In Memoriam

Born in 1951 in Wilmington, Delaware, Thomas “Tom” Duszak attended St. Hedwig's School before earning an undergraduate degree from the University of Delaware and a master's of library science from Columbia University. He moved to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1978 to accept a position as a librarian for the Commonwealth. During his more than thirty years of service, he rose to the position of head of cataloguing for the State Library of Pennsylvania. When a new cataloguing code was proposed in the early months of the 2000s, Tom worked with the Library of Congress to designate his home institution as a test site for the new system.A lifelong devotee to philately and the study of history, Tom was a member of the Susquehanna Valley Stamp and Postcard Club, the Catholic Library Association, and the Polish American Historical Association (PAHA) where he served on the organization's council and as secretary for several years. His continuing interest in history and sports resulted in his authoring Towarzystwo Czytelni Polskiej 1898–1998: The Centenary of the Polish Library Association (1998) and Sports and Recreation in Hedgeville and Browntown, Wilmington, Delaware (2002), as well as several articles and reviews such as “Polish Americana in Government Documents” (1992); “The Polish Presence in North America” (1994); “Polish American Women: Tracing Ethnic Achievement in Published U.S. Government Sources” (1998); “The Polish Presence in North America: An Update for Electronic Resources” (2007); “The Polish and Polish American Presence on the Web: Free Electronic Resources” (2016); and “Polish Souls in North America for Christ: Polish Baptist Churches in Rochester, New York, and Wilmington, Delaware,” coauthored with Kathleen Urbanic (2018).1Following his retirement, Tom moved to the Ecumenical Retirement Community in Paxtang, PA. He later moved back to the Wilmington area, where he passed away at age seventy-three on February 20, 2025. He will be remembered by his PAHA colleagues for his generous financial support of The Polish American Encyclopedia and the Polish and Polish American Studies Series of Ohio University Press, as well as his efforts and professional expertise in working with John Bukowczyk to gain entry for Polish American Studies into the History Cooperative and JSTOR, which made the publication available electronically to over six thousand libraries, universities, and other sites around the world. For his many contributions to PAHA's success, Tom was honored with its Distinguished Service Award in 2009.Among his PAHA friends, Tom will be remembered fondly as a consummate gentleman who exerted a quiet and reasoned influence during board discussions and was always ready to offer words of encouragement and support for his colleagues.James S. Pula