Oral History Program Constantine Gus Budrukas Kathryn Mackay & Michael Mitchell 11 March 2003 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Constantine Gus Budrukas Interviewed by Kathryn Mackay & Michael Mitchell 11 March 2003 Copyright © 2012 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in Special Collections. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. 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It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Budrukas, Constantine Gus, an oral history by Kathryn Mackay & Michael Mitchell, 11 March 2003, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Constantine Gus Budrukas. The interview was conducted on March 11, 2003, by Kathryn Mackay and Michael Mitchell. Mr. Budrukas discusses Ogden’s history on 25th Street, the Union Railroad Station, and his personal experiences growing up during the Great Depression. MM: Could you state your name? CB: Constantine Gus Budrukas. KM: Mr. Budrukas, it is Michael Mitchell who is doing the interviewing and I'm Kathryn MacKay. Today is March 11, 2003 and we are at Promontory Towers on the Weber State University campus. Mr. Budrukas, we've asked you to talk about 25th Street as part of the city's project documenting the history. Would you be willing to allow our scholars to use this material? CB: Yes. KM: We appreciate that very much. MM: How important was the train depot at the Union Station for Utah's economy during the war era? CB: The Union Station. Not that important to me. Actually the house that I lived in was part of the Union Depot houses that they brought over on the back of - I was born at 140 in the rear of 25th Street - they brought the house from Union Station. Mother and Dad made a boarding house out of it, but it was an outhouse or a building from the Union Station area, the railroad. And they brought it over and put it on a foundation and then we used to board the section hands or the workers from the railroad because we was 1 only a half a block from - the 140 is in the 100 block of 25th Street and anyway, we brought the house over there and I wasn't even born then I don't think, and they brought the house. I can remember going up and down the stairs to the boarders and how they used to come down from upstairs or getting off of work and they was dirty from working all day and they worked hard in the railroad. In those days it was all manual and they would come and wash with the little spigot that was outside, out in the open air. They didn't have bathrooms; we had an outhouse for a bathroom and a place to - those men were hardy - they would wash outside with a soap on a brick, you know, and then have a towel hanging there and they'd clean up then go up and do their own cooking. KM: Mr. Budrukas, would you tell us who your parents were and tell us when and where you were born? CB: I was born at 140 25th Street and my parents came from - they were both immigrants from Greece, Argos - they came here; my dad came in 1906 and my mother came around 1915, because my sister was born in 1916, so you can tell it was only a year in time when they had a baby but they came from the old country and dad worked back to the railroad. Dad started with the railroad, I don't know if he worked for the Union Pacific or which one at that time, Ogden Union Railway and Depot or there's Southern Pacific, but it was the railroad because his clothes were so dirty from the oil. They would have to get inside an oil car and clean it personally, just go down in. Have you ever seen an oil car? They're great big long tankers like that; they had to go in there and muck them out, clean them out, in order to get enough money - they probably made two dollars a day, and then they saved enough to open up the restaurant. He wanted to get away from that oily dirt. I have some pictures. I wish I could have brought them, but dad was sitting 2 in, they'd tell him, “Come, you're gonna get a picture” and he come in that greasy overalls, so dirty, but they'd pose, you know, and he had a mustache. I have never had one before, but my dad had one, and all those old timers had. That house that we had and lived in, I'm living in and staying in a bed that all three of my other two sisters, we all, you know, bedded in the same bed and I'm living in that same bed right now, and I never throw anything away, that's why my house is such a shambles. KM: That's great, though. Should be a treasure trove of historical stuff. CB: No, everybody - you'll quarrel with my sister about, “Throw away all that junk now,” I'll say, “Your daughters will want that junk now.” KM: Mr. Budrukas, when your parents opened their