Grontkowski, John A.
(Jun. 20, 1896 - Nov. 22, 1957)In Nanticoke and Plymouth, each standing on opposite sides of the Susquehanna River in Luzerne County, once a beehive of the coal industry in Pennsylvania, funeral homes and Grontkowski names go together like livery stables and horses. They are now in the third generation. They started with Michael and Anna (Ruminski) Grontkowski, who came from Poland in the 1880s, and spent the rest of their lives in the livery business. In the early days, the only undertaker in Plymouth was Alexander Ferguson, who came from Ireland, and as more and more Poles died the livery stable kept by Michael Grontkowski, with the help of his sons, grew in importance. Then Michael Joseph Grontkowski, a son who was born September 16, 1880, learned to embalm bodies and opened a funeral home, first in Freeland, a mining hamlet over the mountain in Luzerne County, and returned to Plymouth after his father died. At the same time, Stanley J. Grontkowski, who was born May 1, 1891, opened his own funeral home on Main Street, Plymouth, in the same block as the livery stable. At one point Michael and Stanley Grontkowski merged their businesses, and were the first Polish undertakers in Plymouth. When John A. Grontkowski completed his education in the Plymouth schools, he was associated with his brothers in the business until 1918 when he left Plymouth, where 108 miners lost their lives at the Avondale colliery in 1869, to attend the Eckels School of Embalming in Philadelphia.
When he received his license in 1920, he bought a house in Nanticoke, across the river from Plymouth, and turned its front room into a funeral parlor and began to bury the dead of St. Stanislaus, the oldest Polish parish, to which he belonged, and three other Polish parishes - three Roman Catholic and one independent (Hodur) - in Nanticoke. His wife, Josephine (Shipkowski), with whom he had two children, lived upstairs. It was in Nanticoke, then predominately Polish, as it still is, that grieving families followed his motorized hearse for the first time to the cemeteries with their dead.
The St. Stanislaus Catholic Church, where he was married on June 10, 1923, and the Polish community of Nanticoke meant a lot to him. He gave his time and best efforts to promote the civic welfare and betterment of the community.
He was a licensed funeral director and dealer in tombstones until his death on November 22, 1957. His brother. Frank, bought the stone cutting business. By 1957 Michael and Stanley Grontkowski broke up their partnership. Stanley remained a funeral director in Plymouth and Michael opened a funeral business in West Hazleton. His son, also named John, continued the business in Nanticoke until his death in the 1980s. Then his daughter, Katherine, took over the business with her husband, Bill Malig. The funeral homes have no other connection to one another.
From: Edward Pinkowski (2009). Assisted by Thomas J. Duszak