Toni’s Childhood, High School, and R.O.T.C.
Toni’s Certificate of Baptism issued in 1943.
Toni was born March 12th 1918, to John Butkiewicz and Ida Hedwig Lubinski (Lubinska). With Polish surnames -ski is the masculine suffix and -ska is feminine. In American legal/government documents the masculine form is usually used regardless of gender.
He was baptized at St. Stanislaus Church, located at 5818 Dubois St, on the 31st of March 1918 by Rev. Francis Gzella. The sponsors (Godfather and Godmother) were Joseph Kiburis (Kiburys) and Martha Lubinski (Lubinska). Joseph Kiburis was John’s maternal cousin, and Martha was Ida’s paternal cousin.
Rev. Francis Gzella was the first pastor of St. Stanislaus Bishop and Martyr Parish which was founded July 12, 1898. He was also the priest that married Toni’s parents Ida and John.
Rev. Francis Gzella
When John Butkiewicz and Ida Hedwig Lubinski first married, they were living with Ida’s parents at 693 Medbury Ave in 1910. 693 Medbury would later be renumbered to 2289 Medbury St. This was literally across the street from St. Stanislaus church. The house is a parking lot now, and has been for a long time.
From the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps: John and Ida’s first home at 693/2289 Medbury in the upper-left next to the alley.
I have not been able to find a photo of 693/2289 Medbury, but it likely looked very similar to the homes in this photo of 895 & 899 Medbury. This photo is from the Detroit Public Library.
By 1920 they had bought a building with a storefront and lived upstairs. The address was 1424 Chene St, and the storefront’s address was 1426. By 1921 Detroit addresses were renumbered city-wide, so their home address became 6324 Chene St, and the storefront became 6326. This is the home where Anna, Toni, and Pat grew up. I am not sure what business was in the storefront, but it was likely a grocery store since Toni said his parents owned 2 of them at some point. They lived in the Poletown neighborhood just south of Hamtramck.
From the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps. ‘S’ indicates ‘storefront,’ while a ‘D’ would indicate ‘dwelling’ if it was a normal house.
Their home, 6324 Chene St, was above what later became Watt’s Bar. It’s on the northbound side of Chene between Adele and Trombley. This was taken in 1979 shortly before the neighborhood was bulldozed for the GM Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant. That’s definitely not the original façade on the lower level, but this is the only known photo of this part of Chene, so what it looked like back in the day will remain a mystery. This photo is from the Detroit Public Library.
Toni as an infant, taken in the winter of 1918.
Left to Right: John Butkiewicz, Ida Hedwig Lubinski, Joseph Alexander Butkiewicz, Anna Butkiewicz. I cannot confirm this, but I believe the 3 people on the right are Ida’s little brother Anthony Lubinski (born 1907), and Ida’s parents: Anna Blachowiak and Joseph Lubinski.
First of all: that’s a lot of tinsel, and it was probably all made from lead. This was likely taken in front of the bay window at 693/2289 Medbury, which is illustrated in the first map.
If you look closely you’ll notice John has a tan-line from wearing a hat. Toni looks like he might be suffering from chicken pox or hand foot and mouth disease, or maybe he’s just a messy eater. It seems that Anthony Lubinski was the only one that knew how to smile!
On the far left a silhouette is scratched out. My best guess is that it’s Joseph Lubinski’s mother Josephine. I’ve been told that she passed away shortly after this photo was taken, before it was developed. It would be considered bad luck to leave her in it. From what I’ve read, Eastern Europeans tend to be superstitious.
Toni’s sister Anna is holding a Trego doll, much like this one:
Trego Composition Doll from 1918-1921
Technically Toni had 3 siblings. The first-born was John Jr. in 1913, but he only survived a month before succumbing to bronchopneumonia. Anna was born in 1914, and passed away in 1933. She drowned in Lake Orion, Michigan when she was 19. Her cause of death was listed as “organic heart trouble” as a result of drowning. Toni was the 3rd child, born in 1918; and his brother Patrick was the youngest, born in 1924.
