Abstract
Edward Jambrozy shares his experiences growing up in the Tremont neighborhood. Born in 1927 to Polish immigrant parents, he discusses his family's background and the cultural influences that shaped his childhood. The interview covers various aspects of his early life, including the languages spoken at home, family dynamics, and the challenges faced during the Great Depression, such as his father's unemployment. Jambrozy reflects on his education, work experiences, and military service in the Merchant Marine and Army during World War II and the Korean War. He also addresses the changes in the Tremont area over time and his eventual relocation to Brooklyn and later Lakewood.
Loading...
Interviewee
Jambrozy, Edward (interviewee)
Interviewer
Mendyka, Edward (interviewer)
Project
Tremont History Project
Date
8-11-2003
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
51 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Edward Jambrozy interview, 11 August 2003" (2003). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 223058.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1387
Transcript
Edward Mendyka [00:00:01] Mendyka. M, E, N, D, Y, K, A. And I’ll be conducting the interview today. The interview is at the home of the interviewee in Lakewood, Ohio, and today is August 11, 2003, and it’s approximately 10:45. Okay. What is your name? Would you please spell out your last name?
Edward Jambrozy [00:00:27] My name is Edward Jambrozy.
Edward Mendyka [00:00:32] Spell out your last name.
Edward Jambrozy [00:00:34] J, A, M, B, R, O, Z, Y.
Edward Mendyka [00:00:39] Okay. Were your parents immigrants?
Edward Jambrozy [00:00:48] My father was, but my mother was born here in Lorain, Ohio.
Edward Mendyka [00:00:53] And your father immigrated from?
Edward Jambrozy [00:00:57] Poland in 19, what, 1911, but he lived in Detroit, and when he married my mother, they moved back to Cleveland. He worked for the Dodge Brothers in Detroit for a while, and then when they got married, he moved back into Cleveland.
Edward Mendyka [00:01:21] Did he have a job waiting for him here?
Edward Jambrozy [00:01:24] Well, I don’t know if he had a job waiting.
Edward Mendyka [00:01:27] Why did they move back to Cleveland?
Edward Jambrozy [00:01:30] Well, because I guess my mother didn’t like Detroit, so.
Edward Mendyka [00:01:36] And she was from Lorain.
Edward Jambrozy [00:01:38] Well, she was from Lorain, but they moved into Cleveland in 1903, so they were already here in West Fifth street in the South Side. Lived there for a while. That’s when she got married. She lived on West Fifth Street.
Edward Mendyka [00:01:56] Okay. Was your mother first-generation American?
Edward Jambrozy [00:02:01] Yes, my mother was a family from 11 children.
Edward Mendyka [00:02:05] And what was her maiden name?
Edward Jambrozy [00:02:06] Traczyk. T, R, A, C, Z, Y, K.
Edward Mendyka [00:02:17] Okay. And when did they came from Detroit to West 5th Street?
Edward Jambrozy [00:02:23] When my father came here in 1912, he went to Detroit, but then he got drafted in the army in 1917, and then he was in the army and sent to France and then came back, and that’s the way he got his citizenship. When he, through the army.
Edward Mendyka [00:02:43] Now, was he drafted in the American Army?
Edward Jambrozy [00:02:45] He was drafted in the American Army. He was in France for about seven months.
Edward Mendyka [00:02:51] And that’s how he got his citizenship.
Edward Jambrozy [00:02:53] That’s where he got his citizenship, through the army. At that time, you got your citizenship through the service.
Edward Mendyka [00:03:01] Yeah. Yeah. Okay. What language did you guys speak at home?
Edward Jambrozy [00:03:06] Well, my mother and father spoke Polish, but we understood Polish. We spoke back in English, but that’s the way, more or less. Well, in our family. My cousin’s family in Canada, they all spoke Polish. If their mother and father spoke Polish, they spoke Polish back, but we spoke English because my father understood English because when he was in the army, he picked up the English, too. [crosstalk] And my mother was English. She knew both Polish and English too. So that’s the way we did.
