My Recollection of the Years 1924 to 1940
by Stephen S. Kufrovich 4th Son of Paul and Mary Enick Kufrovich
Photos from the archives of the Mahanoy Area Historical Society
The purpose of this account is to provide some kind of perspective to at least one portion of the Kufrovich family during the dates enumerated above. At the time of this writing, I will be celebrating my 79th birthday in April 1999. ( Editors Note: Stephen Kufrovich died on November 5, 2009 at the age of 89 in Bucks County, PA)
I will begin with a description of Mahanoy City PA, a small anthracite mining town in the mid-eastern section of Pennsylvania. It is about 1 1/2 miles long east to west and about 3/4 miles wide running north and south. Its two main thoroughfares are Center Street, which separates the town from north to south and Main Street which divides the town from east to west. ( Editor’s Note: On D Street, where Stephen Kufrovich grew up, the North – South distance is less than ¼ mile from Railroad to Maple.)
Center Street did not bisect the town equally as there were more streets on the south side than on the north. Likewise, there were more streets east of Main Street than there were west. The streets to the east of the Main Street were designated by numbers from 1st Street to 14th. On the west of Main Street, they were designated by letters A through D.
Centre Street Looking East in the 1920s
A distinguishing feature of the town was the creek which ran from above Main Street through the entire West End and out of town. The creek was made up of waters from springs in the mountains that surrounded the town and began somewhere in the East End. At about Main St. runoff waters from the mines flowed into the creek. This water was heavily polluted with sulphur rendering it unpotable. The creek which we called “crick” was open its entire length except at intersections where spans were created to provide means of access for transportation.
The depth of the water was ordinarily only an inch or two but during heavy rain it rose to about four to five feet. Actually, the bed of the stream was about eight feet below street level. The sides of the walls were built up of large stones. The walkway between the edge of the creek and the houses was made up mostly of solid dirt or ashes from the coal stoves. The main streets were either paved or made of red bricks intertwined.
At the far eastern edge of town was a large park where the high school played its football games and had other athletic events such as track and field and even maypole dances. Webmaster's Note: The East End park is pictured below in the late 1940s.
Minor League Baseball Game at the East End Park in the Late 1940s
The high school was located in a tan brick three story building about 8th and Centre Street. ( Webmaster's Note: the high school pictured below was at 5th and Centre )
The gymnasium was actually excavated below street level and to watch any activities the students lined the railing around and looked down - like looking into a pit. The gym acted as a room in which physical education classes were held and indoor basketball as well as track events.
Mahanoy City High School at 5th and Centre in the 1930s
At the far western edge of town a similar park existed which had baseball fields and oval tracks. This area was enclosed by a wooden fence. Between D Street and the wooden fence was a rather large area that went from Mahanoy Avenue across Pine Street and ended up on Crick Alley. A heavy cement wall ran the length from Crick Alley to Mahanoy Avenue. This wall was about twelve inches thick and about four to five feet high. At Pine Sreet. there were two large cement pillars which provided an opening for entrance to and from the area.
West End Stadium in the 1940s
A set of railroad tracks ran from beyond the western limits of the town to about Main Street. These tracks were used by the Reading Railroad Company, the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Lackawanna Erie (Editor’s Note; Lehigh Valley) and joined the town to Pottsville Reading and Philadelphia. This became known as Railroad Street. On the town side of the tracks there were garages from D Street almost up to Main. Many of these garages were actually storage facilities for small businesses. Some of the garages housed Model T and Model A cars.
The population of the town in the mid-1920s was about 10,000, getting up to about 13,000 later on.
Another peculiar thing about the town was that it was religiously divided, but not in an antagonistic way. It's that the Protestant churches were all located in the East End and the Catholic churches were located in the West End. In the West End there was BVM - St. Mary's Slovak, St. Mary's Greek Catholic Church (Byzantine rite), the Lithuanian church and St. Canicus Irish church, St. Anthony's Italian( Editor’s Note: Sacred Heart Italian Church was at the end of the 1300 block of East Pine), the Polish church and there was the Jewish synagogue on Catawissa and Mahanoy Avenue. There were no biased feelings between the Protestant and Catholic churches. Each followed their own precepts and neither infringed on the other.
St. Mary's Byzantine Catholic Church and Beth Israel Synagogue
At the south end of Main Street there was a very steep hill that led to the cemeteries which were all separated. All the Catholic churches (cemeteries) were located in one area while the Protestants were up on the hill beyond.
I remember when my father died in 1932, he had to have a closed casket funeral because he reportedly had spinal meningitis which was highly contagious. There could be no public services. Strictly only the immediate family were allowed. Since my Aunt Elizabeth on my mother's side and her husband Joe Kedrowski lived in Chicago, we were holding up the internment until they arrived.
