[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 40 (Tuesday, April 8, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E591-E593]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      ANASTASIA'S STORY: A SPECIAL TRIBUTE TO ANASTASIA D. KAPTUR

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. LOUIS STOKES

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, April 8, 1997

  Mr. STOKES. Mr. Speaker, on March 20, 1997, our colleague from Ohio, 
Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, suffered the loss of her mother, Anastasia 
D. Kaptur. Many of us realize that the loss of a mother can be 
extremely heartbreaking. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Marcy and 
members of her family as they move through this difficult period of 
mourning.
  On March 24, 1997, Marcy and her family gathered at St. Theresa of 
the Little Flower Parish for a celebration of life memorial mass in 
honor of her mother. Friends joined the Kaptur family in reflecting 
upon the life of Anastasia Kaptur, who was a courageous human being and 
a very remarkable woman. To celebrate their mother's life, Marcy and 
her brother, Steve, prepared a special tribute entitled, ``Anastasia's 
Story.'' This moving tribute is a testament to Anastasia D. Kaptur, who 
is called A Woman for all Seasons.
  Mr. Speaker, I take pride in submitting ``Anastasia's Story'' for 
inclusion in the Congressional Record. I ask my colleagues to join me 
in expressing our deepest condolences to Marcy and members of her 
family.

                           Anastasia's Story

Celebration of Life Memorial Mass, Little Flower Parish, March 24, 1997

           Anastasia ``Cherie'' Delores Mary Rogowska Kaptur

       Welcome to St. Theresa of the Little Flower Parish where 
     our family has attended for 52 years.
       On behalf of my mother's son and my brother, Steve, and the 
     Kaptur and Rogowski families, especially our loving father 
     Stephen ``Kappy'' who was laid to rest 28 years ago, as well 
     as mother's mother and father, Teofila and John, and her 
     sister, Anna, her brothers Anthony and Stanley, all of whom 
     preceded her in death; her sister-in-law Esther Kalinska 
     Rogowski; her niece and goddaughter Rose Ann Rogowska 
     Koperski and her nephew John Rogowski; her cousins Theresa 
     and Joe Kaptur, and John and Rita Kaptur, and their children 
     and grandchildren; and her treasured friends, Mrs. Blanche 
     Zalipski, Mrs. Esther Dutkiewicz, Mrs. Sally Zawierucha, and 
     Mrs. Connie (Corrie) Dutched--all of us wish to extend 
     deepest gratitude to you, our friends, for your compassion 
     and for making the effort to celebrate the life of our most 
     beloved mother Anastasia ``Cherie'' Delores Mary Rogowska 
     Kaptur. We wish also to express the sincerest thanks to the 
     doctors, nurses, and support staff at every level at St. 
     Vincent's Medical Center, especially Dr. Ward Taylor, Drs. A. 
     Zacharias and Thomas Schwann, and Drs. Phillip Horowitz and 
     Allen Markowicz. Our family is also indebted to Mr. H. Ross 
     Perot and the gifted doctors at the Southwestern Medical 
     Center in Dallas, Dr. Gene Frenkel who made the longest house 
     call in the world, and Dr. A. Harold Urschell. Finally, we 
     cannot express our appreciation adequately to the saintly 
     nurses of Hospice of Northwest Ohio who treated our mother 
     with the tenderest and most humane care.
       For us, her children, mother's loss is profound, beyond 
     measure. We know God has blessed our family by affording us 
     the privilege and  honor to know and love this heroic woman 
     for half a century. We admire her totally. Our love and 
     respect for her has grown more with each passing day. We 
     shall never know a more loving, unselfish, nor courageous 
     human being. Somehow it is mystical that this service is 
     being held at a time when seasons are converging, as 
     spring dawns in this season of new life. Within the last 
     week, we have experienced freezing rain, bright sunlight 
     with blue skies, winter snowfalls, blustery winds, and 
     spring rains. The geese and birds are returning, and there 
     is a new moon. We believe this is nature's way of 
     welcoming our mother.
       My brother and I also must beg our mother's forgiveness. 
     Because, you see, she chose to be a very private person--a 
     woman of deepest humility. She sought no fanfare nor 
     acknowledgement. She would have been quite uncomfortable with 
     the attention being directed her way today. But we couldn't 
     fathom how to avoid this occasion of the celebration of her 
     life.
       We would wish for each of you to have in your life the gift 
     of Anastasia--love constantly and freely bestowed, as she has 
     given us for five decades. She has been our life-long partner 
     in all adventures, large and small, and our most ardent 
     supporter--whether it was working with my brother on his 
     latest

