Jan Raczkiewicz died March 9, 1915

What was happening in the world around him When Jan Raczkiewicz (my great grandfather) died? The death record does not give the cause of his death so there is no way to know for sure why he died at the early age of 50. World War 1 was happening and “in the summer of 1914 fierce battles raged around Tomaszow Lubelski and a fire broke out there, destroying many houses. In the summer of 1915 the area was conquered by the Austrians and the Germans.” Austria was in the middle of a cholera epidemic. There was an outbreak of typhus that had just started in Russia.. So was it related to the war or the illnesses that Jan died March 9, 1915 at 5:00 in the morning in the village of Sabaudia? Jan worked as a peasant farmer. He was the son of Antoni and Katarzyna (née Grabek) Raczkiewicz, who were both deceased. Jan left behind widow Katarzyna, née Kaszucka who was 44 years old at the time. “Marian Skurcz, 50 years old, Christian from Sabaudia, and Walenty Liskiewicz, 59 years old, townsman from Tomaszów, came and declared” the event to the officials. The oldest child of Jan and Katarzyna was also named Jan. He had left for the United States five years earlier and the next two children Anthony (my grandfather) and Joseph had left three years earlier. Jan, the son, had just been shot in front of his house in Grand Rapids, Michigan a month before he died. I wonder if the relatives in Poland heard about the shooting? I also wonder how and when the three brothers in the U.S. heard that their father had died in Poland When Jan died, the six remaining children in Poland were between nine and 20 years old. The youngest child, Boleslaw, would have been nine years old (he is the grandfather of Tomasz and Jacek Rączkiewicz.) Their second youngest child Paulina would have been 14 years old (she is the grandmother of Andrzej Dubiel.) Katarzyna lived another 29 years after her husband Jan died but did not ever remarry. Neither Jan nor Katarzyna had living siblings but they had a lot of cousins. This record was found and translated by Andrzej Dubiel 1/24/2021