Mary Katharine ZABSKI was born 08 Sep 1882 in Jaslo, Podkarpackie, Poland to Joseph and Anna (GORNASKI) ZABSKI.
The huge Zabski family was very poor in Jaslo, Poland. They had no money and no way to make money. They lived on less than a half acre of land in a home with a dirt floor. They suppered out of a center bowl on the table. Although not considered farmers, they raised pigs to sell for money. Mary did not like her mother.
Her sister, Kate, was in the US before Mary, and Kate was able to go back to Poland. Tillie Zabski attended Peter Demetrios Prevenas' funeral in 1941, but we don't remember how she was related.
Mary came to the US to make money then go back. She had a best girlfriend, Mrs. Joseph Potla (married in the US). The girl was from a wealthy family, pleaded with parents to let her come with to the US. The wealthy family paid for Mary's passage. They sailed from Hamburg, Germany, or Danzig, Poland, through Ellis Island before 1897. They stayed down in the hold of the ship with hundreds of others. During a big storm, water was leaking into the hold and they thought they were going to drown. Mary and her girlfriend tied themselves together around a post so if they drowned they would drown together.
When Mary got on the train after landing in the US, she was terrified when she looked out the window and saw black people for the first time.
Mary worked at Boston store in downtown Chicago on State Street. She would walk the five miles from Noble street to work and the five miles back to save the couple pennies car fare. Mary sent money back to Poland for them to use and save some for Mary to return, as Kate did. But, when it came time for Mary to go back, they had needed and spent all she sent, so she had to stay in the US. She did not like it here, she wanted to go back home to Poland.
She said the people went wild celebrating the 1900 New Year in the streets.
Mary met and married a Greek man, Peter Demetrios PREVENAS, while working together in a restaurant. They were married Oct 1906 in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois.
Eight of their babies survived to adulthood: Anna (1907), Fanny (1908), James (1909), Thomas (1911), Helen (1912), Peter (1914), Violet (1915), and Katharine (1921). Helen and James were her favorite children. She always made Jimmy promise he wouldn't get married until after she died. (James never married.)
Although her husband tried to talk her into it, she was opposed to birth-control because of her religious up-bringing. Mary had several miscarriages and at least one stillborn. John or Paul did not come home from St. Elizabeth Hospital when Tom was one and a half years old, or while they were living on LaSalle Street. There were also two more boys who died at (or shortly after) birth between Violet and Katharine.
Aunt Sophie Zabski came with Aunt Rose to visit Helen at St. Josephina once. When Helen asked Mary about Rose, Mary denied knowing her. Mary's children never knew she had a sister Rose living in Chicago until Mary was dying and Rose came to see her. Mary still wouldn't even look at her sister, she turned her head away. One story speculated that when Mary caught her husband and Rose fooling around, Mary swore she would never talk to Rose again. Perhaps it was because Mary's family ignored her for some time after her sister, Rose, wrote to Poland saying Mary married a black man.
At one point, Mary's family wrote to her from Poland begging for a picture of her family even if the children were black. They no longer cared if they were black. So, they all went to the park and had the photographer take a family portrait. Mary tore up all the photos of her husband when angry, but Anna managed to save the pieces of one torn family photo.
Her husband's brother, Tom, came to this country. He worked for her husband and lived with us. He was very good to Mary. Said she was a hard worker, felt sorry for her hard life. He would take the kids to the park. He would get off for a couple of hours between meals in the afternoon. When he was going back to Greece, he wanted to take Mary back with him but she wouldn't go. After that her favorite daughter, Helen, was born.
Mary had each child be responsible for another. For example: Anna was responsible for Fani's safety and actions, Fani was responsible for James, James for Thomas, ...
She was an excellent embroiderer and lacemaker. Mary was a good gardener. She had a garden of many beautiful colors. She had some psychic abilities.
She always said, 'Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today.'
In the basement, Mary and daughter Katharine would make root beer in the afternoon when no one else was home. The bottles were hidden under Mary's bed. Once in a while a cork would pop off and spray root beer all over the room. Then everyone knew and it would all be gone.
Her graduation present to son, James, was allowing him to take her for a ride in his car. As a present to Helen for grade school graduation in 1926, Mary gave Jim money to take Helen to the Granada Theater and the newly opened Soldier's Field.
Mary used to go tent camping in Wheeling, Illinois, at Dam #2 and swimming in the Des Plaines River. The site had ten-foot camping areas.
