonio, Texas
M: We did an interview with Bernardine in 1977. At that
time, the thrust was on the Irish; I was working in the
ethnic field at that time. We concentrated on the Irish
because the Tynans were such prominent early Irish settlers
here.
Today, I want a bigger scope; I want to cover a lot
more area in this particular part of town. Let's start out,
Bernardine, by introducing you. You are a Tynan. Tell me,
where you were born and when you were born?
R: I was born in this house in 1907. Mother was Kate Tynan
and my father was Hugh Bernard Rice.
M: Am I remembering that you were at Incarnate Word?
R: No. I was at Ursuline first.
M: You went to Ursuline.
R: Through high school and then to Incarnate Word.
M: And then what did you do?
R: I got my degree there and later Mother took us over to
Austin and we lived there a year.
M: Oh?
. .
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R: So we could ge t our Master's.
M: I didn't know that . What did you major in?
R: History. I wrote SAN ANTONIO DURING THE REPUBLIC. That
was my thesis.
M: It was! Is it published?
R: Yes. Not published. It was published by the university
as a thesis.
M: Have you got copies of it?
R: I have a copy. I'll let you read it.
M: I'd love to. That must have been fun. Then when you
got your Master's degree, what did you do then?
R: I had been teaching.
M: Oh, you had?
R: Yes. I taught the first year after I got the college
credit; I went in to teaching. And I taught for 37 years •
M: You did! Where? In what district?
R: San Antonio District.
M: High school level?
R: No. No. I went in to the first grade; was promoted to
the second; the third; fourth; which I really enjoyed . And
then my young principal said, "Bernardine, will you take
h alf of Dorothy's sixth grade? " And I said, "John. Wait a
minute. I'm not the disciplinarian that Dorothy is."
"Well , you got along with them in the fourth grade ; you can
get along with them in the sixth grade. "
Well, I took t he half, it was fun but it wasn't fun.
M: What do you mean?
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R: I never want another sixth grade.
M: Did you go back to fourth then?
R: Yes. And then I retired.
M: Oh, you did?
R: Yeah. I retired, that, after the 37 years.
M: You were ready?
R: I was ready because I wanted to travel. A friend said,
"Bernardine, you can get more money if you stay in longer."
I said, "I'm not interested. I want to travel and I expect
to do it now."
M: Did you?
R: I did. I went to Australia and New Zealand.
M: Did you?
R: Loved every minute of it. Love to go back.
M: Really? I've heard more people say that.
R: Oh, it is so pretty •.• ! only saw the east coast. I
didn't get in to the rest of the continent . It's~ big!
M: I know it is. Such long spaces. You don't miss teaching
at all?
R: I don't. I'm glad I'm not in it now.
M: When you teach first grade, what level, what kind of
history do you teach?
R: Mostly San Antonio.
M: San Antonio?
R: Yeah. And Texas. I enjoyed the children. We did
things that were a little bit different. They used to laugh
and say, "Never know what Bernardine is going to do. She
RICE 4
R: writes to the President."
enjoyed it.
(Laughter . ) And the children
M: And you shared it with the children?
R: You see, they wrote the letters, and I'd send the best.
And send it out and then we'd get an answer.
M: Did you? That's right down to basics. That's
wonderful.
Well now , you are very knowledgeable about San Antonio;
early history . Now tell me a little bit about the house.
This part of San Antonio is coming to life. Those of us who
care about it are real happy about this. Particularly
because Hemisfair across the road there, is going to be
respectable finally. Part of it is already. The proposed
children's playground has been cleared; that two-story brick
building is down. I got to thinking, in some other country
that would be wasteful but there it is, down, and there is a
nice flat place for the children's playground. So we're
going to have that and I hope it will be nicely landscaped.
Then the other half is going to be restored historic
houses, landscaping, etc. So I want to know about this
house on South Presa Street. The neighborhood.
R: My grandfather was a stone mason, contractor. He had
done the cathedral as we know it. He was the contractor for
it.
When he and grandmother were married in 1969 , January
1869, he was building the cathedral.
M: He was.
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R: He was building it, as we know it. And it had been in
the building for several years before. So then it was
finished. Only one steeple , though. And so then he went
into the contracting business here in town.
M: Now is this Walter Tynan?
R: Walter Tynan.
M: One time when we talked, I remember you said you still
had the specifications that your grandfather had for San
Fernando Cathedral. Do you still have them?
R: They're in the Archives at the Catholic Chancery.
M: Oh, are they? Oh , good. Do you remember anything about
them? Any specifications?
R: No .
M: Now when you say the San Fernando Cathedral as we know
it , what do you mean by that?
R: You see , originally , it faced Military Plaza. Then when
they were rebuilding, they faced it toward Main Plaza. And
that is how we know it. The back part, under the cupola,
the little cupola at the back of the church, that was the
original church. And then it burned and they were
rebuilding it in 1868, 69, along in there. And Grandpa was
the contractor.
M: He was the contractor and the stone mason?
R: Yeah. The stone mason contractor.
M: Was there a man by the name of Walsh?
R: Yes. He and Grandpa were in partnership.
M: They worked together.
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R: The family had never done anything to my knowledge, to
boost their grandpa. And so I thought, well my g randpa is
going to be known.
M: Sure.
R: So ..• the Walsh family, mother and one of the Walsh women
were particular friends. And she had known them always and
I had known one of the grand daughters. But they've never
done anything to push the family name. But he was Grandpa's
partner.
M: I f I remember correctly , he came over from Ireland and
was sent to San Antonio, something about a will or ••• ?
R: My grandfather was the youngest of eight children and my
grandmother ••• all her other children had gone to the States.
So then she got word that her oldest, Denis Tynan , had died.
The widow had sent word to great grandmother that she was
going to keep his money but she wanted the family to have
the estate in Texas.
And so Walter Tynan was the youngest and the only one
she could send to take care of the property. And he was to
come to Texas, get it settled, and come straight back to
Ireland. Well, he found out that wasn't right. The man he
was to contact was Peter Gallagher . He was married to my
great aunt .
M: What was her name?
R: Her name was Lisa Gallagher. And my grandmother , Mrs.
Hugh Rice , was the oldest of the five sisters that had come
over . My grandmother came during the Civil War with the two
boys. She was sent by he r husband because she was the
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R: world's worst rebel. If she had been a man , she would
have been shot at sunrise . (Laughter.) She was such a
rebel. So she came to San Antonio to be with her sisters .
