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Washington Women’s Heritage Project records, 1900-2000 
University of Washington Libraries Special Collections 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton 
April 25, 1993 
Cassette 1, Side 1 
 
 
Barbara Wright  00:01 
1, 2, 3, testing, testing. It is April 25. It is April 25, 1993, we're in the home of Olive Carlton. 
Let's start off with your grandmother. You said that she was very-- she was sort of an advisor to 
politicians. So, do you have any sort of, like, memories of politicians coming over [?to the 
house?], and just kind of elaborate on that. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  00:25 
I don't know their names.  
 
Barbara Wright  00:27 
Oh, that's fine. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  00:27 
But they were just-- some of them were studying politics, but others, the ones that were running 
for office, they would come over to us and ask her advice, and they'd get into quite arg-- quite a 
lot of arguments over it. Was very interesting, because I was really interested in that too myself. 
 
Barbara Wright  00:51 
Where were you, like, sitting in the room when they were--  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  00:54 
Mm-hmm. 
 
Barbara Wright  00:54 
Oh, so you were in the room?  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  00:55 
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. She let me do that. I couldn't say anything, you know, because we were 
seen and not heard in those days, when you were young. 
 
Barbara Wright  01:04 
Do you remember any sort of, like, particular arguments they might have been having? 
 
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Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  01:08 
No, that's too many years ago. I don't remember that. 
 
Barbara Wright  01:11 
Okay. What sort of values did she have that-- I'm not sure if that's... Um, for instance, did she 
sort of have a-- was she very community-minded in that, you know, for instance, if there was sort 
of like a beggar in town, she would, you know, give money, or, you know, being kind to others, 
or hard work ethic, or, you know, the idle hands are the devil's toy sort of thing? Any sort of-- for 
instance, like, I know within my family, we say things like, we just simply don't do that. That is 
just not done. So that kind of thing. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  01:57 
Well, she was of the old school, right was right and wrong was wrong. I-- as I said, I was just too 
young to take that all in, what her policies were. But she was a very strong-minded person, and 
sometimes she was one of these, that what she said, that was it. Very strong will. But I don't-- I 
can't pinpoint what. As I said, that's an awful lot-- I was only about 12, 13, at that time. So that's 
a long time ago, but I can remember sitting in our home with these-- sometimes they'd be just 
young guys from the university that was there asking her advice, and then sometimes, if whoever 
was running for a position, they'd come too. And they would get into quite a lot of arguments.  
 
Barbara Wright  03:05 
But you don't-- 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  03:07 
 But friendly, you know, not angry, just... 
 
Barbara Wright  03:10 
How do you think that her reputation got started as being sort of a person that people could come 
to her? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  03:16 
That I don't know. I really can't say, because we did not live with her or close to her. I met her 
when I came-- when we went over there to live, from Maryland, and I met her then, and we'd 
only see each other, well, once or twice a year. I mean, she lived in England and we lived in 
Northern Ireland, so we were not close, so I didn't really get to-- sometimes she'd come over and 
stay with us for about six months, a long time, and then... She was very strong on education. I 
can say that, because I know-- I remember times that she'd go up to the school that I was 
attending, and if I wasn't doing something that she didn't think was right, she'd go up to the 
headmaster, they called him, and they have a good talk there, how it should be done. So that's-- 
you brought that back. I hadn't thought of that for years. As I say, she was very strong-willed that 
way. But the strangest thing was that the teachers, they loved her to go up there. She got to be 
quite well known while I was still attending that school. 
 
Barbara Wright  04:48 
What school was that? 
 
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Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  04:50 
Oh, it was just a-- more or less like your public schools, your grade schools. 
 
Barbara Wright  04:55 
What was the name of it? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  05:02 
Harding Memorial. Yeah. And it was in... Can't remember what... I was in Cregagh, the suburbs 
of Belfast, Northern Ireland. 
 
