Adeline's Stories

ADELINE’S STORIES

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MY LIFE AND MY FAMILY

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ADELINE, AGE 27

MY LIFE AND MY FAMILY

You know I was very happy as a little girl at home with all my brothers and sisters. I was eager to help.
I was very, very happy. I liked my mother. I liked my father. Even when I went to Washington, I didn’t
forget about my responsibilities to my family. In fact it made me more aware of them. They needed me
at home after my mother had James and all that.

I was always very pleased with everything my children did. Every little incident. At school or even
Christmas. You know I tried my best to do the right thing at Christmas for the kids even though we
couldn’t afford very much. You know, when I think back now, we were so poor that it’s hard to
believe. I cannot visualize.

If I thought that I had to do something like that again, run a whole life, and bring children into the
family like that and being so poor, I don’t think I would have the stamina to continue. But, see, I just
continued, learned to accept and that was it. That was my responsibility for marrying a man like that
but I always tried my best to give all my children a happy life.

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These are the

stories I tell my
grandchildren
next door about
my life growing up.

Adeline

Adeline

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ADELINE & AMELIA

All of us are shaped by the role models of our times. In 1928 when Adeline was 11, Amelia Earhart
became the first woman passenger on a Trans-Atlantic flight. She became an instant media sensation a
hero and role model to young girls everywhere growing. Seven years later, in 1935, she became the
first woman pilot to fly the Atlantic solo and Amelia became a superstar for her generation of women.
She stayed at the White House as a guest of President Roosevelt, met with the Queen of England and
was given ticket tape parades in New York City and Paris. Always searching for new challenges, new
destinations, new records to be broken, Amelia Earhart’s name, photo and words continued to provide
inspiration for a new generation of young women throughout the 1930’s.



You know, when Anita got me the book for Christmas on Amelia Earhart and I started reading it, her
story reminded me of my life growing up. When I was young girl, she was a little older than I me, but
she was my idol at that time. So I’ve been reading her book and it’s really very interesting. Just
looking at some of the old black and white pictures of Amelia and comparing them to what I looked
like at age 11… I remembered her. She was going to make her trans-Atlantic flight and I had the idea
(chuckle) that I looked like her…tall and skinny, long arms, long legs, and short hair like that. So I’ve
been sitting up at night, and reading the book instead of watching TV. I was surprised after reading
how similar her life style was when she was young. One thing that was very important at that time was
you had to take care of your mother and father. That was like a rule and an obligation. In her case, she
had to do that because her father was a big drinker, and then she had to worry about her mother and her
responsibility. So as I’m reading along in the book, her life had a lot of similarity to mine you know.

Growing up years and years ago the mothers always kept one person at home. My mother had seven
children at that time. The mother would designate one person and the father was very strict about it.
He would say listen, you’re never going to get married. You’re going to have to stay home and take
care of your mother and work. Back then, they would remain single to take care of their parents and
work at any menial job. I was always a doer. So I became the designated person for our family.

4

ANNA & PETER SOBOL

Anna Buzcek was born in 1889 near the town of Tarnov Poland in southern Poland, which is
located 45 miles east of Krakow. Peter Sobol was born in 1875 in Gliniczek, Galicia (Poland’s
boundaries before 1917). Both immigrated to the United States where they met in Scranton. Peter
arrived in 1900 aboard the ship Lahn, from the port of Bremen, Germany. They were married in 1908.



My father was a good guy and my mother was pretty, like Verna, so immediately everyone took a
liking to her. Everyone would notice my mother no matter where she went because she had a good
personality with people. Years ago, you see, there were no beer gardens or anything like that. There
were usually a lot of christenings. For social activities, they would go visit people in their houses. The
only people they knew came from Europe.

One thing I remembered about the men at that time is they had to get all dressed up. They’d have a
white shirt and a tie. I remember my father had these dress shirts and the sleeves were a little bit too
long so he’d put a garter over the elbow to keep the shirt sleeves shorter. My father used to have a
mustache and he looked like all the old fashioned men that you’d see in books.

You know, people had a lot of children then so at the christenings they would invite everyone in the
neighborhood to their house. The first thing they did is dance. People didn’t have furniture like they do
today. The only thing they had in the living room was a lot of chairs. They’d move the chairs to the
side and someone in the group would always play polkas on either the violin or accordion. When my
mother and father went there, immediately, someone would spot my mother, and of course my father
got very jealous. All the men were just waiting in line to dance with my mother. So naturally my
mother danced. Yeah, she danced with all the men.

My father didn’t know how to dance at all. He would be where they had the drinks. He liked the
drinks. So after he had a few drinks and he’d realize my mother was dancing with these men, and my
father would get very angry. If they didn’t start an argument there, then when they came home, there
was an argument. See, he was very jealous that my mother was dancing with the other men.

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So all my life as a child, I remember, nothing but arguments. It was always that my father was jealous.
Verna fell into the same category as my mother. No matter where we went, there would be someone,
but mostly at the grocery store. See, the grocery stores were different than they are today. There
would be a salesman in there so my mother never allowed Verna to go to the store alone. So I had to
go with her. My mother always treated Verna like she was a princess.


OUR FAMILY

When she was first married, my mother had two children who died. After Verna was born there was
me, Stanley, Frank, Bernard, Nellie, and Gene was the youngest. But of all of them, my mother relied
on me. Because she figured “Adeline is a hard working girl that I can depend on. She’s going to take
care of me”. See, that was the idea back then. The parents at that time didn’t think of the welfare of
the children. They only thought about what the children were going to do for them in their old age.

Mike’s mother had that same idea too. Even, later on, she used to mention it to me all the time. She
said, “I never should have allowed Mike to marry you. He could have been living with me and he
would take care of me now that I’m old.” She would tell me that all the time, even after I was
married and had my children. See, that was an old-fashioned idea of that time. When I was reading
book on the life of Amelia Earhart, I guess it must have been similar to her life too. Maybe that was
the natural thing to do at that time.

But we were all a very happy family. We had a big family at home. I was the youngest one and I was
always so eager to help anyone with anything, you know. The big thing was “Whose going to go
upstairs and get my shoes?” So, okay, all of a sudden my other brother used to say, ”Listen, I’ll bet
you 10 cents that you can’t go up and get my shoes by the time I count to ten,” or something like that.
So, then I’d run upstairs very eagerly to do those things for him. When we came home from school,
we waited until my father came home from work and we had one great big meal. There was always a
lot of talking going on at suppertime. Oh yeah, everybody discussed what they did today. But it was
nice. It was a happy family.

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FAMILY GATHERINGS

The first house we lived in was down on South Sixth Avenue. There were six rooms. It was a
company house owned by the Glen Alden Coal Company where my father worked. All the boys slept
in one room. All the girls in one room. You slept two beds in a room. Sometimes three people
together. We had no conveniences whatsoever. You had to do with what was provided for you. No
heat, no bathroom just an outside toilet. We had to go out there in the middle of the night or through
the snow in the winter. We had no electricity in the house and used kerosene lamps. It wasn’t until we
grew up and went to work that we got a telephone. There was no central heat at that time. The heat
was from the kitchen stove that my mother cooked on. In the living room, there was a Heatrola but
there was no heat upstairs in the bedrooms. No conveniences for the children.

When we were all little, Christmas and Thanksgiving were always big neighborhood events, not just
family holidays. At that time, people used to visit other families. See families had a lot of children and
my mother was a godmother to several other people’s children. So what happened at Christmastime,
those families would come to your house. Then your whole family went to visit their house. See that
was like a family gathering. That was very, very traditional. My mother, my father, and all the kids
went visiting to somebody’s house. Everyone would bring food and somebody would play the violin or
something music. Then they would tell all these old stories about Poland and discuss different things,
you know. We’d spend the whole Sunday over there.

Up until my mother went to Europe, we were a very close-knit family. I was 11 years old when my
mother went to Europe. She was gone from June 1927 until February 1928…almost a whole year.
When she came back, she immediately went to work with the idea of earning money to bring her
mother here to the United States and got a job at the laundry. She worked days until I was in the 8th
grade. Then she got a job in a Greek restaurant. That’s when she worked from 3 to 11 pm at night, so
then she wasn’t home for the evening meal.

See, that’s one of the reasons she needed me at home. My mother used to bake bread and pies two or
three times a week so she needed me home to knead the bread. So I was there. Whatever she needed at
the store, I was the personal maid.

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VERNA

Well my mother always treated Verna like a princess (chuckle) and my mother used to say.“She’s so
smart. She’s so beautiful.” She was always very proud of “Veronique”. Everybody who ever met my
mother and Verna would say “Your daughter is beautiful.” So my mother was very happy. From the
time she was very young people used to say “Mrs. Sobel, your daughter looks just like you.” And then
they’d say, “Who is this other girl that is with you right here?”

