LifeStories
...personal & family history books
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Name: Kay
Age: 93
Kay, lives in New Hampshire, has 3 children, 7
grandchildren and 4 great-grand children.
What do you remember of your hometown (in
Pennsylvania), what was it like?
...I remember my grandfather with a beard...I
remember that he had a cane with a hook on it…
I can remember him trying to catch me with
that… and I was afraid of him. I thought he was
gonna hurt me. Of course, he was a very
pleasurable man. He wouldn’t do anything like
that. But those are kind of my first memories of
being there.
My grandmother pretty much babied me, as I
look back on it. My grandfather died shortly
after we were out there. Now I don’t remember
him (being laid out in the parlor). I do remember
my grandmother, of course, she lived quite a
while afterwards. She died in 1929.
The farm was what you’d call back in those days
a “truck farm.” You know they had a route where
they sold things on the north side of Pittsburgh
(Pennsylvania) I didn’t realize when I was there
what a great farm it really was; it had many
orchards…big apple orchards, peach orchards,
every kind of fruit possible.
We had 160 or so acres of land. Big gardens,
they raised all kinds of vegetables and sell them.
And they raised chickens. They had cows and
made cottage cheese, butter. And we had cream
separators and put the milk through the cream
separator. You put the milk at the top and there’s
two spouts coming out down there…cream goes
to the top.
We had a big combination wood and gas stove
and we’d use coal in it. And we had stoves in a
couple of the bedrooms. Where my sister and I
slept was a room above the kitchen and there
was a little back stairway going up so that door
was always open and that’s the only heat we had.
In all the other bedrooms, these beds had these
coil springs and mattress was a straw mattress. A
couple times of year you’d take them out. You’d
put new straw because it was all mushed up.
And you’d put oats straw in it…that was the
softest straw. And you’d fill them up with that.
And the blanket went over that.
My grandmother in the wintertime would take
some bricks and put them on the stove and heat
them up and wrap them up in a blanket and put
them by our feet on those cold nights.
They used to have what they called “comforters.”
These are not like comforters today…these were
made out of all coats; all patched together,
patchwork things. They were thick and heavy.
Once you got into bed, you were warm enough.
You had enough of stuff underneath and your
feet were warm with the bricks. But you’d get
dressed in a heck of a hurry in the morning.
(laughs).
You’ve lived through a lot of changes in culture
and society and technology which have made the
most impact on your life?
I believe in improvements and modern things. I
say I don’t play with the computers. I say I can’t
corrupt my mind with that at this age. I believe
in things moving on, you know. Yeah, I do. I
look back sometimes and I think – what all has
happened in the years. You know I remember
when there was no TV and I remember how
excited people were about that...So there’s been a
lot of things over the years. I believe in moving it
on. If we can improve it lets do it.
LifeStories
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Jenny Wojenski
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