I recently met with Debbie, Richard and Nancy Kaylor of Riverton to hear stories and see photos of their deceased Lithuanian immigrant grandfather and proud veteran John Joseph Straukas. Several of the most striking photos of John Joseph, born in 1890 in Plunge, Lithuania, relate to his service in U.S. Army Company F, Fifth Battalion, 22nd Engineers, in World War I.

It’s been 100 years since the beginning of that so-called “War to End All Wars,” with its mass casualties and horrific trench warfare–not to mention history’s most prolific use, ever, of chemical weapons. According to Chris McDonald, Ph.D., an author and political science professor at Lincoln Land Community College, World War I cost the lives of 132 Springfield-area men, 11 percent of the total inducted. (See Chris’s book at: http://www.amazon.com/Three-Lying-Four-Sitting-Letters/dp/193613201X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1432063137&sr=1-1&keywords=chris+mcdonald ).

In 30 percent of those deaths, no cause was ever given. Almost 29 percent of the casualties resulted from the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic that swept the globe like a modern bubonic plague. Healthy, young American soldiers who contracted that flu in their training camps and on troop ships never even made it to the war, as their lungs filled up in just 48-72 hours. Concluding McDonald’s numbers: Just over 16.5 percent of local casualties were killed in action, and another 15.5 percent died of wounds received in battle. Nine percent of casualties were listed as “other,” probably non-combat.

A coal miner and skilled carpenter, John Joseph sailed to New York from Liverpool in 1909 on the SS Baltic (reportedly stoking the coal-fired ship’s engines along the way, to pay for his passage). He was living with his aunt Lulu Grigiski (later Riverton’s most famous moonshiner), at the time of his induction. John Joseph and his brother had left Lithuania when it was part of the Russian Empire to avoid 25-year conscription by the Czar. Ironically, just nine years later, he found himself drafted into the U.S. Army, entering service in June 1918, only five months before Armistice.

John Joseph trained at Ft. Benjamin Harrison, Indiana, and sailed to Europe on September 15, 1918. He saw action in the Meuse-Argonne offensive right at the time of Armistice in November 1918, and performed so heroically in combat that he was offered, and rejected, a promotion to corporal. He was granted U.S. citizenship in 1918, and discharged honorably in July 1919 at Camp Grant, Illinois. Years later, John Joseph, who avoided drink, used to huddle at the end of the bar at Butcher Tavern, discussing war experiences with the owner, another World War I veteran.

John Joseph lived a notable life in other ways. According to his Kaylor grandchildren, he could fix or build anything, including his own Riverton home, and was always ahead of his time, for example, digging his basement by the scoop and shovel method, and installing Greenfield wiring. He made all the cabinets and woodwork in the house. John Joseph also always proudly kept a “running” car to take not just himself, but also other miners to and from work in the nearby Denkert Coal Mine. Perhaps the original “designated driver,” John Joseph also used the car to make sure his drinking friends got home safely from any and all of Riverton’s nine taverns.

John Joseph was married to Esther May Trow (13 years his junior) after a very short acquaintance in 1925. The couple had two daughters: Dorothy Jane, who married Richard Dean Kaylor, and Louise, who married James Whitaker. The Kaylor grandchildren, who mostly grew up on Esther and John Joseph’s Riverton farm, are: Deborah, Richard, Denise, Nancy, Sharon, John, and Tammy.

The Straukas grandparents always kept two gardens: one closer to the house with lettuce, tomatoes, radishes, onions, carrots, and a chicken coop, and a more distant garden with red and sweet potatoes, peas, corn and green beans. After harvest, potatoes were stored in bins in the basement. The kaylor kids remember eating such ethnic foods as pickled pigs’ feet, herring, and “stinky cheese.” Chickens were slaughtered outside and cleaned in the basement.

John Joseph died of black lung disease in 1973. Today, granddaughter Tammy still lives in the house he built. Nancy’s son inherited his great grandfather’s carpentry skills and works as a carpenter for Burasky Builders.

Dedicated to the memory of all the Central Illinois men who served in World War I.

Is immigration a wall or a door? Or could it be first one, then the other? Many impoverished Lithuanian immigrants to the U.S. scrambled over the wall between their old and new lives and never looked back. Others stayed mostly walled off from the American mainstream within their native language and culture.

Due to our relative privilege and our distance from immigration’s urgent traumas, maybe it’s no surprise that the doors our predecessors had to close behind themselves, and the ones they found closed in their faces, for us swing back and forth between two countries, two cultures. For Colleen Shaughnessy, granddaughter of coal-mining Lithuanian immigrant John (Makarauskas) Mack, the door actually swings back and forth between the U.S. and an almost unlimited number of countries and cultures.

Colleen’s grandfather (who went on to found Springfield’s first McDonald’s restaurants) was one of the many who experienced immigration as a one-way passage between his old and new worlds. That makes the cultural plasticity of Colleen’s chosen career all the more remarkable. As an English as a second language (ESL) teacher and teacher trainer, Colleen has become something of a “professional” immigrant, shipping out to Africa, Asia, and South America—often on what would seem to us pretty short notice.