Barbara Wright  05:23 
Okay, so you mentioned something about-- what can you remember exactly what she wasn't 
happy about with your education?  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  05:29 
Oh, I guess whatever they were-- way they were teaching, or something. I don't know. 
 
Barbara Wright  05:36 
Okay. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  05:39 
But I know there were some changes made.  
 
Barbara Wright  05:41 
Do you remember what those changes were? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  05:43 
No. No, no, I didn't know that. 
 
Barbara Wright  05:47 
Okay. Were you familiar at all with any of her political beliefs, i.e. the woman's vote or...? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  05:54 
No, I don't think-- well, that could have come up too because she was very much... And I guess, 
well, women were voting at that time, I guess, yeah. 
 
Barbara Wright  06:08 
Okay. What was your relationship with her?  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  06:12 
Very close. I adored her, and she spoiled me. But see, on her side, we're all musicians, and that's 
why she was very keen on me to keep my music going, and that's how I got-- kept at it. She was 
not a participant in the music, but she loved it, Her family, though, that was the one I told you 
her cousin was the composer, [?Bess?]. And her daughters, my father was, 'course, in it from the 
day one, could start singing in the boys choir. And my-- her daughter, one was in a metropolitan 
opera over in Liverpool. Yeah, that was when they moved to Liverpool, I bet. That's where she 
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was and her-- don't know about the other daughter, but I know Ruby was. And then her daughter 
was in it too. So, it was in there, you know. 
 
Barbara Wright  07:26 
You mentioned that she spoiled you. How would she spoil you? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  07:31 
Well, she'd come over for a visit, and the next thing I knew, I was going on a trip with her. And, 
oh, she gave me a great time roaming all over England, sightseeing. Go to all the different 
famous places. That's where I got to see most of their cathedrals and museums. She was a great 
one for that. 
 
Barbara Wright  07:58 
How long was these--how long would these trips be? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  08:02 
Well, I had-- the schools gave me certain time off to go, and sometimes they'd be a month, I 
guess, and then I'd have special tutoring, you know, catch up on. 
 
Barbara Wright  08:19 
Did the school provide this for you, or did-- 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  08:21 
No, no. The family. 
 
Barbara Wright  08:22 
Your family did. Did you know what-- was this, like, a great expense for your family? Or was it 
sort of minimal? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  08:27 
I have no idea. I just took it [laughs]. We were told-- when I was growing up, you were seen and 
not heard, except when you were told, and all that kind of thing was hush-hush. I mean, you 
never heard about expense or anything like that. That was [?all done?], I don't know. 
 
Barbara Wright  08:48 
How did you feel back then, about--since as a child, knowing that, you know, you're to be seen 
and not heard? How did that feel? Or just-- was that just simply-- 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  08:55 
-- It was something that was just one of those things. It never bothered me at all, but I was one 
that I wanted to be noticed, I guess, as they said, I was a ham from the day one. So, I was heard a 
lot from. I shouldn't have been, I suppose, but... It never bothered me. It's part of life. That was 
the way we grew up. 
 
Barbara Wright  09:24 
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You mentioned that you were a ham. How-- in what ways would you be a ham? What was your 
earliest memory of being a ham? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  09:33 
Getting up and singing in a big crowd? My dad was singing, and I got up and started singing 
with him. Were about-- over 100 people there. 
 
Barbara Wright  09:42 
How old were you? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  09:43 
About four, I guess. I don't remember. That's what my mother is so ashamed of me, I know she is 
[laughs]. 
 
Barbara Wright  09:53 
Okay. You know, you mentioned that your grandfather, Milbourne, was a royal gardener, what-- 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  10:08 
No, that was my mother's, Purton. 
 
Barbara Wright  10:10 
Oh, okay, okay. All right, I'm sorry. And then-- so then what did this grandfather? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  10:16 
That was my other grandma-- grandfather-- I don't know. 
 
Barbara Wright  10:19 
Okay. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  10:20 
Because he died when I was just-- well, as I said before, I first met him too, when we landed in 
England, and they were all there to greet us, and I can remember this gentleman with a mustache, 
and I'm-- hugging me and kissing me. And that was Grandpa Milbourne. That's my dad's mother-
- father. And I can-- and that's all I remember, because he died shortly after that. 
 
