Interview with Mildred Romig and Edna Tilley Romig in Sept. 1993 
Karla Tipton, interviewer 

K: I was hoping you could tell me a little about George Washington Romig. Do you 
remember him very well?
M: Quite well, yes. He was my husband's father. (To Edna) You remember George 
Washington, don't you?
E: I remember George.
M: I don't remember details. But I remember him quite well, yes. Yes, he was 
quite outgoing. But he wasn't especially tall. He was what you'd call a very 
average height man. I suppose he was 5-10, was he, or something like that. Just 
an average height man. One of his sons was tall. Kitty was what you'd call tall 
for a woman, if she'd ever stood up straight. She would have been a fairly tall 
woman when she was young. So was Emmy. And Kitty was an awful lot like Emmy, I 
think in build. 
E: Aunt Clara was short. 
M: Yes, she wasn't too tall, but she was small, like Charlie.
E: Grandpa Romig, he was short. He was real short.
M: Yes, Archie was short. Yes he was.
E: In that one picture that we have of George  -  I don't think George was on 
that. But it was Charlie and one of the fellows, Mr. Wright, who came in for a 
reunion. And Don and Clifford and Grandpa. It was a snapshot of them all on it. 
And Grandpa was the shortest one of them all.
M: I'm sure he was. George was just an average type man, but he was a very 
strong man, which was something the Romigs were, all strong. They had strong 
upper bodies.
K: What did he do for a living.
M: Well, various things.
E: He worked for the city and he also had a...I forgot...
M: A superintendent of the cemetery for a long time.
E: And wasn't he over the workers for the city, a supervisor or something. 
Foreman?
M: He was the head man down at city building that covered the streets.
E: Service director.
M: Service director. My goodness, it takes two of us! Yes, he was service 
director for quite a long while. Yes, those were his last duties for the city of 
Barberton. He was a councilman for a long time.
K: Didn't he also play an instrument.
M: Bass horn. And when they were young, there was a Barberton band.
E: He played the horn.
M: Bass horn. Some of us were saying that big horn was left in the attic.
E: I don't think anybody kept it, because it was pretty well battered up. 
(laughs)
K: Which attic was that.
M: Their home up here on the corner. On the corner of State and Highland. He 
built that house. Three children. Three boys and one girl, but the one boy was 
killed.
K: That was Dewey.
M: Um hm. Then there was Kitty and Don and Russell. Of course he was much 
younger when he died. He was about  10 years younger.
E: And his wife's name was Cora, wasn't it.
M: Cora, um hm. 
E: Wasn't her name Ingersoll.
M: She was an Ingersoll, and her home was inside where Rolling Acres and the new 
development. Wouldn't be she be amazed if she could  see what happened their old 
home. Their home was torn down, of course. I can remember when State Street, a 
main street which is now a main street, a very main street, was just a little 
country lane. Wild cherries grew on each side so close, the road was so narrow 
that they came together. In places, it was just liking going in camp.
E: I was surprised how they've widened Graceland down there. I thought it was 
narrow. And they've widened it.
K: So did Kitty have any kids?
M: No, she didn't have any children. Russell had one daughter, Shirley Rae. 
She's married to an Alexander, but I don't know where they live. She lived up on 
the Akron-Wadsworth Road for quite a little while, but I don't think she lives 
there anymore.
K: Did  she move out of state?
M: No, I don't think so. I think she's still in the area, but I have no idea 
where.
E: You never heard so much about her.
M: Shirley Rae was waittress for a long time up at the Town Crier.
E: She was always a pretty girl.
M: She was different looking. Russell had red hair, but not real firey red. And 
I thought she looked a lot like him.
K: Did red hair run in the family?
M: No.
E: I had an aunt that had real firey red hair.
M: It crops up every now and then in families. Now Shirley Rae's wasn't, but it 
had a red tinge to it, and I thought Kitty's did too, a red cast. Shirley Rae 
had, I guess about five children. One Halloween, a little five year old named 
Don; she was named after my husband; they were out Halloweening and he ran in 
front of an automobile and was killed.
E: That happened so often on Halloween.
M: They get so excited.
K: I guess if you run around with that many, it's hard to keep track of them.
M: Well, she I don't think was with them really. I think their older sister was. 
