Vol. 2-Interview-Kascak

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M/M John Kascak interviewed by Denis Mercier 8/22/72 Tape 12-2

DM: When you used to add on to other people's houses, did the company ever give you the lumber and the material, or did you have to go buy that yourself from a lumber dealer, or what? JK: Oh, I never bought any of the lumber. The people who wanted the work done, they furnished the lumber. DM: And they had to go buy it themselves, and then you did all the work with it? JK: And most of the time they fixed.... , they generally got some from the company to start them out, at least, you know? DM: The company would give a few boards... JK: Yeh, to start them out, and they had to buy the roofing to make it waterproof and that, you know. DM: But the regular mainteance of the house was by the company? In other words, you, as a company carpenter, would be called upon to... JK: Yeh, but I wasn't hired, I wasn't doin' it for the company. The company wasn't doin' the work. I was doin' it for the people that lived in the house MK: They paid him, and they paid him very little. He was a very, very generous carpenter! JK: Heh, heh! DM: I thought the company used to come and fix, you know, if your window fell out or something, the company would fix it. JK: No, no. MK: Well, yet they would do some, Dad. JK: Some of the main part of the house, they would do some work on that. That, you were sent down from the colliery to do the work. But if the people want-ed an addition, like a garage, or if they wanted a, most of them only had a building of a two-by-four in the entranceinto the house, and they wanted to make it bigger so they'd have more room, like, most, a lot of them turned it into a kitchen, made it big enough that they had a kitchen into it. Well, they done that on themselves. You wasn't sent by the company to do that. DM: Who built the kitchens, the summer kitchens? Were they built by the company a long time ago? MK: They were with the homes, they were with the homes. JK: Oh, the summer kitchens, they were, everybody had one of them. Everybody. DM: They were with the homes when the homes were made, the kitchens were right there? MK: Um-hmm. DM: But none of the outbuildings. All of the other outbuildings were added by the people? MK: Yeh. DM: And then, like contract with you or somebody to build to build the... JK: That's right. DM: I see. That's very good. Umm, let's see. We've covered an awful lot of ground already. The outbuildings primarily were built at peoples whims, whenever people felt like putting one up, they's just do it? There were not, like, this year everybody got a chicken coop, or this year everybody got... MK: No, no. Everybody went....listen, the coal houses the company built for the people. JK: And the outside toilets, you know, the bathrooms. They took care of that. DM: They always maintained the toilets, right? MK: The companies did that. Um-hmm. DM: And, let's see now, the additions onto any of these houses, the kitchen additions, you know, the third room --you know, there was the parlor, and the second room or the dining room, whatever, then the third room, didn't they all come at the same time, or do you remember that? That was probably

Last edit about 2 years ago by Epridemore
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M/M John Kascak interviewed by Dennis Mercier -2- 8/22/72 Tape 12-2

032 before you can remember. Do you remember how, like, you know, every house, every house, look behind it and it's got the addition on the back with the sloping roof, the kitchen is usually put there, and did they all come about the same time, or were they just added on whenever people could afford it, or what? JK: Well, the smaller ones, I would say yes, they, the people put them on themselves. But the bigger ones, the homes, the company built them on when the home was built. Well, maybe sometime later, after, I don't know. MK: But as far as we remember, Daddy, the kitchens were all on with the homes. JK: The kitchens were all on with the house. MK: Yes, we can remember we'd say sixty years back, because we can remember the kitchens were always there. JK: But since then, the people that built them on, whey they built them themselves yeh. MK: Well, that wasn't down on these homes. These homes had these kitchens all the time. JK: These homes, they all had kitchens built on with the house. MK: Since we remember. It's only up there in those little homes that the people built the kitchens themselves. DM: And the functions of the outbuilds, any outbuilding you ever had was either a garage or a chicken coop or a coal shed, or of course a privy? MK: yeh, yeh, yeh. DM: Anything else? MK: No, I guess that's all we had. That's all we had. The chicken coop, and a coal house, and the garage, and your bathroom up thee, and if you wanted a little extra, another extra building or something, you made it yourself. Like, for wood, if you wanted to store, or something else. DM: Right now, all you have is the garage and a chicken coop, huh? JK: Coal house. MK: We have a coal house up there. DM: How come you keep your coal up there instead of down in the basement? MK: We have it down here, too. JK: This here, we get for the heater, in here. And up in back we get it for the range. See, we burned a different coal than we burned in the heater. DM: oh, that's right, you burn smaller... JK: We burn the peat coal in here, and the chestnut coal out in that one. So we have to keep, we can mix the two of them. Of course we can only have room for two ton in there, you know. I could draw it into the basement, you know, and have them put more in here, but so far, I've been able to keep the snow shoveled and get up to the back to get the coal for the range! DM: Do you use your basement for cold storage, too? I mean, do you keep cans down there, or if you put up beans... MK: Oh, yes, when I canned, for canning, and then we'd put our potatoes down there, and we bought some, if we bought extra, or we had cabbage or carrots from the garden we kept it in there. Use a box made with a lid on, there, that goes, we put it in. And our canned stuff, jellies and things. DM: Does it keep about fifty degrees, or so, it's kind of cool down there? MK: Well, it, I don't know. DM: I would say around fifty. DM: Even when you open the door like this? Because I notice you always have your door open... MK: You know why that door is open? We have no window, or no ventilation. We have to have it...

