Pacific Northwest Croatian, Volume 3

By Margaret Radisich Sleasman

The Pacific Northwest Croatian was a monthly newsletter that ran for seven years. We are hoping to make most of the issues available on-line through Digital Publishing. These stories were donated by Croatians from the Canadian border all the way to the Mexican Border with a couple stories from back east. The stories are historic in nature and tell of the early Croatians and their families, especially those working in the commercial fishing sector. There will be as many photos as possible to personalize these stories. I sincerely hope that you will enjoy them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Margaret Radisich Sleasman
• Release date: Aug 22, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301595389

Margaret Radisich Sleasman

I have many interests, love reading mystery books, anything about tigers, and grandkids (not particularly in that order). I wrote a Bible study and am pretty much unmoveable in my literal biblical view - so don't try. I am attempting to write a couple mysteries one for adults and one for pre-teens. I edited and published a monthly historical newsletter, "The Pacific Northwest Croatian" for seven years and learned much about my people during that time. I have been writing on Helium since July of 2009 and Faithwriters since December 2009. I found the humor section and discovered that humor may be my niche, but my first love is writing Christianity articles. I have five grandchildren. I have five children, grown - but not grown up. We have a German Shepherd (Kobe)and a potbelly pig (Porky). Spent 35 years of my life making concrete lawn ornaments. I am Croatian, my husband is German... a family of stubborn, but silly people. That's about it.

Book preview

Pacific Northwest Croatian

Volume 3, Issues 13 - 18

Edited by: Margaret Radisich Sleasman

Copyright: 2012 Margaret Radisich Sleasman:

All Rights Reserved

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13. More from Mitch

14. Eleanor & John Castellan

15. Anton & Jelica Mardesich, Nicknames

16. Anton & Jelica Mardesich, Part 2

17. Anton & Jelica Mardesich, Part 3

18. My Great-Grandfather, John Evich

1Many thanks to the contributors to this news letter; it was an honor to work with you. For this volume, I want to acknowledge the following contributors: Mitch Evich, Norman Clark, James Castellan, Barbara Martinis Piercey, Mary Irvin, Jim Zuanich, David Felando, Lee Makovich, and John Evich. 2The articles would not have existed if it wasn't for you. The newsletter is dedicated to all the Croatians who left their homes for this new land and made our little corner of the world a better place to live.

Betty Jane & Mitch (mid 60's) Betty Jane, Mitch & little Matt

More stories from Mitch Evich

During the first four decades of the 20th century, most of the purse seine vessels were powered by Frisco Standard gasoline engines. When the gas tanks would rust out somewhat - fumes of gas vapor would prevail. Teddy Adrian, a Norwegian fisherman who frequently crewed on with the Slav skippers told me this story: "The vessel Tiger, owned by Andrew (Cavalo) Kuljis, was moored at the South Bellngham dock opposite the Texaco dock; I was sitting in the forecastle. I decided to light up my pipe when to my dismay; I noticed a string of fire (like a fuse) headed for a gas tank. My first impulse was to clasp my palms over my ears. The next thing I remembered was waking up at St. Joseph's hospital. The blast had blown me through a hole in the deck into the waters of Bellingham Bay. I recovered (fortunately) from injuries sustained by the blast," (The vessel had not been so lucky and was burned beyond repair). Teddy fished on the Independence later on for a season or two.

Mitch, Jr & Matt (mid 60's)

Independence, (rear view) after remodeling in 1974

We used to tar our cotton seine nets - strip by strip. We would heat tar in a large vat, pulling the strips through a ringer. Now the tar was very hot in fact, we wore old rubber boots with gunny sack strips wrapped around our socks. Also our arms were wrapped in gunny and we wore rubber gloves. With the hot tar fumes, none of us had clogged sinuses! To add insult to misery, we took the hot strips of web and spread them on empty grass lots on Tenth Street. When the strips dried, we gathered them up and were ready for lacing and hanging the seine.

We were a trusting lot and never assumed a theft of our nets could occur. However, one of my dad's friends scared off a potential thief who was seen examining the drying strips. After that, we made frequent trips to Tenth Street.

A few years later, a liquid tar was introduced to the fishing industry. This tar needed no heat - we pulled the strips through the ringer as before, but without the intense heat of the hot tar! We hung the tarred strips on poles at our web shed to dry.

In the 50's we began boiling our Spanish corks in hot wax. We would put about 12 corks on a string tied in a ring, and then with a re-enforced stick, we would push the corks down into the hot wax. The wax sealed the corks from sea water - thus they remained lighter for a season or two. The procedure reminded one of deep frying doughnuts.

These pretty girls were the song leaders at Fairhaven High School in 1934

Mary Kink, Victoria Kink & (?) Gallup.

*****

The following article and photo was donated by David Felando. It is among his treasure trove of articles from his research on Komiža, Vis and the other islands in the area.

Falkuša

The Gaeta type fishing boat of Komiža on the Island of Vis had the following principal dimensions: Waterlne length: 26 feet, Beam: 10 feet, Depth with 'Falke': 4.1 feet, Depth without 'Falke': 2.82 feet, Draught: 1.78 feet.

The drawing below is one of the last among one hundred remaining gaetas-falkušas; a vessel in which