Part 3

In the many public buildings and even private residences built by the Croatian stonemasons, skills both old and complex were utilized. First, they quarried the rock from the hills along Upper Spring Creek, where they began splitting the "green" or fresh rock with black powder into approximately six by six foot slabs. Using special hand tools such as chisels, wedges, mesh and sledgehammers, the slabs were split into smaller sizes as required. The work was strenuous and taxing.

From quarry to construction site, flat-bedded , small-wheeled wagons called "stone boats" carried the rough rock pieces. Croatians perched atop these lumbering wagons as they passed through Lewistown’s main street were common sights for a number of years. Once at the delivery site, great care was taken in unloading the wagons, placing the rocks on edge and segregating them by size. Using special chisels, hammers, mallets, and a five-foot straight edge, stonecutters then fashioned precisely dimensioned blocks.

The other exacting job was that of the stonemason, whose responsibility was to put the finely cut stones together with mortar. His challenge was to erect perfectly straight walls and exactly fitted corners. For this, relied as much on his own eye as he did on his measurements. It has been said that some of the early masons had such a keen and practiced eye that they used the straight edge only to confirm what they had already determined to be a straight line.

In the early days, mixing the mortar took equal care and skill if the walls were to bond and hold. It took hours to mix sand, quick lime and water in huge wooden troughs, using large wooden hoes to produce a fine cake-like batter mixture. Infinite practice and a good eye were needed to detect the moment the mixture was ready for spreading. After cutting the stones and preparing the mortar, specially designed wheelbarrows transported one or two stones at a time to the construction pint. In later years, according to surviving sons of the stonemasons, horse-drawn pulleys made hauling the stones easier.

In nearby Lime Kiln Gulch, Pete Tuss built and operated two large lime kilns to produce the key ingredient in the mortar. Built like wells on a hillside, the kilns were lined with rock. At the bottom of each was a firebox reached by an entry twelve feet wide, solidly and neatly lined with dry split wood. White, powdery, high quality lime required very high, even temperatures and an airtight kiln. Three shifts of men, working around the clock, kept the wood fires going for seven days and seven nights. The cooling period, which followed immediately, lasted anywhere from thirty to sixty days, after which the lime remained in the kiln until needed. Lime was usually made during the winter months, when cooling was easier, and then used in spring and summer construction projects.

Helping to create a larger and more enduring city with their skilled hands, the men from the Adriatic now realized they wanted to stay and wanted their families and more of their countrymen with them. No one was more certain of this than Pete Tuss and John Plovanich, Sr. Because he was so deeply involved in the city reservoir project in 1902, Tuss was unable to make the trip to Bribir to bring his family over. Thus Plovanich represented both families when he returned in 1903 with the Tuss family, including the five-year-old Daisy who recalled the trip so many years later. Also in the party were Plovanich’s son, Joseph, and Joe D. Plovanich who was not related. Meanwhile, in Lewistown, along with his work on the reservoir, Tuss constructed a large two-story stone house for bachelor employees and newcomers, providing each man with a single room apartment furnished with a bed, table, and a small potbelly stove.

After the arrival of the Tuss and Plovanich families in 1903, a steady stream of women and children began coming from Croatia. Census figures show only eight "Austrians" in Fergus County in 1900, but by 1910 there were 373. Since about a hundred of these were stonemasons, it is clear that over 200 women and children were in the Lewistown Croatian settlement by the turn of the century.

At the outset, most of the women and children did not share their men’s enthusiasm for Lewistown and Central Montana. In fact, to them the area was awesome, forbidding, and frightening, especially for the children. Trauma of the strangeness and openness of the country is still remembered vividly by those youngsters, now in the 70’s and 80’s. While observing her 75^th birthday, one lady remarked, "I came here in 1910 when I was nine years old, 66 years ago, and who would have thought that I was going to live all those years here in Lewistown? I missed my friends, school chums, teachers, our nice white house and lovely yard with its flowers and citrus trees. I longed for the fresh fruits. Like Daisy, I cried for three days and nights after we got here. I was definitely going to go back as I hated it here. Just think of it. I can’t believe it."

