Ann Walko
Carpatho-Rusyn and Eastern Slovak Secular Song

Ann Walko was born in 1908 in Wall Pennsylvania, fifteen miles east of Pittsburgh, and she has lived there for her entire life. Her family immigrated there in the early 1900s from Austria-Hungary (now Eastern Slovakia). Her father came from a village called Revisce and her mother from Hnojni. The language spoken in her house was an East Slovak dialect mixed with western Rusyn.

Ann Walko’s singing tradition

“Everybody around me sang songs from the Old Country, but I remember my mother being a particularly good singer. Nobody taught me the songs, I learned all of them by listening. Also, a cantor in the Byzantine Catholic church named Ribnicki lived with us for some time, and I listened to him sing. Often, the cantors made up comic words to the traditional chants in order to teach their apprentices the melodies, and I learned some of these secular songs in addition to the sacred ones by listening to Ribnicki sing. People often think it is funny when they hear me sing these, because they are not typical songs for someone who is not a cantor (and especially a woman) to know. In those days, there was of course no television or radio, and we all sang, danced, and told stories for entertainment.

“Wall was bustling with industry, especially from people looking for jobs on the nearby Pennsylvania Railroad. My mother and father always took in boarders. We had two and a half rooms to rent, with two beds to a room, occupied during the day by night-shift workers, and then at night by day-shift workers. I became so used to having boarders that I could tell where they came from by the smell of their clothes (those who came from, say, Youngstown had one smell, and those who came across the Atlantic had a different, salty smell). There were East Slovaks, Rusyns, Ukrainians, Croats, and Poles. I listened to them intently all the time and learned their songs. And when more immigrants came after World War II, I also learned their songs, which were new to me. I used to sing to the younger children until they fell asleep. I knew every single one of the church hymns. I just sang all day and night, I thought everybody did. Anybody that sang a song, I sang with them. One time, my mother told me that one of the boarders was upstairs crying as I sang, which was ultimate praise to a singer.”

Accomplishments

• Along with being a treasure trove of hundreds of traditional songs, Ann Walko also shares her culture through writing. She graduated Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in writing from the University of Pittsburgh at age sixty-three. Among her works are stories on Carpatho-Rusyn traditions, and her childhood growing up with boarders, which have been featured in the Atlantic Monthly and The Pittsburgh Press.
• She wrote catechetical plays for children, translating Rusyn catechetical texts to English to write these bible plays.
• She writes poetry, and has won several poetry contests sponsored by the Pittsburgh Poetry Club, of which she was the president for four years.
• Wrote the Rusyn immigrant worker play Zanska Sl’eboda (Women’s Lib) in the Eastern Slovak/Western Carpatho-Rusyn language to help adult students of the Slavic Language Class of the Holy Trinity Byzantine Catholic Church in Wall learn the language. The play was translated to English and performed at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.
• At age 91, Ann Walko wrote a book called Eternal Memory, published by Sterling House. It is semi-autobiographical and tells of the hardships and joys of the sub-Carpathian-Rusyn people when they came to the Pittsburgh area.
• She is currently assembling a book of the many Carpatho-Rusyn songs she has learned, which will include a translation of each of her songs to English.
• She has received awards including a writing scholarship to the Breadloaf School of English in Vermont