Babunia

Antonia Chicanowicz, a Polish woman, was born in Stamstwiska, Vilna, Poland, a Russian Federation in 1894.  From 1795 to 1918 the area was under the Imperial Russian Rule and it had a strong grip on the Polish people.  They were not allowed to speak Polish on the streets and the stores could only post signs in the Russian language. 

 

Russia during this time was made up of Lithuanians, Jews and Pols.  All three were striving for cultural domination. The languages spoken were Yiddish, Polish, and Lithuanian.  The man she would eventually marry, John Kopcych, was also born in Vilna, Poland in 1892 and immigrated to America in 1910, at the age of 18, due to Russian rule and cultural unrest.

 

At the start of WWI in 1914, at the age of 20, she immigrated to America.  It was here that she married John Kopcych and purchased land on Hayward Street, in Bridgewater, Massachusetts and began a life of farming.  Their first son was named Josef after John’s father, and their son Anthony was named for John’s brother.  They had two daughters, Stephanie Stella and Mary Rose.

 

Anthony, known to me as Uncle Tony married my father’s sister, Bertha.

 

I came to know Antonia, a widow, at this time, now living next door to my parents. We called her Babunia, which is grandma in Russian. She made great cookies.  I remember sneaking one from her kitchen as a child.

 She loved her booze and did imbibe a little too much at times.  I remember she would take about a two-foot-long log from her wood pile that she kept for her wood stove and carry it out to the edge of the street and set it on end.  Somewhat portly she would firmly plant herself down with feet apart on the ground for balance and yell “hey” and she waved to the cars as they drove by.

It is believed that a wood stove caused her home to catch fire.  Her son, Tony, lived right next door to us.

 

In the middle of the night, my father's cousin, Eddie Marvel, who lived two houses down, woke my parents by banging on their bedroom window.  My mother was startled and screamed for the reflection from the fire made it look like our house was on fire. 

 

Babunia’s son, Tony, ran to his mother's home that was on fire. In an attempt to save her he broke a window to get to her. It was a valiant effort in futility for the house was totally engulfed and the flames much too hot.  Tony cut his hand on the windowpane and was bleeding heavily.  Knowing he was not able to save his mother, he walked over to our house leaving a trail of blood.  My mother wrapped his hand in a towel to stop the bleeding while sitting on the back porch steps, just as the fire trucks and police arrived. The house was a total loss.

Sadly, Antonia died in that fire in 1955. I was eleven years old as I looked out our living room window at all the activity. The night air was red with fire.  I watched as she was put into the back of an ambulance in a black body bag and taken away.

Only the foundation of her home remained where trees and weeds grew in and around the foundation and property for decades before the land was sold and a new home was built.