Clara Haremska married Adam Matynka, at the conclusion of a courtship containing at least one exciting episode: Adam biffed a guy who was being fresh and trying to maul Clara. Adam spent a night in jail. Clara was favorably impressed.
Perfect in his role as defender of his family, he was fearsome to bad guys while soft-spoken and affectionate to his household, especially the children and grandchildren.
His mother was of the Michalski family. I know absolutely nothing about them.
[ EDIT: Adam was one of 8 children of Marcin Matynka and Katarzyna Michalska. See the Matynka page of this blog. ]
His children were Gertrude, Clara Adamina, and Thomas. Clara, CAMZ, took these photos of her "Dad." My memory has a clear, strong recording of my mother's voice saying "Dad."
I don't know whose picnic this was, but the sack race looks well-subscribed. Second from the right is Clara's friend "Eddie." I hope the man in the shirt and tie won the race.
More friends from the teen years. That stable looks like a converted factory.
Adam and CHM in the kitchen at 554 Walden Avenue. By the time I was around to notice, they had installed kitchen cupboards above the sink and the stove. But this view is as the house was since being built in 1870 or so. Such high ceilings!
Here are Adam and daughter Clara in the stands at a football game involving Columbia. This is later, 1948 or 1949, after Gene and Clara were married, and while Clara was living at home in Buffalo with her parents, while Gene was in a dorm room at Columbia. That's what they could afford, so that's what they did.
When it was time to go downtown to shop for school clothes at Hengerer's or sometimes Berger's, Mom would take me there on my grandfather's bus. We would sit behind the driver. It was wonderful.
Dziadzi of course had a change dispenser that looked like this, although it seems to me that his had more compartments. When he retired, he gave it to us kids. Now it is lost. It's not that we did not think it was terrific; we did; we just thought everything would last forever without care or effort on our part.
Julie
4 comments:
That change dispenser looks cool
Hi Andrew,
It was cool, yes. And it made a lovely mechanical clicking noise when you depressed any of the levers.
He wore it on his big black belt (the belt he sometimes loaned out to Santa Claus), on the right side, because people got onto his bus to his right side.
And he had a blue hat, like an old-timey cop's hat, with a black visor, as part of his uniform.
And your great-grandfather had a mustache (always) and a cigar (usually.)
Z
In the 4th photo, sitting on a table, one can clearly see a tattoo on Adam's right forearm. Is that a military tattoo, maybe?
Nope, Adam Matynka was never in the military. Sorry, Tye, but I never took a good look at Dziadzi's tattoo.
He loved us kids, but he did not talk with us. That was the usual situation with the older generations. I remember him talking with other grownups and frequently cracking corny jokes.
Post a Comment