Abstract
The oral history interview with Gary Huspaska, conducted on October 15, 2003, covers his experiences growing up in the Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio. Huspaska discusses his Slovak heritage, his family’s history in the area, and his memories of the local community, including ethnic divisions, neighborhood landmarks, and his involvement in local institutions like schools and churches. He also touches on his experiences working at NASA, his service in the U.S. Army during the early 1960s, and his long career as a postal worker. Huspaska reflects on the cultural changes in the Tremont neighborhood over time, including the effects of urban development and the influx of new residents, while maintaining a connection to his ethnic roots.
Interviewee
Huspaska, Gary (interviewee)
Interviewer
Sprinzl, Cindy (interviewer)
Project
Tremont History Project
Date
10-15-2003
Document Type
Oral History
Recommended Citation
"Gary Huspaska interview, 15 October 2003" (2003). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 223023.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1313
Transcript
Cindy Sprinzl: Mr. Huspaska the time is 10:10 on Wednesday October 15, 2003. Were at Westpark library on 157th and Lorain and we’re here for the Tremont Oral History project. Okay. Can you tell us, tell me your name.
Gary Huspaska: Gary F. Huspaska.
Cindy Sprinzl: Can you spell it for me?
Gary Huspaska: H-U-S-P-A-S-K-A.
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay. Um I hope you don’t mind if I ask you, uh, what is your ethnic background–
Gary Huspaska: Well, my Grandmother came from Slovakia, uh, my Grandfather was part Slovakian and Russian on my mothers side. My fathers side mother, grandmother on my mothers, fathers side was, uh, also Slovak and her husband was Bohemian. Mainly I picked up a Slovak background.
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay. Um, okay uh, where do you live now?
Gary Huspaska: West 191st Street (Complete address withheld).
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay um, okay um, where did you live when you lived in Tremont?
Gary Huspaska: I grew up, oh uh, 2084 west tenth street between Professor Avenue and University.
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay, um, when did you, when did you or your family move there, to Tremont?
Gary Huspaska: Uh, I was born there.
Cindy Sprinzl: You were born there. Okay you don’t know when your parents moved there.
Gary Huspaska: My mother was born there.
Cindy Sprinzl: Oh, okay.
Gary Huspaska: She was married at 30, 35 died 2000, the year 2000 at 93, you, you have to do the math [laughter].
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay, okay, um
Gary Huspaska: They come over at my, uh, uh, her mother and father came over from the old country from Slovakia and when I don’t know. If I had known this I would have brought a sheet my kids did for Holy Name and I’ve got all the backgrounds in there. I should have brought it.
Cindy Sprinzl: That’s okay, um, okay so you don’t, uh, you don’t, um. Basically your family and you were always in the neighborhood and, um, so do you know where they came before that, or…
Gary Huspaska: The Countries, I mean the cities?
Cindy Sprinzl: Yeah
Gary Huspaska: Not really, I have it.
Cindy Sprinzl: Oh, okay your have it you just, okay. When you grew up in Tremont where did you play?
Gary Huspaska: [Noise of lawnmower in the background-Shut off tape recorder briefly] Well, Lincoln Park was at the corner of west fourteenth and Literary. Still exists as a park [lawnmower noise stops] Tremont schoolyard, which was an elementary school west tenth and University. There was an empty lot, played there.
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay. Um, do you have any, um, early childhood memories –
Gary Huspaska: Tons.
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay, then can you tell us one, or tell me one?
Gary Huspaska: Ohhh, the big blizzard it was Thanksgiving.
Cindy Sprinzl: Hmm, Do you remember what year that was?
Gary Huspaska: I want to say maybe 1948, uh, approximately, I think I was about ten years old, ten to twelve, forty-eight, fifty. Shut the street down. Shut the whole neighborhood down for a week.
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay, that must have been fun.
Gary Huspaska: Yeah.
Cindy Sprinzl: For a young kid.
Gary Huspaska: Yeah it was good, [laughter] no school.
Cindy Sprinzl: Yeah, yup.
Gary Huspaska: Uh, the vendors up and down the street, horse and buggy, even though there’s cars. Uh, not horse and buggy, horse and wagons–
Cindy Sprinzl: Uhuh.
Gary Huspaska: Sell produce and then there was, we used to laugh about it, called the paper rex man, and he’d come down buying old used stuff, rags and what he would yell was paper rags, but it would sound like paper rex.
