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antayaje — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 19:16:01 CDT

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John Joseph Petlewski

antayaje — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 21:15:19 CDT

Families and Mines The Story of John Joseph Petlewski and His Family

“W

ell Walter I like you - you little soak. I wish you was with me. You wouldnt work in the Mines if I had to say. Well goodby. Kiol. TP.”[1] This note on a postcard postmarked 1912 in Peoria , Illinois , to my great grandfather, Walter Petlewski, from his brother, Anthony, is the last known contact with Anthony and his family in Calumet , Michigan . It indicates an interfamily and generational struggle between the old and new, the family dependent and the independent, and an effort to survive versus a vision of something better. The direct and indirect conditions of the copper mines obviously had something to do with Anthony’s departure at the age of twenty-two. Perhaps Anthony saw the rising conflict between the workers and Calumet and Hecla Mining Company in the years to come. Possibly, Anthony sensed the eventual downfall of the copper industry in the Keweenaw Peninsula . Regardless of the reasons of Anthony’s escape, these last words would come back to haunt Walter two and six years later, and Walter later illustrates his frustrations with the mines. Therefore, the rise and fall of the copper mining industry in Houghton County , MI ; federal governmental policy failure to regulate the social consequences of industrialization; and other underlying events had a profound impact on the inner events that molded the values possessed by future generations of my family.

Like many families of different nationalities, the Pytlewski family immigrated to Houghton County in the late nineteenth century. The first member of the Pytlewskis to immigrate to the United States was one of the three original brothers, Stanislaus, in 1875. It is unknown why he immigrated, or why or if his intentions were to settle in the Calumet Region. Unlike some families of foreign origin, Stanislaus emigrated from the Poland area of the German Empire to the United States solo according to his passenger manifest on June 12, 1875 . His occupation is listed as a laborer that was traveling by steerage.[2] This would lead me to believe that he and his family were not in a situation of wealth, which would possibly be a reason for his emigration from Germany . Five years later other Pytlewskis would follow.
The next members of the Pytlewski family to immigrate to the United States were Stanislaus’ two brothers, John Joseph & Joseph, in 1880. Again, the brothers seem to have traveled separately. Interestingly, both of the future wives of Stanislaus and John Joseph immigrate the same years that they would marry their husbands. Antonia Sikorski, Stanislaus’ wife, immigrated on June 22, 1880 [3], while Wladyslawa Sikorski, John’s wife, immigrated on February 16, 1882 [4], according to both of their manifest records. Reoccurring is the fact that both of these women seem to have immigrated by their lonesome.

If there were more Petlewski relations to immigrate to the United States , or to Calumet , is irrelevant as compared to the origin of other immigrants in Calumet . Calumet was the true example of an American European melting pot city in its prime. It is about sixty thousand people included Cornish, Finnish, Irish, Croatians, Italians, Polish, along with many other ethnicities in which nearly all worked for a job that was directly or indirectly connected to the copper mining industry in the Keweenaw Peninsula.

Along with the many nationalities, came an emerging ethnicizing of the workforce in the mining industry. For example, the Irish started as poor laborers, while the Cornish obtained managerial jobs underground.[5] This seemed to hold true for the Polish. All three immigrant Pytlewski brothers held day laborer jobs at Calumet & Hecla Mining Co. when they first arrived according to census, marriage, and mining employment records. A good example of this ethnicizing can be seen in who held trammer jobs, which I will describe later. The Senate report on the 1913 strike in Calumet indicates that “Tramming is done mostly by the Finns, Croatians, Hungarians, Italians, and Poles. The work is so hard that Cornish men and other miners will not touch it.”[6] This blunt language of the Senate Report draws almost a picture of acceptance of ethnicizing by the federal government.

The church played an important role in the Calumet immigrant. There were thirty-three churches in the Calumet area at its peak. Many of them preached the same religion, the only differences lying within the language and the people addressed. Many churches of the area addressed the literacy problems of the new immigrants by establishing schools or by interpreting the spellings of their names for church records. This would become a very important practice in the Calumet immigrant community as well as across the nation. In Calumet , the church official was often a member of the ethnicity of the church, and therefore, was more influential in determining the spelling of a family’s last name by following the traditions of that ethnic group. The Polish church, St. Anthony’s, followed the Polish practice of ending the last names of females with an “a” as shown by Walter Pytlewski’s spelling of the last name of his godmother on his baptismal certificate.[7] Take, for example, the last name Pytlewski, a church official would spell the last name of a female Pytlewska.

Since a number of Calumet immigrants were illiterate, registering with the county turned out to be a process of many mistakes. The government clerk filling out the registration for the foreign families often misspelled many of the foreign names because the clerk often had to sound it out from another language. In other words, the register often anglicized many last names according to their knowledge.[8]

Another source of name change was the family itself to make the spelling of their name easier to pronunciate and to escape the ethnicization placed upon them by other groups. For example, a cousin of the Pytlewski family changed his name from Zwierzchowski to Rinksi. The Pytlewski family name itself was generally changed to Petlewski, although there were many exceptions through various misspellings by government officials and even by the mining company. Because of the schooling, both by the Polish church and the government, of the second generation of Pytlewski family, their name permanently became Petlewski in the John Joseph branch and remained Pytlewski in only some branches in Stanistaus’ family. This would not matter as much as what they would face in the copper mines.

