Edited interview with Angeline Deardorff (AD), daughter of
Joseph Puma. Conducted by Joe Manning (JM), on October 17, 2007. Transcribed by Jessica Sleevi and edited by Manning.
JM: What was your reaction when you saw the picture?
AD: Oh, it was great. I said, ‘Oh my God, he looks
like my brother. I had the chills. I never knew that my dad was that young when he went to work in the mine.
JM: What do you think about your father having worked in
the mine at such a young age?
AD:
Well, I think back then he probably had to. He was helping to support his family as well as his grandmother and grandfather,
who lived with them.
JM: Do you
have other pictures of your father at that age?
AD:
No, not until he was in the army.
JM:
What year were you born?
AD: 1933.
JM: When you were very young, was your father working in
the mine?
AD: Yes. Then he had
an accident and got carbuncles on the back of his neck. When they healed up, he bought his own coal truck and hauled coal.
JM: Did you ever go down in the
mine?
AD: No. But the trestle
was on the hill right behind our house. We used to walk up on the trestle and jump off of it. We got coal in our knees and
our elbows. It was a lot of fun.
JM:
What kind of house did you live in then?
AD:
We had a big house. We lived in half of it, and in the other half was my father's brother Tony and his wife. My father's parents
lived with us. They were wonderful. Once my grandmother took a dishrag and rolled it up and made me a little doll.
JM: Where were your parents born?
AD: My mother was born in this country, and my father was
born in Italy.
JM: Could he speak
English when he was growing up?
AD:
I don't know, but we all spoke Italian until my grandparents passed away.
JM: How many siblings did your father have?
AD: I'm not sure. He had four brothers, Sam, Louie, Charlie and Tony, who was the oldest. When I
was young, Tony was killed in a mining accident. He was buried under a cave and they never found him.
JM: Did your father go to high school?
AD: No. I think he went to the fifth or sixth grade.
JM: How many years did you live in Pittston?
AD: I was about 12 when we left. We moved to New York State.
There were 11 children in our family then. My mother's first baby died. After school, we would work on the farms. We were
like migrant workers. We were hauled all over in a truck. We went to Rushville and Cato, and eventually to Geneva, New York.
We finally found a house there and bought it.
JM:
When you moved to Geneva, did you continue working on farms?
AD: Yes, for a couple years. Then Dad got a job on the railroad.
JM: What was his job?
AD:
I don't know. He wasn't in the trains, just on the tracks. He didn't work very long there, and then he got a job at the Seneca
Ordinance. That was an army depot. He worked there until he retired.
JM: Did your mother ever go out and work?
AD: Yes, she worked in the dress factories. Then she worked at the local cabbage places where you
cut cabbage and make sauerkraut and all that stuff.
JM:
Did you graduate from high school?
AD:
I didn't quite finish high school. I got married. My husband was in the service for 20 years. And when he retired, we moved
to Spring Mills, Pennsylvania, which is near State College, where Penn State University is.
JM: What was your father like? What kind of a man was he?
AD: He was the most wonderful person you'd ever want to meet. He did everything for us. He worked
very hard. We never had any money, but we never did without anything. We had plenty of food on the table. When we were living
in Pittston, his brother Sam owned an ice cream company there. It was called the Evangeline Ice Cream Company. He had a lot
of money and a nice family, but you know what? He would have given up everything to have the life that we had. My father passed
away 10 days before his 69th birthday.
