Ingram Family – Page 2 – It's All About Family

John Posluszny

I told you about John Posluszny’s death and burial here but I thought you might enjoy hearing about his life and family.

John was born in March 1880 and was the eldest of the children of Caroline Straub and Joseph Posluszny.

He arrived in the United States in 1899 at the age of 19 and spent most of his life in the Newark, New Jersey area. I have no ship manifest for his arrival, but used the year recorded on the federal census reports.

Both the 1905 New York State census and the Yonkers city directory lists John living in Yonkers on Washington Street as a boarder in a household and working as a hatter (the family occupation).

Something puzzles me though. Jumping ahead a few years, the 1910 Federal Census lists a son John, 7 years old, which means he was born about 1903 and in the United States. The 1905 census doesn’t include a child or a wife but you’ll see further down this post, a marriage license says his first wife died. The Posluszny Family portrait was taken about 1907 based on the appearance of young John (front row left) and young Walter (front row right). I think the picture of John and his son and the picture of the four brothers was taken at about the same time.

*John Posluszny and his son John abt. 4 years old*

He married Stefania Mariasz in March in 1908. She immigrated in December of 1907 with her sister Karolina and they were heading to their cousin, Johann Straub on Jefferson Street in Yonkers. Johann Straub and Jefferson Street are names that have popped up regularly for Posluszny family members when they arrived in the United States. The marriage license says John was married before and his wife had died. I have no record for that and no birth record for John Jr.

*John and Stefania’s marriage license 1908*

There is another mystery – “they” had a daughter Martha, who was born in Austria in 1907 and came to the United States in February of 1909! I’m not sure who her parents really were. Martha arrived with John Posluszny’s cousin Katarzyna Burek, but I don’t recognize that name. Is it possible that Stefania had her out of wedlock in 1907? Illegitimate children were not uncommon according to the birth records I’ve been poring over.

By the 1910 census, we find John and his family in Newark New Jersey. This census assumes that Stefania gave birth to both John and Martha (2 children born, 2 children living). They were renters and shared their home with Stefania’s sisters Karolina and Julia. Julia is listed as being married for 8 years and immigrated in 1903 with a final destination of her husband Josef Dosedla. I don’t know what happened to him but by 1914, she was married to Jacob Vervliet in New Jersey.

John and Stefania had a son, Stanley born in August of 1918, nine years after Martha and 15 years after John.

*Stanley Posluszny born 1918 – approx. 1921*

In 1920, John, Stefania, Martha (13), and Stanley (1-1/2) are living in Irvington, a town in Essex County, New Jersey. John and Martha are both naturalized citizens and John is still working as a hatter. The sister in laws have moved on and so has the oldest son John. I found him living in Wallingford Connecticut with his grandparents, Caroline and Jon Bonk and working at Wallingford Silversmith.

By 1930, John is a restaurant owner and also owns a multi-family home at 617 18th Avenue in Newark. His restaurant / saloon was at 672 South 19th Street which appears to be the same building, with the entrance around the corner. I took the 2007 pictures from Google Maps because in 2023, the building is in a terrible state of disrepair!

Martha was married at 22 in 1928 to Leslie Theobald, a police officer for Newark. They had a daughter, Dolores and they were divorced in 1941. Their daughter, Dolores married Theodore Kozlowsky in 1951 and they had three children. I’m still researching to add them to the family tree.

*Divorce notice for Martha and Leslie – note the item underneath. Dr. Gilbreth is the mother of the real “Cheaper by the Dozen” family!*

I have not been able to find any information on John Jr. after the 1920 census in Wallingford. There are some possible leads but nothing that confirms to me that’s my John.

Stanley was easier to find possibly because he was born in the late 1910s. He graduated from West Side High School in Newark and then from Northeastern University in Boston with a bachelor’s in science degree. He would later become a dentist. But first up was World War II.

He registered in 1940 while he was a student at Northeastern. On the form, he spelled his last name “Poslushny” unlike our “Posluszny”. This picture is signed “Stan Post” which some of the male family members adopted permanently but Stanley did not.

