SEVENTY SEVEN

By Terrance Jagiel

This is the story of my existence and all the memories that I could remember . The title of the book is SEVENTY ?EVEN which is the time frame of my life to date .The story is that of my mother, father and two sisters and I . We were brought up by two Polish parents that were Catholic and we lived in a town called Toledo in the state of Ohio. My father was a very unique man who had the ability to do mostly anything he puts his mind to . My father was a good provider and a hard worker . He had the ability to think in a way that amazed people . My father had been in many different businesses and occupations . He also was an inventor with over thirty patens credited to his name . My father loved his family and did his best to provide for us and make a loving atmosphere for us to live in . My mother was a wonderful mother who was able to raise us in a manner that help us throughout our lives we were taught to be kind , be polite , be caring towards others . have manners . love and forgive each other . believe in God and thank him for all he provided for us .The early years as far back as I can remember were happy , sad and confusing . Our lives took many twists and turns mainly because of my father and his desire to succeed . My mother was a saint to give him free reign to do what he wanted , but I guess she didn't have much of a choice . This book is different because instead of chapters I decided to use the name of the streets we lived on , which were quite a few . And just for a little challenge there are a couple of things throughout the book that are different , see if you can find out what they are when you finish the book .The answers will be in code at the end of the book with instructions how to find out the answers . So I hope you enjoy the adventure of my life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9781663244161

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Copyright © 2023 Terrance Jagiel.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-6632-4417-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-4416-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022915272

iUniverse rev. date: 03/24/2023

To whom it may concern: My name is Terrance J Jagiel was born in 1941 I have lived for 77 years. I am a disable veteran and am not able to walk without falling down. So I am kind of homebound so I had a lot of time on my hands so I decided to write a book about my life. I think my life was an adventure and a lesson in what life dishes out to you. So that’s what my book is about all the things I had to go through to get to where I am, it is a very interesting story.

It deals with things that happened to me from as far back as I can remember, dealing with being raised by two wonderful parents of polish descent and living with the ways of the old country. A journey through a maze of happenings that I sometimes wonder how I made it this far. So with that said I hope you are able to publish my book it would be wonderful to share my story because I think people would find it interesting and informative.

Terrance J Jagiel

314 Three Meadows Ct

Apartment 314

Perrysburg Ohio

43551

Ph #954 303 0070

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This is the story of my existence and all the memories that I could remember. The title of the book is SEVENTY SEVEN which is the time frame of my life to date. The story is that of my mother, father and two sisters and I. We were brought up by two Polish parents that were Catholic and we lived in a town called Toledo in the state of Ohio. My father was a very unique man who had the ability to do mostly anything he puts his mind to. My father was a good provider and a hard worker. He had the ability to think in a way that amazed people. My father had been in many different businesses and occupations. He also was an inventor with over thirty patens credited to his name. My father loved his family and did his best to provide for us and make a loving atmosphere for us to live in. My mother was a wonderful mother who was able to raise us in a manner that help us throughout our lives we were taught to be kind, be polite, be caring towards others have manners, love and forgive each other believe in God and thank him for all he provided for us. The early years as far back as I can remember were happy, sad and confusing. Our lives took many twists and turns mainly because of my father and his desire to succeed. My mother was a saint to give him free reign to do what he wanted, but I guess she didn’t have much of a choice. This book is different because instead of chapters I decided to use the name of the streets we lived on, which were quite a few. And just for a little challenge there are a couple of things throughout the book that are different, see if you can find out what they are when you finish the book. The answers will be in code at the end of the book with instructions how to find out the answers. So I hope you enjoy the adventure of my life.

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Avondale Ave

TOLEDO

OHIO

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I was born Terrance James Jagielski on July 26 1941 in Toledo Ohio 1:00am at Mercy hospital. I was named by my Aunt Sophie my mother’s older sister who at the time was reading a new book that just came out called TERRY AND THE PIRATES. My father was very happy that day. A year and half earlier and my parents had my brother Patrick Jagielski they were really happy to have their first child a boy my father was- so proud of Patrick. Four months later Patrick caught Diphtheria a disease that was running ramped at the time.