The harsh conditions of the copper mines took a toll on people of the “ Copper County ”. The son of John Joseph, Walter, witnessed the bore the conditions that the copper mines had to offer, particularly in 1914 and 1918. In each year he witnessed one of about sixty deaths a year[9], both to good family friends. In 1914, he witnessed the death of Thomas Wills. “I am a partner to Thomas Wills,” Walter testified in a Mine Inspector’s Report. “We left each other at the 10th level to go to the 15th level to start the pumps and he told me to start sprinkling and that he would come up after me. That was the last I saw of him.”[10] Chilling words, but these words would not describe the last time a jolting experience would rock Walter.

The death of another friend, Henry Jarvi, was even more dramatic. Walter testified in a Mine Inspector’s Report in 1918 that he and Jarvi “were taking down drills in the man car from the 20th to the 21st level. One of the drills caught in the crossing plank, swung over and threw Jarvi out. I called for help to stop the cage, and then went down and found him lying in the shaft.”[11] In fact, the Mine Inspector’s Report is missing that the accident not only killed Jarvi, but it also nearly killed another co-worker, George Eskola. The Calumet News on December 12, 1918 [12] writes that Walter “saw Jarvi grab him and pull him into the shaft.” It also says that Eskola was found about fifty feet beneath the twentieth level unconscious and Jarvi’s body was found at the 24th level.” My grandmother says her father despised working in the mines, but she never knew why until I found these mining reports. Not surprisingly, Walter quits working in the mine in March the following year and is found in the 1920 US Federal Census in Detroit working as an autoworker.

Like Walter, many members of the Petlewski family abandoned the mining industry most likely due to the harsh conditions of the mines. Stanislaus, as previously stated, left the mines in 1882 to work as a clerk and eventually a saloon entrepreneur. Joseph, on the other hand, seemed to be indecisive about his choice. He would alternate working at the mines and working for his brother, and sometimes he would work in both. Two of Stanislaus’ sons worked at the mines for a brief period of time. Many of Stanislaus other children left and were spread all over the country from Montana to Detroit . John Joseph’s son, John Joseph Jr. never did work in the mines, and eventually left for Detroit in 1928 to join his sister, Cecilia, and her husband. The only known member in Calumet after the defection of many were Joseph, possibly some of Stanislaus’ children, and John Joseph and his children, Alex, Mary, and Vincent

I alluded to before that John Joseph’s son, Anthony, would leave the mines and the city at the age of twenty-two in 1912. It is not known why he left, at least to current generations, or where he went. Family folklore has two versions of what became of him. First, he may have walked into Lake Superior and never came back. This has been proven false by the postcard that he wrote to his brother, Walter, from Peoria . Second, he may have moved to Erie , Pennsylvania , and died in the Johnstown Flood along with the circus he possibly joined. This may be true since my grandmother has an artifact in her possession that indicates that it is from Erie , PA. [13] However, Anthony doesn’t show up in a list of people taken by the flood. Also, who hasn’t said a deranged member of a family left and joined the circus? These folklores must be put into context considering that two of the stories were told of a sister-in-law who didn’t have a high opinion of the Petlewski family.

Other workers of the Calumet copper industry also expressed their dissatisfaction with the mining conditions with the strike of 1913. In an effort to secure their jobs, the miners took on a nine month strike. It was a result of the introduction of the one man drill, which the miners worried this innovation would cut the labor force. Before the one man drill, a drill required two workers; one to drill and one to pour water into the hole. Other issues involved the recognition of the Western Federation of Miners, which the miners not receive, and the reduction from a ten hour workday to an eight hour work day. C & H did not cease to use the one man drill, and in fact kept the workers that they hired as strikebreakers along side the original employees when they ceased their strike.[14] It is interesting to note that on the mining applications, post 1913, there is an excerpt in the application that requires the employee to pledge that they aren’t aligned with the Western Federation of Miners.[15]

It is worthy to note that not all mining employees went on strike. Many above ground employees, such as smelters who were not organized by the Western Federation of Miners, did not strike at all. Even some loyal underground employees did not strike, and this would cause tension between the loyal or scab miners and the organized labor force. The strike would result in many injuries, arrests, and deaths in the nine month period. At the peak of the strike, a terrible incident occurred when the strikers gathered together with their families at the Italian Hall in Calumet on Christmas Eve. A man, whom many believe acted in the interest of the mining companies, yelled fire. The patrons of the event scrambled for the door, which the people could not open because the doors opened inward or because it was barricaded depending on the source. Seventy-three people died, many of whom were women and children, as a result of being trampled. [16] Doors that opened inward seemed to be a reoccurring safety problem all across the nation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as indicated in other incidents in New York and Chicago . This is an example of failure of the federal government to address the safety conditions of buildings. Nevertheless, the Calumet incident made national headlines and achieved sympathy for the miners’ fight.