He enlisted in the Marines in March of 1942. This was only a month after his father died as a result of a car accident. In November of that year, he completed pre-flight training and was sent to the Naval Reserve aviation base in Squantum, Massachusetts which was in the city of Quincy.

From there he headed to Pensacola Florida where he was commissioned a second Lieutenant in the Marines Corps Reserve after completing the flight training course. He was designated a naval aviator and assigned to the Navy Air Operational Training Center in San Diego California.

I was surprised to find this article for the same event in my local Connecticut newspaper archives and wondered why. Then I realized his sister Martha, and probably her daughter Dolores were living in Wallingford! 105 Ward Street a multi-family home and part of Steinke’s Market. The original market was owned by Joseph Laçz and his wife Elizabeth Posluszny (John’s sister). It was then purchased by Mary Posluszny Biega and her husband and at some point purchased (?) by their daughter Mary and her husband Otto Steinke. Whew. Remember, this was shortly after Martha and her husband Leslie Theobald were divorced in New Jersey. Family taking care of family again.

In 1945 Stanley was flying in the Pacific Theater and this event was recorded in the Newark Evening News.

The military rolls for Stanley show him stationed from Virginia to San Francisco and ending out his career as a captain.

He ended up back in the New Jersey/New York area and I believe he was married, had three sons, and was then divorced. I don’t know when he continued his schooling to become a dentist. Interesting note – his aunt Mary Posluszny Biega also had a son, Stanley G. and he became a dentist here in Connecticut.

He headed out to Arizona in 1955, was married in 1959, and had a daughter. I found her name on Ancestry in 2012. We have corresponded and discovered immediately that we were family. We became a DNA match a few years ago and since we have shared matches, I have new names to check on.

Stanley passed away in 1984 when she was only 21, not unlike he and his father. She told me that her father hated the cold and hated funerals and wanted to be cremated but her Italian-born mother refused and had him buried. How ironic that the same thing happened to father and son.

*Obituary and headstone for Stanley J. Posluszny*

I hope you enjoyed this biography of John Posluszny and his family!

Favorite Photo

The Week 2 Topic for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is “Favorite Photo”.

This photo started me on my Ancestry Journey:

My mother’s oldest sister, Antoinette, known as Toots and Tootsie, was the family picture keeper. When I visited her in her little one room apartment, she would bring out the photos and tell me about the people in the photos. Some of the stories didn’t match the previous ones, but it was fun to just sit and listen to her. When she moved to a nursing home, my cousin Judy had the pictures and when she passed away, her husband gave them to me.

This photo is of the entire Posluszny Family, the maternal side of my family tree. In the front row is John Posluszny and his son John, Ann Straub Posluszny with her daughter Ann, Mary Posluszny (later to become Mary Biega), Caroline Straub Posluszny (at this time Bonk) and her son Walter, Elizabeth Posluszny (later to become Elizabeth Laçz). The back row is Joseph Posluszny, husband of Ann, Frank Posluszny, Charles Posluszny, John Bonk (the men’s stepfather and Caroline’s second husband, Walter’s father), Julianna Ingram Posluszny, and Conrad Posluszny (my grandmother and grandfather).

I have stared at this photo for so many years, just looking at the faces and wondering about them and their lives in Wildenthal (now Dzikowiec) before coming to the United States.

I marvel at the handsomeness of my grandfather (ok, he’s not really, but I am still related because he and my grandmother were 2nd or 3rd cousins), and I can’t get over the resemblance of Mary Posluszny Biega to my cousin Ann who has passed away.

I have individual pictures of a few of them, and some wedding photos that I treasure, but this photo is my favorite. It keeps me digging.

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.

*Funeral card information for 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.

*Death notice 10/31/1941 Newark Evening News*

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

*John Posluszny’s death notice 2/3/1942*

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”.

*Details of accident that killed John Posluszny* – *he also went by the name of “John Post”*

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.

