DANE:

This is Debby Dane and I'm speaking with Andrew Lichanec, on Wednesday, February 5th, 1986. We're beginning the interview at 11:00 AM. We're about to interview Mr. Lichanec about his immigration experience from Austria-Hungary which is now Czechoslovakia in 1913. He was six years old and it is Interview Number 170. Mr. Lichanec, we'll start at the beginning. If you will tell me what day you were born, what year and what town.

LICHANEC:

I was born May 25, 1907, in the town of Klenovic.

DANE:

How do you spell that, for the, so we'll know where it is.

LICHANEC:

It's uh, K-L-E-N-O-V-I-C, I believe.

DANE:

Thanks. Oh how is it? (Someone speaks off mike.) She'll give you the writing because for us, a lot of times the transcriber doesn't remember. Doesn't know how to spell it.

LICHANEC:

Yes, I see. K-L-E-N-O-V-I-C.

DANE:

Okay, perfect. And what kind of town was it, describe it?

LICHANEC:

Well, it was a town with people that, there was no industry whatsoever there that I know of. People lived in this village and down in the village, then through the summer, everybody had a section, a piece of land that they would go out on the outskirts and have a garden. And everybody would plant like, my mother would plant her section and uh, potatoes, whatever there was and then through the summer they would be out working, then for the winter they would bring all their crop into the village and they lived almost a mile, would live in the village there, you know. It was, like I say, no industry that I know of, only I remember Mom used to go out through the summer if she wanted to do uh, make what they would, what they really would do, they'd go out and work with the men and cut wheat or rye, whatever there was, you know, there's no machines. It was all done by hand and uh, then they would take that and thrash it out by hand. I remember my grandfather thrashing there by hand and uh, then they would take that wheat and there would be a mill there where they would make flour. And I remember going with my mother there, she would take a bag of this wheat and she turned it into flour and bring it home and that's how they, we used to get our bread, you know. Not like here in the United States where you go buy your bread, there was no such thing over there. And uh, there was very, it was very poor. And uh, like I say, mother would say to me, she said, you know, she says, "Today," she says, "We're going over--" like I remember one day she says, "I have to go work in a cemetery." So she puts my brother on her back and she takes this pot of soup because I remember that I never frank coffee in Europe, I didn't know what coffee was until I came to, to America. Mostly what we lived on in Europe would be soups, it would be bean soup, and potatoes and it would be cabbage soups, something like that and there was no refrigeration, no electricity whatsoever, we really, the house that we lived in, I suppose we had candles, I remember that good as today, because, you know, kerosene was, I suppose, hard to get. Some people had kerosene, seems to me there were different lights but they didn't look like candlelight to me, you know. And uh, but we had mostly candlelight and then uh, she would, the house we lived in there was no floor, there was just ground and it was all packed down tight and uh, I remember I used to come in through one section, you know, and in the front there, there would be wood stacked up, it was like a little shed, and in there would be chickens too. And then the door would open and I'd come into this room there, no floor, I mean, just dirt, and there would be one, like a big fireplace and my mother used to cook in from of it and what I used to do uh, especially through the winter, I used to get pretty cold because uh, they didn't have heating system like we have here, so what I would do, the stones would warm up from the fireplace and there was like a, a open space there. I would crawl up there and I used to go to sleep there. And my mother more than once told me, she says, "You fell asleep, I just picked you up and brought you back to bed." Now the story about the beds. The beds weren't made, uh the beds weren't like we have here. The beds were made out of boards, up against the wall, the width and the length and in what you slept on was on straw. The straw would be picked up, the best they could get like from wheat and uh tied like into sheaves, you know. And they would lay it side by side just like eggs in a box. They wouldn't just throw the straw in but it would be laid like these fingers that you see, side by side. Then they would pack that, then they would put a sheet over it, and that is what we slept on. Only one beauty was that we really had some wonderful covers that were all down big, big pillows and that's really what kept us warm, we were, you couldn't even see, when you buried yourself in there you couldn't even see you but there was no mattress or spring mattress whatsoever. So that's the kind of bed we had but there--

DANE:

How often would you change the sheaves? Would they, would that last a whole winter?

LICHANEC:

No, after, after they, after you used it over and over, would pound and I know mother used to take it and she used to pack new ones in there, they always had that stored away, see? Then as, as I'm trying to tell you, we had two chickens, and we had a goat because my brother was always sick and they told them that, so my mother would feed him with goat's milk and that's how he got out whatever he had, you know, the goat's milk seemed to help him. So uh, this is a thing that I remember well as today, I used to take these chickens on a string and uh, go across the road where there was grass, they didn't have grain there like you, you know, poor people like my mother, she didn't even have enough money to buy us anything, you know, so she had these two chickens and made sure I took care of them and I remember one day, good as today, as I was pasturing these chickens on this lawn, there was grass, they were scratching there, and this girl come along and she says to me, "You'd better take them chickens out of there because I'm going to go and tell so and so you're pasturing your chickens on his side." So I didn't pay no attention to her, you know, but funny thing was that I remember, good as today, that I uh, see this chicken, you know, lay an egg, I almost forgot that chickens, I almost left the chickens there, I picked this egg up and I was running back to the house to mother, I said, "I got one egg, Mother," you know. So anyway, and talk about goats, when I left for America, I cried after the goat because we still had it you know and uh--

DANE:

Did it have a name, did you name it?

LICHANEC:

No, there, I don't know, I didn't have no name, all I know that she had two little ones and you know, them two little ones, they and I, I played quite a bit with them, them two, that was toys to me, see? And uh, going back again now, to tell you, mother came to work, we got into the cemetery and I always had to take care of my brother and, you know, I never could play the way I wanted to play because she always would tie him somewhere under the tree, you know, now she says, "You take care of him." Of course, she'd be out there working, you know, and I would be taking care of him. Now and then I would run away from there and she'd get after me and I'd have to come back and just watch him. So, I remember, one day it was time, well to eat dinner. Of course, we had dinner out, you know, soup, bean soup. My mother used to make good bean soup, but this, her name was Stuhatka, uh, my mother's, uh, related to my mother, she made some and I used to like her's a little better. And why I liked it, because it was nice clean soup, there was no lumps in it, that's what I didn't like (he laughs). So, I began to cry, and I'm crying my eyeballs out and finally she says to her, I remember the words, she says uh, they were both Suzies, she says, "Suzie will you go out there and take some of my bean soup, give it to him so he stops crying." And so she went over there and got into her pot, under the, there was like a bush, shady there, keeping it cool and she gave me the plate of that soup there and boy was I the happiest guy, I filled my stomach with that soup. But my mother was really upset because I didn't want to eat hers. So, you know, that's just the what we were, they didn't carry around sandwiches like they do here, soup is the main dish over there, it was soup seven days a week, whatever they made it, had soup all the time.

