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prosveta
Official Publication of the Slovene National Benefit Society
PERIODICAL MATERIAL
YEAR CIII
IMPERIAL, PA., WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 25, 2010
ISSUE 17
Getting
DOWN
to business
2
PROSVETA
www.snpj.org • [email protected]
August 25, 2010
PROSVETA
(ENLIGHTENMENT)
(USPS 448-080)
(ISSN 1080-0263)
The Official Publication of the
Slovene National
Benefit Society
247 W. Allegheny Road
Imperial, PA 15126-9774
Phone: (724) 695-1100
Toll-Free:
1-800-843-7675 (THE SNPJ)
Fax: (724) 695-1555
e-mail: [email protected]
web site: www.snpj.org
Editor:
Jay Sedmak
Associate Editor:
Kimberly Gonzalez
Subscription rate is $8 per year for non-SNPJ members in
the United States (Fla. subscribers, please add 6 percent
sales tax). Canadian and foreign subscriptions, $50 per
year. Advertising information available by contacting our
office. Material concerning the official workings of the
Slovene National Benefit Society is given publication
priority. Unsolicited manuscripts returned only if a selfaddressed, stamped envelope is enclosed.
Postmaster: Send all address changes to:
PROSVETA, 247 W. Allegheny Rd.,
Imperial, PA 15126-9774
(Issued biweekly on Wednesday)
(Periodical postage paid at Imperial, Pa.,
and additional mailing office.)
SNPJ National Board
Executive Committee:
National President..... Joseph C. Evanish
National Secretary.......... Karen A. Pintar
National Treasurer... Robert J. Lawrence
Correspondence received at:
247 West Allegheny Road
Imperial, PA 15126-9774
Finance Committee:
Chrm.: Joseph P. Cvetas — 356 Golfview Road,
Unit 602, N. Palm Beach, FL 33408
Robert Lawrence, Secretary
Joseph C. Evanish
Kenneth Anderson — 2400 Derby Road, Birmingham, MI 48009
Roger C. Clifford — 102 Lang Rd., Sewickley,
PA 15143
Supervisory Committee:
Chrm.: Phyllis Wood — 9519 Evergreen Lane,
Fontana, CA 92335
Vincent Baselj — 1001 Grandview Ave., Apt.
903, Bridgeville, PA 15017
Louis J. Novak — 6308 Highland Rd., Highland
Heights, OH 44143
Stan Repos — 1255 McCaslin Rd., Imperial,
PA 15126
Joseph M. Grkman Jr. — P.O. Box 584, South
Park, PA 15129
Regional Vice Presidents:
Edward Kuzma, Region 1 — Box 217, Tire Hill,
PA 15959
James L. Curl, Region 2 — 503 Orchard St.,
Carnegie, PA 15106
Nancy Koutoulakis, Region 3 — 4321 Beverly
Dr., Aliquippa, PA 15001
Dorothy Gorjup, Region 4 — 23760 Farringdon
Ave., Euclid, OH 44123
Tracey Anderson, Region 5 — 1014 Edgewood
Dr., Royal Oak, MI 48067
Justina Rigler, Region 6 — 1116 Berkley Lane,
Lemont, IL 60439
John Zibert, Region 7 — 284 N. 200 St., Arma,
KS 66712
Fred Mlakar, Region 8 — 13592 Onkayha Cir.,
Irvine, CA 92620
Work smarter, not harder, this Labor Day
D
by JAY SEDMAK
SNPJ Publications Editor
oes anyone out there still celebrate
Labor Day? I don’t mean the cramit-all-in-before-autumn-starts Labor
Day we’ve become accustomed to over the
past three or so decades; no, I’m talking
about the real Labor Day – the annual celebration marked by people parading through
the streets, heads held high, waving banners
that proudly show their affiliation with some
particular group of organized labor. Does
that Labor Day even exist today? And here’s
an even better question... what happened to
Labor Day?
Oh, sure, we still take a day off every first
Monday of September to celebrate the holiday, but here in the 2010s, which will likely
come to be known as “the Age of Instant
Gratification,” Labor Day doesn’t seem to
symbolize much more than a Monday off.
But Labor Day must have meant something
entirely different to our parents, and even
more so looking back to our grandparents
and great-grandparents.
We live in a world now characterized by
rapidly-advancing technology, government
bailouts of virtually every corporate sector,
and a nearly complete collapse of the global
economy. What a contrast, indeed, to the
world of a century ago, when Labor Day
was still a relatively new holiday, or even
50 years ago, when organized labor was
celebrating its heyday. To our forebears,
“advancing technology” meant a new machine at work, or maybe the newest models
rolling off the assembly lines at Chrysler,
Ford and General Motors in Detroit. “Bail-
out” referred to something that had recently
flooded; the shop floor in the mills along the
Monongahela or Allegheny rivers, perhaps.
And “global economy?” It pretty much goes
without saying that the words “global” and
“economy” were rarely used in such close
proximity even a mere 50 years ago.
While half a century is a bit before my
time, not too awful long ago I can remember
my father imploring me to work smarter,
not harder. Although his words of wisdom
have since become a trite tagline for some
time-management or software company (I
can’t remember exactly which at this point),
they left a lasting impression on me. Dad
was asking that I think a little before diving
headfirst into the task at hand. Watching me
SEE LABOR DAY SMARTS
ON PAGE 29
Up-and-Coming...
A look at events planned by the Slovene National Benefit Society
• AUG. 29......... Cleveland Lodge 142 annual picnic and 100th anniversary
dinner dance at the SNPJ Farm,
Kirtland, Ohio. Dinner served at 2
p.m., dancing to Jeff Pecon at 3:30
p.m. For details phone Dolores
Dobida at (440) 943-5559.
• AUG. 29......... Mikey Dee’s Polka Picnic
at the Evanstown Picnic Grove,
Herminie, Pa.; 1-7 p.m. Music by
Mikey Dee and the Polka Quads.
For details contact Mary Ann Bebar
at (724) 668-7394.
• SEPT. 5.......... SNPJ Farm Board picnic at
the SNPJ Farm, Kirtland, Ohio;
dinner served at 2 p.m., music by
Dan Peters 3:30-7:30 p.m. For
details phone Joe Blatnik at (440)
943-1191.
• SEPT. 12........ Westmoreland County
Federation Polka Picnic at the Evanstown Picnic Grove, Herminie,
Pa.; 1-7 p.m. Music by Jim Rhoads
and Larry Placek. For information
contact Mary Ann Bebar at (724)
668-7394
• SEPT. 18........ Remezo/Kumer Golf Tournament hosted by Universal
Comets Lodge 715 at Mill Creek
Golf Course, Boardman, Ohio. For
details phone Marty Kumer at (412)
856-8791.
• SEPT. 18........ Midway, Pa., Lodge 89 annual picnic beginning at 2 p.m.
Food and refreshments will be
available, along with dancing and
door prizes. For information phone
the Lodge hall at (724) 796-0285
and ask for Denice or Tom.
• SEPT. 19........ Friends of the Farm picnic
at the SNPJ Farm, Kirtland, Ohio;
dinner service beginning at 2 p.m.
with music by Don Wojtila from
3:30-7:30 p.m. For more information contact Joe Blatnik at (440)
943-1191.
• SEPT. 19........ Annual Grape Festival at the
Evanstown Picnic Grove, Herminie, Pa.; noon-7 p.m. Entertainment
will feature Frank Stanger, Silver
Sky and the Herminie Button Box
Club. For additional information
contact Mary Ann Bebar at (724)
668-7394.
• SEPT. 26........ Slovenian Grape Festival
and parade at the SNPJ Farm,
Kirtland, Ohio; dinner service
beginning at 2 p.m. with music by
Joey Tomsick from 3:30-7:30 p.m.
For additional information contact
Joe Blatnik at (440) 943-1191.
• SEPT. 26........ Vlatka Zgonc’s Slavic Folk
Festival at the Evanstown Picnic
Grove, Herminie, Pa.; noon-7 p.m.
Over 200 entertainers. For details
phone Mary Ann Bebar at (724)
668-7394.
• OCT. 3���������� Conemaugh Valley Federation annual dinner dance at Aces
Lounge, Chestnut St. in Johnstown, Pa., beginning at 2 p.m.
Admission $16 per person. Music
by the George Suhon Silver Sky
Duo. For details contact Ed Kuzma
at (814) 288-1876.
• OCT. 16.......... Universal Comets Lodge
715 annual luncheon banquet
at Palmieri’s Restaurant, Plum
Boro, Pa.; 1-5 p.m. For additional
information contact Ann Evanish
at (724) 693-8739.
• OCT. 24.......... Pancake & Sausage Breakfast at the SNPJ Farm, Kirtland,
Ohio; breakfast served 9 a.m.-1
p.m. For more information contact
Joe Blatnik at (440) 943-1191.
• OCT. 31.......... Samsula, Fla., Lodge 603
Halloween party at the Lodge 603
hall beginning at 6:30 p.m. For additional information contact Sheryl
Lauck at (386) 846-4479.
• OCT. 31.......... Herminie, Pa., Lodge 87
Harvest Dance at the Lodge 87
hall ; 2-6 p.m. Music by the Frank
Stanger Band. For additional
information phone Shirley Bailley
at (724) 864-1606.
• NOV. 4��������� La Salle, Ill., Lodge 2 visit
with members in nursing homes
following the regular monthly
meeting.
• DEC. 4��������� Chicago District Federation
annual childrens’ Christmas party
at the Slovene Center, Lemont, Ill.;
1 p.m. For details contact Marianne
Murray at (773) 582-2632.
• DEC. 13......... La Salle, Ill., Lodge 2 luncheon at 4 Star Restaurant, Hwy
80, Peru, Ill.; 11:30 a.m. For details
contact Eleanor Kuhar at (815)
883-8983.
ON THE COVER: The town of Idrija, Slovenia, home of the once-productive Slovenian mercury industry and the birthplace of PROSVETA
Slovenian Editor Vida Kosir. Idrija, one of the few places in the world where mercury is found naturally in both its
elemental liquid state and as cinnabar (mercury sulfide) ore, is a historic mining town that serves as the ideal
backdrop to our annual Labor Day issue as we explore the ties between SNPJ and America’s immigrant miners.
PROSVETA
www.snpj.org • [email protected]
August 25, 2010
Celebrate the 71st National SNPJ Days at
the Recreation Center Labor Day weekend
by KEVIN RICHARDS
SNPJ Fraternal Director
IMPERIAL, Pa. — The Fraternal Department and the
Recreation Center invite all SNPJ members to the Recreation Center over Labor Day weekend as we celebrate
the 71st National SNPJ Days.
The weekend will kick-off Friday evening, Sept. 3,
beginning at 8 p.m. with a welcome party in the Gostilna featuring Dan Klanica. Make sure you arrive early
to enjoy the evening entertainment.
Saturday, Sept. 4, starts early as our golfers arrive
at Bedford Trails Golf Course to compete in the 65th
National SNPJ Golf Tournament, which will begin with
a shotgun start at 9 a.m. We have a special hole-in-one
prize of $5,000 on one of the par-3 holes. There will be
many nice gifts to win as well and, of course, all golfers
are eligible to win door prizes donated by our vendors.
The golfers will return to the SNPJ Recreation Center for dinner at 4 p.m.; door prizes will be awarded at
4:30. The opening rounds of the SNPJ National Balina
Tournament will also be played Saturday morning at
the Recreation Center balinarena.
The Reverse Raffle banquet will take place in the Alpine Room Saturday evening. For only $100 per couple,
guests will enjoy beverages, a buffet dinner, dancing
and an evening of prize drawings. Remember, you must
have a ticket for this adults-only banquet.
The SNPJ National Balina Tournament finals will
start at 9 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 5. The SNPJ National Horseshoes Tournament will begin Sunday at 9 a.m., and the
National Beanbag Toss Tournament will begin at 1 p.m.
Starting at 1:30 p.m., the National SNPJ Days Golf
Cart Parade will begin at the upper pavilion and proceed through the trailer court to the new pavilion, the
location for the National SNPJ Days picnic. This will be
a free dance for all members, so come help the Society
celebrate National SNPJ Days. Crowd-pleasing entertainment will be provided by the Joe Grkman Orchestra
and Ansambel Dvojčki as they share the stage from 2
to 8 p.m. A pig roast and barbeque will begin at 2 p.m.,
and the snack bar will be open. Food will be available
for purchase in the Gostilna all weekend as well.
An inflatable obstacle course will be set up for children and those young at heart. The Fraternal Department is also planning many activities for children during the picnic; these activities have been a favorite of
our young members for many years.
Be sure to bring the entire family to the SNPJ Recreation Center during Labor Day weekend to share in
the fraternal spirit of National SNPJ Days. Entry forms
for all National Tournaments played throughout the
weekend are available on our web site, www.snpj.org,
by phoning Fraternal Director Kevin Richards at 1-800843-7675, or by e-mailing [email protected].
ANSAMBLE DVOJČKI will share the stage
with the Joe Grkman Orchestra during the
71st National SNPJ Days picnic Sunday,
Sept. 5, at the SNPJ Recreation Center.
Picnic admission is free.
Think you can polka? Contest qualifying
concludes Aug. 29 at the Recreation Center
by TIM JERGEL (782)
SNPJ Recreation Center Director
BOROUGH OF SNPJ, Pa. — Your last chance to
qualify for the Sunday, Sept. 26, championship round
of the “So You Think You Can Polka?” contest is fast
approaching!
The Frank Stanger Orchestra will bring the summer
sizzle for the final qualifying round Sunday, Aug. 29,
beginning at 3 p.m. in the Alpine Room at the SNPJ
Recreation Center. All winning contestants will be invited
back to compete for the 2010 title.
Do not delay! This is your one remaining chance to
enter the “So You Think You Can Polka?” contest. Come
one, come all; put on your polka shoes and dance!
Greetings and Best Wishes
from the officers and members of
LODGE 1 - SLAVIJA
Chicago, Illinois
President Edward R. Hribar
Recording Secretary Marion Kieras
Vice President Conrad Novak
Sgt. at Arms Marianne Murray
Secretary/Treasurer Janina Hribar
Auditors Marion Kieras, Emma Cleveland and Florence Rogel
3
DENISE HERRON
SNPJ Marketing Department
Life Insurance
Awareness Month
S
eptember is Life Insurance Awareness Month
(LIAM). Throughout the month the insurance industry will be raising the public’s awareness of the
value of life insurance by telling real-life stories about
celebrities and common folk whose lives were changed
when a mother or father died unexpectedly. Of course,
we all know similar stories about friends and family, and
how either having or not having life insurance affected
their life.
LIAM points out that life insurance has been in existence for over 200 years. Many things have changed
throughout those 200 years, including the dynamics of
the family. But one thing that has remained the same is
the importance of family, and the need to provide protection and financial security for our loved ones.
This year has been particularly difficult for many families since the recession has caused most to stretch their
money even further than before. Finding the money needed to pay for an insurance policy can sometimes seem
impossible, but that’s exactly why having life insurance
is especially important right now. If you are experiencing
tight financial times now, you can only imagine what your
family would experience if you were suddenly taken away
due to an accident or unexpected death.
Without sufficient insurance on yourself, you stand a
chance of leaving your family vulnerable and in a very
grim situation. Sixty million Americans have insufficient
insurance coverage, and if they pass away the survivors
will be left with a very different life. To cover funeral costs
and everyday expenses, they may need to take on an
extra job, borrow money, sell the house, or dig into retirement or college education funds.
Don’t let that happen to your family. Review your current life insurance, and if you are in need of more coverage, find a way to stretch your resources just a little bit
further. SNPJ has competitive life insurance products for
all ages. Please call your Lodge secretary, local agent or
the SNPJ Marketing Department at 1-800-843-7675 to
learn how SNPJ can help secure your family’s future.
• Thought for the Week — Success
has nothing to do with what you
gain in life or accomplish for yourself. It’s what you do for others.
Labor Day
Greetings
from
Nancy Koutoulakis
Region 3 Vice President
Danny Thomas
Labor Day
GREETINGS
We take pride
in the labor for
our families,
our communities
and our country.
Moderns Lodge 634
Sheboygan, Wis.
4
PROSVETA
www.snpj.org • [email protected]
August 25, 2010
Home Office closed
for Labor Day holiday
IMPERIAL, Pa. — The SNPJ Home Office will be closed Monday, Sept. 6, in observance of the Labor Day holiday. Normal office hours, 8 a.m. until 5 p.m., will
resume Tuesday, Sept. 7. We wish all SNPJ
members and friends a happy Labor Day.
Reveliers look to jump
start Lodge 33 activity
AMBRIDGE, Pa. — Join us for the next
meeting of Reveliers Lodge 33 at noon on
Saturday, Aug. 28, at Appennini’s restaurant, 199 Park Road in Ambridge. I’m looking forward to seeing many of you there
to help us plan our new and exciting fall
outing! We’d like to get our Lodge on the
move again, and you can help us do that.
Questions can be directed to Lodge Secretary Chris Petukauskas at (724) 869-0530.
CHRIS PETUKAUSKAS
Lodge 33 Secretary
Sept. 4 meeting slated
for Moderns Lodge 634
SHEBOYGAN, Wis. — Moderns Lodge
634 will hold a meeting Saturday, Sept. 4.
The meeting will be held at 1 p.m. at the
home of Lodge Secretary Yvonne Lavey.
We will discuss future meeting dates and
locations. We hope to see you there.
YVONNE LAVEY
Lodge 634 Secretary
Holiday forces meeting
change for Lodge 138
STRABANE, Pa. — Due to the Labor Day
holiday falling on our regularly scheduled
meeting date, Lodge 138 will hold its September meeting Monday, Sept. 13. The time
of the meeting remains 7 p.m.
BOB LAWRENCE
Lodge 138 Secretary
Fun for all promised at
Midway Lodge 89 picnic
MIDWAY, Pa. — The Midway Lodge
89 annual picnic will be held Sept. 18 at 2
p.m. Plenty of fun for the whole family will
offered, including music, dancing, door
prizes, food and Slovenian pivo. For more
information, phone the Lodge hall at (724)
796-0285 and ask for Denice or Tom.
Denice Beccard
Lodge 89 Secretary
The next two PROSVETA issue dates are
Sept. 8 and Sept. 22. All material must be
received by Monday, Aug. 30, for the Sept.
8 issue, and by Monday, Sept. 13, for the
Sept. 22 issue. If you are running short
on time and concerned about making the
deadline, try faxing your submission to (724)
695-1555 or e-mailing [email protected].
Nomination procedures
start for local elections
Ljubljana (STA) — The official start
of activities related to the Oct. 10 elec­tions
in Slovenia recently kicked off, including
nomination procedures. Parties and independents have until Sept. 15 to register candidates for mayor and city councillors.
While candidates may be registered with
local electoral commissions, those wishing
to stand as independents are able to collect
signatures in support of their bids.
To be eligible to stand for a council seat,
non-party candidates need the backing of at
least one percent of the voters who turned
out in the last election in the electoral unit.
The minimum and maximum are set at 15
and 1,000, respect­fully.
Those wishing to bid for mayor need to
collect even more signatures; the number
should equal at least two percent of the
turnout in the first round of the last mayoral
election in the municipality, but not less
than 15 or more than 2,500.
There are no such requirements for
candidates registered by parties. They are
fielded according to their internal regulations, but candidates need to be picked in
a secret vote.
Some high-profile candidates have already announced their bids. The incumbents
in the biggest three cities — Ljubljana, Maribor and Celje —will stand for re-election.
Slovenian car parts firm to
produce coils for Ford
Bovec (STA) — A subsidiary of Slovenian car parts maker Iskra Avtoelektrika
has launched production of ignition coils
for U.S. car maker Ford, creating 20 new
jobs in the process. Iskra Bovec was selected for the job by German industrial
conglomerate Robert Bosch, business daily
Finance reported.
The first stage involves producing over
one million dollars worth of coils a month
for Ford, but the number will be halved
once coils are also produced at Ford’s plant
in Brazil.
The partnership with Robert Bosch also
involves producing over $17 million worth
of coils a year for German car maker Audi,
with production slated to begin in April
2011. If that deal goes through, another
35 workers will be hired, according to
the company’s boss, Mitja Gorenšček.
Gorenšček also said this was a milestone
for the firm, which had previously supplied
mostly spare parts but is now producing
OEM parts.
The company shared the investment
costs with Robert Bosch, financing its part
(roughly $262,000) with loans after its
request for state aid was turned down.
from the
source
Over 130 WWI bombs
found in Lake Bohinj
Bohinj (STA) — Over 130 unexploded
mines were recovered from Lake Bohinj,
a popular tourist destination in northwest
Slovenia, in early August. The mines had
been in the water since 1917, when an
Austrian train headed for the Isonzo front
derailed into the lake.
According to Darko Zonjic, head of the
National Unit for the Removal of Unexploded Ordnance, all mines were buried
under nearly eight inches of silt and posed
no danger to swimmers or animals.
There is more unexploded ordnance still
in the lake. “But if it remains untouched, it
is not a threat. It is best to leave it alone,”
Zonjic said. Like its cargo, the train is still
in the lake.
Bohinj Mayor Franc Kramar said the
municipality decided to call in the Administration for Civil Protection and Disaster
Relief after learning from the media that
two mines had been found in the lake. Zonjic
said it was clear that someone had been
digging on the bottom of the lake, which
could confirm a rumor that the bombs were
moved into shallow water with the intent
to cause panic.
None of the mines found were close to
shallow areas or posed a threat to people.
The mayor stressed that Lake Bohinj
remains clean and safe to swim as the
mines are buried under the silt and pose
no danger.
Courses in Slovenian are
increasing overseas
Ljubljana (STA) — Interest for learning Slovenian in the U.S. and Canada seems
to be growing. Currently, some 550 people
are taking Slovenian language courses in
the two countries, National Education Institute senior counselor Danica Motik said,
marking the end of a seminar for teachers
of Slove­nian.
Saturday Slovenian schools in the U.S.
and Canada are being set up by Slovenians
and their descendants. While the people
they find to teach are not necessarily teachers by profession, they are offered training
through various courses and semi­nars. One
such seminar was just recently organized in
Slovenia with 12 teachers from the U.S. and
Canada attending, Motik explained.
An important goal of the seminar is
to bring these people to Slovenia where
they have contact with the lan­guage and
the people, she pointed out. They also get
some practical advice on which textbooks
to use and how to use them.
In the U.S., there are currently 25
teachers of Slovenian while 250 people are
taking the courses. In Canada, the number
is slightly higher with some 30 teachers
teaching 300 students.
A participant of the seminar, Francesca
Koncar, who teaches Slovenian in Canada,
said she decided to take the job because
generations of Slovenians had lost contact
with the language and culture. For a while,
the Slovenian courses were so popular that
they were held on Wednesdays as well as
Saturdays.
Minister for Slovenians Abroad Bostjan Zeks said at a press conference that
preserving the Slovenian lan­guage abroad
is very important for Slovenia. In many
parts of the world, Slovenian is becoming
increasingly popular, suggesting that the
trend started after Slovenia gained independence in 1991.
Half of Slovenian adults
admit to avid gambling
Ljubljana (STA) — Nearly half of all
adults in Slovenia gamble regularly, and online gambling is fast gaining in popularity
according to a survey commissioned by the
Foundation for Financing of Humanitarian
and Disabled Organizations.
Nearly 44 percent of all adults play
games of chance at least once a month, an
increase of 8.4 percentage points over last
year’s survey, while four-fifths gambled at
least once in the past year.
Loto, the state-run lottery, remains
the most popular game of chance, but the
survey found that people increasingly turn
to the internet, especially for betting on
sporting events.
Gamblers spent $248 a year on average,
but those who said they used foreign online
sports betting sites said they had spent $478
on average.
The survey, which was carried out by
pollster Gideon and included 1,080 respondents, revealed two distinct groups of
gamblers. Those who play mainly classic
games, such as lottery or use the domestic sport betting provider, spend around
$210 a year on average. Meanwhile, those
who use mostly foreign betting sites and
frequent area casinos spend an average of
$365 a year.
The Foundation for Financing of Humanitarian and Disabled Organizations
disburses lottery proceeds and a share of
gambling taxes among sports associations
and humanitarian organizations.
The articles comprising this feature have been
reprinted with permission from the Slovenian
Press Agency (STA).
PROSVETA
www.snpj.org • [email protected]
August 25, 2010
Circle 19 has plans
for bowling season
Consul Generals
Share Sportsmanship
Honorary Slovenian Consul General Emeritus Mark Ryavec
(786) [right] enjoyed a light moment with Fox Sports International
anchor Alejandro Luna [left] and
South African Consul Etienne
van Stratten at the final World
Cup matchup of Spain and the
Netherlands at the Regency Club
in Los Angeles July 11. Over
230 diplomats, business leaders and soccer fans attended the
luncheon event on the 17th floor
of Murdock Plaza to watch Spain
defeat the Netherlands, 1-0. The
event was sponsored by Ryavec’s
Los Angeles Consular Press
Organization, the Los Angeles
Consular Corps, the Los Angeles
World Affairs Council and the
South African Consulate General.
by Karen Brumbaugh
Youth Circle 19 Director
STRABANE, Pa. — Calling all Youth Circle
19 Bowlers! Summer is almost over, which
means we will be gearing up for bowling season. Dust off those bowling balls and shoes,
come see some old friends and maybe make a
new friend or two starting Saturday, Sept. 11.
