The complicated legacy of the 'Broom Man'

Alexander Syzek, 76, lived with bonhomie, mental illness

By: Carol Sanders

To passersby, he was known as the "Broom Man" of Notre Dame Avenue.

For years, he could be seen in front of his family’s Winnipeg Modern Brush Co. building, keeping watch over a tiny patch of lawn with all kinds of brooms and brushes, in all kinds of weather.

The family business is long gone, the building’s been sold, and on Sept. 24, Alexander Syzek died at the Middlechurch Home. He was 76.

Winnipeggers who weren’t familiar with him got to know him in 2006, when he was interviewed by the Free Press. Carrying a broom over his shoulder, he talked about his parents, Mary and Nicholas Syzek, who started the brush manufacturing company in 1930, and his own life that took a dramatic turn when he was in law school.

Readers may have forgotten Syzek’s name but, as the saying goes, they’ve never forgotten how he made them feel.

When his Free Press obituary was published online, there was an outpouring of emotion.

"(Syzek) was one of the first people I met when I moved downtown. Kind. Positive. Someone I always noted," one man wrote.

"He was always so positive and so kind whenever he came in to do his banking," a bank employee wrote. "In the past few years when he stopped coming in, I missed chatting with him and hearing him tell me to have a beautiful day."

One reminisced about chats they had concerning his brooms: "It would brighten my day... He had more than his fair share of challenges in life, yet he nonetheless left a positive mark on our city."

That Syzek is remembered for bringing cheer to so many is remarkable, especially with the challenges he faced, says his younger brother, Nicholas. He looked up to his older sibling when they were kids, then looked out for him when he was diagnosed with schizophrenia in his 20s.

"He was a nice person and very smart," said Nicholas. "When he was kid, he was at the top of his class. He was 10 miles ahead of me. I was a ‘climb-a-tree-and-fall-out-of-it’ kid and he was the ‘read-a-book’ kid."

Syzek attended the old St. Mary’s School downtown, then St. Paul’s College High School.

When they were children, their mother would take them to the Selkirk Mental Health Centre; she’d visit with her husband inside, while the boys played outside on the grounds. Their dad had been hospitalized since being violently attacked in Vancouver. He died when both his sons were very young.

"I only met him twice," said his namesake, Nicholas.

Mary was devoted to her sons. In the summer, she’d hire a cab to take them from their suite in the broom factory to Winnipeg Beach for the day. The accomplished dressmaker and tailor sewed suits for her sons. ("We looked like little gangsters," Nicholas joked.)

Syzek grew into a handsome young man and an excellent student when more heartbreak hit: his girlfriend was killed in a car accident.

At the University of Manitoba, Alexander got an arts degree with honours, then went to law school for two years before the onset of mental illness.

"He had a breakdown," said Nicholas. "He started to withdraw and became a little paranoid."

Syzek didn’t finish law school. He went to work at Eaton’s and Assiniboia Downs, sold brushes at the dwindling family business, and became devoted to their widowed mother. "My mother and him were inseparable. He was her guardian angel," his brother said.

He took after their mother with his love for people and bonhomie.

"My mother was that way, too — wishing people good will and telling them, ‘God bless you,’" said Nicholas, who, however, worried his brother’s well wishes might be taken the wrong way. "...With women, when he’d say, ‘You look absolutely beautiful today.’ I’d tell him: ‘Maybe they don’t want to be told they look beautiful.’"

When hoarding and erratic behaviour became an issue, Nicholas decided his brother needed extra help.

"He’d be walking down the middle of the street with cars on either side of him... I was worried he’d hurt himself," his brother said. "He’d stand in winter with the door open, wishing people a merry Christmas and happy New Year."

However, "he was never violent... He was the kind of guy who would give people $5 here or there till it was all gone. People would ask him for bus tickets on the streets, and he’d give it all away."

Nicholas was appointed to take control of his brother’s financial and personal affairs. "I let him have his own space, but I was always watching him."

It wasn’t an easy role, he said. When Syzek would call people 30 times a day, day and night, they’d in turn call Nicholas, and tell him to make it stop.

Syzek lived in a suite with his mother at the former broom factory at 422 Notre Dame Ave. until the pipes froze and burst one frigid Thanksgiving after the heat was mistakenly shut off. The pair then relocated to a nearby home Nicholas bought.

When Mary died, Syzek got a place in the North End. When he couldn’t live on his own anymore, he moved to Middlechurch Home, where he gave the staff a run for their money, said Nicholas.

"I had to ride shotgun for him on the nursing home — he’d wear a tuque continuously. It was his security blanket."

One of the staff insisted he take the cap off; Syzek argued — with a straight face and a twinkle in his eye — he had to leave it on for religious reasons.

His brother could be aggravating, as well as charming, Nicholas said. The nursing home had to remove its lobby phone because people bothered by calls at all hours from Syzek had complained.

However, "Anybody who came in to see their parents, he’d tell them, ‘You’re looking beautiful today’ — that was kind of nice."

Syzek never married nor had children, but was close to Nicholas’s family. One of Nicholas’s kids gave his baby the middle name Alexander, and introduced him to his great uncle in the nursing home — to the 76-year-old’s delight.

"It was one day that he always talked about."

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca