By Gene Kemmeter
Special to the Gazette

STEVENS POINT – Watching a Public Broadcasting Television show one night triggered Marvin Przekurat, a Stevens Point area man, to wonder whatever became of a fellow Stevens Point boy who owned the paper route he worked on as a helper in his youth.

Przekurat, now 84, said he was a student at St. Peter Grade School in 1947 when “Mousy” Dzikoski, who was two years older, offered him the opportunity to become the helper on his paper route that had 100 subscribers and stretched from Union Street to Academy Avenue to Division Street to Fifth Avenue on the north side of Stevens Point.

Marvin Przekurat, left, 84, and Eugene Dzikoski, 86, hug each other after holding a reunion at Przekurat’s home Monday, July 8, after not seeing each other for nearly 70 years. Dzikoski owned a Stevens Point Daily Journal paper route in the late 1940s, and Przekurat was his helper before taking over as owner of the route when Dzikoski left.

“Mousy” needed another person as his helper on the route, which was split into two sections to provide timely delivery of the paper and help with other duties, such as collecting subscription money of 20 cents each week. Przekurat accepted the offer and took the helper position, working with the older boy for nearly two years before he became the route’s owner. Przekurat said he was named a “Carrier of the Week” in 1949 for his efforts delivering newspapers and collecting subscriptions.

Those were the days when Ed Richter was the circulation manager, he said, and newspaper carriers would receive a pink slip for a deficiency such as throwing a paper in the bushes instead of on the porch. After “Mousy” left work as a carrier, Przekurat said he heard he went to work at the Hotel Whiting, but he never really saw him again, although he thought about him now and again and wondered what happened to him.

When Przekurat and his wife Darlene saw the program on PBS earlier this year about a boy who had been in Germany after World War II with his father and wondered what had become of another boy who was in a photo of the two of them playing with one another. The PBS program identified that other boy but reported that he had since died.

Przekurat thought back to “Mousy” and wondered what his real first name was. He knew his last name was Dzikoski, but never heard anyone call him anything but “Mousy.”

Przekurat contacted a former neighbor of “Mousy’s,” Jim Falk who provided the missing first name, Eugene. Then Przekurat realized he and Darlene might have come close to meeting Dzikoski several months earlier. Przekurat and his wife attended a funeral service in November for David J. Katzmark and then one the next day for Cordelia “Corky” Cychosz. What they didn’t realize at the time was Katzmark’s wife, the former Agnes Cychosz, was the sister of Cordelia’s husband, and Cordelia was the sister of Eugene “Mousy” Dzikoski.

After checking out the obituary information of the two later, they contacted Mike Katzmark, David’s son and a fellow usher with the Przekurats at St. Peter Church, who explained the family connection for the Przekurats and then gave them the contact information for his uncle, Eugene Dzikoski. Marvin said he contacted Eugene, now 86, and they got together for lunch in Stevens Point and went to the Przekurat home in the town of Hull on July 8, to talk about what had happened to them since the paper route.

Przekurat worked for more than 30 years driving truck for the Gross Trucking Co., while Dzikoski moved to Madison and went into the military. He now lives in Monona. Dzikoski told Przekurat he never realized the newspaperboy’s dream of owning a Schwin bicycle to deliver the papers, using his sister’s bicycle to pedal the papers instead.

Przekurat said his dad told him he couldn’t afford a Schwin bicycle to pedal his route, so he used another bike instead. But, Przekurat said he made up for that. He started collecting Schwin bicycles and now has 16.