Demansky, George M.
(Nov. 23, 1934 - Oct. 21, 2007)Did you know that this U. S. Army veteran and his family took their last name, the 95th most popular one in Poland, and spoiled it? When he passed away October 21, 2007, in Nuremberg, Pennsylvania, where he was one of the 231 inhabitants, George Demansky left his wife, Gloria Jean Troy, to whom he was married 44 years, with an absurd name. Who was to blame?
Certainly not his grandfather, Stanley Domanski, who came from Poland where 24,919 persons shared the same surname in 1990. Coal put bread on the table of thousands of miners and their families in an area of 500 square miles in northeastern Pennsylvania, and Shenandoah, laid out in 1862 in the center of the richest veins of anthracite in the world, attracted a lot of Polish settlers. In 1900, 3,235 of the 20,328 persons in Shenandoah were from Poland. After a six-month strike of miners in 1902, Stanley Domanski settled in Shenandoah and opened a barber shop in the business section. Evidently, in the early years, he boarded with his younger, married brother, John, and later married a miner's widow with a number of children. They had two more, including Edward, George's father, and, for whatever reason, each one spelled his last name differently.
When George was six years old, the homes of 4,000 persons in Shenandoah almost broke apart by the robbing of coal pillars. Mining was stopped under them. Not to mention bracing the homes and filling holes in the streets. The cave-in caused families to move away. The exodus is still alive. By 2000 the population of Shenandoah was down to 5,624.
As was common in mining towns where a lot of people were out of work, many families in Shenandoah were supported by low-paying jobs in garment factories. It included George Demansky. He was a sample maker, or a cutter, for Martin Shirt Company in Shenandoah, and, due to housing conditions, spent the last 40 years of his life in Nuremberg. His wife and a son, George, still lived there in 2007, and another son, Barry, lived in Jim Thorpe, formerly Mauch Chunk, in Carbon County.
From: Edward Pinkowski (2008)