Stanley A Bochenski Sr

In Remembrance of Stanley A. Bochenski, Sr.

My Dearly Beloved Husband of 33 Years

Stanley Albert Bochenski, Sr., was born on November 16, 1935, in Baltimore, MD, where his mother had gone for after-care from her mother. Stan’s father, Stanley John Bochenski remained in the New York City area where he worked on Maiden Lane. His business name was Bolden, because Jewish and/or Polish people were not accepting into professional standing in those times.

This was Lillian Gosczinski’s second child. Her first child, Lenore, had been born about three years earlier. At that time the family lived in Jersey City, NJ, on the same street that some of my relatives lived – Carlton Avenue.

I guess it was presumed that boys could take care of themselves, even from a young age. Stanley was allowed to take his wagon and walk down to Tonnele Avenue, a very busy street which eventually merged into route S-3 toward Bergen County, NJ. I remember Stan telling me about his “adventures” as a three-year old in Jersey City. His older sister only spoke Polish when she went to school!

When he was still a pre-schooler, the family moved to Lyndhurst, NJ, where they bought a home that needed some renovations. A family member, I believe an uncle, helped Stan’s father (Stanley John Bochenski) with a huge plumbing task. The time was the early 1940s. Stan was playing in the yard and found an unexploded bomb. His parents told him to take it in his wagon to the police station! Who knows what could have happened???

Stan went to Lyndhurst public schools through high school. He had a three-years younger sister, Barbara, who followed the path of her two older siblings. Stan did fairly well in school, particularly in math and science. He had a wonderful football coach (Zach) whom he regretted not getting in touch with, even after we had met. He was an excellent coach and a great role model. Stan did not see that much of his father who spent many of his evenings after work with his own mother, which created a painful rift between his mother and her mother-in-law. Not only did Stan do well academically, he also did well in sports, especially track and field and football.

In fact, Stan got a football scholarship to West Point, but he chose instead to go to Lafayette College in Easton, PA. He wasn’t there long when he realized that he was really not mature enough to do well at college. He chose to join the Army and was sent to Alaska to “spy on the Russians.” The base was situated north of Cape of Wales, north of the Arctic Circle, and he was there over one year.

During this seventeenth year, the first of the much younger sisters was born. There had been after Barbara Ann another girl born who died of a brain tumor at two years of age. Lillian and John, who like most Polish people loved little ones had a hard adjustment to this loss. So they waited and then they were blessed with another girl, Katrina, born when Stan was about 17 years of age. Of course, they didn’t want Cathy to grow up “alone,” so they conceived another child, Laura, who was born when Stan was about 19 years of age. This “second family” had greater economic advantages than the first group of siblings. Not only did all five siblings graduate from college, but the younger two went on a trip to Poland where they met some of their relatives. Stan, Barbara and Lenore did not have this option because they were either working or taking care of their own families by this time.

When Stan returned to the mainland and went back to college, he met his future wife, Barbara Ann Raffianello. She was an only child of Italian immigrants and a striking beauty. While he finished his schooling, she worked as a secretary in the Easton, PA, area. During that time Stan got appendicitis, and Barbara carried his suitcase into Easton Hospital. Bystanders gaped because her pregnancy was showing, and she was carrying his suitcase. The doctor had come to their apartment and identified the problem right away, thank goodness!

At the beginning of March 1960 their first child, Stanley A. Bochenski, Jr. was born. Because of a condition with Barbara’s ovaries, the couple thought they would have no more children, but – surprise! – the following year in late February a daughter, Mary Ann, was born. Then, like Irish twins, a third child was born prematurely in March of 1962. Five years later, in May 1967, their fourth and final child, Christopher, was born.

They seemed to have had a very busy but fulfilling life in Joppa, MD. Stan’s parents lived around the corner, also having waterfront property, from which they sailed into the Chesapeake Bay. Stan was busy with his work as mechanical engineer, specializing in instrumentation, for Bethlehem Steel at Sparrows Point, MD. They were friendly with neighbors and spear-headed the formation of a number of 12-step meetings, including Al-anon and emotions anonymous. These began initially as a way to help Stan’s younger sister (also named Barbara Ann) overcome her alcoholism, which she did at age 37. Her story is a long and involved one involving a high school romance with a teacher with whom she remained involved for well over a decade. Sister Barbara Ann has written extensively, both professionally and personally. The professional book she published through John Wiley & Sons, was on client-server issues with computer systems. It was published in 1994 and translated into many languages, including Hebrew. The personal work was a detailed history of her life – the romantic relationship she had with a high school teacher, the hysterectomy which prevented her from ever having children, and her struggles with and eventual defeat of alcoholism.

Stan and his family were not only active in the community, they also were involved in sailing competitions from the cove all the way to the bay. Stan designed their home on an open concept with large sliding doors opening onto a beautiful view of the cove.