Barbara Wright  10:55 
And how old were you when you came over to America? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  11:01 
I was-- when I came to America? 
 
Barbara Wright  11:03 
Oh, not America. I meant to the UK. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  11:04 
No, I left-- I left the States when I was about five years old. 
Page 6 of 15 
 
 
Barbara Wright  11:09 
Okay. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  11:09 
And we lived with my mother's parents in England for about... Had to be two years. 
 
Barbara Wright  11:26 
Why did you go back to England? Why'd the family go back to England? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  11:31 
My father worked for Evans and Barr, they were pipe organ builders in Hagerstown, Maryland, 
and he had put the electric to the pipe organs. Before that, they were hand-blown. You had to 
blow them, kind of like this. But it was a blower, and people had to hand-blow it to make the 
organ work.  
 
Barbara Wright  12:03 
Oh, okay. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  12:05 
And so Dad, he put the electric to it, so that did away with that. And also, he invented different 
things on the pipe organ. He didn't get the patent for it because he worked for Evans and Barr, 
and in those days, you know, they didn't-- and he was kind of a-- not a-- well, part of his money 
was in the forum, you know, he was-- shareholder, that's what I'm trying to get at. And they 
wanted, then in England, there was a firm there that wanted somebody to start putting the electric 
to the organs over in England. So Mother was English, and she missed England very much. She 
missed her home. She missed her mother. So, they asked Dad if he'd like to go over, and it so 
happened that's when Mother was really getting depressed. So that was a big kind of push that he 
left and went over there, and joined this other firm. 
 
Barbara Wright  13:13 
How did your mother's depression manifest itself? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  13:17 
Well, I think she just missed her mother. She was an only girl but the brothers-- what did I say, 
three or four brothers?  I think it's three that I know of, but I-- as I think I've told, there was one I 
think, that died very young. But-- and she was really spoiled, and she'd left England to get with 
my dad, who's in Canada. See, it is in Canada after the World War One. I'm getting you all 
mixed up, 'cause we're going away, different turns here. But that... Well, Mother met Dad, World 
War One, when he was wounded. Mother worked in this kind of a nurse's aide, or, you know, 
helping wounded, and that's where they met. After the war, Dad was sent back to Canada. When 
did he go to Canada? He went to Canada when he was 14 years old, and then he joined the 
service and went over to Europe to fight. He met Mother. After the World War One, he went, of 
course, went back to Canada. Vancouver, Canada, and then Mother followed. 
 
Barbara Wright  14:50 
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Were they married at this time? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  14:52 
Yeah, they got married in England, yeah, yeah. I left that out. They got married, and then Dad 
was shipped back to Canada. Then they were-- they were moved, then, to Vancouver. He heard 
of this position in Hagerstown, Maryland, at Möller's Organ Building, because that was his great 
love. So he went down and he got into the firm. And Mother, in the meantime, had not been back 
to her folks. And I guess then I was born, in '21, and they lived there until I was five, is when 
they moved, and I guess over that period of time, she really got homesick because she didn't get 
a chance to go see her mother, because Dad was so busy. Because he got into music then, and he 
was quite a well-known performer in that section of the country. So, he was busy, and I guess 
Mother just got very lonely or somewhat depressed. And this came up, and that's when he took 
us over there.  
 
Barbara Wright  16:17 
What sort of a performer was he?  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  16:18 
He was a singer.  
 
Barbara Wright  16:20 
What sort-- 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  16:24 
Concert singer?  
 
Barbara Wright  16:25 
Okay, concert singer. Define a concert singer for me.  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  16:31 
Well... He would sing classical music. 
 
Barbara Wright  16:35 
So opera? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  16:36 
No, no, he didn't-- never got into opera. It was kind of light classical. And then, of course, he'd 
also perform light comedy. 
 
