DALLETT:

This is Nancy Dallett, and I'm speaking with Sidney Pike on Tuesday, August 6, 1985. We are beginning this interview at 3:35 in the afternoon and we are about to interview Mr. Pike about his immigration experience from England in 1910. Ah, this is interview number 014. Can you tell me where and when you were born?

PIKE:

Yes, Nancy. My memory comes back very, very clearly. It was September the 22nd, 1899 at One Little Roak Avenue, Kenley, K-E-N-L-E-Y, Surrey, England. Uh, we lived in two small homes adjacent to Dad's business which was a bakery and wholesale roots. All of the children, including me, were born in the small home. Uh, I spent the first ten years with the family in Kenley. Went to Smith School, which was later bombed by the Germans. Wasn't particularly a good student, but, uh, I had one way of observing of what was going on. Uh, I helped much in my dad's business, uh, whatever a youngster of ten years old could do. Uh, Dad was a very lovable fellow. Mother was the leader. But Dad had a yen to see what was on the other side of the mountain and, uh, he told us that he was going to Toronto, Ontario to see what was what there. From there he went down to New York. He came back to England and said, "We're all moving to America." Well, we kids jumped for joy. Cowboys and Indians. That's all we could think of. Mind you, the oldest was Daisey, fifteen, the youngest was Ethel, six months. There were seven children. Dad, briefly, sold the business, which was quite lucrative. Uh, we weren't rich, but we weren't poor. Uh, and the final day came when Mother and Dad and seven children set sail for Southampton, England. We were to embark on the S.S. Teutonic, which was built in 1889. Later we got to know the ship as the "Rusty Bottom." To Mother and Dad's consternation, the doctor's in Southampton rejected me, Sidney, aged ten, and Arthur, aged eight, and said, "They can't go to America. They're too puny, they'll never get by the authorities in Ellis Island." So Mother and Dad and five children set off for America and we got left in Southampton. We went back to Kenley where we stayed with our grandparents for three months. They fattened us up and, uh, back to Southampton. This time we passed the doctors and we spent two weeks on the S.S. Teutonic. I can remember some of the pleasures and some of the pathos. Ah, one was that every night they gave us a big cup of cod liver oil which was a preventative against scurvy.

DALLETT:

Scurvy?

PIKE:

Scurvy. Uh, we probably dumped it down the toilet. Uh, we had no food problem, although we were in steerage. We got to know some of the crew who couldn't believe that two youngsters, aged ten and eight, were alone on the ship with no guardian. And before you know it, we were invited to the second class where we got better food. We landed at Pier 58, North River, on Thanksgiving Day. It's just a fraction vague there, did we stay on the ship overnight or did we stay on overnight at Ellis Island. We were taken to Ellis Island.

DALLETT:

Thanksgiving Day of which year?

PIKE:

Oh, Thanksgiving Day, 1910. We were taken to Ellis Island and, uh, either the next day or the following day we were asked by one of the guards, "Who are you?" We were well-dressed, we could have been taken from Norway, from Sweden, with our blonde hair and our blue eyes, you might term it Anglo-Saxon. And we did have a tag on us, and we told him we were immigrants. He says, "Where's your mother and father?" "They're in Brooklyn." We finally explained to them what was what and they took us to the doctors and I will say we received quite some special attention. Uh, and the doctors, I can remember it very clearly, said, "Welcome to America." Go on?

DALLETT:

Wonderful, yeah.

PIKE:

Sister Daisey, aged fifteen, she's still living, so it Ethel, uh, picked us up at the barge office. We walked up Broadway as far as Trinity Church. Across the street a huge building, the Empire State, was still smoldering from a fire. And in its place rose the Equitable building, which today is very imposing there. We were taken to Brooklyn and, Nancy, that covers England and the arrival. I don't think I can add much more to it.

DALLETT:

Okay. Let's go back and maybe I can ask you a few questions. Okay, you're, we're back in Surrey, you're a young boy, tell me what you remember about helping your father in his business, you showed me that picture, with the cobble-stoned streets.

