Grandad Haslem,I never knew you because you passed away at at a very early age,way before I was Born.But I bet you were the best in the world.I would do anything to have seen you,Because I dont live with Dad I really miss having a man in my life(apart from David & Ciaran.)I miss you more than words can say.You and Nana are always in my mind,Mum misses you both too.watch over Ryan,Ciaran,Buster and the rest of the family and animals for me.always thinking of you.Vicky xxx

You were almost always misunderstood, and even though it was hard for others to see, I knew your heart was full of love. I am so happy that your hurt is ended, and peace is with you always. I miss you Momma.
Love,
Barrett Lee

You may think that he was an ordinary family man, but he was an extraordinary man. He had many virtues which included honesty,good humour,love and many many more.

A poem for Dave

You went to work and said ta-raa
I heard you leave in our car.
All day I knew that something was wrong
little did I know we would be parted so long
I love and miss you everyday,
but I know you're only a whisper away.
In heaven you'll wait and watch over me
until I leave this earth and come to thee.
Forever and ever till the end of all life,
I have been and always will be your wife.

Love always Terri xxxxxx

A poem for Dad

If wishes were kisses we'd give them to you
since Jesus took you we've been so blue.
You were our dad our grandad and friend
will our broken hearts ever mend?
David and Jenny are growing so fast
but we tell them about you and your past
We hope you're at peace in your new home,
we pray that you are not alone.
Rest easy, be happy and wait until
we leave this earth and join you "God's Will"
We were proud to know you and call you our Dad
But we miss you and love you and remain so sad.

With love from Carol and Arthur xxxx

A poem for Granda

Dear Granda in heaven above
watch over us and send us your love
We have your photos and memories too,
God love and bless and pray for you.
We miss your voice, your face and your smile,
But lucky we were to have you for a while.

God bless granda love from Jenny and David
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

<p>Helen was born in Hammond, Indiana to Victoria (Wielgosz) and Louis Kulik on 6 January 1915. From within a family of seven children, Helen is preceded in death by her brothers Julian, John, Stanley and Raymond (Happy) and her older sister Lottie. Her husband James Owens passed way in April of 1982. </p>

<p>Her younger sister Julie resides at St. Anthony Assisted Living Center in Crown Point. Helen is related to the Dunajeski, Kurzydym, Myszak, Grysch and Dellenbach families through the marriages of her mother’s two sisters, Mary and Josephine, and their many offspring.

<p>Helen’s mother, Victoria, owned a candy store on the corner of Gostlin and Johnson on the north side of Hammond. Her mother was also a midwife who delivered many of the babies born in northwest Indiana in the 20s, 30s, and 40s. In an act which, by today’s conflicted moral standards, may seem quaint at best and perhaps an occasion for scorn and ridicule at worst, she actually paid for her own medical qualifying examinations to be translated into her native Polish, demonstrating the self-reliance and determination of the eastern European immigrants of that era.

<p>The death of her oldest brother Julian, at the hands of a speeding South Shore train motorman in 1928, plunged the then primarily Polish community into a three-day mourning period that was covered extensively by the local news media.

<p>Helen’s next oldest brother John worked at American Steel in Hammond and was the father of Dolores Kulik. Dolores, after earning a degree in medical technology from St. Mary’s College in a nod to her grandmother Victoria’s medical career, married John Angyus, giving rise to the flourishing and far-flung Angyus clan.

<p>Helen married James Joseph Owens in August of 1947. Jim’s pet name for his wife Helen was “Oscar,” and one can only imagine what that was all about. Her husband worked at Mobil Oil in Whiting for 37 years and was the brother of Thomas Owens, owner of the Owens Funeral Home in Whiting, Indiana. Helen is survived by her two sons, Michael Owens and his wife Elizabeth of Scandia, Minnesota and Patrick Owens and his wife Nina and their daughter Delilah of Munster, IN.

<p>Helen was a dutiful mother and a caring wife. Her home, as most of those belonging to the descendants of immigrants at the time, was always spotless. A responsibility that she took quite seriously and in which she took exceptional pride. It is no exaggeration but rather an occasion for much nostalgia and some regret, that children born today will never experience the crisply folded bed linens, the hand-scrubbed socks and underwear and the purifying smell of bleach on the weekends as did the children fortunate enough to be born of the parents who lived through the Depression era.