The three-game league will begin at 11 a.m.,
and the one-game league will begin at 1:30 p.m.
For additional information, phone Circle 19 Director Karen Brumbaugh at (724) 745-3412 or
e-mail [email protected].
Hard work laid the foundations for
Samsula Lodge 603 and its membership
by JEANNETTE HUMPHREY
Lodge 603
SAMSULA, Fla. — Happy Labor Day
from Lodge 603 in Samsula, where the
sun shines bright most of the time! Like
all areas, we have cold, hot and rainy
weather, but no snow. We labor as much
as we can to keep our Slovenian heritage
in tune, and our Lodge is usually filled
with activity. We appreciate all who come
and support us.
We’ve changed the dates of our Florida
Slovenefest to Feb. 25-27, 2011. This
change will allow you celebrate with us
at our Lodge, stay for the week and enjoy
our state, then attend Florida SNPJ Days
at Lodge 778 on the west coast! We always
have great talent lined up for our weekend.
So far we have Ron Luznar and his Polka
Pals from Samsula, the Marc Bouchard
Orchestra from Daytona Beach, Fla., and
Tony Klepec from Sarasota, Fla. Our
main man this year is Bob Turcola and his
orchestra from Ohio and Florida.
We’re always reminded how hard
our grandparents and parents worked to
provide for us, and how they made sure
to enroll each of us into SNPJ. We strive
421 N. Samsula Dr. • (386) 428-3983
Just outside New Smyrna and Daytona
Join us for Slovenefest in Samsula!

good food

good drinks  good prizes
performances by:
Ron Luznar
by Tony Biondi
Lodge 6 President
SYGAN, Pa. — SNPJ’s new sales director,
Bud Paladino, will be in attendance during
the next meeting of Sygan Lodge 6, scheduled
Tuesday, Sept. 14. Lodge 6 members who have
any questions regarding SNPJ insurance or annuity products should attend this meeting.
Also during this meeting, discussions will be
held regarding the separation of the club from
the Lodge beginning in January 2011. We have
been advised that this separation must be made.
In December, separate elections will be held for
Lodge officers and club officers. Club bylaws
must be written and approved before that time.
Any members interested in participating should
attend this important meeting.
For fun, family
and friendship, join us at
Orange Coast Lodge 786
in Orange County, Calif.
Arnold Koci, President
Fred Mlakar, Vice President
Jean Koci, Secretary
[email protected]
good fun
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Tony Klepec
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Bob Turcola
to carry on their Slovenian and American
traditions, and encourage others to join our
great Society. SNPJ was formed in 1904
and Lodge 603 was chartered in December,
1926, with John Pleterski Sr. as president.
We dedicated our Lodge building July 4,
1941. It was a happy day in Samsula.
Lodge 603 President William Benedict,
Vice President James Pleterski, Secretary
Mary Ann Reichel, Recording Secretary
Anna Lou Luznar, Treasurer Ruth Benedict and Sgt. at Arms George Benedict, as
well as all Lodge 603 members wish each
of you a happy Labor Day!
Sygan Lodge 6
brings a full slate
to Sept. meeting
Wishing everyone a great
Labor Day weekend!
Happy Labor Day
from Lodge 603
good music
5
Tony Klepec
NEED A JOB?
Lodge 603 in Samsula, Fla., is looking for volunteers to help with cleaning, painting,
maintenance/repair and landscape/beautification jobs. Come on down if you’re interested.
We’re always happy to welcome members, and we’ll always cherish the members we have!
Labor Day Greetings
from the officers & members of
Keystonian
Lodge 87
Herminie, Pa.
6
PROSVETA
www.snpj.org • [email protected]
August 25, 2010
Lodge 138
Sunday league
looking for
female bowlers
greetings!
Golden Eagles
Lodge 643
Girard, Ohio
by PEGGY CUSHMAN
Lodge 138
Lodge 53 honorees [from left] TONY SADAR, ROBERT IPAVEC, HELEN SOSIC, HENRY
SKARBEZ and JENNIE POGRAIS [seated] were recognized during the July 18 V-Boj
Lodge picnic at the SNPJ Farm.
The dance floor heats up at
the V-Boj Lodge 53 picnic
by PAULINE BARBISH
Lodge 53 President
CLEVELAND — The early morning fog was
burning off July 18, the day of the Lodge 53
picnic. The hustle and bustle started at the
SNPJ Farm in Kirtland, Ohio, around 6 a.m.
with the making of krofe. Work continued
throughout the morning, preparing food for
the picnic attendees. It became apparent that
the day was going to be nice and sunny, but
the temperature of 90 degrees was a bit much.
All in all, we had a great turnout with about
270 passing through the gate.
The Jeff Pecon Orchestra started the afternoon festivities by strolling the hall and
grounds, taking requests before heading to the
bandstand. Even with the heat and humidity,
the dance floor was filled with happy feet.
In attendance were some of this year’s
Lodge 53 honorees. The five honorees who
attended the picnic were given recognition
and introduced to the audience. They were
presented boutonnieres and a photo to commemorate the occasion, and each received a
complimentary dinner as did their guest.
Recommender coupons were passed out
to all members with hopes of seeking new
membership for our Society.
Future V-Boj Lodge 53 events include
a Halloween party Oct. 24 and our annual
Christmas party Nov. 28. More details will
follow.
Lodge 53 thanks everyone who helped in
any way, and all those who attended the picnic, making it a success. Until next time, take
care and continue having a great summer.
Greetings and Best Wishes
Frank Novotny, President
Richard Paitl, Vice President
Dolores Novotny, Sec./Treas.
Carmella Smidl, Rec. Secretary
Evelyn Paitl, Sgt. at Arms
Auditors Carmella Smidl
Evelyn Paitl
Edward Kovack
from the
Officers and
Members of
Delavec Lodge 8
Cicero, Ill.
Uncle Sam wants your
money... and it’s up to you whether
you pay now or pay later.
STRABANE, Pa. — It’s hard to believe, but
summer will soon be a memory and all of
SNPJ’s fall activities will be in full swing,
including the bowling leagues. The officers
of the Lodge 138 Sunday Women’s League
in Strabane invite all women within the
Lodge to join the league for the 2010-2011
bowling season.
Our league will bowl Sunday evenings
beginning at 6 p.m. at the lanes in Strabane.
Play will begin the Sunday following Labor
Day, so this year’s first week will be Sept. 12.
If you’re interested in enjoying an evening
out with your fellow Lodge members while
bowling in a league setting, contact league
President Brianna Askew at (724) 344-9554
or Secretary Peggy Cushman at (724) 344­0981. Teams will be forming soon, so be
sure to give us a call if you’re interested in
becoming a member.
Labor Day
GREETINGS
from the
officers & members of
Excelsiors
Lodge 721
Aliquippa, Pa.
LABOR DAY
GREETINGS
Lodge 138
Strabane, Pa.
President RICK HERVOL
Vice President ALBERT PAUL
Secretary BOB LAWRENCE
Treasurer BEVERLY PABIAN
Rec. Secretary COURTNEY PABIAN
SNPJ now offers Roth IRAs in addition to our
regular IRAs and annuities to help build a safe
financial future for you and your family.
We’ve helped build secure futures for our
members for over a century.
Circle 19 Director KAREN BRUMBAUGH
Phone 1-800-843-7675 and we’ll
be happy to help you too.
Setting the Standard for Membership and Activity since 1910
PROSVETA
www.snpj.org • [email protected]
August 25, 2010
7
Loyalites member honored by
the Slovenian Workmen’s Home
by JOHN J. WOJTILA
Lodge 158
Fraternal Farewell to a Dear Friend
On Aug. 6, a group of friends gathered in the Gostilna at the SNPJ Recreation Center
to celebrate the retirement of Recreation Center Secretary Judy Germani (715). Sis.
Germani was recognized by former Recreation Center directors JoE Cvetas (787) and
James Curl (6), and Recreation Center Operations Director Susan Krispinsky (277).
Labor Day
Greetings!
Labor Day Greetings
Cleveland Federation of
SNPJ Lodges
President Joe Valencic
Vice President Dick Tomsic
Secretary Sophie Matuch
Treasurer Pat Nevar
Rec. Secretary Agnes Turk
Auditors Dorothy Gorjup,
Kathleen Trebets & Karen Tomsic
Join us October 3, 2010, for
Fr. Perkovich’s Polka Mass and
dance with the Joey Tomsick Orchestra
from
Lodge 614
“Strugglers” SNPJ
Cleveland, Ohio
Labor Day Greetings
Chicago District Federation
Edward Dabrowski, President
Vince Rigler, Vice President
Marianne Murray, Sec./Treas.
Tina Rigler, Rec. Secretary
Auditors: Dolores Novotny
Carmella Smidl
Frank Novotny
Justina Dabrowski, Sgt. at Arms
Fraternal
Holiday Greetings
from the officers & members of
SPARTANS LODGE 576
Cleveland
President Joe Novak
Secretary Nancy Novak
Secretary/Treasurer Lou Novak
Vice President Joe Monteleone
Auditors:
Domenic Monteleone • Ken Kleinhenz • Antoinette Thomey
EUCLID, Ohio — Congratulations to Fred
Nevar who was selected as the 2010 Man of
the Year at the Slovenian Workmen’s Home.
To honor Fred, a Swiss steak dinner will be
served Monday, Aug. 30, from 3:30 to 7:30
p.m. Fred Ziwich will entertain with dinner
music. Tickets are $10 per person and can be
ordered by calling (216) 789-9746.
Several Loyalite members participated in
the American Cancer Society Western Lake
County Relay for Life. Relay for Life is a
24-hour walk for cancer, during which one
member of each team must be walking the
track at all times. Participating Lodge members included Donna Helmecy, her daughter
Amy Noggy and granddaughter Brittany
Stuber. They were joined by Greg Maire, the
son of Mike and Linda Maire, and grandson
of Joe and Jackie Maire. Their team consisted
of teenagers who have all been touched by
cancer in some way. They are determined to
wipe out cancer in their lifetime, hence the
name “Team Determination.”
Team Determination would like to thank
all who contributed toward their goal at the
Loyalites Lodge picnic. Thanks to your help,
they were able to raise $6,694.30. Team Determination also took the first place award for
Best Team Theme for their life-sized, fully
functional operation game.
Loyalites have been busy traveling this
summer. Kirk and Kelly Abraham and their
daughters spent three weeks visiting Kirk’s
family in Oregon back in July. Fred and
Pat Nevar just returned from an enjoyable
vacation in Laughlin, Nev. Eleanor Godec
and Eileen Markusic spent some time with
their nephew, Brett, who was visiting from
Texas with his wife and son.
During Slovenefest, Pat Nevar had the
closest guess of the number of jelly beans in
the jug at the membership booth. Pat guessed
3,158 and the actual number of jelly beans was
3,167. Pat won a $50 gas card for her guess.
Marc and Heather (Grady) Auburn are
celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary
this month. Lodge members celebrating
birthdays in August include Kirk Abraham,
Kelly Abraham, Mary Koss and Hudson
Auburn.
Just a reminder that Loyalite meetings are
held the second Thursday of each month at
Recher Hall. Meetings begin promptly at 7
p.m. We hope to see you at one soon!
Labor Day Greetings
BRATSTVO LODGE 6
Sygan, PA
celebrating our 106th anniversary
President­­— Tony Biondi
Vice President — Vince “Babe” Baselj
Secretary — Jim Curl
Treasurer — Betty Curl
Recording Secretary — Betty Spoharski
Sgt. at Arms — Frank Wright
Auditors — Pearl Biondi
Cindy Placek
Beverly Baselj
Circle Director — Ruth Wright
Bowling Alley Manager — John Beno
Club Steward — Marge Wasky
Hall available for weddings and banquets
For information call (412) 257-4007 or visit www.sygan.net
8
PROSVETA
www.snpj.org • [email protected]
August 25, 2010
Remember when...
This photo, submitted by Bro. Frank Gradisek (87), is of the former SNPJ Youth Circle 52 in Herminie, Pa.
The photo was taken in the spring of 1948. Do you recall any of these faces?
Front row, left to right: Blanch Prejza,
Richard Cecconello, [unidentified],
Donald Kranitz (87), Frank Kolesha (87),
Francie Gradisek, Robert Espey (87),
Dorothy Espey, Frank Gradisek (87),
Wendy Kolesha, Robert Kolesha (87)
Back row, left to right: Anna Vozel,
Ruth Powell, Patricia Belak, June Lape,
Gertrude Kapelar, Nancy Lape, Loretta
Pace, Evelyn Belak, Frank Kapelar (87),
Leona Beddick
Labor Day
GREETINGS
from officers
and members of
LODGE 31
Sharon, Pa
Fraternal Greetings!
Cicero Neighbors Lodge 449
Cicero, IL
President
Justina Dabrowski
Vice President
Janice Maresh
Recording Secretary
Edward Dabrowski
Secretary/Treasurer
Sgt. at Arms
Tina Rigler
Vince Rigler
Auditors
Elinore Laben, Trudy Schulz
and Marija Rigler
Best Wishes &
Labor Day
Greetings
in celebration of our
historic ties to Slovenia
SNPJ Lodge 518
Melvindale, Mich.
President William Krzisnik
Vice President Franc Kovac
Fin. Secretary Frank Tehovnik
Rec. Secretary Irene Kovac
Auditors
Joseph Pirkovic
Carolyn Tehovnik
Ken Pankotai
PROSVETA
www.snpj.org • [email protected]
August 25, 2010
News from
Here & There
by GRACE DOERK
Lodge 559
CHICAGO — In the past few weeks I’ve
heard from several friends across SNPJland.
First of all, I talked with Frances Zaverl (2)
who is now living in Wisconsin. We reminisced over our early childhood days when
we played games in front of my grandmother’s house in Auburn, Ill., where I was born.
For many years, Frances, her late husband
Frank, Otto and I enjoyed good times at the
Auburn Slovenefest. There was a large group
of Slovenes living in Auburn at the time.
Frances moved to Wisconsin after her
husband’s death so she could be close to
her son, Harry. Many people move closer
to family in such situations.
It was sad to hear that Joann (Brinocar)
Simpson (2) has torn down her parents’
home. I first met the Brinocar family by
writing to Mary Brinocar, who was a scribe
for Prosveta and Mladinski List for
many years. I spent many summers at the
Brinocar home in Auburn, and my parents
became great friends with Joe and Mary.
Joann is now living in Peoria, Ill. Someday
soon Joann and I would like to take a trip
back to Slovenia.
Myra (Andres) Fisher (559) called about
some personal business, then we reminisced
over our Perfect Circle days. I must say,
those days were a great part in my life. Taking three streetcars for meetings with our
Circle friends was no big deal. Our Circle
was very active, and I still keep in touch
with many of those friends.
On a sad note, I got a call from Cilla
Sluga informing me that her father, Leon
Schluge (559) passed away. Oh, did I reminisce then. Leon was probably one of the
few surviving friends of my parents. Leon
and his family attended many parties in our
basement. My sincere sympathy to the family. These are just a few excerpts of recent
connections
As you can see, a majority of my friends
were made through SNPJ. Being employed
for 29 years at the SNPJ Home Office, serving as National Assistant and National Secretary, and being a member of the Supervising Committee played a big part in my life.
Do I regret it? No. There may be some bad
memories, but for the most part the pleasant
memories will linger forever.
Had I not spent so many years in SNPJ,
I believe I would have become involved in
politics. Working in a senior advisory group
to Tom Cross, minority leader in the Illinois
Congress, has really been a challenge. Be-
sides being kept abreast on political issues,
I’ve learned a lot about local, state and federal government. My next project is to organize a senior group in Plainfield, Ill. I think
it would be a lot of fun. Seniors can play a
big part in influencing the government.
I will miss the August SNPJ retiree dinner as I have another commitment. I was
sorry to hear that former SNPJ employee
Carol (Lux) Chrisman passed away. She
was only 47. Our next retiree gathering is
planned Oct. 12 at the Chinese restaurant
on 26th and DesPlaines.
Otto and I have started gathering with
cousins from Otto’s family as well as mine.
It’s been so nice seeing those we haven’t
seen for years and trying to trace our families down.
The Slovene Catholic Center in Lemont,
Ill., held its annual picnic Aug. 8. There
were over 1,000 people in attendance, including a bus from Cleveland. This picnic and the drawing are their main source
of income. A top prize of $10,000 and 24
other monetary prizes were awarded. I saw
too many people to mention names, and I
would hate to leave anyone out.
The day started out rainy, but by noon
the sun was shining. The menu included
roast lamb, pork, chicken and Slovenian
baked goods galore. The next event at the
Cultural Center is the honey picnic, scheduled Sunday, Aug. 29. Starting in Septem-
Youngstown, Ohio, Lodge 153
annual dance at the SNPJ Recreation Center
• $7
Admission
• Kitchen
• Refreshments
• Bake Sale
Sunday,
September
12
3 p.m.
to
7 p.m.
Annual Grape Festival
hosted by the
Westmoreland County Federation of SNPJ Lodges
Sunday, Sept. 19, 2010
at the Evanstown Picnic Grove,
Evanstown, Pa.
Noon - 7 p.m. — Parade at 3 p.m.
Join us for music, fun and fraternalism...
See you all at Evanstown!
Music
by the
Jeff Pecon
Orchestra
Featuring
Frank Stanger Orchestra
Silver Sky with George Suhon
Herminie Button Box Club
Festival Parade
Fine Food & Refreshments
Children’s Playground
Jamming Under the Trees
Stomping of the Grapes
and much more!
9
ber, dinners will be held on the second Sunday of each month through May.
Ansambel Veseljaki, who provided musical entertainment at the Aug. 8 picnic, is
planning an overnight bus trip to Cleveland
Oct. 23 for the annual Martinovanje at the
Slovenian National Home on St. Clair Ave.
On Aug. 10, Otto and I enjoyed a sevencourse meal with the Senior Advisory Committee to Tom Cross. There were other state
senators and congressmen in attendance,
and we were able to ask many questions.
Illinois politics are second worst in the nation, so the politicians were bombarded
with questions. What an exciting evening.
For many years, I had been corresponding with Rudy Jantz (559) who lives in
Anaheim, Calif. What a shock to hear of his
passing. He was an avid reader of my column. I always had plans to get to California
to talk with him. My sympathy to his family.
Slovene Pensioners’ Club members recently had their monthly meeting. We celebrated the birthdays of Marianne Murray
and Sharon Kovack. The following day
we attended the senior meeting in Joliet, at
which over 300 people were in attendance.
The Chicago Federation held its dinner dance Aug. 22 at the Slovene Catholic
Center in Lemont. Vince Rigler entertained
during the evening. Unfortunately, Otto and
I weren’t in attendance; we were in Michigan celebrating my brother-in-law’s 70th
birthday. You just can’t be everywhere, especially when you face conflicting dates.
Dare I report on our weather? We’ve had
18 straight days of 90 degree temperatures.
I think we’re all looking forward to fall.
Trojan
Lodge 749
Johnstown, Pa.
extends
Fraternal Greetings
President
Joseph Vasilko
Treasurer
Judith Edsall
Vice President
Secretary
Anthony Ukmar
Evelyn Dimpfl
Auditors
Anthony Ukmar & Julie Wagner
Labor Day Greetings from
Young Americans Lodge 564
inWarren, Mich.
Rudy Zornik
President
Frances Desmond
Vice President
Marion Volpe
Financial Secretary & Treasurer
Frances Desmond
Acting Recording Secretary
Eddie and Fran Adamic
Auditors
10
PROSVETA
www.snpj.org • [email protected]
August 25, 2010
Get back to your roots during Slovenian Genealogy Month
by ROSE MARIE JISA (643)
Slovenian Genealogy Society International
CLEVELAND — To celebrate the importance of knowing one’s Slovenian roots, the
Slovenian Genealogy Society International
(SGSI) will host a month of genealogy activities at the SGSI Research Library located
within the Slovenian Museum and Archives,
6407 St. Clair Ave., Cleveland, OH 44103.
A grand opening will be held Saturday,
Sept. 4, from 1 to 4 p.m. featuring “The
Liden Trees — Family Genealogy Trees
from Slovenia” prepared by members of the
Slovenian Genealogy Society of Slovenia
(SRD) under the inspirational leadership of
Peter Hawlina. These charts will knock your
socks off with their originality and creativity! A free informational genealogy chart
handout prepared by Hawlina will be given
to all attendees. The exhibition will be open
for viewing every Tuesdays, Thursdays and
Saturdays during September from 10 a.m.
until 3 p.m.
Other planned activities for the month
include five presentations. The first will be
held Saturday, Sept. 11, at 1 p.m. Popular
Slovenian genealogist and historian Branka
Lapajne, Ph.D, from Canada will present
“Researching Your Slovenian Ancestors in
Slovenia.”
Ed Oshaben, Ohio SGSI chapter president,
will discuss “Slovenian Genealogy Resources
in Greater Cleveland” Tuesday, Sept. 14, at 7
p.m. On Saturday, Sept. 18, at 1 p.m., Virginia
Marinko Pinkava, SGSI member and active
genealogist, will present “Unlocking Your
Slovenian Heritage.” Sylvia Onusic, Ph.D.,
from Portage, Pa., will talk about “Slovenian
Foods at the Heart of Our Ethnicity” Tuesday,
Sept. 21, at 7 p.m. The final presenter will
be Linda Silakoski, an immigration attorney, whose topic will be “Jumping Through
Hoops­-Immigrating in the 1900s vs. Today”
Saturday, Sept. 25, at 1 p.m.
Our oral history preservation project is
in full swing! During September it will be
possible to have your life story recorded at
the research library. Call (440) 655-3954
or e-mail [email protected] to set up an
appointment.
Visitors are welcome to take advantage
of the resources available at the research
library on the days and times noted. Take
advantage of the over 800,000 surnames in
our database from Slovenia prepared by Peter
Hawlina. Your family may be represented
here! You might also want to investigate
the over 125,000 surnames from Slovenian
Catholic churches and fraternal organizations
across America.
And if your family were members of SNPJ,
you might find references to them in our more
than 200,000 surnames that have appeared
South Hills Junior Tammies schedule open house
by EVE JOHNSON (138)
Junior Tamburitzans of South Hills
DORMONT, Pa. — The Junior Tamburitzans of South Hills are hosting an open
house Sept. 7 beginning at 7 p.m. at the Dormont Presbyterian Church, 2865 Espy Ave.,
Dormont, PA 15216. Join other SNPJ youth
members in the celebration of a new performance season. Learn about the exciting year
Dance Director Jonathan Dudik and Music
Director Snezana Lazich have in store. No
prior music or dance instruction is required,
just a willingness to learn and have fun.
Junior Tamburitzans of South Hills is
open to youths ages 6-18. General group
information may be found at www.jrtams.
com. Specific questions may be directed to
Mary Jo Hartman at (412) 833-4471 or Eve
Johnson at (412) 831-5728, or by e-mailing
[email protected]. We look forward to
seeing you Sept. 7.
SNPJ Recommender Program
I would like to introduce
_______________________________________________
for SNPJ membership
_______________________________________________
Please contact:_ __________________________________________________
(Parent or guardian if under age 18)
The SNPJ Recommender Program provides an
opportunity for adult members to encourage
family, friends, children and acquaintances to join
the Slovene National Benefit Society and take
advantage of SNPJ’s competitive products and
numerous fraternal benefits. Not only will you
be helping a friend and strengthening our Society,
you’ll also be receiving benefits yourself.
Recommender Benefits
•Receive $10 for each valid referral submitted.
•Every valid referral earns the recommender
one chance in the Quarterly Drawing for an
opportunity to win $100.
•Every valid referral also earns the recommender
one chance in the Year-end Drawing for an
opportunity to win $500 cash.
By submitting one valid referral,
you have the opportunity to earn
a total of $610 in cash prizes!
in PROSVETA
from 1916 to
1948.
Other
reference
materials include
120 editions of the
magazine Novi Svet
published between the
late 1930s and 1950s.
Each edition focuses on
a Slovenian Catholic community
from various locations throughout the United
States and contains short biographies of the
Slovenian subscribers. Novi Svet is an excellent source to learn your family’s birth town/
village in Slovenia.
September 2010 is brimful with activities
that can help you become more knowledgeable about your Slovenian heritage. Please
take a few minutes of your time to join us.
Labor Day Greetings
to the Home Office, all SNPJ officers
and members around the world
SNPJ Lodge 604 Utopians
Cleveland
Kathleen Trebets..........President
Rudy Perdan..........Vice President
Gerri Trebets..........Fin./Rec. Secretary
Pam Dirk..........Treasurer
Bill Dirk & Charlotte Perdan..........Auditors
Labor Day
Greetings
from the officers
and members of
Pioneer Lodge 559
Chicago, Ill.
Address:_ _______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
City/State/Zip:_ ___________________________________________________
Phone: (
)__________________________________________________
Indicate Preferred Agent____________________________________________
(Optional)
My Name:_ ______________________________________________________
My Lodge Number:_ _______________________________________________
Conemaugh Valley
Federation of SNPJ Lodges
Johnstown, PA
Address:_ _______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
City/State/Zip:_ ___________________________________________________
Phone: (
)__________________________________________________
e-mail___________________________________________________________
“Continued success to SNPJ”
President
Ed Kuzma
Treasurer
Kenneth Zakraysek
Vice President
Anthony Ukmar
Secretary
Evelyn Dimpfl
Each individual must be informed that an agent will contact him/her and the referral
must have some interest in SNPJ in order for the recommender to be considered valid.
