ARLINE MARIE BALLA HIDO
Interviewer: David Neal Interviewed on: July 30, 2003
Interviewer: Please start with your full name and spell it.
Arline Hido: My full name is Arline Marie Hido and my maiden name was Arline Balla.
Interviewer: Please give your birth date.
Arline Hido: October 13, 1927.
Interviewer: Where all did you live in the Township?
Arline Hido: I just lived in one place, on a farm on the corner of Route 98 and New Rd. I lived there from 1927 to 1956.
Interviewer: What we are going to focus on is up to 1940. So, we will talk about your childhood and your parents and things like that. Can you tell me about the house you lived in?
Arline Hido: Well it was an old farmhouse. It had an upstairs, a downstairs, and a basement. Which was really a cellar because there was no cement; it was all dirt. The floor was dirt, I don’t know about the sides, if they were rock. All I remember is that it was all dirt and it was cool in the summer and that’s where mother kept her, well anything you wanted to keep cold. We had no furnace ever, we had a kitchen stove and we had a stove in the dining room, which was a potbelly stove, covered over, encircled by brown porcelain. That’s how we got our heat. And we bought coal, great big chunks of coal would be unloaded and my dad would take a sledge hammer many times and break the great big lump of coal into smaller pieces so that we could carry it into the house. We also burned wood. There was no heat upstairs and that’s where I slept. I had two brothers; one of my brothers lived at home until he went away to college. They wanted me to sleep downstairs and they would change and go up. But I wanted to sleep upstairs that was o.k. but it was cold, very cold. I started high school in September 1941; I was 13, but then a month later I was 14.
I remember we got electricity the summer before I started high school. That was exciting to get electricity. Then when I was a senior in 1945, they got running water. But we never got hot water and never had a bathroom. We had an outside toilet, but we also had a little [room] off of the shed, a toilet that was real nice. We were allowed to use that in the wintertime, but in the summer, we were not. So, we had it kind of good. We also had water in the kitchen; we didn’t have to go outside like a lot of our neighbors who had a big pump outside. We did also but we had this half pump in the kitchen and that was great because you had your water right there all of the time. Like I said, when I was a senior in 1945, they did get running water, so we had faucets instead and took the pump out. I should have taken a picture of it, because my children say, “What do you mean a half pump?” “Don’t you have a picture of it?” No, I never thought that I would need to have a picture. But that was a convenience to have water in the house; you didn’t have to go outside all of the time to pump a pail of water. My dad had a car because he worked on the railroad. We didn’t have a telephone until after I had already left home. We lived six years there after we were married, we didn’t have a telephone then, and I don’t know what year they got the telephone. The family got my parents a telephone because my mother was prone to heart seizures and we wanted dad to be able to call the doctor so he learned how to use the telephone. So, they had a phone after I left home. What else, what else do you want to ask me?
Interviewer: Radio, television?
Arline Hido: After we got electricity, and I don’t know just what month we got electricity, but I think it was before I went to high school in September. My dad went somewhere one day and came back with this great big box in the back of his car. We kids couldn’t figure out what Dad had bought. He took it out and here it said “Radio” on the outside. I was just thrown. I remember jumping up and down and I couldn’t imagine my dad buying a radio. How could he even know how to buy a radio? I was just floored! So, we got a big console radio and that was just the most thrilling thing.
Interviewer: Where were your parents from originally?
Arline Hido: My dad was born in Austria, Hungary and my mother was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia. I could find out how old they were because they lived with me when they got old and my mother died here in my house in 1972 and she was 84 1/2, so if you could figure that out, she was 84 in 1972, so she had to be born in 1800 something. My dad died here also two years later at my house, at the age of, he would have been 87 in April of 1974 and he died in February, so he was almost 87 and that was 1974. See I could figure that out if I had time. If I knew you were going to ask me that I would have, I could have had that figured out. I really forget the year they were born but you can figure it out.
Interviewer: Do you know when they came to America?
Arline Hido: My dad told me that he came over when he was 17. Because I said, “17, you left your parents at 17, and came across the ocean?” “How would you know that you would ever see them again?” He said, “We didn’t, but that was what the men did. They came to America to find work and they just left home. He got a job in Homestead, PA, in a steel mill and I don’t know how long he worked there. I forgot how my mother came over here; I wish that I had asked her more questions. Perhaps I did ask her and I forgot, you know, I didn’t write things down you think you’re going to remember forever, but I don’t remember. I’m sure she told me but she also came to Homestead, PA. My dad met my mother because they both went to the same well to draw water, which sounds so unbelievable, but yet I wish I had paid more attention to stuff my mother told me. They met at this well, and my dad told me, “When I laid eyes on your mom, I just knew that was the girl I just had to get acquainted with.” He used to go there so often, whether he needed water or not, to see if that girl would ever come back. He was determined to see her again. I don’t know how many times he would just go there and hope and pray that she would come back for water and he would see her again. He told me that finally one day she came so then they got acquainted and eventually married in Homestead, PA.
But they went back to Europe, both of them, because my mother wanted to see her parents so my dad said that he would take her. They went and they stayed, I don’t know how many years they stayed in Europe, but my oldest brother was born there and then two years later my mother had twin daughters. They lived in Europe for a time, then he came over again, and he was going to bring mother and the children. But when he was here I think he got a job again in Homestead steel mill and he told her as soon as he got enough money for the Visa or passport he would bring them over. But in the meantime, World War I broke out and they wouldn’t let anyone come across. I don’t know how old the girls were at the time, but I know that when they finally came here when the war ended, the girls were 10 years old, and my brother John was 12. So, 3 of my siblings were born in Europe.
Interviewer: How did your parents end up here?
