6 - Ida Henry Simmons Goodrich - Autobiography of Early Life

1931, the year I was born, saw the doubling of unemployment to 16.3%, and everybody realized that the stock market crash of 1929 was having far reaching effects. Jan. 24, 1931, the stock market Dow Jones Industrial Average closed the day at 169. President Herbert Hoover was President, and, in that year, the Star-Spangled Banner became the country's official national anthem. 

Ida, dressed for church - 5 years old

At this time, my father was a commercial fisherman, and my mother was a housewife. My father had purchased two lots on what is now Campton Ave. and my mother's mother had built us a two-bedroom house on that property in 1926, apparently in the middle of the depression. In 1926, the house had electricity, but during the depression my parents could not pay the electric bill and the power was shut off. My mother was pregnant with me during the long hot summer, and I was born at home, her fourth child. She was 35. 

Mama

Some way, they had engaged a Doctor Henry of New Smyrna to attend the delivery. How, they let the Dr. know that he was needed is beyond me, since we had no phone. My mother told me that the Doctor stopped at the Williams residence on the corner of Campton, and I was born before the Doctor arrived. Guess he signed my birth certificate anyway. 

5th Grade Photo

Since my mother had let someone else name her other three children, she decided to name me after her and her mother, who both were named Ida. She gave me the middle name of Henry which was her maiden name. In those days, a lot of people were given their surname as a middle one. Later, upon entering school, I was teased for having a boy's name. As a baby, I was not nursed, but was fed a formular of sweetened condensed milk. 

Photo taken at the Oak Hill Carnival near Baldwin's Store

Since my sister Marie was four years older than I and went to school when I was two, I learned to entertain myself alone. My mother was always busy with housework and so on during the day, however at night it was a different matter. She put us to bed and read stories to us by a kerosene lamp until we fell asleep. I loved the story of Bluebeard, and another favorite was a book about foxes. Mama ordered Peter Rabbit, The Three Bears, The Three Kittens, Little Black Sambo and Red Riding Hood, additional favorites from Sears Roebuck for Christmas and I have them to this day. Toys weren't as plentiful as they are today, so we had to use some ingenuity. 

Marie Simmons Goodrich and Ida Simmons Goodrich

My mother had a peddle sewing machine as she made our clothes, dresses, slips and underwear. She had to order the sewing machine needles from Cohens in Jacksonville and they were precious. When a needle would break, she would save it. I got the idea to put the broken needle in the machine, put paper under the foot and treadle away making designs on the paper. I would nag my mother until she stopped what she was doing and changed the needle. 

Ida In Her Back Yard

My father often slept in the daytime, since he fished at night. One time I decided to make a tent on my mother's bed in the same room. In those days you usually had only one or two sets of sheets. I took sheets and draped them from one end of the bed to the other and when I got inside, I found that it was too dark. Decided, it would be a good idea to cut some eye holes in the sheets to peep out. Well, I thought it was much better but Mama wasn't too happy. Don't remember a spanking but when you got one, it was with a peach tree limb or a leather strap. The peach tree limb stung! 

Ida with secondhand toys

My father grafted orange trees, had a nursery of citrus trees, in the backyard, to make additional money. When he sold an orange tree, the hole always yielded an array of yellow sand. We had small toy cars of rubber and had fun building roads and over-head passes in the sand. We also had tree houses and made telephones out of string and tin cans, stringing from treehouse to home. Of course, it didn't work, so we yelled! 

Ida Playing in the Summer

My sister Marie, and I have always loved books and magazines. The only magazine which we had was called “The Ladies Home Companion” a gift once a month from Mama's sister, Mamie, who owned nine tobacco farms in North Carolina. Anyway, one of our neighbors was a school teacher, had many magazines, and disposed of them in their cow pasture not too far from our house. We went through them, sometimes wet from being rained on, and devoured them, sitting on top of one of our chicken houses with a tin roof. Read many stories there! Had to climb up by ladder! 

