Abstract
This oral history interview, conducted on March 24, 2003, in North Olmsted, Ohio, features Joseph and Gloria Hadbavny, who recount their memories of life in the Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland. The interview covers a range of topics, including the ethnic diversity of the Tremont area, community interactions, and cultural practices. Gloria shares vivid recollections of childhood experiences, holiday traditions, and the social dynamics of the neighborhood, while Joseph discusses his family's immigrant background, local businesses, and the impact of broader historical events such as World War II on their community. The interview provides a detailed narrative of life in Tremont from the early 20th century through the post-war period, reflecting on the changes that led to the Hadbavnys' eventual move to the suburbs.
Interviewee
Hadbavny, Joseph (interviewee);Hadbavny, Gloria (interviewee)
Interviewer
Brock, David (interviewer)
Project
Tremont History Project
Date
3-24-2003
Document Type
Oral History
Recommended Citation
"Joseph and Gloria Hadbavny interview, 24 March 2003" (2003). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 223028.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1308
Transcript
David Brock: Today is March 24th, a Monday, and I’m interviewing here in North Olmsted, Ohio can I have you sir pronounce and spell your name.
Joseph Hadbavny: Joseph A Hadbavny.
David Brock: Mrs. Hadbavny.
Gloria Hadbavny: And I’m Gloria Hadbavny.
David Brock: Sounds good. And you grew up in Tremont, Mrs. Hadbavny?
Gloria Hadbavny: Yes I did.
David Brock: Yes. And you moved to North Olmsted in 1972?
Gloria Hadbavny: Yes. Well prior to that, I mean before I was married my parents moved to Parma Heights?
David Brock: Moved out of the Tremont area?
Gloria Hadbavny: Yes.
David Brock: And when was that?
Gloria Hadbavny: 19.
Joseph Hadbavny: 52, early.
Gloria Hadbavny: Early.
David Brock: Ok. And what are some of your childhood memories?
Gloria Hadbavny: Well, I think some of them that kind of stick in my mind are probably holidays in the Tremont area with some of the different ethnic people that lived there. We had of course the Polish, and we had the Slovaks, and the Hungarians. No, we didn’t have the Hungarians.
Joseph Hadbavny: Greeks.
Gloria Hadbavny: Greeks.
Joseph Hadbavny: Ukrainians.
Gloria Hadbavny: Ukrainians.
Joseph Hadbavny: Russians.
Gloria Hadbavny: Russians. And probably during the holidays the smells, the baking, the different foods, sharing and so forth. I think going to church. I think I always remember Christmas Eve and which was midnight mass. I think one of my fond memories.
Joseph Hadbavny: The pageants they used to have.
Gloria Hadbavny: We used to have a Christmas pageant on Christmas Eve.
David Brock: At what church?
Gloria Hadbavny: St. John Cantius.
David Brock: Right, right.
Gloria Hadbavny: I can always remember my brother dressed in this green satin suit with this red wig.
David Brock: Is that right?
Gloria Hadbavny: That he totally hated. Yes, I mean I can just see him sitting up there twitching his head. But, uh. It seemed like every time you came out of midnight mass the snow was falling. And it was just a great time. And, uh as I said there was a diversified group of people. We shared holidays because some of the different groups theirs may not have been December 25th, maybe theirs was a week or two after. So, we, everybody shared. We were very friendly.
David Brock: Like a big community almost?
Gloria Hadbavny: Yes. Yes. Very much so.
Joseph Hadbavny: Well your landlord was a.
Gloria Hadbavny: Well, we had Ukrainian. And we had Russian. And we had the Slovak, I mean right in our little group there. A number of people.
David Brock: Was there ever any noticeable tension amongst the different ethnicities?
Gloria Hadbavny: No, no. No, no. As I said everybody shared. We never had problems. We all got along very, very well.
David Brock: Right, right. To the point where you didn’t even realize you were of different ethnicities?
Gloria Hadbavny: No, no.
David Brock: Didn’t even enter your mind?
Gloria Hadbavny: No, the similarities I think are there, I mean if you go back with any of your ethnic backgrounds if you studied any of them or did any research they’re all very, very similar.
David Brock: Yeah, absolutely.
Joseph Hadbavny: How many churches were there in the Tremont area because of all the other
Gloria Hadbavny: Well, the same thing. We have the Polish, St. John Cantius was there. St. Theodosius was there.
Joseph Hadbavny: Our Lady of Mercy.
Gloria Hadbavny: Our Lady of Mercy was there. The Greek church was there. I can’t remember the names. Uh, there was, uh the Ukrainian church was there.
Joseph Hadbavny: At the north end of Lincoln Park. South end. South end of Lincoln Park.
Gloria Hadbavny: And of course, if you went a little beyond the Lincoln Park area you had, not Our Lady of Mercy, St. Augustine’s was there.
Joseph Hadbavny: St. Augustine’s was there.
Gloria Hadbavny: Pilgrim Church was there. St. Michael’s was in the area. So you had again a diversified number of churches in that small area.
David Brock: Oh, yeah absolutely.
Gloria Hadbavny: And same thing, like I said grocery stores are practically on every corner. You went shopping every day. I remember my mom going to the store, we had a little grocery store. We lived on West 10th, and he was down around the corner. So, by time, I mean she could start around 10 o’clock in the morning. By the time she got down to the store it was 2, 3 o’clock in the afternoon. Because you would stop and talk to all your neighbors along the way there.
David Brock: Yeah, yeah. Do you have any particular memories of growing up in Tremont that were not always positive? Not necessarily personal, but do you have anything growing up in Tremont that wasn’t positive or was it really?
Gloria Hadbavny: I really can’t think of anything. Like I said we pretty much stayed within our area there. Like I said I grew up on W. 10th. I had friends on W. 7th, W. 5th.
Joseph Hadbavny: They had the movie house on 14th Street.
Gloria Hadbavny: West 14th Street.
Joseph Hadbavny: The Jennings, which was a beautiful theatre, and they could walk downtown.
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah, so I mean we’d be out at night. We’d play games. You know, a bunch of kids get together.
Joseph Hadbavny: Catch frogs (Laughs).
Gloria Hadbavny: You know, you’d sit out. If you had a porch you’d be on the porches, but we’d be out ‘till 9, 10, 11 o’clock at night, but never felt uncomfortable.
David Brock: Right. Never any need to be unsafe or anything like that?
Gloria Hadbavny: No.
David Brock: Okay. And uh, your grandfather owned a saloon?
Gloria Hadbavny: Yes.
David Brock: And where where was that located?
Gloria Hadbavny: That was on W. 10th
Joseph Hadbavny: Corner of Thurmond Alley.
Gloria Hadbavny: Thurmond Alley, actually was uh, think the address was 2061 W. 10th.
David Brock: Okay.
Gloria Hadbavny: And he, uh.
David Brock: What was the name of it?
Gloria Hadbavny: You know I really don’t know the name of it.
Joseph Hadbavny: Haven’t found it.
David Brock: Is that right?
Joseph Hadbavny: We don’t have the name of it. We have all the paperwork.
Gloria Hadbavny: I have the deed and everything.
Joseph Hadbavny: Nobody bought it, and lost everything. But it had no name. I think it was just, and I guess it had been a tavern for many years. I think it only sold beer and wine.
David Brock: Right, probably.
Joseph Hadbavny: And, uh, just a neighborhood pub.
David Brock: And he bought it around 1901?
Gloria Hadbavny: Around 1901. And then unfortunately lost it about 25 years after that. And it was bought by one of the brewing companies. I think it was Wizey’s.
Joseph Hadbavny: They may have had the mortgage on it in the beginning.
David Brock: Right. Now when Prohibition hit did he immediately have to close down or did he try to maintain?
Gloria Hadbavny: You know that again I don’t know. My grandmother died at an early age.
Joseph Hadbavny: About 1921?
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah. And, uh I think that might have been part of it. From what I understand, I think my grandmother was kind of the force behind him.
David Brock: Right.
Gloria Hadbavny: I mean she was more the businesswoman.
Joseph Hadbavny: Plus your great-grandmother was living there.
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah.
Joseph Hadbavny: She had died in 1916. Uh, her great-grandmother had come over with three children. Uh, about 1879.
David Brock: From Poland?
Gloria Hadbavny: Yes.
