Rickard, Galuska, Pertl Familes

MARTHA PERTL RICKARD

LILLIAN PERTL GALUSKA

JOHN GALUSKA

RUTH ROBINSON PERTL

Interviewer: David Neal Interviewed on: April 16, 2003

Interviewer: State your names and birthdates.

Martha Rickard: Martha Rickard R-I-C-K-A-R-D, and my maiden name was Pertl P-E-R-T-L. Date of birth December 9, 1923.

Lillian Galuska: Lillian Pertl Galuska that’s my name. Date of birth June 21, 1919. G-A-L-U-S-K-A.

John Galuska: John Galuska, G-A-L-U-S-K-A. I was born September 12, 1912.

Ruth Pertl: Ruth Robinson Pertl, I was married to Frank Pertl, P-E-R-T-L. I was born December 26, 1927.

Interviewer: Where have all you lived in Franklin Township?

Martha Rickard: Mohawk Road, just about 2 miles the way the crow flies on Mohawk Road.

Interviewer: You all three grew up there?

Martha Rickard: Well, she wasn’t. (pointing to Interviewee #2) She lived in Albion and Cranesville.

Lillian Galuska: And John, where did you live?

John Galuska: Ivoray, they have a sign on that New Road, on the corner there. It’s spelled Ivoray, it’s wrong. It’s Ivarea. They have the Population Road wrong. I don’t know who named it Population Road, it’s Ivarea Road.

Interviewer: Did any of you live in different places in the township?

Lillian Galuska: Fairview, we’re in Fairview, right on the main street, Route 20. It’s called something else now. We lived in that house 60 years.

Martha Rickard: On Route 98. I used to live in Albion until the tornado blew me out!

Interviewer: You were caught in that tornado?

Martha Rickard: I sure did!

Interviewer: So you guys lived on and off in and out of the township?

Martha Rickard: Oh yes. I lived in Anderson, Indiana when I went to college.

Interviewer: Let’s talk about your home in your early years. Did you have a farm? How was your home heated?

Martha Rickard: Yes. It was heated with coal and wood. I remember mom and dad went out and cut the wood, brought it in with horses; they didn’t have a chain saw. I saw mom and dad saw the logs back and forth (motioning with arm, back and forth). The small pieces were for the kitchen stove and the larger ones went into the heater in the living room.

Interviewer: You had two stoves?

Martha Rickard: In the living room, we had a nice fancy heater. In the kitchen, was the big one that had a reservoir on one side and the warming ovens on top, the oven under. One side was where you put the wood in and of course, the heat circulated around the oven and it heated the water in the reservoir on the other side. When the stove was going, we had hot water (laughing).

Interviewer: Do you remember when you got indoor plumbing?

Lillian Galuska: That was ’48 or ’49.

Interviewer: What about a toilet?

Martha Rickard: About the same time.

Interviewer: What about electricity?

John Galuska: That was ’46.

Martha Rickard: That was in ’45 or ’46. When I was in college, Ronnie was a little toddler; he wasn’t even a year old. And they were just putting it in then, and he was born in ’44. So, it must have been in ’45.

Interviewer: What about telephone?

Martha Rickard: Oh, that came quite a bit later.

Lillian Galuska: We were long gone from here. We were married in ’42, so after that, I wasn’t here anymore.

Interviewer: Do you remember who in the area had the first electricity, telephone?

Martha Rickard: Electricity, whatever lines came in first, they had it. And telephone, I don’t remember who had it first.

Ruth Pertl: Naculich so it would be in 1952. (inaudible)

Interviewer: What about radios or televisions?

Martha Rickard: Oh, we had a battery-operated radio. Television, I don’t remember.

John Galuska: Television didn’t come out until about the ‘50s.

Interviewer: What about washing machines?

Martha Rickard: We had a gas operated one. Before the gas operated one, we had one of those that you pushed like this (pushing arms forward and back). And the two tubs went opposite. Just like a washboard. We had a wringer that you turned with a crank

John Galuska: Washboards.

Interviewer: So, you had a gas powered one?

Martha Rickard: Yes.

Interviewer: What about refrigeration?

Martha Rickard: That was in the late forties.

Interviewer: You had an icebox before that?

Martha Rickard: We had an icebox.

Interviewer: Who had the first car or truck in the area?

Martha Rickard: Clair Wright had the first one.

Lillian Galuska: You’re probably the first one on your road with a car!

John Galuska: (inaudible) A 1920s Model T.

Interviewer: Let’s talk about family members. Were there others?

Martha Rickard: Frank was the oldest, then Lillian, then me, and then a sister, Rose.

Interviewer: When was Frank born?

Martha Rickard: 1917.

Interviewer: The younger sister, Rose?

Martha Rickard: She was born in 1925.

Interviewer: What were your parents’ names?

Martha Rickard: Frank and Antonia.

Interviewer: Do you know your mother’s maiden name?

Martha Rickard: Yes, Feres, F-E-R-E-S.

Interviewer: Their dates of birth?

Martha Rickard: Dad was October 5, 1885. (inaudible conversation) Mom was December 24, 1889.

Interviewer: Were they originally from around here?

Martha Rickard: No, they were from Czechoslovakia, and came to America. Dad came first, after...

Lillian Galuska: About 1912. Then he went back and got my mother and they were married in Pittsburgh.

Interviewer: Then they lived in Pittsburgh for a while?

