Granny Never Knew She was Older Than She Thought!

My Favorite Discovery: Maria Paprocka Skalska's Birth Record

Trust in Intuition

I have heard the urging of my intuition many times in my life and every single time something amazing happens afterward, I am still awed by the experience. Oftentimes ‘Big Renata,’ my ego, jumps in and tries to think things through, and then usually the opportunity passes. In the genealogy world, one can find a myriad of webinars and books focused on trying to break down the brick walls in one’s family tree...those ancestor’s who no matter where you search, you can not find the document you need to establish a fact. I have many such brick walls, but finding my Granny's actual birth date haunted me ever since I became captivated by genealogy. I could never have imagined that listening to 'Little Renata,' my intuition, would help me break through it one day! 

Portrait of Maria Paprocka-Skalska at age 69, Krakow, Poland 1971,
painted by Helena Skalska-Potaczek

The Wrong Date on All Documents

Conspicuously absent from the pedigree chart assigned by Mr Cobb in the 8th grade was the name of the Granny I had known as a little girl: Maria Paprocka-Skalska, nicknamed Mania. The simple reason is that she was not my blood grandmother, but rather my grand aunt, who raised my two mothers Zofia and Helena when my grandmother died at the age of 39. Due to the circumstances of war and being orphaned, Granny Mania lived her whole life not knowing for sure what her true birthdate was and thus she "picked" and clelebrated a date that seemed to be close, 3 August 1904. When she learned that the Parish church in the town she believed herself to be born in had burned down and with it the records, she had to have friends "attest" to knowing the facts of her birth in order to get her official documents. Of course these friends had not known her as a child, but obliged her to help out. So, all of her official documents including birth, marriage and passport issued in Poland, all have the incorrect information. In the US, her death certificate and even her headstone, reflect this as well. 

Polish government document issued with incorrect birth date.

What She Did Not Know...

About thirteen years after she passed away, I read a recently published book called Polish Roots by Rosemary Chorzempa and was instantly hooked. What I learned in those pages blew me away because I learned that Granny was mistaken. What she did not know is that every Parish priest in Austro-Hungarian occupied Galicia had to send a copy of all records to the diocese at the end of every year. The idea that a copy of her birth record *had* to exist somewhere began to germinate, and I began to voraciously learn about genealogical methodology. I made a vow that, before I died, I would find this out for her and correct it on her headstone if need be. 

1904 listed as her birth year on her headstone at the Shrine of Czestochowa in Doylestowm, PA.

The Search Begins

By 1997, I had learned about a repository in Warsaw that held metrical records from the areas of Galicia that had been ceded to the USSR at the close of WWII. I wrote to that repository with all of the information I knew regarding my grandmother's family and waited. Three months later I heard back, not from the repository, but from the Polish Consulate in New York informing me that of the eleven siblings of interest to me, they found records for three of them and would send them to me as soon as they received a check for $175. At the time, that was almost two weeks pay for me, but I sent it out and waited with bated breath. What I received was unexpected. One of the certificates was for my own grandmother, created from the copy of the original certificate I had sent *to them!* The other two were for a brother and a sister, but not Maria. Even worse, they were formulaic extracts, not photocopies of the actual pages in the metrical books. I was bitterly disappointed.

The three birth extracts I paid a king's ransom for, and still no information on Granny's birth.

I Do Not Give Up

After that, life happened. I had children, cared for my ailing second mom, and began to hear about wonderful things happening on the internet. Records were beginning to be digitized and shared on sites such as Ancestry and one could look up and order microfilm online, saving a trip to a Family History Center, which was not always close by. In 2015, I ordered the microfilm for Toustobaby, the parish Granny believed she was born in, drove an hour to the LDS affiliate library in Pittsfield, MA and meticulously searched the entire reel. Not a single Paprocki was mentioned in almost a decade of records. I was perlexed. Where were the entries for the two siblings that I paid a king's ransom for? I was crushed and at a loss as to where to continue to look. I was out of ideas and in I 2018 eagerly signed up for a week long course entitled "Tackling Tough Research Problems" at the Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh. Finding her birth date and place were, of course, my research objectives. It was a dream come true to attend and the classes were amazing, and yet, I was no closer to knocking down this brick wall.

