(From the Monthly Progress in 2005)
The annual Kirchweihfest was begun by a group of men who were immigrants from a town un Banat called “Bogarosh”. Mr. Stahl, a “geldherr” was the leader of a band. He also had a photography studio on Second Street and Girard Avenue, some eight blocks away from the club. The night of the Kirchweihfest the “Buva und Madels” would meet at the studio and a picture would be taken. The group then marched up Second Street with the Stahl Kapelle to the Celebration. I remember some members who participated were John Weber, John Piatka, Lou Heim, Peter, Matt, Nick, and Michael Noel.
During the 1930s the older group who were now married, let our Sport Club run the affair. The German Hungarian Sport Club was a section of the Banater Maennerchor.
Every two weeks on Friday nights we would have meetings. At these meetings, the members would organize all their affairs i.e. decorate the hall, hire the music, just as our Entertainment Committee is doing now. There were no reservations since there were no tables in the main ballroom. The first time tables were utilized was the first “Night in Vienna” which began in 1938. It was also the first time we had waitresses who were all dressed in maroon dirndls. There were over 1000 people in attendance. Since there were not enough tables set up for this amount of people, a few went down to the basement and brought up the card tables so they could have enough places to sit. Consequently the dance floor was so small that fifteen couples jammed the floor. The music was played by Peter Puljer with a fifteen man orchestra, no brass music.
F.P.W.
(to be continued)
EDITOR’S NOTE: this was written and originally published in Monthly Progress, Volume 60, No. 4– May 2005 and No. 5-June 2005. It has been re-published here in 2026 with minor edits. Misspellings of names, capitalization and punctuation have been preserved as originally published.