The health authorities refused to delay the ceremony, and we had to move on to the cemetery. After the interment, and we had just started back down the hill, we met my aunt and uncle coming up. We stopped and of course my mother and her sister went into each other's arms. When we returned from the cemetery, our house had been sealed by the health authorities, and they had set off several fumigating bombs to kill any residual germs. It was to be sealed for at least 24 hours. We all stayed at my mother's other sister, my aunt Anna Sofranko who lived in Foundry Row, a group of houses on the West End of Center Street.
In the open area between Pine Street and the wooden fenced stadium was a wide-open space that went from Mahanoy Avenue to Crick Alley. It was here that most of the activities in the West End occurred. For instance, the circus would be set up here when it came to town every couple of years. The tents and menagerie took up almost all the space. It was here that we first came in contact with colored people. As a matter of fact, they were as much an oddity as the rest of the troupe. We were threatened that if we didn't behave, we would be taken by the boogeyman as they were called. The circus parade would begin here and go across D Street, east up Centre to the end of town and down Mahanoy Avenue, back down to the West End Park again. It usually started with a band on a flatbed truck or wagon that played almost continuously, followed by clowns, barkers, freaks and then cages with the wild animals. The elephants were always last for obvious reasons.
Another important time was when elections were held. It was then that the politicians would invade the park which was almost always filled with pinochle players. The politicians would pass out $1.00 bills to all the players. It was fun to watch as the players would switch places with others to get an extra dollar. Sometimes they would even switch hats.
Of course, the politicians set up kegs of beer in tin tubs loaded with ice. The Democrats had a designated day as did the Republicans and the players showed up for each day. Everything was repeated. Both parties participated and it didn't matter if the same people showed up. Everything was in the open. There were no secrets. Everything was done in the open.
Mahanoy City was noted for its parades. One of the biggest parades was always on Memorial Day. Different organizations or groups or even churches made-up floats which were decorated with colorful bunting and since it was Memorial Day the themes were mostly events of the First World ( War).
Memorial Day Parade Walks East in the 500 Block of West Mahanoy Avenue
I remember when I was about 5 or 6, I was part of a theme of World War One in which most of my brothers and sisters participated. I was in the arms of a lady who was home taking care of the young, while my sister Agnes was dressed as a nurse as she tended a wounded soldier. My brother Frank and my other brother Paul lay across barbed wire as my other brothers Joe and John fired rifles in the air.
Fire engines from surrounding towns added to the excitement as they sounded their sirens and bells almost incessantly. They too were lavishly decorated, and it was always a thrill to see them come down the line of march. All types of veterans’ organizations added an air of authenticity. After the parade of course everyone gathered in the open area in the West End and picnicked till dark.
In addition to baseball games etc. that were played in the stadium there was also an attempt to try midget (car) races. This didn't last long because the dust storms that resulted when the midget cars made the turns was too much for the women who couldn't hang out clothes to dry for days after a race.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s the West End Stadium hosted stock car races,
midget cars and auto daredevils including world famous Joie Chitwood
The D Street School was located at the present site of the West End Fire Company
On West Mahanoy Avenue just below D Street on the south side was located the West End elementary school directly across from the wall. I attended this school from 1st grade through 4th. Then the Slovak church opened the rooms above the church proper. They began with 1st through 5th grades. Then each year they added a class until they had classes from 1st through 8th. So, each year the students in my class advanced until we graduated. We were the first class to graduate from 8th grade in 1933.
I can think of no other activity that took up as much time as the activities associated with the church. We had plays depicting the lives of the Saints and were encouraged to pick a saint whose name would be our middle initial. We had a large book called The History of Saints at home and we would look for the oddest saint. I spotted St. Sebastian who was pictured as having been a martyr and his picture depicted him full of arrows when he was killed because he would not deny Christ. So, when I received Confirmation, I chose the name Sebastian as my middle name.
Hardly a month would go by when we didn't have a play of some sort. We had nuns as teachers and they each carried a wooden ruler to punish us if we misbehaved.
The last half hour of the school day was taken up by cleaning up the classroom or repairing books with paste made from flour and water. On Fridays we scrubbed the floors, washed the blackboards, cleaned out the closets - anything that needed cleaning or attending. By 1933, when a full curriculum was offered in the Slovak church, the ( West End) elementary school closed, and the building was taken over by McCann School of Business. This was a private institution which offered classes that were applicable to the business community.(Note: The school that closed was the D Street School built in 1916.)
One peculiar thing about the town was that there were many bar rooms. I suppose this was true of all mining towns. When the miners came out of the mines, they would be black as if they were dipped in soot. This was because the coal had to be blasted loose and this was done by dynamiting the vein. This always resulted in great plumes of smoke which practically filled the mines.
The Ambrose Cafe at 435 West Spruce Street
Most men chewed tobacco so that they could keep their throat moist. This also allowed them to spit out the accumulated dust. The miners were fully clothed and wore rubber boots because not only was there dust in the mines but there was always water seeping from the ceiling, and they were constantly working under damp conditions.
