Abstract

This oral history interview with Marie Gubics offers a detailed account of her early life and experiences growing up in the Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio. Gubics reflects on her childhood memories, including her schooling, family life, and the vibrant community activities centered around local churches and social gatherings. She describes the impact of immigration on her family, her experiences during the Great Depression, and the community's response to the construction of the inner belt freeway, which divided the neighborhood. Gubics also shares personal anecdotes about her involvement in World War II, her marriage, and her reflections on the changes in Tremont over the years, highlighting both the challenges and the resilience of the community. The interview captures the essence of life in a working-class, ethnically diverse neighborhood during the early to mid-20th century.

Interviewee

Gubics, Marie (interviewee)

Interviewer

Campbell, Joy (interviewer)

Project

Tremont History Project

Date

2-23-2003

Document Type

Oral History

Transcript

Joy Campbell: We are going to start. It’s February twenty-third, I just have to say this into the microphone, or February twenty fourth, seven pm, ok. What I need you to do is just say your name and could you spell it into the microphone?

Marie Gubics: Do you want me to talk directly into the microphone?

Joy Campbell: Yeah if you want or you don’t have to because it is right there, so.

Marie Gubics: Marie Gubics, G-U-B-I-C-S

Joy Campbell: Ok, that’s good. The first question that I’m supposed to ask is like what are some of your early childhood memories?

Marie Gubics: I was born in a house on Scranton Road facing Starkweather Avenue. I went to Tremont junior high–. First I went to Scranton Road elementary school then Tremont junior high and then I graduated from Lincoln High School on Scranton Road.

Joy Campbell: Any like, anything you can think of, stories–.

Marie Gubics: After, quite often after school I would go over to the Merrick House and volunteer, I would play with the children there. There are a lot of churches in that area, I went to a lot of the churches, especially Pilgrim Congregational church. They had all kinds of, social activities for the neighborhood, I remember, they even had a bowling alley there and we bowled there. That was really, Pilgrim church was really the center of the town when I was young because we, they catered to the children, giving them lots of opportunities for different activities.

Joy Campbell: Ok.

Marie Gubics: I don’t know what else I can say.

Joy Campbell: That’s good for now, we’ll–.

Marie Gubics: Ok.

Joy Campbell: We have an hour.

Joy Campbell: Ok, when did your parents move to Tremont and why did they move there? Do you know?

Marie Gubics: They came from Czechoslovakia sometime in the late, late eighteen hundreds. They settled in that area because a lot of the Russian, Polish, Ukrainian people settled in that area. We went to– we attended the Holy Ghost Church at Kenilworth and West Fourteenth Street, and my father worked in the steel mills. We didn’t have a car; we had to walk from Scranton Road down to the steel mills, my mother had to work as a charwoman walking from Scranton down to Tremont School. I can’t believe it but she did. I had three older sisters.

Joy Campbell: Did you speak their language or, like what languages did they speak?

Marie Gubics: They didn’t know English so we were anxious to teach them, and they caught on very–. I thought they caught on very well. I know a little bit of Russian but not too much, which I’m sorry about of course.

Joy Campbell: How about, did you work at all or did you just volunteer after school?

Marie Gubics: No, I never worked while I was in high school, no. My sister [laughter], my one sister, there was a nice–. They don’t have them anymore, but there was a beautiful ice cream parlor that was on West Twenty-fifth Street someplace, I don’t remember exactly where, but it was Mrs. Call–. Mrs. Paul’s ice cream parlor. It was a beautiful place but my sister worked there, my older sister. But I never worked outside the– while I was in school I didn’t work, no.

Joy Campbell: When you were a child, where was like, where was the typical place that you would go and play, like–?

Marie Gubics: We were always out in the streets, that’s what so different nowadays, we were always out in the streets, nobody was fearful about being molested, uh, hide-and-go-seek, hopscotch [laughter]. But it was always right there in our own neighborhood. Of course we went to Lincoln Park, they had a pool when we were youngsters, they don’t have a pool anymore.

Joy Campbell: How about when you were a teenager, like where did you go on dates? Where was like the big date place?

