My Babba-luka!

Babba was my maternal great-grandmother who migrated to the US from Austria in the very early 1900s. Born Katerina Schaffer (the spelling varies throughout history), she grew up in Galacia, close to the Russian border.  Her journey across the Atlantic was apparently so strenuous that it caused her hair to fall out and, although she was young, it grew back white. Babba and my great-grandfather, Felix Burtick, had 13 children who were raised in a coal miner's house on a hill in Coal Run, Pa. My nan, Anna, was the oldest girl.  

When my Aunt Helen, wife of my Uncle Pete Burtick, passed away, one of our cousins, Brenda, took us back to Coal Run and showed us around. For some reason, I had memories of Babba living in a grand Victorian house but the fact is that it was a small two-family house. Her side of the house had 3 rooms downstairs, two upstairs and an actual bathroom with plumbing.  Her daughter, Mary, wasn't as fortunate because she lived lower on the hill and had an outhouse.  

My mom, Stephanie, said that when she and my nan would visit, all her first cousins would come over and spend the night. There were a lot of them,  so I can't imagine where she put them all? I remember staying in Babba's house in the 1970s and sleeping in the most comfortable feather bed ever with my sisters. We must've been allergic to the bed because we usually woke up thinking we were blind because our eyelashes would be stuck together.  My mom would hear us crying out and put wet washcloths over our eyes until they became unglued.  

Babba didn't speak much English. She and all her children spoke Ukranian, especially when we were around.  I remember going into the kitchen that was filled with my great-aunts and the smell of some of something delicious cooking on the stove, and asking Babba to make me a bologna and ketchup sandwich.  I was met with a look of horror as Babba stood like a stork next to the sink.  After making something else for me, I was swatted from the kitchen so all the ladies could continue chatting and gossipping. 

One of the biggest adventures during our vacation was going to the spring for the freshest water known to man.  On one particularly hot summer day, with jugs in hand, we joyfully made our way to the source of this cool, delicious beverage when I had the misfortune of walking into the path of a large busy bumblebee as it buzzed from one wildflower to another.  This plump fellow must've noticed how chatty I was and saw it as an opportunity to examine a human child's tonsils, so flew into my mouth.  Once inside, the insect no doubt felt threatened by my uvula and decided to pierce it with its javelin-like rear end.  As I screamed, the black and yellow knight flew out of my mouth and left me in tears on the side of the road.  We eventually made our way back at Babba's where I was consoled and given permission to have all the cherry ice pops I desired - for the day.  

Babba and her family went to this beautiful Orthodox Church which was close to their home in Coal Run, PA.  

(http://www.pbase.com/tconelly/image/49380288)