My mother always wanted Verna to get married because she was the pretty one. She always used to
say, “Veronica get married. Veronica go to work.” In fact she was practically pushing Verna out of
the house to get married. But Verna was lazy, lazy. She didn’t want to work. Verna never wanted to
work. She would get these crazy jobs, and she’d work about a week. She’d either quit or they fired
her. So my mother had a very good thing with me at home. Verna was smart. She figured that as long
as Adeline is here and working, why should she go to work. My mother would never ask Verna to go
to the grocery store because there would be a salesman over there. And then he’d come over and pinch
her cheeks and say “What a beautiful girl!”

There was no comparison between us. No one ever took us as sisters. See, I looked entirely different
than Verna. I was tall, skinny and scrawny. When I was looking at the pictures in the book on Amelia
Earhart I realize I looked very similar. I had a long neck. Very long skinny arms and my mother cut
my hair real short. I was like the “Ugly Duckling” Well you know the story. But I was a doer.

You know when I stop to think and consider my childhood; I could have been very, very upset about
the whole thing. If I had had any kind of problem I could have gotten very depressed. But I was just
there, you know. You see, at that time when we lived, you had to have great respect for your mother
and your father. You had to go out of your way, and regardless of anything and everything, you just
had to respect your mother and father. And that’s what I always did.



8

FRANK

Frank’s personality was like your personality. He was about the nicest. I guess the others were okay.
You know how you eager you are to do something around the house. Well, that was our Frank. When
Frank was maybe 15, he quit school and got a job as a baker. Then when he turned 20 years old, he
wanted a car. So my mother bought a brand new 1927 Chevrolet. She paid $725.00 for that car. That
was a lot of money back then. We were the first ones in the area (chuckle) who had an automobile. Oh
that was an honor, you know. I’ll tell you owning a car was a big thing! We were the only people in
the neighborhood with a car. The grocer had a car…and, who else? Maybe the mechanic had a car.
Other than that, no one had cars at that time. They just couldn’t afford it.

So we drove it to church on Sunday. Then on Sunday afternoons we’d go for a little ride up the
country. But you know there was no heat or defrost in the car so in the wintertime, so it was very
difficult. On Sunday we never knew when we were going to go to church because the night before
Frank had to drain the water out of the radiator from underneath the car so it wouldn’t freeze over. I
remember Frank used to tell Uncle Gene, “Open up the petcock under there and drain the water.”
Then in the morning, they would put water into it and start the car. We never knew whether it would
start even though it was a brand new car. You know, I have a picture of one of those cars that was in
the National Geographic magazine. That was exactly the Chevrolet we had. Gas was maybe 10 cents
or something like that. Very little. Yeah, because when someone wanted a ride I remember, they’d say
“Here’s a quarter.” So they got a quarter’s worth of gas to go to town and back. A quarter’s worth!

I remember Frank used to wash the car on Saturday (chuckle). Well the wheels on that particular car
had spokes on it but they weren’t solid. You had to grease the wheels every month or so. So Frank
bought a regular grease gun. Then he’d say, “Adeline, do this here while I do something else with the
car.” So then he let me use that grease gun. I used to feel so wonderful helping him on the car.



9

THE ACCORDION

Prior to when my mother went to Europe, she brought home an accordion with the buttons on it. Both
Frank and Verna learned to play that particular accordion. My father knew how to play because as a
youngster he played it in Europe. So then they all played the accordion. Frank played pretty good. Well
someone told him there was a man who lived down in Pittston selling a better accordion. So Frank
decided to buy it so he went down with a Johnny Low, who lived down the street from us to find that
man so he could buy the accordion. It was a Sunday so he was all dressed up when he went down to
Pittston looking for the guy with the accordion.

Now Before Frank got the job at the bakery he bought himself a brand new suit. He went over to
Samters in downtown Scranton and bought this gray suit and a straw hat. You know everyone wore
those straw hats with the flat top. The salesman suggested that he get a purple shirt, a purple tie, and
purple socks (chuckles). Anyway Della spotted him all dressed up and that’s how they me. In two
months, they got married. So then that was the end of Frank…and that was the end of our car.



ANYBODY HOME?

When my mother came back from Poland, Nellie turned 17 and then she met Stanley Dixon and got
married. Then Nellie was out of the house. So all there was left at home were Verna, Gene and me.
Gene was 16 and then he got a job in Kaltenbach’s Bakery. Verna was supposedly still going to high
school but then she quit school and then we both started working in the cap factory. Stanley, Frank and
Bernard all left but like I say, no one was contributing money at home. Frank got married when he was
just 20 and then he moved down to Pittston. Bronco just drifted. He was a rebellious person you know.
Then he eventually wound up working in New Jersey at the docks. Stanley was still at home but he was
not working. But then he got a part time job, parking cars in town behind the Globe Store. In the
meantime, the lady who owned the parking lot got an eye on Stanley to be her son-in-law. So that’s
how Stanley met his wife. Yeah, they got married and then he was gone.



10

THE TRIP TO POLAND

The years between 1920 and 1940 were considered the most glamorous years for transatlantic
passenger ships. American tourists interested in visiting Europe replaced immigrant passengers.
Advertisements promoted ocean travel, featuring the elegant food and on-board activities to the
general public. In October 1928 the typical cost of a Third Class Passenger Steamship Ticket for a
transatlantic voyage from New York to Bremen, Germany was $208. (In 2007 dollars it cost $2,526.)
We know Anna left Scranton by car for the 5 hour drive to the Port of Baltimore. The transatlantic
voyage by steamship would take 12 days. After arriving in Gdansk, Poland there is a train south to
Krakow that takes 8 hours. From Krakow it’s 45 east miles to the town of Tarnov. The final part of the
journey was probably by horse and buggy to the farm where Anna’s mother lived. Without a doubt it
took a woman of strong will determination and to make the journey alone. Anna was 38 years old.



In 1927, when I was 10 years old, my mother up and left and went to Europe to visit her mother in
Poland but she was gone for a whole year. We were all left at home. We all missed her when she was
gone. My older sister Nellie did the cooking for us at home. My father had to do the best.

Anna’s mother’s name was Catherine Buczak. She was a widow and had two daughters in Poland.
Every letter we got from Europe was very depressing. They kept saying, “Send money Send pinonze”
Grandmother Buczek lived with one daughter who had two children, but she was a widow. The other
daughter that she had (chuckles) was a fancy lady who looked exactly like Verna. Grandmother
Buczek lived in these small huts with the thatched roofs made from hay, you know, like the pictures
you see in an encyclopedia. She had her own land and lived on a farm.

When she went to Europe my mother’s intention was to take Gene with her and leave him to take care
of the grandmother and do the farm work. At the time I was 10 years old and Gene was 3 years
younger than me, so he was 7. Well when my mother was making arrangements to get her passport
and everything else, Gene carried on something terrible. He said “Absolutely not.” He would not go
with her. I on the other hand, wanted to go to help my mother. But my mother wouldn’t take me
because my mother was not very proud of me. She would have taken Verna except Verna couldn’t do
any work for the grandmother. Verna was always a lazy person.

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Anna had two sisters in Poland. I know their first names. Marissa or Mary and the other sister’s name
was Agnishka. They called her Yagga. I guess Agnes would be in the English. I just don’t remember
any of the last names. It’s been so long ago.

Marissa was married and had two children. In fact we had a picture of her somewhere. Maybe I even
have a picture of my grandmother and Marissa and one of her children. Yagga was a very fancy lady.
She was a beautiful lady. She was married to a police officer or something like that. He was in a higher
class. He was not a farmer. She lived in a brick home constructed for her by her husband.

I was the one that used to write all the letters for my mom to Marissa. That’s the reason Verna always
calls me Mary. Verna would say to me, “You’re just like that. You should go to Poland with those
people and everything else.” Verna always put me down. All my life, she always put me down.

Yagga didn’t have any children. The only thing she had concern for at that time was she wanted my
mother to bring a fur coat. In her letters she would say “What did you bring me? or When you go
back, buy me a fur coat.” See you couldn’t buy a fur coat in Poland at that time. In fact there was a lot
of turmoil back and forth between Anna and Yagga when my mother was staying there because they
figured my mother came to take Grandmother Buczek away to America and leave them alone.

When my mother was there helping they were satisfied with her and all that. But then my mother
decided to get a passport for Grandmother Buczek to bring her to America to live with all of us and
cook, or whatever she had to do. But she just said no. She was born and raised there and that’s where
she wanted to stay. Marissa and her children were living with her and Grandmother Buczek figured
that Poland was her home. Of course, they always said they wanted to die in their own territory.





12

ON OUR OWN

My mother kept trying to convince Grandmother Buczek but in the meantime she overstayed her
passport because it was only valid for three months, from July until September 1927. See, my mother
did things like that. She was supposed to come back in September. But we didn’t know anything until
we got a letter from Poland. Frank and I drove down to Baltimore on the day she was supposed to
arrive and we waited and waited all day at the port but she never got off the ship. Oh it was really very
sad. Then we had to drive all the way back home to Scranton without my mother and tell everyone.

Well it was a big problem and we didn’t know how to solve it. You had to get someone with influence
here in Scranton. So my mother wrote to the grocer. I can’t remember his name but he had to go to the
First National Bank. I remember there was this man who took care of things like that. He had to pay
his own money and then my mother repaid him later. They had a very difficult time getting her back.
My mother left us for 8 months. That was a long, long time.

