Edward and Marianne
Ulanowicz
Edward came into the world in 1920 upstairs of the family grocery store on the corner of Bank and Maderia Streets in East Baltimore. He was the youngest of 4 children born to Stanislaus and Michalena Ulanowicz. Older siblings are sisters Helena and Wanda and brother Emil. Ed attended St. Patrick's elementary school and went to high school at the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. In 1939 he began work at the Glenn L. Martin Company, working over the years at a wide variety of skilled crafts, such as riveting, pattern making, and sheet metal.
Marianne was born in 1922 at home on Fleet Street in East Baltimore, the second of four surviving children (out of 11) of Thomas and Isabel Bielat. Her older sister, Cecelia and her younger, Veronica, are both widowed and live in Baltimore. Brother Adam passed away in 1985. The children lost their mother in 1932 when Mary was only 10 years old. Mary attended St. Stanislaus Kostka elementary school and Eastern High on North Avenue. Before marrying, she worked at a shoe factory and as a receptionist for the New Deal Optical Company.
Ed and Mary grew up less than a block apart on Bank Street. They were engaged on January 30, 1942 and married on July 25 of the same year in St. Stanislaus Kostka church on Aliceanne and Anne Streets. At the time Ed was a supervisor at Martin's and Mary was working in a pants factory. They rented their first house on Shiphouse Terrace in Raspburg, an eastern neighborhood in Baltimore. The house was reputed to be haunted. Fourteen months into their marrriage, son Robert was born, and the small family moved to an apartment on Patterson Park Avenue.
Things were a bit crowded in the apartment, and the couple set about literally making a home for themselves. Ed had accumulated a number of building skills through his handiwork at Martin's and was able to convince a local bank that he could manage the building of their own house. They obtained one of the first loans made in Baltimore to self- contractors and bought a lot on the former Westmoreland Fruit Farms in what was then considered the remote suburb of Parkville. For roughly three years Ed and Mary worked evenings side- by- side, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter style, constructing their own house. The only jobs they contracted out were the bricklaying and plastering. They moved in on February 28, 1948 and gradually finished off the interior over the next several years.
February of 1951 brought the birth of their daughter, Nancy. In March of that year Mary's grandmother (also Marianne), who had raised her since the death of her Mother, passed away. June saw another sad event as Ed's Father died of tuberculosis at the State Sanitorium in Sabillasville, Maryland.
The management at Martin's had taken note of Ed's mechanical aptitudes, and offered to train him as a Field Service Representative for the high- altitude, B-57B medium bomber (the American version of the British Canberra.) In March of 1955 he was posted to advise the Warner Robins Air Materiel Area at Robins AFB in central Georgia. He worked in close association with the Air Force test pilots at Robins, and came home with many colorful stories about their exploits and stunts -- all of which made indelible impressions on young Bob and Nancy (both now pilots themselves.) It was in Georgia that Ed took over as Scoutmaster of local Troop 58, and he remained as an adult leader in scouting with Troop 740 for three years after his return to Baltimore.
Mary had been in frail health for twenty years prior to 1958, when her problems were finally diagnosed as advanced kidney stones and chronic nephritis. She was admitted to the Brady Clinic of the Johns Hopkins Hospital (named after the famous Diamond Jim, who endowed the Center), where she underwent two major kidney operations that employed surgical techniques that were still in the experimental stage. Thanks to the expertise of the late Dr. John Haines, his capable staff at Brady, and a multitude of heartfelt prayers, Mary made a slow recovery from death's door.
The early 60's saw a depression in the defense industry, and after a couple of furloughs, Ed decided it was time to seek more stable employment. His manual talents were perfect qualifications to teach the vocational trades, and after some supplementary schooling, he became an instructor in vocational education at the Sparrows Point High School in Southeastern Baltimore County in 1963. His specialty was the building trades, and he developed one of the first vocational homebuilding programs in the country. Through the program homes were built inside the school's vocational work area, disassembled into modular parts, and reassembled on a site provided by a buyer, who reimbursed the school for the cost of materials plus a small fee that went back into the program's revolving building fund.
In 1967 Mary also completed her supplemental schooling and joined Ed as a substitute teacher at Sparrows Point. Ed's Mother, Michalena passed away in August of the same year.
Ed's success with the vocational building program was attracting much attention as a model for other schools to emulate. In 1970, the Nu Chapter of Iota Lambda Sigma, the national honorary fraternity for teachers of vocational skills awarded Ed their Distinguished Professional Award. In 1974 he accepted the position of Job Development Coordinator at Baltimore County's Southeastern Vocational Technical School. The job market was down, however, and student placements became difficult to find. Ed thus opted for teaching vocational skills to Special Education students at the Hebbville School in 1976 and moved in the same capacity to Maiden Choice in 1982.
For her part, Mary was gaining in popularity as a substitute teacher, both with her fellows teachers, who kept her working on a daily basis, as well as with her students, who discovered she had a sympathetic ear for their problems. In 1972 she moved to a school closer to home, Loch Raven Senior High, where her students included the sons and daughters of Baltimore sports celebrities, such as Brooks Robinson. Her last stint was spent at Parkville Senior High, beginning in 1983.
Mary's Father, Thomas, was the last parent to pass away in November of 1985.
Ed and Mary retired together on Halloween Day, 1986, and a couple of weeks later a retirement party was held in their honor at Martin's West. In retirement Ed and Mary became self- styled "Mallaholics", venturing to a different mall almost each day of the week. They are devoted customers at Towson's Horn and Horn Smorgasbord, where they have established a circle of friends among the restaurant's other regulars.
The couple celebrated their Golden Anniversary at Martin's Eudowood on July 25, 1992, almost 50 years to the hour after the original event. At the time Ed expressed his desire to travel some day to Cuba. Political conditions have not allowed this venture, but he and Mary did cruise the Caribbean in December of 1994.
The long- dormant consequences of Mary's kidney operations began to surface again in recent years, and she had to go on peritoneal dialysis in September, 1996. Her health began to decline, gradually at first, and then more rapidly, until she passed away from kidney failure on March 18, 1999 at Genesis Eldercare, just three blocks from home. A Mass of Ressurection was said for her at Immaculate Heart of Mary church on March 22 and she was buried with abundant love in Moreland Park Cemetery.
Son Robert married Marie Chmilewsky in July, 1967 at St Michael's Ukrainian Catholic Church. After obtaining degrees in chemical engineering from the Johns Hopkins, Bob decided to change fields, and now works as a theoretical ecologist as the University of Maryland's Chesapeake Biological Laboratory in Southern Maryland. The couple have provided Ed and Mary with three grandchildren, Anastasia (1975), Peter (1979) and Vera (1985).
Daughter Nancy completed medical school at the University of Maryland and married classmate Robert Konkol at the Loyola College Chapel in June, 1977. She is currently the Chief of Pathology at the Calvert Memorial Hospital in Prince Frederick.