Grateful

Happy Thanksgiving from me to you!

Recently, one of my favorite bloggers wrote about what she is thankful for.

I’ve been thinking the same lately as I leave my house in the morning. It helps to ease my everyday anxiety by getting me to think about something other than what happened in high school or where I’m going to be 10 years from 6 months ago!

It might have something to do with the book I’m currently reading, “Solito” by Javier Zamora. It’s a memoir of his travels in 1999 with a group of 8, originally strangers, led by a coyote from La Herradura, El Salvador, to the United States when he was 9. His parents were already in “LA USA”. Everyone thought the trip was two weeks long which, at the point of my spot in the book, is three months.

It also brings to mind the people in North Carolina who suffered through Hurricane Helene. Many are still living in tents and others, in homes, just recently got potable water. It was such an unexpected weather event that hopefully they will never see again in their lifetimes.

We’re heading over to celebrate Thanksgiving with family of family, people whom we’ve been sharing this holiday for over 20 years, and hopefully there will be 20 plus more to come.

I’m grateful for my family, my home, my health, fresh water, inside plumbing, food readily available, a vehicle to get from place to place, and our business.

I hope you are having a happy and healthy day!

Red Men and Pocahontas

The topic for week 34 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is Member of The Club. I looked at that and thought SWEET! It was a subject I wanted to share.

The Improved Order of Red Men is a national fraternal organization that goes back to 1765 and was one of several patriotic societies founded before the American Revolution. Other groups included The Sons of Liberty and the Sons of St. Tammany. Originally known as Red Men, the members concealed their identities and worked “underground” to help establish freedom and liberty in the early Colonies. After the War of 1812, the name was changed to the Society of Red Men and in 1834 to the Improved Order of Red Men. In Baltimore, Maryland in 1847, the various tribes came together and formed a national organization called the Grand Council of the United States. With the formation of a national organization, the Improved Order of Red Men spread, and within 30 years there were State Great Councils in 21 states with a membership of over 150,000. The order continued to grow and by the mid-1920s there were tribes in 46 states and territories with a membership totalling over one-half million.

The organization believes in:
*Love and Respect for the American Flag
*The American Way of Life
*Keeping alive the customs and legends of a once-vanishing race
*Creating and inspiring a greater love for the United States of America
*Linking our members together in a common bond of Friendship and Love
*Helping those in need with organized charitable programs

The Women’s Auxiliary of the Improved Order of Red Men was The Degree of Pocahontas. It was believed that Pocahontas’ brief life presented a touching and beautiful picture of grace, beauty, and virtue, as well as “constant friendship to the palefaces.” The group patterned itself after the virtues of the original Pocahontas, those virtues of teaching kindness, love, charity, and loyalty to one’s nation. (information from the official website http://www.redmen.org)

The first “tribe” in Connecticut was the Hammanssett No. 1 tribe in New Haven established in 1880. Within 50 years, there were 38 additional tribes of seven thousand members along with the Degree of Pocahontas with several thousand members of its own. The Wallingford men’s tribe was Owenoco and the local women’s tribe Cheyenne Council No. 20.

Notable Connecticut men involved in the group included three Connecticut governors – Raymond Baldwin, Marcus Holcomb, and John Trumbull.

My Aunt Tootsie became involved with this organization in the early 1940s and was very active in it for over 40 years. Until I saw the article below, I didn’t know another aunt, Florence Jakiela, was also part of the group, so that was an interesting find!

In addition to meetings, the Red Men and Pocahontas groups held fundraisers and presentations such as this one from 1955. (Notice the ad about Caplan’s being closed for George Washington’s birthday!)

Tootsie met her first husband Lester Schmitt through the Red Men organization. Lester is 2nd from left in the photo below and I thought he looked a little like Bob Hope in one of his movies. They dated for many years before they married as he lived with and cared for his mother in Torrington and she did the same for my grandmother in Wallingford.