M: Now the sisters were Tynans?
R: Oh no . They were Carolans . No , not Carolan, that was
one of the names •. • I'll have to look that up. And Mrs.
Peter Gallagher was the next in line. And then Mrs ••• ? .•
And then the youngest one was Mrs. Conroy's mother; she was
another Gallagher. Her husband was a nephew of old Peter
Gallagher.
M: Mrs. Conroy's mother was Mrs. Edgar Gallagher.
R: Right.
M: Here it is. Is that the way you say Carolan? There was
something about living on the ranch. O.K. If I'm
remembering correctly Walter Tynan came, sent by his
mother, from Ireland. What town in Ireland did he come
from? Do you remember?
R: Tipperary.
M: Now we ' ve got the family pretty well settled. When you
think back on your years at Incarnate Word, I mean Ursuline
High School, were you a boarding student?
R: Oh no.
M: You were a day student. What was it like?
R: Well, you see, I went in the second grade. I went
through .••
M: You started in the second grade!
R: Oh yes . We had been at St. Mary's in the first grade.
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M: Was that for the gi rls ? I thought only boys went to St.
Mary's.
R: St. Mary's College. But this was ST. Mary's Parochial
School, across from the church.
M: Oh.
R: So we were there in first and high first. Then mother
said no, we were to go to Ursuline because we would be third
generation of family. See, my grandmother had come to be a
nun in the convent here.
M: I remember that.
R: And then when Mother and Aunt Lizzie were grown , they
went to the convent and then~ came . Third generation.
M: That's something, isn't it?
R: Yes.
M: Did you have a regular curriculum?
R: Oh yes .
M: Was the discipline strict?
R: Fairly. We had one t eacher, Sister Paschal , who
was ••• they always said she had eyes in the back of her head.
The old Convent , you see ••. we knew the Convent that burned.
That was our building. And the sisters were in the old
Convent they're us i ng now. We weren ' t allowed to go over
there.
M: I have some lingering memory that that building was
called Angel Hall?
R: Angel Hall was the old, was the building that connected
the Convent and the school.
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M: Didn't it have a lot of arches?
R: Yes. Beautiful arches. That was our playground,
really , when bad weather, was Angel Hall.
And then when it grew and more children came in, they
put it into class rooms.
M: It -d-i-d- g- row.
R: Oh yes. I was in the largest class graduated from
Ursuline. We were eleven!
M: Ha! That was a big amount .
R: We thought it was.
(Laughter.)
M: That's what we look for now in private schools, is small
classes, so you were lucky. I did a lot of work at Ursuline
when the Society was selling it to the Craft Center, and one
of the things that fascinated me was that turn-table thing
in the front where they put the bread out for the poor?
R: Yeah.
M: Remember the story ANTHONY ADVERSE that we read years
and years ago? You remember he was put in one of those
things •.•
R: And turned around.
M: And every time I looked at it, I thought of Anthony
Adverse. And it told how the Sisters put French bread,
loaves of bread, out for the poor. But they were
apparently •••
R: They were cloistered. I can remember going to see
Mother Frances who was a particular friend of my mother's
and we were behind a grille, you know, and mother talked
RICE 10
R: between the curtain and Mother Frances.
M: The discipline was just so so; they weren't terribly
strict with you.
R: No. Not any more so than any school.
M: What was the river like at that time?
R: We never went down to the river.
M: Didn't you?
R: Mother had told us about they had a river boat when she
was there but we never went down.
M: You didn't?
R: Never. I don't ever remember going down to the river.
Of course, when grandmother came, the property was way down
to the Auditorium. They owned all that property down to the
Auditorium then .
M: That's interesting. They did?
R: Oh yes . That was the gardens .
M: But they did front on the river.
R: Oh yes. The way they are nov1. That was all their
property, of course .
M: Was the nun's garden there then, with the little
statue?
R: Yes. The grotto.
M: The grotto. That was there?
R: Oh yes. We knew that and those gardens. And then the
garden in the back where the fig trees were. WE never went
in there because there wasn't any sense. But we did play in
the other garden and at the grotto .
RICE ll
R: The priest 's house, of course, was that one on the west
side. Our chaplain always lived there.
M: That was kind of an interesting place to go to school,
wasn't it?
R: I think so.
M: Then when you graduated, eleven of you graduated, from
high school, then you went on to .••
R: Incarnate Word.
M: And were you there for four years?
R: No. I went only one year and got a certificate to
teach.
M: Oh?
R: And so I went in to the teaching . And then I went to
night school .••
M: Oh you did?
R: Over here to the German-English School was where they
first started Junior College. And so I went over there and
took courses there. Then I went to St. Mary's University,
college, down town. They had classes there; I took some.
M: They let girls in there?
R: Oh yes. Night school.
M: Oh, at night.
R: Also, I took courses up at Texas University. We ' d go up
on Saturday and take classes.
M: You really worked to get your degree.
R: Yeah.
M: Then you wound up with a Master's Degree in history?
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R: Yes.
M: You had a really good education , didn't you?
R: I think so.
M: So that takes care of that. Do you remember anything
special about ••• I'm particularl y interested in Ursuline.
Did you celebrate holidays ; did you have parties; did you
have any interchange with the boys at St. Mary's?
R: No, not specially. I don't think we were too interested
in ••• some of the girls were interested in the boys. I knew
a lot of them because the fami l ies knew each other, but not
to date or anything like that.
Sister Loyola was a wonder at putting on shows.
M: What kind of shows?
R: Well , we put on really good little operettas; things of
that type. I was always the character actor .
M: I can see why. (Laughter .)
R: So one year, I was to be the boy in the cast. I wore a
rain coat and Mother Frances saw to it that the bottom of
that raincoat was pinned with a safety pin (Laughter.) so I
couldn't flop it open.
M: Of course not.
R: Sister Loyola was a wonder putting on shows.
M: It interests me, I taught school for a while, and the
fact that you were able to go t eaching after one year of
high school, isn't that interesting?
R: And one year of college. Well, we had wonderful
supervisors who would come by and help us. And so I
RICE 13
R: learned a lot from Miss Elma Neal; Miss Storm, Ollie
Storm; different ones that were in the department at the
time.
M: I bet with your education, as you pointed out, the kids
got a better education than today.
R: (Laughter.) Wouldn't be surprised. Teachers are bound
down with red tape.
M: I know. It's a situation that certainly needs fixing.