Whereas someone transplanted by rank necessity to the lowest social rungs of another country might find a wall—a people and language absolutely foreign–Colleen, visiting by choice as a friend and teacher, finds a door to cross-cultural contact, understanding–and ultimately, belonging.

The youngest of seven children of JoAnn (Mack) Shaughnessy, Colleen attended St. Mary’s Grade School in New Berlin, and then graduated from St. Cabrini and Ursuline Academy. Her love affair with learning—and teaching—around the world began at Monmouth College when she spent two spring breaks volunteering on a Native American reservation in South Dakota.

Those experiences inspired her to spend a study-abroad semester in Zimbabwe during her junior year. Colleen recalls, “I had never been on a plane before, so my first plane trip, ever, was from Springfield to Chicago to London to Harare (the capital of Zimbabwe).”

After graduating with a bachelor’s in biology, Colleen then joined the Peace Corps and served for two years as a teacher of high school science in Wulugu, Ghana. After her return to the U.S., she ended up volunteering with an organization that taught ESL. She recalls, “It was sort of love at first sight. I stood in front of my first class and thought: ‘This! This is what I should do!’ ”

Since earning her master’s degree in ESL, Colleen has worked in Bolivia, South Africa, Kyrgyzstan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She has also worked with Somali Bantu refugees in the U.S., and taught inside U.S. prisons. Basically, when Colleen isn’t evaluating English language programs abroad for the U.S. State Department or teaching teachers in other countries, she revels in teaching English in the U.S. to international students and “pre-literate” adults: people who do not yet know how to read or write in their own tongue.

When we touched base last month, 30-something Colleen was living in Michigan and working to complete her Ph.D. in adult education at Penn State University. Then suddenly, she was off to Africa again (South Africa, to be exact). Below, she describes her deep affection for the people of Ghana and her experiences there:

“While my technical job in the Peace Corps was to teach high school science in a village in northern Ghana called Wulugu, the real work I did was building and maintaining relationships. I left Ghana over 10 years ago, but in the last week I have communicated with 4 Ghanaians from my time there. My host-family became my family. My village friends, mostly older women, became my aunts, mothers, and grandmothers. My colleagues became my brothers; my students, my nieces and nephews. More importantly, they allowed me into their lives and let me be their niece, daughter, granddaughter, sister, and aunt.

The grace with which the Ghanaians I came to know allowed me into their lives and hearts has been their greatest lesson — and a skill I have developed in my post-Peace Corps professional life. Ghanaians offer a sincere compliment with the phrase: “You are free,” which encapsulates an approach to life and others that is open-hearted and friendly. Thus, in Ghana, I learned to laugh, cry, and live with more of my being.”

Reading this, I think again of our immigrant forbearers, who due to the marginality of their existence, were forced to totally exchange their existing way of being for a new one–or hold out against the new way at all costs. How difficult were their burdens and how few their opportunities. And how wonderful that now finally, we, their descendants, enjoy lives of such high potential that culture and language need no longer limit us, and we can embrace the world.

Passersby on East Cook St. may not know that today’s Kings Court Apartments, operated by an arm of Abundant Faith Christian Center, were once part of a Blazis (Blazavich) family-owned hospitality complex that, in the heyday of old Route 66, welcomed thousands of vacationers, salesmen and legislators to Springfield.

The complex was built from nothing by Lithuanian immigrant and Blazis family matriarch Mary (Chunis) Blazis (later Stulzinski) and her American-born general contractor son William Blazis, Jr., with the help of her other grown children: Enoch, Ann Ackerman, Helen Summers and Mary Yazell. It included the “ultra-modern,” 48 one- and two-bedroom-unit Magnolia Court motel (named for magnolias planted on the property)–and the Muncheonette Diner. A new family home on nearby White City Boulevard was also part of the ambitious Blazis family-business complex in the 2600 block of East Cook St., the main artery connecting Route 66 to the Lincoln sites downtown.

I have a personal connection to this story. In the 1950s, my father worked part-time on the construction of another Blazis family real estate development: the Regency Court duplex apartments, also on East Cook. Even more personally, I have a childhood memory from 1963 or ’64 of playing with two little daughters of William, Jr. and Irene (Pietrzak) Blazis. Even though I only met her once and never knew her last name, I never forgot sweet, little Mary Agnes Blazis (who died of the complications of cerebral palsy in 1965), who was so lovingly taken outside by her able-bodied sister Barbara to play on a swing set with me and my sister Terry. Only this weekend did I connect the dots between my long-ago memory of Mary Agnes and the family she belonged to.

Lithuanian immigrants William, Sr. and Mary (Chunis) Blazis (born about 1884) moved to Springfield from the coal town of Dubois, Penn., in the early 1930s to join Mary’s brother Julius Chunis, who was already working in the mines here. They brought their five children with them to settle in a large home on the corner of 18th and Jackson Streets. Mary worked to support her family as a housekeeper at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. (Interestingly, the obituary of son Enoch lists the Blazis surname as Blozavich, indicating that it may have been Americanized by William, Sr.)

After sons William, Jr. and Enoch returned from serving in World War II, Mary and her children saw new opportunity in booming family vacation travel on Route 66 (now Dirksen Parkway), along with the advent of the motor inn or motel. With their drive and family teamwork, the Blazis clan made their American dream a reality only one generation after arriving on U.S. shores with nothing but their ability to work hard and take risk.

