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Since May 1, 2003, Charles has been employed by the Office of Special Programs at Cook College at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. He works three days a week as a technology consultant for the unit.
Charles does collect a pension from Rutgers, where he had been employed as an Application Developer in Administrative Computing Services of Rutgers University Computing Services for over thirty-two years. That position was eliminated at the end of 2002 as a result of cuts to the funding of the university by the State of New Jersey. Having sufficient years of service, and being sixty-one years old at the time, Charles elected to take his pension under the Public Employees Retirement System upon the termination of his full-time job.
Charles began his career as a Claims Examiner for the Division of Employment Security of the New Jersey Department of Labor. Prior to getting the job at Cook College, he found himself back in the Unemployment Office for the first time in many years, albeit on the opposite side of the counter.
The Department of Labor sponsors a self-help group for folks seeking re-employment. The Professional Service Group in New Brunswick provides seminars in job search techniques, from an orientation seminar to help participants to get their attitude shifted into job-search mode to resume-writing, cover letter preparation, networking, and interviewing techniques. After completing the seminar series, Charles joined the group. Those interested should come to the Workforce New Jersey office at 506 Jersey Avenue in New Brunswick at 9:00am on a Monday for the Orientation Seminar. (Come Tuesday if Monday is a holiday). The orientation is required before you can participate in the remaining seminars or consider joining the group.
There are Professional Service Group sites at the Workforce New Jersey offices in Cherry Hill, Dover, Hackensack, Neptune, Phillipsburg, Pleasantville, Trenton, Vineland, Westampton and West Caldwell, too. Their operations may differ from those in New Brunswick, so contact the office nearest to you.
Charles was born and raised in Trenton, New Jersey. He attended Blessed Sacrament School and Trenton Catholic Regional Boys' High School, parochial institutions in the Diocese of Trenton before going on to Trenton State College (now The College of New Jersey, a name change that Charles, as a Trenton native, strongly resents!) He got his BA from Trenton State, then, after going to work for Rutgers later in life, earned a practitioner MBA in General Management from the Rutgers Graduate School of Management.
The Olszewski surname (pronounced awl-shev'-skee) is frequently found in Poland. It is derived from the noun "Olsza" meaning "alder tree". Many variations exist. The German spelling, Olschewski, was used by Charles' family until Bob, his older brother, came home from school with the information that the proper Polish spelling was "Olszewski" and insisted on having their parents have his and Charles' records changed to make either spelling legal. Both Bob and Charles used the Polish spelling from that time forward. Other variants are "Olsza" – as, for example, Aleksandra Olsza, a professional tennis player and frequent doubles partner of Anna Kournikova, and "Olsiewski." The feminine form is "Olszewska," so, while Charles would be addressed in Polish as "Pan Olszewski," his wife Nancy would be "Pani Olszewska." The name cannot be taken too literally. While it might be applied to a family that dwelt near a forest of alder trees, it might just as easily be given to folk who lived on an estate owned by a family that had once lived near alder trees. Or that the family once lived in a town or village that had an "Olsza" name.
A Google search on "Olszewski" yielded about 132,000 matches. Many of these were for Robert Olszewski (no relation), a reknowned ceramics miniaturist. Many others concerned Jan Olszewski (likewise no relation), one-time Prime Minister of Poland.
Charles' paternal grandparents, Tomasz Olszewski and Marta Lamek Olszewska, immigrated from somewhere near
Torun,
Poland.
Uncle Paul was said to have played minor-league baseball for the Reading (Pa) team back at the beginning of the twentieth century. Uncle John was a vaudeville performer. He and his partner, Chris McTammeny, formed the Flying Martins, a trapeze act that headlined the Palace Theater in New York City and toured Europe before World War I. They gave a command performance for King George V of England, and had lunch with Rasputin in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Charles' mother, Hester Mary (Beers) Olschewski, was an only child. Her father, Charles Porter Beers, was descended from a family that arrived in America before the French and Indian War. Her mother, Johanna (Coll) Beers, was the child of Irish immigrants who came to the U.S. just after the Civil War. Mom's uncle Ben Beers hunted and fished with Zane Grey. Uncle Ben had used his father, Jabez Beers', discharge papers from the Union Army to secure a homestead in the Dakota Territories; but moved back East to Doylestown, PA because his wife did not like the West. He was murdered in the barn on his Doylestown farm.
