|
3:04pm |
Posted a tweet on Twitter.
New blog post: March 8 – Untitled by Halina Poświatowska http://tinyurl.com/bpsvvc
|
|
3:04pm |
Updated status on Facebook.
Deacon Jim New blog post: March 8 – Untitled by Halina Poświatowska http://tinyurl.com/bpsvvc.
|
|
|
3:14pm |
Posted a tweet on Twitter.
New blog post: March 9 – The Cemetery by Bolesław Leśmian http://tinyurl.com/cqjrpt
|
|
|
3:14pm |
Updated status on Facebook.
Deacon Jim New blog post: March 9 – The Cemetery by Bolesław Leśmian http://tinyurl.com/cqjrpt.
|
|
|
3:36pm |
Posted a tweet on Twitter.
New blog post: March 10 – Untitled by Bolesław Leśmian http://tinyurl.com/b4fwpj
|
|
|
3:36pm |
Updated status on Facebook.
Deacon Jim New blog post: March 10 – Untitled by Bolesław Leśmian http://tinyurl.com/b4fwpj.
|
|
|
4:04pm |
Posted a tweet on Twitter.
New blog post: March 11 – A Man by Hieronim Morsztyn http://tinyurl.com/cu8wwo
|
|
|
4:04pm |
Updated status on Facebook.
Deacon Jim New blog post: March 11 – A Man by Hieronim Morsztyn http://tinyurl.com/cu8wwo.
|
|
|
4:31pm |
Posted a tweet on Twitter.
New blog post: March 12 – Martin Luther, the Doctor by Mikołaj Rej http://tinyurl.com/d9czyl
|
|
|
4:31pm |
Updated status on Facebook.
Deacon Jim New blog post: March 12 – Martin Luther, the Doctor by Mikołaj Rej http://tinyurl.com/d9czyl.
|
|
|
4:56pm |
Posted a tweet on Twitter.
New blog post: March 13 – Come, O Bitter Lamentations http://tinyurl.com/c6uba5
|
|
|
4:56pm |
Updated status on Facebook.
Deacon Jim New blog post: March 13 – Come, O Bitter Lamentations http://tinyurl.com/c6uba5.
|
|
5:17pm |
Scrobbled 22 songs on Last.fm. (Show Details)
|
|
|
5:31pm |
Posted a tweet on Twitter.
New blog post: March 14 – On women’s day by Zbigniew Jeżyna http://tinyurl.com/b6jf8f
|
|
|
5:31pm |
Updated status on Facebook.
Deacon Jim New blog post: March 14 – On women’s day by Zbigniew Jeżyna http://tinyurl.com/b6jf8f.
|
|
|
8:35pm |
Posted a tweet on Twitter.
New blog post: In the Pittsburgh area http://tinyurl.com/bwu84l
|
|
|
8:35pm |
Updated status on Facebook.
Deacon Jim New blog post: In the Pittsburgh area http://tinyurl.com/bwu84l.
|
|
|
8:53pm |
Posted a tweet on Twitter.
New blog post: Anti-immigrant feelings run deep, the KKK in the North http://tinyurl.com/bspquz
|
|
|
8:53pm |
Updated status on Facebook.
Deacon Jim New blog post: Anti-immigrant feelings run deep, the KKK in the North http://tinyurl.com/bspquz.
|
|
|
10:23pm |
Posted a tweet on Twitter.
New blog post: Putting myths about Poland to bed http://tinyurl.com/bbu6sk
|
|
|
10:23pm |
Updated status on Facebook.
Deacon Jim New blog post: Putting myths about Poland to bed http://tinyurl.com/bbu6sk.
|
|
|
10:32pm |
Posted a tweet on Twitter.
New blog post: Meet the author — Tom Mooradian http://tinyurl.com/d9h7xs
|
|
|
10:32pm |
Updated status on Facebook.
Deacon Jim New blog post: Meet the author — Tom Mooradian http://tinyurl.com/d9h7xs.
|
|
|
11:01pm |
Posted a tweet on Twitter.
New blog post: Schools of Distinction in Arts Education – nominations due http://tinyurl.com/adx9es
|
|
|
11:01pm |
Updated status on Facebook.
Deacon Jim New blog post: Schools of Distinction in Arts Education – nominations due http://tinyurl.com/adx9es.
|
|
|
1:02am |
Posted a tweet on Twitter.
