Family members are invited to share stories of grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and so on, to add to our Steven Hollenczer tribute. Any remembrances you have of family members are welcome, and will be added to the appropriate pages! Please e-mail me with any stories you would like added to these pages.
The following are some of these remembrances, by Helen Weeks Hollenczer, Janice Weeks Hollenczer Bernath, Margaret Hollenczer Spatafore, Dorothy Hollenczer Dziomba, Steven Hollenczer Jr. and Pete Hollenczer III.
(Click on the thumbnail images or any of the name links to jump to the photo page)
Uncle John Stories Aunt Mary Stories Steve Hollenczer Stories Uncle Joe Stories Uncle Mike Stories Grandma Hollenczer Stories Aunt Anna Whitlow Stories Grandpa Hollenczer Stories Joe-Joe Stories
Janice Hollenczer Bernath
"Some of my earliest memories:
Having a striped dress, light brown, yellow, green or turquoise, and pink. It had a tie in
the back, and short puffed sleeves. Once when I wore it, Aunt May gave me a haircut on
the sidewalk on Gaffney's side of our house, where the Virginia Creeper grew (I always
thought it was poison ivy, and that I was impervious to it! I never have gotten it!). I think
it must have been after 1951, since our front porch was gone, and Mom's garden in the
back yard had been turned into a parking lot. That makes me think of the years the garden
was there, and one time Mom finding a 'garter' snake; I was scared, but she picked it up
and moved it, and told me they couldn't hurt us and they were good for the garden. I can
still recall the scent of the plants in the garden in the early summers! I love that scent still,
and it always reminds me of my childhood. I guess that's what memories are for!
"I remember sitting on the front porch years earlier, with my Valentine's heart box, which
was filled not with candy, but with the poppy seeds that would collect in the bottom of the
bakery bag of Kaiser rolls. I'd sit on the step (our porch had big round pillars, and
forsythia bushes grew on either side of the stairs, I think, and a huge evergreen tree to the
right of the walk looking out towards the street, with lilies of the valley growing around
the bottom. I LOVED that tree!) and eat the poppy seeds, wetting my finger and coating it
with the seeds. One of my favorite treats!
Another memory is of Grandma Hollenczer and Mom and Aunt May preparing turkey;
they'd soak the bread in the water filled, big, white, ridged bowl, which I have now, and I
can still see Grandma stuffing the turkey.
"Another memory is wash day, with the old wringer style washer, and the bluing that was
used to make the clothes white. I never could understand how something so BLUE could
make things white! I can remember how the pantry smelled on wash day, though, all damp
and warm, with a sweetish scent.
"Another memory I have is of sleeping in Mom and Pop's bed; maybe it was when Grandma
was sick. Margaret and I were in their bedroom, and afraid of the dark. Mom came up and
read fairy tales and saints' stories to us, one in particular being the Story of St. Nicholas,
where some children were killed by the evil ruler and cut up, and placed into a sack, and
St. Nicholas saved them, and magically put them back together. Come to think of it,
maybe that's why I was afraid of the dark!! Mom also taught Margaret and me the
"Marseillaise", the National Anthem of France, around this time. We learned that before
we learned our own National Anthem! I used to love being read to by Mom. She had a
book of stories, fairy tales and nursery rhymes, I think, that she wouldn't let us touch,
knowing our propensity for ripping things to shreds, I guess! But mostly, she wanted to
do the coloring in that book herself!
"I remember going to Locust Valley on the train with Mom, when I was very small, and
before Margaret was born; one time, when we went past the brook with the round stone
wall, I saw a turtle, and thought it was a snapping turtle. I had visions of it taking my
finger off! Just a plain old turtle, though. It's funny what kinds of memories stick with you!
When we reached Grandma's house, I used to love running down the sidewalk in front of
her wall, because the sound it made was hollow when your feet stamped on it!
"In Grandma Weeks' house, there was a wonderful sideboard, with marble on top, and
shelves, but most of all the drawer pulls were carved fruit! On it sat all sorts of knick
knacks, but the thing I remember most was the little wooden toy belonging to Aunt
Dorothy, the kind that looked like Pluto in the Disney cartoons; when you pressed the
button on the bottom, he would collapse, or you could make him dance. I loved that thing!
Grandma's table was, I think, a round claw-footed oak table. Aunt Dorothy had other
things that would fascinate a child: a grass skirt hung on the door-knob of the living room
door; a small rush-seated chair, child's size, which I loved to sit on; a "real" tom-tom, and
best of all, a stuffed baby alligator. She also had a secretary desk that I loved, which is in
Aunt Beatrice's house now, or at least, was. I remember
the smell of that house, too, though I couldn't describe it; but every now and then, I catch
a whiff of it somewhere, and all these pictures come back to me. Grandma had a big (or so
I thought) yard, and Adirondack chairs; there were lilac bushes in the yard, and tall
decorative grass, the kind that was popular once in Victorian gardens. On the bank
between her house and Sarah Jane's there grew a carpet of myrtle, with blue flowers. At
the top of the driveway, at the corner of the house, grew orange day lilies, I think. I can
picture the leaves of that type of plant. There were stones along the edge of that area. And
there were always plants in the dining room window, and the most marvelous shade pulls!
