Don't forget the golabki!
Mmmmm . . . golabki!
Posted on 03/09/2005 9:12:45 AM PST by lizol
Polish traditions remain even as emigration ebbs Monday, March 07, 2005 By LORI STABILE lstabile@repub.com
When Frederick J. Tenczar was growing up, there were 10 small Polish markets in Palmer.
"We're the last one," said Tenczar, owner of Tenczar's Food Town in the Three Rivers section of town. "Automobiles changed everything around. People used to stay in town. We all had a favorite market to go to."
At his small grocery store, customers may buy staples such as cereal and bread, but can also find homemade Polish dishes such as kielbasa, kapusta and pierogi. Tenczar works 60 hours a week and quotes his father, Wilfred, who started the supermarket with his brother Edward: "Hard work never killed anybody. It's the leisure time."
Tenczar's grandfather Jacob left Poland in 1893 when he was 27 years old. In 1905, he bought 14 acres of land in Palmer and raised his own food. He sponsored family members for the journey from Poland to Palmer.
Tenczar, 65, said that every year there seem to be fewer and fewer Polish stores. When he was a boy growing up in Three Rivers, he said, it seemed as though everything was Polish.
There's still Pulaski Park in the summertime, known as "the polka dancing capital of New England," and Polish Masses at Sts. Peter and Paul Church, but there are some signs that the town that attracted Polish immigrants to work at its mills has changed. The mills are no longer in operation. The Palmer mill closed in 1936, and less than a decade later, mills in Thorndike and Bondsville shuttered.
Palmer High School no longer offers Polish as a language option, like it did in the 1970s. The foreign language choices now are French and English.
According to the 2000 federal census, 2,363 of Palmer's 12,497 residents reported Poland as their first country of ancestry. By 1899, there were 169 Polish men and half as many Polish women employed at the Palmer mill. The St. Stanislaus Polish Lyceum was created at the turn of the century to help preserve Polish traditions, according to the "History of Three Rivers" by Jane Golas, Palmer's town historian.
In the United States, according to the United States census bureau, there were 14,000 foreign-born Poles living in the country in 1870. By 1930, that number had grown to more than 1 million.
"They came because they were looking for a better life," Golas said.
The president of the Polish Women's Club of Three Rivers, Debra A. (Zerdecki) Geoffrion, 46, said the club was started 80 years ago by four men for women coming to the town from Poland. Their idea was for women to get together socially and learn the language. They also wanted to support businesses owned by people of Polish extraction. Most members are elderly now.
Geoffrion, whose grandparents came from Poland, said she couldn't wait until she turned 16 to join the club. She has fond memories of growing up in Palmer.
"Pulaski Park was huge - it still is. Every single Sunday it was packed. Happy Louie would play. ... We weren't out drinking and smoking. We were there with our siblings and parents. You didn't see the separation there is now. We all grew up together and we had a ball," Geoffrion said. "We used to dance all night. Now we do one or two and we sit down."
Geoffrion and her family - husband Christopher L.; son Chris, 17; Stephanie, 14; and Emily, 12 - still go to Pulaski Park on Sundays in the summer. But sometimes they stay home. They can hear the music from their house in Three Rivers.
Geoffrion went to Poland after high school on a trip through the Kosciuszko Foundation, along with classmate and author Suzanne Strempek Shea.
"I'm very into tradition and society itself has gone so far away from it all," Geoffrion said.
She noted that part of the Christmas Eve Mass at Sts. Peter and Paul is in Polish, and the priest at the church calls her daughters by their Polish names - Stephanie, "Stefania" and Emily, "Emilcia."
Strempek Shea's first four books are set in the area and have Polish characters. When looking for inspiration for her first book, she said, she wrote about what she knew. In 1998, she was featured on a national PBS special on Polish-Americans, along with other famous Americans of Polish descent such as Stefanie Powers and Bobby Vinton. Strempek Shea also appeared on a local PBS show about the Polish in the Pioneer Valley last year.
Growing up, Strempek Shea said, her family would send clothing to relatives and friends in Poland. She would think, "What kind of place is this where people don't have shirts?" She said it gave her an idea of why her grandparents left.
Some third-generation Poles are still working in the same fields that their grandparents had worked in, like the Smiarowski brothers who run Teddy C. Smiarowski Farm in Hatfield.
Bernard A. "Bernie" Smiarowski, 43, said his grandfather Alexander came from Lomza, Poland, in 1916. During his first three months in the United States, he worked at a fertilizer plant in Pennsylvania. Then he moved to Massachusetts to work at farms in Sunderland. He was a farmer by trade in Poland. He also did construction here and made about $1 a day.