Assistant Secretary
Marilyn Alberter
Complete this coupon and return to
Slovene National Benefit Society
Auditors
Joseph Vasilko
John Micko
Andrew Kranyc
Att’n: Marketing Department
247 West Allegheny Road • Imperial, PA 15126
PROSVETA
www.snpj.org • [email protected]
August 25, 2010
11
Unexpected connection discovered at Spring Hill Lodge 778
by DARIA PERSE
Lodge 778
SPRING HILL, Fla. — It’s been almost
three years since someone pointed out an
ad in St. Pete Times to me. The Slovenian­American Club was having a dance. My first
reaction was, “Slovenians in Spring Hill?” I
couldn’t be more surprised... and happy. Especially after looking for anything Sloveniarelated in this country for seven years to no
avail. And as soon as I moved to the middle
of nowhere, as my friend Claire likes to call
the place where I live, I heard about something
promising for the first time.
At the time I didn’t know anyone who
might have been interested to go to the polka
dance with me, so it took a lot of effort and
diplomacy to talk my teenage daughter into
going with me. She kept telling me how
she had no intention whatsoever of hopping
around the dance floor.
Doroteja finally agreed to go after I promised her that she only needed to come with
me this one time and then I would never ask
her again. I’m not sure if I ever thanked her
properly for that decision, or told her how
very thankful I was.
So we went. I don’t remember anymore if
it was Saturday or Sunday, nor which band
was playing. When I’m thinking about that
day, it seems like everything happened in my
dream. The music sounded, hmm... different,
except for the familiar three-step beat. We
sat down at the end of an empty table and
just looked around. I’m not going to repeat
what kind of comments my daughter had, but
let me tell you, they didn’t help me feel any
more comfortable in this place with dimmed
lights and people I’d never met before!
All of the sudden, things started happening. Vice president and president at the
time, Walt Harfmann and Ben Drongosky,
came to us and greeted us, asked us where
we were from, and told us some things
about Suncoast Lodge 778. Then someone
sent Nežka Guardia to us and we talked
in Slovenian. I think we liked each other
right away. It felt beyond-description-good
to finally met someone who was actually
speaking my mother’s tongue! I also spoke
to John Laurich, another Slovenian-speaking
member of the Lodge.
However, the turning point was yet to
come. A lady who was sitting at the table
behind me approached me with a question.
“Are you really from Slovenia?” Then she
told me that she and her husband were also
Slovenians, and soon invited my daughter
and me to sit at their table.
I gladly accepted the invitation and we
all had a great time. I danced to quite a few
tunes and we had something interesting to talk
about for the whole time we stayed. Dancing
again, I felt kind of rusty since I haven’t had
any polkas or waltzes in my life for too long,
but enjoyed it nevertheless.
I also sat with these nice people from
The Villages who made me feel welcome
and at home. The funniest thing is that they
weren’t even SNPJ members, and yet they
were most responsible for me sticking around
the Suncoast Lodge in Spring Hill: Barbara
and Jay Vodovnik, and Lois and Jim Vitali.
Much later on I found out that it was their
first time at Lodge 778 as well.
After that I came to the Lodge again,
probably to the next event. I offered to start
the web site, since the Lodge didn’t have one
yet, and that’s how I became an involved and
active social member at the end of the 20072008 season. Later on there was someone else
who talked me into becoming a full member,
and here I am at a point where there aren’t
too many things in my life that mean more
to me than this fraternal Society.
Only a few months ago I heard Barbara
Lois Vitali and Barbara Vodovnik during a Spring Hill, Fla., Lodge 778 gathering.
PROSVETA Crossword
Eat Your Veggies
ACROSS
1. Dance named after
horse’s gallop
6. National gardening
organization, acr.
9. Wood file
13.Description for twins
14.Loud noise
15.Ski run
16.Technical term for the body, pl.
17.Female reproductive cell, pl.
18.Twig of a willow tree
19.Bell _______, pl.
21.Wealthy person, slang
23. International trade organization
24.Halo
25.Woman’s undergarment
28.Opposed to
30.Principles of right and wrong
35.The Tramp’s companion
37.Like the skin of an eggplant
39.Should
40.Pavarotti’s song
41.Catalog purchase
43.Arctic floater
44.Gives a certain impression
46.Fruit grows on it, not veggies
47.Golfer’s warning
48.Worthy of belief
50.A third of thrice
52.Old-fashioned over
53.Done to benefits?
(#1710) by StatePoint Media
55.They’re hotly anticipated
during the Super Bowl
57.Doubles as a name for a sport
60.Source of Popeye’s strength
64.Islamic beauty of Paradise
65.Choose instead
67.Handsome like Marcello
Mastroianni
68.Done to wheels in an auto shop
69.“Back To The Future” actress
70.Disclose or reveal
71.Ignorant person
72.A light touch
73.Wear away
DOWN
1. Breath after a punch
in the stomach, e.g.
2. Medicinal house plant
3. Quality of overcooked asparagus
4. Similar to giraffe but smaller
5. Former unit of money in Spain
6. “Without further ____,” pl.
7. T-cell killer
8. State of complete confusion
9. Reduced instruction set computer
10.Continent that gave us bok choy
11.Proofreader’s “disregard” word
12.___ capita
15.It inspired a classic toy
20.Mozart’s “Turkish March,” a.k.a. “Turkish ____”
telling one of my friends, “I’m like a mom
to Daria. Someone has to take care of her.”
I don’t know if anyone can even imagine the
way that statement touched my heart. Thank
you, Barb!
During my time with Lodge 778 there
were more couples that kind-of adopted me,
or maybe I adopted them. And deep inside I
feel astonished because I’ve never in my life
met so many wonderful people as I have at
the SNPJ Lodge in Spring Hill. If there’s a
friendlier and more hospitable place in the
world than Suncoast Lodge 778, I have yet
to discover it.
22.They ___ or they’re
24.Parachute delivery
25.“_____ from the past”
26.Less common than rare
27.Farewell in Paris
29.The French use veggies in
this pastry or pie-like dish
31.A state of irritation
32.Eskimo hut
33.House work
34.“____ clear”
36.Not quite sweet potatoes
38.Incisive or nifty
42.Summary
45.Flu variety
49.Nod up and down
51.Like a white mushroom,
unlike a toadstool
54.Near the wind
56.Express contempt
57.Unaccompanied
58.Witty remark
59.Strong desire
60.It results in back wound
61.Palo ____, CA
62.Oaf
63.Whetstone
64.Experienced
66.It’s just like others in a pod
The solution to puzzle #1710
will run in the Sept. 8 issue.
12
PROSVETA
www.snpj.org • [email protected]
August 25, 2010
Let your tastebuds be the judge at the seventh annual Sausage Fest
by TONY PETKOVSEK (604)
Cleveland Polka Hall of Fame
CLEVELAND — A major fun- and fundraiser of the National Cleveland-Style Polka
Hall of Fame is the seventh annual Slovenian
Sausage (klobase) Festival slated for Wednesday, Sept. 15, at the SNPJ Farm, 10946
Heath Road, Kirtland, Ohio, off Chardon
Road (Rt. 6).
Canada’s Polka King Walter Ostanek, who
just released a new album that he recorded
with Frankie Yankovic prior to his passing
called “The Two of Us,” will headline the
entertainment bill. Also scheduled to perform
are the Cleveland Polka All Stars, PennOhio Polka All Stars, the young Chardon
Polka Band, Joey Tomsick Orchestra, Hank
Haller, Milan Racanovic, Al-Ray Combo,
Labor Day
GREETINGS
     
Wishing everyone a safe
and happy Labor Day.
fraternally,
Carol Maruszak (53)
Magic Buttons, Fairport Jammers and the
relatively-new Polka Pirates.
Besides enjoying a tremendous line-up
of dance entertainment and a variety of
down home cooking, picnic attendees will
have the opportunity to vote for the best
sausage maker. Competing for your vote
will be Azman Meats, Bill Azman, E.185th;
Maple Heights Catering, Steve Hocevar; and
Radell’s Meats, Ed Oshaben, E.152nd.
Save a buck with a $7 advance ticket from
the Polka Hall of Fame, 605 E. 222 St., Euclid, Ohio; (216) 261-FAME. Tickets at the
gate will be $8. There will be non-stop polka
music from 1 to 8 p.m. in two areas.
Trustees Fred Ziwich and Wayne Tomsic
are co-chairmen for this event. Cecilia Dolgan is president of the organization.
Join the ladies of the SNPJ Farm
for a goulash and polenta dinner
by BARBARA ELERSICH
Lodge 5
CLEVELAND — With the unusually hot
and humid weather we’ve been experiencing,
it seems as though summer may never end.
However, Sept. 12 is approaching and that
means the annual goulash and polenta dinner
hosted by the SNPJ Farm Ladies Auxiliary
will be here soon.
The ladies have worked hard in the past
to provide everyone with this annual treat
and this year will be no exception. Delicious goulash and polenta dinners will be
the featured fare, but those great roast beef
and klobase dinners will also be available.
All dinners are only $8 and will be served
starting at 2 p.m.
At 3:30 p.m., everyone should be ready to
dance, tap their toes and enjoy the wonderful
sounds of the Joey Tomsick Orchestra. The
music will continue until 7:30 p.m.
The kitchen will remain open the entire
time, serving roast beef, klobase and hot dogs
as well as our delectable krofe. While you’re
there, you may want to get yourself a loaf of
freshly baked krofe bread to take home. This
bread is made from the same tasty dough as
the krofe. A little secret: the bread is not only
good for breakfast and sandwiches, but it’s
also great for strawberry shortcake!
Reserve the date and the time, Sunday,
Sept. 12 at 2 p.m., to come to the SNPJ Farm,
10946 Heath Road in Kirtland, Ohio, for a
great afternoon of entertainment, and one of
the best goulash and polenta dinners you’ll
ever have!
For more information contact Barbara
Elersich at (440) 257-2540.
Mark Maruszak (53)
Anton (53) and
Doris (5) Sadar
Miss SNPJ 2010
Kara Maruszak (53)
Imperial, Pa., Lodge 106
officers and members wish everyone
a safe and happy Labor Day weekend!
Lodge 106 Officers
Club Board of Directors
President
Joseph Evanish
Stan Repos, Chair
Secretary/Treasurer
Larry Gaspersic
Recording Secretary
Jean Singiser
Auditors
Charles Singiser
Kevin Richards
Frank Ulager
Kevin Richards, Secretary
Larry Gaspersic
Charles Singiser
information
at your fingertips
Are you looking for information on your SNPJ life insurance
and annuity policies? Simply log on to snpj.org and follow
the step-by-step instructions.
The Lodge 106 Hall is the
perfect setting for weddings
and banquets. Let us
customize your special event.
For booking information, contact
Becky Sabo at (724) 695-1411
or (412) 855-4542.
Labor Day
Greetings
from
SNPJ Lodge 142
Mirni Raj
Check out our web site:
www.snpjimperialpa.com
Joseph Sladick
Watch for special events
this fall in the new
Lodge 106 clubroom!
Cleveland
PROSVETA
www.snpj.org • [email protected]
August 25, 2010
13
Family roots, community history intertwine in Samsula
by JEANNETTE HUMPHREY
Lodge 603
SAMSULA, Fla. — The Mary, Frank, Jennie and John Luznar families gathered Aug.
2, and it was a good turnout for the pioneer
families of Samsula who have remained active members of our Society through Lodge
603. Bill Tomazin served as chairman and
Billy McDonald cooked 160 pounds of
chicken for the meal. He made a barbeque
pit on the Lodge grounds and cooked it
slowly until the early afternoon meal was
served. Pat Machek of Palatka, Fla., cooks
roast beef for the meal every year, and everyone else brings a covered dish to share.
Two Luznar brothers from Dolenja Vas,
Slovenia, married two fine Slovenian women, Mary and Jennie, and came to America.
They soon decided that the north was not
the place for them, so they packed up and
moved to Florida where they tried farming
for a living. They traveled to Florida with
their children by train and took a logging
leg to a site deep into the woods of Samsula, about four miles from where our Lodge
hall stands today.
In 1917, crop failures and wild animals
caused Frank, Mary and family to leave the
area and settle in Maryland. Frank Luznar
Jr. returned shortly afterward and took up
roots in Samsula. He served Lodge 603 as
president for many years. As luck would
have it, John, Jennie and their family remained. In 1926 our Lodge was chartered,
and in 1941 our building was dedicated.
The rest seems like history because our labors and hearts remain at our great fraternal
Lodge hall. Since 1980, the families have
gathered at the Lodge for family reunions,
and every other year for the past 10 years
they’ve met on the first Saturday in August.
As always, we have plenty of food and drink
along with family fun. It’s a great time!
This year there was one second-generation attendee from each Luznar brother;
Georgia Luznar Nyburg of Samsula (John)
and Robert Luznar of Daytona Beach, Fla.
(Frank). There were too many to count in
the third, fourth and fifth generations. Only
a few farmers engaging in truck crops remain in Samsula; other area farmers have
gone on to beef cattle and horse farms.
We are thankful for our Samsula roots,
especially for forming Lodge 603 so that
you can enjoy our Slovene Days, scheduled
Feb. 25-27, 2011. Make your plans early
and we’ll save a seat for you!
More excitement at our Lodge came
during the family reunion when the family of Lloyd Samsula arrived and filled in
more history of our community. There were
three generations of the Samsula family in
attendance. Barry Samsula, the grandson of
Lloyd, came in from Plano, Texas, along
with his son, Dr. Aaron Samsula, and family, wife Rosemary Samsula and sons Lucas and Larson. David, another grandson of
Lloyd Samsula, flew in from Omaha, Neb.
Eighty-four-year-old Claris Samsula, wife
of the late Albert, flew in from Deshler,
Neb. The Samsula family originated in Nebraska.
Two brothers, Albert and Lloyd, came to
this area to survey and took up roots here.
During the First World War, Lloyd served
as a cavalry wagoneer and was the first soldier to return to this area after the war. The
post office thought his name would be good
for our community, and so we were named.
The original spelling was Schamschula,
but it was changed when the family came
through Ellis Island.
Lloyd returned to Nebraska after a short
time and married Nellie Cole. They had
three sons, one named Albert, who is the
father of Barry and David. We have several
new photographs of Lloyd Samsula for our
history wall at Lodge 603 for our community to enjoy.
Lodge 603 invites the public to its annual Labor Day fish fry which will be served
beginning at 12:30 p.m. Sept. 6. Those attending are asked to bring a covered dish or
two to share, and non-members are asked
a $5 donation for the meal. The Lodge hall
will open at 11 a.m. for anyone wishing to
come and help with the fish or side dishes
of cheese grits, baked beans, hushpuppies
and cole slaw. President Bill Benedict and
his uncle, Joe, have volunteered to catch
mullet for the fry.
The NSBHS Class of 1970 is planning a
reunion at the Lodge hall Sept. 4, while the
Class of 1965 is planning one for Sept. 24.
Yours truly won the August Lodge meeting
gift and President Benedict won the July
meeting gift. Joseph Klockowski was accepted as a social member.
During the Aug. 8 meeting, a moment of
silence was observed in memory of Conner
Lynch, 20, who had recently passed away.
He was the son of Carrie and Keith Warner
of Orange City, Fla., and the grandson of
the late Mary Luznar Hafner. Many remember Conner since he participated in many
functions at our Lodge. Sympathy from our
Lodge is extended to his family.
The Samsula Woman’s Club met for a
Dutch-treat dinner Aug. 11. The club continues to collect recipes for the next edition of the Samsula County Cookbook.
The deadline is quickly approaching, but
you still have time to send in recipes and
advertisements for the book. You may email your recipes to [email protected] or
give them to any club member. You may
also leave your recipes at Mike’s Corner
in Samsula. Ad prices for the book are $30
for a quarter page, $50 for a half page and
$75 for a full page. A one-line sponsor ad is
$10. Send your check to Samsula Woman’s
Club, c/o Grace Daniels, 4117 Budd Rd.,
New Smyrna Beach, FL 32168.
The club’s annual Fall Festival and Craft
Show is scheduled at the Lodge 603 Hall
Saturday, Oct. 2, from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m.
Baked goods and drinks will be available
for breakfast, and lunch will be served from
11 a.m. until 1 p.m.
Ashley Benedict flew in from Lafayette,
Ind., where she is completing her doctorate in industrial engineering, to spend time
with her parents, Ruth and George Benedict. Friends Jorge Pazmino, Hari Nair,
Leon Zeng, Daniela Viteri, Intan Harridan
and Bich-Van Pham flew in to join Ashley
and vacation in Samsula. While here, they
took in the Wizarding World of Harry Pot-
ter at Universal Studios in Orlando, Fla.
The Purdue engineering graduates also
attended the Luznar family reunion. They
spent time looking over our history wall at
the Lodge. Bich-Van Pham returned home
to Dallas on Sunday and happened to be on
the same flight as the Samsula family. Ash-
ley said, “We enjoyed being in Samsula and
had so much fun with my parents. It was
good being at my Luznar family reunion
and having my friends see our SNPJ Lodge
hall because I talk a lot about our fraternal
Society and my involvement since I was
born.”
Second generation Luznar family
members GEORGIA
Luznar NYBURG
and ROBERT
LUZNAR at the
Aug. 2 reunion.
Barry Samsula
shared a bit of
his family history
with JEANNETTE
HUMPHREY during
his visit to the Lodge
603 Hall.
Tom and Pam Lollis check out the Luznar family tree designed by Pauline Lockwood (603).
14
PROSVETA
www.snpj.org • [email protected]
August 25, 2010
Memories
of a special miner
U
by MARY CUNJA KING
Raton, N.M.
Lodge 218
nder sponsorship of an American cousin, my
dear Slovenian parents, Anton, age 36, and
Antonia, 32, came to the United States in
June 1921 with their two children, Marcella,
8, and Mario, 2. The voyage on a merchant ship took
one month, and two months after their arrival a daughter,
Velma, was born. They left behind their home in Ospo, a
little village nestled under the Austrian Alps. The house
had dirt floors, the rear wall was actually the steep rocky
cliff, and cooking was done on an open fireplace.
My father fought with the Austrian Army in the First
World War. He had been released after spending four
years as a Russian prisoner in Siberia. Conditions at
home after the war were so bad that the family barely
existed as peasant farmers. My father longed for freedom from oppression and a better life for his family, and
the United States was accepting immigrants!
After landing in New York with very few worldly
possessions, my parents settled in a little coal mining
camp in Yankee, N.M. Their house was really more like
a shack. My father walked a long distance to the coal
mine during the long, cold and snowy winters. Their water came from an outside common well. My mother took
in washing from bachelors to supplement the family income. In Yankee they were blessed with two more children, me and Elizabeth. In 1926 we moved to the nearby
coal camp of Sugarite, N.M., and two years later Anton
and Antonia’s youngest daughter, Emma, was born.
The company house in Sugarite in which we lived
had four rooms and a porch. We children slept in one
bedroom. The water faucet was outside, but my father
piped the water into our house and we heated it in a side
tank attached to the coal range we used for cooking.
Our weekly bath on Saturday was in a big, round, #3
washtub. Our restroom was an outhouse complete with
Montgomery Ward and Sears catalogues instead of toilet
tissue.
For food we raised chickens and rabbits, had a vegetable garden and a few fruit trees. We bought unpasteurized milk from local farmers who peddled it around
camp, and occasionally we bought a slaughtered hog and
processed it ourselves. For his lunch in the mine, my father took a few slices of cured bacon sprinkled with a
little salt. When he received a piece of fruit, he would
bring it home for his children – who ran halfway up a
hill to the mine to greet him. My mother always baked
bread, and made homemade noodles and potica or strudel for special occasions. I don’t remember ever having
a turkey dinner, so it must have always been chicken for
holiday dinners.
Our school put on a Christmas program. Santa came
and gave out bags of candy. At home we hung up stockings, into which my oldest sister would place an orange
and a stick of gum or a few candies. There was no money
for gifts. I remember my youngest sister playing with
an empty shoebox with a heavy string attached to pull
it along.
Our elementary schools had very good and dedicated
nja.
Antonia Cu
Anton and
.
,
th
ts
a
n
e
re
d
a
’s
p
Anton
King’s
Mary Cunja s taken the day before
wa
This photo
teachers. Once a week, different teachers came to teach
us sewing, singing and manual training for the boys. We
had penmanship contests and competed with other coal
camps in sports. At the end of the school year we had a
big picnic a mile or so up Sugarite Canyon near Lake
Maloya.
Other recreation in camp included Sunday baseball
games with competing coal camps. We children were
given a nickel and had the hard decision of buying an ice
cream cone or five penny candies at our local clubhouse.
We played other games such as basketball, hide-andseek, run sheep run, kick the can, marbles, and mumblety-peg. We also ice skated in the winter and attended
dances at the clubhouse. Instead of hiring a babysitter,
people brought their babies in a big basket which was
laid on one or across two chairs. A lot of the men made
homemade wine or root beer, and they played bocce ball
(lawn bowling), fished and hunted. Some lucky families
owned a car, but most everyone used “foot power.” And
we never said the words, “I’m bored.”
We traveled to Raton, a nearby town, in groups to
have our tonsils removed, and to have dental and eye
exams. At school we were given a half pint of milk with
a dose of castor oil – and half of an orange for the aftertaste.
My parents were very thrilled to become American
citizens, but they never forgot their Slovenian heritage.
They taught us native songs, told us stories about the
“old country,” and my father handed down the recipes
he carried around in his head.
During his years of working in the mine, my father
sustained several injuries, namely a broken leg, a broken
collarbone and a varicose leg ulcer that never healed.
SEE MINER’S MEMORY
NEXT PAGE
Ghosts
of a proud community
The once-bustling mining camps of Yankee and Sugarite, N.M.,
home to the Cunja family for a number of years, are prime
examples of modern-day ghost towns.
The town of Yankee was developed in 1904 by the Chicorica
Coal Company, an enterprise backed by a Wall Street brokerage firm and the Santa Fe Railroad. Chicorica workers mined
the bituminous coal beds in the Johnson and Barela mesas,
and as the Yankee mines continued to develop, frame houses
were built and the population grew to several
thousand residents by 1907. The town had all the
usual businesses and a school for the miners’ children. All traces of Yankee have vanished since
the collapse of the New Mexico coal mining
industry, and the site is now occupied by
a cattle ranch.
Sugarite has an even more interesting history. Settled in 1909, this
coal-mining town was in existence
until 1944. At its peak, Sugarite
was home to 500 residents. The town
included a school, a theater, the Blossburg
Mercantile Company, the Bell Telephone
Company, an opera house, a physician, a
justice of the peace and a music teacher. In
1941, when it was announced that the mines
would be closed, all families relocated.
Homes were moved to Raton, the population
scattered and Sugarite was deserted.
PROSVETA
www.snpj.org • [email protected]
August 25, 2010
15
MINER’S MEMORY
FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
The worst injury was a near-fatal accident when a cave-in covered him up to his neck in coal. Dad came extremely close to
being paralyzed and spent nine months in a hospital with a
broken back. It was then that the SNPJ Lodge paid him small
benefits which helped his family survive. The SNPJ Lodge
also carried our dues until we could start paying again. Thank
God he had the entire family enrolled in SNPJ before the accident!
After his recovery, Dad was only allowed to work a halfday instead of a full day. At that time the mine was slow and
crews only worked one or two days a week. I remember him
having an abscessed tooth. Instead of going to a dentist, he
sterilized a pocketknife and lanced the abscess himself.
My brother worked on the tipple outside the Sugarite coal
mine. All of the girls in the family married coal miners, except
one – she married a railroader whose job was connected to
coal mining. There were many coal mines in this area of northeastern New Mexico and southern Colorado, none of which, I
believe, are still in operation. The mine explosion at Dawson,
N.M., a coal camp less than an hour’s drive away, took the
lives of 263 men and was one of the worst coal mine disasters
in U.S. history. The massacre at the site of Ludlow, Colo.,
located in southern Colorado, is also quite close by.
When I think of all my parents suffered in their lifetime,
I believe they were “profiles in courage,” as were so many
miners. They came from many foreign countries, were of every ethnicity, and worked underground in unsafe conditions
with not enough pay and not enough concern for their physical
welfare. Many lost their lives in mine explosions and serious
accidents, and to black lung disease. In my opinion, all miners’ courage, dedication and sacrifice helped the United States
prosper.
My niece, Debbie Wilde, in her 1979 college thesis, summed up my father’s life as follows:
“Papa Cunja helped fashion 88 years of history, and
Mama Cunja, 84 years. They were part of the last continental European Empire. They survived war, economic and
political struggle, and the trauma of building a new life in
a new land. Life was always hard, but never hard enough
to break their courage and determination. They had no
wealth in the monetary sense of the word; their wealth was
pride in their children, grandchildren and in a good family
name. Never could two people have touched other lives so
deeply in their simple and personal ways than these two
Slovene peasants. Nor could two people have been loved
more by those whose lives interlaced with theirs.”
Lastly, the following is a poem written by another niece,
Mary Jean Carnavale:
Grandpa
Life in a complex world was simple for Grandpa.
He didn’t ask for riches or fame,
For he cherished his lasting treasure – a family.
