March 1946, St. Luke's Monthly Newsletter - Basketball Team take "The Mohawk" to Chicago

The Parish boys' basketball team was called "Legion of Mary."  They became top in the Buffalo CYC league, and so got a train trip to Chicago to compete in some playoffs.  Most of the March 1946 issue of the Parish magazine is about basketball games in all their painful detail, and if you want to read it you will have to come visit me.  I'm posting the story about the train ride.

If the print is too small for you, type Alt +

The back page is devoted entirely to the team photo.  The artwork is colored pencil, laboriously done by someone holding a colored pencil in hand.  Now, a viewer might reasonably ask, "Why is that player's face clipped out?"  I can answer that with context clues derived from agonizingly thorough reading of the sports reportage.  That's Eddie, whom we have seen previously in baseball garb. Someone secured for herself an image of the Durham Flash and put it in her pocket.  Sigh.

If you look closely, you can, by chance, see most of his name, "Edmund Nietopski," in the text revealed by the cutout.

Above is Mr. Al Mazikowski, the Coach, with Fr. Tomiak.  John, did you meet Al?

The masthead in this issue lists two photographers: John Zdrojewski and Joseph Hoppe.  John tells me that his Dad, JPZ, was not a big sports fan. So it's a good guess that Hoppe, rather than JPZ, took the sports photos in this issue.

Next issue, we meet another new photographer.  Actually, it's more of a reunion; we've met him before.

Clara's "Snapfolio" - Part 2

The pictorial offerings in the c.1946 CAMZ "Snapfolio" continue to raise intriguing questions. Like here: why are Gertrude and Clara dressed in almost-identical dresses, and why does Clara have more bows on her collar than does Gertrude?  If she's the star of the party (such as an engagement party, but I do not know) then all those bows would mean she could not feast with proper abandon, which would be unfair.

Who is this couple?  They look like nice folks.  See how the third girl from the left is holding a hat over the man's head?  Maybe she is stealing his fedora so his pretty face will be showing in the picture.

Why is this lovely lady triumphantly holding aloft three Tootsie Roll Pops?  Or are they candied apples?

 

Is this the same lady, and is that one of the same girls?  Check out the dress with the dramatic black-and-white motif, or whatever it is called. "Appliqué"? Perhaps mother and daughter just got done with the final fitting or hemming, and this is the dress-tailoring victory photo op.

Fourteen years earlier, in 1932, Joan Crawford appeared in a film entitled "Letty Linton."  If you can get past her truly scary face you can see the dramatic black-and-white motif of her dress.  So apparently this whole idea was up on the silver screen. You could say it was in the air.

Ah, well, good to know there is someone to run to when the stars and the couture get to be a little too much.  Here's Adam Matynka in his bus-driver uniform, topcoat, and hat.

These mystery people are king of their mountain.

I think this is church camp.  The spectators are surely engrossed.

Wow, Clara's really into it.

These buildings I believe are Camp Merrie Mount, operated by the Parish of St. Luke's.  Perhaps they had a family picnic day.

CHM, CAMZ, Gertrude.

This print keeps popping up.  Well, it's a good one.  Thus endeth the 1946 Snapfolio. See you next time, next decade, next photographer.    Z

Clara's "Snapfolio" - Part I

This little book of snapshots was a complete surprise.  It came to light from deep within a carton and settled in the palm of my hand, giving off vibes that eventually I was able to translate with a degree of confidence as "1946."

I took the snapshots out of the cellophane without wearing gloves, but then at least I put them back in the same places.  There's a blank place. Was someone's photo discreetly removed, perhaps in early 1947?

"Maid of the Mist" and a bit of mist on CAMZ's camera lens:

Unknown couple with the Falls power station in the background:

Check out the handbag!  It's bigger than Grace Kelly's:

I've no idea who these other people are.  It's sad when friends part ways.

In Part 2 shall be featured Church Camp and wrestling.  Get ready!

Z

Update to "Larkin Soap Company, Frank Lloyd Wright, and the Buffalo Stuyvesant"

Paul Zadner wrote that his mother, Cecelia, worked for the Larkin Soap Company.  He said that it was a "catalog sales operation."

October 1945, St. Luke's Monthly Newsletter - Debate Contest Rules

At Eugene's funeral, his brother John gave the eulogy.  I recall John's voice as he reminded those present that Eugene loved debate and discussion, especially around the dinner table.  Paraphrasing here, I recall John saying, "But you had to follow the rules!  You had to be prepared to build and defend your argument!"

