Class Reunion Notices

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Jacksonville couple’s home an island in aftermath of Hurrican Irma

<p>HANOVER TWP. &#8212; When a little girl knocked on Charlotte Jones Styczen&#8217;s door on Saturday evening, hoping to sell fund-raiser candy or popcorn, the pint-sized peddler sparked half a dozen memories for Styczen and her four guests.</p><p>&#8220;We never sold a thing,&#8221; said Viola Kobusky, who is Styczen&#8217;s twin sister.</p><p>&#8220;But we did collect aluminum,&#8221; said Elizabeth Bell Yakavonis.</p><p>&#8220;They let us out of school early to go collect scrap,&#8221; said Betty Fritchey Cinti. &#8220;People would clean the cans and stomp on them so they&#8217;d be very thin.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;We collected paper, too,&#8221; said Audrey Swinski Davis. &#8220;We&#8217;d go to Marion Terrace because that&#8217;s where the rich people lived.&#8221;</p><p>As you might have guessed from their comments, the five friends were schoolgirls during World War II, participating in war-time recycling efforts while growing up in Hanover Township.</p><p>Now 85, the five good buddies said they have been getting together once a week for about 17 years, mostly for an hours-long session of good-natured reminiscing.</p><p>&#8220;We do just what we&#8217;re doing now, laughing and talking,&#8221; Davis said.</p><p>&#8220;We don&#8217;t gossip,&#8221; Cinti pointed out.</p><p>&#8220;We laugh at ourselves,&#8221; Yakavonis said.</p><p>All that laughter seems to help them feel much younger than their 1932 birth dates and 1950 high school graduation might suggest.</p><p>&#8220;I feel the same as I did when I was 55, or 45,&#8221; Styczen said.</p><p>&#8220;I only feel like 40 myself,&#8221; Kobusky said. &#8220;It&#8217;s hard to believe when you have kids who are 60.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s funny when your kids pass you out,&#8221; Cinti said with a laugh.</p><p>The group has a long history together, with Davis and Bell being friends since first grade, Styczen and Kobusky since birth, and all five since they met in ninth grade.</p><p>&#8220;We never competed with anybody,&#8221; Styczen said.</p><p>&#8220;We were all just friends,&#8221; Davis said. &#8220;Everybody in our class.&#8221;</p><p>As the women thought about their high school years in Hanover Township from 1946 to 1950, they recalled a time of not much money &#8212; &#8220;We were all poor together,&#8221; one said &#8212; but plenty of simple pleasures.</p><p>&#8220;We used to dance and go to the movies,&#8221; Kobusky said. &#8220;That&#8217;s what we did.&#8221;</p><p>Teens would jitterbug, polka and two-step, the women said, and girls often danced with each other because the boys who lined up on the other side of the room were slow about approaching a young woman.</p><p>&#8220;Sometimes you&#8217;d hear a girl saying, &#8216;Oh, I hope he asks me, I hope he asks me,&#8217; &#8220;Kobusky said. &#8220;Then the one she <em>didn&#8217;t</em> like would come and pester her.&#8221;</p><p>When they weren&#8217;t socializing or studying, there was work to be done.</p><p>Several of the friends worked at the former Sans Souci Amusement Park, taking tickets at the stands set up by individual rides.</p><p>&#8220;Your parents would say, &#8216;OK, if you&#8217;re working at the Caterpillar (ride) tonight, you&#8217;ll be home by 9:30,&#8217; &#8221; Kobusky remembered. &#8220;If you were working at the roller coaster, you&#8217;d be home after midnight.&#8221;</p><p>Getting home after work, even after midnight, was easy for Kobusky, because the amusement park, located on the site of what is now Hanover Area Junior/Senior High School, was just a quick jog away.</p><p>&#8220;You&#8217;d get out of the park, run up the hill and you&#8217;d be home,&#8221; she said.</p><p>Other ways the women earned money while they were growing up ranged from picking tomatoes on a local farm, as Davis did, to babysitting a neighbor&#8217;s children, which Kobusky and Styczen &#8212; then known as the Jones twins &#8212; would do.</p><p>&#8220;There was this Polish lady who was a marvelous cook,&#8221; Kobusky said. &#8220;After we watched the children, she gave us a choice. She&#8217;d pay us, or we could eat.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;We took the food,&#8221; Kobusky said, recalling &#8220;pork chops with tomatoes, and stuffed cabbage&#8221; that were quite delicious.</p><p>The women didn&#8217;t always live in the same town. Some moved around the country, living in California, Tennessee and other places. But they&#8217;ve all gravitated back to Hanover Township, where they started out.</p><p>Kobusky, for one, is grateful for that. She took it hard, years ago, when her twin moved one state away.</p><p>&#8220;Charlotte lived in New Jersey for seven or eight months,&#8221; Kobusky said. &#8220;I cried my eyes out, and she moved back.&#8221;</p><p>The twin bond was so intense, Kobusky said, that when her sister was pregnant, &#8220;I lost 30 pounds, with sympathy morning sickness.&#8221;</p><p>As a group, the women have faced their share of difficulties, from a child who died to a husband who returned from Korea with a disfigured face.</p><p>They also share the sorrow of losing their classmate, Joseph Gayewski, to a football injury in 1949.</p><p>&#8220;I remember him being tackled and not getting up,&#8221; Cinti said.</p><p>&#8220;He went in for one more play and collapsed on the field,&#8221; Kobusky said. &#8220;We all rode a school bus to the funeral.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;It was at St. Adalbert&#8217;s in Glen Lyon,&#8221; Styczen said, growing teary-eyed.