In the meantime, our household was going along as usual because Nellie was at home and she would
take care of the cooking and the cleaning and everything else. And my father worked. And Frank
worked. And the other boys were all at home. But we were a very happy family.

Finally in February 1928, my mother came home, and she wasn’t back two weeks and the first thing
she did was go to work. Then everything changed at home. Even after she came back, she was still
trying to convince the grandmother to come out here to America. But we (Adeline) kept writing letters
and all that. But it would have been very bad because of a different generation and everything else.



13

A MODERN WOMAN

My mother was very stylish. She was a good looking woman. See, ordinary women at that time
looked like Mike’s mother wearing that long dress and the apron. They didn’t fix their hair. They had
their hair in a bun. They wore these old clumsy shoes. All the women in our area that would just be
sitting on their porches while their husbands worked. But my mother dressed fancy. In fact, someone
used to say she looked like Mrs. Astor. Well then after Frank was married for about a year, he decided
to give my mother back the car back because he was going to buy one for himself. So then the 1927
Chevrolet was back in the garage at our home. But no one drove it. Stanley wasn’t interested. Bronco
didn’t want to be bothered at all. So the car sat for a while. Then someone suggested that my mother
learn to drive. Now I tell you, my mother was very modern with some of her ideas. She did not like
doing what other mothers would do. So, anyway my mother decided that she was going to learn to
drive the car. You know it was a standard transmission. I guess she might have been 40 or so I’m not
sure. But then there was another thing. My father didn’t like the idea that my mother was like getting a
little more modern. My father still worked full time in the mine.

At that time most women did not work. In fact, it was a disgrace for a woman to go out to work. She
started working at the laundry and used to do sewing, patch up work on the linens and all that. Do you
know she only got paid about ten dollars a week? And that was supposed to have been money coming
in, but actually it was nothing. My mother was a determined lady. She only did what she wanted for
her benefit. So the very first thing she did was pay back the grocer for the money he loaned her to get
back into the country. But once she got into the swing of working, that’s what she did, she worked. It
was just as bad for us. We were going to school, coming home and my mother was always gone to
work. She was never at home. She worked from seven in the morning until six in the evening. Then
she decided to work in a restaurant as a short order cook from three to eleven every night. She didn’t
cook the main meals of the day. She was a short order cook. They used to have lots of soups at that
time. Usually, you’d have a cup of soup. Coffee and soup. That’s what people would have when they
went to the restaurant. Ten cents for the soup, and five cents for the coffee

The name of the restaurant was The Diamond. Oh yeah I remember. It was at the Corner of Franklin
and Linden. Now, it wasn’t there when you were growing up. The man’s last name was Diamond. He
was born in Greece. Oh, he was a beautiful man and he looked like maybe Julius Caesar. Ohhh, great
big burly fellow. Like Charles Atlas. Blond hair, rosy cheeks. He had blond hair, fair complexion.

14

And then (more chuckles) my mother was trying to fix him up with Verna. Well once he spotted
Verna, that’s all he needed. He said, “Mrs. Sobel, when are you going to bring your daughter here?”
I’m telling you see, that’s why my mother got a lot of respect. My mother looked young at that time
when she worked. No one believed she had a very young and pretty daughter. No one believed it.


HOUSE MAID

When I turned 14, I graduated from St. Peter and Paul grade school and just stayed at home. My
mother was working nights from 3 to 11pm at the Greek restaurant. Every morning I had to put her
hair up in and set it up so it was looking nice. Then I had to get her uniform ready for work and iron
the clothes she was going to wear. My mother was a fancy lady and she liked wearing hats. Most
women at that time just wore babushkas, but mother was very particular about her hair. So I put it up
in the morning, and then when she was ready to go to work, I would iron and starch her uniform and
the clothes she was going to wear. You know, I was her housemaid. I even had to put my mother’s
stockings on her and made sure the seams were straight so that she looked well. Then I had to walk
her up to Main Ave to. I’d wait till she got on the bus and then came home. That was my day.

It wasn’t a question of what I wanted to do. It was just being told what to do. And in the meantime,
my sister Verna stopped going to school and then finally quit. She would just lay around at home. She
had it good too because I was the “go-for” for everyone. Usually my mother would send me to the
store for 3 or 4 items at a time. She would say “Adeline you go get this. Okay, you come back.” Well
the grocery store was about 8-10 blocks away so I’d have to walk both ways which took about two
hours. Then after I’d come back she’d send me over to downtown for a piece of material or some
thread. So you see as a young girl I was just a go-fer, doing things for her convenience. So that was
my life for 2 years. I was just a housemaid. I felt just like Cinderella with all those ugly women.



15

MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS

When my mother she was going up Landis Street, everybody used to ogle at my mother, you know.
Everybody would be sitting on the porches. “Oh, Mrs. Sobel. Mrs. Sobel”. This one particular
time…well, looking back I should have been very angry about the whole thing…my mother was
waiting for the bus on Landis Street. Well the man that lived in that house, his name was Williams, and
he was a Congressman in Harrisburg. He was one of those guys who wore a suit with a carnation in
his lapel and smoked a big cigar. You know a real politician. He was ogling at my mother every time.
So this particular time, he was at the corner when my mother was going to get the bus. He was eyeing
her. I’m telling you, you wouldn’t believe it, you know. He was definitely interested in going out with
my mother, or something. So then my mother said to him, “Oh, you should see my daughter. My
daughter’s Verna is pretty,” She said to him. Then he looked at me and he said, “Who is this?” Well
my mother said, “Oh, no she’s just the neighbor’s girl. She lives up the street.” See when I was
young I was this tall, stringy person with short hair, big long neck, long arms and my mother did not
want to admit that I was her daughter because I was not as good looking as Verna.

Well, that was a terrible thing to say. Absolutely. Every once in a while, I go back and I think about it.
See, Verna doesn’t know anything about this. I told her about it and all that. But my mother always
said, “You should see my daughter Veronica. My daughter beautiful.” That’s how she would present
Verna to Mr. Diamond at the restaurant that she worked for. She was always trying to marry off
Verna. I guess my mother she did allow Verna to go to high school. She allowed Verna to go to
Technical High School. Verna went there two years and then she quit school.

So, that was my life until I was about 16. Those are some of the stories I was telling the kids next
door. They can’t believe some of things that I had grown up with. But Verna was always special. My
mother always treated her special.



16

A GOOD CATHOLIC GIRL

In Scranton at that time if you attended public school, you had to take a qualifying test to go to the
public school so they would have had a record of me. But my mother said to me, “It isn’t worth it. I
need you at home to help me. It’s more of a help to me to have you at home than to be at school.”
Now that was very foolish because I was so eager to learn everything, absolutely everything. But my
mother said, “Don’t go for the test, and then they won’t have a record of you.” So I didn’t go for the
test. See, if I went to a public school and didn’t go, the truant would come after me. But the fact that I
went to St. Peter & Paul School, they didn’t know because the recordkeeping wasn’t very good. My
mother could have been arrested for not sending me to school if they found out. Well of course Verna
never went to Catholic School. She was like exclusive. She went to public grade school and then she
went right on to public high school. But then she only went for two years and then she just quit.



ADELINE, AGE 16

17

SCRANTON 1930

Scranton's most prosperous era was from 1880 to 1920. No other region of North America had such
extensive veins of high-quality Anthracite coal. At its peak during World War I, the coal output was
over 100 million tons a year and Scranton became known as the “Anthracite Capital of the World".
Over 140,000 Polish, Slavs, Italian and German immigrants found employment in the coal mines in
Northeastern Pennsylvania. After the Great Depression of the 1930's, the city never recovered as oil
began replacing coal as the predominant heating and transportation fuel in America.



AFTER THE MINES CLOSED

In 1937, Glen Alden Coal Company closed the whole mine and my father was out of work The
company decided to tear all those homes down and about 40 families had to move. He not only lost his
job, but we had to move. A lot of people were able to buy a home because I guess they had money
saved or something. We wanted to rent a home but we had no money. But there weren’t many homes
available to rent in Scranton at that time. So there we were. My father didn’t have a job. My mother
was working in the restaurant. Gene worked at the bakery at the age of 16. And then I had to get a job.
See, money was very important. No one else was contributing. So then this new factory moved in. I
told you I went in there and I lied about my age to get a job.

Then, someone told my father to go to the employment agency so he went over there and registered.
During the summer, they needed food pickers to work on the farm. So through the employment
agency, they got all these people here, put them on the truck, and drove them up to Upper New York
State to do work on the farm there. He worked on a place doing the rose bushes, gardening. And my
father was good at that. Age didn’t matter and that. So the employment agency arranged a certain day
and they had an open truck, open truck, and they took say 40 or 50 people, and families went
together, you know, and they went up to Upper New York State and they were provided with like little
cottages, little huts that they had to live in. And they were provided like a general kitchen on the
outside, a stove so they could do their cooking. But they all lived in little shacks. Families lived
together. My father worked there all summer and came home in September or October, something like
that and then after that he was at home and he wasn’t working so no money coming in. See they
didn’t pay them until they were finished with the job in September.

