Local history was on display Sunday, Sept. 20, as the Stanley Area Historical Society (SAHS) hosted a Polish Heritage Celebration. Doors opened for the celebration at 11:00 a.m., with concertina music provided by Alex Kulesa and Walter Wartolec. Following a social hour, attendees then partook in a noon potluck lunch with several Polish dishes including barszcz, pierogi, potato soup, cucumber, polish sausage, sauerkraut, pickles and ham, pickled herring, and gołąbki. Several dishes were provided by attendees, with one overheard saying the Polish sausage was from a family recipe now 250 years old.
From lunch the gathering transitioned into a presentation, with several members sharing their stories of heritage and immigration, stretching from the Ninteenth century to today. Music was provided by the St. Mary Czestochowa choir, with songs including the Polish National Anthem, “Poland has not yet perished” (Mazurek Dąbrowskiego), composed on a general’s return from Rome. This was followed by Na Pożegnanie (a farewell), and several church hymns, including Serdeczna matko, Gwiazdo śliczna, Chwała i dziękczynienie, Pan Jezus już się zbliża, and Maryjo Matko.
As for Poland itself, the nation has a long history.
What is now modern Poland can be traced further back to 966 with a unified state under the Piast dynasty and conversion to Latin Christianity, shaping Poland’s history.
Later forming the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 16th century, Poland became a major European power, with Polish generals Tadeusz Kosciuzsko and Casmir Pulaski playing roll in the American Revolution war, on the American side.
Suppressed in 1795 as an independent state and divided between three empires—Prussia, Russia, and Austria-Hungary—Poland only reemerged with several other states after World War I, following the collapse of the said empires. It then enjoyed a period of independence as a republic before undergoing invasion by both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in September 1939. The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany had forged a secret pact to divide Poland, once again suppressing its statehood.
In 1945 as World War II ended Poland became part of the Soviet sphere of influence, with a communist government and Warsaw Pact membership. Poland later broke free from this with the help of Pope John Paul II and a labor union named Solidarity, which undertook an uprising in 1980 in Gdansk. Led by Lech Walesa, the strike at the Lenin (now Gdansk) Shipyard was met with communist state repression, carried out against workers in a state that professed itself a worker’s paradise.
Walesa meanwhile later went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 and serve as the first President of Poland after the fall of the Iron Curtain. Returning to a market economy in the post-Soviet era, Poland today is part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and has the sixth largest economy in the European Union.
Stories shared Sunday hailed from several recent eras of Polish history.
SAHS President David Jankoski opened with a story of his great-grandparents and other immigrants to the area in the late 19th century.
Jankoski shared how Polish immigrants had come to the area. It started with seeking opportunity, with those from the Poznan area of Poland not happy living under the Prussian Kaiser’s domination. Faced with a bleak present and future, many opted to seek better opportunities.
“The United States was making great progress,” Jankoski said. “The railroads were leading the way to the expansion of the West, and America was a relatively young country. The axe and lumber barons were ridding the land of the trees that covered it in the entire region.” With reports to relatives from those who had come, Poles increasingly made the transAtlantic voyage. Jankoski shared an interview he once had with Joe Tobola, the first Polish mayor of Thorp.
Tobola said the ship ticket was $42 and that when he came it was in a vessel with 2,500 people.
“Now that was not uncommon,” Jankoski went on, because my great-great grandfather, when he came, they came in a boat of 2,500.” Another person Jankoski interviewed said they had sold land in Poland to pay for the voyage, arriving with a 20 dollar gold piece. Food on the boats sometimes made immigrants sick.
“But they got smart,” he said. “They word went back , and of course they brought their smoked Polish sausage and some of the other goodies so they did not get sick. The new Polish immigrants were very industrious and when they landed in this country, they found jobs in textile factories in New England, in the mines of Pennsylvania, and in West Virginia, and the slaughterhouses in Chicago.” Deemed the “poorer jobs,” they allowed to established a foothold and save money for the move to Lublin, Junction, Thorp, and Stanley. The local newspaper published a special edition to the paper each year that was sent to Chicago enticing people north.
With schools, churches, and other improvements, Polish land agents helped lead people north.
“And of course they made it sound like heaven on earth, and they came here and it was stumps and rocks,” he said. The new arrivals worked hard and built farms. Jankoski’s great-great grandparents Ignatz and Petronella Jankoski purchased land with the Stangrets on the northeast corner of County Highway H and 100th Avenue, later expanding this before moving to 160 acres in Worden. Ignatz was Polish while Petronella was German. The kids went to school and learned English, assimilating into the mainstream.
“Grandpa never had any desire to return to Poland because he wanted his family to assimilate to American life.”