[[Page E592]]

     patented invention or on his race car--literally, she sat 
     behind the wheel revving the engine while he tinkered under 
     the hood. She acted as my chief political confidante, 
     inspiring me always, as well as touching citizens across this 
     district and nation. Her love for her children could not be 
     contained.
       Make no mistake about her resolve. She was a rugged 
     individualist. In an age of materialism, she countered the 
     tide. She coveted no bauble. She preferred ``making'' to 
     ``buying.'' In an age of television, she remained a literary 
     woman of the written word, known for her independent thought 
     and resistance to commercialized brain washing. In an age of 
     mega mergers and faceless bureaucracies, she supported the 
     small family businesses--Bayer's Hardware, Wolfert and Sofo's 
     Markets, Brodbeck's Greenhouse. We can still see her each 
     spring in that greenhouse, negotiating down all the aisles, 
     appreciating the vast display of acres of flowers under 
     glass, and leaving with carloads of petunias and other sundry 
     selections, along with trunkloads of potting soil. In an age 
     of shallow commitments, her word and her life remain as true 
     as the North Star. For us, she remains ageless, a woman 
     for all seasons.
       Our mother's life symbolizes triumph over adversity, the 
     story of a woman from the working classes who never yielded. 
     Let us tell you Anastasia's story . . .
       Mother was born in Toledo to Polish peasant immigrant 
     parents who had journeyed to America in 1912 before World War 
     I from a tiny village in Burtyn, Ukraine, at the nexus of the 
     Polish and Ukrainian borders. Her father was a forester and 
     her mother a peasant girl of 17 years. They suffered the 
     abuse of making the month long journey to America in steerage 
     class in the bottom of a ship that left from Rotterdam and 
     disembarked at Ellis Island in New York. They sought to 
     improve their lot by working to earn enough money to buy 
     farmland in their native country where they had been forced 
     off the land as land was collectivized and they could no 
     longer graze their cows. But the Russian Revolution 
     intervened, then World War I, and mother's parents were cut 
     off from their relatives, never able to return home.
       Our mother was the second-born of their four children--
     Anna, Anastasia, Anthony, and Stanley. She was nicknamed 
     ``Cherie'' in a childhood game they invented in which they 
     renamed one another--Al, Cherie, Fritz, and Skip.
       Mother grew up during the Depression utterly poor from a 
     financial standpoint. That searing memory of bitter poverty 
     would remain with her throughout her life. This was a time in 
     America before our social safety net laws were in place. In 
     her early years, the family moved at least eight times--
     always renters, never owners--from Belmont Avenue, to 
     Avondale, to Vance, to Pulaski, to Lucas, to Montrose, to 
     Blum, to Pinewood. And with those moves, she was forced to 
     change elementary schools and disrupt those tender learning 
     years--from Indiana School, to Pickett, to St. Teresa where 
     she made her Communion and Confirmation, to Hoag School. At 
     age 13, mom was already working to support her family. She 
     would rise at 4:30 a.m., take two buses across town in Toledo 
     to babysit and also clean houses for her teachers, as well as 
     wealthier people in Toledo. She herself later would write: 
     ``Being a child of depression, making $5 a week, my father 
     out of work for years, my sister dying, no money at all. No 
     hope at all. My two children know the history.''
       Though highly gifted academically and an all-A student in 
     the 7th and 8th grades, she was forced to drop out of Libbey 
     High School to work as a waitress to bring home a few dollars 
     a week to help the struggling family that also took in 
