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

Haremski: TNG

We began the Matynka-Haremski side of the family with an impressive couple three generations back (up?)  from me:  here and then here.

On the page Familiae Personae Matynka they are listed in the second little bunch, along with their two daughters, Pearl Haremska and Clara Haremska.

I wish I knew their birth years, and I have yet to find any photos or memorabilia of them as children or young women.  If anyone has any information, it would be terrific if someone would let me in on it.

Here's how I remember them:  as my Busi Matynka and Aunt Pearl, in this case at my high-school graduation in 1971 -

More gems from that party are forthcoming.  But right now, here is the earliest snapshot of Clara Haremska Matynka (let's designate her CHM for this blog) that has turned up so far.

What house is this?  Gittere Street?  Nice dress.  Look how it drapes.  And speaking of drapes, Clara started her own small business, doing custom curtains, draperies, and slipcovers, employing serveral people and serving many customers out of her own business premises over the course of decades.

I remember going to the wholesale textile warehouse with her once.  It was a giant warehouse close to Lake Erie, I guess.  That's as close to the Port of Buffalo as I ever got.  ("Thanks," Urban Renewal.)

Clara married Adam Matynka, producing the Matynka branch, of Walden Avenue.

Pearl married Edward Stawicki, producing "The Poplar Street Gang."  Here are Aunt Pearl and Uncle Edward in the backyard at Gene and Clara's, July 1971.  We shall do Poplar Street more, as well.

Smacznego!

Julia