Iboya Szabo-Hancock’s recollections about the border post at East Pinnacle

This video clip is an extract from an interview with Iboya Szabo-Hancock recorded by Héritage Sutton in February 2020.

Iboya Szabo-Hancock: Okay. I don’t know too much, only what I’ve heard, because it was before I was born, but what I heard from the family is that the government rented space in the dining room. There was a desk and a small filing cabinet. In the summertime, because there was a big porch on the front, they glassed in one end, and they’d move the desk and the filing cabinet out there. It was there it opened in July of 1930, and it stayed there till they built a new office past the house in 1948 or 1949.

Interviewer: Okay. For almost 20 years, this house, there was a door, custom post in that house. 

Iboya Szabo-Hancock:  Yes, and the custom officer boarded with the family.

Interviewer: The officer, yes.

Iboya Szabo-Hancock:  Yes. They were young men, weren’t married, and the house is big. There was a spare room, and the roads were terrible, and in winter, they weren’t plowed well.

Interviewer:  As far as you know, the family was not annoyed by that, what happened or was it cool, cool?

Iboya Szabo-Hancock: No, they rented. No, they were very friendly with the officers, and they were paid for it. From what I understand, the government paid them $50 a month.

Interviewer: Which was good money in those days.

Iboya Szabo-Hancock: Which was good money in the Depression. Yes, plus the custom officer paid room and board. When I got married, I inherited the officer. [laughs] He would come as a spare when the regular man had days off. The first time he walked in the house with a suitcase, I said to my husband, “Francis came, and he walked right through the house, went to the front bedroom.” He says, “He’s always boarded here.” We had him for a few years.