The Life of Paulina (Raczkiewicz) Dubiel

As a practitioner of folk medicine, Paulina (Raczkiewicz) Dubiel would have had knowledge of how to use herbs for healing. While my great aunt worked with her husband on their farm, she was also a herbalist/healer. This picture of cases of herbs used for medicine may be similar to where she obtained her herbs. The Polish Museum of America, a museum in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., contains many artifacts from Poland, Polish Americans and from the Polish Pavilion for the 1939 World’s Fair, including this case of herbs. ***** Paulina was the seventh of the nine children born to the Raczkiewicz family in Sabaudia, Poland. The older children were ages two to thirteen when she was born. Paulina Raczkiewicz was born June 12 1901 at 5:00 in the afternoon. Her parents were Jan, 37 years old and a peasant, and Katarzyna (nee Kaszucki), 30 years old, from a family of furriers from Tomaszow. They lived in the village of Sabaudia. The witnesses at her baptism on June 18th were both peasants – Marcin Matej, age 30 from Sabaudia and Andrzej Luj, age 28, from Podhorce. Her Godparents were Marcin Matej and Jozefa Kedrowa. Everyone present at her baptism was illiterate (at least in Russian), so the priest read the record out loud to them and he was the only one who signed it. ***** The marriage of Jan and Paulina occurred on Wednesday, June 15, 1921 in Tomaszów at 4:00 in the afternoon. Michal Mandziak, 27, and Michal Muczek, 23, both farmers from Rogóźno, were the witnesses. Paulina was 20 years old and living with her mother in Sabaudia. Her father had died six years earlier. Her siblings Piotr, Mary, Franciszek and Boleslaw also still lived at home. Jan was a 32 year old bachelor farming in Rogóźno. His parents, Wojciech Dubiel and Agnieszka Mandziak, were deceased. ***** Jan was born April 16, 1889 in Rogóźno, a village with roots before the 1500s. Rogóźno was colonized by Germans in cooperation with the noble Zamoyski about 100 years before Jan was born, in 1795. This is the same village that Curt Wolf (my newfound 4x cousin) had descendants (Eiflers) that came from Germany to this village. Jan’s father Wojciech was born in Mokrzyska, Małopolskie, near Krakow. By 1871, Wojciech’s father Paweł, had a son in Rogóźno, and Wojciech married his wife Agnieszka Mandziuk in 1885 in Tomaszów. ***** This picture of Rogozno is not of their house but I was excited to see a stork nest in the picture. Who would have thought that white storks and their nests would be a way that Poland and the U.S. differ? Finding ways that Poland and the U.S. are similar and for ways that they are different is interesting. Poland has 50,000 storks, about 20% of the worldwide stork population. They are very big with a 10 foot wingspan, weighing up to 18 pounds. The nests are large, up to six feet in diameter and ten feet in depth. People clean the nests of storks before they migrate back in the Spring. Apparently hundreds of nests will be spruced up. The storks are symbols of good fortune and their return in the spring signals the end of a long winter, just like the return of the robin does for us in Michigan. While also migratory, the robin is only about 3 ounces in weight and has a wingspan of 12 to 18 inches. From a long ago description, “First we pass vast wheat fields. Harvest has begun. Trucks are waiting to be loaded. Storks walk behind tractors and harvesters. Then we pass dense forests.” The author then describes what else he sees and then reports that, “A stork has settled on a lamppost and flies up as I get closer.” ***** According to Andrzej, “After marriage, Paulina moved to Rogóźno, a small village near Tomaszów Lubelski. Sabaudia is a village 2 or 3 kilometers north-east from Tomaszów Lubelski, and Rogóźno is 3 kilometers west of Tomaszów Lubelski. Their whole life they were peasants – they had some land and lived there until their death.” They had six children: Leokadia (1922), Bronislawa (1923), Jan (1926), Jozefa (1930), Edward (1933), and Halina (1940). ***** Paulina died on January 15, 1968. Memories of her may be hard to find because this was long ago but we managed to find a few. Paulina was 67 years old when she died in Rogóźno, Poland. Her husband Jan Dubiel died 17 years earlier at age 62. Paulina and Jan had six children, 17 grandchildren, more than 30 great-grandchildren, and many great - great - grandchildren. ***** Image credit: Attribution: Przemysław Czopor Picture of stork from Joanna Kuzniarska https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stork https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/7789/Artykul/2655718?fbclid=IwAR0fb_40Ia0-KL5ARq9wgiLAyx71os4_954vNnjeHoDES4V06Lud2CWv43s https://vanishedworld.blog/2014/08/03/in-the-borderland/#more-1247