LEVINE:

Today is March 14, 1998, and I am here in Bangor, County Downe[ph], Northern Ireland.

WALLS:

Right.

LEVINE:

With Mr. Archibald Creem Walls.

WALLS:

That's right.

LEVINE:

Who was born in Northern Ireland, and left for the United States. He came into New York, Pier 90.

WALLS:

That's right.

LEVINE:

He believes, uh, in 1946. He returned to Northern Ireland in 1954. And I want to say that Mr. Walls' brother, Joe Walls, has also been interviewed for the Ellis Island Oral History Project.

WALLS:

Yes.

LEVINE:

And his tape is also a part of that archive. This is Janet Levine for the Ellis Island Immigration Museum, and I just want to say I'm delighted to see you. I'm so looking forward to everything you can remember that relates to your immigration experience before, during and after. ( they laugh )

WALLS:

That's a prize.

LEVINE:

So.

WALLS:

(?)

LEVINE:

Let's, uh, start again with your birth date and where you were born.

WALLS:

My birth date is the 8th of August 1919. I was born on Nelson Street in Belfast.

LEVINE:

Now, your father's name?

WALLS:

John.

LEVINE:

And your mother's name?

WALLS:

Mary.

LEVINE:

Do you remember Mary's maiden name?

WALLS:

Creem.

LEVINE:

Oh, Creem. That's where the Creem comes in.

WALLS:

That is, that is, uh, it's a story in itself.

LEVINE:

Go ahead.

WALLS:

When I was taken to church to be baptized, my two aunts were my godmothers. And, uh, when they come to register the (?) me, my aunt had forgot the middle name that I was supposed to get, Archibald. I forget what the middle name was now, but they had forgot it completely. So the aunt says, "Archibald Creem Walls." She couldn't think of nothing else, only her own, they were two maidens, and they couldn't think of any other name, so they put the Creem into my baptismal certificates. And that was never discovered until I applied for, to go to the States. I had to get my birth certificate for the American consulate, and, and I tried the church and everything, and they couldn't find it, Archibald Walls. And finally I finished up, it's a city hospital today, but it used to be the Bookhouse[ph] in those days, for the poor people. It was a hospital just like the hospital in New York when you can't afford, I forget the name of that hospital in New York, that people who couldn't afford to go into the good hospitals were transferred, I was city, a city hospital.

LEVINE:

A city hospital.

WALLS:

Yeah, a hospital. Well, this was a city hospital also, but they kept all the records of the births, deaths and marriages. So I went up there, and we spent half a day going through the records and finally we come across, it was Archibald Creem Walls they had come up. So they didn't issue me with it. They said, "Would you go back and check with your aunts and find out." So I went back and checked, and discovered then, that's how the Creem come in to be my little name. I was supposed to be Francis or something like that, but they had lost track of it on the way down to the church. They carried me down to the church, and that was it. So that was how our, the cream originated, and how it was discovered, for me applying to go to America, to the States.

LEVINE:

It's a distinguished middle name to have.

WALLS:

It is. And the funny thing about that name, on the government papers I get here, I keep correcting them umpteen times. I print it, C-R-DOUBLE E-M, I still get papers returned Archibald Green.

LEVINE:

Oh.

WALLS:

You know? So I, so I give up hope trying to educate the officials in the government.

LEVINE:

Okay. Well, tell me about Belfast in your early growing up years.

WALLS:

Well, as I say, it was hard times in the early growing up days. With nine in the family, it was hard to keep a reasonable standard of a living. So my brother Joe was a friend of these cattle drovers. The cattle come in from the country in those days until there were mass laser(?) centers, and that was Massfield[ph]. It was a big compound where the cattle come in from all the North of Ireland, and they were checked, and that's before they were to be shipped to England, the cattle was transferred from Ireland to England. And there was a lot of milking cows in those days, and those cows had to be milked at nighttime before they were transferred down to the boats and shipped over to England. So these people my brother Joe was very friendly with, they used to bring the milk home, and they sold the milk out of their house to the neighbors around the door, because in those days there wasn't any milkman on the road. You bought your milk in the shop corner, you know? So they brought the milk home, and they sold it, and my brother Joe had two cans, and he brought the milk home for us, for our house. Oh, it was assuming my mother had to lay out a few tenths[ph] or something to buy a quart of milk or something. So then we would go around the key, where all the cross challing[ph] ship sailed from the Donnegal key over to the different parts of England and Scotland, and the freight was always stored out in the streets, the wooden crates and various things like that, and they got mis, bad handling, they broke up, and there was all these scraps of timber lying around, so we gathered that and brought that home, and that was our firewood for kindling the fire, for lighting them. So then to buy coal off the bell men, what they called them in those days . . .

LEVINE:

Bell men?

WALLS:

Bell men. They come around in the streets with a cart and horse and bags of coal on it to sell, you know? They had their regular customers, but they were called bell men. And, uh, we got a couple of big burlap bags, would hold about sixteen stone or so, they got, and we got two hand trucks, we borrowed two hand trucks, and went down to the coal key, and when you went down there you could buy the coal cheaper if you transported it away yourself. And we went down with the hand trucks and got these two bags of coal, filled them up for about two or three shillings, oh, what, about thirty pea or something, and thirty cents, or fifty cents or something. And we brought them up. It was hard work to pull them things up but we, we persevered, and we got them home, got them to the house. And that, that was the sticks in the coal, so that was another penny saved. So then my mother used to go to the open variety market down in Belfast on a Friday, and my aunt lived across, not too far from it, but she went down, when it was always nearly closing time when the dealers, the freight dealers and everything, and the mowers(?) was closed up their stalls then, they went on about three o'clock, because they've been working from seven o'clock in the morning till three in the markets. So once he went it, they sold the stuff off cheap. All the fruit and vegetables was sold to get rid of it. They didn't want too much to take back, and we had a big, wicker basket, that stood about that size. I think my father brought it home from sea at one time or another.

LEVINE:

About three feet high, and . . .

WALLS:

A big, round basket, and that took two of us to carry this, so we took it down, and filled that basket with all the fruits and vegetables we could get, and we'd take it over to my aunt's, and Aunt Beit[ph], and leave it there at her house. Well, just about a block away was a big (?) English bakery in Eliza[ph] Street. Well, we used to wait on the bread pans coming back, the salesmen was out in the streets, come around to the customers selling the bread off the carts, so we used to wait on them coming back, because they had all the shops beside the factory gate, and what, you called that returns. So they put that into the shop, and sold it off cheap. Well, a ticket of loaf, of loaves, there was four in a batch, and it was called a ticket of bread, that's what, the names, in those days, we gave it.