boarding house, were most of the boarders also Greek? CB: Ah maybe two or three. There was Mexicans and there was other nationalities like a Serbian but there was - I can't recall - but maybe one Mexican or something like that at that time but they was a multiple types and young men, you know, that came here to work. KM: Where did your family go to church? CB: At that time the Greek Orthodox, which I am Greek Orthodox, and we didn't have a church in Ogden, and we would go at times to different meeting places. We would go to the Episcopalian Church, The Good Shepherd, and at one time my dad and a few other Greeks like the Cutrubus'. There were about four candy-makers in Ogden that were Greek descent at that time. You can't believe how many candy stores, Dokos' and the Bockas’s, they're all candy stores on Washington Boulevard; not so much down 25th, 3 but they was all candy makers. We had a coffee shop that we called Coffee Neon, which is nothing but a coffee shop, and it's a meeting place for everybody in those days that would always get together, because you had to have somebody as a friend, and to go and have coffee and talk over old times. KM: Was it mostly men who came to the coffee shop? CB: Yes, not too many women - I wish I could have got those pictures - have you gone down to that place for bagels and buns? She has a few picturesque because they also had a coffee shop on 25th and she's got them on - do you know where the bagels are? Okay, on her side she’s got some pictures similar to the ones that Dad had, and he's posing there in the old doorway, and they had the vegetables out front, just like an old country store. KM: There is an old stereotype that Greeks go in and they open up restaurants, they open up food places. CB: Yeah, food places - it's a stereotype because that's what brings you together. Even Jesus said we're going to have a commune and we're going to break bread. But anyway, back to - I don't know if I'm rambling on too much - I'm trying to think of what my train of thought was. 25th Street was nothing but restaurants on both sides. Now, have you been down there to see what they're building there on the opposite side? That's altogether different than it was in the older days. We're trying to get back to 1931 during the Depression; that's what I am, a Depression kid. I played up and down that street, and had no fear of being on the street as a kid, as nine years old or younger. The Burnetti's were across the street, and the May was an old time - that's gone now - they ripped them all down, but now they're rebuilding it, they're not fixing it up. I can recall as 4 a small boy working for Jack Wheelwright; they were ancestors of Wheelwright Lumber Company and Jack used to bring logs down from Monte Cristo, and I mean, they were logs on a trailer. Back on Lincoln and 25th Street he had a place where he'd make carry wood - he would chop up these logs, and I would help sack the wood when I was nine years old, or younger, I can't remember. I could remember getting bit by a dog and things like that, you know. KM: I want to key in on your comment - you said, “I could play up and down 25th Street and I didn't have any fears.” CB: That's right. KM: Why didn’t you have any fear? CB: The fear come later on, when 25th Street became so notorious during the war. Yet we never had the fear of - you know, of playing on the street or even playing with your boat in the gutter, going on down the water. But the kids today, everybody is stealing the kids, robbing and child molesting - we never ventured beyond 25th Street. Mom said, “You stay on this block, and that's all.” You went to the corner and back. We never went - the street we lived on above Lincoln was called Electric Alley. You ever heard of that? KM: Yes, I have. CB: Okay, that was above Lincoln and that's where the Chinese had all their lottery places and their businesses, but that was above Lincoln, and we never ventured that far - we just went around the block. You ever heard of McKesson Drug? KM: I have. 5 CB: That was on 24th Street, and we'd go past McKesson's and then come past Burton Walker Lumber, which was down there, a lumber yard, and where Utah State Transportation - I mean, where the licensing building is, that building was Pacific Fruit Company. There was a spur coming from the railroad up to the back of Lincoln, and they would furnish all the vegetables; they would bring a train. But that building is Utah Fruit and Exchange. MM How much did the fruit go for? CB: I don't know - it was a whole place, and they would bring them in with, the spur comes from, do you know where Ketcham's was, used to be? KM: My