New blog post: March 15 – Testament by Taras Shevchenko http://tinyurl.com/betarf
|
|
|
1:02am |
Updated status on Facebook.
Deacon Jim New blog post: March 15 – Testament by Taras Shevchenko http://tinyurl.com/betarf.
|
Know a New York School that Goes Above and Beyond in Arts Education? Nominate them for the Schools of Distinction in Arts Education Award!
Deadline: Friday, March 27, 2009.
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Schools of Distinction in Arts Education awards program provides an important outlet for expanding recognition of the role individual schools play in providing a creative learning environment for outstanding student achievement.
This award provides a great opportunity for the New York State Alliance for Arts Education to highlight a New York school that has developed exemplary arts education programs. State winners are submitted for consideration at the national level, where they receive an honorarium, a plaque for display, and the opportunity to perform at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C.
To be considered for the State level of this award, your school’s arts education program should have most of the following characteristics:
- Your school should teach all the arts (music, dance, visual arts, and theatre) as specific disciplines as well as integrated into other subject areas.
- Your program should use creative approaches to learning, provide appropriate learning environments for teaching the arts, and recognize that the arts are critical and essential to education.
- Your program should provide opportunities for parental involvement in the educational lives of their children.
- Your program should provide students various opportunities for learning about other cultures through the arts, enabling them to explore differences in ways that are devoid of cultural bias.
- Your program should provide community connections that build value and respect for the community by offering students diverse experiences beyond the classroom.
To learn more about this award, and to download an application, please go to the NYSAAE projects website.
The St. Peter Armenian Church community extends a cordial invitation to join us for a “Meet the Author” event being held at St. Peter Church on Sunday, March 29, at 12:30 p.m.
All are invited as St. Peter Armenian Church welcomes author Tom Mooradian for a presentation and book signing on Sunday, March 29, immediately following services, in the Gdanian Auditorium of the church located at 100 Troy Schenectady Road, Watervliet. Tom is the author of The Repatriate: Love, Basketball, and the KGB
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call the church office at 518-274-3673.
From Polishsite: Solving The Myth: Polish Cavalry Charge Against German Tanks by Gilbert J. Mros
A Clash at Krojanty
In the early morning hours of September 1, 1939, military forces of Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Later that day, events unfolded that would lead to one of the most fanciful and enduring legends of World War II…
From The Daily News: In the shadow of the Klan
If the truth were known, hundreds of local residents had relatives who were members of the Ku Klux Klan in Western New York during the early 1920s. The Klan, which originated in the South soon after the Civil War, was a white supremacist secret society known for intimidating and sometimes killing blacks, Jews, Catholics and others.
The Klan and local immigrants are the subject of a talk titled “Clash of Cultures” which Oakfield lawyer and Genesee County legislator Ray Cianfrini will present March 22 at the Gaines Congregational Church of Christ.
Cianfrini stumbled upon evidence of the KKK activities in Genesee and Orleans counties while researching local immigration, he said.
“My father came from Italy in 1911 to work at the U.S. Gypsum,” Cianfrini said. “I’ve always been interested in the immigration movement in our area — why they came and why they stayed here.”
In the mid 1980s, Cianfrini started tracking the number of immigrants in Oakfield particularly.
“Statistics gave me an indication of the influx of what they called ‘new’ immigrants to this area,” he said. “All were primarily males and predominantly Italian.”
“Old” immigrants were the English, Irish, German and Scottish, while the Italians and Polish were called “new” immigrants. From 1892 to 1925, the Italian population of Oakfield went from 16 percent of the total population of foreign-born to 58 percent. They all worked either in the gypsum mines or canning factory.
The “old” immigrants represented all the power in the area — they bought all the land, ran all the businesses and controlled all the boards, Cianfrini said.
“Then comes the ‘new’ immigrants, creating what I call the ‘Clash of Cultures,'” he said. “They weren’t welcome or liked.”
In the late 1980s, a client came into Cianfrini’s office with a bunch of pictures he had found in the house of a relative. They included pictures of a large number of Ku Klux Klan members at a funeral of an Oakfield man, the man’s burial in Reed Cemetery, a ceremonial burning of a cross after and a group of Klansmen who walked into a church service at the Oakfield-Alabama Baptist Church.
Cianfrini was immediately intrigued.
“What was the Ku Klux Klan doing in Oakfield, I wanted to know,” Cianfrini said.