The conditions of the copper mining industry would lead to many health problems among its local citizens. The death records of Houghton County indicate people dying of many diseases such as Typhoid, Diphtheria, and Small Pox Even though Stanislaus quit working in the mines at an early age to work in and eventually own his own saloon and a funeral parlor, he died prematurely of pneumonia in 1916.[17] His first wife, Antonia, presumably died of unknown reasons in the early 1890’s. John Joseph’s wife, Wladyslawa, died of unknown reasons in 1908[18] leaving Walter, at age thirteen, under the domestic care of his sister, Mary. Other problems among miners included goiters. Apparently, all of John Joseph’s male children that worked in the mines had goiters, according to my grandmother. Empirical evidence shows that Walter was discharged from the Michigan National Guard after a year of service in 1918 at Fort MacArthur , Waco , Texas for having an internal goiter.[19]

The miners had to deal with the hard physical labor of the mines, which caused health problems later in life. John Joseph Petlewski’s mining record indicates that he suffered from rheumatism.[20] At one point he was a trammer[21], an employee who pushed carts along the tracks, which the Senate Report on the 1913 strike described as “exhausting, muscle-straining, back-breaking work, really work for beasts of burden or for mechanical motors.”[22] If this profession is as bad as the Senate Report makes it sound, it is easy to understand this burden on the body.
As a result of the primitive health care of infants of the mining city of Calument , numerous children died from diseases as well. Stanislaus would lose about half of his children; born by both wives, Antonia and Mary; to death. He lost one daughter, Octevga, to Measles[23]; another daughter, Fanna to Scarlet Fever[24]; Pygale to Diphtheria[25]; Roman to Pneumonia[26], and Kate to stillbirth[27]. It is possible that John Joseph lost a child to stillbirth as well. Perhaps, the reason why Stanislaus lost so many children was the result of Stanislaus not having the health insurance of the mines. Healthcare provided by the mines to its employees was one dollar per month.[28] The fact that there were so many premature deaths in one family shows that health conditions were poor in Calumet , as well as the nation, in the early twentieth century.

There were also positive social conditions of Calumet as well. A first class theatre was built in the early twentieth century that showed Broadway plays. Saloons and other stores were popular with local miners along with secret societies and clubs. Stanislaus was the treasurer for the local St. Stanislaus’ Society, a Polish church society, at one point in his life.[29] Sporting events were also popular. In fact, the first American hockey player to play in the Stanley Cup playoffs, a tournament for the National Hockey League championship, was from Calumet .[30] C & H also did many things for the community as well, such as building a library and maintaining a hospital in Laurium, Calumet ’s sister city.[31]

Progressivism, as a result to address the social consequences of industrialization, took a stronghold in Calumet like much of the rest of the nation. One example directly affected Joseph Petlewski in his daily operation of Stanislaus’ saloon after Stanislaus passed on. Joseph, in 1917, was “charged with having his place of business open on Sunday,” according to the Calumet News.[32] In reality, Joseph claimed that he was not opened for business, but open for doing inventory as required by a war revenue law enacted during World War I. His Polish friend, who was not identified in the paper, came into the bar and “demanded a drink.” Instead of selling him one, which was illegal due to the no Sunday business law in 1917, Joseph gave him a drink. This shows a conflict emerging out of a misunderstanding between moral progressives and WWI law. Progressivism would also affect Joseph, with the passage of the 18th Amendment, which prohibited the production, sale, or consumption of alcohol. The Progressive laws passed still affect my father to this day as he cannot sell liquor before noon on Sunday in his grocery store.

The longer the two families in Detroit and Calumet were separated by the Straight of Mackinac, the more distant they became. With the exception being between Walter and his sister, Mary, the Petlewski family did not see each other much after the split. They remained within their own extreme ends of Michigan , and only saw each other during funerals. The Petlewski Detroiters and the Calumet Petlewski family did have their commonalities such as the continuing problems of the urban and industrial cities. In contrast, one branch prospered after the Great Depression of the 1930’s while the other family became extinct by old age, the lack of children, and the fall of the Mining industry.
There were several problems that occurred in the new city , Detroit , to the Petlewskis. During the 1920’s and the early 1930’s, Walter lived as a boarder or lived with his brother, John Joseph Jr., until he became self sufficient with his job at Dodge as a millwright.[33] [The other problems have been removed for this internet version of this paper for privacy reasons]

Out of World War II, emerged a new Petlewski middle class. Walter was able to afford a house as a single male with his only son, Walter Paul, still living in his house. He had many luxuries that would begin to define the middle class. Walter thoroughly cherished his automobiles, and by the late 1950’s he was at least on his second car according to the many pictures of him and his cars. He was able to obtain his first car in about 1928 according to his license plate in one of pictures, most likely as a result of company credit which became a popular way to purchase expensive items in the 1920’s.[34]

John Joseph Jr. and his wife, Ivy, were also able to make gains. According to a grandchild who lived with them for a period, they were well off financially. He was now an interior decorator, and didn’t work in the auto factories as a result of his dislike of the unions. This may have resulted in his observations of the mining unions up north. Cecilia’s family also achieves the same status as her husband worked in the auto factories along with her sons and daughter. After the Petlewskis entered the middle class they would stay there until the present.

