On Memorial Day, I wear my dad’s veteran’s hat. Washed out sky blue, it is trimmed with yellow and stitched with these words: “Amer. Ukr. Veterans.”
Decades after his death, that hat and our shared pride in our service, our family and Ukrainian heritage is the legacy which links us. So please allow me to honor Joe Hawrylko – and all the dads for Father’s Day 2018 – with a tribute to his brief time on our earth.
Joe was 30 when he enlisted for World War II. While still in boot camp in Fort Dix, N.J., Joe’s sister Olga insisted he meet a young Hungarian girl with whom Olga worked in the Perth Amboy garment factories, Julia Karockay.
A few dates and things got serious. They corresponded during the war, but Julia, always practical, would not accept Joe’s proposal until he returned home in one piece.
Tom Hawrylko (center) in his dad’s veterans’ hat, with his sons, Tom, Jr. (left) and Joe, in Clifton, N.J., in 2007.
In Europe, Joe saw war close up and, while there are no official citations of his service, he is mentioned in one book as one of the “best combat soldiers in D company” who was recruited for some specific tough work.
It was my son Joseph, who was named for his grandfather, who found that item in the book “Omaha Beach and Beyond” while doing research on our family name.
Following a rather long courtship, Julia and Joe married on May 27, 1947, in our Ukrainian Assumption Church. In 1961, they used the G. I. Bill and purchased their first home at 360 Ashley St. in the Budapest section of Perth Amboy.
Like many men from the church, Joe worked in the refineries, mixing and loading fuels, tying up ships. He and Julie were living the American Dream, owning a home, paying for my Catholic schooling and saving for my older sister, brother and me to go to college.
But things changed for Joe and Julie in 1969 when he was forced to retire from Hess Oil, due to what one doctor called shell shock from his war years. When Joe first got sick, Julia went from stay-at-home mom to managing Mickey’s Donuts in the Two Guys store.
For six years, Joe slowly faded from Alzheimer’s disease until his demise at age 63. By then, in 1976, I was in the Navy, stationed in California, and made it home on the third day of his wake to see him buried.
In his final years, dad lost his ability to speak. So I’d like to imagine what his last words would have been to his three children: “Make mom and me proud, go have children, live well and carry on our names.”
And I think that’s what we all did.
Tom Hawrylko is editor and publisher of Clifton Merchant Magazine of Clifton, N.J.