The Caregiver

The Week 2 topic for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is “A Record That Adds Color”.

In 1912, my grandmother, Julianna Ingram Posluszny was 24 years old with a husband, a daughter Antoinette, born in January 1909, and a son, Conrad, born in November 1910.

Her cousin, Mary Kukulska Juszczak came to the United States with Julianna’s sister, Marianna in 1907. Mary’s daughter Mary was born in 1910. Sadly, some time in the same year, Mary’s husband died in a work accident at the sugar refinery. But the following year she met and married Michael Zupko.

It was in April of 1912 that Mary gave birth to a son Michael Zupko. The only record to be found is their headstone with the year, 1912.

Suddenly Julianna found herself as little Mary’s guardian. Her stepfather didn’t want to take care of her and asked my grandmother with a 3 year old, a 2 year old, and a baby on the way to take her. How could she refuse? She now had 3 children under the age of 4.

Her son, Louis, was born in February of 1913. She and her husband, Konrad, hung in there as long as they could but in 1914 they realized they had to give Mary up for adoption.

Fortunately, Herman and Elizabeth Fauth, German Methodists who had recently lost a daughter, heard of Mary through their church and petitioned to adopt her. Mary never had to go to an orphanage.

The adoption was final in October of 1914. My grandparents would go on to have a daughter Julia in 1917, and my mother Elizabeth in 1922.

What a loving thing my grandmother did! Two children of her own and one on the way, and she takes in, I’m sure without hesitation, another 2 year old. She was always a very giving person but this information helped me see her in such a different light.

I wrote about this in January of 2020 when I was contacted by Mary’s granddaughter and 2 years later when “who died when” was determined by an ancestry relative.