[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 40 (Tuesday, April 8, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E591-E593]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ANASTASIA'S STORY: A SPECIAL TRIBUTE TO ANASTASIA D. KAPTUR
______
HON. LOUIS STOKES
of ohio
in the house of representatives
Tuesday, April 8, 1997
Mr. STOKES. Mr. Speaker, on March 20, 1997, our colleague from Ohio,
Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, suffered the loss of her mother, Anastasia
D. Kaptur. Many of us realize that the loss of a mother can be
extremely heartbreaking. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Marcy and
members of her family as they move through this difficult period of
mourning.
On March 24, 1997, Marcy and her family gathered at St. Theresa of
the Little Flower Parish for a celebration of life memorial mass in
honor of her mother. Friends joined the Kaptur family in reflecting
upon the life of Anastasia Kaptur, who was a courageous human being and
a very remarkable woman. To celebrate their mother's life, Marcy and
her brother, Steve, prepared a special tribute entitled, ``Anastasia's
Story.'' This moving tribute is a testament to Anastasia D. Kaptur, who
is called A Woman for all Seasons.
Mr. Speaker, I take pride in submitting ``Anastasia's Story'' for
inclusion in the Congressional Record. I ask my colleagues to join me
in expressing our deepest condolences to Marcy and members of her
family.
Anastasia's Story
Celebration of Life Memorial Mass, Little Flower Parish, March 24, 1997
Anastasia ``Cherie'' Delores Mary Rogowska Kaptur
Welcome to St. Theresa of the Little Flower Parish where
our family has attended for 52 years.
On behalf of my mother's son and my brother, Steve, and the
Kaptur and Rogowski families, especially our loving father
Stephen ``Kappy'' who was laid to rest 28 years ago, as well
as mother's mother and father, Teofila and John, and her
sister, Anna, her brothers Anthony and Stanley, all of whom
preceded her in death; her sister-in-law Esther Kalinska
Rogowski; her niece and goddaughter Rose Ann Rogowska
Koperski and her nephew John Rogowski; her cousins Theresa
and Joe Kaptur, and John and Rita Kaptur, and their children
and grandchildren; and her treasured friends, Mrs. Blanche
Zalipski, Mrs. Esther Dutkiewicz, Mrs. Sally Zawierucha, and
Mrs. Connie (Corrie) Dutched--all of us wish to extend
deepest gratitude to you, our friends, for your compassion
and for making the effort to celebrate the life of our most
beloved mother Anastasia ``Cherie'' Delores Mary Rogowska
Kaptur. We wish also to express the sincerest thanks to the
doctors, nurses, and support staff at every level at St.
Vincent's Medical Center, especially Dr. Ward Taylor, Drs. A.
Zacharias and Thomas Schwann, and Drs. Phillip Horowitz and
Allen Markowicz. Our family is also indebted to Mr. H. Ross
Perot and the gifted doctors at the Southwestern Medical
Center in Dallas, Dr. Gene Frenkel who made the longest house
call in the world, and Dr. A. Harold Urschell. Finally, we
cannot express our appreciation adequately to the saintly
nurses of Hospice of Northwest Ohio who treated our mother
with the tenderest and most humane care.
For us, her children, mother's loss is profound, beyond
measure. We know God has blessed our family by affording us
the privilege and honor to know and love this heroic woman
for half a century. We admire her totally. Our love and
respect for her has grown more with each passing day. We
shall never know a more loving, unselfish, nor courageous
human being. Somehow it is mystical that this service is
being held at a time when seasons are converging, as
spring dawns in this season of new life. Within the last
week, we have experienced freezing rain, bright sunlight
with blue skies, winter snowfalls, blustery winds, and
spring rains. The geese and birds are returning, and there
is a new moon. We believe this is nature's way of
welcoming our mother.
My brother and I also must beg our mother's forgiveness.
Because, you see, she chose to be a very private person--a
woman of deepest humility. She sought no fanfare nor
acknowledgement. She would have been quite uncomfortable with
the attention being directed her way today. But we couldn't
fathom how to avoid this occasion of the celebration of her
life.
We would wish for each of you to have in your life the gift
of Anastasia--love constantly and freely bestowed, as she has
given us for five decades. She has been our life-long partner
in all adventures, large and small, and our most ardent
supporter--whether it was working with my brother on his
latest
[[Page E592]]
patented invention or on his race car--literally, she sat
behind the wheel revving the engine while he tinkered under
the hood. She acted as my chief political confidante,
inspiring me always, as well as touching citizens across this
district and nation. Her love for her children could not be
contained.