It had been twenty years since that disappionting packet from the Consulate and I was beginning to think I might not live long enough for her record to be indexed on Geneteka, a Polish indexing website staffed by volunteers. I continued to work on my husband's genealogy and researching Granny's two sisters who emigrated to the US and even tracked down some long lost second cousins! But the problem of Granny's birth was constantly in the back of my mind. Through local Polish Genealogy conferences I heard of an agency in Poland that would do research in the Ukraine and I began to toy with the idea of investing the $500 towards this goal. I thought I’d let the idea percolate a bit, when one day I watched a webinar specific to Galicia which mentioned the Status Animarum books, basically a census of the parishioners in a parish.

The Auspicious Day: 10 March 2021

Intrigued, I decided to try FamilySearch again and see if these Family Registers existed for Toustobaby. Despite my negative results in searching the records in the past, I could not give up on the place that Granny had been convinced was where she was born. A list of microfilms popped up and I noted two record sets with the correct date range which to my delight, were now accessible from a home computer! “Little Renata” was insisting that I go back and check these digital images in case I missed something that first time in 2015. The lack of the known two siblings records had constantly nagged in the back of my head! Where were they? 

I began in the year 1900 even though I knew that would be nearly impossible since my grandmother had been born in December 1899, but it allowed my eyes to adjust to the handwriting style of the priest. The first set of records was as before...nothing. But, there was another item which caught my eye. This set of records mentioned "Births of people not belonging to the parish and of converts 1881-1905." The date range was a match and 'Little Renata,' despite the late hour, was insisting that I search them. 

Eureka!

The sloping slightly heavily inked writing was thankfully very neatly written, but by this time my eyes were burning and I knew I had to get to bed as I had a morning doctor's appointment the next day. I went through about 10 pages, and shocked by the late hour, vowed that I would only do one more image, but when I finished that one I was compelled to click onto the next page. I had been fastidiously reading the parents column looking for the surname Paprocki all this time but the thought popped in my head to search for just Maria under the less crowded name column. Oh, how much easier it was on the eyes, why hadn’t I thought of this 3 hours ago!. By that time it was nearing 3:30am and I knew I had to be sensible and get some sleep. “One more,” Little Renata said. Ok, but this was truly it! I scanned the left side of the register... nothing and then I looked at the right side and about 2/3 of the way down there was another Maria. There had already been so many, but I dragged my eyes to the parents column. The first word was Marcellus! My heart skipped a beat. There it was! Marcellus Paprocki and Constantia Pryznerska, written in the most beautiful clear cursive writing that there was absolutely no chance of a mistake. Eureka!

That Sweet Moment

“Oh my God, I found it, I found…” I kept saying over and over to myself uncontrollably. Tears coursed down my cheeks as the reality of what had just happened burrowed into my brain. “Granny, I found it, I found it!” played like a skipping record in my head. I don’t know how long I sat there taking screenshots of the page, zoomed in, very zoomed in, zoomed out. I did not want to ever lose this image. Ever. 

1902. She was born August 8, 1902. Five days plus 2 years off of what she had always celebrated. Granny had lived a full 80 years, not 78. I laughed and thought, well how about that! Thinking you are two years younger than you really are!? And to think that none of her siblings ever corrected her thinking. It boggles my mind. And the town? Konczaki Nowe, is 12 km away from the town she thought she was born in. The record was there in the metrical books associated with Toustobaby, yet set enough apart that if not for my "Little Renata" insisting I try again, the record may never have been found. 

Twenty-seven years after I began my genealogy journey and vowed to find the date, and almost thrirty-nine years after Granny passed away, I finally found it. I kept my promise and the moment was sweeter than just about anything else in my life!

Birth and baptismal record for Maria Paprocka. Place: Konczaki Nowe. Birth date: 8 August 1902. Baptism date: 17 August 1902.

