Arnold College - Fall In Yearbook (Milford, CT)

Page 17 text:

receding French Wave from Russian Poland, he with the second Wave, was carried from Danzig Where he had been apprenticed to a tailor, into middle Germany and found himself in Weimar. He was small of stature and limb. How handsome of face he might have been, I cannot tell. His was a very characteristic, sharply-cut face. There was one thing about him. He was a great, indefatiguable dancer. He cut a Wide swath at Weimar With his dancing, for he Was a master of the Polish dances just coming in. Natur- ally he was much sought after and somehow or another captured my grand- mother's heart. The marriage was consummated and as a result my maternal great grandfather promptly disowned his daughter for he would have no mixture of blood and no marriage that was not sanctioned by the family. With our peasant families then and even now, marriage was not a matter of love, but of family dictate. You could have your love affairs, that was your affair, but Whom you would marry, that was the family's business. They selected your husband and you married him and if you did not, the family promptly disowned you. That was the fate of my grand- mother. She never saw her father alive again and as the rule extended beyond his death, for being disowned, none of the family property came in her possession. The couple had four children, all girls, of which my mother was the oldest. All these girls resembled their father. They were small of stature and limb, all of quick temper, excitable nature, except the second Who Was of the slow, stolid kind of the peasant type, though in exterior, she resem- bled her father. My grandfather, though he struggled with poverty for a good many years, though he was a foreigner and under the ban of his Wife's family, was a man of great dignity which at times on account of his small stature and lively disposition, sat rather comically upon him. But he Was a master tailor and a master in these times in a guild was a person of importance in the community. It is said that every other Pole is a noble- man and I have hardly any doubt my grandfather Was. For him people Worthy of his notice began with the male sex, Women generally speaking were of no account and at times even my grandmother, great stately matron that she Was, had no entry to his presence, While I, the four-year old first born son of his eldest was evidently the heir apparent and as such entitled to notice at his hands. His second breakfast was the great ceremonial of the day. He then sat in the best room in the house all by his lonesome at a little table and with exceedingly fine table manners, partook of his many times small fare. It Was at these times that I was admitted to his august presence and all females except for the purpose of Waiting, were excluded, Here he incul- cated manners at table and the first elements of thrift. He Would cut my bread and cheese or sausage or cold meat, Whatever Went with the break- fast in little squares and we would play the game of Sheep and Shepherd. The lambs Were bare bread. The mother sheep were streakd with butter, but rams had small specks of cheese or meat, the dogs larger pieces, but then came the crowning piece of epicurean delight, the shepherd, a Hne piece of bread spread Well With butter and entirely covered by the viands, E193

Page 16 text:

Expluring lgvrvhiig illuriher In last year's FALL IN, I had traced my paternal ancestry, a fairly simple matter. When I start to trace my derivation on my mother's side, the matter is by no means as simple. My mother's mother on her father's side was a Miller, old German Thuringian peasant stock, settled for many centuries in Thuringia, where they were free holders. It must be recalled that up to the Napoleonic invasion in 1806 and the collapse of the feudal system, most peasants were fiefs, not quite slaves, but next door to it, to a feudal lord. The feudal lord of our hamlet was the Baron of Leubingen. However, as I have said, the Miller family were free holders. They sat on their own land and were not subjects of the Baron of Leubingen. They served for generations as judges of the patrimonial court of the Baron. On her mother's side, she was a Viol, undoubtedly of French Huguenot stock, who, after the recall of the edict of Nantes and St. Bartholomew's night, fled France and were settled in some of the possessions of the Grand Elector of Brandenburg. They must have come from the southern part of France, since in the family silk weaving was an occupation handed down from generation to generation and some of our people are still silk manu- facturers in the town of Crefeld. Whether the family of Henske, a sprink- ling of whose blood was also mixed in my ancestry, had been brought along by these silk weavers some way or another, I can not trace. They likely were of Flemish extraction and silks and laces their hobby. My Thuringian peasant ancestors were a tall, sparse set of people with all the virtues and faults of peasants, strong, healthy, laborious, saving if not stingy, land-hungry. On the other hand, my French ancestry, the Viols and Henskes were people of decided character, freedom of religious convic- tion, freedom of speech, tenacity of purpose, great skill of hand, artistic traits, great musicians. There are any number of Viols still distinguished singers in Germany nowadays. Such the mixture of my maternal grandmother, who according to the usage of the time is sent to learn housekeeping away from the home farm in Weimar. The court apothecary is a relative of the family and here Sophie is initiated in the housekeeping of a wealthy Patrician Burgher family. Here she meets her fate. In the '3O's, the struggle of the Poles for freedom against Russian oppression flared up. With it came a wave of great sympathizing for the Poles in Germany. Polish songs, Polish music resounded in the concert halls. Poets wrote songs about Polish suffering and freedom. The stage gave itself to depicting the struggle for freedom of the Poles in drama. Polish dances made their entry into Germany and the rest of Europe. The Polka, the Varsovienne, the Polka Mazurka and the like were the order of the day, and the stately Minuet and the measured 'Naltz had to accommodate themselves to this Polish invasion. With the failure of the Polish revolution came an invasion of Polish emigres. While my maternal grandfather had gone into Germany with the I18l

Page 18 text:

lliiilliiiigl. yan im, just large enough to fill my mouth. I ate my way 'through the coarser and meagre morsels to this delicious tidbit. A little sip of cordial or wine, just enough to moisten my lips, would be a further reward. And this was a daily performance. My grandfather would talk to me like a man and I would be held down to all the courtesies and politenesses of a most strict etiquette in dealing with him. No childish prattle or least of all, slang would be allowed at 'this time. Thus it is I still see him before me. Atother times, in his workshop, he would be the master tailor, the jovial companion and even my playmate without any restraint, but at these times, he would be the Polish grandee of the strictest observance. He must undoubtedly have left his native coun- try without much schooling, but with the help of my grandmother, he had learned to read and write German perfectly and he spoke German without any accent whatsoever. I take it then, that my linguistic abilities are in a measure, hereditary, the Poles being acknowledged linguists, at one time their polite language among the upper classes being Latin. I trace my frugality under ordinary circumstances, my saving up for the greater and finer joys of life to his teaching and influence. Of his quick and violent temper, I have written before in the pages of FALL IN. This I undoubtedly inherit from him. My mother though not of violent temper was of exceedingly lively and restless temperament and it is not difficult to trace that in me. My love for the arts, all of them, undoubtedly is a hereditary trait of my French ancestors. That both the French and Polish emigres should have been liberals is only natural, and that with such antecedents and my paternal influence tending the same way, I have always and shall always be a liberal follows as a mat- ter of course. A The hereditary influences of both strains of the family in my brothers and sisters average themselves pretty well according to schedule. The eld- est, a girl, altogether an Orzakowskyg I, the second, a mixture of Arnold and Orzakowsky heritage. The third, a girl, a Miller and Violg the fourth, a girl, althogether an Arnold, the fifth, a girl, an Arnold-Orzakowsky- Miller typeg the sixth, a boy, Arnold type, the seventh, a boy, pure Orza- kowsky type, the eighth, a boy, Arnold-Orzakowsky type. In physical make-up, in facial mold, in temperament and talents, the hereditary traits as indicated are well marked indeed. One of the peculiarities is the script, all of the Arnold type writing practically the same hand, all of the Orza- kowsky type writing the same kind of a hand, though their schooling was not received throughout at the same school, nor by the same teachers. So here we are as we are, to some extent, inevitably predestined by heredity. L1Z ,gy K K 1- I20l