About
This website, together with its associated book translations, honors and celebrates the values brought and passed on by Polish immigrants to the United States in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Together, they show how these inherited values contributed to personal success of immigrant families and to the betterment of America, it’s businesses, culture and wellbeing. With their focus on the spiritual values of faith, family struggles, hard work, courage and perseverance, they complement genealogical research that tends to focus on names, dates and places.
The translated books are written by Poles who both experienced and heard stories about surviving in difficult times. The geographic focus is village life in east-central (Mędrzechów) and southeastern Poland (Dobrzechów and (Kożuchów) as well as life in their new homeland, specifically in the villages of central Massachusetts.
This legacy is brought to life through a collection of historic and cultural works: three books written by native Poles and translated into English by Frederic S. Topor, a second-generation American of Polish descent. Each book preserves a piece of the past—from the spiritual resilience of a centuries-old parish, to the evolving history of small Polish towns, to the vibrant story of Polish-American life in Three Rivers, Massachusetts, which Topor is currently documenting in a new illustrated volume. Together, these works celebrate the humble but powerful roots of a people whose influence continues to grow.
About the Translator: Fred Topor – In His Own Words
I, the translator, am Frederic Stanley Topor (Topór), who was born and raised in the small village of Three Rivers, Massachusetts (population 1800), a suburb of the Town of Palmer (population 10,000).
Blessed with 3 rivers that meet under the bridge in downtown, manufacturers developed networks of dams and electric-generating plants that supported the manufacture of textiles and other products. Needing workers, the companies attracted French Canadian immigrants from Quebec and Polish immigrants from the area of southeastern Poland called Galicia.
Having grown up among immigrants from Poland, I benefitted from the Church (Sts. Peter and Paul) and its associated elementary school that my grandfather and his immigrant friends built with their own hands. I played in Polka bands in my teens and early 20’s, using original melodies from the farms and military campaigns that my forefathers brought with them and still sang. My cousins and I received educations through the values of my parents and grandparents that sought increased opportunities for each successive generation.
Curiosity and the handwritten notes of my Aunt Teresa led me into genealogical research and the discovery that our families (my wife’s and mine) are not of noble heritage, but of pure peasant stock at least as far back as the 1700’s. After several trips to Poland to meet family members and to see where my ancestors worshipped and worked, I began to sense a nobility of a different kind upon which my career as a business executive and my faith life as a Catholic were dependent. That led me to reignite my study of the Polish language which I had begun to learn from my maternal grandmother and to translate the 3 books related to the churches and villages of ancient family members that I never met.
With a greater understanding of the value system that I inherited from my ancestors, I realized that my early life, education and successful career were built on the shoulders of those upon whom my early family life depended, and the Church and town that they helped build. Hence, this journey of understanding, realization and awe that inspired this website and the books upon which it is built.
I suspect that my story of ancient parishes and villages, bears great similarity to those of your forefathers, especially in how it portrays the courage, generosity and perseverance of its parishioners during difficult circumstances. My deepest desire is that those of Polish and other immigrant heritage will learn, admire and celebrate what they inherited, especially those values of Faith, Family, Hard Work and Perseverance, upon which their present lives are built. Giving thanks to their ancestors and to God will likely follow.
About the Books
Poland's Peasant Heritage 