Month: March 2026

The Mikula Boys

I wrote about the Mikula Family in April of 2024, and at the end, I said I would tell you about Walter and Stanley, the two oldest boys in the family.

Quick recap, Aniela Liro Mikula was my grandmother Antonia’s older sister. Aniela and her husband, Josef, immigrated to the United States in 1903. Walter was born in 1903, and Stanley in 1904, about 18 months apart.

The Mikula children and the Jakiela children were not similar in age at all. My Uncle Steve was born in 1913, and Uncle Eddie in 1915, and they were the two oldest. The other three Jakiela siblings were born in 1920, 1922, and 1924. So even before Helen was born in 1920, three Mikula boys had died, as well as Aniela. I still marvel that my grandfather and Uncle Steve were able to lean on Josef to take Helen and Walter when their mother died in 1927, and again in 1935 when my grandfather died. The stories from Auntie Helen and Uncle Eddie were invaluable to my research and I’m so thankful that I had those conversations with them.

Walt, Uncle Joe, John 1935
Walt and John with ?

My Auntie Helen told me that the Mikula brothers lived with their family in Wallingford for a while, but they were “trouble” and her brother Steve told them to leave.

John, Walter Mikula, Walter Jakiela – after 1935, location unknown.

While searching Newspapers.com, I uncovered several newspaper articles recounting charges against Walter of drunkenness and disorderly conduct. Sometimes alone, and sometimes with Stanley. The most egregious charge was against both of them in September 1934 for drunkenness and assaulting their 54-year-old father and 19-year-old sister, Kazmiera. Just terrible! I found additional articles for Walter’s drunken escapades after that incident.

Walter and Stanley’s assault case

A copy of Walter’s 1942 Draft Card has six addresses written and crossed out. Two of those addresses are locations in Waterbury, Connecticut. Another Auntie Helen story was that Walter worked for the New Haven railroad and coming back from a wedding he was driving and killed someone. The family attached his wages so he quit his job and took jobs they “couldn’t keep track of”.

Well, karma took care of that. The last article I found was for a car accident that occurred on Route 7 in Georgetown, Connecticut, on August 17, 1946. A man by the name of Walter J. Mikula, age 43, a resident of Bridgeport, died instantly in a car accident when the car went out of control and crashed into a tree. The driver sustained injuries. Take note, the accident occurred at 7:30 am. A subsequent article in the Record-Journal in October said the driver was criminally liable for Walter’s death.

Death cert.
Crash article
Driver liable in accident

I took the information from the articles, put on my Nancy Drew sleuthing cap, and tracked down where the death certificate would possibly be located. I’d forgotten there was even a Georgetown Connecticut! I made a call to the Wilton town clerk’s office and they had it there. $20 and I had it within the week.

A sad ending for a sad life.

Stanley appeared to get his life together. In 1936, He married Godaline Kowalski. They had a son, Edward, born in 1938, and a son, Ronald, born in 1942. Stanley worked for American Steel and Wire Company for many years, and they lived in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Godaline and Stanley 1936
Godaline and Stanley date unknown in CT
Eddie Jakiela and bridesmaid 1936

Stanley died at the VA Hospital in Rutland, Vermont, on January 19, 1964, at the age of 59. He had been confined there since September 1963. There is no record that he was a veteran of any war, so I’m not sure why he would have been there.

Stanley Mikula obituary

Early in my research journey, I sent out a lot of letters to names and addresses I found online. People, churches, cemeteries, anyone I could think of. I even dragged my sister and our kids up to the Palmer Library to go through their historical information.

One letter in 2000 to Stanley Mikula somehow made it to Godaline who was now 94 and in a nursing home. She wrote back and we exchanged a few letters but unfortunately, I never went to visit her.

2001
2002
2000
Stanley, Frank, Walt – photo from Godaline

Godaline passed away in 2006.

Godaline’s obituary

This is the end of the line for the family of Aniela and Joseph Mikula but I continue to try and connect to the DNA matches and will keep shaking those family trees!

More On The Mikula Family

Back in April of 2024, I wrote about the Mikula Family and my family’s connection to them. Aniela, the mother, was my grandmother Antonia Jakiela’s sister. Their maiden name was Liro.