He found the group had a revitalization in the North which started in the 1920s and lasted through the early 1930s. By the time the state Legislature banned the group, it wasn’t so much anti-Blacks as it was anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish and anti-immigrant, Cianfrini said.
In 1924, Klansmen announced they would march in Batavia’s Labor Day parade, and in response, the Rochester Journal and Post Express reported if the KKK marched, the newspaper would print the names of all its members in the paper — which it did.
In his research, Cianfrini was able to obtain a list compiled by the Buffalo Police Department naming all the members of the KKK in Erie, Genesee and Orleans counties. Hundreds of names in Genesee and half a dozen in Orleans County are well-known names, even now…
From the Valley Independent: Polish exhibit opens Sunday
MONESSEN – Preparing for a new exhibit at the Monessen Heritage Museum was a trip down memory lane for a group of women who wanted to celebrate their Polish ancestry.
Bittersweet tears flowed as Monessen residents Dorothy Jozwiak, Sophia Janol, Gloria Belczyk and Irene Babinski dug out treasures from their past for the new Polish Heritage Exhibit.
The exhibit will be on display at the museum, 505 Donner Ave., from Sunday to June 1.
The Greater Monessen Historical Society is hosting an open house for the new exhibit from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday.
Museum hours after Sunday will be 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays.
The exhibit coincides with the centennial anniversary of the former St. Hyacinth Polish Church and its women’s Rosary Society.
St. Hyacinth eventually merged with the four other ethnic Roman Catholic churches to form Epiphany of Our Lord parish.
The exhibit also pays homage to the former Sacred Heart of Jesus Polish National Church in the city.
Jozwiak, whose parents emigrated to Monessen from Poland, is the historian for the St. Hyacinth Church and has preserved many church relics that are now on display at the museum.
She believes it’s important to preserve and honor the accomplishments made by Polish people when they came to the city more than 100 years ago.
The largest wave of Polish immigration to America occurred in the early 20th century. More than 1.5 million Polish immigrants were processed at Ellis Island from 1899 to 1931.
“The Poles contributed a lot when they came to America and to Monessen,” Jozwiak said. “We wanted to do something to celebrate the spirit of Polish history.”
The exhibit features many family photographs, Polish flags and banners, and other items from the Polish National Alliance, today known simply as the PNA hall on Knox Avenue.
Jozwiak said there were once several Polish fraternal lodges in the city where families could buy reduced-cost insurance.
The women agreed preparing the exhibit brought back many memories.
They all came from large families – a trait of many Polish parents.
The displays feature a traditional Polish Easter basket filled with a loaf of bread, traditional Polish outfits, hand-made wood carvings, an old-fashioned coffee grinder, Polish dolls, and Wozniak’s mother’s curling iron from 1920.
“This has brought a lot of tears and joy,” Wozniak said, adding her infant baptismal gown and bonnet are on display.
The exhibit also features several photos of unnamed people. They are hoping visitors can help identify them.
As Belczyk went through her family archives, she shed tears as she thought about her brothers, who all served in the Polish Army.
“We only spoke Polish so, when they want [sic] to war and wanted to give their confession, they had to do it in Polish,” she said. “The priest said that would be fine.”
Jozwiak and Belczyk still speak fluent Polish, but use it very rarely these days.
There was a time, though, when the nuns at the St. Hyacinth School taught them in their native language.
“We really learned to speak English by playing in the neighborhoods,” Belczyk said.
Babinski, who is married to Leonard Babinski, recalls the days when her mother-in-law, the late Mary Babinski, served as a mid-wife, delivering more than 3,000 babies in Monessen.
“She even delivered me and both of my children,” Babinski said.
Although Janol is a third-generation Polish American, she has tracked down relatives still living in Poland.
All of the women agree they would love to visit Poland some day but, for now, they are happy to show off their heritage at the museum.
For more information about the Monessen Heritage Museum, call (724) 684-8460.
For you today, flowers and smiles.
and the first blush of Spring so near.
A day without hassles or worries.
Great joy.For their mothers, ladies, girlfriends,
In the house and at school, on an excursion.
All day good deeds —
Your boys paying tribute.
Translation by Dcn. Jim
Dla Was dziś kwiaty i uśmiechy.
I pierwszy promień bliskiej wiosny.
Dzień bez kłopotów i bez trosk.
Dużo radości.Dla mamy, Pani, dla dziewczynek,
W domu i w szkole, na wycieczce.
Każdego dnia dobry uczynek —“
To jest od chłopców upominek.