There were three reasons for the decline of the mines which lead to the decline of the Calumet Petlewskis. Before World War I , Germany was the primary purchaser of Copper from northern Michigan . An already hurting post 1913 strike copper industry in northern Michigan would be harmed even further due to the war. The second downfall of the copper industry was the federal government's cease in purchasing copper from the Michigan Copper Companies. This put people out of work, and because of this, many went to Detroit to find jobs in the auto industry. The final hit was the Great Depression, which severely put the area at a standstill.[35]

As a result of the decline of the mines, the Petlewski family in Calumet faced a bleaker picture than its counterparts in Detroit . John Joseph’s other son, Vincent, would be layed off by C & H nine times between 1921 and 1932, and virtually did not work for C & H much in the 1930’s. His mining record indicates, at one point, he was working for the Works Progress Administration for ten months in Osceola, a nearby community. [36] The WPA, a government program, had an aim to employ people in vast areas of work and pump money back into the economy during the Great Depression of the 1930’s in which the nation suffered a severe economic breakdown as a result of the overproduction of the 1920’s. For example, one division in the WPA was devoted to soundex, an indexing system to the United States Census, and other divisions were responsible for building or renovating public buildings such as schools and post offices. It was the largest New Deal program first requiring funding of five billion dollars when first established.[37]

Vincent’s brother, Alex, did marry a girl originally from Marquette , MI , in 1925[38], but he worked in the Copper mines until they shut down in the 1950’s, and they failed to have any children. Mary took the domestic role replacing her mother after her death handling the domestic duties of her brother Vincent until his death in 1960. The saloon took a hit, by Joseph’s age, the beginning of the Great Depression, and prohibition as it is listed as a soft drink shop in the Michigan Business Directories during prohibition in the 1920’s and eventually ceased to exist in the early 1930’s. Joseph would die in 1935 as a result of having a heart attack bringing wood up from the cellar to the fireplace in the winter.

All of these underlying events would have a great impact on the spreading of a family that started off with three central brothers. Because of job opportunities, in just one hundred and twenty years from 1880, this family would be in at least eight cities in at least five different states from California to Florida . Another part of this was the emergence of transportation. Originally in 1880, the only way to get from Calumet to Detroit was by Train or ship. Over time, the Mineral Range Railroad in Calumet gave way to the automobile, car ferries, the Mackinac Bridge , highways, and aviation, which made it easier and cheaper for people to migrate.

The values since Petlewski immigration in 1875 have survived to this very day, at least in my immediate family. The first generation used hard work and its Catholic faith just to stay afloat. Stanislaus innovated this value by using his knowledge and intellect to push that upward mobility even further. This would have an affect on his nephews, especially when they traveled to work in Detroit . Walter, particularly, used his knowledge from the army and mines to come out ahead and emerge his family into the middle class.

History does not enter a person through one event, but as a blend of events exits a family through their personality as described by the many historical consequences on my Petlewski family. From the direct Calumet mining consequences to its indirect results that would aide interfamily conflict in spreading the family apart, the effects of history on the Petlewski family has evolved the family to show new family values while retaining old country beliefs. Therefore, I can say that the snowballing effects by immigration and industrialization, that have entered my family’s core of values over 122 years.

Stanislaus Pytlewski

antayaje — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 21:01:46 CDT

hen Stanislaus Pytlewski died a premature death due to pneumonia in August of 1916, the events thereafter concluded a life full of struggle. Unrest was growing in the Pytlewski household at 608 Oak Street. The $500 for his gravestone vanished from his brother Joseph’s coat pocket. The culprit remained to be charged. In the meantime, a prominent member of the Polish community lied in Lake View Cemetery in Calumet without a gravestone. The theft of the money was the last disturbance in his life even though it had been two months since Stanislaus Pytlewski passed. Stanislaus’s last economic struggle was not his only one. Throughout his life, Stanislaus and his family were driven by economic forces and arose to a substantial role in the community through their saloon despite their economic, social, and family pressures.

Around 1875, Stanislaus, then a 24-year-old peasant laborer, made the decision to immigrate to America. It is unknown why he specifically made the decision to move to America or what his intent of destination was, but some speculation is possible using the patterns of other Polish migrants. Stanislaus lived in the province of Poznan, in either the villages of Wlociewski or Shroda, which at the time was within the boundaries of Prussia. Prussia ended serfdom in its Polish territories in the early nineteenth century. Emancipation released peasants from their serfdom duties, but also left them landless. Concurrently, it also produced an expansion of large estates and swelled the ranks of the unemployed landless peasant laborer (Bukowczyk 7). Because of the large numbers of unemployment and the desire to “Germanize” their land holdings in Poland, Prussia encouraged Polish emigration. There is no doubt that Stanislaus was probably escaping these conditions, but it is also possible that he could have been avoiding the military draft like many of the young male Poles and Germans were doing at that time. Because of these possible reasons, Stanislaus set sail on an ocean liner in late May or early July of 1975.

Stanislaus probably departed from Bremen or Hamburg (Bukowczyk 17) on the S.S. Main[1] apparently by himself in steerage.[2] Before Stanislaus would have immigrated, he would have to garner up the necessary funds to buy his passage from Poland to America. He might have had to sell his livestock or other personal belongings, or borrow from a moneylender. Stanislaus most likely bought his passenger ticket from a local agent, but then again, if he knew someone in the United States he might have received a ticket from that person. He could have waited several weeks at Bremen or Hamburg in a boarding house waiting for the next ship to arrive. Once on the ship, traveling by steerage to New York City, Stanislaus probably faced similar conditions other steerage transcontinental passengers faced. Joseph Wytrawl vividly describes the conditions that many Poles faced when crossing the ocean by ship in steerage:

The steerage quarters contained enough fleas for all… In addition, the steerage quarters were often cold, dirty, disease-ridden, and rat infested. No separate cabins were available for third-class or steerage passengers; the steerage quarters five feet, high, often had two tiers of beds… the space allotted to the passengers was never adequate and ventilation was poor. The only fresh air available came through hatches, and these had to be closed when the air was most needed-namely during a storm (Wytrawl 114).
Stanislaus survived storage, passed through U.S. immigration at Castle Garden in New York, and what he did next is unclear until 1880.

