KAY RIVERS KIDD & JEAN RIVERS FAJKUS
Interviewed by T. Berry
Kay Kidd and Jean Fajkus are sisters--the children of Lawson and Analise Rivers. Kay is an accomplished musician, and Jean is an educator who retired from the public school system as a special education administrator. Their family has a long history in Elgin as leaders in business, church, farming, and civic affairs. Kay and Jean describe that history, as well as life in the 1950s and 1960s.
The interview was conducted by T. Berry, formerly an Elgin resident and educator. Mr. Berry is known as a historian and gifted communicator, who uses audio-visual tools to inform and entertain his audiences. His most recent publication is entitled "Juneteenth: The Day God Came."
Interviewer - My name is T. Berry (a.k.a. T) and today I am interviewing Ms. Kay Rivers Kidd and Ms. Jean Rivers Fajkus. The interview is taking place over the telephone and the date is June 28th, 2022. I would like to thank the two of you for allowing your story to be added to the Elgin Oral History Project. We're looking for a social history on you that should run about 20 minutes, but it can go longer. So, Ms. Kidd, do I have your permission to proceed?
Kay - Yes, and you also have my permission to call me Kay.
Interviewer - Oh, I was coming to that. Okay. Jean, do I have your permission to proceed?
Jean - Yes, you do.
Interviewer - I would like to start by asking the two of you, where were you born? You go first, Kay.
Kay - I was born in Taylor.
Interviewer - At the Taylor Hospital?
Kay - Yes, the Taylor Hospital. There was a Dr. Swanson there and my mother was a Swedish descendant and there was no hospital in Elgin at the time.
Interviewer - So Fleming Hospital wasn't there in Elgin?
Kay - No, we had a doctor, but not a hospital, yet.
Interviewer - And what year was that?
Kay - That was in...
Interviewer - If you don't mind.
Kay - January 1947.
Interviewer - Wow.
Kay - Jean was the first one of our family to be born in the Fleming Hospital.
Jean - Yes, delivered by Dr. Fleming.
Interviewer - Well, maybe that's why I wasn't born in Fleming Hospital.
Kay - Probably so.
Interviewer - I was born the same year and also in Taylor.
I'm going to ask you about your parents in a little while, but first let's start with your grandparents, or even further back. Include where your family came from, if you know that information?
Kay - We do.
Interviewer - Okay, Jean?
Jean - Yes. Our family actually goes back as far as our great, great grandfather in Elgin. He and his wife came to Elgin, or the Elgin area because Elgin wasn't a city yet, in 1853 from Georgia. He was a circuit riding Methodist minister. He had done that in Georgia and he continued doing that in Central Texas. Our great-grandfather, our grandfather and our father were all descendants of him; born and raised in Elgin, and they all lived in Elgin their entire lives.
Kay - When they came to Texas the 1850s, our great-great grandfather had his wife’s parents with them, so their parents are also in the Elgin cemetery. Their name was Coates. C-O-A-T-E-S.
Interviewer - Okay. What were their names?
Kay - Coates. Sarah Coates. C-O-A-T-E-S. And I think his name was William.
Jean - His name was William.
Kay - Yes.
Jean - And then our great-grandfather was also William. He was William H., and our grandfather was Marvin Leon Rivers and our father was Lawson Rivers.
Interviewer - Okay.
Kay - Our great-grandfather married Lucy J. Carter. The Carter family were also early immigrants into Elgin. They came from Pittsylvania County, Virginia in 1850. Lucy’s parents were the Edward R. Carter family. Then our mother, her family was Swedish and her parents came to Texas as newlyweds in 1907.
Interviewer - So, your mother's family and your father's family were both Swedish?
Kay - No, only our mother’s family.
Interviewer - Okay.
Jean - Her name was Elise Aronson. You may remember Eli Aronson's grocery store. That was her brother.
Interviewer - Oh, I do.
Kay - We've grown quite close to our Swedish cousins. We made contact about twenty years ago. We had contacted them all along with Christmas cards, but that’s not actually knowing each other, but now we all do. They visit, we visit, and it's wonderful.
Interviewer - Oh, that's great. Where do they live?
Kay - Northern Sweden.
Interviewer - Oh. They're still in the old country.
Kay - Oh yeah.
Jean - Yes. We've been to the original farm and they still own it and live on it. We know a lot of them. They all multiplied as much as the Rivers’ family did.
Interviewer - Oh, well that's exciting.
Jean - It really has been wonderful to get to know them.
