A Queer Reading of the Life of Ted Colchiski

By: Alexander Colchiski

February 27, 2022

The boy smiles as he puts his right arm around his older sister. His left index finger and thumb are put into his pocket so his hand can comfortably hang on his trousers. His trousers, probably new, as he has no older brothers to pass down their clothing, hang to his knees. His dark socks rise to meet his trousers. His older sister, Lona, embraces him on the shoulder with her left hand, her other hand in her long jacket pocket. Her jacket and bright white socks are, too, a common outfit for a teenage girl of 1920s America. The sibling chemistry between the two at a young age is apparent, each smiling and accepting of each other’s company.[1] They come from a Polish family that had immigrated more than twenty years before the photo of the two was taken. Their father, Mieczyslaw, worked as a laborer for a railroad in New Castle, a booming industrial town in western Pennsylvania. Steel plants and mines in western Pennsylvania made it possible for many immigrant families to begin their journey toward the American Dream. The photo reveals that Mieczyslaw was indeed fulfilling his version of the American Dream. As new industrial jobs entered into New Castle so too did shops and strip malls where the latest fashion items could be bought. The boy, Ted, and Lona are dressed well in the latest fashion for boys and girls clothing of the era.

Lona sports a bright colored dress under her jacket, and Ted’s entire outfit is dark, common among white, working and middle-class American children of the 1920s. Nothing about their appearance suggests that they desire to rebel against the commonly held gender norms. Perhaps, even if they desired to dress differently, they may not have had the option. Their mother, Mary, is their costume designer, they are the performers of their gender expression. Their costumes, however, can tell a story of the way in which the children of immigrants were better off than their ancestorial counterparts in Eastern Europe, even with the Great Depression on the horizon. Ted’s clothing differs greatly from Polish children living in Europe. For example, because of the extreme poverty of Eastern Europe, Polish boys did not wear shoes and shorts were commonplace.[2] Ted’s outfit therefore signifies the small amount of wealth his father had built in the United States. New Castle, a hub of steel and mining, was struck hard during the economic downturn which caused plants to close, and thousands of men were left unemployed. Mieczyslaw may have been one of the lucky men to keep his job during the Great Depression because he worked for the railroad as a laborer, and not in steel or mining.[3] This possibly led to the family having the money to buy Ted nice suits, another common item for a young, white American man. These early familial roles—Mary as the homemaker, Mieczyslaw as the hard-willed laborer, and the children assigned to their appropriate gender roles—exemplify society’s hardline binary view of gender norms and, by extension, the heteronormativity of that time. As we will see, despite these early gender teachings and heteronormative household, Ted lived a life which consistently challenged these customary binary roles to become a man who was true to himself above all else.

Seven years after Ted and Lona posed for the aforementioned photo, Ted appears in a portrait in which he is incredibly well dressed.[4] The photo was taken in approximately 1933 or 1934 when he graduated high school. In the photo, Ted wears a three-piece suit, and his hair is nicely combed and parted on one side. It appears in the photo that Ted is performing the masculinity that was expected of men in the 1930s. It was soon after this photo was taken that Ted decided to begin the process to attend the United States Military Academy at West Point. The Academy is one of the most prestigious schools in the United States, and is one path to become an officer in the United States Army. The process to attend the school, still to this day, is that a government agent must be a sponsor for a young person wishing to attend the Academy. As such, Ted wrote to Representative Charles Eckert of the 26th district of Pennsylvania seeking sponsorship. Although there are no surviving letters from Ted to Representative Eckert, we can still examine the implications this request had regarding Ted’s masculinity. As a heteronormative standard, males in society are not encouraged to ask for help as they are meant to be strong, while women in a heteronormative context are weaker and should be the ones asking for a man’s help. Ted’s lack of hesitancy in seeking the help of Representative Eckert challenges this ideal.

It should be noted that Ted’s request was likely one of eloquent speech and passion as evidenced by the number of responses he received from Representative Eckert. Ted received at least three letters from Eckert that moved Ted along in the selection process. This is important to Ted’s story of waywardness because it was uncommon for young men at that time to attempt to attend the Academy, or join the military more generally.

