Alright kids, here is Poppy's life story, if you will ever be interested in to listen to it.

I was born 16th of September 1929 in Oberzemming, that's the German name for our town, which had about 900 people living at that time when I was born. The Hungarian name for the town is Felsőszölnök, and the Slav, Yugoslav name is Gornji Senik, because the three countries were coming together in that corner, that's why they, that’s why our town had all the three names. It was a really poor area over there. They used to say that it’s on the end of the world, that the Lord must have forgotten us. People were poor in town, everybody. They had the little farms. Some of them had just enough ground to grow wheat, potatoes, corn, and all different things, just to eat to survive. And we had about three cows, about three or four pigs, about ten to twelve chooks, some rabbits in the stall, and the house was a sort of L shape. Was one big room in the front. Then was another big room which was the kitchen, and there was another room behind that that was like a pantry, but was a big size, because all the wheat, the potatoes, the other grain, milk, and apple fruit and everything had to be kept in there, otherwise in winter everything would've froze and we wouldn't be able to use it.

And there was an empty shed where they used to have the carts in it, and the next one was a stall with about three cows, and a yearling, or a calf, and then the room for the woods, for the fire woods, and then there was a shed or whatever it was with the pigs in it, and the chooks on the top of that. That what it looked. And the house was, the roof was a straw roof, not tiles, made of straw. That was the area, and there was about four grown-ups at the time when I was born, and living in the house, and my older sister which was seven years old. And the main bedroom, my father and my mother, and my older sister were sleeping in the big double bed. And there was another bed on the side, my uncle Steve was sleeping in there. And in the kitchen, which was pretty big the kitchen because the stove, the cooking area, and the baking area and all was in the kitchen. And the bed in the corner, there was a like a, was also was used as the dining room, and the bed from my grandmother was in there, she was sleeping in there too. And after I was born, I had my cot there too. So, and the next one was the pantry which was all the other stuff in. And that was about it.

In summer, that was when I was already grown up more, it was good because there was always a lot of fruit trees on our property. There were six or seven different types of apples, different species, and we have plums, about three or four different species, we have about three, four different species of cherries, and pears. I think that was about it, but that was great because otherwise the food, what they cooked, I wasn't very keen on it, so I was living on the fruit from the springtime when the after the cherries until autumn. That was my favorite food.

Anyhow, when I was born, the midwife was called and then she turned up she was drunk, and the delivery was just smooth and everything, they wrapped me up and put me next to my mother in bed. The midwife went out to the kitchen to have a cup of tea or coffee or something. And about an hour later, my mother was going to have a look at me, and she said, I was all grey or sort of a greenish grey in my face. And she said, “Gee, that is something wrong, there is something wrong with the boy”, so she was picked me up, and when she got her hand underneath, it was all soaked with blood. That midwife didn't tie the umbilical cord properly. So, anyhow, they thought, they called the midwife back in and she tied it up, and they thought that I will never make it. And for about three or four days I didn't change color, I was really pale, and there wasn't much life in me. But so, somehow, I did make it, otherwise I wouldn't be here today, neither would you! :)

Anyhow, and after that, I sort of picked up, and sort of, getting better. Then, as I was growing up, I was about two and a half, oh my, my family from my fathers side, the grandmother was living there, my grandfather, I have never met him, I think he must have died before I was born. And they had five children, first was my father, then was Auntie Julie, Julia, then was Steve, no then was Uncle Joe, then was Uncle Steve, and then was Tante Mary, the five of them. And from my mother's side, I, the grandparents I met them. I met the grandmother, I remember well, but the grandfather, I think I just vaguely remember, because they were living about oh, about not quite a kilometer away from out house. And I went there sometimes with my mother when she went down there and she took me with her.

And the funny part with her family was, there was ten children in the family. Six boys and four girls. The first two, the two girls. And after that they had six boys. And after the six boys they had another two girls. Now, the oldest one was my mom, Julia, then was Rosie, and after the two girls, the parents packed up and emigrated to America, and left the two girls back in our town. So my mother and the other sis, the second girl Rosie, they where brought up with some other families there. They didn't go to America with my parents, with my grandparents. And after that when they were in America they had another six boys. The first one was Uncle Charlie, Uncle Willie, Uncle Frankie, Uncle Steve, Uncle Joe, and Uncle Johnny. And after the six boys they came back, back home, back to Hungary. And then Auntie Anne was born, and Auntie Mary, that was the tenth one. And I was always wondering, all my life, why the boys had these funny names, that I have never heard from anyone, anybody else in town. "Charlie", that was a strange name. And you know when I found it out? When I came to Australia, then, the light went up in my head. These kids were born in America, they were having the English names. But before that I didn't know anything about where these names come from.

After when they came back home, so, the family somehow got together. Well  I didn't have much to do with them really. I grow up slowly. Oh, when I was about two and a half years old my mother used to go always before I was born to seasonal work, to Hungary, where there was some of the big lords, and blokes, and lot of properties, and they used to hire people, 20, or 30 sometimes to do all the harvesting and seasonal work, and my mother used to cook for them. But while I was little, she couldn't go. So when I was about two and half years old my mum asked my father if he could look after me so she could go down with the seasonal workers to cook for them, was she always did. And my father said no, he said "I can't look after him". Anyhow, and my Uncle Joe he heard that, and he said to my mother, he said, "Julia, I will look after the boy. You can go down and cook for the people for four about four months, and whatever you earn, we split up half half, then you'll have something and I'll get something", because he was out of work too. And so Uncle Joe did look after me, for four months. And when they, when she came back home, so they split up whatever she got for the four months, and everything was fine.

But unfortunately Uncle Joe died about 3 months after when she came back home. And after he died, when they went to the cemetery to bury him, and she said she was standing next to the priest that usually goes to the burial, and when they were letting the coffin into the grave, she said I nearly jumped out of her hands after the coffin. She said she just caught me in the last minute, that I didn't jump out of her hand. And after that, they came back home again, and the first night after the funeral about middle of the night I was singing out in the kitchen because I was lying and sleeping in the cot, I was singing out, mom to come out, so she got up, she came out, and she said I was sitting in the cot, sitting up, and she said "What's up?", and I said "Uncle Joe is here". And my mother said, "No he's not, you’re dreaming". And I said, "Yes he is, can't you see him? He's standing next to the cot!" She said she couldn't see anything. She said to me "Go back to sleep, it'll be alright, yeah.” Anyhow I went back to sleep. The next night, the same thing happened. And that was going on for a whole month. And after one month, she said I never called out, and never talked anything about it anymore. So, somehow I couldn't let him go.(1)

Footnote

1 A long pause. Poppy was quite emotional at this point

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