Anthony Frank Maresh

 1894 - 1980

From Russia to America

By Isabel Morse Maresh

(Please click on photos to appreciate full size)

Visiting hours were over at the hospital in Belfast, Maine where Tony was a patient. His youngest son, Bob and his wife had visited him. Tony told Bob that his boy, Buster, had visited earlier with cousin Herbert. Tony recalled that he’d been having chest pains when his friend, Dorothy, happened by on her motorcycle. She had driven him to the hospital in his car.

Tony was eighty-four years old. That evening he had told Bob that he would live to be over a hundred years because of his family’s longevity. He had been born in 1894, two miles outside of Moscow, Russia, in what was called the outskirts of the city, son of Franz and Julanda Mapeau`. He was named Anton, after his paternal grandfather. He had four older brothers, Franz, Josef, Venzil and Adolf, and an older sister, Anna. Each of the boys were named after their father, carrying his name, Franz, as a middle name. When he was ten years old his younger sister, Julie, was born. His family had come to Moscow from Austria, originally from the Czech Republic.

Anton had been a happy tow-headed child. His mother called him, her youngest son, Toniku. He recalled carefree days as a child, playing on the floor, singing merrily to his mother as she taught him his lessons. He would sing and dance for hours. His mother entered him in school when he was three years old. By the time he was four years of age, he could read and write. The school pushed him from grade to grade, as he was an ‘advanced’ student. His mother did not want him to go through high school any faster, though he graduated when he was fourteen years of age. If he had been sixteen, he could have taught grammar school. He learned French and German in school, Czech and Hebrew at home from his mother and grandparents, and Russian, the language of his country. At school they wore a type of uniform, sitting two to a desk, which was made of a sturdy wood.

There was always something going on in the area as he grew up. There was a children’s festival, costing half a ruble to attend, winter festivals, sliding, skating, and other winter sports. At the summer festivals, there would be track racing with the other boys. In the evening, the festivities would conclude with a festival of lanterns.

Transportation was by horse-drawn trolleys, costing a few kopecs to ride, but usually Anton and his friends walked wherever they went. Sometimes Mother would give him a few kopecs to buy candy at the store, or to purchase books about sea captains and going to sea.

The winters in Russia were very harsh and cold, with much snow. He was fortunate that his parents were fairly well-to-do, and that he had warm clothing, boots, and a Russian Babuska, a hat made of fur.

Anton had many friends his own age in the neighborhood. They hunted, fished, explored the mysteries of the old city of Moscow, and played around the majestic medieval Kremlin Park. Anton recalled that on more than one occasion, Tsar Nicholas Romanov II came through their area in an open carriage driven by a coachman with a tall black hat. Both Tsar Nicholas II and the coachman sat straight-backed and stiff as they rode by. No one made a sound as they stood in awe watching the black carriage pass by.

One time Anton and his friends crept through a fence into a park near where the Romanov girls were playing. When the girls saw the boys, they excitedly ran shrieking and squealing. Guards caught the boys, warning them not to come that close again.

Both of Anton’s grandparents lived with them. He remembered the day that his paternal grand-father, Anton, came in from hunting rabbits. The rabbits in Russia were very large. Grandfather remarked, “I am tired!” to which Father replied, “What you think, you’re a young man!” He died at the kitchen table, eating supper at the age of one hundred and ten. One of his grandfathers owned a bologna factory, the other owned a cigar factory, which were to be Anton’s, as the youngest son, when he came of age. Though Anton’s family had lived in Russia for several generations, they were required to carry passports, his mother being a Socialist Jew from the Czech Republic.

Father had been a nurseryman, having a hothouse where he raised many kinds of large fruit, pears, apples, beautiful roses and more. He would never reveal his secrets for raising such large vegetation. Father grew an abundance of garden produce even though the summers were short and generally mild,

Anton’s brothers were engineers. They built windmills and dynamos, creating electricity. They were the only ones for miles around to have lights.

Father had been educated in Germany. He spoke several languages, including French, German, and Czech. The authorities would come for Father to go to factories to translate for them. Father told Anton that there were three classes of people in the changing Russia, peasants who were uneducated, the middle class, who were educated, and the rich, who he called millionaires. Father worked for the rich upper class people. Mother was well-liked. She helped her less-fortunate neighbors, bringing them vegetables, fruits, firewood., food and baked goods from her kitchen.

One of Anton’s uncles had gone to the United States during the Gold Rush. Anton’s father had given him the money to go to America. The uncle had sent a picture from California, dressed in a fine suit, with a big gold watch, gold chain and watch fob. He had never repaid Father. Father made Anton promise that if he ever got to America, to never look up his uncle.
 

