genealogy – Page 5 – It's All About Family

The Effects of War

The topic for Week 17 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is WAR.

Over the life of this blog, I’ve talked about family members who have been in World War I like my paternal grandfather Charles Jakiela, and my Uncle Walt in World War II.

*paternal grandfather Charles Jakiela abt. 1923*

My grandmother’s brother Bronislaw Liro went BACK to Poland only a year or two before World War I broke out and managed to escape from Siberia!

My biological maternal grandfather, Jacob Engram, was in World War I as a member of the 49th Infantry out of New York. My lifelong maternal grandfather, Konrad Posluszny, didn’t serve in the war but he had four young children at home when the First World War broke out.

There was the aftermath of World War II as described by my grandfather’s brother Antoni in his letter to my dad and his siblings in the United States. “Even Helenka’s photo on a pony bothered them hanging on a wall.”

My mother’s brother, Connie, and her brother-in-law Mal both served in World War II. Connie was a cook in a San Antonio training camp. I have no records of him anywhere on the Fold3 website but in the videos from conversations with Aunt Judy, she said he was a cook and they had to pack up the kitchen when the fighting got close. The possibility of Connie going overseas was the family’s explanation when his father Konrad committed suicide in late December of 1944.

My husband’s dad Harold, uncle Ronald, and his step-dad Paul were all in the Korean War. Harold was a cook and Paul was in the motor pool in Korea. Ronald was in a tank during his time in Korea and it was a time that had a lifelong effect on him.

My dad, John, enjoyed his time overseas. He enlisted in February of 1943 in the Army/Air Force and headed overseas to Suffolk England. He talked very fondly of his time there at an airfield base and I think it was because he could leave home. He was living with his oldest brother, Steve, Steve’s wife, their two young sons, and John’s sister, Helen. I know he was grateful that he had a home, but I think it was a little crowded! He recalled to my sisters and me that when it was time to board the train to head off, parents and sons were crying. His only thought was, “This is an adventure!”. He volunteered for hatchman duty on the transport ship to England because it gave him privacy. At Great Ashfield Airforce Base near Stowmarket England, the location of the 385th Bombardment Group of the USAAF, he was a Corporal of the MPs on the base. He was back in the United States by September of 1945.

*John Jakiela, Corporal Army Air Force Word War II*

He had a picture of his squadron framed and hanging in his basement work area. We loved to take it from its spot and listen to his stories of the men in the picture.

He kept his address book of local friends and their war addresses along with the addresses of people he met while in the service. I have it now and like to flip through it to look at the various names.

He had a few Suffolk locals listed in there. One is Joyce Filby of Finningham England, who I think was his girlfriend while he was there. Another is the Hammond Family of Wetherden. I have a letter they wrote in November of 1947. Although the war was over for two years, they were still having difficulty getting food and were being strictly rationed for bread and potatoes. “Things are getting worse instead of better.” That sounds similar to Great Uncle Antoni’s letter from Poland in January of 1947!

Although some of the men had difficulties once they came back to the United States and their families, I’m grateful they all came back.

How We Got Here

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

The topic for Week 16 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is – STEPS. This week I’m bringing my husband’s side of the family into the “It’s All About Family” family.

My husband Mark is a Benson with a lineage back to 1495 in Yorkshire England through 12 generations.

His 7th great grandfather, Christopher brought his family, including 6th great grandfather, John Benson to “the New World” in 1693. John married, lived, and died in Newport Rhode Island in 1722.

5th great grandfather John Hendrick was born in Newport RI in 1720. He married in the Second Congregational Church in Newport. He raised a family in North Carolina, and died in 1803 in Washington Georgia.

4th great grandfather, William Carroll Benson was born in 1755 in North Carolina. He married in 1772, moved to Barren Plains Tennessee, and raised 11 children. He died in 1831.

3rd great grandfather William Carroll Benson Jr, was born in 1783 in Barren Plains Tennessee. He made his way to an area of Illinois which is now Williamson County named for his donation of land. He was one of the original settlers of the area and there is a lot of information on him. He died in 1856 in an area of Williamson County Illinois

Joseph William Benson was born in 1825 in Marion Illinois and remained there until his death in 1876. He fought in the Mexican American War of 1846-1848 and was registered to fight in the Civil War but I don’t know if he did. He’s the only Benson that didn’t move away from his birth place!