Getting back to this house, now if I'm remembering
correctly, some Tynan owned this piece of land.
R: My grandmother. Grandmother Tynan bought this property
when she was here, you see. She was here from '69 until her
death
M: She's not the one that wanted to be a nun.
R: Yes.
M: How did she happen to have enough business sense to buy
land?
R: (Laughter.) She was a business woman.
M: Oh, was she? And she bought this property.
R: She bought this property. They were living on Water
Street, one of those little houses on Hemisfair. Their
house is not there any more, but the little house right on
the corner of Water ••• there were three little houses along
there ••• She said to Grandpa, "Go build us a house on the
property across the street." She didn't move into it at
first. She had it rented for a year, I think. Then she
said, "Walter, we might as well move over there ourselves."
RICE
R: So they came over here. And it was way out of town.
M: Sure.
14
R: It was dairy property, all that section through here.
There were dairies. And so she moved over there. Grandpa
died in '92.
M: When they were living on Water Street, whose house was
that?
R: That was their house.
M: Is that the house •••
R: No, it's gone .
M: Oh, it is gone. The house we call the Tynan house on
Hemisfair •.•
R: That was my aunt ••• she was a Sweeney. Her name was Kate
Sweeney. She married my uncle, Edward Tynan.
M: That's the only Tynan house that's left?
R: Uh huh. And the other one, the little tiny one , they
used it as the security during Hemisfair, next door.
M: Oh it's still there. The little cottage.
R: The little cottage.
M: It has a little shop in it.
R: Yes.
M: Was that a Tynan?
R: That was my grandmother and grandfather ' s house, and we
always called it the little house.
M: I can see why.
R: Yeah. How they all lived in it, I don ' t know, because
there were three children.
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M: In that l ittle house!
R: Uh huh.
M: From there, they moved over .••
R: Here.
M: This must have seemed like a grand ••• palace.
R: And this house, this was a bedroom (present kitchen).
These were three small bedrooms here. And that hall was a
porch , an open porch. And then my Aunt Lizzie, much later,
put the big sleeping porch on the other side.
M: Isn't there a living room up front?
R: Yeah. I'll show you the whole house.
M: I seem t o remember you have a dining room.
R: Oh yeah. It's right here (next door). We took the two
small bedrooms and made it into a dining room.
M: I see. Well, now is this house limestone?
R: Yes. We always said soft rock.
M: Soft rock.
R: Uh huh. And when we carne back in '46, •.. they went to
Europe the second year they were married. I was on the
way. And so, when they carne back , they had been renting a
house up on Quincey Street. When they carne back, the house
had been sold ••• Aunt Lizzie had gone over and gotten all of
mother's personal things, of course, and brought them back
here. When they carne back there was no house to be rented.
And so Grandma Tynan said, "Take this house . We'll go
down and get an apartment from F. E. Crawford." And so they
went over where Jordan Ford Cornpany,all that property there,
RICE
R: they had their house clear down to the river. So
Grandma and Aunt Lizzie lived over there til Mother and
Daddy built their house on Nolan Street.
M: How long did they live in this house? You were born
here.
R: I was born here and my sister was born here in 1909.
Then we moved to Nolan Street. They began building the
house in 1910.
16
M: 1910. Well, how come ••• what happened to the house after
your family l e ft?
R: Grandma came back here. Grandma and Aunt Lizzie came
back and took over this house.
M: So it stayed in the family, in other words.
R: Yeah.
M: And then when did you get it? You, personally, get it?
R: That was in '46. It had been rented. Let's see,
Grandma died in 1925 and we were living next door.
M: Oh?
R: You see, Aunt Lizzie had built that two story house next
door. That was hers. And then .•• so when Aunt Lizzie died
in '21 and Grandma died in '25, we were living next door.
So then my father died in '31. So Mother said, "Well, we'll
go to Austin and take a year and get your degrees." So we
went over to Austin; were over there for a whole year. And
then when we came back, we went ••. where did we move? The
house on Nolan Street was rented .•• oh, we rented an
apartment, a duplex, out on East Huisache. And we were in
RICE 17
R: that duplex until we went to Europe in '39. Mother and
I went over there, went to Ireland.
M: Did you?
R: We did Ireland, Scotland and England. And then came
home just before the War started. We got home and the house
on Nolan Street was vacant, the people had moved out and
left it in terrible condition. So Mother said, "All right,
if we're going to put so much renovation, we're going to
live in it ourselves." So we went back into the house and
enjoyed it.
And then in '46, they changed the parishes, the
directions, and so Mother said, "Much as I like Monseignor
Schnietzer, I do not want to be in St. Joseph's Parish ••• I
was born in St. Mary'sJ I was married in St. Mary'sJ I
intend to be buried from St. Mary's Parish." And so she
wanted to go out and buy another house.
I said, "Mother, we have Grandma's cottage. Let's do
it over." So that's why we came back here.
M: That's how you happened to come back here ? Your mother
was alive then, when you moved back here?
R: Oh yeah. Mother was here in '46.
M: The war was on then.
R: And I was with u.s.o.
M: Oh, you were?
R: Uh huh. And I used to go in there and I'd say, "I need
volunteers. You, you and you. Come help me paint." vJe
came down and did this house over. We had a contractor to
do the big things. But we did the paint job.
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M: Did you?
R: And one boy said, "Bernardine, I'll do your floors for
you. I did 'em for Mother." And so he splattered them.
M: Yeah, the old fashioned way.
R: And we moved back and have enjoyed it. And Mother was
independent. She could go to town if she wanted to . She
didn't have to wait for me to take her. She died in '62.
H: She had a long time here, then. Sixteen years. Good.
R: Yeah.
M: And you've been alone here since.
R: Yeah.
M: You said someone was corning about security.
R: I have security on the doors, but I don't have security
on the windows. And so John McEachren, my principal that I
enjoy so much, he has motion security, and he said, "I
think that would be good for you, too."
M: The neighborhood ••. ! want you to tell me, sort of loving
arms around it, particularly this part of town. I want to
know all I can know about it. What are the outer boundaries
that we consider this area?
R: St. Mary's Street was Garden Street •.• in '21 we were
living next door and from the roof ••• you see , my Aunt Lizzie
had put a sleeping porch up on the roof; wonderful sleeping
up there ••• we heard all the screaming and yelling at Garden
Street, when the flood hit.
M: Oh, in '21.