A head of white hair crowned his years of toil,
But his sturdy heart and mind refused to accept age
As they kept a lasting youth about them.
His blue eyes sparkled with life on the grayest days,
And never did he speak a word of complaint
to burden anyone.
Instead, a radiant, cheery smile concealed the pain.
There was an air of tender strength
and a zeal for being alive
That surrounded him and spread to others.
He lived a golden life —
and left a precious memory.
Miners in
the Sugarite
Canyon,
circa 1930.
A legacy in translation
I
by DEBRA CARNEVALE WILDE
submitted by MARY CUNJA KING (218)
believe that everyone is crazy in their own way.
When I would complain to my mother about the
unfair words or actions of another, she would
shrug her shoulders and respond, “Well, as Grandma
would say...,” and my mother would spout forth a Slovenian phrase that translates: “Everyone is crazy in
their own way.” No words of sympathy or permission
to whine about how I thought I had been wronged.
Grandma’s wisdom came from her life as a Slovenian peasant, living as a second-class citizen in the
Austro-Hungarian Empire. When Grandma and Grandpa came to the coal camps of northern New Mexico
in 1921, their language and customs were foreign to
everyone but a few others like themselves.
Miners were not much more than servants to the
coal companies. They rented company houses, were
paid in scrip that was only good at the company store,
and were told how to vote. Grandma would tell of company men visiting and saying, “When you go to vote,
Mrs. Cunja, you put your ‘X’ right here.” My grandmother, pretending to know no better, took the sample
ballot and began to put her X on the requested spot.
“No, no, not now,” the men said. But when they left,
my grandparents laughed to themselves and later went
to the polls and voted the way they chose.
Their political views were at odds with the coal establishment. When the camp was closing, my grandparents were the first “to be asked to leave.” Grandpa’s
job was terminated, and they were evicted from their
home.
So, this was it? “Everybody is crazy in their own
way?” This from ancestors who knew ­poverty amidst
racial, social and political oppression? No family legacy of bitterness, anger or hatred?
No. My grandparents emerged from all the prejudice
they had known with this exceptional attitude about the
world. As I tested their wisdom, I found it freed me
from judging people. Instead of condemning those who
were different than me, I accepted that difference as
a given. I began to look for it and was never disappointed!
Instead of ignoring or exploiting people’s differences, I just choose to watch for them. I use wonder
and curiosity as my lens for looking out at those with
whom I share this planet. I am sometimes angered, of
course, by what I find. But most often I am fascinated
and delighted.
I find a sense of adventure in this hunt for people
and their treasures. I uncover riches on each of these
journeys. How dull it would be if everyone was the
same. Our differences give spark to life. We can always
be surprised. Everyone’s crazy in their own way means
that I am too. It helps me be O.K. with the uniqueness
that is me.
My family legacy is one of personal responsibility,
so I learned to look at the world through that lens. I
got this: “Everyone is crazy in their own way,” and I
believe it might help to pass it on.
The front and obverse of a 50 cent
scrip piece utilized by the Yankee
Mercantile Company, the company
store operating in the former mining
community of Yankee, N.M.
Instead of cash, miners were most
often paid in company scrip, which
was redeemable only at the company
store. The company store, owned by
the mining company, often charged
highly inflated prices for common
goods, which made the workers completely dependent on the company.
16
PROSVETA
August 25, 2010
down
www.snpj.org • [email protected]
under
Digging up the past and tracing
SNPJ’s historic ties to coal mining
T
by JAY SEDMAK
SNPJ Publications Editor
here’s no disputing the fact that the Slovene National Benefit Society
has long supported organized labor. Throughout our Society’s history,
countless numbers of SNPJ members toiled in industrial enterprises, labored
in the mines and worked side-by-side with fellow union members to build a better life
for themselves and their predecessors. We celebrate Labor Day in tribute to those whose
efforts helped develop our nation, and as SNPJ members we owe a debt of gratitude to
the generations of working men and women who helped mold our fraternal Society.
Having to look back a hundred or so years
ago, it’s hard to imagine life at the turn of the
20th century... especially the life of a newlyarrived immigrant who was thousands of miles
from friends and family, had little money, was
unfamiliar with his surroundings, and couldn’t
even speak the language in his new country.
It’s even more difficult to conceive that these
turn-of-the-century immigrants worked under
intolerable conditions in some of the most demanding and dangerous occupations of the
time. But such
was the life
of the typical
Slovenian immigrant, and
the hardships they faced were the stepping
stones leading to the formation of the Slovene
National Benefit Society.
Rooting through the annals of our Society
history, the links binding the SNPJ and organized labor are readily apparent. Open any
PROSVETA issue from the 1920s through the
1980s and you’ll find column after column
focusing on the state of organized labor, the
necessity of union activity and the plight of
the common working man. Dig a little deeper,
stepping further back in time, and you’ll discover that SNPJ made its initial connections
with the labor movement through efforts and
appeals to assist one of our nation’s oldest occupations – the coal miner.
The monument remembering the lives lost in the
1914 Ludlow Massacre.
The inscription reads:
“In memory of the men,
women and children who
lost their lives in freedom’s
cause at Ludlow, Colorado. April 20, 1914. The
monument was erected by
the United Mine Workers
of America.
A coal tipple at the Cardiff Mines, Cambria County, Pennsylvania. Coal was
first mined in Cambria County (the Johnstown area) in 1825, and by 1900
Cambria and Somerset counties had 137 mines producing 10.7 million tons
of coal and employing nearly 15,000 workers.
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17
Beginnings...
When founded in 1904, the Slovene National Benefit Society was among the most popular of the
“economic benefit societies” and soon began attracting thousands of Slovenian immigrants who were
making their way across the Atlantic in the early 20th century. The majority of these newly-arrived
immigrants were unskilled laborers, many of whom had been recruited by America’s mining companies and steel mills, and lured to American shores by the promise of steady work. The Slovenians
were familiar with industrial work (they had labored in Austrian, German, French and Belgian mines
and mills for decades), and when presented with the opportunity to make a new start in America,
many jumped at the chance – joining millions of European immigrants who were equally eager to
build a new life for themselves and their families.
What the immigrants found once they reached America must have been a major disappointment.
While it is true that jobs were available, thousands of men discovered that they would be hired on
as strikebreakers, workers who would fill the coal companies’ needs for laborers when the mines’
workforce went on extended strikes. Coal mining was a dirty business at the time, both literally
and figuratively. Backed by wealthy and politically-connected company owners, and supported by
both lawmakers and local police, the mining companies virtually “owned” their workforce. Labor
protests – while frequent – were futile, and striking miners often found themselves out of work,
out of money and out of a home since most lived in the company houses owned by the mines.
With the assistance of local politicians and the strong-arm tactics employed by law enforcement
officers, the mining companies would simply bring in an ample supply of immigrant
strikebreakers to avoid any loss in productivity. Clashes between striking miners and
the police often turned violent – notably in mining strongholds such as Western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Colorado and Wyoming – and with few opportunities to
organize, and even less support from the media at the time, the American labor force
was at the hands of the nation’s largest industrial concerns.
Hand-in-hand with the fact that mining was a “dirty” industry, the dangers of
working in the mines continued to escalate. The mining companies had little regard
for the safety of their workers – after all, new sources of labor, strikebreakers included,
were readily available – and safety was an expensive commodity, both in terms of capital outlay and time spent redirecting resources from production to monitoring safety.
Industry was driving the rapidly expanding United States in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries; innovation and technology would follow, but at a cost of many lives. American
mining was a perilous industry at the time. Scarred by disasters of tremendous proportions, working in American mines – especially the coal mines – was indeed a dangerous
occupation. In the coal mines alone, 553 accidents resulting in the deaths of five or more
miners have been recorded by the United States Mine Rescue Association during the period
from 1876 through 1950 – which translates to an average of more than seven disasters per
year during that 75-year stretch.
It should come as no surprise, then, that the majority of all fraternal benefit societies operating in the United States were launched during that very same 75-year period. While organized
labor was still in its infancy in America, rudimentary unions, labor cooperatives, and political
and cultural organizations were beginning to make great strides in Germany, Austria and across
Europe. The Slovenian workers had come into contact with members of these various groups as
a result of their travels throughout Europe, and it soon became apparent to them that any labor
force would benefit from collective organization. Such was the theory of labor in Europe at the
close of the 19th century... but things were much different in America. Labor theories didn’t sit
well with the industrial entrepreneurs in the United States, who viewed unionized labor as a threat
to their companies. Recognizing the fact that organized labor often translated to extended periods
of unemployment here in America, the growing immigrant labor force soon began to develop economic benefit societies similar in nature to the workers’ organizations operating in Europe; thus, the
formation of hundreds of benefit societies, SNPJ included.
From its inception, SNPJ was conceived as a centralized Slovenian benefit society – in other
words, payment of sick and disability benefits would be handled through a centralized benefit fund.
Establishment of a central sick benefit fund accomplished two major goals. First, members claiming
sick and disability benefits would be paid from a larger pool of income, which solved the problem of
individual branches maintaining their own sick benefit accounts and then facing the unpleasant task
of levying special assessments when the funds were depleted. Second, and even more important,
a centralized sick and disability benefit fund would allow equal access to sick benefit payments
for all members regardless of the size of their branch or the area in which they resided. Future
branches could be formed in communities with lesser Slovenian immigrant populations where
maintenance of a branch-specific sick benefit fund would be virtually impossible. Within a matter
of only several years, adoption of a centralized sick and disability benefit fund would pay handsomely, both for the Slovene National Benefit Society and its membership.
Roots to Branches
“He described how, as a boy of 14,
his dad had been down in the mine,
his uncle had been down in the mine,
his brother had been down in the mine...
and, of course, he would go down in the mine.
”
The Slovene National Benefit Society was established in April 1904 by the members of nine independent Slovenian benefit societies which had previously organized in predominantly Slovenian enclaves. Of
these nine independent groups, six were based in coal mining regions – Lodge 2 (in La Salle, Ill.), Lodge
3 (Johnstown, Pa.), Lodge 4 (Neffs, Ohio), Lodge 6 (Morgan, Pa.), Lodge 7 (Claridge, Pa.), and Lodge
9 (Yale, Kan.) – and three in areas of heavy manufacturing – Lodge 1 (in Chicago), Lodge 5 (Cleveland)
and Lodge 8 (South Chicago). The formation of these nine independent societies closely followed the employment trends of the Slovenian immigrants at the time. In 1910, it is estimated that roughly 40 percent
of Slovenian immigrants were employed in the bituminous coal mines, while 35 percent labored in the
nation’s iron and steel mills. It’s no coincidence that immigrant coal miners were a driving force behind
the establishment of benefit societies: given the perils they faced at work on a daily basis, these men were
seeking financial security and additional benefits that simply were not offered in the workplace.
18
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Coal miners and their families at a tent
city in Ludlow, Colo., the site of the
now famous Ludlow Massacre, during
the Colorado Coalfield War of 1913-14.
A ghost town today, Ludlow was once
the site of several Colorado Fuel and
Iron coal mines. Backed by the United
Mine Workers of America, the miners
staged a yearlong strike that would
come to be recognized as the most
violent labor clash in U.S. history.
Photo: Denver Public Library,
Colorado Coal Field War Project.
Within the period of one year, the Slovene National
Benefit Society would triple its number of branch Lodges to
27, and the Society’s new Lodge formation was again following the immigrant Slovenians’ employment trends. This
early expansion of Lodges was recorded in mining towns
such as Rock Springs, Wyo.; Roslyn, Wash.; West Mineral, Kan.; Ely, Minn.; Pueblo, Colo.; South Range, Mich.;
Darragh and Iselin, Pa.; Frontenac, Kan.; and Jenny Lind,
Ark. – the majority of which were coal-producing centers.
And while the Society’s growth was centered in Chicago
and Cleveland, two major metropolitan areas that offered
easy access to outlying Slovenian communities, successive
waves of Lodge formation through SNPJ’s first five years
would push membership into more remote areas of Western
Pennsylvania, Eastern Ohio and Illinois; south into Oklahoma; north into Canada; and as far west as Oregon.
By 1909 the Slovene National Benefit Society had developed into a 5,000-member strong benefit society with a
branch network of 114 Lodges. SNPJ’s asset base continued
to grow, fed by additional waves of Slovenian immigrants
who were convinced that they, like their predecessors,
could build a prosperous life in America, and the Society
was publishing its very own newspaper, Glasilo (which
would be renamed PROSVETA in 1916). At the turn of the
20th century, foreign language newspapers were the very
lifeline holding many immigrant communities together.
SNPJ can trace its very formation to a Slovenian immigrant
newspaper, Glas Svobode, that was published in Pueblo,
Colo., beginning in 1902. Martin Konda, the newspaper’s
publisher and owner, had witnessed first-hand the violence
of a miners’ strike at Colorado Fuel and Iron Company
mines in Pueblo. Konda understood that the government
could be swayed by corporations such as Colorado Fuel and
Iron to continue its neglect of worker’s rights, and through
the pages of Glas Svobode he attempted to unite the immigrant Slovenian workers in their quest for improved working conditions.
Ironically, just a few months after SNPJ celebrated its
five-year anniversary, one of the most tragic coal mine disasters in U.S. history unfolded at a mine just northwest
of La Salle, Ill., in the tiny village of Cherry. On Nov. 13,
1909, nearly 500 men and boys, and three dozen mules,
were working in the mine. An electrical outage earlier in
the week had forced the workers to light kerosene lanterns
and torches. Shortly after noon, a coal car filled with hay
for the mules caught fire, and efforts to move the fire only
“When we’d hear of an accident,
she’d take me down to the coal mine
and we’d watch them bring whoever out
— whether they were dead or alive.
”
~ Doris Wilson
spread the blaze to the support timbers, trapping the miners below. The shafts were then closed off to smother the
fire, but this also had the effect of cutting off oxygen to the
miners and allowing “black damp,” a suffocating mixture
of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, to build up in the mine.
Although 200 men and boys escaped to the surface of the
Cherry mine, and one group of trapped miners was rescued
eight days later, a total of 259 miners and rescue workers
perished in the mine.
The Cherry mine was sealed after 25 days, yet the question of compensation for the lives of the miners remained
unresolved. The laws governing worker’s compensation and
employer liability were not yet on the Illinois statute books,
and the mine had gone into bankruptcy. It was agreed that
the settlement of claims would be based on standards set
in the Workmen’s Compensation Act which had recently
passed in British Parliament. Suffering the loss of 12 members and one pending applicant in the Cherry mine disaster,
SNPJ responded immediately by sending representatives to
the scene to investigate the incident and report on necessary measures to assist the miners’ families. The Society
also levied a special assessment of 50 cents per member to
ensure immediate payment of death claims.
Two years prior to the Cherry mine fire, an accident
which has since been described as “the worst mining disaster in American history” took the lives of over 300 men and
boys at the Fairmont Coal Company mines in Monongah,
W.Va. The Monongah mine disaster of Dec. 6, 1907, was
sparked by an explosion caused by the ignition of methane (also referred to as “firedamp”), which ignited the coal
dust in the mines. Officially, the lives of 362 boys and men
were lost in the underground explosion, although the exact
death toll remains unknown. Fewer than 70 miles separate
Monongah and Thomas, W.Va., the location of the former
SNPJ Lodge 29.
Historically, large-scale mine disasters have resulted in
reform and provided the impetus for legislation to provide
miners with a safer working place. Congress reacted to the
disaster at Monongah by passing and toughening mining
laws. In 1910, just after the Cherry mine disaster and following a decade in which the number of coal mine fatalities
exceeded 2,000 annually, Congress established the Bureau
of Mines as a new agency in the Department of the Interior.
The bureau was responsible for conducting research and reducing the number of accidents recorded in the coal mining
industry. Mine safety had been addressed; union recognition
and mine violence, on the other hand, are quite another story.
A Fair Fight?
A number of unions and trade associations had been attempting to organize America’s coal miners since the earliest days of organized labor in the United States. Unions
such as the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA,
established in 1890), and the short-lived and often radical
Western Federation of Miners (established in 1893, and
better known later as the International Union of Iron, Mill
and Smelter Workers), focused their attention on America’s
mining hotbeds: the copper mines in Michigan, the iron
mines in Minnesota, and the coal fields in Colorado, New
Mexico and Western Pennsylvania in the earliest years of
the 20th century. In their attempts to organize, the miners
faced stiff opposition from mine and mill owners across the
country, and their calls for reform – eight-hour work days,
pay raises, standard codes of safety regulations, workers benefits – often went unheeded. Long periods of mine
strikes would follow, a number of which turned violent as
the mine companies brought in strikebreakers to continue
production. Such was the case in the Westmoreland County,
Pa., coal strike of 1910-11 and the Copper Country strike of
1913-14 in Michigan.
The Westmoreland County strike, which encompassed
65 mines and 15,000 coal miners county-wide, was prompted by the miners’ attempts to unionize under the UMWA.
When the miners struck on March 9, 1910, the Westmoreland Coal, Penn Gas Coal, and Keystone Coal and Coke
companies evicted thousands of families from their company-owned homes. The UMWA spent $25,000 purchasing
PROSVETA
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The Slovenian National
Hall in Yale, Kan., circa
1923. SNPJ Lodge 9
in Yale was among the
charter Lodges which
established the Slovene
National Benefit Society
in April 1904. Photo: Pittsburg
State University, Kansas, Axe
Library, Special Collections.
John L. Lewis, who served
as president of the United
Mine Workers of America
from 1920-1960, featured
on the cover of the Oct.
2, 1933, issue of Time
magazine.
tents and constructing shanties, and set up 25 tent cities. In response, the coal
companies recruited thousands of Eastern European strikebreakers and enlisted the services of the
Pennsylvania State Police to protect the company’s property. Clashes
between the strikers and
police soon erupted,
resulting in the deaths
of 16 people over the
course of the yearlong
strike.
SNPJ members supported the Westmoreland County strike by
taking up collections to assist the striking miners who were suffering financial hardships and allowing fellow striking members to retain their active Society membership status
throughout the prolonged strike. SNPJ members did the same for fellow
members who went on strike in Michigan’s Copper Country in 1913,
a major strike affecting all of region’s copper mines. The strike, which
was organized to achieve the goals of shorter work days, higher wages
and union recognition, lasted just over nine months. Although both the
Westmoreland County and Copper Country strikes were unsuccessful
– thousands of UMWA miners were left unemployed and blacklisted in
Westmoreland, while the Western Federation of Miners was essentially driven
out of the Copper Country region – each
succeeded in generating support from
both the unions and the communities
they served.
While the Westmoreland County
and Copper Country strikes showed
the extent to which industries would
protect their natural resources while at
the same time forsaking their human
resources, the most excessive abuse of
force, by far, was registered in Ludlow,
Colo., during the Ludlow Massacre of
1914. The mining camp at Ludlow (now
a ghost town in Las Animas County,
Colo.) was situated among the pockets
of coal-rich veins stretching across the
base of the Rocky Mountains. The area
had been mined for railroad use since
the late 1860s, and by 1910 the coal
mining industry accounted for 10 percent of all employment registered in the
state of Colorado. At the time, the Colorado coal industry was dominated by a
handful of mine operators, the largest
of which was Colorado Fuel and Iron, a
J.D. Rockefeller-owned concern based
in nearby Pueblo. In fact, Colorado Fuel
and Iron was the largest coal-producing
company in the western United States.
In the earliest years of the 1900s, Colorado was notorious for laxed
mine safety regulation. When measured in 1912, the death rate in Colorado mines, 7.05 per 1,000 employees, was more than double the national average of 3.15. Since safety was of little concern statewide and
miners had few opportunities to air their grievances, major attempts at
unionizing the coal labor force were launched by the UMWA throughout
the southern Colorado region. Union organizing was conducted secretly
until 1913 when the UMWA presented a fairly standard list of demands
to the coal companies on behalf the miners, all of which were rejected.
When a strike was called in September 1913, the striking miners were
immediately evicted from their company homes and relocated into tents
provided by the UMWA on company property. To avoid a loss of productivity in the mines, Colorado Fuel and Iron hired hundreds of strikebreakers and then enlisted the services of the Baldwin-Felts Detective
Agency to protect its new workers. Baldwin-Felts had a reputation as
an aggressive strike-breaking agency, and within a month the strike had
deteriorated to the point that the Colorado governor dispatched the Na-
August 25, 2010
19
tional Guard to the area to maintain order, but the Guard’s leadership sided
with company management and the violence soon escalated.
By the spring of 1914 the state of Colorado could no longer afford to
pay the National Guard for its services at Ludlow. The governor recalled
all but two Guard units and allowed Colorado Fuel and Iron to finance and
equip a private militia. Violence between the miners and the private militia
– the members of which were mercenaries and former mining camp guards –
reached its boiling point on April 20, 1914, as militiamen and striking miners
engaged in a daylong firefight. While the gunfire raged, camp guards and militiamen set the miners’ tent city ablaze, killing two women and 11 children
who were trapped in a pit under a firey tent. A total of seven men were killed
in the battle, including three murdered strikers.
In the aftermath of the Ludlow Massacre, UMWA officials openly distributed arms and ammunition to strikers at union headquarters in Trinidad,
Colo. In the days that followed, 700 to 1,000 strikers “attacked mine after
mine, driving off or killing the guards and setting fire to the buildings.” Upwards of 50 people, including those at Ludlow, were killed in 10 violent
days. The fighting ended only when President Woodrow Wilson sent in Federal troops.
The Colorado Coalfield War, as this conflict came to be known, was the
most violent labor clash in U.S. history. Estimates of the death toll ranged
from 69 in a Colorado government report to 199 in a subsequent investigation ordered by Colorado Fuel and Iron Company owner John D. Rockefeller
Jr. The labor strike ended Dec. 10, 1914, as the UMWA finally ran out of
money to support the miners. Although the UMWA again failed in its attempt to unify the mine workers, as it had in Westmoreland County several
years earlier, labor and safety reforms within the coal mining industry were
enacted as a result of the Federal intervention at Ludlow. Coincidentally,
SNPJ members had established three Lodges in southern Colorado by 1914:
Lodge 201, based in Ludlow itself, and Lodge 66 in Trinidad and Lodge 21
in Pueblo, both of which were within 70 miles of Ludlow.
Future Foundations
Just as the Slovenian immigrant miners benefited from their affiliation
with SNPJ, the same can be said of the benefits the Slovene National Benefit
Society derived from the miners. Besides the obvious fact that American
coal mines attracted thousands of Slovenian immigrants each year, many of
whom were anxious to join the SNPJ and spent the remainder of their lives as
active Society members, countless SNPJ Lodges were organized in smaller,
lesser-known towns and villages which were essentially coal mining camps.
In addition to the majority of charter SNPJ Lodges that were based in coalproduction centers, newly-formed Lodges throughout the Eastern, Midwest,
and Rocky Mountain states helped SNPJ become the nation’s largest Slovenian-based benefit society. By the end of the First World War, SNPJ had
boosted its enrollment to nearly 23,000 members and expanded its Lodge
network to more than 330. Branching into areas such as Dawson, N.M.; Ely,
Minn.; and Edison and Ringo, Kan.; the Society’s development continued to
run parallel with the patterns of Slovenian miners’ settlements.
As a result of the Slovenian immigration in the early 20th century, SNPJ
was growing by leaps and bounds financially. The Society’s centralized sick
and disability system was an attractive benefit to many Slovenian laborers,
and SNPJ’s support of organized labor added appeal to the masses of Slovenian miners. Even more so than financially, SNPJ reaped the cultural benefits
of its expansive enrollment. Prior to World War I, few Americans had ever
heard of Slovenia. Slovenian territory comprised a small portion of the Austro-Hungarian Empire prior to the war, and was included in the short-lived
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes at war’s end. But with the newest
waves of Slovenian immigrants settling in areas that stretched from coast to
coast, the Slovene National Benefit Society was also expanding into new territory. Longing for their homeland, the Slovenian immigrants began building social clubs and meeting halls where they could gather to socialize with
fellow Slovenians. A number of these halls were built by SNPJ members
to serve as a “home” for their Lodge; still more were funded by private investors/members, many of whom were SNPJ members. The Slovenian halls
were active cultural centers – in some cases, the center of an entire town’s
social activity – and as word spread of good times at the halls, so too did the
message of SNPJ’s insurance and financial benefits.
The United Mine Workers of America scored a series of victories in the
period separating the two World Wars. Under the leadership of John L.
Lewis, who served as UMWA president from 1920 through 1960, the union
was able to achieve collective bargaining rights in the 1930s, and introduced
health care and retirement benefits for miners and their families in the 1940s.
By the end of the 1940s, UMWA membership had swelled to nearly 500,000
despite the gradual decline of the coal mining industry. The introduction of
mechanization in the mines, coupled with manufacturing industries turning
more and more toward the use of other fossil fuels, namely oil and gasoline,
20
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August 25, 2010
took its toll on the coal mining labor force. Lesser demand for
coal resulted in both lower prices and a reduction in the number of miners. The coal industry’s decline, which started in the
1920s, was precipitated by the massive unemployment that
characterized the Great Depression in the 1930s. As a result
of its successes in the 1940s, however, the UMWA was able
to again expand its membership, but the demand for coal had
dropped dramatically, especially after the Second World War.
To further illustrate the historic ties between the SNPJ and
America’s coal miners, the period of decline for the UMWA
coincided exactly with most prolific period of growth the Slovene National Benefit Society has experienced in its history.