Marie Gubics: Yeah, I dated my high school sweetheart and I married him when, I was twenty-one years old. We, I guess we mostly went to movies and dancing, we liked dancing. We went to the () on West twenty-fifth street, which isn’t there anymore.

Joy Campbell: How was it dating back then? Were your parents really, really strict about like–?

Marie Gubics: Not really. No. We didn’t have cars; I don’t know how we got around we didn’t have cars so I guess we always went by bus and streetcar.

Joy Campbell: How about, where did you go to grocery shop, or your parents, did you do the grocery shopping or did your parents–?

Marie Gubics: I would go with my parents. We were lucky we lived on Scranton road, so we were lucky having a bus go right by our house and stop at our corner. There was grocery store across the street; there was a candy store across the street. And of course in those days, you went up to the counter and you told the man who owned the store what you wanted and he went and got it for you and you put it in your bag and brought it home, not like today. Not like the super markets today. Of course we went to the West Side Market an awful lot and we walked, I can’t believe we –. It was quite a distance. We walked over there. My mother would come home with a live chicken kill it when she got home [Laughter].

Joy Campbell: Did you grocery shop specifically at like Russian grocers–. Like would your parents do that or would they go anywhere?

Marie Gubics: Anywhere. I don’t remember what nationality the local grocery man was, I don’t recall. No I don’t think that she particularly sought that out, no.

Joy Campbell: Now you talked about where you went to church. Did you go to church with any of your neighbors, was it pretty much like the neighborhood church, or did you kinda go out of your neighborhood?

Marie Gubics: Actually where we lived on Scranton Road, which faced Starkweather, it took us, I’d say a half hour to walk up to Kenilworth and West Fourteenth Street, so we would walk up there. A lot of our neighbors went to the same church. Our next-door neighbors, Schulz, they went to the same church as us.

Joy Campbell: What language was the mass said in?

Marie Gubics: Russian and English, both. And that church, the women sat on one side and the men sat on the other side. And I was married in that church.

Joy Campbell: Did you have to wear like, the skirt or anything; did you have to wear anything specific?

Marie Gubics: No, no. Although we did have the maid of honor and the groom would hold a crown over our heads. Made out of–. A wreath, not a crown, a wreath. I don’t remember what it was made out of though, I can’t remember if it was artificial or real. I don’t remember that part.

Joy Campbell: I guess we talked about some of the places that you would go dancing, anywhere specific that you always went or that was–. When you were young you couldn’t wait to be able to go to this place?

Marie Gubics: We went to the Aragon quite a bit on West Twenty-fifth Street. We used to go to Euclid beach and Puritas Park. A lot of these amusement parks had ball rooms and we would go there.

Joy Campbell: And you were married to your high school sweet heart. He was also from the neighborhood then?

Marie Gubics: And he was Russian also. He belonged to St. Theodosius Church, which is a famous church on Starkweather.

Joy Campbell: Did you have your reception down there?

Marie Gubics: In our home. We didn’t have fancy wedding–. We didn’t have a fancy wedding. My sisters and my mother did all of the preparations for the reception.

Joy Campbell: Now you said that you have three sisters?

Marie Gubics: Three older sisters.

Joy Campbell: Now what were your sleeping arrangements like?

Marie Gubics: We had a nice house. We had an upstairs and downstairs, I shared one bedroom with my sister, and my other two sisters shared a bedroom. My parents had their own bedroom.

Joy Campbell: Now when, when the bridges were out, the Abbey Road bridge and the Clark Road bridge, how did that affect–? Was like when you would walk to the West Side Market? Were those out at that time?

Marie Gubics: That was in the opposite direction. Yeah, that was in the opposite direction.

Joy Campbell: Did that have a big effect on how people got around? Do you know?

Marie Gubics: Well, it didn’t affect us. We had no reason to go in that direction.

Joy Campbell: How was it during the Depression?

Marie Gubics: Well that’s what is so interesting, when I–. I didn’t know that I was poor. As I say, my mother was a charwoman, my father worked in the steel mills, we owned a house, and it was a duplex so we got rent from the other side of the house. The only thing that I remember about the Depression, being the youngest of four daughters, I never had new clothes.