Joseph Hadbavny: From Poland. And, uh hadn’t found much about them. The only thing we found is that two of the children, two of the older ones, the younger one happened to be her, her grandmother. One drowned in the Cuyahoga River at about 18, and then they, the boy. Then the girl died a few years later of typhoid.
David Brock: Okay.
Joseph Hadbavny: And they lived on the other side of the river. The street is still there, it’s basically at the end of the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge, the Hope Memorial Bridge, whatever you want to call it. Right in the shadow of Jacobs Field. I guess they were in the tenement houses. I guess with, uh outdoor plumbing if you lived at the bottom of the hill, there was a very good chance of getting the typhoid.
David Brock: Sure, get typhoid. Exactly.
Joseph Hadbavny: But that was all we go, found out about that.
David Brock: So do you know if your grandfather’s saloon, I mean you have images of saloons in the 20s and 30s, was it a social place?
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah.
Joseph Hadbavny: It was a social place, because the original bar, according to her cousin, who lived there, and her dad fell down the stairs and died there, said that was the original, the bar was in the same location as it was then.
David Brock: Yeah.
Joseph Hadbavny: No the actual bar, the serving bar.
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah.
David Brock: Oh is that right?
Joseph Hadbavny: Yeah, same bar.
Gloria Hadbavny: I think what they did back then I mean the men used to come with their pails, and they’d get their beer. That, that type thing.
David Brock: That was how it worked?
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah. And then, my mother would, her story was that he would go down to the basement and make, I guess whiskey.
Joseph Hadbavny: Probably bootlegging.
David Brock: Sure, some sort of okay.
Gloria Hadbavny: He’d be tasting all night, and then in the early in the morning you’d hear him doing a little singing.
David Brock: Yes, I’m sure.
Joseph Hadbavny: Well with 9 girls, 7 girls, a wife, and a mother-in-law, what would you do for fun. (Laughs)
David Brock: Good point.
Gloria Hadbavny: But, with a few, as I said they had 10 children. Two died at an early, so they raised seven girls and one boy, who was pampered by his sisters. And, uh, as the girls were getting married, some of them still lived in that same facility, that same house.
Joseph Hadbavny: It’s quite a large house. It’s still standing as it is today. On, I don’t know how many apartments or rooms, or things you could get up there, but quite a bit. One of the cousins, her father died at an early age, you know fell down the stairs, and the stairs are still there. But no, she lived there you know with her mother, uh she was an only child, her sister had died at an early age. And, uh I mean the whole thing about that is the first thing I checked was who’s buried at the cemetery. At the Calvary. I guess one of the grandsons of her grandfather was hit by a truck. So he’s buried in one grave. The great-grandmother is buried in the same grave, I believe it is. And then on the opposite side, this girl who died at an early age, and the grandmother. There’s four people in two graves.
David Brock: Oh, is that right?
Joseph Hadbavny: Yeah, yeah. The Calvary.
David Brock: Was that common for the time?
Joseph Hadbavny: I guess expense wise.
David Brock: Yeah.
Joseph Hadbavny: No-money wise.
Gloria Hadbavny: So, my grandfather gave up his rights, so that these children could be buried along. So he’s, he’s by himself.
David Brock: Okay.
Joseph Hadbavny: No, times were tough in those days, no down there. With the idea about the beer, I remember my father used to go down and play cards, and, uh, they’d be sitting around playing pinochle, whatever that, or 66, whatever it was, they’d say, “Joe, go get the bucket and go get us some beer.”
David Brock: Oh, all right.
Joseph Hadbavny: I was maybe 6 or 7 years old. I’d take the bucket and a dime and go walk through this alley, go to this little bar, not this particular bar. Six or seven years old the guy would go fill-up the bucket of beer and I’d go back with it.
David Brock: Okay.
Joseph Hadbavny: There was no question we were gonna drink it, you were gonna get drunk. You’re gonna be… You know what I mean. It was just a different type of society back in those days.
David Brock: Yeah. And was that, some of that particular to Tremont probably?
Joseph Hadbavny: Yeah
David Brock: And some of that was just an overall American thing.
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah, but you had everything there as you were growing up. The grocery stores were there.
David Brock: Right.
Gloria Hadbavny: There were the dime stores. There were the, like clothing…
Joseph Hadbavny: The furniture stores. You never had to leave your neighborhood.
Gloria Hadbavny: You had your bakeries.
David Brock: Everything was in Tremont?
Gloria Hadbavny: Everything was right there. Then of course you had the market. So, if you wanted you could walk.
Joseph Hadbavny: Cross the Abby Bridge and you were there.
Gloria Hadbavny: And you were there at the West Side Market.
David Brock: And do you remember having done that when you were younger?
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah, oh yeah. I mean they’d go and get the chickens. The live chickens.
David Brock: Oh is that right?
Gloria Hadbavny: Oh, yeah. I mean I had one aunt, all my aunts were good cooks, but she was a very good cook, so she was the one that would take care of the cleaning and doing whatever you had to do to the chicken. But, uh, yeah.
David Brock: When you would leave Tremont, or outside of the West Side Market, what kind of places would you go?
Gloria Hadbavny: Uh, downtown. You know, we would go downtown to the movies.
David Brock: Right.
Gloria Hadbavny: Of course, like I said I went to grade school at St. John Cantius, and I then also graduated from Lincoln High.
David Brock: Right, okay.
Gloria Hadbavny: You know, we went to baseball, not baseball games, but football games of all the various schools, and so forth. And, again there…
Joseph Hadbavny: Walked.
Gloria Hadbavny: No problems. We would walk. We would meet, pick-up your friend and walk to John Marshall or wherever our baseball, or football game was, and you had no problems. Coming home at night. My dad worked nights, so my mother would wait for me. My friend’s dad would wait. So we all, never encountered any problems.
David Brock: Right, and how much time, Mr. Hadbavny did you spend in Tremont? ‘Cause you grew up in Brooklyn?
Joseph Hadbavny: Well, my parents lived on…
Gloria Hadbavny: West 5th or 7th?
Joseph Hadbavny: The north end of uh, Lincoln Park. No, my parents, if you want to go a little further, my father had come over there and he worked at Otis Steel at the time. His whole family, sister lived on W. 5th, his brother owned a butcher shop, and then the meat market. So, my dad, certainly came from Cambridge, Ohio after he came from Europe. He came from Europe in 1921 after being in the military in the first World War.
David Brock: For whom?
Joseph Hadbavny: Austrian-Hungarian.
David Brock: Okay.
Joseph Hadbavny: And, he had sisters in the Cambridge, Ohio area, and there’s a lot of our family is from down there. But, he came up here and had gotten married, but his wife passed away about nine months after he married that young lady who was from south Ohio, and his brother died a month or two later. Also who had been in the First World War with him. He had come over with my father. And, about 1920, my mother came over in 1926, she went to Pennsylvania, but then the times were good over there, so she came to the Tremont area at that time. 1927. And, tell a cute story, my mother arrived on a Wednesday, and she got a rooms with a girlfriend of hers on Thurmond Alley.
David Brock: Okay.
Joseph Hadbavny: At the other end of where the bar is. Thursday she went down to Ferry Cap Screw down on Scranton. Got a job. Started on Friday. Worked on Friday. So, the Saturday her girlfriend says, “ I know a man. You want to go on a date?” This is May. She says, “Yeah.” Actually it may have been the weekend that Lindbergh flew to Paris.
David Brock: Okay.
Joseph Hadbavny: So, she had this blind date with this fellow. She had seen him prior to that in Europe. I guess he was in the service with her brother. So they went to Luan park. My father was a widower, and that evening he says, ‘Would you like to get married?”
David Brock: Wow, just like that?
Joseph Hadbavny: So they got married in July. She saw him three times before they got married. And mom always said, jokingly, so keep that as such, that my father was far more handsomer than Ferry Cap Screw was. (Laughs). They were married for fifty-odd years before she passed away. So, then my sister was born there. We have the 1930 Census showing my father, my mother, my sister, and I don’t have it here, I might have it here, the address, and they have my sister down as Marion, her name is Mary, as a son.