knowledge of Ogden is what I've read and what people have told me. CB: Okay, but maybe as you listen to me you'll hear something different because from everybody's mouth comes something different. I grew up with a lot of Japanese; the Sasakis and the Amatotos - have you been down 25th? Have you been walking down there, do you once in a while take a walk? KM: Yeah, yeah. CB: Once in a while, take a little walk. Do you know where the taxidermy place is? Alright, the empty lot east of that building is where we had our restaurant. Now, we called it a coffee house because dad would get up and go to work at five in the morning, and he would make maybe two or three casseroles that were big pots of food, and more or less Greek style and the workers would come and would eat whatever was prepared. Maybe at noon they would eat a dish or a piece of bread for a dollar, and you had a nice meal. All the workers would come and eat there, and he would have prepared different kinds 6 of food like stews, with Greek-like flavoring. Anyway, mother would - they said mother used to take up laundry because she had so much work to do and her clothes lines in those days was hung out to dry. They didn't have dryers and modern things; well, you figure it out. We had outhouses, two holers with the newspaper to wipe - I'm sorry. I'm sorry, but to go out there at night as kids and light a match and light a candle while you went…these are the things I remember. Mother was - they were so ambitious - she was thirty-three when she came here, and she had all her three children a short time after thirty-three years but anyway, you guys are more impressed with what I say than my stories. KM: It sounds like your mother really worked hard, doing the laundry. CB: For being about 5'3" or 4", she was a workhorse. She could work, and help dad with the restaurant, and they did all the cleaning as far as that went. Then she'd come over and do the cleaning for us kids. Then she'd build rabbit hutches - she took care of chickens back then; you wouldn't think that was all in there, in that back little tiny feet. If I could take you down 25th, I could show you where our little ranch was, but she had - we had pigeons, we had rabbits, and who took care of them? Mom, she was the one that - and she was only about this big, and her apron would - without saying that it was always there, but it was dirty. Mom you're going to have to change your apron. KM: Working hard. Let's see what Michael has. MM: Did you have to help her with chores? CB: Well, no; it helped because I was smaller. I'm telling ya, we left after my dad died, we left 25th Street and I moved to 27th Street. 7 KM: What did your mom do after your dad died? CB: She didn't speak very much English, and we was the interpreters, the kids. It's the same thing that's going on with a lot of nationalities now; the children are doing the interpreting. I'd be going with Mom, or Helen, or my sister Madeline. Then we finally got to work for ... you went to your Patriones, you went to your patriot. My sisters worked for - because my dad died - they went to work for Dokos' candy, and they would do various things in the candy company, but they got started. KM: Where did you go to school? CB: I went to - that's good - Grant School is gone now, but it was on 23rd and Grant. Grant School was in the same shape as, you might say, Hopkins and Madison; they all looked alike, all them schools did. But that was on 23rd and on the west side of the street, and we grew up with a hodge podge of kids, because they all came - Italians, Japanese.I didn't finish telling you that I grew up in - we'll call it Electric Alley, but I don't think they call it Electric Alley. It was just the rear of 140 25th Street, and the Pappas' grew up there. The Club and the Healy Hotel, they're all gone, but like I said about that taxidermy place, that was a Japanese hotel owned by Amamoto, and the building, the hotel is still there right now. It’s right to the east after the open space and that was - they were Italians - and you went a little further, then it was the Van Ness Hotel. KM: Quite a conglomerate. CB: Below the Van Ness Hotel, it burned; below that was the Piersanti's, have you heard of Pete Piersanti? KM: Yes. 8 CB: Pete Piersanti went over there in Nevada and opened up the Jackpot. KM: Right. CB: I think he passed away now. KM: He did. CB: His widow, I don't know if she's still living in North Ogden or not. KM: I think so; Leslie Piersanti was a friend of mine, so I do know who you're talking about. CB: Okay. Piersanti's lived downstairs in the hotel and they had a little – ah, I don't know where their restaurant