Vol. 1-Interview-Feisner

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A V inter. George Feisner 7/27/22 Tape 24

GF school in his life, but he was an intelligent man and a many sided fellow for instance, if any of the neighbors or any of the town’s folk there had a cow that was sick and sent for my dad, it was my dad that received the call ofttimes if one of the children of the neighbors got sick they’d send for my dad, if grate broke in the stove, my dad, well he was a much sought after individual in a small way, so down, well down where we lived, we lived down where Kiscak’s lived, 132, I think, Main Street, and just below that there was a few houses we called Shanty Street and there was a gentlemen by the name of that had a cow that was sick, so he called for the cow doctor, my dad, and my dad went down and he said, “Now Mr. I think you need a veterinarian as this cow is seriously ill and there isn’t anything that I can do the only suggestion that I can offer is call veterinarian to get this cow well so he said, I would call Dr. Welch the veterinarian that lived in Drifton so when my dad went home one of the neighbors said, Mr. I don’t think he knows anything about a cow you’d better send to Evergreen Valley to Joe. Rinejx he was a farmer over about 3 miles, he’s a good cow doctor, I understand he was an immigrant, a Slovak nationality and Joe was a kind of boisterous fellow and he liked to project himself so Joe came up he drove up on a buckboard hitched to a mule, so Joe came in and he looked at the cow and he said, I know what’s wrong with this cow you feed her every night a bucket, the feed at that time they called a swill, it’s a mixture of chop and cabbage leaves and what not, beet tops and the like he said you know!s theirs nails in that chop and the cows at the nails and now they're protruding from the stomach they're sticking out of the stomach and we got to get those nails out of there, so he said, you got an old scrub rag so he got a block and tackle and put it under the cow's chin somehow held it upright put this rag in the cows throat and took a broomstick and tried to push it down the cow's throat his theory was that this rag would go into the stomach and the

Last edit about 2 years ago by Alo588
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7/7/72 Tape 24

movement would swish around and take the nails out so is, I'm not exaggerating this is how it happened, so when he left the cow down and took the block and tackle out the cow fell and then they sent for my dad my dad laughed and said Mr. B you'd better send for the veterinarian, so the veterinarian arrived and said, what did you do, Mr. R. told them the story well he said, the cow's going to die you can attribute the cow's death to Mr. R cure.

HF: Well I know that it did happen that nails were found in the chop and accidentally the cows did take them but they survived but some of the things were really crazy.

DF: You know before I went to school, after I had graduated from high school, I needed some money and in those days my dad didn't have any my dad said, I would like to see you go to school but you have to earn the money, so I got a job about the colliery here, working in the car shop or doing odd jobs, you know, and I was appointed a member of the fire squad.

HF: That was the one you had to pull

DF: Did you tell Angela about

HF: I told her about, there were so many men to be

GF: Well this is the story, it happened during prohibition days and I guess (Helen) told you about what went on in this town during prohibition

HF: I didn't tell her as much as Mr. Sulkuski did and a couple of others

GF: Well practically every other family had a still and they made their own whisky and they called it hootch and every once in awhile someone would run up to the colliery, "Mr. 'So & So's shanty is on fire", we called these little summer kitchens shantys, in the summertime and the folks lived in there and did their cooking there and during the winter, wash clothes, this is what happened, usually Mr. So & So before he went to work built a fire in the kitchen stove and get the mash, now the mash, they usually had a barrelbehind the stove, one of these 52 gallon barrels they would pour a lot of rye in there, sometimes corn, cabbage leaves, tomatoes, anything, yeast cakes to induce fermentation you understand and also

Last edit about 2 years ago by JMcC
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AV inter GF & HF -3- 7/7/72

GF: so many pounds of sugar, oh that thing would boil and you could smell it well you see Mr. So and So would get the fire started and get the still started before he went to work now he would dip out the liquid part of the mash and put it in the still and he had to be very careful and not get any of the mash into the still and then he'd start the fire and he would connect the coils, for the condenscing to the water spigot and he went to work but when making this liquid alcohol boils at 60 degrees, vaporizes, and then of course as the vapor rises you could see it pass thru the coils and when it comes in contact with the cold water it precipitates and forms liquid, well I guess Mrs. So and So wasn't too vigilant and the coils block up and when the coils block up this thing would explode and set the shanty on fire and that's where we came in

