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.
Loading...
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 designate
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