DANE:

And bread, was bread--

LICHANEC:

Uh, bread, bread was always from the flour that was ground uh, you know, was a dark bread, which was good. But only time that I remember that I got a piece of white bread, you see, my mother worked for this Jewish uh, people and uh, they would give her something, I says to her one day, I remember, "Mom," I says, "What did they pay you?" And, well, in American money if it came over here, it would be uh, it would be between one dollar and two dollars a month, what I could get for that I would try to buy you something which you could. But at the meantime they would give her some bread that was leftover and she would bring it home, you know, to us children, I mean to me and my brother. Well, going back again, I have to go back to my grandfather, my mother's father, he used to be out in a sheep ranch and he would take me and I would go with him. I'd go out and I noticed I could see today in my mind how we would round up his sheep, and he would set me always in the shade, he always watched me. "Now," he says, "You sit right here and don't go anywhere from here." I always liked to run around a lot, you know, so I would sit there and uh, I see him go off and in a few minutes he's coming back and he has strawberries. And these strawberries are wild strawberries and they have a stem and he would pick it up with the whole stem and he'd make a bouquet, and then he would take a long grass, tie it around the bottom, so it won't fall apart for me, and then hand it to me and he says, "Now, eat and stay here." So, meantime, I would eat them there and he would watch me and he would watch his sheep. Then at night when he would bring the sheep in, into the, don't know what they the barn or whatever it was, it was in the stalls, you know, and I would love to go there because there's baby sheep there and I would play with them and I would be around them there, you know, that was, I didn't care for anybody, I was always like animals, see, especially the sheep. So, meantime, you know, sometime my grandfather would go like, he'd go to the church and he would split wood and make a few dollars there and uh, whatever they gave him, you see, and he would take me, "Now," he says, "I want you to go inside, the parsonage," and the minister had a boy there, he was crippled, and he was in bed all the time, so he would say, "You got to play with him," and we had these little uh, little toys, soldier toys that we used to, the boy had and I would love them, I didn't have any but I would love. I would play with him because he had these toys, so I would set 'em up and we would make believe we had an army there, you know, and he'd be in bed crippled and I would play with him until grandfather would say, "Well time for you to go home, let's go home," and he would take me from there and we'd go home.

DANE:

I should ask you, go ahead, about your father. What kind of work was he doing, when he was still there?

LICHANEC:

Well, my father only way they make a living there, especially my dad, chopping wood. He'd go out and he'd cut wood. I'll tell you a story that he told me just before he got married. He took him to the woods and he was cutting wood there for about two or three years with him and he was thinking to himself, he don't want this life, he wants to get away from this, he don't want to chop wood all his life. So, one day he just got himself together and start running away from home but he got caught so they shipped him back by the police or whatever it was. So, anyway, this thing went on for awhile, his father again took him into the woods, cutting wood and one day he talked to my godfather, his first cousin, he says, "Why don't we both get together and run away from here," he says, "We don't want to cut wood all our lives." So, I'll tell you what it was, this is the way dad told me. "Once you got over, out of the, over the Hungarian border into Germany, you was all set, but you caught on this side, the Hungarian side, they always would ship you back home, but once you was on the border, over in Germany, they'd let you go." So, what they would do is, men like, if they was a man with tools they wouldn't question him so much, see, so one day they got together, my father and his cousin and they went ahead,got some money, my father told me, he says, "Got a few dollars," from his uncle and he took the money and sewed it in the back of his jacket, under the lining so they wouldn't find it and, my godfather took his money and he drilled, they have straight handles on axes, not crooked like here, they're straight and he drilled a hole down in through that wood and he would pack all his money in there. So they wouldn't find any money on him. So when they came to the border and uh, they begin to examine them and over uh, they didn't see anything on my godfather but as they were feeling my father, they felt the money on his back so naturally when they felt the money on his back they opened up the jacket lining and they found the money, so they took the money away from him. They locked him up for the night and took the fine out in the meantime. They locked up my godfather too, they found money on him after they began to investigate that he's trying to get across. Must have broke the handle on the axe or something. They found the money in there, you know, and they shipped them back. So, when he got back, he was very disappointed, he says, "At this time, I was about 18 years old or 19 years old." So, he says, "How I am going to get to America?" His father took him back to the woods, they were cutting wood there, working and cutting wood and finally, one day, he says, "I'd just turned 20," and, of course, his father says, to his mother, "You know, in order to hold this man here with us, we have to marry him." So, and then mother says, "I think I know a woman for him." So, anyway they said they'd, "Let's go see uh, Sloposki's, that was her name, my mother, you know, down there they're friendly, they know her. "Well," he says, "You come along with us." So they took him along, down there and they introduced him to my mother and uh, they made up their minds, seems to me or whatever it was, you know, and my mother says to me, "Well, I didn't want, I didn't want nothing to do with him, I didn't want no man." But they brought him down here, then they told him, "Now," he says, "We're going home, but we want you to stay here with her and stay with her parents, get acquainted." And my mother says, "Well, you know, we only had that, they all slept in the long bed, you know," and she says, "He's going to sleep here too." So she says, "Well, you can sleep here but you can't take your clothes off or anything." And so he says, "You know what, I slept there and I kept pushing myself away," and of course my mother and father were on the other side there and she says, "Was I happy when morning came because he had to go home. I didn't want no part of him." So, then after time went along and he went down there again, you know, and in those times they get together and they get married, you see. And that's the story of that.

DANE:

Did he give up the idea of going to America right away?

LICHANEC:

No, after he got married, I was born, my brother was born, his heart was for America all the time but he didn't know how, what, but in the meantime his brother was already on the coal mines, his older brother, so he begged him to get him a passport and finally, one day, he got him a passport, for him, just him to come to America. So, I remember, my dad very faintly, I don't know, I can't recognize the face, I only remember this tall figure going along, we're walking down towards the town hall and I'm running along the bank, it was about, back in 1911, as I recall. I believe I was about four years old and mother hollering to me, she says, "Andy, come over here, Dad is leaving us, he's going to America." To me it didn't matter where he's going, I was happy playing, running around, I didn't pay him much attention to that, you know, only when I, then I didn't see this man anymore, it seems to me that was the first and last time that I remember the figure and my mother brought the attention to me, this is your father. So, I didn't know my Dad until I came to the United States.