My dad took Patrick to the family doctor Dr. X I’ll call him they put Patrick in the hospital but the DR. X miss diagnosis Patrick as having a severe cold or something and my brother died. The years after my dad never forgave Dr. X and often talked about what happened. My dad and mother were very stanch polish Catholics my dad’s mother Peal Snopkowski we call her called Busa (polish for Grandmother)even had a shrine alter in her house with candles and pictures of Jesus and the Saints. In the later years it was kind of scary to my sisters and I we kind hated to go over there for the holidays. But she was just very religious it did make her special. So my parents were happy that God provided them with another son although as I got older they wondered. The first memory I can recall is the grocery market my dad bought JAGIELSKI’S MARKET on Avondale St. in east Toledo. I remember my mother had a young women come in to watch me while she worked in the store while my dad worked nights at Sunoco Oil Refinery as an insulator. The grocery store was a building the front was the store part and the back was where we lived. The young women named Dottie always had the radio on playing all the songs like Glenn Miller In The Mood, American Patrol. In The Mood, Moon Light Serenade and etc. It was a very triangle feeling as I think back although I was too young to know that a war was going on. My mother used tell us stories of those days like someone coming in and asking for pork chops and she would get a slab of pork and a meat saws and do her best not knowing any thing about butchering we use to laugh when she tell us that story she said that she must have done alright they always came back for more. The young women Dottie as I remember was very nice to me. But I do remember my mother telling my sisters and I that I confused Dottie somewhat I was just trying to talk than and would try to say her name but it sounded to Dottie like I was saying Pattie. I guess that explains why I was always on the pot a lot too well. My mother actually did most of the work in the store because of my father was working a full time job. During the Holidays she was quite busy and had to hire help she had to in those days dress chickens and turkeys prepare hams and kielbasa make polish sweetbread and pies every body’s favorite was lemon mirage and chocolate stock the store take Christmas orders and so on. She was totally exhausted by closing time than she had to take care of my father and I. My mother was a hard working but all ‘this was beginning to be too much plus she became pregnant. So my dad put the store up for sale. I was told that it didn’t take that long she work the store up in to a thieving business and she was happy that she could live somewhat of a normal life. The memories were somewhat vague but my mother and father had a lot of stories though out the years to share with us kids plus I had a sister coming to play with

