Some family lines resemble a skinny tree while others have a tangled web of branches that sprout off in all directions. The theme for Week 5 of 52 Ancestors is “Branching Out” and my family line of the week is the Drogowski Family. My mother’s mother’s mother’s mother was a Drogowski, and I have far more DNA matches from her parents than any other set of 3rd great grandparents.
The patriarch of this family is my 5th great-grandfather, Grzegorz Drogowski, who was born about 1741 in Wilczyn to Bartołomej Drogowski and Justyna Smyk. Around 1770, Grzegorz married Rozalia Szternalska. The couple had three children: a son, Wojciech, who was born in 1773, and two daughters, Maryanna and Francizka, whose birth dates are unknown.
In March, 1824, Rozalia died at the age of 80. Shortly afterwards, 83-year-old Grzegorz marries again. His bride was the 30-year-old Maryanna Stawska. A son was born in 1825, Kajetan, and another in 1827, Michal. Also in 1827, Grzegorz died at the age of 86.
Because the children of Grzegorz were born 50+ years apart, young Kajetan and Michal were younger than most of the nieces and nephews from their half-brother Wojciech. Wojciech (my 4th great grandfather) had two daughters (Maryanna and Franziska) and four sons – the daughters and at least two of the sons (Jan and Ignacy) survived infancy. Michal died at the age of 18, but Kajetan married and had at least one son (Stanisław) and one daughter (Eleonora).
From these lines come dozens of families! The branches are too numerous to map out, for it would not fit on this page. Instead I’ll try to summarize some of the interesting things I’ve learned while researching this family.
I’ve written before about Jan Drogowski, my 3rd great-grandfather, who was a linen merchant and occasional smuggler with his “uncle” Kajetan. The two men married sisters, the daughters of Józef Kubinski and Apolonia Lewandowska. Jan’s wife was Konstancja, born in 1818, and Kajetan’s was Nepomucena, born in 1825.
In addition to the double cousins produced from these two marriages, there are three instances of cousin-marriages:
First cousins Franciszek (son of Jan) and Aleksander (son of Ignacy) also married sisters, Teofilia and Wacława Wapinarska.
A grandson of Jan, Kazimierz (son of Józef), married the granddaughter of Ignacy, Kazimiera aka Elsie (daughter of Aleksander) – they are second cousins.
Another grandson of Jan, Stanisław (son of Józef), married the granddaughter of Kajetan, Kazimiera (daughter of Stanisław) – they are second cousins once removed.
As you can tell from the names in the above example, there are many repetitions among the names of these families. There are multiple examples of Józef/Joseph, Stanisław, Franciszek/Frank, and Edward.
The family has two priests (who are second cousins to each other) and three doctors. One of the priests, Fr. Anthony Drogowski, was the officiating minister at the marriage of my best friend’s grandparents!
Several of Jan’s children immigrated, but there is evidence that they journeyed back and forth to Poland. In the case of his son Jozef, several of Jozef’s sons immigrated, but one went back to Poland permanently and one never came. So although Jozef (senior) is buried in Pennsylvania, we have cousins from his other sons still living in Poland.
The family has various settlement points in the United States including Detroit, Pittsburgh, Niagara Falls, Philadelphia, and “upstate” Pennsylvania.
In my research I accidentally discovered a NPE – non-paternal-event. I had a DNA match who shared all of the Drogowski matches, but the individual did not have any Drogowski family. After researching the person’s family, I realized they were from a different part of Poland. I was given access to the person’s DNA matches and immediately saw a first cousin match to one of the Drogowski lines. Unfortunately the person’s biological father was one of the men in this particular branch.
Perhaps the biggest question of all is – was Gregorz really a father in his 80s? It’s possible. Or perhaps he married a pregnant girl to give her child a name. Can we definitively conclude he was the father of Kajetan? Not via autosomal DNA because Kajetan and his “nephew” Jan married sisters. But, perhaps through Y-DNA testing this can be proven. There are male descendants from both Kajetan and Jan. The only thing that would negate the testing is if Gregorz married her because his married son Wojciech had gotten her pregnant.
This post is dedicated to the memory of my 4th cousin, Paweł Drogowski, who died unexpectedly last August at the age of 40. Paweł and I attempted to create a complete genealogy of all of the Drogowski branches and the various other surnames that connect to the family from its female descendants. May he rest in peace.
Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose. ~ Zora Neale Hurston
The genesis of a family historian is curiosity. I’ve discovered that people are either interested in knowing about their family’s past, or they really don’t care at all; there is no in-between. The Week 4 prompt for 52 Ancestors is “Curious.” I have no idea which of my ancestors had a curious personality, so rather than focus on a particular ancestor I’m looking in the mirror – what am I still curious about after over 30 years of researching my family’s history? Plenty! As I discover new information, my questions seem to multiply. So what’s a curious genealogist to do? Formalize that curiosity by developing research plans to poke and pry and, hopefully, quench that curiosity! Here’s a few things that I’m still curious about…
Double Life
Why does my great-grandfather Joseph Zawodny have two different social security numbers? I discovered this just last week! In one of the social security databases, his name is listed with the same birth date and parents’ names, but different numbers. I already have his SS-5 card – or I should now say one of his SS-5 cards – and that number matches the one on his death certificate. Now I’m really curious about the other one…did he forget he already applied? Or is there something to that lingering story that he used someone else’s name?
Research Plan:Order the SS-5 card. Do I need the information? Given that I already have his birth, death, and marriage records as well as those of his parents and great-grandparents – no, not really. But I’ll spend the $21 because I am curious! [See this post from The Legal Genealogist if you don’t know what a SS-5 card is or what it will reveal.]
The Missing Sister…
What happened to my grandaunt, Jean Piontkowska Hynes? So far I’ve tracked her and her husband, William R. Hynes, from New York City to Florida where they resided in 1940. In October, 1944, according to The Tampa Tribune, William filed for divorce. However I found no record of the divorce and no notice of it in the paper. William married again in the late 1940s (his third marriage). On Jean’s brother’s obituary in 1953, she is listed as living in Detroit, but obituaries are not that reliable and I haven’t found any other evidence of that. According to William’s child from the post-Jean marriage, Jean might have been living in New York City around 1958 and when she became ill and her ex-husband helped her out. Where and when did she die?
Research Plan: I’m waiting for the release of the 1950 census to determine where Jean went after leaving Florida (if she left); then continue to search for her death record. I still don’t actually have her marriage record to William from around 1926; one story says they never actually were married, but William would know that so why would he file for divorce if they weren’t actually married? I’d like to find that divorce record, too, so I’ll check with the county clerk for Pinellas County.
Across the Pond
What happened to the rest of the Pater family that remained in Poland? I already know that my great-grandfather’s first cousin, Józef Pater, a decorated war veteran, was active in the Polish resistance during WW2. This resulted in his fourteen month-long imprisonment in Pawiak Prison, shipment to Auschwitz, and his death there eight weeks later. His wife, Helena Palige Pater, was also imprisoned at Pawiak for the same amount of time and died at Ravensbruck. Either his son or his brother, both named Bronislaw Pater, died at Majdanek. Jozef was the son of Marcin Pater, my great-great grandfather’s brother. Another brother was named Stanislaw, and both had children. When I visited the Pawiak Museum in Warsaw in 2017, I saw a photo on the wall of a Stanislaw Pater that seemed to resemble Jozef. I’m curious if it was his brother or uncle, and I wonder what happened to the rest of the Pater family.
Research Plan: Write to the Pawiak museum requesting information on Stanislaw Pater, check Arolsen Archives that document Nazi persecution, continue to look at several research sites that contain Polish vital records, and search family history sites for relatives.
Exiled
What happened to the Miller brothers who were exiled to Siberia? Last week I wrote about my 2nd great-grandmother, Elizabeth Miller. Her daughter Zofie told her nieces that her brother Emil Pater was exiled to Siberia. This occurred either during World War I or the Polish-Soviet War that immediately followed it.
Research Plan: Find some books that detail this event, especially the Polish-Soviet War which isn’t as well known in the U.S. I could also attempt to find descendants of Emil’s daughter, Wanda, who remained in Poland after her mother returned to the U.S. in 1930 (assuming her family survived WW2).
Who’s the Daddy?
When you have DNA matches that are close enough to figure out and both people have done extensive family research but the trees do not match, you know there’s a paternity that doesn’t match the paper trail. Such is the case on my Zawodny line (actually my Ratajczyk line as my 2nd great grandfather adopted the use of the name Zawodny from his stepfather). Because I have three matches all descending from the same ancestor, I suspect he is actually my 3rd grandfather. He and my 3rd grandmother were in the same general vicinity, but not in the same town. However, no other explanation makes sense as to how I keep matching to his descendants.
Research Plan: How to determine this? Y-DNA would be useful, but my matches aren’t from the direct male line of this ancestor. I need to dig more into their family line to find a direct male line to prove my theory.
When I use prompts or themes to write with challenges such as “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” or the much loved but long-gone “Carnival of Genealogy,” usually I either read the theme and know immediately who or what I will write about, or it takes a great deal of thought to come up with something. This week, for Week 3 of the 2022 “52 Ancestors” theme of “Favorite Photo,” I discovered a third option: I knew exactly which photo I wanted to write about, but then it was as if another ancestor was like a child raising her hand and yelling, “Me! Me! Pick me!” When your great-great-grandmother metaphorically speaks to you, listen – as it turns out, I had already written about my “other” favorite photo in 2015, and my 2nd great grandmother’s life was quite extraordinary in simple ways. Her name was Elizabeth Smetana Miller. Her ancestors were “pioneers” of sorts, fleeing religious persecution and settling – even founding towns – in a foreign land. In her youth, her family and several others moved 90 miles away from their birthplace in search of better things. Later, as a mother, her children began to migrate even further away to the United States. I have a documented oral history from a cousin that tells even more of her story: she cared for her younger children plus five grandchildren for over a year. Then, after seeing her grandchildren and one son off to America, she faced widowhood and a world war on their doorstep. Surviving the war years, she would make one more journey – this time to America herself – where she lived another quarter century as the family matriarch in Metuchen, New Jersey. The few facts and stories tell me she was one tough cookie!
Here is my favorite photograph of Elizabeth Smetana Miller. It was taken on Long Island, NY in 1925 and she is holding her great-granddaughter Lucille. Besides wanting to tell Elizabeth’s story, I chose this as my current “favorite” photo for several reasons. I was able to see and photograph it in the summer of 2014, but I had only learned the previous year that Elizabeth immigrated to the United States. I had assumed she died in Poland and was quite excited to discover otherwise. Finding the cousin that had the photos and stories – as well as finding out about Elizabeth’s long life – was a mix of genuine research and serendipitous good luck!
Elizabeth Smetana Miller (age 67) and her great-granddaughter in 1925
Elizabeth Smetana was born on 06 April 1858 in Zelów, a town that is in Poland today. Then Poland did not exist as a country, and this area was under Russian rule. Her family, and most of the town of Zelów, had lived in the area that is now Poland for over a century, but they were ethnically Czechs from Bohemia. Her name in Czech is Alžběta Smetanová; in Polish it is Elżbieta Smietana.
She was the fifth child born to Pavel Samuel Smetana and Anna Karolina Jelinek (Jelínková). Pavel’s ancestry will be discussed later this year for another theme of “52 Ancestors” – for now let’s just say there are some questions about his parentage. But Anna’s ancestors are among the “founding fathers” of Zelów and some of the other Protestant Czech settlements that proceeded it as they were fleeing religious persecution in their homeland (read about one of her ancestors here). Both sets of Anna’s grandparents, Jan Jelinek-Maria Pospischil (Pospíšilová) and Jan Jirsak-Anna Nemecova, moved to the town within the first few years of its founding in 1802.
Zelów was founded as a farming community, but as the town grew, residents who were not landowners became weavers. Their skills led them to migrate to two larger cities that had a need for skilled textile workers: Łódź and Żyrardów. During Elizabeth’s childhood, approximately in the 1870s, at least eight Zelów families moved to Żyrardów for these opportunities.
In addition to the Smetana family, the family of Matej and Marie (Szara) Miller were among those who moved. The Miller family had a son, Jan, who was born in Zelów on 24 November 1849. He was almost a decade older than Elizabeth, but the pair were married by 1880.
Elizabeth and Jan Miller had eight children:
Emil born on 22 December 1881
Marya (Mary) born on 24 March 1884
Karolina born on 12 March 1886
Elizabeth born on 19 November 1890 (my great-grandmother)
Paweł born on 11 December 1893
Alfred born on 18 April 1896
Zofie born on 03 April 1903
Their oldest son, Emil, was the first to emigrate to America in 1904, followed by his wife and daughter. Jan and Elizabeth’s daughter Elizabeth followed in 1909. In 1912, Mary, now the wife of Ludwik Szulc (Shultz), followed her husband. At the time, the Shultz’s had five children, but Mary left the children – temporarily – with her parents, Jan and Elizabeth. It is through Mary’s oldest daughter, Louise, that I know about their living arrangement. Louise was born in 1903 and was only a girl of nine when her parents left for the U.S. For a year Louise lived with her siblings, grandparents, uncles and one aunt who was the same age as her. Decades later, Louise told her story to the Ellis Island Oral History Project. [The entire story of Louise Schultz and her family is told in a 3-part series of posts beginning with Life in Poland and the Decision to Leave (Part 1); I repeat a few snippets here.]
