STANISLAW BURMISTRZ 1891 - 1950
Stanislaw Jan Burmistrz, pronounced: "BOOR-meestsh" which means "town master or Mayor" in Polish, was actually born "Burmistrzak" on May 8, 1891 of Polish descent in the small farming village of Krotoszyn (kroh-TOH-shehn) located in the Russian held section of Greater Poland, in the province of Warszawa (vahr-SHAH-vah) just west of the city of Wloclawek (vwah-TSWAH-vehk) in what was then called the "Congress" Kingdom of Poland. The youngest of seven siblings of his parents Marcin and Agniezska née Urbanska had a fair complexion and light brown hair with blue-grey eyes. Their parish church located in the neighboring village of Koscielna Wies (Kohs-CHEE-ehl-nah VEE-ehs), of the diocese of Plock, was where Stanislaw was baptized on May 10, 1891. This area was called Russian-Poland due to the fact that Poland as a country had ceased to exist at that time. About a century earlier in 1795 it was totally partitioned because of a then failed Polish insurrection against Russia & Prussia for their part in two prior territorial cessions from Poland in 1772 & 1793 respectively. So the neighboring countries of Russia, Prussia, and Austria divided all the territories of Poland three ways incorporating these lands into their own respective countries. And the Russian empire controlled the province of Warszawa. After Napoleon's conquest of Poland, the French empire controlled this province until his defeat in 1815, when this area went back to Russian control. These borders basically remained this way until World War I ended in 1918 when Poland once again became its own country.
When Stanislaw was two years old, his father, Marcin, died at the age of 38. His mother, Agnieszka, remarried soon after on October 15, 1893 to Tomasz Klososki, a farmer eight years her junior from the neighboring village of Borucin, which was 5.1 miles south of Krotoszyn. During his formative years the population of Poland virtually exploded, increasing 174% during the 55 years before World War I. Stanislaw was educated to be able to read and write. And as a young man, he had worked as a farm hand. He had also traveled to Krakow & Warszawa. But the oppressive rule and Russification of his homeland plus the reality of a bleak economic future led thousands of young Poles to emigrate. Stanislaw at nineteen also decided to leave his beloved Poland and to say good-bye to his widowed mother forever by sailing to America and to a new life.
Departing in the midst of the largest migration ever from Poland, Stanislaw traveling with his cousin, Franciszek Budzinski, made their way across Germany to the port city of Hamburg. Hamburg, the second largest city in Germany, was the chief seaport and one of the main emigration departure points in Europe.
Over the years the city of Hamburg and HAPAG, the "Hamburg Amerikanishen Packetfahrt Actien Gesellshaft" (Hamburg American Packet Journey Action Society) developed a safe and humane system of expediting the thousands of emigrants that traveled through their city gates.
In 1910 emigrants typically came to Hamburg by "emigrant trains" which took them directly to the emigration camp on the "Veddel" free of charge by the State of Hamburg. This camp provided accommodations for up to 5,000 emigrants. Here they were medically examined and their clothing and baggage were disinfected. This was done as a protection for the Hamburg population against the spread of infectious diseases, but also benefited the health of the emigrants themselves.
This emigration camp was built in the form of pavilions and in character resembled a small town. In the middle of the camp both a Lutheran and a Catholic Church were built, also a music pavilion and a synagogue. The pavilion design of the camp made it possible to keep the sleeping quarters smaller. Separate kitchens and eating rooms were installed for Christian and Jews. Up to 3,000 people could be fed there in an hour.
Stanislaw and his cousin booked passage on the Hamburg-American Line steamship, "S.S. Pennsylvania". The Pennsylvania, built in 1896, weighed 13,333 tons and could attain a top speed of 13-1/2 knots. Its passenger carrying capacity could accommodate 160 people in first class, 180 in second class, and 2,200 people in third class of which Stanislaw was a passenger.
With high hopes and only $18 in his pocket, Stanislaw and his cousin on board the "S.S. Pennsylvania" steamed out of Hamburg Harbor on the 3rd of February 1910. Crossing the Atlantic Ocean in only 15 days, he and his cousin first set eyes on the Statue of Liberty in New York Bay on February 18th and disembarked from their quarantined steamer by barge to a 27-1/2 acre island called Ellis, where the United States immigration processing facility was located. Passing through the main Registry Building and the Great Hall, newcomers like Stanislaw were processed by health and legal officials of which about 80% were ultimately allowed to enter the United States. This process usually lasted from three to five hours. Many immigrants bought railroad tickets while on Ellis Island and took the ferry to nearby Jersey City to board the Central New Jersey (C.N.J.) trains, which connected to destinations throughout the United States.