Arline Hido: My dad worked in the steel mill and one day some realtor came in there, I don’t know if the men were having lunch but he was just telling how many nice farms there were. My dad thought well, he was 17 when he left Europe, their farms were little, and he really didn’t know anything about farming. This realtor talked a group of men to go and look at some farms. I don’t know how many of them, whether he took them. It ended up that he showed my dad the farm that we lived on and it was for sale and Dan Woods lived there, so my dad bought it. He never really knew anything about farming. So then my mother and the 3 children who had been born in Europe (I said at that time they were about 10 and 12 years old) they came to the farm. That’s how they happened to settle there. Then there were 3 more children born on the farm. I was the youngest, and when I was born in 1927, my twin sisters were 15, they were already working at Girard. They never lived at home. My older brother was 17; he was already in college at 17. He never lived at home. So, when they would come on Sunday to visit I would be excited! I would tell my mother, “We’ve got company, we’ve got company!” Because I never grew up with them, you know, like brothers and sisters. They were like company to me when they came. Like I said, you know they had already left home. My sisters worked in the shop at 15. When I got older, I asked my sisters, “How could you get a job in a shop when you were only 15?” She said nobody asked them how old they were, ever, as long as you could do the job you were hired. So, they worked there until they were married.
Interviewer: Now did your parents speak English when they came over?
Arline Hido: I don’t imagine they spoke English, I don’t think so.
Interviewer: Did they when you were growing up?
Arline Hido: Well, from what I remember, if somebody came to the house, like maybe the fertilizer man, that just spoke English, somehow or other they would understand my dad. So, he must have learned enough, and of course, they got better at it. I wonder how I learned it. Did I go to first grade and not know? I don’t even remember we only talked Slovak at home. I don’t know how I learned English. I often think, I wish I could remember when I went to school; I must have known how to talk English a little. Where did I learn it? I don’t know. My folks never talked English in the house but probably my sisters and brother, maybe I picked it up. I don’t remember I wish I could remember. How did I ever learn English? You have to hear it, and unless I just heard it from my brothers and sisters, I don’t know.
Interviewer: Do you still speak Slovak?
Arline Hido: I understand it, but I can no longer speak. Since my parents pasted away, Mom in 1972 and Dad in 1974, there is no one to talk with. There are only a couple of ladies here in McKean and when we see each other, we say stuff in Slovak. I can understand everything they say, but I forget the words. One day, my children said, “Mother, do you know the days of the week?” I could remember some of them, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember them all, so that goes to show you that you completely forget when you don’t practice it. But, I understand it all.
Interviewer: What was your parents’ religion?
Arline Hido: Roman Catholic, we are all Roman Catholic. We went to Crossingville to church. My mother, she told me this, that when my twin sisters were growing up, she would take them to catechism in a horse and buggy to Crossingville. That was about 7 miles away from where they lived. Then I remember, I said, “What did you do with the horse?” “What did you do while you were away?” She said that she tied the horse to a tree there by Crossingville Hall and she would either pray, she would take her Bible or something, she never really had time, or say the rosary. I remember this; she would try and say the rosary at home every night. But, by the time they got all of the farm work done and she worked hard in the field and in the barn. By the time she came in the house, she was tired; sometimes it was almost dark. I remember her sitting at the table, her last thing before she went to bed was to try and say the rosary. I remember her saying the rosary and pretty soon, it would fall to the floor or it would fall to the table. She could never stay awake to say the rosary. So, anyway she told me that this was a quiet time for her when she took them to catechism, probably an hour, she would sit in the buggy with this one horse tied to the tree and she would have that time to pray or say the rosary.
Interviewer: You mentioned your siblings. Could you give me their names? You mentioned John, what were the twin sisters’ names?
Arline Hido: Mary and Ann. My oldest brother [John] wanted to go to college. He wanted to be a teacher and he did that all on his own. He went to high school, and I don’t know how he got to high school, I don’t remember. He went to Edinboro College and he stayed there and worked every place that he could work and paid his way through college. He became a teacher and when he went to college, he was already 17 when he was in college, because he was in college I guess when I was born. Then they told me that he student taught already at 18 years old, because if you were smart you’d probably jumped a couple grades, because when you were smart in those days, they weren’t going to keep one or two in a class. If you were smart enough, they would just jump you to the next grade. He probably finished college (I wish I had written all this down too), at an early age. Then he went to the University of Pittsburgh for two years, to get some kind of a degree. Then he taught school at East High School in Erie and Academy High School. He taught English. He never lived at home; he just was on his own already.
Then my sisters, they boarded in Girard through the week and my dad would go and pick them up and bring them home on the weekend. That’s what I was told, I don’t remember. I do remember them coming home and bringing my brother a bag of marbles once. I had never seen marbles, they were in a mesh bag and I was so excited! I just couldn’t get over what marbles were because they were so colorful. I had never seen marbles before! I know they got me a doll; one of the sisters got me a doll. Because we did not get toys from our parents, we never gave each other Christmas gifts or anything. In our religion then, your gift was to go to confession and communion on Christmas and that was Christ’s birthday. We didn’t give each other gifts. My sisters got me this doll and I just loved it! One day I was playing with it outside and then I forgot where I put the doll. I went in the house because it was pouring rain and then I remembered that I had left my doll outside. After the rain, I went outside and it had all melted because it was plaster of paris and that was the end of my doll. I remember I was afraid to tell my mother so I didn’t tell her for a long time and once she asked me where my doll was. I said, “I think she’s upstairs.” And, she was upstairs but you couldn’t even tell it was a doll. That was the only doll I ever had. I don’t remember any other toys, really only that doll. My brother had a truck and a bag of marbles and that’s all I remember. We would play in a dirt pile and share the truck and we pretended we were workingmen and Mother would give us her old spoons and that was my playtime. We would play with pots, pans, and clothespins. We just didn’t know toys, but it was a happy childhood. What you don’t know you don’t miss.