LEVINE:

A ticket?

WALLS:

A ticket of bread. There was four loaves together, you know, baked together. And they were big loaves. Well, you got one of those four loaves for threepence. And what they called barn bricks, the fruit, (?) big, you know, a fruit ball in it, and buns and various things like that. When we finished up, we'd maybe spent about five or six shillings, and we had that basket filled. So we went home with that, to our own house, and took that all down, and tracked back to the barn and filled up all the vegetables, and we brought that back, and we had our supply there.

LEVINE:

Yeah. Now, could you do that every week?

WALLS:

Oh, it was every week, it was a ritual. Because, uh, it was a good way to save money, and being, get a reasonable meal, because in those days, when my father was at sea, when I went to sea, the wages was only nine pound twelve and sixpence a month.

LEVINE:

Wow.

WALLS:

My nine pound twelve and sixpence a month would work out about to six or seven dollars or something, you know, in those days, maybe a little more. But that, and that was to keep nine of us, you know? Till we went out, till we started to work and get wee bits of jobs and things and bring in a, a few extra shillings to give to my mother. Then my mother was a great one for buying sides of ribs, pork ribs, and we'd make meals out of that. She was going up the street, and we'd go with her, and she'd buy pigs' feet, and we brought them home, and we'd sit at the fire singeing all the hairs off the pigs' feet with hot pokers. And then scrub them, and she would put them in a big cast iron pot about that size and boil them, and we had that. So it was a great one for cabbage and the ribs, she'd make them, and porridge. We had porridge every morning and porridge every night before we went to bed, you know? That was the way we used to live. But it was good, healthy eating, and there was no sickness or nothing, the way it is today with the meals, you know? But that was, uh, a suggestive of how we survived.

LEVINE:

Right. Now, would your father go away for, like when you were growing up, would he be away a lot of the time?

WALLS:

Oh, yes. Yes. Oh, he was away a lot of the time. He, he was on the run to Boston and, uh, Philadelphia, and the whole (?), and then he was on the Canada run, St. John, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, what I was on the same. But, uh, then he had come home, and he would go on the Baltic run, you know, go to Sweden and east, and other places, or else he'd go to the German run, the Bremen, Hamburg and these places. Or Le Havre and the French coast, you know? He sailed all around there, but (?) sailed to Australia and various things like that.

LEVINE:

Did he come back with stories about these places that he had been to?

WALLS:

Well, he did, but we were too young to appreciate, you know. But I remember in those days when he was going to sea. In fact, it was a custom, because where we were (?) in Belfast, it had (?). And that's done at the dock areas, but it's all knocked down now because they've built these waterways and built high-rise offices and so forth. The old neighborhood is knocked down, which was a pity, you know? But progress stepped in the way, you know, but it was really a pity.

LEVINE:

Could you describe Sailortown?

WALLS:

Sailortown was, I don't think there was a street in Sailortown that they hadn't five or six families going to sea. That was their living in those days. They had to go to sea, because the work was very little in Belfast at that time, and where we lived was, uh, it was a mixed area, but, uh, the Catholics were suppressed. They couldn't get decent jobs. It was the slop jobs that they got. So a lot of the generation in my area, and my father's area, went to sea. Uh, that was the only way of getting kind of steady wage, which wasn't much, but it done, what got us through. And for to get a land job in them days, you got the, you got the dirt.

LEVINE:

The lowest kind, uh-huh.

WALLS:

The lowest of the lowest, you know. So there wasn't a street that there wasn't five or six families, some members of families, that went to sea, and that's why it was called Sailortown. You couldn't have thrown a stone in the one street or across the street that you wouldn't have a sailor of some description. My father, he was a fire man on the ships. He fed the boilers the coal. He shoveled in the coal, you see?

LEVINE:

What was your father like? Do you have memories of him?

WALLS:

Oh, he . . .

LEVINE:

. . . when you were a little boy?

WALLS:

He was a wonderful guy, you know. He was quite a character. I remember a story one time, in fact, it was two stories. My father, with all this (?) come home from schooning. There was a public house just, not, only two or three hundred yards away from us. It was called Kip Keavemey's. Her husband was a Dublin man, and I think Kip come from up the country somewhere, from Mannahur[ph] somewhere around there, but, uh, she was a wonderful character.

LEVINE:

Now, say it again. It was Kit, what?

WALLS:

Keavemey.

LEVINE:

Cavely.

WALLS:

Keavemey. K-E-A-V-E-M-E-Y. Keavemey. Kip Keavemey. And so it just got Kip. And she served behind the bar. And, uh, I was only young the time. When my father and my uncle would come home, they all congregated there, and went over their stories about what the ship was like, was she a good ship, was the food good on her, and all this. This was their conversations. But Kip, on a Saturday night, always had a big platter of pastry sitting on the counter for the customers was drinking their pints of Guinness and chewing away, eating a pastry like they were playing a concertina. ( he gestures ) So then my father and a couple of his sea pals, Jimmy Johnson and Sammy Ward, they would take me down with some of their sons or their nephews to a place called Trooper's Isle, Trooper's Lynn[ph]. It was outside Green Island, down the coast, beyond Greencastle, Green Island, (?). And we'd gather lots of mussels off the shore, cockles, and bring them back, and leave them in Kip's, and Kip used to get some men to wash them and boil them, and they were also spread out on the counter, a delicacy for their pints. That was their rituals.

LEVINE:

How old were you when you did that?

WALLS:

I was, uh, say, around about ten years old or something, ten or eleven years old.

LEVINE:

Were you sort of special to be able to go with them?

WALLS:

No. Well, you see, uh, I don't know if it was ever done that way at all, but it seemed to me, you know, it wasn't anything special, they didn't have any (?), they had no favors in the family, you know, like?

LEVINE:

Yes, uh-huh.

WALLS:

It was just my dad was more inquisitive, and I just didn't want my nose put out, you know, what I had to get in. Of course, the other boys that was there was my school pals, you see? So maybe that was why I was so much attached to going to that Saturday ritual when my father and his male pals were home from the schooner. That was the ritual. But, uh . . .

LEVINE:

And what kind of a man was your father? Did he, was he a storyteller?

WALLS:

He was, uh, he was, but you had to kind of start it, you know? And he, my father was a very clever man. He was a very clever man. My father, uh, he could have got a job in the post office in those days, but it was a reasonable job, because I think he had passed the test, all his test worth(?). And I think he was offered the job, if I can remember it. But, no, he was more inclined to go back to sea again, you know?

