Interviewee: Leodora F. Davis
Date of birth/age at interview: 1908/unknown
Interviewer: Judy Creamer
Interview date: July 16, 1984
Interview location: unknown
Interview length: 30 minutes
Time span discussed: 1920s through 1984
Summary: This is a quick-flowing, informative interview of a Solebury and New Hope teacher after she retired. Leodora discusses school programs, teaching in a one room schoolhouse, and New Hope’s appearance in the 1920s and 30s, with comments on the present day (1984). Mrs. Davis’s father and her husband were both farmers who brought corn to the mill in New Hope, now the Playhouse. She describes how the telephone service worked.
Time markers:
00:00 – born on Meetinghouse Road, Solebury; father worked on Arthur Eastburn’s farm
02:50 – trips to New Hope railroad to leave milk for shipping to Philadelphia
03:30 – New Hope’s high school on the hill behind Mechanics Street (now Kehilat HaNahar )
06:00 – school’s activities, teacher system, walking three miles one way
08:12 – one room school house on Aquetong Road, across from Nakashima
09:40 – names of students she taught
10:30 – stories of teaching and students, practices in one room schoolhouses like Carversville, Greenhill, and Solebury
16:30 – Brother Ely’s home, now a school
17:50 – how New Hope looked, the mill (now the Bucks County Playhouse), Pipersville
21:50 – farmer’s telephone line and users
26:30 – school activities program from early 1950’s