Interviewee #: Yes, then they moved up toward Meadville, then Cranesville, then they moved out into the country on a little farm, where I was born. Then they wanted a bigger farm, so they moved up here. And this is something that Mike Naculich told me. He said that there was a realtor that came and was trying to get people to buy around here, all the people that were in the Slovak ethnics, to make this a little Slovak community. I didn’t know that before. He said his parents told him that. He said, “This was going to be a Slovak community.” The realtor by the name of Dowman? told these people that “this was going to be a Slovak community just like back in Europe!” Well, it didn’t.

Interviewer: Now, when you were growing up, could you speak English?

Martha Rickard: Yes, when Frank started school, back in Keepville, he couldn’t speak English because they spoke Czech or German at home. They spoke German when they didn’t want us kids to know what the secrets were.

Interviewer: So they didn’t teach you that?

Martha Rickard: No. The Czech, yes, we could all speak Czech. In fact, I can still read a little bit of it. Frank learned how, then, in first grade he said the teacher put him on her lap and taught him everything so that he could speak English. And that’s the way mother learned, too. She learned right along with him. Because Dad went to night school here, in America, when he came. So, that’s the way Frank learned, but we talked it at home, but then, as soon as us kids were in school, we talked English. Then, everyone talked English.

Lillian Galuska: In fact my mother would always say when we were talking Czech, she’d say, “Talk English so I can learn how.”

Interviewer: So she learned from you?

Lillian Galuska: Right.

Interviewer: What about you, sir, your family, your siblings?

John Galuska: I got two sisters. Their names, Margaret and Olga.

Interviewer: Did they get married?

Martha Rickard: They weren’t getting married.

Interviewer: And your parents?

John Galuska: My mother’s name was Anna. Her maiden name was Sabol. My Dad is the same as mine, John Galuska.

Interviewer: Were they originally from around here or did they come over also?

John Galuska: They came over from Czechoslovakia.

Interviewer: Did you guys have any other relatives in the township besides your parents?

Martha Rickard: No.

Interviewer: No other aunts or uncles that came over?

Interviewees: No.

Interviewer: In your earliest memories, who were your friends and your parents’ friends?

Martha Rickard: Well, we lived out in Keepville. I remember that as a little girl, because I started first grade there. Then they moved during my first year. Oh yes, there were lots of friends. All the neighbors were all friends!

Interviewer: Who were your neighbors?

Martha Rickard: Merle Graves and Ida and John and Junior. Then the Christofeks (?), but they moved to Pittsburgh. And the Weis family lived across the road. Culver’s lived north of us. The Barth’s, and then they moved into Pittsburgh. But the Barth’s always sent us packages at Christmastime! (laughing) That was fun!

Interviewer: Do you remember any of your parents’ friends?

Martha Rickard: That was my parents’ friends, too. So, the whole family, yeah. And around here, they had lots of friends, too. Clair Wright and his wife. Of course, they’re both gone. And the Bartock’s and they’re both gone. And the Bumbera’s and they’re both gone. But they were all older folks so they didn’t have any kids our age, except the Naculich's and you spoke with Mike. And Katherine gave me her write out. They were friends. And Catherine said their friends were Helen Peters, Irene Rodak and the Pertl girls. So that’s the only ones that I know of that had kids our age.

Interviewer: What about you, John, growing up. Who were your friends and your parents’ friends?

John Galuska: Jim Sike(?) was my friend. (lived next door) I had a cousin, Mark Estok. Mrs. Estok, she was my mother’s sister. She lived out on Crane Road. That’s about it, I guess.

Interviewer: Anyone want to talk about a fondest childhood memory?

Martha Rickard: I remember one thing at Christmastime. The Naculich’s were Catholic and we were Protestant, but they were good friends. They invited us over for their Christmas celebration.

Lillian Galuska: Which is January 7.

Martha Rickard: So we went over and that was only a half a mile from our house. And my brother Frank pulled the little sled, and he pulled Rose in it because Rose was little yet and she didn’t want to walk that far. But we all walked down there. And it was amazing to me; their house was plain, but comfortable. That was before electricity came in, too. They had a lot of candles and lamps. And on the dining room table, I asked Katherine, “What is this, what’s under here?” because it’s kind of rounded (shapes with hands). And she said, “That’s straw on the table.” “Why straw?” And she said, “Because Christ was born in a manger and this is the way we celebrate the remembrance of Christmas.” And that was new to me. I didn’t know anything about that before.

Interviewer: They put straw on the table?

Martha Rickard: Straw on the table and had the tablecloth over it. Then she had some decorations in the middle of the table. And that was so interesting to me; I learned something there (laughing). I remember when we still lived in Keepville; we used to go swimming down in the creek. And I wasn’t allowed to go because I was too little (laughing). But out here in Franklin Township, the memories…when we used to walk, which was two miles, because we lived on Mohawk Road, so we walked a mile this way and a mile the other way, we used to walk to Sunday School at the Methodist Church here at Franklin Center. I had this one teacher, I just loved her! Then we walked back home. We only walked when it was nice weather. When we went to Franklin Center School, I started in Francis School the first grade, then I think I started third grade at Franklin Center. At Franklin Center School, the teacher there always had programs that people could come to. I remember they had the lunch box…and people would bid on it. We had box socials and that was fun!

Interviewer: Did you participate in them?