That was when kids went more by themselves, too. Adults go out now with about 
all children, but they didn't when I was growing up. An adult wouldn't have even 
thought of going out on Halloween with a kid. Shirley Rae was Russell's first 
wife; he was married several times after that. His last wife was a German girl, 
came over here in World War II.
E: Had you ever met her? I never have.
M: She just took over. So was so energetic. And outgoing. And she always called 
him Wussell. Not Russell, but Wussell. But after he died; I sent her one 
Christmas card after that. She had her own family, two boys and a girl. Adult, 
grown, grandchildren.
K: You must have grown up around here?
M: I? I've always lived here.
E: How many great grandchildren do you have?
M: Three. I have to stop to think which generation I'm in.
E: One is Ricky?
M: He has the little girl, Melissa.
E: And then the other one, Jim.
M: Jim has two boys, Brian and Greg (Craig?). And Jim is Janet's son and they 
only had one child.
E: Dick.
M: My son lived over here. Now Rick has remodeled the house. They just lived 
here about a month now. Still things to do. About ready to start the garage. 
They're planning to put a two-car garage on the house. And last of all they said 
they'd landscape.
E: I like that house over there, it's real nice. Big house.
M: Oh, yeah. The kitchen is very modern. Hardwood cherry cupboards and a center 
island.
K: We were over there last time I was in.
M: That was before it was remodeled. The breezeway is now part of the kitchen. 
They extended that all out. Oh the whole back is off; they built a new kitchen. 
And the rear where the patio was across the back, that's now a laundry room. And 
it's a large laundry room. It goes the full length of the kitchen and the 
garage. And a half bath.
E: I have to show you a ring that Paul bought me from Dick's.
M: Down at the store. Yeah, it's a pretty one.
E: I love it. It's my birthstone. It's a ruby.
M: Yes it's a beautiful ring. Had you seen it before and wanted it?
E: No. Paul bought it for my birthday, before I was ever married. So I've had it 
quite awhile.
K: How did he get into the jewelry business?
M: He bought the jewelry store from his father-in-law. They moved to Florida and 
wanted to get rid of the store. And Dick and Martha bought. And then they had a 
bad fire just shortly after they bought it. He had to recoup. Didn't have enough 
working capital to really make it go and couldn't getting any backing. He should 
have had some backing.
E: He never changed the name of it.
M: No. It's like Laughlin's and some of those others; it's an established name 
and they just left it go. And they'd come in and call him Mr. Simon, you know. 
He never cared. It was established. Before it was Simons, it was Himons, so the 
name change was so slight at that time... They had a nice store. Then after it 
burned and they had it rebuilt it was nice. But like I said, they never really 
had enough working capital.
E: There was a lot of records that burnt, wasn't there? That was quite a fire.
M: It was a bad one.
E: It's been quite a while ago.
M: It would have been 1950, maybe? 1950? I would say. Because I quit working at 
the school in '52. I went to work for the city in '54. That's when the city 
opened _______ (?) And the fire was before that because I was still working for 
the school. 
K: Which school was that?
M: Barberton School of Commerce. A commercial private _________ school. It was a 
nice school, but I got awful tired of night school. Oh yes, that got to be an 
awful drag.
E: It's seems odd that we don't hear from Viola anymore, because we used to hear 
from her so much. Of course, she's had those two strokes. It makes it bad. Of 
course, Lula's down at that nursing. But Lula's, as far as mentally concerned, 
is better. She's as bad as she was. But she still can't get around, and she's 
blind.
M: She's had trouble with her vision always though, a little bit. That's an 
awful thing to lose, your sight. She's called me quite often.
E: I miss Viola, because Viola used to come around an awful so much. And I miss 
her an awful lot. Well, out of my family, there was seven of us girls, and 
there's only my sister and myself left out of seven girls.
M: Longevity didn't run in your family, did it?
E: My mom was only 62; she would have been 63 in September. She passed away in 
July.
M: My mother died in July, and she was 64. She wasn't very old either. 
E: Mom would have been 64 on the 30th of September. And my dad was 84 when he 
passed away.
M: I remember him. I know he went up and down the street quite often.
E: He was about 5-7.
M: I remember one of your sisters gathered the roses from the bank, when we had.