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay.
Gary Huspaska: Once every two weeks milk delivery to the back door, coal delivery into the basement, most places has coal burning fireplaces–
Cindy Sprinzl: Uhuh.
Gary Huspaska: And stoves, the onset of television probably [deep breath out].
Cindy Sprinzl: What was that like um, that must have been one person in the neighborhood gets a television—
Gary Huspaska: Yup.
Cindy Sprinzl: Its—
Gary Huspaska: Yup, then a couple more, a couple more [breathe in]. Our first one was rounded, uh before television listened to radio.
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: My grandmother owned all the property that we lived at. Cindy Sprinzl: Okay.
Gary Huspaska: She had it, ah, she had a eight, uh, eight apartment complex building, uh that’s gone now, that was torn down. When I was first born I lived in one of those apartment complexes, in fact, you had to go downstairs to take a common shower [breathing in] and there was bathrooms on each floor that four apartments used. Uh, my uncle, one of my mothers brothers lived with his mother, my grandmother in a two family house next door and he got married and moved out and we moved into there, into a ground floor apartment. We stayed there until, uhh…I got drafted in sixty-one [sniff-sniff] and my mother and sister moved out of there and they sold it when my grandmother died. They sold all the property and my mother moved down the street with my sister in an apartment at west tenth but near, nearer Professor, I think it was 1962. Also on this property there was another single family home in the rear and on the other side on the same lot there was another two family home. So my grandmother was wealthy in property, but that’s all [sniff]. When they first came over from the old country they had a bar [sniff] her and her husband owned a bar [coughing] excuse me, ahh, kind of a roadhouse type thing.
Cindy Sprinzl: Do you remember the name of it?
Gary Huspaska: No. West third [clicking] and Jefferson I believe I think its still standing it still might be a restaurant of some sorts [sniff].
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay.
Gary Huspaska: They had that for a few years then they got elderly and they sold it. I knew nothing about that.
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay, you weren’t able to go in there and–
Gary Huspaska: No, no I was born in 1938 so…my mother was born in 1902, 1903.
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay, um okay, um do you remember any specific story or song from your youth that might have been ethnically based like your grandmother might have taught to you or something like that?
Gary Huspaska: Oh, the whole neighborhood was divided into ethnic pockets and we belonged to an, Our Lady of Mercy Church on west eleventh and Literary, and it was a Slovak Church, and the masses were said in English, and the sermons were said, ahh, Latin yeah, sorry not English, Latin–
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay,
Gary Huspaska: And the sermons were said in Slovak in English and Slovak it always took longer then and I remember that and all the songs were, ah, Slovak language songs. I sang in the choir and learned some of them, but back then if you spoke the language of your native country, ahh, you were labeled a D.P.
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: Which was called displaced person
Cindy Sprinzl: Yeah.
Gary Huspaska: And it wasn’t cool to grow up knowing the language you hid it. I never learned the language and I’m sorry for it, now my mother spoke it fluently.
Cindy Sprinzl: Yeah.
Gary Huspaska: Ahh, but I remember the Slovak songs my grandmother used to sing, couldn’t remember them now.
Cindy Sprinzl: Hmmm.
Gary Huspaska: But all the Churches had their own ethnic, Saint John Cantius was Polish, Greek Church on the corner of west fourteenth and Professor was Greek, ah, Saint Augustine on west fourteenth was Polish, also Saint Theodosius down on west seventh was orthodox Russian, ah, but as far as songs go that was…I probably grew up on You are my Sunshine [sniff].
Cindy Sprinzl: [laughing] Okay.
Gary Huspaska: As a little kid.
Cindy Sprinzl: Um, so where did your parents work?
Gary Huspaska: My father drove a, work for my father, originally worked for a factory called Warner and Swazzie, then he went on strike. I don’t know exactly, but they went on strike, uhh, the year my sister was born, that would have been [clicking] 1948. And then he went to, off for a while then he went to work, he was, for Pure Oil Corporation, which was a gas, gasoline distributor, drove a gas truck until his death in sixty-one.
Cindy Sprinzl: So your mom stayed in the home then?
Gary Huspaska: Mom was, stayed in the home until…I’m thinking when I started High School. Maybe, 1952 or fifty-one, then she became a school crossing guard on the corner of Literary and west eleventh–
Cindy Sprinzl: She–
Gary Huspaska: She stayed with that until she was I think sixty-five maybe, then she got a job with the Welfare Department down in the neighborhood at that time there was a lot of people on welfare.
