Kathryn Orinick Zedar 1908-1987

Matthew and Anna second child was my Aunt Kate.  This is bound to be a short post, because I don't know very much about her.  She married John Zedar sometime after 1930 and had two children, a boy and a girl.  They were around the same age as my brothers and sister, but since I am 10 years younger I did not spend much time with them.  John Zedar was my godfather, but I have no real memories of him.  I believe he was diabetic and lost his legs.  I remember visiting their house and he would be on a couch on the front porch.  Aunt Kate was in a wheelchair when I knew her, but I have pictures of her standing earlier than that.  She suffered from Muscular Dystrophy, a disease that is normally not hereditary, but which is hereditary in my family.  You will see this condition mentioned for several family members as I continue this blog.

I remember Kate's son bringing her to the family farm to visit sometimes when we were there on the weekends.  John didn't come.  Sometimes a woman named Goldie came with them.  I believe she was John's sister.  Goldie had Downs Syndrome.  She seemed lonely, not fitting in with the adult conversation or with us kids.  I remember taking to her a few times, but don't know what happened to her.

Kate and John lived in Forest City, PA until John died in 1986.  Kate then spent her last year in Florida with her daughter and died there.  Kate is buried at St Tikhons in South Canaan, PA, but John is buried in Union Dale, PA.
Can anyone tell me any more about Kate & John?

Mary Orinick 1907-1998

Aunt Mary was the oldest of Matthew and Anna's children.  Born on or around April 10, 1907, she lived to 91 years old and spent at least 70 of those years living on the family farm.   Mary had a hard life, but she also had one of the strongest spirits I have known.  When she was about 12 years old, Mary fell on the ice and broke her back.  There wasn't much doctors could do for her back then, so her back was never reset.  As a result, she became more and more stooped over as the years went by.  By the time I knew her she was already bent over in a permanent sitting position. 

That disability never stopped her.  When Matthew died, his will stipulated that any of his daughters who remained unmarried would always have a home on the farm.   Although other family members came and went, Mary was the constant, center of the family.   The farm was her home and she stayed.

She was 28 when her father died and 32 when her mother died.  Her mother was not well for many years before her death so Mary began keeping house and raising her younger siblings at an early age.  She was about 15 when her mother lost a set of twins.  Although 3 more children were born after that, Anna wasn't well enough to care for them, so it fell to Mary to raise them.   When her brother Bill and his wife worked the farm, they had 2 daughters.  Mary took care of them while their parents worked.   When Bill turned the farm over to Ted, Ted & his wife had 2 sons and Mary continued to perform the same functions, caring for the babies and keeping house.

I always thought of Mary as the family matriarch.  Despite her physical condition, she was a strong woman.  She planted a vegetable garden every year, chopped wood for the stove, cooked, cleaned and raised 7 children.   My family visited the farm just about every weekend when I was growing up and  I remember her as having strong opinions and working very hard.   She hated having her picture taken.  I remember her angry at times, but I also remember her laugh.   During the last few years of her life she lived pretty much alone.  Various people would check on her, but mostly she sat on the side of her bed all day, with everything she needed within reach. She was independent and strong to the end.

Mary kept a sort of diary over the years.   Written on the margins of old phone books and newspapers, she recorded her thoughts each day.   I have a bag of these crumpled notes and have tried a few times over the years to transcribe them, but it is not easy.  I hope to be able to do it someday.

Matthew and Anna

The land for St Tikhons was formerly a farm owned by E. Wagner. It was purchased for $2580 on June 26, 1905 and dedicated on July 31, 1905.  The original intent was for a place that would serve as a "mother house for the monastics serving as clergy in the Orthodox North American mission" and as an orphanage for orphaned children of Russians in the US. At first the existing frame house was used as a residence for the orphans, with a hallway serving as a makeshift chapel. The cornerstone for the monastery was laid on December 21 and the consecration and formal opening ceremonies were held on May 30, 1906.

