Frank "Snyder" Drazkowski

1839 Łąg - 1907 Little Falls

I, Franciszek Drazkowski
Also known as Frank Snyder,
Was the first Pole to run a saloon in Winona,
And one of the lay founders
Of Saint Stanislaus Kostka Polish Church
Winona alderman and County Commissioner,
First editor of the Polish newspaper Wiarus,
Father of the Reverend Andrzej Drazkowski
Taken from us in the first year of his priesthood.
Nobody could deny my great love for Poland
Or for my new home America.
It so happens that I was apprenticed to a tailor,
Whose household spoke only German,
So I grew up as Franz Schneider.
What an awful tailor I turned out to be:
I could press clothes, and mend them after a fashion.
My true gift was charming the customers
Into buying items from my master's inventory
For what they thought was a fair price.
My master told me I would go far,
So far away I went, to Winona,
Calling myself Frank Snyder at first
Because we Poles were few in number then.
Though I dealt with Germans and Poles alike -
With the Irish and the Swedes too, for that matter.
I was always Franciszek Drazkowski in my own heart.
Perhaps I might have been wiser, once we Poles
Founded Saint Stanislaus Kostka Polish Church,
To have moved west like Mikolaj Tryba did.
Or to have died like Marcin Bambenek did.
But I stayed in Winona, fighting for our Poles
Taking great risks and experiencing great falls
Bankrupting myself not once but twice,
Only then moving to Little Falls, where
I, Franciszek Drazkowski, lie buried
Also known as Frank Snyder.