53

A. Varesano interviewing Anne Timko -18- 7/19/72
Tape 22-2

oldest. So she had to come home to take care of the family, it was six children, I guess, that were left, because the daughter was married so she was on her own. So she was taking care of the kids. And then this baby died. I don't know how old he was, was he about two years old, or wasn't he, I don't remember? I don't know, did he get measles, or what, he died, then, from that. He used to call her Mom, because he didn't know - the mother died then you know, and this was the baby left, so he just knew this, the sister as the mother, you know, taking care of her, so he called her Mom. But then he died too. So then the father got - this is Bertha's mother - he got the wife's sister from Europe, and he married her. Well then, after, they got married in June, or when the father got married, and then in November I think, Sue Fatula got married. So then she went to her own. Well then, Mrs. Falatko, the one from Europe, well she brought four children. Mrs. Gaydos was one of the other mother's children, and Clifford Falatko, and Andrew Gaydos, see, he was one, he came from Europe, and who was the - oh, Katy Yenshaw, that lives in Jeddo. Katy and Clifford were the older ones. And Mrs. Gaydos and Andrew Zahay, they were the younger ones. And they had two children together yet. Bertha and a sister she has in Freeland, Veronica Falerik. And then there were these other children, so there was a mob in there. Big family.
AV: I wanted to ask what else you did at Christmastime, to celebrate the holiday?
AT: Such as what?
AV: Well, what customs did you have, besides going to Mass, maybe. You did go to Mass?
AT: Oh, yes.
AV: What did you do, did you bake special foods?
AT: Oh, yes, well the parents did that. Well, of course I did, too, when I was on my own. You always had to bake your special foods. That was already a holiday custom, to be bakin' all kinds of things.
AV: What kids of foods did you have?
AT: Well, you'd make poppy seeds, your bread, and you'd make different kinds of buns, with different things. And the Christmas Eve foods, like I was tellin' you once before, you know, you'd make a special food for Christmas Eve that you'd only make - that'd be called Holy Supper. You know, when you had that special food for that, too.
AV: What did the Holy Supper include?
AT: Well, we used to have, they used to call it boleskis (?), they're little balls of bread, like. Well, different people made them different ways. My mother used to make them, she'd fry the sauerkraut with butter and onions, and she'd bake these boleskis (?), you'd bake them in a pan, they were just little balls, like, you know? And then she'd scald them, put hot water over them, drain them fast, and then put butter on them, and put the sauerkraut on it. Now, some people do it that they'd put honey on it. They'd scald them too, because you had to, to soften them. Put honey on them, well honey instead of sugar. Some used honey, and poppyseed. And some just used sweet water, made with sugar, and poppyseed on that. They used to eat that, make that wet, and you would eat it that way. And there's those different baking things that you make. Some people, then, used to make twelve, thirteen different kinds of food. They'd make pirogies, they'd make tomatos - no, not tomato - bean soup, some of them made pea soup. All kinds of stuff! I says, if you just take a taste of each one, I said, you have enough. I never made that many! Because who would eat all that stuff!
AV: Is there some significance to the number thirteen?
AT: I don't know! I don't know why is it that they say thirteen different kind