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Jan. 31st, 2010 10:26 am
Wycieczka do Trójcowa
Possibly the most surprising thing at the Polish Museum of America Library was finding that even after neglecting it for half I year, I still speak more Polish than the weekend attendant. She mentioned that she was just learning the language, so once we had wrestled with the microfilm long enough to score an article worth printing, I offered her the challenge of deciphering the headline. She recognised one word of it.
More troublesome for me than any Slavic language was the visual language of early-20th-century Polish community newspapers. It took basically the first hour just to determine where we needed to be looking (turns out the crime news is all under notatki reporterskie "reporter's notes"), after which we had to go back scan all the earlier issues over again. Before then, I wasted much of my time in the "local news" section, which eventually revealed itself to be ordinary community events: dances, confirmations, church bazaars, etc.
Complicating things even more, this section was arranged chiefly by parish. Fortunately, my previous reading about the Polish community of Chicago had led me to anticipate this, so when I saw "Z Annowa", I knew immediately that this indicated news from the parish of St Ann(e). But which St Ann(e)'s, and was it was in any way connected with our persons of interest? (As it turns out, no: St Ann's is on the South Side, and still has one Sunday mass in Polish despite being located just off La Dieciocho.) Before yesterday I had heard of Jackowo (St Hyacinth's), Trójcowo (Holy Trinity), and Stanisławowo (St Stan's) and it was easy enough to identify Josafatowo with St Josaphat's, Wacławowo with St Wenceslaus and Kantowo with St John Cantius. But Marjanowo had me bamboozled until I caught a reference to "anieli" and realised it must be St Mary of the Angels. Even more confusing were repeated references to the "Town of Lake". None of us recognised this as the name for what would later become Milwaukee's South Side.
Speaking of these and other monuments to the piety of Chicago's Polonia, I had the good fortune to spend a few moments admiring the interior of Holy Trinity. (Normally I'm too self-conscious to go into Catholic churches looking like a bum, but luckily I was turned out for a dinner engagement later in the day.) I would've loved to have done the same at St John Cantius, but I found the doors locked. Maybe next time I'll be able to take a gander at St Hyacinth's, which from the photos looks more spectacular even than St Mary's.
More troublesome for me than any Slavic language was the visual language of early-20th-century Polish community newspapers. It took basically the first hour just to determine where we needed to be looking (turns out the crime news is all under notatki reporterskie "reporter's notes"), after which we had to go back scan all the earlier issues over again. Before then, I wasted much of my time in the "local news" section, which eventually revealed itself to be ordinary community events: dances, confirmations, church bazaars, etc.
Complicating things even more, this section was arranged chiefly by parish. Fortunately, my previous reading about the Polish community of Chicago had led me to anticipate this, so when I saw "Z Annowa", I knew immediately that this indicated news from the parish of St Ann(e). But which St Ann(e)'s, and was it was in any way connected with our persons of interest? (As it turns out, no: St Ann's is on the South Side, and still has one Sunday mass in Polish despite being located just off La Dieciocho.) Before yesterday I had heard of Jackowo (St Hyacinth's), Trójcowo (Holy Trinity), and Stanisławowo (St Stan's) and it was easy enough to identify Josafatowo with St Josaphat's, Wacławowo with St Wenceslaus and Kantowo with St John Cantius. But Marjanowo had me bamboozled until I caught a reference to "anieli" and realised it must be St Mary of the Angels. Even more confusing were repeated references to the "Town of Lake". None of us recognised this as the name for what would later become Milwaukee's South Side.
Speaking of these and other monuments to the piety of Chicago's Polonia, I had the good fortune to spend a few moments admiring the interior of Holy Trinity. (Normally I'm too self-conscious to go into Catholic churches looking like a bum, but luckily I was turned out for a dinner engagement later in the day.) I would've loved to have done the same at St John Cantius, but I found the doors locked. Maybe next time I'll be able to take a gander at St Hyacinth's, which from the photos looks more spectacular even than St Mary's.
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