Joy Campbell: Oh, ok.

Marie Gubics: But otherwise we seemed to manage, I guess. But I didn’t know that we were poor so–.

Joy Campbell: What is a charwoman?

Marie Gubics: Cleaning lady. Cleaning lady.

Joy Campbell: Why did they call them that, do you know?

Marie Gubics: I don’t know, I don’t know. That’s a good question. I don’t know.

Joy Campbell: So, when you want to the candy store. How much was a piece of candy?

Marie Gubics: Oh my gosh. You could get a bag for a penny. And I can also remember, when we went to West Side Market, across from the West Side Market, there was a store that sold cookies, and they would let us kids go in and get the broken cookies, fill a whole bag up for a penny. They were always broken cookies.

Joy Campbell: At school, did you have a lot of best friends?

Marie Gubics: Yes, and I still have some of those friends, yeah. And what puzzles me today, you hear about gangs and you hear about brutality and taking advantage of kids and I don’t recall anything like that; either in grade school, junior high, or high school. We didn’t have any of those problems.

Joy Campbell: Not at all. I know that it is a very ethnic place in Tremont; did you have any problems with people of different ethnic backgrounds getting along at school, or you don’t remember– ?

Marie Gubics: No, no and that was the beauty–. Especially in high school I remember, we had every nationality possible, I’m pretty sure we even had some black children if I recall. We all got along, all got along.

Joy Campbell: I’m going to stop this for a second just to make sure that we are getting this. [Recorder is turned off and then back on.]

Joy Campbell: We are back on. Now you went to Scranton Road elementary? What were your teachers like?

Marie Gubics: The only thing that I remember, I was always tall for my age, and I’ll never forget my gym teacher. We were in gym class and I think that we were playing volleyball, I’m not sure what we were playing, and she called me a big cow.

Joy Campbell: Oh my goodness.

Marie Gubics: So of course I came home bawling. But my parent didn’t do anything about it, they probably didn’t know that they could sue like they do today. But that is the only traumatic thing I remember. Otherwise the teachers were all, I thought that they were all–. I don’t remember their names, but they were all very nice.

Joy Campbell: What kind of classes did you take?

Marie Gubics: In high school?

Joy Campbell: Sure.

Marie Gubics: Believe it or not, I loved Latin because I had a wonderful Latin teacher, so I belonged to the Latin club. I took commercial classes, typing and short hand. And I even worked in the assistant principles office after school, Mr.(), I remember that. I must have gotten paid for that. I don’t remember how much. As I say, I enjoyed Latin, took commercial classes. I was terrible at geometry and algebra. But I liked everything else.

Joy Campbell: Did they offer–. Was it like mostly girls in your typing and short hand classes?

Marie Gubics: No, no. In fact, even my husband was a good typist and short hand, he took short hand too.

Joy Campbell: After school, it’s different today, did you go right out with your friends after school or did you have to go home and do your homework?

Marie Gubics: I think we usually came straight home. And, of course, we had to do chores around the house, and homework, and then I’m sure that we always went out afterwards, after supper and played until it got dark. I remember that.

Joy Campbell: Even in the winter?

Marie Gubics: Even in the winter. We loved it. We loved the wintertime, yeah.

Joy Campbell: Besides the pool at Lincoln Park, what other things were there to do there, do you remember?

Marie Gubics: I remember going to the YWCA on Franklin Blvd., I must have gone there by bus. I don’t know how else I could have gotten there. I must have gotten there by bus. And we joined a drama group and put on plays, corny plays [laughter.]

Joy Campbell: When did you move out?

Marie Gubics: As I said, I graduated from Lincoln High School, and then worked for a short while. Worked for a couple of years, and then we moved to Parma when I was twenty perhaps, because I was married at twenty-one. We moved there when I was about twenty years old I guess.

Joy Campbell: Where did you work at?

Marie Gubics: I worked at the state auto insurance in the office. I worked at () in the Terminal Tower. I think that those were the only two jobs that I had before I was married.

