Ingram Family – It's All About Family

The Week 2 topic for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is “A Record That Adds Color”.

In 1912, my grandmother, Julianna Ingram Posluszny was 24 years old with a husband, a daughter Antoinette, born in January 1909, and a son, Conrad, born in November 1910.

*Julianna, Konrad and Antoinette (late 1909)*

Her cousin, Mary Kukulska Juszczak came to the United States with Julianna’s sister, Marianna in 1907. Mary’s daughter Mary was born in 1910. Sadly, some time in the same year, Mary’s husband died in a work accident at the sugar refinery. But the following year she met and married Michael Zupko.

It was in April of 1912 that Mary gave birth to a son Michael Zupko. The only record to be found is their headstone with the year, 1912.

Suddenly Julianna found herself as little Mary’s guardian. Her stepfather didn’t want to take care of her and asked my grandmother with a 3 year old, a 2 year old, and a baby on the way to take her. How could she refuse? She now had 3 children under the age of 4.

Her son, Louis, was born in February of 1913. She and her husband, Konrad, hung in there as long as they could but in 1914 they realized they had to give Mary up for adoption.

Fortunately, Herman and Elizabeth Fauth, German Methodists who had recently lost a daughter, heard of Mary through their church and petitioned to adopt her. Mary never had to go to an orphanage.

The adoption was final in October of 1914. My grandparents would go on to have a daughter Julia in 1917, and my mother Elizabeth in 1922.

What a loving thing my grandmother did! Two children of her own and one on the way, and she takes in, I’m sure without hesitation, another 2 year old. She was always a very giving person but this information helped me see her in such a different light.

I wrote about this in January of 2020 when I was contacted by Mary’s granddaughter and 2 years later when “who died when” was determined by an ancestry relative.

We started off our story about my mother’s paternal grandparents and their family here, and continued their story to 1930 here, carried on with Theresa, Kathryn, and Louise here, and finished off with Elizabeth and Hannah here. There was an extra story about Elizabeth here.

Jacob Sr, my great grandfather, spent his entire adult life as a farmer in the Bronx, which sounds a little unreal knowing the present day Bronx. He originally settled in New York City where he was living when he and Katherine were married and when Theresa was born. From 1895 until his death he lived in Westchester, which was part of the Bronx, across the bay from Queens, Pelham Parkway between White Plains and Williamsbridge Road. Theresa, his oldest daughter, lived her married life on City Island so she was fairly close to him, and Jacob, my grandfather, lived with him after World War I, until 1930 when he began farming in Flushing Queens, across the bay from the Bronx.

By the 1940 census, he was living with his daughter Elizabeth, her husband Albert, and their two children. He was 79 and not working but I mentioned in Elizabeth’s story he was employed as a groundskeeper at Woodlawn Cemetery and mapped out it was about 10 minutes from their home. It’s very likely Jacob lived with Elizabeth and Albert because by this time Jacob Jr. was married. Since they had lived with Jacob Jr on the farm, he might have helped them in some way with their home in Yonkers so they would take in their father. Aunt Joanne said in an email:
“My father made sure his father was cared for throughout his life.”

Jacob was eighty-four years old when he died September 4, 1944. Whether that’s his real age is unknown because this death certificate say he was born in 1859 but census reports, and the ship manifest ages given equal 1862.

The stories I’ve been told tell me he wasn’t a very nice man. He was an alcoholic who was abusive to his wife and possibly his children.

My aunt Joanne shared in an email:
”though my Dad never spoke of his father being brutal…my cousin Addie shared a story of Dad being chased by his father with a pitchfork.”
Could that have been during the time she and her parents, Elizabeth and Albert, lived with Jacob Jr.?

In Kathryn’s letters to her niece Irene, Theresa’s daughter, she said:
”I have always felt cheated that we did not know more of my father’s background. I know because of his ‘problem’, he alienated members of his family. I remember the last time I saw my Aunt Juliana, my father insulted her and she left in tears and never came again. She was extremely attractive and had on a very stylish dress, which she made. She was a designer of clothing. I couldn’t take my eyes off that dress, it was beautiful. My mother used to tell us my father’s relatives told her my dad had a wonderful mother.”

Sadly, this is all the information I have on my great grandfather. I wish there was some happy information too. These pictures came from my 2nd cousin Brian. His mother was Irene, the daughter of Theresa and George Murphy.

Tag: Ingram Family

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