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: She stayed there until she was about seventy-eight years old.
Cindy Sprinzl: Wow.
Gary Huspaska: Then she retired [sniff] she was a fixture in the neighborhood.
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: Her name was Marie Tompko, maiden name was Marie Tompko [sniff].
Cindy Sprinzl: Did, um, all the kids walk to school then, they didn’t ride buses then?
Gary Huspaska: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah everybody walked until you turned sixteen, fortunate enough to talk your father into a car–
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay, [laughing]
Gary Huspaska: Then you drove the car, I went to Tremont Elementary School which is about three blocks and then Lincoln High School which was probably about a half hour walk or better [sniff] that was located at Scranton and Castle Avenue.
Cindy Sprinzl: Is it still there, do you know?
Gary Huspaska: It was torn down, I think about 1966 maybe, or sixty-seven, and they erected ahh, elementary school in the same spot and they combined Lincoln with Lincoln West High School making it Lincoln West, which exists now on thirty-five and Fulton something like that.
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay. Um, did you, do you know if your neighbors worked with your dad in the same factory?
Gary Huspaska: No they didn’t
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay.
Gary Huspaska: They all had different–
Cindy Sprinzl: different kind of occupations
Gary Huspaska: Different kinds of occupations. Steel mills, a lot in the steel mills. Cindy Sprinzl: Well I guess your neighbors were basically your family then– Gary Huspaska: Ahh…
Cindy Sprinzl: most of them–
Gary Huspaska: Not really, no all the rest of them, there was one sister, my fathers parents died. I never knew my fathers parents, and he only had one brother. The two brothers which I saw rarely, most of the time was spent around my mothers side. On my mothers side there was seven brothers and one sister, and there was only one brother who lived in the house behind us with his wife and daughter, the rest had moved out to various parts [sniff].
Cindy Sprinzl: So, um…
Gary Huspaska: Oh, my uncle lived with my grandmother until, I said like I forget what year it was but he married and moved out.
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh, uh, um, did your parents socialize with the neighbors or did you?
Gary Huspaska: Oh yeah, Oh, yeah, had a lot of parties and it was good it was a good neighborhood.
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh a lot of neighborhood events or festivals and things like that or…
Gary Huspaska: Um, no the Churches used to have dances and parties and stuff like that [sniff] but not no street parties or anything like that [sniff].
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay.
Gary Huspaska: Just, a Christmas was a big event–
Cindy Sprinzl: In the neighborhood?
Gary Huspaska: In the neighborhood, yeah, everybody celebrated–
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay, you went to just like a party or…
Gary Huspaska: No just visiting each others house–
Cindy Sprinzl: Just visiting?
Gary Huspaska: Yeah.
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh. Um, [background noise of people talking in the hallway] so you told me where you went to school, where did you hang out as a teenager?
Gary Huspaska: Merrick House.
Cindy Sprinzl: Merrick House? Oh, what did you do there?
Gary Huspaska: Basketball.
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: Ah, we had a, back then it was what you called clubs and, uh, from the High School–
Cindy Sprinzl: Mhhmn.
Gary Huspaska: [background noise of people talking in the hallway] Ah, group of guys would get together and form a club, group of girls would get together and form a club–
Cindy Sprinzl: Mhhmn.
Gary Huspaska: So there was maybe [background noise continues of talking in the hallway], Ah, a local High School, there would be four or five different clubs and you competed against each other for girls–
Cindy Sprinzl: [laughing] And for basketball? [laughing] but it was a friendly rivalry?
Gary Huspaska: Yeah,
Cindy Sprinzl: Type thing?
Gary Huspaska: Yeah, yeah.
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay, um so where did you begin working? Did you always work…
Gary Huspaska: Uh, graduated January, they had mid term graduations then –
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: I graduated in January of fifty-six and I got a job working at…Its called NASA now it was NACA then. National Advisory Council of Aeronautics, at its present site and [laughing] probably one of my big mistakes in life, they were, computers were just, just starting… yeah fifty-six–
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: And they had me in there teaching me – Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: Computers from the ground floor level, and, uh, I worked [tsk] I think it was a ten by ten wind test, ah wind tunnel, and it was just computerizing things a that time, just, just the very beginning, and I decided I wanted to go to college.
Cindy Sprinzl: Hmmn.