Barbara Wright  16:46 
Right. Was he at all involved in vaudeville? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  16:49 
No, no, this was just soloist. He sang with orchestras, or piano, or organ. Yeah, something like 
that. They did a lot of that as none of this [laughs].  
 
Page 8 of 15 
 
Barbara Wright  17:09 
So I take it then he was away from home a lot on the weekends? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  17:13 
Oh, yeah, but Mother always went with him. Yeah, Mother and I, because that's where I get into 
trouble a lot of times. Seemingly. That's what they told me anyway. 
 
Barbara Wright  17:16 
What did they tell you, how you would get into trouble? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  17:16 
I love to sing. Oh, I love to sing. And I just put my voice there with him and we'd-- in later years, 
we finally got doing duets together [inaudible]. 
 
Barbara Wright  17:39 
At home, how was music, you know, incorporated into your father's and yours relationship?  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  17:46 
My mother, [inaudible], had been taught piano or, well, they had this old organ, I don't know if 
you seen them with the pedals, pumping them? Well, Mother played that. So we had a piano 
always, and she'd practice with Dad, and that's how music was always in the house. 
 
Barbara Wright  18:05 
How often would the family sing together? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  18:08 
Oh, perhaps most every day we'd be singing sometime or other. Yeah, oh yeah. 
 
Barbara Wright  18:14 
Yeah-- 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  18:15 
See, it was born in me, and I just-- Mother says, I just love to sing, and I still do it. God gave me 
a gift, and I've used it. 
 
Barbara Wright  18:35 
Kind of backtracking here, how did your grandmother, Milbourne, die? The one that was into 
politics? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  18:44 
Okay, she... Gangrene set into her leg. Up until then-- well, I'll kind of give you an idea of what 
she-- kind of person, maybe. Everybody in the family-- I mean, her daughters, my father 
included, decided that she was-- time that she settled down and took things slower because she 
was getting frail. She was in her 90s. And so Grandma said, I will not. So what did she do? 
Where was she then? Oh, she was living in kind of a small place, and it was getting kind of 
overcrowded, so she decided she wanted a better home. And they-- she found this beautiful 
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home, had no electricity, and she decided she was going to live in there. She refurnished the 
whole thing, put electricity in it. 
 
Barbara Wright  19:54 
Herself? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  19:55 
Herself. Or, you know, she got somebody to do it. And it was beautiful, and this was just for her. 
And this is what, when they're 90, she did this because her family told her she needed to go to a 
rest home, a retirement home, and this is what she pulled on them. Nobody knew anything about 
it. And then she took me over. She came over and got me, and we went over. We stayed there. It 
was beautiful. Then she started having trouble with her legs, and come to find out, she had 
gangrene. I think it was her right leg. Now, I could be wro-- but one of her legs, and she had a 
hard time doing anything. So finally, on her own, she decided that was it. She got herself into a 
private rest home. And she was 98 then. And they wanted to take her leg off. No way. She says, I 
came on this earth with two good-- two legs, and I'm leaving it with two legs. And that's what 
took her life. At 99. That give you some idea what kind of a stubborn, hard-headed person she 
was. She was a lovely person. 
 
Barbara Wright  21:28 
Sounds like it. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  21:29 
I bet she's really bossing them around up there [laughs]. 
 
Barbara Wright  21:34 
How-- do you know-- was it determined how the gangrene started at all? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  21:38 
No, you never can tell that. Anything, when you get up in that age. You know, your bones get... 
something happen. 
 
Barbara Wright  21:49 
What was her, this second home that she moved into, what was that like? You mentioned it was 
very pretty. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  21:55 
Oh yeah, she had all new fun furniture, modern furniture put in.  
 
Barbara Wright  22:00 
Describe modern?  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  22:02 
Oh, let's see. There's only one thing, really, stands out. It was this beautiful china cabinet. We 
call them china cabinets. It was huge, took up, probably, I'd say that maybe-- not all of that wall, 
but here to there, and she had all her little knick-knacks in it, all her China and... Oh, different 
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stuff that she got from traveling around. It was all in that, and that's the only thing I can really 
think of.  
 