R: 1921. Stowers were living over there on Garden Street
RICE 19
R: and the Staffels •••
M: Elmendorf?
R: Elmendorf. I think there were some Elmendorfs in that
section, too. And then the big Hermann Sons Building was
put up on •.. a big hotel , hotels all along t here. They were
family hotels.
M: St. Mary's?
R: St. Mary's .
t1: The flood came that far?
R: Oh yes . We had thi s much on our back fence.
M: What do you mean this much. Tha t much showing?
R: Yeah.
M: That ' s about t hree inches. Two inches.
R: Yeah. On our back fence.
M: Did it get in the house?
R: No. And we had this house rented to a doctor Leach .
And Dr . Leach came over with the baby carriage filled with
all his important papers and hi s wife and little boy came
over to our house next door. Daddy was asleep upstairs in
the bed. And Dr. Leach went up and he said , "MR. RICE , GET
UP, THE FLOOD'S COMIN'. "
(Laughter.) Our house wasn ' t hurt at all.
M: But it did hit on St. Mary's.
R: But it came within half a block on Presa Street. We're
on a little tiny knoll which you don't even notice , but it
was up hal f way in the 300 block and half way in the 400
block.
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M: It was? I have a lot of interviews that deal with that
1921 flood in various places, people. I had no idea it came
this far. The things I have are downtownr downtown
streets.
R: Mother was one of the women in the Woman's Club that did
so much to relieve the hardshipsr heartaches, food and
everything else. I was their chauffeur. So I got into all
those places .
M: You had a car then?
R: Oh yes. We had a car from ••• Daddy had always had a
horse buggy, of course, and then he got a Ford. Mother
learned to drive. When I was eleven years old, he taught me
to drive . And I was his chauffeur. He was an insurance
man, and I took him around, delivering policies.
One day he said , "Toots, I think I'll try driving this
car." And I said , "O.K., Daddy ." So I let him get in
behind the wheel. He was a heavy man and he had a stomach.
And he was right up against the wheel and he grabbed that
wheel so tight that I thought, well, I hope it hangs on. So
he put the clutch in and let it out and then he drove for
about a block and then he pul l ed into a side street and
stopped, and he said, "TAKE THE DAMN THING. IF IT HAD BEEN
A HORSE AND BUGGY , I COULD HAVE TAKEN IT APART AND PUT IT
TOGETHER AGAIN. BUT I'LL NEVER TRY TO DRIVE THIS DAMN THING
AGAIN." ( Laugh t e r • )
We got the car in the early '20' s I thinkr a ' 21 Ford.
And we paid the big sum of under $500.
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M: I can believe it.
R: It was a touring car. We had a very dear friend, Father
Bernard Lee, and he always called me his namesake because my
name was Bernardine. I was named for my Daddy, whose name
was Bernard. And Father Quinn, who was our pastor at St.
Mary's, was visiting Father Lee when they got word that I
was born. So he said to Father Quinn, "With all your
influence with the family, you didn't get the baby named for
~·" (Laughter.) And every time, he'd come he'd be
sitting in the back seat and he'd look over the front and
he'd say, "SURE AND THIS IS MY NAMESAKE DRIVING." He was
the sweetest man.
M: You've got some wonderful memories, haven't you?
R: Yeah.
M: O.K. We were starting to do the boundaries of this
area. So far we've got St. Mary's •.•
R: Presa and Alamo.
M: And Alamo. And when you say Alamo, does that extend
into what we now call Hemisfair?
R: No, I don't think so. Although, Uncle Ed and Aunt
Katie's house was in Hemisfair. It may have gone further
over. And the Wagenfuehr's house was one of those great big
two-story houses in Hemisfair.
M: There are two Halff houses in there. And the Eagar
house on Alamo.
R: We used to walk up there, there was a tin drain beside
the Schultze house and we used to walk up that, against
RICE 22
R: the wall
M: Really?
R: Why we weren't killed is beyond me.
M: Ethel Harris told me about going with her mother to
visit somebody on Water Street and they had to go over a
little bridge, a plank over the water, to get to the
person's house.
R: Grandma used to say that when Aunt Lizzie was given a
new pair of shoes, they were living on Water Street, you
see, and so she said, "Well, Lizzie, put on your old shoes,
honey." "I threw them in the creek."
M: My word! (laughter)
R: She heard Gramdma say she had opened a charge account
at the grocery store near the house.
M: What grocery s tore was that? Waitz?
R: I don't know. No, Waitz was much later. Grandma said
that she got a bill the first of the month and here were al l
these charges. Aunt Lizzie had gone up and said that she
was Mrs. Walter Tynan's daughter and could have the candy.
(laughter) She said, "Well , I had to stop that."
H: We've got the east and west boundaries, what about the
north and the south? How far up did it go? Did it include
La Villita? Do we include Villita?
R: It could have. Now that, I'm not sure . At least to
Nueva.
M: And south, Durango?
R: Durango wasn't there. It was Martinez.
RICE 24
M: What?
R: Mother was the Amusement Inspector in San Antonio.
M: What does that mean?
R: She saw every show in town; every day.
M: You mean movies?
R: Movies. She was with the Business Women's Club -
M: Was that formed then?
R: Oh, yes. They were very active. And my mother was the
one who proposed that we have crepe myrtle as the city
flower. But we never had a crepe myrtle in our yard!
(laughter)
M: If it was such a slum, did you have bad neighbors, did
you have neighborhood trouble in that bad part of town?
R: No. We had, the Foutrells had that little house that
Hemisfair owns now, there on the corne r of Nueva and Presa
M: The Conservation Society owns it now.
R: We used to go up to the grocery sore for Grandma Tynan
and also the Wolfe Bakery was on the corner of Alamo and
Nueva. We used to go there and get bread all the time.
M: Where was the grocery sore?
R: The grocery store was on the corner of Presa and Nueva.
Foutrells had the grocery store.
M: I thought he had a jewelry store. Where did I q e t
that?
R: No.
M: The bakery was down the block.
RICE 23
R: Now they may have gone as far on Presa. Alamo makes a
turn down there and meets Presa.
M: Oh, that's right.
R: So it could have gone that far; that I don't know.
M: That wouldn't take in King William.
R: No. King William was of itself.
M: By itself. O.K. We've got that fixed. In living
around here for so long, have you any memories of La Villita
when it was a mess and then Maury Maverick came along,
cleaned it up? 30s? 40s?
R: 1 39 . They seemed to be doing that in '39, '40.