On the construction project for the Magnolia and the Muncheonette, William, Jr. was his mother Mary’s right hand, taking care of all the construction hiring, ordering, supervising, and even stepping in help perform the manual labor. Matriarch Mary held the family purse strings, taking a second loan from Illinois National Bank to cover construction bills and payroll. Mary’s daughters Helen, Ann and Mary helped with all the bookkeeping and chores like keeping work crews fed. Once the Magnolia Court motel and Muncheonette diner opened, William, Jr. and his brother managed the motel (Bill personally did all the maintenance) and sisters Helen Summers and Mary (and husband) Fed Yazell managed the diner (with trained butcher Bill Blazis cutting a hindquarter of meat for the diner once a week.) Family members only took salaries while their mother kept ownership of the properties (and the bank loan).

Then disaster struck: William, Jr. died of lung cancer in 1967. Enoch continued managing the complex for awhile, but in 1972, with Howard Johnsons and Holiday Inns eating the Magnolia Court’s business, matriarch Mary sold the family’s motel, diner and home complex to the Kresse family of Riverton. After a long slide into dilapidation and crime, in 1998, the old motel was rehabbed down to the bricks into the 1 and 3-bedroom Kings Court Apartments in a $1.5 million project.

While it’s sad to think of a family’s dream fading into oblivion, the Blazis immigrant achievement lives on in memory. In addition, Mary Blazis and her son, William, Jr. sponsored two Lithuanian DP families after World War II: Dr. Joseph Petrakus with his wife and two children, and Walter and Tamara Danelevich and their daughter. Dr. Petrakus, under the supervision of Dr. Master, became the first foreign doctor to intern at Memorial Hospital, which paved the way for others, such as Dr. Chatara from Soviet Georgia.

The Blazis family also were proud members of St. Vincent de Paul Lithuanian Catholic Church, where William, Jr. sang in the choir, where he married Polish DP Irene in 1954, and all six of Bill and Irene’s children (Mary Agnes, Barbara, twins Fred and John, Vincent and Enoch) were baptized. When Mary Agnes died of pneumonia in 1965, followed by her father in 1967, both had memorial masses at the church.

Lithuanian immigrant Mary Blazis Stulzinski passed away in June 1976 at the age of almost 92.

As a footnote, the White City Tavern and the nearby home the Blazises sold to Orlandini Distributors was used for the Orlandini family’s offices. A large parcel known as the White City property was developed into single-family homes, with a portion sold to the Springfield School District for the Washington Middle School and to the Springfield Park District for Jaycees Park.

“Lithuanians in Springfield” was the title of an exhibit Saturday, Feb. 22 at the Illinois State Museum. Sponsored, designed and manned by members of our Lithuanian-American Club, the exhibit was part of the museum’s annual Multicultural Day. However, this was the first time the club mounted a display.

Our exhibit included amber jewelry and art, dolls in national costume, a person in national costume, flags, linens, ceramics, books, story boards, and a continuous PowerPoint display showing the faces of Springfield Lithuanian-Americans Senator Dick Durbin, radio announcer Sam Madonia, Brad and Joe Turasky, Debbie Davis Ritter and her sons Dalton and Noah, Paulette George, Elaine Kuhn, Dr. John Kwedar, Joan and Dan Naumovich, and others.

Club members Sandy Baksys, Donna and Kourtney Baker, Rick Dunham, and Barbara Endzelis hosted the display. Club members John and Irene Blazis, Irena S., Mary Chepulis and Sharon and Bud Darran stopped by. Irena contributed enormously by exposing visitors to the Lithuanian language and taking photos. Friends Melinda McDonald, Linda Gladu, Joyce Downey and Debbie Davis Ritter, her brother Brian Davis, and sons Dalton and Gabriel also visited the display. (Melinda had graciously volunteered her tech skills to design our PowerPoint.)

Most popular with visitors young and old were the commemorative 1992 Lithuanian “Skullman” Olympic basketball and tie-died Skullman jersey (inspired by the Grateful Dead jerseys sold to sponsor Lithuania’s first post-independence Olympic basketball team.)

Young girls also enjoyed trying on the karuna (crown) of the Lithuanian national costume being worn by Sandy, and kindly donated for display by long-time club member Vida Totoraitis. Thanks also to Asta S. for donating our full-size Lithuanian flag.

The Gedman took an unusually circuitous route to Springfield. Along the way, a mystery emerged:  two local Gedman families who don’t know each other, yet whose ancestors lived in close proximity.

Kaitonis Gedman (Lith. Kajetonas Gedmanis or Gedminis?) was born in Kvedarna, Lithuania in 1859. He left behind his second wife, Petronėlė Kupšaitė, born in Kvedarna in 1864, and two children to work in the coal mines of Bentlyville, Pennsylvania. When his wife, Petronėlė, died back in Lithuania in 1903, Kaitonis sent for his daughter, Anna, who had been born in 1882 of his first wife, and his son, Joseph, to join him in Pennsylvania.