Barbara Wright  22:35 
Was it a-- 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  22:36 
She got sofas, and chairs, and living room sets, kitchen sets. She had-- I know she had an oak 
kitchen dining, long, big table. 
 
Barbara Wright  22:54 
So when you say modern-- 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  22:55 
I can't say. Well, it was modern for that time. 
 
Barbara Wright  22:58 
So it was like in the '20s then?  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  22:59 
New furniture.  
 
Barbara Wright  23:00 
No, because you're [inaudible] '30s? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  23:00 
Yeah, no, that would be in the '30s. Yeah. Yeah, because that was-- yeah, it'd be in the '30s 
because of war-- well, World War Two started, '37, '38 over there. 
 
Barbara Wright  23:17 
Yes, [?but?]. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  23:20 
Yeah, she'd been in there for, you know... 
 
Barbara Wright  23:22 
Okay, and was it a one-story house or a two-story house? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  23:25 
No, two-story. Three really, because she had an attic that was made into rooms too, but she never 
went up there. 
 
Barbara Wright  23:36 
It sounded that-- like she was very affluent. How did she get this money? Do you know?  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  23:42 
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[Inaudible], it was money [?saved up?]? 
 
Barbara Wright  23:45 
Okay, what was-- also too, what was the private rest home like? I mean, like, did she have her 
own room?  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  23:52 
She had-- yeah, she had her own room. Her own helper who stayed with it all the time, like a 
companion, they call them. She had her room too with my grandmother. They all lived in one. 
She had her own private stuff in there, was all hers. She bought into it, I think. See, as I told you 
before, we were never told about the money angle of anything. I just took everything for granted, 
that's all [laughs]. Took me to get married, really, to find out what it was all about. 
 
Barbara Wright  24:34 
Did she, you know, leave anything to you, or did she leave it to your fa-- parents and them? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  24:41 
That's a story I'd rather not talk about. Things were not really kosher. 
 
Barbara Wright  24:53 
Okay, your grandfather, Purton, was a royal gardener? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  24:56 
Yes.  
 
Barbara Wright  24:57 
So just-- could you tell me some about his job, and what-- yeah. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  25:01 
He looked after the property. And of course, he had people under him that did most the work on 
the lordships' or whatever they call them-- Lord somebody-or-other. And they had the estate. 
Well, he ruled over it-- all the gardeners or the helpers that they had. He thought that whatever 
they wanted, that he did it, and he had a beautiful place. But then, on his own estate, because he 
got this-- the head gardener, they were given this home they lived in, and he had a lot of stuff, 
and he grew vegetables of all kind. He had orchards, plus he had poultry. He used to sell the 
chickens and eggs, and he'd fatten up the pigs for butchering. Had beautiful flowers, gorgeous 
flowers. 
 
Barbara Wright  26:12 
When you say that he was given a house, was it simply, like, a lifetime lease?  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  26:15 
His aunt-- yeah. 
 
Barbara Wright  26:16 
Or-- all right, so he didn't own it, per se. 
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Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  26:18 
He didn't, no. Well, I guess he did afterwards. When the Lord, or, you know, they-- I don't know 
what they call them, Lords or something? 
 
Barbara Wright  26:31 
I know of Dukes, and Earls, and Lords-- 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  26:33 
Yeah, well, whatever you know, that estate, when that one [?died?], then the house was his. 
 
Barbara Wright  26:38 
I see-- 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  26:39 
They just-- 
 
Barbara Wright  26:39 
Did the family-- did that noble family like lose the money somehow or? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  26:45 
I don't really know, I don't know anything about that. But I do know Grandpa and Grandma lived 
there all their life, and it was their home, so, whatever the arrangements was, they did.  
 
Barbara Wright  27:01 
Do you remember seeing the house at all? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  27:03 
I lived there. 
 