PIKE:

Okay. One particular part I remember very, very well. That our home was in the country. And all through the summer big groups would come down from London, Cockneys, poor people, they'd come down in what they call "breaks," horses, carriages, some would come down by train. And, uh, on top of what they called the Downs, which is a huge hill, Dad had a huge marquee tent, where we sold ice cream, refreshments, ah, pork-pies I can remember very well, I wish I could find them here, pork pies, uh, muffins and crumpets, and afternoon tea at four o'clock. And when school was out it was my job to be up there to help from washing dishes, from serving, and so forth. Uh, that was that part. School, the Smith School was on Godsten Road, and I went there when I was five years old. It was so far Sister Daisey used to push me in a perambulator. While the temperature in England is mostly above thirty-two degrees, uh, Smith School was two huge rooms, no central heating whatsoever, an open fire place at one end, and the classes used to rotate so if the kids were freezing at this end, they got warm by sitting at the other end. Uh, then they built a school, a very modern school, within walking distance of our home, where all we kids went. Uh, I just wasn't a good student. My mind was on history, geography, trying to see the world, uh, at that time, I was one of the worst introverts. Around here they won't believe it, they just won't believe it. Once in a while it comes back. We had a commemoration hall there where all the different social activities were held. One particularly was, uh, what we called "harvest Thanksgiving." Here it's Thanksgiving, but that was harvest Thanksgiving, when we gave thanks for all the food that was produced. Dad would make a loaf of bread about eight feet long which would be in the center of all this food.

DALLETT:

Do you remember at that point having any consciousness of the United States?

PIKE:

All I knew, Nancy.

DALLETT:

You knew about cowboys and Indians.

PIKE:

That's all I knew at that time was cowboys and Indians. That's all I knew, nothing else.

DALLETT:

Did you like the tales of cowboys and Indians. Did you read stories about them or were you read stories?

PIKE:

I think so. Yes. I think so. I was a good reader. I still do a lot of reading. I come home at two o'clock in the morning and read for an hour. Uh, I have to be honest, until I came to America, I didn't know much about America. I just didn't.

DALLETT:

So, let's see, your Father decided to go to Toronto first, that's right? Do you remember what year that would have ben or how old you were?

PIKE:

1909.

DALLETT:

Okay, so he went to Toronto. And did he go because he wanted to see, was he thinking of moving from England?

PIKE:

He was thinking of Toronto. I think he was, frankly, I think he was thinking of, uh, not necessarily English-speaking people, but that Toronto was part of the Britsh Empire.

DALLETT:

Right, right. So from Toronto he went south to New York.

PIKE:

And we moved here, uh-huh.

DALLETT:

So, okay, your family has decided they're gonna come to this country. Uh, when you went to this medical exam before the rest of your family got on the boat, was that a mandatory think or was the doctor just suggesting that you might not get through Ellis Island?

PIKE:

Yes, it was mandatory to the degree, our mouth was full of cold sores. Very depressing to look at. It was mandatory to the degree that the Teutonic was owned by the White Star Line. In those days they had a White Star Line and they had the Cunard Line. Then the business went down and they consolidated. And doctors of the White Star Line were charged by their own company for examination of steerage passengers that if we landed here and were rejected, White Star had to send them back, and not necessarily steerage department. So, I think you had to be pretty sick to get turned down, particularly when they were splitting up families. Help a little bit?

DALLETT:

Yeah. Um, do you, do you actually remember the day that you went through this exam?

PIKE:

Oh, yeah, sure, very, very well.

DALLETT:

And it was your brother also that they suggested should stay.

PIKE:

Brother Arthur passed away in his thirties, years ago. He was only eight and, uh, I don't think Arthur knew what was going on.

DALLETT:

So, uh, your parents decided they would go on anyway and send you back to live with your, was it an uncle or grandparents you said?