David Brock: Oh, is that right? Still, the Census said that in 1930, that she was…
Joseph Hadbavny: That she was a son. So, before I was born, I guess they moved out in 1931, in around January, up to 28th Street in Brooklyn, between Broadview and State off of Hood. Where I was born in March of that year.
David Brock: Would you still go to church in Tremont?
Joseph Hadbavny: Yeah, periodically we would go down there because my dad belonged to a lodge at Our Lady of Mercy. We’re Slovak. She’s the Polish-Lithuanian. So, my father would go down there about once a month, and we’d pay our thing. But, all the activities, Merrick House, my mother was in plays, at Merrick House. I think they tried to drag me into a play, but my English was not too good at that time, because where I grew up they were all Slovak. When I went to grade school I really spoke no English at all.
David Brock: Right. How about did you speak English Mrs. Hadbavny?
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah.
David Brock: Did your parents speak English?
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah, yeah. My mother was born here. So, we had, they spoke Polish. Things were changing, so I never really became very well versed in the language.
David Brock: In the Polish language?
Gloria Hadbavny: In the Polish language. I know a few words.
David Brock: Now in Tremont, was there a great many different foreign languages spoken?
Joseph Hadbavny: Every other house.
Gloria Hadbavny: Like I said you had Ukrainian, you had the Russian, you had the Greek.
Joseph Hadbavny: The Greeks were off of Fairfield.
Gloria Hadbavny: Fairfield and 14th.
Joseph Hadbavny: They had a little coffee shop, a thing over there. And a little newsstand.
Gloria Hadbavny: It’s still there.
Joseph Hadbavny: Yeah, they were the Greeks, and then the Ukrainians had the Ukrainian home down there.
Gloria Hadbavny: Right.
Joseph Hadbavny: Coming up further you had Grace Hospital. I don’t know if you were born at Grace Hospital?
Gloria Hadbavny: No, my sister was.
Joseph Hadbavny: Your sister was born at Grace Hospital. Then of course, the Slovaks were more in the West 11th area, okay? The Polish were more toward the Cantius area. The St. Theodosius, is that the one? St. Tecan at the end of St. Tecan Street, that was the Russian area. Then you went to the south end of Lincoln Park there was Ukrainian Home, the Ukrainian church, so that was more Ukrainian. So, you had all over.
David Brock: Right, but there was a lot of different languages spoken?
Gloria Hadbavny: Oh, yeah.
Joseph Hadbavny: OH, yeah.
David Brock: And how hard did people work to speak English? I mean, was there a lot of English too?
Gloria Hadbavny: Oh, yeah.
Joseph Hadbavny: Oh, yeah.
Gloria Hadbavny: They, again I think when they, a lot of them came to America, so they wanted to be Americans.
Joseph Hadbavny: Instantly.
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah.
Joseph Hadbavny: My mother went to the movies to learn to speak English.
David Brock: Is that right?
Joseph Hadbavny: She’d sound like say Loretta Young, or Joan Crawford. But also they learned the table settings and the different foods from the movies. They learned a lot from the movies.
David Brock: Oh, is that rights?
Joseph Hadbavny: The style, the society. They learned from the movies.
David Brock: That would make perfect sense. Do you have any memories of Tremont during the Great Depression? I don’t know if you guys might be too young. Any family stories or parents.
Gloria Hadbavny: I think I was too young, I really don’t remember.
Joseph Hadbavny: I just remember my uncle with the grocery store ‘cause he sold in ’39. It had blown up, but the was on Castle there. And, it was tough because things were going on the book, and you got paid. You know my
dad when he worked at the steel mills, one day, two days a week. His take-home pay was about $5 a week. Mom would buy a chicken and stretch from Sunday to Wednesday. That chicken got stretched out. The soup, and the meat, and the noodles, and made chicken soup every Sunday from the day they got married until the day she passed away. That was a tradition. But times were hard, times were hard. Her dad, he was a waiter, he started out at the Statler Hotel as a ice-carver, ice cream boy.
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah.
Joseph Hadbavny: 1927. And her mother was there, I think that’s probably where they met. At the Statler Hotel.
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah, some of my family worked there. My mom was a pantry girl.
Joseph Hadbavny: Salad girl.
Gloria Hadbavny: Salad girl, I think.
David Brock: Before they got married they both lived in Tremont?
Gloria Hadbavny: No, my dad was from the east side. I’m Lithuanian on that side of the family. He came over, he crossed the bridge, and he came over to the west side. His family as I said was always on the east.
Joseph Hadbavny: He was always in the restaurant…He worked at the Great Lakes Exposition for Perchner. Herman Perchner, that owned the
Gloria Hadbavny: Alpine Village.
Joseph Hadbavny: Alpine Village on Euclid. Any prom, any big night, any anniversary you went to the Alpine.
David Brock: Is that right?
Joseph Hadbavny: Right. Her father’s stories about taking care of Abbott & Costello, Bob Hope, and all the others. This is where they went to eat. So, he did work. I don’t know how much he made.
Gloria Hadbavny: Not very much.
Joseph Hadbavny: No, not very much, because they didn’t move out of Tremont until Gloria was 16. 16. And I met you when you were 17.
Gloria Hadbavny: I tell you, you really had enough though. You had enough food, we always were dressed well. My dad always had nice cars, and we didn’t want for anything. We were very satisfied in the environment that we had at that time.
David Brock: And was that common or would you say that was uncommon in Tremont?
Gloria Hadbavny: I would say pretty common. Everybody, as far as I know, I think in certain areas, maybe if you went down more towards West 5th, I think the environment down there might have been a little better. I mean I’m not saying that we were upper-class or anything. You know form my background, I mean I had cousins lived in the area and that, I don’t think we needed much. We had enough to survive at that time.
David Brock: And was there any sense that maybe times could have been easier? Or did you understand that times could have been harder? I mean you don’t have any memories of the Depression?
Gloria Hadbavny: No.
Joseph Hadbavny: They had no Social Security until 1937. They had no, I don’t know if they called it welfare or whatever it was. So, really what you had to do, we as kids, I used to go down to my cousins in that area, and the guys played cards. Me and him would go get a bucket, or a box, or a burlap sack, and go along the railroad tracks and pick up coal.
David Brock: Oh yeah.
Joseph Hadbavny: Which you burned in your stove, okay? So, that was gee, we’d go down to the tracks and pick up coal. So, that was I guess the big game. No, money was tight.
David Brock: Was there a sense that you didn’t spend what you didn’t have? Was credit
Joseph Hadbavny: On the book.
David Brock: On the book.
Gloria Hadbavny: The grocery store, that was your credit. Because you take your book, you go down to, ours was Steve Mayer at the little grocery store. And then there was a Fisher’s.
Joseph Hadbavny: Where my uncle worked.
Gloria Hadbavny: But my mom would take her book and you’d go down there and get whatever you needed, and he’d mark it.
Joseph Hadbavny: The pay date.
Gloria Hadbavny: And then you’d pay up once a week or whatever the case was.
David Brock: Is that right?
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah, yeah. But at that time I would say that was the only credit, I think everything else was paid by cash.
Joseph Hadbavny: Not until they came out with the charge plates about 1940.
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah, I think they came out a little later. No, I think everybody as far as I know worked. You know, our friends, our neighbors, everybody had a job.
Joseph Hadbavny: Got by.
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah.
David Brock: Yeah.
Gloria Hadbavny: You know, it came the holidays, you didn’t get what you get today. Like the kids today.
David Brock: Of course not.
Gloria Hadbavny: You got, girls in the family, you got maybe a doll or whatever. If you had a brother, whatever, you got a truck or something. They had these socks, these mesh socks. Joseph Hadbavny: Put candy in them, toy.
Gloria Hadbavny: Or you got fruit.
Joseph Hadbavny: Fruit, hey. Nuts, tangerines in your sock you hung your sock. And then you got an orange in there. Which of course, you gotta think about the days before refrigeration like it is today, a delicacy in December was to get an orange, I mean a tangerine, maybe a quarter.
David Brock: Right.
Joseph Hadbavny: That was Christmas presents, but the big thing was the smells, the church. Everything revolved around the church.
David Brock: Right, I was going to get to the church. First of all, you mentioned Social Security. Do you think that after that passed, did you see a benefit in Tremont of Social Security helping those who were retired?
