My Stuczynski Heritage

St. Hedwig’s School graduating class, June 1960

Polowy, Wysocki 11.10.2011 No Comments

St. Hedwig's School, June 1960 eigth grade dratuating class

From the Evening Observer, May 30, 1991, photo submitted by Danny S. McGill of Dunkirk

St. Hedwig’s was a grade school in Dunkirk, New York, a few blocks from my grandparents’ home on Roberts Road.

By row: Sister Severia, Nancy (Komada) Kostran, Bonnie (Sikora) Kawski, Marcia (Kucmierz) Henderson, Thomas Guziec, Walter Lemiszki, John Tofil;
Dave Debeck, Joe Skubis, Jr., Ed Mikula, Dennis Bialaszewski, Andrew Pnka, Jim Halas;
Janet (Halas) Fadale, Carol (Domanski) Greenough, Mary Jane (Wysocki) Palmatier, Audrey (Wilemski) McGill, Ardene (Wilemski) Lesch, Elain (Powlowski) O’Brocta;
Dan Polowy, Fred Szary, Ken Drag, Jerry Wilemski, Robert Henderson, Ken Mazurek.
Jerry & Audrey Stuczynski

Stuczynski, Wysocki 05.10.2011 No Comments

{Work in Progress}

My father was the only child of Walter and Sophie Stuczynski, born Jerome Walter Stuczynski (confirmation name Stanislaus). His nickname as a child was “Stuka” (after the German dive-bomber), “Fuzzy” in high school, and “Smitty” in the Army.

Drafted, he took basic training at Fort Dix, just missing the last plane at the end of the Korean Conflict. His area of training was “Guerilla Warfare”. He was then stationed at West Point for two years, staying in the same barracks Elvis Presley had a few weeks earlier. He was promoted in one weekend from Private to Corporal in order to qualify as staff for the Officer’s Club, where he did the books and was a bartender.

My mother, born Audrey Ann Wysocki, married my father in Dunkirk New York on April 7th. A snowstorm delayed leaving for their honeymoon in Washington, DC. While my father was stationed at West Point, she was a clerk on base and lived with my father near the base. She also worked for a time at a grocery store, possibly an A&P, in Dunkirk. This she blamed for problems with her legs later in life.

In 1967, my brother was adopted, them myself in 1969. We lived on Suzette Drive in Cheektowaga, NY and on my fourth birthday we moved to Bellwood Avenue in Depew, three blocks from Polish Falcons.
Edward & Helen Stortz

Szopinski 05.10.2011 No Comments

My Uncle Eddy and Aunt Helen (nee Szopinski) didn’t have any children, but watched us a number of times while my Grandmother (Wysocki) was in the hospital at the end of her life.

Uncle Eddy was head of aintenance for a chain of bakeries in Buffalo, NY, and Aunt Helen worked at Al Cohen’s bakery. I remember this mostly because we had a seemingly endless supply of their bread bags. They lived for as long as I knew them on the East Side and belonged to Queen of Peace parish.

Edward Stortz served in the Navy during WWII, aboard a vessel that only lost one crew member — a submarine surfaced and strafed their ship and killed the captain, in the Hudson river no less. I do not belive the incident was ever made public.
Walter and Sophie Stuczynski

Stuczynski, Szopinski 05.09.2011 No Comments

My grandfather, Walter Stuczynski, was first legally Warren Stuczynski, an English approximation of Wenceslaus. A friend in Dunkirk City Hall had the record changed to “Walter”, which he liked better. His lifelong nickname was “Psyche” (/sigh-key/).

The oldest son, he became the man of the house at 17 when his father died, delivering milk to the steel plant workers (collecting five cents at the end of the week from them, being told to keep the change). He later worked on the railroad between Dunkirk and the Pennsylvania line, but spent most of his life until retirement at Allegheny Ludlum. Although he smoked for many years (having quit before my recollection) and had the regular “shot-n-a-beer”, he lived into his 70s and the scar tissue in his lungs was determined to be occupational in cause.

He met my grandmother, Sophie Szopinski, at a Sunday picnic on Arkwright Hill. Her only known employment was a month or two each year for a number of years picking concord grapes at harvest.

They lived nearly all their married life in her father’s house on Robert’s road, where she had been born in the downstairs bedroom. The house was built in the mid-to-late 19th Century across the road from it’s present location (moved manually near the turn of the century) . They had only one child, my father, Jerome Walter Stuczynski, who was born upstairs. The kitchen cabinetry was built by my father and grandfather from plywood scavenged as extras off railroad loads. Though they considered it a weed, which I was commissioned to pull at length as a child, Jumping-Jacks are a treasured symbol of my memroies of their home.
Helen Szopinski (born Helen Cybulski)

Stuczynski, Szopinski 03.10.2006 2 Comments

This is my great aunt by marriage on my father’s mother’s side. I received inquiries about her from someone doing research and have more information now, or at least indirect information.