Ida in the middle with Sue and Barbara Jean Bennett

We also built a cave onetime with some of the neighboring boys in our backyard and crawled in with our other playmates! Probably pretended to smoke rabbit tobacco that we had heard about! The sand in Florida in our area, is not conducive for building caves! We were watched over by the Good Lord! We also made huts out of sawgrass in the wet muck areas tying the sawgrass together. It would cut our hands. The Edwards boys, Milton and Lowell had made paths through the woods where the current Post Office is now. They would make holes in various parts of the path, camouflage the hole with plants or sticks, so that you couldn't see it and lead us through. Of course, you would be walking along and suddenly fall in the hole up to your knee. It is a wonder that we didn't break a leg! Their house on U.S.#l had burned down and they were living in the Woodman Hall on Halifax Ave., next to Baldwin's store. Their mother made wonderful peanut butter fudge which they carried around in their pockets and shared with us! 

Harvey Simmons, Ida, Sue and Barbara Jean Bennett

(across the street from our house)

Another thing we enjoyed was climbing mulberry trees in our and the neighbor's yards and feasting on mulberries which we knew often had worms when over ripe! Usually came home with a lot of mulberry stain on our clothes! We had a woman named Bessie that washed our clothes on a scrub board for a quarter each week. Can remember climbing the mulberry tree over the tubs talking to her and knocking down bark and leaves into the rinse water. All water had to be pumped from a hand pump in the yard and the real dirty clothes boiled in a wash pot over a fire! We had no electricity again until around 1940, just before World War II. 

Marie and Ida

In the first grade, my teacher, Mrs. Ethel Williams, asked me why I came to school since my sister taught me everything.

My sister, Marie, taught me my ABC's and other information before I started to school. We played school a lot! When the school year started, I had thrush (an infection caused by fungus) on my chin and almost missed the beginning. Since, no one went to a doctor in those days, I guess it was treated with some kind of salve, probably from the Watkins man. Mama bought Vanilla Extract, Liniment and Green Mentholatum salve and several other items from the Watkins man. The Fuller Brush man also peddled his wares at our house and others. Our mother never went to the door unless she was bathed, powdered and dressed like a lady, which took some time. Marie and I learned to hold a conversation with these salesmen or anyone else that came to visit while she was getting ready. They would say they had to go and we would beg them to stay. My mother did everything like a snail's pace! To this day I do everything hell bent for election, probably because I spent a lot of time waiting. 

Ida on her bicycle

In the background is a hammock made from a wooden barrel by her father.

Ida and her dog Jack

By the time I went to school, my older sister and brother had already left home. My sister Lillian was 14 years older than I and my brother, Arthur 12 years older. Lillian had married Chris Papouleas and was living in Massachusetts and Arthur was in a Conservation Core in California. Mama loved to write letters to them practically every day and many times when I came home for lunch, she had not finished the letter or if she did, she expected me to take it to the post office, rain or shine. This really interfered with my lunch since she wouldn't have time to cook me something at this point. Sometimes I would have an orange out of the yard.

We grew up primarily in a yard with citrus trees, grape arbors and chickens. Our father did not believe in grass, since he said as a young man he had to hoe too much. At least there was no mowing! It was wonderful having tangerines, and oranges, when we wanted one. Our dad also would go out under the grape arbor when the grapes were ripe and cut them open for us with his pocketknife removing the seeds. We also did not have a car. Our dad drove an old cut down truck, which we went to watch the Oak Hill Possum Baseball Team on. We sat on a platform on the back, no seat belts in those days. (I still have a very bad picture of the truck, also a picture or two of the team.) The park was right across U. S. #1 where the Handyway Store is now. We loved the baseball games. Our neighbor, Boostie Baldwin, was their mascot.

Possums Baseball Team of Oak Hill, FL

I attended the Oak Hill School where the Charter School is now. It was two story and covered with stucco. No kindergarten in those days. It had a furnace and, in the winter, the janitor, had to keep the fire going. Most kids went home for lunch, as lunch time was an hour. The bus kids brought a sack lunch. We also had recess in the morning and afternoon. Initially, the school had ten grades and then later when I graduated, nine.