Joy Campbell: I know on the phone you said you went into the service during World War Two, what was the like before World War Two?

Marie Gubics: The reason that I went in, I may as well tell you why I went in, it was World War Two of course, and they were drafted. My husband was in the coast guard, and I moved with him to Massachusetts, we lived in a small town and we got a–, we got to live in a private home, however, three months after we were married, he was killed by lightning. He was on patrol duty along the coast and of course he had a rifle and it was a terrible thunder storm and the lightning struck the rifle and he was killed, so then that is why I joined the service too. I came back to Cleveland, I stayed home for a short while, worked and then I decided to join the Coast Guard also.

Joy Campbell: Oh my goodness, that’s a once in a lifetime.

Marie Gubics: Yeah, yeah.

Joy Campbell: Did your sisters continue to live and your family there, or did everyone move to Parma? Did you move to Parma with your parents?

Marie Gubics: I moved to Parma with my parents. My three older sisters were already married by that time. My one sister, when we moved to Parma, she lived upstairs with her husband because there was an upstairs apartment and my oldest sister lived in the neighborhood, not too far from that, and one sister never married so she stayed in the house with us.

Joy Campbell: What were your high school dances like?

Marie Gubics: Well, I was always the tall one, I was always taller than all of the other guys. That’s the only thing I remember. But they were fun. They were fun.

Joy Campbell: And prom?

Marie Gubics: Prom was fun. Where did we go? On Brook Park, I forget the name of the place. Yeah, we had a nice prom I remember that, but I don’t remember the name of the place. But it was on Brook Park somewhere.

Joy Campbell: And obviously you went with your high school sweetheart?

Marie Gubics: uh huh.

Joy Campbell: Do you have any stories of him growing up? When did you meet him?

Marie Gubics: In high school of course. They lived on Professor Avenue. And of course my parents and his parents were so happy because both families were Russian [laughter.]

Joy Campbell: Did you guys go to the same middle school? Grade School?

Marie Gubics: Yeah, but not the same grade school. He went–. He must have gone to Tremont, I’m not sure where he went for grade school, but he wasn’t in grade school with me, no. But he went to Tremont Junior High and then Lincoln High.

Joy Campbell: And all of the kids in Tremont pretty much went to Lincoln High, nobody really went outside?

Marie Gubics: Some of them went to West Tech, but most of us went over to Lincoln.

Joy Campbell: Was West Tech your big high school rival?

Marie Gubics: Yeah, on fact I’ll tell you a little story about that. With my second husband, when Lincoln high school had its twenty fifth class reunion, I was chairman of the committee, so I asked my husband, who had gone to West Tech, my second husband and my girlfriends husband who also went to West Tech, I said, When I get up to make announcements will the two of you get up and sing the West Tech Alma Mater, which they did and they got booed, and I expected that. Because we were rivals.

Joy Campbell: What were the sporting events like? Did you go to the big games?

Marie Gubics: I played the trombone in the band, the high school band, and you didn’t have to pay for the instruments the school loaned them to you. I went to all of the football games because I was in the band. And the only sports that I took part in was volleyball when I was in high school. I think that was all I took part in when I was in high school.

Joy Campbell: How did they organize that? Was it like an organized high school sport, like you played for the high school volleyball team or was it just like in gym class how you play volleyball?

Marie Gubics: I guess it was an organized high school team.

Joy Campbell: Was that the only women’s team that they had? Did girls have the opportunity to paly basketball?

Marie Gubics: Probably except I never played basketball so, they probably had one, but I don’t remember.

Joy Campbell: Did your husband play any sports?

Marie Gubics: Yes, he, I remember he played football, and he was on the swim team. Joy Campbell: Where did they swim at? Did you guys have a pool in your high school?

Marie Gubics: No. Where did they go? They must have gone to the Y. I think they went to the Y, the YMCA. No we didn’t have a pool, no, we didn’t have a pool in the school.

Joy Campbell: When you went to church on your Sunday’s, what were your Sunday’s like? Did it consist of church all day pretty much?