</p><p>But the women didn&#8217;t remain down for long.</p><p>They had lots of stories that cheered them up, including one about how the twins&#8217; father <em>almost</em> made his youthful emigration voyage to the United States from Wales aboard The Titanic, but waited for another ship because his sister had the measles.</p><p>They chuckled at a more recent memory, the thought of a 5-year-old boy Kobusky watched while his parents were at work. &#8220;This has been the best year of my life,&#8221; the child told her.</p><p>As they polished off a meal of potato pancakes that Styczen had made from scratch, Kobusky, who lives next door, admitted she had not helped her sister cook them, and she hadn&#8217;t helped her sister can the tomatoes on the counter either.</p><p>Though everyone in the group gets along so well, she suggested, part of the reason for that may be that the twins never cook together.</p><p>&#8220;That&#8217;s one place where we <em>would</em> argue,&#8221; Kobusky said.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Viola Jones Kobusky, right, pages through the Hanover High School 1950 yearbook with long-time friends Betty Fritchey Cinti, left, Charlotte Jones Styczen, Audrey Swinski Davis and Elizabeth Bell Yakavonis at Styczen&#8217;s kitchen table in Hanover Township. Kobusky and Styczen are twin sisters, and all five of the friends are 85 years old. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/web1_gabfest1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Viola Jones Kobusky, right, pages through the Hanover High School 1950 yearbook with long-time friends Betty Fritchey Cinti, left, Charlotte Jones Styczen, Audrey Swinski Davis and Elizabeth Bell Yakavonis at Styczen&#8217;s kitchen table in Hanover Township. Kobusky and Styczen are twin sisters, and all five of the friends are 85 years old. </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/web1_gabfest2.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Audrey Swinski Davis, left, and Elizabeth Bell Yakavonis chat with their friends during their weekly get-together in Hanover Township. Davis and Yakavonis, both 85, have been friends since first grade. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/web1_gabfest2.jpg</photo1><caption1>Audrey Swinski Davis, left, and Elizabeth Bell Yakavonis chat with their friends during their weekly get-together in Hanover Township. Davis and Yakavonis, both 85, have been friends since first grade. </caption1><photoCredit1></photoCredit1></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/web1_gabfest3.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Charlotte Jones Styczen, left, takes a call in her kitchen during a visit from her life-long friends Audrey Swinski Davis and Elizabeth Bell Yakavonis. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo2>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/web1_gabfest3.jpg</photo2><caption2>Charlotte Jones Styczen, left, takes a call in her kitchen during a visit from her life-long friends Audrey Swinski Davis and Elizabeth Bell Yakavonis. </caption2><photoCredit2></photoCredit2></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/web1_gabfest4.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Betty Fritchey Cinti, right, reflects on the group&#8217;s life experiences as Viola Jones Kobusky listens. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo3>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/web1_gabfest4.jpg</photo3><caption3>Betty Fritchey Cinti, right, reflects on the group&#8217;s life experiences as Viola Jones Kobusky listens. </caption3><photoCredit3></photoCredit3></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/web1_gabfest5.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Viola Jones Kobusky reads a poem her daughter, Kathy Hullihan, of Hanover Township, wrote in honor of the Class of 1950. The poem says, in part, &#8216;Football games, picnics, we&#8217;d go on a lark. Dance at the &#8216;Wheel,&#8217; go to Sans Souci Park. We chose from college, work and marriage. We studied, toiled or pushed a carriage.&#8217; </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo4>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/web1_gabfest5.jpg</photo4><caption4>Viola Jones Kobusky reads a poem her daughter, Kathy Hullihan, of Hanover Township, wrote in honor of the Class of 1950. The poem says, in part, &#8216;Football games, picnics, we&#8217;d go on a lark. Dance at the &#8216;Wheel,&#8217; go to Sans Souci Park. We chose from college, work and marriage. We studied, toiled or pushed a carriage.&#8217; </caption4><photoCredit4></photoCredit4></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/web1_gabfest6.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">The photos of twin sisters Charlotte Jones Styczen, left, and Viola Jones Kobusky appear side by side in the Hanover High School 1950 yearbook. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo5>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/web1_gabfest6.jpg</photo5><caption5>The photos of twin sisters Charlotte Jones Styczen, left, and Viola Jones Kobusky appear side by side in the Hanover High School 1950 yearbook. </caption5><photoCredit5></photoCredit5></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>Five friends, all 85, get together weekly in Hanover Township</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p><strong>By Mary Therese Biebel</strong></p><p>mbiebel@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mary Therese Biebel at 570-991-6109 or on Twitter @BiebelMT.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Five friends, all 85, get together for weekly gabfests in Hanover Township