Father Tomiak

JFZ sent some information about Father Tomiak from the bio that appeared in the Buffalo News  shortly after his decease.  Thanks, John.


"The Rev. Walter L. Tomiak, 86, a priest in the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo for more than 60 years, died Sunday (Jan. 7, 2001) in Sisters Hospital.

Born in Buffalo, he attended St. Florian's School, School 42 and Hutchinson-Central High School. He graduated from East High School.

He attended Canisius College for a year and was a graduate of St. Bonaventure University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar and a poet laureate.

He graduated from Christ the King Seminary at St. Bonaventure in 1940.
After his ordination on May 18, 1940, he celebrated his first Mass in St. Valentine's Church in South Buffalo, where his uncle was pastor."

"Happy is the man who has found his work," they say.  Our favorite Rhodes Scholar-priest does look happy as a Pastor.

I Googled a bit more from elsewhere:


"Father Tomiak was born in Buffalo in 1913 to the late Walter and Cecelia Tomiak. He attended St. Florian School, Public School #42, Hutchinson Technical High School, and East High School, all in Buffalo; Canisius College, Buffalo; and St. Bonaventure University. In 1940 he entered Christ the King Seminary at St. Bonaventure and was later ordained at St. Joseph Cathedral by Bishop John A. Duffy. Father Tomiak celebrated his first Mass at St. Valentine Parish, South Buffalo.  
Father Tomiak ministered in the missionary apostolate in Cherry Creek; as assistant pastor at Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, St. Luke, St. Valentine, Queen of Peace, Assumption, Transfiguration, and St. Stanislaus parishes, all in Buffalo; as chaplain, Deaconess Hospital, Buffalo, Erie County Home and Infirmary, and Erie County Penitentiary, Alden; as pastor, St. Mary Parish, Pavilion, and priest in residence at St. Mary Parish, Medina. He retired in 1977 to St. Elizabeth Home in Lancaster. 

Father Tomiak was a member of the Knights of Columbus.
A funeral Mass was celebrated by Bishop Henry Mansell at Assumption Parish, Buffalo. Burial was in St. Stanislaus Cemetery, Cheektowaga. 

What is the "missionary" aspect of work in Cherry Creek?

And apparently, when he was at St. Luke's, mentoring and then marrying Gene and Clara, then baptizing John Francis Zdrojewski, he was an Assistant Pastor.

                             

While at St. Luke's he must have had already some connection to the Erie County Home and Infirmary, because Gene and Clara and the whole Parish Youth Council went out there regularly to sing Christmas carols and don their Krakowianki costumes to dazzle the old folks with some song and dance from the Old Country.

There has been a request for enlarged full text of Fr. Tomiak's "Thought for the Day," his 1945 pastoral letter urging better pastoral care of younger girls, excerpted in a previous post.  Here it is:

His parishioners were fortunate to be in the care of such a perceptive and benevolent man.

Julie

May 1945, St. Luke's Monthly Newsletter - Baseball, Stigmata, and the Advancement of Civil Society

The St. Luke's Parish Youth Council assembled for a photo portrait in the living room of the Rectory.  Clara, our CAMZ, kept a print of this photo.  Father Walter L. Tomiak is seated, center, with Clara to his left and Eddie to his right.  Who's Eddie?  Well, I never heard of him, but during these years he shows up now and then on the trail of broken hearts she left behind.

Clara is 16 years old in this photo.  The poise of these young people is remarkable.

Looks like there was a birthday party in the church basement.

This is the PYC Monthly from May, 1945.  Think what was going on in Europe in May of 1945.  Also Asia.  How many of these kids understood at all how lucky they were to have been born on their side of the planet?  How many of them came to understand it later in life?

Also, how did all the pastors deal with the returning veterans?  How could they possibly help them?  How could they, and the veterans themselves, deal with those two opposing mental forces:  the terrible memories and terrible knowledge of war, careening around the same brain as the fierce, overwhelming desire to return to normality, broadly defined as getting employment, a spouse, and children as fast as possible?  Did Bishops hold meetings for pastors to prep for this? Did they trot out experienced pastors from 1918?  If not, why not?

At any rate, the front page features two items: the baseball lineup and a report from a serviceman in Italy of attending Sunday Mass officiated by a priest who claimed to have the Stigmata of Christ on his hands.  See the mitts he's wearing?  

In the fourth item in this issue's "Over There," Walter Drzewiecki explains his feelings about the performance of the Buffalo minor league baseball team.  In so doing, he is quoted in a way that exaggerates, in order to laugh at, his own Polish-accented English.  Everybody did this.  All the Poles told Polish jokes.

(To hear Polish-accented American English from 1943, see "Eugene Zdrojewski at the U Chicago Language School.")

Father Tomiak in this "Thought for the Day" advances the cause of pre-teen girls.  He sees too many of them bored, ignored, lonely, lacking ambition, and ultimately, choosing to marry unwisely just for something to do.  Here he urges parishioners to pay attention to them, to fashion parish social programs that will include them more in the fun parts parish life and also encourage them to study harder, think more widely, think better of themselves, and aim higher.

(Margaret O'Brien was a child film star at that time.)

Ted and Dick Fabiniak, the "Twin Sluggers" featured on the photo page, grew up to own and operate Fabiniak Supermarket.  Clara would phone them from the Marilla house with a grocery order, Ted and Dick would bag it up, and EJZ would pick it up at the end of the office day and tote it out to Marilla.  They did this pretty often through the 1950s and into the 1960s.  How's that for service?

I went to the grocery few times.  It had wood floors - very pleasant and easy on the feet.

Did JPZ take part in the production of this monthly newsletter?  Did he help the kids with the photography?

Julie