ZYGMONT, ARTHUR L. (1923 - 2006)
ZYGMONT, GENE (GENEVIEVE) HARUBIN (1929 - 1995)California owes a great deal to a husband and wife who were inexhaustible hard workers for Polish causes and biographers of outstanding Polish figures in the history of the state. Neither one was bred in the land of movie studios, wine growers, and earthquakes. Arthur Zygmont was born October 1, 1923, in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Thaddeus and Czeslawa (Laurent) Zygmont, and was inspired by his family roots to work hard and amount to something. It's not certain whether his middle initial stands for Laurent or Lawrence. Growing up in Hamtramck, virtually a Polish enclave within the city of Detroit, where she was born September 15, 1929, Genevieve, who shortened her name to Gene, the youngest of seven children of Joseph Harubin, who worked in an automobile plant, and Katherine Prusinowski, whom he married seven years after he came from Poland, was fascinated by the world of advertising.
Exactly when Arthur Zygmont and Gene Harubin first met is not certain. After graduation from the University of Detroit in 1949, he went to work for Chrysler Corporation and was also the host of "Polish Radio Hour" in the evening on Detroit station WJLB. Gene was an advertising copy writer. They were married when he went to work for the federal goverment, mostly in contract work for the U. S. Air Force, first at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, near Dayton, Ohio, where there is now a museum with all the old Presidential aircraft and styles of Air Force clothing and uniforms. One wonders if Zygmunt requisitioned any of this. Zenon Xavier Zygmont, the only child of Arthur and Gene Zygmunt, was born September 20, 1958, in Dayton.
In 1960, Zygmunt was transferred to El Segundo, once dotted with oil wells in Los Angeles County, California, where the Air Force wanted to consolidate its aerospace work, and he ended up as supervisor of the Space Defense Program Office at the Los Angeles Air Force Base. He retired in 1981 and then devoted his entire time with his wife to Polish activities.
As is evident in Polish Americans in California 1827-1977 And Who's Who, Gene Zygmunt, who pursued graduate studies in art history at State University in Long Island, wrote three vignettes of Polish artists whose works, in part or whole, remain in California. They included Jan de Rosen, Jan Styka, and Stanislaw Szukalski. In addition, she sent out thousands of questionnaires to Polish Americans in California and asked them to fill out the forms and return them to her. She edited the returns of a few hundred distinguished Poles, with the assistance of her husband and Edward M. Kaminski, who came from Chicago in 1972, and Father Jacek Przygoda, who started the project to celebrate the American bicentennial, added the Who's Who to the first volume. The Zygmonts picked up the project where Przygoda left off, and now, in 2006, I have received permission from the last president of the defunct California chapter of the Polish American Historical Association to give new life to the biographical data in the two volumes of Polish Americans in California and Who's Who. Each name is, therefore, listed separately in order to pick up additions, changes, corrections, and photographs in the future. The names of each one who keft his or her mark in any field of activity should never die. We all appreciate the work of volunteers and attach their names to their contributions.We will always be grateful to Gene and Arthur Zygmont who died in their home in Torrance, California, she on December 16, 1995, and he on September 2, 2006.
Author: Edward Pinkowski - e-mail: [email protected] - (2011)