My name is Clarence Laut. I was born upstairs in that building. The whole house is only one layer of brick. The back was built on afterwards. My uncle was Herman Laut. He had the Hotel. Dad made cigars up there. When I was only 11 years old, I helped strip the tobacco. I didn't get any pay. Children didn't get paid in those days - they just lived on their allowance.
I had a helluvan allowance. One time I gathered bones and took a whole wheelbarrow of them to old man Thompson at the lock. There used to be a barn there and they cut the bones in there - that iron, you know.
In those days, people cooked a lot of soup with those heavy bones. It gave the soup a good flavor. I didn't have 11cents to buy a fishin' pole and line and hook. Pa wouldn't give it to me - he didn't have the money to give in those days. If you wanted something, you tried to get the money someway yourself or sell something. Things are different with children today, aren't they? I remember when we moved where Plucky lives now S.
Franklin St. That house was only about years old then - a fellow by the name of Bill Thieman built it. It wasn't finished upstairs, just the downstairs. My parents were both born here, but my grandmother came here from Cincinnati.
They had a store at North Main St. There was a dance hall upstairs. I played many a dance up there. They had two bowling alleys in the back too. They had a great big barn where people put their horses - it was just across from the Historic Association building. Grandma used to have two bedrooms upstairs on the south side. When you'd come up the steps, you'd walk right into that southeast corner.
