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Note: William Surenok ( Vasily Korneyevich Isachenko-Tzurenok ) first appears in the Cincinnati directory was in 1921, when he lived at 950 West 6th Street. His occupation at that time was 'machinist'.
According to notes by Joseph Seiler, his son-in-law, dated January 22, 1966:
(also, PLEASE SEE NOTES at the end of this article)
'...William Surenok, probably born in Helsinki, Finland, was a Russian citizen and possibly a Cossack prior to the Red revolution, at which time he hastened to America with whatever worldly goods he could convert to cash. Married to Mary Ledbow (note: this is subject to debate; a number of other surnames have been suggested from various sources), who was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, they remained in Pennsylvania for some time while he employed himself as a coal miner and then as a punch-press operator, as a result of which he lost all his fingers excepting two thumbs and one forefinger, after which they migrated to Cincinnati (note: this is also subject to debate: records indicate a stop in Gary, Indiana, where William Surenok Jr. was born in 1916).
...(after his wife's death) he remarried a widow (Dora Anna Radojchich) who raised his children. He gained some financial security through real estate dealings on a small scale and for many years thereafter operated a tavern...
At about 5'5", he was a very broad heavy-set man of powerful appearance with positive views and determinations. An intelligent man with limited education, he appeared well-informed and very acceptable socially. He was also reticent as to his antecedents and derivation...'
My memories of my grandfather are more personal. First, I recall the yearly family re-unions on Christmas Day at 21 Clinton Springs Lane. There are a number of old photographs of the extended Surenok family in my albums. In addition to his three children and their children, his second wife had brought to the marriage a daughter of her own, Katherine, who married a man known as Ivan Zavison. They had two children, Elaine and James (or Jimmy). By the time I was old enough to realize it, Elaine also married, to Milan Snyder, and they began their own family. The day was always one of feasting on any number of dishes, mostly of Russian origin. The only item I recall, strangely enough, was the chicken-noodle soup. There were unidentifiable chicken parts as well as home-made noodles in this treat. These yearly gatherings died out in my early teen years.
Dora Anna, his second wife, died in 1966. I don't know where she is buried, but it's not with William Surenok. I don't recall my grandfather ever mentioning his first wife, Mary Gendina (born Maryam Samuelovna Gendina), who died in 1934, although he is buried next to her, as well as my father and mother.
I remember the old house he owned, and the fact that it had a very steep front yard; the stairway up from the street contained perhaps fifty steps or more. As a man with only one finger and two thumbs, he was hard pressed to mow this yard. The way he accomplished the task was ingenious: he tied a rope around his waist and to the mower, so that he could simply drag it back to the top like a packhorse after arriving at the bottom, and start over.
I recall that the one constant in his daily routine so long as I knew him was that he would read the daily newspaper word for word, cover to cover. This is not the way of an uneducated man to my way of thinking.
In later years I recall conversations with Grandpa in which he alluded to his youth in Russia, when, he claimed, he was an officer in the Czar's personal Cossack cavalry guard. I saw pictures of him as a young man in uniform astride a horse, and I recall a formal portrait he once showed me of a man with a mustache who, he claimed, was one of his brothers. Charles Wiggenhorn, Sophia Surenok's husband, claimed in 1999 that a brother also immigrated with the family, returned to Russia shortly thereafter, and was killed. According to the very limited history he gave me, in the years preceding the outbreak of the Communist Revolution, his sister (at least one) and other brothers were politically active, and eventually were eliminated, as were his parents. He claimed that he left Russia just ahead of those who were attempting to seize him, as well. He and his wife arrived in the USA, probably illegally, in about 1916. Although I know of four Surenok children (Amy, born in 1919, died young and was never mentioned), my mother's birth certificate indicates that there had been a total of six children born to them, including her birth, the last, in 1922. Whatever happened to the other two, who probably were born in Russia will, I suspect, always remain a mystery.
A favorite story of his was that he had brought with him to America a bankbook showing a substantial balance. After the initial violence of the Revolution had subsided, he attempted to have the balance forwarded to him, only to be told, as he said, that the bankbook was worthless and that he might as well use the paper as toilet-paper. He always chuckled at this story.
He also once told me a story about working in some clandestine fashion for the United States Government, and of being beaten and left for dead in Detroit.
Another story held that he had brought with him to America a fairly substantial amount of cash, with which he eventually bought the numerous small parcels of rental properties which he held for many years. During the depths of the Depression, he said, he was occasionally unable to make the mortgage payments to the bank because his tenants were unable to pay their rent. As the story went, he appealed to the bankers for time in which to make his accounts current. As he put it, he told them 'Please, don't do anything to hurt yourselves, but please don't hurt me, either'. Apparently they were willing to work with him.
