00:00:00 Dave Tavres
OK so November 22nd, 2022 at 2:00pm in the Downtown Marceline Foundation offices. Jack White, I’m Dave Tavres.
00:00:10 Dave Tavres
How old are you now?
00:00:15 Jack White
Uh, 87.
00:00:10 Dave Tavres
And how long have you been in Marceline?
00:00:15 Jack White
Since 1939.
00:00:17 Dave Tavres
And what brought you to Marceline?
00:00:19 Jack White
My dad worked for the Sinclair Pipeline Company, and that is where Hurtt’s (Hurtt Fabricating) is now, and that was a pumping station. And back then they had a pumping station about every 50 miles, like there was one here, there was one at Carrollton and there was one at La Plata, and then Wakonda… was the next one.
00:00:49 Dave Tavres
Got it… uh, pumping.. oil?
00:00:51 Jack White
Uh huh, pumping crude oil, crude oil.
00:00:54 Jack White
Yeah, they would pump it from the field to the refinery in Illinois. I can’t remember the name of the town now in Illinois where the refinery was…
00:01:08 Jack White
…but he worked for the Sinclair for 45 years I think it was.
00:01:13 Dave Tavres
So in 1939 you came here. How old were you?
00:01:14 Jack White
Uh, four years old when I came.
00:01:19 Dave Tavres
Do you remember the trip?
00:01:20 Jack White
Oh yeah, oh yeah… from Paola KS. Where we moved from.
00:01:30 Jack White
Yeah, we had Reams Moving company from Brookfield moved US and that’s they’ve long went out of business and the family.
00:01:43 Jack White
I don’t know if they’re any of the family still around over there or not, but anyway, they had a moving company then and they moved us from Paola up here.
00:01:54 Jack White
And we lived over in 219 W. Howell and lived there for about five years I guess, and uh…
00:02:09 Jack White
Then moved over on the across the railroad tracks over on #5 Highway at 602 N. Missouri, at the corner of Crocker and Missouri Ave. Yeah, so, and that’s where we lived and until we sold the place.
00:02:33 Jack White
My mother ended up a widow and eventually went to the housing and so we sold the place.
00:02:39 Dave Tavres
All right, so you moved here when you’re 4, when you’re about 9, you guys moved over to Hwy. 5…
00:02:46 Dave Tavres
What schools did you go to?
00:02:47 Jack White
Where Prenger’s is now, there was a school there and it was called Park School.
00:02:56 Jack White
And they had… well, Marceline was divided by the railroad tracks because of the trains and everything.
00:03:06 Jack White
So on that side of the… On the east side of the railroad tracks you had the high school, and then you had a Central School, and that was first, second, third and fourth grades.
00:03:26 Jack White
And then seventh and eighth.
00:03:30 Jack White
OK, and over on this side of the railroad tracks, the west side at Park School, you had first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth over there.
00:03:40 Jack White
So when you got in the fifth grade, if you lived on the east side of the railroad tracks, you had to cross the railroad tracks for two years and come over to Park School, and go to the fifth and sixth grade over there.
00:03:58 Dave Tavres
And then eventually they tore down Park School and built Marceline High School.
00:04:00 Jack White
Uh, they built what they call the middle school and that took the place of Park… and Walt Disney had all the grades, then up to middle school.
00:04:16 Dave Tavres
So to tangent for a second, you know Walt Disney went to Park School as well when he lived here… in 1939/40, when you would have been at that school… was… Snow White came out in 1939, was that a big deal? Do you have any memories of…
00:04:33 Jack White
No, I don’t remember that being that big of a deal back then. Of course, you have to understand what was going on in the country too. You know, the Second World War to break out and everybody’s attention was elsewhere.
00:04:51 Jack White
But there was talk about it. I can remember the older people, my folks and them talking about it.
00:04:59 Dave Tavres
I just didn’t know if the school made a big deal saying ‘hey, the guy that just did that big movie went to your school’, kind of a thing.
00:05:07 Jack White
I don’t ever remember that part.
00:05:09 Dave Tavres
It’s OK, I was just curious.
00:05:10 Jack White
I was younger… maybe the 5th and 6th graders had something.
00:05:18 Dave Tavres
You were a little bit too young.
00:05:19 Jack White
Yeah, I don’t remember that much about it.
00:05:24 Dave Tavres
I didn’t know if you’re gonna be here, so we just… I just started asking questions… I didn’t know what your format was, what you wanted to do.
00:05:35 Dennis Van Dyke
I have a list of questions. Did you get that list from Ross?
00:05:39 Dave Tavres
I don’t think so.
00:05:48 Dennis Van Dyke
But I know Jack and I talked at the, when we were doing apple butter, we were talking about one of the questions that Ross had asked me to find out was, about on the theater, was there a black section? A specific white section of what, all about that and…
00:06:11 Dave Tavres
So there were a couple of theaters here in town at the time.
00:06:13 Jack White
At one time, yes. but then it was, what, 2 doors down from here was… I can’t remember what it was.
00:06:26 Dave Tavres
I think Eagle? The Eagle Theater or something like that? I’ve seen the picture. I’ve seen a picture of it and seen it on the fire maps.