was, but beyond that just a couple of doors was the Morocchis’. Danny Morocchi was very popular in those days because they was baseball-oriented. All the kids that knew how to play baseball would hang out at Danny's. It was a grocery store, and anyway, I can remember one Mexican kid - like the Mexicans now are good at playing baseball, and in those days, the Ogden Reds came later, way later than I'm talking about. KM: Did you play stickball in the streets? Did you play baseball in the streets? CB: Oh, we as kids - you don't see that any more in the alley where I lived. You had a Japanese kid, and a couple of Mexican kids, and Reuben - they was the Jewish kids that had a tailor shop right above the City Café. Reuben and those guys; well, we called them Jewish people, but we never had any problems like everybody is so bigoted today. KM: But did you all play baseball together? CB: Yeah, in the back, and the field was just small, but we had a bat and we had a ball - but we played in an area not bigger than this room, which was in the alley. Actually, those 9 people were on the perimeter of - across the street, I'm trying to think of - the Union Station, and they was all crabtrees on it, and we would go over there a lot and play. Now they're trying to duplicate it, but they ripped out all the trees they used to have in the old days. Across the street was Ketchum's, that's where the Sasakis - the Japanese had little boarding houses, and when you went to the back of it, that's where our baseball park was, and every night they would wet it down because it was so dusty, you know, squirt it with a hose. God, I can't stop talking. KM: Did you ever go to Greek school? Was there a big enough community to go to Greek school? CB: Yes, and before we'd go to Greek school I used to go wait for the Japanese kids - the Japanese kids had Japanese school, and it was on Lincoln Avenue, and it was right across the street from Burton Walker Lumber - that's all gone now. It was adjacent to Smoot Lumber, and also where Wheelwright Lumber was. I wanted to go see Lyle Wheelwright, maybe he's still living. KM: Who else do you think we should interview in the Greek community, that you think would be helpful? Families that you knew in that area? Can you think of anybody else? CB: Ah - Mary Kajonness, because she can remember a lot, and she's really good at - I would recommend her. And if you wanted to get ah a little bold, Cutrubus'. Jim, do you know Jim? KM: No; I know who he is, though. CB: He's quite a talker, but he's also retired from the Cutrubus clan. Those guys, I'm not going to say much about them, because they were all ambitious and they all became 10 salesmen, and now they're pretty good friends of mine. The brothers all grew up with me. The dad I knew well, and his name was Gus also - all Greeks are named Gus. KM: Was your father named Gus? CB: No, he was Peter. KM: What was your mother's name? CB: My mother's name was Euphrosyne. KM: Euphrosyne. MM: What does that mean? CB: Ah - no name; ah I make one...what's the name of George? It was just a name, Euphrosyne, but I think it comes from effervescent or - but they called her Frosa for short. But like I had told you before, she could take a counter and make a rabbit hutch out of it, and put screen on it, and raise a hundred rabbits - but rabbits multiply like mad. MM: Yeah, yeah. CB: And I've eaten rabbit, you know, when I was a kid. The flavorings of rabbit is good, it’s just like chicken if you season it… KM: What other questions do you want to ask, Michael? MM: Actually, I have one that came to my head. You said you were a Depression kid, right, so how did the Depression affect the economy of 25th Street? CB: Quite a bit, because everybody was in the Depression during the 30's. My dad died in ’31, and we bought the house in ’34. Can you believe that in the Depression mother could have bought two houses for $3,500.00? Not $3,000.00 - $3,500.00 - two houses, 11 and the house we're living in now was bought one house for $3,500.00, and now they're - that's how blatant the Depression was. You could buy - you worked for, during the Depression, for one dollar a day. I finally worked for Clix Swaner. KM: Oh. CB: You go see - Clix is dead now; he was a hundred and three. If you ever want some of the pictures, go see Clix Junior, his son, Dr. Swaner. KM: Oh, great. CB: Now, his son is a doctor also, a psychologist, and they live on - you know where he lives. But anyway, I go see Clix all the time, and we grew up together with his dad. Talk about a memory that if you'd ever talked to Clix, the old man. KM: I heard he was quite famous for his stories. CB: Oh yeah, well, we