Oak Hill School

Back of the School

Graduation Photo from Oak Hill School - 9th Grade

High School 12th Grade Photo - Ida Simmons

I loved my first-grade schoolteacher, Mrs. Ethel Williams from Michigan. She lived on the same street as our family. I spent most of my elementary school summers with her on her porch playing cards and eating meals with her and her husband, Coleman. We also played Chinese checkers. She had a very beautiful wooden bedroom set, a four-poster bed. I remember touching it lovingly one time and she asked me not too, I never understood why! We had very plain ones made of iron. I can see now why I later bought my young daughter a four poster Ethan Allen bed with a canopy and a large dresser after I received a nice bonus at work for an innovative idea. I also remember Mrs. Ethel saying “A” when she didn't understand what you were talking about. I understood it was Michigan terminology. She also used, what we called “oleo” a butter substitute. It looked like a pound of lard, and she added a small packet of orange powder to color it like butter. Took a lot of stirring. Found this fascinating! My father would only use butter, no matter how poor we were. I use butter to this day and love it! The Williams had a nice four door car and when Coleman started it up you could hear him racing the motor all over Oak Hill. I think they gave my sister, Marie and I, our first trip to Daytona. We ran into a rain about where the hump-back bridge used to be and he pulled over on a side road under some oak trees to wait out the rain. Appreciated the invitation. I can still see this black sedan in my mind.

During my earlier years, we only had two kerosene lamps, at night for light! My mother was usually washing dishes in the kitchen and my sister Marie was reading or doing school homework. That left me with zero. I had to either sit in the kitchen or go where Marie was. Marie did not play with me as much as I wanted her too, was always reading. One day, I decided to hide the book, she was reading. She begged me to tell her where it was, but I wouldn't. We fought like cats and dogs most of the time, her pulling me around by my hair! I needed revenge! I had hidden it under our big round oak dining table where I knew she would never find it! Wrong! She outsmarted me! She waited until I went to bed and since I talked in my sleep, she asked me where it was, and I told her! Another time, I decided to get even, so I went over behind our neighbors' house where some huge stinging nettles were, at least a foot and one half tall. I picked two, put one in each hand, and called her to come where I was. She came and when she got there. I switched her on both legs, back and front! It made big whelps and of course was itching her to death! She had read somewhere that if you gathered about 8 or 10 different kinds of leaves and rubbed it on the whelps it would help. I was a good sister and helped her gather the leaves, I don't think it helped though.

Our mother never went to the grocery store, guess she would have had to bathe and redress. She sent us with a list. In those days, without a car, you had to carry whatever you bought in a brown grocery sack which got heavy. Marie suggested one day that we alternate and carry the groceries from one telephone pole to another. Of course, we had made our purchase at the Foster Bennett Grocery Store, across the highway, US#1, almost to the Somerset Hotel, I was to carry the groceries to the first telephone pole halfway up the hill, where the post office is now. I did, and when I put them down, Marie said she wasn't going to carry them for her turn. So, I said, okay, and I left them by the side of the road, and we went home. Mama wanted to know where the groceries were, and I told her they were sitting on the ground by the telephone pole. She wasn't too happy, so I think I had to go get them.

Oak Hill Post Office

After school we often went to the Post Office to see if we had gotten any mail, along with other kids. The Post Office was near the railroad track. Our Postmaster was Mr. Harry Hilldale, the only known Republican, in town. He would put the outgoing mail in a canvas bag and hand carry it to the Depot just before the trains came. We had two mail trains, 29 from the north and 30 from the south. The outgoing mail was put on a wooden cart which the postmaster pushed to the train location. On Saturday and during summer vacation, we all met at the depot and played up and down the tracks waiting on the train. When Mr. Hilldale would get the mail; we would follow him back to the Post Office and stand in the back doorway watching him put the mail in the boxes. He was really kind to us, letting us stand there. Those not having boxes had General Delivery and had to go to the front window and ask for their mail. When he left the post office, he would close the front window and lock the door. After, he finished putting the mail up, he would throw the front window up and yell “Read Um and Weep”. We thought that was funny. Later, for some reason, the Post Office was moved across the street to what used to be “The Howard Putman Store”. It was definitely larger. Never bought anything at the Putman store, but some of my cousins, with a large number of boys, received their only Christmas present from there, a pair of. “Georgia Overalls”! I was friends with one of the Hilldale daughters and was invited to a lot of meals there. They always sat around a large table, held hands and recited a prayer before the meal. I think Mr. Hilldale was a Quaker! I was impressed, because Mama never sat down for a meal with us, but stood and waited on us, eating later. Since, my father was frequently gone, Marie and I ate anywhere we wanted to, usually in the front room. Real eccentric!

I have always been afraid of fire. As a very small child, I watched from our house, as the Baldwin's Store, burned down and they lost everything. Also, a two-story house, on our street caught on fire twice. In those days, there were woods all around. We didn't get a Volunteer Fire Dept until many years later, in the sixties. Now, we have a first class one!