<p>Helen was always ready to lend a helping hand to anyone. Although a lifelong member of the Polish American Falcons and the Ladies Auxiliary of the VFW, and a contributor to St. Andrew the Apostle Church in Calumet City as well as St. Mary’s and All Saints Churches in Hammond, her charity was never parochial. If you looked like you needed it, there was a five-dollar bill in Helen’s purse with your name on it. Never holding a formal job again after her marriage, Helen occasionally cleaned homes for elderly neighbors. When someone in the family was sick, Helen would be there with her homemade chicken soup, some nutbread and, if they were up to it, a steaming bowl of czarnina (a sweet, prune-laced Polish brew of acquired taste made from most every part of thehapless duck, including the blood).

<p>At Christmastime, the house in Calumet City on Mason Street was always filled with the sweet aroma of Helen’s freshly baked treats—nutbread, peanut butter cookies, pumpkin pie and the beloved angel food cake (always propped upside down in its pan on the neck of an ancient, empty bottle of sherry).

<p>If, while hanging laundry in our backyard, Helen should step in a mound of our collie’s dog poop or, if a stroll in downtown Hammond revealed a penny on the sidewalk, you could be sure that she would show up with her sister Julie for the bingo at the Greek Orthodox church or the one at the VFW that evening, for these disparate events, despite the messiness of one and the smallness of the other, foretold good fortune in her mythology.

<p>Helen’s formal employment consisted of a job with the Queen Anne candy company on Hammond’s north side and a stint at Lever Brothers where her duties at one time included cutting the lawn and cleaning and maintaining the mowing equipment. Despite the masculine nature of her work, Helen was also called upon to lend her natural, more feminine talents to the war effort at the time. Lever Brothers was sponsoring a “pin-up” contest wherein female employees, endowed with the physical qualities so in favor among our brave young servicemen overseas, would pose for “inspirational” photos to be sent to various outposts of our brave troops in Europe and the Pacific.

<p>Helen’s first cousin Ted Dunajeski, brother of Charlotte, Stelle and Fred, was stationed in Europe during World War II and wrote Helen dozens of letters during his dangerous tour of duty. In one of the letters, Ted recounts to Helen how “all the fellas think you’re swell” after they got a look at those “pin-up” photographs of Helen which Ted had happily passed around to his otherwise lonely and despondent fellow servicemen. Her brother Stanley was the gregarious and incorruptible city clerk of Hammond for over 35 years. He and his wife Katie lived in the beautiful, 100-year-old Dutch colonial home on Waltham which, after their deaths was sold and, instead of being demolished was rolled down the street (at exactly 10 a.m. on 9/11/01) to a new location in a cooperative bid for historical preservation between the city of Hammond, the Southmoor Apartments and the new owners.

<p>Every year, the swirling strokes of Uncle Stanley’s bold calligraphy on our Christmas cash envelopes were always as eagerly anticipated as the crisp, freshly ironed bills inside.

<p>Helen’s sister Lottie, an executive secretary with American Steel and married twice (first, to Stanley Polichnowski, south Chicago butcher and former owner of the Tally Ho tavern in Burnham, IL and, secondly, to a man we knew from childhood only as “POW” because of his curious habit of whirling his fist just past our young noses and shouting “pow!”), was always a strong and generous force in our lives. The tempering voice of experience, good manners and propriety. She encouraged us in our studies, and constantly urged us on to a higher moral ground. And she forever hounded her sisters Helen and Julie to stop smoking.

<p>Helen’s sister Julie was a keypunch operator for American Steel and was Helen’s perennial bingo partner. Julie always had a fantastic story to tell, and often brought a “magical” talent to our boisterous family gatherings when we were young. Brother Happy (Raymond) was formally known as a house painter but was informally known to the region’s politicians, policemen and housewives as their personal, good-natured turf accountant. Happy’s bookie “joint” near the Hammond South Shore Station tracks cheerfully took the bets of the region’s residents for more than two decades, long before his best customers, the state legislators, finally legalized, and heavily taxed, the business.