Last edit over 1 year ago by Camille Westmont
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M/M John Kascak interviewed by Denis Mercier -3- 8/22/72 Tape 12-2 065

JK: That's the only way that we can get some air down there. MK: See, this house settled or something. There was a window... DM: That's right, your foundation is very low underneath. MK: We had a window, it's right over here somewhere, it went down,you can't even see it. So that's why he keeps that door open all the time, for ventilation in the summer at least. In the winter, we don't get no ventilation. DM: Do you remember any bake ovens around here? I know there were outdoor bake ovens. MK: Yeh, we remember them. DM: Were they just kind of, well, could you describe one for me, because I've gotten different descriptions from everybody else. They've said they were just big boxes about this high, with a grate on the bottom, and wood, and you burned the wood... JK: Well they built them up with stone around. MK: They built them like a hut... JK: And then they'd cover all that up with soil, you know, clay. Covery everything all up, just have the opening in the front where you put your fire in and put your bread in. DM: Was that an open door all the time, or was it able to be closed? An iron door, or...? JK: Just something that you could put, lift away, and then put back, and maybe put something in again and to hold it there so it wouldn't fall back. DM: Oh it wasn't hinged, it was just leaned up against it? JK: That's right. MK: You know, people baked bread in them. DM: What would you do, just build a fire and then pull the fire out, and the put the bread in? JK: When they'd get a lot of the hot clinkers in there, you know, that would be enough heat to bake that bread. DM: It was all wood, and no coal? JK: You couldn't have the wood, the flame, from the wood, or you got smoke in there you know. You had to wait until the hot embers would be out enough there that would give you enough heat to bake that bread. MK: But they put heavy logs in, like. You know? Not thin wood. JK: Well you had to have what they call the kindle wood to start it out, you know. You can't start a big log off if you just light the match to it! You had to have something there to get that started. MK: My mother had one. See, I was raised down here in Buck Mountain. Three miles down there where that church is. My mother had a bake oven. DM: How big was it, do you recall? When you stood next to it, how high was it? Where did it come? MK: Oh, probably, maybe I was about twelve or fourteen, or so then. I don't know how long she used it. Oh, it was. I wouldn't know how high it would be, Daddy? How high would they be about? JK: Well, they generally used to build them up kind of a bank, you know. MK: Yeh, it was up in the hill. JK: They wouldn't come right off on the level ground. They'd be up on a little hill-like, you know. MK: Yeh, it was up on a hill. JK: Then they'd built from there up, see? MK: And I know there was bricks, and I don't know what else was around the bricks. There was cement, I guess. JK: There was mostly stone, or ground.

Last edit about 2 years ago by Epridemore
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M/M John Kascak interviewed by Denis Mercier 08/22/72 Tape 12-2 095