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Vinal street was a nice street in East Toledo next to a railroad track although I can say that there weren’t many trains that used the track that I could remember. The house was a two story frame with a two car garage and a separate one bedroom apartment behind the house. The couple that lived in the apartment were a nice middle aged couple I can’t remember their names but I do remember that the husband would give me a Hershey bar most every time we met. My sister Kathy was born while we lived in the Vinyl house. She was about one year of age and was a bright red haired freckled little girl who would cry all the time. I can remember one day early in the morning my father was at work and my mother and I walked to the grocery store not too far away and my mother left Kathy sleep while her and I rushed to the store something you don’t do now days but back then they did a lot of different things you don’t do today. My Mother and I would follow the railroad tracks from behind the house through these big sunflowers that grew along the tracks It was kind of scary and what really scared my mother was when we had to pass by this huge building that resembled the death camps in Poland and Germany. The Second World War was going on at that time and my mother had seen pictures of these places in the newspaper It was a scary looking building real big and rusty looking corrugated tin roof and siding with a high chain link fence all around, it that sat in the middle of a big lot that had tall weeds and grass surrounding it. Kind of a good place to make a horror movie it was scary looking. My mother would say let’s hurry past this building and hold my hand tight. When we got back home we would enter the door to the sound of my sister Kathy screaming her lungs out. We would climb the stairs and go into her bedroom and she would be standing up in her bed crying her eyes out turning red to match her red hair she was a sight. I can vaguely remember my mother dressed me in this sun suit (which was like shorts with shoulder straps) and had a picture of this pony on the front. It was hot and I was playing in the sprinkler that the neighbor had turned on with this little girl. We were running through several times and then sat down on the porch step and to this day I cannot figure out what I did to this little girl. The next thing I knew her mother was screaming at me for something I did my mother heard it and came over than she starts screaming at my mother. My mother picked me up and told her off saying I don’t have to listen to you scream at me I don’t know what my son could have done he is only four and a half years old. We went back in the house and my mother never spoke to her again. I don’t know if I hit her with something or tried to rape her (I don’ think so) I didn’t know at that age the difference between a girl and a boy, but I do now yea yea. I was told by my mother to play in the backyard so I wouldn’t get in trouble. I would play in my little toy car with pedals and pedal up and down the back yard, but then I got bored with that so I went in the garage. I was looking around and seen these rakes shovels and hoes I was trying to get this hoe unhooked and it came unhooked alright it came down and hit me right on the forehead with the blade part I start bleeding pretty heavy I ran in the house with a stream of blood following me. My mother said what happened I told her and she cleansed out the cut which was pretty deep then she put boric acid powder on the cut and use medical tape to like pull the cut together and put another bandage over it. It took a couple of weeks to heal but I still have a scar and an indention on my forehead. Back then you only went to the doctor if you were dying. It wasn’t like these days. My father was a unique person he wasn’t a real big man and not very tall he was about five foot nine and had this big barrel chest and was strong as an ox and had a hot temper. The guy pulled that gun and in split second dad let him have it with crushing right and knocked him out. The next thing the guy knew was being hand cuffed by the police and taken to jail. Getting back to my father deciding what he wanted to do he always had these ideas of inventing things. So came up with this idea of a Jar Opener. Back in those days people use to do a lot of home canning vegetables, fruits, preservers and so on. The problem with canning is the vacuum that was created would seal the lid so tight it was almost impossible to open. Well dad thought about this problem and came up with a solution. He took a steel rod and shaped it to the contour of the twist ring of the jar with handles you could squeeze. The rod was shaped three quarters of a circle with handles extending out about four inches the rod was covered completely with a rubber hose to give it more of a grip and easier on the hand while squeezing the handle. He was able to get orders from some of the major stores at that time like Sears, Montgomery Wards and some local hardware stores. I can remember standing in the garage as a little kid seeing my dad operating this huge punch press to form the jar opener shape. The noise it made and the power of it had shook the whole floor. Than watching my mother with a reel of three eights inch rubber hose and a pail of motor oil soaking the hose and then with a rag sliding the hose on to the steel rod that had been formed by my dad. They were a real team to watch pumping out these jar openers. I bet the neighborers wondered why there were so many earthquakes all of a sudden when that punch press stamp out these jar openers all you felt is(BAM BAM BAM BAM). My dad also had another invention that he was manufacturing although this one he was jobbing out to a fabricator he called it a STEP LADDER PLATFORM this item was placed on the rungs of a ladder (at that time ladders were made out of wood and had wooden rungs)as to where you stood for a length of time on the ladder like scraping or installing something, painting etc. The purpose was to give you a comfortable platform to stand on rather than the uncomfortable round wooden rung. He had buyers like paint companies hardware stores and other companies that sold ladders. I can remember he had it painted a bright red and it was stamped JAGIEL RESEARCH And DEVELOPING CO. Wait a minute what happen to the SKI on the end of our name? At that time in history there were a lot of prejudices going on not only with blacks and whites but other nationalities The Irish The Germans Hungarians and the Polish in fact Polish Jokes portrayed the Polish people as being dumb and stupid kind of a second minority. So my father found this, out when he tried to promote he’s ideas so he decided to throw everyone for a curve. JAGIEL what’s that It could be Jewish Ja giel or French Ja-giel or now days JAGIL’S BAND. The house on Vinal as I remember the kitchen had a table and booth set up my father was working on sorting out some of his literature and asked me to take some of it he had in a trash can down in the basement and throw it in the furnace Thinking back I know what he was thinking I wasn’t o d enough to do anything like that. So I struggled with the trash can to get it down the steps. The basement was full of literature and pamphlets all along the walls and the furnace was an old coal furnace with a big old iron door I struggled to open the door finally I was able to get it opened so I started to put the papers in the furnace and a couple fell back out in the trash can full of paper they stared to burn. I froze I didn’t know what to do in a state of panic I ran up the stairs I was all flush red I just stood there my dad said what’s wrong I couldn’t answer. Than he realized what had happened and ran down to the basement was able to turn on the hose he had hanging there and put out the fire. How fortunate the place would have gone up in flames with all that paper he had stacked against the walls. See I said I had some bad luck on Vinal street Brewster street was where we moved to after Vinal street it was a two story house with a basement and three bed rooms. It needed some work so my dad kept busy fixing it up. The house was right next to city park and some sort of dump. I can remember playing in the mud after it rained and smelling burning rubber that they were burning in the dump. I remember I had a little girl playmate her and I used to have fun making things out of the mud. But I didn’t make my mother too happy when she seen that I was covered from head to toe in mud smelly mud. The house was on the outskirts of Toledo proper which was on the western side of the Maumee river the houses before that were on the east side of the Maumee river the east side had a bad reputation for being the poor side of town. So I guess we were getting up in the world well kind of. There were a few factories in the area one of which was a toothbrush factory where my uncle Leonard worked. Uncle Leonard was my mother’s brother second youngest to her. There at the factory my uncle met Delores and soon after they got married. I was quite young at that time but I do remember she was a beautiful women and great looking couple. My uncle Leonard reminded me in later years of Alan Ladd blondish color hair and same features a real man type of guy. My aunt Delores was the same type strawberry blonde with a beautiful figure they looked like a movie star couple. There was one thing for sure when they got married they had plenty of tooth brushes the factory used to give the rejects to the employees. My uncle Leonard was in the army in World War Two while in the trenches in Europe he was shot in the neck by a German soldier for that he received The Purple Heart and six months in a US hospital in Europe. Years later every time we would visit him he would bring out The Purple Heart he was sure proud of it and he should be. It was funny the story my Aunt Celia (my sisters and I use to call her CIOCIA CELIA MEANING AUNT IN POLISH) tell us about Uncle Leonard. Weill guess I better explain who were in my mother’s family. They all lived in the same house in Toledo Ohio on Belmont street it was a big house three stories and a basement with a long back yard at the end was a two and a half car garage with an alley at end. The neighborhood was Polish with a neighborhood grocery store four houses to the right. All the houses were well kept with meticulous lawns and flowers. They the Polish were known to keep their properly pristine. So there was my Grandfather Vincent my Grandmother Eva than their children the oldest first Gus, Celia, Sophie, Angeline (my mother) Leonard and Eddie and my Aunt Celia’s daughter who was born out of wedlock Delores. That was very difficult back than to have a child out of wedlock but my aunt Celia would not have it no other way the whole family took responsibility for Delores. Getting back to my aunt Celia’s story one morning they were all having breakfast and they heard someone coming down the stairs aside the kitchen they wonder who it was everyone was at the table except Eddie and Leonard who were in Germany in the army. Well she said when the door to the stairs opened here comes Uncle Leonard sat down at the table like he never left they thought he was a ghost. They hadn’t seen him for over two years. He said he got back home late at night and went up to his room to sleep.