DANE:

Would you get letters from him, would America be introduced to you by the letters from you father?

LICHANEC:

Uh, mother, mother used to and used to and she'd tell me something now and then, but not too much because it didn't interest me that much, you know.

DANE:

Did you ever think about what America might be like?

LICHANEC:

Well, I didn't but I guess my father more or less did, what it is because his heart was all just to leave and get out of there and he says, "Can't get anywhere down there." He didn't want to cut wood all his life. But to me, as a child, no, they just fed me and I was happy.

DANE:

And you became very close to your grandfather?

LICHANEC:

With my grandfather, well, he was the only one, I was very close with him because uh, somehow he was too, he was always, somehow he was my father and my grandfather both.

DANE:

Would your mother be sad that he had left, that your father had left to go away?

LICHANEC:

Well, uh, my mother, yes, she did miss him and everything else as she told me, but the thing was, she was always looking forward for us to be together and live a decent life, she says, "Which I never had there." She said, "Do you know, Andy,: she says, "Your father worked for awhile," in uh, they call it "hutta" and they, he worked there just for a little while and she says, "I used to get up 3:00 in the morning, make some soup for him and he would leave about 5:00 and he wouldn't come back till about 7:00 at night." He would walk there and back, you know, to work. There was no other transportation, only your feet, you had to walk, and uh, but that didn't last too long because he didn't seem to make out he didn't even make, just as much as if he was cutting wood. But you know when they cut wood, they would go away for three months, four months. I'll tell you, mother says to me, she says, "You know Andy, after we got married, we celebrated for three days," the celebration always went for three days, and she says, "On third, that was on the fourth day after the celebration, his father approached me and your dad and he says, 'I want you to go to work now', 'You got a wife to support, we're going away,' so they left for four months." They left for four months. Imagine that that's the honeymoon that he had. Over here, you know what a honeymoon is, but he says to me one day, he says, "You know, Andy, it's so nice to be here in the United States, I see you couples get married, you take your wife, you go on honeymoon, you go in room yourself, you lock yourself up, here it is a honeymoon." But he says, "You know, when I was in, when I married your mother, I didn't even sleep with her, the first three days, we all sleep in a row, whole family," he says, Everybody's raising their heads up, looking at the young couple," and he says, "We just laid there," and so on the fourth day his father says, "You got to go to work." "So we packed up," mother says, " I packed him up and off they go, up and towards Poland," he told me, on the border somewhere they were cutting wood. And I tell you what they do there, he told me they make what they call "koloba", they dig into a hill and they set a bed in there and these wood-choppers, there'll be six or eight together, see, in a group and uh, then in front of it they would build a bonfire, like a fire, a lot of logs would burn and it would keep the heat inside there and there's where they sleep at night. "Now," he says, "You don't take off your clothes through the day, at night to go to bed, you sleep in your pants or you cover yourself up and you sleep, in the morning you get up, one man would cook, they'd always have one man cooking soups or whatever they had there, you know. And uh, he says, "That's the only way the heat was to keep you warm for the nights, see." And anyway, well, these four months went by, he came home and mother says to me, she says, "You know, Andy," she says, "I was still a virgin, I didn't have no honeymoon with your dad," she says. "It," and this, one thing on top of the other, it was just making them bitter to stay there and he says, "He don't want to stay there," and he wants to come to America. In the meantime he got this passport from his brother and that made him the happiest man there is, long as he, only he says, "You know, I wasn't sure I'm going come there because," he says, "I had the passport and everything else but I--" he had a little, on one eye he couldn't see so good. And he figured uh, he went through Germany--

DANE:

I'm going to stop you before you tell the story because we're going to run out of tape. I don't want you to miss it. This is the end of side one, Andrew Lichanec, Number 170, its 11:29. END OF SIDE ONE BEGINNING OF SIDE TWO

DANE:

This is side two, Andrew Lichanec, Interview Number 170, its 11:30. You were just talking about your father and his life was so hard that he just decided that he couldn't--

LICHANEC:

He always said that he can't go through this, he uh, and then he read, somebody came back to the village from America and became to, said something to him, so that set him up that much more, just to get away from there, no matter what price it, what it would cost him. So, uh, as he left, uh, he came to Balti, what do you call it, Baltimore, Maryland?

DANE:

Baltimore, uh-huh.

LICHANEC:

Yeah, he came there. There's where he landed on a ship. And yet he was worried, when he landed there, on account of his eyesight, that they're going to ship him back, he says, "That's the worse thing they could do to me, if they ship me back." He was just uh, just, he was very unhappy because they were inspecting them all over and he figured they not going to let him in but all of a sudden the inspector says to him, "You're okay, go in." He says he was the happiest man there ever was, he says when they told him that he could go in, you know, to United States, already, let him off from the port there, wherever it was. Anyway, his brother was waiting for him there, he took him to Logansport, Pennsylvania on a coal mines. He says, "You know, I was without work almost a year, my brother was taking care of me, he was working." But after that he finally got into the mine where he was, his brother was working. I remember that mine so well, today, when I came United, from Europe, and I came to Logansport, he took me down there, under ground, and it was a slope mine, which was very, my dad was very tall and you know, they, the coal runs in veins, three feet, two feet, whatever it is and they go in on one side, off the main track and they dig this coal out, there's everything at that time done by hand and uh, like today they have machinery where they dig it out of there. Well, in them days everything was done by hand with powder and drilled by hand and knock it down and shovel it. My dad was tall so most of the time they'd have little carts, he says, "I had to be on my knees because my back hurt, I was shoveling, you know, into these carts. You'd get so much a ton." So anyway, after he had that job, he made his first $60 and he sent, he got a passport uh, and today uh, I remember that name was Mr. Steiner, in Fort City, Pennsylvania. He got us the passports and they, he sent for us.

DANE:

Had he been paying your brother any room and board?

