{Work in Progress}
My father was the only child of Walter and Sophie Stuczynski, born Jerome Walter Stuczynski (confirmation name Stanislaus). His nickname as a child was “Stuka” (after the German dive-bomber), “Fuzzy” in high school, and “Smitty” in the Army.
Drafted, he took basic training at Fort Dix, just missing the last plane at the end of the Korean Conflict. His area of training was “Guerilla Warfare”. He was then stationed at West Point for two years, staying in the same barracks Elvis Presley had a few weeks earlier. He was promoted in one weekend from Private to Corporal in order to qualify as staff for the Officer’s Club, where he did the books and was a bartender.
My mother, born Audrey Ann Wysocki, married my father in Dunkirk New York on April 7th. A snowstorm delayed leaving for their honeymoon in Washington, DC. While my father was stationed at West Point, she was a clerk on base and lived with my father near the base. She also worked for a time at a grocery store, possibly an A&P, in Dunkirk. This she blamed for problems with her legs later in life.
In 1967, my brother was adopted, them myself in 1969. We lived on Suzette Drive in Cheektowaga, NY and on my fourth birthday we moved to Bellwood Avenue in Depew, three blocks from Polish Falcons.