Interviewed by Sara Campbell, 12/03/1993

 

Edited by Pam Hodgkins 3-20-2025 & Jeanne Sojka 06/10/2025

 

Sara Campbell  0:00  

This interview was conducted on December 3 1993, in Millers Falls, Mass. The subject is Walter Bakula. My name is Sara Campbell.

 

Speaker 1  0:14  

you say anything brilliant, you’ll become famous. So you were born and raised in Turners Falls lived all your life in town.

 

Walter Bakula  0:26  

I’ve been born and raised in Turners Falls and the teachers at the school at that time called at the South End, but people that live there called it the Patch, and that in itself was characteristic of the people that lived there. That was four big ethnic French, Irish and Italian all of them were immigrants. Some and they only had one thing and all of them had one thing in common they were all pretty well religiously oriented.

 

Speaker 1  1:33  

The churches were separated more so at that point than they than they are now they you

 

Walter Bakula  1:39  

Now, you could take you could take and come into town on a Sunday morning at nine o’clock and practically rob the whole entire town because everybody was in church.

 

Speaker 1  1:56  

But they the French didn’t go to the Polish church, right?

 

Walter Bakula  1:59  

No, no, those ethnic groups pretty well stuck to themselves. Oh, or later on, as if, if they did take if they did take and deviate from going to the church that they were, the group that they were born with, you know, it was more or less involved with the priests or the parish priests, you know

 

Speaker 1  2:36  

Your own family has a pretty large group.

 

Walter Bakula  2:38  

It wasn’t easy and all of those Polish families, all those ethnic groups their theory was they can have kids so that they could go to work, they can help survive. And when a depression days are rolling around why that paid off for some that they’ve got to be quite burdened with others. And they weren’t all perfect. Some of them were, you know, they had times where they live with her whether the festivals brought on or their customs, courtesies and privileges that they assume that they could take and carry on here. And which they did. But Sunday was a terrible day after taking in the religious functions of the church coming home for dinner almost all people all ethnic group pretty well. They were very religious about going to church and didn’t make any difference how they celebrated, comes Monday morning they have to go to work and they did go whether they were sick or whether there was sobering up they went.  But some were more aggressive than others you know that’s takes on a natural trend out of a group you know those that were aggressive decided that they would be citizens, then get educated, go to night school, get their citizenship papers and from there on out they had something to offer and they played with it. They cherished that. Those that didn’t you know case of any difficulty why? Those that had their papers were pointing down it’s hard to pick up pretty well. Yeah. Important you know. Since They got their citizenship papers and saying, Hey, I live here. I work here. This is my country, this is what I’m, this is where I’m going to take and stay. And if you don’t believe in that, you know, then don’t lie to me, just stay the way you are… they can either do it or not you can either do it or not.

 

Speaker 1:  Your father became a citizen.

 

Yes, yes he he was quite he was quite proud of that. He was quite proud of that and telling me today, when he went to school it was and of course, they spoke broken English but when they came through with school they may have spoken broken English but they could well understand what what was required of them at the working place, you know. You know, they just had a  schooling not because they were getting their sense of citizenship but also their English you know, and so they came out, they came out pretty well at least to the point that when they went to a job they could they could ask, speak for themselves or answer their own given name and address and, and write their name and so forth. And being able that they can do that they weren’t handicapped. But amongst all of those groups they had brought with them a lot of personal characteristics, a lot of them are undesirable, a couple of them, jealousy was one. For instance, they can watch, who was aggressive, and who bought a rug with something and then of course, the next one would want… they can do… you can’t understand why they would be able to they can have that they were making the same amount of money and they’re under the same work conditions, you know. Some are more thrifty, some would manage their money better. The mothers sometimes didn’t allow the old man to drink and that there was a lot of this type of stuff when the old man got pretty well shocked out, and of course there was some wife beating going on there. They have remedies of their own nobody ever saw. When the old man was sleeping, you know, they’d that broomstick along and straighten them out. You know? You might they were quite vulnerable when they were still. They got their revenge but regardless of all the quarrel, all the hardships, the sicknesses, and kids, some got drowned in the canal, you know, or in the… the families stuck together. They were pretty well regimented in their religious beliefs. And the kids took up their parents’ faith because it was their faith. And they went to church. The kids were oriented they could say their prayers in the morning and evening.

 

And so with that they had a lot in common and then in the house in the house, the father was the master. There was no kidding around. He assigned the work to the kids. Small, smaller and so forth. Everybody did something. But the administrator was the mother. She’d see to it that they were done. [talking to child] 

 

Speaker 1  10:08  

Where did you fall in the family? You were the older one of the oldest?

