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Waln Brown interviewing Clifford Falatko -8- 8/20/72
Tape 5-1
WB No kidding, how come the goverment planted that?
CF Well they did the first year when they come here, they done it after the first
war, they done it not for everybody because some of the gardens were quarantined
I think there was only our grarden that was gettin' plowed there was only 3 or 4
on this corner like the neighbors wasn't and down below theirs wasn't, Bruno's
wasn't, ours was the first one and this one wasn't, my brothers, that empty
house where my brother lived-there was about 3 gardens on this side not all the
gardens we had no trouble with the potatoes takin' them or plantin' them or
plowin' them.
WB How about livestock, did the man take care of the chickens and things like that?
What kind of things- would the man keep animals and stuff, would they keep the
cows?
CF Yeh, well I'll tell you, in our house when I was smaller we always had a cow and
we always had pigs, geese and we always had a lot of chickens when we got
married 54 yrs. ago the first thing she wants is a cow, we did but we stayed
with her parents.
WB Oh you lived with her parents?
CF With her parents a couple months.
WB Was that tough living with her parents for the men to live with the woman's
parents?
CF If they were any kinds of parents but they mix into your business, it was tough
I had to get out, so we got a cow- finally went to housekeepin' I got a house
one of them small houses up above, then she didn't want no more cow, we always
had 2 pigs, we had about 80-90 chickens, 40 ducks, couple geese, that's what we
were livin' on meat- eggs
WB I'll bet with 80 -90 chickens you always had a lot of eggs.
CF Oh we used to keep now old people like my daddy, my parents
had pigs and cows, before my daddy would go to work at 7 o'clock he'd get up
early and feed the cow feed the pigs and in the mornig my mother would get up
pack a lunch for the boys, ones that were workin' already and she'd just
go and milk the cows, one of the kids would carry the milk around, sell it, my
daddy would feed the pigs and cows before he'd go to work.
WB Now I guess when he came home he'd take care of it too?
CF We'd have to take the manure out and different things when Mom couldn't do it
because she was on the go, remember we had no water in the house, we had to carry
water from far away fo washin' there was no washer, she had to wash on the
washboard for that many people you know she'd have to go, there was no kind of
powder like they have different kinds of powder, this and that- yellow soap.
WB That must have been really rough on her?
CF It was yeh, but they enjoyed it.
WB How about who did the butchering then, say for instance when you killed a
chicken or a pig or something?
CF My daddy or my Mom could do it herself, they can't do anything now.
WB But usually the man of the house would butcher, he'd kill the chickens?
CF They'd have to hire somebody because my Dad wouldn't do a cow, like chickens, yeh
WB What would you do with the meat there were no refrigerators then?
CF But jimminy fires you wouldn't have so much meat for big families like that
you didn't have too much meat.
WB Well say for instance if you killed a pig you had a good, much meat,
CF Well you had so much for bacon, so much for lard, you could smoke hams if
you had a smokehouse, you could smoke everything.
WB Did you have a smokehouse behind your house?
CF Yeh
WB Did a lot of people in Eckley have smokehouses?
CF Quite a few I guess, whoever had pigs.