Edward Mendyka [00:03:47] How big was your family?
Edward Jambrozy [00:03:48] Well, we had three children, my brother and My sister. My sister’s the oldest. She’s like two years older than I am. I’m 76 now. She’s 78. And my brother’s two years younger. He’s 74.
Edward Mendyka [00:04:05] So there were three children?
Edward Jambrozy [00:04:06] Three children? Well, there were four, but stillborn in there. Somewhere between me and my sister. Somewhere. And Barry died at that time, you didn’t go to the hospital. You had a midwife, you know, and then maybe that complicated somewhere. And that’s what happened in those days, you know?
Edward Mendyka [00:04:32] Yeah. Yeah. Where did your parents work? Where’d your dad work?
Edward Jambrozy [00:04:36] My father worked in the mills.
Edward Mendyka [00:04:39] Steel mills.
Edward Jambrozy [00:04:40] Oh, he worked at Republic. He ended up at American Steel and Wire, the blast furnaces across from British- Sohio. And they were blast furnaces there by the Cuyahoga River. Well, he was able to work there because he walked to work. Down Jefferson Avenue, down and around and onto Broadway where the mill was. He was able to walk to work. Most of the people walked to work from Republic or J & L or whatever. Corrigan McKinney or whatever was down there. They changed names a few times.
Edward Mendyka [00:05:27] Yeah. Your mother didn’t have an outside job. She was a homemaker?
Edward Jambrozy [00:05:32] My mother works. She worked cleaning up at Loew’s State Theater. In the evening, when the show closed up, they cleaned the theater and that. She worked there.
Edward Mendyka [00:05:44] Did she work?
Edward Jambrozy [00:05:47] Quite a while. She worked there quite a while.
Edward Mendyka [00:05:50] This is when you were growing up.
Edward Jambrozy [00:05:52] We were growing up, yes.
Edward Mendyka [00:05:54] Okay.
Edward Jambrozy [00:05:56] My father went to work, my mother came home, at what, seven or eight o’clock in the morning before we went to school, got us to school, and then went to sleep, you know.
Edward Mendyka [00:06:07] Okay. Where did your family shop? Was there a store?
Edward Jambrozy [00:06:12] That was the closest place on Professor where we live. Most of the shops were Professor.
Edward Mendyka [00:06:18] Do you know the names of any of them? Do you remember?
Edward Jambrozy [00:06:21] Their names, the one store we went was [inaudible], their name was. There was a store.
Edward Mendyka [00:06:28] Was that a grocery store?
Edward Jambrozy [00:06:30] That was a grocery store. More or less with groceries.
Edward Mendyka [00:06:34] Okay.
Edward Jambrozy [00:06:35] Because all the stores were small. They had just about anything you wanted. And then if you needed more, people used to go to the market.
Edward Mendyka [00:06:45] West Side Market.
Edward Jambrozy [00:06:46] Yeah.
Edward Mendyka [00:06:47] And you went across-
Edward Jambrozy [00:06:48] And we had [inaudible] and then on Starkweather, we had the [inaudible] or something. He was Grudzien, Grudzien, Grudzien. Used to have a market there, too. And then used to have a dairy there. Used to buy cream and milk, whatever.
Edward Mendyka [00:07:11] Do you know the name of the dairy? Remember it?
Edward Jambrozy [00:07:13] I don’t know the name of the dairy, but it was right near Starkweather.
Edward Mendyka [00:07:17] Was that D-[inaudible] by any chance?
Edward Jambrozy [00:07:19] No, that wasn’t D-[inaudible].
Edward Mendyka [00:07:21] Did your mother ever shop for meats at Kowal’s?
Edward Jambrozy [00:07:24] Where?
Edward Mendyka [00:07:24] Kowal’s on 11th Street.
Edward Jambrozy [00:07:26] Yeah, she- But when we lived on 10th Street, we used to shop where my mother used to go once in a while at Kowal’s, we used to get chicken, and she used to stop in there for things, you know. Yeah, we used to stop it when we lived on 10th Street. But otherwise, when we lived on Professor, there were others there close by.
