World War I – Page 2 – It's All About Family

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!

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.

What Doesn’t Kill You…..

The topic for Week 24 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, is Hard Times.

This is the story about my dad’s family, The Jakiela Family.

Their story, as I know it, begins with my grandfather, Charles, born in August of 1890 to Ignacy and Catharina (Murdzck) Jakiela. He would have a brother born in 1893 and a sister in 1894.

His mother died in 1894, the same year his sister was born, which makes me think her death might have been related. Charles was not yet 3 years old.

His father married Victoria Borek in October of 1894.

*Marriage record for Ignacy and Victoria*

Charles left for the United States in November of 1906 when he was 16 years old. He traveled with a cousin, Pawel Murdzck with Charles heading to Southington Connecticut and Pawel to Braddock Pennsylvania. I don’t know if they ever saw each other again.

Charles made his way to Palmer Massachusetts and the fabric mills. There he met his wife, Antonia Liro who immigrated in 1910 and had headed north to live with her sister Aniela and her husband Joseph Mikula and their children.

They were married in 1912 and made their way back to Southington where she gave birth to Steven in 1913 and Edward in 1915, and Charles worked for a Peck, Stowe, and Wilcox which manufactured tools and was the largest employer in Southington.

Life might have been good for a time, Charles continued to work at PS&W, and Antonia took care of their 2 young sons but then World War I came along.

Charles completed his draft registration card and family lore says he wanted to go to war because he “of his love for the country that took him in”. After hearing about some of the anti-immigrant sentiment, I wonder if he felt like he had no choice. Whatever the reason, he headed to Camp Devens in Ayers Massachusetts in May of 1917. He became a citizen of the United States June 26, 1918 under the May 9, 1918 while at Camp Devens.

*Charles’ naturalization certificate – years later, cousin Steve had a deli in the same location* *at 31 Liberty Street Southington!*

He headed sailed out of Boston on the September 4, 1918 along with the 301 Trench Mortar Battery of the 76th Division. Just in time for the Meuse-Argonne Campaign in France which would lead to the end of the war.

I don’t know how he fared in the trenches, but on the way back to port and the transport ship to take him home, his train ran over an unexploded munitions over a trestle. The bomb went off and he ended up in the river. This is another family story. A friend from home who was also on the train, saved his life. He came home with a scar running from his forehead to the back of his head. But he came home!

He arrived back in Boston Massachusetts on April 26, 1919 aboard the SS Santa Rosa from Pauillac France.

Charles and Antonia wasted no time in restarting their family and Helen was born in March of 1920! Followed by Walter in November 1921 and my dad, John, in June 1924.

The town directory shows Charles went back to Peck, Stowe & Wilcox and they lived in a variety of rentals in the area of the factory.

Everything came to a halt in the early morning of April 1, 1927 when Antonia died from pregnancy complications and Charles was left with five children, the youngest not quite 3 years old. Sound familiar?

I’ve told this part of the story a few times. Charles was devastated. He gave my dad to his godmother, and brought Walt and Helen up to Massachusetts to be taken care of by their Uncle Joe. Steve and Eddie stayed with him in Southington. When they moved to Wallingford in February of the following year, the family was brought back together again. I think that’s where the story I heard comes from, that the kids ran away from him, and he realized it was time to bring them back.

Charles drank, had a hard time holding a job, and wrote many letters to the Veterans Administration asking for more money. When they moved to their last rental on Prince Street, Eddie, now a teenager worked for the baker next door. After a few weeks of not getting paid, he asked the baker for his pay. The baker informed him he had a deal with his father that Eddie was working for their rent.

I was told he was a talented craftsman and that he made a beautiful wooden cross for Antonia’s grave. Uncle Joe would send him fabric from the mills and he would sew pillow cases for the house, and one time he made a wardrobe in the basement. The only problem was it was too big to get upstairs. So he took it apart and remade it. That’s where my dad got his talent.

My Auntie Helen told me they attended Whittlesey Avenue School, but when it got crowded, they were sent to Colony Street School. She liked Colony better because at Whittlesey the children from the fancy homes on Main Street were snobs. The kids in the Colony Street area were on a more economic level with her family.

They were fortunate to have St. Peter and Paul’s church to go to. Walt and John were altar boys and Helen cleaned the church. Did Charles ever attend? I don’t know but Charles got angry when my dad couldn’t say his prayers in Polish.

Charles died in May of 1935 in a hit and run accident while walking home one night. He was identified by the letter in his pocket from Stanley Judd of New Britain offering him a job that he would have started the following week. My father was not yet 11 years old.

Life might have been good before Charles went off to war but I think he came home, obviously injured, but also suffering from PTSD. Poor Antonia, how did she survive financially during the year and a half he was gone? How did Charles survive with five children to take care of, and have to work?

All five siblings grew up to have families and were successful in their lives. They persevered through the hard times and were always there for each other.

Thinking of them, I think of our professions and jobs that my sisters and I have had. Janice is a retired pediatric ICU nurse, Gail worked for years as a paraprofessional in elementary school following the same child from first grade through fifth grade and then would start all over again with a new child, I worked in an elementary school library, in the cafeteria, and then became a big sister to a first grader being raised by his grandmother. We all saw children and parents going through hard times and we all rose to the challenge to make their lives a little better while in our care.

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.

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.

Family Lore: Fact or Fiction

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?

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.

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!