Martha Rickard: Oh, yeah, we participated in them. At the end of the school year, they always had a picnic. And all the parents were supposed to bring something, and I remember my mother making potato salad for that. And I was so excited because since school was out, we could go barefoot if we wanted to! But I could not go barefoot! And to this day, I can’t stand to even go barefoot in the house!

Lillian Galuska: Really?

Martha Rickard: Really!

Lillian Galuska: I didn’t know that (laughing)!

Interviewer: Anybody else got any childhood memories?

John Galuska: Oh, we done a lot of things.

Interviewer: Do a lot of hunting and fishing growing up?

John Galuska: No. We hunted crows. There was a bounty for crow’s feet! Five cents for a pair of crow’s feet. And a shotgun shell cost five cents (everyone laughing)!

Interviewer: Where did you take your crows’ feet, to get your bounty?

John Galuska: There was a Sports Store in Erie. The Erie Sports Store, next to Western Auto over there. They would take them. Now I guess it’s against the law to shoot them (laughing).

Lillian Galuska: Well, they used to shoot them because they’d plant the cornfield and the crows were out there picking the corn…

John Galuska: The crows would pull the corn out as they went.

Interviewer: What about fondest Christmas gifts?

Martha Rickard: To me, the fondest Christmas gift was always crayons. I wanted crayons and by the time you got them at Christmas, and used them all year, you needed another set of crayons. But I loved the crayons and we’d get coloring books, and usually homemade pajamas, and an orange and some candies.

Lillian Galuska: To get an orange back then…Clair Wright brought over some oranges this one time and that for us was a real treat!

John Galuska: Christmas time, we’d go in the woods and get a hemlock tree.

Interviewer: Let’s talk about marriage. Who did you marry?

Martha Rickard: I married Michael Rickard. And the way I met him, my sister Lillian introduced me to him because he was going to Erie Business College and staying at a place that Lillian stayed at.

Lillian Galuska: I used to work at Lord Manufacturing.

Martha Rickard: So, introduced me to him. We started dating. And he went on to Anderson, Indiana to college. And about a year later, I started college at Anderson. And then, half a year later, we were married back in 1943. I graduated high school in 1942. I went to Edinboro High School. And that was something because we didn’t have the school buses then. We rode with a neighbor and I walked a mile south to get a ride with that neighbor, then he took us in too, because he went to school there, too. So, there were five of us in that car, sometimes seven. Then the next three years, Mom and Dad knew the Billings from Edinboro and they found us a room to stay there. So, we would pack up everything, all our books, and enough food because we did our own cooking at this lady’s house. And stayed there Monday through Friday. And my brother would pick us up, and took us home for the weekend.

Interviewer: Want to go through your children’s names and birthdates?

Martha Rickard: I have a son, Ronald. He was born May 14, 1944; Brenda, August 5, 1949; and Janice, April 25, 1954; and Charlotte, October 16, 1955; and Becky, December 27, 1959; and Debbie, November 30, 1962. Six kids and I have 21 grand kids, 3 great grand kids, and 2 great grand kids on the way!

Interviewer: Now it’s your turn (Interviewee #2)

Lillian Galuska: We were married…we dated for a while, and then we broke up. Then we dated again and got married in 1942, in June, right on my birthday. We just celebrated our 60^th anniversary last year. This year is the 61^st. We moved right into Fairview and we were married in June. In the fall, we moved to Fairview, lived in a house across the road from where we are now. And where we are now, that house went for sale in the spring and we’ve been in the same house ever since.

Interviewer: Names and birthdates of your children?

Lillian Galuska: We have three girls. The oldest one is Jean and her birthday is December 17. The next one is Karen and her birthday is December 16, three years later.

Interviewer: What years were they?

Lillian Galuska: Jean was in 1943. Karen was three years later in 1946. Then, ten years later, we had our last daughter her name is Diane. She lives in the Washington, D.C. area. Karen lives there, too now

Martha Rickard: When was Diane born?

Lillian Galuska: Diane was born in November. She was due 15th of December. That would be the 15, 16 and 17 but she decided to come early, the 30th of November. (discussion among all-inaudible) Yeah, it was 1956, I remember now.

Ruth Pertl: I have three sons. The oldest one is Milton, nicknamed Laddie, we all know him by Laddie. He was born April 7, 1949. And Randy, the second son was born 1956. The youngest was Roger and he was born in 1961.

Interviewer: How about your husband?

Ruth Pertl: He died in 1990, a massive heart attack. He was a dairy farmer all his life. He also drove school bus for General McLane and Girard.

Interviewer: How did you meet?

Ruth Pertl: At Edinboro through their youngest sister Rose. She was going to college there, and I was going to college there. He came to pick her up. We eventually met at (I had seen him before) the City Mission, in Erie, when we went there for a service.

Interviewer: Any of you go on a honeymoon?

Lillian Galuska: We did.

Ruth Pertl: We went to Virginia and Washington, D.C. (hard to hear).

Lillian Galuska: You did better than we did. When we were married, it was during the war and there was…

John Galuska: You couldn’t get gas enough.

Lillian Galuska: So, we went to Lorraine, Ohio.

Interviewer: I’m from Lorraine, Ohio, actually. That’s where I was born. My family worked at the Ford plant there.

John Galuska: You got caves over there somewhere, Norwalk, Ohio. We went through those caves.

Lillian Galuska: Because we couldn’t go very far because of the gasoline situation.