My Dad, Jerome W. Stuczynski, was in the drum corps for the 4th Ward Fire Department — “the Merry Men” — and its leader was Helen’s brother Bill Cybulski.

Helen and Stanley Szopinski’s three sons (Edward, Danny and Theodore) all were married and all died early of cancer. Edward and Danny (maybe even Theodore) were in the Navy. Danny’s son (Danny, Jr.) was (or maybe still is) an attorney for the City of Dunkirk.
Stuczynski Business Owners

Stuczynski 28.11.2005 No Comments

I recently had a talk with my Dad and the discussion went to business owners in the family. It seems that apart from my grandfather, who was busy as the head of his parents household when his father died, most of them had one business or another over the years.

Joe Stuczynski & Ron Stuczynski

My uncle Joe as I remembered him used to drive a bright red station wagon, and seeing me and my grandfather (his brother) taking a walk, stopped it in the middle of the residential side street, blocking the road. His wife died years ago, and he remarried. I met his new wife, who had amazingly warm and gentle eyes, and last I know was living in a retirement complex on Main Street in Dunkirk, NY.

I also knew that he owned a farm that eventually was passed to his son, who then moved to Florida. I was on this small farm on at least one occassion, helping dig up a few potatoes, and I remember grapevine strunk along the back row. It was a small farm next to a railroad track, but I’m not sure exactly where in Dunkirk or the Town of Sheridan, NY it is.

What I didn’t know was that this farm was not a business really and that uncle Joe was not a farmer afterall. While working at Allegheny Ludlum, he owned a TV repair shop.

His son Ron owned a gas station. I had been there once or twice, and I believe it was a Sunoco, and it was located just off the Dunkirk thruway exit to the left on route 60. It’s no longer a gas station today.

Bernice & Steve Korwin

Bernice Stuczynski, daughter of Bernice and Julian Stuczynski, married Steve Korwin (changed from Korzeniewski). He owned a restaurant in Niagara Falls, then had a business dealing with break pads.

Her second husband had a career in the Marines, and they ended up living in San Diego, with at least one son and two grandsons.

Richard Stuczynski

My grandfather’s brother Stanley married Mary Bak (B?k) and was one of the owners of the fishing boats Mary S and the Mary S II.

Their son Richard “Dickie” Stuczynski owned the convenience store in Fedonia, New York. After he retired a few years ago and moved to the Southewest, and his son Richard Stuczynski Jr. took over, the store was no longer a Convenient Food Mart and is currently the Fredonia Food Mart.

Richard and his wife have children a little older than my daughter.

Jerome Stuczynski & Ken Stuczynski

My Dad and I both have experience as business owners.

When my father left Shuman Plastics, he had a difficuly time finding work because his resume was a bit intimidating. No one could afford him, so in late 1991 he partnered with two people who had also worked for Shuman Plastics previously, Alan Braunstein and Myron Cascio. They formed JAM Plastics Grinding, Inc., a post-industrial recycling and brokering firm in the secondary market, located in Buffalo, New York.

When oil was at a major low and the market for plastics crashed, too many customers went out of business, causing JAM to close as well. Alan left and the remaining partners founded Phantom Plastics (after Phantom of the Opera), which was able to retain JAM’s employees for a while longer, but the market didn’t lift in time, closing in 1999.

Also around that time, I partnered with my Dad in a company called DAKCOR, Inc., but apart from manufacturing a prototype invention for spraying and flagging lines, we never took on any viable projects. It was more of a hopeful concept company.

Also at that time, I started Iron Circle with a partner David Moerler. I was the money end and he was operations. In late 1994, we started with a flea market stand and a mail order catalog for martial arts supplies and cutlery. Soon after, we opened the Iron Circle Martial Arts Supply and Knife Shop — a one-and-a-half room store on Seneca Street in South Buffalo.

Robbed blind by partner and friends, I took it over altogether with my later-to-be wife and we made it work until getting bad legal advice regarding incorporation. That, and I was tired of not spending more time with loved ones. We closed it around 1996.

After Phantom Plastics closed (I was in the warehouse at JAM and worked in sales/procurement for both JAM and Phantom), I went full-time with my recently formed Internet business, having established myself by building sites for community and non-profit organizations. Within a couple years, I became one of the top 25 web development firms in Western New York, and still run that business currently.
Stuczynski picture

Stuczynski 06.10.2005 No Comments

This isn’t real clear, but this is Marian Stuczynski and her son Frank (my Grandfather)
Tadeusz Kieszczynski

Uncategorized 06.10.2005 No Comments

Through my web community, WNYPolonia.Com, I’ve encountered some people looking to reconnect with others. This was the most notable and touching, a hand written message sent by fax to “The Mansion” on Delaware Ave. in Buffalo, NY. (My sister-in-law worked there for a time.)