Elizabeth was now responsible for her own four children still at home – ages 19, 16, 12, and 9, as well as her daughter Mary’s five children – ages 9, 8, 6, 4, and 3. In addition to the added responsibility of caring for five young grandchildren, Elizabeth was the sole supporter of the family because her husband Jan was sick.
Jan and Elizabeth Miller in 1913 with four of their children and the Schultz grandchildren. Left: Ludwik Miller, Zofia Miller, Elzbieta Miller, Louise (Ludwika) Schultz, Alfred Miller, girl in front – Julia Schultz, Jan Miller, Pawel Miller, Henry Schultz, Edward Schultz.
Louise, like most 9-year-olds, thought her grandmother “was old, but actually she was not.” [Note: her grandmother was 55 years old at the time.] Louise explains, “My grandfather was sick; he was in bed. She was very fast, my grandmother. She worked the looms, one on one side and one on the other so she could make enough money.”
Finally, on 06 August 1913, Mary and Ludwig Schultz sent enough money for their children to immigrate, accompanied by their uncle Alfred Miller. Just three weeks later, Jan Miller passed away on 25 August, leaving Elizabeth a widow with three children still at home: Paweł, Ludwik, and Zofie. Perhaps she had hopes of joining her adult children in America, but those hopes were dashed by the “Great War.”
When the war began, Żyrardów was on the front line. Hundreds of workers were drafted into the army. Because of the decrease in workers and the lack of raw materials, the factory began to reduce production. Food prices increased. As German troops made their way through Russian Poland, martial law was declared.
In early 1915, goods, raw materials, and machines were removed from the textile factory. The town was deserted due to forced digging of trenches, general displacement, and epidemics of infectious diseases. The worst came after the collapse of the front line of Płock-Bzura-Rawka. On the night of July 16, 1915, the retreating Russian army blew up the main factory buildings. By the end of 1915, the town was under German occupation. During that time, charity committees were abolished and strict food regulation was imposed.
In an article in The New York Times on October 26, 1915 (originally printed in The Chicago Tribune on September 24), reporter James O’Donnell Bennett writes about crossing “Russian Poland” which at that time in the war was in German or Austrian control. He writes:
Often in the last five days I have made the experiment of looking out over the wide landscape to see if I could find an unscathed tract of country. Always the experiment is a failure. Always a shattered church tower notches itself against the sky or a battered village lies crumpled at the edge of fields.
The reporter mentions several towns his party traveled through, including Żyrardów. He describes the whole country as
…flyblown and sodden and a ‘nobody cares’ atmosphere envelops it…It is all waste and wreckage, wreckage and waste, a land of grime and ruin and sour smells, of silent fields and slatternly women, of weary sentries…
Louise said her aunt eventually told her what it was like during the war and “how awful it was when the German army went through the town.” Louise realized that she and her siblings “just missed the horror of a war. They used to hide in cellars and had no food. My grandmother went from one farm to another to beg for a piece of bread.”
It is believed that Elizabeth’s son Paweł was part of the Soviet roundups in Żyrardów that sent residents to Siberia. He did not return from the exile and presumably died there. Elizabeth’s daughter, Karolina Miller Razer, may have suffered the same fate; her sister Zofie later told her niece Louise that Karolina died “in prison”.
Ludwik Miller, a young teenager, either joined or was conscripted into the Russian Army sometime during the Great War. He survived the experience and lived a long life. [Although he visited the United States, he never immigrated and remained in Żyrardów.]
The oldest son, Emil Miller, who was the first of the family to immigrate to America, actually returned to Poland in 1913 after the death of his father. He brought his wife and their children, two of whom were born in America, but after the war began there was no way to leave. Emil and one of his daughters died in Poland during the war. Emil’s wife, Zofja, and American-born son Edward could finally return to America in 1927 (Edward) and 1929 (Zofja). Another daughter (Wanda) stayed behind in Żyrardów.
Widowed Elizabeth and her youngest child, Zofie, would eventually immigrate to America themselves. They sailed aboard the Megantic from Liverpool and arrived in Portland, Maine on 10 December 1920. Elizabeth a lived for a time with Alfred in New York, then with Mary in New Jersey.
I’d like to know more about Elizabeth’s life in America, but I only know where she lived and that she died on 08 November 1944 at the age of 86 (even though her obituary says 81 – I have her birth record!) Thanks to other snippets of her life gleaned through her granddaughter Louise’s memories, I think she was a brave woman. Like her forefathers before her, she also made trips in her life in search of better things. She worked hard for her family, cared for her husband, and suffered both the separation from her children and grandchildren as well as the deaths of some of her children. She also had to be of strong character to endure the suffering caused by World War 1 from 1914-1918 and continued with the Polish-Soviet War from 1918-1921. She was fortunately to be able to leave the country while it was at war.
Elizabeth was 62 when she arrived in America and she lived for another 24 years. In fact, she had a longer lifespan than her husband, probably all of her children (Ludwik’s death date is unknown, but he was alive in 1977 at age 83), and even longer than the majority of her grandchildren who grew up in relative comfort in America as compared to her life in Poland.
Sources:
Štěříková, Edita: Zelów (Česká exulantská obec v Polsku), published by KALICH, Prague 2002, ISBN 80-7017-793-4
Kopie księg metrykalnych, 1826-1888. Authors: Kościół ewangelicko-reformowany. Parafja Zelów (Łask) (Main Author). Format:Manuscript/Manuscript on Film. Publication: Salt Lake City, Utah: The Genealogical Society of Utah, 1970, 1980, 1990.
Ellis Island Oral History Project. Series AKRF, no. 0033: Interview of Louise Nagy by Dana Gumb, September 16,1985
“Zigzagging Over Poland” by James O’Donnell Bennett, The New York Times, October 26, 1915, page 3.
Finding the photo of my 2nd great-grandmother courtesy of her great-granddaughter, Judy.
The theme for Week 2 of the 2022 edition of “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” is “Favorite Find.” I’ve had several favorite finds in the many years of researching my ancestors, and my favorite tends to be the the latest record, fact, photo, or person I found. But I have to admit that this find was rather unique and still makes me smile.
Prussia’s Most Wanted!
When I research my family tree, most of the ancestors are merely names and dates without any stories or context about who they really were as people. But, depending upon the circumstances, or the peripheral information about their occupation or town or family, some ancestors seem to call to me as if they have a story to tell. Jan Drogowski, one of my 3rd great grandfathers, is one of those ancestors. Maybe because he was the son of a farmer who became a linen merchant. Or because he lived during most of the 19th century (from 1818 to 1894). Or because he had ten children and I have dozens DNA matches among his many descendants. But his story got even more interesting with my favorite find.
I wrote about Jan’s life for the 2015 “52 Ancestors” challenge for Week 17 (“Prosper”). I assumed he had prospered since he was the son of a farmer who, at age 20, was already a linen merchant when he married the daughter of a farmer. He also was literate, which was not common at the time. He and his wife Konstancja had ten children together.
Years after I wrote that post, I used a rather unscientific form of research: a quick Google search. I put in just the surname and town name (Wilczyn) and found a reference to Jan on a list in a German newspaper. At first glance, I could tell it provided his physical description, so I was excited about that. I thought it might be a military draft listing. But then it dawned on me — he was from the Russian partition, so why would he be on a draft list for Prussia?
Upon closer inspection and translation, it is a list of people for whom the police have issued warrants! Both he and his uncle Kajetan (who is six years younger than Jan) were seen smuggling merchandise across the border. They were extradited for being “burdensome, troublesome.” My ancestor was a smuggler! Since he was sticking it to both Prussia and Russia who had divided up Poland, I felt proud of that fact.
Wilczyn is circled in red – the dotted line above & to the left represent the border between Prussia and Russia
In 1856, my ancestor Jan Drogowski, age 36, and his uncle Kajetan, age 30, both linen weavers from Wilczyn, are listed in a Prussian newspaper for outstanding warrants from 1855. Jan is described as 5’6” with blond hair, blue eyes, a blond beard, an oval face, a healthy complexion, and medium build. Kajetan is 3 inches shorter with dark hair and no beard.
Jan and his uncle were only six years apart due to a 50-year age difference between Jan’s father, Wojciech, and Wojciech’s half-brother. The pair not only smuggled together, but they must have been close friends since they married sisters.
I guess they never got caught, and now I know how Jan was able to support ten children! His granddaughter (my great-grandmother) lost the blond hair and blue eye connection and had brown hair and eyes.
It’s incredibly rare to obtain a physical description of an ancestor from the early or mid 19th century. It’s also rather rare to get a sense of story or personality from that far back. Usually all we have are names and dates. So I’m very happy with this accidental find. Wilczyn was really right on the very edge of the border between the two countries. I’m sure it was profitable to sell goods on the “other side.” At the time, he had about seven kids. My great grandmother wasn’t born until 1860, so I’m happy he wasn’t caught.
NewspaperSource: Amtsblatt der Königlichen Preußischen Regierung zu Bromberg. Published 1856. Original from the Bavarian State Library, digitized November 3, 2009. Pages 48-49. Accessed via Google Books.
Map Source: Józef Michał Bazewicz, Atlas geograficzny ilustrowany Królestwa Polskiego (Litografia B. A. Bukaty, Warsaw, 1907); digital images, Mapster, http://igrek.amzp.pl/mapindex.php?cat=BAZAKP1907, Powiat słupecki guberni kaliskiej (Note: original has been cropped and edited to highlight Wilczyn.)
This past December as I pondered blogging again, I heard my mother’s voice in my head joking that it took me six months to write a tribute to my father after his death but it’s been over a year since hers – so “what was I waiting for?” (Maybe she’ll be pleased that her tribute is much longer than my father’s!) At the same time, I saw a notice of another “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” challenge from Amy Johnson Crow. I participated in 2015’s version and was doing well until May, but I only completed 21 of the 52 weeks. That challenge not only forced me to organize my facts about many of my ancestors and relatives, but it also provided a creative writing challenge to find the right story to fit the prompt.
With these two thoughts in mind, I was happy to see that the Week 1 theme for 2022 is “Foundations” – my mother was the foundation of my life, so how appropriate to start of this new year of blogging with a tribute to her.
My mother died the day I was born; she told me all about it years later. ~ Donna
Left: The Pater Family in 1937 Right: Joan and Anita Pater, circa 1939
Anita Jane Pater was born on December 28, 1935, the second child of Henry and Mae (Zawodny) Pater. Both of her parents were first generation Americans born in Philadelphia to Polish immigrants. Henry and Mae lived a few houses apart on Indiana Avenue in the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia when they married in 1930. Their first child, Joan Delores, was born on August 30, 1932.
By Anita’s own account, her childhood was not happy. Although the sisters were close, they had different personalities and interests and always fought with each other. While Henry earned a good wage at a hosiery factory, he had a habit of losing his paycheck at the racetrack, so the family struggled financially. Many things that Anita wanted, like piano or dance lessons, her parents could not afford. But the things that she loved most about childhood were going to school, going to the movies, and designing dresses.
One of Anita’s first jobs was as an “elevator girl” at Strawbridge & Clothier’s, a large department store at 8th & Market in Philadelphia. The girls operated the large elevators for customers and the minimum age was 18. Anita, 17, lied about her age and got the job. She loved wearing the uniform, and she became friends with three other gals: Ruth, Rita, and Jane. Later she worked in administrative and bookkeeping positions, and years later became a bank teller.
WE’RE FOOLS WHETHER WE DANCE OR NOT, SO WE MIGHT AS WELL DANCE. ~JAPANESE PROVERB
Anita loved to dance! She attended neighborhood dances, mostly held in church and school gyms. Each dance focused on a particular age group from pre-teen to older teens, to almost-adult and beyond. My mother and her girlfriends practiced dancing on the sidewalk in front of their houses.
Dancing played a role in my parents’ marriage – and my existence – because it all started at a dance! On Sunday, March 13, 1955, my mother was 19 years old. She had “outgrown” the fun dances at St. Matt’s, so she and some girlfriends decided to try the Sunday night dance at St. Boniface. It was her first and only visit there.
My father, James Albert Pointkouski, also liked neighborhood dances, and St. Boniface was close to where he lived at the time. The boys danced as a way to meet girls, and they learned by watching others dance. He was 20 years old, lived with his parents, and made $1 per hour hanging garage doors for a company two doors away from his home.
Neither remembers what music was played that night, but a live band performed. When Jim asked Anita to dance, he remembers being glad he had his “little black book” and a pen with him. He asked for her phone number; she gave it to him.
Their first official date was to see a movie (neither remembered which one). Afterward, they went to the Mayfair Diner. During their meal, Jim proclaimed that he really wanted to get married. Surprised that a young guy would want marriage, my mother asked why. “Well,” he said, “it sure would be nice to have someone cook dinner and iron my shirts.” My mother replied, “You don’t need a wife, you need a maid.”
“It’s Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White when you’re in love” ~ Pérez Prado
Left: Anita and Jimmy dating in 1955 Right: Still dancing in 1992
When Jim asked Anita out again, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to go. She didn’t know what to say, so she pretended she was too sick to go out. That night, he sent her two dozen roses as a get well wish, which made her feel even more guilty about lying. They did go out again, and again, and they were married a little more than one year later on April 7, 1956.
