Josef Zdyr, patriarch of the Zdyr family, was the man who gave my grandmother, her son and daughters, my cousins, the all consonant, impossible to pronounce last name -- ZDYR. Fortunately a Polish Y can be pronounced as an i, hence the name was pronounced something like Zdere or Zee-der.
As did most Polish men of his era (1890-1948), Joe had a short lifespan. He only lived until age 58. He had a stroke and died on the floor of the Ford Rouge plant in 1948. He was a soft spoken, gentle guy who I was able to enjoy until I reached the age of 7.
My dziadek died of the Irish disease that was known to jump nationalities and afflict a great number of men of the Slavic race. His particular strain of the disease was the Four Roses variety that was particularly deadly when accompanied with a warm 12 oz. wash of the Stroh's strain elixir.
Nazdrowie, the traditional Polish toast meant, "to your health" It didn't help his. His only form of pleasure after a hard day's work was to stop at the tiny beer garden that stood almost directly across the street of his Mercier Street home. The bar was always full of local men, most of them Ford workers. Women were not welcome. It was a man's domain, until one week day evening, after Grandpa Josef stayed too late, Busia crossed the barrier.
She walked into the bar, broom in hand and literally swept Josef off his feet with a couple of hard swipes of the broom. He fell to the floor and withstood a barrage of cussing and screaming that would make a Polish sailor blush. It was Busia Z at her ferocious best.
She chased him back home across the street in full view and hearing of half the block, swinging the broom at him all the way home. Poor Josef. It took a month before she spoke to him again. She was so pissed that she cut his face off the only formal photo they had of each other. The picture is still around somewhere. I think Margo has it. So if you ever see it, you have the rest of the story. I witnessed the event and will never forget it.
When he died, the custom of the day was to bring the body to the family home, where friends could pay their respects and offer toasts to Josef's memory. He stayed for three days in the small front living room of the home he built in 1914.
My cousin Butch and I slept in a tiny bedroom just a few feet from the casket. It was difficult to fall asleep with a dead body sharing our space, especially when we were certain that the whole house was full of ghosts, monsters and other scary creatures that went bump in the night.
As much as we loved our grandfather, we were glad they finally carried him out to the hearse for his ride to the church and finally to the cemetery. As they began to close the open casket, the family filed by and planted a kiss on Jozef's waxy white cheek. When it was my turn, i refused and upset my mother. There was no way I was going to kiss ol dead Joe, even though I loved him. That was too much for a 7 tear oid to bear.
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