would - like we're talking now, only he would go on - you can't get away for two or three hours. Look at all of his pictures, you go on and look at his pictures, of all of 25th Street; he's got some good ones. He got away from 25th, more or less, and went up on where the Kimball Motor was, and all of them places. He worked with a coal company and things like that. KM: Was your first job, did you say, was collecting kindling for Wheelwright? Or was your first job working for your family, your parents? CB: Well, I was too small to be working for my parents - maybe if I helped, it was around the yard. I have some pictures of my - we called the house we lived in the Acropolis. See, that's ancient, and we called it the Acropolis. But then, to live in the alley, we even had a fence around it and made sure - you're talking about security in those days - made sure 12 that door out there was closed at night. Every night when you come in, that door was shut from the inside with a drop board or something, you know, but it was in the alley, and we had all these neighbors like the Piersanti's and the Pappas', and you went on down, and then there was the Reuben's, and we had the Van Ness', Richard Van Ness. I remember hanging around the alley of Richardson's - was it Richardson's or Davidson's? I don't know where I left off KM: Well, I was asking you about jobs you had as a child. You worked for Wheelwright, but what other jobs? CB: Oh - that was when I was younger than nine, to work for him, because those were the things I remember; sacking wood. In those days, you had to have kindling to start your stoves, and that was good for him. He worked hard to get the wood from Monte Cristo, to bring the timber down, and then chop it and sack it and then deliver it. The kindling was maybe a foot and a half long to about the size of your finger, and that machine dunk, dunk - would chop it perfectly. I wish you could talk to some of the Wheelwrights boys about their Grandpa. KM: We'll have to do that. CB: Well, if you can, to verify what I say - I don't want to tell you a bunch of lies. KM: Well alright, we appreciate you telling us your story. Michael, do you have one more question and then we'll finish? MM: One of the major things that I was wondering was, what could families do on 25th Street? Because it seems more of it was for the people who came for the train station, or to work for the train station, where they could stay. So I was wondering what families 13 could do on 25th Street besides restaurants. Were there places where you could go to hear music? CB: If music it would be in, ah ... did you ever hear of AnnaBelle Weakley or have you heard of Porters and Waiters Club? KM: That was down near the train station too - isn't that building still standing? I think it’s Porters and Waiters. CB: Yes, the building is still standing, and they're building all them wood structures right next to it. KM: That's right, right next to it. CB: And that's exactly across the street from The Club, and The Club was a hangout for the farmers to come in and have a beer, like the Mecca was, further up 25th Street, you heard of that? KM: I have heard of that. CB: Okay. The Mecca was up next to Keisel Avenue, but more or less the women were housewives...they had to take care of the kids and do the laundry. The Porters and Waiters Club was just what it says. The porters from the railroad started up a club for them to get together, and later on they used to play music, and all us guys were coming up, we was then in our teens, and we was goin’ down to the Porters and Waiters Club because they played jazz. You ever heard of McQueen? KM: I have. Joe McQueen? 14 CB: Yes. Well, he was my neighbor. He lives on Grant now, but I talked to Joe the other day. Well, they had saloons, and 25th Street was maybe - you had thirty or forty saloons and a place to eat, you know. MM: Could the women, were there a lot of women? Or was it mostly just men? CB: No, ah they had...like you're trying to find out about the den of iniquities. I used to wait for AnnaBelle Weakley, she was the – madam, you might say, and then the Rose Room, which was up on Lincoln, on the corner. It's a restaurant across the street, but that was a Greek people - their name was Cosmos - Katherine Cosmos, but I don't know what her married name is now. But where there's a Mexican Restaurant now, and they sell Menudo mostly, that's a soup - Mexican soup made from tripe -if you ever want to try some. Mike, you'd be no good from eating that stuff, but the Greeks have a similar soup that we eat on Easter Night (and it's coming up) and it’s made from the entrails of sheep, more