Before their marriage, my father got a job with IBM, and in October, 1956 he had to attend a training class for a few weeks in Endicott, NY. The young newlyweds exchanged letters while they were apart. I’m grateful those letters were saved, because they show how much they loved each other.
March 13, 1955 was the most wonderful day of my life, just as you are the most wonderful person in my life. Jimmy love, I like to think that our love for each other is something special that no one else in this whole entire world could ever possibly share the same feelings. I have given so much of my love to you, that there is only the right amount left over for our children. Leaving very little for anyone or anything else, with the exception of God. I know it’s only because of Him that we have each other.
From Anita to Jim on 10-12-1956
I don’t ever remember anything that ever happened before March 13, 1955. Since then life has had its ups & downs but because of your warmth, companionship & devotion, I’ve never experienced a really sad day – you’ve always been my one lil’ ray of sunshine on which I’ve based all my hopes & plans for the future. …They taught me a long time ago, that the husband is the head of the house but the wife is the heart – and like the body, they must function together to sustain. Baby, that’s how I feel – like half of me is missing. I have your picture, your letters, your phone calls, but I don’t have you.
From Jim to Anita on 10-17-1956 (the day she would die many years later)
Jimmy every night when I go to bed or in work I day dream. I make plans for our future. I think about our children. I can really picture them. They’re adorable. ~ Anita, 10/10/1956
Anita’s babies – whether in 1959. 1967, or 2019
Jim had been in the Navy Reserves since high school, and in February, 1957, he was called to active duty for two years. He spent part of that time at the naval base in Norfolk, VA, and he occasionally could travel home for leave. The couple had their first child, a stillborn daughter, in May, 1958. Anita experienced toxemia with the pregnancy, but they desperately wanted children so she was soon pregnant again. Their son, James Drew, was born in 1959.
At the time of Drew’s birth, the family was renting a house on Knorr Street in the Mayfair section of Philadelphia. In 1960, they purchase a home, or rather a “pile of dirt” as my mother called it, that was still being built. It was on Kirby Drive in the “Far Northeast” part of the city that was still largely undeveloped. They would remain in that house until each had to move into a care facility decades later.
My parents tried to have another child for years, and my mother prayed that she would have a daughter. It took many years before her prayers were answered, and I arrived in 1967. Mom was once again very sick with toxemia, as she was with her other pregnancies. This time, she coded on the table after giving birth to me. Long before anyone wrote about “near death experiences,” she had one. Fortunately for me, it wasn’t her day to die.
A dancer and a lover of musicals!
In the early 1970s, my mother’s love for dancing and my father’s love of making people laugh collided when they became involved with the annual parents’ show at my brother’s high school, Archbishop Ryan. Many of the parents involved in the shows were quite talented, and they performed to a packed house for a weekend every November. Not only did the shows bring great joy to my parents, but they made some life-long friends from this experience.
In the late 70s, two things happened that had a big impact on Anita, and each event is the impetus of the two main areas in which my mother influenced my life: faith and health.
“Christmas was a few short days away. I wasn’t prepared to celebrate this holy day. I wasn’t going to celebrate anything. I was going to die.” ~ Anita, 10/20/1989 about 1983
Anita always believed in God – despite her upbringing. When she was about four years old, her father told her that there was no Santa Claus. Then he told her there was once a God who created the world and everything in it, then He disappeared forever. My mother once wrote about this moment:
I felt such a sense of despair and helplessness. If there was no one to pray to, who could I turn to? Who would listen to my lonely cries? I thought God was supposed to help us – what would happen to me now? I walked out the back door and looked up at the darkening sky and saw one beautiful, shining star just starting to peek through. ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star, I wish there is a God afar. I don’t care what my father says or thinks, I know you’ll take care of me because without God life stinks.’ I felt better after that. I made my decision that I would believe there is a God even if there wasn’t a Santa Claus.
undated writing by anita
As a child, my mom’s family did not go to church very often, but she was baptized Catholic at the age of three or four (with her older sister), likely at the prompting of her maternal grandfather with whom they lived at the time. My father, on the other hand, had been more of a regular church-goer in his youth. But once they had a family of their own, we only went sporadically despite the fact that my brother and I went to Catholic school.
Around 1977, a friend of my mother’s invited her to a Catholic Charismatic renewal prayer meeting – and it changed her life. She had a reawakening of her faith and rather quickly became more interested in prayer, the Bible, and Mass. I believe that it was her prayers that led my father, my brother, and myself to find our own personal relationships with God. My father and I found our way back to the faith within the next few years, and my parents and I both became active members of Our Lady of Calvary parish. This happened while my brother was in the Marine Corps, and when he returned home, we were a different family. Soon, mostly from our mother’s influence, he also rediscovered the faith.
My mother led many others to Christ with her testimony and was a woman of powerful prayer. Many people have told me that she helped or influenced them. My parents and several of their friends began a weekly rosary group that flourished for years, and she was always willing to pray with others.
Mom’s powerful faith is intertwined in the second way influenced me – how to take care of your body to be healthy. She was definitely a survivor! I already mentioned how she died when I was born, but she came very close to death again in 1978 with an intestinal perforation and peritonitis. She had multiple surgeries and it took her many months to recover, but her faith helped her get through it.
In 1983, she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and began chemotherapy. She felt even more sick from the treatment. But she believed that she would be well. When she refused to have another round of treatments, the doctor told her that she only had six months to live. Through prayer, a positive attitude, and a complete change of her diet and nutrition, the cancer eventually went into remission – and never returned for the rest of her life. It became a pivotal moment in my own life – not just because of how different my life would have been without her, but because I saw the positive – or negative – impact that food, supplements, and even your thoughts could have on your body. I encouraged her to write about her healing about four years later. After describing the stress and fear caused by the diagnosis as well as her physical pain and fatigue, she wrote:
I accepted the bad experience I was going through and believed that good would come from it. One can’t help but marvel at God’s ability to work through us when we encounter a negative experience and make us stronger for it. There is nothing in our lives that God does not allow but it is never His will that we suffer. He allows it so good can come from it. I have found that giving praise and thanks for all things helps you understand how futile stress and worry are and I began to willingly accept trials and tribulations without struggle and more importantly without fear. Negativity is a destructive force that hampers spiritual growth and denies the pleasure of life Being open to God’s will brings us new life and joy. Time on earth is too short to waste.
Anita’s account of her healing from cancer written in 1989
I may be lucky enough to have you for about seventy-five years – all of which would be inestimably happy. ~ Jim to anita, 10/8/1956
Anita was a wonderful cook and loved entertaining friends. She also loved taking day trips to play the penny slot machines at the casinos in Atlantic City. Her other favorite hobbies were watching old movies, especially musicals, and seeing shows downtown.
While she wasn’t as interested in her family’s history as I was, she was fascinated by some of the things I discovered along the way. She told me everything she remembered hearing from her parents, aunts, and uncles, and slowly I took those fragments of memories and found the facts. We even went out for a few meals with cousins she hadn’t seen in decades as well as cousins she’d never even met.
One of her most favorite things was being a grandmother. She became a grandmother for the first time in 1995 with the birth of her first granddaughter, Natalie. Eventually she would have four grandchildren with the addition of Ava in 2005, Nicholas in 2007, and Luke in 2009.
Natalie, Ava, Nicholas, and Luke
Jim developed Parkinson’s that was manageable for over a decade, but in September, 2013, he moved into Wesley Enhanced Living retirement home in Philadelphia. Anita visited almost every day until his death on June 27, 2016. They had been married for sixty years.
I received a beautiful note on the day of her funeral from her parish priest. He wrote that he really got to know my parents due to illness; he used to visit my father in the nursing home and see my mother making her daily visits. He wrote:
I was seeing two people suffering individually and at the same time saw the ways they reached out to each other. They made marriage vows real – ‘I take you for better, for worse, in sickness and in health, I will love and honor you all the days of my life.’ We are blessed being a part of their lives.
Fr. James Kirk, 10/22/2020
In the years after Jim’s death, Anita suffered several transient ischemic attacks (TIAs). She always bounced back and continued to live at home until January of 2020 when she moved into assisted living at Riverview Estates in Riverton, NJ. After March, a difficult period of isolation began due to pandemic restrictions. But she continued to touch people with her faith – several of the caregivers admitted how much they loved conversations with her about faith or praying with her. Anita passed away from a stroke on October 17, 2020.
Anita was a wife, mother, grandmother, and friend. She was a dreamer and a survivor. She was a woman of strong faith. Thank you, Mom, for being the foundation of my life and of my faith – and for teaching me how to love.
The Light
When we remember Who we came from we will know why we are here. When we remember Who the light of the world is, we can let it shine from within. You can be the one who brings someone out of the darkness. You can be the one who shows the way. We need to show the people of this time that God is with us. We need to make them aware of His presence. Do you believe? If so, show others His light. Make a difference! Show them the true light of the world.The light of Jesus. How well do you know Him? How well do you know His word? How willing are you to let His light shine through you?
anita pointkouski 2/7/2014
ETERNAL REST GRANT UNTO HER, O LORD, AND LET PERPETUAL LIGHT SHINE UPON HER. MAY SHE REST IN PEACE. AMEN.
Meaning/Origin – The Eichingre surname is not specifically listed in the Dictionary of German Names, Second Edition by Hans Bahlow, which is the reference book I usually use for my German surnames. However, other surnames with the prefix “Eich” (such as Eicher, Eichler, Eichner, Eichmann) all come from the German word eiche, which means “oak” and indicate a dwelling place under the oaks.
Countries of Origin – The surname Eichinger is German. According to the World Names Profiler, the countries with the highest frequency per million residents are Austria with 314 individuals per million, Germany with 61, and Hungary with 17. The next highest countries (and their respective frequency per million) are Luxembourg (8.5) and Switzerland (6.3).
Spelling Variations – Variations include AICHINGER, which was the earlier/older spelling of the name in my own family.
Surname Maps – The following maps illustrate the frequency of the EICHINGER surname in Austria and Germany. Not surprisingly, the areas in Germany with the higher concentration is exactly where my family was located.
Distribution of the EICHINGER surname in Austria.
SOURCE: Surname Distribution Maps of Austria, http://namenskarten.lima-city.at/en/ accessed August 16, 2017.
Famous Individuals with the Surname – Bernd Eichinger (1949-2011) was a German film producer. He was executive director of Constantin Film, one of the most successful German film companies. His best known American films were The Neverending Story, The Name of the Rose, and Fantastic Four. Nina Eichinger (born 1981, Munich) is Bernd Eichinger’s daughter and an actress in Germany. Martin Eichinger (born 1949) is an American sculptor. Under the alternate (and older) spelling of the name, Gregor Aichinger (c. 1565 – 21 January 1628) was a German composer and organist to the Fugger family of Augsburg in 1584.
My Family – My EICHINGINGER family comes from Bavaria. First from Oberbayern, or Upper Bavaria, but prior to that from the area just to the northwest, Niederbayern, or Lower Bavaria. It is interesting that in the earliest instances of the name in my family, they lived in the “Wald” region of Lower Bavaria, which is called Bayerischer Wald or the Bavarian Forest. That fact makes me wonder if the family’s name did indeed derive from the fact that they lived near the oaks!
My earliest ancestor with this name is Michael Aichinger who is named in the marriage record of his son, Egidi Aichinger, which took place in 1640 in Kirchberg im Wald. Each successive generation lived in a different town in that region including Grünbach and Hintberg. In the late 1700s/early 1800s – just when the spelling of the surname changed in records to EICHINGER, my line moved to Upper Bavaria in the area around Dachau including the towns of Oberweilbach, Deggendorf, Asbach, and Prittlbach.
My line of descent is as follows: Michael Aichinger > Egidi Aichinger > Andreas Aichinger (c. 1641-1711) > Johann Aichinger (1688-1749) > Josef Aichinger (c.1720-1789) > Josef Eichinger (1754-1817) > Georg Eichinger (1793-1855) > Ursula Eichinger Dallmayr (1820-?) > Ursula Dallmayr Bergmeister Götz (1846-1911) > Josef Bergmeister (1873-1927) > Margaret Bergmeister Pointkouski (1913-1998) > my father > me.
My Research Challenges – My challenge in researching this name was that I mis-translated the maiden name of my ancestor Ursula Dallmayr in her marriage record. For years I searched for the Eulinger family from Aichach instead of the Eichinger family from Asbach. It is so much easier to research using the correct name and location!
This post is #13 of an ongoing series about my family’s surnames. To see all posts in the series, click here.
This 3-part series of posts uses my cousin’s interview in 1985 with the Ellis Island Oral History Project. Part 1 tells the story of Ludwig and Mary Schultz, who came to America in 1912 and temporarily left their five children with Mary’s parents. In Part 2, their daughter, Louise, discusses living with her grandparents and the eventual journey across the ocean to join their parents. In today’s post, Part 3 will tell more about what happened after their arrival, how the family left behind fared in Poland after they left, and how everyone’s life eventually turned out.
The Family Left Behind
Before discussing the Schultz family’s life in America, one interesting question asked by the interviewer in 1985 was: “Do you have any idea of what would have happened to you if you stayed in Poland, if you hadn’t come here?”
Louise responded: “Pretty awful, because we came in 1913 and in 1914 the first World War broke out.” What happened to the grandparents, uncles, and aunts they left behind?
The children’s grandfather and Alfred’s father, Jan Miller, died just three weeks after they left Poland. He passed away on 25 August 1913, leaving Elżbieta a widow with three children still at home: Paweł, Ludwik, and Zofie.
