Irene Kazwara was born 90 years ago next month in a house on 117th Place in Roseland.
That was six years after the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, guaranteeing women the right to vote.
She voted for Franklin Roosevelt in her first election — and his last — in 1944. Irene’s 93-year-old sister, Sophie Peloquin, voted for FDR, too. And neither of them have missed a presidential vote since.
Both of them watched the Republicans choose Donald Trump two weeks ago, and I spoke to each of them Thursday, when Hillary Clinton was officially handed the Democratic nomination. Both conventions were must-see TV for the sisters.
“You really learn a lot,” Sophie said.
Irene lives now in Memphis, Mo., Sophie in Indianapolis. But they talk frequently.
“I think Sophie this time is more of a Republican,” Irene said. “So it’s interesting when we talk.”
Interesting. I might have guessed.
Aunt Irene and Aunt Sophie are my oldest living relatives, and such understatement of potentially divisive topics is typical of the Dmochowski sisters. My mom, who passed away in 2000, was the 10th of 11 children born to Frank and Anna Dmochowski, and one of eight sisters who survived into adulthood, filling my formative years with examples of strong Polish women who would much rather laugh than argue.
Aunt Sophie insisted she is neither Republican nor Democrat.
“I voted for quite a few Democrats — mostly Democrats,” she said. “But I didn’t say I was a Democrat. I’d never say that. I’ve always voted for the man — never for the party.”
Except this time, she can vote for a woman.
“I never thought I’d see it,” Aunt Sophie said.
“It really does mean something to me,” Aunt Irene said. “(Clinton) has a dream and wants to fulfill it — and the fact that she’s a woman made it harder for her.”
Aunt Irene knows whereof she speaks. A single woman most of her life, in her mid-20s, she worked for Sears, first out of Roseland, then the State Street location in the Loop.
“I did very well there,” she said. “I got a job mostly men got. I traveled for them, working in the credit department. I supervised the heads of the credit departments in the stores.
“The man who was my boss believed in what I could do, even though he had a hard time getting (male workers) to accept me. There was a man at the State Street store who gave me a hard time because I was a woman and could tell him what to do, and he didn’t like that.
“But, by the time he was ready to retire, we were good friends.”
After 15 years at Sears, Aunt Irene moved to Memphis, a town of about 2,000 in Northeast Missouri. She worked at JC Penney’s, as a bookkeeper for an oil company, moved to Kansas City to work for the IRS, and came back to Memphis, along the way briefly owning a diner and a Dairy Queen, and working as a saleswoman in a men’s clothing store.
Meanwhile, Aunt Sophie stayed close to her roots. She married a nice guy from Blue Island, stayed married to him for 60 years, and they moved together from Roseland to South Holland, then Lansing before moving to Indianapolis to be close to their grandsons. Aunt Sophie put in nearly 40 years — “39 and a half,” she said — at the Sherwin-Williams factory on 115th Street, at Pullman’s south edge. She left as an executive secretary.
“We had women who were better than their bosses,” she said, matter-of-factly, with zero bitterness. “They just didn’t get the chance.”
I asked what she remembered about the early days of women voting, when she was a child.
“What I can remember, the men would want to know who you were going to vote for,” she said. “If they didn’t like who you were for, they’d try to talk you out of it.”
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I suspect that’s more of the Dmochowski understatement.
This time around, Aunt Irene is clearly for Clinton.
“I don’t like Trump,” she said. “His thinking, I don’t like that at all. I don’t think he’d be good for the country.
“I don’t like the idea of building a wall. I think he’s conceited and he thinks he can do anything.”
As for Aunt Sophie, let’s just say she has trust issues with Hillary.
“I will say she’s a very smart woman — probably smarter than Trump,” she said. “But she’s been a politician all her life … I’m just not too sure about her.”
As for Trump, Aunt Sophie said, “Sometimes I think he’s a little crazy… But all he needs is a good (vice president). I think (Mike Pence) is a calm man and a very smart man — he’s a good complement to Trump.”
I might have tried to argue with Aunt Sophie. After all, I know Bill Clinton was one of her favorite presidents, and I’d have to imagine he’d have some input in Hillary’s inner circle. But I am a dutiful nephew, and she’d told me earlier, “You never win in an argument about politics.”
I guess I’m just glad the world has evolved enough to consider what I have always seen demonstrated (no offense to some pretty great uncles): Gender is not a determining factor when it comes to leadership.
I’m glad, especially, Aunt Irene has seen the evolution, too.
“I think my opportunities would be better now,” she said. “I think a woman could get in easier now. I didn’t have an easy time of it.
“But I just couldn’t see why a woman shouldn’t have a job if she was capable.”
Amen.
Phil Arvia is a freelance writer for the Daily Southtown.