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Irene Ulanowski Obituary

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Today was the funeral of one of my best friends.  I knew her since I was 11 or 12, saw her nearly every week, talked to her on the phone, went shopping with her, went out to eat - the works.  It didn't matter that she was 63 years and some months older than me.  She was like a third grandma and a great girlfriend all in one. Her name was Irene Anna Ulanowski, and she was born on August 7, 1927, in Hamtramck, Michigan, as the fifth child and second daughter of Anthony and Anna Kotowski, staunch Polish Catholics.  Her parents decided to name her Anne Marie, but their oldest, seven-year-old Janina, was so excited and kept exclaiming "my Irene!" that then eventually settled on a compromise (apparently the three boys in between Janina and Irene, Chet, Hank, and Stanley, weren't outspoken enough on the name topic to have an influence). Anna Kotowski had been born in Poland in 1902 but was sent to the United States as a young teen by her family.  She worked at a boarding