M: What was that called? It was a work project. WPA.
Remember anything about that?
R: Oh, yeah. We knew a lot of the people that worked with
it. The theater people were in that.
M: What theater people?
R: Well , people that were interested in theater. We knew
a lot of them. Kay Cruse, do you remember that name?
M: No . Somebody died just recently ••• She was active in
the church; puppet s?
R: Bernard.
M: Ruth?
R: Ruth Bernard.
M: I didn't know her. Everything I've heard and read
about La Villita ••• Maury was a friend of FDR and got the
WPA deal. I've read that it was just a real slum.
R: Mother was the Amusement Inspector.
RICE 25
R: On Alamo. It was a two story building.
M: I did a piece of research one time on a little tight
part of La Villita. I can't remember the details now , it
was fascinating because the little places were just a few
varas wide ••• a little home in here and one in there. Some
Mexican-American owned several pieces and kept dividing.
This was just before they were going to take the Joykist
Candy out and re- do. And the company in Houston wanted to
know the history of that small area. How many people lived
in a tiny space!
R: We weren ' t living here but we'd come down town and see
Grandma and Aunt Lucy.
M: There was a grocery store on the corner of Presa and
Nueva, Nueva was there then and Alamo was there then.
Do you remember very much about La Villita, itself? The
house where the Society is now and ••. ?
R: No. I remember when Joykist was there on Nueva.
M: I was here then. I can remember that, too. Well , now
coming on down this way then when your grandmother owned
this property it was way out in the country. Did it
gradually begin to build up?
R: It must have. Then you see we had St. John ' s Lutheran.
We always called it the rooster church because they had
a rooster on top of the steeple.
M: Did they?
R: Uh huh. Somebody stole it. So the hundreth
anniversary they begged for somebody to bring it back but I
RICE 26
R: don't believe they ever did.
M: Like the Indian on the Missouri Pacific Depot.
One of the things that has fascinated me about this
place for a long time, this area, is the Acequia Madre that
came along Arcienega, didn't it?
R: Yeah.
M: Was that doing while you were here?
R: No.
M: It was long gone.
R: Yeah.
M: It was 18th centry , wasn't it?
R: Jane McMillan did a story on the section through here.
M: She did? I must call her and ask her. Did she do it
for the Conservation Society?
R: Yeah.
M: You can't tell me anything about the Acequia? Do you
remember the Adler house on the corner of Alamo?
R: Oh, sure. Oh, yes. I was weighed on Mr ••••
M: Adler?
R: No, Adler was the son-in-law.
M: Hahn.
R: Hahn. They're all gone. I have an interview with
Tillye Han Adler. She had a marvelous memory for all the
people around here.
END OF TAPE I, SIDE 1, ABOUT 45 MINUTES.
SIDE 2.
M: This is Tillye Hahn Adler talking: She was asked, "Do
RICE 27
M: you recall some of your neighbors in those days on
South Alamo and Arcienaga?" And she goes through ••• she
mentions the Eagar Family and that house is still standing.
R: I hope they're going to keep it.
M: They are. They have promised to keep 13 or 14 •• I
don't remember what that house is that abuts on to the
children's playground.
R: That's Mrs. Goodman; the Goodman's house.
M: Way back, whose house was it? That wasn't the Sartor
house?
R: No. Mrs. Goodman owned Hertzberg's; she was married to
Hertzberg, no not Goodman.
M: That doesn't sound right.
R: No. Pereida.
M: That's right.
R: She was a Pereida and she went to work for Hertzberg.
And Max Goodman was Mrs. Hertzberg's son brother. They were
married. She was a Catholic and he was a Jew. And the
family were "whooooo!'' But it didn't make any difference.
They had a very happy life. Had two beautiful girls.
M: She (Adler) is talking about "old gentlemen Sartor had
a jewelry store ••• " etc. etc. then she says "The Hugh Rice,
mother and wife was a Tynan. Home burnt and the family
moved to the Tynan home on the corner of Arcienega and Presa
which is still standing and Bernardine Rice is still living
at that address."
R: Of all things!
RICE 28
M: She mentions that in her interview.
R: I hope they have Bernardine spelled right.
M: They did. I can remember when they were getting ready
to put the hotel in, I had done some work on the Elmendorf
house and I wrote a letter to Martha Buchanan and told her
there was a very interesting history there and sent her all
the material. She never responded but I got interested at
the time. If you will remember (I wandered over there) and
it was kind of a wild place, all kinds of flowers growing
wild still left from her garden. I snitched some of them
for my garden before they were destroyed.
R: Didn't you know Stella Elmendorf?
M: No.
R: Oh, you should have known her. She was quite a
character.
M: He re was this place, they were going to clear it for
the hotel, I swiped some of the plants, took 'em out to my
garden.
That Elmendorf house, thank goodness, they saved that.
Now do you remember anything about the Beethoven Hall?
R: Just that Mother sang with a choral group here in San
Antonio. But she said that Beethoven Hall had the best
acoustics in the city.
M: I've heard that. Old timers that have always lived
here, have always mourned that when they widened Alamo, they
took the front off Beethoven Hall. Do you remember how it
looked before they took it off? I don't know when that was.
RICE 29
M: So many people have said they just ruined it~ that the
facade was wonderful
R: It had steps that went up and had a roof like this over
it -
M: Peaked roof. Right from the street?
R: Right from the side walk. They just closed that off
entirely.
M: As I understand it, they just sliced off a part of that
building.
R: They could have~ I don't know.
M: Somebody said the facade was so pretty and they took
the facade off.
Do you remember going to plays, shows, anything,
there?
R: Oh, yes. And that is where we had The St. Patrick's
Day Festival every year.
M: What was that?
R: Oh, we always had Mr . O' Shaughnesy and his boys would
dance and Margaret Finto and my sister would dance ••• She ' s
now Mrs. James Hickey.
M: What about music?
R: They had an orchestra I suppose , of some sort.
M: Did any shows come through here and ••• or were they at
the Opera House?
R: They were at the Opera House.
M: This was more local things?
R: Yeah.
RICE 30
M: Was it a very popular place at that time?
R: Yes. The Germans used it, the Beethoven Hall. Then the
Irish would rent it and have their affairs. And then these
choral groups; mother was in one of them. She was
practicing a rehearsal, in our Nolan Street house, our house
faced north and she was in the parlor which was on the
west-north side and when they had that ••• the railroad blew
up -
M: I've got that on tape; Mr. Kight.