Jankoski shared that a common pattern meanwhile was for the husband to go to the woods to make money in winter, returning in the spring to clear land and make the beginnings of a farm. One person Jankoski interviewed came in 1905 and said they had worked six days a week and 10 hours a day, for which they earned $4 a week. Jankoski shared how immigrants were told to look for the “big church” (St. Hedwig’s) when coming on the railway, which was a sign the next stop was Thorp. With land at five to six dollars per acre, immigrants commonly bought 40 to 80 acre tracts to develop. Among the first things to be built was a church, with St. Hedwig’s costing $30,000 furnished when it was dedicated in October 1906. Jankoski’s grandfather later worked at the Tannery in West Stanley and purchased what is now the Twilight Zone in 1915, then known as First and Last Chance Already.
“The last thing I’m going to say is that my grandfather was 100 percent Polish, and my grandmother was 100 percent German,” he said. Now remember, the Poles came to America because they didn’t like living under the German Kaiser. So it was very unusual for a Pole to marry a German. My grandparents were examples of good management.”
Also among those sharing heritage memories on Sunday were Ed Chura, SAHS intern Claudia Piwowarczek, Julie Ciolkosz, and Chris Kulinski.
Chura shared the story of his grandparents, Andrew and Julia Chura, who left Europe five years apart and settled in Buffalo. Andrew was from the Carpathian mountains and Julia came seeking a better life, due to the value of money in Europe at the time.
“Her analogy was that it took a wheelbarrow full of zloty to buy a loaf of bread,” he said, zloty being the currency. Andrew and Julia met working at a laundry and married in Albany in 1909 after a stint in Pennsylvania. They came to Wisconsin after Julia received a letter from one of her cousins who was homesteading in Wisconsin, arriving in 1915 at Junction to become farmers. St. Mary’s Czestochowa, still around at Elm Road and Copenhaver Avenue, was then just seven years old as a congregation.
Next was Piwowarczyk.
“My name is Claudia,” she said. “My dad came in 1990 and then my mom came in 1992, when communism fell.”
From Chicago but in Eau Claire for a masters in public history, Piwowarczyk went on.
“Naturally I grew up Polish,” she said. “Polish mass, Polish food. Wigilia always had to be vegetarian.” Piwowarczyk went on to share further memories, speaking fluent Polish alongside English.
“I really like Polish bread,” she said. “Polish bread is amazing.”
Next to share was Julie Ciolkosz, who married into a Polish family.
“My husband’s grandparents come from Poland, but first the five brothers came,” she said. “This was early 1900s, and they all came to Chicago.”
Arriving in Chicago from Ellis Island, the family brothers in farming implement factories to earn money, the funds were there by 1904. “And then they saw an ad on the bulletin board that there was land up in this area for the Homestead Credit Act with 240 acres.” Answering the ad they came and started farms, with two leaving to return after the Depression. John, who was the grandfather of Julie’s husband, ended up staying, along with Andrew. Julie and her husband took over the farm in 1962.
After Ciolkosz another person shared, saying the Slowiaks married the Lejas and that their father had over 100 first cousins.”
“I just think of what those people did first,” she said. “They built their church.” That church, St. Mary’s Czestochowa, recently celebrated its 30th year as a chapel of convenience, after being attached to St. Bernard-St. Hedwigs of Thorp in the face of declining numbers. Masses are held at St. Mary’s Czestochowa on the last Saturday of each month at 7 p.m., at the corner of Elm Road and Copenhaver Avenue.
Last to share was Chris Kulinski, who came to Lublin as a boy after being born in a World War II refugee camp.
“My story is different from your relatives,” he said of the context of coming to America.
Kulinski’s parents were both from the lower nobility. Things were bad in Europe after World War 2, with communism taking over Poland and Hungary. There was nothing to return to. Moving several times through various refugee camps, two of Kulinski’s siblings died in infancy due to conditions. Kulinski’s dad meanwhile trained to work with the Allies and became military police. In 1948 immigration from Europe was shut down. A family connection and help from a congressman along with a 10 year paperwork process later allowed Kulinski’s parents to come to the United States and Lublin.
“And we got to come to American in 1959 on the last train to Lublin,” he said. Speaking German and Polish along with some local dialects but not English, Kulinski attended a place called the Little Red Brick School in Taft. The bus driver spoke Polish, which helped, while English basics came from friends like John Kulesa, originally spelled Kulesza before the z was taken out. Kulinski went on to graduate from Gilman High School and later traveled with a classic rock band, still playing and due to play Johnson Creek, Wisconsin in October.
Kulinski returned home to help his parents in the fall, with a farm accident changing his life and keeping him in the areal Kulinski later founded the Eastern European Cultural Society and serving as president for 20 years.
Kulinski shared the importance of history.
“It’s very important to pass this on to the children,” he said of history. Without knowing history, it would repeat.
As for the SAHS, Jankoski closed the event out Sunday by thanking museum board members and making a membership invitation. “We’re always looking for new members,” he said. “Because unfortunately we have have several pass away every year.” Soon to mark 51 years, the SAHS can be found and contacted on Facebook at Stanley Area Historical Society. The last event of the year for the SAHS is a presentation on the 1920s Klan in the Stanley area, a presentation planned by Betty Plombon on Sunday, Oct. 4 at 1:30 p.m.