     boarders to make extra cash. Her father, always the last 
     hired and the first fired, could not keep steady work so her 
     mother cooked, washed clothes, did ironing--anything--to earn 
     cash, and also labored at Miller's Greenhouse picking 
     tomatoes, then in the kitchen at the Commodore Perry, then at 
     Kuhlmann's Potato Chips, and at Industrial Belt company on 
     Summit--but like her husband always at the bottom of the 
     seniority list. Her treasured and only sister, Anna, one year 
     older than mom, died tragically at age 17 of leakage of the 
     heart, an event that remained deeply poignant to our mother 
     throughout her years. Mom became the oldest surviving child. 
     At age 16, she hired on at Dean's Confectionery across from 
     St. Anthony's school for $5.00 per week. Many times that was 
     all her family had to live on. At 18, she worked at Liberty 
     Lunch for $8 a week, and then at Broadway Bar-B-Que for 
     $11.75 a week. The minimum wage law was passed at that time, 
     but her boss made her sign her check, then he cashed it, and 
     she was still paid only $8 a week. One day a lady came in 
     looking for people to work at Kresge's downtown, where mom 
     became employed, earning $14.50 a week.
       When she was in her early 20's, she landed a job at the 
     Champion Spark Plug Company in Toledo where she had applied 
     at the employment office every day for one year. She never 
     missed a day of work between any of her jobs. Here, her 
     weekly wage rose to $40 a week. She worked the production 
     line at plug tamping where she was paid based on her output 
     and she always did the maximum number each day. It was at 
     Champion that she was elected to the Charter Committee of the 
     Local 12 United Auto Workers Trade Union that was forming. 
     She summarized for her children why she helped form the 
     union--``primarily to assure seniority rights of employment 
     so you couldn't be fired because the supervisor brought 
     family member to replace you. A bidding system was 
     established so any open job was put up on the board so the 
     one with the most seniority got the job if qualified. 
     Discrimination was outlawed so the foreman could no longer 
     put his pets or relatives on the best job. The right to ask 
     for a pay raise was assured through negotiation and the right 
     to strike granted to employees. Leaves for illness were 
     granted so people wouldn't be fired if a doctor's 
     certification was provided. Bathroom privileges were 
     allowed for personal contingencies. Three months leave was 
     allowed for pregnancy. Layoffs would occur according to 
     seniority. And a grievance procedure was established to 
     curb harassment by mean foremen.''
       Elected union Secretary, Mom gained respect by both company 
     and union members for her knowledge of the bidding system, 
     her ability to handle grievances, and her detailed grasp of 
     the labor contract.
       On November 26, 1938, at 9:00 A.M. at St. Teresa's Church, 
     she married our happy go-lucky, wonderful father Stephen or 
     ``Kappy''--a produce man and truck driver. He came from an 
     even larger family where his mother had 16 children, though 
     many did not survive the illnesses of that period. They lived 
     with mom's family for awhile but then, together in 1945, they 
     bought a small home in Reynolds Corners in Adams Township, 
     totally retrofitted it, landscaped the property, waterproofed 
     the outside walls, handstripped the woodwork. While they were 
     at it, they gave birth to two children, their daughter Marcia 
     Carolyn in 1946, and their son Stephen Jacob in 1952. Mom 
     left her job at Champion when Steve was born.
       In 1952, mom and dad opened their own family meat market 
     and grocery called Supreme Market in Rossford, Ohio on Dixie 
     Highway across from the Libbey Glass Plant. Cherie's homemade 
     pies were sold there, along with dad's fresh and smoked 