Kay - It has.
Interviewer - And your grandfather, what type of work did he do?
Kay - The Swedish grandfather?
Interviewer - Mr. Lawson Rivers' father.
Kay - Oh, he had the Elgin Finance Company. It was a small finance company of his own. Before that, he and his brother, Uncle Wayland, owned a grocery store chain called "The Checker Front Stores." They also, before that, had the Rivers Mercantile, and that building is still there. It was a grocery store, clothing; just kind of everything. if you're going from downtown Elgin toward the Dairy Queen (Dairy Cream), it's just across the tracks. In fact, it used to be the Dairy Queen (Dairy Cream). So, when you go across the tracks, there's a two-story brick building just past where the ice locker used to be, and that building still says Rivers 1905 on the top. That's where they had their store.
Interviewer - Well, I'm going to be sure to look at that the next time I go by. I remember the building, but I don't recall seeing the name.
Kay - There’s no telling how long that building will last. I think about that because it's not in the best of shape.
Interviewer - Oh, okay. And your mother's grandfather?
Kay - Our mother's father, he was, the Swedish father, grandfather. He was a wildcat oil driller.
Interviewer - Oh, okay.
Kay - Which means that he traveled around working in the oil fields.
Jean - The family stayed in Elgin and that was their home. Our grandfather would be sometimes in south Texas, sometimes in east Texas. He traveled.
Kay - Sometimes he was in Oklahoma. We never knew him. He died before we were born. But I did know our grandmother, just not really well. I was almost four when she died, but I do remember her. Jean was only two weeks old when she died.
Jean - Yeah. I don't remember her at all.
Interviewer - Okay. Well, Jean, tell me about your parents.
Jean - Well, Daddy did many different things. He was a cotton merchant. He bought cotton from the farmers and sold it to different enterprises around the country.
Kay - Especially in Houston.
Jean - He also, at one time before he got into the cotton business, had the Chevrolet dealership. When he left the Chevrolet business, he sold the dealership to the Gruetzner’s. So, he used to have the car dealership and he also ran cattle out at Littig.
Kay - He grew crops.
Jean - He grew some crops. So, he was kind of a jack of all trades. He did many different things.
Interviewer - Yeah, a lot of enterprises. Did he inherit that business sense from his father?
Jean - The reason he left the Chevrolet dealership was that Grampy, our grandfather, was getting too old to run the business. Our father went into the business with Grampy to help him.
Interviewer - Okay.
Jean - Kay wants to add something to that.
Kay - Daddy had the car dealership before the war. Our brother was born in 1937. So, there's almost ten years between me and my sisters and our brother. When World War II broke out, Daddy had to leave his dealership and he served in Burma. He was captain of one of four units that were building the Ledo Road in Burma.
Interviewer - The Ledo Road, was that the same as the Burma Road?
Kay - I'm not sure about that.
Jean - I'm not either.
Kay - He was gone for several years. When he got back home, he resumed his Chevrolet business. It was in the mid-1950s when he sold the dealership to Mr. Gruetzner and then my father started working with Grampy.
Jean - Our mother was a schoolteacher and she taught in Manda for a few years early on and then stayed home as a housewife and mother after we were born.
Interviewer - But that was after you all were born, after your brother was born did she continue teaching?
Jean - No, I don't think so.
Kidd –I think she just taught a very short time in Manda.
Interviewer - Okay. So, she became a housewife?
Kay - Yes.
Interviewer - Tell me about your brother.
Kay - He's wonderful. He's kind of like an intermediate parent.
Interviewer - Oh, okay.
Kay - We just enjoy him so much. He lives in Dallas.
Interviewer - What's his name?
Kay - Bill. Another William.
Interviewer - Okay.
Kay - He's retired now and has…we all have a bunch of grandchildren and we all try to get together as often as we can. We just enjoy each other's company.
Jean - One interesting thing about Bill, he graduated from Elgin High School, of course, in 1955. While he was in high school, he played the cornet in the high school band. But he was also in a jazz band that…I don't know if you've ever heard of Zoom Hashem? Zoom used to drive the fire truck. He also drove a school bus, but he played the guitar, I think.
Kay - Yes.
Jean - Bill and several other boys around his age and Zoom had this band. They didn't go far but they traveled around Texas playing jazz music.
Kay - At dances and things like that.
Jean - Yeah.
Kay - Jimmy Lundgren was the piano player. Bill also plays the piano quite well. Also, Billy Henry. Do you remember Mr. Henry, the postman? His oldest son was our brother's age.
