Story Number 4: A House among Flowers

Kate Skukan was born in Kremen in 1943, was married in Rastoke and still lives there today, in house number 12.

When Kate was three years old, she was left without a father. She came from Kremen with her mother to Rastoke, to the Skukan’s mill, on an ox-drawn wagon. Kate’s husband was a miller and a reputable master for mills, had learned his craft. He loved the mill and everything around the mill and he used to say, “You do not need to finish any school to be a miller!” By his side, Kate learned and took over many jobs and tasks. She was also a miller! Her story of the mill is her life.

“When I married in Rastoke, I knew nothing of milling. Then my husband slowly taught me everything. We had seven milling stones. In this mill, there were three milling stones and in another one, which is inaccessible now, there were four. Seven milling stones there were and one person cannot control all of them at once. So, we had a worker. He was not paid in money, but in flour. When he got a job, I had to take over and I learned to be a miller. People came with horses and oxen and their wagons were full of grain bags. When my husband came from work, he made žlice (paddles for the mill). He was very good with wood, he knew everything. For the paddles, he would go to the forestry and buy a thick beech tree, which could be cut lengthwise into four pieces. After it was cut into four pieces, the pieces would be dipped into Slušnica because it is easier to work wood when it is wet. He would put the wood on the sawhorse and saw it by hand; there was no electric circular-saw back then. After the piece was sawed, it needed to be worked with a bradva (a type of woodworking axe). The paddle would then be drawn by a compass. Since there was little iron involved, we would take the pieces to the blacksmith.”

Working from Morning until Night and Resting on Sundays

Kate’s working day was different every day because there was milling every day except on Sundays, when they did not accept any. “We had two white milling stones and everyone had one for wheat. The milling stones were very good; the milling was fast and people liked to return to our mill.”

Kate did not mill during the night because she had work to do early in the morning. She needed to bake bread and pogača and make uštipci (doughnut-like fried balls) for the children who would eat them with milk before school. Making lunch was in her care as well.

“We had a lot of pork and hen meat. We always had cake on Sunday. If more hens were slaughtered at the same time, like for Christmas, they would be placed under the mill, they would be hung on something. Pork was dried, we also made sausages and bacon. We had a lot of hens as well. Sometimes we would go to Slunj to get beef.” Nevertheless, Kate had time for planting flowers as well and she says with a smile, “Our house is in a beautiful spot and there were always flowers on our ganjak (a type of roofed hallway leading to the entrance of the house, typical for this area). Geraniums. She says, “A woman without a hairstyle is like a house without flowers.” At first, the house was in the Korana River, covered with wooden planks. When they got a little money, they placed the house in a higher spot. “In the early days, we had a stable, another mill and drying shed. We had a lot of space. Oxen were placed here under the grapevines or in the drying shed (when it was empty). People brought hay to the oxen and walked around while waiting for their grain to be milled. Sometimes they brought children as well. We would give our customers a piece of white bread each. We baked bread every day because we had enough flour. In Kremen, where I was born, we did not have white bread every day. We ate proja (a type of bread made from corn flour) and polenta and some people made ražovac (a type of black bread made from wheat and rye flour). Most often children would come with their fathers to the mill; when everything was milled, they put their bags onto the wagon and went home. Smaller children did not help with the work. I had to carry the bags with the boss, as well as our worker, because some bags weighed more than 50 kilograms. Bags of corn, bags of wheat, bags of maslin and bags of oats, everything was milled. People would return to the mill about one a month.”

A Lot of Grain; Not a Lot of Money

“We had a lot of grain, but no money,” Kate says and explains that they took ujam and then sell that grain. They paid their workers in flour. In order for them to have money, Kate would go work in Germany for three months at a time. “I would earn money and then let my girls go to Trieste to buy clothes so that they would have something to wear in Zagreb, where they finished college. My daughters know nothing of the mill. When I am gone, it will be an adventure to them. I taught my granddaughter Dora about the mill. She is now in her fourth year of college; she is studying to be a language professor. My grandson Filip finished computer science and he is employed now.” And when Kate’s Filip comes to see her – and he knows how to start the mill – her heart is full of happiness and her flowers on ganjak are proud as well.