Some Polish relatives and name changes..

1942 My grandmother, Rose with Mom 

Apparently I wrote this years ago but did not post it to t he blog?  So as I am digging through my computer files to provide information on my Ostrowski relatives, I am publishing this here.  Right now, I believe the Ostrowski's are rattling their bones from Above Beyond as they do periodically asking to be remembered.  This sure would be easier had they not been so evasive about things years before.  And also if I had been more interested as a child growing up amongst all.  But things changed and now over the years,  most all relatives gone, I still try to piece the puzzle of the Ostrowski and other Polish family members.  

Bill Austin, projectionist

Often I'll mention my Polish grandmother, Baba (Rose) or my grandpap, Teofil Kochanowski. Uncle Carl, their son changed his name to Konesky.  This irked Teofil, my grandpap, who would scoff, " big shot can't spell and use his real name, has to try to be English."   Konesky was a name used by others in that area although they were not related.  I believe the name change was to avoid discrimination against the Polish.   It was common for Polish  and other  ethnicities to anglicize their names.

Baba's brother Bill changed his name to Austin from the family name, Ostrowski or Ostroski, depending on who spelled it.  He and his wife Louise had no children so the Austin ends with them. I never understood how he got the name Bill when his official name was Walter?  So who knows how names shifted back then.  

There was prejudice toward immigrants in the 1800's, immigrants who came to the US to work and work they did.  That prejudice usually by the WASPS (white Anglo Saxon Protestants) endured over many years still affecting uncle Carl  in the 1940's.   They all wanted to fit into American society and American ways. They came to work and work they did as laborer's in the coal mines and factories which were a step up to them.  This photo 9of Uncle Bill Austin appeared in the newspaper and it was considered an honor that he ran the projections for the movies at the Liberty theater in town.  That was likely another reason and way Baba and I got to go to the movies every weekend, courtesy of Uncle Bill. 

Despite assimilation hopes, they founded their own Catholic church in our town, St. Mary's. It was separate from the Italian Catholic church, St. Peter's or St. Joseph's, the catch all Catholic Church founded by Irish but where every other Catholic went who was not Polish or Italian. More another time about the churches in our town, but I recall they were on every corner and represented  every denomination, Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox and Jewish. 

I spent lots of time with my grandparents, especially Baba. Any free moment I'd be down the hill, across the tracks to their home. We lived in a small town, although looking back it was the heyday of a booming city--New Kensington, PA population of nearly 20,000. We grew up in the best of times in the 50's and 60's. Today there is nothing in New Ken, the mills closed, the mines closed, the factories moved--all part of the great movement out of the US for cheaper mfg. elsewhere. But in my day New Ken was home to an Alcoa factory and the Alcoa Laboratory, near to Pittsburgh Plate Glass where all my relatives worked at one time in their lives, nearby steel mills Allegheny Ludlum across the river in Brackenridge where my mother's 3rd husband, Barney Degnan worked and Braeburn Steel where my 1/2 demonic brother's father (my mother's demonic 2nd husband) worked.

I was a thoroughbred Polack, with full Polish on my father's side. Remember how the Polish changed and anglicized their names to avoid prejudice, well my father's family name was Ball. I used to be embarrassed by that name as I got older--it seemed odd. Kids teased me. The story is Grandpap Ball was illiterate and could not write his name. When he came to this country who knows what the Polish spelling was, somehow it was shortened to Ball and that's what we used. I have no way to this day to find his real name. I did not see Frank and Anna Ball much although they lived about 10 miles across the river in Harwick, /Spingdale, on rural acreage.

Why I had limited relationship with the Ball's goes back to my birth and the death of my father, 2nd Lt. Lewis S. Ball, Army Air Corps. As I have learned from my membership in AWON (http://www.awon.org/awmain.shtml ) my story is common among my sibling > 180,000 WWII orphans. Dad was a pilot who had a will naming Mom as beneficiary. As a young soldier, he didn't expect death but it was wartime. However, Dad forgot to change the beneficiary on his life insurance policy--it was a bit of money in those days, $10,000. When his plane disappeared and he and the crew were declared dead, see my older post or AWON at http://www.awon.org/awball.html the insurance money went to Baba Ball.

This devastated my pregnant mother. Dad died June 20, 1944 and I was born in November 1944. (Some in AWON friends call this "posthumously born" which would be a comical term if our lives had not been so unfunny mostly. Like how can I be born after death. Anyway the term is to connote our birth after our fathers' deaths.)

I grew up with my mother being very bitter toward the Balls. Baba Rose didn't think too highly of them either and from time to time would have a Polish conversation on the phone with Anna; it was then that I could hear Baba Rose cuss in Polish. she never spoke that way but likely she felt Anna deserved it.  The story is that when I was born, Baba Ball came to the hospital and demanded that my mother give me to her to make up for her lost Louie (dad.) Mom and Baba rose promptly told her where to go and that she should give them the $10,000 to raise me. I learned that this was true when Mom died in 2004 and cleaning out her house, I found a suitcase of old papers and documents about my father.

