Person:Gladys Fisher (1)

Gladys Beals lived on Persons Court throughout her school years. She quit school after finishing 10th grade because she didn't have clothes.

One of the things that all of grams kids and grandkids remember is this story told by her.... while living on Person's Ct. she swears there was a cat that ran around the neighborhood who had wings!! Most of us aren't buying it :) but she swore it was the truth. Another thing that we were told and most of us have memorized this: There were different nationalities in her neighborhood and one group of them had a saying when they saw each other. It went like this...they would holler out.... hip ta mid i ca, hot a ca san, ta boom, ta la, ta lay, ta youuu whooooo. Does anyone out there know which language this might be?

It seems that as a youngster mother was small and it was decided that she should attend the Fresh Air School. In this school she told us that all year long, the windows were left open. In the winter when it was cold outside the children wore coats, hats and gloves. Later research lead us to find an article on the fresh air schools. The school officals believed that the fresh air would make them much healthier. Mother was the only one of her siblings to attend this school.

I've just been cleaning my house and remembered something that I just had to write here about my mom. Mother had a very good sense of humor and was for the most part fun to be around. But I remember after she became sick and knew that she would be dying soon, she decided that she wanted to pick out her own casket. My sister Tonya and I tried to talk her out of it but she insisted. Tonya called the funeral home and they said they would send out someone with a book that had pictures of all the caskets in it. Well... she came and the first thing my mother asked was if they had anything on sale! well the girl looked somewhat surprised and answered that they didn't. we sat around the woman and started looking through the book. After looking for a short while my mother asked her if they had anything in RED!! red being one of mom's favorite colors...she loved color, she had red carpet, I remember having a red sectional couch at one time. Again, the woman said no they didn't have anything in red. Next my mother said she wanted something that looked comfortable. Well, finally mom decided on a casket just like the one we buried my dad it and Mom was okay with that..still wishing she had gotten a bargain or at lest a red one. The next day my niece Robin came over to spend time with her Gram and mentioned that she heard gram had picked out her casket, "yes" said mom.. " it wasn't the most pleasant shopping spree I've been on" so typical of our mother. She was a corker at times.