18

EYNON STREET

It was very funny about how we got the house. My mother wanted to live in West Scranton, right in
this area. While we were packing to move and getting things ready one of the families would tell us
“There’s a house there or there’s a house over on that street.” When we weren’t working on Saturday
and Sunday, Verna and I walked up and down every street looking for a vacant house. Then we found
this house for rent on Eynon Street but it was entirely too small for all of us.

While we were getting ready to move from the company house on South Sixth Ave to the house on
Eynon Street my mother fell and broke her leg. I guess we had to move by April and there was a little
bit of ice in our yard on the sidewalk. So my mother was incapacitated with a broken leg for three
months. My Dad was laid off from the coal mine so he was at home and that didn’t give us any
money. Gene was working in the bakery and Verna and I worked in the factory. My mother had to do
her best with a crutch and she and my father sorted out whatever furniture and belongings we had.

So let me see, the day we moved, my mother stayed in the house on Sixth Avenue and my father and
me and Gene helped moved the furniture over to Eynon Street. We got a truck to rent but the driver
wasn’t going to help you move any furniture, you see. So you had to move the furniture yourself. We
also had this big old fashioned coal stove. See everyone had to have a coal stove at that time.

Well conveniently Verna went to work that day, so she wouldn’t have to move anything. So it was just
the three of us. We had to get everything set up and then we had to go back over to get my mother. I
think we still had Frank’s 1927 Chevrolet.

We lived there one year. Then, somehow, she got a little better after that and we were walking up to
the St. Anne’s Novena and saw this house on South Main Avenue. My mother went there and we
rented that. I think that was 1938. So someone has been there living in that house for 60 years (1998)

We were lucky we were able to live there. I think the rent might have been maybe $20 a month and
when she bought it I think she paid $3,500 for the house. She didn’t buy it until the landlady died. The
landlady willed the house to her friend or relative, it was a cousin. And he wanted to sell it. So my
mother had to go see him about the house. In the meantime, all the other neighbors wanted to buy it,
too. Because, you know, when an elderly person like that dies, the figure they’ll get it for almost

19

nothing. So my mother had to make a decision quickly about buying the house. There was also a third
person who wanted to buy it. But he said to my mother, “As long as you lived in it that long you
should buy it”. Miss Davis, the lady that owned it, spoke very highly of my mother. So he says to my
mother, “I want you to have first choice.” So she waited a week or something for her to make her
decision and then my mother bought the house on South Main Avenue.


SOCIAL SECURITY CARD

When I got hired at the cap factory I told them I was 19 because I didn’t want to go to the manual
training school. At the time it was mandatory if you were under 18 and you had to attend one day a
week which was on a Friday. If you were 16, no employer would hire you. So it was convenient for
me to just tell them I was 19. You know in 1933 when I started working, Social Security was not in
existence and there was no such thing as Social Security Cards. They never asked me for a birth
certificate only “How old are you?” I told them 19 and that was that!
Then before I graduated from the Apollo School of Business, I went down to the employment agency
and I registered again as if I never had a Social Security Card. See, what I did, I decided to change my
age. I told them I was 21. So that gave me another Social Security number and I used that number
rather than the one I had while I worked in the factory for 8 years. I just gave them a new date and
they gave new a new number. It didn’t make any difference because in Washington, because you
didn’t need one because they weren’t taking out Social Security benefits

20

FACTORY GIRL

We were always short of money like everybody else during the Depression so at age 16, my mom said
“Now you go to work.” Someone said they were hiring people at this factory, which made men’s caps,
so I went there, and they hired me immediately. So the next day, I had to tell my mother. All she said
was “Send Verna down there.” So Verna went down and she got the job. Every job I ever got, I had
to get Verna in because she a lazy person. Even in the factory, she would take her time during a break.

Once I started, I worked in the cap factory everyday. When we were laid off, I just went to one of the
other sewing manufacturers. If the work was slow, I immediately got a job elsewhere. I worked in a
cap factory, then a pants factory, then another cap factory. I continued working in a factory until I was
maybe 22 or 24, I think. Then all of a sudden I got an idea and decided I wanted to work in an office.
So then I had to figure out how I could do that. Well, there were only two business schools here in
Scranton: The Lackawanna Business School and the Apollo School of Business. So I had to figure out
a way to go by myself.

I went in and talked to them and I told them I’d like to go to school. It was a two year course but if
you went to high school, you only had to go to business school one year. Many high schools didn’t
have shorthand, typing and all that, and if you did not have a high school diploma, you had to go for
two years. So I started school and I made it possible. I got a job in central city at a cap factory which
was convenient for me. Mr. Adelson was the boss there and I told him that I was going back to school.
I started work at six o’clock in the morning instead of eight. It was very convenient. The factory was
behind the Cathedral Church and by City Hall on North Washington Ave. So everyday I worked from
6 to 8am in the morning, walked up to the school, went to school from 8 to 3pm, and then back to the
factory from 3 to 6pm in the afternoon. I also worked all day Saturday and a few times on Sunday
morning when Mr. Adelson needed me. I was the only one who could do that particular work and it
was a nice job which I enjoyed. When I think of it now, it wasn’t that hard, but I had to do it. At the
time we still lived down on South Sixth Avenue so I walked to work and walked home. I did that for
two years. I did not even go on the bus or take the street car at that time. The fare on the bus was
8 cents each way, so rather than spend the 16 cents, I just walked. That was how I was able to pay for
my schooling and also give mother my pay. So you see she wasn’t missing any money. I think I was
making the same amount of money as the first job.

21

GIRL FRIDAY

While I was still going to school they would send me out on these little jobs working at the Globe
Store or at the ICS. They sent me to companies that needed a Girl Friday. I got this part time job at the
International Correspondents School. This man was so impressed with me. He just couldn’t believe it.
He said in all the time he had worked here, “I had never seen a more ambitious person as you”. So
what happened next was they put me in charge of the department that had the students from Puerto
Rico and South America who were applying for credits at the ICS. I had a typewriter that had Spanish
keys on it plus some different keys. He started to tell me, “Now you’ve got to listen, Adeline this is
very complicated. You’ve got to do all this.” After he told me the whole procedure once, I just started
the work. At the end of the week, he came back and asked me “How are you doing?” I said “Fine,
I’m doing very well.” In fact he couldn’t believe, because it usually it took several other girls to do the
same work. So then he hired me because the other lady was on a vacation for two weeks. He told me,
“You know this job is only for two weeks, and then I’m going to discharge you after that.” I said
“Perfectly fine, excellent.” That job paid very little but that didn’t matter. I got the experience and
that man was so impressed with me that before the two weeks were up, he created a new job for me so
I could be in his department permanently. He couldn’t believe that there was one person who could
take charge. So I continued working at the ICS for about a month.

When I finished business school it was a real formal graduation and everything else. In fact I was one
of the best ones that they had for shorthand and typing. I think they gave me a medal as some type of
acknowledgement because I was one of the best. They also gave me a wonderful recommendation. So
after getting my feel to see what I would like working, I decided I really wanted to become a court
stenographer. So I decided to pursue the stenography. See I had great ideas in my head. No one
advised me. I had to make all the decisions myself.

22



POWELL SCHOOL OF BUSINESS 1940

GRADUATION PHOTO

23

WELL THE WAR WAS ON

24

GAETANO ANTOCCIA

Before the war, I guess it was probably 1940, there was a young Italian man I met, his name was
Gaetano Antoccia. His family owned the Heights Cleaners. He had three other brothers you know but
he was the oldest. He was a very intelligent person. Very, very intelligent man. And he liked me
because I was not like any of the other girls he met at that time. He couldn’t believe that I was quite
intelligent, compared to all the other girls he knew.

All the brothers used to go skating and they would pick up and drop off my sister Verna and I and off
we would all go roller skating at the Town Hall Roller Rink. You know, I was a very good roller
skater. (chuckle). Then sometimes we used to drive down to Falls. It was just a little place. From then
on, we used to go down there skating. They would pick us up and drive us back home. Sometimes,
we’d go two or three times a week. So that’s where I met him. After a while we would go on dates
separately but he was in no position to even talk about getting married because of the war. There were
a lot of guys interested in me and all that, but I was not interested in them. See this was the situation.
They all went into the service. Everybody was gone.

So after I went to Washington, Gaetano was drafted. You have no idea how many boys went into the
Service. There were no men. No men around. So that was a pretty difficult time to decide to get
married when there were no men. I got the idea in my head that I could work in Washington, D.C.
where there were hordes of young men all stationed there. Some of them I met were very, very nice
young men, and all that. But I really wasn’t interested in any kind of marriage at that time.

I think the reason why I wanted to get married was when I moved back to Scranton and started
working for the Lackawanna Railroad I was the youngest person there. All the other women were at
least 65 years old and they were still working. When I looked at all these older women who spent their
entire life working in the factory or in the office, because of the pay, they probably sacrificed their
young life for the job. When I was there and I saw all of them I said to myself, “Am I going to sit here
and work here for the rest of my life and become one of them?” So that was when I decided that I
wanted to get married, have children, raise them and start a life of my own…So that was my idea.