Gary Huspaska: See I wasn’t making any money there so I quit and got a job in the post office, figured I’d work in the post office for three months and then go to college, and [long pause]…used, used the money bought a convertible and that was it [laughing].
Cindy Sprinzl: That was it no college?
Gary Huspaska: I went to night, I went to Fenn College for one year in High School.
Cindy Sprinzl: Hmmn. You mentioned that you were drafted –
Gary Huspaska: Yeah, I was drafted in sixty-one right before the Cuba crisis. No, uh, during the Berlin Wall–
Cindy Sprinzl: Oh, and um, did you spend a lot of time over there? Gary Huspaska: I didn’t go over there.
Cindy Sprinzl: Oh, you didn’t go over?
Gary Huspaska: I spent, uh, most of the time in Fort Devons Massachusetts. Ah, was in the infantry for awhile and then, ah, during the Cuba crisis, ah, I got transferred to Fort Benning Georgia for the invasion of Cuba–
Cindy Sprinzl: Hmnnm.
Gary Huspaska: That was as close as I came.
Cindy Sprinzl: That was kind of scary.
Gary Huspaska: Yes it was, yeah, yeah [laughing] yes it was.
Cindy Sprinzl: But you were lucky.
Gary Huspaska: Yup, just before I got, I got out of the Army in August sixty-three, and just before I left, they sent a directive around looking for helicopter pilots, and I would have had to go to helicopter, well, I would have had to sign up for another year–
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: And go to school for helicopter pilot, I thought seriously about it, but the fact that my father died while I was in the service and my sister was, just at that time fifteen years old, I decided no to do it—
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: Probably the best move of my life–
Cindy Sprinzl: Yeah?
Gary Huspaska: Because just, I turned it down, just before I got out, a young man moved into our barracks, he just came back from Vietnam. Nobody at that time new what was happening–
Cindy Sprinzl: Uhuh. Mhnn.
Gary Huspaska: And he said they were shooting helicopters out of the sky like flies [sniff]. That probably why they needed helicopter pilots.
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: So that probably–
Cindy Sprinzl: A good thing–
Gary Huspaska: One of my good moves [sniff].
Cindy Sprinzl: Yeah. Yes, um, let see, what was it like delivering the mail then, uh…
Gary Huspaska: Good
Cindy Sprinzl: Good?
Gary Huspaska: Yeah, it was, ah, I started out in my old, in my same neighborhood.
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: And, uh, it was a good job, not too much money, but I was young, I didn’t get married until I was twenty-seven. I started the Post Office at fifty…well the summer of fifty- six. I worked at NASA, NACA for like four months, something like that–
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh. Um, did you get, a long, a big route? I mean was it? Was…
Gary Huspaska: I bounced around a lot. Different routes as a substitute–
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay.
Gary Huspaska: But it was, ah, again it was, uh, it was still a lot of ethnic people in the neighborhood, and like at, uh, especially around, uh, Orthodox Christmas and Easter, which was always a week after the regular Christmas and Easter, people would get packages and letters for the old country–
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: And I delivered that, uh-huh, yeah, come on in the house and have a drink and have food–
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: People respected the mailman at that time [sniff].
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: They still do I guess but…
Cindy Sprinzl: I, I think I do [laughing] at least my mailman, that I know of, its like you said they switch around a lot.
Gary Huspaska: Yeah, then I got, I got my own route, ah, downtown Cleveland. I carried to Terminal Tower and the Status Building, and then I had a route for about three years on west third street, west sixth, which is now the warehouse district, but then it was all the warehouses and clothing stores.
Cindy Sprinzl: Clothing stores?
Gary Huspaska: Clothing stores. [long pause] The flats at that time was all commercial
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: And that Flat Iron Café was still there, and that was a dive [sniff, laughing]
Cindy Sprinzl: Was it? Huh,um, yeah its, um amazing how its changed.
Gary Huspaska: Uh-huh.
Cindy Sprinzl: I mean now it’s the place to be.
Gary Huspaska: Yup, its going down hill now too–
Cindy Sprinzl: The Flats? Yeah, I haven’t been down there in a couple of years.
Gary Huspaska: That’s not what it was, what it was I guess, the upper, is now the…west sixth and west third is the place to be.
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay, okay, you see I haven’t really been down there either, um…
Gary Huspaska: I left, I left down town Post Office and transferred to Rocky River…[long pause, breathing out] about 1974,seventy-five. I transferred to Rocky River and I stayed there until I retired in ninety-three.
