In this third column, Susan Kovach Nemith Hinkle, a former excellent student of this writer, takes us back to life in Northampton as Ethel Kovach Nemith, her late mother, recalled family life in Northampton during the 1920s and ’30s.

Born March 1926 to immigrant parents Andrew and Zuzanna Kovach of Czechoslovakia, Ethel Kovach Nemith was the youngest child in the family. She was born eight years after her sister Madeline, who was highlighted in previous articles.

Here are Ethel’s memories of her small-town America experience:

My mother and father were married in Europe in 1904. Andrew came to America to make some money and planned to return to Czechoslovakia, but there was good work here and he decided to stay. In 1908 he sent for his wife and daughter, telling Zuzanna to sell everything and use the money for passage to America. All possessions would have been lost anyway during the pending war.

Andrew told of being in the Army in Europe under Franz Joseph’s Austro-Hungarian empire. He was released early since his mother was a widow and he was her only son.

My father worked for the cement mills - at the Lawrence as a quarry laborer and later at the Atlas as a night watchman. During World War I, they were enlarging ABE airport, and he worked there for a time, helping to build the runways. He worked for the Central Railroad of New Jersey as well. And briefly, he worked at the Phoenix Forge, which still exists in North Catasauqua.

He never drove or owned a car, so he walked to all his jobs. With all his jobs and being furloughed from the cement mills, he never received any pension. In his elder years, he was grateful for the Social Security he received.

I do not remember playing with my sisters or brother. They all seemed married all my life. I grew up with my nieces and nephews - their parents, my siblings, being 15 to 18 years older than me. I only remember Madeline and her friends taking me to swim at the “dam” nearby, which was on the Atlas property.

Mother was a good baker. She made strudel, the paper-thin kind. She would stretch the dough until it was the size of the square kitchen table. She also made homemade noodles and cut them by hand. She could cut faster than a machine and never cut her finger.

There was a water pump on our back porch, from which we got cool water in the summer. When it rained, Pop would let the gutters wash out, then he would reroute the pipe from the gutters into the cistern under our back porch. Mother would put a cloth bag that salt came in onto the pump to filter the water. We had no refrigerators then, so no ice cubes, but the water stayed cool in the cistern.

The cistern exists still today, although it has been closed. The floor of the enclosed back porch covers the cistern, which has 2- to 3-foot-thick concrete walls. We know this because in the late 1950s, my husband Charles tried to get through the wall from the basement to make a bomb shelter. He never could get through the thick wall.

We had an ice box that was used to keep milk and meat cold to prevent spoilage. The ice man would bring a big square of ice with his pinchers and put it in the ice box. As soon as the ice man went in the house with the ice block, the neighborhood kids would scramble on the back step of the truck and grab the small pieces of ice left behind. That was a real treat on a hot summer day.

Come spring, it was housecleaning time.

First, Mom would wash her curtains and put them on curtain stretchers which had many, many needles on them. This was done to make the curtains stand straight when dry and hung on the windows.

Then the living and dining room rugs were hung on the outside wash lines to air while the rooms were cleaned from top to bottom. We would beat the rugs with a rug beater to eliminate all the dust.

That done, it was time to move the coal stove from the kitchen area to the pantry. Pop, his sons-in-law and neighbors would help. Moving the coal stove kept the heat away from the rest of the house in the summer when used for cooking. This was air-conditioning at the time. It was a tedious job, but his was one of many daily tasks people had to do in the 1920s and 1930s.

Old-fashioned irons always sat on the coal and wood stove, ready for ironing. During World War II, these irons and other old metal were collected to make guns and ammunition for the war. There were also food and gas rationing books used, as a large amount of food was needed for the troops overseas.

No one had time for bad nerves with all the work to be done. Yet they knew how to relax in the evenings.

After supper, all the neighbors would sit on their front porches on swings attached to the ceiling. With no televisions, they talked back and forth across the street or front yards. We kids would play hide and seek or kick the tin can (when we could find one). Soon, it was dark and time for bed.

In the summer, we would use the outhouse. We were busy playing and did not have time to run to the upstairs, indoor toilet. The flowers, which grew very well around the outhouse, drew bees. We had to make a mad dash to and from the outhouse so we would not get stung.

Summertime provided fresh fruits and vegetables. A farmer (huckster) would come around, and all the ladies in the neighborhood came out to buy his produce and eggs. One farmer came to town with a horse and buggy. We had hitching posts in front of our houses so they could tie their horses to them while selling off the back of the buggy.

People never had much garbage. We never owned garbage cans. Mom recycled even before anyone knew about recycling. Pop dug a hole in the garden for vegetable scraps like potato peels. Mason jars were used over and over again for canning. There were no tin cans to throw away. Feathers plucked from chickens or a goose for dinner were cleaned and used for pillows or feather-down comforters. Since there was no heat upstairs in the house, the comforters kept us very warm in the winter.

Mom would invite her lady friends over to tear the gathered feathers in preparation for pillows or comforters. They could not talk much or the lightweight feathers would fly about the kitchen. A simple dessert was made for the ladies. It was field corn (or horse corn) cooked all day on the stove. By evening, it was soft and Mom added sugar and nuts or poppy seeds.

Pop would get ready for winter by getting railroad ties.

Railroad ties were regularly replaced and the old ones were piled on the railroad banks. These were not chemically treated ties like today.

He would carry as many as he could in a homemade wheelbarrow. At home he took to the task of sawing them down to a size that would fit into the coal and wood stoves.

The three tracks through Northampton were Central of New Jersey. The trains handled major cargo of hard coal to the Lawrence, Atlas, Whitehall and Coplay cement mills. Large quantities of cement were then carried back from these mills.

The Atlas cement was taken to New Jersey ports to be shipped to the Panama Canal building project.

Back then, railroad crossings were manned at 21st Street and 17th Street, providing work for multiple men around the clock.

When I was very young, Mom would cut cabbage and put it into a crock. She would wash my feet and have me stomp it down to make sauerkraut.

In the winter, Pop would buy half a pig and butcher it on the kitchen table. The fat was cut into small squares to make cracklings (something like the pork rinds we can buy in a grocery store today).

The pig intestines were washed and used to make kielbasa (garlic sausage). The sausages were hung on a rack in the attic for the winter. Pig lard was used for cooking and baking.

Shutters on the windows were not just for show. They were closed in the winter to keep out the cold and closed in the summer to keep out the heat.

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Next time, more of small-town life in Northampton and excursions by train.