Another uncle, also named Anton, was an engineer, building bridges. He never drank on the job, admonishing Anton to do the same. When his job was finished, he would come home to stay with Anton’s family, bringing a Mexican dog. He would keep his money in his pocket, and the dog would protect him and the money. He would leave a Bismarck for Mother on the table, with the dog to protect her also.

Russia was in a turmoil. Many of the people were opposed to the Tsar’s monarchy. There was talk of anarchy. In 1897, when Anton was three years old, the country had been involved in the Boer war. When Anton was eleven years old, in 1904 and 1905, the country was involved in the Russo-Japanese War, being defeated.

In 1904, the officials came for Anton’s oldest brother, Franz, to serve in the Army. Father told them, “Get off my property.” He then took Franz to Germany and put him on a boat to go to America. On arriving in the United States, Franz worked as an engineer on the Brooklyn Bridge in 1904 for 38 cents an hour. From there he went to Pennsylvania to work in the coal mines where he lived with a Russian-Polish family. Franz never married. Anton’s brothers, Venzil and Adolf, had served in the Russian Army. When one came home from the Army, the other went away to serve his time.. His brother, Joseph, had died as a young man.

Anton’s sister, Anna, had married a Postmaster in Moscow. His youngest sister, Julie, later married a telegraph operator, residing in the Ural Mountains in Russia.

Many of his friends worked on farms, though Anton didn’t have to work. He read his books, longing to sail on the high seas. The authorities had come for several of his friends to serve in the Russian Army. Now that Anton was out of school, Father feared that the authorities would come for him also. He was adamant that his youngest son would not serve in the Russian Army. Father had a friend who was a sea captain on the Black Sea. He wrote him, telling him that he was sending Anton to Germany to meet with him, making plans for his youngest son to leave Russia.

At age fourteen, Father paid his fare, put him on a train, taking him to Germany. Anton was in Bremerhaven, Germany two weeks before World War on 75 Fraulinger Straus [or Street]. His brother, Venzil was in Germany at that time. He told Anton to go back to Bremerhaven, to meet a boat that came fourteen miles on the river, and to get out of Russia and not look back.

He went to Odessa on the Black Sea, where he was a ‘mess boy’, or Captain’s boy. He went with a crew in 1910 on a three-masted schooner, then to a full-masted ship, where he was a student to become an officer for thirteen months, working on the ship for $10 a month. When he was nineteen years old, in 1913, he was a qualified as a quartermaster. The pilot would stand by and tell him where to go. In the winter, he was a fireman, and a deck hand in the summer.

Anton went home once when he was nineteen years old in 1913. He had a photo taken with his sister, Anna, and a friend. He never went home, nor saw his family, again.

Anton hired out on a Russian-American passenger liner, named Dewensk [?]. The war was on when he left Germany. He was at sea for several years, stopping at major ports around the world, stopping in Denmark for coal and groceries. When they arrived in Halifax, Canada, the authorities put a quarantine on the liner and its 3500 passengers from Russia.

Anton stayed with an American convoy, coming into Brooklyn, New York in 1915, where he and his friend, Emil, got off the ship. An old German on the ship told them to remember one thing, “Don’t bite the hand that is feeding you, and you’ll get by.” If they were not caught within twenty-four hours, they were free. They did not come in as immigrants.

Anton made his way to Old Forge, Pennsylvania, where his brother Frank worked in the coal mines. He was there in July 1915. Frank got him a job in the mines. They boarded with the Basteks, a Russian-Polish family in Old Forge. The boarders were not allowed to fraternize with the several daughters of the family.

Mrs. Bastek was a hard-working woman. She would heat the water for the household, stoke the coal fire, cook the meals, prepare lunches for the boarders to take to work, clean up after them, do the laundry, as well as tending to a garden, and animals. When the men came in from work, she would have a hot bath ready, scrub their backs, black from coal dust, and prepare the evening meal.

Anton recalled one evening when he came in from work that the bath was ready, but supper was not. He took a bath and changed into clean clothes. Mrs. Bastek asked him if he would go for the doctor, who came within twenty minutes. She had asked for hot water and towels. She had a baby that evening. The doctor said that she had not needed him. The next morning, she had breakfast on the table. Included with the meal was a drink from the old country, imported strong ‘sweet’ tea, which he drank from a saucer, through a sugar cube held between his teeth. For all of his life, he liked a hearty evening meal, always with meat of some kind. A young girl named Helen wanted to get married, but Anton was not ready to settle down. So, he left Helen and Pennsylvania.