Joseph Hadbavny: No, no we never found anybody, her grandfather was old enough to receive it. Her other grandfather was old enough. We cannot find their Social Security cards if they ever had one, and they died like 1940.
Gloria Hadbavny: The 40s.
Joseph Hadbavny: Yeah, and we cannot find that they even had the Social Security cards.
David Brock: Is that right?
Joseph Hadbavny: Right, so we found the naturalization, the papers on her mother’s side. But, never that they even applied for Social Security. ‘Cause if you were going to go pay it in for 3, 4 years and you turned 65, well your grandfather would have been 65, he was 20 years old in 1890, so he would have been 65 in 1935. He would have been, in other words missed on the Social Security thing. No, I don’t think it helped anything down there. It didn’t help until much later.
David Brock:Yeah, yeah.
Joseph Hadbavny: Charity wasn’t called welfare, it wasn’t called welfare, it was called something when times were hard and they gave you dried beans or old potatoes or whatever it was. It was not good. The people would go out to the market house…
Gloria Hadbavny: Or they’d go down at the end of the day and pick up things.
Joseph Hadbavny: At the end of the day.
Gloria Hadbavny: Like I said we never…
Joseph Hadbavny: No we never experienced anything like that.
Gloria Hadbavny: We never experienced that.
Joseph Hadbavny: I don’t think we had money, but I don’t think we knew we were poor.
David Brock: Now we want to talk about the churches, especially and what role the church played in Tremont. The various churches. And your uncle founded
Joseph Hadbavny: Our Lady of Mercy.
David Brock: In what year?
Joseph Hadbavny: Uh, I’ve got it here someplace. Apparently, they wanted to have another Slovak church in the Tremont area, because the other one was St. Gwendolyn’s on Columbus. Which is quite a piece away. You would have to walk across the Abby Bridge, over to Columbus and then down. So, had to be probably 1916, 1917, somewhere around there. Like I said, had I known you were coming I would have got the history of the Church out. But, uh, they went to the bishop and said, “We’d like to have a Slovak church on that said.” And, of course, maybe the bishops at that time were not ethnic…, they didn’t want any more ethnics in the area, so they said no. So, you got one over there, you don’t need another one, so he says, “fine.” So, he gets a priest, a Slovak priest. Father (inaudible) and they form a church and all the Slovaks are going over there. I think it probably ran for 12 years, before the bishop said, “ Gee, I’m losing all this money, what I better do is go and take you into the fold.”
David Brock: All right.
Joseph Hadbavny: So, that’s how it got started. It was outside of the bishop. But it was a Catholic church. Catholic priest, and everything, but outside the bishop. So, finally…
David Brock: Was that common?
Joseph Hadbavny: Oh yeah. If you ever read a book called The Immigrant Cocoon written by somebody from Muskingum College about south Ohio. How all the church was run.
David Brock: Was that common in Tremont that you know of?
Joseph Hadbavny: I don’t know. All I know about that particular one. This was a little frame church. I mean a white church. The siding on the side of it. I remember it that way. Just a little church with a steeple, all wood. Didn’t have a lot of money to build it in that time.
David Brock: Yeah.
Joseph Hadbavny: So, the other churches were stone, brick, everything. Cost a great deal of money to build these churches in the 1900’s when guys were making what, $3 a week to build these fantastic churches in that area, you know. So, yes the church was an important thing to these people.
David Brock: Oh, absolutely. Did you attend mass at Our Lady of Mercy, or no?
Joseph Hadbavny: Periodically. Mostly for the holidays. Certain holidays, which were common to that nationality.
David Brock: Right.
Joseph Hadbavny: They had a social hall. We went there for dances. My godfather owned a bowling alley, and he was very big in that area. So, yeah we were very active in the social thing at Our Lady of Mercy, even though we lived in Brooklyn.
David Brock: Yeah, and the church in Tremont, was that the main social gathering place? Was that the social place? Was that where you socialized?
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah, because as I say…
Joseph Hadbavny: Bingo, card parties.
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah, well later on with St. John Cantius they built a hall there. Then they would have dances. It would be Sunday night and you’d get your girlfriends, or whatever, and go to the dances there. So, there were a lot of different activities. You were involved, I think a lot, with the church at that time. You had…
Joseph Hadbavny: Good Friday you guys used to clean the church.
Gloria Hadbavny: Well, you know, we’d help the nuns do certain things, get the church ready for Easter Sunday. Of course, you did spend a lot of time in church at that time. Especially, around Easter time.
Joseph Hadbavny: Good Friday doing the stations of the cross on your knees.
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah, but in grade school you had certain times. This class would go from 1 to 2, or this class would go from certain. So, you had designated times you had to go for certain services, and prayers, and different things you had in the church. So, it was a main focal point.
David Brock: Right, and what do you remember about the dances?
Gloria Hadbavny: That’s where I met my husband.
David Brock: That’s where you met your husband. What age did you start going to the dances.
Gloria Hadbavny: Oh, probably in my late teens. “Cause I met him when I was 17.
Joseph Hadbavny: I was in the service.
Gloria Hadbavny: So we were married like two years later. It was 19, I was 19, he was 23.
David Brock: But you would still go? You were living in Parma Heights at that time, and you would go back? Back to Tremont?
Gloria Hadbavny: Yes. I had, well my godmother, my mother’s niece still lived in the Tremont area. So, I still had girlfriends who lived in the area, and I wanted to go. So, my dad would bring us down, and my mother would visit with her niece, and I’d go to the dances with my friends. Then go back to my cousin and my dad would pick us up there.
David Brock: Right. And, was it like clockwork, every Sunday the people of Tremont were at one of the churches?
Gloria Hadbavny: If they had something going, if there was a scheduled, say dance at whatever church. I think Cantius was the one that had the polka dances. I mean they had all these bands come in.
Joseph Hadbavny: From around the country. I mean these were not local bands. They came in from Connecticut and places like that. It was a big draw.
David Brock: Yeah.
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah, but like Pilgrim Church would have like teen dances. So, when I went to high school they could have dances there. Maybe like Friday nights probably. So, they would have something there, and like I said, I think Cantius, St. John Cantius, was the only one who would have these polka dances.
David Brock: Right, and when you would go with your friends to these dances, you would just do the same type of things that girls do now? Go talk to boys and giggle? Was there punch there? Was there food there?
Joseph Hadbavny: There was a bar.
Gloria Hadbavny: There was a bar, yeah. And, they had chairs up against the wall.
Joseph Hadbavny: The wallflower chairs. The wallflower chairs.
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah, we’d kind of sit there, and if no one asked you to dance you would dance with your girlfriend. That’s what it was. I don’t know if it was the intent to go and pick-up anybody.
David Brock: No, I know.
Gloria Hadbavny: I’m just kidding.
Joseph Hadbavny: This is going to be on the tape recorder. I had been home about 2 weeks, and I was going to, I had reenlisted. I was planning on going to Germany. This was in November. November the 16th, 1952. Remember the day very well. So, my pals in Brooklyn said, “Gee they got a dance.” And they pronounced the name of this band, that I couldn’t pronounce for years. They said, “You want to go down there?” So, twelve guys in six cars went down there. The only clothes I had that fit me were my uniform.
David Brock: Right, right.
Joseph Hadbavny: So, I had on my Class A’s and I knew a few of the guys. It was kind of cold that day, so I walked in. My cousin, know Mike, he and I were very close. We grew up together. He grew up on the opposite side of the Abby Bridge on W. 19th Street. I go walking in, I walked up to the stage where the band was playing, and this is the honest to God’s truth. I look down and to the left, and about seven, eight, nine girls down there was this girl in a red dress. I told my cousin there’s the girl I’m gonna marry.
David Brock: Really, before you ever talked to her.
Joseph Hadbavny: Before I even talked to her.
David Brock: She was sitting there like a wallflower?
Joseph Hadbavny: No, she was just caught my eye. She was the prettiest girl there as far as I was concerned. I asked her to dance and we danced. I couldn’t dance the Polish-style polka at all. I still can’t do it. I asked her for her phone number, and we called her up. I didn’t know she was that young. She was 17 years old.
David Brock: She was 17?
