After publishing Je t’aime in August, 2017, I was contacted by people who said they had read the book and thought we might be related. Our family name had come up in their ancestry search because it had been their mother’s maiden name. It turns out my grandfather and their grandmother were siblings. We had a wonderful reunion in August of 2019 and shared stories and photos.
That prompted my brother Stephen to remember that he had jotted down some notes about my grandfather after a conversation on December 24, 1971, and he provided them to me. Since I now have some additional family history, I will be updating Je t’aime with the possibility of publishing a second edition.
Here is the story of my paternal grandfather:
Francziszek Stanislaw (Francis Stanley) was born on August 25th, 1885, to Kazmir and Kazmiera (Catherine) Sladowski on a small farm in east central Poland, fifty-six miles north of Warsaw. The nearest town was Rzeszow, located on both sides of the Wislok River in the heartland of the Sandomierz Basin. The history of the town began in 1354 when municipal rights and privileges were granted by Casimir II the Great. Local trade routes connecting the European Continent with the Middle East and the Ottoman Empire resulted in the city’s early development and prosperity. In the 16th Century, Rzeszow had a connection with Gdansk and the Baltic Sea and experienced growth in commerce and craftsmanship, It had a significant Jewish population among whom were the Wosnal family, who came to the USA and founded Warner Bros. movie studios; the rest of the community perished in the Holocaust.
The family consisted of four boys, one of whom died in infancy, and four girls. They lived in a four-room house with a thatch roof and used the barn as an outhouse. On the farm there four houses, a dozen cows, some goats, geese and chickens and a number of cats and dogs. Frank’s chores included collecting fire wood in the fall, chopping ice in the winter and helping with the crops grown for family consumption as well as bartering in the spring and summer.
At the age of three he was knocked unconscious when he fell out of a tree he had climbed. That was a harbinger of his energy and exuberance, as well as his sense of mischief and adventure. If he wasn’t doing his chores, he was busy doing something—never idle. And he was resourceful and enterprising–although he didn’t have skates, he enjoyed sliding on the ice during the winter.
Once when his mother and sister took a three-day journey to Warsaw to pick up supplies, they returned with the story of seeing a wagon going up a hill without a horse. The rest of the family thought the women were “dazed” because they had walked too long and far. A few days later, as Frank was plowing the field tethered to the horse with a leather strap around is back, the animal became excited, bolted and dragged him across the field, when a horseless carriage drove by—his first encounter with an automobile.
Frank immigrated to the USA in 1903 at the age of eighteen and lived for a short while in Brooklyn. Two of his sisters came with him; the rest of the family remained in Poland, but he never went back.
After a few years in Brooklyn, Frank found an opportunity for work across the river in Bayonne, NJ, as a machinist at Babcock and Wilcox, a company that manufactured the high pressure steam boilers used to power the NYC subway. Although having attended school only through the second grade, he was a fast learner and very skilled with his hands.
On his way home from work he saw a petite and pretty young woman sitting on her front stoop. Being congenial, aka a flirt, he engaged her in conversation. He learned she was only fifteen and her father didn’t approve of her having a relationship with an older man. Frank was 25 and Bessie just sixteen when their son (my father) was born the following April. …to be continued
Can’t wait to see what happens next! Great time to write another book. My next door neighbor is on his fourth one since we are all stuck in anyway! Keep your legend going! Ja
The story of my grandfather and grandmother on my mother’s side is similar. My grandfather was an immigrant from Germany at the age of 16. He was driving a bakery delivery when a pretty young lady, eating an apple, was sitting on her porch. She asked him if he would like a bite of her apple. Her father did not approve of him because he was a “greenhorn” and he had better plans for his daughter. My grandparents were married in secret, and kept it a secret from her strict father. He eventually came to like “Nick”. They remarried with her father’s blessing and never told him of the secret marriage.