Joseph C. Gedman, who had been born in Kaunas, Lithuania in 1895, came to the U.S. when he was just eight with his half-sister Anna Gedman (later Pinkes), who was 21. Joseph, who had less than a year of schooling, worked as a coal miner like his father Kaitonis, and also in ordinance plants, first in Pennsylvania, then striking out on his own in Coalton, Oklahoma, where he returned to live and work after serving in World War I. (His sister Anna Pinkes also lived in Coalton, and all her children were born there.) Interestingly, Joseph also secured his U.S. citizenship via honorable discharge from his service in World War I.

Joseph married Helen Beneky, the 20-year-old Springfield-born daughter of Lithuanian-born Anthony and Barbara (Wisnoski) Beneky. The couple apparently were introduced by Helen’s cousin, Jack Harmon, whom Joseph met in Coalton. We don’t know what the Joseph and Helen trans-continental courtship was like, but we do know that the couple married in 1921 at Helen’s “native” church, St. Vincent de Paul Lithuanian Catholic Church, in Springfield. After living for a time in Coalton, Oklahoma, where their only child, James L. Gedman, was born later in 1921, Joseph and Helen moved to 2110 Peoria Road, near the Illinois State Fairgrounds, in close proximity to many other Lithuanian immigrant families.

According to Betty Gedman, the granddaughter of Joseph and Helen, as a young girl, Helen slipped getting off the streetcar (Inter-urban) that used to run down Peoria Road, and lost all but two of the fingers on her right hand. Yet she went on to have perfect handwriting, and to work at the International Shoe Factory for many years, “outworking many of the men there.”

Helen also played an important role in the 1930s “Mine Wars” (covered elsewhere on this blogsite) as a board member of the Illinois Women’s Auxiliary of the Progressive Mine Workers of America (AFWAL), representing Springfield. Helen died in 1947 at the age of just 46, only five years after the death of Kaitonis, the paterfamilias, in Springfield in 1942 at age 83. Kaitonis had finally arrived in Springfield by 1925, following his daughter Anna and son Joseph. Joseph died in Springfield in 1990 at age 95.

Joseph and Helen’s son James L. Gedman, who served in World War II, worked as a lineman and mechanic for Illinois Bell Telephone. He married Loretta Rose Gietl in 1950, and they raised three children at 1703 E. Matheny: twins Helen Gedman (Coleman) and Betty Gedman–and son Joe. Helen died in 1980 at 29, but had a son John, and daughter Erin. Joe, of Belleville, is retired from the U.S. Air Force and has two children.

Betty Gedman, the informant for this piece, is an R.N. and perioperative nurse manager in West Virginia. Her husband John Wiley is of Connecticut Lithuanian descent on his mother’s side (Neverdousky).

Let me end this blog post with a mystery: Does anyone know the connection, if any, between Kaitonis, Joseph and James Gedman’s family and a Charles Gedman of Springfield who married Emma Valentine (Lith Valentuonis? also spelled Valtioneys, Valentinaocius) and in 1902 had daughter Julia, who married Peter Lukitis? Julia (Gedman) Lukitis was a devoted parishioner of St. Vincent de Paul’s who worked in the church office for many years.  She was also  a cashier at The Hub Clothier, and had a daughter, Rita Mae Marley of Decatur and two granddaughters. 

 

Lithuanian coal-mining families in Springfield at the turn of the 20th Century had many hardships–and virtues–in common. Hard work, faith and determination were necessary just to survive. As for the hardships…In addition to the loss of infants and children that many parents suffered, children often endured the loss of a parent. Fathers died or were disabled in the mines. And more often than today, young mothers died, too.

After being widowed, spouses often re-married, creating a good number of blended families long before divorce was respectable or common. One of the oldest members of our Lithuanian-American community, Eleanora Treinis (Yuskavich), lost her mother, Tillie (Theophilia Rinkienve or Rinkavich), when Eleanora was just six to endocarditis (infection of a heart valve). Born in Lithuania, Tillie had arrived in Springfield around 1911 and was working as a laundress and boarding at the St. Nicholas Hotel in downtown Springfield when she met John Treinis, a coal miner, also born in Lithuania, who came to the U.S. in 1908.

After the couple married in 1912, Tillie continued working as a maid at the Leland Hotel, probably among other jobs. Not until 10 years after Tillie’s death did her widower John Treinis get re-married to Lithuanian immigrant Nancy Kensman, daughter of Antanas and Anna (Begaila) Kensman (Cachmiscus). As for Nancy, she previously had been married to a man named Nevada (Nevardoskus or Nevidauski), giving Eleanora a stepbrother (John). What’s more, after Mr. Nevada, Nancy had been married to Ignatius Zakar, giving Eleanor a step-sister (Ceceilia) and another step-brother (Joseph) who had been born to Mr. Zakar by a previous wife.

This was an impressive amount of family “blending,” perhaps even for the time. However, unlike today when re-marriages seem to occur quickly, while children are still young, resulting in step-siblings living together, it’s clear that widower John Treinis postponed re-marriage until Eleanora was mostly grown. Basic economics, the number of children who needed to be parented, and the support of other relatives probably determined how soon a widower needed to re-marry. For widows, a quick re-marriage was often imperative to restore a male breadwinner to the household.