Between 1875 and 1880[3], Stanislaus arrived in a thriving mining area in Northern Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula commonly known as the Copper Country. In 1880, Calumet was a bustling mining community with many ethnicities; Finnish, Germans, Polish, Swedish, French, and Cornish. It consisted of ethnic neighborhoods similar to those of New York, Chicago, and Las Angeles. The French primarily resided in Lake Linden, the Poles n Raymbaultown, and the Swedish in Swedetown. All of these groups were attracted to the Calumet area namely by one thing, good paying jobs (Duckworth 10). The copper mining industry financially supported most of the community directly or indirectly. As a result, in 1892, the average Polish immigrant earned an average of $33.63 more per month in Michigan than in Poland (Duckworth 10). Stanislaus probably recognized it from the Polish community in New York, through correspondence of friends or family living in the Calumet area, or through mining recruiters that often recruited poor Europeans for hard jobs and cheap unskilled labor. Regardless of the means, Stanislaus moved to the Copper Country and most likely corresponded with his brothers by mail to come with him to Calumet.

Stanislaus’s brothers, John Joseph, and Josef[4] arrived around the same time in Calumet. There is no documentation to neither support nor disprove whether Stanislaus and John Joseph arrived collectively. However, it is likely that they did not come together to Calumet. John Joseph immigrated to the United States via New York in 1880[5], and Josef immigrated nine years later.[6] The Pytlewski brothers practiced a pattern of chain migration, common in many Polish communities. It is probable that Stanislaus wrote to his village and his family when he settled in Calumet encouraging his family and other villagers to migrate to the upper peninsula of Michigan. Stanislaus most likely sent them tickets when he earned enough money to afford their passage. The same probably occurred any time a new person from the village migrated including Josef, Stanislaus’s wife Antonia, and his Monkowski relatives.

When the Pytlewski brothers arrived in Calumet, they most likely received help from the small Polish community residing in the area. One such group where they might have received help when they arrived and continuing throughout their lives was the Saint Stanislaus Kostka Benevolent Society. The branch in Calumet served to help the sick, injured, or the families who had just lost any number of family members.[7] When Stanislaus died, another society put a notice in the paper under his obituary stating, “All members of St. Anthony Court No. 7000 C. O. F. are requested to meet at the First National Bank in Laurium at 8:45 Friday morning to attend the funeral of our late Brother Stanislaus Pytlewski.[8]” Even though they probably did this for every member of the Polish community, they had more incentive to attend as Stanislaus served as their treasurer between 1899 and 1904.[9] The support from the society and the Polish community was probably part of Stanislaus’s success in establishing his own business.

Stanislaus’s climb up the entrepreneur ladder was turbulent and slow. When he arrived in Calumet, records indicate that he worked as a miner for one of the mining companies in the region from about 1880 to 1885.[10] In the meantime, he bought his property at 608 Oak Street for a total of $450 on November 27, 1882.[11] After he left the mines in 1885, evidence suggests that he set up a grocery/saloon in the front of his residence. However, this endeavor did not last long. By 1890, he is not listed in the Michigan State Business Directory and is listed as a Clerk in his children’s birth records. When his business folded, he went to work for L. Hennes and Co.[12], a local general store. He then went to work for James Lisa, a prominent local businessman. While working at Lisa’s place of business, he became a partner in an embalming and undertaking business, called “Maurin, Petlewsky, & Richetta” at 329 Hecla Street in nearby Laurium.[13] By 1903, he had set up his own saloon in the front of his residence again.
The Pytlewski residence the area residents commonly knew as Petlewski’s Bar[14] consisted of two floors. The first floor contained a division between the saloon on the street side of the building with storage possibly in the back and in a basement.[15] On the second floor,[16] there was living space for the nine-member family (as of 1903) accessible through the side and the rear via the alleyway next to the building.[17] Jon Kingdale paints a picture of what the saloon could have looked like:

Inside was a counter running almost the length of the room, paralleled by a brass footrail… Across from the bar were perhaps a few tables and chairs backed up by a piano, pool table or rear stalls. Behind the bar and over an assortment of lemons, glasses, and unopened magnums of muscatel, port and champagne hung a large plate-glass mirror.

Stanislaus’s estate file indicates other items in the saloon’s inventory. Among them were 50 bottles of whiskey at $1.00 each, 5,000 ten-cent cigarettes, and 10 gallons of rum priced at $1.75 a gallon.[18]
The Pytlewski family’s life probably revolved around Petlewski’s Bar and Stanislaus’s other business. Not only did the saloon not prevent Stanislaus from having a family, he probably had a family to support his saloon. In 1880, Stanislaus married his first wife, Antonia Sikorski, in Calumet. As Elizabeth Pleck states, “the purpose of marriage was procreation, to produce children who would tend the fields, look after the shop, work around the house, and care for the parents in old age” (Pleck 224). Considering Stanislaus purchased his residence in the business area of Calumet two years after arriving leads one to believe that he must have had a long-range goal to own some sort of retail establishment. His work history supports the notion that Stanislaus married Antonia to raise children to help with his saloon.

