Vol. 4-Interview-Zosack

Wain Brown interviewing Susie Zosak -318/12/72 Tape 3-1

didn't talk about it because we did have a cow, she didn't ruin our cow because we didn't take nobody's milk, and she had this one and she was a good friend of ours a good woman she even (????????????????) but she got this lady from downtown that used to have some lady down to fix her cow, she ruined her cow and then she hers too, whether she got rid of it ot not I don't know

WB Well how did she ruin it

SZ Well she gave her all kinds of (home remedie?) crazy things she shouldn't have done, there was no witchcraft down there, nobody took that lady's milk the cow gave all she had because there was no witches in Eckley the only thing they could do, I'll tell you the God's truth, my poor father he used to think that if there was any witches, which they weren't, there were no witches in Humboldt, but he'd take that holy chalk that would be blessed on Easter basket and he would put marks across the stable and he would give every bit of what we ate first he would give to the cow, because one time cows and sheep talked at Gasda and he didn't give them anything so first before we ate the cow got a little bit

WB What else would your father use the holy chalk for

SZ For the witches, I guess

WB Would he put it across the threshold of the house, the door of the house?

SZ No just in the stable, the priest puts the writin' at Chrismas on the house, you can't see it because it's painted, he puts the 3 shephards the meant to give our Lord the (?) well he puts the initials for the second one and the third right there but that's just a rule he comes to bless the house, there are lots of religious things that are nice like in the Greek church, everytime there is a Holy day the priest has a holy oil that he bless a certain time I think on Holy Thursday I don't know what the Greeks fo but I know the Slavish bless everything on Holy Thursday and he puts the cross and he says it in Greek and I never understood I think it means Jesus have mercy on us, because that's how

Wain Brown interviewing Susie Zosak -328/12/72 Tape 3-1

[Susie says it in Latin?] well that means, I have to find out, I have to ask because I'm gettin' old I think it means, Jesus have mercy on us, and then on Ash Wednesday they give the dust and he puts a thing on you he says somethin' about ashes to ashes and dust to dust

WB When the Chruch of the Immaculate Conception was being used did you go up there, I understood that was mostly for Irish people

SZ Yes but there was no Irishman around, see when the town was good there was no Slavish people livin' the street at all just (Main St?)

WB They were on Back Street and Shanty Street

SZ On Shanty Street, the Shanty Street houses weren't bad but the other ones, we got a house up on Back Street too, you had one room and a little shed and on the top and it wasn't plastered it was just boards and you just fixed it yourself papered it

WB What did those Back Street houses look like?

SZ Like Joe Timco's part only they, the very same thing.

WB Like Timco's that was a Back Street house

SZ See the built on the kitchen's, I guess their plasterboarded now but you had to

WB They were open wood slats, how about the floors, were the floors the same way?

SZ We have the floor still upstairs , wide boards

WB How about the ceiling?

SZ The ceiling had beams like, but you know I was in a home lately in Philly my grandson married a girl and they had beams but they were varnished and these were whitewashed, did you see up on Shanty (???????????) Street? There's beam there in that red house, the kinds that's here

WB Oh that's right, but there was only 2 rooms on the first floor and one on the second

SZ These had but one we built, and 2 was up there, but up on the BAck Street you only had one room downstairs and one room upstairs, well on Back Street we

Wain Brown interviewing Susie Zosak -338/12/72 Tape 3-1

only had one room the front room and then we had a narrow kitchen, which was very narrow about half as big as this and then you built a shed on then we had a big shanty, the shanty was the biggest part of it

WB Well what kind of furniture did those old homes have

SZ Well I'll tell you how, when you first got married they use to have a club you paid a dollar a month, at first month one would get a gift right off the bat when you paid your dollar and if you wanted to pay extra maybe you'd get a chair or table or whatever they had

WB What was the soap called?

