September 16, 1968
Page 27081
SENATOR MUSKIE'S MOTHER – A VISIT THAT HAS LASTED 57 YEARS
HON. ROMAN C. PUCINSKI OF ILLINOIS IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Monday, September 16, 1968
Mr. PUCINSKI. Mr. Speaker, the New York Post recently carried an excellent article about Senator EDMUND S. MUSKIE'S mother, which gives us a deep insight into the inspiring qualities of the Senator himself.
I am very pleased today to place in the RECORD this excellent article about Mrs. Muskie, who, at 77, continues to show those charming qualities which have given her son a character worthy of the Vice Presidency of the United States.
The article by Sandor M. Polster follows:
WOMAN IN THE NEWS: SENATOR MUSKIE'S MOTHER – A VISIT THAT HAS LASTED 57 YEARS
(By Sandor M. Polster)
On the banks of the Androscoggin rests a town of 10,000 named Rumford. Not unlike most other Maine mill towns, it is a quiet, friendly place where people know their neighbors. Glance down the phone book and the names are the same as those in the town's cemeteries.
It's a paper-making town, with the Oxford Paper Co.– "the largest paper mill under one roof in the entire world" – the primary employer.
Fifty-seven years ago, Stephen Muskie of Buffalo, N.Y., brought his bride of two days to Rumford. He said it was to be their honeymoon. "He told me we'll go to Rumford and then go back to Buffalo," said Mrs. Muskie in an interview yesterday. "As you can see, I'm still here."
Stephen Muskie had married Josephine Czarnecki on Feb. 27, 1911, in Buffalo's St. Stanislaus Roman Catholic Church. Three years later, Edmund Sixtus Muskie, the second of six children, today the Vice Presidential candidate of the Democratic Party, arrived.
Mrs. Muskie was born in Buffalo on March 19, 1891, to Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Czarnecki, both Polish immigrants. She was the fourth child in a family of 11, of whom four others are still alive.
Until she was 12, Josephine Czarnecki attended a Catholic elementary school, then made her first Holy Communion, and set out to earn a living, as was the custom then. At 13, she was working in a tailor shop, remaining until she was 18, when she was married.
She had met Stephen Muskie when she was 15. "Mr. Muskie was boarding with a cousin of mine and he said he was looking for a girl friend. So my cousin brought him over to the house one Sunday and I guess he liked my looks. Three weeks later he sent me a letter saying that he was satisfied and hoped that I was and that I had made a good impression on him and asked to come visit me twice a week on Thursdays and Sundays.
"I said, 'Sure, we can always try it, and if we find that we don't like each other, we can always quit.’”
The courtship lasted three years. They met mostly at home "because there were no cars or modern things to do, except going for walks. But I didn't like that. Some days we were alone, but most of the time the whole family was around, and we had a good time talking."
At her wedding, Mrs. Muskie wore "a beautiful heavy satin gown made by my oldest sister, Lottie, I still have it."
Muskie, an immigrant from Poland whose native name was Marciszewski (it got changed at Ellis Island, the story goes) was a tailor in Buffalo and took his trade to Rumford. The family lived first in an apartment and then, as it grew, in a 2½ story frame house.
Mrs. Muskie said that after marriage she never worked – technically. She adds, laughing: "Mr. Muskie got two boarders. I didn't have a chance. He got them right away, and I didn't even know how to cook. I had to learn that with three men in the house along with putting together dinner pails. There was no extra pay."
She laughs again. "But I learned to cook from my husband. He was an excellent cook. I didn't even know how to sew. After we were married and I was expecting Irene, the oldest, Mr. Muskie said to me, 'Now look, I'm going to tell you one more thing. We can't afford store-bought clothes, so I'm going to buy you a sewing machine. You'll have to learn to sew.' I couldn't even read a pattern. But when you have to do something, you have to.''
The 57-year-old Singer sewing machine is still in use. It's nestled in a corner of Mrs. Muskie's pantry, where she makes aprons.
Mrs. Lucy Paradis, the third child, says of her mother: "She says sewing is like a medicine for her because it keeps her mind occupied. She sells her aprons. She doesn't get enough for them – just $1. We tell her she should get more, but she says, 'Oh, no, I just want to get a little back on them.' In the fall my mother makes apple jelly, but she doesn't sell that. And she mows the lawn when no one comes along."
Mrs. Muskie is 77. Her husband died in 1956. "The death was hard for her because she had never been to the banks, never paid a light bill," said Mrs. Paradis. "He always took care of her."
In addition, Mrs. Muskie is hard of hearing. "As long as I can remember," Mrs. Paradis added, "my mother always had trouble hearing. A lot of times, though, we figured that maybe she wasn't as hard of hearing as we thought because she often heard things we didn't want her to."