Edward Mendyka [00:07:50] Okay, so on the South Side, you lived down 5th Street, you lived on-
Edward Jambrozy [00:07:55] My mother lived on Fisher.
Edward Mendyka [00:07:56] Okay, Your family.
Edward Jambrozy [00:07:58] My mother and father lived on Thurman. Then I was born on Professor, though.
Edward Mendyka [00:08:03] Okay.
Edward Jambrozy [00:08:04] Yeah. So when we were living on Professor, I was born.
Edward Mendyka [00:08:07] And then you lived on 10th Street.
Edward Jambrozy [00:08:09] And then we lived on 10th. We lived on Professor about at least 10 or 12 years, some of them, in my life. And then we lived on 10th Street about eight or nine years before we moved to Brooklyn. Then we moved to Brooklyn in 1949.
Edward Mendyka [00:08:31] Where in old Brooklyn? It is Old Brooklyn or Brooklyn?
Edward Jambrozy [00:08:35] Old Brooklyn. On Saratoga.
Edward Mendyka [00:08:37] On Saratoga. Okay.
Edward Jambrozy [00:08:39] We moved to Saratoga in 1949.
Edward Mendyka [00:08:43] Okay.
Edward Jambrozy [00:08:44] Well, most of after the war, most people were moving out, so some people moved into Brooklyn. And later on, in about the ’50s or whatever, everybody’s going to Parma.
Edward Mendyka [00:08:58] Yeah. Do you remember the number of the house you lived on 10th Street?
Edward Jambrozy [00:09:03] 2208 West 10th Street.
Edward Mendyka [00:09:05] 2208 West 10th Street. Now, these houses on the South Side that you lived in, did they have indoor plumbing?
Edward Jambrozy [00:09:13] This one had. Yes, they had a bathroom on 10th Street. Professor, we didn’t have.
Edward Mendyka [00:09:19] You didn’t have an indoor plumbing?
Edward Jambrozy [00:09:21] We didn’t have.
Edward Mendyka [00:09:21] You had an outhouse?
Edward Jambrozy [00:09:23] No, we just more or less- We were little then already and, you know, I used to get a big washtub and wash ourselves. But then my grandmother had a- Later on, she had a bathroom put in. Some other boys put a bathroom in there. Every time we need a good bath, we’d go down and my grandmother let us use the bathroom there.
Edward Mendyka [00:09:49] Okay.
Edward Jambrozy [00:09:51] That’s the way we- Or the bathhouse. You had the bathhouse. If you needed the bath, you went to the bath house.
Edward Mendyka [00:09:58] Did you guys take advantage of that? Did you?
Edward Jambrozy [00:10:00] Once in a while, your dad. We went there, but not that often.
Edward Mendyka [00:10:04] Not that often. Okay. Do you remember some of your neighbors, what their names were, on 10th Street?
Edward Jambrozy [00:10:12] Yeah. Well, one neighbor was Wilczewski on 10th Street, and Bilski. They used the name Bilski. I forget the one.
Edward Mendyka [00:10:31] Okay. Okay. I just-
Edward Jambrozy [00:10:33] Some of them I know right off hand.
Edward Mendyka [00:10:36] Right off the-
Edward Jambrozy [00:10:37] Yeah.
Edward Mendyka [00:10:38] Yeah. Okay. Did the various ethnic groups in the neighborhood, did they get along pretty good?
Edward Jambrozy [00:10:45] Pretty good. We had Slovak. We had Russian. We had Greek. We had all kinds. And Germans. We had Germans. We had all kinds. So far that I know they were going pretty good.
Edward Mendyka [00:11:00] Yeah. There were no fights over-
Edward Jambrozy [00:11:02] Well, there were fights or arguments or something.
Edward Mendyka [00:11:06] This was not over nationality or anything like that?
Edward Jambrozy [00:11:09] No. I don’t know. It was more than nationality, I guess.
Edward Mendyka [00:11:15] What social events did your parents go to, do you recall?