I am explaining all this to put my grandparents' history in context.  Daisy's parents, my grandparents, arrived in the U.S. sometime between 1904-1905.  They were married at St. Michael the Archangel, Passaic, NJ on May 19, 1906 and moved to Simpson, PA sometime within the next 2 years. His name was either Matthew or Michael Orinick.  All land and census records list him as Michael, but his headstone reads Matthew and the ship record that I found that is the closest to listing a person like him is for a Matwei Orens, arriving Mar 23, 1905 on the ship The Statendam from Rotterdam to New York. The manifest lists him as a 21 yr old man from Russia/Lithuanian, last home Gersky destination Mt. Carmel, PA. to join a brother. I will refer to him as Matthew, since that is the name his children knew him as.  There were several other Orinicks in Pennsylvania before he arived, so I don't know which was the brother he was meeting.  The term brother may have been used loosely since the other Orinicks in the area seem older and were more likely uncles or cousins.  Matthew was one of at least 7 children.  I do know that one brother - Wasyl, and two sisters - Mary and  Anna arrived in the U.S. around the same time.

His future wife, Anna Selestak, may have arrived a year earlier.  I found a record for Anna Szelesztak arriving in New York on Oct 14, 1904 on the Ultonia from Fiume.  She was listed as age 16 and Polish.  This makes some sense because relatives who later ontacted us were living in Legnava, Slovakia.  This region has alternately been a part of Poland, Russia, Czechoslovakia, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. On some census records, her country of origin is listed as Galicia, which is a 15th century designation for the same area.  I believe Anna was the oldest of 8 children.  I also have documentation of a brother - Hnat and 2 sisters - Eva and Julia, living in the U.S. in the early 1900s

After working in the coal mines near Scranton for 20 years, Matthew contracted Black Lung disease. To get away from the mines, he bought a farm a few miles outside of Waymart and moved the family there.  This farm is only a few miles from St Tikhons.  This church was fairly new at the time, and attracted other Russian families to the area. Matthew and Anna are now buried in the cemetery there, as are 4 of my mother's sisters.

Life was hard for Matthew & Anna.  I don't think Anna ever learned to speak English.  While Matthew worked the mines they lived in the town of Simpson, near relatives and with other Russian speaking families.  As the years went by, brothers and sisters moved away.  Once Matthew moved the family to the farm, Anna must have felt very isolated.  It wasn't easy to travel in those days, so I imagine Anna sticking close to home mostly.  Her main contact with other people was probably at church.  Between 1907 and  1928 she gave birth to 13 children, including a set of twin who died as infants.

This is an aerial photo of the farm, probably taken in the 1940's.

Matthew died in 1935 when their youngest child was 7.  Their oldest sons, Mike and Bill, were 20 and 17 at the time.  Anna died a few years later in 1939.  Mike took over the farm originally, but that wasn't the life he wanted, so he eventually turned it over to Bill.  Bill and his wife Hedy ran the farm for a number of years, but when they divorced, the third brother, Ted took over.   The farm remains in the family to this date, although some of it has been divided and sold.  That's another story.

Two Easters

Today is Easter Sunday in both the Gregorian calendar that is commonly used as the international standard and the Julian calendar used by Christian Orthodox churches.  In our family, we used to celebrate both Easters.  Dad was raised Protestant and Mom was raised Russian Orthodox. All of us children were baptized in the Russian Orthodox Church in South Canaan, PA - Saint Tikhons (http://www.sttikhonsmonastery.org/).    I started to write more about St Tikhons, but that will lead me into my grandparents story so I will save that for another post.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, growing up we attended Reed Memorial United Presbyterian Church in Lyndhurst. However, on Orthodox Easter, we were usually in Pennsylvania on my uncle's farm (which was also the farm my mother grew up on).  For that weekend we followed the Russian Orthodox customs.  Saturday was supposed to be a day of fasting, although they were not strict with that for children.   We would fill a basket with all the food we would eat on Easter Sunday because there would be no work on that day.   Aunt Mary would make a ham, kielbasa, and a special Easter bread (paska).  There would be dyed eggs, butter, salt, and horseradish in the basket too, as well as some Easter candy.   I don't know what else.  All the Russian families brought these baskets of food to the church hall that night to be blessed. 

Church services began about 11PM Saturday night and went until sunrise.  We would get a few hours sleep before one of the adults would wake us to get dressed for church.  We didn't always go right at the beginning of the service, but always stayed for the end.  At the beginning there was a candle lit procession around the church.  The service was conducted in Russian and there was lots of incense.  As in most early European churches, there were only a few chairs around the sides for the elderly or infirm.  Most people had to stand and kneel during the service.   I remember always standing in the back by the doors so I could go out for air occasionally.  








At  the end of the mass, everyone would go to the community center building across from the church where all the baskets would be set out on long tables.  The lights would be out and each family would light a candle in their basket.   The Bishop would come in and bless all the food, chanting in Russian.  One year I got a Russian cross necklace.  I don't remember where I got it but I hung it from our family's basket.  The Bishop noticed and sent some extra holy water towards the cross. I still have that blessed cross.

