The first time Mary Anne Wirth walked into a rehearsal of the Taghkanic Chorale, she was looking for a place to sing.
She had spent years singing in choirs and wanted to return to something she loved. She knew the chorale by reputation, but joining meant walking into a room full of people who she didn’t know — and she wasn’t sure what she was getting herself into.
What she could have never expected is to find family.
During a break at the first rehearsal last September at Yorktown’s First Presbyterian Church, Theresa “Terri” Wilkowski, a member of the chorale’s board, approached Wirth to welcome her to the group.
Wilkowski was simply making an effort to welcome a new singer.
When Wilkowski introduced herself, Wirth recalled looking at her face and responding “you look so familiar.”
Then she noticed Wilkowski’s last name. It was Polish, as was Wirth’s mother’s family name, and Wirth wondered whether the two might have attended the same Polish church in Yonkers, St. Casimir’s.
She asked Wilkowski if she had gone there and learned that she had. Wirth then asked whether Wilkowski was her married name. When Wilkowski said it was, Wirth asked for her maiden name.
Wilkowski told her it was Drenga.
Wirth recognized the name.
“Our mothers were cousins,” Wirth told Wilkowski that day. “I know who you are.”
The realization stunned both women. Wirth had no idea who Wilkowski was when Wilkowski first approached her, while Wilkowski was simply being her kind, cheery self as she said “welcome.”
“There's something so primal about family and there's nothing like it,” Wirth said said in an interview at her home in late July.
There was a sense of family popping over that evening — Wilkowski brought treats from Paris Baguette and Wirth made raspberry tea.
“That person just isn't a stranger,” Wirth said. “That person is blood and you just feel a sense of instant comfort.”
Wirth hugged Wilkowski the first day she met her.
There was something so familiar.
“Then she blew my mind by saying, ‘I recognized you from your face. It hasn't changed since you were a little girl,’” Wilkowski recalled.
The two women had, in fact, seen each other before — decades earlier, when they were children growing up in Yonkers. Their grandmothers were sisters, meaning Wirth and Wilkowski share the same great-grandmother.
The memory dates to about 1961, when the two attended a family celebration at a Polish center in Yonkers. Wirth was about 8 years old and Wilkowski was about 5.
Wirth remembers sitting with her family and watching a little girl in a blue dress dance in the middle of the floor under a spotlight. She remembers the dance as gentle and likely a Polish polka, and remembers being struck by how sweetly the little girl danced.
That little girl was Wilkowski, who had later confirmed to Wirth that she did wear that blue dress.
The memory stayed with Wirth for decades.
“I could see it so clearly,” she said. “I remember I was sitting with my parents, and there was this beautiful little girl, and she had a blue dress on.”
They crossed paths again several years later at the wake of Wilkowski’s mother, who died in 1969 at 42. Wilkowski was 12 and Wirth was 15.
That was the last time Wirth said they saw one another.
Wirth, who said her own mother was one of five children and her father was one of 10, had so many first cousins. Wilkowski, who has younger twin brothers and two older sisters, acknowledged that, as young children, “we really didn't have a lot of contact with people outside of our immediate family.”
Wirth, 73, has lived in Yorktown for 38 years. She has never married and does not have children. She graduated from Fordham Law School and is the General Counsel for the Capuchin Franciscans for The Province of St. Mary.
Wilkowski, 70, has lived in Yorktown for 47 years. She raised two sons, both of whom went through the Lakeland Central School District, and has two granddaughters. She has been singing with the adult choir at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church for more than 40 years and earned an Educational Doctorate from St. John’s University. She worked in Lakeland as a teacher and administrator for 30 years, ending her career as the Director of Curriculum of English Language Arts.
The two women both have June birthdays.
For years, their lives had run parallel.
Wilkowski said they have lived within five miles of one another for years, and Wirth chimed in that they have “probably tripped over each other in the grocery store a million times—in the library and all those places that you go in common.”
That is part of what makes the circumstances of their reunion so striking. The Taghkanic Chorale draws members from across the region, not simply from Yorktown, where the group currently practices.
Wirth had sung with the Maryknoll choir for about a decade. After the choir disbanded during the COVID-19 pandemic, she began looking for another opportunity to sing. She later sang with a church choir before finally giving the Taghkanic Chorale a try.
That day last September, Wirth was coming from her house in Massachusetts and realized she was running late and not exactly rehearsal-ready. She pulled into FDR Park to change clothes, put in her contact lenses and brush her hair before heading across the street for rehearsal.
The decision turned out to be one of the best things she had done.
Wirth now knows where Wilkowski sits, and Wilkowski looks for Wirth when she arrives.
For both women, the reunion has brought nostalgia, curiosity and a renewed interest in their family’s past. They want to learn more about the relatives they share, including family members who remained in Poland.
Wilkowski said the message of this “aha” moment and chance encounter is a wider message about connection, the power of family, love and community.
“It used to be a come-on line — ‘I think I know you from somewhere,’” Wilkowski said. “sometimes that's all it takes to create a new or renew friendship ... having the bravery to put yourself out there.”
The two women still have much to catch up on, but now they have a place to start. As the Taghkanic Chorale begins its season Sept. 8, with the first rehearsal beginning at 7 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church, they will continue to build that connection — brought together by a deep love of music that, unexpectedly, led them back to family.
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here