This subject is number 3 on the list of “52 Ancestors in 52 weeks for 2024” created by Amy Johnson Crow. Week wise, I’m a little late to the party, but who cares – as long as I show up!
So my favorite photo is this one:
John and Steve at Baldwin Pond
This is a photo of my dad, John, and his oldest brother, Steve. It was taken approximately 1936 when my dad was 12 and Steve was 23. Look at the smiles, look at Steve’s arms over my dad’s shoulders holding him close, and look at my dad’s hands reaching back to hold his brother’s legs.
If my timing is correct, this was about a year after their father was killed in a hit and run accident not far from home. Eight years previous to that, in 1927, their mother died from pregnancy complications when my dad was not quite 3.
That hit and run left 5 children, ages 23, 21, 15, 14, and 12 orphans. Life was definitely not easy for them before their father died, but it got worse the night the policeman banged on their door to tell them their father was dead.
Steve, at 23, became their guardian. Family stories say the priest at the church they attended, St. Peter and Paul’s Catholic Church, offered to be their guardian (in name) in the event there was an attempt to break them up. John and his brother Walt were alter boys and Helen cleaned the alter during the week so he knew them well. I don’t think it ever came to that.
They continued to live in the little brown house on Prince Street in Wallingford and Steve had a job as a meat cutter nearby. In 1937, Steve married Florence whose family lived on the corner and he brought them into the marriage.
Steve was a father to all of them and I’m sure it was difficult as a newly married couple to have teenagers in the house so soon! Life wasn’t always easy but he and Florence made a home for them.
I see such true affection in their expressions and that’s what makes this my favorite photo.
Week 2 of the 52 Ancestors challenge is about Origins.
I didn’t know a lot of my family’s origins growing up. I knew my maternal side was German and my paternal side was Polish. My mom’s mom spoke German, and my dad took us to the local PNA for polish lessons for a few years. It wasn’t until I started my ancestry work that I realized how convoluted it all was!
My paternal side was definitely Polish, but it was in the Galicia region which was like the shifting sands of time. Were they Polish? Maybe Austrian? If they were Austrian isn’t that sort of German? Evidently, who ever conquered them at the time, that’s what they were.
My maternal side was “German”, but they were also in the Galicia region. And why did my Aunt Tootsie say “dumb Polaks” if they lived in the same area?
I had my DNA tested and here are the results:
Ancestry DNA ResultsMy ethnicities per parent
I was fascinated to see that my material side had NO Eastern European, so yes, my material side was mostly Germanic Europe. Both sides had a bit of Sweden and Denmark which makes me think of the Danes and Vikings!
Possibly the stories I’ve read of German being paid to go to the Galicia region “to teach” the Polish how to farm has some weight behind it. After all, my maternal side were farmers.
Something interesting on my maternal side was the England and Northwestern Europe. Mostly the England because as you might remember, and if you don’t, I talked about the discovery of my biological grandfather here .
With new family, there is always new information to share and what this cousin shared was quite a shock – my 35th great grandfather is King Alfred the Great! He was the most famous of the Anglo-Saxon kings. He prevented England from falling to the Danes and he promoted literacy and learning. Fierce and educated – it certainly carried down the line!
It’s fun to take a dive into the DNA results looking the results and thinking about my origins.
This is the first of my posts for 52 Ancestors and the topic is Family Lore. The moment I read it, my mind went back to the year 2000 when I started my journey to research my Jakiela, Liro, Posluszny, and Ingram family history.
The definition of Lore is: “a body of traditions and knowledge on a subject or held by a particular group, typically passed from person to person by word of mouth.” I don’t think that rings any truer than for my Jakiela side of my family.
Charles and Antonia, my grandparents married in June of 1912. They had two children, Steven in 1913 and Edward in 1915 by the time Charles headed off for World War I in 1917. When he returned, they had three more children, Helen in 1920, Walter in 1922, and John (my dad) in 1924.
The short version: in 1927, Antonia died from a miscarriage and after a move from Southington to Wallingford, CT, Charles died in 1935 in a hit and run accident as he walked along the side of a road at night. That second family tragedy made 22 year old Steven and four siblings orphans. What would they remember of family stories and traditions? What would they pass down to their children?