Eleanora remembers her stepmom Nancy from her later teens, when she and her father lived in rooms above a tavern around 16th and Carpenter that Nancy owned (probably inherited from deceased spouses Nevada or Zakar). Years later, Eleanora made step-brother John Nevada, a World War II veteran, godfather to one of her daughters. What we know about Eleanora’s father John Treinis is that he registered for the draft for World War I. He worked at the local Tuxhorn Mine and owned several of his own grocery stores, one at 1601 E. Converse and another at North Grand Ave. and Milton.

Daughter Eleanora always helped her dad in his stores, and she lived with him in quarters behind the storefront. One night after closing, during the heart of the Depression when Eleanora was just 13, she and her dad were robbed at gunpoint. Fortunately, neither of them was hurt.

Eleanora met her future husband, John Phillip Yuskavich, Jr. at a wedding when she was just 14. They married in 1939 at St. Vincent de Paul Lithuanian Catholic Church. John was the son of Lithuanian immigrants John P., Sr. and Stella (Kuizin) Yuskavich. Not long after John, Jr. and Eleanora married, John and his brother Anthony served in World War II. (Yuskavich brother George and his wife Catherine had daughters Barb Devine and Kathy Plough.)

Over the years, John, Jr. and Eleanora worked hard to support their own family of two girls. Eleanora was an elevator operator at the Hotel Abraham Lincoln, first at the back of the hotel, then, by promotion, in the main front elevator. She was also a packer at Pillsbury Mills, and later, a full-time homemaker for John and daughters Pat (Yuskavich) Towner and Mary Ann (Yuskavich) Wycoff.

John’s work history was particularly enterprising. After leaving school to mine coal, he worked at the Springfield International Shoe Factory, then in a steel mill in Indiana and the Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps, then as a bus driver for the Springfield Mass Transit District, and finally for the U.S. Post Office in Springfield, where he started as a mechanic at the garage, rising to supervisor of the garage and drivers.

Here’s the really enterprising part: While working for the Post Office during the day, John managed two gas stations at night, and also owned a truck for which he hired drivers to pick up the Illinois State Journal and Register newspapers each day at 2 a.m. and 2 p.m. (respectively) and drop off bundles to scores of newspaper boys for home delivery.

In addition to her two daughters, Eleanora (Treinis) Yuskavich has grandsons Jason and Matthew Towner and granddaughter Robin Watts, as well as great-grandchildren Jordan and Jade Watts and Jonathan Towner. Robin Watts’ husband, Jim, recently started his own business, Watts Electric.

Founded by Joe (Sr.) and William Chepulis, Champion Garage at 820 E. Black Street celebrated 50 years in the auto body and auto repair business in 1986. Back in 1936, cars were heavy, metal-plated tanks compared with today’s alloy and plastic-bodied vehicles. They were also mechanically simple compared with today’s mechanical-electrical-digital wonders.

Remember chrome bumpers? Now, those were not just crash, but demolition derby-worthy. Remember when cars had faces, with headlights for eyes and grilles like grins?

Champion saw it all, over the years, while providing a livelihood for Joe and Bill’s families. One of the most interesting photos of the business, to me, includes Champion’s tow-truck from a simpler time, with home-made lettering on the door.

Joe, Bill and Mary Ann were the children of Lithuanian immigrants Carl (Karolis) and Mary Eva (Lelesius) Chepulis. Carl was a coal miner born in 1884 in the Marijampole area. Also born in 1884, Mary Eva came to the U.S. when she was 18 with a cousin name Kurila. Carl and Mary Eva married in 1908 at St. Vincent de Paul Lithuanian Catholic Church. Their first child was born in 1909. The family lived on North 15 St. for many years, across the street from the Sluzalis home.

Both Joe and Bill ended up working in the area’s coal mines, at first to take their father Carl’s place on days when he couldn’t work. (Carl suffered for years from black lung disease, and died of it at age 66.) Joe and Bill later took up auto body work at Gietl Brothers Garage on Second St. near the Capitol. They learned the trade and opened their own garage, Champion, in the heart of the Great Depression in 1936.

Here are a few comments that have already been made about Champion and its founders:
— “I worked at Marine Bank for years re-possessing cars, and Joe was our tow truck driver. He could hook and snatch the car before people even knew what happened to them!”
— “I remember Joe, Jr. and his family from my many visits to the shop as an auto claims rep long ago. Stepping into their shop was like a step back in time…Joe Sr. and Mrs. Chepulis were very kind. I remember Joey and his mom running the place after his dad died…”

Families back then had to pull together just to make it, and that may explain why Joe, Sr. didn’t marry and leave home until he was 35, Mary Ann until she was 40 and Bill until he was 50. Joe, Sr.’s daughter Mary also recalls: “Dad had an Indian Motorcycle, a really famous brand. If anyone had one today, it would be worth a fortune. However, he was a bit of a daredevil and he had an accident with it, had to go to the hospital, and while he was in the hospital, his mother sold it.”