Cindy Sprinzl: Mhmnn. That was quite a difference wasn’t it…Rocky River [laughing] Gary Huspaska: Oh yeah, I was on the street then.
Cindy Sprinzl: Yeah?
Gary Huspaska: In the winters–
Cindy Sprinzl: Driving, I mean did you–
Gary Huspaska: I walked.
Cindy Sprinzl: You walked. Still? Wow.
Gary Huspaska: The only thing that saved me was I had an three hundred suite apartment complex—
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: So…
Cindy Sprinzl: Yeah.
Gary Huspaska: It kept me out a little bit–
Cindy Sprinzl: Indoors at least a while?
Gary Huspaska: [sniff]
Cindy Sprinzl: Um, I hate to bounce back, but do you remember where your parents grocery shopped?
Gary Huspaska: Uh-huh, uh, hmmn, it was on the corner of west eleventh and Professor. Ah, it was a Greek restaurant…Nick, uh…oh boy, I know the two boys because they went to Lincoln High School and they graduated a few years before me and I still see them at a reunion every two years–
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: Right now there is a restaurant in the same spot that’s, that they had this grocery store–
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh there was a restaurant slash grocery there? They– Gary Huspaska: They, they don’t, it was just–
Cindy Sprinzl: Just a grocery store?
Gary Huspaska: Just a grocery store. It was run by Greek…
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: Greek people…for the life of me I cant remember the last name…boy–
Cindy Sprinzl: Do you think the family still owns it? Or…
Gary Huspaska: No.
Cindy Sprinzl: No, its–
Gary Huspaska: No they sold it in fact the two boys were the founders of Pizza King
Cindy Sprinzl: [laughing] Really
Gary Huspaska: Yeah, Todd, they had quite a few Pizza Kings around the city at that time and they still do in Berea.
Cindy Sprinzl: So they did alright then, um, where did you grocery shop…you said you lived in the neighborhood for awhile, um–
Gary Huspaska: Well, lived with my mother–
Cindy Sprinzl: Oh, okay–
Gary Huspaska: Until 1965–
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay–
Gary Huspaska: Got married in 1965–
Cindy Sprinzl: So they’re was really no need for you to–
Gary Huspaska: I never shopped.
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay [laughing], um
Gary Huspaska: But a good friend of mine owned a place called Cities, his father owned Cindy’s Tavern–
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay, uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: Its on the corner of west eleventh and Professor, spent, spent a lot of time in there [sniff].
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay.
Gary Huspaska: Earlier younger days helping clean up on Sundays and then older on the other side of the bar [sniff].
Cindy Sprinzl: Hmmnn.
Gary Huspaska: Now its called Kostas
Cindy Sprinzl: Oh? Is it? Okay.
Gary Huspaska: Its very, very high class expensive restaurant in Tremont.
Cindy Sprinzl: Yeah, I’ve heard that.
Gary Huspaska: Hum?
Cindy Sprinzl: I heard that they were–
Gary Huspaska: Very
Cindy Sprinzl: Yeah, um, lets see you said you got married at, when you were twenty-seven?
Gary Huspaska: Uh-huh.
Cindy Sprinzl: Um, where did you meet your wife?
Gary Huspaska: Uh, actually knew her, she, she went to Saint Michaels Parish on Scranton road. I used to hang out around Saint Pat, Saint Michaels from, oh, when I turned eighteen at fifty- six, fifty-seven.
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh. Oh, so you knew her?
Gary Huspaska: Till I got drafted in sixty-one I kind of left Our Lady of Mercy Church and I hung around Saint Michaels.
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: And I collected there a lot of my friends were from Saint Michaels and they coached their basketball and baseball teams, and she was with a whole group of people–
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: And then when I came home from the service I just kind of met her again, got married in sixty-five [sniff].
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay, and so she was from the neighborhood also?
Gary Huspaska: Yeah, she was, ah, she was actually born on Auburn Avenue.
Cindy Sprinzl: Hmn, um, do you remember, of course you remember where you got married
Gary Huspaska: Saint Michaels
Cindy Sprinzl: At Saint Michaels? Then, um, and the reception was probably there too?
Gary Huspaska: No
Cindy Sprinzl: No?
Gary Huspaska: The reception was at UAW Hall on…I want to say Madison. Madison near Triscuit. Had to pay a buck fifty a head.
