Theresa (Kufta) Parkansky--A New Found Relative

I am very excited that I have found living relatives of my grandfather’s sister Marion who moved to Muskegon from Poland, a few years after her brothers came to Grand Rapids, MIchigan. Theresa (Kufta) Parkansky (my 1rst cousin 1x removed) was her youngest daughter. I will let her introduce herself: “My name is Theresa kufta Parkanzky. I am 85 years old and live in Van Wert, Ohio. I grew up in Muskegon, Michigan. I graduated from high school and went to college in Detroit. I graduated from Mercy College with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing in 1957. I married in 1958 and had 6 children: Daniel, Marie Halloran, Karen Vogler, Connie Snyder! Paul David, and John. My husband Ernest passed away in 2011. I had 2 sisters, Wanda Kozicki and Irene Mastee -- both deceased. I remember as a child going to my uncle's home and as I recall his name was Tony and his brother was Joe? Nothing was ever discussed re my mother Mary’s background. My memory may be foggy and unfortunately my sisters are gone and may have had more information.” Theresa is my mother Shirley (Raczkiewicz) Longwell's first cousin. My Mom is also 85 years old and has some similarities in her story: She went to X-Ray school at St. Mary's Hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan and married in 1957. She and my Dad (Roy Longwell) had three daughters, me, Linda, and Lori. Shirley remembers visiting the Kufta house in Muskegon. She can only remember one time and has no idea how she got there since her parents did not have a car. She remembers going to a baseball game with their family. She recently remembered that Frank and Mary came to her wedding.

First Communion Shirley Longwell

I believe this picture is from the first communion of Shirley Longwell (my mother.) All of her sacraments took place at St. Adalbert Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan. She is pictured with her younger brother Ronald. I do not know who her sponsor was for this. Her Godparents at her baptism were Walter Swiegoski & Victoria Palczewski. I do not know who Walter Swiegoski was. Victoria was her aunt. She had followed her sister Pauline Skrobat to Grand Rapids and they both married and lived there. Shirleyś confirmation sponsor was the daughter of another sister of her mother from OIl City, Pennsylvania. Eileen (Schossler) Gabreski (my 1rst cousin 1x removed) was Shirleyś confirmation sponsor. Her mother Mary (Skrobat) Schlosser was the sister of Pauline Raczkiewicz (Shirley´s mother and my grandmother.) In the late 1940s, Eileen was a student at St. Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana. She always had high aspirations--in her high school yearbook it says she planned to enter Temple University and study medicine. Instead of traveling back to Pennsylvania for school holidays, she would visit with her Aunt Pauline and family in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In this way, Shirley got to know her older cousin.

First Communion

My First Communion class picture was taken in front of St. Adalbertś Church. I was nine years old. My confirmation sponsor was my older cousin Yvonne Raczkiewicz. The saint I picked was Maria Goretti, an Italian martyr. I am suprised my card only says Maria because the teacher insisted I keep looking since Maria had already been selected by so many girls. I must have found a loophole by finding a different Maria. I remember being in the school library at big tables as we looked up saints in the books they had there. My only other memory of that library was the kids looking up swear words in the dictionary--not me of course or did I?

Martyna Maria & Julia Raczkiewicz Are 20 Years Old Today

Martyna Maria and Julia Raczkiewicz (my 2nd cousins 1x removed) are celebrating their birthday today. They are twin daughters of Tomasz Raczkiewicz and live in Poznan, Poland. Happy birthday!

John Spruit Celebrates His Birthday January 19

Happy birthday to John Spruit. (My 1rst cousin 1x removed.) He is pictured here in his "happy places" --skiing and boating.

Happy Holidays from Tomasz Raczkiewicz!