LEVINE:

And how about your mother? What kind of a personality was she?

WALLS:

Oh, she was, she was a wonderful lady. My mother was, well, I needn't say she was the most religious, but a very religious person. But never preached it to anybody, or never, as they all say here in Ireland, is ram it down your throat. She was a very devout lady, Christian lady. And, uh, she didn't drink, she didn't smoke, she was all wrapped up in her family and wrapped up in her bits of finances to keep the family, you know, going at a reasonable rearing up. But, uh, she was a wonderful person, and a good looking, good looking woman, too, she was. And when I think back that all she had was her sister Katie, sister Alice, sister Maggie, sister Sarah, that was the four sisters, and out of them they could not have wiped(?) my mother. She was a very humble person. And the rest of them was robust and that, and a wee bit of an errant(?) grace about them, you know, but my mother, she stood out amongst them all. And, uh, she was a wonderful person, you know?

LEVINE:

Do you remember your grandparents at all?

WALLS:

Ah, on my mother's side I didn't remember her father, but her grand, her mother, she lived in Pilot Street. That was County Creenan[ph]. Agnes was her name. And, uh, my mother's elder sister, she lived with her. She was married, and she lived there. Her husband was out in the States. Tom plugged(?) for a little while. He didn't stay long. But they lived with my grandmother, and my Aunt Katie had three boys and two girls, and the sons she all named according to my grandmother. But when the Wallses went, the Wallses were chased, she didn't have much love, you know, for the Walls. Because she, I don't know, my father and her could never see eye to eye, so, but, uh . . .

LEVINE:

How about your mother? Was she close to her own mother, or . . .

WALLS:

Well, in a sort of a way, you know, because she always, well, to my knowledge, was a, you could have got another (?) or something, you know, in those days, you know, but that's neither here nor there. But my two parents were wonderful people. And my grandmother, I just took a dislike to her, you know, to be honest with you, you know, because of the way she treated us, you know? So, I never had much dealings with her. Of course, I was young in them days when she died, you know, but I can vaguely remember, you know, that . . .

LEVINE:

How about your father's mother and father?

WALLS:

Ah, they were dead. I never met them, you know.

LEVINE:

So . . .

WALLS:

My father, my father's brother was a butcher. He told me, he told me a yarn. ( he laughs ) I don't know if it's true or not, but this is present, about the story he told me. He worked in a butcher shop, and it was only just up the street. The butcher shop, in fact, was connected through some relations of ours, behind all this we tend to go back, Logans[ph] are called them, but they are, they were connected to the Wallses family some way. But they had this butcher shop in York Street, just up the street from where we lived. And he was telling me, the (?) would be in the house you see there when they home from sea (?) town, (?) he says, "Archie, I have a customer comes every day, and her order is a quarter of a sausage." Now, a quarter of a sausages in those days, they thought that was a big deal, you know, but it was a poor, old, woman, she couldn't afford anything more than a quarter of sausage, maybe these sausages (?) to be a quarter, and she always had a wee dog with her, and he nicked(?) over the counter, and he says, "That's a lovely wee dog." We'll just use her name was Lizzie, I forget her name now. "Lizzie, that's a lovely wee dog." She says, "It is, (?). Will you throw it a wee bit?" He says, "I certainly will." So he went from behind the counter and lifted the dog and threw it across York Street. And he says, "Is that far enough?" And she said, it was meant to throw it a wee bit of scrap meat, you know? But he just, that's the story. They told it so well, and I actually probably still believe that it was the gospel truth. So when they took me, my father and him, when my father was home from sea, a great one for going to the cinema at night time, and the cinema at night they used to go to was the Alambra[ph] in North Street. That's all gone now, but it was a maraudy show and all. And, uh, they took me there, and you had to queue up outside. And next to that cinema building was a Woolworth(?) store, and in the, they had two windows, and the one window decorated with all the chocolate bars of the day, and the other window was decorated with all kinds of sweets, just poured into the window. You could go in and pick out that kind there, or that kind, or the other kind, or this kind. So here there was a bit of a curse or something, (?) and the window got broke, this big glass window got broke, because it was only about that high off the ground to the window, you know, about the top of that picture up to the ceiling. But somehow or other it had broke. Whether it was an accident or whether it was a deliberate ploy, I do not know. But I at least left with my pockets full of sweets. And I was sitting watching the movie, Tom Mix(?) or something, and I'm eating the sweets. Until, I always wondered where they went during the interval, my father and my Uncle Dave had disappeared and left me there, and I always wondered, until I found out there was a bar in that cinema at that time, and the two culprits was away getting their bottle of stout, and I was sitting with the stolen sweets. ( he laughs ) But, uh, those were happy days, you know.

LEVINE:

You look back at that time . . .

WALLS:

When you look back at that, happy times. Then from, to get a few extra shillings I used to go down to the docks and get, while the ships were coming in, the people that tend the ships in our neighborhood, and they needed an extra hand to take the lines off the ships. Well, they got ten shillings for that, and that was big money then, you know? Ten shillings for helping them to tie that ship up when it come in, and taking the lines off it and putting them on the bowards(?) of the key. So that was accidentally, too, you see?

LEVINE:

Well, now, the first time that you heard about the United States, would that have been from your father?

WALLS:

Uh, yes. My father, you see, my father's two sisters went to the states. I'm sure my brother Joe told you that. Wards, and Mullenny[ph]. My Aunt Ginny, she married a man right there, Jim Mullenny[ph], I called him, and he was of Scotch origin, and Annie Ward was my father's sister, uh, Annie, it was Annie Walls, and then, I don't know if she was married here. I just didn't go back that far, whether she was married here, or whether she was married in the States. But that Ward family, she was married, and they only come about four or five streets away from where we lived. (?) they got married here and they immigrated to the States. That I just couldn't go. My brother Joe would be more (?) that. But . . .

LEVINE:

So what did you know about the States before . . .

WALLS:

Well, I didn't know really a big lot about it, just that I had two outside there, but my father, you see, when he went to see, he used to visit them.

LEVINE:

Oh, I see. So now did you, um, did any of your other brothers go to the States before you did?

