page_0068

A. Varesano interviewing Helen Fedorsha -4- 6/15/72
Tape 14-2
136
AV: Did the women of the house ever have any other trouble with boarders?
HF: No, not any, sometimes if a boarder got a little bit sassy, he'd be told off,
and if he knew what was good for him, he'd keep his mouth shut, because he
would be afraid to board anywhere else! And he had nowhere else to go, because they
would board until they would find a girl that they would marry. And now, all
they're talking about is love, love, love! Well, I'll bet anything that a lot
of those men married not for love. They didn't know the girls long enough.
But, for convenience, because they didn't have where to stay, they didn't have
anyone to take care of them. And this way, if they got married, and then
housekeeping their own little place, they could do as they pleased, and they
were taken care of. Because their meals were cooked for them, they were kept
clean and everything. When I passed that remark off in my Anna's when Eva was
there, and I said they didn't marry for love, I said, they married for con-
venience. And she said, Are you sure that's all they married for? I said,
well that's all I know. So, I dropped the subject then, because I thought,
I'm not going to get in deep with her. But I'll always say that most of them
married for convenience. A lot of them sent for girls that they knew in
151 Europe. And they would send for them, they'd send them money for a passport,
and they'd bring them to this country and they would marry them here. Because
my mother was coming from Europe when there was a young girl that was suppoed
to come, she was to marry a man, and my mother got to New York, and, at
157 [Cas??le ???dens] where they used to, well, the immigrant oficials used to see
that they're all legitimate and everything, and when he asked my mother where
she was going, she didn't know the English language. All she would say, she
is going to Eckley. And the man said to her, are you goin' to Eckley, or are
you goin'g to Heckley? He said, because there are two places, Eckley and
Heckley. Well, then she didn't know what it was, she just understood that it's
Eckley. And there was a man standing right near her, and then he asked her
in our way, he said, Little girl, where are you going? Who are you going to?
So my mother told him that she was going to her sister. And he said, what is
your sister's name? And she said Mary Stefan. And he said, Oh, you're going
to Eckley. He said, that's where I'm from also. He came to meet the girl
that was supposed to come. And she didn't come that day, so then he, when he
came into the house...Oh, no, this man, it wasn't his girl that was comin'
over, but a man that was boarding in the house, I forget what the family's
name was...and, was it Gaspar, I don't remember...and when he brought my
mother over, well, my aunt was living there somewhere, but he brought my
mother right into where he was boarding, and then had her taken over to my
aunt's place. And this man that was waiting for his girl to come from Europe,
he was sleeping. And he came downstairs all thrilled, thinking that it's his
girlfriend that came! When he came down, he found out it wasn't the girl
friend! The girl friend came later. But that's how they used to do it, they'd
send for a girl in Europe, and she'd come here, and they'd get married, and
then whereever he was boarding, well, they lost a border there, but they were
181 sure to get another one!
AV: How did your mother meet your father?
HF: She came to America and she was staying with her sister, and I don't know who
my daddy was boarding with, and that's how they met. You know, they would all,
I guess the whole bunch would get together, because they were all from Europe.
And maybe they weren't from the same town, but they would be from towns that
weren't too far away, and I guess the thing that would bring them together was
the idea that they were all from Europe, and they'd have plenty to talk about.
AV: So she wasn't sent for.
HF: No, no. She came to America because she didn't have anybody in Europe. She