Vol. 4-Interview-Washko

Angela Varesano --7-- / 12

8/17/72

Mary Washko

Ceregi (cher-e'-gi)

Make the dough by taking about one cup of flour in a bowl. Add sugar of about half a cup, dash of salt, about a cup of milk, a teaspoon of baking powder, and one beaten egg. Work it together with hands, adding flour if necessary. When it forms a dough in the bowl, put it on a floured board and knead it until it gets smooth. Roll it out a fourth inch thick. Cut in two inch strips, six inches long. Twist the strip about three times and form into a loose knot.

Fry in deep fat in a saucepan four inches deep in two inches of oil, till golden brown. Save the remainder of oil for the next time. When done, sprinkle with powdered sugar while still warm. This was made, especially, when the kids were small so they could have something to eat when they wanted.

Sweet cabbage and noodles:

Chop a head of cabbage fine, salt, and let stand a few minutes. Brown butter and a large onion; then squeeze the cabbage and put it in the butter to fry. Fry the cabbage about an hour for the cabbage to get soft and brown.

Make homemade noodles. Boil them, and then mix together with the sweet cabbage. Salt to your own taste. This is a good meal and cheap when there is a large family.

Mixed vegetable soup:

Peel and cut potatoes and carrots in cubes. Let them boil with an onion cut up. Add some fresh parsley and celery and let this boil for about a half hour. Cut a half of a head of cabbage in small pieces and put that in. In about another half hour, add a half cup of rice. Let this all boil together. When everything is soft, make a thin gravy by frying two or three tablespoons of flour in butter. Add this gravy to the soup. Let boil for about fifteen minutes for everything to mix together. Season to your own taste with salt and a little pepper the way you like it.

Macaroni and cottage cheese (4 to 6 servings)

Boil elbow macaroni, about two cups in salted boiling water. When the elbows are boiled, drain but do not cool off. Break your cottage cheese (pressed) apart and mix the cheese with the macaroni. Brown onion with butter and pour over the above and salt to taste. Mix well. This makes a fine dish.

Doughnuts: (fried in deep fat and rolled in powdered sugar, hot)

1 cup sugar, granulated 3 cups flour, unsifted

4 tablespoons butter 3 teaspoons baking powder

1 cup sweet milk 1/2 teaspoon salt

2 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla

Sift the flour with the last four ingredients. Enough flour is needed in rolling them out. Cut dough with dough cutter for doughnuts after rolling out to a half inch thickness. 4 doz.

Angela Varesano 8/17/72 Mary Washko

Her husband John's family lived in this house. She moved in here in 1933 when she married John Washko. The description of the interior as she had it when she moved in: The parlor had a door in the doorway with painted wood similar to the cellar door, with a doorknob. On the east wall there was a Victrola and two chairs with stuffed arms and back. There was a davenport on the west wall and a table by the window with an electric lamp on it. The walls held holy pictures, the one on the west wall being the Garden of Gethsemane scene and one hand-painted sunset of "God Bless Our Home", with the Lord walking a path to the home. There was a shrine (wooden sick call set) of the Holy Family on the east side of the south wall. Wall were papered, the ceiling too, with a carpet covering the floor. There was a stove where the heater is now on the north corner in the interior of the original kitchen. A table and chairs was in the south corner and sewing machine in the east corner. There was a chair on the wall near the cellar door. Floor covering was lenoleum ("oil cloth"). The table was covered with oil cloth like a tablecloth over the top. Lighting was electric in the middle of the ceiling. The walls and ceiling were papered. Clothes were hung behind the stove on nails or on papers on the floor when the husband came home with wet clothes. Eating utensils were kept in a drawer in the table. The shed built off the kitchen was six feet by nine feet. It had paper walls and ceiling with the roof slanted toward the kitchen. Where was a door to the outside on the south side which was homemade like the cellar door of painted verticla boards and a doorknob. Still used is a sink with drainage to a hole in the garden that "sucks right into the mines someplace". The shed was six feet out from the kitchen door and nine feet across out from the door. A sink was on the east part of the north wall with a medicine cabinet above the sink.

[illustration of shed layout]

This is now her shandy. A couch was on the west side of the north wall. When she had children, she used to put them to nap there; she used to put guests there too.

Angela Varesano --2-- / 14

8/17/72

Mary Washko #66

Shed.

On the west wall there was a cupboard with dishes, pots on the bottom, sugar, and salt shaker. Behind the door was a small table of wood, homemade (2' x __") used to prepare meals on. Floor covering was linoleum. A window was on the east wall, full size with twelve panes, with curtains made from printed cloth. The curtains in the living room were bought of Marquisette material. The kitchen had cottage curtains made of printed percale; all the windows had shades.