Wesołych Świąt dla Ciebie i całej Familii. Happy Holidays to you and the whole family. Tomasz Raczkiewicz (my 2nd cousin) is in Tomaszow Lubelski for a three day visit to his parent’s home. He sent me pictures of their Christmas Eve meal and a video of the snow from the yard which he gave me permission to share. His parents are Mieczyslaw and Stanislawa. Mieczyslaw is Anthony Raczkiewicz’ (my grandfather) nephew. I believe his father is a physician and his mother worked to start schools and homes for people with disabilities. Tomasz is 47 years old, lives in Poznań and is an opera singer and actor by profession. He works at the Grand Theater in Poznań and other theaters. He is divorced and his fiance Rozalia is in the picture. He has three children who live with him. Jakub, 21, is a computer science student and twin daughters, Anna and Maryna, 19, graduated from high school this year. His children know English well but also speak French and German. Because of the time difference, Tomasz’ greeting through Facebook Messenger was at 5:00 a.m. while I was sleeping. I responded a little after 7:00 a.m. and we had a nice conversation back and forth. Unfortunately, Messenger does not automatically translate so I had to cut and paste what he was saying into Google translate. All of a sudden, he had to go -- he was at the hospital and Rozalia has a broken leg! I was sorry to hear there was a mishap during their festivities but grateful that he had reached out to share their Christmas. More family pictures at Polish Family History Facebook page.

New Found Relative: Patrice (Szymanski) Shay

Kazmierez Szymanski is my third cousin three times removed. He was born 19 February 1874 in Tomaszow Lubelskie. He married 22 year old Antonina Petryna in Tomaszow in 1900 when he was 26 years old. Their first four children were born in Poland. Their next three children were born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I learned about him from a DNA match Patrice (Szymanski) Shay. After reaching out to her in May, a DNA match Patrice (Szymanski) Shay shared information about other DNA matches. She had a pretty extensive tree in Ancestry so I was pretty sure where we were connected. She was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. As I am locating distant relatives, it is kind of interesting to think of all the people that I was probably near growing up in Grand Rapids that had some kinship to me of which I was unaware. Whenever I leave GR and come back, I have this vague feeling that “these are my people” since so many look vaguely familiar. Patrice told me that she often was told she was related to many people that she met and said, I always took remarks like that from my dad with a grain of salt because we were taught to all every older person we ever knew as "uncle" or "Aunt" so an so and I never really knew who was family and who wasn't until I started genealogy research.” Patrice’s father Andrew Szymanski was born in Grand Rapids 2 November, 1915. That year Anthony lived on Winter NW and was a polisher. Lukasz and Justyna Kiszczynski are Patrice’s fourth great grandparents on her father's side. They are my fifth great grandparents on my mother’s side. Their daughter Marianna Kiszczynska (1787-1846) is my fourth great grandmother and their son relative Jakob' Kiszczynski’s (1793-1840) is her third great grandmother. Both her grandfather Kazmierez Szymanski and my grandfather Antoni Raczkiewicz came to Grand Rapids, Michigan in roughly the same time period. Her Grandfather is 20+ years older than mine.

New Found Relative: Mike Liszewski

I sent a note through Ancestry to a DNA match March 18, 2020 and his wife Connie Liszewski responded about a month later. I found out that her husband MIke grew up in Grand Rapids. Since MIke’s grandmother was a Kurkiewicz, I learned how to pronounce the name of my 2x great grandmother Paulina Kurkiewicz. (“Ker-kev-itch”--or is it is “ker-kiv-itch”????) She had worked on alot of genealogy but didn’t have alot of information about the side we are connected. We compared notes and found the connection. Her sister-in-law has done research and that was very helpful. Mike is my 3rd cousin, 1x removed. My 3rd great grandparents Jozef Kurkiewicz and Ewa Wisniowska are his 2x great grandparents. Ignatious was their son who had Mike’s family line. Paulina was their daughter (who married Jozef Kaszucka) to have my family line. We are 1x removed from each other because they are my 3x great grandparents and his 2x great grandparents. We are only about 10 years apart. I have also noticed a lot of overlapping of generations. One couple might have children for 20 to 25 years. Their oldest children start having their first children and they are having their last children. Connie is a great family tree researcher and we work together all the time. We ask for translations for many of our shared relatives and then have the opportunity to compare notes when things are confusing--which they often are! We have to figure out which record might be the right one since so many of the names are common so there can be many people with the same name--who may be cousins and may be born in the same year. We might try to find out who someone’s parents are and be disappointed that the record did not list the mother’s “maiden” name. Then we might decide to find a sibling and see if we can get the name. It has been fun learning about our relatives and Poland together. Maybe a trip to Poland in a few years is in our future?