 

Walter Bakula  10:14  

I’m the second oldest. The old man… my father, had the rules as long as you live in my house and I foot the bills, as long as you live in my house and I foot the bills then you abide by my rules up until the time that you’re 21. Then you’re free to take and go as you want to live because I fulfilled my obligation. That that was tough to do to stay out later [unintelligible, child crying. Loud background noise]

 

Speaker 1  11:19  

What do you remember Walter about when you were very small? What do you think is the remember before you went to school and you remember starting school?

 

Walter Bakula  11:26  

 Yeah, yeah, we remember starting school. The rules are already in effect we were already working. As kids four or five years old, were doing the work of an individual 10, 15 years old, even at that small type of thing. 

 

Speaker 1  11:48  

What kind of things? 

 

Walter Bakula  11:50  

Well we were there hauling in the wood, you know, or going down to the canal and catching it you know and bringing it home or wheelbarrowing a bunch of you know, because that’s the jealousy that took place amongst all of them. There wasn’t a stick of wood that they came down to draft, came down the canal didn’t land in somebody’s stove. And each family, and during those Depression years particularly, they’d say that they caught all the wood six or seven cord and they didn’t want to buy anything and go down to the mills and rob the coal off of the coal cars and the foundry and across the canal there and get all the coal that was thrown out. Anything that that it took to get you by in the wintertime we did this as kids. We were pretty well regimented in customs you know, in language. We weren’t taught to speak any English. Up until the time we were in fourth grade, you know, amongst all of us amongst the kids we would speak English, and the parents they didn’t like that you know. They didn’t have any they didn’t have any spare money. But only for special occasions. When any child made his First Communion by God he was in there and dressed up with new stuff, new shoes, new socks, dress or whatever that can get in there that they could put them on display at church. My mother got me a wristwatch for graduation. Yep, it was small but [unintelligible-child crying in background]] get the money. What made it what made it so…that the depression came by and it changed. It changed a lot.

 

Speaker 1  14:41  

How old were you? How were you aware of what was going on there?

 

Walter Bakula  14:46  

8, 10, 12 years old. ’32, in ’32 I was a freshman in high school but for all of us in 29, 30, 31, that was tough. And there’s there’s the factories moved out of Turners, big international paper that’s where the paper company moved out, there was 400 jobs there. Somewhere along the line, all those families got absorbed somewhere.

 

So your father worked?

 

My father worked at the Russell and Harrington Cutlery company, there was a building behind the IGA there, you know, at the end of the Strathmore Paper there, they tore the building down. And they went to Southbridge to work. And but before, that was when they had a job, then when they didn’t have a job. And we couldn’t take and maintain ourselves. We were shipped out on a tobacco farm during the course of the summers, for three summers in a row down to South Deerfield to personal friends of ours. And us boys, the two of us, we worked for a couple of bucks a month but we were maintained. That was something else. But there were other other things that took place. We did everything that they can either by hook or crook or illegal, making booze or homebrew and so forth, you know, anything that would take and bring in an extra dollar, they did this, even though it was illegal. And of course, most of them are quite friendly with with the whole entire town, you know, they can warn them. So they were going to take [unintelligible], they were all prepared, or pretty well tied together as a whole society, they can survive. It was nothing uncommon for us to take and go to the store to buy brown sugar. Everybody in there was in there knowing what their family was doing, you know, and but we weren’t the only ones. And in fact, it’s not only happened in the Patch. This is one of the bigger towns with more prosperous with some pro prohibition than any than any other around you know, because they just didn’t have any cops that’s all. But that was all that was only done. It wasn’t it wasn’t any satisfaction as far as your old man is concerned, they had something to drink out and my father never drank whiskey, but he drank beer and wine. But he made his own beer and cider. That was a ritual too is to take and go around and gather all the wild grapes and possibly could to take them to, a barrel head of wine down to the cellar, that was for not only him, but for the brother-in-law, then all those that came visiting and so forth. They socialize that way in an inexpensive way. But they lived up to their customs.

 

Speaker 1  18:55  

Did they talk about where they came from? Did your parents come together or did they meet here?

