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War, hard work, loss and joy: Chet Szymanski on 97 years

Courtesy Photo Chester “Chet” Szymanski was greeted on his 97th birthday on May 14 with a visit from friends bearing a handful of balloons and well wishes for him.

ALPENA — On May 14, Chester “Chet” Szymanski was “overwhelmed” with the kindness and birthday wishes from his good friends.

Despite pandemic-related restrictions, his friends were determined to make his day, coming over with balloons and signs and honking their horns as they drove slowly by his Oldfield Street home. Not to mention the fire trucks that joined in the birthday parade.

“I’m truly overwhelmed,” he said. “I did have a lovely day … To see those 12 cars that came by, and all those fire trucks.”

He lives alone, but he has no shortage of friends checking in on him and helping him out, especially during this time of isolation. One of those friends is Pat Rondeau.

“She is more or less my right-hand man,” Szymanski said of Rondeau, who was making sure he was all set with his dinner before she left the house on a recent afternoon.

Courtesy Image Chester “Chet” Szymanski wrote this poem as an homage to his years working at the U.S. Postal Service.

Rondeau jokingly said she tries to keep him in line, “and that’s a hard thing to do.”

Szymanski added that Fred Oliva comes and checks on him every day, and does his grocery shopping for him.

On May 26, Szymanski said, he hadn’t left the house since the pandemic began. In his long life, he’s had a lot of good years, but this isn’t one of them.

“This year is going to be the year that was,” Szymanski said of 2020. “Everybody is so disappointed in this year.”

Of course, he is very grateful to have made it this far. But, as one ages, the others fall away, and it can become lonely watching your loved ones pass on as your own body fails in different ways. He uses a rolling walker and suffers from neuropathy, diabetes, is hard of hearing, and his vision is failing.

Courtesy Photo Chester “Chet” Szymanski (center) with Army friends, in back: Howard Horn and Jay Parish, both of Appleton, Wisconsin. In front are Edward Batistig of Ohio and Jack D. of Kaukauna, Wisconsin.

But he would rather focus on the good memories than complain about his current condition.

“I’m surprised that I’m this long-lived,” he said, adding that he has outlived all of his childhood friends. “I’ve outlived all of my Army buddies that were very, very close to me. And that kind of hurts, too.”

He does call a widow of one of his late Army friends to make sure she isn’t lonely.

“Her husband died, and she’s all alone there on the farm,” he said. “Very nice lady. So she’s alone like I am, staring at a wall.”

Szymanski was born in a log cabin in Alpena County on the corner of Maple Lane and Dziesinski Road in Maple Ridge Township. Except for a stint in the U.S. Army during World War II, he has lived his whole life in Alpena County, moving inside the city limits when he was still a boy.

He recalls being a boy during the Great Depression. He does remember a barter system being in place, but he was so young at that time that he didn’t know all the details about how the food made it to the table.

“I think those were good days,” he said. “Maybe I didn’t know any better. But I never wanted for food. We had food.”

His father was World War I veteran Felix Szymanski, a well-respected war hero who taught his children the value of hard work.

Chet Szymanski explained that his father was “wounded, left for dead on the field. They passed him by the first time, figuring he was all done.

“He got shot right through here,” he said, pointing to his throat.

“And the bullet came out here,” he said, pointing to the back of his neck. “Just missed his windpipe, and he was fine. Because they used solid bullets, you know. Nothing that splattered.”

Upon returning from war, his father “took a strong interest in civic affairs,” Szymanski said. “He was on the draft board. He was on the rationing board. He ran for councilman. I’ll tell you, Father was something else,” he said with pride, showing a photo of his dad and his uncle Ed both wearing ties while hunting because it was Sunday. He added that his father always went to all the military honors and flag ceremonies for every holiday.

“Dad was Dad,” he added. “When he finally couldn’t drive his car anymore, I took care of Father. I made sure that he didn’t sit in the house.”

Szymanski married Anne Elizabeth Lindsay on May 15, 1954, and they had two sons, Tom Szymanski, of Richmond, Virginia, and the late Paul Szymanski, who died of leukemia in 1997.

“Everybody liked him,” Chet Szymanski said of his son, Paul. “He was a super person. Oh, I missed him so. I missed him so. I just didn’t know what to do without my son.”

His wife passed away in 1970, at the age of 47, succumbing to breast cancer.

Szymanski spent more than two-and-a-half years in the Army during World War II, from March 2, 1943 to Nov. 14, 1945.

“When the war ended, I didn’t want to come home,” he recalled. “Golly, I was in Austria there. What a picturesque place. Right in the mountains, the valleys, the little farms, the little streams. You could fish for trout.”

He has been to 36 consecutive Army reunions, he noted, one of which he planned himself, “which they said was the best.”

When he returned to Alpena, he first worked at the cement plant, where he stayed until 1949.

Then he changed over to the U.S. Postal Service, which he enjoyed.

When he got his own mail route, he was excited.

“Oh, I was happier than a pig in a puddle,” he said.

Upon serving there for 40 years, he wrote a little poem as an homage to his postal work. The poem ends like this:

I’ve enjoyed good friends

And the seasons four

And the remarkable thing was

I got paid for it all.

I don’t regret the profession I chose

Nor do I regret working this long

Monetarily I didn’t profit that much

But I would have missed much of life’s song.

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