Make no mistake about her resolve. She was a rugged
individualist. In an age of materialism, she countered the
tide. She coveted no bauble. She preferred ``making'' to
``buying.'' In an age of television, she remained a literary
woman of the written word, known for her independent thought
and resistance to commercialized brain washing. In an age of
mega mergers and faceless bureaucracies, she supported the
small family businesses--Bayer's Hardware, Wolfert and Sofo's
Markets, Brodbeck's Greenhouse. We can still see her each
spring in that greenhouse, negotiating down all the aisles,
appreciating the vast display of acres of flowers under
glass, and leaving with carloads of petunias and other sundry
selections, along with trunkloads of potting soil. In an age
of shallow commitments, her word and her life remain as true
as the North Star. For us, she remains ageless, a woman
for all seasons.
Our mother's life symbolizes triumph over adversity, the
story of a woman from the working classes who never yielded.
Let us tell you Anastasia's story . . .
Mother was born in Toledo to Polish peasant immigrant
parents who had journeyed to America in 1912 before World War
I from a tiny village in Burtyn, Ukraine, at the nexus of the
Polish and Ukrainian borders. Her father was a forester and
her mother a peasant girl of 17 years. They suffered the
abuse of making the month long journey to America in steerage
class in the bottom of a ship that left from Rotterdam and
disembarked at Ellis Island in New York. They sought to
improve their lot by working to earn enough money to buy
farmland in their native country where they had been forced
off the land as land was collectivized and they could no
longer graze their cows. But the Russian Revolution
intervened, then World War I, and mother's parents were cut
off from their relatives, never able to return home.
Our mother was the second-born of their four children--
Anna, Anastasia, Anthony, and Stanley. She was nicknamed
``Cherie'' in a childhood game they invented in which they
renamed one another--Al, Cherie, Fritz, and Skip.
Mother grew up during the Depression utterly poor from a
financial standpoint. That searing memory of bitter poverty
would remain with her throughout her life. This was a time in
America before our social safety net laws were in place. In
her early years, the family moved at least eight times--
always renters, never owners--from Belmont Avenue, to
Avondale, to Vance, to Pulaski, to Lucas, to Montrose, to
Blum, to Pinewood. And with those moves, she was forced to
change elementary schools and disrupt those tender learning
years--from Indiana School, to Pickett, to St. Teresa where
she made her Communion and Confirmation, to Hoag School. At
age 13, mom was already working to support her family. She
would rise at 4:30 a.m., take two buses across town in Toledo
to babysit and also clean houses for her teachers, as well as
wealthier people in Toledo. She herself later would write:
``Being a child of depression, making $5 a week, my father
out of work for years, my sister dying, no money at all. No
hope at all. My two children know the history.''
Though highly gifted academically and an all-A student in
the 7th and 8th grades, she was forced to drop out of Libbey
High School to work as a waitress to bring home a few dollars
a week to help the struggling family that also took in
boarders to make extra cash. Her father, always the last
hired and the first fired, could not keep steady work so her
mother cooked, washed clothes, did ironing--anything--to earn
cash, and also labored at Miller's Greenhouse picking
tomatoes, then in the kitchen at the Commodore Perry, then at
Kuhlmann's Potato Chips, and at Industrial Belt company on
Summit--but like her husband always at the bottom of the
seniority list. Her treasured and only sister, Anna, one year
older than mom, died tragically at age 17 of leakage of the
heart, an event that remained deeply poignant to our mother
throughout her years. Mom became the oldest surviving child.
At age 16, she hired on at Dean's Confectionery across from
St. Anthony's school for $5.00 per week. Many times that was
all her family had to live on. At 18, she worked at Liberty
Lunch for $8 a week, and then at Broadway Bar-B-Que for
$11.75 a week. The minimum wage law was passed at that time,
but her boss made her sign her check, then he cashed it, and
she was still paid only $8 a week. One day a lady came in
looking for people to work at Kresge's downtown, where mom
became employed, earning $14.50 a week.
When she was in her early 20's, she landed a job at the
Champion Spark Plug Company in Toledo where she had applied
at the employment office every day for one year. She never
missed a day of work between any of her jobs. Here, her
weekly wage rose to $40 a week. She worked the production
line at plug tamping where she was paid based on her output
and she always did the maximum number each day. It was at
Champion that she was elected to the Charter Committee of the
Local 12 United Auto Workers Trade Union that was forming.