Edward Jambrozy [00:11:18] Well, we had the weddings, you know, in the church.
Edward Mendyka [00:11:24] Church, okay. Okay.
Edward Jambrozy [00:11:29] You know, christenings and that. All that you had in the South Side.
Edward Mendyka [00:11:35] Okay. As a child, where did you play?
Edward Jambrozy [00:11:40] Well, we played on the street. [laughs]
Edward Mendyka [00:11:42] On the street?
Edward Jambrozy [00:11:44] Or any place we could play. So we didn’t have a regular playground then. They were promising a playground for 30 years and they finally made that playground under Clark Bridge, but that’s the one they were talking about 30 years when we were little, you know.
Edward Mendyka [00:12:03] But that was even so-
Edward Jambrozy [00:12:04] But we had a playground one time on 7th Street, but then they built the projects over there. That’s where I went. Ballfield we’d had there, or Lincoln Park or Tremont School, one of the places we used to have to go to play ball or whatever, but that was the only places we had to play ball.
Edward Mendyka [00:12:28] And you had played softball, stickball?
Edward Jambrozy [00:12:32] Played softball or football, anything. You know how when the kids- We were kids, you know.
Edward Mendyka [00:12:38] Yeah.
Edward Jambrozy [00:12:40] And a ball. We didn’t have a regular ball. Sometimes it was just a broomstick and a bunch of paper taped up together to make a ball, you know? [laughs] It was not a little regular baseball like you see today. Anything we used to bat around and hit, you know, and we’d have a ball. We’d hit that thing till the strings were coming out and unwind. But that was the end of our ball. But that’s the way we had balls. We didn’t have baseball gloves or anything like that because we caught it with bare hands, you know.
Edward Mendyka [00:13:20] Yeah. So you did- You went to Lincoln Park and-
Edward Jambrozy [00:13:27] At Tremont, Tremont School or whatever. We can play on the street or someplace. Play ball. We used to play football on the street. You know.
Edward Mendyka [00:13:43] Did you go to the Merrick House? Did you have anything to do?
Edward Jambrozy [00:13:48] I went to the Merrick House a little bit, but that was when I was a little bit older. When I was younger, and I don’t think I-
Edward Mendyka [00:13:56] Do you remember? In what connection were you looking at? Learning crafts or-
Edward Jambrozy [00:14:01] Yeah, I was learning crafts and woodworking, things like that. We used to do little woodworking projects. We used to do- I used to work at the Merrick House. It wasn’t as big as it is now. It was some old house I think they used to rent or something. Used to have a few places there.
Edward Mendyka [00:14:24] Did you have an outside job when you were growing up as a teen?
Edward Jambrozy [00:14:29] As a teen, I had a- When I was going to high school, I had- A bunch of us was working for the Cleveland Fruit Juice on Fulton Road. We used to work two hours a day after school and four hours on Saturday. We used to unload box cars and bring in the supplies to the place to make these fruit juices and ice cream toppings.
Edward Mendyka [00:14:57] What was the name of the place?
Edward Jambrozy [00:14:58] Cleveland Fruit Juice.
Edward Mendyka [00:14:59] Cleveland Fruit Juice. And they were on Fulton?
Edward Jambrozy [00:15:01] On Fulton, right across from the Leisy beer plant.
Edward Mendyka [00:15:06] Oh, okay. And how long did you work there?
Edward Jambrozy [00:15:10] I worked there for about a year, year and a half.
Edward Mendyka [00:15:14] Do you remember what your pay was?
Edward Jambrozy [00:15:18] My pay was about 50 cents an hour. [laughs]
Edward Mendyka [00:15:21] Is that right? Where did your family go to church?
Edward Jambrozy [00:15:25] We went to St. John Cantius Church because that’s where we belonged. My mother belonged. Everybody belonged to St. John Cantius.
Edward Mendyka [00:15:36] Okay, so I take it from that that you went to school at St. John Cantius?
