Friday, February 28, 2014

Wedding and Graduation Season, 1946? - Updated and Corrected with Kotwas Family Members

The previous posting featured Casimir Zdrojewski in his high school dorm at St. John Kanty preparatory school in Erie, Pennsylvania.  Here is Casimir all robed up for graduation therefrom.  It looks like the basement at Kanty; maybe it rained that day.

Grandma Victoria Zdrojewska, her daughter-in-law Eleanor Kotwas Zdrojewska, and to her left (in white dress and black hat) Eleanor's mother, Ludwicka ("Louise") Chmielewska Kotwas.

John, our JFZ, writes of his maternal grandmother Louise, our LCK, as "the kindest person I have ever met."

Also, "And, interestingly, Louise' parents came to America in the late 1870s and were among the first parishioners of St. Stanislaus Church in Buffalo."

Continuing around the table, we have 3 mystery people, JPZ nattily dressed, and to the JPZ's own left is, as John writes, "Eleanor's father, who came from the Russian partition of Poland in 1902."

Then we have the man of the hour, Casimir with boutonnier and mortarboard.  Oh, and diploma!

Does someone have more photos of this event, or the diploma to scan?  If so, please send them; I would love to put them up!


And here below, a terrific find from the New Trove - thanks, Marty!  Casey and Gene and a very cool car, all right at the front doors of Kanty Prep.

Andrew, you are the Spirit and Image of your grandfather at that age.  Come walk around Krakow with me so I can have fun watching you run into a doppelganger around every corner. 


A Google Image search on "Ford coupe converible 1941" returns many pretty pictures of cars like Gene's, including these two:



Must be Eugene took the photo below, probably in 1946.  JPZ and Eleanor were married in August of that year.  Casey is grinning wickedly in his James Dean hairdo still.  And a similar Ford is prominently included in the shot.  Paint job? New car? JPZmobile?


Le pique-nique with Grandma Kotwas, Eugene, JPZ,
the picnic basket and percolator, Casimir, and Eleanor.

Below, we see Eleanor, at right, and Clara, at left by Eugene, gamely smiling as they realize the antics their new family gets into at the drop of a hat, or some napery, or a potted plant.

Paul Zadner's lovely Mamma is unfazed. Paul has no idea that there is Chow Mein in his future. We saw this photo near the beginning of this blog, in - let's see - "Wedding Photo on the Wall".


Thursday, February 27, 2014

Gene and Casey and John Cantius

The photo, below, of Gene and Casey before-the-war, or before their war, featured, naturally, in the Japanese Christmas card post.  Dr. John, our JFZ, has since confirmed that the location is the back yard of May St.  Thanks, John! 

Incidentally, that means that JPZ's garden was in a strip along that fence behind the lads. I remember strawberry plants and tomato plants thriving in that little patch in the middle of Buffalo.



Late 1942 or 1943: Gene is drafted into the Army;
1943: Gene does Basic Training at Fort Benning, Georgia;
1943: Julia Mostkowska Zdrojewska dies of cardiac arrest while Gene is doing Basic and Casey is in late grammar school or early high school;
1944: Gene is at University of Chicago studying the Japanese language;
1944-45: Gene is in China; returns via Suez to Scotland, then home.

1946, August: JPZ and Eleanor Kotwas marry;
1947: Gene is President of St. Luke's Youth Council.

Given all that, what can we construe from the photo below?

Eleanor is there - Busia to me and to all the children of Gene and of Casey - and I really want to know if she is wearing silk or nylon stockings.  Controlling our curiosity on this sartorial point, we see that Gene is wearing the famous blue sweater with the three white stripes, so he must be current CYC Prez.  The setting is a dorm room.  So this is some time during academic year '46-'47 or '47-'48.

Click to enlarge and then take a squint at the poster announcing the football game.  It's coming up - Canisius versus Alliance - on August 13, 1946.  Or it took place then, and the poster is a memento.


John recalls that Casey attended St. John Kanty Preparatory School in Erie, Pennsylvania.  

What year did he graduate?

I love Casey's sweater, and his proto-James-Dean hairstyle.


John comments:

I'm convinced it"s Kanty. Note the flyer about the Canisius-Alliance football game at Erie Stadium. The no longer operating Alliance College in Erie was founded by the Polish National Alliance. My mother's brother, William Kotwas, DDS, of Auburn was a member of the Board of Trustees there for a time and we went to one of its graduations during that period.

. . . I believe one of the Zdro videos shows him in the graduation processional.

And interestingly do you see how the photographer, JPZ, set the photo up using the football game flyer to tell us the time and location? A sense of history!
John



The school operated from 1919-1980, when for some reason, and despite high enrollment, it was abandoned, the property sold and the building demolished.

