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Speaker1: And munhall April the 3rd, 1975, with the wind howling outside.
So I'll get started by asking if you just tell me something about your
early childhood, what it was like growing up in Homestead or growing.
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Speaker2: Up in Homestead. I was born and raised in Homestead. My parents
came to America and settled here in Homestead in 1890, and my dad was in
the meat business. He used to slaughter their own and make all of their own
puddings and. Make smoked or hams. And my father was in business from 1890
to 1912 till he died. And then my brother and my mother and I took over and
continued the meat business in Homestead here till 1965. There is a child.
We had a very good home life. My parents were business people all the time,
and dad was more of a leader amongst the Slovak people. And when they would
come from the old country, they would come to our house and dad would see
that they were housed. And that they were got jobs. And he would tide them
over. If they didn't have work, he would tie them until they got work. And
any any activities we had were always around the church. Each church, each
group of people, the Slovaks, the Polish church, the Hungarian, the
Russian, we all had churches down in what was formerly the first and Second
Ward of Homestead, and that was where the meals were at. And before
Christmas and after Christmas and before Easter and after Easter, there
were always dances that everybody in the church participated in. The old
folks and the young folks. And it was a parish function.
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Speaker2: And then, of course, we had the schools, the Saint Michael's
school, the Saint Michael's church. Our first sisters that were here were
the sisters of Saint Joseph from Baden. They manned our schools till about
1908, and then the 1908, the Vincentian sisters came from the old country.
Five of them. And they were domiciled in Saint Michael's of Braddock. And
then they got young novices. So the old five sisters were scattered, two
and two and one. And they taught school and they taught the Slovak language
reading and Slovak catechism. We were taught and then these young
postulants of which two are still living. Sister Margaret, the Vincentian
sisters and Sister Coleman. Those two girls are two of the first postulants
that they had here. And then from our grade, of course, then we had the
split of the church. And a group were schismatic for seven years from 1908
to 1915. So then we children went to the public school, but Saint Michaels
retained the nuns and they taught Slovak and English and. They put out some
very good products. We had Dr. Yasko, who's a product of the Vincentian
sisters, who was the first doctor on the Johns Hopkins. Of course, he's
dead. He had a brother that was a priest, Father Yasko, and then Father
Yonda was our pastor. And he really fostered these boys like Father Fidele
and Father Yasko and the two father Kushner's.
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Speaker1: This is Mike.
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Speaker2: Mike Kushner. Mike. Father. All right, Mike. Father was a
product of Homestead. He was a neighbor of ours. His people had a grocery
store, right? We had the butcher shops in those days. A butcher didn't have
groceries. The grocery didn't have meats. Yeah. You were either a grocer or
you were a butcher. And if you were a chicken storekeeper, you had chicken
and eggs and that was it. So Father Fadi was born and raised down on Fourth
Avenue in Homestead, and he taught at Duquesne. He was quite a learned man,
and he was a protegé of father yonder. Oh, brother Yonder had him and
Father Jasko, and they were boys that came from poor homes who people Now
Father Jasko, also his brother was a doctor and he had Sister Benedicta,
who was one of the first girls that joined the convent here from Homestead,
from Saint Michael's church in Munhall here, which was formerly Homestead.
The first 13 Postulants had joined the Vincentian sisters were girls from
Saint Michael's church. Oh, there was Sister Angela, and they were all
local girls. And there was Sister Angela. She was at our Cod or rather at
our library. She was one of my classmates. But see, then I went to the
public school. I was of the rebel group.
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Speaker1: Oh.
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Speaker2: The family and the rest of them. Some of them stayed on, but
activities were always around the parish. And we had observed the old
Slovak Customs of Christmas Eve supper where we partake of the entire
family and you partake of a host, you know, from the church wafers and with
honey. And then there's a mushroom soup that's cooked with it and dumpling
that they fix with poppy seed or sauerkraut, and they call that bobowski.
Now, you could go to any Slovak on Christmas Eve and you'll see the same
food served on the same table. That's a must. Then on Easter, it's vice
versa. You have your Easter basket that we take to church and we have all
the food that you partake now, not the whole thing, but a portion of it.