As for those two siblings' records from the Consulate...I still have not found them as of yet! Isn't genealogy crazy? 

52 Ancestors Week 7 - Valentine - Walenty Paprocki

This week's theme Valentine immediately made me want to explore my very little known maternal great-great-grandfather...

Walenty Paprocki

Emilia Paprocka Baptismal Certificate, 1899, shows her father as Marcellus (Marceli) Paprocki, Steward, son of Valentini

When I say little known, I really mean it!  All I know about Walenty (the Polish equivalent of Valentine) is basically his name.  He appeared on my "Original Source Document" that I discussed in week one, and is recorded in my grandmother Emilia Paprocka's Baptismal document, as seen above.  Also corroborated by her younger brother's Baptismal certificate as seen below.

Franciszek Paprocki Baptismal certificate, 1908, shows his father as Marcellus (Marceli) Paprocki son of Valentini

Since Marceli was born around 1864, I can assume that Walenty was born some time before 1844.  Where, is any one's guess and where he lived or what he did is a complete mystery...so far.  However, when I first introduced my "Original Source Document" I alluded to the fact that there is a "Count" in the family tree, and this is the guy that it was attached to.  Family lore, as told to me by my second mom, Helena Skalska-Potaczek, claims that the Paprockis were of the minor gentry or szlachta with landholdings spanning from the area called Podolia (which is now in the Ukraine) to the foot of the Świętokrzyskie Mountains (home of Bartek a 1,000 year+ oak tree) which is near Kielce in Poland.

The area in which the landholdings are rumored to have existed, as seen on a 1799 map

These landholdings are rumored to have included a string of numerous manor houses or dwór, which are basically what we call country estates today.  Generally built from the late 1500s to the early 1800s, these properties contained houses built mainly of wood, ranging in size from from a modest 2-4 rooms to full fledged mansions. They also included a complex of other outbuildings, stables and gardens.  In their heyday there existed some 12,000 of these holdings, while today there are less than 3,000, and of those a great number lie in ruins.  If you are interested to learn more and see how they looked, check out this nifty website here!

Showing the area on a contemporary map in order to appreciate the size of it!  It compares to the length of the Czech Republic or even Slovakia!

The story goes that one of my great grandfathers, perhaps even Walenty himself, was quite a high roller with the cards, and essentially gambled away the entire family fortune!  This covers an area about 350 miles long, giving me quite a needle in the proverbial haystack to find any of these estates, even if there were many of them.  Anyone knowing of how to start this search...please contact me!!

One interesting side note, though.  As I was searching for the Świętokrzyskie Mountains, I stumbled across a village by the name of Paprocice, deriving from the word paproć, which means fern, and from which the surname Paprocki derives.  Could this mean some connection?  Another path to research, I guess!

Next week's topic is Heirloom...

52 Ancestors Week 5 - In the Census - Granny's Sister Stanislawa Paprocka Buszkiewicz

This week's topic "in the census" got me thinking about how I wish I could use a census to track my brick wall family members in Galicia/Poland.  What an amazing font of knowledge they can be.  But alas, I have no direct ancestors who show up in the available US Censuses, so I decided to trace one of my Granny's sisters.

Stanisława Paprocka Buszkiewicz (6 Feb 1890 - Apr 1977)

Stanisława Paprocka Buszkiewicz in 1947, New Jersey, USA

Born on 6 February 1890, Stanisława (Stasia) Paprocka was ten years older than my grandmother Emilia and fourteen years older than my second grandmother Maria, so they probably didn't know each other terribly well.  Especially since Stasia emigrated to the United States in 1910 when Emilia was 9 and Mania about 5 or 6.  From stories Helena told, I heard that before Stasia left for North America, she was the "Keeper of the Keys" for a manor house owned by the Serwatowski family, but in the passenger manifest she is listed as a maid servant. Apparently Stasia emigrated with a friend named Julia Weber, also 20 years old, and according to the ship manifest for the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse (line 23), they were headed to Passaic, NJ to stay with a cousin of Julia's.  They departed Bremen on 31 May 1910 and arrived June 8.

