Josephine Skalski (1899-1995)

Interviewed May 15, 1992 by David Nixon

Edited by Pam Hodgkins 5-9-2025 & Jeanne Sojka 06/11/2025

Speaker 1 is her daughter Regina Boron & Speaker 2 is Susan McGowan

Josephine Skalski 0:00
I honestly tell you that I worked ever since I started to walk. And better we’re back in Poland. We had no schools over there. And when my folks went out to work, I went out with them. Let me tell you I use these hands until I was 91 years old and loved every minute of it.

David Nixon 0:31
How old are you now?

Josephine Skalski 0:34
I’m 91 I guess?

David Nixon 0:36
You’re 91?

Speaker 1 0:39
Mom, you just said you used your hands till you’re 91. How old are you now?

Josephine Skalski 0:50
I’m not 92 yet am I?

Speaker 1 0:52
You’re 93 And you’re going to be 94 in November.

Josephine Skalski 0:58
And I don’t want to be here I wanna go.

David Nixon 1:01
Could I ask you for your name please.

Josephine Skalski 1:06
Josephine Skalski.

Speaker 1 1:10
How about your maiden name?

Josephine Skalski 1:11
Rosienski

David Nixon 1:22
And when were you born?

Speaker 1 1:23
Does that make 90? No, it does make 93 this year?

Josephine Skalski 1:33
Oh, no. Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:36
Yeah. 93 You’re only 92 mom. You’re gonna be 93

David Nixon 1:41
only 92…

Josephine Skalski 1:45
I want to be going all the time. I don’t want to be me too. I’m too tired. You know, the trouble is with me. My heart is as old as I am. And that’s thinking hard doesn’t have to slow down and make keeps me awful tired. And so I’m so lazy. I am shaming myself.

Speaker 2 2:13
that sounds like a gardener, worker

David Nixon 2:23
Are you comfortable right now? Are you?

Josephine Skalski 2:26
Yes, I sleep away half of my life. Every night I go to bed and I pray not to wake up. And then the worst part of it is you know, I think I have a daughter that is… how old is Rachel?

Speaker 1 2:51
Then I have to say how old I am, 66. Anyway, younger than I am.

Josephine Skalski 2:56
And she really liked to have her go because she is unable… she, her mind is off.

Speaker 1 3:09
And what’s her disease mom, you know.

Josephine Skalski 3:13
She’s in a nursing home being artificially fed through her stomach. So I like to have me go some of these nights. And I have a place somewhere to go to.

David Nixon 3:34
Can we can we can we ask you a couple of questions about where you’ve been? Where were you born?

Josephine Skalski 3:42
And I was born in Poland.

David Nixon 3:44
Do you remember the name of the town?

Josephine Skalski 3:47
Yes. The vicinity of… Lomza… And we had it rough over there, we very poor. My folks. My father had quite a lot of land over there but things we aren’t paying anything and another thing he every so often my father would leave the country and come to the Pennsylvania State coal mines to make any money for us. Very poor.

Speaker 1 5:05
How many times did he cross the ocean mom?

Josephine Skalski 5:09
My Father… Twice. He came over for the job. That’s what four times.

Speaker 1 5:21
That’s two times over in math over Oh, yeah. Yeah, but round trip two times. Yeah. And then again, for sure for good. Yeah. So that three times.

Josephine Skalski 5:33
And the reason we landed over here because we had friends. My father had friends here in town. That’s why he wanted and he did not want to take us to the Pennsylvania coalmines. So that’s why we

David Nixon 5:52
Why didn’t he want to take you to Pennsylvania?

Josephine Skalski 5:57
Hey, well he wanted us far away from the mines. They were hard working people and there’s a lot of drinking going on and all that and he didn’t want to take us into that sort of atmosphere. And you know, I never had a day in school. My father was a teacher in Poland. That is on those days that he was home from the state coal mines. He, uh, he had a school in my house between taking care of his grain and the barn. And us kids at the house, that’s the education I had.

Speaker 1 6:54 Wasn’t that illegal? Cuz the Russians,

Josephine Skalski 6:58
oh, yes, that was that was sort of illegal, but we managed.

David Nixon 7:03
What was illegal?

Josephine Skalski 7:05
The Russian government are not supposed to be teaching, Using the Polish with it. We’re supposed to learn the Russian. And we didn’t want that. And my father had a good fortune of meeting up with some beautiful man that was a professor and he gave my father and… My father was really a brilliant mentor for a man of that time in Poland. He and he taught us kids. Most of the kids my age, and some of them are older in our village that can read and write in Polish. I don’t know enough to say so now. Anyway, but, I manage if I have to.

Speaker 2 8:08
Do you speak Russian? Did you learn Russia?

Josephine Skalski 8:13
In Poland? Everybody spoke Russian. Because my father was very, very good at it. Most everybody. I could understand and speak if I had to.

Speaker 1 8:31
But the Russians didn’t send you to school. Huh? They didn’t send you to school, to the Russian school.

Josephine Skalski 8:37
No. Although you can go if you wanted to. Because I know my sister is younger than I am. And how who have their this new school in the next village was being built. And that was strictly in Russian. My My mother… my father wasn’t was in the States, but my mother thought I was over educated anyway. So she didn’t send me to that Russian school, but my sister went there for about a year or so. And I felt bad because I think any school was better than no school at all.

Speaker 1 9:25
I don’t know. Why don’t you tell him about your husband’s education.

Josephine Skalski 9:32
Well, my husband comes from Austria occupied Poland. And they didn’t have schools about it. But they didn’t teach them like we do in our schools over here. My husband never heard of geography when he went to to school. He says the only time he knew there were other countries somewhere was in the Christmas time about the three kings coming to to the manger. That’s about all the

Speaker 2 10:12
Insular (?)

Speaker 1 10:13
Well who who said it was a school without windows?

Josephine Skalski 10:17
My father said that they of course they have schools but they go here any windows in our case they they only they only taught religion there mostly. So my husband was a very good man.

David Nixon 10:35
What was his name?

Josephine Skalski 10:37
Joseph and Josephine

David Nixon 10:44
What was your father’s name?

Josephine Skalski 10:46
Andrew,

David Nixon 10:47
Andrew, and your mother

Speaker 1 10:52
Eva; Yes, good. Who’s got her middle name? You have

David Nixon 10:57
What’s the middle name?

Speaker 1 10:59
Grandmother’s name okay. That’s not important to you

David Nixon 11:08
And what was your sister’s name?