Marie Gubics: It was a two-hour service and the St. Theodosius Church, the one that my husband went to did not have pews so we stood for the whole service. But the church that I went to had pews and the women on one side and the men on the other. I remember going with him several times to his church for Christmas Eve service and it was always very crowded so we had this wave of garlic and wine, and garlic and wine throughout the church on Christmas eve [laughter.]

Joy Campbell: So after church was it like a family kind of day or were all of the kids back out in the street?

Marie Gubics: Oh, I see what you mean. The church was always a two-hour service, we always came home and had, almost always we had chicken dinner, almost always. And then–. On Sundays, I think I pretty much stayed close to home with my parents, I don’t think that I went out and played that much on Sundays.

Joy Campbell: What kind of food did your mother cook? Mostly just chicken or did she cook any ethnic sort of food?

Marie Gubics: We always had pierogies. Do you know what pierogies are? We always had pierogies and there is another dough that she made, I can’t remember what it is called, but we had that quite often and it was delicious. And on Christmas Eve she always made mushroom soup, mushroom and potato soup which was delicious, stuffed cabbage was at least once a week, stuffed peppers were at least once a week. And of course, we never ate in restaurants, we couldn’t afford to. We never ate at restaurants, it was always at home. And like different than it is today with families, you know TV interrupts families, and sports interferes with families today, all of us always ate together at diner time. We were always all there together at dinnertime.

Joy Campbell: Did you live there when the inner belt was being built through Tremont?

Marie Gubics: Yes, and that’s so sad I think because it really tore the neighborhood apart, I hate these damn freeways, the way they tear up neighborhoods. Yeah, I remember that, yeah.

Joy Campbell: What was that like? Did people try and stop it?

Marie Gubics: I don’t recall that we tried to stop it because I don’t think that we were that well educated about knowing about how to try and go about stopping it. But it did divide the neighborhoods. It’s a shame really.

Joy Campbell: After dividing the neighborhood, how did people–? People just went on again with their own ways, I mean they literally built a highway through your neighborhood?

Marie Gubics: Well the sad part of it is, you know, they took some of the homes, they destroyed some of the homes just to make the damn freeway. So people had to move and the sad part was when they moved, they moved to the suburbs like Parma, Brooklyn. I don’t think that very many of them stayed put in the neighborhood when they had to sell their houses. Just like even we–. I don’t know why we finally did move to Parma but we did even though we still didn’t have a car. Everything was bus, bus, bus, streetcar. Yeah, there used to be a streetcar on West Fourteenth Street, I remember that.

Joy Campbell: How did the streetcars work?

Marie Gubics: They had a conductor at either end I think because they would go in one direction and come back on a same track going back the same way. I’m not quite sure how that worked but I’m pretty sure that they had two conductors, one at either end of the streetcar.

Joy Campbell: Did you just jump on? When you were little did you guys kinds sneak on and catch rides?

Marie Gubics: Well, I never did I guess I wasn’t brave enough to try that [laughter.] And I don’t remember what the fare was either. There was a box that you put money in, but I don’t remember how much it was. Of course it wouldn’t have been very much.

Joy Campbell: With both of your parents working, did they do that when you were really young, did you have somebody–?

Marie Gubics: Yeah, in fact my girlfriend when I was in elementary school, her mother and father also had to work outside the home so my mother would take turns babysitting with their children and my girlfriends mother would take turns baby sitting with us, alternating back and forth. And whenever they went to social affairs or anything, they always took us children along, they always took us children along.

Joy Campbell: So there was always kids at weddings?

Marie Gubics: Yeah

Joy Campbell: How were your neighbors? What was it like in the neighborhood, were you close with everyone?

Marie Gubics: Yes, we were lucky. We were especially lucky with our next-door neighbors, their name was Schulz. My sister’s girlfriend lived two doors away. My girlfriend, whose mother would baby-sit with us, lived just around the corner from us. They lived in an alley behind us. But I don’t remember the name of the street, but it was an alley behind us. Yeah we got along with all of our neighbors; we got along with our tenants. My father had a duplex so he rented out the other half of the house and we got along with them real well.

