Interview with Fred Ondrako

Broome County Oral History Project

Interview with: Mr. Fred Ondrako

Interviewed by: Susan Dobandi

Date of interview: 19 April 1978

Susan: Mr. Ondrako, could you start by telling us where you were born, something about your parents, and how you happened to settle here in Broome County?

Fred: I was born in Forest City, Pennsylvania May 24, 1905. I went to school in Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania schools there. My father worked on a railroad for about two dollars an hour. I mean two dollars a day and they're emigrated from Czechoslovakia. Well I never saw my grandmother or grandfather either.

Susan: A lot of us haven’t—so continue.

Fred: Well I don't know now where to go to. 

Susan: Where did you go to school?

Fred: I went to school in Forest City—

Susan: —talk up.

Fred: I went to school in Forest City to school in Pennsylvania at the No. 1 School.

Susan: How many years?

Fred: Well I just finished 8th grade then I went to work in a grocery store. I worked in a grocery store while I was attending school and from the grocery store I went a to work in a to help out in a silk mill for a couple hours in the evening and I was old enough to go to work in a in the mines in a breaker in the mines. I worked there for 10¢ an hour. That's about what I had there we a— We moved to Binghamton, NY, at 1920. I started I looked an ad in the paper, I got a job trying to sell some salves—salves and medicine which I worked there one day I couldn't make no sales and a I got a for that sale I made I come—I made that—I made that money I picked up for they sent me out for something to deliver that day when I got through there I quit that day. I got 10¢ for that one pick up there and then a I went—I went to work in a cigar factory on Wall St. in Binghamton, NY. I worked there and had a branch office at a by the theater—that theater over there—

Susan: Continue, it's all right.

Fred: I can't think of that street. I was transferred to a cigar factory up on upper Clinton St. and from there I got a job in Dunn McCarthy’s and I worked there for fifty-one years and one day and that was hard work. I a put on, I had a clock on me on my belt. There was days I walked 18-19 miles a day. I started out with 25¢ an hour and when I built myself up to 40-45¢ an hour I was the happiest man in the world. That was something that's the tops I thought I was doing good which everyone wanted to get that 45¢ an hour an average. That was something we a had slow times during the Depression and I worked about 2 or 3 days a week there made nine-ten dollars for a week for the two or three days we worked and I—I was married I had one daughter. We had a to get along with $9-10 a day (meant to say week). If it wasn't for a break from my mother-in-law, why I could never make it.

Susan: Tell us what you did as a child for fun?

Fred: When I was a youngster a boy this was when I was just a kid we used to go for in a—we used to go for strawberries first that was strawberry season we have to go for strawberries that was about a few miles out in the woods there get strawberries and then a blueberry season come in we used to go to get up I was seven years old we used to get up about 5-6 in the morning walk up the blueberry mountain there with our pails and a—a the mountain was pretty well infested with rattlesnakes there.

Susan: I was going to say that there was a danger.

Fred: There was danger there where a we went to when I'd kneel down and tried to pick some berries up I'd make sure I didn't see no snakes around and after we got through why we had to take a bath and a a take our buckets or pails about 2 ten quart pails—2 ten quart pails and take a street car it used to cost us 5¢ to go about 10 miles to try to sell them. We used to take the berries and leave them in a hotel there we asked them if we could leave them there and a we left them there and we tried to get some sales first before we went to pick and see how many quarts they want why we left them there by time we come back we there was a lot of berries missing—there was quarts of berries missing some people stole them on us we'd come back home again we didn't have enough money. My mother would say where the money was well I said, “a I don't know,” I said, “I come back there wasn't all my berries weren't there someone must have stolen them,” so then I—I got a 5¢ for all that work for going up berry mountains, washed up, take a bath and tried to sell some berries. I come back and then I got 5¢ to go to the Nickolet. About the way my parents were—

Then a when we done anything—anything wrong my parents a punish us for that. We didn't get away with anything and my father was the protector. My mother wanted to hit us but my father (chuckle) said, “No don't hit them,” after my father didn't want to so my mother hit us—hit me and she a she pushed him on the side and I really got it. We had to obey just what we were taught. We had to obey that if not we got a licking for it. We didn't get away with nothing them days.

Susan: How how about your children how did you raise your children?

Fred: And a my children I raised my children up I think pretty good. They obeyed good they listened a to what I told them then a when I gave them an allowance. I knew the allowance I was getting. Some other kid might have been getting a dollar or so over a dollar a week and I was only giving my children only 25¢ a week.

Susan: And they worked for it.

Fred: They done the work my son done the cleaning of the house when we were working me and my wife were working they a my son cleaned the house there he took care of the house.

Susan: What is he doing today?

Fred: Oh now today he's got a real job. All he went was through high school and a he got a job in Vail Ballou and a they were all picking on him stuff like that. He didn't like the way they were picking on him because they told him he was too young to have the job he had. He was a printer there that was one of the best jobs you can get in a printing place so he had a man that worked in a Vail Ballou. He was a pretty well off there and he was a big boss there so he asked him to come to Vermont to try to get him up there so he went up there for a few months. He was going up there back and forth trying to get that job. He got that job up there and a he as soon as he come up there he—he a came back to see his wife and his two children. He come back to Binghamton here and he got sick so he had been in the hospital for a few weeks there and he wasn't even working and really you know he didn't do any work in that place where he was supposed to start and they paid his hospital bill without even working over $2,000 hospital bill. Then when he came back there well he started to work and they gave him a good job, a guaranteed job. They signed him up with a contract for a job. He got a really good job out of it. The man that gave him the job up there he was a the Vice President of the company. He was the general manager and he gave my son this a job as a superintendent of the place. 