St. John Kanty Prep, exterior of the building featured
in the JPZ dorm-room shot.

The school's statue of St. John Kanty,
which was at the main entrance.

John Cantius, Joannis Cantii, Jan Kanty,  1390-1473, was a Scholastic philosopher and academician in Krakow, at what would become Jagiellonian University.

Scholasticism is described on Wikipedia in this wise:  "Not so much a philosophy or a theology as a method of learning, scholasticism places a strong emphasis on dialectical reasoning to extend knowledge by inference, and to resolve contradictions. Scholastic thought is also known for rigorous conceptual analysis and the careful drawing of distinctions. In the classroom and in writing, it often takes the form of explicit disputation: a topic drawn from the tradition is broached in the form of a question, opponents' responses are given, a counterproposal is argued and opponent's arguments rebutted. Because of its emphasis on rigorous dialectical method, scholasticism was eventually applied to many other fields of study."

One admirer of Jan Kanty was Eric P. Kelly, "an American journalist, academic and author of children's books. He was a professor of English at Dartmouth College and briefly a lecturer at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. He won the 1929 Newbery Medal recognizing his first published book, The Trumpeter of Krakow, as the preceding year's most distinguished contribution to American children's literature."

Kelly's much-loved children's book is The Trumpeter of Krakow.



Kelly loved Krakow, and wrote his 1929 juvenile novel about the trumpeters of the Hejnal at St. Mary's, their traditions, struggles, and heroics. He set it in 1461 and brought in Jan Kanty as one of the heroes of the tale.  Here is an excerpt from Chapter IV, "The Good Jan Kanty."

     "Among the most remarkable personages of Krakow's age of glory in the fifteenth century  was a certain scholar-priest by the name of Jan Kanty.  He had been educated at the University of Krakow in the period of late Scholasticism when the chief teachings were still mere expositions of the seven arts, of which grammar was the king.  However, a full life and much contact with men had made Jan Kanty a well-rounded man.  He loved learning for its own sake, but he honored most of all its precepts and its application to life, and he gave himself over in his cell-like quarters on the lower floor of the old university building (now long since destroyed by fire), to the creation of new points of view on old subjects, to comments on the conduct and opinions of the masters and doctors  of the university at the great church councils of Europe, and to an intellectual chronicle of his age."

     "His life was saintly and his cell was as much visited, perhaps, as is his shrine in the magnificent old university library today.  The peasants loved him especially, and this was rather curious since the men from the farms rarely sought the advice of the men of the university; they were, in fact somewhat shy of the dispensers of higher learning.  They were not shy of Jan Kanty, however.  They came to Krakow to ask his opinion on the weather in the seasons of grains and vegetables, they called upon him for decisions in disputes between landowners, they consulted him concerning the proper kind of food for their livestock, they questioned him on all problems having to do with morals or religion, and they accepted his rulings with as much finality and satisfaction as if they had been the rulings of Heaven."

     "Therefore his name was one to be reckoned with everywhere, inside the city and out.  He hated above all things cruelty of man against man, or of man against something helpless, a horse, or a dog, or a child.  And when he saw one man and a woman and a boy of honest features and good appearance harassed by some hundred men, he did not hesitate but rushed into the midst of the flying stones without regard to his own safety or comfort."

So when you read the The Trumpeter of Krakow you will find out what happens with the boy and the jewel thieves and the mad alchemist and all.






Your Dr. Who



Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Postwar Graduation and Weddings

Clara Matynka, our CAMZ, was 17 years old
at graduation from Kensington in 1947.
Hers was the tenth class in the history
of the school.

In 1962, she attended her high school's
silver anniversary dinner-dance
at the Statler-Hilton Golden ballroom.
She saved two programs.
Did Gene enjoy the party?

1947 seems a likely year for these two weddings,
in which Clara was a member of the wedding party.
I like the fancy folding of the gentleman's hankie,
as well as lady's flamboyant hat.

Ahh, colorized flamboyance.

Another wedding party from that time: what do we see?
A gentleman is missing.

Clara is performing her duties as the bride's maid
in this carefully-arranged photograph.
She appears to be wearing an engagement ring.
Who is the gentleman in uniform in the photo under the votive candle?
A brother or brother-in-law, perhaps,
who did not come home from the war?









Sunday, February 23, 2014

Casimir Air Force Update

John writes: "I believe he came back in '53 or.'54 having attained the rank of captain, possibly major."

Thanks, John, that helps.  I've updated the Chronologia page with that information.

Anyone have photos of him from that time?  Love to put them up.

Julie

Saturday, February 22, 2014

Casimir's Christmas Card from Japan

If you are reading this in email, remember:  to see this post in all its glory, and to check out related posts, hie thee to the Gene and Clara's website.

