Croatia to America: Mary Peris

by Sam Begg

In Sosice, Croatia,Nick Peris' daughter, Mary, grew to be a strong willed girl who reveled in her beauty.   She had her father's small features but was as tough as the countryside they called home.  The Peris family farmed land on the valley side, but chose to live on the hill.  Nick always wanted to live on the hill - perhaps his time near the mills in Cleveland made him long for a spot above the soot and grime.

To Mary fell the chore of carrying water. The walk to the stream and back was not an onerous one. She enjoyed the opportunity to socialize on the trip and participate in the banter that seemed to prevail whenever hill and bottom land people meet.

Some of the best bottom land, and a lot of it, was farmed by the Beg family.   They too lived on the hil, but unlike Nick Peris, the Beg family had hired help in addition to family working the land.  This set the Begs apart.  Not that they were significantly better off than others in the area, but having more land and having hired hands provided the Begs with the opportunity to adopt an air of superiority.  This was an attitude Mary despised.

As a young woman, Mary worked in the only story in Sosice.   This provided her with significant opportunities.  She was at the second center of life (church came first, even in this land of cynical Catholicism). Everyone came to the store and Mary could evaluate the people of Sosice, especially teh young men and in particular, the young Beg men.

As a result of her employment, Mary was generous with her family.  Not that she spent her own money on them but she would regularly steal from the store and bring her booty home as gifts.   Her favorite was stealing yard goods.  She would reroll the material onto a slightly larger board, remove the material she wanted and the outside of the bolt would remain unchanged.   Her family had the widest variety of clothes of all of those on the hill.  She enjoyed telling how her favorite and the most expensive cloth in the store was a bolt of mostly wood with a few wraps of cloth when she stopped working at the store.   She never explained how the owner could miss so much cloth but we had to allow her license in her story telling.

Mary was, also, according to her telling, the best chicken thief in the valley.  She could shake a chicken's head (I saw her do this when she was in her 70's) just enough to cause it to faint but not enough to injure it.  She would hid the chicken in her packages or under her skirt.

Mary's time in the store was well spent.  She had set her cap for and married, Nikola Beg, the third of the Beg sons.  They married in 1895.

Nikola was the opposite of Mary.  She was small and sturdy.  He was a large man but not with the mental toughness of Mary.  Nikola was an open person who's feelings were written on his face.  One was never sure what Mary was thinking or what the ultimate goal of her action was.  The marriage gave her what she wanted -- she could now adopt that air of superiority.  There were many (on both sides of the Atlantic) who said she was not good enough for Nikola; this talk never bothered Mary.  Those talking were the ones now filled with envy.

1952 photo of Carrie furnaces in Rankin, PA

In early 1897, Nikola left for America.  His older brother George, the second son, had emigrated one year earlier.  Nikola left Mary, now pregnant, living in the house with his parents.  He felt sure she would shortly be joining him in America. In the fall of 1897 Nikola and Mary's first daughter, Helen, was born.  By this time, Nikola was living in Rankin, Pennsylvania and working in the wire mill.  Long working days, in a world gone grey, and often black, made life hard.  There was little to do but work, sleep, and drink.

Nikola had one advantage over Nick Peris.  He needed no big friend to keep him out of trouble.



photo of Rankin - http://www.learner.org/courses/envsci/visual/visual.php?shortname=furnaces