Their mother, Ida, passed away a few years after Anna on June 13th 1937 due to “cardiac insufficiency” (heart failure) at the age of 48. She died just a few days after Toni graduated high school when he was 19, and Pat had just turned 13. Our family has said that Ida died of a “broken heart” due to Anna’s passing. Ida and Anna are buried next to each other in Mt. Olivet Cemetery.
Ida and Anna Butkiewicz’s headstones at Mt. Olivet cemetery in Detroit.
From the 1980 audio interview conducted by Betty Mitson (Kulberg):
…What about your childhood? You got any special memories about your childhood?
Mmm. I, coincidentally, now that you mention it I went back to the old neighborhood, when I went to — before Essex moved to the Ferry Center — While there I went to Saint Stanislaus Church. The school is still there. And I talked to the caretaker and they let me go through the old classrooms to see it.
Oooh.
Gee did they seem tiny now. They seemed like enormous rooms at that time, y’know?
I’ll bet.
Boy-oh-boy.
St. Stanislaus as of 2019. To the left are the school buildings.
Classroom interior of the St. Stanislaus parish.
What about some of the Sisters? How do they teach now?
No, they’re not there anymore. Yeah. Well, they were tough.
Were they?
Yeah they were the Felician Sisters. The one with the brown habits, and they’re still in Detroit. They’re uh— it’s a teaching order. They were a rough buncha’… they were good though, real good. I even went to the church and I climbed the steeple again. We used to go up there to catch bats.
Oh really? (laughs)
An example of the Felician habit. Source
View the full PDF about the history of St. Stanislaus here.
Yeah, I was an altarboy for 9 years. You wouldn’t know it today.
Oh, (unintelligible).
See, what you did when you were an acolyte, when you were brand new to the place you always got the — not the worst service, but I don’t know how to say it, but: the Saturday afternoon vespers at 3 in the afternoon, or else the 5 o’clock masses in the morning during the week, or on Sunday you had high mass at 11 o’clock… but as you got promoted you got the better and better assignments, until you got to the top and then you got the weddings — because you always got tipped by the bride and groom. And then you got the funerals that kept you out of school during the week, so you learn a lot of little side-angles like that.
Interior of St. Stanislaus.
I remember one time they caught me drinking the wine, too.
(laughing)
I went in there and they had the sacrificial wine— looked real good— and I took a slug of it. And they caught me, ahahaha!
(more laughing)
Ah boy.
Anything happen? Haha.
Yeaaah. And that’s right— All turned out alright. And I went to both the schools through the 10th grade. Then I switched to, uh, Northeastern High School, and then the Wayne— at that time Wayne was a college.
Northeastern High School
1935-03-20 Toni’s promotion to Cadet Sergeant of Northeastern Highschool R.O.T.C.
1935-07-31 Toni’s Military Training Certificate from Camp Custer during the summer of 1935, just before his Junior year of high school. E.T.S. stands for “Expiration of Term of Service,” meaning he was released from active duty, but still must complete his military reserve obligations.
Backside of the Military Training Certificate. 1st Place in the three-legged race! At first I thought the “white course of instruction” was related to segregation, but at the bottom of the document it’s explained that it’s the 3rd-highest course of training. I’m not sure why it says “Unq.” but I think it means he was unqualified regarding marksmanship, maybe?
Toni and his buddy Eugene “Gene” John Rukat in the Detroit Free Press on May 27, 1936 holding a baseball bat autographed by Mickey Cochrane.
In the field at Northeastern High School.
Present-day, where Northeastern once stood.
1937-05-17 Toni’s promotion from Cadet-Major to Lieutenant Colonel.
R.O.T.C. Group photo from the 1937 Northeastern High School yearbook. Toni is front row, 2nd from the left. Wardell Polk and Claude Rowe would go on to become Tuskegee Airmen!
Toni’s Class of 1937 portrait
Almost complete Class of 1937 Northeastern High School portraits. Unfortunately, some faces became bedding for a mouse nest at some point. Toni is in the second row in the top-right corner.