Traveling immediately to Chicago, Illinois, Stanislaw and his cousin both found lodging in a rooming house at 8348 Superior Ave., which was officially changed in 1923 to Burley Ave., in the "Bush" area of South Chicago, a densely populated neighborhood stretching from 83rd to 86th Streets and the tracks of the Illinois Central (I.C.) Railroad to Lake Michigan. South Chicago was at that time one of two major ethnic concentrations of Polish inhabitants within the city.
Stanislaw's first employment in this country was at a local bakery. His cousin, Frank Budzinski, fared a little better by securing work in the steel mills as a laborer probably due to the fact that their sponsor in this country, Frank Klososki, which was Budzinski's uncle, was a drill man in the steel mill there.
A few years later, Stanislaw met and fell in love with a very pretty Polish lady and also a recent émigré from his homeland, Katarzyna Lipowska, pronounced: "lih-POHV-skah". "LIPOWY" in Polish means "of the lime or linden trees". Katarzyna was the third of eight born to Jan and Maryanna née Lachendra on September 17, 1893 in the small farming community of Wieprz (vee-EHPSH) in the province of Galicja [gah-LEE-tsyah], which was governed by Austria. This town was located southwest of Krakow in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains. When she was twenty years old she decided to immigrate to America like some of her older siblings had done earlier. So in the fall of 1911 she began her sojourn to South Bend, Indiana where her older sister, Elzbieta, had relocated. Traveling first to the seaport town of Antwerp, she secured passage on the Red Star Line steamer "Kroonland". On September 30, 1911 the 12,760-ton twin screw ship weighed anchor and steamed for New York. They docked on October 11th just 11 days after setting sail and disembarked their human cargo at Ellis Island. After processing, Katarzyna was on her way to South Bend by train and to a new life in America.
Katarzyna had an aunt, Joanna Lachendra, who was married and living in Chicago, Illinois at this time. Joanna's husband, Wawrzyniec (Lawrence) Wasniewski (vahs-NYEV-ski) owned a house at 8224 S. Manistee Ave. in South Chicago, which was only five blocks from where Stanislaw was renting his apartment. Katarzyna and Stanislaw met and a lasting relationship between the two blossomed.
On January 17th, 1916 Father Nowicki united Stanislaw and Katarzyna in holy matrimony at St. Mary Magdalene Catholic Church. This church was newly built six years prior in 1910. It was located at 8426 S. Marquette in the South Chicago area of Chicago. He was 24 years old, and she was 22. Their first home together was a rented apartment near St. Michael's Catholic Church, 82nd & South Shore Drive. But as their family grew, they moved into larger quarters at 8708 Houston Ave.
Lawrence Wasniewski worked as a tool grinder at Carnegie Illinois Steel Corp. in their South Works Mill. This company later was known as United States Steel Corp. or "U.S. Steel". In August of 1917 Stanislaw also found employment at this South Works facility but in one of their support companies, the "Elgin, Joliet, & Eastern (E.J. & E.) Railroad".
The E.J. & E. was a line-haul subsidiary of the United States Steel Corp., a division of USX a Pittsburgh-based oil & steel company. The E.J. & E., originally called the "Chicago Outer Belt Line" in 1887, extended in a great arc about thirty five miles from Chicago's loop running from Waukegan, through Elgin and Joliet, and ending in Gary, Indiana. This belt line in the periphery of Chicago joined together other major railroad lines that extended into Chicago, so that freight by car or trainload could be transferred from one trunk line to another thereby reducing traffic chaos and congestion within the urban area of Chicago.
Stanislaw worked as a carpenter in the rebuilding and/or repairing of their railroad cars. The repair facility where Stanislaw worked was located in the giant "South Works Mill". This massive 585-acre complex, located at 3430 E. 87th Street, humbly began as the "North Chicago Rolling Mills" around the year 1880 after the development of the Calumet Harbor. Over the 33 years that Stanislaw worked there, off and on due to periodic layoffs caused by a fluctuating economy, South Works steadily grew employing 20,000 workers in its heyday during World War II. At one point in the early 1950's, South Works and Chicago's other steel mills produced 25% of all the steel in the United States.
Over the course of four years of marriage, Stanislaw fathered three children with his beloved Katarzyna, namely: Alicja (Alice), born December 8, 1916; Henryk (Henry), born February 17, 1918; and Tadeusz, born February 17, 1920. Only eight months after the birth of her last baby, Katarzyna contracted Tuberculosis in her lungs during the big flu epidemic at that time and passed away 10 days later at the age of 27 on November 11, 1920. Three months after her death, her baby, Tadeusz, who was only 11 months old at the time died on February 5, 1921 in the care of a baby-sitter who accidentally gave him scalding milk to drink. Both were buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Calumet City, Illinois.
