David Komarnicki

Born in Chester, Pennsylvania, in the early days of the Great Depression, David Komarnicki was number eight in a line-up of ten kids. His father’s scanty earnings as a cook at a local diner didn’t stretch far, but the food he brought home each night helped to keep the brood’s hunger pangs appeased. The kids themselves added needed income to the family coffers as soon as they were old enough to venture out into the larger world. David’s contribution came from peddling newspapers before and after school, along with collecting scrap metal and paper and selling it to the local junk dealer.

David’s basic life lessons were ingested at home, modeled by his loving Ukrainian parents and augmented by the nudging of five older brothers and the TLC of two older sisters. (He, in turn, nudged the two younger brothers that came along after him.) David’s family moved six times before he entered grammar school, but they always stayed in the patchwork quilt of ethnic neighborhoods that made up Chester in the thirties and forties. After graduating from Chester High School in 1948, David went on to attend Philadelphia Bible College, the Kings College, and Reformed Episcopal Seminary.

In 1959, David followed his older brother George out to Southern California, where he earned a teaching credential from Long Beach State and became a public schoolteacher at Jacob Riis High School and Washington High School, both in South Los Angeles. He was teaching in this area when the Watts Riots broke out in 1965, and one of his students was the first among 34 people to die.

After the riots, the federal government initiated a Title One program to give the black community much-needed employment skills, and David shifted from teaching high school to teaching at the federally funded Watts Skills Center. He later transitioned to the corporate world, joining Equity Funding Corporation as a regional trainer. In this role, he used his teaching experience to prepare sales agents for required certification examinations on both a state and federal level.

After leaving Equity Funding, David formed his own training company, Financial Schools of America. In partnership with his wife, Leslie, he provided training for insurance agents as well as all levels of securities personnel, preparing them for examinations given by the New York Stock Exchange, the National Association of Securities Dealers, and the commodities exchanges.

In 1986, David sold Financial Schools of America to the Longman Financial Group and returned to Pennsylvania with Leslie and their two young daughters, Elizabeth and Amy. There he pursued various occupations, including the teaching of memoir writing for a few semesters at Neumann University.

Since the return to Pennsylvania, David has sought to reconnect with the elusive ghosts of his childhood, and the book FIVE STARS IN THE WINDOW is the result of rendezvousing with some of them. Reader response to these memoirs may inspire him to ferret out their cousins or perhaps allow them to rest undisturbed.