DM: Stone, right? MK: I know she had, ah, she had something made like, you know that she would take all them hot coals out. Not coals, but the wood. Then put the bread in. DM: But you can't remember how high they were? I mean, weren't they about, something like three or four feet, maybe five feet wide, the whole oven, not necessarily the door, but the whole oven, was about this wide? JK: Oh, I would say about three by four. DM: Three by four was the interior wise? And then the outside size varied... JK: Um-hmm. MK: Would it be about, ah... JK: About two feet high. About two feet high. DM: Two feet high? JK: The fire place. DM: Oh, yeh, okay, okay. JK: Just the fire place. DM: But I mean, if you stood next to it, where would it come up? MK: Oh, it wouldn't be, I don't think, that... DM: It wouldn't be over your head... MK: No, no. It wouldn't be over the head. But it would be up. DM: Shoulder height, maybe? About four or five feet? JK: Like I say, they built them up on a hill, on a little hill-like, and then when you would stand there, you would, well, maybe you'd have to stoop a little... to look in... MK: ...Stoop a little in, but not much. JK: Yeh. DM: You would never have to reach up to put the bread in? It would always be down. MK: Oh no, no. Not that high, no. Oh, I think I can see the one we had. DM: Up on the side of the hill, up against the side of a hill, right? MK: Yeh. The house was here, and then there was like a little hill. It was right up there. DM: Is it anything like Annie Timko's? You know, she uses it now for a cold cellar. It looks like it might have settled. It's a nice little round mound there... MK: It was made like one of those Eskimo hut, you know? DM: Um-hmm. Like an Igloo. MK: Igloo, right. And hers, hers looks pretty big. Isn't it? But if she uses it -- Annie TImko's, there -- it looks pretty big... JK: Yeh, they had a good sized one there. MK: Well, they use it as a cellar now, see? So maybe they built it up higher. DM: No, it's not that high, but she can crawl in and out of it. Believe it or not, she can still get down there and crawl in. But you have to crawl. It's low, a very low door. But she has a wooden door on it that will shut and lock. MK: It's in that order, it was. DM: Well, we can move out to the garden for a minute, then, and we'll talk for a few minutes about the garden, and then I think that will be about enough for today. This will get you tireder than your regular work, if I don't let up, huh? MK: Ha ha! DM: Can you remember what you planted in your graden, back on the Back Street? JK: Oh, I planted about the same as here. Potatoes, and carrots, and lettuce and...

Last edit about 2 years ago by Epridemore
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8/22/72 -5Tape 12-2 M/M John Kascak interviewed by Denis Mercier 123 MK: ...onions... JK: ...tomatoes... MK: ...cucumbers... JK: ---onion... MK: Oh, about what we plant down here. DM: Just about the same as you have out in the back. JK: The same as I plant here, yeh. MK: Dad, did we plant potatoes up there? JK: Oh, sure we planted potatoes. DM: Just about everybody did, from what I understand. MK: Oh years ago they did. JK: That was, that was the first thing went in, the potatoes, you know. DM: When do you put the potatoes in? Early spring? After the frost? JK: Well, around the middle of, I generally put mine in in the middle of May all the time. I make sure that I have them in about that time. Take me a day or two, maybe. Like, this year, it took me three days to get them in! Ha ha! DM: You got a lot of potatoes, though. JK: Well, you got too many potatoes, but...I can't work any more like I used to DM: Well, you have more time, and you can take your time now. JK: Yeah... DM: If I have to, you know, when I get older, I want to have a place like this where I can, you know, I don't have to worry about bills, I've got my own home, I can grow my own garden. I can just do whatever I want. That's the way I'd like to live. JK: Heh heh heh! DM: No, I mean it. You people are very lucky, to be like this. I wouldn't trade this kind of living for anything. I really like it. MK: Hmm. You know, up in the other house we had, you know what we had, a cellar, a little cellar, and we had a trap door to go down into it. Not no steps like this. DM: This is, under the house? You're talking about? MK: It was, ah, was it really there, or did the people... JK: Oh, the people done that for themselves. The company didn't do that. That was only a two by four. MK: It was small. Well, you did some repair to it. You put shelves in for me, and you put a little door on there... JK: Well, it was just a hole there, and I closed it off. I put boards around it, so the rats and things couldn't come in to it, because you had everything in there. MK: We used to put our canned things down there, the po--no, we didn't even have our potatoes there. We kept them down at his sister's, down what she had a bigger cellar, you know? So that's the way. We'd go down and we'd get a bucket of potatoes up, and then when you needed potatoes you'd go down and bring some more up! DM: Boy, that's not bad at all. MK: Ha ha! DM: Did you use to store them down there in sand? MK: We'd store them down there. But the canned things, see there was just like a hole there, but, I think you put a floor in there like. I think you put some shelves. You made a little... JK: Well, I had it boarded off. When we came here, there was nothing, just a hole. there was no sides on it or anything. MK: And he fixed it, and he made shelves, and there's where we put...then,

Last edit about 2 years ago by MelanieD
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