The Life of Jan Raczkiewicz (Junior)

What does it mean to be “unlucky in love?” Jan Raczkiewicz faced significant hardships in his life and the stories about him sound like he was willing to take risks to make things better. Unfortunately, though, things didn’t always turn out well for him – especially in the area of love. It turns out that Jan was unlucky in love. ***** Jan’s existence was unknown to the current U.S. family of his siblings. He moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan before his other siblings Antoni, Jozef and Mary arrived. There is evidence of his move and his marriage but then no other records are available in Grand Rapids. Did he move from Grand Rapids? Did he have children? Where was he buried? This story of Jan answers these questions and more. ***** Jan was born on June 23, 1888, in Sabaudia, Poland. He was the firstborn child of Jan and Katarzyna. Jan’s father (also named Jan) was a 24-year-old peasant in the village of Sabaudia, Poland and his mother Katarzyna was 17-years-old when he was born. His parents had been married for two and a half years. Katarzyna’s family were from the nearby city of Tomaszow Lubelski and worked as furriers. Marcin Skurcz, 20, and Maciej Bend, 28, two local farmers, were witnesses. His Godparents were Marcin Skurcz and Antonina Mazej when he was baptized in the Roman Catholic church. His parents were both Roman Catholic but his mother’s father Stefan Jozef Kaszucki was Greek Catholic. ***** What was the world like at the time of Jan’s birth? Galicia (the term at the time for the area they lived in) was still in the last of seven famines. Even though serfdom had been abolished fifty years earlier, peasants were not wealthy. Peasants owned land but as it was portioned out to their adult children so many owned less than an acre and much of that acre was made up of up to many separate plots of land. They usually did not earn enough to pay taxes. As he grew older, Jan worked as a farmer and day laborer. ***** When Jan was 22 years old, he was encouraged by his father to leave home for economic reasons and because of the challenges of being Polish in a country taken over by Russia . On February 3, 1910, Jan traveled with three other residents of the area from Hamburg, Germany to New York on the ship Pennsylvania. The ships were originally “used to haul goods such as cotton, tobacco, and other raw products from America to Europe.” The companies began advertising to immigrants to fill their cargo holds for the return trip which was the least expensive way to travel to the United States.” (Emigration from Poland. Stephen Szabados.) From New York, Jan made his way to Grand Rapids, Michigan. The likely reason for Grand Rapids, Michigan to be selected as the final destination was that the city was heavily promoted overseas for the opportunities in the furniture industry. Also, many Poles were already in Grand Rapids so the word would have gotten back to them in Poland that there were opportunities available. ***** Jan lived and worked on the west side of the city of Grand Rapids. Jan’s two brothers Jozef and Antoni joined him in 1913. “In a few cases, the father or a son went first to earn the passage for the rest of the household.” (Emigration from Poland. Stephen Szabados.) Like other immigrants, Jan moved around quite a bit during the first five years he was in the U.S. ***** Jan had a job as a cabinet maker at Phoenix Furniture Company and Johnson Furniture Company but then made a career change. He switched to shoe repair for a few years at Adolph Montrim Shoe Repair, then went back to the furniture industry. Was the career change for a good or bad reason? It is hard to tell. Was he fired as a cabinet maker? Or was he trying out something new that could become his own business if it was successful? It is also possible that there was another factor involved. Jan had a big year in 1915 for some reason. Besides switching careers, he was also engaged to be married. And the big shocker is that he was shot – two times actually – on the same night. So what was going on in Jan’s life at the time? ***** The first hint that he might have faced some challenges in his life came from shocking local news in The Grand Rapids Herald. On February 15, 1915, apparently, Jan attended a wedding where he was involved in an argument. The problem followed him the few blocks he walked home to the apartment he shared with his two brothers. He was then shot several times with a 22 caliber revolver. One bullet lodged in his hand and the other bullet went into the left side of his chest and came out of the side of his body. He was treated at Butterworth Hospital. The argument began near First Street and Stocking Avenue, possibly at the reception rather than the wedding. There were two halls in that area at the time: the Taxpayers Hall (on First Street east of Stocking Avenue) and Swantek Hall (on Stocking Avenue at Second Street.) When interviewed, Jan was unable to identify the men involved or what the argument was about. Alcohol, limited English and a reluctance to report to the authorities are all possible reasons for the limited information and the convoluted story the police received. ***** How safe was life in Grand Rapids for the Polish immigrants at this time? Safety of the city has been in the news lately as Grand Rapids saw a sharp spike in shootings with 35 homicides in the year 2020 compared to 18 the year before. The pandemic and racial inequities are the probable reasons for the current increase. What was going on in 1915 in Grand Rapids and how safe was the city to which Jan and his brothers had recently immigrated? At the time there was prejudice against Catholics and Polish people and all the recent immigrant groups had conflicts with each other. The circumstances around Jan’s shooting is another one of the mysteries related to him. ***** As shocking as this news was, the follow-up article the next day titled, “Police Say John Raczkiewicz Was Not the Victim of Assailants” was even more shocking. “After telling a number of conflicting stories John Raczkiewicz aged 26 years yesterday is alleged to have confessed to officers that instead of being attacked and shot by an unknown assailant, he shot himself, giving as a reason, trouble with his girl.” Jan survived the shooting and eleven months later he married a woman from his hometown – there is no way to know if it was the same woman referred to in the article. Jan and Franciszka (Frances) Kudlicka were married on January 