Now on looking over these St. Luke's Newsletters, we can discern one source of EJZ's conviction in these matters.  Father Walter L. Tomiak was Director of the PYC and the Debate Coach.

So here were kids in this working-class neighborhood learning the art and the discipline of rhetorical debate.  All of this was supported by voluntary contributions by households and individuals.  No one was forced to contribute; no one would be turned away from taking part or listening in.

Larkin Soap Company, Frank Lloyd Wright, and the Buffalo Stuyvesant

John D. Larkin and Elbert Hubbard in the 19th century founded the Larkin Soap Company, a highly successful American enterprise that innovated spectatularly in business structure, inventory control, marketing, commercial design, and design of corporate buildings and employee workspace.

Larkin Soap Company hired Frank Lloyd Wright as architect of its Buffalo corporate headquarters, completed in 1906.  Everyone from the executives to the minions to the cleaners got to work in this beautiful, airy palace with air conditioning, Prairie style furnishings, and stained-glass windows.

 

One Larkin Company executive was named Darwin D. Martin.  He did well, and his son Darwin R. Martin, used his own fortune and his inheritance of business skill to build the Buffalo Stuyvesant Hotel.

Here is a postcard from the Buffalo Stuyvesant Hotel. On the back is printed:
                         "Personal management of Darwin R. Martin
                Buffalo's most charming hotel with the best of everything
                                          245 Elmwood Ave.
              Home of the internationally famous Peter Stuyvesant Room"

I'm told that the dance floor had a glass floor with blue lights shining up from under it. These things sound like travelers' tales from a lost world.

The Larkin Building was demolished in 1950 - not by the Larkins, but by the people who picked it up when it was let go for back taxes.  The Stuyvesant Hotel is now owned by New York State.

There are not many photographs of these buildings; our best imagery comes from postcards and other ephemera. Which brings us to East Aurora, New York, as a matter of fact.

The East Aurora Village Shopping Center, to which folk trekked from Marilla to do grocery shopping, and where Clara (CAMZ) bought her daughter (JZ) her first and only pair of "gaucho pants," and where JZ bought her leather wraparound miniskirt for her senior year of high school . . . where was I?

Oh yes, the East Aurora Village Shopping Center was redesigned around 2000 by an architect named Patrick J. Mahoney.  Patrick J. Mahoney has a postcard collection featuring classic hotels of Buffalo and Frank Lloyd Wright buildings everywhere.  Good for him for putting it online.

October 1945, St. Luke's Monthly Newsletter - Peace and the Parish; Mentors at the Stuyvesant

JPZ must have taken these portrait photos, or coached boys and girls as they took them.  Was there a PYC darkroom in the church basement, or in the school?

The poses and facial expressions are strikingly well-done.  JPZ has been studying his photography magazines, apparently.

Was JPZ a fan of Gone with the Wind, by any chance?  Amelia Kasprzyk's Vivien Leigh tendencies are beautifully emphasized in her portrait, I'd say.

By October 1945, letters had reached the St. Luke's Rectory from parishioners overseas on VE-Day and VJ-Day.  The second letter, below, is from Gene Norman in the Phillipines. 

This must have been quite a common sight in 1945 and 1946.  What is this building?  It has fluted Corinthian columns and what looks like a screen door - an odd combination.

JPZ is likely to have taken this photo as well.  My Dad, EJZ, told me that as a youth his father took up wedding photography as a second job, and on weekends Eugene was his assistant.  They went together to many weddings, where EJZ hauled equipment and then posed groups of people while his Dad judged the effect through the viewfinders.

This is Eddie Nietopski, "The Durham Flash."  Evidently a parishioner went off to North Carolina to play minor league ball with the Durham Bulls.

Parishioners who volunteered to run the Parish Youth Council met to plan their work for the upcoming year.  The venue was the Buffalo Stuyvesant, at that time a wonderful, glamorous, thriving place.

Notice Father Tomiak's theme:  "He stressed the fact that less should be done for youth in (the) way of providing everything; that more should be done to have youth help itself."

The Training Course for Sponsors was the leadership training for adult parishioners.  Notice that our JPZ got his diploma for the Sponsor's course in teaching and coaching photography.  

Notice all the areas in which this big Parish had instruction, guidance, and fun for youth. This was strong civil society.  

Now St. Luke's church is a government-run drug-rehab clinic.  As the vitality of civil society drains, government expands. The numbers of people - the proportion of the population -  who cannot function without government expand.  Some people like it that way.