“Edward Piszek made fish less frightening,” Carolyn Wyman
Growing up, one of my best friends was Eddie Piszek. He lived on a large estate adjacent to Pennsylvania Avenue between the Philadelphia suburbs of Oreland and Springfield that was at the end of a long tree-lined driveway. I’d often sleep over on Friday nights, and we’d watch boxing matches on TV sponsored by Gillette Razor Blades before retiring (I loved watching Cuban Kid Gavilan, who claimed he came up with his unique bolo punch while working the cane fields). Sometimes we’d camp out in nearby woods, at times joined by Vince Curll and Ray Bates. Eddie had a razor-sharp sense of humor and, later in life, seemingly a total recall memory. We played on a Babe Ruth League team coached by Ron Hawthorn’s father (Eddie nicknamed him Mr. Haw-the-Haw), and the Piszek chauffeur often took us to the movies and Upper Dublin basketball games well before either us could drive. His older sister was friends with the aptly named Fox sisters, renown among my friends for their beauty and ample breasts. Sometimes they let us play basketball with them on a court next to stables. At some point I became aware that Eddie’s house had historic importance, that it had been built in the early 1700s (for wealthy brewer George Emlen III) and that General George Washington had made it his headquarters during the winter of 1777. I was impressed that each of its bedrooms had an adjoining bathroom, that it contained multiple fireplaces, and that there was a solarium with stained glass windows.
Eddie’s father was a friendly, unassuming man whom, I learned, had founded Mrs. Paul’s Kitchen’s, Incorporated. The son of Polish immigrants who settled in Philadelphia, Edward got his start peddling deviled fish cakes made from his mother’s recipe in Polish neighborhoods, including Port Richmond, where Toni grew up. In his 20s he was working in a power plant when, out of work due to a strike, he persuaded a neighborhood bar to sell his crab cakes to customers on Fridays, when Catholics were forbidden to eat meat. One night, with close to a hundred crab cakes left over, he put them in a freezer and discovered they were just as good the next day. Voila! Hence the idea for a frozen food business. He and a friend whose last name was Paul each invested $350 seed money; Piszek soon bought out the partner, and during the 1950s Mrs. Paul’s fish sticks were an easy-to-prepare staple in homes across the nation, and the family business made Edward Piszek a rich man. I personally preferred Mrs. Paul’s fried clams, while other family members loved the crab cakes. In 1982 Piszek sold the company to devote his full energies to philanthropy. Eddie, who’d been a Mrs. Paul’s executive, continued to act as one of his closest advisers.
Many of Piszek’s charitable projects reflected his Polish ancestry. For example, he purchased the Philadelphia residence of Revolutionary War hero Colonel Tadeusz Kosciuszko and donated it to a preservation society. In the 1960s he learned that his native country was plagued with tuberculosis. Working with CARE, he, according to Crisis magazine writer George W. Rutler, “battled the Communist bureaucrats and donated a whole fleet of ambulances, X-ray machines, and examination centers, performing his works with practical anonymity. Years later, a medical intern taking a delegation of Westerners through an abandoned TB ward told them, ‘The story is that an American came over and cured it…. But it was a long time ago. Now TB is something we hardly think about.’” During the Solidarity (Solidarnosc) movement the elder Piszek befriended Lech Walesa and airlifted millions of pounds of frozen fish to support the striking workers. During this time he became close with Karol Jozef Wojtyla, who later became Pope John Paul II. In 2001 the patriarch published an autobiography, “Some Good in the World: A Life of Purpose” with an introduction by novelist James Michener, a good friend whom Piszek had persuaded to write “Poland.” Three years later, he died at age 87, surrounded by loved ones at the mansion where he’d lived for a half-century.
Although Eddie attended a private academy in high school, he still attends Upper Dublin reunions, and we always sit together and enjoy many laughs. He jokes about us both liking the same girl, Judy Jenkins, in sixth grade and how we’d root for Upper Dublin basketball players Mike Magyar (barely five feet tall, in contrast to younger brother John) and towering “Big Meek” Meekins. At the last reunion he gave me a coin blessed by Pope John Paul II. I was touched and decided to give it to daughter-in-law Delia’s mother, a devout Catholic, who treasures it.
What made me think of the Piszek estate was reading Ann Patchett's novel "The Dutch House," which centers around a mansion located near Jenkintown and Glenside, two neighboring towns of where I grew up. Anxious to discover what became of the Piszek estate, I learned, thanks to Google, that the Emlen House is on the National Register of Historic Places and has recently been extensively renovated. Torn down, however, to make way for private homes was a huge estate nearby dating from 1905 and christened the Copernicus House by Piszek upon its purchase, which had been the home of the Copernicus Society, devoted to promoting ties between Poland and the United States. Thanks to the Wissahickon Park Trail System and the Montgomery County Lands Trust, one can visit a 35-acre “Piszek Preserve” donated by the family and walk along a forest trail that strides Sandy Run creek. Depending on the season, bird watchers can spot scarlet tanagers and other species in the woods and blue and green herons on the creek banks. I’m hoping Eddie and I can visit Piszek Preserve in October when, knock on wood, my belated sixtieth reunion takes place.
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