Joseph Hadbavny: Yeah, she told me she was a senior. I figure well she’s like 21 years old. And I was 22, but she was still in high school. I knew that’s the girl I was going to marry. I think I did actually go to Germany with me. I talked to my colonel, he let me out. Gave back my pension. I got out of the army on December 20, about December the 19th of 1952. Got home about December 23rd. Called her up on Christmas Day. I
Hadbavnys03242003 17 think we went to one movie before I went back. Saw the movie The Quiet Man. I can remember all these things at the old Granada Show. Fifty years later you can still remember these important things.
David Brock: Of course.
Joseph Hadbavny: So then we began to date. I took her to her prom.
Gloria Hadbavny: And it’s all history.
David Brock: Where were you married at?
Joseph Hadbavny: At Parma. St. Francis because my parents were living in Parma. So we got married at St. Francis.
David Brock: Okay. And when was the last time you were at your church in Tremont?
Gloria Hadbavny: Well, we’d go back periodically for the festival that they usually have in September on Labor Day weekend. So we usually go back for that. As I said, we’re with the Polish genealogical group.
Joseph Hadbavny: Which was formed at Cantius.
Gloria Hadbavny: Which was formed at St. John Cantius. So we used to hold our meetings there, but we’ve had to change locations. So, as I said we do go back there periodically. We were at last, I think October…
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah, going back to the churches, the blessing of the foods on Holy Saturday. So, all the women would get their Easter baskets ready. Everybody had a special basket that they had for the blessing of the foods, and you had maybe a special cover that you put on top. And again, in there you had your ham, and your kielbasa, and your bread, and your eggs, and your butter.
Joseph Hadbavny: Your horseradish.
Gloria Hadbavny: Horseradish, and your cheeses. So, they had a maybe, specific times again that they would bless foods. So, everybody, you know you’d bring your basket to the church and I mean it was just overwhelming.
Joseph Hadbavny: Yeah, the smells.
Gloria Hadbavny: The smells
Joseph Hadbavny: No, the ham. You used to boil their hams in those days. They’re not as prepared as they were today, so when you bought a ham you either baked it or you boiled it. Okay?
Gloria Hadbavny: And I think later on the Easter baskets were becoming very prevalent. So, the kids would bring their Easter baskets and get their Easter baskets blessed.
Joseph Hadbavny: Of course, you know we were fasting for 40 days. In other words, you really didn’t eat much meat. Easter holy week was very special, especially that night. Your appetites were whetting. Of course, you couldn’t eat meat still until after you went to communion on Sunday.
David Brock: Right, exactly.
Joseph Hadbavny: Then that’s when you attacked that basket.
Gloria Hadbavny: But, again in the area there was Dido bakery, Auburn bakery, there were all different little bakeries in the area. So, we’d go for our bread.
Joseph Hadbavny: They’d come around with their little trucks.
David Brock: Is that right?
Joseph Hadbavny: Yeah, the baker with…
David Brock: Almost like an ice cream truck?
Joseph Hadbavny: Almost like an ice cream truck, but it was a bakery truck. Ding-dong, ding-dong on this little thing. You’d come out to the street and he’d pull out little trays. You would have layer cakes. You had cheesecakes. The best cheesecakes in the world on this one. Then you had maybe pecan, or nut rolls, or something like that there. Of course your bread, it was unsliced. Paid him and you took it upstairs. He’d go up to the next house and people would go out to the truck. You did that with Auburn baker. Dido…
Gloria Hadbavny: I don’t think they had a truck.
Joseph Hadbavny: No, Dido’s didn’t, because they sold more to the stores, but Auburn bakery had that.
Gloria Hadbavny: There was another one on Literary, but I can’t remember the name of it. It was another little corner, right by the alley there, but I don’t remember the name of it.
David Brock: How often would this truck come around?
Joseph Hadbavny: Maybe twice a week. Maybe twice a week. I know most definitely on a Saturday, and maybe like on a Tuesday.
David Brock: And is that how a lot of people go their bread?
Joseph Hadbavny: Yeah. We also had our neighborhood bakeries, but you had certain breads. Okay, that you wanted from these guys, certain cakes.
Gloria Hadbavny: They would come around too, you had someone who would sell produce. They would come around with.
Joseph Hadbavny: Usually with a horse.
Gloria Hadbavny: Fresh vegetables, yeah.
Joseph Hadbavny: And fish.
David Brock: Now were a lot of these stores or bakeries ethnically based? Did the Polish go to a certain store?
Joseph Hadbavny: Yeah, Stash had that meat market.
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah, I would say there were certain ones that would carry specific food like the kielbasa and that. But, then you have like you have today, your Giant Eagle, they had the Fisher’s they called it back then.
Joseph Hadbavny: Fisher Foods.
David Brock: Right.
Gloria Hadbavny: Fisher Foods which was your general grocery store.
David Brock: And everyone would.
Gloria Hadbavny: Go there, but then a couple doors away from there, there was another small store. I had one aunt, as we were growing up this one aunt did not like to leave the house for whatever reason. So, as the nieces got to a certain age we would do her grocery shopping and different things. So, we would go up to this one food store, little grocery store, and buy your meat, and whatever, I mean they would grind everything fresh. You wanted steak or whatever.
Joseph Hadbavny: A lot of people didn’t have refrigerators in those days, still had ice boxes. And the ice truck would come around.
David Brock: And this is when you were growing up there and when you would go visit there? So this is 40s?
Joseph Hadbavny: 40s.
Gloria Hadbavny: I would say 40s, yeah , yeah.
David Brock: When do you think that was phased out?
Gloria Hadbavny: Probably getting into the 50s.
Joseph Hadbavny: The 50s, the early part of the 50s. You still had Producer’s milk. The milkman came around. During World War II they had a horse, would deliver milk. Because they couldn’t get gasoline, and then right after the war they went to trucks. They had Dairymen’s.
Gloria Hadbavny: Then you start getting, the more commercialized companies were coming in. But, we have to mention the Paper-Rex man.
David Brock: The Paper-Rex man?
Gloria Hadbavny: The Paper-Rex man.
Joseph Hadbavny: He was saying, “paper and rags.”
Gloria Hadbavny: Paper and rags.
David Brock: Oh, I see.
Joseph Hadbavny: What would you call him, a trash?
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah.
Joseph Hadbavny: Junk.
Gloria Hadbavny: Junk hauler, or whatever, but he would scare the kids half to death. Because, he was just kind of grungy looking.
Joseph Hadbavny: Some grungy was in my neighborhood too.
Gloria Hadbavny: He had like a cart.
Joseph Hadbavny: Well, he had a horse, drawn with a little wagon, and he would say.
Gloria Hadbavny: “Paper and rags,” but we used to call him Paper-Rex.
David Brock: Oh, I see.
Joseph Hadbavny: Actually. Somebody wrote a book about the Paper-Rex man. I have a copy of it.
David Brock: Is that right, from Tremont?
Joseph Hadbavny: No, from the Cleveland area.
David Brock: He would go all over?
Joseph Hadbavny: Called the Paper-Rex man.
Gloria Hadbavny: If you had old rags and paper.
Joseph Hadbavny: Metal.
David Brock: And what would he do with them?
Joseph Hadbavny: Sell them for scrap, and he’d pay you a few cents, you know.
Gloria Hadbavny: Scared you half to death, because as I said he was just dirty.
Joseph Hadbavny: If you lacked for money to go to the movies that night you looked around in the garage for a couple of old horseshoes, and hey. Here comes a dime.
David Brock: Oh, wow, that’s an interesting story.
Joseph Hadbavny: Well, the outdoor plumbing in that area, they were still there in
Gloria Hadbavny: In the 40s.
Joseph Hadbavny: In the 40’s and even into the 50s still had outdoor plumbing.
David Brock: Is that right, well did houses, did your house have indoor plumbing?
Gloria Hadbavny: We had indoor. I had an aunt that did not have indoor plumbing.
Joseph Hadbavny: That was on.
Gloria Hadbavny: On Literary.
Joseph Hadbavny: On Literary.
David Brock: All right, was that located, you said you lived on a different end of town, West 5th?
Gloria Hadbavny: We lived at West 10th. On West 10th.
Joseph Hadbavny: Her grandfather’s old bar was across the street and they lived about, 3, or 4, or 5 houses down on 10th Street. Your godmother lived on the corner house.
Gloria Hadbavny: Almost across the street.