Years after Lester passed away, she married her second husband in 1978. He and his first wife were friends with Tootsie and Lester through the Red Men organization.

It was in the late 1960s that the Degree of Pocahontas decided to create a girls’ group, Silver Cloud Council. It was made up of nieces, granddaughters, and neighborhood friends of the Pocahontas members, and we met one Friday night a month. My mother was likely happy to have us out of the house for that one Friday night!

The Red Men building was located at 50 South Whittlesey Avenue in Wallingford and, at the time, it was incredibly dark and scary. Our meetings were on the second floor and they were very ceremonious. We had to be reminded of the process at every meeting. The parts of those evenings I remember the most were:
1) wanting to watch The Brady Bunch and Partridge Family (no DVR back then!), being annoyed that we couldn’t, and trying to get it tuned in on an old television set there;
2) running around the building with the other girls; creeping up the stairway to the cupola at the top of the building; and
3) sneaking down the basement stairs to peek at the organization’s bar!

In addition to meetings, we marched in parades including our town’s Tercentenary (300 years) parade in 1970. We definitely weren’t thrilled about that!

My sisters and I moved on from the group after 2 years at the most and I don’t have any memories of Aunt Tootsie participating after that. Two of the ladies in the group passed away in 1973 so that would have definitely shrunk the local Pocahontas council.

The Improved Order of Red Men tribe in Wallingford disbanded and the building was sold and now houses a law firm. There are still active tribes in Connecticut and 126 tribes throughout the United States.

My Favorite Discovery

The Week 33 topic for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is – My Favorite Discovery. I’ve had a few discoveries over the last 25 years. My favorite discovery has a good side / not-so-good side, but it makes me happy.

The road to this discovery started in 2004, when my cousin Judy Posluszny Behme passed away and her husband brought me all her ancestry paperwork. She and I were working parallel, we didn’t share information or ask questions about what we had. I knew she was also working on it, but not much more!

The papers included email correspondence from someone named Joanne. Judy had sent a letter to Anna Engram, Joanne’s mother. I don’t know whether the letter was ancestry-related or just perhaps a Christmas card to Aunt Tootsie’s list of people. Who knows how long it had been since cards had been sent out but it was a smart idea to use the list for information too!

emails from 2/7/2001, 2/25/2001, and 11/18/2004

The top 2 emails are from Joanne to Judy in February 2001, 2 weeks apart, and the bottom one is my email to Joanne in November of 2004.

Joanne responded right away. She still didn’t know who she visited as a young girl but recalled a wedding in Wallingford “of a woman relative who was marrying at ‘mid-age'” and “this may have been a cousin? to my Dad”.

Through our emails, she told me about her father, Jacob Engram Jr., and his father, Jacob, who immigrated from Austria-Hungary and was a farmer. While growing up her father lived in the vicinity of today’s Bronx-Whitestone Bridge, and later on a rented farm in the Pelham Bay area. I knew there was some family connection because my grandmother loved her flowers and tending to her gardens.

My Aunt Judy helped put some pieces together in a phone conversation in November 2004. According to Judy, Uncle Jack Ingram had a farm “in Long Island”, and her parents would go there from Yonkers and help out. Uncle Jack had a son, Jack, who was in World War I and Aunt Judy remembered her mother kept up her Christmas tree until February, when “her nephew” Jack came home. The dates don’t add up but it’s interesting how that story got passed down. Jack served overseas during World War I from July 18, 1918, to July 13, 1919.

We continued our correspondence through the remainder of the year and determined that she attended my parent’s wedding on November 9, 1952. 72 years ago today! Joanne was only 7 years old so an older bride and a partially bald groom would be considered “mid-aged” in her eyes!

We emailed back and forth a few times and then didn’t talk again until 2016 and again in 2018. Life is like that sometimes!

And then, her kids gave her a DNA kit for Christmas in 2018. In March of 2019, we confirmed we were related. Oh boy, were we related! We were so much related that she and I shared twice the cMs compared to me and my first cousins. It also explained why some DNA matches were only between us and not between my maternal cousins.