Charles had two siblings. His brother Bob (Robert Francis Olszewski) was born in 1932, nine years before him. His sister, Frances Mary Olschewski, died at birth in 1936. Bob was a fighter pilot in the United States Air Force and later the New Jersey Air National Guard. He became a pilot for Allegheny Airlines (which became U.S. Air) until he retired from commercial flying as required by F.A.A. regulations and airline policy when he reached his sixtieth birthday in June, 1992. He was killed in a crash in July 1992 while having a check-ride in a new type of airplane he was planning to purchase. Flying was Bob's life. He left a widow, Jayne, who now lives in New England. His daughter, Lisa, lives in Washington State with her husband and infant daughter. His son, Scott, lives in Massachusetts.
Nancy Ellen (Kolberg) Olszewski is originally from Cherry Hill, New Jersey. She attended Coles School and Martin Luther Christian Day School in Cherry Hill, as well as Cherry Hill High School (now Cherry Hill High School West). Nancy and Charles were married on May 16, 1970 at St. Peter's RC Church in Merchantville NJ. She received her certificate in Paralegal Studies from Monmouth University after taking a BA in Dramatic Arts from William Paterson University. She is currently looking for a job as a paralegal or legal assistant.
Nancy's father, William Kolberg, was an underwriting officer for Penn Mutual Insurance Company. He died in Cherry Hill, New Jersey in 1998.
Nancy's mother, Beatrice Thurlow Kolberg, was a retired school teacher. She lived in New York State with Nancy's younger brother, Bill. She died in February 2008 in Trumansburg, New York, and is buried next to her husband in Wenonah Cemetery in Mantua, New Jersey.
Nancy's brother, William C. Kolberg, teaches Economics at Ithaca College. He has two children, Michelle and Steven (aka Micki and Steve). Micki is a ballerina and a fitness trainer. She currently is living in Hawaii. Steve is a student at Bowdoin. He has a strong interest in sustainable agriculture and in the environment. Both are superb students. We are exceedingly proud of them.
We used to live at the Colonnade Apartments in
Newark, New Jersey. We
moved in October 2000 to a really nice townhouse in the Renaissance
Station development in New
Brunswick, New Jersey. It was a lot closer to Charles' job at Rutgers, and that let him sleep later every morning.
The Colonnade Apartments did not permit pets. They used to, and back then we had two biological cats named Berengaria and Mehitabel. Mehitabel was a wedding present, by the way. Since we were reluctant to be totally bereft of a pet, we got a Catz, or virtual cat, named Claude. He isn't warm and cuddly like a biological cat can choose to be, but in all other ways, he's a fun companion. Claude comes from " Catz! Your Computer Petz" from PF Magic. While we can have a cat or two in our new home, Claude came with us and is still a valued member of our family. Even though he is just a set of bits and bytes and program code, he still makes his presence known whenever the computer is on. (That's a ball of yarn he's balancing on!)
Down the street (Clifton Avenue) from our old apartment is the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart. This astonishing French Gothic church is the home of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark. It was dedicated in 1954, 100 years after Newark became a diocese, and 55 years after construction began. It was named a minor basilica (essentially, a church "special" to the Pope) by Pope John Paul II during his visit on October 4, 1995. A story that made the rounds after the visit says that the Pope told Theodore McCarrick (then the Archbishop of Newark, and now Cardinal McCarrick, Archbishop of Washington, D.C.) as he walked down the center aisle following a prayer service there that day, "This is a beautiful church. It should be a basilica." A monsignor in the Pope's entourage then hurried over to (auxiliary) Bishop Saltarelli, the Cathedral's rector, and said, "Be sure to get the paperwork in to Rome as soon as you can so we can get to work on it. After all, if the Pope says a church should be a basilica, it really ought to be a basilica." Pope John Paul overheard the remarks, turned to the monsignor, and said, "You are mistaken, Monsignor. If the Pope says a church should be a basilica, it IS a basilica!"
Charles and Nancy both now belong to St. Mary of Mt.Virgin parish in the Diocese of Metuchen, a parish founded by Italian immigrant families in 1904. Although not as spectacular as the Cathedral Basilica, St. Mary's is a beautiful church, built in 1928 and redecorated in 1976. It is in the Italian Baroque style.
We do not have a car, although Charles maintains a valid driver's license. We travel, instead, on New Jersey Transit.