Interviewer: Were there any younger kids, younger than you were?
Arline Hido: No, I was the youngest, but after my oldest brother and twin sisters, I had two brothers. One brother who was five years older than I was, Michael and he went to high school and then he worked in Geneva, Pa during the war, until he was called into the service. He did an office job. During the service, he went to Germany and then when he came home, he went to George Washington University and became a foreign diplomat and he served in Yugoslavia and Germany. You go two years, then you come home for 30 days, and then they send you back, if you want to go back there, where they tell you. Sometimes you have a choice and sometimes you didn’t. He went to two stints in Germany, he went Yugoslavia, and I forgot where else he went in Europe. Then he went to Australia for 5 years. When he went to Australia, you had to go for 5 years. Then he came back and then they asked if he wanted to go back to Australia for 5 more years, and he said he did. They lived in the Embassy there. He was the second secretary; he had a very good job. While he was in Australia for the second time, his wife got cancer of the liver and their little boy was 4. She passed away there. They just flew her here to Vermont where she was from. My brother, when the little boy was school age, he asked to resign/retire from the diplomatic service because he knew they would be sent all over. He wanted his son to stay, and have a normal childhood and stay in one place. So, he got transferred to the economic department in Washington, D.C. and he worked in the Pentagon. The little boy went to school. When little Michael was 12 years old, my brother was found to have cancer of the bone marrow. He passed away when the little boy was 12 and there were no brothers or sisters. So my sister came from California, she and her husband had retired by that time and they came to stay with my brother in Washington until he passed away. Then they took the boy home with them. He lived in California and he’s still there. We correspond; he’s in his 40’s now.
Interviewer: What about your last brother?
Arline Hido: My last brother was Leo, we called him Lee, and he was 14 months older than I am. He graduated from Fairview High School and I graduated from Edinboro High School. There were no busses yet in 1940. He started high school in 1940 and there was no transportation. You didn’t have to go to high school if you didn’t want to. My dad worked on the railroad. He got a job on the railroad when I was born because they had a mortgage to pay off. So he thought he would go work on the railroad and he got a car. I forgot to ask when he got the car, I don’t know. He had a car when I was born. He drove to work to Fairview every day to the Nickel Plate Railroad. So he said to my brother, “Well ride with me.” So, my brother went four years to Fairview High School riding with my dad. Now that I am old, I think what did he do there that early. He had to get there before 7 o’clock, because my dad had to start work at 7 o’clock. He must have been able to get into the school and study. Those questions I wished I had asked of my parents and you know you don’t think about them until you are old. Then, in 1941, when I was ready to start high school, again there were no school busses. Some people were recruited to drive a little van or something. All of the parents paid so much per week, what I don’t remember. Maybe it was 3 dollars a week maybe it was less. You would pay this person and he would take you to high school, and there were probably 4, 5, or 6 others in this van or station wagon or whatever. That would cover his gas, what the parents paid him. That is how I went to high school, a private driver. All of the children who went, their parents paid this driver so much per week to be taken to high school. So I went to Edinboro, because I found out about this driver going to Edinboro, so my brother graduated from Fairview a year before I graduated from Edinboro High School. He liked it in Fairview, he had an option, and he could have gone with me to Edinboro in 1941, with this private driver. He kind of liked the school there, he had a guitar and he took guitar lessons. He thought oh, he would stay in Fairview. So, he graduated in ’44 from Fairview and I graduated in ’45 from Edinboro.
Interviewer: Where did you go to Elementary School?
Arline Hido: Franklin Center. There was one little schoolhouse right in the little town of Franklin Center (that you will go through today, if you go down Old State, and then turn left down Route 98, you will see a little apartment, it isn’t a school anymore) and I walked, it was exactly a mile from our farm to school. We walked there and back everyday.
Interviewer: Do you remember any of your teachers?
Arline Hido: Yes, I remember my first grade teacher was Delbert Hayes, they called him “Daddy Hayes” and then the only other two teachers I had, were women teachers. Opal Cutchell from Girard and Elizabeth [daughter of Leo and Anna (Horn) Strobel] Callaway, also from Girard. I only had 3 teachers through my 8 years.
Interviewer: Whom did you marry and when did you get married?
Arline Hido: I married George Hido and he was from Newcastle, Pa. Then when he was in high school age, his parents moved to Pittsburgh. His grandparents didn’t live far from us on the farm. I met him through summers, when he would come. He used to play with my brother, so I kind of knew him in childhood. Then across kiddy-corner from our farm were also some playmates that were grandkids that also came for the summer. Those were the only playmates that I remember, were grandkids. There just weren’t any children right around me. That’s whom we played with in the summer. We would have playmates in the summer.
Interviewer: When did you get married?
Arline Hido: In 1949, in Crossingville. When my husband came from the war, he was only 18 when he went into World War II, and he was in the Philippines. He was in a lot of battles. When he came home, also he had malaria. The summer after he came home, he didn’t even look for work for a couple of months. He said he couldn’t sleep on a bed even he slept on a floor. It was a hard transition from the hot, it was over 100 degrees and the mosquitoes eating and the battles. He really never thought that he would come back alive. He saw a lot of his soldier friends get killed and he thought he would get killed too. He came home and he said it was a very difficult transition from all of the excitement and the horror of war and then you suddenly come home. He said that it took a while. He came for the summer to see his grandparents to stay. Then he came down to see my brother because they had been playmates. I didn’t pay attention to him, but he suddenly started noticing me. I didn’t care for him because when were growing up he would always throw green apples at me. He would always hit me in the back of the leg and it stung. I didn’t want anything to do with him. When he would come for my brother, I would just go away. So, I told him about that. He said, “Don’t you know, that’s what boys do to get the attention of the girls.” Well that didn’t please me very much. So anyhow, we were married in Crossingville at St. Phillips church in 1949 and lived with my parents for 6 years. Then we came here to McKean and bought this house in 1956, we had a little girl a year old, and our son was 4. Then we had 6 more children here.
