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 who we called "Dichie"; I don't know why. Something about that
 we couldn't say diapers and so we said "Dichies". She always
 changed our diapers, so she became "Dichie", "Dichie" stayed
 with us a long, long time.

J: Was the house on Michigan Avenue the first house in DeLand to
 have electricity?

C: No, the one on south Boulevard. By the time we got up there we
 had things you punch in the wall. But "Dichie" stayed with us
 and from then we went to Julia. We were up on a hill on Michigan
 Avenue. Then down from us was a colored settlement called "Red
 City". It was a very high class group of colored people. But I
 must tell you, on Michigan Avenue colored people were not allowed
 to walk to their quarters. Ohio Avenue was the street south of
 us, where the Greyhound bus station is now. The colored traffic
 all went down Ohio Avenue, up Amelia Avenue and down into "Red
 City", which really was Michigan. We called where we lived
 "Quality Hill". My mother and father's best friends, Dr. and Mrs.
 Fisher, owned Fisher's Drug store in downtown DeLand. They bought
 the lot two down from them and built a home. They moved up there
 soon after we did. So Uncle Doc and Aunt Gert were my lifelong
 friends; they weren't my real uncle and aunt, of course. Every-
 body in those days called all their friends uncle and aunt. But
 the colored people were not allowed to go in front of our houses,
 which doesn't seem possible now. We never locked a door; I would
 come in at night and go upstairs; I cannot remember a front, side,
 or back door. We had a large veranda and from the east corner you
 could get all four winds; we had a great big swing out there and
 every night after supper, the family would go out there and sit.

J: Sounds like you really liked that house, and that it was a happy
 and warm place.

C: Oh, that was home! Yes, oh my goodness, yes! And the big fires,
 I can remember sitting at the breakfast table and looking through
 the entrance hall, which was really a room, and into the big, for-
 mal living room and seeing those fires burn. Christmas morning
 was wonderful; they put up a tree and, of course, we had real
 candles. Paul and I had to stay at the top of the stairs until
 Momma and Papa got all the candles in little brackets and lighted.
 Then we came down and got our presents and then blew those
 candles out; they were not lighted again. We did that first thing
 Christmas morning. We lit the candles only that one time each
 year because it was very dangerous. Of course, each time we had
 a real tree; they's go out in the woods, and you didn't have to go
 very far then. Everything around Stetson University was pine
 trees.

J: What color was the house?

C: A light green with dark shutters. Everybody in town was shocked
 at Momma; it should have been white they thought. Well, my