Aniela Dorosz’s daughter, whose mother celebrated her 101st birthday in February, says that life in the East and simple, healthy food made her resilient. The Dorosz family came to our area from the Bieszczady Mountains in 1945. “We travelled in a railway wagon like Pawlak and Kargul, with all our belongings,” her daughter recalls. “The journey lasted a month and a half. My mother and father, my four siblings and I settled in Nowa Wieś Grodziska. Mother can no longer take care of the farm; she now lives with me in Bolesławiec.”
Aniela Dorosz spent her entire life in the countryside and working the land. She was the lady of the estate. She tended a large garden. She was widowed early; her husband died at the age of 54. They had eight children together. She raised them all strictly, with discipline and without pampering, although she loved them all immensely. Above all, she taught them how to survive the most difficult moments in life. “I do not regret that I was not raised without stress and that I had to earn everything,” Aniela’s daughter recalls. “Thanks to the upbringing my parents gave me and my mother’s example, I always managed. I was prepared to survive.
Aniela Dorosz celebrated her 101st birthday with her children, 18 grandchildren, 21 great-grandchildren and four great-great-grandchildren. The birthday girl is in excellent health and has an appetite “like a peasant after mowing,” as her children put it. Eleven years ago, she was diagnosed with malignant stomach cancer. She faced either death from starvation because her body could not accept food, or the risk of not waking from a coma after surgery. The family decided to have the ninety-year-old undergo surgery. After the stomach resection, doctors gave the woman six months to live.
She is still alive today. She is cheerful and capable, but she no longer belongs to the present. In her memory, she returns to her childhood, to the East and to her parents. She forgets what happened yesterday, but remembers the time when she was nine and held her father by the legs, begging him not to leave for the war. She recalls her grandmother and lists the extent of her wealth: how many servants she had, how many horses and how many carriages. After a night’s sleep, she wakes up confused and asks her daughter who she is. At first, she mistakes her for a stranger. It takes her several minutes to remember that she is her child. She does not want her to leave the house. She longs for her presence and can still scold her for talking too much with friends on the phone, just like a mother. She misses her farm. She would still go out to the fields, tend the garden, sow the crops and harvest them.
(information by Grażyna Hanaf)