<p>It goes without saying (but I will say it anyway) that the region’s burgeoning gambling industry owes him a debt of gratitude, and should, at the very least, put up a plaque in honor of one of its founding fathers.

<p>Happy’s wife Sue played a vital role in Helen’s life when her husband Jim was “locked in the plant” during a tense and sometimes violent 9-month strike at Mobil Oil in East Chicago in the early 60s. After negotiations with union leaders, the salaried men who were sequestered in their small office building were only allowed weekly one-hour visits with their families. Sue would drive Helen and her two young sons to visit Jim every weekend for several months until the strike was over.

<p>Helen was a life member of the Hammond Ladies Auxiliary VFW Post # 802 and was an avid reader of newspapers, magazines, recipes and horoscopes.

<p>Her first cousin, Estelle (Dunajeski) Myszak, was a part-time card and tea leaf reader, and Helen often enjoyed stopping over at Stella’s for a plate of her homemade chop suey—and a mystical, smoke-filled look into her future. Cousin ‘Stelle, with her earthy jokes and life-of-the-party joie de vivre, was the only person I knew who could bring tears of laughter to Helen’s eyes.

<p>Cousin Louise (Dunajeski) Kurzydym, who has recently become the family’s archivist, often shares this little tale about Helen: One Saturday evening, in a clandestine effort to remove themselves from the ever-vigilant gaze of Grandma Kulik, Helen and her equally lively sister Julie, would graciously volunteer to baby-sit young cousin Louise at “Chutkah” Josie’s home in Hammond over on Clark Street. But the then 10-year-old Louise never did see much of them, as they both preferred spending all of their time in the backyard—with their boyfriends.

<p>Helen was also an avid amateur seamstress and many of her handmade Christmas stockings still hang over the hearths of friends and relatives today, in joyful testimony to her extraordinary talents on the sewing machine.

<p>Finally, Helen was our neighbor, sister, aunt, great-aunt and great grand-aunt, cousin, mother and friend. And we all will miss her very much.

<p>Visitation with family and friends will be at the Owens Funeral Home in Whiting, Indiana from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Friday, September 3.

<p>Funeral services will be held at 10:00 a.m. at All Saints Church in Hammond on Saturday, September 4. Burial at Holy Cross Cemetery in Calumet City, Illinois.

Helen was born in Hammond, Indiana to Victoria (Wielgosz) and Louis Kulik on 6 January 1915. From within a family of seven children, Helen is preceded in death by her brothers Julian, John, Stanley and Raymond (Happy) and her older sister Lottie. Her husband James Owens passed way in April of 1982.

Her younger sister Julie resides at St. Anthony Assisted Living Center in Crown Point. Helen is related to the Dunajeski, Kurzydym, Myszak, Grysch and Dellenbach families through the marriages of her mother’s two sisters, Mary and Josephine, and their many offspring.

Helen’s mother, Victoria, owned a candy store on the corner of Gostlin and Johnson on the north side of Hammond. Her mother was also a midwife who delivered many of the babies born in northwest Indiana in the 20s, 30s, and 40s. In an act which, by today’s conflicted moral standards, may seem quaint at best and perhaps an occasion for scorn and ridicule at worst, she actually paid for her own medical qualifying examinations to be translated into her native Polish, demonstrating the self-reliance and determination of the eastern European immigrants of that era.

The death of her oldest brother Julian, at the hands of a speeding South Shore train motorman in 1928, plunged the then primarily Polish community into a three-day mourning period that was covered extensively by the local news media.

Helen’s next oldest brother John worked at American Steel in Hammond and was the father of Dolores Kulik. Dolores, after earning a degree in medical technology from St. Mary’s College in a nod to her grandmother Victoria’s medical career, married John Angyus, giving rise to the flourishing and far-flung Angyus clan.

Helen married James Joseph Owens in August of 1947. Jim’s pet name for his wife Helen was “Oscar,” and one can only imagine what that was all about. Her husband worked at Mobil Oil in Whiting for 37 years and was the brother of Thomas Owens, owner of the Owens Funeral Home in Whiting, Indiana. Helen is survived by her two sons, Michael Owens and his wife Elizabeth of Scandia, Minnesota and Patrick Owens and his wife Nina and their daughter Delilah of Munster, IN.

