Steve's Genealogy Blog » Jane Niedzialkowski

For My Mother – Part 5: The Burial

Steve — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 07:01:19 +0000

My mother, Jane A. Niedzialkowski Danko, was buried on 19 April 1980 in St. Francis Shrine – A, Row D, Grave 8 at Our Lady of Angels Cemetery in Albany, New York.

Jane A. Danko Interment at Our Lady of Angels Cemetery

SOURCE: Jane A. Danko Interment at Our Lady of Angels Cemetery. Photographer Unknown. Photographed 19 April 1980.

Grave of Jane A. Danko, Our Lady of Angels Cemetery

SOURCE: Grave of Jane A. Danko. Photographed by Stephen J. Danko. Date of photograph unknown.

The stone reads:

DANKO

SORROW IS NOT FOREVER.
LOVE IS.

FRANCIS J. JANE A.
1924- 1922-1980

For My Mother – Part 4: The Final Years

Steve — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 07:01:47 +0000

As my sisters and I grew older and more independent, my mother began to consider working outside the home. She attended classes to become a keypunch operator and was the first person in our family to work with computers. This was the 1970s and few people at that time had ever seen a computer, much less worked with them. As technology developed, my mother progressed to keytape and keydisk and excelled in her chosen profession.

Jane (Niedzialkowski) Danko at Work

SOURCE: Jane (Niedzialkowski) Danko at Work. Photographer unknown. Photographed 22 May 1972 at Albany County Social Services KeyPunch Department, Albany, New York.

On 14 March 1978, my mother’s father died. I was living in Oregon at the time, attending graduate school. I did not learn of my grandfather’s death until after his funeral.

In the Spring of 1980, in recognition of her excellent work and her ability to lead others, my mother was offered the position of supervisor of her department. At about this same time, my mother began feeling unwell. She had no particular symptoms, just a sense that something wasn’t quite right. At this time, I was still in Oregon and my younger sister had moved to Florida. Only my mother, my father, and my older sister still lived in the house at 43 South Allen Street.

On Easter Sunday, 06 April 1980, my father, mother, and older sister drove to Worcester to spend Easter with my mother’s mother, who was then 83 years old.

Barely a week later, on Tuesday 15 April 1980, my mother called in sick to work. Her general feeling of being unwell had progressed to the point of a real illness. My father called our family doctor (who still made house calls) and he prescribed antibiotics. A few hours later, purple blotches began to form on my mother’s skin as her capillaries began to burst. My father called an ambulance. As the EMTs were transporting her to the ambulance, my mother went into cardiac arrest. The EMTs were able to restart my mother’s heart and rushed her to St. Peter’s Hospital.

My sister called me in Oregon and told me to get home as soon as I could. I had no money for airfare, but the Chairman of my department at Oregon State University quickly arranged for an emergency loan from the Oregon State University Foundation, and so I made preparations to fly to Albany.

The doctors at the hospital diagnosed my mother with sepsis and attempted an experimental technique to reduce the level of toxins that had built up in her blood. Their efforts failed. My mother died at 10:50 PM on 16 April 1980. I arrived in Albany the next day.

The wake was held at Magin & Keegan Funeral home, across the street from the Church of St. Vincent de Paul where the funeral was to be held the next day. Because of the circumstances of my mother’s death and the fact that her skin was covered with purple blotches from where her capillaries had burst, the wake and funeral were closed casket affairs. When asked why the casket was closed, we simply told the mourners that my mother wanted it that way.

During the wake, a fire broke out in St. Vincent de Paul Church. We watched as the fire department arrived to save the church. Nonetheless, due to the extensive damage, the funeral could not be held there. Instead, the service was moved to the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes, the chapel in the Vincentian Institute High School (VIHS) from which my sisters and I had all graduated. Father John Mealey, the former principal of VIHS who had known my family during the time my sisters and I attended high school, celebrated the funeral mass.

We buried my mother with her diamond engagement ring, her wedding album, and a cat toy.

On 23 November 1980, seven months after my mother died, her own mother died of a broken heart.

For My Mother – Part 3: Fighting an Illness and Adopting a Cat

Steve — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 19:30:58 +0000

My father was offered a position as Training Station Manger for Mobil Oil Corporation and he began to work long hours. As part of his responsibilities he had to train employees, pump gas, repair cars, and keep the books. My mother finally convinced him to let her keep the books (for no pay), something she could do at home while my sisters and I were at school. Eventually, Mobil Oil Corporation offered her a salary for the work she had already been doing for years.