There is more to that story of bitterness--they resented my mother remarrying. Well, my life would have been better if she had not remarried too, but that will be a story for another posting. My grand father Frank Ball died when I was about 9 or 10. After that their oldest son, Eddie took over. He built their home on the Ball property. His wife was Esther and they had 3 daughters, Carol, Christine, and Sheryl. I know little about these cousins.  Eddie died years ago in PA. He had Baba Ball write me out of her will and leave everything to his wife and children. It is thought that there was a significant amount of $$ there as they sold property where the Pittsburgh Mills shopping mall now sits. So much for that  inheritance--Eddie seemed to dislike us. But I know he has had to answer on the other side to his brother, my dad about his actions.  f he saw us downtown or even at church he would turn his head and walk quickly away. I thought there must be something wrong with me.

Anna Ball's Granddaughters

In October in PA I finally got to be with my cousin, Carol  after maybe 47 years and just no contact.   She's  is the cousin  I  remember most from my father's brother, Eddie's family.  We had  little contact because my mother did not  get along with my father's mother, my grandmother Ball, photo here from 1958.  I remember Carol.  Her son found me through the AWON website and the tribute I'd written on my father.

Carol and her hubby Les are Floridians but spend time through the  summer in PA where they also have a condo.  It was all too short of a visit.  But when she and I talked this trip to PA I had already made up my mind that whatever date she picked would work!  We'd missed getting together  in  July and they were not in PA in May when we met with Chrissie, another cousin and Carol's sister and her hubby Larry.  Well, the day Carol suggested for us to visit them for hors d'oeuvres and drinks happened to be our 42nd anniversary.  We had other dinner plans that evening, but I said, "yes."   That shortened the  time we had to spend with them.  But then as Chrissie and I discussed after we met, this is all so new and we don't really know what to expect.  So maybe a short visit was the best for the first time anyway.  What if we did not like each other?  I was nervous again. 

On our short drive to their condo, we decided to ignore the turnpike directions she'd  given me and take the shorter roads back through the hills of PA from Mt. Top in Tarentum , where we park our  motor home.  Gertrude Pauline Spaghillicuddy (GPS) could take us there if we got lost.  It was not so  far but wouldn't you know it we ran into back road construction and detours.  How we got just where we needed to be, only My People & Angels  know!  But we made it despite my fretting that "Jerry, now we are going to be late!  We should have gone the other way!"  Should haves are  something I try not to  say, but it creeps back in frustration.  Should'a, could'a, would'a....are all worthless concepts.  Late, no.  In fact we were a little early and that generated further comments from me, "Now we are early and that might just be rude."   I had worked my mind through a frenzy about this visit.

From the minute I saw her I felt like I had regained another part of myself.  I don't know how skeptical Carol felt about our visit, but all my frenzies vanished.  I felt like I was  looking into a mirror too.  We have such a close  resemblance.  Well both of us color our hair, mine lightened as it has gotten way darker over the years and Carol's a redish tone.  Larry, Chrissie's husband had said in May, "You and Carol look alike especially the eyes."  Carol says everyone tells her she looks like Grandma Ball, and I agreed.  That means I must resemble my grandma Ball too. 

All my life I have been told I look just like my father.  I never thought any further back in the Ball family.  I remember when Carol's father saw me the last time in CA at  my uncle Henry's ( his & dad's baby brother.)  Uncle Eddie  started to  cry, tears flowed, "Patty, you look so much like your dad."  I was not very comfortable with him because I did not have pleasant memories from childhood and my mother's tales.  I  recall  thinking, "well who would I look like!"

 But if I look like my Dad and Carol and I share resemblances, and she looks like Grandma Anna Ball, then I must too and my dad must have favored his mother.  I can see looking at  photos  now how that is so.  When I first saw Chrissie in May I marveled at how much she looked  just like her dad, Uncle Eddie.  And I can see in some old photos how Eddie looked more like Granpap Frank  Ball, his father. 

This brings us back to Anna.  It has taken me a little bit of time to  actually get this onto the blog. It remains another of those puzzles about what do we inherit and what do we develop from our environment.  This is a lifelong puzzle to me and something I read about whenever I can.

Not only do Carol and I have a strong resemblance but we share similar interests--many  the same that Anna had sewing and gardening.  I  prefer roses while Carol grows magnificent orchids.  I have been into  dumping coffee grounds,  peelings, and all  else into the garden.  Carol reminded me that Anna did the same thing.  Carol called said Anna was the undiscovered, Alice Waters of her generation.  But the biggest interest Carol and I share is reading.  We email back and forth about what books we are reading.  Les, her hubby is an avid reader too so that must make it interesting at their home.  What to read?.  I mentioned that I tend to keep and collect books to which Les replied, "well they become friends."  I believe he said they have  about 5000 books.  Wow, I have not counted mine and I have downsized and donated, but I would be surprised if I have  that many.  Our shelves are full in the study though .  I could no more have a home without a place for books than I don't know what.

Carol and I both remember Grandma Ball's kitchen and the cookie jar.  How one time on one of my visits there she and I ate all the cookies inthe jar.  I don' think we got into any trouble for that trick.

Below is another  photo of our grandmother Anna.  I don't have a color photo of Anna  but the  facial similarities are certainly there.  What do you think?

And let's not forget Chrissy, Carol's sister, also my cousin.  We met in May.  When I saw her except for her blond hair, she looks just like her dad.  So perhaps Uncle Eddie looked like his father and my dad looked like his mother?   But there is a  resemblance between me & Chrissy also.  Who knows, guess we all just look like ourselves! 

I think Anna Ball's smiling somewhere that her grand daughters got together finally. 

Doggone it!  This blog will not allow me to put these photos adjacent to each other.  Some things have changed on Blogger and I'm not  pleased with those changes!!