Two years after this fateful family tragedy, Stanislaw decided to purchase his first house at 8602 S. Houston Ave., which was only a block away from the apartment where they were staying. Their new home was a two-story frame building with a cottage in the rear. And on June 8th, 1923 Stanislaw and his two children moved in. The Burmistrz family lived in the rear cottage while renting the building's front two apartments out to tenants. One tenant in later years that became good friends with the Burmistrzs was the Dolasinski family, Bronislaus and Stella. Their matriarch, Stella, who died June 29, 1976 helped greatly with the care of the Burmistrz children during subsequent family hardships.
In the fall of 1923, Alice, started school at the Immaculate Conception of the B.V.M. (Blessed Virgin Mary) parochial grade school located at 88th & Commercial Ave. The school was under the tutelage of the Polish Sisters of St. Joseph.
The Immaculate Conception parish was the first Catholic parish in South Chicago. It was established in 1882 to serve the ever-increasing Polish community there. Ten years later in 1892, a second parish had to be created because of the increases of newly arrived Polish families. It was located in the "Bush" area of South Chicago called St. Michael's which incidentally today is the largest parish in South Chicago. The School Sisters of St. Francis originally controlled the Immaculate Conception Grammar School until the fall of 1907 when the Polish Sisters of St. Joseph assumed control.
Stanislaw, after remaining single for three and a half years and trying to raise his two children the best that he could, met his second bride to be, Anna Olejnik (oh-LAY-nick). Anna, being born on July 1, 1897, was the eldest of seven siblings of her parents, Joseph Olejnik and Katarzyna Wozniak. The Olejnik family which means "Oilman" in Polish came from the small village of Balczewo (bahl-CHEH-voh) in the German held province of Poznan, just east of the industrial town of Inowroclaw near the District town of Parchanie (pahr-HAHN-nehy) where their parish church stood. Anna was only eight years old upon her emigration from Poland. Traveling with her parents and siblings, they made their way across Germany to Antwerp, Belgium. They secured passage on the steamship "Kroonland" which embarked January 6th, 1906. It took them 11 days to cross the ocean. Arriving in New York on the 17th of January, they were held over for three days on Ellis Island for medical reasons before being released to continue their journey to Chicago where Joseph's brother and sponsor, Bartolmej Olejnik, resided.
Anna was raised to adulthood in Chicago in an area known as the "Back of the Yards". This was a residential neighborhood also having a large Polish residency located near the massive Union Stock Yards, a 320 acre complex built for the livestock trade which in turn provided employment for thousands of Chicagoans, many of which were unskilled immigrants. These people helped to make possible back then Chicago's moniker of being the "Butcher Capital of the World". The Olejniks also found employment in this industry. Anna, her father and sister later all worked for the same meat packing company. Anna's job was that of a wrapper.
Unexpectedly, at the age of 24, Anna, while still living at home with her parents, became pregnant. Keeping the identity of the baby's father discrete, she gave birth to a daughter, Loretta, on October 5th, 1922.
After Anna and Stanislaw's marriage on February 9th, 1924 at St. Joseph's Catholic Church situated at 4821 S. Hermitage Ave., her new husband's wish and desire to adopt Anna's baby and to raise her as his own daughter never materialized. Anna's parents had decided that they would continue to raise Loretta as their own child. And from that time on, Anna religiously visited her precious baby at least once a week trying to accept and to cope with this heart-wrenching situation.
Over the next few years, Stanislaw fathered two more children. His wife, Anna, gave birth to sons. The first of which being born on February 6th of 1925 was named Roman, nicknamed later, Raymond. And lastly, Joseph, born on September 1st, 1927 died the following day due to internal lung damage caused by a protracted labor.
During this time, Stanislaw's son, Henry, began his formal education by attending the same school as did his sister, the Immaculate Conception of the B.V.M. Both children did well in school due in part because of their step mother's positive influence in providing a loving and helpful environment to them. She was also a good wife to Stanislaw. So it was with much sadness that Anna's untimely death after only five years of marriage struck such a heartfelt blow to Stanislaw and his three children. She was four months pregnant with her fourth child when she contracted Septic Cerebral Meningitis. And on February 12th, 1929 at the age of 31 both her and her fetus passed away. Being interred in Holy Cross Cemetery, she was laid to rest not far from where her son, Joseph, 18 months earlier was buried.
Sometime during the next two years near the beginning of the Great Depression, Stanislaw became acquainted with a young American woman of Slavic descent, Elizabeth Marie Smith. She was eighteen years his junior, single and struggling at the time to raise her infant baby son, John, nicknamed Jake. She was staying at this time with relatives in the "Back of the Yards" neighborhood near where the Olejnik family lived. Elizabeth, on January 27th, 1931, became Stanislaw's third and final wife by uniting in marriage at the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church located at 2944 E. 88th St.