Boy what a surprise to them they were totally taken off guard she use to get us laughing every time she told that story. Shortly after that my Uncle Eddie came back home he was pulling K P duty in Europe when a stove blew up and burned him over sixty percent of his body they had him under morphine for months until he healed. He had some scars but he looked pretty good under the circumstance. He was a short person he said they use to call him mousey in the army I guess like Mickey Mouse he was a whisler every time I seen him he was whistling. Well back to Brewster St. I can remember my father always working otfthe’1house One spring he came up with this idea to modernize the looks of the exterior. So he climb on the roof and cut the overhang off almost to the exterior wall I guess it was his solution to replacing it because of wood rot. It did give it a new look. Than I remember at night he had a two lamps with the shades off at bottom and top of the stairway to provide light and the radio playing songs of the forties with smell of shellac in the air that he was using to refinish the stairway. I must have been in to smells at that time of my life I guess because I was young and unfamiliar with these new smells. Than I can remember stepping out on the front porch in the winter to get the Toledo Blade newspaper for my father when I brought it in the warm house there was a smell of the clean paper and fresh ink that permeated the air ah what sweet memories. Than all of a sudden I realized my father wasn’t around anymore I found out later that he was in the Navy that he join the Navy to escape being drafted in the Army better choice in his mind. But that was short lived they found out that he had a spot on his lung and sent him back home. When he finally got back he came through the door with a brand new bike he bought me. The bike was a twenty six incher a little big for me at the time but for than he would push me around on it. Him and I had so much fun on that bike laughing over the curbs and driveways what sweet memories.