Then around 1980 Stan was offered a promotion to corporate engineering in Bethlehem, PA. They had to leave their idyllic life in Joppa! Stan, Jr., was in college and also driving a UPS truck. Mary Ann was completing a course in nursing. Michael was interested in sail making and got himself apprenticed to a sail maker in Annapolis; so he left the home at age 17. The only child at home was 12-year-old Christopher, who moved with his mother and father to Bethlehem. It was a difficult move because Stan decided he wanted an older, historic home that he would remodel. He had looked at newer homes, which would have been more to the liking of Barbara, but decided unilaterally to buy the stone house from the 1800s on Black River Rd., which also came with the advantage of 15 acres of wooded land. Barbara was very depressed over her new living conditions. She was already overweight and now experienced the loneliness and depression of living in substandard conditions without friends nearby. She suffered a stroke (aneurysm) which left her paralyzed and then lost one of her legs to an amputation. Stan was stretched to the limit with new job responsibilities and the care of an invalid wife. He had to hire full-time nursing help during the lengthy times Barbara was not in the hospital but at home “recovering.” He brought her to the beach in a wheelchair; he took her to see her relatives in Westfield; he loved her like the child she had become. Unfortunately, his son Christopher was caught in the middle of this catastrophe. He helped in the care of his mother as much as he could, but he also started out on a path of sexual encounters with various women with whom he conceived children out of wedlock.

Barbara Ann died in April of 1987. After a while Stan started dating. He had a relationship with a woman who had five doctorate degrees and was a twin. She pronounced that what was wrong with him was that his mother had locked him in the closet! After a few short-lived dating experiences, Stan and I met in March of 1989. We met at SPOT-5, Single Professionals Over Thirty-Five, which had a hiking venue that month with dinner afterwards. Stan sat across from me. When he asked what I did for a living, I became anxious, because being a pastoral counselor was not exactly a “neutral” type of self-employment. However, Stan’s interest was perked. It turned out that we both had a number of books in our home libraries that were identical. He was very interested in integrative health which involved not only physical health but health of the mind and the spirit. We began dating frequently after the first encounter. He spent a lot of time with me at my home in Pohatcong, NJ, which was overall in much better condition than his home on Black River Road. Even before we married on February 29, 1992, he undertook projects to make my home truly beautiful. He added a small deck to the front of the house where there had only been a sliding door to nothing! We also discovered that there was a leak in the living room ceiling, so we worked together with the help of a handyman to replace the roof. At that time I was able to carry a 60-pound pack of shingles on a ladder to the roof. However, before that we had to get a dumpster to remove the old shingles. I was up there throwing the shingles down (with gloves on or course) but I managed to lose my engagement ring. Stan replaced it with another, nicer one from a pawn shop.

Stan also added a much larger deck to the back of the house. He installed a sliding door from the dining area to this deck. It was really lovely to sit there and watch the hummingbirds come to the feeders I had filled. The dining room now also had some beautiful natural light, and one could look out onto the backyard and the trees beyond. Beneath the deck Stan created a basically glass-enclosed space. He also helped me remodel the kitchen with all new cabinets and a new beautiful green Formica countertop. As is evident, Stan loved these projects in which he could both design and create new living spaces.

Stan loved to eat – he really enjoyed it, which I cannot say for myself. He would always try new foods, for example, menudo in New Mexico, a soup made with the intestines of beef cattle or some other animal. In the beginning I would try a few things less adventurous, but in the end stayed with simple things like hamburgers and chicken, although I did make a veggie burger from lentils, which was very good and for which I can no longer remember the recipe. I did learn how to make cold beet soup from his family. Those of his mother’s generation came to Bradley Beach and Avon during the summer, and I helped prepare the soup, which fortunately I can still make.

These good times came to a halt in 1998 when Stan was examined and told that he would need five or six bypasses. We were told while he was in the hospital and shown a pencil-and-paper sketch. We don’t know if this was a correct diagnosis, because after the bypasses he said that he never felt as well as before. At home he started wheezing. We couldn’t imagine why, but it turned out that he could not tolerate Metoprolol, a blood pressure drug. After being taken off that, his recovery proceeded pretty well.

In 1997, Stan had contracted Lyme’s disease, which no local doctor could identify. We did eventually get a specialist, and Stan was treated with 500 mg. of a very strong antibiotic. Testing was done at a California laboratory, and I asked that this be repeated after a year. He seemed to have recovered, but I still wonder how Lyme’s may have affected his heart.

During this time we attended a conference for my work in Albuquerque, NM. I had tacked on a couple of extra days to vacation. We made a trip to the “enchanted circle,” beginning and ending in Taos, NM. We also found out about and reserved seating on an historic railroad which went between Antonito and Chama. It was a whole day trip with lunch provided for us in the mountains. The scenery captured us so much so that the next day we did the “enchanted circle” again and ended up buying a lovely small house in Angel Fire, NM. We now had three mortgages!