LICHANEC:

He wasn't paying my brother any room and board and my father always told me, he says, "Andrew, I don't know," he died on influenza, he was only 34 years old. And he says, "Someday, I would like you," uh, we had this property here, he says, "To pay, you can't pay back to my brother but his, he's got two boys," and one of the boys there is my age, "Will you give him some land up here to pay the boy back, at least let the boy get something out of it." Well, I approached the boy one day and he told me, he says, "No," he says, I'm so used to living in Bridgeport," he says, "I don't think I'd want to come to Stafford Springs." And he was very thankful that I was going to give him some land through, with my father's permission, But uh--

DANE:

So it was time for you, your father was ready, had sent you money and the passports--

LICHANEC:

Yes, this is what I want to say, when he, when mother got the passports, and got everything ready for us to come to America, it was, began, it was somewhere about, toward the end of January. The day I remember as well as today, was so beautiful, that you wouldn't think it was winter. And this man came in front of the house, on a pair of horses and a wagon, regular wagon what he draws wood. He sits in front more with my mother and my grandfather puts me in the middle of the wagon and on some bags, they were there and we were both sitting together and here we're riding and we must have drove uh, they call it I think uh, Sobuta, and to this village, it must have been a distance of about 18, 20 miles and he came to this village where the train was and uh, all of a sudden the train pulls in and we're standing there uh, saying goodbye to each other and I hopped on the train, you know, on them trains they have a long seat on each side, they don't have seats like they have here in the United States, they're different. I sat there and I look out through the window and I saw my grandfather standing under a tree, until I got of sight. And uh, this, this here stays, it stood in my memory all the time and if I was an artist, today, my age, I don't know why, but I could draw a picture of that man standing there, the way he was looking. So, we left.

DANE:

What was the expression on his face, was he--

LICHANEC:

He just stood there, just like a statue or some thing and he didn't move he just kept looking and I kept looking through the window on the side at him, you know, until the train pulled out.

DANE:

Did you know that you were going to America?

LICHANEC:

Yes, yes, yes, and you know this here, that really bothered me because I was leaving him, you see, I was leaving, I was leaving something I didn't understand, you know. Well, anyway, the train is going and going and all of a sudden uh, I found myself in a city. We landed in Bremen, Germany and we landed over there and there was, in a station like a lot of people walking around and I never was in a city so I left my mother with my brother and I step outside, and I was running up and down the street looking like a wild deer at everybody because this was quite something that I never thought, you know, you'd never saw a city, as I did then. Then all of a sudden, I know my mother was looking for me, but I came in and she got a hold of me, then they, all the group, there was quite a few people, all of a sudden they see us going like around a tunnel or something and then we're going out, as we're going out, then all of a sudden, we're going up a plank, I know we're going to the, on a ship, see. And, alright we're on that ship, you know, and all of a sudden it was dark and then I wanted to see everything, we're on the bottom of the ship, there's a porthole, there was, and what attracted me is looking through that porthole I saw a lot of lights outside and that was these different ships that were packed out there, each one had a certain light and I thought that was wonderful, on the water, there's lights, you know, and these little boats and things there. Then, I know, I must of fell asleep already, we're sleeping and next thing I woke up, we're already on the ocean. And on that porthole there was box there, I used to stand on it and look out through that porthole and uh, I was looking out there and I saw these waves coming already, waving, you know, and I was all eyes, I was, it was quite a thing, just to watch, now and then the water would come up against the porthole, I couldn't see anything and it would go away, then it would come in, you know, and I was there, stuck there like a glue. Meantime, my mother, minute she hit the ship, she got sick, she was sick, we were on the ocean for over two and a half weeks. She laid down there at that basement, now, these, in that ship, the beds were similar to the ones that I had in Europe, that I slept, they were just made out of boards like, they all laid in a row, everybody laid in a row, there was quite a few people, we laid down there in that boat and my brother would lay next to my mother, they were both sick. And so I, my mother would say to me, she says. "You know, I want to eat, I want to eat and I want potatoes." So I don't know how I got acquainted with the cook, like I say, I was all over the ship, I came up there to the cook, potatoes and that's the first time that I ate sliced potatoes with paprika and uh, butter or what it was on there, fried, and they were so good. So he would load me up a pan of them and I would take it down to mother and I would, she would eat and we'd both eat and then she's say, "Well, go upstairs, go to the cook and get some more potatoes." I would run up there, so I remember this particular day, I came up there and uh, says, "Mother wants some more potatoes, and I want some more potatoes," and he says to me, he says, he spoke Hungarian, I know that, he says to me, in Hungarian, which I understood, he says, "You can't only eat potatoes, you have to have some meat." So he gives me a big fish, you know, and my mother couldn't even stand the smell of fish, she didn't want no sight of fish, she hated it, so I takes this fish and this pan of potatoes and, you know, down to the room in the basement where we're down in the bottom of the ship, there's stairs running around like a circle, you keep going down there, around the circle to get down to the bottom, as I'm going down them steps holding them potatoes and holding that fish, I said, "Mom don't want this fish, I wonder what--." I took that fish and threw it out from the stairs down into one corner somewhere or wherever it was, and I came down and ate the potatoes, but I don't know what happened to that fish. But I can't forget that fish. It was a good sized one, you know. So, anyway, being on that ship, you know, like I say, my mother was sick and I couldn't sit still so one day I gets up on top of the deck, I remember I'm going around examining everything and it was rough, I, there was like a cables that I held onto on the edge of the ship and I loved to look down at the water and this waves were coming, these waves, it was very rough that month when we were coming over and this wave just hit side of me and I saw a man down the other end there, picked him off his feet and as it picked him off his feet, took him way down the other end where he went, I don't know but meantime I felt a hand behind my neck, back of my neck, grabbed me and he escorted me and he opened up the, like a porthole there and he shoved me down in there and he shut the door behind me but I'll tell you if it wasn't for that man or if the water would pick me up, took me off the boat, my mother would never know what happened to me. This is very true, that I could have been drowned myself. Nobody would have known.

DANE:

Weren't you frightened, didn't you know that it was dangerous?

LICHANEC:

I didn't have no fear, there, with me, you know, it was, I don't know what it was about, about, I always wanted to see something, I guess felt, I felt I had no fear just like my dad wanted to come to America, he didn't fear anything, he just wanted to get away from where he was because he know, he didn't care for it, it wasn't right for him. So me, I was that way so nosy that I wanted to know everything. So getting out of there, alright, he shoved me down in that hole and shut the door behind me. I'm walking around I'm looking around, all of a sudden, I see this other ladder and its going up into like a silo. So I says, "Well, I got to find out what's up there." so I goes up the ladder, you know, and I'm going up through this hole and all of a sudden where I was headed for was where the man that checks the weather or whatever it is on a ship, you know, that he looks around, see what kind of, I don't know, what you call it?

DANE:

A watchman?

