the year. But she never did “men’s” work, her son Walter defends. “She was short and kind of heavy. She was a tough old gal, I’ll tell you that. But she never worked on a farm. She never worked the barn. Never! She was a hard worker, but she never worked out in the field. Maybe like when they had to pick pickles or something like that, but outside that, to go out and pull corn or work horses, no, never. And same way with doing chores in the barn. I can never remember her ever going into the barn.” Women’s work, though strenuous and significant, was separate from the routines of men.
Frances was small, but there was nothing weak about the grandmother of the Grasinski Girls.18 Her strength was located in a set of traditional gender routines that included tending to flowers and family. Her namesake and granddaughter Frances remembers “her peony gardens all the way from the front of the house down to the road and, you know, as heavy as she was she did all the work and everything herself. Always walking up the hill, pushing the wheelbarrows, and planting her flowers, all her rose bushes and, well, that was what she was kind of known for. Besides having thirteen children.” Pictures show her standing in a faded blue print dress, full apron, and white sandals in front of her fiery red cannas. My aunt Caroline remembers that her grandmother “instilled in me my love of flowers and planting. And she used to say, ‘We don’t get in trouble. We don’t talk about anyone. We talk about trees and flowers.’ [laughs]” Her granddaughters still have offshoots of her peonies. And they all remember her laughing. Fran said, “Oh, my, she laughed a lot and so did the aunts. That’s where we get that from—Aunt Sophie, everybody laughed at the drop of a hat, Aunt Clarice, Aunt Agnes—oh, they laughed all the time. I mean, they laughed and kidded no matter what age they were. That’s where I think we get it from.”
Thin ankles, thick waists, peonies, pickled cucumbers, laughter, strength, piety, and an air of aristocracy because one time, long, long ago, someone owned some land in Poland. This is what Frances passed on to her granddaughters, the Grasinski Girls.
Helen on the West Side
Helen, the mother of the Grasinski Girls, was born in 1903 in Hilliards. She was the fourth child of Ladislaus and Frances. She married the boy down the road, Joseph Grasinski (the son of Józef Grusczynski), at St. Stanislaus Church on August 22, 1922. Joseph had the air of a landowner, and when forced to work the fields he rode the tractor wearing a fedora. Helen shared his desire to move up and away from the farm. Given the restrictions placed upon her choices (“Frances and Ladislaus would not allow them to date other than Polish Catholic, and they had to know the family”), she thought that Joe was a pretty good catch.19 Helen had more freedom than her mother (whose marriage had been arranged), but less than her daughters, who would be constrained only by religion.
Fig. 9. Helen and Joe on their wedding day, 1922
When they married, Joe Grasinski was already living in Grand Rapids, a city about twenty miles north of Hilliards. In 1920, there were over 4,200 foreign-born Poles living in Grand Rapids and almost three times as many Dutch immigrants.20 Poles and Polish Americans moved to the city because it held more promise than the farms, especially in terms of work.21 They moved into Polish neighborhoods situated near the local industries: the brickyards, the gypsum mines, and the furniture factories. Immigrants were more likely to work in these industries, especially in the lower-skilled positions that required heavy manual labor.22 The second generation of men, however, including Joe Grasinski and his brothers-in-law, more often worked as skilled laborers, in particular as machinists and toolmakers in the nascent automobile industry. Throughout the early years of their marriage Joe worked at several factories. Between 1923 and 1936 he is listed in the city directories with the following positions: machinist, filer, die maker, auto worker (which he begins in 1929), and toolmaker (from 1933).23
By 1930, the census takers counted 4,690 foreign-born Poles in the city, and twice as many in the second generation, together representing about 8 percent of the total population in Grand Rapids.24 The Polish community was dwarfed, however, by the Dutch community, which was twice as large.25 Grand Rapids was the center of Dutch life in America and of the Dutch Reformed Church (also known as the Christian Reformed Church; its adherents are called Calvinists). Calvinists followed a strict moral code that prohibited drinking, dancing, gossiping, working on Sunday, and union and Masonic membership. Their presence cast a conservative pall over Grand Rapids. Prohibition came to Grand Rapids in November 1916, six months before the rest of the nation went dry. More than 160 saloons were closed in Grand Rapids (mostly on the Polish-populated west side of town). While the Polish Catholics voted against Prohibition, against regulations on theaters and other places of entertainment, and in favor of the eight-hour workday for city employees, the Dutch Calvinists voted just the opposite.26
Though not the largest ethnic group, the Poles’ densely populated neighborhoods and Roman Catholic faith in a largely Protestant town made them a visible minority. The Dutch conservatism in Grand Rapids exaggerated the behavior of the “fun-loving” Poles, who enjoyed robust dancing and a strong drink. Sometimes their drunkenness spilled over into violence. One headline in the local newspaper in April 30, 1913, read, “Stab Six Men at Wedding, Polish Gangs Attack Guests Leaving St. Isador’s [sic] Hall, One Fatally Stabbed.”27 While both groups were known for hard work, frugality, and home ownership, the Dutch comported themselves in a more austere manner. The Dutch kept holy the Sabbath by praying and sitting quietly. The Poles celebrated the day of rest by setting up stages in Richmond Park for polka bands and bringing out kegs of beer.28 Grand Rapids historian Z. Z. Lydens writes, “Later the west side took Poland’s sons and daughters to its bosom. The Poles were Slavs, Catholic, and given to fun even on the Sabbath day. The Hollanders were Teutonic, Protestant, with a more rigid religious behaviorism. The kinship therefore was thin. . . . The children had their taunts: ‘When the angel rings the bell, Polacks, Polacks go to hell.’ The taunt was automatically reversible and as effective one way as the other.”29
It was the Poles’ religious devotion that eventually saved them from the Christian Reformers’ tongues of fire. Reflecting on their ability to build magnificent parishes, a Grand Rapids historian writes, “The Poles might live in tiny frame houses, might labor at hard dirty jobs, might be slandered as drab and no-account, but through their faith they asserted glory and found radiance for themselves. For this, the core of their life and community, they would sacrifice.”30 And they did sacrifice, saving enough money from meager wages to build three magnificent churches near the areas where they worked. Prussian Poles founded St. Adalbert’s Church in 1881 near the furniture plants on the northwest side, and the parish community became known as Wojciechowo (the St. Adalbert District).31 St. Isidore the Plowman was organized in 1897 on the northeast side of Grand Rapids near the brickyards.32 The densely populated neighborhood, referred to as Cegielnia (the Brickyard District), was composed of small, inexpensive single-family homes.33 The third Polish parish, Sacred Heart, founded in 1904, was located in a neighborhood of Polish immigrants and second-generation Polish Americans which became known as Sercowo (the Heart District).34 Reverend Ladislaus Krakowski, the organizer and first rector of Sacred Heart, was himself a second-generation Polish American who had been born in Hilliards.35
The immigrants living in Sercowo were more likely to have recently arrived from the Austrian and Russian partitions and often worked in the nearby gypsum mines.36 This community, however, became home to many economically mobile second-generation Polish Americans.37 The houses were larger and more expensive than those in Wojciechowo or Cegielnia. Many were built of brick and cement, had leaded-glass, beveled windows, large front porches, and bordered the green expanse of John Ball Park (newly developed by the architect Wencel Cukierski, superintendent of city parks from 1890 to 1908). One section near John Ball Park was even referred to as the Polish Grosse Point.38
The community
