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A. Varesano intervewing Bertha Falatko -19- 8/17/72
Tape 26-2
BF: Yes, small table, and a sink.
AV: A real sink that drained?
BF: Yeah.
AV: Where did it drain to?
BF: Out into a ditch.
AV: In the garden?
BF: Alongside the garden.
AV: And where did it run off to, into the garden or into the street?
BF: No, down into the alley.
AV: Not this ditch alongside of the road?
BF: No, no, no down the alley.
AV: And what was the inside of that shed like? Was it papered?
BF: Papered, yes. And we had an oilcloth on the floor.
AV: Oilcloth?
BF: Um-hmm, On the floor.
AV: Do you mean linoleum?
BF: Linoleum, yeah.
AV: What about the ceiling, what was that like?
BF: That was papered, too, but first, we didn't have no paper, we just had every-
thing white-washed,
AV: How about the shanty? What was on the walls of the shanty?
BF: We had nothing on the walls, just regular boards.
AV: And then, in the shed there, right off the kitchen, what was that used for?
What activities?
BF: No activity at all. It's just, my mother used to have her cupboard there, and
she used to have mostly the pots and pans there, especially in wintertime, so she
didn't have to always go in the shanty. The shanty at that time was not at-
tached to the house, so she didn't want to go out there all the time. So she
just kept the stuff, most of the things, like, in the shed. She had a cupboard
in there, and she did a lot of her work in there. The kitchen, as you see, is
not very big,
AV: What kind of work did she do in the shed?
BF: Well, she would do most of her cooking, like, well, she didn't cook it in
there, but she used to prepare the food in there, and then she'd cook it on
the stove in the kitchen.
AV: What kind of stuff did she store in the cupboards, besides pots and pans. Sil-
verware?... to bring
BF: Well, naturally, we had/most of that stuff in the shanty into the shed in
winter.
AV: How about the dry good, like rice and beans? Where were they kept?
BF: Well, we kept them mostly in the shanty.
AV: Even in the winter?
BF: Um-hmm.
AV: In that cupboard?
BF: Um-hmm.
AV: There was only one cupboard in the shanty?
BF: Some people had two, we only had the one big one.
AV: How big was it?
BF: The cupboard? Well, let's see, it would be about so long, from there to here.
AV: Two yards?
BF: About two yards. And it was just about a foot and a half wide.
AV: And how tall?
BF: As tall as this room.
AV: Six feet?