Sort of clear scallopy, with red "jewels" in the centers.
"When I was about 4 or 5, I think Grandma Hollenczer had died not too long
before, Mom and I and Aunt Anna Duffy were shopping, maybe in Huntington? We were
in a shop that sold blouses, I think, and maybe lingerie, but definitely ladies
handkerchieves in a glass case. The sales lady referred to my Aunt Anna as my
Grandmother, and I told her, as if she were a very silly person for making the mistake, that
she was, in fact, my Aunt!! I think Mom had on her blue suit that I really liked. When she
wore that suit, she sometimes wore a pin that had a bow top, and from it hung a little urn
which held perfume. Sometimes she wore a pin of a bird with a heart dangling from it's
mouth, both covered in small 'pearls', and she also had a crown pin, with very colorful
faceted 'jewels' which I loved. And a lipstick case with jewels, too. What memories are
these?
"Just a few years before Pop died, he said something to me in Hungarian, and I repeated it
back to him; he asked me how I learned to speak with such a good accent, but that was an
easy one -- I was just repeating what he said! It was nice to hear, though, that he thought I
could do it so well.
"I remembered another story about me, from my first day at kindergarten, at the Highland
School in Roslyn Heights; it was not too far from Aunt Anna Czik and Uncle Joe's house.
Mom walked me to school, wondering how I would take to it; I remember this part: I
went over to the play kitchen area, and joined the other kids there; I opened the
refrigerator door, and a boy, I know his last name was Hoffmann, said he'd just done that.
I retorted that I could do it too. Mom told me I turned around and told her "You can go
home now!" Mom waited for me at Aunt Anna's, since school was just a half day. I liked
school from that point on, at least until we moved to Pennsylvania. I know I didn't like it
very much then. When I was still in NY, I belonged to the National Honor Society, but
things certainly changed after we moved!
"After kindergarten, I went to Saint Mary's School in Roslyn; it had just been built earlier
that year. I remember playing out in the playground at lunchtime, and the same Hoffmann
boy came running down the play yard, and knocked me down, flat on my back; it was an
accident, I think, since we were friends, but I hit my head on the asphalt. It scared me, but
I guess everything turned out all right. Sometimes when we were in the playground at lunchtime, I'd see my cousin Patty Kehoe;
she was 4 1/2 years older than I, and I thought, oh, so grown up! She'd take me to lunch
with her and her friends in the cafeteria once in a while, and I thought I was so grown up,
too! I don't remember my cousin Carole from St. Mary's, but I know her dad, Uncle Joe,
did work for the nuns at the school, and for the priests at the rectory. He was what used to
be called a 'deacon' at the church, too, I think, but that might have a different meaning
today. Uncle Joe was everyone's favorite when we were this age!
"Another memory I have, one of visiting Uncle John and Aunt Anna, was Aunt Anna's
Lemon Meringue pies. My favorites! She told me she made them especially for me cause
she knew I loved them so much, and I, of course believed her! And though I don't
remember this, Uncle John told me years later that I used to love eating the peaches he'd
put up every year! And at that, he got out a jar and opened it, and he must have been
telling the truth, because they were delicious!
"I was remembering our old house on Powerhouse Road, and the coal bin I used to play in;
Mom told me the furnace was oil by the time I came along, but I must have a powerful
imagination, since I can "see" the coal there, and watch while the door was opened and
coal shoveled into the fire in the furnace!
"Pop had his workshop in the cellar, and he used to take me downstairs with him
sometimes when he worked, or looked at blueprints; he taught me to read blueprints when
I was a teenager. My favorite things in his workshop were the workbench, where he sat
me while he worked; the grindstone (electric grinder) that threw off the most wonderful
sparks--I loved watching them fly!!; and the "curls" I'd play with, made when he planed
wood.
"Another item I remember is the curtain stretcher--a frame of wood on a stand, with nails
all around the edges; when the lace curtains were washed, Mom and Aunt May and
Grandma would stretch them out on this to dry. I loved to pull them off when they were
done! That stretcher brought to mind another memory, of Margaret and Steven being in the
carriage during the warm days, with the mosquito netting stretched over it. No one puts
babies outside anymore for the fresh air, but it was always done when we were young. I
had my very own "baby" carriage that I'd play with while Margaret, and later Steven, took
in the fresh air.
"We always loved playing on the cellar door, too, running up and down it! And Pop giving
me my own sack of Plaster of Paris, so I could make plaster pies instead of the mud pies
everyone else had to make! After we moved to Pennsylvania, and Dad started changing
things on the house, my plaster playtime came in handy, when he taught me to spackle!
Years later, I restored the plaster walls in my own house. I learned an important lesson
with the plaster of paris, too: one must ALWAYS use a container wider on the top than
on the bottom when using it as a mold for 'pies'!