Charles and Antonia JakielaAntonia Jakiela with John
The children of my Uncle Steve have give me the most information. As the oldest, Steve would have been “the keeper of family possessions”. My Uncle Eddie and my Auntie Helen both gave me information in sit-down interviews I did with them and I would ask my Auntie Helen all sorts of questions to get her talking when I would take her to the grocery store or a doctor’s visit.
Here is some of that family lore:
My grandmother Antonia and her sister Aniela in Massachusetts were twins.They were NOT twins, in fact, Aniela was born in 1871 and Antonia was born in 1890.
Charles had been a writer for a Polish newspaper in Chicago before moving to Southington. No, Charles’s destination from Poland was Southington but there’s no record he settled there before heading to Palmer, Massachusetts to work in the textile mill where he met Antonia. Now, he might not have been a newspaper writer but according to Auntie Helen, on a regular basis he would write to the government asking for his pension from WWI to be increased.
Charles was injured in WWI when a forgotten ammunition exploded under their train as they were heading home from France and he had a scar on his head from front to back. I don’t know the truth of this, but it was relayed to me by Auntie Helen. He was flung into the river and would have drowned but he was saved by fellow soldiers.
Steven left school after his grammar school graduation, after his siblings had been scattered among relatives, and gathered them together to live as a family again. Very “Party of Five”-ish but no. The story might be mistaken for what happened when their mother died in 1927. Steve and Eddie stayed with their father. Helen and Walt went to Uncle Joe Mikula who was the widower of Antonia’s sister in Palmer Mass. John was not yet 3, and he went to the home of his godmother, Amelia Marcieniec in Southington. Once Charles, Steve, and Eddie got settled in Wallingford, Charles went and brought the younger siblings back home.
Steve, at 22, kept the family together. The priest at St. Peter’s and Paul Church in Wallingford said he would sponsor them if anyone tried to break the family up. The first is very true. Eddie was 20, Helen 15, Walt 13, and John turning 11. The family remained together. John and Walt did spend time in Palmer Massachusetts with their Uncle John in the summer, and their cousins Walt and Stanley Mikula were known to have spent time in Wallingford. Eddie got married in 1936 and left the family to live in Meriden. Steve and Florence Liedke who lived on the corner of their street, got married in 1937 and Helen, Walt, and John moved in with them.
Walt, Uncle Joe Mikula, JohnAntonina’s grave in Southington
Steve “fibbed” his way into a job as a meat cutter at a market. The 1930 census when he was 16 says that he was not attending school and was working as a salesman at a meat market, so there might be truth to the story he left school after 8th grade. Very possible, as his father had trouble keeping his jobs. It’s likely that’s how he got the job and he went on to become the premier meat cutter at Caplan’s Market in Wallingford until he retired. The man knew his cuts of meat!
Cousin Steve’s Liberty Deli in Southington was in the same location that the family lived at in 1918. Oh yeah, that’s true! Not really family lore, more of a Fun Family Fact. 31 Liberty Street.
We are of Polish royalty. Well, I can’t deny that all we Jakiela girls are Queens, and Jakiela in Polish is Jagiello (Ya-GAY-wah), and The Jagiellon dynasty, family of monarchs of Poland-Lithuania, Bohemia, and Hungary became one of the most powerful in east central Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries. It was ruled by King Wladislaw II Jagiello and Queen Jadwiga. So maybe there is some truth to that tale.
This is some of the family lore that has been accumulated over the 23 years since I first started researching my family. It’s been fun putting it all in one place and I hope you enjoy it!
I’m starting, and hopefully I will complete, a “challenge” called 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks #52Ancestors.
I’ve been spending more time on my other site Thoughts From the Passenger Seat writing about thoughts that pop into my head, or answering the daily prompts. It’s easier! I don’t have to dig through the paperwork or get frustrated searching on Ancestry.
But I miss it….and I bet you do too!
Starting this week I’ll be writing one story a week based on the prompt provided. It won’t always be dates and facts and it could be about any one in my family – maybe even you!
Posluzny family c. 1909Joe Mikula with Walt and John JakielaGalloway Family c. 1910Katherine Duy EngramJulia, Konrad, and Antoinette Posluszny c. 1909John, Walt, Steve, Ed Jakiela
Through the questions asked by Little Judy and her brother Jack, I’m going to share Aunt Judy’s answers and give a little background to her responses. If you missed the beginning, you can find it here. Let’s start with the early years.
There was a lot of conversation about Gram. She was quite a woman who had quite a secret! This is what she had to share about her mother.
