Elizabeth, who was born in 1903, entered first grade at the Cranberry School in 1909.  She continued with her education in the Cranberry School system through age 13 (1916) at which time the Kudrick family moved from the village of Cranberry to West Hazleton.  (Interestingly, they moved from the patch-town of Cranberry to a street named West Cranberry Avenue, a distance of less than 2 miles).  Elizabeth finished 7th grade at the Cranberry School in 1916 because she had started the school year in 1915 while her family was still living in Cranberry.  The following year (1917) she stopped her schooling altogether because all of her friends were in the Cranberry School which she couldn't attend.  She declined to attend the Wooden School Building on Monroe Avenue in West Hazleton for grade 8;  instead, she went to work in a local garment factory.  By age 18, Elizabeth is working at the Duplan Silk Mill on Diamond Avenue in Hazleton as a weaver while her brother Michael Kudrick (age 22) is working at various jobs as a carpenter.  Both Elizabeth and Michael are living at home at 19 West Cranberry Avenue in West Hazleton along with their siblings Joseph age 15, Anna age 13 and Susan age 9.  Joseph is working as a laborer (sometimes slate picker) at the Cranberry Colliery along with his father Alex and his step-brother John Bartko.  Four of the nine Kudrick children are married;  Anna (Scšur II) Mudry, Mary (Bartko) Kelhart, John Bartko and Helen (Kudrick) McDeshen.

Dancing is a major part of the local young adult's entertainment life and in that regard, Hazle Park is the place to be.  Young adult men and women go to Hazle Park to meet members of the opposite sex so it is not unusual to see crowds numbering around one-thousand at the Hazle Park Dance Pavilion on any given dance night.  Surely, they go to meet their contemporaries, but they also love to dance the hours away by listening to the strains of local favorites such as Art Wendel and his orchestra.  Large crowds are also drawn by occasional visits from popular artists such as the Scranton Sirens who feature Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey (Shenandoah natives) before they were catapulted to fame on their own.

However, it is very difficult for the young girls in the Kudrick family to attend the dances at Hazle Park.  Elizabeth's son, George Koneyak, repeated a story to me which he was told in 1998 by his mother's good friend, Marie Sotack.  Marie, who lived in Cranberry during the time period when Elizabeth was growing up, told George that our grandmother, Mrs. Anna Kudrick, was very strict concerning Elizabeth and her sister, Anna.   Besides an occasional treat to a movie or eating an ice cream cone, Elizabeth and Anna's favorite form of entertainment is to attend the Hazle Park dances mentioned above.  However, Mrs. Anna Kudrick would not allow them to go because she was concerned that her daughters would meet boys who were not of the Greek Catholic faith.  Marrying within one's own religion was a major issue during this period for most immigrant families in Cranberry and West Hazleton be they Greek Catholic or some other faith.

Notwithstanding the above, Hazle Park continues to be the main recreational facility for the Kudrick family and their friends.  Each year Hazle Park's recreational facilities are improved through the addition of popular attractions such as the bowling alley, handball court, lawn tennis court, baseball field, bicycling track, boating on the lake and even swimming in the spring-fed lake.  This year is no exception as a spacious Roller Skating Rink (see photo above), is added to the attractions at Hazle Park and is located in the northeastern corner of the park closest to the Washington Avenue entrance.  The rink provides thirteen years of healthy entertainment for both novice and professional roller skaters alike. But, in 1934, a year after I was born and a year before my grandmother passes away, the Roller Skating Rink (shown above) burns down in a blazing early spring fire.  The whirring and grinding sounds of roller-skate wheels rolling on the wooden floor will be silenced forever in this wonderful recreational park which created pleasure for so many people.

Alex Kudrick's real estate property in West Hazleton is legally identified as Lot 5, Square 31 in the County Court House.  Lot 5, Square 31 measures 40 feet in width (east-west direction) and 150 feet in depth (north-south direction).  The southern half of Lot 5 contains the double house at 17/19 West Cranberry Avenue.  The northern half of Lot 5 contains a single house and garage identified as 18 West Clay Avenue.  Lot 5 is bounded on the west by the Fellin property, on the east by the Mollick property, on the north by West Clay Avenue and on the south by West Cranberry Avenue.  Alex Kudrick's four married children live in homes relatively close to him and his wife Anna.  For example, John and Anna Bartko live at 17 West Cranberry Avenue (eastern half of Alex's double house on West Cranberry Avenue);  Andrew and Helen McDeshen live next door at 21/23 West Cranberry Avenue in what will later be known as Fellins Saloon;  John and Mary Bartko Kelhart live at the rear (northern portion) of Alex Kurick's property identified as 18 West Clay Avenue and John and Anna Scšur II Mudry live a block away at 111 West Clay Avenue.

Edward Beach operates his Harwood Bus Lines Company Inc. connecting the borough of West Hazleton with the patch towns of Cranberry, Crystal Ridge, Hollar's Hill, Harwood and Humboldt.  The fare for the ride, depending upon total distance travelled, is in the 5-10¢ range.

