Bronislawa Szczypek"Bronia" was born in Baligrod in an area known as Galicia, part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1917. She was one of eight children born to Jakob Jarema and Jozefa Malik. She grew up in the village of Hoczew in an area that would later become the southeastern corner of Poland, at the foot of the Carpathian Mountains. As a child she was expected to do her chores, including tending to the family cow, although she would have preferred reading. At the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Bronia and her family were taken by the invading Russian Army to a slave labor camp in the gulags, where they remained for three years, until they were "pardoned" by Joseph Stalin. In 1942, Bronia and her family were evacuated from the camp along with many other Polish refugees and traveled through Persia (now Iran) and East Africa (now Uganda) to Koya, a British settlement camp on the shores of Lake Victoria where they lived for five years. While in the settlement camp she became a seamstress. After the war, Bronia emigrated to England, where she married Kazimierz Szczypek, a veteran of the Polish Army in exile. Starting over again in a new country was difficult, but she and "Kazik" saved their money and started a family. When a sponsor in America offered them the opportunity to emigrate again, they did so, and arrived in New York in 1952. Bronia raised her family in Chelsea, Massachusetts, and she was a congregant of Saint Stanislaus Church for many years. When her children were old enough, Bronia went to work at Mark Fore Industries in Everett, Massachusetts, where she was employed for over thirty years.
After she retired, Bronia lived with Kazik in Wilmington, Massachusetts, for over thirty years, where they created a very large garden, filled with a variety of vegetables that they harvested and preserved in their root cellar. They briefly raised rabbits, and also one young goose that got separated from its flock and sometime later ended up on the Christmas dinner table. Bronia suffered the loss of her beloved son Adam in 1989, and her husband Kazimierz in 1995. And without Kazik, she had to reduce the size of her garden because it became too much work for just one person. But Bronia continued to live independently in Wilmington for as long as she could, until her memory started to fail her. Bronislawa will be greatly missed by her children, as well as the grandchildren who called her "Babcia".
Bronislawa was the devoted mother of Teresa Willard and her husband Douglas of Lexington, Richard Szczypek and his wife Gayle of Hamden, CT, Joseph Szczypek and his wife Alexandra of Wilmington, the late Adam and George Szczypek. She is also survived by eleven grandchildren and several great grandchildren and is preceded in death by her seven siblings.
Funeral services will be held from the Dello Russo Funeral Home, 374 Main St., WILMINGTON, Saturday, October 1st, at 11:30 a.m. followed by a funeral mass celebrated in St. Dorothy Church, Main St., Wilmington, at 12 p.m. Relatives and friends are respectfully invited to attend and may visit with the family prior to the funeral mass from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Services will conclude with burial at Wildwood Cemetery, Wilmington. Memorial contributions may be made in Bratislava’s memory to Marist Hill Nursing Home Resident Activity Fund, 66 Newton St., Waltham, MA 02453.