Later she went to
the Wisconsin Dells for two weeks with daughters, Helen and Katharine. Sons,
Jimmy or Peter would drive them up and come back two weeks later to pick
them up. Granddaughter, Helen Harris, went one year too. (Photo of Katharine
Prevenas, Mary Zabski Prevenas, and Helen Harris.) Once when daughter Helen was
pregnant with Sonny, they wanted to go to town and would count the steps
until someone would give them a ride. They never got up to 1000 steps.
She often went to Channel Lake, outside of Antioch. Helen and George bought a cottage first with friends of theirs. Every Sunday had company there. Wined and dined them. Then James bought a cottage $500-800. Put the indoor toilet, fixed the electricity. Went up all winter long. Lit a coal stove and cooked on it, played cards, then went back to Chicago.
In the 1930's Mary joined the Polish National Alliance at Milwaukee Avenue near Division Street, Chicago, Illinois. They would picnic every year.
She used to go to the movies 5 cents on Saturday nights in 1935. She played bingo after the movie with daughters, Helen and Katharine. Mary won at least $5 every week.
Mary learned how to speak and read Greek. She spoke Greek and Polish only with friends, not with her children. She learned how to read and write English when daughter Anna went to school. Anna would correct her pronunciation, etc.
"My mother was a remarkable woman; and it took me almost a lifetime to realize it. She was a natural born linguist. She could speak Polish, Greek, and English. It was no problem for her to converse with the Jewish, Italian, and German women of the neighborhood. In those days most of the parents spoke only broken English and their children only spoke English in school. I remember my mother reading all my books from school throughout the grades. She could make up the most wonderful stories for us. Many were the evenings she would thrill us with stories of witches, princesses, and ghosts." [*VPC]
Mary was a great story teller. No matter what anyone was doing they would stop to listen to her stories. But, no one can remember any of them. The favorite was How the Witch Bust Her Belly. One was about a king who was told by a fortune teller that death would come for him at midnight. The King was going to cheat death by riding out of the castle. His horse tripped and he fell to his death at midnight. The Night She Saw Death was an exciting half hour story. One time when Anna was small and very sick, Mary stayed up all night with Anna. She was looking out of the porch window and saw a dark black figure coming up the stairs. She thought it was someone trying to steal the bedcovers that she had left on the line. She moved the curtain and watched it go up the second floor stairs. That night the man upstairs died.
"My mother was the dearest kindest person I have ever known. She made our
childhood days a wonderland. Her stories were endless full of laughter,
intrigue, and funny. We couldn't get enough of them. She made our
Christmases a joy even though we were very poor, but we never knew it. She
was the Queen of All Mothers. I loved her dearly." [*PPP]
"When in seventh grade, Ma gave me $2 to go to the store to buy roller skates. It was the first time I went to the store without an adult. My own brand new roller skates! I couldn't understand why Ma was doing such a nice thing for me. It wasn't my birthday or anything." [*KPL]
"During poor times, we didn't have much food, we didn't know it. She cut up Jewish rye bread into one inch cubes and floated them in a bowl of milk. This was a treat. Every once in a while we still make it for ourselves." [*JPP, KPL, PPP]
"My mother was terrified of thunder and lighting storms. She felt safer when there were Holy candles burning in the house. Tommy and I would go to the Greek Church which was just three blocks away. We would blow out the blessed candles for the dead and take them home for storms. Ma never knew we stole them." [*HPT]
"I remember when my mother tried to commit suicide. I was just three or four years old. I didn't really know what was happening. Later I put it together. We had these gas jets. She went into the bathroom and turned on the gas jet. She was out cold. Paterna had come home in a taxicab. You could hear him getting out of this taxicab full of women. He was plastered." [*PPP]
"When I was young I thought my mother's sole purpose was to beat me. When I grew up I realized what a hard worker and rough life she had." [*KPL]
"I know our grandmother had a goat. The local cop would bring it home when it got loose and was caught eating flowers in Lincoln Park." [*ML]
Mary
began to get sick around 1938. Mary had a variety of illnesses such
as palsy. She was an invalid for several years. She would put
leaves and leeches on her leg ulcers. The November
before she died, Mary fell and broke her hip and went into the hospital.
Daughters Helen and Katharine switched twelve-hour shifts being in the
hospital with their mother. Mary came home December 31, 1945.
While Helen and Katharine were giving Mary a bath. Katharine heard a clock ticking. Helen thought she was being mean talking about hearing the ticking. The old superstition indicated death was near. Less than a month later, Mary died.
"Your father and I took care of my mother 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for three months, with not one day off. When we couldn't take it anymore, Jim and Helen put her in a nursing home, where she died one week later." [*KPL]
[*HPT Helen Prevenas Thein, *KPL Katharine Prevenas Langner, *ML Marty Langner, *PPP Peter Peter Prevenas, *VPC Violet Prevenas Coghlan.]
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