Interviewer: Let’s talk about schools in the township.

Martha Rickard: I went to Francis School, grades one and two. And Franklin Center School, grades three through eight. But there was a Falls School just a little ways up here. I remember that building was still there when we moved on the farm. And us three girls walked up there one time and peeked in the school. Of course, it had been closed already. And Katherine Naculich said she started first grade there two months before we were transferred to Francis School, because she couldn’t speak English and the parents sent her there because her older brother was in school there. We went to Francis School and Franklin Center School. But I remember the Goodban School, and Eureka School, and Francis School is no longer there and Franklin Center School is no longer there, that’s an apartment.

Ruth Pertl: My oldest son went to the last year the Franklin Center School was open. He was in first grade there.

Martha Rickard: So was my daughter Brenda.

Interviewer: So you went there until eighth grade, then?

Martha Rickard: Then there was no way to get to high school, so I was home a year. Then, when the Lewis’ were driving to school, because Sam was the oldest, and he was already driving. So, I walked half a mile, got a ride with them, and went to Edinboro High School.

Interviewer: Was that the same with the rest of you? No?

Lillian Galuska: I went to Erie high school; first, it was East High, and then it was Strong Vincent. Two years, that was it.

Interviewer: What about you, John? Where did you go to school?

John Galuska: I went to Ivarea School that was in Elk Creek Township. It was on Ivarea corner there. We lived in Franklin Township but went to Ivarea School. It was half a mile walking.

Interviewer: Was that just through eighth grade?

John Galuska: Just eighth grade.

Interviewer: Where did you go after that?

John Galuska: I didn’t go anywhere.

Interviewer: Was that as far as you went?

John Galuska: Yeah, there was no school buses or anything, and the nearest school was seven miles away. And it was during the Depression.

Interviewer: What about you? Was it the same?

Ruth Pertl: I lived in Albion and Cranesville, and I went to Albion High School, graduated in 1945.

Interviewer: Do you remember any of your teachers?

Martha Rickard: Yes, I remember my first grade teacher at Francis School was Daisy Kelly. And then Millie Payne she was there and she was at Franklin Center School, too. Then it was Delbert Hayes. I think I only had him one year. Then Mrs. Cutchall from Girard-she was there two years. Then Mrs. Calloway was my last teacher at Franklin Center. They were both from Girard. And that’s the same with you (designating Interviewee #2).

Interviewer: What about your classmates? Do you remember any of them?

Martha Rickard: Eleanor Chinnock (?) in Franklin Center School. And Katherine and Mary Naculich and Helen Peters. Those were my girlfriends. There were the two Naculich boys, Charles and Steve. Then there was a younger Naculich boy, Mike, because there were two other Naculich children then. And the Scedors; there was a Mike Scedor and I don’t remember the other one’s name. They had a sister Betty. They had an older sister Mary, and they had a sister Betty. And I see her every once in a while in Giant Eagle in Edinboro. There weren’t too many kids in a little one-room school.

Interviewer: What kind of crops did you grow on your farm?

Martha Rickard: All the crops, corn, oats, wheat, rye, and buckwheat were the main crops. Dad used to take the wheat and the rye to a canning or cleaning mill and used to clean all the wheat and the rye. Then he took it to a mill down in Drakes Mills and ground it into flour cause mom had her own flour. We’d bake our own bread, both rye and wheat bread. We stored it in that extra bedroom. I remember we had a huge garden and Mom had strawberries. And Mom had current bushes and gooseberry bushes. She had some peach trees and she had one cherry tree. Lots of apple trees and good prunes!

Interviewer: What kind of equipment did you have for farming?

Martha Rickard: This was a fun time for me, too. During the haying season, Dad would let Rose and I on the hay wagon and the pay loader that would go along the roads, and they raked the hay into furrows and then you drive the wagon (glitch) and the horses would cut down the hay and I would be allowed to drive the horses. Then Dad told Frank to take over.(inaudible) They made lots of hay. They had a mowing machine with a big cutter on it. They had the drill to plant the oats and the wheat and the rye. They had a corn planter, a two-row corn planter.

Interviewer: Was all this horse drawn?

Martha Rickard: This was all horse drawn. Frank got his license to drive a car. Clair Wright, the neighbor taught him how to drive. Then we got an old 1926-1927 Chevy touring car because it had the isinglass windows that you could take on and off. Then after that we got a 1932 Chevy with windows you could roll up. So, that was fun. So then, we got a different car, and then Frank built that car into what he called a jalopy tractor. All the framework was there and he took off the body. I learned how to drive on that.

Interviewer: Any equipment shared with neighbors?

Martha Rickard: Dad had the binder for when they do the wheat and oats. The only equipment that was shared was a threshing machine. And that was Perry Mills here in Franklin Center. He went around to all the neighbors. Right down the line, he’d do the threshing for them. They’d bring him into the barn with the horses, the machine was there by the barn, and he would do the threshing.

Lillian Galuska: I remember that. That was a big day for the ladies. They’d cook big dinners for all these people who would help! A big job.

John Galuska: There were about a dozen men. We threshed with a steam engine, an upright steam engine. The horses would pull the thrashing machine all over and the steam engine would pull the wagon with water in it for steam.

Lillian Galuska: This is ancient (all laughing)!

Interviewer: What kind of animals did you have on the farm?