Mrs. Muskie: "I was an ugly duckling mother. I was cross and strict." Her daughters, Irene and Lucy, agree, "but we benefitted from the way she raised us," said Mrs. Irene Chaisson.
Mrs. Muskie has firm ideas about how to raise a family. "I definitely don't approve of working mothers. They definitely should be home taking care of their children. That's why there is so much bad going on. Nowadays girls are getting married and having babies – some of them – by the time they're 13. Children were better when I was younger because parents were stricter."
"She always used to believe that a woman's place should be in the home," said Mrs. Paradis. "She was very strict. She felt that we should be with her in our own yard, not with others. Sometimes I felt she was too strict. I think that maybe this influened Ed. She was shy and so was he. It surprised me when he was first Governor that she could go out and meet people the way she did."
And, with her son's nomination, there is again sudden fame.
Mrs. Muskie doesn't like all the publicity. "None of as do," said Mrs. Chaisson. "We're not accustomed to this sort of thing. And we're so afraid we'll say the wrong thing to hurt Ed." But when the family talked with him Thursday night, when he accepted the nomination, "he said not to worry about it, that we shouldn't worry," Mrs. Muskie said.
Since her husband's death 12 years ago, Mrs. Muskie has lived alone all but four years, when Mrs. Paradis and her family moved in. "Then the house got too small because I had four children. I think my mother is happier now in a way because children at her age make her nervous, and she likes to keep her house immaculate, and with children you can't do that."
If an immaculate house is what Mrs. Muskie wants, then that's what she has. It's a clean – in fact, spotless – house on a large tract of land, with a slight hill behind it. On the ground floor is the pantry, where Mrs. Muskie's aprons are created. And next to it is the kitchen, then the dining room and the living room. Three bedrooms and a bath are on the second floor, and an attic fills the third. The typical old New England house is filled with overstuffed chairs and a sofa, with crocheted doilies on each arm.
As Mrs. Muskie talked, she rocked in one of the three chairs she and her husband bought in Rumford 57 years ago. Other reminders of their first days are a round, walnut dining room set with leather seat chairs and a buffet. The walls are adorned with pictures, mostly those of her grandchildren. There are just a few of her son, Edmund.
Her hours are from 5:30 a.m. to 9:30 pm, and during that time Mrs. Muskie flits about the house so quickly that dust doesn't have time to settle. And there are her hobbies, the main one being "my home and my family." But there is also gardening. At one time, 15 years ago, she had a large flower garden behind the house on a high bank. It hasn't been touched for many years, and it has gone to weed. She still has her rose bushes out front, though.
"I can make anything grow. Anything would grow for me. I guess I had a green thumb. I used to raise poppies, sweet Williams, bachelor buttons – all the oldfashioned flowers." She laughs.
"People used to come practically every day to look at my flowers. I guess because they were too lazy to raise their own."
Mrs. Muskie is in excellent health. Two years ago she had a gall bladder operation. "At that time President and Mrs. Johnson sent her flowers in the hospital," said Mrs. Paradis. "I think everyone in the hospital was more excited about it than she was. During that time she had pneumonia, and we didn't know then, for a few days, if she would live. She's back, though, almost to her old self again."
Mrs. Muskie, a very devout woman, has been unable to attend church as regularly as she would like because of the operation. It's difficult for her to walk to church. But as a mother she tried to instill in her children a sense of religion.
"We always had to go to Sunday school," said Mrs. Paradis. "In fact, to this day she doesn't think we go to church enough. I know we should go more but we don't. In the last two years she has watched mass on television. At first it bothered her, but a priest asked her if she was more comfortable that way, and she said yes, so he told her she'd get just as much out of mass on television, and she said she got more out of it on television."
In Mrs. Muskie is the Yankee independence that runs through New England. Her humor is rewarding but wry, like her husband's was and as her son's is. She used to like to shelter her children and was protective to the point of preventing them from engaging in many activities – like swimming out beyond their waists, which probably accounts for most of her children being afraid of water.
Of her son, Edmund, she says: "He was so shy he would follow me around the house all the time. He was constantly reading books. He loved books. I guess that's why he knows so much today."
And when she speaks of her son, the Vice Presidential candidate, Mrs. Muskie beams with pride.
But, as the new candidate said in his acceptance speech Thursday: "And so my mother was asked by one reporter whether or not she expected to vote for me . . . She said, 'well, if no one offers anyone better, I suppose I will.' That's one vote I'm going to have to work for."
Whereupon Mrs. Muskie, straining to hear those words on television, snapped back: "You bet he will."