Mark’s great grandfather, Archibald Lee Benson was born in 1867 in Marion, Williamson County, Illinois. He and his wife and children moved to Shawnee Oklahoma just prior to 1910 and he died there in 1948.

Grandfather Cletus Harold Benson was born in 1907 in Oklahoma. He and Mark’s grandmother divorced and He died in 1963 in Sacramento California.

*Archibald Lee and son Cletus Harold Benson*

Mark’s dad Cletus Harold Jr was born in Oklahoma and he and Mark’s mom made their way to Oakland California after their marriage in the late 1940s.

Mark was born in California and lived there until 1995 when we made our way to Wallingford Connecticut, my hometown, to live and here we are today. Not Leaving!

*The clockwise (sort of) travel route of the Bensons from 1693 to 2024!*

It’s funny to think that all those miles of travel, all those steps around the United States and we find ourselves one state away from where the Bensons began life in America!

Family Worship

The topic for week 13 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is – Worship.

My maternal and paternal sides of my family have always been catholic. I have no church records of their marriages in the United States but I have baptism records for almost all of my parents’ siblings. My Posluszny family likely attended St. Mary’s Church in Yonkers New York as it was the oldest Catholic Church and about a half mile from their Jefferson Street home.

After their move to Wallingford, my Great Aunt Mary Posluszny Biega and her family attended St. Casimer’s Polish National Church. There was/is also a Polish Catholic Church, Saints Peter & Paul in Wallingford so I’m not sure of their decision to go to one over the other – possibly location. My Aunt Judy talked about my grandmother acting in the plays at St. Casimer’s with my Great Aunt Mary (her sister-in-law) directing, so I’m assuming she attended that church! At some point, my mother’s family switched to Holy Trinity Church. I speculate it had something to do with my cousin Judy, the first grandchild, attending Holy Trinity School in the mid-1940s. There would be 13 Posluszny related cousins attending the school over the course of 40 years.

The Biega family and my great grandmother Carolina Posluszny/Bonk continued at St. Casimer’s and are buried in its cemetery. While Holy Trinity has a beautiful spacious cemetery not far from the center of town, St. Casimer’s is off an industrial road on the south end of town near the highway and train tracks. In fact, you used to cross over the tracks at section WITHOUT ANY GATE OR SIGNAL. Yes, I put that in all caps because our neighbors (father, daughter, and son-in-law) were hit by a train while crossing the tracks in their car in 1992. That amazes me that the crossing was still allowed in the 1990s.

Interesting aside about Holy Trinity Church…I met an older woman years ago while on a work appointment. She was Italian and grew up in the Colony Street area of Wallingford. She said Holy Trinity Church was started by the Irish in Wallingford in 19847 and a brief rundown of the priests in the church’s history reads like a Dublin phone book – McGarisk, O’Reilly, Teevens, Quinn. The Italians were not made to feel very welcome in the church so they created their own women’s society within the church. Perhaps that’s why the town still has two Polish churches!

Once my paternal Jakiela side settled in Southington CT, they attended The Church of the Immaculate Conception where my Uncles Steve and Eddie made their first communion.

After my grandmother Antonia died, my grandfather and his five children moved to Wallingford and they began attending Saints Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Church. My dad, his brother Walter, and his sister Helen all made their first communion there. The boys were altar boys and Helen cleaned the altar for the priest.

*Helen – 2nd row 4th from left abt. 1930*

After their father died tragically in 1935 the priest worked with Steve, the oldest sibling, to be sure the family stayed together by offering to “be their guardian” in the event the state tried to separate them. Thankfully that didn’t happen!

My Uncle Steve’s family must have continued to attend Sts. Peter and Paul after their first two children were born. Charles, their oldest, wanted to attend Holy Trinity School. In order to get free or discounted tuition, they needed to be parishioners of Holy Trinity Church as so they did. That began a Jakiela tradition of all eight Wallingford cousins graduating from Holy Trinity School.