Joy Campbell: You were talking about the alleys, were there houses facing in like on alleys?

Marie Gubics: Yeah, they were all close together and of course there were not any garages naturally. Yeah, they were very close they barely had front yards. We were lucky, we had a nice front yard. In fact the house today whenever I drive by is still in, it looks like it is still in good shape. There was barely, they barley had any front yards to speak of, they were practically on the street, the ones that lived in the alley that I’m talking about.

Joy Campbell: But you were close to people in the alley? So they didn’t just keep to themselves in the alley?

Marie Gubics: No, no we all got along.

Joy Campbell: Do you know how long your father’s work days were, was he gone basically working at the steel mill all day?

Marie Gubics: Pretty much, yeah. In fact, I think that he had to work different shifts now that I recall. Yeah, they had to work different shifts, which was hard. I’m sure that it was hard on him.

Joy Campbell: Now did most parents of your friends, do you know, work at the steel mill also, was that basically the only place?

Marie Gubics: Pretty much so because, first of all few of them could speak English so they didn’t have much choice as far as jobs were concerned, so yeah most of them did work at the steel mills. My uncle, my father’s brother, had a hardware store across the street from St. Theodosius church and I used to go in there and poke around and look at all of the stuff. I didn’t know what half of it was, but I still enjoyed poking around.

Joy Campbell: What about your grandparents, did you ever–?

Marie Gubics: I never knew my grandparents they stayed behind in Russia. Czechoslovakia. So I never got to know them.

Joy Campbell: Did your parents often speak about them?

Marie Gubics: Oh yes, yeah. You have to admire these people who came over here. They didn’t know the language; they were sixteen years old when they came over. Oh my gosh, and that long trip on the boat. You have to admire these people that came over, they had to be desperate to leave their country.

Joy Campbell: There was just the two of them, were they married that young?

Marie Gubics: Oh no, they were married here. They didn’t know each other until they got to the United States.

Joy Campbell: So did your mother leave alone then?

Marie Gubics: She came with her sister. My father came with his brother. And apparently they must have had sponsors who were willing to support them until they could get a job because my father did the same thing. He would sponsor immigrants for a while until they got settled and he’d, you know, give them money to get started.

Joy Campbell: How would he do that? Would he send money home?

Marie Gubics: No, when they go here. When they got here he would help them out until they got a job.

Joy Campbell: Did they tell you how they came over? Where did the boat port? Where did they come through?

Marie Gubics: Ellis Island, yeah.

Joy Campbell: Did they tell you about the conditions coming over; they came all the way from Russia?

Marie Gubics: Well they were in third class, so it wasn’t elegant. I don’t remember what else they told us about it. But all I remember that they said about it was that it was a long, long, long ride.

Joy Campbell: Did you often travel with your parents and visit different places outside–?

Marie Gubics: Sometimes, my mother’s sister ended up in Canada instead of here in the states so sometimes we would go over to visit her and we went by, I forget the name of the boat. But we went by boat across the lake. We went to visit her a couple of times. That’s the only one I remember visiting outside of our little community.

Joy Campbell: What was the boat trip like? Was it a ferry?

Marie Gubics: You mean to Canada? A ferry boat, yeah.

Joy Campbell: You said that you were married at your church, correct? You weren’t married at you husbands church?

Marie Gubics: No

Joy Campbell: Why was that?

Marie Gubics: I don’t know, I guess the bride had her choice I guess.

Joy Campbell: So you said that you married a second time? Did you marry outside of Tremont then?

Marie Gubics: Yeah, but I married the second time I was in my late thirties and he was local, he was a local Cleveland fellow, lived on the west side of town. His parents were Hungarian, came from Hungary and he was an only child so I don’t have many relatives today on either side anymore.

Joy Campbell: When World War Two was building up how did things change around there because everyone was being drafted? Did more women go to work?