New Found Relatives: Nezwek

Since it was recently Anthony Raczkiewicz’s birthday, I wanted to share a little about how I learned more about relationships in his and my family by connecting with people I didn’t know before as I work on the family tree. I previously mentioned Curt Wolf, who is my 4th cousin and knew some of Eileen Raczkiewicz’ relatives. Curt Wolf Niedzwicki in his family tree. There are LOTS of spellings of this last name: Niedezwicki, Niedwicki, Nezwek, Nedwid and many more. I remembered that my cousins Eileen and Yvonne Raczkiewicz had an Uncle Andy with this last name. He married their mother Ceceilia’s sister Martha. It turns out that Curt was in contact with Andy's son Thomas Nezwek who is his first cousin 1x removed for some genealogy information. Thomas Nezwek is also Eileen and Yvonne’s first cousin 1 time removed. How does that all work? The common relatives are Andrzej Kaszucki and Salomea Wiciejewska, my 3x great grandparents. Their son Josef married Paulina Kurkiewicz (and their daughter was Katarzyna--Grandpa Anthony’s mother.) Their daughter Julianna married Grzegorz Niedzwied. They had 11 children: their son Jozef married Paulina Eifler and one of their children was Andrew (“Uncle Andy”) who is the father of Thomas and his siblings. Jozef and his wife also had daughter Zuzanna who is the grandmother of Curt Wolf. Another sibling Alex was a displaced person back in Poland.

Here is information about him from Curt Wolf: “Alex Jr and Anna Medwid Alex Jr was from Pieniany, a village 12 miles northeast of Tomaszow Lubelski. It was closer to what is now the Ukrainian border. (The border formed when Ukraine declared its independence in 1917.) He may have lived in Tomaszow Lubelski also given some of his US documents or this was just referring to the general area he was from. His wife Anna Farysej Medwid was born in another little town literally on the Polish side of today’s Ukrainian border called Korczmyn. If anyone would have more Ukrainian blood in their family, it would be Anna because the Niedzwiedzki side is more Polish. But both of Alex and Anna had a lot of Ukrainian cultural influence by attending a Ukrainian Orthodox and Ukrainian Catholic church in Poland and the US. Their lives would be upended during World War 2 when the Germans invaded and took them individually, for they had not met yet, to Germany. It was common for the German army to do this in order to help with work on the home front since so many of their men were out fighting. Towards the end of the war both the Germans and the US Army were marching toward the area where Anna lived. Who would get there first? The owner of the Inn told her, “The German army is coming tomorrow, and they are sending the people from Ukraine to concentration camps. If they come, you must go and hide in a certain place in town. If you get shot, its ok because you will die in the concentration camps anyway!” The next day the Americans got there first. This was kind of a miracle because the Americans had a 25 mile march the day and night before then. If they stopped for the night, the Germans would have gotten there first. Instead, they liberated the town! Hooray! After this, both ended up in what was a called Displaced Person’s Camp about 23 miles from Frankfurt in a camp named after the town Aschaffenburg. http://www.dpcamps.org/aschaffenburg.html These camps were different from a Concentration Camp. Although they had Jews there, they were mainly for the millions of people in Europe that were displaced because of the war. It was the job of the camp to care for basic needs while helping people either get back to their homeland or placed in another country. The camps were self-governed, had schools and other cultural activities. The bright spot in all of this was that Alex and Anna met each other at, got married and had Eugenia or Jean who lives in Spring Lake. Because great grandmother Pauline stayed with Alexander’s family during the time Josef was gone in America with Grandma Susan, she helped Alex Jr and Anna come to America. The Tomaszow area was so ravaged by the war and Communist Russia influence many people in their shoes did not return home.”