And that portion is first served. And then like on Christmas Eve, this was
traditional in our home. I don't know whether it was everywhere else, but
my mother would bake puffs. That's the bread around. It had to be round and
that was taken to church and there was a cross side of the dough made on
it, and that was put in the center of the table. And then it was put on a
plate and in his plate there was dry grains such as rice and wheat and
barley and beans and all the dry grain that you had in the house, you'd
have that. And then this round Pascha would be put on. And then the four
sides, north, east, west, that was the part to designate the world and that
was cut off.
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Speaker2: And then the bread was cut for everybody to partake. But that
bread and that grain. Then Christmas morning was put outside for the birds.
The man and fowl should have plenty. This was the significance of a
plentiful table. And then usually, as I said, the day after Christmas and a
day after Easter, you had a real gather affair by a dance from the church.
And everybody and the proceeds of the dance always went to the church that
was never used for anything else but the church. And then, as I said, we
had the Vincentian sisters who came, and then Northside got the Franciscan
Sisters. They had Father Piekarski Perkowski, and he brought in the
Franciscan Sisters also from the old country, Slovak, Slovak, the ones that
are at Mount Assisi now. They had their founding in the north side at Saint
Gabriel's Parish. They were founded there and he was very good to them.
This was Father Yanda and Father Kosinski of Braddock had the Vincentian
sisters because we had no room for them. But the mother house was in
Braddock for quite a few years till they bought out at Parishville, and
then they began to grow and spread there. But Father Kosinski was their
benefactor. Oh, yeah, from Braddock. And the people of the Mon Valley had
very, very close relationships with one another from the churches. If you
were of the Byzantine, then the Byzantine group had their own group and the
Slovak Roman Catholics. If you had a dance in the Braddock, people would
come hear this. And with Hazelwood, the Scotch. Scotch bottoms? Is that
what they call it? They had very close relations there.
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Speaker2: And see them. Father Fydell after Father Barnett's went to
McKees Rocks. Father Fydell was the pastor there for quite a few years and
he instituted the first kindergarten in his parish at Greenfield. And he
even had oh, I visited there one time. He had those sleeping bags on the
floor where all the youngsters would take their nap. You know, they used to
call them the magic carpets. And Father Fido was a very, very progressive
educator. And our pastors all in this vicinity played an important part.
With. And the church committees. We at Saint Anne's were very unfortunate.
We lost a church by fire in 1921, and we rebuilt it. And we had this big
new church and boom, it went the. War came on and they booted us out of it
just after we had everything partially paid for and beautiful structure and
it had to go by the wayside. So then we bought land up here at 13th and
Levinson Hayes. They took it over from what, steelworks? Oh, the present
saint. Everything that you come over the high level bridge, everything from
where you see Kroger's, where the mills are down. That was the first and
the second ward of Homestead that had they replaced 8000 families there.
Oh, there was a Polish church there. There was a Lithuanian church there.
There was a Catholic Slovak church there. There was the Hungarian Baptist
Church there. There was a Russian church there. The Byzantine was no longer
there. They used to be on third between Dixon and the city farm, but they
bought up up 10th and Dixon, and they are still there today.
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Speaker2: Then of course, when we had all vacate from there, then we built
a temporary church from Saint Anne's and the Polish people built their
church. The Lithuanian people bought the a Lutheran church up on Mifflin
Street, and we all moved up. And of course, as I said, we hadn't been
singing her tonic without Saint Anne's. And he was with us for 50 years.
Oh, my goodness. Oh, his our parish was his second parish. He was an
assistant. He was a native of Natrona and he was an assistant, I think, at
either Lake Roane or somewhere. And then he was assigned to us and he was
with us for 50 years till he retired. And he also was a very fine educator.
He we had a very fine parochial school and the Vincentian sisters manned
it. Now, Saint Gabriel's School, which is still in existence, was manned by
the Franciscan Sisters, sisters from Assisi. And the activities were, like
I said, local on a local front. And boys and girls met at these social
functions of the church. And there was more intermarriage right within your
own circle than there were in mixed marriages. And if the priest saw a
future in any of the boys or girls, they were great help to see. They were
furthered with their education. We had boys who were druggists and
attorneys from these working people, but it was on the. Help given to them
from their pastor. And the guidance came directly from the guidance.
