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The Victoria GAZETTE |
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December 2011 |
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by Sue Orsen The Victoria Gazette The place was like an inn. Although built to be a dance hall, maybe before 1900, the establishment came to provide lodging for Kelly and Florence Drew and their children. The Old Dance Hall in downtown Victoria had four walls and a roof and so provided shelter and some protection under the stars. The Drew family was not looking to bunk for a night or two. They needed a place to live and work and there weren't a lot of other places to rent in 1935 when they pulled into town from Monticello, where Kelly Drew had learned the blacksmith trade. As with many other families on their way from here to there, the Drews first took accommodations in an apartment above the Old Notermann Building, but then in 1938 -- unlike most other families -- they found a large room in the Old Dance Hall. They did not arrive in the middle of the night astride a donkey, and they weren't greeted by shepherds and kings but by Notermanns, Diethelms, Tschimperles, Schneiders, Schmiegs, and Holtmeiers. Kelly and Florence Drew had three little boys when they found Victoria -- Donald, Harvey, and Robert, ages 5, 4, and 1. Now all grown up with families of their own, those boys stopped by this past November 2011 to visit the editor of the Victoria Gazette. Their life in the room at the Old Dance Hall is a chapter of Victoria history that's never been told before. Harvey was the first brother to get the editor's ear. "It got kind of crowded in that dance hall," he said. "We boys slept on the stage. You know how a dance hall might have a stage on one end of it for the band. There was one bed up there for the three of us. It was cold. There was just too much space to heat, even though there were two wood stoves going. Both of the stoves were on the east end. Our bedroom was on the west end, but the chimney was close to us and we got some heat from it." Winters made the Old Dance Hall memorable. "Then Dad put in a partition so our bedroom was really cut off from heat," said Harvey. "It got so cold in the place that a glass of water sitting near the stove would freeze." Who owned the Old Dance Hall? "Dad probably rented it from the Victoria Village," said Harvey. "It was one big room and there was no kitchen. Mom had a gas cookstove. There were no bathroom facilities. We had a pail. The pail was by the steps up to the stage so it was kind of private. There was an outside biff we dumped it in. Not sure who the biff belonged to. Maybe the lumber yard. We got water from a well, from a neighbor. I can't remember his name." Did the Drew family celebrate Christmas? "We walked out to the Lake Auburn Moravian Church for the Christmas pageant. I was in the pageant but I don't remember what part I had," said Harvey.
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The children of Kelly and Florence Drew, who lived and worked in Victoria seven decades ago, when Kelly was the town blacksmith. Seated, Don and Shirley. Standing (l-r), Harvey and Robert, on the editor's deck. |