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Harry Berger: Where did you move to from Vickroy Street.
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Pauline Munley: From Vickroy Street. We moved to Seitz Street. 1010 Seitz
Street.
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Berger: What year was that? Do you remember?
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Munley: Yeah, that was during Depression. Because my father had--my father
had to borrow $20 to buy six ton--six tons of coal. It was $3 a ton and he
borrowed from our landlord. And our landlord gave him $30 and he didn't
want it. And he said, You buy as much coal as you want. And he says,I'm
going to give you a receipt. And the landlord said, I don't want a receipt.
He said, Your word is as good.
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Munley: And he didn't want a receipt, but my father paid it back.
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Berger: It was a lot of money in those days. Was it?
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Munley: $20? Never find a Jewish man like him. Sure.
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Munley: Well, because I can remember that coal was $3 a--excuse me--$3 a
ton. So six times would have been $18. $20 was a lot of money, that's
right.
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Berger: You remember anything else during the Depression yinz did?
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Munley: So then during Depression, we made--somebody made us a little, uh,
a little wagon and we used to get on to Rick's, Ricks's [??]. And when they
would load the truck with ice, all the all the pieces of ice that would
fall, we'd fill a little truck and up the hill again, we'd go and carry all
this ice home. Every day we used to go and a lot of times they would
throw--some of the men would throw big pieces in, you know, they'd see us
kids going down there, poor kids, you know? Berger: Was that you and your
sister? Munley: But everybody--the three of us, yeah. Three girls. But
everybody used to go down, all the kids. Anybody. Nobody could afford to
buy it.
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Berger: Yeah. Who were the prices like back in those days?
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Munley: I--well, like maybe a 25 pounds was $0.10. 50 pounds was, um,
$0.20 or maybe 75 pounds was $0.25--that I remember.
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Berger: Remember the meat prices? The food prices? Munley: No, not that
much. Berger: You remember the ice and the coal.
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Munley: Oh, yes, I remember. Well, like for instance, beans were like
$0.05 a pound. And, uh, uh, well, mostly your meat was very, very cheap. We
ate a lot of chicken. We ate a lot of veal, veal breast, a lot of soups.
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Munley: And...we ate well. You see, my mother used to be able to make food
from different things. First of all, you really didn't eat meat every day.
We were just as well satisfied with fish, eggs, and we loved fruit. Fruit
was a delicacy in our family. Candy, we didn't care for it. Ice cream.
Hated it. Bananas were the world's worst thing I ever saw. Hated them.
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Berger: Was fruit very expensive back then?
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Munley: I'd say. Two for a nickel. If we got a nickel, which we really did
on payday. My uncle would give us a nickel on his payday. Christmas and
Easter, we got $1 and that was big. I'd say you could buy if you were a
candy eater, you could buy oodles of penny candy. My favorite bar was Oh,
Henry, Clark.
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Berger: Oh, they had it--they'd been out a good while, huh?
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Munley: Uh huh. And they were usually two for a nickel.
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Berger: Hmm, times have changed.
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Munley: And, uh, but fruit was really our--our delicacy. We loved fruit.
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Berger: Did they? They had the hucksters and it come around with the
wagons and that? Munley: Yes, they did. Berger: Did you have to go down
there every day and get this stuff off?
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Munley: No, the biggest--no, we really didn't buy from a huckster because
it was too expensive. But we used to love to go to the wharf. Berger: The
wharf. Munley: That was a treat. That was a treat to go to the wharf. And
then we carried bushels of vegetables. Fruit. And tomatoes from the wharf.
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Munley: Now you figure, the wharf is down at First Street.
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Berger: Monongahela Wharf?
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Munley: Monongahela Wharf. And we lived by Duquesne University. Berger:
It's a nice walk. Munley: And we walked and we did that when we lived on
Marion Street. And we would go down about 10:00 and come home maybe 12:00.
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Berger: What, did they have barges that come in with fruit? With food?
Munley: Oh no, the farmers. Berger: Farmers. Munley: All farmers. Berger:
Oh, is that where--the farmers market was on the wharf?
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Munley: Yes, down at the wharf.
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Berger: Oh, they brought in by wagons and stuff.
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Munley: That's right. Berger: I never knew that.
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Munley: But as kids, we used to love it. We thought. But that was on
Friday. We used to go every Friday. That was on. They used to come in
Friday and Saturday, but we went down on Friday because we didn't have to
go to school on Saturday. And then even after we get older, we still like.
That was hard, let me tell you. That was really hard. You carried for a
while. No, I'll carry, you know. Oh, give me a handkerchief. This is
hurting my fingers!
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Munley: That was really something. Berger: Yeah, I can imagine it would
be.
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Munley: I can't even walk down our next block because the cars in front of
the house now.
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Berger: How long? Where did you move to from there then? Munley: Right
here.
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Berger: You moved-- Munley: 1809 Brownsville Road--oh. Oh, no, no, no, no.
From there, we only lived two and a half--a year and a half on-- in Carrick
[??] Boulevard, we lived in an apartment. And then after a year we bought
this in 1940...48.
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Berger: 48.
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Munley: We moved here in 1948.
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Berger: Were you married then? Munley: No. Berger: You got married after
you lived here?
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Munley: Lived here and got married in 1950.
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Berger: 1950.
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Munley: Yep, 27 years ago, you were what? [laughs] You were just a little
kid.
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Berger: I was eight. Munley: Alright. Berger: I was seven, something like
that.
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Berger: So I imagine that there was a lot of people that--was it just on
Fridays they had the food-
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Munley: Weekend. Friday and Saturday.
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Berger: Friday and Saturday.
