Interview with Anne Elias 1.1

Partial Transcript: What is your name? When and where were you born?

Segment Synopsis: Anne Elias (nee Slevinski) was born and grew up on a farm in Two Hills, Alberta. Anne completed her grade 12 in Edmonton, at Victoria Composite School. Then she went to Normal School and graduated with a teaching certificate in 1940. She worked as a teacher in schools in Alberta (Beauvallon, Cooking Lake school division). Anne was married in 1946 and moved to New Brunswick where they lived for 12 years before returning back to Alberta in 1956. Upon her return, Anne finished her Bachelor of Science degree and a library certificate.

Subjects: education; life histories

Segment Synopsis: There were six of them in the family, but they lost the youngest (appendicitis). It happened when it was -30 or -40 degrees. Her appendicitis ruptured, and the mother tried to get her to the hospital by train. The train broke around Willingdon, and the child died. So, they were five children in the family: four girls and one boy. Anne was the eldest.

Subjects: cold; death; illness; siblings

Segment Synopsis: Anne describes food they would normally have for breakfast: oatmeal, bacon, eggs. There was always sufficient meat at the time, because they farmed and had their own meat. They would take sandwiches to school - they lived about two miles from school. Substantial dinners: stews, roasts.
She goes on to describe food they had during holidays: Christmas Eve (12 dishes), Easter.
They would buy the following groceries at the store: sugar, some of the meats, dried beans and peas. The mother did a lot of canning.

Subjects: Christmas; Easter; foodways

Partial Transcript: What kind of clothing did you wear?

Segment Synopsis: They were wearing clothes similar as today, but girls wouldn't wear pants/slacks. Everybody had a coat. In the summer they wore dresses sewn by the mother.

Subjects: clothing

Partial Transcript: What chores were you responsible for as a child?

Segment Synopsis: Bringing wood and wood chips was the main chore. When they grew older, they would bring coal as well. They also had to weed and all children hated it.

Subjects: chores

Partial Transcript: How was your house decorated?

Segment Synopsis: Anne describes icons (obrazy) on the walls, and calendars from grocery stores. Anne used to crochet. The mother tried to teach the girls to knit and sew but without success. The mother used to embroider, crochet, knit. They preferred reading to crafts.

Subjects: calendars; crafts; icons

Partial Transcript: Did you go to church?

Segment Synopsis: The family would go to Sts. Peter and Paul Orthodox Church. One of the priests lived in the community. They learned about Santa Clause as young children, and had stockings with an orange or candy. When they were young, Christmas was celebrated the 7th of January. Then adopted the other Christmas, and celebrated both.
Easter was always paska, and lent before then. A lot of Easter eggs making, ladies getting together to make them. The mother made them, but the girls never learned.

Subjects: Easter; Easter eggs

Partial Transcript: Did you celebrate birthdays, Canada Day, Thanksgiving, Halloween, New Year?

Segment Synopsis: Birthdays were important. Everybody played sports on Canada Day. She doesn't remember celebrating Thanksgiving. For Halloween people used to go out dressed up, going from house to house, but as adults, not as children. They celebrated Ukrainian New Year - 14th of January - going from house to house as kids, throwing wheat. They celebrated Jordan; the grandmother always had a khram in her house in July. Everybody visited. She cooked for days before.

Subjects: Halloween; birthdays; saints' days; sports

Partial Transcript: Did anyone in your family sing songs? What kind of stories did you hear or tell?

Segment Synopsis: They all sang but they were not musical. They would sing when playing around the house or fooling around. They did join choirs in school and church, but didn't really have voices. They would sing in Ukrainian at church.
The stories were mostly in English. Only grandparents would tell stories in Ukrainian. The kids who played together knew the same stories.
They would have dances in community halls. Parents didn't allow to go to dances much, if they did, there was supervision. Musicians would play violin/fiddle. They had square dances, waltzes, two-step.

Subjects: community centres; square dance; violins