Susan: Why don't we go back a bit and tell us what you can remember about that a Mr. Kilmer’s medicine that we were talking about earlier. The Swamp Root, wasn’t it?

Fred: Yeah but I didn't work for him.

Susan: No but you knew of it when they were selling it?

Fred: Yeah.

Susan: Do you recall how much it sold for?

Fred: No I don't, think it sold for about 10¢ or 12¢ something like that. It was there I remember I got to that was in the paper advertised. I went there before that was near a someplace—near a Symphony Theater, the place near Symphony Theater—

Susan: —Symphony Theater—

Fred: —there was—

Susan: What other changes do you remember that have happened since you have been living in the community? You've been here a long time.

Fred: Oh the changes here. Ah there was nothing I knew there was street cars here.

Susan: Were you around when they had that big fire on a—?

Fred: That was just before we came here.

Susan: Just before you came here.

Fred: About 1918 or ’19, we came here in 1920.

Susan: Have you enjoyed living here in the Triple Cities?

Fred: Oh yeah—yeah and I worked hard.

Susan: Fifty one years you said.

Fred: Fifty years and one day. Well I saved everything I could to have something. 

Susan: Well you have a lovely home to show for it.

Fred: I was buying bonds there I started first a buck or two for a week then I went up—

Susan: Did you—did the war affect your life in any way?

Fred: Oh I signed up for the draft but they didn't call me.

Susan: They didn't call you.

Fred: They didn't pick my number you see. They didn't pick my number. They didn't call me. —Clears as things oh I had this place changed everything is changed here. There used to be street car tracks.

Susan: What about here on Clinton St.? Do you remember when they used to call it Russian Broadway when they had all the lights, those beautiful lights that they had?

Fred: Oh they did call it—I think they called it Slovak Blvd. or something like that.

Susan: Slovak—I always heard that it was Russian Blvd.

Fred: I think they call it Slovak. There is more Slovaks down here I think than Russians. In our church why down in Pennsylvania we started going to church in Pennsylvania. We didn't have our own church. There was a Polish church a Polish church a—

Susan: What church do you attend now?

Fred: St. Cyril’s.

Susan: St. Cyril’s.

Fred: I've been an usher for 44 years.

Susan: Forty-four years.

Fred: Yeah Forty-four years. That's a lot of years 51 and now 44 years as an usher I quit, every week every Sunday for 44 years.

Susan: That's a long time.

Fred: Yeah. Everything is—you can't think of everything that I went through.

Susan: No I realize that it is difficult.

Fred: I went through and all that stuff I saw, my God, there was, we went down there, was around Easter, Palm Sunday it was. We went by the river. We went down to play baseball. It was nice and warm already and we were playing ball and there was a little girl on the bridge must have been about 5 or 6 years old on the swings you know kind of swings with plans to cross it so she said a little girl fell off the bridge there so we started running around along the side of the river. We saw her going down. We were going to catch up with her but the water was too fast and a that was in spring see so we're looking and looking around there and pretty soon we spotted that dress was caught on oh the limb in the river there you see and that's where we found her.

Susan: And that saved her life, or was she drowned?

Fred: Oh we didn't save her and we pulled her out and then we put her on the grass there and the way she laid on that grass where her hand and thing was. That grass where she laid down that all dried up—

Susan: Strange.

Fred: The poor little girl she laid on that grass that grass all they took her away that grass was just like she was like just the way she was laying on it one arm out and we couldn't save her going too fast and we didn't find her maybe about a half an hour later but we saw her dress stuck on the limb there then we got her out that way. Quite a while, I don't know this is a sometime—a you could get going and going with this sometime you're not in order you don't know what to start where to start there are so many things.

Susan: Right—it's hard to cover a lifetime in a short while.

Fred: Oh, I got more funny things I could tell you.

Susan: Well Mr. Ondrako I—I want to thank you for giving us this time for the interview and perhaps—

Fred: Well if you want anything else I can think of different things you want me to talk about maybe we'll do it again see like—

Susan: Maybe we will when you have a little more time.

Fred: This is - all this isn't too much and oh a lot of pranks and stuff we pull off but you can't do that they don't want this on there—(chuckle). We done so many things how we used to used to have wagons buggies you delivered your groceries by wagon—horse and wagon see—

Susan: By horse and wagon. 

Fred: Yeah—their—everybody had their things behind their store there—they had things where they put their wagons and their horses in there—Halloween we'd take the wagons out—we'd take this wagon from this—this grocery store place put it in and took the other one—

Susan: —confuse them.

Fred: Turn them around sometimes we let it go down the bank—we were good boys. Oh there’s different things right sometime when you get going it's like when I was talking to you but that's different here and there a part of this and part of that. If you can get it right in rotation everything in rotation—

Susan: Right.

Fred: That's nice, that's what I was thinking of.

Susan: Well thanks for talking to us.