Chet Kowalkowski Collection

Bulk Dates
circa 1950 – 1989
Abstract
Chet Kowalkowski’s film collection consists of home movies, birthday celebrations, vacations, and leisure activities shot in the American Midwest and Poland. Among them is a record of the several-year construction of his home in Lockport, Illinois, from the purchase of the land and its clearing to the erection of the walls and roof, as well as footage documenting the various stages of construction of the Resurrection Catholic Cemetery & Mausoleums. Chet also took his camera on tours with the Eddie Blazonczyk Versatones polka band and recorded their antics along the way, both in the US and Europe. In addition to these joyful events, the collection also includes footage of the funeral of Chet’s sister, Irene, who was murdered in 1966 at the age of 16.
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Collection Items

Browse All Objects
Dad's House in Poland 1967
Film
Dad's House in Poland 1967
1967
Collection Identifier
C.2026-12
Extent of Collection
20 reels of Regular 8mm and 10 reels of Super 8 film.
Subject
Polish Americans
Custodial History
These films were stored in Chet Kowalkowski home in Lockport, Illinois, for many years. They were donated by Chet to Chicago Film Archives in 2026.

The films have been collected and preserved as part of the Not-So-Ordinary project, an initiative to preserve home movies from Polish Chicago, supported by the European Union (Grant Agreement No. 101109803).
Creators
Kowalkowski, Chet (was created by)

Chet Kowalkowski was born in 1940 in Chicago, Illinois, to Polish immigrants Andrzej (Andrew) and Weronika (Veronica) Kowalkowski. He married Marianne Bober in 1961, and they raised their three children, Debbie, Donna, and David, in Lockport, Illinois. Chet worked as a janitor at Resurrection Catholic Cemetery & Mausoleums in Justice, Illinois, which serves the Polish Catholic community in the Chicago area. At the same time, he was also an accomplished polka musician, playing primarily with the Versatones, a band led by Eddie Blazonczyk, who was known as Chicago’s polka king. The vocal duo of Eddie Blazonczyk & Chet Kowalkowski defined the Versatones. He also performed with other leading polka bands, including the Happy Hearts, Polka Dot Five, Jimmy Mieszala's Music Explosion, Dial-A-Tones, Don Jodlowski's Vibra Sounds, Lil Wally, Ampol Aires, Marion Lush, and the Paliga Bros.

 

Chet began playing the accordion at the age of 8, with his father assisting on the violin. Chet’s father, Andrew, was a Polish highlander from Podhale, a mountainous region in Poland with a rich musical tradition, where someone in every household always played an instrument (usually violin, called in Podhale dialect “gęśle,” viola, called “basy” or accordion, which was introduced a bit later). At twelve, he already won his first merit of achievement for the accordion on the John Nieminski WOPA Polka Show. In high school, he became fascinated with the trumpet. Although he primarily played the trumpet throughout his musical career, he never gave up playing the accordion and concertina.