Stasia Paprocka line 23 (Ancestry.com, Passenger Lists 1820-1957, Year: 1910; Arrival: New York, New York; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Microfilm Roll: Roll 1495; Line: 23; Page Number: 67)

Here you can see that Stasia's closest relative in Galicia is Marceli Paprocki, her father, who is listed as living in Lasny.  I have not been able to determine where exactly that place is just yet!  Neither of the girls had a ticket to reach their final destination at 119 Passaic Street in Passaic, NJ, but both had paid their own passage.  Julia had in her possession $26, while Stasia had $18.  Stasia is listed as having been born in Wiśniowczyk, Galicia, had blonde hair and grey eyes, and stood 5 feet 2 inches tall.

Stasia Paprocka line 23 (Ancestry.com, Passenger Lists 1820-1957, Year: 1910; Arrival: New York, New York; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Microfilm Roll: Roll 1495; Line: 23; Page Number: 67)

After her arrival, the paper trail goes cold. She missed the 1910 census which occurred in April and even though she should be in the 1920 census, I have not yet been able to find her.  When she finally does reemerge in the 1930 Census, she is already married, goes by the name Stella and has a young daughter named Matilda...my mothers' first cousin.

Ancestry.com, United States Federal Census Year: 1930; Census Place: Garfield, Bergen, New Jersey; Roll: 1313; Page: 9B; Enumeration District: 87; Image: 20.0; FHL microfilm: 2341048

She, Matilda aged 6, and her husband Martin Buszkiewicz, who emigrated to the US in 1912, lived at 106 Orchard Street, in Garfield, Bergen County, New Jersey.  They paid $18 rent a month and shared the house with another family, a widower Polish immigrant named Constantin Sayor and his three daughters Emily 10, Jeannette 6, and Florence 4. (Now I know that these were the husband and children of her sister Stefania who tragically died of an abortion gone wrong in 1928!)  That must have been nice for Matilda, an only child, to have such close playmates!  According to the census, Stasia and Martin were 38 and 37 years old respectivley and they were 25 and 24 when they were married.  So, according to the ages given (which are off since Stasia was born in 1890, so in 1930 she should have been 40 already) I can surmise that they were married sometime between 1914 and 1917, which makes me wonder why I can not find either of them in the 1920 Census!

106 Orchard Street, Garfield, NJ as it looked in 2012 courtesy of googlemaps

Martin worked as a finisher in a silk factory, and as of 1930, neither he nor Stasia had become naturalized citizens.  At that time, nearly half of the nation's silk was being produced in hundreds of mills lining the Passaic river.  A couple years ago I read a book called Girl Waits with Gun by Amy Stewart which happens to be set in the same time and place!  I was excited to be able to get a feel for what life was like for Stasia and her sister Stefania Paprocka who joined her in 1913, and I wondered if perhaps they even followed the newspaper headlines about Constance Kopp, the protagonist of the detective series.  I encourage everyone who enjoys mysteries to check out this series here!

A view of the mills on the Passaic River

Sometime between 1930 and 1935 the family moved to 31 Bergen Street in Paterson, NJ placing them much closer to the silk mills, where Martin still worked as a finisher in a dye house.  They shared the house with a 71 year old widow named Marion Gannin and paid $16 monthly rent.  

31 Bergen Street, Paterson, NJ as it looked in 2014 courtesy of Googlemaps

Both listed as 49 years of age in the 1940 Census, Martin is stated as having had 7 years of schooling and first papers toward citizenship, while Stasia is said to have 5 years of schooling.  Martin had worked 26 weeks in the last year and had earned $520.  Makes one wonder why he only worked half the year...  Matilda is listed as being 15 years old and in her second year of high school.