She summarized for her children why she helped form the
union--``primarily to assure seniority rights of employment
so you couldn't be fired because the supervisor brought
family member to replace you. A bidding system was
established so any open job was put up on the board so the
one with the most seniority got the job if qualified.
Discrimination was outlawed so the foreman could no longer
put his pets or relatives on the best job. The right to ask
for a pay raise was assured through negotiation and the right
to strike granted to employees. Leaves for illness were
granted so people wouldn't be fired if a doctor's
certification was provided. Bathroom privileges were
allowed for personal contingencies. Three months leave was
allowed for pregnancy. Layoffs would occur according to
seniority. And a grievance procedure was established to
curb harassment by mean foremen.''
Elected union Secretary, Mom gained respect by both company
and union members for her knowledge of the bidding system,
her ability to handle grievances, and her detailed grasp of
the labor contract.
On November 26, 1938, at 9:00 A.M. at St. Teresa's Church,
she married our happy go-lucky, wonderful father Stephen or
``Kappy''--a produce man and truck driver. He came from an
even larger family where his mother had 16 children, though
many did not survive the illnesses of that period. They lived
with mom's family for awhile but then, together in 1945, they
bought a small home in Reynolds Corners in Adams Township,
totally retrofitted it, landscaped the property, waterproofed
the outside walls, handstripped the woodwork. While they were
at it, they gave birth to two children, their daughter Marcia
Carolyn in 1946, and their son Stephen Jacob in 1952. Mom
left her job at Champion when Steve was born.
In 1952, mom and dad opened their own family meat market
and grocery called Supreme Market in Rossford, Ohio on Dixie
Highway across from the Libbey Glass Plant. Cherie's homemade
pies were sold there, along with dad's fresh and smoked
Polish sausage, veal loaf, pickled herring, and lots more.
But due to her husband's illness, the family was forced to
sell the store at decade's end, and dad went to work at
Kaiser Jeep to assure the family income and health benefits.
He retired from there in 1968. Mom worked at a number of
part-time jobs to supplement the family income, with their
daughter in college and their son in high school--Daso
Bakery, Mareks' Supermarket, cleaning physicians' offices,
and even pet-sitting.
She continued working after she was widowed in 1969.
During the 1970's, with her children grown, and after
receiving her first Social Security check, Anastasia pursued
the life-long dream she had placed on hold while she helped
everyone else--completing her high school education
and advancing her own formal education. She received her
high school certification of graduation from the State of
Ohio in 1975, and passed with flying colors. She also
enrolled in Russian courses at the University of Toledo,
took painting courses at the Toledo Museum of Art,
polished her knowledge of the Polish language from books
and letter-writing, honing those skills for decades by
writing relatives in Poland and the Ukraine. She became
the best ``Friend of the Library,'' faithfully checking
out 10-20 books each month. And the reading list was not
light--Halberstam, Updike, McCollough, Grisham, Elements
of Style, Raven's Wing, The Recycled Citizen, The
Reckoning, Brand Fires on the Ridge. History. Travel.
Adventure. Geography. Fiction. Mysteries. Mom often used
the expression ``thirst for knowledge.'' And, she
certainly possessed it. She was self-taught in so many
facets, cultivated a stellar vocabulary on a daily basis,
and was a life-long learner.
She began to travel extensively with her children--
throughout the United States, and the world. Her deep
interest in geography enlivened at every turn. Niagara Falls,
British Columbia, New Orleans, Miami, Montreal, Vermont,
Maine, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Chicago, New York, California,
Oregon, the Upper and Lower Peninsulas in Michigan, Germany,
France, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, the Ukraine, even
when the Iron Curtain made travel difficult . . . Mexico,
Toronto . . . Her most memorable trip involved discovering
the village of her mother and father, hidden inside the
western Ukraine, placing flowers on the graves of her
grandmothers, and learning of their fates--one starved to
death during Lenin's drive to squelch peasant rebellion in
the countryside, and the other shot together with her
grandchildren for refusing to divulge the whereabouts of a
grandson being sought for conscription into the Russian army.
While there, mom discovered a grove of full grown trees at
the opening to the village, planted by her mother before she
departed for America. While there, she also found her
mother's brother, Casimer, the sole surviving son who had
been placed in Siberian concentration camps for 20 years by
Joseph Stalin. It was an unforgettable journey as the blanks
of 63 years of family history were filled in.