 

Walter Bakula  19:00  

Well, they as far as I can put together my parents were attracted here by a relative of my mother’s and so they my mother came because her sister was here. But there was not that much love between them, you know, because they figured they were infringing on you know, they there was jealousy there. In other words you came here but I’ll help you just as much as I can but don’t count on it too much, because, you know, I have my own family to think of and I don’t want to be wasting my time with you, or things like that. But on the overall on the overall picture the family in itself was pretty well oriented and father was the one that more or less took care of that and mother was [unintelligible] put it on additional [??]. But uh, as you grew older, they expected you to take a better job and pay your room and board because of what sacrifices they had to take and bring it together. And there wasn’t any individual who lived in the house if he worked and didn’t contribute just because he was there making eight or 10 bucks a week that didn’t mean that he didn’t have to take and give his mother half of that anyway or, or whatever ratio she felt. When I was a kid I worked with a coal company, and this was my freshman year in high school, and that was 40 cents an hour. After football season, I worked every afternoon and all day Saturday, through the whole winter and then to the early spring. And I made $12 a week. It was nothing for my mother to be watching me coming home and she’d grab me right by the throat as I get to the door and shake $10 off me and give me two bucks because she said that’s all you need. And they run the family on 10 bucks. The father was in work and I was doing hard work. In the summer I peddled ice for CA Davis Ice and what the family did, what the old man did, down into the woods went down to the river and brought up all kindling all the wood is that they were able to take and teach you how to work. They were teaching you how to work which is not being done today. And if a kid goes to work today he doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t have any initiative; he doesn’t have any [loud crumpling noise by child].

 

They themselves the parents always relate to I don’t ever have to be living you know in you know I don’t think your mom too much because when I was your age I was already doing this, doing man sized work. What they took and regimented you on is the fact that they taught you how to work. Any of the youngsters that were taken or taken… I didn’t have any prospects of finding a job because I don’t say I was quite but Mr. Shanahan, Mr. Shanahan came out of his office, came down to him and said Listen, you’re going home. Have your mother give you something and be back here at one o’clock on and I’ll put you to work. That’s the way that happened. Some guys were able to take on two or three jobs; others would have none. [unintelligible] …Regimented in how to take on new work and give the employer his money’s worth. And that was a matter of survival. We survived. We survived. There was a farmer in Colrain that owed my mother some money and he had a dairy farm. We asked for a cow and We got it. And that’s when all hell broke loose. We had that cow in our own barn down there and we had milk and cheese and butter as far as I know better than anybody else. But boy the work. We cut our own hay. And the old man made a real raggedy ass wagon out of steel wheels that he had there and we’ve take and pile that stuff on there, bring it home, work like dogs. But it paid off, you know, had to do this because there was no income. Take a couple of quarters… just like spitting into the ocean, you know, but but there was always enough on the table. Cheese. Butter. You can make all that stuff, with a cow. And in the barn right, there’s an old horse barn barn right behind the house. You can go down there and see it today. The next house right next to the school down there to G Street, the last house on the right. And my niece lives there now. She’s the town nurse.

 

But as things grow old, and you know just as soon as he got into high school, a lot of them disappeared. Those that were oriented. There was a lot of nepotism going on as far as the mills is concerned. [unintelligible] and the Irish were working in the paper mill. And there was no Pollacks working down there in stock room, you know, and… the pulp rolls…

 

But whoever got established saw to it that he got his son a job in there and so forth, you now, and that’s where they stay. The GTD was a great place for that. But those mills in Turners they were pretty clannish. We don’t talk about discrimination. Yeah. You couldn’t hold a candle to what went on then you know, and nobody sued, they didn’t know any better. You know.

 

Speaker 1  27:51  

One day we’re talking with your sister. She was talking about the Polish picnics.

 

Walter Bakula  27:57  

Yeah, wow. Those were those were… the St. Kazimierz Society and St. Stanislaus, you know, would sponsor these picnics. And they were held right here next to Green Pond, take that Green Pond Road, that’s where they were held. But as my sisters were talking, my mother and father were always down at the woods and they’d take would take whole potato bakes and so forth. Family picnics, they were great. Those girls that got married and had their husbands. In 1937 I left and I didn’t come back until 1979.

 

A lot of the people got themselves self educated, good jobs. You know through… and in this area nine tenths of them were crackerjack machinists and tool and iron makers. That came on as a result of the GTD but there was there were other places in which they did the same thing. There was the Millers Falls Tool Company, prep which contained a portion that then became known as Millers Falls Tool Company along with Ingersoll Rand…

 

Speaker 1  29:57  

It doesn’t sound like you remember a time when you weren’t out earning a living even when you were five years old?

 

Walter Bakula  30:02  

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. There was there…

 

Speaker 1  30:11  

Do you think it was easier on the kids coming behind you? Do you think you…?

 

Walter Bakula  30:14  

Yes, it was just our generation. We had kids, we were taking that much more lenient, more lenient, more lenient on them, but still they didn’t deviate too far from where they’ve been growing up. Their orientation was with the family and just didn’t rub off that easy. And the toughness was displayed by that one section of town. We were town kids but there were some that wanted to go to school [unintelligible].

 

I know, but in the interim, you know, all that took place. Those that were brought up you know, took care of the parents.