Although a number of mergers helped the Society grow through
the years prior to World War II (barring a minor setback during the Great Depression), immediately following the Second
World War enrollment figures again swelled, pushing SNPJ
membership totals over the 71,700 mark. The support SNPJ
had offered immigrant miners during the UMWA’s fledgling
years helped build Slovenian-American communities across
the country, and once established in a powerful union, the Slovenian miners returned the favor by continuing to invest in the
life insurance and sick and disability coverage offered through
SNPJ. It was a mutually beneficial relationship that continued
long after the eventual decay of the coal mining industry.
By the mid-1950s the Slovene National Benefit Society had
been pledging its support and generating attention toward organized labor in America’s coal mines for nearly half a century,
and while the Society’s future concerns would be directed toward several other branches of organized labor, SNPJ never
turned its back on the coal miners. The American mining workforce was welcomed among the ranks of Society membership,
and the bond SNPJ had secured with the miners helped lay the
foundations for developing future relationships in American
industry.
# # #
EDITOR’S NOTE: The above history offers only a glimpse at the
shared history between the Slovene National Benefit Society and
organized labor in America’s coal mines. The material for this feature
has been compiled from a number of sources, including “History of
the Slovene National Benefit Society,” an excerpt from “Ameriški
Slovenci” by Jože Zavertnik, published by SNPJ, translation by Joe
Drasler, January 1981; and “In Unity Is Strength: A History of
the Slovene National Benefit Society, 1904-1984,” an unpublished
manuscript by Joseph Stipanovich, Ph.D.
GREETINGS
to SNPJ members
from Lodge 2
La Salle, IL 61301
Conemaugh Federation recognizing
honorees at October dinner dance
by EVELYN DIMPFL
Lodge 749 Secretary
JOHNSTOWN, Pa. — Here we are, right in the middle of summer. Actually, we’re on the down side of
summer at the time of this print. What have you done?
What have any of us done? Well, for starters, about 27
family members attended the fifth annual Glovach/Glavach Family Reunion at our beautiful SNPJ Recreation
Center. The weekend of June 11 found us arriving family by family: Joe and Joanne Vasilko, Judy and Jason
Edsall, Jim, Missy, J.J. and Julie Vasilko, and I, all
from Johnstown; Joe and Beth Dimpfl from McMurray,
Pa., and Beth’s father, Dennis Rebidue of Cabot, Ark.;
Ken, Amy and Felix Dimpfl from Columbus, Ohio, and
Amy’s parents, Bob and Julie Barr of Canton, Ohio;
Vic and Betsy Glavach, and their daughter and family,
Gigi, John, Orland, Nathan, Edward and David Houlihan of Wheaton, Ill.; and Jerry, Danielle, Haley and
Dayna Vasilko of Midland, Mich., were able to join the
festivities for the first time.
What a beautiful weekend it was; couldn’t have
asked for better weather. Most of us enjoyed great food
from the Gostilna Friday evening before heading over
to the balina courts. Many games were rolled that night
as well as the next day! A lot of the family enjoyed the
refreshing water of the pool, had fun on the playground
or just sat under the trees, talking. The evenings brought
us together around a great bonfire with plenty of snacks
and beverages.
As in the past, everybody did their part with the
meals and it worked out great. As Sunday dawned, it
was time to pack up those cars and head out, each family in their own direction toward home. It was fun and
we look forward to many more.
Instead of going home, I headed to Columbus via
Canton to stay for a week with Ken, Amy and, of
course, little Felix. It was so nice to be there for a week
and enjoy my grandson.
Slovenefest weekend found a bus from Johnstown
heading to the Recreation Center. John and Marcella
Micko (274) chartered the bus with close to 50 eager
passengers. I helped at the membership booth for about
two hours, and was able to meet the new SNPJ Sales
Director, Bud Paladino.
The crowd was great, the food was very good and
there was music everywhere! It doesn’t get much better
than that. I’m sure this year’s Slovenefest was another
success. Congratulations to the beautiful new Miss
SNPJ, Selina Progar (138).
My sister, Joanne Vasilko, her grandson, Jason
Edsall, and I traveled to the Chicago area to visit our
cousin, Vic Glavach, and his wonderful family. Vic and
his mother, Dorothy, moved to the Chicago area many
years ago. She was a former employee at the SNPJ
Home Office on Lawndale Ave. It was nice to talk to
him a little about those days and hear his recollections
of visits to the office.
While at their home, we enjoyed an architectural
boat tour of Chicago on the Chicago River, a walk
through the Morton Arboretum, a picnic at a lake and
dinner at their daughter Gigi’s home. Three sons of
Gigi and John Houlihan were in the play “Aladdin” put
on by the Birds and Babies theater group. Orland, Nathan and Edward all did a great job. We also enjoyed an
afternoon of sightseeing in Chicago and the Oak Park
area. It was very nice indeed.
We recently lost one of our Lodge’s oldest members.
John Langerholc Jr. passed away July 30 at the age of
96. John relocated to Marietta, Ga., several years ago
after the passing of his wife, Mary “Mimi” Langerholc.
John would have been an 80-year member of SNPJ
Aug. 1. He was a very active member, having been the
secretary of the former Lodge 82 before its merger into
749. He was a director and manager of the former Slovenian Hall in the Lorain Borough area of Johnstown
where he and his wife were fixtures at the Sunday night
dances. What a memory he had, remembering so much
history about the local Slovenians and what went on
at Lodge meetings years ago. He was a retired postal
worker and could recall an address from years ago. He
was a wealth of knowledge, and I will certainly miss
his frequent phone calls and e-mails. Deepest sympathies go out to his family, John of Munich, Germany,
and Philip and Ann Burgan. He had five grandchildren
and five great-grandchildren who will surely miss him.
Eight members of our Lodge will be celebrating 50-,
60- or 70-years of membership this year, and will be
honored at the Conemaugh Valley Federation’s annual
dinner dance Sunday, Oct. 3, at Aces Lounge in Johnstown. Letters will be mailed to these wonderful members. I hope that you will all say “yes” to the invitation!
Everyone is certainly welcome to attend. Just give me
a call to get your tickets. The cost is $16 for the dinner
and dance.
Cookbook for
the Ages
The cookbook sponsored by the SNPJ
Heritage Center is now on sale! For
additional information, contact Carol
Maruszak at (440) 944-4229.
$20 each
plus $3 s/h for first 2 copies
For 3 or more books,
add $1 shipping for each copy.
Return this order form to:
SNPJ Heritage Center • 270 Martin Road • Enon Valley, PA 16120
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Make check or money order payable to SNPJ Heritage Center.
Have a safe
and healthy
Labor Day
weekend!
From all the
members and
officers of
St. Louis
Lodge 107
PROSVETA
www.snpj.org • [email protected]
25. Avgusta 2010
21
Slovenske Strani
by Vida Kosir
Makedonski gasilci v Kranju nabirali izkušnje
HEADLINE: Macedonian firemen
were getting experience in Kranj
TOPIC: The professional firemen from
Kranj recently hosted four colleagues
from the Macedonian city of Kočevo,
located east of Skopje. Despite the size
comparison between Kranj and Kočevo,
the Macedonian city has less than a third
of Kranj’s professional firemen. “The firemen from Kranj received us very well and
they showed us their modern equipment
which we can’t compare to ours,” said
Vladko Jevtinov, the leader of the firemen
from Kočevo.
The Kranj city municipality formed a
connection with the Macedonian city last
year when they donated a used pumper
truck. Even though the firemen from
Macedonia received an old truck, they
are still using it.
The firemen in Macedonia responded
to 145 calls last year; meanwhile, the firemen from Kranj responded to 720 calls.
The Macedonian city has 18 professional
firemen; the Gorenjska metropolis has
51 employees.
The big difference between the two fire
departments is the fact that Kranj firemen
are called primarily to traffic accidents,
while the firemen in Kočevo are called to
assist at fires 85 percent of the time.
Pri kranjskih poklicnih gasilcih so se
mudili štirje kolegi iz makedonskega mesta
Kočevo vzhodno od Skopja. Čeprav ga
po številu prebivalcev lahko primerjamo s
Kranjem, imajo v omenjenem makedonskem
mestu skoraj trikrat manj poklicnih gasilcev
in tudi gasilsko prostovoljstvo ni razvejeno
tako kot pri nas. “Kranjski gasilci so nas zelo
lepo sprejeli in nam pokazali svojo sodobno
opremo, s katero se naša zastarela ne more niti
primerjati,” je vtise ob obisku strnil Vlatko
Jevtinov, vodja gasilcev iz Kočeva.
Mestna občina Kranj je že lani navezala
stike z makedonskim mestom in mu podarila
rabljeno gasilsko vozilo Tam T80 s črpalko.
Tamovo vozilo so prostovoljci v Mavčicah
uporabljali od leta 1986. Čeprav je na
obrobju Kranja veljalo za zastarelo, so ga
bili v Makedoniji veseli. “Še danes ga redno
uporabljamo. Vanj po potrebi vgradimo tudi
dodatni rezervoar za vodo, ki nam olajša
gašenje,” je pojasnil Vlatko Jevtinov.
Makedonski gasilci so si tudi na terenu
ogledali delo kranjskih kolegov, ko se je na
cesti proti Jezerskemu zgodila nesreča in
je morala posredovati gasilsko-reševalna
služba. “Intervencija je potekala podobno, kot
pri nas, vendar je bila zaradi boljše opreme
in tehnologije veliko hitrejša,” je dejal vodja
gasilcev iz Makedonije.
Kočevski gasilci so lani posredovali 145krat, medtem ko so kranjski gasilci v svojo
lansko statistiko vpisali 720 posredovanj.
V makedonskem mestu imajo 18 poklicnih
gasilcev, v gorenjski metropoli je zaposlenih
51, potrebovali pa bi še kakšnega. Razlika je
tudi v tem, da med intervencijami kranjskih
gasilcev prevladujejo prometne nesreče,
gasilce iz Kočeva pa kar v 85 odstotkih
primerov pokličejo na pomoč zaradi požarov.
“Naša največja težava je financiranje, saj
nimamo dovolj denarja ne za opremo ne za
dodatne zaposlene,” so povedali makedonski
gasilci in pristavili, da bodo z izkušnjami iz
Kranja in iz Iga, kjer so si ogledali center
za usposabljanje gasilcev in bili nad njim
navdušeni, z veseljem seznanili kolege v
domači gasilski enoti.
Vojko Artač, direktor Gasilsko-reševalne
službe Kranj je poudaril, da kranjski gasilci
že sodelujejo s kolegi iz Češke, Norveške
in Avstrije, vzpostaviti pa nameravajo tudi
izmenjavo izkušenj z britanskimi, francoskimi, bosanskimi in črnogorskimi gasilci.
“Pomen takšnega sodelovanja je predvsem
spoznati način dela in organiziranost drugih
gasilskih enot, saj lahko tako naše delo postane še učinkovitejše,” je povedal Artač.
DELO
HIŠNI ZVONEC - “Halo, je tam
električar Hren? Prejšnji teden ste
mi obljubili, da boste prišli popravit
zvonec pri vhodnih vratih!” - “Ni res!
Včeraj sem se oglasil pri vas, zvonil
kot nor, pa mi nihče ni odprl!”
Če je voda odlična, bo pivo okusno
HEADLINE: If the water is perfect, the beer will be
tasty
TOPIC: With their restaurant and boarding home in
Breže near Ribnica, the Pirnat family, also called Makšar,
is one of the rare families catering to tourists in the wide
Kočevje-Ribnica area. The family is well known for their
domestic produce, and especially for their homemade
beer. “The analyses and opinions of the Germans, who
installed our beer-making equipment, shows that we have
extremely good water. This is very important when making beer,” said Janez Pirnat.
A family business, the Makšar restaurant and boarding home became popular because of its domestic house
beer. There are only 25 domestic beer makers in Slovenia, and the closest and most similar brewery is located
in Grosuplje in the Primorsko region. Every month the
Pirnats make over a thousand gallons of beer, and they
have the capability of extending their production to more
than 2,200 gallons of beer per month.
The Pirnat family recently renovated and enlarged their
home, which houses a 120-seat restaurant and provides
overnight accommodations. “On average, we have 50 to
60 overnight guests a month, and some guests are already
returning,” Pirnat explained.
Besides homemade beer, the Pirnats offer their guests
other homemade products. They grow most of their veg-
etables and produce homemade smoked meats, and this
year they are planning to make apple wine as well. They
also bake bread, pastries and much more. The food is
based on traditional Slovenian cuisine and their menus
vary according to the seasons.
Družina Pirnat, po domače Makšar, je z gostiščem in
penzionom v Brežah pri Ribnici eden redkih turističnih
ponudnikov na širšem kočevsko-ribniškem območju. Znani
so predvsem po domačih pridelkih in izdelkih, še zlasti po
doma zvarjenem pivu. “Analize in mnenja Nemcev, ki so
tam postavili naprave za varjenje piva, so pokazali, da imamo
izjemno dobro vodo. Ta je pri varjenju piva najpomembnejša,”
pravi Janez Pirnat.
Gostišče in penzion Makšar je družinski projekt, ki se je
v domačem okolju uveljavil predvsem z odličnim hišnim
pivom. Najbližje podobne pivovarne so v Grosuplju in na
Primorskem, saj je v Sloveniji le okoli 25 domačih varilcev
piva. Pri Makšarju temno in svetlo ječmenovo pivo varijo
in prodajajo šele slabo leto. “Prvo domače pivo smo prodali
konec novembra,” pove Janez Pirnat. Na mesec zvarijo štiri
tisoč litrov piva, imajo tudi možnosti za razširitev proizvodnje
na deset tisoč litrov piva na mesec.
Domača pivovarna je le del načrtov, ki so jih pri Makšarju
izpeljali s pomočjo denarja Slovenskega podjetniškega sklada.
Družina Pirnat, poleg Janeza še žena Mateja in hčerka Anja,
ki skrbi za gostišče, ter sin Rok, ki je prevzel kmetijski del,
je prenovila in razširila domačijo, kjer je zdaj gostišče za
120 gostov in prenočišča. “V povprečju imamo petdeset
do šestdeset prenočitev na mesec, nekateri gostje pa se že
vračajo,” razlaga Janez Pirnat, ki se zaveda, da na kočevskoribniškem območju še ni prave turistične ponudbe, ki bi bila
primerno promovirana in bi pritegnila obiskovalce. “Začetek
je bil težak. Omahovali smo, ali naj ostanemo pri prejšnji
dejavnosti, predelavi plastike, ali naj se začnemo ukvarjati s
turizmom,” pripoveduje sogovornik.
Obiskovalcem poleg najbolj znanega domačega piva
ponujajo še druge domače pridelke in izdelke. “Imamo okoli
14 hektarov obdelovalne zemlje, tako da sami pridelamo
krompir, zelenjavo, žita, sodelujemo pa tudi z domačini,
saj bi radi postali samooskrbovalna kmetija.” V njihovi
ponudbi so tudi domači suhomesnati izdelki, ki jih sušijo v
lastni sušilnici s čim manj dima, domači kis iz neškropljenih
jabolk, letos pa nameravajo poleg kisa pridelati še jabolčno
vino. Seveda se skoraj ne bi spodobilo, da ne bi imeli tudi
domačega sadjevca, ki je, ugotavlja Janez Pirnat, “blagovna
znamka, ki odpira vsa vrata.”
Nekaj podobnega velja tudi za njihov orehovec. Pečejo
tudi kruh, sladice, med njimi “breško povanco”, staro kmečko
jed, ki je še najbolj podobna jabolčnemu zavitku. Kulinarično
ponudbo torej utemeljujejo na klasični slovenski kuhinji,
jedilnik pa prilagajo sezoni.
DELO
22
PROSVETA
www.snpj.org • [email protected]
25. Avgusta 2010
Grajski pisar iz Kamnika
HEADLINE: Castle writer from Kamnik
TOPIC: Stane Osolnik becomes a totally different
person when he is dressed in a mediaeval castle suit or
Franciscan monk cassock. With his convincing appearance, this writing master from Kamnik has so impressed
foreign countries that they are inviting him to Scotch
castles and Czech summer camps – the Vatican even sent
a car to his home so that he could write documents about
St. Francis for the 800th anniversary of the Order.
Over the last few years Stane Osolnik has been has been
pursuing his biggest passion – mediaeval handwritings.
At one time his hobby developed into an art. In his studio
the castle writer is tending to perfection, and he is even
making India ink and colored inks by himself. Laughing,
he added that sometimes the whole house smells when he
cooks organic glues on the stove.
This precise work is demanding, requiring a lot of
thinking and consistency, such as the study of old books,
which he reads and pours over for hours and hours
before he starts a new demanding exploit. At present he
is working on one of his biggest projects – a copy of the
Guttenberg Bible. He knows that he will work at this
project for years; it will be his pleasure, and he isn’t even
considering selling it.
It all started when he became fascinated with old mediaeval books and illustrations, where the letters were more
drawn than written. He said that at one time, besides the
monks who re-wrote books, the monasteries also employed
artists who worked very hard drawing letters.
A few years ago Stane Osolnik joined the Žužemberk
Association, and the door into the world opened for him.
His talents have been recognized in foreign countries,
and now Osolnik has a new problem – he receives so
many invitations that he has to choose the ones to which
he will respond.
Oblečen v srednjeveško grajsko opravo ali pa v
frančiskansko meniško kuto postane Stane Osolnik povsem
drug človek. Še v očeh dobi neki povsem nov žar in zdi
se, kakor da je pravkar stopil iz pravljice. S preprečljivim
nastopom je kamniški pisarski mojster tako navdušil tujino,
da ga vabijo na škotske gradove, na češke poletne tabore,
iz Vatikana pa so mu poslali avto na dom, da je prišel pisat
dokumente o svetem Frančišku ob 800-letnici reda.
Če za Staneta Osolnika še niste slišali, to le potrjuje rek, da
v svoji deželi ni lahko biti prerok. Tudi njega so opazili šele,
ko se je glas o mednarodni slavi vrnil čez Kamniške Alpe.
Tako je nesojeni profesor umetnostne zgodovine, ki ga je v
mladosti premamila dobro plačana služba, pa je obesil študij
na klin, šele zadnja leta je lahko z dušu in telesom pri svoji
največji ljubezni - srednjeveških rokopisih. Manljiva služba
je v času tranzicije šla po gobe, danes je zaposlen v povsem
običajni, a tisto, kar daje čar njegovemu življenju, je hobi, ki
ga je razvil v umetnost. Ko nas prijazno povabi v svoj dom,
vstopimo v grajsko sobo v malem, kjer kraljujejo replike
viteških čelad, na stenah so izključno olja z Osolnikovim
podpisom, knjige so stare in težke, še polička z DVD-ploščami
nosi same srednjeveške naslove.
Pokukamo še skozi vrata levo in vstopimo v pravi atelje,
kamor sodobnost še ni posegla. Grajski pisar pri svojem delu
teži k popolnosti, zato tudi tuš in barve izdeluje lastnoročno.
In med prešernim smehom doda, da včasih smrdi cela hiša,
ko na kuhinjskem štedilniku kuha organska lepila. Še ovčje
in jagnječje kože, ki jih brusi, da dobi pergament ravno
pravšnjo mešanico ostrine in mehkobe, da gosje pero gladko
teče, obdeluje sam.
Nisem ga vprašala, a najbrž je rad tudi sam. Kajti tako
natančno delo terja veliko premišljevanja in doslednosti.
Tako kot študij starih knjig, ki jih prebira in gleda ure in ure,
preden se loti kakšnega novega zahtevnega podviga. Trenutno
je eden njegovih največjih projketov prepis Guttenbergove
Biblije. Ve, da bo delal več let, a mu je v veselje in o prodaji
sploh ne razmišlja. Knjigo bo prepisal zase.
Vse se je začelo, ko so ga prevzele stare srednjeveške knjige z iluminacijami, kjer so črke bolj narisane kot napisane.
Pove, da so imeli svoje dni v samostanih poleg patrov, ki
so knjige prepisovali, zaposlene še prave umetnike, ki so se
trudili z risanjem črk, včasih tudi celostranskih. Poskušal jih
je posnemati, saj ga je od nekdaj vznemirjalo, kam je pon-
iknilo (duhovno) bogastvo po propadu rimskega cesarstva;
srednji vek namreč velja za skromno obdobje. Proučevanje
zastoja civilizacije ga je popolnoma potegnilo vase, in ko se
je pred leti učlanil v žužemberško društvo Seisenbergensis
Tumultus (lahko bi ga prevedli kot Žužemberški ropot), ki
goji srednjeveške vrednote, so se mu odprla vrata v svet. V
tujini so njegovo pedantnost in nadarjenost hitro prepoznali
in pisar Osolnik ima zadnje čase že sladke probleme, ko je
vabil toliko, da mora izbirati, na katera se bo odzval.
Na Škotskem je reden gost na dvodnevni grajski prireditvi,
pred kratkim se je vrnil iz Poljske, ki mu je še posebno všeč, saj
tam prireditelji od njega ne pričakujejo, da bo za obiskovalce
na hitro zapisal nekaj črk v spomin, ampak lahko v duhu časa
prikaže, kakšno delo so opravljali srednjeveški grajski pisarji
ali pa umetniki v samostanih. Ljubi so mu spomini na Češko,
kjer šola v naravi poteka tako, da otroci ves teden preživijo
kot v srednjem veku, ko pa jih starši za konec tedna obiščejo,
si morajo pridobiti potrdilo, da so dokazali obvladovanje
srednjeveškega življenja, in ga prinesli k pisarju, ki nato
diplomo izda - staršem.
V pisarja je oblečen, odkar je nevede sodeloval na srečanju
prostozidarske lože. Želeli so, da tudi z obleko izraža svoj
srednjeveški poklic. Pa s tem Osolnikovih zanimivih prigod še
ni konec: ko so frančiškani pred kratkim obhajali 800-letnico
obstoja reda, je bil povabljen v Vatikan, da je za visoke goste
oblikoval spominske listine. Le nekaj kosov, a na vsakega je
napisal rek svetega Frančiška in ga primerno bogato ilustriral.
Pri tem je bila zanj največja nagrada, da je smel ure in ure
občudovati vatikansko knjižnico.
Da je iz pravega testa, pove še pripetljaj, ko je munchenske filharmonike podučil, da pergamenti na njihovih bobnih
niso ročno obdelani, kakor jim je zagotavljal izdelovalec.
Poznavalec, ki vse postopke za izdelavo srednjeveških zapisov obvlada do potankosti, je glasbenikom v nekaj potezah
dokazal, da na kože, s kakršnimi so prevlečeni njihovi bobni,
grajski pisar ne bi mogel tekoče pisati. A to je le še ena od
zgodb(ic), zaradi katerih je kamniški pisar priljubljen in cenjen
gost na mednarodnih srednjeveških dogotkih.
DELO
Zasavski seniorji edini Slovenci v projektu Setip
HEADLINE: Zasavje pensioners are
the only Slovenians in the Setip project
TOPIC: The pensioners from Zasavje
are the only Slovenian citizens of the third
generation who are participating in the
international project “Setip - Education
of Older People” with the help of the Internet. Seniors from the Czech Republic,
Portugal and Spain are also included in
this lifelong education project.
At first, 87 seniors from four countries
– among whom there were 15 from the
Zasavje area – participated in this project,
the aim of which is to qualify older people
for Internet study and prepare suitable
class materials. In their native language,
the participants introduced the 10 most
important personalities from their country
on the Setip portal and then selected the
most important. The Zasavje participants
selected poet France Prešeren because
he showed that the Slovenian language
could be as prominent as the other great
European languages.
Zasavski upokojenci so edini slovenski
pripadniki tretje generacije, ki sodelujejo v
mednarodnem projektu Setip - izobraževanje
starejših s pomočjo internetne platforme.
Projekt vseživljenskega izobraževanja, v
katerega so vključeni še “seniorji” iz Češke,
Portugalske in Španije, je vreden dobrih
40.000 evrov, sofinancira pa ga Evropska
komisija. V projekt so se vključili leta 2008,
vodja slovenskega dela Janez Malovrh pa
napoveduje njegovo nadgradnjo: “Zdaj je
slovenski partner v projektu Zveza društev
upokojencev Slovenije, v prihodnje si bomo
za partnerstvo prizadevali mi in vanj vključili
še Litijane.” Sprva je v projektu, ki ima za
cilj usposobiti starejše za uporabo učenja s
pomočjo internetne učilnice in pripraviti ustrezen učni material, sodelovalo 87 starejših
iz štirih držav; zdaj jih je sedemdeset, od
tega petnajst zasavcev. Udeleženci so vsak
v svojem maternem jeziku predstavili deset
najpomembnejših osebnosti svoje države
in jih predstavili na Setipovem portalu,
nato pa med njimi izbrali najpomembnejšo.
Zasavci so izbrali Franceta Prešerna, ker je
po njihovem dokazal, da se slovenski jezik
lahko enakopravno postavi ob bok velikim
evropskim jezikom. “Ko smo osvojili internetno komunikacijo, smo odprli forume prek
katerih smo izmenjavali mnenja.
