Obituary of Zofia M Biernacki-Poray

Zofia M. Biernacki-Poray, 93, died peacefully in her bed at the Green Hill Nursing Home in West Orange, New Jersey, the morning of Friday, June 10th, with her daughter Krystyna Poray Goddu at her side. A resident of Montclair since 1952 and a longtime staff member of the Montclair Public Library, Mrs. Biernacki-Poray was born Zofia Maria Balicka in Drochobycz, Poland. She and her family were forcibly deported to a labor camp in the USSR on April 13, 1940, and never returned to Poland. After being freed from the camp in September 1941, she served with the Polish Army in Iran (then Persia) and (then) Palestine. After the war she was educated at the University of Rome and the London School of Economics. She married Wladyslaw O. Biernacki-Poray in London in 1947; the couple emigrated to the United States in 1952, and settled in Montclair where her husband established an architecture firm. In 1956 they brought her parents, Wladyslaw and Stefania Balicki, to live with them in Montclair, forming a multi-generational family that eventually included three children. A generous hostess and homemaker, Mrs. Biernacki-Poray also worked at Annin Flagmakers in Verona and Lummus Combustion Engineering in Bloomfield before joining the Montclair Public Library in the early 1980s, where she worked until 2007. She is pre-deceased by her sister, Janina Balicka, who died in Yangi Yul, Uzbekistan, in 1942, her parents Wladyslaw and Stefania Balicki, and by her husband of 48 years, Wladyslaw O. Biernacki-Poray. She is survived by her children, Krystyna Poray Goddu, Teresa Biernacki-Poray (Timothy Catchings, MD) and Marek Biernacki-Poray, and her grandchildren, Anna Poray Goddu and John (Jack) Timothy Poray Goddu. Donations in her memory may be made to the Human Needs Food Pantry, 8 Label Street, Montclair, NJ 07042 http://www.humanneedsfoodpantry.org, or Toni’s Kitchen, 73 South Fullerton Avenue, Montclair, NJ 07042 http://tk.slechurch.org/. For online condolences, please visit moriaryfh.com.