Chapter 8 - 1900 Helena Gajewska Joins her Father & Sisters in Adams MA

Chapter 8 Version 2

1900

Wherever there was a stream or river that could be dammed in New England, a mill sprang up. Waterpower was the driving engine in industrialization. The falling water turned waterwheels that were connected to shafts suspended over machines. Leather belts could be connected or disconnected from the shafts to turn the machines on and off. There were carding machines where wool and cotton filaments were straightened. Spinning machines took the filaments and spun them into yarn or thread. Weaving machines then turned the thread or yarn into cloth. The cloth was then sent to other factories by train to be dyed or printed and then sent off to other factories to be cut and then sewn into clothes, sheets and curtains.

In Adams Massachusetts, formerly named East Hoosuck before being renamed for patriot Sam Adams, many small mills had been built along the Hoosic River in the first half of the 1800’s. There was an ample supply of wool grown on Berkshire County farms as the cold winters in the hills were conducive to the formation of heavy wool coats for the sheep. In the early 1800’s cotton from the South was shipped up to Troy New York and carted by oxcart from the Hudson River up Hoosic Street and the 40 miles up to the mills in Adams.  Adams had an economic boom when the Hoosac Tunnel was completed in 1875 to upgrade railroad access to the area. By the end of the 1800’s, The Berkshire Cotton Manufacturing Company, the precursor to Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway Company, in Adams was the second largest employer in Berkshire County.

The sons and daughters of Yankee farmers had supplied the mills with manpower and womanpower to the mid 1800’s and then came the Irish immigration and then the French Canadians. But business was good in the “gay 90’s” and both manpower and womanpower were recruited from Eastern Europe, mostly Polish teenagers, to fill the jobs.

The reunion of sisters was joyous. Helena and Josefa Gajoska hugged and kissed their sister Anna who had come to America with their father Joseph Gajowski a year earlier in 1899. Anna was now 18 and the two sisters that traveled with each other to America were 20 and 15 with Josefa being older.

“It is so good to see you again! How is mama?” asked Anna in Polish as none of the sisters spoke English and none could read or write.

“Mama is doing fine but I worry about her on the farm in Niewodna with tata (dad) being away so much in America” said Josefa. “She may come after next year. We will have to wait and see.”

Maryanna Bryda looked on as the reunion was taking place. She ran the boarding house at 10 George St. in Adams Massachusetts where the Gajoska girls would be staying. The ship’s manifest showed 14 George Street where their father lived as the girl’s destination but it was Anna at 10 George Street they came to see first.

“Don’t stay up too late siostry” Maryanna warned using the Polish word for sisters. “Helena and Josefa need to go down to the mill tomorrow to get their work assignments and they need to be there on time. I will let your father know you have arrived.”

“Yes cioci Maryanna” all three sisters chimed in together using the Polish word for aunt as Maryanna was their father’s sister. She had come to America in 1896 at age 50. Managing the boarding house was easier on her aging frame than working in the mills but the job consumed all of her waking hours. She knew her suggestion to get some sleep would be ignored as the girls had a year’s worth of stories to tell each other. When Maryanna departed, the girl’s spirits again soared like the temperature when a cold winter in the Berkshire Hills meets the first week in May. It was in the mid 70’s for the first time this spring and her sisters seemed to float in on a breath of warm air from home.

“At least with cioci Maryanna cooking, we get food that reminds us of home. How was your crossing of the Atlantic? How long did it take you? Did you have any problems getting through Ellis Island?” Anna rattled off without waiting for answers.

“We came on a huge ship with four smoke stacks – the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse from Bremen and it took six days going very fast to get to New York. It took some time to get through Ellis Island because we had so many people in the big ship and you had to be examined by the doctor to be let in. But everything was good and we saw the Statue of Liberty and here we are!” said Helena in one long breath happy to get into the conversation dominated by her older siblings.