25

WASHINGTON, HERE I COME

26

WASHINGTON 1942

More than a million women, many of them young and single came to Washington D.C from 1941-

1944.“Government Girls” as they were known could only hold their jobs for the duration of the

national emergency because the federal employees who had been drafted or reassigned were entitled

to reclaim their jobs at war’s end. Women who answered the call to government service were not

promised careers. Clerical work was a typical female job in the War Department, and women moved

mountains of paper during the course of the war. Women civilian employees of the War Department

were permitted to wear WAC uniforms, obscuring the distinction between military units and civilian

employees. Prior to the war, government offices for the most part staffed only with men. Dress codes

and rules for personal conduct were adopted to transition to the new work environment. Women

shared rooms in hotel and boarding houses because Washington D.C. at that time was a small city that

lacked adequate housing for the flood of new government workers. By 1944, women accounted for

more than a third of civil service jobs.



In September 1942, the government advertised in the newspaper that they needed stenographers in
Washington, DC, so I immediately arranged to take the Civil Service Test at the Scranton Post Office
Building. The test was for shorthand, typing and basic grammar and English. I did very, very well.
I must have gotten a high score. In fact the man asked me if I had much more experience than that.
Anyway the names were sent to Washington and by the November, around Armistice Day I got an
official telegram that said “Report to Washington. There’s a job for you.” Then I told my mother who
wasn’t very happy about it. So anyway, I started making arrangements.

As far as clothes I really didn’t have very much of anything. I had one pair of shoes and only two or
three dresses to wear to work, plus a Sunday best dress, coat and hat…or something like that. That’s all
the clothing we had. You know I think that’s the reason why I amassed so many clothes later on in life.
Anyway, so I gathered up those few things and put them in a suitcase.

Now at the time, round trip bus ticket from Scranton to Washington cost only $10 which I had paid for
previously. So after I said goodbye to my mom, I got on the bus with the $20 I had left from the last
pay, along with my suitcase with the three dresses to move to Washington DC.

27

THREE DRESSES

On the bus to Washington I didn’t talk to anyone. You know, I was very quiet. Now, I talk easily to
anyone. But at that time, you see, the fact that I was at home, I was like in a shell. I was afraid of
people. I had a very bad inferiority complex. If someone said something to me like “How come
you’re not going to school?” I would get this lump in my throat. I couldn’t even tell them. Because,
you see, I felt bad about that. I felt like a like a greenhorn, that I wasn’t going to school.

So anyway, this lady was on the bus sat opposite me. She was working as a secretary for the state
representative in Washington, D.C. She was one of several secretaries in the office there. She noticed
that I was so quiet. As I sat there, I had my rosary in my pocket, and she noticed that I was quiet and I
was young, and I was going to Washington. So she was curious. When we had the break in
Harrisburg on the way to Washington, she approached me and she said to me “Aren’t you going to go
have a snack?” I said,” No” because I didn’t want to break the $20 bill. So anyway she asked me.
“Where are you going to stay?” I said I have no idea. All I know is I have this paper. They told me to
report at this particular office the following day. She talked to me the rest of the way on the bus and
she asked me all kinds of questions. I told her the truth. She said,”Maybe my landlady will take you to
live there. I live on East E Street. It’s only four blocks from the capitol. The cost is only $4 per week.
if she accepts you then you can stay there.” She got a cab from the bus station and we went to her
house. The landlady interviewed me so I was able to live there. Then she asked me “How much money
do you have?” She said don’t bother paying until you get your check.

Well then we went down to take a general test. I did very well and I also got the most wonderful
recommendation from the man I worked for at ICS. In fact the day when I was leaving, he said to me
“Anyone wants to know about you, you tell them to call me.” So then they got a recommendation from
him and instead of me going into just a plain typing pool, which everyone went in, they told me I was
going to be secretary to this department. So they brought me in and gave my duties and sure enough, I
started to do my work. I was secretary to the Major at that time, and later on he became a Lieutenant
Colonel. It was a very nice job. I was excellent at typing and shorthand. They couldn’t get over how
fast I was. They couldn’t believe. Everyone would ask “Where did you come from? And no one knew
how old I was. Everybody thought I was just 17 years old but I was really 24. I’ll tell you, while I was
in Washington, I was treated royally….Absolutely royally!

28

LIFE WITH THE GIRLS

The other girls were already living there in the house. On Sundays, we would all go out to dinner and
that’s how we got acquainted. All the girls were very nice, but I was friendlier with Ida. I didn’t have
that much money to spend because I had to send my mother my money. One pay I’d send my mother
and the other I’d keep. I think I got $32 or 35 for one week. So I kept one and I’d give my mother the
other one. I managed pretty well. I used to keep a lot of what I used to eat. Some times it would cost
me one dollar or seventy five cents a day to eat. I was very careful You know I’m a very hungry
person (chuckle). Yeah, I like to eat and all that. So in the meantime, if I was hungry, say on a
Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, I would go out and buy a whole package of six cinnamon buns,
and a quart of milk and believe me, I had to eat that, because, you see, I was hungry. Sometimes my
mother sent me some of her homemade bread she used to make. So that would tide me over. But I
was always very careful. Every Sunday after church we all went out to a fancy restaurant to have
dinner. At that time dinner used to cost about six or seven dollars and you got an excellent food. So
then after the dinner we’d go to a movie and that was the end of our Sunday. But we didn’t have any
money left for a movie. So here’s what we did.

When the war was on, all servicemen were able to go into the movie free of charge and they didn’t
have to pay. If they had a girlfriend with them, she was allowed to go in there free even though the
movie cost a dollar. Now, we couldn’t afford to spend a dollar for a movie at that time. So, Ida
would approach some soldier or some sailor (chuckle) and she’d talk to him and ask him, “Well, are
you bringing someone in with you?” And then she’d ask him, could we go in with him? So that was
the way we got into the movie without paying for it. And of course, the movies were nice because
there was a movie and then a stage play. Every Sunday they would have that. So then that was
beautiful. That was very, very nice. So that’s how we got by with that. Then we just continued on,
and on and on, until then, of course, I had to give up the job and move back to Scranton.

Actually before I left Washington, I went into the State Department Building which is the building
that’s behind the White House. I decided I wanted to go to South America. See, you could not
transfer from one government department to another government department because it was wartime.
You had to quit the job you had and then re-apply. For instance, if you worked for the Department of
the Navy, you could not transfer to the Department of the Army because they had restrictions but
I just went in there. I’ll tell you. I had a lot of nerve at that time because you weren’t allowed to

29

go into any office building during the War. Every government office building was restricted. But I
happened to go on my lunch hour, and there was no guard at the door. I just walked right in to the
Main Floor and then walked up the sixth floor. There was somebody walking around and I asked
“Where is the Employment Office?” They said, “Go up to the sixth floor.” So I just walked up to the
sixth floor. This man was there and said, “How did you get up here?” I told him there was no guard
down there and I came up. I want a job. He said “Very Good.” I told him I was going to go home for
two weeks and he said, “Listen, here’s what you do, you go home, and then re-apply.”
In the meantime, he took my name and everything else, and after I got home, they sent me this whole
big application for the State Department. I filled it out and mailed it out, and then they kept calling my
mother and ask “Does Adeline want to come out? We have a job for her in Washington.” But every
time they called, my mother said, “Oh no, my daughter, she has a good job here in Scranton.
But see I never knew about it until I was going to get married. That was when I found out. I don’t
know how it was but my mother sort of mentioned it, or maybe Verna mentioned it to me. My mother
never told me anyone called. You know she was always very manipulative like that.



30

COME HOME, COME HOME

31

BACK IN SCRANTON

Every single letter from my mother from the time I went to Washington was very depressing because
she’d say “Come home, come home. We have no money and Verna has to go to the doctor’s” Every
single letter was very depressing. While I was in Washington my brother Gene took my place and he
was the breadwinner at home. Verna was working in a factory and helping my mother with James and
that. So I said to myself it’s time for me to bow out. That’s what I intended to do.

But then Gene got drafted and was scheduled to go for a physical to go in the Army. In the meantime,
Verna got rheumatic fever and could not work because and it took a long time for her to get better. She
was home in bed and could not walk for three months. James was a year and a half maybe two years
old by that time so I guess that was a valid reason for my mother to say “Hurry up. Come home.”

I really wanted to stay in Washington. What I did was take a 2 week leave of absence from my job in
Washington. I always came back home with the idea of being in Scranton until everything was sorted
out at home and then I was going back to Washington. But once I got home, that was it. Gene went
for the test, down at Wilkes-Barre and when he had the examination, they found that he had a heart
murmur. He was rejected from the Army and so then he went back to work. Then I got the job at the
Lackawanna Railroad, and I said that’s ok for the present time. I had not heard anything about the job
at the State Department in Washington. So there I was back in Scranton.



