The following is the oral history of the 2010 October Living Treasure Martha Long. It was recorded and transcribed by Nancy Theiss, PhD on Sept. 21, 2010. The Living Treasure Program is a joint endeavor of the Oldham Era and Oldham County History Center.

I was born Feb. 22, 1924, at Crestwood and my name is Martha Elizabeth Long and I was the 5th of 11 children born to William and Bessie Potts. Lawrence, Dorothy, Russell, J.C., myself, Hazel, William , Billy, Joe, Andy and Mary Anne. There are eight of us left today. We lived up off of 146, across the railroad track from the Camden School now. My dad was the railroad depot agent at Crestwood, when I was a little girl. And then he decided he would raise flowers and he ended up raising a lot of flowers and then started building greenhouses, which consisted of several. It got to be a pretty big operation. I graduated in 1942 from Crestwood School which was a 12 year school at that time, and I couldn’t further my education because my Dad needed help, so we girls, the rest of us had to help because all of my brothers had been drafted into the service, at different times.

We had 23 acres and we had chickens, hogs, cows, and all that. My mother was a homemaker and always needed help in the house- she did a lot of canning, sewing, a hard worker, never sick. Her maiden name was Russell. Mother’s mother lived with us during the last few years. Mother was in Todd’s Point and went to school at Campbellsburg.. Dad was born at Todd’s Point.

We could always have a ball game or horseshoe game, or checkers. There were so many of us we could always play games. We had fun. For birthdays Mother always made a cake for each of us- always- she tried to make the kind each one liked- chocolate, coconut- she was a great cook. We all got something but not a whole lot. The best gift I ever got was when my Mother gave me a surprise 16th birthday party at the Crestwood Civic Club- and my birthday being on Washington’s Birthday, that’s why I am named Martha, they tell me- she had everything decorated in red, white and blue- it was really a surprise. That was the biggest birthday I ever had!!

Mostly we used the flower trucks for transportation. Daddy grew all these flowers before we had greenhouses. He would cut the flowers, gladiolas, sweet peas, and all those things, bring them in the house in the basement. They would pile them up on tables in the basement and then we would bunch them up and tie them. He would pack them and ship them by train to Chicago and different places. Of course, he picked the flowers before they opened up. He grew beautiful flowers.

I was the first one born on the farm where we lived then. We were all born at home- there was a Dr. Sams and a Dr. Pryor. We all had to help with the babies. We didn’t have baby food, car seats. Mother breast fed all of us and she gave us food from the table and cotton diapers- I can see them now, hanging on the lines outside! She had an electric washing machine in the basement. We didn’t have indoor plumbing for a long time and we had well water- hand pump in the sink. Mother cooked on a wood stove for a long time. We helped Mother with everything- cleaned, making the beds - we did a lot of help getting stuff together that she canned, breaking the beans, hulling the peas. Mother had plenty of food, always. Even later in life, when we went in, she always had something ready for us to eat.

The hobos would come off the trains, because the trains were right down in front of our house, the hobos would come into the driveway, coming to get something to eat. And Mother would always fix them something to eat, and then they would go away. And in the winter time, Daddy would always fix them a place to stay, close to the furnace room in the greenhouse and then they would get up the next morning and go away. The hobos never caused any problems. Mother and Daddy never locked doors. We never locked doors back then.

We walked to school unless it was really bad and then Daddy would take us. At that time Crestwood had the funeral home, Stackhouse Grocery, Waugh’s Grocery, Baptist, Methodist and Christian Church – later on there was the Giles Restaurant. The interurban ran by from Crestwood to LaGrange.

We had recess at school and we would go to the gym, and I would play the piano. Daddy played the piano by ear, and I played by ear. I started real young, I don’t remember how young but I am the only one that can do that in my family, except for Daddy. Daddy would play a lot before we would have dinner.

We had four bedrooms upstairs and Mother and Daddy had their bedroom downstairs. We only had one bathroom – and that was outside plumbing for a while. For a long time we just took baths behind an old stove. We put hot water in an old tub. Mother had seven of us at one time with measles!!! It was on an Easter Sunday. Whooping cough was pretty bad back then, too.

We knew everybody in Crestwood back then, and everybody knew us!! We went to Camp Kavanaugh Camp Meeting, a church meeting, every August and we looked forward to that. It lasted 10 days, every August. We went every night and three times on Sunday. They had such great singing and great preaching, too! Mother and Daddy and all of us- and one time, Mother and Daddy didn’t realize it until they got home, they left one of my brothers, Russell, on the seat at the tabernacle, at the bench, asleep. Well, two of Mother and Daddy’s friends soon came in the driveway with him, they had noticed him lying there!!! It never happened again.

The camp meetings were at night-that was a great time- we would go to the dining hall and eat on Sunday, some time. They had youth meetings on Sunday evenings and they had horseshoe and croquet that you could play before you went into the tabernacle. We ate at home before we left. When we got older, they had a real nice dining hall, and some of us waited tables.

We always had proms in high school. Last one I remember was over at the old Poplar Grove School. We had music and refreshments but it wasn’t like today.

I was in a bad accident with my Dad when I was 14 and broke my shoulder. It happened on Frankfort Ave where they had trolley buses and one of them pulled out and hit us. It scared me so bad that I never wanted to drive so I never have. Sometimes I wished I could drive but it has always worked out. I don’t get nervous when other people drive.

Dottie Paulin, Marian Leitch, Hazel and Steve [my brother in-law] were in my class. Hazel, my sister who is 13 months younger, they started her with me in class. Mr. C. W. Croft was the principal.

