June 25 marks the day that a great friendship commenced. It was the day I adopted Xena, the Siberian Husky, from Lollipop Farm in 1998. What a great dog! While looking for something different, I found this picture and eulogy provided by Heather and Shannon Evans, who used to visit Xena every time they came to visit the neighborhood.
Two big, black Packards rolled slowly down Roycroft Drive, stopping to locate a particular address. Two dogs, Ted and Spike, rose from their recline on the front porch and barked without descending the steps. Four men, all wearing dark suits and plain, narrow, black ties approached, but did not trespass the porch.
Jerome “Harry” Janowski, strong and wiry, with deep-set eyes and blond hair, hushed the dogs, and invited the men into the house. The spectacle of the big cars and the four strange men attracted a gallery of spectators on the Rochester street, primarily teenagers who attended school with the Janowski children and a few adults, their faces crossed with concern.
It was 1944. Mohandas Gandhi was released from prison in India; Anne Frank was arrested in Germany. Bing Crosby was crooning “Swinging on a Star” and Laurence Olivier brought Henry V to life in Technicolor. The world was at war. The U.S efforts were dispersed in the European and Pacific theaters, influencing most aspects of life in America.
The neighbors would never find out why the mysterious men in the dark suits were visiting Harry Janowski. His grandchildren would learn after his death in 1984 that he became a part of history.
Harry Janowski quit school before the eighth grade in Elmira, New York. Later, he would move to Rochester and ply his trade as a master electrician. His indefatigable work ethic earned the respect of his peers. Harry supervised the installation of lights at Red Wing Stadium at 500 Norton Street, and was rumored to have filled in as a right fielder when one of the regulars for the Red Wings could not get off their regular day job to play. He loved baseball. He loved the Red Wings. He loved his family, his hunting dogs and his country.
Later, he would be the lead electrician for construction at the University of Rochester, and at the UR’s Strong Memorial Hospital. It was there that his connection to the men in the black cars began.
In 1944, the United States was seeking a way to end the war and all its casualties. A project
had commenced to build a bomb that would end all bombs. The Manhattan Project involved top researchers from business and academia, and more than 129,000 workers in various cities across the United States. On that summer day in 1944, the men in the black cars interviewed Harry Janowski because they needed an expert electrician for the Manhattan Project. They would return four or five or a dozen times, ensuring that Harry’s patriotism and ethics were true. It was, and after the frustrating interview process, he was enlisted in the project.
True to his vow, he never talked about it.
June 10 marks the birthday of my grandfather, Harry F. Janowski, a humble and amazing man who changed my life more than any other person. When my father abandoned our family for gin joints and the bottle for a decade or more, it was my grandfather who took his turn at bat. He shared his knowledge of gardening, his love of baseball, his passion for life and the crown jewel, his work ethic, with his grandchildren.
He attended every single Little League game I ever played in, so popular among my friends and their parents that for years, they always asked, “How’s Grandpa?” Well after his neighborhood on Seabrook Street off Joseph Ave. had fallen to ruin by vandals and poverty, his home stood out with it’s trimmed, green grass and spectacular rose garden. Everything he planted grew. Everything.
He once planted a seed with a young boy, his grandson. He told me, “You can have anything you want in this life, anything, as long as you are willing to work for it.”
Of all the gifts that God has bestowed upon me, the greatest was my grandfather. He is still with me today, even thought he parted from this world nearly thirty years ago. Today, I might catch a baseball game and have an ice cream float in his memory, and exult in breathing the fresh air in a free country. My grandfather… he was quite a guy.
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