“Something About the Eyes”
Helen Conforti was born in Chicago on February 9, 1922 to Polish immigrants – Wilhem Bujack and Mary Jagielski. Mary worked long, long hours sewing table pads in a factory, and Wilhem worked as “a splitter,” a job he had done from the age thirteen, which consisted of “splitting” hides for jackets, shoes, gloves, etc. Apparently he could tell just by feeling a hide what it would be good for. Helen says that she and her father were “buddies” and often went bowling or dancing together.
Helen attended high school until she was sixteen and then quit to work in a factory. There, she was befriended by a boy named Joey, who often persuaded Helen to come to his baseball games. One day he introduced her to some of the players, including his friend, Leo Kluczynski, the pitcher. It didn’t take Leo long to ask Helen out, and they quickly fell in love and married.
Soon after, however, Leo was drafted for the war. Helen was already pregnant with their first child and panicked at the thought of giving birth without Leo there. She pleaded with the draft board, who agreed to let Leo stay until the baby, Leo, Jr. was born. From there, Leo had to report to the navy and was stationed in Hawaii. Miraculously, he made it through the war unharmed, but on his way to pick up his discharge papers, he was tragically hit by a car and killed. Helen, only twenty-three, had just given birth to their second child, Kathleen, when the news came through.
Helen spent the next four years struggling to make it on her social security checks with two children and no job. Mary and Wilhem, who lived across the street, were able to offer some help, but one day, Mary decided to take matters into her own hands. She brought home a young man, Daniel Conforti, whom she worked with at the factory and introduced him to Helen. Apparently the two hit it off right away, and Daniel Conforti, just twenty-four at the time, came to see Helen more and more until he finally worked up the courage to propose. They were married soon after. Helen says they had “a happy life together,” and had six more children. Eventually Daniel became a purchasing agent for the University of Illinois Hospital, and Helen remained a housewife, which she says she loved.
Two tragic things happened to the Conforti’s, however, to mar their happiness – two of their children died. The first was their son, Michael, who died at age thirty-two in a fire. Helen says that he predicted it, saying to her that he “wouldn’t live to see thirty-three.” Then Kathleen, Helen’s second child with Leo, died when she was forty-five of spine cancer.
Kathleen’s death was perhaps the hardest for Helen to bear. She always had a special bond with Kathleen that she could never quite explain – “something in the eyes” is how Helen describes it. Perhaps it was that or that their bonding occurred at such a sad time in Helen’s life, Kathleen being born into the world just as Leo was leaving it. Kathleen was slow to learn to walk and talk and always had a myriad of health problems. Helen cried and grieved heavily during the last three years of Kathleen’s life as she battled her cancer.
Despite the sorrows Helen faced in her life, however, she has remained a positive, optimistic person – always up for a laugh and a joke. She describes herself as “happy-go-lucky” and has been frequently known to say “tomorrow is another day.” She enjoys her seventeen grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren immensely. Besides being a life-long member of the women’s club at St. Hedwig, she enjoys collecting dishes, gardening, baking and sewing (she always sewed all the kids’ clothes over the years.) When asked if she has done any traveling, her response was “just around the block.”
Recently, Helen says she has begun “losing her balance” and experiencing small strokes. She fell a few months ago and laid on the floor for four hours before Daniel found her. She is hoping to be able to go home, but, in her own optimistic character, says that if that is not possible, she will make the best of it and start a new life in the nursing home.
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