Ordinary People: Life is an adventure for Pete Koslowsky
Staff writer
At age 80, Pete Koslowsky is still full of life and keeps going and going and going
Born in 1922 on a farm four miles southeast of Aulne in Marion County, he was the second youngest of 11 children.
In the early 1900s Koslowsky's father had three boys with his first wife. When she died, he remarried and had eight children from the second marriage.
In 1925, the family moved to Montana.
"My dad wanted to try out a different kind of country," Koslowsky said.
In 1934, his dad died leaving the mother to raise her children by herself.
"The older ones had got married," Koslowsky said.
In 1939, the family moved back to the family farm near Aulne.
"Dad never sold the place," Koslowsky said. "It was funny, he rented up in Montana, but he kept this place in Kansas."
In 1943, he joined the Navy and served on the USS Proteus as a cook.
In 1946, he was discharged and in that same year he married his first wife, Vera Carr from Garnett.
The couple farmed for a few years south of Marion.
In the mid-1950s to 1987, Koslowsky worked several jobs.
He did construction work, worked for the American Coach, a trailer house factory in Newton and also worked at Kit Manufacturing in McPherson, building mobile homes.
He worked for the Hillsboro water department and then went to work as a custodian at the schools. He later returned to work for the city but this time in the sanitation department.
On July 1, 1987, Koslowsky retired.
He had done tree work on the side, and now retired he continues with that kind of work — something he has done for 30 years. He cuts bushes and trims trees.
"People call me to come do all kinds of things for them," he said. "I couldn't list them all."
Currently he helps at Hillsboro Hardware, a business that is owned and operated by his sons, Ken and Tom Koslowsky. On Wednesdays, he helps with the freight shipment. On Thursdays, he helps break down the boxes to take to the recycle center.
"No need of the boys having all the fun," Koslowsky said.
On March 15, 1992, his first wife Vera died.
In 1993, Koslowsky took a trip to Alaska, visiting the cities of Anchorage and Fairbanks.
"I drove up there all by my lonesome," he said. "I have had a hankerin' to go there for years."
"Alaska is for the young, I wish I had gone there when I was younger," Koslowsky said. "Everybody ought to go to Alaska once, and when they've been there once, go a second time and then a third."
In August of 1994, he married Leona Ratzlaff of Hillsboro.
Koslowsky said he likes to garden and loves to raise sweet corn. But at age 80, he said his hobbies are "eating and sleeping."
He has served on the Hillsboro Tree board for eight years. He also served as a volunteer fireman for 16 years for the city of Hillsboro.
He has been a member of Parkview Mennonite Brethren Church for 25 plus years.
"There is one scripture that I think about every day and that is Romans 12:1-2," Koslowsky said.
It says: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
"And be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God."
"There's not a day that goes by, I don't think of those verses," Koslowsky said. "You know the Apostle Paul wrote Romans, and when I'm done with this life, I'd like to talk to him someday."
Koslowsky has five children from his first marriage: Ken and wife Carla, and Tom and wife Laurie, all of Hillsboro, Janice Willems of Iola, Melvin of Casper, Wyo., and Myrna Jost of Olathe. He has seven grandchildren and one great- grandchild.
He also has three stepchildren from his second marriage, Aleen Ratzlaff and Don Ratzlaff and his wife Gayla, all of Hillsboro, Jone Lee of Olathe, and two step-grandchildren.
