This story will not have the customary Warsaw dateline, for only the thoughts are being pieced together in Poland’s capital. The hero of this article is my hometown of Hamtramck, MI, which is thousands of miles away from Warsaw. Of course, everybody has one hometown or another. I suspect that many readers of the Polish Digest were raised in various “old Polish neighborhoods.” But Hamtramck was different. After reading this story, I hope you’ll agree… A very important factor setting Hamtramck apart from the run-of-the- mill ethnic neighborhood was the fact that administratively it was and remains an independent municipality. But unlike the typical suburb, it was located not on the fringes but right in the dead center of Detroit’s inner city. It had its own city hall, police department, school system, sanitation department, although it was crisscrossed by the streetcars and buses of the Detroit City Railways. As far back as anyone can remember, the mayors of Hamtramck had such names as Jeżewski, Tenerowicz, Skrzycki, Grzecki, Wojtowicz or Kozaren. Polish-Americans also dominated the city council, police force and fire department. There were many Jews in the merchant community, but they all spoke good Polish. They had to, if they wanted to do business in the Hamtramck of my childhood, i.e. in the late 40s and early 50s. Polish-born, my maternal grandmother Katarzyna Kupczyńska (God rest her soul!) spent half a century in Hamtramck before going on to her reward. What’s more, the whole time she was in business, she operated a little “ma and pa” type candy shop which became a beer store after prohibition was repealed. But although among the predominantly Polish clientele, there were Blacks, Appalachians and Chevrolet workers of every ethnic background, she never really learned to speak English. Oh, she could rattle off Camels, Lucky Strikes, Old Gold, Philip Morris and the brands of beer and ice cream she had on hand. And if a stranger dropped in for a cold soft drink, she might ask in her inimitable accent: “What kime you wannit? I heff grape, stromberry, ginjoo-ray (ginger ale), warinch (orange)…” But babcia couldn’t really carry on a conversation in English. Then again, she didn’t have to. To people like my grandparents, raising a family during the Depression made learning English a luxury few could afford. More importantly, back then you could get by without it. My grandmother was able to handle all her business – do the banking, pay her bills, order merchandise from a wholesaler, visit a doctor or lawyer and do all her shopping – in Polish. It may have been the “kara stoi na kornerze stryty” type of jargon, but it was definitely Polish, not English. My granddad, Jan Kupczynski, had been in America about 15 years longer and spoke slightly better English. He could make himself roughly understood in most everyday situations, but writing was another story. I remember once when I was studying at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, he sent me a postcard from Florida. Apparently he hadn’t taken my address along, for he addressed the postcard as follows: Robert Strybel Student of Nador legwisz Madison, Wisconsin And, believe it or not, I actually received it. The key was my name, the word student and Madison, a typical Big Ten university town. In case you’re wondering, the “nador legwisz” was my dziadek’s way of expressing “foreign language”, i.e. “another language” written phonetically the way he heard it in Polish. (The reason he wrote what he did was that I had studied German, French and Spanish and was currently majoring in Slavic languages.) Hamtramck was the kind of place where you could walk down the side streets on a hot summer day and not miss a word of the Polish Varieties Program. In that pre-airconditioned era, all the windows of the closely set together two-family frame dwellings were wide open and so many of them had their radios permanently tuned to the Polish program. Besides the radio, the major source of information in my grandparents’ home was the now defunct Dziennik Polski, Detroit’s Polish Daily News. Copies of the Polish religious publications, Miesiecznik Franciszkański and Sodalis could also be found in the house as well as in the store two doors away, as babcia would read them between customers. On Sundays John’s Place (as the little store was called) was filled with the inspirational message of Father Justyn’s “Godzina Różańcowa” (“Rosary Hour”). In my childhood, the side streets of Hamtramck were still dotted with small family-owned groceries, butcher shops, sweet shops, beer stores, barber shops and neighborhood taverns, most of which have long since disappeared. But then as now, the main commercial artery was Joseph Campau (which the old timers jokingly referred to as “Jozef sie kapal”). The milelong stretch of this street within Hamtramck’s city limits was rimmed with businesses of every imaginable type, from Federal Department Store, Kresge’s, Neisner’s and Lendzon’s (the latter three being the once popular Dime Stores), to small dress shops, drug stores and many more. I well recall the big neons and smaller boardings: Witkowski Men’s Wear, Mróz Hats, Cieszkowski’s Yard Goods, Galonzka Music Center, Radziszewski Pharmacy – Polska Apteka and