STRIFE—Helen and Hank Kawecki in 2016, the year they were forced from their T.O. home of 50 years. A GoFundMe site started by neighbors enabled the couple to secure a mobile home in Newbury Park, but life was never the same, Helen told the Acorn. Acorn file photo
Hank Kawecki, who along with his wife, Helen, was profiled in the Thousand Oaks Acorn in 2016 after the couple lost their longtime home in a dispute with their grandson, has died at the age of 91.
Helen Kawecki said her husband of 44 years passed away Nov. 9 from intestinal complications.
Since their news-making story, the couple lived in a Newbury Park mobile home. Friends, neighbors and complete strangers contributed to a GoFundMe account that raised over $125,000 for the Kaweckis, making it possible for them to acquire the modest coach.
In what they called “the worst kind of betrayal,” Helen and Hank lost their home of 58 years on Hauser Circle in late 2016 after a series of events that followed their decision to sign over the property to their grandson. The couple said he told them he could use the home to secure a loan on their behalf; instead, the Kaweckis said, he took out two loans against the house and then sold it out from under them.
No criminal charges have been filed in the case.
“We signed the papers but we didn’t read them carefully enough,” Hank said in July 2016. “We believed him, and that was our mistake.”
Raised in Detroit, Hank served in the military before moving to California in the early 1960s.
He worked as a professional dance instructor who taught polka to the likes of Lawrence Welk and one of his show’s regulars, Bobby Burgess, who started his career as a Mouseketeer.
Hank and Helen moved to Thousand Oaks when they bought the Hauser Circle home in 1960.
Until a few days before his death, Hank was still dancing and was a fixture at the Palm Garden Hotel’s Monday night dance nights with The Harry Selvin Orchestra.
All the regulars knew him for his moves on the floor as well as his outfits, Helen said. Hank owned a collection of brightly colored, ruffled tuxedos.
He was also known at the Pacific Corinthian Yacht Club at Channel Islands Harbor, where the couple would visit regularly and dance.
“He loved people, and he would always get to know the band,” Helen said. “And everybody knew Hank.”
With Hank gone, Helen, 91, said she is planning to leave Thousand Oaks to live with one of her daughters in Indiana.
She has not had contact with a second daughter, the grandson’s mother, since the Hauser Circle home sold, she told the Acorn. The Kaweckis’ third child, another daughter, is deceased.
Doug and Linda Emerson, Hauser Circle neighbors of the Kaweckis who helped bring media attention to their plight and set up the GoFundMe account that was their saving grace, remain close friends.
“This isn’t how we thought it would be,” Helen said of the couple’s mobile home park living situation. “We made some friends here, though, and Hank got to keep dancing.”