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A. Varesano interviewing Anna Timko -13- 6/23/72
Tape 16-2

don't you touch it. I'll turn it down when I'm finished. Well, it rised better, so I had more out of it, see, because the more it would rise, you know, the more I had. And they loved it! Oh, they loved it, they go for it!
AV: So, what kind of meats did you have to eat in the wintertime? Before.
AT: Well, it was mostly some kind of minced bologna or pork or beef, veal.
AV: Who made those things?
AT: The butcher would bring them to town.
AV: It wasn't smoked meat, necessarily?
AT: No, it wasn't smoked meat. It was all fresh meats. See, the butchers used to slaughter their own animals for this stuff. But they said that they weren't allowed to sell it unless it was frozen for twenty-four hours. They had to put it in the freezer for twenty - whether it had to be frozen or what, but, for twenty-four hours they said it had to be in the freezer or cooler. Well, then, it even slices better when it cold. Because with it's warm you can't slice it, it's too flabby. When it's stiff it cuts nicer. And there was no refrigeration. When they'd bring it, it was in a wagon. Because that's all there was, there was no cars, it was wagons in them days.
AV: What did that wagon look like?
AT: Oh, dear. Like any wagon, I guess. Something like, what do they call these - wagon train!
AV: The covered wagon?
AT: I was something like, only it wasn't, you know, with a cloth on it. I don't know, was it leather, or what it was. It looked something like them, but not shaped exactly the same. It was like, oh, like even a roof or something towards the back. More like a point, it seemed to me. Maybe not, I don't know. It wasn't exactly like, but it was something like them, those covered wagons that they had for, you know, when they'd travel.
AV: How often did he come in?
AT: I was saying, about four or five times a week. The one day, Friday, he didn't come, and then, if business wasn't good, well then maybe he skipped another day of the week. But the butcher never came on a Friday.
AV: Why not?
AT: Well, people weren't using meat on Friday.
AV: Oh, that's right.
AT: So that's the reason they didn't come, they didn't have much business, so he didn't come on Friday.
AV: Did he come summer and winter, too?
AT: Oh, yes. And when we got a snow storm, oh gosh, and they couldn't get into town. One time, was this in 1914, we had a terrific snow storm, it was when we were married, we were married in January, and I think it was the first of March, and we had a terrible snow storm. And there were no plows, there weren't anything. Well, in wintertime he'd use a sleigh, because he couldn't come in on a wagon in winter, so they had a sleigh. It was a wagon, only it had the runners underneath instead of the wheels, you know, and pulled by horses. So then, when we got this big snow storm, they got all the men out from the homes, the working men, to go out and shovel snow. Because, you know, it was windy and drifted it, so some places it was even with the roofs of the houses. And the other side maybe not quite so much, but it was an awful lot of snow. So they asked all the men to go out and shovel snow, and where the banks were too high that they couldn't get over, because there was nowhere to throw all that snow, so they make like a tunnel underneath the snow, and that as frozen, so it would stay up. Well then, the butcher as far as he could get, not into town, but as far as he could get, well, he'd get that far, and then the people had to meet him to get their meat, who

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