Helen was a dutiful mother and a caring wife. Her home, as most of those belonging to the descendants of immigrants at the time, was always spotless. A responsibility that she took quite seriously and in which she took exceptional pride. It is no exaggeration but rather an occasion for much nostalgia and some regret, that children born today will never experience the crisply folded bed linens, the hand-scrubbed socks and underwear and the purifying smell of bleach on the weekends as did the children fortunate enough to be born of the parents who lived through the Depression era.

Helen was always ready to lend a helping hand to anyone. Although a lifelong member of the Polish American Falcons and the Ladies Auxiliary of the VFW, and a contributor to St. Andrew the Apostle Church in Calumet City as well as St. Mary’s and All Saints Churches in Hammond, her charity was never parochial. If you looked like you needed it, there was a five-dollar bill in Helen’s purse with your name on it. Never holding a formal job again after her marriage, Helen occasionally cleaned homes for elderly neighbors. When someone in the family was sick, Helen would be there with her homemade chicken soup, some nutbread and, if they were up to it, a steaming bowl of czarnina (a sweet, prune-laced Polish brew of acquired taste made from most every part of thehapless duck, including the blood).

At Christmastime, the house in Calumet City on Mason Street was always filled with the sweet aroma of Helen’s freshly baked treats—nutbread, peanut butter cookies, pumpkin pie and the beloved angel food cake (always propped upside down in its pan on the neck of an ancient, empty bottle of sherry).

If, while hanging laundry in our backyard, Helen should step in a mound of our collie’s dog poop or, if a stroll in downtown Hammond revealed a penny on the sidewalk, you could be sure that she would show up with her sister Julie for the bingo at the Greek Orthodox church or the one at the VFW that evening, for these disparate events, despite the messiness of one and the smallness of the other, foretold good fortune in her mythology.

Helen’s formal employment consisted of a job with the Queen Anne candy company on Hammond’s north side and a stint at Lever Brothers where her duties at one time included cutting the lawn and cleaning and maintaining the mowing equipment. Despite the masculine nature of her work, Helen was also called upon to lend her natural, more feminine talents to the war effort at the time. Lever Brothers was sponsoring a “pin-up” contest wherein female employees, endowed with the physical qualities so in favor among our brave young servicemen overseas, would pose for “inspirational” photos to be sent to various outposts of our brave troops in Europe and the Pacific.

Helen’s first cousin Ted Dunajeski, brother of Charlotte, Stelle and Fred, was stationed in Europe during World War II and wrote Helen dozens of letters during his dangerous tour of duty. In one of the letters, Ted recounts to Helen how “all the fellas think you’re swell” after they got a look at those “pin-up” photographs of Helen which Ted had happily passed around to his otherwise lonely and despondent fellow servicemen. Her brother Stanley was the gregarious and incorruptible city clerk of Hammond for over 35 years. He and his wife Katie lived in the beautiful, 100-year-old Dutch colonial home on Waltham which, after their deaths was sold and, instead of being demolished was rolled down the street (at exactly 10 a.m. on 9/11/01) to a new location in a cooperative bid for historical preservation between the city of Hammond, the Southmoor Apartments and the new owners.

Every year, the swirling strokes of Uncle Stanley’s bold calligraphy on our Christmas cash envelopes were always as eagerly anticipated as the crisp, freshly ironed bills inside.

Helen’s sister Lottie, an executive secretary with American Steel and married twice (first, to Stanley Polichnowski, south Chicago butcher and former owner of the Tally Ho tavern in Burnham, IL and, secondly, to a man we knew from childhood only as “POW” because of his curious habit of whirling his fist just past our young noses and shouting “pow!”), was always a strong and generous force in our lives. The tempering voice of experience, good manners and propriety. She encouraged us in our studies, and constantly urged us on to a higher moral ground. And she forever hounded her sisters Helen and Julie to stop smoking.