Joseph Hadbavny: By Sokalosky’s tavern
Gloria Hadbavny: Right, close to that.
David Brock: And did your end live on a different end?
Gloria Hadbavny: She was on Literary.
Joseph Hadbavny: About a block, two blocks away.
Gloria Hadbavny: I mean it wasn’t that far, but I think when you were a kid, everything seemed big, and different. A few years back we went down there, and I think it was during the time of the festival, and we just walked around the neighborhood, and everything just seemed different.
Joseph Hadbavny: Smaller.
Gloria Hadbavny: Smalller. I went to see were I used to live, and certain things were still there.
David Brock: Now clarify, the name of the festival.
Joseph Hadbavny: The, St. John Cantius.
Gloria Hadbavny: Their Polish festival that they have.
Joseph Hadbavny: We had some matches from there.
Gloria Hadbavny: They usually have it Labor Day weekend.
David Brock: Okay.
Gloria Hadbavny: We toured around. The one time we hooked up with , we ran into my cousin. We went down 5th, we went down 7th.
Joseph Hadbavny: That’s when she got into.
Gloria Hadbavny: Just to see where different things were, and a lot of houses were gone already. David Brock: Now, was this festival a big event when you lived there?
Gloria Hadbavny: NO.
David Brock: When did it start?
Gloria Hadbavny: I’m going to say about maybe 20 years ago. I maybe wrong.
David Brock: But nothing they had when you used to live there.
Joseph Hadbavny: No, they used to have, at times they would bring in the carnivals with the rides and everything.
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah, when I was going to school, when I was in grade school, they would have, like a festival. But they would bring in the ferris wheel and different things of that nature. Probably went on for many years, but this other one they have is totally different. I mean the don’t have rides or anything like that.
David Brock: Right.
Joseph Hadbavny: Going back, I’d say further, my mother always said, you didn’t have a bathroom besides the washtub on the kitchen floor, you know which you heated the water on the kitchen stove. So, they used to go to the Lincoln Bath Houses.
David Brock: Right.
Joseph Hadbavny: For their baths and their showers.
David Brock: When you grew up were they still there?
Gloria Hadbavny: They were still there, but like I said we had indoor plumbing. The bathtub and everything. My aunt did not.
David Brock: Would she go to the Lincoln Bath House?
Gloria Hadbavny: Well…
Joseph Hadbavny: There was a wasthtub on the floor.
Gloria Hadbavny: They had one of those galvanized tubs and if you stayed there, this is what you took a bath in. David Brock: Right. Did you know a lot of people who would go to the baths?
Gloria Hadbavny: I think there were a lot of people that went within the neighborhood, if they didn’t have.
Joseph Hadbavny: That one section south of, where does Frank live?
Gloria Hadbavny: Starkweather.
Joseph Hadbavny: Starkweather, there’s another area down there, even when I was in the insurance business in the 60s they still had outdoor plumbing. They still had, I think the city of Cleveland still had an Outhouse Inspector that would come around an inspect these things. I think those people really didn’t have the indoor plumbing, so they probably used the bathhouses maybe up until the 60s.
Gloria Hadbavny: Probably, because when did they turn them into condos?
Joseph Hadbavny: Just a few years ago.
Gloria Hadbavny: Ten years ago.
David Brock: Now was there ever a sense of embarrassment for those that did have to go to the public bath.
Gloria Hadbavny: No I don’t think so.
Joseph Hadbavny: They did have a swimming, wading pool in Lincoln Park.
Gloria Hadbavny: So, probably a lot of people went to Lincoln Park. They had the pool there and the park. So, I don’t think so.
Joseph Hadbavny: I don’t think so.
David Brock: So, essentially you’re saying all the ethnicities and all the social classes, or wealthy or unwealthy, as it may have been, there wasn’t much of a dividing line.
Joseph Hadbavny: Well, on 14th Street, where my parents’ attorney lived on the corner, right across from Holy Ghost Church, is that what that one is?
Gloria Hadbavny: I think so.
Joseph Hadbavny: He had a gorgeous house there right on the corner in the 30s. And, I remember this man being able to speak Slovak, Polish, Ukrainian, I mean this guy could speak all the languages. He had a gorgeous home. They had some fantastic homes on 14th Street. There’s still a lot there. So, no, he was wealthy and he probably, he went to church at Our Lady of Mercy.
David Brock: Right.
Joseph Hadbavny: The term the melting pot, it was. There was no because the Poles went to their bar, and guys went to their bar. A lot of these guys they worked together also at J&L Steel or at Republic Steel, so there was no animosity. No jealousy. I don’t think so.
Gloria Hadbavny: No, ‘cause I had friend who lived on 5th and 7th and those areas. And, I think again later on things were starting to change, so maybe things were getting a little different.
Joseph Hadbavny: Maybe toward the late 50s, early 60s it began to change.
David Brock: Right
Gloria Hadbavny: But I think, West 5th might have been a little.
Joseph Hadbavny: Rougher.
Gloria Hadbavny: Rougher area, even back then.
Joseph Hadbavny: Look at the CMHA, the projects.
Gloria Hadbavny: The projects down there, ‘cause I don’t think I knew anybody who lived in the projects.
Joseph Hadbavny: No, well Jackie did when she was a girl.
Gloria Hadbavny: But, I mean we’d walk down that way, as I said I had friends who lived down that way.
David Brock: But you were never scared or nervous?
Joseph Hadbavny: No.
Gloria Hadbavny: No, no.
David Brock: Now, the steel mills did they dominate the area, were they a major part of Tremont as well?
Joseph Hadbavny: I think so. Because the guys were able to walk to work.
David Brock: Would you say you knew a lot of people who worked at the steel mills?
Joseph Hadbavny: Yep, everybody. Families, her nephews were Teamsters they drove beer trucks.
Gloria Hadbavny: No, my cousins they worked for the breweries. Of course my dad didn’t.
Joseph Hadbavny: He was a waiter.
Gloria Hadbavny: He was a waiter. He worked downtown. Marion’s husband worked at Ferry Cap Screw. A lot of people worked at that Ferry Cap Screw.
David Brock: Right
Gloria Hadbavny: That was another big place. And I think primarily, probably the mills.
David Brock: How do you spell Ferry Cap Screw?
Joseph Hadbavny: F-e-r-r-y.
David Brock: Cap Screw.
Joseph Hadbavny: Cap Screw. I think it’s, the signs are still down there.
David Brock: Yeah, I don’t know.
Joseph Hadbavny: Where Train Ave. comes into Scranton.
David Brock: Yeah, it might still be down there.
Gloria Hadbavny: I think, as I said, several of my cousins drove trucks for the
Joseph Hadbavny: Breweries. In another words there wasn’t a lot of college education. David Brock: Was there a lot of high school education?
Joseph Hadbavny: I think among the girls perhaps yes. Among the boys very few. ‘Cause these guys were growing up in the Depression, so when you had five, or six, or seven in the family, sixteen years old you got out of school, you got yourself a job.
David Brock: Right, right.
Hadbavnys03242003 25 Joseph Hadbavny: Money was tight.
David Brock: Now, did a lot of people who worked at the mills, would you say that a majority of the people who worked at the mill were from Tremont? Or were there outsiders? I mean there had to have been outsiders.
Joseph Hadbavny: That east side, west side, yeah there were a lot. ‘Cause J& L used to employ when, one summer my dad says, “You want a job down there?” “And I say not really.” So he got me a job down there. They probably had 8,000 guys at J& L Steel which was on the south side of the Clark Bridge. On the opposite side was Republic Steel. They had a lot of people making far less steel than they do with a crew of maybe 500, I mean today. Just with the technology that has come to make steel. So, yes you had, yeah because a lot of guys could walk to work. A lot of guys caught the Clark Avenue bus down to J &L and to Republic.
David Brock: And when did the steel mills start declining? Was it the 60s? I mean it was after you moved out right?
Gloria Hadbavny: They were still pretty big.
Joseph Hadbavny: No, my dad retired from J & L in ’67 and he was what in his late.
Gloria Hadbavny: 70s.
Joseph Hadbavny: He was close to 70 and they didn’t want him to leave. No, just the technology required less people.
David Brock: Exactly, right.
Joseph Hadbavny: You know, that’s all that it was. There was a lot of people who made great careers over there. You know, good pensions, good money. So, you may have got a job there in the 20s and by 19, the 60s you were living in Parma, but still went to work there.
