Richard Mazurowski

Richard Mazurowski (1925-2017) was son of Pearl Haremska Mazurowska, nephew of Clara Haremska Matynka, brother of Genevieve Mazurowska Stroinska, cousin of Clara Matynka Zdrojewska. He was Dad to Debbie, and he was Uncle Dick to Sharon and to Marty and me.

Below, we see him acting as groomsman in a wedding party sometime in the late 1940s or early 1950s. Richard (Ryszard) is third from the right. Sorry, I have no idea who the couple are. But first from the left is Clara Adamina Matynka, aka Mom.  Clara and Richard and Genevieve are first cousins; their mothers were sisters.

We can zoom in a little here, to the curly locks, 3-piece morning dress, and proper cravat.

Below we see another wedding party. The print is on deckle-edge paper. I like the ordinary houses with the Italian Renaissance-style campanile in the background. It houses the belfry of the parish church.

Genevieve and Edward Stroinski are the couple this time. Richard appears as Best Man. Isn't that Florence with him? I think it is. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Cabinetry and the making of fine furniture was Uncle Dick's profession. Below is a bookcase he designed, built, and installed for Gene and Clara. This is in the G&C house in Bowmansville, the year being between 1950 and 1956. Here in the Trove are at least three prints just of this bookcase. They were happy to have it; mayhap it was their Christmas gift to themselves.  See the bits of Christmas tree at the right of the photo?

1957 was the year of G&C moving into the Marilla house. Below is a scene at one of the early parties there. Proper parties always included 40 people or thereabouts, and went on in several rooms, including the finished part of the basement. Below we see, left to right, Casimir Zdrojewski, Adam Matynka, and Richard. The item of furniture in the background is a cobbler's bench done up by him.

The house on Poplar Street was similarly a noted party venue. Below we have New Year celebrations featuring dancing, lots of dancing, here with Florence and Richard.

Fourth of July featured culinary special ops, such as BBQ at the tent site in Marilla. Dick and Gene do not mess around.  I'm guessing 1960s here.

Below we see a very patient, as well as very stylish, Uncle Dick, in the dining room at another Marilla party, c1969.

(No snake is climbing up that wall. That is the stem of a split-leaved Philodendron, the leaves of which had, um, split the scene, for some reason.)

Left to right, below,  we have Clara Matynka, Uncle Dick, some idiot blowing out candles and looking like Oscar Wilde, Aunt Florence aka Auntie 'Lossie, Clara Zdrojewska aka Mom, and Uncle Eddie Stroinski. We also appear to have a fruit-Jello mold. 

But look at the wall behind Mom and Uncle Eddie. See those red-and-black encyclopedias? They are the same Compton's Encyclopedia, shelved on the same Uncle Dick bookcase, as in the Bowmansville photo above. When G&C worked on the design of the Marilla house, they stipulated a recessed niche in that wall, to accomodate that bookcase.

Below are Mom and Uncle Dick at a family event in 1971.

Uncle Dick set up his own furniture refinishing business, using his business name of Richard Mast, and went in with Uncle Eddie Jr. and Uncle Eddie Sr. Below we see him showing the latest progress on the revitalizing of the Zdrojewski grandfather clock, in the 1980s.

Uncle Dick was always at the wheel of  the station wagon when it was loaded up with "The Poplar Street Gang" and driven to Marilla for partying. He also had a motorboat for some time. I remember seeing it in the garage. If you send me any boating photos, or any photos at all of Dick and Florence, I will be delighted to put them up. 

John Peter Zdrojewski Cabinetry

My Dad, our EJZ, on a visit to Argyle in the 1980s, brought along this pretty little cubbyhole shelf as a gift.

He mentioned that it had been in his family.  I,  fool that I was,  did not press for details.  Speculation is all that I have, in consequence.  Did Eugene's father, John Peter, make this?  If you have clues, I would like to hear them.

When you look the thing over and think about it, you realize that it is simple, but at the same time is of pleasing proportions.  In later times, various goofs would be paid to write about "human scale."  Well, literally for centuries to date, these ideas have been better expressed as ideas of proportion, brought to physical reality in architecture and sculpture and painting, and also, for goodness's sake, in kitchen-table and home woodshop projects.

For centuries in Europe, workingmen would see classical proportions in churches, courts, Parliaments, and reproductions of classical sculpture in paintings and in the round, and they would, naturally, internalize those proportions, and other aesthetic values.

What am I saying??  Workingmen built them!

Architects designed them, and workingmen built them: translated them into reality.

Their aesthetic memories and aesthetic faculties were not derailed by two-dimensional cartoon shows with screeching soundtracks.

It looks like plywood.  I think it is regular old, cheap plywood, cut by hand with one of those handsaws with a narrow blade; some perhaps with a coping saw. Then the pieces were stained and joined. It is simple work - no dovetailing - but it pleases, and it has served for near a century, I guess.

A man in humble circumstances can be Promethean if he has a skill and practices it.

He can have come over on the boat, and started life as a son of stevedores, but if he has a skill, and has been taught the patience and perseverance and the self-reliance to practice that skill, and has an aesthetic model in his head, he can make a beautiful thing.  On the kitchen table, if necessary.

What is the probable fate of a man who, in his humble circumstances, has been taught no skill because he has no father, has been taught by his culture and his government the precise opposite of patience and perseverance and self-reliance, and has in his head aesthetic models originating in violent city streets?

Who would wish such a fate for any man?  Who would promote fatherlessness and ignorance and dependency and instant gratification by any means?  And why would they do so?