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    The Polish Community of Gary
    The Polish Community of Gary
    The Polish Community of Gary
    Ebook213 pages45 minutes

    The Polish Community of Gary

    By John C. Trafny and Dr. Lance Trusty

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    The Polish Community of Gary is a vibrantly illustrated tale of the history of the Midwest's Steel City and its Polish-Catholic residents. It reveals the journey of hopeful and hard-working Polish immigrants who arrived in the early 1900s, established an ethnic community, and adapted to the American way of life. This fascinating photographic compilation of almost 200 images features various past and present residents of Gary. It examines the city's diverse ethnic groups and religious denominations, offering a glimpse of a life very different from that of today. Along with detailed captions, The Polish Community of Gary offers the rare chance to experience the history of Polish Gary, bringing its exciting past alive again. Author John Trafny traces the story of past trials, tribulations, and triumphs with skill, compassion, and an insider's eye.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateSep 18, 2012
    ISBN9781439628072
    The Polish Community of Gary
    Author

    John C. Trafny

    John C. Trafny was born in Gary, Indiana, and graduated from Emerson High School in 1968. A former steelworker, Trafny has taught social studies and the history of the Calumet region at Bishop Noll Institute in Hammond, Indiana. He is also a guest lecturer at Purdue University-Calumet. His previous works for Arcadia include The Polish Community of Gary and Gary's East Side.

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      The Polish Community of Gary - John C. Trafny

      herein.

      INTRODUCTION

      It is a pleasure indeed to introduce John Trafny’s excellent history of St. Hedwig Parish of Gary, Indiana. John is well-qualified for this task: native and lifelong resident of Gary, and member of St. Hedwig. Since 1984 he has taught history at Bishop Noll Institute in Hammond, Indiana. Much of the work on this project was done as he earned a Master of Arts degree in history at Purdue University Calumet, which was awarded in 1999. Currently a guest lecturer at Purdue, he teaches an introductory course in American history.

      The Polish Community of Gary provides illuminating insights into the history of the European immigrant in an industrial community, and the powerful forces of Americanization. It reveals how thousands of hopeful and hard-working Polish immigrants arrived in the earliest years of the 20th century, established an ethnic community, and adapted to the American environment. It also embraces a rather different stream of people, the Displaced Persons who, in the late 1940s, crossed the Atlantic Ocean to escape the wreckage of World War II and the Soviet occupation of Poland.

      John traces the story of their trials, tribulations, and triumphs with skill and compassion, using their Polish Roman Catholic parish, rather than the lenses of industry or urbanism to define their experiences. Who cannot look at his photographs of those earnest young boys and girls posing at Confirmation or graduation ceremonies, at the priests, sisters, and church-builders, and at the serious-faced brides and grooms without marveling at the resilience of mankind?

      St. Hedwig’s story is also the story of Gary, Indiana, the City of the Century, the Steel City, the Magic City. The parish was founded at the same instant that the giant U.S. Steel Corporation launched its brilliantly successful Gary Works. Fifteen years later St. Hedwig’s was a thriving parish, and the Gary Works—now the largest integrated steel mill in the world—was the primary employer of the hundred peoples living in America’s largest company town. Gary’s Polish-American greenhorns began at the bottom of the job and skill ladder, and worked their way into foremanships, then managerial posts, and, with the G.I. Bill and postwar prosperity, into the mainstream of American society.

      Anyone with an interest in ethnic, industrial, urban, and church history, and, indeed, in people, will find John Trafny’s splendidly illustrated memoir of St. Hedwig Parish of Gary, Indiana, a fine read.

      Lance Trusty

      Professor of History

      Purdue University Calumet

      One

      1908–1918

      CO KRAJ TO OBYCZAJ

      (EVERY LAND HAS ITS CUSTOMS)

      Gary was divided by the Wabash Railroad Tracks. On the north side, next to the mill, was a land of neat, carefully planned neighborhoods, skilled workers, managers, and professionals. The Gary Land Company carefully screened potential homebuyers, and favored Old Stock Americans—the Irish, Scots, Germans, and Jews. The south side was the future home of Gary’s Polish-Americans. An unplanned land of cheap boarding houses and tarpaper shacks, the south side housed the city’s constant inflow of immigrants and unskilled laborers. Until the mid-1920s, U.S.S production line employees worked 7 days a week in 12-hour turns. They also endured a double-turn every two weeks—a 24-hour stint that arrived automatically with shift changes. In 1910, the company paid its unskilled laborers 17¢ an hour.

      The Patch, later known as the Central District, was the most notorious section of the city. In 1909, about half of the city’s saloons were located there in what seemed a slice of the old Wild West. Immigrant bachelors and families lived in its primitive dwellings. Everyone worked. Some drank, fought, died, gambled, or spent money on prostitutes. Most saved their money for a better life, to return to their homeland, or to live in some comfort. For several years after their arrival in the United States, most of the men lived in all-male boardinghouses. By the 9th year, however, frugality and steady work allowed immigrants to bring brides or their families form the old country.

      The south side was much more than a slum. It was, like nearby Indiana harbor, a port of entry. With the passage of time, Polish immigrants, like others, acquired skills and moved up the job ladder. They built homes on lots purchased from the Gary Land Company or local realtors. As time passed, more and more Polish-American families found places in a community of tree-lined streets and nice lawns. For even the less-skilled immigrants the American dream worked: eventually most could manage a cottage, perhaps better food and clothing, and even a few personal luxuries

      In traditional Polish families, the father was presumed to be dominant. The mother was expected to remain quiet and subservient. Yet family life was exceptionally stable. Single or divorced women had few options. Polish women had limited knowledge of the English language, few job skills, and a social and religious heritage that determined their daily lives far more than wayward husbands.

      Polish-American homes in Gary were usually much larger than the tenements of the Patch or Hunkeyvilles elsewhere. They had to be: immigrant families were often large, despite the high rate of infant mortality. Boarders helped make ends meet, but the birth of another child often meant the boarder had to move on. Many lived in extended families. Sometimes the parents of one spouse, sometimes a brother, a recent immigrant friend, were part of the household. The income was essential for many, but the demands of a growing family, a variety of relatives, and a collection of boarders drained immigrant women.

      In the earliest days, Gary Polish families worshiped in either East Chicago, Hammond, or Whiting. Traveling between Gary and those nearby cities was not easy. The availability of lots for churches through the Gary Land Company sparked the drive by Polish immigrants to build their own church in a nationality parish with a Polish-speaking priest.

      The language barrier in non-Polish churches was a crucial factor. Receiving the sacraments was difficult for non-English speaking Poles. Poles could attend mass in other cities on Sunday, but felt like visitors in a foreign church. What good was confession to a priest who did not understand a word of what was being said?

      At the 1907 meeting, Gary Poles formed the St. Hedwig Administrative Committee to raise funds and plan for a church and a school. Its members were Peter Pisarski, Valentine Fabjanski, Valentine Nowak, John Wasilewski, and Frank Zawadski. On the day after the meeting, Gary Polish families and nearby small businesses donated $150 to the project. Every family in the general area contributed what it could.

      The entire Polish-American community helped raise funds with picnics and social events, and soon collected $900. But the required sum, $15,000, seemed unattainable, so the committee wisely modified its original plan in favor of a more modest frame church, to be constructed on seven lots donated by the Gary Land Company.

      With construction completed, on July 4, 1908,

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