Notes from Interview with Ann Jaroszewski
Saturday, June 27, 2015
VIDEO 1
Ann and Stephanie are 6 years apart in age.
Ann referred to Stephanie as “Stevie” several times throughout the interview.
This year Aunt Cecile will be 99.
Aunt clare was a year younger than Seal, Stephanie came two years after, then Stanley two years later, then Eddie two years later, then Ann in 1925. Timmy 1928, and Uncle Barb (?) 1934.
Seal’s daughter Carol lives in California.
Ann’s oldest son is Ned.
3:45 Gemza = Stephanie’s father’s mother’s maiden name
HE (Uncle Walter?) tried to avoid the Army. Came across the ocean with Ann’s Father. [NOTE: Records suggest his real name was “Pietr”). Settled in Bridgeport. The guy (Walter?) who tried to run away from the army opened a Speakeasy during prohibition. Ann’s father worked there but quit because he was nervous about the illegality of it. He quit “helping Uncle Walter Gemza”. “He was a very sensitive person”.
“My father played the accordion. Not the one that looks like a piano but the one with the buttons.”
After church on Sunday they would have dinner at home and he would play his accordian and smoke a cigar. He loved to dress up in his suit on Sunday or other special events,, he was a blue collar man. He was a laborer, he didn’t have any skills. Her mother Anna is the one who pushed education. She insisted that they do well in school.
Uncle Stanley had problems with the language because they spoke Polish at home, he had to stay back a year in first grade because it took him a while to learn English. He had the perseverance to eventually become a dentist. He wanted to make something out of himself. He went to the local university for two years, then went to Univ. of Pennsylvania.
Uncle Ed was a mechanical engineer. Uncle Bud was a dentist also. Uncle Tim worked in a bank, can’t remember what capacity. Was not a teller, but some kind of credit management.
9:15 Stefan’s Personality
He liked to joke around, she remembers him laughing alot. He was very strict with the kids. Growing up they did not own their own home. He always told them to be careful and not break anything in the home because it wasn’t theirs. When they finally purchased a home on main street in Stratford, they paid in cash because they had saved up all their money. Stefan never got to live in the house, he died at the age of 62 before they moved into the house. He died at Christmas time on Aunt Claire’s birthday of pneumonia.
He was not a tall man, about 5 foot nine, Anna (Bapcie Ramik) was 5 foot 6. Anna always told her daughter Ann that she walked like a question mark, to stand up straight. Anna stood up very straight. LeeAnn remembers her always wearing a dress and heels when she visitied in Texas. Ann’s response: “At that time women didn’t wear pants except Catherine Hepburn.”
13:15 Bapcie (Ann) Personality
She liked to laugh. She had a hard life. Women in those days all did, they had a bunch of kids. The nursery rthyme about MOnday you wash the clothes, Tuesday you iron clothes,: that’s just about what they did. They didn’t have modern conveniences. When they first got their washing machine they thought that was the “cat’s meow”. She was very clean. Ann used to hate when her mother insisted on her helping clean up. Ann had to come home from school to do chores, so she couldn’t join any after school clubs. Bapcie Anna was complimented on always keeping her kids clean and nice looking.
2nd Video
1:35
While the family lived on Long Island, Aunt Cecile at the age of 18 moved to Bridgeport to live with Grandma Piorek (she pronouned it “pure-ek”).
3:35
Anna (Stephanie and Anne’s mother) had a younger sister named Sophie. Anna and her family lived on the city line between Stratford and Bridgeport, Aunt Sophie lived in Bridgeport right over the line. Ann (Steph’s sister) liked to go to Aunt Sophie’s house when she was 13 or 14.
4:30
Stephanie (Stevie) worked at Chance-Vought (an old airplane manufacturer), and that is what moved her to Grand Prarie, TX.
5:00
Aunt Sophie’s husband was Uncle Mike Tomasco. Oldest son named Michael. When he was 16 he went to a beach or pond with other people (his family?) and he dove into the water and was never found. Nobody ever knew what happened to him. After that his mother Sophie went crazy and had to go to a mental facility. They had 3 other children.