Anna again assumed control of the conversation “I am a cotton carder at the mill. The work is hard but we get to have Sunday off so after early Mass we can go for a picnic or hike up on Mount Greylock maybe with tata. Saturday night there is a dance at the church and there are many Polish boys from Galicia and Russia Poland and Germany. The church is French – Notre Dame - but a Polish church is planned to be started in two years named after Saint Stanislaus Kotska as there are many Polish people working in the mills. Oh it is so good to see you both again! – I missed you so!” Anna said with her mouth going a mile a minute which was pretty fast in 1900.

Tata Joseph, just as Stanley had said, made many trips to America. In addition to bringing Anna to America in 1899, his ship manifest record shows him being in America at least three years prior to that. He also came back to America in 1905 and again in 1909 when he accompanied his 17 year old nephew Fan to Chicopee. With many of the Massachusetts farmers moving west, there were opportunities for immigrant families to buy farms in the Berkshire Hills and in the Connecticut River Valley in rural towns like Chicopee, Hatfield and Easthampton. But Joseph could not be tied down to the land in either Galicia or America.

“Mrs. Zywar, I am from West Boylston Manufacturing and there has been an accident” said the man at the door of 10 Lewandowski Avenue where Joseph was living. He had been living at a boarding house at 17 Clinton Street a few block away but had move in with his daughter’s family in 1919.

“Matko Boska. Is it Wojciech or Joseph?” asked Helena as both her husband and her father worked for the same company.

After getting oldest daughter Adeline to watch toddler Stanley, Helena went to Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton to find that her father Joseph was in surgery.

“How is my father?” said Helena.

“He is in surgery right now. The doctor will talk to you after the surgery is completed” said the receptionist.

“Can I please have some information on your father?” said the receptionist to Helena.

Age: 68

Marital Status: Married

Occupation: Mill Hand

Place of Birth: Poland

Name of Father: Frank Gajewski

Birthplace of Father: Poland

Name of Mother: Mary Cibrozy

Birthplace of Mother: Poland

So the death certificate only needed Cause of Death to be completed and filed in Easthampton.

Cause of Death: Surgical Shock

Date of Record: On or about Oct. 15, 1919

Chapter 7 - 1961 Stanley Zywar's Affinity For Water

Chapter 7 Version 2

1961

People develop an affinity between themselves and some objects either inanimate or animate. These objects have an attachment on their people’s attention sometimes to the point of obsession but more often that attachment is just lurking in the back of their minds. Some people like mountains and others like the seashore. There can be an attraction to cars, trains or planes. Monet’s preoccupation with haystacks changed to water lilies. Brian Wilson had his pet sounds.

Stanley had an affinity for water.

He needed to be close to the water. The large in ground concrete pool was the central focus of the third house Stanley designed for himself. When the Zywar family bought the orchard on the corner of Parsons and East Streets, the property was sub-divided with a landlocked lot in the middle of the property. Lots were sold to family members for $500. The orphaned central lot was planned to house a Zywar family pool. Instead, it was used by Zywar and neighborhood children as a football, baseball, soccer and golf venue before Joe eventually turned it into a garden area. So Stanley built his own pool as the centerpiece of a modern L shaped house that sported a flat roof with a large overhang. The pool was nestled inside the L. The exterior of the house was of beige Tennessee sandstone that Joe turned into a masonry work of art. On the inside, Stanley designed an electrical system that had a control panel in his bedroom that could control every light and electrical device in the entire house. An electrical system that complex was unusual for the mid-1950’s.

Stanley sat in the cheap aluminum folding chair with the woven plastic seat and back. He stared into the water of the pool. “My oldest memory is from when I was two years old” said Stanley. John wasn’t that interested. He wanted to hear about the war. Boys fought wars and girls had babies. Seemed to be a fair exchange.

Stanley continued undeterred “My father bought a house on Pepin Street in the French part of town and had it moved over to the Polish side of town to 10 Lewandowski Avenue.” Moving a house? thought John. But Stanley continued with his crazy talk. “My grandfather went back and forth between Poland and the USA. Many times he did this.” That stretched Stanley’s credibility even further because everyone knows that nobody went back after they came to America. “When I was two years old, my grandfather’s funeral was in the house on Lewandowski Avenue and that is the farthest back I can remember.”