     Polish sausage, veal loaf, pickled herring, and lots more. 
     But due to her husband's illness, the family was forced to 
     sell the store at decade's end, and dad went to work at 
     Kaiser Jeep to assure the family income and health benefits. 
     He retired from there in 1968. Mom worked at a number of 
     part-time jobs to supplement the family income, with their 
     daughter in college and their son in high school--Daso 
     Bakery, Mareks' Supermarket, cleaning physicians' offices, 
     and even pet-sitting.
       She continued working after she was widowed in 1969.
       During the 1970's, with her children grown, and after 
     receiving her first Social Security check, Anastasia pursued 
     the life-long dream she had placed on hold while she helped 
     everyone else--completing her high school education 
     and advancing her own formal education. She received her 
     high school certification of graduation from the State of 
     Ohio in 1975, and passed with flying colors. She also 
     enrolled in Russian courses at the University of Toledo, 
     took painting courses at the Toledo Museum of Art, 
     polished her knowledge of the Polish language from books 
     and letter-writing, honing those skills for decades by 
     writing relatives in Poland and the Ukraine. She became 
     the best ``Friend of the Library,'' faithfully checking 
     out 10-20 books each month. And the reading list was not 
     light--Halberstam, Updike, McCollough, Grisham, Elements 
     of Style, Raven's Wing, The Recycled Citizen, The 
     Reckoning, Brand Fires on the Ridge. History. Travel. 
     Adventure. Geography. Fiction. Mysteries. Mom often used 
     the expression ``thirst for knowledge.'' And, she 
     certainly possessed it. She was self-taught in so many 
     facets, cultivated a stellar vocabulary on a daily basis, 
     and was a life-long learner.
       She began to travel extensively with her children--
     throughout the United States, and the world. Her deep 
     interest in geography enlivened at every turn. Niagara Falls, 
     British Columbia, New Orleans, Miami, Montreal, Vermont, 
     Maine, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Chicago, New York, California, 
     Oregon, the Upper and Lower Peninsulas in Michigan, Germany, 
     France, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, the Ukraine, even 
     when the Iron Curtain made travel difficult . . . Mexico, 
     Toronto . . . Her most memorable trip involved discovering 
     the village of her mother and father, hidden inside the 
     western Ukraine, placing flowers on the graves of her 
     grandmothers, and learning of their fates--one starved to 
     death during Lenin's drive to squelch peasant rebellion in 
     the countryside, and the other shot together with her 
     grandchildren for refusing to divulge the whereabouts of a 
     grandson being sought for conscription into the Russian army. 
     While there, mom discovered a grove of full grown trees at 
     the opening to the village, planted by her mother before she 
     departed for America. While there, she also found her 
     mother's brother, Casimer, the sole surviving son who had 
     been placed in Siberian concentration camps for 20 years by 
     Joseph Stalin. It was an unforgettable journey as the blanks 
     of 63 years of family history were filled in.
       Mother is most at home in the outdoors with nature, and 
     in her gardens. She advised ``everything in life must have 
     a center, just like the universe, or a flower, or a 
     family.'' She could grow anything--certainly children. But 
     also animals--dogs, ducks, rabbits, birds, squirrels, 
     crescendos of plants and flowers, roses by the thousands, 
     flowers of all varieties--the usual ones like marigolds 
     and sweet peas. But more often the unusual and rare ones--
     moon flowers, balloon flowers, lupines, tulips, foxglove, 
     columbine. Her own potatoes, planted lovingly each year, 
     were harvested for a special meal. And her