HF: Our Pete was on that fire squad too

GF: And we'd have to take this cart, about 40 gals. of water, sodium bicarbonate and sulphuric acid, well when we got there out on the street we would know what happened, you could smell, Mrs. So and So would say "Bad wire, kitchen set on fire." we'd put it out and leave but down here, you know where (.....) lives, right across from the club house he made a still, steady the residue, especially in the winter was taken down and dumped over the fence and you know there is an awful lot of alcohol in the residue that's the mash and a great many people had cows, they'd send the cows out after they milked them in the morning turn them out, the village green there weren't so many cave-ins around here at that time but they discovered this pile of mash and they loved it and do you know what happened, the cows wobbled, some of them got down and couldn't get up, I saw that, well in the brewery where they make beer malt was used in the making of beer many of the people here with cows would go over there, if they had the means of getting there, and buy this mash and the cows loved it, the cows were drunk, they were intoxicated

HF: I know (Mat...a's) had a big cow oh my she was tremendous and we had a big apple tree

Last edit about 2 years ago by JMcC
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AV inter GF & HF -4- 7/7/72 Tape 24

HF: right in the front of the yard and it didn't hold the apples but the apples were very good, they were very good baking apples but they seemed to start rotting and then they'd drop off well a lot of the apples were good layin' on the ground and this cow she came around, and one day she came around the front there and she came over to the fence and she was tryin' to get some of the apples well I went out and I started feeding her some of the apples and they were on the sour side and I thought it was great because I would hold the apple in the palm of my hand and tha't when I saw the kind of tongue she has it's real rough and she would get this apple off the palm of my hand and she would eat it and she would look for more and dad came out and he said, what were you doin', and I said, feedin' the cow, she wants apples and she can't get them so I'm feedin' them to her and he said, you'd better not feed her too much because those apples are sour and she'll get sick and M are going to give it to you because she's liable to die, you'd better not giver her no more, well the poor cow she wanted more apples but I couldn't give her no more, because the old people undersood those things, we didn't so I had to stop feedin' her. GF: Angela are you a graduate student at Penn AV: Yes I am GF: Are you working for your PhD AV: Yes GF: (name) landed here in Eckley about 1868 and he lived directly where Alex (Gavala?) lived, directly across, a little below the clubhouse he was married when he came and he had a daughter, naturally one of my aunts and he worked in the mines and he was very frugal, thrifty saved a few dollars and it was difficult in those days and he want down to Sandy Valley and bought a piece of land and in his spare time he cleared it and eventually he built a home, farm and then left the mines because to farm there's where my father was born now I was born in 1899 I was born in Buck Mountain where the

Last edit over 1 year ago by Alo588
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AV inter. GF & HF -5- 7/7/72 Tape 24

GF: you know that lady was murdered here recently have you been down to see that, that chalet type of building, well that one up along the creek, I was bornr there and when I was about 7 yrs. of age we moved to Sandy Valley on my father's farm and spent 2 years there and then when I was nice we came to Eckley and moved up and lived on the Back Street

HF: Yeh, in the house right below us

GF: Then I went to school and finished high school in 1918 then worked 2 yrs. at the colliery and then I went to school and then I left the community here in 1933 and made my home in (blank) when I was married

AV: Where did you work in the colliery, doing what

GF: Well you see I was employed in the car shop, now that means these cars that we use to bring the coal up out of the mines and to convey the coal to the breaker where it was prepared oft times needed repaired and that's what I was doing, it ddidn't require any skill, just a little bit of knowledge, the work was steady and the work was difficult then there was times understand when I was asked to leave the car shop when there was someone who was ill in the dump shanty where the coal was dumped into a pit before it was taken up to the breaker, understand, to be prepared, see the coal in the form that it was taken from the mines into the pit and then a drag-line took it up to the breaker where it would come down thru rollers broken up and into varying chutes and sized in those days there was a boy sitting by pickcing this slate out of the coal now of course today they don't do that they have a machinery to do that well if they were a man short because of illness then I was taken out of the car shop and would to down to the dump shanty to help dump these cars or if there was a man short up at the timber yard, do you know where that is, then I had to go up there and help, and so on, for 2 years

AV: You were paid by the hour then

Last edit about 2 years ago by JMcC
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