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Speaker1: Was this time you're talking you said with each group was there
much discrimination? This, of course, is Homestead, where.
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Speaker2: It was a melting.
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Speaker1: Pot. Most of the people are it's a melting pot, but they're all
mostly Slavic. There weren't even many Italians or too much German. No. Was
there much discrimination.
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Speaker2: Between their own? Yes.
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Speaker1: Between their.
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Speaker2: Homes? Yes. Say, for instance, the Polish discriminated from the
Slovaks. The Slovaks discriminated from the Russians, and everybody had a
little car of their own and they had their they didn't mix socially well.
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Speaker1: But then what I know in, for instance, like Swissvale, where you
had everything, were the Irish. Right? Of course. Look down on the
Italians. Yes. And the Slovaks and. Crikey, you're right. There it goes.
Did you experience any of this?
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Speaker2: Definitely. We had some Irish families here, too, and that
discrimination was very, very obvious and was nothing for the kids to call
your hunting. And but it's saying the kids would fight between themselves,
but the adults didn't. Oh, they weathered. Right. It's a reverse of today.
The families got along very nicely. And but like I said, amongst the
younger ones, you had that a lot of punching and pushing around, you know,
But it was never, uh, should I say it was never held as a hate. And then
eventually it began to soften up as the kids grew older. And now I'm from
myself, from my very young childhood being we were in business. And in
those days none of the mothers spoke English. You see at home the language,
whether it was a Polish, they spoke Polish and Slovak, they spoke Slovak.
If it was Russian, they and the mothers and no other language. And if they
needed a doctor or an attorney or something, maybe to go to the US rather
to the Carnegie office because her husband was hurt or something like that,
they had to have an interpreter.
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Speaker1: And there's no encouragement for them to learn the language.
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Speaker2: No, there wasn't any because they all lived within their own
combine and their needs were met from within themselves. But it wasn't
urgent that they needed it till the kids, the second generation of children
got to it. Where and there still some that don't speak. They understand it,
but they don't speak it. So then we myself, particularly as a kid, I would
be sent to interpret with a doctor. Oh, God. Was in homes with typhoid and
diphtheria and scarlet fever exposed to it. Right. And with interpreter. Or
even maybe a song where a woman aborted, not willfully, but through what
they call maybe saw a miscarriage. Maybe I was 12, 13, 14. And those are
some of the things that I saw or I know of a time I went into a home where
boarding house and they had gotten water that was contaminated and there
were 5 or 6 boarders had typhoid fever. Well, in those homes were closed
off, but I would go in and interpret with the doctor to the this boarding
house. And then union into the Russian hopes. Not only Slovak went to the
Russians and Polish or whatever it was necessary.
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Speaker1: How many languages do you speak?
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Speaker2: I speak Slovak and I speak Polish and I speak a pretty good
Russian. But in business, it was has always helped.
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Speaker1: Now, in like, for instance, your both your parents came from the
old country right now, but they would have learned the language very
quickly.
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Speaker2: Well, my father spoke it.
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Speaker1: Because they had they were right, which is more. I think if
there is an incentive, as you say, these people could stay and their needs
were met.
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Speaker2: Met and.
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Speaker1: They had to go out. Then those who went into business, I learned
the language.
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Speaker2: Or even telephones. We had a telephone. I can remember way, way
back and we had a horse and a buggy Surrey with a fringe. And. And those
were some of the things that a lot of the folks didn't have. But my father
was a very kind man, and he was a diplomat. He knew how to take care of
people and helped never turned anybody down. And in our place, he used to
train boys, young men for meat cutters. And regardless of what your faith
was, we had boys of the Protestant faith. You know what? Pass. But you went
to church on C on Sunday. They used to live with us.
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Speaker1: Oh, like an apprentice.
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Speaker2: Apprentice. And you went to church on Sunday? You didn't work.
Go to church on Sunday. You did, Leet.
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Speaker1: Oh, they'd go to their own church now.
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Speaker2: They'd go to their own. Now they wouldn't go to our church. My
dad didn't care. But they must go to church. And then we dad had a
delivery, but we had a man that would go out with a horse and wagon and
meat wagon. Where they would cut meat. Right in the. In the wagon. Oh, my
God. That was a must. Uh huh. And I wonder if this was.
