HOW-OF-WHY

© 2005 Michael John Moynihan

You remember Frank don’t you?

The guy who sat in front of you in 9th grade English?

No, not that Frank. Frank Nowarczyk.

Oh yeah, didn’t he save some guys during the war, they named a park or something after him?

No not the Frank Nowarczyk I mean.

Oh, now I remember, he was that guy... became a lawyer, elected to Congress, became our Ambassador to Poland...

No, think back. Earlier. Frank was visiting Bay View.
There are no parks or streets named after Frank Nowarczyk. He might have gone on become a soldier or a lawyer or a congressman. He might have become a doctor, or a business owner, or a teacher or a parent.

But Frank never got the chance.
He was only 12 or maybe 13, nobody seems to know for sure. He was skipping school that day because of all the excitement.

He was following the protesting workers. They had closed down all but one of the factories in the area and were determined to shut down the Rolling Mills in Bay View. Most of the Mill workers would have none of it. They had just survived a plant shut down and were finally working again.

So as thousands of workers of mostly German and Polish decent marched from Saint Stanislaus Church, young Frank Nowarczyk followed along. He probably didn’t know that the business owners had told the Governor, Rusk - yeah there is a street named after him - to call out the state militia to protect their properties. As the workers approached the Mill, the militia blocked their way. General Treaumer ordered his men to shoot into the crowd. Some did, but because some of citizen soldiers knew the citizens marching for the rights of workers, so they aimed high. One of those bullets killed a 69 year old retired Mill worker named Frank Kunkel, feeding his chickens in his own back yard. Five marchers were killed right where they stood. At least eight more were so badly wounded that they died soon after. No streets are named after any of those men.

And one of the stray bullets accidentaly killed Frank Nowarczyk, a child, a visitor to Bay View, a curious onlooker, witnessing history in the making. That bullet took away Frank Nowarczyk’s future.

It is May as I write this. Spring in Milwaukee is full of a sense of promise and possibility. But in Bay View, it also means looking back to that past day in May of 1886. Perhaps a street, avenue, park, playfield or school named after young Frank Nowarczyk would be a good way to link our community’s history to our own children’s future.