32

BRONCO & PAULA

Paula was only 15 when she met Bronco. He must have been about 30-31. Bronco worked at a gas
station in Newark, New Jersey and Paula lived around the corner. She’d come around very day. He’d
give her money for ice cream or popsicles. Or something like that. She was a very pretty young girl
hanging around and she didn’t want to go to school. They got married because she was expecting.
She was 16 at the time and wasn’t prepared to be a mother. She was too young. Originality Bronco
wanted her to have the baby in Scranton and just leave the baby here with my mother because Paula
did not want to be bothered with the child. She was just a silly little girl. So, anyway, James was born
in New Jersey in August 1941. Oh Bronco was thrilled because he looked exactly like him and then,
they started coming back to visit my mother in Scranton.

Well originally it started just as a temporary situation. See, Bronco had to go to work everyday and
Paula would be left with this crying baby and she didn’t like that. She only wanted to go to the
movies. Bronco just figured that Paula was too young and didn’t know how to take care of the baby so
he wanted to bring the baby to my mother and let my mother raise him. Bronco said the baby wasn’t
sleeping. So my mother took care of him. He’d drive to Scranton on Saturday. They’d stay until
Sunday and then took the baby back to New Jersey. By Wednesday, they brought the baby back again.
In the meantime, the baby got wonderful care from my mother. They said we’re going to leave the
baby here for a week but then my mother gave him back “Here, take care of the baby.” It was like
back and forth and back and forth. It was crazy.

Then the best thing happened. The lady who lived in the house next to my mother, right across the
alley had a job working in the courthouse and she was in charge of the Children’s Bureau. So my
mother had to go to her first and she arranged all the things for the lawyer, for the adoption, for the
courthouse, everything. Mr. Canterbury, who owned the grocery store, came as a witness and was a
sponsor along with the other lady. They both agreed that my mother would be a good person to adopt
James. So by Christmas or maybe January 1942, my mother legally adopted James.

My mother must have been about 50 or 52 at that time. I remember they sent me a copy of the
preliminary paperwork that they were going to adopt James. I told my mother before I went to
Washington, “Just mind him for a while, maybe a year or so and then give him back to Bronco.
Give him back and do not adopt him.” I didn’t think that it was a good idea.

33

THE LACKAWANNA RAILROAD

While I was in Scranton my mother said “Why don’t you go over to the employment agency and see if
they have any jobs there?” I happened to go on a Friday afternoon, and I said surely they won’t have
any jobs for me because the following week on Monday I was going to go back to Washington. So
Friday afternoon I just went in there because my mother said so.

I got to the employment agency and they told me about a job they had at the Lackawanna Railroad.
The man said “Listen, we want someone who is a stenographer and someone who can type very well.
We’ve already sent 14 girls there and the Lackawanna Railroad rejected every single one of them. So
if you tell me you’re good at the work you’re doing, I can send you there.” I said, Yes, I’m good. I’m
very good. I walked from the employment agency over to the Lackawanna Railroad Building and then
I had to walk up four flights of steps, because there was some junky old elevator and I didn’t know
what to do about that. So, I walked up four flights of steps and there were three doors but I didn’t
know any names. I looked at one and then the other but I didn’t know which door. Well by then I was
all out of breathe, and I opened up one door and there was Mr. Roth. I said “I’m here from the
employment agency. They sent me over for the job.”

Mr. Roth said, “Sit down and take a rest. Sit right down.” So I sat down. Well he looked at the cards
that they gave me and said, “Listen, talk to me. Tell me who you are, where do you live and what can
you do.” So I explained to him and all that. He talked to me for about a half hour. By that time I was
calm and he said, “I like everything about you. The job is yours.” Just like that. The only thing is you
have to have to take a test for the record but don’t worry about how you do on the test because,
regardless of how you do, the job is yours.

I had to go into another office to take the test. It was a regular test with typing and some transcribing
from shorthand. I was also timed on the typewriter too. So what I did was, I just sat there and I was
typing away. In the middle of the typing, this man came over and tapped me on the shoulder. He just
could not believe that I could type so fast. You should have seen the old typewriters they had there.
Oh, they were really antiques. So I completed the test and met with Mr. Roth. He said to me “Listen
no one has ever done the typing that well in that short of time” The job is yours. It starts Saturday
morning.” Just like that!

34

They only worked a half a day so I started Saturday morning. Well the first thing everyone wanted to
know was how I got the job. All the men wanted to know how I got hired so easily and were
wondering who I knew. See everyone who ever got a job at the Lackawanna Railroad had to have
someone speak for them, to bring them in there. “Who do you know? Who got you in?” They all got
this idea that maybe I was (chuckles) the girlfriend of Mr. Roth. He was about 65 years old or so. So I
did very well there and the pay there was three times more than I was getting in Washington because
the railroads paid a lot more money. When I got my pay, I couldn’t believe it. I think I got about $140
at the railroad for the two weeks where I was only getting $35 a week in Washington. So I actual got
more money and that was excellent pay. Plus they didn’t take too many deductions so that was good.

As I was reading about Amelia Earhart and her life at that time that $1440 dollars was the normal
salary for a year. In fact, in one part she wrote in the book, she got that much and she thought that was
a lot of money. But that was the normal scale at that particular time. So my mother was very pleased
about the pay, because it was good for her because I was providing the money at home.

OFF TO WAR

It seemed like very week all the young men were being drafted. All the trains stopping at the railroad
station were filled with boys heading off to the war. In the office everyone had a relative or friend who
was drafted so they’d send a card around to give money to the person that was going in the Army.
Everyone gave a donation, all the employees and all that. As you looked around, all these young men
were gone. Even when you went to church on Sunday, there were no young men around. All the
young boys were in the Service. So in the meantime I continued working there and all of a sudden I got
an idea that maybe I ought to consider getting married. By that time, I was about 26.



35

ADELINE & MIKE

36

ADELINE & MIKE

I already knew Mike when I was younger when we used to go swimming down to the Westside
swimming pool. Then I met him another time when he was in Scranton. I got married in ’44 so it must
have been at the end of 1943 when I moved back home to Scranton and that’s when we met again.

At that time both Mike and his brother Peter were working at the Philadelphia Navy Yard and they
shared a room. He’d come back to Scranton every two weeks or so and then we went out. It was about
Christmastime, when I met Mike in town, All of sudden he just asked me to go out. Well he thought I
looked pretty nice. You know, years ago, everyone used to go to Central City because it was the
hubbub of everything. Anyway, he wanted to know if I wanted to go out with him. So I did. I
remember we went to the Strand to a movie and then he wanted to go to bar. And then that was the
beginning of that.

Mike’s brother Peter got a job first in Philadelphia at the Quartermaster Quarry in Philadelphia. His
father didn’t want Peter to be out there by himself so they decided to get Mike a job in Philadelphia
because there were absolutely, better opportunities for him at the Navy yard. So Peter had to inquire
about jobs in the Philadelphia Navy Yard for Mike. And that’s how Mike got the job there. I think he
worked there about 3 years.

Even though I was going to get married, I was still planning to move back to Washington. I knew I
would have no problem getting work there. I thought Washington was a beautiful place to live, have
children, and give them all the wonderful opportunities. I thought, okay, not all is lost. If I marry
Mike and go to Philadelphia, what’s to stop me (chuckle, chuckle) from convincing Mike to transfer to
Washington. I figured there’s a Navy department yard in Washington. I even talked to Mike about him
transferring from the Navy yard in Philadelphia to the Navy department in Washington. But we wound
up in Philadelphia instead.



37

MEET THE IN LAWS

The first wave of Ukrainian immigrants began in the 1870s and ended in 1914. Because the Ukrainian
territory at that time was divided among a number of neighboring countries, U.S. immigration
authorities listed early Ukrainian immigrants as Poles, Slovaks, Hungarians, or Russians. About
500,000 Ukrainian immigrants, primarily from western Ukraine, arrived in America during this
period. Most found work in the coal mines of eastern Pennsylvania and on farms in North Dakota.



Mike’s father was always very nice and friendly to me. He seemed to be a gentleman but I didn’t meet
John Krupinski until the actual day of the wedding. His family sent him from Poland to earn money
for the rest of his family. He was supposed to go back to Europe, but then he met Catherine and they
got married in 1916. I think John was 21 and Catherine was 14 or 16. John Krupinski was born in 1894
and lived until age 68. Catherine passed on in 1972. I think she was 79.

When he took me down to meet his mother for the first time, Mrs. Krupinski said to me I was too
skinny. Mike told her I had a very good job working for the railroad. I worked in the office and made
lots of money. So she thought, yeah, that would be good for my son. Adeline could work. Adeline
could provide all the essentials. Then she said to Mike in front of me “No children. Children no good.
You don’t get anything out of children because you raise the children and they go off somewhere else.”
Then she tells me “Best not to have any children. You have good job. Just go to work, and work, and
help my son.” That was her dogma to him and she was set in her ways. She had a very old world
attitude. If fact she never learned to speak any English her entire life. She would always talk in
Ukrainian. Can you imagine that? But she had her five sons and a husband to take care of her.