What do you know about your mother’s early life?: She was quite a lady. She was not the person that people knew in the end. She was one of the lucky ones. She came here with no one. I don’t even know how she got here without a sponsor. She was lucky to be taken in by a rich woman – I don’t know her nationality or her name, but she immediately enrolled her in night school. That’s why she could speak English and learned at the niceties (Gram was this woman’s maid). That’s why she had so much poise. She was very fortunate.
How did she meet Grandpa? They both lived in Yonkers which was considered Germantown because that’s where all the Germans immigrated to. They were 3rd cousins and has to get dispensation. *This would mean they shared great great grandparents and in the early 1900s even 2nd cousins didn’t need dispensation so that might have been a family tale. Commonality appears to be with the Straub last name.
Julianna and FamilyJulianna, Konrad and Antoinette (late 1909)Posluszny Family – Julianna and Konrad back right
How many languages did she speak? She could speak German, Russian, and Polish, and she could understand “Jewish”. I bet out of all of us my mother had the highest IQ. She then followed that up with – I don’t know if my mother was any smarter than my dad but she had more balls than my father, yes she did!
Where did you learn to cook and sew? My mother! She could look at a piece of crochet and she could do it. She and Toots (the oldest daughter) would walk and window shop and if they saw a dress that Toots liked, she could just look at it then they’d go to Horowitz’s and buy the material and make a paper pattern and then the dress would be done the next day. I’m a good sewer but I could never do that! Gram didn’t need a pattern. There was nothing she couldn’t do and that’s why when we’d get shy about something she’d get so impatient with us! She’d say, “American boy got an education, and you can’t open your mouth?” She would open hers!
What else did Gram enjoy? She was an actress! She was in plays at the Polish (national) church a couple of times a year. I can still picture watching them! My mother and Aunt Mary (Gram’s sister-in-law). Aunt Mary was the boss – producer. Everyone would go to the church on Sunday night to watch. I don’t know what the hell they were saying but whatever she said, I guess it was the right thing because they’d all clap!”
What was Gram and Grandpa’s relationship like? She had a tough row to hoe. My father had a drinking problem. Fortunately, when he’d get drunk, he’d go up to bed and go to sleep. But he never lost a day’s work in his life. My mother got the paycheck. But just the same, to us, we knew Christmas would come, he was going to have too much to drink and then go to bed. It bothered us! Now we realize it wasn’t all that bad.
Tell us about your dad My dad and his brothers were hatters. When we moved to New Britain, he owned a hat company (The Conrad Hat Company). Dad was not a business-type guy but he would have been very successful if he was. He was a soft-hearted guy and the politicians in New Britain would come in and take advantage of him, having a hat made and saying they’d pay him later and they never did. He couldn’t pay his insurance, had a fire, and went out of business. They moved to Wallingford so he could find a job. He did get a job in the steel mill and his mother and stepfather gave them $500 to put a deposit on the house at 121 Clifton Street.
Who graduated from High School and when did everyone start working? Tootsie (15), Connie (14), and Lou (11) didn’t attend any school once they moved to Wallingford. Tootsie did housework until she could get into the factory. Connie grew up to be a fabulous baker but I don’t know if he started working for one right away. Lou went to the farm (Wallingford was filled with farms in the 1920s) and pretty much lived there. Judy graduated high school, and Betty graduated high school and went to business school. She was asked why did everyone start working. “Because there was no money!” Think about it – 5 kids, dad with no job, moving to a new town – everyone had to pitch in.
My mom, Betty front left, cousin Pauline right. Back cousin Katherine and Judy in capConnie and BettyJudy and Betty
I’m going to end here and next, we’ll hear from Aunt Judy about her life growing up, meeting Uncle Mal, and their life together!
Around 2009, my cousin Jack took the home movies that our Uncle Mal Bellafronto recorded and, I don’t know the magic involved, combined them onto DVDs with my Aunt Judy Bellafronto and my cousin, Judy Behme discussing what was recorded. These three DVDs range from the mid-1930s with Uncle Mal playing football for a local team through the late 1970s with my sisters and I cheerleading at a high school Thanksgiving Day game.
He gave the cousins each copies and they are something I treasure and find myself watching every couple of years. Each time I do, I find something else precious to view.