Martha Rickard: Of course the horses, Dad always had two horses, sometimes he had three. And cows cause we shipped milk. First, we shipped cream to Conneaut Creamery. Then the herd got bigger and Frank would help out more. Then they had dairy cows. And they shipped the milk to Ivarea Cheese Factory.

John Galuska: Eggs, and chickens, geese. We had all of those (all laughing).

Lillian Galuska: The school was close by the cheese factory and he’s telling about when they’d come home after school they’d stop at the cheese factory and get these curds.

John Galuska: The cheese maker would give us curds on our way home in the dinner buckets. We’d fill these buckets with curds (laughing).

Lillian Galuska: They were really good!

John Galuska: They were good and they would squeak in your teeth you know, when you chew!

Martha Rickard: It’s just like that little stick cheese you buy now.

John Galuska: We’d get milk down there and buy some cheese at 23 cents a pound.

Interviewer: Did you do your own butchering?

John Galuska: Yeah, we did. We got a neighbor used to come over to stick the pig. You know, he’d stick the pig (motioning a stab). We butchered the pigs, not beef.

Martha Rickard: We butchered both the beef and the pork. Cause Dad had quite a few pigs there and the beef. Clair Wright would come over because he was the neighborhood fella that knew how to butcher. So, he came to several places to butcher. It was always in the cold weather.

Lillian Galuska: That must have been after I left, too, because I don’t remember butchering when I was there.

Martha Rickard: Oh, I remember them butchering beef because Mom didn’t want me to go out there and I wanted to see what was going on (laughing). And of course, we butchered our own chickens.

Interviewer: How did you preserve your meat?

Martha Rickard: Canned it most of the time.

John Galuska: We smoked it.

Martha Rickard: Yeah, we smoked our own hams and bacon.

Interviewer: Did you have a smoke house?

Martha Rickard: Yeah, Dad had a smoke house. And Dad would cut the apple wood and save the apple wood for the smoke house. And once in awhile he had some hickory branches. But most of it was apple wood.

Interviewer: Now we have a list of businesses. Any of you remember any of these in the township?

Martha Rickard: Yes. The Blacksmith was Jake Weiggel and he just lived down the road about a half a mile, here on Rt. 98, back in the woods. I think he was single; he lived with his mother. He did all the blacksmith work. Then there was the fella that would come out to shoe the horses. His name was Koford; he came out from Girard to shoe the horses.

Interviewer: Was there a sawmill?

Martha Rickard: I don’t know of any.

Ruth Pertl: I don’t know if Clair Wright did it for others but he did it for Frank, he would cut lumber for Frank.

Lillian Galuska: There was a cheese factory close to where he was.

Interviewer: Yeah, you mentioned that earlier.

Lillian Galuska: Wasn’t there a stone quarry up there by…?

Ruth Pertl: Yes. But that’s down a ways from here.

Interviewer: Any mechanics?

Martha Rickard: I think most of the farmers were their own mechanics.

Lillian Galuska: Yeah, they had to.

Interviewer: Any merchants-what were the different stores around?

Martha Rickard: Up at the Center here, there was Rodak’s where we’d get some groceries. Part of it was the grocery store and the other part was a saloon, until the State came in and said they had to have it separated. And then there was also a Ted Roan that had a small grocery store but he had a feed mill where he ground all the feed.

Ruth Pertl: There was a store in Gudgeonville. These were mostly grocery stores.

Martha Rickard: That’s right. On the corner of Francis and Gudgeonville Road, there was a store. But, to the big groceries, cause Mom used to take the eggs to Girard to the A & P and trade groceries for eggs. And then she used to ship some to New York. Then later, Frank had an egg route in Erie.

Interviewer: You mentioned stone quarry. Oil and Gas?

Martha Rickard: Rodak had the gas; they sold gasoline there.

Lillian Galuska: On the corner of Ivarea, wasn’t there a grocery store there? And they had a gas pump, right?

John Galuska: Yeah, they had a gas pump there.

Ruth Pertl: And they had a store at Ivarea.

John Galuska: They had a pump. (inaudible)…Sherman.

Martha Rickard: Yeah, Douglas’ had that.

Interviewer: OK, wagon makers?

Martha Rickard: (laughing) I remember Frank making wagons.

John Galuska: You had to buy a ready-made wagon. When the wheels went bad, we’d have to fix up our own wheels.

Interviewer: You’d buy ready-made wagons and put them together?

John Galuska: You’d buy them at Auction sales. Somebody had an auction and there’s a wagon.

Interviewer: How about shoemakers?

John Galuska: A shoemaker was in Girard that I know of.

Martha Rickard: That’s the only one I know of, too.

Interviewer: Who were the doctors and dentists in the area?

Martha Rickard: They were all in Girard.

Lillian Galuska and John Galuska: Al Humbert in Albion, Baldwin (?), Dr. Ghering, Dr. Lick. None in the Franklin Center area.

Interviewer: Any other feed mills or gristmills?

John Galuska: There was Albion Mill, that’s the one we went to.

Ruth Pertl: There was one right here in Franklin Center.

Martha Rickard: Yeah, Ted Roan had that one.

Interviewer: Any leather goods?

Interviewees: (No answer)

Interviewer: Any tinkerers?

Martha Rickard: I think everybody was a tinkerer!

Interviewer: Horse and cattle dealers?

Martha Rickard: They used to come in from Waterford. I don’t think there were any right in the area.

Ruth Pertl: There was a Goldsmith on Rt. 99(inaudible).