Elizabeth's step-brother, John Bartko Sr., has steadily advanced his career at the Cranberry Colliery and has attained the responsible position of "foreman."  The large building with the sloping surface, in the photo above, is the Cranberry Coal Breaker which is one of the many buildings within the Cranberry Colliery Complex.  Coal production at the Cranberry Colliery, peaks this year, but steadily declines hereafter.  However, home building in the coal region continues to boom.  In Sheppton, ten blocks of homes, financed by the Shenandoah Building and Loan Association are scheduled to be built.  Sheppton is a village located between the patch town of Cranberry and the town of Shennadoah.

Michael Dulina, cousin of George Dulina, is born in West Hazleton on December 3, 1921.  He is the son of Michael Dulina and Mary Lipko and will graduate from West Hazleton High School in 1940.  He will become a charter member of the Walter L. Hagelgans Post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in West Hazleton.  Mike will serve his country in three wars with both the Marines and the Air Force during World War II, Korea and Vietnam.  Mike passes away on 4/17/95.  Dulina is a cousin of the Koneyak side of our ancestral family.  Click here for more on the Dulina Family.

In downtown Hazleton, the Grand Opera House management negotiates with officials of the YWCA, whose building is next door to the Opera House, for additional land to expand the theater.  As part of the negotiation, the YWCA, wants to expand its cafeteria, and therefore receives additional frontage on Broad Street.  Firms such as the Grand Opera House and YWCA receive both their electric power and steam from the Hazleton Electric Power Company who also plan on drilling an artesian well to furnish water to the town of West Hazleton.  Local foreign war veterans are honored when the Drake-Wear Post No. 589, a post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars is organized in Hazleton.

Telephones are in use in the local coal region area although the Kudrick family will not have a telephone in their home for many years to come.  Conyngham, a village north of Cranberry and West Hazleton, lays a new pavement of sand on its streets which is typical of the street construction during this period.  The sand construction, of course, presents a problem for the automobiles and horse and buggies wheels when it rains and the streets turn to mud.  Many a vehicle gets stuck.

For decades, the Hazleton newspapers have been the Kudrick Family's sole source of big-league baseball news.  That all changed this year when radio (wireless telegraphy) thrust major-league baseball into the hearts and minds of the young Kudrick baseball fans.  In July, Pittsburgh radio station KDKA (see above photo) and its announcer, Harold Arlin, broadcast  the first major-league baseball game, a game played at 12-year-old Forbes Field in which the home-team Pirates defeat the Philadelphia Phillies by the score of 8-5.  Three months later, on October 5th, a World Series baseball game between the New York Yankees and the New York Giants is broadcast on radio for the first time.  The young baseball addicts within the Kudrick Family no longer have to await the newspapers because they can instantly share the drama transpiring on the playing field via their radio.

In other radio news this year, Warren G. Harding's inauguration speech is broadcast, the Westinghouse Company produces the first popular-priced home radio receiver with a retail price set at $60 and newly developed quartz crystals stabilize fluctuating radio signals which have been a problem with past receivers.

Local baseball is played by teams in Eckley, Freeland (Tigers), Hazleton (Professionals), Lattimer, and  Lehighton.  Games are played at Park View, Freeland Park, and Gravel Run Ball Field to mention a few.  The Gravel Run Ball Field is located within the square formed by Allen, Boundary, Fifteenth and McNair streets in West Hazleton.  Nationally, Babe Ruth hits his 120th home run off pitcher Jim Bagby.  After the season, to make extra money, Babe Ruth goes on a vaudeville tour along with appearances at banquets, grand openings, smokers, boxing matches, wrestling matches and celebrity golf tournaments.  Subsequently, he is briefly suspended by Commissioner Landis for violating the rule against barnstorming.

Locally, the movie drawing the biggest crowds is "The Sheik" with Rudolph Valentino.  Valentino is a movie idol who drives women to swoon and faint in the aisles and men to slick down their hair.

Popular songs includes "Second Hand Rose," "Ma, He's Making Eyes at Me," made famous by Eddie Cantor years later, and "Ain't We Got Fun."   Avid readers are "curled up" with a good book such as "Main Street," by Sinclair Lewis and "The Outline of History" by H.G. Wells.

The General Accounting Office is created to monitor  Federal spending (have they done a good job or what?), Armistice Day is proclaimed, the Lincoln Memorial is dedicated, and the first ceremony is held for the Unknown Soldier.  Our future president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, is stricken with poliomyelitis while a future adversary, Benito Mussolini, in Italy, pledges to "make the trains run on time" and prepares to liberate Rome.  In England, the British Royal Family adopts the name Windsor while in the United States, two immigrants, Sacco and Vanzetti, are sentenced to death.  In Hollywood, Fatty Arbuckle is accused of a starlet's murder which basically ends the popular actor's career.

Items appearing on the consumer market for the first time include the Mounds candy bar, Betty Crocker Company, Wrigley's chewing gum, Lincoln automobile, Electrolux vacuum cleaner, Drano for clogged sinks, Wise potato chips, iodized salt, Band-Aids and Reader's Digest. 

For the more affluent consumers, refrigerators are purchased for home use.  One of the manufacturers, Frigidaire, states as its slogan, "Frigidaire, the electrical home refrigerator, actually freezes your own favorite drinking water into cubes for table use."  Can you imagine that?