E: For her wedding? That was Mary. That's the one that's out in California. 
M: She gathered the rambling rose from the bank.
E: Yeah, I remember that. And she's the one, her husband passed away.
M: And you're the only two living.
E: She did come in every year, but I don't know if she's going to come in this 
year or not. When I talked with her last, she didn't hardly think she was.
M: Do you fly in or drive in?
K: What I did is I flew to Florida, and my parents picked me up and visited my 
aunt and uncle, who live in Florida (Kenny) and then drove up here and then I'm 
going to fly out of Cleveland. A fun little trip.
M: You haven't seen them awhile, I presume.
K: I saw them last year; we were in at the same time last year, visiting 
Grandma.
E: Kenny has an nice home down in Florida. On one side it has the master 
bedroom, then way on the other side it has the other bedrooms.
M: They built a bedroom over there with a bathroom.
E: At the back end of Kenny's lot, he calls it a pond, but it's a little stream 
of water. I don't know if you'd call it a creek or what you'd call it. But 
anyway it has fish in it. And you can go back to the back end of his lot, and 
throw bread in there and those fish come up and they'll jump right up out of the 
water and grab that as it comes down. Not gold fish, other kind. There may be 
some gold fish in there, too.
M: Florida's a nice place to live; it gets hot in the summertime. And then it's 
so humid, too. It has that swampy smell in so many places.
K: It's the first thing I noticed  -  it smelled like mildew.
E: Kenny has planted a lot of shrubs around. Azaleas. He has him a little 
vegetable garden.
M: One time, when we were down. We always used to go in the fall, about now, 
when it's starting to get cold up here, and we'd go down there for a little 
while. We stayed one place and he was planting tomatoes to have them for 
Christmas. And they had a lemon tree in their backyard.
K: Out in California, we don't get snow.
M: It wouldn't seem as Christmasy, I don't suppose, if you'd ever had the white 
Christmas. I don't know about living out there. There's so many hazard. You 
haven't felt any earthquakes or anything, have you?
K: Oh, I felt a few. We had several right in a row.
M: Well, we have a little shake once in a while. 
K: They just started happening here, didn't they?
M: Oh, no. We've always had them. I can remember shortly after we were married, 
that was the most severe one that I can ever recall having around here. We had a 
friend that worked in a shoe store, and it knocked some boxes off of the open 
shelves.
E: I don't remember them being too severe. Rattled the dishes once in a while.
M: We've had more rattles from the dynamite from when they put in 76 up here.
K: Had to blast through a hill.
M: We don't have the severe earthquakes, or hurricanes or tornadoes or any of 
that stuff. We have pretty good weather around here. And no mudslides. Those are 
awful. And why they build those on mountains like that, I don't understand. I 
had a young man did some work here from me who had just come back from 
California for a short time and they'd had mudslides while he was there. And he 
said he'd go to work in the morning, and he said these houses were built on 
stilts sticking out of the side of the mountain, and when he came home, the 
house, the hills and everything were gone, slid down.
E: The last time I was here, that snake plant was way up.
M: It almost died. I think it's going to recoup. It's so old. I was ready to 
throw it out, because it is so old. I think I got it out of the planter when Don 
_________ (indecipherable) when he was 56 or 57. It was just a little thing in a 
planter. And I liked it because it was one that would grow such tall leaves. So 
many of them don't. Then it got enormous and it filled the whole corner.
E: That one time when I was here, it was way up. It was just so straight.
M: And it held itself up. It was strong; it held itself up right up there 
straight. I liked it because it was a small fern. I took it apart and replanted 
it, and I put it in a large container that it's in now, and it was a little too 
big for it, I guess. And I thought I'll just pitch the thing out, and I hated 
to. So then I get the coral I got down in Florida and pushed it tight around it, 
and it just came to life again.
E: It was so pretty. I have never forgotten how pretty that was. 
M: I think it's going to perk up. If  it does, I'll keep it. Otherwise it has to 
go.
E: I like house plants.
M: I don't. When you're working you form the habits for hobbies and things.
E: I gave a lot of mine away. 

