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D: Yes, he was pastor of the Baptist church there. It was right at the top
of the hill on College Avenue. It still is but it's in a different church
now. They built a much larger one in 1960. The one that was there most of
my life was one that my father built after he got there.
R: Well, there were probably more Baptists there, in Tallahassee, than any
other denomination, wouldn't you think?
D: I think so. When they started to build the new church I must have been
three and they had me all dressed up to break the ground for the new
church. When everybody bowed their heads to pray I disappeared. I ran
and they caught me two blocks away and took me back because I still had
to dig with my little shovel with the big ribbon on it.
R: Wouldn't it be wonderful if you had a picture of that.
D: I don't but my sister does. Soon after we went to Tallahassee Park Trammell
became governor and he and his wife and my parents became very close friends.
I was frequently in the mansion when they had teas or receptions. They put
me to sleep upstairs. I was a little tiny girl and remember the fun of
sliding down the banisters, and a wonderful little settee in the hall that
was Chinese and had a lot of carving on it. I could trace the dragons and
all these things. It kept me quiet while the ladies talked.
R: And that's how you got your love of Chinese furniture. This room is full of
lovely things from the Orient.
D: When I heard that they were tearing down the mansion that's the first thing
that I asked about. They said that it wasn't very fine furniture and wasn't
worth preservrng,which made me very sad. Those are some of my very special
rememberances of Tallahassee. When I was three and a half my sister, who
was three years older, started school, and I was heartbroken.
R: You haven't told us yet about your sister. Did you have any brothers?
D: I had one sister, Frances, who was three years older than myself.
R: And no brothers?
D: No other family. When she started school, at the demonstration school at the
college in Tallahassee, which was Florida Female College I was--They consented
to let me go to kindergarten, and can you believe, I was bused, only it was a
horse-drawn vehicle that had little benches all around where the children sat
to go to kindergarten.
R: That was at the college? That was probably a demonstration...
D: It was a demonstration school and they had kindergarten and three grades at
that time.
R: How old were you then?
D: I was three and a half; I was there many years. It was an era when
they had many new ideas in education. I was a casualty.