R: Oh, yeah, John Kight. He is an interesting guy, I'm
glad you got him.
M: Oh, he tells wonderful tales.
R: And Mother said she felt that BOOM!
M: She did?
R: When she was practicing her music. You see that was
down there, it was at least 10 blocks away.
M: He tells how it shook the town.
Did you go to things at the Opera House up on Alamo
Plaza?
R: Very little. It sort of closed when we were, oh, a
little older. We remember hearing about the different
actresses that were there and all this and everything. It
sort of went down. And, of course, Daddy would never let us
go to a movie or anything else on Sunday ..• And everybody
else was going on Sunday, "Why couldn't we go on Sunday?"
(laughter)
~1: I'm back to Tillye (Adler). She says, "I forgot to
RICE 31
M: mention the Cosgrove family; they were very prominent
and he was in the hardware business."
R: They had a pretty old house up here on Arcienega
Street.
M: She talks about a funeral home ••• Zizak?
R: The Zizak family lived on Water Street. They tore down
those two little cute houses in Hemisfair, facing the
government building. Those two cute little houses •••
M: They're there.
R: Someone told me they were gone.
M: One's got a brand new roof; that had to be done. And
the other one has some new lumber around the windows.
R: Good. I'm so glad they're still there.
M: Can you believe how beautiful this town is going to be
when we get it all put together? Hemisfair, Alamo Plaza
they're working on, Everybody is so impatient, want it
to happen right now and you can't do that.
R: They have us closed up at St. Mary's Church.
M: I want to go back now .•• this isn't being very
consistent but there are some things I wanted to pick up of
your 1977 interview. You said "Denis Tynan came from
Ireland before the Republic. He had a mule train that went
from New Orleans to Brownsville ." I'm fascinated by that.
What did he carry?
R: That I don't know.
M: This was before the Republic •••
R: '36. Before '36.
RICE 32
M: Before '36. It couldn't have been the War. I thought
he might have been carrying military supplies. Of course,
they fought all the time; he might have.
R: And San Antonio was the middle stop. And Paschal, the
Paschal family were his representatives here in San
Antonio.
M: They were. But you don't know what he was hauling.
R: No.
M: He would go from New Orleans to here and then to
Brownsville with a load and I supose he'd pick up something
there and bring it back to New Orleans or San Antonio. But I
wonder what it was. You never heard.
R: No.
M: That would be interesting to know. And then I've got
marked ••• Walter Tynan not only worked on San Fernando but
he worked at Ursuline, too ••• but that was when he was a
gardener.
R: When he first came to San Antonio. And that's when he
was working down in the garden when Grandmother decided she
wasn't going to stay in the Convent; she was going home.
M: And she thought he was going home.
R: He was supposed to.
M: How did he get to being a stone mason from being a
gardener?
R: He was doing stone masonry in the garden.
M: Oh, he was? Oh, I thought he was gardening.
R: No. No. No.
RICE 33
M: Did he make the grotto, by any chance? Be interesting
to know that, wouldn't it? We talked about San Fernando
Cathedral. What do you think at this point ••• I was
interested ••• when O'Neil Ford was still alive, t hey did
some shoring up of the building. I thought they had done a
good job because I have g reat respect for that group. And
Caroline Peterson, you remember, did the priest's house.
And everybody seemed to be happy. Now it ' s all falling
apart again. Do you know what's happened?
R: No.
M: Do you ever go to San Fernando Cathedral?
R: No. Very seldom. If you can get any information from
Father Elizonda, you'll be doing good because you 're not a
Mexican. He has gotten his back up and won't talk to any
Anglo.
M: That's not very Christian
R: No.
M: Then he was just actually laying stone •••
R: Yeah.
M: ••• in that cathedral.
R: He did the walls, I s uppose ; everything ; he and Walsh .
M: You said here, "He did work in the garden."
He didn't build any of the buildings but he did work in
the garden ••.
R: ••• the walls or something.
M: I'm glad we cleared that up; he was doing stone work in
there.
RICE 34
M: When the nuns moved out to Vance Jackson, they left a
whole bunch of papers behind . One of the jobs I did was to
sit there in the summer with Caroline Elmendorf,
housekeeper, with these piles of paper, going through every
single thing to be sure we didn 't miss anything. I can
still remember, Bernardine, how beautifully quiet and
peaceful it was. There was nobody there but a workman and
Caroline occasionally, with her beautiful Spanish, would
give him some sort of direction. But otherwise we just sat
there, she was busy with her housekeeping and I with the
papers. Right downtown in the middle of a city that lovely
river and not a sound. It 's one of my happiest memories.
Then you talk about a Denman house that your
grandfather built ••• that's before my time. It was where
the Tropicano is.
R: Yes.
M: On the river. Do you remember Ethel Harris?
R: Yeah.
M: Her craft shop in a barn on the river right near
there.
R: I think that was the Denman barn. Oh, the Denman house
was perfectly ••• it was lovely. It was a typical southern
small ••. It had the big columns, porch. And then,
everybody was horrified that the younger Mrs. Denman put
white enamel on all the antique furniture.
M: Oh, no!
R: Horrible! (laughter) It was beautifully done, of
RICE
R: course, but still and all •• that was Mrs. Leroy
Denman.
M: He also built the house on Goliad Street where the
Coyne family lived. Which house is that?
35
R: It's down about where the government ••• the U.S.
government ••• I think it was the second building, not the
big round one •• •
M: The Federal Building.
R: The Federal Building.
M: Right in there?
R: Right in there. It's still there, the Coyne house.
M: There are two Irish flat houses that have not been
restored but I ' m told the money is in the bank to do them.
In my mind I'm thinking one was the Sweeney house and the
other the Esparza (?) house. Would that be the Coyne
house?
R: No. Just lately, Agnes, the youngest of the Coynes, is
a sister teaching here at St. Mary's School. And she carne
and had lunch with us one Sunday and she said something
about the old house. And I said, "Let's walk over there."
So we walked over there and saw the old house. It's built
with a door at this end of the house and one at this end.
And windows between.
M: But it ' s an Irish flat.
R: Yes.
M: Standing seam roof •.• and that's the Coyne house. And
there's one right next to it?
RICE 36
R: There was a grocery store, then later a cleaning store
on the corner. That was Monumental, I think that street
was. And then the Schultze house is also in the block,
closer to town.