WALLS:

Yeah, my brother Will. He, he went to sea. He was a sea man. He used to work as a message boy here in Belfast, worked for a grocery store and delivered the messages, so the people come in and can order, their message, then he used to get on the bike and drive up to their house and leave their groceries off what they had ordered, you know. Then he went to sea. And, uh, he left, uh, I think it was Baton Rouge. He left the ship. And my brother, I think my brother Joe got him fixed up and got him, and my cousins got him into the States officially, went through the procedure and got him in. So then he finished up working on the docks along with my brother Joe. END OF SIDE ONE, TAPE ONE BEGINNING OF SIDE TWO, TAPE ONE

LEVINE:

So you went to sea first before you . . .

WALLS:

Oh, yes, I went to sea, yes.

LEVINE:

What age were you when you went to sea?

WALLS:

I was, uh, fifteen when I went to sea.

LEVINE:

And what was that like?

WALLS:

Well, it was rough days, it was rough days. And, uh, the ships in those days were workhouses, not like the ships today when everything's modern for them, everything's laid on, from the (?) and all the (?) the seamen. In those days, when I was at sea, there was six able-bodied seamen, and three ordinary seamen. I was an ordinary seaman until the able bodied seaman was on a watch, doing a watch at sea. And we all lived in big quarters here, bunks. We had no single rooms of our own or anything. We were all in a compound together. And it was a terrible air. And when you went to the galley to get your meals, it was all put in big tin trays, and you brought that meal down, and you all divided that amongst the sea men, all the men. There was nine of us to get shares out of that.

LEVINE:

And what were the ships doing?

WALLS:

Oh, general cargoes, you know, carrying all (?) of the cargoes, you know? You might have been carrying steel one trip, or carrying timber. You would take coal out, maybe over to Sweden or Norway or some of these other places, Reiga(?), Lithuanian(?) States, and they would load up cotton and stuff coming back here, and timber coming back for Belfast, or it might be London or something there, you know?

LEVINE:

So did you go to the United States then when you went to sea?

WALLS:

I called into Boston once just, and, uh, my run was on the Canadian coast, Montreal.

LEVINE:

Oh, uh-huh.

WALLS:

Way back in (?), St. John's, New Brunswick and the St. John's, Halifax, that was all the runs around there.

LEVINE:

Now, did you, uh, why did you leave being a seaman?

WALLS:

Well, uh . . . ( he pauses ) The last ship I was on, when I come back from South America, there was no, uh, there was no more cargo for our boat. We were off the charter. So we had to tie the ship up, and we tied it up and the sister ship came out of the (?). And they want me to work by the ship, because I was (?) on it. They wanted, they needed someone to stand by the ship along with the ship's officers, and the captain pleaded with me to stay, and I said no. I think it was in the (?) that my mother was getting, going to the States at that time, or something.

LEVINE:

She was going.

WALLS:

She was going. So I come home, and, uh, I got a job. I got the offer of a job at the docks with these poor people. It was tying the lines up of the ships because, uh, that's when the war started, you see? ( he clears his throat ) So I said to myself, there's good money here. I was getting twenty pound a week there, and when I was at sea I was only getting nine pound twelve and six a month. I said, no, I'll stay here. I like the sea. But it was the money purposes that changed my mind. So, uh, I worked, oh, about three-and-a-half years with them, maybe four, and we were (?) subcontracted to the Navy because they had the control of all the ships coming in in that day, and we went down to the Belfast lock, and convoys come in, and maybe that cargoes had shifted or something, and we brought squads of men down to get that straightened up because they were on their way to (?) during the war, this is. ( he coughs ) So then my mother went to the States with my brother.

LEVINE:

When you mother went, how many brothers did you have over there then?

WALLS:

Two, that was all. Just Willie and Joe. So my mother went, and my sister, Claire. She was very attached to my mother. So those two went there. So they're out there, out there about a year, and then my brother Joe and my brother Willie was just out of the service, and they had signed their (?) back again, and went back on the docks, but they had to build up some money, or so. But, and I decided, well, maybe I'd better go to the States.

LEVINE:

Do you know why you decided then?

WALLS:

Well, I knew why I had decided, because I had the suspicion, they were doing everything for my mother, and they were also married, and they had a family to bring up, so I was a big burden on them, you know? It was a great gesture to get my mother out there.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh. You were not married at this time?

WALLS:

No, I wasn't married. So I said, well, the hell with it. I'll go out, I'll get a job somewhere, I'll live with my other sister, and I helped support them, and my sister would get a job, and I'd make as comfortable a life for my mother as possible, because, like, she never was anywhere in her life, and she had a hard time of it bringing up my family, and she never complained. So I thought, well, I could go out, I'll get a job and try and make a wee bit of a comfortable life with my two brothers out there. It would take part of the burden off them, and it would make a bit of a happy family.

LEVINE:

Were you thinking at that time that you would return at some time?

WALLS:

No, I wasn't, really. Well, I probably was, maybe in the later years, maybe after about twenty or thirty years, (?) that amount of time, you know. But it just didn't materialize. The circumstances changed, the pattern, you know?

LEVINE:

But, I mean, when you left Belfast that first time, were you thinking you were just going to go over and come back to Northern Ireland, or were you thinking you'd go and maybe you'd stay?

WALLS:

Oh, yeah, oh, no, I had the intentions of staying. And, uh, I had the intensions of staying for a good while, you know? But there were (?) my days in America, because the old home always, is always a drift back home again in some time in life, you know?

LEVINE:

What is it about back home that . . .

WALLS:

I don't, I don't know. I think it's just, I don't think it's right, because it has probably ruined a lot of people's lives by some people coming back here, you know?

LEVINE:

How do you mean?

WALLS:

Well, well, when they sent back maybe they're, their life‑style's not as good here as what they were having in the States in those days, you know? And I always wondered do the people, you know, think of that, and when you brought them home. Maybe it was too hard to work out there, it was all hard work out there, you work hard and you play hard in the States, and I know it, but work hard didn't affect me in any way at all. It never, that never entered my mind. I was working, and I was getting good money for it, so that's all. I wasn't going to save the country in a different environment.

LEVINE:

So when you, do you remember leaving? What was it like to leave that first time?

WALLS:

( he clears his throat ) Well, I actually had no feelings about leaving. I just, because . . .

LEVINE:

Well, because you'd been going to sea anyway.

WALLS:

Yes, and so it didn't make any difference, because when I was going to sea it was just, whether I sailed out of Belfast or whether I sailed out of Liverpool or London or any of those places, it was just, you know, I went to sea, and that's it. You're away from home.

LEVINE:

Where did you sail out of, in fact, when you went to the United States?

WALLS:

Uh, I sailed from Cobe[ph], that was Cork, you know? I sailed from there.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh. And did you go alone, or were you traveling with anyone?