Ancestry.com, United States Federal Census Year: 1940; Census Place: Paterson, Passaic, New Jersey; Roll: T627_2429; Page: 3A; Enumeration District: 26-4

In 1947, at the age of 57, Stasia sent the photo seen at the top of this page to her remaining family in Poland, whom she had tried to bolster by sending them parcels of much needed clothing.  Not forgetting her native tongue, she wrote this endearing message on the back. "As a remembrance I am sending a likeness of myself to my most dear family (signed) Stanisława age 57 year 1947"

This is the only photo that we have of her from her younger years.  Other than her sister Stefania, who settled close to her but died young in 1928, I don't think she saw any of her family again, except for her sister Maria, who at the age of 69 emigrated to the US in 1974.  Some 64 years passed before the two sisters were reunited.  How incredible that must have been!  I believe they saw each other a few times over the next few years, and even I got to meet her before she passed away in April 1977.

Sabina Potaczek's First Communion, May or June 1976, Shrine of Our Lady of Częstochowa, Doylestown, PA
L-R: Me in the Pink dress, Helena Skalska-Potaczek, Stanisława Buszkiewicz, Marian Potaczek, Sabina Potaczek, Dr. Tołscik and daughter, Józef Duda, and Maria Skalska

Stasia's daughter Matilda in time had 4 children of her own, Mark, Lori, Gail and Alan, most of whom eventually moved to Colorado.  My mom Helena and Matilda corresponded sporadically until her death in 2009.  It is my hope that I will be able to get in touch with either her children or grandchildren and reconnect with the only family that I know of, from my mother's side in the US!  Perhaps this post will help me find them!


April 2020 update! -- I did find Matilda's children through an Ancestry DNA test and my cousin Gail shared photos of Stella and Stefania that I had never seen before. And a year later, I finally found a grandchild of Stefania, Bill Wolf, when I contacted the funeral home that held Stefania's last daughter's funeral, Jenny Sayor. More posts I need to write!


Next week's topic is Favorite Name...

52 Ancestors Week 4 - Invite to Dinner - My Granny Maria Paprocka Skalska

Maria Paprocka Skalska (3 Aug 1904 - 19 Aug 1982)

Maria Paprocka Skalska, Kraków early 1950s

The highest praise that anyone in my family can get goes something like, "That's almost as good as Babcia's!"  Meaning, that whatever you cooked or baked is pretty darn good.  My Granny or Babcia, which is grandmother in Polish, was an amazing cook and baker who had a regular encyclopedia of culinary delights in her brain.  It was all there, hardly ever put down on paper, and it was a rare person who could duplicate a dish just the way she did.  Frustrating for the rest of us for sure, but imagine my delight when I found this gem among some papers.  A recipe for Placek Panieński, a delightful cake, spread with jam and then topped by meringue...one of my favorites (which now is a bummer since I found out I am allergic to egg whites!)

I knew Granny for an all too short six years, from the age of five to eleven, but in that short time, she left an everlasting impression upon me.  She is one of my "girl power" icons that I have looked up to all my life...the other two being my two moms.  

My "girl power" idols Zofia Skalska, Maria Skalska and Helena Skalska mid 1950s Poland

And it isn't that she did anything super feminist or anything.  It's actually the opposite.  She was the perfect homemaker, which today is an occupation so often derided and sneered at.  Yet in her quiet fulfillment of age-old duties prescribed to women, she exuded a power and strength that I only wish I could have.  I don't recall ever hearing her complain, and never knew her to be in bed sick.  In fact for the week or two that she was in bed before she passed away, I was sure it must be a joke and that she will soon be up and about again.  

Maria Skalska, Kraków1944

Maria Skalska, Kraków late 1940s

But back to her cooking.  During WWI, when she was about twelve years old, her parents died from consumption? or perhaps the flu? which caused the family, already in dire straits, to disintegrate as a unit.  The four younger children of the family were placed wherever a place could be found with priests and nuns.  Emilia, her older sister by 5 years, and Mania (a sort of nickname for Maria) were placed with some Daughters of Charity nuns (Zakonnice Szarytki) who were training young girls to be maidservants.  I assume, that is where she learned to cook, and she continued to do so for her family (she always lived with Emilia even after Emilia and Tadeusz were married) for the rest of her life.  She didn't much like to share her kitchen, but in Poland she did allow Zosia to learn from her, but not so much Helena...not until later after she joined Helena in the United States in 1974.  I regret that I did not have an interest in cooking and did not spend time with her when I could have, but you know kids...they have to play with their toys!