PIKE:

Well, they'd sold the business, sold the two homes, uh, they were both pioneers, uh, and I presume they felt, well, grandparents will fatten 'em up and they'll follow along later.

DALLETT:

Right, right. So was it hard to say goodbye to them at that point, or did you just figure I'll see them soon?

PIKE:

No, no, we couldn't care. We just went back to the village and had a grand time. We didn't have to go to school for three months.

DALLETT:

Uh-huh. While you were living with your grandparents?

PIKE:

The grandparents were right next door to where my folks and our family lived.

DALLETT:

Uh-huh. So they kept you out of school at that point because you were going to be leaving soon?

PIKE:

I think it was based primarily that two of the doctors that were fattening us up, the way I express it, when we can get rid of these two kids. So why put them in school? In other words, it could have been two weeks, it could have been two months.

DALLETT:

Right, right. Did you, uh, get a letter, do you remember at all hearing from your parents in the time that you were waiting to come to America?

PIKE:

OH, yes, uh-huh.

DALLETT:

And did they let you know in some way what America was going to be like?

PIKE:

Well, they told me all that was going on in America. Where they lived in Brooklyn. Number 325 Chauncey Street. I can remember the apartment very, very well. And, uh, I was fourteen then. Fifteen I went to work.

DALLETT:

So they, they let you know to a certain extent.

PIKE:

I will say further that, uh, even after seventy-five years I still correspond with people in Kenley. Christmas card every year. Dear Sid, how's everything in America?

DALLETT:

Right, wonderful. And you go back and visit?

PIKE:

We had one visit, if I talk too much, cut me off, that's up to you. We had one visit. I took Mary, Lynn and myself. We made a trip around the world. For me it was a business trip to a convention in Singapore. And I said to Mary, "Would you like to go along?" I have a copy of the brief I could give you later. She said, "Well, could we take Carol?" I said, "Well, if we take Carol we'll have to take Lynn. We can't take Candy because she's six months." Well, I'm trying to recall. We landed in London, the four of us. We took a chauffeur in a car down to Kenley. We parked on that side and I walked across the street to Number One Little Roak Avenue. They said, "Go on, we dare you." A young girl came out, she said, "Can I help you?" I said, "I'll come right to the point. My mother and father occupied these premises eighty years ago." She said, "You must be one of the Pike's." "I am." "Is that your family? ( he gestures ) Come in, all of you." One little kid was three weeks old in a basket on the floor, there was another one somewhere. She said, "There were seven of you." I said, "No, there were eight of us." She said, "Well, the bakery is still next door that your father had. Grimes Bakery. Where were you born?" "Upstairs. Eight of us." "Would you like to go up?" I said, "No."

DALLETT:

That's amazing.

PIKE:

That was one of the little incidents.

DALLETT:

When your, when your parents came over, they had the other five children, right, with them, at that point?

PIKE:

Yeah.

DALLETT:

Did they subsequently tell you, when they came through Ellis Island, did they have any problems?

PIKE:

Not that I know of. Because all I know is I joined with them at 325 Chauncey Street.

DALLETT:

So by the time you came through on the Teutonic, do you remember the name of the boat they took, by the by?

PIKE:

Also the Teutonic.

DALLETT:

Oh, it was the same line.

PIKE:

Same boat.

DALLETT:

And it was how many months later, all together?

PIKE:

Three months. Let's see. August, September, October. Four months. I think you'd have to put it, Nancy, three to four months.

DALLETT:

Uh-huh. Okay. When you came, do you remember, you said you remembered some of the people that you met, who sort of took you under their wing. Do you remember what food you had been served or any of the details of the boat ride?

PIKE:

We got porridge, we got porridge for breakfast, we'd get an egg for breakfast, at lunch time it would be some cold food with an apple or an orange. Uh, I guess I'd have to say that food was more interesting than I was hungry. Not that I was in Chez Vito, or Club 21.

DALLETT:

Do you remember the weather?