Josephine Skalski 11:11
Her name was Alexandra but we when we got over here we everybody called her Alice so she’s still Alice. And she is living someplace in Michigan. She’s still hanging in. Yes.

David Nixon 11:33
Did you have any brothers?

Josephine Skalski 11:37
I had two brothers one he he lived in the coal mining regions then. There’s an awful lot of liquor and stuff like that going on.

Speaker 1 11:57
So that he lived in West Virginia, didn’t he?

Josephine Skalski 12:00
Yes, West Virginia.

Speaker 1 12:05
Your oldest

Josephine Skalski 12:08
but he sort of wasted… And they had four children. They had two boys and two girls. Well everybody drank all day and that was hard to keep the kids away from that so that my brother’s family one. There are beautiful people that are very good looking people and they was smart. My brother was one of the smartest people. His kids went to high school. He helped to do their homework. He was brilliant.

David Nixon 12:54
Was he was he taught by your father too? Did your father teach him too? Yeah. What was his name to one? Adam, he worked in the coal mines in West Virginia. And how about your other brother? What was his name?

Josephine Skalski 13:11
His name was Boleslaw. We used to call him Bill

Speaker 1 13:39
We call him William though right? Uncle Bill. Yeah.

Josephine Skalski 13:46
And he died quite young; he died of cancer when he was about forty.

Speaker 1 14:00
Never married. Mom: Do you want to tell the horror story about Adams family? Maybe it shouldn’t be recorded but didn’t his his wife was not well, right?

David Nixon 14:15
Do you want me to turn this off?

Speaker 1 14:19
Yeah. Why she didn’t cope with the kids too well did she? Well remember Stevie when he came to visit came here to visit at different times.

Josephine Skalski 14:32
Stevie was mentally deficient. Well

Speaker 1 14:34
Did we think it was because she put whiskey in his baby bottle? Yeah.

Josephine Skalski 14:42
It wasn’t her so much as she left him with the older children and to put him to sleep so that the kids fed him liquor in his bottle so he’d sleep.

Speaker 1 15:04
Mom, you had another brother. You want to tell him that horror story? What didn’t you have a baby brother that died?

Josephine Skalski 15:11
Okay, he died when he was about five years old and that was the most most terrible thing that I remember because he was scalded and by hot was boiling water and he was never gotten gotten over it so he died when he was four four or five years old.

Speaker 1 15:43
But tell tell how you your mother had a pail of water on the floor?

Josephine Skalski 15:50
My mother had something, was ailing, she was having a bad leg and she was gonna give herself one of those hot baths and of course she brought in a big tub. So we’re like about and she was gonna get him that and soak herself in it; that’s something I’ve never forget.

Speaker 1 16:21
And he backed into it and he sat right in it?

Josephine Skalski 16:24
No, she was carrying the big, big kettle of water and got too hot for her. She let go…

Speaker 1 16:43
But but he died without any medical help, right, there were no doctors?

Josephine Skalski 16:50
I sometimes blame my father not getting him over to Lomza for doctor but but you know your father. My grandfather used to be his own doctor and his own everything you know. And so my poor little brother died.

Speaker 2 17:09
Were you on a farm? How big a farm?

Josephine Skalski 17:09
How big a farm? Well it’s much bigger than this place over here.

Speaker 2 17:23
So what did you raise?

Josephine Skalski 17:27
Mostly rye and potatoes. Vegetables for home use or things like that.

Speaker 1 17:35
And didn’t you raise flax?

Josephine Skalski 17:41
Yeah, we raise flax that that was usually woman’s project. We used to raise flax. And he used to skin it. You know it took so much work. You know when you raise it and then you tie it up and make in bundles after you pull it up. And you soak it and this we had a space over there. That wasn’t really a river, it was it was like a pond. We’d soak that in that pond for I’ve forgotten just how many weeks. So anyways, they’ve got soaked enough we dried it and then we took the tough fibers off of it. And we made beautiful linen. Yes,

Speaker 1 18:55
Is this… am I right? Is this part of it? Is this from the old country? No, that isn’t. Do you have any?

Josephine Skalski 19:04
I did have some but I think it’s either you and Rachel have it.

David Nixon 19:11
We’re interested in things like that, we’re interested in anything that you brought over from Poland, or anything that that you made here or that came from your trip.

Josephine Skalski 19:25
You know, and I’m very sorry, we came over to this country. I used to do little work here and there, had a little money and I thinking that my mother was going to buy me some new clothes to come to the States and and instead I don’t know what she did with the money but we had to come over here with home made clothes. And that was it. So we… And you know, we didn’t think anything of those clothes. We wanted American clothes, that was all there was to it.

Speaker 1 20:05
So you didn’t save them of course.

 

Josephine Skalski 20:07
No. And they would be the cutest things. And you know, we used to spin our own wool. We sized this linen thread and we used to weave this material with with the [unintelligible] here and there and I used to do that for my mother.

Speaker 2 20:33
Did she sew the clothes? Or did you sew the clothes?

Josephine Skalski 20:38
Oh, sometimes if we want something done nice we get somebody else do it.

Speaker 1 20:45
Because your mother wasn’t too handy was she? She sewed all our clothes.

Josephine Skalski 20:51
She know how to take care of that. That linen that we made. But sewing she wasn’t… she didn’t sew well, of course, any more than I could. I could later on when I learned to, but my mother had someone else do those things for us.

Speaker 1 21:24
Probably bartered Yeah.

David Nixon 21:27
Did you did you barter or did you use money to get your cloth? Did you did you use money to get your cloth or did you barter?

Speaker 1 21:36
They made the cloth. But did you have to pay somebody? Or did you exchange work or you didn’t have much money?

Josephine Skalski 21:49
With the wool things that was beautiful. We spun it and we we made the material that like skirts and men’s trousers were made from that. After we got through that we had to used to send it to a place I don’t know what you would call it…

Speaker 1 22:21
A tailor.

Josephine Skalski 22:24
It wasn’t a tailor it was a place where they made the material that was professional.

Speaker 2 22:34
Maybe a fulling mill Yeah.

Speaker 1 22:38
But did you have to pay, did you have money to pay for that?

Josephine Skalski 22:43
Oh yes. Well, yeah, we had to scrape up some money for that.

Speaker 1 22:47
Could you tell them how about your shoes, or lack of

Josephine Skalski 22:52
I never had any. Never had any shoes, we were very poor.

David Nixon 23:00
Even during the winter you didn’t have any boots or snow?

Josephine Skalski 23:03
You know what we used to do? Remember I’m talking about these wool pants that were made from the material we made. We use to make some slippers out them and wore those in the winter time in my house. I remember running outdoors and sliding on the ice barefoot over there.