Maria Skalska, Kraków early 1950s

Only now do I realize that when she died, I was about the same age as she was when she had been orphaned, and yet I had never paused to think how much that must have affected her...until now.  I can not imagine the upheaval, pain, and fear that she must have endured.  Yet, as I knew her, one would have never known what she had gone through...orphaned, two world wars, and emigration to the US at the age of 70 to start anew!  She was so kind, loving, and grateful, I think is the word I seek.  Humble is another.

Maria Skalska, Kraków 1960s

Thoughts of her cooking evoke comfort and security, something which I now see she had very little of in her early life.  To this day, one of my most favorite meals is sznycel (something like an aussie rissole), mashed potatoes, and hot beets with sour cream.  The other meal which evokes sheer Granny coziness...especially on a cold day...one of her white buttered rolls with Polish ham and a cup of hot cocoa.  Doesn't get better than that!

On vacation at the Aurora Hotel in Asbury Park, NJ, summer 1976
Sabina Potaczek, Marian Potaczek, Renata Adamowicz, Maria Skalska

Granny would do a weekly bread baking for us, the recipe for her amazing brown bread always only in her head.  In fact, her bread became quite famous when, while we were living at Jasna Polana, the estate of Seward and Barbara Johnson (of Johnson & Johnson), Basia insisted on having a weekly baking for herself!  It's funny how at the time we never think to take a photo of an everyday item or occurrence, so I have no visual proof of the delectable nature of her bread, but I do have a photo of Mania with Basia Piasecka Johnson's mother!

Mrs. Piasecka and Maria Skalska, Princeton, NJ 1978

If I could have anyone over for a dinner party, I know that Granny would definitely be one of the people at the top of the list, with my two mom's being close seconds.  What I'd want to know most about are her early years, of which I know so little.  I can only remember snatches of stories that she used to tell about, like hiding under a bridge while Russian officers held a conversation above her, and trying to cross a river on horseback and realizing that the water was so high that the horse had to swim...but alas she did not know how to swim!  Or the mischievous girl who let the nun's pigs out for some reason...perhaps to get back at them for something? 

Maria Skalska, at Jasna Polana, Princeton, NJ 1978

Granny had spunk and courage, but most of all, for me, a young girl who had lost her own mother at the age of five and who subsequently was assimilated into a new nuclear family, she provided comfort and warmth and stability through the simple acts of cooking and keeping house.  Ever behind the scenes, Maria Paprocka Skalska was a weaver of the cloth of life in one of the most tangible ways possible...her legacy was that of the comforts of home and I think it would please her to know how much she defined that for me!  

Spunky Granny, playing cards with the guys (Kazimierz Potaczek on right) Princeton, NJ 1978

Next week's topic is "In the Census," where I will discuss one of Mania's sisters...

52 Ancestors Week 1 - Start - My "Original Source" Document

My "Original Source" Document ca. 1984-5

Since we are to interpret each prompt in the way that best resonates with us, I decided to write my first post about the very first time I became aware of a thing called a “Family Tree.”  The fact that I still have this piece of paper, yellowed and creased from many years of storage and handling, with a numbering system and newer names being added in darker blue and black ink decades later, attests to the fact that it was, and still is, a treasured document.  Not just any document, but my very own “original source” document which I have referred to over the last 33 years and which has held a place of the highest esteem in my genealogy files! 

I was in the 8^th grade, 14 or 15 years old, and the year was either 1984 or 85.  One of our Social Studies assignments was to fill out a sheet entitled “Tracing Your Heritage.”   I dubiously looked at the homework assignment and put it into my book bag with slight trepidation.  My heritage, I knew was Polish, but making a family tree like that…wasn’t that something only people whose ancestors had been in America for at least a hundred years could do?