LIFE WITH MIKE

I realize Mike could never decide in his own mind if he wanted to stay, or whether he wanted to live
together, or whether he wanted to go on his own, or what he wanted to do. He was always afraid to
make any decision or say anything. In fact, now that I think about now, in every situation Mike didn’t
want to get involved. He was always waiting for an excuse to get out of the deal and get out of the
marriage and just go on his own. Even about a car. I told him for years, “Mike, get a car. I’ll talk to
the agent and tell them that if they sell us a car the have to teach you how to drive.” You know he

38

was ashamed that he didn’t know how to drive. So, I said, “I’ll tell the agent that we’ll buy the car if
he teaches you how to drive.” Then I said “How about if I drive?” He says, “Under no circumstances
will you drive. Absolutely not.” So you see Mike was just a no person. He never got his own job.
Every one of his jobs, somebody got him the job. Every job that he had they complained about him.
He was not a good worker anywhere. He did not put himself into the job. I don’t know what he
expected out of life. I guess it was part of the Ukrainian way of life. We were just so different.

A PHILADELPHIA STORY

Of course, Mike made no preparations so I had to find a place to live. I had to find an apartment. I had
to find furniture to buy. Another thing was he worked late in Philadelphia. I think he put in two extra
hours, ten hours a day during the War. He worked days and nights, days and nights. Okay. I
overlooked the fact that he didn’t get an apartment when we were going to go out there to live, and
there was no place to live because he didn’t arrange anything. But I figured, okay now this is it. I’ve
got to do the best of a situation. But you couldn’t change Mike. You couldn’t tell him anything. He
was a very self-centered and lazy person. He didn’t care. Do whatever you want to do, he would
always say. It didn’t matter to him. He’s married, he’s not married, he’s married, he’s not married.

That was Mike his entire life.
CORNELL STREET

It was really a terrible situation. Mike and I had just moved back from Philadelphia into my mother’s
house on South Main Avenue. Guess it had to be in 1946 because Anita was under a year, maybe 6
months old. All the furniture we had was put in her living room. You know my mother’s house was
small. I don’t remember how long we stayed there but at that time, there were absolutely no apartments
to be had. Even though all the men were in the service, there was absolutely nothing.

We found this house on Cornell Street in Minooka. The rent was only $27 for the month. Of course, it
was usually me who made any of the decisions. It was a nice apartment. All three of us lived on the
second floor. But it turned into a bad situation. It was in the process of getting fixed up and the owner
was going to sell it to the people who lived downstairs. They were in the process of remodeling and
buying it. But the owner was playing cat and mouse and everything else. They were from Greenwood
and were determined to buy it. Eventually they bought the house but she was a very nosey landlady.
Then they started remodeling it so there were no toilets in the house. No indoor bathroom. It had

39

outside toilets. It was a bad, bad, bad situation. You had to go all the way in the back there. When
they bought it they were trying to buy it very cheap, because they intended to do something with it.
The landlady kept saying “When you going to move? When you going to move?” Eventually she
asked us to move so that’s when we moved down to East Locust Street. I think we live in that house
about a year and half, maybe two years and then by that time, we were expecting you in 1948.

CINDER BLOCK HOUSE

So anyway, behind the house on Cornell Street there were several empty lots and there was a lady that
was building a house by herself. Her husband was in the service but she hired a man that did the
foundation and then she was going to get her brothers to set up the structure of the house. It was so
miserable living in that apartment I said to Mike, “Why can’t we buy one of those lots? Get some
cinder blocks. Set them up every day. Make one large room and then do something with it later.”

FLANNERY’S BAR

Even before we moved into the house on Cornell Street in 1946, Mike had no job. Anita was under a
year, maybe 6 months or something like that. Mike would go out in the morning everyday to show the
landlady that he had a job. Oh, Mike was a manipulator. Really. He’d go out in the morning with the
idea that he had a job. I don’t know how long it took but finally Mike’s father John Krupinski decided
to get him a job as a bartender down at Flannery’s. Well that was just up his alley, you know, to
bartend. But you know he’d been in the bar so much that he was qualified. It was just a normal
neighborhood bar. That was alright from 8 to 5. But he never came home at 5. Mike would work all
day Saturday, and all day Sunday and get Thursday afternoon off. But he would just spend all his time
down there. The pay was only $35 a week. Our rent was $27. Of course, there were other expenses.
But Mike had the idea, “Here, take it or leave it. You want it, okay. Just get the hell away from me.”
That was Mike’s idea all the time. Don’t bug me. So that was the story.



40

LIVING ON $20 A WEEK

In the meantime, the bartender job at Flannery’s fizzled. Mike didn’t have a job again. It was a big
problem. Mike didn’t work at all. You know, I don’t know how I got where I did with my family. I’m
very thankful. He had no job, no work. That’s when he used to go out every day. The lady used to
wait for him at the end of the day “Did you get a job? Oh, did you get a job?” But he didn’t.

When you were born in 1949, Mike was still unemployed but getting $20 a week in unemployment
checks. Our rent was $27 a month and then we had to buy coal for the stove and pay the electric bill.
There was no gas in the house so we had to cook on a coal stove. At that time we used to buy the
groceries at the corner store and the grocer and his mother were very concerned that Mike wasn’t
working. She could not understand why Mike couldn’t get a job so told her son Dave to see what he
could do to find a job in the grocery business. I think Dave was Jewish.

They told Mike to come down and see him and then they sent Mike down to the Armor Meatpacking
Company. It was a nice place. It would be a nice job. He'd only be a helper. They'd get on the truck
and drive all around, up through the Poconos, delivering the meats. “It was a very good job and it had
a good future to it”…Dave said. Well Mike went down there, got the job and then quit in two days. I
was furious and the grocer was very disappointed because he had recommended Mike for the job.
So then the next thing Dave said to Mike you know, I saw an ad in our newspaper. They needed
someone to work in Sears, in the farm store. Let’s see you were 2-3 months at the time so I guess it
was in 1949. “Do you remember the Sears’s Farm Store on Adams Avenue across from Leonard’s
Hardware store? You went with me one time when we went to buy fencing to put in the back yard.”

Well the ad was in the paper for a whole week but Dave knew the person who worked there so he said
to me, “Listen, tell your husband to go over there and apply for the job. Don’t worry about anything.
The job will be his. I know the man. I spoke to him. Tell him to go over there.” I said, “Mike, please,
go over and apply”. The grocer said to apply and the job will be his. But Mike said “No, no, no.” He
insisted. Dave said the manager was holding up the job for Mike. He absolutely refused to go. Mike
didn’t know anything about the job but just said no. It was a job as a salesman. You know if someone
bought fencing, you’d have to help them put it in the car. But they also had helpers there. It was just
the idea that it wasn’t Mike’s choice. So he said no.

41

After the war, there were lots of factories here who wanted people to work—sewing factories, and
different factories. So anyway, when Mike applied for the job, these Jewish men used to say to Mike,
“Listen, fella, take your retirement. If I were your age, I would retire.” See his hair was already gray
and he was a big, fat guy. But he always looked much older even though Mike was only in his thirties.

So anyway, he didn’t take the job and then he was out of work for a whole year. All we were getting
was the $20 a week in unemployment compensation. We had not one penny. No money. None in the
bank. Well the grocer’s wife was concerned about us. She said to me, “Listen, if your baby gets sick
and you want to get the doctor, you come to me. I will give you the money because, your husband
isn’t working.” She knew that all we had was the $20 a week. Now that was a sad thing, when
someone one else was more concerned about our livelihood. In the meantime, there was another job
that was in the newspaper that was in Carteret, New Jersey. It had something to do with sheet metal.
Some fella called Mike and said do you want to go. He worked with Mike at someplace else. So Mike
said, “Let’s go to New Jersey.” So off he went to New Jersey and they offered him $90.00 a week.
So I said, “Okay you should go” . I don’t know where he got the money. I think my mother gave me
some money, so I gave it to him so he could get thru the whole week.

In the meantime the landlady was coming up to me everyday, “Is he going to get the job? Is he going
to stay there?” So I said to Mike, “If the job is half way decent, you could go out there, and then in a
little while I’ll go out there, and we’ll find an apartment, and we’ll live there.” So that was New
Jersey. But, no, at the end of the week, that was it. Nothing! He worked for just a week. and then he
quit. He said “I didn’t want the job. I didn’t like it.” They gave him pay and then he came home. I
don’t know if the other guy stayed or not.

