Searching for the future through the past
Searching For Values: A Grandmother, A Grandson and the Discovery of Goodness (Hiram College Press, 2005) is a story of journeys -- through time, place and toward self-discovery.
In alternating chapters, Stuart Muszynski '76 interweaves poignant
accounts of his personal search for life's meaning with the
life-and-death choices his grandmother and parents made in order to
survive after the Nazis invaded their native Poland. Determination,
quick-thinking and the relationships the Muszynskis developed with
Polish Catholics helped them endure and set the stage for the
courageous acts of the Christian families who hid them from the Germans.
Searching for Values itself represents a journey that began 35
years ago when Muszynski, a freshman at Hamilton, decided to write
about his grandmother for a January term project. Lea Lew, who died
shortly after Muszynski began college, moved to the United States along
with her daughter and son-in-law in 1953. She raised the young boy
while his parents attended to the job of starting anew in America.
Earlier in her life, Grandma Lea was by all accounts the first woman
dentist in Poland. She set up her small practice in her hometown of
Mezherich in 1910, and soon became well respected not only for her
professional abilities but also for her commitment to treating patients
regardless of their religious background or ability to pay.
"I believe that we are the compilation of those who came before us,"
Muszynski writes early in his book. "We pass on not only our genes, but
also our life experiences. Each generation influences the next, and as
such we become a part of the continuum of values that connects our
minds with our actions."
Although Muszynski enjoyed chronicling his grandmother's life, after a
few years he traded writing for family and career. A successful
entrepreneur and insurance executive, Muszynski was focused on pursuing
success in terms he defined by money -- "making America" as he called
it. He packed up his manuscript and stored it in the basement of his
Lyndhurst, Ohio, home.
Life proceeded well for Muszynski and his wife Susan Yulish Muszynski
K'76. With his career booming, Muszynski also found new hope and joy in
raising his two children, Sarah and Steven, and had begun growing
closer to his faith. All that came to a sudden halt, however, in 1992
when he was stricken by Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and bedridden for a
year-and-a-half.
"While I lay in bed I thought a lot. Invariably, I thought about my
condition and how to improve. I thought about Mom and Dad and Grandma
and how they must have had hope in a hopeless situation," he said. "I
drew upon their strength and eventually felt strength myself. I was
convinced that there was a reason behind my illness -- that God was
somehow steering me on that elusive path toward that mission I knew was
there for me to discover."
On advice from his therapist, Muszynski read Love, Medicine and Miracles
by cancer surgeon Bernie Siegel, who pioneered a "positive
visualization" technique. From that, Muszynski developed "love therapy"
that consists of affirmative and positive visualizations to eliminate
negative thoughts.
Slowly his health improved, and Muszynski and Susie, a clinical psychologist, founded the
Project Love Remember the Children Foundation,
which trains teen leaders -- in part using Stuart's experiences -- how
to promote kindness, caring and mutual respect in their high schools
and middle schools. To date more than 30,000 teens have participated in
one of Project Love's seminars.
Through his work with Project Love, Muszynski had the opportunity in
1995 to travel to Poland, where he began locating his family's rescuers
as well as their children and grandchildren. Establishing those
relationships and learning more about his family's history led him back
to his manuscript, and he resumed work on his book.
Muszynski and Leonard Teski, the son of his family's primary rescuers,
will be conducting a book tour that will include talk shows, community
events and book signings. The tour will commence on May 5, Holocaust
Remembrance Day, and continue to London and Warsaw, where they will
engage the president of Poland and church leaders in a ceremony with
the rescuers' families.