When the war began, Żyrardów was on the front line. Hundreds of workers were drafted into the army. Because of the decrease in workers and the lack of raw materials, the factory began to reduce production. Food prices increased. As German troops made their way through Russian Poland, martial law was declared.
In early 1915, goods, raw materials, and machines were removed from the factory. The town was deserted due to forced digging of trenches, general displacement, and epidemics of infectious diseases. The worst came after the collapse of the front line of Płock-Bzura-Rawka. On the night of July 16, 1915, the retreating Russian army blew up the main factory buildings. By the end of 1915, the town was under German occupation. During that time, charity committees were abolished and strict food regulation was imposed.
In an article in The New York Times on October 26, 1915 (originally printed in The Chicago Tribune on September 24), reporter James O’Donnell Bennett writes about crossing “Russian Poland” which at that time in the war was in German or Austrian control. He writes:
Often in the last five days I have made the experiment of looking out over the wide landscape to see if I could find an unscathed tract of country. Always the experiment is a failure. Always a shattered church tower notches itself against the sky or a battered village lies crumpled at the edge of fields.
The reporter mentions several towns his party traveled through, including Żyrardów. He describes the whole country as “flyblown and sodden and a ‘nobody cares’ atmosphere envelops it…It is all waste and wreckage, wreckage and waste, a land of grime and ruin and sour smells, of silent fields and slatternly women, of weary sentries…”
Louise said her aunt eventually told her what it was like during the war and “how awful it was when the German army went through the town.” Louise realized that she and her siblings “just missed the horror of a war. They used to hide in cellars and had no food. My grandmother went from one farm to another to beg for a piece of bread.”
Ludwik Miller
I am not certain exactly what happened to Paweł Miller. According to Louise, her aunt Zofie said he was part of the Soviet roundups in Żyrardów that sent residents to Siberia. He did not return from the exile and presumably died there. Their sister, Karolina Miller Razer, may have suffered the same fate; Zofie said she died “in prison”.
Ludwik Miller, a young teenager, either joined or was conscripted into the Russian Army sometime during the Great War. He survived the experience and lived a long life. Ludwik did not immigrate to America. He married twice and had no children, and owned a footwear store in Żyrardów. He died there sometime after 1977.
Elizabeth Smetana Miller with great-granddaughter, Lucille (Louise’s daughter). Long Island, NY, 1925.
The oldest brother, Emil Miller, who was the first of the family to immigrate to America, actually returned to Poland in 1913 after the death of his father. He brought his wife and their children, two of whom were born in America, but after the war began there was no way to leave. Emil and one of his daughters died in Poland during the war. Emil’s wife, Zofja, and American-born son Edward could finally return to America in 1927 (Edward) and 1929 (Zofja). Another daughter stayed behind in Żyrardów.
Widowed Elżbieta and her youngest child, Zofie, would eventually immigrate to America themselves. They sailed aboard the Megantic from Liverpool and arrived in Portland, Maine on 10 December 1920. Elżbieta, or Elizabeth as she was called in America, lived for a time with Alfred in New York, then with Mary in New Jersey. She died on 08 November 1944.
The Schultz Family in America
Finally in America after a long, scary journey, Louise said, “My first impression was pretty awful! Because [in Poland] we lived surrounded by trees and orchards and little houses by themselves.” In America, they lived in downtown Manhattan “on 16th Street, that’s where we moved first. The place looked dirty to me, crowded dirty.” But the family adjusted. Louise was particularly good at learning the new language and communicating on behalf of her parents who, according to her, did not make as much of an effort in assimilating.
The Schultz Family in America, circa 1923. Top row from left: Louise, Mary, Ludwig, Edward. Bottom row from left: Walter, Julia, Henry.
The Schultz family enjoyed their new lives in America. They lived in Brooklyn, then in New Jersey’s Somerset county. Eventually they moved to Metuchen in Middlesex county, New Jersey. Ludwig died in 1950 at the age of 77, and Mary in 1969 at the age of 85.
Henry, who never married, was the first of the Schultz children to die in 1954 at only 46 years old. Edward married and had three children; he died in 1984 at the age of 75. Walter, a decorated U.S. Army Air Corps veteran, died in 1986 at the age of 78. Louise, the source of this wonderful story, married twice and had two daughters; she died in 1990 at the age of 87. The youngest, Julia, married and moved to California where she had two children; she died in 2003 at the age of 93.
I should also note what happened to Alfred Miller, the brave teenaged uncle who brought his nieces and nephews to America! Alfred lived with the Schultz family for some time. In 1921, he got married. The couple had a daughter in 1922 and a son in 1926. Alfred died in 1969, two months after his sister Mary, in Piscataway, NJ.
The only Miller sibling that I did not provide an update on was Elizabeth, my great-grandmother. See her story and a photograph of her with her brother Alfred, sister Mary, and some of the Schultz children here.
Louise Schultz Nagy
When Louise was 82 years old, she was interviewed about the journey she took as a young girl for the Ellis Island Oral History Project. Thanks to that transcript, I was able to learn not only about traveling by ship to America, but also a little about her family, what life was like in Poland before and after she left, and her impressions about life in America. Thank you, cousin Louise, for sharing your journey with all of us!
This 3-part series of posts uses my cousin’s interview in 1985 with the Ellis Island Oral History Project. Part 1 tells the story of Ludwig and Mary Schultz, who came to America in 1912 and temporarily left their five children with Mary’s parents. In today’s post, Part 2, their daughter, Louise, discusses living with her grandparents and the eventual journey across the ocean to join their parents.
Crossing the Border
When Ludwig and Mary finally earned enough money to reunite with their children, their young Uncle Alfred was to be their guardian throughout the journey. Louise explains,
“My uncle, he was the ‘main cheese’ in the whole thing. He was like our father, mother, the whole thing – everything rolled into one. And he spoke for us, to whomever he had to speak, for everything.”
Uncle Alfred was seventeen years old! His older sister, my great-grandmother, immigrated alone four years earlier at the age of 18. Somehow I think her trip was much easier.
Louise explains that they all needed passports to travel, and they were expensive. They were purchased on what she calls “the black market” and “the underground” in order to get across the border from Poland to Germany, “because we had to get to Hamburg to get the ship.” They left after midnight, “in the black of night.” Louise remembered crossing a “narrow little bridge” over water. Even though she was the oldest at 10 years old, she became afraid. Uncle Alfred carried the children over one by one, depositing them on the other side, in order to get them all across.
Louise describes having very little with them:
“You didn’t have matching luggage or anything like that. You just took a sheet or something, a rag, and you folded your belongings and you tied it in the four corners.”
Their most important belongings went into a wicker basket. However, as the family was crossing the border, Alfred was told to leave the meager baggage with someone who would take it to the port where they could pick it up. When Alfred went to retrieve it with a claim ticket, but their baggage was not there. Louise remembers that he “went two or three times, then he gave up, very down-hearted.” The unscrupulous man had stolen their belongings! “It didn’t only happen to us,” she said, “it happened to many families.”
What made this situation more difficult is that the youngest, Julia, was only 3 and still needed diapers. Louise had primarily responsibility for her little sister while Alfred cared for the three boys, and it was difficult to care for her without a change of clothes.
Journey by Ship
Louise’s (Ludwika Kazimira) Inspection Card
The party of six managed to travel to the port of Hamburg, over 500 miles away, and boarded the S.S. Amerika on 06 August 1913.
The S.S. Amerika on the Hamburg-American Line
Once aboard the ship, the journey was even more difficult. They all suffered from “sea sickness, constantly.” She describes the ship’s steerage compartment as being “one big floor of everybody. There was men, women, children; all languages, all nationalities.” Cups were given out, one per person. “But they didn’t give us enough. So in the nighttime, my brother would creep under somebody’s bunk and get extra cups.”
Louise said that every morning a man would yell, “Rouse, rouse, rouse” and they would have to quickly get out. “Everybody was like soldiers in the army. You had to get out that time and just go up on deck.” She thinks they would clean or sanitize the steerage floor at this time to prevent an outbreak of disease among the passengers.
Breakfast was served. “In the morning you got coffee. There was no such thing as children getting something different, that’s all you got. It was coffee, and Russian black bread or some kind of rolls.” At dinner, “we sat at these long tables, everybody together. We got a herring thrown on the plate and boiled potatoes.”
Arrival at Ellis Island
They finally arrived in New York City on 17 August. Louise remembers taking a ferry from the ship to Ellis Island. She explained,
“My parents came to pick us up the same day the ship landed. However, our name was Schultz, and my uncle’s name was Miller. I think we went under his name because he was the adult. When my parents came to pick us up, my father told the names. They said there’s no Schultz, he couldn’t find it. And my father didn’t believe them. He argued back and forth, but they couldn’t help him out. So they went home and they came back the next day. That means we had to spend a whole night there [at Ellis Island] and it was very scary to me.”
The family’s names listed on the passenger arrival record
Before they realized they were to be detained, they were processed through and had medical examinations. Louise remembered,
“They would examine your eyes, your chest, and your body in general, to see if you were healthy enough to come here if you didn’t have any contagious diseases. Consumption was a horror word, and I remember one man in particular – he must have been found consumptive and I remember him crying because he had to go back and couldn’t come into this country.”
In the Great Hall, “there were very few seats. It was so packed that you were almost standing close together. And I remember it was in August; it was very hot.” The hall “had such a resonance, the sound, the acoustics.” Several times a day a man would go up on a platform and call out names, which mean that someone was there to pick you up and you were allowed to leave. “And we waited and waited, we went each time they were calling the names.”
The Great Hall at Ellis Island – taken by the author on August 7, 2010
They continued to wait for their parents. After names were called, “everybody dispersed, just sat around or walked around waiting for the next call. And then it was night time and there were long tables for eating a little supper. I don’t remember the meals too much; the only thing I remember is that it was the very first time in our lives that we had slices of white bread. In Russia it was black bread!”
The doctors performing the examinations wore “white coats” but the other officials at Ellis Island wore uniforms. Louise thought they looked “like conductors on the street cars with peaked hats” and navy blue uniforms. They were “very abrupt, very short” and wanted everyone to “move, move, go, go, come.”
On 18 August, a presumably anxious Ludwig and Mary returned to collect their children. Louise said her father “went home very upset” that first day and “he didn’t know what to make of it.” The next morning, he returned and “made the official let him look at the book.” The official let him see the list, and he quickly found the names for his brother-in-law, Alfred Miller, and the five Schultz children. Louise remembers that they had to go outside, and a chain-linked fence separated the new immigrants from the family members that came to pick them up. “We had to identify each other,” Louise remembered,
“Now, I was the oldest, and the younger children did not know my parents. My mother had gotten stouter; she was a slim lady when she left us. And my father changed. So I had a rough time, but I had to say ‘Yes, that’s my father and that’s my mother’ and we finally went through the gates. That was it, we were finally in this country!”
In Part 3, we will learn more about what life was like for the family in America — and what life was like for the family they left behind in Poland.
In the early days of my genealogical research (early 1990s), I was at an archive or a library and I stumbled upon a database to search for interviews in the Ellis Island Oral History Project. [Note: You can now search the project online, but not all of the interviews are available online. The story I am about to tell is not.] I ran some of my great-grandparents’ surnames through, but did not get any hits. Then I tried the name of the town from which my mother’s paternal grandparents came: Żyrardów. The search resulted in one hit – an interview with Louise Nagy. The name meant nothing to me. Even if it was indexed with her maiden name, Schultz, it still would have meant nothing. Żyrardów was a large town, and she was one of many residents who immigrated to America.
Fast forward about twenty years. I finally discovered my great-grandmother’s family. Elizabeth Pater’s maiden name was Miller, so it was a difficult search. But I discovered that she had several brothers and sisters. One sister, Mary, married a man named Schultz. They had five children: Louise, Edward, Henry, Walter, and Julia. I made contact with Julia’s daughter, who is my mother’s second cousin. She shared many wonderful photographs and provided me with many names and dates that I had not yet researched.
After corresponding by email for a few weeks, she wrote: “You might find this interview of my Aunt Louise interesting. It’s all about when they came over from Poland and landed in New York.” Attached was the transcript of her interview from the Ellis Island Oral History Project! Yes, her aunt – and my cousin – was the same Louise Nagy I had “found” and passed over so many years ago.
In my rush of research on the Miller and Schultz families in the weeks before that email, I had just located the passenger arrival record of the five Schultz children with their uncle, Alfred Miller. They immigrated in 1913 when Alfred was only 17 years old, and he led his nieces and nephews, aged 10, 9, 6, 5, and 3, on the long journey. That 10-year-old was Louise, who would eventually bear the surname Nagy through her second marriage; she is my great-grandmother’s niece. Now, thanks to an interview that took place in 1985 with the former 10-year-old, I was able to learn not only about the journey to America, but also about life in Żyrardów and living with her Miller grandparents, my great-great grandparents. There was also a tape recording, though not complete, of the interview, so I could actually hear the 82-year-old remember her trip to America from 72 years earlier.
I would like to share Louise’s story in a 3-part series not only because her story is so interesting, but because it is similar to the story of many of our ancestors who immigrated from Poland and other parts of Europe in the early twentieth century.
Before I jump right to the story of the journey by ship to America, I’d like to put the journey in historical context and describe her family’s situation at the time.