Music has always been part of our lives. Our mother played the piano by ear, and we had our own up right piano. She had played in a small trio in Oak Hill for dances with a fiddle player and base. We loved to hear her play “Roll Out The Barrel”, 'Dark Town Strutters Ball” and many others. She had a sound all of her own. My sister, Lillian, and Marie took piano lessons, and I played by ear. Later, we all had pianos and still have the original upright in storage. Don't remember it ever being tuned, we loved the sound of it. My grandmother on my mother's side taught piano lessons in Tennessee. 

When I was little, we had a large console battery radio. On Saturday night, we gathered around it in the living room to listen to the Grand Old Opry from Nashville. Tennessee. Loved Ernest Tubbs, Minnie Pearl, and many others. We also were followers of romantic soap operas. One of the players I remember was Bess Meyers. When we were in school, Mama listened to them, made notes, and reiterated the whole stories to us when we came home from school! Totally, devoted to her children. She did not believe in children's chores. We didn't have to do any housework, she said when we got married, we would have enough to do. She waited on us hand and foot. When we were playing, we would call her to bring us a glass of water and she would stop what she was doing and bring it! We played paperdolls all over the house pulling out everything. When we got tired of that clutter, we would move to another room and mess it up. We knew Mama would clean it up! Rotten kids! Mama, wore an apron, like the butchers wear covering her dress. When Marie and I were fighting we would chase each other around her and her apron, almost knocking her down. We had Shirley Temple paperdolls, but we liked the ones we cut out of the Sears and Roebuck Catalog the best. Sometimes, the doll had only one arm or leg but we didn't care, she had plenty of clothes. We couldn't` wait for the next years catalog to come out so we could cut up the old one!

At sometime when I was very small, my father borrowed two hundred dollars, a mortgage, on our home, from a neighbor, we called “Dad Smith”. That was a fortune in those days, and it hung over our heads for years. He loaned the money to his father and of course he never paid it back. In the meantime, Mr. Smith checked on us. He visited our family often and gave Marie and I and the three Mosby children a nickel everyday to buy ice cream. Stanley's Bus Stop and Gas Station sold ice cream, so we were customers every day. Ice Cream was sold in nickel cups and the lid on the inside was covered with a movie star picture, like Ginger Rogers or Clark Gable. We collected ours, and picked up others that people had thrown along the roadside. Marie put on her imaginary thinking cap and made-up games for us to play with them. I remember we used them as money and had them scattered all over the living room. Mama probably cleaned them up! We visited Dad Smith a lot, since he lived right next door to the school. He had a beautiful gardenia bush and on May 1st, we made a Maypole with his flowers and danced around the yard. His house was different, made out of California redwood. Later, it was moved to North Gaines Street' someone painted over the wood and it is still there! Hard to recognize now!

Our sister, Lillian, played the piano, in a band in Daytona, at some time while we were growing up! She had some beautiful long gowns that she wore! One, I particularly remember, was royal blue with shimmering silver on it! She let us play dress up in them! One day, we had company, Mary Freda Mosby, and were playing out near the wash pot where the clothes were boiled! I guess we began to argue over who was going to wear which dress! Lillian came running out, built a fire where the wash pot was and burned the dresses in front of our eyes! I don't think I have ever encountered anything so mean! We had so little and nothing that fancy! I have been a clothes horse of expensive clothes all of my life and I attribute it to that situation!

I guess lice in school, have always been prevalent, even though Marie and I never had them! One time, I was over at the Mosby house playing and must have scratched my head! Mrs. Mosby asked me if I had lice, I was kind of insulted! Donald, was one of the Mosby children, my age! One Christmas, Marie and I, received an English bicycle, which we had to share. Most bicycles had balloon tires, but this one had very thin ones, like a racer! Well, Donald asked if he could ride it, the first day we got it, and ran it into a big oak tree near his house! It didn't help it any! I think it bent the frame! Lillian probably bought it for us! She graduated from high school in 1934 and went to work in Mass. near Boston to work as a waitress. She sent us packages of school clothes and beautiful embroidered items from China Town. I remember silk embroidered pajamas, a real luxury for us!