6:50
Anna (Steph’s mother) traveled from Poland with her own mother to meet her father who was already in America. They came from Poland by way of Germany where they embarked on the ship. Anna came here from Bratislowa, Poland. (My notes: there is no such city in Poland, but is in Slovakia).
8:00
“Bapcie Ramik” talked about somewhere called “Galicia” in Poland, which was a province or county or something like that near the Austrian border. The “Bapcie Ramik” referenced here is Ann, Stephanie and Anne’s mother. At one point later in her life she (Anna Ramik/Piorek) was invited to return to Poland for a tour, and she declined because Poland did not give her fond memories.
9:25
Stefen Ramik was born in Kiev, Ukraine, but he insisted he was Polish. Poland was split up so many times. His family had migrated to Kiev, Ukraine. We don’t know what part of Poland his family originally came from. They did not change their last name, it was always Ramik even though that is a short name for Polish.
11:00
Grandma Piorek’s (Stephanie’s grandmother, Anna’s mother) name was Mary. Her husband’s name was Peter. Peter died at the age of 49. Mary’s maiden name was Stompar. She had a brother who came over to the Chicago area. Aunt Clare once corresponded with one of his daughters. Aunt Anne (being interviewed) has no idea whether Peter Piorek had any brothers or sisters.
12:44
Stefen Ramik (Stephanie’s dad) had a brother named Joseph. When Joseph wrote to Stefen from Poland he spelled his last name RamEk. Joseph never came to the USA. Joseph had two daughters, both white blondes (Aunt Clare was a white blonde also, straight hair when she was little). One of the daughters considered coming over either to visit or stay, but she didn’t come.
15:20
When they got married, Anna Piorek (Stephanie’s mother) was 22 and Stefan Ramik was 28.
15:50
Anne’s Grandma Piorek (Mary Stompar) owned the house on Hollister street.
PICTURES START AT ~17 MINUTES
18:15
Stephanie Trapp’s mom and dad were married on valentines day. 12 or 14 other couples all got married at the same time and place.
19:30
Picture: Extreme side is Uncle Tim, then Aunt Sophie, then Uncle Mike, then Aunt Josie, then Anna Ramik/Piorek. Then Grandma Mary Piorek (Stompar).
Mike and Tim (Anthony), John, in the picture are Anna Ramik/Piorek’s brothers.
21:10
Stefan Ramik died Dec 12, 1949.
Aunt Ann (Stephanie’s sister) doesn’t know the names of Stefan Ramik’s parents.
24:00
Stefan Ramik really liked raw onion sandwhich on pumpernickel bread sprinkled with salt.
27:00
Tradition at new years in which the parish priest would visit the home, bless it, and then write “K+M+B” in chalk over the doorjams in the house. Ann (stpeh’s sister) never asked what it meant, maybe the three kings who visited Jesus. (called “Blessing of the home on Epiphany”).
30:30
Stefan Ramik always went to bed early, around 9pm, but Anna his wife stayed up much later.
VIDEO 3
0:00
Aunt Clare (Steph’s sister) had a more reserved personality. Aunt Ann enjoyed spending time with her sister Stephanie, and Stephanie gave her a lot of “information”.
1:45
Stephanie worked as a waitress after she “got out of school” at a diner in town. Babe Ruth once came in, but he was “drunk as a skunk”.
3:00
Ann (Steph’s sister) was 15 when the family moved from Long Island back to CT. When they moved Stephanie was still living with the family. They (the family) had a rental first before they bought their house, and that was when Stephanie began working at “Chance-Vought”.
4:30
Stephanie was probably already living in Texas when her father Stefan Ramik died. The timing on that was narrow. Stephanie was an executive secretary.
5:10
Mary Piorek’s maiden name was Stompar, she had a brother who migrated to Chicago. Don’t know if she had any other siblings. Don’t know Mary’s parent’s names.
Stephanie’s Father’s Mother’s maiden name was Gemza. One of those relatives tried to avoid the army draft. Stephanie had always told LeeAnn that Stefen Ramik came over with an uncle on the Gemza side, Ann (Steph’s sister) doesn’t know whether it was an uncle, cousin, or what.
7:10
Ann’s (Steph’s sister) youngest son David went to Poland to research family history on the Jaroszewski side (Ann’s husband’s side). They were very cautious of talking to him, were not comfortable talking to him.