Another reason probably contributing to Stanislaus’s decision to marry was his family’s approval. Thomas and Znaniecki contend that “A person who does not marry within a certain time… provokes in the family-group an attitude of unfavorable astonishment; they seem to have stopped in the midst of a continuous movement, and they are passed by and left alone” (Thomas 107). It could also be because he had made the decision not to return to Poland.
Regardless of the reasons for Stanislaus’s first marriage, it resulted in six children, but three of the children did not survive. His first child Wlady, short for Wladyslawa, was born in June of 1881 and most likely died sometime before the 1900 census.[19] The death of his second daughter demonstrates Stanislaus’s resilience in finding a home for his family and his children’s struggles to survive. One-month-old-daughter Octevga died of the measles[20] several days before Stanislaus signed the deed for his residence at 608 Oak Street in November, 1882. His fifth child, Fanna succumbed three months after her birth on May 12, 1887 to scarlet fever.[21] Stanislaus’s children from his second marriage did not fair much better. The second child from that marriage, a daughter named Pygale, contracted and died of diphtheria three years after her birth in 1895.[22] Stanislaus lost his tenth born child, Roman, to pneumonia three months after the child’s birth.[23] The only known stillbirth to occur in the family was Stanislaus’s fourteenth child, Kate, in 1905.[24]

The 42% infant mortality rate of Stanislaus’s children was not uncommon among Polish immigrants. Polish infant mortality statistics exceed African-American infant mortality statistics for that period (Bukowczyk 24). These high numbers can likely be contributed to poor nutrition and the poor health conditions of the community that often led to disease outbreaks. It is possible the air quality around the copper mines also contributed to the poor health conditions as well.

The fourteen children the two mothers bore is purely remarkable considering the dangers and pain of childbirth in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Even in the presence of a midwife or a physician, childbirth had the potential to be harmful to the mother or child. The birth of the Pytlewski children would have most likely taken place in the second story of 608 Oak Street in the presence of a midwife. The majority of families could not afford physicians (Leavitt 289), and it is suspected the Pytlewski family could not as well. Stanislaus had just reopened his bar when the last child was stillborn, so they most likely did not have the financial resources for a doctor. The midwife did not intervene in the birth much and usually let nature take its course. They were primarily there for comfort and support. If an emergency arose, a doctor may or may not have been called.

The family lost their wife and mother, Antonia, due to her death in 1893.[25] The cause of her death is unknown, but it is suspected that it was due to either childbirth or disease caused from weakness from childbirth. Whatever the cause, the death did not seem to affect Stanislaus much as he married his second wife, Mary Walezak, in the same year in front of witnesses that seem to be Antonia’s relatives.[26] With three children that were all under the age of ten, Stanislaus probably could not and would not have raised three children as a single father. Before her marriage, Mary worked as a “Hired girl.”[27] Polish women, like Mary, often contributed to the family economy doing domestic work in the industrial age before they married. For whom did Mary work? It is possible that Mary Ann may have been Stanislaus’s domestic servant at the time, hired to either replace or supplement Antonia’s place in raising the children and domestic duties. However, without sufficient evidence, one can only speculate.

After marriage, Polish women did not work outside of the home and the same is probably true for both Antonia and Mary. However, once inside the home, the work of the typical Polish woman did not stop. Because Polish family relationships were typically patriarchal in nature, a woman was expected to raise children and do domestic “housework.” In Calumet, it was against the law for a woman to do work in one of the seventy-four saloons. “In Calumet itself the Michigan Bureau of Labor’s annual reports list pages of citations against bar owners employing women as barmaids or allowing them to furnish music or dance” (Duckworth 91). Therefore, it is not likely that Antonia exceeded her role as housewife.

The loss of Antonia seemed to have an effect on her son, Ignatius Nicholas. An interesting article in The Calumet News details his arrest for his 1908 burglaries:

In response to a query as to how old he was, he replied ‘I am just 19.’ ‘Don’t you think you are in a tight place,’ he was asked. Pytlewski vouchanted [sic] no reply, merely shrugging his shoulders. He referred to his home surroundings, stating that he lost his mother by death when he was only 4 years old and added with a touch of irony ‘I never knew my mother.’[28]

Would his mother’s survival really have prevented his incarceration? It will never be known unless some other evidence materializes describing the specific conditions of the family’s life in the saloon. Nonetheless, Ignatius developed into quite an intelligent criminal.

In 1904, Ignatius had his first run in with the law. Another article in The Calumet News describes his criminal intelligence.