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Munley: They came in Friday night and well, no. Was Monday and Friday and
Saturday.
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Berger: When you first came to Pittsburgh as a young girl, what was your
first impression of Pittsburgh? How did you come in anyway? By train?
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Munley: By train. That was great. That was great.
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Berger: Must have been a long ride.
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Munley: From New York? Yeah. 12 hours at the time. Because if it takes
eight hours now, how long would it take [unintelligible].
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Berger: What was the city--what the city look like then? Munley: Smokey!
Berger: Was it real bad? Munley: Oh, yeah. It was real bad. Berger: A lot
of dirt and soot on everything?
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Munley: Terrible. Terrible. You'd get up in the morning and you didn't
know whether it was 6:00 at night or 6:00 in the morning.
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Berger: On account of the dust from the mill--
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Munley: Smoke! You couldn't see anything. You couldn't see anything ahead
of you because of the smoke.
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Berger: I guess after a while you got used to it, huh?
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Munley: Oh, yeah. You get used to it.
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Munley: Oh. The most I missed, believe you me, was a bath. That was the
most horrible thing that I couldn't accept. No bath.
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Berger: You mean in in the United States?
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Munley: Absolutely.
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Berger: There was no--
Munley: Every house that we moved to: the first house, the second house,
the third house, there was never a bath. We bathed every night in a
bathtub. I mean, in the galvanized tubs.
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Berger: You mean in Italy, yinz had the bathrooms and everything. The
bathtubs.
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Munley: Uh, gee whiz. No. We had an indoor commode, but you still bathe
the same way as you bathe here. You know. Now, at the time, we didn't have
the--we--didn't have the there were some that had them, but I didn't know
too many people that had it.
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Berger: What was the luxury items back in those days? Munley: Where?
Berger: During the Depression.
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Munley: What were the luxury items? Food.
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Berger: Food. That was the big thing.
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Munley: Food was a big thing. Well, I'll tell you. Food and families got
together. There was a lot of home parties. You can have a party at home
with friends and relatives. That was a big thing. Today, you don't see your
relatives, only in weddings and when there's death. But. Well, there were
picnics and during the summer, but in the winter there wasn't. Well, the
pleasure [????] you went sled riding. That was fun on the street.
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Berger: Do you remember when Franklin Delano Roosevelt came in and started
all the public work programs? Munley: Mhm. Yeah. Berger: How did everybody
feel about him?
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Munley: Good. Wonderful. Berger: They thought-- Munley: He was the
greatest. They thought he was the greatest.
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Berger: I guess he helped pull a lot of people.
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Munley: He helped all the poor people, yeah. When he started to make all
those work programs. That's what they should be doing now. I'll tell you.
In my estimation, I think there's too much welfare. Too much welfare.
There's too much money given away today. I think people have to eat. But I
also think that people have to go to work. And as long as there's welfare,
people are not going to go to work.
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Berger: Do you remember when they had the different work projects started?
Was there anything around you that they were doing?
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Munley: Uh, mostly streets. Mostly street projects.
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Berger: What did you say? Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the made the
biggest impression upon you then in your life as a president?
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Munley: Yes, because my father, my father worked. My father had at least
we had we we--one thing, we were never on welfare. I mean, no matter how
little he brought home, we always had. We had food, we had warm clothes. We
did not have a lot of clothes. We had one dress and we wore it all week.
And on Friday or a lot of keep it on. I mean, we had one school dress for
the whole week. And then you had your Sunday clothes. But you didn't have
changes every day like you have here, like you had--like the children have
here. They were always kept clean. I hated the coal stone despised it
because I never liked to work. I mean, I never liked the dirty work.
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Berger: What did you have to do? Well, you didn't chop wood. I guess you
would [???] huh?
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Munley: Yeah. Well, we had. We had, uh, we had a coal stove and we also
had a--we also had a gas stove. One of those, I think they still use it
now.
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Munley: You know, those--those, those that had that have a thermostat and
what do they call them? Oh, they're. They still have them now. With a lot
of people, though, they don't have furnaces in the house. I can't think.
Oh, I can't think of the name of them. They even had them in a beauty
parlor years ago. They have a thermostat. It's like a--it's a heater. It's
a but it's now most of them do. You don't even have to have the flue. You
know, they're protective in some way. But we all--we had a coal stove and
we had we had a coal stove and we had a gas stove. We had a combination
stove and we had also one of those--Moore heaters! Berger: Moore heaters.
Munley: That's right, Moore heaters. They still have--they still make them
today. We didn't have a furnace.
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Berger: Well can you think of any other president besides Roosevelt that
you think that you could, you know, say what did something for the country
that you could actually say that? Do you like there you thought they they
were worthwhile any later day presidents? Or do you think Carter is going
to do any better?
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Munley: Hmmm. Well, I thought Kennedy was all right, but there was a lot
of things I didn't like about Kennedy either. [laughs]
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Berger: Well, true. You think Carter will be better? You think he'll
change anything?
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Munley: I think he's trying. And I--I think that he's going the right way.
But really, there wasn't much choice for presidents at this election.
That's the way I feel.
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Berger: Well, we had the incumbent, Mr. Winner, Ford.
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Munley: Yeah. [unintelligible] I think he's going to be all right. And in
a way, I don't--I don't know whether he's strong enough.
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Berger: To change things? Yeah, I imagine Roosevelt really, really changed
stuff around from what it was like when he got in here. Munley: Right.
Berger: Cause an awful lot of people really put him down as one of the
heroes of our time. You know, I mean, I missed that era. I just read about
him. Well. Okay. Thank you for the interview. [laughter]
