4

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.