Re: Tadeusz Kieszczynski
Dear Sir / Madam:

The above-named was in the Air Force over here during the last war. In 1948 he emigrated to the U.S.A. and in April, 1948, the Polish Air Force Association had his address as yours {Delaware Ave, Buffalo, NY}.

He was born in 1921, was Polish, and intended to join a couple i BUffalo after the war, which he appeared to have done.

I was friendly with him for several years, and now that I am in the last part of my life (I am 85), would love to know that he was happy & had had a good like in the U.S.A.. (of course, he may not still be alive.)

Would it be possible that you know of his wherabouts, or could you find out where I could get the information? I have been happily married for 56 years, but lost my husband last August, so have plenty of time to think about the past. Tadeusz was my first love & I will never forget him.

I would be so grateful of an early reply to this letter, — it would mean a lot to me.

Sincerely,

Sybil Foard (Mn)

E1 Hatfield Court
Salisbury Road, Hove, Sussex
England BN33AA
My Szopinski Heritage

Lentz, Szopinski 04.10.2005 8 Comments

According to my father, my grandmother’s family was from Poznan, Poland. The daughter of Walter and Antoinina (Annette, maiden name Lentz), my grandmother, Sophia (Sophie) Szopinski had five siblings – Stanley, Joe, Valentine, Helen, and Veronica.

Walter Sopinski worked for the Dunkirk, NY parks department, and was the first person in the city to use a gas-powered lawnmower — I have the news clipping somewhere. Typical of most people with their professions versus homelife, rumor is that his own garden was a bit of a mess. He was sometimes known as “The Kaiser” because of his appearance, mustashe and all, and perhaps his strictness as a father.

He owned a house on Roberts Road where both my grandmother and father were born, and my father’s parents lived in until they went to a nursing home around 1992. It was in the family for nearly a century, but was another generation or two older, having been moved by hand (a LOT of hands) from across the street where it originally stood.

Walter died before I was born, and so I never knew him, although I beleive when I was young I met my great-grandmother a few times.
“The Mary S”

Stuczynski 20.10.2004 4 Comments

Below are comments from the original post about the fishing boat, The Mary S.
I Am A “White Nigger”

Uncategorized 01.10.2004 No Comments

Seriously. Here is an excerpt of an article, THE BLACK SONS OF POLAND regarding Black Polish-Americans who fought for Poland.

… In my personal opinion, they were sons of mixed Polish-African marriages, which were not so uncommon when the first wave of Polish immigrants reached the American soil. There was a dramatic shortage of Polish brides and Poles were very often called “white niggers” by the WASPs, settlers of White Anglo-Saxon Protestant origin. Hence, the Poles often chose Black women, sharing almost the same social status.

Those Poles, the earliest emigrants, were mostly simple farmers for whom black women, born and raised on the cotton fields, were the perfect match. The word “racism” did not exist in the Polish mentality. Poland was bordered by Christianity, Russian Orthodoxy and Islam. Poles, Russians, Cossacks, Tartars, Turks fought together and they lived together for centuries. They had learned to respect each other’s ethnic origin and understand various religious beliefs. The 18th-century Polish Constitution of the 3rd of May was more democratic than the U.S. Constitution of that time. Everybody, no matter what God they prayed to, no matter what the color of their skin was, all had the same rights. There was no Holy Inquisition in Poland; no one was burned at the stake for his own belief in God…

I remember seeing an article from a West Coast newspaper with a picture of a “black man” with the surname Wysocki, my mother’s maiden name. It seemed odd, and no one in my family did more than smile at the idea as strange. Nothing more.

I plan to adopt someday, after my current daughter is all grown up, and my wife and I like the idea of a “mixed” family with children from various places around the world, such as Africa and China. Maybe it’s not such a novel idea after all.
Surname History

Stuczynski 16.09.2004 2 Comments

Comments below are regarding the Stuczynski surname history.
Stuczynski Introductions

Stuczynski 16.09.2004 8 Comments

If you are, or are related to a Stuczynski / Stuczynska, here’s the place to tell us where you are and who you are related to! {Use comments section below.}

Contact information is optional, but give us an idea where you are now (state/province) and where your family came from, as well as parents’ and/or grandparents’ names.

Here is my example:

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I am Kenneth Jerome Stuczynski, and live in Buffalo, NY USA with my wife Merry and have one daughter, Christina.

I am the son of Jerome Walter (Jerry) and Audrey Stuczynski (mother deceased, father currently in Utah USA). Jerome was raised in Dunkirk, NY USA as the only son of Walter (Warren) Stucyznski and Sophie (Szopinski), and grandson of Julian & Bernice Stuczynski, who came from Poland around 1900.

Julian & Bernice’s other children: Mary, Joe, Celia, Anna, Bernice, Virginia, and Walter, all raised in Dunkirk, NY USA, but all moved or deceased now.

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