Speaker 1 23:35
And how about your mother’s shoes? How about how about sliding with your mother’s shoes on? Didn’t you take hers?

Josephine Skalski 23:44
I used to I used to borrow my my grandmother’s shoes and then she didn’t appreciate that at all.

David Nixon 23:55
Was this your father’s mother or mother’s mother? And what was her name?

Josephine Skalski 24:01
Father’s. Her name was Jozefa Wisniewska.

David Nixon 24:35
How about your father’s father? What was his name?

Josephine Skalski 24:46
My father was Andrew. My mother’s father was Frank. Francis. I’ll tell you the truth. I don’t quite remember my father’s father.

David Nixon 25:02
Okay. How about your mother’s mother?

Josephine Skalski 25:09
My mother’s mother died quite young. So I hardly remember her.

Speaker 1 25:17
Do you remember her name?

Josephine Skalski 25:18
Her name was Aniela. that’s like Angela

Speaker 1 25:34
What was do you don’t remember her maiden name, Aniela’s. I don’t think we have that.

Josephine Skalski 25:43
No, I don’t. I remember my father’s mother’s name. Her name was Wisnieska. And her name was Josephine, which I was named after her.

David Nixon 26:05
What was your mother’s maiden name?

Josephine Skalski 26:11
My mother’s maiden name was Kulas.

David Nixon 26:14
Could you spell that for me please? Kulas.

Speaker 1 26:16
And mom and you want to die and you know all this stuff? And can repeat it? I would never remember.

Josephine Skalski 26:28
And Kulas meant like a walking stick with a handle on it.

Speaker 1 26:46
Tell them your theory on where all these names came from. Tell them your theory, or maybe I guess it’s true. Where did everybody get names? Like Kulas, Aniela…

Josephine Skalski 27:01
I wouldn’t know…

Speaker 1 27:06
You read Mitchner’s thing and agree that it was the big magnates that named everybody you know there…

Josephine Skalski 27:18
I enjoyed that book very much. Because coming across these Polish names over here in this country. There is a doctor that was an… Where was that was one of this states or places in Massachusetts. And his name was Dr. Dzura. You know what Dzura mean? A hole. And I didn’t think that was very nice. So that reminds me that one of those big magnates used to own these very, very poor people over there. And they name them whatever they wanted so that’s why we have such queer Polish names.

David Nixon 28:09
When did when did you come to the United States?

Josephine Skalski 28:16
1914.

David Nixon 28:18
So just before the war,

Josephine Skalski 28:20
Yes, my my father did a lot of reading and he knew that the war was coming. And so he sold the farm before we came over here. So finally he came over here. He sent my older brother to Pennsylvania coal mines. But my younger brother came with my father. And they settled here in South Deerfield. And

David Nixon 28:53
On what street were they? What street were they in South, South Deerfield?

Josephine Skalski 28:59
Right down in the middle of the town here.

Speaker 1 29:01
Where was that Bill and

Josephine Skalski 29:04
Where the Wysks used to live remember? Where they have that what’s his name? Wodka. Has that, stand there? That was a Wysk place.

Speaker 1 29:19
Oh. Well, did did grandfather live with the Wysks to begin with?

Josephine Skalski 29:28
To begin with? Yes.

Speaker 2 29:31
That’s a big family. The Wysks.

David Nixon 29:38
Did your father work for the Wysks?

Josephine Skalski 29:42
Yes, he did work here and there. But they had a way of raising onions. You know what I mean? Sometimes they made out pretty good, some time all depended on the prices of the onions. Let me tell you something, I’m gonna skip some of it. When my husband and I got married, we lived in Sunderland for four… quite a few years. And my father and my mother were having a bad time keeping up the this place over here. So finally we sold our place in Sunderland, because to come over here and help them. And the only thing that saved my father from losing this place, because he owed money for taxes and the mortgage was way behind. I guess he owed everybody that would lend him a dollar. But anyway, we we decided to come over here with my four kids. We raised three acres of sweet onions.

Speaker 2 31:18
Is that this place? Right? Yeah.

Speaker 1 31:21
96. I remember.

Josephine Skalski 31:24
And you know, that’s the only place; we wanted to save my folks from going on welfare and losing this place.

Speaker 1 31:35
But mom, you and dad, were having a tough time keeping that big house in Sunderland too weren’t you?

Josephine Skalski 31:40
Yes, we were plain poor that’s why. Anyway, so we had an awful time with my father because he was he wasn’t a good farmer. You know to raise onions you’re supposed to put lime in your land. Father didn’t believe in that. He knows his land as well as himself. And that does not mean any lime. So then my brothers get sick of that. And they just told my father in plain Polish. Not to be so stubborn. So my father says, oh, go ahead and get us lime. And we had the best crop of sweet onions you ever saw. onion used to pay, good, good onions. And we had some beautiful onions. And we had a friend on Sunderland that was buying and selling onions. And he was a good friend of ours anyway. So he came over and onions was 60 cents a 100 in those days. And that’s very cheap. But we had such a crop. Anyway, and he offered us that 60 cents a 100 Then it went down to 55 cents a 100. But he’s a good he was a good friend of ours and he said I’ll take it for 60 cents. He says I know I can sell them. He bought them and he sold them and that helped my father helping on his mortgage behind and his taxes and things like that. And this is the way we save this place.

Speaker 1 33:52
Was that John Grybko, that friend in Sunderland?

Josephine Skalski 33:56
Toczydlowski [Tozloski]

Speaker 2 33:58
Oh, Toczydlowskis in Sunderland.

Speaker 1 34:02
Was he born in Poland? Ben?

Josephine Skalski 34:05
Yeah, he was a he was a very nice person. He was a very smart man. He’s gone.

David Nixon 34:16
Can I ask you a couple of questions about what it was like to move from Poland to the United States? How did how did you leave Poland? Because I thought you couldn’t leave?

Josephine Skalski 34:27
How did we leave? Yeah. Well, there was nothing for us to stay there for us. For my father was gone. A year before my sister and my and my sister, and I and my mother, yeah. And my mother we stayed with my folks’ best friends. And then we came over here and it was it was a long voyage. It was is a very long voyage and really was sick; my sister and I were sick all the way, seasick.

David Nixon 35:11
Did you come by sailing vessel or by power vessel?

Speaker 2 35:22
Did you come into New York or Philadelphia? Did you come into New York? New York City or Boston?

