By Lillian Mulligan, January 25, 2020 — [My name is] Lillian Julia Koonz Hasse Mulligan. Born October 5, 1938 in Philadelphia. My mother’s name was Mary Markiewicz though everyone called her “Blanche.” My father was John Edward Koonz, and was known as “Buck.” I was named after my father’s mother. She was Lillian Seither. My father’s father was Clarence Eugene Koonz. My mother’s mother was Julia Shemanski and my mother’s father was Adam Markiewicz. They both really showed me the importance of having a sense of humor and laughing at yourself…I remember one time she used shaving cream as toothpaste. We laughed for hours.
My grandmother and grandfather lived in Camden. They had traveled there from Poland, arriving in this new country right at the Camden shipyard. My grandmother came over with relatives and went to a boarding house. She learned to cook really well there, she knew how to make great Polish kielbasa. We would get live chickens from the butcher, take the head and the feathers off… it was a vivid memory. And she used to make the best polish bread. When she made soup it was like a bottomless pot…the hospitality and generosity that was shown by my grandparents was incredible. Even though they didn’t have a lot of money themselves, they couldn’t wait for someone to come in the house. Everyone felt like an extended family. Oh! And my grandmother had all six kids right in her bedroom, with no hospital! Can you believe it?
I grew up on 856 South 55th Street in Philadelphia. We lived in an apartment over a barbershop until I was 12 years old. I shared a bedroom with my brother John. We had a fire escape in the back and wide sidewalk in the front. There was a long block of stores on our street, it was like its own village and could supply most of our needs. Across from us was a Bon Bakery, they would bake the bread in the middle of the night, so all my life I remember hearing these metal pans going “bing, bang” and could smell the baking of the bread. There was a luncheonette where I worked during the summer. I only got paid $5 a week for washing dishes. But that could go a lot further then. I used to make a banana split with all of the fixings that I wanted. And of course, the luncheonette had a jukebox with all of the ’50s music.
I moved into a rowhouse two blocks away when I went to junior high. Grandpop started Koonz Real Estate from scratch right on the corner between his apartment and our house. So my grandparents were always close by. But first Grandpop started at a family farm in upstate New York with apple orchards. Then he began working in Woolworth’s, and that’s where he met Grandmom. They worked for a newspaper company and drove back and forth to Atlantic City, to make extra money. After that was when they invested in buying properties until they owned quite a few houses and a number of storefronts with apartments on top. It became Koonz Real Estate.
My dad acquired a small warehouse and he and his friends turned it into a weightlifting club in the middle of the block. He was an Olympic-style weightlifter. He and my mom were all about health and nutrition even before it was a thing! They were ahead of everyone else! Some members of his gym became like our family. One dear member had no family and when he became very ill, he put my mom and dad in his will. And when he died —very sadly — they inherited the money, which allowed them to put a deposit on the house in Cherry Hill. And we were able to have that place to move into with them when [my husband] died. I am always so thankful for that.