The Croatian women had to make many adjustments. The small frame houses and shacks they found in Lewistown were very different from the white stone houses in Bribir, some of which were large enough to accommodate two generations of a family. In Bribir, the floors were either smooth rock or hardwoods and were easy to clean, while here they lived in small one- and two-room quarters made out of rough boards. One youngster expressed it well when he said "I don’t like it inside, and I don’t like it outside, either. I want to go back home!"

Not all of the adjustments, of course, were painful. Croatian women eagerly utilized "Engleski" laundry equipment. Scrubbing cloths on a washboard in a galvanized tub, indoors was easier than beating them against a big rock in a stream or a rock-lined common outdoor pool. What intrigued these ladies and their children even more were the little pitcher water pumps, which by then were in use in most Lewistown kitchens. These small table pumps drew the water up a pipe from a well, usually located underneath the kitchens. The "little toys" were a source of wonderment, curiosity, and much talk.

Of all the household equipment used by the women, however, the most vexing were the wood and coal ranges. Accustomed to open hearths, built out of rock, it took them years to get adjusted to the iron stoves. To them, cooking suddenly became not only difficulty, but almost impossible; even surface cooking, the easiest of all, required a familiarity with certain utensils they had not known before. On one occasion, a wife surprised her husband when she said that the soup meat was boiling in a tea kettle. Having arrived several years ahead of her, it had never occurred to him that she would not know the proper use of a tea kettle.

Over cooking turned out to be a dreaded ordeal, especially baking bread, which required high, steady and even temperatures. According to Daisy Monkelin, the women simply could not control or manage the ovens at first. This difficulty was more than frustrating because bread was nutritionally and religiously significant to Croatians and treated with a particular reverence. Whenever a slice fell to the floor, for instance, it was immediately picked up, kissed gently, and then eaten. It was never wasted.

Croatians are traditionally very religious people, particularly the women. Devout Roman Catholics, many said their Rosary as their first act in the morning, and they often prayed during the day whenever time permitted. Religion, while it was one of the few cultural bridges they had, also accentuated the Croatians’ cultural isolation when they heard the priest delivery Sunday sermons in English.

The language barrier, of course, has been a major hurdle for all non-English speaking American immigrants. The English language obstacle explains, at least in part, why immigrants so often huddled together in separate communities and residential districts in larger cities. Traditional family and group customs were maintained in this manner, and the Lewistown Croatians were no exception to the pattern. On February 12, 1904, they organized their own fraternal lodge, affiliated with the National Croatian Society. The lodge began with a handful of charter members, but by 1911 their numbers had grown to forty-five and by 1922 they counted seventy-six members. They met on a monthly basis at the spacious home of Vinko Kalafatic, where they socialized and discussed common problems.

Bilingualism was important; they resisted complete acculturation, devoting themselves to the preservation of their native language. Although their children confronted the English language in school, Croatian dominated conversation at home, and the parents impressed upon the children the need to maintain their culture and language. A further resistance to acculturation was evidenced in their initial rejection of intermarriage with Americans. It was customary for single men to either send for their sweethearts, or to take a change on a "Bribirka" an eligible Croatian woman who was a total stranger to him. Occasionally marriages were arranged by parents in the Lewistown Croatian community and even in advance by correspondence.

All this, in turn, further isolated the women from the rest of the community. Few were ever able to master the English language since the pace and demands of their daily lives did not allow them the necessary leisure or energy. Their husbands often played the role of interpreter when shopping, for it was not long before the men developed a reasonably effective "pidgin" English. In time, some of the women developed a good understanding of English, although few among the immigrant generation learned to speak or write the new and complicated language.

This is not to suggest that Croatian women had no involvement outside the home. They did vote, for instance. Since they automatically became citizens when their husbands and fathers were naturalized, they were spared the necessity of learning the federal constitution and taking the dreaded oral examination in English. Voting, regarded as a privilege and an honor as well as a duty, took place in the present of two judges, one of whom read the ballot aloud.

Part 4