Josephine Skalski 35:31
New York, New York, New York Harbor and to tell you the truth. My sister and I was so sick and tired of that voyage. We were vomiting all the way. And I remember these big ladies with great dresses. There are the German people on that boat and they are taking care of us. But all we did was throw up, and of course those German ladies weren’t very kind to us because who would be? Anyway, when we get to the harbor we get off the boat and do you know that I never saw the Statue of Liberty? The only thing I remember about Statue of Liberty is this. A man was carrying his little son in his arms. And he was trying to tell him about the the lady of freedom, talking about the Statue of Liberty, and I never saw the Statue of Liberty!

Speaker 1 36:56
Probably foggy that day anyway.

Josephine Skalski 36:59
Well anyway, yeah. We like a baggage they put tags on Sundays. Put us here and then and so you’re gonna give it you’re gonna carry wherever but anyways. Finally, they put us on a train and we got into town of South Deerfield. Must have been very late at night because somebody took us from the train station. And I don’t know whether you know, the Hotel Warren here in South Deerfield? This is where we spent the first night. My mother, my sister, and I, somebody took us to the place. And I think there was, still there or not, I have to… I forgot anyway. But anyways, there was a place looked like a laundry room or something. And there was a couch there. And this is where we waited till morning. That’s where my sister, my mother and I were and then in the morning my father got a friend of his who had the horse and wagon and they came over and took us to Hillside Road. There was a little house that’s not there anymore. That was our first home.

Speaker 2 38:32
He had a place for you, he had gotten a place for you. Didn’t go to the family on Route Five?

Speaker 1 38:40
No, you didn’t go to Wysk’s you went to that little house. Yeah, that’s right. He own that house? Huh? Did he own that house?

Josephine Skalski 38:48
I don’t know who owned it, but he didn’t.

Speaker 2 38:52
That it was your home? Yeah.

Speaker 1 38:54
Was anybody else living in it besides you?

Josephine Skalski 38:57
Just us it was a little house. And you know it didn’t have any convenience and like we have in our houses now. We went to brook to get our water you know, which was very close. And well anyways, we’re here.

David Nixon 39:24
What was the name of the ship that you came over on?

Josephine Skalski 39:28
Was a German ship. Franz something or other, was a German. I have it some place.

Speaker 2 39:36
You do have papers about it. Yeah, we’ll have to find them.

Josephine Skalski 39:42
Somewhere in my desk or

David Nixon 39:46
What port did you leave? In Europe? What port did you leave? Did you leave from Bremen?

Josephine Skalski 39:52
From Bremen. And that place I remember quite well, because after they got us scheduled where and when, we stayed at Bremen for a few days anyway. And then my all my best friends came with us and our clear skies disappeared, she went on another line cause she was going to Michigan. So anyway, we finally got here.

Speaker 1 40:36
But did you have to be secretive about your leaving? Or did you keep it a secret from your friends when you were leaving?

[Josephine Skalski
No, no, no. Everyone knew… Did they?

David Nixon 40:51
Did the Russians let you go? Did the Russians let you go?

Josephine Skalski 40:56
Yes. Yes then. I guess. I guess probably the overpopulated everyone was just glad to have people leave. I wouldn’t understand that anyway. I’ll never forget when we were leaving Poland. My mother took my sister and I to say goodbye to my grandmother. That’s my father’s mother. And I remember she was crying so hard. And so that was the end of it. Never saw her again. [unintelligible] and she was moved away from the place where she was living. She was living with my father’s brother, my uncle.

David Nixon 41:57
What was his name?

Josephine Skalski 41:59
His name was Frank.

David Nixon 42:05
Can you spell Franciszek for me please?

 

Josephine Skalski 42:23
You know Gina has a friend, an exchange student from Belgium. And he his name is well it’s Frank anyway, and this Belgian boy and a beautiful boy.

Speaker 1 42:46
Frank.

Josephine Skalski 42:53
this is going to be with Gina second family because she had our girls exchange student from England. And she was she’s our family. She kept every every year they used to fly up. Come over here and have a good time in the States. They were at home. But now they sold their little place in England and then Australia. Oh, Australia.

Speaker 1 43:36
But mom they’re not interested in my family. I just found some books that we stuck in there when we were that I want to read.

Josephine Skalski 43:47
I think she’s having to adopting another family. There’s boy that’s from Belgium who lives over here. She goes to school. And I think that she’s gonna have another family because his parents came over here for a visit. And they stayed there for her. They’re beautiful people.

David Nixon 44:15
Could I ask you about your husband? Where did you meet your husband? Where did you meet your husband?

Josephine Skalski 44:22
At the church of course.

David Nixon 44:25
In Poland?

Josephine Skalski 44:27
Over here.

David Nixon 44:28
Up in Sunderland?

Josephine Skalski 44:33
In South Deerfield.

Speaker 1 44:34
Well, dad was born in Whately.

Josephine Skalski 44:37
Yeah, he was born in Whately. And his mother was very, very religious. And at that time, they weren’t any Polish priests over here. She couldn’t stand it. And his father, that’s the man I admire because I think… I like to meet his mother sometime and have a talk with her.

David Nixon 45:08
What’s your husband’s name?

Josephine Skalski
Joseph Joseph.

Josephine Skalski 45:20
Anybody that wanted to work somewhere they just got on a boat and came over here, and that’s one of them. That’s my husband’s father. And guess what? He came over to New York Harbor. And and, and the local farmers over here knew that these men were coming to seek for work. So they were looking for some and my husband’s father happened to be in a group of men that came. And he landed right over next door to us. That was my husband’s father. And these men that were looking, farmers that were looking for men to work, they came and picked these men up and so my husband’s father work for somebody by the name of… they’re beautiful…

Speaker 1 46:25
wasn’t it? Tom Sanderson?

Josephine Skalski 46:27
Sandersons. Yeah, in Whately. He he worked there for quite a while and actually, and in those days, he came over, left his wife in Poland. And after he could, he could make himself understand that he wanted to go to Poland and bring his wife over. And the people are surprised that he was so young and was married and left his wife. So when she came over here, they live down in Whately, there’s a little place that they rented and that’s where my husband was born in Whately. But my husband’s mother was a religious fanatic. And she couldn’t stand it. There was no Polish priests over here. And, and so what little money her husband earned over here, she sent over to Poland to her father and he bought them some land over there. She was bound to go back. And she did with Joe and his sister and his brother.

Speaker 1 48:09
Did he go he went back with who? Dad’s father. Oh, yes.

