Wyalusing Rocket July 9, 2009
Quiet Hero Page One with Photos —By Wes Skillings— Growing up on a farm in East Herrick in the 1930’s and 1940’s, Ted Danielski and his three sisters never knew that their hard-working father, a Polish immigrant who passed through Ellis Island in 1913, was a war hero. Vincent Joseph Danielski, who died 48 years ago this week on July 9, 1961, was a true patriot who fought for the United States in World War I before he was even accorded citizenship. “He was American all the way,” says his son, Ted, who is now retired and lives in Wysox with his wife of almost 59 years, Joyce. Ted and his siblings knew their father as a hard-working man who brought his family to a farm of 120 acres at the four corners in East Herrick in 1933. Ted and his older sister, Isabelle, were about eight and nines years of age at the time, with younger sisters, Eleanore and Alfraeda, being, respectively, five years old and an infant. They moved into a challenging existence and their father literally, as they used to say, picked himself up by the bootstraps to support his family with a successful dairy farm. They had come to the Herrickville area from Larksville in Luzerne County, and all the Danielski children would eventually graduate from the old Camptown High School after receiving their primary education in a one-room school in Herrickville. His early years in Larksville required him to be a coal miner, laboring in the Truesdale Coal Mine. Working in the mines in those days could suck the life out of a man while he was still young and claim his children after him. Farming, as it turned out, wasn’t exactly a picnic. Life was cruel at the beginning of their life in East Herrick, with their mother, Rose Batory Danielski, dying in the fall of 1935 and leaving her grieving husband with four kids to raise and a farm without a dairy herd or suitable accommodations in the barn for such an enterprise. Potatoes proved to be the salvation for the Danielskis, and Vincent planted and grew them on his land by the hundreds, subsequently making long trips to peddle them in Plymouth and Larksville. Any money he made, aside from that needed to feed and clothe his family, was plowed back into the farm. That meant investing in fences, literally building stanchions and stalls he’d need for his cows and then a silo for the ensilage to feed them. After a few years, by the time Ted was old enough to call himself an adult, the Danielskis had themselves a Class A dairy and had even purchased another tract of farmland. Ted was able to buy the farm from his father in 1954, freeing him from its demands, and then sold the cattle and equipment in 1965, several years after his father died of lung cancer. “He taught me about hard work and how to improvise,” Ted says today, “and I still remember him telling me, ‘Son, one day all you are going to be is a number.’” Vincent Joseph Danielski was able to come to the United States from Poland via the ship, Graf Waldersee, that departed from Hamburg, Germany, in 1913. He was only 18 years old with not much more than the shirt on his back, and to do what he did with his life would qualify him as a hero in itself. It was that other thing that he did between July 27, 1917, and August 7, 1919, that would turn out, several decades after his death, to be the biggest surprise for his family. He joined the U.S. Army and was honorably discharged in World War I after seeing action in Europe. Boy did he ever see action, but unlike old-timers who love to tell war stories, Vincent Danielski apparently did none of that. “My father never talked to any of us about his Army experience,” Ted says. “He never really talked about his past.” One of his brothers-in-law dabbling in genealogy and trying to piece together a family history discovered that the elder Danielski, whose given Polish name was Wincenty Jozef, had earned the Silver Star for valor, as well as the World War I Victory Medal and four battle claps, while a member of the 58th Infantry in France. It was also learned that there was a presentation of these medals, or at least the acknowledgement that he had earned them, aboard the troop ship, the USS Mount Vernon. But Vincent Danielski went on with his life and never filled out the required paperwork to receive the actual medals. He went on to become a U.S. Citizen on Oct. 4, 1921, and married another Polish immigrant, Rose Batory, in Wilkes-Barre, in the summer of 1923. They would only have a dozen years together before they laid her to rest in Herrickville. After learning his father had earned the medals but had never received them, Ted mentioned it to Diane Elliott, who is closely allied with veterans’ issues and works with state Rep. Tina Pickett. “She told me she’d help me get them. She called (Congressman Don) Sherwood and he took it from there,” Ted recalls, adding that Joe Fabricatore was the field agent for Sherwood who secured the medals for them. Since their father never told them about his experiences serving the country that he would come to love even before he was accepted as one of its citizens, there is fortunately a record of what happened at Vesle River, France, on Aug. 6, 1918. The text of his actions is included in General Orders from Headquarters, Fourth Division, on July 30, 1919, on board the USS Mount Vernon. His name was actually misspelled in the orders as Dronolsky, but the accompanying service number verifies it was him. The orders state that the Private First Class “went forward under a heavy fire from the enemy guns, on his own initiative, and located two enemy machine guns. He came back, climbed a high tree, thereby exposing himself to fire, and with a pair of field glasses directed the fire of our one-pound canons on these enemy machine guns.” From such exploits, so tersely described in military orders, come hours of retelling and much recognition back home for old veterans of all wars. Vincent Danielski was truly a proud patriot, but he was more grateful to his adopted country than boastful of his own exploits in helping preserve its freedom. He stands, 48 years after his death, as a fitting representative for all those quiet heroes who did what they had to do and then went on with their lives.
