12

Mary Zurko interviewed by Denis Mercier --5-- 8/21/72 Tape 12-1

119

DM: In the basement? What kind of seats?

MZ: They used to have long seats, you know.

DM: You mean the old pews?

MZ: Yeah, the old pews. And they used to hold bazaars there, and they held
fairs there years back, I heard them say. I don't remember that. I heard
mother talk about it. That's when the pastor was there.

DM: What kind of social things besides maybe the bazaars, like booths, there were
booths, and people, you know, you throw darts at balloons, or what? What do
you mean by bazaars? What was a bazaar?

MZ: Well, they had a dance with it, you know, and they had chancing off different
things, you know. Just like a, like punch boards, or I don't know punch
boards, but you took a chance on whatever, you know, what they had there to
put off. And they sold ice cream and candy and people donated cake, and
people donated everything like that towards it.

DM: And that was a main social activity of the church?

MZ: Yeah.

DM: What other kinds of things did they do? Anything else? Did they have anthing
like chicken suppers, or spaghetti dinners, or all that stuff? Nothing?

MZ: Oh, no, we never had that there, uh-uh. They had picnics there, they had
picnics in the churchyard. And, I remember three of them there, being there.

DM: What would happen at those picnics? Just a gathering, a pitch-in supper
kind of thing?

MZ: Yeah, people would donate, you know, and have hamburgs [sic] and hot dogs and
whatever, you know? Ice cream and cake and candy! Beer, and, ha, they
say they serve the beer there, one, you know, too. Well, what picnic
doesn't serve it any more, you know.

DM: Did they have an elaborate...

MZ: No, no liquor.

DM: No, but I mean did they have an elaborate system to get around selling it?
Did they have to buy tickets?

MZ: Yeah, most of the time you had to buy tickets.

DM: Little paper tickets, the regular kind?

MZ: Yes, uh-huh. We had nice affairs there, we used to get a lot of people
there, you know.

DM: Any dances in the basement?

MZ: Oh, yes, at the bazaars they did.

DM: What kind of dances?

MZ: They'd pick up a couple of musicians, you know, and have a, not a whole band, you know.

DM: What would it be, just polkas, and?

MZ: Waltzes. Waltzes.

DM: Very reserved...

MZ: Very reserved, yes. We didn't do the tango, or the split, or whatever,
you know. Ha ha!

DM: Ha ha!

MZ: The tango, I tangoed!

DM: But not in the church basement!

MZ: Not in the church basement! We tangoed down there in the school! They used
to have dances down here once in a while in the old school.

DM: The older one? The small one?

MZ: Oh sure. See, there were, was it six rooms there. I guess to eighth grade
was it? Yeah, that's right.

DM: Down here now, behind [handwritten, illegible]?