Cindy Sprinzl: [laughing] My sons getting married and their looking at about eight thousand dollars for a hundred people. So, huh–
Gary Huspaska: Yup, I went to four of my three, three—
Cindy Sprinzl: You have three children?
Gary Huspaska: Four.
Cindy Sprinzl: Four children, boys?
Gary Huspaska: Ah, two boys thirty-seven and thirty-six. Daughter is thirty-three, and the other boy is twenty.
Cindy Sprinzl: Do any of them live in the neighborhood? In Tremont?
Gary Huspaska: No.
Cindy Sprinzl: No, um do you, do you try to pass on your Slovenian, any kind of, uh traditions that you have to your children?
Gary Huspaska: I try to.
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh
Gary Huspaska: But they don’t I think, I think that probably my youngest son Anthony is probably the one maybe, that, that carry the traditions on, he’s different that the other three–
Cindy Sprinzl: UH-huh.
Gary Huspaska: For the fact that he was born, my wife was forty-three and I was forty-four
Cindy Sprinzl: Wow.
Gary Huspaska: Yeah, Garrett was a senior in High School, David was a junior my daughter was in the eighth grade, so he grew up amongst adults his entire life moreless.
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: Probably helped him, made him as intelligent as he is.
Cindy Sprinzl: Hmmn. Yup, yeah, um, I know you mentioned that you went to, uh, you spent a lot of time at Church and that was where you got your um background, is that kind of what you do with your children…did with your own–
Gary Huspaska: Yes.
Cindy Sprinzl: Did you take them to Slovenian masses and, um, do they speak the language at all? You said you don’t–
Gary Huspaska: No, No.
Cindy Sprinzl: Um, Okay.
Gary Huspaska: I wish I would of–
Cindy Sprinzl: Yeah, I know my dad is from Hungary and we don’t know anything–
Gary Huspaska: Okay, well my wife, her parents are from Italy–
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay.
Gary Huspaska: They spoke it of course in the home, the house, she understood it.
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: And she can still understand a little bit, but she never really spoke it either.
Cindy Sprinzl: Have you visited the neighborhood lately?
Gary Huspaska: I always take a ride through
Cindy Sprinzl: Do you?
Gary Huspaska: Oh yeah, at least two or three times a year.
Cindy Sprinzl: Um.
Gary Huspaska: About once a year we have a party down at, ah, my baseball group at University Inn, which is on University overlooking the valley and its been there since I grew up and the first time I was in the place was like five years ago.
Cindy Sprinzl: Uhuh. Yeah, um, hows it, hows it changed? The neighborhood, have you noticed?
Gary Huspaska: Just with the new people coming in and building condos its changed you have high rise, ah, a lot, alright around 1956–57 maybe a lot of, ah, Spanish Americans…
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: And, uh, the influx later of some black families moving in so its really a cross section of everything down there now–
Cindy Sprinzl: Yeah, they just had a Puerto Rican Day parade, or something, or not a parade but a festival they just celebrated there–
Gary Huspaska: Yeah.
Cindy Sprinzl: Um, do you, do you like some of these changes? I mean what do you think of those high rises?
Gary Huspaska: Well…
Cindy Sprinzl: Some nice homes…
Gary Huspaska: Well without the changes the neighborhood probably would have deteriorated totally–
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: You had a low income, I mean it was with out a doubt some low income–
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: It wasn’t at one time it was a median income when I was going to school but the big thing was to make the money in the steel mills and then move our to Parma.
Cindy Sprinzl: Is that where a lot of them, a lot of people moved to?
Gary Huspaska: Um, I had, after my father, when I came out of the service, my father died in sixty-two, I was in there I couldn’t get my mother out of the neighborhood, and she just, she wouldn’t go–
Cindy Sprinzl: She enjoyed it, she liked it there, just where she–
Gary Huspaska: She was active, she was active in the Church and active with the welfare and with the clubs down there and just wouldn’t go, and when we finally got her out in…I want to say 2000, no probably about 1990. Talked her into going to a, a place called Franciscan Village–
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: Out on Rocky Wood Drive, its not assisted living, but its kind of–
Cindy Sprinzl: Yeah.
Gary Huspaska: And she was, uh, there until she broke her, she fell in ninety-eight or ninety seven, and then we had to, moved her into, ah, Mount Alverna nursing home–
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: And she died there in 2000, but she never wanted to leave the neighborhood.
