(Born 1924)
Parents: Martha Rose and Kazmer Joseph Wienckowski
Siblings: Cecilia Rose and Kazmer Joseph Jr. & Gertrude Patricia (twins)
Husband: Thomas, married on March 14, 1956
Children: Gary, Denny, William (“Bill”), Vicky, Kerry
Where were you born?
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on November 5, 1924.
Did your parents tell you anything about your birthday, like what it was like for them?
Yeah, I was my dad’s girl, and I had one sister who was 13 months older than I was. Then, my mother had a pair of twins 16 months later, a boy and a girl, so there were four children in my family.
What were their names [the siblings]?
My sister—the oldest one—was Cecilia Rose, and the twins were—they couldn’t decide what to call them. In that day, they didn’t talk about having the twins’ names matched, you know, so they finally named the boy after my father. He was Kazmer Joseph Jr., and so then they named the girl (because they were born on St. Patrick’s Day) Gertrude Patricia.
But how our family started was my father came to Texas from Poland; he was 5 years old on a ship, and they landed there. He came with his family. Then, they moved to the North and settled near Pittsburgh. He met my mother then. They were married, and then, they moved from Pittsburgh 36 miles west up to Vandergrift, Pennsylvania because there were steel mills there.
We lived in the depression. My dad had two acres of ground, and we raised chickens. We had a garden, and the children had to work in the garden. We had cherry trees, strawberry bushes, apple trees; we did real well as far as eating. We always had something to eat (some food). We had potatoes and onions and everything (laughs…), and we had chicken every week. I don’t like chicken too well now… And my mother baked bread; we baked bread once in a week.
We didn’t have a washing machine until I was in 6th or 7th grade. We had a big, wooden bench, and my mother put that on the floor, put two tubs on it. We ran the clothes from one water and into the other water, and then, we had to take them outside and hang them up, and they dried. Then, we took them in and dampened them and had to iron them.
My older sister, she was my mother’s pet, so she got to do all the bedrooms upstairs (making the beds and dusting the floors and everything). But I had to work in the kitchen, and I was Daddy’s girl, so I had to work with him out in the yard (in the garden and with the chickens). We had a lot of fun.
I guess we were in our teens, and he got his first car. It was a 1929 Chevrolet. My dad got a job at the mill, so they (the mill workers) took turns driving back and forth. So he got a job at the steel mill, there. So, we were luckier than most people because he had his money from the mill and also the money we made from our—we sold vegetables and eggs. You had to when you had four kids, you know, that close.
My daddy only lived to be 41 years old. When I was 6 years old, he died, so my mother was left with four children. There was no Social Security or anything for children, but she got $250 to take care of four children. That must have been really hard. It was tough, but we made it.
We went to township schools, and we had to walk a mile and four tenths to school. (Laughs…) Then, they finally put a new road in, and they got buses for my last few years. I went to a township high school. I graduated in 1942 at 17 years old. I wanted to be a nurse, but there was no money; I couldn’t go. So I went to work at a home for unwed mothers where I could learn to do everything, but my mother didn’t have the money to support me for me to stay. You had to pay for your own room and board, so I couldn’t stay there long. But I learned a lot there, though… about the world.
We all ended up—my oldest sister got married to her husband, and he was in the Army. When WWII was up, she got married and had a little girl. Then, Bill was in an airplane; he was a ball torrent gunner, and he was shot down over the ocean. They never found him, so we lost him in our family.
So, I had been married, and I had a little boy, and my sister had a little girl older. Well, we girls decided that we’d go to work since Cecilia didn’t have any money from her husband; she had that little bit from the Army, but that’s all. My niece—she wanted to be in charge, and she wanted to do everything, so we had a hard time. But my mother stayed home and took care of them.
I went to work on the Pennsylvania railroad when WWII was on. I started out hand-trucking freight from one boxcar to the next. So physical labor? Yeah. All the young men were gone for the war, so we (the girls left behind) all had to do stuff like that. We were there until as soon as the war was over. We used to get on a bus at 6:30 in the morning and come home that night at 6:30 or 7 o’clock, so I had a rough time.
I had no fancy clothes; I didn’t go dating or anything. Mother gave me enough money to buy just clothes or jeans or something to wear, and I wore jodhpurs; I liked to ride horses, and our neighbors had a horse. I enjoyed that. It was nice. And we bowled…
For the girls, there was nothing for us to do, so at night, we’d all sit down and write—and my graduating class was 22 girls and 22 boys, so we all wrote letters to boys in the service, you know. It was exciting. Then, we’d compare notes, you know. We’d tell everybody, “This is what we told so-and-so.” (Laughs…) You know how girls are. We had a lot of fun.