You just couldn’t reason with Mike. So then the next best thing I did was to call the Welfare
Department. I explained to them my situation that my husband was out of work for almost a year. I’m
telling you they were so very nice and sympathetic to me. “Lady, why didn’t you come here sooner?”
Well I didn’t know. So the man came to the house. He wanted to know the situation. We had two
children, and no money. No anything. No bank account. Absolutely no money. He said to me, “How
much money do you have?” I said, “Nothing. All I’m living on is $20 a week.” So he said to me. I
want to see your husband. I want him to either call me or come in. I want to see him. I’ll arrange the
details. I forget what he said he was going to give me. I think it was $55 a week plus pay the rent. He

42

had everything thing settled. All I have to do is see your husband. So the man came again. He figured
Mike was going to be home during the day. But Mike was not around. Mike refused to go. Well do
you know Mike refused the help? So we did not get any welfare.
Well that was the situation I had to deal with and Mike still didn’t get a job. So it got to be November,
and I called the man another time, and he came. The next time he came, he gave me a check for $55
“Here, this is just to hold you over. I’m going to put you on the (welfare) rolls, regardless of your
husband.” He told me he was going to help me anyway. That man was so sympathetic. Anyway, this
was the thing about welfare. I guess Mike must have gone down there and told his father that we were
going to go on welfare. See, that was a disgrace for the Ukrainian people for the “Krupinski” name.
So, then Mike’s father went over, first to the priest at the church, and then to see Mr. Chumko the
undertaker, and he asked Mr. Chumko to give Mike a job. So that’s how Mike got the job at the
Scranton Casket Company. He got paid $35 a week. In the meantime, the landlady asked us to move.
So then we had to move down to the apartment on East Locust Street in Greenwood.



ANITA, DAD, JOEY IN SCRANTON 1954



43

EAST LOCUST STREET

On East Locust Street there were three families in the house and we lived on the second floor. Mike
got $35 a week working for the Casket Company and our rent was $35 a month plus we also had to
buy coal. See, at that time people had their own coal stove. You had a heating stove in the living
room and a kitchen coal stove to cook on. So one pay went for the rent, and another for coal. I bought
our food on the book. Dave, the grocer, told me, “When you move, Mrs. Krupinski, you can buy on the
book.” So I would order once a week and he had it delivered it right to my house. I’m telling you,
he’d have his order boy always ask, “How are you doing? Is he working?” The grocer was
concerned. So we lived down on East Locust Street for about two years, I guess. Then it was time for
Anita to start school up in Greenwood where we lived. It was the end of the year, and I didn’t know
where Anita was going to go to school. Either the public school or the Catholic School at Sacred Heart
Church. I think you were about a year and a half when we moved there.



EGGS ON THE CEILING

Do you ever remember the eggs on the ceiling? Oh, that was funny. I was boiling eggs in water in a
little aluminum pot on the stove. All I did was go out the back door on the porch and starting talking
to the next door lady outside but she kept me longer. Then you came out and said, “Mom, Mom” and
I said I’ll be there in a minute. So then you went back inside sitting at the kitchen table and then all the
water boiled out of the pot (chuckles) and the eggs must have exploded and hit the ceiling. You know I
think the pot did too. (more chuckles).

Well I have two memories of Locust Street. Mom was cooking eggs in the kitchen and then she left and
the eggs suddenly exploded and hit the ceiling. The eggs should have been on the table, but they were
on the ceiling. It made no sense to a 4 year old. It’s the most vivid memory I have as a child. I also
remember the television set in the corner of the living room. There was always snow on the screen.
Turns out in 1953 the programs didn’t come on until 5 o’clock at night. All you got at the time was the
UHF station WNBF-TV from Binghamton, New York. I remember the program “I Was a Spy for the
FBI”. It was in black and white and pretty dreary...mk

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SCHOOL DAYS

It was about August and I was trying to make a decision about what school to send Anita to. If she
went to the public school, it was Number 8 and it was oh, a good ten or twelve blocks walking. Then
there was you. I didn’t know if I’d have to take you with me. If Anita went to the Catholic School at
Sacred Heart Church, it was up a big hill. Well the other thing I was thinking was to send her to St.
Peter and Paul School because that was the first year they had provided transportation for the children
So then I decided to enroll Anita in St. Peter and Paul. First they had a big bus that would come down.
But it only came down as far as Washington Avenue and we lived 3 or 4 blocks away from there. Now
at the end of the block, there was a railroad crossing right there. So what I would do is go through the
railroad crossing, go up one more block at the corner of South Washington Avenue and Elm Street to
get Anita on the bus. I had to be there about quarter after seven in the morning, and then go down and
wait for her again at three o’clock in the afternoon.

Now, you slept a little bit later in the morning so here’s what I used to do. I’d tell you the night before.
Mommy has to take Anita. Now if I’m not here in the morning, you wait for me. I left you in the crib
and while I was away you woke up and started crying until I got back because mommy wasn’t there. I
had to go across that railroad trestle to take Anita down and go down and wait for her after school.
Many times, in order to get home faster, instead of going around the block on the street, I took a
shortcut across the railroad track. Several times there were railroad cars stopped on the tracks. I had
to go underneath the cars with Anita in order to get to the other side to use the shortcut. When it was
time to pick her up I used to bring you with me. One time some of the other ladies in neighborhood
saw me doing that. They saw me carrying Anita and yelled “Don’t do that.” So where was Mike? Oh,
Mike was working full time then and he started at 7:30 in the morning.

Well one Sunday at church they announced they were going to start a kindergarten at St. Peter and
Paul. You had to be four years old so then we enrolled you. In the meantime, I transferred Anita there
to the second grade and then you started in kindergarten. Then it made things a lot easier for me.



45

WEST ELM STREET

Mr. Pataki knew my mother from buying groceries at Mr. Canterbury’s store on Main Ave. Well one
day he was talking to my mother and he said the apartment next door was going to be for rent. Mrs.
Sunday was the owner. He asked my mother if she knows of anyone who wants to go in there. He
didn’t own it. He was a tenant and helping to rent it. He said Mrs. Sunday didn’t want any Irish
people to go in there so he said to my mother, “Maybe one of your daughters wants it”. So my mother
called me and I looked at the place and I decided to rent it. So we rented the apartment on West Elm
Street and we lived there for 10 years from 1953 to 1963. It was a good decision because it was closer
to St Peter and Paul and you and Anita could walk to school and then come home for lunch everyday.
Both Jacintha and Daria were born there.
Mrs. Sunday always used to say over and over, “I’d like to sell this house to one of my tenants.” I
remember we used to talk about buying the house and taking over the whole half side of the house.
And, believe me; I kept saying “That’s a very good idea. I like living here in a happy house.” But
Mike would always object and say, “Don’t you dare. We’re not going to buy anything, we don’t want
a house. I don’t want any tenants.” And, so it would have been a fabulous idea for us to buy Mrs.
Sunday’s house on Elm Street. But in the meantime we just did nothing.



46

A HOME FOR MY FAMILY

47

927 OXFORD STREET

When we moved to Oxford Street in 1963 you were about 14. We probably would not have bought this
house except I saw the ad was in the paper for the house. It was a double house and the price was only
$6,000. I thought, “Boy, that’s wonderful!”

Well here’s what happened. There was a big snowstorm in Scranton and Mike couldn’t get to
Tobyhanna for work for a whole week. I think I had to wait until Mike drove me down to look at it.
Then I called the real estate agent about the house who said, “Very good, stop by tomorrow.” So I told
the agent, “We’ll be available during the day.” He took us through the house and I liked it very much.
I said, Okay and I said to Mike, “Go down to the West Side Savings and Loan Association on the
corner of Eynon and Main Street and ask them if we could get a mortgage.” Mike went down there
first and then they wanted to see me. So I went down and the man said “Lady, that house is a steal for
that price. Don’t even hesitate. Take it.” Later that week Mr. Mayday, the real estate agent went to
the bank and explained to them that this is a poor family that has 4 children living in 4 rooms and they
need a place. So, anyway everything was arranged and we had to put a deposit on the house… but
then Mike got cold feet.

Well I think Mike was looking for an excuse not to get involved with it so he said, “I want to go over
there and see what it’s like the second floor where the tenants Montella’s lived.” So he went over and
they took him up to the attic and he saw where the rain came through the wallpaper in the attic near the
chimney. Anyway, Mike came home and said to me, “The deal is off. We’re not taking it.” The agent
called me and I told him that my husband thinks that he doesn’t want it. So then Mr. Mayday left
everything and came over to my house on West Elm Street. I think Jacinta was sick in bed and all you
kids were home because of the snowstorm. Mr. Mayday came in and saw you kids were in the bed
there and said, “Lady, you really need another place to live. What kind of a husband do you have?
That he doesn’t want it. “Anything would be better.” So, he talked to the owner and then she reduced it
$500. So then the price was $5,500. Then we had to go back over to the real estate office on Adams
Avenue and give him a deposit.. We didn’t put too much down on it. I don’t remember how much we
put down. Mike had $20 so I think he went over and paid a $20 deposit. The agent gave him the receipt
and then came down here and put a big SOLD sign on the house. All the neighbors here were very
surprised that this house finally got sold. “Did you know this house had been for sale for 12 years?”

48

Anyway, we finally had a house. I was so happy. Everything was arranged through the West Scranton
Loan Association and the loan was for 10 years. Can you imagine? Now you have to get a house for
30 years. So every month I’d pay them whatever it was. This man was very nice and he said to me,
“Listen lady, if sometime you have a little extra money and you pay the tax in advance, it won’t be put
on the mortgage.” So that’s what I tried to do. I made those payments faithfully. Mike never even
knew if the house was paid or not. And so in 10 years or so the house was finally paid out. You know
it’s always been a happy home for my family.



ADELINE, DARIA, ANITA, JACINTHA, JOEY 1960

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FAMILY SECRETS

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