WALLS:

Uh, no. There was another chap from Bangor[ph] here, beside my wife. My wife was a Bangor[ph] girl, you see? She was born in Grace[ph], it was just around the corner there, then they moved to Castle Street. It was just up that way where the bank is off the main street, and she was reared there. Starrett[ph], called the people, and they lived four or five doors up from there. They had a milk business and various other things. But he was, uh, he had his qualifications as an engineer, you know? He had passed his test and all, and, so, he went back to the States and went into the Douglas Aircraft Company. I parted friends with him in New York when they arrived, because he was catching the train in the Central Station. He was going out West, you know, go back to the Douglas Aircraft factory out that way, and I never heard, well, I never tried to make contact or anything, you know?

LEVINE:

Uh-huh. Well, you mentioned you went on the Georgic[ph]?

WALLS:

The Georgic.

LEVINE:

Now, what was that like, the ship?

WALLS:

Ah, she was a, she was used as a troop carrier during the war, and then they recommitted her back into a passenger ship when the war was over. Actually it was Minneoke[ph], you know? It was the best in those times, you know. The ships got more modern and more luxurious, you know. She was one of the old type. She was built years before the war. And then she was used as a troop carrier during the war.

LEVINE:

I see. Do you remember when it came into the New York Harbor?

WALLS:

Not exactly. I'm not sure. It was around the month of August .

LEVINE:

And how about when you first stepped off into New York? What happened . . .

WALLS:

Well, my brothers were waiting on the pier for me, you know? And, uh, I says, well, my baggage is, the baggage was coming to shore at that time, you know? They said, "Never mind your baggage," you know. "Go ahead." So I went up the immigration, no problems. Customs and baggage wasn't opened, because they worked on the docks. They were all their friends, the immigration people and the customs officers, because they were in connection with them all the time, and any friend of theirs coming into the States, there was no problem, you know? So we got VIP treatment.

LEVINE:

And where did you go? Where did you go with your brothers after that?

WALLS:

We went up to 15th Street. My brother Willie had . . . ( he coughs ) He had an apartment on 15th Street, and my mother and sister was living with him and his wife. And, um, they had no family at that time, you see? So then I arrived at, I arrived on a Saturday. That's, I remember arriving on a Saturday, that's what it was. And, uh, I was working on the docks on Monday night.

LEVINE:

Now, was that . . .

WALLS:

My brother Joe told his friend, who was the night steamer(?) or whatever, Joe Lacey[ph]. He was a good friend. In fact, my brother Joe got him, made the night steamer(?), because he had gone into the service, my brother Joey, so he got Joe Lacey[ph] appointed to the night steamer(?), the worst(?) job. And, uh, he told Joe Lacey[ph], he says, "I'm not asking you to give him a job. No way," he says. He says, "I know he can work, and I know he knows about rigging ships. He's an ex-seaman." And he says, "But if you find that you're desire, that you want to give him a job, you can give him a job." And he says, "If he doesn't, that's not the end of my friendship with you," he says. He says, "I'm not putting you on the spot one way or the other," he says. "Because I'd like to know that you're getting good men to work for you with very little trouble," he says. "Because you know you know what the docks are, and I know what the docks are, and you can get scalawags that does nothing and wants pay for it." So I went down on Monday night to what they call the ship (?), Pier 57. The two piers are 57 and 58.

LEVINE:

Now, is this Manhattan or Brooklyn?

WALLS:

Manhattan, on the west side of Manhattan. So I stood there, it was about seven o'clock. And the ship was just like not there. All the seamen, the sailors, they stood here. Those were the ones that drove the winches on the ship. They had the knowledge of rigging the ship up, because they were ex-seamen themselves, and they were Pollacks. They were Slavs. And, uh, a few Germans, (?) Frenchman, but they actually were seamen that served time at sea. Then around here was all the men that worked in the hold of the ship. They all congregated here. Then down here was all the ones that worked on the dock, on the pier. Not on the carrier, on the pier. And over here was all the fork truck drivers. They called them high-lows[ph] out there. So when the gang was going to make, they checked the gangs. There was twenty-four men in a gang. One there could have been maybe two out of this gang and one of that gang, you see? There was fourteen gangs went to work. So when all the gangs was in, they maybe needed twenty, eighteen or twenty men to fill up these gangs. So I would get the odd job. The sailor didn't turn up, so I'd get a job working the winches. Other times I'd have to go down the hold of the ship and work, you know, but it was hard work, very hard work. I was working with big strong men, colored men, all, you know. But I never give in, I persevered. And at times I was working on the docks with the dock men, stacking slabs of copper or (?) or something like that. Really hard work. But I still persevered. I wouldn't give in. I was would never want Joe to, they come back and say to my brother Joe, "That was a lemon you give me." You know, I never. So then, and then if the foremen didn't turn in after a gang, I got in charge of their gang, maybe for one night, two nights. Maybe they'd gone on holidays, so they trusted me with managing the gangs on the ship. So I got on very well with the gangs. I got on very well with them all. When I was, the first time I drove a winch, there was an old Pollack. It was my partner. We were standing beside one another, the two winches. He was tightening this one, and I was tightening this one. And about an hour afterward he says, "Were you ever at sea?" I say, "Well, I was." He says, "I thought so." I said, "What makes you think so?" He says, "Because you come up here to drive a winch." And he says, "It's only an ex-seaman that has knowledge of winches could drive to be a partner along with me, or me be a partner along with them," he says. He says, "You know it makes it very easy," he says, "we got dock men up here sometimes to fill in, and they don't know much about winches, and bring in the cargo," he says, "but it was a pleasure to work with you." And I said, "Well, it's a pleasure to work with you." So we become good friends, and the word went 'round about all these Pollacks and things, if you ever have me for a partner, you know, you get them, I'm not looking for any glory(?) or anything, but I just had the knowledge, you know? I always used to my knowledge, no matter what job I was doing, to do the best, to take it to the best of my ability. And thank God I done all my work on the docks to the best, but I've done very, very well.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh. Did you work on the docks up until you left, up until 1954?

WALLS:

Oh, yes, yes. I never worked anywhere else. Only on the docks.

LEVINE:

And where did you live, then?

WALLS:

Well, we lived, as I say, we went to 15th Street. My brother had an apartment there.

LEVINE:

And you lived in that apartment?

WALLS:

Yes. I slept on the (?), and my mother and daughter slept in another room, and my brother and his wife in another room. It wasn't a big apartment. I was only a two-bedroom apartment. It wasn't very big, you know? But it was comfortable, and it was handy to the docks.