PIKE:

Weather was bad. Weather was very bad. We were locked in our staterooms most of the time. Or, locked in the parlors most of the time. We used to hang over the edge of the ship, very dangerous. And the bow would go down, the back of the stern of the ship would come up and we'd watch the two propellers spin before the engineer could shut the motor down, the engines down. Crazy.

DALLETT:

And do you remember the sleeping accommodations or anything like that?

PIKE:

Two bunks, no washroom. And, uh, I think a built-in chair, that was about all.

DALLETT:

And you shared that with your brother. And you were pretty much in charge of your younger brother then. So, uh, okay, then these people sort of took you under their wing?

PIKE:

Not necessarily. I was ten. I met a nice gal. She was fourteen. And we sat on the deck together. Uh, we were going to get in touch with each other but, uh, we never did.

DALLETT:

how long did the crossing take?

PIKE:

Two weeks.

DALLETT:

Anything else you remember about that part of it?

PIKE:

There wasn't much to be on board ship, I mean there was no TV's, no radios, no newspapers. There would be a bulletin daily from the Marconi, but that didn't interest us. A lot of it was spent sleeping.

DALLETT:

And then you came into the Harbor. You came into Pier 58?

PIKE:

Pier 58, North River. Knew it very well. You see I worked on the waterfront all my life.

DALLETT:

When you first came into the Harbor, did you come by Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty and then go up to Pier 58?

PIKE:

Up through the Narrows, Verazano Bridge wasn't there, of course. Up through the Narrows, Governor's Island on the right, and the Statue of Liberty on the left and then Ellis Island just adjacent to it.

DALLETT:

Right, and did someone say to you, "That's Ellis Island." Or did you know that that was the Statue of Liberty?

PIKE:

Well, we all lined the deck at that time and I guess we didn't have to tell each other that this was it. The gateway to America.

DALLETT:

That must have been a pretty exciting time for you.

PIKE:

A little corny, but when we walked up Broadway past the Customs House I said to Daisy, "Where are the streets that are paved with gold." She said, "You'll have to find out later. I don't know."

DALLETT:

So, she had been living here then for three months, and wasn't as much of a greenhorn. She could help show you around.

PIKE:

Bob, she went to work on a night shift on Pearl Street, a book bindery. All the family pitched in at that time.

DALLETT:

Tell me, let's just go back a bit, when you came through, you came up through Pier 58, you said you weren't sure whether you spent the night there or went down to Ellis Island the next day, but can you tell me anything about going through the exam, maybe walking into the Great Hall?

PIKE:

Well, I can remember the big hallway. I can remember sitting down at long tables eating. Uh, I was mystified with the babble that went on with all the different languages. The babookshkas. We were very neatly dressed, we had clothing like you saw there. And it was all so strange to me. And, Nancy, I was only ten.

DALLETT:

Right, so at that point when you were going through the exam, none of your family was around yet.

PIKE:

There was no family, no. One particular spot I can remember was the eye doctor. He passed brother Arthur. Arthur passed away from a heart attack, but I can remember him going over my eye very, very closely. They've been good ever since. No cataracts. But I can remember the eye doctor quite well. The sores had all disappeared completely that were there before.

DALLETT:

Do you remember anything, any of the physical details of the building. You mentioned the long tables where you might have had a meal?

PIKE:

I was interested in the waterfront, where I would say fifty-foot boats, may 60-foot boats at that time, old timers, pulled in with the immigrants coming in. And did they all go back to the barge office in those days?

DALLETT:

Did they go back to the barge office?

PIKE:

I mean when they left Ellis Island. Weren't they taken to Manhattan to the barge office, yeah, that's where we went. I can remember all of that on the waterfront. I had offshore boats for thirty years. so, uh, the oceans were in my blood. With the building inside, I can remember all the cages. And the high ceiling.

DALLETT:

Did someone, how did you know even which line to get in. Do you remember whether someone called your name out for an exam?

PIKE:

When we were dressed and had a tag on us, uh . . .