LICHANEC:

A watchman up there. So I am, I'm going up through this, this ladder, it was just enough for a man to go up through. I'm climbing up and I'm coming to the top already, meantime, the fellow that was up there looking at the weather forecast, or what he was doing up there, he's coming down, so he almost broke my fingers because I had the last, I was holding up there and he start coming down and he didn't see me. He stepped on me. So, he kicked me around a little and told me to go back to my mother. That's how I saw, I was all over. I'm telling you, one day I landed in the boiler room, where the engines were. I got down there, there was an open space uh, there was like a, kind of small door and I walked in there and there was a bunch of, all kinds of ropes and looked like all, everything in there that you could think of, something they use on a ship, so I crawled over top of that and all of a sudden I slid down into a boiler room, then finally the fellow from the boiler room, they escorted me out again to go back to my mother.

DANE:

You got all over the place.

LICHANEC:

I was all over the place.

DANE:

Was it fun?

LICHANEC:

To me it was a real, I thought it was so great because all my life, all I was, was with my mother in a cemetery or out in a field working, and this and that, you know, and to me this, to me it was, it was something that I just can't describe how happy I was. And it seems to me that I, the way I acted, I was the only kid on the ship, see. Well, anyway--

DANE:

Do you remember uh, what it looked like, where you guys slept, what other people were there, was it crowded?

LICHANEC:

Yes, well, where we slept, you know, I had my clothes on, I had the first pair of stockings I had on when I came to America. I had what they call onuchki, you used to wrap it around your legs like a big handkerchief and you keep your feet in it and you had these, they call them, kupse, you know, its not a shoe like we have here and then, the clothes were different at that time, you know, I showed you a picture of my grandfather and the young people had similar to it, you know, whatever it was that way and uh, like I say I didn't have other clothes like I, you wear in the United States.

DANE:

Would you wear the same clothing during the whole trip?

LICHANEC:

During the whole trip, I slept, I walked, I don't believe I had a bath while I was there. I don't remember having one bath, how could they? There was so many, they were, we were laying side by side like in the army, everybody, I don't know the people that lay next to me, all I know what they used to do to us is on certain times they would take us all up, everybody had to go like upstairs and it looked to me like uh, a big hall and then they, I asked mother one day, I says, "What were they doing down there, mother?" And she says, "Spraying it," see? I guess they're spraying the place there, but far as remembering, taking my clothes off, I lay down in my clothes, I got up in my clothes, I don't remember washing myself, not even once because there was, there was a bathroom you could go in there but there was no, no place to wash like you have today, you know. So, uh, you know, all them people, they were all there, all the same I guess, same as we were. But anyway uh, it was time, we came to Ellis Island. I remember that good. As we came there, we came over on Kaiser Wilhelm II, German ship, Germany had the second largest ship at that time, as we landed there, we got on another small ship, boat or what it was and I know we were up against this building and they herd us all in there, we all came in, in a group, just like when you see cattle go off. Every woman's carrying a bundle of some kind, it would be bed, part of the pillows and whatever it was. They got us into this big room, and uh, I really was hungry already and they got us in this big room in like a shoe in a circle and the inspector's going by, looking at us, checking us over and then all of a sudden, uh, they had to open up and show what they got, you know, and I remember across from us there was a woman, she couldn't quite open it up, so the inspector just went like this with his hand, I think he had a knife, and then he cut his, her luggage there and feathers came out and the feathers were blowing all over the place and she began to cry because she was losing her feather pillows or what it was, you know. Well, meantime, you know, we were all in there in a circle, and comes this guy with a bug basket, loaded with Vienna bread, boy, I'm telling you, that looked so good, you know, and he hands me the bread and mother says, "You hold onto that bread," so I get a hold of the bread and next guy comes along with a basket, had a big ring of bologna and he gives me this bologna, so I'm holding these two things and then mother have a little knife with her, you know, and she took that knife out and she was cutting the bread and she was cutting that bologna and she was feeding us. I don't remember drinking coffee or tea, that's the one thing I can't. I know I was happy because I had a piece of meat and bread, I, maybe I drank some water after, I don't know, but they, there, everybody in this circle was doing the same thing we are doing. Then when we got through eating, I don't know if I should tell you the other story--

DANE:

Please, I know what you're talking about.

LICHANEC:

We got through eating, I says to my mother, I says, "You know, mom, I got to go to the bathroom." And she says to the, to me, she says, "Well, wait a minute," and I says, "Well, I got to go!" So finally, I, on the side where this door opens up, they, we open this door up, and there is a, and uh, there's like a partition there and we opened up I look and now there was long trough, with water running down it, it was a good stream of water come down through. And she says, "You go do it in there." I says, "Ma, I can't do it in there, that's water." And she says, "No, you have to do it there," so I had to do what the rest were doing, they were all lined up in there, every mother and every child and they were relieving themselves into this water and it was going out the other end of the building and somewhere back into the ocean. That was the bathroom that I went to there.

DANE:

Did that seem strange to you?

LICHANEC:

That to me, you know, in Europe, we never had a bathroom. In Europe we had to go behind the house or behind the barn, we didn't even have an outside toilet, and then you had to do whatever you do out in the garden out there and so you see, it seemed so strange to me to do it in the water, I just couldn't get over it. Well, anyway, then, when we got through, when we got through with this, then all of a sudden we're gone, all of us, down this thing and all of a sudden we're finding ourselves going into the train. Everybody's going on this train. We got on the train and we came uh, in New York, that is, and we came to Kensington and we had to transfer there and my mother was sitting in the railroad station, waiting what's next, we didn't know what's what you know. Of course, we had tags on us, you know, the people would come over and tell us that, "You got to go there and there." All of a sudden I saw this tall man standing in front of me in Kensington and he was talking to my mother and she's looking at him, you know, and all of a sudden she get's up, she was all excited, it was my father's brother. And he put us on a train and then we went south into Logansport. We got off out there and my dad, uh, was already waiting for us. He was a little disappointed that his brother went 35 miles down the track and met us before he had a chance to meet us, you know.He didn't tell his brother, his brother didn't tell him anything. So anyhow, this man, comes over there, tall man, red moustache, you know, and he gets a hold of my mother and he kisses her and I says, "What's he doing to her?" you know, because you know, a kiss, that was something that they didn't do in Europe, kissing all the time, you know. And I never saw that till I came to America, you know. Then, anyway, he grabs me and kisses me then he's, we're all excited and my aunt was over there too and she grabs me and kisses me and I was wiping my mouth, I didn't like her to kiss me, oh I hated it, you know. So when, alright, we landed, you know, it was in February, but I remember it was so nice in, it seemed the weather was with us, you know, we came there, sun was shining and everything else. So we get into this uh, coal mine district, you know, these houses where my aunt lived and uh, oh, it was something, you know, it was some great, and the dinner she prepared for us. And the thing is that, or hit my eye was pop, a soda, there was about two cases, two or three cases she had on the side there and she says, "Andy," she says, "You want to have a drink of pop?" And I never had pop before. And so I had this soda, you know, I had two bottles of that soda, I didn't want to move from the case. I kept drinking that soda, I didn't want no water. I thought it was the greatest thing there was.