He also confessed in Justice Fischer’s court when he was a boy 14 years of age to stealing copper wire from the electric light company. It will be remembered that when the Pytlewski house was searched, at that time it was found that boy had wired the home from basement to [illegible] and had installed a miniature telephone system for his own private use.[29]

In this case, he was released to his Uncle Josef for five hundred dollars, one hundred more than what Stanislaus paid for his property twenty years earlier.[30] After the incident, Ignatius obtained a job at the nearby copper mining company, Calumet & Hecla Mining Co. in March of 1905.[31] Five months later, C & H discharged him for “destroying property and lying.”[32]

The incident that finally put Ignatius behind bars for a year and a half in Ionia Michigan State Reformatory shows his intelligence yet his ability to carry his stories and criminal actions too far. On the news of Ignatius’s capture, The Calumet News reported on January 27, 1908:

The police made an important capture yesterday afternoon in Calumet when Ignatius Pytlewski was placed behind the bars of the Houghton county jail. The youth, who gave his age as 19, is a confessed criminal. He told Under-sheriff Vivian, who arrested him that it was he who sawed his way out of the Red Jacket[33] jail recently after being arrested while in the act of burglarizing the Stukel saloon on Eight street. He also confessed to burglarizing the Keckononen store on Fifth street, and the Richards store on Sixth. The act which finally led to his undoing was the “cracking” of a safe in the order of the Ulseth lumber yards yesterday morning.[34]
The same article then goes on to show the incompetence of the Calumet police force following his escape from the Red Jacket Jail.

He told how he was amused on reading the stories of his escape from the Red Jacket jail recently by sawing his way out, and laughingly reminded those present how he had passed the local officer who arrested him at the time and on several occasions afterward. He stated he secured $30 from the Stuckel saloon and a gold watch, and that the watch was sold by him in Duluth to a man on the street. Pytlewski added he left Calumet for Duluth the day following the escape from the jail.
[35]

Why did Ignatius return to Calumet? Perhaps it was stupidity or arrogance as demonstrated by his confession to the police and his defense. In his previous case, Ignatius pleaded drunkenness and the court released him. In fact, in this case his defense centered on his “drunkenness.” A witness in his case states:

I said the boy was probably on his way home and wandered in there and wanted to sleep off his jag. It was just a notion that I thought he might be drunk by the way he looked and by his actions he was leaning against the desk. I asked him his name and he said his name was John Rowe. He said that he was a Polander and I thought that was a funny name for that nationality.[36]

The fact that the men caught him in the act of theft with 115 keys that could open just about any door in the area[37], his confessions, and his previous record all compounded into his imminent conviction.

In 1916, with Ignatius out of jail, his father Stanislaus succumbed to pneumonia leaving behind his saloon, his wife Mary, his brothers Josef and John Joseph, and his children spread across the country from Illinois to Montana. Conflicting newspaper reports puts his death either at home or at the Calumet Hospital in Laurium. Considering that Stanislaus’s death record lists his death place in the city of Laurium, it is more likely that he died in the hospital. The hospital was located in Laurium and his residence was in Calumet. According to The Evening News-Journal, the funeral was held at St. Anthony’s Polish Roman Catholic Church.[38] It is hard to speculate without further evidence as to whether the Pytlewski family held another ceremony at their home. The period around World War I was a watershed for funerals as funeral directors began to eliminate the home ceremony and replaced it with a service at the funeral home (Pleck 188).

When Stanislaus died, ownership of Petlewski’s Bar passed on to his brother Josef who had been helping run it since its inception. Josef ran into legal problems that previously eluded Stanislaus. In 1917, the State of Michigan charged Josef for opening his saloon on Sunday. The court fined Josef $50[39], but a few months later Josef allegedly was caught again. The Calumet News reported that Petlewski claimed:
…his saloon was open at Betting’s [a U.S. Revenue Officer] request, and while he was waiting for the officer to appear, a Polish friend, who likely will appear as a witness entered the place and demanded a drink. He refused to sell him a drink, Petlewski claims, but gave him one [sic].[40]
The friend did not testify and since the State tried to make its argument that State law trumps federal law, the judge dismissed the case.[41]

In another case a year earlier, Josef was on the opposite side of the law. He alleged in November of 1916 “[Alan] Gunderson and a companion went into the Petlewski saloon some weeks ago, and that Gunderson made away with a bankbook and $550 found in Petlewski’s coat.”[42] Ironically, Gunderson had hundreds of blank keys in his possession that opened many of the area’s doors just like Ignatius when he went on his crime spree. The actions of Stanislaus’s son had returned full circle to haunt Stanislaus in his grave. Gunderson was tried and convicted and the money was returned to Josef for his brother’s gravestone.

When Stanislaus died, the saloon died with him. The saloon remained open for another fourteen years after his death, but it remained open through the departure of many unemployed miners and the Pytlewski family members looking for jobs, through prohibition as a soft drink retailer, and through the beginnings of the Great Depression. However, maintaining Petlewski’s Bar and his family were not easy for Stanislaus. He fought through the emigration from a poverty-stricken land, the deaths of many of his children, the death of his wife, and the crime spree of one of his living children. Nevertheless, to keep things in perspective, he died as a wealthier prominent man in his community and not a landless peasant laborer

End Notes

[1] Stanislaus Pytlewski entry, SS Main Passenger Manifest, June 12, 1913, line 215; in Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, May 4, 1875-June 26, 1875; micro-publication of the original

[2] I have not come across any other names in the Houghton Country Records and City Directories that match any of the other names on the Passenger.

[3] There is no record of Stanislaus in the Houghton Country records between 1875 and 1880. 1875 is his date of immigration, while 1880 is the date of his first marriage.