Marie Gubics: Yeah. Of course I worked. When my first husband was drafted into the Coast Guard I was lucky enough to go with him to Massachusetts and even there I got a job in the local hospital as a secretary. When my sisters husband went into the service she had to go to work also, I remember that. Both of my sisters they had to go to work when their husbands went into the service.

Joy Campbell: Do you know if any women went to work in the mill? Did they start accepting jobs there? Because I would have to imagine that all the men were leaving.

Marie Gubics: I don’t recall anyone that I knew worked in the mills. Any women, no.

Joy Campbell: What was it like in the service? Did you actually have to go–?

Marie Gubics:I didn’t have to go overseas, I was right here. I had my basic training in Palm Beach, Florida in the dead of winter at a fancy () hotel. It was really tough [Laughter.] I was transferred to the training station in Brooklyn, New York. I always did office work. I worked in the office. And two of my girlfriends from Lincoln high school who joined with me and we’re still friends and we had a really nice experience. Again, there were no sex scandals, nobody tried to abuse us, and the stories you hear today are unbelievable. We never had any problems.

Joy Campbell: What did you think about the draft? Were people upset about the draft? Was everybody all for it?

Marie Gubics: I think I was so naïve I didn’t, I thought it had to be. I accepted it. I think most of us just accepted it, we didn’t know that we could be against it, or for it. We just thought it had to be.

Joy Campbell: Did your family have a telephone?

Marie Gubics: We got one eventually I guess. A hand telephone. () Can you believe that? Why would I remember that? You brought it up. Why in the world I remember that? [Laughter.]

Joy Campbell: Did you use the phone a lot? Did you have friends that had phones?

Marie Gubics: I remember my mother using the phone a great deal talking to my married sister. They would talk to each other everyday. I never had much reason to use the phone. Perhaps all of my friends didn’t have phones, I don’t know. But I certainly didn’t sit on the phone and talk the way teenagers do today.

Joy Campbell: Did you have a record player? Did you like to listen to music?

Marie Gubics: We did have a record player I remember that. The Victrola that you wound.

Joy Campbell: How about the radio?

Marie Gubics: We had a radio yes.

Joy Campbell: Was that something that you would gather around and listen to?

Marie Gubics: Yes.

Joy Campbell: What would you listen to? What was the big thing?

Marie Gubics: I think mostly music it was mostly music. And then when the TV first came into existence, I remember I bought a TV for my parents. And my mother liked to watch the Ed Sullivan show. That was a religion with her every Sunday.

Joy Campbell: Did you listen to the president on the radio ever?

Marie Gubics: Oh yes. Again you just accept what was going on, you don’t argue. At least we didn’t. We didn’t argue pro or con about anything. We just accepted what had to be.

Joy Campbell: Was it at the same time everyday? I don’t really know how those radio shows were.

Marie Gubics: No it wasn’t everyday, no. I think that it was probably once a week maybe. And of course there were always, in those days, ethnic programs on the radio. My parents would listen to Czechoslovakian programs I remember that. And Russian.

Joy Campbell: Did you listen to the soap operas on the radio? Were you not aloud?

Marie Gubics: I remember listening to “Orphan Annie” and what is that colored group. I don’t remember listening to soap operas. I don’t think that my mother did either. I remember coming home from school and I was always glued to the radio listening to little “Orphan Annie.”

Joy Campbell: Do you remember what the colored group that you were talking about is?

Marie Gubics: I can’t remember. There were two men and they were well known and they were really very funny. I can’t remember the name.

Joy Campbell: Did you ever see anyone come in concert? Music started getting really big

Marie Gubics: One thing that I liked when I was in Tremont junior high was they often took us to Severance Hall, took the school kids to Severance Hall. That is when I really learned to love music, classical music. I enjoy that very much.

Joy Campbell: How did you get there?

Marie Gubics: I guess they took us on a bus. They took us as a group of course. That was a treat.

Joy Campbell: How often did you go there?

Marie Gubics: Oh, I think that they took us about once a month. You have to remember it was a poor neighborhood so maybe they took special effort for a poor neighborhood to do things like that for the children.

Joy Campbell: How often would you go back? You said that you would drive by your house and it still looked in good condition. Do you like to go back there?

