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AV: What did the women do, in your household, when you were younger?
SS: Well, like my mother, you know. I could remember everything. Well,
you have that all set? Is that gonna record?
AV: Yeah! Sure!
SS: Well, I know, I mean, in these days, they used to wash their clothes,
everything, like the carpet, they used to scrub it with a scrubbing brush, and stuff like that, you want to know?
AV: Yeah.
SS: They didn't have no.....washers in them days, you know. Well, they had
wooden washers, they used to, work with a handle, back and forth. And there used to be a propeller in there, used to turn the clothes
back and forth.
AV: Who used to do that, the mother of the house?
SS: The mother of the house, yeah.
AV: How about the young girls in the house? Did they help out with the
wash, too?
SS: Oh, yeah, I mean, not like they are today. They used to, you know?
So, they used to, more help than they use today. you know? I mean,
because they wasn't allowed to, I mean, go out like they do today. Nine
o'clock they had to be in the house.
AV: All the young girls?
SS: Oh, yeah.
AV: Kids, too?
SS: That's right. Everybody. Nine o'clock in the house. That was the
curfew. So, I'm no gonna help you out much on the ladies' side, you
know?
AV: Well, what did she do, your mother? Besides wash the clothes,
specifically?
SS: Well, she'd do all, like all the cooking and that kind of stuff, I mean,
well, they all do that, all mother do that. But, in them days, it was
all, it wasn't no canned food like today. It was mostly all home-made
stuff, like bread, and all that,
AV: Where did they get most of the food they cooked?
SS: Well, they used to mostly buy flour, most of the stuff was made from
dough. What was it the people used to make, the old-timers. Like
today, well it's mostly all canned stuff. But them days, everything
was homemade. Jar and everything.
AV: Did they get a lot of it from the gardens?
SS: Well, yeah, like tomatoes and all that kind of stuff, vegetables, you
know? They used to jar all that stuff.
AV: Who used to take care of the gardens? The mother?
SS: Well, the father and the mother, they both used to, yeah. Of course,
they used to plow, one time, like from the alley all the way to the
front. They didn't have no grass like they have today. They used to
have a lot of potatoes. A lot of potatoes.
AV: I hear that those potato bugs had t be picked off of the vine.
SS: That right. Most of them used to pick them off, because they didn't
have no kind of chemicals in them days. So it was all by hand, put
'em in a can, and water or something, you know, and drown them.
AV: Water? Who used to do that?
SS: Yeah. Well, the mother, the father, and the children, the family.
They used to help. If you had a big garden. One time they used to
have a company's field down there where Gyurko's live. On that side,
there, on that side of the house. And the people used to plant down
there, too. It was like a company field, you know? It belonged to the
company, whoever used to have it, like Lehigh Valley.