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FROM THE DIARY OF A UKRAINIAN HOUSEW IFE THE WILDWOODS by DMZ The shoreline of southern New Jersey has some of the most beautiful beaches in the world. Wide stretches of very fine sand extend into the Atlantic Ocean; the shore’s smooth and shallow bottom makes it possible to go far into the sea. It’s ideal for children’s play and com fortable for the average non-swimmer. Geographically, one part of the coast is a long peninsula. At its tip is Cape May, a resort town dating back to the early 1800’s. It was frequented by famous Americans like Abraham Lincoln, and to some American Southern aristocracy it was the cool sea-side of the North. From Cape May to the north stretch three separate communities known as the Wildwoods — Wildwood Crest, Wildwood and North Wildwood. An old ferry connects Cape May with Mary land and Delaware, while a bridge on Rio Grand Avenue in Wildwood connects it to the mainland. Once sparsely populated with very few amusement facilities, the area was frequented by lower income families, giving it the nickname of “poor man’s Riviera”. For newly settled Ukrainian immigrants, the favorite part of this Riviera was Wildwood Crest. I first heard of the Crest from the letters my aunt Stefa wrote to my father in the mid 1950’s. The widow of my father’s cousin, Aunt Stefa had settled in Philadel phia after the war camps and often corresponded with my father. In one letter she vividly described ’’this place” where she had taken a holiday. There was a bus route from center city in Philadelphia which crossed the bridge in Wildwood and then traveled through Wildwood Crest to Cape May. It would stop at the little cross streets in the Crest, making it very convenient for vacationers such as my aunt to get to their destination without an automobile. It was about this time that I realized that there are two kinds of people, the mountain kind and the sea shore kind. My aunt was encouraging our family to look into bus routes to the Wildwoods from Jersey City, New Jersey where we lived, even offering to find us very reasonable accomodations at the Crest. My father, however, having made two trips to Coney Island with an old Ukrainian neighbor, swore that he would never go to the seashore again. According to my father, God made the mountains, cool streams and quiet woods with mushrooms for men’s relaxation. Sand beaches where one was forced to fry in the sun and then aggravate one’s sunburn in salt-sea water was not his idea of fun. Aunt Stefa, on the other hand, claimed that the salt sea air and hot sand were the best cure for whatever ails you — and as for shade, she described a long pier which stretched from Crocus street over the beach, far into the water, giving ample shade. For those, she wrote, who wish to spend extra, there were sun umbrellas for rent. In a way, Aunt Stefa never gave up. She eventually became a matchmaker, introducing me to her son’s col lege classmate, and he took me to Wildwood Crest after we were married. The area was just experiencing an economic boom. Hotels were being built just off the beach, each with a theme — fake palm trees, lava rock jacades, swimming pools and colorful signs displaying their exotic names. This was to give the flavor of Flor ida, Hawaii, the tropics. Someone had just invented plastic flowers and they were popping out of fancy plan ters in great profusion. Behind the fancy hotel row there remained a variety of smaller motels and rooming houses, ranging in qual ity and price. There were even some Ukrainian guest houses, much in demand by Ukrainian vacationers. One guest house on Crocus Street was owned by a Ukrain ian proprietrees, Mrs. Navrocka, and was the focal point of Ukrainian social and cultural life at the shore. Mrs. Navrocka rented rooms with meals which meant a higher vacation budget. Kitchen privileges were in high demand because restaurants in the area were few, their food too expensive and too Americanized for the Ukrainian palate. But the Ukrainian housewife didn’t exactly cook on her vacation; she cooked before her vacation. Families would arrive with carefully packaged sausages in all var ieties, “шницлі”, fried chicken, cutlets and, of course, a selection of “пляцки” to feed everyone on the beach. In those days, refrigeration was a problem, so vacationers used innovative ways to keep the food from spoiling. Legend has it that one Sunday a Ukrainian store owner brought with him a pot full of veal cutlets. Having settled his family, he promtply proceeded to bury the pot of cutlets in the wet sand to keep them cool till mealtime. When the family got hungry, the search for the pot began. Friends and neighbors aided the search — much of the beach was dug up in vain. The poor man fed his family with “God only knows what’s in them” hot dogs from a street vendor. It has been said that the pot will remain buried in the sand at Wildwood Crest until a few centuries hence when an archeologist will find it, only to misinterpret the data and claim that the Ameri can Indians in the area used aluminum pots. In the 1950’s, the Ukrainian address on the beach was ’’під мостом” (under the bridge), the Crest fishing pier at Crocus Street. The widely separated pilings supporting the pier were almost like the block corners of Philadelphia’s 24th Street neighborhood, home to НАШЕ Ж ИТТЯ”, ЧЕРВЕНЬ 1995 23
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