Elizabeth was the eldest sibling of three who was born February 7th, 1909 to immigrant parents living at the time near Pleasant Valley in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. Her Father, Anton Schmidtke, a Slovenian from Austria-Hungary immigrated in 1905 to America. He anglicized the Schmidtke name to "Smith", and found employment as a coal miner. Her mother, Genevieve Sczerba, was Galician from Polish-Austria. Her parents immigrated first to America, and she followed in the year 1906 by herself at the age of 14. Sailing on the steamer "Breslau", the ship docked on the 3rd of October at the port city of Baltimore, Maryland. After debarking, she made her way to the coal-mining country of Irwin, Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh, and to her family who had settled there. At the age of 16, Genevieve married Anton. This was the year 1908. During the early 1920's they lived in the small coal-mining town of "Smock" in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, which was also located in the western portion of Pennsylvania just south of Pittsburgh.
Elizabeth's son, Jake, was born December 10th, 1929 in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, just a month and a half after "Black Thursday" the day the stock market crashed. He was almost 14 months old at the time of his mother's conjugal union with Stanley. And right from the beginning, little Jake was accepted openly and lovingly into the Burmistrz family.
In the spring of 1931, Stanley's eldest daughter, Alice, graduated from the Immaculate Conception (B.V.M.) parochial school. Her formative years spent with the good Sisters of St. Joseph kindled a religious desire and need to love and to serve Him. Whereupon the fifth day after her graduation, she entered the religious order of her parochial mentors, the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Third Order of Francis, on June 19, 1931 at the age of 14. After finishing her education and religious training, sister began her teaching ministry, which she actively pursued for 57 years. She remained a nun for 72 years and was laid to rest in the Convent's cemetery located on the grounds of their Congregational Home in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. She was 88 years old.
The nation and the Burmistrz family were heading into rough economic times. This was the Depression era. Between 1929 through 1933 the American economy slowly collapsed. Thirteen million people, 25% of the work force, were without jobs. Stanley was faced also with periods of unemployment due to periodic layoffs due to the Great Depression. Hard times plagued our nation for a decade till the outbreak of World War II.
It was during this dismal economic period that his third wife, Elizabeth, had given birth to three children, namely: Theresa, born January 14th, 1932; Harry, born March 15, 1933; and Eleanor, born June 8th, 1934. The Burmistrz family now numbered six siblings plus Jake whom he adopted as his own. Because of his burgeon family, Stanley purchased a bigger two-story framed house not far from where they lived. On March 5, 1942 the Burmistrz family moved into their new home at 8055 S. Escanaba Avenue.
Elizabeth found it difficul to raise and take care of this large family. And it was noticed that her mental condition was gradually changing. The situation at home had progressively worsened so much that Stanley had no choice but to legally commit Elizabeth to the state mental hospital at Kankakee, Illinois. On January 25th, 1939, she was diagnosed as "Mental Defective with Psychosis" and remained an inmate of that institution for most of her remaining adult life. She died at the age of 61 at the Esma A. Wright Convalescent Center in Robbins, Illinois on January 31st, 1971 and was later interred at Holy Cross Cemetery in Calumet City, Illinois.
At the start of World War II, the older Burmistrz brothers, Hank & Ray both found themselves in the U.S. [Uncle Sam's] Army. Henry wound up in North Africa and southern Italy in the battles of Naples and Foggia, while Ray was a Rifleman fighting in the Ardennes, Rhineland & Central Europe. Both brothers served almost three years and were lucky enough not to receive any battle wounds. In addition, Ray received the Bronze Star, a medal given by the Army in recognition for his bravery in combat.
Toward the close of World War II, Stanley's eldest son, Henry, on leave from the military, was the first Burmistrz sibling to marry. Announcing their vows publicly on August 19th, 1944 at St. George's Catholic Church, Henry and his bride, Florence Carosella became man & wife. Not long after their conjugal union, they were able to bless Stanley with the only two grandchildren that he ever knew, namely: Henry, born December 20th, 1945; and Marie, born April 22nd, 1948.
As the nation was recovering from war and the economy was beginning to boom, Stanley was finally reaping the fruits of his labor at home as well as at work. In later years Stanley became a foreman over a crew of carpenters that repaired railroad cars for the E.J. & E. railroad. While at work on Friday January 6th, 1950, Stanley suffered a massive heart attack and died. He was only 59 years old. He was later laid to rest at Holy Cross Cemetery with his beloved family members who preceded him in death.
Stanislaw Jan Burmistrz Biography
Copyrighted © 2014 by Allen P. Grasser

VOYAGE TO AMERICA
Emigrated: 3 February 1910 port of Hamburg, Germany
Immigrated: 18 February 1910 port of New York, New York
Ship's Name: "Pennsylvania"