They wore carbide lamps for lighting their area of work. A carbide lamp was like a small soup can but sectioned into an upper section and a lower section. In the upper section the minor put in water and then capped it . In the divider between the top and the bottom can there was a small hole in which the water dripped into the bottom section. The bottom section had calcium carbide, a chemical that looked like little gray stones. Well, when the water dripped into the carbide it generated acetylene gas which was vented through a small tube to the outside. The opening of the vent ended in front of a metallic reflector. There was a small flint wheel near the vent. All the miner did was spin the wheel after the gas was generated and a flame would shoot out of the vent as the gas burned. Since the mines were pitch black, this was the only light that they had.
Sometimes there were larger lamps scattered throughout the mine. The danger of the open flame was when methane gas was released when there was a void in the vein. If this gas was of any good amount sometimes there was an explosion and of course this would result in cave-ins and deaths or injury to the miners. Sometimes the gas would accumulate over a period of time, so usually every morning before anyone was lowered down into the mines in buggies, several men were assigned to lower a number of pigeons in cages. After maybe 15 minutes the cages were hoisted back up. If the pigeons were still alive then it was safe for the men to go down to work. Of course, if the pigeons were dead, then great fans were lowered into the mine to evacuate the gas. They could not use the fans all the time since they would blow out the carbide lamps. These conditions were all fixed when battery lamps were invented. These were affixed to the hard hats that all miners wore. Of course, that solved the explosions, but it didn't help to detect any small pockets of gas that occurred during the normal working hours. So there were many things that miners had to watch out for besides accidental cave-ins. It was dangerous work, and one never knew when something might happen.
At every mine there was a mule yard where mules were kept when they weren't used to pull the coal cars underground. There were men who were mule tenders and that was their job. Other men were timber men who supplied the logs and timbers to brace the walls of the mine to prevent cave-ins. Others were firemen. These men were designated to handle the dynamite that was used to loosen the coal so that it could be shoveled into the mine cars by the miners. The firemen would fill holes that were drilled by the miners into the vein of coal. They would put anywhere from two to five sticks of dynamite to which were attached blasting caps that were connected to wires. After loading the dynamite into the hole several blank sticks were loaded. These contained compressed wood - much like loading a rifle during the Civil War days. The wires were then connected to a main wire system which terminated at a battery.
Before any wires were connected, all miners were warned to retreat to a safe area away from the blasting area. Before leaving the area, they moved large steel plates near the area of the blast. This enabled them to easily shovel the loosened coal into coal cars. Mules would be used to move these cars into position and when full they would pull the cars to an area where the cars would be hooked onto cables by which they would be pulled up to the surface.
Most mules were blind because they were underground for so much of the time that their visual acuity was nil. Mules were a asexual. That is, they had no sex being the result of a horse and an ass. They were hybrids and because of this they were highly prized by the owners. It was felt that the owners would rather have a man hurt than a mule because a man could easily be replaced.
Clockwise from top left: Miners in cage descend into shaft; Fireboss checks for gas;
Mule hauls coal coars; Breaker boys pick slate
After a hard day at the mines, sometimes 12 hours, the miners headed for their favorite bar, of which there were plenty. It was a quick shot and a beer to wash down the coal dust. One or two were seldom enough. But eventually they headed for home and a hot bath. This was usually a wooden tub filled with water that had been heated on the coal stove by the wife. The wife usually helped in the bath as the coal dust got everywhere. When the bath was done and the miner dressed, the tub was emptied into the gutter of the street.
Miners were not the only ones with coal dust in their lungs. When the coal trains went through town, they spewed out hot embers of coal dust everywhere. No one ever painted their homes because in weeks it would be dirty again.
I remember when my brother Frank and my sister Mary and I went to Locust Mountain Hospital to have our tonsils cut out. They used ether as an anesthetic then and when we spit up after the operation, it was amazing the amount of coal dust that we spit up. So, whether you were one or one hundred you got your share of coal dust.
Locust Mountain Hospital and the Saint Nicholas Breaker
Although many children were born at home, most were born in the Locust Mountain Hospital located in Shenandoah Heights. This was the only hospital for miles around and that is why so many children were reported as born in Shenandoah. Midway between Mahanoy City and Shenandoah was Saint Nicholas, which had the largest colliery at the time. A colliery was a place where all coal was brought, and the slate was culled out and the coal crushed into sizes for sale to whomever. It had many railroads cars which brought in the raw coal from the mines and then hauled out the coal after it had been sized and cleaned.
One gimmick that was used was that the coal was sprayed with a blue powder and was then labeled as Blue anthracite. It was no different than any other coal except for the powder. Many people in the cities believe that Blue coal was better than anything else.