Najbolj intenzivna je komunikacija s
Čehi; v devetnajstih temah smo Slovenci
sodelovali z 213 prispevki,” je povedal
Malovrh, ki je še dodal, da je jezik precejšnja
ovira v komunikacji s s seniorji iz Španije
in Portugalske. Z “romansko” govorečimi
se poskušajo razumeti s pomočjo internetnih
prevajalnikov. Projekt se oktobra izteče, po
Malovrhovem mnenju pa so dokazali, da
je mogoče v kratkem času tudi popoldne
računalniške analfabete naučiti uporabljati
svetovni splet in sodelovati v forumih, ter
tako premagovati osamljenost.
DELO
Požeto in v snope povezano žito v Misljinski dolini. PHOTO: Reaped and tied wheat in the
Mislinjska Valley.
PROSVETA
www.snpj.org • [email protected]
25. Avgusta 2010
Zbirka starega
škafarskega orodja na Lokvah
HEADLINE: Collection of old pail
tools on Lokve
TOPIC: When the winters were long
and cold in Lokve, and the people were cut
off from the world because of the snow,
they started to make different wooden
articles: pails, churns and roof tiles. The
pail and churn trade has been preserved
in Lokve through the present, mainly by
the work of Alojz Ceja, who has handed
down his knowledge in this trade to the
younger generation.
A few months ago the area received an
interesting collection of pail tools which,
with close to 100 items and 30 photographs,
quietly tells the story about this activity.
“During the winter, Lokve was a lonely
place most of the time. For up to three
months, the area was not passable or
accessible. Because of six-foot-high snow
drifts and snow-covered roads, the people
were unable to work in the forests, and for
this reason they occupied themselves with
making wood products. They needed very
simple tools for this type of trade, and they
prepared the wood in the summer,” said
Rajmund Kolenc, who collected the tools
that were used by wood crafters for years.
Ko so bile zime na Lokvah še dolge in
mrzle, ljudje pa zaradi snega tudi po več
mesecev odrezani od sveta, so se domačini
lotili izdelave različnih lesenih izdelkov:
škafov, pinj, pa tudi posebne vrste strešnikov.
Škafarska obrt in pinarstvo se je na Lokvah
ohranila vse od današnjih dni, najbolj po
zaslugi domačina Alojza Ceja, ki je svoje
znanje o tej obrti posredoval mlajši generaciji Lokvarjev. Pred meseci je kraj dobil
tudi zanimivo zbirko škafarskega orodja, ki
s približno sto primerki in 30 fotografijami
tiho pripoveduje zgodbo o dejavnosti, ki je
v preteklosti tako pomembno zaznamovala
tukajšnje ljudi.
Do druge svetovne vojne so ljudje na
Trnovski planoti živeli predvsem od gozda:
bili so drvarji, oglarji, tesarji, cestari, žagarji,
v mestih pa so prodajali tudi drva. V zimskem času so se lotili izdelovanja predmetov
iz lesa.
“Pozimi so Lokve največkrat samevale. Minili so mesec, dva, tudi trije, ko to
območje ni bilo prehodno in dostopno. Zaradi
dvometrskih snežnih zametov in zasneženih
cest ljudje niso mogli delati niti v domačih
gozdovih, zato so se ukvarjali s škafarstvom
ali pintarstvom. Doma, na toplem, v zavetju
peči. Za takšno obrt so potrebovali le preprosto orodje, les pa so pripravili že poleti. Za
izdelavo škafov so uporabljali izključno smrekovega,” pravi Rajmund Kolenc, ki je nekaj
let zbiral še ohranjene primerke orodja, ki so
ga uporabljali tukajšnji pintari za izdelavo
najrazličnejših lesenih izdelkov, kot so škafi,
pinje, golide za molžo, brente, lempe, lesene
vile, grablje, žlice in podobno. Ob tem velja
omeniti, da je bilo škafarstvo značilna obrt
prav za Lokve, saj se niti v sosednjih vaseh
ni prijela, obenem pa je postala pomemben
vir zaslužka ljudi.
“Pred vojno je bilo na Lokvah približno
600 prebivalcev in s škafarstvom se jih je
ukvarjalo vsaj sto. Po vojni se je številka bistveno zmanjšala, zdaj imamo le še enega pintarja, ki zna izdelovati škafe. Sam poskušam
to dejavnost obvarovati pred pozabo tako,
da ljudem pokažem svojo zbirko in osnove
škafarske obrti. To je moj mali prispevek k
temu, da se ohrani naša dediščina,” pripoveduje Rajmund Kolenc.
Kolenc opaža, da mladim do takšnih
stvari ni kaj prida, je pa zato predstavitev
nekdanje značilne obrti Lokvarjev toliko bolj
zanimiva za starejše. “Včasih se k nam na
ekskurzijo pripelje tudi ves avtobus ljudi, ki
si radi ogledajo to in druge zanimivosti naših
krajev,” ugotavlja.
Rajmund Kolenc je škafarsko orodje zbiral
ljubiteljsko, pri postavitvi zbirke pa so mu
s strokovnim delom pomagali v Goriškem
muzeju. “Na 50 kvadratnih metrih površine
sem želel urediti pregledno zbirko, ki jo
sestavlja približno sto eksponatov ter okrog
30 fotografij, ki so stare približno sto let in
ponazarjajo tedanji utrip te dejavnosti. To
je zame največja vrednota,” pravi Rajmund
Kolenc.
In njegovi načrti za prihodnje: “Na Lokvah
so v času, ko so moški izdelovali pine in
škafe, žene pletle in klekljale. Razmišljam,
da bi zbirko dopolnil še s temi predmeti. Ne
časa, ne denarja, ki sem ju doslej vložil v
postavitev zbirke, mi ni žal. Bržkone bo tako
tudi v prihodnje.”
DELO
Male skrivnosti za velik pridelek
SEJEMO IN SADIMO V VRSTE - Vrtnine nam bodo najlepše uspevale, če bodo imele
dovolj prostora, svetlobe in hranil za rast. Zato jih posadimo v vrste s primerno
razdaljo, glede na velikost in potrebe posameznih rastlin. Sejemo jih največ za tri
debeline semena globoko. Pri sajenju upoštevajmo tudi setveni koledar.
ZASTIRAJMO PRST OKOLI RASTLIN - Zemljo okoli vrtnin rastlin zastirajmo z
naravno zastirko. Mnogo manj dela bomo imeli s puljenjem plevela pa tudi prst bo
dlje ostala vlažna, če bomo zastirko naredili vsaj na gredi s paradižnikom, okoli
jajčevcev, kumar, paprike, v nasadu jagod, ob fižolu in tako naprej. Rastline bodo
ostale zdrave in močne, če jih bomo s primerno oporo, denimo s palicami in mrežo,
dvignili od tal. Za zastiranje prsti uporabimo slamo, pokošeno travo, lubje, listje ali
prekrivne materiale.
SOD ZA ZBIRANJE DEŽEVNICE - Tako kot je ob robu vrta smiselno postaviti kompostnik za organske odpadke, je dobro imeti tudi sod za zbiranje deževnice, ki je
ustrežnejša za zalivanje vrta, saj vsebuje manj kalcija in druhih mineralnih snovi kot
voda iz vodovoda. Tudi za sušna obdobja bomo imeli tako v rezervi nekaj vode za
zalivanje. Pri zalivanju pazimo: rastline zalivajmo raje manjkrat, a takrat izdatneje,
to pomeni vsaj od deset do dvajset centimetrov globoko, da ne bodo razvile korenin
le na površju zemlje.
23
Ledvička, dolina sedmerih Triglavskih jezer. PHOTO: Ledvička, the valley of the Seven
Triglav Lakes.
Harmonikar s Cankove
najboljši na svetu
HEADLINE: The accordionist from
Cankova the best in the world
TOPIC: Instrumentalists of all categories from around the world competed
at this year’s competition for the prestigious London Royal Music Academy’s
Ram Club Award, which was held in the
prominent Duke’s Hall. The winner was
Amadej Herog from Cankova, a classical
accordionist who recently added a master’s
degree to his already rich musical career
at the Royal Music Academy.
Before he departed for London, where
he spends most of his time, Amadej said
that he didn’t expect to win such a prestigious competition, not even when he
was one of five competitors selected to
advance to the second round among the
40 participants.
Na letošnjem tekmovanju za ugledno
nagrado Ram Club londonske Kraljeve akademije za glasbo, na katerem so se v eminentih
Duke’s Hall pomerili instrumentalisti vseh
kategorij z vsega sveta, je zmagal Cankovčan
- klasični harmonikar Amadej Herzog, ki je
nedavno svoji že bogati glasbeni karieri dodal
še magisterij na Kraljevi akademiji za glasbo.
Preden je ponovno odpotoval v London,
kjer živi večinoma časa, nam je Amadej
Herzog v kratkem pogovoru zaupal, da se
zmage na tako prestižnem tekmovanju ni niti
najmanj nadejal, niti takrat ne, ko se je med 40
sodelujočimi uvrstil v drugi krog tekmovanja,
kar je uspelo le petim tekmovalcem. Nagrada
mu pomeni plačilo za njegovo dolgoletno
ukvarjanje z glasbo, saj se je že pri desetih
odločil postati profesionalni glasbenik.
VESTNIK
Kočevska parna
lokomotiva je pod streho
HEADLINE: Kočevje steam locomotive
is under a roof
TOPIC: More than 20 years ago a JŽ
22-092 steam locomotive arrived from
Grosuplje to the Kočevje railway station,
where it was left, and now the rusty giant
has been moved again. A group of people
from Kočevje, along with the Railway
Museum and the Slovenian Railways,
arranged to have the locomotive covered
under the roof of a workshop at the edge of
the Kočevje train station. With a loader, it
took two hours to push the locomotive on
the tracks and into the workshop. Workers
will first repair the roof and replace the
window glass, and then they will start to
repair the 70-ton heavy steam engine which
was made between 1910 and 1918.
Po več kot dvajsetih letih, ko so na
kočevsko železniško postajo iz Grosuplja
pripeljali parno lokomotivo JŽ 22-092 in
jo tam pustili, se je zarjevela velikanka
spet premaknila. Za to je poskrbela skupina
Kočevcev, ki so v sodelovanju z železniškim
muzejem, Slovenskimi železnicami in
Borisom Zupancem poskrbeli, da je lokomotiva zdaj pod streho, v delavnici, na robu
kočevske železniške postaje. V dveh urah
so z nakladalnikom potisnili lokomotivo z
mesta in po tiru v delavnico. Remizi bodo
najprej popravili streho, da ne bo zamakalo,
in poskrbeli, da bodo na oknih spet šipe,
potem pa bodo začeli obnavljati približno 70
ton težak parni stroj, ki so ga izdelali med
leti 1910 in 1918. Načrti skupine, ki bo pod
vodstvom Železniškega muzeja Slovenskih
železnic k obnovi povabila vse prostovoljce,
s tem ne bodo končani.
Pobudniki so namreč prepričani, da je
na več kot sto let stari progi, ki ima večino
originalnih elementov, in na kočevski
železniški postaji, ki jo prerašča zelenje,
ogromno možnosti, da skupaj z lokomotivo
v nekaj letih postanejo ena od kočevskih
zanimivosti.
DELO
24
PROSVETA
www.snpj.org • [email protected]
25. Avgusta 2010
Tudi sevniški planinci na odprtju planinskega muzeja
HEADLINE: Mountaineers from
Sevnica also at the opening of the Mountain Museum
TOPIC: On Saturday, Aug. 7, the
Slovenian Alpine Museum in Mojstrana
opened its doors to more than a thousand
visitors. The main speaker at this mountain
holiday was President of Slovenia Danilo
Türk, who explained the importance of
Slovenian mountaineering to the national
identity and for recognition of Slovenia
throughout the world.
Museum visitors will be able to learn
about Slovenia’s historic work in the
mountains, including the country’s alpine
achievements and everything that ranks
Slovenia among the most developed Alpine
nations.
A group from the Lisca Mountain
Association in Sevnica also attended the
museum opening.
Slovenski planinski muzej v Mojstrani
je ob prisotnosti več kot 1000 planincev in
ljubiteljev gora v soboto 7. avgusta odprl
svoja vrata. Zbrane je ob tem planinskem
prazniku nagovoril predsednik republike Danilo Turk, ki je izpostavil pomen planinstva
in s tem tudi muzeja za slovensko kulturo in
nacionalno identiteto ter za prepoznavnost
Slovenije v svetu.
“Vsem tem tisočim in stotisočim ljudem,
ki bodo še naprej obiskovali naše gore, je
namenjen ta muzej. To je del našega prebivalstva, ki bo imelo neposredno veselje in
korist s tem muzejem, in ker je ta del tako
velik, je tudi naša hvaležnost vsem tistim,
ki so ga omogočili, toliko večja,” je dejal
predsednik države. Spomnil je, da je muzej
nastajal dolgo časa, čeprav je že dolgo obstajala potreba po njem.
Vodja muzeja Miro Eržen je po 25 letih
lastnega dela na projektu izgradnje Slovenskega planinskega muzeja in po več kot 100
letih prizadevanj več generacij slovenskih
planincev, zadovoljen, da je muzej vendarle
zaživel. Četudi so bili v tem času po njegovih
besedah že trenutki, ko se je projekt zdel
brezupen ter je bilo potrebno veliko truda
in trme, da se je uresničil.
Obiskovalci v muzeju spoznajo vse plasti
zgodovinskega delovanja v gorah. “Od vrhunskih alpinističnih dosežkov do vsega
tistega, kar nas danes uvršča med velike alpske narode z razvito planinsko infrastrukturo
in predvsem visoko razvito narodno zavetje,”
je dejal Eržen.
“Planinstvo ni samo izkoriščanje prostega
časa, izkazuje naš celovit odnos do narave,
soljudi, včasih tudi do velikih družbenih
vprašanj, s katerimi se soočamo,” je poudaril
predsednik Turk. Izpostavil je pomen, ki ga
ima planinstvo za slovensko nacionalno bit,
kulturo in za prihodnost. Prepričan je, da o
tem priča tudi prisotnost ministrice za kulturo
Majde Širca na odprtju Muzeja.
DOLENJSKI LIST
ŠKOTA - Dva Škota doživita brodolom.
Prvi z olajšanjem pravi drugemu: “Bodiva vesela, da nisva kupila povratne
karte!”
V občini Veržej po novem 20 lokalnih spomenikov
HEADLINE: Now 20 new monuments
in the Veržej municipality
TOPIC: Recently a new order was accepted to proclaim important immovable
cultural monuments through which the
Veržej municipality will protect 20 areas,
objects, monuments and parts of old settlements. According to the terms of the new
order, the cultural monuments include the
protected archeological regions in Banovci
and Veržej. The historical monuments
include three homes and the rural center
of Bunčani Village, and an old bee house,
five homes and the main borough settle-
ment in Veržej.
Additional artistic-historical monuments include the church in Veržej, a
Marian pillar in the main square of Veržej,
a bust of Fran Kovačič, the border stones
which at one time marked the border
between the Austrian and Hungarian portions of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy,
and the Babičev Mill on the Mura River.
Pred dnevi so sprejeli odlok o razglasitvi
nepremičnih kulturnih spomenikov lokalnega
pomena, po katerem bo v občini Veržej
zavarovanih dvajset območji, objektov,
spomenikov in delov naselbin. Stari odlok
iz nekdanje velike občine Ljutomer je na
območju sedanje občine Veržej varoval devet
kulturnih spomenikov lokalnega pomena.
Po novem odloku sta kot lokalna kulturna
spomenika zaščiteni arheološki območji v
Banovcih in Veržeju, pet domačji in osrednje
trško naselje v Veržeju. Med umetnostnozgodovinske spomenike so uvrstili že do zdaj
zavarovano veržejsko cerkev sv. Mihaela
in Marijin steber iz leta 1815 na osrednjem
trgu v Veržeju. Zgodovinski spomeniki pa
so doprsni kip Frana Kovačiča, spomenik
Slavku Ostercu in mejna kamna, ki sta nekoč
označevala mejo med avstrijskim in ogrskim
delom avstroogrske monarkije. Kot tehnični
spomenik lokalnega pomena bo še naprej
zavarovan Babičev mlin na Muri. V njem
še vedno dela legenda murskega mlinarstva
Mirč Babič, čeprav je obrt že pred leti formalno prevzela njegova hči Karmen.
DELO
ZAROKA - Maks je zaljubljen, vendar
ima pomisleke, zato svojo izbranko
vpraša: “Kaj bo rekla tvoja mama k
najini zaroki?” - ”Ne delaj si skrbi. Še
vsakokrat je bila vesela.”
Vurmoharji so velika slovenska posebnost
HEADLINE: Watch repairmen are a big Slovenian
speciality
TOPIC: In the 19th century when mass clock production developed and there wasn’t a home that didn’t have a
device to measure time, the upper Kolpa valley developed
the occupation of “vurmohars” (clock repairmen). These
were self-taught clock repairmen; peddlers who walked
from house to house and from village to village repairing ordinary wall clocks, alarm clocks and larger house
clocks. This occupation, to which a comparison can only
be found in Switzerland, the country of watchmakers,
was alive until 1960.
Bosljiva Loka, a village in the Osilnica municipality,
recently unveiled a monument to all watch repairmen,
with which they would like to preserve the memory of
this almost-forgotten tradition in this area.
The watch repairmen were one of a variety of peddlers
who, since 1492, maintained a very important activity that
allowed the people to survive on the poor soil along the
Kolpa River and around the Kočevje-Ribnica area. The
data shows how extended this occupation was in the Upper
Kolpa Valley: altogether in the area, in 100 years, between
500 to 600 people of three generations were among the
150 watch repairmen. They traveled to Slavonia, Bačko,
Banat and Srem (all in Croatia), where the very rich
farmers lived and where they had plenty of work. The
watch repairmen were young men, at least 16 years old,
who walked around with a basket (a wooden backpack)
in which they had everything they needed for their trade:
from tools to parts, food and clothing. Among these young
watch repairmen there were a few very gifted mechanics
who improved so much that they passed masters exams
and became professional watch repairmen.
Ko se je v 19. stoletju razvila množična proizvodnja ur
in skoraj ni bilo več domačije, ki ne bi imela naprave za
merjenje časa, se je v zgornjekolpski dolini razvil poklic
“vurmoharja”. To so bili samouki urarji, krošnarji, ki so
hodili od hiše do hiše, od vasi do vasi in popravljali navadne
stenske ure, budilke in večje hišne ure. Ta poklic, ki mu je
morda mogoče najti primerjavo le še v Švici, deželi urarjev,
je bil živ vse do leta 1960.
Pred kratkim so v Bosljivi Loki, vasici v občini Osilnica,
odkrili spomenik vsem vurmoharjem in urarjem, s katerim
želijo v teh obmejnih krajih ohraniti spomin na že skoraj
pozabljeno tradicijo. Tu se je namreč razvila in ohranjala
ta posebna obrt. “Beseda je ponaredek nemške besede uhr
macher, ki pomeni urar, pri nas, v kolpski dolini, pa pomeni
samoukega urarja,” pravi Jože Rugole, urar in domačin iz
Boslive Loke.
Vurmoharji so bili ena od različic krošnjarastva, ki je bili
že od leta 1492 zelo pomembna dejavnost za zagotavljanje
preživetja ljudem na skopi zemlji ob Kolpi in tudi širšem
kočevsko-ribniškem območju. Takrat je namreč cesar Friderik
III izdal krošnjarski patent, ki je Kostelcem Kočevarjem in
Ribničanom dovoljeval svobodno trgovanje z živino, platnom
in drugimi izdelki po Hrvaškem in v deželah Avstrije. Skorajda ni bilo vasi na teh območjih, ki ne bi imela kakšnega
krošnarja, njihovo število pa se je od konca 19. stoletja do
druge svetovne vojne zaradi vse slabših gospodarskih razmer
le še povečevalo.
Da pa se je v zgornjekolpski dolini, to je na območju
od Kužlja do Zakrajca na hrvaški strani Kolpe in od Rak
do Ribjeka na slovenski razvilo vurmoharstvo, gre pripisati
“račkemu mojstru”, možu iz Rač, vasice na robu kočevske
planote. Ta je želel v Bosljivi Loki in okoliških vaseh najeti
mlade fante, ki naj bi - tako kot je bilo takrat v navadi - od
hiše do hiše prodajali serijsko izdelane stenske ure. Te so
začeli izdelovati na začetku 19. stoletja v mestu Schotten v
Schwarzwaldu v Nemčiji in so bile namenjene podeželskemu
prebivalstvu. Imele so leseno ohišje, medeninaste kolesje in
- kar je bilo verjetno najpomembneje - dostopno ceno.
“Prodaja teh ur je bila organizirana nekoliko nenavadno,
saj so trgovci najeli mlade fante, ki so hitro dobili ime ‘uhren
träger’, torej prenašalci ur, ki so ure nosili v posebnih koši in
jih prodajali od hiše do hiše,” razlaga Rugole. Ti fantje so bili
izurjeni tudi za osnovna popravila, saj so vsako prodano uro
morali pritrditi na steno, obesiti nihalo in uteži, uravnati njen
hod in bitje ter novemu lastniku povedati osnovna pravila.
“Da je bil takšen način prodaje uspešen, ni dvoma, saj je bilo
kmalu na podeželju težko najti hišo brez takšne ure,” pravi
Jože Rugole o urah, ki so jim vurmoharji pravili “ šutarca”.
Ko pa je trg postal zasičen in je popravilo ur prineslo več
zaslužka kot prodaja, je nastal vurmohar.
Kako razširjen je bil ta poklic v zgornjekolpski dolini,
pove podatek, da je bilo na omenjenem območju ob zgornjem
delu Kople, kjer je v stotih letih skupaj živelo od 500 do 600
ljudi, v približno treh generacijah kar 150 vurmoharjev. Ti so
hodili v Slavonijo, Bačko, Banat in Srem, kjer so bili - takšen
spomin se je ohranil v teh krajih - nesporno bogati kmetje.
Vurmoharji so bili fantje, stari najmanj 16 let, ki so po svetu
hodili z vurmoharskim košem, nekakšnim lesenim nahrptnikom, v katerem je bilo shranjeno vse, kar so potrebovali:
od orodja in rezervnih delov do hrane in obleke.
“V taki množici moških, ki so se ukvarjali s popravilom
ur, je bilo nekaj zelo nadarjenih mehanikov, ki so se tako izpopolnili, da so opravili mojstrski izpit in postali profesionalni
urarji,” dodaja Rugole. Več domačinov pa se je zaradi vpliva
vurmoharjev izučilo za profesionalne urarje, pravi Rugole,
tudi sam urar: “Ti naši kraji z majhnim številom prebivalcev
so prispevali k urarski stroki od 40 do 50 profesionalnih
urarjev, kar mislim, da je poseben fenomen.”
DELO
PROSVETA
www.snpj.org • [email protected]
25. Avgusta 2010
Prodajalka Sonja
HEADLINE: Saleswoman Sonja
TOPIC: Outside the grocery store, I put my groceries
in my car, returned the shopping cart and got my euro
back. Then I heard someone calling my name. It was Jela,
inviting me for a coffee. “I have to tell you what just happened to me,” she said. I couldn’t say no even though I
had to go home; no one helps out and all the work was
waiting for me.
After we ordered our coffee, Jela began. “ You know,
today really has been an odd day. A few strange things
happened to me. First, I didn’t have a euro to rent a
shopping cart. I didn’t want to ask the other customers
because I felt embarrassed, and I didn’t see anyone I knew
in the store. I asked the cashier if she could lend me a euro
because I had a lot to buy and needed a cart. She reached
under the counter and took a euro from her purse.
“I rushed from aisle to aisle, got everything I needed
and went to the register. As I was placing my items on the
belt, a yogurt accidently fell to the floor and made a huge
mess. What else could go wrong? The same cashier who
lent me the euro gave me a roll of paper towels. After I
cleaned up the mess, I didn’t know where to put the dirty
paper towel and empty yogurt cup. I couldn’t find a suitable place, so I finally just put everything in the corner
of a shelf. A lady stepped at the end of my line and was
disturbed with my mess. Very loudly she asked, “Who
made this mess?” The lady behind me said, “Her,” and
pointed at me. I wanted to crawl into a hole right there,
all because of one yogurt!
“I took all my groceries to my car, returned the shopping cart, got my euro and took it back to the cashier. She
told me not to feel bad because much worse things have
happened in the store.”
Even though I had work to do at home, I listened to
Jela’s story until the end.
Hitela sem domov. Kot po navadi sem nakupila vse, kar
sem potrebovala. Doma pa bom, kot vedno, ugotovila, da sem
kup stvari pozabila. Nočem upoštevati nasveta prijateljice,
naj si vse lepo napišem na listek. Jaz pa res ne bom pokazala,
kako si ne zapomnim niti osnovnih zadev! Pa se vsak dan
nabere polno teh osnovnih zadev: v vrtec, v zdravstveni dom....
telefon: na Mladinsko knjigo, odpovej gledališče, podaljšaj
rok izposoje v knjižnici, pokliči Jasno...
Bila sem pred veleblagovnico, iz vozička sem zložila
stvari v avtomobil, zapeljala voziček v vrsto in ga vpela k
zadnjemu, pobrala evro iz jamice in takrat sem zaslišala klic.
Poklicala me je Jela. “Greva na kavico. Kaj se mi je zgodilo!
Moram ti povedati. Kaj takega pa še ne. Pridi!” In že me je
potiskala proti izhodu. Kaj naj bi ji rekla? Da se mi mudi
domov? Saj me bo vse delo počakalo, saj nihče ne bo naredil
ničesar namesto mene. Pa saj si nikoli ne privoščim klepeta.