All Anton knew in English was “go” and “stop”. He had learned several languages while at sea in his youth. The first English that he learned in 1914, was “son of a bitch”. He learned to read and write English from reading newspapers near the Brooklyn Bridge, on a park bench about 1917. If he was reading the newspaper, a passing policeman would let him stay. But, if he was sleeping, the officer would hit his feet with a billy club. He carved his initials, AFM, on a park bench. Because of the War, Anton discarded the papers that he’d brought from the old country, including the passport that he’d carried all of his life.

In 1917, Anton registered for the World War I draft in Brooklyn, New York. He gave his address as 40 Atlantic Avenue. At that time he was a captain of a scow, signing his name as Antonio Maresh. In April of 1918, he registered with the U. S. Customs Service in the Port of New York, signing his name as Anton Maresh, 49 Atlantic Ave, Brooklyn, N. Y., his occupation was unemployed seaman. In May 1917, he joined the Tide Water Boatmens Union, Local 847 of the International Longshoremens Association, signing his name as Antone Maresh. When the paymaster at the Port asked his name, he gave it as Antone. The paymaster called him Anthony, the name he went by from that time forth, using the nickname, Tony.

From New York, Tony made his way to northern Maine, where he worked in the lumber camps. Somewhere along the way, he met Carney Shure, also a Russian Jew, who had purchased the Ira Cram mill in Montville, Maine. He told Tony that if he came to Montville, that he would give him a job.

Tony arrived in Montville around the last of 1919. Working in the Shure mill, he met the Hannan boys who worked in the mill also. They invited him home with them where he met their sister, young Gladys Hannan. They courted for a time, marrying in October 1920. Gladys was the next eldest daughter of Herbert and Millie (Boynton) Hannan. Her father has passed away many years before.

The young couple first lived in ‘The Camp’, a small house owned by Carney Shure in the Kingdom, Montville, Maine. Gladys’ sister, Mildred, had three young children. Her husband had left her to raise the children alone. The young people decided that they would go to Massachusetts where there was more work with better pay.

Tony and Gladys lived in Allston, Wellesley, and on Summer Street in Natick, before purchasing a home at 34 Orchard Road in East Natick in 1934. Tony worked at various jobs, before obtaining a job with the Boston and Albany Railroad, which was later merged with New York Central. Because Tony spoke seven languages, he was a natural to become a section foreman on the railroad, which employed men from many nationalities, working for the railroad for thirty-seven years. He joined the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees in 1936, retiring in 1960.

Tony and Gladys were the parents of five children, born in Massachusetts, Antina, Frances Muriel, twins, Anton Frank and Alton Francis, and the youngest, Robert. Anton Frank died at age three months of pneumonia, and buried in Wellesley, Mass. Alton, who was called Buster, also had pneumonia, which left him severely deaf.

In 1942, Tony and Gladys returned to Old Forge, Penn.. Mrs. Bastek confirmed to Gladys the story of her having a baby, and then getting up the next morning to feed the boarders. They visited the mine fields where Tony and Frank had worked. They also visited New York, and found his initials on the park bench, that he’d carved so many years before.

In 1950, Tony and Gladys purchased a farm to retire to in Searsmont, Maine. Three of their children moved to the farm the next year. When Tony retired from the railroad in 1960, he and Gladys moved to Maine to spend their remaining years. Tony enjoyed hunting, and was an avid fisherman. He was a member of Quantabacook Masonic Lodge.

Gladys passed away in 1974 of cancer. Tony and Buster remained on the farm until that fateful day that he went to the hospital in July of 1980. Later, on the night that he told Bob that he would live to be over a hundred, he went to join his family on the golden shore. He was nearly eighty-five years of age. He is buried in Hillside Cemetery in Belmont, Maine with Gladys, his wife of over fifty years.

Tony’s father, Franz, had died in Russia in 1925. His mother returned to Praha, Austria, where she died in 1956. Tony‘s brothers, Venzil and Adolf, and their families resided in the Czech Republic.

[Much of this story was obtained from interviews with Anthony F. Maresh in 1979 and 1980. It is as told, and may not always be substantiated, but it gives a picture of a Russian immigrant to America, with glimpses of his life in the old country. Tony had at least three letters from his mother, who was in Praha, in which she begged him to keep in touch. He left Russia in 1908, returned once as a young man in 1913, and one of his desires in old age, was to once again return, though none of his family lived in Russia then.]