But one Easter, I got six corsages! (Laughs…) My mom said, “What are you gonna do with [all that]?” “I’ll wear one to Sunday school,” I said, “and the rest of them—I’ll put them in a bowl and keep them. I just hope none of the guys shows up!” (We all laugh…) See, they were all in the service, and there were no boys around. They finally got out—worked their way out and everything—well then we used to go square dancin’ at the Moose Hall. A lot of boys had been in the service, so we used to go dancing then. They didn’t come pick us up; we just met them there. It was a lot of fun.
I never had a baby doll until one Christmastime. There was one boy that I wrote to all the time. He says, “What do you want for Christmas?” I said, “Well, I’d like to have a baby doll because I never had one,” and he brought me a beautiful, big doll with her eyes that opened and closed… He did that? He said, “What are you gonna name her?” I said, “Well, I’m gonna name her Jezebel.” He said, “Why???” I said, “Well, that’s a girl in the Bible.” (We all laugh…) I wasn’t thinking about exactly what Jezebel was doing, but I had a good time.
When I went to high school and WWII came up, guys had to go away. I had a brother and 4 or 5 cousins, and they all went to the service, but we always stayed as a big family.
In 1936, we lived near a big river, and it flowed past the mill and everything, but we lived high on a hill. My relatives—my aunt and uncle and everything—lived down in a town below that, but that’s when the big storm came up, and they had the big flood in 1936. So, they all came to our house—my relatives—my aunt and uncle. Anyway, there were 36 people in our house. 36? 36. Well, they had nowhere to… See, nowadays, they have schoolhouses and everything as places to put them, so [back then], the people were on their own. The Red Cross brought us flour; we baked bread and everything, you know. We had to put quilts and everything on the floor for us kids to sleep on, and the grown-ups slept in the beds; they took turns. We didn’t have any light because the electricity was out, so my job was to go to the filling station and get kerosene oil. I had a gallon jug (you know, you put your finger in it), and it was snowing and cold. I used to just—my daddy put a rope on it, and I took that thing and dragged it up to the filling station and dragged it back (laughs…) every other day to get kerosene. And we had some candles that we used to use when the parents were there and everything; we weren’t allowed to use them. But, we had a good time with the family.
Our family was really close. My dad’s sister had eight children. His brothers had seven children, and that one aunt lived to be 100 years old. I remember her. That’s incredible. Mm-hmm… The war took a lot of people, but when fellows come back from the war, they weren’t having big families when they got married like they did before. We still had a big family, you know.
My grandmother and grandfather on my mother’s side of the family still lived in Pittsburgh, and they used to come on a train to visit us. We’d go pick them up at the little train station, and they had a store, and he used to bring us a big bag of candy. (Chuckles.) He’d run around because we were little and give us the candy… my granddad died when I was five years old, but I remember him.
That’s when they hung flowers on the door when somebody died in the house letting them know there was a funeral in there. My dad was a soldier, so they had a military funeral for him. Then, we had to drive about 36 miles, I think, to bury him and everything, and he had a lot of friends because he gave people food. You know, our neighbors didn’t have much; we had food. Well, he would give it to them. He was a good man. He had a big funeral. After that, it was tough for my mother, but she went to work and took in washings for people and ironings. We learned how to do that, so we made it. It worked out pretty well.
And my youngest sister was married. She had four children, and she died after they were grown. She had breast cancer. When my older sister died, she had diabetes. She lived pretty far away, so we didn’t get to see her a lot, but we were still close. Still had friends… And my best girlfriend at school—I dated her brother—but she married George, and he was somehow working on a roof in the house or something. He fell down and had a concussion; he died, and she had a boy the same age as my son. She had a sister-in-law who helped her. We kind of kept the kids together, so we did alright.
I had a girlfriend who was diabetic, and we had a hard time with her because then, it wasn’t as easy to take care of her. She’d come spend the night, and we’d boil things to get them sterilized. She was allowed to come to my house. But it was an interesting life I can remember.
But you see all those pictures, there? (Mrs. Shoop shows me a whole wall filled with shelves full of family photos.) Wow… Those are all of my recent family, and I have a grandson. He’s a chef, so he was down here in July to visit me.
My husband and I are in that little picture up there (see in 1975). We were around in California. Our oldest son lived out there.
