Former LaBelle man receives high school diploma 54 years later
Richard Gates, Brownsville Area High School principal, presents a diploma to Edward J. Kwasny, who had waited 54 years for the moment. Kwasny said his biggest wish is to get the message out to young people about how important education is these days. “It is extremely important to get that education. If I could only tell the young people about the obstacles I faced. If I could show them the distance I had to go, the obstacles I would have eliminated had I stayed the course,” he said. A former LaBelle man returned to Brownsville to receive the high school diploma he should have received in 1950 if he hadn’t left school to help out his family during hard times.
“Back in those days if you came from poor folk it seemed almost mandated that you get out, get a job and help mamma,” said Edward Kwasny, 72, of Westlake, Ohio.
Kwasny was 11 when his father, John Kwasny, was killed at the age of 52 after a vehicle struck him as he walked home from a local bar after having a couple of beers following a hard days work at the Maxwell coal mine. The accident left his mother, Caroline Komperda Kwasny, alone to raise 13 children.
“We (Kwasny and his older brothers) had to get out and help take care of the rest of the children growing up behind us,” said Kwasny, who retired as a sales manager for a trucking company in Ohio in 1996.
Kwasny was a middle child, with five siblings behind him. He had seven brothers and six sisters. He left school in the 10th grade and began looking for a job at the age of 15.
Kwasny’s first job was at the Homestead Steel Plant, where he worked the midnight shift with his brother.
“I couldn’t handle that. They let me go because I fell asleep one night,” he said.
His next job was as an apprentice mechanic at a friend’s garage.
“That didn’t work too well, so I joined the service,” Kwasny said.
Kwasny served in the U.S. Navy from 1949-1954, during the Korean War, on the USS Harlan R. Dickson (DD-708). His older brother, the late John Kwasny of LaBelle, also served on that ship with him.
It was on that ship that Kwasny earned his GED. He tried to get his high school diploma back then, but had a couple of things he needed to complete, so he didn’t get it.
Kwasny went on earn an associates degree in business administration, but receiving his high school diploma was still important to him.
He said it wasn’t too long ago that he was watching television and saw a 72-year-old man who left high school to join the armed services receive his diploma.
“I saw this and thought, ‘wait a second, Brownsville owes me one of those,'” he said.
So Kwasny called the Brownsville Area School District and asked what he needed to do to get his diploma. He was told all he had to do was come and pick it up, and Kwasny was more than happy to comply. He and his wife, Lillian Lutes Kwasny formerly of Granville, near California, came back home to pick up the piece of paper that will make him proud.
“I want to see what if feels like (to receive your high school diploma), even at this age,” Kwasny said.
Kwasny’s three children, Edward, Barry and Susan, and his six grandchildren ranging from ages 11 to 25 also traveled from the Ohio area to attend their father’s high school graduation ceremony at Redstone Field. Kwasny’s brother, Stanley Kwasny and his wife Gail, also attended.
“I sent them a personal letter and told them, ‘I don’t want anything cheap. I want very big presents,'” he joked.
But Kwasny said his biggest wish is to get the message out to young people about how important education is these days.
“It is extremely important to get that education. If I could only tell the young people about the obstacles I faced. If I could show them the distance I had to go, the obstacles I would have eliminated had I stayed the course,” he said.
Kwasny said leaving school at 15 years old made it very hard for him to get good work. He said people didn’t want to hire him because he was young and inexperienced, so he had to rely on relatives or friends to get him a job. Then when he reached adulthood, married and started a family, he said, times were even harder. He needed an education to make decent money, but then he had a family to take care of and children to raise.
Kwasny said he ended up working two jobs to pay for college and “to make ends meet,” while his wife, “had to raise the family.”
“Looking back I wonder, ‘how did I do that,’ but we got it done; somehow you find a way,” he said. “But the road I walked was not easy. It was not easy to get the education I needed in the job market. It was very tough and I don’t recommend to any young person contemplating entering the workforce to do that without an education. I just want to tell kids, ‘don’t drop out of school, it’s a rough road, with many obstacles and it’s much easier to do the natural way, with an education.'”