Steve Danko’s High School Graduation

Steve Danko and Jane (Niedzialkowski) Danko in the Living Room on South Allen Street, Albany, New York – June 1973

SOURCE: Steve Danko’s High School Graduation. Photographed by Francis J. Danko, June 1973.

As a bookkeeper, my mother excelled. She had an extraordinary sense of detail and precision, a sense that extended to her housekeeping. Growing up, I remember that the house was always clean and neat (with the possible exception of my bedroom, but that’s not my mother’s fault) and the yard was always manicured.

When I was in third grade, I awoke one morning to find that I was late for school. I rushed to tell my mother that I was late, and found that she wasn’t in the house. My Aunt Helen was there instead, and she told me that my mother had been rushed to the hospital during the night.

I learned that my mother had developed a bleeding ulcer and required a spleenectomy, duodectomy, and surgery to control the bleeding. After surgery, her stitches repeatedly broke and her doctors finally had to stitch her together with wire. My mother nearly lost her life, but she told my father that she couldn’t die and leave their children without a mother. My mother finally returned home in the spring of 1964, after spending three months in the hospital.

My parents would not allow us to have a pet other than goldfish and turtles. My mother said that she didn’t want to be the one to have to take care of a cat or dog (although, to be honest, she ended up being the one who took care of the goldfish and turtles, anyway). On one clear and sunny day, as my mother was hanging the laundry to dry on the clothesline that extended from the back porch and over the yard, a scrawny black cat jumped up on the porch railing and scared my mother half to death. The cat seemed friendly enough and my mother took pity on it for being so skinny and hungry, and so she fed it some tuna.

The cat decided to stay. We named him Smokey, for the reason that he seemed to respond to that name. My parents, though, were still insistent that our family would not have a cat. Without telling my sisters or me, they bundled the cat into the car, drove many miles away from our house and let the cat out of the car in Delmar, just outside of Albany. When my sisters and I arrived home from school and asked where the cat was, our parents told us that the cat had probably just decided to leave.

A few days later, while my mother was hanging the laundry, Smokey jumped up on the porch railing, begging for his dinner. With that, it was clear that Smokey had adopted my mother and was determined to work his way into her heart. He was to be the first in a long line of strays my mother took in, nursed back to health, and bought cat toys for them to play with.

My mother’s favorite cat game was to open the bottom drawer of her desk and say “Show me!” to the cat, whereupon the cat would come over to the drawer and begin pawing at a roll of adding machine tape she kept there. My mother would crumple a strip of adding machine tape in a ball and toss it across the room. The cat would chase the paper ball, grab it in its teeth, and bring it back to her.

For My Mother – Part 2: Marriage and Raising Children

Steve — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 09:30:14 +0000

When the United States entered World War II, all three of my maternal uncles joined the war effort: my mother’s older brother Ray entered the US Coast Guard, her younger brother Fred entered the US Naval Armed Guard, and her youngest brother Henry entered the US Army. All three survived the war.

My grandfather obtained a position as a mechanic with Worcester Pressed Steel and my grandmother obtained employment cleaning rooms at the Bancroft Hotel. On 24 July 1943, with the incomes from their new positions, they were able to buy a house on Barnes Avenue in Worcester, the house in which they would spend the rest of their lives.

Frank Danko and Jane Niedzialkowski – 15 Feb 1947

SOURCE: Frank Danko and Jane Niedzialkowski. Photographer unknown. Photographed 15 Feb 1947.

On 22 May 1947 (just a few months after the above photograph was taken) my mother married Frank Danko, himself a World War II veteran who served in the US Naval Armed Guard. My mother wore a white silk gown and carried a bouquet of calla lilies. All her life she treasured her engagement ring, a tiny diamond made to appear larger in an illusion setting.

A few years later, my parents moved to Albany, New York with the promises of better jobs and a better life.

Several of my father’s brothers and sisters had previously moved to Albany, and so my parents were not completely alone there. My father began to work for his brother John who owned a Mobil Service Station in Albany, and my mother obtained employment with The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (A&P) where she worked as a shopper. She would visit local A&P Grocery Stores, buy a specified list of items, and verify that the correct prices were charged at the register.

My parents lived in apartments on New Scotland Avenue and on Russell Road. Eventually they moved to 783 Park Avenue, a two family home owned by my father’s brother John. My older sister was born when our family lived on Russell Road, and my younger sister and I were born when the family lived on Park Avenue.

