Polish culture celebrated on Dyngus Day

Polish culture celebrated on Dyngus Day

Photos by Tom Rivers

MEDINA – Polish culture was celebrated on Monday with Dyngus Day parties throughout Western New York, including one at the Sacred Heart Club in Medina. In the top photo, Lyndsay Oliver-Farewell of Medina and her daughter Kendall wait for their turn to eat at the celebration.

Lyndsay has been coming to the annual Dyngus Day party for about 20 years.

Mike Hartway gets pierogis ready for the crowd of nearly 200 people, the biggest turnout in years for Dyngus Day. The Sacred Heart Club served up lots of Polish food.

Kathy Hartway checks on sweet and sour cabbage, left, and “Poor Man’s Pierogis.” About a dozen people did prep work on Saturday for the big meal, with eight people devoted in the kitchen on Monday.

Stuffed cabbage was a hit with the crowd on Monday.

Carrie Smith of Waterport holds pussywillows, which are popular on Dyngus Day as an early budding plant. In Dyngus Day tradition, boys would chase girls and flirt with them by touching their legs with twigs or pussywillows.

Lorraine Bukiewicz was crowned as queen for Dyngus Day. She is pictured with children, from left: Mike Bukiewicz, Barb Bukiewicz, John Bukiewicz and Ellen Goheen.

Lorraine met her husband, Leo, at the jukebox at the Sacred Heart Club in the early 1940s. The couple raised 10 children at a home three houses from the Sacred Heart Club.

“It was a nice surpirse,” Lorraine, 91, said about being crowned queen.