Ida Simmons at Little Gap

As children, we went barefooted a lot! We usually got a new pair of shoes for school, and I think we had black patented leather ones for Sunday School and Church, probably from Sears Roebuck! I remember one time my daddy took me down to Baldwin's store to buy my school shoes. I liked one pair that were really too small for me! (In those days they didn't carry many sizes) I told my daddy, that that was the pair I wanted, and wore them home! After I got home, they began to hurt my little toe and my dad had to cut the leather with his knife over that toe. I had to wear them like that with a slashed shoe! Was so great to have leather in those days! Many years later, I had my brother Arthur take a pair of my high heels to Hong Kong, to have a new pair with leather soles made. They were beautiful and I wore them to work but the leather soles were so thin, I could feel the pebbles through the soles! Leather lasted forever; now plastic soles disintegrate very fast!

Shirley Temple was very popular when we were children! Our mother's brother, Jessie, was married to one of the Oak Hill teachers, Claire Henry! They lived way out in the woods west of town in an orange grove that belonged to my grandma, Ida Guller! She had a car and took Marie and I to New Smyrna, maybe several times to see a Shirley Temple movie! She had a son, Dan, the same age as me that she was always pleading with him to be sweet! He never was! One time I can remember riding home with them through some of the really deep mud puddles and holes, we kind of got stuck, and there were frogs after a rain jumping around everywhere, big enough to eat! Many years later, they moved to Washington, D. C. to work in the war effort! (World War II) My sister, Lillian was visiting them on her way back to Mass. They went to the Smithsonian, and she said while they were there, he was misbehaving, so she stepped on his barefoot and ground down with her high heel. Said she turned round and round! Bet that quieted him down!

My sister Marie was kind of sickly when we were growing up. Mama made her an eggnog every day for her health! I always wanted one, but Mama never made me one. She let me scrape the glass! Never understood that as we had our own chickens! Maybe milk or cream was scarce! One of my proudest possessions was a scrapbook that Marie made me out of green broadcloth. She cut out pictures from magazines and pasted them on the material! We had to make paste out of flour and water! Bought paste for school later!

Our cousin, Pauline Bennett, lived across the street from us, what is now Campton Ave. Was an unnamed street in our day. She had three children, Sue, Barbara and Breece! Spent a lot of time playing cards with Sue and Barb. Remember bathing Breece. They often took a ride on Sunday afternoon and invited me to go along. A real treat since we did not have a car! Sometimes we went down the Shiloh Road or maybe even to Cocoa. The father Breece was in charge of the Blue Goose Orange Packing House in New Smyrna. My brother, Arthur, worked as a bookkeeper there a little while after the war, until Breece was kicked by a horse and died from his injuries! Before that Little Breece was bitten by a rattlesnake on the Shiloh Road and lost one of his legs! A real tragedy! The family always went to their summer home in Hendersonville, N.C. for vacation. Pauline would come home with stacks of beautiful material from mills there! Everyone made their own clothes in those days!

My older brother and sister teased me a lot when I was real little! They told me I had ancestors and ants in my pants and I would cry and deny this! I didn't know what ancestors were and I thought it was really bad! I knew I didn't have ants either! Typical older siblings! One time later, Marie and I were eating fried eggs and brother, Arthur, was making iced tea! He began to boss us around and try to tell us what to do, brush our teeth, and so on! Something made Marie mad, and she dumped her fried egg in his tea. Boy, was he mad, I think she had to run and hide! She previously had to hide from Mama under the house!

Oak Hill Baptist Church

Our house on Campton was right next to the Baptist church. We started Sunday School as soon as we could walk. Mama sent us! I remember my first Sunday School teacher was Aunt Mary Simmons, wife of my Uncle Thurlow, also a daughter of Dad Smith, that I had mentioned earlier! She was very stern, and you were scared to misbehave! We had large Sunday School cards with the lesson on it! I loved them and still have my collection! You sat there for a full hour, no playing games and taking a walk!

Before I started to school, Baldwin's grocery store burned down. I could see it from our yard! They were away and lost everything! It gave me a fear of fires, since we had no fire department for many years! Also, the McCullough house, across the street from us caught on fire a couple of times, probably from a fire place. By the Grace of God, it didn't burn down! The McCullough house belonged to Clayton and Essie McCullough. She was another Oak Hill school teacher and he was a Deacon in our church. We loved them and called them Aunt Essie and Uncle Clayton! Uncle Clayton told us ghost stories and also said when he died, he would come back and haunts us! He was killed by a train in his open truck on Putman Road! He never haunted us!

