Brzonkala, John W.

Rev. John W. Brzonkala (Brzakala)
Photograph courtesy of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee Archives

First time Brzonkala was adopted in the U. S.
John W. Brzonkala was born on December 3, 1886, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the son of Anton E. Brzakala, a tanner, and Katherine, with whom he raised eight of ten children in two worlds. When the family came from the German partition of Poland, Anton in 1881 and Katherine in 1882, they joined St. Stanislaus, the first Polish Catholic church in Milwaukee, and shortly after St. Josaphat was built in 1888, or rebuilt in 1889, the Brzakala family moved in order to send their children to the best Polish grammar school in the city. By the time the young Brzakala was ready for mind bongling subjects, the Rev. Wilhelm Grutza, the founder of St. Josaphat's parish, established the Normal School, as it was called, the first academy of its kind in Wisconsin, with a three year course of study. Upon graduation from the Polish academy, John Brzakala was sent in September of 1901 to St. Francis Seminary, then outside the Milwaukee city limits but now within it, to study for the priesthood. He was ordained on March 10, 1912, by Archbishop Sebastian G. Messmer of Milwaukee.
After his first Mass at St. Josaphat, he served successively as assistant at St. Patrick's, Beaver Dam, St. Patrick's, Elkhorn, St. Stanislaus, Milwaukee, St. Vincent de Paul's, Milwaukee. and SS. Cyril & Methodius, Milwaukee. In one of these parishes, probably because the first "a," with a hook under it, sounded too much like "on," he changed his last name to Brzonkala while the rest of the family continued with Brzakala, which means one who makes jingling or clicking sounds. On February 3, 1923, he was sent from the city to the outer reaches of Milwaukee County, to assume the challenging position of pastor of St. Paul's Church in the town of Lake, which later changed its name to St. Francis because of the seminary of the same name there. In four years, he increased the membership of the parish from 48 to 140 families, erected a school and a parish hall, both in the same building.
Before he could wipe out the debt of the parish, he was assigned to St. Michael's parish on November 9, 1926, in Beaver Dam, a city of 9,867 persons in Dodge County, Wisconsin. The population of Beaver Dam dropped in the 1930s when one factory after another went on strike. The families of Beaver Dam lost almost half a million dollars in wages in 1934 when the owner of a hosiery mill refused to recognize the union of his workers and closed the mill. In 1939, when Father Brzonkala left Beaver Dam, the children of Polish farmers in the surrounding townships outnumbered the other children in St. Michael's school.
On October 9, 1939, after the death of the Rev. Paul Chrzan, he was named the pastor of the 33-year-old St. John Kanty Church in Milwaukee. The Notre Dame Sisters used part of the building for school purposes. Because the brick walls of the three-story building buckled in places and plaster fell off the ceiling, the city building inspector wanted to condemn the building and have the parish build a new church and school. Father Brzonkala, however, found a way to save the building. It cost him $4,000 to reinforce the walls by tie-rods and replace the fallen plaster with beaver boards. It meant that he saved a lot of money for many repairs and improvements, and when he left to take over St. Helen's parish on May 14, 1952, the parish had $180,000 to build a new church.
Like the other Polish parishes across the country, the St. Helen congregation had a lot of veterans who had served in the armed services during the Second World War; 421 graduates of St. Helen's were in the uniform and 19 did not come back. Father Brzonkala was always at their service and was honorary life chaplain, George Washington Post, the American Legion. He was chaplain of the Polish Association of America. He died of heart failure in St. Francis Hospital, August 2, 1961, and was buried in St. Adalbert's Cemetery, Milwaukee.

Author: Edward Pinkowski, Pinkowski Institute, 2006

Brzonkala, Rev. John
Roman Catholic priest. National chaplain of the Polish Association of America, a fraternal organization with headquarters in Milwaukee, Wis. Former pastor of St. Michael's parish, Beaver Dam, Wis. At present pastor of St. John Kanty's parish, Milwaukee, Wis.
Residence: 966 W. Dakota St., Milwaukee, Wis.
From: "Who's Who in Polish America" by Rev. Francis Bolek, Editor-in-Chief; Harbinger House, New York, 1943