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Mary Zurko interviewed by Denis Mercier --6-- 8/21/72 Tape 12-1

148

Yeah, by [handwritten, illegible]. Oh, it wasn't quite behind [handwritten, illegible], it was near it.
Oh, coal dirt, God bless it, you'd be neat, you'd walk down from the school
you'd walk down that old coal dirt road, rainy days or whatever, to get a
penny's worth of candy, you know, or something like that, or a pack of gum
or peanuts or, you know how kids are!

DM: And the coal dirt was everywhere!

MZ: And the coal dirt was everywhere! Oh! As soon as you touched it, your hands
were filthy. You put your arms on the seats, when you'd come home at night
they were black. All over your good, clean white blouse, and all whatnot!
Oh, they were the days, honest to God!

DM: Were these affairs, these bazaars and picnics and things, usually held on
Sundays? At the church?

MZ: No, we had them on Saturdays. I think there was one time there that they had
it two days. Saturday and Sunday. And that last one we had, I think, up
there. They didn't have no more picnics there. It was too much, you know,
for, too much to be cleaned up, you know, after the picnic was over. Because
see, Mr. Coyle lived in there then, you know.

DM: Mr. Corley?

MZ: Mr. Coyle.

DM: Coyle. Lived where?

MZ: See, he lived in the church, he moved in after, who lived in there first,
well the Roritys lived in there.

DM: In the church, or the...

MZ: The rectory. The Roritys lived there, after the pastor, see they left here
and then it went over to St. Ann's you know, over at Woodside? You know,
there was a church. That was torn down. Well, the Rority family moved in
there then. And they stayed in there, and the house was left vacant for
a while, and then Mr. Coyle come, I don't know where he came from, did he
come down from Jersey or where he came from, but he was a shovel man, an
engineer man on the shovels, you know? And he came and his family, and they
stayed here a long, long time, but then Neely O'Donnell then moved in, he
was married to my cousin...

DM: What was her first name?

MZ: Who is that?

DM: O'Donnell.

MZ: Neal, his name was, [blank space]. He moved in there then, and he lived there
until she, well, he passed away and then his brother Frank lived there and
Frank passed away, and then my cousin Ann, she got so depressed, and you
know, she took a slight ah, she had, not polio, what do you call it, something
on the order of polio...

DM: Some sort of paralysis?

MZ: Serp---

DM: Multiple sclerosis?

MZ: That's no, not multiple sclerosis, no.

DM: Muscular dystrophy?

MZ: Muscular dysty. Uh-huh.

DM: That's even worse than polio...

MZ: She was, you know, shaky and everything. And then they put her down in
St. Michael's, in Tamaqua, and then she died down there. So then, Cornelius
O'Donnell, that was a grandson of...

DM: Cornelius?

MZ: Conelius, yeah, he was younger then, his wife died, and he was livin' up
there and his two sons. And then I used to go up and take care of them,
you know? I'd cook their meals for them and clean the house and wash for