Long conversation about plants.

K: I never could keep my house plants alive.
M: Well you're working. You don't have an interest in them. That's the way with 
me, I never could create much of an interest, because I didn't have time fuss 
with them. They either didn't get enough water. Then when you do, you over 
water.
E: I have a big Angel Wing Begonia, that my sister, the one who passed away 
about a year or so ago had given me. And I was going to throw it out, and well I 
kind of thought, well maybe I better keep it a little while longer. So I've 
still got it. 

More plant talk.

E: I've put it over in the other bedroom that I don't use in front of the 
window. It's pretty big size.

M: I like the silk flowers. I have one over there. You get the real ones, and 
they last such a short time, and you're back where you started from.

K: You have a very nice house here.
M: Thank you. We've always been quite comfortable here. We built the house. 
About '28, I guess.
E: You've had this one down on the corner, too.
M: We built that one. '68.
E: Across the street, did you have that built?
M: No, we gave them the lot, and they built the house. This one was the other 
way around. We built the house, and they lived in it for I don't know,
15 years. Then we bought it.
E: Janet lived in it, didn't she. 
M: Until just six years this month, I think, sold that house. And they bought up 
there, Manchester Road. _______ calls me every day. He's just wonderful, Janet's 
husband. And I'm still here. And he comes on Fridays and takes me to the grocery 
store. He's mother living; she's 97 now. But she's not good. He's going out 
there more now. She's in a nursing home.
E: You know, it doesn't seem like you're that old, though does it, when you 
think about it.
M: No, you don't feel it. If I could walk I'd feel just like I always did. You 
feel good if you're healthy. You don't feel any different. The only thing, 
people have the same problem, they can't walk.
E: They seem to think when people get older, that they don't have feelings. And 
they don't seem to think that you like to enjoy the same things like you always 
did.
M: They think you're an old fogey.

Discussion about the Carousel Dinner Theater. (Used to be the Starlight) and the 
"Sixty Plussers" at Mildred's church.

E: Archie and Goldie is doing pretty good. He's in his 70s now.
M: Yeah, he must be.
E: They're doing pretty good. They go on trips quite a lot. They visit Ron in 
Independence, Missouri.

M: Bob (Janet's husband) and Don's birthday was the same day. The 15th of 
November.
E: My sister, she has one boy Donald, who was born on her birthday, the 6th of 
January. And then she has John, and his birthday is on the 6th of September, and 
Tommy's is on the 6th of October.
M: I had an aunt, my mother's sister, she and her husband and one of the boy's 
had the same birthday.
E: Tommy, he lives clear out in California. We don't see him very often. Don't 
hear from him. That's the youngest one. And you don't hear from him very often, 
either.
K: Not too often. If you don't visit quite it just...
M:  They become strangers to you. You have your own life.
E: They both work. Isn't she a teacher? They have a daughter.
M: Does Ron's wife work?
K: I don't think so. I drove in, I think three years ago, I stopped in and 
visited them in Kansas city. I don't think she was working. I think she was 
staying home and taking care of...
E: That little girl's name is Renee.