Interviewer - Oh, Boyd Henry's son?
Kay - Boyd's dad.
Interviewer - Okay.
Jean - Boyd's dad was a postman. It was Boyd's older brother that played in the band with Bill, our Bill.
Kay - Yes, and Bill Condron sang; just a bunch of really nice guys.
Interviewer - Was your brother out of school at this time?
Jean - No, they were in high school.
Interviewer - Oh, okay.
Kay - All the boys were in high school except Zoom Hashem, he was older. He was an adult.
Interviewer - Well, Jean, tell me about your childhood. What was it like?
Jean - Oh, wow. It was a wonderful childhood growing up in Elgin. We were able to know so many people. I feel like now kids don't know everybody in their grade or their class, but then we knew everybody because we were a small group
Upchurch's Drug Store was a fun place to go. They had the soda fountain and they had a drink that was actually a glass of chocolate milk. The smaller one was called a four hundred and the larger one was called an eight hundred. We thought we were really doing something when we got to go to Upchurch's and have a four hundred or an eight hundred.
Interviewer - How old were you at that time?
Kay - Oh, I would say pre-teen.
Jean - Oh, definitely pre-teen, like elementary school age. Then, of course, there was Ramsey's Drugstore across the street. We used to go there in high school because Chuck Fromme worked there and he was in my class and we'd get a root beer float.
Kay - The Coke floats at the Dairy Queen (Dairy Cream) were fabulous too. And the corn dogs. That was the Storey family that had the Dairy Queen (Dairy Cream) .
Interviewer - Oh, okay. When Chuck Fromme started working at the high school, I knew I'd seen him somewhere before. So, he used to work at Ramsey's?
Jean - He worked at Ramsey's while we were in high school. I don't remember if it was like our freshman and sophomore years, but Chuck definitely worked there. He was a soda jerk.
Interviewer - Okay. Kay let's go back a little further than that. Where did you all live?
Kay - Well, we lived at 409 North Main until I was eight. Jean would've been four then and sister Ann would've been six. When our grandparents died, we moved into their house at 710 North Main. That's the house that Daddy lived in until he died.
Jean –We all grew up there.
Kay - It was wonderful.
Interviewer - I was under the impression you all lived outside of town.
Jean - No. Our great grandparents had a house that was outside of town, but we never lived there.
Kay - The branch of the family that lived there was the Roy Rivers family.
Interviewer - Did you all have any land outside of town yourselves?
Kay - Yes. Daddy had a farm in Littig that he rented, or I shouldn't say rented. He leased the property from Henry Bell. It was located out in the sandy land between Elgin and Bastrop. Daddy ran cattle out there. We had an old yellow Jeep that Daddy bought that was left over from Camp Swift in World War II.
Jean - Boy, did we have fun out there riding in that Jeep.
Kay - The way we rode without seat belts and stuff like that is probably against the law now.
Jean - But we all survived.
Kay - Yes. We also rode horseback at the Littig farm.
Interviewer - When you two were youngsters did you have friends that lived nearby? I'm talking about when you were in elementary school.
Kay - We could walk to most of our friends' houses except the ones that lived out in the country. We'd have to drive out there. But we really had friends we could walk to.
Jean - Yes. We did lots of spending the night with each other and things like that. The Rivers’ family was extra fortunate because we had so many of our cousins living there. In Daddy's generation, there was Daddy, there was Howard Rivers and Roy Rivers, and all of their kids were in our age group, except our older brother Bill. We all got to be a lot more than just cousins. We were best friends as well and we spent a lot of time together. That was really nice.
Interviewer - Now, were those men your father’s brothers?
Kay - No, they were first cousins.
Interviewer - I mean Roy, Howard and Lawson.
Kay - No, they were first cousins. Their fathers were all brothers. There was great uncle Roy, great uncle Howard and our grandfather. They all three had kids and grand-kids so we are the grand-kids of those guys.
Interviewer - Okay. Jean, tell me about school. You can start with elementary. Let's not talk about high school yet. Your education before high school, what was it like?
Jean - Well, it was really great. Like I was talking earlier about us knowing everybody in our class, it was a close-knit group and we always had three sections. We had 1A, 1B and 1C, 2A, 2B and 2C as we moved along, we had three sections, three classes. We had wonderful teachers. A really nice thing about it was that you usually knew your teacher before you ever were in that grade or in her classroom. I say her because they were mostly females at the time. They were family friends, or maybe they went to your church because we were in a small community. That was a really nice feeling too. If you were going to first grade, your teacher wasn’t going to be somebody that you had never seen before. As a matter of fact, my first-grade teacher was the wife of our minister at First United Methodist, so I knew her.
