Interview with Gladys Gitchell

Broome County Oral History Project

Interview with: Mrs. Gladys Gitchell

Interviewed by: Susan Dobandi

Date of interview: 13 January 1978

Susan: Mrs. Gitchell, could you tell us something about your early beginnings—where you came from, what your parents did, and things like that?

Gladys: Well, I was born in Alpoint, South Dakota. My father's name was James Campbell, my mother’s name was Villie. I, ah—he ran, my father ran a department store in a little village and, ah, his—my brothers and sisters and I helped in the store. It was just a country department store. One side was a dry goods store, one side was a bakery, and one side was a grocery store. From there we worked and went to school, which only took us through the seventh grade as we had to be sent to the city to go to high school.

At that time I met my husband, Arthur Gitchell, and we were married when I was nineteen. We moved to a ranch outside of Reah Heights, which was a small town, and we raised cattle, horses, hogs and sheep and chickens. We separated the milk and sold the cream and fed the skimmed milk to the calves and pigs. He milked twenty-seven cows.

When in 1921, we decided to come east to New York State to visit my husband’s people that lived on a farm in Apalachin. While we were there we visited his uncle in Binghamton, who was Hollis M. Gitchell, Water Superintendent. He talked my husband into taking a job with the city and staying in Binghamton as not only as having a better job, but also having better schooling for our children. So, we sent word back to South Dakota and had our properties disposed of and stayed on.

At that time my husband worked in the Water Department and did an east side route for the city water by carrying sand and salt and a shovel and walking the route and digging out the fire hydrants and, whenever finding a frozen one, fill it with salt and making them safe for the fireman. At that time he was making $4.35 a day. Which—we lived on Washington Street at that time, we lived on Washington Street in City property between Hawley and Stuart, and I kept roomers, and in 1927 we decided to buy us a home, which we did, at 43 Andrews Ave.

I became interested in the school—parent-teacher work, and did what I could with the other ladies to get new schools and improve our school system on the east side. In ‘21 when—was when the new East Jr. was built—no, that’s wrong, ’27, the new East Jr. was built, and in 1938 the new North High School was built. We called it the North High school because it was the north—the people on the northside wanted the school built in their district. So, we built it and called it North High, which starts the north side of E. Fredricks Street. It was a big piece of swampland and made a—by filling it all in, it made a—a nice football field and recreation field for both of the Central High School and the north side. 

At that time I worked, clerked in the different stores in Binghamton. I started in at Fowler’s in the late forties. As the condition of the bus system changed, I found it more convenient to leave Fowler’s and come to the east side and work in a 10¢ store. It was on the corner of Robinson and Moeller Street, where I worked for thirteen years. I try now to keep very active in the senior citizen work, where I volunteer my time—the Greenman Center, where—which is located where the Pine Street school was torn down.

Susan: Tell us how many children you had.

Gladys: I had eight children—four boys and four girls. They all became active in some business. My daughter has worked—my oldest daughter has worked for the Universal Instrument, which has business in a great many different places—Chicago, Canada, and different—and she has worked for thirty-five years as a cost accountant. One boy works for the Board of Education, one boy works for TV, colored TV repair, and my son James, who lives in Maryland, works for the Metro—Metro 77, which he has worked for them for the past year.

Susan: You want to bring out that it's a new concept in transportation.

Gladys: —which is a new concept in transportation. It expands—the Metro system will carry millions of riders to offices, schools, stores and recreation centers on both sides of the Potomac River. The automatic fare collection begins with the open of—the Blue Line, with the Blue Line you won't have to carry any extra change. All you need to do—need to do is insert a coin in a fare box—

Susan: —fare box—

Gladys: —a vending machine in the station itself, and into—you insert it into the slot and it pops right back at you in a half a second, and on you walk onto the Metro train.