Mroziewski, Joseph Anthony, Rev.
(Feb. 3, 1893 - Oct. 28, 1957)
Catholic priestThe father of the Rev. Joseph A. Mroziewski was as sly as a fox in Sugar Notch, Pennsylvania, where he was a coal miner, a grocer, an undertaker, and was well known to the people in control of the Polish stronghold. Scarcer than hen's teeth in the United States, the Mroziewski name almost died out in Pennsylvania when Joachim Mroziewski, who came from Poland in 1880, changed his name to Jacob Morris after five of his six children were baptized. The children grew up with an Americanized name until his wife, Louise, died on Nov. 3, 1911, at the age of 43. When her obituary appeared in the Wilkes Barre newspapers, many readers did not know whether Mrs. Jacob Morris was the wife of the Polish undertaker in Sugar Notch or a Jewish hardware merchant in Edwardsville, across the river from Wilkes-Barre. Then the children of the Polish undertaker, led by the first boy born in the family, restored the Mroziewski name. The father did not know how to spell his own name, but his sons did.
After graduating from public school, Joseph Mroziewski left Sugar Notch to study for the priesthood at St. Bonaventure College and St. Bernard's Seminary in the New York hinterland. He was ordained to the priesthood by the bishop of the Scranton diocese, the Most Rev. M. J. Hoban, D. D., at St. Peter's Cathedral, on July 15, 1915.
The following year his younger brother, Zigmund A. Mroziewski, who was born April 24, 1895, graduated from the Eckels School of Embalming in Philadelphia and joined his father in the undertaking and embalming business. Without an argument, the father and son did business as Jacob Morris and Son with two funeral homes. The father ran the one in Sugar Notch and the son the other one in Ashley, where he lived with his wife, Sophia (Perlowski), whom he married on Jan. 23, 1917, and their children.
Another brother, Benjamin Joachim, kept the Morris name, and gave it to two wives and four children. Because he was a heavy drinker, the two children by his second wife, Virginia Gorka, were raised by her parents after she died in 1930.
In November 1916, after receiving a degree in sacred theology from Catholic University in Washington, D.C., Father Mroziewski succeeded Father Gryczka at Sacred Heart of Jesus parish, Forest City, in Susquehanna County, lying on the New York border. It was the first of five stations he held. The others were St. Mary's Church, Minooka; SS. Peter and Paul, Scranton; St. Hedwig's, Kingston; St. Stanislaus, Jessup; and Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in Mayfield.
He succeeded Father Andrew Bocianski on March 21, 1941, and during his sixteen and a half years in Mayfield he paid off all parish debts, modernized the exterior of the church, and made the interior more attractive with new windows, tile floors, comfortable pews, and other improvements, including a furnace to make it warmer during church services and new doors to make it easier to go in and out of the church. Repairing the roof to stop leaks in the rectory was probably the last thing on his mind.
The list of soldiers he buried and married over the years was very remarkable. When Sacred Heart of Jesus parish celebrated its 75th anniversary in 1979, it listed the names of soldiers who paid the supreme sacrifice during Father Mroziewski's watch in Mayfield. Four of them - Edward Alex, Ludwig Balcewicz, Frank Plonski, and William Stacko - came from Carbondale, about a mile from Mayfield. Although Balcewicz was killed March 10, 1945, Father Mroziewski didn't bury him until May 23, 1949.
Nine heroes of the Second World War grew up in Mayfield, 14 miles northeast of Scranton, most of whom were sons of Polish coal miners. In alphabetical order, Joseph Druther was born in Mayfield, where his father, Henry, who came from Czechoslovakia in 1884, was a machinist at a colliery; Adolph Ganczarski lived with his parents, John and Sophia, 206 Fifth Avenue, where the hero was born in 1923; Florian Mizianty of 413 May Street was killed Feb. 2, 1943; Martin Okun, the youngest of six children of Joe Okun, who came from Poland in 1910; Andrew Piotrowski, no information available; Joseph Piwowarczyk, named after his father, lived with ten siblings at 615 Delaware St.; Walter Sadowski came from 913 Hudson Street, which his father, Anthony, rented for ten dollars a month; Bruno Walaski, son of John, who came from Poland in 1888; and Bruno Wosiewski was killed Feb. 2, 1945, and buried in the parish cemetery Dec. 15, 1947.
Father Mroziewski buried seven heroes of World War II from Jermyn, a historic burg on the Lackawanna River, 12 miles from Scranton. These included Henry Chludzienski, who was born in 1926 at 452 Madison Avenue, 13 years after his father, Joseph, came from Poland to work in the coal mines of Pennsylvania; Edward Czerwiec, no other data found; Henry Guzior, killed May 16, 1945, and buried January 10, 1952; Joseph Heniak, one of seven children of a Polish immigrant who was killed in a coal mine accident; Henry Petrowsky; George Zdrodowski was killed April 20, 1943, and buried Feb. 28, 1949; Stanley Zeshonski.
In addition to the burial of these heroes, Father Mroziewski performed 30 marriages in 1949 for soldiers who returned to their homes up in the mountains after the Second World War. Over the years, the Polish priest performed 241 marriages in Mayfield. Owing to his poor health beginning in 1952, the Bishop of Scranton assigned other priests from time to time to take his place and provide religious services in Mayfield. He died in St. Joseph's Hospital, Carbondale, on October 28, 1957, and was buried at St. Mary's Cemetery in Wilkes-Barre.
Had Father Mroziewski been inclined to write books, he knew enough about the life of Polish coal miners to match John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. Even after all these years, the people who churn out books, films, music, stage plays, and others should consider the parallels between Father Mroziewski's time and the folk heroes of today.
From: Edward Pinkowski (2009) assisted by Thomas Duszak