Martha Rickard: Yeah, he’s right there off Rt. 99.

John Galuska: There was a Myers that used to come around. And Roberts from Girard used to come around and buy calves and stuff.

Interviewer: Prices of different commodities?

Martha Rickard: There used to be a truck that came by from Firches. And bread was 10 cents a loaf. Then another truck came by that sold different kinds of groceries and meat. I remember Mother buying hamburger 11 cents a pound or 3 pounds for a quarter. I remember she buying some of that. And then one time a fish truck came by and Mom bought some fish but was a little leery of it…how fresh was it, you know? That was a fun time when we’d see the trucks coming down the road and telling Mom, “Mom, the trucks are coming!”

Interviewer: Price of clothes?

Martha Rickard: We made a lot of our own clothes but clothing was real reasonable.

Lillian Galuska: We had an Aunt in New York City that would send boxes of used clothes and materials. That’s where I started dressmaking…because a lot of that stuff didn’t fit and I’d try to make them fit! I remember the first dress I made out of plain cloth, I wouldn’t (laughing) wear it now, if…I don’t know what…it was awful but I thought it was nice then!

Martha Rickard: But she’s now a professional seamstress!

Interviewer: What about farm and land values back then?

Martha Rickard: Oh, they were real cheap back then, that was like $50 an acre. Compared to $1500 or $2,000 now.

Ruth Pertl: When Frank and I were first married, we bought 48 acres here for $1000. It took us forever to pay for it. That sounds like a little bit now, but it was a lot then.

Interviewer: What about furniture and household goods?

Lillian Galuska: That’s when you went to a sale and buy something used.

Ruth Pertl: You’d take good care of it.

Martha Rickard: But then it was made a lot stronger then.

Lillian Galuska: We’d fix a lot of it, too.

Interviewer: What kind of jobs did you have through the years?

John Galuska: I worked at Lords for 32 years and I worked at the Model Works for a little bit but it was only a seasonal job, two months before Christmas. Then I went to Lords in 1941, I got run over by a tractor in1972, and that’s when I retired.

Interviewer: You mentioned that you’re a seamstress. How long were you a seamstress?

Lillian Galuska: Yes, all my life. I worked at Lord Manufacturing and then Girard Marx Toy Factory. It was seasonal but I liked that so I could be home a lot.

Ruth Pertl: She just finished four bridesmaids’ dresses for her niece’s wedding!

Martha Rickard: I worked at Lord Manufacturing right after high school. I started out at 35 cents an hour. That was during the war. And that was an eight-hour shift. I used to ride to work with a neighbor. Sumner Wells from Franklin Center used to pick me up and take me in. I worked there about a year then I went into college. After college, I got married and raised six kids and worked with my husband. He was an enrolled agent for the Internal Revenue Service and learned the ins and outs of income tax. Then I went back when he got sick and took some more courses. Then got my Pennsylvania Accounting License and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since.

Interviewer: Yeah, I saw the sign. Do you remember any Civil War or WWI veterans?

John Galuska: Not very well. There was a Risner used to live up there beside the church that used to be there. I didn’t know him very well; I was just a kid.

Interviewees: I don’t remember any.

Interviewer: What kinds of churches were there in the township?

Martha Rickard: There was Eureka Church, too, on Eureka Road. We used to have some of our young peoples’ meetings there. It was Methodist, too (conversation inaudible). There was a little Catholic Church on Francis Road…Greek Catholic because they celebrated Christmas in January.

Interviewer: Do you remember any of the pastors or priests?

Martha Rickard: No, I don’t but Katherine wrote it down here someplace. She’s got them numbered according to the questions.

Interviewer: You talked some about things you did for fun, school and church activities.

Martha Rickard: We used to have United Young Peoples. That was when I was a teenager, right out of eighth grade into high school. The pastor at Franklin Center, we’d meet once a month. He’d just announce it. We met at different homes. We had wiener roasts and sleigh rides. Dad drove the horses and Frank did too. Then we’d come in and the hostess would usually have cookies, donuts, or hot chocolate. All the churches got together. Some of the families had wiener roasts or picnics and all the young people gathered from the various area churches.

Interviewer: There were dances around here, too.

Interviewee #1 & 2: We didn’t go to any. That was something that was a no-no.

Ruth Pertl: Taboo (laughing)!

Interviewer: What do you know about politics in the area?

Interviewees: No answer.

Interviewer: What were the roads like?

Martha Rickard: Some of these roads are closed now. That’s the way it used to be most of the time. I lived in Edinboro when my husband was in the service. And I’d come out to the farm and you couldn’t get from Mohawk Road; I’d come around this way to Falls Road and Francis Road and the ruts were terrible. I had an old 1936 Chevy and I just straddled the ruts. And when I got to the farm, Frank looked at me and said, “How did you get here?” And I told him I just straddled the ruts and just watched where I was going. And I saw those ruts and knew if I got in them, I’d never get out. He said that he had pulled people out of the mud roads all day long.

Interviewer: What about the wintertime?