As a family, my parents, sisters and I went to Holy Trinity Church every Sunday for the 9:15am mass. We sat in the same general area and looked the back of the same heads every week. We also attended mass with our classes for holy days. I enjoyed walking down the hill to the church on those days! I was not crazy about going to mass every Sunday and wished that we took a summer break from church like we did with school. Even when we were on vacation, we went to Sunday mass at the local church!

After mass we would head to Boylan’s Market to pick up the Sunday newspapers – New Haven Register, New York Daily News, and a Boston paper – and drop off a paper to our grandmother and Aunt Tootsie.

We all made our first communion and I was annoyed we didn’t get to wear pretty dresses like Janice did! we made our confirmations and had our 8th grade graduations at church as well. Janice and Gail both were married at Holy Trinity.

When my mother died in April of 1987, her funeral mass was one of the last times I attended church before I moved to California that October. I didn’t stop because I was upset with God or anything but I was going because I didn’t want to disappoint my mother. Weird I guess, but we do what we do.

My father continued to attend of course and looking back I really admire his faith. Not the “I have faith in you” kind, but his religious faith. It’s not always easy. He started attending the late Saturday afternoon mass and afterwards, he would drop off the mass bulletin to my Aunt Tootsie, my mother’s oldest sister. He probably did that right up until his heart surgery.

He died in 2010 on Palm Sunday. The nursing home distributed palms that morning and they were in his room when he died. I still have them. As he told the medium in the first reading I had, “I died an angel’s death Phil”, meaning he didn’t feel anything, he didn’t suffer. Fitting for a person who worshipped until the end.

How Do You Say That?

The Week 10 topic for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is “Language”.

I’m on my 80th consecutive day of learning Spanish through Duolingo and trying to remember the possessives, the verbs, the subject pronouns, the “el”s and “la”s – whooo boy – I break out in a sweat as I get toward the end of the lesson and I know I’m going to have to type out the answer myself instead of picking words from a list!

I begin to imagine what my ancestors felt, coming to the United States, likely not knowing any English and hoping to find a job quickly. There were no ESL classes for them!

My maternal grandmother spoke German, Polish, and Russian and my paternal grandparents Polish. My Uncle Eddie spoke to me of being laughed at in school because he and his brother spoke only Polish (likely in the early grades, hopefully soon enough he learned English!). My paternal grandfather went off to World War I speaking little to no English.

I admire anyone who can speak a language other than their own. I’m hoping that someday what I’m learning will come in handy!

Story Update Mary Kukulska

In January of 2020, I wrote a story about my grandmother Juliana Ingram Posluszny Taking in her cousin’s daughter after her cousin, Mary Kukulska Juszczak died in childbirth. Mary’s granddaughter sent me a copy of the court documents for the adoption that included my grandmother’s affidavit.

While doing some research, I saw information on a 5th cousin’s tree that didn’t match what I had so I checked in with her. Make sure you go back and read the original story!

Come to find out, Mary successfully gave birth to her daughter Mary in 1910. Her husband John was the one who passed away in 1910 from an accident at the sugar factory.

With an infant to take care of, Mary married Michael Zupka in June of 1911. Shortly thereafter she became pregnant and gave birth in March of 1912 and, did you guess it? She died in childbirth. Their son Michael died as an infant in November of 1912.

I don’t know at what point Mary’s stepfather gave her to grandmother to take care of. Likely when her mother died, and I wonder who took care of baby Michael until his death 8 months later. My grandmother kept her until the strain of trying to raise three toddlers of her own became too much for her. Michael Zupka remarried in July of 1913 and went on to have 3 children. He passed away in 1955.

I relayed this new information to Mary’s granddaughter and she said her mother only knew her mother died in childbirth. It was just with the wrong child! When Mary got married to Michael Zupka it was using her married name Juszczak and I never thought the story was any different.

