The Next Generation

 

from left: Walter Kowinski, Flora Severini Kowinski,  Antoinette Severini, Frank Kowinski, Jr. Also
identifiable: Angeline Mazzaferro, Beatty Kowinski, Mary Romasco, Jim Armella, Carl S., the DePauls

On August 23, 1945, the United States battleship Missouri was on its way to Tokyo Bay to receive the surrender of Japan that would officially end World War II, the most destructive war in human history.  It was 17 days since an American bomber had dropped the first atomic bomb that destroyed the Japanese city of Hiroshima, and exactly two weeks after another atomic bomb demolished the city of Nagasaki.  The Bomb—as it became known--had been developed in secret, and would cast its shadow over the world for ongoing decades.

 PEACE had been the headline in the Greensburg Morning Review on August 15. Factories and stores closed for the day.  In what was called "the greatest spontaneous celebration in the city's history," the jubilant crowds downtown kept trolleys and buses from running.  The party had actually started the evening before.

 On August 23, Flora Severini married Walter Kowinski at Holy Cross Church in Youngwood, PA. She was almost 25, he was 24.  It appears from photos that Walter’s brother Frank, Jr. (Bugs) was best man, Flora’s sister Antoinette was the maid of honor, and Angeline Mazzaferro was the flower girl. There was a dinner for guests in the church basement. Carl Severini entertained on the piano.

 For their marriage license they both listed their occupation as “factory worker.”  Walter’s father was listed as “laborer,” Flora’s father as “tailor.”  They gave as their address 437 College Avenue in Greensburg.

 

Their first child, a son, was born in Westmoreland Hospital on June 30, 1946.  Shortly after birth, he required a complete blood transfusion.  Many years later, all Walter could remember was that it somehow involved the Rh Factor, and that the child’s grandmother, Gioconda Severini, had been the first to spot a problem. Everyone was remarking on the baby’s golden color.  But she insisted that the color was wrong.  Soon the doctors agreed with her.

 There was a long history of a blood condition that could lead to a newborn child’s illness or death.  The Rh factor had only been discovered nine years before, and linked to this condition or disease around 1940.

 The Rh factor incompatibility that can result in “Rh disease” of the newborn occurs in a variety of circumstances, one of which is when the mother’s blood type is 0 and the child’s is A or B.  That was the case with Flora and her baby, though this relationship to the Rh disease was probably not known in 1946.

 However, Dr. Alexander Solomon Weiner, who discovered the Rh factor, also developed the “exchange transfusion” as a treatment for this disease.  He announced it in 1946, the same year it was used at Westmoreland hospital on this infant.

 The transfusion required a donor. Flora saved the list of possible donors the family was given.  There were six names on it, with one circled.  He was a male from Jeannette with an Italian last name, who agreed to donate his blood.

 The transfusion was successful, and the boy was baptized William Kowinski on July 28.  That was me.  My godmother was Antoinette Severini; my godfather was Louis Vitace.   

 I was the first born (of two first borns) in my immediate family, and the first of my generation on both sides of my family.  But I was not the only child of my generation for long.  On July 7, 1946, Beverly Kowinski was born, the daughter of Frank Kowinski Jr. and Rella Ulery Kowinski.

 Meanwhile, Antoinette Severini had graduated from Seton Hill, in the spring of 1944.  She was the first in her Severini line to earn a college degree.  The family dressed up to celebrate, and of course, take pictures.

 Soon afterwards, Antoinette was faced with a decision.   She had studied to be a teacher, specifically of home economics, and got a job offer from a school in Maryland.  But she had also been offered a fellowship by the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, known as Carnegie Tech (later Carnegie Mellon University.) The fellowship was to study in the area of plastics. 

 She solicited opinions on what she should do.  Years later she remembered that her sister Flora had advised her to take the teaching job and see if she liked it.  If she didn’t, she would have made some money she could use at Carnegie Tech.  The fellowship offer was open for two years.

One of several photos evidentally taken by a professional
photographer on Antoinette's college graduation in 1944,
including this complete Severini family portrait: Flora,
Carl, Gioconda, Ignazio and Antoinette.

 Antoinette learned that a Seton Hill classmate had also received a job offer from this school in Federalsburg, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.  Her companionship made it easier for her to accept the offer.  She began teaching high school in 1945 or 1946.

 She said she hadn’t realized how different the Eastern Shore would be.  It was really a part of the South.  She also had to cope with teaching high school seniors who were only a few years younger than she.  She could hear some of the older boys making comments when she stretched to write on the blackboard or bent down to pick up a pencil.  When one of the boys put a mistletoe over the classroom door at Christmastime, she went to the principal about the problem.  He suggested that she grab the boy and “plant one on him until his ears fell off.”  She felt this was not a useful suggestion.  But the next day, the mistletoe was gone.

 It was hard work in a strange place.  The other Seton Hill grad left after several months.  Though Ant enjoyed teaching, and made a close friend, she thought she might go back to Pennsylvania after the school year was over.

 Then her friend introduced her to another young woman, who was dating a young man named Bill Wheatley.  Soon Bill was dating Ant instead.  Ant continued teaching at Federalsburg High.