As mentioned earlier, Stan was suffering at this time with undiagnosed Lyme’s disease. This may have brought on the bipolar that emerged in 2003 and probably also affected his heart. Just about six months later, a doctor at Lehigh Valley Hospital urged him to undergo heart bypasses. They ended up doing five, but the doctor said that if they had had enough vein, they could have done six.

As for the Lyme’s, I was finally able to locate a Lyme’s specialist and he began treatment on Biaxin, a very strong antibiotic, which he took for six months. He was retested by the lab in California and was pronounced free of the spirochetes that damage the body so severely.

About a year after purchasing the home in Angel Fire we were able to ready and then sell both homes on the East Coast. We had bought a 26-foot long trailer, which we drove through the pass at Raton into New Mexico. We later relocated it near Elephant Butte Lake where we planned to take both kitties with us in cold weather. That actually only occurred once over the next year, so we ended up selling the trailer, which was really unwieldy for Stan to drive.

I took the test for state licensure as a Marriage and Family Therapist in Albuquerque and got notice that I had passed in January of 1999. I began seeing a few clients out of the United Church in Angel Fire, led by Pastor Tracey Miller. We became good friends with Tracey and his wife. During our brief sojourn in Angel Fire, we often made trips to Taos over some very rough and narrow spots in the mountain (the Sangre de Cristos) into the Taos Valley. We made friends with Sana Echols, an elementary school teacher who had connections to Taos Pueblo, where we later met Concha a Taos Pueblo native who invited us to attend the annual race between the two competitive sides of the pueblo. We were very privileged to be asked to attend, and this friendship continued with an invitation to attend the birthday party of Concha’s young daughter.

During this one-year sojourn in Angel Fire, we noticed that Stan could really not breathe well during our brief afternoon naps. We looked for a location at a lesser elevation and found a wonderful community near Santa Fe called Eldorado. Again the third home we were shown by an agent was a “winner” – Stan asked to get in contact with the builder and was told that he was actually working on final touches to the garage. We told him that we thought this home was a work of art, which might have resulted in a higher price. However, we made an offer at a price we thought we could afford, and the builder accepted it! We moved in before the end of the year.

Our times in Santa Fe were punctuated by wonderful trips to many of the national parks and national monuments in the western United States. Our first major trip was to Yellowstone in May of 2000. There was still plenty of snow. The animals in the Lamar Valley were astounding – the buffaloes, the wolves. It was just a wonderful liberating experience. Stan took so many great photos with his special touch of capturing things close up so the viewer thought s/he was right there.

One of Stan’s favorites, located near Alamosa, Colorado, was Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. I note that it has been upgraded from a National Monument to a National Park. Visitors can hike up about 600 feet over sandy terrain to gain a view of the Rocky Mountains surrounding the sand dunes. Coming down is another matter! You can run, roll, sled or otherwise slither back down to the tiny stream that somehow geologically has created this wonder.

We also visited Yosemite National Park, White Sands National Park, Death Valley, Rocky Mountain National Park, and Glacier National Park. There were in fact several visits to Rocky Mountain, and we usually stayed in Estes Park. Each experience was unique and brought with it so many opportunities for Stan to create his photographic wizardry.

The last ten years of our lives have been spent in Seaford, Delaware, the exact opposite of Santa Fe. It’s all flat land comprised of chicken farms, woodlands, and grain farms. There is no culture to speak of, except a small art museum we visited once north of Middletown. The people are not very friendly and seem to be stuck in a culture warp. We have made the best of it, because we wanted to be relatively close to our families. Since we completed our third UHaul trip on September 16, 2016, we have had some nice get-togethers in Princeton with Jean’s family. Cathy and Jim Dennis had overseen the “flash” building of our house over the course of two months, so our first trip with a futon and some items was for the closing at the end of July 2015. It was difficult to sell our lovely home in Santa Fe because of uncooperative real estate agents, but we finally closed there in September 2016 and moved with our third UHaul driven by Stan’s son Michael and our Expedition.

Stan and I became closer and closer over these last years. We were grateful to have each other and to make short trips and walks at Trap Pond. We also liked the schoolhouse park near Seaford, but our favorite was Trap Pond – the many turtles whose babies “slept” in the water lilies in the spring; the geese and ducks flying over the pond; the enormous blue heron we saw emerge from near the walkway and take off with his huge wingspan.

Most of all I remember our evening meals and bedtime routine. After cleanup and any office work, we would retire to the back room of the house, which is mainly windows. We would sit and read for quite a while. I tried to enunciate well and would check in with Stan to see if he were comprehending most everything. After that would be charging the hearing aids, brushing our teeth and getting into bed. We held hands with our beloved Sunkist between us. Stan never failed to thank me for everything I had done to help him. In fact, when I last mowed and mulched the lawn before Thanksgiving, he sat in his car, which was facing the backyard, and watched me. I didn’t know that until he told me how amazed he was with my ability to cut the lawn with a hand mower!

I will love you forever, my sweetheart, and hold you in my heart. All my love, Jean Eva.

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