At the colliery, the mine cars would dump their coal and by conveyor it was taken up an incline and then slowly allowed to ride a conveyor down. At that time, in the 1930s, many young boys from 8 to 12 years of age would sit on opposite sides of the conveyor, and as the coal went by, they extracted pieces of slate or rock, which were mixed in with the coal. So, by the time the conveyor reached the bottom, it was pure coal. It was then sent through crushers which mechanically broke up the lumps, and then the coal was separated into sizes. Then it was loaded onto railroad cars that would haul it to various points on the East Coast.
My uncle Mike lived in Saint Nicholas and was classified as a merchant. I remember at one time he would collect in his old truck any items anyone would want to get rid of. It was like a traveling flea market. He would start out on the West End of town, pay people for unwanted items, and as he made his way up and down each street he would sell the items he gathered to people who might want them. I guess we would consider him an antique buyer and seller today.
Saint Nicholas was about two miles west of Mahanoy City and three miles from Saint Nicholas was the town of Shenandoah and on the hill beyond was the Locust Mountain State Hospital. It was the only hospital in this area. So most children were born there unless they were born at home.
East of Mahanoy city was Hometown which was midway to Tamaqua. Most of the towns, Mahanoy City, Shenandoah, Tamaqua, etc. were named after Indian tribes that had reservations in and around the area many years ago.
To the north of Mahanoy City was the small village of Kelaryes which was one of the meeting places of the Molly Maguires. The Mollies were disgruntled Irish immigrants who were employed by the Welsh to work in the coal mines. They were taken advantage of by the Welsh owners and soon banded together to reciprocate for any injustices. If a miner in Tamaqua was beaten up by a Welsh foreman the Mollies in Mauch Chunk or Shenandoah would be notified and they would send a couple of strong armed men by train to the home of the foreman and would severely beat him up or even murder him . Since the Mollies usually got even and they were hard to recognize since they were from different towns, the Welsh were at a standstill in trying to catch the culprits.
Eventually, they hired an Irishman to infiltrate the Mollies and to eventually break up the gang. A movie called The Molly Maguires was made which told the story of how the Mollies were finally convicted and subsequently hanged. The movie was made in Eckley, where my wife Pauline was born. The entire town, from covering the paved streets with dirt to removing TV antennas and electrical cables in order to replicate the late 1860s, was done under the production of the Hollywood producers. The Eckley clubhouse where my wife and I had our reception were renamed the Shamrock House (and) played a prominent part in the movie. Sean Connery, Richard Harris, and Samantha Eggar were some of the stars of the movie.
Life in most of the small towns was fairly simple. No one locked their doors as crime was practically nonexistant. About the most serious offense was when a girl got pregnant. The father was persuaded to marry the girl. If the father could not be located, the child was usually put into a state orphanage.
Drugs were not a problem. Youngsters now and then got a hold of some beer. But it was common for the father to give the youngsters a little swig now and then. On the North End of Main Street sat Kaier's Brewery, which made beer for the surrounding towns. One time it was found that the 12-ounce bottles only contained 11 ounces of beer. As a result, these bottles could not be sold and had to be disposed of. The easiest thing was to haul it by truckloads and dump the bottles in the many old mine shafts that dotted the surrounding hills. It wasn't long before men in town found out about the dumping and when the trucks the trucks left, the men got down into the shafts and passed up the cases of beer. Then word spread and even small kids went up and got in on it. Before long, you could see kids that were drunk and carrying bottles home.
The new Kaier brewhouse in the late 1930s shortly after completion
Bootlegging coal
Most of the mines were a square hole dug into the ground and shored up by timbers so as not to cave in. These holes were as much as several hundred feet deep. When they were abandoned by the coal mine operators because the yield of coal was too little or (had) too many impurities in it, they were covered over with planks. The mines were holes dug into the side of the mountain on the descending incline again with showing up with timbers. These two were often abandoned. Here is where bootlegging came in. Younger men not old enough to actually work in mines often adopted one of the abandoned mines and then together took took over coal that remained. Sometimes they got lucky and hit another vein and could mine for months.
Enough coal could usually be recovered to make the boat bootlegging profitable. A ton of coal sold for about $4. So if a few guys could get a couple of ton a day, that was considered pretty good. In the shafts, the mines that went straight down into the earth, it was customary to attach a pulley system like on a water well and a man would be lowered down to the bottom. Then he would fill up a big pail with coal and it would be hoisted to the surface.
A pile was made of coal, and then it would be time to size it. Since the coal was in lumps of varying sizes, anywhere from watermelon size down to clumps the size of a fist. It was necessary to break up the lumps to closed fist size. This was tagged as stove coal. It was as simple - as one kept hitting the the lump with a hammer until there were no lumps bigger than a fist. So now you had a pile of lumps that were from stove sized on down. The coal was then put in a riddle. A riddle was a wooden frame, maybe 2 feet by 2 feet, which had a perforated screen attached to it. The openings in the screen were just smaller than stove size. So all the smaller lumps would fall through the screen, leaving only the stove size. This was then put aside and the process was repeated until all the stove sized pieces were isolated on a pile. Then the process would be repeated, this time with a smaller perforation - nut size or about the size of a walnut or a little larger. The pile of mixed lumps was riddled until the nut size was all extracted. And finally pea size was extracted. Whatever was left was too small and discarded. Years later, even the discards were classified as buckwheat and rice. And finally used when automatic furnaces could use the smaller sizes.