DANE:

Had you had something like that before?

LICHANEC:

I never saw anything like that. It was like the orange I had on the ship, when I was on the ship, I had a taste of that orange and it seems to me that it was a big orange and I'm telling you, up till today, I went to Florida, I asked a grower there, I says, "Can I go and pick an orange off?" And when we were down there, he says, "Go ahead, see." But I can't seem to find an orange like I had that day. It was so good!

DANE:

Was that the first time you ever tasted one?

LICHANEC:

I never. I never knew what it looked like until I tasted that orange then and I never knew what bananas was, and I never knew what soda was until I came to my aunt.

DANE:

Was the orange on the ship, that--

LICHANEC:

The orange that I ate was on the ship. Now, I even told uh, my granddaughter, I said, "You know if you can find an orange like that, ship it over to me, will you?" But she did send me a few like that but I can't seem to find the taste, maybe because I never had an orange and that was my taste and I can't seem to forget it.

DANE:

What was the taste like?

LICHANEC:

It was, it had such a nice flavor and it just, just made your mouth water.

DANE:

I'm going to stop you right here, there's another second. This is the end of side two, Andrew Lichanec. Interview Number 170, it's 12:00 noon. END OF SIDE TWO BEGINNING OF SIDE ONE, TAPE TWO

DANE:

This is the beginning of side one, tape two, Andrew Lichanec, Interview Number 170, it's 12:04. Once more, a few questions about Ellis Island. Your memory also includes, oh actually, I guess it was on the boat, remembering seeing Polish women I guess, praying. Was that an impression that you had?

LICHANEC:

It was an impression on me because uh, everyone that, the sea was so rough and they got us out on top there on that deck or room or whatever it was. And, they all were scared I think, and was, yes so we were all scared because it was very, very rough and all I heard was "Boshishku, boshishku, boshishku." and that's God, God, God, you know, and they were all kneeling and praying around there and uh, that, as if something was going to happen. But they were all scared because the boat was bouncing around, it was so rough.

DANE:

Were the people crying?

LICHANEC:

Some were crying and then some were just hollering and praying, you know, there was some kind of excitement which I didn't pay attention to much, I didn't worry, I had, just didn't seem to worry as long as I was with my mother there, you know.

DANE:

Did your mother say anything of comfort to you, was she nervous or scared, that you knew of?

LICHANEC:

Well, she would try to, you know, as mother to a child, she would try to comfort us and this and that, you know, because we were all scared.

DANE:

Uh-huh, and then you were also saying earlier that it, how you were treated as people that were, were you just treated as one huge group of people?

LICHANEC:

Yes, we were treated as a whole group, the same, somehow to say, alright, "All you go down this way or do this." They would just hurl you together and they didn't call you by name, "Hey, Andy or Sue," or whatever, "Come this way." They would, a man would get in front of us and he would say, "Follow me." And we would follow him. And wherever they were taking us.

DANE:

And also you had mentioned that, on the boat I guess, some entertainment, was there a band?

LICHANEC:

Yes, they tried to comfort us sometimes and music, that's the first time that I've seen a band because in Europe they have Gypsies that play violins, they have beautiful music, ah music that rings in my mind all the time when there was a wedding and they're just beautiful. They'd be maybe six or seven Gypsies playing all violins and cymbals and shadashes, dances and all that stuff which was very beautiful music and uh, of course, on the boat there were these trumpets and horns blowing and the drum beating, all that, that's the first time I saw that and it was kind of interesting to me, you know. And the band would play, whatever they played sounded alright. Just to quiet us down and then I noticed as the man got through playing, that's one thing I noticed, when the band got through playing, they weren't praying that much already. Seems to me, that way. Then after that, everything was quiet and we all had to go down back into the bottom of the boat where we belonged.

DANE:

Did it sound like a new sound for you, these horns and--

LICHANEC:

It really did because when they combined the whole together, you know, I did see a trumpet before that, over there they have these horns they blow in, but when I saw all this here that was something really different to me, besides a Gypsy band.

DANE:

Did you like it?

LICHANEC:

Oh, I like it but, I still up till today, I like the Gypsies the best. Because their music, their music is so ah, it's kind of, it's, it brings you on your feet, and it is mellow like more or less, string music. I like it, I always liked it.

DANE:

A little more emotional too.

LICHANEC:

That's right, that's right.

DANE:

Do you remember what you brought with you from home, did you pack a lot of things or did you--

LICHANEC:

No, no, I'll tell you, today when anybody goes anywhere they got two or three suitcases, we didn't have one. All we had was uh, bag and everything was in the bag just like uh, a tramp going along, a bag on his back. That's all we had, mother had everything in a bag, she had her pillows, whatever there was to put on her head and she had a whatever there was in there for us to change, a little, you know.

DANE:

So you did bring your down pillows?

LICHANEC:

Yeah, we did bring some of the down pillows, not all of them, some of them.

DANE:

And food, any food for the trip or did you just leave and--

LICHANEC:

No, when we left, there was no food, mother, well, mother did have some bread and some there that I remember that I ate a few times. Of course, then they fed us, wherever we landed. But we didn't have no food, only what they gave us on the boat, or in the station where we were stationed for the time.

DANE:

Coming into New York Harbor, do you remember seeing the Statue of Liberty?

LICHANEC:

I don't quite remember seeing the Statue of Liberty. I was on the side of it but I didn't look up, all I remembered, Ellis Island is a picture in my mind, very good that I remember how we went into the building and all that stuff.

DANE:

When they gave you the medical exams, do you remember what they did exactly, did they look in your eyes or--

LICHANEC:

They, they did look at our eyes and then what they did do, they uh, inoculated us, in the hand, you know, they give you that for measles or whatever it was. Well, I got one.

DANE:

Did it hurt?

LICHANEC:

Well, it was sore, a little bit, but it's not--

DANE:

Would you have to take off your clothes for it?

LICHANEC:

No, they just raised you sleeve up and out it into your arm.

