The Pustelny Hamilton
Given By United States Steel to Joseph Pustelny, June 1952
Hamilton Watch Co., Keith, 14K, 982M movement
Movement serial 830611
A. G. N. - D. Dial
Watch No. M-180243
Case No. J-269034
On watch:
United States Steel
Honors
Joseph Pustelny
for his 50 years of loyal
and faithful service
June 1952
Several years ago, my wife decided to give me a nice 14K dress watch. She found a Hamilton “Keith,” still in its inner plastic and outer cardboard boxes. It wasn’t running (broken mainspring, which meant I had to repair it before she could officially give me the watch).
The watch turned out to be a presentation watch, given by United States Steel to one of their employees for fifty years of service. The inscription reads
United States Steel
Honors
Joseph Pustelny
for his 50 years of loyal
and faithful service
June 1952
That was enough to get me searching. Pustelny isn’t a common name, even in communities with a large Polish population. And I seem to have found the man, or rather both the man and one of his sons.
According to burial records and church notices, the Pustelny family lived in Braddock, Pennsylvania, where they were active in Sacred Heart Catholic Church, a primarily Polish parish. Joseph Pustelny was born May 15, 1886, so he was about 66 years old when he received the watch. He lived until October 1967, having some fifteen years to enjoy his watch. His wife, Apolonia (Pauline) was born in 1890 and lived until 1970. Joseph and Pauline had at least two sons, Michael, who was born in 1917 and died in 1942, and Joseph W. (Joe), who lived from 1922 until 2009. Michael died, along with 686 others, in the sinking of the USS Juneau (CL-52) at Guadalcanal on November 13, 1942. Years later Joe dedicated a memorial to his parents and brother at Sacred Heart.
Those are dry records, culled from several sources. They are almost as plain as what is imprinted on the outer box that contains the watch:
982M
Keith
830611
14K Gold
A. G. N. - D. Dial
Watch No. M-180243
Case No. J-269034
Joseph Pustelny
Facts. The sort of facts that we who collect watches pay attention to. But they don’t give us a picture of the people who wore the watches.
When I was preparing to write up this watch, I went back to the search engines and found something that hadn’t been there earlier. Google Books had put up some portions of a a book by Steve Mellon, After the Smoke Clears, which tells some of the stories of towns like Braddock, struggling after the demise of the steel industry. In the narrative about Joseph Szwarc, a Polish barber who was dying, we get a picture of Joe Pustelny and his companions, lamenting their friend who would never again give them haircuts.
[I]n the dim light of the Polish Club, a short, seventy-five-year-old man named Joe Pustelny sat on a bar stool, sipped a glass of whiskey, and tugged on the few strands of white hair that crept down the back of his neck. “I look like a hippie,” he said, “Hippie Joe.”
At the bunkerlike Polish Club on the 800 block of Talbot, Pustelny and a few other regulars watched a “Bonanaza” rerun on a small television hanging in the corner of the bar. The town was full of men whose hair was longer than it had been in years, Pustelny said. “Did I tell you about my buddy? The one who cuts my hair?” he asked. His normally jovial voice dropped to almost a whisper. “He’s not doing too well.” (p. 45)
And there I see a bit of the humanity of the man who must have inherited his father’s fifty-year watch.
Joe lived another dozen years after that scene. Did he wear the watch? I don’t know. Someone took good care of it, because the watch and boxes are in excellent condition. But someone did wear it, because the band I found on the watch was very tired. It wasn’t a Hamilton band, so it was probably a replacement.
I would surmise that Joe kept his father’s watch. Whoever closed out his estate probably just saw an old mechanical watch that wouldn’t run and so put it out to auction. It appeared in an auction that ended on June 3, 2009, just over three months after Joe’s death. Now it has a new mainspring and a new band. It comes out sometimes on special occasions, and I think of Joseph and Joe, who wore it before me.
Joe’s obituary: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/postgazette/obituary.aspx?n=joseph-w-pustelny&pid=124329383
Steve Mellon, After the Smoke Clears: Struggling to get by in Rustbelt America, University of Pittsburgh Press, Mar 22, 2006
