Vol. 4-Interview-Zurko

Denis Kercier 7/19/72 Mary Zurko

The propriotors of the company store were Mr. Kellep in the late 1800's and early 1900's, Evan C. Reese, and then Mr. Shoepok. There was anything - would take you out of town in a car to get any furniture you wanted. It would be delivered to the company store. "Bridgie" O'Donnell worked for Evan as bookkeeper. He lives on Washington Street in Freeland. His phone number is listed under Nellie. The contents of the company store were yard goods: cottons, linens, silks, "outian" flannel which was used for girls' winter slips and nighties; paints: lead based, enamel, stain; shoes: work, boots, rubbers; molasses in a keg; vinegar in a keg or cask; box cakes: ten pound box of good cakes or cookies, approximately 21/3 x 1' x1' of Hitchmen's brand and crackers in boxes with lids on top; patent machines; shave cream: ready-made clothes; hardware: tools, rakes, brooms, brushes, etc. ; fresh fish: flounder, shad, smelts, oysters; kitchen cabinets from $60 to $65; young plants, seeds, fertilizer, feed; rugs, curtains, draperies, thread. Proprietors went to surrounding towns to get people goods they wanted. They got them wholesale. Mr. William Bachman took weekly orders, house-to-house. He came around on Friday with the store wagon full of sauerkraut, fish, cake, and all kinds of food.

(c. 1905) A roving gang of fellows went all oer the area. They tried once to break into homes but were chased by a group of Eckley "vigilantes". They shot at them "low" so as not to hurt them. "Only trouble we ever had." Coal and Iron Police watched for coal pickin! "If you were arrested, the company would fire you. So you had to move to a new town or change your name." Most of the people who changed their names and/or moved did so to avoid paying their company store bills. If caught picking coal, the Coal and Iron Police would chase the "thief" and/or break their buckets. Union people had arguments but never really battled.

Denis Mercier 7/19/72 Mary Zurko

There used to be a bake oven located in what is now Teddy Shane's garden. It was brick with a top made of iron. It burned apple wood. Other locations are one on Back Street and one near Bertha Falatko's.

{illustration of bake over showing brick, open "door", iron grille, wood fire, and dimensions]

Denis Mercier 8/1/72 Mary Zurko

Mary Zurko's mother was blamed for her last two children, twins, being miscarried into the night pail. "It's damn good for you. You only went ot Hazleton for nonsense," people said. Actually she went to shop for her children.

Young kids used to hitch rides on the beer wagon or any itinerant merchant who passed through; especially favroed were wagons going to Freeland or Hazleton.

Remedies: Every January, sulfer and molasses tonic. If you get a cut, put a rboad leaf from a plant on the cut to stop bleeding and cleanse it. If you had a carbuncle, you got pine sap or pitch and mixed it with Fels-Naptha Soap to make a paste. Apply to the carbuncle to get the core of the infection out. Flax seed used to make a poultine. Put it in hot water to make it. Some people said they "had to have a bottle of beer to make them strong." Women especially drank a bottle before doing garden work.

