The Week 1 topic for 52 Ancestors in 52 weeks for 2026 is “an ancestor I admire” and after looking at my family tree, I’ve decided that falls on my great grandmother Carolina Straub Posluszny Bonk. Although, technically, she is not my biological great grandmother, her son, Konrad and my grandmother Julianna Ingram were 2nd or 3rd cousins, so there is Carolina DNA in my body.
Carolina was born on April 12, 1855 in Wildenthal (what is now Dzikowiec) in the Galicia region of Poland. She was part of “an ethnic German population living in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria in the Austrian Empire established in 1772 as a result of the First Partition of Poland” (Wikipedia). This area was also known as Austrian Galicia or Austrian Poland for my family members asking are we Polish or Austrian or German? The answer would be “all of them”!
If her siblings list is accurate, Carolina was the 11th child born of 15 to her parents. Four of them born prior to her, died at birth or in their infancy. Carolina herself would give birth to 14 children with eight living past five years old.
She married Joseph Posluszny on May 31, 1876 in Wildenthal and she gave birth to her first child in March of 1879 when she was 24 years old.
Seven months following the birth of her daughter Elizabeth Eva in September of 1896, her husband and my great grandfather, Joseph Posluszny passed away. Carolina became a widow at the age of 41 with seven children ranging in age from 16 to 7 months old.
Last September, another of Carolina’s great-granddaughters through her son Joseph contacted me after finding this blog in google. She told me the following: “Pa’s father had been the village blacksmith. Pa’s father had an apprentice. His name was John Bonk. When Pa’s father died, John Bonk took over the blacksmith shop and apparently the family. Pa was not happy with this and it was about that time that he left Austria.”
Carolina and John Bonk were married on May 12, 1898. Carolina gave birth to a daughter who died at birth and in 1903 at the age of 48, gave birth to a son Walter John Bonk.
Her older sons did head to the United States shortly after her marriage to John. Her son John left in 1899, Konrad in 1900, and Joseph in 1901.
Carolina, John, daughters Mary and Elizabeth, and their son Walter immigrated in July of 1907 and resided in Perth Amboy New Jersey until their final destination of Wallingford Connecticut.
This photo ends up in nearly every Posluszny post. Carolina is seated on the right, with her son Walter in front of her. She is 52 years old at the time of this photo in 1907.
She, along with her daughter Mary, was an active member in the local Polish National Catholic Church in Wallingford, St. Casimir’s Church.
Carolina died at the age of 70 (not 64 as the newspaper article said) after suffering from stomach cancer. My Aunt Judy told me in a conversation years ago, that she and her mother, my grandmother Julianna, would go to Carolina’s house a few blocks away to take care of her when she was ill. Also, that my grandfather Konrad and Julianna were kind to her second husband. Carolina and John gave my grandparents the downpayment for their home in Wallingford on Clifton Street. I found it touching that my grandmother did the same for my parents when they purchased our home here on Atkinson Lane.
She is buried in the Polish National cemetery in Wallingford.
I can’t imagine a life with 14 siblings, or to give birth to 14 children only to have 3 die in the same year from smallpox. I don’t know the cause of her husband’s death at the age of 43, but with young children still at home and a business to run, the best option was to married the hired help. She did what she had to, to survive. She was well-respected in her church and community at their death and that makes me proud of her.
It's All About Family 