Stove sized coal was usually used when a hot fire was needed to cook or to heat the house. It burned longer and hotter and required less attention. So long as a steady hot fire was needed, stove was the size used. When not as much heat was required, then chestnut or pea coal was added. This did not burn as hot and so less coal was needed. A night when you would need steady heat, you would bank the fire with pea size, which just smoldered, giving sufficient heat and lasting a long time. In the morning, the grates would be raked. The burned ashes would fall into a metal pan underneath, and fresh air would reach the coal and get it going at a faster pace. The ash pans would have to be emptied several times a day in order for air to flow freely to keep the fire going. When the ashes were removed, the air acted like a fan and really got the fire going. So early in the morning, a fresh fire would quickly warm up the house before everyone was up.
Another pan that had to be emptied several times a day was the pan that caught the drippings from the melting ice from the ice box. Every home had an ice box. This was a wooden box that had several compartments. In the uppermost box, which was metal lined, usually rested a 30 or 40 lb. cake of solid ice. The cold from this ice permeated the compartments below cooling their contents. So perishable items like milk, butter, eggs, etc. were put into the lower compartments for cooling. The lower compartments were also metal lined and allowed the cool air to circulate throughout the bin. So several times a day the metal pan had to be checked or there would be water all over the floor. The ice was usually purchased from ice vendors who had large slabs of ice and would cut out any size chunk needed with an ice pick.
Most of the homes were built like row homes, all connected together. Sometimes a small alleyway or tunnel was between the houses in order to get into the back of the house without going through the house. All the backs of the houses emptied into a wide open quadrangle. In this open space where outhouses and clothes lines for hanging out the wash. Also, there was enough room for small kids to play. This quadrangle was not paved, but was mostly walkways of wide planks for just plain dirt. Outhouses were usually emptied out by men who came around for just that purpose. They were called honey dippers. Women had a chance to gossip as they hung out the clothes to dry.
The heavy concrete wall that ran from Crick Alley to Mahanoy Avenue, except for an opening at Pine Street, played an important part in the economy of the bootleggers. The bootleg coal, which was sized and placed in burlap sacks, were piled up along this wall where they were stored until the bootleg coal haulers arrived to purchase it. It was against this wall that the younger bootleggers like my brothers and I would also store the bootleg coal in piles. Later on, these piles would be cracked to size and riddled. Since we were younger and not of age to work in the mines, maybe 14 to 18, or our parents deemed it too dangerous to work in the mines, we would go out about 11:00 PM. on a Friday night with one burlap sack stuffed with other sacks and walk up the mountain where surface mining took place. These were strip mines, and during the day large steam shovels would move tons of earth until the shovel reached a vein of coal. Sometimes these strips were 20 feet deep or as much as 60 feet deep.
"The heavy concrete wall (shone above) that ran from Crick Alley to Mahanoy Avenue
played an important part in the economy of the bootleggers."
When it got dark and the shift ended, everyone left the strippings. A lot of the time when the dirt was removed, it contained chunks of coal and it was just piled up along the sides. It was this coal that we would salvage. It was tough work. Our hands would get cut and when we carried the bags on our back, it was no picnic. So we did not consider this as stealing. But if we could not get enough of the coal from the piles of dirt, we didn't hesitate to actually down into the pit and load up with fresh coal.
The reason we left at 11:00 PM was that what we were doing was illegal and there was always the possibility of getting caught by the Coal and Iron police who patrolled the area. We would always leave one or two men to watch for the police while we took the coal . If the police were getting near our spotter would signal us and we would lay on the ground and since it was pitch dark we could usually go undetected. Then sometimes the police would just look away because they knew we needed the money and were working real hard anyway.
We would always finish by 3:00 AM as that was the designated time for the small truck to come up to be loaded with the coal. By about 4:00 or 5:00 we would have dumped the lumps of coal against the wall and we were finished for the night. Then the next day we would crack the coal, riddle it and bag it for sale. The bags would be put against the wall, segregated by size. When the bootleg haulers arrived, anyone that was around would load the bags onto the truck, where they were dumped into separate bins by size. We usually got $4.50 per ton, which was about 20 bags for stove size, $4.00 per ton for chestnut, and $3.50 for pea size. Whoever loaded the coal got $0.25 per ton. That is, if two guys loaded two ton, then they split $0.50 for their work. Sometimes, if the coal and iron police were mean, they would just hang around and we would have to stay hidden for the rest of the night. Which meant no coal for that day. The spotter would usually intercept the truck on its way and it would turn back and we would consider it a bad night.