M: That's on Goliad. The Schultze, next to the Schultze
Hardware store
R: No. This is up in the next block .•• You and I better
walk. I'll show you those houses.
M: Now the two houses still standing on Hemisfair , that
are still to be restored, of course, they all have to be
restored, but the Coyne house •.• when you talk about the
Schultze house, which is a reproduction ••• they tore it
down and then rebuilt it •• (did a good job, too) but it's
right next to the Schultze Hardware store. That ' s on Goliad.
Then there's, I think, a Halff house and then we come on to
the Convention Center and the Mexican Plaza. Then across
the street there ' s the house that was the Philippine
Restaurant. Then there's another Halff house.
R: Now that's in the first block of Goliad.
Then the n ext block, beyond Water Street, it's right
along there. Then there's a third block and the Coynes are
in the third block.
M: Is it behind the Eagar house?
R: Oh, no, no, the Eagar is way back on Alamo Street .
M: What got me off was when you said it was by the Federal
Building.
R: We had to go past that when Agnes and I walked over
there.
RICE 37
M: Well, there's nothing but parking lot and the Institute
of Texan Cultures. If you walk past those two buildings.
R: Well, it's in that third block I know. Maybe they
didn't keep that street.
M: You know where they are planning to have the childrens'
playground?
R: Oh, yes.
M: There are two houses right there, back in •••
R: Oh, no. That was the Zizak was one and the other one
was •.. do you remember Dorothy Wren?
M: No.
R: Well , her family had lived there and she was a cousin
of Josephine Niggli's. The Wrens had that house when
Dorothy was born. Josephine always used to say , "That was
Dorothy's house."
M: You keep going, let's see , you've got Goliad , you 're
going south now. I have asked the Conservation Society to
put up a sign at the beginning of Goliad Street; we don' t
want to lose that street because it led to Goliad Road and
there's a whole lot of history on Goliad Road. The priests
coming up once a year from Goliad for confession, the
Indians siphoning off the cattle they were bringing ••. Then
you ' re going south.
R: And south.
M: Two little Irish flat houses in there.
R: On Goliad Street.
M: No, t hey're not on Goliad Street.
RICE 38
R: Those two little Irish houses on Goliad Street were the
Zizak's house and the Wren's. And they were almost at
Durango. And the Pereida's house faced Alamo.
M: That's the one I'm worried about ••• The back of the
house is falling down; the porch is off. It's limestone,
some beautiful limestone in there. The Eagar house next
door. They need to be taken care of right away because
they're going to be key.
And then you said "He also built the house on Goliad
Street where the Coyne family lived." You know where that
little carriage house still is? That's just board and
batten, wood.
They ' re going to take the Spanish pavillion, remember
the Transportation Museum?
R: Yeah.
M: They're going to take all of that down and the USO
building is coming down.
R: Oh, really? Where they going to move to?
M: I haven't heard. They say they'll have to find another
place for it. But this will open up an enormous space for
trees and grass for people to be at peace.
One of the things I wanted to talk to you about,
particularly, ••• you say, "Hugh Bernard Rice •• • he was the
nephew of Mrs. Peter Gallagher, who lived behind the Alamo."
I want to get to that Gallagher family. Somewhere in here,
you tell about living on the Tynan Ranch. "They lived at
the ranch, the Tynan Ranch, out on Bandera Road, near
RICE 39
M: Bandera. She always rode a horse to school and Mrs.
Conroy was Elise Gallagher and they lived at the old
Gallagher Ranch so Mother and Mrs. Conroy were particular
friends." Can you tell me anything about the Gallagher
Ranch?
R: No. Mrs. McNutt's •••
woman that ever drew breath.
She was the most interesting
She was darling. Mama Mac we
always called her. She did so much for the Ursuline
garden.
M: Oh, I knew her quite well.
R: She was a darling. I don't remember. She, I think she
was more interested in me when she found out I was related
to the Gallaghers. (laughter) Rice didn't mean anything to
her. My father had sold the Gallagher Ranch for his aunt.
And she didn't even give him a commission . And the desk
that I have in my den was the present that the man who
bought the ranch gave to Daddy.
M: The Gallagher Ranch was originally in the hands •.• not
the Tynans, he was just the agent.
R: My f a ther?
M: Yes.
R: He was Mrs. Peter Gallagher's nephew and she had him
sell the ranch for her.
M: For her . I see. The reason I'm trying to get at this:
I have a wonderful interview with Amy McNutt and she talks a
lot about the Gallagher Ranch. She had never mentioned the
Tynan connection. Until you sa id in thi s 1977 interview
-~~
J1'
RICE 40
M: that your family lived across the road and the girls
were friends. I just wondered if you knew anything about
the Gallagher Ranch.
R: Maybe you could contact Elizabeth Conroy Gibson, she
might ••• She has old Peter Gallagher's picture.
M: So the Gallagher connection, then so you are related,
of course to the Gallaghers, Peter Gallagher.
In your former interview, Ellis asked you what was
Ursuline like and you said it was THE school for girls.
R: It was really the only school.
M: Was St. Mary's going then?
R: St. Mary's Hall? I don ' t know when it started.
M: Probably not. And you said St. Mary's was THE school
for boys.
You were talking about the Conroys •.. " was a big,
beautiful two story house." I suppose your grandfather
built it.
R: No. Peter Gallagher had that built. No wait a minute.
Peter Gallagher had it built for some general. I think that
was it.
M: You say your father [10 years old] lived with Mrs.
Gallagher back of the Alamo. That was the Irish Flat area ,
wasn't it?
R: Some, yes. That's where it began .
M: There's s till one left. I go by it every day on Bowie.
Wonderful scroll work. Somebody has to save that. There
was always gossip that there was a tunnel from that house to
RICE
M: the Alamo. There is a little basement there but I
don't think they were ever able to prove it.
R: We had a basement here.
M: Do you? Do you really?
R: My grandma wouldn't let Grandpa finish because she
didn't want a basement.
41
M: Clyde asked you if there were any particular Irish
activities. What about food? You mentioned Irish soda
bread. Remember anything else? Did you have Irish stew,
things like that?
R: Mother used to make good stew but I don't think it was
anything special.
M: Irish, I think that was lamb.
He said, "Being close to La Villita, as you were, how
has it been over the years?" I've already asked you that
It was a slum.
R: This section, when I knew it, was mostly rooming
houses.
M: Oh, was i t?
R: Uh huh. Over here on east side past the church. The
minister lived in a house that was there back of the church.