[Note: Ludwik is the Polish form of Louis; Ludwig is the German form. Ludwig Schultz used the German form of the name, while his brothers-in-law with the same first name used the Polish form, Ludwik.]
The Szulc / Schultz and Miller Families
Louise’s parents were Ludwig Schultz (Polish spelling: Szulc) and Mary Miller. Ludwig was born in 1873, possibly in Żyrardów like his wife, Mary, who was born there in 1884. Ludwig became a silversmith. According to the interview with Louise, the family used to travel for her father’s work. The Schultz children were all born in Zhytomyr, Volhynia (present day Ukraine). Their children were: Louise (Ludwika Kazmiera), born in 1903; Edward, born in 1904; Henry, born in 1906; Walter (Władysław), born in 1908; and Julianna (Julia), born in 1909.
The Schultz Family and Alfred Miller in 1910
By 1912, the family moved to Żyrardów, which is where Mary Miller Schultz was born and her parents and family still lived.
Mary’s parents were Jan Miller, born in 1849, and Elżbieta Smetana, born in 1858. Both were born in the town of Zelów, a town founded by a community of Protestant Czechs whose ancestors had lived in Poland for over 100 years to escape persecution in their homeland. In the late 1870s, several families from Zelów, including the Miller’s and Smetana’s, moved to Żyrardów for better prospects. Żyrardów was thriving thanks to the town’s linen factory, a major producer of linen for the Russian Empire.
Jan and Elżbieta likely married in Żyrardów around 1880. They had eight children (who survived to adulthood):
Emil, born 22 December 1881, married Zofja Jelinek in 1902; immigrated to Philadelphia, PA in 1904; returned to Poland after 1913.
Marya (Mary), born 24 March 1884. Mary married Ludwig Szulc; their children are the subject of this series of posts.
Karolina, born 12 March 1886, married Julian Razer in 1903; lived in Łódz in 1913.
Elżbieta (Elizabeth), born on 19 November 1890, immigrated to Philadelphia, PA in 1909; married Ludwik (Louis) Pater in 1910.
Paweł, born 11 December 1893; lived in Żyrardów.
Alfred, born 18 April 1896; would immigrate to New York in 1913 with Mary’s children.
Ludwik, born in 1900; lived in Żyrardów.
Zofia, born 03 April 1903; lived in Żyrardów, immigrated to U.S. in 1920.
When Mary and Ludwig moved back to Żyrardów in 1912, two of Mary’s siblings had already separately immigrated to America (Philadelphia, PA): brother Emil and sister Elżbieta (my great-grandmother). Another sister, Karolina, was married by this time and possibly living in Łódz with her family. The four younger siblings remained in the Miller household: Paweł, Alfred, Ludwik, and Zofia. Their ages at the time were 19, 16, 12, and 9.
Life Under Russian Rule
What was it like living in Żyrardów in 1912? Although it was a multi-cultural town with Poles, Jews, Germans, and Czechs living together, the town was under Russian rule. According to Louise, “It was hard being that it was under.the Czar’s rule. My father got politically mixed-up and he came home shot in the arm once. After a certain hour in the evening, you were afraid to go out at night.”
In Żyrardów, and likely throughout Poland, people talked about America. Louise remembered everyone talking about America:
“You make out good in America. That’s all you heard: gold on the streets of America. You could be anything you want and make a lot of money, even if it was a dollar a day.”
Those thoughts, according to Louise, are what gave her mother, Mary, the “courage to push.”
It was decided that Ludwig would travel to America first since the family could not afford to all travel together. Louise describes her mother as being the driving force behind the family’s move. “She got him out first,” she said. “She sold things [to pay for the journey], and he wasn’t very daring – she was the pusher. That’s my mother; she was an adventurist.”
Ludwig departed from Hamburg, Germany aboard the S.S. Amerika on May 30, 1912 and he arrived in New York City on June 9th. However, Louise said he
“didn’t make much of an effort to learn English fast enough, and he didn’t know how to look at “The World” – the newspaper was the greatest for people finding jobs, but you had to know under which column to look for what you were going to do. And, he didn’t have anyone to help him too much.”
In New York City, Louise remembered that
“everybody lived in little cliques: the Polish, the Ukrainian, the Russian. So they would help each other out. Maybe one knew a few words more than the other. They used to live maybe ten or twelve people in one room, because one was helping the other to get established.”
But “living with other people” wasn’t for Ludwig. Louise said, “Within six months he wrote to my mother not to get ready to come because he’s coming back.” How did Mary respond to his declaration? According to Louise, she said, “No, you’re not coming back! I’m coming over there.” Mary sold whatever else she had and left her five children with their grandparents.
Mary immigrated in November aboard the Mauretania departing from Liverpool. She arrived in New York City on November 22, 1912. Louise describes what happened once Mary arrived in America: “She was very fast in finding her type of work [sewing machine operator]. And she made money, and she made a definite decision: ‘I’m going to get all of my children here and we’re staying, no matter how bad it is.'”
Meanwhile, back in Poland…
In hopes of improving all of their lives, Mary made the difficult decision to leave her five young children with her parents. Louise, like most 9-year-olds, thought her grandmother “was old, but actually she was not.” [Note: her grandmother was 55 years old at the time.]
Louise explains that her grandparents still “had a family of four [home]: three sons, and a daughter. And then five of us. My parents were sending money, but, you know, it was just barely for food, because they’re trying to save for six people – five of us children and my mother’s younger brother who was our chaperone.”
The Miller Family in 1913 with the Schultz grandchildren. Left: Ludwik Miller, Zofia Miller, (boy in front) Wladyslaw (Walter) Schultz, Elzbieta Miller, Louise (Ludwika) Schultz, Alfred Miller, (girl in front) Julia Schultz, Jan Miller, Pawel Miller, Henry Schultz, Edward Schultz.
In addition to the added responsibility of caring for five young grandchildren, Elżbieta was the sole supporter of the family. Louise explains, “My grandfather was sick; he was in bed. She was very fast, my grandmother. She worked the looms, one on one side and one on the other so she could make enough money.”
Despite being sick in bed, their grandfather, Jan, taught the children a lesson. He told them, “You’re not going to waste all that time just hanging around the house” so he sent them to a German school to learn German. At nine years old, Louise already spoke Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian. When she moved in with her grandparents, they “spoke only Czech” (Czech may have been the language they spoke at home; both were born and raised in Russian-occupied Poland, so it is unlikely that they would not speak those languages as well). Louise learned Czech to speak to them, then German. The reason he wanted them to learn German is that, in Żyrardów, the factory managers were German. Her grandfather’s rationale was that, if you knew German, “you could become a big official someplace; that was important to him.”
Louise was grateful to him “because the German language helped me a lot on the ship traveling, and once I came to this country [America], it made it much easier. Somehow there’s a lot of similarity between German and English.” All of her linguistic experience helped Louise to learn English within “almost three months” after immigrating to America. But, that’s getting ahead of her story.
In Part 2, we will hear about the Schultz children traveling to America with their Uncle Alfred.
My friend Elizabeth O’Neal is throwing a Genealogy Blog Party so I’ve dusted off my keyboard to join in the fun. I’ve been to a few in-person parties with genealogy bloggers and I know what fun they are! The theme for this party is “What was your Genealogy ‘Duh Moment’ and how did you solve it?” Elizabeth writes:
Nobody likes to admit to making a mistake. It makes us feel silly, and we worry that others will think we’re not very smart or don’t know what we’re doing. But admitting a mistake can often help others avoid making the same errors in the future.
I agree. I’ve been researching my family’s history for almost (gulp) 30 years, and in that amount of time I’ve made more than a few mistakes. In fact, I had trouble choosing just one to highlight! But I’m going to return to my major “rookie mistake” – I’ve mentioned it at least two other times in this space over the years, but it’s a mistake I’ve seen others make so it bears repeating. Because once you learn the lesson, you won’t have that particular “Duh!” genealogy moment ever again!
Very early in my research I discovered that my great-grandfather, Louis (Ludwik) Pater, arrived in the U.S. at the age of 14 with some siblings – his parents had arrived separately with other siblings in the two preceding years. I began my research with basic facts provided by my parents, and I had wrongly assumed that each set of great-grandparents were married in the country of their birth and came here already married. I didn’t expect that one great-grandparent was just a teenager, and I was surprised to learn that his parents had immigrated. I then began my search for his future wife, Elizabeth (Elżbieta) Miller.
There was just one problem… pick a country and you will find dozens of women named Elizabeth Miller! Whether it was Ireland, England, Germany, Poland, Russia, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, or anywhere else, there were women named Elizabeth Miller. I limited my search to Poland (or Russia, given that Poland was under Russian rule), but my mother said that Elizabeth always said she was Bohemian. Since my grandfather (her son) was born in 1912, I knew she immigrated before then, and “Bohemia” would have been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Eventually I found a teenaged girl with my great-grandmother’s name on a passenger list and I made the worst mistake any genealogist, especially a beginner, can make – I assumed it was her! She was the right age (approximately) and went to the right place (with an uncle I never heard of) and was the right ethnicity (but from the wrong country). It made more sense at the time, but you can see how ridiculous it was to assume.
I don’t remember why I jumped to that conclusion – even though I was a beginner genealogist, I was a college graduate who majored in English and wouldn’t have dared to jump to any conclusions with so little proof in any of my research papers!
I started climbing up the wrong family tree, so to speak, by doing more research on this particular Elizabeth Miller. But it wasn’t leading me to any of the other facts I knew about her.
Fortunately, I eventually started over at the beginning and re-searched the passenger lists. As I looked at the details of other appropriately aged young women named Elizabeth Miller, I found a curious thing – one that emigrated from the exact same town that my great-grandfather did. Huh, look at that…hmm, do you think?
Duh!
This time, I knew more about the Genealogical Proof Standard. This time, it was the correct person. This time, all of the details matched perfectly to facts found in other sources. This time, it was actually my great-grandmother.
So there you have it, kids, let this be a lesson – you can prevent having this same “Duh” moment by not jumping to conclusions! Do an exhaustive search. Then re-search. Resolve any conflicts. Make sure the facts match other sources. Do all of this before you declare victory and you won’t be left scratching your head for days like I did. When I found the actual record, approximately 8 years after my initial “find”, I kept repeating to myself – “They were from the same town!” Which helped explain why my great-grandparents got married only 16 months after she arrived from Poland!
[You can read more about my great-grandmother Elizabeth Pater – and how she really was technically Bohemian even though she was born in Poland – by reading this post.]
The theme for Week 43 of the 2015 edition of the “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” challenge is “Oops” and my ancestor is my 3rd great-grandmother, Ursula Eichinger Dallmayr. I chose her since I made a big “Oops” involving her early on in my family research. (It’s also a bit of an “oops” that I haven’t written since Week 20…)
Ursula’s Story
Ursula Eichinger was born on 06 September 1820 in Oberweilbach, Dachau, Bavaria. She was the daughter of Georg Eichinger (1793-1855) and Helena Böck (1790-1834). Ursula was their fifth of twelve children, and her mother died when Ursula was 14 years old. Her father Georg remarried three months later and had one more child.
Ursula married Josef Dallmayr, an innkeeper, in 1843 in the town of Prittlbach. They had ten children together including my great-great grandmother, Ursula, who was their second child. By 1856 the family moved to the town of Asbach where Josef purchased an inn. I have not yet researched a death date for Ursula or her husband, but it is presumed that they died in Asbach.
Ursula is my “Oops” ancestor because early on in my research when I was not yet comfortable researching German records, I hired a researcher to help me get started. He quickly found my great-grandparents’ marriage record that identified my great-grandfather’s parents. His mother was Ursula Dallmayr, daughter of Ursula Eichinger Dallmayr. When the researcher found the Ursula’s marriage record, however, he made a small mistake with both her residence and her mother’s maiden name. This error had me looking for Ursula Eulinger from Aichach instead of Ursula Eichinger from Asbach! The two towns are not that far apart, but worlds away when you’re looking for a particular individual who doesn’t exist. Years later, I reviewed the records myself. By then I had become accustomed to the old style of German script, and when I saw the name I thought, “Wait a minute! That’s not Eulinger!”
Amazingly, another German genealogist has a connection to this family, and his vast online family tree provided information on the Eichinger family all the way back to the 1600s. How do I know that Ursula’s name is really Eichinger after making a spelling mistake once already? For one, I found a marriage of Josef Dallmayr and Ursula Eichinger as their daughter’s marriage record states. But another really good reason why I know it’s the right couple is because I had a DNA match with a descendant of Michael Dallmayr, son of Josef Dallmayr and Ursula Eichinger!
Lesson learned: even professionals sometimes make mistakes when it comes to translating handwritten names. Get a second – or even third – opinion if you can’t find the name you are looking for!
Just the Facts
Name: Ursula Eichinger Dallmayr
Ahnentafel: #43 (my 3rd great-grandmother)
Parents: Georg Eichinger (1793-1855) and Helena Böck (1790-1834)
Born: 06 September 1820 in Oberweilbach, Dachau, Bavaria.
Siblings: Bernhard Eichinger (1815-1815), Anna Maria Eichinger Buchner (1816-?), Helena Eichinger Reidmayr (1817-?), Thomas Eichinger (1818-1819), Nikolaus Eichinger (1822-?), Therese Eichinger (1824-1882), Georg Eichinger (1825-1825), Magdalena Eichinger Scheck Notensteiner (1828-1894), baby Eichinger (1829-1829), Rosina Eichinger Widmann (1831-1896), Georg Eichinger (1833-?). Half-sibling: Katharina Eichinger Welsch (1836-?)