Quiet Hero Took World War I Battlefield Exploits to Grave - by Wes Skillings - 7/9/2009 Wyalusing Rocket July 9 2009
Growing up on a farm in East Herrick in the 1930’s and 1940’s, Ted Danielski and his three sisters never knew that their hard-working father, a Polish immigrant who passed through Ellis Island in 1913, was a war hero. Vincent Joseph Danielski, who died 48 years ago this week on July 9, 1961, was a true patriot who fought for the United States in World War I before he was even accorded citizenship.
“He was American all the way,” says his son, Ted, who is now retired and lives in Wysox with his wife of almost 59 years, Joyce.
Ted and his siblings knew their father as a hard-working man who brought his family to a farm of 120 acres at the four corners in East Herrick in 1933. Ted and his older sister, Isabelle, were about eight and nines years of age at the time, with younger sisters, Eleanore and Alfraeda, being, respectively, five years old and an infant.
They moved into a challenging existence and their father literally, as they used to say, picked himself up by the bootstraps to support his family with a successful dairy farm. They had come to the Herrickville area from Larksville in Luzerne County, and all the Danielski children would eventually graduate from the old Camptown High School after receiving their primary education in a one-room school in Herrickville. His early years in Larksville required him to be a coal miner, laboring in the Truesdale Coal Mine. Working in the mines in those days could suck the life out of a man while he was still young and claim his children after him. Farming, as it turned out, wasn’t exactly a picnic.
Life was cruel at the beginning of their life in East Herrick, with their mother, Rose Batory Danielski, dying in the fall of 1935 and leaving her grieving husband with four kids to raise and a farm without a dairy herd or suitable accommodations in the barn for such an enterprise.
Potatoes proved to be the salvation for the Danielskis, and Vincent planted and grew them on his land by the hundreds, subsequently making long trips to peddle them in Plymouth and Larksville. Any money he made, aside from that needed to feed and clothe his family, was plowed back into the farm. That meant investing in fences, literally building stanchions and stalls he’d need for his cows and then a silo for the ensilage to feed them. After a few years, by the time Ted was old enough to call himself an adult, the Danielskis had themselves a Class A dairy and had even purchased another tract of farmland. Ted was able to buy the farm from his father in 1954, freeing him from its demands, and then sold the cattle and equipment in 1965, several years after his father died of lung cancer.
“He taught me about hard work and how to improvise,” Ted says today, “and I still remember him telling me, ‘Son, one day all you are going to be is a number.’”
Vincent Joseph Danielski was able to come to the United States from Poland via the ship, Graf Waldersee, that departed from Hamburg, Germany, in 1913. He was only 18 years old with not much more than the shirt on his back, and to do what he did with his life would qualify him as a hero in itself. It was that other thing that he did between July 27, 1917, and August 7, 1919, that would turn out, several decades after his death, to be the biggest surprise for his family.
He joined the U.S. Army and was honorably discharged in World War I after seeing action in Europe. Boy did he ever see action, but unlike old-timers who love to tell war stories, Vincent Danielski apparently did none of that.
“My father never talked to any of us about his Army experience,” Ted says. “He never really talked about his past.”
One of his brothers-in-law dabbling in genealogy and trying to piece together a family history discovered that the elder Danielski, whose given Polish name was Wincenty Jozef, had earned the Silver Star for valor, as well as the World War I Victory Medal and four battle claps, while a member of the 58th Infantry in France. It was also learned that there was a presentation of these medals, or at least the acknowledgement that he had earned them, aboard the troop ship, the USS Mount Vernon.
But Vincent Danielski went on with his life and never filled out the required paperwork to receive the actual medals. He went on to become a U.S. Citizen on Oct. 4, 1921, and married another Polish immigrant, Rose Batory, in Wilkes-Barre, in the summer of 1923. They would only have a dozen years together before they laid her to rest in Herrickville.
After learning his father had earned the medals but had never received them, Ted mentioned it to Diane Elliott, who is closely allied with veterans’ issues and works with state Rep. Tina Pickett.
“She told me she’d help me get them. She called (Congressman Don) Sherwood and he took it from there,” Ted recalls, adding that Joe Fabricatore was the field agent for Sherwood who secured the medals for them.
Since their father never told them about his experiences serving the country that he would come to love even before he was accepted as one of its citizens, there is fortunately a record of what happened at Vesle River, France, on Aug. 6, 1918. The text of his actions is included in General Orders from Headquarters, Fourth Division, on July 30, 1919, on board the USS Mount Vernon. His name was actually misspelled in the orders as Dronolsky, but the accompanying service number verifies it was him.
The orders state that the Private First Class “went forward under a heavy fire from the enemy guns, on his own initiative, and located two enemy machine guns. He came back, climbed a high tree, thereby exposing himself to fire, and with a pair of field glasses directed the fire of our one-pound canons on these enemy machine guns.”
From such exploits, so tersely described in military orders, come hours of retelling and much recognition back home for old veterans of all wars. Vincent Danielski was truly a proud patriot, but he was more grateful to his adopted country than boastful of his own exploits in helping preserve its freedom.
He stands, 48 years after his death, as a fitting representative for all those quiet heroes who did what they had to do and then went on with their liveThe USS Mount Vernon, a troop ship during World War I, is where Private First Class Vincent Joseph Danielski was awarded the Silver Star and other medals he never claimed.
Vincent and Rose Danielski on the occasion of their marriage on May 29, 1923. Her death in October of 1935 would leave him with four young children on a farm near Herrickville.