Josephine Skalski 48:16
Oh, yes. He Yeah. He was a hard working man and he had a wagon and a couple horses. And one winter he was logging for just to make extra money. And he his wagon broke. And he caught bad cold and I guess he had pneumonia. I guess he never got over that. So he died quite young. My husband was 14 years old when his father died. And so he felt awful bad because at the cemetery plot when they open the grave, there was water there. And then they put him into the water. And of course, Joe, my husband, cried badly and his mother felt so bad but being so religious, she explained to him that and then it wasn’t so bad because his remains will reach the soil or the dust, like it’s supposed to. Made my husband feel better.

Speaker 2 49:37
This was in Poland..

Josephine Skalski 49:41
Yeah. Yeah. And you know he was 89 when he died, Oh, and before he died, you he kept telling me not to ever have him buried in of those vaults like they do now because he’s afraid his remains never reach the soil. So I told him that it’s against the law to do that. I suppose you have and we had fights about it, he told me I was crazy. And so he says the only thing that you can avoid that is not to get buried in that hole, you know, like they do today. And he says it’s to be cremated, and it shocked him for a while, then later on he thought he’d better be cremated, then to get buried in one of those vaults that his remains to never touch the soil because it’s dust to dust that he was brought up in and he meant it that way. So my husband was cremated and you know what, we have his remains buried right over here. And we have a beautiful

Speaker 1 51:39
Weeping cherry, pink cherry.

Speaker 2 51:45
He only died a few years ago.

Speaker 1 51:48
Oh. She said that he died at 89 Oh, at 89. Yeah, he was six years older than she.

Speaker 2 51:59
Well, eight years… they were together… Oh. Did you have flowers in your garden in Poland?

Josephine Skalski 52:08
Yes, we have a flower garden. Now a little one.

Speaker 2 52:12
Did your mother like flowers?

Josephine Skalski 52:14
Yes, I guess she did. She I don’t think anybody was crazy enough to put all the time in the garden like I did.

Speaker 2 52:22
You did out here. I wondered if you inherited that your daughter has inherited.

Josephine Skalski 52:29
Her flowers beautiful. I

Speaker 2 52:33
I saw her garden last year. I saw you last year.

Josephine Skalski 52:38
My granddaughter, her daughter lives in Virginia. And they just bought a new house. So we are planning her garden.

David Nixon 52:59
What was your husband’s father’s name? What was your husband’s father’s name?

Josephine Skalski 53:04
Thomas.

Speaker 1 53:05
Okay, then it wasn’t Tom Sanderson, Mama, was Tom Skalski. Yeah, that’s why Fred’s name is Thomas. Right. Her son.

David Nixon 53:17
And what was your husband’s mother’s name?

Josephine Skalski 53:24
Kulenska. Try that one.

David Nixon 53:28
Can you spell that?

Josephine Skalski 53:48
My first name.

David Nixon 53:50
The first name of your husband’s mother.

Josephine Skalski 53:55
Anna.

David Nixon 54:03
No, she was she was sending money back to her father. Yeah. What was his name?

Josephine Skalski 54:17
Thomas

David Nixon 54:18
Thomas again.

Speaker 2 54:20
Wait, wait. Her father was

Josephine Skalski 54:23
Joe’s father may was Thomas. Oh, so.

David Nixon 54:26
So? Joe’s father’s mother’s father’s name. But how about Joe’s? Joe’s grandfather on his mother’s side.

Speaker 1 54:38
Joe’s grandfather on his… Thomas’s father. Right.

David Nixon 54:43
Thomas’s mother’s side.

Josephine Skalski 54:49
She told me Kolensky wouldn’t it because that was his mother’s maiden name.

Speaker 1 54:57
What was his first name?

Josephine Skalski 54:58
Oh, I wouldn’t know.

Speaker 1 55:05
Well what was his what was Thomas Skalski’s Father’s Name? Do we have that?

Josephine Skalski 55:13
Stanley

Speaker 1 55:16
I should share with with that this one of the kids that genealogy.

David Nixon 55:28
We’ve been here for an hour. We’ve been here for an hour. Are you tired?

Josephine Skalski 55:34
Why should I be that that’s all I do is sit. I’m just plain lazy and I’m supposed to write to my friends in Poland, my husband’s relatives. I’ve been corresponding with them and they’re beautiful people but I haven’t written to for so long. They must think I died. So I’m going to write and tell him to thank him for saying what they said in Polish. How would you say: **speaks in Polish**

Speaker 1 56:19
“May you rest in peace” [translation]

Josephine Skalski 56:20
Yes, I imagine that’s what they said when they never heard from me, so I’m gonna thank him for saying that and tell them I’m still here.

Speaker 1 56:31
You don’t how guilty you were feeling because one of them wanted to send her son-in-law here for work.

Josephine Skalski 56:43
You know thinking that if that happened before I got this I was just I am just so tired and lazy because my stinking heart is beating too fast, so I’m no good at all. And I was thinking if I was in my proper way, I would let him come and because I could have him sleep in my other bedroom. And being Polish I know that he would find a job if he had to walk to Greenfield for one. They seem like a beautiful people over there especially this one Joe’s niece that writes to me. But when I’m like this I’m a burden to my daughter and my son and I’m just good for nothing.

Speaker 2 57:51
I don’t think they think so. Did do you speak in the home? Did you speak Polish? Always at home? When you came here? Or did you speak English?

Josephine Skalski 58:03
Oh, of course. Oh, my father, my mother. We have to speak Polish. But with my family, my kids, we spoke English.

Speaker 2 58:15
And did you go to school when you came here?

Josephine Skalski 58:18
I didn’t have a day in school. Not in this country. The only thing I had in school is what my father taught us in my own home in Poland.

Speaker 1 58:31
But tell him how you learn to read and write in English.

Josephine Skalski 58:36
Well, I had some I had to work very hard because I was so poor and wherever I worked, it was a hard work. And I finally got a job. There was this family his name was Dr. [Henry] Suitor. Helping out a lady that wasn’t feeling good then Dr. Suitor came to see her. And he he spoke to me and he asked me, Oh, would I like to go and work at his home. So I said yes.

Speaker 1 59:21
How old were you then? 15?

Josephine Skalski 59:24
Not any older than that. I don’t think I was quite Yes, I was about 14 or 15. Between that. And I I worked over there and they had an adorable little boy his name was Douglas and you know children love to have read to them by anything. So he had a lot of these nursery books and so I read to Douglas. Can you imagine? I was so sure when I was alone with Douglas…

Speaker 1 1:00:03
You read only after you sat while Dr. Suitor read to him all the time? Yeah, you listened. You didn’t just know this…

Josephine Skalski 1:00:14
Douglas and I were in the den and I was reading and the next room was doctor’s office. With the door ajar, and he heard me read and so he walked in then and he said,” I didn’t know you could read” and so I blushed and I stopped and he says, “Don’t you ever stop, you keep on reading”. Because you know broken English but the kid loved it anyway.

