I read Dan Rodricks’ column on Miss Margie with a tear in my eye (“Dan Rodricks: In Baltimore, celebrating the Other Mother from next door,” May 10). I knew Miss Margie from St. Casimir’s Church and the Hatton Senior Center and, of course, from just seeing her walking around Canton. My story has to do with a discussion with her at a breakfast or lunch at St. Casimir’s after Mass. I was telling her that my family owned Julian’s Polish Cocktail lounge on Boston Street during the 1940’s and 1950’s. She replied that she used to go there all the time to dance and have a good time with friends. Then she shared that she really “had an eye” for one of the Chrzanowski boys, Stanley. I laughed and told her that Stanley or Stas was my father and had she managed to snag him she would have been my mother. And that became a standing joke with her, my wife Cass and myself.
Miss Margie was the perfect example of a Polish “Pani” who never married but took care of the rest of the family, never drove and walked everywhere, talked to people she met along the way and just enjoyed her life living in the same house she was born in. She was a part of a group of devoted ladies of Polish descent, admired by many and pitied by others for never marrying. But in the long run, they acquired other families as is the story of Miss Margie and Pam Rostek-Kuwazaki.
Thanks, Dan, for telling her story and bringing back memories of her life and experiences and memories of other “Miss Margies” who lived in our neighborhoods. May their memories bring smiles to many of our faces. I have been blessed to know several.
— Stas Chrzanowski, Baltimore
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