Mary Zurko interviewed by Denis Mercier.	1	8/21/72

DM: About the archways in the houses, I know everybody did that, but what was the reason? Was it because the parlor was no longer used for sleeping, or what? MZ: Oh, we never slept in the parlor. DM: Well, some houses were so full of people that they had... MZ: Oh, they had to where there was a number of people. You know, in this house we had... DM: When your husband did that, what was the reason for it? MZ: Well, Denis, you see that was the kitchen, that room there, that tiny area that was the kitchen. See, there was no other room on the other, on that other part. Just a little canopy-like over it, a little shed, you know. Just to enter. You know, about this wide... DM: About two and a half feet wide -- real small. MZ: Yeah. And the window was over on that side there, see, and then it would give you light to your kitchen, you know? Before that was built. Because my husband... DM: The window was over here? MZ: Right over there, that wall over there. Right over there. But that's the original doorway -- no, right over here -- where are you looking? DM: I don't understand this kitchen... MZ: Wait a minute. The kitchen window, that window, was there, John. That one was. That was an original. And there was a window there. And a window was here. DM: Oh, I see. Okay. MZ: And the winter spigot was here. But then this room wasn't on, see. There was only this little shelter, you know. DM: The sinkwas there at the far corner of the house. What direction is this? This is north up this way? MZ: Yeah, I guess. DM: Yeah, the northeast corner of the house, yeah. Yeah. The northeast corner was the kitchen. See, I want to get this on here, because it doesn't, when you show me it doesn't get on the tape recorder. So I mean, the northeast corner of the house was the kitchen sink, with a window above it... MZ: Oh, I see. Yeah. DM: And where was the stairway? Where did the stairway go? MZ: Well, see, this was an enclosure, understand. DM: Yeah. MZ: Soe, this was the kitchen. And the stove, the heating stove, was ight here. DM: Here, I'm just gonna put it up here (the recorder). MZ: Well, then this was all enclosed here, see. And the door was right here, the door you'd take to go into upstairs. This was enclosed here, see. DM: The door to the upstairs was over on the northwest corner. MZ: This is an odd house. And you see, the kitchen pipe - there was no heater in here, when I came down here. The kitchen pipe went up through there and then up through the room and then into the chimney. In that room. But, see, there's no pipe goin' up through this room now. This pipe goes up into the middle bedroom now. DM: That's where your new chimney is. MZ: Yes. DM: That's a strange place for it... MZ: Yeah... DM: Because most of them are over in the corners of the rooms... MZ: Well, you see, there was no chimney -- there was a chimney there, but, you see, it was all enclosed, you know, that you couldn't see it. It was in the wall, inside of the wall.

Mary Zurko interviewed by Denis Mercier	2	8/21/72

DM: Yeah, but now this is a different kind of house, because it's one of the single dwellings... MZ: Yeah. DM: And it's a long, narrow structure. MZ: But that was the original stairway. DM: Okay, I see. That stairway was always there. MZ: This was all enclosed here. DM: Is that the original balustrade? MZ: What? DM: Is that the original bannister? MZ: Oh. Oh, no. Huh-uh. That wall was enclosed, too. DM: So, there didn't need to be one, o there was ust a handrail... MZ: No, because that was a good thing to do, because your heat always goes to the ceiling, you know. And it goes high, and then it brings your heat upstairs a litte. Alot of people had registers in the wall, to bring their heat up into the bedroom. DM: You mean up in the ceiling. MZ: Yeah. You know, some had a heating stove. Now, we lived uptown, we had it in the floor. Pop had it in the floor. It gave some heat but not that much, you know. DM: That's how Emory's is right now. MZ: In the floor? DM: It's up, on top, yeah. I mean, it's in the ceiling of the second room, and then it goes right up into the top room. MZ: Well, we didn't have any uptown. WE lived uptown, we didn't have any. Well, I said to my husband a couple of times, why don't you put a register in here? It'll bring heat up into the front bedroom, you know, the master bedroom. DM: Right. MZ: Ahh, he said , we don't need that much heat, he said. A little cold air will do us good! DM: It must have gotten awful cold in the wintertime. MZ: Oh! They used to wear -- his mother lived here, you know, and then she remarried, and then she left him, and then she came bacl, and then she went back! Ha! HA! Love's great! Ha! Ha! Ha! DM: Indeed. MZ: So, then when I came here, I did away with - they had feather beds, you know. I don't like them feather beds. They put one of them on, Denis. on a real cold night, they never knew it was cold outside. I mean, you got out of bed in the morning... ha! ha! DM: Was this like a feather tick, on top of a regular bed spring, bed mattress? MZ: Yeah, yeah. A lot of people used them. We never had any. DM: Um-hmm. But, your husband put this archway because it would get more heat into that part of the room? He was all worried about the bottom part, but not about the top, huh? MZ: Well, he wasn't really for the archway. He said to me, you know, Mary, what is gonna happen here, he said, you're gonna cave the whole house in. It's gonna give away. Well, God bless us, it's up, it's up forty years and it hasn't come down yet. DM: No, the only rough spot are those two little boards on the bottom that have turned upwards, they're warped. MZ: Yeah, they're warping. DM: But they're not gonna go anywhere. MZ: I don't think so. DM: Those pillars aren't gonna go anywhere. Did he do all that himself? Those