DALLETT:

The tag was put on you by your grandparents back in England?

PIKE:

No, this was put on when we left the, when we left the Teutonic, that's when it was put on. And, uh, I think I would say most of the help in going through came through the guards. I'm differentiating between a guard and a doctor.

DALLETT:

Right, okay.

PIKE:

I think the guards in those days wore a peak cap and a blue suit. But again, this is seventy-five years ago.

DALLETT:

So they might have helped direct you in some way.

PIKE:

They definitely helped us at that time, yes.

DALLETT:

Do you remember . . .

PIKE:

Oh, one other thing struck out immediately that was one of the biggest helps. Was a very, you might say, broad British accent. Very broad. Does your husband have one?

DALLETT:

He has a northern accent, yeah.

PIKE:

But this went against us when we went in public school. All the kids made fun of us. The teachers though picked us up for recitation because of our accent at that time.

DALLETT:

So it worked to your advantage in some ways.

PIKE:

Yeah.

DALLETT:

Do you remember what kind of baggage you were carrying when you came? Did you bring anything from England?

PIKE:

It's a good question.

DALLETT:

Favorite book, uh, anything?

PIKE:

I think we had very limited baggage. Very limited. The feeling being by the grandparents, the grandfather was a very smart man and a good businessman. And I think he figured that, uh, all we've got to do is give these kids enough clothing for on board ship. And then the parents will take care of them when they get to America. The clothing here might be completely different from what it was in England. So, I knew we had very limited baggage with us.

DALLETT:

Uh, let's see, what else. When you had gone through your eye exam, did you at any point, did anyone finally say, well, you know, you're finished the examination and you're in?

PIKE:

Yes, one of the doctors with a great, big grin said, "Welcome to America. You're okay." Uh, he didn't go on with an elaborate speech, he just made it very short and they were putting through five thousand a day at that time. So that, they were all overworked, no question about it. Meaning the help. So they didn't have much time, shall we say, to socialize.

DALLETT:

Was that the first time that you had heard, you mentioned the babble of foreign languages, was that the first time you had heard some of these languages?

PIKE:

I would say so because when we lived in England, uh, we had very little contact with people other than the family, the school, the church. We never went to London. Twice a year we were taken down to Brighton, which is on the English Channel. A little bit like Atlantic City. One with the church group and one with the public school group. And we'd be taken here by train and brought back by train for the whole day. That was the big, big event we used to look for. Uh, one other, wild strawberries grew in England just like weeds around here. And, uh, we'd be out strawberrying all the time, and blackberrying all the time. And that was part of our play time, you might say.

DALLETT:

Uh, how about when your parents finally came to meet you. Did they come?

PIKE:

They didn't come. They sent Daisy. Her real name is Ellen, but they sent Ellen, she was fifteen. She was on the ball. And, uh, as I say, she walked us up Broadway to Trinity Church and then over to Brooklyn.

DALLETT:

How did you get out to Brooklyn then?

PIKE:

Subway.

DALLETT:

Your first subway ride.

PIKE:

There was one subway running. It was built in 1909. That was the only subway in New York at that time. It ran all the way from Coney Island to the Bronx Zoo on 180th Street. It came up the east side, went across 42nd Street, then north from there. We only lived in Brooklyn for about two years, and then we moved to the Bronx. That was pleasant. We had a lot of fun there.

DALLETT:

So how about your other, were there three other brothers then that had come earlier?

PIKE:

There were three, two brothers and three sisters.

DALLETT:

And had they, you mentioned everyone sort of pitched in and went to work.

PIKE:

Well, uh, when we moved to the Bronx, Dad opened up three bakeries. Every one of us pitched in. Every one of us.

DALLETT:

So he continued his profession in this country.

PIKE:

Yeah. He had a bakery in New York called Cushman's years ago, and they finally bought Dad's business.