After World War I, the United States drastically downsized the military, and young men joining the military was uncommon. Especially during the Great Depression, the military was small in size, thus the number of young men using the military as way to escape the faltering economies of their hometowns would have been incredibly small. In fact, “the Great Depression had the immediate effect of cuts in appropriations and pay that further reduced the readiness of Army units for military service.”[5] Given that the masculine role of men at this time was to provide for their families and be a breadwinner, Ted’s action of taking a low paying position in the military stepped outside of this norm. In other words, Ted joining the Army, and going through the selection process of the Academy, would not only have put him at odds with his peers but signifies that he was exceptional. There are two things about Ted’s early military career that demonstrates his exceptional behavior, especially for a young man in the military: the Knox Medal and his promotion to commissioned officer. In 1938, Ted was awarded the Knox Medal, a medal for “exceptional ability, a high sense of duty, and […] of the highest character.”[6] Being awarded this medal was an incredibly high achievement for someone of such low military rank, meaning it was unusual. The second unusual thing that happened to Ted was his promotion to officer in 1940. While Ted did have connections to achieve such a feat, it was nonetheless abnormal for him to receive the promotion in the way he did. Under normal circumstances, a person must have received a bachelor’s degree before being admitted into the armed services as an officer. Ted, however, had not attended university before accepting the promotion. Thus far, I have illuminated Ted’s unusual behavior in joining the Army and the uncommon circumstances of his early military service, but where Ted’s queerness is most obvious is his relationship with his wife, Amelia.

Men, especially military men, behaved in ways such as rough language, getting dirty, and expecting sexual gratification from women. Ted, on the other hand, was none of those. He wrote to Amelia in eloquent language and of care and compassion. First, he began each of his three letters to Amelia that have survived with the same phrase, “Dear Mummy.” It is unclear what “mummy” represents, but it is clear that that was a name of endearment he bestowed on his girlfriend, soon to be wife. On March 22, 1941, he begins his letter thanking Amelia for a watch she sent to him. He writes, “Just got the watch and it is in good shape. I’m wearing it now and wish that your wrist was as close as the watch is to my wrist.”[7] In the same letter, Ted expresses to her that her improvement with learning English makes him “feel good” and her doing special things like that “means more to [him] than other things.”[8] Ted’s feeling of her self-improvement exhibits that to him Amelia is more than just a girlfriend, but she is his partner in life. Ted finds her company to be his space of difference where he does not feel the need to perform a gender role. Ted’s encouragement of Amelia’s educational improvement in language, as well as his clearly exhibited pride for her, are clear deviations from heteronormative expectations of that time. Women were rarely expected to educate themselves beyond the scope of household duties and men were rarely expected to display pride and affection so openly for these accomplishments. In this way, Ted challenges the traditional heteronormative roles outlined for a marriage of that time. Furthermore, the softer language Ted used in his letters to Amelia was another departure from the common men of his time. In a letter sent to Ted from a sergeant he had met at some point in his military career, the writing is much different, and more masculine compared to Ted’s letters to Amelia. For example, this sergeant writes about returning home after spending years in Europe during World War II where he encounters women that had “grown up to be more beautiful, more vivacious, jitter-bugs, good-time charleyes, and one can’t keep them tied down even with a rope.” And, “The people that you meet will change your plans for you, especially if they are female.”[9] The language of the sergeant demonstrates the difference between when a man was performing his masculinity in the company of another man versus when Ted was no longer performing and could be in his safe space to speak unperforming.