Married: Josef Dallmayr (1819-?) on 24 October 1843 in Prittlbach
Children: Therese Dallmayr Effner (b. 1845), Ursula Dallmeier Bergmeister Götz (1846-1911), Michael Dallmayr (1848-1906), Katharina (b. 1849), Sebastian (b. 1853), Maria (b. 1855), Kreszenz (b. 1856), Josef (1858-1859), Magdalena (b. 1860)
Died: Unknown
My Line of Descent: Ursula Eichinger Dallmayr -> Ursula Dallmeier Bergmeister Götz -> Josef Bergmeister -> Margaret Bergmeister Pointkouski -> father -> me
The theme for Week 20 of the 2015 edition of the “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” challenge is “Black Sheep” and my ancestor is my grandaunt, Jean Piontkowska Hynes.
Black Sheep?
The idiom “black sheep” with regard to genealogy usually refers to an ancestor who did some particularly notorious deed. I guess I should be happy to say that I don’t really have any ancestors that qualify as black sheep by that definition – thankfully there are no murderers or America’s Most Wanted in my family tree. One of my great-grandfathers was convicted of a crime and did a short amount of time in prison, but I don’t know enough about the particulars to tell that story. Another great-grandfather’s brother was wanted for fraud in Germany, but not only have I told that story previously, I’ve also highlighted his brother, sister, and mother so far in this series so by now it would read like a repeat.
So my choice is a different definition…an ancestor, or in this case an ancestor’s sister, who chose a different path. Black sheep are a rare occurrence caused by a recessive gene taking dominance, and not only would a black sheep stand out in the crowd of white sheep but also the black wool could not be dyed and was therefore not valuable. So the term “black sheep” took on a negative connotation. Also interesting is that the idiom appears in several languages besides English, including my ancestral languages of German, Polish, and Czech. But on the surface, an actual black sheep isn’t a bad sheep; they are just different. Rather than highlight the bad seeds from the tree, I’m going to highlight the one who chose a different path and, in so doing, turned her back on her family and never returned.
Jean’s Story
Jean was born as Janina Piątkowska¹ on December 29, 1905 in Warsaw, Poland to Jan Piątkowski and Rozalia Kizeweter. The family lived in the Wola section of the city, and she was baptized at St. Stanisława Church. Janina had an older brother, Józef, who was born two years earlier, and their younger brother (my grandfather) wouldn’t arrive until 1910.
I’ve written about Jean before in November 2010 in a post called “The Sister Who Disappeared” – please take a look to read about the family’s immigration to Philadelphia when Jean was nearly 1 year old. In that post, I detail how Jean disappeared from her family’s lives sometime in the 1920’s. The story my grandfather told was that she, the poor working class daughter of Polish immigrants, met and married a “rich doctor”. The happy couple moved to Florida, never to be heard from again.
Except months after I wrote that post, I found out that Jean was heard from again…just not by my grandfather. I found the 1953 obituary of their brother, Joseph Perk, and it mentioned her name as “Mrs. Jean Hynes”. Finally I had a married name to research! I haven’t uncovered all of the facts of her life, but I know a lot more about her than just knowing her as the sister who disappeared. It turns out my grandfather’s story was almost right. She married the son of a rich doctor, and after living in New York they really did move to Florida.
Sometime around 1926, Jean met and married William Rose Hynes. Or perhaps they met and pretended to be married because I haven’t yet found a marriage license in either Philadelphia or New York. William was born in 1902 in New York City. His father, also named William Rose Hynes, was a doctor who died in 1926. There is a long soap-opera-worthy story in New York newspapers from the 1890s that tell the story of the Hynes’ family wealth and various lawsuits over inheritances. Although young William is listed as a radio engineer in the 1930 census, he did come from a family that had more money than Jean’s immigrant parents. In 1930 the couple lived in an apartment on Broadway, and Jean worked as a hair dresser in a beauty salon.
In 1937, William and Jean lived on 163rd Street, Flushing, Long Island. In November they traveled by ship to Bermuda. While this may not seem exotic by today’s standards, to Jean’s family back in Philadelphia this would have been as exotic as traveling to the moon!
By 1940 the couple is living in Pinellas County, Florida, where William’s uncle also resided. They had no children. That’s when my paper trail ends. But, I was able to find out more about William than about my grandaunt Jean because I discovered that he had a second marriage, a daughter from that marriage, and that he later lived and died just miles from where I live in New Jersey.
According to William’s daughter, he married his next wife in the mid-1940s. She wrote:
There is a family story that they had to elope to MD because he had lived for many years with another woman, and called her his wife, but they had never been formally married. The clerk of courts in Queens refused to give him a license to marry my mother, because he could not produce a divorce decree.
As my grandaunt Jean was that other woman, perhaps she really is a black sheep after all!
William’s daughter was a teenager when he died, so she didn’t know much about his previous relationship. Her mother said that William’s first wife became ill (possibly dying) and he went to visit her and help, perhaps around 1958.
Unfortunately, I don’t know what happened to Jean after her split from William. The obit that led me to research her relationship to Hynes said that she was living in Detroit, and William’s daughter thought she may have lived in New York City, but I’ve been unable to locate a death record in any state so far. I hope to one day find out the rest of Jean’s story.
¹For info on the spelling change to Piontkowska and the present form of my surname, see my grandfather’s profile from Week 15 under the “How Do You Spell That?” theme
Just the Facts
Name: Jean (Janina) Piontkowska (Piątkowska) Hynes
Ahnentafel: N/A – grandaunt, sister of #4, my grandfather
Parents:Jan (John) Bolesław Piątkowski (Piontkowski) (1871-1942) and Rozalia (Rose) Kizeweter (1866-1937)
Born: 29 December 1905 in Warsaw, Poland
Siblings: Józef (Joseph) Perk (1903-1953), James Pointkouski (1910-1980)
Immigrated: from Hamburg, Germany aboard the SS Armenia with her mother and Józef, arriving in New York City on November 9, 1906
Married: William Rose Hynes III (1902-1966) around 1926; divorced by mid-1940s.
Children: unknown, at least 5 nieces and 2 nephews
The theme for Week 19 of the 2015 edition of the “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” challenge is “There’s a Way” and my ancestor is my 3rd great-grandmother, Franciszka Wojciechowska Pluta. I chose her because I’ve been making my weekly posts on Sunday, and today is Mother’s Day. Franciszka seems to have suffered a lot of hardships as a mother. But even in old age, she definitely found a way to be with her daughter – even if it meant traveling to America by herself.
Franciszka’s Story
Franciszka Wojciechowska was born on 01 October 1840 in the town of Mszczonów, Żyrardów County, Masovian Voivodeship, Poland (then under Russian rule). She was the first born child of Jan Wojciechowski and Karolina Dąbska who were married in January of that same year. Jan was a 24-year-old shoemaker and his wife was 21 at the time of their daughter’s birth.
Franciszka must have been a hearty child; unfortunately, most of her siblings did not live to adulthood. The next three children were all boys who died at 2 years old or less. Fortunately, the next four children – three other girls and a boy – all lived to adulthood.
When Franciszka was 22, she married Ludwik Pater, a shoemaker like her father (and his). Ludwik was also born in Mszczonów and they probably grew up together. Like her mother before her, she suffered much heartache when it came to having children: at least three children died as toddlers and another died at the age of 11. Only two lived to adulthood: daughter Antonina Rozalia (my great-great grandmother) and son Jan.
Sometime between 1880 and 1885, Ludwik died. I have been unable to find his death record despite the availability of online (and indexed) records for that time period. A son was born to the couple in 1880, but by the time of their daughter Antonina’s marriage in 1885 to Józef Pater, Ludwik is deceased.
After Antonina’s marriage, Franciszka may have moved with her to the town of Żyrardów eight miles away. Antonina suffered similar losses as her mother and grandmother – of ten children, four died as infants or toddlers. By 1905, Antonina’s husband made the decision to immigrate to the U.S. in search of better job opportunities (ironically, the family would continue to work in textile factories in Philadelphia just as they had in Żyrardów but without the strikes that were occurring at that time). In 1906, Antonina joined him with their teenaged daughter and their youngest. The following year, their three teen boys came with their older sister and her husband. Franciszka was now alone except for her son, Jan (and presumably his family). She was a widow, her parents had died in the few years after her husband, and even her mother-in-law died in January, 1906 at the age of 83.
But where there’s a will, there’s a way… In June, 1909, Franciszka made the journey to the United States to join her daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren. She sailed aboard the SS Vaderland from Antwerp, Belgium to New York City and arrived through Ellis Island on June 21. She was 69 years old, and she made the journey alone. It is documented on the passenger arrival record that the authorities detained her at Ellis Island and required an examination with a special board of inquiry for “senility” before they allowed her to enter the country, because they feared she would be a “Likely Public Charge”. Her physical description: 4’10”, limping, with dark hair and blue eyes.
Franciszka lived with her daughter’s family in Eden, PA (now Langhorne, PA) in Bucks County. For the 1910 census, she is listed as the “head of the household”. She would have gotten to know four of her young great-grandchildren, including my grandfather, before she passed away on 29 April 1914 at the age of 73. She is my only great-great-great-grandparent to come to the United States.
Just the Facts
Name: Franciszka Wojciechowska Pluta
Ahnentafel: #51 (my 3rd great-grandfather)
Parents: Jan Wojciechowski (1816-1889) and Karolina Dąbska (1819-1885)
Born: 01 October 1840 in Mszczonów
Siblings: Mateusz (1842-1843), Piotr Jacek (1844-1846), Jan (1847-1847), Marianna Emilia Wojciechowska Naziębło (b. 1848), Agata Józefa Wojciechowska Skoneczny(b.1851), Barbara Łucja Wojciechowska Kielak (1853-1895), Jan Ludwik Wojciechowski (b. 1859)
Married: Ludwik Pluta (1843-?) in Mszczonów in 1862
Children: Władysław (?-1878), Antonia Rozalia Pluta Pater (1863-1938), Jan (b. 1865), Wincenty (1870-1873), Regina (1871-1871), Elżbieta (1873-1884), Józef Ignacy (1880-1881)
Died: 29 April 1914 in Langhorne, Bucks, Pennsylvania, United States
My Line of Descent: Franciszka -> Antonia Rozalia Pluta Pater -> Ludwik Pater -> Henry Pater -> mother -> me
The theme for Week 18 of the 2015 edition of the “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” challenge is “Where There’s a Will” and my ancestor is my 3rd great-grandfather, Józef Ślesiński. None of my ancestors left wills behind, or if they have I didn’t find them yet. I don’t have a single ancestor named William or even Wilhelm. Many were strong-willed, but I’ve written about several of these folks in recent weeks. Therefore, I’ve taken a rather broad approach to the theme…for Józef Ślesiński, it’s more like “Where there’s a Wilczyn…there’s a wife.”
Józef ‘s Story
Józef Ślesiński was born on 21 November 1821 in the town of Ślesin, Konin county, woj. Wielkopolskie (Greater Poland Voivodeship) which was under Russian rule during the partitions of Poland. His parents were the farmers Maciej Ślesiński and Agnieszka Bogacka. It is easy to tell that the surname Ślesiński is toponymic – it is derived from the place name of the town in which they lived, Ślesin.
The records from Ślesin are available, but I haven’t yet researched the other children of Maciej and Agnieszka. The only sibling I have a record of is Tomasz who was born 19 years after Józef – I am sure there were other children in between!
When Józef was 22 years old, he left his hometown to move 12 miles south to a town called Wilczyn to marry his bride, 19-year-old Elżbieta Michałowska. The couple had at least eight children together. My great-great grandfather was their son Wincenty, born in 1850. Two children died as youngsters: son Ignacy in 1860 and daughter Marianna in 1864.
Jozef’s death record from the 1866 Wilczyn parish books. The priest had beautiful handwriting. There was also a duplicate church book in Latin.
Józef died on 30 November 1866 at the age of 45. He left behind his wife and six children, 3 sons (ages 19, 16, and 11) and 3 daughters (ages 15, 6, and 5). His widow marries widower Marcin Rosinski in 1867, which would have been helpful due to the young ages of her children and the need for support.
While it is Józef’s granddaughter who is my immigrant ancestor, I recently discovered through a DNA match that his daughter Apolonia immigrated to America with her husband, Wacław Polski, in the 1890’s. I now wonder if my great-grandmother, who immigrated to Philadelphia, knew that she had an aunt living in Milwaukee.
For Józef Ślesiński, where there was a town called Wilczyn, there was a wife! The town name is derived from the wilk, or “wolf”, but I’ll take it as my family’s will.