Most of my relatives were in Louisville- some of them almost always came out after church on Sunday. We were always glad to seem them because they bought candy with them which was a treat for us! There was always fried chicken, homemade bread, all kinds of vegetables, blackberry cobbler. Mother was a great cook. She raised the chickens, dressed them on Saturday and fried them on Sundays. I loved her mashed potatoes and hot rolls. Her potatoes were made with whole milk and butter. She made her own butter- we all churned butter- we took turns. She made loaves of homemade bread which were out of this world. And her pumpkin pies, that was one of my favorites- Daddy grew the pumpkins.

Mother made most of our clothes- Mother dressed Hazel and us alike- most people thought we were twins- we dressed alike, up until the time we married!!

After high school I went to work for Daddy at the shop on Bardstown Rd. I went in on the flower truck. It was Bardstown Rd. and Bonnycastle. I helped with the flowers, waited on customers. I went in everyday and did it several years until I married.

When Paul Long came out of the Navy, I was introduced to him by a friend of mine. He was a Baptist, and he started going to church with me, which made a great impression on my mother and dad. He was born in Shelby County but the family moved to Ballardsville and he went to LaGrange School.

We married in 1947 and we had a big wedding down at the Crestwood Methodist Church. Daddy had a big wedding because he had plenty of flowers to do the decorations!! All of my sisters were the bridesmaids. They wore rose colored taffeta dresses that my aunt made and my maid of honor had on an aqua colored taffeta dress and I wore a satin dress. We had a reception at home and we went on our honeymoon the first night to Cincinnati and then on up to Niagara Falls. We stayed at the Netherland Plaza in Cincinnati and on our 50th Wedding Anniversary the children gave us a gift card to go back to the Netherland Plaza. And when we went back in up there, it had changed its name but we had our receipt from our honeymoon, for twelve dollars and a half, and we showed it to them. We went out then, for a little while and when we got back there was flowers and everything in our room and they couldn’t believe we had been there 50 years ago.

After we married, we lived with Paul’s mom and dad for a few months and we ran a grocery store in Ballardsville for a few years. Then we sold that and Paul and his father bought a grocery store in LaGrange on Main Street, next to the fire department, Long’s Market. Paul would go in every morning at 3 a.m. to get fresh produce from the Farmer’s Market in Louisville. People would charge their groceries and a lot of times would pay off their bill after they sold their tobacco.

That was a busy time in LaGrange. There were several grocery stores and on Saturday night you could hardly walk down the street, there were so many people. After Paul sold the store on Main Street he took a traveling job with a food company so I was home a lot by myself. I took a part-time job, after our youngest, David, turned 10, in 1967, that ended up being a full time job for 27 years for LaGrange Utilities. When I went to work there the Waller Brothers were there, and then Freddie Smith, Frank Louden, Wilmer Nation, Louise Johnson and Thorny McKenzie was keeping the water books when I was there. That was a great place to work, I worked with some great people. One thing I always remembered was every time that Reverend Meacham, the long time Baptist minister, would come in to pay the bill he would say “Martha, I am still praying for you because you are a Methodist!” It made my day!!

We built a house on Fifth Street and lived there 53 years. We had three great children and couldn’t have had a better neighborhood. The children that I still cherish today, that grew-up on Fifth Street, they all got along fine, played together so well. It was just great. People that lived there then was Tommy and Ruby Duncan, Martha and Tom Manby, Garnet and Mary Brown, Mary Ella and L. D. Cassady, Bill and Dottie Dawson, Jean and Charlie Theiss, it was just a great neighborhood.

In LaGrange, I used to shop at the department store, Rosenburgs and it later became Jones and Shearer. You could get clothes, shoes. And I always went to Head’s Drug Store, for medicine and their soda fountain, ice cream and drinks. And I went into Jerry’s Corner Store. We would go to Hazel Stamper’s Restaurant, it was a good restaurant.

We continued going to Crestwood Methodist Church but decided to switch to LaGrange Methodist which is now Convenant, because we thought the children needed to go to the same church in the neighborhood of the school they attended. Brother Kerce and I would have a children’s program on Wednesday nights. And they had MYF on Sunday nights.

People that influenced me were Brother Kerce, Brother Hisle, and of course, Mother and Daddy. Mother for discipline, did a little “switching” but Daddy would just have a talk with us.

Paul and I retired the same day and we then we traveled quite a bit. We went to Florida and California, we did a lot of traveling. We took the children on vacations too when they were young and had good times together. I know parents can’t always be home now, because everyone works, but I think it was good that I was home when my children got home from school. We always had a meal at night together. But now, children have so many activities and I think it takes time away from church activities and a lot of families can’t eat and be together. You want children to be in things too, it is just harder today for families. The main thing is to love them and teach them what’s right and wrong.

Paul and I had three good children, Paul Jr., Betty Sue and David and seven grandchildren. We lost a little granddaughter in 2002, she had a malignant brain tumor. It was a terrible thing. And then we had a great grandchild born the month after Paul passed away. He passed away in August of 2009 and we were married for 63 years. I knew it was time for Paul and he had been sick with a heart condition but they couldn’t do anything more for him and I couldn’t grieve too much for that reason. I have been blessed, the kids are great to me and I have a lot of friends and I hang on to church, which is my main stay.

After Paul died, I had never helped with the church crafts, which is the first Saturday in November so I go to that every Monday, to help with that. And I belong to the Methodist Women, and we meet every month, have a study and eat together. It’s been a good life, God has been good to me. I love my church and we have some wonderful people in the church that have been awfully good to me. I love my grandchildren. I don’t get to see them as much because they are growing up. Every summer the Potts family has a reunion. We have been doing that ever since Mother and Daddy died. We usually have a big crowd, over 100 people.