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh, sound like she was a big part of the neighborhood.
Gary Huspaska: Yes she was.
Cindy Sprinzl: Yeah, um did you, how did you find it growing up in Tremont, with uh, all the different, like you mentioned the Greek, um, Church. Neighbor, um obviously there was Greek people in the neighborhoods, uh, uh, Italians, uh, all the different ethnicities, did you feel like, um that you were still, uh retaining your Slovenian heritage?
Gary Huspaska: Oh yeah, everybody did.
Cindy Sprinzl: Everybody did?
Gary Huspaska: Everybody kept they’re own ethnicity [sniff].
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: Ahh, with the exception of, ah, I had a good friend of mine lived down they street and his parents, his mother was from Ukrainia, he spoke the language fluently–
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: And he would never speak it nobody ever spoke it, you knew the language, they wouldn’t speak it when they were together with their peers–
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: Just wasn’t the thing to do then.
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh, were they all trying to be American?
Gary Huspaska: Yup [laughing} Yes, that’s it exactly.
Cindy Sprinzl: I know that’s what my father did, he just wanted to be American, and that’s why he didn’t teach us, but now the sentiment has changed a little…
Gary Huspaska: yes, it has [sniff].
Cindy Sprinzl: Um, I just have a couple more questions, um do you remember when the inner belt project was going through?
Gary Huspaska: Yes, I do.
Cindy Sprinzl: Um, how did that affect either your family or the neighborhood?
Gary Huspaska: It started just when, I think its if I remember right, it started when my, after my grandmother died. She died while I was in the service also–
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: And there was a big family argument whether to sell the property or not– Cindy Sprinzl: Okay.
Gary Huspaska: And I was aware of things, that things were happening, but I was in the service and I wasn’t around then I , I remember a few bits of advice that I could give was to hold onto the property, being that the inner belt was coming through–
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: It could make an impact on the neighborhood–
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: And they decided they were going to sell it. Sell the whole thing, maybe it’s good because its still standing, nobody ever bought it.
Cindy Sprinzl: Oh yeah?
Gary Huspaska: Bur they sold it in about, dad, my dad, my father died in sixty-one my grandmother died in sixty-two so they sold it in sixty-two.
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh, and um, uh, this property that your grandmother owned, I know you said where it was, but was it near the inner belt? Or would it have been–
Gary Huspaska: Ah, two streets away.
Cindy Sprinzl: Two streets away
Gary Huspaska: Uh-huh.
Cindy Sprinzl: So it could have been, it could have been a good thing?
Gary Huspaska: Well at that time–
Cindy Sprinzl: But then nobody–
Gary Huspaska: Some of my mothers brothers thought it was and others didn’t, it was a big rift in the family.
Cindy Sprinzl: Which–
Gary Huspaska: At the time and they decided to sell it and as it turned out it probably was a good deal to sell it, because like I say its still standing.
Cindy Sprinzl: Still standing?
Gary Huspaska: I go by and look at it.
Cindy Sprinzl: Yeah, I.
Gary Huspaska: Ah, the houses around it are still standing and the house the next street over which is west eleventh those houses are still standing, so the inner belt had no impact at all.
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay, no impact, yeah, uh, I heard it described that it kind of split the neighborhood in half because it just built a street right through a neighborhood that a–
Gary Huspaska: Yeah.
Cindy Sprinzl: That used to be–
Gary Huspaska: Yeah, well there really wasn’t much on the other side. Cindy Sprinzl: Nothing?
Gary Huspaska: Ah, a movie theater, some houses, some light industry and then there was a bridge that went over the west twenty-fifth street, they had the bridge and that, that was always its own neighborhood over there.
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: That’s was mostly Spanish American.
Cindy Sprinzl: Oh.
Gary Huspaska: On that side of the bridge–
Cindy Sprinzl: So it really wasn’t the big, uh.
Gary Huspaska: Nope.
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay.
Gary Huspaska: Nope it didn’t do anything to the neighborhood at all.
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay, um, lets see. I’m going to shut this off for a second [shut off tape recorder].
Cindy Sprinzl: Um, I’m hoping to write a paper on how ethnically diverse neighborhoods hold onto their, you know individuals hold onto to their own ethnicity was that ever a problem when you were younger.
Gary Huspaska: No, it wasn’t a problem because everybody celebrated the holidays there own way, uh.