To complicate things further was the fact that I didn’t even live with my parents…I mean my birth parents, that is.  My Aunt Helena and Uncle Marian *were* my parents in every sense of the word, had been since my birth mother passed away in 1976 when I was 5 years old, taking me on a dying wish visit to reunite with her beloved sister from whom she had been separated for 17 years.  I loved them and my sister (cousin) Sabina fiercely, and, to be perfectly honest, often even forgot I had a father and four sisters on another continent…until times like this.

My anxiety grew all day.  I was a straight A student, and the thought of getting a 0 on a homework assignment caused me great distress.  Family stories were not a foreign concept in my life.  My “Granny” Maria Skalska had been a wonderful story teller, regaling me and my sister with tales of her youth in a day when Poland as a nation did not even exist and only reemerged as an entity out of the ashes of WWI.  But Granny had died a couple years ago in August 1982 and her stories with her.  And anyway, I didn’t ever recall her talking about her parents and certainly not about anyone further back than that. 

I had noticed that including me, this sheet of paper was asking for me to name 5 generations of people!  The thought of it was inconceivable, so the longer the day dragged on and the longer I fretted over this assignment, the more I became sure that I would inevitably fail this homework assignment.  Quite frankly, at the time, the thought of failing such a seemingly simple assignment upset me far more than the actual facts staring me in the face: that other than the names of my parents, four sisters, aunt, uncle, cousin, and granny, I had no clue about who my ancestors were or where they came from other than the broad idea of ‘Poland.’

By the time I got home that fateful day, I knew I had to ask my mom if she could possibly help me with this seemingly impossible task.  To my sincere amazement, she not only said she could, but was able to help me fill in practically all of the spaces on my mother’s side.  I’ll never forget the pride in her voice when she had me fill in Professor Tadeusz Skalski, her father, or that she even knew the exact date of her mother Emilia’s birth, which I carefully penned in under the place Podole, Poland as 12/18 1899, not realizing at that moment that she had in her possession the original document! These names were not new to me, but the concept of her mother’s father being called Count Marceli Paprocki and his father Count Walenty Paprocki certainly was!  However, thirty some years later, that bit of lore is still to be determined!

Then there were the new surnames I had never heard of on my grandfather’s side such as Wiktoria Konopka from Wieliczka (a noble name from that town…another bit of sleuthing needing to be done) and even one more maiden name back, a Miśkolnicz, possibly from the Czech area.  And on my mother’s side I learned that my maternal great-grandmother was named Konstancia (sic) Presnerska.  I was flabbergasted!

My father’s side of the family was going to be more difficult. He lived in Sydney, Australia and did not own a telephone to my knowledge, so getting his input was certainly not going to happen in time to turn in a homework assignment the next day.  Even so, mom was able to tell me that my father’s father was named Antoni and that he and my grandmother were married in the Zamość area.  To this day I have many gaps in this side of the family and know that much work is still to be done!

So, the next day I handed in my homework resigned to the expectation of getting a 5 (0-10 scale) at best because of all the blank spaces. Despite this depressing thought there awakened in me an awareness that there was so much more to life and the world beyond the four walls of Central Junior HS in Greenwich, CT and that not only was this world rooted in the present and one’s aspirations for the future, but that the past was a very real and tangible connection to my understanding of myself and my place in this world. When I discarded that year’s school papers, this piece remained with my report cards, attesting to the value I placed on it.

This is me in 8th Grade.  
The year it all began!

This teacher may not have known it, but he had just altered the trajectory of my life in a very real way.  It would not be until 10 years later that I truly began to work on genealogy in earnest, and another 10 after that before it would become my burning passion, but now I know that it is the most important legacy that I plan to leave behind for my children and the generations to come.  For this I will always be grateful to Mr. Cobb, that teacher who decided to stretch our minds into the past in a very personal and real way and rewarded a paper, even with many missing answers, with a perfect 10.

Oh, and BTW, I did get an A in that class!




Next weeks topic is Favorite Photo...