I went to the experts – the Ancestry DNA Facebook group. My question “Why do I share 1,040 cMs with this person and only 527 and 467 with my first cousins” was met with “You need to talk to your mother”. Since my mother had been gone for 32 years by 2019, I answered my own question.

Joanne was my half aunt and her father, Jacob Engram, Jr., was also my mother’s father.

Shocked is putting it mildly.

My initial reactions were: 1) The work I’ve done on the Posluszny and Straub side was all for nothing!, 2) All the DNA matches associated with the last name “Duy” made sense because that was Jacob’s mother’s maiden name and, 3) not only were Julianna and Konrad Posluszny related (3rd cousins perhaps), but geez, Julianna and Jacob were related as well!

If there was any question of being related, I have the photographic proof:

That would probably be the bad side of the discovery because it did shake me up a bit.

I’m fascinated by the timing because my grandmother and family were living in New Britain in 1921 when she would have become pregnant. Did she know? Did she tell him her suspicions? Did their relationship continue after my mother was born? This is where I’d love to be a time traveler (and I’d have to let it happen again so that I would be assured I exist!).

The good side of the discovery is that I have an aunt! Jacob married in 1934 and had a daughter in 1945. Although she and my mother never knew each other, they did meet and/or knew about each other as a part of the family. Joanne lives in Pennsylvania and we have not met face to face yet. We are Facebook friends and we share any ancestry information we come across.

So this event would definitely qualify as my favorite discovery!

Free Space

The topic for Week 32 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is Free Space. I have a feeling the topic means a post of my choosing. Maybe that’s why it has taken me a couple of weeks to write a post!

This week will be for updates on new information, the family found, and a little “how I did it back then”.

There has been a big push to scan records for online searches. There are two sites – Geneteka and Skanoteka – and both take a little getting used to. Above is the record for my grandmother, Julianna Ingram. To find the record first I had to locate the Padew records, the years (some have large ranges), the record type (U-birth, M-marriage, Z-death), and then start browsing the records. Above the circle area, the section of the book is shadowed. If there’s nothing on the 2 pages I head to the next. This record raises questions about her date of birth. It was 1888, and I think it’s under March because she was baptized on the 4th. I can’t quite figure out the date but all my other records indicate the 19th of February. It confirms the names I already have of her parents and grandparents. His occupation is agriculture and I noticed today that it says “colonist” after his name. I will check the records I have for the Ingram family!

Another good find that solved a mystery was Charles Posluszny’s birth record. Why? I had his date of birth listed as November 1888, and his brother Frank’s was September 1889. Now, that’s not an impossibility, but after some searching, I found his record, and he was born September 18, 1884!

For both the Posluszny/Ingram Family and the Jakiela Family, I have had distant family contacts share their information which has been a great help, but sometimes creates more mystery! On my Posluszny side, Kerry, who lives in New Jersey. We are related through the Straub/Burghardt line, including my great-grandmother, Caroline Straub Posluszny Bonk. We know that Julianna Ingram and Konrad Posluszny were 2nd or 3rd cousins so even though my mother isn’t a Posluszny, she shares DNA with Caroline. Crazy right?

On my Jakiela side, in 2013 through an Ancestry message board, I was contacted by someone whose family spelled their name Yakiela. That was a first for me and I bet they just got tired of correcting people on how to pronounce their name. It was spelled Jakieła. The J was pronounced as a Y and the ł has a “waa” sound. We pronounce it with a Ja (like Jar), Key, La, but people look at it blankly until I tell them. Anyway! We are related! We have a DNA match but haven’t found the person who connects us. We have shared hints over the years and when he paid someone in Poland to research family records, they accidentally sent him the actual scanned records and he shared with me! They revealed that my grandfather, Charles, lost his mother when he was only four years old, and then lost his wife, Antonia, when his youngest (my dad) was turning 3. In addition, I found a marriage record for my great-grandfather, Ignacy, and his second wife nine months later.