Martha Rickard: We used to ride to school-we had an old neighbor, Frank Rouse who used to drive a team of horses with a sled that he had a canvas canopy on it that it looked like what the Little House on the Prairie rode in! That’s what he took us in to school. When the snow was gone, then it was a kid’s wagon. And he loaded us up in a wagon. But I remember that one time, it was the winter of 1936. The snow was horrible. It was on St. Patrick’s Day. We went to school in rubbers; we didn’t have high boots. And we had spring coats. It was a beautiful warm day and then it started snowing. By the time school was out, it didn’t let out until 4 o’clock in the afternoon. He came to pick us up, because he stayed in town to work with some of the other people. He hitched up his horses and we only got about 500 feet to 1,000 feet on the state road because it wasn’t blacktopped. The snow was so deep the horses couldn’t get through. It went clear to the horses’ chests! And one horse was pregnant. So he said, “I can’t go any further!” He unhitched the horses from the wagon because he couldn’t go any further. He took us all back to Franklin Center and found us all places to stay. Rose, myself, Mary, and Catherine Naculich stayed with the Chinnock (?) family. And the boys stayed with the Perry Mills family. And we stayed there from Wednesday until Friday until Dad could come with the horses and a sleigh and pick us up! But that’s how bad it was then! Of course, they didn’t have snowplows back then.

Ruth Pertl: Was 98 paved?

Martha Rickard: Rt. 98 was paved then, yes (nodding).

Ruth Pertl: Because I remember the road from Franklin Center to McLane.

Lillian Galuska: This guy worked on 98 (pointing to Interviewee #3)!

Ruth Pertl: Frank did too.

John Galuska: That road wasn’t paved. From Lavery to Franklin Center, I worked on that road. It wasn’t paved; it was dirt.

Interviewer: What year was it paved?

John Galuska: I was sixteen…about 1928. They pumped water from Edinboro Lake all the way to Franklin Center for the concrete mixer. They mixed the concrete right on the road with the dump truck and cement and stuff. I mean…

Interviewer: We’re talking about muddy roads and wintertime. Talking about 1936, St. Patrick’s Day, and 3 foot of snow in one day.

Martha Rickard: It could have been more!

John Galuska: Another one in 1944. The year Diane was born. They had an army tank waiting out there to take her to the hospital. Route 20 was closed (pointing to Interviewee #2).

Lillian Galuska: (laughing)

Interviewer: You went to the hospital on a tank?

Lillian Galuska: No, I didn’t. That’s when Diane was due at that time. They made the arrangements already in case I had to go!

John Galuska: Route 20 was closed to all traffic…cars.

Interviewer: You mentioned you did a lot of roadwork around here. Know any Road Supervisors?

John Galuska: I don’t know about any road supervisors. I know Gidner over here used to grade the roads, you know, scrape them with a tractor. (hard to understand)

Ruth Pertl: What was the name of the company that graded the roads?

John Galuska: Metz, I don’t know…they’re out of business now.

Interviewer: Know any Assessors, Constables or School Directors?

Martha Rickard: School Directors were Frank Rouse, Perry Mills, that’s all I remember.

Interviewer: Any Justices?

Interviewees: No.

Interviewer: Any township roads that changed names over the years?

Martha Rickard: I don’t remember either.

Ruth Pertl: According to this map, Rt. 98 had a different number.

Interviewer: That’s a real old map.

Ruth Pertl: Looks like the other end of 98 was called Bateman Road.

Martha Rickard: Could have been Bateman Road.

Ruth Pertl: The other end was called Bateman.

Interviewer: How about you, John, remember any roads that changed names?

John Galuska: 6N originally was supposed to go down to Crane Road and there was a politician on the corner, Lavery Corner, named Jim Lavery and he wanted it to go through there, and that’s where he put it-6N.

Interviewer: Remember any other major natural disasters? We talked about snowstorms.

Martha Rickard: I remember windstorms that blew down some of the neighbors’ trees. We were outside playing and Mother called us, “Get in the house, a cyclone’s coming!” So, we all got into the house but I don’t think we had any trees that blew over. But I remember south of us, there was a big wheat field and it almost laid the wheat down flat, it was so windy.

Interviewer: When was this?

Martha Rickard: Oh, I was still in grade school. It must have been in the early 1930s, sometime in there.

Interviewer: Remember any of the immigrants in the area from different areas?

Martha Rickard: The Naculich’s-Catherine said her folks came from Ukraine. They came to America and lived in Akron, Ohio and from there, they moved to this area. All the others were Slovaks.

Ruth Pertl: Remember the pheasant farms at Francis Road?

Lillian Galuska: Oh, sure. Who had that?

John Galuska: Howard’s wasn’t it, by Mischler’s.

Interviewer: Where was that?

John Galuska: Back over here, past Mischler’s.

Martha Rickard: Did you ever talk with the Mischler family-Jim and Lillian?

Interviewer: I think I remember someone in the family.

Interviewer: Do you remember any diseases prevalent during childhood?

Martha Rickard: I think all the childhood diseases! Measles, chicken pox, whooping cough, scarlet fever, mumps, Frank had scarlet fever. I had scarlet fever. You didn’t get it. I had chicken pox. And you (Interviewee #2) come home from Erie and you got it. They quarantined you.

Lillian Galuska: You couldn’t go out without vaccination. Now they talk about it doesn’t work anymore because it’s too old.

Interviewer: Do you remember people dying at an early age in the township?

Martha Rickard: I remember some of the old folks…one died of cancer, and heart attack.

Lillian Galuska: Jim Zajic died of cancer.

John Galuska: He was young.

Ruth Pertl: Alot of people had fingers cut off and arms cut off.

Martha Rickard: People lost fingers and arms cut off from farm machinery.