He was full of anecdotes and advice. The one I recall best is that he would often say, in his fractured English, 'Save penny, spend dollar'. That makes a lot of sense any way it's said.
Although he lived in this country for about 70 years, he never lost his thick accent. As a child I had trouble understanding him until I learned his version of the English language.
I have to differ with my father's notes regarding Surenok's education. My recollection is that it was fairly common knowledge he had come from a prosperous family and had enjoyed the benefits of as good an education as was then available in Russia. His rise in the military would seem to suggest that he was a well-educated man, as did his marriage to the lovely Mary Gendina, daughter of a wealthy livery-stable operator in old St. Petersburg, Russia.
Grandpa Surenok loved to eat, and on the occasions we would take him out to eat, he always wanted to visit a particular smorgasboard restaurant, David's Buffet, where he could eat all he wanted. He always insisted on paying for the entire group.
The back yard of his house held apple trees and other fruit trees, as well as rabbit hutches. I believe that for a period of time he had raised quite a bit of his own family's food. And the basement of the house was a treasure-trove of old magazines, newspapers, and tools. I always headed down there when I visited, even though the darkness from the top of the stairs was intimidating to a child, as I was at that time.
In about 1972 he sold the house and moved in with my parents and sister in their house on Lariat Drive. He paid off the balance of their mortgage so that his daughter, my mother, would be able to quit working as her health continued to decline. She continued to work, however, much to his chagrin. In the period of time that he and my sister shared the house with me, in late 1974 to mid 1975, he would always make an effort to do his part with the cooking and dishwashing. His kitchen skills were atrocious, and when he wasn't watching, we would re-do the dishes to get them thoroughly clean. But I give the old man credit: he never slowed down, never asked to be waited on, never used his advanced age as an excuse.
When that house was sold, in 1975, he rented an apartment near Cincinnati's Harvest Home in Cheviot, where he remained until he had to be admitted, at a very advanced age, to a nursing home. Yvonne and I visited him at the apartment a number of times, and that is where I heard many of his stories, over and over. Most of his furniture was from the old house he'd owned for so many years, and it was massive, dark and heavy, plainly of excellent quality. One piece in particular was outstanding: it was a china cabinet with a mirrored back and two curved doors, each with an irreplaceable piece of heavy, curved glass. It must have been very expensive even when it was new; when he died, his step-daughter Katherine Zavison swept through his belongings and claimed any and all things of any monetary value, including the furniture. Charles Wiggenhorn claims she threw away the rest lest other family members have any of it.
William Surenok hinted broadly that he was not whom he appeared to be, and that after his death his will would explain it all, including why he never revealed his true identity. Whether he was bluffing or not, I suppose I'll never know. But when he did finally die, there was nothing said about any of that.
In very recent years (1996 or so) I heard from my cousin Nancy Wiggenhorn stories that suggest that his real name was Tsurenok, and that his duties in the Russian military included working in the pogroms against the Jews. She also claimed knowledge that his wife was Jewish, and indicated that it was perhaps this conflict which helped to lead him out of Russia. If and as this information is verified or found to be false, I will revise that portion of this account.
He was a solid man, for lack of a better word, and his views remained constant through the years. Responsibility, civility, obedience and respect, education, and fiscal conservatism headed his list. He was a loving and considerate man in the years that I knew him, and to this day I wonder at the sights he must have seen, and the experiences he must have lived. I think that he must have seen himself as a fish out of water living in this strange land; that is, I think that deep down, he always wanted to go home, to the country he'd left so many years before. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
In March of 2000, I was contacted by Wayne Surenok, son of William Surenok, Jr., and directed to the Surenok family website on the Internet. This is where I found the original Russian names for both William and Mary. In addition, I found an explanation stating that William Surenok's full name was VASILIY KORNEYEVICH ISACHENKO-TZURENOK, and that this information came from a document given on July 26, 1926 by the Executive Committee of the District Soviet of Workers, Peasants, and Soldiers Deputies. It was based on a birth record in the village of VELIKIY BOR ( Great Forest ), and suggested that the -enko ending is a typical Ukrainian ending, perhaps indicating that ISACHENKO may be his mother's maiden name. His date of birth is also reputed to be in 1887 rather than 1888. 1888 is on his death certificate and his headstone, and so there is a discrepancy there.
Dale Seiler March 15, 2000
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