These are the interview questions for when I ask people for their St. Johns memories.
St. Johns memories
What year were you born?
Were you born in St. Johns? Or when did you arrive here? Have you lived here all your life? Or where else have you lived, and at what ages?
Where are your parents from? When did they arrive in St. Johns? What did your father do? Did you see his workplace? Was it a union job? Did your mother work outside the home?
Did you have siblings? Older/younger, sex, name? What happened to your siblings—are they still here? Are you close with them?
What street did you live on? What kind of house did you live in? How many bedrooms? What could you see from the windows? What trees were there in the street outside your house? What grew in the front yard? Back yard? When you were in the back yard, what sounds would you hear? What did you smell?
Do you remember hearing the trains? The drawbridge siren? The ship horns?
Who were your neighbors, back then? Were you friendly with them?
St. Johns memories
What kind of car did your family have? Who rode where? Did you and your siblings fight over who got to sit where? What are your memories of being in the car? What did the car smell like, do you remember?
Did your parents go to bars? If so, which ones? What do you remember about them? Did you ever get left in the car outside the bar? Did your family ever go to restaurants? If so, which ones? What do you remember about them?
What St. Johns schools did you go to? Are the school buildings the same as they were then? Or how were they different? What do you remember about the school? Do you remember any teachers’ names? Did you like them?
Who were your friends? Do you still know them?
What did you do after school? Describe in detail. What did you do on weekends?
What businesses do you remember? What do you remember about them? Do you remember the owners?
As a child, what was your favorite place in the neighborhood?
As a child, did you like to read? If so, what did you read? Where did you read? Did you read comics? If so, which ones? Did you watch TV? What did you watch? Did you go to the movies? Do you remember movies you liked?
St. Johns memories
What was the most interesting thing you remember happening in St. Johns when you were a child? What did your parents think about it? What was the funniest thing you remember happening? What was the saddest?
Did you go to college? When did you start working? Did you work in St. Johns? Where did you work, and what did you do? Was it a union job? Did you have periods of unemployment? How did you get by?
Did you marry? If so, what year? Someone from St. Johns, or from outside? Did your spouse work? Did you have kids? If so, do they still live in St. Johns?
Where did you live as an adult—what street? What kind of house was it? How many bedrooms? What could you see from the windows? What trees were there in the street outside your house? What grew in the front yard? Back yard? When you were in the back yard, what sounds would you hear? What did you smell?
St. Johns memories
Who were your neighbors, then? Were you friendly with them?
What did you do after work? On weekends? With friends?
Did you go to bars? If so, which ones? What do you remember about them? Did you go to restaurants? If so, which ones? What do you remember about them?
As an adult, what was your favorite place in the neighborhood?
I have wonderful memories of st John’s, I let there when I was third grade. Hope to read the interview when you are done with it.
Debbi Devault Cutler
Hi, Debbi! I won’t have finished interviews for people to read–I’m going to use the interview answers as background for the novel I’m writing that is set in St. Johns, in various decades from the 1940s to the present. Did you go to James John or Sitton? What street did you live on? What did you like about living in St. Johns?