Walter’s son Jerry was always interested in his father’s work and started reaching out to glass companies for information by the 1980s. Following his retirement in the late 1990s, he dove into researching his family heritage and genealogy on a deeper basis. In the process he began to obtain a more detailed perspective of his father Water’s life and work. Jerry focused time and effort to research the glass industry and better understand his father’s role as a glass designer and mold-maker in Pittsburgh during the first half of 1900s.
From the start in 1933, the Przybylek house at 1810 Westmont Avenue in Carrick was always full of glassware — unfinished plaster models,examples of models that had been tested but not put into production, samples of glass from different companies, finished copies of projects that Walter had worked on, and gifts from different companies within the larger industry. Because Walter’s shop was in the basement of his home, work and family often intermingled.
As a boy, Jerry held many fond personal memories linked to his father and the Carrick workshop. He collected flowers and insects with his two brothers (at his dad’s behest) that inspired design motifs and served as models for Walter’s projects. The boys molded clay figures and pestered their father while he attempted to work. They enjoyed Bill Del Monica’s weekend visits to the shop, when he came to help when Walt’s workload was heavy. And they looked forward to visits by Herman Lowerwitz (then President of American Glass Company), who always bought Jerry and his brothers ice cream when he met with Walter.
Walter maintained his home workshop into his later years, with Jerry helping him on several projects in the 1960s and 1970s, including commemorative decanters for the West Virginia Centennial created for Imperial Glass, and a series of historic figure busts on commemorative plates created by L. E. Smith. Despite steadily failing health, Walter kept dabbling in his shop until the early 1970s. Following his death in 1977, Walter’s basement studio remained largely intact, with shelves and storage areas full of tools, models and molds in various stages of completion, as well as the many items of glassware. In the process of cleaning out the house and shop in Carrick after Jerry’s mother Marie passed away in 1997, many of these plaster and glass pieces were retrieved and saved; these served as the starting point of Jerry’s collection effort.
With an expanded inventory of glass pieces, molds, and models to pair with his personal memories, and more free time in his retirement, Jerry dove into his research about Walter’s life and work. The fruits of this effort and the information he gathered gave him a deeper understanding and respect for his father’s artistic skills, accomplishments, reputation and place in the U.S. glass industry.
With this backdrop and his research efforts as the guide, Jerry and his wife Iris set out to find examples of his father’s work. From his retirement to his passing in 2017, Jerry and Iris invested considerable time and effort - in the process having quite a bit of fun - joining and attending an assortment of glass clubs and shows, scouring garage sales and searching antique malls for potential glass pieces to add to the collection, and otherwise attempting to track down examples of glass that would serve as a match to the molds and patterns that had been salvaged from Carrick.
Following the passing of Jerry and Iris, the Przybylek family are interested in finding good homes for some of the glass pieces, models and molds that Jerry accumulated as he diligently researched his father’s life and career. In that research process, Jerry and Iris’s collection grew to more than 500 pieces, many of which are unique or one-of-a-kind patterns, models, and molds that Walter created in his Carrick shop.
Plaster - Patterns, models and molds
Glass – Test and finished pieces
Consolidated - Phoenix - Fostoria - Westmoreland - A.H Heisey - Bryce Brothers - Tiffin - Imperial - Kanawha - L.E. Smith
(and many others)