The elementary school is where Elgin Primary is now. That was where we all went to elementary school and we had many fun times playing out on the playground there.
Kay - Except that, for the first year and a half, I went to the old red schoolhouse that is no longer there. We moved in the middle of second grade. I think we were the first of the baby boomers.
Interviewer - Is that the building that burned down?
Kay - Yes, it is.
Interviewer - Okay.
Jean - No, the old red schoolhouse.
Interviewer - No, not the old red schoolhouse.
Jean - No, the school where we went to elementary school.
Kay - Oh, yes.
Jean - It had a fire.
Kay - Yes. Sorry. Yes.
Jean - The school that’s there now is not the same one. It looks a lot like it, but it's not the same one.
Kay - And our grandfather went to school in that same old brick building, so did Daddy.
Interviewer - Are there any memories about high school? I know you probably have many, so who'd like to start out?
Kay - Well, do you know about any of the Halloween tricks that the guys in my class would do around Halloween? They’d get in a lot of trouble for mischief, like putting bricks across Main Street in the middle of the night. All the way across Main Street there would be a little brick wall. That was a popular one. And taking bathroom equipment like toilets and things like that from the junk yard and putting it in the principal's yard on Halloween.
Interviewer - Old commodes.
Kay - Yes, they were interesting boys.
Interviewer - Well, that was mischief. It wasn't... I can recall on Halloween when they would take tree limbs and put them across South Avenue F and then when somebody got out of their car to move them, they'd throw rocks at them.
Kay - That was dangerous.
Interviewer - That's what I mean. What you're describing is more like mischief.
Kay - Yeah. Oh, absolutely. The boys, didn’t get in a whole lot of trouble about it. They were having fun. I remember that it was so wonderful and it was safe back then. From about eight or nine years old, on, I could ride my bike all over town and felt safe. I miss those kinds of days and the walking. We could walk to the grocery stores. I remember Uncle Eli speaking Swedish to a lot of the older Swedes. There were so many Swedes in town that never learned to speak English, and Uncle Eli was great about being able to help them at his grocery store. I remember the Swedish Midsummer celebrations. There was one just last week in Elgin. That has happened every year for seventy-five years now. They started the year I was born.
There was a man named Sun Thomas. We all call him Sun Thomas. He would drive his mule wagon and deliver things to people around town and sometimes he would let me jump in and ride a block or two with him.
Interviewer - Oh, okay. Are you talking about Les Thomas?
Kay - Yes.
Interviewer - Yeah. I just wrote an article about him.
Kay - You did? Oh, I'll have to read it.
Interviewer - I emailed it to Jean a little earlier.
Fajkus - I'll print that out for her. I haven't had a chance to open your email that you sent a bit ago.
Kay - I also have memories of the hobos that rode the trains. The first house we lived in; our backyard backed up to the train track. Hobos would go to our house and all those houses along the track wanting food. My mother always had something ready that she could get them if they looked hungry. But you can't afford to do something like that anymore. It's dangerous and I'll admit it makes me sad.
Kay - A really happy thing for us was we had extraordinary teachers like Miss Kitty Henderson, the Spanish teacher, and also the school librarian.
Jean - Yes. We knew her, we knew her as a family friend because she was a neighbor. She lived right across 8th Street from us. Our house was at 8th and Main. We always called her Miss Kitty. When we got into high school and she was our teacher, we couldn't call her Miss Kitty anymore. We had to call her Miss Henderson. But she was a wonderful teacher. She was very stern, and she expected you to listen and behave and do what you were supposed to do in her class, but everyone respected her. She was extraordinary. She also taught for many, many years in Elgin. Our father graduated in 1928, and she taught him. I graduated in 1968 and she taught me too, forty years later and did not retire until a few years after that. She was amazing.
Interviewer - Was she your favorite teacher?
Jean - Oh, I have several favorites. Dorothy Fitzpatrick would certainly be up there.
Kay - Thelma Harrison was science. Dorothy Fitzpatrick got people into college because she was such a great English teacher when it came to writing essays. Ms. Henderson spent her summers traveling to every Spanish-speaking country in the world and she shared all of that with us in class and it was so interesting. She made what could have been a dull subject, just fascinating.