Edward Jambrozy [00:15:40] I went to school for eighth grade, eight years at St. John Cantius. Then I went to Lincoln High School for one year, and then I transferred over to West Tech and then graduated from West Tech in 1944.
Edward Mendyka [00:16:00] Oh, okay. Okay. And so your first elementary school, you went to St. John Cansius. Do you remember some of your teachers?
Edward Jambrozy [00:16:08] Oh, I don’t know. Sister Ellerian[?], Sister Manda [?]. I don’t know. That’s about all I knew.
Edward Mendyka [00:16:15] Who did you have in the eighth grade?
Edward Jambrozy [00:16:17] Sister Wanda, my eighth grade teacher. Sister [inaudible]. She was like in the fourth grade. In between. I don’t know. I don’t remember those.
Edward Mendyka [00:16:27] And from St. John Cantius, you went for a year to Lincoln.
Edward Jambrozy [00:16:31] Lincoln High School.
Edward Mendyka [00:16:32] And then you transferred to West Tech?
Edward Jambrozy [00:16:33] Well, we transferred to West Tech because they had technical courses where Lincoln had more commercial courses. You know, things like that. Then your transferred to West Tech, the machine shop, you know, welding things.
Edward Mendyka [00:16:48] And this is what you wanted to do?
Edward Jambrozy [00:16:51] More or less what I wanted to do eventually.
Edward Mendyka [00:16:53] Okay. So you graduated from West Tech in 1944. Okay. And did you guys have any class reunions or anything like that?
Edward Jambrozy [00:17:08] Oh, yes, we had-
Edward Mendyka [00:17:10] Did you go to any?
Edward Jambrozy [00:17:11] Oh yeah, 50th, 55th and the next, I think it’s next year, not ’44. And in four it will be 60 years next year? Yeah, next year will be 60 years. They’ll probably have another reunion. Every year there’s less there but they-
Edward Mendyka [00:17:30] But you go to ’em?
Edward Jambrozy [00:17:34] I’ve been to a few of them there [inaudible]. A few of them I missed, but 50th and 55th I’ve gone to.
Edward Mendyka [00:17:43] Okay. Yeah, I’d like to go back a little bit. While you’re going to elementary school, I’d like to, like, say when you were in a sixth, seventh, eighth grade, what was the typical day for you like? What time would you get up in the morning?
Edward Jambrozy [00:17:59] Well, we’d get up maybe around 7 o’clock, I guess, or so. I don’t know. School started about eight or-
Edward Mendyka [00:18:05] Yeah. What did you usually have for breakfast? What kind of breakfast did you have? Do you have toast or cereal?
Edward Jambrozy [00:18:12] Yeah, sometimes we just have a donut or cereal or whatever. That’s more or less the breakfast, you know.
Edward Mendyka [00:18:18] Did you take your own lunch? You pack your own lunch at the school?
Edward Jambrozy [00:18:23] I don’t know if we came home for lunch. I think we came home for lunch. We did like an hour lunch. So we were able to come home.
Edward Mendyka [00:18:30] Yeah. You lived close?
Edward Jambrozy [00:18:31] We lived close by and lived not far away. So we were able to come home for lunch and go back to school. We came home for lunch, more or less.
Edward Mendyka [00:18:45] Okay. And then after school you did your homework or you went out to play, or you went to work?
Edward Jambrozy [00:18:50] Homework or played, yeah.
Edward Mendyka [00:18:57] Were you in the service?
Edward Jambrozy [00:18:59] I was in the Merchant Marine for two years, from 1945 to 1947. And then when I came home-
Edward Mendyka [00:19:09] Now, you went into the Merchant Marine after the Second World War was over?
Edward Jambrozy [00:19:12] No, it was-
Edward Mendyka [00:19:13] It was still going on?
Edward Jambrozy [00:19:13] It was still going on. I ended up about the last four months, three or four months of it-
Edward Mendyka [00:19:20] In the Merchant Marine.
