for parties by the gallons. So, that was real handy.

 But it was the belt that got it in them days. The first
 ones didn't have a safety that they have now in the re-
 frigeration boxes. It was belt driven and one night,
 the belt was dragging and caught fire.

 I was alseep in back. There were two doors, one to the
 store room, and one in the ice cream room, where they
 made the ice cream. In the living quarters there was
 another door. I discovered the smoke about 3:00 in the
 morning.

M: What kind of protection was there? Was there any fire
 service that you could contact?

P: No, just the fire station. We had a fire department.

M: Was it the one that's located on Main Street now?

P: We called it East Main where the old post office building
 is. The station was right on the corner, opposite from
 Mike's Book Store.

M: I know where that is.

P: That's the only station we had in them days. The other
 one on Seventh Street started later on.

M: Did they get there in time to save any part of your
 building?

P: They couldn't save anything inside because there was
 too much smoke. The whole thing was gutted, I had lost
 everything, and we didn't have any insurance in those
 days.

M: So you started over.

P: We had to start it completely over.

M: On top of that, 1933 would be about the time of the
 Depression, on top of everything else.

P: That's right. It was during the Depression. I got