The shandy or summer kitchen was there when she got there. There was a boardwalk from the shed to the shandy, about four feet wide. A table was under the window with four chairs and a bench. The stove was on the west wall with a cupboard on the north and south walls near the stove. North cupboard had beans, peas, coffee, tea, and salt, dry goods. Towels and underclothes were kept at the bottom. In the south cupboard were pots, lids, big forks and spoons, ladle, sifter, and bread pans in the bottom with large things. The flour bin was in the east corner. An electric washing machine was kept in the north-east corner. Clothes were hung from nails and hooks, from a wall beam six feet from the floor. Floor covering was linoleum; windows had printed material curtains. On the south wall near the stove was a holy picture; on the north wall near the doorway was a small square mirror and a cupboard. Walls were papered on a foundation of cardboard boxes tacked into the wood for insulation. The shandy was used in the summer when it was hot so as to keep the house cool. Door in the east wall was built by her husband in 1949 to make it easier to "go out back" to the outhouse.

For storage of wood for winter use and also for tools, a tool shed was built by her husband in the 1920s. They stored the wash tubs here along with old clothes and winter footwear. the wood was bought in Hazlebrook from a home which was being torn down. Along with this was built a chicken coop where about twenty or more chickens were kept with a dog coop built right next to it on the east side built about twenty years ago.

The outhouse was built by the company fifteen years ago. She put in a light, a rug, and a little window. In 1934, her husband built a garage from bought timber. Here her husband had a work bench, tools, tires, and a ladder.

The yard was planted with vegetables for food, from the street to the back with a fence around it. See photos for details.

Her present kitchen was built in 1949. The space on either side of the doorway from the kitchen to the shandy has summer lawn chairs, coal stove equipment, pokers, brooms, and dust pans. The stairway used to have a door.

In the middle bedroom was one bed used by her husband's mother, with the headboard on the west wall. A crib was in

Angela Varesano 8/17/72 Mary Washko

the east corner. A homemade cedar chest, as near the bed on the south wall; a cupboard was on the west wall for bed clothes, pillow cases, a rons, and slips. Something small such as a crucifix was over the bed. On the wall beam over the stairway, she hung clothes on nails on hangers. There were blouses, skirts, and dresses. The linoleum floor with papered walls and ceilign was found here also. In the front bedroom the floor, walls, and ceiling were the same, just as the windows had curtains of printed cloth or Marquisette. Two twist-in hooks to hang clothes of hers and her husband's all covered up by a sheet were found on the east wall; the cupboard on that wall toward the window had more clothes. On the south wall was a couch where the kids slept. Walls had no holy pictures ("not upstairs") with just a cross over the bed. She thinks holy pictures were more for downstairs use and crucifixes for upstairs. Built in 1949 at the same time as the kitchen and from the same wood, which was bought from the Eckley schoolhouse, was the back bedroom. They were selling the schoolhouse, and Balas Brothers bought it. Washko's paid several hundred for the material. Casings were from the schoolhouse. Room was built for the girls with a double bed, a day bed, a cedar chest, and a chest of drawers. Curtains and shades were on the windows and were from homemade material. The floor, ets. was the same as the other rooms. Stairway had bannisters and an open doorway to the living room which was fixed by her husband in 1949.

Catholic Church interior had Stations of the Cross on the walls on either side of the alter. They had wooden frames. Benches were unvarnished. In front of the benches on the floor was a big radiator that heated the building. A statue was on each side of the alter, the Blessed Mother and Christ Child and the other of St. Joseph. Next to the north wall, in the middle was a simple-styled alter with two rounded steps leading up to it. Then there was a floor space and the alter railing with a step down to the main floor. A runner carpet was up the front of the steps and across the front of the alter. The floor was wood. At the alter rail on the left side facing the alter was a candle stand of wrought iron with 10c candles to light, glass colored blue, red, and white. This was outside of and in front of the railing. This railing was made of "pickets" or vertical boards with a top cross. The pickets were painted white while the railing on top was varnished. The alter had candle holders, one on each side of the tabernacle.

[This page is handwritten] Angela Varesano 7/23/72

Holy Supper

Mrs. Zahay 2:30-5:00 pm.

Holy Supper foods included:

pirohi

bobalkis (with poppy seeds)

mushroom soup

kolachi (served with grated American cheese, prunes, potatoes or cabbage).

fish (baked with a bit of oil)

raw apples

prunes (cooked)

Oplatkis; a thin, flat unleavened bread that was bought from the Church, was served before the meal. These were eaten with garlic.

To serve oplatkis, they were put on a plate, and each member of the family takes a piece, puts honey on it & eats it.

(Frank Zahay commented that they used to say that the garlic eaten on Christmas Eve had a meaning. In case you were bitten by a dog that had rabies, it wouldn't affect you. Honey had a meaning too, he said.)