Our final saved card from the Bowmansville Binder is a Christmas card from Gene's brother Casimir, second son of John Peter Zdrojewski and Julia Mostkowska Zdrojewska.  He was in the Air Force in the early 1950s, stationed in Occupied Japan.

So here we have Joseph and Mary seeking lodging from the Innkeeper in Bethlehem:

No donkey!  Horse only.
No donkeys in Japan?
I've never wondered; have you?

Verso, we see an inscription, translated for us by Katy Ehrlich - Thanks, Katy! - as
"All happiness and good fortune for Christmas. Meaning...may you have all  happiness and good fortune at Christmas."


Katy points out that "the Japanese Christmas message is obviously rendered from English. Why so? It's not only the fact that Christmas isn't so native to Japan, but also the expression. It was a bit awkward to say "all" or "every" happiness...they wouldn't have done it quite like that..so it's not a native phrasing in Japanese."


"Sincere wishes, Gene, Clara, Juliane,& Martin,
for the happiest of Christmas
and New Year to come.
Casey."

I'd sure like to have some photos to put up of Uncle Casey during his time in the Service.  The one below will stand in; it has a lot going for it.  It's ten or a dozen years earlier: let's say about 1940.  Gene and Casey play catch for the photographer (JPZ, no doubt) in the back yard of the house.  Is it May Street?

Their winter jackets are plaid wool, the kind they call a "Mackinaw" in the Midwest.  Best of all, for me, are Casey's short pants, woollen or heavy cotton longjohns, ski socks, and galoshes with buckles.  You read about these things in books all the time.  Well, here they are in visual evidence, right in the family.


There will be a later story about Gene in galoshes like this, also.


But we are not here to talk about galoshes!  No, no, it's teacups. Teacups are the thing. Casey sent these or brought them from Japan for Gene and Clara.  They are of delicate hand-painted porcelain, and spent many years in the dining-room cabinet in the Marilla house.



And they are only an inch and a half high,
and the same across.
See my roll of stamps?




Presumeably the little banner once read,
"Souvenir of Washington, D.C."



Dragon teacup.



"Made in Occupied Japan."

I'd be grateful for information to fill out the Casimir Zdrojewski chronology.  Year of birth?  High school, and year of graduation from high school?  Dental school, and year of graduation?  Years of Air Force service, and postings?  Photos from Service years are particularly lacking.  Please send what you have that you would like put up.

Julie


















Cards from Flossie; Card from Debusz

Clara's zippered file from the early 1950s, introduced in Bowmansville Dreamin', was the repository of recipes, design ideas, baby notes, accounts, and a select few cards and notes from friends.


Here's one from Florence Mazurowska, aka "Aunt Flossie," typed by her at age 65 and stored by Clara in the old zipfile.

The "gourmet baker Gene" is Genevieve Stroinska.

Aunt Flossie always signed her cards with Xs for kisses.




Here's a Christmas card, kept in that file as well.  It looks 1950s-ish.  But look at the signature!




"Debbie Mazurowski!"  Okay, Deb, were you sending out Christmas cards
when you were a tiny little baby?  Or did you find a vintage Christmas card
as an adult?


It's an outstanding card.
"The Night Before Christmas"
is printed on the back.




What?  You're not in the mood for Christmas?  Let help you with that:

View out the Argyle kitchen window.

Best wishes of the season!

Truly, though, the hush of winter is conducive to remembering things.  Aunt Gene I recall in her kitchen upstairs, with her bright eyes, sweet smile, loving voice, and stand mixer.

Aunt Flossie I recall in her kitchen downstairs, with her bright eyes, sweet smile, loving voice, and cube steaks for lunch, on Saturdays after the piano lesson.




The kitchen images go 'round and 'round in a person's head, sometimes reposing quietly for years, unappreciated.  Then when you need them, they come up clearly.  Only a year or so ago I read a World War Two memoir about a young woman in occupied Poland who wanted to join the Resistance.  Someone instructed her to go to a certain house and ask for a certain person by code name.  She walked up the driveway to the side door and knocked.  A lady answered the door and was naturally cautious about a stranger come knocking, especially since this stranger was blond and blue-eyed.  But her Polish sounded right enough for the lady to invite her into her kitchen.

There they sat at the kitchen table, where she told the lady about her childhood, including, specifically, details about things like "her mamusia's pierogis."  So the lady believed she was as she claimed, and not a German agent; she introduced her to the Resistance movement.

While reading that memoir I had to think up a kitchen for that scene.  Poplar Avenue downstairs, by way of the side door, came right up and filled the bill; still does, although it had abundant food, whereas the Polish kitchen in wartime did not.

The book is In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer, by Irene Gut Opdyke.

Julie