New Found Relative: Tomasz Raczkiewicz, an Opera Singer in Poznan, Poland

I have connected with a relative in Polish and he is an opera singer and actor! When Curt Wolf was sharing some information he had learned, he promised to forward a letter from someone he had connected with related to his trip. When Curt was on his way to Poland, he sent Facebook messages to people with the same last names as those that were in his family tree. He was amazed when he dug out the letter he promised to see if was from a Raczkiewicz since he knew that was the name of my grandfather. We quickly determined that Tomasz Raczkiewicz was the grandson of Boleslaw, one of Anthony’s (my grandfather) brothers. I was amazed to have confirmation of one of the siblings who stayed in Poland and also to find a living descendant who is still in Poland. Tomasz is actually my second cousin. To give an example in the language of levels of cousins, Sandy Spruit is my 1rst cousin and her children--John, Colette, Rachel and Heather--are my 1rst cousins, one time removed. I sent him a message and here is part of the response: “I am very happy to hear from you. My grandfather Bolesław is really your grandfather's brother. He lived in Sabaudia and died in a hospital in Tomaszów Lubelski at the age of 97. He is buried in the cemetery in Tomaszów Lubelski. He was a locksmith by profession, but worked most of his life as a farmer. He had two sons - the elder Eugeniusz, an engineer, and my father Mieczysław, who was a doctor of infectious diseases. My mother, Stanisława, worked with people with intellectual disabilities for most of her life and created several learning, care and work centers for them.” He let me know he is 47 years old, lives in Poznań and is an opera singer and actor by profession. http://raczkiewicz.com/ He has two brothers--Marcin died four years ago and Jacek, who is an IT specialist in Stockholm (who lived and worked in Boston for several years.) His sister Magdalena is a psychologist near Warsaw. He is raising three children--a boy and two girls. Tomasz knew about Marion who came to the US but did not know about Anthony or his brother Jan. Since our initial contact October 2, 2020 we have had the chance to “chat” on Facebook. Of course, we need to translate because he speaks and writes only in Polish and I speak and read only in English. Apparently one of his daughters can also translate for him. More information on the operas--check out the one he is in about hunting in Poland: https://www.facebook.com/zmuzykadoludzi/?ref=page_internal https://www.facebook.com/zmuzykadoludzi/

Anthony Raczkiewicz Jr. is Born (Uncle Tony!)

My “Uncle Tony,” Anthony Raczkiewicz Jr was born Nov. 11, 1925 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He went by the nicknames “Junior” or “Jinky.” He went to St. Adalbert School when he was young. He attended Union high school, where he was a cheerleader. Anthony graduated in 1943 and served in the Navy. He attended Grand Rapids Junior College and received an Associate degree. He married Cecilia Zalewski July 1949 at Sacred Heart Church. Both of them worked at St. Mary’s Hospital, Anthony as a credit manager and Cecilia as a registered surgical nurse. After 10 years he moved to American Seating as a production control analyst. For many of the early years of their marriage, Anthony Jr. and Cecilia were next door neighbors with his sister and her husband, John and Lorraine Dykstra on Pine Street. Another neighbor, Richard Szymanski, was a lifelong friend. Their daughter Yvonne was born in May 1953 and Eileen was born in June 1956. I remember a lot of Sunday visits at either their home or ours and seeing them often for holidays at our grandparent’s house. I thought it was cool that he bought a new car every few years. He had a lot of energy and walked and talked fast. I have enjoyed sharing the family history I am learning with his daughter Eileen. We have been amazed by some of the stories. I have learned things that I ignored as a child--like what her parents did for a living and other simple things like that.

New Found Relative: Curt Wolf

On September 21, 2020 I finally sent a message to Curt Wolf on the Ancestry website. I had found hints from his tree on Ancestry, which I am a paid member and on My Heritage, which I had limited access to since I am not a paid member. I had not reached out until this point because I didn’t have enough information in my tree. It turns out we are related--4th cousins. He was born in Grand Rapids and lived here with his family for a while. Our common ancestors are Andrzej Kaszuckii (1799-1861) and Salomea Wiciejewska (1804-1877) --my 3rd great grandparents. Their son Jozef Kaszucki had Katarzyna Kaszucki,my great grandmother . Their daughter Julianna Kaszucka had Jozef Niedzwicki), Curt’s great grandfather. Jozef and his wife Paulina nee Eifler were married in 1906 in Tomaszow and came to Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1910, the same year Anthony’s older brother Jan arrived and a few years before Anthony arrived in 1912. Jozef and Paulina are buried in Holy Cross Cemetery. His mother Lucille (Krezewski) Wolf passed away in May of this year Curt did missionary work with his wife for a year in Moldova and was able to visit Poland. He has done extensive genealogy work and has hired a genealogist. He was able to visit Tomaszow with a translator and hear family stories from a distant relative and see where they lived. He shared his tree with me along with lots of information he had found. I hope to share some of that information when it fits into our family’s story.