Interviewer: Where were people buried in the township?

Martha Rickard: There was one at Francis cemetery. Quite a few of them were buried there. There was a Catholic cemetery over on Francis Road, where the priest lived. Did they move that?

Interviewer: Anything we missed that you wanted to talk about?

Martha Rickard: When Mike Naculich talking about that realtor saying this area was going to be a Slovak community just like back in Europe. But it wasn’t.

Lillian Galuska: It didn’t turn out that way.

Martha Rickard: We had some good neighbors-the Clair Wrights were real nice. They had a daughter that was older, but they had a niece that would come out from Cranesville who played with us. I remember Mom and Mrs. Wright canning pork and beef together because Mrs. Wright had a pressure canner and Mom didn’t. So, they did that.

Interviewer: You guys canned a lot of vegetables too?

Martha Rickard: Oh yes. I still do.

Interviewer: Did you have a cellar?

Martha Rickard: Oh yes. Dad used to raise a lot of potatoes. He would take the potatoes to Girard to the stores and they would buy them.

Ruth Pertl: (Interviewee #4) fell down the cellar. They had trap doors!

Lillian Galuska: (laughing) Oh yeah! It was a pantry. I had a teasing brother and he was chasing me around the dining room table. I wanted to get away from him and the pantry door was closed. I opened the door and thought I would hide in there. I stepped inside and fell straight down and landed against a stone wall. And my mother screamed-she thought I killed myself! I picked myself up and walked out of there. Then 60 years later, the doctor asked me, “When were you in an accident?” because I injured my back and never knew it (pointing to her back)!

Ruth Pertl: That’s the way you got down cellar! They had trap doors!

Interviewer: What about you? You’re awful quiet down there!

Lillian Galuska: You used to ride a motorcycle, flew a plane.

John Galuska: When I was sixteen, I got my license; I took the old Model T, a 1925 that we had. I left a note in my bed at 4 o’clock, “Went to Pittsburgh”. I never was there! So, I pushed the Model T out on the road and got it started. It was one of those you turn the key on and I took off. I got as far as Conneautville. And I put the top down, it was a touring car, and I had a convertible going down to Pittsburgh! I didn’t know where the hell I was going. I knew my Aunt and Uncle lived on Neville Island right on the Ohio River. So I kept on going until I saw a bridge going across a river and the first bridge that I saw went into Sewickley. So then I asked somebody, “Where was Neville Island?” They said it was another 5 or 6 miles down the road yet. So, I went down there and stayed overnight over there at my Uncle’s. My Aunt wanted me to take her into Pittsburgh.

Ruth Pertl: (hard to hear)

Lillian Galuska: Didn’t you bring someone back with you?

John Galuska: My Aunt and Uncle came with me; saved me from getting a whipping (everybody laughing)!

Interviewer: Did it work?

John Galuska: Yeah, (shrugged shoulders) I don’t know, I took a chance. I didn’t know where I was going to get the money to buy the gas or oil, whatever. I don’t know what I thought. The Lord took care of me. I got my license. That’s when the police told you, “Remember one thing: always keep your car under control!” They don’t say that now. When I went to get my drivers license, the roads were so bad, that the license plate in front was pushed by mud, the license plate was all covered with mud. I pulled up in front of…they used to take the test in Girard, where the gas station is now on the corner where the gas station is now-Country Fair. I parked on the left side of the road. There were no rear view mirrors. No windshield wipers. He took me down on Rice Avenue and it’s 16 foot wide. Straight up He said, “How come you didn’t signal when you were stopping?” I said, “Because there’s nobody coming.” He asked, “How do you know?” “I glanced over and didn’t see anybody.” He passed me anyway! Windshield wipers I bought for 25 cents, one of those you cranked by hand. That’s old history. There used to be a church and a cheese factory on the other corner, in Franklin Township. Then on the other corner, there was a store there too. They moved it up on the hill on Crane Road where Paul Sabol lived. I watched them move it, too. Harry Harrington was the mover. They put rollers under that building. They had a post on the rollers. They had a rope winding around there. And they had a horse going round and round. They moved the whole building. I remember watching them out a window at school.

Martha Rickard: I remember a stone quarry down here at Howard Falls. Do you remember that when Dad used the horses to pull the big rocks out? Dad was worried about the horses because that was so hard on them, but he had contracted to do that job. And how long it was, I don’t know.

Ruth Pertl: Do you know where the stone was used?

Martha Rickard: I heard them tell that they were going in to Erie to the Court House.

Ruth Pertl: Talk to Howard’s…they might know some of the basic facts. This article says that some of the stone from here was used at the Erie Court House, too, and that’s pretty interesting.

John Galuska: Another thing…when I was sixteen, I used to go to Erie and buy dynamite in the hardware store. I probably couldn’t buy it now even at my age of ninety, probably, dynamite and those blasting caps. We used to blast stones on the farm. Drill a hole in the stone, pack the dynamite in there, and then run like everything! The stones would fly all over.

I was only sixteen years old and I would go with young Douglas. I went with him. They used to sell all kinds of dynamite for stumping, for ditching, for stoning. There was a hardware store on State Street in Erie that used to sell it.

Lillian Galuska: It’s a different world now.

John Galuska: Look out for terrorists, now, and you can’t buy dynamite! (difficult to hear)

Interviewer: Well, if there’s nothing else…thank you for your time.