Edward Jambrozy [00:19:21] Of 1945, in the Merchant Marine. I was in a Merchant Marine school. And then they shipped me out to Charleston, South Carolina. I got my first ship in Charleston, South Carolina. We went to Casablanca, North Africa. And then while I was on that trip, we went into the Azore Islands and finally the war was over. By the time I got back, that was the end of the war.
Edward Mendyka [00:19:51] Do you remember when Roosevelt died? Did you remember it well?
Edward Jambrozy [00:19:57] I remember it, but-
Edward Mendyka [00:20:01] No big outstanding event?
Edward Jambrozy [00:20:04] I don’t know if I was in New York City in the training station then when he died or not. I don’t remember, but somehow I remember that when he died.
Edward Mendyka [00:20:15] And the Second World War, when that ended?
Edward Jambrozy [00:20:17] Well, I was off the islands and the Azore Islands. We had army troops loading our ship, but when the war ended, we didn’t see them for three days. [laughs] They got so drunk that they couldn’t come out to load our ship up. So we had to Just sit there, wait till they got sobered up to load us up before we left for New York.
Edward Mendyka [00:20:43] They were out partying.
Edward Jambrozy [00:20:44] Yeah, they were out partying.
Edward Mendyka [00:20:47] Yeah. And you mentioned then that you were in the army, too?
Edward Jambrozy [00:20:50] I was drafted in the army in 1950.
Edward Mendyka [00:20:54] Was this during the Korean War?
Edward Jambrozy [00:20:56] It was the during the Korean War. When the Korean War started in June, my draft board sent me a notice in July. I got examined in August, [laughs] and I was in the army in September.
Edward Mendyka [00:21:11] Oh, my goodness.
Edward Jambrozy [00:21:12] Well, because, see, at that time, they didn’t consider Merchant Marine as a service. And as long as I was in the Merchant Marine, they couldn’t touch me. So. Then after the war, I thought, well, the war is over. So I came home. Then the Korean War started. Then the draft board remembered me from the last time because I registered during that time for the army. But they couldn’t touch me because I was in the Merchant Marine. So when the Korean War started, they remembered me, and I was the first on the list. [laughs]
Edward Mendyka [00:21:50] They called you back.
Edward Jambrozy [00:21:51] They called me back.
Edward Mendyka [00:21:53] Okay. After the war, you came back. You were discharged from the Merchant Marine. You’re came back to Tremont?
Edward Jambrozy [00:22:00] You didn’t exactly get a discharge. You were on a voluntary base and you stayed as long as you wanted and-
Edward Mendyka [00:22:10] Like in the reserves?
Edward Jambrozy [00:22:12] Yeah, more or less. You stayed, and then once you wanted to get out, you just got out and went home. That’s all. That was the end of it. I could have stayed longer, but I didn’t stay there. I was, what, two and a half years by the time I got out of there.
Edward Mendyka [00:22:29] And you came back to Tremont then?
Edward Jambrozy [00:22:34] No, wait a minute. Yes, well, that’s right. I came to Tremont when I lived on 10th Street yet. So I still came back. We didn’t move out of 10th Street until 1949. So we moved to Brooklyn in 1949.
Edward Mendyka [00:22:54] 1949.
Edward Jambrozy [00:22:56] Drafted in Saratoga when I was living in Brooklyn, yeah.
Edward Mendyka [00:23:04] Okay. How did your family survive the Depression? Well, these were your formative years.
Edward Jambrozy [00:23:11] It was pretty hard because my father, I guess, was out of work for about three years.
Edward Mendyka [00:23:17] Did he work on a WPA?
Edward Jambrozy [00:23:19] He worked on a WPA, but then they didn’t move. You worked so many days a month, I guess, in the WPA or every second week or whatever, but he didn’t work every day at WPA. But he worked at WPA for a while, yeah.
Edward Mendyka [00:23:38] He was laid off that long from the steel mills?
Edward Jambrozy [00:23:41] Yeah. From just about, I guess, three years [crosstalk] before he got his job.
Edward Mendyka [00:23:48] So did you. Did your family ever accept charity? Did you ever go to Pilgrim Church?