Whether Stanley was a bullshiter or a bullshit artist was a point of discussion among relatives and acquaintances alike. A bullshiter talked knowledgably about things they have no knowledge of. A bullshit artist on the other hand painted what sounded like bullshit into a canvas of storytelling making it into an artistic experience. Sometimes the resulting bullshit painting was a colorful but somewhat hazy Monet or it could be a precise Rembrandt with details rivaling a photograph. Occasionally the bullshit painting is minimalist but it usually contains enough details to make a point. Maybe Stanley was painting on a bullshit artist canvas.

The seemingly crazy talk continued, “Do you know where my grandfather first came to America?” Stanley asked John rhetorically. “Charleston, South Carolina.”

“What was he doing in Charleston, South Carolina?” asked John suspiciously.

“He was running guns into the Confederacy” said Stanley.

Chapter 6 - 1941 Jane Borsuk Meets Joseph Zywar

Chapter 6 Version 2

1941

Everyone has his own view on the topic. Maybe you just like the sound of a name. Maybe a name reminds you of someone you know or aspire to emulate. Sometimes a grandparent’s name is used to name a baby or a parent’s or a great-grandparent’s name is used.

“We need to get our birth certificates if we want to get after school jobs in the stitching office in the mill” said Aurelia as she and Jane walked into the town clerk’s office at the town hall. The stitching office was not really an office but there was stitching to be done. Snaps to connect stockings to girdles were sewed in the stitching office.  Aurelia asked the town clerk for a copy of her birth certificate.

“We don’t have an Aurelia Zywar born on August 18^th 1926 but there is a record for an Elizabeth Aurelia Zywar on that date. Do you want a notarized birth certificate?” asked the clerk. Aurelia was momentarily stunned as she realized that Aurelia was her middle name and her first name was Elizabeth. No one had ever called her Elizabeth.

“Well, that is my birthday and I don’t know of any other Zywar in Easthampton born on that date so it must be me.” said Aurelia who now knew her name was Elizabeth. “Yes, I want a notarized copy.”

Then it was Jane’s turn. “Do you have birth certificate for Jane Borsuk?” she asked.

Her mother had a sister named Janina, Jane in Polish. Her Aunt Leokadia also had a child named Janina who died as an infant.  If her name was Jane, that name may have served a dual purpose.

“I have a Jennie Borsuk born on February 5, 1926” said the clerk.

“That is not my name” said the girl who thought her name was Jane but apparently was Jennie. Her family always called her Janie which was her nickname. When her father had come to report the birth, the name Janie morphed into Jennie. “I need to have Jane as the name” said Jane/Jennie to the clerk.

“The only way I can change it is if you get your parish priest to give me a document that says your name is Jane” said the clerk. So Jane/Jennie saw the parish priest and he gave her a document that Jane/Jennie brought back to the clerk. As she unfolded it to give it to the clerk her heart sank as she saw that the priest had put her Polish name Janina on the document. “Now Janina is Polish for Jane so Jane should be put on the birth certificate” she told the clerk expecting to be sent back to get the document from the priest changed to say “Jane”. But the clerk took the document and from that day on Jane was her legal name.

Two days earlier and the name of Patrick may have been given to the fourth son of the Zywar family but March 19^th is the feast of Saint Joseph and it may have been a coincidence that he grew up to be a carpenter. The Polish had a tradition of naming a baby after the saint associated with that day of the year. So Joseph John Zywar was born six years after Stanley on St. Joseph’s day. Joe was also the first male son born after the death of his grandfather, Joseph Gajewski, four years earlier so that may have been a consideration with all signs indicating that Joseph was the intended name.

When Joe was a toddler, he tripped and fell bottom first into a bucket of boiling water being readied to wash the floor. The burn was severe and he could not wear diapers for months while the burn healed. His mother Helena carried him around most of that time.