Mary’s daughter was adopted by a lovely couple who had lost their daughter in 1914 to diphtheria. She had a very happy life and knew she was adopted but never wanted her daughter to find her biological family. Her daughter found the adoption paperwork when she was cleaning out her grandmother’s house.

Changing Names = Confusion!

The week 9 topic for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is Changing Names.

You may have a story or two in your family about how “their last name was changed/shortened by the Ellis Island worker that couldn’t understand what they were saying”. Although that probably happened to some people, many times it didn’t happen that way! Most likely it was done by the immigrants themselves trying to fit in, or tired of spelling their name or hearing people mispronounce it!

My maternal family last name was Posłuszny. That little line through the “ł” sounds like “whoosh”. The majority of misspellings I see is “Poslushney”.

Two of the five Posłuszny brothers, Joseph and Charles, changed their name to Post some time during the 1920s. John used Post for business purposes as a restaurant owner, but used Posłuszny in his personal life.

Frank, poor Frank, who spent decades in an insane asylum, remained Posłuszny for his lifetime as did my grandfather Konrad’s family. I recall hearing that my Aunt Judy wished her dad had changed their name because she got so tired of spelling her last name to people!

Left to right John, Joseph, Frank, Charles, (far right) Konrad

Family Treasures

The topic for week 8 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is – Heirlooms.

The definition of a Heirloom is a valuable object that has belonged to a family for several generations. Since my great-grandmother was the farthest back generation to immigrate in the early 1900s, I’ll have to go with what I have, but I still think they are pretty important!

Pictures. I have a lot of pictures! Professionally taken including family groupings from the early 1910s, first communions from the early 1920s, weddings, and family photos collected in multiple albums by my mother growing up in the mid-1920s and early 1930s, and beyond. In addition to those, I have videos from the early 1930s through the 1970s which I wrote about in an earlier post here.

When I started research in 2000, my Aunt Tootsie (Antoinette) was the Family Historian. She was the oldest Posluszny sibling and lived in the family home on Clifton Street from the purchase in 1925 until she moved to a Judd Square apartment in 1989. I often sat with her to discuss the family and the people in the pictures. Dates and seeing how far your lineage stretches back are fun, but my interest has always been the stories and photos. Who they were as people and as a family. Who we most resemble. I try to imagine what life was like in Yonkers and Connecticut in that time frame. I guess that’s why I love where I live so much because this is where they lived their lives.

I’m grateful over the years to acquire more photos from my Jakiela cousins, through my ancestry contacts, and through unexpected DNA matches! I’ll continue to share more pictures and stories as I create some order to my accumulated files and notebooks.

Heading To A New Life

Week 7 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is all about Immigration.

It’s impossible to focus on just one ancestor because they all left the same region between the ages of 4 and 51 between 1899 and 1912.

My maternal grandmother, Julianna Ingram in 1903 at 16 years old followed by one sister 4 years later and another sister 8 years after that.

My paternal grandfather Charles Jakiela in 1905 at 15 years old without any siblings ever following him. Traveling to Southington Connecticut and shortly after to Palmer Massachusetts to work in the textile mills.

Imagine sending your child, first on a (present day) 14 hour overland trip to get to the port of Bremen Germany. From there, they would board a steam ship to travel to New York and start a new life – without you. Neither Julianna or Charles ever returned.

You couldn’t just pick up a phone a find out how their trip was or are they getting enough sleep, and have they found a job yet?

My maternal grandfather Konrad Posluszny immigrated in 1900 at 16 years old. He had the benefit of uncles already in Yonkers, New York and all his brothers arrives in the next five years. His mother, step father, 2 sisters, and a half brother, arrive 7 years after he did. They were lucky to all be together in the “new country”.

My grandmother Julianna left behind her parents, and 2 sisters and a brother, one or two were born after she left. I wonder how affect they were by the first and second word wars because we do know how Charles’s family fared.

When my aunt passed away in 2015, I found a letter from 1947 in Polish from my paternal grandfather’s brother Antoni. A friend of a friend transcribed it for me and was taken aback by how resigned the author was to their fate.

I’m grateful that they all did immigrate!

My Favorite Photo

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:

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.

Origins: Where It All Began

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:

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.