DALLETT:

That's the end of the first side of interview 014. END OF SIDE ONE BEGINNING OF SIDE TWO

DALLETT:

This is the beginning of the second side of interview 014 with Mr. Sidney Pike. You can just say the same thing.

PIKE:

It was built in 1889 and it was such an important project at that time that the Kaiser from Germany came over at the christening of the ship. I happened to find it in some of the records.

DALLETT:

Wow, that's interesting.

PIKE:

It wasn't too important to me, it was just a rusty bottom.

BIELECKI:

Why did they call it Rusty Bottom?

PIKE:

To me it was just an old hunk. I mean, uh, later, and even at that time, you had the Mauritania, you had the Lucitania, you had real ships. And much of my life was spent with those ships. Uh, so from my viewpoint this little ten thousand ton boat chugging along, I named it Rusty Bottom.

DALLETT:

Was there anything that you saw or came into contact with for the first time in New York that you remember really being impressed by, I don't know, an elevator, or the subway, or a building, or anything strike your fancy?

PIKE:

Well, later the Singer Building went up in 1913. Uh, I had arrived in 1910. It sounds kind of crazy, but one part of Brooklyn at that time was a maze of swamps and waterways. I'm trying to think of the name of it. We used to take our lunch and we'd go all day long down to those places there. Uh, which impressed me much. Come on, Pike, what's the name of it? It'll come in a minute. Of course, I was impressed with people back and forth but, again, Nancy, between the age of ten and fourteen my life was somewhat restricted.

DALLETT:

Were you disappointed to find that there weren't cowboys and Indians?

PIKE:

Oh, no. But it was restricted that it was school. And then in the summertime it was working at odd jobs and it was only after I quit school when I was fourteen and went to work five days a week that I began to meet people. Are you recording? Oh, okay. Uh, one part was very interesting. My first job was with the British Board of Trade that controlled all the crews and ships of British, all the crews of British ships. The crews were made up primarily, that is, the freighters were made up primarily of ten white officers and about thirty Lascars, which were East Indians, Malayans, or Chinese. I worked in the Seaman's Institute at 25 South Street. That building has since been pulled down. My job put me in close contact with many of the seamen that the owner of a ship could not, and I think it still prevails today, could not pay off a member of a crew. He couldn't sign on a member of a crew unless it was in the presence of a British Counsel or an officer of the British Board of Trade. This was to protect the seamen that they got everything they were entitled to. Uh, it was during the First World War that ran from 1915 to 1917, we had any number of ships sunk off the British coast, off the Atlantic coast here, and we brought in literally many shipwrecked sailors, uh, some we would send home on another ship, someone would put in King's Point Hospital in Brooklyn, uh, we'd see that they were outfitted with new clothes if they needed hospitalization I said it was King's Point. Uh, the best of all the group were the Malayans. They saved their money. They kept their money in a small bank that we ran at that time. Then I was transferred from that job to the office of the British Consulate General at 44 Whitehall Street. There I was put in charge of the passport division. The war was still on, America wasn't in the war at that time. Uh, I got a new outlook on life that if you went to Europe you normally went through England and you needed a British visa. So we had Hollywood pouring in. I can remember Vernon Castle and his wife Irene, way before your days. She was the first one of women to bob her hair. Then we had Dorothy Gish, Lillian Gish, uh, I could go on and on, but they really did a nice job for me. Tickets, first ten rows, every show in New York. This was part of my fringe payments. Uh, I got to be seventeen, I quit, I tried to join the Canadian army but was turned down, blood pressure, went back to the consul and Sir Clive Bailey said, "Your job has been filled." But he said, "I'm trying to think of the right words. He was trying to say you're a bright boy, you deserve something better than working for a non-profit organization. I'll bless Ellis Island and all of you that work for a non-profit organization, I did for five years in Washington. But, he said, "We have a rubber firm upstairs that owe us a lot of favors. They'll give you a job." I went upstairs, saw a fellow named Hans Lowser and he said, "What do you know about bookkeeping?" I said, "Nothing." He said, "All right, you're hired as an assistant bookkeeper. Fifteen dollars a week." That was three dollars more than I was getting. Uh, they were rubber importers. And from there I spent a lifetime in the rubber import business. That's how it came about, which wound up with S.J. Pike and Company. Questions?