By 1932 the depression was full blown and Roosevelt had to take drastic measures. People began taking their money out of the banks and everyone was uncertain about the future. To offset this, he closed the banks until everyone settled down. Then he put in measures like price controls. This meant no one could increase the price of goods. This had a stabilizing influence and was followed by various programs. Because food was scarce, it became rationed. Everyone was allotted a fair amount depending on the number in the family. Fire stations became distribution points for all types of dried foods, like dehydrated potatoes, dried milk, cheese, oleo margarine, flour , etc. I would go each week with a little wooden wagon and pick up our weekly allotment. My mother would then sort it out and plan our meals accordingly.
Occasionally there would be enough money to buy fresh fish from the fish peddler, who came around every week or so with fresh fish packed in ice. My mother had the most beautiful brown hair that grew down to the small of her back. She would often braid it so that when she prepared no hair would get into the food. One of the staples we had was beef noodle soup. My mother would spend hours putting flour on a large board on the table in the kitchen, mixing in eggs and making the dough for noodles. With eleven children, it took a lot of noodles. She rolled out the dough until it was thin enough and then would pile it up in layers to finally slice it into noodles.
Of course she made all the bread for the family and this was always a treat - fresh bread and butter. She also made desserts and bowls of dessert like rice pudding and tapioca which would line the window sill as it cooled.
By this time, new programs instituted by Roosevelt started to take over. One of them was the CCC which was the Civilian Conservation Corps. Young men were recruited to work in the forest to clean out dead trees and brush also to beautify the highways. They had had camps in the forest and sometimes were gone for months at a time. During the early days of prohibition there was spawned a new manufacturing class -bootleggers of whiskey, that is. Many homes had stills made of copper pipe sitting on the stove while mash cooked and the vapors distilled as they coiled around the pipes and dripped the alcohol into quart containers. This was commonly referred to as dynamite which pretty much described the taste. Many times we would be sent to get some. We'd hand the lady or guy the bottle and then we'd wait until it got filled up, paid the $0.25 and then left.
During the spring was huckleberry season and each family would gather together and wait for a truck which would transport them up into the hills where hopefully they would find the berries. Usually everyone's started out with a picker. This was maybe a 1/2 quart container. When it was filled up, the berries would be transferred to a larger 10 or 12 quart bucket until it was filled. Most families carried several sandwiches and drinks because this was an all day affair. Family sometimes got as many as 40 to 60 quarts for the day. My brother Paul and I usually paired up. I hated picking the berries and he liked to listen to detective stories. So I would bring along a couple of books and read to him as he picked. Most of the time we would carry a large thick branch just in case we roused up a snake.
With Roosevelt. It soon became evident that he was determined that many of the men would get some kind of work. He instituted the WPA - Works Progress Administration and everyone able to work was assigned to various jobs that were created. For instance, the Creek on Market Street was soon built up with stone and then bridged over its its its entire length. As the creek disappeared, the street became paved and that was the end of the open creek. The creek was covered its entire length down to D Street. From that point on, it remained the same as before. It remained uncovered for the last block and even passed the rear of the Slovak church. From then it went down towards Saint Nicholas and on to Girardville.
At the same time it was decided to get rid of the outhouses. Sewers were then installed and they ended up in the creek, which conveyed conveyed the refuge away from the town. This was a big step sanitation wise.
Workers on a WPA Project Covering the Mahanoy Creek in the 400 Block of West Market Street in the 1930s
Mahanoy City was an easygoing sort of town. There was practically no crime and it was common never to lock the doors. As a matter of fact, any stranger in town would be welcomed at any table. We had one such man who had both legs amputated and he sat on a small square board that had roller skates underneath. He wore leather gloves on his hands and propelled himself at a pretty good clip. He would often show up on a Sunday morning after Mass just in time for breakfast. We would lift him up off his platform and sit him on a chair at the table. He would often have a conversation with my parents in Slovak, which they liked. Oftentimes he would stay for supper.
My father could read, but could not write. He often read the Jednota a Slovak paper that was published in Ohio by Jednota, a life insurance company for Slovak speaking people.
While my father was still alive, he would often arrange with neighbors to buy and butcher a pig. We would split up the pig as evenly as possible. And we used, as my mother would say, everything but the squeal. They made head cheese from the brains, used the intestines and stomach for sausage stuffing, pickled the feet for pickled pigs feet -parts of the feet sort of floating in a salt solution. We made chernina , which was pieces of the pig embedded in a gel. This was a favorite for Sunday breakfast. When we fried bacon, we would fight over one another, getting to the fat from the bacon for our bread. NOTHING was wasted.
Earlier I mentioned that there was rarely any violent crime. The crime we had was nonviolent. It was shooting craps dice under the street lamps. Since police were always on foot patrol, spotters would be stationed a block or two away and warned the players if the police were getting close. The activities would cease for a time until the all clear was given.