Interviewer: Do you want to give your children’s names?
Arline Hido: Patrick was the oldest, he’s 51 now and then Kathleen was the next one, she was born in 1955. Kathleen lives in Raleigh, NC and Patrick lives on Mohawk [Francis] Rd. in Franklin Township but Girard, Pa is his address. Kathy is married to a pilot and she has 3 sons, and she was 48 in March. My son Patrick [and wife Barbara] has 2 children. Then, Cindy lives on Eureka Rd. with her husband Greg, she was born in 1958, and they have no children. Then after Cindy comes Rebecca (we call her Becky), she lives in Lake City, she’s married to Jody Dusiesko, from Fairview, and they have 5 children, and the oldest one just graduated this year. After that, is Loretta, who is visiting me now from Arizona because she had a reunion, she’s not here right now, but she is staying with me. Her class reunion is August 9, and her husband will come the last week. She has been here for several weeks and then her husband will come and they will go to the reunion together. She was born in 1960 and they have no children. Then after Loretta comes Jean, and I baby-sit their little girl Heather. She was just five in July. I baby-sit her three days a week, she’s just a pleasure and she fills my life. She and her husband Mark live off of Hamot Rd. on Hederick Dr. and they just have Heather. Then is Brenda, she lives in Virginia and she was home this summer. She was born in 1964, (Jean was born in 1963 she was just forty this year). Brenda was 39 now in June, she lives in Virginia with her husband, and they have no children yet (and they better hurry). She is always saying she is going to give me my first set of twin grandchildren. But, I told her she better hurry because she is 39! Then my youngest is Mark and he is going to be 38 on August 24, he lives on Pageville Rd. near Albion, by himself in a house with lots of acreage and he’s not married and has no children. He’s actually divorced and no children. He’s single at the present time, and those are my 8 kids.
My husband passed away in 1996, I have lived by myself since then, and it’s ok. It was hard at first because I never had stayed in this house by myself; there were always children here. Even when the men went hunting, there was always someone at home. I just didn’t know how to go about that, going to bed in this house alone. So, after my husband passed away, my daughter who now lives in Arizona, she was in the area yet then. She was changing jobs and she was going out of the area to work. But, she said she would stay with me until my birthday. My husband died in June, but she said she would stay until October 13th, my birthday. So, she packed her car that Sunday and that next day on a Monday, October 14th, she was ready to go. She left, that was the day that I stayed by myself for the first time ever. I kept praying that I would just fall asleep and wake up the next morning ok, I did, and from then on, it’s been ok. You think you can’t do it, but it’s fine. It’s ok!
Interviewer: Let’s talk about farming back there in the township. How many acres did you have?
Arline Hido: My dad had 49 acres.
Interviewer: What kind of crops did you raise?
Arline Hido: We raised corn, wheat, buckwheat, oats, and we always had a big field of potatoes. My dad had a drill to plant oats and to do buckwheat. They even raised millet, and I don’t know just what millet is, but I know it was just green and I guess you fed it to the cows when it was green. When we raised corn, us kids would have to hoe it by hand. It was a big field of corn, and you would hoe and hoe and hoe. The weeds had to be hoed out. No matter how hot of a day it was, you put a straw hat on and go hoe. Then you finally finished the field and it seemed like a week or two, if it rained, dad would say that it probably had weeds again so we would start the process all over with. Then we hoed potatoes, my mother too, she hoed corn and she hoed potatoes. By that time, it was just my brother and I at home and my brother and my mother. My father worked on the railroad and my older brother had already gone. We hoed everything.
Interviewer: What kinds of equipment did you have?
Arline Hido: My dad had the grain drill, but in 1940 or 41, a salesman came through, my brother happened to be home too, and my brother was about 13 or 14 and this man was selling tractors and he just tried to persuade my dad to buy a tractor. I thought it was $1,000, it could have been $800 but I think it was $1,000. By golly, my dad bought that tractor. So, my brother, who was 14 at the time, learned to drive it. So, they worked with the tractor after that. We still hoed corn and stuff; they used the tractor for plowing. Prior to that my dad would just plow with one horse and one plow and after he got done work on the railroad, he would plow after he got done with chores in the evening. Sometimes, my mother and my brother and I would do the chores (we only had 14 cows but we milked them by hand), my dad would eat supper after his work on the railroad and then he would go and plow. On Saturday, he would plow those big fields with that one plow. Mother would give me water in a quart jar to take to him to give him a drink. I would sit on the end and just watch him. I can just see him now, trying to walk in that furrow with that one horse and plow. It seemed like he went so far and then turned around and come back. But that’s how they plowed, that’s how he plowed. I used to think how tired he must have been working on the railroad; he worked as a laborer right on the tracks and used a pick, because they always worked around the ties on the railroad. He used to come home really slumped over because that was all day they were bent over. He worked hard. Then he plowed, I suppose I didn’t appreciate it then, but I do now when I think back at how hard that must have for him and how tired he must have been.
Then they got the tractor and that was nice because when we went to haul hay, we used the tractor and when we cut hay, had a hay rake and then it would rake the hay. My mother and I and my brother (unless he was helping with something else), would put the hay into hay piles. They are just piles of hay all over. Then if it rained, we would have to go back the next day and scatter the hay and then re-pile it again. Then of course we had the wagon, and I remember the horses. I suppose when the tractor came we did the same thing. You would pile the hay wagon with loose hay and haul it to the barn. My job was to drive the tractor, my mother’s job was (into the pile of hay you used to have to put a great big fork, to bring up the pile of hay), that was her job to get that fork in. It was hard, she would try with all of her might and then you would lock it and it would take this great big pile of hay up and it would hit the pulley on the ceiling and it would go real fast to the mow. My brother and dad would be in the mow and they would have to take the hay away to the sides with the forks for the next load to come. So, that was my job and I used to do that with the horses too. If you had a horse, before you had the tractor, you would pull the pulley up; the horse would pull it. When we got the tractor, I drove the tractor and that was an easy job. Mother did the fork thing and my brother and my dad were up in the mow.