I promised more about the sons, Walter and Stanley, but it’s taken a couple of years to get back to them. Which could be a good thing, because new search methods and new information continue to turn up. I’m going to share updates about the family members, but will still do a separate story on the sons.

Aniela, their mother, died in May of 1919 at the age of 48, from Tuberculosis of the bone, which caused gangrene of the spine. I didn’t give that much thought until I started on their story. Tuberculosis of the Bone is considered a serious extrapulmonary infection where the mycobacterium tuberculosis spreads from the lungs or lymph nodes to the bones and joints via the lymph nodes. The spine is the most frequent site and is called Pott’s Disease.

After Aniela died in 1919, Joseph married Anna Cerak, likely to help raise the younger children. My Auntie Helen remembers her as being very nice. Anna died in 1934. Joseph moved to Worcester and lived with Stanley and his wife until he died in 1945 at the age of 66.

Joseph Mikula obituary 1945

This is the only picture of Joseph Mikula I have. When my grandfather, Charles Jakiela, died in May of 1935, my dad John and my uncle Walt went to Thorndike for the summer. John had turned 11 and Walt was turning 13 that year.

Uncle Joe Mikula with Walt and John Jakiela

Catherine, born in 1907, third born, and first daughter, was hospitalized for at least four years at the Hampshire County Sanatorium with tuberculosis, where she died in September of 1934. She was an inmate there in the 1930 federal census. Her obituary listed her father and two sisters, Genevieve in Vermont and Kazimiera in Palmer, and two brothers, Walter and Stanley. My Auntie Helen remembered Catherine from the time she spent in Palmer after her mother, Antonina died in 1927. Catherine would have been 27 years old and they, my aunt and uncle Walt, who were 7 and 5 years old at time, called her Aunt Catherine because she was so much older than them.

Catherine Mikula obituary 1934

Bronislaw, born in 1909, the fourth born and third son, was listed in the 1910 federal census, but that was all I could find. Recently, I found a Palmer, Mass. death record for “Bronislaw M??l??R”, Father: Joseph, Mother: Allen Lera. It shows that Bronislaw died in July of 1910, at 18 months old, of gastroenteritis, which can be caused by contaminated food or water.

Genevieve, born in 1911, was the fifth born and second daughter and was the child with the longest life. She married George Blakey in 1930 and moved to Vermont, where he was a farmer. They had five children, 3 girls and 2 boys, between the ages of 12 and 14 months when he died at the age of 34 in 1943 after being in the hospital for 2 weeks “for treatment after a long period of ill health”. Genevieve continued to live in Underhill, Vermont, raising her children, and she died in 1983 at the age of 71 from breast cancer. Those five children produced 20 grandchildren.

Zofia, born in 1913, was the seventh born and third daughter. I have found Zofia in the Palmer birth records. I also have a copy of her baptism certificate. But that’s it. She’s not in the 1920 census, and there’s no mention of her in any family obituaries. I don’t know that I’ll ever find out what happened to her. She would have been about 14 years old when my aunt and uncle were living with them in 1927. My aunt said a daughter was called Tootie and she didn’t like her step mother at all. I wonder if Tootie was Zofia.

Kazimiera, born in 1915, was the eighth born and fourth daughter. I originally found Kazimiera in the 1920 census at 5 years old and in the 1930 census at 15, but nothing after that. When I found Joseph’s obituary online and saw the name “Mary Opielowski” I thought who else could it be but her? It was her.

Kazimiera and her husband, Edward, were married sometime in the early 1930s because the 1940 census says Edward, 26, and “Kay”, 24, were living in the same home as in 1935. I haven’t found any marriage records, but one might pop up. Kazimiera gave birth to a son, David, in 1941.

Kazimiera committed suicide in 1956, leaving behind her husband, son, sister Genevieve, and her brother Stanley. Walter was not listed in the obituary.

Kazimiera’s obituary (transcribed here)

Her husband Edward died in 1981, and their son David died in 2001; it appears he never married, but they both remained in Thorndike, Massachusetts.

Antoni, born in 1917, the eighth born and fourth son, died in August of 1918 when he fell down a well. He was 18 months old.

Local newspaper article

This was not the only tragedy that summer. Mieczyslaw, born in 1918, the ninth born and fifth son, the baby of the family, died one month after Antoni from infant cholera when he was six months old. Cholera, “a disease of poverty”.

Next up – Walter and Stanley