Additionally, Mary remembers visiting Grandparents Carl and Mary Eva after they moved to North Peoria Road, just east of old Gate 3 of the Illinois State Fairgrounds. Mary recalls, “I’d go over there and she’d braid my hair, pulling the two braids together at the back of my head and tying them together with a ribbon. They had chickens and a cow, and every once in a while, the cow would have a calf. I remember having to walk home to our house on North 15th Street though cow fields.

“I also remember that we parked cars at Grandma’s during the Fair: Cars were 50 cents for the day, motorcycles, a quarter. I was so impressed as a kid when my Uncle Bill built a stand to sell sodas.”

Joe Chepulis, Sr. married Sylvia Petrokas at St. Vincent de Paul’s, where they had met. Sylvia was the daughter of coal-mining Lithuanian immigrant Stanley W. Petrokas, who was the son of Ignatius and Barbara (Gestaut) Petrokas. Sylvia’s mother was Catherine Rice (Rieskevicius), who was the daughter of Adam and Anna (Senkos) Rieskevicius. Catherine died in 1924 at the age of 25, leaving Stanley with two daughters, Sylvia and Ruth Petrokas (Lustig), whom he raised by himself.

In addition to daughter Mary, Joe, Sr. and Sylvia had four other children, who all attended St. Aloysius Grade School: Joe, Jr., who took over the garage when his dad became ill in 1987; John, an electrician; Bernadine, who studied music at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago; and Patricia, who retired from the state and also earned a nursing degree. All the girls attended Ursuline Academy.

Mary holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education from SIU-Edwardsville and has worked for decades as an advocate for the disabled. She also is a former secretary and long-time member of the Lithuanian-American Club. Joe, Jr. has two children and five grandchildren, John has two children and one grandchild, Bernadine has two children, and Mary has a daughter.

As for Champion Garage, Mary’s brother Joe, Jr. operated it until about 2006, and then began renting it out to another auto body operator.

One of the more colorful Lithuanian-American businesses in Springfield was the Cara-Sel Lounge, 7th and North Grand Ave., operated for 17 years by World War II veteran Tony Yuscius. Tony, who died at 86 in 2009, was the son of Lithuanian-born coal miner Joseph and Marcella (Radavich) Yuscius. After Joseph died of black lung disease, Tony’s mother Marcella and her many children fell on hard times. (The Cohen family, who operated a grocery, and later, The Mill tavern and restaurant, are said to have assisted Marcella–and many others–with grocery credit.)

The hard times known by many Lithuanian families in Springfield, generated by death in or from the mines, not to mention mass mine layoffs, led youngsters like Tony and his siblings to work from a young age to support their families. The same conditions led many to launch their own small businesses as soon as they were able.

Tony’s business opportunity did not come until sometime after he graduated from Lanphier and served in the U.S. Army in the European-African-Middle Eastern Theatre during World War II, earning three bronze service stars.

It’s hard to know how Tony got the idea for the Cara-Sel Restaurant and Bar– a play on the world “carousel–” with its colorful circus-theme décor and circular bar. (“Follow our bar round ‘n round—you will certainly find your friends here.”)

Tony and his wife Carol operated the Cara-Sel from sometime in the 1950s until the early 1970s. There were many neighborhood tavern and restaurant proprietors in Springfield during that period, so one can imagine it was a challenge to find a niche, to really stand out. After a more family-oriented start indicated by its circus theme and enlarged kitchen, the Cara-Sel hopped on the “mod” train sometime during the 1960s, with mini-skirted dancing “go-go” girls at night, like those on popular TV shows “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In” and “Hullaballoo.”

The establishment really made an impression on those who still remember it today:

–“When I went there it was a nice place for a couple of girls to go, have some drinks and maybe meet a couple of guys. I also went there on dates, like after a movie.”
–“Go-go girls would dance on the bar, and in front of the bar—also in the back room.”
–“I used to walk by the Cara-Sel on my way to Edison Middle School, and then Lanphier High School. Recently, I found out that a girl I went to school with worked there in the 1970’s.”

— “When I was a boy, my father drove a truck and would arrive home on Saturday mornings, at which time I would accompany him to the Carousel (sic) for lunch. Late at night, there were cages and go-go girls, and still being in grade school, I would not have been welcomed. The Teamsters had their office directly across the street. One block to the east was the Pantheon Theatre, and next door was Palazollo’s Soda Shop, where all the Lanphier students gathered. Noonan Hardware and Ben Franklin Five and Dime were on the same block.”

–“They had a left-handed/right-handed drinking club. You had to drink with whichever hand (on the wall?) behind the bar was lighted. We paid to join and there was a fine for getting caught drinking with the wrong hand. The reward was a free eat and drink party once a year for the members. Neat place.”

In an ironic twist, sometime in the 1970s or maybe early 1980s, Tony and his wife Carol completely reversed direction, closed the Cara-Sel and opened the Northtown Child Care Center, a day care they operated for 20 years. Tony had two brothers: Stanley and John Yuscius, and five sisters, Mary Yuscius, Ann Asher, Josephine Pavletich, Ardella Dodd and Patricia (Walter) Bietsch.

His son, Tony J., a 1979 graduate of Griffin High School, is a second-generation entrepreneur as founder and president of another cutting-edge Springfield business, Advanced Digital Media.