or less, but it’s seasoned real good, so you can't tell unless your mind works on it. Then you know... I call it Gassoupa. MM: Do you still hang around 25th Street a lot, do you go down to 25th Street? CB: No, I don't. There's nothing down there now. The barbershop down there by The Club is Angelo's, I think. KM: Right, now the coffee shop. That's the coffee. CB: Right, and as I remember it, it was Guyon's Coffee Shop was down there, but Guyon’s was mostly donuts and coffee. But they made, the Guyon’s Coffee Shop was a national, and they made real good donuts. That was in the Amamoto Hotel Building, right where 15 that taxidermy shop is now. He's fixed it up real nice; that's beautiful, if you go in and look at it. If you guys don't have any more questions? MM: One more. My other question would be, what do you think they should do with 25th Street? CB: Well, I think they're doing the best they can right now, and a lot of people mention the tunnels - I don't recall any tunnels. KM: No. CB: Myself - if there was anything, you could talk to another, but he's an immigrant that came later on - and that’s Gus Churnis. He's got below Marion Hotel now, there used to be a Greek that had the Marion Hotel Restaurant, and that was in the Marion Hotel. It’s name was Serandos, but just below that the Cutrubus’ had the Utah Cigar Company. Below the houses there may have been cellars, you might say. ‘Course all the ladies had cellars. KM: Sure. CB: And if they wanted to join the next one to it, then maybe that would be a tunnel, but you'd want to see a door to the next one below you or above ya, but I don't recall any, because I was too young to remember that kind of stuff. KM: We sure appreciate your time today. CB: If I'm going on too much, you slow me down. KM: We think we've asked you what we wanted to ask - maybe we could do a follow-up interview with you some time. 16 CB: Yeah, if I can - don't want to repeat myself; I'll try my best to find those pictures. I had some of Dad's where they used to go - in the older days they would hitch up the horses and their buggies, and in those days over on 24th Street they used to have blacksmith shops where the horses would come and be shoed, or do anything. Those places were where Bartholomew Photography is, and right next to it is a Jack's Blacksmith Shop. I've got a thermometer hanging on the wall that says Jack's Blacksmith Shop, but anyway you go around that one block, which was something for me, ‘cause I was just a little kid - I'm eighty-one now. KM: Well, good story. We thank you very, very much CB: I hope I got all of your questions asked, because most of yours were for the railroad, wasn't it, and how they relate to what I was doing or what my people, what the people on 25th were doing. Well, you had the Marion Hotel and they were hoteliers and and right below it was a Greek guy that would have a little truck and the people would get off the railroad and they had their trunks. In those days they had big trunks - I got some trunks at home that are yea big. They're steamers, and this guy would put them in his truck and deliver them to wherever you wanted off the railroad. They was big trunks. He would hang out in front of the City Café, which was just next door to the hotel, but that was his job, just to do a deliveryman, like Mollerup or somebody like that. Maybe that's how they started, you can't tell. MM: How much did board go for, do you know? CB: Well you can still see signs on the buildings - about two dollars a night for a room. Like on the side of the Marion Hotel, and the Becco sign above - you know the Becco sign that they - do you know what Beccos was? Beccers Beer was started by the Beccers 17 people and they started the Beccers Company and the Prohibition came by, and you could only have Becco Beer, which was near beer, no alcohol - you've seen O'Douls and that, haven't you? Well, they had that in them days, but it was called Beccos because they extracted the alcohol out of it, and it was during Prohibition. I lost my train of thought. KM: He had asked if you knew how much your folks charged for their boarding house. CB: It was less than a dollar a night, a day, and they would rent – ah, by the month, you might say, or pay by the week. I never did get into my mother’s finances, as to how much she charged - maybe she let them stay free you never could tell in those days. They didn't have that much money, and they worked for a dollar or two a day, that's all and then to have a boarding, and how do you eat for a buck, you know? KM: Pretty hard, pretty hard. CB: Yeah, they had a rough life. KM: Well, we really appreciate it very much. 18