Jean - Another fun thing that we did in high school was playing in the powder puff football game every year. It was the seniors against the juniors and the sophomores would just be kind of helping out somehow. The girls would dress up, I mean full football uniform; the pants, pads, helmets, and everything. The guys would coach us. It was a sight to behold.
Interviewer - Yeah. What did you play, flag football?
Jean - Pardon?
Interviewer - Did you play flag football?
Jean - No, we did tackle football. We put on the full uniforms with the pads and everything.
Kay - But I was so sorry. I was so bad at it that they'd call a play and say, "Not you, Kay."
Jean - But, you understand this was one game, once a year. It was for fun and kind of a fundraiser. Sometimes the boys would dress as cheerleaders and cheer.
Interviewer - You know, they still do that.
Jean - Do they?
Kay - Oh, I'm still glad to hear that.
Interviewer - Yeah, they still do that. Now, what about the activities you were involved in? Why don't you go first, Kay?
Kay - Well, I took piano lessons all those years. We had a fabulous teacher that drove down from Austin. She would, this is an example of how different the times were, pick us up once a week from our study hall, take us to our house for a lesson, and then take us back. She did that all day long with lots of kids; pick up one at school, take them to their house, teach a lesson, then go back and get another one.
Kay - I was involved in the band. I played clarinet. I was a twirler. I still twirl my baton in private. I loved English, and I think it's because Dorothy Fitzpatrick made it so much fun; also, ready writing and things like that. Jean is our mathematician. I can't add two and two, but Jean does that.
Jean - Oh, well I was also in the band. I played the saxophone and was a majorette and drum major as well. Kay was drum major too during her senior year. I took homemaking, so I was in the FHA, the Future Homemakers of America. That was kind of a fun group and we went to conventions and things like that.
Interviewer - Okay. Did you have any jobs when you all were teenagers?
Jean - I did not.
Kay - I did. Uncle Levi would pay me a quarter when I would take some of the canned goods and stuff in the grocery store and put them on the right shelf. And that quarter, I thought, was a million dollars.
Jean - I did help Daddy out at the office but I didn't really have a salary. I just did it for fun. But one thing I remember when I was really younger and I would be down at Daddy's office, he would give me a quarter so I could go around the corner down to Main Street, and go to Mikulencak. They had the Ben Franklin store, and Elkins Five and Dime across the street. When he gave me a quarter, I really thought I had something. In those days, you could really buy a fun toy for a quarter. I used to love to do that.
Interviewer - –Well, you told me about a couple of business establishments. Are there any others that you recall?
Kay - Yes. There was Western Auto. They had everything from tools to bicycles. I guess most Western Auto stores used to be like that. I don't think they are around anymore. Then of course, there was Simon's Dress Shop… well, it wasn't just dresses.
Interviewer - I never heard it referred to in that manner.
Jean - It wasn't a dress shop. It was just called Simon's.
Kay - The department store.
Jean - They had men's clothing and women's clothing.
Kay - Remember, there were two of them. There was Meyer Simon and Joe Simon. They were brothers and they had two stores. One was right next to Upchurch's Drug Store. And then the other one was… if you're standing at the bank, it was right across the street from the bank on Main Street.
Jean - That's the only one I remember. The other one must have been earlier on.
Kay - Oh, I'm so much older.
Interviewer - Was that before Joe's Toggery?
Kay - Oh no, it was there always.
Jean - Joe's Toggery, was it there when we were really young? I'm not sure.
Kay - Oh yes.
Jean - Yes. Of course. It was often just called Dildy's because the Dilly's owned it.
Interviewer - Okay. Well, tell me about the person who had the greatest influence on your life.
Kay - Oh my.
Jean - Oh, goodness.
Kay - You first, Jean.
Jean - Well, I think I would have to say my father.
Interviewer - Yes.
Jean - For many obvious reasons, but also the fact that our mother died so young. I was only 12 so he was my main parental influence for most of my life. He was just a remarkable person and a wonderful father and he taught me so much, and many of those lessons I still live by.
Interviewer - Did he hire someone to do the housework or did you all do it?
Jean - We did have someone that worked for us that did housework and she also cooked. And Kay and Anne and I had some chores as well.
Kidd –Yes. She was a family member as much as anybody could be. She lived to be a hundred years old, plus five days.
Interviewer - Wow. What was her name?
Kay - Savalia Woodard. I don't know what we would've done without her. She shaped us as much as a parent.