My father's relatives lived in Holly Hill and Daytona Beach on Big Tree Road! Since we only had an open truck, we didn't get to visit often! Can remember one time, daddy's sister, Annie, took us to see Grandma Simmons, in her tiny Austin car! Mama had bathed us, and when we got there Grandma Simmons said we had to wash our feet before we could get into one of her beds to spend the night! Talk about peculiar!

Since we had no electricity, because we could not pay the electric bill, our power was cut off in the thirties. When the house was built in 1926, we had power! Consequently, we had a wooden ice box! It was lined with tin in the top to hold a chunk of ice! In those days ice was ten cents for a block that would fit in the top! We would lift it up with ice tongs! Usually, ice was purchased on Saturday! We were delighted because we could then have strawberry Jello with fruit cocktail for desert and daddy could have iced tea! Our mother loved hot tea and made fresh tea every day in a blue crock! She would not let Marie and I have any. Could not have tea and coffee until we were grown!

As I had mentioned earlier, our father had an old cut down truck which some people called a flivver! This one had to be cranked! Remember sitting on our front porch when I was about six watching him crank and crank and mutter many bad words over the situation. Finally, he went and got a coffee can of kerosene and threated to set it on fire! I could not imagine to this day why anyone would destroy something they needed when they had so little!


To this day, when Marie and I make a promise, we keep it! When we were little, our sister Lillian would promise to take us to the beach! We would put on our bathing suits and look out the window waiting, and she would never come! Maybe she had to borrow her boyfriend's car or something, but it was very disappointing to us! Lesson learned!

Ida and Marie at New Smyrna Beach

We were very fortunate to have our own orange grove in our yard! Our mother hand squeezed a large glass of orange juice for each of us each day! Still one of my favored things!

Our father played a lot of poker and often came home loaded with pockets full of change! He would empty his pockets on the floor and Marie and I would make a sweep of coins! Marie and I liked to collect stamps! We would order sets that cost over 2 dollars each and when they arrived, we promptly pasted them in our stamp album! Don't know how daddy paid for them, but he did. We still have the album but probably the glue ruined some of them!

Another wonderful memory that I have is of a beautiful white satin smocked dress! Mama made all of our clothes and sewed way in the night for us to have a new dress to wear to church! However, she did not know how to smock, so she hired Mrs. Gertie Bennett to make me the satin one. I remember the smocking was pink! Also, Mrs. Hal Edwards made some dresses for me! Later, we learned to sew on the old pedal sewing machine and made our own!

Ida on steps of First Baptist Church after Dog Bite

One day, when I was about 8 years old, I started to school on my bike and when I got in front of the Baptist church, I encounted a very mad large brown Chow dog! He chased me, so I got down off of the bike and he promptly bit me in the muscle of my right leg! Daddy took me to the doctor in New Smyrna and luckily he didn't have rabies! A dog bite is something you remember!

Taken at the Oak Hill county dock at Somerset Beach

We were very fortunate to have our own home with a fire place. The only other heat we had was a New Perfection kerosene stove in the kitchen where we spent most of our time, even bathed in a washtub there! Our living room never warmed up, because our mother removed all of the ashes out of the fire place each morning before she built a fire! Ashes generated from the previous fires help to keep it warmer! Can remember learning to chop wood at an early age! Even burned palmetto stumps! I got to go into the woods near Maytown several times with daddy to gather wood! He had his axe, and I had my hatchet!

Sitting on the grass at Clarence and Eula Mae Goodrich's house

Remember one particular time when Mama had just given me a bath and dressed me nice, I went over to Aunt Essie's to visit! She had nice green grass in the front yard! I decided to do a cart wheel and landed in a pile of chicken manure!

We were told, when we were children that “Children need to be seen and not heard”!

Another wonderful memory was at Christmas time, all of the families gathered in the auditorium, and we exchanged presents with our friends and relatives! A huge cedar tree was decorated about as high as the ceiling and a play and carols were enjoyed! It was so exciting to hear your name called out to receive a present! One year Marie received a dead possum's head as a gift from a couple of boys in her room as a joke! They also gave each child a bag of candy and nuts!