Than one day the biggest memory of all happen my mother and father came home with a real surprise my brand new baby sister Linda. I used to stand up on my tippy toes and look down at her in the bassinet and she would look up at me with the biggest smile that a person could remember and that is the way she is still today always smiling. God love her. One of the unpleasant memories was every Sunday we would get dressed up to go to church like all good Polish Catholic families would do the problem for me was the suit I had to where it was made out of wool fabric with no liner that suit would itch me all over finally my mother understood and bought me a new suit made out of gabardine I think I even liked church more well maybe. Than all of a sudden my mother one day said to me Terry you are old enough to attend school the first grade. Wow I must be getting old. The school I had attended was a Catholic grade school named Nativity Catholic School part of the Nativity Church it was run by the Sisters of St. Francis, 1116 Nebraska Ave Toledo Ohio. I remember it was a brick building with unusual glass block windows that were quite different for the time period. The thing I wasn’t use to is that halfway through the morning we had a break and we were served two packages of crackers (saltines) and small container of milk I would have preferred animal crackers maybe they telling me to grow up. The sisters (nuns) were to me kind of scary to me with their black tunic and white headdress with a large rosary with cross around their waist and a necklace with a large cross of Jesus around their neck. But little did I know at the time I was about to embark on an unbelievable adventure.