While the older men played craps , the younger ones often played hit the wicket, which was similar to baseball, except a crumpled old tin can was used instead of a baseball. The crap games would oftentimes go well into the wee hours of the morning. To reduce chances of cheating, a blanket was used on the ground, which made it more difficult for the shooter to control the roll of the dice. Also, a backboard was sometimes used and the dice would have to strike and bounce off the board for a legitimate toss. If the cops did stumble on a game, most of the players would run away or face a night in jail. Any money left on the carpet became the property of the cops. So they used ingenious methods to break up a game.
As was true of many small towns, almost everyone was friendly with everyone else. Sometimes this was used to advantage. For instance, in addition to the many crap games played out on the streets. There were as many games played in various pool halls or newspaper magazine stores. If there was an empty room on the 1st floor beyond where the papers etc. were sold, usually it was converted into a game room of sorts - mostly slot machines and pinball machines. All required cash to play and all paid off in cash.
In a legitimate game parlor, one got paid off in coupons which were redeemed for prizes. If you were friendly with the Chief of Police then you had an advantage. They usually looked the other way when gambling was going on. But the state police would not be so lenient. On many an occasion they would stage a surprise raid and confiscate all the machines or paraphernalia. Then the store would be boarded up. So if you were on good terms with the chief of police and sometimes greased his palm , he would notify you days in advance of a raid by the state police. As a courtesy, the chief was always warned in advance when a raid was impending. He would immediately warn all his "friends" and they would hide the machines in the basement. At the same time, there were regular games in the back rooms. that would sometimes go on all night and day. Guys would only leave the game to relieve themselves. It was so profitable for the owners that every so often they would take orders for food platters and drinks - on the house. Professional gamblers would come from Shenandoah, Gilberton. Tamaqua and small towns in between. There never seemed to be an end to it.
Back Room of the Mansion Pool Room in 1932
The cultural center of town was the Victoria Theater. In the basement was a gym where local fighters would train for upcoming fights. On the main floor was a theater where movies were shown continuously from 10:00 AM till 11:00 PM. Movies were mostly westerns, which were very popular. In addition to the main feature, there were several cartoons and most popular were the serial movies. These were one continuous movie which had a suspenseful ending each week and then continued the next week. These sometimes ran for 36 weeks and got a large following of kids. To stimulate business, usually every Wednesday, they would give a free dish to each lady attending. Each week was a different dish, that way girls could save up until they had a complete set of dishes or silverware.
The Victoria Theatre at Main and Market in the 1930s
Across from the Vic was the Greek restaurant. Here you could get a NEHI drink and a hot dog or hamburger for about a dime. They were open all night and in the wee hours you might get a free piece of pie that was getting a little stale.
The Record American, which published the daily newspaper, was just down the street. When it came time for the World Series, they would erect a large billboard on the 2nd floor roof of the building. This was painted green and had a drawing of a baseball diamond on it. Men working behind the billboard wore headsets and listened to the game on the radio. Whatever they heard over the radio, they would depict on the billboard. They had a movable ball which traced the movements of the radio, and there was a scoreboard so that everyone watching could "see" the game. People would gather hours ahead of game time to get good seats on the sidewalk or on cushions on the street. There were even hot dog vendors that roamed the crowd . This was an event that everyone looked forward to because it was so realistic.
One of the activities when we couldn't work or at night was we would listen to the radio. In the 30s, radio brought the outside world closer. Our radio was in a rectangular box about 18 to 20 inches long, 8 inches deep and wide. It had many tubes inside and four condensers which were located directly behind four dials located on the front panel. Each dial had numbers on it from 1 to 10. The first dial on the left front represented thousands. The next was hundreds then tens and finally units. So if you wanted Pittsburgh, which was 1660 on the dial, you would set the first dial at one, the second dial at six, then another six and finally zero on the last dial. Of course, each station had its own frequency and you had to set it exactly or you wouldn't pull in the station.
At noon time, we would listen to WEEU - Reading, which broadcast a marathon dance contest. There were couples on the floor who danced to music 24 hours a day, with only 15-minute rests each hour. Those couples that could not continue would be eliminated. As the dance went into its second week, the rest time was reduced to just 10 minutes, which eliminated even more couples. If there were still quite a few couples left, then they would speed up the music or have them dance around chairs that were scattered around the floor. These obstacles usually caused more to drop out. This continued until one couple remained. One time a couple from McAdoo and Morea won.
During the evening, we listened to Amos and Andy, Joe Tanner, Eddie Cantor, stories about the FBI or dance bands. We sometimes listen to bands from the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago or from the Trianon Ballroom, even as far away as California, if we stayed up that late. The stations from Reading and Hazleton that played the polkas on weekends were the most popular. As a matter of fact, you could walk four blocks and not miss a note. You could hear the music from every house you passed. One popular radio show almost everyone listened to was The Shadow, which was written by Charles Gibson. In the 1970s, I met Mr. Gibson, who attended one of the meetings of the Society of American Magicians. He was one of the founders of the assembly.