When I started working on family ancestry in the early 2000s, there was internet access, but not the online records available today. Census records are made available 72 years after they are collected. 1930 records were made public in 2002, 1940 records in 2012, and 1950 records only two years ago. I remember how excited I was to see the 1940 records!

Before that, I would head to the library to check town directories, use the microfilm for newspapers when I had dates, or even just an idea of one, and visually scan all the local sections. If I found a record online that I thought was important, I would write a letter to the town clerk or library to see if they could provide information. There was a lot of waiting for word back!

Now, through Newspapers(dot)com, I have that at my fingertips and use all sorts of word combinations for information.

The hardest part of the research and information is “where did I put that!”, especially with records that have been downloaded. I’m beginning to keep a list.

You would think that at this stage, I’ve found everyone within the last generation or two there is to be found right? Well, just last month (September 2024), I received a message from someone whose husband, Ben, discovered my blog. HIS great-grandfather was Charles Jakiela, my grandfather. His father was Ed Jakiela and his grandfather, my Uncle Eddie! Ben’s wife, Noel, and I have spent some time sending information back and forth. His father Ed, was married and had a son, David. About 1988, Ed’s wife passed away. I remember my dad driving to North Carolina with Uncle Eddie for the funeral. Ed remarried someone much younger and they had Ben. Ben knew nothing about his Jakiela family or that Uncle Eddie had four siblings! Ben and Noel live in South Carolina with their three sons and one daughter and it’s nice to know there are more Jakielas out there!

I hope you enjoyed a look at my ancestry research. I look forward to sharing new discoveries and more stories in the future!

Up next week: Favorite Discovery

The End of the Line….

The week 31 topic for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is End of the Line. This story will not go in the direction you automatically think of when hearing “end of the line”.

If my teacher was putting the class in order of height, “Nancy, you go to the end of the line” would not come out of her mouth ever in 8 years at Holy Trinity School. Only if I was being separated from my sister or friends because I couldn’t stop talking!

My ancestors did NOT bring the height to my family. At the time of their ocean voyages, my grandfather Charles Jakiela, at 17 was 4’9”. My grandmother Antonia Liro, at 21 was also 4’9”. I have no ship manifest for my grandmother, Julianna Ingram, but her sister Mary’s record says she was 4’8”. My biological grandfather, Jacob Engram Jr, is listed as 5’9” on his WWII draft registration card. He’s a jolly green giant compared to the others.

The height issue is evident in Charles and Antonia’s 1912 wedding photo which looks like they put their heads into cardboard cut outs of a bride and groom.

*Charles and Antonia Jakiela June 24, 1912*

Their four male children ended up between Steve at 5’5” and Walt who reached 5’9”. If his parents had been alive when he registered for the draft, he would have towered over them by a foot!

My dad, John Jakiela, was 5’6” and my mother was 5’3”. I always say, “if I wasn’t born a twin I bet I would have been taller!” But, in all seriousness, I’ll take my twin over the height.

*2nd and 3rd in line (Dana Smith leading the way)*

Janice, at 18 months older, always had 2-3 inches on us. Just enough to not have to hem every pair of pants she got! Gail and I had a 4” growth spurt in 6th grade and except for a few more inches between then and 18, we were done at 4’11”. In standing in a line by height, we’re forever in the front and the shortest of all the relatives.

It pays to marry up! All five of the next generation are over 5 feet and the two of the next generation look like they will be able to take their place at… the end of the line.

They Came In Boats

The week 30 topic for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is Boats. I’m a week late, will try to get back on track!

SS Blücher from Hamburg Germany to New York. It carried 2,102 passengers; 333 first class, 169 second class, and 1,600 third class. My material grandfather, Konrad Posluszny, arrived on this ship on December 5, 1902.

SS Vaderland in 1906 from Antwerp Belgium. It was part of the Red Star Line. It carried 342 first class, 194 second class, and 626 third class passengers. My paternal grandfather, Charles Jakiela, arrived on this ship on November 17, 1906.