Edward Jambrozy [00:23:53] Well, we used to, but my father wouldn’t take it. I offered- A couple times, you know, I used to go see. I’d, Hey Pa, you know they’re getting food over there. I said, how come you didn’t? He didn’t want to take it, but somehow the grocery store, he used to put it on the book, you know, credit. And then after, when he got a job, he repaid what he owed him, you know. That’s the way he survived, you know. And then I don’t know if my mother was working then, but she did. She didn’t make that much, you know, for rent or something.
Edward Mendyka [00:24:38] It wasn’t a high-paying job.
Edward Jambrozy [00:24:40] Not a high paying job. I don’t know. Didn’t pay that much.
Edward Mendyka [00:24:46] Did any of your friends join the CCC camp?
Edward Jambrozy [00:24:50] I don’t think any of our family did join the three C’s.
Edward Mendyka [00:24:55] Did you ever think of joining?
Edward Jambrozy [00:24:58] Well, at that time I was not old enough. And then when I did come out of high school, I got a job at the Cleveland diesel plant. I worked at the Cleveland diesel plant for about a year.
Edward Mendyka [00:25:11] Where was that at?
Edward Jambrozy [00:25:12] On Clinton Road, where the navy school was. And the diesel plant was next door.
Edward Mendyka [00:25:21] You had this job right after graduated from West Tech?
Edward Jambrozy [00:25:25] Yes, I got the job through West Tech. Somehow they got me in there and sent me to- I got it there. So I worked there for about a year before I went into the Merchant Marine.
Edward Mendyka [00:25:41] Okay, do you remember what your pay scale was? What you made?
Edward Jambrozy [00:25:45] I worked I think the first about 89 cents an hour.
Edward Mendyka [00:25:50] Do you remember what your job was? What kind of-
Edward Jambrozy [00:25:52] Well, I worked in the test department.
Edward Mendyka [00:25:56] Doing what?
Edward Jambrozy [00:25:57] At first I used to help the plumber and help anybody. Then later, see, because I was more or less only 17 years old then. And I don’t know if you had to be 18 to do certain jobs over there. So I was doing the helping and the plumber. All of the jobs, you know, like a utility man at first, you know.
Edward Mendyka [00:26:22] Mm hmm. How did you get to work down there from the South Side? You take a streetcar? Bus. You have a car?
Edward Jambrozy [00:26:28] Sometimes I used to take the streetcar the 25th and then 20- We used to take the 73rd and from 73rd on out they didn’t have a bus or if they did, it came out so intermittent. So I had a walk down there or sometimes I just stayed there. And some guys had a car and I worked there picked me up and took me to work. But later on, this one guy from the South Side used to have a car. But at that time too you got a certain Aaount of gas. You didn’t get all kind of gas to drive. So I used to drive with him. And somehow I don’t know if he got more gas because he picked me up, you know, and he’d take me to work.
Edward Mendyka [00:27:23] That was still a wartime and they were rationing gasoline.
Edward Jambrozy [00:27:26] Yeah, ration gas and shoes and all that meat and everything. They still were still rationing all that stuff.
Edward Mendyka [00:27:36] Do you recall any vendors that used to visit your neighborhood?
Edward Jambrozy [00:27:40] Well, I don’t know the vendor by name, but he used to-
Edward Mendyka [00:27:43] Well, no, I mean-
Edward Jambrozy [00:27:44] Yeah, we used to have vegetables and my mother used to buy potatoes, onions and stuff like that from him. We used to stop every morning, once a week, I guess he used to come and we used to have all kinds of vendors with watermelon, waffles, and all that.
Edward Mendyka [00:28:03] Waffle vendor?
Edward Jambrozy [00:28:04] Yeah, waffle vendors. They used to sell waffles and all kinds of things like that.
Edward Mendyka [00:28:09] Fish?
Edward Jambrozy [00:28:11] Yeah, the fish. The fish guy used to come around, he used to blow that horn. Used to have a long horn. Used to blow. Fish. Yeah, he used to come around to.
Edward Mendyka [00:28:22] To let everybody know that he was in the neighborhood.