Barbara Wright  27:04 
Oh, okay.  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  27:04 
Yeah. Show it to you. That's my mom and dad. That's their engagement picture. 
 
Barbara Wright  27:18 
Oh, wow, that is gorgeous.  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  27:20 
I know. It was beautiful. 
 
Barbara Wright  27:21 
Three story structure, lots of brick, oh my gosh. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  27:25 
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And they-- where I always had my garden party-- my birthday party, I think, if you remember, it 
was down over here, in a big grass place there where we could play croquet, and all those things. 
It was behind those trees. And this stretched, oh, I don't know how far. And he had a-- I don't 
have a picture.  
 
Barbara Wright  27:48 
Who's the, know, that-- 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  27:49 
That's my mother.  
 
Barbara Wright  27:49 
Oh, okay, alright. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  27:50 
Yeah, that's when she was young girl.  
 
Barbara Wright  27:54 
Do you know approximately how old she was in this picture? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  27:56 
No, I don't. I don't think they-- no. My cousin resurrected that from someplace, and we-- he 
thought maybe she'd be about 18 or 19. Now, I don't know, because I can't see right-- too good.  
 
Barbara Wright  28:12 
I think that was about right from the [?body shot?]. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  28:14 
Yeah, I think so. I think that maybe it was... 
 
Barbara Wright  28:17 
[?Has to with?] the sort of mature dress? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  28:19 
Yeah, I think that'd be right. This room here, that's where my sister was born.  
 
Barbara Wright  28:25 
Oh, wow. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  28:28 
I have lots of memories of that place, but we lived there for about two-- two-and-a-half years 
before-- well, he went over to Belfast, though, before-- without us, because, you know, we 
couldn't-- we didn't have any place to go until he got us a home. So we lived there. I had two 
years, at least, schooling from that, when I left there. 
 
Barbara Wright  28:57 
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Okay, was this going in the home like-- 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  28:59 
No, no, it wasn't-- we had about four miles to go to school-- walk to school. What was that-- as 
the kids get-- they came-- because when I complain, you know-- when they complain about 
school busses, know, because we always bring-- so they'd get sick. I know Grandma. You used 
to walk in the snow. You used to sled in the snow, and it took you a long time, and you went 
every day to school. They've got to hear it so much [laughs].  
 
Barbara Wright  29:31 
A rite of childhood, yes.  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  29:34 
And then, this here was what they call a pantry. You know, no such thing as refrigerators or 
anything, ice box. This is where it was, this is where. And there was another bedroom here-- two 
bedrooms here, because this stretched further. There's one here and one in the back of that big 
rooms. I mean, this was, oh, what [inaudible]...  
 
Barbara Wright  30:02 
Was there electricity in that house? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  30:03 
No, no. No, when we went to live there, Dad says all they used was candles and paraffin oil 
lanterns then, that's all they had. He says, I'm not leaving you here to burn the place down. So, 
next thing you knew, they had electricity. They brought it in. That paper-- that put that in for 
them. 
 
Barbara Wright  30:28 
What about running water? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  30:30 
No, when we first moved there-- well, I guess they had... No, he put the tap in too. But they had a 
pump. You had to pump it. 
 
Barbara Wright  30:42 
So I take it the outhouse was... 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  30:44 
The outhouse was quaint, yeah. 
 
Barbara Wright  30:46 
Okay. What about like, how cold-- yeah, what would you guys do for heating in the winter? 
Because I'm sure it gets really damp there anyways. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  30:54 
They had fires in every room. 
Page 15 of 15 
 
 
Barbara Wright  30:55 
Okay, and that seemed to warm it up sufficiently? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  30:57 
Oh, yes. Oh, it was cozy. Oh, beautiful. I loved it. I can remember that I used to love to go up to 
the bedroom. I had a-- as I said, the rooms were huge, and this one room that-- we stayed in the 
one room, but I had a little cubicle that had my bed in it. I used to love to cozy up in the fire, 
going in the fireplace. Oh, it was beautiful. 