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This beautiful cupboard (szafa) which is now on display at the Polish Kashub Heritage Museum in Wilno* had been in the possession of antique collectors and restorers, Dennis
and Lorna Peterson for the past twenty-five years. Although they were unsure of the exact origins of the cupboard which they purchased from another collector, they were told that it came from the Andrecheck family.
Dennis Peterson, who is a skilled woodworker, describes the cupboard as "built of brown ash (also known as black ash and swamp ash) which was commonly used by
Polish and German cabinetmakers because of its attractive grain and because it was pleasant to work with, unlike oak. Most ash pieces were not painted, but varnished to show the
beauty of the grain. Furniture made of pine was mostly painted , but not always. The secondary wood used in this cupboard ie. top, back boards, drawer sides & shelves is
basswood. The frames of the doors are made with 'through' tenons going right through the stiles and tightened with 2 wedges at the ends of each tenon to expand the tenon so as
to hold its position forever. The panels in the doors and sides are chamfered on the inside. Sometimes the chamfer is facing to the outside and is referred to as a 'blown panel'."
 It is about twenty years since I
first saw the cupboard at the Peterson's, and when they told me about the Andrecheck connection, I wondered if it might have come from the home of my great-uncle, Angus Andrecheck. I also knew that
the Andrechecks were not cabinetmakers, but that they had a neighbour, John Borutski, who was. John Borutski's granddaughter, Frances Pecoskie, married Angus Andrecheck, twelve years after
her grandfather died in 1910, but I suspected that this cupboard might have been built for John Borutski's daughter, Veronica. Veronica Borutski married Frank Pecoski/Piechowski and their only child was
Frances Andrecheck nee Pecoskie. Although I felt that this might explain the Andrecheck connection to the cabinet, my theory was unsubstantiated until Frances's daughter, Rita
Cybulskie, visited the museum this past May Day [2003] and positively identified the cupboard as coming from their family home.
An almost identical cupboard, was made for John Borutski's own home. The cupboard displayed in the Wilno Heritage Museum is stripped of its original dark varnish and has been
modified to remove the wooden clothes pegs and insert a shelf and pole for hangers.
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