Family Concoctions

A page from one of my many scrapbooks.

I am one who does not like to spend much time in the kitchen if I can help it. I love to eat, but would much rather enjoy someone else’s concoction. About ten years ago (2005), I found an envelope filled with my maternal grandmother’s recipes that she copied by hand. Mary Sarna GABUZDA loved to cook. Her husband, Steven Andrew GABUZDA, was a butcher, in the small town of Freeland, Luzerne, Pennsylvania. The Gabuzda Meat Market was located at 899 Centre St. (corner of Centre & Chestnut) right across the street from St. Anne’s Catholic Church.

Mary Gabuzda with her daughters 1986

I came up with the idea of putting together a cook book of family recipes and started earnestly on it; but, as we know other circumstances can interfere. To my delight, another cousin had the same, yet “different” idea. She contacted our aunts, her four daughters, for family recipes, to include with our grandmother’s recipes. 

On the first page of her family recipe book she states my identical intentions, feelings and memories. Thank you, Maureen.

“This recipe book is for my mom, Marion Denion and my aunts, Irene O’Donnell, Martha Cooper and Beezie Clapper and for all the Gabuzda offspring. When I think of my mom and her sisters, I think of women who love to laugh, especially at themselves. I’ve always enjoyed listening in on their conversations...

“In my memory, my grandmother is always in the kitchen preparing food. We spent many Easters, Thanksgivings and summer time visits with her in Freeland, Pennsylvania. At the end of these visits, she lade us with food for our trip home... 

“In her later years she loved to collect recipes from many sources - her daughters, magazines, her neighbor, Anna Stunz, and the radio... She would sit in her kitchen listening to “Alice” read recipes on the radio. She would copy them down until she heard an ingredient she didn’t like, then she would scratch out the recipe and turn off the radio. She also got recipes from magazines she read at the hairdresser. She wouldn’t tear them out, but would memorize them and write them down when she got home. Wow! While these are the recipes of the Gabuzda sisters, it is obvious their mother is the 

main contributor.  

Maureen Gray 

September 2005”

I am so thankful my cousin, Maureen, caught the cooking gift from my grandmother and collected our family recipes. We are both into scrapbooking and quilting. 

Check out Maureen’s blogs. One on quilting and the other on the farm life. 

Pursuit of Quilts - http://pursuitofquilts.blogspot.com/

Glen Almus Farm - http://glenalmusfarm.com/wp/

I will post some of grandma’s recipes from the “old country” and even the “newer ones” she picked up that her grandchildren and great-grandchildren still enjoy today. Here are two for a start. See above. Enjoy!

I visited east coast families during the summer of 2012. Maureen and I share our current projects.

Mary Irene Sarna 1894-1991 Part 2

Life After Stephen

After the death of her husband, Stephen A.  Gabuzda in 1966, Mary Sarna GABUZDA continued to live in the huge home that her husband built back in 1915. Her seven adult children “kept an eye on her,” by visiting her on a regular basis. They would also pick her up and take her to visit their homes throughout the east coast from Pennsylvania to Virginia. 

During the summer of 1967, Mary took a Greyhound bus with daughter, Beezie and grand daughter, Gail, to Norfolk, Virginia to visit Martha. I found a letter that my mother, Martha, wrote to her mother-in-law, Sophie Piña COOPER describing in great detail her mother’s visit. She writes, “I kept them quite busy with sightseeing; but learned that this is not what my mother enjoys doing. She enjoyed her day at the beach the most and her big thrill was wading in the Atlantic Ocean - her first time.”

“I took them down Cape Hatteras to Manteo to see The Lost Colony, also a trip to Williamsburg. Beezie and Gail throughly enjoyed it. Mom decided she had had enough traveling and refused to go to Pennsylvania Dutch country with us…so we took mom home to Freeland.” I am sure Grandma was glad to be back in her home at age 73.

The summer of 1968, my family moved out to California. We drove up the east coast to visit relatives knowing it would be awhile until we would see family again.

It was not until the summer of 1975, that my family took a trip back to the east coast to visit relatives. We started in Maryland seeing her two sisters, Beezie  and Marion. We drove up to Freeland, to pick up their mother, Mary, so she could stay with her daughters for a few weeks. One of our visits included Arlington National Cemetery to visit my father’s gravesite. I remember seeing a large crowd in another section with areas blocked off.

Asking about it, we found out that President Ford was at the cemetery that day. My grandmother was delighted to be able to shake the president’s hand. She did not wash her hands for days. 

I thought we had to have taken some photos with our cameras of this trip. Unfortunately, I have yet to find them. But, I remember the proud look on my grandmother’s face for many days after this event.

With my membership with Newspapers.com, I was delighted to see that this story was reported in my grandmother’s local paper, the Standard-Speaker of Hazleton, PA. Aug. 14, 1975, page 18, accessed 16 June 2015.