the travel agencies with their “Paczki do Polski” signs. And then there was the Polish Art Center which was in a class of its own. Set up after World War II by Mr. Kalenkiewicz and now operated by the Bittner family, this store is the true Polish cultural showcase with something for young and old alike. Imported crystal ware, amber, folk handicrafts, books, records, magazines, sweets and those heavenly aromatic “prawdziwki” (dried boletus mushrooms) were among the assortment designed to warm any Polish-American heart. Hamtramck’s Polish Art Center sells Polish gift items, books, delicacies and ethnic novelties to warm any Polish-American heart. The city’s two major Polish sausage plants, Kowalski’s and Jaworski’s, must have each had at least half a dozen outlets along Joseph Campau itself, not to mention scores of others throughout the state. There were also a number of independent family-owned butcher shops such as Ciemniak’s, Kopytko’s and most recently Srodek’s. And, oh, those bakeries! Some had English names like Palace or White Star, but the fragrant scent of babki, chałki, kajzerki, rogale and sour-dough rye enticing passers-by was pure Polish heaven! Of course, a youngster takes all this for granted. It wasn’t until my parents and I moved to one of Detroit’s 100% “American” neighborhoods when I was about nine, that the difference became apparent. The big chain supermarkets with their sliced cotton-fluff bread, packaged cold cuts and aisles and aisles full of instant this, processed that and imitation something else could not compare with the real thing. I can still recall that heady, smoky, garlicky scent of kielbasa hanging from hooks in the butcher shop of old Hamtramck, their aroma mingling with the tang of the barrelcured pickles and the dusky fragrance of dried Polish mushrooms. One joke about Hamtramck alleged that its bakeries and sausage stores had signs that read “English Spoken.” That may be an exaggeration, but the fact is that in my childhood you could go up to any older person on the street and start speaking Polish. The old timers, i.e. the people of my grandparents’ generation, had nearly all been born in Poland in the late 19th century and usually had arrived in America some time before World War I. Their U.S.-born children were more of less bilingual, although they were far more fluent in English than in Polish. In addition to kiełbasa, Hamtramck sausage shops such as Srodek’s offer various Polish deli items, including gołąbki, pierogi, flaczki, naleśniki and zimne nogi… Their grandchildren usually knew only a smattering of Polish – such words as “busia” and “dziadzia”, the names of a few foods and a couple of swear words which we knew we would get our mouths washed out with soap if anyone ever heard us use them. When I entered first grade at the Felician-run St. Florian’s Elementary School, Polish was taught as a subject, but in a class of 40 I was one of only about four pupils really fluent in the language. That was back in 1947. St. Florian’s with its soaring, cathedral-like neo-Gothic church was one of Hamtramck’s three Roman Catholic parishes, the other two being St. Ladislaus and Our Lady Queen of Apostles. There was also Holy Cross Polish National Catholic Church and Immaculate Conception Ukrainian Catholic Parish. The Polish population of this town of about 50,000 (at the end of World War II) was estimated at about 85%. The balance was accounted for by Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Byelorussians, Polish Jews and other groups, whose older generation all understood Polish. I recall a colored postman named Julius who could converse with all the homeowners in Polish. (Back then calling someone a “black” would have been an insult.) Back in the mid-1950s, Decca released a 45 rpm single titled “There’s a City Called Hamtramck.” Although the record got lost in the shuffle over the years, I can still hear those bouncy polka rhythms and can reconstruct from memory* part of the song’s light-hearted lyrics: There’s a city called Hamtramck, it really is dynamic, The people there have put it on the map. And the girls - to be specific - Are really quite terrific. Just steal a kiss, you’ll find it’s worth a slap. There is Sophia and Wanda and Stella, There’s a pretty girl to go with every fella... There’s golabki, kielbasa and kapusta, And a lot of other foods you won’t be used to. If you’re Stanley you’re Stas, If you’re Johnny you’re Jas. Up and down Hamtramck way, It’s the city of sun, theres a barrel of fun In Hamtramck, U.S.A. In many ways it indeed was a city of fun, especially to those who had moved away. Many youngsters were delighted when their parents said: “We’re going to busia’s.” It may have been for Christmas and Easter festivities or the traditional Sunday dinner at the old family home where “babcia” and “dziadzia” still lived. And former Hamtramckans would drive in to stock up on the delicacies offered by the Polish sausage shops and bakeries or attend a wedding. Yes, many PolAm couples held their wedding receptions at Hamtramck’s capacious Polish halls long after they had moved to suburbia. Those places really came alive on Saturday nights. Much of that is now only a memory.-----Lenny
Posted on: Wed, 23 Oct 2013 00:52:05 +0000