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Mary Zurko interviewed by Denis Mercier --3-- 8/21/72 Tape 12-1

056

are beautiful.

MZ: No, Paul Fatula did it. He was a carpenter. My husband cut it out, understand.
It was just perfectly plain. And we didn't want this, this doo-dads
under here. We just wanted it plain, you know. He didn't want the openings
or anything. Just a plain wall, archway, you know?

DM: Do you remember what year that was, approximately? Because I've been told
that other people do that, I mean, people did this about the same time. This
became a kind of fad...

MZ: What year did you get?

DM: Well, I don't remember the year, because I didn't get the information, but
I remember looking at somebody's notes...

MZ: I see. Our marriage forty-six...I think it would be in about 1935 or so.

DM: 1935. Was that about the, did you know other people in town that were
doing the same thing?

MZ: Very few, very few.

DM: You were one of the first ones.

MZ: Yeah, uh-huh. Because, I know my neighbors over here, Feisners, Doctor
Feisner's mother, they had opened theirs, then, too. Or did they? No, they
didn't. Mr. Kascak opened his. He's a carpenter, too.

DM: I figured that. He's a good carpenter, yeah. Is his son there, still? Or
did his son go back?

MZ: No, he's away for the weekend. He went down to Leavittown, I think. He's
a teacher down that way.

DM: I'm hoping to get an interview with him on gardening. He's a good gardener.

MZ: Oh, the father.

DM: Oh, yes.

MZ: He didn't have too much this year, though.

DM: He's got his whole yard planted with stuff.

MZ: Yeah, but, it didn't do so hot. He had beans, he had peas. But his
tomatoes are like everybody else's, you know, there's not that much to them,
they're nice and everything, but they're not ripening. I see two on mine
today, they look as though they're getting a different color, I think they're
gonna ripen. Maybe this hot sun will do it, you know?

DM: You mean your beans aren't ripening?

MZ: No, I never raise beans, because you know what happens? The rabbits eat
the--he fences his in.

DM: Yeah, I was gonna say, he's got little fences all over the place. What was
that?

MZ: Who's there?

DM: Maybe your door just blew.

MZ: No, I think maybe something fell.

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DM: You taught Sunday School in the church, then...

MZ: I never taught Sunday School...

DM: Then you can remember about how the basement used to look. Have you been
up there recently?

MZ: We never taught Sunday School in the basement. We always taught Sunday
School after Mass on Sunday. After [handwritten, illegible] Mass.

DM: Weren't there two Masses, one at seven...

MZ: No, no, no. See, there were priests stationed here years back, a curate and
a pastor, you know? But, then they stayed right in the house, understand.

DM: That was the Gaffney house...

MZ: Where Gaffneys are livin' now. That was a way back.

DM: There was a pastor and assistant pastor? Wow.