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Speaker1: You think this is why the death rate was high at that time, do
you think? I mean, there's some of the things you said, like you being
exposed, not only are you survive, but then were you carrying, you know,
these germs somewhere else? And then you say cutting the meat that you
offered.
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Speaker2: Cause that wasn't so. The only thing that was that they didn't
have the antibiotics that they have now, but they were more careful. Mhm.
Because if you had a disease you were quarantined. Mhm.
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Speaker1: Yes. I was talking the other day, something you don't see. You
know when I was a kid I remember the mine was red. You knew them. Measles
was pain.
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Speaker2: And you were quarantined. You don't see that today. You're
exposed, you're more exposed. You go to the hospital, you carry germs
around or pick them up on you than you were then. Yeah.
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Speaker1: But the meat, from what I understand, it tasted a lot better
when.
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Speaker2: It was fresh. Yeah, There was no frozen meats. That the cattle
was, uh. You know, my father and his whole family were meat men.
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Speaker1: He'd learned this in the old country.
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Speaker2: And in his brothers. They had. They came from the east here. And
there were three brothers of them. And then in 1892, when the strike came
on, the other two brothers went back east and my dad retained his business
here. The one brother went to Lebanon, Pennsylvania, and had a big
slaughterhouse there. Uh huh. In fact, some of his boys still the Lebanon
baloney. It's made. Oh, is that. Oh, yeah. Right. But in all facts that you
have, people lived a closer life. If a woman had a new baby, the woman in
the neighborhood done the washing, done the cook and took care of the kids,
took care of the house. Today you don't have that.
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Speaker1: Call the Catholic Charities.
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Speaker2: Or don't even get the Red.
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Speaker1: Cross. And they take care of it.
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Speaker2: And people were, should I say, more generous? They gave a
holiday came. It might have been much, but every child came into the house,
got some little thing I can remember a customer amongst the Russians, if
they had a new baby. And I, of course, was a butcher girl. I used to
deliver those days. You deliver to the house. Oh, right. Even in close by
where women had eight, ten boarders, regular boarding house. Right. Then I
go in and take her order and deliver one early in the morning and then
deliver one late in the afternoon for the next day. But when I had a new
baby and had have a christening, then all the women who would come to the
christening would get a gift. Usually used to be what they wear. Babushka
today, a silk babushka. Every lady got one and a man got a silk kerchief.
Oh, that was the custom of the Russians. And they also had their own
Russian church. I had a beautiful choir. And then I know Saint Anne's
church. We had a boys band and we had a priest. Then he was Father
Mihalich. He's dead. He was Croatian and he had these boys band. And then
Saturday night after Vespers, he'd take these boys and they'd go down the
corner of a tavern and play, and the boys would get some money. And that
helped to carry out their music and things of that kind.
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Speaker2: And the Hungarian Baptist Church, they had a group of their
parishioners maybe oh, 6 or 8 men and women, and they would come out on
Saturday night and preach like the Salvation Army does now. Preach and sing
Oh, on the corners in the park where the business section was. And the
Negro people had what they call the holy rollers, then they would be down
on a lower corner of Dickson Street and they would carry on their religious
way. Of course, it was quite fantastic because they would go into a sort of
a trance, you know, And in that way, as a said, church was brought to these
people who didn't have a church of their own, and pretty soon they would
visit. And we had a the Baptists had a Sunday school down on Fourth Avenue,
and we all went there, Catholic and everybody else. Of course, we were
forbidden to still went there because we got a little religious cards with
the songs on and taught us Bible history. We had a mrs. Eurocheque I can
still remember. She was a real sweet, gentle person. She used to teach us a
lot of Bible history where in the Catholic Church you got the gospel and
maybe we didn't cope with it. Yeah. Where if you got a card, you come home,
you read it, you learned some of your gospel history, then this.
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Speaker1: Now this system that you spoke of. Yes. Did what? I know that
was that any thing was there a group called the Catsups?
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Speaker2: That's what the Byzantine.
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Speaker1: Now that's the Byzantine because I remember.
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Speaker2: They still.
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Speaker1: Have there was a neighbor lived three doors up from her. Well,
she lived next to us. Right. And she wouldn't speak to them.
