Apolonia Travels From Pennsylvania to Michigan and Loses Her Citizenship

While their home was of modest value, Anthony and Pauline Raczkiewic (my grandparents) took pride in the contributions they made in the development and continuation of their church and in helping family and friends. She helped others in the Polish American community to get needed benefits, arrange emigration from Poland and solve problems of daily living for people of little means and a language barrier. She lent money, wrote letters, read documents for people and even went to court with them. At least once, she needed to go to court for her own interests. Pauline’s trip to court for herself was to regain her US citizenship that she lost without ever leaving the United States. Pauline was born a United States citizen. “Apolonia“ was born on April 23, 1904, in Oil City, Pennsylvania, to Anna Agnes Barsch, age 21, and Walter Eugene Skrobat, age 30. Her parents had both been born in Poland but she was born after they came to the United States. Appallonia (spelling on the document) was baptised at the Church of Saint Joseph, 35 Pearl Avenue, Oil City, PA on April 24, 1902 after being born the previous day. Her sponsors were John Barzzcz and Anna Szczepanik. John was probably related to her mother. Pauline never traveled outside of the United States and in fact the farthest trip she made was from Michigan to Pennsylvania. She traveled when she was a young woman from Oil City to Grand Rapids with a friend and never went back. She met and married Anthony Raczkiewicz while on the visit. The short version of the story is that her mother was difficult to get along with and expected her to take care of the family’s many children. I recently learned that her parents had 13 children. At least five of them have never been heard of by a relative that lives in Oil City so they likely didn’t live past childhood. Pauline’s mother was still having children with her sister Jane born on June 3, 1922, in Oil City, Pennsylvania, while Pauline was already married and had one living child. Knowing more about this trip to Grand Rapids and how Pauline and Anthony met would also make for a good story. So how could a woman born in the United States and who never left the United States lose her citizenship? The answer lies in a little known law. American women who married between 1907 and 1922 lost their American citizenship if they married an “alien” even without leaving the United States. This was because of the Act of March 2, 1907. Women became the citizens of the country of their husband--obviously this was during a time when women did not have a lot of rights. Since Anthony was an “alien” when he and Pauline married in 1920, she lost her citizenship due to the then current law which didn’t change for many years. He began the process of applying for citizenship October 7, 1921 and was at the stage of “First Papers.” (And there is no evidence that he completed the process. When I sent away to the National ARchives for his naturalization paperwork, the only thing I received was his registration as an “alien” in September, 1940. An attempt was made to give American women who married foreigners back their rights. The Cable Act of September 22, 1922 was repealed so anyone married after that point would not lose their American citizenship by giving women equal citizenship and nationality rights. Unfortunately, this didn’t solve the issue for women previously married like Pauline. Another revision in 1931 corrected more problems. The Act of June 25, 1936 allowed widowed or divorced women to repatriate -- all others had to go through the entire naturalization process. Again, this version did not help Pauline since she was married to her husband and he was still alive. Finally, the Act of July 2, 1940 changed things again so that all women who had lost citizenship by marriage could repatriate regardless of their marital status. An Oath of Allegiance was all that was required with no need for a no declaration of intention. On March 30, 1943, Pauline took the “Oath of Allegiance to the United States under the Act of June 25, 1936, as Amended and Form of Such Oath” in the Western District of Michigan (Southern Division) Court of the US in Grand Rapids, Michigan. At the time they still lived at 501 Milwaukee NW and Pauline was a 40 year old housewife who had not been a citizen for the previous 23 years. (As those of you who knew my Grandma’s tendency to change her age, I had to calculate her age several times before I could make this statement.) Because Pauline had married in 1920, she lost her citizenship. Many women were unaware of this situation and there is no way to know how or when she figured it out. They did receive an English and Polish newspaper regularly and participated in activities at the halls for Polish Americans. It wasn’t until 1940 when the laws had changed that she would have been able to fix it. This helps to solve the mystery of why among the small amount of records I found, that there was an Oath of Allegiance to the United States signed by my U.S, grandmother. It didn’t make sense to me why she needed to take an oath when I found it. This was one of the early stories that really hooked me in to learning more about my family history.