My grandfather, when he arrived in America in 1907, was Josef Urynowicz, but his headstone reads Joseph Urenowicz.  You may have noticed that I use the two spellings interchangeably, and that’s why.

Josef and his friend Jan Chmiclewski sailed out of Hamburg, Germany and docked at New York Harbor on November 15, 1907.  This is the Pretoria, the ship they traveled on:

the pretoria from ellis island dot org[1]

I can only begin to imagine how foul it must have been below decks, which is where the 2382 steerage customers endured some pretty horrific living conditions for the duration of the voyage.

Josef and Jan were coming to stay with Josef’s brother Alex, who lived in Jersey City, New Jersey.  This was where my grandfather would soon meet my grandmother (Apolonie / Apolonia / Pauline).  They married there in June, 1909, and had their first two children there—my Aunt Joan and my Uncle Joe—before the New York Central Railroad, for which my grandfather was a boilermaker, transferred him to Jackson, Michigan in 1913.

This is their wedding picture:

grandma grampa wedding pic scanned 4-24-14

In Jackson, my grandparents bought a small bungalow on Loomis Street, where seven more children were born (including my mom); and in 1926 they sold the Loomis house and moved to a farm just north of town, where one more child, my Uncle Ray, was born.  I have many, many fond memories of the farm.  This is me at about age four:

me feeding the chickens, michigan

My grandfather (known as Grampa to his many grandchildren) had been drafted into the Russian army as a young man and sustained a leg injury in a fall from a horse that left him with a limp throughout the rest of his life.  In 1964, he developed gangrene and was told that the leg must be amputated.  His response to this news:  “I came into this world with two legs, and I’m going to go out with two legs.”

And so he did.  In November it will be fifty years.  I’d sure give a lot to be able to go back and speak with him now.

My grandparents’ 50th anniversary photo, taken in 1959:

grandma grampa 50th anniv june 1959 scanned 4-24-14

May they both rest in peace.

 

Are you interested in discovering your own family history? 

 

[1]   http://www.ellisisland.org/search/shipImage.asp?MID=13541073640892562880&LNM=URYNOWICZ&PLNM=URYNOWICZ&first_kind=1&last_kind=0&RF=13&pID=102135050365&