Then, maybe I was a senior in high school, they got a used hay loader, and that was wonderful. After you raked the hay, the hay loader would go along the rows and pick it up into the hay wagon. That saved a lot of work. Then after I left home, they were able to hire someone to bale hay that became easier. When the man would come when he had time, who had a hay baler, they would pay him, and he would bale the hay. So, life became easier on the farm. Also, after I was in high school, my dad bought a used weeder, it had prongs and you could go through the corn with that. It was wide and it would pretty much take care of the weeds, so we didn’t have to hoe corn as much. Once in a while, you would have to go and check up the rows but that was easier. Now people don’t hoe, we hoed everything, now farm kids don’t have to hoe. People don’t hoe because they have all of the appliances and machinery. Haying became much easier. With the tractor, things became easier. When I grew up it was still very hard with horses. I remember one horse died so we only had one horse, which was right before we got the tractor. Before I went to high school, during my growing up years it was much harder to farm. Farmers worked very hard.
Interviewer: Did you do your own butchering?
Arline Hido: We never butchered cows or calves at our house, but we did butcher a pig, always one a year maybe twice. It seems like maybe we did butcher two times sometimes, two pigs, but I kind of just remember one at a time. Then mother would can the pork. They had a smokehouse for the ham. We would make lard, if I can remember it was cutting (I didn’t like the job) the fat off of the meat and then mother would put it on the stove and it would cook down to something. Then, when the liquid got cold that was your lard. Then you would have bacon too. We never butchered cattle because we only had 14 cows and when they had calves, you picked out the ones that you wanted to raise. Once in a while, you would pick out the ones that you wanted to sell. I can remember once in a while my dad would sell a calf or two but usually my dad kept them and raise them into cows.
I forgot to mention that when your oats and your wheat or rye was dry and ready to be cut, they were tall and dry and ready, someone would come with a binder. I can just remember it going around, it would cut the wheat and the oats, and it tied it and threw it out. Then we would have to set it up. You would go out and pick up the wheat or the oak shucks and you would put maybe the four and the fifth one across. I can remember one night, after milking, the binder man came. My dad said that we had to stack the wheat because the dew would make it damp in the morning, so I remember all of us stacking the wheat under moonlight, but you could see real good. We would stack all of the wheat into piles and then you would put it into a wagon and whenever you were ready to do that. Then you had to get a thrashing machine to thrash it and get the grain separated from the straw. The neighbors would help; everybody that you called came for thrashing day. Then, mother and I would prepare a big meal for the thrashers. We would put a lot of hot water on so there would be hot water. We would put out galvanized tubs so that the men could get washed because they were all black from thrashing. Then we would make a meal and mother would have baked pies. We would have a big meal in our house, however many thrashers there were, which I don’t remember, whether there were 5, 6, or 7, I don’t know.
Interviewer: Who had the thrashing machine?
Arline Hido: Some man would have a thrashing machine. Not necessarily in the close neighborhood, but in the area. You would hear about him, then you would ask him when he was available, and eventually he would come. Sometimes you had to wait a while.
I wanted to tell you too, that we had chickens on the farm too. Not a lot of them, but we had chickens. Mother would let them out of the coop sometimes and they would just be so joyful to run around. So, we had our own eggs from the chickens and every now and then, she would kill them for Sunday. Us kids would go and hide because you know how they kill the chickens! Mother would take an axe and chop the chicken’s head off, it would go without a head, going crazy, and the blood would scatter. We would hide, we wanted to see but we didn’t want to get spattered with blood. We would always hide somewhere in back of the building and watch until the chicken was dead. Of course, there was the job of cleaning the chicken coup and stuff like that; you know you had to do it. I had to do it too! Then they always had 2 or 3 pigs. My dad and my brothers would clean the pigpen, but my mother and I would do the chicken coop more than once. That wasn’t a fun job either, cleaning that out. You did what you had to do on a farm. It was work! Some things you had to do everyday, everyday.
When I was a senior in high school, they got a portable milking machine. It had wheels and it would do one cow at a time. That was help because my dad could go in the field, even though, my mother and I would do milking fine, when the men were in the fields. When they had the portable machine that became easier. I began milking cows when I was 8 years old. I didn’t have to but I learned how to milk cows. I could probably milk one now, well, probably not because I have arthritic fingers. A few years back I still could have milked a cow. We had cats, kittens, but my dad never let us take them into the house. They were to stay in the barn. When I was small we always used to play with the kittens outside, but we just weren’t allowed to bring them in. If dad weren’t home, I would sneak a kitten in. Mother wouldn’t say anything. He didn’t want any dogs or cats in the house. It was fun growing up on the farm. It was hard work, but we didn’t know any better. In my room where I slept, more than once I would wake up and there was frost all on the top of the quilt and where I breathed it was frozen. I probably had ton of blankets on. Sometimes it was so heavy you couldn’t move you stayed in one place! But you got used to that! You didn’t know the comfort that I know now. Having an electric blanket, I feel guilty, when I grew up in the cold. We didn’t complain. I just don’t remember the children complaining, because we just did not know that there was anything better. Now kids want everything because they know and there is always something better. I am privileged to be here where I have a furnace, a bathroom, hot water and an electric blanket. I mean I don’t have a great house, it’s just a plain home, nothing elaborate, but it’s so much better than what I grew up with [better than the farm]. So, I feel very lucky.