As I was once again organizing my “Family History” space which is one end of the room over our garage, I found an additional DVD that I’m sure I watched when we first received it. I popped it into the DVD slot on my 2008 Mac Desktop and started watching. Then quickly grabbed a notebook and a pen and started transcribing.
It is approximately 45 minutes of “The Judys”. Jack and Judy Behme (his sister and forever known as “Little Judy”) asked questions of their aunt’s life growing up, meeting Uncle Mal, and their marriage. I recognized some of the answers which I know I’ve shared here and there in the past but I didn’t appreciate the stories and details until now.
I’ll share the background and facts in this post and then over the next posts break it out in sections. So let’s start….
Julia Gertrude Posluszny was born on May 15, 1917 in Yonkers NY to Julianna (Ingram) and Konrad Posluszny. She was their fourth child and the second girl in the family. Her siblings were Antoinette (Tootsie 1909), Conrad (Connie 1910), Louis (Louie 1913).
The family moved from Yonkers around 1920 to East Hampton, MA, then to New Britain in 1921, and to Wallingford CT in 1925 where Konrad’s mother, stepfather, and half brother lived. They moved into a new home at 121 Clifton Street where family lived until 1988.
Judy and Betty (my mom)
She went to school in Wallingford, graduated in 1935 and met and married Malcolm Bellafronto in 1939. They had 2 sons and resided in Wallingford in a house on Lincoln Avenue. In the late 70s/early 80s, Uncle Mal retired from teaching at a tech school and they moved to Florida where they lived happily for many years.
Uncle Mal Bellafronto (@ 1943)
Uncle Mal passed away in January of 2002 at the age of 88. As Aunt Judy became elderly, she moved to New York, but first spent some time in Morocco living with her granddaughter and her family! Once in New York, she resided in a nursing home and passed away on December 24, 2016 just 6 months shy of her 100th birthday.
To my sisters and I growing up, she was our stylish aunt. We enjoyed going to her house and she made us outfits for Easter for a number of years. She and Uncle Mal had a cottage at Pickeral Lake we would visit frequently on Sundays during the summer and use the cottage for a week some summers.
She had a wonderful laugh and we loved to listen to her stories (and gossip!). The last time we saw her was in 2013 at our former cottage in Lebanon Ct for a family reunion when her granddaughter Cathy, husband Fred and their 4 children came to the U.S. Aunt Judy’s son Bob and I put together the event and Aunt Judy was there along with her son Mal and his two sons Mal (III) and Eric. She was 96 at the time (Impossible!) and as quick witted as ever.
My sister Gail talking with Aunt Judy
I look forward to putting the questions and answers into story and hope you enjoy this journey with me!
I met someone in a Facebook group with the Posluszny surname. We chatted a little and with some of the information she gave me, I went down the ancestry rabbit hole for her.
I found a few inconsistencies in the information she gave me, matched my census findings with newspaper articles, and typed it up and emailed it to her.
She was thankful for the information I sent over, but she was not very receptive to the potential corrections to her family stories! So I just said, “you’re welcome” and will move on.
This morning, I read a post from a family history blog I follow and the writer uncovered some really interesting – and not all sunshine and roses – information about an ancestor that was pretty fascinating and it took some work to find it.
Our families are our families, warts and all. Some of the stories from the Jakiela side of my family were crazy and the skeletons in the Posluszny closet are a little shocking. But uncovering them sometimes puts the stories into perspective.
Judging from the ages of Mal, Jack, and Judy, this picture was taken sometime in 1943. Uncle Connie enlisted in November of 1942 and was working as a cook in an Army base in Texas. Elizabeth and Tootsie took a trip to visit him in August of 1943.
Knowing that Konrad died and how he died right after Christmas in 1944 makes these pictures a little more poignant.
This is another picture from the same day based on the clothing. I can’t help but notice the shapeless dress and hand-sewn hem! Gram had very long hair but it was always worn slicked back in a bun.
In January 2020, I told the story of my grandmother Julia Ingram Posluszny taking in her cousin Mary Kukulska Juszczak‘s baby when Mary died in childbirth in 1910. Three or four years later, when Julia had 3 children of her own under the age of 4, she gave the child up for adoption to a family who heard of her situation.
Fast forward to last week – I was updating some hints in my ancestry tree and my half-second cousin Kerry’s tree showed Mary still alive after 1910 with another husband! I thought that was impossible and messaged her. Well, as the saying goes, she had the receipts!