Advanced offers video crews for hire, and more note-worthily, a website called blueroomstream.com that live-streams unedited coverage of virtually every news conference in the Blue Room of the Illinois Statehouse, as well as other political and government events, including some committee hearings and rallies.

Tony J’s innovative business grew out of his many years with the Illinois Information Service, helicoptering around the state at a moment’s notice with Illinois governors Thompson and Edgar, recording gubernatorial public appearances and speeches with his trusted minicam.

Tony also has a daughter, Susan Yuscius (husband, Larry O’Brien) of Springfield; three grandchildren, Jewel and Megan O’Brien and Tori Yuscius (Tony J.’s daughter), and several nieces and nephews.

Twenty-three years ago tonight, I got a call at 1 a.m., ET. It was my older sister giving me the first, terrible news of the Soviet massacre of unarmed Lithuanian civilians at the Vilnius TV Tower—the single bloodiest event of the non-violent “Singing Revolution” through which Lithuania regained its independence. Below are memories of that fateful night from Lithuanian immigrant and Beardstown resident Irena S., who was not at the Tower, but at another building that Soviet forces took that winter night, attacking and overrunning thousands of patriotic citizens who had left the warmth and safety of their homes to stand in defense of their country and their human rights.

By Irena S., Beardstown, Ill.

When I was asked to write about the events of January 13, 1991, I enthusiastically agreed. Today, as I try to put down my thoughts on the blank screen of my computer, I understand that an easily given promise is not so easy to fulfill. Just thinking about those tragic events in Lithuania fills me with so much emotion, even after 23 years. The words I reach for to express myself seem entirely inadequate, even artificial in the face of what happened. I remember not only my own feelings, but also the way they conflicted with the feelings of my family (especially my mom): uncertainty with faith; hesitation with determination.

My son Julius was just a year and a half old, and my mom, who was helping my brother, my sister and I to raise our young children, adamantly opposed me leaving home that cold night with Soviet forces threatening the city, especially the U.S.S.R.’s elite Alpha “anti-terrorist” unit. I couldn’t allow myself to tell her where I was planning to go—back to my old apartment across from the Radio and TV Committee building on Konarskio Street, one of the likeliest targets of Soviet military action. (I wonder how many other young adults and even teenagers did not tell their parents and grandparents the truth about where they were going that night.)

The Lithuanian government had resigned on January 8th, and on January 11, the Soviet Army had invaded and taken control of the Vilnius Publishing House. People were saying that the Parliament (then called the Supreme Council) building would be next—that it was only a matter of days or maybe even hours. Lithuania’s independence, declared less than a year earlier, on March 11, 1990, had endured a long economic blockade by the U.S.S.R. against critical food and energy supplies. But that independence now truly hung by a thread.

A lot of people were upset that the Lithuanian government had increased food prices 300 percent a couple of months earlier due to the Soviet economic blockade. Inflation was enormous and common people were under tremendous pressure. That made it a good time for our enemies to believe that the population would not resist the now-imminent Soviet military takeover aimed at putting an end to Lithuanian independence. More precisely, it seemed a good time for the pro-Soviet faction of the Lithuanian Communist Party, supported by Moscow, to try to ‘prove’ to Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet President, that the ideal moment had arrived to take back control of the country from the Lithuanian independence movement. How wrong they were!

But my mother was not wrong to fear for my life as she pressed me not to leave her home that night. If she had known where I planned to go, it would have been even worse. As a teenager, at the very end of World War II, she had been severely injured in a grenade explosion that left her in a coma for three days. So she knew the worst can happen. But despite her fears, I was resolved to go to my old street and stand with the people there trying to defend the Radio and TV Committee building the only way they could—by forming a human barricade.

It was the same in front of all our major government and media buildings, including the Parliament and the TV Tower: unarmed people with nothing but their patriotism and their unity and their hope that they would somehow be able to defend their country against Soviet tanks. Nobody knew exactly how they could prevail against tanks and guns. Perhaps that was the essence of their courage—that the answer to the question was not as important as the will and the need to prevail.

On my way to Konarskio Street, I passed a sound truck with a pre-recorded message blaring that the National Committee for Salvation, consisting of enemies of Lithuania’s independence, was now in control of the government. But that propaganda did not work—it didn’t stop people from massing around key buildings to defend them. We were praying, singing, talking, or simply standing and waiting – peacefully. I think one way we kept up our courage was by believing that Soviet soldiers would not really start shooting unarmed civilians, especially in the presence of so much foreign media.

Many of us living near the Committee building ran back and forth to our apartments with food, hot water and tea or coffee to help the rest of the people in the street keep warm. I did this myself more than a dozen times that night. The threat of violence against us was so close, but as we all stood together, supporting and helping each other, there was no fear. The spirit of that night and those people, my people, is unforgettable and almost indescribable, even after all of these years.

Around midnight, I was drawn away from the scene because I could not reach my mom by phone and I was afraid that something might have happened to them in another part of the city. And that is how I missed the attack on the Radio and TV Committee building that happened around 2 a.m. Jan 13. I was so angry at myself for leaving behind the brave people standing guard. None of us slept that night as the shocking news poured in about the tanks running right over people at another location–the Vilnius TV Tower, along with the last images from the Committee building of a solider running toward the camera before it went dead.

