This is a continuation of Mr. Bartko’s memories of Masaryktown, FL during the 1940s and 50s, before “the demise of the mom and pop farms.” We last published his memoirs of chicken farming in our May 6, 2016 issue. His parents (Otec and Matka) at one point had about 4000 chickens on their farm.
There were many weddings in Masaryktown. The celebrations (after the respective church services) were held in the community hall. There was always lots and lots of wonderful food and pastries. There were no invitations, people just came. Of course there was lots of dancing too, especially the Polka.
We spoke Slovak, had Slovak dances, performed the Beseda, a four-couple folk dance where the girls wore krojs and the guys homemade shirts sewn by our Moms as well as white pants. I don’t remember when we first started learning the Beseda but we danced for a number of years at the Community Hall on the October celebration day. We once appeared on a St. Petersburg television station when TV was very young and early for Masaryktown. Town people went to Blaha's or the Hotel to watch us because those were the only tvs in town. We were sponsored by ‘Friends Beans’ which we thought was funny. The biggest Beseda event was traveling to White Springs, staying in a big wooden hotel for several nights and performing at the statewide folk festival. I think we went twice.
It was Mrs. Lykes of the prominent shipping family that financed us leasing a Greyhound bus. She rode along with us. We also sang in Slovak at these events, My partner was always Janice Mazourek, Elaine Tokos danced with Bobby Durko, Ivan Placko danced with Mildred Seles and Lee Kasan danced with Sidney Sirucka. Jerry Psenka accompanied us with his accordian. We also had our Beseda photos in newspapers several times and at least one magazine, a Girl Scout magazine.
Mr. Buchtan and Mr. Stanik helped work on our windmill for greasing, repair and maintenance.
Otec gave me haircuts. He exchanged hair cutting with Mr. Stanik and Mr. Prachar. Otec cut mine for years and also did my shoe cobbling which I also learned to do. Sometimes Elaine cut Matka's hair.
The only air conditioning I can remember was a window unit that we got in the late 50's perhaps. Going to Tampa to the stores or the Brooksville movie was a double treat for the air conditioning. Publix was at one time, the only air conditioned store in Brooksville. Ceiling fans served to move air around in other shops. In the late 40s and early 50s I would go to the Saturday afternoon movies with Ronnie Kerna. We would stand at the Prachar’s driveway and look for a ride to Brooksville with usually someone we knew. I don’t remember how we got home.
It was a lot of fun to travel with Matka to downtown Tampa for shopping. There were vibrant downtown department stores, such as Mass Brothers. I remember, I think it was a Penny’s store that there were no cash registers for each clerk but they put a bill and money into a small sealed tube, put that into a pneumatic tube and it would travel up to a group that only handled money. Change would come back to the customer the same way. Often when Matka went shopping I would go to the movies. There were some wonderful movie houses in Tampa then.
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