Just the Facts
Name: Józef Ślesiński
Ahnentafel: #60 (my 3rd great-grandfather)
Parents: Maciej Ślesiński (1786-1848) and Agnieszka Bogacka
Born: 21 November 1821 in Ślesin
Siblings: Tomasz (b. 1840)
Married: Elżbieta Michałowska (1824-?) in Wilczyn
Children: Ignacy (?-1860), Marianna (?-1864), Józef Ślesiński (b. 1847), Wincenty Ślesiński (1850-1919), Antonina Ślesińska Zaborska (b. 1851), Antoni Ślesiński (b. 1855 marries in 1880), Apolonia Ślesińska Polska (1860-1936), Weronica Ślesińska Warszawska (b. 1861)
Died: 30 Nov 1866 in Wilczyn
My Line of Descent: Józef -> Wincenty ->Wacława Ślesińska Zawodna -> Marianna Zawodna Pater -> mother -> me
The theme for Week 17 of the 2015 edition of the “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” challenge is “Prosper” and my ancestor is my 3rd great-grandfather, Jan Drogowski. The theme asks for an ancestor that had a “rags to riches” story. I don’t know what Jan’s net worth was, but I think he was prosperous because his occupation in life was quite different from his father’s.
Jan’s Story
Jan Drogowski was born on 14 Jun 1818 in Wilczyn, Wielkopolskie, Poland (Poznań) to Wojciech Drogowski and Marianna Przygoda. Wojciech was a farmer in Wilczyn as was his father, Grzegorz Drogowski. But the reason I chose Jan for the theme of “prosper” is because he did not become a farmer like his father and grandfather. In 1838, the nearly 20-year-old Jan marries 16-year-old Konstancja Kubińska, and in the marriage record Jan is referred to as the “young linen merchant”. I found it interesting that the son of a farmer could become a merchant at a young age. I wondered if he was “marrying up” and gaining the profession of his father-in-law. But Konstancja’s father, Józef Kubiński, was also a farmer. Jan must have worked hard to learn the linen industry at such a young age. And, I can assume he was good at it because over the years he’d have a lot of mouths to feed.
Jan’s signature from the 1847 birth record of his daughter, Michalina. The “w” is missing from his signature as surname spelling was a bit flexible (the priest spells his name as Drogowski, however).
Another sign that Jan prospered in his merchant profession is his ability to write. Polish vital records after 1808 include the signatures of the witnesses and essential parties (bride and groom for weddings, parents for the birth of a child). For most records in my ancestral towns, the vast majority of individuals were illiterate – this fact was recorded when no one could sign the church book. In 1838, Jan was illiterate and did not sign his wedding document. However, by 1845 his is able to sign his name to the birth record of his son, Franciszek. I find this significant and indicates a profession that would require literacy to run the business. Of all my Polish ancestors, I have only found two men that were able to sign the records and Jan’s recorded literacy is the oldest I’ve found.
Jan and Konstancja had ten children together over a 26-year period: six girls and four boys. Their eighth child, Stanisława, was born in 1860 and is my 2nd great-grandmother. One son, Ignacy, died as an infant. I have not yet indexed all of the Wilczyn records to find death dates for all of the children, but I do know that at least three daughters and the other three sons all lived to adulthood, got married, and started having children of their own in the same parish in Wilczyn.
Jan died on 29 Oct 1894 in Wilczyn, Wielkopolskie, Poland at the age of 76. His wife Konstancja would live another two years until she passed away on 18 Dec 1896.
Just the Facts
Name: Jan Drogowski
Ahnentafel: #62 (my 3rd great-grandfather)
Parents: Wojciech Drogowski (1773-1833) and Marianna Przydoga (1790-1855)
Born: 14 Jun 1818 in Wilczyn, Wielkopolskie, Poland
The theme for Week 16 of the 2015 edition of the “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” challenge is “Live Long” and my ancestor is my 3rd great-grandfater, Maciej Miller (Matěj Miller in Czech).
Live Long
The prompt says it’s “time to feature a long-lived ancestor” but longevity, at least of the centenarian sort, does not seem to run in my family (at least not for my direct ancestors…the longest-lived relatives are each of my grandmother’s sisters – one lived to 92 and the other was 94).
I’m missing some death dates in my research thus far, but my longest-lived ancestor was already featured in Week 4, for Dionys Daniel also had the birthday closest to mine which was the theme that week. He was just over 89 years old when he died; however, I do not have an actual copy of his death record so let’s find my documented longest-lived ancestor…a tie between my paternal grandmother and Maciej Miller who both died at 84 years old. Maciej was technically older, though, for his age at death was about two months older than my grandmother’s.
Maciej’s Story
Maciej Miller’s name in the 1849 birth record for his son, Jan Miller
Maciej Miller was born on 28 June 1824 in Zelów, Poland. The community in Zelów was founded by Czech exiles (see my ancestor featured in Week 8 for information about the founding of the town in 1802). Maciej’s father Pavel was not one of the founding fathers, but he came to Zelów within the first decade.
Maciej grew up in Zelów and married Marie Szara, a descendant of another town founder, on 08 October 1843. They remained in town to begin their family. But like his forefathers, Maciej was willing to move for better opportunities. In the 1860’s, several families from Zelów migrated east to the larger city of Żyrardów. The town of Żyrardów was only founded in 1831, but it was quickly growing. The town was built around the large textile factory. Since the Czech community in Zelów was known for weaving textiles, some families decided to move for the opportunity to find work that would earn a better wage.
Maciej would remain in Żyrardów for the rest of his life. He lived a rather long life for the time, dying at nearly 85 years old on 09 June 1909. His son, Jan, my 2nd great-grandfather, only outlived his father by a mere four years and died at the age of 63 in 1913.
Just the Facts
Name: Maciej Miller (also known as Matěj Miller)
Ahnentafel: #52 (my 3rd great-grandfather)
Parents: Pavel Miller (1788-?) and Marie Poláčková (1785-1849)
Born: 28 June 1824 in Zelów, Poland
Siblings: Anna Millerová (1810-1817); Josef Miller (1817-1877); Jan Miller (1812-?); Anna Millerová (1819-1821); Karl Miller (1822-1856); Wilhelm Friedrich Miller (1827-?); Friedrich Miller (1829-1857); Marie Millerová Hartová (1834-?)
Married: Marie Szara (Šárová in Czech) (1824-?) on 08 October 1843 in Zelów
Children: Marie Millerová (1845-1845); Anna Millerová Kolánek (1846-?); Jan Miller (1849-1913); Marie Millerová Poláčková (1852-?); Elżbieta Millerová Jelinek (1855-?); Friedrich Miller (1858-?); Karolina Millerová Švejdar (1860-?); Karl Miller (1864-?)
Died: 09 June 1909 in Żyrardów, Poland
My Line of Descent: Maciej Miller -> Jan Miller -> Elżbieta Miller Pater -> Henry Pater -> mother -> me
The theme for Week 15 of the 2015 edition of the “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” challenge is “How Do You Spell That?” and my ancestor is my grandfather, James Pointkouski. There really could be no other choice for that theme – my grandfather is the inventor of our family name…and we have to spell it often.
How Do You Spell That?
I almost felt sorry for the telemarketers calling my parents when I was young. I’d answer the phone and hear, “Hi, can I speak to Mr….uh, Mr. Po-, er, ah, Mr. P-p-pint, er, Mr. Portkonski?” I’d pause for dramatic effect, then respond, “No, I’m sorry, there is no one here by that name.”
But worse than the telemarketers was the need to spell my name, all the time. Even my parents talked about changing the surname for a while, and I think they may have done it if it hadn’t cost money to do so. We considered my mother’s maiden name, Pater, because it seemed a lot easier (even though it is also 100% Polish in origin). For a while, the surname “Perry” was in contention just because we liked it. But then my father called in a pizza order and the clerk asked, “What’s the name?” My Dad grinned and responded, “Perry!” But then the clerk asked, “How do you spell that?” Undefeated, and still smirking, my Dad replied, “Any way you want…”
By now you might wonder why we feel no allegiance to our name or no pride in our birthright. Well, it’s simple…it’s not our name. My grandfather made it up. If he had made up a name that was easier to spell and pronounce, I’d thank him for it. As I delved into the family history and gained pride in my Polish heritage, I was disappointed I couldn’t have the “real” name that he changed slightly (to little improvement). Unfortunately, the non-legal change was made just prior to all of the rules, records, and federal regulations of today and now I am, quite simply, one of only eight people on earth born a Pointkouski. We’re proud to be “Points” even if we do have to spell it a lot.
James’ Story
From left to right: James at age 13, age approximately 24, and age 47 with wife Margaret
James’ parents were Jan Piątkowski and Rozalia Kizeweter (featured in Week #3). Jan was a leather worker and the family lived in Warsaw, Poland. Jan was born in Warsaw, and Rozalia’s family moved there from just outside the city when she was a girl. They had a son, Józef, born in November, 1903, and a daughter, Janina, born in December, 1905. Shortly after Janina’s birth the family decided to leave one big city for another. Jan immigrated to Philadelphia in March, 1906 with his sister’s husband, Ludwik Czarkowski. Rozalia and the children followed in November of the same year. In America, their first names were anglicized to John, Rose, Joseph, and Jean. But the last name changed slightly, too. In English, the Polish letter “ą” does not exist. The letter has the phonetic sound like “on” so Piątkowski became Piontkowski in English.
That should be the end of the story of the surname, so to speak, and my grandfather, father, my brother and me should all bear THAT name. But the name change game wasn’t over yet…my grandfather wasn’t born yet!
My grandfather, James, was the surprise baby born in Philadelphia on July 6, 1910. His father was 39 years old and his mother was 44 – typical ages today but highly unusual in 1910. On his official Pennsylvania birth certificate, the name is listed as GANUS KINCOSKI. I assume “Ganus” is what became of “James” when spoken with a heavy Polish accent. Kincoski was apparently an alias that my great-grandfather used, temporarily, attempting to hide from either law enforcement or those to whom he owed money. Other than around 1910, John always used Piontkowski, his correct surname, on legal records.
By the time James, or Jimmy as he was called, reached adulthood, he tweaked his own surname further. As early as 1933, James changed a few letters in the name Piontkowski and – voila! – the surname Pointkouski was unofficially and unceremoniously born.
James’ older brother, Joe, also changed his name (also not legally). I always thought Joe had more sense, though, for the name he chose was a lot easier to spell: Perk. Ironically, not that long ago I got to speak to one of Joe’s daughters who grew up with the name Perk. She complained of being teased in school and being called “Percolator” – and she yelled back at her bully, saying, “Well my real name is Pointkouski!”
My grandfather may have tried the “Perk” name on for size for a while – he refers to himself as “Perk” in a letter to my grandmother in 1933, and a photograph of my father in 1936 is labeled on the back as “Jimmy Perk”. But, on all legal documents my grandfather used “Pointkouski”.
James grew up wanting to be an architect, but he left school at a young age to go to work to help support his parents. He became a truck driver – and remained one for his entire life. As a truck driver he delivered ice cream to soda fountains and other shops, which is where he met his wife, Margaret Bergmeister, whose brother Max owned the store. (See a photo of James and his delivery truck here.)
James and Margaret got married in January, 1934. Later that year they had a son, James, and eight years later welcomed a daughter, Jean.
James’ sister left Philadelphia in the late 1920’s to get married, and apparently he did not see her again after that. His mother, Rose, died in 1937, and his father, John, died in 1942. James had a good relationship with his brother, Joe, who was also a truck driver. Unfortunately Joe Perk died in 1953 at the young age of 49.
Marge & Jimmy, September 1962
I remember my grandfather from my childhood but I didn’t get to see him very often. As the only granddaughter among five grandchildren, I do remember once when I was around six years old he insisted that I must have a ring or other jewelry because I was a girl and “Girls need pretty things to wear!”
I wish I knew him better, and longer, because before I could ever think to ask him why our name is spelled the way it is spelled, he passed away. James died on February 13, 1980, at the age of 69.
In what I refer to as “The Final Misspelling” – or “The Final Insult” – his name was spelled incorrectly on his tombstone:
The final name misspelling for James: they accidentally carved a “W” into his tombstone and “corrected” it to a “U”. A larger, correctly spelled stone is also in place.
Gradually, despite wishing I got to use my real Polish name Piątkowski (as a female, my name in Poland would be Piątkowska), this English major has embraced the permanent misspelling and is proud to be a Pointkouski. Even if you can’t spell it.
Just the Facts
Name: James Pointkouski
Ahnentafel: #4 (my paternal grandfather)
Parents: Jan (John) Bolesław Piątkowski (Piontkowski) (1871-1942) and Rozalia (Rose) Kizeweter (1866-1937)
Born: July 6, 1910 in Philadelphia, PA, United States
Siblings: Józef (Joseph) Perk (1903-1953), Janina (Jean) Hynes (1905-?)
The theme for Week 14 of the 2015 edition of the “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” challenge is “Favorite Photo” and my ancestor is my 2nd great-grandmother, Ursula Dallmeier Bergmeister Götz. I chose Ursula because she is in one of my favorite photos. I received it as a gift back in November 2013 and while I’ve showed individual faces from it in other posts, I have not presented it as a whole until now. May I present Ursula and her three (surviving) children from her first husband, Josef Bergmeister:
Ursula with her children Hilaury, Joseph (standing), and Ignatz. Taken in Regensburg, Germany, in approximately 1879-80.
This is one of my favorite photos for several reasons. First, it is the only photograph I have of any great-grandparent as a child. I just love the expressions on the children’s faces – not to mention their rather exasperated-looking mother. I can only imagine how long the photo session was and how difficult it was to get the children to be still. The back of the card identified the children – other than that smirk on Laury’s face, I don’t think I’d have recognized the others including my own great-grandfather. It also was inscribed in German that translates as: “I think the memory will please you” – I can’t be sure if it was written by Ursula or someone else. Finally, because the parties were so nicely identified, I was able to “recognize” Ursula in two other unlabeled photographs that I had – a very happy discovery.
