The topic for Week 6 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is – Earning a Living so I am turning this week to the Posluszny side of the family to tell you about my grandfather and his brothers.
My grandfather, Konrad Posluszny, and his four brothers were hatters. The occupations on their ship manifests say “laborer” so it’s likely they picked up the trade when they immigrated to the United States.
In the early 1900s, hat making was booming and during that time period, Konrad and his brother Charles lived in Yonkers New York. They held jobs as finishers at the Waring Hat Manufacturing Company. The factory was on the corner of Riverdale Avenue and Vark Street which was only a block and a half from their home on Jefferson Street.
His other three brothers John, Joseph, and Frank all lived in Newark New Jersey. I don’t know which company they worked in but there were 34 hat companies in Essex County making it the hat capital of the world! They would have had their pick of any and they also worked as finishers.
The 1920 census showed all five brothers still in the hat making industry. Konrad and his family were still in Yonkers, John and Frank in New Jersey, Joseph and Charles with their families in Norwalk Connecticut.
The 1920s brought about a slowdown in the hat making industry and many companies merged. John left hat making and because a proprietor of a restaurant/saloon in Newark.
Unfortunately Frank turns up in the 1930 and 1940 federal census as an inmate in the Essex County Hospital for the Insane. We know the old saying “mad as a hatter” but in this case it was hereditary rather than occupational.
Charles worked for the American Hat Company and Joseph for the Hat Corporation of America, both in Norwalk. They worked has hatters until they retired.
But, the more interesting story is that of my grandfather. I’ve told the story of the family’s move to Easthampton Massachusetts where they lived very briefly before they moved to New Britain and lived in a two family house with my grandmother’s relatives where my mother was born in 1922.
In New Britain, my grandfather opened up a hat store called the Conrad Hat Company and in 1923 it was at 43-45 Broad Street before moving to 317 Main Street.
In 1924, he applied for a patent for a cleaning solution for straw hats and was awarded with the patent on 1925. I don’t know if he ever made any money from it but he still holds the patent to it.
Unfortunately, in the summer of 1924, in the span of two weeks there were fires in his store.
I found these news clippings while researching this story and I wonder if it plays into what my Aunt Judy said in her recorded conversations about not being a business-type guy but he would have been successful if he was. She said he was too soft hearted and the politicians in New Britain would come in, have a hat made and say they’d pay him later but they never would. He couldn’t pay his insurance, had those two (suspicious!) fires a few weeks apart and had to go out of business.
The family moved to Wallingford and he went to work at the Steel Mill until his death in 1944.
It's All About Family 