Speaker 1 1:00:43
I bet you were making it up mom.

Josephine Skalski 1:00:49
I probably was. I don’t know.

David Nixon 1:00:54
So that was your first job?

Josephine Skalski 1:00:57
Oh, no, I had worse jobs than that.

Speaker 1 1:01:00
Well, this was a good job.

Speaker 2 1:01:02
She that that said worse.

Josephine Skalski 1:01:04
I worked there for quite a while. But

Speaker 1 1:01:09
What he said was that your first job?

Josephine Skalski 1:01:14
No, I was, there was a hotel, on Main Street in Greenfield, Deven’s

David Nixon 1:01:25
Oh Hotel Deven’s

Speaker 1 1:01:27
I thought it was the Mansion House.

Josephine Skalski 1:01:33
No, Deven’s and I got a job there in a kitchen. And doing…

Speaker 1 1:01:38
How did you get there from South Deerfield?

Josephine Skalski 1:01:44
Oh, well, somebody… we had a trolley car and

Speaker 2 1:01:49
Trolley was running.

Josephine Skalski 1:01:51
Anyway, that’s where I worked doing chambermaid and anything that nobody else wanted anyways. I in a kitchen we had this chef that used to feed us girls beside me there were some other Polish girls that were older than I was and he used to feed us the leftovers you know and I didn’t know enough to know the difference but the older girls started to complain to him that he was feeding us you know. And one day he used to feed us give us the leftover bread and all that. One day he made some beautiful fresh rolls. Just took them out of the oven. And the older girls said to me “Why don’t you go take some of those for us?” So of course I did. And you know I got fired for that. Well anyway, so just about anyone have to pay me they gave me $3, for whatever. So I came home happy and I gave it to my father and he went and bought a clock for that money. It’s there in my room that

David Nixon 1:03:32
Oh, you still have the clock?

Josephine Skalski 1:03:34
Yeah, um, anyway. That’s it. And then as I grew older, I made friends that worked in tobacco…

Speaker 1 1:03:46
Before you go to the tobacco shop, where was the bit about the chewing gum that you had to clean or something?

Josephine Skalski 1:03:56
Oh, that was at the hotel. And that was a bad job for especially a young kid like me. Downstairs hotel lobby are supposed to wash the floor clean up and on the floor was this chewing gum that wouldn’t come off, so I didn’t bother taking it off. I think I got fired for that anyway…

Speaker 1 1:04:32
Oh that too? Anyway, double whammy. Okay with the tobacco shop I’m sorry, go ahead.

Josephine Skalski 1:04:46
Then I met friends that worked in tobacco shops and kept telling me that I wasn’t making any money at all. So

Speaker 1 1:04:54
Was that when you were at Suitor’s?

Josephine Skalski 1:04:58
Yes at that time. Then a little later too. So I got me a job in tobacco shop and I lived in home and of course decides what I was getting and doing the housework for these people. I was only again $3 a week and of course in tobacco shop I was a big shot I was making money because I was good at that.

Speaker 2 1:05:28
Was this sorting tobacco or?

Josephine Skalski 1:05:30
Sorting tobacco

Speaker 1 1:05:34
When did you go to live at Jim Day’s? Oh, it was a phenomenon. I mean, he had a boarding house full of girls like her.

Josephine Skalski 1:05:49
These tobacco people had plantation in West Deerfield. They grew tobacco here and there and this Mr. Day that was the head of this system, had an empty house that was next to his and he had us girls that worked on his farm go to that house and live there.

Speaker 1 1:06:17
How many of you?

Josephine Skalski 1:06:22
Five or six of us almost sometimes. Anyway, we felt rich because were making money.

Speaker 2 1:06:37
And now how did you work the two jobs together? Did you work one in the daytime and one in the evening?

Speaker 1 1:06:45
No, you quit you quit your housekeeping. Yeah. Mom, and tell him how you got invited to the boss’s house all the time to play cards.

Josephine Skalski 1:06:55
Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 1:06:57
In the evenings. You and who else?

Josephine Skalski 1:07:01
Minny, the girl that kept the house.

Speaker 1 1:07:05
Minny, what was her name?

Josephine Skalski 1:07:07
Her name is Minny Piaseczna. Just just playing cards like we do now, Whist?

Speaker 1 1:07:19
Like what, whist? yeah. but the Hatfield people didn’t like you girls did they?

Josephine Skalski 1:07:27
No, They hated us. Because we were the group of girls that came from South Deerfield and we used to work on a farm over there. Anyway he finally had us moved to the house next to his. Hatfield people somehow didn’t like us they thought we were favored by him. Especially me you know. I finally got to be an inspector and that was terrible for me because the Hatfield people couldn’t stand us anyway. And to have an inspector one of us… I don’t mind but I finally got so that I could do that darn tobacco pretty well. I mean, I knew it.

Speaker 1 1:08:27
But how come you’re so friendly with so many Hatfield people?

Josephine Skalski 1:08:33
I just love my Hatfield people. Some of those didn’t work at the shop in the farm.

Speaker 1 1:08:42
Well, so they didn’t all hate you. So they didn’t all hate you.

 

Josephine Skalski 1:08:48
No, there are some people that that still remember. They used to make terrible stories about us and Jim Day, one of us girls used to go and sleep with Jim Day.

Speaker 2 1:09:09
They made up stories.

Josephine Skalski 1:09:13
Stories. And anyway. Of course that was all like a… Jim was a very, very nice man. And Mrs. Day his wife had a beautiful wavy hair. And I used to, she used to have me go over and comb her hair. And I loved that because it was such a beautiful hair.

Speaker 1 1:09:54
I can’t imagine that. You hate to do anything with hair. Yours!

Josephine Skalski 1:10:04
My hair isn’t as nice as Mrs. Day’s is.

Speaker 1 1:10:12
You you know what, to go back to dad? How old was he when he came back here? He came by, tell why he came back. His mother remarried, right? Yeah. Remember he was fourteen, his father died. And his mother married a man. And, and Joe was in the way, wasn’t he?

Josephine Skalski 1:10:33
Oh, anyway, he came to the States.

Speaker 2 1:10:37
How old was he when he came back?

Josephine Skalski 1:10:42
I guess he was close to 20 years old.