DANE:

Would you get into long lines, and they would--

LICHANEC:

No, just come around and took everybody one after another, whatever it was. Everybody would be there.

DANE:

Did it seem chaotic or confused on Ellis Island? Were there that many people that it seemed sort of out of control or was everything orderly?

LICHANEC:

I think everything was, for me, it was orderly because there was no confusion of any kind, I know, but I guess you depend so much on uh, the officers or whoever it was there, when they once say, "Come on, this way," you went and that's it. You didn't ask no questions or your, it was just like I say, everybody in a herd, every body seemed to go out. Only as I remember as we came out of Ellis Island and we're going to the station, someone went one way, some went the other way, all of a sudden we broke up, then I was with totally strange people after we left the Ellis Island. Everybody went their way, on the train, wherever they went. Then I saw new people I didn't see before.

DANE:

Great, then back to Logansport, you said that your aunt made a great big meal for you.

LICHANEC:

Yes, she did. She had a meal on there and was something that we couldn't have in Europe, it wasn't there. I know she had some good soup, good chicken or beef soup it was, then she had a roast there, she had a, she made them strudels and uh, everything that, different things with it, you know, and the soda was there, that's one thing, that soda was there.

DANE:

Had you ever seen that much food in one place in a long time?

LICHANEC:

Well, I would see that more of a food if there was a wedding, in Europe. You know, when they had a wedding, they really had everything there. They somehow, for that wedding they seemed to have it. But during the rest of the days, yes, we didn't starve but it wasn't what you saw on that table.

DANE:

Did you go to school in Logansport, is that what happened to you right away? Did they put you in?

LICHANEC:

Yes, soon as I went there I uh, well, I had to go to school. School was quite a ways out and uh, I remember, ,y uncle says to me, "You know, Andy," he says, "Now," he says, "You're not a hunky, a Hungarian , you have to go to school, learn English." And my father says to me, "And you have to learn how to talk Slovak." I mean you have to, because I spoke more Hungarian at that time so here my father was teaching me Slovak, then I went to school, they were teaching me English. And I tell you, I had a little problem there and uh, it went along alright. I got into it after a while, I didn't make anything of it.

DANE:

How did you learn English, did the kids at school help you?

LICHANEC:

Yes, the kids, you know, you mingled with the kids, and they would make fun out of you, the way you talked. I'll never forget, you know, uh, my mother would say to me, "Now go down to the," there would be a company store, you know the coal mine, a little store and they have sugar and flour there whatever, you just, these things, you know. So I would run in, mother said, "Go down and get some uh, flour and sugar for me." So I run down there with some money in my hand and I would say to the store man, I says, "Give me some zuker." See, zuker. zuker is in our language, see, and he already understood us, he was, I think he was, I think he was am American Yankee, you know, he was, and he already knew because other people would come in and do the same thing. So I would have half Slovak and half English. I was, you know, to ask for different things, but it went along pretty good because I was mingling with the kids everyday in school and I finally got on to English. It was a little hard, you know, but at the same time it came along pretty good I think for me, I caught on to it.

DANE:

Why did your father want you to learn Slovak when you were in this country?

LICHANEC:

Well, you know, our parents, that was their custom, they figured that you come from a, there and you were Slovak and you should keep that, you should, it should stick with you and you should, don't forget it, remember that Slovak language. You see, when my father came to the United States first time, then he told himself, he says, "I was thinking to make enough money and go back," he says, "I was going to buy, buy up some land and everything," you see, they had ideas but after he was here, he didn't want to go back anymore.

DANE:

What do you think changed his mind?

LICHANEC:

The system and the way we live here. See, that's what changed his mind and he didn't want to go back, he says, "You know that's the intention most of them have, make a lot of money and then go over there and buy up some land and be a boss," see. but when he came here, didn't want to go back again, he wanted just to stay here.

DANE:

Would the kids make fun of you?

LICHANEC:

Oh yes, the kids always pick on you, you know, and make you a little uncomfortable, but after a while it, you're with them and it kind of would, you know, wear off.

DANE:

Did you ever hear the expression, "greenhorn"?

LICHANEC:

Oh yes, that's definitely a "hunky" or a "greenhorn", that's the two names they always had for us. You're a "greenhorn", "green horn", you know. I remember that good and uh, well, it just--

DANE:

Would you ever mix it up with the kids, sort of scrap with them because you were tired of being called these names?

LICHANEC:

Well, I don't know, we didn't, no, not with me, I didn't, you know. Oh, they would call me different names and I really got upset, you know, and I was going to hit them but I was afraid to start a fight or something.

DANE:

And your name, we were talking a little bit earlier, is Andrew in English, but what did your mother call you?

LICHANEC:

Andro.

DANE:

Andro, and did that change when you came to this country?

LICHANEC:

Oh yes, because there, when we came to this country, in a school they wouldn't pronounce it Andro, they would say Andy, Andy, Andy, Andy.

DANE:

Did that sound strange to you?

LICHANEC:

Well, to me it did, well, not too much but it did because you know by changing that dro and -d- you know.

DANE:

Uh-huh. Now you didn't stay in Logansport for very long did you, after you--

LICHANEC:

No, uh, we, after we left Logansport, we went to what they call uh, Furnace Run, from Furnace Run, Pennsylvania--

DANE:

Pennsylvania?

LICHANEC:

Pennsylvania. Still Pennsylvania, near Allegheny River. Then we went up north to Furnace Run, that was still near Allegheny River, you know, and we stayed there just a little while because the work wasn't, there wasn't enough work there so we moved back down to Logansport into what they call Furnace Run. And my dad worked there in that slope mine and uh, one day there was an explosion and we were all out there, kids playing around and all of a sudden, everybody's running to the mine and I see my mother running out of the house, all going down, and I figured there's something wrong, so I ran up there and uh, I see they were taking my dad out, they just had him on a stretcher, in that little cart there, they were carrying him out. At first, we thought he was dead but he was alive and, you know, they got him home. They didn't have doctors like you have your hospitals, he was in bed. I remember, he was pretty broken up quite a bit, but he was in bed and the company doctor used to come there pretty near every day, every other day and that same doctor was superintendent of the schools too because I used to see him come to school. He took care of my dad, so after my dad got feeling a little better and he took about five months cause he was home and his brother was here in Connecticut and he was corresponding to him, he had a farm out here in the back and he says, "I want you to come over here," and so he says, "The next time you go into that mine, they won't bring you out alive." So my dad came here, he was still sick and uh, he, again he landed to his brother's house because he had a farm here, you know, in the back, not too far from here and they walked around, he spent I guess about a month here with him and uh, he gave a deposit on a farm down in Willington there with my godfather and that's how we landed here in Connecticut.