Ursula’s Story
Much of Ursula’s story might sound familiar if you’re following along with these weekly posts – her son, my great-grandfather Joseph Bergmeister, also known as the boy with the mischievous grin and the thumb in his vest, was profiled in Week 5 (“Plowing Through”). Her daughter, Hilaury Bergmeister, or Lari, the one who probably instigated something with Joseph to cause that expression on his face, was profiled in Week 7 (“Love”).
Ursula Dallmeier (also spelled Dallmayer or Dallmaier) was born on 21 September 1846 in Prittlbach. Her father, Joseph Dallmeier, was a farmer-turned-innkeeper. Although a farmer at the time of Ursula’s birth, around 1850 the family would move to the town of Asbach where Joseph bought the local inn.
Ursula was living with her parents in Asbach when she met her first husband, Joseph Bergmeister, who was a flour merchant. Their first child, Hilaury, was born in January 1870. Although illegitimate, the father was named in the baptismal document and the couple married the following year on 11 April 1871 in Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm.
Ursula’s husband Joseph was likely a traveling merchant, because they move frequently in the next several years. In 1871 the family was living in Vohburg a.d. Donau when a daughter named Marie was born, but the baby did not survive. In 1873, Joseph was born in Vohburg. In 1876, Ignatz was born in Abensberg.
By 1879, the family appears to be living in Regensburg based on the photograph above.
Sometime after Ignatz’s birth and 1884, Joseph Bergmeister died. Ursula got married again to Herman Götz, a steam engine driver, and had more children: Herman in 1885, Julius in 1886, and Elsa (birth date not yet known).
Eventually almost all of Ursula’s children would leave her to emigrate to the United States: Laury in 1893, Joseph in 1900, Julius in 1902, Ignatz in 1904. Herman would also emigrate, but not until just after Ursula’s death. Thanks to some postcards that survived over the years, I know that Ursula was able to keep in touch with her “American” children. One card from Elsa to Hilaury in 1910 says:
Received your card with great joy. Thank you. Did you receive mine? Mother is very sad because you have not responded in so long. She is ill. Hopefully you are all healthy. The weather here is bad. Please respond as soon as you can. Sending you warmest wishes and kisses, your sister Elsa. Many greetings from your mother.
Ursula passed away on 21 January 1911 in Regensburg. She was 64 years old. The photo she left behind of the first half of her family certainly pleases me.
Just the Facts
Name: Ursula Dallmeier Bergmeister Götz
Ahnentafel: #21 (my 2nd great-grandmother)
Parents: Joseph Dallmeier (or Dallmayr) (1819-?) and Ursula Eichinger (1820-?)
Born: 21 September 1846 in Prittlbach, Dachau, Bavaria, Germany
Siblings: Therese Dallmayr Effner (b. 1845), Michael Dallmayr (1848-1906), Katharina (b. 1849), Sebastian (b. 1853), Maria (b. 1855), Kreszenz (b. 1856), Josef (1858-1859), Magdalena (b. 1860)
Married: Josef Bergmeister on 11 April 1871 in Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm, Hermann Götz, date between 1876-1885, likely in Regensburg
Children: Hilaury Bergmeister Thumann (1870-1943), Maria (1871-1871), Joseph Bergmeister (1873-1927), Ignatz Bergmeister (1876-1919), Herman Goetz (1885-1918), Julius Goetz (1886-1971), Elsa ?
My great-grandfather, Joseph Zawodny, 1915 and a sepia-enhanced photo of actor Jon Hamm playing his character, Don Draper, on Mad Men
One day I realized that my great-grandfather may have been like Don Draper. If you’ve been living under a rock for the last eight years or really don’t watch television at all, “Don Draper” is a character on AMC’s Mad Men played by actor Jon Hamm. He’s quite a character, so let me explain before you get the wrong idea about my great-grandfather! I certainly don’t mean to imply that he’s an unfaithful womanizer like Don; in fact, my great-grandfather was faithfully married to the same woman for 42 years (which ended then due to his death). I also don’t mean to imply that he was a raging alcoholic like Don; my great-grandfather enjoyed drinking with his neighborhood buddies, but he’s the only one of my great-grandfathers that’s never been called a drunk by the family. Great-grandpa also wasn’t an “ad man” like Don – he worked for a tool and dye factory. Great-grandpa was also not a really awful father like Don – he had eight children and loved them all far better than Draper shows his love on tv.
So, if he was opposite from Don Draper in all of Don’s most identifying habits, why do I compare them? Because, like Don, he may have had a secret.
If you’ve never watched the show (which returns tomorrow night for its final seven episodes), go binge on Netflix. Mad Men is worth it for the storytelling alone not to mention the characters, fine acting, and overall style of the show. But I’m not going to call this a spoiler alert, because it happened way back in the first season of the show in 2007: Don Draper is not Don Draper. Don is really Dick Whitman. In the Korean War, he switched dog tags with the real Don Draper in an effort to get away from Dick’s sorry past. He returned from the war with the new identity – a man running from his past who reinvented himself only to still suffer the effects of the past.
In my great-grandfather’s case, it’s all mystery and conjecture. His name was Joseph Zawodny…or was it?
If the story had been told to me by my grandmother, I’d have enjoyed the tale and laughed about it later. Because Nan was like that, telling stories that were better than the actual truth. But this particular story was told by my mother – an extremely trustworthy source even considering she was about 8 years old when it happened.
What happened was Joseph died. It was 1944, three days after D-Day. Joseph was 64 years old and died rather suddenly after falling ill with pneumonia. My mother, with her parents (her mother was Joseph’s daughter) and sister, lived in the same house as Joseph for several years prior to his death. Shortly after his death, she recalls a knock on the door. A man presented himself to my grandmother and declared that his name was Joseph Zawodny…the real Joseph Zawodny. He claimed that my great-grandfather used his name to get into the United States. The man revealed that Joseph’s real name was Joseph Andrew Müller. My grandmother became quite irate at the man’s accusation and told him to leave. But my mother, the 8-year-old listening quietly in the corner, never forgot how shaken her mother looked afterwards.
When I began my genealogical research, I assumed I’d find the truth. My mother believed wholeheartedly that this mystery man, the other Joseph Zawodny, was telling the truth. I started my research. I found Joseph’s – make that my Joseph’s – entry into the United States on April 6, 1902. His wife, Wacława, followed him to Philadelphia the following year. Since they were already married prior to immigration, once I learned the town name I was able to research their marriage record. There it was: only two month’s prior to Joseph’s emigration, the couple got married.
I explained my findings to my mother – based on what I found, I don’t think the story of the fake name was correct. It was one thing to enter the United States on a “fake” passport, but I found his wedding with that same name. The town was small enough that others would surely have known if the man wasn’t who he said he was.
Rather than being happy about my research conclusion, my mother disagreed. “So he used his name to marry her then. In fact, maybe she married the real Joseph (Józef) Zawodny, but was really in love with our Joseph Müller. Rather than scandalize her family, they left…with him using her real husband’s name.”
Mom seemed pretty proud of this “assumed a new identity for love” theory. I had to admit, it was a good story. And one other little family history fact led credence to it – for some reason, my great-grandmother’s parents were so upset at her either marrying or leaving Poland that they never communicated with her again. My grandmother told my mother that Wacława’s letters to her parents were returned unopened. Her parents were alive for almost twenty years after she emigrated, so it did beg the question – why were they so upset with her?
For good measure, I actually started researching some of the other Polish immigrants named Joseph Zawodny. There were a few, and I figured if I could tie one back to Dobrosołowo, where my guy was married, or to the nearby town where he was born, it would give me reason to pause. But so far, the other immigrants named Joseph Zawodny arrived from elsewhere.
Genealogists love a good story. But we love proof of a good story even more. So far, all of my research into Joseph’s life is consistent. He always provided the same date of birth, which neatly turned out to be the birth date of a man named Józef Zawodny in Komorowo, a small town in Russian-occupied Poland quite close to the German-occupied border.
There’s just one thing… Józef’s baptismal record and marriage record indicated that his name was Józef with no middle name. On almost all of the American records, the man now called Joseph also did not indicate a middle name. No middle name on his draft cards, insurance applications, children’s birth or death records. No middle name ever provided until 1938 when Joseph applies for Social Security. On the application, he writes his name as “Joseph Andy Zawodny.” Andy? As in Andrew (or Andrzej in Polish). Ironically, he filled it out on 4/1, April Fools’ Day, but I doubt that is significant…humorous, but not significant.
If this were a television show, the camera would zoom in on the name “Andy” and fade to black for a commercial break.
I know who my great-grandfather was. He was a loving father and husband and a devout Catholic. That should be enough, but I want to know the story because, as my Mom puts it, why would someone take the trouble to come to the door and make that story up?
The genealogical proof standard has led me to believe he did not pull a “Don Draper” and he was the man he claimed to be in all the records I’ve found. In fact, the only way to possibly dispute it is through DNA testing, because his Y-DNA line is still active. Unfortunately, none of Joseph’s other children ever heard the story of the mystery man at the door – or if they did hear it, they heard it from my grandmother who liked to tell stories. So I haven’t yet attempted convincing a cousin to help me solve the mystery.
Was Joseph Zawodny really Joseph Müller? Even if I find out through DNA testing, I will never know the true story of what would compel a man, much like the fictional character of Don Draper, to reinvent his identity by assuming another man’s name. If he did, he’s the anti-Don Draper in a sense, because no matter who he had been, he became a good man – for that’s the man his family knew here in America. On television, poor Don already was a good man as young Dick, but in trying to elude his past and creating Don he’s become a man who tries to be a good man, but is never quite sure if he’s really good enough and fails at being truly good. Hopefully, Don’s story will end well in the upcoming weeks. I may never know the end of Joseph’s real story – or rather, the beginning!
The theme for Week 13 of the 2015 edition of the “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” challenge is “Different” and my ancestor is my 3rd great-grandmoter, Teofila Zakrzewska Pater . The theme of “Different” could have allowed me to choose any of my ancestors, for I am different from all of them in one respect: I will never be anyone’s ancestor. I chose to highlight one of my female ancestors in Poland who led a life very different from mine.
Teofila’s Story
Teofila Zakrzewska was born on 27 December 1840 in a small town called Mariampol near Grodzisk Mazowiecki, Poland. Her father, Karol Zakrzewski, was a farmer. Teofila was his first child with his wife Rozalia Kowalska. Karol was married before and had at least three children already. Rozalia was also a widow.
Teofila had two brothers: Wincenty and Józef. Sadly, their father died at the age of 55 in 1854. At the time of his death, Teofila was only 13 years old. Their mother did not remarry and lived until the age of 67.
Teofila meets the definition of different as she is the only ancestor in my family tree with the beautiful name Teofila! The name is the feminine version of Teofil, which means “friend of God”. Her parents practiced the Polish custom of naming their children based on the saint’s feast day on the day of their birth or closest to it: the feast of St. Teofila is 28 December and she was born on the 27th. The family name of Zakrzewski may look different to American eyes, but it was a very common surname, especially in the area where she was born.
Teofila’s life was a lot different than mine. The biggest difference is that she got married at the age of 18. She and her husband, Jan Pater, went on to have ten children in the next twenty-four years! My 2nd great-grandfather, Józef Pater, was their third child.
Teofila would live long enough to know many of her grandchildren. In 1905, she said good-bye to her son Józef when he left for America. His wife and six children would follow in the next two years. I have not followed up on all of Teofila’s children since the records switch to the Russian language in 1868 (which is more difficult to translate), but I do know that at least three other children lived to adulthood: Marcin, Paulina, and Stanisław.
Teofila died on 15 November 1907 in Żyrardów just a month before her 67th birthday. Her husband Jan lived for another ten months before he also passed away.
Like many of my Polish ancestors, Teofila lived her entire life in a very small area in central Poland, but the country of Poland did not exist during her lifetime. It was under Russian occupation. Her grandchildren who did not emigrate to America would live to see Poland re-emerge on the map of Europe in 1918. Teofila’s grandson, Józef Pater, was one of the men who fought for Poland’s freedom.
Teofila’s life was quite different from mine and I don’t know much about her other than what I’ve discovered in birth, marriage, and death records. But I am very grateful for her life and the love she had for her family.
Just the Facts
Name: Teofila Zakrzewska Pater
Ahnentafel: #49 (my 3rd great-grandmother)
Parents: Karol Zakrzewski (1799-1854) and Rozalia Kowalska (1808-1875)
Born: 27 December 1840 in Mariampol, Jaktorów, Grodzisk Mazowiecki, Poland
Siblings: Wincenty (b. 1846), Józef (b. 1853); Half-siblings: Jana Elżbieta (b. 1825), Wojciech (b. 1827), Magdalena (b. 1829)
Married: Jan Pater (1834-1908) on 10 October 1859 in Wiskitki, Poland
Children: Marcin (b. 1860), Ewa (b. 1862), Józef (1864-1945), Antonina (b. 1867), Paulina (b. 1874), Paweł (b. 1876), Bronisława (b. 1877), Bronisław (b. 1879), Władysław (b. 1882), Stanisław (b. 1884)
Died: 15 November 1907 in Żyrardów, Poland
My Line of Descent: Teofila Zakrzewska Pater-> Józef Pater-> Ludwik Pater-> Henry Pater-> mother-> me
What's Past is Prologue 