Stuczynski.Org

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.

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.