Beyond Ted’s words lies another aspect of his uniqueness, his comfortability to be in an occupation that was not traditionally masculine. After Ted exited the service in 1947, he attempted to find his way through the corporate world, a decidedly masculine industry. In an interview he gave, he says that he worked for a company he did not particularly care for, presumably that was in the northeast. Then in the early 1950s, Ted was offered a job with Latex International down in Florida. He reports that he went down to Florida for a weekend for an interview with Latex and was back to work in Pennsylvania on Monday. After he “got down to Florida, [he] just kind of liked the idea” of moving south. He “mulled it over for a week or so at home and finally decided to call it a day.” He moved his nuclear family to Winter Haven, Florida with the intention of staying with Latex International and doing real estate on the side. He bought a family home for his family and then a second home so that he could make additional money. In 1958, he began to feel a “hankering to go back to school and pick up something [he] wanted.” He decided to attend graduate school at University of Florida. While at UF, a professor of his told him that he should try teaching. At this point, Ted decided to try substitute teaching in Winter Haven at junior high school, and then eventually high school once he built up a reputation as a good teacher. One important detail that Ted reports in the interview is that he did not necessarily substitute teach mathematics, which was his specialty. He taught English and French as a substitute (he knew French because of his time in high school and used it when he was in North Africa in the French colonies). This part of Ted’s life is especially noteworthy because teaching in junior high schools in the United States, and Florida in particular, was traditionally seen as a woman’s job.[10] Men in the occupation of education was not abnormal, but they generally held positions of authority such as principals or heads of a department. In this way, Ted’s teaching career challenged accepted gender roles. Ted stepped further outside of accepted masculinity and heteronormative ideals by choosing to start a substitute rather than a full-time teacher. This chosen temporary position challenges the masculine ideal of stability, power, and prominence. It was unusual for an older man to come enter the classroom as a substitute teacher. While substitute teaching may initially slightly unnerved Ted, his self-confidence and worthy teaching abilities must have impressed the leadership of the Winter Haven school district.[11]

In 1960, Ted was finishing up his degree at University of Florida, and his reputation as a teacher was growing which eventually landed him a job as a college professor. The same professor that told him he should teach in Winter Haven told him about a mathematics teaching position that was open in Lakeland, Florida. The professor reportedly told Ted that the students were boasting that they were able to make two teachers quit within six months. Ted did not accept the job, but what this proves is that because of projection of masculinity, his performance of manliness, and his self-confidence he could be what a rough classroom needed. He never worried that him being a man in the teaching profession could make anyone question his masculine identity. In other words, he was comfortable in his own skin. He ended up accepting a job as a mathematics professor at the junior college in Ocala, Florida where he stayed until the 1990s. It was at College of Central Florida (previously named Central Florida Community College) where Ted earned one of his greatest achievements: president of the American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges. He served in that capacity for one year in 1979. This was a great achievement for Ted, and also for the college. A newspaper clipping from a 1978 Ocala Star Banner article highlights Ted’s approach to teaching mathematics as being “what might be termed a ‘soft’ approach…[Ted] emphasizes the fundamental approach in solving complex problems rather than demanding the memorizing of formulas by his students.”[12] This demonstrates that Ted’s comfort in himself went beyond working in a field that was considered feminine, but that he was comfortable teaching in his own style that may have appeared to other mathematics teachers to be abnormal. In the 1950s, Ted worked for a company he did not care for because it did not fit his personality, he closed himself off and performed his masculinity strictly in a professional manner. When he became a teacher, on the other hand, he was able to be more of himself and be comfortable in a classroom teaching students mathematics, a subject that Ted knew a lot about. He was able to buck traditional masculine norms and teach in a way that was true to himself. Throughout his life, regardless of what his occupation was his main space of difference was when he with his wife.

Ted and Amelia married in January 1942 in New York City just before he was sent off to war in North Africa.[13] Throughout their marriage, he undoubtedly felt safe being himself around her. Perhaps this is because he was raised in a home with three older sisters and his mother when he was a boy. Perhaps his sisters helped to show him the way that women wanted a man to be, even if that differed from society’s expectations. Perhaps the loss of close friends to death and reassignment during his military service influenced him to desire a closeness with the one person he could always count on to be there. What we in fact know is that Ted and Amelia relied heavily on each other. This view of equal partnership and co-dependence once again steps outside of the traditional heteronormative expectations of the time where a husband and wife had clearly defined and separate roles. Amelia tolerated Ted’s flaws such as excessive drinking and his mean side, but no matter what he always returned to Amelia for comfort.  In a photo taken at their fiftieth anniversary, you can see a snapshot of their continued love for each other. The outward projection of both of them is not queer, quite the opposite perhaps, however it was his longing to have her next to him—quite literally as the photo depicts—and their equal partnership that made this relationship different. Up until Ted’s death in 2001, Amelia cared for him every step of the way. Their closeness is evident by the fact that Amelia would not let anyone remove any of Ted’s things from his home office after he died. It was not until her death in 2019 that their children were able to remove his things from their house in Ocala, Florida.