Years later, in 1982, the corner at 899 Centre St. was sold. The new owner converted the location into three apartments with two in the upper level. Notice the front porch is still there. (By 1999, the porch was turned into a garage.) Mary was taken back to Freeland to visit friends and her "home." The tenants were kind enough to let her inside see how each had been converted to new residences. She was satisfied and thankful.

Mary would live with four of her children for three months at a time until 1990.

In 1984, her family celebrated her ninetieth birthday with her at Irene's home in New Jersey.

Happy Birthday, Mary!

My next trip to the east coast was in 1987. We saw her at Beezie's home and later when she was transfered to Marion's place. We also visited other family and places during this visit.

She also started crocheting to keep those hands active. One Christmas, my mother and I received a set of six covered hangers in two different colors. We still use them in our closets. I recently found the picture of her in action with the crochet needle. I bet her son, George, made the wooden stand to hold the hanger up for her. Great idea!

Mary still loved to cook for her family. I will be sharing her favorite recipes in future posts.

Ninety-six year old, Mary died 14 Feb 1991 in Woodberry, New Jersey, while Irene was reading Valentines orally to her. She was buried with her husband, Stephen Gabuzda, in Drums, Luzerne, Pennsylvania. 

Stephen A. Gabuzda 1885-1966 Part 7

Remembering My Grandparents

Mary and Stephen Gabuzda celebrate their 50th Wedding Anniversary.

The Gabuzda brothers, Stephen and George Gabuzda made the decision to split their meat market and farm business in the start of 1933. George took the Glen Almus Farm and Stephen kept the brick store at the corner of Centre and Chestnut Streets of Freeland, Luzerne, Pennsylvania.

All three of Stephen’s sons helped out their Pop in the store throughout the Depression. This included, his eldest George, who put off going to Villanova at the end of the decade on a football scholarship graduating with a chemical engineering degree in 1942. Eddie, below, works at arranging fruit in the store window.

With the start of World War II, all four of the Gabuzda families in Freeland, Luzerne County and Mahanoy City, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania,  had sons or daughters who went to war or served at home as soldiers, sailors, airmen, or nurses during the war. George used his chemical engineering degree from home. Eddie worked as a nurse overseas in Burma and after the war also obtained a degree in chemical engineering. Steve, Jr., served in the famous battle of Remagen. Martha, my mother, 

graduated from Mesicordia Nursing Hospital in 

Philadelphia in 1944 and joined the Navy Nurse Corp and served for the next five years on the east coast. 

Stephen Gabuzda and Mary Sarna became grandparents with their first grandson born in 1939. All together they had sixteen grandchildren born between 1939 to 1966 (one born after his death). Photo to the left is Mary and Stephen proudly posing with their first granddaughter born in 1944. Photo to the right shows their first two grandsons in front of the Gabuzda Meat store at 899 Center Street in Freeland.

During the 1950s, son George helped his father renovate the store which included a new butcher meat refrigerator seen on the right. Stephen, like other small local business, began to feel the effects of competition from larger supermarkets coming into town, like A & P and Acme. His business, like others, went “down the tubes.”

The Gabuzda family had a family reunion on 23 June 1962 celebrating the 50th wedding anniversary of their parents. Mary was privileged to hold her first great grand child, her son’s Steve Jr.’s grandson, as seen to the right. 

It was held at oldest son, George's home in Hometown, Pennsylvania. All seven adult children with their families were in attendance. 

Original photos in author's possession.

Seven granddaughters pose for the camera.

Stephen was diagnosed with bladder cancer three years later. He also lost functioning of his kidneys the following year. 

I remember our family driving up to Pennsylvania from Virginia several times the last six months of his life with my parents helping out the best way they could for Martha’s parents. 

My father does a “fake” nap with his father-in-law, Stephen, on a Sunday afternoon. This is a very special picture, seen on the right, in my memory as my father died six months after my grandfather.  

Stephen A. Gabuzda died on Friday, 22 July 1966, at St. Joseph’s Hospital, following a surgery three weeks earlier at the age of 80.

His daughters said that as he lay in his hospital bed he told them some of the stories of Slovakia and his journey to America that they had never heard before.

His viewing was held at the local Petrilli Funeral Home. His funeral was the following Monday, July 25. This was the first family funeral I attended. It was held with a mass at St. Ann's Auditorium since the church was being renovated at the time.  I remember seeing him in his open casket. It frightened me and I started crying uncontrollably. This followed with most of the people in attendance crying with me. 

He was buried at Calvary Roman Catholic Cemetery in Drums, Luzerne, Pennsylvania. 

Stephen’s sons were not interested in taking over their father’s business. Stephen’s nephew, Andy HAZARA, mentioned in a previous post, was given the family recipes for the kielbasa, bacon, and sausage. These meats are still made by Andy’s daughter with special orders throughout the year.