“Joe, it’s just like getting your hair cut” said older sister Mary as she carefully cut off Joe’s long eye lashes. But the eye lashes did eventually grow back. And eventually Joe’s blond hair turned dark brown as Joe graduated from Parson’s St. school and went to Easthampton High School.

Joe stayed at Easthampton High for one year and transferred to Chicopee Trade School where he studied to be a machinist for one year. He needed to be a resident of Chicopee to go to that school so he used his aunt’s address in Chicopee. In Joe’s mind rules were just something that needed to be circumvented. Joe finished his formal schooling in 1939.

“Joe gave the vegetables away again?” his father shook his head in disbelief.

 The Zywars were an entrepreneurial family. Mother Helena was a sales agent for a mail order company. His father was a milk distributor with a route traveled with a horse and wagon when he didn’t work as a weaver in the mills. Joe was supposed to take his little red wagon and sell vegetables to the neighbors but he ended up just giving them away. Joe liked to nurture the plants into abundance that exceeded his family’s needs. The excess was not viewed as a way gain monetary wealth but to be shared with neighbors and friends giving Joe great satisfaction.

Jane and Aurelia were sitting on the front porch at Aurelia’s house on Ferry St. during the summer of 1941. A car containing three young men pulled into the driveway. The car was not new but it looked to be well maintained. The three exited the car and sat down on the porch stairs. Aurelia introduced Jane to two of her brother Joe’s friends and then said “and this is my brother Joe”.

Joe extended his hand and Jane shook hands. As soon as their hands touched, a distinctly male voice in Jane’s head said “This is your husband.” To this voice, a reply was launched immediately and without any hesitation whatsoever in Jane’s mind “No way.”

Chapter 5 - 1940 Jane Borsuk Meets Aurelia Zywar in High School

Chapter 5 Version 2

1940

The dark skin girl who thought her name was Aurelia sat down in the front row of seats in the front of the class. It was the first day of high school for the class of 1944. The girl was well dressed with a stylish dress and silver earrings. She looked back to survey the other freshmen in the room looking for familiar face from her grammar school. She saw no one she recognized but a girl in the back row smiled at her. Disappointed she scowled and swung around to the front of the class where the teacher was standing.

The girl at the back of the class made a mental note to avoid the girl she concluded might be Spanish by her looks. Jane was looking to make some new friends in high school but the Spanish girl should be avoided she concluded from her initial contact. Jane was from the Polish grammar school, Sacred Heart School, one of three Catholic schools in Easthampton. There were distinct areas in the town where there were ethnic enclaves. The Polish, French and Irish were clustered around the company built housing for workers in the mills with three separate and distinct churches that were at the center of their community lives. For Protestants there was the usual large white Congregational Church in the center of town. There was a smaller but architecturally inviting Episcopal Church next-door, a red brick Methodist church next to the town hall, and finally a small grey stone Lutheran Church located near the Majestic theater at the end of Cottage Street. Generally, the public grammar schools were predominantly protestant but mixing the ethnicities and religious affiliations began in earnest in high school. There were no Negroes or Orientals and as far as Jane knew no Spanish in Easthampton except for maybe one sitting in the front row. Jane shared no other classes with the Spanish girl that Friday.

On Monday, Jane wore a hand me down gym suit to class.  In 1940 new school colors were adopted – maroon and white at Easthampton High School. The new colors replaced old blue and white colors that Jane was wearing. A few others were also wearing the old colors and that was okay with the school allowing some time for the transition. Jane looked around and saw the Spanish looking girl’s brand-new maroon and white uniform. Jane moved to get farther away from the Spanish girl. But when she looked back the Spanish looking girl was standing next to her. 

”Hi” said the Spanish looking girl “did you do anything exciting over the weekend?”.

Jane was surprised she was being very friendly. “Not really… but I did go to the movies” said Jane.

” I wanted to go to the movies but didn’t have anyone to go with… and I don’t like going to the movies by myself” said the girl who Jane now thought might not be Spanish after all. “Do you want to go to the movies together next weekend?”