"Shortly after, he purchased the homestead farm - where my father, Teddy, grew up - in Montague, for $2,300 in 1923. It was 16 acres. You can't even buy one acre for that today," said Smiarowski, adding that his cousins are farming that land now.
"The Connecticut River Valley had the best farmland. The Polish settled here and bought farms from the English," Smiarowski said.
Smiarowski's father left the family dairy and vegetable farm in 1950 to buy his own land - 60 acres in Hatfield for $25,000.
Smiarowski and his brothers are members of the Polish Club in Hatfield. Once a year, a big polka party is put on by a local church. Polish is still the largest nationality in town. According to the 2000 census, 1,003 of Hatfield's 3,249 residents said they were of Polish descent.
Joseph M. Topor Jr., 68, of South Hadley is also the grandchild of Polish immigrants. He is the president of the Polish Center of Discovery and Learning at Elms College in Chicopee and president of Topor Dodge in Chicopee.
"We want to remind people of our Polish heritage, of our grandparents coming to the United States. We wanted to remember what sacrifices they made and why they came here. The United States had a lot to offer and still does," Topor said.
Topor said the immigrants were hard-working and had strong religious beliefs.
"If they married a woman, they lived with her for the rest of her life," Topor said.
His father, the late Joseph Topor Sr., opened the Topor car dealership in 1932. Today, the younger Topor runs it with his sons, Joseph III, vice president, and David, general sales manager. His wife, Carolyn, is the president of the Kosciuszko Foundation's New England chapter. The Kosciuszko Foundation is based in New York City and is the "American Center for Polish Culture."
He said he is proud of his heritage, noting that the pope is from Poland. He does not find ethnic jokes amusing.
"When people slur people, that really bothers me," Topor said.
He said it's up to parents to keep Polish customs alive.
Louise A. Kareta of Palmer said Polish traditions are part of her family's regular routine.
For 20 years, Kareta's voice could be heard on the Polish Heritage show on 1250 WARE-AM. The show ended in 1999 when the radio station was sold and switched its programming. Her great-grandparents and grandparents came from Poland and settled in the Palmer area.
Kareta and her husband, Edward J., have three sons: Stanley, 16; John, 14; and Joseph, 12. Her father ran Kszepka Insurance in Three Rivers, now operated by her brother Paul.
She said a lot of the traditions she grew up with are now part of the family's regular routine. The day before Easter, Holy Saturday, their priest visits their home to bless it and the food set out for Easter. The blessed food is a tradition, called "swieconka." She and her husband are members of St. Stanislaus' Polish Club and she is on the board of directors for the New England chapter of the Kosciuszko Foundation.
"To my generation, we were always around Polish culture and Polish traditions through our school and our church," she said. "I think families that go to Sts. Peter and Paul Church are exposed to some element of culture."
On her radio show, she would talk about Poland's folklore, how the white eagle is the country's symbol, and about history, music and culture, things she learned from her "babci" and "dziadziu" - Polish for grandma and grandpa.
She would talk about food, like the "oplatek," the wafer that is shared with family and guests on Christmas Eve. The white wafers are shared with each person present, and during the exchange, good wishes are expressed. Those who are no longer alive are also remembered. Pink wafers are given to the animals, because, according to Polish tradition, they were the first to greet baby Jesus.
"That's a tradition I know my kids will do. ... This is the stuff we have. These things that become every day. Those things will carry on, yes," Kareta said.
Speaking of Polish treats, the bakery in my town here in Indiana has been offering paczki for the last few weeks. It's sinfully good!
Mmmmm, it is.
Don't forget the golabki!
Mmmmm . . . golabki!
Thanks.
Are those the cabbage rolls? I always wondered how that was spelled. We always pronounced it Goo-wump'-key. Now I'm craving some.
I miss good Polish food. I moved to rural Missouri from the South suburbs of Chicago. Talk about culture shock! My family is Polish, we had great Kielbasa and kluski on Easter morning every year. I miss it!
Your pronounciation is more or less OK, but Polish spelling is like "golabki". But the letters "l" and "a" have some additional, typical Polish features ("l" should be a bit similar to "t" and "a" should have kind of small "tail" at the bottom.
Thanks for posting this intersting article, lizol!
For you two ladies, I know you are not Polish, BUT: Interesting Food Ping!
:-)
Pierogi.....the ultimate comfort food.
I think the quote "Hard work never killed anybody. It's the leisure time" is real stupid. Maybe people work hard and love prosperour lives and are able to enjoy their life by having leisure time. Sound like sour grapes to me. Also, I don't know how that person who owns the store works over 60 hours a week. That place is a dump with rotten produce. Just a real DUMB quote.
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