LEVINE:

Now, you say 15th Street. Was it on the west side?

WALLS:

The west side, just down from Fifth Avenue right down to the, down to the . . .

LEVINE:

To the West Side Highway.

WALLS:

West Side, West Side Highway.

LEVINE:

Or to the Hudson River?

WALLS:

West Side Highway. To the Hudson River, right down there. At the bottom of the street was Pier 15, which my brother Joe had control of. He was in control of Pier 15. That was the Graceland Company's pier, too. So then, uh, my brother Joe's mother-in-law . . . ( he coughs ) I think it was 17th Street she lived in, but she, you know, there was a basement apartment down on 15th Street, and 17th Street, she lived in 17th Street, his mother-in-law, and she found out there was a basement apartment being, so two of them, it was great. So my mother and my sister and I lived in there.

LEVINE:

So were you able to do what you set out to do, take care of your mother and . . .

WALLS:

Yes. Also my sister. She worked in the Nabisco Company, biscuit factory there that used to be on Eighth Avenue somewhere, and her and my sister-in-law worked there. Well, they were able to do what I wanted to do. And, uh . . .

LEVINE:

Well, what brought you back? Why did you . . .

WALLS:

Well, when my mother come home for a holiday, you see, she took bad, and they found out that she had cancer. And, uh, my brother Jack was here, my oldest brother lives up in Belfast. He had phoned us to tell us what the story was. So we all decided we'd come home. We'd have to come home. So one of my aunts come with us. That's, my auntie right there was ordering me to bring her daughter into the States, which she wanted me to bring her. It was, of course, she was going with a Jewish fellow here, and although she got on very well with this fellow, but I don't think she wanted marriage, or whether Jean didn't want, but anyway she wrote to me, and I spoke to Joe about it, and he says, "Well, (?) bring her out." So we brought her out, and she stayed with us until she got work, got a few dollars together, and then she got an apartment, and then she started to bring her sisters out. And, in fact, the whole family finished out there, her mother and all, you know? But that's, that's another story. But when my mother was, she was dying, so we come home, and we were home for about a month, and she died. Then my father took bad, and Joe had gone back to the States before my mother died because he had to get back to the States, and he went back and he was only, in fact he was only gone two days, he was out in the North Atlantic on his way back to the States when my mother died. So my father, you see, I'd come home and got married. I had been home, and then I fell in love with Evelyn, and I says . . .

LEVINE:

What year was that? Was that 1954, or that was before then?

WALLS:

Oh, that was 1952.

LEVINE:

Oh, you came home for a visit.

WALLS:

A visit, yes. My brother Joe and I were, we were home twice for a visit, you see? Because, and, uh, so I found company in the family. So we hit it off and, uh . . .

LEVINE:

What's Evelyn's maiden name?

WALLS:

Oh, her maiden name was Flood.

LEVINE:

F-L-O-O-D?

WALLS:

Oh, no, McAllister. What am I talking about? Her mother was Flood. That was her mother's maiden name.

LEVINE:

Oh, McAllister.

WALLS:

The funny thing about that, her mother was (?) with my grandmother.

LEVINE:

Oh.

WALLS:

And her uncle was married to my aunt.

LEVINE:

Oh.

WALLS:

Uncle Tom.

LEVINE:

Hmm.

WALLS:

So . . .

LEVINE:

Did you know her before you came back for the visit?

WALLS:

I knew her when we were kids, you know? Because we had come down to Bangor, you know, my mother would bring us down to Bangor and go to Aunt Eva's. We always called her Aunt Eva that lived in Castle Street. My mother and them would be sitting talking, and we would be way down on the beach. At that that time there was a bit of a beach down there. No more now, but we did, we knew of. And, uh, when I was, when we were making arrangements to get married and we went to see the priest, and this priest that I wanted him to marry, he was a good friend of mine when I was at home in Belfast. And I told, I explained, I, he says, "(?). You can't get married." He says, "Yous are cousins." So I had to start the whole thing up over again, you know, and give it to him, till he was relieved. He (?), he says, "Archie, I'm relieved." He says, "If I had a thought you was two cousins being married yet, you know." I said, "No, no, there's nothing to that about that." Because we were so close everybody thought we were, but we weren't. So I says (?) when I was leaving to go back to the States, and I go back. In another year, I'll come back to get married. I wasn't six months back in the States when I started to write and make big plans for getting married. So (?) plans when I come home. I got married, and I took her right to the States. She was just a little over a year in the States when we got the word about my mother, so we all come home. So my father, then, after my mother died, he took bad. And, uh, he went into the hospital, and then they found cancer in him. So we brought him home, and my mother-in-law, she looked after him, she nursed him. She'd come up then from Bangor every day, and she stopped and made time, and she washed him and bathed him and changed him and everything. ( he coughs ) He died six months after my mother. Well, I lost heart then, and I come back to the States because my two pals were in Belfast buried. So then I brought a (?) in Belfast, you know? Because me being an American citizen, I couldn get a job in Belfast. I had pronounced my citizenship, and somebody was kind enough to give me a job, you know? Because they classified you as a foreigner, and because, like, you're taking American citizenship, so all the locals is not getting, the area citizen is not getting, so the only way I could really stay back in the country then is I bought a little shop, self-employed. So that was hard coming around that.

LEVINE:

What kind of a little shop was it?

WALLS:

It was confectionery and cigarettes and various things like that. And, uh, papers. That was up the Falls Road in Belfast.

LEVINE:

And then did you keep your American citizenship?

WALLS:

Oh, yes, I still have it. In fact, my passport's, this last five years I bring it up to (?). I still have an American.

LEVINE:

When you, when you were thinking of staying or leaving again, were there, can you think of what was going through your mind as far as why you'd like to go back, or why you'd like to stay there?

WALLS:

Well, you know, I used to get, to be honest with you, I used to get homesick a lot.

LEVINE:

What would you get homesick for?

WALLS:

I don't know, you know? You see, I just kind of never thought (?). But that was always in the back of my mind, you know. When I'd be working at night time I used to daydream, now, what would we do at this time back in Belfast? Where's my pals? Where are we going to, what dance are we going to tonight, or what pub are we going to to get a drink? All these silly little notions, what, embed themselves in my mind, and could I get rid of them? No way at all. I had very happy times in the States. It was a good country, earned a living on the dock. It's a hard country, but you work hard, you get paid, and there's money to be made if you want to make it. I, as I say, my time in the States was very, very happy times.

LEVINE:

Do you think you changed a little bit from being in the States?