In the aftermath of all the attacks the night of January 12-13: 14 lay dead and about 700 injured, 140 of them, critically–many shot multiple times or crushed under tank treads. At my old apartment building, people had to replace all the street-facing windows shattered by tanks firing blank rounds that deafened many of the Committee building protectors permanently. But the violence against the unarmed failed. The very next morning, January 13th, 50,000 people gathered around Parliament to defend their government with their lives. People built barricades and Soviet military trucks and tanks moved into the area, but the attack never happened. Why? Too many media from around the world covering the events, and too many people ready to die.

Dedicated to all those who stood and raised their voices to save their country; especially to those who gave their lives or their health. May you live forever in a grateful nation’s memory.

Public memorial to those who gave their lives for their country on Jan. 13, 1991

statue in memory of the patriots of January 1991

For more information and photos, please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_Events_%28Lithuania%29
and for another personal account of related events, please see: http://www.ltuworld.com/homes/item/479-the-days-in-lithuania-after-january-13-1991

Lithuanian linen design hand-inked by Paul Endzelis on paper with tiny grids

A golden flaxen thread connects almost every Lithuanian-American to one of the most important folk ways of our immigrant ancestors: the “homespun” production of linen clothes, sheets, bedspreads and towels.

For most of us, the person who connects us to our “flaxen past” is a great- or even a great-great grandmother. For me, it was my paternal grandmother who spun the flax fibers the family had cultivated into the thread that she wove into warm linen clothes for her nine children. (The family also raised sheep for wool.) If my grandmother Petronele was typical, her large wooden loom probably occupied a central location in the family’s small fir log house not far from the ceramic stove.

I never met my Lithuanian grandmother. But Paul Endzelis, an immigrant from the Silute region of Lithuania who lived in Riverton for 14 years, and master weaver Kati Reeder Meek, played an important role in finally helping me see how my grandmother lived. Paul translated entire Lithuanian source books and inked hundreds of patterned designs for Kati’s 2000 book in English called, Reflections from a Flaxen Past: For Love of Lithuanian Weaving.

http://katimeek.blogspot.com/p/reflections-from-flaxen-past.html

Kati is an acquaintance of our Club member Barbara (Spence) Endzelis. That’s how Barbara’s father-in-law, Paul, became involved in bringing the story of Lithuanian linen (linas) to life.

Paul Endzelis as a student

But if linen has a story, so does Paul, the son of small farmers Boleslava and Vincentas Endzelis of Stempliai in the Silute region. Despite his father’s death in a POW camp during World War I, Paul’s mother was successful enough on the family’s hardscrabble farm to send Paul to secondary school. After that, Paul completed officer military training, three years of accelerated business college in Klaipeda, and advanced German language studies in Hamburg before working at the State Savings Bank in Kaunas.

Paul & Sophie (Brusokaite) Endzelis

World War II put an end to the promising career of this bright and hard-working young man who had risen from poverty in the countryside to become part of independent Lithuania’s first generation of educated professionals. Paul is reported to have spoken seven languages: Lithuanian, English, Russian, French, Polish, Latin & German. After five years as a refugee in Germany, Paul immigrated with his teacher-wife Sophie (Brusokaite) of Suvolkija and their three-year-old son Arvydas (Hank) to Pittsburgh, where Paul found his first job as a laborer on a highway crew.

young Sophie Endzelis

Paul, Sophie and Hank eventually moved to Cicero, Ill., where Paul tried to kick-start his aborted business career by going to electronics technical school while Sophie worked in a factory. The family’s next move was to Marquette Park, where Sophie went to work in a Nabisco factory and Paul got a job at Budrik’s Furniture in the Bridgeport neighborhood. Finally, Paul found the right combination of resources–namely, a few colleagues from that store with whom he joined to open their own TV, radio, and electronics sales & service store–which operated for many years in Bridgeport.

Sophie & Paul in later years

After the couple retired and Sophie died, Paul joined son Hank (an employee of the Illinois State Police Academy), wife Barbara and their two sons John and Joe Endzelis in Riverton for 14 years. Paul’s meticulous attention to detail—and possibly, his attraction to tiny electrical circuitry—informed hundreds of pages of intricate geometric Lithuanian weaving designs that Paul inked on gridded paper as part of his research assistance to Kati Reeder Meek. Several of Paul’s drawings, along with his biography, appear in Kati’s book.

national costume, often woven from flax

In 1998, despite his advanced age and health concerns, he fulfilled every émigré’s dream by actually returning to his homeland to live out his last years in a free Lithuania. Paul died and was buried in Lithuania in 2007, shortly before what would have been his 94th birthday. This blog post is dedicated to the memory of an extraordinary man who made history his footnote, instead of becoming a footnote to history.

Kati’s book is hardcover and handsomely photographed. In addition to detailed instructions and designs for budding or master weavers, the book has many photos and descriptions of Lithuanian national costumes, black-and-white photos of flax cultivation and weaving in the Lithuanian countryside prior to World War II, and the stories and profiles of master weavers in the Lithuanian style from the U.S. and Canada.