Speaker 1 1:10:45
So he never acquired the English you know. When he… he lost it when he went back, you know, we were constantly correcting him and he just never… well he certainly could talk but he never got as good as my mother.

Speaker 2 1:11:01
Well, the two of them speak Polish together? Or…

Speaker 1 1:11:05
Did you and dad speak Polish together? Did you and dad speak Polish together sometimes?

Josephine Skalski 1:11:12
I had to, that’s all he spoke.

Speaker 1 1:11:15
Oh, at the beginning? Yeah. But when we grew up

Speaker 2 1:11:20
I think they spoke English.

Josephine Skalski 1:11:22
I know I got to talk English to him.

David Nixon 1:11:27
So his mother remarried. His mother.

Josephine Skalski 1:11:33
She remarried and she had another daughter.

Speaker 2 1:11:44
Are they still… that family stayed in Poland? Josephine:: As far as I know he was the only one who came back.

Speaker 1 1:11:58
And who did he come to?

Josephine Skalski 1:12:01
Nobody. Who Joe? Oh, I tell you Joe didn’t have somebody to come to. He came to the Skibiskis in Sunderland and the Warchols over here. Remember? I may have missed the Warchol just live down there. He was my husband’s godfather.

Speaker 1 1:12:25
He died on my wedding day. That was 45 years ago. All the family was there and didn’t even realize.

David Nixon 1:12:38
How old were you when you got married?

Josephine Skalski 1:12:41
22 I guess.

Speaker 2 1:12:46
Now, was this farm part of what the Chickerings have?

Speaker 1 1:12:50
No, this was the old Clapp place. And there was a little gravestone under the grape arbor out here. We have a piece of it. But we don’t have it, it disappeared, didn’t it? The gravestone? Yes. It was a little girl wasn’t it? There were two little girls, twins.

Josephine Skalski 1:13:12
There are two little girls that are buried right here. They used to be in grape arbor. And that’s where they were buried. And one of those stones was broken. That was before we got here. So part of it is in my garden over here. One of those stones was still intact. It wasn’t broken with a little girl by the name of Cynthia. Um, and some of the distant relatives came by here and they took that stone. We was so happy to have them have it.

Speaker 2 1:13:53
Oh, I see.

Josephine Skalski 1:14:00
And their name was Clapp.

Speaker 1 1:14:04
I thought maybe there’s 10 acres here. But that was it was not a part of that.

Speaker 2 1:14:12
This was all good farmland here, I think.

Speaker 1 1:14:16
And my mother’s very saddened to see it in Joe Savage’s turf.

Speaker 2 1:14:22
That’s right. He grows, because grass, poisons the heck out of it.

David Nixon 1:14:25
Sure. Turf farming is very destructive. It’s the worst.

Speaker 1 1:14:30
Destroying the topsoil.

Josephine Skalski 1:14:33
I was just telling them about that crop of onions we raised to save my father’s and mother’s.

Speaker 1 1:14:40
Yes, I heard you Mom I was here and I helped weed those damn onions. And cut them! Yeah, then you didn’t tell them what you’re not too proud of, that you raised tobacco for years and I kidded her because she hates it. Look at how much tobacco played a part in her life. And she hated to grow it.

Josephine Skalski 1:15:01
And we grew beautiful tobacco. What little we grew because the place is small we couldn’t do too much. But people that could raise a lot of it they made money on it.

Speaker 1 1:15:21
You didn’t tell them that when you moved here in 1936 you came from a place that had electricity and indoor plumbing. Yeah, to a place that had neither. Oh, and you know, I don’t know that that was so traumatic for me, but she had gotten used to it. We had to take turns in the kitchen to take a bath once a week and there were nine of us living in the house. I had to take my wedding bath after I came home from the Navy in a round tub. And I had Navy friends here with me WAVE friends, and they all did it to what I can still hear them laugh gleeful laughter. We moved it out onto the place in the woodshed in the summer and with just curtains around. And my brother helped them lug the water and they just howled. They still talk about it.

Josephine Skalski 1:16:16
Her brother is the most wonderful person in the world. We sold him this place after he he built himself a beautiful house down the road. But after a while he said that whenever you want to sell yours, I’d like to buy it and I thought that was a good idea. So you know you we didn’t really sell it. He was my son. And anyway, instead he built us for my husband and I he built this apartment and we felt like beautifully about it. We didn’t have to move.

Speaker 1 1:17:02
And he heats it with his wood furnace.

David Nixon 1:17:04
Okay. Perfect. Very good.

Speaker 2 1:17:07
What’s he do, does he farm?

Speaker 1 1:17:09
No, he was a terrific carpenter. As a matter of fact, he was the foreman for a couple of big… Cerruti? Anyhow, big contractors, but he’s now, Len is about 64 and he’s on disability because he ruined his arms and his knees. He got hurt. Scaffolding broke. They were doing a big building. And he reached down to help his fellow and he saved him. But he pulled his arm right out of his… So he’s, he’s been actually he’s not disabled but he hurts all the time. Couldn’t be on a pounding job all the time. Well, he’s a fantastic carpenter. And he and I garden together, vegetable garden out here…. There they are. She’s got them.
[unintelligible conversations here]

Josephine Skalski 1:18:23
This is my beautiful son Leonard with his two grandsons. And they have twins. And they have five. They have older brother by his mother’s first marriage.

Speaker 1 1:18:54
Oh, here. Here is my grandfather and grandmother. Yeah, actually, they’re gonna want to see these. There’s Andrew and Eva.

David Nixon 1:19:08
Where was this taken?

Speaker 1 1:19:10
I don’t know.

David Nixon 1:19:12
Well that’s Clapp so that must be here.

Speaker 1 1:19:14
Yeah. Isn’t that something? Yeah, that’s my Uncle Bill and my Aunt Alice, my mother, grandma Eva. And Bill that’s the whole family. I was going to try to find the girls…

Josephine Skalski 1:19:35
Two grandsons and they live in Virginia. They just moved from Washington DC, they bought a house

Speaker 1 1:19:44
Is this in Poland?

Josephine Skalski 1:19:50
No. It’s right out here behind the barn. That’s right. These pictures are taken right around here.

Speaker 1 1:20:06
I’m trying to find the girls…

Josephine Skalski 1:20:11
This is my pride and joy with my son. And the twins. They’re beautiful. They live in Conway? Karla and Jared.

Speaker 1 1:20:26
There’s my dad and that must be me my mother. And I don’t know, that must be my aunt and my grandma grandmother. There’s my mother and her sister. My mom and dad, me; this is in Sunderland, the big house in Sunderland, my sister and me. Was that house still there? Yeah, there used to be a great big barn and I think they’re older pictures in here I wanna… Mom Where would the pictures be of the girls in the tobacco shop? The old album.

