JT: Mrs. Karpinski, what was your maiden name?

HK: Helen Bernice Olszewski.

JT: Thank you. Where were you born?

HK: I was born on October 7, 1899 in Cleveland, Ohio.

JT: What part of Cleveland?

HK: It was Marselina Avenue at that time, but now it's East 71^st Street, and I was baptized at the Sacred Heart Church on 71^st Street.

JT: Where were your parents born?

HK: They were born in Poland, and my mother was born in a little village where her parents had a business; it was called an inn and her name was Ann Grabowski; then she married my father John Olszewski. He was from a family that had a lot of land. They were landowners and he Worked on the land in Poland.

JT: When did your father come to this country?

HK: In the late 1890's. It was maybe, could be, maybe in the late 1880's.

JT: And why did he come?

HK: Well they were married and he was going to be drafted into the war and you know at that time Poland was divided into three parts and where my folks lived was under Russian rule, and of course if you were drafted you were drafted into the Russian army and that is one thing he didn't want. And, his two older brothers also came for the same reason. They came here to Cleveland to avoid being drafted into the Russian army.

JT: Why did he come to Cleveland especially? Because his older brothers were here?

HK: Were here and they had a business here. My mother came too, with one child at that time. My oldest sister was born in Poland.

JT: Did they plan to stay permanently in this country?

HK: Oh yes, yes. We lived in Cleveland, and at the age of 4 or 5 we moved to Reynoldsville,Pennsylvania, where I really grew up.

JT: Why did they move to Reynoldsville?

HK: We have very close relatives there and my uncle sold the business, so father thought that instead of looking for a job here, he thought, maybe he could do better in Pennsylvania with my cousins because they promised him a job. So we moved there and Dad was a foreman in the Wishaw Mines. There was a little city called Wishaw. He was the foreman of the Wishaw Mines.

JT: Did your family come back to Cleveland, then?

HK: Oh yes. Well, no. I was there until 16. We lived there until I was 16 and I went to school there. And then we came, then I …the girls…my sisters, three sisters. Two sisters and myself came first and then my family followed us.

JT: How many brothers and sisters did you have?

HK: I had 6 brothers and there were 5 girls. My mother had 14 children. She raised 11, and out of the 11 she raised I was the fifth one. And so, we had a large family.

JT: What languages were spoken in your parents' home?

HK: It was Polish and my mother taught us Polish and of course we spoke English, too.

JT: What were some of the other Polish traditions in your parents' home when you were a child?

HK: Well, of course you know we always honored—being a Roman Catholic—we always honored the Roman Catholic Church holy days and, of course, the great celebrations were at Easter and Christmas. Those were our great celebration days because we honored the Church holy days. And at Christmas time, having so many brothers, they would go out and cut our tree for Christmas and it was a large tree. Having 11 children we had to have a big home and so we had a very large room to put the Christmas tree in. Those are the days that we always celebrated. And Christmas Eve, Mother, with her

HK: beautiful dinners, had her table set with fish, because that was the holiday food and her pastry, and of course you know my mother was an extraordinary person. I don't know whether we can find one like her now. Because, having so many children,she also had a cow, chickens, hogs, and ducks, and she sewed for the children too. So, at Christmas time we would have the fish and, you know, we had soup.Mother used to make what we called beet soup and what is called Borscht in Polish. But Mother made it extraordinary because she would sift the soup from all the containers she had put in before and just serve it with potatoes and it was an excellent soup for Christmas Eve and she would have this table set up with all this homemade food. She was a great baker with the babka, you know. It's coffee cake made with raisins. And, you know, raising chickens,she had about 8 or 10 eggs in it, so it was a delicious coffee cake. Babka we called it. And she preserved so many different types of fruit so we would have fruit too. So that would be on Christmas Eve.

JT: Did you exchange gifts on Christmas Eve?

HK: No, we waited for Christmas. After the children all went to bed, Mother saw that each child had one little gift. And we would trim the tree with oranges and popcorn. We would thread the popcorn and make the

HK: paper into little paper ornaments to hang on the tree, because it was such a large tree. And there were apples. Because we had apples and a good many of them. So that's what was the trimming of the tree. But the gifts were all laid so that Christmas morning when we got up the first thing we would do, is Mother would dress us to go to church. That's the first thing, our obligation. Then when we would come from church, the Polish families, they would divide an oplatek. An oplatek is a wafer, a really fine wafer that each child and mother would break while they would wish each other Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year. And then on Christmas Day she would have ham, because she would butcher a hog. She'd have ham and Polish sausage. You didn't eat meat on Christmas Eve. We would have all that on Christmas Day dinner. So there again was this beautiful table she would set and with all these different things on it. The Polish sausage is Kielbasa, you know we call it. It's homemade and it's delicious. And so we would have that and we again had different pastry that Mother would bake such as bread and we'd have the homemade butter. Mother used to churn her own butter, you know,because she had a cow, and so we would have a great table set for Christmas dinner.

JT: Your mother was a busy person. And Easter was another?

HK: Yes, Easter was another holiday that we greatly celebrated. And Mother, at Christmas, she would dress us up. Christmas day she would see that each one had a new outfit. First thing we got up we'd dress in our new outfit and go to church. Then when we came back she would have duck that day and the ham and the sausage and all the beautiful pastry again. You know, there would be chrusciki. They're called angel wings, you know, they are delicate and break easily. But Mother made them and she also made paczki, which is like a jelly doughnut but in them Mother would put prune preserves in it and powdered sugar on top,and she'd make them the day before. And I will never forget how she would line them on the ironing board, you know, so they'd raise. And then she would, she would bake them and they were delicious and she would have them ready for Christmas dinner. So all this different pastry would be there. You had your choice of whatever you wanted. It was just a grand table to come to.

JT: I would think so. Were there any other holidays that were special?

HK: Those were the special ones that…The American holidays we, you know, the Fourth of July, we always celebrated all the other holidays too.

JT: Did you celebrate May 5^th?

HK: I think it's May 1^st, isn't it? The Polish..

JT: Independence?

HK: Yes, we would…there would be some activities in somebody's home on that day. Yes.

JT: What were some of the others? Easter was a long holiday wasn't it?

HK: Yes. You know, Easter, when I think about it, and I recall Easter Monday. Easter was the lovely day to celebrate and Easter Monday was called Dingus Day. And that was the day boys would get little switches and when they would see the girls pass by they would hit them on the legs. And, of course, we would start running because we thought that was fun, you know. It was all a tradition that they had. But the surprising thing was that there'd be a group of boys and we'd think that they're waiting for us to get close to them, but we couldn't see the switches. And here they were all small. They were sitting on them and the minute we got up to them, out would come the switches and of course we al ran. And that was the fun. They would always catch up to us and give us a little switch on the legs, you know. That was Easter Monday. But Easter Tuesday, it was reversed now; the women's day it was. So each woman was allowed to sprinkle water on the men. And I recall this one time my cousin came in and my father was just having his breakfast, and she sprinkled some water on him and it was a great sprinkle

HK: of water and he was so furious because while he was eating she sprinkled this water on him. But she says, "Well, I wish you a happy year, a hug and a good holiday." Because that was included into the Easter holidays. But those were some of the fun days after Easter celebration.

JT: That's interesting. Were you in any group singing?

HK: Oh yes. You know they had a Polish fraternal organization in Cleveland and in Reynoldsville,and and they would get the girls who had pretty good voices and they would teach us how to sing Polish. And our manager was very good, and we sang in Polish when th