21st Century Radio

Have you ever felt a kinship to a relative you’ve never met?

My husband tossed the cardboard package on the kitchen counter, landing with a loud thud that made me jump. I turned the box to read the sender: The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Archives Department.

“Ah, it must be the Anthony Szymczak papers.”

Anthony “Tony” Syzmczak is my great uncle. I’m not sure if I ever met the man. Though we were both born in Milwaukee and share a December birth month, his was 63 Decembers earlier. He was the eldest of nine children—the fifth being my grandmother. 

He didn’t have children of his own. He lived until age 95, dying of natural causes. He was widowed three times, dying only four months after his third wife’s passing.

When you research your family history as I have been doing for more than 15 years, you hope to find colorful characters. In Tony Szymczak, I found a bit of a celebrity— at least in my home city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin and the U.S. Polish community.

For 32 years, Tony hosted a daily Polish-language radio show. He wrote for the Kuryer Polski, the first U.S. Polish-language daily newspaper. He was a frequent speaker for the Polish-American cause.

He had quite the audience. Between 1870 and 1920, 3.5 million Poles left their country for the U.S.; Milwaukee has been called the capital city of Polish America.

When Tony began his radio shows, television hadn’t been invented. World War I had long ended, but World War II hadn’t started. Poles worldwide were proud of their country’s independence. Sadly, it lasted only briefly (1918-1939).

Also remarkable was that Tony delivered his radio show in Polish. While it was the language of his Poland-born parents, as a U.S.-born student of Milwaukee public schools, English was his primary language.

Through a Google search, I found a reference to the Anthony Szymczak file in the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee archives. For a fee, they would share it. 

Naively, I thought they’d send it electronically. Instead, I became the owner of the large cardboard box on my kitchen counter.

I started sorting through the stacks of paper. There were photocopies of typed pages in Polish, which I put aside. I sorted through photocopies of black and white photographs, invitations to award dinners, and biographies. I scanned, cropped, and posted them in my Ancestry.com family tree, noting any newly learned facts.

I was like a child lost in her new Christmas toys. It was a series of late nights.

Examining the stack of typed pages in Polish more closely, I found a set of pages in English. I realized they were radio show transcripts.

I carried the 100+ page travelogue to my couch, propped up my feet, placed the stack on my lap and read the first line.

“Just a week ago today, my wife and I returned from Poland.”

Tony and his wife Rae spent five weeks in Poland during the summer of 1966; he spent the next year sharing stories from the trip with his listeners on a weekly radio show.

They visited “cathedrals, castles and other places of historical interest” but spent most time with extended family. Though Poland was then under Soviet communist control, he noted changes in automobile traffic, the availability of retail goods, and fashion compared to his two prior visits in 1959 and 1961.

Peppered in Tony’s tales were historical context. Except for the references to the Nazi occupation and destruction, his references to religious and political leaders from the Middle Ages, cities with names I couldn’t pronounce, and the Partitions of Polandwent right over my head.

I found myself skimming and skipping. I looked for references to our relatives he might have visited. Where did they live? What did they do? It seemed family visits were more with Rae’s relatives than his. 

I wasn’t connecting. I closed the box and pushed it to the back of my closet.

In 2017, I traveled to Poland for the first time with my husband and mother. We visited multiple cities, cathedrals, castles and other places of historical interest.

Most special in our visit was meeting extended family from my mom’s side. They opened their homes and hearts like they’ve known us all their life. To walk the land our great-grandparents walked was nothing short of incredible.

Through our experiences, I began to better understand Poland’s history. I saw the imprints of historical figures and learned how to pronounce the names of Polish cities. I learned that the Partitions of Poland referred to years in the 18^th and 19^th centuries when Poland even ceased to be a country.

On the plane back to the U.S., I turned to my husband.

“I have to read the Anthony Szymczak papers again.”

The box was in my closet where I left it. 

Now I had context. I had traveled to the places my great uncle and aunt traveled. I understood his historical references; his stories mirrored some of our own—especially the food and vodka in the family welcomings.

There was a series of “Oh my goodness, Bob, you have to hear this” where I broke from my quiet to read my husband a passage out loud. 

As I approached the end of the stack, one of the last weekly radio transcripts had a date at the top—June 11, 1967.

Unknowingly, I had traveled to Poland and returned home to reflect and write about it 50 years after my great-uncle did the same.

Global experiences constantly change my perspective. It’s why I travel. I love connecting people and ideas. I love sharing my people insights with others.

So did Tony Szymczak.

I feel the deepest kinship to a man I have never met.

What specifically did I learn connecting my great-uncle’s experience to my own?

Well, you’ll just have to stay tuned. I’ll share more in upcoming weeks.

Because Substack is the 21st-century version of a radio show.

With inspiration from my great-uncle, I curate and lead small-group Venture Travel. Up next? Rwanda in October 2025. Space is limited (8 participants). Want more on Poland travel? Check out Forget Paris: Travel Guide Poland.