Josephine Skalski 1:21:10
I think probably in the, maybe it’s in one of those things

Speaker 1 1:21:15
That’s my brother Len, my sister and her husband

Josephine Skalski 1:21:23
I gotta send all of this to Sophie

Speaker 1 1:21:27
These are numerous grandchildren, my daughter one of them. This is at her wedding. I that’s not the old one I want to show you. I know you have pictures real old album one somewhere yeah, it’s black. Oh here it is here it is here it is. Okay, whose house is this?

Josephine Skalski 1:22:11
This is just the house I cut out from the newspaper; one of the homes in Deerfield.

Speaker 1 1:22:18
Are these the Jim Day girls?

Josephine Skalski 1:22:20
Oh no, these are neighbors kids remember. Remember Joe Hayden and some of these other neighbors people. And this is my sister and I, and this is a group of us.

Speaker 1 1:22:49
She cut pictures out to give to people

Josephine Skalski 1:22:53
This is Hatfield people and this here was taken down to the Yazwinski’s house.

Speaker 2 1:23:10
And these are the girls?

Josephine Skalski 1:23:12
These are the people that worked with and this is an old gent that used to work with us and, just some of us girls and some of these nice people are gone already.

Speaker 1 1:23:49
There’s no picture of Jim Day’s house in there is there?

Josephine Skalski 1:23:52
No. Some of these kids are the Wysk’s kids. And this is my brother. Lena Hayden and Anna [ [_____ski] ?. That’s my sister. That’s my mother. That’s my brother. My sister and our neighbor.

David Nixon 1:24:32
Was he in the army? That’s your brother. The one from West Virginia?

Speaker 1 1:24:39
Yes, the one that died early. Oh goodness he was because the Veterans Hospital…

David Nixon 1:24:45
Was he in any wars or did he see any…

Speaker 1 1:24:52
Ah mom, Bill wasn’t in too long was he? Bill did he ever fight?

Josephine Skalski 1:24:59
Uh, no. He was just ready to go to over cross. And the war ended so he didn’t have to.

Speaker 1 1:25:10
Is this one of Jim Day’s girls, did she live? But she didn’t live there.

Josephine Skalski 1:25:15
She lived with us down in.. Yeah. Well, she was one of the girls. Yeah. And this here Stanley Wojkewicz. Joe Hayden and…

Speaker 1 1:25:33
But mom was Mary Farrick born here?

Josephine Skalski 1:25:38
Yes, she was born in Sunderland.

Speaker 2 1:25:47
Did your mother’s sister go to Michigan? Did she say? Yeah, she’s still there. Yeah, what took her to Michigan?

Speaker 1 1:25:55
How did how did Alice find Mike?

Josephine Skalski 1:26:03
Just let me tell you how. I forgot.

Speaker 1 1:26:10
This is Alexandra

Josephine Skalski 1:26:12
We went down to visit, I guess. And that’s how it happened.

Speaker 1 1:26:16
Who did you visit the Shevitskis (?) or whatever their name? Yeah, really? You went there to visit? Yeah, you and Alice? on the train?.

Josephine Skalski 1:26:32
Course how else would we get there!

Speaker 1 1:26:35
Don’t be snotty Mom. I didn’t know that. I would have to ask their daughter.

Speaker 2 1:26:50
When you came here? Did it look so different to you than Poland did? Did the land look so different?

Josephine Skalski 1:26:59
Very much. We were just simply lost.

Speaker 2 1:27:05
Because I’ve talked to people who have come from England and they thought 30 years ago that it looked so wild. It seems so untamed. And I wondered how it looked to you.

Josephine Skalski 1:27:21
It’s very strange… just lost that’s all.

Speaker 2 1:27:31
Language, landscape. No friends.

Speaker 1 1:27:36
B-ut how about the landscape? Was it that different from Poland?

Josephine Skalski 1:27:46
Yes, because my father owned a lot of land. If he had this land over here, as he did over there, with good growing, he’d be a really rich farmer. Over there, things didn’t pay at all, you’ll know what I mean. And they couldn’t get the fertilizers like they should and all that. But the land, my father had was beautiful. Where we lived on the end of the village, and from my house there was a little well, a little river like flowing there. And so you know, all this big all these settlements in Poland, there’s a huge estate that wealthy people own and they do grow the best of things because they can afford to buy the fertilizers and things like that. And so in order to get part of this little stream or what we call a little river they exchange with my father for beautiful stretch of land. And that to my father and my brother and my father’s was the biggest one. So we really had a gorgeous land over there. And the people that the what we call the the royalty or whatever, they really grew beautiful wheat and things like that. So that’s what my father sold when we came over here. Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:30:02
That was your passage money. And that was how you got here. Yeah. Buy selling the land. Must be hard to work for yourself than have to come and subjugate yourself to somebody else.

Josephine Skalski 1:30:20
And this here is my friend Sophie Montishevi. [ ?] She lives in Sunderland. And she is blind.

Speaker 1 1:30:31
Well, legally blind. She still

Speaker 2 1:30:36
She doesn’t drive.

Speaker 1 1:30:38
Well, she doesn’t see much either. And she just became that.

Josephine Skalski 1:30:43
I have two of those for Gina…I like to send that to her some way.

Speaker 1 1:30:53
Well, we’ll take it to our someday. Yeah.

Josephine Skalski 1:31:05
No, I feel like a good for nothing old lazy old lady.

Speaker 2 1:31:11
Now you’re doing something you’re on tape. See? We have your record?

David Nixon 1:31:17
Could I just ask…

Josephine Skalski 1:31:18
I ought to be crocheting, but I’m too lazy to pick it up.

David Nixon 1:31:22
Could I ask you your permission for this tape to go to the pioneer, the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association? Can we keep this in our library?

Speaker 1 1:31:39
I see no reason why not. You should be proud.

David Nixon 1:31:42
Could we allow other people to listen to this? It’s okay. It’s okay. If you say no.
But if you don’t want other people to hear this, it’s okay. But if it’s okay for other people to hear that, we’d like to.

Josephine Skalski 1:32:03
It’s okay. They probably won’t know who they are listening to anyway.

David Nixon 1:32:08
We’re listening to Regina Boron… Bora. Okay. Mrs. Josephine Skalski. Yes. Susan McGowan. My name is David Nixon. And today is the 15th of May 1992. I’m going to turn this off.