Final Resting Place

The theme for Week 37 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is – Tombstone.

In October of 1941, my great aunt, Stefania, wife of John Posluszny, my grandfather’s oldest brother, passed away. She was 56 years old. She left behind her husband, a daughter Martha 35, and a son Stanley, 22. I found this information on Find a Grave because a gracious volunteer uploaded the information from the cemetery – Holy Sepulchre in East Orange, New Jersey.

In the early 2000s, when I received ancestry material from my cousin Judy, there was a funeral card for my great-uncle John Posluszny.

The translation reads:

Jan (John) Posluszny
at the age of 61
He died on February 1, 1942
the funeral took place
on February 5, 1942
Corpses(?) placed in the cemetery
Rose Hill, Linden, NJ
He asks for a Hail Mary and eternal rest for the peace of his soul
Funeral Home Souvenir – W.A. Ruckiego

From this card, I requested a copy of his death certificate from the New Jersey state archives, but they had no record of it. The only death information available was his record in Find a Grave and I read that he was buried in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in East Orange, and not in Rose Hill in Linden. Hmmmm.

Somewhere around 2006, I spoke to my mother’s cousin Ann Bonk Monroe (she passed away in 2011), and I must have asked her about this. My notes from our conversation say she told me that all she remembered about his death and funeral was hearing her family talk about how the wife wanted him cremated and the family was very opposed to it. Ann would have been 16 years old at the time. Since Stefania died before him, it must have been his daughter Martha who scheduled a cremation, but why a cremation?

Shortly after, I sent an email to Rose Hill and corresponded with Jim. He told me he was unable to find John or Jan Post, he wrote, “However here is some information that I did find about the service. I pulled the original diary from that year and found that there was a cremation scheduled for John Posluszny at 11:00 on 2/5/42 but it was cancelled. The funeral home was Rucki Funeral Home. I do not know the reason other than it was cancelled. I checked to see if (it) may have been rescheduled later, but I couldn’t find it.” Hmmm.

As this was going on, I had a DNA match with someone named Janine Posluszny. I emailed her in 2012 and it wasn’t until 2018 that I received a response from her. Her father was Stanley Posluszny, John and Stefania’s son! She grew up in Arizona and said “My father hated the cold. If I remember correctly his father died in a snowy road car accident???” That was new information for me!

This search for information on John Posluszny’s death may have started 20 years ago, but with these people, I just can’t quit. Saturday, I started looking for obituaries for John and Stefania. I am still surprised that Ancestry hasn’t revealed them to me. I checked Newspapers(dot)com, nothing, nothing, nothing. I checked Google newspaper archives, but there were no New Jersey papers for Newark.

So crap shoot, I google Newark newspapers and find the ONLINE newspaper archives in the Newark Public Library!

Enter in names and dates and violà! First up is the death notice for Stefania his wife in the Newark Evening News on October 31, 1941.

Next up was searching for John which didn’t take long.

I was struck by the word “Suddenly”. I thought if it was a car accident like Janine said, there might be an article about it. I found the paper for February 2nd and started at the beginning of the newspaper. A few pages in I caught the words “Auto Accidents”.

Such a tragedy! Never get out of your car!

I think the reason he was going to be cremated was, Stefania had died only 3 months before the accident. Martha who was married, but soon to be divorced, was now responsible for her father’s funeral and burial and maybe the expense was too much for her to take on and the cremation was the cost-effective option.

I emailed a request through Find a Grave for a volunteer to take pictures of Stefania and John’s grave sites and hopefully someone will have some spare time to do that.

This new found information has answered the questions I had about John’s death and burial. Hopefully soon I will have a picture of his – Tombstone.