25, 1916, in Grand Rapids, Michigan at Sacred Heart Church. The witnesses were Joseph Raczkiewicz (Jan’s brother) and Stanislawa Kudilicka (Francis’ sister.) At the time, Jan had been in the U.S. for six years and was working as a shoemaker and Francis was in the U.S. for three years and was working as a dishwasher. ***** Jan and his two brothers Jozef and Antoni registered for the draft for World War I on June 5, 1917, in Precinct 9, Ward 1 of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Jan was 28, Joseph was 25 and Anthony was 22 years old. He lived with his wife Frances and his brother Jozef and Antoni lived nearby. Jan was a cabinet maker at Johnston Furniture Company. Since Jn was married, he requested an exemption from service. Jan was reported to be of medium height with a medium build and brown hair and blue eyes. ***** After this, the work records end in 1921 for Jan and his wife in the U.S. Some immigrants returned to Poland and a living nephew (recently discovered in Poland) was able to verify that this did happen. Eugeniusz Raczkiewicz remembered hearing about Jan’s return from his father, Boleslaw, who was the youngest of the siblings. Jan and his wife bought a farm near Gniezno in Goślina, Poland. Why would Jan have used his earnings from the U.S. to buy a farm near Gniezno? Gniezno is nearly 450 kilometers (or approximately 280 miles) from his roots in Tomaszow Lubelski. Tomaszow Lubelski is in southeastern Poland and Gniezno is northwest near Poznan, Poland. The distance would make family visits difficult and it is unclear where Jan and his wife would have found out about opportunities in the area. ***** A look at the churches in both Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Gniezno, Poland provides a clue. While Jan and his wife were married at Sacred Heart Church, his brother Anthony’s second marriage to my grandmother was at St. Adalbert Church. Also, St. Adalbert figured prominently in the lives of all the Poles who lived on the West side of Grand Rapids. St. Adalbert’s was originally created by Polish immigrants. Before the Raczkiewicz siblings made it to Grand Rapids, earlier Polish immigrants needed to escape Poland, after over 70 years of struggle against Prussia, Austria, and Russia. Various uprisings occurred in an attempt to reclaim Poland. The last uprising in the Poznan area in 1848 was unsuccessful. People directly involved faced punishment and possible death. Living conditions became deplorable for all of them and they lost the ability to live as Poles. In the time period of the late 1860s to 1870s, many Polish immigrants came to the U.S. This group of Poles was unhappy to leave their homeland but also to leave the orchestras, operas, palaces, and markets of Poznan. Closer to home, they left Gniezno Cathedral (dedicated to St. Adalbert/Wojciech.) This is the saint who had converted Poland to Christianity. ***** Some of this group of earlier Poles made it to Grand Rapids where Catholicism had its roots in 1833 because of the work of missionaries from Yugoslavia, Hungary, and possibly Poland. The area lacked the amenities of a city like Poznan but the river, countryside, mines, and factories allowed for employment. In the beginning, they worshiped at a German-speaking church but then in 1880, they formed their first Polish-speaking parish. It was named after St. Adalbert like their church in Gniezno. Immigrants from other areas – Bialystok, Silesia joined them and by 1913, the current church was consecrated. (This was the year Jan’s brothers Jozef and Antoni arrived.) The new church in Grand Rapids was patterned after the one in Gniezno, with similar architecture. ***** The earlier Polish immigrants to Grand Rapids from the Poznan area recreated their beloved Gniezno Cathedral dedicated to St. Adalbert/St. Wojciech. These early Poles likely dreamed of buying land near Gniezno and returning to their beloved Poland. In the social halls, wedding receptions, and other places that they gathered, Jan likely learned of opportunities they knew about in communication with their relatives back in Poland. There is no way to know for sure why Jan left Grand Rapids and returned to Poland or why Jan selected Gniezno instead of Tomaszow Lubelskie for his return. The connections with the Poles from that area who made it to Grand Rapids earlier than the wave of immigrants that he was a part of, could be the reason. ***** Information about Jan’s death was provided by the same nephew who lives in Poland who remembered more about Jan from his father Boleslaw. “Jan and his wife did not have any children. She cheated him and he went to sleep in a field with potatoes and got sick (pneumonia) and died. We don’t know which year it was.” Potato fields are common in Poland and potatoes have been grown there for a very long time. In 1821, a famous Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz wrote a poem entitled “Kartofla” (meaning potato -- it is more commonly now called ziemniak.) Cheating spouses also have happened for a long time. Jan’s grief led him to the risky behavior of sleeping outside which it was believed caused the illness that claimed his life. ***** Jan died of a broken heart on April 5, 1928, in the Red Cross Town Hospital in Gniezno on Kilińskiego Street 6. He lived in nearby Goślinina and was 39 years and 9 months old. He was still married to Franciszka nee Kudlicka. He wrote a will dated February 14 – Valentine's Day!-- only a few weeks before he died. Sometime after this, Francis ended up remarried to Piotr Krasnicki 300 miles away in Lublin, Poland. This was an unfortunate end to the oldest brother who took many risks for a better life. ***** Jan’s life had many hardships – the need to build a new life in another country, a possible failed career attempt, an unfortunate encounter with a 22 caliber gun, and the unfaithfulness of his wife. One positive way his family was inspired by his willingness to take risks is by following his lead and moving to the U..S, where they all benefited from a new life. Life has challenges for everyone and Jan’s main challenge was being unlucky in love. ***** Photo of St. Adalberts: By WMrapids - Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Basilica_of_St._Adalbert.jpg#/media/File:Basilica_of_St._Adalbert.jpg ***** Photo of Gniezno Cathedral: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Catedral_de_Gniezno,_Gniezno,_Polonia,_2014-09-20,_DD_45-47_HDR.jpg#/media/File:Catedral_de_Gniezno,_Gniezno,_Polonia,_2014-09-20,_DD_45-47_HDR.jpg