By the time I was born, my mother no longer worked outside the house. Money was tight, although it never seemed that we were lacking for any necessities of life.

My older sister came down with the measles on 29 May 1959. I, too, caught the measles on 10 June 1959, and finally my younger sister developed symptoms on 12 June 1959. I remember clearly the day my mother diagnosed me. It was a warm June day and I watched as my cousins and the neighborhood children splashed around in a wading pool in our backyard. My cousin Mary saw me through the window in my bedroom and called to me to come outside. I told Mary that my mother wouldn’t let me go outside because I had the measles. I’m not sure cousin Mary believed me.

On 09 May 1961, my sisters and I were admitted to the hospital to have our tonsils and adenoids removed. I imagine this was the first time since our births that my parents ever spent a night without us. A few months later, my parents bought a flat at 43 South Allen Street, a few blocks from the house in which we had lived on Park Avenue.

On 07 November 1961, just months after we moved into the new house, my younger sister contracted the mumps. Neither my older sister nor I developed symptoms despite our close contact with our younger sibling. A month later, on 12 December 1961, I came down with Chicken Pox. My two sisters followed suit two weeks later, on Christmas Day. The fact that my mother kept impeccable records of our health history is the only reason I know the dates on which my sisters and I developed the measles, mumps, and chicken pox.

For My Mother – Part 1: The Immigrants' Daughter

Steve — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 06:30:20 +0000

Today is my mother’s birthday. She was born on 06 October 1922 at home at 194 Prescott Street in Worcester, Massachusetts. She died on 16 April 1980 in St. Peter’s Hospital, Albany, New York at age 57. She would have been 85 years old today.

Jane Niedzialkowski at Sky Farm

Back row on the far left: Henry Niedzialkowski; Back row on the far right: Jane Niedzialkowski (my mother) and Fred Niedzialkowski; Front row on the far left: Ray Niedzialkowski; Front row on the far right: Helen Chmielewski Niedzialkowski. SOURCE: Jane Niedzialkowski at Sky Farm. Photographer and date unknown.

My mother was born Jennie Niedzialkowski, the third of five children born to Polish immigrant parents Kostanty Niedzialkowski and Helen Chmielewski. She grew up on the corner of Prescott Street and North Street in Worcester, Massachusetts in a house parents had purchased in 1920 or 1921. In 1930, the house was worth $8000. The railroad tracks ran behind the house to the east and she could hear the trains as they passed. Across the street to the west lay the Worcester Rural Cemetery.

Close by to the northeast was the North Works of American Steel and Wire, one of the largest employers in Worcester at the time. Many of the workers filed past the house on Prescott Street when they left work for the day. To the southeast lay Institute Park and Salisbury Pond.

The first floor of the house was occupied by a grocery store operated by my mother’s parents. The family lived in a flat upstairs from the store and, when the store was busy, my grandfather would bang on the pipes to let my grandmother know that she was needed in the store. In 1930, a widow with two daughters lived in the uppermost flat and paid $19 per month in rent.

The neighborhood was populated by working-class families, many of them immigrants. Around the corner on Byron Street lived a French-Canadian family and an Irish family. On Prescott Street and the several side streets off Prescott (Brown Court, Moran Court, Redding Court, and others) lived Polish, Lithuanian, Irish, Finnish, and Swedish families. About half of the families in the neighborhood were formed from immigrant parents.

As a young girl, my mother spent time on Sky Farm Dairy, so named because it was located on top of a hill on Tuttle Road in Sterling, Massachusetts. The views from the farm were breathtaking, with views of Mount Wachusett, and on a clear day, views of the mountains in New Hampshire and Vermont. The farm was owned by my mother’s great uncle, Frank Niedzialkoski. My mother and her siblings sometimes spent their summers on the farm.

With the advent of the Great Depression in 1929, my mother’s family faced an unexpected crisis in the grocery store. Neighbors were out of work and couldn’t afford to pay for their groceries. My grandparents continued to sell groceries on credit, but many families couldn’t afford to pay their debts. Eventually, faced with growing debt themselves, the family was forced to close the grocery.

As a teenager, my mother changed her name to Jayne Nigel. She disliked the name Jennie, although her parents called her Jen all her life. She found a job and worked to help support her family during the hard times of the depression, using her earnings to buy food and soap.