BY CLARE MARIE CELANO
Staff Writer
Dan Trojan, who recently turned 100, has seen a century of history come and go in Freehold. He worked for the A&M Karagheusian rug mill for 39 years. Photo at top right shows Trojan in his younger years. Photo at right is Trojan and his late wife, Winifred. Daniel (Dan) Trojan owns a T-shirt that declares, “Heaven doesn’t want me and Hell thinks I’ll take over.”
The shirt was given to Trojan by his grandson, Donald, who obviously knows his grandfather quite well.
Maybe the attitude that prompted Donald to gift his grandfather with such a shirt reveals, at least in part, the reason why Dan recently celebrated his 100th birthday.
It would appear that the years of his life have taken him full circle because although he has lived in other homes in Freehold Borough, he was born to John and Catherine Trojan on Feb. 3, 1907, in the Parker Street home where he now resides by himself. His parents bought the home for $500 in 1905.
As his son, Bob, said in an interview at Dan’s residence, “He really has come home.”
CHRIS KELLY staff Dan’s home – which is as neat as a pin, by the way – is maintained by him and reveals simplicity in its design. Family photos, a few displays of vintage silverware on a mahogany hutch and an old mahogany secretary recall a life that has been filled with joy and pain.
But Dan does not spend his time living in the past. He enjoys watching sports on TV on a regular basis.
Although he did not seem anxious to reveal the past, he did consent to take a trip back in time for this story.
Dan is the last surviving member of six siblings – John, Charlie, James, Joseph, Mary and Francis. He lost his wife of 60 years, Winifred Hope, whom he met in the Freehold area and married in 1937, 70 years ago. He has also lost many friends over the years, but this centenarian does not dwell on what was, rather, he focuses on what is in the here and now.
Dan and Winifred has four children who all live nearby; Jack, 68, lives in Freehold Township with his wife, Vera; Winnie, 65, lives in Manalapan with her husband, Robert Freeman; Kathy, 62, lives in Freehold Township with her husband, Anton Schwerthoffer; and Bob, 60, lives in Freehold Borough with his wife, Gail. Dan has 12 grandchildren and 28 great-grandchildren.
“At least that was the last count,” he said with humor. “I haven’t heard from some of them for a while, so I’m not quite sure.”
His dry sense of humor coupled with a sense of gruffness may appear to make him seem standoffish to some people. But it is simply who he is. And maybe those character traits have also helped him to reach this landmark birthday.
Dan starts his day early with coffee and a breakfast he cooks for himself. Along with his breakfast, he reads his morning paper.
At about 1 p.m. his daughter Winnie, who works at the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office, stops in for a lunch that Dan has prepared for her.
After lunch, Winnie will usually drive Dan to one of his favorite places, Freehold Raceway.
Dan drove himself to the track until about 18 months ago, when his doctor told him he had to stop driving.
“I only gave it up because I had to. [The doctor] said if I didn’t stop, he would notify the Division of Motor Vehicles,” he confided.
It is apparent this lifelong citizen of the borough only gave things up that he was forced to give up – for example, his job of almost 40 years at the A&M Karagheusian rug mill, where Dan worked as a broadloom carpet weaver for 39 years until 1960, when the rug mill closed.
“I thought I had a steady job for life,” Dan said, going back to a painful place in his past. “Then they pulled the rug out from under me.”
After losing his job at the rug mill, Dan worked making pizzas at Federici’s and as a security officer at ShopRite. Eventually, he found a job doing what he had done for years at A&M Karagheusian when he took a job at a carpet mill, Kentile, in Hightstown. He retired from Kentile in 1967.
“Half of Freehold was out of work,” Dan said. “You had to take what you could get.”
Going back in time, Dan remembered how as a youngster, he would take a gallon container over to Croxons Farm on South Street to get milk. The cost: 5 cents a quart.
“We had to attach the container to a rope and put it down into the well in the yard to keep it cool. We had very limited refrigeration back then,” he said.
The house in which the Trojans lived had no plumbing or electricity, but it did have a large pot-belly stove in the kitchen. Dan recalled how as a child, he would run to the stove with his siblings, clothes in hand, to try and dress beside it to get some warmth on freezing days.
Dan attended the St. Rose of Lima School when it was on McLean Street. He had to go to the Hudson Street School to finish his elementary education because the parochial school only accommodated children up to the seventh grade. He attended two years of high school at Freehold High School, which was then on Bennett Street.
When asked what he did for fun as a youngster, Dan said there really wasn’t much to do back then.
“We’d throw a ball around out in the street,” he said.
He really didn’t have a great deal of time for leisure anyway. After his school day was completed, he went to work at the Stillwell Farm.
As he grew up, he took on other jobs around town after school, including one at Eddie Amon’s, an ice cream store on West Main Street.
“I stirred the candy at Christmas time,” Dan recalled, mimicking the motions he used back then, pretending to stir imaginary melted chocolate. “Then I got the molds ready and put the sticks in them for the lollipops.”
When Dan was 27, he met the 17-year-old Winnie, who would soon be his bride. He was asked where the couple went on dates.
Dan was quiet for a bit, his sadness at the memory of his wife apparent, but a little prodding brought him to reveal that he took Winnie dancing to places like Penns Neck near Princeton, and to local firehouses where dances were held.
“We liked big band music,” he said quietly.
He and Winnie also frequented Free-hold’s two movie theaters, the Strand on East Main Street and the Liberty on West Main Street. Other memories sharp in Dan’s mind included shopping at Bill Schanck’s, a small grocery store on South Street, and Sidney Meyer’s grocery store, as well as at D.V. Perrine, a dry goods and department store, referred to as the “Big Red Store,” on East Main Street.
He also remembered a Chinese laundry on South Street, as well as Joe Murphy’s bar on South Street, a place he liked to hang out. Burke’s grocery store on South Street and Voorhees Bake Shop on South and Mechanic streets were also included in his trip down memory lane.
Dan’s son Bob called his father a “hard-working man who did the right thing and never bothered anyone.”
“He was always there,” Bob said. “He would work his shift, come home and take care of his family.”
Bob said his father has always enjoyed reading.
“He reads the Reader’s Digest cover to cover, and he’s reading a book about the Kennedy family right now,” he said.
When asked to recall a special memory of his father in the years he was growing up, Bob said, “he’d play cards with you, or have a catch with you.”
Bob said that in years gone by, without all of the modern technology that is now part of everyday life, there seemed to be more time to be connected without having to do a lot of things together.
As to his desire to continue living alone at the age of 100, Dan said he likes it “because I can do whatever I want, whenever I want to. You get along better with your kids when you’re not living with them. I do it my way.”