Hank and Terri Doktorski: Hank’s Parentage
The wedding reception of Hank and Terri. From left to right: 1. Terri’s father: Frank L. Chadwick, 2. Terri and 3. Hank Doktorski, and Hank’s parents: 4. “Rose” Clementine and 5. Henry H. Doktorski in South River, New Jersey (October 17, 1953). Terri’s mother, Stella Chadwick, was not present as she had passed away a year earlier in 1952 at the age of 47.
Hank Doktorski was the eldest child of Henry Hillary Doktorski (1905-1985) and Clementine “Rose” Wysocki (1907-1988), pictured below on their wedding day in 1925.
Henry H. Doktorski and “Rose” Clementine.
Hank’s Father
Henry H. Doktorski was born in New London, Connecticut to father Henry Doktorski (? - 1905) and mother Katherine. Little is known of his father except that he was a dock worker in New London. Tragedy struck when he accidentally fell off the dock and drowned in Long Island Sound, before his son Henry H. was born.
Henry H. had one older sister, Frances. Henry H.’s mother remarried Leon Sykulski and had six more children: John, Frank, Stanley, Edwina, Aloysius and Leo. The family moved from Connecticut and settled in South River, New Jersey.
Henry H. worked in various capacities during his life, including a short but exciting stint as a rum runner during prohibition when he rendezvoused, under cover of darkness, with Caribbean ships off the New Jersey coast and ferried their precious cargo—distilled fermented sugar cane juice—to shore.
Although the profits were great, the dangers were great also, and so he quit this endeavor after narrowly escaping from a posse of gun-firing Federal marshals. Fortunately, his speedboat was faster than the government speedboat. He also worked 1. as an operator at a South River silk mill, 2. for the WPA (President Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration), and 3. as a pipe fitter at the Sayreville-Parlin Hercules Inc. plant from 1939 to 1967, when he retired. He was a communicant of Saint Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in South River.
After suffering a stroke, Henry H. Doktorski passed away at the age of 79 on February 21, 1985. His obituary can be found at Newspapers.com.
Hank’s Mother
“Rose” Clementine was the fourth child of Antoni Wysocki (1874-1939) and Franciszka Polkowski (1875-1955). Rose had three elder sisters: Julie, Camille and Jenny, and a younger sister and brother: Mamie and Anthony.
The Wysocki family. Top row: Camille, “Rose” Clementine and Jenny; bottom row: Mamie, mother Franciszka, father Antoni, and son Anthony (ca. 1918).
Clementine “Rose” Wysocki was born in Lanza, Poland; her family emigrated to the United States in 1909 and settled in New York City. The family moved to South River in the 1920s, where “Rose” Clementine met Henry H. Doktorski when they both worked at the South River silk mill. She later worked as a seamstress for the South River Coat Company before retiring in 1968. She was a communicant of Saint Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in South River.
Rose was a bold and unconventional girl and was not afraid to challenge authority. During her youth, respectable girls from good families grew their hair long (sometimes down to the waist) in direct opposition to the stylish movie starlets of the 1920s who cut their hair short. Traditional families considered girls with “flapper” hair cuts to be immoral.
Although Rose’s parents forbid her to cut her hair short, she did so anyway, in direct violation of their wishes. She showed her stylish hair cut to her mother and sisters, but she hid it from her father, as she knew he would punish her.
So whenever her father was home, Rose hid her head in a babushka, a scarf worn on the head and tied under the chin. After a few weeks, her father asked, “What is the matter with you? Why are you constantly wearing that babushka? Did you shave your head on account of head lice?” Eventually he discovered her disobedience and punished her.
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