We spent the other, common Easter much the same as most families.  We attended the Presbyterian church services in our new Easter clothes and came home to Easter baskets filled with colored eggs and candy.   Somehow, as a child, the Russian Easter always felt closer to God and the common Easter closer to the Easter bunny.  I'm sure that the Presbyterian minister must have preached about the meaning of Easter, but much of that is lost on a child.  The difference between Easter and every other Sunday was only in the new clothes, hat, and Easter basket waiting at home.  The Orthodox church and the Catholic church I now attend have much more special ceremony around Easter to emphasize the significance of the day.  I think the symbolism in the church service is important to our understanding of the true meaning of Easter and I am glad to have had the opportunity to experience Russian Orthodox Easter.  

As an adult, I brought my mother to the Easter midnight mass one year when she & Dad lived in Prompton.  She was very happy to be able to go and to have someone to go with.  I think it may have been the last time she went to the Russian Easter mass.

Sandy Pond Continued

Our family vacationed at Sandy Pond for so many years, it has lots of memories for me, so it needs at least one more blog entry.  The photo to the right is from about 1957-58.  Janet mentioned the fact that swimming in the pond on the side the cabins were on was not great.  There were lots of weeds, which were great for fish to hide in but not much fun to swim in.  As a kid, I swam in it anyway, even bathed in it when I got fed up with sponge-baths using water heated on the stove, because the cabins didn't have hot water.   But back to the point, across the pond was a lovely little sand bar, a few hundred feet across, which separated the pond from Lake Ontario. The sand extended out far enough on either side of the sand bar to make swimming pleasant, except for one small detail.  There were abrupt drop-offs.  You could be wading along in 2-3 ft water and all of a sudden step off into 6 ft deep.  One of my earliest memories was of swimming on the pond side with my brother Kenny, sister Janet, and others.  I use the term swimming loosely, because I was only 3 or 4 and didn't actually learn to swim until years later.   We were all playing in the water and I waded a step to far and went off the edge.  Kenny was there in a flash to pluck me out and save me.  It's good to have an older brother looking out for you. 

The water on the pond side of the sand bar was calm, but the lake side had waves and was also more secluded.  When I got a little older I used to save my allowance each year so I could rent my own row boat and motor, so I could go swimming on the sand bar whenever I wanted.  I had a friend who lived there all year round, Cathy Carr, and she and I liked to swim on the lake side.  Over the years we made friends with other vacationers, but Cathy was a constant for me.  We were even pen pals during the year.

Janet mentioned that she and Kenny were friends with the children of the hotel owner.  I believe their names were Bill and Janet Howard.  Gail Bezewski would also have been with them, since she was their age.  When I was little I would play with Bobby & Lee Bezewski, but they were "boys" and once I met Cathy I didn't spend much time with them.

Mom & Dad had other friends there too - Scotty & Eddie.  Scotty was a bachelor who lived in Pulaski with his dog.  I believe she was a Scottish Terrier, but I can't remember her name.  Eddie was a widow who lived next door to Scotty.  I don't know what there relationship was beyond that, but they were nice people and Mom & Dad enjoyed their company.  Eddie had a son named Billy, but I don't think he lived with her.
In the photo on the left and going clockwise around the table, Eddie (in pink), Scottie, Daisy, Clay, Leo, Lois, Alice, and Bobby.

Although my brother Ronnie was married when I was about 5, he played an indirect part in later trips to Sandy Pond.   Ronnie built a boat in our backyard in Lyndhurst.  It was a great boat, probably about 18 ft; great for fishing but a little too heavy to pull water skiers.  Some years Ron & Lorraine would come to Sandy Pond too, but once the boat was finished he loaned it to Dad for the annual vacation.  Dad let me drive it a few times out on the pond, with him in it of course.   It was great to have this boat instead of the motorized row boats.  This is the only photo I could find of the boat, with Cathy & me on the bow.

I looked for Sandy Pond on Google maps and found the town still there.  The pond is labeled North Pond.  I don't remember it ever being called that, but maybe that was it's name and Sandy Pond was just the town name.   It looks like the channel between the pond and Lake Ontario is very shallow - you can see the sand feeding into the pond.  The area where we used to swim is labeled "Sandy Pond Beach Unique Area."