Helen’s sister Julie was a keypunch operator for American Steel and was Helen’s perennial bingo partner. Julie always had a fantastic story to tell, and often brought a “magical” talent to our boisterous family gatherings when we were young. Brother Happy (Raymond) was formally known as a house painter but was informally known to the region’s politicians, policemen and housewives as their personal, good-natured turf accountant. Happy’s bookie “joint” near the Hammond South Shore Station tracks cheerfully took the bets of the region’s residents for more than two decades, long before his best customers, the state legislators, finally legalized, and heavily taxed, the business.

It goes without saying (but I will say it anyway) that the region’s burgeoning gambling industry owes him a debt of gratitude, and should, at the very least, put up a plaque in honor of one of its founding fathers.

Happy’s wife Sue played a vital role in Helen’s life when her husband Jim was “locked in the plant” during a tense and sometimes violent 9-month strike at Mobil Oil in East Chicago in the early 60s. After negotiations with union leaders, the salaried men who were sequestered in their small office building were only allowed weekly one-hour visits with their families. Sue would drive Helen and her two young sons to visit Jim every weekend for several months until the strike was over.

Helen was a life member of the Hammond Ladies Auxiliary VFW Post # 802 and was an avid reader of newspapers, magazines, recipes and horoscopes.

Her first cousin, Estelle (Dunajeski) Myszak, was a part-time card and tea leaf reader, and Helen often enjoyed stopping over at Stella’s for a plate of her homemade chop suey—and a mystical, smoke-filled look into her future. Cousin ‘Stelle, with her earthy jokes and life-of-the-party joie de vivre, was the only person I knew who could bring tears of laughter to Helen’s eyes.

Cousin Louise (Dunajeski) Kurzydym, who has recently become the family’s archivist, often shares this little tale about Helen: One Saturday evening, in a clandestine effort to remove themselves from the ever-vigilant gaze of Grandma Kulik, Helen and her equally lively sister Julie, would graciously volunteer to baby-sit young cousin Louise at “Chutkah” Josie’s home in Hammond over on Clark Street. But the then 10-year-old Louise never did see much of them, as they both preferred spending all of their time in the backyard—with their boyfriends.

Helen was also an avid amateur seamstress and many of her handmade Christmas stockings still hang over the hearths of friends and relatives today, in joyful testimony to her extraordinary talents on the sewing machine.

Finally, Helen was our neighbor, sister, aunt, great-aunt and great grand-aunt, cousin, mother and friend. And we all will miss her very much.

You were the finest man I ever knew. You gave me the greatest gift a father could give a son, your heart. I miss you every day.
Love Eternally,
Barrett Lee Owens

My blessed angel Baby Christian gave all he could in just 15 weeks, valiantly fighting to be all he could. We were never told he would not survive we just were told that these kids never live long. Baby Christian died of complications due to Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome which is a very rare chromosone anamoly. We have scrimp and saved for 6 years just to pay for his tombstone with hopes to set it this Nov., but now we have to come up with another $412 to set it in so if anyone has any pennies they would like to donate it would be greatly appreciated. You may email me at berkin1@gte.net and I'll provide you with my address and any proof you might need to prove I am legitimate. The leaves are turning, pumpkins now are orange and still my blessed little one you are gone, gone never to be. A bright eyed kindergartner learning a lot is what you should be, but God chose another path for you and as sad as I am I am happy to know that you are safe and free from any pain and I have faith that I'll see you again some day. Your little sister sends her love. mommie misses you lots and lots and Baby Christian we will try to come and visit soon.

You've been so strong
Always had your "Game face" on
Never let me know just how scared you were
Always told me you were too stubborn to go

You knew I was scared and always held my hand
Hugged me tightly...
Told me how much I meant to you,
how much you would always care.

Now I'm missing you
More than you could ever know
I feel like a little girl lost
Please help me get back home

You will continue to be my inspiration
Be with me everywhere I should go
Watch over and protect me
Always hold the key to my soul

Mom, my heart aches, I miss you so...

Think about you all the time. Talk to you just like I said I would. I know you are here beside me and will always be my source of strength. You've taught me so much already!!! Thank you... I love you with all of my heart, much more than you could ever know.
Your baby Girl, Kyla