Ted’s life was full of adventure and of doing things that were perhaps not seen as normal. From joining the military to moving to Florida to becoming a substitute teacher, he did not live a life that most men of his era did. Men of the twentieth century did, of course, move and do jobs that were not entirely masculine, but it was Ted’s comfort in himself to seek out opportunities beyond the scope of “normal” that made him unique and sometimes queer. Ted being a white man afforded him the opportunity to pursue such unique and ambitious goals, but, ultimately, it was the comfort of always having Amelia there that allowed him to act in wayward ways. If we focus solely on his achievements, his letters to Amelia, or the masculinity of military service and do not look at these things from a different lens, we lose sight of Ted’s uniqueness and spontaneity. Ted was a unique man that often times went against the grain to pursue goals and to live a fulfilling life where he could be more of himself.

Bibliography

Conn, Stetson. American Military History. 3rd ed. 1956. Reprint, Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1989. https://history.army.mil/books/amh/amh-toc.htm.

“Polish Boys Clothes -- Garments.” histclo.com. Historical Boys Clothing, 2003. https://histclo.com/country/pol/gar/cp-gar.html.

Wong, Alia. “The Growing Gender Divide among U.S. Teachers.” The Atlantic. The Atlantic, February 20, 2019. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/02/the-explosion-of-women-teachers/582622/.

[1] “Lona and Ted 1927,” Colchiski Family Archive, Colchiski Family Photos, https://alexcolchiski.com/colchiski-family-archive/colchiski-family-photos/.

[2] “Polish Boys Clothes -- Garments,” histclo.com (Historical Boys Clothing, 2003), https://histclo.com/country/pol/gar/cp-gar.html.

[3] “1910 Census Record,” Colchiski Family Archive, Mieczyslaw and Mary Records, https://alexcolchiski.files.wordpress.com/2022/02/1910-cenus-record.jpg.

[4] “Young Thaddeus,” Colchiski Family Archive, Colchiski Family Photos, https://alexcolchiski.com/colchiski-family-archive/colchiski-family-photos/.

[5] Stetson Conn, American Military History, 3rd ed. (1956; repr., Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1989), 405–22, https://history.army.mil/books/amh/amh-toc.htm.

[6] “Knox Medal 1939,” Colchiski Family Archive, Thaddeus Military Records, https://alexcolchiski.files.wordpress.com/2022/02/knox-medal-1939.pdf. 

[7] “Letter to Amelia from Ted March 22 1941,” Colchiski Family Archive, Thaddeus Personal Records, https://alexcolchiski.files.wordpress.com/2022/01/letter-to-amelia-from-ted-march-22-1941.pdf.

[8] Ibid.

[9] “Letter to Ted from Sgt Ostanoski April 4 1945,” Colchiski Family Archive, Thaddeus Person Records, https://alexcolchiski.files.wordpress.com/2022/02/letter-to-ted-from-sgt-ostanoski-april-4-1945.pdf.

[10] Alia Wong, “The Growing Gender Divide among U.S. Teachers,” The Atlantic (The Atlantic, February 20, 2019), https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/02/the-explosion-of-women-teachers/582622/.

[11] The quotes in this paragraph were extracted from an interview Ted gave with an unknown interviewer for the American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges. The interview was conducted sometime in the late-1970s or early-1980s. Alex Colchiski, “Thaddeus Colchiski,” Alex Colchiski, June 27, 2021, https://alexcolchiski.com/thaddeus-michael-colchiski/.

[12] “Ocala Star Banner 1978,” Colchiski Family Archive, Thaddeus Personal Records, https://alexcolchiski.files.wordpress.com/2022/01/ocala-star-banner-oct-1978.pdf.

[13] “Thaddeus and Amelia Marriage License and Certificate,” Colchiski Family Archive, Thaddeus Personal Records, https://alexcolchiski.files.wordpress.com/2022/01/thaddeus-and-amelia-marriage-license-and-certificate.pdf.