Gloria Hadbavny: It’s probably the same today as people working at Ford. You have a lot of people coming to the one on Brookpark, going out to Lorain, going out to the one in
Joseph Hadbavny: Walton Hills.
Gloria Hadbavny: Walton Hills.
Joseph Hadbavny: No, the mills were a prominent employer at that time.
David Brock: Right, how many people would you say lived in Tremont, I mean you had a Census from 1930. Do you have any idea what that was? And what would you say the percentage of men who worked at the mills was?
Joseph Hadbavny: Oh, at that period of time?
David Brock: Yeah.
Joseph Hadbavny: Oh, gosh. Maybe 40–50% of the men worked at the mills. Because you couldn’t get gas. So, if you had a job, you couldn’t get gas. I think we have some A coupons over there, I think you got 3 gallons a week.
David Brock: Oh, okay.
Joseph Hadbavny: Okay, so if you had a Buick you bought before the war, you sure wouldn’t go driving. I mean you take the family out for a drive on Sunday. Otherwise you took the streetcars or you the buses. And so, being able to take the public transportation, or being able to walk to work was very important. Yes, so I would say a very large percentage worked at the mills.
David Brock: And they would be, how long was the workday? 10 hours?
Joseph Hadbavny: 8 hours.
Gloria Hadbavny: 8 hours.
Joseph Hadbavny: You had 3 shifts at J & L, 7 to 3, 3to 11, 11 to 7.
David Brock: Right. People preferred the first shift, or it didn’t matter? It was work?
Joseph Hadbavny: Well, I worked there, and the first week you had 7 to 3. From Monday to Friday, and then on Sunday you got 3 to 11, okay? Then you got off at 11 o’clock on maybe Friday night, then Sunday morning you went in, or the Saturday night you went in at 11 o’clock at night until 7 o’clock in the morning. Then the fourth week was crazy week, okay?
David Brock: Right.
Joseph Hadbavny: A couple of days on days, a couple of days on afternoon, and a couple of days on nights. Then you got off, probably for 5 days before you started it all over again. And crazy week you didn’t have any idea if it was Monday or Friday, because you were…
David Brock: And that’s how it was for everyone?
Joseph Hadbavny: Most of the Republic Steel had that system, and J & L, you know started it later, I think in the 40s.
David Brock: So your father did that?
Joseph Hadbavny: No, my dad was a crane operator. He worked straight nights from probably the time I was born until I was in high school.
David Brock: Right, right.
Joseph Hadbavny: He worked straight nights from 11 to 7. Yeah, he was lucky, he stayed on the same shift.
David Brock: Now do you have any memories of World War II, living in Tremont? Do you remember Pearl Harbor?
Joseph Hadbavny: I do. She doesn’t.
Gloria Hadbavny: Well, yes and no. I mean, you hear certain things as a kid. As I said I was kind of young at that time, if anybody was in the service they had the flags in the windows.
David Brock: In Tremont?
Joseph Hadbavny: Blue Stars.
Gloria Hadbavny: Blue Stars. My cousin’s husband was in the service and a couple of my other cousins were in the service. My dad, for whatever reasons, didn’t go.
Joseph Hadbavny: But the times with the large families, they had 3 and 4, maybe 5 Blue Stars. So, they had a lot of sons, and then the Gold Stars were if they got killed.
Gloria Hadbavny: But you’d have the air raids. I think we had dark shades, you know you had to put things in the dark. Same thing in school, they had certain things you would have to do, you know in case anything, if there was a bombing or things like that. I mean I vaguely remember.
Joseph Hadbavny: Rationing.
Gloria Hadbavny: Rationing, yes rationing. You made butter, you got this white cube of
Joseph Hadbavny: You made margarine.
Gloria Hadbavny: You made margarine. You got this white cube of lard, or whatever it was, and you had coloring, orange coloring.
David Brock: Is that right?
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah. So, you mixed it up and that was your margarine.
Joseph Hadbavny: You had points. You could get so much meat. You had
Gloria Hadbavny: You had tokens.
Joseph Hadbavny: No, but that was your change. If you bought a pound of bologna and you had a coupon for ten points and the bologna was only four points they gave you little cardboard, sort of like a paper thing, and it showed a 5 and a 1, and that was your change. So, you had change in your points, okay?
Gloria Hadbavny: Sometimes people would change off, trade off. Somebody wanted, they needed this and you didn’t need it so you would give them.
Joseph Hadbavny: And you saved up your points for the Easter ham, and the Easter kielbasa. You saved them up.
David Brock: Is that right?
Joseph Hadbavny: Yeah, you sacrificed.
Gloria Hadbavny: There would be so much of that.
Joseph Hadbavny: And some of the meats were not rationed.
David Brock: Right, not everything was. Do you remember Gold Stars hanging in Tremont. Do you remember when someone in the neighborhood was killed during the war?
Gloria Hadbavny: Not really.
David Brock: Specifically related to Tremont, no? . Gloria Hadbavny: I mean, as I said, my relatives all came back. The ones that were in.
David Brock: And, how many relatives were in?
Gloria Hadbavny: Oh, my two cousins. Marion’s husband, I can’t think.
Joseph Hadbavny: There was a lot of guys in the service down there. Because all the churches had these honor rolls. The churches of the guys that were, in other words, in. And they were quite large. Some of these parishes, I don’t know how many people were at Cantius during World War II. Probably a 2000 family.
Gloria Hadbavny: It was large.
Joseph Hadbavny: A 2000 family, that’s a lot of people from the Tremont area. They had an honor roll. Our Lady of Mercy had and honor roll. Probably all the other churches had guys who were in the service. If they died they got a Gold Star. I do remember that.
Gloria Hadbavny: I forgot about that. Yeah, you did.
David Brock: Well you don’t remember Pearl Harbor, but do you remember later on in the War? Do you remember victory?
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah, I kind of remember all of a sudden everyone was real happy. They said the war was over, that type thing.
David Brock: Was there any kind of special, maybe not a formal celebration, was there any kind of informal celebration.
Joseph Hadbavny: Just blowing horns. Everybody was on the porch.
Gloria Hadbavny: The yelling and the war’s over, but no special kind of celebration that I knew of.
David Brock: Now whatever, to talk about a national or maybe citywide or statewide, what other major events during your time in Tremont, or actually anytime in Tremont stick out. The assassination of President Kennedy? We want to talk politically, would you say Tremont had a specific political bend? Was there do you know, was there a lot of Democrats?
Gloria Hadbavny: I wouldn’t know, because as I said we were gone already 10 years. You know we’d go back periodically.
David Brock: If you moved out in 1952, and you were a teenager right?
Gloria Hadbavny: Right.
David Brock: But you don’t remember how, was there a big push for an Eisenhower in ’52? Was Tremont just didn’t know.
Joseph Hadbavny: Mostly Democratic.
Gloria Hadbavny: I would say Democratic, yeah.
Joseph Hadbavny: Mostly Democratic. Our best man still lives in the area. He was born there. He still lives there. He’s pretty active with everybody down there.
David Brock: Right.
Joseph Hadbavny: So, he would be the guy I would ask about the politics in that area.
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah, but I would say more Democratic than anything else.
David Brock: And do you remember any Cleveland city mayors? Did they come through Tremont and campaign hard or come back once they were mayor?
Gloria Hadbavny: No, no.
Joseph Hadbavny: It was more or less a forgotten thing. Especially when they built 71. That really chopped up that area.
David Brock: Yeah.
Joseph Hadbavny: I mean it was an island.
David Brock: Yeah, overnight almost.
Joseph Hadbavny: It was an island.
Gloria Hadbavny: No, I don’t remember them. I mean they may have come through and campaigned, but nothing like you have today.
Joseph Hadbavny: I think we stopped going down there a lot more maybe in the mid-60s, because you know Cleveland was changing. The big department stores were closing, because we used to do all of our shopping downtown. So, she worked downtown until the 70s, 80s? So, really we just stopped going down there because the people we knew down there had moved out.
David Brock: Right, now why were people moving out? Because of things like 71? Maybe crime was getting worse? Maybe just culture? Well you moved out in ’52. Why did your parents move out.
Joseph Hadbavny: To get off of rent.