Edward Jambrozy [00:28:24] He was in the neighborhood.
Edward Mendyka [00:28:25] Iceman?
Edward Jambrozy [00:28:26] Iceman, yeah. Iceman used to come. But when I lived on 10th Street, the ice house was this Bilski boy. He used to have this little ice house. So I didn’t have far to go get some ice. But when I lived on Professor, I used to go on Jefferson somewhere one time, and they used to have an ice house on Jefferson. And I used to get ice over-
Edward Mendyka [00:28:51] So you took the wagon in?
Edward Jambrozy [00:28:52] I used to have a little wagon with two wheels and go out there and pick up to throw the ice on it, bring it home for the ice box.
Edward Mendyka [00:28:59] Take it back with the ice box.
Edward Jambrozy [00:29:03] Well, that was mostly on a weekend when my mother went to the store to get meat. More or less on the weekend, yeah.
Edward Mendyka [00:29:12] Okay. How about the Paper [inaudible] men?
Edward Jambrozy [00:29:17] Well, he used to come around every so often. People used to sell them papers and wires and copper wires and things like that. Metal that they picked up. They used to sell it to him.
Edward Mendyka [00:29:30] I heard of people while the Paper [inaudible] man was inside negotiating with a customer, leaving kids that would be-
Edward Jambrozy [00:29:40] He wouldn’t leave.
Edward Mendyka [00:29:41] Penalizing his wagon.
Edward Jambrozy [00:29:43] He wasn’t- He didn’t leave his wagon. He sat in the wagon. But while somebody was selling him some stuff, somebody was taking some stuff off the back. This happened quite a bit. I mean, he probably, not the perils of his business, I don’t know at that time, but he probably compensated for that. He didn’t give you as much for what he was buying. So. So he more or less compensated for that in some way.
Edward Mendyka [00:30:14] So it evened out?
Edward Jambrozy [00:30:16] Yes, it evened out.
Edward Mendyka [00:30:17] Do you remember a photographer coming around with a pony and he used to-
Edward Jambrozy [00:30:22] Yeah, he’d come around once in a while, take pictures and that with the pony, and the guy with the monkey used to come around.
Edward Mendyka [00:30:31] An organ grinder?
Edward Jambrozy [00:30:32] Organ grinder with a monkey, yeah, he used to come around.
Edward Mendyka [00:30:36] How often would they visit? How often would they visit you?
Edward Jambrozy [00:30:40] I don’t know. [crosstalk] Once a week or-
Edward Mendyka [00:30:42] Yeah, that often?
Edward Jambrozy [00:30:44] Yeah, whenever he’d come around, he’d come around. Yeah.
Edward Mendyka [00:30:48] What was the monkey for? Just for show?
Edward Jambrozy [00:30:50] I don’t know. He used to jump around and would-
Edward Mendyka [00:30:54] Would they pick out their fortunes and [inaudible]?
Edward Jambrozy [00:30:56] No, I don’t know. He used to just play this organ and with the monkey. I don’t know if the monkey used to have the little cup, I guess.
Edward Mendyka [00:31:06] Did you go to the Jennings Theater?
Edward Jambrozy [00:31:08] Oh, yeah, we went to Jennings Theater for a while. It was 2 cents or whatever. It was not a nickel. It was 2 cents. You got the movies. Sometimes on Saturday they give you a sucker or whatever they come in, you know. Yeah, we used to go to a movie there quite often. Yeah, Jennings.
Edward Mendyka [00:31:29] They said that they had plate night or something.
Edward Jambrozy [00:31:33] Well, that was like Jersey for the grown-up people. Yeah.
Edward Mendyka [00:31:43] So you did go to Jennings Theater and you enjoyed it, but were there any other theaters that you went to?
Edward Jambrozy [00:31:49] Well, there were, later on, we went to Garden Theater when we got bigger.
Edward Mendyka [00:31:54] That was on 25th Street.
Edward Jambrozy [00:31:56] 25th street, that was a little bit harder t
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
