47

A. Varesano interviewing Anne Timko -12- 7/19/72
Tape 22-2

pigs and stuff like that for the people.
AV: And did you father go to him to have it slaughtered?
AT: I don't remember of us having anything like that. We didn't keep pigs. She had a cow, but she kept the cow for butter and for milk. And they didn't raise any pigs. They had geese or chickens that I know they had.
AV: How did your mother go about milking the cow?
AT: What do you mean, how?
AV: Well, how do you milk a cow?
AT: Oh, I could milk a cow, too!
AV: Yeah? Whwat did you do?
AT: Sure. I had a cow. But just for a short time, like for a couple years. My mother-in-law had an old cow there, and then they were getting another one, so they gave us the old cow. But that cow was dry for about three or four months before she had a calf. She'd go dry. So you had a cow and you had to feed her, and take care of her, and buy your milk and buy your butter and everything else, it was no worth it.
AV: What's the way of milking the cow that you used?
AT: Just the hands. You pull one, you pull one, you pull this one, and pull that one. Like this. One after the other. You had to wash the udder, and then you'd have butter to grease the udder so it wouldn't get sore for them. You'd want to take warm water, and you'd wash the udder, and then you would butter it a little bit, then it was easy, you know, to pull on the tits, and the milk would come into the pail, and then you would, it would come down, then you would strain it, you know, on top of that, because maybe something would drop into it or something.
AV: What did you strain it with, a screen?
AT: Yeah, there was a scren, and a cloth. We used to put it in a cloth. There was a screen in the milk pail, because it was a regular milk pail that was for that purpose. But then they'd spread a cloth over the pot, or whatever you, these crock pots, they're made of crockery, and they'd put the millk in there, so then they'd put a cloth over that, then they'd strain it through the strainer and into this cloth to catch any little fine, you know, anything that was really fine was in there, so it wouldn't go through.
AV: What that that cheesecloth?
AT: No, cheesecloth is too fine, too many holes in it. It was finer stuff of some kind. A finer rag they - finer than that.
AV: I wanted to ask you if you know anything about what they call the kubys - kuba players?
AT: Oh!
AV: Do you remember them!
AT: Sure, I remember them! It was the Santa Claus, the kubys. Well that, that was the same thing. In Slovak, it was kuba, and in English it was Santa Claus. They used to come around at Christmas time. They were dressed in white, some kind of robes, white robes they had a special-made for that, and they'd have big hats, like cardboard, you know, they were about this tall, and they'd have holy pictures on them, like a manger and stuff like that.
AV: On the hats?
AT: Yeah, on the hats. Well, it was made of cardboard, you know, a round thing, and the cardboard, and it was about that high and about that broad. And it would stick up on their heads about like this, you know, they put that on their heads. then they had a thing that come under the chin, you know, that would hold it on for them. And I think there were how many, about four, were there, or were there six of them. I don't remember even exactly how many were there, that were dressed in the white. And, oh, the one was the angel,