World War II started in 1940 when I was nine years old and lasted until 1946.  Needless to say, that was a difficult time for us because food was rationed, there was a shortage of many things like meat, cars, gas, stockings and so on, because the war effort came first, as it should have!  We were very anxious to help in any way possible and did. Each family was issued ration books for certain kinds of food.  Since Mama did not go to the store, Marie and I were in charge of the ration books and groceries.  I remember picking up aluminum (like from chewing gum wrappers) along the road and making balls out of it to turn in to the war effort.  No outside lights were used at night and shades were used on the window to keep out all light. Oak Hill had a plane spotter on top of the Oak Hill Packing House. Volunteers, even children, as Marie and I  were, climbed up a ramp on top of the packing house where there was a small glass enclosure with a telephone. We served several hours a day reporting any and all planes flying over. We had to identify them as a single motor, bi-motor or whatever. We found this exciting. Sometime, during the war, a small plane crashed some where near the school. The principal let the school out to go view it. 

Ida with her dog sitting in the front yard of her home

Growing up as a teenager in Oak Hill in the forties, one had to use your ingenuity to think of some form of entertainment.  At our house, we had a phonograph and a lot of hillbilly music and we entertained our friends there and tried to learn to dance the two step!  Sometimes, daddy got tired of the loud music and would shut us down.  We also would go out to what is now the Maytown road and build a fire and have wiener roasts at the Beacon Light, a tall structure that is no longer there, sitting by the fire and telling stories. Romance in those days consisting of a boy asking if he could walk you home from a party or telling you, “You have kind hair, the kind I like” or complementing you in some way! 

First Baptist Church of Oak Hill had a Young People’s Training Union, an hour before church at night. We not only went to Sunday School and Church in the morning but also to Training Union and Church at night.  In Training Union, we did sword drills with the Bible, which gave us a wonderful chance to really be familiar with the Scripture and the Books and Verses’ location. Stetson University was a Baptist College at that time. Occasionally, some of the Stetson students would come on Sunday and take over the Services. Usually, we would have dinner on the grounds. I was very impressed with these Chistian students; have an autograph of one to this day. He had written in my autograph book “You have a wonderful opportunity to serve the Lord! Will you do it?” I have thought of this many times over the years. He later, as a preacher, accompanied many people to the Holy Land!          

During the early forties, many of the men of Oak Hill had volunteered or been drafted in the Armed Services. The citrus industry was in full swing with no one to pick the fruit. Someone enlisted young men from western North Carolina to tackle that job.  They boarded at the Somerset Hotel on U.S.#1, which Mrs. Nancy Dyall ran at that time. She also provided meals. It was also a place where young people could gather.  My father was a foreman in the groves at that time! A ticket with a picker’s number was given for each box of oranges picked. I can remember watching my father adding up the amounts for payment. Noah Gibson was one of the North Carolina men that stayed in Oak Hill and married a local girl, Marie Harris. I remember several came to our house and enjoyed the music. 

In 1946, many of the service men came home. One was my brother, Arthur Simmons, who had served in the Naval Intelligence, part of the Navy.  He decided to go to Allerton, Mass. to work in our brother-in-law’s grocery store, as jobs were scarce. Some way, it was decided that I should go, too. I was 15.  We, along with our cousin, Albert Simmons, who had served in the Army, caught the Champion train from New Smyrna Beach to Mass. We stopped in Washington, D.C. for several days to visit our Uncle Jessie Henry and his wife Claire, who worked for the Naval Dept. there and during the war.   They took us all around the Capitol to see the sights and to shop!   In Allerton, Arthur went to work in the store, and I helped my sister, Lillian, with her two, one year old children, she had just adopted. They lived one block from the beach, so all you had to do was walk there. The beach was rocky, and the water was cold as ice, so after trying to swim once, never went in again. You had to put your beach towel over the rocks. Apparently, Albert decided not to work there and returned to Oak Hill after several days. After the summer was over in late August, we came home again on the Champion. This time Arthur and I stopped for a couple of days in New York City. We stayed on the 12th floor of the New Yorker Hotel! I remember sitting in the window and looking down at the street below! We went to the Paramount theater a couple of times and saw Nat King Cole and his trio, The Radio City Rockettes (a dancing group that still exists), Peggy Lee, Charlie Spivak’s Orchestra and several others. In those days, you saw a movie, followed by live entertainment. What a thrill!  He also took me to the top of the Empire State Building which was so exciting for an Oak Hill kid. The first time on a skyscraper! I was not scared at the time but have never cared for height. Now, I look at pictures of that mammoth building and cannot believe I have been to the top looking over the city! 