DANE:

Now, what did you think of this move?

LICHANEC:

Oh, I thought it was great, again, I came over here, I tell you why, what really was a change here, because to me when I came in the woods here I saw a lot of white trees and, you know, that's a white birch and I called them painted trees, which I never saw in Pennsylvania, and I remember a little in Europe that I'd seen them but I never saw any there, only over here and so, it was quite a thing for me.

DANE:

And to be back on a farm where there were animals, did that feel--

LICHANEC:

Oh yes, we were, right off we bought a horse and we bought some cows, and I was back home again because I love a farm and I love animals and until then we went on our own here, we had our dairy, we had about 35 heads of dairy and we had horses. We had about three horses and I was a real farm boy, I was happy again and--

DANE:

Life got better. Tell me, did you become an American citizen?

LICHANEC:

I became an American citizen through virtue of my father. He, it was the law in them days, up until 1921 I guess, when a father came and was made a citizen, his children, if there were two or three and a wife, were all made a citizen through him and this is where I became a citizen. I got my own papers after, when I got up in my age, around 16 or 17, I began to work, to get my own citizen papers. That is, I sent in a copy of my father's and I got my own now.

DANE:

You grew up here, born in the old country, been back to the old country, do you think life was better for you here in America, do you wish that you had ever been able to stay back in Czechoslovakia with your grandfather?

LICHANEC:

Oh, no. You know, when I went back there 12 years ago, to the village where I left 63 years before then, and I came into this village, it seemed to me, as the day I left it, my memory was stuck that way, I left it that way, I found it that way. To me it didn't see no improvements, whatsoever. As I came inside the town hall, the mayor, knew I was coming, I came in and I stood there, in the office, all of a sudden I see this man coming in, with a boots on, just rough looking with a whip in his hand and he comes inside, he had a, he had, came outside loaded with wood, and he came inside, and he says in front of this, he looked like a state trooper, a Russian officer, he says, "Please, will you help me," he says, "My wife is sick, I need help," and he's begging me and the meantime as I stood there on the side, I see this man with his hat on the side and he's begging and talking to this officer, and my memory flashed back to my father right off, because that's the custom they had in Europe, when a man that never had anything, and came in front of an officer, he was very polite, he begged and I says, "When my dad was here in America, he kind of got away from it after a while, but when he would come he would take his hat off first thing, when he came into an office, took his hat off and held it on his side, over him, and I says, "Are they still doing this, what they used to do when my dad was in Europe, begging like this their hat down on their chest?" And it kind of brought my memory back. I says, "I just couldn't get over it," I says, "They still got this system here, begging the way they are?" And you don't have to do that in the United States.

DANE:

What else is different for you, that's an interesting insight, things hadn't changed very much at all in 60 years.

LICHANEC:

Well, to me its the freedom, its the freedom you got here, no whatever I got. If I got enough money, they don't take it away from me. I can go there, which is so nice, I go from, we went from Italy, from Switzerland, we went to Czechoslovakia, we're so free and as I noticed, when I came in front of the town hall, a lot of them when they know Americans coming there, like we came there with my wife, everybody sees the older people, seems to run down there, they want to know what's going on there, what's this, what's that. And I thought to myself, geez, how nice it is for me to be here and go out and come in when I want to. These people here, they're tied, they cannot go out the way we do. They're still, seems to me they haven't got the freedom we have.

DANE:

Do you think that you appreciate being an American more than American born people?

LICHANEC:

I do, in a way, because I already know my background. I know what I went through and I think this here makes you appreciate more and more. Its just like a person, that goes real hungry, and when he gets food, oh its good, I love it and I think, I think this is a good lesson for any of us that went through like my parents or we went through, we appreciate because we already know in the back what we went through and we don't want to go through that and when we get something better, we want to hold it.

DANE:

Uh-huh, are you proud to be an American?

LICHANEC:

Very much, I am a proud American. And I really, I used to think and dream of Europe but there's no place for me but America. Because you are free, you are free and you can go there, you can go there, you got money, but like I talked to her cousin, he's in Europe where we stayed with, he says to us, "You know we have some money, but we cannot use it like you, we cannot go out of here." In order for me to see him here, I have to get his passport, give him the money, and use American money to get him here and ship him back home. But they cannot use their money to do what we can do with our money.

DANE:

That's great. There's one thing that I wanted you to tell me about when you were a little boy, you used to dream about your grandfather.

LICHANEC:

Yes, like I say, my grandfather was my father and my grandfather, everything to me. I dreamt so much about him. Sometimes, dreams used to scare me. I would dream, I'd be entering the village, I could see off distant like a fog, roofs and everything and here I am in my mind saying, "Oh I'm going to be there, I'm going to be there, I'm getting to see him, I'm going to see him." All of a sudden I would wake up, I never seem to see him, you know, in my dream. I knew of him but I couldn't see the face.

DANE:

How, you would wake up feeling--

LICHANEC:

I would wake up and I would be disappointed because I didn't see him, until the day here, 12 years ago I went to Europe, I walked around that village and this woman took us to the cemetery, I stood in front of his grave, she says, "He's buried here, here's the flowers, I'm taking care of him." Believe it or not, for 12 years I never has one dream. I think my mind is at rest, at ease because I stood there at his grave and I said a prayer, I did and I think I helped myself, I rest my mind by doing that and maybe he did too, maybe he did see me there.

DANE:

Uh-huh, closed the chapter, in a way. And that image of seeing him on the train when you were leaving--

LICHANEC:

That's right. Seeing him on the train, when I left and dreaming of him all the time because he was very good to me 'cause I was always with him. Seems to me that I didn't play with children too much, seems to me that I seemed to stick to older people and with him especially. He was a kind of a man that they never had, you know, we never had candy like they have here. In europe I had bread with sugar on it and water. This is something, I never had no jelly and then, you know, when he would be out again and when he'd come in he tried to bring me something, that would be, he'd have this big coat on, like you maybe seen in the pictures, the coats they have, in there he would stick a potato, a piece of bread, in back in the pocket and I, that's the first thing when I ran up to him, my hand would be in his pocket and I would find either the potato or the bread.

DANE:

I think that's wonderful. This is the end of tape two, side one, Andrew Lichanec, Interview Number 170, its 12:30.