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: You had some customs that were strange maybe or, uh, different being down in the neighborhood, you had two distinct Christmases the regular one and the Orthodox because of the big influx of Ukrainian Orthodox and Greek Orthodox.
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay. Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: So its like three weeks of each Church, the first Christmas the regular Christmas would be the Catholics and there was very, very few Lutherans, very, I cant remember any Lutheran Churches down there at the time, or anything but, Catholic and Orthodox Churches–
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay.
Gary Huspaska: And there still standing, but each Church had their own customs. Slovaks had their own customs of certain things, uh, Saint John Cantius, the Polish had their own customs, uh, the Greek Orthodox, they would have their Christmas a week afterwards and the Russian Orthodox. My, we were Slovak and we, my we where all practicing, well Catholic and my uncle married a Russian woman and, he married late in life.
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: Yeah, his mother, my grandmother wasn’t too happy about it because he changed to Russian Orthodox.
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: He was married at Saint Theodosius Church and, if you remember the movie Dear Hunter?
Cindy Sprinzl: Yeah.
Gary Huspaska: That Church was portrayed in the Dear Hunter, yeah, he was married in the same ceremony that they had in the Dear Hunter–
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: And I remember, a little kid at the time, again ten maybe eight, and I can remember going to the wedding how different it was, things that I knew.
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh, you knew even when you were young, you could see that it sounds like a lot of the ethnicity and a lot of your culture was practiced in the Churches.
Gary Huspaska: Yes.
Cindy Sprinzl: And you were really, and so then in the neighborhoods you were just trying to fit in as Americans.
Gary Huspaska: Yeas, uh, we always had a big Christmas party, birthdays, Christmases, a big thing at my grandmothers house, all of her kids would come back with the grandchildren and that, and if you read an article by Dick Feagler…
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: At Christmas he always writes an article and that is exactly what happens at our house too–
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay.
Gary Huspaska: He grew up in a, I relate to him he’s, ah, he’s the same age as me, and a lot of the things he said happened to me growing up–
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: That I–
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh, he’s a Cleveland…
Gary Huspaska: Ah, Columnist.
Cindy Sprinzl: Yeah, right.
Gary Huspaska: Uh, some people hate him some people love him– Cindy Sprinzl: Yeah.
Gary Huspaska: Ah, a the Orthodox Christmas because of the fact that my uncle married an, a Orthodox Church, the choir would come to my grandmothers house and sing Christmas carols.
Cindy Sprinzl: Oh, how nice.
Gary Huspaska: Ten to fifteen people would come and they listened, and they sang in Russian–
Cindy Sprinzl: They did, did she liked that?
Gary Huspaska: It was kind of neat–
Cindy Sprinzl: Yeah.
Gary Huspaska: It was kind of neat of course you had, you had to wine, um a little bit, dine them–
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: She always donated some money to them, but– Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: Ah–
Cindy Sprinzl: You don’t see that anymore–
Gary Huspaska: I think no, no I think it was a, it was just they decided to go Slovak instead of Orthodox otherwise I would have been Orthodox maybe, being the fact that my grandfather died very young, so like, I never knew him–
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: He died young I guess he was a very strict Russian Slovak, my grandma just kind of just, kind of moved into the Slovak Catholic end of it–
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh. Well, that’s very interesting, um, well I cant think of anymore questions I think that you’ve answered everything that I was going to—
Gary Huspaska: Good.
Cindy Sprinzl: Thank you for talking with me.
Gary Huspaska: Okay, one other thing that I think was kind of neat– Cindy Sprinzl: Yeah.
Gary Huspaska: I kind of, I laugh at, its right across caddy corner from my house where I grew up there was a bar it was owned, Ukrainians, the daughter was very good friends with my sister and it was a wine and beer place, but they, they sold whiskey–
Cindy Sprinzl: Uh-huh.
Gary Huspaska: Illegally, now its called Fat Cats [laughing]
Cindy Sprinzl: [laughing]
Gary Huspaska: Which is one of the most, I guess high, upscale bars in the neighborhood, and I drive by and I look, and I kind of laugh [laughing]
Cindy Sprinzl: A the irony of it? [laughing] Gary Huspaska: Yeah.
Cindy Sprinzl: Interesting.
Gary Huspaska: That’s it [sniff]
Cindy Sprinzl: Okay, well thank you.
Gary Huspaska: Great. [end of tape]
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