WALLS:

Well, I started when I was out there, because all the kids lying around the streets using dope and various things, you know. These things start to play in my mind. While I was married and brought a family up out here, and be worrying when they come home come up the deviant side, are they on these dopes, or rackets, or what do they do, you know? But it was a silly notion to have, because life is a chance at any time, whether you make a good marriage or you bring up a good family, it's a gamble. But those little things nickered and nickered away, you know?

LEVINE:

Do you think you're any different as a result of living in the States for eight years, compared with what your personality might be like if you never left?

WALLS:

( he coughs ) Well, I don't know. It's hard to answer that question. I would say, oh, I got a, I got an education in the States, to see how other people lived, and how hard it was for them two to live as compared, in comparison with the times that I was coming up to live, you know, there was an equal (?) there that, you had families they got in the States that we had in Ireland, you know, was getting it hard. But fortunately enough, I had good times there because I worked like a (?), and, uh . . . ( a telephone rings ) Excuse me. Oh, Mary?

LEVINE:

We're going to stop here. It's the end of the tape. END OF SIDE TWO, TAPE ONE BEGINNING OF SIDE ONE, TAPE TWO

LEVINE:

Okay. We're resuming here with the second tape, and I'm speaking with Archibald Walls, and we're here in Bangor, Northern Ireland, and this is Janet Levine for the Ellis Island Immigration Museum. Okay. You were just remembering, uh . . .

WALLS:

About the one time we went down, we were taking a couple of officers down. The convoy had come into the harbor here, the Bangor, Belfast lock there, and this ship in particular had a catapult airplane on it, it catapulted off, you know, it was a spotter plane for during the war in the convoys. That spotter plane went up to see if there was any submarines or things like that. But, anyway, it was a French ship, and one of these French sailors says, "I could sell you the Abbey Eastern(?) spirits." That was what they used in the plane. The Abbey Eastern(?) spirits was very high octane stuff, you know? So I says to my pal Andy, I say, "Andy, we could buy this." So we had, we had drums on the motor lines that held twenty gallons, at least, that was when we counted it up. I said, "Andy, have you any money on you?" He says, "Yeah, about twenty pound or something." I says, "Well, I have about fifteen here." So we bargained with the sailor, and this was totally unnoticed to anybody, you see? So we, we got these drums filled up with this, on Abbey Eastern(?) Spirit. Petrol was rising at that time, the gas was rising, you know? And I says, "Well, the firm will pay us for this, because they'll be delighted to get this." So when we got back up to Belfast, way in the early hours of the morning again, so the next morning when the boss come in, they told him about this, oh, he paid us right away. He was delighted to get this. So his son had a car, Patty. So he used some of it in Patty's car, travel up and down, maybe up the town and so forth. But here the day after Patty put it in the car, and the car stopped altogether, wouldn't go. And he was a good mechanic. He was a good motor mechanic. And he couldn't figure this out any way. And he dismantled that engine top to bottom, and he built it up again, and then he suddenly discovered about the fuel. It was wine they sold us, red wine doctored up with octane to give it the smell, and we had bought the French wine and put it in the, put it in the car, and the car stopped dead, wouldn't go no further. I'll never forget that one. When the boss, when he found out, "(?) laugh, he says. "I would have probably done the same thing myself." He says, "We learned something every day." So we do. I says, "Well, you can have your money back." "No," he says. "You sold that in good faith to me, and I bought it." So that's finished. And that was a wonderful thing, you know? I'll never forget that.

LEVINE:

Well, I guess that's the kind of things you remembered when you were thinking about back home.

WALLS:

Oh, yes. Yeah. Well, I remembered lot of things, you know, about my brother Joe and I going around, as I said at the start of the tape, about getting the milk from the Mansfields and bringing it home, and getting the sticks, and getting the coal, and getting the fruit and vegetables and all those things. No, you, I used to wonder at night time, I'm not doing any work at all here, what am I'm on Cloud 9 here somewhere. I'm in the States, you know, I used to wonder to myself. But there were happy days.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh. How do you think about it now when you think back on those days?

WALLS:

I would love to go back on holiday, but my wife can't travel. In fact, we are in the position (?) live there for twelve months and come back here and go out. But medical reasons obstructed that. I always intended to go back on again. But in 1983 she did this cancer. Ah, because her family was up and working, and we could go at any time, go out and stay for six months or twelve months. We have no problem, we had no worries, because their families are at home, they were working and they looked after themselves, and we could have been enjoying ourselves. But just medical reasons come along, and this funny stuff, that notion of coming back to take up the old (?) again around New York and New Jersey, the Bronx, all those places.

LEVINE:

Did you, how about your religion? Did you, did your religion stay as strong as it was when you were in the United States?

WALLS:

Uh, it did, because we used to, every month we used to devote different hours of the night to the church. I forget when one of us called them, but my brother Joe, he joined it, too. And it would been different hours, maybe from twelve to one, praying in the church, and meditating, and various things. The next month he may be one to two, went right though, you know? No, our, our, my faith was still as strong in the States as it was in Ireland.

LEVINE:

And before we were talking about, you know, what it was that, if you had changed in any way, if you were somehow different as a result of having lived there. Did you develop any qualities there that you might not have developed if you hadn't left here?

WALLS:

Ah, well, the only thing that changed me there was the knowledge of working on the ships in New York and looking at the way they worked and the way the Irish dock men worked. They were much superior in the States to what the Irish stock men were.

LEVINE:

In what way was that?

WALLS:

They were harder workers. ( he coughs ) They didn't, didn't neglect their work. They didn't drift off here, and you, then you'd be looking for, "Oh, where is so-and-so? He's missing here." But they're, they were constantly at their job.

LEVINE:

Why do you think that was, why do you think that was true there?

WALLS:

Maybe it was because it's so hard to work, and maybe it was, the money was reasonably good, and maybe they were, it was our style of life, the more work they got, instead of working in industry or working in the city consuls, or the thing they got. You know, that's, what I looked at, you know, at least they were happy doing this work, and they probably wouldn't want to be working the factories, or working for the city consuls and various things. They're happy at what they're doing. They seem to be bringing their families up well enough, can get them in the universities and so forth.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh. How about the people? If you were to compare the people here in Belfast, Bangor, with the people that you met in the United States. How would they compare?