We deduced that it was Mary’s husband, John, who passed away in 1910 or early 1911. It was coincidental that her daughter was also born in 1910.
Kerry directed me to the marriage license for Mary and her second husband Michael Zupka from June 18, 1911. They lived on Jefferson Street in Yonkers where the majority of my grandmother’s family lived also.
But just in case you’re saying “wait, what about the child?”, Mary gave birth to a son Michael in April of 1912. We have no record of her death and baby Michael died in November of 1912. All the record we currently have is a picture of the family headstone listing Michael and Mary 1912 / 8 months.
So plot twist! John died in 1910/1911, and Mary remarried Michael in 1911, bringing her daughter Elizabeth Mary with her. She gets pregnant and gives birth to Michael in 1912. She dies giving birth in April? She dies in November with Michael? Whatever the situation, Michael the father, gives Elizabeth Mary to Julia Ingram to raise because he’s got no ties to her. Julia takes her and now has a 2-year-old and 1-year-old of her own and an additional 2-year-old. She then gives birth to her third child in February 1913. She hung on as long as she could but the wheels were in motion based on her statement to the court in August of 1914. Elizabeth Mary was adopted by the Fauths in October 1914.
When I spoke to Sandi, Elizabeth Mary’s daughter about this twist, she said he mother only said that her mother died in childbirth. Maybe she didn’t remember her mother and so thought it was a result of her own birth.
So now that DNA revealed a new paternal biological grandfather for me and my sisters, who was he?! But first, let’s get the Ingram / Engram out of the way. I don’t know what the deal is with that! The 1910 Census lists them as Drumgram because of the census taker’s handwriting. Five years later in the New York State census, they are listed as Engram. I prefer INGRAM but will probably use them both. Without further adieu, here’s what I know –
He was the third born of Jacob Ingram (b. about 1861) and Katherine Duy (b. 8 Aug. 1865). The children were was Theresia (1894), Louis (1894 – died 22 April 1900), Jacob (11 July 1895), Katherine (2 Mar 1998), Elizabeth (abt. 1900), Louise (abt. 1920), and Hannah-who changed her name to Joan (about 1907).
His father was a gardener/farmer. In 1910, he (father), was listed as a gardener on a farm and self-employed. They lived in the Bronx in the area of Wickham Avenue/Astor Estate. Jacob was 14 years old.
In 1915, they are all in the area of Pelham Parkway in the Bronx and Jacob Jr was 19 years old and also farming.
On October 27, 1916, his mother Katherine died at the age of 51. I have not dived into the NY state records to see if I can find an actual death certificate for her but my newly realized half-aunt was told influenza.
Jacob Ingram, Jr., abt. 1918 before going overseas during WWI
Jacob Jr was inducted into the US Army on April 1, 1918 and was overseas from July 18, 1918 until July 13, 1919, and discharged on the 23rd of July 1919. He was with the Company C 312nd infantry and more on that at another time.
We know from census records and city directories that Julianna Ingram and Konrad Posluszny lived in Yonkers NY with their four children. Aunt Judy Bellafronto told me in one of our phone interviews, that she remembers her parents helping out at her “Uncle Jack’s farm” in the Bronx. I think she was referring to the elder Jacob because she also said that her mother kept her Christmas tree up until until “her cousin” came home from the war.
A quick count on my fingers shows that if my mother was born in April of 1922, Julianna and Jacob’s relationship possibly began after he came home from the war. Was it a one time thing? A mad love affair? We’ll never know….
Julianna Ingram, Konrad Posluszny, and Antoinette picture about mid-late 1909
But we know this…. The Poslusznys were still in Yonkers for the 1920 Census (January) and Konrad is listed in the 1921 Yonkers city directory as a hatter, but another Aunt Judy story was they moved to Massachusetts. Aunt Judy said her mother hated it so much she didn’t want to unpack any boxes. Next thing we know, my mother Elizabeth is born on April 5, 1922 in New Britain where they are living at 15 Derby Street in a 2 story home of another Ingram cousin! Konrad is a hatter at 43-45 Broad Street in New Britain during 1923 and owns the Konrad Hat Company at 317 Main Street New Britain in 1924. By 1925 they have “removed to” Wallingford to their brand new home at 121 Clifton Street.
Did the relationship have something to do with the move out of Yonkers? We’ll never know.
Coming up — more information on Jacob Engram Jr, his family, and future family.
It's All About Family 