By MICHAEL F. DWYER
For over twenty years, my Otter Valley classroom faced west, overlooking the varsity playing fields. With great excitement in the summer of 2009, we watched the Markowski Excavation Company install proper drainage in the fields and erect concrete stands that can seat 500. In honor of their volunteer labor, the field was named the Markowski Field. During warm weather, I would bring my students outside to sit in what I reimagined as a Greek amphitheater. As my quest began to bring to life the story of the Markowski brothers’ grandfather, Marcin [pronounced “Mar-ceen,” but anglicized to Martin] Markowski, a Polish immigrant, I soon discovered this would be a wider and deeper exploration than previous articles because two Martin Markowskis, just a year apart in age, lived in Rutland at the same time. Of course, they had to be related, but to what degree?
This family has been blessed with diligent genealogists both here and in Poland. They have traced the Markowski lineage in the village of Chrząstów in southeast Poland to the middle of the 18th century. The region remained under the control of Austria until after World War I. A chart below shows how the two Martins were second cousins.
Barttomiej Markowski (1759–1815)
Mathias Markowski (1803–1854) [brothers] Gasparus Markowski (1801–1880)
Albertus Markowski (1836–1916) [first cousins] Jacobus Markowski (1835–1894)
Martin Markowski (1883–1947) [second cousins] Martin Markowski (1882–1967)
The elder of the pair, whom we will call Cousin Martin, came first, arriving in 1906, destined for New Jersey. By 1910, however, he was working at the Fowler Mill of the Vermont Marble Company. He wed Apolonia Zmuda on May 1, 1910. Rev. Valentine Michulka noted in the parish register of St. Stanislaus Church, they were married in “Fowler, Vermont,” a name used for Florence roughly between 1908 and 1913. They would have nine children: Frances [twin with Francis, who lived 15 days], Matilda, Sophia, Joseph, Stephania, Laudislaus, Anna, and Helen. Cousin Martin lived until 1967—the only one of his children who stayed in Florence was son Joseph Markowski. Other members of Cousin Martin’s family lived for a time in Florence: an older brother named Frank and a younger brother named Joseph.
Thanks to remembered family lore, we know a bit more about Martin Markowski’s life in Poland that goes beyond the dates. As the second son, he would not have inherited the farm which would go to his elder brother Joseph. He was already smitten with a local village girl, Marya Salwiez. It is said that her parents discouraged the match with Martin. In 1906, she was sent to Hamilton, Ontario, to live with her brother Anton. Seeking better prospects, in November 1907, with $10 in his pocket, Martin traveled approximately 500 miles to Bremen to board the Grosser Kurfust [“Great Elector,” in honor of Prince Frederick William of Brandeburg, Elector of the Holy Roman Empire] destined for New York. Its steerage held 1600 passengers. Surprisingly, there were blanks in information on the manifest that would have revealed who Martin’s contacts were in the United States. Martin and Marya were reunited when she entered the United States on a train through Niagara Falls in April 1909, with her occupation listed as a cigar maker! She soon wed Martin on September 19, 1909—the marriage performed by Rev. Michulka in “Fowler.” Cousin Martin was a witness to the marriage. The 1910 census reveals they all lived together in a boarding house with other Polish immigrants. Martin and Mary had eight children, born between 1911 and 1926: Albert, Frances, Pauline, Josephine, Genevieve, Stella, John [died as an infant of pneumonia], and Peter. Martin sponsored two other members of his family to immigrate to the United States, a younger brother Stanley, who lived in Florence for a time and then left Vermont, and a sister Mary, who married Joseph Wojcik. She died in 1945, leaving eight children.
Martin’s registration for the World War I draft reveals his place of employment with the Vermont Marble Company. He worked, standing in milky, musty water, for seven-and-a-half cents an hour polishing freshly-sawn slabs of white marble. In 1919, “fed up with coming home cold and feverish each night from the mill,” as great-granddaughter Hilary Poremski wrote in her Middlebury College thesis, Martin struck out on his own, quitting the marble sheds, and purchased plots for dairy farming off Whipple Hollow Road in Florence. Mary continued to manage a large household with meals for boarders. Over the next two decades, Martin added to his holdings, which eventually totaled 475 acres. Martin became a naturalized United States Citizen in 1926. Martin and Mary’s eldest son Albert died on September 9, 1937, age 26, from internal injuries sustained in a logging accident, leaving behind his widow Jane and their son John. Albert’s funeral notice stated that St. Stanislaus Church was filled to capacity with an overflow crowd standing outside.
Shortly before World War II, still a lean time for farmers, Martin’s barn was destroyed by fire, forcing him to take out another mortgage for the building of a new barn and storage sheds. Fortuitous mortgage relief came about when the government purchased rock maple trees that grew on the property that would be turned into logs used in the war effort. A sign of the great respect the community had for Martin is evident from his funeral notice published in the Rutland Herald on April 12, 1947, which read, “The most impressive funeral services held at St. Stanislaus Church in the last 30 years were held at 9 o’clock for Martin Markowski of Whipple Hollow Road.” Prior to his Requiem Mass, the usual custom for most families at that time would be to hold the wake at home, but road conditions [mud season!] in Florence prompted the body to be moved to the Mullin funeral home in West Rutland. His death dealt a double tragedy to his daughter Stella Poremski. Her husband Al Poremski’s mother Rosalia died the same day. The two families would be buried in St. Stanislaus Cemetery with adjacent gravestones.
Following Martin’s death, Mary lived with her daughter Pauline Sutkoski. Mary became a citizen in her own right, swearing an oath of allegiance on June 1, 1950. Her naturalization record revealed her height: 5’ 9,” tall for a woman born in 1886!
Of Martin and Mary’s eight children, their youngest son Peter became the one to carry on the family name. He married Sophie Czachor on April 24, 1948. A graduate of the Rutland Hospital School of Nursing, Sophie served fourteen months in Europe as an Army Corp nurse during World War II. They would have eight children: Peter, Martin, Victoria, David, Stanley “Sam,” Gregory, Lorraine, and Christine.
With the challenges that faced Vermont dairy farmers, Peter traded two horses and $1700 dollars to purchase his first bulldozer. As he transitioned from farming to landscaping and excavation, by 1966, he was full time in his new profession with the purchase of a Caterpillar 922 loader. With his four sons, David, Marty, Sam and Greg, in 1974 they formed a partnership and incorporated the business as Markowski Excavating. Peter died in 1988, with the legacy of a company that continued to flourish with many large projects throughout Vermont and elsewhere. A true success story for the son of an immigrant.
Postscript: Through this series, we have explored the courage, tenacity, and perseverance of immigrants who moved to Vermont for a better life than the one they left behind. These families did that through hard work, and over time, without losing sight of their ethnic heritage, they all have thoroughly integrated as members of our community today. One fact I’d like to highlight is that twice in the 20th century, the United States Census reported that Vermont lost population: first between 1910 and 1920, and then again between 1930 and 1940, through hardships exacerbated by the Depression. Were it not for immigrant families, the exodus from Vermont would have been an even greater population drain. Many more immigrant stories have yet to be told. I am grateful that The Reporter provided that vehicle, and perhaps, one day, we will find a way to continue publishing and promoting “Coming to America.” Thank you to The Reporter team for all their efforts to sustain the journal as they did!
Acknowledgements: Sam and Debra Markowski, William Markowski, Hilary Poremski Beitzel, and Olivia Boughton.
