Gladysz Family

Contact

321 Reed McDonald Building
Ph: 979-845-7048

Mailing Address:
Department of Chemistry Texas A&M University
P.O. Box 30012
College Station, TX 77843-3012

Shipping Address:
Department of Chemistry
Texas A&M University
580 Ross Street
MS3255 TAMU
College Station, TX 77843-3255

People

Dr. John A. Gladysz -- Research -- Administration

Gladysz Family Details

Frequently requested details regarding John Gladysz's family include the following.

His paternal grandparents (Gladysz, Brozykowski) were Polish. His grandfather was born in a small village between Rzeszow and Sanok, and emigrated to the Pittsburgh AREA in 1911. His maternal grandparents (Worst, Weber) are of largely German origin. However, this branch of the family arrived in North America much earlier, and no records of their European roots remain.

His paternal grandparents established a vineyard near Paw Paw, Michigan, where he spent his first fourteen autumns (along with numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins) helping with the grape harvest. One of his aunts married into an Italian family (Meconi) that had resettled from the Detroit area. As a result of the entrepreneurial skills of this branch of the family, a winery was founded (Saint Julian) that has made wine since the end of Prohibition in 1937 (and earlier, under the guise of "sacramental wine") long before viniculture became a fashionable American pastime.

His maternal grandparents were farmers in Galesburg, Michigan with about 100 acres that remained in the family until the death of his parents in 2014. This grandfather also worked in a paper mill, and the grandmother remained healthy and active until she passed away at the age of 105 (01-10-1907 – 01-24-2012). Gladysz's maternal uncle and father Edward continued the "papermaker" tradition, the latter serving as an engineer until a reluctant retirement on his 77th birthday in 1999. His mother Margean was a reference librarian for over thirty years (mostly with the Kalamazoo Public Library, where she pioneered a number of community data bases) until her retirement in 1999. She used this period to write her autobiographical book, “A Spy on the Bus” (link). He has one sister, also Margean, who had a very interesting twenty-year career as an industrial engineer before moving into non-profit administration.