Another popular program was one in which Bishop Sheen had a sermon once a week. Everyone would look forward to his program each week. He was an electrifying speaker, and all religions tuned him in. Besides listening to the big bands such as Jan Garvey, Duke Ellington. Vaughn Monroe. Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, Cab Calloway, Xavier Cougar and Benny Goodman. We used to hitch a ride to the Lakewood or Lakeside ballrooms to listen to them in person.
These parks were also the focal point each year when the different churches celebrated by having a day long picnic. There was Slovak Day, Polish Day, Italian Day, etc.. Everyone had their own Sunday assigned. The biggest was Lithuanian Day. On the day before the picnic, men from families would arrive at the park and claim certain tables for their family to occupy. Usually, the mothers and girls would spend all day Saturday cooking and baking. And then everyone was at the park the next day all they had to do was open the baskets. There were kegs of soda and beer everywhere. And on Slovak day, John Bogosh and his polka band would play in the ballroom. Other small bands would be scattered around the park. There were rides for the youngsters and games for everyone else.
Lithuanian Day was the most crowded of all. People came from miles around. The small road that joined the Lakewood and Lakeside parks was jammed with people going in different directions, but the biggest thing of the day was the gigantic dice games. You couldn't walk 50 feet without running into a big crap game. Sometimes fights broke out and more often than not somebody ended up in a hospital.
On Slovak day there were an awful lot of coffee provinces in the park. Paul and a few friends would usually go down to the park a day early to get tables for all of us. Paul was quite good at playing the harmonica and Frank dabbled with the jew's harp and Agnes would imitate farm animals, so we always had plenty of good entertainment. The little ones played tag or just ran around.
The lineup to get into Lakewood Park on one of the ethnic days in the 1940s
When there were no picnics, we usually gathered at Sofranko's, my mother’s sister, where we would play board games like Checkers and especially Monopoly. They also had a stereopticon on which we would place two postcard sized pictures and when viewed through the eyepiece we saw the pictures in 3D. Most of the pictures were Matthew Brady's pictures of the Civil War. There were also pictures of Yellowstone National Park and the geysers, as well as Niagara Falls in Buffalo and Canada.
Our house went through several transitions. The small room was eliminated by taking down the wall next to the living room, and then this larger room was converted into a small candy store. We sold mostly penny candies, potato chips, chewing tobacco, cigarettes, ice cream and soda. For the men who smoked or chewed tobacco, we had copper spittoons on the floor. All the family took turns in minding the store. Since I liked to read, I volunteered a lot because I could sit on a pretzel can and read.
Cigarettes were $0.15 for a pack of 20, but not many packs were sold, so we sold them at one cents each. That way we made an extra nickel on a pack. We sold chewing tobacco by the pouch. The popular ones were Red Man and Beechnut. We also sold small plugs which were tobacco compressed into small chunks like cookies.
I used to read stories about Doc Savage who was everything from a scientist to a lawyer and all around good guy who helped the mistreated. He had four other specialists in his group and between them they could solve anything. Years later, the store was closed and then my brother Frank opened up a barber shop, which he ran for many years.
By this time, the concrete wall was torn down and people began buying the land there. On the corner at West Mahanoy Avenue, the Smigos put up a double house and then another cousin built a house on the north side of Pine. The "park" then disappeared and the shirt factory or dress factory was put up and many of the women, young and old, got jobs there as seamstresses etc.
The ballpark disappeared and today the land there is occupied by the Mahanoy Area High School. Directly across from us on D Street, Mrs. Gulick bought the property and built a nice white home that was with an attached garage that became a mortuary.
Towards Market Street, the Sheehans built and operated a small store and soda bottling business. When the Smigos built their place, my brother John became acquainted with Olga and this led to their marriage sometime later. When my brother met Leoda Farley, they married and later moved to Frackville where he opened another barber shop that he operates to this day.
Our dining room was often converted into a quilting room and many of the neighbors gathered there and made home stitched quilts from odd remnants of clothes. These quilts provided warmth during the cold nights of winter.
Note: The recollection above was given to former historical society president Tom Ward sometime before the death of the author in 2009.
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Stephen Kufrovich was a World War II veteran rising to the rank of Staff Sergeant. He came back to Mahanoy City after his military career, married and had a son. Stephen became and engineer and later in life specialized in memory enhancement. His sister, Florence, taught 4th grade next door to me where I taught 5th grade at Mahanoy City Catholic School in the 1970s. I remember that one year Florence had Stephen, an excellent magician, come to MCCS during Catholic Schools Week to do a magic show program for the students.
Later in retirement, Stephen was involved in historical preservation in Quarryville, Lancaster County.
Stephen Sebastian Kufrovich died in November 2009 and is buried in Washington's Crossing National Cemetery .
PTC