Erica, son Mile, and Pero Adamovich, 1911
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Pero Adamovich was born in the small village of Calma (chal-ma) in Srem in the southern part of Fruska Gora (frushka). In 1881, the year he was born, this region of Vojvodina was part of Austria-Hungary. He was the first child of many born to Momcilo and Fatima Adamovich. In all, there were six girls and two boys.
Pero attended grade school in Calma for six years before he left his home to serve as an apprentice tailor or segrt (shegert). For the next five years he lived with a family who taught him a trade. He specialized in learning to make a popular type of sheepskin vest called a prsnjak (persh-n-yak). The fine handwork was complicated and even included fashioning the elaborate buttons which also were made of leather.
Living away from home at such an early age was very difficult for the young Pero Adamovich. he always remembered this as such a lonely time in his life because there was no one he knew there. He said he often would think, "If only I could talk to someone or just pet the old neighbor's dog, I would feel like I was home again."
After five years he received his diploma, became a furrier or curcija (churchi-ya), and returned home. In Calma, he went to church and was an alter boy and a chanter, but living again in his family's small home on a little plot of land with eleven people was not ideal. In fact, some years, it was very difficult.
At the age of sixteen, the government intervened and called him to military service. After training on a ship, he served in the military as a tailor and emerged as a sergeant. For four years he was stationed at the giant fortress of Petrovaradin.
It took Pero a few years to earn the money he needed and to get his passport and ticket or si/karta (shif-kar-ta.) Finally, when he was twenty-four years old, he was ready to go to America!
In 1905, he sailed from Fiume, today's Rijeka, on a freighter called Gertie. They sailed out of the Mediterranean Sea through the Straits of Gibraltar and went first to South America. The long journey took over a month, but at long last the ship landed in Baltimore, Maryland, bringing Pero to America and to a very different life.
Because some of his friends were in Farrell, Pennsylvania, he joined them there and got a job working in the steel mill. Later, he found work on the railroads and traveled throughout the Northwest. However, the climate there was not to his liking. He said it was so bitter cold and the winds were so strong that he thought he would die! Eventually he worked his way back to Farrell.
Around 1908, a young woman named Evica Mirosavljevich from Erdevik, Srem, came to America with two of her young friends. Evica's native village, like Pero's, was in the Fruska Gora region of Vojvodina, and, in fact, it was not very far from his. She was just a year younger than he, and not long after they met, they were married. The best man or kum at their wedding was Paja (Paul) Parencevich, and Pero and Evica's third son was named after him. Evica's two friends also married in America, and as Mrs. Zarich and Mrs. Danilov, both made their homes in Youngstown, Ohio.
Pero and Evica's first son, Mike (Momcilo), was bom in 1910 in Farrell. He was named after his grandfather on his father's side.
The Adamoviches then heard that a plant was being built in Barberton, Ohio. That was their next move. They opened a 'camp" or boarding house where workers could sleep and eat meals. A year later, Pero heard that J & L was opening up a steel mill in Woodlawn, Pennsylvania. They moved again. The year was 1911.
Their second son, Steve, was born in Woodlawn on Baker Street. He was named after Evica's father.
After working in the wire mill for about a year, Pero watched helplessly as a fellow Serb lost his leg in an accident with a hot wire, and he said, "That's it!"
In the meantime, sugar beet companies in Michigan were looking for workers. They provided free transportation, so it was off to Michigan for the Adamoviches' Right in the middle of sugar beet country, their youngest son, Paul, was bom on September 20, 1913, in a log cabin in a small town called Owendale.
In this part of Michigan at that time, there were mainly German and French settlers. Since Pero spoke German, he was able to get along.
After two years in Owendale, the family moved to Flint, Michigan, where Pero worked at the Buick foundry. They lived on Hickory Street; the next street over was Easy Street. (By the way, that is as close as I ever got to being on "Easy Streef.")
Pero's three sons began their education at the then-new Fairview School. Five years later, the family moved back to Owendale and lived on a farm until 1926. That year Pero sold the farm and all the equipment and moved to Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, where his wife's sister and her family, Mr. and Mrs. Milivoj Yoykich, were living.
Pero and his family lived in the New Sheffield area where they farmed, but Pero and his oldest son Mike also worked in the steel mills. His youngest son, Paul, graduated from Harding High School, Class of 1933.
In 1938, Paul was married to Mary Tepovich of Midland, Pennsylvania. Their three children are Pero Adamovich's only grandchildren: Evie, born December 9, 1939, who is a retired school teacher presently on the City Council of Midland, Pennsylvania; Paul Jr., born in May of 1943, who is in construction and has visited Srem; and Nancy, born September 9, 1946, who lives in California. But the Adamovich family has grown considerably - Mary and Paul have seven grandchildren and nine great grandchildren.
Evica Adamovich was the first to pass away in 1961. Her son Mike was next in 1968. And Pero, who began this odyssey and this family, lived a healthy and interesting life to the wonderful age of ninety-five.
Today, there are twenty-six members of his family in America, and surely old Pero would be proud of them all!
From "Serb World U.S.A."
Provided by Evie Adams