DALLETT:

Tell me more about your business, your business life.

PIKE:

Okay. I did a lot of traveling. In 1957 ( disturbance to the microphone ) did I do anything, Bob? In 1957 United Airlines gave me a plaque for half a million miles, then it went to a million. I flew every kind of plane you could think of. I went out of Lima, Peru in a C-54 to an elevation of thirty-five thousand feet. The plane wasn't pressurized. We had a rubber tube in our mouth from the side of the ship. The host walked up and down the aisle with one on his back. And if he saw you go like this (his head falls forward) he'd jam it in before you went unconscious. We had five ton, we had five ton of cargo lashed up on the front. I watched a fire as we climbed over the Andes Mountains. We were headed for the mouth of the Amazon River. Went to a town called Manous. There was very little return that none of the airstrips were paved. They were just gravel. And as we circled to a height of thirty-five thousand feet while the motors went out, it blew oil all over the plane. Luckily we all had our belts on. You could feel your body trying to climb to the ceiling. We went back to Lima which was about two-and-a-half hours and, uh, that was one of the many escapades I had. My territory took in much of the Amazon River. A fantastic four thousand mile shaped like a basin from the mouth of the River, the town of Belleme all the way to where the river started in Peru. The highest elevation in all that four thousand feet, four thousand miles, was six hundred feet. This was literally a saucer. In some places the river was ten mile wide. And it was my job to go and visit people that produced rubber there. Uh, intelligent people, fairly well off, knew their business. And the same thing applied in Malaya, Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Viet Nam, Cambodia. We made a very small profit but I can always remember the bank when one of the importers would complain about profits and the bank would say, "Yeah, I see you're down to your last Cadillac." The business, you had to know the business, you had to know the people. I had a good group with me. Uh, Margie my secretary still does much of my work. Some come in the morning, after twenty years. Uh, in 1970 I was seventy years of age. I had no heirs to the business. And a group came in from Paris, they spoke English, they spoke French, they spoke German, they spoke Italian. Their company was a hundred and twenty-five years old and, to make it brief, we sold S.J. Pike and Company to them. It was all right. It was good for me. Uh, 1972, I found a letter the other day from Philadelphia, IRS. And, uh, it says, "You're accountants and I have finally come to an agreement and your tax for 1972 is $635,000." I worked all my life for that money. Much of it went back in those directions. In all the travels I don't think I was ever sick a day. Some of the travels my family would go with me.

DALLETT:

You seem to have a lot of documentation from lots of things that happened.

PIKE:

Pardon?

DALLETT:

You seem to have a lot of documentation from the things that happened. Do you have any of the original passports or visas or any of the papers that you had with you when you came?

PIKE:

Oh, when I came? You mean 1910.

DALLETT:

Or any letters, anything like that.

PIKE:

Only the photographs, that's all, that's all I have, Nancy. As I say, every year would be Christmas cards, uh, I could probably find (?)

DALLETT:

Yeah, but you have photographs of you as a child before you came, before you made the trip to this country.

PIKE:

Well, uh, there's this one, when I was five. If by any chance you want to borrow any of these I can take them out of the frame, if you should.

DALLETT:

Well, we just want the people at the National Park Service to know that you have them. So I'll just note that you do have them.

PIKE:

Okay, well, make a note there.

DALLETT:

You think you might have a passport of some sort that you brought with you?

PIKE:

There's that one. There's this one when I was about four, four or five, or three. If you want, I think I can mail you a copy of this, which might help you with your justification? I'm sure I've got a copy somewhere. Here's a biography that was written eight years ago, there might be something in there that could help you.

DALLETT:

This is the end of the interview number 014 with Mr. Pike. We are concluding at 4:25 PM.