[[Page E593]]

     evergreens and spruces, grown from shoots or small seeds, 
     all came to have symbolic value in our yard like the large 
     blue spruce on our front lawn, planted the first year she 
     had both a son and a daughter. If by a loving act of 
     nature, that tree over the years has sprouted two tops.
       Always, she was beautiful, so delicate and tiny physically, 
     with the clearest blue eyes my brother and I had ever seen, 
     and flawless skin, rarely wearing makeup. Natural. She wore 
     her hair like no other person we ever met. Distinctive. She 
     wore hats and clothing she crafted herself. She loved to 
     dance, especially polkas in both clockwise and 
     counterclockwise directions. She had a flair, whether it was 
     the way she held a napkin, or planted a garden, or signed her 
     name.
       She was always usefully occupied and her project list never 
     ended. She built furniture, designed and sewed clothing, 
     painted oil sketches, landscaped, wrote newsy personal 
     letters, baked, did masonry. She enjoyed people, one at a 
     time, and took a personal interest in each person's story. 
     When she finished a conversation, it was likely the person 
     had told her much more about him or herself than they ever 
     knew about mom. The first day she was admitted to the 
     hospital for tests, a nurse came up to her and said she was 
     going to take extra good care of her because when the nurse's 
     husband was a little boy, he was mom's paper boy and mom 
     always invited him in and fed him cookies.
       She would refer to people she truly admired as the ``salt 
     of the earth.'' Indeed, that epitomizes her. And she would 
     remind us the ``strongest steel goes through the hottest 
     fire.'' And she has. She always prayed for others' physical, 
     mental, moral, and spiritual strength. But, she possessed 
     them all. She walked toward physical death with full 
     knowledge, her shoulders straight, trying to bolster us, with 
     her eyes fixed on the horizon. She never flinched once. She 
     never complained. She accepted. And, her spirit triumphed. I 
     only wish we could reveal to you the depths of her courage. 
     She taught us how to live, and she showed us how to die.
       We are grateful to God for granting us the time to say 
     goodbye. Never have we known a person of such goodness. She 
     would caution us ``Never give anything with the idea of 
     getting something in return.'' She was completely selfless. 
     In knowing her, we came to know the full meaning of the 
     words--love, truth, beauty, unselfishness, humility, wisdom, 
     generosity, grace, refinement, ingenuity, perseverance, 
     serenity, and courage. For those of you who wonder why she 
     didn't confide in you these last several months, please know 
     she was protecting you, not wanting you to worry. She was 
     always thinking of the other person.
       If you ever looked into her sparkling eyes, or shook her 
     hand, you knew you met someone of substantial character and 
     abiding virtue. In the heavens, some stars emanate a pure 
     light, so full, constant and strong, they quietly draw the 
     gaze of earthly creatures, large and small, to their 
     wondrous, serene lustre. They usher in the night and the day. 
     In their light, sojourners never lose their way, never fall, 
     never tire, and are never alone.
       In her memory, our family will establish ``The Anastasia 
     Fund'' (to be formally incorporated as the Anastasia 
     Swiecicki Rogowska Kaptur Fund) for the adoption, education, 
     and medical care of children from the newly democratizing 
     nations of Eastern and Central Europe, beginning with Burtyn, 
     Ukraine, the ancestral home of her parents. Mother would say, 
     ``goodness never dies.'' May this fund honor her memory, that 
     of her mother and father, and their mothers and fathers as we 
     move to a 21st century that offers hope in the most forgotten 
     places.
       There is no way to say thank you sufficiently, mother. We 
     love you beyond life and time itself. May eternal rest be 
     granted unto you and may perpetual light shine upon you.
       Your profoundly grateful son and daughter,
                                                  Steve and Marcy.

       To be established in Memory of our Mother's Life: ``The 
     Anastasia Fund'' (to be formally incorporated as the 
     Anastasia Swiecicki Rogowska Kaptur Fund) dedicated for the 
     adoption, education and medical care of children from the 
     newly democratizing nations of Eastern and Central Europe 
     beginning with Burtyn, Ukraine, the ancestral home of her 
     parents.
       Contributions may be forwarded to: ``The Anastasia Fund'', 
     c/o Toledo Community Foundation, 608 Madison Avenue, Suite 
     1540, Toledo, Ohio 43604-1151.

                          ____________________