SZ You bought soap, you bought beans, you bought rice and the first month the club would run around 10 months well when the first month one party would get the gift, right off the bat you didn't pay $10 well I'll tell you that's what you paid about $10 for a piece of furniture at that time and you got a good piece of furiture not real good from the soap trunk but good enough [come on in Annie, she talks to Annie a minute] so then the second month the second party would get the gift up until 10 months and then if you wanted something bigger you could keep on payin' that, a soap club they called it, some guy would run it

WB What kind of furniture was in the Back Street homes?

SZ Whatever you bought, coal stove, no heater because there was only 2 rooms only

Wain Brown interviewing Susie Zosak -348/12/72 Tape 3-1 WB a kitchen stove

WB Pot bellied?

SZ No a kitchen stove, we had a nice round enamel stove we had it in the shanty when we moved in there, there was a black stove, when the enamel stoves came out we went for a stove and they were black ones and green ones and brown ones and we bought a nice brown one and it was enamel

WB And where was that put in the kitchen?

SZ We had that, we had a black stove that you had to shine, but when the enamel came out, the hell with th shinin' part, we had to polish and shine like heck with Sun paste, did you ever see that, in a can like shoe polish only bigger you had one brush to put it on and you had another brush to shine it and you had to watch if you got grease on that was the Slavish people's main thing a shiny, a clean stove

WB The Slavish people took great pride is having a shiny, clean stove?

SZ The Slavish people took great pride in having a shiny, clean stove?

WB Yeh and it was shiny that you could see yourself in it and one day, do you know what happened we lived in the Back Street in one of them little houses I went to jib jabber with a neighbor and I left my little girl in the thing [Annie comes in and said she took the smallest ones she had. I'm tellin' him how one time we used to shine the stoves, Annie said that's shit tellin' how you shine the stove, WB said he is interested in it, Annie said the women have good sense now they don't work as hard as we did and they never will they have more brain they don't have to work and they get along, Annie said they go on relief and she was never on relief, Susie says, Neither was I that's the God's truth, O.K. Annie take whatcha want, I thought you waned the others with the lines around," (?) she could have taken more but she's just bitchey she thinks maybe we're talkin' about her she had a hard life she kept the mother and father and they were old and she didn't put them in the Poor House they were real old and

Wain Brown interviewing Susie Zosak -358/12/72Did Tape 3-1

she kept them the whole time and she had to go to work and feed them when she came home and the poor old fellow he was, he had a stroke

WB Well now those Back Street homes there was only 2 rooms and everyone slept in the upstairs, like the parlor was downstairs

SZ Oh we put the bed downstairs in the front room, there was only one bed there because yo had to watch where you went because it was like this, very small and the pipes went from that little kitchen to the floor and all the way thru the house into the chimney there

WB I guess some of the people on the Back Street that had children

SZ Do you know that some people lived in them houses for 20 years we not only lived there 4, my husband got this house and it was 2 rooms up and 2 down, none and he bought me down here and he said some people, he said it's not clean and my God the floor wasn't swept and there was a big spot of red paint in the middle that somebody was tryin' to paint but I didn't have no carpet there for about a year, we had money but you don't want to give your last penny away in case something happens, you know, so then we had a rag carpet runnin' across to cover that and the floor was scrubbed and in here we had oii cloth and in there we didn't have anything, you know our Daddy, he would get cranky sometimes he asked me when I come home from work, "Did you go and look at a rug?" I guess he was a little bit mad and I said, Yeh, then he say, "Ach that's all she needs is rugs," well I thought that goldarn front room can say there as far as it goes, I'm not goin' and look at more rugs. Well then my sister lived up on the Back Street and she said, "Why don't youse get a piece of rug for that front room, in case baby or (????) don't even have a cover," I thought what's good enough for Pop's good enough for me, but then my bother Yonnie got in the furniture business, you know that one on the corner it's still marked Yonach's but somebody else has it now but then I bought it, he gave it to me cheaper and I had a nice rug in there, I don't know if I had it when you came