LANGENDEFER

ROAD

THE

COUNTRY

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Langenderfer road is where we moved to after Brewster and what a move, like going from a palace to the ghetto. The house sat on twelve acres of land on the corner of Langenderfer and Miller roads. The house had two bedrooms a living room dining room and kitchen with a hand pump and sink for water and a mud room. It had an up to date of house with two seats just in case you could find someone to join you with last year’s edition of the Sears and Reobuck Catalog hanging from a piece of bailing twine. It had an old two car garage shed combination. There was an old broken down corn crib behind the garage. We had a farm on the southwest corner owned by the Langenderfers Morris, and Lil were the father and mother then came John, Danny, and Jane who were their children. They owned quite a few acres which ended right across the road past the front of our house. And guess what they had in that field PIGS little pigs, female big pigs (called souses), bigger male pigs not one or two but hundreds I was amazed of how big they were and how cute the little piglets were. It was all new to me how they enjoyed the mud after a rain just waliowd in it. The summer was the worst you could smell them miles away it was no fun sitting out on the front porch. The farm house to the left and across the street of our house on Langendefer road was Morrise’s brother his name was Huber and wife Anna they had two children Bassel and Rozland. Morris also had milking cows in the barn near his house they would milk those cows four oclock in the morning and six oclock in the evening and the milk truck would pick up the milk and take it to the dairy twice a day. They were all nice people and very friendly and hardworking, to run a farm the size of theirs they had to be. Weill guess I was going to be a farmboy and boy was I instore for a lot of work. The first thing my father did is buy a John Deer tractor it had two smaller wheels that were close together on the front and two huge wheels on the rear you could actually have four wheels on the back but two were sufficient. He also worked as a carpenters foreman for a constuction company that built T V towers about two hundred feet high. I remember he took me to the top of one that they had finished and our red pick up truck on the ground looked like a little toy. He use to tell me about some of the fights that would break out between the union iron workers and the carpenter guys over the work they were doing. He said they would have first fights way up there a hundred feet or more knock each other off the scaffoldling and they would be hanging on until help came and than a hour later they would have lunch together like nothing happened what a rough bunch of crazies he would say. So back to farming my father started to plow the fields after he would come home from work it was in the spring of the year so the timing was right and I was out of school so I could help (but I didn’t want to I was a city boy) he said your a farmboy now get busy. So he planted corn on the east field and potatoes on the south field and stawberrys on the north field. He taught me how to drive the tractor I was. Just a little kid at the time my legs barly reached the pedals so he rig up a extention on the seat so I could reach the pedals. He said Terry push in the left clutch pedal with your left foot and hold it in and with your right hand hand push the shift leaver staight forward than with your right hand take hold of the throttle control and pull it down slowly while letting out the clutch with your left foot. Than to stop with your right foot push on the brake peddal while pushing in the clutch and pushing up the thottle with your right hand. That was a lot to remember for a little kid who never drove anything wow. Well after stalling the tractor a dozen or more times I finally got the hang of it boy was I proud of myself. I really didn’t drive the tractor that much except if my father needed my help like to pick potatoes. When the potatoes were ready to pick he rented this machine to pick the potatoes it was a two man operation well in my case a man and a boy. The way it worked is the machine was hooked to the tractor my job was to drive the tractor in a straight line down the potato rows which was hard to do because the ground was rough. My father sat on a seat in the back of the potato picker and guided the blade that uprooted the potatoes onto a conveyer belt that dropped them into a wagon. Well it worked pretty nifty until the blade of the potato picker for some reason started to dig in the ground to deep. That John Deer tractor was a powerful tractor as the potato digger started to dig to deep: in the ground it forced the front of the tractor to raise up in the air there I was trying to hang on it was like riding a bucking bronco. Well my mother just happen to look out of the window and seen what was happening she ran out to the field and pulled me off that tractor and scolded my father up one side and down the other boy he use to tell me if you get that redhead fired up look out. Well that was the end of my potato picking. He was able to get a friend of his to finish the picking job. My mother use to help with the hoeing of the corn field while my dad was at work and i was instructed to help her.

There we were those hot summer days in the field sun beating down bugs and flies biting ants getting in your shoes bees flying around I was to young for all that torture. If I were to say that to my father he would say your a farm boy son get busy. One time on one of those hot miserable days my mother and I were out hoeing the corn field right alongside the road and some farmer guys were driving by and started whistling and yelling hey sweetheart you shouldn’t be doing that baby my mother put her head down and told me not to pay them any attention. She was a looker with her bright red hair and colorful sun dress. When the corn was ready to pick we put it in crates and loaded them on a flatbed truck and took them to market.

Sometimes I would go with my father we had to get up real early in the morning like around four I was too young to get up that early but went any how after all i was a farm boy. It was a experience we drove to Toledo Farmers Market my dad negotiated a price and they unloaded the flatbed truck and away we would go for another load. The strawberries were the worst to pick you had to stoop down and bend over it was back breaking job. My father would sometimes set up a roadside stand on the nearby highway Central road and sell the strawberries I would go at times it was fun seeing the people that stopped they used to say when they were leaving good by freckles. I had freckles and bright red hair when I was that age thanks to my mother.

My two sisters Kathy and Linda had it made they were too young to help with anything plus my father had this crazy idea that he was going to make me a farm boy hum. My sisters did help my mother bake and cook or I should say she was trying to teach them. Things like mixing batter and icing a cake and cupcakes they were delicious by the way. We always had cakes and cookies and baked goods on hand in the kitchen and oddly enough we were not overweight in fact I used to call my sister Kathy skinny and my sister Linda bean pole. Later on in life Linda ended up marrying a guy by the name Art Bean isn’t that a hoot. My mother