Marie Gubics: I still go to Pilgrim church. But Pilgrim church still has wonderful concerts on Sunday afternoon. I still go to a lot of them and they are free and they ask for little offerings. So I still go back for those. Also what Tremont has done lately, I don’t know if they did it last year or not, I can’t remember. But for a long time they had tours of the Tremont area and I would always go on those. They showed how they are improving the neighborhood getting new construction, as well as remodeling what is already there. I think that they might still do those tours. They use Lolly the Trolley for those tours. They took us into private homes and they took us into some of the new businesses in the area. So Tremont is really climbing up there again, getting back.

END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A—–BEGIN TAPE 1, SIDE B

Marie Gubics: It’s a shame how things change it’s really too bad. As I say we played outdoors all the time out parents never had to worry about being kidnapped or violated in any way.

Joy Campbell: What was your favorite game to play?

Marie Gubics: It think that it was hopscotch and hide-and-go-seek I remember that.

Joy Campbell: As far as when you played hide-and-go-seek would you just go in your little part or would you go up and down the street and everywhere?

Marie Gubics: We stayed in our own neighborhood. Even for Halloween we stayed in our own neighborhood.

Joy Campbell: What was Halloween like?

Marie Gubics: It was always fun and again no need to be afraid of anything. Our parents didn’t have to go with us. We went by ourselves up and down the streets. That doesn’t happen anymore.

Joy Campbell: Was there anyone in the neighborhood, you know the one person that everyone is afraid of?

Marie Gubics: no

Joy Campbell: Not even the one mean woman that would steal your ball if it went into her yard?

Marie Gubics: I don’t remember anything like that, no. One thing I do remember is if a neighbor scolded for something our parents would double scold us when we got home. But there was never any meanness that I recall.

Joy Campbell: Did anyone have a swimming pool or anything like that?

Marie Gubics: No.

Joy Campbell: Was Lincoln Park always crowded in the summer?

Marie Gubics: Oh yeah. It was a social thing for the whole family. Of course whatever social life you had revolved around the church too. There wasn’t much else.

Joy Campbell: Did you go to the library a lot?

Marie Gubics: yes. Jefferson library and the library on Scranton Road right across the street from Lincoln High School. It was a beautiful librbary, I don’t know if it still is.

Joy Campbell: You said that you liked what they were doing with Tremont now? Do you like all of the changes?

Marie Gubics: I’m glad that they are making an effort to improve the neighborhood, but it is getting a little bit, what’s the work I want, they are getting too many fancy restaurants. I don’t see really any decent grocery stores there yet and the condominiums are expensive. But in all, I think what they are trying to do is really remarkable.

Joy Campbell: Are there places that are gone now that you are sad to see go?

Marie Gubics: Some of my friend’s houses are gone. Kids that I went to school with. And of course the building across from Lincoln Park which is now a condominium, used to be a bathhouse. Now we had plumbing in our house, but there were families that did not have plumbing so they would go there to have their weekly bath. But now it is a condominium across from Lincoln Park. It’s next to Dempsey’s restaurant. And Dempsey’s restaurant was always a place to hang out. And there are a couple of beautiful, old Victorian houses right next to them too.

Joy Campbell: Did you know anyone that used the bathhouses?

Marie Gubics: Yes, a couple of our friends did not have plumbing I guess. I thought it was strange that they would have to go to a bathhouse because we always had plumbing.

Joy Campbell: Did people look down on them?

Marie Gubics: I don’t think so. That generation just accepted things we didn’t think nay or yes about a lot of things we just accepted them.

Joy Campbell: So you liked growing up there? And you could not imagine it anywhere else?

Marie Gubics: I’m glad that I did grow up there, yeah. Go roller-skating up and down the sidewalks, sled riding, and everyone had a front porch so you would sit and talk with your neighbors on a hot summer evening.

Joy Campbell: Where would you go sled riding at?

Marie Gubics: Scranton Road going north is a bit of a downhill, and they would always have the soapbox derbies on Scranton road and that was a popular thing.

END OF TAPE I, SIDE B

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