Jeli me res ni bi bilo treba dolgo pregovarjati. “No, kaj se ti je
vendar zgodilo?” sem jo vprašala, ko sva sedli v bližnji lokal.
“Počasi, najprej kavico!” Res počasi sva skrkali kavico, kot
pravi kofetarici, ki se jima pod soncem nikamor ne mudi.
Začela je: “Veš, danes je en čuden dan. Si videla, da sem
bila tudi jaz v marketu? Ja, si videla. No, najprej se mi je
zgodilo, da nisem imela enega evra, ne v denarnici niti v
avtomobilu v predalčku. Vse sem preiskala. Da bi prosila
katerega izmed mimoidočih, naj mi posodi, me je bilo sram.
Pa se šla k blagajni. Veš, kod vse moraš hoditi do tja, okrog
neštetih polic. In gledala sem, če bi koga od nakupovalcev
poznala. Ta bi mi posodil. Pa kot nalašč, ko nekoga potrebuješ,
ga ni! Medve sva se zgrešili za petnajst minut. Potem grem
s cmokom v ustih, k blagajničarki. Pojasnim, da ni malih
košar, da bi rabila voziček, pa da nimam niti pet tolarjev niti
enega evra, pa da moram kupiti več stvari. Pa če bi mi ona
posadila en evro. Pa me vpraša, če iz blagajne, pa je meni
vseeeno, rdeča kot sem bila od zadrege. Segla je pod pult in
iz svoje denarnice vzela evro ter mi ga dala. Ljudje v vrsti so
25
bili nemi. Njim se gotovo ne more zgoditi kaj podobnega, saj
se je tudi meni prvič! Šla bi drugam, v drugo trgovino, kjer
ne potrebuješ vsega tega, če se mi ne bi mudilo. Potem sem
dirkala od police do police in nabirala stvari: kruh, mleko,
moko, pri zelenjavi je bila gneča, pa mi je uspelo stehtati
čebulo in kumare, potem mleko, maslo, jogurte. No sedaj
postaja zgodba napeta: jogurti! Na blagajnah gneča, saj si
videla, je taka ura, nisem se postavila v vrsto, kjer je delala
blagajničarka, ki mi je posadila denar, dve vrsti levo je bilo
manj ljudi. No, odlagam stvari na premikajoči se pult. Jogurt
pa mi pade iz rok. Na tleh je ležala luža, okrog mene ljudje.
Nestrpni. Kaj sedaj? Zanimivo. Takrat se oglasi tista ‘moja’
prodajalka in mi pošlje po ljudeh rolo papirja. Uspe mi pobrisati tla. Poberem tudi razbit lonček in ne vem, kam naj
ga odložim. In umazan papir tudi. Gledam, iščem primerno
mesto. Ne vprašaj, kako sem zakuhala od zadrege. Vse skupaj
položim na poličko, čisto v kot. V vrsto se postavi gospa, moti
jo papir in lonček in zadere se čez vse glave: ‘Kdo je naredil
to svinjarijo?’ Gospa za mano pa ji postreže z odgovorom:
‘Ona,’ in pokaže name. Najraje bi se vdrla v zemljo. Kaj bi
dala, da bi bila že zunaj, saj so me gledali, kot zabodeni. Če bi
koga poškodovala, okradla, ubila! Samo zaradi enega jogurta!
Take zadrege pa še ne! Pa sem potem naložila stvari zopet
v voziček zapeljala do avtomobila, zložila vse vanj, zaprla
voziček nazaj v vrsto, odnesla evro moji dobri blagajničarki.
Rekla mi je, naj se ne sekiram, da se zgodijo hujše stvari, z
očmi mi je povedala, da me razume, jaz pa sem še sedaj čisto
zmedena. Ko je spravila evro v svojo denarnico, sem se ji
najbrž že četrtič zahvalila za uslugo in prebrala sem napis na
ploščici, pripeti na naramnici njenega predpasnika: SONJA
PAVLIČ, PRODAJALKA. Tega imena zlepa ne bom pozabila. Lahko mi tudi ne bi posadila tistega evra. Lahko me
tudi ne bi potolažila, kot me je. So prodajalke s takim srcem
in z drugačnim srcem.
OGNJIŠČE
Indijski veleposlanik
v Slovenj Gradcu
HEADLINE: Indian ambassador in
Slovenj Gradec
TOPIC: Jayakar Jerome, the new
Indian ambassador to Slovenia, recently
visited Slovenj Gradec, marking his first
official visit as an ambassador. Jerome
visited the area in the park between the
administration building and post office,
where they will erect a bronze statue of
Mahatma Gandhi which was donated to
Slovenj Gradec by India – India offers the
identical statue to every country in which
they maintain an embassy. The monument
will be unveiled on Gandhi’s birthday, Oct.
2, which is also a holiday in India.
“We are very pleased that the city of
Slovenj Gradec decided to accept a statue
of the father of our nation,” said Ambassador Jerome, who talked with Slovenj
Gradec Mayor Matjaž Zanoškar about
the possibilities of a future partnership
between Slovenj Gradec and an Indian
city, although in India there are no comparable (small) cities.
Jerome thinks that a city’s size is not
important in such an arrangement. “Small
is beautiful,” the ambassador said. A
partnership between tiny Slovenj Gradec
and a large Indian city could be mutually
profitable, according to the ambassador.
Pred dnevi je Slovenj Gradec obiskal
novi indijski veleposlanik Jayakar Jerome,
ki je prispel v Slovenijo, za svoj prvi obisk
v funkciji veleposlanika pa si je izbral prav
mesto glasnika miru. Ogledal si je prostor v
parku med upravno enoto in pošto, kjer bo stal
bronast kip mirovnika Mahatme Gandhija, ki
ga je Slovenj Gradcu podarila država Indija,
ki takšen kip ponudi vsaki državi, v kateri
ima veleposlaništvo. Spomenik bodo odkrili
2. oktobra na Gandhijev rojstni dan, ki je tudi
indijski državni praznik. “Z ambasado bomo v
tem času pripravili tudi simpozij, mirovniški
inštitud pa bo pomagal pri predstavitvi Mahatme Gandhija širši javnosti,” je povedal
župan Matjaž Zanoškar. “Zelo smo hvaležni,
da se je mesto Slovenj Gradec odločilo
sprejeti kip očeta našega naroda,” je povedal
veleposlanik Jerome, ki se je z županom
pogovarjal tudi o možnosti partnerstva med
Slovenj Gradcem in enim od indijskih mest,
čeprav v Indiji primerljivih (tako majhnih)
mest ni. Jerome meni, da velikost mest pri
tovrstnih navezah ni pomembna. “Majhno
je lepo,” je dejal veleposlanik, partnerstvo
za njihove razmere miniaturnega Slovenj
Gradca z večjim indijskim mestom pa bi bilo
po njegovih besedah lahko obojestransko
koristno, če bi bilo vsebinsko bogato.
DELO
Vinogradi v okolici Brežic. PHOTO: Vineyards in the Brežice hinterland.
SLADKE IN PEKOČE - Najslajše so rumene paprike, najbolj hrustljave zelene,
največ vitaminov pa se skriva v rdečih. Najpomembnejše vitalne snovi, ki jih vsebujejo, so kapsaicin, ki redči kri in preprečuje glavobol, provitamin A za vitalnost celic,
vitamin C in cink, ki je potreben za dobro delovanje možganov. Surovo papriko je
priporočljivo pripraviti z malo olja, da lahko organizem izkoristi beta karoten.
NE VSEBUJE HOLESTOROLA - Mandlji so priljubljen prigrizek, ki koristi
zdravju srca in krvnega obtoka. Ne vsebujejo holesterola, zato pa veliko nenasičenih
maščobnih kislin. Pest mandljev pokrije polovico dnevne potrebe po vitaminu E, ki
preprečuje obolenje srca.
26
PROSVETA
www.snpj.org • [email protected]
25. Avgusta 2010
Muzej v Kanižarici
HEADLINE: Museum in Kanižarica
TOPIC: A mine museum recently
opened in the area of the former Kanižarica
brown coal mine in the Tris commercial
zone. The museum had been planned
since the mine closed in the mid-1990s.
The history of the Kanižarica mine, which
impacted life in that area from 1857 to
1997, is described by Črnomelj historian
Janez Weiss, who is also the curator of the
museum collection.
The mine museum is part of a project
designed to regulate the mine area, with
which they hope to preserve the history of
mining in Bela krajina, arrange attractive
tourist and cultural programs, and include
the museum in an area near walking paths,
a lake and a wooden foot bridge.
The museum and its collection of documents is housed in the rooms of the former
mine engine house, export tower, and in a
section of the mine shaft. In the multimedia
room they present the historic mining work
dating from May 22, 1838 – when Martin
Mahin discovered coal on the Vrtin property in the area of Doblič – through 1997
when the decision was made to close the
mine. In its best years the mine employed
as many as 400 people, and the miners dug
over 100,000 tons of the best Slovenian
brown coal each year.
Na območju nekdanjega rudnika rjavega
premoga Kanižarica in v današnji poslovni
coni Tris so odprli rudarski muzej, ki so ga
načrtovali že ob zapiranju rudnika sredi devetdesetih let prejšnjega stoletja. Ob odprtju
muzeja je zgodovino rudnika Kanižarica, ki
je zelo vplival na tamkajšnje življenje od leta
1857 do 1997, opisal črnomaljski zgodovinar Janez Weiss, ki je tudi avtor postavitve
muzejske zbirke.
Rudarski muzej je del projekta urejanja
rudniškega območja, s katerim si želijo v
Beli krajini ohraniti spomin na rudarstvo,
pripraviti privlačno turistično in kulturno
ponudbo in muzej vključiti v območje, kjer
bodo urejene sprehajalne poti, jezerce, brvi,
avtohtone rastline in rudarska peš pot. Po njej
so z gorečimi trskami in pozneje z baklami
hodili ponoči na delo ali z dela rudarji, dokler
niso v petdesetih letih uredili prevoza.
Muzej z zbirko dokumentov so uredili
v prostorih nekdanje rudniške strojnice, v
rudniškem izvoznem stolpu in v delu
rudniškega rova.
V multimedijski sobi obiskovalcem
razkrijejo nekdanje rudarjenje od 22. maja
1838, ko je Martin Mahin na posestvu Vrtin
na območju Doblič odkril premog, pa do
odločitve o zapiranju leta 1997. Rudnik je v
najbojših časih zaposloval več kot 400 ljudi,
ki so kopali najboljši slovenski rjavi premog.
Svetovne cene premoga so v devetdesetih
letih opravile svoje: premog iz Kanižarice
je bil kljub novoodkritim bogatim zalogam
predrag in se izkopavanje ni več izplačalo.
Belokranjcem pa je uspelo v okviru zapiranja rudnika v poslovni coni nadomestiti
izgubljena rudarska delovna mesta in celo
ustvariti nova.
Hud udarec rudnika je bila poplava leta
1976, ko je rove zalila voda, vendar so rudnik sanirali, ker je bil premog takrat še zelo
iskan, v Kanižarici pa so ga nakopali več kot
100.000 ton na leto. V muzeju predstavljajo
tudi geološko zgodovino Bele krajine, nastanek rudniške kadunje, proizvodni proces
od izkopa premoga do transporta iz rova in
končno separacije. O rudniku se je ohranilo
veliko dokumentov, o njem je Franc Klevišar
napisal tudi knjigo Rudnik Kanižarica.
Razstavljene so rudarske obleke, rudarsko
orodje in rudarski vožički. Vse skupaj je
stalo 250.000 evrov, ki so jih dobili iz sklada
za zapiranje rudnika, občina Črnomelj pa je
primaknila še 11.500 evrov, JSKD Črnomelj
pa 4500 evrov.
DELO
Poceni stvari, ki jih drugi ne potrebujejo
HEADLINE: Cheap articles that others
don’t need
TOPIC: Many times we don’t know
what to do with articles that we don’t need
anymore; they are still in good condition,
so we don’t want to throw them away. The
first agency for used articles in Slovenia is
very welcomed for this reason. “Old Ware,
New Ware” was opened in mid-April by
the Kralji ulice (Kings of the Streets)
Association to help the homeless. They
are collecting and repairing used articles
which in times of crisis come in handy for
many people. The articles range in price
from 35 cents to $25.
This store is not a regular store because
it is also a place for gatherings. Friendly
salespersons offer coffee and talk about
the articles they are selling, about life,
problems... They are accepting small
objects, such as jewelry, boxes, vases and
handbags. They also accept small tables,
chairs and small household appliances.
Their shelves also hold ceramics, dishes,
silverware, toys, books, pictures... They
don’t accept large pieces of furniture,
V DRAG IN LJUBEČ SPOMIN
mojemu dragemu možu
STANLEY W. SOMMERS
Ostra temna črta je zarezala
v življenje, da je postala
pokrajina bolečine in žalosti.
Stojim nema in brez moči,
da bi stopila onstran,
kamor je odšel moj
najdražji.
Nobena beseda nas ne more
več združiti. Le misel, da je
bilo z njim nekoč lepo,
me naj pomaga tolažiti.
Ostal mi bo v lepem in
trajnem spominu.
Neizmerno hvaležna
in žalostna žena Jožefa in ostali.
computers or large appliances.
Velikokrat ne vemo, kam s predmeti, ki
jih ne potrebujemo več, pa so še popolnoma
uporabni in jih nočemo kar tako zavreči.
Zato je zelo dobrodošla prva posredovalnica
rabljenih predmetov v Sloveniji Stara roba,
nova roba, ki jo je sredi aprila odprlo društvo
za pomoč in samopomoč brazdomcem Kralji
ulice na Poljanski cesti 14 v Ljubljani v
prejšnjih prostorih društva, katere namen
je, med drugim, zaposliti težje zaposljive.
Zbirajo in obnavljajo rabljene predmete, ki so
lahko marsikomu v času krize zelo uporabni,
stanejo pa od 25 centov do 20 evrov; ljudje
namreč včasih podarijo tudi redke stvari
z večjo vrednostjo in tako na svoj račun
pridejo tudi zbiratelji in dopolnijo kakšno
svojo posebno zbirko.
Že ob vstopu lahko ugotovimo, da ne gre
za običajno trgovino, saj je to tudi prostor za
prijetno druženje. Prijazni prodajalci vam
ponudijo kavico in poklepetajo o predmetih
na policah ter mimogrede še o življenju,
težavah, rešitvah... Vodja projekta, antropologinja Luna Jurančič Šribar, pojasnjuje,
da so hoteli ponuditi alternativo velikim nakupovalnim centrom. V prodajalni z občutkom
domačnosti v ospredju ni nakupovanje,
temveč druženje, klepet, izmenjava izkušenj,
v kateri se čezmerna potrošnja spreminja v
solidarnostno. To namreč ni navaden nakup,
s tem, ko kupec namesto nove stvari kupi
že rabljeno, deluje socialno in okoljsko
zavedno. Hkrati pa tudi zaposleni delujejo
solidarnostno, ko omogočajo materialno
depreviligiranim kupovanje po nižjih cenah.
Za kupce bodo skupaj s kulturno-ekoločkim
društvom Svetumet naredili unikatne vrečke
iz starega časopisa, embalaže in plasičnih
vrečk. Kralji ulice obnovljene rabljene stvari
že dve leti prodajajo na stojnici na Čopovi
ulici vsako prvo soboto v mesecu. Sprejemajo
manjše predmete, kot so nakit, škatlice, vaze,
torbe, obeski, albumi, bloki, vrtni palčki in
tako naprej. Vzamejo tudi stojala, omarice,
mize, stole in tako naprej ali pa male gospodinjske aparate in drugo tehniko. Na svoje
police postavijo keramiko, posodo, pribor,
igrače, zgoščenke, družabne igre, športne
rekvizite, glasbila, starine, blago, knjige,
slike... Velikega pohištva ne sprejemajo, prav
tako ne računalnikov, tiskalnikov in večjih
gospodinjskih aparatov; predvsem pa ne
nedulojočih in slabo ohranjenih električnih
aparatov.
DELO
Eksotične začimbe za hujšanje
Pravilen izbor začimb poudari okus hrane. Dobro začinjene jedi so tudi bolj zdrave,
saj vsebujejo številne snovi, potrebne za prebavo in presnovo. Pospešujejo tudi
porabo kalorij. Odlične so v juhah, zelenjavnih in mesnih jedeh, rižotah. Sorte čilija,
denimo, se med seboj razlikujejo po barvi in količini pekočih snovi. Čili vsebuje
kapsaicin, ki pospešuje prekrvavitev in spodbuja prebavo. Kari je mešanica zmletih
začimb, ki vsebuje med drugim kurkumo, koriander, ingver, kardamon, poper in
muškatni orešček. Pospešuje prebavo, krepi vitalnost, zavira apetit in varuje pred
črevesnimi infekcijami. Številna eterična olja in snovi večajo moč. Okus zmletih
semen koriandra nekoliko spominja na poper in pomaranče. Je odlična začimba
za ribe, meso in zelenjavo. Piment vsebuje eterično olje eugenol, ki pospešuje
izločanje želodčnih sokov in lajša težave pri napihnjenosti.
DELO
PROSVETA
www.snpj.org • [email protected]
25. Avgusta 2010
Vozovi za vse poti
HEADLINE: Wagons for every road
TOPIC: Janko Samsa of Žirij, near Sežana, is making sure that an important part of Slovenian history will
never be forgotten. For the last two decades he has been
making amateur wagons, all of which are working models.
At one time, wagons were the most important means of
transportation in Slovenia, and there were distinct models
from village to village.
Even though they look like vehicles for small children,
Samsa, a retired engineer, stressed that his models are not
toys or souvenirs. He never makes them for profit; he is
striving to preserve an important part of Slovenia’s domestic past, a goal he has been after most of his life. After
completing the very precise work, which can sometimes
require hundreds of small pieces, he can relax.
For the past 10 years, Samsa has looked in every barn
and hayrack on each trip across Slovenia for different
kinds of wagons. He has donated many of his model
wagons to various museums. A few years ago he opened
a gallery in his home, through which visitors can return
to the past.
Janko Samsa iz Žirij pri Sežani skrbi, da pomemben delež
slovenske zgodovine ne bi utonil v pozabo. Ljubiteljsko že
dve desetletji izdeluje makete vozov, ki so nekdaj na Slovenskem predstavljali najpomembnejše prevozno sredstvo in
se razlikovali tako rekoč od vasi do vasi. Neutrudno zbira in
beleži vse o njih in jih nato v merilu 1:7 vztrajno, včasih tudi
po več mesecev, izdeluje. In vse miniature delujejo!
Čeprav so videti kot pripomočki za palčke, gospod Samsa,
upokojeni strojevodja, poudarja, da niso niti igračke, niti
spominki. Nikoli jih ne izdeluje za trg in se ne ukvarja z lesno
galanterijo, ampak si že vse življenje prizadeva za ohranitev
pomembnega dela domače preteklosti. Če bi rekel, da je začel
že v otroštvu, bi pretiraval, pove, in se nasmehne, saj je rojen
v kmečki družini v Stari Sušici pri Košani na Pivškem. Dela
je bilo toliko, da se je vse, kar ni bilo strogo povezano z njim,
dojemalo kot zapravljanje časa. A ko je začel zbirati, kar je
o vozovih pri nas obstajalo, ga je kar posrkalo. Natančno
delo, kjer včasih potrebuješ več sto drobnih koščkov, ki
nato sestavljajo delujočo celoto, ga sprosti, čeprav se kdo
temu čudi.
Že deset let na vsaki poti po Sloveniji, če se le da, pogleda
v vsak skedenj ali kozolec, se pogovarja z lastniki, nekoč, ko
jih je bilo še več, je obiskoval kovače in kolarje... Nikoli mu
ni bilo nerodno poklicati uglednih znanstvenikov, doktorjev
znanosti, in ji prositi za nasvet ali pomoč. Veliko pa si je
pomagal tudi s pregledom zbirk in depojev Slovenskega
etnografskega muzeja in Goriškega muzeja, piko na i pa so
dale spodbude etnologa dr. Janeza Bogataja. Razvilo se je
tudi sodelovanje s tehničnim muzejem Slovenije, za katerega
naredijo največ replik. Kar nekaj pa jih je ostalo v domači
hiši, kjer je pred nekaj leti odprl galerijo, v kateri se lahko
obiskovalci ob razlagi Janka Samse vrnejo v preteklost.
Gospod Samsa je pomagal tudi pri pomembnih razstavah:
za razstavo o Juriji Vegi je tako naredil 13 eksponatov, za
mestni muzej pa celo v merilu 1:1 barjanski voz. Prav tako
se lahko ponaša z miniaturo tiskarne po Guttenbergu, ki jo je
mogoče pospraviti v omarico, vsebuje pa celo stolčke, mizice
in celo predalčke za črke! Ta vsestranski mož je leta 2006
izdal celo knjigo z naslovom Vozovi in poti.
Pa se vrnimo k vozovom... Ko se je odločil zbrati (vse), kar
je pri nas obstajalo, od barjanskega voza, pa do gumarjev, je
Kutina – jesenski sadež
HEADLINE: Quince - fruit of the fall
TOPIC: Quince is an ancient fruit which
originated in Persia. In contrast with other
fruits, it has to be cooked or baked before
eating because it contains tannin and would
be too harsh to eat raw.
A quince can be shaped like a pear or
an apple: a quince in the shape of a pear
is very aromatic and more appreciated in
Europe; an apple-shaped quince is more
appreciated in America. The quince contains a lot of vitamin C, potassium and
copper.
A well-ripeded quince has a more intense yellow color and is very aromatic.
When purchasing this kind of fruit we have
to be careful that we select a fruit that is
not damaged because they decay fast.
Kutina je starodaven sadež, ki izvira
iz Perzije. V nasprotju z drugimi ga pred
uživanjem kuhamo ali pečemo, saj je zaradi
vsebovanega tatina surov preveč trpek.Po
obliki lahko spominja bodisi na jabolko bodisi
na hruško in ravno glede na to razlikujemo
dve sorti: tako imenovano hruškasto kutino,
ki je zelo aromatična in cenjena v Evropi, ter
jabolčno, ki jo bolj cenijo v Ameriki. Obe sta
surovi nekoliko trpki. Vsebujeta vitamin C ter
kalij in baker. Tudi pečke vsebujejo paktinske
snovi, ki zdravilno delujejo na vnetne procese
v črevesju. Iz pečk jih izločimo tako, da jih
nekaj časa namakamo v mlačni vodi, potem
pa zaužijemo.
Bolj ko so kutine intenzivno rumene,
bolj zrele in aromatične so. O tem se lahko
prepričamo, če poduhamo bledo rumene
sadeže, ki po pravilu še nimajo razvitega
značilnega prijetnega vonja.
Poleg zrelosti bodimo pri nakupu pozorni na to, da izbiramo med plodovi, ki so
nepoškodovani, sicer začno hitro propadati.
Trpki okus, ki ga kutinam daje tanin, lahko
nevtraliziramo samo s kuhanjem oziroma
pečenjem.
Zaradi obilja pektina so tako ali tako
najprimernejše za pripravo marmelad,
džemov, želeja, čežam in sadnih prelivov.
27
spoznal, kako bogata je ta dediščina. Po vaseh je šlo za prave
nadgradnje vozov, ki jih je določala raznolikost slovenskega
terena. Vozove deli po namembnosti, saj so obstajali tako za
prevoz razsutega blaga kot tudi za prevoz tekočin, pa gozdarski,
lesarski... Tako rekoč najpomembnejši kmečki voz pa je bil
lojtrnik, saj je bil namenjen vse splošni uporabi: za prevoz
sena ali stelje, za veselo ohcet in za zadnjo zemeljsko pot.
Gospod Samsa še pove, da kdor vidi težak voz iz zahodne
Slovenije, takoj pomisli na parizarja. A ta je vozil po ravninskih predelih, o čemer pričajo tudi širša kolesa z manjšim
premerom, tako so bila primerna za mehkejše terene. Na
Štajerskem in Gorenjskem pa so uporabljali prav tako močan
in težak voz, le da so ga imenovali tajsl, bil pa je narejen
za kamnite in hribovske poti, zato se je ponašal z ožjimi in
večjimi kolesi.
Vozarstvo se je začelo masovno krepiti, ko je okoli leta 1730
Avstrija izdala odlok, da je Trst njihova svobodna luka. Na ta
račun so začeli graditi nekdanjo cesarsko cesto Dunaj - Trst,
kar je pospešilo gradnjo vzporednih cest in prevoz tovora do
glavne ceste in po njej. Takrat so tovorni vozovi in potniške
kočije postali glavno prevozno sredstvo na Slovenskem in
vlogo ohranile do izgradnje južne železnice leta 1857. Do
takrat je vozarstvo doživljajo razcvet, potem pa je služilo le
še za dovoz do tirov.
Ko pa je na kmetije prišel traktor oziroma z razvojem avtomobilske industrije, je nastopila zlata doba še za eno vrsto
vozov: za gumarje, ki pa so se obdržali do 70 let prejšnjega
stoletja, po tem obdobju pa lahko rečemo, da je vozarstva
nepreklicno konec, še doda Janko Samsa, njegov največji
poznavalec na Slovenskem.