SS George Washington in 1910 from Bremen Germany. When it launched in 1908 it was the largest German built steam ship and third largest in the world and could carry 2,900 passengers. My paternal grandmother, Antonia Liro arrived on this ship in September of 1910.

*SS. George Washington from Bremen Germany*

These are just a few of the ships my ancestors sailed on during their immigration from the German-Austrian region called Galicia.

Second and third class passengers were divided into “messes” and cooked their own food and cleaned their own berths. These trips took approximately 11-15 days. They would usually bring a trunk of belongings which went in the hold for the duration of the trip and they would bring a bag with the essentials for their travel. I found this information here .

My grandfather Posluszny was traveling with $3 in his possession. Based on a conversation website, that is the equivalent of $109.72. Imagine traveling somewhere today with not $109.72 on you with no other options to pay for anything!

The all passed through Ellis Island on their way to New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts where they settled into their new lives.

The Story Teller

The topic for Week 25 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, is The Story Teller.

I’ll tell you how and why I started researching and writing about my ancestors.

American history was one of my favorite subjects in school. How the United States was created, and the people involved. The first biography I read was on Abigail Adams in elementary school. I loved the Little House on the Prarie books imagining what life was like in those days.

I noticed in my 20s that I asked many questions about people – where they came from, their families, education – and I loved hearing stories about them and their lives.

Everyone on my maternal side of the family lived nearby so I knew their names, I knew the names of my maternal great-grandparents because their pictures were hanging on the wall at my grandmother’s house (just their faces – it was a little strange!). On the left in the background of the picture below are my grandmother Julianna and grandfather Konrad. On the right is my maternal great-grandmother Gertrude and great-grandfather Ludwig.

Uncle Connie, Aunt Tootsie, and Aunt Judy 1960

My paternal side was similar but different. Out of 5 siblings, 3 lived in the Wallingford. One, Uncle Eddie, lived in Meriden with his wife and two sons. I have no memory of meeting Aunt Ann or his sons although we went to a son’s wedding when I was 9 or 10. Uncle Walt was in the Navy and lived primarily in California and Louisianna with his wife and two sons.

So what prompted my Ancestry search and storytelling?

The ancestry part came about on our move from California to Connecticut. We stopped in Meeker Oklahoma to visit with my husband’s family. We met with his sister Linda and Cody and I met his Aunt Katherine and Great-Aunt Mildred. Aunt Mildred was her family researcher. She had family sheets for her and her husband Jesse and all of Jesse’s siblings, at least 10 that lived to adulthood including my husband’s grandmother Virgia Cleo.

While reading through the family sheets and various notes, it was exciting to think about the place in history this family held. It made me curious about mine.

Between 1995 and 2000, I used Family Tree Maker software for my work. In 2000, Ancestry created its website to help people share their family trees and information. I still had to mail requests for documents but this was a good start. Once documents started coming and people added more information, it was easier to piece information together. The stronger Ancestry has become the more family there is and the DNA connections made it even stronger. My Heritage is another site I joined because it is a better tool for Eastern European records.

From there, I started asking questions of my older family members like my dad and his siblings and my mother’s two sisters. They were all full of information and of course, Aunt Tootsie had all the family pictures. The stories they told were usually stand-alone but sometimes a comment would be a clue to help something else suddenly make sense or confirm what someone else had said. I remember how crazy it was to discover my half-aunt Joanne through DNA when we couldn’t figure out how we were related or to hear about my grandmother taking in her cousin’s infant daughter and then seeing the documents where she had to give her up for adoption because of her own growing family.

I’m always excited when I find new ancestors or learn the dates and locations where they lived. It helps to piece together their lives and the stories are created from there. Some people left us far too soon. By telling their stories, someone will realize they got those woodworking skills from their dad, grandfather, AND great-grandfather. Or that fierceness comes from their great-grandmother. Telling their stories keeps the connections to the past alive.