So, now we are going to go to businesses. The only thing that I remember was Rodak’s store, there by Franklin Center School, they had groceries and they had a gas station too. Then there was a feed mill next to our school and a Mr. Huyck owned it. Then Ted Roan also had a feed mill in back of the school at one time. Then there was a cider mill right in the town of Franklin Center. If you were walking home during cider time, we would stop at the cider mill and he would give us kids (there was probably 3, 4, or 5 of us walking home part way or whole way, I think I was the last kid down) he would give us a drink of sweet cider and I remember that. Those were the only three businesses that I remember.
Interviewer: Do you have any notes for the next question?
Arline Hido: I have here, what was the price of milk and bread? I don’t remember that stuff or house value, I really don’t remember. I only know that when I was 15, I went to baby-sit at my sisters in Erie and before they went out, she put a dime in my hand and the store was just a little ways from the house. She gave me a dime for a loaf of bread, I just remember going, and getting a long loaf of bread for 10 cents and that was already in 1942. I didn’t buy the groceries or anything so I don’t know what things cost.
Interviewer: Do you remember any Civil War or World War I Veterans?
Arline Hido: No, not around our farm area. I just don’t remember ever talking to any of them.
Interviewer: We already talked about churches.
Arline Hido: Our Roman Catholic Church was in Crossingville, it was about 7 miles away, and we would go on Sunday. We would do all of our chores, and come in and get washed up dressed and go to church on Sunday.
Interviewer: Do you remember who the priest was?
Arline Hido: It was Father Lewis J. Kelly. The only other church that I remember was a Methodist Church in Franklin Center and it’s still there. Then we really didn’t go anywhere. There was always something to do. In the fall, we husked corn in the barn. My children now say to me, do you have a corn a husker; did you have a corn husker? And I didn’t. They wondered what one looked like. I know what one looks like, but you know you didn’t save that stuff. Now, it would be interesting to have one, but we didn’t save them. We would husk corn in the autumn; I can remember my older brother still being home, the one that was the foreign diplomat. My first brother was a teacher, the second a foreign diplomat and my third brother worked on a Pennsylvania railroad as a dispatcher.
I can remember my two brothers, my mother and my dad and me husking corn in the barn and we would sing! That’s how I learned some cowboy songs. I can remember my brother singing When the works all done this fall and May I sleep in your barn tonight Mister? Those were two of his favorite songs. I learned them. Then we sang Steven Foster songs because we learned them in grade school. I think we must have had singing once a week or something at our Elementary School. I learned Way down upon a Swanee River and all of those songs. We would sing, so we had fun husking corn and that was fun! Then my mother and I would husk corn too out in the field. Even after I was married, our first baby was born 2 1/2 years after I was married, so I would take him too out in the field in his little buggy. We would husk corn out in the field because after you cut your corn with a sickle and you put it in a corn shuck, and then when it dried up, you could go in the field and husk corn. Then the men would bring some into the barn, so you had some in the barn in the winter and if it was still nice in the fall, you could do it out in the field. You could clean your corn and throw in a bushel. That was nice, I liked doing that. I didn’t like hoeing corn and I didn’t like hauling hay. Most of the hay would go down your back and in your hair. It became easier when you got a bailer. At that time, I was older though. Hauling hay and hoeing corn, I didn’t like but the rest of it wasn’t bad. I didn’t mind milking cows and things like that. We worked everyday.
Every morning when you got up, you wondered what Mother had in store for you that day. There is always, always work to do on the farm. My mother was outside everyday working. Then she would come in the house and always cook supper. Lunch, you know we had whatever. Then she would always cook supper. She would get washed up and even on Sundays, she would put on one of those aprons that covered your entire front. She would bake bread every Saturday; she would knead bread and bake bread for us for all week. She made soup out of everything that was in the garden. We would use up everything! They would also go pick mushrooms sometimes in the wood. Talk about cholesterol, my dad especially, he had eggs almost every day and he lived to be almost 87! I don’t know where the cholesterol was I don’t understand it. He had eggs with bacon, he had eggs with mushrooms, and he had just plain scrambled eggs. Sometimes French toast, seems like he ate an awful lot of eggs and he lived until that age, my mother too! They didn’t know about cholesterol and stuff, sometimes it puzzles me. Mother lived to 84 1/2 and my father almost 87 and they just ate whatever. Dad liked eggs, and they had a lot of eggs, so they ate a lot of eggs. It didn’t seem to harm their health. My dad and mother, when I was growing up, never went to the doctor. They didn’t have one. If there was something wrong, I only remember them buying a big can of salve, it was red, and it had some lines in it and when you took the lid off, it was black, like black salve. They used that for almost everything. I know my dad was gored by a bull once. It just, his hand was just awful, there was no place to go. I thought he should have gone to the doctor. Mother said, “No, she would take care of it.” She ripped an old clean sheet, they put that salve on and they wrapped it up in that sheet, eventually it healed. I don’t know how. If they ever did anything, they would just use that salve or just never went to the doctor and that’s the truth. I never went to the doctor until I was already married and mother had a heart seizure, it was a slight heart attack. We had hoed potatoes all afternoon, mother and I and I had my first son in a “butle buggy.” He was 3 months old. A “butle buggy” was like a buggy, it had this thing over to keep the sun out, but I am sure that he was warm. We hoed corn and it was 90 degrees. We didn’t know how hot it was, it was hot though. We hoed the corn and potatoes and we came home to get supper and then start doing chores. We had gotten supper and eaten supper, then we were going out, and I think my dad had gone after the cows. The cows were in the barn. My husband had come home from work and everybody had eaten. We were all going to the barn, mother came out of the house, and she fell.
