MOKRZYCKI, REV. MILTON JOSEPH (May 26, 1940 -- Jan. 25, 2010)Catholic priest. When the Mass of Christian Burial was held for the Rev. M. Joseph Mokrzycki at Our Lady of Victories R. C. Church in Sayrevillw, New Jersey, it essentially marked the end of another difficult-to-pronounce name in the borough of 40,377 souls which in 2004 had 1,380 veterans and 572 military widows in an area of 17-square miles. For 100 years several generations of the Mokrzycki families took part in changing the social and economic customs of Sayreville. Never could anyone have imagined that the family name would fade away in the community.
The first Polish settlers were drawn to Sayreville because of the work in the brickyards. Sayreville itself bears the name of a person who ran the largest brickyard in the world. The workers in his brickyard, predominately Polish, made the bricks and tiles used in the big buildings of New York City, including the Statue of Liberty, and the Holland Tunnel, and paved the way -- when the makings of bricks were exhausted -- for manufacturers of black powder, paint, and other products. Sayreville grew up together with New Brunswick and Perth Amboy on the highways and rivers of Middlesex County in northern New Jersey.
The Polish population was large enough in Sayreville and surroundings in 1914 to put up St. Stanislaus Kostka R. C. Church on land donated by the brick company. Prior to that time, in the 1890s, the Poles of Sayreville asked the bishop of the Trenton diocese for permission to put up their own church. But Bishop McFaul would not allow it because he wanted them to belong to Our Lady of Victories church in Sayreville, built by Irish immigrants in the 1870s, and pay off its debt. For awhile the Irish and Poles did not like each other. As the Polish population grew faster than the Irish element, the bishop allowed the Polish families in South River, across the river from Sayreville, to form their own parish. On January 17, 1903, when the first Polish Mass was held at Our Lady of Ostra Brama church in South River, almost half of the people in the pews were from Sayreville. There were already about 250 Polish families in both places.
When Stanislaus Mokrzycki came from Poland in 1910, he learned that Father Julian Zielinski, whom Bishop McFaul ordained to the priesthood, healed the rift in Sayreville and was invited to hold Polish services at Our Lady of Victories Church. Father Zielinski was a little before Mokrzycki's time. Better times were ahead. As time passed, the two Catholic churches in Sayreville had larger graduating classes in their schools.
The four grandchildren of Stanislaus Mokrzycki, then a fireman in the Chevrolet plant, went to Our Lady of Victories parochial school. After he completed the grade school, Milton Joseph Mokrzycki went to St. Peter's High School at New Brunswick, where he graduated in 1957, and then studied in Maryland for the priesthood in three different seminaries. He was ordained by Bishop George W. Ahr on May 22, 1965, at St. Mary's Cathedral in Trenton, New Jersey.
For ten years, in between assistant pastorships at St Hedwig's parish in Trenton, Our Lady Star of the Sea in Long Branch, and other venues, he attended Seton College and other universties to earn degrees in American Studies. His long and distnguished career as a pastor began on September 16, 1977, when he was appointed pastor of the Catholic church in Long Branch. His father, after whom he was named, died at Long Branch on November 23, 1986. His mother died there, too, on February 15, 1985. The town of Long Branch was also noted for the presidents of the United States who came there to bathe in the Atlantic Ocean. It also included the wife of President Lincoln. The summer resort declined in the 1920s due to the infiltration of a New York mob, gamblers, and the erosion of the beach. Father Mokrzycki did his part to restore the good times. Shabby summer bungalows around the Catholic church were torn down to make room for high-rise condominiums, restaurants, a boardwalk, and parks. The sea air also invigorated Father Mokrzycki.
Then, in 2007, he was transferred to St. Elizabeth of Hungary parish at Avon-By-the-Sea. For a short time the church, designed by Richard Keely, the most famous Catholic architect in the country, and built in 1908, held services only in the summer. It was almost destroyed by fire in 1986. The original church was restored and enlarged to accommodate an increasing number of summer visitors.
The remains of Father Mokrzycki were laid to rest in the family plot at New Cavalry Cemetery in Parlin, New Jersey.
Author: Edward Pinkowski - e-mail: [email protected] - (2011 revised)