David Brock: To buy a house?
Joseph Hadbavny: To buy a house.
Gloria Hadbavny: You know three children. Two girls and a boy. We needed more room. I think probably to better themselves.
David Brock: Okay. And that was common, once you could do that you would move out?
Joseph Hadbavny: Yeah.
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah. I mean, I had, my aunts, I mean they I think even before we moved. I mean my aunt lived in Fairview Park. My other aunt live in Brooklyn.
Joseph Hadbavny: Parma.
Gloria Hadbavny: Parma.
Joseph Hadbavny: When you could afford it you did it. You still liked the area, you still had ties down there, but you wanted…
David Brock: Something better?
Joseph Hadbavny: Something better.
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah.
David Brock: The American Dream.
Joseph Hadbavny: I mean a whole lot of these people had nothing when they came here, and they bettered themselves. So, you moved.
David Brock: And a lot of, as heavily ethnic as Tremont was, would a lot of people would they still move. Like the Ukrainians would they move to say a Parma, which is also, of course and ethnic place? I mean you moved to Parma Heights?
Gloria Hadbavny: Parma Heights.
David Brock: Was there a reason for Parma Heights?
Gloria Hadbavny: That’s where my dad picked.
Joseph Hadbavny: There was no ethnic in Parma Heights at that period of time. Parma in the 50s, Parma was Polish, Slovak.
Gloria Hadbavny: Ukrainian.
Joseph Hadbavny: Ukrainians. Very big in the 50s, and these were people that moved out.
David Brock: And a lot of the houses in Tremont were rented?
Gloria Hadbavny: Yes.
David Brock: There wasn’t a lot of home-ownership?
Joseph Hadbavny: Not that I’m aware of.
Gloria Hadbavny: There was probably some.
Joseph Hadbavny: Well the landlord owned the house. The landlord he may have owned 5 houses. David Brock: Is that right? They may have owned multiple houses.
Gloria Hadbavny: Well, like where we lived, the landlord was next door. Okay? We lived in a two-suiter. Up front was a six. No four.
Joseph Hadbavny: Two in the back. The house is still standing.
David Brock: Oh, is that right?
Gloria Hadbavny: He had six suites.
David Brock: Now, the house you grew-up in in Tremont. Describe the house when you walked in. Was it a common house?
Joseph Hadbavny: It was a double.
Gloria Hadbavny: It was a double. Two porches. We lived upstairs. You know basic. Couple bedrooms, living room, and a kitchen.
David Brock: Common. And that was a common house in Tremont? Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah.
Joseph Hadbavny: The heating. What did you use the heat with?
Gloria Hadbavny: Coal, for a long time.
Joseph Hadbavny: In the center of the living room.
David Brock: Oh, is that right. In the middle of the living room?
Gloria Hadbavny: Well, ours was off to the side. I think the vent…
Joseph Hadbavny: Off to the side of the living room. That was the central heat.
Gloria Hadbavny: And then later on , you went to, you got those gas heaters.
Joseph Hadbavny: And laundry, your mom did laundry in the basement.
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah, we had a basement and an attic where you dried you clothes. I mean, summertime clothes were hung outside. Winter, everything went in the attic. Stiff. No heat. You know you got coal.
Joseph Hadbavny: Coal heat was a lot. Common through the 30s and the 40s was coal heat.
Gloria Hadbavny: But, I mean the property or facility was upkept. They had a nice lawn and everything. Next door, my dad had to rent a garage.
David Brock: Oh, is that right.
Gloria Hadbavny: The lady next door, well they were Ukrainian, so she had like three or four garages.
Joseph Hadbavny: There weren’t many. There were no driveways off the street. The houses were next to each other. Thee was no place to park your car in your driveway. ‘Cause they were all lawns, and they had alleys which they called them. I guess in the old days that’s where you parked your horse and your wagon.
David Brock: How old was the house that you lived in?
Gloria Hadbavny: Oh, I have no idea.
Joseph Hadbavny: The style of it would be about 1910, 1908, 1909.
Gloria Hadbavny: My parents moved, they got married in ‘31, so they moved in there shortly after that.
Joseph Hadbavny: Probably the 1910-stlye of house. There were and awful lot of houses over there with no basement, just a crawl space probably from the 1880s, 1890s. So, there’s was newer.
Gloria Hadbavny: But there were some homes in there that I would say were very, maybe wealthy lived in . Joseph Hadbavny: Well there were mansions in there. One on the corner.
Gloria Hadbavny: ‘Cause there was one on the corner that had a big wraparound porch that looked very fancy. And then where my aunt lived on Literary, now they rented also, the house next door was very, more exclusive. You kind of had a mix of some houses in the area.
David Brock: Right. Well I’ll tell you what we’re almost done. If we want to sum up, you know in a few words, or sentences or whatever, your experience in Tremont. The things you most remember. Your husband has said he remembers the smells. Would that be common?
Joseph Hadbavny: Christmas. Christmas time. We had the special meals which they called (inaudible). You had certain foods. Thirteen different foods was that what it was? And straw underneath the table and they would put coins in there to, I’m talking about the Polish, and the kids would go for the coins. And the smells. The bakers, the meats.
David Brock: The mills?
Joseph Hadbavny: The mills, the mills had a sort of a burning coal sort of smell.
David Brock: Right, but not as pervasive as the bakery?
Joseph Hadbavny: I think the wind blew more toward Broadway.
David Brock: Okay, yeah.
Joseph Hadbavny: Okay, so this was not as that was. Where everything was coated with the dioxide.
Gloria Hadbavny: But I think just in general, the friendliness of the people.
Joseph Hadbavny: Scrubbing the sidewalks.
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah, people, you know, were friendly. If you had a problem they would try and help you. It was a melting pot. I have no regrets growing up in the area.
Joseph Hadbavny: People got dressed up for Easter. Everybody had new clothes.
David Brock: Everybody had new clothes for Easter?
Joseph Hadbavny: And corsages. You know what a corsage is?
David Brock: Oh, sure.
Joseph Hadbavny: They used to come from here, the shoulder down to about the waist.
Gloria Hadbavny: They were huge.
Joseph Hadbavny: And you stayed dressed on a Sunday. What you wore to the church you wore all day long. You didn’t go change into your jeans and cut the grass or wash the car. You didn’t work on Sunday.
Gloria Hadbavny: You didn’t work on Sunday. Stores closed, the stores closed half a day on Wednesday. Your grocery stores or drug stores or whatever. Anything else.
Joseph Hadbavny: Saturdays at about noon.
Gloria Hadbavny: No, six on Saturdays.
Joseph Hadbavny: Six o’clock.
Gloria Hadbavny: Six o’clock on Saturdays. And I mean that goes for all the stores, even downtown Cleveland. But your locals, they would close half a day on Wednesday.
Joseph Hadbavny: Never open on a Sunday.
Gloria Hadbavny: You know, everybody survived.
David Brock: Sure, through good times, bad times, everything.
Gloria Hadbavny: Exactly.
Joseph Hadbavny: There were no restaurants at that time in the Tremont area that I remember.
Gloria Hadbavny: No, I mean if you went to a dance or something, they may have had something there.
Joseph Hadbavny: Kielbasa sandwiches.
Gloria Hadbavny: Or whatever.
David Brock: You ate dinner at home with your family.
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah.
Joseph Hadbavny: Yeah, you better be there at 6 o’clock and eat dinner with your family. Otherwise, you didn’t eat the next day.
Gloria Hadbavny: Or you waited. As I said my dad worked nights, as I said he was in the restaurant business, so you know maybe, ‘cause they used to have a 2 o’clock Mass downtown. He’d go to church then he’d come home and go to bed. And, you know we’d go to church and that, and you waited until he was ready. That was it. You didn’t eat without him. You know, we all survived. Like I said…
Joseph Hadbavny: It was a great place to grow up.
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah, we had the nuns.
Joseph Hadbavny: Her fifth grade nun is still alive.
David Brock: Is that right?
Gloria Hadbavny: Yeah. She’s gotta be 90-something years old. But, and they taught you a lot. You had respect.
Joseph Hadbavny: You respected other people’s property.
Gloria Hadbavny: Like I said it was a great are to grow up in. I have no regrets.
David Brock: Right. Well, very good.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