WALLS:

Well, I would say, uh, the people here would be a little more compassionate and considerate to just a certain amount. There is some good people in the States, and there's some bad ones. Uh, but I would say there is a little more compassion here of various people. Because it's hard to define that because it's a cosmopolitan state in New York, and you've got so many nationalities in it, you're more or less to blame with your own Irish roots there, to me. Where you had more freedom, more relaxing and more sanity in numbers, you know? If you're involved with any of the Italians or Germans, they seem to be a race to keep to themselves, that I would find. I'm not saying they were bad people. It was probably just a custom that they, which was part of my custom when I went out there, was to be affiliated with as many Irish people, although I had some good friends of Germans out there, and other friends, Italian friends, but I was never as much strong to them as I was through my own Irish race, and all my offsprings married some Americans (?) there. I'm not denying those people or running them down in any way, but I think that was my problem. And I probably had to be born out there and reared up with these people, going to schools with them, with all their different nationalities of their backgrounds at the same schools, and it would probably have meant, I would have been probably just a brother like the rest of them, or a sister like the rest of them. Nationalities in those days wouldn't have counted then, but when you come from another environment, from a pure Irish environment into a cosmopolitan country, well, you have to make the best of what you got. And I couldn't, well, I can't say I could criticize those people. There's bad on both sides. Irish side, the Irish is no, they're not all saints out there, by no means. I have seen that myself in knowing some of them out there, but they weren't saints, and to me they were a disgrace to their nationality, you know, to go out to a country and they got an act of (?), that country was there for you to make the best of the country, and live as good a life as you can do, not to degrade yourself in it. The country, the country didn't allow you in, didn't let you into the country for (?). They wanted you to improve on your standards of life and make the best, and become whatever good citizen you wanted to be, to be coming into the consuls, or various other things. They ran for Congress or something, get elected, these things, you know. The opportunity was there. But I know some of the Irish ones that I seen there, they made a pig's ass of it, of themselves, and as disgrace to their country, you know, having to put a bad name on it. But, as I say, I couldn't say anything negative, but the other nationalities, as I say, it would have taken me to be born and reared up there. Like my brother Joe, he was only twelve when he went out, and he completed all his schooling. ( he coughs ) And he knew what their way of living was, and how hard to work to raise them, how hard they got on in life, and how they didn't get on in life. And he saw maybe bums or something, you know? It was a hard thing, you know, to, to make a judgement on, you know? But I, I was happy enough there with all the Irish, and I was very happy with the people I worked on the docks with, the Pollacks and the Germans, and the Italians. But when I, if I was living in their communities, I wouldn't have known, you know, whether they've been good or bad, you know, the same as the Irish community. You don't know till you live there were they good or bad. But speaking of working there from the docks with them, they were wonderful, fine people.

LEVINE:

How about now, um, that you find yourself with an American citizenship living back in your home country? How does that, does that seem about right as far as you're concerned?

WALLS:

Well, yes, uh, the bounds would be nearly pretty equal. Yes, yes, uh, maybe given, take a (?), you know? But at the end of the day when you sit down and work it all together, the bounds(?), I think, would come out pretty level there.

LEVINE:

Well, is there anything else you can think of that we haven't, maybe, touched on that has to do with your experience of, of pulling up roots and going to the United States for a period of eight years and then coming back? Is there anything else about that that you can think of that maybe we haven't touched on?

WALLS:

( he coughs ) Not really. You know, I've come and done the best I can, you know, from my school days up, like being at sea and all, or on the Baltic States, there I sailed, and all on the East Coast, and South America, down to Buenos Aires, and all up to Canada. I really don't think there's, you know, much more. It was just part of a life.

LEVINE:

What do you, do you think, um, you mentioned you think that your brother Joe, he went, actually, to school there.

WALLS:

Oh, yes.

LEVINE:

And so he was more acclimated to the country.

WALLS:

Oh, yes, he was.

LEVINE:

Yeah. How about your brother, the one who never left.

WALLS:

Willie?

LEVINE:

Well, Willie was there, right?

WALLS:

Yes, he was there.

LEVINE:

Don't you have a brother here?

WALLS:

Oh, my brother Jack.

LEVINE:

Jack.

WALLS:

And my brother Dave, you see, Dave died, and Jack's still alive.

LEVINE:

Why do you think Jack never went?

WALLS:

Well, I don't think he was that well inclined to leave, see? He was married, you know, and I don't think he would, he was a great one, would be a great one for going to the States. He'd go on a visit, but not to make a, to go to live out there permanently, or even part of the permanent life or something. I don't think he would be that well inclined. Uh, he was, he's very religious, very devout, and he's a great charity worker. He works very hard while he's not in (?). All the days of his life he worked for the seamen coming into port. He worked at the Belfast harbor as a crane driver, and he put on the St. Vincent de Paul Society, and their visitations went round the ships every Sunday to find all the Christian seamen, whatever nationality or whatever prospects they had, they would direct them to the churches what they belonged to, the Catholic church or the Presbyterian church or the Methodist church, or synagogues and things like that, they would direct them to them, because they were all in contact with one another.

LEVINE:

Hmm. What's the organization called?

WALLS:

It was the St. Vincent de Paul. It's a big organization. It's a very charitable organization. They have that in every port in the world. And now Seamen's Institutes. Although it's a Catholic denomination thing, but that doesn't, that's not, it was originally come from the Catholic faith, but that doesn't mean to say . . .

LEVINE:

They turn anybody away.

WALLS:

They take care of everybody, everybody. And, uh, I've known that, been up in the Institute, in the Belfast Seamen's Institute, when I'd be up there I'd go and see. They had all nationalities in there. There was no distinction of the men. They were seamen, and what they practiced their religion, that was their business. But it was very successful in getting all these seamen, when they come to Belfast, to get some of the, the pastors or the clergymen of these different churches to come to the ship and talk to them, you know? Talk to them about how their families were back home, and interested in their family life, back home, the thing they got.

LEVINE:

I see. So he found his niche right here.

WALLS:

Yeah. Well, he was never what you call a traveling man. He had never had any inclination to go to sea or anything like that. My brother Willie and I had to, we were more outward looking, along with my father. But my brother Jack was more conservative, but he was just happy what he was doing.

LEVINE:

I see. Uh-huh. Well, it's interesting how the different brothers either left or stayed, left and came back, or never left. Okay. Well, I want to thank you so much. It's been really interesting. I appreciate you taking the time.

WALLS:

You have to, you never even got a cup of coffee yet.

LEVINE:

Well, that's okay, because, let me just close off here. Um, this is Janet Levine, and I've been speaking with Archie Walls, and, um, this has been a most interesting interview in Bangor, in the county of Downe[ph] in Northern Ireland, on March 14, 1998. And I am signing off.