[4] John Joseph’s name is his English spelling. I’ve done this to avoid confusion with his brother, Josef. In addition, I am using the Polish names and spellings for Stanislaus, Josef, and Pytlewski.

[5] John Petlewski Employment Card # 29703, Calumet & Hecla Mining Company and Subsidiaries Central Employment Office, Provided by Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections

[6] Joseph Petlewski, Employment Card, Employee No. 7483, Calumet & Hecla Mining Company, Provided by Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections.

[7] Families often lost multiple members due to accidents in the copper mines. Stanislaus lost three relatives within two years due to mining accidents. One relative died in one accident. Two died in another accident All of the deceased were from the same family.

[8] The Daily Mining Gazette, August 31, 1916, Page 6.

[9] City Directories of the United States, Houghton County, MI 1899-1902; Polk Houghton County City Directory; micro-publication

[10] Marriage Entry for Stanislaus Peltesky and Antonia La Poorka, Record No. 1645, Marriage Records 1848-1912, v. 1: 73, Houghton County, MI, County Clerk; micro-publication of the original.

Birth Entry for Wlady S. Petlewstry, Record No. 154, Birth Records, 1867-1910, 1880-1887: 73 Houghton County, MI, County Clerk; micro-publication of the original.

Birth Entry for Otevga Petlaska, Record No. 350, Birth Records, 1880-1887, 1880-1887: 123

Birth Entry for Theresa Petlewski, Record No. 505, Birth Records, 1880-1887, 1880-1887: 192

[11] Houghton County Register of Deeds. Vol. 21: 86

[12] The Calumet News, August 29, 1916; Transcription provided by Kathy Petlewski

[13] Polk 1901-1902 Houghton County City Directory, Copy provided by Janet Kaurala

[14] Kathy Atwood, “Re: St. Anthony’s Church,” e-mail message from katwood@chartemi.net to author, September 6, 2003.

[15] The basement is mentioned in “Young Burglar Is In Custody,” The Calumet News, January 27, 1908, page 8.

[16] Stephen Petlewski estate file in Houghton County Probate Court, Houghton County Courthouse, Houghton County, MI 49931; carbon copy.

[17] The People of the State of Michigan v. Joseph Petlewski, File No. 5854, 1918, Houghton County Circuit Court. Records in possession of Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections.

[18] Stephen Petlewski estate file.

[19] Wlady Pytlewski is in the birth records for Houghton County, MI, but not in the death records. I cannot narrow down possible death any further than 1900 census because the 1890 Census burned and the 1895 Michigan Census is lost for Houghton County.

[20] Death entry for Otevga Petlarski, Record No. 120, Death Records, 1867-1910, v. 1-2, 1867-1900: 155, Houghton County, MI,
Clerk, micro-reproduction of the original.

[21] Death entry for Fanna Pytlewski, Record No. 194, Death Records, 1867-1910, v. 1-2, 1867-1900: 237

[22] Death entry for Pygale Petteski, Record No. 1143, Death Records, 1867-1910, v. 1-2, 1867-1900: 247

[23] Death entry for Roman Petteski, Record No. 363, Death Records, 1867-1910, v. 3, 1901-1910: 326

[24] Death entry for Kate Pytlewski, Record No. 427, Death Records, 1864-1910, v. 3, 1901-1910: 326

[25] She is not listed in the Houghton County Death records. However “Young Jail Breaker Will Have His Hearing Today,” in The Calumet News on January 30, 1908, indicates the mother of Ignatius Pytlewski died when he was four years old, which places her death in 1893.

[26] Marriage entry of Stephen Petleske and Mary Walohuk, Record No. 28, Marriage Records, 1848-1912, v. 2 1887-1899: 145 Houghton County, MI, County Clerk; micro-publication of the original.

[27] Ibid.

[28] “Young Jail Breaker Will Have His Hearing Today,” The Calumet News. January 30, 1908: 8

[29] “Young Burglar in Custody,” The Calumet News, January 27, 1908: 8

[30] The People of the State of Michigan v. Ignitz Petlesky, File No 2393, 1908, Houghton County Circuit Court. Records in possession of Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections

[31] Ignatius Petlewski, Employment Card, employee No. 12189, Calumet & Hecla Mining Company, Provided by Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections

[32] “Young Burglar in Custody,” The Calumet News, January 27, 1908:8

[33] Red Jacket is the old name for what is now the Village of Calumet.

[34] The Evening News-Journal. September 1, 1916: 6.

[35] The People of the State of Michigan v. Joseph Petlewski, File No. 5774, 1917, Houghton County Circuit Court. Records in possession of Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections

[36] The People of the State of Michigan v. Joseph Petlewski, File No. 5774, 1917, Houghton County Circuit Court. Records in possession of Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections

[37] “Young Burglar In Custody,” The Calumet News. January 27, 1908: 8

[38] The Evening News-Journal. September 1, 1916: 6

[39] The People of the State of Michigan v. Joseph Petlewski, File No. 5774, 1917, Houghton County Circuit Court. Records in possession of Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections

[40] “Petlewski Has Novel Defense in Saloon Case,” The Calumet News. October 25, 1917: 8

[41] The People of the State of Michigan v. Joseph Petlewski, Case 5774, The Circuit Court for the County of Houghton.

[42] The Daily Mining Gazette. Houghton County, MI. Tuesday, December 5, 1916