Vol. 3-Interview-Sikora

11 Petra Tape Name Page Subjects 7/19/72 Steve 1X HomeLife +Chores Tape 22-1 Sikora X Woman's work (Early Wood Washer) Av Varesano X Children 's Curfew 2sisters.7 boys X Meals - corking X Fami ly garden 2X Co-operative Garden (Potatoes) XX Soap Making XX Yeast " X Boy's games - XHoop, HipsyX 3X Boy's gangs- Uptowners,Downtowners X BigStreeters, X Ethnic Prejudices - Town people 4X Farmertown " 1918 to Eckley X "BackStreetHouse -Dascription X Shanty- Boardwalk 5X Housedecoration - Papering X Men's Chores in Home X Pasttime - X Shoe Repair 6X ShoeMakers Home 7X Company Carpenters X VillageBuildings X Huckeberry Picking 8X Mushrooms - Types X Drying X Xmas - celebration *X Kubas " (Spady + M dy)

Date Tape Name Page Subjects Steve 9X Thanksgiving Sikora X Slaughtering - Preparing Fowl Continued X Parents, Schoolings' church 10X 7-8 grade Education forchildren X Youth conduct+ activity X "Love- Rock" 11X Arranged Marriages X Trapping Game- Bounty 12X SkinningGame - Streching+ Drying 13X Hunting - Fishing 14X Bait for Traps - Melthod 15X Making FishOil 16X" Bluing Traps" X Fox trapping - Cageing 17X Sulphue Stone Rings (Jewelry ) 18X Making rings X Wood cutting 19X Trapping , Hunting , License

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.

A. Versano interviewing Steve Sikora -2- 7/19/72 Tape 22-1 AV: And who got the food from there? SS: Well, the people that planted. The potatoes. It was mostly potatoes. AV: Oh, you mean anybody that could plant there, if they wanted to? SS: Yeah, um-hmm. And in them days you had to have a permit to plant potatoes. AV: Anyplace? SS: Well, even in your own garden, you had to have a permit. You couldn't plant potatoes without a permit. AV: How about that? How come? SS: Today you don't have to have a permit. On account of the potato wart. AV: The potato what? SS: Potato WART. See, there's a disease in the potato that they call the potato wart. So, that's what they used to do. AV: Who used to give permission to plant potatoes? SS: Well, from the state, I guess. From the state they used to get it. So, That's years back, you know? AV: Did you mother make soap? SS: She made yellow soap from fats, she made her own yeast, for making bread... AV: How did she make her own soap? SS: Well, from fats. Fats from the meat, like grease, you know? AV: You mean, when you fry something, the grease that's left? SS: That's right. They used to save all that. From one day to another. In a can they used to keep it. And then, it used to harden up, and then, what other studd they used to put in for the coloring, I don't know. But it used to come out as yellow soap. But not as yellow as the one you buy. And they's used to put a little lye in, and they used to use that for washin' clothes. AV: Did you ever know how exactly she made it? How she stirrred it up? SS: Well, see in my days, I mean, I never, you know what I mean, took notice that too much. But she used to have it, and they used to keep it in the house like that, up on the rood of the shanty, or something. AV: She used to make her own yeast, too? SS: Um-hmm. Yeast-cake. Not yeast-cake, but it was in a jug. It was a liquid. They used to get hops from the drugstore or someplace, where the heck they used to get the hops. You had to have hops to make the yeast. And that used to blow the bread up, boy! That used to raise good! The bread had a good taste from it. AV: Did you have any sisters in your house? SS: Yeah, I had two sisters. AV: What kind of duties did they have to do? SS: Well, I don't know, my oldest sister, Anna... they, I don't know, they just, she was never home all the, I mean, she was mostlhy out. AV: How do you mean? SS: Well, she would go away, like that, with her friends, so. And my other little sister, not my sister, well, yeah, it's Ronnie. Well, she was only a baby then. So, she's living up in Jersey. So they didn't remember that I know of, you know. AV: Well, you were a small boy, and you had, how many brothers? SS: Seven boys and two girls in our family. AV: Well, what kind of duties were assigned to the boys that were different from the girls? What did the boys have to do to help out? SS: Well, if the father wasn't strict, I mean, with the family, well, I mean they just used to play, that's all. AV: Yeah? SS: That's all. They used to play. We used to roll the hoop, you know, like a

A. Veresano interviewing Steve Sikora -3- 7/19/72 Tape 22-1 wheel from a carriage or something, with a piece of wire, and that's the flat end- play Nipsy. I don't know if you ever heard of that? AV: Oh, I heard about it! How did you play Nipsy? SS: Well, you had a stick, you'd sharpen it on both ends, and you'd flip up this here, and then you'd hit it - I forget, it's been so long - Nipsy-game, we used to call it. AV: You lived on the Back Street. What part of the Back Street was it? SS: Yeah, House Thirty-two. It's up on one of them little homes. That's all strip there now. Towards the breaker, that way. AV: Was that considered Downtown, Back Street? SS: Well, they used to call it the Back Street, and this used to call the Big Street- the Big Street and the Back Street. That's what they used to name it. But this is the Main Street, they call it, now. AV: Well, didn't they have- well, Mr. Hartz was telling me that there used to be kind of "gangs" of boys. There used to be the Uptowners and the Downtowners and Big Streeters. SS: They all used to hang out on the corners. Whenever there was a corner, say, like down there by Spongey's. Well they used to gather together, you know? And they used to have different games, tell jokes, or different things, you know, whatever they knew. Mostly games they used to play. Like, with rocks they used to run back and forth, they'd get the prisoner, you know? AV: What's that? SS: Well, it was a game. Like you had to touch the rock, back and forth, and say Prisoner, you know? I forget myself what kind of game it was, it's been so long! So, that's the kind of games we used to play. I mean, we was always runnin' around, you know? Always doin' something. AV: Was there really kind of an atmosphere of togetherness, in the gang, like, the Uptowners would be at the Downtowners if they came into your territory? SS: Well, it was something in that sort, yeah. I mean they, you know, one guy thought he as tougher than the next guy. That's all. They used to pick up an argument or something. Most of the time they was friendly, though. The boys. AV: Didn't they pick on somebody if he came into your end of the Back Street? SS: Well, before my days, they said, them Irish first came in, they used to stone them and everything, so. AV: So you heard stories of that? SS: Yeah. They wouldn't let the Hukey people in, you know. The Irish was pretty strict. AV:What did they do? SS: But then, they start comin' in, because they got jobs here, and they'd start movin' in, and they couldn't do nothin' about it. So. But they had a hard time with them, you know what I mean? The Slavic people had a hard time to get in. Those Irish, I mean, they thought they own anything, you know what I mean. Because they was the first ones in here. But they'd start comin' in one by one and gettin' jobs, like my father and the rest of them, you know. So, they had a lot of boarders them days, they said. AV: Did you have boarders in your house? SS: No, not that I remember. Because we moved in from Farmertown. And we lived down at Shanty Street. That's toward down there. Frank Manellis used to live down there. That's where my uncle was shot, down there. AV: Oh, your uncle.... SS: Yeah... AV: Joe Charnigy's brother... SS: Cousin, ah, his uncle, too.