Mother is most at home in the outdoors with nature, and
in her gardens. She advised ``everything in life must have
a center, just like the universe, or a flower, or a
family.'' She could grow anything--certainly children. But
also animals--dogs, ducks, rabbits, birds, squirrels,
crescendos of plants and flowers, roses by the thousands,
flowers of all varieties--the usual ones like marigolds
and sweet peas. But more often the unusual and rare ones--
moon flowers, balloon flowers, lupines, tulips, foxglove,
columbine. Her own potatoes, planted lovingly each year,
were harvested for a special meal. And her
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evergreens and spruces, grown from shoots or small seeds,
all came to have symbolic value in our yard like the large
blue spruce on our front lawn, planted the first year she
had both a son and a daughter. If by a loving act of
nature, that tree over the years has sprouted two tops.
Always, she was beautiful, so delicate and tiny physically,
with the clearest blue eyes my brother and I had ever seen,
and flawless skin, rarely wearing makeup. Natural. She wore
her hair like no other person we ever met. Distinctive. She
wore hats and clothing she crafted herself. She loved to
dance, especially polkas in both clockwise and
counterclockwise directions. She had a flair, whether it was
the way she held a napkin, or planted a garden, or signed her
name.
She was always usefully occupied and her project list never
ended. She built furniture, designed and sewed clothing,
painted oil sketches, landscaped, wrote newsy personal
letters, baked, did masonry. She enjoyed people, one at a
time, and took a personal interest in each person's story.
When she finished a conversation, it was likely the person
had told her much more about him or herself than they ever
knew about mom. The first day she was admitted to the
hospital for tests, a nurse came up to her and said she was
going to take extra good care of her because when the nurse's
husband was a little boy, he was mom's paper boy and mom
always invited him in and fed him cookies.
She would refer to people she truly admired as the ``salt
of the earth.'' Indeed, that epitomizes her. And she would
remind us the ``strongest steel goes through the hottest
fire.'' And she has. She always prayed for others' physical,
mental, moral, and spiritual strength. But, she possessed
them all. She walked toward physical death with full
knowledge, her shoulders straight, trying to bolster us, with
her eyes fixed on the horizon. She never flinched once. She
never complained. She accepted. And, her spirit triumphed. I
only wish we could reveal to you the depths of her courage.
She taught us how to live, and she showed us how to die.
We are grateful to God for granting us the time to say
goodbye. Never have we known a person of such goodness. She
would caution us ``Never give anything with the idea of
getting something in return.'' She was completely selfless.
In knowing her, we came to know the full meaning of the
words--love, truth, beauty, unselfishness, humility, wisdom,
generosity, grace, refinement, ingenuity, perseverance,
serenity, and courage. For those of you who wonder why she
didn't confide in you these last several months, please know
she was protecting you, not wanting you to worry. She was
always thinking of the other person.
If you ever looked into her sparkling eyes, or shook her
hand, you knew you met someone of substantial character and
abiding virtue. In the heavens, some stars emanate a pure
light, so full, constant and strong, they quietly draw the
gaze of earthly creatures, large and small, to their
wondrous, serene lustre. They usher in the night and the day.
In their light, sojourners never lose their way, never fall,
never tire, and are never alone.
In her memory, our family will establish ``The Anastasia
Fund'' (to be formally incorporated as the Anastasia
Swiecicki Rogowska Kaptur Fund) for the adoption, education,
and medical care of children from the newly democratizing
nations of Eastern and Central Europe, beginning with Burtyn,
Ukraine, the ancestral home of her parents. Mother would say,
``goodness never dies.'' May this fund honor her memory, that
of her mother and father, and their mothers and fathers as we
move to a 21st century that offers hope in the most forgotten
places.
There is no way to say thank you sufficiently, mother. We
love you beyond life and time itself. May eternal rest be
granted unto you and may perpetual light shine upon you.
Your profoundly grateful son and daughter,
Steve and Marcy.
To be established in Memory of our Mother's Life: ``The
Anastasia Fund'' (to be formally incorporated as the
Anastasia Swiecicki Rogowska Kaptur Fund) dedicated for the
adoption, education and medical care of children from the
newly democratizing nations of Eastern and Central Europe
beginning with Burtyn, Ukraine, the ancestral home of her
parents.
Contributions may be forwarded to: ``The Anastasia Fund'',
c/o Toledo Community Foundation, 608 Madison Avenue, Suite
1540, Toledo, Ohio 43604-1151.
____________________