Friday, October 31, 2014
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.A large crowd attended Betty Bullen's presentation Visit the Country of Croatia at the Poland library, dealing with the traditions of the country.
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.Betty Bullen gave a presentation called Visit the Country of Croatia at the Poland library. The event dealt with the traditions of Croatia.
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.Attendees of the Visit the Country of Croatia event at the Poland library mingled with each other before speaker Betty Bullen began her presentation.
By TIM CLEVELAND
As part of its monthly meetings, the Friends of the Poland library host a speaker who gives a presentation on a variety of topics. On Oct. 7, the most recent meeting featured Betty Bullen speaking about the traditions of Croatia.
“The Poland Friends have been in existence for 40 years and their program format is they always bring in a presenter on different topics,” development director of the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County Debbie Liptak said. “They love history, they love to talk about things that are relevant to the community.”
There was also several food items for a fall pot luck.
“I’m going to talk about the traditions of the Croatian culture, my heritage,” said Bullen, a Campbell native who now lives in Canfield. “This is an ethnic community and a lot of the ethnic groups have blurred histories. I’m going to talk about the traditions. A lot of them have faded with the younger generation. If you ever asked your parents what did you do on Christmas, what did you do when a new baby was born, what did you do when someone passed away. Those things were important, particularly to village people.
“When someone from another came to the city they brought with them other ideas, other traditions. The villagers kept their own, and that’s usually where the pure traditions come from.”
Bullen said her parents came to the United States from Croatia in the early 20th century.
“I’m first generation Croatian,” she said. “Both my parents were born in Croatia. My parents were very specific, as most Croatians are, that they are Croatians. They’re not Yugoslavs, they’re not Austro-Hungarians, they’re not Serbians. They are Croatians.”
Bullen said her parents met and fell in love due to happenstance.
“My father came to work in the steel mills,” she said. “His brother had been here first. My mother had a little different kind of immigration. Her parents had come years before she was born. My grandfather made a living here and went back to the old country. They then came back to the United States. My mother chose not to come. She had a boyfriend there so she chose to stay. When she was about 15, my grandfather sent for her and she came to live in the United States in Campbell.
“My grandparents ran a boarding house. My mother came to this country and she decided this was a great place to live. The boyfriend wrote to my grandfather and said ‘I’m waiting for her [my mother] to come back. I want to marry her.’ My grandfather told my mother that she had to go back and get married. She said she wasn’t going back and she had fallen in love with one of his boarders. So, she married my father.”
Bullen added that 50 years later her mother went back to Croatia and went into a tavern. She happened to run into the boyfriend there. Bullen said he said to her mother, “Where have you been? I haven’t seen you for a long time.”
During Bullen’s 30-minute talk [followed by a 15-minute question and answer session], she also spoke about holiday traditions in Croatia, such as Christmas, and the traditional Croatian wedding. She said that during Communist rule Croatian citizens were not allowed to get married at a church, but had to be married in a civil ceremony.