That was the first time I ever remember my mother being sick or anything. Probably, she over worked from hoeing like that. She was in her 60’s. She was about 64-65 then. That was the first they ever had a doctor. If you got cut or got bruised from machinery anyway, you just didn’t go to the doctor. You just didn’t know any different. I guess they used that salve for everything, I don’t know! Sometime when I think of it, the doctors are so busy now; people are always going to the doctor, even kids. We just didn’t go it just puzzles me. I had chicken pox and measles. Those were the only childhood diseases I remembering having growing up. I didn’t have to go to the doctor. Somebody, maybe the school nurse gave you a “quarantine” and you had to put that in your window so that nobody would come because it was catchy. I remember one Easter, we had chicken pox, and my sisters were married and they brought us kids Easter jellybeans. Like I said, my mother and father never bought stuff for the kids. No toys, we didn’t know about that stuff. My sister ran in, put the stuff on the table, and ran out because we were quarantined. That I remember! I guess we weren’t sickly kids and my parents weren’t sickly either because we didn’t need to go to the doctor, we didn’t even have one. Until I was a freshman in high school, a cow stepped on my foot and broke it [and I needed a cast]. There was a doctor in Edinboro, Dr. Harold Ghering. My parents made me go; so then he took an x-ray and I had a broken foot and then I went for 8 weeks on crutches, as a freshman in high school. That’s the only time I remember going to the doctor. Like I told you, we didn’t go, if you went anywhere you just walked.
If there was a school function, [in elementary school] you just walked. We didn’t say, “Dad, take me!” We just walked a mile in the night. Sometimes mother came with me. We had “Box Socials” and we had plays in the evenings sometimes. It was a Christmas play, maybe a Halloween play, where you got dressed up but you always walked. So, we had those things to attend to at school. There was also a dance hall in Franklin Center but I don’t ever remember ever going to a dance there but my sisters did. My sisters loved to dance. They were no longer living at home, but my mother told me that they would go to dances. When they would come home on weekends from there work, they would go to dances, they both loved to dance. That’s about it. I just remember walking to school in snowdrifts, very high snowdrifts. Nobody cleaned the roads; I don’t know why that was. My mother would always say to me, I walked to school with my brother, the one that was older than me, maybe two years. Then my younger brother, he was a grade higher, mother would always tell him to hurry me over the drifts, because it was just a lot of snow to walk through, you know to go to school. I froze my heels on my feet. I had boots and I had to wear long underwear and cotton stockings. I froze the heels of my feet and they got real red and swollen. I never went to the doctor again; mother would soak them in hot water. I don’t know what else we did. Then my dad bought me a bigger size shoe so that I could walk because my heels were swollen. But, I still went to school. This finger, I froze and the nail fell off. To this day, when it gets cold, it’s still numb. It’s funny; it still gets numb when it is wintertime. But that was all that ever happened. We just walked and walked, everybody walked. The only children who didn’t walk were from Francis Pennsylvania and I think that was maybe 5 miles or something. They would come in the winter in a covered wagon. Sometimes, they would come in an open wagon and he had horses. I don’t know if he ever had a vehicle sometime, and I don’t remember what it would have been. He would bring a group from Francis, not very many, maybe 7 or 8 kids; you know something like that. The rest of us walked. If you had to walk a mile or two, I guess you did. But it wasn’t so bad.
We did have a Christmas tree at Christmas. We would go to the woods, my brothers and bring home a tree. I think that my sisters, since they were working, must have got my mother some Christmas bulbs. Then when I was in high school, I told my mother, we had electricity and I asked her if I could buy some Christmas bulbs. She said, “We have bulbs!” I said, “I mean electric bulbs that you plug in and there would be electric lights on the tree.” She said she didn’t care. She gave me money and I bought some when I was in high school. I think I was just a freshman. I had seen them on trees and I knew about them so we had a string of electric lights on the tree. I guess I was about 14 and that Christmas I can remember turning out the [room] lights and just sitting there, just like I did with the radio that fascinated me. I just watched those lights because it was so new, something wonderful. I’ll tell you, when you don’t have those things and you get them for the first time, it’s just amazing and you really enjoy them. So, I remember the first time that we had that string of lights. Then of course when I got married and we lived there six years, of course we got whatever kind of lights you would buy. But I mean I remember the first string of lights that we ever had on the tree.
We always had a big supper on Christmas Eve and Roman Catholics couldn’t eat meat. My mother would make little things from bread, they were just little bits of bread and she would bake them, and I remember when it was time to eat she would pour hot water over them. She would put poppy seed in one huge bowl and homemade cheese (we always made our own cheese and butter) in the other. Sometime sauerkraut and that is what we had for Christmas Eve supper. We kids liked that stuff! It’s just amazing what you eat and learn to eat because that’s what you have. So Christmas Eve supper was important because the whole family came, my married sisters and my older brother, they would all come home Christmas Eve. Then, as the years passed and we grew up, my sisters would bring us Christmas gifts. Prior to that, we never got gifts from my parents, when we were growing up because they didn’t do that in Europe. The main thing was going to church at Christmas and it was Christ’s birthday. They weren’t going to give gifts to somebody else; it was Christ’s day. They just didn’t give gifts. My sisters did though, they were working and they were married, we were still small. They would bring us gifts for Christmas, something. Then I have to tell you that when I went to the first Christmas in the first grade, I remember as many things you forget when you are old. My children will tell me things and say, remember mother this or remember when that. I say, “No, I don’t remember that at all.” Because your life goes by so fast, it’s only bits and pieces that you remember. I remember my first Christmas in the first grade, and I had never seen Santa Claus before! Here comes this man with a red suit, and mom said it was Santa Claus. I met Santa Claus, he gave us each an orange, a box of hard candy and it was in a little box, and it had a little string that you carried it with. I was just thrilled, we never had oranges at home and candy, I don’t know if I remember candy at all, unless my sisters would bring it sometime. I ran home that night, you know I couldn’t wait to get home to show her what this man in a red suit had given us, this big orange and this candy. I was just so excited and so thrilled. Can you imagine that? I just thought that was the greatest day in my life, I just couldn’t wait to show my mother. I told her that man was called “Santa Claus”.