What were their names [your children]?
Gary, the oldest, ended up being in the Navy. Denny was the next one, and he’s also in the Army, I think, but he is now in a veteran’s hospital. My next one was William; he had an aneurism at 69 years old, and he left his five children. After that was Vicky, and then the last one (my little girl) was Kerry. She’s the one who put me here (at the old folk’s home). She didn’t think I could take care of myself, so… Her husband’s a pilot; they dated when they were teenagers. He’s just like one of my kids because I knew him all the time.
I had a good life. I was poor, but I didn’t know it (laughs…). I had a good husband. He worked in the mill and also worked as a salesperson. When he got older, our son William wanted to be an architect, so he took that in school (in high school, he took the drafting). Our neighbor next door—she was a teacher—gave him some of her equipment that he could use. He was doing real good; he got a job with an architect in Richmond, VA. He was doing real well, so he had a girlfriend. He married the girl that lived across the street from us! (Chuckles.) They got married, and they had a little girl, Amanda. She was my first grandchild, Amanda. Amanda was 3 years old, and they lived in Richmond, Virginia. We had a party because he [the father] was supposed to get a paper from the architect’s board.
My husband was older; he retired early. He went and helped work with Bill [the architect] in his office. All the guys that worked with Bill and my husband learned to call my husband “Papap.” One of the boys said last year, “Papap was the cutest and most efficient receptionist in the whole city of Richmond because he never missed a call, and the people liked him because he always remembered to call back. But he [my husband/ Papap] did real well, and he raised his five kids.
I’ve got one great-grandson; he’s 22, I think. And I had another one last November, so my kids are having lots of their own kids, but they’re doing real good. Nathan graduated from college in Virginia, and Amanda went to work as a veterinarian; she’s gone back to work with them now. They called her and wanted her to come back; she’s pretty good, so she likes it. She’s got a horse, and she’s got a dog. So, they’re all doing well. And of course, I can say my daughter’s married to a pilot, and he’s a captain, so he’s flying for those big airplanes. She got married, but she never had any children. So, she’s gone with him flying to the foreign countries. She’s got friends in France, Germany, Italy, and all over the world (laughs…).
The girls, Wendy, the oldest granddaughter, she works for the company Virginia, and she has five engineers in her department. She’s married to an engineer, Dennis. He’s in executive office, now. I’m really proud of them; they’ve all got something good to do. Like I said, Willy’s a chef. He helped a lady open up a restaurant. So they’re all doing good. Gary died—the one that was in the Navy. He was out in California, and he worked in… Remember when the spaceship went up, and the little sheets fell off? I don’t know. It’s been a while, but the guys were going up in space. After he got out of the service, he worked in a place where they made those things, and he got poisoned somehow. He died early. Like I said, he was in the veteran’s hospital. My son that died, he left 5 children, so they say now, “You’re the only one we’ve got, Grandmother” because all the other grandmothers are gone.
They take care of me, too; they come and visit me to see what they can do. They call me all the time.
Unfortunately, this is the time that my voice recorder goes out, but rest of the interview contains the following.
Mrs. Shoop goes on to tell more and more about her wonderful family and how proud she is of all their accomplishments. She shows that after all the tough times, her family only grew closer and closer together and that now, she knows that family has been the most important part of her life.
Some memories she describes include how she taught some of her great-grandchildren how to cook and sew and how one of her young family members even asked her to teach him how to participate in a serious “grown-up conversation.” She explains that, of course, she taught him how to do just that!
Also, she tells how talented her mother was at sewing and how her mother sewed multiple useful linens for the family and also all of Mrs. Shoop’s dresses when she was a little girl. Some of them (with the matching panties, too) were even made out of the beautifully printed chicken feed sacks, and everyone in the neighborhood (unknowingly) said that they thought that the dresses were some of the finest!
When I ask Mrs. Shoop about any traveling she’s done, she tells me how she and her husband went every single place their sons were stationed in the United States. Most of the time, she and her husband made their journeys into road trips, but sometimes, they flew.
Overall, I can tell that her precious faith and her loving family are the two most important parts of her life, and her love for people shines through as she talks to my Girl Scout leader and me. She even tells me that she was a Girl Scout leader, herself, in her earlier days. The strength and hard work Mrs. Shoop showed during the difficult times of her early adulthood definitely paid off because she made it possible for her family to expand and continue to be the tightly-knit, inspiring family that they are today. What a kind and wonderful woman she is!
Life Legacies 