PACC Celebrates 100 Years In Gardner

Courtesy photo The “new” Polish American Citizens Club headquarters at Kendall Pond in Gardner has been the site of some great events over the years. It was built in 2003 to replace the longtime pavillion at the site. It will be the center of this year’s 100th anniversary celebration for the club.

PACC Celebrates 100 Years In Gardner
Special events mark yearlong celebration

Omer J. Cormier
Sports Correspondent

GARDNER — One hundred years! For anyone to live to that age is amazing, the same for any institution.

So it remains exceptional that the Polish American Citizens Club of Gardner is celebrating its 100th birthday this year.

With that in mind, present powers in the PACC hierarchy decided that it would be significant to have a full year of celebration. Not a bad idea.

And while not all events are open to more than its 551 members and guests, the general public is invited to many worthwhile events.

How about a gigantic fireworks display on Saturday, July 25, emanating from a barge in the middle of Kendall Pond where the present club is located on nearby shores?

President Randy Jepson — his mother is Polish — is rightfully proud of that one, as well as other events on the agenda.

Courtesy photo Randy Jepson

Mr. Jepson — a longtime successful softball coach at Oakmont Regional High School — and others who hold office are proud not only of the PACC’s beginnings, but of the communitywide spirit shown in support of Greater Gardner activities, such as 195 scholarships since 1977, receiving a total of $139,850, an average of $700 per recipient.

Others given a boost include athletic clubs by the dozen such as softball teams, Little League and Legion teams, veterans, school musical organizations, and funds to battle cancer and for other health care, etc., to the tune of $450,000 in the past 40 years — largesse of an uncommon nature.

This is truly a story of Gardner residents, their commitment to the community, service to others, as well as the modest start that was a place for the social, moral and intellectual welfare of Polish immigrants around the turn of the 19th century who had formed a mission parish and purchased the Donahue Estate in 1907 as cornerstone of their church.

This was located at 358 Pleasant St., the location of St. Joseph’s Church rectory and the residence of its pastor, the Rev. Thomas J. Tokarcz. The church ceased functioning on a daily basis as of June 30 to become part of the new An­nunciation Parish in Gardner — to the genuine regret of the Polish in the area.

At the time, however, the purchase was dramatic in nature, with the church being built in the midst of the Irish “Patch” — which is still called by that name — with hundreds of that nationality on Dublin, Wright, Limerick, Pleasant and Vaughn streets, names taken from their faraway land across the ocean.

The Gardner News dutifully noted at the time St. Joseph’s Church was the Polish center of religion at that address, signaling the departure of the Irish from the immediate vicinity. The newspaper correctly predicted that in two years “the Irish will have departed the neighborhood.”

It was not unusual at the time, emigrants from European countries and Canada, such as the Acadian and Canadian French, moving to locations in the area of Nichols, Greenwood, Regan and Parker streets, as well as parts of Park Street, so that they understood their neighbors, knew their likes and dislikes, etc.

Many Italians and French also filled like neighborhoods in Leominster, Fitchburg, Lowell, New Bedford, Waltham and many New England communities.

The result is that the “Patch” has been in the midst of Polish activity ever since. Mixtures of nationalities and culture, however, has watered down the nationality branding everywhere, even in heavily immigrated Gardner.

Nothing to do with this story, but the first pastor of St. Joseph’s Church, which had been holding services at Holy Rosary, was the Rev. Julius Radziewicz, who spoke seven different languages!

Getting back to the yearlong celebration, on June 20, the annual PACC golf tourney was run by Bruce Dembek and Denis Houde, who have been doing a bang-up job for many, many years. Eighty-four entries made up that swell party atmosphere.

Upcoming, there are several more events. There is a lobster bake for members — please don’t tell anyone! — on July 18; the fireworks on the barge the next weekend (public invited) with entertainment and open house; and a grandiose Polish picnic on Aug. 16 with great food, a live band and a kids bouncing house.

The first lobs of the 67th anniversary of the candlepin league bowling tournament will be on Sept. 26. There is a tremendous car show — bigger than the weekly event — with awards for classics as well as entertainment on Sept. 19; a horseshoe tournament on Oct. 3; a huge turkey raffle on Nov. 19; and the annual Kids Christmas Party on Dec. 6.

As of this writing, we missed the President’s Installation Ban­quet on Jan. 3; Polish Day on Feb. 15; pitch tournament on March 7; and the St. Patrick’s Day celebration on March 14.

It is interesting to note that Ed Lepkowski, the little man with many hats including the summer band concerts, is the longest active member at 69 years, followed by Henry Zablonski, 61, Jim Heglin, 55, Walter Sawicki, 55, Chester Pacocha, 55, and Vitol Pliskowski, 55.

While the club is now on the shores of Kendall Pond, there has been a PACC pavillion for many years at what once was known as Belair's Beach. The new structure with modern dining facilities, a true banquet and wedding center, has been there only since 2003. The main center of the PACC, for decades, was located on Pleasant Street, a short distance from St. Joseph’s Church, and is now the Gardner Senior Center.

To build what is now a beautiful and utilitarian structure serving up to 300 banqueters or sales meeting people cost the PACC its well-designed and well-used softball field, which had hosted city leagues, state championships in 1987, exhibitions by Ed Feigner and his famous 3-Man Softball Team and paved entry into the “Guinness Book of Records” for longest softball game ever, 56 hours and 10 minutes, with PACC edging Girardi’s of Athol 357-319 in 274 innings, which equates to 39 full games.

And there have been many name-band concerts there over the years, certainly a center of social activity when lots of room was needed.

The move was well worth it. Old quarters served well, but its time was past, despite literally hundreds of events, team sponsorships and the like. Who could forget the homecoming of 150 veteran service members in World War II in 1945, not including 17 who made the supreme sacrifice and did not return. It was the feast of all feasts.

When the new building went up, it was a three-day celebration, featured by a banquet in 2003 attended by 500, the culmination of the purchase of the beach property for $10,800 — a steal at today’s prices.

If you catch the gist that the PACC is very much a social center for members and Greater Gardner, you’ve got it right. And charity, scholarships and giving worthwhile youth activities a boost falls right in line.

This short piece is not intended as a history of the PACC, already in booklet form by Mike Richard and available at the club, and we have stolen liberally from its contents.

Instead, it is a bit of a reflection on how important the PACC has been to the entire population of the Greater Gardner area, not only Polish descendants.

We have neglected literally hundreds of individuals, married men-single men baseball, PACC baseball and softball nines. Names like Glinski, Morgan, Awdycki, Bessette, Baczewski, Sadowski, Renes, Bogdanski, Tarmasiewicz, Dumanoski and many, many others deserve accolades for effort and accomplishment in the PACC but get none here. So do many, many more.

Present officers include Jepson as president, Chris Poirier, vice president; Phil Ray, financial secretary; Richard Allard, recording secretary; and Kevin Beaton, membership.

Alas, there have been legitimate PACC attempts that failed in 100 years. Not everything succeeds the way it has been planned. Most assuredly. It took President Jepson, now in his seventh year, to remember an ice-fishing derby in the middle of July, on a bunch of big, 300-pound ice cakes, right in Kendall Pond — novel to say the least.

“It didn’t work,” he admitted, “the ice just melted too fast and we couldn’t get the warmup fire going!”

A true story, I think.