Then there were the Lytles lived there and after the
family were all gone, then Miss Lizzie and Miss Nellie lived
in the house. And they built another little apartment house
behind it.
M: When you say the church, what church are you talking
about?
RICE 42
R: St. John's.
M: The Lutheran Church.
R: They had half the block. And then there were some
rooming houses down to the corner. And they're all gone.
M: You went to school at the German English School. Do
you remember anything about that?
R: Just college.
M: Do you remember anything about that?
R: We had night classes there.
M: Do you remember anything about the building?
R: The building was just like it is now.
M: Right behind the German English School is a little
house that was restored during Hemisfair by Mr. Lipschutz
••• he had it restored for guests. The little patio behind
comes right smack up against the school. It's one of the
few palisadoed houses left in San Antonio.
M: What do you think of Maury Maverick?
R: I liked Maury. I really did.
M: Why did you like him?
R: Well, for one thing , Maury was interested in San
Antonio. He and Walter Tynan and Tim Griesenbach were very
particular friends. And they started the politics of the
county courthouse. Maury was the money man and Tim was the
..• Walter was ••• but anyhow, the three of 'em ran San
Antonio for quite a number of years.
M: The reason I ask is I have two interviews about Maury
Maverick that are very interesting. One of them thought he
RICE 43
M: was a wonderful man and the other thought he was
terrible. This is good , because a future researcher,
looking into Maury Maverick, the famous Maury Maverick, is
going to find these two viewpoints and he's going to say
which is true? And go further and maybe both arel
R: Maury to my way of thinking was bombastic.
the article Maury Jr. wrote about his mother?
Did you see
Wasn't it
sweet. I'm crazy about Terrell. I can hear Maury saying,
on St . Mary's Street, coming towards St. Mary's Church, he'd
see Mother coming the other way and he'd say "Hello, Aunt
Kate." Always glad to see her.
And then when we went to Ireland, he was running for
mayor. She had been the Amusement Inspector under the other
regime and when we came back , somebody said to mother at the
time, "Aren't you going to stay and ask Maury for your job?"
She said, "No. He knows me and if he wants me, he 'l l ask
me. "
M: Did he?
R: No . So she was out of public life then.
M: That would sort of be like a censor , wouldn't it?
R: She was. The movie inspector. Phil Wright was the
police commissioner and he asked the Womens' Club , "You have
to have somebody to do it." And so they asked Mother to do
it. She had a group of women, Mrs . Beretta was one of 'em,
she was the one I knew the best; and then I would go with
mother to shows. We 'd always get in free. Oh , we were very
popular!
RICE 44
M: When your mother saw a show that she thought was not
good, did she say .•• ?
R: She would talk to the manager. And she always said,
"If you want to make a complaint, get the manager alone and
talk to him, privately. And he will usually take care of
it."
At that time, you see, they could cut and piece it
together again and it wouldn't hurt it.
And the managers were wonderful to Mother. They were
just as cooperative as they could be and she always had
someone of her committee at every show Saturday for the new
shows.
M: They started once a week.
R: Yeah.
M: We have a whole interview with Tano Lucchese just about
the early movies when they were still silent. Was there
sound when your mother was doing them?
R: No. Mother went through the silent
M: Isn't that fun?
I have had to give Maury Maverick an awful lot of
credit because he cleaned up the slum that was La Villita.
R: He sure did. And he did the river. I think Maury did
lots.
And Maury , Jr. tickled me when they had the b l essing
of the statue, he said, "I can remember my father taking me
through Villita just before he went into the hospital the
last time. And he said, ' They can take everything away from
RICE 45
R: me but not that I'm the Mayor of La Villita.'"
To my way of thinking, Maury and Terrell, they were
friends of ours, and Maury, Jr. feels the same way about me.
He's always glad to see me and I to see him. He's bombastic
like his father.
M: I think he does a lot of things just to get people's
ire up.
(Quoting from 1977 interview. )
"My cousin, Walter Tynan was quite a politician, a very
good politician. He was district attorney. And then Maury
Maverick, his friend, was tax collector. And Tim
Griesenbach, those three were particular friends and they
changed the courthouse."
That is what you were talking about. You said Maury
always said what he thought.
"I knew the MacAllis t ers. " What about them. They
lived down the street.
R: Mrs. Griesenbach had been a MacAllister , I think. I'm
not real sure about that. Walter ••• they had lived on
Goliad Street •.• I liked him.
I was so glad to see him in Canada. I was up in Canada
at the World ' s Fair and I was over in the World's Fair alone
and who did I see coming towards me but Walter MacAllister.
I said, "Mr. MacAl lister." He said, "What are you doing up
here?" Oh, I was so g l ad to see him.
M: The tape is almost gone now. Do you think of anything
we ought to have on this tape we haven't talked about? The
neighborhood, how you feel about it1 feel about it today?
RICE 46
R: I'm glad to see it up to where it is now. The lawyers
love their old houses and I say I'm the bookend at this end
of the block and Mr. and Mrs. Zepeda are the bookend at the
south end of the block. And between us, we have Legal
Lane.
Bob Price Four is the owner with ••• the partners
bought the house next door, thank God. It's theirs. Next
door Dan Carabin and did it over beautifully. Then the next
house was bought by lawyers, also. And then Mr. and Mrs.
Zepeda in the Richter house.
M: They've been there a long time , haven't they? Now the
two story house here
R: These four?
...
M: Yeah. The l as t I knew about them they were owned by
somebody in Houston.
R: Mrs. Castle.
M: And she restored all of them. Are they all occupied?
R: She restored all fou r of them. Three are , but one is
not. They did ' em over beautifully, exactly as they had
been. He made no architectural changes, which I didn't
appreciate because I think it would have been easier to rent
the apartment upstairs and let the business people be
downstairs. But they didn't ask me anthing about that.
M: Oh, they are apartments then?
R: No . These two in front are occupied by the lawyers who
take care of the police department.
The musical people that had been up there in front ,
RICE 47
R: have now taken this one facing Arcienega .
M: Symphony people?
R: Not the Symphony people, the one in June.
M: Festival?
R: Festival. They were there for two years and then they
moved back here. And the one closest to St. Mary ' s Street
is not occupied. But my Valenti ne [poodle ] knows all about
the basement of it.
M: Bernardine , I do thank you.
END OF TAPE I, SIDE 2, ABOUT 30 MINUTES.