OGNJIŠČE
STARŠI - “Mama, kako so nastali starši?” vpraša deklica. “No, Bog je ustvaril Adama
in Evo. Potem sta imela otroke in sta postala starša, nato so njuni otroci imeli otroke
in postali starši in tako naprej.” Čez dva dni deklica zastavi isti vprašanje očetu, ki
ji odgovori: “Glej, pred milijoni let so se opice počasi razvijale, dokler niso postale
bitja, kakršna smo mi danes.” Deklica se začudeno obrne k mami in reče: “Mama,
kako je to mogoče? Ti si mi rekla, da je prve starše ustvaril Bog, ata pa mi pravi, da
so se razvili iz opice?” Mama ji odgovori: “Čisto preprosto: jaz ti govorim o svoji
družini, ata pa o svoji!”
DELO
Učinek jo-jo
Poznajo ga vsi, ki so se že kdaj poskušali znebiti odvečnih kilogramov. Nekaj časa
po končanem hujšanju se začnejo spet nabirati kilogrami in poželenje po hrani
(najpogosteje po sladki). Učinek jo-jo so vzeli pod drobnogled nemški prehranski
strokovnjaki in nevrologi. Ugotovili so, da se močno poveča količina stresnih hormonov, ko telesu zmanjka vajene količine hrane, na pomanjkanje pa se odzove z
znaki odvajanja. Počutje ni prijetno, telo naredi vse, da napolni skladišča in se vrne
v staro stanje. Občutek lakote je močan, vse, kar pojemo, pa takoj dobijo izstradane
celice. Ko telo dobi določeno količino hrane (predvsem sladkarij), se raven stresa
normalizira. To je tudi razlaga, zakaj so zasvojenci s čokolado tako težko odvadijo
te razvade.
DELO
Koper je edino večje slovensko pristanišče in industrijsko mesto, katero leži na severozahodni obali Istre. PHOTO: Koper, the industrial center of Slovenia’s only major port, is
situated on the northwestern shore of Istria.
28
PROSVETA
www.snpj.org • [email protected]
25. Avgusta 2010
V Divači odprli prvi hotel
HEADLINE: The first hotel opened
in Divača
TOPIC: The Malovec Hotel, which
is located beside the Risnik restaurant,
recently opened in Divača. According to
architect Stojan Lipold’s plans, it is built
on the same location where the Risnik
family offered overnight accommodations
in a farm house 80 years ago. The new
hotel has all the characteristics of Karst
architecture, a Karst well and a Karst
courtyard where a variety of arrangements
will be held.
Valter Malovec, the owner of this
countryside family hotel at the edge of the
historical center of Divača, is not afraid
that his overnight facilities will not be occupied. “Until now, all the available rooms
have been occupied during the summer.
We have guests from Slovenia and tourists
whose destination is the coast, and we also
have cave researchers. The tourists like
to stay overnight here because it is much
cooler and the prices are more moderate,”
Malovec said.
Divača is an interesting tourist point.
The Divača Karst boasts the Divaška Cave
and picturesque landscapes. Divača is the
birthplace of Ita Rina (Ida Kravanja), the
first Slovenian movie star, and the best
apples in Slovenia grow in the Divača
area.
Pred kratkim so v Divači ob restavraciji
Risnik odprli hotel Malovec s 46 posteljami.
Po načrtih arhitekta Stojana Lipolda so ga
zgradili na kraju, kjer je v gospodarskem objektu že pred 80 leti družina Risnik ponujala
prenočitve. Objekt ima vse značilnosti kraške
arhitekture, kraški vodnjak, borjač, v katerem
bodo prireditve, parcelo pa obkroža suhozid.
Valter Malovec, lastnik tega podeželskega
družinskega hotela na robu zgodovin-
skega jedra Divače, se ne boji, da njegove
prenočitvene zmogljivosti in zmogljivosti še
štirih ponudnikov ne bi bile zasedene.
“Doslej so bile naše zmogljivosti poleti
večinoma povsem zasedene. Prihajajo gostje
iz Slovenije, iz notranjosti, zamejci, turisti,
ki imajo za cilj obalo, prihajajo tudi raziskovalci jam. Z obale se vračajo spat k nam,
ker je hladneje in cenovno ugodnejše. Za
mnoge so mamljivi še bližina Reke, Trsta,
Kopra, Lipice, Štanjela,” je povedal Malovec.
Prepričan je, da je tudi majhen kraj, kakršen
je Divača, zanimiva turistična točka. Divaški
kras se ponaša z Divaško jamo, slikovitimi
udornicami in senožeškim podoljem. Udorna
dolina Risnik je posebnost, ki je zanimiva
za sprehajalce in plezalce. Pa ne le divaški
kras, tudi del Brkinov bogati občino Divača
s svojo sadno potjo, zanimivimi gradišči na
vrhovih varnih vzpetin, ponudbo geografsko
zaščitene slivovke in brinjevca, jeseni pa
menda najboljših jabolk v Sloveniji.
Čeprav je od skrajne severne točke občine
Divača pa do skrajne južne točke samo 20
kilometrov, je območje tako raznoliko, da
občini marsikdo pripisuje velike turistične
možnosti. Ne le zaradi slovitih Škocjanskih
jam. Poleg lepe narave je v občini kar 34
točk, ki so vredne ogleda.
DELO
VOJAŠKA - Častnik pregleduje četo
mladih vojakov. Ustavi se pred enim
od njih in zaupije: “Ti, kako ti je ime?”
“Ime mi je Maks, poročnik.” - “Kako si
upaš? Ali ne veš, da mi moraš vedno reči
gospod? Poskusiva še enkrat, glava
neumna: “Kako ti je ime?” - “Gospod
Maks, poročnik!”
Rdeča pesa
HEADLINE: Red beets
TOPIC: Many things that are still growing in gardens or are available in markets
are a real treasure of health. One of them
is the red beet. It is well known that red
beets are full of vitamins and minerals, and
also contain a substance that obstructs the
growth of tumors. They are very useful
for all cancer patients and for those who
have problems with their blood. Red beet
juice will also lower a high fever much
faster than tablets.
We eat beets only as a salad because
there are almost no other recipes for them.
Cooked beets do not have many good effects. The best thing to do is drink beet
juice, but it has to be made fresh daily.
Marsikaj od tistega, kar je še po vrtovih,
predvsem pa na tržnicah, je prava zakladnica
zdravja. Recimo rdeča pesa. Znano je, da je
polna rudnin in vitaminov, vsebuje pa tudi
snov, ki zavira rast tumorjev. Koristna je
torej za bolnike s rakom in za vse, ki imajo
težave s krvjo ter krvnim obtokom. Koristna
je za ljudi, ki so izpostavljeni sevanju, iz
telesa odplavlja vodo in topi sečno kislino,
zdravilna je za jetra in žolč. Je naravna zbijalka telesne temperature, zato vzemimo raje
pesin sok namesto tablet, če je temperatura
zares previsoka.
Peso sicer jemo le v solati, drugih receptov
skoraj ne poznamo, vendar nima kuhana nobenega učinka, razen da nam postrga črevesje,
ker vsebuje veliko vlaknin. Treba je torej piti
pesin sok, ki ga pripravimo v električnem
sokovniku - centrifugi, precej dolgotrajnejši
pa je postopek, ko peso naribamo ali zmiksamo in precedimo skozi sito. Delo je seveda
zamudno, vendar se splača. Ljudje z rakom
(vidni uspehi so pri levkemiji) bi morali spiti
dnevno vsaj pol litra pesinega soka.
Vendar pozor!Če imate občutljiv želodec,
vam bo postan pesin sok škodil, zato si morate
stiskati svežega vsaj vsak dan. Sok je pametno
mešati s korenčkovim in jabolčnim, oba morata biti tudi sveže stisnjena. Priporočljivo je,
da primešamo nekaj nastrgane surove pese
svežim solatam.
JANA
OBISK - Ko se vračata z obiska, pravi
gospa Furlanova svojemu možu: “ Ali
si videl? Najin obisk je Kovačevim
dobro del. Ko sva prišla, so bili slabe
volje, ko sva odhajala, pa so bili vidno
zadovoljni!”
Bohinjsko jezero leži 525 m nad morjem in je največje stalno jezero v Sloveniji: dolgo je
4100 m, široko 1200m in globoko do 45 m. Poleti se na površini segreje do 22°C. Glavni
stalni površinksi dotok je Savica, ki izvira v slapu pod steno Komarča v skrajnem zgornjem
koncu kotline. Vode v jezeru se obnavljajo trikrat na leto, v njem živi 65 vrst alg, 8 vrst
mehkužev in 5 vrst rib. PHOTO: At an elevation of 1,722 feet above sea level, Lake Bohinj
is the largest permanent lake in Slovenia. It is some 13,454 feet long, 3,936 feet wide and
up to 147 feet deep, and in the summer its water temperature is in the area of 72° Fahrenheit. The lake’s main surface source is the Savica, which springs from a waterfall under
Komarča cliff at the extreme upper end of the basin. The lake harbors 65 species of algae,
eight species of mollusks and five species of fish.
Mednarodna nagrada
mariborski arboristki
HEADLINE: International award to
Maribor’s botanist (or tree professional)
TOPIC: At its 86th annual conference
held in Illinois, the International Association for Arboriculture or Nurseries
in an Urban Environment (ISA) recently
granted “The Real Professionals of Arboriculture” awards. Tanja Grmovšek from
Slovenia was among the recipients.
Grmovšek is an independent entrepreneur from Maribor who, among others
things, advises the Maribor municipality
on the care of city trees. Under her leadership, a thorough renovation was started
on the trees in the city park, and in some
promenades and city squares. “Seeing that
all previous award recipients were ‘old
cats’ with decades of experience and who
were supported by large companies and
large cities, I was even more surprised at
my nomination,” Grmovšek said.
The president of the ISA, Tim Gamma,
introduced Grmovšek as an independent
entrepreneur who, along with five other
award recipients, serves as an inspiration
to professional tree growers around the
world.
Mednarodno društvo za arborikulturo ali
drevesničarstvo v urbanjih okoljih (ISA) je
pred dnevi v ameriški zvezni državi Illinois
na svoji 86. letni konferenci podelilo nagrade
“Pravi strokovnjak arborikulture”. Nagrajenka je tudi Slovenka Tanja Grmovšek, samostojna podjetnica iz Maribora, ki med drugim
svetuje mariborski občini pri skrbi za mestna
drevesa. Pod njenim vodstvom se je začela
temeljita obnova dreves v mestnem parku,
v nekaterih drevoredih in na mestnih trgih.
Tanja Grmovšek je v Mariboru prekinila dolgoletno navado drastičnega obrezovanja, tako
imenovanega “obglavljanja” dreves. “Glede
na to, da so dosedanji prejemniki nagrad
sami ‘stari mački’, z več desetletno prakso,
za katerimi stojijo velika podjetja, velika
mesta, utečena praksa in podpora okolja, sem
bila še toliko bolj presenečena nad mojim
imenovanjem,” je v odzivu povedala Tanja
Grmovšek. Predsednik ISA Tim Gammma
jo je predstavil kot samostojno podjetnico, ki
je skupaj z drugimi petimi nagrajenci navdih
za poklicne drevesničarje povsod po svetu.
Grmovškova je sicer plezalka in lastnica
podjetja Nega Dreves Arborist ter ustanoviteljica Slovenskega društva arboristov.
Sodelovala je pri številnih lokalnih projektih,
med drugim je svetovala pri obnovi grajskega
parka v Brežicah, ki je prvi park v Sloveniji
s celovito strokovno ureditvijo dreves.
DELO
GODEC
Nobena me ne mara,
za godca mize ni,
moram pr peč sedeti,
pa čakat na kosti.
Tam pr peč sedim,
kakor gospod berač,
na ohcet pa le grem,
čeprav ni noveh hlač!
Gorenjska ljudska
PROSVETA
www.snpj.org • [email protected]
August 25, 2010
29
Join SNPJ’s 2011 Tour of
SLOVENIA
Celebrating Slovenia’s 20th Anniversary of Independence
July 19-30, 2011
for trip information:
www.snpj.org
for reservations & comprehensive travel arrangements:
KOLLANDER WORLD TRAVEL
761 East 200th St.
Euclid, OH 44119
(800) 800-59581 • (216) 692-1000 ex. 7007
www.kollander.com
Clockwise, from left: Vintgar Gorge, Lake Bled, Logarska Valley
Enjoy a smarter Labor Day before closing out your summer
LABOR DAY SMARTS
FROM PAGE 2
struggle through the chore was just too
much for him to bear, and there was a lesson
to be learned, somewhere down the line.
True, I still had to finish the assigned task,
and after being admonished several times
for lack of clear thinking (as I recall, Dad’s
exact phraseology was “Any mule can do
it that way!”), I began to get the gist of his
well-phrased verse.
That was probably three decades ago,
and even at that time “working smarter, not
harder” meant applying some ingenuity to
an everyday situation. But a hundred years
ago “working smarter” meant fighting for
the benefits to which you were entitled,
such as a fair wage, occupational safety
and health insurance – the very benefits
that labor unions introduced throughout
their history, and many of the very same
things we take for granted in the workplace
today. “Working harder” meant sacrificing
your everyday needs to help secure a better future for your family and those who
would follow in your line of employment
– and that often entailed going on strike,
or supporting a fellow union strike, and
forfeiting individual income for the sake
of additional benefits.
No wonder Labor Day was a more significant holiday back at the turn of the 20th
century. Day after day of toiling on the job,
struggling to make a living, and fighting
for equal opportunities and benefits in the
workplace must have left the American
workforce drained both physically and
mentally. One Monday a year wasn’t asking
much, and what better reason to celebrate
than to enjoy the fruits of their labor.
What exactly happened to the Labor Day
of the past, and why celebrate the holiday
at all? Although its original intent is all but
forgotten today, Labor Day is still around,
thanks to decades-long efforts on the part
of the American worker. Fortunately for
us, we will rarely – perhaps never – be
forced to make the sacrifices of prior
generations, for which we should be
grateful. Before it slips your mind, take
some time this Labor Day weekend to
appreciate the fact that we can celebrate
Labor Day even today, thanks to the
work of millions of others.
While you’re at it, make plans to
join your fellow SNPJ members for
National SNPJ Days at the Recreation Center Labor Day weekend.
We’ve been toasting the Slovene
National Benefit Society since SNPJ
Days were launched in 1935, each
and every year on the Society’s
“official holiday” – Labor Day.
See page 3 for the National Days
schedule of activities, then make
your way to the SNPJ Recreation
Center. We hope you’ll choose to
A poster from 1939 announcing
celebrate smarter, but either way,
SNPJ Days in La Salle, Ill., over
you’ll still have Monday off.
Labor Day weekend.
30
PROSVETA
www.snpj.org • [email protected]
August 25, 2010
SNPJ Crossword
Remezo/Kumer
Golf Tournament
plays a new course
ON THE FARM (#1610) solution
2010 SNPJ Eastern Bowling Tournament
October 16-17, 2010
Charger Lanes
1213 Norton Ave.
Norton, OH 44203
Phone: (330) 825-9001
Doubles & Singles
Saturday, Oct. 16, 10 a.m.
Saturday, Oct. 16, 1:15 p.m.
Team Event
Sunday, Oct. 17, 10 a.m.
Sunday, Oct. 17, 1 p.m.
by MARTY KUMER (715)
Tournament Co-chairman
UNIVERSAL, Pa. — Have you ever participated
in the annual Remezo/Kumer SNPJ Golf Tournament? Maybe you do every year. Maybe you’d like
to, but couldn’t in the past. Well, you have another
opportunity!
This year’s tournament is scheduled Saturday,
Sept. 18. The golf course site has been changed to
Mill Creek in Boardman, Ohio; just 25 minutes from
the SNPJ Recreation Center. Those of you who have
played Mill Creek know what a great course it is, and
first-timers will find it a real treat – a top-notch golf
experience.
Again, the SNPJ Recreation Center is offering
special rates for golfers and spouses for $10 per
person, per night. Come for the fun in the Gostilna
Friday night and stay over for golf on Saturday. Stick
around after dinner and prizes Saturday night and
head home Sunday.
The entry fee is $25 per golfer (you’ll pay your
green fees separately at the course). Entry proceeds
are returned via a full-course dinner at the SNPJ
Recreation Center after golf and through prizes. Use
the entry form at right, or phone Marty Kumer at
(412) 856-8791 or Jamie Evanish at (412) 793-5957
for an entry form.
Doubles & Singles
Entry fee $28 per person
Saturday Only
by KEVIN RICHARDS
SNPJ Fraternal Director
IMPERIAL, Pa. — The Fraternal Department is
pleased to announce that the 2010 SNPJ Eastern
Bowling Tournament will be hosted by Barberton,
Ohio, Lodge 626 the weekend of Oct. 16-17. Bro.
Pete Dutka Jr. will serve as Tournament Secretary.
Bowling is scheduled at Charger Lanes in nearby
Norton, Ohio. Blocks of rooms have been secured at
the following hotels:
America’s Best Value Inn
79 Rothrock Loop • Akron, OH 44321
(330) 666-8887
Rate: $45.99 + tax
Includes continental breakfast
Baymont Inn Suites
70 Rothrock Loop • Akron, OH 44321
(330) 668-2700
Rate: $49.99 + tax
Includes continental breakfast
Motel 6
99 Rothrock Loop • Akron, OH 44321
(330) 666-0566
Rate: $42.99 + tax
Highest
Average
2009-10
All-Events
$5/person
YES/NO
1.
2.
1.
2.
1.
2.
Submit bowlers’ names by position in lineup
39 Remezo-Kumer Golf Tournament
th
Five-Person Team Event
Entry fee $70 per team
Sunday Only
Saturday, Sept. 18, 2010
at Mill Creek Golf Course • Route 224, Boardman, OH
(330) 740-7112
Individual Event Only
Men
1.
Make your plans
for the 2010 SNPJ
Eastern Bowling
Tourney Oct. 16-17
Lodge
No.
Name
Check Entry:
Ladies
Highest
Average
2009-10
1.
2.
3.
Youth
Lodge
Lodge
No.
Phone
4.
5.
Team name______________________________________
Team captain’s name, phone number & e-mail address:
2.
3.
4.
The $25 per person entry fee includes a full-course dinner in the
dining room at the SNPJ Recreation Center following golf.
Return this form, along with entry fees, to:
Marty Kumer
371 Willow Hedge Dr., Monroeville, PA 15146
Phone: (412) 856-8791
Make checks payable to Marty Kumer
The entry fee in each event is $14 per bowler, $3.75 of which shall be used for prizes,
$9 for bowling and $1.25 for tournament expenses. An extra $5 is charged to all
who desire to compete for handicap all-events prizes.
ENTRY DEADLINE IS SEPTEMBER 6, 2010
Return form, along with fees of $14 per person, per event, to:
Betty Davis
4383 Rayel Cr., Uniontown, OH 44685
Phone: (330) 896-4454
Make checks payable to SNPJ Lodge 626
ENTRY DEADLINE IS SEPTEMBER 17, 2010
The Home Office will verify all memberships. Complete tournament
rules are available by contacting the SNPJ Fraternal Department,
247 West Allegheny Road, Imperial, PA 15126.
The Home Office will verify all memberships. Complete tournament rules are
available by contacting the SNPJ Fraternal Department, 247 West Allegheny
Road, Imperial, PA 15126. Rules are also available online at www.snpj.org.
Mt. Rainier Lodge 738
http://www.angelfire.com/wa2/SNPJ738/
President Gary Gorsha
(206) 632-9131 • [email protected]
Vice President Walter Susanj
(253) 835-3978
Secretary Max Manowski
(360) 825-2681 • [email protected]
Enumclaw, Wash.
31
SNPJ has the right plan for you!
PROSVETA
www.snpj.org • [email protected]
August 25, 2010
The SNPJ offers two types of life insurance, permanent and term. The following is a brief explana­tion of each plan:
Permanent Insurance is protection for life. This type of coverage can provide
cash and paid‑up values. Most of these plans are eligible for dividends. While
this coverage costs more than term insurance, over the long run (10 years or
more, for example) it has proven to be a better buy.
Whole Life, or ordinary life, is a permanent plan of insurance. In addition to
lifetime insurance protection, Whole Life features strong guarantees, cash/
loan values, reduced paid-up insurance options, dividends and some flexibility. Whole Life is the lowest cost permanent plan that we offer.
Single Premium Whole Life (SPWL) is a one-time payment plan. This permanent plan features lifetime insurance protection, strong guarantees, increasing
cash/loan values and dividends. Those who purchase this plan like making
a one-time payment and then having a paid-up policy for life. Many parents
and grandparents purchase this plan for their children and grandchildren.
10 Pay Life is a variation of Whole Life insurance with fewer payments. This
permanent plan features lifetime insurance protection, strong guarantees,
cash/loan values, reduced paid-up insurance options, dividends and some
flexibility. Purchasers of this plan like the short payment period (10 years),
after which the policy is paid-up for life.
20 Pay Life is a variation of Whole Life insurance with fewer payments. This
permanent plan features lifetime insurance protection, strong guarantees,
cash/loan values, reduced paid-up insurance options, dividends and some
flexibility. This is one of our most popular plans of insurance.
The Life Paid up at Age 55 Plan (LPU@55) is a variation of Whole Life insurance with fewer payments. This plan is available from ages 0 to 50. Life
Paid Up at Age 55 is a permanent plan featuring lifetime insurance protection,
strong guarantees, cash/loan values, reduced paid-up insurance options and
dividends. Several riders are available, including accidental death benefit and
waiver of premium. This plan works best for people who don’t want to pay
insurance premiums their entire life.
The Life Paid up at Age 60 Plan (LPU@60) is a variation of Whole Life insurance with fewer payments. This plan is available from ages 0 to 55. Life
Paid Up at Age 60 is a permanent plan featuring lifetime insurance protection,
strong guarantees, cash/loan values, reduced paid-up insurance options and
dividends. Several riders are available, including accidental death benefit and
waiver of premium.
The Life Paid up at Age 65 Plan (LPU@65) is a variation of Whole Life insurance with fewer payments. This plan is available from ages 0 to 60. Life
Paid Up at Age 65 is a permanent plan featuring lifetime insurance protection,
strong guarantees, cash/loan values, reduced paid-up insurance options and
dividends. Several riders are available, including accidental death benefit and
waiver of premium. This plan works best for people who want their insurance
paid-up around retirement age.
SNPJ Final Expense Plan of insurance is designed for people ages 50 to
85 with some health impairments. This product provides full coverage and is
issued on a simplified basis with no medical exam. The SNPJ Final Expense
Plan is a permanent insurance plan featuring lifetime insurance protection,
strong guarantees, cash/loan values and reduced paid-up insurance options.
Term Insurance is best described as insurance coverage for a certain period
of time. At each renewal period the cost of this insurance increases as the odds
of you dying become greater. Term has no cash value or paid‑up options, nor
do we anticipate paying any dividends. This type of coverage will provide the
most protection for the least amount of money. It may be your best buy if you
need insurance coverage for 10 years or less. Term policies may be converted
to permanent insurance.
Yearly Renewable Term is the least expensive policy that SNPJ offers. We
pay your beneficiary the death benefit should you die while the policy is in
force. Your premiums increase every year as you grow older and as your
chance of dying becomes greater. This plan is renewable to age 80 and convertible to age 70. The minimum policy SNPJ issues carries a $25,000 face
amount.
10 Year Term provides a level death benefit with premiums which remain
fixed for the 10-year period. At the end of the 10 years, or at renewal (as long
as the person is under age 70), the premiums will automatically renew for a
new 10-year period at the new age.
20 Year Term provides a level death benefit with premiums which remain
fixed for the 20-year period. At the end of the 20 years, or at renewal (as long
as the person is under age 60), the premiums will automatically renew for a
new 20-year period at the new attained age.
30 Year Term provides a level death benefit with premiums which remain
fixed for the 30-year period. At the end of the 30 years, or at renewal (as long
as the person is under age 50), the premiums will automatically renew for a
new 30-year period at the new attained age. The minimum face amount available is $25,000.
Term to Age 25, a special program designed for those between the ages of
0-23, provides level term insurance protection up to age 25. Two versions are
available: the $10,000 certificate for $24 per year or the $25,000 certificate
for $55 per year. These may be converted to any other permanent policy prior
to age 25.
Term to Age 65 is one of the least expensive plans that we offer. The $2,500
level term insurance plan to age 65, along with an equal amount of accidental
death benefit, is very affordable. This plan is ideal for the person who wants
to become an SNPJ member at the lowest possible cost.
and don’t forget...
Annuities, IRAs & Roth IRAs. These tax-deferred (tax free with the Roth)
savings programs feature competitive interest with a minimum guarantee,
safety of principal and liquidity. You may open an account with just $25. We
do not have any sales charges or annual fees to maintain your account, but
we do have a five-year declining surrender charge.
SNPJ will provide you with a proposal on most of these plans. This should
make our products easier to understand. For additional information on any
of our products, contact your local Lodge secretary or the SNPJ Marketing
Department at 1-800-843-7675.
Slovene National Benefit Society
247 West Allegheny Road • Imperial, PA 15126‑9774
1‑800‑843‑7675 or 724‑695‑1100 • Fax: 724‑695‑1555
web site: www.snpj.org • e-mail: [email protected]
Slovene National Benefit Society
247 West Allegheny Road
Imperial, PA 15126-9774
Phone: 1-800-843-7675
e-mail: [email protected] • web site: www.snpj.org