Jane was hardly expecting this and blurted out “OK”.

” You can come to my house and we can catch a bus to the theater” said the girl who thought her name was Aurelia.

“Where is your house?” Jane inquired.

” 112 Ferry St.”

That was in the French part of town. This girl didn’t look French.

” I live near the theater so why don’t you come to my house–27 Maple St.” said Jane.

” Okay–1 o’clock and we can go to the matinee”

” By the way, I’m Jane Borsuk”

” Aurelia Zywar” pronouncing her name like Zi’ver with an “i” from igloo.

Aurelia arrived on Saturday earlier than Jane expected. She knocked the front door but no one was listening for her arrival. Aurelia knocked again harder. No response. She went down to the side door into the kitchen where Jane and her sisters were cleaning up after lunch. When Jane saw Aurelia she thought fast.

“Hi Aurelia” said Jane. “I’m not quite ready so I will let you sit in the front room while I finish up.” Jane led Aurelia from the kitchen through her grandmother’s room and into the hallway that ran from side to side in the middle of the house rather than front to back. Going across the hall and into the front room, Jane said “I’ll be right back - have a seat.”

Jane raced up the stairs to Helen’s room. “Quick I need a nice dress for the movies now!” Helen was an older sister the same size as Jane who would let Jane wear any of her clothes she didn’t currently have on. “I need earrings and lipstick too!” Aurelia had come dressed up for the movies and Jane needed to step up her clothing plans. “Is your friend wearing high heels?” asked Helen. Jane nodded. “Here, wear these but don’t kill yourself!” and Helen handed her a pair of shoes that went with the dress. Jane had never worn a pair of high heels before and slipped them on.

Aurelia sat on the loveseat and looked around. The furniture was almost new as Jane’s grandmother, Teofila Wroblewska, had passed on three years before. The life insurance money had paid for a new set of front room furniture, a refrigerator and a vacuum cleaner. The three tree stumps that had been in the front room being used as chairs had been good wood for the stove as they had many years to dry. The orange crates were also gone. There was a spinet piano that Jane’s older sister Mary bought for herself. There was also a table top radio with a rounded top that Jane’s father Louis used to listen to the baseball games and his children listened to Fanny Brice as Baby Snooks.

Jane’s makeover was quick but effective. She clung to the banister as she maneuvered the shoes down the stairs for the first time. Mission accomplished as she was down to leave with Aurelia on the original time schedule. Off they went to see a movie and to be seen.

“So how many sisters do you have?” asked Aurelia as they walked toward Cottage Street.

“Six” said Jane.

“Beats my four. You the youngest?” asked Aurelia.

“No – but almost” said Jane.

“ I am the youngest girl in my family” stated Aurelia taking some pride in that accomplishment.

“Is Zywar Polish?” asked Jane to confirm what she thought to be the answer.

“Yes, both my mother and father are from Galicia.” said Aurelia. Galicia is a region that is now part of southern Poland that was a province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until after World War I.  Galicia includes Krakow and the northern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains including the Dukla Pass. In the late 1700’s Poland as a nation was partitioned by Austria, Germany and Russia until it was totally consumed only to be reconstituted as a nation in 1919 from the thirteenth of Woodrow Wilson’s fourteen points at the end of WWI. So documents like ship’s manifests would list a Galician as an Austrian by nationality but would list Polish as the race or ethnicity.

“Both of my parents came from Russia Poland” said Jane. Russia Poland includes Warsaw and east to Lublin on Poland’s eastern border.  Jane’s older sister Frances, who also answered to Franny or Faye at various times in her life, was taken to task by Jane’s mother when she told people she was Russian. In no uncertain terms Frances was told that she was Polish and not Russian.

The two high school freshmen paid their quarters for their movie tickets. “I like movies that make me laugh.” said Jane pleased that she had actually made it to the theater in the high heels. They went inside to enjoy I Love You Again starring Myrna Loy, William Powell and Asta the Dog.