Photo by ELIZABETH A. MUNDSCHENK
Arnette Jefferson of Utica, center, sings with the choir at Sunday services at Historic Hope Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Utica. Hope Chapel is the oldest African-American Church in the city of Utica.

Social, religious ties
bind immigrants

By LEHA BYRD
Observer-Dispatch

AFRICAN-AMERICANS
Hope Chapel, the oldest black church in the city, was officially established shortly after the Civil War in 1865, though its beginnings date back to 1848.

During 1942-1948, it was the gathering spot for African-Americans who came to the area for jobs.

Many went to work at Rome Air Depot, later Griffiss Air Force Base, said Jean Baird Davis, a lifetime member of the church, which is located on South Street in Utica.

POLES
The first Polish parish, Holy Trinity, emerged in 1889 out of conversations among Polish families who wanted to worship in their native language. The church was built seven years later.

By 1911, the parish’s pews began to swell after immigrants wrote home about opportunities in Utica.

So well-attended, Holy Trinity, now located on Lincoln Avenue, sparked other Polish churches to be built, including St. Stanislaus, located in East Utica on Nichols Street.

GERMANS
The Utica Maennerchor, German for men’s chorus, served as a stepping stone for German immigrants since it was formed in 1865.

The club quickly became a place where newer German immigrants could get information on jobs, food and places to live, said Mike Schreppel, the club’s president.

Today, the club, located in Marcy, has 350 members throughout the region.

ITALIANS
When the Toccolana Club in Rome was started in 1925, one of its main purposes was to offer Italians refuge from hectic work life.

First located on Houston Avenue, the club is now on East Dominick Street and has about 450 members from around Oneida County.

These days, Wednesday lunches and regular bocce tournaments keep Mike LaGatta, 70, coming back.

LaGatta, now retired, headed community employee relations for 13 years for the state Department of Labor and visited the club after work.

Eugene Dziedzic remembers his grandmother telling him how she worked for a nickel an hour after coming to Utica from Poland in 1907.

"She lived on Water Street (behind what is now the Utica Auditorium). It wasn't a pleasant existence at all," said Dziedzic, who wrote about Polish immigrants in "Ethnic Utica," a book about the city's ethnic communities.

Immigrants toiled in textile mills, laid tracks for the area's railroads, dug ditches for the Erie Canal and kept the wheels of industry spinning.

To escape the rigors of work life and to maintain ties to their culture, they established and contributed to religious and social organizations.

Italians, for example, formed mutual aid societies that offered assistance to poor Italians.

Germans published newspapers and set up organizations.

Poles and other groups built churches, where they could worship in their native language.

"If you're a new immigrant, you need people to relate to," said James Pula, dean of graduate and continuing education at Utica College and editor of "Ethnic Utica." "If you've been an immigrant for a longer period, you're with people who have a shared cultural experience, shared historical tradition, religion."

The city's newer arrivals also have worked to establish religious and social organizations, but not for the same reasons as early immigrants, who had no social services in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Pula said.

"With the newer immigrants coming over in the last 10 years, you have the refugee center, different churches, government programs for people building small businesses — all kinds of things," he said.

The church, in particular, is what has helped Deerfield resident Pavel Brutsky stay connected to his culture.

"It's very good support for Russian community — to everybody," said Pavel of the Slavic Pentecostal Church in Schuyler, where he worships.

Brutsky, 39, who is a case manager at the Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees, came to Utica in 1989 from the former Soviet Union.

"I was looking for freedom of religion," he said. "We could not freely practice (in Russia)."

Support for Dziedzic's grandmother, Magdklina Maslowski, came from St. Stanislaus in East Utica through services in her native language and social activities. Maslowski served in the church's Rosary Society.

"A lot of the churches and parish centers helped (immigrants) maintain their Polishness," Dziedzic said.