 William Howard Wheatley was born on August 27, 1924 in Eldorado, Maryland.  He graduated from Federalsburg High School in 1941, and was drafted into the Army in 1943.   He had served in Europe, in the 489^th automatic weapons battalion, that was attached to Patton’s Third Army for the Battle of the Bulge in late 1944 and early 1945.  His family had owned a dry cleaning business in Federalsburg but lost it.  Upon his return, he used the GI Bill to attend a trade school in Salisbury, Maryland, to learn to be a meat cutter. 

Natz, Ant, Bill and Walt at the table.  Me and
G. on the sofa.

Bill and Ant must have become serious about marriage very quickly, because by the summer of 1947, Bill Wheatley was visiting Youngwood, accompanying the family to the Youngwood picnic at Idlewild Park.  He also spent the Christmas and New Years holidays in Youngwood that year.

Angeline M. and Carl S. with groom Bill Wheatley and
bride Antoinette Severini Wheatley.  And me.

 He returned for the holidays the following year, but this time there was a new event between Christmas and New Years: On December 27, 1948, Antoinette Severini and William Wheatley were married in Youngwood, PA.  

Others present for the wedding also posed for a picture: Ignazio and Gioconda, Flora and Walter.  And me.  

  

Ant, Bill and Dick Wheatley

Ant and Bill's first child, Richard, was born on September 29, 1949—one day before Gioconda Severini’s 53^rd birthday.

 Other members of the extended Severini family in Flora’s generation were also marrying.  In particular, there were her cousins—daughters of her mother’s sister Pearl Romasco: Jenny Romasco married Tom Butina in 1947.  Mary married James Armella in 1950, and Joan (or Jo-Ann) married Doyle Gillespie in 1953.  They all remained close for some years.  Louis Romasco married Mary Rozinko in 1956; they lived in Washington, D.C. and Rockville, Maryland.

 In the spring of 1946 Carl Severini was a 10^th grade honors student at Saint Vincent Prep.  Though it was never spoken about, Carl felt that his parents had sent him there because were hoping he had a vocation to the priesthood.  But he convinced them to send him to Youngwood High School for his last two years.

Carl top row 3rd from left with cast of his
high school play

 Carl graduated from Youngwood High in 1948. In his senior year, his activities included acting in the class play, “Dead of the Night,” a comic mystery apparently concocted by the students themselves.

 

According to his yearbook, Carl’s ambition was to become a chemical engineer. He was said to hang out at the soda fountain at Rexall Drugs on Depot Street and Fourth, and especially liked basketball, Cary Grant and the Paul Whiteman Orchestra.

 Carl entered St. Vincent College, probably that fall of 1948.  It was about this time (1949 or 1950) that he began playing piano professionally: first for the Bucky Bender band in Greensburg (which played gigs at the Moose, Elk, VFW and other venues in Greensburg and nearby) and then with Ray Lucas and His Polish Americans from United (a polka band that played weddings.)  Carl only had to play rhythm on the polkas, but his main function was to play the slow dance songs. 

 He’d didn’t make much money for college—he recalled that with the Bender band he played four hours for $6. So he left the Ray Lucas band when he graduated. He did play from time to time with the Ray Epps band when he lived in Butler in 1954-5 just after he was married, but then they moved to Evans City, and he retired from professional performance.  

  Flora and Walter Kowinski may have lost their jobs at Robertshaw when the company reconverted to its peacetime production line in 1945. By July 1946, Flora was a full time mother.  In 1948, they (or we) still lived on College Avenue. 

Walt at the Waldorf

Walter told me once that his father advised him to seek any employment except as a coal miner.  At some point in the late 1940s, Walt sold insurance, perhaps for the Baltimore Life Insurance Co.  He did well enough to win a trip to New York City for himself and Flora in March 1949, and received an award at a  dinner at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, where he and Flora were staying. 

Flora in Manhattan again

 But ultimately this job did not provide steady income, and he moved on to the Singer Sewing Machine Company store in Greensburg in January 1950.

  

Kathy Kowinski at nearly 1 yr.

Shortly before he began working for Singer, Walt and Floria’s second child, Kathy, was born at St. Margaret Hospital in Pittsburgh on January 14, 1950.  She was born there in case there was a recurrence of the Rh factor problem.  That didn’t happen, but doctors believed there was a problem with one of her feet that required a brace.  As it turned out, she outgrew the problem, and the brace.  

 By this time, Walter and his family were living on Lincoln Avenue Extension—a Greensburg address, although it was just outside the city limits in Hempfield Township.  It was located farther up the hill from where Flora, her sister and mother had once gathered dandelions for salads when they lived on Stone Street.

 

Walt’s sister Beatrice married Joseph Nitkiewicz in Calumet on October 16, 1948.  Kathleen, their first child, was born on May 3, 1950, followed by Joseph Stephen on December 26, 1956 and Lorraine Kristen on August 18, 1960.

 Walter’s brother Frank “Bugs” Kowinski had two more children with wife Rella: daughter Jeanne on December 8, 1952; and son Edward on April 22, 1959. With Shirley Magaritz he had a daughter Carol on January 6, 1954.  Frank and Shirley married in 1965.

 In March 1950 Walter’s brother Bill Kowinski married Carmella Pace. Their first child, Carmen, was born in October 1950. A second daughter, Charlotte, was born on September 26, 1954, one day after Walter and Flora’s third child, Deborah Ann, was born on September 25.

Ignazio Severini in 1944, two years before
he became a grandfather for the first but
hardly the last time.