Fraternity-Testvériség, 1981 (59. évfolyam, 1-4. szám)

1981-10-01 / 4. szám

After school there were more chores. The herdsman, Mike Toth /Toth Bácsi/ believed that the cows should be milked three times a day: 4 a.m., 11:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. Penn State agricultural experts, who often inspected the farm agreed that this method of milking was the proper way because healthier cows and more milk were the results. In addition to milking cows, there were fields to plow and plant with hay and grain to cut in season. The farm provided the meat, milk and eggs used by the home. The residents did their own butchering and made their butter using a LaValle cream separator. Cleaning it was one of the hardest jobs on the farm according to the “big boys”. The Home also tried to bake its own bread, but found it did not pay. So Danny, the horse, was harnessed to the springboard to make the trip to Vance’s Bakery. Danny almost cost Steve Dusza a leg. He threw Steve and punctured his leg with one of the spikes on his winter horse shoes. The leg became infected and Steve spent six months in bed recuperating from the wound.

Other than getting up at 4 a.m., the worst chore at the Home for the “big boys” was mowing the lawn every Saturday. Because the lawns were hilly and there were no power mowers, the boys had to push the mowers against the hill while half sliding down at the same time. The lawns had to be in perfect order for the Sunday visitors who arrived mainly from Pittsburgh on the Ligonier Valley Railroad.

Education played an important part in the life at the Bethlen Home. The elementary children went to a two- room country school called the Meyers School. A few of the older children went to high school in Ligonier. Since the Home was not in the borough, they had to pay tuition. The students at the Home competed scholastically with the “townies”. For instance, Steve Dusza won a five dollar prize for an essay on the wickedness of alcohol. The contest was sponsored by the Christian Endeavor Society. Frank Erdey, at age fourteen, won a Hungarian forensic contest at Kenny wood Park at the 1926 Hungarian Day Picnic. The trophy was in the orphanage’s museum. His wife was able to obtain it for him as a surprise gift for the fortieth anniversary of his ordination.

At the Home the children learned to read and write Hungarian. At summer school, reading, writing, religion and history were taught in Hungarian. Although the children spoke English to each other, they spoke Hungarian at the church services and when speaking to Apuka/Rev. Kalassay/.

But life at the Bethlen Home was not all work and study. As Frank Erdey put it, “We had some marvelous times.” Because money was scarce for entertainment such as movies, the children had to make do with what they had. The most popular forms of recreation were football and baseball. After completing school and their chores, the boys would practice. They challenged the town kids, and football games often became a “bloodbath”, with the Bethlen kids coming out winners most of the time. Frank

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played first base, and Steve was the pitcher, wearing a t- shirt no matter what the weather.

Another pastime was playing checkers. Rev. Kalassay liked to play checkers, but he did not like to lose. He was successful against everyone except Steve Dusza and another boy nicknamed “Big Greenie”. /He and his brother had just arrived from Europe./ Steve could beat him regularly. Many times Apuka would not let him go to bed until they had played “just one more”.

One of the most important jobs done by the children of the Home was the reconstruction of the chapel. The building originally belonged to a group of Germans whose numbers had dwindled, and the congregation was disbanded. The Home got the church free of charge, and the boys took it apart carefully board by board and rebuilt it on the grounds of the Home. The work of digging the footer, mixing the mortar and nailing on the board using the same nail holes was done by the boys. The only professional to help with job was Mr. Peterson, a carpenter from Ligonier. Sunday School rooms were added on each side of the chapel, one for the girls and one for the boys. Before the building of the chapel, the children attended Sunday School at the Presbyterian Church in town and then attended Hungarian services in the lobby of the Home. Chairs for church had to be carried to and from the dining room. While the boys were excavating the foundation for the chapel, they found a sword which dated to the French and Indian War or the Revolutionary War. After cleaning it, the sword was placed in the Home’s museum.

Another episode which caused some excitement was the time the “boys” tried to get a stubborn cow to move. Instead of trying to pull her, they pushed so hard that she broke her leg. Somehow they were able to load her on a truck and take her to the slaughterhouse. Then they went home to face the music which was a verbal reprimand.

During the 1920’s there were several men who spent their retirement at the Bethlen Home, setting a precedent for the future. One of these men was “Old Mr. Szabó”. Another, called Chico Bácsi by the “boys”, liked to hunt. Once he shot a Canadian snow owl which was a protected bird. The boys never understood why he was not arrested when he took the bird to Ligonier to have it stuffed. The bird found a place in the Home’s museum along with Frank’s trophy and the sword. As the number of retired people living at the orphanage grew, a brick building was constructed for their use over the hill near the farm house.

Even though the old wooden house was a firetrap, it survived to be torn down. There was one spectacular fire in the history of the Bethlen Home. One of the group homes on the grounds burned. Frank Erdey was the supervisor of that particular house. He remembers looking out the window during his Latin class at school and seeing “his” house burning. Luckily no one was injured. Later they found the cause. One of the boys, whose job it was to stoke the fire, forgot to close the damper and the furnace overheated and caught on fire.