Then we enjoyed the “Box Socials” at school. It was just fun growing up, stuff was so simple. We were just so appreciative of all of those extra things; there were extra activities at school. I had never gone to a movie until, I think it was the 8th grade, our teacher, Mrs. Callaway; she was going to gift us all and we were going to go to a movie. I don’t remember who drove or how many of us there were. I don’t remember how many kids were in school, maybe 20 of us or 15. I would have to see some elementary school pictures. But anyway, we went to a movie. She probably had some drivers to drive us. I remember going to a movie and it was an afternoon movie, if I remember. That was a thrill, seeing my first movie. Then, later on, my sister would take me on occasion too. One of my married sisters would take me to a movie now and then. So, we would see a movie on occasion. But really didn’t go anywhere. Then in high school, they had skating parties on a Friday night. You would catch a bus, and somebody would catch a bus at Lavery Corners, I remember catching a bus on Friday night and we would go skating to Shadeland, which was a skating rink that I don’t even think exists now. That was our fun activity time in high school, going roller-skating. That was fun! Compared to now, life was very simple, but it was a happy life. I adored my parents very much; I would always follow my mother and did what my mother did. It was always work on the farm, but I didn’t have anybody to play with. We hardly knew what play was, we just worked. It wasn’t always hard work, sometimes she would give us a pail and she would go too and you would knock bugs off of the potatoes, insects into a pail. It was just stuff like that.
Sometimes when the beans were dry, she would pull them out of the ground, the vines would all be dry, and she would put them in a burlap bag and bring them home. She would ask us kids when we were little to stomp on them and we did, we did a dance. That made the beans come out of the dry pods and then you would take the stalks out of the bag and shake them to make sure there wasn’t anything left in them. Then you would have your bean kernels left in there and then on a windy day you would take a container and take so many out and let the wind blow the dust out of them. Then you would put them in a big, big pan. That’s how you cleaned the beans and harvested the beans. Then of course, when you brought them in the house to use, you would soak them and if there were any dirt or dust, it would rise to the top. Then you would do it over again, so that you would have nice clean beans. Mom made bean soup, pumpkin soup, squash soup, yellow bean soup, green bean soup, and big kettles of soup that we ate with homemade bread. She made butter. We had a butter churn, it was aluminum, that would be about this high and it would churn butter. We would take turns churning butter. I would remember we would yell, “Mom, when do you know its butter?” We would get so tired. She would say, “You will know when butter starts because it will kind of lump up. So, we made our own homemade butter and homemade bread.
On Friday, we couldn’t eat meat, so mother would [sometimes] make cornmeal and it would be the day she made butter. I just can’t imagine kids’ eating this now that’s why I am telling you. This hot cornmeal, we would put in a bowl and then she would heat some of her butter, heat it so that it would be hot liquid. Then we would make a trough in there, a little hole like you did for gravy in potatoes. This was in the cornmeal and you would put the hot liquid butter, oh, we just loved that. Then you had a tall glass of buttermilk because that was buttermilk where you made the butter. I said I can’t imagine even my grandkids, any kids eating that for a meal. I don’t know, we liked it, we didn’t know any better, we didn’t have any better and it was good. I don’t know if I would drink a glass of buttermilk now myself, but then you know we had a tall glass of buttermilk with that cornbread and hot butter. That was our Friday meal; we ate other stuff on Friday too, but never meat. Sometimes my mother made a big kettle of cream bean soup, she would put carrots [and potatoes] in it, and I don’t remember everything but it was delicious. We always had homemade bread for the week. So, life was not bad on the farm for me. [Editor’s note—not on video, farm like is a good life.] But you know my children ask me questions and I say, “You know, my generation was the last generation that would ever hoe.” Back then you know, you hoed everything, now you would never hoe, nobody hoes corn, or digs potatoes by hand. Farming is so different. It was kind of primitive when I grew up, but now it is so much more modern.
During high school, we would have at least two days; usually a Thursday and a Friday off for teacher institute and then the high school kids, we would look for work for those two days. It was usually Marion Mills Coburn, she would help her uncle plant cabbage and there were a few of us who would pull the cabbage plants and put them in somewhere for them to plant. I did that and you know you got paid for that. We would pick potatoes for Paul Woods and you would get 7 cents a bushel. You would pick potatoes as the potato digger would dig them out and you would pick them up in these bushels that were small and round at the bottom and they would come this high. Then we always worked two, and then the person in the next row would come and help you when you had enough in a bag, we picked them in a bag, and you would scoot the bag along. When you had enough you would go back with somebody and they would help you pour it. Or else maybe, we picked in pails sometime too, I don’t quite remember. Somebody would help you hold the bag and you would pour in there. I think we got 7 cents a bushel. You know, for two days you could make a little money. That was terrific because then you could spend it on what you wanted to buy. You didn’t get spending money. Getting ready for high school especially, my mother would put water on the stove to heat and we came in from the barn to wash for high school. You always smelled of the barn. I always put a kerchief on my head to make sure none of my hair was sticking out. You didn’t want to go to school smelling like the barn, especially your hair. I would come in and wash with that hot water, then I would spill all of the water out and start again, because I wanted to be sure that I didn’t have any smell of the barn on me. I probably did and of course, you dress, you would change your barn clothes and get dressed for high school. That’s just the way it was farmers are farmers.
Interviewer: Is there anything that we missed that you would like to talk about?
Arline Hido: I don’t know I think I told you my life history!
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Revised: 02/02/11.