Jean - Well, she had been working for our family ever since our brother was a baby so it wasn't just after mother died that she came.
Kay - Oh, yeah. She had been there all along. She was very close to our parents as well. Just a magnificent lady.
Jean - Yes.
Kay - And I would say, she would be a major influence in our lives as well as both of our parents. For me, Mother's love of poetry and great literature really influenced me a lot.
Interviewer - What did you all do after high school? Jean?
Jean - Oh, I went to UT. I graduated high school in '68 and then I graduated from UT in '72 with a degree in elementary education and special education. Then, as you know, I was in education for many years after that. I taught in many different types of special education classes and positions. Later, I became an educational diagnostician and also an administrator for a number of years.
Interviewer - Okay. Kay?
Kay - Well, I got married and had two kids and I started teaching piano. When I was about 20 years old, our pastor said, "My son wants you to teach him to play piano." And I said, "Well, I don't teach piano." And he said, "You do now." So that's how I got started and I'm still doing it. I've been teaching for 55 years now and have no intention of slowing down. I also started playing with small bands and even the seventeen-piece big bands and I have a performance group of my own. We've been playing together for forty years.
Interviewer - Wow.
Kay - I've been playing in church my entire life. I guess I first started playing in church when I was ten years old, not for the whole service, but she would let me play a hymn or two or the offertory or something like that. I've just never not played in church, and I've been doing so for sixty-five years now.
Interviewer - So those piano lessons paid off?
Kay - Yes. I speak better piano than I do English and I married a drummer.
Interviewer - Okay. I was going to ask you about your family. You can go ahead and tell me about your husband and kids.
Kay - Well, I'm married to Art Kidd, and we are very happy doing the same things. He plays with a lot of different people as a drummer and singer. My son is Steve, and he has four boys and a daughter. One of his boys has our great-granddaughter. They all live in Austin. My daughter Elise, who is a year younger than Steve, is named after our mother. She lives in Atlanta. and has a son and two daughters. So, the youngest grandchild is eighteen and the oldest is thirty-five.
Interviewer - Wow. And Jean?
Jean - Yes. My husband is Mel Fajkus. Well, we're not quite at fifty years of marriage yet, but we'll have our forty-ninth anniversary this summer--next month. He also went to UT. We met during our senior year. His career was with the Texas Rehabilitation Commission and then the Texas Commission for the Blind. He was a counselor working with people with disabilities, counseling them and helping them get job training and find appropriate jobs. We have two children, who you know. T. taught both Matt and Julie. Matt and Julie both live in Austin now, which is wonderful for us. Matt is an architect. He has a firm and he also teaches architecture at UT. Julie lives here in Austin as well and is married to Chris Ligi. They have two little girls, Elise and Cora, ages nine and six. It's so wonderful having them all right here where we can spend a lot of time together.
Interviewer - I wanted to ask, when you all were growing up, what church did you attend?
Jean - The Methodist Church there in Elgin, First Methodist.
Interviewer - Are your parents and other family members buried in Elgin?
Kay - Actually, T., we go back, I think seven generations, no, maybe five or six generations in the Elgin Cemetery. Starting with the ones who came on both sides; the ones who came in the 1850’s and even our Swedish grandparents, who never got to go back to Sweden after they immigrated; they're there in the Elgin cemetery.
Jean - All of our family, even our great aunts and uncles and cousins and... Well, I would say not all, but the majority of our deceased family members are there in the Elgin Cemetery.
Kay - Ninety percent, I would say.
Jean - When we take our kids to visit the cemetery, it's a real family history lesson right there.
Kay - They love to go. Actually, our plan is to be buried there also, either us or our ashes.
Jean - Yes, ours as well.
Interviewer - Well, I really enjoyed talking with the two of you today. Is there anything else that you would like to share?
Kay - I'd just like to say how much we appreciate your incredible effort at preserving all this history.
Jean - I'm with you on that.
Kay - Elgin is grateful to you. We are grateful to you.
Interviewer - I didn't initiate the project. I'm just a worker, but thank you. They are doing some phenomenal things in Elgin in connection with the Sesquicentennial and this is just one of them.
Jean - Thank you.
Kay - Yes.
Interviewer - Like I said, I enjoyed speaking with you and I wish you well in the future.
Jean - Same to you.
Kay - Yes.
Jean - Hope we get to see you soon.
Interviewer - I hope so also. Tell the family members that I know hello.
Jean - We'll do that.
Kay - Sure will.
Interviewer - Okay.