Ida's 9th Grade Photo

Because the Oak Hill School had only nine grades, (formally ten) I rode a school bus to New Smyrna High School for three years. The road at that time was horrible, needing re-paving! We usually had to wait for a long time to catch the bus, so we would go down to Magnolia St, which was U.S #1 at the time and thumb a ride with anyone going south. We caught the bus at Baldwin’s Store and were let out there in the afternoon. Clarence Goodrich Jr. who later became my boyfriend for five years and then my husband of 50 years said he saw me get off of the bus,, in 1946 and decided I was the one who he wanted to be his wife! I never wanted to marry young, so he had to wait! 

During the summer of 1947, Marie and I went to Orlando to work and make money to buy our school clothes. Marie worked in a furniture store office and I worked at Morrison’s Cafeteria behind the counter serving food. We lived on Lake Eola at the Young Women’s Community Club. At night, we would walk miles to a donut shop to have coffee and donuts. We felt perfectly safe and were! I worked all summer for about 3 dresses, I had put on lay-a-way. I would bring home some of the left-over desserts every night from work and we would feast. I had gained so much weight at the end of the summer, that I could not wear the dresses. Had to trade them to Marie!  

Piedmont Hotel in Waynesville, North Carolina

The next summer of 1948,  we went to the mountains in Waynesville. North Carolina, to work at a beautiful old Inn, called The Piedmont. Again, Marie worked in the office and I worked in the kitchen with the cook making salads, drying silverware and such. We would walk the two and one half miles to town to shop and one time got to tour the Smokies in a tour car with an open top, to Clingmans Dome.    We even attended a Holy Roller church there with one of the summer residents.  Strange, but the owner, Paul Hyatt, would never book any Jewish people in the hotel. Mrs. Harper from Winter Park who owned The Candlelight Restaurant and Harper’s Restaurant there was in  charge of the dining hall. She had brought three waitress from Winter Park with her, and I slept in a room with them. Marie shared a room with a girl named, Marty, that also worked in the office. One night we attended a dance in town and watched all of the locals dance. They invited us to join them. It was a wonderful experience as we had never been to the gorgeous mountains. One time, I got called down for slamming the silver ware down on a tray while drying. Could hear it in the dining room.    Remember, one of the men that stayed there all summer, had to have his toast burned black every morning.   

The summer of 1949, I went back to Mass. to again keep the children during the day, while my sister worked in the store. I was pretty proud of myself, as I traveled on the train alone! I had to change trains in New York City and had to go by cab from Grand Central Station to Union Station. Again, no problem! I was 16!    After keeping the children, Karen and Larry, all day, I worked in a Chinese Restaurant, The Priscilla, until almost midnight as the cashier. The Priscilla was famous for their blueberry pie! People came from all over to enjoy it and the restaurant was always crowded. There were several Chinese chefs. One got a crush on me , brought me gifts and offered to pay my fare to return the next year! The children woke me up every morning at six throwing their night bottles out of the bed! One day I decided to take them to the Post Office to mail a letter. The Post Office was about a mile away and they were in a twin stroller. After, I mailed my letter, we started back and suddenly a wheel rolled off of the stroller. There I was about a mile from home with two kids and of course in those days no phone. I could have panicked because I knew no one there. Anyway, I had to leave the stroller on the street and carried or packed one kid, in each arm, home! Quite a workout for a teenager! My sister and her husband rented their home to some rich Boston family and she and her family and I lived in an apartment in the basement. They paid for their home that way. It was okay, but you could hear their children running overhead. They owned an upscale grocery store that was open seven days a week.  My brother-in-law, Chris, drove into Boston every morning before daylight to the Boston Market to purchase the freshest food. He was a fabulous meat cutter.    His father had immigrated from Greece as a young man and had an open street market in Boston.    During my stay, I was able to shop for my college clothes as I was entering Florida State University in the fall as a Freshman.  Bought a beautiful winter coat as it was cold in Tallahassee. Again, came home on the train alone to New Smyrna.   My motto is, “Whether you want to, you do what you have to do”! So be it!   

                                         Florida State University 1949

Prom Photo: Clarence Q. Goodrich and Ida Simmons

Taken at Log Cabin Groves

June 14, 1952

I have had a wonderful childhood and it gives me a lot of pleasure to recollect! I have been known as Little Nunny most of my life! When I was born, my sister Marie who was four, would try to say little honey, but ended up with little nunny, thus the nickname! I called her Big Nunny!




Lovingly, Ida Henry Simmons Goodrich    

Updated: July 14, 2024